He stepped into the parlor. Wood strapping stuck out of the cracked plaster walls and every piece of fine furniture had been reduced to stacks of kindling. The torn covers and spines of mangled books were strewn in piles over the debris. Bret turned and inched his way into the front hall.
Caden stood, haggard and crazed, in the middle of the smashed remnants of his once-magnificent third floor study. Did he hear another man’s voice calling her name or had it been his own?
His open, black walking coat was torn and caked with mud. His belt was unfastened and the fly of his trousers gaped open.
Only three cracked walls remained standing, the roof gone, the bookcases and laboratory glassware destroyed, and the pages of his prized notebooks scattered by the wind and water.
Caden turned toward the corner where two walls met. His tattered canopy bed had been jammed up against the far wall near the shattered window by the final blasting fury of the storm. Rebecca and Edward . . . it was not to be, but destiny still has plans for you, dear friend.
He stared at the ether bottle and cloth on the floor. We alone have survived, dearest Gabrielle, and we alone will begin the new millennium together.
Gabrielle, her eyes still closed, lay on a tattered comforter, a ripped and dirty white satin gown draped off her bruised shoulders. She moved her head from side to side with agitated jerks as she clamped down against the belt gag across her mouth.
Her eyes fluttered and slowly opened. She looked around as though drunk. A few moments later, the whites of her eyes went wide in panic. She kicked and shook her arms, struggling to break free of the ropes binding her to the four corners of the splintered cherry wood bed.
Caden stood at the foot of the bed, unbuttoning his shirt. “It is over now, Gabrielle . . . and today, Sunday, the holiest of all days, a vengeful God may rest . . .”
He removed his belt. “But a vengeful man . . . has much to do.”
Gabrielle squirmed; her muffled screams only inflamed Caden’s passion. “Few will have survived and those who did will be weak or diseased.” He caressed himself, feeling pain melt into pleasure as his manhood hardened with every word he spoke. “I’ve waited so long . . . for the only woman who was truly worthy.”
“Gabrielle! Gabrielle, are you there?” another man’s voice roared from below, breaking his spell of desire.
Caden paused and scowled. Has fate been that careless? He slid out Bret’s ivory handled derringer and checked the chamber. We must make amends for that, old friend. He padded toward the one side of the locked door, the sudden pain in his groin flaring with each step, and waited.
At the second floor landing, Bret was almost out of breath. “Gabrielle!” He rested against the banister for a few moments and listened. He heard something scraping against the undamaged section of the top floor above his head.
Maneuvering with uneasy stealth up the shattered stairs toward the third floor landing, Bret stretched and jumped over missing steps. He leaped across a gaping hole in the floor and grabbed the third floor railing for support. “Gabrielle! Are you here?”
The stifled sounds of someone’s voice came from behind the closed door. Bret gripped the handle but it wouldn’t turn. He took a few steps back and rushed the door with his shoulder, breaking it open and hurtling headlong into the room.
Regaining his balance, he saw Gabrielle tied to a bed in the corner, straining against the ropes. Thank God she’s alive. Bret rushed to her side. Gabrielle’s long hair hung down in dirty strands against her pale, bruised face, and her eyes could no longer brook the tears welling up inside.
“It’s all right now my love. I’m here.”
Gabrielle’s eyes were frantic with movement as she strained her head toward the door.
Bret could have cried for joy at that moment but he had to make sure she was safe and free. He untied the belt gag from her mouth at the exact moment someone pressed the barrel of a small revolver against the back of his skull.
“Your blood must be stronger than your soul.” Caden cocked the trigger with a sharp click. “For what other reason would nature have chosen you to survive when so many . . . pure and deserving . . . were swept away in a single night?”
Bret tensed and swallowed. “Why, Caden?”
“I was fifteen, terrified; a boy trying to act like a man. They told me the Yankees were doing it all over Texas and the South to our women. Some had lost their own so they were looking for any excuse to spill blood on the other side.”
