Hawke's Pride, page 2
He reached a hand down to her, and grasping it, Rue pulled herself to her feet. "What are we going to do, Rue?" Jimmy asked as they walked toward the house.
"I don't know, Jimmy," Rue said quietly with a tired shrug of her shoulders. "I'll have to think on it."
They entered the house and Jimmy sought his straw pallet laid out in the corner of the room. It was quiet in the bedroom as Rue ate her cold supper, then washed the dishes, and put them away.
Should she tell Granddad and Grandma DeLawney about the incident with Sly? she wondered as she prepared for bed. No, she decided a moment later as she slid beneath the rough blanket. The pair were too old to be worried with that. Granddad would be outraged and would tear into Sly, threatening him with bodily harm and the much younger man wouldn't hesitate to use his fists on the dear old man.
Rue stared into the darkness, her tired body slowly relaxing. A gentle smile curved her lips as she listened to Jimmy's even breathing. Only sixteen years old and already so wise, so dedicated to watching over his big sister. She stretched and yawned and her lids began to droop.
Rue was half-asleep when a stealthy noise brought her wide awake. She opened her eyes a slit, sure of whom she'd see. In the moonlight streaming through the window, Sly's naked body loomed over her. A coil of fear tightened around her heart. The sneaking bastard had been lying in there, waiting for her and Jimmy to go to bed.
Jimmy's instructions came to mind, and she wondered if she could follow them. First you must keep calm, she warned herself, and pretend that you are sleeping if you want to catch him off guard.
Never had Rue's heart beat so loudly, nor had her nerves ever screamed in such protest as she willed herself to Ee perfectly quiet while waiting for Sly to reveal that vulnerable spot between his hairy thighs. A moment later it was all she could do not to flinch and cry out when he slowly lifted one fat leg over her hips, then carefully positioned himself over her.
"Now!" a voice whispered to her as Sly hung over her and fumbled at the hem of her nightgown. Gritting her teeth determinedly, Rue quickly brought up a knee, held it a split second then lashed out with her foot as hard as she could. She heard a crunching sound as her aim found the fat crotch, quickly followed by a screeching yowl. Sly fell to the floor, where he curled up in agony, screaming and swearing. Jimmy sat up with a startled jerk, and while he grimly smiled his satisfaction, Rue watched the man crawl into the bedroom.
Burford was unable to leave the bed for three days. In the meantime Rue and Jimmy were barred from the house as Becky entertained her customers in Rue's bed. Ever since that night, however, Sly never touched her again. But he still watched her, revenge and hate replacing the lust that had stared out of his gimlet eyes.
And strangely, that made Rue more uneasy than his pawing hands. The man was a danger to her, he meant her harm. Finally, in desperation, she had gone to her mother, telling her all that had happened, explaining her fear of Sly's retaliation, that she believed that given the chance the man might even kill her.
She had received a slap in the face for her trouble, not to mention the tongue-lashing that had followed. "Do you think you're too good to spread your lily-white legs for a man?" Becky had railed at her. "You're fifteen years old and should have been doin' it a couple years ago, help bring some money into this house. I had my first man when I was thirteen."
Rue had stared at Becky, complete bewilderment on her face, not wanting to believe what she had heard. Surely, no mother, no matter how uncaring she might be, would want her daughter to sell her body.
But as Becky raved on Rue had to admit that her mother meant exactly what she said. Rue also learned that day why she hadn't already been forced into a life of prostitution as her mother drunkeningly complained, "The village men have no qualms about usin' Buck DeLawney's wife, but, damn them all, his daughter is somethin' else. Every last one of them have refused to lay a hand on you."
Sick to her soul, Rue had left the house and tramped the woods for hours, bitter hot tears washing down her cheeks as she cursed the father who had gone off and left her to be brought up in such an environment.
It had been late in the fall when Rue noticed her mother was gaining weight. When Rue mentioned this fact to Becky, she had laughed mirthlessly and grouched, "My new weight will disappear in the spring."
