Sins of Summer (21 page)

Standing there on the porch, she suddenly realized that the sun had been gone for a while now and all that remained was a
red glow in the western sky. The air was cooling rapidly. The twilight time of evening was short in the mountains.

Odette had brought in the clothes and gone back out to play with Jeanmarie and the kitten.

Dory called to Jeanmarie. “It’s time to come in. Tell Odette.”

She watched the child tug on Odette’s hand and motion to her. Odette looked up and waved. Dory beckoned and waited until they
started toward the house before she went inside to light the lamp and tend to the beans she had left simmering on the stove.

Odette and Jeanmarie ran to the house. They were laughing and breathless when they entered the kitchen. Jeanmarie had the
black and white kitten in her arms.

“I’ve put some beans in a bowl for us,” she said, looking directly at Odette as she spoke. Then to her daughter, “Put the
kitten in the box behind the stove, Jeanmarie, and wash up. I’ll take the beans out to Wiley. He’ll keep them warm until Ben
gets here.” Dory wrapped a rag around the bail of the pot and lifted it from the stove.

“You want the bread?” Odette asked.

“Oh, yes. Jeanmarie, come along and carry it.”

“I’ll set the table,” Odette replied. She wrapped a pan of bread in a cloth and placed it in the child’s outstretched arms.

Wiley was at the washbench when Dory opened the door and called, “Here’s supper.” She set the pot on the stove.

“Got bread,” Jeanmarie announced proudly.

“Bet ya baked it all by yoreself.” Wiley wiped his face, then walked over and put his gnarled hand on the child’s head.

“Huh-uh. Odette did. Mama showed her.”

“Wiley, do you have plenty of butter and jelly?”

“Got plenty.”

“I churned today. I can bring you some fresh buttermilk.”

“Got some of that, too. Ben’ll be later tonight. Hat yore supper an’ get yoreself up to that room and drop the bar.”

“Oh, Wiley—”

“Don’t ya be oh, Wileyin’ me. It’s what Ben said fer ya to do.”

“But… I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve never had to lock myself in at night. Somehow it goes against the grain.”

“Times is changed, missy. There’s goin’s-on ’round here that ain’t been before.”

Dory looked down and saw her daughter looking up at her with large, curious eyes and decided to end the conversation.

“I put the last of that ham you smoked in the beans. We’ll have to find us a hog or two to fatten up for winter. Come on,
puddin’ pie. Let’s go see if Odette has the table ready.”

It was almost dark when they left the bunkhouse. Walking along the path to the house, Dory heard a horse snorting a greeting
to the horses in the pen beside the barn. She turned, expecting to see Ben coming out from behind the screen of pines. Instead
she saw two riders. Milo was on his big buckskin. The other rider was unmistakably Sid Hanes.

Scooping Jeanmarie up to straddle her hip, Dory hurried toward the house, hoping the men hadn’t seen her.

Sid let out a whoop.

“Yore a-goin’ the wrong way, Dory. Ain’t ya goin’ to come to meet me?”

Dory’s heart was racing by the time she got to the porch. Odette met her with a worried expression on her face. Dory handed
Jeanmarie to her.

“Go upstairs and bar the door.”

“No,” Odette shook her head. “Stay with you.”

“I’ll be all right. Go. Bar the door and don’t open for anyone but me. I don’t think they’ll bother you unless they are drinking.
Understand?”

“Understand.”

Dory wondered whether or not to tell her about the loaded rifle that lay on top of the wardrobe but decided against it. She
and Odette had not talked about guns and she didn’t know if Odette knew how to fire one. Tomorrow, she told herself, tomorrow
I’ll show her how to load and fire.

Things had come to a pretty pass when a person had to think about taking a gun to her own kin.

By the time Milo and Sid had turned their horses into the corral and headed for the house, Dory was well on the way to getting
her nerves under control. It wouldn’t be any different, she told herself, from any of the other times Milo had come down to
the homestead in the middle of the week, except that he would be more mouthy. He always showed off when one of his cronies
was with him.

She watched the men approach the house and felt a moment of relief when both of them appeared to be steady on their feet.
Milo was bad enough when sober, but drinking he was as unpredictable and as dangerous as a wild dog. Sid was fairly dancing
along beside him, his short legs pumping to keep up with Milo’s longer stride. And he was listening to Milo with a silly grin
on his face as if every word were hilariously funny.

