by Judith Pella
There was only one thing that might appease him, and since she suddenly believed it might be the truth, that is what she said. “You are probably right, Laban. It is all my fault.” Then she turned and shakily made her way up the stairs to her room.
She wept for many days. She did not leave her room for a week. What did it matter? She was a prisoner anyway. She did not eat or bathe. Dark circles ringed sunken, dull eyes. The healthy tan she had begun to acquire from her time outdoors faded beneath a perennial pallor. Even the wine she began to take with increasing frequency gave her little solace, but it did provide welcome numbness.
Eight days later, Deborah had a miscarriage.
Deborah could not even summon the strength to feel guilt about the immense relief she felt at the loss of the baby. Always that image of Laban would appear in her mind and she dreaded the prospect of being responsible for producing another incarnation of Caleb. She feared she would never be able to love such a child.
It took Deborah several weeks to recover both physically and emotionally from both the loss of the child and of Jacob. In the end, she only did so because Leonard threatened her.
“I do not want people to think we are starving you out here!” he shouted one day. “Either you clean yourself up and start taking nourishment, or I will hire someone to force feed you. It will not be pleasant, but it is no more than you deserve for purposely losing that child.”
“I would have thought you’d be happy about it,” she retorted, though halfheartedly, to his untrue accusation. “Now you won’t have to wonder whose child it was.”
“You are right about that. Next time there will be no question.”
His reference to “next time” made her sick at heart. But she knew he wanted a child—not, of course, out of any sentimental desire; he merely craved someone else to control. Deborah was desperate to prevent it. But when she locked him out of her room, he kicked in the door.
She began to seriously consider running away. She believed she had nothing to lose. If she must live her life in shame, so be it. At least there would be no child to also taint.
Perhaps she could find Jacob, although at the same time she prayed he was far away from there. But she realized that her feelings for Jacob had only been another escape, and she could benefit neither of them by seeking him out. Even if she could find him, she would only endanger him further. It was best that he start a new life far away from Texas.
Striking out alone became more appealing to Deborah. Dying at the hands of Indians on the frontier seemed a small risk compared to spending the rest of her life here. However, chance of escape was now more impossible than ever. The guards at the house were more vigilant than before. Leonard was taking no chances of his philandering wife disgracing him again.
Deborah decided to revive her earlier performance of the dutiful wife. She hoped to deceive Leonard into lowering his guard and thus providing her more opportunity to get away. It was a thin, shallow attempt at best. It hardly fooled her husband, but he did see the benefit in rewarding such behavior in order for it to continue. Thus, that winter he allowed her to go into town occasionally. The guard, however, always accompanied her. She never went anywhere alone.
She had considered finding a confidante in town, some objective party to whom she could go for help. Perhaps Leonard could be arrested for what he did to her. There were only a handful of women—decent women, not saloon girls—in town. One day she chanced to meet one of these in the store. She was the banker’s wife and seemed nice enough, and even invited Deborah to tea.
“You simply mustn’t bury yourself out there on that ranch. We women have to stick together, you know!” the woman said warmly.
Deborah went to the woman’s house, and while tea was served, after some small talk between them, she forced herself to broach the subject of her marriage. This woman was a stranger whom Deborah had met only once before at her wedding; yet she was a woman, and a chance like this might not materialize again. It wasn’t easy and Deborah spoke only in the vaguest terms.
“I’m afraid my marriage isn’t all I’d hoped it would be,” she said tentatively.
“None are, my dear.”
“Has your husband … that is to say, is it common for a husband to strike a wife?”
“I’ve heard of it happening,” the woman replied with some measure of kindness in her tone. “Though, heaven forbid, my husband never would. For some men it is the only way they know to control an unruly wife. It is a small price for a woman to pay, I suppose, for the security of a home of her own.” She paused, then her eyes widened as the full implications of Deborah’s query dawned upon her. “Dear, are you saying that your husband has struck you?”
Deborah nodded. Even then she could not come right out and verbally admit it. She was suddenly ashamed, not only of Leonard, but of herself also. The prim southern woman beside Deborah did nothing to dispel that shame.
“Deborah,” the banker’s wife said with more innocence than rebuke, “you must just try harder to please him.”
That was the end of Deborah’s ill-fated attempt to seek outside help—especially when, on the heels of it, Leonard confronted her with it the next night.
“How dare you flaunt our marriage before friends and neighbors! But don’t think it will get you anywhere; I am too well regarded in this town for anyone to pay you heed. But just in case you should get any ideas of repeating your impudence—”
His fist flew at her, striking her over and over, giving no care even to making marks. When he finished beating her, he raped her viciously. She spent three days healing from that attack, locked in her room the whole time. As usual, Leonard told Maria that Deborah was ill and not to disturb her. He would tend his wife’s needs himself—ever the attentive husband.
Somehow after this Deborah contrived another trip to town. There she made a purchase that helped to cement her determination to free herself, one way or another, from this miserable life.
When she arrived home, the house was empty; even Maria was gone. Deborah hurried to her room and dropped her packages on the bed—except for one, which she carefully unwrapped. She picked up the small object inside, feeling an awe as she stared down at it. The storekeeper said it was called a derringer. It fit in the palm of her hand and it could fire only two bullets. She doubted she’d ever have need for more.
