Untethered (20 page)

Ann shook her head, blushing with embarrassment at her own ignorance.

“Marie,” Vilma began, “you and Hudson Oliver are, what…maybe two months from gettin’ married. Surely you understand all this?”

But Marie just shrugged. “I just thought that since the slaves were freed by Mr. Lincoln, folks down there in New Orleans are just forcin’ anyone they can get their hands on into doin’ their hard work for them.”

Vilma’s expression changed from that of doubt to that of complete astonishment. She seemed rattled for a moment, looking from one girl to the next as if she were still unable to believe they didn’t grasp everything they should.

At last, looking to Cricket, she asked, “Do you know what a harlot is, Cricket?”

Cricket asked, “Like in the Bible, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s a bad woman,” Cricket answered. “Like a female outlaw or somethin’.”

Vilma and Jinny exchanged surprised glances.

“I heard my daddy call that red-haired woman who serves liquor over at the saloon in Thistle a harlot,” Ann offered. “Is she a criminal, do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Marie said. “I never thought about that much.” Marie’s eyes widened. “Vilma! Are they gonna try and turn us into outlaws?”

But Vilma shook her head. “How can you girls be so naive?” she asked. “You know where babies come from, don’t you? What a man does to a woman to…to start a baby growin’?”

“Of course, Vilma,” Cricket grumbled. “What do you take us for? Idiots?”

Vilma’s expression then changed to daring. “Go on then, Cricket. Tell us how it all works.”

Cricket sighed with frustration. She didn’t see what babies had to do with outlaws abducting woman. It was ridiculous. Still, in that moment (as in many moments throughout her life before that time), she felt that there
was
something she didn’t know—something pertinent to their situation.

“Well, you marry the man you love,” Cricket began, “and after you’re married, you share the same bed with him. And then one day…because you’re married…a baby just starts growin’ inside you.”

“Exactly,”
Pearl
affirmed.

But Marie and Ann looked to one another with puzzled expressions.

“What are you talkin’ about, Cricket?” Marie asked. “The doctor gets a baby from another town and gives it to you.”

“What?” Ann exclaimed. “That’s not true, Marie.”

“Yes, it is,” Marie argued. “My mama told me all about it when my little sister was born. And again when my brother was born.”

But Ann argued, “No. Before each of my brothers was born, Mama just went out for a walk one day, and when she came back, she told me there was baby growin’ inside her. Then after those long months of waitin’, she went on over to Mrs. Maloney’s house, and when she came home, she had a new brother for me. I have three brothers, and it was the same every time.”

Vilma’s mouth dropped open in astonishment, but
Pearl
offered, “I heard all three of those too…before I heard a woman in our congregation confessin’ to my daddy about how the baby she had
really
came about.”

“Your daddy is a preacher too?” Cricket asked.

“Yep,”
Pearl
answered. “And I know what Vilma means now…about these outlaws wantin’ us to stay
unspoiled
.”

“Well, I don’t,” Cricket grumbled. “Vilma, if you know somethin’ we don’t…that we should…you need to tell us. And you need to tell us now. I’m havin’ a mighty hard time understandin’ how babies have anything to do with us gettin’ sold as slaves in
New Orleans
.” Vilma blushed a bit, and it unsettled Cricket even more. “And what on earth is it with you preachers’ daughters eavesdroppin’ on conversations you ought not hear?”

Vilma inhaled a breath of bravery and nodded. “My mama told me the story about babies comin’ from the doctor too,” she admitted. “But when me and Wyatt overhead Daddy and Mama talkin’ one night…well…we both learned the truth.”

“Well then…if we’re all so ignorant, tell us the truth too,” Cricket begged. Her irritation with Vilma’s know-it-all attitude was gone, replaced by fear of what she didn’t know herself—fear of what was truly waiting for them at the outlaws’ destination.

“All right then,” Vilma breathed. “All right. Gather closer,” she whispered. Cricket leaned toward the center of their circle, and so did the others.

