Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1 (18 page)

“Goddamn you, bitch!” He yanked his head up, swinging his hand at the same time to strike her across her face, knocking her back onto the ground. He was up on his knees, blood trickling from his ear. Snatching at his trousers, he bellowed, “I’m going to teach you a lesson you won’t forget, you little spitfire. I’m going to make you beg for mercy.”

Her head still reeling from the blow, the sight of his bulging manhood, red and swollen, leaping from his trousers, gave her the strength she needed to bring one knee up and crashing into his testicles. With a howl of pain, he grabbed himself and rolled sideways, and Kitty was leaping to her feet, backing away from the men who were converging on her with angry faces.

“Get the bitch…” Luke was moaning. “Get her and tie her down.”

She had nowhere to go but backward, and suddenly she felt the cold dirt wall of the cave pressing into her shoulders. Silas Canby was coming closer, arid for the first time she recognized Orville Shaw. And they were laughing, taunting, hands snatching out to pinch at her breasts, her crotch…

“No, no…” She began to swing at them, clawing, kicking. Where was a weapon? A club? Anything to defend herself. But there was nothing she could reach, and she was no match for the half dozen men who quickly subdued her and pushed her to the floor, ripping the rest of her clothing from her body until she was completely naked.

Someone was hammering stakes into the ground. She felt her legs being spread apart…her arms pulled above her head and tied. Spread-eagled and naked—she was at their mercy.

“Hurry up, Luke…” someone said in a thick voice, heavy with desire. “Seein’ her like that… God, what a body… I gotta have some, too.”

“Did you ever see such big tits?” someone else chortled.

“Get back…” Luke was coming toward her. Through half-closed eyes, Kitty could see him approaching. He knelt between her spread knees, both hands clamping down on her breasts to twist viciously, painfully. “Nobody is gettin’ her but me, understand? She’s mine…all mine and when I get through with her, there ain’t gonna be enough left to spread around.”

She felt a sharp, stabbing pain, and she screamed…screamed until her throat felt as though it were turning inside out. Jerking her head from side to side, the dirt floor clawed at her cheeks as she cried over and over as Luke plunged into her again and again. Her insides were burning, tearing, as he relentlessly pounded against her, grunting and moaning like a wild animal. She was dimly aware of something sticky running down her legs, realizing it was her own blood.

Finally, mercifully, he slumped against her as his body exploded within
her. She felt herself drifting away into blackness, but he was shaking her, slapping her, ordering someone to throw cold water in her face. “Damn you, don’t you pass out on me,” he screamed. “I want you awake… I want you to feel every goddamned thing I do to you. I want you to hurt like I did when you put that ball in my shoulder… I want you to hurt like I did when your boyfriend wrapped that bullwhip around my neck… I want you to grovel and scream and beg…”

He was entering her again, plunging, pushing, with knifelike jabs and jerks that shook her whole body. She could feel the flesh being torn against the ground as her back and hips were rocked to and fro. She could feel the skin splitting around her breasts and nipples as he bit and chewed against the tender flesh. On and on he went, and she prayed. to sink into the blackness that sought to consume her…and each time she drifted away someone would sling a bucket of water into her face, bringing her back to face the stark, stabbing reality of the hell that Luke Tate was inflicting upon her body.

And finally, mercifully, she felt herself slipping once again…felt the sudden splash of water on her face…but even that could not bring her back as the inky black void opened up to claim her. She remembered thinking,
This is what it’s like to die
.

Someone was holding a bitter liquid to her lips and commanding that she drink it or choke on it. Opening her eyes, she saw Luke bending over her. Beyond him, the sky was visible through the thick shroud of trees. The rain had ended. Where was she? Why was Luke Tate here? And where was Doc? They had to keep moving…get the supplies to the wounded…

Slowly, it came back to her, and she opened her mouth to scream with terror, and Luke tossed the burning whiskey inside her parted lips. Gagging, she spit it out, and he swore and wrapped strong fingers around her throat, snarling, “Drink it, damnit, or I’ll drown you. You ain’t gonna die on me, you hear?”

