by Ralph Cotton
Randall thought about the offer for a second, almost reaching out and taking Heady’s hand, but stopping himself just short of doing it. Shaking his head he said, “I expect I’d make a pact with the devil himself, if that’s what it took to get Delphia away from that evil man. But I think you and I are after two different things. I better go it alone.”
Heady shivered, gave Randall a look and shrugged off the rejection. “Go it alone then, if that’s the way you feel about it. We both still want to kill the same son of a bitch. Pact or no pact, I’m still offering my hand in friendship.” He reached out again.
“None of you trappers ever offered any of us wolfers a hand in friendship before,” said Randall. “I reckon it takes some getting used to.” The two shook hands. Heady lay back down flat on his belly. Randall carefully peeled the wet rag from his back again, and dipped it into the bucket of water.
PART TWO
Chapter 8
In the night Callie Mosely had dreamed of her husband’s embrace; and in the morning she had awakened still imagining the feel of him on her skin. The sensation of him making love to her in the night had been strong and vivid, more so than anything she had felt throughout the length of his absence. “Damn you, Sloane Mosely,” she had murmured to herself, hearing how close she was to tears. Then she had pushed herself up from the bed and gone about her daily chores, more aware than ever of CC Ellis being there with her and Dillard.
By midmorning a dark cloud had moved in from the west, and its presence, along with her dreams of her husband and the presence of CC Ellis in her home, so close to her, had cast a pensive, wait-and-see aura to the day. She had been a bit too sharp telling Dillard no when he asked to take Tic and go down along the creekbank. When he had walked away across the yard, both boy and dog looking crestfallen, CC Ellis had stepped nearer to her from where he sat cleaning his Colt and asked if anything was wrong.
“Nothing is wrong, Mr. Ellis,” she snapped at him. With a look of disdain toward the disassembled Colt lying atop a nail keg, she said to him, “When you’re through cleaning your gun, perhaps you’ll ride the stallion up along the ridgeline.”
Ellis had turned away without a word, but he gave her a look that let her know he saw more of her than she had wanted to show. “And damn you, too, Mr. Ellis,” Callie said under her breath as he walked away, as if continuing the conversation she’d begun earlier on the edge of her bed. She stood and watched the man walk away to the barn, noting that his wound had greatly improved. He would ride away anyday, she told herself. Sighing to herself, she looked up and out across the graying sky, then walked back into the house and stood at the window watching Ellis ride away, upward toward the ridgeline that wreathed the trail into Paradise. After he was long out of sight she continued to stare at the hills and the dark sky above them until rain blew across the yard and ran steadily down the window-panes.
It was afternoon when she heard the sound of the barn door creak open; she walked to the window and looked out at Ellis stepping down from the saddle and leading the stallion into the barn. Stepping in beside her, peeping out through the rain, Dillard asked, “Shall I go help him, Mother?”
“No, Dillard,” she said absently, staring out at the open barn door. “You and Tic stay here out of the rain. I need to speak to Mr. Ellis privately.”
“What about, Mother?” Dillard asked.
She looked down at him for a moment, lost for an answer. “Never you mind,” she said at length. “Stay here like I told you.”
She avoided her son’s eyes as he watched her take a shawl down from a peg beside the door and drape it around herself, covering both her head and shoulders and giving the end of it a toss around her neck. “Will it ever stop raining?” she murmured, opening and closing the door behind herself. She stood against the door for a moment as if having second thoughts. Then she hurried from the porch, across the muddy yard, and through the open door of the barn.
Just inside the barn door, she stopped short at the sight of CC Ellis lifting the saddle from the big stallion’s back. She unwrapped the shawl from her head and let it rest on her shoulders. She shook out her hair. Ellis wore her husband’s long riding duster and broad-brimmed, which usually hung in the barn; and seeing him from behind in the afternoon gloom she had to remind herself that it was not Sloane Mosely standing there with his back to her. Damn you, Sloane Mosely….
