Chapter Twenty-Four
Elizabeth's soft hands danced across his bare chest, sending shockwaves of heat and pleasure through his body. Brody wrapped his arms around her and rolled on the feather tick mattress, pulling her slender body on top of his. The sheets were tangled around them and both of them were slick with sweat as their heartbeats slowly returned to normal.
Elizabeth's thick blond hair fell in her face and Brody pushed it out of the way before pulling her face down to his to kiss her tenderly. She gazed down at him lovingly and then he saw her jaw get that stubborn set and her eyes flashed with annoyance.
He couldn't help but smile, "Why do I feel like I'm about to get yelled at?"
She braced her hands on his chest and shook her head, "I won't yell."
"What have I done?"
"You killed someone, Brody."
Brody sighed and would have moved his gaze away from her if he wasn't so absorbed in the beauty and softness of her body, "He deserved what he got, Elizabeth." he said in defense of himself. "And I didn't break my word to you. I gave him a gun and turned my back to give him a chance."
"You knew he wouldn't be fast enough to be any real competition."
"I wouldn't have turned my back if I'd of thought he was really gonna kill me."
Elizabeth raised her brow, "What about the torture?"
"What torture?" Brody asked as he tried to move his mouth to her tight, swollen, kiss reddened nipples and she moved them just out of his reach.
"You branded his head," she reminded him, with that no nonsense, ice queen tone to her voice.
"Dammit woman, I'm trying to enjoy my dream, quit jumping my ass," Brody growled as he again tried to get to her breasts and again she moved them away.
"Brody..." she warned.
"I figured since he liked that damn ranch so much, he might as well have a permanent reminder to take to hell with him." Elizabeth rolled her eyes and moved off of him, curling on her side against his body.
Brody buried one hand in her hair and stroked her long, slender arm with the other, "I miss you," he whispered, not bothering to hide the emotions or tears in his voice. This was only a dream after all and there was no one to see him so weak.
"I miss you too," Elizabeth replied.
"I wasn't ready to lose you, boss. I still need you."
She looked up at him and wiped away his tears with her small hand, "You'll see me again someday Brody. Until then, I want you to promise me something."
"I thought I said you only get one a year?" he teased and then he saw the seriousness on her face and he frowned. "What?"
"You won't......"
"Brody, wake the hell up! If we're going to the saloon, let's go." LeRoy's voice woke Brody from his dream and he growled as he sat up in the hard, cheap, hotel bed, "If you ever wake me up again, I will shoot you in the face," Brody threatened.
He quickly wiped off his face and flamed with embarrassment when he felt the wetness from his tears. He looked at the other man and the look he saw on his face before he quickly turned away let Brody know that LeRoy knew exactly what he'd been dreaming about.
Brody stood up and walked over to the wash basin. He threw some of the water over his face and scrubbed the tears away before drying himself on a stiff cotton towel hanging on the wall. He grabbed his hat off the bed post and stuck it on his head before tying a black bandana over his face to hide his identity. He didn't want Rene recognizing him before he was good and ready. He cinched his gun belt around his lean hips, checked the chamber of his colt to ensure the gun was loaded and then looked at LeRoy as he holstered the weapon.
"Let's go."
They walked into the brightly lit, noise filled saloon and Brody scanned the room as he followed LeRoy up to the bar and sat down. He ordered a whiskey and then turned to face the room full of men. Rene wasn't here and Brody leaned his back against the bar to wait. He knew Rene would show up eventually and he had the rest of his life to wait on the man. It had taken nearly a week to get here and they'd been waiting in this saloon every night for four nights, watching for the man.
Brody knew Rene would show up because he'd heard some other men talking about him the first night he'd been here. He had also heard those men say that Petey was dead. They hadn't said how he had died but Brody had felt a desperate rage fill him, knowing he wouldn't be able to kill the man who had taken Elizabeth's life. He would just have to make sure that Rene suffered enough to make up for it.
A busty saloon woman in a tight, dark blue dress that barely covered her thighs and was cut so low in the chest that her dark nipples were nearly visible, walked over to him, wiggling her shapely hips. Brody quickly turned his head away and continued to scan the saloon. He had neither an interest or an urge to take anything that this woman might have to offer.
She seemed to sense his disinterest so instead she turned to LeRoy. She was obviously a well experienced woman, because she didn't even bat an eye at his scars before sitting down on LeRoy's lap and asking the bartender for a beer for her new friend.
"Jesus is watching you, LeRoy. Ain't that what you always tell me?" Brody asked as he lifted his bandana long enough to down his shot of whiskey and then lowered it back in place.
