“You like that,” he whispered. The sparse hairs that sprouted through the acne glistened in the light. “You like that.” Half a dozen buttons popped off her shirtwaist and clattered across the floor as he shoved his hand down inside her chemise and grabbed at her. “Oh my God,” he groaned. He wasn’t looking at her anymore, and Sarah thrashed with all her might, her heels drumming on the wood, muted cries sounding in her throat. She flailed her imprisoned arms and tried to bite the hand he held over her mouth. The violence made Harland’s eyes shine and he tightened his hold until the flesh showed white where his fingers dug into her cheeks. A flash of pale skin caught his attention; she had kicked her skirt up over her knees. He ripped his hand free of her bodice and pulled the petticoats up above her waist. Bending double, his chest pressed down on her face, he tore away her pantalets and screwed his fingers into the wiry blond hair between her thighs, his eyes wide, devouring her naked belly and legs. With a cry that was almost of pain, he loosed her mouth to fumble in the warm thatch where her legs came together.
Freed, Sarah screamed, a short, high-pitched stab of sound. It was cut off almost immediately as Harland’s palm smashed down on her mouth again.
“Shut up, you bitch,” he whispered hoarsely. “You’re loving it. You’re loving it.” He wasn’t talking to her but whispering for his own ears. He swung free of the chair. Her arms fell helpless at her sides, the feeling gone from lack of blood. Harland slung her to the floor. He smashed his doubled fist into her temple and she crumpled, senseless.
Pawing like a dog after a gopher, he clawed her skirts aside and unbuckled his belt. Too impatient to unfasten all the buttons on his trousers, he pulled them down half-buttoned. His penis popped out and bobbed in the light of the fire. Grabbing one of Sarah’s breasts in each hand, he supported the whole of his weight on her narrow chest and lifted himself, stabbing ineffectively between her legs. Muttering his impatience, he grabbed his penis to guide himself into her.
At that moment, Imogene appeared in the doorway. Maydley looked up, and it was as if her face had turned him to stone. Trapped in his hand, his penis withered, its tip disappearing into folds of skin and finally withdrawing completely behind his circled thumb and forefinger.
Imogene set the candle down. Her face was pale and set. Only her eyes were alive, but the gray had turned dark and they bored into him with a hatred that turned his bones to water. Harland tried to back away, to pull his pants up, but the trousers were jammed down around his thighs as tightly as ropes.
In two strides she crossed the room. She snatched a piece of firewood out of the woodbox. Swinging the wood from side to side like a scythe, she beat him. Harland shrieked and threw his hands up over his face. Grim, implacable, the blows rained down: crack, and his left arm hung useless; wood on bone, and a cut opened from eyebrow to chin. He fell and crawled across the floor on his belly, his naked pelvis scraping against the boards as he retreated. Imogene struck again and again, his legs, his back, his feet. The fabric of his trousers ripped, and his breeches fell down around his ankles. On hands and knees he made the door and crawled across the porch, bellowing with fear and rage. Imogene hurled the log after him, striking him a glancing blow on the head.
“Next time I see you I shall kill you,” she said softly.
He managed to get to his feet and pull his pants up around his hips. He was crying and his face streamed blood. Holding his pants with his good arm, he shuffled out into the yard. Once out of reach, he turned to shout, “There ain’t no Mr. Ebbitt.” He spat out two of his teeth with the words. “I’ll see you lose this place. By God, I will!” He started crying again and stumbled into the dark.
The commotion brought Karl in from the barn. He was bent over, clutching his side, but there was an ax handle ready in his right hand. “Trouble, miss?” he called.
“It’s over, Karl. Get back to bed.” She could hear him shuffling back to the barn and saying something to Ross.
Imogene went inside and bolted the door. Sarah had come to her senses and was sitting huddled by the fire, her swollen face held between her palms.
Imogene went quickly to Sarah and hugged her as they both began to cry.
The fire burned down to nothing and still they sat curled against each other, Imogene’s wrapper pulled around them both.
“Imogene?” Sarah broke the long silence.
“What, dear?”
“Would you give me a bath?”
“Of course.”
The clothes Sarah had been wearing, down to her petticoats and stockings, were burned to heat water for the bath. It was so hot that it reddened her skin, but still she complained it wasn’t hot enough and Imogene added more until it slopped over the rim of the tub and darkened the floor. Imogene scrubbed her from head to toe with rough lye soap. As the callused palms and coarse soap scratched away the touch of Maydley’s hands, Sarah felt the stain he had left inside, the knot of shame, begin to loosen its hold.
At last, naked and dry and glowing, she stood before the fire. “Feeling better?” Imogene’s tender smile hid a word of hurt. Helplessness lay like a stone on her chest. Dark marks were forming on the perfect white skin of Sarah’s breasts, fingermarks where Maydley had clutched at her. Imogene reached out and touched the bruises gently.
“Davie used to say it was your fight if the other fellow looked worse than you,” Sarah said, and smiled crookedly into the older woman’s eyes. “Hold me, Imogene. Please hold me.” Her voice broke and Imogene cradled her like a child.
The stars were beginning to set, piercing a sky more blue than black, a desert sky, magnified by the dry air and scoured clean by high winds. Sarah’s hair, red-gold in the light of the fire, spread over the two women like fine lace.
Imogene eased her arm to settle Sarah more comfortably on her shoulder. The younger woman sighed, nestling closer, loving the warmth and smell of Imogene. “Will we have to leave here? He-” She couldn’t bring herself to say Harland Maydley’s name. “He will tell that man at Wells Fargo-Ralph Jensen-that there’s no Mr. Ebbitt.”
Imogene held her tighter. The thought of leaving the Smoke Creek Desert and the new life that had begun for them was intolerable. A sudden thought banished the coldness that was welling up inside her. “We’ll sign the lease over to Karl,” she said promptly.
Sarah propped herself up on one elbow and looked down at her old teacher. She traced the outline of Imogene’s wide mouth with a finger-tip. Her face was soft with love for her longtime friend. “Why are you so smart?”
“Because I’m not pretty-that’s what my father used to tell me.”
“You never talk about your parents. Why?”
“They weren’t happy people. My father was a sickly man, the runt of the family. All his younger brothers were great, robust fellows over six feet tall. It bothered him all his life and he took it out on my mother. When I was almost grown-I must have been just eighteen that summer-Father was drunk and he hit my mother. I knocked him out with just my fists. He left that night and we never heard of him again. Mother never forgave me. She watched for him every day until she died.”
“I’m so sorry.” Sarah smoothed the hair from Imogene’s cheek. “You’re still warm; the fever’s not quite left you.”
Imogene caught her hand and kissed the palm. “I’ve never felt better. Not in all the years of my life. No one need be sorry for me.”
The Reno stage rolled in just past one o’clock the next afternoon. Noisy had gotten so drunk celebrating his last run that he’d fallen out of a saloon in Reno, broken his shoulder, and couldn’t drive. They’d had to hold the stage until his replacement arrived from Virginia City. The new driver, Liam, a lean and uncommunicative Irishman, seemed sullen and taciturn compared with noisy Dave. Karl was too sick to stand, and stayed in the tackroom.
As soon as the team had been changed, Harland crept painfully from the shadowy recesses of the barn where he’d hidden himself. His clothes were covered with straw and manure, his jacket and vest were missing, and his face was streaked with dried blood. One arm stuck out at an odd angle and he walked with difficulty. He crawled
