Southern Rapture

by Jennifer Blake

  With a sudden vicious shove, she pushed the heel of her hand up under his chin. She heard his teeth snap together on his tongue, and she shoved with all her might, knocking his hand with the revolver wide.

  Then Ransom lunged past her, swift and silent. He was upon Martin, grabbing him by the shirtfront. He swung a jarring left that flattened Martin's lips against his teeth. The revolver flew wide, skidding into the grass.

  Martin, cursing, stabbed a right toward Ransom's heart. Ransom twisted, the blow skidding along his ribs. He spread his legs and hooked a fist into Martin's belly, putting every ounce of his disgust and sense of betrayal behind it. Martin grunted, bending to the impact. Ransom hit him again, knocking him to the ground.

  Martin came up with a pine knot, a piece of pine with its crystalline and inflammable pitch hardened to steel-like consistency. He rushed at Ransom with it, swinging, smashing it across his head and shoulders. Lights burst inside Ransom's brain. On the next swing, he stepped inside the blow and hit the other man with his full strength behind it.

  Martin staggered back, dropping the pine knot. Ransom closed in on him in cold fury, striking, battering. Martin came up against a tree and used it to lunge forward, swinging a right to Ransom's heart. Ransom gasped on a painful breath, his mouth wide. Toe to toe they stood, slugging, beating each other. They grappled, flinging each other first one way, then the other.

  Lettie circled them, watching, darting from side to side to see as she worked her way toward the revolver. The way they tore at each other until their shirts were in shreds, the thud of flesh on flesh sent chills of revulsion through her. The gasping of their breathing, the blood on their faces gave her a feeling of panic. She had to stop it. She had to.

  Ransom threw Martin from his hip. As the man landed, sliding in the pine straw, Lettie ran nimbly, almost reaching the black shape of the gun in the grass to one side before Martin swayed to his feet once more, blocking her way.

  Ransom planted his feet and whipped a left and then a right into Martin's face. Martin's eyes were glazed, his mouth that had spoken such terrible words to Lettie a swollen red smear. Ransom surged forward with all the hard, lean force of his body behind his shoulder as he caught Martin at the waist. Martin bent double. His arms flopped, waving, as he was flung backward. He fell in a jarring sprawl, rolling with his own momentum, landing on his belly in the high grass almost at Lettie's feet. His glazed eyes focused on her, on the revolver beside her, not three feet from him. He began to crawl, reaching out with a hand that shook, a hand with bloody, cut knuckles.

  Lettie darted forward. She knelt in a billow of skirts. Her hand closed around the revolver and her finger found the trigger. She lifted the heavy barrel. Centered it between Martin's eyes. Close, so close. No need to aim, no need to reason. Impossible to miss. She tightened her grip. She took a deep breath.

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  20

  "Lettie, no!"

  It was Ransom who called, a plea and a command.

  Hard on the words came another voice, one Lettie had heard before on a night she did not care to remember. It was even, yet heavy with finality.

  "That's right, Miss Lettie. Don't."

  Martin gave a strangled cry. Ransom made not a sound. Lettie looked over her shoulder. Her breath caught in her throat and the blood left her face. She sat back on her heels, lowering the revolver. Then she got slowly to her feet.

  The men in their white sheets drifted out of the woods like spirits, or like the quiet hunters most of them had been all their lives. Menacing in their silence, they formed a circle around the three of them—Martin, Ransom and Lettie—closing them in. In the hands of the leader was a coiled rope. Worn and supple, dangling casually at his side, it was knotted at one end in a hangman's noose.

  Ransom stepped to Lettie's side, placing his arm around her. She held the revolver with one hand on the grip and one under the barrel, but she made no effort to raise it or to fire. There were too many of them.

