Authors: Leaving Whiskey Bend
With surprise, Caleb realized that the gunshot had come from in front of him rather than behind. With the realization came sharp pain that washed over him like a summer storm, violent and without warning. His hands moved to his chest where they found a wetness that startled him. Concern knit his brow and his heart began to hammer in his chest. His legs wobbled, then buckled, and he crashed onto his rump in the dust.
“Wh-why?” was all he could manage to say as he sucked wet gasps of air through clenched teeth. Desperation, fear, and then sadness coursed through his mind. He was dimly aware of a single tear sliding hotly down his cheek.
From the darkness came an answer that was both soft and bereft of emotion. “I didn’t have a choice.”
Unable to control himself, Caleb Morgan slid onto his side and then to his back. He could no more move his arms or his legs than he could move the heavens. As he stared up at the moon and stars, he realized that the pain that moments before had threatened to overwhelm him was going away; in its place came an overwhelming coldness.
Freezing in July
was the last thought that passed through Caleb’s head before the darkness overtook him.
Whiskey Bend, Colorado, 1890
C
HESTER
R
EMNICK FLINCHED
as the bullet whizzed past his face and slammed into the side of the house. Splinters flew like frenzied insects. The thunderous clap of impact echoed in his already dazed head. It took all his self-control not to soil his britches.
“You stupid, lazy, no-good son of a bitch! I warned you that if you took so much as one damn step I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot. Are you as deaf as you are ugly?”
Pearl Parsons cocked the rifle quickly, adjusted her grip on the weapon, and sneered down the length of its barrel. She was in her early forties, strong limbed and tough, with deep lines etched into the rough skin of her face. Her dark hair, streaked with strands of gray, was pulled to the back of her head and pinned in a loose knot. Built close to the ground, she had broad shoulders, sturdy arms and legs that could work alongside any man in town—and she wasn’t a stranger to using a weapon.
Even as she ignored the urge to wipe a bead of sweat from her brow with the crimson scarf that lay across her shoulders, her eyes never left her target. If Chester was to underestimate her resolve, he would be making a mistake—the last mistake of his life.
“What—what the hell are ya doin’ here?” Chester yelled.
“Shut your mouth!”
“You can’t come in my house and order me about,” the man continued, his nasal voice rising with indignation. Color began to return to his face with every word. “You roust me outta my sleep, then you take a shot at me! You got balls, bitch! You got balls that’d put a bull to shame!”
Early morning summer light bathed them in an orange glow. Having barely crested the horizon, the sun hung low and large in the eastern sky, a buttery orb readying to spread its warmth. The day would undoubtedly be hot, but for now the coolness of night clung to the air. Where birds had chirped loudly only moments before, they now fell silent in the wake of the gunshot. No breeze stirred the air. It was as if all nature were paying witness, holding their breaths for the next outburst.
“You’re gonna pay for this, bitch!” Chester threatened.
“You call me that again, chicken shit, and I’ll make a hen outta you.” Clutching the rifle, Pearl pointed it at his crotch, a sign of her resolution to use it.
She wondered if Chester Remnick was smart enough to even understand how desperate she was. He reminded her of a rodent. In his midtwenties, he was skinny and scraggly of body, with dirty brown hair that hung limply over his sharp features, and his face was defined by a hook of a nose and a receding chin. His beady black eyes, small teeth, and the ever-present stubble on his cheeks completed the picture. Like the rat that he resembled, he made Pearl feel the need to be alert when near him. She was glad that she wasn’t facing him unarmed. Glancing over her shoulder, she called to her companion, who stood stock-still in the grass twenty feet away.
“Hallie, are you all right?”
From somewhere in a deep fog, Hallie Wolcott finally managed to nod her head in response. The gunshot had frozen her almost as effectively as it had Pearl’s intended target. Her hand trembled as she pushed a strand of auburn hair from her smooth face. In all her twenty-two years, nothing had prepared her for what had taken place before her green eyes, and the shock had almost overwhelmed her.
“I’m all right.”
“Go see about Mary. This horse’s ass shoved her down,” Pearl said in a calm and firm voice.
With the mention that Mary needed her attention, the fear that had gripped Hallie suddenly released her.
