Taking A Trip With An Outlaw

Chapter 9 - A Night in the Moonlight

Chapter Nine – A Night in the Moonlight

One thing that Grace was always happy about was the fact that no one had seen her cry. Now she couldn’t see that and because Liam had seen her cry, he had seen the one thing that was her weakness. Family.

When Grace had lost everything she found that she clung to the memories to keep her revenge alive, but now as she looked at Liam’s sleeping form in the house that she once called home, she couldn’t help but think that she’d changed the view of herself through his eyes.

No longer would he see a strong independent woman, instead he’d see that pitiful wreck that he saw that night sobbing into his arms.

Nothing ever went right for Grace, unless it was surviving that was only the real thing that she was good at and she’d had plenty of practice at it.

As she lay there looking at the ceiling of the house, she realised just how much she’d missed out on because of the man she’d once thought was trying to protect her.

Sheriff Longly was an older man now of 54 but he still knew how to ride with the best of them! When Grace had wounded him 2 years ago he’d had himself quite a gut and was quite short too at 5ft 4, just a little taller than herself. His greasy, long blonde hair would always hang loosely around his gaunt face and his green eyes were always washed out as they were set in a permanent glare.

Grace could still remember the day it all happened, the day everything changed.

It was a normal day and Grace’s Pa had asked her to go into the town to collect the material that Mrs Herlee had promised to fix, as she was getting Muck saddled her little brother, Ruben came out to question where she was going. Ruben could always be annoying, always questioning, always talking. What she’d give to have that now. He was 8 that day and her sisters, Sasha and Allison were twins at the age of 5. Grace was the oldest and always saw her younger siblings as a nuisance. She hated that she’d once thought those thoughts.

That day her twin sisters ran around the garden as her Ma sat outside smiling and waving as Ruben ran towards her yelling at Grace to be careful as she rode into town.

Grace wasn’t in town for long, she picked up the material, bid Mrs Herlee good day and simply mounted Muck and rode back. The trip from home to town was an hour and she was in the town for no longer than 20 minutes so as Grace neared the hill and saw the house up ahead in silence, she knew something was wrong. Something stirred in her gut as she noticed the horses that were strangers to her.

As she flung off the horse and ran into the house the first person she came across was Ruben, blood had covered his chest, his mouth open in surprise and his blue eyes shining back yet misty with his death. Grace remembered how she turned and was sick before continuing through the house. She came to her mother and sisters next, all wrapped around each other trying to comfort each other, yet they too had been killed in the house she once called home.

Tears sprung to her eyes just like they had on that day as she had heard the deep, wheezy breathing of her father. She kicked over the chairs and the tables as she found him nearer the kitchen, his hat still on his head and his eyes slightly unfocused. He caught sight of her then and gave half a smile.

“Grace” he wheezed “You’re, you’re… s…safe”

Grace had begged him not to die then; she grasped his hand and cried into his chest as he tried to soothe her sobs. He lifted her chin and told her to keep safe, and then before he died he gave her a hard glare and told her to ‘make him pay in blood.’

Grace had known that her father had once been an outlaw and she knew the saying well, he’d said it about Ma’s previous lover when he had beat her black and blue and left her for dead. But he never said who she was to find and who she was to kill.

Grace could still recall the way she took her father’s hat, the very one which still resided on her head, and his pistols, which remained by her side, and stormed out of those house wiping the tears from her cheeks. It was then that she had come face to face with Sheriff Longly.

He posed as the lawman all too well, claiming to have heard the gun shots and how he and his men rode as fast as possible to help ‘the family’, her family. She cried then as Longly had pulled her into his arms and said he would look after her.

He did, for the first week. Then everything changed. One night when it was all dark she heard Longly and the men talking about when they’d found Grace. She heard Longly describing what he had done to her family and what he was going to do to her. As she bit back a gasp and covered her mouth with her hand she remembered how Longly had come into the tent that night and taken her innocence, then ordered the men to do the same.

She kicked and punched and bit to try and defend herself, but it did no good.

They continued to do this every night, until the night that Henry Fares had been put on her tent to keep watch and fallen asleep. She escaped that night and found Granger Grange.

Grace sighed as she pulled herself out of her memories and walked out to the porch where her Ma had sat that day waving her into town. She sat down and looked up into the sky.

Just another night with another moon.

Another night under the moonlight without her family and another night less before she managed to gain her vengeance.