‘No. Don’t move. Billie, you wanta search her?’
With a nod, Billie stepped forward. She went behind Thelma. Using both hands, she started at the armpits and worked her way down Thelma’s sides.
‘I haven’t got anything.’
‘We’ll see,’ Kimberly said.
Billie patted the pockets of Thelma’s baggy shorts. After checking around the waist, her hands moved up Thelma’s front. She stayed outside the blouse, but pushed in the fabric until she met flesh. She rubbed up and down, lifted and shoved Thelma’s breasts this way and that as she checked underneath and between them.
Thelma grimaced while this went on. She also winced a lot, as if she were being hurt.
‘Does he have to watch this?’ Thelma wanted to know.
Meaning me.
‘Make him look the other way.’
‘Shut up,’ Kimberly told her.
Squatting, Billie squeezed Thelma’s rump, patted the legs of her shorts, and shoved a hand up between her legs. When the hand jammed against her crotch, Thelma gasped and went to her tiptoes.
‘Nothing,’ Billie announced.
‘Okay, you can put your arms down.’
She lowered her arms.
Billie came around to the front, and stood beside me. A second later, Connie joined us. This was the first time since the attack yesterday that she’d been up and walking without any help. But she seemed to be on the verge of falling over. She leaned against her mother.
We all stared at Thelma.
Her chin was trembling. She sniffed. ‘I ... I know you’re all mad at me. You have a right to be, I guess. I shouldn’t have ...’
‘Cut the shit,’ Kimberly said. ‘Where’s Wesley?’
She struggled to speak. When her voice came out, it sounded so high it was almost a squeak. ‘Dead.’
‘What?’
‘Dead!’ she blurted. ‘He’s dead!’
‘Yeah, right,’ Connie muttered.
‘He is!’
‘When did he die?’ Kimberly asked.
‘Yesterday.’
‘When yesterday?’
‘Morning.’
‘Who did that to Connie at the falls?’ Billie asked.
Thelma blinked and shook her head.
‘Did you do it?’
‘Do what?’
‘Throw that damn rock over the falls?’
‘No! We ... We weren’t at any falls.’
‘Where were you?’ I asked.
‘His place. Wesley has this ... secret place. It’s past the falls. It’s nowhere near the falls.’
Billie glared at her. ‘If you didn’t throw the rock, who did?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘Did Wesley throw it?’ I asked.
Before Thelma could answer, Kimberly said, ‘He was dead by then, remember?’
‘‘That’s right,’ I said.
‘Which means you did it,’ Kimberly said, and gave Thelma another quick poke with the spear.
‘Ouch! Don’t!‘ She grabbed the hurt place.
‘You did it,’ Kimberly said, and jabbed the back of her hand. The spear put a pale dent in it.
‘Stop that!’
‘Tell the truth.’
‘Wesley made me!’
‘What do you mean, he made you? He was already dead.’
‘No. He wasn’t. We were there. We were watching you all. We were up there above the falls, and spying on you, and he wanted to, you know, kill him.’ She nodded at me.
‘Me?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, you. I told him we shouldn’t. I didn’t want anybody else getting killed, but Wesley said he’d kill me if I didn’t do it. What could I do? He would’ve killed me. So I went and snuck down to the stream and did it.’ She glanced at Connie. ‘It wasn’t supposed to hit you. It was supposed to hit him.’
‘Stupid bitch,’ Connie muttered.
‘I’m sorry. What can I say? I couldn’t see what I was doing. Just a quick little peek or two. Somebody would’ve seen me up there watching, so I just had to throw it blind, and it got you by mistake.’
‘Sure,’ Connie said.
‘It’s the truth! If you think I hurt you on purpose ... I never would’ve done it on purpose. Look what Wesley did to me!’ She raised both hands, open fingers trembling toward her face. ‘He beat me. Look how he beat me! All because I hit you instead of that boy!’
That boy.
Nice.
‘He didn’t want you getting hurt. And he wanted him getting killed - so when I hit you instead, he blamed me for screwing up everything. He ... he beat me and ...’
‘Pretty damn active for a dead guy,’ Kimberly said.
‘He wasn’t dead then.’
