Chapter 5 - "Then Don't Play Her Game"


"Marsha Dillon." The huntress smiled warmly and extended her hand to Rachel. "Some of my friends call me 'Kitty.'"

"Rachel Jones. Which name do you prefer?" Rachel accepted the firm but not crushing handshake.

"Whichever comes natural to you, honey. We got a saying back home in the States: 'Call me whatever you want, just so long as you don't call me late for dinner.'" A laugh accompanied this.

"Well, don't worry... Marsha. You may be sure that one thing I won't be doing is calling you for dinner." Rachel felt that she could joke with this woman.

Now, if she had made that comment to Amanda or a typical male hunters, Rachel would have expected a rejoinder like "More's the pity" or "My bad luck." Marsha, however, didn't seem to be the type who went in for cute little comments that amounted to "I would like to kill you and eat you." Marsha just laughed good-naturedly.

Neither of the two female lodge members that Amanda had given three or more stars to had been available for or interested in a practice run. Rachel really wanted to be hunted at least once by another woman. Rachel's expectations had been confirmed that the male hunters relied on reason and logic as much as on skill in finding her. It would seem that a woman might bring something else to the game, perhaps more intuition. Rachel had been about to lower her standards and accept contests with two-star women when the lodge called her and informed her that a challenge had come from an American.

Rachel sent an email to her Aunt Jayne asking if she had ever heard of Marsha Dillon the huntress. Aunt Jayne wasn't much of a sports fan, but even she had heard of Marsha. Oh, yes, she was good.

Rachel called up the websites of THE KANSAS CITY STAR and THE DENVER POST. Lots of articles on Marsha. Yes, she had an impressive list of kills. The odd thing was that she only hunted convicted killers. If they had a chance to talk, Rachel wanted to ask how Marsha arranged to do that. Why she did that would also be an interesting question.

Like Amanda, Marsha was an attractive redhead. Smaller in build and less flamboyant in appearance, one could sense that the woman possessed a great inner strength. She wasn't intimidating as Amanda had been at first sight, but the ability to intimidate was clearly beneath the surface. Her eyes were a soft brown. Rachel would have been hard-pressed to guess Marsha's age within ten years; she was mature, but she had the sort of face that kept its beauty. Marsha's hunting apparel had clearly made the trip from the States with her: jeans, a lose fitting shirt, a Stetson hat, and functional western-style boots. Marsha wasn't afraid of letting people know that she was a stranger in these parts, but she wasn't being obnoxious about it.

The most important matter, of course, was how good was Marsha? Hunting was different in the states and even different from state to state. Maybe a high success ratio for a Yank didn't mean that much.

Marsha eyed Rachel sharply. "You're wondering if I'm as good as Amanda Blake, aren't you?" she asked without making it seem like she was a mind-reader.

"Well, comparisons are odious," Rachel said cheerfully.

"Yeah, and about as welcome as a polecat at a church picnic. Don't worry, honey, you and me are gonna have a good ol' time today." Marsha's words sounded reassuring. "When I heard that some woman had challenged Amanda Blake to hunt to the finish, I told myself, 'I gotta meet this gal.' I wouldn't have come all the way 'cross what you Brits call 'the pond,' if I weren't pretty serious." Seeing that Rachel was a little startled, Marsha quickly added, "Oh, don't worry. I had lots of reasons to come to England. Hunting you was just a good excuse to come over now."

Rachel laughed. "You mean you wanted to meet me while there was still a chance."

"Don't talk like that, honey. You look like you got a lot on the ball. Remember, it ain't over till it's over." Marsha looked down at her watch and saw that it was time for the hunt to start. "Well, darling, you better skedaddle now. It's post time. Get along now, and I'll catch up with you on down the line."

"Well, if I see you coming, you aren't going to catch up with me," Rachel said with a smile.

"There you go. Good luck, now." Marsha offered another handshake.

"Good luck to you, too." Since the hunt wasn't for blood, Rachel felt safe in returning the blessing and accepting the handshake.

Rachel went out the door of the lodge while Marsha went to the lounge spend the hour's lead time that runners were given.

Well, I hope I'm doing a good job of "skedaddling," Rachel said to herself as she headed for the woods. Nothing fancy today. No experiments. Try to leave as hard to follow a trail as possible. Get to a good place to hide, and then remain there, leaving only for her tea-time snack.

Rachel headed for the stream that ran through hunting grounds. It seemed to her that wading upstream would be a good way to conceal her trail. Experienced hunters had probably seen this ploy many times, but that didn't mean it was a bad idea.