"I ain't doing nothing wrong," LeRoy replied with indignation as he ran his hand over the smooth, pale skin of the woman's bare leg.
"So your God don't want me getting vengeance for my wife but he ain't got a problem with you cuddling up to a whore?"
"He's your God too, Brody."
Brody shook his head and stood up, "Not anymore."
Brody walked away to the back of the saloon where he could sit without having to listen to any more preaching from LeRoy. That man was nothing but a pest. Brody didn't want to hear that what he was doing was wrong.
He had so much hate coiling and burning in his gut that he didn't know what else he wasn't supposed to do with all of it. He would kill everyone that had had anything to do with Elizabeth's death. He had thought about taking Grant off that list until he'd gone through Braxton's files. He'd seen that Braxton had given a piece of the ranch to Grant and that told Brody all he needed to know. Grant had been a part of the whole thing.
Brody's attention was suddenly drawn to the swinging doors and the hate in his gut engulfed his entire body and he shook with sudden rage when Rene walked into the saloon. Brody's fists clenched and unclenched as he fought the urge to pull his revolver and end the man's life now.
It wouldn't do any good to just kill him right now though. He still needed to find out the identity of the fourth man who had helped abduct him and Elizabeth from the ranch.
Seconds, became minutes. Minutes became hours. And with every passing round of the clock hands, Brody felt his hatred and rage growing. Rene laughed and joked. He drank beers and played poker. It was as if the fact that he had helped kill an innocent woman didn't bother him in the least. It hadn't cost him a single second of sleep or a single moment of regret.
When Rene finally rose from the table, glossy eyed and clearly drunk, Brody shadowed his movements and followed the man silently out the door. He heard LeRoy walk up behind him as he watched Rene ride out of town, "Is that him?"
"Yeah, that's him," Brody replied, his voice full of ice and venomous hatred.
"Will it do me any good to tell you that you don't have to do this?" LeRoy asked and Brody shook his head. LeRoy sighed and then both men mounted their horses that they'd left hitched outside the saloon.
There was only a half moon to light the darkened ground but Brody had learned how to track very well in his life. Rene's horse had a loose shoe and so his tracks were easy to follow. Brody saw the glow of a lantern in the distance and the outline of a shack. He held up his hand to signal to LeRoy that he was stopping and then both men dismounted their horses.
"You stay here," Brody said sternly as he pulled the bandana off his face.
"You shouldn't ..."
Brody's eyes flashed with anger, "You chose to come with me, LeRoy. I'm sick and tired of your preaching. Now either shut up or go home." LeRoy nodded and sat down on a boulder.
"I'll be here waiting." he replied, deciding that there was no use trying to help someone who didn't want to help themselves.
Brody stuck to the shadows and through the lantern lit window he saw Rene standing inside, wearing nothing but his trousers and scratching at his stomach sleepily. The man had clearly had too much to drink and was now planning on sleeping it off... Too bad he'd never live long enough to be completely sober again.
Brody didn't hesitate and he didn't try to sneak. He strode right to the door and kicked it open. Rene reached for his gun on the table but Brody put a bullet through his wrist and the man screamed in pain and jumped back.
"You!" Rene hissed as recognition dawned in his drunk eyes. "We killed you!"
"Yes you did. And my wife. And now I'm here to kill you."
Rene's first instinct was to tell Brody his wife wasn't dead but what would that solve? Either way the man was going to kill him. That much was clear even to him in his whiskey and beer induced haze. Why give Brody any peace of mind? "Kill me then, you bastard. But you got it wrong. I didn't just kill your bitch, first I made her squeal."
Brody saw red. He swung his gun and caught Rene hard across the temple, causing the man to crumple to the floor in an unconscious heap. Brody dragged the man into a small bedroom and tied him to the bed. He pulled his knife from his boot and then grabbed the pitcher of water from the washstand. He dumped the water over Rene's head and the man came to with a sputter.
"My fucking arm hurts!" Rene yelled, as the ropes Brody had used to tie him up, dug into the hole Brody's bullet had torn through his wrist.
"Do you want sympathy?" Brody asked as he tapped his the cold steel of his knife blade against his cheek
Rene looked at Brody tapping the knife against his cheek and felt a shiver run down his spine as he tried again and again to jerk his arms and legs free of the ropes he'd used to tie him.
"What do you want?" Rene demanded. "Nothing you do to me is going to bring that bitch back from the dead!"
"That bitch had a name," Brody said calmly as he stalked toward the bed. The lantern light cast shadows over his face and Rene decided that that must be what the devil looked like.
