“For the love of Pete, girl! You’re holding somethin’ against me that I said when my head was hotter than that fire before ya? Chances are I didn’t know my foot from my hind end. And besides,” he continued, “would there be somethin’ wrong about me takin’ an interest in your sister?”
“So you do favor her.”
“No,” he chuckled, smiling and shaking his head. “No. I just want ya to tell me why ya even brought the thing up.”
Vaden scolded herself violently for slipping up and letting him have an insight into her worry over where he might choose to next place his affections. But, trying to stay calm and dispassionate in appearance, she said, “Oh, I was just wondering about it.”
“Why? Are ya afraid I’ll end up with Belva Tibbits?” He chuckled and turned from her, looking back into the fire.
Vaden just shook her head and sighed, irritated with herself. “Are you…are you planning on ending up with someone?” Vaden wanted to leave the house, to run from him! All the feelings she had tried to secret away in herself over the past few weeks, every dream and hope she held where he was concerned, were burning brighter than ever in her heart.
Ransom Lake smiled and turned to her with an inquisitive glint in his stormy eyes. “Why? Are you interested in the job?”
Vaden gasped, looked at him, and shook her head vigorously. “Oh! No, no, no!” she assured him. “It’s just a natural question, considering the stir you’ve caused in town among the young women and all.”
“What stir?” he asked.
“Don’t play the dumb bunny with me, Mr. Lake. You know full well what I mean.” She shook her head, irritated he would take her for such a fool. “I’ll admit to you now it’s the reason I left the Halloween social early that night. I was sick to death of being badgered and taunted by the other girls because…” She broke off, thinking it might be far worse to confess that particular example.
“What? Finish what ya were sayin’,” he demanded, his voice going low and even more mumbly.
“Nothing. It was a bad example. I’ll think of another one. I—”
“No. Tell me what ya were gonna say, Vaden.”
She looked at him, surprised at his use of her given name and the commanding tone in his voice.
“I mean…it was silly of me to feel slighted anyway. So it was a bad example. It was no fault of yours. It was petty of me to react so—”Vaden’s mind was trying to sort out an escape from the conversation.
“What’re ya talkin’ about?” he unexpectedly interrupted her.
“You know,” Vaden stammered. “About my feeling slighted because you chose not to dance with me at the social. Actually you chose to nearly completely ignore me altogether. That’s why I decided to walk home early. Because I was feeling sorry for myself—as a result of the other girls taunting me about it…not that you slighted me.”
“Do ya mean ya felt snubbed? Do ya mean to tell me ya left the social because I didn’t ask ya for a dance?” he asked. His expression was that of disbelief mingled with tremendous guilt.
“Well, no.” She had to find a way out of the muddy mess she’d slipped into. Something within her told her he would be very upset to know she had left because of him. “I know you already think me silly, clumsy, and juvenile, no matter how you persist in saying otherwise…and I don’t blame you a bit for it, for my own actions that very horrid night paint a pretty clear picture of me. But it was just too irritating to take the taunting of the other girls for any longer, and I was tired of it. So I left. There you have it. Enough said. I’m so thankful you are handy with a set of flints, Mr. Lake. The fire is so warming.”
Ransom Lake stood staring at her, looking dumbfounded as if a startling revelation had just plunged a dagger into his mind. “I’m sorry, Vaden,” he mumbled, and a sort of pain glazed the gray of his eyes.
“For what, Mr. Lake? It was none of it your fault.” She felt the need to tie up the other loose end to the story. So she babbled on as every nerve began to twitch frantically within her body. “And I’ve already admitted to what you said. I…in the wagon…I did want you to…I tried to…my goal was to…that is what you mean isn’t it, Mr. Lake? The fact you knew it would upset me to be slighted by you? And my completely barbaric behavior in the wagon on the way home. How I wish you could just forget it. And those are the reasons that…what other reasons could you possibly have for apologizing to me?”
Still he was silent.