A moment of silence passed as she stood watching him heft the saddle onto a stall rail and turn and stroke the big stallion’s muzzle with his gloved hand. Then the silence was broken when she heard him speak gently without turning toward her. “Are you coming inside…or staying out in the rain?”
She didn’t know if it was the sound of his voice, or simply the surprise of him knowing she was there, but something caused her to gasp.
“Sorry,” he said, still without turning to face her. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You didn’t startle me,” she said, a bit defensively. “I don’t startle easily.” As she spoke, she studied the wet hat brim and the duster darkened wet across the shoulders. She waited for a reply, and when none came she realized that once again that he saw through the tough exterior she had been hiding behind these past few days. “Well, a little perhaps,” she said, her voice softening, something inside herself no longer able to sustain the pretense. Another silence passed and she said, “It’s seldom we get this much rain this time of the year.” She paused, then said a bit awkwardly, “But we need it…the land, that is.”
He turned facing her, finding her change of tone and further conversation encouraging. “Yes,” he said, “the land needs it.” Holding the stallion’s bridle in one hand, and a rope lead he’d slipped over the big animal’s head in the other, he stroked the stallion’s chin and studied Callie Mosely’s face in the grainy light.
Ellis noted a change in her: her demeanor, her eyes, the sound of her voice. She was not the same as she had been only hours ago. She had abandoned something—a barrier, he told himself. That wall of formality she had kept raised guardedly between them was suddenly gone, and Ellis knew why she had come to the barn, and why she had acted the way she had acted earlier. A decision had been made while he was off riding the ridgeline. He saw it in her eyes. This was the first time she had held his gaze this long without looking away as if something about him annoyed her. “It’s been a year,” she heard herself say, her voice sounding like someone else talking through her. She took one step forward and stopped, her hand still clutching the shawl at her throat.
“I know,” he said. Ellis dropped the stallion’s lead rope and gave the stallion a gentle shove, his eyes never leaving Callie’s. He peeled the gloves from his hands as he moved past her, dosed the barn door and returned to her. He stood near her, nearer than he had ever stood, nearer to her than he ever thought he’d be allowed to stand. He put his hands on her shoulders, a questioning look coming to his eyes. “No, don’t,” she said. “We mustn’t.”
“I know,” he whispered, and at first he felt the slightest resistance as his lips met hers. But before he could move away, rejected, she opened her lips to him and drew him into her mouth, kissed him with deep urgency.
At the end of the kiss he pulled the shawl back from her shoulders and pitched it aside onto a pile of fresh straw, all the while keeping his mouth to her throat, pressing her against him. “My husband…” she moaned, not trying to push him away, but rather wrapping her arms around his neck as he lifted her up off her feet.
“I know,” he whispered. Her legs went around him and he carried her into a bin of fresh dried hay, her dress seeming to come undone on its own.
“He’ll kill you.…” She fell beneath him into the softness of the hay, the fresh scent of it stronger than the smell of rain and earth.
“I know…” he whispered again.
She gave herself to him completely, the sound of rain on the tin roof only partially muffling the sounds of their passion. When they were finished, they lay only for a few
moments in the fresh hay before hearing the door creak open slowly. “Mother?” Dillard said from the crack of dim daylight, his restlessness having gotten the best of him.
“Yes, Dillard,” Callie said calmly, rising onto her knees, slipping into her dress and brushing hay from her hair as she spoke.
“Can I come in?” Dillard asked.
“We’re still talking, Dillard,” she said, rising to her feet, watching Ellis step quickly into his trousers and pull his boots onto his bare feet. “Close the door and go back to the house. I’ll be there shortly.”
“Yes, Mother,” said Dillard. “Come on, Tic.”
Callie and Ellis stood in tense silence until the door creaked shut. “I meant what I said,” Callie said barely above a whisper. “My husband must never know about this.”
“Yes, I understand,” Ellis said. He stepped forward and brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. As gently as he could, he said, “But, Callie, listen to me. Sloane Mosely isn’t coming back.”
