Wrangled (22 page)

I was standin’ next to a nightstand, with a
big bed on the other side that had high bedposts, but no one was in it. I
looked straight ahead to the other corner of the room and let my eyes circle
slow to the left, strainin’ to see in the feeble light. When I got to the
middle of the room, I couldn’t understand what I saw.

Looked like some kinda pulley, and someone
or somethin’ was hangin’ from it. The room was so dark, that the light comin’
from behind me barely reached what I was seein’, so it was just a blob of
darkness that didn’t look right in a bedroom. I looked quick around the rest of
the room and decided to risk turnin’ on a light, the lamp on the nightstand
next to me.

I fumbled ‘til I found the switch, and
turned on the light, which seemed really bright after all the darkness. Then I
turned quick to see what that thing was hanging’ from the pulley.

I cain’t lie, I almost puked when I saw it
was a person. On second look, that long blonde hair hangin’ around give me a
sick feelin’ it was Annalee. With a strangled sound, I lurched over to her and
swept her hair aside. Why I was shocked to see Annalee I don’t know. I was
lookin’ for her after all, and I knew somethin’ bad was happenin’. I couldn’t
have imagined this, though.

She was unconscious, though I could see her
breathin’. I couldn’t tell at first what to do for her, but it looked painful
the way her arms was pulled up behind her, so I traced the lines to that pulley
to find out how to let her down easy. If she’d been awake, I woulda just cut it
with my pocketknife, but I didn’t want to drop her on the floor.

One of her arms looked wrong, too. I found
the crank and let her down as easy as I could. Then I went and tried to see
what other damage there might be. Her face was bloody, and there was bruises
all over her arms and legs. Her poor naked body was so skinny that I could see
her ribs. I pulled the cover off the bed and pushed it all around her to cover
her up.

When I saw her ankles was tied to a bar
that spread her legs out, a red wave of pure hate washed through me. If I’d
known where Jason Clark was at that minute, he wouldn’t have been long for this
world. I wanted to tear him limb from limb with my bare hands. But, I couldn’t
leave Annalee. Then I thought, even if Ciara had got hold of the police and
told ‘em to come, they wouldn’t know Annalee was this hurt. I got up and went
lookin’ for a phone and was glad to find one on the nightstand where the lamp
was. Didn’t take long to call nine-one-one to ask for an ambulance. Then I went
back to start workin’ on the knots that held Annalee’s ankles to that bar.

I think my idea was to take it off of her
and then find Jason Clark to beat him to death with it. But before I got the
first knot undone, sirens outside let me know the police was here. I got up and
went to the front of the house to let them in. There was a little confusion at
first, as the first cop in the door pointed his weapon at me and barked, “Hands
up!”

I wanted to argue, but I wasn’t stupid
enough to argue with a Glock. My hands shot up, but I said, “There’s a woman
hurt in the back bedroom. Someone should be with her.”

“Cody Wayne?” the officer asked, soundin’
surprised.

“Yes, sir.” It was too dark to see who he
was, but I was acquainted with most of Rawlins’ cops from the time my bastard
dad was a drug dealer here.

“What are you doing here?”

“I come lookin’ for Annalee Nielsen, one of
Russ White’s wards, ‘cause he told me to keep an eye on her. I heard a scream
in here and broke in to help. She’s in the back bedroom, hurt bad and unconscious.
I haven’t seen Jason Clark.”

“There’s gotta be more to that story, son.
You sit down and stay out of our way. I’ll be back to talk to you in a minute.”

