Dorothy Garlock - [Wyoming Frontier] (39 page)

“I’ll take care of you, sweetheart. And Hank will take care of Mary and Theresa.”

“Hank and Roy Stanton are as different as daylight and dark. I’m glad Mary and Theresa have him.”

“That big Irishman loves them. He thinks he’s got the world by the tail going downhill backwards,” he said lightly in an attempt to lighten her mood.

Katy moved her hand from his armpit and traced a path with her fingers up and down his spine. Then her hand flattened and she ran her palm over his tight buttocks. Her mouth nuzzled against his and she caught his lower lip between her teeth and gave it a lover’s nip. His breath quickened, his heart picked up speed and his arms tightened around her.

“Nightrose,” he whispered fiercely, “you’re going to make a hobbling, mindless wreck out of me if you don’t cut that out!”

Her laughter was like the soft tinkling of a bell on a frosty morning.

Shortly before dark a little more than a week later, Katy and Rowe walked along the path south of town inspecting the site where the mill would be built.

“The first logging camp will be a mile to the west of the mill.” Rowe pointed toward the mountains that rimmed the town. “We’ll build it into the side of a hill and make it large enough to accommodate thirty men. There’ll be teamsters hired to haul the logs, choppers to fell the trees, sawyers to saw the trees into logs, and swampers to prepare the roads.”

“I thought the men would all live in Trinity.”

“The men who work at the mill will live in Trinity and some of the logging crew will too, if they bring their families. They’ll come home on Sunday and at other times when the weather gets bad. But we’ll have a number of woodsmen who make the lumber camps their home.”

Rowe showed her the path being cut through the timber where the logs would be snaked down to the mill and where the cut would be made connecting the stream with the lake.

The men worked from dawn to dusk, hurrying to get the site ready for the skilled carpenters who were due to arrive soon. They in turn would prepare for the men who would install the steam engine that would drive the saw blade. Katy marveled at how fast the work had progressed. Rowe had divided the men into work-shifts. He had put a good man in charge of each group and given them a goal. He was a fair employer, yet he firmly demanded a full day’s work for a full day’s pay. The men respected him.

“Where did you learn how to do all this?”

“From Anton. He had a mill in Minnesota. I went to work as a cutter; later we went into a partnership. We figured that this was the part of the country that was going to need lumber for the next fifty years, so we sold out and came here.” He gazed at her upturned face with loving dark eyes. “Fate, Nightrose. You and I were destined to meet here.”

They walked on. Rowe stopped so she could watch one of the men set a charge to blow a stump. They watched until the worker waved them back.

“Come on, honey. This is no place for you.”

They headed back to town, walking quietly along the bank of the creek. Darkness falls quickly in the mountains after the sun goes down. Behind them they heard the sound of the stump being blown and the man’s shout of satisfaction. They came around the bend in the creek where the willow trees were thick. A cow stood in the path calmly chewing her cud.

“Mable is loose,” Katy said.

Rowe pulled her to a halt as she started forward to grasp the rope dangling from the cow’s neck.

“Shhh . . .”

“What is it?” she breathed.

He heard the sound again . . . a soft thud, a low squeak. The sounds were almost inaudible save to one whose wilderness-honed heating could distinguish the slightest unnatural noise from the soft rush of the creek water and the wind worrying the willow branches.

“Come on.” Rowe placed his lips close to Katy’s ear, his eyes on the willows that dangled over the running water. “Go to the cow. Talk to her . . . loudly.”

Katy obeyed instantly. “What are you doing out here, Mable? You can’t roam about like this. You’d make a delicious meal for a wolf pack. Come on, girl. We’d better get you back up to the shed.”

Rowe moved up the hill while Katy talked to the cow, then he cut back, approaching the willows from the uphill side. With his gun in hand, he carefully parted the hanging branches and peered into the damp coolness beneath the willows.

A man lay on a woman holding her to the ground. She bucked and rolled her head trying to break free from his superior strength. Her skirt was bunched about her waist, her white legs were held in a vise between his. He held both her wrists in one hand, the other was over her mouth. Even that could not prevent the small squeaks of terror that Rowe had heard.

He reached them in two long strides, and with the strength of a madman he wrenched the man off the woman and threw him to the ground.

“You filthy son of a bitch!”

