“Thank you, sir. But really, Jolie can’t go live with Mother. The woman wants no part of the girl, nor does Jolie want any part of her. It simply won’t work. I wouldn’t suggest it to either one.”
“There is your aunt in Pennsylvania,” Daniel reminded her.
“Yes, dear, there is,” she considered the idea a moment then continued, “but couldn’t we try something else first? Warn her and see if she has it in her to change? She loves it here. Maybe if she knew that she’d be shipped off to Aunt Grace, she’d start behaving better. I would happily see her gone as disrupt things here any more than she already has, but I can’t see doing that without giving her one more chance. Please, Daniel?”
“That matter is up to you and Daniel,” the judge said. “What’s of more concern to me is handling the matter at hand. What do I do with her now? I can’t let her go unpunished. Either I take her in hand using my own methods, or you do.”
“She’s yours to take care of with this business,” Daniel said directly. “Better you than me.”
“So, what does that mean?” Hannah asked.
“It means she’ll get the same sort of treatment you got today,” the judge paused, giving her a meaningful stare, “from me.”
Hannah shuddered. She’d heard about the man’s rough justice; he was no one to be trifled with. Although she imagined that her husband could be as exacting and as hard. Under the circumstances, the very idea of an official court ordered punishment was a thought so chilling that she had to put it out of her mind lest she fall to her knees and beg the judge to offer her sister mercy. However, after hearing the man speak about his brand of corporal justice while she was herself strung up in the yard, Hannah was sure that pleading with the judge would get her nowhere.
While Hannah cleaned up the kitchen, the judge finished his coffee and his conference with Daniel. He then left the husband and wife to themselves and returned to town.
After dinner that evening, Hannah finally had to ask the questions that had been burning in her mind all day. “I wonder why, sir, you elect to have the judge punish Jolie, when you’ve done so a number of times yourself?”
Daniel eyed her thoughtfully, “That is the point, isn’t it? It would seem that Jolie doesn’t respect my authority. Perhaps a bit of official justice would bring her around when other means don’t work.”
Hannah pondered that idea for a moment. “Would you ever consider the same for me?”
He stared at her wonderingly. “Are you suggesting that you’d do anything so extreme to warrant that?”
“No, sir. I’m just positing the question. Out of curiosity.”
He thought a moment, then said: “No one will punish my wife but me, Hannah. You and Jolie are different. I don’t have the same responsibility to her that I have to you. If she’s going to live in this community, she’ll have to grow up and start acting like a responsible woman not a child. If not, she’ll live with the consequences.”
Hannah sighed. “You must think my family is worthless.”
Daniel shook his head. “Your family lost its anchor when your father died. You have me, but your brother and sister have no one to rely on but you, and that’s a bigger burden at this point than you need to bear. Jolie will be going to your aunt’s. The woman made the offer and I see no reason why we shouldn’t take advantage of her generosity. I’ll take her as soon as I can make time.”
“But you will wait to see if the judge can manage what we have not?”
He considered the idea and finally nodded. “I suppose it won’t take much time to tell if she’s reformed.”
Hannah smiled. This was a small reprieve. She held no hope that Jolie’s behavior would reform enough to satisfy her husband. But at least she might have a few more weeks to enjoy her spirited sister. She’d always been a handful, and up to this point the eighteen-year-old had been fairly easy to corral. Now there were different factors involved, a young woman’s virtue to protect. Even Hannah had to admit that sending Jolie to her Aunt might be the best thing for the vulnerable sometimes reckless young woman. Aunt Grace was kind but firm. Perhaps a chance to live in the city would have more appeal once she was there and could see the advantages compared to their rough and backwards surroundings in this rural place.
Beau, on the other hand, was something else. He couldn’t be sent back anywhere; no one would have him. He was hurt the most by their father’s death, which was why Hannah found it so easy to defy one man while she attempted to rescue another. Regardless of all her vows, she knew her weakness lay in him, and that scared her. What if she was confronted with yet another opportunity to reach her brother? What would she do?
