A brief memory of running through an alley years ago flitted through her consciousness. She’d been fourteen years old and desperate to hide the baby she’d given birth to. The baby this man had forced on her. Some disjointed section of her brain wondered if she’d have another baby. Maybe she would die.
She wanted to.
He’d parked his black carriage on an adjacent street. It loomed out of the enveloping darkness like a hand reaching out to squeeze the life from her.
She stopped at the door.
He opened it.
The interior yawned, ready to swallow her in its claustrophobic depths. What choice did she have? She knew his strength. She knew his power and influence.
Ben had been ready to die for her.
Her mind cleared. She hadn’t made it this far just to give up, had she? As long as she had an ounce of life left in her body, she could resist him. If he shot her, someone would hear and rescue Ben. They would go get help for Caleb, wherever he was.
If she got inside the carriage, she’d never be able to fight him. She stood a better chance out here.
Before she could change her mind, she grabbed the door and jerked it. The corner hit his knee, and he grabbed her shoulder.
Her first kick caught his shin, but hurt her bare toes. She balled her hands into fists and pummeled his face. He hit her with his fist, and lights flashed behind her eyes. Her lip stung and she tasted blood.
He raised the gun to her head and shoved her back against the side of the carriage. “Get inside,” he hissed.
She clamped her teeth and said through them, “Shoot me.”
Nothing happened.
Caleb’s reaction when she’d grabbed his hair flitted through her mind, and in the next second, she reached up and locked her fingers against Winston’s scalp and yanked for all she was worth.
He yelped and his head shot back, dislodging the gun from her temple.
At that same moment, the sound and sight of her brother barreling into Winston and both of them losing their breath and their balance bombarded Ellie’s senses. Winston held fast to Ellie’s arm and used her to pull himself upright.
Ben had regained his feet. He raised a piece of wood and slammed it down on Winston’s head. With a grunt, Winston released her arm.
Ellie grabbed the man’s hand and bashed it against the edge of the coach door. He howled and shoved her, the gun falling from his grip.
She landed on her rump, scraping her elbow, and her teeth rattled.
Benjamin struck Winston again, and he fell against Ben, rolling on top of him, arms flailing.
Ellie scrambled to her knees.
Moonlight glimmered from the barrel of the gun where it lay in the dirt. A hand closed around it.
Ellie beat at Winston’s head with her fists. If he had the gun again, he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Ben.
A blast echoed in her ears.
The horses reared and whinnied; their harnesses jingled and the carriage rocked. The smell of gunpowder burned Ellie’s nose. She strained to see clearly in the darkness. “Ben!”
The lump of bodies moved, and he stood, a slender figure against the foggy night sky. The bigger man at his feet didn’t stir.
Ellie stared at the unmoving body. Her toes, her elbow and the bottoms of her feet throbbed.
“I didn’t mean to,” Ben said on a released breath.
She got to her feet slowly. A light came on in one of the nearby houses, then another.
“I swear I didn’t mean to kill him!”
She moved forward. “Maybe he’s not dead.”
“I said I’d kill him, but I didn’t mean it.”
Ellie turned and wrapped her arm around Ben’s narrow heaving shoulders. “I know you didn’t. I’ve wished him dead a hundred times myself, Ben. Hush now.”
She released him and knelt over Winston’s prone body, almost expecting him to reach up and grab her. With a trembling hand, she pressed her fingers to his throat, then picked up a limp wrist and felt for a pulse as she’d often seen Caleb do. She couldn’t detect a movement. “I think he’s dead.”
“Ah, hell,” Ben moaned.
“Ellie!” The voice echoed from the alleyway. “Ben!” Caleb’s voice! He was all right! Footsteps sounded as he ran toward them and emerged into the moonlight at the edge of the street.
“Ellie, my God, what’s happened?” He knelt over the man on the ground.
“I shot him,” Ellie said. “He’s dead.”
“Winston?” Caleb said in stunned disbelief.
