by J. E. Neiman
The insignia consisted of two horizontal L's, one on top of the other with a space in between. She thought the emblem resembled the edge of a picture frame. It reminded Allie of how she and her twin sister Maddie dreaded the branding process every year. They would do anything to stalemate the event. Once, when they were seven, they hid the branding iron in the hayloft. Another time they opened all the corral gates in the middle of the night to provide the rounded up livestock, a means to escape.
Allie and Maddie knew they would be punished for their antics with a paddling, so they helped each other put on layers and layers of panties, sometimes as many as six pair each. Their parents knew the twins were the culprits and after 'soft' spankings, they would try to explain the importance of branding. "We trust our neighbors, but we brand our stock," their dad would always say.
It made little sense to Allie and Maddie, until their mother showed them pictures of branding scenes on Egyptian tomb walls dating even before 2000 B.C. Those images had stopped their tricks to delay the inevitable. However, they would never participate. Instead, they stayed in the house covering their ears to the sounds of bawling calves and the pitiful cries of horses.
The sound of a horse neighing in the pasture next to her caused her to turn her head. A black mare stood in the long green grass and nudged her nose at a colt.
Then the wind blew a soft breeze that carried the resonance of a whisper. A chill ran up her spine as it sounded like her mother's voice in need of help. She got back into her car and sped down the final stretch of the road to the ranch compound.
Chapter 24
Monclova-Coahuila, Mexico
Jake had hitchhiked to a small village outside the city of Monclova, Mexico. The skies in the area were polluted from the many steel mills in the area.
The last one hundred miles, he had jiggled in the back of depilated, thirty-year-old pickup truck, surrounded by caged chickens and a Billy goat chained to the truck bed. The smell of the goat's chronic diarrhea, along with the sooty air in temperatures over one-hundred degrees, had challenged Jake's energy and patience.
Now, he sat at a yellow-painted wood table placed in a rickety building that someone had tried to masquerade as a cantina. He contemplated heading north to the border to Piedros Negros or Eagle Pass, Texas, the closest crossing into the United States. But his gut instinct told him to continue his journey and traverse at Laredo, Texas, as planned.
If he hadn't stumbled upon the El Paso newspaper article stating that the FBI had assigned the renowned psychic Allison Lewis, to his case he would never return to the States. However, he knew that the only way he could out maneuver the law would be to eliminate Allison and her identical twin, Madison. He smiled at the thought. He knew he could out psyche either of them, anytime.
After ordering tamales and chugging down his third Corona, he noticed he'd spilled salsa on the tabletop. Jake wiped a few red spots away with a small paper napkin and remembered when he was four-years-old.
He'd grabbed a large wooden spoon from his mom's pan of spaghetti sauce and waved it in the air, splattering tomato paste all over. The stuff landed on his chair, an area rug and the oak windowsill in the dining room of the parsonage where they lived. His mother scolded him, gave him a bath and threw his clothes into the sink to soak.
It was the first time he understood the gravity of his mother's fear of his father, Reverend Tansey. Jake watched her try desperately to remove the few red stains off the window's edge. She spent hours with different cleaners and even rubbed mayonnaise into the wood. He had tried to help her, but the spots remained.
His mother placed a pink doily over the area and set a small plant in the center of it. She turned to Jake and raised a finger to her lips. "Promise me, you'll not tell your father. Okay?"
He nodded his head and ran outside to play.
Two weeks later, Jake awoke to his mother's screams in the middle of the night. He opened the door of his bedroom, peeked out and saw his father dragging his mother down the stairs by her feet. Thump, thump, thump. He would never forget the sounds of her head hitting each of the thirteen wooden steps.
His father then forced his mother into the dining room, handed her sandpaper and demanded she remove the tiny spots from the window sill. The Reverend, as he required his wife to call him, stood over her as he supervised the sanding and staining of the window ledge. He yelled at her in his deep preacher's voice. "How dare you allow any damage to this beautiful home that God has provided. What do you do all day while I'm out saving souls?"