Just then, more sirens come down the
street, and the EMTs was there in a heartbeat. The cop told ‘em where to find
her and I breathed a sigh of relief. No matter what that sonofabitch had done
to her, I hoped she was gonna be all right now.

~~~

After that, all hell broke loose. I barely
had time to check on Ciara, who was still sittin
’
terrified in the pickup, before I had to go down to the cop shop to answer a
million questions. The officer I’d talked to first, who turned out to be Jack
Weston, the one who’d come when I found my mom dead, told me I wasn’t under arrest,
but he read my my rights anyway. When he asked if I wanted to talk to ‘em, I
told him I’d like to ask Russ what I should do. Officer Weston said, “You can
call him.”

Russ told me to wait until his lawyer got
there, and then tell what happened, but listen to the lawyer. He said he and
Charity would be there as soon as they could. It seemed stupid to me; I’d
already told Jack what happened. But once the lawyer got there, Jack kept
askin’ me stupid questions like did I beat Annalee, and did I truss her up like
that and break her arm.

“Hell no!” I yelled. I was gonna punch
Jack, but Russ’s lawyer told me to settle down. Then he said, “Jack, you know
as well as I do that the timeline doesn’t work for Cody here to have done what
was done to Ms. Nielsen. On top of that, you’ve got three witnesses telling you
that she expressed fear of Jason Clark, and it was Clark’s house. What do you
need, a neon sign? Why aren’t you hunting for Clark?”

“We are, Bill. But you know the drill. We
interview everyone.” Jack didn’t take offense. In a town the size of Rawlins,
you had to get along with your neighbor even if you was on opposite sides of a
disagreement.

“Cody, when was the last time you saw Ms.
Nielsen?” Jack asked.

“Musta been a week ago Sunday,” I said,
tryin’ to remember if it had been two weeks or one. “Had to have been the
eighth, ‘cause my last rodeo was the seventh, and I went to see her the next
day. She told me to get lost,” I added.

“Why did you go looking for her tonight?”

“I told you, Jack. Russ White said I should
keep an eye on her. She told Charity she was scared of Jason, and he was makin’
her do stuff she didn’t like. Like maybe tyin’ her up and beatin’ the shit out
of her,” I said, bitterly.

“All right, Cody. You’re free to go, but
don’t leave the area. You can go on back to the ranch,” Jack said.

“I want to see Annalee,” I said. “I ain’t
goin’ back to the ranch until I do.”

“You can try, but you’re not a relative, so
they may not let you. Just try to stay out of trouble,” he said, wearily.

“Say, Jack, where’s the pickup?” I asked.

“That little gal you had call us drove it
over here. She’s waiting outside for you.”

When I walked out, Ciara flew at me and I
had to put my arms around her to keep us both from goin’ over on the floor.
“Cody, what’s going on?”

“They didn’t tell you nothin’?”

“Just that Annalee had been hurt. Russ and
Charity were here. They talked to some people and then went to the hospital.
They told me to wait for you.”

“Oh, jeez, Ciara, what time is it? Is
Celeste late for work?”

“I called her and told her everything I
knew, so she could call in late. She’s mad at you, Cody,” Ciara said timidly.

“Me? Well shit fire, I can’t do nothin’
right the way she reckons, so I guess I just don’t give a damn. Sorry Ciara.”

We decided I’d better get her home so
Celeste could get to work, and then I’d go to the hospital, and I promised to
call her as soon as I found out anything.

When I got to the hospital, sure enough,
they wouldn’t let me see Annalee. In fact, they wouldn’t even let me know for
sure she was there. Confidentiality, they called it. I was fit to be tied, but
there wasn’t much I could do without gettin’ in more trouble, so I sat down in
the waitin’ room to wait for Russ or Charity to come out.

It was Russ, come out first. He come out
without Charity and spotted me right away. For a guy that was only in his early
thirties, he walked like an old man as he come over and sat down next to me.
“It’s bad, Cody. You were right to break in and find her. She’s been beaten
badly, and her right shoulder is dislocated. But it’s her mind that’s worst.
She’s awake, but she won’t talk. Just stares at us like she doesn’t know who we
are.”

I couldn’t take it in. My sweet, happy
Annalee, with her mind gone. I dropped my head in my hand and closed my eyes. I
had to do somethin’, but I didn’t know what. Whatever was gnawin’ at my innards
was gonna come bustin’ out, and then maybe I’d have an idea, or maybe I was
just gonna throw up. Russ’s hand come down on my shoulder. “Cody, I’m going
looking for Jason Clark. He can’t have gone far, his car’s in his garage. You
want to come with me?”

“Russ, I swear if I find him I’m gonna kill
him. But first I’m gonna hog-tie him and beat on him, see how he likes it.”

“I don’t blame you, Cody, but we can’t be
thinking that way. If you can’t keep it together, I’ll have to leave you here,”
Russ said with a kind tone of voice but a stern expression.

“I don’t know what to do, Boss. I have a
powerful need to see Annalee, but I wanta get that sonofabitch, too. Tell me
