Deep Blue (5 page)

He had his baseball cap on his head, presumably to keep the sun out of his eyes while he worked on his farm. He had on his big, heavy duty gloves, blue denim jeans, black work boots, and no shirt.

“I think he loves you,” he observed with a chuckle, petting his dog’s back.

Troy smelled of dirt and sweat again. The same damned smell that caught my attention the first time he sat down next to me. The same damned smell that wrongly led me to believe that he was nothing more than a country bumpkin, and would be an easy pickpocket victim.

Scout pushed himself to his paws, turned around, and let his head rest on Troy’s leg. I smiled despite the situation I was in. I guess he didn’t love me after all.

“Hey, so how are you feeling today?” Troy asked, pulling off his cap. He examined it for a moment before he turned it around before and put it on backwards.

I stared at him. I didn’t know what the answer was he was expecting but “fine” wasn’t going to be it. I watched him as he slowly tilted his head to the left and let his eyes drop down to my side.

“That’s healing nicely. Does it hurt still?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the brand.

“Like hell.”

He scoffed, the smile still on his face, as he gently moved Scout off of his leg. Walking over to the door he held it open, and told Scout to leave.

“You know, I’m not a doctor or anything, but if you want to lay on your side and let me get a better look at it, I can make sure it’s not getting infected,” he said, closing the door firmly.

“It’s okay. I’m okay,” I say, wrapping my arms around my knees. The slight wince on my face told him I was lying and he shook his head.

“Posy, I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to make sure you won’t get sick off of it. The reason I told Scout to leave was because I know he’d get in the way and probably try to help,” he said with a laugh. “On your side, pretty girl.”

I looked at him defiantly to which he rolled his eyes, scooped me a few inches off of the bed and dropped me onto my left side. In any other moment, it would have been funny since my arms were still wrapped around my knees. Kind of like a fetus, I guess.

Troy carefully put his hands on either side of the brand and I felt his breath on my skin as he leaned down to inspect it.

“Hm. Not too bad. Stay like this though. I’m gonna go grab some ointment. I’ll be right back,” he said, moving his hands away. I heard the sound of the door opening and closing, and his heavy footsteps as he went down the hallway a little bit before he came back into the room. He cleared his throat as he climbed onto the bed. I kept my eyes trained on the window hoping that whatever the hell it was that he intended to put on me would help and not make it worse.

“Hold still,” he said, quietly.

I closed my eyes and groaned slightly at the touch of the cool ointment on his fingertips pressing against my raw skin.

“Sorry,” he muttered, as he rubbed the ointment on as gently as he could. I could hear it being squeezed out of the tube as he put more on me until he was satisfied that it would be enough.

“Be right back.”

He left and again I heard the sound of the door, his footsteps leaving and coming back, and the door again as he entered and closed it behind him. But Troy didn’t come back to the bed this time, he went straight to the window I had been staring out of and opened it so he could sit in the sill.

“Damn, that breeze feels amazing,” he said more to himself than to me. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the frame. “We’ve got some time before I start dinner. Tell me about your first owner.”

A laugh escaped from somewhere inside of me. Troy opened his eyes and looked at me curiously, “I’m serious. Tell me about him. His name, what you guys did.”

“You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t want to relive the humiliation and abuse all over again,” I replied sarcastically.

“Posy, why do you talk to me like that? Like I’m not worthy of a response or deserve less than being greeted on some level of humanity?” he asked with a heavy sigh.

I pushed myself up to my knees. What I was going to say to him was going to take guts because I had the perfect response for his questions. I also wanted to have some leverage in case he didn’t like what I was going to say.

“Troy, there are many, many levels of humanity,” I said holding up my hands horizontal to each other. I left enough of a gap so my face would still be visible. “If you haven’t guessed by now, you don’t fit into this equation. No one that had any ounce of humanity in them would do what you’ve done. They wouldn’t have traded me off to an unknown hell and then decide to take me back out of what? Guilt? Boredom? You’re not worthy of being called a human and that’s why I talk to you the way I do. Hell, your dog gets more respect out of me than you do.”

