Come Sundown

by Nora Roberts

  respect. Get on your feet.”

  She set the paper plate on the table by the bed, rose.

  “You take off your clothes and lie down on that bed I gave you. I’m going to take what’s mine by right, and this time you don’t fight me.”

  She thought of the chilblains on her hands and feet, the constant cold. He’d rape her regardless. What point was there getting beat up on top of it?

  She took off her sweatshirt, the shirt she wore under it. Her heart was too dry for tears now as she took off the socks she’d all but worn out from pacing the concrete floor. She tugged her jeans down, stepped out of the left leg, shoved the rest down to the where the shackle clamped her ankle.

  She lay down on the cot, waited for him to strip, waited for him to lay his weight on her, to shove himself inside her, to pant and grunt, grunt and pant.

  She thought that was the moment that broke her, when she submitted to rape for a pair of socks.

  But when she thought back on that night, after she knew the year had turned, as she bent over the toilet sick and dizzy every morning for a full week, she knew it hadn’t been that moment.

  Her breaking point was the moment she knew she carried his child.

  She feared telling him; feared not telling him. She thought of suicide, for surely that was the most humane choice for herself and what he’d planted in her.

  But she lacked the spine and the means.

  Maybe he’d do it for her, Alice thought as she huddled on the cot. When he found out she was pregnant, he’d just beat her to death. And it would be over.

  She thought of her mother, her sister, her grandparents, her uncles and aunts and cousins. She thought of the ranch, how it would look like a postcard in the January snow.

  They wouldn’t look for her, she reminded herself. She’d locked that door herself, burned that bridge, cut that line.

  And they’d never find her in this rat hole.

  She wished she could tell them she was sorry she’d lit out the way she had. So angry, so full of herself that she hadn’t cared about how they’d feel. Hadn’t believed they’d care.

  She wished she could tell them she’d been coming home.

  When she heard the door open, heard the boot steps, she shuddered. Not in fear as much as resignation.

  “Get your lazy ass out of that bed and eat.”

  “I’m sick.”

  “You’ll be more’n sick you don’t do as I say.”

  “I need a doctor.”

  He grabbed her by the hair, yanked her up. Screaming, she covered her face. “Please, please. I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant.”

  The grip on her hair tightened as he jerked her face up. “Don’t you try any of your whore tricks on me.”

  “I’m pregnant.” She said it calmly now, sure she was facing death. Struggling to be ready for it. “I’ve been sick every morning for six straight days. I haven’t had my period since right after you brought me here. I missed in December, now I’m coming up on when I’m due for January. I lost track of the time until you said it was Christmas. I’m pregnant.”

  When he released her hair, she sank back down on the bed.

  “Then I’m right pleased.”

  “You—what?”

  “Something wrong with your hearing, Esther? I’m pleased.”

  She stared at him, then just shut her eyes. “You wanted to get me pregnant.”

  “We are to go forth and multiply. It’s your purpose on this earth to bear children.”

  She lay still, pushed resignation aside, let a splinter of hope through. “I have to see a doctor, Sir.”

  “Your body is made for this purpose. Doctors just buffalo people to get rich.”

  He wants the baby, she reminded herself. “We want the baby to be healthy. I need prenatal vitamins and good care. If I get sick, the baby inside me gets sick.”

  That heat, that mad heat flashed into his eyes. “You think some cheating doctor knows better than me?”

  “No. No. I just want what’s best for the baby.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s best. You get up and eat what I brought you. We’ll dispense with relations till we’re sure it’s well planted in you.”

  * * *

  He brought her a little portable heater and an easy chair. He added a small cooler to the room, where he stocked milk, raw fruits, and vegetables. He fed her more meat than before, and made her take a daily vitamin.

  When he felt she was healthy enough, the rapes continued, but with less frequency. When he hit her, he kept it to open-hand smacks on her face.

  As her belly grew, he brought her big, billowy dresses she hated, and a pair of slippers she shed grateful tears over. He tacked a calendar to the wall, marking off the days himself so she watched the days of her life crawl by.

  Surely he’d let her upstairs once the baby came. He wanted the baby, so he’d let her and the baby come upstairs.

  And then …

  She’d need to take time, Alice calculated as she sat in the easy chair near the stingy heater while the baby kicked and stirred inside her.

