Chapter 10. Enjoy!
Her dreams were not pleasant that night. They came in visions and images engulfed in the white steam of progression. Her ears rang with the noises of iron wheels and panicking horses. Butch came into view, walking towards her from out of the smoke, his eyes a pale shade of blue that made him look almost inhuman. Blood covered his mouth and dripped down his chin. He lifted a pale hand and wiped away the blood. She backed away in fear until her back slammed into something solid. She tried to scream but the smoke entered her lungs and rendered her unable to produce any sound. A woman screamed in the background, and Butch turned his head to look into the direction of the sharp pitched cry. A dog was barking until the sound of a gunshot echoed through the smoke filled sky. She closed her eyes and started crying, sinking down the invisible wall until she touched the floor. There she huddled into a ball. Someone called her name but she shook her head in response. Then someone struck her hard across her face and she cried out in pain.
"ELEANOR!"
She inhaled sharply and her eyes shot open, only to meet with those familiar blue ones. No blood on his face, just the scars she had grown accustomed to. She was laying on the wooden floor of the living room, next to the armchair she had fallen asleep in. Butch was hovering over her, his gaze wild like a hunted animal. Behind him the light of dancing flames created patterns on the wooden ceiling.
"Trouble" He said.
He moved away from her and she was left to collect her bearing on her own. She touched the tender spot on her cheek and flinched. The sounds that had haunted her dreams didn't leave and it took her a moment to register that she was no longer dreaming and the noises came from outside.
"Get the horses out of there!"
Horses. They were screaming in fright. Voices she didn't recognize were calling out to the night sky. Then a gunshot. And another one. Grandfather's incoherent swearing could be heard over every other sound. She sat up an looked out of the window. The inferno before her so big its heat hit her face through the foggy panelled windows.
The barn was on fire. The silhouettes of men on horseback danced around the disastrous scene. Their guns lifted in the air, firing shots at the stars like a ritual of war. Mother was standing a few feet away from her, and tried with shaking hands to load the two barrelled shot gun. Butch grabbed it from her roughly and tossed it into a corner of the room.
"Ye kill one of them and there will be a hundred more waitin' for ye!" He told her.
Eleanor jumped to her feet and opened the front door. Someone grabbed her roughly by her arm and pulled her towards them.
"Going somewhere?"
There was nothing left of the sophisticated educated young man Elton. The person before her looked a lot like him, but his eyes had something savage and inhuman in them. The flames of the fire danced around in the green of his irises. She struggled against his grasp but it only made him tighten his grip on her.
"Let go of me!"
"I think not. I warned you cumbersome women more than once. You called this out upon yourself, you little hell cat!"
A ball of fire erupted from the roof of the barn as part of it came down and collapsed in the hog pen. The pigs squealed in terror as they desperately tried to escape the flames. The windows of the house succumbed to the heat and shattered to pieces. It was enough to distract Elton, and he loosened his grip on her to hide his face from the glass that rained down upon him.
Dancing around the feet of the horses she made her way to the blazing barn and tried to lift the heavy beam of the door. Tears streamed down her face in pure panic as she found wasn't strong enough. The animals inside screaming. Frank joined her out of nowhere and together they removed the beam and opened the door. A whirlwind of fire and smoke made its way into the cool night air and they both covered their faces against the scorching heat. The smoke stinging their eyes.
Frank grabbed his gun and shot the locks off every pen. The two cows stampeded out of the barn, forcing the men outside to move out of the way. They shot the animals on sight. Eleanor released Frank's horse and the young stallion wasted no time to jump over burning beams and made his way outside. But Annabel would not move out of pure fear. Her head lifted in the air, snorting frantically. Eleanor tugged on the reins as hard as she could, but the mare refused to move. Still believing she was safe inside her stable.
"Come on, Annabel!"
The horse reared in agitation. Frank came to her side and took the reins from her. "Give me yer shawl!" he said. "she don't want te see this!" He wrapped it around the horse's head, rendering her blind. Now the mare followed, and they were able to lead her out of the building before it collapsed completely. Time seemed to go tauntingly slow as she looked around. Her grandfather yelling and shaking his fist at the laughing men. They had taken his gun from him with great ease, as the man was too old and weak to put up much of a fight. Eleanor sank to her knees at the sight of the pointlessly butchered livestock scattered across the ground.
