Sisters (16 page)

In the hallway outside her
room he had said he would be leaving early. "About five in the
morning. It'll be the better part of a week before I'm back."

"You should straighten
up your hair before you let anyone see you." She had reached up
and mussed it further.

"And you should fasten
your robe before you let anyone see you." He reached down as if
to tie it shut, but slipped his hand inside instead, inside her
unbuttoned nightgown too.

"The better part of a
week, you say?" She was smiling, but she found it difficult to
speak. Once more she felt all her blood and breath being pulled
downward.

"Maybe I could manage
it otherwise," he said, pushing her robe back off her shoulder
and kissing her neck. "One of the ... ranches is fairly close.
I'll go out there... and be back tomorrow night."

"Just to be sure
everything's all right here?" They moved into the bedroom.

"Mmmmmm," he
agreed as they fell toward the bed.

*

The memory stirred her, and
she stretched, an easy reaching at first; then she put her arms high
above her head and gave a mighty yawn. As she settled back on her
pillow, she became aware of a shadow in the back of her mind. She
tried to banish it, but it grew like a thunderhead on the summer
horizon, until she could no longer ignore it. James and Helen. What
had happened to turn her against him. Sophie could not forget Baby,
her bright eyes shining as she had whispered about something James
had done to Helen. What had it been? Had it been anything at all?

Finally she had to
acknowledge there would be no peace until she knew. She had to know.
She got out of bed and dressed quickly in the same dark dress she had
worn yesterday with Amy Travers. Then she went to find Mrs. Syms. "I
need something I can drive over rough roads," she told the
housekeeper. "Is there a buckboard in the carriage house?"

"A Concord Buggy. How
would that be? And I know one of the boys would be happy to drive
you."

"I'd rather go by
myself. Just have the buggy made ready, please."

As she was driving away
from the Stevenson home, she regretted not telling Mrs. Syms where
she was going. She tended to respond tersely to the housekeeper's
officious ways, but in this instance, Sophie wished she had said a
little more. It wasn't wise to set off across the prairie without
letting someone know. She slowed the buggy, ready to turn around and
go back, when she saw a familiar figure riding toward her on
horseback. "Paul! Paul!" she called.

"Sophie! Are you all
right? James told me about last night. What a thing!"

"I'm fine," she
reassured him. "I was just momentarily frightened. The only
injury was to the tower window."

"Where are you headed
now?"

"To the Wilson
homestead. I'll be back this afternoon."

"Are you sure you want
to go out there?" There was a look of concern on his kindly
face. "Especially after last night."

"The Wilsons didn't
have anything to do with last night. At least not directly. I'll be
fine, really. It's important to me to go."

"Why, Sophie?"

"It's another place to
ask questions, to find out things I have to know."

"About what?"

"About Helen..."
She almost mentioned James' name too, but something held her back.

"Sometimes it's best
to let the past alone," Paul said.

"I can't, Paul. I
can't. Since her death, I've felt... haunted sometimes." The
concern on his face deepened, and she realized she had said too much.
"Please, Paul, I must go. I'll be back this afternoon." She
signaled to the horse and started off.

"Sophie...?"

She kept going, pretending
not to hear.

*

In the beginning, she held
to a brisk pace, intent on reaching the Wilson homestead in good
time. But a few miles out, she saw a large herd of antelope and
slowed. The graceful creatures let her come so close, she could see
they were still shedding their winter coats. She watched them, amazed
they were so tame. Perhaps the cloudless weather calmed them, she
thought, sweeping her eyes from horizon to horizon. Not a cloud, not
a speck in the sky. It was an immensity of unstained radiance.

When at last she saw the
Wilson homestead, she knew there was something different about it
from yesterday, but it took a moment before she realized what: one of
the buildings was gone. As she crossed the creek, she saw that the
missing building was the shanty Baby had used for her chickens. And
then as she came still closer, she saw that the missing shack was not
exactly missing. There was a charred heap where it had stood
yesterday.

Baby came running out to
meet her, still dressed in red, her little boy on her hip. Before
Sophie could speak, Baby motioned her away. "You have to leave,"
she said frantically. "You have to leave!"

"But I drove all the
way out here to see you. You told me to come."

"You don't understand.
He's home."

