Elise was awakened from a troubled sleep that had been filled with nightmares, demons, and ghosts of people she had known who had died. It had seemed to take forever for her to doze, only to be awakened a short while later by the sound of a car pulling up before the small house. She got up, lit the lamp on the table by the bed, pulled her wrap on and tightened it about her, then went to answer the door. She was startled to find Floyd Goode on the porch, a lantern held high in his hand.
“I need your brother an’ th’ girl t’ help me ketch my cows. Th’ fence is down an’ they’re all over Joiner’s property next door.”
“But—now, in the middle of the night—”
“Th’ damn cows is out now,” he said, raising his voice, his eyes on her intently, making her want to back away.
Stan entered the room, pulling his suspenders up over the shoulders of the nightshirt he had shoved carelessly into his pants. “What do you want?” he demanded, staring at Goode with unconcealed distrust.
“Th’ damn fence is down. You an’ th’ girl, Sissy, I need you t’ help me ketch my cows.”
“I’ll help you tomorrow morning.”
“You’ll help me now or you’ll get th’ hell off my place,” he said louder, glaring at Stan. “It’s your place t’ help me, with that no-good brother-in-law ’a yours in jail. I don’t aim t’ lose my cows ’cause you don’t want t’ go out in th’ dark, boy. You help me, or you all get th’ hell off my property.”
Stan looked at Elise. She knew he felt he should not go, that he and Sissy should not leave her alone in the house with the two small children. Janson had told him to stay with her, not to trust Goode.
“You make up your mind, boy. You get th’ gal an’ come with me, or you all clear outta this place by mornin’.”
“You’ve got to, Stan,” Elise said, telling herself that she would be okay, that Goode would be leaving with them, and that Stan would make sure Goode was not left alone with Sissy, even as she saw the refusal in her brother’s eyes. “We’ll be—”
“I promised Janson I wouldn’t—” he looked quickly at Goode, then back to her, “that I’d stay here.”
“We’ll be fine—go on. We can’t afford to lose this place.” She spoke quietly, having moved closer to her brother, but, when she looked back, Goode’s eyes flickered over her, sending a chill through her.
“I promised I—” Stan looked at her for a moment. “I don’t feel right about going, not after I promised Janson—”
“I know, but you have to. I’ll be okay.”
Stan stared at her for a moment, then stepped closer, looking at her intently. “You know where the shotgun is—you blow a hole in anyone who comes here who has no business being here.”
She nodded. She knew she could pull that trigger if she had to, and she hoped she would be able to steady her nerves enough to hit something if the need arose. Janson had taught her how to shoot the shotgun.
“I’ll wake Sissy and tell her to get dressed.” She moved out of the room, glad not to feel Goode’s eyes on her as Stan went on out with the man. Sissy got up and dressed with no complaint, and left with them. Elise closed the door on the sound of the car driving away, and felt a sudden impulse to lock it—but it had no lock, and neither did the back.
She moved to the chifforobe where Janson kept the shotgun locked away from curious children’s hands. She unlocked the cabinet and found the shotgun, glad that Stan had loaded it earlier in the evening, as Janson had told him to, then held it in her hands for a moment before she went to lean it against the washstand where she could reach it more easily if the need should arise.
She checked on the children, finding Henry now with his head at the foot of the bed, laying atop the covers. She turned him around and covered him again, not surprised in the slightest when he did not awake, for he slept harder than any human being she knew, other than Janson himself. She came back to prod the fire in the fireplace and put another piece of wood on it before she laid back down, knowing that sleep was far distant from her.
She stared at the rough, unpainted wall, the light from the kerosene lamp she had left burning, as well as that of the fireplace, throwing the aged wood into shadows. She heard Catherine say “Mama,” in the next room, and lay listening for a moment until she was certain she had spoken in her sleep. The house was quiet, except for the popping of the wood as it burned, the night very still, very silent.
