Chapter 9
“Sure is a pretty little valley you’ve got here,” Cutter remarked. His cigar smoke puffed up into the air and swirled over his head. “Kind of like a little slice of heaven, but I guess that’s why there’s a church here!”
His laugh grated on Ben’s nerves. Everything about Cutter and his men made him uneasy, actually. Ben had taken care of the horses and put them away, but there was little else to do while he waited for Sister Matthews to finish up with Bo.
“Yep. It’s a nice place,” he answered mildly as he walked a few steps away to check the water level in the goat’s trough. Ben hoped for something to do, but the trough was full.
“So you said you grew up here, huh?” Cutter asked. “You were one of the orphans?”
Ben shrugged. “I suppose I still am.”
“Right, right.” Cutter took a deep drag off of his cigar, filling his lungs and blasting little rings into the air. “D’you know anything about your parents?”
“Can’t say that I do.” Even if he did, he wouldn’t tell Cutter any of his family history. He’d learned in the army that there were a few men you could spill your soul to, but most of them would turn around and use it against you.
“Hmm. Seems a shame.” Cutter was watching him closely. He stared at Ben like he was a wild animal, trying to decide whether or not to have him for breakfast. “How old were you when you came to live here, anyway?”
“Just a babe.” Ben leaned over the short fence next to the barn. The goats all ran toward him, looking hopeful. He rubbed his knuckles at the base of a black goat’s horns. It bleated happily and pushed against the fence to urge him to keep going.
“Uncanny,” Cutter murmured.
“Not really. It happens all the time.” A brown goat butted in, wanting his turn for some attention, and Ben obliged. “The orphanage gets kids of all ages.”
“I didn’t mean that.” Cutter chuckled. “It’s just that you look exactly like someone I used to know. A friend I grew up with.”
“Yeah?” Ben kept the conversation going only because he refused to leave Sister Matthews alone with these men. They couldn’t be trusted. He could feel that in his bones.
“Oh, yeah. The blond hair and everything.”
“Plenty of people are blond.”
“Well, more than that. Your features, you know?” Cutter’s voice was so calm and relaxed that he sounded like any typical rural gentleman Ben might run into.
Cutter’s presence, however, was the opposite. They were just standing outside of the barn and having a conversation, but Cutter’s eyes slid over everything in sight, memorizing it, deciding.
“Well, there’s no telling.” Ben pulled his hand back, much to the goats’ disappointment, and turned to Cutter. “So where will you be headed off to in the morning?”
It was a change of subject as well as a reminder that they couldn’t stay long.
The small twitch at the corner of Cutter’s mouth let Ben know that he understood. “South, I imagine. Where the land is a little more level. You sure you haven’t seen anyone? I imagine she would’ve come right through here.”
“Nope.” Ben leaned against the side of the barn and crossed his arms. His body vibrated with worry. Did Hattie know these men were looking for her? Did that mean they were the villains, or was she? His gut told him to watch out for Cutter, but he knew so little about Hattie.
Cutter’s eyes continued to move through the valley, scraping over the building, probing behind the trees, looking for any evidence that Ben was lying. “Seems like she probably came through here.”
Ben shrugged. “So who is she?”
“Well, she’s my niece.” Cutter ran his tongue against the inside of his upper lip.
“So, Bo’s girl?” Ben thumbed over his shoulder toward the inside of the barn.
“That’s right. She ran off and we’re just trying to get her back home where she belongs before she does something stupid and hurts herself. You know how women are.” The big man glanced at the church and laughed. “Then again, maybe you don’t.”
“Maybe she’ll come home on her own,” Ben reasoned.
“Oh, I don’t think so. She’s as stubborn as they come, that Hattie.”
Ben’s stomach dove down into his boots. Cutter’s earlier description of Hattie could’ve been a coincidence, but not now.
“There’s a lot of land out here, and it can be harsh if you don’t know how to live on it.
I can’t imagine a young woman would survive by herself for very long, so she just might get scared and change her mind. ”
Cutter had been chewing on the stub of his cigar, and he spat out the bits of tobacco that’d worked their way into his mouth. “Could be, Ben. Could be. I’d have thought you’d be a little more cynical, considering you went through the war.”