At that moment a figure
appeared in the doorway of the wooden shack. It was Zack Wilson,
wearing a dirty patch over his left eye. From below the patch, a
thick scab ran down to his chin. Beside him was a white male dog,
mostly bulldog, Sophie thought, from the animal's undershot jaw and
compact muscular build. The most noticeable thing about the creature
was the black patch of color over his right eye. He seemed an
incongruous mirror image of his master.

"Thought you told me
it was one of your temperance ladies," Wilson told Baby.

"Oh, she is,"
Baby answered quickly, turning toward him as he left the doorway and
walked toward the buggy. "She was out here yesterday with Miss
Travers."

"Nah, don't lie to
me," Wilson said, pushing Baby aside and coming closer to
Sophie. "I know this lady. A real fine lady she is. We oughta be
right honored she's come to visit us."

He reached up to help
Sophie down, but she was unsure whether to get out of the buggy or
not. Wilson's courtesy was almost as exaggerated as it had been the
day she arrived, when he'd stood in the dusty street mocking James.
And behind Wilson, Sophie could see Baby shaking her head, telling
her not to get down. All Sophie's instincts told her to stay in the
buggy, to take her leave. But she wanted to know about James and
Helen. She was obsessed with knowing now, and there was no way she
could talk to Baby if she allowed Zack to scare her off. She let
Wilson help her down and went into the shack with him and Baby.

The minute she stepped
inside, Sophie knew she had made a mistake. The blond child was
sitting on one of the beds, and Sophie saw her cower when Wilson
entered the room. And there was an open whiskey bottle on the table.
Wilson was so much less drunk than the other time Sophie had seen
her, she had mistakenly assumed he was sober. But the half-empty
bottle caused her to look again. Though he walked steadily enough,
his eye was glazed and bloodshot and his movements overdeliberate.

*

"Sit down, please,
Miss... ah, I guess I don't know your name, do I?" Wilson said.

"Mrs. Dymond,"
said Sophie. She noticed Baby wouldn't meet her eyes. "No, I
don't think I'll sit down, Mr. Wilson.

I can't stay."

"Sit down!"

She gave a start at the
shouted command, then felt a rush of indignation. "I certainly
have no intention--"

"Luper and me don't
like it when folks turn down our hospitality, do we, Luper?" He
said the dog's name with a peculiar emphasis, and the animal growled
at Sophie, its upper lip trembling, threatening a snarl.

She sat in a chair near the
table.

Wilson pulled up another
chair, scraping it across the wooden floor. The dog sat back on its
haunches besides him and began to pant, a long purple tongue lolling
down from his mouth. Wilson reached for the whiskey bottle, took a
long drink, then fixed his glassy eye on Sophie. "So,
Stevenson's sweetheart. Out here on the prairie all by yourself
visitin'. You practicin' up to do like that other woman o' his? You
gonna be one of them do-gooders?"

Baby spoke for the first
time since they had entered the shack. "You got it all wrong,
Zack. She ain't his sweetheart. She's the sister of that lady
Stevenson was married to."

He took another swig from
the whiskey bottle. "Nah, Babe, don't lie to me. She don't look
nothin' like that other one." He paused. "I can tell she
ain't nothin' like the other. Besides, I seen this one and his
lordship together. He don't know you're out here, I bet."

Sophie didn't respond
directly. "I really must be leaving.," she said.

Wilson got up and came
around the table, Luper following at his heels. He put his face close
to Sophie's, so close his whiskey breath made her nauseous. His hair
grew low on his forehead, and she could see the separate strands of
it tangled into a dense mat. "You don't leave unless I tell
you," he said. "Ain't that so, Luper?" Again, at the
intonation in Wilson's voice, the dog growled. Wilson put out a hand,
a stubby, filthy hand, and rubbed his fingers over the side of
Sophie's face. "Mmmmm, soft," he said. "Soft and
smooth. Ain't like mine, is it? He fingered the suppurating scab on
his cheek. "You see what that whip done? You see what your
sweetheart done? Suddenly he screamed in her face: "And last
night he burned down my goddamned shack!"

"He couldn't have,"
Sophie gasped. "He couldn't have. I was with him all evening."

