She unconsciously brought one hand to her stomach, comforting herself with the presence of the child that grew within her, Janson’s child, their child. “I’ll be all right,” she told the baby aloud, reassuring herself with the words. “Nothing can go wrong now—it’ll be all right.”
She suddenly froze, thinking for a moment she had heard the slight squeal of the gate hinges at a distance behind her. She turned back, listening, every nerve within her straining for any sound that might mean she had been followed from the church. She held her breath, her eyes searching the graveyard. The gate was hidden from view by trees and tall monuments that stood in the way, but she dared not move to get a better look. She listened, praying to hear no sound that would tell her she had given Janson away. If they found him now—
She refused the memory, but it came anyway—“. . . you’ll see him die . . . his blood’s on your hands . . .”
His blood’s on your—
If she had brought someone to Janson now—but, no, that could not happen. It was a thought too horrible for words, for feeling. She moved quietly to a position where she could see the gate. It was closed, undisturbed. All seemed still. There was no sound to be heard within the graveyard now, no movement to give reason to believe she might have been discovered, that she might have been followed. Her eyes searched the entire area again—there was nothing to account for the cold lump of fear that sat next to her heart. There was nothing—
It’s just my imagination, she told herself. It has to be—only my imagination. Her eyes continued to scan the area warily, then she at last moved on, using even more caution than before.
Something—she stopped once again and turned back. It had not been sight or sound, just a feeling, something wrong.
She stood for a long moment, reassuring herself that her mind was only playing tricks on her, then turned and made her way over the remaining distance to where she and Janson were to meet.
He was there, sitting low on his haunches behind a tree. He smiled at the sight of her, relief coming to his face to push aside the worry and fear that had been there only a moment before. He was risking so much—risking so much, only because he loved her.
He rose and came to her, taking her into his arms and holding her tightly to him, as if his very life depended on her nearness. “I was gettin’ worried, afraid somethin’ had happened t’ you,” he said, looking down at her for a moment, his fingers touching her face, then his mouth found hers, taking her breath away. “Are you all right?” he asked a moment later, love and concern in his eyes as they held hers.
“Yes, I’m fine now.” She smiled at the happy look on his face. “I was beginning to think I’d never be able to get away, though. I was so afraid someone would follow me to you, so afraid I’d get you hurt or—” She left the sentence hanging there in the air between them, as clearly understood as if she had given voice to the words she could not speak. “We can leave now,” she said, smiling up at him, happiness and relief filling her and almost making her giddy.
“Yeah, we can—”
There was a definite sound this time, from very close by. The smile vanished from Janson’s face in an instant, and Elise felt a cold stab of fear go through her as her hands tightened almost convulsively on the sleeves of his coat. There was movement at the corner of her eye, and she turned her head quickly in that direction, feeling for a moment as if her heart would stop beating within her—
Her father, standing just yards away, was staring at her, something far beyond anger in his eyes. Her father—
“Oh, dear God, no—” she heard herself saying, her knees going weak beneath her. “Oh, dear God, no—”
There was hatred on William Whitley’s face, hatred and anger and rage beyond anything Elise had ever known before. She stared at him, unable to take her eyes away, unable to speak or to move or to run, until she saw her brother Bill, Franklin Bates, and a farmhand from her father’s place move into position around them, and she knew there was no means of escape.
Janson held to her arms, supporting her, even as the muscles in his forearms tensed beneath her hands—she knew this was the end. She knew this was—
“You knew better than to lie to me again,” her father was saying, staring at her, his voice cold, flat, unemotional, as if there were nothing left within him of the man she had known all her life.
“Daddy, please, you don’t unders—”
“I told you what would happen. I told you—”
“Please, you can’t—” She could not breathe, the muscles in her chest constricting, blocking out the air, the words filling her mind—I’ll find you wherever you go, and, when I do . . . his blood’s on your hands. His bloods on your—“Daddy, please—”
“You never listen. You never—”
She was crying now; she could feel it, could taste the tears, could—“Please—”
“Leave us be, Whitley,” Janson said from beside her, his body tense, ready for what they both knew would happen. “We ain’t done nothin’ t’ you. Just let us go on in peace—”
“There’s not going to be any peace for you, boy, ever again,” her father said, staring at him. “Ever again—”
There was a quick movement of his head, and Bill, Franklin Bates, and the farmhand began to move toward them—Elise shrank against Janson, trying to stay between him and the three men, but a rough hand grasped her wrist, and arms encircled her waist, dragging her away. She began to kick and struggle, fighting against Bill, but he would not release her, holding her still, hurting her it seemed deliberately as she watched Franklin Bates and the farmhand descend on Janson. Janson sent the hand to the ground almost immediately, and Franklin stumbling backwards for a moment before the two men could lay hold on him. He almost freed himself again, screaming words she could not understand as he tried to reach her, fighting as if he would die before he would let them be held apart—until her father’s fist, backed by anger and outrage, at last weakened his struggles.
