The Captive Within (A Prairie Heritage, Book 4)
Read The Captive Within (A Prairie Heritage, Book 4) Online
Authors: Vikki Kestell
A
Prairie Heritage, Book 4
by
Vikki Kestell
Also
Available in Print Format
—Finalist,
2014 NM-AZ Book Awards—
The
Captive Within
opens the day after
Joy on This Mountain
ends.
The two infamous houses of Corinth, Colorado, are closed and the young women
who had been imprisoned there have been released. Soon after, Rose and Joy leave
Corinth to establish a home and a haven for “their” girls in Denver.
Before long, Rose and Joy face a heartrending challenge:
What does it take to unlock and free the soul of a defiled woman? And as they
wrestle for a foothold in Denver, Rose discovers that the long abandoned house
given to them hides a dark secret of its own.
©
2013 Vikki Kestell
All Rights Reserved
Scripture Quotations Taken From
The King James Version (KJV).
Public Domain.
Faith-Filled Fiction
A
Division of Growing Up in God
http://www.faith-filledfiction.com/
http://www.vikkikestell.com/
Dedicated
to my husband,
Conrad Smith.
You give me courage.
Appreciation
Many
thanks to my esteemed proofreaders,
Cheryl Adkins
and
Greg McCann
.
As always, I cannot do this without you!
The Lord richly bless you.
Cover background photo courtesy of
Lenny DiBrango
.
This book is a work of fiction, what I term “faith-filled
fiction,” intended to demonstrate how people of God should and can respond to
difficult and dangerous situations with courage and conviction. The characters
and events that appear in this book are not based on any known persons or
historical facts; the challenges described are, however, very real, both
historically and contemporarily.
I give God all the glory.
1
Come
unto me, all ye that labour
and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you,
and learn of me;
for I am meek and lowly in heart:
and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
(Matthew 11:28, 29)
Edmund O’Dell, Pinkerton agent, squinted in the early light
as he studied the remains of Corinth Mountain Lodge. At his feet embers steamed
under the morning sun. He gingerly toed what might have been a silver tea tray,
now a twisted and blackened lump.
His brow furrowed. He’d seen a tea service on the lodge’s
ornate side board, hadn’t he? The sideboard itself had been massive,
constructed from solid wood, intricately carved, oiled, and polished to a
fare-thee-well.
No doubt it had burned splendidly
, he snarled to
himself. He whipped off his bowler and ran a hand through his dark hair, stopping
to rub at the dull headache throbbing at the back of his neck.
He’d been a “guest” at the lodge a little more than four
months. Yes, he had been working an active case, but in that short time he had
begun to feel . . . at home. More at home than anywhere
he’d laid his head since he’d left childhood behind. At one point he’d allowed
himself to wonder, to almost hope that somehow, someway, he might have a future
connected with—
He pulled himself up short, stopped himself from following
that thought further. It could only lead to a dark hole, one with no bottom.
It was clear to him now that he had deceived himself. He had
allowed himself to forget his real role in Corinth. And what he had witnessed
in the first light of this new day had stamped “paid” to the dream and jerked
him back to harsh reality.
He rubbed his weary, smoke-stung eyes. Like the others who
had lived at the lodge, O’Dell had been up most of the night. He clenched an
unlit cigar between his teeth as he again relived the events of a few hours
past.
The lodge’s residents had awakened when Banner’s men had
thrown their fiery brands through the lodge’s front windows to force them out.
Once the household members had safely escaped the burning building, they had
been backed up against its blazing timbers, outnumbered and outgunned.
Banner’s gang had nearly won last night. Sheriff Wyndom and
his deputies had arrived scarcely in time to stop what would have been sure
disaster.
Worse than disaster. A slaughter
, O’Dell mused with a
grimace.
Wyndom had marched both the gang and the lodge’s residents
through the dark to Corinth’s little town plaza. A crowd of disquieted town
residents, wakened by bells tolling news of the fire, had gathered there.
O’Dell mentally replayed the confrontation in the plaza: Joy
Thoresen—no, Joy
Michaels
—had delivered a stunning indictment against
Dean Morgan, Banner’s boss and the figurehead who owned the two houses of
unspeakable evil in little Corinth.