"Reverend? Did you notice that I wiped the screens with ammonia today?"
"But you hid these spots from me. Wife, quote Ephesians 5:23."
"'The husband is the head of the wife as Christ is head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior,'" she stammered through tears. "'As the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.'"
Jake wanted to help his pathetic mother, but couldn't. If his father caught him out of bed, he’d get a whooping. All he could do was cry quietly at the top of the stairs as he watched through the railings.
He must have fallen asleep as he awoke to a struggling sound. Peering through the slots, Jake witnessed his father violently raping his mother. He ran to his room and covered his head with a heavy quilt.
Jake glanced around the Mexican bar. He wanted to phone his mom, but didn't see a pay phone or a likely candidate to steal a cell from. He clicked his beer bottle on the bar to get the owner's attention. "Telephono, comprende?"
The man pointed out the front door. Jake tossed a ten spot on the counter and ambled outside.
In the dark night, he scanned the small village. Hovels surrounded him. He raised his arms high to stretch, and then lowered his hands to his upper back. He rubbed some of the dozens of raised scars, shaped like blades of grass, made years ago by a leather strap in his father's hands.
Jake thought of how his beautiful wife, Tiffany, once kissed each one of these scars. He remembered her long hair brushing against his back as her tears wet his marred body. Besides his mother, Tiffany was the only person he ever felt any emotions for, but Tiff wouldn't keep her mouth shut about the funds he'd borrowed from her old lady.
Jake pulled his arms to his side. He thought about how he'd forced Tiffany's Mercedes to halt on Torrey Pines Road in La Jolla. She'd tried to get away from him. That wasn't going to happen, and it didn't. He actually pleaded her not to go to the authorities, and Jake never begged anyone for anything.
"You're nothing but a con-man," she screamed at him and took off running on foot in the darkness.
Tiffany gave him no choice. He jumped into her car and repeatedly slammed it into her body. Damn it. Jake wanted to scream. He remembered everything even though he tried to forget the needless crap that filled his mind.
A young girl moseyed down the dirt street with a cardboard case of Chiclets strapped to her diminutive body. Her dirty hair fell into her tired, wide eyes. She reached out to him with an open hand, but didn't say a word.
"Hey baby cakes. Come to daddy," he said.
Chapter 25
1875-Empire, Colorado Territory
A gruesome sight greeted us at the entrance of Empire. A man hung from a lynching rope from a large oak tree, swaying gently in the breeze. We stared silently at the horrific scene as we entered the city.
The town was only a grimy gathering of tents and lean-tos placed close to the banks of the South Platte. I counted thirty in all.
I hoped I'd find something to indicate that this was all a nightmare. But everything was real, and the sight of a human being hanging all alone plus the filth and squalor of this place, nauseated me.
It had rained and our wagon's wheels began to sink in the trail that ran through town. Lulu steered the horses out of the deep ruts.
Mac ordered Anna, Kate and I inside the wagon and told us to crouch low. I climbed in but sat spellbound by the sight.
"Pearl, get your stupid head down. Don't
want a riot over seeing pussy in town. Have to get ready first." A smug grin crept onto Mac's face. The shadow of his dark-brown cowboy hat concealed most of his nastiness.
We passed a long rectangular tent with one side open. It functioned as a tavern, filled to the brim with dirty drunken men falling out the door. They laughed and shouted as they indulged themselves.
An old man with a wrinkled, clenched face stepped outside into our path. He stepped to the side, then tried to climb onboard.
"Stop it, you old buzzard," Lulu bellowed.
The haggard man yelled, "Hey Mama, I wanta screw ya."
Lulu pulled her dilapidated straw hat down tighter around her head. "Over my dead body."
"I could do that too." He followed behind us, laughing until he tripped and fell facedown into the mud.
"Serves you right, disgusting pig," Lulu shouted.
Trash, bones and animal carcasses lay in the trail to the river. Emaciated dogs ran beside the wagon, barking and snarling. Clouds of fat, metallic-blue flies swarmed about.
