Sure enough, he was stretched out on the poorly slung frame, his face turned toward the wall.
“I declare, can’t you get enough of this place during the day that you have to sleep here at night, as well?” She made her tone light to disguise her hurt that he hadn’t come home. “You’ve just enough time to change and wash up and get back here before business hours.” She knelt down and took his shoulder, tipping him onto his back. His head lolled. She got her first good look at him. “Oh, my God. Tony!”
His features were mottled with an array of bruises and smears of blood.
Pausing only long enough to make sure he was breathing, Starla raced to gather cold water and clean cloths. As she dabbed at the nasty split discoloring the corner of one eye, he groaned and began to come around. She caught his hands as they flailed wildly.
“It’s all right, Tony. It’s me.”
He blinked his eyes open, struggling for focus. Unwisely, he tried to sit up, falling back, clutching
at his ribs with a low moan. Starla continued to clean him up, holding her breath as the true damage became clear. He had a bad gash by his eye, a split in his lip, puffy swellings on both cheek and jaw.
“Who did this to you?”
He closed his eyes, his attention drifting. Suddenly it was very important to Starla to learn who’d beaten her husband. She wrung the wet cloth out over his face, the sprinkling of water rousing him once more.
“Tony, who did this?”
He pushed the cloth away, still ignoring her question. This time, she knew he’d understood her. And she knew the answer.
Her brother
.
“Tyler did this?” she cried in outrage, shocked, then furious. Dodge still wasn’t talking. He attempted to rise again, and again dropped back, hugging his middle. “Let me take a look. Did they break anything?” She assumed it was a “they,” not believing Tyler alone could have inflicted so much damage. Not believing he’d have acted alone to do such a thing.
He fended her off, muttering, “I’m fine. Don’t. Let me alone. Don’t need your help.”
“Whether you need it or not, you’re going to lie there and take it. Now stop being so foolish and let me see.”
She jerked up his shirt a bit roughly, earning his sharp gasp, the sight of his chest making her echo it in dismay. She pressed one of the vivid bruises, causing him to wince.
“I’m going for the doctor.”
“No. Just get me home.”
“You’re not going to move until Doc Anderson tells me none of your ribs is broken. So don’t you move, you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he murmured, too hurt, too weak to do much else.
Reluctant to leave him, she touched his sore face, her emotions twisting. Then, bending quick to kiss his brow, she hurried for the doctor’s home, knowing it was too early to find him in his office.
And after she sent him grumbling in the wrap of his night robe and slippers to get dressed, Starla knew of another stop she’d have to make before going back to her husband’s side.
Everything hurt. Breathing hurt, moving hurt, even thinking hurt.
After Doc Anderson poked and prodded and pried, then pronounced no serious damage had been done, Dodge had gotten his battered ribs taped and had two small stitches taken at the corner of his eye. He’d obediently swallowed down some powders for the pain and was waiting impatiently for them to begin to work as he dragged himself across the bank on his crutches in complete defiance of the doctor’s orders to stay abed. Being beaten insensible wasn’t something to take lying down.
There on his desk was the note on Emmerick’s farm and enough cash to see it paid in full. Both were blotched with his blood. Falling into his chair with a groaning curse, he pulled out his ledger and registered the payment dutifully, angrily. He didn’t have to wonder how Emmerick had gotten the
money. Tyler Fairfax and his Home Guard friends had gotten to him, paying his loan in exchange for recruiting his favors. He wondered if Emmerick realized which would be the more costly in the long run. In ignorance, he’d join Fairfax’s band of night riders to terrorize other small farm families like his own, bullying them and scaring them from using the resources at the bank, from trusting the lawful avenues proscribed by the new federal government. Making Fairfax and those like Banning’s father who silently supported his efforts more powerful. And more dangerous with each success.
Dodge could see what was coming: those brave few who’d begun to trust him would shy away, once news of the beating was circulated. They’d be watching, waiting, to see how their town’s banker dealt with the brutality leveled upon him. Would he bow before the intimidation and sneak away? Or would he stay on in foolhardy disregard for his safety?
His safety wasn’t his concern. It was Starla he worried about.
How can you protect her when you can’t even protect yourself?
How, indeed?