For a brief moment, the blue sky overhead was the same sky that’d been above the cornfield. Ben saw the man who wanted so desperately to kill him, could see the wild urge in the man’s eyes.
“There are all kinds of people,” he said softly. “Some of them are happy to fight, happy for the excuse to shed some blood. Most of us, though, would rather be at home, just taking care of things and living the best we can.”
“Those are the cowards.” Cutter took only one step toward Ben, but his stride was long.
“Those are the men I used to hunt down, the ones who wanted to avoid their duty and skip out on their comrades. Home is nice, sure, but when you’re a man you don’t get to just sit by the fireplace and do your knitting. ”
Ben held Cutter’s gaze, but he wanted nothing more than to look away. “So that was your role in the war? Catching deserters and bringing them back to the front lines?”
“When they cooperated, yes.” Cutter dropped the last of his cigar and ground it out with the heel of his boot. “When they didn’t, I had to find alternative methods. How about you, boy? Did you run away from your duty?”
“No.” He’d thought about it a time or two. His injury had given him the rest and recovery he’d needed, although he had to pay for it with the twisting scar in his belly for the remainder of his life.
And if he had run away and they’d sent a man like Cutter after him? Half of the country had wanted to kill him simply because of the uniform he’d worn, but Ben got the feeling Cutter would’ve wanted to kill him just because he could.
“Good. That’s a good man.” He clapped Ben on the shoulder. “I like you, Ben.”
Ben was saved from having to respond when Sister Matthews’ voice called out from the barn. “I’m done.”
Cutter hurried into the barn.
Ben followed. The smell of blood and medicine mixed with hay and manure. Dust filtered through the sunlight that streamed in through the door.
Bo lay silent and still in the hay. His skin was a deathly white, and the jagged tear that started at his forehead and ended near his jaw stood out crisp and red.
Sister Matthews had made numerous tiny stitches, and the skin puckered slightly around them.
His shirt lay open, displaying several more claw marks.
Adam and Stan were getting to their feet. They looked almost as pale as Bo as they dusted hay off of their clothes, their shoulders hunched and their mouths puckered.
“I’ve given him some morphine so that he can sleep for a little while,” Sister Matthews explained to Cutter.
She was tiny compared to him, but she looked up at him with steady grace.
“I’ve used what little I have here to bring him some comfort, but I can’t emphasize to you enough how important it is that you find a physician. ”
“Yeah.” He moved to Bo’s side, taking the position Sister Matthews had just abandoned. He looked carefully over his brother’s injuries, even reaching out a hand and tracing his finger in the air above the jagged line on Bo’s face. “She really did a number on you, didn’t she?”
She? Had Hattie done this? Her dress had been dry and stiff with blood.
“Damn bear,” Adam said, shaking his head. “Took us several shots to get her down. Bo was the one in the lead, so he got the brunt of it.”
Ben willed his breath to even out. It wasn’t Hattie. It was the bear, just as they’d said before. It was too easy for him to believe the worst about people.
Cutter tapped his brother’s shoulder softly. “Best get your rest, because we’ve got plenty of work to do yet.”
“You must understand, Mr. Kincaid, that he might not make it. I worry about him being moved anywhere, but I simply don’t have the skill and supplies to ensure he’ll live. He’s lost a lot of blood, and his injuries are extensive.”
“He’s tough,” Cutter insisted. “He’s been through worse.”
That was hard to imagine. Ben put his hand on Sister Matthews’ shoulder and guided her toward the door. “I’ll bring back some food for you.”
“You’re a good man, Ben,” Cutter said with a wink.
It wasn’t until they were over halfway across the barnyard that Sister Matthews spoke. “He seems to have taken a liking to you.”
“It’s an act. He’s just looking for information.” Ben could feel someone’s gaze burning into the backs of his shoulders, but he didn’t dare turn around and look.
“Information about what?” the nun asked.
They stepped through the church door, which had been left unlocked in anticipation of their arrival. Ben shut it firmly behind them. “They’re looking for Hattie.”
“The young woman?” A few new lines appeared in Sister Matthews’ creased forehead. “I wonder what they want with her.”
“I don’t really know. I have a feeling Cutter only told me what he wanted me to know, which was very little.
He claims Hattie is his niece, but I’m not sure I believe that.