Blinking, she let the liquid trickle down her throat. It burned, but once it hit her stomach, it felt good, in spite of the stinging sensation. How long had it been since she had eaten? She couldn’t remember.

Her body ached all over. Glancing down, she saw that someone had wrapped a blanket around her nakedness. Luke pulled her up to a sitting position and propped her against the wall of the cave. He yelled at someone to bring some food, and when it arrived, Kitty’s stomach lurched at the sight and smell of the greasy-looking turtle stew.

“Well, I’m sorry you don’t like our cooking,” Luke laughed, forcing her to swallow the glob of stew he held in the scoop of his fingers, “but we ain’t had time to unpack your supplies and see what you brought us. Soon as you feel better, you can do the cooking for us.”

The greasy concoction stuck in her swollen throat, and she gagged. Luke cursed, forcing more into her mouth. “Now eat, damn you! You’re staying with us, and I don’t want you all poor and sickly. We’re going to be riding out of here in a few days, and you better be in good shape.”

“Where…where are we going?” she asked, her head throbbing dizzily.

“Can’t see where it’s any of your business, but I guess it won’t hurt for you to know that we’re going to ride around and kill Yankees or Rebels, whichever gets in our way first. We’re going to steal gold, food, anything we want, and when this war is over, we’ll be the rich ones—not the poor dead heroes or slobbering leftovers with stumps where legs and arms used to be. Not us…” He threw back his head and laughed, and Kitty stared at him contemptuously, realizing that she never thought she was capable of hating a human being as much as she hated Luke Tate. If she had her fingers around a knife or the trigger of a gun, she could easily kill him with no guilt or remorse whatsoever—and she silently cursed herself for not doing so when she had the chance.

He seemed to sense what she was thinking, and his face twisted into an ugly grimace. He threw the pan of foul-smelling stew to the floor of the cave, and it hit and splattered, as he reached to yank the blanket from her body, exposing her nakedness. “I think it’s time to show you again who’s boss.”

“You want me to have the boys tie you up and watch again like they did last night, or you want to relax and enjoy the fun?”

Memories flooded back—Doc lying dead in a pool of blood—Luke raping her again and again. Give in to this blood-crazed, lust-filled creature? Never. She would sooner die. Her nails ached to rake the flesh from his face, gouge his eyeballs from their sockets. From deep within, she felt the trembling begin, but she sought to control the urge to fight, as another picture conjured painfully within her brain. Her father, sitting on the porch in his rocking chair, staring out into space, spirit broken, seemingly—but there all the same, smoldering, subconsciously waiting for the right time to come alive again. She saw the message in that flash of memory—the quick lesson that must be rapidly learned. Submission. If she answered the urgent cry smoldering within and fought back now, Luke would beat her, tie her, and rape her anyway. But if she submitted…if she pretended that he had broken her spirit…then she could wait for the right time and place and fight back and perhaps win.

She did not move nor speak. Slowly, Luke grinned, fingers moving forward to pinch her nipples. She stiffened but did not cry out. He pushed her backward onto the ground, stretching out beside her. Closing her eyes, she felt him fumbling with his clothing once again. Gritting her teeth, she felt his lips move down her neck, to her breasts, then upward to fasten on her lips. She yielded but did not respond.

“I’ll make you want me,” he whispered as she fought the impulse to gag against his foul-smelling breath. “Sooner or later, you’ll beg, but right now, you can pretend you don’t like it.”

Rough fingernails dug at the flesh between her legs as he forced them apart, plunging upward. Against her will, Nature’s moisture spread downward. Chuckling to himself, Luke slid on top of her, entering her, but mercifully this time he did not rip into her as brutally as before.

She tasted blood as her teeth bit into her lower lip as she fought to hold back the screams that gurgled in her throat. It can’t be happening, she thought wildly. None of this is real. It’s a nightmare—a cruel, terrible nightmare.

She couldn’t be here in the arms of this grunting animal, and Doc wasn’t really dead back there on the side of a road waiting for wild animals to rip his body to shreds, and Poppa wasn’t gone to God only knew where…and Nathan wasn’t off fighting in the war, maybe dead, too. No,
it
couldn’t be happening. It could not be real.

