Beatrice and the Beast, page 18
After a while, she stopped shaking, but made no attempt to break her grip and Zelletta felt no inclination to initialise an attempt to move apart. But she did eventually, speak.
‘Oh, Mister Zelletta,’ she whispered. ‘I thought you had all been killed and someone was coming to kill me too.’
‘You’re safe now,’ he replied as gently as his gruff voice would allow. ‘We wuz attacked but nobody got hurt, apart from the attackers.’
She didn’t care to ask him to elaborate, content to remain quiet and still with his strong arms holding her and giving her an incredible sense of wellbeing and security and something else she couldn’t quite put her finger on. But whatever it was, it felt very pleasant.
After a very long time, he reluctantly, tried to ease her away from his chest, but she would not, at first, release her hold on him.
‘We’d better get back to camp,’ he said softly. ‘Charlie will be brooding like mother hen wondering what’s happened to us.’
She sighed and stepped away from him feeling a little embarrassed that she had clung to him overly long like a wanton woman. However, he didn’t appear to mind her clinginess and after picking up the lamp, took her small hand in his and led her back to camp.
She didn’t know what to expect when she arrived back at the camp, but somewhere in her mind, she held a picture of utter chaos. Therefore, she was mildly surprised to find the place more or less as she had left it. Zelletta too, could not help but admire the way Charlie and Rappo had disposed of the bodies and tidied the area. If he hadn’t known better, he would find it hard to believe anything had happened here at all.
The fire had been rebuilt and was blazing merrily, illuminating the area with a bright glow. It also threw light on the girl who was gnawing hungrily on a strip of jerky. When Beatrice’s eyes fell on the child, she gasped in surprise.
‘Is this your attacker Mister Zelletta?’ she asked mildly. ‘It must have been one heck of a fight for the three of you to ward off such a formidable adversary.’
‘There were others,’ he growled indignantly.
‘Oh really?’ she mocked. ‘Were they all little girls as well?’
Charlie snickered and Rappo grinned, while the girl stopped tearing at her jerky and gazed in wonderment at the young woman.
‘Most of ‘em were boys.’
Her mouth dropped open in surprise.
‘You mean children?’
‘Not exactly. They were all big enough and old enough to fire rifles at our bedrolls and if Rappo hadn’t heard ‘em coming, we’d all be dead now including you.’
‘Did you kill them?’
‘We had no choice,’ put in Charlie. ‘We wuz outnumbered and in that situation, you gotta use any advantage you can get. Ours was surprise and it saved us from getting shot up to hell.’
‘Couldn’t you have just challenged them and told them to surrender?’
‘You’ve got a lot to learn Beatrice,’ said Charlie. ‘Out here, if you give a killer any kind of a chance no matter how old they are, you’re gonna find yourself on the way to hell pronto. Anyhow, one of ‘em was a known killer and he wasn’t no kid neither.’
Beatrice wasn’t so naïve that she didn’t recognise the logic in Charlie’s words. But it filled her with sadness that young people were willing to murder in order to survive in this terrible land. Her sadness was further tinged with a bitter taste at the thought of would be murderers who were little more than children, being shot down as they attempted to commit their crimes.
‘Was this child with them?’
‘I ain’t no child,’ yelled the girl. ‘I’m growed up enough to have a baby and Reef gonna be the daddy.’
All four adults stared at her in disbelief for many moments. Until finally, Charlie gathered his thoughts and questioned her.
‘You’re having Mason’s baby?’
‘I reckon I am.’
‘How do you know.’
‘Cos, he did it with me and everybody knows when a man and a woman do it, they make babies.’
‘Did he rape you?’ asked Beatrice incredulously.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Did he force you to do what you did?’
The girl thought about it for a few moments.
‘He did it ‘cos he loved me.’
‘That bastard,’ snapped Charlie. ‘Taking advantage of a kid.’
‘We don’t know if she is with child,’ said Beatrice. ‘It’s merely conjecture on her part.’