Wilson smirked. "All
evening, huh?" Then his expression grew menacing. "If it
weren't him, his money helped pay to have it done. Those bastards
think they're clever, using hired guns for their dirty work." He
stroked Sophie's face again. "They burned down what's mine. I
reckon that gives me a claim on what's theirs." He let his
thick, blunt fingers slide down to her throat, then over the front of
her dress, over her breast and down until his hand rested on her
thigh. Sophie's mind shot back over the years to the soldier at Fort
Martin, and the same terror she had known then leaped through her
now. She tried to draw away, but the chair prevented her. She looked
around frantically, but Baby, her only possible help, was standing by
the table holding the whiskey bottle, paying no attention.

He kissed her, forced her
lips open with his mouth. She could taste the whiskey he had been
drinking, feel his whiskers and the scab on his face. A wave of
revulsion swept over her, and she pushed him away. As he fell back,
the white bulldog moved toward her, his growl becoming louder.

"Ah, feisty, ain't
she, Luper?" Wilson stroked the dog. "Well, sometimes
that's the kind's the most fun." He turned and reached for the
whiskey bottle and saw Baby holding it. "gaddammit! Give me
that!" He grabbed the bottle, tipped it up, and took a very long
drink. "I want you and the kids to get outta here," he said
to Baby.

"But, Zack--"

"I said get out! Take
'em over to the soddie. Take 'em someplace. I don't care where."

"Lemme just get a few
things together for 'em. It'll take just a minute."

Wilson sat down at the
table, emptied the whiskey bottle, and stared at Sophie. She was
terrified, felt sick with apprehension. She had no weapons, no hope
of help. Paul was the only one who knew where she was, and there was
no reason for him to come after her. What could she do? She couldn't
give in to Wilson. She couldn't. But if she fought him, what might he
do. He was stronger than she--and there was that dog. Every time she
moved, the dog growled.

"Goddamnit, Baby!
What's takin' you so long?" Wilson demanded.

"Just about ready,
Zack, just about ready." Baby stood in the doorway with the two
children. She would not look at Sophie. "Zack," Baby said,
"she's not his sweetheart."

"Get your ass outta
here!"

"You can't do this,
Zack, you just can't. They'll come after you. You'd know that if you
weren't drunk."

He made a threatening move
toward her, and she ran, jerking the blond-haired child off her feet.

As Wilson moved toward
Sophie, she stood, but the dog growled menacingly, and she dared move
no farther. Wilson grabbed her by the shoulders and put his face on
her neck. He mumbled words she couldn't understand.

She tried to steel herself,
control her revulsion. All her instincts demanded that she fight him,
that she kick, bite, anything to push him away, to get his hands off
her. But her mind was moving rapidly. What would happen if she did?
It wouldn't change the outcome, merely delay it and bring her more
pain and injury. She tried drawing within herself to a place he
couldn't touch, to a place from which she could watch him and hate
him with a pure and unalloyed hatred.

He kissed her then, full on
the lips as before, and he began to fumble with the buttons on the
front of her dress. His breath, the whiskers scratching her face, his
filthy hands on her flesh--suddenly it was too much. No matter the
consequences, she could not accept this. "No!" she shouted,
breaking away from him and lunging for the door.

Behind her she heard the
dog snarl, and she expected at any moment to feel its teeth pierce
her flesh. As she thew herself through the doorway, she tripped and
fell into the dirt. She lay there, eyes closed, waiting for the dog's
fangs, the man's hands.

Instead she heard a loud
crash, then a whimpering noise. She opened her eyes and turned to see
Wilson sprawled in the doorway of the cabin. He had fallen somehow,
crashing down on Luper. The animal was pinned beneath his downed
master, whining.

At that moment, Baby
appeared. "Get outta here, would ya? Just get outta here."

Sophie turned to her
dazedly. "What happened? I don't understand."

"I put laudanum in his
whiskey. I didn't think it was ever gonna work." She moved to
where Wilson lay and examined his head. "He really cracked
himself." She looked at Sophie. "Do you know how I'll pay
for this if he finds out what I done? And he'll guess I done
somethin'. I'll pay all right, especially if he broke somethin' in
that dog. If he has to shoot that dog... I told you to leave. Why
didn't you listen to me?"