Dorothy Garlock (12 page)

Now that he had spotted what he had come for, he took his time riding toward the train and looked around. They had about ten poorly equipped wagons and hardly any know-how at all. If they got out of Texas it would be a miracle. Good thing he’d come along when he had or the woman’s long shiny hair would be hanging from an Apache’s belt by now.

A group of pilgrims were waiting for him. All farmers looking for the promised land, he thought sarcastically. One of the group moved toward him and held out his hand. Mack ignored it until he had looked the man up and down, then shook it without interest. The man was thin, and his pointed beard bobbed up and down on his chest when he talked.

“We sure do thanky, mister, yessiree, we sure do thanky,” he blubbered. “We’d’a probably got ourselves together and got the heathens, but you comin’ like you done helped. Yessiree, with God’s help we’d’a done it, but he saw fit to . . .”

Mack stared coolly down into the man’s face. “You’d’a shit, too!”

“I ain’t a-takin’ nothin’ away from you, mister,” the man hastened to say. “I ain’t a-takin’ nothin’ away atall. It was God’s will, was all I was a-sayin’.”

Mack’s look dismissed him, and after hesitating the man shrugged and stood aside. Mack then urged his horse into the circle of wagons, dropped the reins, and dismounted. His sharp eyes missed nothing. Two horses and two oxen had been killed. Three men lay dead with arrows in their backs and a fourth lay dying, his blood pouring out rapidly. The blond girl, his reason for being here, was bending over him. Mack went to her and without preliminaries squatted down beside the wounded man.

“You this girl’s pa?”

“Uncle,” he gasped.

“You’re done for, you know that,” Mack said coolly.

“Aye.” The word was whispered.

“The Indians’ll be back. Too many braves died here. There’ll be weepin’ and wailin’ in the villages and they’ll have a need for revenge. Are you wantin’ this girl to stay here and be scalped or to come with me and live?”

The man’s eyes were beginning to glaze over, but with an effort he said, “Go, Anna. Go with him.”

Mack got to his feet and motioned to the leader of the group. “Tell this man what you want,” he said to the dying man.

“Anna, go with him and . . . live,” he gasped, and his eyes swung to the girl’s tear-wet face, then closed. The girl’s bowed head rested on her uncle’s breast and she sobbed.

Mack turned to the group standing behind him. “You heard him,” he said curtly. “Get me a shovel.” Mack’s almost forty years had brought him a better than average aquaintance with fools, and he had no patience with them.

An hour later he lifted the still-crying girl onto the back of a horse, strapped her trunk onto a mule, and rode away without a backward glance. He wanted to be as far away as possible when the Indians attacked the train again, because with or without his help they didn’t stand a chance.

For the first time in a long time Mack felt a sense of well-being. He had his valley and he had a woman to produce the sons he wanted. The girl was younger than he had first believed, and thin, but with luck and good food he could fatten her up. God, he wished she would hush the damn bawling. What was done was done, and no good could come from whining about it. He’d give her the rest of the day and the night before he started using her. He felt a stirring in his loins. Jesus Christ, it’d been a long time since he’d had a white woman.

The morning after their first camp, Anna Englebretson lay exhausted. The emotional shock of the Indian attack, her uncle’s death, and her sudden departure from the train with this silent, overpowering man had left her physically and emotionally fatigued. He was up before first light, and after a cup of coffee they broke camp and headed away from the rising sun. Anna had not ridden a great deal, and never astride. As the morning progressed, pains began to shoot through her body until the struggle not to cry out consumed her every thought. Despite her efforts an occasional cry did escape her lips. The big man finally turned and his blue eyes bored into hers with such intensity that she almost fell from the horse, for fear and anxiety had robbed her of her energy. Determined not to draw attention to herself again, she doggedly held her lips together and shifted her weight often in an attempt to alleviate the shooting pains running up her thighs and into her buttocks and back.

The first day they rendezvoused with a mule train. The Mexican drovers had rounded up the Indians’ horses and were driving them along with their own spare mounts. Anna came to realize that she would get no help from them. They didn’t come near Mack’s camp and stayed well behind, but never out of sight of their employer.

