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“Take your clothes off.”

“Tom … please …” She started to get up and back away from him, but he grabbed her legs, and pulled her back to the floor where he was kneeling, the bottle cast aside, filling the barn with the smell of cheap whiskey. “Please … don’t …” She didn’t tell him she was a virgin. She didn’t know what to say to him. She was crying as he tore her blouse off.

“You give it away anyway, don’t you, Sis? Come on, be a good girl for your brother.”

“You’re not my brother …
stop it!”
And then, with a clenched fist, fighting for her life, she hit him. She hit him squarely in the eye, and he groaned, but he grabbed her and slapped her hard. So hard he left her breathless.

“Bitch! I told you to take your clothes off!” He was pulling at her jeans with one hand, and pinning her to the ground with the other, his full weight pressed down on her, and she thought he would break her arms. But she didn’t care. He’d have to kill her before she’d let him take her. She fought like a wild animal, but she was no match for him, again and again he threw her to the ground, cursing and calling her names, and then suddenly with a dull ripping sound, he tore her jeans off, and her pale thighs were exposed to him as she trembled.

“No, don’t … Tom …
please
…” She was sobbing as he tore her underwear, still holding her prisoner with one powerful hand, her arms high above her head, his knees straddling her, as he grabbed her with his free hand, and then as she sobbed and begged, he pulled his pants down, just far enough to let her see him lunging toward her. There was no hesitation as he found his mark, and pressed his way inside her, smashing her to the ground with each thrust as she screamed and groaned in
anguish. He slapped her again, and this time drew blood. There was blood dripping from her mouth, and she was lying in a sea of it as he raped her. Her back was torn to shreds by the straw and the floor, and she lay gasping with pain and terror as he came, and then slapped her hard again. But there was no fight left in her now. There was no point. She lay crumpled and beaten, as he stood up and pulled up his pants. He picked up his bottle and took a gulp and then laughed as he looked down at Crystal.

“You better wash up before you go home, Sis.” He laughed again and slammed the barn door as he went back to his wife, and left Crystal lying on the barn floor, bleeding and broken and wanting to die. She lay there and sobbed until there were no tears left. There was nothing. She wanted to die as she lay there. It was a long time before she crawled to her knees, and staggered to the hose they used to fill the horse trough. She let the water run as she retched and poured the cold water over her, washing her face and her arms, and then she looked down at her torn jeans and the shreds of her underwear and the blood he had smeared over her as he took her. She sank to her knees again, whimpering softly. She couldn’t go home again. She couldn’t explain it to them. She couldn’t tell anyone. Somehow they would blame it on her. And with trembling legs she stumbled into the horse stall, and clutching the old pinto by his mane, she led him from his stall and swung herself onto his back in the cool night air, and riding slowly across the fields, she went back to the Websters’. She had left them only two hours before, and she saw their lights come into view as she began to sob again. Her whole body ached and she was caked with blood and half naked. The pinto stopped in their garden, and she slid from his back as Boyd saw
her from the window and hurried out to her, with Hiroko just behind him.

“Crys … oh, my God …
oh, my God
…” He thought someone had tried to kill her and she collapsed mercifully at their feet in a pool of blood, unconscious.

Boyd carried Crystal inside, and they laid her on their bed. Boyd took the baby, and Hiroko sat beside her and bathed her with warm towels. She touched her bruises gently, and when she saw her back she cried. Her back and her legs, and the bruise on her lips. It was a wonder he hadn’t killed her. Crystal lay there and cried in the bed where she had helped to deliver their baby, and the next morning she sat in their kitchen, staring at them emptily. She couldn’t have faced anyone but them. They had become her family, and she cried again as Boyd handed her a cup of coffee.

“I’ll take you home in the truck. You can tell your Mama where you’ve been. And then we’re going to see the sheriff.”

She shook her head miserably. Every inch of her body ached, and she hadn’t slept all night. And she could hardly see through the shiner he’d given her. Except for the pale hair, it was hard to believe it was Crystal. But
she knew she couldn’t go to the sheriff. If she did, Tom would kill her. “I can’t do that.”