I looked at Kate, but she wouldn't meet my eyes. Anna stared at the wagon floor. I pulled my apron around my face to protect myself against the insects and the stench. Maybe I was dead and this was hell.
Chapter 26
Lewis Ranch, Nebraska
"So Gilbert's gone for a long time?" Allie stretched her legs out on the supple maroon- leather couch in the ranch house's living room.
"Oh, yes. He cooked his fat bottom. The Sheriff caught him red-handed." Susan picked up Callie and held him in her lap.
They discussed Allie's recent challenge of locating the missing Down's Syndrome boy in a Rocky Mountain park toilet.
"I'm proud of you, Allie."
"Thanks." She smiled then looked down. "Mom, I have to get back to Denver to follow through on Pauly's case. Then I'm flying to Phoenix. A senator is missing there." She stood. "Wish I could hang out a while."
Allie's cell phone rang. She answered. "Yes. Let me get a pen." She put the phone to her side and whispered to her mom. "It's the FBI in Denver."
"Okay, I'm back," Allie spoke into the phone. "Jacob William Tansey. Suspect for his wife's murder in California and a teenage girl.” Allie hesitated. "I may have something already regarding this creep. Let me call you back on it."
After she clicked the phone off, Allie said, “Mom, have you had any input on Jake Tansey?”
“Can I see a photo of him?”
Allie, found an image of Jake Tansey on her phone and leaned down besides her mom.
Susan gasped, “Yes, after the Sheriff drove off with Gilbert, I saw this man walking in Mexico. Hear a mariachi street band. This guy sneered at me with a jackal face.”
“Mexico?” Allie paced the floor. “It would make sense that he’d go there. Anything else?
“A few days ago, I saw a clear vision of a teenage girl bleeding and running down a snow covered hill. Her name is Molly. That could be the missing girl.”
“How about the name Tiffany, anything?
“No.”
Allie stood. “I hate to leave you. How about driving back with me to Denver. Spend a few days with me.”
Susan shook her head. “Honey, I have a ranch to run. Now that Gilbert’s locked up again, I’m fine.”
“Okay, I know I can’t change your mind. Maddie and I will come spend a week or so with you soon. How’s that sound?”
“Wonderful.”
Susan Lewis watched her daughter's car disappear on the ranch road in a cloud of dust. Thunderclouds in the west rippled with electricity. Callie, her little dog, limped on three legs toward the corral where the cowhands were working cattle. Susan followed behind and wished her daughter could have stayed longer.
Susan glanced once more up the road where her daughter's car had disappeared. A network of lightning bloomed in the distant dark clouds. The gift of intuitiveness that she and her daughters shared was sometimes more a burden, an albatross.
Chapter 27
Monclova-Coahuila, Mexico
The little girl wearing the once-white dress extended an open palm to Jake. "Por favor senor."
A torn strap from her tattered pink sandals caused the child to tumble to the ground. She stayed there as if too exhausted to move. One arm and hand reached out toward Jake.
"Tengo hambre," she pleaded.
Jake glanced at her then checked his surroundings. The last thing he wanted was to be thrown into a grungy Mexican jail for taking advantage of a child. However, he doubted if anyone would give a damn in this forgotten place, somewhere between Adiós and Inferno-hell. But he didn't want to chance it.
The sun had dropped below the horizon and a few lights materialized on several storefronts. The moon appeared waxy and pale creating enough light to frame the saguaros near the edge of town. A rhythmic choir of crickets joined in with the melancholy, Mariachi music that filtered out into the street from the cantina.
He sniffed and grimaced. The odor of burnt Mexican food mingled with the stench of the open sewer trench and the polluted air from the steel mills caused him to grimace.
Two drunks stumbled around the girl's body, nearly stepping on her. "Hey. Esta nino puta," one of them slurred.
A pickup backfired as it passed by. The vehicle's tires flung dirt onto Jake and on what looked like a bundle of dirty rags lying in front of him.