Bret subtly shifted his upper body toward him. “You killed Timothy, didn’t you?”
“Regrettable but necessary. The meddling moron didn’t know when to leave well enough alone.”
Bret leaned closer. “But why Gabrielle?”
“Because you didn’t deserve to survive then for the wound you inflicted on my body . . . and you certainly don’t deserve her now for the wound you inflict on my soul with every breath you draw.” Caden pulled the trigger.
The next sound Bret heard was a hammer hitting steel. Then a second time . . .
In the brief pause of surprise, he swung around and punched Caden in the side of the face.
The taller man stumbled back and dropped the derringer. Bret recognized it as his immediately. I knew it. There could have been no one else.
Caden shook his head, glared at Bret and charged, attacking his enemy like a vicious, snarling dog in a pit fight to the death.
Bret fought back, fueled by the unrelenting hatred of a man who had caused so much misery for his family in the past and threatened now the future and life he hoped to share with Gabrielle; the only woman he had ever truly loved.
Caden pressed forward, using his greater height and weight to his advantage, forcing himself on top of Bret and wrapping his hands around his throat in a choke grip.
Bret struggled against the bigger man but in his weakened state he knew he could not hold out much longer against Caden’s strangling hands pressing against his throat.
Caden smiled down at him like a madman as he started to choke the life out of Bret. “Captain Boland wanted me to go first, but you rushed out from behind your mother’s skirt and pierced me with your tiny whittling knife.” He squeezed harder.
Bret reached out frantically to his side, clawing at the floor.
“The men had a good laugh and told me to sleep on it. ‘Don’t you worry none, Gus, It will get better by morning . . .” Caden grimaced, feeling a sudden flare of pain in his groin. His grip slackened around Bret’s throat.
Bret brushed the derringer with his finger.
“Lord . . . but you were lucky to get away. Still, you were too late to warn your traitor of a father, now . . . weren’t you?” Caden grinned and chuckled in triumph.
Bret inched the derringer into his hand with his fingers. In a flash, he brought the revolver up like a hammer against the side of Caden’s head. Bret’s repeated blows knocked Caden off his chest to the floor.
Caden lurched to his feet, his head bloody, and stumbled back toward the shattered window near the bed.
He spotted a broken two foot-long iron pipe in a small pile of debris on the floor. He snatched it up and swung at Bret, hitting him across his shoulder. Bret fell back on his side, grabbing his wound.
Caden raised the pipe over his head, and turned to strike Gabrielle. “How could you ever choose a lesser man than me?”
Bret roared like a fierce warrior and charged with all his remaining strength toward the towering madman. Hitting him low with his good shoulder, the force of his impact propelled Caden back, tumbling and plummeting through the broken window.
Bret staggered to the sill and looked down.
Doctor Caden Augustus Hellreich—his neck bent at an unnatural angle—lay in the contorted death pose like so many storm victims in the street.
Bret examined his ivory-handled derringer. He glanced back down at Caden’s body. “Don’t you know, Doc? They’re no good . . . when it rains.” He stumbled back to Gabrielle and untied her.
“What do you mean?”
“Caden lied. He told me before . . .” She looked away. “He showed me the real cure. Oh God . . . I could have poisoned you when I thought I was saving your life. I’m so sorry.” Gabrielle covered her chest. “Please, Bret. Don’t look at me like this.”
Bret diverted his eyes, searching around the room for something to cover her.
“That . . . that bastard threw my clothes out the window. Please, I need something,” she pleaded.
In the opposite corner, the contents of a smashed chest of drawers were scattered about the floor. He rummaged through the pile with his good arm until he found a crinkled white blouse and black skirt wrapped up in the center of a damp ball of clothing. “These are the driest I could find.”
Gabrielle grabbed the clothes. Bret turned his back and she dressed herself as best she could. “Gabrielle? Did that animal—”
“No,” she answered in a whisper. Gabrielle turned away to hide her tears.
