Authors: Abbie Williams
“That was the story,” Angus said, and his eyes were deep with memory. “But not with the swinging rope. She hung herself years before, if you’ll recall. Hadley dared me and I couldn’t back down and keep my pride, not as a boy of ten years.”
“Did you meet him?” Malcolm asked. “I would have!”
Angus smiled then, rather disarmingly. His gray eyes danced over to me, then back to Malcolm. “In answer to your question, son, I did. I crept from my daddy’s house, terrified that he or my mother would wake and strap me within an inch of my life, but they slept on. I walked through the night, thinking myself as brave as a man, and sat by Sutter’s Creek in the moonlight. It was a night just like this, still but with a strangeness in the air, and the longer I sat waiting for Hadley, the more my imagination began to play tricks on me. Every little rustle in the leaves became Mary Sutter’s skirts swishing behind me. I could see the swinging rope that I knew well my own daddy had hung, dangling over the creek in the darkness, and then, though it was a windless night, I was certain it started to sway of its own accord.”
I shivered at this; Angus was good at captivating his audience.
“I was about to say to hell with it and forget Hadley, when something came out of the brush just behind me, with a great swooshing sound. To this day I don’t know if it was Hadley, or a critter, maybe an owl, but I ran like the devil himself was on my heels, bursting into our house loud enough to wake the dead, let alone Daddy and Mama. I couldn’t sit for a week after Daddy was done strapping me.” But he grinned at the memory.
“Was it Hadley?” Malcolm demanded. “What was it, Gus?”
“Hadley swore it wasn’t him,” Angus said. “He claimed he meant to meet me but fell asleep.” He leaned to regard the roasting meat. “And I believe this venison is ready for us.”
“Old Hadley had him a pet raccoon many a year later, I recall,” Boyd said, using his knife to dislodge pieces of the juicy, crackling meat for our waiting plates.
“I remember that critter,” Malcolm said. None of us bothered with our forks, as the meat smelled so delicious. “Remember how he’d bring it to church an’ Reverend Wheeler would stop the service an’ stare ’til Hadley would take it back out?”
Angus laughed heartily at that. “I’d almost forgotten. You couldn’t have been more than three or four years, Malcolm.”
“But I remember! Mama used to say that she felt sorrier than ever for his wife, Martha.”
“My mama felt sorry for her too,” Sawyer allowed.
“Martha Chissum was a brave lady, though. Remember how she chased a hoop snake outta their yard an’ then—”
“Not another hoop snake!” I groaned, cutting off Malcolm’s comment and laughing at his expression.
“Lorie, I’m telling you,” he insisted, wide-eyed with sincerity. “There was plenty of them in the hills. Granny Rose chased a hoop snake away when Mama was carrying me an’—”
“Here comes that goddamn hoop snake tale,” Boyd said, but he was grinning. Everyone’s lips were shiny; I felt as though I couldn’t eat enough to satisfy my hunger, catching myself licking my fingertips. Mama would be horrified, but no one here paid mind.
Angus said, “Poor old Hadley, all the womenfolk in Suttonville felt sorry for his wife. Dear Martha, she stood by him even when he had become a drunk.”
“I would have been marked with a circle,
a hoop
!” Malcolm yelped indignantly.
I was laughing too hard at his remark to continue eating, and had to set aside my food and bury my face behind my hands. It was such a foreign sensation, laughter of this kind. Dimly I recalled laughing hysterically over things Dalton or Jesse would do, in my old life. Malcolm, brother-like, reached over and poked me, jabbing his index finger into my ribs. I only laughed all the more, shying away from his tickling and then collapsing in a heap as he dove on me.
“
Malcolm
!” Boyd bellowed. “You can’t—”
I was weak with laughter as Malcolm tickled, pinning me and digging his fingers into my ribs, unable to catch his hands in my own to stop him.
“All right, kid, that’s enough,” Sawyer said, bending over us and extracting Malcolm, again around the waist, as he had earlier today.
“Boy, do you need a whipping?” Boyd asked, his dark eyebrows lofted high as he asked, “Lorie, you hurt?”
I sat up, still giggling a little, and brushed loose hair from my eyes. I managed, “I’m just fine.”
“Malcolm, you can’t wrestle with a lady like she’s your brother,” Angus admonished, though I could tell he wasn’t truly upset with the boy. His eyes were amused.
Malcolm was still raring, twisting away as Sawyer loosened his grip. He darted behind Sawyer and then leaped high onto his back, catching him around the neck. Sawyer shook his head, then turned away from the fire and tipped forward, neatly flipping Malcolm over one broad shoulder and catching him upside-down. To Malcolm he asked, “Done yet?”
