The Ballad of Hattie Taylor Read online

  “Yes, sir!” she replied in red-faced indignation. “That was the other reason I accepted his offer, because of the Conleys’ son, Adam. When he came home from college this summer he began cornering me in the upstairs hallway, makin’ improper suggestions. Tryin’ to play fast and loose with my virtue.” Her chin tilted up proudly. “I’m a good girl, Mr. Murdock, Sheriff Jacobson. I thought Mr. Lord’s offer was the perfect solution to my problem.” Her bark of laughter held no amusement, for the irony was not lost on anyone in Jacobson’s cramped office.

  The next half hour was extremely painful. Topics of a sexual nature were never discussed between men and any woman with the least bit of breeding—and spinsters in particular were protected from the baser facts of life. But given the nature of the crime they planned to charge Lord with, it was imperative the men ask Opal questions so excruciatingly intimate that all three of them were either red as autumn leaves or pale as death by the end of the interview.

  “What do you think?” Sheriff Jacobson asked Jake at its conclusion. “Y’have enough to convict him?”

  “I hope so.” Jake raked his hand through his hair. “You’re articulate,” he said to Opal. “I feel you’ll make a very convincing witness. Cases of this nature are rare, though, and with the defense trying to make you look bad in the eyes of all-male jurors, they can be tricky.” He reached across the table and patted her hand. “I’m not trying to minimize what Lord’s done to you, but a bloodstained sheet or photographs of bruises would help our case. Catching him in the act is the only sure guarantee of a conviction, but I will do my utmost to put him away. With those odds, are you still willing to press charges?”

  For several silent moments, Opal stared down at her lap, where her knuckles stood white from the death grip she had on her tightly interlaced fingers. But when she looked up, determination burned in the depths of her pale-blue eyes. “What if we caught him in the act?”

  Sheriff Jacobson regarded her with intense interest, but Jake was appalled. “What?”

  “What if I went back there? You don’t understand how arrogant he is, Mr. Murdock. If I locked myself in my room and refused to go to him, he would be furious. He thinks it’s his God-given right to hurt me. I don’t know how many times I heard him say”—she gagged suddenly, then recovered herself—“‘This’ll teach you your rightful place.’” There was a sudden harshness in her voice, which just for an instant reflected the viciousness of her attacker.

  “Stop right there,” Jake said. “It’s too dangerous. God knows how many people saw you with me today or saw the two of us come in here.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Mr. Murdock. He truly believes he’s above the law. If I refused to come out of my room, he would likely break the door down and do whatever he wanted to do.”

  “No,” Jake said with flat finality.

  “Hold on there a second, son,” Sheriff Jacobson interrupted, straightening in his wooden chair. “Miss Jeffries has a point. If we rig up a simple alarm, we could be in her room before he has a chance to hurt her. Cans on a string, tied to the bedpost and lowered out the window, would do the trick. One tug and we’d hear the clatter.”

  “Yeah? And what if he gets to her before she ever gets to her room? What if he’s waiting for her at the kitchen door, demanding why she was seen talking to me?”

  Opal looked at him as if he were crazy. “Oh no, sir, he would never do that—not for any reason. He’s much too high-and-mighty to ever be caught dead in a servants’ space.”

  “Then he won’t come to your room either.”

  “That’s different, sir. To have me refuse his demand—” She hitched a shoulder. “It will drive him mad.”

  “He’s already insane. That’s exactly what scares me,” Jake said glumly.

  But no matter what his objections, Opal Jeffries was determined to go through with her plan. “I will not put myself through the shame of a public trial if at the end of it there is only the smallest chance he’ll be put away,” she said adamantly. “Please, Mr. Murdock. I want to be certain-sure the bastard goes to jail. I want him to be ruined. Just like he ruined me.”

  Leaving Opal describing to the sheriff the location of her room in relation to the rest of the floor plan in Roger’s house, Jake went down the street to Norton’s Mercantile. He purchased two cow bells and a ball of sturdy twine and, once back in the jailhouse, fashioned a crude alarm with them and placed it in the bottom of Opal’s basket. They covered it with a linen napkin from Jacobson’s lunch tray and Opal left to make the purchases she’d been sent to town to acquire.

