A Hard Ride Home (15 page)

He rode right up into the yard, and when his horse stumbled and fell, shot in the throat, Emmett sank down behind the dark, heaving flesh and took aim. His pistol kicked back at him, sending shards of pressure back through the bones in his hand and up his arm. Three men fired on them, and none of them was his father.

Jesse woke to the sensation of cold water on his face and gasped to breathe, his throat making hoarse, barking sounds until he formed words, and even then it was just, "What—what—ah—"

"It's me, it's Catherine."

"It's dark!"

"We're in the cellar. Just be still."

Shivering, Jesse waited for his eyes to adjust to the slats of pale light shining down from the hatch above them. He stared at the thin beams, clinging to the knowledge that he wasn't somewhere dark as pitch, like a grave.

The more he woke the more he became aware of the pain spreading all across his back. The cool earth below his cheek soothed him and he rubbed at it, trying to get away from the fire behind him.

"Stop that! You're getting your face muddy." Catherine heaved a frustrated sound and carefully pulled him up to sit, grunting. "You're heavier than you look for a slinky thing."

He listed against her, head spinning, and for a while she just stroked his fingers, rubbing at his knuckles and hushing him.

"Got mud on your dress," he said when he could lift his head.

"Blood too. No matter. I brought you a clean shirt. Mayor wants you upstairs for breakfast."

Jesse pictured being roasted with the breakfast potatoes and started to laugh dizzily.

"You're a queer fish," Catherine muttered, easing him back to sit up on his own so she could take the wet rag to his face. In the near-darkness, she was like a floating face, her hair inky and her dress as dark as the shadows.

He stopped laughing and started shivering. "I'm not hungry."

"Don't matter."

"I don't want to go up there." He twisted his fingers into her skirts. "Please."

She cupped his wet face with her hand and watched him sadly. "I know."

"I can't."

"You will," she said, untying the sweat-stiff bandana from his neck and opening the buttons down the front of his shirt. "And you'll do as you're told and you'll keep that sharp tongue of yours behind your teeth for once."

"Why?" he asked bitterly.

The quick way Catherine glanced up at him and said nothing, it was clear she understood. Warren's rage was like a living thing all around them. He might kill Jesse at the breakfast table or he might drag him out into the yard to shoot him or he might just beat him 'til he stopped breathing. But one way or another Warren was going to kill him.

"This'll sting," she said, drawing his shirt away. It felt like the skin on his back and ribs came off along with it. He scrambled and clawed at the dirt, trying to follow the tug of fabric so she wouldn't rip him apart.

The damp cellar walls caught the sounds he made, muffling the hoarse cries and keeping them from echoing.

"I'm sorry," she said gruffly, when she was done and he was trembling all over, the cold, wet rag draped across his back to soak the wounds.

"Don't see what the use of doctoring me up is," he sulked out, his arms crossed tightly over his middle. He looked down at his pink, chafed wrists and couldn't remember when Warren had untied him or how he'd come to be down here in the dirt.

"I heard those rascals chattering outside." Catherine lowered her voice. "Your Sheriff is coming."

Jesse twisted to grab at her, panicked. "Warren will kill him. He can't come up here!"

"He's a grown man, you ninny. Must have wiped out Willie's gang or they'd have scattered over here by now, tails tucked."

"But—"

She batted him away and checked the rag at his back before slowly sweeping it away, taking blood and torn bits of his shirt with it. He breathed through the pain, his fingers digging into his thighs.

"Did you hear me, boy?" Catherine asked softly, blowing on his back as she started to spread something warm and soft on it that dampened the throb. "Willie's surely dead."

Jesse looked up at the cellar hatch.

If Willie was dead, Jesse was free. It didn't matter if he was crowbait. Warren had no one to give orders to—no one out in Fairhaven to put fire to the grain stores or poison the livestock or creep into his mother's little house in the night.

"He wants you bound up again," Catherine went on, busying herself with the gentle, soothing smears. "But I'm no good with hemp."

"You're a rascal," Jesse whispered fondly.

"Funny thing," she went on, as if she hadn't heard him. "Almost all of the mayor's ranch hands are down with a fiery gripe. They're up at the stables shitting like they're fit to die. Must have eaten something disagreeable."

