***
They sat in silence, side by side, on the dusty wooden stairs in front of the saloon. Nathan was glad for Angel’s quiet companionship, but he couldn’t help feeling anxious as they waited.
Finally, in an attempt to stave off the self-reflection that silence always brought, he spoke. “How old are you, anyway?” he asked.
“Ten. You?”
“Twelve.”
“What are you doing here?”
She shrugged. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve probably got a long time.” He jerked his head toward the saloon doors in explanation.
“It’s not a very happy story.” Angel watched Nathan’s face as she spoke, gauging his reaction to her words.
He spoke, not dismissively, but matter-of-factly. “Neither is mine.”
She nodded slightly, then turned her gaze to focus on the lines she had been drawing in the dirt with the toe of her boot, not meeting his eyes as she spoke.
“About a year ago, I was traveling with my parents. We were on a steamboat. One of the engines exploded and started a fire. Most of the passengers got off in time, but my mother and father were both killed. Tom—the man who runs the saloon here—was my father’s brother and my nearest next of kin, so they sent me here to live with him.”
Angel paused, then shrugged as she saw Nathan’s expectant expression. “That’s about all of it.”
Nathan thought there was probably a great deal more to it than she had told him. He cast a contemptuous glance toward the saloon behind him and asked, “And how does he—Tom—treat you?”
Angel shrugged again, but her eyes were sad. “He treats me fine. I miss my parents. It’s different here. My father was a doctor. Tom doesn’t really know what to do with a ten-year-old girl.”
Raising an eyebrow, Nathan shot a sideways glance at Angel. She sounded confident as she spoke, but her last words sounded more someone else’s than her own. Nathan phrased his next question carefully. “And what do you do here now?”
“Keep the saloon clean, mostly. Sometimes I have to help the ladies here.” Angel lowered her voice then continued. “Sometimes some of the men who come are mean to the ladies. They hurt them. Tom never lets those men come back.”
Nathan felt cold, even though it was the middle of summer. He ran his hand through his hair, exhaling in disgust and speaking under his breath. “I bet.”
He met her eyes, expecting to see understanding, but all he saw was sad, dark-eyed innocence.
Just then, the silence was broken by the sound of boots on wood, and three men pushed their way through the swinging doors of the saloon. One of the men, flanked on either side by the remaining two, was obviously being forcibly shown out. Nathan ducked his head as shame colored his neck a deep red. It was his father.
Nathan’s father stood dazed for a moment. He looked blearily around, and then his eyes seemed to focus and latch on to Nathan. Nathan’s father strode purposefully, if not steadily, forward, then grabbed his son’s arm and dragged him to his feet without slowing down. “Let’s go, Nathan. We’re not welcome here.”
As Nathan was pulled upwards, one of the men spoke. “Angel, your uncle needs you inside.”
Angel rose to her feet, and with a backward glance, disappeared through the swinging doors of the saloon. Nathan, following behind his father, hung his head and wished he could disappear.
Chapter 3
My brother gave me my life, but he destroyed everything in it that mattered—my father, my reputation, my girl—and left nothing but pieces shattered so sharply that to touch them was to bleed.
***
Angel and Nathan traveled without conversation. Nathan was grateful for the sounds of the creaking wagon, and the rocks rolling beneath the wheels, and the chirping birds. They filled what otherwise would have been a silent void, easing some of the tension he felt.
“How far until you leave the main road?” Angel broke the not-quite silence.
“About a mile on the other side of town, so I’ll be able to drop you off as we pass through.” Nathan glanced sideways at her as he answered. He had been so determinedly staring straight ahead that he was startled to see that she had turned to face him.
For the first time since she had recognized Nathan, Angel met his gaze without hesitation. Her eyes were full of chaos. They reminded him of the dark volatility of the storm clouds that sometimes tumbled, snapping and crackling, across the sky on hot days. And it made him angry.
Everything about her presence made him angry. For much of the past seven years, her memory had been a spark of light in overwhelming darkness. Ten-year-old Angel had been innocence in a world that had otherwise been colored by shame, depravity, and misery. Nathan could still feel, as sharply as he had that day, the sting of humiliation from watching his father be escorted from the saloon. In spite of this, he had clung to the memory of Angel, because the memory of Angel was a memory of a few moments without fear. Her memory was a reminder that someone, somewhere, had neither judged him nor expected him to pay for the sins of his father.
He had reminded himself of that every time a conversation abruptly stopped when he came too close, or when whispers followed him as he walked by, or when someone avoided meeting his eyes as they spoke. But now, the Angel from that memory was gone, ripped from him and destroyed. Innocence and hope had been replaced by something darker. The anxiety and tension he had been feeling before transformed into hostility, and the words he drawled out were cruel. “Angel. There’s some irony for you.”
Her expression turned cold. “I don’t understand. What is that supposed to mean?”
Nathan smiled, but the expression was not kind. “I think it’s pretty obvious.”
“I don’t think it is. Why don’t you explain it to me?” Angel’s tone was icy.
Nathan stared at her in disbelief, but her face was stony and unwavering, and he realized she was serious. He began speaking with exaggerated slowness, deliberate and antagonistic. “You lived and worked at the saloon.”
