Mary Connealy (75 page)

Mark said, “‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.’”

Grace said, “Right, that’s the first. Then Jesus said, ‘And the second is like unto it—’”

“‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’” Mark sat quietly. His forehead furrowed as he thought about the new commandments.

“That’s it. Love. God says, ‘Love Me, and love each other.’ It’s simple. And so I love you. I love you because God tells me to.”

“You didn’t love me when I was your student and you were getting me thrown out of school.”

“Yes, I did. I wanted your pa to understand how unruly you were in school. I’d tried to talk to you, but you still wouldn’t mind. I’d tried to talk to your pa, and nothing changed. You boys were making it so the other students couldn’t study.” Grace left her hand on Mark’s cheek. With the other, she waggled her finger right under his nose.

“Loving you doesn’t mean you get to be naughty. I hoped by going to such lengths with your pa, he’d see reason and insist you boys behave. If I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t have cared how you acted. I wouldn’t have cared if any of my pupils learned or not.”

Mark reached up and caught Grace’s scolding finger. He lowered it away from his face. She wondered if he was going to start fussing at her again, as he always had in school.

Then the unhappy look on his face lightened, and he began to glow from within. “You love me?”

Grace nodded once, firmly.

Mark held tight to her hand and whispered, “I love you, too, Ma.” Then his very young blue eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want you to die.” His voice broke on the last word. He flung himself into her arms and squeezed the breath out of her and cried.

“I’m not going to die, son.” Grace caressed his blond hair and murmured nonsense to him until he’d worked himself through his upset.

He finally lifted his head and dashed his hand across his tear-streaked face. He looked around carefully. “Um…you won’t tell the others I cried, will you?”

“It’ll be our secret,” Grace said. “And, Mark…”

“What, Ma?” Her name had never sounded so good.

“We’ll find your worrywart pa and convince him I’m okay, and then this family can get back to normal.”

Mark nodded. “Yep, we’re finally going to be a real family.”

Grace gave him a sound kiss on the cheek and straightened away from him. “Everything is going to be just fine.”

Just then a hard arm grabbed Mark and pulled him backward off the log.

G
race screamed as that filthy arm wrapped around Mark’s little neck. She didn’t think. Desperate to protect him, she lunged for Mark. A brutal hand slapped her aside. She fell on her side to the ground and whirled around on her hands and knees, braced to attack again.

Then she saw his face.

Parrish.

“Get up, little Graceless.” Parrish lifted Mark by his neck.

Mark grabbed Parrish’s strangling arm with both of his little hands, squirming and trying to shout.

Parrish cut off the noise.

Mark kicked him.

Parrish shook Mark viciously. “Stop fighting me, you little—”

“Let him go.” Grace shook off the paralyzing terror that Parrish had trained into her so well. She scrambled to her feet and advanced toward this beast who had hurt so many children for so long.

Parrish’s arm tightened, and Mark coughed and yanked desperately against the vise around his neck. He began to fight less frantically, and Grace saw his eyes begin to glaze.

“Let him go. I’ll do anything you want. You came here for me.”

Parrish smiled. Fear like a cold Texas wind chilled Grace’s backbone. He loosened his grip slightly. Mark, still conscious, sagged against Parrish’s arm and dragged air into his lungs.

“Come over here, Graceless. When I have you, the boy can go.”

Grace felt the bite of tears. She looked at Mark and didn’t hesitate for a moment. She rounded the tree trunk she and Mark had been sitting on. A deep, coarse laugh erupted from Parrish as Grace came within his grasp. Parrish threw Mark aside. Mark rolled on the ground and hit the fallen tree hard.

Grace turned to help her son. Parrish grabbed her arm and jerked her upright.

Mark moaned, turning over sluggishly on his back. Blood streaked down his forehead from a nasty gash. Mark faltered as he tried to sit up, and then he collapsed, completely still.

Parrish dragged Grace toward the top of the canyon wall.

“No, I’ve got to help him. You hurt him, you—”

Parrish spun her around to face him. He slapped her across the face. She’d have fallen if his grip hadn’t been so tight. He raised his hand again. “The only reason to go back for that boy is to make sure he’s dead. Shall we do that, Graceless? You want me to go back?”

A wasteland of cruelty and sadistic pleasure glowed in Parrish’s eyes. He’d do it. He’d kill Mark and enjoy every minute of it. His huge, hard hand cut into her right arm until she wanted to cry out from the pain. He’d like that.

She refused to give him the satisfaction now, just as she had in the last years she’d been with him. Her back bore testament to how long and hard Parrish had lashed her with his belt, trying to break her spirit.

His grip tightened. A step above her on the steep hillside, he towered over her. “Your choice, darling daughter. We go quietly, or we stay and see to the boy.”

Grace looked back. She took one long last look at her son. The boy who said he loved her. She’d repaid that love by bringing Parrish down on this family. She never should have tried to face Parrish all those years ago. She never should have fought him. It had led to this.

Feeling like a coward after her high-minded talk of being brave, she turned away from Mark. “Let’s go. I’m ready for my punishment.”

Parrish jerked on her arm until it felt as though it would be torn off. That pain was nothing compared to the pain of seeing Mark lying behind them, hurt and bleeding.

