“I have suspected for some time that Cora Lee was a nymphomaniac. That is a medical term meaning a female with an excessive sexual desire. Few people in this country are even aware that such a thing exists. The desire that drove Cora Lee toward sexual fulfillment is comparable to a drunkard’s craving for alcohol. She was a pitiful thing.”
If Lucas was shocked by her words, he hid it well.
“But . . . what killed her?”
“She died from either a powerful blow over the heart, or because something covered her mouth and nose and she couldn’t draw air into her lungs. Possibly both. When we removed her clothes, I found
the places where she had been struck. I also found semen, fluid ejected by men during sexual intercourse, on her thighs and on her stomach.”
Marie could feel the anger radiate from the man beside her, but there was more and she would tell it all. “Because of Cora Lee’s nature, it would be easy to assume that she willingly went out there with some man. And possibly she did. But that was where her willingness ended. Mr. Steele, from the bruises on her arms and body, the condition of her clothing, and the signs of her struggles, it was obvious that she was painfully violated—brutally raped, beaten, and left to die.”
“My God!” Lucas’s face had turned a dull gray beneath the brown put there by the sun. “My God!” he said again.
“I know it’s a shock to hear this, Mr. Steele,” Marie said gently. “But there are many different kinds of people in this world. Some of them are monsters who do unspeakable things to women.”
Lucas marveled at the calmness of the woman standing beside him. “Thank you, Doctor, for telling me.” He touched his hand to his hat brim and mounted his horse.
* * *
The train started after the noon meal. Lucas took the same position he had taken every morning since their departure from Fort Worth. Riding off to one side of the trail, he sat his horse and watched the whole train take shape. After the wagons were strung
out, he rode at the head, seeing nothing but the endless miles where nothing moved but the wind.
That night they camped in the foothills of the Davis Mountains. The wagons were drawn into a tight circle among pine trees. The stock was watered and picketed nearby. As darkness closed in, the call for supper rang out. The women gathered for the evening meal. Everyone was quiet. There was a fearful nervousness throughout the group. Even Lottie had little to say as she dipped the rich stew into the bowls. Most of the women, including Tucker and Laura, sat near the big cook fire to eat. It was as if the death of Cora Lee had drawn them all closer together.
* * *
Emma Collins was a troubled woman. She was also a woman of few words. The only pleasure she had in life was Maudy, her little girl. And for that child she would fight to the death. She wanted as much for her child as Mrs. Taylor—who ate on china plates and drank from tall, thin glasses—wanted for hers. Emma had long ago accepted the fact that her husband was a cruel, stupid man incapable of providing her with even a comfortable existence. But with the advent of this trip west, it had seemed to her simple mind that fate had lent a hand, and that she would find in California all she had ever dreamed of having for Maudy.
Emma was aware that Otis had changed since the night in Fort Stockton when she had defied him and taken Maudy to see the woman doctor . . . and when Lucas Steele had so easily beaten him to the ground.
He’d gotten moodier, meaner, if that were possible. He now rose in fury whenever she or Maudy crossed him in the slightest way. Today he had slapped the child, knocking her backward over the wagon seat, because she had whined for a sugar tit.
All through the afternoon he had sat on the wagon seat, brooding and angry, talking only to Frank Parcher when he rode up beside them. Emma had seen him in these moods before, and she feared what was coming. He would find an excuse to whip her.
She prepared supper, and Otis and Frank came to eat it. They sat before the fire nursing their mugs of coffee. Emma and Maudy got into the wagon. Maudy crawled into her mother’s lap, and Emma rocked her in the creaky old rocker that had belonged to her mother.
“Papa’s mad.” Maudy put her arms around Emma’s neck.
“He ain’t goin’ to hurt ya, lovey,” Emma promised. “Mama ain’t goin’ to let him hurt ya.”
“Papa’s got a pretty,” Maudy said suddenly, as if to cheer up her mother.
“Mama’s got one, too. It’s you, lovey.”
“Papa’s got a real one though. Wanna see it?” Maudy slid from her mother’s lap and went to the chest where Otis kept his things. It was his private place; Emma never dared to open it. She felt a stab of fear now as Maudy lifted the lid. But the fear was magnified ten times when she saw what the child pulled out of the box.
