B00C74WTKQ EBOK Read online

  Lila spoke up “Rita, let’s go outside and play. The grownups want to talk without us listening.”

  Ma added, “You boys go outside too, scat now!”

  After the five children had left the table and gone outside, Ma said, “I know what you’re going to ask, and much as I hate it, the answer is no. I can’t take those girls in, and it’s not just food either. Take a look out that window. You see how my oldest boy is mooning over that girl? Hormones are flying fast and furious right now. Those young’uns are cauldrons of bubbling hormones at that age. Putting those girls under the same roof with these boys would be a natural disaster. They didn’t grow up together; they don’t have that natural aversion to each other they’d have if they had. No sir, I’m sorry as I can be to say no to you on this…but it can’t be.”

  Adrian, looking out the window, could clearly see what Ma was saying was true. The oldest boy and Lila were obviously interested in each other, more than the two kids understood. Adrian opened his mouth to ask a question, but before he could utter a sound, Ma interrupted.

  “There isn’t a family anywhere near here that I know of that could take them in. Either they can’t feed them, or they aren’t good people, or they have the same problem I have, boys of a certain age. I don’t know of a family I could send you to and have any hope of them taking the girls in, or that I would want to take those nice girls in. Not one.” She paused, then continued thoughtfully. “I’ve heard about a girl’s orphanage two or three days travel from here. I don’t know nothing about it, but it’s been mentioned a time or two by travelers. If you’re going to Corpus Christi it’s more or less on your way, isn’t it Pa?”

  Roger said, “I’d guess three days south of here from what I’ve heard. That’ll take you off your southeast course some, but I don’t think you’d lose more than a day. Just head south from here and stop occasionally to ask where it’s at, and I expect you’ll find it easy enough.”

  It took four days, Adrian walking while the girls rode the horse and Bear roamed around them as usual, for them to find their way to the orphanage. It was a large two story house, reminiscent of a smaller plantation mansion more than a normal residence. Probably has dozens of rooms for the girls. A woman in her late fifties opened to his knock. She wore a full length dress and reminded Adrian of a typical grandmother. “Yes?” She asked. “Can I help you?”

  Adrian replied. “Yes ma’am, I sure hope so. I found these two girls in trouble about a week ago, and I’m looking for a good home for them. I hear that this is a girl’s orphanage? Is that true?”

  Smiling brightly, the woman stuck her hand out to shake and said, “I’m Lacy, Lacy Calhoun. You and your girls come on inside and sit while we talk.”

  The living room was large, dark, and formal. It had a coolness to it that spoke of never seeing sunlight, and indeed, the few windows were heavily curtained. Even though it was nearly noon, Lacy lit two lamps for light to talk by.

  Lacy said, “We don’t call this place an orphanage, we call it a ‘home for young ladies.’ There have been so many of them that have been stranded from family and loved ones by these hard times. We—that’s my brother, Reggie, and myself—take in some girls, but they have to be healthy and able-bodied because they have to work quite hard in the fields to raise the food they eat. We have fourteen young ladies with us now, from ten to eighteen years old. They’re out in the vegetable patch with Reggie now, but they’ll all be coming in soon for lunch. You can join us if you’d like, and meet everyone.”

  She looked directly at Adrian, her hands folded quietly on her lap, and continued.

  “As to what I am sure is on your mind right now, yes I do have room for these two lovely girls, as long as they are as healthy as they look. It may seem cold, but we get by on what we can do for ourselves. Taking in someone who is sick or weak endangers all of us. But these girls look fine.”

  When the girls came in Lacy introduced first Lila and Rita and then Adrian. She made a big deal out of Adrian being General Hunter. The girls all looked at him with a renewed interest. When almost everyone was seated at the large dining table, two of the older girls began serving the simple meal, consisting of stew with very little meat but lots of vegetables, and cornbread on the side.

  Adrian looked the brother over thoroughly. He was a tall, thin, man, slightly older than his sister. He was informal and comfortable with the girls at the table. But his hands, Adrian noticed, weren’t calloused from work, and that began a buzzing in the back of his mind that something might not be completely right about this situation. With that forewarning he began to observe everything more carefully. His eagerness to rid himself of the responsibility of two young girls had, to this point, clouded his attentiveness to detail. Now, however, he was alert again.

  He watched the resident girl’s faces closely without being obvious about it. As Lacy announced to the girls that they would be taking in these two new girls, Adrian saw traces of sorrow on more than one of their faces. The most interesting was the oldest girl, who was sitting in a position where neither Lacy or Reggie were watching her. She made a strange face at Adrian, widening and then moving here eyes from side to side as though to tell him something—certainly something she couldn’t say in front of either Lacy or Reggie.

  Adrian couldn’t signal back without giving her away; instead he said “I’ll be getting on the road right after we eat. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your kindness and generosity in taking in Lila and Rita. I’m sure they’ll be fine here.” He saw the oldest girl’s face fall as she obviously thought that either he didn’t understand her warning or didn’t care.

  Adrian gave the two girls each a quick hug and kiss on the cheek. Rita shed a few tears and said in a trembling voice, “Will you come see us sometime?”

