Yes, they deserved it. And yes, they’d have killed her if she hadn’t been faster and more accurate. But the Bible didn’t say, “It’s okay to kill if you’re in danger.” It didn’t say, “Go ahead and kill a guy if he beat up an old woman.”
It said, “Thou shalt not kill.”
Period.
End of discussion.
She suspected she’d have a lot of sleepless nights ahead of her. She’d probably struggle with the fact that two men were now frying in hell at her hands. She’d have second thoughts. Wonder whether she should have handled things in a different way.
Of course, she’d been on her way to Lubbock to meet with Luna and was fully prepared to kill him if she had to. What was the difference?
If she had to. That was the difference.
She fully expected to take Luna alive. To give him a chance to talk. To give him an opportunity to save his own life by telling her what he knew. And how much Savage and Sloan were involved. And whether anyone else was involved that she wasn’t even aware of.
After they finished their talk, she’d planned to give him a chance at living. She’d planned to tell him he had two choices.
Either he could remain tied up, and ride a horse back with her to Austin to be turned over to the Texas Rangers.
And to tell the Rangers what he knew about John Savage.
Or, she could set him free. And they could shoot it out at forty feet. Just like they used to do in the old west, on Main Street at high noon.
The thought had come to her in a dream. In many ways, the world had returned to the days a century and a half before. When there was no electricity and law enforcement was scarce. When good guys and bad settled their differences without the aid or interference of the law.
And when justice and right usually prevailed.
She’d looked forward to the look on Luna’s face when he’d say, rather incredulously, “Are you frickin’ nuts?”
Red would take great pleasure in laughing and saying, “Probably. But it is what it is. It’s your choice. Choose.”
So, if she was willing and ready to gun down Jesse Luna, and expected to feel completely okay with it, then why was she already starting to feel guilty about gunning down the Dykes twins?
Maybe because she could easily have avoided the fight with them altogether.
She could have taken Beth by her good hand and spirited her off to the far end of the corn field. Could have told Beth to run through the open fields to the safety of the forest. Could have stayed behind and provided cover for Beth with her rifle if either of the men came out to stop her.
Then she could have joined Beth in the woods and cared for her there.
But she didn’t do any of that. Instead, she flew into a rage. Went barging out of the corn field and rushing up to the house. Looking… no, begging for a fight.
She knew the reason. And the reason bothered her at least as much as the idea of taking two lives unnecessarily.
For the reason she did it was because she was starting to feel again. She’d gotten over the numbness she’d felt for so long after losing all her loved ones. And the prospect of feeling again… feeling love for any human being again, terrified her.
For she felt that feeling and loving again was setting herself up for more heartache. Wasn’t it true that everyone she’d ever loved was taken away from her, either by cancer or the greed of men?
That was the other reason her hands were trembling.
In her fingers, its chain dangling down to the step below, was the locket her father had given her just after her mother died.
She seldom took it from her neck anymore. Seldom opened it to look at her mother’s face. She’d always felt its place was around her neck, the locket with her mother’s photo caressing her heart.
But today, she felt the need to take it off, to open it up, and to gaze into her mother’s beautiful face again.
There before her was a tiny image of her mom, looking much older than her age when the photo was taken, thanks to the way the cancer had ravaged her.
Still beautiful but looking like a very old woman.
The spitting image of Beth Sanders.
Red closed the tiny locket and placed it back around her neck. Then she placed a trembling hand over the locket and pressed it against her heart.
Then she buried her face in her hands and cried unashamedly.
Chapter 41
The mid-afternoon sun brought Red out of her funk and reminded her that she’d soon run out of daylight. And there was so much to do.
She went to the barn and found an old gray mare. Just like the song, and she hummed the old tune as she took the old horse out of the barn and into the sunlight.
“Come on, old girl. I hope you’re up to getting some fresh air. I have a very unpleasant job to do, and I need your help.”
Red checked the old horse’s hooves. They weren’t in the best of shape, and certainly wouldn’t survive a trip as far as Blanco. But they were good enough to perform a couple of hours’ work. And the mare seemed willing, getting excited when Red threw a blanket across her back.
From the tack room Red selected one of three saddles. It was a man’s saddle, the heaviest of the three. Red chose that one because the saddle horn seemed sturdiest. She also took a roll of rope from a hook on the tack room wall.
She didn’t ride the horse, though. That would have put too much strain on the old gal. Instead, she led the mare to the front yard and let her graze on the tall grass while she readied the two bodies for transport.
She noticed that Beth’s spittle had dried on Billy’s cheek, and that a sliver of bright red blood had oozed from between his slightly-parted lips and left a strip of crimson on his cheek.
She took one end of the rope and placed it at the left side of Billy’s chest, then grabbed his wrists one at a time and raised them above the dead man’s head. She was surprised that the hands were still warm, then realized it was a hotter than normal afternoon, and the sun was delaying the cooling process.
The limbs were starting to stiffen, but she was still able to work them.
