Rainbows and Rapture (41 page)

“Who?” Santiago growled, suspicion sneaking through him. “Who, Russia?”

She closed her eyes and her lips.

Santiago’s need to understand her pain was so great he wanted to shake the truth out of her. But no sooner had the thought entered his mind than he dismissed it. He knew well the sheer torment it was to talk about things that hurt. “Take your time,
chiquita.
I’m here, and I won’t leave you.”

The gentleness in his deep voice made her feel stronger. She opened her eyes and was fairly blinded by the bright glow of concern in his. “He raped me,” she whispered. “He…I was in bed. In my little-girl room that Mama fixed up fer me. Y’want to hear about that room, Santiago?”

He didn’t give a damn about the room. She’d been raped.
Raped!

“Santiago? Y’want me to tell you about my room?”

“Yes,” he hissed from between clenched teeth.
Raped.
She’d been raped, and she wanted to tell him about her room! With supreme patience, he got hold of his fury. “Yes, of course,” he said quietly. “Tell me about your room, Russia.”

She turned her face up to the starlit heavens and smiled. “It weren’t a fancy room, but it was so purty to me, Santiago. There was a picture hangin’ over my bed. It weren’t in a frame, though. It was jist nailed right to the wall, but I didn’t care. It was of a frog. The frog was sittin’ on a green lily pad in a pond, and there was pink flowers floatin’ all around. I used to dream about that frog. Dreamed about him on account o’ that fairy tale about the Prince Charmin’ who was a frog till the girl kissed him and he turned into a prince again.”

“How nice,” Santiago managed to say.

“Santiago?”

“I’m here,” he hurried to reassure her. “I’m holding you,
palomita
.”

She forced herself to concentrate on his warmth, on the light coming from his eyes. “I was layin’ there in bed one night, and he come to my door,” she continued, her voice fading to a shaky whisper. “I couldn’t see him good, so I lighted a candle. Then I seed he was nekkid. I—It scared me, seein’ him like that. I couldn’t understand. He was so drunk, Santiago. He was
always
drunk. Even in the mornin’s.”

“He standed there in the doorway and started mutterin’,” she explained further. “Went on and on about how he didn’t have nothin’ left no more. He’d lost the farm jist a week earlier, y’see. He’d gone on a trip to the nearest town to git some supplies. He was gone fer five days. While he was in that town, he got into a card game and gambled the farm and ever’thing on it clean away.”

“Tell me the rest,” Santiago prompted, apprehensive. “About what happened the night he came to your room.”

“After he talked about losin’ the farm, he carried on about my mama dyin’ on him. He tole me that I was the only thing he had left in the whole wide world. That I was his, and that he weren’t never gonna let me go. Then he tole me— He said…”

“What did he say?” Santiago demanded, rage pumping inside him.

“That he owned me. That I was his possession and that he could do whatever he wanted to do with me.” She felt her nails sink into the sides of Santiago’s waist and knew she was hurting him. Slowly, she unfurled her fingers.

“Russia—”

“There was a braided throw rug by my bed,” she whispered. “Mama—Mama maked it herself. My feet… They didn’t never hit cold floor when I waked up in the mornin’s.”

Santiago held himself so stiffly, his entire body began to ache. It was all he could do to keep his impatience at bay. “A rug. I bet it was nice. Real nice, Russia.”

She blinked, feeling her lashes sweep across his chest. His warm, muscled chest. “When he taked a few steps into my room, I throwed my candlestick at him. He catched it and laughed. His laughter— It sounded like…like diseases. Like rusty nails and poisonous snakes. And rotten things. It sounded like ever’thing bad and scary in the whole world.”

“‘Come to Wirt, darlin’,’” she squeaked. “‘Come to yer sweet ole Wirt.’” She closed her eyes, covering them with her hands as the terrifying words echoed in her mind. “When he come into my room, that’s what he said. And—and he didn’t never quit sayin’ it! He said it a million times! He stepped on my braided rug! He got into bed! He…he hurt me so bad,” she whispered painfully. “He’s my—Wirt Avery’s my stepfather, and he hurt me.”

Santiago couldn’t reply. His rage knew no bounds.

