Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
The judge’s face was locked in a grimace of pain, but Caleb had no time for him.
Holding the Winchester in his hands, he didn’t slow down or break stride as he stepped up onto the porch. With his boot, he busted the door open wide, reducing the planks to kindling.
And then, on the threshold, he stopped dead.
Elijah Starr stood by the window on the back wall, holding Sheila by the hair and pointing his Remington at her temple.
As they faced each other, a light of recognition and surprise lit the older man’s face.
“Well, after all these years. I’ve been waiting for this a long time. The day my son comes home.”
Caleb stared at the man, feeling all the burning hate of a lifetime come flooding back.
His insides were scorched with liquid fire that coursed through his veins, flowing into every corner of his being.
This man was not his father. He was the raging demon who had beaten Caleb’s mother until the light within her had finally flickered out.
But Eliza Starr was dead long before that afternoon when Caleb found Starr finishing her off. She died trying to protect her child from a monster.
He stared at the man who haunted his dreams. They were nearly the same size, the father as tall and as broad as the son.
From his childhood, Caleb recalled the patch that covered the missing eye.
The huge fists that wielded a stick with horrendous cruelty.
The hard, taunting voice that twisted scripture to his own purposes.
Caleb guessed that the scars on his face were from their last meeting.
“Lose the rifle. And those fancy six-guns while you’re at it.”
Caleb felt nothing but hate. As he stood looking at the man, the heat in his veins dissipated in an instant. His head cleared and his blood turned to ice. Elijah Starr was going to die.
Without hesitation, he leaned his rifle against the wall and unbuckled his gun belt, dropping it out the door behind him.
He had no fear of being gunned down. He knew how his father’s twisted mind worked. Why kill someone when you could watch them suffer first?
Sheila’s eyes met his. There was so much about him that she didn’t know. His parentage. The things he’d done. The horrendous guilt he carried.
Yet he knew none of it changed what she saw standing before her.
Not a murderer.
Not a coward.
Not the frightened sixteen-year-old boy who had run from that horror-filled house in Indiana.
He knew that Sheila only saw a man who had crossed mountains while wounded, faced rattlesnakes, outlaws, and death itself...but still came back for her.
Whatever sins Caleb believed he carried, they did not belong to the man she knew.
The expression on her face showed that she had tremendous courage, regardless of the danger that she was in. Paddy’s muffled voice came to him from under the floorboard, crying to be let out. But Starr was standing on the floorboard.
“How long has it been, Caleb?”
“Thirteen years.”
Back then, Caleb was still growing. He didn’t have the height or strength of his father. He had always thought that Elijah was ten feet tall. His fists were hammers. The cane was a weapon no mortal being could shield himself against.
Now they faced each other. One last time. Caleb was most likely stronger, but his father still held the advantage. He had Sheila.
“When I rode out here, I didn’t know it was you I was coming for.” The tone was scornful. Accusing. “You changed your name.”
“I had to wipe your ugly stain off of me somehow.”
“You were hiding. Running away,” Elijah scoffed. “I’d say the truth is that you changed your name to escape justice. To avoid the gallows.”
“Maybe both of those things. I was young.” He shook his head grimly. “I tried to kill you. Thought I done it. But I reckon I was wrong. Cuz here you are, standing right in front of me.”
“It wasn’t me you killed. It was your mother.”
Every muscle in Caleb’s body strained to rush forward and break this man in two.
“That’s a lie!” he spat out. “You and I know who killed her. You did. By beating her. Over and over. She was lying at your feet by the time I got there that day. Already dead. Her face near unrecognizable. Her blood on your fists. You’re the one I went after.
And I thought I killed you. I was glad of it. ”
“But you didn’t. You were sixteen years old. Weak. A coward.” He sneered at Caleb. “Do you know how easy it was to blame the fire on you? Everyone believed it.”
“What fire?”
“The fire that burned my house to the ground. The fire you started, burning your mother to death in her sleep.” The recollection seemed to ignite Elijah Starr’s face. “I waited and watched everything go up in smoke until nothing was left but ashes.”
“I did no such a thing. No one could have believed that.”
“The stories I came up with about your temper, your bad friends, worked brilliantly. Even if you’d crawled back with your story, who would the law listen to. You? A scared runaway with blood on your clothes. Or me? A respected veteran. A revered schoolmaster?”