Elton had gotten back into the saddle, his face covered in cuts from the glass. He spun his horse around restlessly, looking much like the Devil incarnate against the blazing fire behind him. Mother stood on the porch, her face showing something Eleanor didn't recognize; the pale weariness of defeat.
"You have one week! One week!" Elton held up his finger, panting heavily as if he had lost his mind completely. "To hand over this land. Cause next time I come around.. I'll burn down the house!"
He turned his horse toward the dark emptiness and took off on breakneck speed, his men following him. Eleanor listened to the sound of the horses disappearing in the dark of night and was suddenly seized up from the ground roughly. A knife was put against her throat with such force that it caused her to bleed. "Ye got a right down purdy mouth, don't ye? Goin' te be a real shame te cut that up." The man's breath smelled strongly of whiskey, and his clothes of gunpowder.
He wasn't anything like the slick agents that usually rode with Elton. He looked like he could have been part of Butch's gang. His bloodshed eyes met Frank's when the latter cocked his gun and aimed it at him.
"Ye put that down ye chuffy lookin' bumpkin, or I'll slit her throat" The man growled, and tightened his grip on the knife. She glared at him from the corners of her eyes with pure hatred and whimpered when the knife sank deeper into her skin. "Ah know a lot of folks that would pay a pretty price for you." She struggled, but it just caused him to laugh. "Then again, it don't pay much te sell a mare that hasn't been broken in yet. So maybe I should take ye for a ride and knock some of the fight out of you" He said.
"Hey Evans.."
The man looked up at the mention of his name and frowned at the speaker standing in the doorway of the house. Butch approached them slowly and seemed surprisingly calm and collected. He had dressed himself, and the sound of his spurs made his walking sound all the more menacing.
"Remember me?"
The man called Evans loosened his grip on the knife, and Eleanor could have sworn he stopped breathing for a moment. "Butch? whut ye doin' out here?.. ah.. ah thought ye were.."
"ye thought.. er ye hoped.. there's a difference, Evans. Ah hoped ah'd run into ye some day. Bet ye didn't hope the same, hm?" Butch said. He took a step closer to the man, his voice just above a whisper. "Since when did ye join the law anyway? Right after ye left the gang or did ye take a vacation first with the money ye took from me?" His tone more threatening.
"This aint the law, Butch.. Ah. Ah never said anything about ye to them.. rangers er nuthin' ah swear on mah dead mother" Evans stammered. "Man's gotta make a livin' Butch. Ah.. Ah'd never.. set ye up"
Butch narrowed his eyes and leaned in closer. "ye know what they do with rapists like you in jail, Evans?" The man's eyes widened in fear. "See ah know more about ye.. then ye know about me. Now ye git. Before ah change mah mind"
The man nodded frantically, released Eleanor and jumped onto his horse clumsily. No one said a word until the sound of his horse's hooves disappeared on the horizon. Eleanor reached up to feel the cut and flinched when her fingers grazed the raw skin. She looked up at Butch, who was still standing quite close to her. "Thank you" she mumbled.
He ignored her and turned away, taking in the full extent of the damage to the ranch now the smoke was clearing up.
Mother stood over the lifeless body of one of Elton's men, still holding the shotgun firmly in her hand. Tossing the weapon into a corner hadn't been enough to stop her. There were tears rolling down her cheeks but she didn't look like she regretted anything. Grandfather was already busying himself picking up every dead chicken laying around. Bending over slowly with his old broken back. Frank came to stand beside her, still holding the two horses by their reins.
"Why on God's good earth would they shoot the chickens" Mother sobbed.
"They're gonna come and look fer him" Frank said, looking at the body as if he expected it to jump up any moment. "Them rangers will."
"well, what are they going to do about it?" Mother looked up at him sharply. "Cut short my young life?" She turned and marched back to the house, wiping the tears off her face roughly. Butch had tried in vain to stop her from killing any of them.
