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IN THE WIND’S EYE
CHAPTER EIGHT
The truest definition of evil is that which represents it as something contrary to nature. --Evil is evil because it is unnatural. --A vine which should bear olive-berries --An eye to which blue seems yellow, would be diseased. --An unnatural mother, an unnatural son, an unnatural act, Are the strongest terms of condemnation.
F.W. Robertson
André Thibodoux had pocketed a fourth of what Edward Delacroix had paid to have Sinclair McGregor killed, calling it a finder's fee for providing the three toughs who'd done the actual murder. His only regret was that he hadn't been able to see all that much while Cullen and his two brothers-in-law had been beating the hell out of McGregor. From his place beyond the oak stand, Thibodoux had heard the meaty thuds and gasps of pain, but actually hadn't been able to see the carnage until it was over and done and he'd ridden by to make sure their victim was dead. Laying face down in the tall grass, McGregor had looked dead, but the more he thought on it, maybe the man had been pretending so they'd leave him alone. "If dat man ain't dead, you gonna have a helluva time explainin' it to Monsieur Delacroix," his wife Seville warned him. "He pays you, you does as he says." "I t'ink he was dead," André said. "He weren't moving." "Was he breathin'?" Seville demanded. Her Cajun eyes flashed black fire at him. "Don't rightly know," André admitted. "Didn't get down to check." Seville pursed her red lips. "You'd better get back out dere and make sure he be dead! We ain't givin' dat money back!" Thibodoux sighed. "I don't tink dat's such a good idea," he said. "If'n he ain't dead, he could jump me and you know I got me a bad back." His wife rolled her eyes. "If'n he be dead, he ain't gonna jump you! If'n he was beat as bad as you say he was, he ain't gonna be in no condition to jump you anyways!" She shook a finger under his nose. "Get back out dere and make sure one way or t'other! We ain't givin' dat money back! I done got it spent." "Ah, Seville! I don't want to," André whined. "What if somebody sees me out dere with him and he's croaked? Dey'll tink I done it!" "Somebody sees you, you tell 'em you tought you saw somethin' and was invesitagtin'. If'n he ain't dead and if'n somebody happens by and sees you, you be a hero for tryin' to help and maybe dey give you a reward! You tink of dat?" Thibodoux thought about for a minute, then shook his head. "Mr. Delacroix will have my hide ifn' dat man ain't dead. Won't be no hero in his eyes!" He chewed on his lip. "Best to leave matters just de way dey be and hope McGregor's croaked." "Suit yourself," Seville said with disgust at her
common law husband's cowardice. "Don't make no nevermind to me. You don't wanna go?
Don't go; but we ain't givin' no money back!" ************
Tim Cullen and his two brothers-in-law sat drinking at the Hound and Stag tavern on the outskirts of Savannah. The cheap red-eye whiskey had already turned Cullen meaner than usual and he was eyeing the men loitering in the rough seaside tavern in the hopes one of them would give him an encouraging look. If there was one thing the Mobile, Alabama man took great delight in doing, it was fighting. His meaty fists were scarred from years of brawling and there were few men who could say they had come out on the standing end of a confrontation with Cullen. The War had given him an excuse to use his savage strength and brutality at Andersonville, where he and his brothers-in-law had been assigned as guards. Too cowardly to fight, the two Drake boys had signed on with Cullen to work at the prison camp. Between the three of them, they'd beaten five Yankees to death and crippled a sixth for life. There was no doubt in their minds they had killed Sinclair McGregor. "What you lookin' at?" Cullen snarled as a man at the bar just happened to turn around to survey the room. At the challenge, Newt Guthrie swallowed his beer too quickly and choked on as it went down the wrong way. He coughed, spewing foam on the sawdust floor. No one came to his aid as he continued to cough, doubled over from the effort. "I asked you what you was lookin' at?!" Cullen demanded. He shoved back his chair and stood up, weaving a bit as the rot gut rushed to his head. "N…….nuthin'!" Newt managed to gasp, turning around to grasp the bar. He was trying to breathe, but his throat was burning. "I say you were!" Cullen growled. There were four men at the bar and they all moved back, taking their mugs of beer with them. The bartender wiped his hands on his apron and made himself scarce. The rinky-tink of the battered piano in the