  Jake retrieved his automobile and drove it to the avenue two streets behind Lord’s residence. Parking on a cross street, he strode a block north, then cut through three backyards to reach his post in the laurel hedge.

  Opal arrived a short while later, unobtrusively tailed by the sheriff. She disappeared through the back door, and Jacobson found himself a spot where he, too, could observe the back of the residence. A short while after she entered the house, they saw an attic window slide open. Opal’s face appeared momentarily in the opening and then the cowbells were slowly lowered. They tinkled faintly as she played out the twine, but after a few moments they stilled. The window was lowered until it was nearly shut. Then, the only thing they could do was wait.

  Jake and the sheriff knew they might have to wait hours, for Opal warned them that Lord only called for her in the evening. Yet Jake hadn’t fully understood just how slowly time could stretch in a situation like this. Shadows crept across the length of the yard, and the summer heat gave way to cool twilight.

  It felt like it had been dark for hours when Jake started finding it difficult keeping his eyes open. He willed himself to stay alert, but time and again he dozed off, only to jerk awake when his chin touched his chest. Time crawled with a pace that made garden snails look like speed demons. And checking his timepiece every few minutes, he learned, didn’t help.

  Suddenly the bells began to clamor, wrenching Jake out of his doze. He scrambled out of the hedge and tried to stand, but his knees buckled from maintaining the same posture for several hours. Dragging himself to his feet, he hobbled toward the back door as fast as he could. Sheriff Jacobson was there before him.

  Both men were prepared to kick the door in but discovered it wasn’t necessary; the portal swung open when Sheriff Jacobson turned the handle. The cook, sitting at the table with her hands over her ears, gaped at the two men barreling through the door. No one said a word as Jake and the sheriff raced up the back stairs.

  Even without the directions Opal had given them, they would’ve handily located her room. She was screaming at the top of her lungs and they followed the sound. They came to an opened door splintered off its hinges, just as she had predicted, and burst into the room.

  For an instant, Jake thought they were too late. Opal was on her back on the bed, her face marked where Lord had obviously struck her. The top of her dress hung in tatters, its skirt thrown up to her waist. Then he saw that although Lord’s pants pooled around his ankles, Opal was fighting like a wildcat and Lord had yet to complete his attack.

  Sheriff Jacobson reached the bed first. Wrapping a beefy arm around Roger Lord’s neck, he hauled him roughly off Opal’s body. “Pull your pants up, you sick sonovabitch,” he bit out. “You’re under arrest.”

  Jake crossed to Opal. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she said shakily. Then burst into tears.

  He wrapped her in the bedspread and stroked her hair until she calmed. “It’s all right now,” he murmured. “It’s all over. Because of your bravery that vermin will never hurt you or another woman again.”

  Sheriff Jacobson prepared to lead his prisoner from the room, but Jake requested that he wait for just one moment. As soon as Opal calmed, he stood and crossed to stand in front of Lord.

  Roger returned his contemptuous look with a supercilious stare of
his own . . . until the sheriff casually averted his head and Jake abruptly jerked his knee up, ramming it into Lord’s crotch. Roger’s expression then went from superior to sick as he sagged in the sheriff’s grasp, retching and gagging. Jacobson stared out the window, whistling softly.

  “I’ll take Opal to my mother,” Jake murmured. Jacobson nodded and led his stumbling prisoner away. Instructing Opal to change and pack, Jake then went to find a telephone. Central connected him with his party, and Doc answered on the second ring.

  Swiftly, Jake asked him to meet him at his mother’s house with his camera and his black bag, promising he’d explain the situation in full at that time. Then he hung up, collected Opal, and drove her to Augusta’s.