En route to the stream, Rachel practiced a technique of leaving false trails that she hoped would be effective. She tried to make her tail appear to fork, going about twenty feet in one direction, then returning to her main trail and proceeding. Feeling that a tracker might be able to distinguish ground that had been passed over twice from ground passed over once, Rachel doubled back on her main trail to point of the fork, and then turned about again and pressed on in her intended direction. Her hope was that three passes would be hard to distinguish from two passes. She realized that this might slow down her progress, but she thought it might be worth it. She was confident that her opponent today would give her an honest critique.

At the point where she entered the water and began to head upstream, the right-hand, or east, bank was sharp and steep, but only about a yard high in the highest spots. The solidity of the earth would make it easy to leave the stream without leaving obvious footprints. On the west side there was more of a very gradual incline that might go for twenty to thirty feet beyond the water before it reached the same height as the right-hand bank. The surface on the left was soft and would probably show footprints very clearly. Obviously, when the water was high after a storm, the stream broadened to the left and the surface could be very muddy, even after the water went down, except for a few elevated stretches that were a high as the banks. Rachel knew that further upstream, both sides of the bank were of the steep, hard type.

A tree had fallen across the stream at one point, forming a sort of natural bridge . This could be useful, Rachel thought, because here would be point where she could leave the stream and head west without leaving footprints. It was easy to get onto the trunk because there was about a hand-span between the underside of the tree trunk and the surface of the water.

Rachel did choose to leave the stream at this point via the tree trunk, but she chose to head east because she had already decided that she would spend most of the day in the trees just beside the clearing that held such a special meaning for her. Does it have a special meaning for Amanda, she wondered.

After stashing her snack at the usual cabin, Rachel checked her watch and saw that it was ten-twenty. Marsha had been on her trail for about 20 minutes and Rachel could count on at least a half hour that she could wander around before settling in for the day. She decided to practice her technique of leaving false trails again. As often as possible, she made her bogus trail end under a low hanging branch. This, she hoped, would cause the tracker to have to stop and evaluate whether she had gone arboreal or not.

Rachel did actually take to the tree limbs for the final part of her journey to the clearing beside which she intended to ensconce herself for the day. She dropped to the ground just a few feet from the tree Amanda had hung her upside down from. The best place to hide seemed to be between two small bushes. The bushes would conceal her, and yet she should be able to see through them well enough that Marsha would not be able to sneak up on her.

Checking her watch again, Rachel saw that it was almost eleven o'clock. Five hours until break time. Rachel figured that at this point, Marsha was probably about to discover that Rachel had entered the stream. It would be interesting to know what criteria Marsha used for deciding whether to go upstream or down. Rachel had not asked if Marsha had ever visited the lodge before. If not, she would be working from the same map Rachel used. Perhaps as a paying visitor, Marsha had been allowed to walk the grounds a bit. Rachel actually hoped this was the case, because she wanted Marsha to have every advantage possible.

From where she sat, Rachel had an excellent view of the clearing, which she was sure she would enjoy much more than the view she had from the back of the cave, looking out through the entrance. She could still see the outline of the opening in her mind's eye.

Soon however, Rachel began to wonder if she really had made a good choice of a place to spend the day. Every time she looked in the direction of the clearing, she was reminded of what had happened there. For the most part, it was a very pleasant memory, but there was a downside to it.

Amanda had REALLY been about to kill me, Rachel thought. If things had gone as planned, I wouldn't be here having this little reverie. In fact, I actually wanted her to kill me. I wanted to die. The excitement was so intense that I was completely immersed in it. Over the years, I've concentrated on my arousal, the eroticism of the moment. But, really, the outcome of that night should have been the end of my existence, not my introduction to the dark side of the erotic.

Why, Rachel wondered, haven't I been able to just appreciate the fact that I had a very unusual encounter, one that I can make use of in my fantasy life and let it go at that? It wasn't Amanda's intention to open up a new side of my sexuality to me; it was her intention to open up my guts to the brisk night air. She wound up doing me a tremendous favor, but that wasn't her intention at all. What she was going to do to me is usually reserved for an enemy, a hated person. Amanda didn't hate me. She liked me. Yet, she was about to destroy me.

What kind of person destroys something she likes?

Or did she view it as destroying me? Did she even think very much about that? She wanted my body for food. Did my death mean anything to her one way or the other? Would it mean anything to her now? Do I want to know?

What did she mean when she wished me good luck that morning? Obviously, she didn't mean the same thing that Dave meant when he wished me luck. Was she saying it just to be polite? Was it something some sports coach had told her that she should always say to an opponent?

Or did Amanda see her killing and eating me as something that would somehow be good for me? Does she see death as a special little gift she bestows on people she likes?

Or did her good luck wish mean that she hoped I would die but that I would be willing to accept death? Not be distressed by it?