corner of the room was shut off as the piano player joined the bartender in the storage room. "I think you better teach him some manners, Timmy," Lyle Drake encouraged his brother-in-law. "Let him know it ain't polite to stare at folks." "'Specially folks what are deadly," Robbie Drake, Lyle's younger brother piped up. His glazed eyes were wild and he was so drunk, he couldn't stand up. "I…….don't want n……no trouble," Newt managed to say in between gasps. "I weren't s….staring at you, mister." He reached for his mug, hoping another swallow would wash away the burning in his throat. Cullen stopped midway between his table and the bar and cocked his head to one side. "You calling me a liar?" he asked in a husky whisper. Newt heard the deadly challenge in those five words and turned around, putting up a hand to ward off the big man. "No, sir, I ain't! I'd never do that!" "He called you a liar, Timmy," Robbie Drake sneered. "I heard him." "Teach him not to call you no liar, Timmy," Lyle suggested. "Teach him some respect for our family honor." Egged on by his brothers-in-law, Cullen hitched up his pants and headed for the bar. "I done beat the shit outta one man to day. I reckon I got time to make it two." "I don't want no trouble!" Newt whimpered. He sidestepped down the bar, making the mistake of reaching down for the skinning knife he had strapped to his thigh. The moment he saw the big redhead's mean eyes light up, he knew he'd made a dangerous mistake. "Please, mister. I don't want no trouble with you!" "I reckon you don't, but you done went and got it!" Lyle chuckled. He pushed himself up from the table and stood there on wobbly legs. "You gonna get it good!" Newt knew he was outnumbered and he knew there would be no help from the other barflies who had scattered like chicken. He looked fearfully around the bar and saw no one save the three bullies glaring at him and he began to fear for his life. "Please, mister," Newt whimpered, tears filling his eyes. "I wasn't looking at you. Honest to God, I wasn't." "And I say you was," Cullen whispered. Newt flicked his eyes to the tavern door, gauging how long it would take him to reach it and safety. He managed to take one step that way before Cullen lashed out with a heavy hand and grabbed him, drawing the smaller man up by his shirt front. "You stared at the wrong man, son," Cullen warned then drew back his free hand and sent it smashing into Newt's face, knocking out what was left of the man's front teeth. From the storage room, bartender Jake Lynch could hear the furniture being broken and the mirror behind the bar smashed. Not that he cared one way or another. It wasn't his bar anyway. But he kind of liked Newt Guthrie and hated to see the man die for something he hadn't done. He looked around at the piano player and grimaced. "You better ride out to WindLass and tell Mr. Delacroix his Overseer's got himself in a heap of trouble." The piano player shook his head of thick gray hair. "I ain't goin' nowheres!" he denied. "You want somethin' told, you go tell it!" He folded his arms and leaned against the wall . Jake opened his mouth to demand the man do as he was told when the door to the storage room crashed inward and Newt Guthrie stumbled in, his face nearly destroyed from the vicious beating he was taking. "Help me!" Newt pleaded, his hand out to Jake. "The bastard's gonna kill me!" With that said, Newt's eyes rolled up in his head and he pitched face-down on the sawdust floor, his expulsion of breath sending up a small cloud of debris as he landed . "He dead?" Jake's head snapped up and he found himself staring into the most brutal face he could ever remember seeing. "I d…..don't think s…….so," the bartender answered. He backed away from Newt's unconscious form, putting distance between him and the burly red haired man glowering at him from the doorway. "Well, hell," Cullen sneered. "Maybe next time." He hawked up a wad of phlegm and spat on Guthrie's back, hitched up his dirty trousers, and turned away. "Should teach him not to stare at a man." Jake couldn't have replied if he'd had the courage to try. As it was, he stood in the middle of the floor, alternately casting a worried look at the empty doorway and a fearful look at Newt Guthrie's unmoving body. "Newt?" he whispered, his voice a squeak of sound. "You alive, Newt?" A low groan from the floor reassured the bartender and he sidled closer, still watching the door. "You gonna make it, son?" Newt opened one of his eyes, tasted sawdust, said: "Gah," then promptly slid back into unconsciousness. He never felt the hands that later lifted him up to take him back to WindLass and a month long convalescence.