  It was late by the time he drove up the ranch road after much explaining, then seeing Opal settled at his mother’s. Yet Jake felt optimistic for the first time in more than two weeks. He was convinced Lord would ultimately get what he deserved. Then maybe all their lives could get back to normal. He was anxious to talk to Hattie.

  The house was dark when he let himself in. Racing up the stairs two at a time, Jake burst into their bedroom. He skidded to a halt just inside the door. The room was empty, his wife not there as he’d expected. Where the hell could she be at this time of night? Feeling a creeping unease, he glanced over at the open closet doors as he started to back out of the room. And their significance slowly sank in.

  Every one of Hattie’s hangers was empty.

  40

  Jake tore open all the drawers of the wardrobe. Half of them were empty, and those that weren’t held his clothing. All of Hattie’s were gone.

  Throwing back his head, he roared his incensed pain at the ceiling. Then, sucking in a deep breath, he held it a moment, then expelled it with such force his lungs felt ready to collapse. Standing in their bedroom, gripping the back of his neck with clammy fingers as he fought down the panic trying to battle its way out of his chest like an enraged beast, he stared numbly at the empty drawers he’d yanked open. Jesus, where could she have gone?

  And how the hell did she get there? Maybe that was where he should begin. He’d check the stables to see if Belle was there.

  Hattie, in the spare room across the hall, listened to the commotion in their bedroom, then the thunder of Jake’s footsteps as he ran down the stairs swearing a blue streak. A moment later she jolted at the slamming of the front door. It sounded as if he was aggravated.

  Good. She was livid herself, and she hoped he went crazy. He deserved nothing less.

  She’d been doing a slow burn ever since Nell’s visit. How dare Jake discuss her attack with others when he hadn’t said more than ten words to his wife in darn near two weeks? He couldn’t even look at her, yet Nell had innocently informed her he’d been running around asking questions of Nell, Aunt Augusta, Doc, and who knew who else?

  Discovering that Jake knew the identity of Hattie’s rapist, Nell had been concerned about Hattie’s state of mind. After all, Nell knew how adamantly opposed Hattie was to Jake’s learning the precise thing he had somehow figured out. So, she had come to lend Hattie moral support.

  Hattie appreciated Nell’s company more than she could say. She hadn’t been off the ranch in ten long days, not even to go to church, and not a soul had been by to visit. Just having her friend treat her normally after Jake’s ignoring her was such a welcome relief.

  For the first time since the awful night Jake discovered the identity of her defiler, Hattie felt as if she’d finally stopped growing invisible. Nell had looked her in the eye and touched her several times in the course of their conversation. The human contact after what felt like a too-long lifetime had been more comforting to Hattie than water after a week in the desert.

  She wished she had a whole lot less stupid pride. Maybe then she could have confessed how horridly interminable the dog-years-feeling days had been. But she was a self-sabotaging idiot who had merely told Nell that matters were very uncomfortable between herself and Jake—but they were working through their problems. What a bald-faced liar she was turning into, and it was All. Jake’s. Fault!

  It was his fault, as well, that she hadn’t begged Nell to stay the moment her friend started gathering her things to head back to Augusta’s. As a result, all Hattie’s rage, which had relaxed the worst of its grip under Nell’s calming influence, promptly returned. And the later the hour with no sign of Jake, the more furious she became. Finally, unable to sit still, she went up to their room and moved her belongings to the room across the hall. How dare he treat her this way?

  The more Hattie thought about it, the more belligerent she felt. To think she had spent ten endless days feeling the most degrading shame over something that was the result of Jake’s actions in the first place! Well, no more. She was through hanging her head.

  Now, sitting in the middle of the bed, anxiously gripping her hands together and listening to the sudden silence left by his departure, Hattie thought self-righteously that Jake was pretty darn lucky he didn’t know where she was tonight. Because if she had to confront him right now, she would likely wring his neck. She bounced up off the bed and crossed to the dresser. Picking up her silver-backed brush, she tugged it roughly through her hair once, twice, three times. Then she threw the brush back down on the tabletop. Leaning into the mirror, she examined her face.

