“Thank you again for your kindness.” Isabelle spoke through chattering teeth, her manners still intact despite the conditions.
“Kindness?” The man with the big mouth spoke up. “I expect payment.”
The old lady mumbled to him and he snarled at her. Mason snuggled the sisters closer to him. If something was afoot, he didn’t want them within reach of anyone.
“We would be happy to pay you for your kindness. However, we have no funds.” Isabelle would never admit whether they had money or not. She obviously had to protect her sister and their wagon. It was all they had, which was significantly more than he had. Hell, even the clothes he wore, down to the drawers on his ass, weren’t his.
“That’s a problem.” The man was ruder with each word he spoke.
“Shut up, Karl.” The old lady elbowed him, hard, in the side. The obnoxious man, Karl, winced and scowled at the woman. “My name is Camille Becker and this is my son Karl, his wife Mary and her sister Catherine, and my other son, Gunther.”
“Lovely to make your acquaintance.” Mason managed a half-frozen smile. An uncomfortable, and decidedly awkward, silence descended on them.
“If you’re not heading west, you’re heading east.” Karl didn’t stay quiet for long.
“That we are.” Mason put his arms around both Chastain sisters. Charlie stiffened, but she didn’t move away. The instinct to survive was a powerful motivator.
“You ain’t gonna tell us more?” Karl spat out a stream of dark spittle that could only be from a wad of tobacco. Being from North Carolina, Mason was intimately familiar with chaw.
“Where are you headed?” Mason decided to turn the question around. This family of unusual characters had the right to be suspicious of strangers, especially on a stormy night. Yet Mason’s gut was telling him something wasn’t right and he relied on that gut.
The old woman spoke. “We travel around, entertaining folks and making a living. Odd jobs here and there when we can get it.”
Mason tried to peer through the darkness to see some kind of wagon or animals. It was too dark, and too stormy, to see a damn thing. How did they get there? And where was here? Without the sun to guide them, the sad fact was, he and the Chastains had no idea if they were even headed the direction they wanted to go.
Isabelle surprised him by replying. “My family was the same way. My father was a carpenter and took what work he could. Maman was a nurse and doctored folks for payment. Now they’re both gone.” Her grief was genuine, but he didn’t know what she was about.
“That’s too bad. Now you just got your man and your sister.” The older woman’s gaze was sharper than the knife she likely had in her boot. “And a real nice wagon with oxen.” Her tone conveyed anything but commiseration.
Mason kept his arms around the Chastains, vowing to keep awake so they could try to sleep. He didn’t trust the Beckers for half a second. He wished he had a weapon to protect them. Given the two men, and Mason’s still healing condition, any fistfight would be out of the question. If they decided to take what they wanted, somebody was going to get hurt.
A protective instinct surged through him, wholly unexpected. He would stand between the Beckers and the Chastains, no matter the cost. Mason might have been raised in the south, but gallantry had always been about courtesy and being a gentleman. It hadn’t been about laying down his life for someone else. Until now.
The journey west had changed him in ways he didn’t expect. It felt good. Damn it, it felt right.
Isabelle told herself not to fall asleep, even pinched herself a few times to stay awake. However, exhaustion crept over her and she nodded off, safe in Mason’s embrace. It was a comfortable place, one that made her feel cherished, silly as that was. That’s why she drifted to sleep.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mason’s voice, sharp and loud, yanked her from sleep.
Someone else responded, but they were too far away to hear and Isabelle was groggy. Mason stood and she nearly collided with Charlie, who looked as confused as Isabelle felt. It had stopped snowing and sleeting, but the sun had yet to pierce the cloudy sky. It was light enough to see, but it was still very early. The fire burned, high and crackling, keeping the chill from their bones.
Isabelle shook her head, trying to clear it. What was happening?
“You will not simply take what you want. That wagon belongs to us, not you.”
Another response to Mason that sounded like, “We’re hungry too.”
