Distant Thunder

by Lisa Bingham

  “Yeah. Thanks.” After a moment, he shrugged out of his jacket. Very carefully he laid it over the back of the rocker she’d moved into the corner of the room. Then he tugged at the string tie.

  He was about to wash. In front of her. Here. In her room.

  “Maybe you’d better get into bed. It’s cold.”

  A rush of fear swept over her. “Should I take off my nightgown?”

  “What!” Daniel faced her. “No. You’re fine. Just fine.” When she didn’t move, he sighed. “Get under the covers. I don’t want you catching your death.”

  “Which side?”

  Daniel studied the single bed. There was no need to ask about sides. They’d be lucky if they found any room at all. “Doesn’t matter.”

  Susan took off the wrapper and edged toward the bedstead. The quilts had already been turned down invitingly. The linens were cold next to her skin. She burrowed her legs beneath the sheets, heavy woolen blankets, and log cabin quilt. Bending her knees to her chest, she tucked her toes under her, pressing her back to the headboard and drawing the covers up to her chin. Though it was difficult on the narrow space, she managed to move far enough to one side to leave a sliver of room for Daniel.

  Wryly Daniel noted that she’d taken the side closer to the door.

  The next few minutes passed in an agony of self-consciousness for Daniel. He was no innocent with women. At the age of nine, he’d hidden in one of Pennsylvania’s finest brothels. Soon he’d known all there was to know. At fifteen, he’d experimented with that knowledge firsthand. Since then he’d undressed in front of more females than he cared to remember.

  But now … now he was disrobing in front of Susan. His wife. It was a sobering thought. As much as he might wonder at the phenomenon, Daniel’s hands shook when he removed his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. After pausing only momentarily, he tugged the garment off. And shivered. Not from the temperature of the room but from Susan’s penetrating stare.

  Daniel sought to ignore the way she watched him pour water from the pitcher into the basin. But her scrutiny was like a hot finger sweeping down the crease of his spine.

  Dipping his hands into the liquid, he rinsed his face and neck. What he’d thought would help him to control his sudden desires only served to intensify them. In the mirror over the dresser, he could see the way she eyed the moisture dripping onto his chest.

  “… a cloth on the—”

  “What?” he interrupted.

  Their gazes met and clung in the mirror.

  “There’s a cloth you can use. And I laid out your toiletries—Donovan did bring those.” Her voice grew husky and snagged on his nerves like a callused hand. He nodded and studied the rippled surface of the water. He’d best get this over with. Soon.

  Quickly he splashed his chest and under his arms, unaware of the way the lamplight gleamed on his golden skin. But Susan was noticing it. Susan was conscious of the way each water-dappled muscle stretched and pulled when he moved. The moisture clung to the soft, silky patch of hair in the center of his chest. One wayward runnel broke loose of its silken trap to plunge down the crease in the center of his abdomen. When the droplet moved out of the area reflected in the looking glass, Susan pictured that drop plunging over the firm planes and pooling in the hollow of his navel.

  Then he began to shave.

  “I thought you didn’t shave at night.”

  Daniel opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again. What could he say to that? She’d figure out soon enough that the sun did not cause his beard to grow, as he’d once told her. He could only imagine what thoughts would crowd into her head.

  At long last Daniel finished his ablutions and looped the towel through the handle of the pitcher. Then he twisted the wick of the lamp until they were plunged into darkness. A darkness that should have been comforting. But was not. The blackness sizzled with tension.

  Working quickly, Daniel shucked his boots, socks, and pants, leaving the bottoms of his long woolen underwear. At the edge of the bed he paused, seriously considering sleeping on the floor. But judging by the rustling of bedclothes, Susan had moved to the far side of the mattress and now lay poised, near falling.

  Shutting his eyes, Daniel prayed for guidance.

  Susan lay on her back, her hands at her sides, hugging the edge of the bed. Even so, when Daniel slid between the sheets, there was no avoiding the way his limbs tangled with hers. To her infinite relief, she discovered that he’d worn his drawers to bed, unlike the morning she’d caught him wearing only a sheet.

