by Tyler Hatch
The men departed and he made his way down the blackened, smouldering slopes to the river, walking along a half mile each way to check there were no sparks or hot embers. He found a couple of suspect places, stepped into the muddy river and scooped handfuls of water over them.
Looking around, back up the blackened slope of the ridge, he studied it for a few minutes then tore off the remains of his shirt, bunched it up and flung it onto the bank. He sat down, pulled off his boots and drained the river water out of them, then stripped off his trousers and waded out knee deep. He sat on the gravelly bottom, scooped up handfuls of coarse sand and scrubbed his body and arms and legs, rubbed hard at his face with water only, dousing his head a dozen times and shaking his thick black hair out of his eyes and ears.
With water still dripping from him as he sat there, he started to rise, then froze. He had heard something.
Holding a breath, ignoring the soft trickling sounds of the river and the birdsong on the far bank where the trees had been untouched by the flames, he strained to hear that alien sound again. There it was!
He felt his glowing skin prickle with a flood of goosebumps. It was someone sobbing – body-wracking sobs deep and terrible and hurting….
He would rather it had been the soft grunt of a mountain lion stalking him. That was something he knew he could handle … but this! A woman crying!
Well, it was no business of his, that was for sure. He could just ignore it….
‘The hell you think you’re kidding?’ he murmured, standing and heading for his soot-streaked trousers with the ragged holes burned in the cloth in a dozen places. They were awkward to pull on while he was wet and he only buttoned up some of the fly. He took his six gun from its holster where he had hung it on the saddlehorn and, heart hammering – harder than it would have if it had been a lion he had heard – he made his way around some jutting rocks.
And found the person who was sobbing so brokenheartedly.
It did nothing for his ease to recognize Kitty O’Day, sitting on a rock a few feet above the river, face streaked and red with her crying, body shuddering with the spasms. But what really chilled him was the flash of sunlight on the long blade of the hunting knife she held pressed between her breasts.
‘Kitty! For God’s sake!’
The words tore from him and he waded towards her even as she snapped up her head and the moist, reddened eyes widened as she saw him tucking the Colt into his partially fastened waistband.
She leapt up, swaying, missed her footing and fell. He saw the knife slip from her hand, splash into the water, and he did his best to catch her, but her weight bore him down into the shallows. He threw his arms about her in an effort to stop her wild thrashing and she struggled with a strength he didn’t know any young woman could possess.
‘Stop it!’ he gritted. ‘Kitty, stop this! For Chrissakes, girl, what – the hell d’you think – you’re doing…?’
She tried to bite him and it startled him. He had never seen such a – a mad, crazy look in her eyes. He would never have recognized her. Her breasts heaved against his hands and he didn’t even notice his grip was covering them. The girl got one arm free, slashed at his face, and fingernails gouged streaks in his flesh.
‘Let – me – go! You – you’re like all of – them! I hate you! I – hate – all – men!’
‘Calm down!’ Blaine stood, having the advantage now, and he pinned her down with one knee, fought to control her slashing hands as she beat at him, bearing her back relentlessly against the bank.
Lucas heard the horse racing in hard and glanced up from his books under the cottonwood, frowning and standing quickly. He recognized Clem Hardesty rowelling his mount, lashing at it with his quirt, his swollen lips drawn back from his teeth. He reined down and started yelling before the horse had stopped skidding.
‘The river!’ Clem panted, pointing behind him. ‘Alamo sent me down to tell – Blaine to hurry up …’ He swallowed, fighting for breath. ‘He’s there – with Miss Kitty! He’s half-nekked and her blouse is all wet and half torn off – Looks like he’s tryin’ to – rape her!’
Lucas felt a cold knot tightening in his belly, as it always did at some unexpected news of a disaster he would have to do something about … Then it passed and the rage at the thought of that half-breed Blaine trying to rape his sister shook him violently.
‘Send someone for Morgan – Then you bring Clint Rendell and any others you can grab and lead me to the river!’
He reached for his six gun, knowing he would never use it, but making the visible gesture. Hardesty was already swinging away, smiling crookedly.
‘You’re in real trouble this time, breed!’ he murmured and called to Clint Rendell who was riding up to see what all the hurry was about.
