I didn’t have a way to signal Toren without showing myself in the open. I couldn’t take the chance, because without being able to see inside, I didn’t know which way he was facing. If I stepped out and waved my arms, it could be Deke who saw me.
That also meant crossing to the house was next to impossible. It sat in a clearing with little cover. Getting to it meant walking into the open.
I needed a distraction. Something that lasted long enough to get Deke’s attention focused in the opposite direction, so I could make a mad dash from the trees to the house without being seen.
I’d circled most of the way around the house now, taking note of Toren’s truck, the chicken run, a trailer, and various other small things lying around. None of it looked useful.
Eloise strutted past the front of Toren’s truck, clucking as she pecked at the ground.
Wait…
I looked at the chicken run. The gate was open. Beside it was the bag of treats.
My brain started turning over a plan before I’d fully formed the thought. Chickens were loud. They were also, especially a certain large red one, chaos on legs. A flock of them swarming the cabin, squawking at the top of their lungs, was exactly the kind of crazy nonsense that might make someone glance toward a window.
The plan was thin and a bit ridiculous. But it was all I had.
I crept through the trees to the door on the back of the barn and prayed it was unlocked. It should be. Toren didn’t lock much of anything around here. No one ever bothered anything this far out.
My thumb pressed the latch and I lifted the handle. The door swung inward.
Yes!
I stepped inside, letting my eyes adjust for a moment to the dim interior, then I hurried toward the portion near the front that Toren had walled off into a roost. Leaning against the back wall of it was the thing I was looking for. The bag of chicken feed. Those treats he’d been using to get them inside were great, but if I tossed a handful of the grain, it could send them running and squawking wherever I wanted them to go.
Grabbing a bucket off the wall, I scooped some of the feed into it, then exited the barn the same way I entered and ran back into the trees, going a little deeper, so I could move more quickly without being seen.
Once I was around front, I clucked my tongue at the chickens to get their attention and rattled the bucket slightly. Their heads perked up, and a couple of them came trotting over.
I grabbed a fistful of the feed and chucked it toward the porch. It landed twenty feet from the house, but my goal wasn’tto get them to the house. It was to bring them around front, where they created a ruckus.
It worked. Sort of.
Three of the hens came waddling over, heads bobbing, falling on the scattered grain like they hadn’t eaten in a week. A fourth followed, much more slowly, clucking as it strutted over to its sisters. I tossed another handful, and the four of them clustered together, pecking the ground and flapping their wings at each other as they all tried to get a bit of the grain.
The small, feathered riot was exactly where I wanted it, but it wasn’t big enough.
They needed to be louder.
I scanned the yard. Where was Eloise?
My gaze paused near the woodpile by the side of the house. She was on top of it now, staring at me with those beady little eyes.
I sank back into the trees and circled around to the side of the house. Here, the trees were a little closer to the structure, but still too far away for me to make a run for it.
“All right, you little turd,” I whispered to the chicken. “It’s time for you to earn your keep and save your owner. He dies, no more chicken treats for you.”
She let out a soft cluck but didn’t move. She knew I didn’t have the treats, just her regular feed.
“Come here.” I tossed a bit of feed her way. “Come on, you horrible thing. Free snack. Do what I want, and I’ll give you all the treats you want later.”
Eloise looked at the feed, then back at me. She stayed put.
I tossed more. It plunked off the wood, and I winced, hoping that didn’t sound as loud inside the house as it did to me twenty feet from the woodpile. “Eloise,” I hissed. “I swear to God…”
She took one deliberate step backward, away from the grain, never breaking eye contact, like she knew exactly what I wanted and had decided, out of pure spite, to deny me on principle.
“Forget the treats. I’m going to fry you up for dinner when we get out of this.” I set the feed down with a huff.
