Mary Connealy (76 page)

She pulled her dress back onto her shoulders, looking at her dangling sleeve and thinking she had no idea how she would sew it back on. With a shrug, she left it there and dusted her filthy hands. After an unsuitable length of time, she said, “All right. That’s enough.”

The boys must have worn themselves out, because they stopped almost immediately and turned to her, grinning.

“You really pounded him, Ma,” Ike said. He dropped a heavy hackberry branch and ran over and threw his arms around her, nearly knocking her farther down the hill.

Abe slammed into her from the other side, thus balancing her again.

The rest of the boys swarmed her.

“Wow, Ma, we saw you beating that man up. I never knew you were tough like that.” Mark looked up at her, his eyes shining with admiration.

Grace thought of all the times she’d tried to get this little scamp to respect her when she was teaching school. Apparently all she’d needed to do was get in a fistfight on Mosqueros’s Main Street and he’d have behaved.

Parrish groaned from where he lay on the ground.

“Who is he, Ma?” Ike asked.

“Yes, Grace. Who in the world is that poor man you and my boys have beaten into the dirt?” Daniel stepped out of the woods.

“Where did you come from?” Grace tried to think back, a thousand years ago, to this morning. Daniel had declared her as good as dead and walked off in a snit. The big dummy.

“The woods.” Daniel shrugged, looking between Parrish and her as if he might be the slightest bit afraid his turn came next.

She planted her hands on her hips. “Have you by any chance noticed what is going on in your canyon, Mr. Reeves?”

She spoke in the voice she’d always used when she was the schoolmarm and he was the father of unruly students.

“I heard the screaming.”

“Pa,” Mark said, “you should’ve seen Ma whacking this guy in the head. It was really something.”

John ran up and slammed into Daniel’s leg. Daniel stood still, solid as a tree.

Grace wondered where he’d gotten such good balance. Practice no doubt.

“Pa, I’ve decided Ma’s not gonna die having that there baby.” John jabbed his thumb at Grace.

“John, it’s rude to point.” Grace noticed Parrish trying to get to his hands and knees. She walked over and whacked him once with her branch, still to hand. He fell back face-first in the mud.

“Speaking of rude, it might be rude to beat that man with a stick, Grace.”

John tugged on Daniel’s leg until Grace was relieved her husband had equipped himself with a good, tight belt.

“What is it, John?” Daniel asked, still looking at Parrish and Grace and the stick.

“I don’t know about our other ma, but I think this one’s pretty tough. I reckon she can kick out babies galore and not let it bother her none.”

Daniel asked hopefully, “You think?”

Grace asked nervously, “Galore?”

“You gonna tell me who that man is, Grace, honey?”

Grace stuck her nose straight up in the air. “Are you going to quit scaring us all to death with your talk about babies killing their mother?”

Daniel tilted his head as though he was thinking. “I’ll try and buck up.”

“That’s my father.” Grace jabbed her thumb at Parrish. She saw herself point and tucked her thumb into her fist and tried to look innocent.

All six of her menfolk turned to look at the man Grace had just walloped.

“Uh…you weren’t close, I’m guessing,” Daniel pushed his hat back and scratched his head.

“I ran away from home, and on my way out of town, I told the police he was a thief and turned over his account books that proved it.”

“He tried to strangle me, Pa,” Mark said, obviously thrilled to have had a brush with death.

“He what?” Daniel’s brow furrowed in anger.

“And I played possum while he drugged Ma away. Then I went for help.”

“It’s
dragged
, Mark,” Grace corrected. Just because they’d had a life-and-death struggle was no reason to let their grammar slip.

Daniel pointed at Parrish. “He drugged you?”

She flinched when Daniel pointed but held her tongue.

“Mark showed us where he hightailed it with Ma. He was kidnapping her, toting her off the 6R right over the canyon wall,” Abe added.

“And we’ve gotten plumb used to having her for a ma and we don’t wanta break in a new one,” Ike added.

“They are mighty hard to train,” Mark said with a sigh. “We’ve got this’n just how we like her.”

“We don’t just like her, Mark,”—Luke whacked Mark in the shoulder—“we love her.”

“You love me, Luke?” This was the first time Luke had said such a thing.

Mark shoved Luke back. Luke stumbled into Abe.

“That man hit you, Mark?” Daniel stepped toward his son.

