Carried Away (Montana Miracles Book 1)

by Grace Walton

“Who knows?” Gage’s answer was noncommittal.

  “Don’t really matter, I guess. A crazy woman can serve a man, bear a baby same as any other woman.” Something in the stare Gage gave him shut Leroy up. It made him uncomfortable enough to lope back up towards the front of the scraggly line of walkers.

  Around noon, Carrie’s breathing evened out and she got quiet. When they stopped for a short break, Gage turned his back so no one would see. He laid a gentle hand on her face. A long sigh slipped through his lips as he found her cool to his touch. In a few minutes Donnie called for them to push on.

  They marched through dense underbrush all afternoon. Gage wasn’t surprised that they hadn’t been found. On land this rugged, no helicopter would see them. And with no roads, the law would have to trail them on foot or horseback. Towards dusk they were very close to the Conclave. He could smell it.

  Carrie stirred and knew they were reaching their destination too. She heard what sounded like a pack of dogs. The horrible odor of unwashed bodies and raw sewage greeted her before she actually saw the group of shacks the men called the Conclave. The motley group stepped out of the relative cleanliness of the forest into the squalor of the makeshift village. The poles of the travois settled deeper into nasty black mud with each step Gage took. Cheering men rushed out of the shacks, some of them firing rifles in salute. The kidnappers were clapped on the back for their success in bringing back females. From the doorways of several huts Carrie saw thin and frightened women. Some looked as young as the girls in her own group. One lifted a tired hand in greeting before disappearing back into the dark, dank recesses of her hut.

  The evening air had turned cold. Carrie stood shivering with the rest of the girls in the middle of the tiny bleak settlement. There was no electricity, no phone lines, and it smelled like the entire town used an open ditch as a privy. She thought it must be like stepping back in time into a medieval village. The crowd of hooting men seemed to separate like the parting of the Red Sea. A short, fat man waddled in their direction.

  Collective rhythmic cries of “Prophet, Prophet, Prophet” honored him as he slowly came up to the girls. In one stunned instant Carrie recognized him.

  “Harvey?” she asked in disbelief. It was Harvey Beasley from the jury. The last time she’d seen him, he’d been fetching her coffee and asking her for a date.

  “Harvey Beasley?”

  He insolently let his eyes travel up and down the length of her body before answering. “Here I’m called the Prophet,” he responded condescendingly.

  “The Prophet?” she asked faintly. Little tiny flecks of light were dancing in and out of her line of vision. “You’re the Prophet?”

  “I am.” He leaned down and nonchalantly tipped her face up to his level with one fist. He studied her for a long minute. “I’m glad you got rid of those ugly glasses Carrie. I like your gray eyes. They look like big cat eyes. Can you see in the dark like a cat? That might come in handy up here.” He laughed obscenely.

  Carrie had lost her big clunky glasses. She’d dumped the scratchy mud colored contacts soon afterwards. Then she’d promptly forgotten to keep her face down when anybody was looking her way. So, for the moment, and until she got back to civilization her face would remain undisguised.

  “Prophet you know her?” asked the leader of the kidnappers confused.

  “Of course I know her. I’m the Prophet of the Most High.” There were murmurs of assent at this statement. “She’s the reason I sent you to the school in the first place.”

  “But you sent us there to find wives who had not been despoiled by the filth of the world Prophet,” argued Troy. “That’s what you said.”

  “And you found them, I see,” he answered expansively opening his arms wide to indicate the girls. “Lovely young virgins to bear the sons of the Promised Nation. I knew you’d find the best there. But I hoped for this one too.” He pointed an accusing finger at Carrie. He gave her a fierce push that sent her sprawling into the stinking black mud.

  “She refused me, the Prophet of the Most High.” There were gasps and curses at this horrible heresy.

  “I would have made her my primary wife. The mother of my heir, but she cast aside the pearl of great price I offered her. I wooed her Brothers, with tenderness and gentleness, yet she scorned me. She could have been my wife!” he shouted shrilly. “But now she will be nothing more than my concubine.”

  As the men cheered him Carrie tried to get up from where she’d been shoved. Harvey prodded her with the toe of his boot. He laughed and instructed two men to manhandle her up.