Ben dangled the gun before Caleb, then tossed it inside the open carriage. “Look who has the gun. I shot him. I didn’t mean to. He would have killed one of us. I grabbed the gun before he could get it again. It just went off. I didn’t mean to kill him.”
A light came on in the nearest house and a person appeared on his porch with a rifle in his arms. “What’s going on out there?”
A few shadowy figures stood at the corner of a yard, carefully keeping their distance but obviously curious.
Caleb checked over the man on the ground once again, then sat crouched with one knee up and the other against the ground, staring at the two of them. “Ellie, tell me what happened.”
She couldn’t say anything. She couldn’t feel anything.
“He sent Ellie a note telling her to meet him tonight.” Ben reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled paper. “She didn’t go.”
Caleb stood and took the paper from Ben, walked over to the carriage and lit the side lamp. He held the paper aloft and read. Ellie’s heart thundered.
She would have taken a hundred beatings to prevent the look of confusion and betrayal that crossed Caleb’s face. “Why did he ask this? Why did he think you would meet with him in a secluded spot at night?”
Numb, she shook her head.
“Ellie?”
“He thought she would do whatever he asked,” Benjamin said. “He knew she wouldn’t want him to tell anyone the truth about her. About us.”
“What did he know about you?”
“Ben,” she warned.
“He used to come see our mother—”
“Ben!”
“He knew your parents?” Caleb asked. He lowered the note.
“Not parents,” Ben denied. “The woman who gave birth to us.”
“Ben.” Ellie’s voice rose.
“Our mother was a whore,” Ben said. “He knew it. He used her himself.”
“Oh, Ben.” It was a cry now, a broken pleading cry. “No, please no.” Ellie begged him earnestly.
“Tell him, Ellie.” Ben turned to stare at her, ignoring her protests.
“Nooo,” she wailed.
“Tell him, or I will.”
“No, Ben. Please!”
“It’s the only way, don’t you see?”
“No, we’ll leave. We’ll go somewhere else.”
“I don’t want to go somewhere else. I want to stay here. Tell him.”
Her feet were stuck to the ground. She couldn’t move toward Ben to prevent the words from coming from his mouth.
“He raped Ellie.”
The pulsating scream was entirely inside her head because the night was as still and silent as the man at their feet. Ellie’s ears rang and her chest felt ready to implode.
Caleb’s frantic gaze raked across her. “Oh, my God!” He moved forward. “Let’s get her into the house.”
“Not tonight,” Ben clarified, placing a hand on Caleb’s chest to stop him. “A long time ago. When she was a girl.”
Caleb looked from Ben to her, his face shadowed in darkness once again. “Ellie, is this so?”
All the shame and the degradation of that night and the years that had followed were as acute and as suffocating as if the event had happened tonight. Having Caleb know was as ugly and as humiliating as the act itself. She couldn’t bear for him to look at her. She couldn’t bear the look she’d see on his face.
Ignoring the people now standing in clusters
, watching them from a wary distance, Ellie turned and ran.
Chapter Sixteen
Everything fell into place in Caleb’s mind. He’d wanted to know the depth of that sadness in her eyes and the cause of the fear that enveloped her. He wanted to know the truth and he wanted to help. But this…He should have figured it out. But she’d been good at covering up. Her skittishness, her elusive past, Flynn’s mention of having no father, as well as the disaster that had resulted from their attempted lovemaking, were enough clues that he should have guessed.
The vivid realization sickened and angered him at the same time. He gazed into the dark alley where she’d disappeared, praying for the strength and the wisdom to see them through this.
“Shall we go after her?” a man called.
“No,” Caleb replied. “There’s been an accident here.”
“That you, Dr. Chaney?”
“It’s me.”
“Need any help, Doc?” A few men in varying stages of undress came closer.
“Who’s been shot?”
“Winston Parker. I could use some help getting the body into the carriage.”
“He dead?”
