“Sure it can. Tucker is fond of Etta Landers. But you give him a choice and it’s his wife he’d choose. You can bank on it.”
Landers looked at Miles Randall.
“What do you think, Miles?”
“It just might work. All this bloodshed isn’t getting us anywhere, Ralph.”
Landers looked back at Duncan. “Tucker been bedding Etta?”
“Sure he has.”
“You planning on doing the same to his wife?”
Duncan shrugged. “As long as I’m gonna do this, I might as well go all the way. It would serve Tucker right, for takin’ my place in Etta’s bed. An eye for an eye, so to speak. I hear tell Amanda Tucker is real religious. She’d understand an eye for an eye. It’s from the Bible, I think.”
He and Miles Randall chuckled, and Ralph Landers wanted to, except that it brought him too much pain.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Etta and Pappy stood watching over a sweating and thrashing Moses Tucker. It had been four days since they had dragged Moss from the jail cell, carried him to the E.G., and sewed and bandaged the arm. In those four days Moss had intermittently screamed Amanda’s name, and begged from the depths of his soul that Amanda not let anyone cut off his arm. His mind moved through another time: the gruesome sound of a saw, the horror of the pain, and the awful realization that his left arm had been removed. Now the awful horror was back, only worse. His subconscious mind knew what had happened, and that knowledge came forth in heart-rending screams and tormenting moans. His condition made Etta’s heart feel as though it were bleeding through its walls, and she loved him more than ever, not just wanting him there, but truly loving him for the first time.
“What do you think, Pappy?” she asked quietly on that fourth night, dabbing at tears as she sat by his bedside.
“Hard to say. It’s infected some, but not like the last time. I don’t like that fever, though. Could be a bad sign.”
“Oh, Pappy!” she sniffled, horrified at the thought of the possibility of Moses Tucker losing both arms. “What are we going to do! I feel so…responsible!”
“He’s a grown man who made up his own mind, Mrs. Landers.” He blinked back his own tears.
Moss’s eyes suddenly opened and he just stared at the ceiling a moment.
“Pappy!” Etta whispered, rising from her chair. “He’s awake, I think.”
Moss looked first at Etta, then at Pappy.
“Where’s Mandy?” he asked in a whisper.
“She’s still down in Utah, Moss,” Pappy said, glad to see the man awake. “You’re at the E.G. Me and the boys, we got you out of that jail.”
Moss swallowed and thought a moment. His lips and mouth hurt. His ribs hurt just from simple breathing. And his arm…He suddenly tried to rise, his eyes widening and filling with horror. Pappy grasped his shoulders.
“You gotta lie flat, Moss! Don’t move that arm!”
“You cut it off! You cut it off, didn’t you, you bastard! Or—or did they—my arm! They said they’d cut it off!”
“No, Moss! You haven’t lost the arm!”
“I can’t feel it! I can’t feel it! My God! Mandy! Where’s Mandy! Don’t let her see me like this!”
“Moss, you didn’t lose the arm!” Pappy yelled, lifting Moss’s arm while Etta struggled to hold him down and called for help. “Look, Moss. Look! It’s your hand—your hand!” Pappy shouted. “And if you don’t lay still, you’ll tear up all our mending.”
Lonnie, Max, and Tom came rushing in, automatically grabbing Moss’s legs, Tom moving up to take Etta’s place in holding Moss down and keeping him from rising. Etta moved back, now weeping openly.
“Let go of me! Let go of me, you bastards! Don’t you dare take my other arm!” Moss roared, remembering being held once before. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill every last one of you!”
“Goddamn it, Moss, look! Look at your hand!” Pappy growled at him.
Moss gave up the struggling. He was too weakened by his ordeal to fight against four men for long. His breathing was labored and he lay trembling, looking up at the hand that Pappy held in front of his eyes.
“It’s your hand, Moss.”
Moss’s eyes moved from the hand up the arm, and he turned his head to look at the heavy bandage on his upper arm.
“You got any feelin’ in it at all, Moss?” Pappy asked him quietly. “You feel me holdin’ your hand?”
