Chapter Five
I didn’t get a chance to see Christy again until we left the train the next day. Idly I asked who she was to one of Lawrence’s clan in order to play along and I was promptly told to mine my own business.
They kept Christy away from prying eyes and brought the horse for her to where she was being kept behind the train station. Anger at someone like her being kidnapped and threatened and probably even made to feel pain made my stomach churn even as I fantasized about sinking my fist all the way through Lawrence’s slightly aristocratic paunch.
Mounting up we headed out of town and immediately the elements of a hot day in the West assaulted me. The heat didn’t bother me, but the thought of what the sun would do to her unprotected head and face had me pulling my horse around to the tune of excited exclamations from custodians charged with keeping watch over me.
One of them even drew a gun, but I ignored him and pulled my horse in alongside of Christy, who squinted curiously at me against the bright glare of the sun raining down on her face. I took my hat off and put it on her head and had the satisfaction of seeing her fair white skin cast into shadow.
She didn’t say anything, but her eyes were profound in their message of ‘Thank You’.
“Would you look at that? Hey mates it appears chivalry ain’t dead after all.” One of the city slickers said with a guffaw of laughter.
I turned my eyes to him and he abruptly stopped laughing at the sight of the naked animosity I unleashed on him with just my gaze. Swallowing away his laughter he looked away hurriedly.
I felt a hand touch my arm and glancing to Christy I heard her say so softly only I could’ve heard her, “Where did you ever learn to look at someone out of so deep a well of hatred?”
Glancing away I said, “It’s easy once you’ve had enough disappointments at the hands of others.”
We said no more, but continued to ride on companionably. She had no luggage and although the dress she wore was very fine it looked as if she’d spent the week in it.
I fought against the urge to swear. I doubted she’d like hearing me swear anyway.
Glancing over to her I had a startling thought occur to me. Where was Mark?
Her dress didn’t have any pockets that I could see and her hands were in plain view. Something akin to panic seized a hold of me.
I had very little I held of value in this world and Mark was one of them. He’d helped me get through a difficult time and retain some measure of my sanity and for that I was forever indebted to him for.
Christy cleared her throat and looking surreptitiously at her face she caught my eye and rose one hand to trace her fingers down her cheek as if she was brushing something away, only her fingers continued on downward to the modest high v cut neckline of her dress before she let her hand fall back to the saddle horn.
In startlemeant I stared at the hidden realm of her full chest that lay beneath the concealing layers of the fabric and lace that I gazed at. No, she couldn’t have!
Pulling my eyes up it was only to see her nod imperceptibly as merriment glowed out of her eyes at me in a silent dance of unexpressed laughter. Swallowing I looked away from her.
I was never going to speak to Mark again. What a lucky little rat he was!
*****
Somehow my mind refused to leave the subject of Christy’s full chest, which made riding an unpleasant experience. My attraction to her must have been apparent to her, because glancing her way time to time revealed that I was under as much study by her as she was a source of focus for me.
Each time our eyes met I saw a not so innocent look in her eyes that was hard to define. I hated myself, because against all my more nobler aspects, what few that had survived since childhood to the present, came the realization that I was falling for her big time.
That was bad, because I was bad. Something fine like her should be paired with the same and not devalued as would be the case with any interaction with me.
I urged my mount faster and moved ahead in the column of riders in order to escape the allure that it was to look at her or even just be near her. Moving ahead did no good though as now I was constantly fighting against the urge to look back at her.
*****
That night after darkness had fallen I saw something occur that sickened me. Claire was actively trying to cajole Christy to leave the fires light and go with her out into the darkness.
Looking about at the faces of those along on this misbegotten journey revealed only amusement or disinterest in the taboo that was unfolding. As for myself I was unsure of how I could help Christy.
If I directly intervened I’d spark a larger conflict. I might even get myself shot. Oh wait, that’s right they couldn’t afford to kill me right now! Armed with that knowledge I was preparing to rise when Christy did the unexpected in defense of herself.
Claire was seated right beside her giggling as she whispered something into Christy’s ear. How Christy had managed to put up with the woman and whatever she was insinuating that the two of them should do together was beyond me. Apparently a line was crossed though and with eyes widened I watched Christy with one hand pull down Claire’s low neckline shirt and with the other lift her coffee cup which she splashed the entire contents of all over Claire’s exposed chest.
Clare shrieked and leaped back from the fire as she tore at her clothing. I couldn’t help from bursting out laughing at the sight of it.
My laughter died the moment I saw one of Claire’s cronies pull one of the little devices from a pocket and press a switch. With a cry of pain Christy fell to the ground in convulsions.
The distance between me and the man enacting such cruelty on Christy was gone within a blink and he only had a moment of shocked realization to comprehend his fate before I snapped his neck with my bare hands. I grabbed up the device from the now slack hand of the man and drawing my arm back I then pitched outward into the desert as hard as I could throw.