“There is barely enough food in there for the three of us to complete our journey. We’ve been relying on my wife’s crack shot with rabbits and such for meat.” Mason walked two steps away, his fists clenched. “We will repay your hospitality, but not with every bit of our food stores.”
Isabelle’s brain kicked in regardless of her logy body. The Beckers were taking their things. Not unexpected, but frustrating. The storm would have killed at least one or more of the oxen, not to mention threatened the lives of the humans on board the wagon. There hadn’t been a choice to stop. Now they were in a situation where they could lose more than they could afford.
“We ain’t taking your food.” This was from Camille, who walked up to Mason with a sly smile. “That wagon is big enough for all of us.”
Isabelle’s mouth dropped open. She shot to her feet, grabbing for the quilts covering her lap. “You will not take our wagon and leave us out here to die.” Her voice boomed across the prairie, surprising nearly everyone judging by their looks on their faces.
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Bennett, you won’t be left out here.” Camille slid past, her hand grazing Isabelle’s arm. Up close, and in the near daylight, Camille was not an old, stooped woman at all. She was probably no older than Maman had been. “We’re all leaving together.”
Charlie spoke up. “Where in the hell do you think we’re all going together?”
Camille turned a glare on the younger Chastain. “That’s none of your concern, child. You do as you’re told and no one gets hurt.” She glanced at all of the women, pausing at Catherine to raise her brows. “That goes for everyone.”
Isabelle trembled with the force of her anger and fear, mixing together to slam through her veins. She watched helplessly as Karl and the bigger man loaded their things onto the Chastain wagon. Mason tried to stop them but was punched for his efforts. He hit the frozen ground and rolled before the bastard could stomp on him.
She ran to his side and snarled at the behemoth. “Don’t touch him.”
The large man shrugged and went back to his duties. She suspected he was a simple man and did what he was told. The leader was definitely Camille, but the question was, who was with her and who was under her control?
She helped Mason to his feet. He wiped the blood from his lip with an angry swipe, his gaze never leaving the other two men. Mason had acted a charming gentleman up until now, never showing his fierce side. She found she liked this part of him.
“What do we do?” she whispered as she dabbed at his lip with a handkerchief.
“We can’t challenge them all to fisticuffs and win, but we can’t sit idly by while they take everything you own.” His gaze found hers. “We’re intelligent enough to outsmart them, but right now I don’t believe there is a damn thing we can do to stop them.”
Her stomach roiled at the thought of her parents’ things in strangers’ hands. Maman and Papa had left the wagon for Isabelle and Charlie, which was now in the Beckers’ control. When Karl pulled out her mother’s medical bag, the glass bottles clanked together.
Isabelle didn’t remember moving, but she was there, yanking Karl’s arm away from the bag. “Don’t touch that!” she snarled. She hugged the bag to her chest and turned away. A shadow moved out of the corner of her eye, followed by a thwack! Surprised, she turned to find Mason standing over Karl, who had a bloodied lip.
“If you ever threaten
her again by word or by deed, I won’t stop with one punch. Do you understand me?” Mason’s tone was guttural, fierce. It sent a shiver up her spine to see the white-hot fury in every inch of him.
“She needs to remember we are in control here.” Karl threw her a glare riddled with hatred. “Nothing here belongs to you anymore.”
“Wrong. That bag belongs to her. She is a healer, and any one of you could need her services.” Mason stood between her and Karl, his fists clenched.
“Leave her be. Her man is right. We got plenty that could use a healer.” Camille settled the argument, but Isabelle was afraid of what “plenty” actually meant. The Beckers were a rough-looking lot. No doubt the men’s hygiene was questionable. The women eyed her with speculation in their gaze.
Isabelle wasn’t a selfish person, but given these people were taking over her life and her things, she didn’t feel charitable enough to provide them with her meager healing services. What she did for Mason was different. He would have died if she hadn’t helped him. She didn’t want to assist Karl with his toe fungus.