“Don’t be a fool,” Boyd growled at her. He wanted to kill Tom himself.

“I can’t do that to Becky and my mother.”

“Are you crazy? The man raped you.” Crystal started to cry again, and Hiroko reached out and took her hand.

“He must be punished. Boyd is right.”

But Crystal stood watching them through her tears in silence. It was her shame now too. And she was confused by all that she felt, she felt angry and frightened and broken, and for some odd reason, guilty. Was it her fault? Had she led him on over the years, without knowing it? Or was it another punishment for the way she looked? She wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter anymore. It had happened. And it was just one more reason to get the hell out of the valley she had once loved, and now hated. She had nothing to leave there anyway except loss and pain and sorrow, and the Websters.

“You can’t let him get away with this, Crystal.” Boyd spoke quietly this time. But inside he was still trembling with rage. “I’ll take you home.” They hadn’t called her mother the night before. They hadn’t done anything except take care of Crystal. She left her horse there and got in the truck with Boyd and she was silent on the ride home, thinking of what she would do now. Hiroko held her tight before she left, and stayed home with Jane, but Crystal couldn’t even speak to her before they left. She was speechless with grief and shame and terror.

Boyd followed her inside, and her grandmother was in the kitchen. She took one look at Crystal standing in the living room in a pair of jeans Boyd had given her, with her face bruised and her hair still matted from the night before, and ran to get her daughter. Crystal was clean now, but still disheveled. And a moment later, her
mother ran into the room, pulling her bathrobe around her.

“Where the hell have you been? Oh my God …” And then, looking at Boyd, “What are you doing here?” He had been unwelcome in her house since marrying Hiroko, except for the christening and the wedding. But he hadn’t been invited back since then.

“I brought her home. She stayed with us last night.” But he didn’t like the look in Olivia Wyatt’s eyes, there was no compassion, only accusation. She made no move toward Crystal as the girl stood staring blindly at her, and Boyd helped her into a chair as her mother watched them.

“What did you do for something like this to happen?”

Boyd turned to face Olivia Wyatt again and with eyes filled with rage he told her what Crystal couldn’t bring herself to say. “Your son-in-law raped her.”

“That’s a lie!” She flew at them both, and then turned on Boyd. “Get out of here. I’ll take care of this.” And then to Crystal, “How dare you tell him that about your sister’s husband?”

She looked up at her mother in mute amazement. No matter what happened to her, her mother didn’t care. And Crystal couldn’t hide from it anymore. The woman hated her. Maybe she always had. But it didn’t matter now. For Crystal, it was all over. In a single night she had grown up, and her last tie to her family had been severed.

But Boyd was staring at Olivia in open fury. “Look at her! She should be in the hospital, but she was afraid to go last night.” And he had been afraid to force her.

“She’s a tramp. Who were you with yesterday? You never came home last night.”

“I did come home … Tom was in the barn … he wouldn’t let me go. He was drinking.” Her voice was dead, as were her eyes. Something in her had died the
night before. Something in her that, in spite of everything, had once loved her mother, but never would again. They had betrayed her.

“I should throw you out of here. Go to your room!”

Boyd couldn’t believe what he was hearing and he turned to Crystal and looked down at her with fresh compassion.

“Come home with me, Crystal. Don’t stay here.”

But Crystal only shook her head. She had to finish it here now, and she wasn’t going till she did that. Whatever that meant, whatever it took. But she was staying until she left for good. And somehow she suspected her mother knew it and was glad. She didn’t know why, but she sensed that her mother wanted her to leave the ranch. And she would. In time. When she was ready.

Boyd was looking at her. “Crystal, please … don’t stay here.” But Crystal didn’t move. She stared at him with unseeing eyes, thinking only of what she had to do, and her mother strode to the door and threw it open.

“I told you to get out of here, Boyd Webster, or didn’t you hear me?”