‘Your fancy words don’t mean a goddamned thing to me,’ snapped the girl. ‘My momma told me when I start getting my bleeds, I will be a woman and can have babies. That’s how I know I’m having one.’
‘Where’s your momma now?’
‘I don’t know. Whoring somewhere I expect.’
‘Is that what she does to get by and take care of you?’ Asked Charlie.
‘No, she does it to buy whiskey, that’s why she sold me to Reef.’
Only Beatrice showed any sign of shock. The girl’s revelation did not surprise the others in the least. Many parents, especially single women, sold their children out of desperation or merely because they didn’t want them.
What about them other kids?’ Asked Charlie. ‘I guess they ain’t your kin then?’
‘We come across ‘em a couple a days ago. They’d just killed some homesteaders and were going through their stuff, but the homesteaders and their two kids were no better off than they were. They had nothing in the cabin except the remains of a chicken and the clothes they wore. Reef said it looked like Indians had robbed ‘em of everything they owned before the boys got there and killed ‘em.’
‘How come them boys didn’t start shooting at you and Reef?’
They were so busy searching for food and stuff they didn’t even hear us coming until Reef got the drop on ‘em. They even left their rifles lying around where we could pick ‘em up. A couple of ‘em had pistols stuffed down their pants but they must a figured they’d be no match for Reef, ‘cos they never tried to go for ‘em.’
‘Why did he get ‘em to attack us?’
‘because he saw how they weren’t bothered about killing folks, he figured he’d use ‘em to do robberies and make a lot of money. But first they needed to eat, we all did. So, when we saw your camp fire, Reef figured it would be a good test for them boys to kill you and take your hosses and stuff.’
‘And you wuz happy to go along with it huh?’
‘I had no choice, I had to do whatever Reef told me. Goddamn it he already beats me every day. If I refused to do what he says, I reckon he’d half kill me.’
‘Well he ain’t gonna beat you no more,’ put in Zelletta. ‘He ain’t gonna beat nobody ever agin.’
‘Yeah,’ she said softly.
‘Does that bother you?’ asked Beatrice kindly.
The girl turned her eyes up to her and thought she was the most stunning woman she had ever seen. The only ladies she had ever known had been whores and frontier women who lived every day toiling and thieving in order to eke out a living.
‘Yeah, it bothers me. Sure, Reef gave me regular beatings, but he took care of me one way or another. Now I ain’t got nobody to look out for me and I ain’t much use on my own.’
‘You can come with us until we can find you somewhere to stay.’
It was a compulsive offer on Beatrice’s part, made before she even gave herself time to think about it.
‘Whoa,’ said Zelletta. ‘She ain’t coming with us. I got enough on my hands with one female without taking on another. Especially one who’d kill us all given the chance.’
‘I ain’t no killer,’ yelled the girl. ‘I don’t even know how to shoot a goddamned gun never mind kill somebody with one.’
‘We don’t know that and even if it’s true, you still ain’t comin’ along.’
‘We can’t leave her alone out here to fend for herself,’ cried Beatrice. ‘She will surely die of starvation if some wild animal doesn’t get her first.’
‘I didn’t ask her to come here in the middle of the night and try and kill us. She chose which pack of dogs to run with and now they daid she wants to join the guys that put ‘em down.’
‘She was forced to go along with their plans, she already told us she had no choice.’
‘You know that fer sure do you?’
‘No, but I believe her. Look at her, she’s just a child who has fallen on hard times.’
He glared at the girl who gave as good as she got and glared back in equal measure.
‘Sassy little runt,’ he muttered. ‘Alright, she can stay with us until we find somebody to take her off our hands.’
‘Thank you Mister Zelletta,’ enthused Beatrice. ‘I’ll look after her until we find suitable people who will care for her.’
‘The only folks who gonna want her are the ones who want to put her to work for nothin’, or some brothel keeper who’ll want to make money from hiring her out to men.’
‘Then it is our duty to save her from a life of sin and toil.’