After a time she heard feet on the front steps, but no sound of a car as before—Stan and Sissy returning, she thought, sitting up and reaching for her wrap. All that fretting and worrying for nothing—
But the steps did not sound right on the porch; they were heavy, lumbering, the steps of only one man, and not of the two young people returning—she stopped with her wrap in her hands and moved quickly to get the shotgun, but the door opened and she froze immediately, turning, knowing already what she would see there. Her heart caught in her throat as her eyes met the large bulk of a man in the doorway, a man moving into the room. Goode—she started for the gun again, but too late. Goode was on her, grabbing her by the wrist and twisting her back, only inches from the shotgun she cursed herself for putting just out of reach.
She hit him hard in the face, struggling away for the gun again as he tried to hold her back. “Com’on, honey. You been waitin’ for this, I know—”
“Let me go!” she screamed, hitting him again, clawing for his eyes, only to have her hands twisted behind her back. He turned her to face him and she tried to slam her knee into his groin, but he blocked the blow, shoving her away, across the room to where she fell against the rough eating table, falling over the bench at its side. He was on her again, pulling her to him, forcing her arms away, behind her back. One arm escaped his grasp and she managed to claw his cheek, digging her nails in and drawing blood. He tried to force his mouth over hers, and she twisted away, spitting in his face and managing to strike him again.
He half drug, half threw her to the bed, and came toward her. She scrambled up, scrambled for the gun, falling to the floor as he grabbed her ankle, pulling her back. She screamed, wishing him dead, damning him to hell if she could only get her hands on the shotgun.
She kicked him as hard as she could in the stomach as he leaned over her, then got to her feet, lunging for the gun as he grabbed her and held her back. She hit him, stumbling away, seeing Henry now in the room, the small boy running up to start pounding at him with his fists. Goode grabbed him up from the floor, shook him hard and hit him across the face, then slung him like a doll across the room, to lie still, unmoving, at the foot of the bed.
Panic gripped Elise as she moved toward her son, but Goode was on her, holding her back, forcing her toward the bed. She screamed, twisting, biting his cheek hard as he tried to bring his mouth to hers again. She kicked and fought, managing to free herself from the bed, and tried to hit him again only to be slung away to land with a hard blow against the wood stove.
She struggled to her feet, bracing against the eating table. Her hand touched the large butcher knife there and she drew her fingers back quickly from the sharp nick of the blade. Goode was coming toward her again—her hand closed over the knife handle. She’d kill him for what he had done to Henry, what he had tried to do to her. He grabbed for her again and she raised her arm, lowering it with all the force in her body and buried the knife to the hilt in his shoulder.
He screamed in pain and reeled backwards, clutching at the knife handle. She stared in horror, seeing the blood, but realizing that she had not hurt him enough to stop him. He pulled at the handle, crying out as he pulled the long blade from his flesh, and he looked at her, spittle on his mouth and chin, and a mad, pained rage in his eyes as he dropped the knife to the floor at his feet.
“You goddamn bitch, I was gonna make it good for you—but I’m gonna hurt you now—” He started toward her, his steps unsure as if from shock, his hands cove
red with blood as they reached—
She lunged again for the shotgun. There was a scream of rage from behind her as her hands closed over it—turning, twisting, she brought it up into his face, holding her finger over the trigger of one barrel, her heart racing so hard she thought it would burst.
He froze, staring, cautious, then began to move again—toward her, more careful. “Put it down, girl. You won’t be able t’ use it. You cain’t shoot me—”
“I’ll blow your goddamn head off—get out of here—” Her hands were shaking, the gun wavering before her.
“Put it down—I only wanted t’ show you some fun, what’chu need with your man gone—” stepping closer as she backed away.
“Stop, goddamn it, or I’ll shoot—” but he kept moving, inching toward her, the deep wound in his shoulder oozing blood. There was an assurance in his eyes, a damned assurance that made her tremble even more. She moved toward the foot of the bed, keeping the gun up as she made her way toward Henry. The little boy was moving now, beginning to cry.
