Desert Angel (38 page)

“It’s me, girl. Ain’t been that long since ya seen your pa that you done forgot my face,” George Evans said jovially.

March had thought that if she ever saw him again, she would feel an overwhelming desire to cause him the kind of pain he had caused her. She was startled to discover that she felt nothing for the man standing on the back stoop; not love nor hate nor even revulsion. She tried to ignore the need to ask about her mother and the children. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him know that she cared.

“What do you want?”

“What do I want? Why, I come to see my baby girl.”

George pushed his way into the kitchen, his wary gaze rapidly searching the room. Finding it empty except for them, he turned to his daughter. His manner was exceptionally meek, uncharacteristically humble.

“I heard ‘bout you marryin‘ up with this rancher. Seems I done you a good turn, fixin‘ you up with him and all. Now it’s yore turn to help out your old pa a little.” He shuffled his feet and twisted his hat in his hands. “Jan and Feb runned off a while back. You know I ain’t never been much with a rifle. I could use some vittles, it’s been a bit since I ate.”

“No.” Hating for anyone to be hungry if she could do something about it, March frequently offered food to strangers. He was certainly no stranger, but she didn’t care if he starved to death. She wanted him away from the house, before his taint of corruption could somehow infiltrate the room.

“How can you be sayin‘ no to me, girl?” he whined. “I’m your pa.”

“No,” she repeated, feeling a new strength begin to spread its wings. “You have never been a father to me. You don’t even know the meaning of the word.”

“I done the best I could!”

“How? Tell me one time that you considered anyone except yourself first.”

“Why, there was many a time when I knew my babies was hungry, and I found money to feed them.”

“Stole it, you mean. And then you spent it on whiskey. The only time we had money is when you came home drunk and passed out. Then I’d dig through your pockets and take what was left.” March looked at the man who had fathered her, and felt a growing disgust that she was related to him.

George Evans felt a growing frustration. This wasn’t going at all the way he’d planned. March was supposed to be scared, more than ready to accept his guidance. The woman facing him was a stranger, with a strength he wasn’t accustomed to encountering in a woman. Of course, March always had been a stubborn one.

“You’d lie, cheat, and steal to get what you wanted. But you finally reached the bottom, when you sold me to a man who only wanted my innocence. You tried to make a whore out of me, and when that didn’t work, you sold me again. A father doesn’t abandon his child to a total stranger.”

“I done you good!” he argued, his face turning red with anger. “Lookee here at this fine house! Why that dress yore wearin‘ is better than anything yore ma has! Now get me some food, afore I have to take my belt to you. I have a lot of decisions to make, and I ain’t makin‘ ‘em on an empty stomach.”

Expecting instant compliance, George turned away. His greedy gaze noted the well-made furnishings and the trappings of a comfortable life. There was money to be had here, probably more money than he’d seen in his entire life.

“Get out of my house,” March said quietly, a thread of steel lacing the words with conviction. “You aren’t welcome here now or ever.”

“Yore house? Well, ain’t you the high-and- mighty one. You ain’t been a widow a week yet, and you’re already givin‘ orders! Well, you better be thinkin‘ about who yore tryin‘ to order around. I ain’t some hired hand.”

March didn’t hear his entire tirade. She hadn’t heard a word after his comment that she was a widow. How could he know that Jim had been shot? It wasn’t common knowledge, since Breed had made every effort to keep it quiet.

Suddenly she had an idea how he knew, an idea so vile, it made her blanch. Breed hadn’t found any traces of the shooting, since he had been unable to determine exactly where it had happened. It was a big desert, and the trail had grown cold long before he had been able to backtrack it.

“Have you gone stupid on me, girl? Get me some vittles.”

“You shot him,” she stated quietly. “You shot my husband.”

“Ain’t no way you cain prove it.” George puffed up, as pride filled him at his achievement. He hadn’t lied when he had stated that he wasn’t too good with a rifle. He figured that luck was on his side that day. “No siree, you cain’t prove nothing.”

“I don’t need to prove anything to anyone. I know the truth, that’s all that matters.”

“I’ll tell you what matters, girlie,” he snarled, tired of her disrespect. “I’m yore pa, and yore a widow-woman who needs a man to take care of her. Me and yore Ma is moving into this fine house, and you’ll do everything I say. Do I make myself clear?”

“Go to hell,” she replied softly.

“I’ve had enough of yore backtalk.” George crossed the room until he stood within reach of her. “I done what I had to do, just like I’ve always done what I had to do. There ain’t gonna be no more talkin‘ about it. And from here on out, yore gonna do exactly like I tell you to do, or you’ll be sorry.”

March smiled as his threats drifted past her like snowflakes on the wind. He couldn’t hurt her again. Finally, after all the years of painful beatings and harsh humiliation, George Evans couldn’t touch her.

“Go to hell.”

With a speed common to small men, George reached out and backhanded March. He watched with satisfaction, as her head snapped back and blood welled up from her lips.

“That’s just a taste of it, little girl. Anymore of yore backtalk and you’ll get a whole lot more. There ain’t nobody to tell me what I cain or cain’t do.”

March wiped the blood from her mouth and looked at the bright red stain on her hand. One time, a long time ago, she had run from him when he had started to hit anyone near at hand. But that was a long time ago, a lifetime ago. She had been a child; now she was a woman.

March felt free, incredibly free. The pain of her split lip was negligible in comparison to the years of agony she had suffered at his hands. But now it was at an end. There was nothing he could do to her. He had tried his worst and failed.

Just a few months as Jim’s wife and a lifetime of self-recrimination was put into its proper perspective. She had nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to regret.