"Who's left?"

"Curtis and those two knuckleheads."

Hope dared to flutter behind Jesse's lungs. He scrubbed the back of his hand across his eyes and steeled himself.

Catherine had a bottle of laudanum tucked in her pocket, but Jesse refused it on account of the way it made his fingers clumsy and his head cotton-stuffed. He'd need his wits about him.

Dressed in a clean black shirt that hung on him loosely and smelled faintly of Warren, Jesse let Catherine lead him to the dining table. He kept his gaze trained on the floor. The knots around his wrists appeared tight, but his wrists were narrow and he'd be able to work out of the bindings if he bided his time and twisted just so.

When he sat down at the table, his shirt dragged stickily along his back, feeling like sandpaper where his flesh was torn and swelled up. He winced and whistled a breath out.

"Sore?" Warren asked, taking a delicate fork-full of scrambled eggs and sausage.

Jesse dropped his bound hands to his lap and looked at the plate set in front of him. "Yes."

"Did you sleep?"

"Must have. I don't remember going down to the cellar."

"You fainted in the yard," Warren said, chewing and regarding what was left of his breakfast.

Jesse said nothing. He heard Catherine bustling about in the kitchen, pans clanging on the stove. Someone paced out on the porch, his shadow passing by the lacy curtains. Curtis, most likely, judging by the wide set to his shoulders. Where Curtis was Harley and Reuben likely followed. All either of them seemed to care about were ways to make a man bleed, and ever since Evelyn banned them from the Weeping Willow they'd been ornery and sick of riding out onto the prairie to find farmwives to fuck. They chased after Curtis like dogs, waiting on excuses to make violence.

Warren followed his gaze and looked back at him. "Eat."

"I'm not hungry."

"Nonsense. It's been a day since you last ate," Warren said mildly, drawing his knife to begin slowly paring an apple. The shiny red skin spiraled away, revealing the pale fleshy meat.

The urge to argue welled up in Jesse's throat, but he remained still, fingers clenched tight, when Warren leaned over and pressed a peeled, thin sliver of apple between his lips. Jesse drew it in with his tongue and ate it slowly, his stomach giving a tight, noisy pang as the sweet taste flooded his mouth.

"You took that beating well," Warren said, dividing the rest of the apple into uniform slices on his plate.

Jesse looked down at the eggs on his plate. They looked cold now, the yolks congealing into a darker yellow. Even with the salve on his back, pain ran through him like ripples across water. It made it hard to focus, hard to stay still.

The porch creaked outside as Curtis passed by the window again.

Warren pushed another slice of apple into Jesse's mouth delicately. "You're awful quiet, boy."

When he was done chewing and swallowing, Jesse cleared his throat. "Don't reckon I have much to say to you."

As hard as he tried, he couldn't quite keep his voice even, and Warren's gaze narrowed on him at the shade of a tone. Warren stood, his chair scraping at the floor. He stepped behind Jesse and placed his hand on his shoulder firmly, his fingers firmly tracing the ridge of Jesse's collarbone.

"You stole from me." Warren let Jesse see the knife in his other hand. It gleamed with the apple's juice and translucent bits of fruit.

Jesse smelled the sweet tang of it as his heart started hammering so hard it felt like every vein in his body would burst. He exhaled heavily, nostrils flaring, and said nothing.

Warren cupped Jesse's jaw, hooking his broad fingertips under Jesse's chin to make him look up, the back of his head pressing against Warren's warm belly.

"You turned my son against me."

The stretch of his neck tugged at the flayed skin at Jesse's back. His eyes teared up as he stared at Warren's pale eyes. When the knife's blunt edge drew across his cheek, he exhaled a low sound.

Down in the cellar, he'd been more or less resigned to die. But now, faced with the cool violence of Warren's blade, Jesse anticipated no peace. He wanted to live. He wanted to see Emmett. The fear in his body made him feel lightheaded and numb. His ears rang like he was standing next to the creek after a storm and his hands felt like they weighed a hundred pounds.

Warren's lips moved slowly, and his face had gone dark, flushed with blood.

"I said, did you let him fuck you?"

"He wasn't inclined to, sir," Jesse said, voice sticky and soft. He had to think back to recall—he couldn't remember at first, and that made him think of Emmett clearly, of the way Emmett had kissed him tenderly and sucked him off.