When Billy’s arms were reaching for the sky, so to speak, she rolled his body across the rope, then tied it around his chest.
Then she went and got the old gray mare and wrapped the other end of the rope around the saddle, using the horse’s strength to drag Billy’s body closer to his dead brother’s.
Red took a breather at that point, walking to a nearby oak tree and sitting down for a few minute’s rest. While there she started to feel the first pangs of guilt for shooting the two brothers. She wondered how much of it was necessary, and how much of it was just rage for the awful things they’d done to Beth. To a woman who looked so much like Red’s own mother it was almost spooky.
After a few minutes she was back at it again.
She tied Danny’s body to the other end of the rope, selected a point in the rope’s slack that was approximately the halfway point, and wrapped it three times around the saddle’s horn.
“Come on, old girl. Let’s get this done, so they don’t stink up your mama’s place any more than they already have.”
Red took the horse’s lead and walked beside her, as the mare dragged the two bodies the two hundred feet to Highway 84.
The crossed the two eastbound lanes and entered the wide grassy median which separated the eastbound lanes from the west. Once in the median, they followed it northeast another quarter mile or so.
As she backed up the mare and slackened the rope, then unwrapped it from the saddle horn, Red looked skyward and noticed a lonely turkey buzzard circling overhead.
“Boy, it didn’t take you long, did it?”
There would be others. They seemed to sense the carrion below them even before they smelled it.
“Have at them,” Red said. “Fill your hungry bellies. They don’t seem to have been worth much while they were alive. Maybe they can be worth something to you.”
She tossed the rope onto the
ground, making no effort to untie the two bodies at either end of it.
After walking a hundred yards away, she turned to see the vulture land on Billy’s face and start pecking at his eyes.
Disgusted, she turned back and continued to lead the old mare back to the barn.
Chapter 42
Red looked up at the sky again. She knew instinctively that she wouldn’t get everything done by the time darkness fell. She’d be here another night.
And she wondered if that wasn’t done by design. Perhaps it was God’s way of telling her that He had an alternate plan for her. That maybe he wanted her to let Luna go. To let Him take care of Luna in due time.
That maybe Red was more important to His grand plan if she were alive and able to care for the vulnerable, instead of dead at the hands of Luna and others like him.
She pondered that as she fed the mare and put her to bed for the night.
Then she tromped back up the squeaky steps and back into the old house.
Her first inclination was to climb the stairs, to check on her new friend Beth. To make sure she wasn’t having trouble coping with all the stressors her day had wrought.
But no. If the old woman was asleep, she didn’t want to awaken her. It wouldn’t be fair, after Red had already put her through so much.
Red went to the kitchen instead.
The interior of the house was already starting to darken, even with all the shades and curtains fully open. On the kitchen table she found several decorative candles, some of them still wrapped in plastic with Walmart barcode labels on them. Beside them was a five-pack of colored Bic lighters, one removed from the pack and laying across one of the partially burned candles.
She lit five of the candles, until the room cast an eerie glow bright enough to suit her. Enough light to see her way around easily, without wasting the wax. She expected the blackout to go on for many years, and while such candles seemed plentiful on this particular day, that wouldn’t always be the case. Someday they’d be very hard to come by.
Of course, she and Beth would be long gone from this place by then. She could light a few more candles, create some more light, and let whatever squatters occupied the old house a year or two from now deal with the candle shortage.
But Red wasn’t a waster of things. Another of the many good habits Butch had instilled in her over the years.
Her thoughts turned to Butch. She wondered how he’d feel about her present dilemma.
Actually, she knew precisely what he’d say, were he there to voice his opinion.
“Let Luna go,” he tell her. “It’s a dangerous mission you’re going on, full of twists and turns you know nothing about. Leave Luna be and let God take care of him in due course. After all, God said vengeance was His. Mortal man was to stay out of such things, and ‘thou shalt not kill’ leaves no wiggle room for vigilantes.”
Red smiled. Butch always made a funny smirk when he’d turned what he thought was a clever phrase. She could see his face and see the smirk, just as clearly in her mind as if he’d been standing in front of her.
But Butch wasn’t finished yet.
“Sometimes caring for the living is more important than avenging the dead, sweetheart. Think about that as you sleep tonight. Perhaps tomorrow you’ll decide that going after Luna isn’t as important as you thought it was.
“Perhaps tomorrow you’ll decide that your new place in the world is back in Blanco, with your new friend Beth. Protecting her and Lilly and Bonnie against the likes of John Savage and his cronies. You can’t do any of that if you’re lying dead on the streets of Lubbock. And whether you want to admit it or not, that’s a real possibility. You’re going into a strange town which may very well be hostile. You’re going up against a man who you assume will be alone, but who in reality might have many friends and allies. You’re going into a great unknown, Red, and things may not be as you expect them to be. You’ve got a long life ahead of you, honey. It won’t be easy, but it never has been. That’s why you’re so tough. That’s why I raised you to be ‘Texas tough.’ So you could deal with life when it wasn’t so sugar sweet and easy to do.”