The blows landed on his face, bloodying his nose and splitting his lip, in his midriff, along his jaw—her father delivered the beating himself, until the blood covered his fists, but still he would not stop. Elise collapsed against her brother, her legs finally giving way beneath her, tears streaming down her cheeks—but still the beating continued, only the pressure of Bill’s confining arms keeping her from sinking to the ground as he forced her to watch her father slowly killing Janson.
Janson’s head snapped back with a blow, blood covering the entire lower half of his face now, the collar of his shirt, even the bib of his overalls soaked with blood. The two men released him and he collapsed to the ground, to lie there bleeding and unconscious. Elise tried to pull free to go to him, but Bill refused to release her, roughly resisting her struggles—he was hurting her, but she did not care. She did not care about anything anymore.
She could hear someone pleading, and she realized suddenly that it was her own voice, her words almost incoherent. She begged—for Janson’s life, to be allowed to go to him, for her father to take her life instead—she did not know. Her words seemed independent of her mind now, of her thoughts, somehow functioning free of her will. She was aware of the men around her, the men who had helped her father hurt Janson, aware that her brother held her away from the man she loved, aware that her father stood looking down at the blood on his hands—Janson’s blood—but her mind was somehow too filled with horror to register any clear thought, any clear meaning. She could not take her eyes from Janson, from the man who lay hurt, unconscious, bleeding, maybe dying, on the ground at her father’s feet, his only crime having been to love her.
She was suddenly aware of her father’s stare on her, of the hatred and rage still within him, and she lifted her eyes to meet his, finding them somehow cold and unfeeling and something less than human.
“What kind of man are you?” she asked, the words a harsh, choked whisper in the quie
t that now filled the graveyard. “He didn’t do anything to you. He didn’t do anything but love me. He didn’t—”
“I told you,” he said, his eyes on her, and she understood with an awful finality what she had known all along.
She began to scream, to struggle anew as her brother lifted her off her feet to drag her away. I told you—the words echoed in her ears over and over again. I told you—
Elise sat on the bright rug that covered the floor at the foot of her bed sometime later that day, her eyes staring straight ahead, transfixed, unseeing. Her mind seemed a blessed nothing at the moment. She could not allow herself to think, for horror and reality came together with thought, but she could not stop herself from feeling—fear, guilt, horror, love, grief; they filled her now to the point there was no room left for anything else. She could still see Janson there in her mind, lying on the ground in the cemetery, bleeding, unconscious—the picture would not leave her, and she could not want it to. It might very well be the last image she would ever hold of him.
Bill had brought her here to the house, dragging her away from the graveyard, silencing her screams with a cold, hard slap that had knocked her unconscious before her cries could bring help from the church. She had awakened here in her room later, horrified at the time that had passed, and at what might already have happened. She had screamed and pounded on the locked door, clawing at it until her hands hurt and her fingers bled, but no one had come to help her. She had tested the trellis outside her window again and again, desperate to find any means of escape—but the trellis had shaken beneath her testing hands, and she had known it would never support her weight. If she should try to climb down, and it should fall or break, she knew her baby would never survive the fall to the ground below. She was not worried for her own life now, for she would have gladly taken death in that moment if Janson was gone, but she could not risk the child they had made. If Janson were dead, the baby was the only part of him left to her, a part she could never bear to lose.
She had paced, from wall to wall, from corner to corner, from window to door, again and again—but there was no escape, nothing, nothing she could do. At last she had collapsed to the floor at the foot of the bed, her mind sinking into that blessed nothing, her feelings overwhelming her and crushing her beneath them, her eyes staring straight ahead, transfixed, unseeing—
I told you—echoed somewhere in the back of her mind. And, from somewhere in her memory—his blood’s on your hands. His blood’s on your—
It’s over—William Whitley thought as he stood staring down at the still form of Janson Sanders where it lay in the back of the truckbed, the blood now long-ago dried on the dark face—it’s over. He stood behind the old barn on his property, Franklin Bates beside him, his son Bill approaching from the Packard nearby—it’s over.
He stared down at this man who had caused so much trouble, so much anger—never before in his life had he hated any man as he had hated this one, never before had he wanted to take any man’s life as he had wanted to take this life—but he had been unable to do so. Sometime during the beating, sometime in the midst of Elise’s screams, the smell of the blood, and the utter helplessness of this boy now at his mercy, something had changed within him. The hatred was still there, no less powerful than before, but cold and unimpassioned now, no longer fueled with the rage or the need for blood and revenge that had fed it before. He had wanted to kill this man, had wanted to kill him more than he had ever wanted anything in his life, but he could not do it, and that inability to administer what he knew the man had earned, combined with his surprise at a part of himself he had now seen, a part capable of nothing less than blind fury, now fueled a new anger—but the anger was not directed at this man. Elise—she had always thought she could have her own way, no matter the consequences. He had warned her time and again, had told her what would happen, but she had not listened; she would never listen. She had brought this on herself, on the boy now lying unconscious in the truckbed, on them all—why would she never learn. Why, when it had been all for her own good anyway—but she never listened. And now she had caused this, caused this by her selfishness and her spoiled ways—it had been all her own doing. Nothing but her own doing.