  “Take Rahab here.” He pointed to Carrie using the name of a Biblical Prostitute. “Take her and the brides to the sanctification shelter. The virgins must be pure and cleansed before they start their training. The harlot must be cleansed before I use her.”

  Gage kept his eyes on the ground and reminded himself he was there to fulfill a contract. Once he did, he’d get the girls away from the Conclave. He’d get them back to their parents. He wasn’t going to risk their welfare on the bumblings of some unprepared trigger-happy County Mounties. He’d seen how they’d handled the attack on the school. They’d had a man down and they’d lost all the victims. He hadn’t been impressed. And while he ran through exactly how he was going to accomplish all this in his mind, he watched with narrowed eyes as they roughly lifted Carrie and pushed her into one of the shacks. He watched with laser like precision as the girls were herded into the same shack. The door was slammed and locked with an iron latch.

  Women from all over the dirty little village poured out of the doors of their shacks bearing bowls and pitchers. They all headed out of the settlement towards what he knew must be a creek. They were getting water to cleanse the Brides. A hard light entered his eyes as he watched several of the men, including the so-called ‘Prophet’ amble over to him. There’d been some whispering from Donnie to the old man. Then a nasty smile had settled on the fat toad’s face. Gage knew it had to do with him.

  Gage didn’t trust any of them. Especially the little oily man with delusions of grandeur. He folded his hands behind his back, near his gun. And watched them approach. By now it was totally dark. He had a pretty good idea where he was. It was remote and inaccessible, the perfect place for a rogue religious sect to flourish. The ‘Prophet’ might be a maniac, but he obviously wasn’t stupid.

  A frigid wind was blowing down off the mountains. Gage could smell more snow in the wind. He smiled to himself and remembered he’d been scheduled to present a paper at a black tie dinner in LA tonight. He was sure one of his graduate assistants would read the paper for him. He’d worked for two years on it. The research alone had been ground breaking. The thesis was a cutting edge hypothesis on the place of shamans in Native American cultures. He should be there enjoying the rarefied atmosphere of academia.

  Instead, he was out in this cold, barren wilderness. Formulating a convoluted plan to convince Harvey Beasley he was just a poor religious convert who needed a new home. Gage silently asked himself what else could possibly go wrong in his life. The heel of his hand rested on the butt of the gun. He didn’t want to know.

  “Hey Brother!” Donnie said in his falsely hearty voice.

  Gage nodded politely. But didn’t say anything as the group got closer.

  “This here’s our leader- the Prophet.”

  Gage nodded again.

  “What’s wrong with him?” asked Beasley in a peevish voice. “Is he dumb or a mute or something?”

  “Course not,” scoffed Donnie. “He can talk as good as the rest of us. Ain’t that right Brother?”

  “Sure.” Gage’s one word answer wasn’t very reassuring.

  “Brother?” Beasley huffed. “What’s his real name Donnie?’

  Donnie squirmed for a minute and then admitted, “I don’t know.”

  Beasley scowled at him as if he was angry at a recalcitrant child. “You spent days camping out with a guy, let him know our sacred secrets, and you don’t even know his
name? That’s dumb Donnie, even for you.”

  “What’s your name Boy?” the Prophet barked out the order to Gage.

  Well, Gage thought, time to stir the pot and see what happens. So he answered.

  “Black Knife”

  “See, I told you he was an Injun,” whined Donnie trying to get back in his leader’s good graces.

  Beasley ignored him and kept a keen eye on Gage, “That your first name or your last name, boy?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It might.” Beasley smoothed back his flowing white mane. “It just might.”

  “It’s the only name I got,” Gage said it with just enough alienation and rebellion to make the other man think there was a problem.

  “You any kin to that rich family what owns the Black Knife spread over to Burnt Hickory?”

  “None they claim.”

  “So you’re sort of a shirt tail relative, huh?” Beasley dug deeper.

  “Nope, I ain’t nothing to them and they sure ain’t nothing to me,” Gage snarled. “Man don’t need a pa what don’t claim him, now do he?”

  Beasley chuckled and the evil sound poured over the little mud street. “So you’re the bastard of one of them big Black Knife studs?”