Why can't I just ask her?

During the hours that followed, Rachel went over and over the same thoughts. At times she was furious with herself for not having been able to resist Amanda. At other times, she was furious with Amanda for being irresistible.

Why do I feel that I owe Amanda anything? Rachel wondered. Amanda has never said or even implied that I should be grateful to her. Why can't I just let it go?

I'm behaving like I've been enchanted, Rachel told herself. Amanda hasn't cast a spell over me. Have I let the idea of death in ecstasy take over, not just my sexual fantasies, but have I let it take over my whole life? If I go through with this, face it, it's almost certain that I'll be dead, gone, obliterated. I can back out of this. Why don't I?

Suppose though, just suppose for a moment that things went another way, Rachel speculated. Suppose I win this contest. What happens then? Do I kill Amanda? Why would I want to do that? When I woke up in the infirmary, almost my first thought was for her safety. I didn't want her to die then. I've got even less reason to want that now.

But, if it came to that, Rachel wondered, how would Amanda accept her death? Would she be stoic? Angry? Frightened? Combative? Interested to see what it was like? Amanda had brought death to so many and had seen others die. Would that make her own death easier for her?

The way Amanda had prepared Rachel for death had been so kind, so merciful. Would she be able to do the same for Amanda? Rachel was sure that Amanda didn't take any pleasure in seeing her quarry suffer and, whenever possible, took measures to avoid it. Rachel wondered if she could do the same for Amanda. Would it be fair to treat Amanda any differently from the way she had treated Rachel and others? Of course, not. Would it be "right" to kill Amanda with any less competence and consideration than Amanda had shown others?

Oh, Rachel told herself, it's madness to even think she had a chance to win. She was being pre-occupied with results. But, again, would it be fair not to give some thought to the matter?

Forget it! Forget the whole thing! You are in over your head, win or lose! Take the first opportunity to get out of this contest, this duel to the death. Amanda will understand because she knows you don't have a chance. If you want to do something nice for Amanda, let her hunt you for fun and let her nail you in bed. She said she would settle for that. Take her at her word. That's the only sensible thing to do!

And yet...

And yet...

And yet, somehow that just didn't seem right to Rachel. Something was being left out. What would the hunt accomplish? Well, it would accomplish something good, she was sure of it. Why was she so sure of that? Was it her deepest intuition that told Rachel that?

Or was it ...?

Was it that, somewhere deep down inside, she wanted to die at Amanda's hand? The idea had become so exciting to Rachel that perhaps she had, indeed, become suicidal.

Well, Rachel asked herself, if that's the case, if I really want Amanda to kill me, why not simplify things? Why spend a day running through the woods? Why not just meet Amanda at the edge of the woods, let her take my hand, go to the cabin, spend the day fucking each other's brains out, and then be killed with skill and care by someone who knew what she was doing? Let Amanda have a well-earned meal. End of drama.

End of me.

NO! I am not like that!

But then, what the hell am I like?

By the time for her break, Rachel was in such a state of discouragement, confusion, and self-doubt that she was about to run back to the cabin without making any attempt to hide her trail. Let Marsha catch her. Have a nice dinner at the lodge. Call Amanda in the morning and say, sorry, just kidding.

However, Rachel forced herself to go back to the cabin by the same careful route she had taken to the clearing. Just in case she changed her mind again.

Sitting in the doorway of the cabin, Rachel munched her carrots, making as much noise as she could. If possible, she would have crunched loudly enough for Marsha, wherever she was, to hear. Just get this bloody hoax over with. Maybe she could ask Marsha to wrap her in pink ribbons and drop her off on Amanda's doorstep.

The rational thing to do, would be to open up to Amanda as frankly as possible and say, I have a problem with you. Help me solve it. If the only solution you can think of is to kill me and eat me, maybe the best thing I can do is go along with the program. But please, for your sake and mine, let's try something else.

What's stopping me, Rachel wondered. What perverse impulse inside me won't let me give up on this ill-conceived plan?

Her hours spent hiding beside the clearing had convinced her that, if she persisted with the hunt, she and Amanda would wind up right back there in the same place. That would be where all of this would be resolved. And only one resolution seemed likely.

Rachel was distracted from her dark thoughts by the sight of a rabbit sitting a few feet away watching her eat her carrots. She imagined that the rabbit was impatiently waiting for her to get up and leave some food behind.

Great, thought Rachel. Everything wants something to eat. Feed the rabbits some carrots. Feed the tree my blood. Feed Amanda my body. Feeding, that's my purpose in life.

The rabbit continued to look impatient.