She was free of her father’s corruption. Free to be a wife to Jim, a mother to Jamie. Her hand came to rest on her still-flat stomach. She could hold her head up with pride, meet the gazes of friends and strangers, and know that she was as good as any of them, maybe even better than some.

“Go to hell,” she said slowly, distinctly.

George’s fist swung again, connecting solidly with her jaw. March didn’t try to dodge that blow, but from the corner of her eye she saw his other fist aimed for her stomach. She twisted away; it landed on her hip with enough strength to knock her from her feet.

Fury unlike any she had ever known ran like fire through her veins. She could take the punishment for herself, but he was threatening the child that nestled within her body.

Rising from the floor, her hand sought the derringer in her pocket. She turned to face George, a magnificent mother protecting her offspring.

Holding the small gun in both hands with it pointed at his belly, her face was a twisted snarl of hate. Even at this range there was a slight chance that the bullet would miss him, since the gun was known to be inaccurate. It was a chance she would gladly take to protect her baby.

“Get out of my house, now!”

“Put that toy gun down!” George demanded. “I ain’t gonna be threatened by my own daughter, and I ain’t gonna forget it neither. You’ll do as I say, or you may just find yourself havin‘ an accident someday.”

March cocked the weapon. “This is your last warning. Get out!”

He raised his fist and swung, but it never connected with its target. Two shots rang out, one seeming to be the echo of the other. George grabbed at the burning hole in his stomach, and watched the crimson blood flow between his clutching fingers.

“Ya shot me … I’ll be damned, ya really shot me.”

Slowly, like a wind-up toy that has run down, he crumbled to his knees. March watched as his eyes turned glassy, and his body relaxed in death.

“Oh, my God …” she muttered, letting the gun slip through her fingers.

“It is done, a coyote has been destroyed,” a deep voice said from behind her.

In shock, March turned in time to see Breed holster his Colt. “He was your father, for that I ask that you forgive me. A child shouldn’t witness the savage death of a parent, whether he deserved to die or not.”

“You shot him?” she asked in confusion. “Are you sure? I thought / had done it.”

“It is my bullet buried deep in his belly. Your shot went wild, and is in the wall by the fireplace.”

“I couldn’t have missed.” March shook her head with disbelief. “At this distance I couldn’t have missed.”

Breed’s silver eyes softened with compassion. “It is not an easy thing to kill a man. It is harder still to kill your parent. At the last you turned your gun away enough that it missed.

“I wasn’t so generous. My bullet raced true.

Had there been more time, I would have used other means to stop him, but I came into the kitchen when it was too late to do more than to protect you with my gun.”

March believed him, maybe because, in the end, she wanted to. She stared down at her father, and remembered her promise so long ago to someday gut-shoot him and laugh as he died. She hadn’t been the one to shoot him, and she wasn’t laughing.

“He was going to hurt my baby,” she mumbled quietly.

Breed looked at her hands protectively cradling her stomach, and understood her fear for her unborn child. “Your last memory of him shouldn’t be that you were the one to cause his death. He wasn’t a good father, but he was your father. Search your mind until you find a happy memory of him, and keep that with you. Let the pain of the truth drift away until it is gone.”

“I know I should be sad that he is dead, but I can’t find any sorrow in my soul.”

“It is hard to mourn the loss of someone who brought you only pain.” Breed reached out and gently touched the bruise on her chin. She had been so fierce, this tiny woman, taking the blows for herself, but protecting her child in the only way she could. He wouldn’t let her carry the burden that she had killed her own father. Right now she was in shock, but soon the pain of guilt would raise its head, and she would agonize over it for the rest of her life.

It was only a small lie, one that wouldn’t have been necessary had he arrived in the kitchen only seconds earlier. George would never have touched her had Breed been around.

Breed looked into her troubled gaze and knew that he would always regret arriving too late, but he would never regret the lie.

He also knew, as surely as he knew that the sun would rise in the east, that it was time for him to leave. A friend had written recently, requesting a favor of him. He would use that as his excuse, for how could he stay? If he stayed, eventually the truth would be known by all … he had fallen in love with the woman another man had already claimed as his own, a woman who carried the growing seed of life within her body.

“I ask your forgiveness, Angel of the Desert,” he repeated softly, his hand unknowingly caressing her cheek.

“There is nothing to forgive.” March found peace in his touch, the touch of a friend. “Thank you for being here when I needed you.”

Breed reluctantly withdrew his hand and nodded. “Go upstairs to your son and husband. I will take care of things down here.

“My mother … how will I tell her what happened?”

“I will find her and bring her to you. She will know the truth before she arrives.”

“I can’t ask that of you.”

“You didn’t. Now go.” The friendliness was gone, replaced with his usual mask of indifference.

After March had left the room, Breed moved to the fireplace. With the point of his knife, he dug at the wood beside the structure, until the slug he had fired there fell into his hands. Dropping it into his pocket, he began the grisly task of removing all signs of the violent death.

March slowly climbed the stairs, a heavy weight of exhaustion riding her slender shoulders. Checking on Jamie first, she was amazed to discover that he had slept through the noise.

Moving into her own bedroom, her eyes widened when she realized that Jim was staring at her, his gaze clear and questioning.

“What’s happening? Did I hear a gunshot?”

“Jim … you’re awake …”

“And tired.” He studied her and saw the weariness in her face and the darkening bruise on her chin.

He cursed silently at the weakness that prevented him from providing her even the most basic protection. He had no idea what had happened, but suddenly, the most important thing was that he touch her, hold her in his arms.

“Come here, angel.” He patted the side of the bed, a slight smile crossing his face. “Come lie with me, and tell me what’s going on. You can start with telling me the reason I feel like my horse threw me, trampled me, and ate me for dinner. After that, I’d really appreciate an explanation for your colorful face.”