"The rangers will arrest ye" Butch stated matter-of-factly. "Ye killed a railroad man." Mother rounded on him quickly. "I do not believe you are the right person to tell me who I should or should not kill, Butch Cavendish!"
He seemed unfazed by her little outburst and closed his eyes for a moment in agitation. "Maybe so.." He said. "But I aint stayin' around te watch ye and yer daughter get dragged off to prison. Ah advice ye get out of here. Out of state."
"I have no need for your advice nor do I have the ambition to leave my ranch and land behind! They can come for me any time they wish to. I'll be right here!" with that, mother went back inside. Eleanor kneeled down next to one of the cows and gently stroked the soft winter fur. "She was supposed to have a calf this coming spring." She said softly, tears rolling down her cheeks.
Frank looked as lost as a little boy unable to find his mother in a grocery store, and his eyes wandered to the sad picture of a girl weeping over a dead cow. "Ye can git a new cow. Lots a cows around" He said, trying to sound as comforting as he possibly could. "Ah.. Ah'd buy it fer ye if ah had the money, miss Hartley. But ahm a little low on that fer now"
Eleanor shook her head and got to her feet, wiping her tears away roughly. "We're ruined. They won. What would we do with a new cow with no barn to put her in?! Don't you get it? No.. of course you don't. You don't have anything to call your own." She said. Frank blinked, surprised at her angry tone.
"well I'd be mighty sad if they'd take Bobby er.. kill him" he said.
She looked up at Butch, who was examining the smouldering pile of beams that used to be the barn. He didn't seem very fazed or upset with the situation. To him, this probably just looked like a regular day at the office.
"So who was he?" she asked. Butch turned to her and tilted his head. "His name is Robert Evans. Last time ah saw him.. he was riding South with my money. Probably bought himself free with it. Ah know he's got 4000 on his head for all the times he couldn't keep his paws off ah woman" he said. Eleanor frowned and averted her eyes. "Now what would the railroad want with a man like that?" she asked.
"It'd be 8000 if they knew the truth" Butch mumbled, kicking away a blackened piece of wood. "The railroad takes any man that promises them to git ranchers off their lands. A rapist will do the trick. One the daughter of some.. farmer has been attacked.. they usually tend te leave. Back East where they came from."
Again, there were tears running down Eleanor's pale and dirty cheeks. She could not believe this had happened to them. And it wasn't over yet. Elton would keep his promise and come back to arrest anyone who had anything to do with the death of his henchman. She sat down on the porch and wrapped her arms around herself, watching the barn burn out slowly. The smoke would be seen in the far distance. She didn't know how long she had been sitting there staring at the smouldering pile of wood, but time seemed to go ever so slow. As if the whole ordeal had scared away the dawn and it would never be light again. An hour passed and she was vaguely aware of it when Butch kneeled down in front of her.
"Look at me" He ordered. She looked up at him slowly, almost accusingly. His expression remained impassive, as if he studied a rare creature. Her face dusted by ash, her tears left clear tracks down her cheeks. "Let ye in on a little secret" he mumbled. "Any man ambushing ye in the night is far too afraid he might actually hit ye"
She frowned and was about to ask him what he had meant, when he got to his feet and untied the reins of his horse from the railing. "Ye stayin' er you're comin' Frank?" Butch asked, climbing into the saddle. Frank opened his mouth to say something, but as usual, couldn't find the right words. He looked at Eleanor for a moment. "Well I.. wasn't ah supposed to stay and finish what I started?" he asked carefully, afraid Butch might get angry. But the gang leader just stared at him and chuckled. "Ye gonna build them a new barn, ye goofball?"
Frank swallowed thickly, he was no carpenter. He looked at the destroyed barn for a moment. "Ah think ah'll stay and help out a bit.. Only nice thing te do.." Butch huffed and shifted in his saddle. His stomach was complaining against the action, but that couldn't be helped right now. The time for lazing around was over. "We'll be pass that mountain ridge up ahead" He said, nodding toward the distance. "We'll be moving West" With no other words of goodbye, Butch took off. Frank plopped down next to Eleanor and sighed. Together they watched the outlaw disappear into the night.