"Don't you know it's not polite to stare at somebody when she's eating?" Rachel said aloud. Then more softly, she said, "Oh, pardon me. I'm in a bad way today. Don't you know that you shouldn't be so friendly with people? There are people around here who will kill you and eat you. But, of course, I should talk. If I don't have the sense to be afraid of Amanda, why should I read you out for not being afraid of me? But I guess I shouldn't be surprised that not even a bunny is scared of me."

The rabbit still stared at her.

"Can't wait for me to move on and leave something behind for you to eat, can you? Well, maybe Amanda is the same way. Wants me to go on my way and leave something behind to eat. She'd even be willing to give me a little push to get me started."

The rabbit waited.

"Oh, okay, I'll share," Rachel said, breaking off half of a carrot and tossing it to the rabbit. She looked at the half she had left and was amazed that it had broken so cleanly. Then she remembered that, when packing her snack, she had been about to slice the carrot in two, but stopped before the cut was complete. "Can't even be earnest about slicing carrot. How the hell could I do a job on Amanda, even if I had the chance?"

After a few more minutes of grim ruminations, Rachel got up, dropped the rest of her carrots on the ground and announced, "Well, enjoy these, my little furry friend. This is probably the last of the manna from you'll get from the lady in the deerskin top. I'm planning to call Amanda, say good-bye, and tell her never to contact me again. Too much bloody pain for the both of us."

Walking back into the woods, Rachel was once again tempted to get as careless as possible about leaving a trail, but she refrained. She couldn't make herself entirely let go.

She looked up and saw that the sky was darkening. Ominous rain clouds were moving in. That's par for the course, she thought. I'm giving up, I'm depressed, and now I'm going to get drenched. Maybe I'll catch pneumonia and die. I can make my last wish to have my body sent to Amanda's kitchen.

Rachel did not return to the clearing. She went the opposite direction. Once into the woods, she slumped down beside the first majestic oak that she saw.

This time, Rachel had no trouble at all remaining in the same place, in the same position for hours. By now, her grim thoughts were so familiar to her that she found that she could look at them dispassionately, like one might look at a broken glass and study the pattern of the pieces.

By six o'clock, the air tingled with the energies of an impending storm.

Well, I might as well go back to the lodge. Marsha's already there, I'm sure. At least I have the satisfaction of being able to say that I avoided contact with one hunter at least once.

I'm not a complete failure. That's something, Rachel consoled herself.

"Okay, honey. Let's call it a day and go grab some grub before we get soaked." Spoken by Marsha's clear, friendly voice. If this had been a real hunt and Marsha had been using a bow, Rachel would have been pinned to the tree, staring at a shaft protruding from her chest.

"Shit!"

"Well, if that's a stylish way you Brits have of saying, 'Hi, glad to see you,' I guess I have a lot to learn about the local lingo." Marsha's good-natured laugh was disarming.

"Sorry, Marsha. Bad manners on my part." Rachel got up, her legs a bit stiff from not having moved for an hour and a half. "Actually, I am glad to see you, because you just confirmed what I've been thinking most of the afternoon. I'm no damn good at this. I might as well be wearing a glow-in-the-dark pink leotard and be blowing a whistle. I give up."

"Oh, don't feel bad," Marsha said. "You did real good. You're very good at this game."

"Well, then how the hell did you find me? I was trying my best all day long. I thought I was doing everything just right."

"You were. I had a lot of fun tracking you. I lost your trail completely at least five times. Once it took me over an hour to pick it up again. You're darn good game."

"So you say. So Amanda said after she put her hand on my shoulder and told me she was going to eat me. I must have messed up completely."

"Oh, get off the pity-pot." Marsha put her arm over Rachel's shoulders. "I wasn't anywhere near catching up with you until I saw that this storm that's heading our way is going to be a gully-washer. I decided it was time to stop tracking you and just come and find you."

Rachel shook her head. "I feel like a cd that I've been listening to just skipped a track. I'm missing something huge here. How can you just 'decide that it's time to come and find me' and do it just like that?" A snap of her fingers.

Marsha stopped, turned Rachel to face her, studied her for a moment, seemed to come to some conclusion, and said, "I'll tell you all about it, honey. Over a nice hot meal and a couple of drinks. Nothing mysterious at all."

There was something so reassuring about the way Marsha said this, that Rachel's mood brightened immediately.

"All right," said Rachel cheerfully, "let's skedaddle back to the lodge and get some grub."

"There you go." Marsha was glad that she had brought a smile to Rachel's face.

On the way back to the lodge, Rachel asked Marsha if it was true that she only hunted convicted killers.

"Oh, sure. That's the only kind of game that I feel right about going after. And back in the States, those varmints are far from scarce. We've got them coming out of our ears. We aren't near as civilized as you English folks are."