The look he gave me was enough to send a tremor through me. I would imagine that my response gave him a million emotions, I just didn’t expect to see them all in his eyes at once. After a moment of the intense staring, he nodded, got up from his spot on the sill, and walked out of the room.

I didn’t know what the hell he was thinking, but I honestly didn’t care. I was too busy staring at the open window, wondering how far I could get and how good of a shot Troy was if I got far enough. Would I make it to the road? Where the hell was the road?

I pushed myself off the bed and went over to the window, putting my hands on the hard wooden frame and glanced outside. He was right; the breeze did feel amazing. I leaned out as far as I dared, when I saw Scout go running into the corn field that lined the back of the property happily. He stopped and turned around, his tail wagging furiously, and I could almost swear with a grin on his face.

“Come here, boy!” Troy called out.

I stepped quickly back into the room and pulled the curtains closed, glancing through the small slit I allowed myself.

Scout happily bounded toward Troy, who was finally in my line of sight. He crouched down and petted the happy dog with such love, I wondered how he could treat any kind of creature less than what they are.

That was all until he told Scout to lay down. I watched the dog happily agree to his master’s command. Then I watched Troy raise his shotgun and aim it at the dog’s head.

Scout looked up curiously.

“Wait. Wait! Troy! No!” I yelled out.

I watched his jaw clench tightly just before Troy pulled the trigger.

Scout, the lovable, faithful companion had been murdered out of what I could only imagine as a jealous rage. As I put my hands over my mouth to stop myself from screaming, I saw Troy wiping away whatever matter had splattered back onto him from the poor animal as he walked back around the house.

W
e were seated at the dinner table. Troy was on one end and I was at the other. I couldn’t eat though, I was too messed up over what he had done to Scout, so I kept my hands on my lap and my eyes on him.

It amazed me that after what he did he was able to sit there and eat his dinner like it hadn’t happened. I wondered if Scout even meant anything to him.

“How’s your food?” he asked, conversationally glancing up at me quickly.

I opened my mouth but was unable to form words at his callousness, so I closed it again.

“What’s wrong, Posy? You’re not eating and you’re not talking,” he said setting his fork down onto his plate and leaning back in his chair.

“You shot your dog.”

“I did,” he agreed with a nod.

“Why?”

“Is that what’s bothering you? Would it make you feel better if I told you that he was old and had cancer?” he asked, scratching his chin.

“No,” I replied with a vehement shake of my head.

“Good. Cause he wasn’t and didn’t. Don’t get me wrong. I did love him but I can’t have you being distracted and he turned into one,” he replied with a shrug, picking up his fork again.

Anger completely overtook me in that moment, and I smacked my plate full of food off of the table. Troy looked over at the mess it made on the kitchen counter. The shards of the broken plate sat on the kitchen floor and he sighed, getting to his feet.

I watched him as he crouched down and started picking up the broken pieces. I took that moment of distraction to get out of my chair and run. I wasn’t sure where the front or back doors were, but I knew that eventually I’d come across one. If I didn’t, there was always the window option.

My plan at that moment wasn’t to escape and I think Troy knew it because he didn’t follow me. My plan was to wrap up Scout’s body and bury him somewhere on the farm so he wouldn’t rot in the hot summer sun.

As I ran around the back of the house, the irrigation machines he had lined up in the fields turned on and started to spray the crops with water. It made me run faster because I didn’t know if the water would get on Scout too. I wanted to give him a decent burial and I didn’t want him to have to go into the ground covered in blood and brain matter. I’d carry him to one of the machines and gently wash him off before I wrapped him in anything I could find and began to dig a hole for him.

I finally got to Scout and tears sprang to my eyes when I saw the poor animal. I wiped them away quickly and leaned down to pick him up. I didn’t want him to be uncomfortable, so I cradled his head against my shoulder and began to make my way toward one of the irrigation machines when Troy appeared in the kitchen window.

