Chapter 2: Blood on the Water

"I’m talking to you—did you go deaf? Pack your things and get to the cabin! I want to marry a new wife from the city, but if you don’t earn, how can I afford her?"

He swung a hickory stick, smacking me across the shoulders as he spat curses.

"You ate and drank under my roof for thirteen years—time to pay me back!"

His eyes were bloodshot, face twisted with fury. I trembled all over.

My father was hunched and ugly, nose bent from too many bar fights. No woman in town would have him, not even the desperate ones.

Fourteen years back, after being turned down by every woman for miles, he heard rumors of wild women up in the mountains—if you caught one, she’d bear you sons.

So he paid Jake the hunter two hundred bucks to go up there with his dogs and nets. That’s how he brought back the woman he stole.

Now he wanted to do it again—go hunting for women like livestock.

"This time, I want a blonde wild one—blonde girls always give sons! Good American stock!"

He grinned, showing yellow teeth, eyes shining with greed.

As I stuffed my few things into a torn pillowcase, I glanced toward the cabin across the muddy lake—and there she was.

The mountain woman stood on the water, white hair tangled, blood seeping from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, her lips curling in a silent, broken smile that made my skin crawl.

My knees buckled. I hugged myself and sat frozen on the splintered dock.

The next day, things started to go wrong in town—real wrong, like something out of a nightmare.