"Do the killers agree to be hunted? Or don't they have a choice?"

"Naturally, they've got a choice. It's a free country. But I won't hunt anybody unless he - or in a few cases, she - agrees to give the runner's fee to the families of his or her victims. Or, sometimes, the killer has a few dependents and I agree to a fifty-fifty split."

"But if the killers didn't have families of their own, why would they agree?" Rachel asked.

"You'd be surprised how many of them are genuinely sorry for what they've done and they want to make amends. Most of them are just folks who let their tempers get the best of them. Not what you'd call career criminals or serial killers. Of course, those that aren't sorry about a goddamn thing are more fun to hunt."

"Well, what's their motivation, then?"

"Well, I give them a special incentive." Marsha's voice oozed with lewdness. "I tell them that if I catch them I might give them a very special kind of reward before I send them on their way."

It seemed obvious, but Rachel had to ask: "What kind of reward?"

"Something that's a lot more fun than a death row interview on CNN." Marsha chuckled. "I'll give you a hint: it's furry and warm and moist and there's no other way they can get it in prison."

Rachel shook her head. "I'm sorry. I don't get it. You're a very attractive woman."

"For my age," Marsha added.

"Very attractive period," Rachel corrected. "I just don't see how you can, well, do that with people like that."

"Well, Rachel, honey. You know women who just can't stay away from bad boys? Women who, the nastier the hombre, the wetter they get?"

"Yes," Rachel said hesitantly. "But you just don't seem like that kind of woman."

"Oh, I'm not. Set your mind at ease on that. But there are lots of women like that out there, and that's what the bad boys are used to. In fact, killing one or two or a half dozen of those women is oftentimes what got the bad boy onto death row. But I'm not that kind of woman."

"Well, if you don't mind my asking, what kind of woman are you?" Rachel was truly puzzled.

"I'm the kind of gal who just loves to see the disappointed look on a bad boy's face when he realizes he isn't going to get what he was expecting. I like that look so much that I try to leave the bad boy's face looking just like that. Forever."

A couple of hours later, Rachel and Marsha were washing down the remains of a beef steak with some fine red wine discussing how Marsha just decided to just "go and find" Rachel.

"So, that's all there is to it?" Rachel was incredulous.

"Honey, I'm not feeding you a line of bull hockey. That's pretty much the whole story."

"I'm not calling you a liar. I just don't understand it. It sounds like magic."

"Look," Marsha said without a trace of impatience, "hasn't it ever happened that you've been sitting in a room and somebody came in quietly and you knew you weren't alone anymore?"

"Well, yes. In college, I would be studying with the door to my room open and my roommate would try to come in without disturbing me. I always seemed to know when she came in, unless I was really concentrating on my studies."

"How many times do you answer the door and know who's going to be there before you open it?"

"Fairly often," Rachel admitted. "But in the back of my mind, I may have been expecting them."

"Have you ever been in a restaurant or someplace and had the feeling that somebody was looking at you?"

"Yes, of course. But all women feel that, don't they? I mean, I'm no cover girl, but I, well, men do look at me."

"I bet they do. Probably more than a few gals, too." Hint of flirtation.

Rachel blushed slightly and said, "Thank you. But you do see my point, don't you? I hardly ever look to see if I am being stared at because I don't want to encourage anyone, so I never know if I'm right or not."

"I'm running out of examples." Marsha thought for a moment, gave Rachel a slightly seductive look and said, "You know, my dyke detector works pretty darn good. How about yours?"

This forwardness took Rachel a bit by surprise, but she rather liked it. "Well, it's getting better with practice."

"And what's it telling you right now?"

"That you, ahem, enjoy my company."

"There you go! Now, what makes you so sure that you're right?"

"Well, okay. I'm going on intuition, but there are also things like body language and pheromones and scents and vibes involved."

"Yes. And that's all part of what I'm talking about." Marsha looked around the lounge. "Tell you what. Let's you and me do a little science experiment." Marsha signaled to the bar waitress and when the girl approached the table, Marsha handed her a fistful of bills that made Rachel wonder if Marsha understood the currency exchange rate. "Darling, what's your name?"

"Uh, Cheryl." The waitress, a perky blonde, looked at the bills she had just been given and wondered what was going to be expected of her for this much money.

"Well, Cheryl, I want you to sit down and rest a spell and help me and my friend here with a little research project."

"Well, I'd like to, but..." the waitress said, looking from the money in her hand to the bartender and back, "I really should check with Sam."

"Oh, I'll talk to Sam the bartender for you. He looks a little strange, but easy enough to deal with."

"But what if somebody wants a drink?" the waitress asked.