“Lovey!”
“Ain’t it pretty?”
“Oh, Maudy! Give it here. I’ll hide it in my pocket. Don’t tell Papa we found it.”
“Can I have it, Mama? I peeked and saw Papa put it in the box.”
“We’ll see, lovey. It’s time for ya to get to bed. Lay down and I’ll tell ya ’bout when I was a little girl and my papa made me a swing. It went so high I felt like a bird.”
The few minutes it took Maudy to fall asleep were among the longest of Emma’s life. Finally, when the child was sleeping soundly, she got up and opened the chest again. It had been years since she had lifted the lid, and she still remembered the whip on her back the last time she had bent over it. Now, strangely, she wasn’t afraid of the whip. She dug deep in the chest and found her father’s six-shooter. She held it and spun the chamber to see if it was loaded. Emma knew about guns. She was raised on the frontier in Arkansas, where life was hard and death was sure for those who couldn’t protect themselves. She put the gun in the waistband of her skirt and pulled her loose shirt over it. Then she sat down to wait. She knew as sure as her name was Emma that before long Otis would call her and tell her to walk a ways from the wagon.
Emma sat in the chair and reflected on how little all this meant to Maudy at her tender age, and on how it had been her own father’s dirt farm that was sold to buy this wagon. She looked at the hands that had raised Maudy, worked hard on the farm, driven the
mules, chopped the wood, cooked the food, and . . . covered her face to ward off the blows from Otis’s fists.
“Emma! Get out here!”
The call had come.
She went out the front of the wagon, climbed over the seat and down over the big wheel. Her glance swept the camp. The fires had died down, and the camp was quiet. Everyone had turned in for the night, all comfortable and cared for. . . .
“Move out. I wanna talk to ya.”
She stepped over the wagon tongue and walked toward a cluster of trees. Deep within her, Emma was sure, as sure as a woman could be, that if she crossed Otis one too many times, he would kill her. Then what would become of Maudy? She would have to fight! That was the answer. This time she would fight for herself and for Maudy! She was not at all sure she would win—she had precious little experience in standing up to Otis—but she knew this battle must be won here and now. She reached the trees and stopped. “This fer ’nuff?” she asked.
Otis stopped, then moved forward a few more steps. Emma stood her ground, her face lifted, calm, proud of herself for once in her life . . . but frightened, too.
“Steele’s goin’ to be nosin’ ’round askin’ ’bout whar I was last night. He’s goin’ to pin that gal’s killin’ on somebody, and it ain’t goin’ to be me. If’n he comes a smellin’ ’round, you tell him I was in bed all night. Hear?”
“But you warn’t, Otis. You know that.”
“I ain’t said I was. I said ya tell him I was!”
“But you warn’t.”
“Goddammit, woman! Yer due a whippin’, ’n yer gonna get it if’n ya don’t heed what I’m a tellin’ ya.” Otis jerked the whip out of his belt, and Emma backed off a few paces.
“I done tol’ ya at Fort Stockton, Otis Collins, that I ain’t takin’ no more whippin’s.”
“Oh, ya ain’t, is ya?”
“You killed that gal, Otis.”
Her words stopped the arm that was raising the whip.
“What’d you say?” he said slowly, threateningly.
“You killed that poor girl.”
“Ya don’t know what yer a sayin’. That ‘poor gal’ warn’t nothin’! Even you is more’n what she was, Emma. She’d screw anythin’ that walked!”
“That warn’t no reason to kill ’er.”
“I ain’t sayin’ I killed ’er.”
“No. I’m a sayin’ it. Maudy saw you puttin’ that pretty green bracelet she was always a wearin’ in yore box. I got it right here in my pocket.”
At first Otis was stunned. He seemed to be rooted to the spot where he stood. Then he took a deep breath, his chest heaving. He was actually trembling with fury. It was a full minute before he could speak.
“Ya let that snot-nosed brat get in my box! I’ll kill ’er!” His jaw was thrust out, his huge body hunched to spring on her.
“No! You ain’t goin’ to hurt Maudy.”
