Chapter Twenty-One
He could see her standing there in her blue cotton dress. She was smiling and reaching for him. He reached for her but suddenly she was moving away from him, still with that loving smile on her face. He tried to catch her. He ran and ran but no matter how fast his legs worked, he couldn't get any closer. She just kept getting further and further away.
"Stop, Elizabeth. Come to me!" he yelled with frustration. Still she stared at him with love and just kept getting further and further away. Then the gunshots rang out and he yelled in horror as her crimson blood soaked her dress.
"No!" He screamed. "I promised I'd keep her safe!"
Brody's eyes flew open and he tried to sit bolt upright in the bed he was lying on, only to be struck with a sharp pain in his chest that had him crying out and collapsing back against the feather tick mattress.
"Easy there, chief." A gruff voice said beside him.
Brody looked over at the man who had spoken. He was sitting in a chair, his clothes were dirty and crusty and seemed to be stiff with sweat and mud. His hair was blond and messy on his head and his face was a tangle of scars. His gray eyes were familiar when they looked at Brody but he wasn't sure why.
"Where... Am.. I.." Brody choked out. His mouth and lips were drier than the desert itself and the man grabbed a glass of water off the table beside him and helped Brody take a drink.
"You're in my house... Well shack I guess. Never thought I'd see you again, chief."
"LeRoy?" Brody asked as recognition dawned on him. He hadn't seen private Banner since the war had ended and their whole company had went their separate ways.
"Yep. Who the hell shot you full of holes?"
"My wife..." Brody gasped suddenly as he tried again to sit up. LeRoy put a firm hand on his uninjured shoulder and held him down, "Now dammit, do as I say. They shot you up good. Your ribs saved your heart but your damn shoulder got hit and your leg is broke. It'll be a good six weeks before you're able to get up and move around much," he warned sternly. "Why in the hell did your wife shoot you for?"
Brody closed his eyes against the pain that was coursing through his body. His shoulder burned, it hurt his ribs to take a deep breath, and the brace on his leg, held it immobilized, "No. Where is my wife? Is she okay? Did you save her?" Hope rose up in Brody. If LeRoy had gotten there in time to save him then maybe he had gotten there in time to save Elizabeth. LeRoy shook his head and seemed puzzled, "There wasn't nobody there but you."
Brody felt even more hope. They'd taken her prisoner. But how long ago? "How long have I been here?" he demanded.
"About two weeks. I thought you was gonna die of fever but you're looking a bit better now."
"I have to go."
"You can't go!" LeRoy looked at Brody as if he were crazy. "You have a broken leg and a bullet hole in your chest and shoulder."
Brody knew the man was right but that didn't mean he was happy about it. He couldn't even sit up, let alone hop on a horse and go riding. "I think you should know something, chief." LeRoy added with sadness. Brody looked at the man, who was only few years older then him but looked decades older with all those scars, "What?"
"There weren't no other bodies there, but there was blood."
Brody's heart stopped beating in his chest, "Blood?" he whispered around the lump of dread in his throat. His nostrils flared as he took deep breaths to try to keep himself from losing it. "How much blood?"
"The amount of blood that lets you know that whoever it belonged to is dead."
"No...." Brody choked out as he shook his head. "No."
"I found this," LeRoy reached in his pocket. "It was lying in the blood. I cleaned it up the best I could."
Brody reached out with his good arm and snatched the necklace from LeRoy's hand. The pewter cross shone in the sunlight coming through the tiny cabin window but the white cotton thread was stained nearly black with dried blood. Elizabeth's blood.
Brody couldn't fight the pain. He hadn't cried when his family had died. Hadn't cried during anything he'd faced in that damn war. He hadn't cried no matter what he'd gone through in life, but now he was broken.
The tears burned his eyes as he clutched the cross so tightly it cut into his palm. He turned his head and buried his face in the pillow as he cried out Elizabeth's name.
LeRoy listened to Brody's choking, body wracking sobs filling the cabin and then stood and left to go look after his horse, leaving his old friend to his grief.
***
"Over a ranch?" LeRoy asked incredulously. Brody nodded as he sat propped against the wall. It had taken two weeks for the tears to stop falling every time he mentioned Elizabeth. Now he just felt a blackness in his heart. A deadness.
