The Daughter - C.B. Cooper (red novels txt) 📗

said that the Fisher girl had seen someone? A woman?"
The foreman nodded, his weathered face taking on a worried cast, "That would be Betsy. Lenny found her in one of the stalls this morning while he was doing his chores."
"You mind if we speak to Lenny?"
"Nope, not at all." The foreman turned toward a group of standing about twenty feet away, "Lenny? You wanna come over here for a minute?"
Lenny, a tall, lanky cowboy wearing holey jeans, a faded flannel shirt, and a beat-up cowboy hat, began walking their way.
"These men here wanna ask you a few questions."
Lenny looked at Sam and Zeb guardedly. Sam stuck out his hand and introduced himself, "I'm Reverend Sam Sharp, and this here's my friend, Zeb Tucker."
The young cowboy seemed to visibly relax some, "Reverend Sharp?"
Sam nodded, feeling that little pang of guilt again, but he had found that by introducing himself as a man of God, people tended to let down their guard a little faster. And right now, the clock was ticking. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Gracie was out there someone being chased out by a mob of men with blood and dollar signs flashing in their eyes.
"I understand you found Betsy Fisher in the barn this morning?"
Lenny nodded, eager to tell his story, "Sure did. She was hiding in the last stall on the left, buried under some of the hay."
Sharps heart hammered in his chest as he got closer to finding out the truth. "She told you she had seen a woman?"
The lanky cowboy looked momentarily confused as Sam got right to the heart of the matter. "Not exactly," he drawled. "She got really scared when she seen me, so it took a little cajoling to get her to talk…"
"And," Sharp prodded anxiously. "What did she say?"
Lenny sighed, toeing the dirt with his boot "Well, it didn’t make any sense to me at the time…"
Sam wanted to slap the boy. Here he was, pussy-footin' around, and all Sam wanted to hear were the words. Who killed those people.
Lenny looked him in the eye, "She was a bit hysterical, you see…"
Sharp felt his fist clench at his side.
"At first she just kept saying the same thing, over and over…"
Sam was thinking about what it would feel like to punch Lenny right in the mouth. Hard knuckles, meeting soft flesh. Teeth cracking under the pressure.
"An Angel came and saved me from my daddy."
Sam's heart sank.
"The Angel told me to stay here. An Angel came and saved me from my daddy… Over and over she said it. She was still saying it when I left her there."
Angel.
Sam blinked. "The girls still in there?"
"Yep. She wont come out fer nothing'."
"She say anything else?"
"The sheriff talked to her when he rode out the first time this morning. He was able to get a description of the woman, but he couldn’t talk her out of that stall either."
Zeb clapped a soft hand on his shoulder, "You should go on in and talk to her, Sam. Maybe you'd have better luck."
But all of a sudden Sam didn’t want to talk to her, he felt miserable. It felt like his whole world had just spun completely out of control.
Gracie? Angel? Murdered and dismembered those people? How could that be?
Zeb gently pulled him so he was facing the barn. Giving him a soft nudge, he said, "I think the girl pro'bly needs to talk to somebody…"
Sam's feet moved forward on their own accord. But after only a few steps, he stopped and spun around. "Why would that girl need saving from her own father?"
Mack Clark grimaced, then he and Lenny exchanged guilty looks, "Her pa was… kinda hard on her."
Sam's eyes narrowed, "Hard, how?"
Neither man would look at him.
"Hard on her, how?" he demanded.
"He could be a bit… heavy handed, at times." Lenny mumbled, looking guilty.
He should feel guilty, Sharp thought as his blood began to boil. The whole lot of them should feel guilty! They all knew that Fisher beat his girl and not a one of them had had the balls to stop him?
Angel did, his mind whispered.
"Anything happen yesterday that might of lead Fisher to be a little, heavy handed, with her last night?"
Both men shrugged. "It didn’t take much," Mack mumbled weakly.