  For long, awkward minutes, they lay next to each other trying not to move. Susan frantically wondered when it would begin. She could hear Daniel’s breathing become more rapid. His skin increased in temperature while hers grew cold, icy.

  Susan balled her fists in an attempt to garner her courage. “What do you want me to do?” she blurted.

  Daniel had been hoping she’d fall asleep, but evidently that wasn’t going to occur. “Why don’t you …” He broke off, wincing at the sound of his own voice, full and heavy, in the darkness. Swallowing, he began again. “Why don’t you come over here?”

  After only a slight hesitation, he felt the mattress dip at his side. Lifting his arm, he drew her closer until her head rested in the crook of his shoulder. Her breast pressed intimately against his ribs. He could feel its weight, its fullness and it filled him with a pounding expectancy. A delirious, breathless energy.

  Despite the heat being generated by their bodies beneath the covers, Susan started to shiver. Very slowly, because he’d always begun their embraces by caressing her face, Daniel skimmed his knuckles over the curve of her cheek. Her skin was silken. Irresistible. He wondered feverishly if the rest of her could possibly feel so sweet.

  After some time Susan spoke again. “Daniel?”

  “Hmm?” He could barely pull his thoughts into line. He was wondering how much longer he could go on like this, simply holding her, caressing her, but never allowing his passion free rein, never letting her to see how much he wanted her, needed her.

  “What do I do next?”

  The question nearly sent him over the edge. “Why don’t you put your hand on my chest?”

  He thought she would refuse. She had backed away so many times in the past. And he knew that if she could have guessed his thoughts, she’d have run screaming into the night. But shyly, hesitantly, she rested her palm on his breastbone. Her slender fingers seared his bare skin.

  Time crept by. Susan continued to tremble in his arms, but less forcefully. Daniel could only pray that she would fall asleep soon, before he lost his ability to reason.

  “Wouldn’t you like to touch me, too, Daniel?”

  Her words tore at his fragile control. Unable to resist his own desires, let alone the entreaty of her voice, he found he couldn’t refuse.

  Knowing he didn’t trust himself to surrender to the invitation of her smooth flesh, he tugged at the grosgrain ribbon binding her hair. As he had wanted to for so long, Daniel freed the silken waves, combing them with his fingers and allowing them to spill over his chest. The soft strands tickled and tormented his skin. The fresh scents of rosewater and lavender filled his senses.

  Growing bold at her own success, Susan slid her fingers across the firm span of his chest. Her palms molded each swell and hollow. Daniel groaned and tried to grasp the last shreds of sanity as she traced the faint swirls of hair across his breast, her fingers skidding across the taut skin until they rubbed over one masculine nipple.

  Daniel felt a flare of heat and hunger at her tentative touch. Tilting her chin up, he took her mouth, greedily tasting, his tongue sweeping over her teeth, her lips. He rolled over, pinning her to the bed, one thigh shifting to rest on top of hers.

  Her body had been made for his. He had never felt so at home in another woman’s arms. He wanted her so much. He yearned to have her arms wrapped around him, her body arching to meet his own.

  He felt S
usan quiver and shifted his body more securely over hers, thinking she was still cold. Then she shuddered again. A jagged sob escaped from her lips.

  A sinking wave of self-loathing inundated him. He’d gone too far too fast.

  She tried to pull away, but Daniel resolutely held her, speaking nonsense words to calm her. When she pushed against his chest with both hands, he held her face with his palms and forced her to look at him. In the moon washed bedroom, she appeared frightened and ashamed.

  “Don’t. It’s not your fault,” he urged. “I went too quickly.”

  She covered her eyes with her hands. “I’m sorry.” Twisting free of his embrace, she stumbled from the bed. Hurrying to the dresser, she lit the lamp. She had to dispel the darkness. The fear.

  “Susan, stop running from me. We can work this out but only if you don’t back away every time I upset you.”

