The Empty Chair

philosophy of Indian warfare and one of the rules is that if the parlays fail and war is inevitable you don’t banter or threaten; you attack with all your force. The point of battle isn’t to talk your enemy into submission or explain or chide; it’s to annihilate them.
    And so she stepped calmly out from behind the door, screamed like a Manitou spirit and swung the club with both hands as Tom spun around, eyes wide in terror. The Missionary cried, “Look out!”
    But Tom didn’t have a chance. The coup stick caught him solidly in front of his ear, shattering his jaw and closing down half his throat. He dropped the knife and grabbed his neck, falling to his knees, choking. He crawled back outside.
    “Hehf . . . hehf meh,” he gasped.
    But there was no help forthcoming—the Missionary simply reached down and pulled him off the porch by his collar, letting him fall to the ground, holding his shattered face, as Mary Beth watched from the window. “You asshole,” the Missionary muttered to his friend and then drew a pistol from his back pocket. Mary Beth swung the door shut, took her place behind it again, wiping her sweating hands and getting a better grip on the stick. She heard the double click of a gun cocking.
    “Mary Beth, I got a gun here and, you probably figured out, under the circumstances I got no problem using it. Just come on out. You don’t, I’ll shoot inside and I’ll probably hit you.”
    She crouched down against the wall behind the door, waiting for the gunshot.
    But he never fired. It was a trick; he kicked the door hard and it swung into her, stunning her for an instant, knocking her down. But as he started inside she kicked the door closed just as hard as he’d shoved it open. He wasn’t expecting any more resistance and the heavy wooden slab caught him on the shoulder, knocking him off balance. Mary Beth stepped toward him and swung the coup stick at the only target on him she could reach—his elbow. But he dropped to the floor just as the rock would have struck him and she missed. The momentum of her fierce swing pulled the stick from her sweaty hands and it skidded along the floor.
    No time to get it. Just run! Mary Beth jumped past the Missionary before he could turn and fire and she sprinted out the door.
    At last!
    Free of this hellhole at last!
    She ran to the left, heading back toward the path that her captor had brought her down two days ago, the one that led past a big Carolina bay. At the corner of the cabin she turned toward the pond.
    And ran right into the arms of Garrett Hanlon.
    “No!” she cried. “No!”
    The boy was wild-eyed. He held a gun. “How’d you get out? How?” He grabbed her wrist.
    “Let me go!” She tried to pull away from him but his grip was like steel.
    There was a grim-faced woman with him, pretty, with long red hair. Her clothes, like Garrett’s, were filthy. The woman was silent, her eyes dull. She didn’t seem the least bit startled by the girl’s sudden appearance. She looked drugged.
    “Goddamn,” the Missionary’s voice called. “You fucking bitch!” He turned the corner and found Garrett aiming the pistol at his face. The boy screamed, “Who’reyou? What’d you do to my house? What’d you do to Mary Beth?”
    “She attacked us! Look at my friend. Look at—”
    “Throw that away,” Garrett raged. Nodding at the man’s pistol. “Throw it away or I’ll kill you! I will. I’ll blow your fucking head off!”
    The Missionary looked at the boy’s face and the gun. Garrett cocked his pistol. “Jesus . . .” The man pitched the revolver into the grass.
    “Now get outa here! Move.”
    The Missionary backed away then helped Tom to his feet and they staggered off toward the trees.
    Garrett walked toward the front door of the cabin, pulling Mary Beth after him. “Into the house! We have to get in. They’re after us. We can’t let them see us. We’ll hide in the cellar. Look what they did to the locks! They broke my door!”
    “No, Garrett!” Mary Beth said in a rasping voice. “I’m not going back in there.”
    But he said nothing and pulled her into the cabin. The silent redhead walked unsteadily inside. Garrett shoved the door closed, looking at the shattered wood, the broken locks, dismay on his face. “No!” he cried, seeing shards of glass on the floor—from the jar that had held the dinosaur beetle.
    Mary Beth, appalled that the boy seemed the most upset that one of his bugs had escaped, strode up