An hour later, Sharp walked out of the barn and went in search of the sheriff. He found him and the doc over at the well washing the blood from their hands in a bucket water.
As Sharp approached the pair, both men watched him curiously. His stride was long and purposeful, his boot heels kicking up puffs of dust as he seethed inside.
"Doc, you better get out to that barn. That girl needs medical attention."
The doc, and older portly man who wore a dark blue store bought suit, shook his head, "I'm afraid there's not much I can do for a broken heart. We'll just have to wait. She'll come out when she's good and ready."
"A broken heart! How about lashes from a belt? That girls back is flayed wide open."
The sheriff took a step forward, a worried scowl creasing his features, "You mean that woman beat her too?"
Sharp's eyes were hard, "No, the woman didn’t beat her— her father did. Last night. According to Betsy, her mama had told her daddy that she had seen Betsy at the well talking to one of the hands, so he whipped her."
The sheriff waved his hand, "Wait, wait, wait. Just hold up a minute. She told you Isaiah whipped her because she talked to one of the hands? That doesn’t make any sense."
"No, it doesn’t. But if you talk to those men, they'll tell you themselves. They weren't allowed to speak to that girl or her mama. But, if what Betsy said was true, her mama lied. She said she never talked to anybody, but her father whipped her something fierce— until that woman your looking for, stopped him." Sharp could barely contain his anger, he gritted his teeth. "She let me look at her wounds, Sheriff, and I'm telling you both, that if that man was still alive, I'd rip him apart with my bare hands myself."
Zeb, who had joined the group after seeing Sam walk out of the barn, laughed nervously, "Reverend…"
"I'm not a god-damned reverend anymore!" Sharp exploded. "How many times do I have to tell you that?" Spinning back to towards the sheriff and the doctor he pointed towards the barn where the girl still was, "That girl's backside is a god-damn maze of scars, old scars, and lots of them! I've never seen anything like it." Swinging his arm, he pointed at the farmhouse and shouted, "That old man and his wife we're sick, twisted people, and they deserved every god-damned bit of what Gracie gave them— and more!"
Zeb stood in stunned silence, his eyes traveling from Sam to the sheriff as the sheriff asked slowly, "Gracie? Who is Gracie?"
Damn it

. "Nobody." Sharp mumbled as all of his steam left. He spit on the ground, then turned to Zeb, resolute, "I'm leaving."
Zed followed his friend as he marched toward their horses.
"Wait up there! Me and you need to talk!" the sheriff shouted behind them, "Do you know who that woman is that we're lookin' for?"
Sharp threw the answer over his shoulder, "Nope."
The sheriff ran to catch up to them as they mounted, "I said, wait up! If you don’t want to answer my questions, maybe a night or two in my jail will loosen your jaws. I need to know who it is we're looking for!"
Sharp settled in the saddle and reigned his horse toward the sheriff, his eyes grave. "Go ask the girl, Sheriff. She'll tell you who the woman is. She's an Angel… and, from the looks of those people inside, she's also the devil. If you want to keep those men of yours safe, you'll call off that posse. The woman your lookin' for is riding the vengeance trail. She's out for blood, pure and simple, and she'll cut down any man that stands in her way."
The sheriff stared hard at him, processing the words and their meaning. After a moment, he asked, "And what about you? Where do you figure into her plan for vengeance? If what you say is true, aren't you afraid of getting in her way? Aren't you afraid she'll kill you too?"
Sharp's green eyes were flint hard, "I don’t plan on getting in her way, Sheriff. I plan on helping her."
The sheriff stepped closer. Staring up at Sharp, he asked urgently, "Who is she?

"
Sharp knew the answer immediately, he didn’t even have to the think about. From the first time he'd seen Gracie, he'd known it. They'd had an instant connection, a bond that went even deeper than anything. A bond that was as old and ancient as time itself. He couldn’t explain it, but he knew it, he'd felt it soul deep, and it was something that he'd never voiced out loud, until now.
Without batting an eye, he told the sheriff, "She's my daughter." Then he kicked his horse into a lope, heading across the grassy fields without ever looking back.


Chapter

He told Zeb the whole story that night around the campfire. Watching the flames dance and spin in the warm breeze, he came clean.
"It was a long time ago, back when I'd first started drinking hard. I'd rode into this small town in the middle of no where, and sought out the local watering hole first thing, just like I always did back then. I'd ordered a drink and went and sat by the front window so I could watch the townspeople go about their business. I think I was into my third drink when a beautiful young woman caught my eye…

Sharp gulped down the rest of his whiskey, then grabbed the bottle off of the scarred tabletop and refilled his glass. As he picked it up to take another drink, a dark haired beauty caught his eye.
She was walking down the boardwalk on the other side of the street, her round hips swaying in her full skirt, as she peered into various shop front windows. In front of the general store she opened the door and disappeared inside.
Curious, sharp grabbed his drink and walked outside.
Taking a seat on a bench, he sat and waited. When she re-appeared some time later she was carrying an armful of dry goods.
He watched her struggle with the heavy items as she made her way back down the boardwalk. Gulping down the last of his whiskey, he set the empty glass beside him, stood, and started crossing the street.
Once he was on the other side, he quietly fell in line, watching her from behind. She was just as beautiful close up. She had long dark hair that flowed in soft curly waves down her back, so long, it nearly reached her trim waist. He was busy staring at her perfect little ass, swaying back and forth, when she stopped suddenly, shifting the packages in her arms.
Sharp tried to stop too, but ended up running into her backside.
She cursed under her breath as the packages fell from her arms and clattered across the boardwalk, "Shit."
Sharp chuckled, "Excuse me?"
She turned on him like a she-lion, "Yes, excuse you! Look at what you've done!"
Her dark eyes blazed with fury as she stared up at him, waiting for him to apologize, but instead he just laughed.
Outraged, she demanded, "What are you