Moss blinked, and one tear slipped down the side of his face into his ear. He was devastated at the thought of looking weak in front of these men, yet the shock of possibly losing the other arm had thrown him into a terrible depression that he could not control.
“Just…a little,” he replied in a weak voice.
“Well, that’s a start.”
“It’s the only arm I’ve got!” Moss groaned. “And even if I keep it, what if it’s useless? How am I ever gonna shoot a gun! How am I gonna…” He looked up at Pappy now. “You can save it, can’t you? God in heaven, Pappy, don’t cut it off!”
Pappy blinked back tears. “It’s infected, Moss, but so far it ain’t real bad. But you’ve got a high fever.”
Moss’s eyes filled with fiery determination, and their dark irises became almost black with an inner rage.
“Don’t you dare cut off my arm—no matter what, Pappy! You hear me? If it gets bad, you leave it and let me die!”
“Moss…”
“I won’t go through it again!” Moss growled, a cold look in his eyes that planted fear in all their hearts. “Don’t you leave me nothin’ more than a side show! I won’t go back to Amanda that way. I won’t! Don’t make me! I’d rather be dead!” More tears slipped down the side of his face. Pappy looked at the other three men.
“I can’t blame him, Pappy,” Lonnie spoke up. “Once is enough. A man like Moss can’t go around with no arms.”
Pappy looked back at Moss, his heart so heavy he thought he’d pass out.
“All right, Moss. If it gets bad, we won’t touch it.”
“Swear it!”
“I swear it.”
Moss looked at the rest of them and they all nodded. Tom Sorrells wiped at his eyes. Moss looked back at the bandaged arm.
“Is there…a chance?”
“There’s always a chance,” Pappy replied.
“I think you’ve got an edge,” Lonnie spoke up. “You’ve had that woman of yours back in Utah prayin’ for you. That can’t be all bad.”
Moss’s eyes flashed back to Pappy’s. “You didn’t tell her!”
“Nope. We figured we’d wait and see how things turn out.”
“Don’t tell her anything! Not anything! I don’t want her down there all alone worrying.”
“We won’t say nothing, Moss,” Max told him. “That’s a promise. But the fact remains she’ll be prayin’ for you anyway.”
“I’m…sorry,” Moss said, his voice growing weaker now as a dizziness swept over him. “I—I can’t help what…I say…what I do…”
“We know that, Moss,” Lonnie replied. “We’ve been this route before, you know. A man says a lot of things he don’t mean when he’s in pain.”
“Just don’t cut it off…no matter what,” Moss said, now in a near whisper.
“Whatever you say, Moss.”
Pappy turned and quickly left the room, hurrying out of the house and out behind the feed house, where he put his arm against the back wall and wept quietly and alone.
Several more days passed: days filled with pain and fits of unconsciousness, during which Moss always called for Amanda. In his waking moments he cursed Etta Landers, screaming at her to stay out of his room, telling her it was all her fault. She had ruined his life once, now she had ruined the pieces he had managed to pick up. “Why did you have to come back in my life?” he’d groan.
Never had Etta been more miserable and lonely. None of her plans for saving the ranch and getting Moss Tucker back in the bargain had worked out. Now he hated her more than ever, and it hurt. What a time to discover t
hat she truly loved him. He would never forgive her now, let alone have any feelings for her. Not once did he call her name when he was in pain. It was always “Mandy.” She grew to hate the name and the woman. If not for Amanda Tucker, Etta was sure she could have won Moss back. She could have finally been happy. But all was lost now; on top of everything else, she would have to suffer the guilt of being responsible for Moss’s death or, at best, the loss of the man’s other arm—something a virile man like Moses Tucker could never tolerate.
It was twelve days after the injury before Moss awoke without a fever. The room was quiet, and as was his habit, he reached up and ran a hand through his hair upon awakening. His hand reached the top of his head when he realized what he had done. He froze at first, afraid to believe he had actually used his arm. His heart pounded as he slowly lowered it and stared at the hand, which looked pink and healthy. He squeezed his fingers, unaware that that very morning, Amanda had knelt in morning prayer and had prayed for her husband’s health and safety. Her earnest prayers had been answered.