"Don't you worry about that none. I'm pretty good at waiting tables myself. My mother was a waitress. Ain't no disgrace in it. Sit yourself down here." Marsha stood up and offered her seat, which Cheryl somewhat reluctantly took. "Good girl."

Marsha explained the experiment which sounded simple enough.

"Now, there's one more thing. Rachel, I want you to look at me. Look at me real good."

Rachel didn't find it hard to comply.

"You like what you see, don't you?" Seeing a little hesitancy, Marsha added, "Don't worry. This isn't going to do you any harm."

"Yes. I like what I see." Rachel wasn't sure where this was going.

Marsha's voice seemed to drop into a lower register as she said, "Now, I want you to imagine that you LOVE what you see. Imagine that you WANT what you see, not desperately, but passionately. You want me so badly that you don't just smell me - you can TASTE me. Taste me with your mind, Rachel. Savor me. Relish me."

Rachel found it nearly impossible to break eye contact with Marsha as the almost hypnotic instructions continued.

"Imagine that you want me all for yourself, to do whatever you want with me. Imagine wonderful, delightful things that you would do to me. Imagine other things you would do, if you like. Imagine me, a desired object, at your complete disposal for whatever purpose you wanted.

"All you need to do to have me is to know me. Know me deeply, fully, completely.

"Know me and I'm yours.

"Know me and I'm yours.

"Know me and I'm yours.

Marsha stopped speaking but Rachel felt she was continuing to hear her voice.

Rachel did as Marsha suggested and was aware of her in a way that she had never been aware of another human being in her life. Rachel's desire for Marsha at that moment had an intensity that would have frightened her, had she not felt Marsha's steadying presence guiding her.

Afterwards, Rachel wondered if she could have willed herself to break the - spell? - trance? - intimate contact?

Whatever it was, Marsha herself broke it herself, suddenly speaking in a normal tone of voice.

"Okay, I can see that you're a fast learner, honey." Marsha smiled and turned toward Cheryl. "Anything I can do for you before we start this little game?"

"Uh, gee, I, uh," the waitress stammered, shifting in her seat, clearly having been affected by Marsha's hauntingly lurid instructions to Rachel. "I guess you could bring me a drink. Tell Sam I want a 'cold shower in a glass.' He'll know what I mean."

Marsha laughed and promptly complied.

The experiment took about a half hour.

Rachel sat with her back to the bar, sometimes closing her eyes, sometimes keeping them open.

Cheryl sat across from Rachel with her eyes closed until Rachel tapped her hand.

Marsha went to one end of the rather long bar.

As soon as Rachel felt that she knew where Marsha was, with closed eyes, she tapped the waitress's hand and raised either her own right or left hand, indicating which end of the bar she thought Marsha was standing by.

The waitress opened her eyes just long enough to note whether Rachel was correct or not, wrote down either "right" or "wrong" on a sheet of paper on her lap under the table, then closed her eyes and tapped Rachel's hand.

Rachel waited for a half minute while Marsha either moved to the other end of the bar or remained where she was.

Then the process was repeated again and again, with two interruptions when Marsha announced a time-out while she took drink orders.

After Rachel had made ten guesses, Marsha returned to the table.

"Okay, Rachel, let's see how you did. I think you'll be impressed with yourself."

"I should think she would be," said the waitress as she stood and placed her notations on the table. "She scored nine out of ten. Well, back to work. Thanks for the break and the tip."

Rachel looked at the sheet in disbelief. "Well, I beat the monkey by quite a bit, but I'm not perfect."

"Don't be so sure," said Marsha. "When I saw how well you were doing, I decided to try something on the seventh guess, the one waitress gave you a 'W' for. I sort of tried to 'throw' my presence to the other end of the bar, concentrated on being there. I didn't do that any other time. You picked up on what I wanted you to pick up on. I'd say that you actually got ten out of ten. Now, the odds against doing that must be over a thousand to one."

Rachel thought of Pascal's Triangle and said, "Actually, 1023 to one."

"Honey, if you ever get to the States, I gotta take you to Vegas with me," Marsha laughed.

"Well, okay, I'm a believer," Rachel admitted. "But I only had two choices, not a whole hunting grounds to locate you in. And that little 'drink me' pep talk you gave me must have helped a lot."

"Oh, of course, it did. But you could learn to motivate yourself like that. And, as for the limits on your choices, this was only your first time and you didn't think it would work." Marsha leaned forward and looked Rachel squarely in the eyes. "Once you know that you can do it, you can do it."

Rachel shook her head. "And that's how you just 'decided' to come and find me?"

"Pretty much."

"It must take a lot of practice to get that good at 'just finding' people."

"Yes. I suppose it does. Of course, in my case, I may have an advantage. See, the first Dillon to cross the Atlantic got rich trapping beavers and sending their pelts back to England."