  “Last man called me a bastard didn’t live too long,” Gage said darkly.

  “Hold up son. I ain’t speaking nothing bad against you. It’s just that here at the Conclave a man claims his seed. We marry our women and we claim our seed. Course just like in the Old Testament we do have a few women for convenience sake. Not meaning any disrespect, but your ma weren’t one of them kind was she?”

  “No Sir.” Gage seemed to rouse. “She was a God fearing woman. Hauled me off to the church every time the doors was open. Black Knife just took advantage of a poor innocent girl.”

  “Well, if that’s the way of it you’re welcome here. We don’t hold nobody responsible for their folks’ mistakes. We purely don’t. Course you’ll have to prove yourself.” Beasley sounded magnanimous.

  “Prove myself?” Gage looked confused. “How?”

  “Donnie says you’re a member in good standing of the Aryan Nation? How’d you get in with them? Those boys are mighty particular about the color of a person’s skin. And no offense but, son you’re a mite dark,” Beasley asked.

  Gage nodded his head as if agreeing. “I know, but they let me in cause my mama’s white as snow. And I’m pretty good with a knife,” he mumbled the last part.

  Donnie stuck his elbow in the Prophet’s side as if Gage had just proved a point Donnie had been making. A huge smile spread over Beasley’s entire face.

  “So you’re good with a knife, huh?”

  Gage looked at the ground, but nodded.

  “You ever stick anybody with that knife of yours?” the older man asked.

  Again Gage nodded and remained silent.

  “You ever do any time for using that knife?”

  Gage shook his head. “No Sir, ain’t never been caught.” Something in that simple statement sent the rest of the men into uproarious laughter.

  Beasley laid a finger on his nose and looked the big man up and down. “You ain’t never been caught? Well, sounds like you’re the kind of man we need around here Black Knife. Think you might change your affiliation from the Aryan Nation to the Conclave?”

  Gage seemed to give this some thought before answering slowly, “Might.”

  Beasley frowned at his lack of enthusiasm. “We’d set you up real good. Build you a shack. Maybe I’ll even marry you up to one of them new Brides the boys brought back.” This brought hostile mumbling from the men surrounding him.

  “Shut up boys.” Beasley laughed. “There’s plenty women to go around. Besides by the time them girls grow up enough to please a man, we might have gotten a whole new string. Or maybe Black Knife would rather just practice on one of the Rahabs.” That brought an evil bunch of snickers from the crowd.

  Donnie sputtered, “He don’t look like he needs any practice. Looks to me like he could father a whole tribe of little Injuns. We don’t need his kind polluting the purity of the Conclave.” Some of the others stopped laughing and seemed to consider his words.

  “What’s wrong Donnie? You afraid of the competition? We need a man like Black Knife- Somebody who’s not afraid to spill a little blood to further the Conclave.” Beasley sized Gage up again, “Pears to me that you’re no stranger to bloodletting?”

  Gage’s smile was cold. “I’m not.”

  Donnie tried to stop the Prophet again. “But he wants the teacher, that Carrie woman. He said so on the trail.”

  Beasley’s affable expression turned sour. “That so? Well, he can sure have her.”

  Protests rose from every man until the Prophet held up a silencing hand. “He can have her just as soon as I’m tired of her. Course she‘ll be all wore out and broke down by then.” He snorted supremely confidant. “Cause I plan on using her for a mighty long time.”

  In that obscene rowdy moment Gage decided the Prophet needed killing.

  Chapter Seven

  Carrie woke to the feeling of a cool, wet cloth and the sound of an old woman’s quavering voice singing, ‘Amazing Grace’. Her eyelids felt too heavy to lift, but she was able to move her lips, a little. She did that much at least, but no sound came out. She tried shifting her head-which was a big mistake. A lance of red hot pain split her skull. When that happened, she did make a sound, a moan. The cloth stopped instantly.

  “Oh dear,” it was a dry whisper. “Are you waking up child?”

  Carrie forced her eyes open since she wasn’t doing too well with talking. The dim light in the little cabin hurt almost as much as moving her head had.

  “Oh, you are awake.” A gray-headed woman slowly came into focus. She was smiling kindly, and if you discounted the fact that she was missing a significant number of teeth, she looked very friendly.