‘Good luck on that Miss Mellowday. I’m gonna turn in and catch the last couple of hours before dawn. I suggest you do the same, we got a long day ahead of us.’
He turned and went back to his bedroll with the intention of assessing how much damage the bullets had done before catching up on some much-needed sleep. Rappo followed suit and after regarding Beatrice and the girl, Charlie did the same leaving the two females alone.
Beatrice sat down close to the child who immediately felt self-conscious and at the same time awestruck by the closeness of such a beautiful lady. To Beatrice her closeness to the girl meant she was able to smell how unwashed and dirty she was. Her delicate senses were invaded by a variety of smells including extreme body odour and urine. But she refused to move away from the girl and lose the confidence she desperately wanted to gain and so questioned her in a voice filled with kindness and benevolence.
‘Would you mind telling me your name?’
‘My momma never gave me a name and everybody called me Girl. But one of the whores said I move with grace and then everybody started calling me Grace. So, I guess that’s my name.’
‘That is a lovely name. Do you mind if I call you Grace?’
The child shrugged.
‘Makes no never mind to me.’
‘Good. It would be helpful if I knew your age too.’
The girl looked down bashfully.
‘I don’t rightly know. I ain’t never had no birthdays?’
‘You’ve never had any birthdays?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘Could you have a close guess at your age?’
‘I reckon I’m around eleven or twelve. I think twelve would be a good guess.’
Inwardly, Beatrice wept for the child who had been turned into a woman before even attaining adulthood. Outwardly though, she remained impassive knowing the girl would reject with disdain, any kind of sympathy shown toward her.
‘Alright Grace, do you have any bedding?’
‘Reef got a bedroll on his horse.’
‘Can you find the horse?’
‘I guess so.’
Suddenly Rappo was stood before them startling both girls. He had appeared silently from the darkness.
‘Stay put.’ He said. ‘This Injun get bedroll.’
Beatrice composed herself.
‘Thank you, Mister – um – Rappo.’
He disappeared as quickly and silently as he had appeared. Soon to reappear with a bedroll taken, assumingly, from Mason’s horse. He dropped it on the ground and left without a word.
‘Come on Grace,’ said Beatrice gently. ‘You can spread your bedroll near mine and in the morning, perhaps you’ll permit me to help you clean up a little.’
The girl frowned but held her peace. Instead of responding to Beatrice’s suggestion, she clambered to her feet and picked up the bedroll. Beatrice followed her lead and stood, before picking up the lamp Charlie had left and led the way to where her own blankets lay.
TWENTY-TWO
Beatrice slept almost as soon as she climbed beneath the shot-up blankets and a little under three hours later, was awakened by the sound of loud voices and the smell of frying bacon laced with the aroma of strong coffee. With a great deal of difficulty, she forced her eyes to open and saw that sunlight was already filtering through the trees and the night had been replaced by day. She looked across at where she had settled the girl down and saw she still slept soundly beneath her blanket.
Reluctantly, Beatrice tossed the blankets aside and clambered to her feet. She stretched luxuriously before crouching beside Grace, then tenderly, gripped her shoulder over the blanket that covered her. She gently shook the girl and called out her name until she turned her head to regard Beatrice through half opened eyes.
‘I’m going to the stream to wash Grace. Would you like to accompany me and clean yourself up a little?’
‘Nope,’ replied the girl.
Beatrice was left open mouthed as Grace turned back to her original position and settled down under the blankets.
Zelletta, who had been watching the exchange, sidled over to Beatrice and regarded her curiously.
‘You having problems with the kid Miss Mellowday?’ he asked.
She didn’t want to admit she had been rebuffed by Grace, especially after arguing her cause earlier. But she knew Zelletta had seen the girl snub her and so decided to be truthful.
‘I was hoping she would come to the stream with me to wash. I hate to appear condescending, but she badly needs a bath and I thought to persuade her to at least, clean herself a little.’