He would get his revenge against those that had taken his wife from him. They would pay with their lives. Every last one of them. The list in his head was long. Braxton, Anita, Rene, Petey and whoever the fourth man had been when they'd been locked in the wagon. It didn't stop there. The list included any of the hands at the ranch that got in his way, Ernest for not giving his daughter the ranch to begin with and of course Grant... Just because he didn't like the little weasel.
Brody knew Elizabeth had begged him not to kill anyone but she was dead now and he had no reason to try to become a good man. As a matter of fact, the thought of putting bullets in all those people, was all that was giving him the drive to eat, drink and regain his strength.
"Yeah, over a ranch," Brody replied coldly.
LeRoy clicked his tongue, "You got revenge on your mind." Brody had never been a warm person but even LeRoy was shocked by the coldness in the man at this point and he felt sorry for anyone that got in Brody Atkinson's way as he did what he thought needed to be done.
"Yep. Just as soon as I can get out of this bed and onto a horse there are a bunch of people that are going to die and I'm going to kill them."
"Would your wife have wanted that?" LeRoy questioned.
Brody closed his hand around the cross hanging from his neck and closed his eyes to see Elizabeth's face. Her spirited green eyes, her stubborn jaw, her tiny nose. When he opened his eyes they were full of an icy fire that made a shiver pass over LeRoy's spine.
"She's not here to offer her opinion, LeRoy. They killed her."
***
"Damn near good as new!" LeRoy exclaimed a month later as Brody walked outside onto the porch. "I should've been a doctor."
Brody stretched out his stiff muscles. His chest and shoulder muscles still felt tight and sore but the wounds were closed. It was the bone in his leg that bothered him the most. A deep ache throbbed deep down inside that no amount of rubbing took away and he walked with a slight limp.
"Thanks for the help, LeRoy," Brody said.
LeRoy shrugged, "Ya know, I've been thinking. If you're gonna become a revenge driven outlaw, you're gonna need a partner. We fought side by side in the war, I say we fight side by side in this adventure too."
"This is personal, LeRoy," Brody said with a shake of his head. LeRoy snorted, "I'm bored. I need an adventure."
Brody ran his hand through his hair, which he'd cut that morning so that instead of hanging to his shoulders, it hung to his ears, "It's up to you. But I won't die to protect you. Not until every last person on my list is dead and gone."
LeRoy grumbled under his breath, "Just cuz you saved my life once doesn't mean I'll need you to do it again. I paid that debt back when I scraped your ass off the dusty road."
"You should have left me there," Brody stated as he buttoned the brown vest LeRoy had given him over the white shirt, which LeRoy had also given him. "I'm a man with no reason to live other than revenge and I can guarantee that each and every person that helped take my wife away will be screaming before I'm through."
LeRoy nodded and tossed Brody an extra gun belt and revolver, "Let's get started then because I have a feeling this could take a while."
***
Elizabeth sat in the chair beside her bedroom window and looked out into the darkness. Six weeks she'd been locked in this room. Forty-two days. The only reason she'd been able to keep track was because Grant had made sure to remind her every day when he came to visit her. So far he hadn't gone beyond slapping her in the face and harassing her with words.
It seemed to anger him that nothing he did made her show emotion. What did he want from her? Tears? She had nothing left to cry over. Fear? She wasn't afraid of the death he threatened. She knew he would grow impatient and the beatings would get worse soon. He might even try to force himself on her. If it came to that she was ready to kill herself. She would not let another man touch her in that way.
A wave of nausea passed over her and Elizabeth stood and ran to the basin by the tub and threw up the bread, pears and water she had eaten for dinner. She clung to the basin until the queasiness passed and then wiped her mouth on the sleeve of the fancy green satin dress that Grant had insisted she wear.
She had been getting sick for weeks and staying tired. She blamed it on the loss of Brody and everything else she knew in her life. She made her way back to the chair and looked back out at the night. Grant had no neighbors for miles and the view of the surrounding hills and mountains really was breathtakingly beautiful from her room.
