The rolling white crests of the
Colorado river dodged boulders below the road they traveled on. The
walls of the canyon were so steep the whole sky looked like a stripe
of light blue in a shaded green. She couldn't figure how it was the
trees weren't falling into the river growing in places that were more
vertical than not. It was beautiful, nothing like Ruby had ever
seen.
She didn't give a damn.
All she could think about was her
brother, left back by the road a couple days ago now. It was her
bright idea to run off, now look at the mess they were in. The county
orphanage didn't seem near so unreasonable now.
There were no guard rails or nothin'
along the cliffside road. Only good steering and brakes to keep the
car from going over the side.
They met a car coming the other way at
a narrow spot in the road. A young couple. After some negotiatin',
Caleb agreed to drive in reverse to find a spot where the two cars
could pass. He guided their vehicle backwards in the shaking mirror.
Ruby tried not to think about the steep ledge.
She looked into the eyes of the young
woman in the car they were facing. She wished they could see Ruby's
sad story in her eyes and rescue her with them to Hollywood—at
least that's where she decided they were from.
Truth be told, the other girl wasn't any happier that the kidnapped runaway. The two stared at each
other with blank faces and hollow eyes. Maybe if, they were a little
closer and maybe if that old windshield was a little less dusty, she
mighta seen that lady's red eyes and the bruises round her neck.
Caleb cursed continually. He cursed in
that Christian way that ain't cursin' but still is to anyone that can
tell it from Shinola.
The truck lurched suddenly backwards.
The left rear wheel went over the side. Ruby shrieked instinctively
jumped from her seat, folded down the wind shield glass and climbed
out on the engine cowling, it was hot under her hands and knees. The
truck tipped back but as Ruby climbed out on the front fender, it
settled back. She was about to jump off when confronted by a chorus
of voices.
“NO, DON'T!”
“Don't move young lady.” Said a
voice behind her. The groom had jumped from his car and walked
towards Ruby with his hand held out.
“For heaven's sake child.” pleaded
Ester.
Ruby's eye's found Caleb's. He had a
hateful look hanging behind his mustache. For once he had nothin' to
say.
Ruby glared back wondering if he was
thinking about the same thing she was: the night before.
“Sit like a lady girl,” Caleb
grumbled from across the campfire.
Ruby's knees were already tight
together but she spread her dress down over her knees to appease his
temper. It seemed nothing could keep him from his foul moods, still
she felt like she had to try.
“Don't be shooting me that willful
look girl.”
“But I didn't even...”
“Don't back talk! What kinda mama
raised such barn-mannered little hussy.”
Ruby raged inside, but bit her tongue.
He would sure beat her if she spoke up.
“I bet I know what type your mama
was: little hussy, big hussy, praise be oh Lord.”
Ruby couldn't take no more. She jumped
to her feet, her eyes all angry red. She could have crushed a
med-cine bottle in her teeth right then.
“My mama was... is... she used to...
She's is a real lady you know. You don't know nothin' bout manners
anyhow you old... clodhopper.”
Caleb shot up from where he sat,
stepped clean over the fire and lifted ruby up by her arm. He
unfolded his pocket knife, nearly dropping it in his shaking hand,
and cut the twine that tethered her ankle to the log she was sitting
on and tied her hands together in front.
“You 'bout to learn some manners
girl.”
He marched her into the woods towing
her by the wrists. Ruby flashed a glance back at Ester who looked
straight ahead at the fire, her coffee cup frozen and inch from her
lips.
A good hike from the campsite Caleb found a fallen tree around waist
high. He yanked Ruby over it with the rope that bound her hands and lashed the free end to
her ankles leaving little room between the two and the girl draped over the log like a saddle on a horse.
I had taken my belt off to discipline
my Ruby once or twice... no it were just once. It was terrible. I didn't have the stomach for it.
Fortunately, just the mention of my belt did the trick after that one
time.
From that once, she knew well enough
the sound; Caleb's belt slapping through the belt loops when he
yanked it off. Ruby bit her lip and let the pain come out in silent
tears and a secret drop of blood in her mouth.
HE beat her a good ten times with that belt. Caleb was enraged by her silence. He
dropped his belt put his hand stiffly to her backside for all he was
worth. Finally, the cries escaped Ruby's lips. Caleb's hand came to
rest on her cotton dress, he was panting quivering. He looked upon her as if frozen in a
trance.
Ruby tried in vane to wipe her eyes and
nose against her bound arms. The rough bark dug into her stomach. Caleb suddenly turned and walked away.
“Where you?... Please,” Ruby gasped. “please
cut me loose? I can't hardly breathe!”
“When you've learned your place
girl,” Caleb said. "When you joyfully honor and obey.”
Ruby looked upside down at his boots
stomping back to the campsite. The knots held fast.
