To Hell and Beyond Page 28

  Reverend O’Shannon put his fork and knife on the table and took a deep breath. His fists clenched white beside his plate. Trap had seen his father box many times, and wondered if Drum knew he was about to get a sound whipping.

  “You’ve overstepped your bounds, sir, in speaking this way of my wife.”

  Drum dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a linen napkin and flicked a thick hand. “I meant no offense, Reverend.” It was a halfhearted apology at best, and Trap felt compelled to bash the man’s stodgy face against the fine oak table. A look from his mother held him back.

  “I did not intend to insult your family. On the contrary. I only mean to point out that you have done exactly that of which I speak. ‘Kill everything in them that is Indian,’ the Army says. ‘Civilize them and teach them solid Christian doctrine.’ That’s what we are to do with our charges here at White Oak.” Drum looked suddenly at Trap from under a bushy brow and pointed at him with a fork.

  “How about you, boy? From what I’ve heard, you’ve grown up here. Are you a Christian or an Indian?”

  “Can’t I be both?” Trap said, though his thoughts at the moment were anything but Christian.

  “I don’t believe you can,” Drum said, banging his fist on the table. The dishes rattled and water sloshed out of the glass at his side. “And neither does the Army. This was a tasty meal, Reverend. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve had a long trip and wish to retire early. I’ll have a look around the school tomorrow on my own. You’ll be on your way the day after?”

  “We will,” Trap’s father said. He pushed back his chair and rose. Trap could not remember him ever looking sadder. “I’ll show you to your room.”

  When the men had gone, Trap noticed his mother hadn’t eaten a bite. “Are you all right?” he asked, knowing the answer before it came.

  “I am afraid for you,” Hummingbird said. “You will find that some people are like one-eyed mules. No matter how you turn them, they can only see a single point of view.” She pushed her plate away and put a hand on top of Trap’s. “Hard things await you, my son. I only hope we have prepared you well enough.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Reverend Drum’s presence hung over the school like a putrid illness. He lurked around every corner and at the end of every path, always with a sour look of disapproval on his pink face. For the most part, he held his tongue until the O’Shannons left. He didn’t have to wait long for that.

  The students threw a quiet going-away party at supper on their last night, and took turns giving the O’Shannons small, handmade tokens to remember them by. Trap’s normally stoic father was moved to the point of tears by the time the meal was complete. His mother wept openly throughout the entire affair. Drum stood in the corner with his hands behind him, the tiniest hint of a sneer on his carplike lips.

  As the party began to wind down, Trap felt a gnawing urgency to spend a few moments alone with Maggie.

  It was Maggie who suggested they go for a walk—not with words but with a casual glance toward the door. Trap looked up at his mother, who also spoke much without speaking at all.

  Hummingbird nodded gently, then turned to occupy her husband’s attention while Trap and Maggie slipped out together. Drum gave the young couple a sidelong eye, but Mrs. Tally swooped in to intercept him like a fluttering mother dove when a fox is too near her nest, as if she were working in concert with Trap’s mother to allow the two youngsters a few moments alone together.

  Trap had never been much of a talker, finding himself more at home alone in the woods than with any other human being—until Maggie Sundown came along. He talked to her more than he’d talked to anyone, and still much of their time together was spent sitting quietly.

  “The Apache value silence,” his mother had always told him. From what he could see, the Nez Percé thought a lot of it too. Maggie appeared to enjoy his company, but she was just as content to sit and study the earth as he was. To Trap’s way of thinking, more got said between him and Maggie in an hour of near silence than most people accomplished in a whole day of wordy conversation.

  The evening was crisp, with a waning half-moon that cast dark shadows along the gravel path beyond the root cellar. Once in a while, Trap could hear the patient, baritone voice of his father drifting out amid the more tentative students’ voices through the kitchen door.

  Maggie found a spot on the stone wall along the path and sat down among the shadows. She said nothing.

  Trap sat beside her, a few inches away, and folded his hands in his lap. A million bees buzzed inside his chest.