God damn her—why could she never learn. If it had not been for Phyllis Ann Bennett having thrown it in his face in town that she had seen Elise with a farmhand, Elise could have been anywhere by now, gone to him for good—William Whitley’s daughter living out her life as the wife of a dirt-poor farmer, spending her nights with that half-breed’s hands on her, breeding little dark children with Cherokee blood—it would never happen. Never.
William sighed, continuing to stare down at the still body. It was over. The boy would never dare to come back after this. William would have him taken out of the County and left by the side of some deserted country road somewhere. Elise would be without her farmhand—and she would think twice before ever lying to William again.
Damn her—at least this time she would learn! At least this time!
He could not look at the boy anymore. It reminded him too much of what he had almost done, what he could be capable of doing.
“Franklin, get him out of here. Take him across the County line and dump him someplace away from a town, where he’ll have to do some walking to find help. That’ll give him time to think before he goes doing any talking.”
Franklin nodded, not speaking, and moved toward the front of the truck.
“I’ll go with him, Daddy,” Bill said, a note of eagerness to his voice that William did not like. He looked toward his eldest son, finding a look of almost studied unconcern on his face.
William shrugged inwardly—what did it matter anyway—and nodded his head. If Bill wanted to waste his time, then it was none of William’s concern. He had enough concerns already to think about without taking on others. The boy might no longer be a problem, but there was still Elise to be dealt with. Her recent interest in J.C. Cooper would have been nothing but a ruse to cover this relationship, and it was William’s bet that young Cooper’s attentiveness to her had been nothing but a quiet conspiracy between the two to aid in the deception. It was likely that Elise had at last once and forever ruined all chances at a union of the Whitley and Cooper families. William would have to find another way of getting his hands on a share of the mill; Elise had left him with little other choice. Damn her, she had only made it more difficult, but not impossible. He would have to tell her the boy was alive, but gone from her forever now just as certainly as if he were dead—but that could wait until tomorrow. Tonight he wanted only rest, time to gather his thoughts before facing the look in her eyes, the hatred, the distrust—she would get over it, he assured himself. She would have to.
He turned and started toward the Model T parked nearby, but was stopped short by a note he heard in his son’s voice, something he could not quite identify, but that he did not like.
“Come on, Franklin, let’s get rid of this son-of-a-bitch,” Bill said, getting into the passenger side of the truck and slamming the door behind himself.
William stood for a long moment staring after the truck as it drove down the dirt road and away from the barn. There had been something in Bill’s voice. Something—
He turned and started toward the Tin Lizzie again, wondering why a sudden, cold chill had moved up his spine.
The truck rattled and swayed beneath the two men as they drove down a rutted, little-traveled country road a short time later. Franklin Bates divided his attention between the driving, and the man who sat beside him, watching Bill Whitley closely while making certain he gave no sign that he was doing so—there was a streak of bad in the man, a streak of meanness, a tendency to take pleasure in doing things that even Franklin often found distasteful. There was something wrong about Bill Whitley, something less than human, something that made Franklin wary whenever the man was near.
“Stop the truck,” Bill said suddenly from b
eside him, leaning forward and staring through the windshield toward something Franklin could not see.
Franklin stopped the truck and shut the motor off, turning toward Bill—but the man was already out of the machine, seeming to have forgotten his presence for the moment as he went to stare down at the unconscious man lying in the truckbed. Bill did not speak, but just continued to stare, something going on behind his eyes—Franklin could feel it, could see it in the cold set of his jaw, in the slight twitch of a muscle at the corner of his mouth. Bill moved to the rear of the truck and stepped up into the truckbed, then bent to examine something, causing Franklin to move quickly to get out of the vehicle—he did not like the idea of having Bill Whitley at his back, out of his field of vision, for even a moment.
Franklin stepped out onto the cracked clay surface of the roadbed, hearing dirt and loose rocks crunch beneath his heavy boots—it was a deserted place Bill Whitley had chosen to stop, still well within the County line, and, unless Franklin was badly mistaken, still on Whitley property. There was a fire-blackened chimney to one side of the road, the only evidence remaining of the sharecropper’s shack that had once stood there, its once bare-swept yard now grown high and choked with weeds and brambles. Remnants of an old barn stood nearby, its roof long-ago fallen in and decayed to nothing. November-browned remains of cornfields stretched away from the barn to either side of the road, encroaching even upon where the house had once stood, the entire area seeming now to stand rotting in the chill air.
Bill Whitley was kneeling beside Janson Sanders, going through the old, battered leather case the man had with him when they had found him in the Baptist graveyard ready to run off with Elise Whitley—damned stupid, Franklin thought, for the man to be fooling around with Whitley’s daughter, planning on running off with the girl, when he had to know what kind of man William Whitley was. No woman was worth the hell a man would be taking on to make an enemy of Whitley—and perhaps Janson Sanders had taken on so much more.
Behold, This Dreamer Page 47