  It was so quiet you could hear the soft crackling sound the sedge grass made as it raised itself from where it had been trampled. Lettie's chest was tight and her nerves were as taut as stay strings. It could not end like this; it was not fair that it should end like this. Ransom was the Thorn, but he was no criminal to be left swinging from a tree. He had meted out punishment only to those who deserved it, had done his best to right the many wrongs he saw and to readjust the scales of justice that were out of balance. As Ranny, he had defied these men, but only in defense of his property and his friend. Nothing he had done merited so shameful and ignominious a death.

  She took a step forward. "You can't do this!"

  "We are the only ones who can."

  "But it isn't right! It isn't just!" Her voice was rising, the tears stinging her eyes.

  "What is, just now?" The leader waved the rope and two of the other sheet-clad men moved forward to drag Martin to his feet. He turned back to Lettie and Ransom. "You two will oblige us by leaving. We will handle it from here."

  It was a moment before his meaning penetrated. Martin realized it first and cursed, his voice rising, becoming shrill as he started to beg.

  Ransom stood his ground. "We go only if Martin comes with us."

  "Get out of here, son. We let you have your way with Bradley Lincoln, but not this time. Leave us to it."

  "To the justice of the rope? Let me take him, turn him over to the military."

  "So he can talk his way out of it? Not likely. He's scum. Blame the war or the carpetbaggers or whatever you like, but he's still scum."

  "No matter what he is or what he's done, he deserves a trial."

  "He's had it. We're the judge and jury."

  "You'll only make matters worse for everybody this way. I can't let you do it."

  It was hopeless. There were just too many of them and they were too determined, Lettie could see that. She could also see that Ransom had to try. It was the way he was made, and knowing it completely at last, she felt such a swelling of love and pride in her chest that it came close to crowding out her fear.

  "It's nothing to do with you. You can't stop it," the leader said, and made a quick gesture. The men in sheets who carried rifles brought them up, covering Ransom. In a ringing voice as hard as iron, their spokesman went on. "I tell you again, get out of here before something happens that we'll all regret."

  "This is wrong—"

  "Please," Lettie said, and put her hand on Ransom's arm as the armed Knights began to advance. "Please, take me away."

  She could feel the tension of the struggle inside him. For a moment she thought that he would refuse, that he would fight them all, not just for Martin, but for what he thought was right.

  "Please, Ransom?" she whispered.

  It was the use of his name that reached him, she thought, that and his concern for her. She sensed the tremor that ran through him as he conceded defeat. His fingers covered Lettie's on his arm, pressing so hard that her hand was numb.

  Their movements stiff, they turned away. The circle of white-clothed figures parted as the two of them walked from the clearing. Then it closed behind them and narrowed around Martin Eden. The handsome scalawag began to plead once more.

  Ransom walked faster. Lettie stumbled along with him, tripping over her skirts, ducking under tree limbs as he held them for her. She looked back only once, when Martin began to scream. She could not see him for the men in sheets that surrounded him. Shuddering, she turned forward again, nearly running from the woods.

  They found the horses, Ransom's mount and Martin's, cropping grass at the edge of the road, trailing their reins. Martin would not be needing his. Ransom shortened the stirrups with quick efficiency. He took the revolver from her and shoved it into his belt, then held the horse, made nervous by Martin's hoarse cries, for her to mount.

  Abruptly the screaming stopped. Lettie, catching the stirrup, put her head against the horse's shoulder for a long moment, waiting for the trembling to leave her legs
. Ransom moved to her side and put his hand on her shoulder.

  "There was nothing we could do. Nothing."

  "I know," she whispered.

  "What happened he brought on himself."

  "I know that, too. It's just that …" She clenched her fists in a sudden spasm of angry chagrin.

  "What? Tell me." She blamed him for not preventing the hanging, in spite of everything, Ransom thought. Or maybe he blamed himself.

  Her throat closed so that the words came out in an anguished whisper. "Dear God, I thought it was going to be you!"

  His pent-up breath left him. His grasp tightened for an instant. In ragged tones, he said, "Let's get away from here."

  They rode fast, with their faces set. They looked neither to the right nor the left. The sun burned down and they hardly felt it. A trail of dust followed them, settling on the leaves of the trees and bushes along the way. They crossed a stream and let the horses drink, then rode on.