Vaden knew how her confession could be misunderstood by him. Quickly she tried to correct her meaning. “You’re not at all responsible for what happened to cause me to fall into the hands of those men, you know. It was entirely my own fault—my own ignorance and carelessness that found me in that horrid position. I suppose one could view the reason I left the social…one could aptly refer to it as pouting. Yvonne would surely call it that. She is ever and always accusing me of it. And I do admit to being guilty of something like it at times. Mr. Lake? Are you hearing me?” Vaden was uncomfortable as his gray eyes met hers intensely.
“Why would they be teasin’ ya about me not askin’ ya for a dance?” he asked plainly.
Vaden began to fiddle with the long lock of hair at her temple. “Whatever do you mean by asking that?” Then she looked at him, studying his eyes and general countenance. Could it truly be that he was unaware of his effect on the general female population? “Are you seriously ignorant as to the reason?” she asked plainly in return.
“Yes,” he stated.
“They’re all desperately attracted to you.” Vaden looked from him and into the flames in the hearth. She would be honest with him. She would simply tell him bluntly, for it did indeed seem as if he were still completely unaware of the infatuation every female in town held for him. “You were the ‘buck of the ball,’ so to speak, Mr. Lake. All the girls in town were simply swooning as you passed because each and every one was holding her breath in hopes the mysterious Ransom Lake would beg a dance of her.”
He chuckled quietly. “You are quite the prankster yourself, aren’t ya, girl?”
Vaden looked to him again, but he smiled and turned from her. “You are truly innocent of it all, aren’t you?” she questioned. “I thought—especially after your antics that first evening you kissed me—I thought you were all too clearly aware of the effect you’ve had on all the women in this town.”
He chuckled again, but when he looked at her, his smile faded. She could only guess he had seen the sincerity on her face at last. “My antics, as ya call them, have nothin’ to do with the women in this town. Antics?”
Avoiding the issue of the previous affectionate liaisons between herself and Ransom Lake, Vaden rushed boldly ahead in her explanation of the events of Halloween. “Belva Tibbits was the worst! I swear she had aspirations of being the first you chose to ki…” She stopped, for she knew she had already said too much.
“You’re tellin’ me the truth, aren’t ya?” he whispered as a deep frown furrowed his brow.
Vaden nodded, dropping her guilty gaze to the floor.
“You say they were teasin’ ya. How? What were they sayin’?”
She smiled, shook her head, and waved one hand in front of her face in a gesture of trivial subject matter. “Oh, nothing really. Certainly nothing to justify my stomping off like a coward.”
“What did they say?” he demanded sternly. “Tell me.”
Vaden looked about for a means of escape, but their isolation provided none whatsoever. There was no reason she should not answer his question. “Just things. Mean things females say to irritate other females. Women are more catty than you can imagine, Mr. Lake.”
“What? Give me an example,” he urged harshly.
“I don’t remember,” Vaden stalled. “Things like…Belva said a man like you wouldn’t be caught dead dancing with me because…because…”
“Because?” he prodded.
“Because I’m the kind of girl men want to go fishing with—not sit out under a tree and spark w
ith,” she mumbled. “I’m unconventional, you see,” she rambled on quickly. “I do like to run through the meadow rather than sit quietly under a parasol. And, yes,” she stated firmly, “I’d rather go fishing and wading in the brook as opposed to waiting perfectly docile beneath a tree, my feet tucked properly beneath my skirts as I read on for hours and hours without flinching!” Vaden continued to stare into the fire even though she felt the piercing gaze of Ransom Lake drilling into her. “I suppose that’s why those horrid, intoxicated men chose me to torment—because I’m a good sport most of the time.”
Ransom Lake rubbed his temples for a moment. Vaden finally looked up as he spoke. “You’re tellin’ me that because I supposedly snubbed ya at the dance, every female there started in badgerin’ ya about it, and so ya left? Then on your way home, you were taken by those idiots, and because I didn’t heed my…so basically you’re sayin’ the whole affair was my fault, includin’ what I did to ya on the way home.”