what to do.”

“Come with me, Cody. They won’t let you see
Annalee until she’s more herself. She’ll probably have to ask for you before
they do. But I could use a good man to watch my back. And you’ve got the
pickup. Let’s leave the SUV here for Charity and go looking for Jason. You’re
going to have to tell me I can trust you not to hurt him if we find him,
though.”

It took every ounce of self-control I had
to tell him that and mean it. What I wanted to do was work him over with the
tire iron I’d left on his patio after smashin’ the glass door with it. I told
Russ we needed to pick that up, and he laughed and said it was evidence and I’d
just have to buy a new one. Then we went lookin’.

I figured Clark had run while I went around
to tell Ciara to get the police. It was the only way I wouldn’t have seen him
on my way in, since he had to have been in the room with Annalee to make her
scream like that. I knew there wasn’t nothin’ but badlands out behind the
houses, so he must’ve snuck around the same way I did, and flagged someone down
on the road while Ciara was gettin’ the neighbors and I was breakin’ into his
house. Even though Jack Weston said he couldn’t get far, that wasn’t true. The
highway wasn’t that far, and he coulda hitched a ride goin’ either direction.

What I didn’t know was Jack had put out an
APB on him, and it had been broadcast on all the trucker’s radios by a guy in
town with a police scanner and a grudge against Clark. A good ol’ boy drivin’
deadhead from Cheyenne reported seein’ a dude hitchin’ west about five miles
outta Rawlins, which he thought was odd. Most people wouldn’t walk that far out
at night, so either this dude wasn’t an experienced hitchhiker, or he’d done
somethin’ to get hisself put out of the truck that picked him up in town.

Before we had got halfway to Clark’s house,
Russ took a call on his cell from the sheriff that he’d been picked up. This
time they had him dead to rights on assault and forcible rape based on the
doctor’s examination of Annalee. I swallowed hard when I heard that. No wonder she
didn’t want to talk about it. I decided if she didn’t ever want to say what
happened, I could live with that. What I might not be able to live with was the
guilt that my choices had drove her to move into town and meet the bastard in
the first place. This was all my fault, and I needed to fix it, somehow.

Annalee was in the hospital for another
three days, but when she started screamin
’ at ‘em that
she couldn’t afford no more bills, they let her go home under Charity’s care.
Naturally, the kids come too, so that left Ciara and her young’un with Celeste.
They was lookin’ for a job for her to do so they could share the babysittin’
like Annalee and Celeste had been doin’ before Al’s accident.

Al was doin’ a lot better, but he was right
nervous around the corral, so when I took him out to the barn, I’d carry him up
on my shoulder, and he’d hang on with an arm around my head and say, “Giddy up,
Cody.” He was growin’ like a weed, and so was Tali. She looked so much like her
mother it made me grin every time I saw her.

It took a lot longer for Annalee to come
outta her shell than it did for her bruises and her arm to heal. It broke my
heart to see her at meals where she’d never lift her eyes or join in the
talkin’. I could tell Charity was worried, too. One day, I asked to talk to
Charity alone.

“You know we’re closin’ on that little
ranch Annalee found for us this Friday,” I said.

“Yes. Congratulations, Cody. Looks like
your idea is going to make a nice little business for you. I’m proud of you,”
she answered.

I had my Stetson in my hands, rollin’ the
brim and turnin’ it around and around like a steerin’ wheel. “The thing is, I
was gonna ask Annalee to marry me and live there with me. I kinda hate to move
away from here while she’s still so low, Charity. But I don’t know if it’s too
soon to start courtin’ her. Can you help me?”

“I think you’re right, it’s too soon. I’m
sure you’re welcome to stay here and just drive over there to work. Or you can
go on and move over there and you’re invited to dinner every night so you can
see Annalee. I don’t know how you’re going to have time to cook for yourself
anyway.”

“Thank you, Charity. I’ll do that. But, if
she ever speaks of me, or says she’s ready to go on livin’, will you tell me?”

“I sure will, hon. Don’t worry, just give
her some time. Maybe after the trial she’ll perk up.” Charity put her hand on
my arm and patted me like she was gentlin’ a foal. I hadn’t meant to show her
how bad I felt, but I guess I did.

“I sure hope so. Why don’t she talk to
anybody about it, Charity?” I had an idea it was like me when my mom died. I
had all these feelin’s from sadness that mom was gone to anger at her that
she’d left me even though it weren’t her fault. And rage at my dad. I’d have
liked to have a chance to whale on him some, for poisonin’ her with that meth.
I didn’t want to talk to no one, either, except Uncle Hank. I wondered if
Annalee had someone she could say anything to. I shoulda knowed it was Charity,
and that Annalee
was
talkin’ but Charity was keepin’ her secrets.