CHAPTER TWO
The courthouse was abuzz with activity and an undercurrent of low whispers. The Noble girl was going to get a beating. Everyone was certain of that now. How odd that Daniel Crowe and Hannah had given her up to the cruelty of a flinty man like Judge Boone. Most thought he was fair, but in the matter of unruly young women he seemed most ruthless. There was little doubt that Jolie’s fair behind would be burning long into the night.
There were a few courthouse hangers-on who clamored secretly for a public show once they heard the news about Jolie Noble’s sentencing. It had been years since such a scene had been enacted for the public’s benefit and the idea stirred their blood. Jolie could be made an example of in their small community—this was their overt rationale, while on a deeper level prurient interest fueled their desire for such justice. In that vein, Jolie was a comely girl, the fair-haired princess daughter of a community icon. Seeing the sweet-faced and obviously naïve girl standing half naked at a whipping post would be talked about for weeks, even months, an apt reminder of what can happen in even the best of families.
However, such a public display would not be taking place, not this time.
Judge Boone slammed the gavel down on pronouncing sentence. “Thirty lashes on your naked behind in the company of six witnesses,” he said with his voice booming so loudly that everyone one in the courtroom shrunk back in fear.
Just six witnesses? The crowd murmured.
Just thirty lashes? Some didn’t think that was enough to pay for the terrible brawl that left three young men lining up for stitches at Doc Devore’s back door.
“And my property? What about that?” the bar owner, Rory, objected loudly.
“She’ll work it off to you—but not in the bar. Washing dishes for a few weeks should help stifle her need to incite a riot.
The entire time, Jolie sat impassively, looking more like twelve years old than eighteen. Her cheeks were pale and her limpid eyes were now dulled from tears and worry. It had been a long two nights in jail. She was sure that Daniel had a hand in that—and a hand in sending her in front of the judge. At this point she would have taken any of Daniel’s beatings as face this embarrassment. The boys that caused the ridiculous fight would get theirs and they wouldn’t care the next day. They’d just snicker a bit and go on while the town would hardly remember that they were just as guilty as she was. How could she go on here, when everyone would have a first…or second hand look at her nakedly taking a cruel beating?
Hannah? She had been no help.
“Maybe you’ll think twice about what silly things you get yourself into,” Hannah had scolded her.
Just like an older sister to say that.
“Why can’t Daniel just… you know,” Jolie had pleaded.
“Daniel is ready to send you to Aunt Grace in Pennsylvania.”
“Oh, no!”
“Oh, yes. You mind your manners from now on, or you’re gone. And I don’t want that to happen.”
Everything seemed like a bad dream now. Would she ever awaken from this misery?
The conversation with her sister got her nowhere. Hannah wouldn’t budge. Daniel was immovable. And now Judge Boone seemed to be taking such an interest in her. It was all because of Beau, she knew that. Had to be. He was the disappointment of the family and they didn’t want her to turn ou
t like her rogue brother. She was paying for Beau’s sins, not her own. They could have easily given her a slap on the hand and ordered her to make restitution. But no, she was Beau Noble’s sister and had to be saved from herself.
“Jolie Noble!”
The officer of the court announced her name and she rose to her feet without thinking.
Six people followed behind her, not Hannah, who had excused herself from the ordeal, but Daniel, the shrew Lettie Logan—since there had to be a woman present—then Donovan Brawley, Rory and an officer of the court. Six in all, including the judge, marched from the courtroom through the judge’s chambers and beyond.
Thirty lashes, what would that feel like? Jolie wondered. Daniel had caned her, but never more than twelve times.
Lettie Logan led her into the punishment chamber, a sizable square room adjacent to Judge Boone’s office. There was one high window, no more, and the light inside the space was eerily grim. She spied the whipping bar in front of her and her legs suddenly felt like they were going to give way. But Lettie caught her arm in her firm grip.
“We don’t care how scared you are, girl. It’s part of the treatment,” the woman barked. “You’ll get through it. Sinners must answer to God’s wrath; there’s no better way.”