Bret rubbed his aching forehead. Philip’s words and the faded threads of childhood memories fluttered briefly through his mind like the tattered curtains on the broken window. “Philip was right. About the others and Caden.”
He stared at the derringer in his palm. “He killed Timothy too.”
Bret’s restless guilt—the old burden of promise once obscured by grief and anger, and haunted by a faceless presence of doubt—now gave way to something else.
If not pity, then letting go after having seen such wretched remains of a man, forever consumed by the hellish appetite of his own unforgiving hunger that it left nothing for revenge to savor.
Bret felt the light, soothing touch of Gabrielle’s hand on his bruised shoulder. He turned and saw her dressed in Rebecca’s damp blouse and skirt. “Let’s go home and get this bandaged. There’s nothing more for you here.”
He took Gabrielle in his arms and held her close for a long while, calming himself in the entwined breathing of their embrace. He kissed her hair. It was all he could do to stop his tears from falling on her cheek.
“You don’t have to be afraid anymore.” She touched the tear in the corner of his eye.
He kissed her, long and deep, the way he had kissed her before, when the power of his unspoken love for her had threatened to carry him away forever.
CHAPTER 29
Beaumont, Texas, January 10, 1901
The rattling jolts and backfires from Bret’s automobile parked in front of the Beaumont Hotel were enough to make people cross to the other side of the street.
Trying to idle his newly rebuilt Panhard et Levassor was a risky business for more than a minute or two. It could overheat and blow a gasket or fall suddenly quiet and refuse to budge. Not unlike Gabrielle these days. If she doesn’t get a move on . . .
Bret reached over his seat for the wood toolbox to look for his tire pressure gauge. There, he’d stuffed stacks of old business papers and envelopes recovered from the battered oak desk in the ruins of his home.
The paper was streaked with grease from the small parts Philip and his workmen had salvaged from the wreck of his first automobile. Underneath, he found the glass tire gauge wrapped in a remnant of his old cotton vest.
Carefully unwrapping the frayed rag, Bret felt the crinkle of paper inside the vest pocket. He pulled out a chafed packet of folded writing paper and carefully unfolded the edges of the mildewed sheets.
The writing was blotched and faded, but the voice in the words was still clear. Lord. After everything that’s happened since you’ve completely forgotten about her letter.
He massaged his sore shoulder and looked back at the main doors to the hotel and waited for a few seconds, tapping his foot in time to the rhythmic jostle and bump of the automobile. Why haven’t you thrown this away yet? What more do you hope to find by keeping it?
Bret wiped the sweat off his brow. He peeled off his calfskin driving gloves and began reading.
“I know, dearest Bret, that you must hate me and despise the first moment our lips touched. How could I have deceived you so intimately and left you to suffer at the vengeful hands of my uncle? I don’t have any excuses for you, only to say that it gives me no greater pleasure than to know that you’re alive and reading this letter now.
From the first verse I sang that night, when I lifted my face to meet your warm smile and inviting eyes, I knew that my uncle could not have told me the whole truth about you.
The next day, sunlight quivered through my window and walking along the garden path I heard the hum of the summer bees singing, as though with that enchanting melody that you adore so much. What happiness I felt!
That’s when my heart started to change toward my uncle, the Society—everything. You awakened my soul, my darling, inspiring desires and wants that barely existed before I felt the pull of your loving arms bringing our bodies and souls closer together.
In the Society’s study hall, where once I was impressed by the statues of great thinkers, I now saw only the marble faced tombstones of dead men who knew nothing of my life, my hopes, or my longing to love and be loved in return.
In truth, dearest Bret, it was as though my spirit was asleep in the arms of the dead, forever resting in the tomb of their failed dreams and ambitions. My despair was a chilling and crushing weight fastened around my neck by the yoke family obligation; a promise to deceive a stranger by any means necessary in order to ruin his credibility on false charges of rape or worse.”