Oh I knew what was coming next, but I wasn’t done yet. I shoved off from the ground as mind-numbing pain shot throughout me. My lunge carried me on over top of the campfire and with a screech Claire tried to duck out of the way, but in the end she was only partly successful.
I landed and my hand managed to catch hers before she could escape. She jolted violently as the same current of pain I was feeling was transferred over to her.
“Shut that thing off!” Someone cried out in alarm.
One man stupidly grabbed a hold of Claire and was caught up in the same prison of pain Claire and I were caught up in. The pain stopped, but then it was replaced with several kicks to my ribs and head.
I tensed against the blows all the meanwhile watching as a nearly unconscious Claire was drug away. The kicks stopped and I focused on just getting in enough air to breathe.
Someone was kneeling over me and I knew it was Christy even though my eyes were shut. There was just something about her presence that brought peace to my soul like no one else ever had.
“You shouldn’t have done that!” She whispered emotionally.
Cracking my eyes open I saw her face wet with tears and before any of those gathered around Claire could see I lifted my hand up between us and pressed the control device I’d pretended to throw away down the front of her dress.
“Hope there’s enough room.” I muttered out dazedly, as I felt myself begin to pass out.
*****
Christy only half listened to the angry voices of the others. She hated them!
No, that wasn’t right of her. To hate someone was the same as to kill according to what Jesus had said in the Bible. She really didn’t understand that, because the word ‘dislike’ seemed too little of a word to describe her emotions in concern to Claire.
The things that woman had said to her! In all her sheltered life up till now she’d never thought once that someone like Claire could exist, but she was finding out with a lot of things that the reality of life was far different than the protective shell that she had been raised in apart from the world.
The man, whose head lay in her lap had witnessed much of that reality and it had made him hard. While she judged him as being a hard man that knowledge was offset by the small things that she had gleaned of his character in just the short time that she had known him.
He was still tender enough to form a friendship with a mouse of all things, which in its own way was very sad. More importantly he had shared that friendship with her, when she’d really needed some form of companionship.
Thankfully she’d let Mark out of his lacy living arrangement earlier or no doubt he would be dead now. Each time she had suffered from the blinding pain of the electric shock caused by the bracelets she had marveled at her own survival of it. She doubted mice would be as hardy to such ill treatment.
She could see Mark’s beady little eyes off a little ways in the darkness away from the fire as she tended to his master. Looking down into the man’s face she came to grips with the reality of her own actions and what had resulted from them.
She’d never reacted so in anger in all her life before to do as she had done to Claire by dumping her hot coffee down her shirt. She’d wanted to do far worse to the woman and throwing the coffee had seemed the lesser side of the actions the situation had called for.
Her outburst though had gotten a man killed. Looking at the corpse of the man, who had caused her pain, she searched within herself for remorse, but she couldn’t find any. The only remorse she felt was for the pain the man laying within her arms had felt.
From the start this wild man had seemed taken with her and now she knew to what depths he would go for her. She wasn’t quite sure how to take that kind of extreme emotion on the part of another.
He’d killed for her and her budding infatuation for him had only deepened. Surely there was something unhealthy about such feelings?
Out here though he really was the only source of protection she had encountered, but back East a man like him would have been perceived as the greatest of dangers. Which was it?
She thought about it. The fact was that she wasn’t back East anymore. She was here in this land of sun and hot desert wind and he was the only saving grace she had encountered. Surely that must be a sign from God?
She didn’t know, but she knew she was glad to have this man in her life, even though she knew he wasn’t a good man. People could change, but the question was, would he?
She heard steps and looking up she saw Claire standing there backlit by the campfire. Claire looked fully revived and suitably enraged as she puffed herself up to spew forth with who knew what kind of foul verbiage, but Christy wanted none of it and preempting whatever Claire had been about to say she spoke first, “Have you ever had a man come in defense of you and even be willing to kill as well as suffer the resulting agony for the action of doing so?”
Claire’s face was a picture of both puzzlement and wordlessness in reply to the question Christy had posed to her.
“Well I do have such a man and you would do well to remember it if you know what’s good for you! Now I suggest you choke down whatever you were about to say and go vomit it out where I can’t hear you. Your attentions are entirely not wanted as you can see there is no way you’re pitiful condition of abominable lifestyle can compare with the man you see lying before you. When given the option I will choose the path of God’s ordained coupling of one man with one woman every time and you had better respect that or you can risk getting your neck snapped! The choice is yours.”
Claire looking somewhat shaken by the outburst from the usually mild tempered woman they had kidnapped a week before and now she drew backward away from Christy as if she’d grown fangs and the means by which to use them effectively.
Christy watched her go and inwardly relaxed. She’d said most of what she had by way of bluffing superior strength in a situation where she did not have any. Somehow it had worked though. This man, indeed these very Western lands, were having quite the transforming effect on her.