The first words Milo said were, “Where’s the dummy?” He stood inside the door looking around. Sid crowded in behind him.

Dory’s velvet green eyes glittered with a cold light. She looked first at one man and then at the other with raised brows,
all the contempt she felt for them revealed in her expression.

“She is
not
a dummy and she isn’t here.”

“That’s a pile of horseshit. You got her up in that room with the bar across the door. Hell, it don’t make no never mind ’bout
that. We got all night to get in there, ain’t we, Sid? A few blows with a sledge’ll do it. Fix us some supper, Whory Dory.”

His words sent a chill of fear over Dory. Milo was different tonight. He was always mean, but tonight he was mean without
the usual pretense of humor that went with his meanness.

“Beans and bread are on the table.”

“That ain’t enough ta feed a horsefly,” Milo complained.

“I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Fry us up a batch of eggs.”

“I don’t have any. The hens have quit laying.”

“Goddamn, Sid. She ain’t goin’ ta be decent a-tall. Yore goin’ ta have ta learn her ta have grub ready when her man comes
home.”

“I plan on it. I sure as hell plan ta whup her in line.” Sid’s eyes were bright as stars and his thick lips spread, showing
tobacco-stained teeth. He was more cocky than usual.

Dory felt the hair rising on the back of her neck. “What are you talking about?”

“You’ll find out. Get a jug a sorghum and a crock a butter. If’n we got to make out with this we need somethin’ to fill in.
We got work ahead. Ain’t we, Sid?”

Sid snickered.

The uneasiness that had crept over Dory was now full-fledged fear. Milo and Sid were up to something that included her and
Odette—something unpleasant.

Ben, please hurry.

Dory brought the butter crock to the table and went back for the sorghum. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the kitten
come out from behind the stove, stretch, and amble toward the table. She hoped that Milo wouldn’t see it.

“If it ain’t a cat!” Milo reached down and grabbed the kitten by the scruff of its neck. “There ain’t nothin’ I hate more’n
a goddamn cat.”

“Give it here. I’ll put it back in the box.” When Dory reached for it, Milo threw the kitten to Sid. “Give it to me,” Dory
demanded.

“Give me a kiss first.”

“I’d sooner kiss a warthog! Why don’t you hightail it back to the dung heap you crawled out of?” Her voice was coldly wicked
and cut into Sid’s pride like a finely honed knife.

“I’m goin’ to have to learn ya some manners after we’re wed,” he said, and tossed the kitten back to Milo.

“Wed? Ha! You filthy mule’s ass. I’d sooner wed a polecat,” she spat the words contemptuously and hurried around the table,
but by the time she got there, Milo had the kitten on the floor with his heavy boot on its head. The kitten was mewing and
thrashing in an attempt to free itself.

“That’s cruel. Let it go.” Dory stooped to pull the cat out from under Milo’s boot.

“Leave it be, or I’ll squash its brains out,” Milo said in a low, mean voice.

Dory looked up. The eyes that looked into hers told her that he hated her with every fiber of his being and that he would
do exactly as he said.

“Why are you doing this?”

“’Cause I want to. Do as I tell ya or I’ll grind its head into the floor.”

“What is it you want me to do?” Dory tried to stay calm and close her ears to the kitten’s pitiful cries.

“Me and Louis has give ya to Sid to wed. I want ta see ya kissin’ him.”

Dory was stunned, but only for a moment. “Have you lost your mind? You think I’d marry a filthy piece of horsedung like him?
Not if my life depended on it!” Her voice rose until it was a strangled screech.

“Ya… ya… bitch,” Sid snarled. “Ya just better watch out what yo’re callin’ me.”

“It just might not be yore life dependin’ on it,” Milo said calmly. “It just might be that brat of yores.”

Oh, sweet Jesus, he’s crazy!

The hatred that blazed in his eyes struck her like a lash. Horror and outrage washed over her. She wanted to smash his hateful
face.

Sid moved in behind her, put his hands on her arms and tried to pull her back against him. She elbowed him in the gut as hard
as she could. He merely laughed.

“It’s up to you… whore.” Milo’s voice was low and strangely calm. “Ya been lettin’ ever’thing with a stick ’tween his legs
feel ya up. Now, it’s Sid’s turn.”

Terror knifed through Dory. Then her fright turned to anger. She would have spit in his face but for the hand that shot out
and gripped her jaws. Milo’s fingers bit into her cheeks.

“Stand still. Old Sid’s horny as a two-peckered goat.”

