I stared straight ahead into the emptiness of the prairie and imagined Whistler appearing just now on the far horizon, her gorgeous hide flashing in the sun. I would stand on the wagon seat and Sawyer would gallop to my side and collect me into his arms, and then we would ride away from here, never to look back – and yet part of why I loved him so desperately was the fact that his sense of honor would prevent such an occurrence; I knew he would keep himself from me no matter how it destroyed us both.
“Lorie, I am thinking we shall detour into Hannibal for a time. It’s a larger town than Keokuk, surely with a preacher. I would see you settled and then ride ahead to the boys. They shall continue to Minnesota without us for the time being.”
I closed my eyes at this news and with all of my strength stopped my thoughts from reaching out to Sawyer.
The next two nights, Angus made camp well before dark. He waited upon me as graciously and with as much tender concern as I could have ever desired. Each night after I arranged my bedding, I crawled to withdraw Sawyer’s picture, holding it to my chest as I lay there. It was the fourth evening apart from him when I woke with a gasp, having fallen asleep before eating. The darkness indicated it was well past twilight, though firelight glowed warmly through the canvas walls.
Something was wrong.
I could feel the weight of this knowledge like a cloak. The air was silent, only the cadence of the river in the background.
“Gus?” I called sharply, fear drenching my tone.
I heard him rise from the fire and come immediately to the tent. He said, “I’m here. May I come in?”
Relief inundated my voice as I replied, “Yes,” and then as he untied the lacings, I moved to stow both Sawyer’s letter and his picture within my valise.
Angus entered and hunkered near the foot of the bedding. He said, “Did you rest well?”
I said, “Yes. Thank you for stopping early.”
“Of course,” he told me. “By tomorrow, early afternoon I figure, we should be into Hannibal. You shall see a doctor, once there.”
I nodded acceptance of this.
“Then I shall find you a hotel and you will be cared for until I can ride to Iowa and back. Perhaps a week’s time.”
Again I could only nod.
He studied me and then asked softly, “May I hold you?”
Something within me twisted. I closed my eyes and nodded a third time, wordless. Angus moved carefully, as though I was perhaps a timid animal he had no wish to frighten. He brushed hair from my face, gently, and then took me against his chest. For a long time, he held me and stroked my hair. I knew I should put my arms about him, but I could not muster the strength to do so; soon he would be my husband and I would have no choice. I would take him again into my body and I would learn to accept it…
You must, Lorie…
I braced against the onslaught of pain I could feel hovering, waiting to overtake me at the first sign of weakness. Angus tilted my chin and pressed a kiss to my forehead. He said, “Come, my dear, and eat.”
Outside and under the stars, I was struck by a sharp twinge of uneasiness, stronger than before, a disquiet that went beyond my aching sadness. I cast my eyes about our camp, observing nothing out of the ordinary. And yet…
It’s your imagination, Lorie, nothing more.
“Gus, I must…” I faltered for a moment, embarrassed and wishing for an outhouse, though he smiled easily.
“Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll fix you a plate, my dear.”
“I’ll be back directly,” I told Angus.
“I’ll be here,” he said, but I had lied without realizing; it was on my return trip, just as I passed Admiral and Juniper, that I felt a crawling chill over the back of my neck, a gut flash of danger. The campfire was in sight, Angus with his back to me scant yards away, as footsteps came almost soundlessly behind me and a man’s rough hand caught me around the face, covering my mouth and yanking me against his chest.
My mind swam wildly, trying to make sense of what was happening. I registered meaningless details minutely, from the sound of the horses as they nickered with what seemed concern, Angus’s head lifting suddenly as another man stepped into the firelight as though conjured by a nightmare, holding a rifle loosely trained upon him. The man was just across the fire from Angus.
At my ear, a voice I knew said, “Lila, you been gone too long.”
Panic overrode all else; I heard the wheezing sound of my terror from behind his hand. Though it had been more than a year since I had last seen him near the docks in St. Louis, I knew that voice from the depths of my darkest fears. It was Sam Rainey.