"What do you want?!" Rene yelled again.
Brody sat on the edge of the bed and pressed his knife against the pale, flesh of Rene's stomach, "Who was the fourth man?"
"Fourth man?" Rene asked, panic and alcohol were clouding his mind but he'd be damned before he broke in front of this jackass. If death was coming he'd take it like a man.
"Don't play dumb," Brody warned. A flick of his wrist sent the knife deep into Rene's stomach, causing the man to fill the tiny shack with his pain filled screams and fight uselessly against the ropes.
Brody knew how to tie one hell of a knot; he wasn't worried that Rene would break free. Brody pulled the knife back out and wiped it on the dirty gray blanket, "Tell me who the fourth man is."
"What fourth man? What are you...talking about?" Rene gasped desperately, forgetting all about his previous vow not to break. He was desperate for death but he had a feeling that until Brody heard what he wanted to hear, death wasn't going to come.
"The fourth man that helped abduct my wife and I from the ranch. There was the big guy and that other one that I killed. Your worthless ass and one more. I want to know who he was."
"If I tell you will you let me live?"
Brody shook his head and then drove his knife into Rene's stomach again, twisting the blade as Rene's blood came out in a hot rush and covered his hand, "No. But I'll kill you faster."
Rene screamed and twisted in pain beneath him. Brody removed the knife and again wiped it clean on the bedspread. Sweat trickled down into Rene's eyes and his face was ghost pale and tight with pain as tears gathered in his eyes.
"Vincent Hale. His name was Vincent Hale. He was headed for Kansas....Please just kill me, just he same as I killed your bitch..." Rene whimpered. Brody continued to sit there on the edge of the bed looking calm and thoughtful. "Kill me!" Rene screamed.
Brody stood up and then looked down at Rene. The man was dying. His blood was pouring from his body, soaking the bed and dripping on the wooden floor. Brody had been sure to rip and shred his organs with that last twist of his knife. Way out here, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night? No one would ever hear him scream.
Brody stuck his knife back in his boot and bent down so he could grip Rene's hair in his hand and jerk the man's head back. Rene cried out in pain.
"That bitch's name was Elizabeth Atkinson. She was my wife and I loved her more than you've ever loved anything in your entire pathetic life. She was my heartbeat and you took that away. I'm not going to finish you off. I'm going to let you bleed to death, you son of a bitch. Same as you did to me." Brody turned and walked away, shutting the bedroom door behind him.
He sat down in the lantern light at the kitchen table and propped his feet on the scarred oak table top. He pulled off his hat and buried his face in his hands as Rene's screams of pain and pleas of mercy filled the night air.
"God, Elizabeth, I'm sorry." Brody whispered into his palms. He had promised her he wouldn't do it but with her gone what reason did he have to be a good man?
Soon the screams grew weak and turned into whimpers and then the whimpers faded into silence. Still Brody sat at the table with his face in his hands. Only when the light of dawn was breaking through the windows did Brody rise from the table. Rene's blood had dried and hardened leaving Brody's hands stuck to his face. He yanked them free and looked around the room.
The coppery scent of blood and the heavy feeling of death filled the tiny shack and Brody quickly walked out the door and into the early morning air. He walked to the well and quickly drew up a bucket of water, cleaning his face and hands before drying them on his handkerchief and walking to where he'd left LeRoy the night before.
He found the man sleeping against the boulder he'd sat down on the night before while the horses grazed nearby. Brody shook his head and kicked him in the leg.
"Jesus, Brody, you scared me!" LeRoy exclaimed as his eyes flew open and he looked around.
"Nice to see you worried about me," Brody replied dryly.
"I knew you was fine," LeRoy muttered as he stood up and wiped off his backside. "Is he dead?" he asked, tilting his head toward the shack and Brody nodded. "Who's next on this list of yours?"
"Vincent Hale. Kansas." Brody replied coldly.
LeRoy whistled, "Kansas is a long way from here. We better get going."
"You're not coming," Brody countered as he grabbed his horses reigns and jumped into the saddle.
"What the hell you mean, I'm not coming?" LeRoy demanded angrily.
"You're going back to that ranch of mine. I want you to make sure it's being run right," Brody replied. He didn't want LeRoy around anymore. He was tired of the man trying to make him feel guilty about what he was doing.
LeRoy shook his head, "I'd rather come with you."
"Bye LeRoy," Brody ground out. "Take care of my ranch." His goodbyes said, Brody quickly rode away leaving LeRoy standing there in a cloud of dust.