“You cain’t shoot that—just put it down, or give it t’ me, an’ I’ll—”
She raised the barrel, pulled the trigger, and sent a shotgun blast into the ceiling overhead with the load of one barrel, her ears ringing with the sound in the small room, her heart pounding, her hands shaking even more, and her shoulder hurting from the backfire. She could vaguely hear Catherine screaming in the next room over the sound of the ringing in her ears, but she did not move her eyes from Goode as she leveled the shotgun at his chest. “I’ll give it to you, all right—right through that fat stomach. Now—get out!”
He had stopped. Henry had begun to cry in earnest, lying on the floor now at her feet, and she wanted to stoop to draw him into her arms, but she could not. She could only hold the shotgun, her finger over the remaining barrel, and stare at the man before her.
“You’ll pay for this—either you gimme that gun an’ do just what I tell you to do, or you can all get off my place—” His hand clutched at his shoulder, red seeping through his fingers. “How’d you like bein’ out in th’ road with them young’ns this winter, with your husband behind bars—”
“I’d live on the streets before I’d let you touch me—now get out!”
He stared at her, a muscle working in his jaw. “I want you, your brother, that half-wit, an’ them part-colored brats ’a yours out ’a here by morning.”
“Gladly—”
He stared for a moment, as if expecting her to change her mind, then began to slowly move toward the door. She watched him, keeping the shotgun up, her finger over the trigger, ready to unload the remaining barrel into him if she had to. He went through the door, slamming it so hard that it shook in its frame, leaving red smears of blood on the knob and the wall beside the door.
As soon as the door closed she collapsed to the floor, laying the gun beside her at easy reach, and pulled her crying, frightened son into her arms. His bravery vanished now, Henry’s little face was screwed up in pain, the mark of an angry blow evident on his cheek. She held him to her, rocking him in her arms, and tried to see if he were badly hurt or only frightened.
She stood, lifting him into her arms, then, reaching down to get the gun, she made her way into the other room. Catherine was sitting up in her bed, crying, clutching a home-made rag doll to her, one thumb in her mouth as she stared at her mother in the darkness.
Elise went to her, knowing she had to calm both children’s fears, as well as her own.
Stan and Sissy returned half an hour later, having walked home hurriedly from where Goode had driven off and left them, only to find her sitting on Sissy’s narrow bed, both children now asleep in her arms, and the shotgun beside her. Stan immediately wanted to go after Goode to administer the beating the man so richly deserved, but Elise would not allow it. She had lost one brother in defending her honor. She was not about to lose two.
They did not wait out the night, but began to pack immediately. Stan left the little house as soon as dawn came, to go to the village, going to borrow the team and wagon Clarence Keith had recently taken in trade, a team and wagon they would need to leave Goode’s place. He told Elise later that he ran most of the way, until his side began to hurt, then walked while he clutched at his pained side, until he was able to run again. He had reloaded the shotgun and left it with Elise, who found herself working determinedly in his absence, wanting only to leave the place where the nightmare of the past night had taken place.
When Stan arrived back at the house, he arrived not only with the team and wagon, but with Dorrie and her sons, Wheeler James and Stephen. Elise worked, packing silently, loading, trying to help move things that she knew were much too heavy for her to move. She fretted over Henry and Catherine, worrying over the great, black bruise on Henry’s small face, even as the little boy followed her about through the morning as if he could not let her out of his sight now. She knew that Janson would kill Floyd Goode, even if he had to escape from the jail to do it, when he saw what the man had done to Henry, and when he learned what he had tried to do to her. There was no doubt within her of that—and, along with the horror of what she knew would happen, was the knowledge of what would then follow, of the town, further enraged if he managed to get away from the police, of more death, possibly even Janson’s own. Then there was her own guilt as well, her foolishness of having sent Stan and Sissy away from the house against his orders, knowing what kind of man Goode was, making this all her own fault.