"Oh, those industrious little animals with the flat tails."

"Yes. Now, he married a Cherokee woman. Since then," Marsha explained, "every male ancestor I have in the Dillon line has either married the daughter of a fellow hunter or a woman who was a hunter herself. I don't know how much of my abilities are just plain learned and how many I was born with, but to the extent that some of it is in the genes, you might say I've been bred for this for at least fifteen generations. Anyway, it never has been hard for me to find someone I was looking for."

"And probably Amanda does something like what I did when I located you, only about to the sixth or seventh power," Rachel ventured.

"Honey, I would never try to guess how Amanda Blake operates. But, I'd lay odds that she does something like it."

Rachel shook her head. "No wonder she agreed to the hunt on my terms. She knows that she can't lose. Anytime she wants me, all she has to do is 'decide to find me.' No offense, but it seems kind of like cheating. I mean, hunters aren't allowed to use sophisticated tracking devices. This seems even more effective."

"I can see how you might feel that way," Marsha sympathized. "But, honey, there's two things you should keep in mind. First, nothing works one-hundred percent of the time. Second, if Amanda had eyes like an eagle, you wouldn't insist that she wear blinders or sunglasses. She shouldn't have to wear earplugs if she could hear like a hound dog. I just showed you that you can do the very same thing. Anybody can. I happen to be better at it than most people and Amanda probably is too."

"Well, one time it didn't work for me at all was when Amanda crept up on me in our last hunt. I had no idea she was behind me until I felt her hand on my shoulder and hear her say 'Hello.' Could she have found a way to hide from this kind of ... detection?"

"Honey, I don't know and I wouldn't guess. All I can say is, if she can do it, you can do it. You two are the same species, after all."

"Sometimes I wonder. But even if I could learn to do all these tricks, it would take me years of practice to get even close to Amanda's level."

"Well, you gotta walk before you can run. Amanda's been at full gallop for years."

Rachel sighed and sank down in her chair. "The way things stand, I am going to be SO dead if I go through with this. I've got to back out while I still can."

"Why do you say that?" Marsha didn't seem disingenuous. Rather, she seemed concerned for the distress she heard in Rachel's voice.

"There isn't any way I can fight something like this. Amanda is always saying, 'Don't try to beat me at my own game.' Good advice. I can't play her game worth a shit."

"Then don't play her game," Marsha suggested.

"In other words, you think I should quit, too."

"No. I mean don't play HER game." Seeing Rachel was not comprehending, Marsha asked, "What is Amanda's game, anyway? How would you describe it?"

After a moment of thought, Rachel said, "I guess you could call it 'Extreme Hide and Seek.'"

"Good description," Marsha agreed. "Amanda is the best Hide and Seek player you'll ever find. No way you can beat her at that game. So, make her play another game. One that you can play as well as she can, or even better."

"How can I possibly beat her at anything? Have you ever seen her?"

"Not in person. But, yes, Amanda is big old girl for sure. And faster than greased lightening. She's more than I would have wanted to tangle with, even when I was her age."

"Once she gets close enough to lay a hand on me, I'm done for." Rachel was a picture of discouragement.

"So, don't let her get close enough to lay a hand on you," Marsha said matter-of-factly.

"But Amanda always wins at Hide and Seek. How can I avoid playing that game with her?"

"You can't," Marsha said. "You've got to play Hide and Seek with Amanda and give it your best shot, but you probably can't keep her from winning."

"So, she wins and I'm dead."

"No," corrected Marsha. "It isn't over until it's over. She wins at Hide and Seek and then you make her play another game. One that you can win."

"What on earth could that be?"

"Honey, I don't know. Maybe it has to be a game that you make up. Listen." Marsha began to get intense. "In a lot of my hunts, the fun really starts when Hide and Seek is over. My quarry are always making up new games to try on me."

"Well, have they ever won?" Rachel thought she was asking a rhetorical question.

"No and yes." Seeing Rachel's puzzlement, Marsha went on. "I'm alive, sure. But that doesn't mean my quarry has lost. It depends on what they were playing for. My quarry isn't the same as Amanda's and their idea of a win isn't the same. See, what these guys want more than anything else is to be free. That isn't going to happen. They all have radio implants. Even if they kill me, they are not going get away. They are already under the most severe sentence the state they are in allows, so if they do kill me, I'm a freebee for them. All they can get out of it is one more scalp on their belts, but for some of them that's all they want. Those that are under the death penalty have absolutely nothing to lose by trying the most outrageous crap they can think of. Some of the people I hunt just want one more day outside in the sunshine and fresh air and they don't care if it's their last day. Some guys don't even put up a fight at all. They just want to go out nice and neat after one last time with a woman. Sometimes the last thing a guy says to me is 'thanks.'"

