No one said a word. Chris had cautioned Nolan
and Rylee to keep quiet, that nothing they could add to this was going to be
very helpful. And the losing of temper was going to be her job, not theirs. When
Victor stood up, he slammed both hands on the table before leaning over it and
her. His smile only made her magic stir up, but didn’t piss her off as he’d
hoped.
“Now you listen here. You are going to get
that golden stick out of your ass and do as I told you to do. Or else.” She
asked him what that might be. “I’m going to come down on you so hard that you
and that stuck-up family of yours is going to be shitting out blood for the
rest of your days. I don’t care to be pissed off like this.”
“Oh, I think you enjoy it a great deal,
Victor. As a matter of fact, I know that when you beat your wife, you get off
really well with that. And when your son, who is following in your footsteps at
being a prick, beats someone that you tell him to, you get your jollies off
that as well.” She stood up when his face took on the appearance of a man who
had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Sit down. And when I speak,
you will listen to every word I say.”
He did, his ass hitting the chair so hard
that she could hear it groaning. He sat there, his eyes glazed over as he was
taken deeper under her spell. She didn’t care to use this kind of magic, but
right now and in the future, he wouldn’t be beating his family, and maybe he’d
learn a lesson or two from this. Doubtful, but stranger things had happened. Snapping
her fingers, she put the rest of the room, with the exception of Rylee and
Nolan, into a trancelike state.
“He beats them all.” Chris turned to Nolan
when she continued. “Not only his wife and daughter, but this boy as well. If Walter
doesn’t hurt others, like Shane and any of the younger kids whose parents
Victor has problems with, Victor makes it harder for him. And he doesn’t limit
his abuse to just hitting either. Walter spends a great deal of his time locked
away in a small room without food or water. It’s why Walter does what he does. And
you should know that he’s sort of glad you are standing up to Victor.”
“Why hasn’t anyone done anything for them
before now?” Before she could answer her, Rylee seemed to figure it out.
“Because Victor is a bastard to everyone when he doesn’t get his way. You did
something to him, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I put him and the rest of the people
into a sleep-like state. It won’t hurt them, but I wanted to talk to the two of
you to see what you wanted me to do. I can make him a better person, but that
won’t last. Magic sometimes isn’t as strong as we’d like for it to be,
especially when there is so much evilness going for the person. The boy, Walter…he’s
going to need help if this keeps up. As the future stands for him now, by the
time he’s twenty-five, he’s going to be in prison for murder. And that won’t
help him at all.”
“What sort of things can we do? I mean…short
of letting him get by with this?” Chris told Rylee that wasn’t her plan either.
“Then what? Do we…can we pull him from his family? Maybe, I don’t know, bring
him under our wing, so to speak? I don’t want him hurting Shane anymore, but I
don’t want him dead either.”
“I can suggest to him that he moves out of
his house. Gets away from his father. His mother won’t take help. While she
doesn’t enjoy him hurting her, she has had help before and always returns to
him. I don’t think there is much in the way of help for someone that doesn’t
want it.” Chris sat down and looked at them both. “He needs a guiding hand, but
mostly he needs a friend. He has none but those his father sets him up with to
teach him the ways of a man.”
“Move him out. And he can stay with…there’s a
house on the property that he can use. I can find him a job, get him…Christ, I
hope we don’t regret this.” Chris assured Nolan that he wouldn’t. She promised.
“I don’t know how you can do this, but we’ll help him. As much as we can. But
Victor, he pays out of the ass for this.”
Chris smiled. “He will. Before the day is
out, he’s going to pay for his actions. But as before, don’t interfere. If you
do, everything will go to shit.” When both of them agreed, she turned back to
Victor. “You have been a terrible person all your life. And you are never going
to be any better. That being said, you’re going to kick your son out of the
house and disown him. You’ll never have a thing to do with him again when he
tells you that he can’t do this anymore. Once you hear those words, you are
going to take a swing at your son. Understand?”
As soon as Victor nodded, Chris turned to
Walter. The boy had been abused, but not only by his father. His mother, a
milksop as she’d heard Katie call her, had been equally horrible to the young
man…not with her fists, but with her verbal abuse to him. Chris put her hand on
Walter’s head and pushed enough of the little confidence he had to the front
and made him aware of his actions. Not just now, but things that could go wrong
soon if he didn’t stand up to his father.