  She looked rather horrid. Scowling, she stood tapping her foot in indecision. Then she yanked out the slipper chair and sat with a flounce, her arms crossed militantly beneath her breasts, her toes manically clenching and flexing. Lifting the concealing hem of her nightgown, she leaned over to watch her feet’s baffling antics. Dropping her hem in disgust, she jumped up again and commenced pacing.

  The front door slammed shut and footsteps thundered up the stairs and down the hall, stopping in front of her room. Hattie jerked to a halt and stared at the locked door separating her from her husband.

  Jake rattled the handle, and when it didn’t budge he pounded on the door. “Hattie!” he bellowed. “Open the damn door. I know you’re in there.”

  No, he didn’t. How could he?

  As if she’d asked him, he said impatiently, “Open up! I saw your light from the yard.”

  Well, rats. She hadn’t considered that. “Go away!”

  “Open the goddamn door,” he roared, “before I break it down!”

  “Well, if that isn’t just like a man to settle his disagreements by brute strength,” she muttered. She didn’t think he’d heard her, but he must have, for there was a moment’s silence.

  “C’mon, Big-eyes,” he finally said in a calmer voice. “Open up. We need to talk.”

  Of all the words he could have chosen, those were the most unfortunate. “Talk?” She slammed back the bolt and ripped the door open. They were suddenly face-to-face, Jake mere inches away. “You want to talk? To little ole me? Mercy, this is a privilege. What happened—you run out of people in town to discuss my downfall with?”

  “Huh?” He stared down into her upturned face. She glared right back at him. But when he reached out to touch her cheek, she snapped her head back and he let his hand fall to his side. “Hattie, why’d you move out of our room?”

  “Oh, you noticed? Mercy, it never occurred to me it might matter to you one way or the other,” she replied coolly, “or else I certainly would’ve been happy to inform you of my intention.” Another bald-faced lie; what on earth was happening to her? “What do you care, anyway?” she challenged angrily. “You don’t sleep there anymore. Why should I? And don’t change the subject, Jake Murdock. Nell told me the way you’ve been running around town asking everybody in sight about my rape. If you’re so darn interested you should have come straight to the source. After all, I know all the ugly details someone else may have missed.” She couldn’t sustain her nonchalant attitude and, to her horror, felt her face twist in misery.

  “Ah, baby, don’t.” This time he
ignored her resistance and pulled her into his arms. She held herself stiffly within his embrace as he rubbed his cheek against the top of her head. “I guess I should have talked to you first, but I didn’t know how. I was too ashamed.”

  Furious, Hattie jerked out of his arms. “How dare you!”

  He looked at her in puzzlement. “How dare I what?”

  “How dare you be ashamed of me! I—”

  “What?” He closed the distance between them, looming over her. “Now, wait a damn minute, I never said—”

  “No, you wait, Jacob Murdock,” she demanded, poking her forefinger into the hard muscles of his chest. “I’ve done nothing but wait for ten long days! I have been skulking around this big old house like a thief in the night, shamed to my bones because I knew you were so repulsed by me you couldn’t even look at me anymore. Well, enough is enough.”

  Jake stared at her in openmouthed amazement and her rage burned a few degrees hotter. “You wanted to talk so darn bad? Well, let’s talk, then. I have several things that need saying.”

  Jake grabbed Hattie’s finger when she showed signs of jabbing it into his chest once again and gently enclosed it in his fist. He stared down at her, at her flushed cheeks, her bright hair writhing around her in a wild tangle, her amber eyes glinting with rage between narrowed lashes. And for the first time in far too long, the tight knots of misery in his stomach loosened as he experienced the first faint stirring of hope. “Go ahead, then. Shoot.”

  Now that Hattie had his attention, she didn’t know quite where to begin. She longed to slug him, bite him, kick him; she wanted to revile him for the wrongs he had done her: for sending her to Roger, for deserting their bed and making her feel like a harlot, for failing to ask her what he felt free enough to ask everyone else in town. But mostly for not loving her with the same desperation with which she loved him.