Rue had paid no attention to the slurred conjecture. As usual by midday Becky was well into her daily bottle of whiskey, and very little sense came out of her mouth after sucking at the raw spirits. However, near the end of winter the drunken sentence came back to Rue and she realized that her mother's words hadn't been senseless ramblings after all. Becky was going to have a baby.
On a blustery March morning Becky was delivered of an undersized baby boy who was too weak to cry. The doctor wrapped the mewling infant in the white square Rue had cut from an old blanket, and handing the wizened body to Rue, said disgustedly, "I'll send a nanny goat up here to provide milk for the poor little mite. All he'd get from his mother's breast would be straight whiskey."
Three more years followed in which another baby came along. This one, also a boy, had fallen to Rue's care as well.
Then one morning, two weeks ago, Sly came from the bedroom and callously announced, "Old Becky died sometime last night."
Jimmy had gone for the doctor, and after the white-haired man had examined the wasted body, he had snapped his black bag shut and said to no one in particular, "Probably all the whiskey she consumed through the years ate up her liver."
Not one person from the village had attended Becky Burford's funeral, nor had her husband, Sly. And no tears were shed as her two eldest children watched their mother's body lowered into the ground. The woman had loved no one, and no one had loved her, except maybe Buck DeLawney when he first married her.
Becky's passing, however, had made an impact on her children's daily lives. There was no more money coming into the house, and with Sly making no effort to find work, it soon became a desperate situation. Everyone's bellies rumbled from hunger. The sickly little ones hung on to Rue's skirts, and she felt guilty that she couldn't love them. All she could feel was pity.
She had expected, hoped, that her mother's husband would leave now. There was no reason he should stay. Was there? The man still watched her, the hate in his eyes seeming to grow daily. A suspicion had been growing in Rue that he was waiting, waiting to take revenge on her before leaving.
A couple of months ago, by accident, she had overheard her stepfather ranting to Becky that he would get that wildcat. The wildcat was not an animal, she learned as Sly raged on, but herself.
"When she kicked me that night four years ago, she ruined me, took away my manhood. I can't get it up anymore." Rue heard his fist hit the wall. "And so help me I'll find her alone someday and that'll be the last anyone sees of Rue DeLawney."
Rue picked up a handful of pine needles and idly let them slip through her fingers.
"Somehow I've got to get away from here," she whispered. "Far away where that devil can't find me." It had gotten to the point where she was afraid to go to bed, fearful that her stepfather would kill her while she slept. And sweet little Jimmy, he never went far from her side.
A soft inquiry broke into Rue's dark musing. "Why are you sittin' there, granddaughter? Have you changed your mind about visitin' us?"
Rue jumped up, her even white teeth revealed in a glad smile. "I was just resting a minute, Granddad, thinking about all the injustice in this world."
"There be a lot of that, child." The old man nodded. "I ponder it myself sometimes. It don't seem fair that some folk get more than their share of bad times."
Shaking off her troubled thoughts, Rue changed the gloomy subject. It was bad enough that Granddad knew they were practically starving, he didn't have to know that she feared for her life. It was probably all in her imagination anyway. Sly was surely smart enough to know he couldn't get away with murder.
Looking at the glass jar in the gnarled hand, then lifting her eyes to John DeLawney's wrinkled visage, she asked, "Are you sap gathering, Granddad?" Blue eyes like her own, only faded a bit with age, twinkled back at her. "That I am, child. Your grandma has been fussin' that she's about out of salve. Give me a hand a bit, then we'll go on to the house. Maddy promised to bake me a berry pie for lunch."
"How long have you been out?" Rue fell in step beside the old man.
"Sun wasn't up yet when I rolled out of the blankets." He looked down at the rifle in his hand. "Brought along my Henry. Thought maybe I might see a squirrel before it warmed up. Most animals hide when it gets hot."
"Oh, Granddad!" Rue half cried. "Are you telling me that you didn't have any luck hunting yesterday?"
"Now don't go gettin' upset, Rue, honey." John put an arm around her narrow shoulders and squeezed them affectionately. "I bagged me a fine young doe, fat as butter. I got it butchered and stowed away in the cellar, next to that cold spring water that flows through it. The meat should keep a couple of weeks."