Oh dear God…
We’re dead, we’re as good as dead.
Had some dark part of me known and refused to acknowledge that Ginny wouldn’t let bygones be bygones, even after Union Jack? She was demented, obsessed with exacting her revenge. Of course she would call upon the man perhaps even more unhinged than she. I had underestimated her to a fault, and understood this in less than a second, as Sam chuckled into my ear.
“You got her?” his companion called, unwilling to remove his eyes from Angus.
“I do,” Sam responded, propelling me forward. I knew better than to struggle. Fear pushed shards of ice through my blood. I had wished to die, and now certainly my wish was to be granted.
“I see you got something better than a half-breed whore,” the one holding the rifle upon Angus observed. He was a stranger to me, wiry as a piece of rawhide. I did not recognize him from Ginny’s at all. He wore the indigo blue trousers, though much faded, of an old Federal Army uniform. He added to Sam, “I bet she feels good, too, don’t she?”
“She does at that,” agreed Sam. He smelled so strongly of whiskey that gorge rose in my throat, accompanying the fear. He removed his hand from my mouth, allowing all of the forced air out in a rush. Angus turned at once, his eyes deadly as he observed. Sam’s forearm was tight around my midsection, just beneath my breasts; as though in speculation, he let his palm slip up and cup me, bouncing my right breast in his hand. I closed my eyes and concentrated on not letting the vomit in my throat move into my mouth. A part of me, distant and detached, watched from roughly ten yards out on the prairie, as though released from my body to observe this horror.
Angus, I am so sorry, you could never know how sorry.
Sawyer, oh Sawyer, I’ll die without seeing you one more time.
I understood this with clarity. But my last thoughts would be of him, riding north with Boyd and Malcolm. He would never know exactly what had happened here. What would they think, what would they do when Angus and I failed to meet them in Iowa?
Angus was in a crouch, his face frightening in its fury. He said evenly, “Remove your hands from her at once.”
Both men laughed. I knew that sound in the pit of my soul, the coldness of it, the emptiness. They would use me, certainly violently, and then, for whatever Ginny had promised them, they would kill both Angus and me with less regard than a person might hold for a turtle inadvertently crunched beneath a wagon wheel. A fox snared for its thick rusty pelt. My heartbeat was frantic; surely Sam could feel its terrified energy. Surely that excited him.
I studied Angus, trying to tell him with my eyes, Oh Gus, do what they want. Don’t try to fight them.
“‘At once,’” the stranger mocked in a singsong. “Mister, this here whore belongs to Ginny Hossiter. She’s worth a fair bit of gold and she is the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.” He spoke this almost politely, as though at a church picnic, a pleasant social occasion, before muttering, “And I ain’t been with a woman in a long goddamn time.”
“I’ll go with you,” I told this stranger, pleading, terrified by the anger upon Angus’s face. It was about to erupt and they would kill him.
I’ll save you if I’m able, I tried to tell Angus
, looking intently into his storm-gray eyes. Just don’t threaten them, Gus, dear God, don’t threaten them.
But he could not sense my thoughts.
“I will kill you,” Angus told them calmly, and I stared at him, begging him to be silent.
Something else caught my eyes then, drawing my gaze upwards. Dread froze every drop of blood in my body. Union Jack rode into the firelight on a horse I didn’t recognize, but he was leading both Fortune and Aces by their lead lines. I blinked and looked wildly for Whistler.
“Nah, I don’t think you will,” was Jack’s confident reply, from horseback, and Angus turned to regard this new voice. “You goddamn Rebels. It was right satisfying to kill the others you was riding with.”
The man on the ground added, “That’s what sold me to sign on to steal this here whore, back in St. Louis. Never too late to kill a Rebel, that’s what. We thought the whore was with them three. Had to backtrack to find you.”
My mind, scalded with shock, at last grasped what he was saying, and I jolted back against Sam, almost too short of breath to gasp, “You…ki…you killed…”
Behind me Sam murmured, “You’re upsetting Lila, Dixon.”