She had lowered her eyes from his, but now she raised them and said in a stronger tone, “You say that like you know it for a fact.” She searched his eyes, seeing something there that she found puzzling, almost a guarded yet knowing look. “Do you know my husband, CC?” she asked pointedly. “Is there something you know that you’re keeping from me?”
Ellis grimaced a bit. “I’m just going by what I see, Callie. Like you said, it’s been a year. If he was coming back he’d be here. You have to face it.”
Silently, she began weeping, but the only sign of her grief was a single tear that ran slowly down her cheek.
“I don’t want to see you go through this, Callie,” he said, coming even closer, taking her in his arms. “I don’t know what might have happened to him out there, but you have to accept it, for your sake and the boy’s. Sloane Mosely is not coming back to you.”
She spoke against his chest. “But how can you be so—”
“Shh, please,” he said, cutting her off. “Don’t do this to yourself. Let him go, Callie. He’s gone…but I’m here. I’ll be here, and I want to stay here. I won’t leave you. You have my word.”
“What about Father Jessup?” she asked. “He’ll soon know my situation. What then?”
“We’ll go on the way we’ve been going,” said Ellis. “Nothing has to change. Nobody here seems to have ever seen your husband. As far as they’re concerned, I’m still Sloane Mosely. When we get ready, we’ll leave here, take the boy and go somewhere far away. We’ll make a new start, both of us.”
“Do you mean that, CC Ellis?” she asked. “If you don’t mean it, please don’t say it. What happened here doesn’t make you obligated to me in any way.”
“I want to be obligated to you, Callie,” he said, sincerely. “I mean what I said more than I’ve meant anything in a long, long time.” Holding her against him, he stared off into the grayness, reminding himself that starting over might not be an easy thing to do. There had been a reason why he’d come here to Paradise. That reason could not be ignored—not if he expected him and the woman and the child ever to live in peace.
In a private office above the bank, Beckman and Lexar awaited Father Jessup’s arrival. Beckman stood looking out the window, watching Randall help Jim Heady walk stiffly along the dirt street from the meetinghouse. “Those poor men,” he whispered aloud to himself, seeing the pair pass the front of the hotel, where they both stopped and turned toward Rudy Banatell and his men when Rudy called out to them.
“Who’s that you’re talking about?” Lexar asked, taking a step toward the window and looking down himself. “Oh, those two,” he said before Beckman could answer. “Yes, I quite agree. Those are a couple of sad cases. I’m afraid neither one learned anything from that whipping.”
Beckman only stared at Lexar for a moment before the two turned and seated themselves in two wooden chairs facing the door. On their way to the chairs, Lexar picked up two full water glasses from atop a linen-covered table and handed one to Beckman before seating himself. They sipped the cool water, Lexar looking wistfully at the clear liquid and wishing it was something stronger. Swirling the water around in the glass he said quietly, “I’m not complaining mind you, but I think it looked bad, me using the whip on that wolf trapper after being the very one who sold him the whiskey.”
“It might have looked bad to the trappers and to you and me,” said Beckman. “But Father knew what he was doing. It was his way of letting Falon and his men know that in Paradise they live only by Jessup’s law. He’s the one who says what’s fair and what’s not. They have no right to question it.”
“I understand,” said Lexar. “Like I said, I’m not complaining. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
“You needn’t worry, Lexar. I’m not going to say anything about it,” said Beckman. Lowering his voice because someone might hear, he said, “There is something I might say to you, providing you swear a solemn oath never to repeat it.”
Seeming to consider the request for a moment, Lexar raised his right hand and said, “All right. Here is my hand to God that whatever you say to me will never be repeated to Father Jessup.” He stared intently at Beckman and asked, “Do you swear the same?”
Beckman hurriedly raised his thin hand. “Yes, of course, I swear the same thing.” Fidgeting in his chair he said, “All right, here goes. The truth is, I’m having trouble understanding all this public whipping, period. There’s been too much of it of late. I think it’s hurting our community instead of helping it. I wish Father would stop it completely. I think I’m going to have to tell him my thoughts on it.”