"Thank God." Rue sighed her relief "I've been wracking my brains about what to give Jimmy and the little ones for supper in case you hadn't shot anything."
"Dad blame it, Rue, it gets my hackles up that you have to worry whether or not them younguns' get to eat. What you airnin' to do, let them drag on you the rest of your life?"
"Oh, Granddad." Rue sighed. "I don't know what to do. I don't worry about Jimmy. He's a good lad and doesn't have a lazy bone in his body. I'm sure somebody would take him in. But the little ones, sickly and all, who'd want them."
"Well, the way I see it"—John passed over Rue's concern for the two little boys—"although Burford has good cause to doubt that either child is his, he owes it to them to see that they eat. He kept their mother in the business that brought them about. Lined his pockets too, I'll bet.
"And I'll tell you something else, I'm gettin' dad-blamed tired of trampin' this mountain lookin' for game while that one sits on his fat rump doin' nothin'."
"I know, Granddad," Rue said, her eyes full of apology. "But he doesn't care whether they eat or not. It doesn't bother him at all to listen to their hungry cries."
"What does that hog do for his own grub? I can't see that he's lost any weight." John ran his eyes over his granddaughter's thin body. "The way you have."
"He rides down to the village every day. He probably eats there, using the money Mom made to pay for it."
"Damn his rotten soul!" John kicked angrily at a rock. "I think it's time I called a meetin' of all the men around here and discuss this situation. We don't need men of his sort among us."
And wouldn't it be a blessing to see the last of Sly Burjord, I could sleep nights then, Rue thought as the subject was dropped, and she walked along with her grandfather, their attention on finding trees where the bark had cracked and its substance oozed out.
From this gurn Maddy DeLawney made a potent salve that helped various cuts and bruises to heal. It was the same ointment that covered the eruptions on Rue's face.
After about a half hour, John held the jar up and squinted at it. "I think we got enough," he said to Rue, who leaned against a tree, patting her sweaty face with the scrap of rag. "Let's get on up to the house and sample some of Maddy's pie."
"My, you do look a sight, child," Maddy DeLawney greeted her granddaughter as the girl proceeded John into the neat, orderly cabin. "Let me see how those scabs are corning along."
She led Rue to a window and carefully scanned her face in the sunlight pouring through shiny glass panes. She nodded her head finally. "They're coming along just fine. I see you took my advice and haven't been scratching them. A few weeks from now you'll have your creamy complexion back again.
"You had the worst case of pox I ever saw." Maddy shook her head. "There was a couple times John and I thought we might lose you, your fever was so high."
Rue kissed the soft, wrinkled face. "It was a lucky thing for me that I was visiting you the day my face broke out. If you hadn't put me to bed and doctored me through the worst of it, I'm sure I wouldn't have pulled through."
She looked tenderly at the old woman. "It was kind of you to send some of your salve down to the others."
Maddy shrugged her shoulders. "Poor little scraps, I knew Becky wouldn't do anything for them. Anyway, John said they had a light case of the disease. It took hold of you hard because you'd worn yourself out taking care of them."
She brushed the hair away from Rue's face. "You should keep your hair cleaner, honey. It's so greasy you might get your sores infected, with it hanging against your cheeks that way."
Rue looked uncomfortable, embarrassed by the tangled condition of her hair. "I know, Grandma." She pushed the oily strands behind her ears. "I tried washing it yesterday, but without soap the water just ran off it."
Maddy patted Rue's arm in sympathy. "I made some of my rose soap this morning. It's not quite set yet, but it'll be ready when you come visiting tomorrow."
"Oh, Grandma, what would I do without you and Granddad." Rue threw her arms around the slight body and hugged it. "I would really have a miserable existence if you two weren't here to bring a little normalcy to my life."
Pain flickered in Maddy's eyes as she returned the hug. "I don't know what John and I would do without you, honey. You bring us so much pleasure. You're apiece of our Buck."
She motioned Rue to sit down at the well-scrubbed table, and John took a seat across from her. His mouth watering as his wife cut into the juicy pie, he said, "I still can't believe that Buck never sent us a letter in all this time."