The man called Dixon regarded me with dispassionate eyes. “We shot them Rebels clean through, just a day or so past. They was on the route we thought you was on.”
“Recognized that paint mare from a hundred yards out,” Jack added. “Though she bust away after I got these two,” and he thumbed over his shoulder at Aces and Fortune. “I shot after her.”
Wails of anguish ripped violently from my throat. Sam breathed out in a rush, startled by the intensity of my reaction, shoving me forward and to the ground, where I curled and gripped my head in both hands, unable to accept what I’d just heard.
Because of me, they’d been killed, all because of me.
I could not fathom a world in which Sawyer was not living. And Boyd, and my sweet little Malcolm…the last of their families, all of them. I clutched my head and could not stop screaming, even when Sam yelled at me to shut up. I was beyond hearing him, beyond hearing anything. My screams would echo on through the terrible, unforgiving darkness that so quickly enveloped my soul. My throat was ragged and I choked on vomit, but still I could not stop those screams, until Sam kicked me in the ribs, the toe of his boot forcibly driving the breath from my lungs. I was curled with my back to the fire, away from Angus, and so I would never know exactly what happened in those next few seconds, though the wondering would haunt me always.
Angus made a sound of rage. He must have lunged at the one called Dixon, as Sam’s booted feet were still in my view. I heard the sharp report of gunfire, just one shot, followed by an intense ringing in my ears.
“Take her on your horse,” Dixon instructed, and though his booted feet were suddenly only inches from my nose, between those boots all I could see was the sight of Angus sprawled on the ground, one arm flung to the side, palm up as though in supplication. I tried to crawl towards him. My side hurt so terribly that I could hardly drag myself forward. Soon they would kill me, and I would welcome it. I deserved death. Four of the best men I had ever known were dead because of me. I collapsed, overwhelmed by choking sobs, rolling to my back and pressing my hands to my face, sobbing as I had never known.
“Sawyer,” I moaned, again and again, though I ached for all of them. But his name was the only one that came to my lips. The moment I died, my soul would rush to his.
I knew this.
They left Juniper behind, after quickly looting the wagon for anything they could move.
“Don’t bother with that there plow horse,” Jack ordered.
“These here are our horses now, girl, an’ you mark those words,” Dixon told me.
“Wouldn’t want to be accused of stealing no horses,” Sam muttered. “That’s a hanging offense, that is. Killing Rebels, that’s just a service to our fine country. Ain’t no one in his right mind’d find fault with that.”
When I realized that they were planning to bring me with them, I fought with every ounce of strength left in my body, disregarding the sharp pains in my side. I clawed at Sam’s face as it hovered near, catching him across the cheeks and leaving ruts in his skin. I meant for him to shoot me, but he hadn’t. Instead he’d clubbed my left temple with the base of an open palm, knocking me from consciousness for a time. Long enough to get me in front of him on his horse, my wrists bound tightly together.
We rode through the night. They kept a steady, cantering pace for hours, until the sun was just beginning to send yellow trailers up from the east. At that point they’d reached a copse of cottonwoods, near the riverbank. When Sam lifted me down from his horse, I went limply, my mind numbed from the horror of the past hours. Before they pitched their tent, Sam propped me, wrists yet tethered, against a tree, though I curled immediately to my side on the ground and wrapped my arms around my head, all my bound wrists would allow for. Just beyond the trees, I could see the horses, and I focused on Fortune, Aces and Admiral, grazing not twenty feet from my head.
I lay without moving and pictured Sawyer. I could see his eyes so clearly, his eyes that saw into my soul. I focused upon the image of him as I huddled there in the dawning light. Though it was impossible, though I knew they’d killed him, I imagined that I could sense his thoughts, even now. I could sense agony and desperation, though those were surely my own emotions, waiting to ravage me when the numbness wore away and left me exposed. And yet then I caught a hint of his stubborn determination, as clearly as though he’d spoken to me. I heard him, I could have sworn it.