  She’d need to make him think she’d stay, she’d be obedient, that she was broken. And when she got a good lay of the land, when she could plan the best way to get out, she’d run. Kill him if she got the chance, but run.

  She lived on it, the baby coming, the baby opening the door to escape. A means to an end—and nothing else to her, this thing he’d forced inside her.

  When she was upstairs, when she had regained her strength, when she knew where she was, when Sir’s defenses were down enough, she’d get away.

  This Christmas she’d be home, safe, and the bastard would be dead or in prison. The baby … she couldn’t think of that.

  Wouldn’t.

  * * *

  At the end of September, in her eleventh month of captivity, her labor started as a nagging ache in her back. She paced to try to ease it, sat in the easy chair, curled up on the bed, but it didn’t ease. It spread, rounding to her belly, coming harder.

  When her water broke, she began to scream. She screamed as she hadn’t since the first weeks in the cellar. And, like those weeks, no one came.

  Terrified, she crawled onto the cot while the pains came harder, closer together. Her throat cried for water, driving her up between contractions to draw some from the sink into one of the Dixie Cups he’d stocked for her.

  Ten hours after the first pain struck, the door up the stairs opened.

  “Help me. Please, please, help me.”

  He came down fast, stood frowning before he shoved his hat back on his head.

  “Please, it hurts. It hurts so much. I need a doctor. Oh my God, I need help.”

  “A woman brings forth children in blood and pain. You ain’t no different. It’s a good day. A fine day. My son’s coming into this world.”

  “Don’t go!” She sobbed it out as he started up the steps. “Oh God, don’t leave me.” Then the pain robbed her of anything but a wailing shriek.

  He came back again with a stack of old towels more suited for a rag heap, a galvanized bucket of water, and a knife in a sheath on his belt.

  “Please call a doctor. I think something’s wrong.”

  “Ain’t nothing wrong. It’s Eve’s punishment, is all.” He tossed her dress up, stuck his fingers into her so fresh pain erupted.

  “Looks like you’re about ready. You go ahead and scream all you want. Nobody’s going to hear you. I’m going to deliver my son into the world. Deliver him with my own hands, on my own land. I know what I’m doing here. Helped birth plenty of calves in my time, and it’s about the same.”

  It would rip her in two, this monster he put in her. Mad with pain, she struck out at him, tried to roll away. Then simply wept, exhausted, when he left her again.

  She fought again, screaming herself hoarse when he came back with a rope, tied her down to the cot.

  “For your own good,” he told her. “Now, you start pushing my son out. You push, you hear? Or I�
�ll cut him out of you.”

  Drenched in sweat, buried in exhaustion, Alice pushed. She could never have resisted the urgent need to even with the pain tearing at her.

  “Got his head, look at that fine head. Already got some hair, too. You push!”

  She gathered all she had left, screamed through the last, unspeakable pain. When she went limp with exhaustion, she heard a mewling cry.

  “Is it out? Is it out?”

  “You birthed a female.”

  She felt drugged, out of her own body, saw through the glaze of tears and sweat he held a wriggling baby, a baby slick with blood and goo. “A girl.”

  His eyes when they met Alice’s were flat and cold, and struck her with fresh fear.

  “A man needs a son.”

  He put the baby on her, dragged some twine out of his pocket. “Put her on the breast,” he ordered as he tied off the cord.

  “I … I can’t. My arms are tied down.”

  His face a cold mask, he yanked the knife out of his belt. Instinctively Alice arched, struggling against the rope, desperate to wrap arms around the baby to shield it.

  But he sliced the cord, then the rope.

  “You need to pass the afterbirth.” He fetched another bucket while the baby’s cries grew in volume, and Alice tucked hands around the infant.

  The new pain caught her off guard, but it wasn’t as bad as before. He dumped the placenta in the bucket.

  “Shut up her caterwauling. Clean her up, and yourself, too.”

  He started up the stairs, took one last look back. “A man needs and deserves a son.”

  After he slammed the door, Alice lay in the soiled bed, the baby crying and wriggling against her. She didn’t want to nurse the baby, didn’t know how anyway. She didn’t want to be alone with it. Didn’t want to look at it.

  But she did look, looked and saw how helplessly it lay against her, this thing that had grown inside her.