  “Upset? Upset!” She turned on him, and the moonlight revealed the wildness of her features. “I can’t do it. I can’t!”

  “Give it time.”

  “No! You don’t understand. I thought once we were married, everything would be fine. But I can’t let go of the past. When you touch me, the blackness spreads through me time and time again and I can’t push it away!” The second she blurted her confession, Susan blanched. What a horrible thing to say to her bridegroom.

  Daniel sat up in bed and raked his fingers through his hair. The sheets pooled low over his hips, emphasizing his masculinity.

  “I didn’t marry you for sex, Susan. That’s only one small portion of what goes on between a husband and wife.” His tone held the frayed roughness of hurt and frustration.

  “I shouldn’t have married you at all.”

  She saw the color leave his skin.

  “I knew that I would be punished if—” she stopped. She’d said too much.

  “Punished?” Daniel swung from the bed and advanced.

  She would have backed away from his fierce expression, but the dresser effectively prevented her escape.

  Daniel captured her chin in his hand. “What have you got to be punished for? What have you done that’s so horrible you think you deserve to be afraid?”

  Vaguely she knew that he had taken her arms and tried to shake her. But thick clinging tendrils of darkness pulled her into the past, dredging up memories she had buried so deep they had festered and distorted.

  Mama, Mama, I heard you call.

  He was so big next to her. So male. He overpowered her, making her feel tiny and insignificant. Weak.

  Helpless.

  Just as those men had done.

  The shadows crowded close. Dank smells and dark shapes filled the room. Gasping, she tried to focus on her husband, but Daniel’s shape kept wavering, changing.

  Mama!

  Sobbing, she tried to free herself, but he held her fast. Distantly she heard him saying, “Tell me. Tell me what happened!”

  She knew what he wanted. She had always known that one day she would have to confess her sins. But even now she shrank away from that course of action. No punishment could be worse than revealing to him what she had done.

  “Tell me.”

  For the first time Susan consciously allowed herself to think of that night so long before. Her heart pounded in her chest as if fighting some overpowering force. It was so long ago. So long …

  The room echoed with the phantom sounds of a woman’s bitter sobs. And then the words tumbled from Susan’s lips as she began to tell Daniel her story.

  Fear ruled, just as it had so many years ago.

  She heard thunder. Strange shouts. Papa was there somewhere. But it was Mama who jostled her awake. “Susan, I want you to run and hide in the cellar. A game! We’re going to play a game.”

  She hugged her rag rabbit and scooted closer to the wall.

  “Susan! Do as I say. You know what happens when you don’t mind Mama.”

  She knew, she thought, as she darted a quick look at the painting of Jesus over her bed. God wouldn’t love her if she disobeyed. She scrambled out of bed and hurried after her mother, wondering at the strange game.

  Erin Hurst led her from the house and down the steps to the cellar. Big beams, bare of their winter stores, arched like arms overhead, and when Mama tried to go, Susan clasped her skirts. “Don’t leave me here alone. Please don’t leave me.”

  Erin bent to hug her close. “I love you, Susan. I love you.” The thunder grew louder. Strange popping noises began, like those made by Papa’s gun when they went hunting. “I want you to stay here. And don’t come out! Not until I call for you. Do you understand me?”

  Susan caught her mother’s hand as she walked away. “Don’t go, please.”

  “Susan!” A trace of panic tinged Mama’s voice. “Do as you’re told.”

  The cellar door slammed over Susan’s head. She sobbed, gazing around in desperation. The thunder came again, sounding more like horses than an approaching storm. Susan stumbled up the rickety steps and pressed her ear to the trapdoor. She would do as she’d been told. She would be a good girl for Mama. Then, like the picture above her bed, Jesus would hold her on his lap and love her, and she wouldn’t be punished.

  Faintly she thought she detected her mother’s voice. Was she calling? Was the game over? Once again she heard her mother’s cries—more insistent this time. Fearing Mama needed her and would scold her if she didn’t come, Susan climbed from the cellar.