A show of strength and retaliation was all men like Emmerick and the Dermonts understood. Dodge knew he’d have to do something quick, or risk losing the confidence he’d begun to inspire in the meek and helpless of Pride. But to strike back meant going up against the one man he’d hoped to avoid in confrontation. He’d have to go after Tyler
Fairfax, and in doing so, he’d break Starla’s heart. He might also lose her.
If he hadn’t already….
When she’d bent over to kiss him on his bed of pain, he’d seen she still wore the red dress from the night before. Which meant she hadn’t been home to change. And with her closeness, she’d brought an unmistakable scent, the spicy fragrance of Noble Banning’s cologne.
Where the hell had his wife been all night while he was getting his ribs kicked in by her brother?
He lowered his head into his hands, not wanting to think about it just yet, not while he was so distracted by the hurts of both body and soul. He’d vowed he’d trust her, and though that vow was strained to frail threads, it was enough to hold until he had a chance to speak to her, to ask her for the truth.
Yet when had she ever told him that?
The door to the bank opened and he gazed up wearily, hoping to see Starla there. He couldn’t imagine where she’d gone after fetching Anderson, unless it was home for some fresh clothing and some needed rest. It wounded him to think she wouldn’t at least check in to see how he was doing, to see if he was in danger of spitting up his lungs, thanks to Tyler’s tender touch. But she hadn’t come, and she wasn’t here now.
It was Delyce Dermont in the doorway. Her usually pale features were stark white with shock and distress.
“Delyce, what is it?” A terrible fear gripped his insides.
“Mr. Dodge, you’d better hurry. Something awful’s happened to your wife. The doc’s with her now.”
Oh, God….
“Where is she?”
“At Fair Play.”
He didn’t wait to hear more.
The Dermont brothers lounged on the front steps of Fair Play like a pack of dirty hunting hounds. Empty bottles scattered about their feet testified to what the nose claimed on closer inspection: they were all drunk. Their clothing bore stains of all-night revelry and spatters of her husband’s blood.
Starla approached in a glaze of fury that overwhelmed any fear she’d had of coming home.
Ray Dermont sat up, his sloppy smile little more than a leer as he beheld her red dress.
“Well, g’morning, missy. Up early or out late?”
“Where’s my brother?”
“I do believe he went to round us up some more refreshments. Care to tip a few with us, Starla honey?”
“You’ve had more than enough, of our liquor and my tolerance. You’d better crawl on outta here. Be gone by the time I’m finished talking to Tyler, or I’ll take a buggy whip to you.”
He laughed off her threat, a nasty gleam of speculation flickering in his eyes. “Hear that, boys?
She’s gonna teach us some manners.”
Poteet chuckled. Virg let out a loud snore.
Ray continued. “Tried to learn ’em once, but they didn’t take. ‘Course, we didn’t have a teacher purty as you. Bet you’re mighty good at them lessons.” He licked his lips as she climbed past him on the cement stairs. His hand caught her skirt. “Mighty fancy get-up. Steppin’ out on your Yankee already?” She jerked away from him.
“Get out of my way, varmint. And don’t think for a minute that you’re going to get away with what you did last night.”
“Since when is drinkin’ and whorin’ a crime?” Poteet challenged lazily.
“Is
that
how you got blood on your shirt?”
Poteet shrugged. “Some gals like it when you rough ’em up first. Bet you like it that way, too, learning at your daddy’s knees like you did.”
Her slap cut his vile laughter short. Before she could draw back, he’d snagged her wrist in a painful grip.
“You pig. Let me go! Tyler won’t stand for you manhandling me. He’ll cut your gizzard out and feed it to you.”
“Have to go whining to Ty, wouldn’t you, ‘cause your Yank banker ain’t good for nothin’. Why, hell, our little sister Delyce could knock the stuff outta him. He ain’t no man.”
Poteet gave her a push, knocking her back into Ray, who’d managed to gain his feet. His arms banded her waist to keep her from going at his brother.
“I suppose you consider yourself a man,” she
sneered, “hidin’ under pillowcases with whiskey for courage. Some man you are, Poteet Dermont. You’re not fit for my husband to walk on.”
“That right? Well, your husband don’t do much walkin’, now, does he? I took care of that.”