“Get off’a me, sissy-baby.” Abe knocked Luke backward, where he stepped on Mark’s toe, who jumped sideways with flailing arms and swatted John right in the face. John slugged him, but because his eyes were closed from the blow he’d just taken, he missed Mark and punched Ike.

Ike grabbed John around the chest and lifted him in the air.

“Will you boys cut it out?”

They all froze and turned to Grace. John’s feet dangled in the air. Mark, holding his foot, howling with pain, was cut off in midscream.

She smiled. “Thank you. Please don’t make me shout again.”

They nodded fearfully.

“Yes, that man hit Mark.” Grace studied her temporarily subdued children. She turned to Daniel. “He didn’t drug me.” She glanced at Mark. “That’s poor grammar, son. He
dragged
me.”

“He dragged you?” Daniel’s voice rose as if his patience was falling by the wayside.

“He came here looking for me. He found me in Mosqueros last—” Grace was blank for a moment. It seemed as though she’d lived here always with these men she loved and with whom she had a perfect, tranquil life—except for the screaming and punching.

“January,” Daniel supplied immediately. “The twelfth. It was a Friday. We got home at about six in the evening.”

Grace glared at him. Apparently he remembered to the minute.

“What?”

She continued. “He’s been trailing me for the last two years. He must have gotten out of jail in Chicago somehow. And he isn’t a man to let a young girl do him harm without getting revenge.”

Daniel looked at Parrish, moving slightly, groaning occasionally, lying on his belly. “He did a bad job of getting revenge this time.”

“After he tookened Ma,”—Mark jumped into the space between Daniel and Grace—“I went and found the guys. And we set up a trap for him. We was gonna corner him and I swing-ed down outta that tree.” Mark pointed up but was too busy telling the story to make it clear.

Abe stepped between Mark and Daniel, adding to the number of people between Grace and her confused and sweet and stubborn-as-an-ox husband. It would always be like this.

“Ma saved herself.” Abe jumped up, swinging an imaginary club in the air.

He clonked Mark on the head with his arm. Grace caught Mark by the shoulder before he could retaliate.

Ike jumped in between Abe and Daniel. “We had to hurry or she’d’ve polished off clobbering him before we got here.”

Daniel looked over the long line of children at Grace. His eyes suddenly narrowed and focused on her. He rounded the boys and had her by the shoulders. “What happened to your face?”

Grace lifted her hand and realized her right cheek was swollen. “Mark’s bleeding. He had it way worse than me.”

She saw the effort it took Daniel to tear his eyes away from her and glance at Mark. It was purely encouraging.

He looked down at Mark, who had done his best to keep himself coated in blood.

Daniel let go of Grace and crouched down in front of Mark. “Are you all right?”

Mark shrugged and stared at the ground and kicked at a clod of dirt. “Aw, shucks, Pa. It ain’t nothing.”

“It
isn’t
nothing, Mark,” Grace corrected by reflex, tugging on her wrecked dress to keep herself decently covered. “I mean, it isn’t
anything
.” Grace shook her head. “It is
too
something.”

“Are you folks doing okay here?”

All of them whirled around at the new voice.

C
lay McClellen walked down the last stretch of the steep slope. Three men were right behind him, one of them the sheriff. All of them were armed and determined and looking right at Parrish.

Grace could feel Clay taking in Mark’s bleeding face, her bruised face and shredded dress, and Parrish’s inert form.

Parrish groaned loudly and pushed himself to his hands and knees, wobbling all the while.

“You folks have some trouble with this feller, too?” Clay jabbed his index finger at Parrish.

Grace had to clench her jaw to keep from telling him it wasn’t polite to point.

Daniel stepped forward, showing he was head of the family.

Grace harrumphed. “About time you took charge, Daniel.” She realized that Daniel had indeed seemed to become more in charge as she’d come to know how the Reeves men worked.

Daniel heard her and glanced back. Then he turned to Clay.

Parrish stumbled to his feet.

“Hang on to him this time, will ya, Luth?” Clay asked.

A man Grace remembered from church, wearing fur and leather and a full beard, stepped over and grabbed Parrish by the shoulder. Another man, looking much the same, stood on the other side of the unsteady prisoner. He went by the name Buff, and he resembled a buffalo somewhat.

