Content Warning: Rape

Belinda was in the office which doubled as a general store for the campsite. She was getting herself a cup of coffee from the big aluminum urn on the counter, when she heard someone say, “She must be inside.” Belinda looked up, and a woman she had never seen before strolled in.

“You Belinda Rubin?”

“Yeah.”

The woman came towards her, smiling. “How’d you like to make some money?”

Belinda poured a thin stream of powdered coffee whitener into her enamel mug. “Do I know you?”

The woman shifted her elbow up onto the counter beside Belinda, and gestured at the coffee urn, “Do you mind?”

“No, I guess not. Help yourself.” She took in the woman’s expensive jacket. Soft looking chocolate brown leather, and her hair recently styled with pert waves curling all around the made-up face of a woman who looks after herself and knows how good she looks. The woman put out her hand for Belinda to shake. “Name’s Abigale Fraser, and I’ve got a business proposition for you.”

“That right? Let’s maybe go for a walk.”

Belinda led Abigale out of the office to where her truck was parked on the circular gravel drive. She reached in for her cigarettes on the dash then held open the pack to Abigale who shook her head. Belinda lit up and leaned back against the door to continue studying her.

“So, what’s the deal?”

“Word is that you’re well-connected out there in the Billy-girl community. I’ve got a way we can help each other make some quick and easy money.”

Belinda flicked the ash from her cigarette.

“I know of a guy who’ll pay to get out of the city. Go on the road. Meet some Billy-girls,” Abigale went on.

“There are Billy-Girls in the city.”

“He wants to meet Road-Billy’s.”

“What for?”

“I dunno. It’s just what I heard.”

“How’d you hear?”

“Seems the guy was talking it up all over Calgary-way.”

“See,” said Belinda. “That’s what I don’t like—” She dropped her cigarette end onto the ground and stepped on it. “Talking around town. Sounds like a set-up.”

“Take it easy,” said Abigale. “This guy just wants to be kidnapped.”

Belinda snorted. “Just kidnapped? You out of your mind? I’m supposed to kidnap some guy and have the city-militia after me? No thank you.”

“You can leave the kidnapping up to us.”

“Us?”

“Me and my partner.”

Belinda started to think this conversation had gone on long enough. She made a show of searching for something in a pocket. “Partner? I’m just looking at you. What’s your name, again? Abigale?”

Abigale started to speak, and Belinda held up her hand. “Also, Abigale, I don’t know you, and I don’t know how you know me. So, I’m walking away.”

“Josephine Alanza,” Abigale blurted, which stopped Belinda who immediately turned back.

“What did you say?”

Abigale got all cool again. “Josephine. Jo-Jo to her very close friends, am I right?”

“This is bullshit. Jo doesn’t move in Calgary circles.”

“Who’s talking Calgary?”

“Hasn’t for years. Anyway, she went in—”

“Yes, into a woman-only colony outside Red Deer,” said Abigale. “I heard all about it when I popped by. She sends her best, by the way.”

Belinda went and sat in the front seat of her truck. She started it, and fiddled with the radio, then it turned it off and just sat. She rolled down the window to Abigale who had sauntered over.

“I’ll take that cigarette now.”

Belinda offered her pack. She had to laugh, thinking of gorgeous Josephine who had once obsessed her so completely. Josephine who’d had enough of the road and said she needed—how had she put it? —needed to convalesce in a nice quiet Billy-Girl colony as if it were some kind of retro resort. “Fucking Jo-Jo Alanza.” She shook her head, grinning as she remembered their wild times, then looked over at Abigale who was still lounging against the truck. “So, how is she?”

“She thought you might be up for this.”

“Is that right?”

“We do the kidnapping. We deliver the kid to you. All you do is drive him around and show him the sights.”

“Are you for real?”

“Seems this guy just wants a little excitement in his boring rich-kid life. A little danger. Seems he wants to get snatched up by some rough and tough gals, then be given some kind of guided tour of the Billy-girl lifestyle.”

Belinda couldn’t help guffawing. “Billy-girls don’t give guided tours.”

“I know, I know. Anyway, he’ll pay cash. Cash or merchandise.”

Belinda only looked at her so Abigale thought she could go on. “Seems the guy has something to do with imports up from the sunbelt. Or his dad does or uncle or someone. Wouldn’t you like to bring your colony girls some nice fresh oranges? Or apples or salad?”