“I ort to a killed
you
and not that slut! Leastways she done some good fer me! Got sassy, she did. Sassy and snotty, like yer gettin’ sassy and snotty!” His voice was low, hard, laced with icy rage.
The whip snaked out and cut Emma across the face. The pain held her motionless for a second. Her first reaction was to run back to camp. She spun around. The next lash caught her across the shoulders and back, cutting into her like a knife and almost throwing her to the ground. She stumbled to regain her balance. Otis was in a frenzy, putting all his strength behind the whip. Emma fumbled for the six-gun in the waistband of her skirt and suffered one more biting slash from the whip. When she turned, she had the gun in her hand. Otis never even saw it. She fired, and fired again.
The shots sounded like pops in Emma’s ears. Then there was silence.
Otis had been flung backward and lay sprawled on the ground. Emma stood holding the gun ready, knowing that if he so much as moved she would shoot again. The blood from the slash on her face rolled down over her mouth, but she didn’t notice.
When she was sure Otis was not going to get up again, she staggered over to a tree and clung to its trunk. Her head whirled, her stomach churned. She closed her eyes, leaned over, and vomited.
May 25.
I have already written about the murder of Cora Lee Watson and the shooting of her killer by his wife. Tonight I will mention that Otis Collins was buried near the spot where he died, with only the men who dug his grave present. Mrs. Collins had been brutally whipped by her husband before she shot him. Everyone has been terribly shaken by these events, but more of people’s hidden strengths are emerging, and I think we are all drawing closer together in mutual need and respect. We are fortunate we have Doctor Hook, who took care of Mrs. Collins’s injuries and gave her a potion to make her sleep. Mrs. Taylor took over the care of Maudy Collins until her mother is recovered.
We arrived in Fort Davis in the middle of the afternoon. It is a large fort spread out in the mouth of a canyon about one-half mile south of Limpia Creek. The fort was named for Jeff
Davis and was put here to protect travelers from the Apache and Comanche Indians. It is the closest thing to a town we have seen since we left Fort Smith. There are many buildings, barracks, shops, officers’ quarters, and even quarters for officers’ families. We would like to linger here for a day, but Mr. Steele is determined to move on in the morning.
* * *
Something happened just before the train reached Fort Davis that Tucker could not record in the journal. Not at this time, anyway. But it was tremendously important to her, and the relief she felt was so acute as to be both a pleasure and a pain.
The air was clear, no clouds spotted the sky. It was pleasant sitting on the wagon seat with a small breeze fanning their faces. The mules walked easily on the ribbon of trail that ran through the green grass. Here the grazing was good, there was plenty of fuel, and the spring-fed creek was clear and cool. The mountains filled the western sky. The desert lay behind them—and beyond the mountains ahead of them—but this was now, and Tucker and Laura were enjoying it.
Frank Parcher rode up beside the wagon. “Hello, purty woman.”
His gaze took in the angry flush that came to Tucker’s cheeks and the venomous flash of her green eyes when they flicked toward him and then away. He had not spoken to her within anyone’s earshot since that first day he had ridden out from
Brownwood to meet the train. Tucker ignored him and unnecessarily snaked the whip out over the backs of the mules. Sensing the tension, Laura remained quiet.
“I’m goin’ to be a leavin’ ya when we get to the fort. I ain’t goin’ to be gone fer long.” Tucker looked straight ahead. “Ya goin’ to miss me, purty woman?” he asked with a chuckle. “I’ll be missin’ seein’ that purty hair a shinin’ in the sun and watchin’ ya movin’ ’round in the light of the fire.” He rode alongside without taking his eyes from Tucker’s face. “Nothin’s changed, purty gal, nothin’ atall. We’ll be meetin’ up again, ya can count on it. I’m a waitin’ man . . . a man what waits till the time is right. Don’t ya be forgettin’ all the things I tol’ ya.” He glanced over his shoulder and then back to Tucker’s set face and rigid back. He laughed. “I swear, if you ain’t the beatinest woman I ever did see! Yer mad as a hornet and I ain’t done nothin’ . . . yet. Wal, so long fer now, purty woman.”