Mary Sinclair lay in a crumpled heap several feet away, as if she were a doll that had been haphazardly thrown aside. Lifting her dark skirt, Hallie rushed to Mary and fell to the ground beside her. Deep sobs racked Mary’s body and shook her tiny frame. Her simple green dress rose and fell as each wave of emotion washed over her. She lay with her face pressed to the earth, her stringy hair swirling about her shoulders as if it had been tossed by a strong wind. Mewling, wet sounds escaped from her mouth.
“Is she all right?” Pearl asked anxiously.
“I—I can’t be certain,” Hallie admitted.
Gently she pushed the wayward strands of hair from Mary’s pale brow and turned her friend’s face toward her own. The woman’s eyes, bloodshot and red rimmed from crying, searched her own frantically, as if looking for shelter in a storm. Mucus and spittle were smeared across her nose and mouth. While these sights unsettled Hallie, what truly made her stomach churn were the cut and swollen lips and the bruises that covered Mary’s face; it was like a bizarre rainbow of colors, with greens, browns, purples, and all shades in between.
“Get yer goddamn hands offa her!” Chester bellowed. “She’s my woman.”
Pearl gave a derisive snort. “She’s not your woman, you son of a bitch! Just ’cause your pa married her ma don’t mean you have any claim to her.”
“Pa gave her to me!”
“Don’t say another word!”
“Ya stupid bitches don’t have no idea what yer getting into!” he continued, undeterred. “Ya ain’t got no right to butt in. What happens between a man and his woman ain’t none a yer business!”
“One more word out of you and you’re goin’ to be missin’ some parts and walkin’ spraddle legged—if’n you can walk at all!” Pearl shouted back.
Hallie cradled Mary’s head in her arms and stared coldly at Chester Remnick. If hatred were an emotion she could translate into action, she was certain that in that moment she would have killed the man. With that realization, she was glad that it was Pearl who held the rifle. Still, Chester wasn’t her real concern;
Mary was
.
“We’re taking you out of here, Mary,” Hallie soothed.
Putting all thought of Chester behind her, Hallie turned her attention back to her devastated friend. Placing a hand tenderly upon the woman’s shoulder, she softly asked, “Can you hear me, Mary?”
The only answer she received was a racking sob.
“She’ll be fine as soon as we’re gone from here,” Pearl offered.
“We’re leaving, Mary. We’re leaving Whiskey Bend,” Hallie said.
And you’re coming with us
.
Hallie found it hard to believe that it had only been a few short hours since she had witnessed Chester viciously slapping Mary’s face in the center of Whiskey Bend. She and Pearl had happened upon the scene on their way home, and what they witnessed horrified them. Mary had stopped to speak with a young man, a clerk in one of the stores. Chester took her act as an affront and slapped her viciously. He punctuated each blow with a curse or slur, further demeaning the girl whose only crime was stopping to talk with an acquaintance.
Hallie flinched at every blow, as if she were the one being struck. Tears clouded her vision.
“Stop it, you brute! Stop hitting her!” she shouted.
“Tend to yer own business, slut,” Chester barked in answer.
Pearl’s hand grabbed her arm, refusing to allow her to become involved, when not a man along the street offered to interfere between a man and his woman.
“Now isn’t the time,” Pearl said.
“But he’s going to kill her!” Hallie argued.
“I’m not disagreein’ with your concern,” the older woman explained, her jaw set as firmly as if it were made of stone, “only with your timing. Not here and not now . . . but we will do something.”
In that moment, unspoken between the two of them, was the realization that it was time to leave Whiskey Bend. It was inevitable that, if they didn’t take Mary with them, Chester would surely kill her. Maybe not that night, or the one that followed . . .
but it was going to happen
! In order to save the life of Mary Sinclair, a girl they had befriended, they had to act fast. They needed to get themselves and Mary as far away from him, and Whiskey Bend, as possible.
Their plan had not yet been solid, but they had to act quickly. Hallie and Pearl each had her own reasons for leaving Whiskey Bend, and the sight they had witnessed was simply the final straw. They were leaving and they would take Mary with them.
After procuring horses and a wagon, the two women loaded it with their own meager belongings. Hallie held her tongue when Pearl placed the rifle in the wagon beneath the seat. It had still been pitch-black when they headed for the ramshackle cabin that Chester and Mary inhabited on the far outskirts of the township. Conveniently, the closest neighbor lived over a mile away; if things became messy, there’d be no one to interfere.
