Black Horse (Breaking Black) (10 page)

“Leave it to us,” said Randy. “In the mean time we have to get you out of here.”

“Uh… no…”

“Yes, Averi. You’re the one he wants to kill!” Colt said. “I will not have you hurt or killed…”

“Colt!”

“No Averi… He broke into the house last night. When I got back, he was sitting in the rocking chair next to your bed. He’s coming back for you!”

Averi’s chest began to hurt.

“He was…”

“I went to go bust these two bozos out of jail. When we got back, the back door was wide open and he was in the bedroom sitting next to you in the dark.”

Averi couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She began to hyperventilate. The man that murdered her parents, Seth and nearly her, twenty years ago, was sitting in her bedroom while she slept.

“Breathe! Avie!” Randy yelled.

“It happening again!” she said in a panic.

Colton wrapped her in his arms. “Shhhh…. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to take care of it.”

“You and Shelly are gonna go up Pappaw’s Ranch, and hide up there til this is over.”

“What?” asked Averi in disbelief.

“Girl, you and I are gonna stay out of the way. Let the fellas handle this old crazy…”

“Fuck that! He wants me, let him come! I’ll kill him myself!”

“Avie,” said Tim, “You’re not thinking clearly.”

“No, Tim. I’m thinking
quite
clearly. Let the bastard come. For the first time in twenty years, we are a family. We are not separating.” Colton looked at Averi with a concerned look on his face.  “Goddamn it, Averi…”

Chapter Fourteen

Mother of Grace

November 22, 1989

Motel Lorraine

Broken Arrow, Oklahoma

Dusk

A curtain ruffled at the window of motel room 13. A man peered out with intense brown eyes, a look of fear and danger glaring from his face.

“We will rest here for tonight, but we must leave before first light.”

Jessa nodded in understanding, her pretty face mottled with scars and bruises. The skin under her left eye was a sickly green color, an old bruise from her husband’s fist. A gruesome slash, angry and red, overtook her fair skin reaching from the edge of her eyebrow to the curve of her lip. Her arms and legs were riddled with black and blue; the battering effect of a tumultuous marriage and a failed attempt at escaping his abuse. Her hands were ruined with burns, the effect of being locked in a garage that was lit on fire.
Intentionally
. Tom McClain was a sadistic son of a bitch.

A young boy, only three years of age, sat on her lap, pulling at her black hair and caressing her cheek sweetly. She laid him down on the bed and covered him with a soft blanket. She spoke to him in a soft voice that soothed him. A sweet smile curled from his pink mouth.

“Colton, you must listen to mama…”

Colton looked at his mother intently, his wide eyes taking her in. For being so young, his eyes had an unexpected depth to them. He had seen much in his short life. If it wasn’t for his mother, lord only knows where he would be.

“We need to rest so that we can go back in the car tomorrow. Mr. John is really tired from driving all the way from Texas.”

“I don’t want to go back in the car.”

“I know, love, but we have to.”

“To run from Dad?”

“To keep you and me safe. Mr. John is a good man. He won’t let anything happen to you.”

As Colton drifted of to sleep that night, he worried a little less about the strain of recent events. The sting of his father’s hand, the piercing shouts of his parents’ arguing voices and his mother’s devastating screams from the bedroom when his father would torture his mother every time she had tried to flee. Jessa watched as Colton’s eyes drifted to sleep, and the thoughtful boy’s appearance gave way to that of an angel. She protected him as best as she could, but she couldn’t help but fear for his road ahead.

John approached Jessa as she watched over Colton. He placed a hand on her shoulder, and she flinched. A natural reaction after the abuse she suffered under the reign of Black Horse.

“You’re a good mother, and you will survive this.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“You’ll see. Once we get to Vermont, things will be different.”

“I’m so thankful for you, John.”

“Don’t thank me yet. We’re not out of the woods yet.”

John wasn’t her boyfriend or her lover. But he wanted to be. He loved her from the moment he laid eyes on her in the first grade. He wanted to protect her, to share a love with her. But most of all, he wanted her to be safe. John was a police officer with the San Antonio police department. He took a leave of absence when he discovered what Black Horse did to Jessa and he vowed to never let any harm come of her or her son again. It was a promise that we wouldn’t be able to keep. He wanted to get them as far away from Texas as possible. He knew Black Horse would likely cross state lines, but he couldn’t see him following them past the Mason-Dixon Line. He was a Confederate Son, a member of the notoriously violent Seventy Devils Motorcycle Gang, and a proud card carrying member of the NRA. John carried a pistol for his job, but it was nothing that could match the artillery that Black Horse carried.

Jessa never once cheated on her husband, but the divorce papers were filed, and she would not refuse the comfort of another man. Especially one so warm and giving as John Radcliffe. As John lounged on the bed, Jessa curled up beside him as the weight of the day fell down upon her. Falling asleep into the nook of his arm, John kissed her on the forehead before allowing sleep to take him.

