He had the boy to thank for sparing him what would’ve been an ugly brawl. But …
“You didn’t have to do that, Easy.”
“I was just giving my recollection. We had all that tack to get to.”
“We started on the tack a couple days after that. You know that as well as I do.”
“I don’t know as I do.” Easy looked over the horses’ backs. The stubborn set to his jaw loosened under Callen’s steady stare. “Maybe I do now that I think on it, but I didn’t like the way he came at you, boss. I didn’t like how he talked, or how he looked. I swear he wanted to pull out his sidearm, draw down on you. I swear. I didn’t want to see him give you trouble, that’s all.”
“I appreciate it. I do. But next time—and with Clintok there’s always a next time—don’t. There’s no point in you walking into his sights. He’s had me there since we were boys, and it’s never going to change.”
“Some people get born with a mean streak, I reckon. Was he talking about that girl who went missing? Is he saying she’s dead?”
“That’s how it sounded to me.”
“Holy hell, Cal.” Easy let out a long breath as he ran a soft brush over the mare. “Holy hell. That’s terrible. That ain’t right. But he’s got to be stupid thinking you’d do something like that.”
“Like I said, I’ve been in his sights a long time. Sooner or later, he’d like to have an excuse to pull the trigger.”
Sooner or later, Callen thought, he might get pushed into giving him one.
CHAPTER TWELVE
— 2012 —
Esther scrubbed the bathroom, top to bottom, as she did every other day.
Cleanliness was godliness.
Her hands, red, raw, and cracked from years of hot water and harsh soaps, burned some as she dunked the scrub brush in the bucket. Her knees ached; her back pinged and popped.
She barely noticed.
She took such pride in the white linoleum floor, in the shine she worked out of the faucets and knobs in the sink and the shower.
She sang while she worked, her voice as young and strong and pretty as she’d once been.
When she finished there, she’d sweep and scrub the rest of the house, and when Sir came, he’d be pleased with her.
He’d built it for her, hadn’t he, even said how she’d earned it. And he warned her, as she was weak-minded and lazy, he could take it away again if she didn’t show it—and him—the proper respect.
He’d even let her hang a flower-print curtain to separate the bathroom from the rest of the house.
The rest consisted of an eight-by-ten-foot space that held a twin bed, a rusted iron pole lamp with a torn shade, the chair he’d hauled from her room in the basement, a counter formed out of birch logs and plywood, a shower rod that served as her closet.
Unfinished drywall covered the walls; a brown braided rug, frayed at the edges, spread over the subflooring. She had two cupboards, one for the plastic dishes, one for foodstuffs, and a cold box for keeping perishables.
Best of all, she had a window. It was small, and high up at the ceiling, but she got light when the sun shined, could see the sky, and the night stars.
When she stood on the bed, she could see more. A few trees, the mountains—or a hint of them.
The space was smaller than the room in the basement, but she’d wept with gratitude when Sir had brought her to it, told her she would live there now.
She no longer wore the leg irons, though Sir had bolted them to the wall to remind her what he’d need to do if she angered him.
She tried hard not to anger him.
Here, in what was a palace to her, she could heat water on the hot plate and make her own tea, or open up a can and cook soup.
In the season, he’d even let her out to work the vegetable garden. Of course, he had to tether her, lest she wander off and get lost or mauled by a bear.
She had to work at first light or at night with the dog chained, as he was watching her, but she prized those hours in the air, with her hands in the dirt, planting or weeding.
Once or twice she thought she’d heard a child calling or crying, and another time—maybe more than another time—she was certain she heard somebody call for help. But Sir said it was birds, and to get about her work.
Sir provided for himself and his own, he liked to say, with chickens in the coop, the milk cow in the pen, the horse in the paddock.
The garden served an important role in providing, and a woman worked the earth and tended its fruit. Just as a woman was to be planted and bear fruit.
She’d had three more children, all girls, as well as two miscarriages and a boy, stillborn.
The girls he took away, and though she’d wept for each precious one, she let herself forget. Then the boy. She’d felt such joy, such hope, then such shock and grief.
Sir said it was God’s wrath on her, a punishment for her evil ways, the curse of Eve.
Holding that still form, that lifeless child, like a pale blue doll, she knew Sir spoke truth.
God punished the wicked. She was the wicked. But every day, she repented her wicked ways, worked toward her redemption.
She pushed herself to her feet, wincing as her knees creaked. She wore her scrubbing dress—a cotton tent that hung to the middle of her calves—and thin-soled slippers. Her hair, well past her waist now, hung in a brittle, graying braid down her back.
She was not afforded a mirror, as vanity was a sin lodged dark in every woman’s heart, but her fingers could feel the lines scoring her face.
She told herself to be grateful Sir still wanted her to do her marital duties, that he rewarded her by providing for her.
She pressed her hand to her belly, where she knew another child grew. She prayed it would be a boy. Every night, she knelt and prayed for a son, one her husband would allow her to keep with her. One she could love and feed at her breast, could tend and teach.
She emptied the bucket, filled it again. Time to scrub the cupboards, the counter, the cold box, and the little kitchen sink. Time to do her work.
But after she carried the bucket into her kitchen, she had to lean against the wall. It was the baby, of course. Growing inside her, needing to take from her, that made her so tired, and half-feverish with it.
She’d make some tea, sit for a little while until she felt stronger. Stronger for the baby, she thought as she got out the jar holding the dandelion greens Sir had been so kind to teach her, an ignorant woman, how to dry.
She put a cup of water in a pot to boil, and while it did, used the hot, soapy water in the bucket to scrub while she waited.
It wouldn’t do to let it go cold. Waste not, want not.
By the time the water boiled she felt hot and dizzy. The tea would put her to rights, the tea and a little sit-down time.
She poured the boiling water over the plastic teaspoon of greens, carried it with her to the chair.
As she sat, she closed her eyes. “We’re just going to rest a minute,” she told the baby. “Just going to take a rest. We’ve got beans and tomatoes to harvest tonight. And maybe some summer squash. We’ve got—”