  “I know you must be feeling real poorly. You been tossing and turning and burning with the fever for nigh on to two days now. I been having a hard time. What with the Prophet yelling at me saying you was just pretending like some old possum. And the big stranger lurking outside the cabin all night- both nights. He gives me the quivers, I swear he does.” Here she stopped and Carrie heard a soft tinkling laugh. “Course if I was younger, I reckon he’d give me a different set of quivers altogether.”

  Carrie swallowed and realized her throat was extremely dry. She tried moistening her lips, but that didn’t help. The old woman noticed and scurried over to an open fireplace. She used an old fashioned ladle to dip something out of a black kettle simmering there. Then she came back with a tin cup and a spoon.

  “Here Child, this is just what you need to set you right.” She carefully spooned a tiny sip into Carrie’s mouth.

  Carrie was surprised to find it pleasant, with an herbal flavor that soothed the ache in her throat. She opened her mouth for another sip. The old lady tinkled her merry laugh once again and fed Carrie some more.

  “It’s Mountain Cure All, tastes pretty good don’t it?” She patiently ministered to the sick girl. Finally, all the tea was gone and Carrie realized she had a much more pressing need. She glanced around the shack. It was quickly apparent there was no indoor plumbing. Carefully, she cleared her throat and was finally able to speak.

  “I need to, that is, I need to.” Carrie looked miserable.

  The woman nodded as if she understood. “You need the privy. But I don’t think you’d make it out there, do you?” Carrie shook her head embarrassed.

  “Well, don’t you fret none. We’ll get you fixed up.” She dragged a tall ceramic bowl with a heavy ceramic lid out from under the bed Carrie was laying on.

  “Now, this here’s a slop jar. I’m thinking you ain’t never seen one before. It’s just like one of them fine china flushers you’re used to.” She strode, over to a rough hewn cabinet set against the wall and pulled out a huge mail order catalog. She brought it back and plopped it on the bed.

&nb
sp; “Just tear any old page out. I ain‘t particular, use it, then throw the paper in the fire. My name’s Grace, by the way. I know you’re Carrie. I guess if I’m gonna be emptying your slop jar we need to know each other’s name? ”

  Carrie’s wide eyes told the whole tale. Grace just chuckled and ambled out the door of the cabin.

  “I’m gonna mind my chickens, give you a little privacy. And for Pete’s sake, try not to fall out of the bed. Anything happen to you and that big Injun, Black Knife is what they’re calling him. He’ll lift my hair for sure.” She was gone.

  Carrie took a deep breath and followed the woman’s directions. Getting out of bed was the hardest. Her head spun like a top. But it felt good to set her bare feet on solid ground, even if it was a rough lumber floor. After she’d used the slop jar and disposed of her trash in the fireplace, she noticed she was wearing a huge white nightgown that looked to be hand stitched. A mantle clock was ticking away the minutes. The odor in the dim cabin was medicinal and smoky. Which she guessed came from the kettle’s herb tea and the fire. There was a rawness to the air. It wasn’t unpleasant, just earthy. It was like she’d been sent back in time 100 years. She saw vegetables with the garden dirt still on their roots piled in what looked like an old timey pie safe. Inside were printed cloth sacks of flour and sugar. A cured ham sat on one shelf with a muslin cover draped over it. Some unlucky flies droned angrily from their prison on a spiral curl of fly paper dangling from the ceiling in one corner. Carrie heard the old woman as she sang and stomped her way up the few steps to the cabin’s porch.

  “You done in there?” she sang out cheerfully. Carrie made her way to the bed as fast as she could and answered.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Grace opened the door and more light flooded the one room dwelling. “You know I just might have to keep you around a while longer. Long as you’re here, Black Knife keeps my wood split and stacked and totes my water up from the creek. Yes Ma’am, I go out in the morning and there’s my bucket, sitting pretty as you please, on my porch filled to the top with nice fresh spring water. And there’s a good stack of firewood chopped just the way I like it too. I don’t care what the rest say about him being an Injun. In my book he’s a keeper.” She moved to pick up the slop jar and take it outside. At the door she stopped.