Caleb looked at the body on the ground. “I’m afraid so.”
“Who shot him?”
“I’d better talk to the sheriff first,” Caleb replied.
Ben moved off to the side while two of the neighbors helped Caleb place Winston’s body inside the carriage.
Afterward, Caleb stepped over to Ben and said gently, “Go home now.”
“I didn’t mean to shoot him.” His young voice held fear and mistrust.
“I know you didn’t.” Caleb led him farther aside. “You were protecting your sister. You did what any man would have done.”
“I tried to get the gun and it went off.”
“I want you to go watch over your sister. Make sure she doesn’t do anything foolish, like try to leave or run away. Lock her in the pantry if you have to.”
Benjamin looked up at him. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Just keep her there until I get back.”
Ben cast Caleb a skeptical glance at the black carriage. “Where are you takin’ him?”
“To the sheriff. I’ll explain what happened. He’ll need to talk to you. And to Ellie.”
“Do you have to tell him about Ellie?”
Caleb considered Ben’s question and held the same concern. “Perhaps it would be enough that he attacked her tonight. I have a feeling he’s the same one who hit me over the head and left me along the road out by the Arnolds’.”
Ben swiped a hand beneath his nose.
“Go to her now,” Caleb said. “I’ll deal with these people.”
Ben turned and ran down the alley.
Ellie lay on the bed in the dark, her head throbbing, drained of every last tear and emotion. She’d tried to get up, but Ben had pressed her back on the bed, brought cool water and bathed her face, urging her to rest. “He can’t hurt you ever again,” he whispered in the darkness.
Didn’t he know that Winston had already hurt her enough for a lifetime? “No, he can’t,” she agreed anyway.
“I was too little to help you that time. I heard you cryin’ and I pounded on the door as hard as I could. I tried to open it.”
Her lethargy lifted and she raised her hand to his face. “Oh, my boy, I’d hoped you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know, not for sure. Not until I was older. I went to get her to help, Ellie. She wouldn’t help.”
“I know,” she said, comforting him. “He would only have hurt you. Don’t blame yourself. You were just a little boy. A little boy who shouldn’t have had to know about that.”
She didn’t know how she could possibly have a drop of moisture left in her, but tears rolled down her cheeks—tears for her beloved Benjamin. “You should have had a mother to love you and a father to bring home money for food.”
“You were our mother,” he answered, breaking her heart all the more. “And you found us food.”
“You should have had a warm house and a bed,” she added.
“I have those things now, Ellie,” he said hoarsely.
She stroked his cheek. “Yes. Yes, you do.”
But did they have a hope of keeping them after this night?
“Do you hate me, Ellie? ’Cause I told Caleb?”
“No. I love you.”
Some of the tension left his body. “I love you, too.”
“Go to bed.”
“Caleb told me to take care of you.”
“You did. I’m fine.”
He left the room and she waited in the darkness. In some way she almost experienced a thread of relief that her secret was exposed. Carrying it had been a weighty burden, but now all her doubts and questions were brought sharply into focus. What would happen to them now? What would Caleb do, and how would he react to the knowledge? The minutes ticked away like hours.
After dropping off the body and explaining the situation to the sheriff, Caleb left Winston’s buggy at the livery and hurried home. He found Ben still waiting in the kitchen, his head on his hands at the table. The chair Caleb had found broken on the floor when he’d come home from the Arnolds’ now lay in pieces in the kindling bin.
Ben looked up. “Is that your blood?”
Caleb unbuttoned the shirt and shrugged out of it. “Probably. I’m glad you’re up. You can look at this knot on my head for me.” He poured a pan of warm water from the well on the stove.
Ben got up and Caleb sat in the chair he’d deserted.
“It seems to have stopped bleeding,” Caleb said. “Can you clean it out?”
Benjamin took a rag and soap and thoroughly, but gently cleansed the egg-sized bump and the gash.