By now, Blaine had some measure of control over the hysterical girl. She had calmed down to the point where she was no longer trying to tear his eyes out but she was still sobbing uncontrollably and it took him some time to make out what she was saying as she clung to him.
‘Oh – Blaine! I’m so – ashamed! Father will kill me! When he finds out!’
He recalled the knife then, its blade poised between her breasts over her heart. He felt chilled.
‘What the hell can it be, Kitty, to make you – want to kill yourself? That’s what you were going to do, isn’t it?’
She nodded miserably. ‘I – I couldn’t work up the – courage to push the knife in….’
‘Thank God for that – but – why…?’ She shook her head, muttered ‘I’m too ashamed!’ and he shook her, making her look up at him. ‘Kitty – I dunno what it is, but it doesn’t matter. I’ll help you whatever your problem – just – tell me – so I’ll know what to do….’
She almost smiled for a brief moment, lifted one shaking hand to stroke his gouged cheek. ‘Oh, look what I’ve done to you! … I – I should’ve known you’d be the one to – understand, Blaine – forgive me….’
‘You don’t have to ask my forgiveness for anything, Kitty – I thought you knew that.’
She nodded, still sniffling. ‘Yes – there – there’s this girl at College – Christina McGovern. She’s kind of boy crazy and she – took me to a party. We – sneaked out of dorm and went to this – party at the Young Gentleman’s School—’ She paused, snorted. ‘Young Gentlemen! They don’t know the meaning of the word – they – they put some – alcohol in my fruit juice, kept doing it. I – didn’t know till too late – and—’ She choked off unable to go on but he gentled her and stroked her stringy, sand-clogged hair and she blurted it all out so that she had finished speaking for some seconds before he had separated the words and taken their meaning. ‘One of the boys seduced me and now I find I’m pregnant and Father will disown me at best, kill me at worst! I’m so – afraid and – ashamed, Blaine! The shame is the worst, I think….’
He pulled her against him but she started to panic again and began to beat at his shoulders as he said desperately, ‘You don’t have to worry about anything, Kitty! I’ll take care of you – Your father doesn’t have to know anything about this. No one need ever know. I – I’ll marry you and we’ll…’
‘Like hell you will!’
They leapt apart as a bunch of men charged out of the brush and swept on to the river bank, a raging, mad-eyed Morgan O’Day in the lead, a gloating Lucas and Clem Hardesty only a pace or two behind.
CHAPTER 3
PUNISHMENT
Once, when Blaine was eleven years old, he had saddled Morgan’s bay Arab when the rancher was out on the range, working mavericks with a crew of cowhands. Lucas warned him he was taking a big risk. A mighty big risk….
‘Pa’ll never know unless you tell him.’ Blaine, at that time, still believed Morgan was his real father and that Lucas and Kitty were his brother and sister. It was only after he turned twelve that Morgan O’Day told him of his true background.
‘He said no one is to ride that horse but him,’ Lucas said smugly. ‘No one!’
‘Oh, don’t be so stuffy, Luke,’ Kitty said, smiling at the hesitant Blaine – he somehow knew that Lucas would eventually spill the beans, but Kitty’s words helped decide him to ride the Arab now. ‘Go on, Blaine – I’ll see that Luke doesn’t tell Dad. If he does – well, I’m sure I’ll have no trouble finding something that Luke has done that he shouldn’t have … All right, Brother Dear?’
Blaine gave Kitty a brief smile and climbed on to the lower rung of the corral fence so he could reach the stirrup, then floundered his way into the saddle on the tall thoroughbred stallion. He touched his heels to the glistening flanks, flicked the reins and the Arab was away, accelerating to full speed, knowing there was a lightweight stranger in the saddle. The cowboys didn’t refer to the Arab as ‘Devil Horse’ for nothing.
It went like the wind and after Blaine got his breath and he had lost his hat, he threw back his head and howled a cry that he didn’t know till many years later was the victory call of a Comanche after he had succeeded in taming a wild mustang….
The Arab streaked across the pasture, Kitty waving encouragement, Lucas holding his breath, half-hoping something would happen to Blaine.