Rachel quivered a little at that, remembering how she had felt toward Amanda at the moment the huntress broke off their mutual cunnilingus, stepped back, and prepared to strike.

Marsha smiled. "I see I struck a note there. Amanda must be one special lady. Anyway, I get all kinds. I don't kill everybody I catch and I certainly don't fuck everybody I catch. Now, as you might guess, the most fun I have is with the real bad boys who want to make me scream and beg for mercy while they have their way with me just before killing me. Those boys are fun. I get a lot of pleasure out of taking them down."

"You know," Rachel mused, "I think Amanda would like that, too."

"I've heard that Amanda likes to hunt mainly women, and I don't get very many of them, but if she likes a good tussle, yeah, she'd have some fun with me. If it weren't for the citizenship requirements for doing what I do, I'm sure she'd like it and I'd love to have her with me. The fact that you Brits aren't as violent and you don't have the death penalty is a kind of drawback from my point of view, because it makes my kind of game pretty rare over here. In most states, I'm allowed to use more than a bow and arrow and I would miss having that advantage.

"But to get back to the point that launched this discussion, some of my game have pulled the gol-dangedest things you can imagine on me. Let me tell you some stories."

Marsha told about an hour's worth of anecdotes, some of which were funny and some of which were very frightening.

"Well," Rachel said at the end of story-time, "this is grassy-green England and there isn't anyplace where I can start a rock slide. I'm not a two-hundred-and-eighty-pound Hell's Angel who could take Amanda over the side of cliff and hope that she broke more bones than I did. Even if I could find a rattlesnake to throw at Amanda, I wouldn't go within ten feet of it."

"But you're a bright, resourceful gal who DOES have something to lose. You might come up with something."

"Yeah. Might." Rachel paused, gave the huntress a little smile, and asked, "Marsha, would you hunt me for real?"

"Why would I do that? You aren't a killer."

"No kidding." A definite self-depreciating tone.

Marsha tilted her head and looked thoughtfully at Rachel. "I've heard the terms of your hunt with Amanda. If you win, you're going to have a real problem on your hands, aren't you?"

"Yes." Rachel was honest.

"Well, honey, I could offer to give some lessons, but I won't. Hope you understand why."

"I wouldn't accept the offer anyway. In fact, I appreciate you not making it." Short pause. "I also really appreciate the help and advice you have given me, though. I'm not sure how I can put it to use, but I am grateful."

"You're welcome, Rachel."

There was a more than a touch of sexual tension in the air. Rachel did, indeed, find Marsha very attractive and could tell that the feeling was mutual. She knew that Marsha wouldn't make a move unless given some kind of signal that Rachel was open for it. Rachel wanted to give a signal, but she didn't want it to be interpreted as a payback. And there was another problem, too, that was harder to pin down.

"Honey, I'm not a mind reader, but I know what you're thinking," Marsha said with warmth. "Don't worry about it. I'm taken."

Rachel smiled weakly.

Marsha got up from the table, adding, "And you're taken, too. No mind reading there, either. Anybody can see it in your face any time her name is mentioned."

"Marsha, could you sit back down again. I want to ask you something."

"Sure. I'm in no rush." Marsha returned to her seat.

"These women that you mentioned earlier, the ones who are attracted to bad boys, men that they know will harm them, even destroy them - am I like them? I mean, in my feelings about Amanda? Am I attracted to her because I want her to... destroy me?

Marsha didn't hurry in responding. "Let me ask this: Would you be less attracted to Amanda if she stopped hunting?"

"No, of course not."

"The next question is a lot harder. Would you be more attracted to her if she stopped?"

That was harder. Much harder.

Finally, Rachel said, "No. I wouldn't be any more attracted. It's just that things would be, well, easier."

"There you go! No, Rachel, you are not like those women who chase after bad boys."

"Well, then, what am I? The woman wanted, wants to kill me and eat me! Am I sick?"

Marsha shook her head. "Nope. There's a song that goes something like 'It's not so surprising. You don't need analyzing. You're not sick, you're just..."

Rachel laughed. "I know how the song goes. It's on a cd that my aunt Jayne sent me from the States. Louis Prima."

"Then you know that there's also a line, 'I've been there once or twice. Put your head on my shoulder. You need someone who's older.'" Marsha rose again and this time laid a business card on the table. "It's been a real pleasure, Rachel. Get in touch anytime you want to talk."

"Thanks."

"And good luck. Good luck to both of you."

"Thanks again."

As she watched Marsha leave, Rachel wondered, how can we both have good luck?



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