“I fighted him,” Russia mumbled, her limbs trembling. “I was a virgin, Santiago. After that night, I weren’t never gonna be a virgin again. Wirt—I didn’t know what I was fightin’ him fer, but I knew he was gonna do somethin’ real, real bad. He did. He didn’t stop. He did it over and over again. I couldn’t stop him. He went on till all his strength was gone. Failed asleep then. His big, horrible hands was still on me when he commenced snorin’. His head was on my pillow. His smell, his touch, his ever’thing was all over me, and so was blood.”

Santiago took a deep, ragged breath, lifted his head, and stared at the sky. “God,” he groaned. “Russia… Dear God.”

The thought of Russia at Wirt’s hands made him want to scream. It filled him with the seething urge to kill. To commit a cold-blooded murder. It turned him into the man who would finally live up to all the grisly tales told about him.

He’d let Wirt escape one time. He wouldn’t again.

Slowly, he lay down on the blankets, keeping Russia next to him. He wanted to say something soothing to her, something that would make her instantly better. But he couldn’t. He was too furious. Too sickened by the thought of how helpless she’d been the night of the assault.

Russia clutched his shoulders, pulling herself closer to his comforting warmth. “My book. I finded my book Mama give me and crawled away. It was night. I can still remember the way the rocks cut into my knees and hands. Somethin’ inside me was hurtin’. Some part real deep—”

She reached for Santiago’s hand and lay it across her lower abdomen. “Here’s where it was hurtin’. Deep in here. It weren’t jist a little pain neither. I knowed Wirt had broke me inside. I keeped thinkin’ I was gonna faint, but I didn’t. Bein’ scared keeped me goin’, I reckon. I recall hearin’ the wind and things fallin’ outta the trees and all these night noises. I was sure they was comin’ from Wirt and that he was follerin’ me. I crawled all night long. The woman finded me jist when it started to git light. She taked me to a doctor. He—he—”

“What did the doctor say, Russia?” Santiago asked gently.

“It taked him a long, long time to stop the bleedin’. He explained to me that so much bleedin’ was gonna leave scars inside me and that maybe them scars would keep me from bein’ able to have babies. He didn’t know fer sure, but it turned out he was right. I—I’ve been with lots o’ men, Santiago, and I ain’t never had no baby.”

Santiago remembered how she’d acted after Mrs. Emerson had delivered a baby in Rock Springs. He recalled her look of sadness after having told him about Trudy Lawson’s pregnancy back in Whispering Oaks. Now he knew the reasons behind that sorrow. Now he understood why Russia had told him her trouble wasn’t one he could fix.

He bent, taking her lips in a tender kiss. “Don’t be afraid anymore, Russia. I swear to God that I’ll get him. I won’t let him hurt you
,
paloma.
He’ll never follow you again.”

She lifted her hand to his cheek, her lips quivering into a small smile. “The doctor and his wife let me stay with ‘emtill I got well,” she continued, her eyes never leaving his. “After I left ‘em, I did all sorts o’ jobs. Anything I could to earn money. Mostly, I cleaned houses and washed clothes. I spended ever’ cent I maked on food. I—I didn’t git much to eat when I was livin’ with Wirt, y’see. I was real skinny. But after I started eatin’ good, I filled out.”

“That’s when the men… They looked at me, Santiago. No woman would hire me no more on account o’ their husbands looked at me. It was around that time, too, when Wirt almost catched up with me. I knowed then that I couldn’t never stay in no town fer very long. I got away from Wirt, though. Hided in a man’s wagon fer two days without food or water. When the man finally stopped in a town, I got out and sweared then and there that Wirt wasn’t gonna kill me. Not with his hands or by causin’ me to starve to death. I jist couldn’t let him win like that. Jist couldn’t do it.”

“My body, Santiago,” she whispered up to him, every part of her willing him to understand. “It was all I had left to me. Men looked at it. I weren’t no virgin, and I knowed what they wanted. The first time I— The first man I…”

“Russia—”

“I cain’t remember his name, but I remember the money he give me,” she continued, her voice cracking. “Five dollars fer the whole night. The man never did go to sleep. He keeped it up till dawn. It maked me so sick, Santiago. I keeped thinkin’ about Wirt. About the rape. I don’t know how I got through that night. But I did. The next morning, I tasted food for the first time in three days. When nighttime come, so did another man. And another and another. I stayed in that town fer four days, and each night the men come. When I moved on, I had Little Jack Homer and my cart. In the next town I finded Nehemiah and more men.”