Starla threw herself against the restraining circle of Ray’s arms, spitting curses equal to any they could think of while Ray laughed.
“Whoa there, sweet thing. Got lots of spunk, don’t you, gal? Looks like you need to work a little of it off. Got nobody t’home to see to that, do you? My guess is he ain’t good for anythin’ a’tall. Damn shame, fine woman like you with no real man to give you what for.”
His hands shifted high and low for some crude groping as she fought him. His whiskey-soaked breath burned against her cheek.
“I’m a real man, honey, and I’d be more than happy to give you whatever you need.”
With a shriek of outrage, Starla freed one hand, using her nails to score four furrows from ear to chin along Dermont’s thick neck. He gave a howl of surprise, catching her hand in a crushing hold, swinging her away from him with a violent force.
“You bitch!”
For a moment, Starla teetered on the top step. Then, with a slow-motion certainty, she felt the slick bottoms of her evening slippers slide on the smooth stone. She stretched out her hands, trying to catch her balance, missing the railing, fingertips grazing Ray’s sleeve as he took a purposeful step back out of her reach. She fell. The edge of the second step banged her hip, the next one bit into
her side. Her head cracked against the brick walk to send the world spinning. From someplace far off, she heard her brother’s voice.
“What the hell’s going on?”
“Weren’t my fault, Ty,” Ray was whining. “She just come at me like a crazy woman.”
“Starla? Star? You all right, darlin’?”
She almost thought she’d be until Tyler tried to lift her. Pain ripped through her middle. With the faint cry of her husband’s name, she slumped in Tyler’s arms as a hot blackness engulfed her with streaks of fire.
Tyler Fairfax sat on the front steps of his family home balled up into a space a ten-year-old could have occupied, his arms wrapped around his legs, his face buried in his knees.
“Where’s Starla?”
His dark head lifted slowly. Unfocused eyes stared up at Dodge without the slightest recognition. Grabbing a handful of his shirt, Dodge jerked him off the steps to wobble on his feet.
“Where’s Starla?”
Tyler blinked in confusion, muttering, “She’s inside.”
Dodge let him drop back into the boneless crumple. As he started up the steps with the solid plant of his crutches, Tyler added, “The doc’s with her. He won’t let you in.”
Breathing hard into his fear and agitation, Dodge looked down upon his wife’s dazed brother. “What the hell happened?”
It took a long moment for Tyler to find the words
within the bourbon-laced muddle of his mind. “She fell. Here on the steps.”
“Were you two arguing?”
Tyler shook his head. “I was inside. I didn’t know she was here until—until after. Ray said—”
“Ray Dermont?”
“Ray said she came at him like a madwoman, that she lost her balance when he put up his arm. He couldn’t catch her in time.”
“Did Dermont have his hands on her?”
The low, throbbing fierceness of Dodge’s voice cut through Tyler’s stupor. He shook his head.
“No. Ray’d never touch her. I’d kill him if he tried.”
Something didn’t fit right, but until he heard it from Starla herself, Dodge was forced to let it go.
“Did the doctor say anything about her condition?”
One glimpse of Tyler’s welling eyes said more than he wanted to know, more than he could believe.
“No,” he argued. “She’s going to be all right. She’s going to be just fine.”
Tyler stared at him blankly, as if the reassurances were beyond his comprehension, then he looked down the drive. His tone was curiously soft and completely lost.
“I don’t know what I’ll do if she dies. She’s all I have.”
Gritting his teeth, Dodge lowered himself to the step beside his grieving brother-in-law. He couldn’t quite bring himself to offer a display or any further words of comfort. They sat side by side in silence,
waiting for words they were afraid they wouldn’t want to hear concerning a woman they both loved beyond the limits of their own lives.
When they finally heard footsteps, Tyler crossed his arms over his head as if expecting a terrible blow. Dodge turned. Then, seeing the grim-faced doctor who’d so recently stitched him back together, he struggled to stand, using a firm grip on Tyler’s shoulder to bolster him.
“How is she?”
“I wish my news was better.”
Dodge swayed slightly, unable to absorb the impact. “How bad is it?”
“She has a concussion that’s kept her from regaining consciousness. That’s not good. She broke a rib and there’s a lot of internal bleeding. I haven’t been able to stop it.”