The Last Renegade (11 page)

“But it’s been bitter cold out there.”

He shrugged. “I dress for it. I go back to my room to get my coat.” And the derringer, but Kellen chose not to mention it. “As for Walt, I am under the impression that he is impervious to the cold.”

Raine nodded absently, vaguely troubled that she hadn’t known what Kellen was doing. It didn’t make sense, given the fact that he was hired for protection, yet she somehow felt obliged to offer it in return. She came around the chair and sat down. “Has Walter been helpful?”

He smiled, recalling how Walter’s broad shoulders extended beyond the back of the rocker, and how the man had folded his arms to rest just below his chest because the arms of the rocker could not contain them.

“I admit I was surprised,” Kellen said. “He doesn’t seem the sort to offer conversational delicacies, does he? Turns out, he’s very good at it.”

Raine thought back to Kellen’s conversation with Eli Burdick. “So that’s how you knew you could talk to Eli about the piano. Did he mention that Eli’s mother left his father for a railroad surveyor who regularly passed through the territory?”

“He didn’t get to that, no.”

“I didn’t think so. I thought Eli was going to hammer your skull when you decided to toast mothers.”

Kellen remembered thinking the same thing. “Do you like it when he calls you Lorrainey?”

Raine stiffened. “No,” she said. “It makes my skin crawl.”

“Then there is no understanding between you.”

“He said there was an understanding? What did he say? What were his exact words?”

Kellen put out his hands. “Whoa.”

“Whoa?” Raine looked at him sharply. “You said whoa to me?”

“I beg your pardon,” Kellen said. He could have avoided Eli Burdick’s bottle more easily than the Widder Berry’s stare. Her green eyes had taken on a brilliance that gave them a razor’s edge.

“I thought you said your mother advocated for women’s rights.”

“She does, and she taught me better,” Kellen said. “In my defense, I believe I mentioned I was the black sheep.”

“You must sorely try her patience,” said Raine.

“It’s been said, ma’am.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sakes,” she said. “You may call me Mrs. Berry or Lorraine, but please cease calling me ma’am.”

“Raine?” he asked softly.

It was what Adam and Ellen had called her. It was the name she gave to herself, the name of the woman reflected in her mirror. She wished she didn’t like the sound of it quite so much on Kellen Coltrane’s lips.

Mustering carelessness, she said, “If you like.”

Kellen did. He figured she was probably already regretting it, but he wasn’t giving her an opportunity to take it back. Raine. Her name lay cool and sweet on the tip of his tongue. It was a balm for the sting she could inflict with her eyes. He thought she looked uneasy, as though she was no longer certain of the ground she stood on. He gave her something to hold on to.

“But not Lorrainey,” he said.

Raine flared. Heat rushed into her cheeks. “You wouldn’t like the consequences.”

Kellen decided she had recovered. “Probably not,” he said, and meant it. He didn’t need to know what the consequences were. “Now do you still want to know about Eli’s understanding?”

“Yes.”

“It’s simple. He thinks you’re his.”

Raine rolled her eyes.

“And that you always have been.”

She slowly shook her head from side to side. “I cannot explain it. There’s no accounting for him being so single-minded. I have never encouraged him.”

“Love.”

“What?”

“Love accounts for it.”

“No,” she said firmly. “It doesn’t.”

“Then lust,” he said. “Greed, because he wants all of you. And pride because you wound him.”

“Wound him? His hide is as thick as a buffalo’s.”

His hide was at least that thick, Kellen thought, and his head was thicker. Still, he offered another explanation to Raine. “He has to pretend you don’t hurt him, doesn’t he? Otherwise he would look foolish to everyone within earshot.”

“Are you suggesting I should stop prickling when he calls me Lorrainey and sit on his lap when he invites me?”

“No.”

“Because I can tell you what would happen if I showed him a scrap of kindness.”

“I understand.”

“He’d have me right there. In the saloon.”

“I understand,” Kellen said again.

“On the bar.”

“I know.”

“With people watching.”

Kellen put out a hand. “Whoa.”

Raine stopped. She looked away and tucked her chin against her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” said Kellen. “Did it sound as if I were trying to excuse him?”

“No.” She raised her head, shook it almost imperceptibly. “It sounded as if you were trying to blame me.”

A muscle worked in his cheek. He waited for her to look at him again. When she finally did, he said, “I am more sorry than I can properly express.”