“Tell him you can’t be a bully anymore. And
when he walks away from you, you’re going to go to Nolan Bentley and beg him
for forgiveness. It will be the only thing that saves you from prison. If you
don’t heed my words, Walter, things will go badly for you. Much worse than they
were with your father. But in this, like all things, you have free will. It
will be up to you what becomes of this.” Chris giving him a glimpse of what
could happen to him made Walter whimper, but he nodded at her. Tears began to
fall on his face when she showed him what could be should he want it. “Tell him
as soon as he turns to you, Walter. It will work out if you wish for it to.”
As she sat back down, she felt Joey touch her
mind. She told him what she’d done, and he asked her if she was all right.
I am. I don’t care for using this stuff, but
when it helps out someone that really needs it, it’s not so bad.
He told her that he
loved her.
And I do you as well. With all my heart and soul.
Heath was just by. He said that once we have
ten of these horses ready to ship out, he’ll have a list of more for us. I
think we’re going to be doing this for a long time.
Chris asked him if
he was all right with them taking in horses and other animals and giving them
the love and second chance that they needed.
I am. We might have to hire a
few more men. I want to make sure that there is enough all the time here so
when we can get away, we don’t have to worry about the ranch.
I think I might have someone in mind. He’s
the boy that hurt Shane.
She told him what she’d done and found out.
He’s
going to need all of our help, and I think this might just be it.
If you’re sure.
She told him that she
was
. Good. Then make sure that he knows when he fucks up, I will fuck him
up.
He won’t.
Looking around the room as she told
him she’d get back to him, Chris snapped her fingers. The trance left their
minds, and she watched Victor as he tried his best to figure out what had
happened to him. When he turned to her, she simply smiled at him.
“What are you smiling at, bitch? You think
you have the upper hand?” She said nothing, waiting for him to turn to his son.
And he would soon. Then she’d have what she needed. “My boy here, he’s not done
a damned thing wrong, and I’m not going to let you tell the world what you
think might have happened.” Victor turned to his son when he called to his
father.
“I can’t.” Walter stood up and looked at her,
then at Nolan and Rylee. “I’m very sorry for what I did to Shane. More than you
can know. But I won’t do it again. I can’t…I don’t want to hurt anyone again.”
“You what? You think you can just say that
and not have repercussions, boy? You take that back right now or, so help me,
I’m going to disown you. You know I will too. I’m a man of my word.” Walter
stiffened but stood up straighter as he told his dad he was done. Done with it
all.
It was over in a matter of seconds. Victor
lunged at his son, but when Walter moved, being younger, lighter, and in much
better shape, he was able to avoid his father’s fists, and even managed to
knock him away. But just as everyone was moving to get out of the way, Victor’s
fist connected solidly with his attorney and he went back, hitting his head
twice on the table before falling to the floor. He was dead long before he ever
touched the carpet. Chris was still, only moving her lips to tell Nolan to call
the police.
It all worked out. The lawyer was a lying
piece of shit, and as soon as his death hit the papers, he was going to be in
just as much trouble as Victor was for killing him. Walter was free of his
family and even the mother and daughter, even though they’d never see it that
way, were also free.
As the police were called in, Walter sat in
his chair and stared at the table. No one had approached him yet, and the
longer he sat there, the more Chris knew he was going to be all right. When he
did look up, she could see that he’d come to a major decision and he was going
to do just what he needed to become a good man. When he stood up and straightened
out his clothing, pressing his hands against his thighs, he let out a long-held
breath and sobbed just a little. Making his way to Nolan and Chris, who were
talking to the police, he dropped to his knees in front of them.
“I’m not a nice person. I’m not going to lie
to you and say that it was all my father’s fault. A great deal of it…I’m a
grown man and should have taken better care to know that what I was doing was
going to come back and bite me in the ass. I’d like to…I need to ask you to…no.
I’m going to beg you to forgive me for what I’ve put you through.” He looked up
at Rylee. “I cut him because my father said if I didn’t hurt him, he was going
to castrate me so that I couldn’t breed anyone as fucking stupid and lazy as I
was. It was wrong, I knew it was. But I thought….”