He got his wish.
The horse stepped into a gopher hole, snapped the fetlock like a stalk of celery and Blaine travelled through the air for a measured fifteen feet before landing in juniper bushes. He lost some hide and tore his shirt and trousers, but, limping, bleeding from the nose, he ran to the floundering Arab that was shrilling in its agony, staggering as it tried to stand firm on three legs, occasionally lowering the useless dangling right foot but immediately raising it again as soon as it touched the ground.
Kitty was in tears, frozen, unable to move, one hand at her mouth, knowing full well what dreadful punishment was now awaiting Blaine. Lucas knew, too, but he smiled slyly.
‘I won’t have to tell Pa anything now!’ he said and Kitty recovered enough to turn to him and sob, ‘I hate you. Lucas O’Day! I wish you weren’t my brother, you miserable sneak!’
Names never hurt Lucas, least of all any that his younger sister called him. Morgan O’Day called him a few names, too, when he rode back from the maverick round-up. But he didn’t waste time: he shot the Arab humanely, then ordered Blaine tied to the corral fence, and took down the buggy whip.
It was Alamo Ames, the Broken Wheel wrangler at that time, who tore Blaine’s shirt down to his waist. He also gave the boy a strip of doubled harness leather to bite on. Blaine turned his head as Morgan shook out the whip’s lash and ordered Kitty and Lucas to be taken to the house. He drew back his right arm and froze when his gaze locked with the boy’s.
Morgan was shocked at the deadly menace in the young face, the flat eyes that sent a chill through his whole body. Then Blaine spoke and even his voice sounded different, more mature, like a young man’s, and bleak as a mid-winter blizzard.
‘Touch me with that whip and I’ll kill you some day.’
Alamo Ames was stunned. ‘Don’t make it worse, boy!’ he said softly, watching his boss. The shock shook him as he saw how pale Morgan’s face was, how tight his lips and how hollow his cheeks had suddenly become. The hand that held the whip was trembling and, amazed, Alamo saw it start to lower.
Then, abruptly, Morgan’s expression changed to one of outraged determination. The lash sang and slashed across the boy’s bronzed shoulders, branding the flesh forever as it split the skin and raised a welt with purple lips. The lash rose and fell four more times.
‘Throw a pail of water over him to bring him round, then take him to his bunk and rub some salve into his back,’ O’Day ordered, the last words trailing as he saw Blaine’s head turn slowly, spitting out the well-bitten leather, tears wetting his cheeks. But there wasn’t an audible sob or groan of pain and his eyes were colder than before, if possible, but his voice was just as strong, without a quaver.
‘I – warned – you,’ he said.
That was all….
Now, fourteen years later, down at the riverbank, Morgan O’Day started to order Clint Rendell to go fetch his bullwhip, but his glance took in the faded, pale criss-cross scars ridging Blaine’s wide, river-wet shoulders. The memory of the boy’s words and his murderous look came to him again down the long years. Morgan paused, lifted his gaze to Blaine’s eyes and felt the tightness in his chest.
Hardesty and Rendell were covering Blaine with their guns. Lucas was trying to quieten the screaming Kitty and another three cowboys stood around, sober-faced, waiting to see what was going to happen.
Morgan’s words died within him. He cleared his throat angrily and the girl broke free of Lucas, ran to her father, screaming into his face, small fists hammering at his barrel chest.
‘Leave him! Blaine did nothing! He’s not the father … He was just trying to – help! Leave him alone!’
Morgan slapped her. One hard, numbing blow that silenced her, shocked more than hurt. She blinked, a hand touching her reddening face. Morgan wouldn’t look at her. He called to Lucas.
‘Take this – harlot up to the house and lock her in her room! She is to stay there, unfed, without company, until I decide what to do with her.’ His voice was thick and seemed to be choking him.
‘He’s – done – nothing I tell you!’ Kitty found her voice, defending Blaine, but Lucas and a cowhand took her arms roughly and dragged her away as she continued to scream her futile protests.
Morgan wouldn’t meet Blaine’s deadly gaze: he knew the man was remembering that time tied to the corrals with the crippled Arab shuddering its last in the hot sun…. Instead of ordering Hardesty and Rendell to get his bullwhip, he said, ‘Tie his hands behind his back.’