“I was comin’ to see if you needed any help out there at the Arnolds’,” Ben said. “I stayed up after Ellie told me to go to bed. I knew somethin’ was wrong when Ellie got that note, and I snuck downstairs and found it in the pocket of Ellie’s apron. I knew it was from Winston. I decided to go get you, but when I went outside, he was there. He had that gun on me the whole time and he tied me to a chair.”
“I saw that chair.”
“I knocked it over and busted it against the stove. Sorry about breakin’ it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You were brave, Ben.” Caleb turned and slid an arm around the boy’s waist. Benjamin’s body trembled within his easy hold. “You saved Ellie tonight, you know.”
Ben’s chest heaved and he broke into sobs against Caleb’s hair. “I couldn’t help her the last time.”
Caleb stood, placed his arms around him and smoothed his hair, unable to imagine what this boy—and his sister—had been through. “How old were you?”
He sniffed. “Eight maybe.”
Caleb rolled that number around in his head. Seven years ago? Ellie could only have been…fourteen? He couldn’t let himself imagine it. If it was so unthinkable, what must it have been like for her to live it? And hide it? “You were too young to help her,” he assured Ben. “But you did it tonight. I’m proud of you.”
“She’s gonna hate me ’cause I told you.”
“She could never hate you. You mean everything to her. You and Flynn. You did the right thing.”
“I don’t want to leave here.”
“It’s going to be all right.”
“Will they put me in jail?”
Caleb released Benjamin and lifted his chin on his thumb, noting a few cuts on his face that needed tending. “No,” he said, praying he was right. “Nothing is going to happen to either of you.”
Ben wiped his face and nose on his sleeve.
“Put some of this ointment on it now.” He sat back down and handed Benjamin the tin he’d opened. “Then I’ll take care of your cuts. Is she asleep? She didn’t try to leave?”
“She wouldn’t leave us,” Ben replied matter-of-factly. “I made her stay in her bed and rest. She cried. I used to hear her cry a lot. It scared me. It still scares m
e.”
“Maybe now that the truth is out and Winston is dead, she can put those tears away,” Caleb said, hoping it was true.
“I hope so.”
“Me, too. Let me see to your face now.”
Ben sat in the chair and Caleb disinfected his wounds. He discovered Ben’s knuckles bruised and swollen and a spot on his shoulder that had begun to discolor.
“You’d better get to bed. Do you think you’ll be up to going to school tomorrow?”
“I don’t want to miss it.”
“I’ll get you there after we see the sheriff. Thank you for taking care of Ellie. And for doctoring my head. You have a gentle touch.”
Obviously pleased with the compliment and relieved about the status of his involvement with Winston’s death, Ben told Caleb good-night and went up stairs.
Caleb’s energy seemed depleted, but now—more than ever—it was important that he talk to Ellie.
A presence in the room woke her. Somehow she had drifted into an uneasy sleep.
“Ellie?”
She opened her eyes to see Caleb standing just inside the doorway with an oil lamp. The glow revealed him dressed in a clean white shirt. She blinked and rolled to her other side to hide her face.
He set the lamp on the bureau and turned it down low, sending the room into flickering shadows.
“Will they take Ben to jail?” she asked.
“No.” The bed dipped as he sat behind her. “I explained what happened to the sheriff. Seems they’ve had several accusations toward him over the past few years, but nothing they could prove. He denied attacking the girls in question, and it was his word against theirs, with no witnesses. This time there’s Ben and me.”
Winston had done this to someone else? She’d never even considered that. “You didn’t see anything.”
“I got whacked over the head and saw stars. That was his doing, I’m convinced.”
She turned back and sat up. “He said he’d done something to hold you up. Are you all right?”
He fingered the back of his head gingerly. “I have a goose egg back there, but I’m fine.”
Seeing him running from that alley toward the carriage, she had experienced frightfully conflicting emotions—relief and joy at seeing him well, but dread over what he’d come upon.
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