Somehow in the morning hours, in the midst of the packing and loading to leave this place, in the midst of Henry following her about and her worry over him and Catherine, during Sissy’s quiet work and Stan’s anger and the help of the Keith family, Elise found herself in charge, packing up her household, vacating the little nightmare house, getting her family moved away. Inside she kept thinking about Janson, wishing that he were here—but she climbed up onto the seat of the wagon and took the reins into her own hands, seeing the surprise that came to not only Stan’s face, but to Dorrie’s and Wheeler James’s as well.
They showed up at Janson’s grandparents’ house that morning with no warning, her entire family, bag and baggage, all their possessions, even to the huge beast of a woodstove, on the wagon. We need a place to stay, she said, and was taken in. The family was crowded into the small, four-room house with complaints only from Janson’s Aunt Belle and his Aunt Maggie, both of whom Elise turned on immediately.
“I’ve had enough trouble in the last couple of days to do me for a lifetime,” she said, staring the two open-mouthed women down there in the narrow kitchen. “I have no intention of listening to either one of you.”
She turned to find Deborah Sanders just behind her, Catherine as content in the old woman’s arms as she was in her mother’s own. Deborah looked at her long and hard, and Elise met her stare, refusing to look away.
After a long moment the old woman nodded her head just once. “You done growed up when I wasn’t lookin’,” she said, her eyes still set on Elise.
Then she turned on her own daughters.
“You old hens hesh your mouths,” she snapped.
Elise later found herself alone with Deborah in the back bedroom she had been given for her and the children, the same room she and Janson had been allowed when she had first come to Eason County three years before. That seemed a lifetime ago now.
“There’s some bad men in this world,” Gran’ma said after Elise told her what had happened. She took Elise’s hand and held it in her own. “There’s men ain’t ’fraid ’a God or nobody.” Then she brought her eyes to Elise. “My boy’s gonna kill him when he finds out; you know that.”
“I can’t let him do that—not to let them put him back in jail, or worse. It was my own fault anyway. I was so stupid!” She turned her face away, only to have it brought gently back by the old woman’s fingers beneath her chin.
“Weren’t no
ne ’a your fault. It was all Floyd Goode’s doin’. An’ Janson hisself should ’a knowed better’n t’ take you an’ Sissy there, anyway. Everybody knows what kind ’a man Goode is—”
“But, I should have known. I shouldn’t have let Stan and Sissy leave. I—”
“Hesh your frettin’, honey.” The woman’s eyes were kind as she patted Elise’s hand. “It’s all right. You don’t worry about nothin’ now, you hear. You an’ my little Henry an’ th’ baby’re welcome here, an’ your brother as well, an’ ’a course my Sissy—don’t you worry none.”
“I hate for us to be a burden—”
“You ain’t no burden, honey—you’re family.”
Gran’pa took her into town late that afternoon to see Janson. Elise knew that Tom Sanders would say nothing of what had happened at Goode’s, or that Elise and the family were now staying at his place, for she had asked him not to, but Elise soon realized there was no need for Janson to be told. He seemed to sense there was something wrong the moment Elise entered the police station.
She crossed the office area to him, a genuine smile coming to her face, and reached to touch him through the bars. She could see fresh bandages on his neck and arm, and motioned with the supplies in her hand, supplies she had brought to dress the burns. She was disappointed that she would not have an excuse now to enter the cell, but relieved when she was told that Dr. Washburn had been to the police station to see to Janson.
She had brought biscuits and ham from Gran’ma, and told Janson that his grandfather had come by the house to check on them, and that she had asked him to bring her to town. Gran’pa had talked to him for a moment, then shook his hand through the bars and left to go to the Feed and Seed up on Main. The officer who had been sitting at the desk when they entered also stepped outside.
Elise chattered on too gaily about the children, about Gran’pa’s arthritis, the Keiths, about things they had done back in Endicott County when they had first met. Suddenly she realized he was looking at her, not eating, but staring at her in a way that made her ill-at-ease.
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