Where are you, Lorie, where are you?
Was I hearing him from heaven? Was that possible?
Louder then, words shouted in ferocious desperation. My breath caught.
Lorie, tell me! Tell me where you are!
It was so strange a sensation, prickling along my nerves, that I lifted my head.
I’m here, I thought, as hard as I could. Sawyer, I’m here.
Then I fell to whispering his name, over and over, keeping my arms over my head.
When Sam came and cut my wrists free, and hauled me to my feet, I could hardly stand straight from the pain in my side. Its tentacles had spread to my lower belly, and I bent forward with a groan. My thighs were slippery with wetness; my mind floundered, wondering if I had urinated on myself.
“Get up, whore,” he commanded. “Ginny didn’t say we couldn’t have a taste, before we brought you back.”
“No,” I whimpered, dragging backward from him and his limping gait. “Please, no…”
He had no time for resistance and dragged me roughly into their tent, a low-pitched structure in which it was impossible to do anything but sit, and I would have fought him, I would have, but I hurt too much. His kick had likely broken a rib. Once inside, he shoved me to a blanket spread over the grass, where both Union Jack and the man called Dixon waited, crouched low. Sam jerked me to my back and I cried out, from the pain and pure, simple fear, tears flowing over my temples. He bent over me, the other men hovering in the background, and took my chin in his fingers. I closed my eyes against the sight of him, filled with hatred as I had never known, and it gave me strength.
“You are a fucking beautiful whore, even after a beating,” Sam murmured, squeezing my chin, moving his other hand to my left breast, cupping it and then straddling my hips to bite my nipple through my dress.
I cried out sharply. As he leaned back I brought my knee up between his legs as severely as I could. I connected with his flesh, hard enough that he gasped in pain.
“Goddamn whore!” he rasped, breathlessly, and backhanded my face fiercely enough to stun me. I fell inescapably still, seeing only flashing bursts of light. I found myself thinking of Sawyer telling me the story of falling from the runaway horse, Charley Bean, and how all he could see at first were stars.
Sam bunched the skirt over my hips, furiously, his movements rough. I expected to feel his naked body next, but instead he made a strangled sound and reared back.
“What in the hell?” I heard Dixon mutter, leaning over my body, bare from the waist down.
“She must’ve been carrying,” Jack muttered. “Shit, I’m not…I won’t…”
They withdrew before the stars had cleared from my vision.
- 21 -
I couldn’t catch my breath at first, panic still rioting freely in my bloodstream. My vision returned in fragments and at last I rolled gingerly to one side. Jack had said…he’d said…
I lifted my skirt, and the petticoat and shift beneath, baring my lower body. My bowels seemed to liquefy as I beheld blood. So much blood, and my mind scrabbled like an insect beneath a sharp point, trying to determine what was happening. My thighs were covered, as though maroon-red paint had been slashed there with angry strokes of a brush. I smoothed the hair on my pelvis with shaking fingers, trying to twist enough to see between my legs. I hurt so badly I moaned and fell back. I put my fingers between my legs with utmost care, and encountered heat and wetness, a raw pain. The aching across my lower abdomen was excruciating.
The child.
I was too terrified to cry, to do anything but blink at my fingers as I withdrew them, red with blood. I heaved, though my stomach was empty. I retched and tasted bitterness in the back of my throat. Sam had split my bottom lip when he’d struck me, and I tasted blood from that too, salty and warm.
They left me alone for more than an hour, as a dim gray day spread itself across the sky. Clouds massed and I found room to pray that it wouldn’t rain, as that would perhaps force them back into this, their only tent. My mind meandered as I lay prone, unable to stop what was happening to my body, unable to prevent it from expelling the child that had been growing there. I understood this, as cramps clenched my belly, similar to those which accompanied my monthly bleeding, though more intense. A mental numbness had swallowed me almost whole, keeping at bay my sorrow, any thoughts of what may be my immediate future, here in Sam Rainey’s tent.
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