She thought of Brody who had grown up in Virginia. Though he had grown up further west, beside the Kentucky border outside of a little town called Harmony. Brody had told her that his brother and two surviving sisters still lived there in the same house he'd grown up in. Thinking of Brody as a child caused her to imagine what her and Brody's children would have looked like if they'd been given enough time to have them.
Sharp, dark, intense little boys and little girls full of piss and vinegar just like she had been as a child. She laid her hand over her stomach and thought of how it would have been to be grow large with Brody's baby inside of her. Then a sudden thought occurred to her.
She hadn't had her cycle in months. She hadn't had it since before she and Brody had been kidnapped.
Elizabeth stared down at her flat stomach. Was she pregnant? She closed her eyes and the truth washed over her like a comforting wind. Brody wasn't completely gone. She had a piece of him growing inside of her. A piece of the love they had shared.
That must be why 'dream Brody' had kept telling her not to give up. He had known she was carrying their child. Elizabeth suddenly felt some fight come back into her spirit. She had a reason to live now. She had a reason to get the hell away from Grant and start a new life for her and her baby. She had to get away soon because if Grant saw her starting to show he would probably kill the baby and that was something she could not let happen.
Happy tears of hope ran down her cheeks as she looked back out the window and then her eyes narrowed when she saw the dark figure running across the yard toward the house. The figure disappeared into the shadows beside the house and she wondered who it could be. Just then a pebble hit her the glass windowpane and she let out a squeak of surprise. She sat there for several moments and then another pebble struck the window. She raised the window and stuck her head outside. The full moon illuminating the yard as if it was dawn.
"Who the hell is out there?!" she demanded as she dodged a third pebble.
"Damn it, Miss McCready, I've been waiting for weeks for you to try to escape so I can help you. So can I ask why you're still just sitting in that window as pretty as you please?" Thomas's voice floated up from the shadows and he stepped into the moonlight.
"Thomas!" she exclaimed in an excited whisper. "What are you doing here?"
"I saw Grant leaving with you. Everyone thought you were dead. Everyone still thinks you're dead. I followed you, convinced that you'd make a grand escape and I'd be able to help you but so far you ain't done nothing."
"I wanna do something now," she replied. "And I'm not Miss McCready anymore. I'm Mrs. Atkinson."
"Y'all got married?" Elizabeth nodded. "I'm awful sorry for your loss then Mrs. Atkinson. Why don't you come on and I'll help take ya somewhere safe. I'll protect ya, just the way Brody would have wanted someone to."
"I can take care of myself," she snapped, with a flash of her old temper and then she smiled. "But a little help never hurt anybody."
"Grant's gone. I saw him leave. You wanna jump out this window and I'll catch ya?"
"I can't."
"You scared or something?" Thomas asked.
Elizabeth shook her head, "I'm with child."
Thomas's eyes widened, "Brody's child?"
"Yes, Brody's child."
"Well shit, I better get you on outta here safe then or else the man will come back from the dead and kill me for sure."
"Are you sure Grant is gone?" Elizabeth questioned and he nodded.
"Positive."
"I'll just come out the front then."
"What about the servants?" Thomas asked.
"I'll come out quietly," she replied and she closed the window.
Elizabeth looked around the room but there wasn't anything here that she wanted to take with her. She did however want some different clothes. Escape would only be harder with this stupid, poofy dress. She pulled a pin from her hair and used it to pick open the bedroom door lock. She opened it silently and then tip toed down the hall. She stopped outside the room that she knew belonged to Grant. She knew because he had told her he was sleeping just down the hall from her on several occasions.
She walked into the room and opened the wardrobe. She slipped out of her dress and petticoats and pulled on a pair of his trousers. They were too big in the waist but she grabbed a belt that was also hanging there and cinched it tight around her hips. Then she pulled on a black button down shirt and tucked it into the pants.
She slipped back into the hallway and stopped in her room long enough to grab her boots. She carried them in her hand and crept barefoot down the steps. The house was silent. The servants were sleeping. She was amazed at how easy it was. She just opened the front door and walked out into the night. Thomas was at her side in seconds and he led her toward the forest.
"I've got a horse waiting," he assured her. He looked at her flat stomach and frowned, "You can ride can't you?"
"Yes. I can ride."