~~~

When Jason Clark come to trial, I had to go
‘cause I was a witness. The cops and the DA both thought he was somehow
responsible for his parents’ deaths, but they never could find no evidence. So
they was goin’ for maximum sentence on the rape. It didn’t get any easier for
me to think of that word and Annalee in the same thought, so Russ was worried
I’d do somethin’ stupid. I promised him I wouldn’t try to do nothin’ to Jason
in the courthouse. But if that fucker got off, I’d punish him my way once he
was out. That was a promise I made to myself, and to Annalee, though I didn’t
make her hear it.

Charity was there, too, but Russ said he
didn’t think Annalee’d want him to hear all the details about what had
happened, and he pointed out kinda strong that he didn’t think she’d want me
hearin’ ‘em either, so I should stay outta the courtroom ‘til they called me to
testify. But I knew that if we was gonna make a life together, I’d have to face
those things, and I thought if I heard ‘em in court, she wouldn’t have to tell
me later. I asked Charity to tell Annalee why I was there, so it wouldn’t look
like I just had some sick curiosity.

Annalee was the main witness for the
prosecution, but for some reason, everyone else was called to give their
testimony before she was. When it was my turn, I told how I went lookin’ for
her with Ciara, and why we went to Jason Clark’s house. I told about the
scream, and hurt inside when I saw Annalee wince. When it got to the part where
I put a blanket on her, I was near to cryin’, and I couldn’t look at her or I
woulda. I couldn’t stand them images of her all tied up, naked and bruised and
bloody. When the DA got done with me, it was time for Clark’s lawyer, and he
asked some damned insultin’ questions.

Whether I’d had sex with Annalee was one of
the first ones. Her eyes went big, and I knew if I said yes, I could lose her
forever. So I looked a the judge and said, “Do I have to answer that, Your
Honor? I don’t see what it has to do with whether Jason Clark beat the shit out
of her and raped her.” Everyone in the audience started talkin’ in whispers.

The judge banged his gavel and said,
“Order!” To me, he said, “I’m afraid you do, Mr. Wayne.”

I sent Annalee a desperate look, and she
closed her eyes. Then she opened ‘em, looked me right in the eyes and nodded.
So I said, “Before I made the worst mistake in my life and chose the rodeo over
Annalee and the kids, yessir, I did have the honor of makin’ love with her. I
hope to again, someday.”

The folks in the audience started talkin’
again and some was laughin’. Annalee kept her eyes on mine, and I thought she
was almost smilin’.

“Mr. Wayne! I asked you a question,” the
defense lawyer said.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear it,” I answered
him, givin’ Annalee a little wink.

“I said, so you knew Ms. Nielsen is prone
to having consensual sex, is that correct?” he said.

“I don’t know what you’re tryin’ to get at,
mister, but I don’t call it sex when someone’s bein’ tied up hand and foot and
beat on, much less consensual,” I wanted to spit in the man’s face for
suggestin’ Annalee’d
asked
for that treatment.

“Have you ever heard the term BDSM, or
bondage, Mr. Wayne?”

“Nosir,” I said. I didn’t know what the
hell he was talkin’ about, and I was gettin’ tired of the smirk on his face.

“It’s when a willing subject allows herself
to be tied…”

“Objection!” shouted the DA, makin’ me
jump. “Mr. O’Neal is attempting to testify, your Honor. I would respectfully
ask you to put an end to this line of questioning. Asked and answered.”

“Sustained,” said the judge, and that was
the end of the stupid questions. I got dismissed and the next one up on the
stand was Jack Weston. Then the EMTs, who testified to how they found Annalee,
and finally the doctor, who said she’d been penetrated while not in a state of
arousal. I took that to mean rape, and that’s what the doctor said it was.
Every time he got a chance, the defense attorney tried to ask about that BS
thing, and the DA kept knockin’ him down a notch.

Finally, it was Annalee’s turn to testify.
I’d seen her walk into the courtroom scared and shakin’, with her head down and
her voice barely loud enough to hear. But when she got up on that stand, I
could see a change in her. Her eyes was sparkin’ off that defense attorney, and
when she glanced at Jason Clark, her lip curled and she give a bitter-lookin’
smile.

I knew the DA had gone over the story with
Annalee, and it looked like he’d done a good job. He led her from how she come
to know Jason, and how she come to start datin’ him, to why she kept on datin’
him even after he started scarin’ her. When it come to that night, her voice
got a little shaky, but everyone could hear her as she described what the
fucker had done to her. I wanted to be sick.

Them things happenin’ to my sweet girl was
just the worst thing I could think of. I’d have give anything to take it back,
start over back in the spring, and never give her a reason to leave the ranch.
Hearin’ her tell it with her head up, though, made me so proud of her I was fit
to bust. She hadn’t done nothin’ wrong but trust a monster.

Then the defense attorney started askin’
her questions. “Isn’t it true, Ms. Nielsen, that you have a history of, shall
we say, unusual sexual behavior?”