Sid’s wet mouth began to nuzzle her neck. “Yo’re goin’ to behave, ain’t ya sweet thin’? Yo’re goin’ to like old Sid’s lovin’
oncet ya get used to it. I got somethin’ in my britches just itchin’ to get in yores. It might be jist the biggest one ya
ever had.”

Dory remained still as a stone, her eyes locked with Milo’s. Her intense hatred of him was like a festering boil, but the
emotion rioting through her was wholly concealed behind the noncommittal expression on her face. She could hear the small
mewing cries of the kitten beneath his boot heel and forced herself to stand still, even though Sid was rubbing his hardened
crotch against her hips.

When Sid’s hands moved around to cup and fondle her breasts, Milo’s expression changed to a smirk. When Milo dropped his hand
from her face, he scratched his crotch and laughed.

Thinking about the kitten under Milo’s boot heel, Dory endured the humiliation of Sid’s fingers pulling at her nipples and
the hand that moved lower to her mound to press her back against his crotch.

“I like titties,” Sid murmured. “I like ’em best if they’ve been nussed.”

Encouraged by her lack of resistance, Dory’s tormentor became bolder and moved his mouth around to hers.

The smell of his foul breath caused her stomach to churn and sickening bile to come up into her throat. Suddenly she had taken
all she could take. In a haze of red rage, rationality exploded. Rebelling against this indignity to her body and mind, she
groped for a knife on the table. Her fingers closed around the handle of a three-tined fork. She gripped it, and with all
the force she had, she drove the sharp tines into the hand pawing her breast.

“Yee… ow!” Sid screamed.

Dory broke free and ran for the door. She was fast, but Milo’s long reach caught her as her feet hit the porch and he dragged
her kicking and screaming back into the kitchen.

“Ya dammed bitch!” He slapped her with such force it spun her around. She crashed into a chair before she hit the floor. He
yanked her to her feet and struck her again and again.

“Bitch! Slut! Whore!” Sid yelled, holding his injured hand. Blood poured through his fingers. “Ya’ll pay fer this flat on
yore back. I’ll screw yore damned eyes out!”

The rage that boiled up in Dory gave her strength. Half-mad with pain and fury at what was being done to her, she jerked away
from Milo and grabbed the fork.

“Don’t hit me again… or I’ll kill you!” She hissed and spit like a cornered cat, but her strength was no match for his.

“With that?” he sneered, and struck her so fast and so hard that she had no time to use her weapon. She reeled back against
Sid. He yelled and shoved her against the table. She stumbled, hitting her cheek on the edge of the table as she fell heavily
to the floor.

It didn’t occur to Dory to stay down. She was more angry than she had ever been in her life. Her rage was a holocaust sweeping
up from deep inside her, ridding her of all fear, robbing her of dignity. She managed to get to her feet, only to be knocked
down by a blow from Milo’s fist. She lay stunned. When her senses returned she found herself crawling to a chair so that she
could get to her feet again.

In a daze of confusion and pain, she heard Wiley’s voice, loud and strong.

“Hit her again an’ old Berthy’ll cut ya slap-dab in two.”

“Ya gawddammed ol’ fool,” Milo roared. “Get the hell outta here.”

“After you,” Wiley said calmly.

“I’ll cut yore heart out.”

“Maybe. But not now. Get out.”

“Ya ain’t orderin’ me outta my own house.”

“I ain’t. Old Berthy is. Get out and take that ruttin’ warthog with ya. My finger’s gettin’ itchin’ to empty both barrels.”

As Milo moved around the table. Dory inched back to keep him from getting behind her and using her as a shield. Her head felt
as if it were in a cellar with a thousand bells ringing at the same time. She could hardly focus her eyes.

“Ya goin’ ta let ’im run us off?” Sid blurted. “Shit. We could take ’im.”

“Ya yellow pup. Ya couldn’t knock a pimple off a jaybird’s ass. Come on, make yore best try ’cause one’s all ya’ll get.”

Milo’s face was beet-red except for the white around his mouth. Stiff with rage, he kicked a chair out of his way, snatched
a towel off the washbench and threw it at Sid.

“Yo’re a dead man,” he snarled at Wiley, then to Dory as he went out the door, “Ya stupid whore! Ya’ll wed Sid or that kid’ll
get what the cat got.”

Sid sent a silent threat to Dory that he would be back, wrapped the towel around his injured hand, and trailed out after Milo.