“You thought what?” Chris started to answer
Nolan when it looked as if Walter wasn’t going to. “You thought what, young
man? You ask for forgiveness, but I want it all from you. You will never lie to
me again if you know what’s good for you.”
“I thought that if I hurt Shane badly enough,
he’d turn me in and I could go to prison where I would be safe.” Walter broke
down then, falling to the floor and sobbing as he continued. “In prison my
father couldn’t touch me, couldn’t hit me no matter what I did to mess up. And
I’d not hurt anyone else.”
Nolan looked at Chris, and she nodded once and
picked up her things and put them in her briefcase. They’d all be fine now. Shane
would be upset, she knew, but he’d come around too. Sooner than anyone could
have thought.
Chapter 7
Shane knew that this had to be a joke. There
was no way they were letting that guy go after all that he’d done to him and
the other kids in his school. Looking up at Mrs. Bentley when she said his
name, he felt like hitting something and knew he had to get out of the house. Standing
up, he was nearly to the door when Mr. Bentley, Howie he’d been told to call
him, came in with two fishing poles and a big box.
“Just the boy I wanted to see. Come on, we’re
going to go and drown some worms.” Shane told him he didn’t want to, but Howie went
on as if he’d not said a word. “I already set us up some nice chairs, and
there’s this big tree out there that’ll keep us cool enough. I had my Katie
make us some grub. Not the wormy kind, but real food. Then when we—”
“I really don’t want to go fishing. I don’t
even know how.” The man looked crushed and Shane felt horrible, but he needed
to be alone, not out with a man that never seemed to shut up. “I’ll go with you
later. Right now I want to take a walk.”
“No. I don’t think that’s a good idea either.”
It was the first time in all the days he’d been there that he’d heard the man use
such a stern tone in his voice. Shane took a step back, not in fear, he told
himself, but in shock. “Now. You’ve had some news that don’t sit well with you,
and you and I are going to go and work it off. It’s fishing with this old man
or chopping wood. And you and I both know that neither of us wants to do that.”
Shane was walking behind him to the dock that
had been put in only yesterday before he realized what he was doing. He even
had a basket of food and a cooler of something to drink in his hands. And Howie
was talking about bait.
“I’m a worm man myself. I know there are
others that swear by minnows, but I don’t see the appeal. Worms are…well, you
can cut them in half and they still have enough wiggle in them to attract the
most stubborn of fish.” He paused to turn and look at him. “You really never
been fishing? Not ever?”
“My mom and I lived on a tight budget and
there was never the money for a pole, much less a license. Then when she got
sick and Aunt Rylee had to come home and help us, there wasn’t any more money
and there was less time too.” He thought about how hard his aunt had worked to
keep them going. “I thought a few times we were going to be living in her car.
But that got taken too. We really were in a bad way when my mom passed.”
“I remember my own mom passing. She was a good
woman, but a mite on the quiet side. Never said much, especially things like
she loved us or that we meant something to her. Your mom tell you those
things?” Shane told him she’d said it all the time. “Yeah, I can tell. I tell
my grand boys that too. And Gracie. Loved her from the moment that my son
brought her home to meet us. He’s gone too, my son. Best son a man could ask
for. Miss him more and more of late, what with his sons finding their other
halves.”
“I don’t know where I fit in.” It had been on
his mind a lot lately, where he was in the grand scheme of things. He knew that
Nolan liked him and that all of his brothers did as well, but he wasn’t sure
what he was supposed to do with this much family. “My aunt said that I should
ask what you guys want me to call you. But I think…I should wait, don’t you
think?”
Howie showed him how to bait his hook. It was
kind of gross the way you had to stick the worm so many times to make sure that
he was good and stuck on the thing. Then he told him how to cast. It took him a
couple of times to get that right, but once his bobber was in the water, he sat
on the chair that Howie wasn’t using. The man impressed him to no end on how he
could simply pick up a conversation like it had been seconds and not nearly an
hour later.