She smiled faintly. “Then you must be sorry indeed. I’ve been noticing that you know a whole lot of words.”

He returned her smile because she seemed to expect it. She had forgiven him even if he had not forgiven himself.

He tipped his chair onto its rear legs. “What was it you gave me to put in Eli’s drink? I’d like to know it’s handy when he comes around again.”

“Just a sleeping powder. Mr. Burnside, the druggist, makes it for me. Eli has a hollow leg. He never passes out. I usually slip it into his bottle myself, but he grabbed it too quickly. I was not confident you could manage him all evening. Did you have a plan?”

“Other than keeping him occupied?”

“Other than that.”

“No. No plan.”

“What did you think when his head hit the table?”

“That I finally bored someone to death.”

Laughter bubbled to Raine’s lips, leaving the imprint of a smile in its wake. “It was probably only a matter of time,” she said.

He grinned. “Well, thank you. Eli slept it off in the back room?”

“Not entirely. I asked the Davis boys to throw him over his horse. They escorted him back to the ranch. That probably accounts for his absence these last couple of evenings.”

Kellen dropped his chair onto all four of its legs. “I know what I needed to know. I should be going.”

“Before you go,” she said. “I want to tell you what happened to Ellen.”

Kellen fell into a troubled sleep. The images seared in his mind’s eye could not easily be dismissed, and while each one passed eventually, it came around again like a dark, demonic horse on a carousel from hell.

At its barest bones, the story of what happened to Ellen Wilson could be stated in a single sentence. Isaac Burdick raped her, a pregnancy came of the violence, and she and the baby died in childbirth.

Raine had given him the bare bones first, and then she put flesh on them.

Through Raine’s eyes, he saw Ellen at fifteen: a winsome dervish of a girl with strawberry blond hair, green eyes, an unfettered laugh, and little understanding of her own charm. He saw the eighteen-year-old Isaac Burdick, too. The boy was a pared-down version of his older brothers, slimmer, bonier, but with the same thick black hair, pale blue eyes, and squared-off jaw. When he was culled from the Burdick herd, he was less confident of his place. Arrogance faded, along with the sense of entitlement.

Left alone, he might never have gotten up the nerve to do
more than speak to Ellen in passing, but Eli and Clay, like Raine, saw where his affections lay. Raine feared that discouraging Isaac or cautioning Ellen would simply put the pair together more often. She watched instead and took every opportunity when Isaac was around to find something for Ellen to do that would keep her close. For their part, Eli and Clay were relentless in their ribbing. The first thing they did upon entering the saloon was to look around for Ellen and prod Isaac until he was moving in her direction. Raine eventually kept Ellen away from the saloon altogether.

Raine’s maneuvering did not escape the notice of Eli and Clay, and she made the painful acknowledgment that it might have spurred them to concoct their plan. The motivation was to outwit her. Isaac was hardly more than a means to do so. Ellen was of no account.

It happened a little over four years ago in May. The saloon was crowded with men fresh from a cattle drive. Most of them worked for the Burdicks. Raine had Walt to help her at the bar and two girls who no longer worked at the saloon to take orders and fetch drinks at the tables. Because Clay Burdick had a fondness for poking at Walt, Raine didn’t like to leave him alone for long. She already felt tied to the bar that evening and with heavier rope than usual because of the presence of Eli and Clay. She remembered feeling relieved when Clay finally stepped outside in search of fresh air. Eli stayed where he was, but he was less troublesome when he wasn’t showing off for his younger brother.

Either one of them.

Raine remembered the fear as something so powerful it stopped her heart and stole her will. At the moment she realized that Isaac had never been with his brothers, and that Clay was gone, she couldn’t breathe or move. The inability to act lasted mere seconds, but then, and every time she thought about it since, the time between comprehension and action yawned before her like a great chasm that she could neither jump nor bridge.

Raine took the backstairs two at a time to reach the third floor. Ellen was not in their apartments. Backtracking, Raine
stopped on the guest floor, and saw Clay Burdick standing outside the door to the only room not let for the night. She charged ahead, her outcry mingling with the one she heard from inside the room. Clay braced himself for the impact of Raine’s body. She was the one who lost her footing and staggered back. The second time she launched herself at him had as little effect.