“Oh, no!” Vaden exclaimed, taking hold of one of his solid arms. She looked up at him, her soul pleading silently with him as she explained, “It was my own pouty, weak fault that I found myself in that situation. Yvonne’s always telling me I don’t think before I act, and she’s right. And you did nothing to me on the way home. It was me. I acted so…so…”She shook her head and put a hand to her suddenly throbbing forehead. “Oh…how did we get to this point? I only wanted to explain why I thought you…to apologize to you for my behavior in the wagon…to thank you for coming for me that night. For coming for me this night. How did it all come to this?”
The powerful man at Vaden’s side shook his head and returned his gaze to the fire. “Well, I can’t make heads or tails of half of what you’re tellin’ me, girl. I do think you’re exaggeratin’ a bit about my popularity, and if it helps your ego any, I think I oughta tell ya the reason I didn’t ask ya for a dance is ’cause…every time I had a chance, you were out dancin’ with Jerome Clayton.”
Vaden’s heart landed with a dramatic thud in the pit of her stomach. He would’ve asked her, if only she had been able to keep Jerome at bay long enough. She could’ve had the chance to be held in his arms just as every other girl had that night. But she felt the triumph rise within her at the knowledge she had been held by Ransom Lake—held by him and kissed by him in a manner the other girls in town were still dreaming of.
“And now I’ll say it again,” he continued, “and I want ya to take this to heart. I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry for what happened. All of it. And I see now it was more my fault than I even thought.”
Vaden was disturbed by the look of deep guilt and remorse on his face. Somehow he felt responsible, and he wasn’t. “You’re not responsible, Mr. Lake. Do you see it now? Not for what happened on Halloween. Not for any of what happened on Halloween. The other girls are only too right where I’m concerned. My pointless babble has left you feeling guilty somehow, and I’m sorry. It would be better maybe if I were to just stop talking altogether,” she mumbled, turning to let the conversation die before the fire.
“You’re wrong. You’re wrong, and I’m tired.” He continued to face the fire and sighed heavily.
“I’m never wrong about anything!” Vaden nearly shouted. “Everything I told you was true. They did tease me! It did make me angry! I did try to…wanted you to…I caused what happened on the way home Halloween night. All of it. Every bit of it was my fault. You’ve only gotten to where you blame yourself for anything bad that happens because…because I don’t know why. But you do it. And it’s insane.”
He sighed and whispered, “You seem to think ya know me quite well.”
“I do,” she said, turning to face him again. “I know you better than anyone else in town. And that’s a fact.”
He chuckled and shook his head, amused at her assurance of herself. Vaden felt hope begin to burn within her—perhaps the same feeling someone might feel rising within her bosom in anticipation of witnessing a miracle. As he turned his gray eyes upon her, she knew—she knew something profound was about to happen to her at the hand of Ransom Lake.
“You make a man feel almost…forgiven,” he mumbled.
“Forgiven for what, Mr. Lake?” Vaden asked. She could no longer keep silent the question plaguing her mind since the moment she had first seen him. She sensed he meant to confess something to her, to confide his great secret. Immediately, his face turned ashen, and he looked away as moisture brimmed in his storm-colored eyes. “Tell me! Tell me what it is that causes such a tumultuous guilt in you. Please.”
He tipped his head back for a moment, gazing up at the shadows from the fire dancing oddly on the ceiling. Vaden waited. Her heart pounded madly as she sensed the moment had arrived. Ransom Lake was about to reveal his terrible secret to her. She would know. No one else. No one had cared to ask him before.
“Well, I suppose if there’s anybody in the world I think deserves to know the truth about me…it’s you, Vaden. Ya tried to befriend me long before ya saw what I looked like underneath all that mess of hair.” He picked up the poker lying on the floor near the hearth and, hunkering down before the fire, used it to kick around a log inside. Vaden’s body still quivered from the sound of his voice uttering her name. “It’s been drivin’ ya plumb out of your mind not knowin’ why I took to the hills like I did, hasn’t it?” He glanced at her, and she guiltily looked away. “You’ve been wonderin’ since the first day ya saw me in the street—wonderin’ what it was that made me so…solitary.” He sat down solidly on the floor, still gazing into the fire. “Well, I think I’m inclined to tell ya on this cold winter’s evenin’ when there aren’t any ears around but yours. You were the first to see my face, Vaden. Ya may as well be the first to see the black mire of my soul.”