He stood with his legs braced as though to fight her. “I’m not going.”

“Do I have to call the sheriff?”

“I wish you would, Mrs. Wyatt.”

“It’s okay, Boyd …” Crystal spoke up finally. “I’ll be all right. Go on home …” He didn’t want to leave her. But her eyes told him that he had to. “I’ll be okay … just go on home….” She sounded quiet and strong, and her eyes were old and sad as he hesitated for a long moment and then walked slowly to the door, with a look over his shoulder at Crystal.

“I’ll come back later.” He slammed the door and a moment later, his truck roared away as her mother approached her filled with accusation, but she wasn’t prepared
for what Crystal did next. As her mother turned on her with fresh venom, her arm raised to slap the battered girl, Crystal grabbed her arm, and held it so hard the older woman winced and suddenly shrank from her in terror.

“You stay away from me, you hear? I’ve taken all I’m going to take from you, Ma … you and Tom and everyone else around here!” Her voice was shaking and her eyes were suddenly blazing. She hated all of them, hated them for what they had done to her, for the love they had never offered her, and the pain they had repeatedly inflicted. Tom’s horrific deeds of the night before were the culmination of all of it. And for an instant she wondered if her mother had treated her differently since her father died, whether Tom would even have dared lay a hand on her. But he knew no one gave a damn … what difference would it make? But it was going to make a lot of difference to him now. She moved past her mother, and went to the cupboard where her father had kept his guns. They were all still there, except the ones Jared used, and she was taking one, as her mother began to scream, and her brother walked in the door, and looked at the hysterical scene with total confusion.

“What the hell … Crys … for chrissake, Sis, what are you doing?” He saw the look in her eyes and thought she was going after their mother, as Olivia screamed incoherently, and their grandmother stared in mute horror.

“Stay out of this, Jar!” She pointed the gun briefly at him, and when he saw her looking at him, he thought for a minute that she had gone crazy.

“Give me that!” He reached for the gun, and she butted him with it, just hard enough to let him know she meant business.

“She’s going to kill Tom!” Her mother screamed, and
Crystal turned on her with the rage none of them had ever seen before, the rage that had been building for months, born of helplessness and despair, and the sorrow of losing her father, and the total frustration of watching Tom destroy everything he had worked so hard to build. But none of them understood that.

“You’re damn right I am!” She looked Jared straight in the eye, and all vestiges of childhood had fallen from her. She looked almost beautiful as she stood there in the white heat of her anger, in spite of her uncombed hair and the ugly hue of her bruises. “And if you want to know why, go look in the barn.”

“What the hell’s he done now?” Jared looked worried, he’d probably gotten drunk again, and shot one of the horses. But he was more worried about what his sister was about to do in retaliation.

“Why don’t you ask him?” Her lavender eyes were like icicles as she looked from her mother to her brother.

But Olivia was screaming again. “Don’t believe her! She’s lying!”

“What makes you think so, Mama?” Crystal’s voice was strangely quiet, and with the gun pointed at them, she seemed to have regained her composure. She wasn’t his victim anymore, she was going to kill him for what he’d done, and the thought of it made her feel a whole lot better. “Why do you think he wouldn’t do it? Why am I always wrong?” She started to cry then, but they were tears of rage mixed with tears of sadness. It was so damn painful to admit once and for all that her own mother didn’t love her. “Remember …” Her hands were trembling as she held her father’s rifle, but she kept it pointed alternately at Jared and her mother, and no matter what they did, she wasn’t going to let them stop her. “Remember … when I was a little girl, Ma … you loved me then, didn’t you? … you said I never told you lies, like
Jar or Becky … and I didn’t … I never did … I loved you then too …” For an instant, she almost faltered. “Why do you hate me so much now? Ever since Daddy died, you act like I did something to you … but I never did … I never did … did I?” She was asking the room at large, and at first there was no answer. But all the hatred she suspected was in her mother’s voice as she growled her answer.