“Samantha…”
“I’m getting out.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She stood from her chair. “I’m leaving Brinks Harbor. I’m not tied to it, but he is. He will never leave this place.”
May’s manager walked up to the table. “Is everything alright here?”
“Everything is fabulous, sir,” Samantha chimed. “Before I leave town, I had to tell Ms. Jarreau how much I’ve appreciated her talents over the years. She’s an amazing server.”
“Very kind of you.” The manager beamed at May and walked away.
Samantha turned back. “You need to get him out of your life. He will do this to you again, sooner or later. You have children, May, and they may not be immune to one of his rages. You should consider my words carefully.”
May’s mind jumped to Marcelle and Sophie, on another outing with Carson.
Samantha left a fifty on the table and smiled at the manager before walking out. Her visit made getting through the last four hours of her shift a challenge, and her pulse raced as she pushed the speed limits to get home ahead of Carson and the kids, but his car was already parked on the street when she arrived. Ten feet from her front door, the kids burst through, yelling her name and hugging her legs.
“Hi, guys.” She hugged them tightly as she struggled to walk. “What did you do today?”
Marcelle bounced and Sophie caught his excitement, “We went to the rodeo!”
“Wow.” May glanced up at Carson, now trailing out through the door.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Drove them over to Bangor. Watched the bull riding contest. Rode some of the carnival rides.”
“Was it fun?” More bouncing and screaming. Sophie held up her new wind spinner and blew on it. “Oh, it’s so pretty, sweetie. Hey, how about you two go over and see Aunty Ellen? Mommy wants to talk with Daddy for a minute.” The kids ran next door.
“Can we do this another time, May?” Carson looked at his watch. “It’s getting late, and I have something I need to do.”
“It will only take a minute.” She walked past him through the door. “I’ll pour us something cold to drink.”
She set out glasses, filled them with lemonade, and pushed one across the kitchen island to him.
He shook his head. “Alright, but only for a minute because I’ve got to go see someone.”
“Would her name be Samantha Waverly?”
His hand froze, the glass of lemonade perched at his lips.
“I met her today, Carson. Some shiner she has. Can you explain how she got it?”
“May, it’s not what you think.”
“Isn’t it? I’ve allowed you back into our lives, and today, I’ve discovered I don’t know anything about you at all.”
“May, you know nothing about this woman. She’s a stalker. I’ve had dealings with her before. She’s even followed me on some of my business trips.”
May snorted a laugh. “A stalker story is the best you can do, Carson? I’m not a twenty-year-old kid anymore. I’m an adult. I hoped you were becoming one, too.”
“Impugning my character is not a very nice thing to do, May.”
“Neither is hitting women.”
“You’re throwing this up in my face? I didn’t hit her, she—”
“She what? She walked into a door? Save it, Carson. I want you to leave.”
He nodded quietly, turning away. May’s fingers whitened where she gripped the edge of the counter when he opened the kitchen door and paused. “You allowed me back into your lives?”
“Yes.”
“No.” He pivoted toward her. “You don’t decide anything in my life. I make the decisions which concern my life. Do you understand me?”
“I understand you still have a problem and I don’t want you around my kids unless and until you seek professional help for it.”
“Professional help? You know, you’re the same stupid bitch you always were.”
He drew a hand back, but this time she was expecting it and threw her lemonade in his face. The citric acid stung his eyes as she shoved him back toward the door and screamed at him to get out.
He swung blindly at her and she attempted to kick him in the groin, but her foot missed the target to land against his thigh instead. Catching a handful of her hair, he jerked her backward. She lost her balance and fell hard, banging the back of her head against the tile floor.
He straddled her body, wiped his eyes and stared down at her, his face reddening as he clenched his teeth and rained blows onto her body.
May curled into a ball with the first blow to her abdomen. She gasped for air as he pummeled her and she flailed her hands while attempting to protect herself. Strike after strike, she felt her body weaken until she passed out.
He pulled a dish towel from the island and wrapped it around her throat. Grasping the two ends together, he twisted it tighter and tighter. May’s face began to change color when something landed hard beneath the base of his skull.
Rolling onto his back, he shot a hand up to the back of his neck, leaving his side exposed. Ellen Johnston swung her metal baseball bat as hard as she could and heard a rib bone click when she connected. Carson grunted and recoiled, grabbing his side as she swung again, cracking his elbow joint.
“You’d better stay down, sonny, if you know what’s good for you.”
He tried to sit up and Ellen swung for the bleachers, breaking his jaw and knocking him out.
* * *
I’d like to say May’s life became easier for her immediately. I can’t. Hospitalization for a skull fracture and multiple contusions isn’t cheap, and a prolonged police investigation is no picnic. Neither is an ongoing trial, dealing with reporters, or having pictures of her and her kids posted online for everyone to see. She lost her good waitressing job at the restaurant to a replacement because of the time she had to take off.
For three months, Carson’s pricey lawyers attempted to manipulate the truth, but thanks to Ellen’s tearful testimony, the judge made his pronouncement, and Carson was sent to a high-level security facility to serve a seven-year sentence. With time already served and after a year of good behavior along with being declared a model prisoner, he was transferred to Bolduc Correctional, an hour from May’s home. In total, he served less than three years.
