I sat up high, oak branch ’tween my knees, and watched the tattooed man stride about in the snow. Pictures all over his face, no skin left no more, just ink and blood. Looking for me, he was. Always looking for me. He left red drops in the white, fallen from his fish knife. Not fish blood though. Man blood. Boy blood. Lad from Tucket lost his scalp to that knife. Scrap of hair and pink hung from the man’s belt. That was dripping too, hot and fresh. He’d left the body in the thicket for the wolves to find.
I blew smoky breath into my hands.
“You’re a long way from home, Kreagar,” I called down.
The trees took my voice and scattered it to pieces. Winter made skeletons of the forest, see, made camouflage tricky ’less you know what you’re doing, and I know exactly what I’m doing. He weren’t going to find no tracks nor footprints nowhere in this forest what weren’t his, I know better’n that. Kreagar looked all around, up high and ’neath brushes, but I’ve always been good at hiding.
“Who’s that talkin’ at me out in the trees?” he shouted. His voice was like rubbing bone on bark. Something raw in it when he raged, but when he was kind it was soft rumbling that cut through a chill night. I didn’t want to think about him being kind no more. His kindness was lies and masks.
“Saw what you did to that boy,” I said, “saw where you put him. See his curly hair on your belt.”
Kreagar sniffed hard. Cold making his nose run into his beard. Teeth bared like one of them mountain bears. Didn’t even have a shirt on, never did when he did his killing. Blood splashed all over his chest, mingling with the tattoos and wiry black hair.
“That you, Elka girl? That my Elka playing squirrel in the trees?” he shouted.
“I ain’t yours,” I said, “never was, never gonna be.”
I took out my knife. Long blade, barbed saw teeth on the back, and staghorn handle.
Kreagar stamped around the forest, showing all the critters where he was, trailing blood like a damn invitation.
“Come down, give ol’ Kreag a hug. I’ve missed you.”
“I don’t think so. Think I’ll stay right where I am.”
His eyes searched the trees. Black as pitch them eyes, black as disease and disorder and hate and lies. He grinned, flat white teeth like gravestones, and twirled his little fish gutter in his fingers, flinging blood everywhere, rolling out the red carpet.
“Elka, you know I don’t mean you no harm.” His voice turned friendly. “I’d never hurt my Elka.”
He wandered around like a blind man, trudging through the snow, steam lifting off his body. Always hot after a killing. He was lean, carved out of wood some say, and but for the tattoos had a face you’d take home to your mother. He leaned up against a cottonwood tree, panting to keep the cold out, getting sick of hide-and-seek.
“Could a’ killed you a hundred times, girlie,” he said, slow. “Could a’ taken my pig sticker and cut your neck to navel while you slept. Could a’ peeled your skin off easy as boiled trout.”
I remembered all those years calling him Daddy and felt sick.