“Not that way, Posy. Just wait there. I’ll come out and take him from you,” he said, climbing through the frame and walking toward us. Troy stopped in front of me with his arms outstretched, “Give him here. We can wash him off together and find a good spot for him.”

I held Scout closely against my body. “Why do you care about him now? You didn’t give a fuck about him twenty minutes ago when you blew his brains out!”

Troy rolled his eyes and yanked Scout out of my arms. He started to walk toward the front of the house again, so I followed close behind to make sure he wouldn’t be mistreating the poor animal in death too.

“See that quilt?” he asked, nodding to the right back corner of the porch. “Grab that. We can wrap him in it.”

I quickly went up the stairs, grabbed the old dirty quilt, and made my way back down to Troy who was patiently waiting for me. We walked toward the closest irrigation machine where he laid Scout down and used the water to clean him off. It almost made me sick to see all of the damage done to the dog as he cleaned him, but like I said, I didn’t want him to go into the ground without some form of dignity.

Once Scout was sufficiently free of blood and every other thing that Troy could get off of him, he told me to go to the stables and grab a shovel. He said it was inside the front door and to come right back to him. Again, I did as I was told and ran for the shovel, bringing it back quickly.

“Where do you think he should go?” he asked, me adjusting the dog, now wrapped securely in the quilt, in his arms.

I glanced around the property for a moment. I smiled at the tree that sat on the other side of his house with a tire swing and pointed.

“I think he’ll like it there,” I replied.

Troy nodded and we walked toward the tree, where he placed Scout’s body down gently and took the shovel from me. As he dug the hole, I secretly prayed that he would make it deep enough so I could shove him in and run like hell. If it took him time to crawl out of the hole, then I knew I could get a head start.

I sat down on the grass and let me hand rest on Scout’s back. There would be no point to it. I still couldn’t shake the feeling that Troy wasn’t the only person on this farm and getting shot would defeat the purpose of surviving the six hellacious years I had, just to come back to him.

“Give him here,” Troy said, snapping me back to reality.

“Goodbye, Scout,” I whispered softly to the dog, as I lifted him and gave him to Troy. I watched him place the dog in the large hole he had dug and pull himself out before he started to fill with dirt again.

Thirty minutes later it was over. The hole had been filled, Scout had been laid to rest, and Troy was still an evil bastard.

After he was done, he stabbed the shovel into the ground, picked me up roughly from the grass and dragged me back to the stables. He was muttering something about “having to shoot his damn dog for an ungrateful bitch.”

Once we reached the stable doors, he shoved me inside and told me to go to the last stall in the back. He followed close behind me, still muttering to himself until we reached the door. That’s when he opened it, shoved me in, undid his belt and wrapped it tightly around his hand.

“This won’t hurt for too long,” he said in a stony tone as he locked the door behind him.

“B
end over that hay stack and pull your underwear off, pretty girl,” he said, leaning against the stall door.

“What the hell for?” I asked, not moving.

“Posy, I’m getting really sick of the fucking back talk. Just do what I say,” he said, rubbing his face irritably.

“Or else what?”

His eyes darkened as he made his way to where he had tossed me. Reaching down he ripped me off of the dusty, wooden stall floor and bent me over the hay stack, ripping my panties off violently.

“I can always make you,” he said, pushing my legs apart with his knees. “Now, you made me kill my dog and you have to pay for that. Oh and whatever you do, don’t scream. I don’t want you to scare my animals.”

My breath started to come in heavy droves as I waited to see what the hell he was going to do to me. It wasn’t my fault he killed his dog. He did it because he was jealous of the attention I gave it. How could I be punished for something I didn’t have a hand in?

I felt his hand at first as it he placed it on my exposed ass, tracing it gently, before he chuckled.

“One of the better ones I’ve seen,” he remarked quietly.

Then I felt the sting of the leather as he brought the belt down. The cracking sound it made against my flesh was so loud that it drowned out my initial squeal of pain. But as he continued to bring the belt down across my ass, I clenched my teeth and refused to give him anymore verbal indications that it hurt. I had been through worse than this with the other six and if this and a branding was all he had, then I knew I could stick it out.