“You knew the cost of going against me.” Parrish’s fingers dug deeper, and her arm began to go numb. “Yet you did it. You thought you could fight me.” Parrish laughed again.

Grace had heard this laugh a thousand times as he used his belt on her or the other children. But there was an edge to it now. Something shrill and furious echoed behind the laughter. She looked at him as he dragged her at a rapid pace up the slope through the thick woods.

He had always been clean cut, polished, even fastidious. Now he was filthy. His face coated with dirt, his suit torn but also worn paper thin. Parrish had changed. He’d been a sadist before, enjoying the pain of others, but he’d gone beyond that.

He looked down at her, and it cried out from his red-rimmed eyes. He was mad. She’d fallen into the clutches of a raving madman, and the only way to save Mark was to stay and let Parrish have his revenge.

Parrish twisted her arm as he dragged her upward. Farther every step from the only happiness she had ever known.

She’d left Daniel on an unhappy note. That was how he’d remember her. John loved her completely, and this would break his heart. It occurred to her that Daniel had been right all along.

She was going to die.

The minute they disappeared into the trees, Mark jumped to his feet. He looked after them, thinking hard but not long. He rubbed a handful of blood off his forehead.

“Blood!” Thrilled at the nastiness of the injury and how much bragging he could do, he wiped the blood on the front of his shirt where it’d be sure to show. He plotted just where that awful man would take his ma and the lay of the land. Then he turned and ran in the opposite direction.

He needed his brothers.

Parrish gasped for breath by the time they reached the halfway point up the canyon. The wall began to get steeper. The trees fell away. Grass grew, but the land was too full of stone for anything larger to thrive.

His grip never relaxed, but Grace didn’t try to fight him regardless. The boys were in danger as long as Parrish was close. That kept her moving. No matter what happened to her, she had to get Parrish away from this canyon for the sake of her sons.

Sweat stained the ragged black suit Parrish wore. He inched his way up, looking for footholds in the canyon wall. Grace looked upward. Daniel had said if they needed to go to town he could get out this way. But it was rugged and slow. Parrish stumbled on the rocky ground. He didn’t let her go, so she fell with him. She landed hard, flat on her belly on the hillside, right beside the vile man.

That’s when she thought of her baby. She suddenly realized that it wasn’t only her sons who needed protection. She had a baby that deserved better than dying before it had lived.

“Great is thy faithfulness.”

The words came to her, whispered on the wind. Her prayer for courage. She’d thought going with Parrish to protect Mark was the right thing to do, and it had been at that moment when Mark was so vulnerable. But what about now? Where was her courage? Parrish was an old man, exhausted and not in his right mind.

Grace thought of her boys wrestling in their bedrooms, knocking each other off their new beds, playing King of the Mountain. Well, they were on a mountain right now. She lifted her knees up to her chest and kicked Parrish in the belly.

“Aaahh!” Parrish’s fingers clung to her arm, but her dress ripped with a hiss and the sleeve tore and jerked the buttons loose in the back; the dress was pulled halfway off her shoulder as he slid backward. He held on to Grace and pulled her with him. They tumbled a few yards before Grace came up fighting. She caught a handful of mud in her hand and threw it into Parrish’s ugly, snarling face. He swallowed it and began choking.

“You lousy little…” He lunged for her. “I’ll teach you some respect if it’s the last thing I do.”

Grace jumped aside, reached out her foot, and tripped him, just as Mark always did to John. Parrish caught her skirt as he fell past her, and she fell again, head over heels, down a long stretch of the canyon-side, into the grove of trees.

She landed with a dull thump against a loblolly pine. The blow knocked the wind out of her, but she ignored her pain and staggered to her feet, fighting for each breath. She saw a tree branch and remembered the boys’ sword fights. She snatched it up, the sleeve of her dress hanging from her wrist, and swung with all her might.

Parrish, charging, ran right into it. The branch smacked him in the belly with a hollow thud. It stopped him cold. He sucked in air on an inverted scream, dropped to his knees, and stared stupidly at her. Grace lifted the branch again. She owed him another one for the time he’d thrashed her and her five little sisters for reading after dark.
Whack
.

She owed him for the times he’d made her sit on the floor and fed her thin oatmeal, while he sat at his fine table eating roast beef.
Whack
.

She owed him for the little girl he’d whipped so hard she was never normal again, and as soon as he saw she was permanently damaged in the head, he sent her back to the orphanage.
Whack
.

She owed him for the blow she’d taken just now, which might have hurt her unborn baby.
Whack
.

And she owed him for the blood on Mark’s head. Her son might be dead even now. She lifted her arms high for this last solid blow. Then she had to go to Mark.

Mud splattered into Parrish’s face. Then a hail of mud balls pelted him.

A shrill scream from overhead whirled Grace around.

Mark swung down out of the tree, hanging from a vine. He plowed, feet first, into Parrish’s chest, knocking him on his back onto the ground.

Abe and Ike charged out of the woods, roaring like Johnny Reb charging into battle, armed with sticks and stones.

Luke and John were right on their heels, screaming like banshees. Mark, out of control on his vine, swung back and slammed into all of them, knocking them down like dominoes.

He fell off the rope, bounced a few times, then turned, along with his brothers, and charged at Parrish, who sprawled flat, too addled to notice all the little feet kicking him.

Grace dashed forward to get the boys to stop.

Then…she didn’t.