Malcolm squirreled away again and Boyd observed, “I think you mighta been marked by a circle after all, boy, the way you’s acting right now.”
“A hoop!” Malcolm hollered, and I was swept away in mirth yet again.
By the time we’d retired to bed, my stomach ached from laughing. After so many years of my stomach aching for various other reasons, such as terror or tension, I decided I could handle this sort of pain. I slipped out of my clothes with a smile still on my face, wrapped my new shawl about my shoulders and brushed my hair. I was just finishing this task when I heard someone approaching my tent and then Angus murmured, “Lorie, are you still awake?”
“I am,” I whispered, my hands suddenly motionless.
“I saw the lantern and thought you must be,” he said, right outside the entrance. He hurried on, “Sawyer told me you needed something for your feet.”
The tense breath I’d been holding released itself then, and I set down the brush and moved to untie the lacings. The darkness outside was complete, with the fire banked for the night. Angus was still fully clothed; I noticed this, as though I’d somehow been expecting otherwise. He handed me a small round tin and said, “Use this and we’ll look at them in the morning.”
I took it from him and said, “Thank you.”
He smiled at me, softly, and then whispered, “It was good to hear you laugh tonight. Good-night, Lorie.”
And then without another word he turned and headed back to his own tent.
- 10 -
After Angus walked away, I sat on the bedding and drew my feet one after the other atop my skirt to apply the salve.
Sawyer told me
, Angus had said.
I blinked and then studied the ground for a moment as I realized I was entertaining the thought of Sawyer coming through the darkness of our camp to deliver the tin into my hands. Further, I could hear my heartbeat, amplified by its sudden speed and force.
Lorie
, I admonished myself.
But my thoughts would not be quieted. Not for the first time, I pictured the expression in Sawyer’s eyes as he bent over me, albeit for only seconds, to lift Malcolm up and away. I swallowed hard, concentrating on calming my blood, a mostly-futile effort, and then blew out the lantern and curled onto my bedding, uncertain if I’d be able to sleep. Though I must have dozed, for when a hand clamped over my mouth sometime into the night, it woke me.
I blinked wildly, attempting to make sense of what was happening; a shape was hovering over me in the darkness of my tent, just visible against the pale canvas. I started and would have screamed for all I was worth, if choking fear hadn’t blocked my throat and a hand hadn’t been curved over my mouth, hard enough that my teeth were cutting into the backsides of my lips. I bucked, twisting instinctively, and immediately two things happened: a knee braced my hips forcefully to the ground and a face appeared next to mine.
“I won’t hurt you none, if you come quiet,” someone, a man, said into my ear. He barely whispered the words, but they resounded in my mind and I fell still at once. I could feel whiskers against my cheek and smell his breath as he continued, low, “I’ll take my hand away, but you best not screech. I don’t want to kill no one here, but I will.”
Who was it, who was it
?
The small part of me that was able to reason recognized the voice and my heart seized with panic.
Oh God, dear God…it’s not…it can’t be…it’s not…
“Nod if you understand,” he ordered in a whisper.
I nodded with two terrified jerks of my head.
Not Sam…not Sam…but who?
“I’ll let up my hand,” he said again. “Not a sound.”
He eased back. I sat up and he repeated, “Not a sound.”
I stared hard into the darkness, unable to discern facial features, but his outline also struck me as vaguely familiar. My wits slowly gathering, I knew with cold certainty that Ginny was responsible for this; she had no doubt offered someone money enough to risk coming after me. I also knew, in the deepest part of my gut, that if I was to return there, I would never walk back out the swinging door of Hossiter’s. She would have me killed; perhaps that was what this man was here to do.
Stall.
“Dress, and quick,” he murmured, and pressed the small, unyielding nose of a pistol between my breasts to emphasize his words.
I moved slowly, but as I fumbled for my boots I realized that my complicity was perhaps the only thing that would keep anyone from getting hurt.
Oh dear God.
I couldn’t risk making a sound, though my heart was throbbing so hard, to my ears it rivaled a steam engine. No matter what, I would rather die a thousand times over than be responsible for one of them getting shot on account of me. Angus and Boyd, Sawyer, had all been soldiers, but Malcolm…my heart seemed to liquefy, like a pint of raspberries in a squeezing fist, at just the thought of him being harmed. I hurried into my boots, my fingers fumbling over the buttons of my blouse. Whoever this man was, he appeared more terribly ill at ease as the seconds ticked past, shifting restlessly, head turned towards the narrow opening he’d created in my tent, having neglected to retie the entrance flap. I could see a pie slice of black sky through the narrow slit.
“C’mon,” he insisted. “Hurry along.”