Charlie stepped up beside her, almost gluing herself to Isabelle. “I’m scared, Iz.”
Isabelle’s heart thumped at her sister’s admission. “Me too.”
Mason stood guard as their lives were dismantled and reassembled out of order. Isabelle wanted to scream and shout, stamp her feet and throw something. Yet she didn’t want to endanger her sister’s life or Mason’s. They were only things in the wagon, not worth the cost of a person.
Isabelle took a shaky breath and watched the Beckers cram their belongings into the wagon, pulling out her mother’s chest of drawers. It sat on the snowy ground, abandoned and crooked. She reminded herself again it was just a thing. Someone who needed it would find it and put it to good use.
It didn’t matter if it was a lie or a simply wishful thinking, Isabelle couldn’t look at the chest any longer. She turned her back on the wagon and stared out at the snow-covered prairie. Today was just a day. Tomorrow would come and the sun would rise again. Somehow they would find a way to get back that which was taken from them. For now they would endure.
Isabelle choked back a sob, unwilling to let it out. Endurance had become a daily requirement the last six months. She could survive. She would survive.
Tomorrow would be a new day, a new opportunity to be stronger. To be the woman her mother would be proud of.
The air within the wagon was frigid. Mason pulled the collar up on his borrowed jacket around his ears and tried to ignore the fact there were icicles flying through the air at his face. It was miserable. Utterly miserable.
How did people live in such conditions? How did the Beckers survive without a wagon? They must have tougher skin or felt no pain. They sat in the back of the wagon and stared at nothing. Mason suspected there was more to their story than a family. He wondered if any of them were related, since none of them had similar physical features.
Camille was the leader, that much was certain. Karl was volatile, violent and angry. Punching him had been satisfying in the extreme. Gave Mason a thrill to help Isabelle. She had done so much for him, defending her was a very small task.
The other two women, Mary and Catherine, were shadows compared to the Chastain sisters. Gunther was like a clumsy horse led around by Camille, stomping on anything in his path.
As the morning wore on, the wagon slowed down. After riding on and driving the rig for the last four weeks, Mason knew what was happening, but he kept his mouth shut, as did Isabelle and Charlie.
The wagon was too heavy with all the people and the extra belongings, not to mention the wet ground saturated with snow. Oh yes, the wagon was sinking.
While Gunther and Karl drove the wagon, everyone else sat in the back, barely looking at anything but the floorboards. If they didn’t have the intelligence to know how to handle the rig, Mason wasn’t about to tell them a damn thing.
Soon enough, everything ground to a halt. Mason told himself not to smile; instead he affected a confused expression, or at least that was what he hoped for.
Then the sound of leather on flesh and of animals in pain rent the air. Mason jumped to his feet at the same time Isabelle did.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Camille narrowed her gaze at them.
“I will not sit by while your foolish sons kill my animals,” Isabelle snarled as she heaved herself out of the wagon with an agility he didn’t know she possessed.
Mason followed her without thought. He wasn’t about to let her face the other men and hurt animals without him. Mason didn’t remember when he had become a man of action but he damn well liked it. A great deal.
Karl stood on the wagon seat, the whip in his hand. While he had never even seen Isabelle use the thing, he’d spotted it beneath the wooden seat. The oxen pulled at the yokes that held them in place. Blood ran down the neck of the two lead oxen and they snorted in the cold air. Their eyes rolled in their sockets as they tried to move forward. Hercules was a good animal, but he had his limits and they had been reached.
The wagon’s wheels were mired deep in the mud that had formed after the previous day’s storm. The back of the wagon had sunk farther than the front, which was going to make pulling it from the muck that much more difficult.
“Stop it!” Isabelle launched herself at Karl, yanking the whip from his hand and ten years off Mason’s life. She jumped back to the ground before the other man could react. “The wagon is too heavy, you fool. You cannot load it with twice as many goods and three times as many people and expect no problems. The ground is too wet!”
