Jacob's Way (39 page)

Thirty-One

R
eisa was thrown across the front of Fears's horse. He held her with an iron arm, and she had stopped struggling. He was too strong for her, and now she simply lay there pressed against him unwillingly. It seemed that the horses had traveled for hours, and she was stiff and terrified. Her mind raced to and fro, but there was no hope in her own strength.

After what seemed like an eternity, Fears said, “There's the cabin.”

“Good thing, too. I'm gonna build up a fire,” Ike Green rumbled.

Five minutes later the horse Fears rode drew up to a halt, and Honey stepped out of the saddle. Reisa was jerked to the ground and placed on her feet. She almost fell when he released her, and Fears reached out and jerked the scarf from her head. Her hair fell down, and he grasped her by pulling her close and turning her face upward. “What are you worried about?” he said. “You got big, bad Ben Driver to protect you, don't you? Come on.”

Reisa was half-dragged into the cabin, and one of the men began building a fire. She looked around, seeing beside the front door there was only one more room, which presumably was a bedroom. The furniture, such as it was, was broken down and patched together, and there was a fetid smell about the place.

“Where is this place?” she asked nervously.

“What do you care, sweetheart? You just don't try to get out that door. You wouldn't get far.”

Deuce came by and brushed his hand across Reisa, causing her to recoil. Deuce laughed. “Well, I don't believe it! We got us a shy, young, innocent Jewish girl here.”

Reisa backed up against the wall, breathing hard.

Fears went out and came back with a whiskey bottle almost full, sat down, and began to drink. He stared at her steadily, a dull light of hatred in his close-set eyes. “So you're Ben Driver's girl.”

“No, I'm not.”

“Don't give me that! I hear the talk about you two. I don't reckon you're as innocent as you make out.” He turned and said, “Get that fire started! It's cold in here!”

“We can't stay here, Fears,” DeSpain said. “Driver will come and bring others with him.”

Honey shook his head. “You don't know him like I do. He'd never ask any help of anybody. That's why I told him to come alone—because I knew he would anyhow.” He took a pull on the whiskey bottle, then handed it to Deuce and Green, who also took long pulls on it.

“You can't kill him, Fears,” DeSpain said. “The big Russian knows where we are. Even if Driver don't spill the beans on us, somebody else will. Let's leave the girl and get out of here.”

“You're a lily-livered sort, ain't you?” Deuce said in disgust.

“I got sense. I know what happens to men that get caught foolin' with a woman—good woman, that is. You don't talk your way out of that.” He nodded saying, “That hangin' tree's still out there. They'd hang us all in a minute if we hurt this girl.”

“Shut up, DeSpain!” Honey growled.

“I'm gettin' out of here.”

Honey drew his gun and held it on DeSpain. “You ain't goin' nowhere! Sit down over there.”

DeSpain knew that Honey Fears would not hesitate to shoot him. Clamping his jaws together, he said in disgust, “You'll get us all killed, Fears.”

Three of the four men got into a poker game, all drinking heavily. From time to time one of them would look at Reisa and make a raw remark, at which the others would laugh coarsely.

Finally DeSpain said, “Go in the other room, girl.”

Honey looked up and laughed. “Yeah. Go in the other room. There's a bed in there. You'll have some company pretty soon.”

Reisa quickly went into the room and shut the door. There was a window, but it was small and apparently nailed shut. There was a single bed and no other furniture. It was dirty, littered with trash of all sorts. Reisa's mind raced. She searched every wall, looking for a loose board, but there was no way out.

As the night drew on, the men in the next room got drunker, and the shouting became louder. Reisa knew that at any moment the door might open, and that Honey Fears would come in, and she would lose her innocence. The thought of it chilled her, and fear weakened her so badly that she could not stand. She was not afraid of death, but she could not bear the thought of what the evil men would do to her. She sat down on the bed, bowed her head, and tried to pray, but nothing came. For a long time this went on, it seemed, and many times she thought she heard the door opening.