I finished dressing, quaking with nerves. They would have no idea where or why I’d disappeared into the night. How far would we travel before dawn and they woke to find me missing? The man ducked out the entrance, motioning with his head for me to follow. Perhaps I could—
The notion of my ability to possibly escape him had scarcely managed to form in my mind before he was flung brutally to the ground just outside of my tent. I made a sound of terrified surprise, unable to see what was happening; the tent flaps obstructed my view. Though I should have known far better and remained safe inside, I ducked out, both hands flying to my mouth at the sight I witnessed: Sawyer pinning the man to the ground with one knee in his lower back; as I stared in disbelief, Sawyer raised his right fist and dealt a fast, sharp blow to the side of the man’s head, at once stilling the scrabbling legs and silencing the grunting oaths. It took me another moment to realize that Angus stood with his Winchester aimed at the man’s head, not three feet away.
Chaos absolutely erupted as Boyd and Malcolm tumbled from their tent, nearly on top of one another, Boyd with his pistol in hand, Malcolm yelping, “What’s going on?!” And then, “Who’d Sawyer just kill?!”
Sawyer made a sound of disgust and rose to his full height, nearly growling his response, “I didn’t kill the bastard, just stunned him.”
I could only stare, astounded; Sawyer’s hair was loose down his back and he was shirtless, certainly roused directly from bed. My thoughts swirled too fast to make any sort of sense; how could he have known? There had been no sounds, nothing to alert anyone. I was so grateful that my knees became aspic and I sank almost slowly towards the ground. Angus and Malcolm moved to me at once, Angus catching his rifle under his left arm, Malcolm bounding over the body lying sprawled. They helped me up of one accord, while Sawyer and Boyd regarded the still form as one would the carcass of a despicable animal.
I leaned against Angus; now that I was safe again, I felt as though I may shred apart at the seams. Malcolm wrapped his arms around my waist and continued peppering me with questions, “Lorie, who is it? What was he doing? What does he want?”
I couldn’t answer, feeling the shakes starting; Angus used his free hand to stroke my hair. He tipped his head and murmured into my ear, “All is well, my dear, all is well.”
“We best do a quick check, boys, c’mon,” Boyd said then, his pistol at the ready, and Sawyer nodded at once. He disappeared into his tent and emerged seconds later with his own rifle.
Angus said to Malcolm, “Son, stay right here with Lorie, don’t move an inch. We’ll be back directly.”
I clung now to Malcolm, who kept a running commentary of his thoughts, though most slid over me like warm water, senselessly. His slender arms around my waist helped the horrible shaking in my limbs subside, though I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the body on the ground, lying literally at our feet.
What if he rouses before the men return? What if
…
They returned within minutes, their presence as reassuring as anything I’d ever known. Angus came back to my side, his face indistinguishable in the darkness, yet I could sense the concern in his eyes. Immediately he wrapped his arm around my waist. He said, low, “We didn’t see signs of any others, Lorie. There is a horse, staked out perhaps a hundred yards from here, saddled.”
Gorge rose up my throat as I imagined myself strapped like a dead deer to that very horse.
“Get him up,” Boyd demanded, and together he and Sawyer lifted the man by both arms and dragged him, roughly, to the fire. There they flipped him over, his arms flopping.
“Are you sure he ain’t dead?” Malcolm asked, moving away from me, his voice tinged with outright curiosity.
“He’s not dead,” Sawyer assured him. “Kid, grab a bit of rope and we’ll hogtie him.”
Boyd relit the fire, as morning was yet an hour away. Once its glow kindled into existence and revealed the man’s slack-jawed face, I said with quiet certainty, “Union Jack.”
All of them looked at once to me, and then back to him, his legs clad in their customary faded blue, the trousers that had once belonged to his army uniform. Their lips curled in outright disgust and Boyd muttered, “Goddamn Federal.”
“He was here for you,” Angus said, still holding me against his side. “What did he say to you, Lorie?”
I could not take my eyes from Jack’s face as I whispered, “He told me to come with him and he wouldn’t hurt any of you.”
At that Boyd snorted and said, “We ain’t that easy to hurt.”
“That woman you worked for, she sent him?” Angus pressed, still speaking calmly. I could hear the fury under his words, though, the tension.
“Is he a goddamn fool to come into a camp with four men?” Boyd was muttering.
“You were all sleeping,” I whispered, and my eyes were again upon Sawyer, who knelt as he tied Jack’s wrists together with a length of rope, roughly, pulling the knot severely tight. His eyes flashed to mine for the space of two heartbeats, catching the fire’s flame. His chest was yet bare, the ridges of muscle along his powerful shoulders and over his arms taut as he worked.
How did you know?
I thought.
In response to my unspoken question, startling me even more, Sawyer looked back to what he was doing and said, “I heard him creeping about.”
