Hidden Pearl (36 page)

"This isn't funny," Christine said, hoping Hank was pretending. She didn't know, had never seen him look so dazed, so frightened. Maybe seeing the gun, hearing the shots had triggered some kind of memory. If it had, it obviously wasn't a good one.

"Tie 'em up," George ordered. "We'll sort this out after we've got Taggert." He grinned, the barrel of his gun now pointing at Christine. "And if he isn't already here, he will be with the gun shots."

"You don't need to tie us up," Christine said, "We'll be happy to go with you to talk to Peter. I'm sure he'll say it's okay for us to hike out here. It isn’t like you’ve got anything to hide anyway."

George's expression was glacial. "Yeah, what could we have to hide?" He nodded to his henchman to do as he'd been bid. Christine prayed silently as she felt the ropes tighten around her wrists. She begged silently to S.T.
Stay away.
She knew he wouldn’t. Even if he hadn’t been nearby, he would be after hearing the shots.

"Hey Taggert," George yelled. "I know you're there. I can smell you. Always heard you can smell Injuns, now I know it's true. You see what I've got here, don't you?" He grinned, bobbing his rifle a little as he kept it trained on Christine. "I might just take off a toe of one of them if you don't come on down."

There was a silence, broken only by the sound of a raven in the distance. "I know you'd like to get off a shot at me,” George yelled, “but you won't get a chance before I kill your woman—and don’t try to pretend about that. I know who she is to you. Maybe you need a little proof that I mean what I say."

He swung his gun to point at Christine's foot. She froze as she realized he really intended to shoot her and there wasn't a thing she could do to stop him.

"I'll start low," George said, "and work my way up."

"Wait!" The voice she'd prayed not to hear ricocheted off the hill. Tears ran down her cheeks as she saw S.T. coming down from the rocky rise, his hands raised in the air.

"I kind of thought that might bring you out of your hole." George laughed as S.T. walked almost to him, then stopped. "No alibis this time?" he asked then, his bushy eyebrows raised questioningly.

S.T. said nothing, his eyes were cold, his mouth set in a hard line as George's henchman ran their hands over his body, checking him for weapons, then stepped back and nodded to George.

"So what were you doing on private property, trespassing? Maybe looking to steal something again?" George asked as he reversed the butt of the rifle and rammed it into S.T.'s stomach, doubling him over.

Coughing, S.T. managed to straighten up, his eyes now filled with pain.

"Stoic bastard, aren't you?" George said, repeating the sadistic jab, this time following up with another to the side of S.T.'s head, knocking him to the ground. Christine screamed as George aimed a kick at S.T.'s stomach.

S.T. twisted onto his side and looked up at George. “You’re pretty brave behind that gun,” he managed through gritted teeth.

George chuckled. “Think I’m dumb enough to put it down? Tie him up.” They pushed S.T. onto his stomach and roughly tied his wrists together, then dragged him to his feet. S.T. met George’s gaze, his own hard and angry. Christine prayed he would do nothing to incite another blow.

“What are you going to do to us?” she asked trying to divert George’s attention back to her.

“Nothing much. Just take you back to the building.” He smiled, then looked at his henchman. “Keep an eye on ‘em. I’ll go get the truck. No point in walking all the way back… least not us.” He grinned more broadly and headed around the bend in the road.

S.T. moved to Christine’s side, then looked at Hank. “He okay?” he asked.

“No talking,” the guard warned, jabbing with his rifle to make his point.

Christine shrugged to let S.T. know she had no idea. She still wasn’t sure if Hank was really having a blackout or pretending. If it was an act, it was a good one, as his eyes appeared glazed.

“How long you been with this bunch of loonies?” S.T. asked the guard.

The guard glared at him. “He told you not to talk.”

“Why not? What’s talking going to hurt? You got us tied up.”

The guard seemed to debate that with himself. “He didn’t tell you we couldn’t talk,” S.T. argued.

The guard finally shrugged. “Just stay where you are.”

S.T. managed a smile despite his cut lip. He looked at Christine. “Are you all right?”

She nodded. “Scared half to death, but I guess that’s stating the obvious,” she said.

S.T. leaned forward as though to kiss her cheek. “Gun’s behind that big rock,” he whispered. “No, don’t look. Just remember it.”  He stepped back and met the guard’s questioning gaze. “She’s scared. Do you have to wave that gun around like a green kid?”

“He told me to watch you.”

“And you’re doing that. What do you think we could do anyway?”

Christine looked around trying to make it look as though she was simply straightening a kink in her neck. When she saw the rock, she let her gaze wander on past it. Tied up as they were, she didn’t know what good it would do, but better up there than having been taken from S.T.  

S.T. sagged a little and Christine turned quickly back to him. “Maybe… broke a rib,” he grunted. Before he could do more to lure the guard closer, hoping he could somehow knock the man down and get the gun, he heard the truck approaching and knew it was too late.

The truck pulled to a stop near them and S.T. shot a quick glance at Hank as George and another man opened the doors. How much help was Hank going to be to Christine or himself? When Hank's gaze met his, S.T. had his answer. It was a ruse. The question still remained whether Hank could actually use a gun if he got free. He might be exaggerating his reaction to the shots, but he obviously had no use for firearms. Would he use one to save even his own life?