” For reasons that he didn’t quite understand, Ben wanted it to be a lie.
He didn’t want Hattie to be tied to those men in any way.
Sister Matthews pursed her lips so tightly they went white around the edges. “Then we ought to warn her. I don’t know the situation, and I’m already far more involved than I’d like to be, but one woman is no competition for four men.”
“Agreed.” They headed to the little room off the kitchen that Ben and Father Tillman had made up for Hattie.
Sister Matthews knocked on the door. She listened, and then she knocked again. Finally, she opened the door.
The rumpled sheets and blanket testified that the bed had been slept in, but nobody was in it any longer.
Ben checked for her shoes under the bed before he remembered that she didn’t have any. Where could she have gone?
“Father Tillman!” Sister Matthews called as they reemerged in the kitchen and then went across it toward the open pantry door. “We’re trying to find Hattie.”
“Hmm, yes, and I’m trying to find out why we have less food than we ought to,” he murmured, checking the shelves against a sheet of paper in his hand.
“I noticed some breads and cheeses were missing. The boys get carried away, sometimes, so I thought it might be them. I decided I ought to make sure of exactly where we stand on food before the winter comes.”
“We have much bigger concerns than that.” Sister Matthews’s voice was tense and strained. She was starting to lose her patience. “Where is Hattie?”
“Hm? Oh, I’m not sure. I haven’t seen her yet today. Why?” Father Tillman set down his inventory sheet and got a good look at Sister Matthews and Ben for the first time. “What have I missed? What’s going on?”
“Those men out there are here for her,” Ben explained. “They described her and even used her name.”
Father Tillman ran a narrow hand down his face as he muttered a prayer. “What did you tell them?”
Ben’s eyes darted away from the priest. “I lied. I said I hadn’t seen her.” It was a small sin compared to some, but it felt much bigger when confessing it straight to Father Tillman.
But Father Tillman didn’t bat an eye. “I don’t know what those men are truly up to, but we should find the girl and figure this out.”
All three of them looked up as an argument broke out over their heads. The two young, female voices drifted down easily through the floorboards.
“I know you took it!”
“I did not! Besides, you took my boots!”
“Why would I do that?”
Someone stomped loudly across the room.
“I’ll have to go tend to that, first,” Sister Matthews huffed.
As she hurried to the stairs, Ben took a more thorough look through the room where they’d put Hattie for the night.
He even checked under the bed. There was no sign of her.
Sister Matthews had given her a fresh dress so that she could change out of the stained one she’d arrived in, but even her soiled dress had disappeared.
After double checking the kitchen, he moved to the church. He checked behind the altar, where Hattie had hidden before. He walked through every row of the pews. She was nowhere to be found.
A short time later, Ben, Father Tillman, and Sister Matthews reconvened in the kitchen.
“I couldn’t imagine she’d be in the boys’ quarters, but I looked. She’s not there,” the priest said.
“She’s not upstairs,” Sister Matthews reported. “The girls were quite busy arguing over a missing dress and pair of boots, though.”
“She left,” Ben concluded. They’d offered her help, but she only wanted what she could take for herself. “I suppose that’s just as well.”
Father Tillman looked concerned, but he nodded. “May God be with her.”
That night, Ben finally agreed to take a bed offered by Sister Matthews. It was in a small room on one end of the boy’s quarters, where he could hear them whispering to each other after the lights had been extinguished.
Ben had once done the same, talking and laughing when he thought Father Tillman and Sister Matthews couldn’t hear, his body pleasantly tired from a long day of chores and play. The world had been much simpler then. Though he was an orphan, he had less to worry about.
Sleep took over him, but only in fits. He dozed, but he was constantly aware of the men out in the barn. Every now and then, he sat up in bed and looked out the window, checking to see if any of them were sneaking out of the barn and coming toward the orphanage.
When he finally fell into a deeper sleep, it was one haunted by images of Hattie and Cutter. A faceless man and woman, the parents he’d never met, mixed in among the strange dreams.
It was from this tangled mental state that dawn woke him. Ben once again looked out the window. The barn door stood open. Up on the rim of the valley, dust rose like smoke from the road, kicked up by horses.
The only visitor left at the orphanage was Ben.