She cried out for Ellen and heard her name come back to her in a strangled voice as desperate and frightened as her own. She threw her fists at Clay while she screamed at Isaac to stop. Neither brother responded.

Clay was mostly amused by her efforts until one of her wild punches caught him on the nose. Instantly Raine squeezed behind him. She was flush to the door when she managed to open it and practically fell into the room.

Ellen lying on the bed. Ellen with her skirt bunched at her hips, her thighs spread wide around Isaac Burdick’s hips. Ellen’s terrified eyes. Her clenched jaw. Blood on her lip. Isaac panting, rutting, his bony fingers digging into Ellen’s pale buttocks. Apologies, too. He was sorry, so sorry, but he could not help himself. She wanted it. He knew it was the same for him. His brothers told him it would be like that.

Raine attacked, knocking Isaac sideways and shoving him to the floor. She pummeled his face until Clay got his arms under her shoulders and yanked her away. He held her back and told his brother he better finish what he started, better finish it, or he would. Raine howled as Isaac slowly got to his feet and stumbled back to the bed. Ellen hadn’t moved or tried to cover herself. She was all but senseless and only whimpered when Isaac dragged her closer to the edge of the bed and lifted her hips. He was no longer aroused. The beating, Raine’s presence, his brother’s taunting, perhaps Ellen’s pathetic cries, something had reached him. His cock was soft, a doughy lump between his thighs. He had to work to stir himself. Clay gave him direction. He was painfully slow in coming around but blessedly quick in coming.

Clay had no interest in Ellen but the violence and humiliation aroused him. Directing the scene was no longer enough.
He held a squirming, writhing woman in his hands, a woman who had broken his nose and bloodied his face, and in his mind, the Widder Berry was better sport than her virgin sister.

He told Isaac to get his whore out of the way, and then he half carried, half drove Raine to the bed and threw her on it. The force that he used to push her down stunned her, but she twisted onto her back and drew up her knees. When he would have fallen on her, she threw all of her strength into her legs and drove the air from his lungs with the soles of her boots. She rolled to the edge of the bed and went over the side, scrambling to her feet and using a chair to block Clay’s advance.

Isaac was mute, backed into a corner by nothing but his guilt. Ellen lay curled on one side facing him. She did not react to her sister’s fight, even when the bed was jostled and shoved. Raine never asked for help. She told her sister to get out, to run. Ellen did not move.

Eli came upon them before Clay wrestled Raine back to the bed. He put a forearm around Clay’s throat and pulled him away. He held him in that stranglehold until Clay’s knees sagged. When he let go, Clay dropped to his hands and knees and drew deep, gasping breaths. Eli kicked him in the ribs for good measure.

His gaze slid over Raine. “Clay’s got no right to you. I told him that before.” He cocked his head to where Ellen lay. “Isaac didn’t mean anything by it. He’s just a boy himself. Uriah offered to buy him a whore at Miss Selby’s place, but he didn’t want one. Problem is, the only cherry he ever had was on top of one of Mrs. Burnside’s sundaes. Your sister was sweet on him. You know it, too. I reckon he was overcome the way young men are from time to time.”

He bent, yanked Clay up by the collar—no mean feat since they were equal in size—and gave him a shove toward the door. “He won’t be bothering you again, Lorrainey. Isaac, get out of here.” He held up a hand and then used his forefinger to point to Isaac’s open fly. “Sure, you’re proud of it, but it ain’t decent to wave it around once it’s been used.”

Raine believed the Burdicks did not expect Isaac to be arrested and, once arrested, did not expect he would stand trial.
She was certain they never took the trial seriously because even at that juncture they never considered that the outcome was in doubt. Isaac was the only one who looked scared from time to time, but a single glance from his father could put real fear into him and make the other fade away.

The town was dependent on Burdick cattle and Burdick money. Uriah Burdick owned the bank. He owned Miss Selby’s whorehouse. He owned the corral where other ranchers sent their cattle for shipping. He owned several of the buildings along the main street including the government land office and Ted Rush’s hardware and leather goods store. He had the largest ranch and hired the most hands. He spread his money around. He did not come into town often, but when he did, it stirred the merchants to display their finest goods and the citizens to find yet another reason to loiter on the sidewalks. Standing just over six feet, Uriah Burdick was still an imposing figure, not as handsome as his sons, but carrying himself with more distinction and dignity. And it was always counted as a good visit when he returned to the ranch with no bodies left behind.