He examined the girl's face. Her lips were cracked and bleeding, her eyes nearly closed. She had bruises on one jaw. "Shit. You're only five or six. I need a woman." Jake pushed the girl's hand away from him and snickered, "Hey, maybe I can do your mama?"
"Por favor, tengo hambre," the child repeated,
"Sure you're hungry. Beggar's are hungry," he scoffed as he stood. He brushed dirt off his jeans. "Where's your mama?"
The girl stared at him. She almost appeared stoic.
Jake scratched the back of his head as he tried to remember his Spanish. "Dónde está su mama?" he murmured to himself. That's it, he was certain.
He reached down to the child, picked her up and did a quick turn around to make sure no one was watching. He ducked into a dark doorway just before a junky police car that was not running on all cylinders passed by. He gazed down at the girl in his arms. "You're nothing but bones." Jake inhaled then frowned. "Phew. When's the last time you used soap and water?"
Boxes of Chiclets fell out of the girl's cardboard case and onto the ground. Tears welled up in her eyes as she desperately reached down to retrieve the bright pink, yellow, white and blue packages. "Por favor," she cried out.
Jake used one arm to hold onto her as he grabbed a twenty from a jean pocket. "Take this. Forget the damn gum." He held her firmly and barked into her face. "Dónde está su mama?"
The child's tears stopped as she grasped the money in one of her hands. She pointed to the left. "Mama es una puta."
"Holy shit. You're mommy's a whore? Tell you what baby cakes, you can watch and learn."
Three blocks down to the left, a dim red light glimmered in a doorway. Jake glanced down at the child now asleep in his arms. "Gracias, Niño. I do believe you found Daddy a piece of ass and maybe more."
Chapter 28
1875-Empire, Colorado Territory
Mac and Sonny led the wagon to a clearing upwind of the squalor. Lulu parked it and the horses next to a large outcropping of rocks.
They erected a large canvas structure anchored by poles at the four corners and in the middle that held the cloth up like a miniature circus tent. The back wall sat close to the tall boulders and the long sides fluttered in the wind and brushed the ground.
Anna and Kate avoided looking at me. I wanted to beckon them into the wagon and drive away from this dismal place. But they seemed mesmerized with what was expected of them.
I forced myself to focus on my own situation. Somehow, I was going to escape.
The South Platte River flowed about twenty feet from the wagon. I studied its banks heading west. The Rocky Mountains beyond, with traces of snow in
gigantic crevices, frightened me. I ignored them and planned my escape for that night.
Kate and Anna unloaded a square wooden table with folding legs and placed it in the front part of the tent. Lulu positioned a lantern in the center of the table while Sonny put wooden crates for chairs on each side.
"That's for Mac's poker games," Anna whispered to me. "He cheats." She glanced at Mac and sauntered off.
Sonny and Mac hung thin panels of cloth in the back of the tent dividing it into four compartments. In each, they placed wooden pallets on top of the wet ground. Then they threw a sagging, stained mattress on top of the platforms.
"Pearl, you’d as thin and pale as one of these," Lulu said, as she placed white sheets over the disgusting pads. "Clean up and pinch those cheeks. Get out of those dirty rags. Grab a dress from the trunk." She glanced over at Mac. "Business will start soon." She pointed outside the tent to a line of rowdy men.
I shuddered and shook my head. Lulu lifted her chin and pointed it toward the trunk.
Mac yelled out like a carnival barker announcing a freak show. "Come one, come all. Free whisky with a game of poker. Virgins for your pleasure. Bathe in the river first to have one of my fancy girls."
Although I planned to flee into the night, I did need clean clothes. I opened the trunk. The top dress was a bulky green one with ripped lace around the collar. It could fit Lulu, not me. A muslin dress adorned with pink ribbons appeared more my size. I grabbed it, a petticoat and a chunk of soap. I turned to look for Kate and Anna, but they'd disappeared into the shadows.
Sonny lurched over to me, his long arms hanging close to his body. He leaned down and spoke in my ear, "Lulu says, you go." He lifted a flap of the tent and pushed me ahead of him out into the night.