  She walked barefoot into the dark night and crept around the house. “Mama? Mama, I thought I heard you call.”

  At the edge of the house she stopped, gaping at the shape that lay on the ground in a pool of crimson. “Papa?” He was still. So … still. The man who stood over him ignored the fact that her father’s lifeless fingers still curled around the grip of a revolver. The stranger’s knife gleamed with blood. He clutched her father’s gold watch.

  “Where’s the rest?”

  Susan cowered behind the corner of the house, unseen. Five other men circled her mother, taunting her, pushing her.

  Mama sobbed, covering her face with her hands. “There’s no more. No more!”

  “Where’s your money? You must have food!”

  “There’s nothing!”

  The man with the knife kicked Susan’s father and approached Erin. “Then we’ll just have to take something else in exchange, won’t we?”

  “Mama!”

  Her mother’s hands dropped. Her face filled with terror. “Susan, go back!”

  The man with the knife turned.

  “Come here, little girl.”

  She took a step back.

  “Little girl!”

  The man with the knife wrapped an arm around her mother’s neck and pressed the red-stained blade to her throat. “Come here or I’ll cut her with this knife.”

  “No! Run, Susan!”

  Susan turned to escape, slamming into another man. He lifted her, kicking and screaming, and carried her toward the tight knot of men. Roughly he set her in the center. When she dodged toward her mother, the man took her by one long braid and yanked her back.

  “Just stand still, girlie. Stand still while we touch your mama’s skin.”

  “Susan, close your eyes! You hear me? You close them tight. So tight you can’t see the men or me.”

  Hesitating only a second, Susan obeyed. But she opened them once. She saw the men, their faces alight with lust, their expressions impatient as they taunted the man who lay upon her mother with a knife against her throat.

  “Mama!”

  The grunting man pushed away from Mama and came toward her, grinning, leering.

  “So you want to play, too.”

  Screaming, Susan wriggled free from the group of men. She ran to Papa. But he was dead and could not help her. Sobbing, hearing the men behind her, she grabbed the revolver with both hands. Lifting it wildly, she pulled the trigger, just as she’d seen her father do.

  The gun je
rked out of her hands. The shot went wild, the bullet striking one of the men in the chest. He tumbled to the ground and lay still.

  “You little bitch!” the man’s friend gasped, rolling the dead man onto his back so that his eyes stared sightlessly into the sky. “I’ll show you what happens to little girls who interfere.”

  Behind him, Erin Hurst staggered to her knees, lifted a rock from the ground and brought it crashing down over the man’s head.

  “Run!”

  Susan ran then. Ran and ran. She hid late into the night in the dank weeds surrounding the pond. Only after the rumble of the men’s horses had disappeared into the heavy dawn did she force herself to return home. She went to her papa. But he was cold now.

  Sobbing, she pushed herself to her feet and stumbled toward the second form in the grass. The face of the woman was barely recognizable, the body savaged. Susan could almost believe it was someone else … except for the hair. The bright red hair.

  “Su …”

  The word was a whisper, but Susan heard it. “Mama?” Clutching her mother’s hands she bent low.

  Erin managed to open one eye despite the swollen and battered flesh. Then when she caught sight of Susan, she looked away.

  “Don’t … look …”

  “I didn’t look, Mama, I didn’t.” But she had. She had not done as she’d been told. She would be punished.

  Mama cried out, writhing on the ground. She pinned Susan in a wild clawlike grip. “Bring … me … gun.” Susan shrank away, but Erin pulled her close. “No one can help me now … but … God.” The one green eye that had escaped injury welled with tears despite the wreckage of her face. “I will … die … soon.” The hands were desperate. Clawing. “I won’t let you … watch.”

  “Mama?” She tried to touch her mother’s face, her hands, but there was no place free from blood.

  “Bring it!” Mama fiercely whispered, then panted for breath. “Do not disobey … me.”

  Leadenly, Susan went back to the body of her father and grabbed the revolver. She returned to Mama on legs that quaked.