Daniel turned back to Clay. “This varmint knocked Mark out and tried to kidnap my wife. I want him arrested.”

“I’m not going to be arrested.” Parrish fumbled in his pocket. Grace gasped.

“Watch him, Luth,” Clay said. “He might have a gun.”

Luther grabbed Parrish’s hand and pulled it up. It contained a piece of paper.

“I’m hunting her.” Parrish burned her with his eyes, but Grace noticed he didn’t point. At that moment she discarded a lot of what she considered proper manners. She had no desire to live by rules that appealed to the likes of Parrish.

Luther took the paper out of Parrish’s hand and unfolded it. He studied it for a moment then looked up at Grace. He turned the paper so everyone could see it. “You know anything about this, Miss Calhoun?”

A wanted poster. With her picture on it. Her picture, saying she was wanted for stealing money in Chicago. The silence was deafening. Grace felt the group study her likeness on that poster. She’d never seen it before. She looked up at the sheriff. His eyes, cool and detached, seemed to measure her for a jail cell.

She looked over at Clay McClellen. His expression didn’t show much at the best of times. She had only to imagine what he was thinking.

Clay’s other friends were just as remote. She looked at Parrish, greedy for her to be turned over to him. It had happened in Chicago the first time she’d tried to run away.

Parrish had found her, and she’d fought him. She’d been too small, eleven years old, to fight very hard. He’d been lashing her soundly with his belt on a cold, snowy street, when a policeman had come by. She’d run to him for protection.

Parrish had told the policeman he was her father and she was getting the beating she deserved.

The policeman had told her, straight into her bruised and bleeding face, to go home quietly and behave herself from now on.

Grace had gone home and taken her beating. There had been many more through the years.

She waited now for the same thing to happen. When she’d married Daniel, she’d hoped a husband’s rights overrode a father’s. But she hadn’t known about being wanted by the law. Parrish expected his word to be taken over hers. Finally, nearly choking with fear, she looked to the one person here whom she expected to support her, even though the law would most likely side with Parrish.

Daniel.

His expression was as cold as ice. His eyes cut through her like a frozen blade. He was going to side against her. Her lips trembled. She closed her eyes against the tears and the terror of what lay ahead when she was again in Parrish’s power.

The sound of paper crumpling brought her head up. Sheriff Everett had grabbed the paper, wadded the wanted poster into a ball, and tossed it down the hillside. “You no-account varmint, what kind of skunk tries to shake the blame for his own wrongdoing by accusing a sweet little woman like Grace Calhoun of being a thief?”

“Grace Reeves,” Daniel reminded the sheriff.

“Grace could no more rob someone than she could fly.” Clay McClellen marched straight up to Parrish. “What kind of fools do you take us for? She taught our children. She lived among us for months. We know her, and we know you.”

Clay grabbed Parrish by his shirtfront in a way that made Grace wonder for the first time why they were here. Following Parrish, of course. It was no coincidence that they’d all come at once.

“You’re just the kind of man who’d hide behind a woman’s skirts.” Clay gave Parrish a good shake then shoved him backward. Only Luther and Buff held him up.

“Low-down coyote.” Buff shook his head. He said with contempt, “It’s ’bout what I’d’a expected from such as you, Parrish. You hit little girls.”

“He hit little girls?” Grace gasped. “When did he do that?” Grace balled up her fist and took a step toward Parrish. “He used to make up excuses to hit me and my sisters.”

Daniel grabbed her by the arm and held her back.

“You got sisters, Ma?” Mark asked. “Does that mean we got us some aunts and uncles somewheres?”

Daniel pulled Grace up against him so he braced her from behind. Just as he pulled her close, her dressed sagged off one shoulder again.

“Grace, what happened to your back?” Daniel’s voice was barely audible, as if he were speaking around a huge lump in his throat.

Grace shoved at her dress and tried to turn away from him, but if she did, all the other men here would see the marks, not to mention entirely too much of her skin.

She tried to whisper, but she knew every man there heard every word. “Parrish had a taste for working his children over with a belt. There are marks on me that will never heal, Daniel.”

He pulled her against him, as if he could protect her back from ever being injured again. With both arms around her waist, he said, “My wife is the most honest, upright woman I’ve ever known. Hanging is too good for anyone who says such things against the mother of my six children. And anyone who puts marks like this on his child needs to be locked away for good.”