************
Dorrie Burkhart grunted as the big man rolled off her and began to snore loudly. The stench of his unwashed body made her grimace with distaste. Accustomed to the varying degrees of body odor that clung to her customers, she could not remember one that could even begin to equal the smell permeating Tim Cullen's bloated flesh. It was a vile stench that made her eyes water and brought bile to her throat. She had to force herself not to vomit as she eased out of the bed and reached for her wrapper. "You asked for it you greedy bitch," she reminded herself as she laced the wrapper around her and tiptoed to the door so she would not wake the drunk man. She was reasonably sure he'd meant for her to spend the entire evening with him, but she already had enough bruises and slobber on her to last her the rest of the week. She smelled of him and that, alone, was reason a plenty to vacate the room. Sometimes, she thought as she walked gingerly down the stairs, fifty dollars wasn't nearly enough money to pay for the abuse Cullen heaped on a person. Few men mistreated her girls as Cullen and his brothers-in-law did although they paid very dearly for the privilege of doing so. There were a few good men in town who visited her establishment and were eagerly welcomed when they returned. Some were old married men whose wives had long since dried up to become cold, wrinkled fish. A few wanted to try things they would never dare ask the missus to do. One or two liked the sneaky, sinful aspect of cheating on their wives, but most just liked the variety a good whore could provide. Fortunately for Dorrie's girls, there were only three: Cullen and the two Drake boys, who liked it rough. Although Dorrie picked and chose the men with whom she slept, there were times when she was in a rotten, self-hating mood and as luck would have it, tonight had just been one of those nights. If Frances, Cullen's regular girl, hadn't been having the monthlies, Dorrie wouldn't have thought twice about substituting herself. Now she was sorry she had. Thank God customers like Cullen were few and far between. Most treated women like Dorrie well enough even if they showed them hardly any respect. Then there were men like Sinclair McGregor. Dorrie went into the bath house, shut and locked the door, and went over to test the water still sitting in one of the tubs. The water was tepid, not all that clean, but good enough to get Cullen's smell off her. She untied the laces of her wrapper, let it fall to the floor and then climbed into the tub. She sank gratefully into the scum-shot water and reached for the bar of lye soap. Scrubbing vigorously at her flesh, she let her mind drift back to two nights before when Sin had spent the evening with her.
"Why did she do it, baby?" she'd asked as she held him close to her ample breasts. "Why did who do what?" he'd returned, sleepily. "Why did she hurt you so bad." He'd looked up and the drowsiness fled instantly from his burnt-cinnamon eyes. "Who said someone hurt me?" Dorrie had smoothed the curly hair back from his forehead. "It's written here, sugar," she'd replied, running her fingertips over his eyelids, shutting off the warm brown sadness watching her. "A man's soul is hiding in his eyes. Didn't you know that?" Sinclair had not replied. Instead, he'd pushed himself up in the bed . "I don't need a Mama and I don't need a confessor. I had one; I got the other. " Dorrie had reached out to trace the whip marks on his back. "I haven't lived here all that long," she said, surprised that he didn't tell her to stop touching him, "but I did hear tell you was engaged before going off to fight." She smoothed her hand down his spine. "I remember you telling me that first night that she didn't wait for you. Why couldn't she wait?" "It happens," he had grunted. "Well, to my way of thinking," Dorrie had concluded, "the bitch was downright stupid not to have waited." It had been the wrong thing to say. Sinclair had flung the covers back, popped up from the bed as though he'd had springs attached to his firm backside, and reached over to snatch up his breeches. "No one asked your opinion," he'd snapped, dragging on the breeches. "No," she'd agreed, "but that's never stopped me before." He'd turned to glare at her as he drew on his shirt. With his fingers making quick little jerking motions as he buttoned the chambray shirt, his remarkable dark eyes had narrowed with irritation. "I'd like to see you again, Dorrie, but if it's your intention to question me about my personal life every time I come over here, I'll find another lady with whom to sleep."
Dorrie paused as she lathered soap down her leg, Sin's words ringing in her ears: Another lady with whom to sleep. A rare quiver of delight spread through the prostitute's body. She'd known many boys and men since first being initiated into the mysteries of being a woman at age eleven. Some of those who'd used her had been fairly gentle; a few had been downright savage; most had treated her with more indifference than they would have a stray dog. Four had been virgins. One had nearly killed her. "Another lady with whom to sleep," she said softly. He'd made it clear to her that he'd be coming back and that pleased Dorrie more than she would have dared to admit even to herself. And she could not allow herself to think of his returning as anything other than what it would be . . . relief from the terrible loneliness she'd seen lurking in his sad, hurt eyes. Dorrie's own cornflower blue eyes hardened. The woman--and she knew, just as the entire county did, whom it was--had to be a slice of bread shy a loaf to let a man like Sin get away. What female in her right mind would do such a thing? The man wasn't just classically handsome, in a storybook way, he was gallant and charming and sexy as all getout. He was a dream come true for any woman who'd ever entertained thoughts of a tall, dark stranger riding into her life to change it. But he was also the kind of man your mother warned you about, too!
"Never give your heart into the keeping of a man better looking than you," Dorrie's mother had cautioned. "But if you do," her grandmother had chuckled, "you'd damned well better make sure it's your bed he prefers to any other woman's!"
Well, Dorrie thought as she resumed her bath, scrubbing even more roughly at her tain'ted flesh, Ivonne Delacroix's stupid mistake was Dorrie Burkhart's gain. It would be a cold day in hell before she ever turned Sin McGregor out of her bed or gave him reason for leaving!