  Lettie hardly noticed the roads they took, paid no attention to the direction they were heading in. If she thought about it at all, she assumed they were riding back toward town and Splendora. Until they turned down a side road and pulled up before an all-too-familiar cabin set back under pin oak trees.

  Lettie looked at Ransom sharply then, but made no comment. He helped her down from the saddle and led the horses away to tend to them. She moved slowly, as if she had been beaten, to take a seat on the cabin steps. She took off her hat and thrust the pin through it, laying it aside as she smoothed her hair. Propping her elbows on her knees, she put her hands over her face and breathed deeply in and out as she waited for Ransom to return.

  Rage, she felt such pure rage and grief over this final trick of bringing her here. That it was camouflage for the pain buried beneath it did not matter. It could be used as a shield.

  "Are you all right?"

  She had not heard him return. His ability to move soundlessly, to surprise her, was so annoying that it was all the trigger she needed. She straightened, her eyes blazing.

  "Of course I'm all right; whyever should I not be? I've merely been abducted, nearly been raped, watched two men beat each other half to death, and been as near a witness to a hanging as makes no difference, but what of it? A perfectly normal morning!"

  "I'm sorry that it had to be that way."

  "You're sorry? A fine lot of good that does! I don't know why you took me off the stage in the first place. Nor do I know why you brought me back here! You must realize this isn't exactly the scene of fond memories."

  "I wanted to talk to you. I have to talk to you, to explain—"

  "I've heard all I want to hear, and I've said all I have to say. I want to go home, back to Boston. I want to go now. The only thing you can do for me is to see that I get on my train before my trunk disappears!"

  "No."

  The single word was calm, without heat. She stared at him, her fury growing. Her tone ominous, she said. "What do you mean, no?"

  "I mean," he answered, "that I have no intention of letting you go until I have had my say."

  She got to her feet. Where she was on the steps made her eyes nearly on a level with his as he stood at the bottom with his hands on his hips. "If you think you can keep me here—" she began.

  "I don't just think it, I know it."

  He was blocking her way, his broad shoulders a most effective barrier. But far more effective was the hard, determined light in his hazel eyes.

  She met his gaze squarely. Her voice soft with menace, she said, "You will be sorry."

  "No doubt." His smile was wry as he surveyed her from the flush on her cheekbones to the quick rise and fall of her breasts to her fists that were on her hips in imitation of his belligerent stance. "But first I mean to find out just why you were afraid for me."

  Her wayward tongue. Why could she not have kept silent? She lifted her chin. "You are a fellow human being. It appeared to me that the Thorn was about to meet retribution, just or unjust. I didn't care to see it."

  "I don't think that was it, or at least not all of it. I think you feel something for me whether or not you are willing to admit it."

  "Oh, yes, if that's what you mean," she agreed with a show of carelessness that took her own breath away. "You are a most attractive man, as you must know. It seems I am easily influenced, you might even say excited, by a set of shoulders or a mustache."

  "Don't say that!" For the first time there was real anger in his voice.

  "Whyever not? You saw it yourself."

  "I saw nothing of the kind. What are you trying to do, punish yourself for using the wiles God gave you?"

  "Me? Goodness, no! Mere wiles, were they? Here I was thinking I had been playing the brazen temptress at the very least, a veritable Delilah! And you were in such agony at the sight, so embarrassed. Men turn women into creatures whose sole purpose is to attract men and then are outraged when women turn that attraction into a weapon. There's no logic in it, or fairness."

  "If I was in agony, it was because I was afraid your wiles were going to work so well that I would be forced to stand and watch your rape."

  "You thought I was deserting you, admit it!"

  "If it was to save your life, you were welcome to do it. But I never thought any such thing. I trusted you, damn you, Lettie! I knew you, and so there was never a moment when I had the least doubt of what you were doing. If there had been, I would not have been ready."