“Yes.” Angel nodded.
Nathan, already beginning to regret the direction he had steered this conversation, waited for Angel to say something, anything, so that he didn’t have to, but when she said nothing, he continued in his deliberate drawl. “I had an interesting conversation with a man at the general store today. He likes to talk.”
Angel turned to face him, and then with the air of one who knew what Nathan’s answer to her question would be and how uncomfortable it would make him to speak it, Angel raised her chin. Almost daring him to answer, she asked, “And what exactly did he say?”
“He asked me how well I knew you. And then he said”—here Nathan took a deep breath, then spoke, his bitterness giving him renewed courage, mimicking the storekeeper’s conspiratorial tone—“‘Well, son, I’ll tell you man to man—there’s at least one man who knew her better than you.’”
Judging by her reddened cheeks, Angel took the storekeeper’s meaning without trouble, as Nathan himself had, and Nathan asked a biting question. “Was that clear enough, or would you like me to explain some more?”
His satisfaction at Angel’s stunned expression lasted only a moment, until Angel, who had been sitting straight-backed on the seat beside Nathan, wrapped her arms around her chest, hugging herself tightly like she was trying to hold herself together. She sat perfectly still, although her breathing was uneven, making it sound as though she were shivering.
Nathan had the uncomfortable feeling that the words he had spoken had been, if it were possible, far crueler than he had intended. Nathan waited for her to reply, and when she said nothing, he shook his head. The anger he had felt only moments earlier had burned itself out and replaced itself with an almost hollow lack of interest in anything Angel might say. He had inherited some of his father’s temper, but not his temperament, and guilt for how he had spoken was starting to nudge at him.
Finally, after a long silence, Angel spoke, her voice scarcely above a whisper. �
��Some things don’t happen by choice.”
Some of Nathan’s initial irritation flared up again, and he spat, “How was that not a choice?”
Angel stared intently at the floorboards, and then spoke one word. “Rape.” She paused, then added, “Now is when you tell me that it was my fault.”
Nathan felt the air leave his lungs in a single breath, and his mouth moved like a fish that had been caught and was now lying on the bank of the river, slowly suffocating.
Angel was still speaking. It sounded like she was reciting a list, and Nathan suspected it was a list that someone else—or several someone elses—had given her. “I shouldn’t have been there. I shouldn’t have worked in a saloon—this would never have happened to a proper lady. This is my punishment for associating with women of that nature. I shouldn’t have done my hair that way, I shouldn’t have worn that color, I should have fought harder. I must have brought it on myself. I must have wanted it to happen—”
“Stop.” Nathan’s voice was raised as he cut her off. Angel looked startled, searching his face with something that looked briefly like hope. All of Nathan’s words dissolved in his mouth. He had not thought beyond stopping the pounding assault of her words.
Finally, he asked, “Is that what that man at the store was talking about? When he said another man knew you better? He was talking about you being raped?”
Nathan could barely choke out the last word. Angel didn’t answer, but she shot him a look that plainly showed she thought the answer to Nathan’s question should be obvious.
“Son of a—” Nathan started to swear, then paused, glancing at Angel. “Sorry,” he muttered. Then, “Do you really believe all that—everything you said—that it’s your fault?”
Angel shrugged, shaking her head almost imperceptibly. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Why doesn’t it matter?”
“Everyone else believes it is.”
***
Rape. Angel didn’t know what had caused her to speak that word, other than the knowledge that as soon as they reached the next fork in the road, they would part ways and she would never have to face Nathan again. That, and an anger-inspired desire to make Nathan feel as uncomfortable as she had. She had wanted to shock him, to make him flinch, and to deflect some of the embarrassment and shame she felt away from herself and back toward him.
So she had told the truth, but her truth was taboo, and now she wished she had never broken the silence.
Angel sighed and buried her face in her hands. Closing her eyes, she tried to calm her racing heart, letting the sounds of the wagon and horses and harness drift into background noise. She focused on the sound of her breathing, but with her eyes closed, it wasn’t long before the motion of the wagon made her stomach queasy, and she sneaked a peek at Nathan out of the corner of her eye. He was staring straight ahead. He looked so uncomfortably miserable that a flash of amusement shocked her, and she had to cough to keep startled laughter from passing her lips.
At the sound of her cough, Nathan glanced toward Angel. As soon as their eyes met, Angel and Nathan looked away as though if they separated their eyes fast enough, they could erase the brief contact before it had ever happened.
Angel wished she had never accepted Nathan’s help. Walking the several extra miles could never have been as painful as this wagon ride. After what seemed like an eternity, a small town came into view on the road ahead, and Nathan spoke.
“I’ll take you to the preacher’s house when we get into town. He and his wife are good folk—you’ll be able to stay with them until you can make other arrangements.”
When Angel was silent, he added gently, “Do you need money?”
Nathan’s words ground against Angel’s pride, sparking it to life. She raised her chin, her jaw tightening. “No.”
Nathan exhaled, then said, “You’ll be okay.”