Carefully she loaded two bullets from a box of ammunition that came with the weapon. She almost smiled at the little deception she had used with the storekeeper, telling him it was to be a Christmas gift for her husband and that she’d appreciate it if he kept it their little secret.
Deborah hid the gun in a small drawer in her bedside commode. She did not know if she could ever use the weapon, either on Leonard or on herself. But somehow knowing it was there gave her a kind of strength. In the dreary days and weeks ahead she frequently imagined using it. She even dreamed about it. How sweet was the image in her mind—the look on Leonard’s face as he came at her and she lifted the gun hidden in the folds of her clothing. Ah, the stark shock and fear, especially fear, he wore as she pulled the trigger and a circle of blood soaked his chest.
Yes, the derringer gave her strength; it gave her a sense of control. She did not always have to be a victim.
But it also gave her the prospect of another kind of release. More than once that winter, she sat at her dressing table with the little gun grasped in her white-knuckled hand, pointed at her own head.
She never knew or understood what kept her from pulling that trigger. She never considered that a force beyond herself had spared her for the future life that still lay before her. She did not let herself recall her father’s loving words about a caring, omnipotent God, a God who did not cause evil, but who was ever ready to lift a rebellious soul from the mire of a godless world. It would have been so easy to surrender to this Deity, to appropriate that peace and love from His hand. But she was too caught up in blame and recrimination to accept gifts from the one she considered responsible for the deaths of tho
se she loved.
So, Deborah did survive, for whatever reasons, through that winter. And spring came to mark her second year in Texas. She marveled that it had been such a short time. But two years in hell was easily a lifetime.
That spring of 1865 also marked another milestone—the end of the War Between the States. Deborah greeted the news of the surrender at Appomattox Court House with apathy. The war had touched her once, given her grief, driven her from her beloved home. But for the last two years it had been like a distant memory of a dim dream. If it could not change her present circumstances, it did not matter that it was over. She did feel a twinge of sorrow for poor General Lee. He could have been the commander of the Union Army, for rumor had it he had been asked, and he could have now been a great hero. But instead he had fallen in disgrace. Some rumors circulated that he would be arrested and perhaps executed, but even the North respected him too much for that. At least one good man had survived the war.
Unfortunately, so had Leonard. His father had adroitly kept him out of the Confederate Army. How convenient it would have been for some stray Yankee bullet to end all Deborah’s misery. But even the Indians had not been able to provide her freedom.
Life continued as always, war or no war. Deborah could not have known that when her hoped-for release finally did come, it would be by way of a hangman’s gallows.
Part 2
The Company of Outlaws
13
The outlaws cut a generally northwest route, though McCulloch was careful not to veer too much to the west where the wild, unsettled regions of western Texas invited Indian attack. Keeping the western rim of the Cross Timbers more or less to their right, they steered a fairly direct course across the rolling, mesquite and grass covered plains until they crossed the Brazos River. Then they adjusted their course to a slightly more eastward direction, through a corner of the timbered land.
They encountered Cheyenne and Kiowa hunting parties. Luckily the Cheyenne party, which had twenty or thirty warriors, didn’t see them, and the outlaws passed without incident. Only a few shots were exchanged with the Kiowas, but there were only six or seven in that band; they quickly realized they were out-gunned by the outlaws and retreated back to their hunting. Other than that, the outlaws passed the days of their journey uneventfully. They saw no sign of a pursuing posse from Stoner’s Crossing. McCulloch decided his trick, heading south toward Mexico before turning sharply north, carefully covering their tracks, must have fooled the law.
That sheriff would be expecting them to go to Mexico. He was probably already across the Rio Grande trying to track them through Coahuila—that is, if he had the nerve. More than likely he had given them up for a lost cause. Caleb Stoner would raise a ruckus over that, but even he couldn’t make a man—especially a soft, spineless one like Pollard—risk his neck in Mexico. Those banditos down there were nearly as bad as the Indians.
The woman remained a puzzle to McCulloch, although she was beginning to take a little more interest in her surroundings and maybe even her future. He still didn’t know what to do about her.
Last night there had been a bit of a scuffle in camp over her. He’d noticed a couple of the boys looking at her pretty keenly. One was Sid Miller, an ornery brute. Griff didn’t know why he kept him around, except that with a cuss like that it was better to have him in your sights than off sneaking up behind you. Griff had no doubt that he could handle the other boys, but Miller was new to the gang and it had not yet come to a test between him and Miller. Griff felt in his gut that it was only a matter of time.
He smelled trouble the minute Miller sidled up to the woman while she was drinking coffee after supper.
“Howdy, ma’am,” Sid said in a slippery, sweet tone that sounded about as much out of place from him as a snarl would have from Mrs. Stoner. “You don’t mind if I set here a spell and pass the time of day with you?” He didn’t wait for an answer before plopping down on the ground right next to her.
Mrs. Stoner scooted away from him.
“Ma’am, I sure hope you don’t take me wrong,” Sid said, affronted. “I just want to be neighborly.”