“I know all that, Dad. You raised me to respect God and stay out of his business. But you also taught me to respect the law and to despise those who didn’t. To protect others who couldn’t protect themselves. And maybe in this case, the best way to protect them is to rid the world of some of its evil. If I don’t do something about Luna, then he may eventually come back to Blanco. And who’s to say his next target won’t be Lilly or Beth, or another of our friends or neighbors?
“You tell me I have to choose between protecting my friends or avenging your death. But damn it, Dad, I should be able to do both.”
She suddenly realized she was talking out loud to an empty room. She looked around to make sure Beth hadn’t gotten up and come downstairs to see what the commotion was about.
She was still alone, but now felt very foolish.
So she tried to put the whole thing out of her head.
She found a teapot sitting atop a Coleman two-burner camping stove, beneath an open kitchen window.
“Well, this is an accident waiting to happen.”
There she was, talking to herself again. It was a habit she needed to stop. But for some reason, right there and right then, a spoken voice was somehow soothing to her. Even if it was only her own.
She assumed that Beth, or maybe one of the twin brothers, had been burning the small propane stove in the house, and had opened the window for ventilation.
Bad idea. Very bad. Red wasn’t a rocket scientist, but even she knew that the stove put off way more carbon monoxide than could be ventilated though a single open window with no fan.
She moved the stove out the kitchen door and onto the covered porch outside. Then she filled the teapot with water from a pitcher on the counter. It was dark enough for the fireflies to be out now. She sat on a deck chair and watched them flitting about, while also keeping an eye on the fire and waiting for the teapot to whistle its happy tune.
And she reevaluated her plans for the next few days.
Chapter 43
Red had lost her dear mother to cancer when she was a mere child of seven.
Therefore, who and what she was as a woman was mostly a product of her father’s doing. What he’d taught her and how he’d trained her.
One thing she carried on from her mother, though, was a love for hot tea. She, like her mom, preferred it with a splash of milk to help stem the bitterness.
She smiled as she remembered a scene from an old war movie, although she couldn’t remember the movie’s name. The scene featured American actor James Garner and British actor Donald Pleasence, who played a blind forger during the Second World War. As the blind man went through his usual process of feeling his way into fixing his daily cup of tea, he added a touch of canned milk. He proclaimed, “Tea without milk is so uncivilized.”
Red found that to be true, as her mother had, and many of Red’s finest memories were of her fixing two cups of tea with milk and carrying them on a silver tray to her mother’s bedside. There they would fix all the world’s problems and solve all its great mysteries.
She missed her mother.
And Beth reminded her so much of her.
It wasn’t just the uncanny resemblance. It was her mannerisms as well. How she carried herself. The words she chose.
Was God really giving her another chance to know her mother, as an incentive to leave Luna alone?
But why?
She pondered her options, and just before midnight, and after three cups of uncivilized tea, she finally decided to call it a night.
She’d made her decision.
Her father used to tell her that she made the stubbornest of old mules seem like a reasonable negotiator. The first time he’d said it, she didn’t understand what he’d meant.
“Your head is harder than an old mule’s when you’ve made up your mind about something.”
“Oh
,” she’d said. “Thank you, Daddy.”
She considered her unwillingness to bend not a hindrance, but a virtue.
And she was indeed going after Luna.
Then she’d come back for Beth, take her to Blanco, and protect her and the others from Savage and his henchmen for as long as it took.
In Red’s unbending world, she could indeed choose both options.
Chapter 44
Red made her way up the stairs, honestly not being able to remember whether they’d creaked like everything else when she and Beth walked up them several hours earlier.
Thankfully and perhaps paradoxically they didn’t. If anything in the aged old house should have creaked, it would have been the long and twisted staircase. But they made not a peep.
She needn’t have worried about waking up her new friend.
Beth was in the far bedroom, the one facing the front of the house. Red chose the one at the top of the stairs.
She entered it and could tell by the musky smell it had been occupied by a male for a very long time.
A male with poor hygiene habits. And it dawned on her that an unbathed man smelled not unlike a horse after a long hot ride. The smell permeated the room. Luckily the two windows raised easily, and that seemed to help.
The room itself was neat as a pin. There was nothing out of place, save the bed which hadn’t been made from the day before. That made sense. If it was Beth’s job to clean their rooms for them, the room would have been neat and tidy. The beds probably would have been one of her afternoon chores, after the breakfast and lunch were cooked and the dishes done, the morning gardening and gathering of food finished.
And Beth hadn’t made it back into the house to do the beds the previous afternoon.
Until, that was, Billy and Danny were both dead and no longer cared whether their beds were made or not.
She pulled the linen off the bed and put it in a pile in the corner of the room. She didn’t know whether they’d been slept in by Billy, or Danny, but she knew damn well her own body wouldn’t come into contact with them.
Too Tough To Tame: Red: Book 2 Page 14