As bile rose in her throat, she shuddered, and Luke took the movement for her pleasure in spite of the fact that she was pretending not to respond. He moved faster, pounding into her.

And then, mercifully, she felt him slump against her—and for the moment, he was spent.

She turned her head to the cave wall and silently wept. It was real. It was not a tortured nightmare. She was here, naked beneath the sweating, stinking body of Luke Tate. Maybe it had always been this way. Perhaps none of the memories she held dear to her heart were real. There was no mossy bank beside a cool and rushing stream, where a bowing, graceful weeping tree held an embracing couple in the secret shroud of its leafy arms.

But it had to be true—she remembered every line of Nathan’s dear face—his warm, soft eyes that could grow harsh with desire as his hands moved over her. “I want you, darling…” Yes, she could even remember the words now. “I want you for always, for my wife, for the mother of my children, but right now, I want you for myself, because I never knew I could want a woman’s body more…”

And he had held back, because they both wanted everything about their love to be so perfect. But how could anything be perfect with war hanging over the country? She hadn’t thought, deep down, that it would really come. She hadn’t let herself believe that it would be quite so serious or tragic, or that so many lives would be affected. The North was a long way off. The Confederates would go North, Nathan had said, and whip the Yankees before they knew what hit them. And then he would come home—to her, to the beautiful life they would share.

She could remember the first afternoon that he had slipped her bodice down around her waist, cupping her breasts and marveling over their fullness and beauty. And he had touched gentle lips to each rosy nipple, both their bodies on fire, wanting consummation of their love.

He had been lying halfway on top of her, his thighs touching hers, and she had felt his hardness pulsating against her skin. How hard it was to pull away. How painful and difficult to break apart and vow to wait for marriage.

And now there was nothing to wait for. Nothing was what they had then—and all that Kitty had at the moment. She had to withdraw from the present, move back into the past and the sweet, wonderful memories and make them come alive, make them meaningful. One day, Nathan would come for her, and he would take her home and make her his wife, and then all of this horror would really become a nightmare—with no meaning, no bearing on the life she would live.

For the present, she would have to endure. Wasn’t that what Poppa had done all those weeks and months he had sat there listlessly in his rocking chair? Staring across the fields but seeing nothing. Now she understood. His present existence bad been more than he could bear. The loss of vision in one eye, the cruel beating he had suffered at the hands of those vicious Vigilantes, seeing people he had sought to help murdered ruthlessly, and, finally, watching the world around him break into bits and pieces as the threat of war grew closer and finally descended upon them—like the changing of the seasons, knowing it is inevitable, but unable to pinpoint the exact time when one season becomes another, until it has.

And then Poppa’s time had come. He could not stay and fight for something he did not believe in, so he left to go and defend his principles. But his spirit had been there all the while, smoldering, waiting to be unleashed. He had merely locked himself away from the painful reality of his present world to keep his sanity. This she could do also. She could take herself back to that mossy bank…to Nathan’s strong, possessive arms, and by closing her eyes, could even remember the warmth of his lips over and over again. She would stay there, beside him, not here with this animal sweating in his stench across her naked body. She would return and remain there and nothing could bring her back to this world.

She would not allow it.

Luke Tate was up on his knees, fumbling with his pants. “Now get up and get some food a-cookin’,” he ordered.

She moved woodenly, slowly, trying to concentrate upon Nathan—the day he told her he would rather die on the battlefield than come home and find her not waiting for him. “I love you that much, Kitty, my precious. I’d rather be in my grave if I can’t spend my life with you beside me.”

Yes, if she concentrated, very hard, she could be right there with him, remembering each word…each touch each caress.

She felt sticky, stubby fingers wrapping around her throat, halting her movement. “Let’s get a few things straight, sugar…I’m boss around here, and these men do what I tell them to do. Now you’re my woman. I been hankering to have you with me ever since I left. I intend to make some money off this war, but it’s hell not having a woman when I want one. You keep your mouth shut and don’t try anything, and you’ll do just fine, and I won’t hurt you no more, You try anything—and I’ll turn you over to my men, and when they finish with you, you’ll wish you were dead. You hear me?”