  After a time, Maggie broke the silence.

  “My people, the Nimi’ipuu, are a people of the horse.” Her voice was soft and throaty—almost a whisper. She turned to look at him in the scant moonlight. “I haven’t seen too many horses around here.”

  Trap stared down at his feet, afraid he might say something foolish if he met her eye. “I used to have a nice little bay, but we had to sell them all for this move. The school owns the ones that are left—mostly cart horses.”

  “I miss watching the herds running together. . . .”

  “That would be a beautiful sight,” Trap whispered. He could only think of leaving the next day. He wanted to say more, but didn’t know how. When he looked up, Maggie held a small bracelet in her hand.

  “I made this from the hair of my father’s finest horses. I braided in some of my own hair as well.” She held it out to him. “I wish you to have it . . . to remember me when you are in Arizona.” Her voice was barren of emotion, but her eyes shone bright and clear in the moonlight. “Perhaps you will find a beautiful Apache girl and have many children with her. If you do, you should throw the bracelet away so it doesn’t haunt your marriage.”

  He took the gift and slid it over his hand, pulling it snug with the intricately braided button of hair. “Thank you,” he said, his voice catching in his throat. “I would never throw anything away I received from you.”

  Surely this was what his father had meant when he spoke of meeting the person who would mean more to him than anything else. He’d thought about giving something to her as well, but never would have had the courage to be the first to mention it.

  He fished in his trouser pocket for a moment.

  “It’s not much.” He held a silver coin out on the palm of his hand.

  Maggie took it and held it up in the moonlight to get a good look.

  “It’s the O’Shannon crest. Three stars over two hunting dogs.”

  “What does it say around the edge?” Maggie traced the face of the coin gently with her finger.

  “It’s the family motto in Latin—Under the Guidance of Valor.”

  Maggie held it up next to Trap’s face. Her fingers brushed his cheek. He squirmed.

  She smiled—it at once calmed him and sent his mind spinning out of control. “I will put this in my medicine bag where I keep things most important to me,” she said.

  Arizona seemed like an ax ready to chop off his head. Trap had little experience with such things, but felt pretty certain that girls like Maggie Sundown didn’t come along more than once in a person’s life. He felt like he should give her more than a silver medallion before he left. The idea that he might never see her again was unthinkable.

  “Maggie . . .” he whispered.

  She took the small leather bag from around her neck and slipped the coin inside. She must have moved closer to him when they exchanged gifts, because he could feel her body move with each breath. Her thigh was warm against him through their clothes. He found it almost impossible to think, let alone speak a coherent thought.

  “Maggie, I . . .” he tried again.

  Drum’s acid voice cut the night like a knife.

  “When the lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” Drum stepped out of the shadows beside the low roof of the root cellar.

  Trap shot to his feet. Maggie stayed where she was.

  “What’s g
oing on here, young Master O’Shannon?” Drum was on them in a stride.

  “Nothing, sir,” Trap said, upset at his own nervousness. He took a deep breath to calm himself. “I was . . . am saying good-bye to Miss Sundown.”

  “I’m certain you were,” Drum said, raising his brow. The way his eyes slid slowly up and down over Maggie’s body made Trap want to bury the man then and there. “It’s a blessing I happened to need some fresh air when I did. Saved you from your own sinful nature, I believe. You had best get back inside with the party, young man. I believe it would break your father’s heart if he found his son out here in near fornication with one of his students.”

  “Near fornication? You know that’s a lie.” Trap gritted his teeth and took a half step closer to the much larger man.

  “Don’t begin something you aren’t prepared to finish, little hero.” Drum smiled through a crooked sneer as if he’d won a fight already.

  “I should say my good-byes to your mother.” Maggie’s voice came soft and steady from the shadows. “Come with me, Trap. We have nothing to be ashamed of. The Reverend Drum came out here for some air. Let’s give it to him.”

  “Go with her, boy. Say your good-byes,” Drum spit.