“I moved it,” he whispered. Great joy enveloped him, and he smiled as tears filled his eyes. “I moved it!” He looked at the door. “Pappy!” he yelled. “Pappy, get in here! Pappy!” He heard voices and commotion somewhere downstairs and he laughed at the vision of the men scrambling up the stairs to see what was wrong.
He held up his arm, ignoring the pain it still brought him, and made a fist. “By God, Ralph Landers, you’ve had it now!” he growled, a smile of sweet revenge on his face. Killing Landers and Miles Randall would be sheer joy. And he’d get Lloyd Duncan! He was certain now that it was Duncan’s voice he heard that awful day, Duncan’s voice telling them to cut off the arm. Duncan would pay!
Amanda wrote the word “New Zealand” on the blackboard, while the five children—three white (including Becky) and two Indians—whispered and wriggled in the background. She wrote the headings “Mountains,” “Rivers,” and “Lakes” beneath the word, subconsciously realizing the children had suddenly quieted.
“Now, children, who can tell me where New Zealand is?” she asked, putting down the chalk. “I hope you’ve—”
As she turned around she froze in place and turned white as snow. There stood Lloyd Duncan, holding the barrel of a .45 revolver against Becky’s cheek.
“Afternoon, Mrs. Tucker,” the man said with a smile.
Amanda felt drained of blood. Lloyd Duncan! What on earth was he doing here! And why would he want to threaten Becky!
“Take that gun away from that child’s head!” she said, her frightened voice unable to rise above a near whisper.
“I will. Soon as you get your cape and quickly walk over here to me.”
She hesitated, terrible memories of the abduction five years earlier creeping into her mind.
“Whatever for?” she asked. “And where is my husband!”
“Well, he’s most likely dead. But just for insurance, you and me is goin’ for a little ride together—to make sure Moss Tucker leaves Wyoming.”
All she heard was the word dead. No! It couldn’t be! She trembled and grasped the edge of her desk.
“What’s happened to Moss?” she asked in a choking voice.
“Well, ma’am, it’s like this. We tried to cut off his other arm, only we all kind of puked and changed our minds. So now we ain’t sure if he’s still got it or not, ’cause his men come and got him. So, he’s most likely either dead from the beatin’ we give him, or alive and armless.”
He grinned as he saw every last bit of remaining color drain from her face.
“Moss!” she screamed on the inside. “My God!”
“Now you step down away from there, or I’ll blow a big hole in this pretty little girl’s cheek,” Duncan growled. Becky whimpered and started to cry. Amanda took the cape from her chair and walked stiffly to his side, suddenly feeling like a piece of stone and not caring what he intended to do, as long as he didn’t do it to little Becky.
“Where are we going?” she asked in a cold voice.
“Down south of here to a nice little whorehouse where they take pretty young things like you and make lots of money off them. I gotta say, I’d pay good myself to have a go-round with you.”
She looked at him strangely. What did anything matter, if Moses Tucker was dead?
“May God forgive you,” she found herself saying.
“Shut up!” Duncan growled, hitting her across the side of the face with his pistol. She screamed and fell to the floor; the children started crying.
The ranch was not far away, and normally at least one man hung around the schoolhouse while Amanda taught. But things had been very quiet; just about every outlaw in the territory knew about Amanda Tucker and wouldn’t think of touching her. So she was considered relatively safe most of the time. The one man who had been watching the building, Buck Donner, had left at Amanda’s own request, to go to the house and wait for Wanda to fix some lunch for Amanda and the children. It was Becky’s birthday, and Wanda made Buck wait longer than usual while she decorated a cake to take back as a surprise so they could have a party at the little one-room school.
“Mama! Mama!” Becky cried out, getting up and going to Amanda, who was struggling to get to her feet. Becky leaned over her mother and cried, then tried to help her up, when Duncan grabbed the little girl’s arm and clobbered her hard, sending her flying over two desks. She lay still.