They say time heals all wounds, but May’s only cried out louder for real justice. With the news of Carson’s release, she saw the storm coming and readied herself for the rain to fall.
It was falling today, coming down in sheets, but my view was clear when May finally walked out of Barry’s Bullpen. I watched her closely as she pulled at her raincoat, snugging it as she stepped off the curb toward her car. I watched more intently as a guy emerged from the alley behind her, and Police Sergeant Mike Benson radioed to his team on site and jumped from my car.
Four police cruisers converged on the scene as two plainclothes officers stepped out from their hiding spots with weapons drawn, yelling at the man to get on the ground, inserting themselves between May and any possible harm. The man was secured and searched before Sergeant Benson waved me over.
“Had these on him.” He held up a couple of plastic bags containing a stun gun, zip ties and a tactical knife. “It’s him. He’s been Mirandized. Don’t tell anyone I let you speak with him. It’ll be my ass.”
“It stays here, Mike. Thanks.”
I walked over to Carson Francois Brinks. He looked different. Leaner. He looked harder, even while trying to duck his head away from me.
The arresting officers held him tightly as I leaned in to his right ear. “Hi, Carson. Remember me? I’m assistant district attorney Angela Collier, working on May Jarreau’s behalf, and I want you to know why you’ve been caught.”
He still tried to look down and away from me, a tiny smirk curling his lips.
“It’s because May has more power than you do.”
The smirk faded.
“She has more power because she’s smarter t
han you, and she’s had enough of your psychotic bullshit. Your release was a clarion call, and she pegged you, Carson. She knew you would violate your restraining order. Do you know what this means? It means you’re going to get another seven automatically added to your original sentence, but with the toys you were carrying, I can guarantee you I’ll make it longer.
May told me you would come at her some place other than home this time. She was right, and because of her, you’re going back in. If I have my way, you’d better learn to love those bars. Take him, officers.”
It’s difficult to express how much pleasure it gave me to see such a POS get his head pressed down and put into a patrol car. As it pulled away, I watched Sgt. Mike Benson escorting May to her car and I waved to her, remembering what her friend Ellen had said.
Life isn’t simple. It’s messy and loud and it’s in your face, but it must be lived. The trick is to make life complimentary to your soul.
For May and her kids, I hope it will be now.
# # #
The Birthmark and the Brand
By Warren Moore
They were called the Badlands, and after a week’s ride, Graham understood why. But trappers and traders had made the circuit from Fort Pierre to Fort Laramie and back, and one had told him where the water was, so he and the chestnut gelding had made it at least part of the way out of the Territory, and had made it most of the way to Laramie when he saw the Cheyenne tracks. He didn’t know if it was a war party, hunters, or scouts, but he didn’t have much to trade, so he guided the horse away from the path they had followed. It just seemed like the smarter thing to do.
Until he got lost. Well, maybe not lost, but he was reminded of a story he’d heard about Daniel Boone, who said he had never been lost, but had been “a mite bewildered for three days.” The thought made Graham smile, but there was a grimness in it. He had found the bones of men who had been bewildered a little too long, who could no longer be puzzled or surprised by anything.
He felt as though he had ridden through an endless expanse of scrub when he saw the stream. It flowed south, and he decided to follow it a ways. Where there was water, there would be game, and there might even be a town. A few hours later, he found not a town, but a sod house, dug into the side of the slope Graham knew would rise to the mountains to the west. It seemed like many of the others he had seen during his time on the plains. Settlers would build them, and then abandon them when boards or logs became available from the rail towns, or would convert them into shelter for their animals as they grew their homesteads.
That didn’t seem to have happened here. The sod house didn’t look new, but there was no sign of other construction. But neither was it abandoned--- a stone chimney emerged from farther up the slope, with a wisp of smoke. There was no well, but with the stream only a short distance away, they may never have seen the need to dig one. Graham was skeptical, but after all, the house had apparently been occupied a while, and he always figured people could make their own choices. In any case, it was someone’s home, and perhaps a chance to re-establish his bearings and get back on the way to Laramie, or at least to a nearby town, if there was one.
He called out, “Hello, the house!” There was no response for a moment, and he was about to speak again, when a woman appeared in the doorway, reminding him somehow of a rabbit emerging from a warren. It almost made him smile, but he didn’t want to seem impolite, so he waited.
“Hello, yourself,” the woman said, taking a short step into the sunlight. Her dress was simple—not the dark of the Amish or plain people, but cloth blended with the brown earth that surrounded them. At first, Graham thought a smear of dirt had fallen on her face as well, but then he realized it was a spot on her right cheek, the color of spilled coffee. A birthmark.
The woman saw that Graham had seen it, or acted as if she had, turning slightly. “Well,” she said, “what do you want?”
“Maybe some directions,” he said, “and I wouldn’t say no to some provisions— maybe bacon or coffee? I can pay,” he added quickly. She looked at him silently for a few seconds, her eyes darting back and forth to the edge of the scrub near what would have been a yard in other circumstances, but here was simply barren earth. He broke the silence. “I’m Graham.”