  Adrian wanted to say yes, but Lacy was listening with extra intensity for Adrian’s answer and he didn’t want her to think he would be back this way.

  “No little Rita, I don’t expect to be coming this way again. But when you get all grown up you can come visit me at Fort Brazos.” It was a hard thing to leave the girls thinking he wouldn’t be back. He would stick around a while, watching from out of sight, to see what was going on in this place. Maybe the oldest girl was warning him of something bad, or maybe she wasn’t right in the head. He’d wait and watch, and see for himself.

  Chapter 3

  Adrian rode his horse for over a mile before he began to circle back.

  He came up behind the house, staying in the woods and out of sight. The vegetable plot lay between him and the house, and all of the girls, including Lila and Rita, were out pulling weeds and killing insects. Adrian wasn’t concerned that the girls would have to work, that would be the case wherever they went. He was concerned because of the lack of calluses on Reggie’s hands and the expressions he thought he’d seen on the other girls’ faces.

  Something wasn’t right. Maybe they beat the girls. Whatever it was, he wasn’t leaving Lila and Rita until he was sure they would be safe.

  As he watched, Reggie sat on an upturned bucket in the shade, leaning his back against a tree. He wasn’t working a bit, and in Adrian’s now suspicious mind he appeared to be more of a guard than a protector, as though there was a risk of one or more of the girls running away. Still, I don’t have anything stronger than a hunch. I need to wait for something real before deciding anything.

  Adrian settled in comfortably and watched for the rest of the afternoon. There was a bucket of water next to Reggie. Occasionally one of the girls would raise her hand and ask permission to drink, waiting for Reggie to nod before walking over and getting a dipper of water. On two occasions, a girl would raise her hand with two fingers extended, obviously signaling a need for a sanitary break. Reggie would nod and the girl would walk to the out-house between the food plot and the main house.

  There was no chattering among the
girls.

  Adrian thought that extraordinary. In his experience girls always talked to each other, no matter what they were doing. These girls were completely silent. More than anything, Adrian had seen or heard, this was the most ominous sign that these girls were being treated as prisoners, perhaps as slaves. As the sun slowly settled to the horizon, Adrian began getting a sick feeling in his stomach. He didn’t like where his thoughts were going, yet he had nothing much other than some odd—or possibly imagined—facial expressions, a lack of chatter, and a lazy man to go by. He needed a lot more than that. So far he had not seen any actual mistreatment of the girls. The worst he could say was that Lacy and Reggie were apparently both lazy and strict.

  A little before sunset, Reggie stood and waved his hands at the girls in a shooing motion. The girls all stood, dusted themselves off, and started walking to the house, Reggie following behind. Adrian watched as the girls filed in the back door and waited for Reggie to enter and close it behind him. He then moved up closer but stayed in the brush. He would need the cover of full darkness to get closer to the house, in case anyone decided to use the outhouse. He didn’t think he would be able to see in through the windows, they were too heavily curtained—another ominous sign now that he thought about it. But he hoped he might be able to hear conversation if he got close to the windows.

  Adrian spotted a long wooden ladder on the ground next to the back wall; it might be useful at some point in the night.

  An hour went by before it was dark enough. If anyone came out now, they would be carrying a lantern, and wouldn’t be able to see past its small circle of light. He could remain hidden easily. He silently walked beneath all of the windows but heard nothing from any of them. He then moved around the end of the house and stopped by the front corner. The entry had a lantern hanging from the porch rafters. Since there was no one outside to need the lantern, Adrian believed it was a signal, and his worst fears came that much closer to being confirmed.

  As he was considering getting the ladder and trying to see or hear through the upper windows he saw a lantern bobbing in the distance. Soon he heard voices, and then two men came into sight, each carrying a burlap bag filled with something. They stepped up onto the porch and knocked. Almost immediately the door opened and the two men went inside, the door shutting behind them.

  Where Adrian had been taking his time, with the arrival of these two men, he knew time was now short and he had to get into action. He ran back around the house to the ladder, set it up under the upper floor window furthest from the outhouse, and climbed the ladder rapidly and looked and listened. No sign of light or sound. He tried to open the window, but it was locked.

  Taking a chance on giving himself away, he knocked out a pane of glass with the handle of his knife. Within seconds for he was inside the room. It was a bedroom containing a made bed, a chair, a night stand with a washing bowl, a mirror and a pitcher of water. The room was ready to be used, but obviously wasn’t a room one of the girls occupied.

  Adrian eased open the door.

  The corridor was dark. He stepped into the corridor, finding himself near the end of it. It was pitch dark all the way to the stairwell.

  Faint light came up the stair well, and the sounds of distant conversation. He couldn’t make out the words but he heard a man’s laughter clearly enough. Probably one of the two I saw come in. Reggie doesn’t seem the type to laugh. Lord…If I’m wrong about what’s going on here I’ll be sorely embarrassed. But better to be embarrassed than leave the girls here without checking.

  As he waited, the voices grew louder. Then he heard a girl’s voice. Although he couldn’t make out her words, the tone was sullen and resigned.

  He stayed where he was. Soon there was a light coming up the stairwell and the sound of footsteps. One set heavy, one light. Adrian moved back into the room and closed the door to a slit, watching to see who was coming upstairs.