“My colony girls?”

“You know what I mean.”

Belinda started the truck again. “Why don’t you get in and we can drive a little while you fill me in on the details.”

***

Over the course of the next week, Belinda was back and forth between Drumheller, where the campsite was, and Black Diamond. She’d heard a rumour of lined flannel jackets from a guy in Chestermere. He’d been reliable in the past, and always took in trade whatever was in season at the agricultural colonies. He said his cousin would be in the parking lot of Vales Greenhouse all day Saturday, and he’d watch for her. For some reason or other she missed him and then went onto Okotoks to stop in on a small break-away colony, mostly hippy-type girls and their boyfriends and tons of kids, where an old friend of hers once lived. The friend had moved on and the hippies didn’t have much to trade, but she ate with them and slept in her truck just inside their walls. She tried the greenhouse again Sunday and the guy was there with his wife and her whole family, Fire-sisters from the tattooed look of them. Nobody had much news, but the guy did have boxes and boxes of coats and also dozens of flats of canned corn which he was happy to trade for her huge lot of Marlboros. The wife had some homebrew and, just to be friendly, Belinda needed to party with them which looked after Sunday night and most of Monday. She went back to Okotoks the next day to see if she could unload the corn on the hippies so it was Wednesday night before she got back up to Drumheller.

When she stopped in at the campsite, the woman who owned the place said something had been left for her. From Abigale. It was a VHS tape wrapped in brown paper with “FYI Belinda Rubin” written across the front in magic marker. Belinda got herself a motel that night so she could watch in peace.

The tape started abruptly and showed two guys sitting in front of a desk. A bearded man in a brown corduroy jacket and a much younger guy with a goatee and a shaved head at the stubble stage. He was talking:

“I get to the trucks before they get to the stores. I say what I pull out is for the army and nobody says shit. They all know who I am. They all know my family. Anyway, like I said before, we could do half cash, half merchandise. It’s up to you.”

The sound cut out for a few seconds so it was just the kid waving his hands around and the bearded guy making notes. When the sound came back on, he could be heard to say, “Yeah, all kinds of stuff. Take your pick. I get rice, flour, cornmeal, canned fish, canned meats, ham and whatnot. Plus, cases of wine and booze, and boots. Winter boots, you know? I get tins of vegetables and fruit. Once I saw a shipment of oranges come through. Your ladies like the oranges, don’t they?” He grinned at the camera.

The tape cut out again and when it came back on, he was saying, “Can you guarantee that?”

The bearded guy was writing on a clipboard and nodding.

“And their pilgrimage-marching and burning-man shit as well? I get to be in on that with the ladies as well, right?”

The bearded guy made another note and said, “Sure, sure.”

At the same time, a woman’s voice off-camera, which Belinda recognized as Abigale’s, cut in. “It’s the wrong time of year for the pilgrimage. Anyway, we can’t guarantee anything so specific.”

The kid turned to the other man. “What the fuck, dude?”

The bearded man looked up and presumably at Abigale. He frowned and said, “We’ll see what we can arrange. But Michael, I really do need to reiterate at this point that it’s the wild west out there. You don’t know what hardened road-women will do from one day to the next.”

The image degraded into distortion and bursts of green then purple-red and cut off. When the video resumed, it was with a slightly different set up and the camera was a little further away from the men so that more of the desk was visible. Abigale could still not be seen.

The goateed kid was talking again. “And bro’, it’s all girls, right? Like no dude is going to put his hands on me. That’s not what I’m paying for.” He looked towards Abigale. “Are you going to be in on it?”

Abigale’s voice was clear and emphatic. “We contract out the actual kidnapping. And we only deal with women.”

“Billy-girls?” he asked. “Real wild road-chicks?”

“We’ll see what we can arrange,” said Abigale.

***

A few days later, Belinda stopped in at the campsite to check for messages. It was mostly deserted, with only a couple of trailers parked and closed up, and a single tent at the edge of the property, closer to the creek. She walked the whole place and was preparing to leave when she saw the owner’s daughter coming out of the shower building, carrying rags and a bottle of Mr. Clean and another of Windex.

“Oh, Miss Belinda,” she said. “That lady was here again. The one who left the package. Said she really needs to get hold of you.”

“So, when’s she coming back?”