  “Mr. Drum.” Trap refused to call him Reverend anymore. “My family and I are leaving tomorrow. I’m only sixteen, but you should remember this: My mother is Apache, which makes me half Apache.”

  “O’Shannon,” Drum sneered. “You and your kind are no more than a boil on my rump. A trivial inconvenience, but tomorrow I’ll be shed of you. Your sweet little Miss Sundown will pine away for you to be sure.” He winked and shook his head back and forth behind a wry grin. “But don’t you worry, son. I’ll see that she is well taken care of.”

  Trap found himself so mad his head throbbed. Fists clenched at his sides, he stood on the balls of his feet. His voice was quiet and sharp, as merciless as a steel blade. Like his father, Trap became stone cold when he was truly angry. He didn’t so much lose his temper as focus it in a single beam of white-hot fury.

  “Drum,” Trap hissed. He doubted Maggie could even hear him, and she was only a few feet away. “I may not be very old, but you have my word on this: If you act anything other than the complete gentleman to Maggie, I’ll cut that black heart out of your worthless body and send you straight to Hell where you belong.”

  “Listen here, boy . . .” Drum tried to interrupt.

  Trap held up his hand. His voice remained calm, but it pierced as surely as any arrow. “No, you listen to me. I’m not fooling. I leave tomorrow. If you say another word to me or Maggie, I’ll kill you now, if I have to do it with my teeth.”

  Trap’s shoulders heaved. He almost wished the big man would try something.

  Instead, Drum shrugged, tossed his head like an insolent horse, and walked into the darkness.

  All the anger drained from Trap’s body when Maggie came up behind him and touched his arm.

  Trap turned and looked at her. He wanted to tell her he would come back for her someday soon, wanted to tell her she meant more to him than anything he’d ever known. But such words didn’t come easy to his lips. The notion of leaving her behind was unthinkable, but he was only a boy. What else could he do but respect his father’s wishes?

  “Thank you for that,” Maggie whispered, moving closer to him in the chilly night air. “I don’t think people often stand up to him. He looked like he believed you.”

  Trap let out a deep breath. The aftereffects of the run-in with Drum and the warmth of Maggie’s body combined to make him feel dizzy. “I hope he believed me, because I would have killed him.”

  Maggie held his arm with both hands and rested her head on his shoulder.

  “I know it,” she whispered in his ear, her voice matter-of-fact. “And I would have helped.”

  CHAPTER 9

  The O’Shannons’ wagon was not yet past the tall oaks that skirted the gravel drive before Drum made his first sweeping edict. The students were still lined up in neat, uniformed rows from saying their goodbyes. Maggie saw bad things coming in the smug grin that spread over the new superintendent’s face the further the Reverend O’Shannon got from the school.

  She had watched in silence as Trap climbed into the wagon behind his parents and sat facing backward on a wooden trunk. His face was stoic, but Maggie could see the pain in his eyes. Neither had spoken a word that morning. They had said their good-byes the evening before.

  “Mrs. Tally,” Drum barked. Fully in charge now, he set his bottom jaw after each phrase like a jowly bulldog. Two rough men, wearing low hats and leather braces over course work shirts, stepped from the yard behind the kitchen. The taller of the two wore a set of worn Army trousers. The shorter was as stout and wide as he was tall. A thick wad of gray hair sprouted up from the collar of his threadbare woolen shirt.

  “These are my associates Pugh and Foster.” Drum nodded at the men. “From here forward they will act as orderlies to assure discipline and structure at all times.”

  “We’ve never had a problem with order and discipline before, Reverend.” Mrs. Tally cocked her head to one side and gave the two new arrivals a quick perusal. “Are you certain the elders would approve such an expense?”

  “Don’t concern yourself with the elders, Mrs. Tally. That will be my job. Concern yourself with the new rules and see that the students obey them.”

  “New rules?”

  “First,” Drum said, clasping his hands behind the small of his back and stalking up and down the line of wide-eyed students. “As of this moment, any utterance of a heathen tongue will not be tolerated. God’s own English is the language of learning and that is what I expect to hear.”