‘Ah. So you were lying when you said he died yesterday morning.’
‘It was after you all left the lagoon and everything.’
‘He beat you up, and then he died.’
‘Must’ve taken a lot out of him,’ I said.
Glaring at me, she blurted, ‘I killed him!’
The rest of us went silent. I think we were stunned.
‘What did you all think, he died from those old spear wounds? They were nothing. He was getting over them. I’m the one who killed him. You have me to thank for it, and nobody else.‘
Kimberly looked her in the eyes and said, ‘I don’t believe you.’
Thelma’s mouth dropped open.
‘You wouldn’t harm a hair on that asshole’s head. He can do no wrong, as far as you’re concerned. He’s your god.’
‘He hurt me!’ she blurted. ‘After I hit Connie with the rock, look what he did to me.’ She gestured to her battered face again. ‘And this!’ She fumbled with the top button of her blouse, then stopped and said, ‘He has to turn around.’
Kimberly gave me a nod.
I turned my back to Thelma.
A few seconds passed. Then she said, ‘See? See what he did?’
Kimberly murmured, ‘Jesus.’
I took a look over my shoulder.
Thelma’s head was down. She had her blouse off.
Her huge breasts were striped with scratches, smeared with livid bruises. Some of the bruises were shaped like fingers; others were crescents. From the look of her breasts, she’d been lashed by a switch, slapped around with open hands, and bitten.
Sobbing, still not raising her head and noticing me, she turned around. ‘And this!’ Her back didn’t look as if anyone had slapped or bit it - just whaled the crap out of it with a switch. Her skin was streaked with threads of dry blood. She must’ve taken fifty lashes back there.
‘And that isn’t all!’ she blurted. Keeping her back to us, she started to put her blouse on. ‘I’m not gonna show ... not gonna pull my shorts down ...’
I took that as my cue to turn away.
‘But he ... he made me strip ... take off everything ... and then he beat me and beat me ... all because I dropped that rock on Connie by accident ... He didn’t want her damaged. But oh, God, he was sure the hell happy to damage me. And he got all turned on, beating me, so then he ... he did other things to me.’
‘He raped you?’ Kimberly asked. She sounded upset.
‘That was ... yeah, and worse, too.’
I looked over my shoulder again. Thelma had her blouse on, and was trying to fasten its buttons. Her eyes were red and wet, her nose was runny and her hands trembled so much that she was having real trouble with the buttons. She saw me watching, but didn’t complain about it, so I went on and turned around.
‘What else did he do to you?’ Kimberly asked her.
‘No. I can’t ... I won’t tell. It’s too awful. But at least ... It wore him out. That’s the good part. When he was done, he was so tired he couldn’t stay awake. He fell asleep and that’s when I killed him. I bashed his head in. There was a rock nearby and I grabbed it and I bashed his head in.’ One of her hands fluttered away from her blouse. It held an imaginary rock. She raised it and hammered it down. ‘Bashed him till the
re was nothing left of his head but a big bloody pile of crap!’
Kimberly shoved her spear into the sand. She opened her arms and Thelma staggered into them. They hugged each other and Thelma bawled her head off.
Thelma On The Hot Seat
After Thelma finished her story and finally got done crying her eyes out in Kimberly’s arms, we went over to the shelter where I’d been reading, and sat down on the sand. We couldn’t all be in the shade, but Billie and Kimberly prefer the sun, anyway. Thelma, Connie and I got to be under the roof.
Thelma crossed her legs the best she could, and wiped her eyes. She sniffled. Then she said, ‘I’ve just gotta tell you all how sorry I am. I just went crazy the other night.’ Meeting Kimberly’s gaze, she said, ‘I should’ve let you kill him, right then and there.’
‘That’s for sure,’ Kimberly said.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’ll just bet,’ Connie muttered.
‘I am.’ She glanced at the rest of us. ‘Maybe I deserve getting punished for what I did. I was wrong, and stupid, and I hurt all of you.’
‘Fucking right you did,’ Connie said.
‘I know, I know. But ... I paid for it, didn’t I? Wesley saw to that. He hurt me a lot worse than all of you could ever come close to. And I ... even though I rescued him, I’m the one who bashed his brains in. So I think ... I think I paid for my mistakes.’