************
Ivonne winced, put a hand to her belly, and felt the tears trickling down her cheeks once more. She felt so evil, so unclean. She had not wanted Edward's child; she had cursed its very conception. Now, she was paying for having wished the innocent little soul had never been conceived. The baby should not have had to pay for its mother's sins and Ivonne felt the guilt in her very soul. But she was not the only one suffering the loss of her baby daughter. Poor Sinclair, she thought. The look in his eyes had been horrible to see. He blamed himself for the miscarriage though all the burden rightfully fell on her own shoulders. She had not wanted the child; she had not been looking forward to its birth. Now, she would have to live with the tragic realization that perhaps this had been God's way of punishing her for not honoring her husband and the commitment she had made to him. And for Sinclair to have been there when her punishment had come was surely Divine Retribution for the wicked thoughts she had been entertaining about him all these years. "You need something, Miz Ivonne?" Bossie asked as she came to hover over Ivonne's bed. "No, thank you," Ivonne whispered and turned her face into the coolness of the starched muslin. "You'd tell me if'n you did, wouldn't you?" the Negro woman asked gently. "Yes." Bossie clucked her tongue as she pulled the mosquito netting closer around the bed. She had seen the tear streaks on the white woman's pale cheeks before she'd turned away. "Don't seem right for Silky not to be here wid you," she grumbled. "Lady ought to have her girl with her at times like these. But never you mind. I'll be sitting right over there by the window if'n you need somethin'." Ivonne didn't answer. She closed her eyes and dug her nails into the palms of her hands to keep from screaming . With all her heart, she wished Sin was there. To whisper to her in that soft drawl that sent shivers of pleasure down her spine. To touch her. To lie beside her, enfold her in his strong arms and hold her against his wide chest so she could listen to the safe, reassuring beat of his loyal heart. A loyal heart she would never again be worthy of possessing. How could she ever tell him why she had married Edward Delacroix? The very thought of attempting to explain sent her into spasms of terror. He must never find out the reason she had broken her engagement to him and accepted Edward's name. If he ever did, the gates of hell would break loose and Sinclair would surely fall through. That was something to be avoided at all costs: even her own peace of mind and sanity.
"Go ahead," Edward had taunted her only the night before. "Tell him! I don't give a damn. I might even tell him myself!" "Edward, no!" she had pleaded with him, clutching his arm. "You must not!"
Had the evening's argument been the beginning of her miscarriage? she wondered. Had the recriminations and accusations brought on the death of their child? She had been very upset; Edward had been verbally abusive and hateful beyond the normal before storming out of the house to go to his mistress. Ivonne hadn't been feeling well for several days and Evangeline's forcing upon her that godsawful homemade remedy for stomach ailments after Edward left had not helped. If anything, the too-sweet brew had seemed to make the sickness worse. She had awakened this morning with a horrible headache and would have stayed home had Edward not insisted she attend the party in Conor and Tina's honor. She had been so weak, she had spent the entire time sitting . "Git you some sleep, honey," Bossie encouraged, turning down the flame on the lamp beside Ivonne's bed. "You needs yo rest." Ivonne turned her face toward the old black woman. "Was Mr. John called, Bossie?" Ivonne asked. The Negro woman flinched. "What you wanna be thinkin' 'bout dat for, child? You don'ts need to be thinkin' 'bout no undertaker right now. You hush up and git to sleep. It's goin' on midnight, I reckon." Where was Sinclair? Ivonne wondered. She had not heard him come back. Had he gone to that woman's? Was he even at that moment lying in that woman's soiled bed, holding her to him, giving to her what should belong to Ivonne? The thought of her Sinclair in the arms of a piece of white trash like the Burkhart woman was a hard pillow to swallow, but infinitely better than him being in the hands of a young virgin girl or mature widowed woman who might make him happy. That was a mental exercise to be avoided at all costs. The mere flicker of such a thing crossing her mind was a torment not unlike those being experienced in Purgatory. "Wicked woman!" she chided herself. "You should not begrudge him a chance to be happy!" "What'd you say, honey?" Bossie inquired, shifting her bulk in the rocker until the chair groaned in protest. "Nothing," Ivonne whispered and turned her face into the pillow again. She caressed her belly and felt the emptiness there. There would be no more shifting of a warm little body inside her own. No more vigorous kicks that heralded a child eager to come into this world. There would be no need to pick names now; to finish the crocheted christening gown; to make sure Conor and Tina would be the baby's godparents. And no visible sign of that night ten months earlier when Edward Delacroix had brutally raped her. Nor any chance Rory Sinclair McGregor would put a bullet through Edward Delacroix's heart and hang for it.
THE LEGENDS BEGIN WITH THE KEEPER OF THE WIND
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