O’Dell had watched and listened, mouth open, as spellbound
as the crowd had been. Joy had been magnificent; even, perhaps,
inspired
.
By torchlight, the impact of the butt of Banner’s shotgun
stamped on her face, her long, blonde hair tumbling down around her shoulders,
Joy Michaels had bested Morgan. She had publicly laid bare his secrets and
plots. And, doing so, she had turned the people of Corinth against him.
O’Dell shuddered and turned to let the sunlight warm his
face. Things had been dicey for a few minutes after that. Morgan’s thugs had
overcome Wyndom and his men and had nearly taken Joy by force. But then federal
marshals and O’Dell’s fellow Pinkerton agents had stormed the plaza,
surrounding Morgan and his men.
In a desperate move, Morgan and his bodyguard had used Joy’s
mother, Rose, as a shield for their escape—and had almost succeeded. Almost.
The men were safely in custody now, headed down the mountain on a train that
would take them to the county jail.
When Morgan’s bodyguard, Su-Chong, had released Rose, O’Dell
had seen Joy sag and nearly collapse. She had taken a beating that night. He
had seen her pain and exhaustion and had wanted to go to her, but her cousins
and friends had come to her aid first.
So he had backed away and done his duty, assisting in the
identification of those being arrested and the charges to be laid against them.
O’Dell slapped his derby against his thigh. He could still
see her, could not get the image to leave his mind. Her hair had hung about her
slender shoulders like a cloud filled with moonlight.
After he had finished with the marshals, he had returned to
the plaza, hoping to speak to her. O’Dell shook his head and ground his teeth.
He didn’t want to remember what he had witnessed then, but he was powerless
not
to.
Night was slowly giving way as morning crept over the mountains.
Out of the waning shadows had stepped a man, a man O’Dell knew well, an
honorable man he considered a friend.
A man he had promised he would help
.
As the shadowed figure approached Joy and her cousin Arnie,
O’Dell had seen the hesitant, unbelieving recognition. He’d witnessed the
sweet, gentle touching and tearful embraces of a husband and wife reunited.
He shuddered. So then it was over. For him, in any case.
It wouldn’t have worked anyway
, he told himself, and
not for the first time. He swore aloud in frustration. He and Joy were far too
different, she with her living, breathing faith and he set in his cynical,
pragmatic ways.
And yet it hadn’t seemed to matter that they were so very
different. His heart had just kept hoping.
Yer a fool, O’Dell
, he charged himself. He seethed
with self-recrimination.
He released a laugh, harsh and discordant, and crushed the
stogie between his teeth. He needed to get out of Corinth and away from the
people here. Quickly.
Get out?
It won’t be hard and shouldn’t take long,
he fumed
. It’s not as though I have bags to pack.
In fact, he had nothing left in this place but the clothes
on his back. Everything he’d had—hopes and dreams included—swirled around him
in the ashes and smoke.
I only need a little cash to get down the mountain to the
Denver Pinkerton office and a nearby bank,
he planned
.
Groman,
head of the Omaha Pinkerton office, was still in Corinth helping with the
investigation.
Groman will stake me for my train fare.
Yes. He needed to be on the next train, away from Corinth. He had his investigations to complete and young women to, hopefully, locate and
reunite with their families.
His next step would be to question Gretl Plüff, one of those
missing girls. She had been found in one of Corinth’s two “elite” houses of
ill-repute. With her help he hoped to track down a few more of the girls whose
disappearances had brought him to Colorado in the first place.
If Morgan’s crew had sold the missing girls to other
brothels, they were likely in nearby Denver. He would find them, wind up the
investigations as quickly possible, and leave Denver to return to his Chicago home office. He couldn’t be done here in Colorado fast enough.
O’Dell spit pieces of tobacco. He had ground through the
cigar until it had fallen apart in his mouth. Throwing the remaining stub down
and grinding it with his boot, O’Dell turned his back on the cooling embers of
the lodge.
He turned resolutely from a hope that could never be
realized.
—
Joy slept fitfully through the day and into the late
afternoon, when her aching bruises and cracked ribs finally overcame her
exhaustion. It took her a few moments to remember that she was in David and
Uli’s home, tucked into their daughter Ruth’s bed.