“What do you figure you have to wait on? I mean,
you thinking that your aunt and my grandson are gonna split up? They won’t, let
me tell you that. Not ever. And as far as what you are in the grand scheme? I’m
thinking of you as my great grandson, just like I do them daughters of
Micah’s.” He told him to watch his bobber, how it was jumping in the water. “That
there is the current. Not a fish. Sometimes you might get yourself a nibble or
two on it, the little fishes just tasting it to see if it’s real, but they
don’t take much. But you’re my family, same as your aunt.” And he could jump
topics faster than anyone he’d ever met. It took Shane a second or two to
realize he’d done it now. From fish nibbles to family again.
“Why?” Shane watched as Howie pulled in his
line and then threw it back out again. False alarm, he told him. “Why do you
even want me as your family? I mean…I know that you have to take on my aunt…she’s
gonna marry Nolan. But I’m not even related to any of you, except that I’m Aunt
Rylee’s nephew.”
“And that there is enough. You could be not
related to her at all, just some kid she picked up at the store for all I care.
She loves you and so do we.” That made him think that the man was addled. But
then Howie spoke again, and Shane changed his mind. “When my son was killed,
that hurt us all. Especially Gracie. She was…she had it in her head that the
boys would be better off with us instead of her and she was going to end her
own life. Her thinking was that, like you, she wasn’t much to us, only someone
married to our son. Not anything else but that. So when she told us what she
was planning, even going so much as to ask us to remember her fondly, it broke
my heart in two.”
“She was really thinking that she meant
nothing to you?” Howie nodded as he tossed his line back out again. The man was
never going to catch anything if he kept that up, to Shane’s way of thinking. “But
you love her. And her boys, even though they’re all grown up, they still need
her. I don’t think I’ll ever not wish my mom was still here.”
“Yeah, I bet not. But you do know that your
aunt, she feels the same about you.” That shocked him. Shane thought that the
two of them were doing great. “She feels like she’s failed you too. And that
boy she saved today, she feels she might not be the best kind of person in his
life either.”
“Walter?” Howie nodded. “But he’d be the
luckiest person in the world to have her in his life. I mean, she and Nolan are
all gooey on each other all the time, but they really do seem to fit. I don’t
think Walter has been around anyone that loved each other like they do. Fists
aren’t love, they’re meanness.”
“Exactly. And best yet, that boy? He’s gonna
be working over at Second Chance too. Did you ever see a nicer ranch than that
one?” Shane had wanted to work with the horses, but had never been asked. “I’m
betting that before you know it, Joey will be having your butt out there and
working them barns too. He’s a good— Watch your pole.”
Shane had no idea what he was doing but did
just what Howie told him. Reeled it in slow but jerk the line. He had to set
the hook, whatever that meant. Then he was to let a little out. It took him
several tries before he got that down, but the more he reeled the fish in, the
harder the thing seemed to fighting him. Then when Howie bent at the waist with
the biggest net he’d ever seen, Shane forgot to breathe as he looked at what
he’d caught up in it.
“Holy jee-hoes-aphatt. Lookee at what you
caught.” He did look and could only stare at the thing flopping in the net. “I’m
betting this will feed you all for dinner tonight should you take it with you.”
“Eat it?” Howie nodded and pulled the fish
out of the net and worked at taking the hook out of its mouth. It bled a little,
but as soon as it was free, Howie showed him how to hold it in his finger so he
could take his picture with it. After he’d taken what seemed like a dozen
pictures, Howie asked him what he wanted to do with it.
“You can dress it out. I’ll be more’n glad to
help you with that. Or you can have it mounted and fixed up so you can put it
on your wall. Up to you. Not something I’d do, but that’s your first catch and
it’s a nice one.” He looked at the flopping fish and shook his head. “‘Course,
you could give it a chance to make something of its life. Go back in the water
and have some babies of its own. Might even have a couple of them now, but like
I said, that’s up to you.”
Shane might only be fourteen years old, but
he knew that the man wasn’t just talking about the fish. Walter needed someone
to give him a chance, like Shane was getting with his aunt. He leaned down to
the fish, picked it up, and looked at the man who had come to mean a great deal
to him.
