A Trail Too Far by Robert Peecher

Author:Robert Peecher
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 1723844217
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2018-07-16T00:00:00+00:00

17

Martha Cummings did not speak to complain or argue. She made no effort to flee. She simply rode in the saddle, her hands tight to the pommel, and her chin held high in what she hoped was a posture of defiance.

She did not try to think of what these men intended to do with her, though she had suspicions. Had she not heard her husband say that the women murdered at the farm back east were violated? But she was not the sort of woman to weep or despair. She prayed silently for deliverance and clung to some hope that somewhere, somehow, the Lord would intervene.

"We're lost," Dick Derugy complained.

It did seem to Martha Cummings that they were riding aimlessly. The light from the camp was disappeared now. She did not know if they had ridden two miles or five. In the blackness of night, she had no concept of space or time, and her fear and her exhaustion prevented her from having any kind of intuition about time or distance.

"We ain't lost," Mickey Hogg snapped, though they were not at a standstill, and Mickey was standing up in his stirrups looking for any sign of which way to go. "I should have brought Bill. Didn't he say before Lawrence he'd been down here along the Pawnee River? Ain't that where he gets his name? He could have found the way back, sure."

"You can't trust Bill around no woman," Dick Derugy said. "He'd have already had at her as soon as you got away from that camp and the station house. I'll tell you another thing, too, about Bill. If you don't want her all beat up in the face, you'd better take her first. Bill can't enjoy a woman proper if he ain't hittin' her. That's why all the whores in Topeka won't touch him."

"Is that what you men intend for me?" Martha Cummings asked, suddenly finding her voice and her courage. "To take turns violating a married woman and then hand me over to a man who will beat me?"

"You keep your jaw shut," Mickey Hogg snarled. "Married or no, you're still a woman."

Dick Derugy laughed, but it was an uncomfortable laugh. In his discomfort, Martha Cummings found a grain of hope.

And then she had an idea. She would shame these men.

"'Be strong and of good courage,'" she said loudly, enunciating each word clearly. "'Fear not, nor be afraid of them: For the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; He will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.'"

"What is that?" Mickey Hogg asked, his voice a curse. "Is you preaching?"

"It is Deuteronomy," Martha Cummings said.

"Well, stop it," Mickey Hogg said. "I ain't get you out here to listen to no sermonizing."

But Martha found strength in the words, and she spoke again, louder this time. "'Fear thou not, for I am with thee!'" Martha said. "'Be not dismayed, for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee, yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.

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