The words flew through Jolie’s thoughts but they didn’t stick, since the notion of being tied to the bar held her entire attention. Bound. It seemed so … so medieval.
As she’d been ordered to do by the officer of the court, Jolie grabbed onto the bar that hung just above her head. She looked at the young man’s face. She’d never seen him, but he could hardly have been older that she was; there was still peach fuzz on his babyish face. When he looked back at her, she turned away embarrassed. He was sweet and handsome, the very kind of respectable young man she should be attracted to. Oh, if she only were!
The young officer tied her wrists to the bar as if he’d done the deed many times before.
What a horrible dream! He left her there to hang, and Jolie struggled anxiously with the sturdy rope until she realized how useless it was to fight.
“Tie up her skirt and open her blouse.” The command came out of nowhere like a slap in the face.
Oh, dear! What would they have done to her had her dress opened down the front? she mused as the pinch-faced Lettie followed the orders to the letter. Jolie felt a draft of cool air on her exposed back that made her entire body quiver. Her legs felt like jelly. Then as the woman moved on to tie her skirt up over her buttocks, Jolie kicked her. Not deliberately, but more like the instinctive reaction akin to a horse teased from behind reflexively kicking his hind foot at some unseen body.
The woman jumped back. “See what the brat did!” she shouted at the others.
“Ain’t enough to worry about, Lettie. She won’t do it again,” the judge told her, evenly. “Right, Miss Jolie?”
“Yes, sir, I’m sorry, ma’am.”
Lettie finished her task with a scowl on her hardened features, then she backed away to let Judge Boone take over.
Jolie felt a dozen eyes poised on her naked flesh. What were these people thinking? she pondered in that wretched minute before the first strike of Judge Boone’s tawse made contact with her back. She held her breath in wait, and when she could hold it no more, she breathed deep and strained once more against the ropes that held her fast. In that split second between the end of her one breath and gulping another, Judge Boone laid on ten stinging strikes—or thereabouts, she wasn’t really counting—in rapid succession. A cry screamed from her throat and died as soon as the ten were done. Her back burned like hot coals, while her skin throbbed from the welts rising on her flesh, long, thin red-hot lines of terrible pain.
Her chance to settle from the blows was brief. In seconds, she felt the fiery blast of punishment again, as one cutting, ripping, vicious strike after another laced her bottom Perhaps another ten. Again she counted only the pain that seemed to redouble with terrifying force, leaving her breathless and quaking from one end of her body to the other.
“Please, no!” she whaled and she started to twist and stamp her feet in anger. Hot tears stung her eyes. But there was no mercy in the old man despite the horrified cry that issued from her throat.
Hearing her plea, the judge strode forward and placed his thick hand at the back of her neck and drew her head back so he could look down on her sorrow-filled face.
“Calm down, girl, or you’ll not see the end of this day until I’ve levied twice the punishment on your sorry soul. I am tougher, meaner and more willing than any man or woman here to make you suffer. You chose the wrong man to defy.”
By the time the judge’s short speech ended, Jolie’s fight had ceased. It was not so much the words but the message behind them, convincing her with little argument that her angry demonstrations only made the punishment worse.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she weakly managed.
“Sorry you’ll be,” he agreed, and he backed off.
A vast silence followed. Jolie shivered, when her flesh didn’t ache. And the witnesses to the punishment quaked on their own, spurred by a bit of self-preservation. The man was infamous for his hard hand, but none in the room, save the officer of the court, had seen it firsthand until now.
The tawse flew again leveling another vicious blast of cruel cuts on Jolie’s skin from the center of her already punished rear cheeks to low on the back of her thighs. She screamed again and briefly stomped her feet. “No, no, no, mercy, mercy please, mercy, please. Noooo! Mercy, please!” she vented despite her intentions otherwise. Her tears flowed freely now as the tawse ended its reign and she was left to dangle in her misery.
The hands that removed her from the bindings, the officer’s hands, felt like the softest cotton down against her skin. How soothing! How kind! The officer gave her over to Daniel and she collapsed into her brother-in-law’s warm arms. Maybe he was sorry for making her suffer so.