“No, sir, not at all,” she said.

“Really? Do you deny that you lived with a
man old enough to be your grandfather, along with sixteen other women? And that
this man routinely injected corporal punishment into your conjugal relations?”
Them was some big words, but I got it and Annalee got it. She turned pale, and
I started seeing red.

“That’s not the way it was,” she started.

“Just answer the question yes or no, please.
Remember you are under oath.”

Annalee looked at the prosecutor for help,
but he was jotting something on a pad and didn’t see her. Then she looked at
the judge, who nodded encouragingly.

“I was married in a polygamist cult. What
you say is factual, but it isn’t truth.” Annalee lifted her chin, darin’ the
attorney to ask another question, which would only give her another chance to
explain more. I watched the attorney fight with himself, and then decide to
drop that idea and take up another.

“Isn’t it true, Ms. Nielsen, that your
sexual relationship with my client was entirely consensual?” the attorney
asked.

“No, that is not true,” Annalee was firm on
this point, no hesitation at all.

“Do you deny that you willingly went out
with my client, even after the occasion on which you told Mrs. White that you
were concerned about his sexual treatment of you?” I knew he was actin’ but the
guy sounded like he was amazed that she’d try to deny it. It did look bad. I
wondered why she’d gone with him myself.

“I was engaged to him, and he had done a
lot for me and my children. I felt obligated to go out with him, and felt that
after we were married, he would stop punishing me for being hesitant to have a
child with him.”

“Oh, come now, Ms. Nielsen, did he say he
was punishing you for that reason? Or do you just enjoy bondage and
domination?”

“I don’t even know what that is. But if it
means tying me up and hitting me, I most certainly do not enjoy it. I allowed
him to handcuff me before, but he never hit me until that night. Now that I
know what he’s capable of, I wouldn’t marry him if he were the last man on
earth!”

“Objection, your Honor, the witness’s
answer was non-responsive. Move to strike.”

“Calvin, I can strike it from the record,
but I can’t strike it from the jury’s memory. I think her answer was pretty
responsive myself. Are you sure you want to ask any more questions?”

I was grinnin’ like a fool. Annalee’d beat
the bastard at his own game, and the judge knew it, the jury knew it. Even
Annalee knew it. Calvin sat down and fumed, while the prosecutor stood up for
re-direct.

“Ms. Nielsen, do you have anything more to
say about your former marriage?”

“Yes, sir. I was fifteen years old and I
wasn’t given a choice. I hated that life and the man that I was yoked to. The
only thing good to come out of it was my two children, who I’d do anything to
protect. Even date an asshole.”

Calvin jumped up and yelled “Objection!” as
Annalee’s word brought down the house. The judge had to bang his gavel for
about two minutes before everyone settled down long enough to hear it.

“Sustained. Ms. Nielsen, you will maintain
proper decorum in my courtroom. You may not call the defendant an asshole.” His
eyes was twinklin’ though.

I guess the prosecutor decided he’d done
enough and didn’t want to risk any more incidents. He dismissed Annalee and
rested his case. There wasn’t much good ol’ Calvin could do for Jason Clark.
I’d heard that they was lookin’ for character witnesses, and couldn’t find
anyone who’d stand up for the bastard. All he could do was claim it was
consensual and hope the jury agreed. He rested without callin’ Jason to the
stand.

The judge told the jury what the law was
and told ‘em to base their verdict on the law, not on emotions, or whether they
approved of a lifestyle that included tyin’ women up if they was willin’.
Still, it didn’t take ‘em but an hour to bring in a guilty verdict. Jason Clark
was remanded to the county jail to wait for sentencin’.

I walked over to where Charity was holdin’
Annalee in her arms, but I didn’t know what to say. Annalee was cryin’ and
saying she just didn’t know what to do about the hospital. On top of Al’s bill,
which I’d heard was a humdinger, now she had her own to worry about. I asked
how much was it all told.

“Over a hundred thousand dollars,” she
answered me. “Cody, I haven’t treated you right. I should have thanked you a
long time ago for finding me. You saved my life.”

“I was glad to do it, Annalee. It’s okay. I
know you’ve had a rough time,” I said.

“No, it’s not okay. When they made you say
right out loud that you’d had sex with me, I was happy that you said it the way
you did. I wish we could start fresh. But I don’t think any man’s going to want
me with a debt that size hanging over me.” She said the last to Charity, who
said, “Honey, I’ve told you there are ways to fix it. We’ll figure this out,
don’t worry.”

“I just wish I could make Jason pay for my
hospital bill. It was his fault, after all,” Annalee said.