Zelletta placed the coffee mug he had been holding, on the ground and before Beatrice realised what was happening, he whipped the blanket away from the girl and grabbed a handful of the back of her dress. Then as Grace squealed in shock, he lifted her one handed and easily carried the screaming, kicking girl toward the creek with no more effort than if he were carrying an empty bag. Beatrice hurried after him calling out in alarm, fearful he would harm the girl.
‘Mister Zelletta,’ she cried. ‘Please don’t hurt her. She doesn’t mean any harm by her defiance.’
Zelletta ignored her protests and strode to the bank of the creek before swinging his arm and propelling the screaming child through the air where she flipped over and landed on her back in the waist deep water.
Beatrice arrived too late to make any kind of effort to stop him and looked on in horror as Grace hit the water with a big splash, then began to flounder and flay her arms around until she found her feet and was able to stand up, spluttering and wiping her eyes, in the shallow water.
‘You goddamned sonofabitch,’ she screamed at the grinning man. ‘What the hell’d you do that for?’
‘Cos you stink and need a damned good bath before you comin near any of us.’
‘Go to hell.’
She began to wade toward the bank with the intention of getting out of the cold water as soon as possible. But Zelletta stopped her with a word.
‘Stay!’ he yelled and his voice was so deep and commanding, the girl halted her progress through the water and stopped around a foot from the bank, staring wide eyed at the giant of a man who towered above her.
‘Miss Mellowday,’ he continued. ‘There’s some soap in my saddlebag. I’d appreciate it if you’d bring it here while I make sure this kid stays in the creek.’
‘The poor child will freeze to death,’ she gasped.
‘Then you’d better bring that soap before she does.’
‘You are heartless Mister Zelletta.’
‘Believe me Miss Mellowday, you and the kid will both feel better when she’s scrubbed clean and don’t smell no more. So, I suggest you bring that soap so we can get on with it before she freezes to death. Bring a couple-a-blankets as well.’
Beatrice knew there was no arguing with him and so, quickly turned and hurried back to camp while the big man outstared the little girl. She was back within a couple of minutes with a large bar of lye soap and two blankets. He took the soap from her and handed it to the shivering girl, who took it from him without a word. To Beatrice’s surprise, the girl had become completely subdued and she wondered if Grace was simply in awe, or terrified of the big man.
‘I’m gonna leave you with this lady now kid,’ he growled. ‘You do as she says, ‘cos if you don’t, I’m gonna come back here and drown you. In fact, I’ve a mind to drown you anyway and get your scrawny little ass off our hands.’
He turned to Beatrice.
‘I’m going back to camp Miss Mellowday. I suggest you make her take that dress off and give herself a damned good scrubbing with that soap, maybe wash the dress as well. Nobody gonna come down here and disturb you, you have my word, so do what you gotta do.’
He turned and strode away leaving Beatrice facing the bedraggled girl and gazing at her in deep sympathy.
‘You had better remove that dress and start washing yourself Grace,’ she suggested kindly. The sooner you are clean, the sooner you can get out of the water and get warm.
The child looked a pathetic sight as she looked at Beatrice with imploring eyes.
‘Will you help me?’ she asked softly.
Beatrice turned and looked back toward the camp site where Zelletta had returned. Despite his attitude she trusted him explicitly and knew he would not encroach on her privacy nor would Charlie and Rappo.
She removed her boots, skirt and shirt and stepped into the water by the girl wearing just her underwear. Then she lifted Grace’s dress by the hem and pulled it over her head. The girl wore no underwear and was left naked with her thin body shaking all over from the icy cold water.
Beatrice took the soap and lathered Grace’s hair before handing the bar back. Then while the child washed herself thoroughly at the front, Beatrice washed her hair and back. Afterwards, she took the opportunity to strip and give herself and her underwear a thorough wash. Grace remained silent throughout the whole process even though Beatrice chattered incessantly, possibly because she was nervous the girl might rebel and refuse to wash now that Zelletta wasn’t around to control her. However, the girl seemed happier and more content to do Beatrice’s bidding than she had been with Zelletta.