Anna hadn’t wanted to leave her home in upper New York State to come west with her uncle. Her life on the small farm, if uneventful, had been pleasant. She had a small circle of friends, her house to keep, her needlework. But when her uncle—her only living relative—had caught the fever to go west and sold their farm, she had no choice but to go with him. Anna was a gentle person who had led a sheltered life. Nothing in all her sixteen years had prepared her for the violence and hardship she had experienced during their trip.

The second night Anna looked into the darkness surrounding their small camp and realized that she was completely at the mercy of this strange man, who had not even asked her name. A feeling of foreboding froze her heart as she crawled into her bedroll, outside the circle of light. She watched as Mack added a piece of mesquite root to the small blaze, and when it flared he got to his feet and came toward her, his intentions perfectly clear even to the naïve young woman. She fought off panic.

“You ever been with a man, girl?” the rough voice asked.

Anna felt a rush of heat in her face, and she looked up at him, her eyes pleading.

“I see that you ain’t,” he said curtly, “but it makes no never mind.”

He unbuckled his gunbelt, laid it on the ground, and placed his hat over it. His big hands commenced to work at the buttons on his breeches.

“No!” Anna pleaded. “Please no!”

His eyes held hers and his fingers continued working until they released the swollen, rigid member between his legs. He stood gazing down at her for a long moment, his hands on his hips, his legs braced apart, allowing her the full view of his extended sex, rising straight and hard out of a thatch of blond curls that matched the curls on his head.

Anna gasped, her entire body shaking violently.

“I ain’t sayin’ you’re goin’ to like it,” he said harshly. “but you’re goin’ to have it. It’s the way of things.”

Anna whimpered like a small animal caught in a trap. Dimly she was aware that he was pulling down his breeches and that his hands were pulling up her skirt and forcing her legs apart. Something hot, hard, and throbbing was pushed into her.

She lay under him, feeling his crushing weight on her breasts and the searing pain of the rod he was thrusting so rapidly into her. He grunted and his large body arched and heaved, then jerked in spasms. His breathing was loud in her ear, and an acrid smell of perspiration came from him as he stirred and lifted his weight from her slight body. Closing her eyes tightly, she wished fervently that she would die.

When he removed himself, the night air felt cool on her wet thighs, and she painfully brought her legs together and covered them with her skirt. The pain between her thighs was excruciating, and her lower legs and ankles smarted from the contact with his rough boots.

“That’s the worst of it, girl,” he said and strapped on his gunbelt. “You’ll get used to it in time. Ain’t sayin’ you’ll like it. I never heard of no woman a-likin’ it but a whore. I aim to get sons out of you for my valley. Sons, big and strong like me with yellow hair and blue eyes. If you breed for me, I’ll wed you. If you don’t . . . well, we’ll sweat on it when the time comes.”

He kicked dirt onto one side of the fire to dim the blaze and stretched out, broke wind crudely, and soon was snoring.

In the days that followed, Anna was used each night. Once when she protested he gave her a resounding smack that threw her head to one side and sent a flashing pain through her jaw. Her life took on a pattern of unreality. When the man came to her, she docilely lay down and spread her legs and detached her mind from her body.

By the time they approached the valley, Anna had been with Mack Macklin for six weeks. She had become even thinner and so weak that her heart pounded from the slightest exertion. Mack seldom looked at her. Days went by without a word spoken between them, but each night he poured his seed into her. His contempt was obvious as he drove her relentlessly across the sea of barren arroyos, thirsty creeks, and sandy gullies.

They arrived at the stone ranch house in his high green valley late one afternoon. Anna was sick. Her head throbbed and her body ached. She had thrown up while still on the horse because she didn’t wish to bring attention to herself by asking to stop. Vaguely she knew when they reached their destination, but she sat on the horse, dazed, looking at the stark stone house.

“Get off the horse,” Mack commanded sullenly.

Anna fought back tears. “I don’t know if I can.”

“Calloway,” he bellowed, “where the hell are you?”

A small, slight young man came toward them with quick sure steps.

“I’m here, Mack. If you’d looked you could have seen me coming.”

“Get her off the horse. She’s sick, I reckon. Puked out her guts a ways back.”

The young man came to her and put his hands on her waist and gently lifted her down from the horse. His soft brown eyes were filled with compassion, and at the sight of the first sympathic face she’d seen in weeks, Anna’s eyes flooded.