“The truth of it is, what I’m about to reveal to you girls can either be the most romantic, ma
gical experience of your life…or the very stuff of nightmares,” Vilma said quietly. “And we, my darlin’s…are headin’ for the nightmares way of it.”

❦

Heath had slowly traveled nearly two miles downriver along the bank. He hadn’t found what he was looking f
or—evidence that the band of outlaws had ridden in the water downstream instead of permanently crossing the river to head for
Mexico
. He’d begun to doubt himself. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe Reverend Righteous was right. But with every doubt that crossed his mind, his gut churned with encouragement. And if there was one thing Heathro Thibodaux had learned, it was to always trust his gut.

So Heath rode Archie farther downriver, his eyes scanning the bank looking for any signs of disturbance. Doubt was thick in his mind—as thick as certainty was in his gut—and the battle between the two was exhausting. Still, just as his doubt was at its height, he saw exactly what he’d been looking for.

Just over two miles downriver, he saw the tracks—the mud and tracks left by horses and riders as they’d left the water for dry ground. He’d been right! The outlaws were heading for
New Orleans
to sell the girls into Jacques Cheval’s brothels.

He reigned in Archie and briefly wondered if he should ride back and try to catch the other men—but only briefly. Time was too short. He’d surely closed the distance between the outlaws and himself, being that traveling in the river would’ve slowed their progress considerably. But he couldn’t waste any time, not a moment. He had to think of something—some way to save those girls on his own.

His gruesome, tragic experience taught him not to take on the gang alone—not in the conventional way, anyhow. He’d have to think of something else—a way to infiltrate them maybe. Whatever he came up with, he needed to come up with it fast.

Heath looked up when he heard the calls of buzzards then. They were close and circling overhead. He’d been tracking the riverbank too intently to notice them before. But now—now as he watched the ten or twelve buzzards circling, taking turns swooping to the ground to land on some carrion nearby—his heart fell to the pit of his stomach with a nauseating thud.

Not a hundred feet from where he paused lay a body—a body he could see was dressed in a woman’s clothing.

He felt the perspiration begin to drip from his forehead and temples. Was it one of the Pike’s Creek girls? Was it the one who’d kissed him? He felt guilty for hoping it wasn’t, but he did hope it wasn’t her—prayed it wasn’t. In fact, he hoped it was any of the girls from Pike’s Creek other than the one who’d kissed him.

Heath mumbled an apology to the heavens for thinking such a thing and then said, “Go on, Archie. Waitin’ ain’t gonna change it.”

He hollered at the buzzards—fired a shot at the two coyotes waiting in the sagebrush as he approached. Heath could see the animals had been at the body for some time and tried to prepare himself for what the condition of it would be.

“Whoa,” he breathed as he reined Archie to stop next to the dead girl. Dismounting, he frowned and felt his heart harden with anger as he hunkered down to study what had once been a living, breathing young woman with her whole life stretching out before her.

Heath’s eyes filled with excess moisture, and he thanked God when he saw the girl’s hair was blonde. It wasn’t the Cranford, King, or
Stanley
girl. Wiping tears of anger and sadness from his eyes, he sniffed and looked to the girl’s feet. The dead girl’s hair did have the color of summer grain—not dark hair like the Cranford or King girl or red hair like the Stanley girl—blonde hair like the Burroughs girl. Yet her shoes indicated she wasn’t the Burroughs girl. Ralph Burroughs’s daughter had been riding her thoroughbred, and Heath had never seen the girl and her horse without her wearing riding boots. Furthermore, he figured the dead girl was too skinny to be the Burroughs girl. Of course, he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t the Burroughs girl—not for certain—not after the way the buzzards and coyotes had already been at the arms and face. It was a disturbing, gruesome sight, and Heath could only hope the girl had been dead long before nature’s creatures had taken to her remains.

Heath saw the blood on the girl’s shirt. It wasn’t from the animals having at the body. This blood was from the bullet hole somebody had put through her heart. He reached down, tugging at the skirt and petticoats covering her legs. Lifting the girl’s right leg, he saw the blood on her stockings from the puncture wounds—two sets of puncture wounds. He nodded as his suspicions were confirmed. On the back of the girl’s right calf were two rattler bites. From the space between fang marks, he knew it had been a big snake that had gotten the poor little thing.