Angus asked again, “What did this man say to you, Lorie?”
“We oughta kill him anyway!” Malcolm declared, his dark eyes dancing with the excitement of it all. He looked at me, directly across in the fire’s light, and his eyes grew wide, the expression in them changing markedly. He cried, “Lorie, your mouth is bleeding!”
At his words, all of their heads jerked towards me in almost comic unison, and my fingers flew to my lips, where I could taste a small trickle of blood. Jack had pressed his hand so hard to keep me quiet, I’d forgotten.
“
He hit you?
” I hardly recognized the snarling voice as Sawyer’s. Before anyone could react, he lifted Jack by the shirtfront, violently, and appeared about to smash his head into the fire.
Boyd yelped, “Sawyer! Much as we’d all like to kill him, we can’t just now!”
Sawyer, his lips set in a grim line, flung Jack to the ground. I could not believe he would be so angry on my account; though any man with an ounce of decency would not take well to another man hurting a woman. Malcolm jumped close and kicked at Jack’s head with his bare toes, before Boyd shooed him away.
Angus had drawn me tighter to his side at Malcolm’s startled statement. He set his rifle carefully to the ground, took my chin gently in the fingers of his right hand and tilted me towards the firelight. He asked, keeping his voice calm with effort, “Did he strike you?”
“No,” I whispered. “He…when he told me to keep quiet, he pressed his hand over my mouth. It’s from…” I explained, “It’s from my own teeth.”
“Did he hurt you in any other way?” Angus asked, still holding my chin gently. His eyes were steady on mine.
“No,” I whispered, and Angus released a slow breath.
“Well I guess this was the storm you-all was blathering about earlier,” Malcolm said. “It just weren’t the kind you was thinking, Gus.”
I laughed a little that, but a strange, quivering laugh. At that moment Jack groaned and tried to roll to his side. When his eyes flapped open seconds later, he beheld both Boyd and Sawyer crouched at his side, looking down upon him like avenging angels whose only desire was to cause him harm. The expression on Jack’s face was so instantly terrified that it made the same sort of unhinged laughter roll upwards in my throat. Angus caught me gently to his side, watching somberly, while Malcolm squatted near Jack’s head and observed with visible glee.
Boyd didn’t point his gun at Jack’s face, but he held it lightly in one hand, making the piece very visible. His voice emerged quietly, so simultaneously drenched in menace that I shivered. Boyd ordered, “Tell us why you’re here.”
Jack blinked, tested the rope that bound his wrists and said hoarsely, “Let me up.”
“You goddamn bastard,” Sawyer growled. “Answer him.”
Malcolm grinned at this pronouncement, though my stomach was hollow with fear. Jack’s eyes roved frantically until they came to rest on me. He said, “Her. Lila.”
“That’s Lorie,” Malcolm corrected him, innocently, and Boyd shushed him with a look. Jack’s eyes did not stray now from me.
“That there’s one of Ginny Hossiter’s whores,” Jack said with certainty, and I closed my eyes, feeling as though the earth should open and receive my body directly into hell; no matter what I longed to pretend otherwise, his words were true.
“No,” Angus said firmly. “Lorie is no longer in her employ. You will return and inform her of this,
do you
understand?”
“Ginny wants her back,” Jack said, then cleared his throat, rolled towards the fire and spat. I opened my eyes to regard him, snakes of loathing coiling within my gut. He’d never been one of my customers, though I vividly recalled the night he’d inadvertently stopped Sam Rainey from killing me, near the docks in St. Louis; he was certainly one of Sam’s acquaintances, if not friend. Ginny had offered him enough money to risk coming after me. Though Jack was not bright, I surely could not imagine him being otherwise willing to attempt to steal me away and back to Hossiter’s. That Ginny would go to such measures made me ill; I had underestimated her, and put all four of them in harm’s way.
“What did she expect of you?” Angus asked him.
“I wasn’t to hurt her none, I swear. Ginny said no marks on her,” Jack said primly, as though repeating a lesson from a schoolmaster.
“You aren’t at liberty to take a person against her will, do you not realize this?” Angus asked him.
“I wouldn’t hurt her,” Jack repeated, an edge of pleading now in his tone.
“How did you find us?” Boyd asked, tapping the barrel of his pistol on Jack’s shoulder to gain back his attention.
Jack’s eyes darted to Sawyer, whose expression was so frightening that I wasn’t entirely sure he’d let Jack live to the dawn, no matter what anyone said. Jack faltered a little, but then said, “Him, this here golden-haired fella. Eva was right impressed by you, and more’n willing to tell Ginny everything you’d told her about heading to north along the Mississip. I found your trail, ain’t much trouble there.”