The Innocent (5 page)

She spun around to see Curt Whitlow urging his horse toward Carlyn. She looked for an escape. But the ditch beside the road was deep, and she couldn’t outrun his horse, even if it was overburdened with Curt’s weight. So she kept her feet planted at the edge of the road. Curt turned the horse until he was looming directly over her, his bulk blocking the sunlight.

She backed up a step to the very lip of the ditch. That made her feel off balance. That and not having her gun or Asher with her.

“It’s Sunday.” She was relieved her voice came out without a tremble. “A day of rest and worship.”

“So the preachers would have us believe.”

“And the Bible. ‘Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.’” She stared up at him and wished him gone. “You do read the Bible, don’t you?”

“You have doubt of that?” He laughed and didn’t wait for her answer. “Of course I do. It says when your ox is in the ditch you can break the Sabbath to rescue it.”

“You have no ox in a ditch.” Carlyn let her eyes drift from him for a second to seek an escape. She could leap into the ditch if necessary, but her dress would be the worse for it. She couldn’t show up at church in a mud-covered dress. Perhaps it would be best to simply walk on in spite of the horse so near she could feel its warmth. She did not like thinking about being that close to Curt.

“Oh, but I do. A very lovely ox.”

“Then I’ll leave you to rescue it.” She pretended not to know what he meant as she started on up the road.

He walked his horse beside her, pushing her closer to the ditch that was getting deeper the farther up the road they
went. Suddenly Curt yanked the reins to turn his horse in front of Carlyn. She had no recourse but to stop.

“I really must get to church.”

“I can give you a ride.” He was a wall she couldn’t get past.

“I prefer to walk.” She stepped back to move around his horse, but Curt swung his leg over to dismount directly in front of her. He was more of an obstacle than his horse.

“I can give you so much, lovely Carlyn. A woman like you shouldn’t be alone.” He reached to touch her face.

Carlyn knocked his hand away. “Go home and take your wife and children to church.”

He laughed then, entirely too sure of himself. “The missus knows I have many business opportunities that keep me occupied. She is accustomed to getting to church on her own.”

Carlyn gave him a cold stare. “As am I. So please step aside.”

Instead he moved closer. “You look a little desperate, my dear. Are you thinking if you can only get to the church house, you will find help for your problems?”

“The Lord is a present help in trouble.” Carlyn held her ground even though everything in her was screaming to run.

“That is what the preachers tell us. But if you think I’m your trouble, you are so wrong. I am the answer to your troubles. I am your help, Carlyn.”

The smile lingering on his face made her insides clinch. She would have to jump in the ditch to get away from him. Then again, surely he wouldn’t attack her in broad daylight.

“I think not.” She backed a step away from him. The ground on the lip of the ditch felt soft under her feet.

“You’re not afraid of me, are you, Carlyn? I don’t want to hurt you. Only help you. All you have to do is be nice to me.”

“Shall I bake you an apple pie, then?”

“I was thinking of something a bit more interesting than that.” His smile broadened into a leer. “A few favors. That’s all I’m asking. No one else has to know. I’ll tell the sheriff I was convicted that it was my Christian duty to be generous to a widow.”

He reached toward her again. She leaned away from him. “Don’t touch me.” She put force behind the words.

“But I want to, and I get what I want. Always.”

Carlyn looked at the road behind them in hopes of seeing someone coming. People should be making their way to church, but the road was empty. Even Curt Whitlow couldn’t arrange an empty road.

“Do you dare attack me in broad daylight? Somebody might ride by and then what of your reputation.”

“Money trumps reputations.”

“Not in the Lord’s eyes.”

“You think he might be watching?” He laughed and snaked out a hand, faster than she thought possible, to grasp her shoulder.

“The Lord is always watching.” She tried to shake off his hand, but couldn’t.

“Do you think he might reach down to stop me? I think not.” Curt tightened his fingers on her shoulder. “Besides, the Bible says a man is obliged to pay his debts. And since you have no man to pay your debts for you, the obligation is yours. Whatever happens next week in regard to the sheriff carrying out the law and removing you from my house, my dear Carlyn, you are still in arrears. I have a right to my proper due. Why would the good Lord interfere with that?”

“You are despicable.” Carlyn spat the word at him.

He laughed. “Save your sweet talk for later, my dear. First things first. That barn across the road, we can arrange payment there out of the public eye since that seems to concern you.”

She tried to jerk free, but he yanked her toward him and fastened his other hand around her upper arm. He was stronger than she expected. Always before she’d thought she could handle him, but that was with a gun and Asher between them. Now she was alone with no one to help her.

A verse her father often quoted in his sermons rose up in her mind, and she looked up and spoke it aloud. “‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.’”

“I already told you, Carlyn.” He leaned his face closer to her. “I am your help.”

She screamed and kicked at him. His horse shied and took off up the road, but Curt’s grip simply got tighter, bruising her arms.

She stopped fighting and tried to think. “I’ll tell the sheriff.”

“I wouldn’t make threats, my dear. That could go badly for you.”

She went limp then, pretending a faint that surprised him. His grip loosened enough that she twisted out of his grasp but lost her balance and slid down into the ditch. She landed on her back. He came after her, his boots slipping on the incline. Carlyn scooted backward away from him, but her foot caught in her skirt.

It would be a good
time for that help, Lord.
No sooner had she let the thought run through her mind than she heard the creak of a wagon and the sound of horses on the road. She started to cry out, but Curt fell on top of her and mashed his hand down over her mouth. The ditch was deep and the weeds tall. Whoever was in the wagon wouldn’t see her.

Tears filled her eyes. If she hadn’t fallen into the ditch, she would have been able to escape Curt. But now the wagon would pass them by and all would be lost. Curt was right. Nobody was going to help her.