Almost desperately, Heath began checking the girl’s pockets for anything that might identify her not being Ann Burroughs for certain. Eventually, he found a silver chain around her neck, tucked inside her shirt. An oval locket hung from it, and he opened it to find photographs of a man and woman—nobody he recognized. This girl was not one of the Pike’s Creek girls, and Heath mumbled, “Thank God.”

He wondered whether this girl had been Cooper Keel’s niece who had gone missing from Thistle. Or was it some other poor little thing the outlaws had taken from some other town along their way? Whoever she was, the gang that had taken the Pike’s Creek girls had deemed her worthless the moment the snake had bitten her. No doubt they’d shot her simply for convenience—so they wouldn’t have to drag along a dying prisoner.

Heath was nauseated, near to vomiting, and sat back on his heels, putting one fist to his mouth until he was certain that the contents of his stomach would stay put. It wasn’t the sight of the dead, mutilated body of the girl that sickened him—though the sight of it was certainly something he’d never purge from his mind. Rather it was the fact that he’d been too late to save her. He closed his eyes and visualized the eight other girls he’d failed to save a year earlier. Now the count was nine; he was responsible for the deaths of nine sweet, young innocents.

“That ain’t true though,” he said aloud. “It wasn’t my fault,” he mumbled as he yanked at the silver chain around the girl’s neck. The chain broke, and Heath put it in his pocket. He’d see that it was given to her parents—if he lived and could find out who she was, or had been. He stood and turned to his saddlebags, retrieving the small, short-handled shovel he always carried when he rode.

Oh, he knew he probably shouldn’t linger burying the dead girl, but he couldn’t just leave her there like that. The buzzards and coyotes would pick and gnaw her down to the bones if he did. Not that he’d ever want to take her back to wherever she came from—not that he’d even tell her parents, if he had the chance, what condition he’d found her in. But he couldn’t just leave her there.

As Heath worked at digging out a very shallow grave and then covering the girl’s body with heavy rocks so the animals couldn’t get to her, he kept reminding himself that her death wasn’t his fault. It was the band of outlaws that had done it. Maybe even the posse that had paused back at the river where the tracks had been found—but it wasn’t his. Deep in his soul, he knew that the deaths of those eight other girls a year back weren’t his fault either. But someone had to bear the blame; someone had to tether his soul to the fact that it had all happened. And no one else seemed willing to do it.

And so, as he laid the last rock on top of the pile of stones covering the poor girl’s mutilated body, Heathro Thibodaux promised himself that she would be the only dead girl he found while tracking the outlaws and the girls from Pike’s Creek.

❦

As Cricket lay there in the darkness—as she tried not to hear the outlaws talking and laughing as they sat around the campfire—she thought about all that Vilma had explained to them earlier in the day. First of all, she wondered why folks kept the partic
ulars of how babies came to be such a fortified secret—why they lied about it. After all, it wasn’t a game or anything—nothing like letting children believe in Santa Claus to make the merriment and excitement of Christmas more magical. It was how the human race continued to exist, for pity’s sake! She was glad, however, that her daddy hadn’t made up something ridiculous like a woman just taking a walk and coming back with a baby. In fact, Cricket (knowing her daddy as she did) figured that if it hadn’t been for the initial animosity toward
Ada
that Cricket felt just after the wedding, her daddy may very well have told her the whole truth of it. He knew she’d get married herself someday, and Zeke Cranford never let his daughter step into anything wearing a proverbial blindfold of any kind.

In truth, everything Vilma had described made perfect sense. Even the other girls thought so—Ann,
Pearl
, and Marie—though Marie had blushed seventeen shades of red when Vilma explained that Hudson Oliver no doubt would know exactly what to do when their wedding night came. “Men seem to be a bit more instinctive, I heard my mama tell my daddy that night Wyatt and I were eavesdroppin’,” Vilma explained.