  It was one of the men he had seen come in a few minutes before, and the oldest girl, the one who had made the face.

  The man held her wrist and pulled her along. She resisted to a minor extent, but was not defiant. It looked to Adrian as though she was about to do something she didn’t want to do, but was afraid not to for fear of something even worse.

  Adrian eased his door completely closed. He watched and listened as the footsteps indicated that the pair had stopped short of the room he was in. Had they come into this room Adrian would have had to act immediately, and with less evidence for his actions. But enough evidence.

  He waited and heard a door farther up the corridor open and close. Adrian eased his door open. The corridor was empty and dark, but lantern light showed dimly from under the second door from the stairs. Adrian waited another moment, then he soft-stepped down the hall and placed his ear against the door of the occupied room.

  He heard the man talking roughly to the girl, telling her to “get out of those things right now” then the sound of a slap.

  Slowly Adrian turned the door knob—it was unlocked.

  Adrian shoved the door open and stood, taking in the tableau. The man, his shirt half unbuttoned, was staring at Adrian with a look halfway between confusion and anger. The girl was already stripped to her bra and underpants. She had a red welt on her face where the man had slapped her. Then the man spoke, “Get out of here shithead! This is my room and my girl, bought and paid for. Get out!”

  Adrian ignored the man and looked at the girl. “He hit you?” She nodded yes, her eyes large and frightened. “He pay for you?” She nodded again, this time with shame, and looked down, slowly bringing her hands up to try to cover herself. “This what you want?” Adrian asked. This time she shook her head rapidly back and forth.

  Adrian turned his attention back to the man, who had by now was furious. He began moving towards Adrian in a hostile manner. Adrian asked bitterly, “You in the habit of raping young girls, are you?”

  Adrian’s tone of voice, the look on his face, and the man’s gradual realization that Adrian was so big he filled the door frame, made the man stop in his tracks. “I paid, it’s not rape.”

  Adrian looked at him with disgust for a long moment. “I’ll not argue with you, you already know you’re wrong. How long you been coming here?” Adrian’s voice was low and hard.

  The man, knowing he would not stand a chance fighting Adrian, and knowing he was in the wrong, answered with fear and some shame. “Few months. They been here a couple years I think, but I just moved into the area a few months ago.”

  “Lot of men come here?”

  “It gets pretty busy some nights, yeah.” He said almost defiantly.

  “What about the little girls?”

  “They cost too much. I can’t afford the amount of trade goods they cost.”

  Adrian stared at the man while the full import of the man’s words sank in. Then the look on Adrian’s face shifted to extreme loathing.

  Jumping forward without warning, Adrian grabbed the man’s right arm and twisted before the man had a chance to move. Adrian twisted until the shoulder popped out of its socket. The man gasped then began to scream in fear and pain. Adrian balled up a fist and slugged the man in the solar plexus, audibly driving the air from his lungs and temporarily paralyzing the diaphragm muscle. The scream died immediately. Adrian grabbed the right arm again and effortlessly broke it at the elbow, making the man a cripple for life. The man passed out.

  Adrian carelessly dropped him to the floor.

  The girl stood stiff in shock. The violence had lasted less than two seconds, but was all the more brutal for its swiftness. She had never seen a man as big as Adrian in as ugly a mood as he was. She had never seen anyone move that fast. The only half formed thought in her mind was that the man on the floor was lucky to be alive.

  Adrian raised his eyes from the man on the floor to the girl. She revised her t
hought. He was lucky to be in one piece much less alive. The look on Adrian’s face was terrifying, even though she knew it wasn’t aimed at her. This man who had sat across the dinner table from her earlier, this famous man that had looked big and gentle, now looked anything but gentle. He looked like he could and would kill anyone he saw. He reminded her of the description she had once read of a Viking Berserker, a man that had become something different from a man, a killing machine filled with unrepressed rage. She started shaking, hard. This wasn’t the man at lunch earlier, this was that man’s body possessed by wild, blood-thirsty, demons.

  Adrian instructed her, “Run down stairs screaming. Don’t say anything, just keep pointing up the stairs. Make all the noise you can, but no actual words. Act like you’re more frightened than you’ve ever been in your life, like you’ve seen something too horrible to describe. I want Lacy and Reggie to come running up here. Can you do that for me?”

  The girl nodded mutely. Could she do that? Hell yes she could do that, and acting wasn’t going to be required. She’d do anything this man asked after he had rescued her, even if he was a devil-man. The girl took off running for the stairs. Adrian dragged the man’s unconscious body across the room, propping it into a sitting position beneath the window. He closed the door, then stood where he would be behind it when it opened, and waited.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  He heard the girl downstairs, screaming like she was being gutted. She sure can put on an act. Then a long silence. Footsteps coming up the stairs, two sets. Footsteps coming down the hall, a bit reluctantly. Slowly the door opened, swinging to cover Adrian.

  Reggie came in first, a pistol in-hand. Upon spotting the man against the far wall and the gruesome angles of his broken right arm, Reggie gasped and stopped. Lacy moved around him to see, and she suddenly stopped also.