‘You’re very forgiving of yourself,’ Billie told her, perfectly calm. ‘You nearly killed my daughter. You did messher up badly. God only knows how long she’ll be in pain from that stunt you pulled.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Thelma muttered.
‘Sorry,’ Connie said. ‘Big deal.’
‘What am I supposed to do?’
‘We’ll figure out something,’ Kimberly told her. ‘We can’t just forget what you did. My God, you not only attacked us and injured us, you betrayed us. You went over to the enemy. He’s the guy who killed Dad and Keith, and you helped him. You’re a traitor to your own family.’
Thelma started crying again.
‘We can never trust you,’ Kimberly went on. ‘Never.’
‘But... But I made things right. I killed him.’
‘Did you?’ Kimberly asked.
‘Did I what?’
‘Kill him.’
‘Yes!’ She sobbed a couple of times. ‘What do you think, I’m lying? I made it all up?’
‘It’s crossed my mind.’
‘You ... you saw what he did to me!’
‘That’s no proof you killed him.’
‘What kind of ... proof do you need? Do you wanta see his body?’
‘Until I do see his body,’ Kimberly said, ‘I’m assuming he’s alive.’
‘This is the same guy,’ I pointed out, ‘who tried to make us think he’d blown himself up with the yacht.’
‘It smells like a trick to me,’ Billie said. ‘I don’t think she killed him.’
‘She didn’t,‘ Connie said. ’No way.‘
Thelma wiped her eyes and uncrossed her legs. ‘Let’s go,’ she said. ‘I’m ready.’ She sniffed. ‘I’ll take you there now, and you can see for yourselves. You’ll ... you’ll see I’m not a liar.’
‘Not a liar?’ Kimberly curved a comer of her mouth. ‘Give me a break. You lie like a rug. Do you think I’ve got amnesia? I grew up with you. My Christ, you lied every chance you got - even when you didn’t have any reason to lie.’
‘You’re full of it,’ Thelma said.
‘The question isn’t whether you’re a liar, the question is whether you’re lying about Wesley being dead. And the consensus is, yes.’
‘Well, you’ll just see.’ She scooted backward to get out from under the shelter. ‘Let’s go. Come on. You’ll see.’
‘No hurry,’ Kimberly told her.
‘Well, maybe I’m in a hurry.’ No longer crying, she now seemed to be in a huff. ‘Nobody’s gonna believe me, and you’re all gonna keep on treating me like some kind of a leper till this is settled.’
‘Nobody’s treating you like a leper,’ Kimberly said.
‘You’re not a leper,’ Billie said.
‘You’re a traitor,’ Connie said.
‘That’s exactly right,’ Kimberly said. ‘A traitor. But we’re giving you the benefit of the doubt because you’re my sister.’
‘What benefit of the doubt?’
Kimberly paused a moment, then said, ‘We probably ought to execute you.’
‘What!’
‘Kill you. The way I see it, you committed a capital offense when you helped him escape from our ambush. If you weren’t my sister - and Dad’s daughter—I would’ve probably killed you by now.’
Thelma suddenly looked as if she might throw up. ‘You’re kidding,’ she murmured.
‘Do you think so?’
Connie smirked and said, ‘I don’t think she’s kidding.’
‘We’re being easy on you,’ Kimberly went on. ‘We’re giving you a second chance. But you’d better not be lying about Wesley.’
‘He’s dead and I killed him! I’m not lying about that! If you don’t believe me, let’s go right now!’
‘Maybe tomorrow,’ Kimberly said.
Which took us all by surprise.
‘Or the day after tomorrow,’ she added.
We all stared at her.
‘Shouldn’t we get it over with?’ I asked. ‘I mean, it’ll be really nice to know for sure. If he is dead, we won’t have to worry about him sneaking up on us ...’
‘I’d sure like to know,’ Billie said.
Thelma brightened. She obviously had the impression we were on her side. ‘See?’ she said. ‘They’re for going now.’
‘We haven’t heard from Connie yet,’ Kimberly said.
Connie grimaced. ‘I’m not going anywhere. Are you kidding me?’