“I don’t need to know that,” the woman said. Then she sighed. “Light and set then,” she said, “but be quick about it.”
“I’m guessing you don’t get many visitors,” Graham said. “Least you don’t seem used to them.” But the woman had ducked back into the earthen doorway.
After a moment, she reemerged with a small cloth bag. “Here’s some coffee,” she said, “But we’ve got no bacon.” She looked at him briefly, then turned her head so her right cheek was away from him. “Let me see your money.” He gave her ten half-dimes— he knew it was wild overpayment, and he was no George Crocker, but it might motivate her to talk a little more.
“I was riding for Laramie,” he said, “But I got turned off the trail. How far are we from the fort?”
“Day and a half’s ride,” she said. “Follow the crick downstream and it meets the North Platte. Road’s there— go upstream. Fort’s where it meets the Laramie River.” She began to turn back to the house, when Graham said, “Ma’am?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks. I hope I wasn’t too much bother.”
“No,” she said. “But you need to light a shuck. My husband’ll be back before too long. He ain’t much for company.”
“Doesn’t seem like you’d have a lot up here. Got neighbors?”
“Yes, but they— they don’t come ‘round much.”
“Must be quiet.” Graham had considered saying lonesome, but out here, it was more a way of life. The woman didn’t respond. Quiet indeed.
Later, Graham wouldn’t know why he said what he did, but he hadn’t seen anyone in more than a week, and sometimes, he wondered if he talked to people just to hear voices. So he said, “Ma’am, this isn’t really my place to say, but you don’t have to twist like that.”
She stiffened. “Like what?”
“Turned away like that.” Oh well, in for a penny… “People have a lot worse marks than that.”
Her eyes blazed. “What do you know about ‘marks,’ Mister Graham?”
“Just what I’ve seen.”
“And how many of those marks have you seen on married women? Very few, I’ll bet.”
“Didn’t seem to stop you.”
She laughed, and spat on the ground. “Maybe it should have.” But she stepped into the full light of the afternoon. The birthmark ran along her high cheekbone.
“Since you’ll be on your way to Laramie and never back again, let me tell you about what it means to have— this,” she said. “You grow up in Philadelphia, in a good Quaker family. You go to school, learn to read, cipher, play an instrument, dance.
“But you know no man is going to ask you to dance by choice. You see people look at you, and they jerk their eyes away. You hear people— even dirty, shiftless people— talking as you pass by. If they’re superstitious fools, you see them cross themselves against the mark of Cain. If they’re the people you grew up with, you hear them whisper, ‘She’s a lovely girl, except— ‘and you know the rest of it.
“I thought I could hide it by painting my face, myself, but even in Philadelphia, it gets hot, and the paint would run, and then— then I felt as though I was a liar on top of everything else. I began to adjust to the idea of being a spinster.
“But after the Panic and when your family’s money is gone, what are you going to do, Mr. Graham? No money, no prospects at home. What do you do?”
Graham shook his head, but she didn’t seem to notice. “You see an ad in the paper one day— ‘Ranchers Want Wives; Will Pay Passage.’ And maybe you think that— that it won’t matter, if there’s a man lonely enough.
“But it does, and when you get off the train, you see the men turning away. And the ones who just move past you out of hand are bad enough, b
ut the ones who think themselves kind as they cast you aside politely? Even worse.
“I was one of the last five— and one was a consumptive. There were three men left, and I feared that— well, it doesn’t matter what I feared. What I got was Nathan Flaherty. I remember thinking my parents would have shuddered at my marrying an Irishman, but there was no other choice. ‘Come on, then,’ he said, and he sounded disappointed even then, but I went, and we were married. I don’t know what became of the other girls.”
Graham stood there, and not knowing what else to say, said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She laughed without humor. “Oh, I’ve been hurt by masters, Graham. God marked me for pain, and that’s what I’ve had.
“I had a hope at first— there might not have been many choices for Nathan, but there were even fewer for me, and I thought we might make something of that together. But we had two weeks of riding ahead of us before we got... here.
“But before that— before that was, I guess you’d call it a wedding night, but there was no gentleness and less love. I had lit a lantern while I changed in the back of the wagon. Flaherty pulled the flap aside and said ‘Put out the light, woman. I don’t need to look at you to do this.’ And he— he took me, like a bull might take a heifer, and with as much concern.
“Two weeks, every night. And during the fourth day, he talked of how I should be grateful to him— many a man would have had no use for ‘one like me,’ he would say. ‘If you have to be ugly,’ he would say, ‘you could at least be useful.’
“‘Ugly is as ugly does,’ I said. And that was the first time he hit me. The back of his hand across my face made everything flash white. I tasted blood and nearly fell into the fire. He laughed, and told me that the next time, he’d strike the stain off my face. And it felt like he could have. His hands are as hard as paving stones.
“Ten more days we traveled. He scorned and struck me by day, and at night?” She shook her head. “I longed for the scorn and the blows.
Betrayed: Powerful Stories of Kick-Ass Crime Survivors Page 15