“How do I give it a chance?” He told him to
do what came natural to him and the fish. Turning to the water, he dropped the
big fish over the side and they both watched as he made his way out to the
deeper part of the water. “I’d like to call you Grandda if you don’t mind. And
I know that Ms. Katie wants me to call her Grandma. Uncle Micah and the rest of
them, they told me the same thing. Can I call you that?”
“Would make me about bust with happiness
should you do that.” Shane watched him wipe a tear from his soft cheeks as he
turned to him. “You’re a good boy there, Shane. And it’d about make me as proud
as you can imagine for you to be calling me Grandda. And to come out here with
this old man and fish with him.”
“This is a lot more fun than I…I never
actually thought about it before. Fishing, I mean.” They sat back in their
chairs, and Howie pulled two thick sandwiches from the basket and gave him one.
“If I keep eating like this, I’m going to be as big as a house, you know.”
“Nah. When you sign up for football next
year, you’re gonna burn it off.” That was something else he’d never considered,
playing in a sport. “You and me, we’re going to get into so much trouble now. You
wait and see. And we might even find us a friend in that other young man too.
Walter. Walter? What sort of person calls their kid that, I wonder.”
For the next several hours, they sat out
there in the sunshine and talked. Howie…Grandda caught a fish too, but Shane never
caught another one. Which he found to be just fine and dandy, as Grandda told
him as they were packing up.
“It’s not the fishing and catching, but the
drowning the worms and finding out that we kinda like being away from the
house. ‘Course, we’ll have to think of something else when the pond here
freezes over. What do you think about hunting? Never did much of it other than
to take my gun out to the woods and visit with the animals. You okay with that,
son?” Shane thought he could be all right with just about anything so long as
this man was with him. “Yes, sir. We are going to raise some hell, you and me.
Wait until your grandma hears some of it. But we won’t tell her it all. She’s a
little on the delicate side, she is.”
Shane smiled. Katie Bentley was a wonderful
person, as was Grace…Grandma, he supposed he could call her now. But he doubted
very much that anything the two of them would be doing would be kept from
either of them. They had Grandda’s number, Shane was sure of it.
~~~
Alta Cole put the phone back in the cradle
and smiled. Things were…she was surprised at the way things were going, and
that in and of itself was pleasant. She was not usually one for things not
going her way, but it seemed that this Rylee McClure was the perfect person to
be raising her grandson. Ringing her bell, she waited for Kason to come into
the room. When he handed her an envelope, she wondered if the man was ever
ruffled. He’d not been since she’d employed him over forty years ago. And truth
be known, he was her only friend, too.
“What can you tell me about a man by the name
of Bonnifield? He’s a big deal in the army, I guess. Something of a prick and a
bastard to his men.” He frowned at her, but she knew it was more his way of
thinking before speaking than him being upset with her asking him such a
question. “He has some information that I want, and I want to make sure he’s
not fucking the girl instead of giving me what I want.”
“He would not be having relations with a
female.” Kason sat down after asking for permission. When he poured them both
teas and leaned back, they were no longer employer to employee but man to woman.
“He’s a good man. Hard when necessary. I do believe it has more to do with his
sexual preference than him being that sort of man. I have known of him for some
time. Is this…the young man that you’ve had me put a tail on, this is about
him?”
“His aunt, who is raising him, was in his
command.” Kason nodded, sipping his tea again. “Rylee McClure. You know
anything about her other than what I’ve told you?”
She’d told him everything too. Every morsel
she found out now, he would know next. “Nothing much other than what I have
heard from the witch that runs the household. Mr. Beckman has been very
impressed with the young man, so you might want to know.”
“I do. Whenever you find anything, you are to
let me know. Even if it’s not good news. He and this Simpson person, do you
know if they have gotten together? I mean, are they still avoiding each other?”
It was something else that impressed her about the couple. Helping the young
man was well beyond what she would have done. But after some research and a
good deal of money, she’d found out that the young man had suffered as much as
anyone had, and she was glad that he’d been taken under their wing.
“Yesterday, as a matter of fact. They didn’t
seem to know what to do with each other, but Beckman said that they didn’t seem
to hate each other as he had expected. I do believe that Mr. Howard Bentley had
a great deal to do with that. The man has a way about him still.” She nodded,
thinking about Howie and Katie. Nicest people she had ever known. “When is
Master David coming here?”