  This child. This daughter.

  “It’s okay. It’ll be okay.” She shifted, wincing as she sat up, as she cradled the baby and guided its mouth to her breast. It rooted a moment, its long eyes staring blindly, then she felt the tug and pull as the baby suckled.

  “See there, yes, see there. It’s going to be all right.”

  She stroked the tiny head, crooned, and felt impossible love.

  “You’re mine, not his. Just mine. You’re Cora. That’s your grandmother’s name. You’re my Cora now, and I’ll look out for you.”

  He left her for three days, and she feared he wouldn’t come back. With her leg shackled she couldn’t get to the door, couldn’t find a way out.

  If she’d had something sharp she might have tried cutting off her own foot. Meager supplies began to dwindle, but she had towels for the baby, the washcloth she rinsed and soaped again and again to keep little Cora clean.

  She sat in the easy chair, the baby in her arms, singing songs, soothing whenever Cora went fussy. She walked the baby, kissed her downy head, marveled at her pretty fingers and toes.

  The door opened again.

  Alice held the baby tighter as he came down, carrying a sack of supplies.

  “Got what you need.” He turned, looked at the baby in her arms. “Let’s see her.”

  Even if she could rip out his throat with her teeth, she couldn’t break the shackle. She needed to calm and charm him, so she smiled.

  “Your daughter’s pretty and perfect, Sir. And she’s such a good baby. Hardly cries at all, and only if she’s hungry or messy. We could sure use some diapers, and some—”

  “I said, let me see her.”

  “She’s just now fallen asleep. I think she has your eyes, and your chin, too.” No, no, she didn’t, but a lie could calm and charm. “I should have thanked you for helping me bring her into the world, for helping me make her.”

  When he grunted, crouched down, Alice relaxed just a little. She didn’t see that beating look in his eyes.

  But he snatched the baby so fast, Cora woke with a shocked cry, and Alice sprang from the chair.

  “She looks healthy enough.”

  “She is. She’s perfect. Please, I can stop her crying. Let me just—”

  He turned away, strode toward the stairs with Alice flying after him, the chain banging the concrete until it went taunt. “Where are you going? Where are you taking her?”

  Half-mad, Alice leaped onto his back; he swatted her off like a fly, strode up the stairs. Stopped to look back as she dragged uselessly at the shackle.

  “Got no use for daughters. Somebody else will, and pay a fair amount.”

  “No, no, please. I’ll take care of her. She won’t be any trouble. Don’t take her. Don’t hurt her.”

  “She’s my blood, so she won’t come to harm from me. But I’ve got no use for daughters. You’d best give me a son, Esther. You’d best do that.”

  Alice dragged on the shackle until her ankle dripped blood, screamed until her throat burned like acid.

  When she collapsed on the concrete floor, weeping in absolute despair, when she knew she’d never see her child again, that’s the moment she finally broke.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  — Present Day —

  With the addition of the writers conference and the snow sculpture event now on the books, and the various holiday events and specials geared to pump up interest through Valentine’s Day, Bodine walked her way through résumés and recommendations from various managers.

  She earmarked her own choices—the new college grad looking for a position in hospitality, the recent empty nester with previous experience in housekeeping, the young horseman looking for full- or part-time work, a couple applications for waitstaff, an experienced massage therapist who’d just relocated out of Boulder.

  She culled through a few more, weighed priorities.

  They needed another housekeeper, as Abe’s wife, Edda, would leave that slot empty when they headed to Arizona. And the applicant looked solid. They could certainly use another cowboy, and the waitstaff.

  She considered the college grad, who seemed open to whatever position she could get. Solid résumé, good grades, local girl.

  Armed with her folder, she set out to hunt up Jessica.

  Bodine found her in the Dining Hall, heads together with the restaurant manager.

  “Great. Two people I want to see. Jake, I’ve looked over those two waitstaff apps you sent over.”

  “Carrie Ann gave them her stamp,” he said, referring to their eagle-eyed waitress of twelve years.

  “So I see. You’ve got my okay if you want to bring them on. It’ll give you time to see if they hit the mark before the holiday bookings.”

  “Good enough. We square here, Jessica?”

  “Same page, same line. I think the Hobart event’s going to hit every mark. I appreciate it, Jake.”