Nothing more was said as her clothes were properly restored and he led her from the courthouse to her waiting sister.
Riding home in the buggy seat beside Hannah, every blow that jostled Jolie’s body hurt her wounded bottom; she couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down her cheeks. The atmosphere amongst the trio was strained but subdued. No one cared to say a word; what was there to say? And Jolie, little victim that she was, would not bother speaking to anyone for some days. Until another, greater horror, hit her squarely in the face, and her fate in the tiny wilderness town was securely sealed.
CHAPTER THREE
“Why ain’t she purdy today?” Eldon Tremaine pranced his horse around her, making it impossible for Hannah to walk down the street. His half-brother Deacon did the same, until she was the swirling center of snorting horse flesh and half-drunk youths.
“Please, let me pass!” she implored as her frustration grew.
“No, missus, not this time. I got my orders,” Eldon flashed her a snarling grin.
“Orders?” she stared up at their circling forms, looking for a way out without risking life and limb.
“You’re coming with us, fancy ma’am. Mr. Cain wants to see you.”
She looked at him, alarmed. “Why would he want to see me?” Again, she circled in place as she stared into Eldon Tremaine’s face. He’d been the one to approach her in Somersby’s store, and a fresh stab of feral energy brought back the memory of that lewd assault.
“Aw now, lemme give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count.” His sassy voice cut her cruelly.
“I have no idea where my brother is.”
“See, you did know. Didn’t ya, ma’am? You’re a real smart one.”
“I can’t go with you. If I turn up missing, my husband will be after you.”
“Oh, little lady, this’ll take no time a’tall. You jus hop on this horse with me and we’ll be at Mr. Cain’s camp in no time.”
Before Hannah could find a means to escape, Eldon’s large hand swooped down and gathered her body upward into his. He
tossed her into the saddle in front of him, so she was straddling the horse with her skirt straining on either side rising high on her legs. He obviously didn’t care.
She tried with all her might to shake herself from his grasp, but Eldon was not just big, he was strong as an ox. Despite the way her hotly beating heart pressed forward with her struggle, her attempts to free herself were useless.
“Hey, ma’am, you best be behavin. If you get all uppity, Mr. Cain may just take a strap to your pretty ass.”
“He wouldn’t dare!”
“Oh? Well, then why don’t you just test him? He’s always had a hankering for soft, pretty flesh like yours.”
“My husband will come for him if he lays a hand on me!”
“Will he now?” With that, Eldon kicked his heels into the sides of the horse, and they went racing off toward the woods with Deacon close behind.
It was no more than a ten minute ride to the camp by the river where Jarrett Cain was resting his horse and partaking of a noonday meal.
“Whad I tell you, huh?” Eldon said as he handily deposited his bounty in front of a man not quite as big, but certainly as startling as Eldon Tremaine. “Found her this time, boss—and boy, she is a feisty one!”
Jarrett Cain raised fear in every soul around the county, a reputation he’d earned from the power he wielded. Power to extract prices few men could afford to pay, though they didn’t dare not. It wasn’t clear what gave him such influence, but he’d held the gamblers, the losers and the poor with a steel-fisted grip. At the same time he smiled like a gentleman, like some fine East Coast philanthropist granting favors, not the black-hearted rogue that he truly was.
A staggering sight greeted Hannah when her eyes finally rested on the infamous swindler. She’d never seen the man before and expected a bullish, ugly brute with a scraggly beard, bad breath and dirty clothes. She found instead, a well-dressed man of no more than forty-five years, who eyes were sharp and his smile so well-managed that it looked genuine. He had an earthy demeanor, though a well-crafted one, dark trimmed hair; his beard and mustache as neatly cared for. And though he could hardly be called a handsome man, his polish and style made him a man that, like her husband, could brew some curious feeling in her womanly emotions. She hated that fact and immediately squelched the unwanted response.
The Humiliation of Hannah Page 3