"I worry about that too." Maddy sighed, pushing a plate of the pastry in front of her husband and granddaughter. Then sitting down with her own helping, she continued, "Buck was always a thoughtful son, and he was crazy fond of you, Rue." She stared out the window as Rue and John hungrily attacked the pie. "He's been on my mind a lot these past weeks. I keep getting the feeling that he's coming home."
John patted his wife's work-worn hand lying beside her plate, but didn't speak the doubt in his mind. If they hadn't heard from their son in sixteen years it was doubtful they'd ever hear or see him again.
And Rue made no remark either. It mattered less to her whether her father ever returned or whether he was six feet under the ground. Hadn't he gone off and left her to a hellish life? In her opinion he wasn't worth wasting a thought on.
The sun dipped toward the west and Rue reluctantly said that it was time she was getting back down the mountain. "I told Jimmy to come meet me around four if he could get away."
Jimmy's a good lad, no matter who his father is." John stood up, and walking to the trapdoor in the center of the room lifted it up. "It's some relief knowin' he is with you," he added as his head disappeared down the cellar steps.
You'd be more relieved, Granddad, Rue thought, if you knew the times he's protected me from that fat hog we live with.
By the time Rue had finished her coffee and Maddy had wrapped a piece of pie for Jimmy, John returned with a large chunk of venison. Rue's mouth watered as she watched her grandmother wrap it in a white cloth. There'd been no meat in the house for three days.
"It will make a good strengthening stew, honey." Maddy handed the meat to Rue. "But don't you let that fat Sly have a bite of it, even if you have to beat him off with a club."
Rue assured her grandparents that she would do just that if necessary, then kissing each of them on the cheek, and promising that she would see them tomorrow, Rue started down the mountain.
Jimmy was waiting for her, leaning against a tree a short distance from the DeLawney cabin. "Have you been here long, Jimmy?" Rue asked. "It's not safe to leave the children alone too long. You know that Sly won't watch them."
"The younguns' are asleep," Jimmy answered, eyeing the smaller package in his sister's hand. "And Sly took off about a half hour ago. I thought I ought to get up here just in case."
Rue didn't have to ask in case of what. She knew. In case Sly was going to wait and waylay her along the mountain path. "You did right, Jimmy," Rue assured her brother, as she looked fearfully around. There were a lot of places the fat man could hide while he waited for her.
She looked at the club in Jimmy's hand, then picked up one of her own from the forest floor. Noticing her brother's absorption with what he hoped was a treat for him, she grinned and held the package out to him. "A piece of berry pie," she said.
Jimmy almost snatched it from her hand, and as they moved on and Rue scanned the forest for signs of Sly, the boy consumed the pie in three bites. Rue heard the children crying before the shack came in sight. Sighing, she hastened her pace. She must get the stew on as soon as possible.
Chapter Two
The September day was hot and listless under the Nebraska sun as Hawke Masters stood beside an open grave. He flinched each time a clod of earth hit the lid of the stark pine coffin.
Earlier there had been an excavation beside the one he stared into, but that one was filled and mounded now. Sara Masters, his sister-in-law had been laid to rest before her husband. Now it was his brother, Ben's, turn.
The tall, broad-shouldered man looked down on the curly head of his five-year-old niece, who tightly clutched his hand. Poor little Susie, she hardly knew what was going on. His eyes moved to ten-year-old Tommy, who held his sister's other hand. The lad knew what was happening and was manfully trying to hold back his tears.
Hawke's gaze moved to his father's weatherworn face. Tears rolled freely down those brown, wrinkled cheeks as the man stood bareheaded, his old straw hat gripped in his hands. Jeb Masters had lived long enough to know there was no shame in shedding tears when a man was being torn apart inside.
Although Hawke Masters was wracked with the same tearing emotion, none of his pain was visible on his stony face. If one looked closely, however, one would see his muscular throat working as he swallowed back his grief.
No two brothers had ever been closer, three years separating the pair, Hawke being the eldest. As youngsters they had shared dreams and secrets, then as adults they had drank and raised hell together, even occasionally sharing the same woman. Then when war broke out they had joined the Army and fought side by side.