Warren must have seen it on Jesse's face—some flash of fondness, the shadow of that fleeting joy. His fingers curled tighter, started to press against the rigid column of Jesse's throat, making him choke and toss his head instinctively. Just as Jesse started to jerk his elbows back, ready to fight the rope, Warren released him and sat against the edge of the table to watch him cough and gasp.

"I've never been anything but good to you." Warren breathed through the words, the anger on his face simmering down to something quiet and frightening. "I've kept your mother safe, kept my men away from your sisters in sin. I've fed you, shared my home. Cared for you when you were ill."

Jesse shivered as Warren tapped his shoulder with the blade.

"I trusted you, boy. What do you have to say to me?"

It was like trying to swim against a current when Jesse met Warren's gaze and whispered, "I'm sorry. Warren, I'm sorry." He didn't mean it. Not exactly. He wasn't sorry for betraying Warren. He was sorry that Beatrice was dead, that Roscoe was bleeding. He was sorry the girls were crying and scared.

He flinched, startled, when Warren cupped his face tenderly. The warm touch was the only thing that didn't hurt, and Jesse nudged his face at Warren's hand to feel more of it.

A cold, sickening feeling welled up inside until it felt like his skin was stretched too thin around it—and then it was easy to cry, to sound like it meant it, that the sorrow was all he had left inside of him.

"I'm sorry," he sobbed quietly, bowing his head.

"Shh." Warren touched Jesse's mouth, dragging his fingers through his tears. "If Emmett had listened to me, had stayed out of this town, none of this would have happened. I tried to keep him away from all of this."

Jesse blinked quickly, sending hot tears down his face. It was too late to think of Silver Creek without Emmett. Emmett was everywhere now. He was under Jesse's fingernails and he was behind his teeth and tucked up tight and precious somewhere behind his ribs.

"You don't have to die until he gets here," Warren said, his voice quiet, wistful.

It was the moment Jesse needed. He focused blearily through his tears, and looked at Warren's face, gathering up every bit of longing he could. He thought of Emmett's pistols catching the sun and the way he tipped his hat, and how much Jesse wanted to see him.

"I'm scared," he said. "Take me where it's quiet while we wait. Please."

"You think you can fool me twice?" Warren asked, so softly and gently, that for a moment Jesse thought it was working, that this might be easy.

Warren ran his fingers down the back of Jesse's head and abruptly clenched them, catching Jesse's short hair in his fingers and knuckles. He wrenched Jesse's head back hard, making his breath go hollow and reedy with his throat stretched and bared.

"I—"

"I know what you are now," Warren said, lipping at Jesse's throat and jaw. "You're a lying little whore."

"Warren—"

"I'll take you where it's quiet, if that's what you want."

*~*~*

It was quiet in the library. It was quiet when Warren pushed Jesse down onto the floor in front of the fireplace, his knife in one hand and his other loosening his belt. And it didn't matter if Warren wanted to beat him or cut him or fuck him. Jesse was done. He was finished.

Wrists still bound, Jesse crawled forward in a quick squirm and got his fingers around the fire iron and whirled with it, cracking the hooked tip against Warren's ribs. Warren doubled over and lashed one hand out, catching the iron. They struggled with it in an unbalanced tug of war—Jesse on his knees and Warren gasping from the blow. Wild and snarling, Warren slashed at Jesse's face with the knife and Jesse twisted to block it. The blade snagged through his flesh from his wrist to his elbow.

Jesse pushed forward, following Warren's pull, and wrenched the iron away when Warren started to stumble backwards. He scrambled to his feet, holding the iron in both hands with his sliced forearm pressed awkwardly against his middle to try to stanch the blood. It was a cold, terrible pain; the kind that made his vision go spotty and dark.

At the hollow, cracking sounds of gunfire, Jesse cast his gaze at the locked library door. When the sound stopped after the first few shots, Jesse thought it might just be Harley shooting at the hens in the yard. Then it started up again, distant shots echoing the closer ones.

He clutched the fire iron like a club and sidestepped blindly, trying to put his body between Warren and the door. Warren had left his gun belt on the table outside, and as long as he stayed in the library, he only had his fists and his knife.