‘Is it okay if we leave you here?’
‘Alone? I can’t stay here alone. This whole deal might be a trick. Maybe the minute you’re gone, Wesley comes out and gets me.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Billie told her. ‘We won’t leave you by yourself.’
‘I’m not going with you looking for his body. I can’t. I’m too ... I feel like shit.’ She fixed her eyes on Thelma. ‘Thanks to you, you stupid fuck.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry. Can’t tell you how much “sorry” helps the throbbing pains in my head and neck and shoulder and arm and ... I’m one big fucking pain from head to toe, thanks to you. So don’t give me “sorry.” Piss on you.’
Kimberly held up a hand. ‘We won’t make you come with us,’ she said. ‘Not in your condition. And it’d be stupid to leave your mom or Rupert behind to protect you. We don’t want to be splitting up our forces like that. What I suggest is that we stay put. We wait a day or two before we go out and ...’
‘A day or two!’ Thelma blurted. ‘That’s ridiculous!’
Kimberly raised her eyebrows. ‘He isn’t going to walk away, is he?’
‘No! Of course not!’
‘If you hadn’t busted up Connie with that rock, we could go right now.’
Thelma scowled.
‘So we’ll wait until Connie can travel?’ Billie asked.
‘Yep.’
Billie smiled. ‘That sounds like a pretty good idea.’ ‘Thanks.’
Connie, an oddly sly smile on her face, added, ‘It’ll give Wesley time to die.’
We all looked at her.
‘We don’t really believe she killed him,’ Connie explained, ‘but we know he’s badly hurt. Maybe he’s not getting better. Maybe he’s getting weaker all the time, and has some infections setting in. I mean, that could happen to me, you know? Which is what made me think of it.’
‘It won’t happen to you,’ Billie told her. ‘You’re going to be fine.’
‘Yeah, I guess. I’m not too worried. But I have all you guys sort of taking care of me. Wesley doesn’t have anyone. We’ve got Thelma, so she isn’t there to help him. Long as we?
??ve got her, he’s on his own. If we give him enough time, maybe he’ll just waste away and die without us ever having to touch him again.’
‘That’s right,’ Kimberly said. ‘But even if he isn’t wasting away, it might screw him up if we don’t come looking for him right away.’
‘He’ll think something went wrong,’ I added.
Billie grinned. ‘Something did go wrong.’
‘You’re all crazy,’ Thelma said. ‘He’s dead.’
‘He’d better be,’ Kimberly said. ‘That’s another thing about our waiting period - it’ll give you time to reconsider. Maybe you’ll want to change your story.’
‘There’s nothing to change.’
‘You’d better think about that. If you didn’t kill him, you’d better let us know before we pay a visit to his body. If we get there and find out you’ve led us into a trap, there’s gonna be hell to pay.’
‘I’m not lying.’
‘In the meantime, we can’t exactly treat you like one of the gang. Go get some rope, Rupert, would you?’
‘From the tomahawks?’
‘No, we’ll need to keep using those. Bring over what’s left of the hanging rope.’
‘What’re you gonna do?’ Thelma asked.
I’d started to scoot out from under the shelter, but I didn’t want to miss anything, so I stopped.
‘Tie you up,’ Kimberly answered.
‘Tie me up?’ Thelma sounded shocked.
In a calm voice, Billie explained, ‘You’re his accomplice. What do you expect?’
‘I killed him.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Connie said.
‘Rupert,’ Kimberly said. ‘The rope?’
‘Oh. Okay.’ I went ahead and left them. I ran across the sand, found the remaining length of rope among the supplies, snatched it up and hurried back toward the shelter.
Approaching it, I heard Thelma complaining, ‘... stayed out in the jungle by myself, if I’d known you were going to treat me like a criminal.’
‘Maybe so,’ Kimberly said.
‘You should’ve,‘ Connie said.
‘You want to do the honors?’ Kimberly asked me.
‘Sure.’ I ducked under the roof.
‘Go ahead and tie her hands in front, for now. We’ll see how it goes. If she gives us any trouble at all, we’ll put ’em behind her. Do you hear that, Thelma? You don’t want them behind your back, do you?‘