Her voice had risen, stronger and fiercer, with each word. Karl looked shocked while Gunther almost looked ashamed. Isabelle threw the whip into the snowy ground behind her. Mason approached the oxen slowly, keeping his eye on Karl.
“Easy boys, easy,” Mason crooned to the oxen. He blew his breath at them, hoping they picked up his scent and wouldn’t trample him. Bloody welts covered the backs of the two lead oxen. It dripped down their legs, peppering the snow in red dots.
Mason scooped up some of the clean, cold whiteness and gently pressed it onto Hercules’ wounds, then repeated it for the other animals. The only sound in the air was the oxen’s moans and snorts. Mason wiped his hands on his trousers and stepped back away from the animals. The snow appeared to help the oxen with their pain, thank God.
“What is wrong with you?” Isabelle’s face was flushed with fury, her hair escaping the braid at the back of her head. “Do you have no common sense at all? The wagon doesn’t move without healthy animals.”
“Don’t you think you can talk to me like that, you little bitch.” Karl pulled a pistol from his belt and pointed it at her.
Time seemed to slow down to a crawl and the world around him shrank to the barrel of the gun. Karl moved toward her, but the mud and snow sucked at his feet, hampering his progress. The snick of the hammer echoed in the stillness.
Mason dove at Isabelle, tackling her to the ground as the gun fired. The roar of the gun was nearly drowned out by Charlie’s screams. She landed on top of Mason, who landed on top of Isabelle. The resulting shouting almost burst his eardrums.
Chaos ensued for another two minutes as the three of them untangled themselves. Just as he got to his feet, pain exploded in his temple and he landed on the ground in a muddy, cold splat.
“It’s your fault!” Isabelle knelt beside him, but she was speaking to someone else. “The oxen wouldn’t have kicked him if you hadn’t hurt them.”
The oxen kicked him? Well, damn it to hell, how many times could he take a blow to the head and still survive? Apparently at least twice. Bells gonged in his skull and he saw two of everything. His stomach lurched and he managed to swallow the bile that rose.
Isabelle laid his head on her lap. She stared down at him with worry in her beautiful eyes. “I’m sorry, Mason.”
He tried to shrug but found he wasn’t feeling casual about this moment at all. Not a bit. “I’m glad you didn’t get shot, my dear. It would have ruined my day.”
Her lips twitched. “Thank you for pushing me out of the way, even if I am now soaking wet.”
“The two of you need to get up and push this wagon out of the mud. Everybody out of the wagon. Now!” Camille barked at the lot of them, her face a mask of anger. “Enough shooting, whipping and whining. Move!”
Mason managed to get to his feet, but he swayed. Isabelle and Charlie tucked under his arms and led him over to the back of the wagon where Karl, Gunther, Catherine and Mary waited.
Camille led the merry band of wagon pushers from the wagon seat. “Hiyah!” She snapped the reins while the rest pushed at the back of the wagon. Inch by inch, the wagon moved forward. The wheels didn’t turn as much as they slid out of the ruts that held them. Mason’s head pounded, but he pushed as hard as he could, eager to leave. Not only had Isabelle almost been shot, but he’d been injured.
He had a feeling, however, that their nightmare was just beginning.
Chapter Seven
Isabelle woke, as she had for the last four days, tucked between Charlie and Mason. The ground beneath them was damp, which had leached into her bones. They still had the quilts and blankets from her parents, but the Beckers had appropriated everything else.
There was food, but little else. Their days were spent walking beside the wagon, their nights in silence or whispered conversations about what they could do. It was all just dreams since one small woman had taken control of their lives.
They headed in a random pattern northeast, then east, and then south. Isabelle only kept track by the direction of the sun. She didn’t know where they were going, nor why. Camille refused to speak to them and Karl spent his time sending malicious glares in Isabelle’s direction.
The Jewel: The Malloy Family, Book 11 Page 8