Vaden held her breath for a moment and tried to settle the frantic palpitating of her heart. She’d waited so long, wondered so many things! But she was silent, too afraid to speak for fear he would change his mind.
CHAPTER TEN
“I was sixteen when my daddy decided to move the family out west. He had a sister, my Aunt Shandra, who lived out here with her husband. They had built themselves a nice little house on some land my daddy bought for them as a weddin’ gift. Anyway, I was sixteen that summer when we started out here. There was me and my mamma and daddy, my older sister by a year, Natalie, my younger brothers, Scott and Gavin—they were about twelve and ten—and my baby sister, Serena. Aunt Shandra and Uncle Garth, her husband, had traveled out to Georgia to help us on the way. They had their little baby girl, Sally, with them too. My older brother, Denver, was already grown up and livin’ out in Leadville. So he wasn’t with us.
“We hooked up with a wagon train goin’ our way right outside of Georgia, and there was this girl that belonged to one of the families. Her name was Caroline. She was fifteen. She took a likin’ to me for some reason and about drove me insane chasin’ after me and flirtin’ all the time. I didn’t have a breath of peace. Anyway, everything went real well on the trip—no disasters with weather or the teams takin’ sick. Everyone was healthy and strong.
“Then early one mornin’ we were breakin’ camp about two days by wagon from this very town. Caroline was already pesterin’ me—stealin’ my hat and running off, trying to get me to chase her and such. I was pretty near to turnin’ her over my knee and whackin’ her fanny, and it wasn’t even seven in the mornin’.”
He paused and seemed to be reflecting. Vaden was silent, intent on his story.
“Ya know, lookin’ back, it all seems like a whole lot a nothin’ now to be irritated with her about. Anyhow, Daddy told me to help hitch up the team, and I didn’t want to do it because Caroline was stickin’ to me like flies to a cowpie. So I argued with him and asked him to give me another job, somethin’ away from camp that would get her out of my hair. He told me again to hitch up the team, and I was mad. ‘No,’ I told him. ‘I’m not gonna do it.’ And with him yellin’ at me to get back to my chores, I stormed off, leavin’ my dadd
y mad at me and Caroline feelin’ put off. But I’d been hitchin’ up the team every mornin’ for weeks, and my disposition was bent outta joint over tryin’ to avoid that poor Caroline twenty-four hours a day. So I stomped off, tellin’ myself I was a man. I wasn’t a boy to be bossed around, and I didn’t need to put up with someone I didn’t want to. Off I went, just walkin’ further and further away—at least a mile, as I figure now.
“Then, I heard an ear-splittin’ noise…an explosion. I turned to see a big black cloud of smoke risin’ in the air from the direction I had come. I felt it at the same moment. Even before I reached the camp, I knew what had happened. It was like a vision in my mind. I turned, and I ran as fast as I could back to the camp. When I got there, whoever had done it was already gone. It wasn’t Indians. I found out soon after a group of outlaws had escaped from prison and had been robbin’ and killin’ in the area. I’m sure that’s who did it, though I don’t have proof to show anyone.”
He paused again, and Vaden could see the fire reflecting in the moisture in his eyes.
“Everyone there was dead. Everyone. Not one livin’ soul was left. Believe me, I know, because I checked every one of them over good before I buried them. I buried twenty-nine bodies that day and the next. Twenty-nine people. Some of them had been shot through the head or heart. Some of them had their throats slashed open, and some had been beaten to death. A couple of the children…some had been hung from a nearby tree.”
Vaden winced and covered her mouth to try to stop the wrenching in her stomach.
“I won’t go into more detail than that. I’ll just tell ya that I buried my whole family except for one brother that day. And I’ve spent the last ten years wishin’ I’d died along with them. Knowin’ if I’d hitched up the team like my father told me to, we mighta been out of there before…” Ransom Lake looked at her, his eyes narrowing. “I think that’s the quietest you’ve ever been at one stretch in all the time I’ve known ya, girl.”
The Visions of Ransom Lake Page 20
