The Scars of a Pure Heart

by Grace Clemens

  The taller thug’s eyes narrowed and he said, “Oh, that’s only part of the message.”

  Macie’s stomach clenched as she considered all the things these two ruffians could do to her to send a clear message to Len. With both of them closing in on her, she doubted she could make it to the front door. However, being left at their mercy was to be avoided at all costs.

  So, without pausing to consider, Macie bolted for the bedroom door. She’d caught the two men off guard and was able to slam the door shut behind her and begin to shove the heavy wardrobe into its path.

  The big armoire slid an inch or two before sticking fast.

  “Oh, God, help me!” she panted.

  A hand jiggled the door’s latch and Macie’s heart leapt. A new surge of strength flowed through her and she redoubled her efforts. Finally, the wardrobe moved again, sliding into place and effectively shutting the door.

  Macie stood in the middle of the room, chest heaving. Her very fingers tingled with fear and the need to do something. The door wiggled, but didn’t give. Not a moment later, crashes and raucous laughter told her that the two were destroying whatever they could.

  Her thoughts turned to what they’d said about her in-laws being tied up. Had these men overtaken the Bradfield boys on the road? Were they, in fact, tied up somewhere?

  There simply wasn’t another option. Macie ran to the bedside and began to feel around under the mattress and inside the drawer of the little table. Surely her husband had kept some sort of weapon handy when he slept. And, sure enough, it didn’t take long before she pulled her hand out from under the mattress with a good-sized knife clutched in her fist. She didn’t stop to think, but tucked it into her belt, opened the window and hauled herself out.

  Macie crept through the darkness to Len and Judy’s house. She peeked through the window and saw that two other men were similarly destroying everything in sight while Judy sat, tied to a wooden kitchen chair, heaping insults on them. Though she was at their mercy, Judy didn’t seem to be in immediate danger of physical harm. In fact, her words seemed to be causing more damage than anything those cringing men were doing.

  Macie ran all the way to Clora’s house and found her sister-in-law clutching both her children in her arms, scowling at the two thugs who were breaking her dishes one by one while howling with laughter. Again, Macie saw that Clora was being bedeviled but not endangered.

  It would be beyond her to overtake any of these men. Besides, they were likely going to finish their destruction and head back to the saloon to toast their ability to frighten women and children.

  If Len, Troy, and Harris came home, there would be a chance that they could speed these men on their way. Of course, if Macie could get to the ranch hands, she could also have the help she needed. Unfortunately, she didn’t know where on the ranch they would be. She did know the way to town.

  These hooligans had planned their attack well, she noted grimly. Their horses stood saddled and waiting for their return just out of sight of the houses. The men had posted no guard. They’d known that the women would be alone and unprotected.

  Macie didn’t have time to return to the stable to find a horse. Here were six horses just waiting for a rider. With one concerned backwards glance, she hitched up her skirts and climbed up onto the nearest mount. Then she dug her heels in and pounded off down the road.

  Her frantic mind settled as the horse found the rhythm of a steady gallop. She began to pray that no real harm would come to any of the family and that she would be able to find the men folk.

  There. Was that the wagon by the side of the road? Macie began to slow her horse as she approached. The spot had been chosen with great thought, she observed. It was far enough outside of town that there wouldn’t be much traffic, yet still a good distance from the Yellow Rose Ranch. She couldn’t guess what ruse the men had used to get the Bradfields to stop, because the wagon stood with its brake set and no visible damage.

  She slid from the saddle and began to look frantically for the men.

  “Len? Troy? Harris?” she called. “Where are you?”

  A muffled cry drew her off the road. In a ditch, completely hidden from the view of any riders, lay the three men, trussed and gagged.

  Macie pulled Blake’s knife from her belt and got to work cutting their bindings.

  “How’re Clora and the children?” Troy insisted the moment his mouth was free.

  “They’re holding their own,” she tried to reassure him. “These fellows are breaking everything in sight, but they aren’t hurting people yet.”

  Troy reached for his own knife once she’d cut through the rope around his hands and arms. He went to work freeing his father.

  “They hit Pa in the head and he’s been unconscious ever since,” Troy explained. “I don’t like it.”

  Macie grimly redoubled her efforts to free Harris.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  Troy took a moment to consider. “Harris and I are going to take Pa back to the ranch. We’re going to clear those low-down scoundrels off our land and make sure Ma and Clora and the kids are safe.”

  “What can I do?” Macie hadn’t missed that Troy had left her out of his plans so far.