Bret’s mouth was dry. He swallowed and looked over to the front doors of the hotel. People were walking in and out but Gabrielle had yet to make her appearance.
He folded the first sheet along its creases and placed it inside the vest pocket of his driving jacket along with the envelope. After checking the the dashboard gauges, he read the second page.
“So convinced of the wrong that your family had brought upon my uncle by destroying almost any chance he would have of fathering a family, I was determined to inflict suffering on you as he instructed. In thought, my resolve seemed unwavering until I met you—this intense and passionate man— and learned of the terrible tragedy that your family suffered during those awful years of the war. Should you really be made to pay as a man for the impulsive deed of a boy who only acted out sheer terror for the protection for his mother’s life and his own?
You know my answer then, dearest.
In the short time we have been together, I have been comforted, at least, by the thought that loving you was the beginning of a new life, a great passion spanning the vast space of love’s eternity, a woman and man joined in perfect freedom from the chains of family burden and history.
I shall leave my uncle and Society soon for I fear I may someday suffer the consequences of his ever-growing zeal. He speaks of an enlightened one already born, perhaps in Europe, who will rise from humble beginnings to transform mankind through war and chaos into a new being unlike any before him. I fear these hateful men of eternal wrath and destruction, and I will have no part in giving birth to their creed.
So, my love, until the soft warmth of forgiveness flushes out the cold, cruel poisons in your blood, I know that you can never truly love me in return. When I have taken new, private accommodations outside of Galveston, I will call for you, to help heal the wounds left open for far too many years. I wait for you then, my love, for the storm in your soul to pass.
Love for now and always,
Rebecca”
The sun was whipping up a thick heat in the street. Bret wiped the sweat from his forehead and for a few moments forgot about the tears streaming down from the sides of his eyes.
The memory of Rebecca’s room—the open window with the faint oleander-scented breeze on that warm afternoon—had haunted him as a lost refuge from sorrow, but like all those uncertain, mistak
en moments, it drifted way on the wind into the cloudless certainty of Gabrielle’s soft, blue eyes.
“Bret!”
The sound of Gabrielle’s voice coming from the direction of the hotel startled him. He stuffed the second sheet into the inside pocket of his driving jacket. He spun around to face the front doors.
“Just another minute, darling,” she called. “The porter is bringing down the last of our bags now.”
Bret tipped his hat and smiled.
“Bret?” She took a few steps toward the front stairs of the hotel. “Are you all right? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
He glanced away from her for a moment to clear his throat. “The sun, honey.” He pulled the visor of his cap to shade his eyes. He turned and smiled.
Gabrielle settled into the seat beside him and smoothed the flounces of her skirt with a deft hand. “Lord, it’s a scorcher today. If we stay out here much longer I’m surely going to fade away like a spirit. Now, get a hurry on or we’ll be late.”
She checked her lipstick and rouge in her small ivory framed vanity mirror. “Are you sure she’s ready to ride on her own?”
“She’s been taught by the best lady’s riding instructor in town. Hasn’t she, dear?”
“That’s true but your flattery doesn’t make me feel any better. Now drive or we’ll be late.”
Bret shifted into gear and the vehicle jerked forward. As the wheels turned, he was no longer disturbed by the longing to open his heart and let bleed all the dark blood it held before.
“Look at her go, my friend!” Captain Anthony Lucas said, pointing up into the air. “God almighty! What a sight!” He laughed and smoothed his thin moustache. “I should have worn a darker suit.”
Bret whistled and threw his hat into the air. “C’mon Captain!” he slapped his business partner on the shoulder. “Race you back to the others before your new white suit changes color.”
The two men ran back another hundred feet from their observation point near the Spindletop oil well to where portly Patillo Higgins squinted anxiously through his spectacles as he stood beside Gabrielle, Philip and Verna at the front of the local crowd of onlookers and curiosity seekers.
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