George chuckled as he ordered the guards to put Christine and Hank into the back of the pickup. “But you breed,” he said looping a rope around S.T.’s neck, tightening the knot until it was snug, rough against his skin, “you can run along behind or be hung. I hope you can run because I don’t want to miss the rest of our fun.” He chuckled.

#

Christine paced the length of the small room into which she'd been imprisoned for what seemed hours. Although her hands had been freed, she had seen no one since being locked into a room with a window too narrow for anyone to escape through.

Where were S.T. and Hank? What had they done to them? She bit her lower lip to stop the tears. It would do no good to cry. Somehow keeping a cool head was her only hope now. The door opening startled her, causing her to turn around.

"I've brought you something to eat," Sharon said, her own eyes red, her cheeks flushed.

Christine nodded and sat on the bed to take the tray. A hearty soup and a vegetarian sandwich. She had no appetite, but she knew she should eat to keep her strength up. She looked skeptically at the juice.

"It's all right," Sharon said, sitting on a small chair at the other side of the room.

"What do you mean?"

"It's not drugged. I figured you knew what we'd done before and were afraid we'd do it to you, but we won't." Sharon stared at the floor and swallowed hard.

"What's going on?" Christine asked as she ate the soup. "Where is S.T.?"

"He the one they call the half-breed?" Sharon asked, visibly struggling to hold back tears.

Christine pushed the food tray away. "What happened to him?" she asked, feeling as though her heart had been clenched by a giant fist.

"He's... He's all right, I guess," Sharon said, her voice breaking on a sob.

I guess?
Christine knelt in front of her, taking the girl's thin arms in her hands. "Tell me. You have to tell me."

Sharon looked up then, her face crumpling as she sobbed. "I didn't want to do it... I was mad at him before because of what he said, but I didn't want to do it."

When the girl stopped, Christine forced herself to swallow back her panic. "Sharon, what did you do?"

She looked up then, fear in her eyes. "But what if he finds out I told you."

"Who? If who finds out?" George or Peter Soul? Who was in control now?

Sharon met her gaze. "Reverend Soul."

"He'll not find out from me," Christine said, forcing a commanding tone to her voice. "Now tell me, what happened to S.T.?"

"I went into the room. I didn't know what they were doing. Nobody told me. I had heard voices, went to see what was happening. I wish I hadn't gone. I wish I'd never gone in there. I saw him hanging by his wrists, the half-breed. His chest was bare, his arms held up by chains." Her voice grew dreamy, the tone unrelated to the horror of her words. "They were hitting him."

"Who?"

"George and Ralph. Then I saw Reverend Soul was there too. He was sitting on a chair at the edge of the room. He looked up and saw me. He told me he didn't like what was happening anymore than he could see I did, but that heathens need to be disciplined, had to be made to repent. He said it would only last until he repented of his evil."

Eyes glazed, Sharon looked at Christine. "Reverend Soul smiled." She frowned. "He got up and walked over to where George was getting ready to use a whip. He took it from him. They argued. I couldn't hear what they said, but then Reverend Soul looked into the half-breed's face. He pulled his hair back, lifting his head. He said, "'Are you ready to renounce your evil deeds?'

"The half-breed just looked at him. Then Reverend Soul walked back to me. He held the whip out." She put her hands over her face.

Christine bit down hard on her lip, forcing herself not to give in to the anger rising in her. "He told you to whip him?" she asked finally when she saw that Sharon was not able to finish.

Tears rolled down Sharon's cheeks. "He said I had to do it. I didn't want to, but they forced it into my hand.” She looked into Christine’s eyes. “It wasn’t a real big one. Like a riding whip or something.  Reverend Soul said, 'This half-breed has done wrong. Evil is in half of him. If the man is to survive, to… be whole, the evil must be driven out.’ So… I took the whip and I began to hit his back.”

Sharon closed her eyes, then opened them, the expression tortured.  “Reverend Soul stopped me. He said, you’re not hitting hard enough, and he said I had to strike him on his chest and… belly.” She made a little sobbing sound. “I walked around and…” She stopped.

“You know how dark his eyes are, almost black,” she said when she began again, her voice as though repeating a memorized verse, nearly toneless. “He looked straight into mine, seemed to see through me, but he didn’t say a word as I began to hit him on his chest and stomach.”  She shuddered again.

"Reverend came to stand beside me. He smiled and said I had to do it harder.... He looked back at him, the poor devil hanging there and said, 'You can stop this anytime.' God help me, I kept hitting him, the whip striking his skin. The sound… All I can still hear is the sound of that whip." She stopped talking and put her hands over her face. “I can’t believe I did that, but I did.”

"How many times… did you hit him?" Christine asked. She felt a desperate need to get to S.T. Could Sharon take her there? If she did, what would it help?

"I don’t know. God forgive me," Sharon whispered. "The whip left marks, welts across his chest and belly. Once I accidentally hit him on the neck, barely touched his jaw with it, but it marked him there too. That’s when Reverend Soul, he got angry with me and said I couldn’t do nothing right.”

She looked up then and met Christine’s gaze. “I didn’t want to hurt him. Didn’t want to see the pain in his eyes, like a wounded animal, but he didn't say a word, sometimes just grunted but didn’t cry out. Every time I hit him, his body flinched, I saw he was in pain, began to feel it myself with every blow, as though I was hitting me, but I didn’t dare to stop." She began to sob again.