Faith of the Heart (21 page)

In
wardly Claire groaned, but held her shoulders high and
marched past him into the shanty.

             
             
Keep guzzling that rotgut, you
foo
l,
you’ll pass out and I can sneak away yet.

             
Soon, Claire had dinner prepared, difficult though it was in his tiny and dirty kitchen, and she set a steaming plate of fried pork, potatoes, and eggs in
front of Frank. She wasn’t hungry, but forced herself to eat as
well.

             
I’m going to need my strength to get away from this nightmare
,
she told herself.

             
Silently, she pleaded with God to deliver
her from this mess. She began to worry that Frank would try to assert his “husbandly rights” upon her. She would rather die than be molested by a two-bit thief like Frank, but she didn’t think it would go that far. The knife felt good in her pocket, and she was prepared to use it if she had to.

             
Frank pushed himself away from the table and patted his
paunch. He belched and reached for his now-empty bottle.

             
“D
ang it,
I got me a powerful thirst and I a
i
m to quench
i
t.” He spotted the saddlebag with Claire’s treasures and got a
nasty grin on his face. “As I recollect there was some money in that bag and some fancy doodads. We got no use for fancy
candlesticks out here
,
but they’ll fetch a good price in town.
Fer now I’m just gonna take that money. Now that we’re husband and wife, what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine. Huh, wifey?” A snide grin revealed
his
rotting brown teeth.

             
Claire lunged for the saddlebag. “You wouldn’t dare. Those
‘doodads’

belonged to my dead mother
and I worked hard for that money
.
”

             
“Well, if she’s dead she don’t need ‘em
and like I says, what’s yours is mine,”
Frank chortled at his own bad joke and grabbed Claire by the arm. She pulled back

and he slapped her, hard. Reeling from the pain, she threw her
hands up to protect her face
;
she could feel a welt rise on her
cheek. She wanted to cry out, but bit
the
inside
of her
cheek instead. She would not cry in front of Frank.

             
“What kind of a brute hits a woman?” she demanded, struggling to keep her voice calm. That took Frank by surprise and
he stepped back.
“Aw, he
ck
, I ain’t gonna take any guff from you. Yore beginning to talk like a wife, nagging and hen-peckin
’
. I’m gonna git me a bottle and drink ‘til I’ve had
me
my fill, then I’ll be back to
take care of you. I’ll show you who wears the pants around here.”

             
He grabbed Claire by her shoulders and shoved her into a
straight-backed chair
,
tying her hands behind her and binding her ankles. She tried to fight, but Frank was too strong. He leaned over her, grabbed her by the hair, and pressed his mouth against hers. The stench of his breath and body nearly gagged her. Claire pressed her
lips together tightly and struggled against the ropes. She thought about biting him, but the idea made her want to throw up. Finally, Frank stood up, grinning at her with his tobacco-stained smile.

             
“I like a spirited girl. When I get back from town we’re gonna have us some fun. Then you
will
be my wife, girly.”

             
Claire glared at him with all the force she could muster.
“That will never happen. I will never submit
to you. You’ll have to kill me first, you low-down snake-in-the grass.”

             
Frank picked up his battered hat, smirked at the bound girl
and sauntered out the door. “Later, girly, later.”

             
The moment the door shut behind him Claire began to
squirm and twist around. If she could twist her skirt around just right, she might be able to reach the knife that was still in her pocket. She thought about screaming for help, but the closest neighbor was Bud,
and she didn’t want him anywhere near her.

             
She had to keep stopping to rest as she struggled; the rope cut into her arms and wrists, which were already marred and sore from the ride in the wagon. She found if she used just her
thumbs to grab the fabric of the skirt she could get a grasp of
the material and yank it around. Finally, she was able to gr
ab
her gardening
knife and begin sawing the rope.

             
It was a slow process.
Please Lord
, she prayed,
don’t let me drop the knife.

             
Back and forth she man
eu
vered the blade, all the while listening for Frank’s return. Finally, she sawed through the
last bit and freed her hands. Hurriedly, she bent down and cut
through the robes at her ankles. A noise outside of the shanty grabbed her attention.

             
Oh no, he
’
s back, he can
’
t be back.

             
She darted over to the stove
to grab
the heavy cast iron skillet, and
mov
ed
behind the door. It opened slowly, creaking,
and
when
she smashed the pan down on Frank’s head as hard as she could
,
h
e crumpled to the floor. Claire dropped the skillet and knelt down beside the man, checking to see if he was still breathing. When she was sure that he was still alive, she flung open the door and raced for the barn, skidding to a halt as a silhouette filled the doorway.