Regardless, they stopped the wagon a safe distance from the cabin and went the rest of the way on foot. They walked in silence, each keeping her thoughts to herself. As the sun just began to brush the horizon pink, the cabin came into view.
The place Chester and Mary lived was pitiful. Boards of many different shapes and sizes were nailed haphazardly together creating a small frame. Most of the windows contained broken glass and some no glass at all. The front door had been hung crookedly; it looked as if it were leaned shut. Hallie’s heart sank at the thought of her friend spending her days and nights in such squalor.
When they were no more than a stone’s throw from the cabin, Pearl spoke. Her words chilled Hallie all the way to the bone. “I’ll kill him if I have to,” Pearl promised, tightening her grip on the rifle.
“You can’t, Pearl,” Hallie replied. “You just can’t.”
“Don’t worry, Hallie,” the older woman said, a smile cracking her face. “I won’t if I don’t have to. It ain’t somethin’ I want to do, but I’ve gotta be ready for that snake if he strikes!”
Hallie wasn’t able to offer any further argument. Even though she couldn’t bring herself to admit it, the gun in Pearl’s hands made her feel safer. Chester Remnick
was
as sneaky as any serpent. There was no telling what he would do. He wouldn’t let them walk in and simply take Mary; Hallie was sure of that.
Slowly and quietly they made their way to the tiny cabin. Saying a silent prayer, they eased their way inside the crooked door. On the other side, in the room that made up most of the ramshackle home, they had found Chester sprawled on a filthy bed. He was dressed only in his pants and was snoring loudly. The room smelled strongly of the whiskey that had spilled from the bottle at his side.
“Quickly,” Pearl whispered, leading Hallie farther into the cabin.
In a lean-to attached to the back of the house, they found Mary asleep on a stained, sagging cot. She looked terribly young as she lay there, temporarily safe. Hallie felt a sudden urge not to wake her, not to bring her back. Pearl did not share the same sentiment and attempted to wake their friend. What happened next was the true nightmare.
“Mary,” Pearl cooed. “Mary, wake up.”
As the sleeping woman’s eyes had fluttered once, twice, then opened, the look that filled them wasn’t one of joy at seeing her friends, or even surprise as to why they happened to be standing in her bedroom. Instead, they reflected terror, sheer terror.
“No, no, get away! Get away from me!” Mary screamed.
Too stunned to think, both Hallie and Pearl remained frozen in place as Mary sprang up from the bed and made a dash for the door, desperate to escape. Pearl was the first to move and, after what had seemed like forever, Hallie followed.
“Mary! Stop, Mary! It’s Pearl and Hallie!”
“Get—get away from me!”
They passed Chester, still groggy yet quickly awakening from his drunken stupor, and burst back out into the growing daylight, when Mary simply collapsed onto the ground and began to wail. Hallie was about to run to Mary, to offer some comfort, when Chester’s liquor-addled voice burst into the morning.
“Stay away from her, ya stupid bitches,” he growled.
From the time that Chester had first spoken to this moment seemed no more than a blink of the eyes to Hallie, punctuated by a gunshot. As she looked down at Mary’s shaking form, she couldn’t help but wonder if Chester’s first question had a logical answer.
What
are
we doing here
? Hallie assumed that Mary would be thrilled at the thought of leaving her squalid life, but she was terrified instead. Now, with Chester alert and threatening, Hallie knew that their chances of leaving without violence were slim.
“Just stay where you are, you miserable son of a bitch,” Pearl snapped. “She didn’t know who we were, Hallie. She thought we were some of this buzzard’s drunken friends,” she said without turning around.
“Ya stupid whore.” Chester spat. Anger coursed through him now, the corners of his mouth rising in a sadistic sneer. “Ya think yer just gonna take her? She’s mine, I tell ya!”
“She’s no more yours than I am!”
Chester glared at the woman defying him. “There ain’t nowhere ya can go that I ain’t gonna be able to find ya . . . and when I do, I’m gonna kill ya! Both of ya!”
Hallie understood that Chester believed his own words. Even if they managed to get Mary away, she knew that he would never stop looking, never stop hunting until he had exacted his revenge and retrieved what he felt belonged to him.