Something stirred and wriggled near her feet. As she lifted
her head—cautiously, given the throbbing of her face and chest—the wriggling
bundle licked the fingers of her hand.
“Blackie!” she exclaimed softly. The half-grown
black-and-white puppy scrambled up and over her body in a frenzy to wash her
face with his tongue. Before Joy could feel his full weight on her bruised
chest, the pup was deftly scooped up and off the bed.
Looking up, Joy saw Blackie held by . . . her
husband.
Still unbelieving, she stared at him, taking slow
inventory . . . his brown hair, prematurely shot with silver,
but curling about his face as she’d remembered; the roughened, scarred patch on
one cheek; the many unfamiliar lines about his mouth.
And his hazel eyes . . .
She would know those eyes anywhere!
“I know I must look different than you remember me,” he said
hesitantly. He offered a tentative half smile.
His voice was also rough and damaged, but Joy could still
tell it was Grant. She longed for him to come nearer and lifted her hand to
him. Grant gently deposited Blackie on the floor, pulled his chair close to the
bed, and touched her outstretched fingers. All this he did with his left hand.
His right arm hung motionless at his side.
“You look just as I saw you in my dreams, again and again,”
he whispered, gazing hungrily at her blue eyes and the shimmer of blonde hair
spread across her pillow. “Even though I couldn’t remember your name,” here he
looked down, shamefaced, “or even how I knew you.”
Tears sprang to Joy’s eyes. “It
is
you,” she
breathed. She closed her fingers around his and drew him to her. Nothing
mattered at that moment but to feel his breath on her face, his lips upon hers.
Gently, tenderly, their faces drew closer until their lips
touched. Joy sighed and wrapped her arms about his neck, pulling him closer.
A few minutes later a discreet knock sounded on the door and
they drew apart. Uli, Joy’s cousin, peeked in. “Are you awake then? I thought I
heard you talking.” She smiled and, staring at Grant, shook her head in happy
amazement. “We still can’t—it’s entirely
too
wonderful.”
Grant ducked his head, that half smile still curving his
lips. “I’m sorry I don’t remember you yet.”
“It’s all right, Grant,” Uli told him sincerely. “Things
will come right eventually. We are just so glad to see you.”
Joy had not relinquished his hand. “Will you help me to sit
up?” she asked him.
He bent over the bed and slid his left arm behind her. “You
may take my other arm and hold on to it,” he instructed. “It won’t hurt me.” He
nodded at his right arm.
Joy did as he suggested, and he gently lifted her up. The
arm she grasped felt thin, slack. Uli helped Grant turn Joy until she was
sitting on the bed’s edge gasping a little in pain. Uli knelt down and placed
slippers on Joy’s bare feet. Together, Grant and Uli helped Joy into the chair
Grant had been using.
“I will bring you some broth, Joy,” Uli stated. She smiled
again and slipped out of the room.
Joy’s eyes never left Grant’s face, but her expression had
become solemn. “How did it happen? Do you know? Do you remember?”
He knew what she meant and hesitated before pulling the
covers up on the bed and taking a seat on its edge. Their knees touching, he
replied. “I don’t remember, but the kind men who pulled me from the water told
me my arm was tangled in a line wrapped about a life preserver. The type of
preserver that they tell me is usually lashed to the rails of a ship.”
He gestured with his chin toward his motionless arm. “A
doctor told me that the rope cut into my arm and kept blood from the nerves too
long. I can’t move it anymore.”
He looked at the floor. “I’m sorry.”
Joy was quiet for a moment, thinking through what he had
told her. “So the rope was twined around the life preserver and your arm was
twined within the rope. And when the ship went down and took you with it . . .
the preserver pulled you back to the surface.” She spoke it as a statement,
searching his face.
“Yes, I suppose that’s right,” Grant replied, still staring
at the floor.
“So the very thing that took the strength from your arm also
saved your life, allowing you to come back to me?”
His head jerked up; his eyes found hers.
“Oh Grant,” she said, emotion clogging her voice. “Without
that rope and that life preserver, we would not, at this moment, be looking at
each other. This was God’s great grace and mercy to you, to
us
. Please
don’t be sorry. Not ever again.”
She held out both her arms and he leaned into her, nestling
his face in the warm crook of her neck, both of them weeping tears of
gratitude.
~~**~~