The girl set the cleaning supplies on the boardwalk in front of the showers and fished in her pocket for a note. “She was sort of mad that you weren’t around.” She handed Belinda an envelope. “She came last night and again this morning.”

“What did she say?”

The girl picked up her things and started towards the office. “She said it was an emergency, and for you to go to the address written there.” She gestured at the envelope Belinda was tearing open.

“What the hell?” she said. “This is all the way down in Calgary.” It wasn’t like Belinda couldn’t get into Calgary. Her travel permits were up-to-date and she had a Free-Woman-on-the- Outer-Land Certificate and all that. It was that she didn’t like Calgary. Something was always threatening to blow up into something else. The politics of that town never settled down enough for Belinda to feel comfortable. On the other hand, she had a lot of friends who lived there and did fine. Kept out of trouble as best they could. And business was always good.

Abigale’s note said Belinda should get to Peter’s Drive-in restaurant and wait for her. OK, thought Belinda, at least if something went wrong, she could zip out onto the Trans-Canada and get out of Calgary fast. Nearly two hours later, Belinda was finishing her burger and making to get out of the truck to throw the crumpled paper in the trash when Abigale was suddenly standing in front of it.

“What took you so long?”

Belinda tossed the greasy paper and asked, “Problem?”

 “You could say that,” said Abigale, taking her by the arm. “I want to show you something.”

  They walked through the alley behind Peter’s to a parking lot. A white van. Abigale opened the back with a flourish. The van was packed with all the supplies promised in the video and more.

“This is half the payment.”

“Where is he?”

Abigale slammed the back door of the van. “Well, now, here is the problem.” Again, she took Belinda’s arm.  They walked into the neighbourhood of squat bungalows, most with the windows boarded up. Another alley with a row of garages. Abigale opened one and motioned Belinda inside.

“I don’t think so,” said Belinda.

“Please Belinda. It’s important. He’s in the back of the car.”

Belinda looked up at the garage door still open above her head. “What’s the problem?” she asked, still not moving.

“Seems the girls who did it, who did the kidnapping, had their fun with him for a few days.”

“And nights,” chortled a woman who Belinda didn’t know. She had emerged from the back part of the garage that was attached to the inside of the house.

“What?” Belinda took a step towards the car. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe a little too much fun.” the new woman continued, laughing sharply. She was tall and skinny and had white-blonde hair that she kept tufting up with her fingers. “He should be pretty docile by now,” she said.

Belinda strode into the garage and yanked open the back seat. A person who looked like a bundle of clothes more than anything else was sprawled there. A burlap bag on his head. Blood soaking through.

“What did you do?” she turned to the new woman. Belinda could now see that the guy’s hands were duct-taped behind his back. His body twisted in a weird way.

The woman put her hands on her hips. “Maybe we did what needed to be done.”

Belinda looked at Abigale who was still hanging back. “What do you know about this?” She reached in to touch the prone figure, pushed at him. He moaned.

“See?” said Abigale, “No problem.”

“Yeah, no problem,” sneered the other woman. “Maybe there needed to be a little revenge here.”

“For what?” Belinda knew she shouldn’t be asking this.

The woman got right in Belinda’s face. “For my goddamned raped-to-death sister, that’s what for.”

 “Sorry,” said Belinda, looking down. “I don’t mean any disrespect.” Then, confused, she glanced back up. “Wait. This guy is your sister’s rapist?”

“Look-it,” the blond woman suddenly clutched Belinda’s wrist, digging her nails in. “He’s a guy. They’re all the same. He’s raped. I’m sure he’s raped someone. Someone’s sister.”

She released Belinda’s hand then lit a cigarette and tossed the spent match onto the groaning kid in the back seat.

“Wait a minute here—” began Belinda.

Abigale got between them and said, “Let’s take this inside, OK?” There was a rope attached to a pulley hanging from the ceiling. She yanked on it to shut the garage door. She peered anxiously into the back alley before the door was completely shut.

“We can’t just leave him in the car, can we?” asked Belinda.

“Yeah, Angel and me got a bit more work we need to do on him.” The other woman taunted her.

“Take it easy, Peg,” said Abigale, putting an arm around her as they went up the three steps at the back of the garage.