Pray anyway
. Her mother’s words were in her head. She’d told Carlyn that, whenever Carlyn complained that her prayers weren’t answered. “Pray anyway,” she said again and again. “The Lord answers in ways we can’t imagine.”

Let them see us.
But the steady clip-clop of the horses’ hooves continued on.

When the sound of the wagon faded away, Curt raised up to look down at her. “How convenient. We can just finish our business here.” He kept one hand tight against her mouth.

She pushed open her lips enough to bite him. He swore and jerked his hand away.

“Get off me,” she demanded.

“Not yet, my dear.” He put his injured finger in his mouth and sucked on it a moment, his eyes assaulting her.

She screamed then and fought against his weight holding her down. He grabbed her hands and fastened them against the ground over her head. She screamed again.

The dog leaping into the ditch was such a blur that it was a second before she knew it was Asher. He went straight for Curt’s throat and only barely did Curt throw up his arm to keep the dog from his target. The dog clamped teeth down on Curt’s arm and knocked the man backward. Carlyn scrambled to her feet. Asher turned loose of Curt’s arm and made another lunge for his throat. When Curt huddled in the ditch to protect his head, Asher grabbed his arm again.

Curt let out a yowl. “Call him off.”

“Why should I?” Asher was on top of Curt, growling and waiting for a chance at the man’s throat.

“I’ll leave you alone. I promise I’ll never bother you again.” His words were muffled against the ground.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Call him off,” he shouted. “He kills me, they’ll shoot him.”

“Who will know?”

“You will. You’ll be a murderer.” He sounded desperate now. “Thou shalt not kill.”

He was right. She had to call Asher off. Without a word and with a calm she didn’t feel, she picked up her reticule and climbed out of the ditch. Curt looked to be trying to sink deeper into the ditch. Blood streamed from the ripped skin on his arm onto his head. Asher growled, waiting for her to say what next.

Carlyn took a deep breath. “If anything happens to my dog, I’ll tell why he attacked you.”

“I’ll say it was a stray dog. I give you my word. Just call him off.”

His word wasn’t worth much, but she snapped her fingers and spoke the dog’s name anyway. Asher looked up at her but didn’t move. She had to call him twice. At last he jumped up beside Carlyn, the growl still evident in his throat and his muscles taut, ready to spring.

Curt sat up and put his hand over the wound on his arm. His hat was gone and the long hair he looped over his bald spot hung down across his face. It might have been funny except for the blood. “Help me get my horse.”

“No.” Carlyn backed away from him.

What was she going to do? She had thought the Lord’s
answer might be at church, and then the devil had stepped between her and that chance. She considered going on to church. She might even look more convincing in her need for help, but then again, often as not, people blamed a woman for enticing a man into an attack. And while she knew the Lord looked more on right behavior than money, she was not entirely sure Reverend Baskin felt the same. Especially when it was the difference between a widow’s mite and a landowner’s plenty.

“Wait,” Curt yelled at her. “I’m bleeding. You have to help me.”

“No.” She lifted her skirts and ran across the open field to the shelter of the trees. Asher loped alongside her.

Once out of sight of Curt, she was overcome with trembles and had to lean against a tree to stay on her feet. Asher shoved his head under her hand. Her crutch. Her help. Her answer to a desperate prayer. But then from whence would come the rest of her help? Church would be shuttered until next Sunday.

Pray anyway.
Her mother’s words again were in her head.

“I don’t know what to pray,” Carlyn said aloud. Her voice sounded lonely amid the trees with no one but Asher to hear.

Then the bell began to ring. Not at Carlyn’s church. They had no church bell there. But the Shakers’ bell calling them to worship. To dance and whirl. But the sisters there had no worry about men except as brothers.

The bell rang on. Clear. Strong. One toll after another. Her answer.

5

Carlyn walked toward the sound of the bell floating through the air. Each step felt surer as the toll of the bell pulled her toward the village. She didn’t know what the Shakers might expect of her, but she’d heard they didn’t turn potential converts away. She could live the Shaker life for a while. It wouldn’t be forever. Just until Ambrose came home.

She wouldn’t think about that not happening. Not today when she needed some hope to lean on. Not today when the Lord had saved her from Curt and given her an answer. She refused to be bitter about the answers she did not have. Better to concentrate on the answer she did have and keep walking toward the Shaker village.

Even after she came out of the trees, she didn’t look back toward the road. Curt must have spotted her. She heard him yelling, but the sound was little more than the irritating whirr of a grasshopper in her ears. All she wanted to hear was the bell, the Lord speaking to her.

Then, the bell quit ringing. The silence assaulted her ears
and she stopped walking. Lost. Unsure which way to make her next step without the bell guiding her. Other sounds returned. Asher panting. Horses on the road. A crow cawing a warning. Of what Carlyn had no idea, but her heart pounded in her chest anyway.

She was suddenly aware of how she must look. Disheveled. Her bonnet gone, lost in the struggle in the ditch. Her hair no longer in a tidy bun but loose and flying in her eyes. Her dress streaked with dirt, grass stains, and worse. Dark smears where Asher had rubbed against her. She touched the damp spots on the dog’s fur and stared at her hand. Curt Whitlow’s blood.

The sight made her stomach lurch. She rubbed off the blood on a thick patch of grass. She had to get rid of it. Not only from her hand but from Asher as well. She couldn’t show up at the Shaker village marked with blood. That was no way to step into a new world. An unknown world.

So even when the faint sound of singing replaced the toll of the bell, she did not move toward it. Instead she lifted her skirts and took off for home as though the devil himself was after her. Asher ran alongside, not bothered in the least by the blood on his fur. He couldn’t know what that might make happen, for there was one thing Carlyn did know. She couldn’t trust Curt Whitlow to keep his word.