Reisa knew that there was no hope for her. Ben could not get here in time, and if he did, what could he do against four men? She had seen that the house was up on a high rise, and nobody could approach without being seen. At one point she had heard Honey tell Ike Green to get out and keep watch for Driver.

Sitting there in the dusky room illuminated only by one small window, Reisa Dimitri knew that unless God helped her, she was lost. Suddenly she fell on her knees and began to pray aloud in an intense voice. “Oh, Lord, I am helpless! These men will do worse to me than kill me. I could not bear it, my Lord. Will you help me?”

A long silence came, broken by the voices of the men in the next room. Reisa closed her mind to that and continued to pray. But as she did, suddenly she remembered a word that her grandfather had given her. It was the day after his baptism. The two had been walking along the road, and he had suddenly turned to her saying, “Reisa, I have always believed in God, but I have found it to be—not enough. It is Jesus, the Son of God, that the Creator has used to draw me into himself. Jesus is indeed God, and he brings us to the Father. If ever you are in trouble, and I cannot be there, and there is no hope, please, Reisa, call upon the name of Jesus.”

Her grandfather's words came to her clearly, and she, in desperation, said, “I have so little faith, but I call upon you, Jesus. My grandfather says you are the Son of God, and I want to believe that. I am so alone and so afraid. Please, Jesus, bring peace to my heart as you have brought it to my grandfather. I give myself to you. Save me from everything that weighs me down.”

She stopped praying aloud, but she remained kneeling, for she was aware that something was happening. She could never describe it afterwards, but it was a sudden stillness that came into her spirit. Her mind had been battering wildly seeking an escape, and now it was as though her mind and her heart suddenly became still. In wonderment she knelt there, and finally she realized that God was doing something in her.

“The danger is still here, Jesus. The men are still there, but I believe that you have come to me. I give myself to you so that whatever happens I will believe that you love me, and that you care for me.”

Ben galloped the gelding all the way through the streets of Richmond. When he emerged on the north side, he took the highway that led directly past Rosewood. He knew that the chances of his being alive the next day were not good, and he had one more thing to do. It was firmly in his mind, and he knew that God was in it. It was the first time in years that he had felt God doing anything in his life, but now he pulled up in front of his home and tied the panting horse to the porch rail. As he took the steps two at a time, he was met by his mother.

“Ben!” she exclaimed. “What's wrong?”

“Is Dad here?”

“Yes. What's the matter? Are you sick?”

“No. But I need to talk to both of you.”

Even as he spoke the door opened, and John Driver stepped out. Ben turned to face him and said without preamble, “Honey Fears and his gang have captured Reisa. They shot Dov, and Fears said for me to come to the hanging tree or we wouldn't see Reisa alive again. I've got to go.”

“Get the sheriff, Ben.” Marianne said at once. “He'll have to help.”

“You don't know Honey like I do. He'd be apt to shoot Reisa. I know him.”

“But you can't go alone,” Marianne said.

Ben suddenly took his mother in his arms and kissed her. “I've got to go, Mother.” He released her, turned, and said, “I came to say good-bye, Dad. I've told you before how sorry I am, but I wanted to say it again. I've been wrong through and through. I'd like to go back and live life over again, but I can't. So I'm asking you to forgive me. It's the last thing I'll ever ask of you.”

John Driver stood for a moment as if transfixed, then suddenly he cleared his throat. Words came to him with difficulty, but finally he said, “I've been wrong, Son. I'm sorry I've been so bitter and hateful. I'm the one that needs forgiveness, not you. Will you forgive an old man?”

Ben stepped forward and put his arm around his father. The two men embraced, and Marianne, not given to shouting in the least, suddenly cried out, “Oh, thank you, God! Thank you, God! Thank you, God!”

Ben felt his father's arms around him, and he knew something had changed in his heart. He clung to him for a time and then stepped back. He swallowed hard, then said, “I guess I've been wrong with God all these years. Somehow, Dad, when you put your arms around me, I felt like God himself had forgiven me.”