“Becky!” Amanda gasped, grasping a desk and struggling to her feet. Duncan landed the handle of his gun into the back of Amanda’s head, and she fell forward, this time totally silent and unconscious. He then herded the children into a small coat closet, throwing Becky’s body in after them, and bolted the door. He picked up Amanda and quickly carried her outside and slung her over his horse. He mounted up and wriggled her onto his lap so that she hung over his knees, then dug his heels into the sides of his horse.
“Get movin’, boy!” he said quietly. The horse galloped off; Duncan headed for a deep canyon he’d ridden through on the way in, where he knew he could hide easily among its maze of red, grotesquely formed rocks. A trail over rock was difficult if not impossible to find. If he could just get a head start…
At the ranch, work went on as usual, while the children at school huddled in the closet and Becky lay unconscious. Wanda and Buck talked casually, and Buck watched the woman decorate the cake, his mouth watering to taste some.
“Mrs. Tucker will be real surprised,” he said with a grin.
Moss stretched, enjoying the feeling of more strength in his arm. It was good to be alive, good to feel his fingers moving, good to look at his hand and arm and know they were still attached to his body! He was so worked up over the joy of keeping his arm that he couldn’t get to sleep. He scooted up in bed and reached over to light a cigarette. He smoked quietly, wondering just what his next move should be. A U.S. marshal seemed the only answer; yet he didn’t want to go that route. He wanted to kill Ralph Landers, or at least expose the man. And now he had his own name to clear. Most people still considered him to be the man who killed the sheriff, and Moss was surprised a mob hadn’t already raided the E.G. But things had been strangely quiet. Why the delay?
He nearly finished his cigarette when he heard soft footsteps and looked up to see Etta come into the room, wearing a white, flimsy gown that he could almost see through. She stood at the doorway for a moment, the nipples of her breasts erect and making little points through the soft fabric. Without a word she walked closer.
Moss put out his cigarette and eyed her with a mixture of disgust and desire. “What are you doin’ here?”
“You know why I’m here. I…need to know you don’t hate me, Moss. I never would have wanted them to hurt you that way. I didn’t think they were capable of such cruelty.”
His eyes moved down and up her body. “You need to wear somethin’ like that just to come and talk?”
She walked closer, eyeing him defiantly. “Tell me you forgive me, Moss. I can’t live with m
yself if you don’t.”
He sighed resignedly. “All right. I don’t blame you. I did at first, but that’s over now. You couldn’t help what they did, and I came up here willingly.”
She swallowed and sat down on the edge of the bed. “You enjoyed seeing me beg once, Moss. Now I’m begging again. I love you. I realize that now more than ever. I love you and I want you. And I’m…begging you…to make love to me before I go crazy with the want of you. I know what I am, and that you could never love me again. But you can have me for old time’s sake, if you want to look at it that way. You’ve been without a woman for a long time, and who’s to know? The battle is over. You’ll leave the E.G. and we’ll go our separate ways.”
She reached out and brushed her fingers against the hairs of his broad chest, bringing back aches and desires long buried. “The battle isn’t over,” he answered in a husky voice. “It won’t be over until Ralph Landers and Miles Randall are dead.”
She met his eyes. “And us?”
Their eyes held for a long time. His own virility, his joy at being able to use his arm, his need for vengeance with Etta Landers—all made him vulnerable. Too vulnerable. He grasped her about the waist and rolled her over onto the bed, needing her strictly for the whore she was at that moment. His mouth came down to smother her own with a heated, hungry kiss as he pressed against her, feeling the full breasts against his chest. She returned the kiss with whimpering passion as his hand moved over her body, feeling the roundness of her hips; then moved up under the gown, feeling the softness of her silken thighs, brushing the soft hairs that hid that place that could bring him great relief.
Their love-making became intense, the kisses not really separate kisses but more like one long, lingering, groaning fit of passion and desire. Her heart raced with wicked ecstasy. Finally! Finally she would have Moss Tucker!
His lips left hers and traveled down her throat as he grasped at the flimsy gown and pulled it away from her full, soft breasts. He tasted a breast hungrily, as though it could give him nourishment, then raised up slightly to move his lips to her other breast. It was then that the crucifix Amanda had given him to wear—and which he never removed from his neck—dangled down against Etta’s chest.
Lawless Love Page 39