Morgan watched as Blaine stood there without resistance and managed to refrain from wincing as Hardesty pulled the ropes brutally into his flesh.
‘The girl’s innocent, Morgan,’ Blaine said slowly. ‘Give her a chance to explain—’
Morgan set bleak eyes on the half-breed. ‘I’d be within my rights to shoot you dead where you stand – but I’ve spent a lot of time and money on you over the years because I gave my word to someone who mattered to me. I’ll keep that word – and you’ll continue to work for Broken Wheel. But you’ll work to pay me back for all I’ve invested in you since I dragged you out of that stinkin’ Injun cesspit where you were living – you’ll work until you’re too feeble or crippled to bring in an extra cent for Broken Wheel’s benefit – and then I’ll kick you out with only the clothes you stand in. You savvy me, mister?’
Blaine didn’t flinch. That deadpan face stared back at Morgan and almost unnerved him but he forced himself to curl a lip and repeat his last words. ‘Do you savvy what I said…?’
He saw Blaine was going to speak and he began to smile coldly, but the words shocked him into silence.
‘What’re you going to do with Kitty?’
Even Hardesty and Rendell showed just a touch of admiration. The man had been threatened with a life-sentence of hard, unrelenting and certainly unrewarding labour – and all he could do was ask what was going to happen to Kitty!
Clem Hardesty admitted silently that that took real guts….
Morgan was flushed, then pale. He stepped forward, slapped Blaine across the face. ‘Get him out of my sight – oh, and, boys, if you think it’s necessary to hammer some sense into this dirty breed, you go right ahead – there’ll be no complaints. As long as you leave him alive.’
Morgan turned away, shaking, sick, then thought of the daughter who had brought shame to the O’Day family and his jaw hardened and his fists curled as he strode angrily across the pasture towards the distant ranch house.
Blaine was down for the fifth time, but once again they wouldn’t leave him be. Rendell, a beefy man with a large bulbous nose and blubbery lips, rubbed his aching right hand, its knuckles split and raw. He raised it to his mouth and sucked hard, spitting a little blood. ‘That enough, you reckon, Clem?’
Clem Hardesty was pouring canteen water over his head and face
. He was sweating, his stench making even Rendell keep his distance, and he was breathing hard, raw knuckles running with blood. He looked at his pard now through the dripping curtain of water from his heavy eyebrows.
‘I’m about – winded – and my hands feel like I got ’em caught in the clothes wringer – but I ain’t finished with that sonuver yet.’ He stepped up to Blaine’s body – hands still tied behind him – and kicked him viciously in the ribs three times.
‘Remember what the Old Man said,’ warned Rendell uneasily. ‘Don’t kill him.’
Clem spat, snarling. ‘He’s tough, Injun tough – he’s taken more’n any whiteman I’ve ever beat on, but he can take a helluva lot more yet – an’ he’s gonna!’
He turned on Blaine again, dancing around the prone shape, kicking and stomping. Hard, breathy sounds gusted from the ’breed, blood bubbled from his nostrils and mouth. His jaw was lop-sided, his nose a purple shapeless lump. One eye was swollen and almost closed. The other seemed mostly undamaged and just as he was moving away to take a breather, Hardesty noticed this.
‘Hell, he can still see! I don’t want him to see anythin’ when he comes round – only to feel! Shake the bastard up, make him wonder if we’ve finished with him or not….’
‘Best take ’er easy, Clem,’ warned Rendell who was as vicious as his pard, but he knew when to stop. Long ago he had beat a man almost to death and the Judge had told him how lucky he was not to have a hemp necktie.
‘One more cowardly kick in the head and you’d be swinging from my gallows right now! Which is the rightful place for scum like you – but I’m bound by the jury’s decision….’ It had been a long, hard stretch in Yuma that time and Rendell was only walking around in freedom now because he had managed to escape – Of course, his name hadn’t been Rendell in those days. Likely there were still wanted dodgers on him back in Arizona…. So he wasn’t really concerned for Blaine’s welfare, only for his own.