             
“Goin’ someplace girly?”

             
Claire pulled out the old military pistol. She pointed it at Bud
and said, as forcefully as she could manage,
“I’m going bac
k
home. Back to Omaha.”

             
Bud burst out laughing.
“You stupid
woman
. There ain’t no bullets for that pistol. Ain’t
been none fer years
.
”
             
Claire cocked back the trigger and fired. Bud staggered back,
a look of disbelief on his face. A patch of crimson blossomed on his chest and he fell to the ground, blood forming in a pool around his body. Claire looked at the gun and the body before her in wide-eyed
horror.
Her last thought was of Maxwell, hoping that he might find her before Frank woke up, and then her world turned black.

CHAPTER S
EVEN
TEEN

On the Boston and Albany Railroad,
August 1869

On the
Boston and Albany Railroad

             
Cal leaned back in his seat and lit a cigar. He re-read the notes
that he’d compiled from his interview with a man in Boston wh
o
was manufacturing railroad ties. As soon as Cal reached Chicago he would telegraph his
story back to Baltimore. From Chicago he’d travel to Omaha and
meet up with the man who was working on an ice
box rail car
,
Mr. Linus Mason.

             
Mason’s letter said he was on a small ranch outside of Omaha. When he got to Omaha, he was to stop at the jail to get directions. From there he could rent a horse and ride out to the ranch.
Cal was grateful for the opportunity to see the country; he might even be able to
write
a piece on the frontier town.

             
His readers
were always fascinated by tales of the
Wild West
. Dime store novels were full of adventurous tales of places like Omaha, Dodge City, or Abilene, Kansas. It made him think he might even start a novel of his own.

             
He glanced out the wi
ndow and was taken aback by the
scenic beauty along the route. The train was passing over a stone-arch bridge designed by railroad pioneer George Washington Whistler. The railroad he was now taking was the Boston and

Albany, but just two years ago, in 1867, it had been known as the Boston and Worchester line. In a matter of only a day, the railroad would deliver him to Chicago. This was a revolutionary technology that Cal was excited to write about
.
It allowed men to travel farther, faster than they ever had.
Why travelers could
cross
the country in a week instead of months, all for the price of a train
ticket
.

             
In addition to meeting with the ice
r
ail car inventors, Cal also had a meeting with the managers of the stockyards in Omaha, and hoped the trip would find him with several quality stories to send back to his editors.
Suddenly, Cal felt weary, overwhelmed, and had to lay his head back on the seat
.
The constant bumping and jerking of the train made it difficult to sleep
and his aching leg bothered him. He stretched out as far as space
would allow and drifted off.

             
Claire was calling for help. He tried to run to her
,
but his
bad leg slowed him down. He could see her faintly
but
she was
very far away. She was bound
somehow
and could not rise. He
struggled on
,
but seemed to get no closer.
“
Claire
!”
he called out,
“
Claire, I
’
m here, I
’
m here.
”

             
Suddenly
he was lying on
a bunk in Cassie
’
s shack. She was soothing his forehead with a cool cloth.
“
Boy, boy, you
’
ll be alright.
”

             
In the next moment
he was face down on the battlefield
,
bleeding from his head and leg
,
hearing the shrieks and cries of dying soldiers
around him
, helpless to do anything but scream.

             
Cal awoke with a start. He was shaking and sweating, nausea overcoming him. He tucked his head
between
his
knees
and
sat
there, breathing heavily, trying to regain control.
It took a full minute for him to realize that it had only been a dream.
It took several more minutes
before he stopped trembling. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Claire was in trouble. He reached under his shirt and rubbed the half-heart pendant between two fingers. It was his only contact with Claire,
and somehow it helped him feel like he was closer to her than
he’d been in a very long time.       

CHAPTER
EIGHT
EEN

The Plains of Nebraska,
August 1869

             
Maxwell leaned down from his mount and
snatched up another scrap of faded calico.
Tipping
his canteen upside down
he let
the tepid water wet his
chapped lips. He’d been riding hard for several days and he
could really
feel it. He ached down to his bones, but he refused to rest until Claire was safely in his
arm
s.

             
His horse was showing signs of wear as well. He nudged the horse’s flanks and the exhausted mare picked up her pace. When nightfall made it too difficult to follow the tracks, he looked for a place to camp.
Then at dawn he started out again, carefully searching the area for clues.

             
W
hen he made camp for the night, as he was
g
athering some dry twigs and branches he noticed a small clearing where someone had recently
built
a fire. Squatting
by
the charred ashes
,
he deposited the kindli
ng
and
observed a small
h
alf circle of stones.