“That's good, Son. I know he has.”

Ben straightened, and then he said, “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, my foot!” John Driver said. “You wait right here.”

Ben stared at his mother, and their glances were puzzled. John Driver disappeared inside the house, and Marianne said, “What's he doing?”

“I have no idea.”

He soon found out, for John came out carrying the pistol he had carried throughout the war. He was strapping it on, and there was a light of battle in his eyes. “I guess I'm ready, Son.”

“No. You can't go, Dad.”

“And you can't stop me.”

The two strong men stared at each other, and suddenly Ben laughed. “No, sir, I don't reckon I could stop you if I wanted to—and I don't want to. Let's go then.”

John Driver turned and kissed his wife, and she threw her arms around his neck. “Be careful—oh, be careful, John.”

Then she turned to Ben and held to him for a moment until he pulled her arms away. “Be careful, both of you.”

John called Trask to saddle two fresh horses. Marianne stood watching as the two men mounted and rode off. She turned then and went inside the house. She went at once to the drawing room, fell on her knees by the sofa, and began to call upon God.

Thirty-Two

T
here it is—right in the open. No way to get closer without being seen.”

Still in the shadow of a grove of willows, Ben gestured toward the one-story house, and John Driver squinted, leaning forward in the saddle. The moon was full and the house and open ground around it were revealed by its brightness. “Almost as bright as day,” John muttered. “They'll be watching for us, Son, and that moonlight makes for good shooting.”

Ben nodded. “There's no easy way to go about this. I'll just have to ride on in.”

John said, “I wish we had just one company from my old outfit.”

“It wouldn't do any good. Honey Fears is crazy,” Ben said quietly. “He'll shoot Reisa if we give him any chance.”

“There must be a better way to do this.”

“I don't think there is. This is one of those times when there aren't any options.” His expression broke, and he added, “It's a little bit like being back in the war. I was playing a game, but nobody had really taught me the rules. Maybe there weren't any rules.”

John Driver shifted uneasily. “I keep trying to think of something, Son, but I can't. Just when I see you and find out what a fool I've been about the way I've treated you, then this has to happen.” He dropped his head for a moment and shook it in a small gesture of negation. “Sometimes a man bends to pick up something that fell out of his hand—and when he gets up the world has changed.”

Both men sat there waiting for the inevitable. Sooner or later they both knew that Ben would have to walk up to that cabin—and they both knew what was inside waiting for him.

Ben felt a need to say something to his father, but it was difficult. He checked the loads in the Le Mat. “I'd better get this done,” he said quietly.

The older man sat there, grief mixed with anger—the grief for the wasted years he had spent cutting himself off from this tall man who sat beside him—the anger that he might lose him, and there was nothing he could do about it. As Ben turned to walk toward the shack, he caught his arm, turning him around.

“You know,” he said, “when people ask me whether they should have children or not, I never tell them what to do. You never know how a son or a daughter will turn out, but there's no other way to find out. There's no substitute for it. You can't do it with a friend or with a lover. You have to have that boy or that girl to find out what it is really like.”

Ben listened carefully and then asked, “Would you do it again, Dad?”

Instantly John Driver nodded, and turned his eyes on his son. “Yes, I would. I made so many mistakes with you. I want time to make them right.”

“Maybe we'll have it. You never know how things will turn out. I remember that second day at Gettysburg. We all knew that most of us weren't going to come back from that charge up the hill. I didn't expect to.”

“I didn't either,” John said, “but we did.”

“Right.” Ben stirred, then said, “Well, let's get this thing over.”

“You care for this girl a great deal?” John Driver asked.

Ben touched the Le Mat in his belt. “Yes, I do, and I've never told her. If this—doesn't turn out right, you tell her that I thought she was the finest woman I ever knew.”

John Driver could not answer. He nodded his head, and as Ben turned away and walked steadfastly out of the shadow of the trees, he had an urge that had come often to him in the war. At times of battle he had to hold himself back from rushing ahead blindly at the enemy. That was in his mind, and in his heart, and in his spirit as he watched Ben cross the meadow and head up the hill toward the cabin.