A scream tore from the woman’s mouth, bringing Rowe’s eyes down to her.

“Oh, my God! Katy!” he bellowed.

The man rolled to his knees in an attempt to stand. Rowe’s fist lashed out knocking him back down to the ground.

“Help her,” he said when Katy burst into the clearing beneath the willows. “It’s Mrs. Chandler’s little girl.”

“Myrtle? Oh, child!” Katy knelt down beside the hysterical girl and gathered her in her arms. “Oh, honey. Oh, you poor little thing. Who—?”

“Get on your feet, you rutting swine, before I stomp you to death.” Rowe grabbed the man by the nape of the neck and hauled him to his feet. His britches fell down about his ankles. When he bent to pull them up, Rowe’s big hand cupped his chin. With his fingers digging into the man’s cheeks, he held him erect. “You dirty, filthy bastard! This child is no older than your own daughter!”

“Mr. Longstreet?” Katy gasped.

“Longstreet,” Rowe spit out the name as if it were filth in his mouth. “I knew who it was the second I saw this fancy coat.”

Lee Longstreet clamped his mouth shut and refused to say a word. But there was a sneer on his mouth when he looked down at the sobbing girl. These ignorant louts would never understand what drove a man to revenge his honor, and he’d be damned if he’d tell them. Let them do what they would. Come morning he would be long gone from this place.

“Pull up your britches and walk out of here or I’ll beat you to a pulp and drag you out. If you run, I’ll shoot you in both knees before I blow your rotten brains out.” Rowe glanced at Katy who was helping the girl to her feet. “Is she all right, honey?”

“The poor little thing is scared to death.”

“Did he rape her?”

“I don’t know. She still has on her drawers, but they’re torn.”

“Take her to her mother. If he raped her, I’ll hang him.”

Katy had never heard Rowe speak with so much venom or so much finality in his voice. With rage upon him he was like a cold stranger. Katy led the way, her arms around the sobbing girl. They walked up the path past the cow, who munched contentedly on the grass. When they reached the funerary, Rowe paused and shouted for Hank. The big man hurried out in response to the urgency in Rowe’s voice. Mary followed.

“Come along, Hank. We’ve got some unpleasant business.”

“For goodness’ sake! What happened?” Mary ran a few steps to reach Katy and Myrtle.

“That lowlife son of a serpent had her down on the ground,” Katy hissed.

“Who? Mr. Longstreet?”

Men along the street stopped and watched the procession that headed for the eatery. A murmur of concerned voices raced from group to group. Mrs. Chandler and Flossie, drawn by the commotion, came out onto the porch. A cry of fright came from the big, raw-boned woman when she saw the state her daughter was in. She barreled down the steps pushing everyone out of her way until she reached her. She folded the sobbing girl in her arms.

“Baby! Myrt baby—” Mrs. Chandler looked at Katy over her daughter’s head. “What happened to my Myrt?” she demanded.

“Let’s go inside,” Katy said calmly.

“I’ll be waiting, Katy. You know what I need to know.” Rowe gave Lee Longstreet a shove toward the stone building.

Flossie ran after the men. “What’d he do to my sister?” she shouted. “What did that horny old bastard do to Myrt?”

Hank caught her arm. “Whatever it was, we be handlin’ it. Don’t get the men riled up, lass.”

“If he ruined my sister, I’ll kill him!” she hissed, then raised her voice and threw angry words at Longstreet’s back. “If you raped my little sister, I’ll cut your rotten head off!”

Flossie’s words spread like embers in a brisk wind. An angry murmur came from the men who lined the street.

“Go on back, lass,” Hank said firmly.

Lee Longstreet walked with his head up. He hated hard and had no regrets about the girl. He had evened the score with the Chandler woman and had enjoyed himself while doing it. He did, however, regret getting caught and regretted even more that he had been unable to penetrate the girl to the fullest. She was stronger than he had thought her to be. It had been a long time since a woman had fought him. He had merely to tell the wenches on the plantation to lie down and spread their legs. He hadn’t realized how hard it was to get between a pair of thrashing thighs. He should have knocked the little bitch cold.

“Bring lanterns and light up this place,” Rowe ordered.