***

Tom “Black Horse” McClain sat in the dark cab of his pick up truck under the blinking lights of the Motel Lorraine in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. He hated Oklahoma. He had three outstanding warrants in this state, so he would have to fly under the radar. Not like that was a problem. His blood boiled as he seethed in the dark parking lot staring at the room where he knew his wife had fled with his son and John Radcliffe. The man Black Horse assumed to be her lover. Why else would one be in a seedy motel with a man who is not their husband?

Fucking whore.

Black Horse lit a cigarette and the flame of the lighter illuminated his face. His expression was marred with cruelty and anger. There was no hope for compassion, no chance for escape. No time for explanations. Black Horse had followed them to Oklahoma for just one purpose. To murder his wife and the man who dare take her from his grasp. As the bedroom light was extinguished, a horrible smile grew across Black Horse’s face.

He waited.

And waited.

With each passing moment his intensity grew. He stared at the dark window of the motel room. He imagined what John was doing to his wife. Delusional in his thinking that his wife was running off for an affair, instead of away from his madness. The very man that had set her on fire, beat her with an electrical cord and stripped her of her God given rights to freedom, was making himself the victim. And now the “victim” was seeking revenge.

***

Try as he might, John couldn’t sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. He knew there was a good chance that Black Horse would follow them. He had parked his car behind the motel away from the road so that they would be harder to find. The dark of the motel room was menacing. He felt as if the walls were closing in. His greatest wish was to get Jessa and Colton as far away from Tom McClain as possible. It wasn’t just his heart talking, he had a civic responsibility to protect them. He had a horrible feeling of dread in his stomach. His anxiety twisted his stomach into knots and the edge he had felt when he bolted out of his driveway this morning was gone. It was as if he expected Black Horse to charge through the door at any moment.

***

The first light of dawn reached its long fingers through the curtains, as Jessa stirred in bed. She nudged John who had fallen asleep beside her. John awoke looking surprised and relieved that they had lived through the night. Jessa lifted Colton out of bed and wrapped him in her arms. He remained sleeping, suckling his thumb as his dreams went uninterrupted. Pulling a bag over his shoulder, John opened the door of the motel room and let the blinding morning light flood the room.

***

Black Horse had stared at the motel door for nearly six hours straight. He barely breathed. He rarely blinked. He bit down on his lip so hard a droplet of blood formed and dripped down onto his black jacket. He was so far removed from sanity that he had no recollection of a world beyond his hatred. As the hotel door opened, Black Horse aimed his revolver out his truck window and released the trigger.

Pop! Pop!

He shot twice, shooting John once in the head and once in the chest. The sounds of his wife’s scream broke the silence of the morning as Black Horse raced to the open door of the motel.

***

Jessa launched her and Colton under the bed hiding from the monster that was her husband. She laid on top of the boy, making sure that he could breathe, but ensuring the he would be guarded from his father’s rage.

“Darling, you must be brave…” Jessa whispered to Colton as she left a soft kiss upon his brow. “Listen to my voice and close your eyes. Let my grace protect you, this day and always. Even if I am not with you, I will love you and guard you. Do not allow your heart to fall into darkness as your father’s heart has.”

Before she could say another word, she could feel Black Horse’s calloused hand grip her ankle. As Jessa was ripped from Colton’s life he screamed as if he was being murdered himself. Crawling on his hands and his knees, he chased after his father, as rage poured out of his little body. Colton bolted across the room as his father drug his mother by her hair. As Colton’s teeth bit down into his father’s leg, Black Horse delivered a death sentence to Jessa McClain’s battered heart.

Chapter Fifteen

Late Night Delivery

November 24, 1989

Oakeley, Texas

1:26 A.M.

Anna McClain was sleeping soundly in her quaint rancher home that stood on the outskirts of Oakeley. She lived a quiet existence. She was estranged from her only son, Tom, and her only callers were friends from the parish at church who checked in from time to time and her friends from the Bridge club she was part of. While most people would consider this a lonely life, Anna was happy. Though she missed her son, she had come to accept that her life was happy without him. He was a dark soul. A devious boy who grew into a sick and angry man. It wasn’t of her own doing. She took the boy to Sunday school, enrolled him in the scouts, he even stood on the church boy’s choir for over ten years.

Anna was a sweet soul, though, and tough love was never her strongest point. He had stolen from her. Broken her heart more times than any mother should have to endure. She thought for sure his life had taken a turn for the better when he married sweet Jessa from Longmire. Anna wasn’t a stupid woman though. She saw the bruises and the scars. Privately, she hoped that Jessa could breakaway from Tom before it was too late. Then Colton was born. Jessa had brought Colton over to see his grandmother often. Tom never accompanied them, because he was rarely home. It wasn’t until Tom discovered that his mother was going to help Jessa leave him that he cut off all contact. Anna hadn’t seen her son or grandson since, and she worried about Jessa and the baby. She prayed for them every night.

She lie snuggled in her bed, breathing softly when a loud bump just outside her home shocked her awake. She wasn’t accustomed to unexpected visitors, certainly not at this hour. She rolled out of bed, her joints creaking as she moved. Pulling on her housecoat, she moved quickly to see who was calling at this urgent hour.