Lexar gave him a cautious look, saying, “Are you serious? You’re going to mention it to Father?”
“I’m afraid I must,” said Beckman, “for the good of all of us here in the community. If we’re going to grow and prosper, we’ve got to show ourselves as more hospitable to outsiders.”
“Father Jessup doesn’t want any more outsiders passing through here than is absolutely necessary,” said Lexar. “That’s why we have no telegraph lines, or no rail spur. The more outside influence we allow into the community, the more corrupt our values become,’ he always says, ‘until we fall short of God’s glory.’ I don’t think you’re going to change his thinking on that.”
“I feel I’ve got to try,” said Beckman, nervously straightening his stiff white collar. “Now that I’ve told you, I’m hoping that perhaps you will side with me on it.”
“No,” Lexar said flatly. “I don’t want to end up tied to the hitch rail! And that’s where you’ll be if you try to change his mind. First of all, it’s not his words, but God’s, don’t forget. Try to change God’s words and Father will show no mercy. You ought to know that by now.”
“I do know that,” said Beckman. A tense silence passed; then he said reluctantly, “Although, just between the two of us, I have to say, there are times when I wonder if maybe Father Jessup lets his own beliefs seep into God’s word. I know I shouldn’t say it and I pray you’ll never tell him I said it, but if God wants this community to grow and thrive the way Father Jessup said he does, I think the people are going to have to see more freedom and less bull-whippings.” He glanced around nervously as if making sure his words went no farther than to Lexar.
“Careful,” said Lexar. “Don’t tell me so much that I begin thinking it’s a test of faith and loyalty set up by Father—because I will tell him if I think this is a trick you and he have concocted on me.”
“This is no trick, Lexar,” said Beckman. “Didn’t we both swear an oath? So help me, God, this is just you and me speaking our minds in the strictest of confidence.” He leaned in even closer to Lexar and said, “We’re losing believers, Lexar. And there have been grumblings from those who live away from town. Even the Wolf trappers patrolling the hills and plains can’t keep them from slipping away in the middle of the night.”
“It’s a hard four-day ride across Wolf Valley,” said Lexar. “They know that Falon and his men will catch them bef
ore they get out of the valley and into hiding.” He shook his head. “No, I haven’t heard anything about this. I think you’re mistaken.”
“I’m not mistaken, Lexar,” said Beckman. “You haven’t heard about it because it’s not something that you would hear about. But running the bank makes it important for me to know everything going on that might affect our community’s financial standing. Believe me, we have lost some people…and we can lose more if we’re not careful. These whippings don’t help attitudes any.”
“I think you’re right,” said Lexar, “I heard about the railroad men not depositing their money in our bank. I’m certain that upsets a banker like yourself.”
“Indeed it does,” said Beckman. “There’s no excuse for that happening. Those men saw us as a barbaric religious sect. They said they might make the deposit after meeting Father Jessup in person. But personally, I’m afraid they will never deal with us after witnessing such behavior. And this at a time when we need money badly!”
“Need money badly?” Lexar gave him a curious look.
But Beckman didn’t seem to hear him. He sipped the cool water and touched a handkerchief to his moist lips. “Now that you and I have shared these thoughts, I wonder how many others of our community might feel the same if we discussed it with them.”
“Probably more of them than we think,” said Lexar. “But about needing money—”
“Yes, I’m sure of it,” said Beckman, cutting him off, turning talkative all of a sudden now that he realized he had someone to talk to. “I believe that’s the reason Father Jessup’s law is so strict against gossip. He doesn’t want us talking too much to one another. He wants us to be afraid to speak our minds. There is a large cloud of distrust hovering over all of us. We fear the whip, and it appears that our fear of the whip is costing us our freedom.” He reached over and grasped Lexar’s sleeve, saying desperately, “Do you see it?”
“Yeah, yeah, I see it,” Lexar said, tugging his arm free. “But calm down. Tell me what you meant about us needing money so badly. I saw piles of money in the safe only this morning.”