She sighed wearily. Griff expected her to maintain her usual stony silence, but she answered Miller in a sharp, icy tone. “You can do that just as well from a distance.”
“I figure I got a little more coming to me. I risked my neck to save yours.” He paused and, lifting her hair with one calloused, grimy paw, ran the fingers of the other hand up and down the length of her slim, soft neck. “It shore is a right pretty one, too.”
She closed her eyes and cringed with revulsion. Griff wouldn’t have been surprised if she had hauled off and slugged Miller.
She didn’t.
She tensed and inched away. Somehow McCulloch hadn’t taken her for the type of woman to meekly accept such lurid advances from a man.
When Miller moved in close again, Griff watched, tense. He didn’t want trouble over the woman and so wasn’t quick to interfere.
Miller leaned even closer, his fetid breath blowing strands of her hair. He put an arm around her. Griff wondered how much she would take; and how much he, Griff, would let her take.
“Please, no!” she said in a strained, anguished tone.
That was all Griff needed to hear. “That’s enough, Miller! Don’t you see she ain’t interested?”
“Aw, you just want her for yourself.” Miller made no effort to move.
Griff pulled his gun. “I said get away from her!”
“Try and stop me, Griff! You ain’t gonna shoot one of your own boys.”
Griff fired. The bullet blasted a hole in the dirt not more than two inches from Miller’s leg.
The outlaw jumped up, cursing. “You’re plumb crazy, McCulloch!”
Griff replied with a steely menace in his voice, “You ever touch the woman, or go near her without her permission again, Sid, and the next hole I make ain’t gonna be in the dirt, and it ain’t gonna be in your leg—it’ll be straight through your heart!” McCulloch swung around to glare at the others observing the altercation. “And that goes for the rest of you varmints, too!”
Later, McCulloch was out smoking a cigarette on the edge of camp, watching the horses. He didn’t actually hear her light footstep but somehow he sensed her approach. He turned and was struck again at how pretty she was, especially with the moonlight glowing over that golden hair of hers. It made him ache that he couldn’t have her, but it made him even more sick to think of someone like Miller pawing her.
“Ma’am,” he said in greeting, tipping his hat.
“I hoped I’d find you out here,” she said. Her tone was softer than usual, more as it should have been. “You often visit the horses when we camp.”
“These critters are our life. If we lose any of ’em, we’d be goners, way out here in the wilderness like we are.” He masked his surprise at this rare attempt on her part to initiate conversation. “Besides,” he went on, “I kinda like to listen to ’em. They’re peaceful-like, you know.”
“Yes, they are. I have thought of laying my bed by them at night.”
“You don’t want to do that, ma’am! Even this is too far from camp to be safe. I’ve known Indians to get right up to a man’s campfire without him even hearing them till it’s too late.”
“Thank you for the advice.” She paused, seeming to consider her next words carefully. “I also want to thank you for what you did for me before.”
“Well, ma’am, I don’t want no trouble.” Now, it was his turn to pause thoughtfully. “Can I give you some more advice, ma’am?” She nodded, and he went on. “Well, if I hadn’t been around back there, I don’t rightly know if the other boys woulda done anything for you. I guess what I’m saying is no one would think the less of you if you defended yourself.”
“Would it have done any good, Mr. McCulloch?” she said bitterly.
“Well, I always figured if I was gonna go down anyway, I’d rather do it shooting from both barrels.”
She actually smiled at him—nothing bright, or even very cheerful, but at least sincere.
“That’s good advice, Mr. McCulloch, I’ll remember it.”
Yes, the woman was a mystery. One minute she was hard and tense like a coiled spring. The next, she seemed about as helpless and vulnerable as a newborn fawn. Then she’d turn right around and smile, though not too often; but when she did, even the prairie in springtime wasn’t prettier or more pleasant. Griff figured she’d had some kind of hard life to end up killing her husband. It would take time for her to get over all that, but when she did, he thought she’d make a fine woman.
Until then he was stuck with her. He only hoped he didn’t end up killing one of his boys over her. He didn’t think she needed more of that in her life, and he knew he didn’t. They’d be getting to his cabin soon; maybe then something would work out. It was possible that once the boys got used to having her around, they would ignore her. It would be nice for a change to have someone around to keep things clean and make some decent meals. Griff was right sick of Slim’s cooking.
14
The more Deborah saw of this country, the more she liked it.
She had read somewhere that people either loved Texas or hated it, with nothing in between. She should hate it, but in spite of the misery she had known here, she still could appreciate its innate qualities. After all, it wasn’t the land that had harmed her. In fact, the only happiness she had ever known here had been in large part because of this very land and her many hours riding freely over its broad expanse.
Yesterday, the rolling plains had begun to give way to a stretch of timber Mr. McCulloch had called the Cross Timbers. He had identified blackjack and post oak as the predominant trees in the area, though there was still an occasional clump of mesquite on the landscape.
She had lost track of how many days they had been traveling. More than a week, to be sure. Except for the pleasure of being on horseback once more, and the grandness of the country, it would have been a grueling progression of heat, dust, tasteless food, and leering, ominous stares from the men.