It opened into a kitchen whose counters were crowded with boxes and shrink-wrapped packages stamped “100% cotton” or “Large flannel”. “More of the merchandise from the guy,” remarked Abigale over her shoulder.

The room was cold and had a damp, hollow feeling as if there hadn’t been gas or electricity in the place for a long while. The walls were covered with graffiti: clan and gang signs, nothing Belinda recognized. This didn’t seem to be a Billy-girl squat, though, who knew? “Good set up,” she said, just for something to say. “So close to the highway and all.” They sat down at a cluttered kitchen table. There was an unlit kerosene lamp and a pile of papers and more boxes: flats of canned tuna according to the stamped-on labels. “Been here a while?”

“None of your goddamn business.” Peg sat opposite her with her arms crossed, but after a moment, she looked down at the floor. Then she abruptly stood up and left the room, saying to someone down the hall, “I’m coming, Angel. Hang on.” There was now a distant sound of a woman sobbing, and Belinda realized it must have been going on for a while.

“OK,” she said, standing up and turning to Abigale. “I’m going.” She zipped up her jacket.

“No, no, c’mon Belinda,” said Abigale. “Don’t go. Stay for a drink, why don’t you?”

Belinda inclined her head back to the garage. “This is bullshit.”

“I know, I know,” Abigale had lapsed into a soothing tone. “C’mon, Belinda, let me explain.” She reached into a cupboard over the stove which had a stack of thick white restaurant-type dishes peeking out over the top of an opened cardboard box on one cold burner, and an assortment of tin cups and empty coke cans on another. Abigale pulled down a bottle of Jim Beam. “Have a drink with me, OK?” Her voice was soft.

Belinda nodded and sat back down. She watched Abigale root through the hodge-podge of stuff on the table until she found a couple of glasses.

“You know, Peg’s had a hard time,” Abigale said.

Belinda sipped at the bourbon.

“She wasn’t the worst of them, either.”

Belinda leaned forward. “Do you even know anything about these women?”

In the silence before Abigale answered, Belinda could hear Angel crying in a room somewhere down the hall, and Peg murmuring to her.

“It took four of them to take him down. That’s what Peg said. He was one tough son of a bitch.”

“All they were supposed to do was abduct him, get him into a vehicle and get him ready for his so-called road-trip.”

“Well, I didn’t figure Angel and her gang were going to go ballistic on him.”

“What did they do?”

“I don’t know. Beat him up pretty good, raped him, whatever. Actually, Peg said she had to stop someone from outright killing him.” She poured another few inches into Belinda’s glass.

Belinda picked up the glass, studied its contents. “I don’t want to be involved in this thing.” She downed her drink.

Abigale suddenly laughed. “Guess he got his money’s worth, eh? Roughed up by a bunch of tough women.”

 “That guy got way more than he bargained for, that’s for sure.” Then she said, “You can’t just leave him in the car. Whose car is it anyway? Is it yours?”

“Yeah. Listen, are you sure you won’t take him?”

“Abigale, this is not—I mean, I can’t be driving around my trade routes with some beat-up guy in my vehicle.”

“No, I guess not. I suppose we could put him back into his van, make it look like a robbery. You could still take the merch—”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“This is fucked up. God.” She shook her head. “I never thought something like this would happen.”

“Maybe you should have checked out those women you hired.”

“I did. I thought I did. Anyway, how was I to know about Angel’s Mom and Peg’s sister and all the rest? It was a revenge-fest when I got here. Broken glass and bottles, blood all over the place, baseball bats. They were all going crazy. All taking their turn.” She slumped in her chair. “I screwed up.”

“Yeah, I guess you did. But you know, Abigale, just about everybody’s sister’s been raped or worse.”

Neither said anything, and they could again hear the rising and falling sounds of Peg and Angel crying together in the other room.

Belinda stood up. “We better go check on the guy.”

When they opened the back door of the car, they could see he hadn’t moved. When Abigale nudged him, he didn’t make a sound. “Hey,” she called to him, pushing harder at him. Nothing.

Belinda put her head into the car. “Is he even breathing?” There didn’t seem to be as much as a slit cut for his mouth or nose in the burlap bag which was encrusted with blood. She made to pull it off. Abigale shoved her hand away.

“You don’t want him to be able to identify you, do you?”

“What? He doesn’t look like he’s in any position to—”

“Help me get him out to his van.”

“It’s blocks away.”