“I got her off a wagon train before she got her hair lifted by the Apaches,” Mack growled, and started unsaddling his horse. “I was goin’ to make her my woman, but she ain’t any stronger than a pissant, and I can’t abide a whimperin’, pukin’ woman. If she don’t shape up you can have her.” He stomped off toward the bunkhouse.

“Please,” Anna whispered, “may I lay down?”

The room to which he led her was cool and clean, and Anna’s pain-dulled eyes found a row of books on a shelf by the bed. She looked at him; his dark crisp hair framed a serious young face, and his voice was gentle and his accent reminded her of home. Tears filled her eyes again.

“I’m afraid I’ll throw up,” she whispered.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I’ll get a bucket and then leave until you can get into bed. I’ll be back with something to make you feel better.”

Later he sat beside her and placed a damp cloth on her fevered brow. She smiled her gratitude and reached out a thin hand. The man took it in his and immediately lost his heart to her. Anna’s eyes closed. It all came flooding back, and she began to shake with dry sobs. The man held her close, smoothing her hair back from her face and murmuring soft words of comfort. The tears came and her body shook convulsively. He held her tightly, and she buried her face against his shoulder, clinging to him to give her some sanity in a world that had suddenly gone insane.

In the weeks that followed, Ben devoted himself to her, stayed with her night and day. They talked for hours, revealed their every secret thought, and their love and devotion for each other grew until it was all-consuming and the only world they knew existed was in that one room of the stone house.

“Ben,” she said one evening as she sat by the fire, her feet puffy and cold, and a light shawl draped about her shoulders, “if your name is Burnett, why are you called Ben?”

“Because, my lovely,” he said teasingly, “my name is Burnett Nathan Calloway. My father called me by my initials, B.N., and it just worked into Ben.”

“I think Burnett is a lovely name for a boy,” Anna said. She looked at him with glowing eyes. “What would I have done without you, Ben?”

“After you have the babe,” he said, ignoring the question, “we’ll leave here and find a place of our own.”

“Do you think he’ll let us go?” she asked wistfully.

“I don’t know, Anna. We’ll just have to wait until the time comes and see.”

“I don’t care where we are, my love, as long as I’m with you.”

“You’ll always be with me, Anna. Always.”

The baby was born on a cold windy night. Ben sent down to the Mexican quarters for a woman to help Anna. The women were afraid to come, because Mexicans were never allowed near the house. With the help of a ranch hand, a woman was brought up and slipped into the room where Anna lurched and screamed in the agony of childbirth.

It was a long night for Ben as he watched his beloved give birth to another man’s child. Her suffering was his suffering and her pain was his pain, until at last the woman held out a wet, wriggling mass of humanity for him to hold.

With her son, clean and wrapped, lying beside her, Anna smiled weakly and held up her lips for Ben’s kiss.

“I’m going to call him Burnett,” she said. “Burr for short. A burr that will stick in the craw of that . . . that man. Don’t ever leave him to Mack Macklin, Ben. Promise you’ll stay with him and teach him that brawn alone won’t make him a man.”

“We’ll teach him together, my darling. We’ll teach him together.”

She closed her eyes, and Ben gazed at her fragile beauty and then at the red-faced baby in the curve of her arm. His heart quickened and a lump rose in his throat. She was so weak, he thought with despair.

Anna lived until her son was almost four years old. She seldom left the room, except to sit on the porch when Mack was away. She was content, basking in Ben’s love and tender care. Her son was the joy of her life, a strong, bright boy with a mass of blond curly hair. During the day she used most of her strength to teach and play with him, and in the evenings Ben would read the stories he most loved to both mother and child. It was a peaceful, comforting life, although obviously confined, since their time was spent solely in Ben’s room. By now Ben and Anna were resigned to the fact that she would never survive the trip out of the valley.

Mack’s activities kept him away from the house much of the time, but when he was there he seemed to accept the relationship between Ben and Anna. For the most part, the strange master of Macklin Valley ignored them. He maintained a grudging civility toward Ben because he needed him. Ben kept all the ranch records and acted as buffer between him and the Mexican workers. Furthermore, he was reliable and could be left in charge while Mack was away. Ben knew this, but he suspected that Mack also allowed Anna and him to stay because of the boy. Occasionally he caught Mack watching the miniature of himself, a quiet, solemn expression on his face, as if he was remembering events from his own childhood.