When they reached the stone building, Rowe shoved Longstreet down on a bench attached to the front of it. Lee reached into his pocket for a cigar, struck the match on the stone wall behind him, and lit it. The group of men who ringed him were silent and staring. They wouldn’t lynch him. Rowe was too civilized for that. All they could do was run him out of town and he was going to go anyway. The small gun tucked into his belt at the small of his back was a comforting weight. He had carried the gun since his riverboat-gambling days. It was effective when pressed against a man’s spine.

By the time the lanterns were hung, almost everyone in town had gathered around the stone well in what was referred to as the town square. The girls from the Bee Hive and Lizzibeth stood together talking in hushed tones. The men from the bunkhouse and saloon, as well as Elias Glossberg and Laura Hillard, were there. They all stood silently staring at Longstreet, and their silence was more condemning than if they had been shouting.

After what seemed a long period of time, but could not have been more than a quarter of an hour, Katy came through the crowd, took Rowe’s arm, and led him a short distance away.

“Well?” Rowe asked when she didn’t say anything at first.

“There’s no blood on her underdrawers, so he didn’t . . . well, go deep. But he did . . . spend. It’s all over her privates and up on her stomach. The poor little thing fought as hard as she could, and that kept him from completely raping her.”

“You’re sure?”

“Mrs. Chandler says so.”

Katy could feel rage in her husband when she placed her hand on his arm. The muscles jumped beneath her fingers.

“What are you going to do?”

“Nothing that concerns you. Go on back and stay with Mary.”

“But . . . what are you going to do?”

“Katy”—he looked down at her sternly—“do as I tell you and don’t argue.”

Stunned into silence by his curtness, Katy stood with her arms hanging limply at her sides and watched him walk to the center of the semicircle of men in front of the stone jail.

“The girl was not completely raped, her maidenhead was not destroyed, but he did force himself on the child. Hank, Big John, Elias, Art, Lizzibeth”—he looked around and pointed to one of the lumberjacks—“and you. The seven of us will act as jury.”

Rowe took one of the lanterns, waited until the people he had named came forward, then led them into the darkness behind the building.

Twenty-five

Katy watched the men and the madam from the Bee Hive follow her husband. What’s this? she thought.
Rowe has no authority to try the man here. Lee Longstreet should be taken to Bannack or Virginia City, or be held here until a marshal arrives.
A feeling of apprehension began to build as she waited with the crowd.

Lee sat calmly on the bench, smoked his cigar, and looked at the crowd that surrounded him. The whores from the Bee Hive were together, their legs exposed from the knees down, feathers and spangles in their frizzed hair. Vera, his wife, stood between Agnes and Taylor and stared at him. There was neither disapproval nor concern on her face. For a brief moment, Lee wondered why he had ever married her, and then it came back to him. His papa needed relief from his debts, and she had been the means to gain the brief respite. The loggers, teamsters, and miners glared at him. The lower classes always enjoyed seeing their superiors brought down. Their opinions didn’t bother Lee in the least.

The “jury” returned, and Lizzibeth went to stand beside her girls. It was Rowe who spoke. He directed his words to Lee Longstreet.

“You have violated a young, innocent girl in every sense of the word except for one. Had you accomplished what you set out to do, we want you to know that we would have hanged you without a qualm. Instead, we have decided that you should have fifty lashes.”

Lee started to smile. They couldn’t be serious. He looked beyond Rowe to the men; all were nodding their heads with approval. Art Ashland was coiling a long, black leather freighter’s whip in his hands. Then he knew the big, dark man with his thundercloud expression
was
serious.

Still smiling, Lee reached beneath his coat for the small gun. As he brought it forward, Hank struck his arm. The pistol flew from Lee’s hand. Hank picked it up, emptied the chamber, smashed it against the stone building and handed it back to Longstreet. Lee dropped it in the dirt at his feet.

“Tie him to the well post,” Rowe said.

Lee whipped his head around toward Vera as he was jerked to his feet. She stood with her arms folded across her chest. Agnes slumped behind her mother, hiding her face against her back, but Taylor stood straight and looked his father in the eyes. For the first time in his life, Lee felt an emotion for his son. It was a grudging respect.

His coat was removed, his wrists were tied together and lashed to the end of the crossbeam that supported the well pulley. Through the fog that suddenly surrounded his senses, Lee couldn’t believe that this was happening.