“OK, OK, we’ll drive,” said Abigale going around to the front seat. “Hop in.”

When they swung around the block to the alley behind Peter’s Drive-in, they could see a crowd of kids around the now-looted van. The light was fading, so they couldn’t tell if anything was left inside, but it didn’t matter because the windows were smashed, and the tires stolen. A couple of kids were trying to light the front seat cushions on fire. “Shit,” said Abigale, as they cruised slowly by. “Hope your truck’s OK.”

“You and me both,” said Belinda, hunkering down in her seat.

When they got to Peter’s lot, Belinda’s truck was untouched, parked alongside a few other vehicles. Looking back, they could see the fire from the van must have grown because of the yellow glow in the sky. Also, there were louder crowd sounds now: jeering, yelling, drumming of some kind. “Good thing the action’s shifted over there, I guess,” commented Belinda. She kept checking the area all around the now-closed restaurant, hating to be out at night in a city she barely knew.

“Not looking good over here,” said Abigale, bending over the guy. “Maybe we just better dump him.”

Belinda leaned into the backseat. The sight of the bloody burlap bag sickened her. “Leave him here?” she asked. “That makes us as bad as them, doesn’t it?”

“What? Who are you talking about?”

“That lot,” Belinda inclined her head at the increasingly loud gang around the burning van. “And the guys who raped Peg’s sister. And all those bastards all over the place we’ve got to spend so much time avoiding.”

Abigale looked furtively around. “So, what are we supposed to do?”

“This is your mess, Abigale. Yours to deal with.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“You’ve got to help him somehow. I figure you owe him.”

“Hey, I only got half the payment, and that’s going up in smoke this very minute.

Belinda looked at Abigale for a long moment. “The best thing would be for you to drive to a hospital,” she said. “I’ll follow you. You’ll never be able to carry him in on your own.”

Abigale turned on her. “Hospital? No goddamn way. I’ll get myself arrested. They’ve got cameras up there. Anyway, Joan of fucking Arc, what do you care? You didn’t even want to complete the deal.”

“This mess of yours wasn’t the deal, but I’m not going to leave him in the middle of a burger joint’s parking lot. That’s just bad business.”

They stared at each other while the chaos of the van fire party raged on.

“At least help me hoist him into my truck,” Belinda said finally.

They managed to transfer the kidnapped guy―who was now moaning and struggling a little―to Belinda’s truck. “Well at least he’s still alive,” she remarked. She cut his hands loose and gingerly worked the bag off his face and got a first real look at the puffing bruising and swollen shut eyes. Smashed nose. Loops of blood and drool leaking out of his open mouth.

“Fuck me,” breathed Abigale. Then she put her mouth right close to her his ear, and said, “Remember, Michael, you were taken to the hospital. You were taken care of.” She nodded at Belinda, turned and got back in her car.

It was only when Belinda watched Abigale’s tail lights recede that she started to be afraid. Alone with a semi-conscious victim of a pretty bad beating, in a neighbourhood that seemed to be gearing up for something she didn’t want to get swept up in.

Belinda drove around to get her bearings, but each district had its own wild party or gangs of kids marching down the centre of the road, so she kept turning and doubling back. She eventually found a half-destroyed hospital. It looked to have some fire damage in one wing but cars still circled it and she could see emergency doors opening and closing.

She pulled over and, keeping her head down, strode inside like she knew where she was going. Groups of people huddling in the waiting room chairs. There was a single white-coated figure behind a desk, and to the right of an elevator―Thank God―an empty wheelchair. Nobody paid any attention as she pushed it out the door, struggled Michael out of her truck, and arranged him into the chair, jamming a hat down over his face.

Standing beside the wheelchair, still close to her truck, Belinda watched the opening and closing Emergency doors. A car drove up, stopped, then drove on, leaving a bundled figure in front of the door. After a few minutes, two white-coated guys crouched down beside the figure, and loaded him onto a stretcher to get him inside. Michael muttered incoherently, and Belinda said, “We’re almost there.” She waited another five minutes before she pushed the wheelchair up to the front door.

An old man sat on the ground against the wall, wrapped in a grey blanket. “Another special delivery,” he cackled.

Belinda parked the chair beside him and walked back to her truck, her head pounding. She drove around for a while until she found an on-ramp to the Trans-Canada highway and headed west