  “You can ride for town. Get the sheriff and his men and send them back to the ranch. Get the doctor, too, if you can.”

  Macie nodded and moved immediately to her horse.

  “Macie,” Troy called.

  She turned and watched the two younger men lifting their father.

  “You’ve saved the day,” Troy praised her.

  “I’m glad I could help.” Macie grinned as she climbed up into the saddle once again.

  The next hours passed in a blur. She raced to town and completed both her errands. The sheriff and two deputies returned to the ranch ahead of her while Macie roused the doctor. Then the two of them hurried back. Once they’d arrived, Macie learned that the six thugs had disappeared into the night before the Bradfield men had even returned. Len was already ensconced in bed with a frightened Judy alternately clucking over him and furiously ranting about the sort of men who’d attack unarmed women.

  Troy brought over his wife and their little ones. Once everyone was in the house, they settled in to wait for the doctor’s diagnosis for Len. Macie couldn’t keep still, though her adrenaline rush had ebbed, leaving her weary. She moved around the sitting room, returning books to shelves and sweeping up shattered pottery. Harris joined her, also needing something to do.

  “It was Lucien Durning,” she told him quietly. “The men told me he’d sent them to give us a message.”

  Harris nodded seriously. “Looks like Blake was right. I just hope Pa doesn’t pay too high a price for not listening when he had the chance.”

  Chapter 26

  Blake rode along, his eyes desperately searching for some place to set up camp before the threatening clouds finally kept their promise. With all of his heart, the young man wished that he was at home, snug in the little cabin with Macie cooking one of her delicious suppers. But, no. There would be nothing comfortable or warm tonight.

  He was on his final leg of the treasure hunt. The first two stops had been uneventful. Granddad had sent him to a stunning spot in the Llano River. Blake had spent more than an hour watching the half dozen or so little waterfalls pouring down to the rocks below.

  From there, he’d traveled almost a full day to a butte which stood up in the middle of a much flatter area like a top hat. The box was tucked away at the very top and Blake had been required to climb all the way up, finding an expansive view at the end of his climb.

  Like before, Granddad had left him a letter and a small token at both spots. In the first of the wooden boxes, Blake had found a fading photograph of his family which had been taken when he and Harris were still in short pants. From the tattered look of the thing, Granddad must have carried it with him everywhere he went. The accompanying note had described how one might leave one’s family behind yet always car
ried them wherever one might go.

  Blake had groaned at his grandfather’s lesson. Being sentimental was the last thing he wanted to do right then. It was time for adventure, not retrospection.

  The box at the butte hadn’t met the younger man’s expectations either. Though Granddad had left behind the pocket watch Grandmama had given him as a wedding present, Ewell had then written about how fast time flew. It was little more than another lecture on what really mattered in life.

  Now, Blake was heading towards Austin where Granddad had entrusted the last letter to a friend. Austin was a bigger city than any Blake had ever seen. He wondered what it would be like to be in a place that more than ten thousand people called home. Why, you could live there all your life and never meet all those folks! It was a marvel, indeed.

  However, if Blake was honest with himself, the second half of the hunt wasn’t particularly enjoyable. The mosquitoes around the river had been real bad. He’d been bitten more times than he could count. And it was terribly hot and dry.

  As a cowboy, Blake had worked in the Texas heat plenty. Still, this was about as bad as he could remember. What made it worse was that he had no well from which to draw cool water for a bath or to parch his throat. The water sloshing in his canteen was every bit as hot as the air around him.

  Nights were a tad lonely, too. When he played his harmonica, Blake was filled with a sorrow that he couldn’t shake, so he’d stopped getting out the little mouth organ. The enormous sky full of distant twinkling lights didn’t fill him with awe. These days, it made him feel small and inconsequential.

  There was no warm body lying next to him. No one shared the coffee he made or appreciated the rising sun alongside him. If Blake grew tired of the silence as he and his horse plodded along, the only person to talk to was himself. In fact, he hadn’t seen another soul in nigh on a week.

  Blake’s skin itched from the dust and lack of wash water and the mosquito bites. He was sure he stunk and fretted that he’d turn people away when he reached civilization. The same old fare was getting monotonous, too. When Blake started imagining Macie’s fried chicken, he groaned with longing then pulled out his dried strip of beef and gnawed at it for a spell.

  A rocky outcropping seemed to be the best place to stop for the night. There was a bit of an overhang which formed a sort of cave and Blake hoped to get some shelter from the coming storm. Texas didn’t get a lot of rain. Still, the storms that did march their way across that hot, dry land could be massive. Blake feared a real drenching was not far off.