So many times, over the years, Caleb had wanted to know who buried his mother. He’d wanted to go back there, see her grave. Say goodbye.
“I knew you were gone. I knew that place would never see any sign of you again.” He laughed without mirth.
“So I let the rumors fly, but I told the town marshal what I wanted him to believe. That fire must have started accidentally. My beloved wife died tragically in her sleep. I tried to save her. And he believed me. The law never went looking for you.”
“Am I supposed to be grateful?” Caleb snapped. “You killed her! You burned her to hide it.”
“I told those tales because I intended to find you myself. Punish you myself. And I always knew it would only be a matter of time. I’d settle my own score.”
Starr tugged hard on Sheila’s hair, as if he’d just remembered that he had her. Her blue eyes were wide, and Caleb still saw the fight in them.
“The judge’s bodyguard says she’s not your wife, but this ferocious little chit has set her cap at you.
And you’re showing equal interest. How very nice!
I get to do this again. I get to hurt someone who matters to you.
And you have to watch it. I can’t tell you how much pleasure it will give me to hear you beg for her life. ”
He’d done plenty of begging for his mother’s life when he’d been a young boy. The words never mattered a damn. They wouldn’t now.
Paddy started pounding on the floorboard Starr was standing on again. Crying out.
Caleb glanced down at the entry to the root cellar and his father followed his gaze.
“Someone else you care about?”
Without taking his eyes off of Caleb, he quickly aimed the pistol downward and fired once into the floor.
Sheila screamed and grabbed for the smoking gun as Caleb launched himself at Starr’s throat.
Caleb’s left fist traced an arc over Sheila’s head and caught Elijah above the eye patch, snapping his head back and loosening his hold on her.
As he pulled Sheila away from his father, Caleb hammered the man with a right, staggering him and driving him back against the wall.
He followed, but the older man was not done.
A knife appeared, and Caleb saw the gleaming blade coming at him, low and deadly.
His hand shot downward, grabbing the wrist even as he drove his right fist into his father’s bloodied face.
He slammed the man’s arm against the log wall, and the knife clattered to the floor.
Turning, Caleb slung his ancient foe across the room, going after him. They were on the floor. His iron fists were doing damage. After that, everything began to blur.
It all poured out of him. All the pent-up rage. All the desire for revenge. For his mother. For himself. For the children at the training school.
Caleb was on top of the man.
Years of rage and grief surged through him.
His mother.
Himself.
The children who had suffered under Starr's cruelty.
Every hurt seemed to demand repayment.
For a terrible moment, Caleb lost himself in it. Nothing existed except the need to end this once and for all.
Suddenly, Sheila was on her knees beside him, clutching his shoulder. Her voice broke through the darkness gathering around him. He stopped, his fist still suspended in the air.
He looked at her. Her lips were moving.
“Stop. Please stop.”
Her voice reached him from the end of a dark tunnel. Something clicked inside of him. He felt it in his head, in his chest. His fist opened.
In spite of it all, Elijah Starr could not stop. Bruised, battered, and beaten, he still managed a mocking sneer.
“So weak! You still can’t finish it. You’re too much like her. You’ll never be the man I am.”
The desire to kill was there, slicing back in. But he stared down at the man’s damaged face and knew the reason for his father’s taunts. Elijah Starr had failed. In everything.
The shadow of the gallows hung over him. And if, by some miraculous event, he escaped that punishment, he had the lethal wrath of Eric Goulden to contend with. It was easier for him to die here.
Sheila’s voice was there, pushing back the last of the darkness. “You are not him, Caleb. You’re better than him. You are a far better man.”
He looked into her calm, assured face and stood up.
Elijah Starr lay there, and Caleb wondered if he saw his fate ahead of him. He wondered if one shred of guilt or remorse existed in the man.
“You’re not better than me,” Starr rasped. “My eternal reward awaits.”
“You’re wrong.” Caleb frowned down on him. “There are no sinners in heaven. No forgiveness in hell.”
Paddy stood beside Sheila, unharmed by the bullet that had buried itself in the dirt next to him in the root cellar. She had her arm around him, and they both watched as Caleb half lifted, half dragged Elijah Starr out onto the porch.
Leaving him there, he strapped on his gun belt. The judge sat slouched against the wall at the end of the porch. His eyes were closed.