Angel nodded, wondering whether Nathan was trying to reassure her or himself. There was another long pause. They were surrounded by emptiness begging to be filled with accusations, or explanations, or apologies, or maybe all three, but Angel could think of nothing left to say. As she climbed down from the wagon, she wondered why, after so many wrong words, it was so hard to find one right word.
Chapter 4
He was always the golden child, the chosen son. I was the oldest—it should have been me. But nothing I did was ever good enough.
***
The little town was quiet, and the preacher’s house even more so. Nathan walked Angel to the door, knocked, then waited. There was no answer. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Nathan knocked once more, harder this time. Still no answer. He turned to see a woman from the house across the street watching them.
“If you’re looking for the preacher and his wife—” the woman started, and Nathan wondered who else he and Angel could possibly have been looking for, knocking on the preacher’s door—“they’ve left.”
“Do you know when they’ll be back?”
“They won’t. They announced in church a few weeks back that they were moving on. You must not have been at church that Sunday.”
Nathan closed his eyes and sighed, then turned to Angel. “Guess we’ll try the hotel then.”
Angel nodded mutely, then walked with Nathan back to the wagon. This time she didn’t see—or she ignored—the hand Nathan extended to help her climb up into the seat.
The hotel—if it could be called such—was located above the general store and was comprised of a few spare rooms the owners occasionally rented out to travelers. It was small and simple, but it was also clean and respectable.
Nathan and Angel walked into the general store, and Nathan groaned inwardly as he saw the young woman standing behind the counter. Valentine. Her parents owned the store and the hotel, but Valentine sometimes stood in for her parents.
Valentine’s eyes moved back and forth between Nathan and Angel before settling on Angel with a cool gaze. After a moment, Angel looked down at the counter, her hands twisting as she fidgeted. Nathan broke the silence. “Do you have a room available for the night?”
Turning her gaze toward Nathan, Valentine smiled. “I’m sorry, but we do not.”
Nathan scrubbed at his face as he tried to hide his irritation. He couldn’t be sure, but he had a strong hunch that there were rooms available—they just weren’t available for Angel. He opened his mouth to argue with Valentine, but Angel stopped him with a shake of her head.
“Never mind, Nathan. Let’s go.”
Nathan could feel Valentine’s gaze boring into them from behind as they exited the building. Once they were outside, Nathan shook his head and, speaking more to himself than to Angel, he asked aloud, “Now what?”
The silence hung in the air for several moments, and then Angel spoke. “You should go.”
Nathan turned to look at her, protesting, “I’m not leaving until I know you have somewhere to go.”
Angel crossed her arms against her chest. “It will be easier for me to find somewhere to stay if you aren’t with me.”
Stung, Nathan turned from Angel to look back toward the store they had just come from. A shadow—Valentine—quickly ducked out of sight. Nathan gritted his teeth as his frustration threatened to boil over. He didn’t need this.
“Fine,” he said, acid and ice dripping from his words. “I apologize for inconveniencing you. I didn’t realize my company was so distasteful.”
He tipped his hat at Angel, then climbed into the wagon. As he lifted the reins, he glanced back at Angel, standing motionless beside the wagon. Confusion passed over her face, and her eyebrows pinched together. She seemed like she might say something, but when she remained silent, Nathan shook his head and clucked his tongue at the horse.
***
Nathan sat next to his father on the seat of the wagon. The hours of the ride home had been filled with welcome silence, but Nathan knew better than to hope it meant anything other than a beating to look forward to when they arrived home. His father was b
rooding.
The silence was uneasy, like the quiet that came before a storm. The difference was that during a bad storm, you could go underground. Nathan had yet to find anywhere to hide from his father. He had been nine the first time he had run away, and his father had caught up with him the same day. Nathan had run away three times since then, and every time, his father had found him. The last time, his father had beaten him so badly that, in the words of his father, there “weren’t no way the boy could run now, even if he got the notion to try.”
Nathan hadn’t tried running since.
When they arrived home, his father went inside without a word to Nathan. Nathan did his chores in silence. Even more than the inevitable beating, he hated the uncertainty of the wait. It would have been one thing if there had been hope that his father’s mood would blow over, but there wasn’t. His father was the master, and Nathan was the proverbial dog that had been kicked—over and over again.
Nathan felt a strange sense of relief as he finished the last of the chores and closed the barn door for the night. In his mind’s eye, he could envision his father standing, belt in hand, in the middle of the floor, and yet he felt some of the tension ease out of his body. There was no more fear that his father would surprise him from behind while he was milking the cow or pitching hay down from the loft. Only the sure knowledge that once he entered the cabin, the worst would happen and then be over.
But when he walked through the front door, his father wasn’t standing in the middle of the room as Nathan had anticipated. Before Nathan could look around, his father, who must have been waiting just inside the door, grabbed his shirt collar, yanking him sideways and off balance, and then pushed him backward against the wall.
“I don’t want no son of mine whoring after them women.”
His father’s words were still slurred, and his face was so close Nathan could smell the reek of alcohol on his breath. Not that that was saying much—the smell of alcohol on his father was so strong Nathan would have been able to smell it from across the room.
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