As Ben walked steadily up the hill, neither hurrying nor holding back, his attention focused on the windows of the cabin. He had done this many times during the war. Serving as a scout, being sent out to draw enemy fire, he remembered once he had crossed a cotton field in Tennessee. The day before the Yankees had been at the other end in great numbers. He knew they had sharpshooters just as his own side did, and every moment he expected a bullet to tear his body into a lifeless hulk. He had walked to the end of the field and had discovered that the enemy had abandoned their position during the night.

Now as he advanced and the cabin seemed to draw nearer to him, looming larger, he waited for the bullet to strike him—but it did not happen. When he was thirty yards away the door opened, and Honey Fears stepped out. He was holding Reisa by the arm, and three other men fanned out behind him. They were all holding their guns, and Ben stopped twenty yards away. His gaze went at once to Reisa, and he saw that she was exhausted—but he saw hope in her eyes. He had expected her to be terrified as most women would have been, but she simply stood there, not struggling, her gaze fixed steadfastly on him. Even under the pressure of the moment he admired the ivory shading of her skin and the lovely turnings of her strongly rounded body. Her hair, a dense black, fell loose against her own will, he was certain, but there was something in her eyes that he had never seen before. Perhaps he had missed it, but as he watched her, he felt the vitality leap out of her eyes and knew that there was never another woman like this one.

At that moment Ben Driver knew the strange thing a man feels when he looks upon beauty and knows that it will never be for him.

“Just throw that pistol down on the ground, Ben.” Fears grinned as he spoke, and absolute certainty tinged his voice. He waited until Ben leaned over and placed the Le Mat on the ground.

“I guess I've been waitin' for this a long time,” Fears said, and the hatred that lay deep in him flared in his eyes. “You always had to be the top dog, but you ain't the top dog no more. I'm gonna kill you, Driver.”

Suddenly DeSpain stepped forward. “Fears, don't be crazy! We'd never get away with it, not in a hundred years!”

“Aw, shut up, DeSpain!” Fears's laugh made a meaningless sound.

Farley said wickedly, “You take the first shot, Fears, then I'll put my slug in him.”

Fears turned his attention back on Driver. “I'll kill you, and I'll keep the girl! The big Russian ain't here now, so we'll take what we want from her.”

Ben was thinking quickly, and he spoke up clearly, “DeSpain, you'll hang alongside of Fears if you don't stop him.”

“Shut up!” Fears exclaimed.

DeSpain was not drunk, and he well understood that if Fears had his way, they'd all hang sooner or later. He knew also that Farley was past reason, as was Fears. “Ike,” he said suddenly, “are you in this?”

Ike Green was not as much of a drinker as the others, and he had been listening to DeSpain, who had warned him that they would hang along with Fears unless they pulled out. Green turned carefully and checked the odds. He knew Fears and Farley were wild and reckless men, but the shadow of a noose had forced him to a sudden decision. He was on the left side of Fears and Farley, and DeSpain was on the right. They had the two flanked if it came to shooting. “DeSpain's right, Fears. You don't talk your way out of ruining a woman—not in this county. You remember Fingers Duvall? They didn't bother with the trial after he raped that woman over at Fenton! I'm not lettin' that happen to me.”

Fears cursed and glanced at DeSpain. Whatever went through his mind no one ever knew. He saw that the odds were no more than even, for both DeSpain and Ike were good shots, and at this range they could not miss. He saw that Farley was ready to fight, but something changed in his face. A crazed light appeared in Fears's eyes, and he suddenly turned and shouted, “You've rubbed my face in the dirt, Driver! Now you're a dead man!” He lifted his pistol and fired.

Ben saw the move, twisted, and fell to the ground. The bullet passed so close it seemed to brush by his ear with an audible hissing sound.

Sprawled on the ground he saw the Le Mat five feet away, and knew that there was no time, for Honey was lowering the pistol, cursing as he did so. Desperately Ben lunged forward and even as he did, he knew that he was a dead man.