  He settled his horse in as dry a spot as he could find before busying himself with gathering a stack of wood and some wild grass for the horse to eat. Then he hurried to get his fire going. It was still hot and the air was fairly crackling with anticipation of the storm to come. The leaves on the sparse trees were curling, ready to collect all the water they could hold. Even the aroma of the wind began to tell the tale of the coming rain.

  Sure enough, within a half hour, the skies opened and water poured forth. It was a welcome change from the dull view Blake had been watching for the past few days. Still, before long, the wet cold began to tug at his fingers. It couldn’t be later than five o’clock by his reckoning, and Blake knew he had plenty of dull hours to kill before he’d be tired enough for sleep.

  He tried his level best not to wallow in thoughts of home. It wouldn’t do to imagine the supper his mother was likely making. Even thoughts of hurrying through chores with Troy and Harris in the hopes that they’d get to their respective homes before the rain started made Blake wistful.

  The worst, though, was when he thought about Macie. And, try as he might, Blake just couldn’t keep her from prancing right back into his mind. Her sparkling eyes flashing at him over the table, the memory of her gentle smile, even the image of her long-fingered hands as they knitted - it all kept coming back to him, no matter how hard he tried to resist. And with that remembering came the realization of a deep hollow in his heart he’d never noticed before.

  A stick cracked outside and Blake sat up straighter, immediately reaching for the pistol lying at his feet.

  “Hello?” a man’s voice called.

  “Hello,” Blake replied cautiously.

  “There are two of us and we’d like to come in and share your cave to get out of this rain. We mean you no harm.”

  Well, there really was no way to refuse such a request. The rain hadn’t let up in nearly three hours and it was sure to be a muddy mess out there.

  “Come on in, but don’t make any fast moves,” Blake warned.

  Into the firelight crept two rough-looking fellows. They sported thick beards and mustaches which were soaking wet. It was difficult to get much of a read on either of them. Blake guessed they might be anywhere from thirty to sixty years of age.

  Neither was especially tall and both were heavyset, though not overweight. Their clothes gave testimony to the fact that these two likely didn’t have anywhere to call home. And the odor of the cave grew far more potent with three unwashed men than with just the one.

  “Mind if we put our horses over here by yours?” one of the fellows inquired.

  Blake nodded, not letting his eyes off these men. But they did nothing suspicious as they settled their tired horses and then brought their saddlebags over to the fire.

  “The name’s Wilson,” said one of the newcomers, putting out a calloused hand to shake.

  Whether that was his first or last name, Blake didn’t know. He wasn’t eager to be outright rude to these two. So, he shook the proffered hand and gave his own last name.

  By then, the other fellow had come over and announced he was Corey. Then Corey and Wilson set about getting something to eat. They pulled various wrapped parcels from their bags and pockets, opening them to reveal a hard cheese, some travelers’ bread, and dried beef.

  All the while, the man who called himself Wilson talked.

  “That’s some deluge out there. We were aiming to make it to Mason tomorrow, so we kept pressing on longer than we should have. Lucky for us, we saw your fire. What business are you in, Bradfield?”

  “Ranching,” Blake replied.

  Wilson nodded as he dipped his bread in a cup of coffee. “That’s a good business. Hard work, a’course, but good business if you don’t mind that. Not that me and Corey are much taken with hard work, are we, Corey?”

  Corey shook his head mutely.

  “We prefer a big return on a small investment, you might say,” Wilson said with a cheeky grin.

  Were they gamblers? If so, they didn’t seem to be especially good at their line of work. Their horses were a bit sway-backed and their clothing had seen better days.

  “We ain’t crooks, though. Set your mind at ease about that. There are plenty of outlaws in these parts. You’re lucky we’re the ones who came across your fire. You could have had your throat slit and your horse stolen if the wrong type came along.” Wilson kept a steady, cheerful tone despite his macabre topic. “Nope, we ain’t crooks. ‘Course, we ain’t exactly on the side of the law, neither. You ain’t a lawman, are you?”

  “I’m a rancher,” Blake repeated.

  Wilson grinned, revealing a missing tooth on top, and nodded. “That’s right. I forgot you said that. Well, me and Corey get by as best we can. We’re not opposed to helping ourselves to someone’s chicken coop or pulling a few carrots from a garden. Just enough to get by, you see.”

  Blake was pretty sure he did see and it didn’t make him feel especially confident in these two. In fact, the more Wilson talked, the more Blake knew that dozing off with this pair around was likely a good way to lose the contents of his rucksack.