  Ready to step in when the time came, ready to help. It was true. Something deep inside her lifted, the easing of a weight so great that she realized that he had been right. She had been punishing herself, or at least accusing herself before he could accuse her. She looked away over his shoulder and took her fists from her hips, clasping her hands together in front of her.

  That sign of uncertainty gave Ransom his first hope. "It was only," he said quietly, "that I could not bear to see you do my fighting for me, whatever your methods."

  "I had to stand and watch you fight, too. Do you think it was easy to see Martin pound and tear at you while I did nothing?"

  "You didn't just stand and watch. You were ready and waiting."

  She looked at him, a blind light in her eyes. "I nearly killed him. He was so close and the gun was there, and I had no more feeling about it than if he had been a poisonous snake that I had to destroy. I wanted to kill him, I really did."

  "I know."

  "I never knew it could be so easy, for me, for a woman. Did you?"

  "I learned it, in the war."

  She lowered her head and turned from him. She picked up her skirts and walked up the last two steps to the porch. He followed her as she moved to stand with her back to one of the peeled cypress posts. She refused to look at him, staring out over the yard.

  "There is nothing of the lady in me, no delicacy, no refinement."

  "I have no use for ladies. I want you, as you must know."

  Her lips curved in a humorless smile, though the look in her eyes was weary. "Of course I know. I'm not a fool, though I must have seemed like one. You duped me so easily, didn't you? How you must have laughed."

  "Never. I swear it."

  "Oh, come. All that playacting. 'Would you kiss me, Miss Lettie?' 'Is there anything else you can teach me, Miss Lettie?' When I think of it, I could—I could—"

  "You could what? Scream? Hit me? Do it, then! Do it and get it over with. I can't stand to see you like this."

  His voice was low and intense. He stood before her, unguarded, with pain in his eyes.

  She barely looked at him. "And that night on the ferry. A forfeit for Johnny's life. You asked it and, like a mindless idiot, I paid it. So easy, it was so easy." She balled her hands into fists once more and held them to her eyes.

  The leash he had been holding on his temper snapped. He reached to grip her wrists and dragged her toward him. "Stop this! Don't do it to yourself. Don't do it to us."

  She jerked at her arms but could not free herself. With her lips in a tight line, sh
e glared at him. "I'm not doing it to me or to us, you snake. I'm doing it to you! So upright and valiant, such a crusader against evil you pretend to be, so good and pure and fine and gentlemanly. But what you did to me wasn't right, and it certainly wasn't the act of a gentleman.".

  "No, it wasn't," he said, his eyes steady though he was pale under the bronze of his skin. "I try to do what is right, but I've never pretended to be a saint. I've tried to apologize, tried to make amends—"

  "Oh, yes," she mocked. "'Marry me, please, Miss Lettie.'"

  He gave her a shake that loosened her hair from its pins so that it uncoiled down her back. Abruptly he pulled her against him, drawing her arms around his neck, encircling her waist with an iron grasp as he thrust his fingers into the silken twist of her hair. He took her mouth, plundering its sweetness as he held her against his hard body like a man who fears some long-sought treasure will be snatched from him.

  Lettie felt a rush of tenderness and vital desire. It grew, pressing, flooding in upon her. She twined her fingers in the clean silkiness of his hair and let the feeling take her, surrendering to it this one last time. It could do no harm.

  He kissed the corners of her lips, her cheeks and chin and quivering eyelids. His chin against her temple, he said, "Dear God, Lettie, you drive me insane."

  "You were that way already," she said, her voice thick. She tried to draw back, but he would not allow it.

  "No, not until you came. From the moment I first saw you, no more than a shadow in a room that should have been empty, from the moment first I touched you, I lost control and integrity. You are my nemesis, my just punishment for all the years when I thought love tokens silly things and men who lost their heads over women, who could not keep their hands off them, spineless weaklings. My need of you is so great that there is nothing I won't do, no trick so low or ruse so debased that I won't use it, to have you."

  "You make it sound as if it's my fault, what happened between us."