His eyes were fixed on Honey even as he reached for the Le Mat. Fears's gun exploded again, but it was pointed down at his feet. A black hole suddenly appeared over the big man's left eyebrow, and he seemed to freeze. At that instant Ben heard the retort from the Whitworth and knew that his father had killed Fears.

Deuce Farley turned his pistol toward Ben, but by that time Ben had snatched up the Le Mat. He took a snap shot at Farley and saw the slug hit and drive the man backward to the ground. He came to his feet and saw that DeSpain and Green had both thrust their hands high in the air. “This wasn't our idea, Driver,” DeSpain cried instantly. “You saw me try to talk him out of it!”

“Just drop your guns. You, too, Ike, on the ground.” He waited until they did, then turned to see his father hurrying forward, a pistol in his hand.

“Are you all right, Ben?”

“Yes, thanks to you.” He suddenly smiled. “That was a good shot.”

John Driver's face was pale. “I didn't see any other way.”

“There was no other way.” He turned to look at the still figure of Honey Fears, who had fallen on his back. His eyes were open, and he stared blindly at the sky above. “Somewhere he must have had parents that loved him and a woman that cared for him, but he never showed any concern for anybody but himself,” Ben remarked. He moved over to where Farley was bleeding profusely from a slug he had taken in his left shoulder. It was not fatal, and Ben said, “You won't die from that, Deuce.”

“What are you going to do with us?” Ike asked nervously. His glance went involuntarily to the hanging tree.

Ben did not answer. He had turned to Reisa. He stepped to her side, stuck the Le Mat in his belt. He reached out and took her hand. She returned his pressure, and they did not speak for a moment. Then he asked, “Did they hurt you?”

“No, I was terrified at first. I thought they would—“ She could not finish the sentence. “But I'm all right.” She nodded toward DeSpain. “He's telling the truth. He tried to get Fears to let me go.”

“What do you think, Dad?” Ben asked.

John Driver spoke up. “You two take Farley and get him patched up, then get as far away from here as you can. If you're still in the county day after tomorrow, there'll be a warrant out for attempted murder and kidnapping. You'll hang.”

An expression of relief swept across the faces of the two men, and DeSpain said, “Come on, Ike. Let's get Deuce to a doctor.” He turned then and said, “Don't worry. You'll never see my face again.”

They watched as the two patched up the wounded man. They stopped the blood flow, then helped him get into the saddle. Farley's face was pale, and his eyes were shut. His lips were clamped tightly together, and he did not say a word as they left, DeSpain leading his horse as they rode away.

“Reisa?”

Reisa turned then, and she smiled. “I knew you'd come, Ben.”

Ben glanced at his father and smiled. “It's my dad you have to thank.”

Reisa went to him at once and looked up into his eyes. “Thank you for coming. Thank you for what you did.”

John Driver took the hand of the young woman and for the first time looked at her carefully. He had the feeling that he was going to know her much better, and now as he studied her features they were almost serene. He saw a fire in her that made her lovely—a beautiful and robust woman.

“I've asked Ben to give me another chance. I've been the biggest fool God ever made. If Ben will let me, he'll see a difference.”

“I'm so glad,” Reisa said, and her smile brightened her entire face. She hesitated, then said, “Something happened to me.” For one moment she paused, then she squared her shoulders. “I was terrified when they brought me here, but when they put me in the room alone I knew it would be only a matter of time until they came to hurt me. So I began to pray, and for the first time in my life I called for Jesus—and somehow he was there. I did what Sam did and what Grandfather did. I asked him to come be with me, that I needed him—and he did.”

John Driver was touched by the young woman's words. “I'm so glad, my dear,” he said gently.

“And now your grandfather will be happy, too,” Ben smiled. Then he said, “Come along. He must be terribly worried about you.”

The three left, and as they walked down across the open plain the moon came out from behind a cloud and cast its silver beams over them.