Unlikely Angel

Chapter 14

“Black Jack? Why didn’t he kill us?”

“You complaining?” asked Billy, his challenging tone not even thinly veiling his contempt for the men.. “’Cause if you are, Pat and I can take care of that right here.”

It was no idle threat either. It was Billy’s personal feeling that no female should endure what Susan had. Billy had never truly come to terms with what had happened to Cora. She was like a sister to him and he loved her as he had his own sisters who had died along with his parents. Sometimes he’d see the sad look in Cora’s eyes or see her flinch if one of the boys came up to her unexpected. A white hot blinding rage would fill him because of what some stinking, filthy man took from her. She shouldn’t have to feel such fear, live with such fear.

If, Billy thought grimly, it was possible to have a rape be better or worse than another, Susan’s was by far, worse. The girl was only eleven and barely looked nine. There wasn’t even a hint of womanhood to her. There’s no way she knew what was happening or why. Even worse was knowing how she often still didn’t like to be touched, especially if she was upset. Billy figured she probably was never more upset than she was after seeing her parents and brothers gunned down. He was really itching for either one of those sorry men to just give him one good excuse to turn around and shoot them dead right then and there.

“No,” Morgan was quick to answer the threat. “Just didn’t think Black Jack would take a man in alive.”

“I guess I can see where you’d be confused since you know him so well,” Billy let the contempt and sarcasm drip from his words.

Morgan opened his mouth to respond but Billy decided to just keep talking. He was good at talking. He drove the other boys near to mad sometimes but getting under a man’s skin was a skill he honed intentionally. He found it often came in useful.

“Don’t get me wrong, if you two were facing off in the street, he’d drop you like a sack of manure. But Calder don’t go looking for that kind of fight, enough of ‘em come to him. And he sure wouldn’t ambush someone. It wouldn’t be a fair fight,” Billy paused a moment, and then resumed speaking, “I don’t know what the gossip is these days about him but John Calder is an honorable man.”

There was silence for a while before Morgan decided to speak again. His tone was easy, conversational even.

“Quite a show you’re putting on for us. You think we’re going to confess to something?”

The man’s tone became belligerent but Billy had gotten good at reading the very things that confused Susan so very much. Billy understood the tiny things that people gave away without knowing. This man knew he was going to hang. He was scared of it some but more than that he was calculating. He knew he was the brains of the Franklin family, Clete was capable of nothing but following his brother’s orders. The belligerent tone was an attempt to bring Billy’s own emotions into play and cloud his judgment.

“I don’t know what show you’re referring to,” Billy answered with an easy smile. “And don’t care one way or another if you confess. I know what you did and I know you’re going to hang for it.”

Morgan laughed. It was a cold laugh and Billy had to hide the shudder that ran through him thinking of poor Susan hearing that laugh and what happened to her then.

“You don’t know nothing but what some idiot girl told you! I don’t even think she told anyone anything. I seen cornered raccoons was tamer than she is.”

Pat was pondering how badly this man needed at least one additional hole in his head. Patrick O’Hara was not a rash man. He was Irish and he knew his countrymen had a reputation for being quick tempered but he liked to think he was rather easy going himself. Today, though, Morgan Franklin was wearing thin his powers of self control. To still be so insolent after what he’d done to that tiny girl made his blood boil. Even worse than his own feelings toward the child was the extra hurt he saw in Cora when she looked at the girl. She knew in ways none of them could and no one ever should what little Susan was going through.