  Frank Tall Horse stood at the end of the line next to Maggie. He smiled softly and nodded his head. He often commented that the constant jabbering of the other students in their assorted languages gave him a headache.

  “Washite,” he said under his breath. It was one of the few Sioux words he knew. “Fine by me.”

  Drum spun when he heard the boy speak. “What did you say, young man?” Small stones crunched under his boots as he strode across the yard.

  The smile fell from Tall Horse’s lips. His brown eyes went wide and he cowered under the scrutiny of the new superintendent. “I said English is fine by me, sir.”

  “Before that. You said something else before that.” Drum’s heavy face was inches away from the boy.

  “I said washite. It means good.”

  “Did I not just explain the rule to you regarding use of heathen tongues?”

  “Yes, sir,” Tall Horse whispered. His face was ashen white. “It was.... I mean I was. . . .”

  “Do you intend to mock me?”

  “No, sir.” All the joy appeared to flow out of Tall Horse’s normally bright face.

  “He doesn’t even speak Sioux,” Maggie said. She could see where this was leading and it made her sick to her stomach.

  “Be still,” Drum snapped. “He knows well enough not to disregard my mandate only moments after I made it.” He nodded to Pugh and Foster, who shuffled up on either side of Tall Horse.

  “I am a fair man,” Drum said, puffing himself up like the self-important adder that he was. “But I must abide by my own rules or there can be no order.” He nodded again at the two men.

  They each took one of the boy’s arms. He did not struggle.

  “This is your first offense, so I will limit your punishment to five stripes.”

  Maggie stepped forward. “I told you, sir. He doesn’t even speak Sioux. He is happy to speak English. You don’t have to do this.” She knew if she spoke what was truly in her heart, Drum would only take it out on Frank.

  “I said be still, young lady.” Drum turned to a quivering Mrs. Tally. “Fetch me a strong switch from that willow tree yonder.”

  “Sir?” Mrs. Tally’s mouth fell open. “You don’t truly intend to . . . ?”

  “Dear Lord, forgive me my thoughts about these imbeciles with
whom I am forced to work,” Drum muttered. “I’ll get the blasted switch myself.”

  Foster and Pugh made Tall Horse take off his shirt, and then took him again by each arm. There was no need; he endured his whipping without a word. When Maggie took a step forward, he only gritted his teeth and shook his head to keep her back. The younger students looked on with blank eyes. This was not the first time many of them had seen cruelty, only the first time they’d seen it at the school.

  Drum could barely contain his smile as he administered the cruel lashes. When he finished, Drum dismissed the group to return to morning classes. He pitched the offending switch unceremoniously on the ground at his feet and turned a snide face to Maggie while he straightened his frock coat and tie.

  “I’ll see you in my office at three P.M. sharp,” he said. The fire in his eyes from the enjoyment of meting out Tall Horse’s punishment had turned to a lecherous glow. “I admire your spirit, young lady. I won’t put up with it, but I admire it nonetheless.”

  Maggie knew her own limits. It would take more than Drum’s pitiful orderlies to hold her. There were certain things she would never stand for. But Drum had his limits as well—he’d shown that.

  She helped a tight-lipped Frank Tall Horse back inside the school, and wondered if she would be alive by nightfall.

  CHAPTER 10

  A thin gash of yellow light cut the dark hallway from the door to Reverend Drum’s office. Maggie stood outside until she heard the downstairs clock chime three. She steeled herself for what was sure to await her and put her hand on the knob. She was not afraid to die. A month ago, she would have welcomed the thought, but since she’d met Trap O’Shannon and seen there was still something right with the world, she was not ready to rush into death either.

  The door creaked when she pushed it open and stepped inside. Drum sat at his desk, a pair of black-rimmed glasses on the end of his nose. He glanced up when he heard her and gave a cursory nod to one of the high-backed chairs in front of him before going back to his reading.