Brimstone - Паркер Роберт Б. - Страница 17

The women didn’t move or speak. The one on top was older.

“I know you been through hell,” Virgil said. “We’ll take you up the hill to our camp, and feed you and let you sleep, and tomorrow we’ll take you home.”

The woman on top began to cry, harsh, ugly sounds that seemed to hurt as they came out. The woman underneath neither moved nor spoke. She still clung to the older woman.

“No rush,” Virgil said. “When you’re ready.”

She was still making the retching sobbing sound, but the woman looked at Virgil, and seemed to see him, and nodded her head.

“Everett,” Virgil said. “Whyn’t you boys saddle up a couple horses, so these ladies don’t have to walk up the hill.”

32

AT THE TOP OF THE HILL, they were both silent as we built up the campfire and gave them some blankets. Pony made fresh coffee. I got out some cups and the whiskey jug.

It was hard to tell what they might have looked like when they were living on the farm. What was left of them was pretty straggly. The older one had red hair, and some freckles. There was the hint of plumpness vanished about her. As if she had been full-figured and lost weight during her ordeal. The girl was blonde and smaller. Half developed. More than a girl, still less than a woman. They were dirty. Their clothes were barely clothes. And they were enveloped in a glaze of terror, which made them almost unrecognizable.

“Would you like some coffee?” I said to the older woman.

She nodded.

“Whiskey in it?” I said.

She nodded again.

“How ’bout the young lady?” I said.

The young lady had no reaction. The older woman nodded. I poured coffee and whiskey into both cups and handed one to each of them. The older woman blew on the surface of the coffee, and drank some. The young woman took a careful sip, and showed no reaction.

After her second cup, the older woman began to speak. Her voice was half swallowed, and she spoke very fast. They were mother and daughter. The mother’s name was Mary Beth. The kid was Laurel. Mary Beth was thirty-seven. Laurel was fifteen. They both looked a lot older.

“My husband walked out the front door and the Indian shot him,” Mary Beth said. “Didn’t say anything, just shot him and stuck that arrow in him, then he made Laurel and me get on our horses and go with him, never even looked at my husband again, just made us ride away with him. At night he made us… do things with him… both of us right in front of each other, and he said we should get used to it because he was going to sell us to some men who would take us to Mexico…”

She stopped and drank from her cup. Laurel said nothing; she sipped at her coffee. The two women were wrapped in blankets. They sat close to the fire, more, I thought, for light than warmth. Virgil still sat on his heels beside them. Neither woman ever took her eyes off him.

“And then they came and took us and…”

She looked at her daughter. Her daughter’s face was blank, her eyes fixed on Virgil. She drank more.

“You don’t need to talk about it,” Virgil said.

She nodded.

“Anything you can tell me ’bout this Indian?” Virgil said.

“He…” She drank again. “English. He talked good English.”

Virgil nodded.

“And he was big; he was a very big Indian,” Mary Beth said.

“What did he wear,” Virgil said.

“Black coat,” Mary Beth said. “Long. And a funny hat.” Virgil nodded. Mary Beth was drunk. Laurel seemed unchanged.

“Buffalo Calf,” Mary Beth said.

“Buffalo Calf?” Virgil said.

“He said name Buffalo Calf.”

Virgil nodded again. He glanced at Pony; Pony shrugged and shook his head.

We were quiet for a time. Outside the circle of firelight, one of the horses stirred.

“Oh, God,” Mary Beth said.

“Just one of the horses,” Virgil said.

“But what if they come back?”

“Can’t,” Virgil said. “They’re all dead.”

“You kill them,” Mary Beth said.

“We did.”

“What if the Indian comes back?”

“He won’t.”

“But if he does?”

“We’ll kill him, too,” Virgil said.

“You don’t know what he’s like,” Mary Beth said.

“No,” Virgil said.

He smiled at her.

“But I know what I’m like,” Virgil said.

33

MARY BETH AND LAUREL SLEPT pressed together, with Laurel holding on to Virgil’s sleeve through the night as he slept next to them. Pony and I took turns staying awake. At sunup we had coffee and some cold biscuits, and started north. The women rode on two of the saddle horses whose owners we’d killed. We turned the rest of the horses loose.

“I want my horses,” Mary Beth said when we got her mounted.

“You’ll ride a lot more comfortable in a saddle.”

“Can’t we put the saddles on my horses?”

“Saddles ain’t big enough,” Virgil said. “Horses’ll trail along, just like the mule.”

And they did. Mary Beth kept looking back for them every few minutes. Laurel simply sat on her horse, with the reins wrapped around the saddle horn. She held on to the horn, and made no attempt to direct the horse. If he paused to graze, turned off the trail, Pony or I would ride up and nudge him back. She showed no sign that she was aware of us. She kept her eyes focused on Virgil, who was riding ahead of her with her mother.

At noon we stopped near a stream and let the horses graze on a long tether. There was some shade from a couple of cottonwoods.

“I want to wash myself,” Mary Beth said.

“Sure,” Virgil said.

“I want to wash myself all over,” she said. “Laurel, too.”

“We won’t look,” Virgil said.

“Will you come down and stand close while we go in the water?” Mary Beth said.

“Sure,” Virgil said.

He went with them, and when they got to the stream he turned his back. I made fire out of some dead cottonwood branches. Didn’t make a good fire. But it would be enough to cook. Pony was slicing salt pork into a fry pan. After I got the fire built I put some biscuits in a Dutch oven and put it next to the fire.

After a time, the women came up from the water, wearing a couple of blankets. Their clothes were draped in the warm wind over the lower branches of one of the cottonwoods. They sat close to Virgil while we ate lunch. By the time we were ready to move on, their clothes were dry enough to wear, and we looked away again while they dressed.

We rode northeast all the rest of the day. Laurel stayed close to her mother, and her mother stayed close to Virgil. As far as they were concerned, it was as if me and Pony were along to carry Virgil’s ammunition.

When it was dark, we made camp and sat around the fire with the whiskey jug.

“When we get to Brimstone,” Virgil said, “you gonna be able to handle the farm by yourselves?”

“Oh my God,” Mary Beth said. “My cow. She has to be milked. What happened to my cow?”

“She’s okay,” Virgil said. “Got somebody looking after her.”

Mary Beth nodded and looked at Laurel. Laurel looked blank. She had a little whiskey in a tin cup and sipped it now and then. Otherwise, she was still. Mary Beth drank some of her whiskey.

“You asked me something,” she said to Virgil.

“Can you work the farm by yourself?”

Mary Beth took another swallow of whiskey and let it rest in her mouth for a time before she swallowed.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I can cook and sew and milk the cow and grow vegetables. I don’t know about plowing and digging and hauling. My husband always did that.”

“Got any money to hire a hand?” I said.

She seemed startled that I was there. She looked at me long enough to say “No.” And then looked back at Virgil.

“Maybe Brother Percival would donate somebody,” I said to Virgil.

“But we can’t be alone,” Mary Beth said.

“Maybe we can arrange a hand,” I said.