“Girl, you stay right where you are,”
Caleb said. His voice was as unsteady as the teetering truck.
“My name ain't 'girl' you crazy old
man,” Ruby said. She smiled right at him and jumped off the front
fender of the truck and landed with the grace of a ballet dancer.
“NOO!” hollered Ester and Caleb
together. The truck rocked back until it hit on the rear axle and rested more stable like.
She stood on the road with her arms
folded proudly. “My name's Ruby, and don't you forget it.”
She knew she was going to get a beating
that night and sure enough, she did, worse than before. Cept it
didn't seem near so bad when she remembered the pee-in-his-pants look
Caleb had on his face when he thought for sure she had sent him over
the Cliff.
Ruby didn't realize she had it better
than the young bride in the other car. She also didn't know that
young lady left that heavy handed husband when they returned to
Parump, Nevada—not Hollywood as it turned out. It was all because
of a defiant young girl she met on the road one day.
They would meet again one day, but of
course she didn't know that either.
Few mansions in Omaha were as big and
grand as the one that stood before me. It was bitter cold with a light snow and a steady wind. A hot
humid kitchen, though I dreaded them most other times, seemed a might
welcome thing right then.
My job waiting tables at the country
club had got me all sorts of work at big parties and weddings. I'd
even quit my job at the flour mill. My Pa and Bill laughed at me
whenever I left the house in my tuxedo lookin' waiter get-up. I
didn't pay them no heed though. They knew I was bringing in more
money than they were.
I never stopped thinking of Charlotte.
It had been over two years since I'd seen them beautiful eyes at the
train station, but they were like a painting in my mind. I was losing
hope I'd ever see her again. She probably went back to wherever she
came from on that fancy rail car.
The butler began shouting as soon as I
walked in the back entrance and stomped the snow off my boots. He
seemed to have it in for me the rest of the night, working me harder
than any of the other waiters.
“I don't like the look of this one,”
He said in a haughty English accent every time I entered the kitchen. I began to get nervous and started dropping things, forgetting things, and he just yelled at me more. I didn't much like the
look of him either, though I couldn't say exactly why.
It didn't take him long to decide who
to send to the chicken barn when a kitchen maid dropped a whole tray
of eggs. Me of course, not the clumsy girl who'd broken them.
I reached for my coat in the closet.
“If you're going to take so long as
to require a parka, you needn’t return,” said the butler.
Tempted as I was, I left my jacket on
it's hook and headed out into the cold.
I had barely made it halfway to the
barns when I saw a figure trodding and limping through the snow and
falling down every few feet. I thought it was strange, but kept my
appointment with the chickens until I heard it during a lull in the
wind.
Crying.
“Hey there,” I yelled when I got
closer. “You okay?”
The woman reeled around nearly falling
again in her surprise. I raised the lantern high, but she was too far
away, I could only see her outline against the snow in the moonless
night.
“Ma'am, Should you ought to be
someplace warm? This weather could kill a steer.”
The woman backed away from me, soon
falling again. She got up and ran towards nothin' in particular it
seemed.
“Wait, why you running? I'm only
trying to...” I darted after her.
“Go away, you can't stop me, I must
find her.”
“All you're gunna find out here is
your death lady.”
I caught up to her and spun her around
to me. All I could see was a flurry of fists mixed in with the snow.
“Hey now! Just wait a minute.”
“Leave me be!”
She turned and tried to run again.
Before I knew what had happened I had grabbed the poor girl and
hoisted her over my shoulder. All I could do really. She wasn't about
to listen to reason and with one hand on my lantern I couldn't figure
another way to get her to safety.
“You'll freeze! No kiddin', this cold
will kill you... and me, if we don't ”
“No! Let me down!”
Her fists pounded my back as I carried
her towards the closest structure I knew wouldn't get fired for
entering with a thrashing woman on my shoulder: the barn.
I set her on a wood bench and held her
down for a good minute while she struggled to get up. I kept my head
down. Though I had her arms under control, her head was thrashing
every which way.
“Leave me be! I've got too...
She's... I've got to...”
“You gunna promise not to run back
out in that cold?”
“No, no!”
“Then we got ourselves kind-of a
standoff.”
“A 'standoff' what does that even
mean!”
Her fight had tempered some, but I kept
a good hold of her and hunkered down low beside her all the same.
“I guess you don't read no cowboy
stories do ya.”
"Certainly not!”
“It means as long as you keep
fighting and don't promise me on your mother's name not to run, I
can't let you go.”
“Well alright then, I promise.”
“You promise what?”
“I promise on my mother's good name,
God rest her soul, I will not run out into the cold.”
“Okay,” I said.
I let go of her shoulders and sat back
on my feet. She was a young woman, though her face was red and dry
from the cold. She brushed her ragged hair from her eyes.
I near fell over and turned white as a
ghost.
“Charlotte?” I said.
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