“There ain’t no end to men, Santiago. There’s more men in the world than all the grains o’ sand in the sea. They’re ever’where. And ever’ one I come across? Well, they all want one thing from me. I give it so’s I can keep on survivin’. Dyin’s horrible. It’s hard. I know. I know because I’ve almost died more times than one. Dyin’… Real slow-like? It’s so bad there ain’t even a word fer it. Men— It’s only on account o’ men and what they want that I ain’t dead.”

Again he felt helpless to comfort her. He knew what it was like to die inside, but he’d never come close to physical death. Russia had. “I’m…Russia, I’m so sorry.”

She pressed her finger to his lips. “Ain’t no need fer you to be sorry, Santiago Zamora,” she scolded him. “You didn’t have nary a thing to do with nothin’, hear? And y’know? I feel better now that I done tole ever’thing to you. Before tonight there weren’t nobody who knowed it. Now that you know it? Well, it feels right good.”

He managed a slight nod, but guilt assailed him. He’d wanted to hate this girl, he remembered miserably. He’d wanted to believe she was all the things he so detested. He’d wanted to punish her, wanted to make her feel worthless, like some cheap thing that nobody wanted.

He felt humbled with shame. Russia did what she did because there was no other way for her. She’d tried to tell him that, but he’d scoffed inwardly. He knew now that, if faced with the decisions she’d had to face, he’d have done exactly what she had.

It was the instinct for survival. He knew it well. He used his guns to survive; Russia used her body. Two different methods, to be sure, but both produced the same ends—living through another day.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again, the whole of his heart in the two words he spoke. “Russia—”

“I bet you’re wonderin’ how I can do what I do after what Wirt done, ain’tcha? Y’want me to tell you?”

He detected her need to explain it to him and recognized her desire to purge herself of all the heartache she’d been forced to hide for so long. That, too, he understood completely. Hadn’t he felt better after having told her about Graciela? “Tell me,
paloma
.”

Russia moistened her lips, pondering the past years. “I’ve give it a lot o’ thought, what I do. It used to confound me that I could do it at all. But y’see, I can sorta take myself away, or somethin’. I cain’t really explain it, Santiago. The men come, do what they want to me, but it’s like they ain’t really doin’ it to
me
.
I give ‘emever’thing they want, but my heart ain’t never in none of it. I don’t never
feel
nothin’ a’tall. That’s why I was so plumb nelly confused when you and me first— Well… With you, Santiago Zamora, I
feel.”

He knew precisely what she meant. He’d been with countless women, all of them whores, but he’d never felt anything beyond physical release. As Russia had explained, his heart was never in any of it.

Like her, he’d taught himself to become distanced from the act itself. He’d been successful at doing so until she’d swept into his life, into his arms. With Russia… God, with Russia, things were different. With Russia Valentine, he
felt.

And she would, too, he vowed. She would feel more than she ever had before. He would give her those feelings tonight. The ones she’d never experienced because of the way she took herself away from them. Because of the wall she’d built between them and herself.

The wall would come down. Bit by bit, he would tear it down himself. There was an innocent girl inside Russia Valentine, one who had never been touched by any man. He longed to introduce her to that girl, yearned to prove to her once and for all that although Wirt had stolen many, many things from her, the bastard hadn’t taken everything.

God, it was so important for her to realize that. Santiago knew with all his heart that once she understood it, much of the anguish she carried inside her would begin to fade.

But what if she refused him? he wondered anxiously. What if, after having relived her nightmare, she couldn’t bear to be touched?

He lay there silently for many long moments, trying to decide what to do. “Russia,” he whispered.

She heard dismay in his whisper and felt tension in his body. She tried to think of a way to brighten the mood of the evening. “All them things I jist tole you? Well, that night with Wirt happened a long time ago. I can usually fergit about it. So we ain’t talkin’ about it no more, hear? Instead, we’re gonna talk about cheerful things. Have you ever thinked about happy stuff that other people prob’ly don’t notice? I do that sometimes. Let’s do it now, Santiago. You’ll be surprised at how fast sadness goes away when you fill your mind with happy stuff.”

Wanting to accommodate her, he tried to think a happy thought. “The stars are all out tonight.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, there they all are, but ever’body in the world can look up and see that. You gotta think of odd stuff, Santiago. Things like…um…like puttin’ your hand under your pillow at night and feelin’ how cool it is. Don’t you do that sometimes? Ain’t you never laid there, gittin’ kinda hot, and then you put your hand under your pillow and finally go to sleep because the coolness makes you happy?”