Cracked, chapped lips peeled away from the trembling gal’s teeth in a snarling scowl. As though speaking from the bottom of an empty rain barrel, she growled, “Don’t you come any closer, mister. Not another step. Get near enough, swear I’ll cut your heart out, if I get the chance. I swear before sainted Jesus, I will. I’ll do it. I will. I will kill you graveyard dead.”
In spite of all efforts to the contrary, I couldn’t help but smile. Drew to a rocking halt, leaned back on my heels, and cocked my head to one side. “Now, now, no need for that, miss,” I said. “Can promise you, Boz Tatum yonder and me are friends. Could well be the best friends you’ve got right at this unfortunate juncture. Rest assured we have no intention of doing you any harm.”
For a single, bullet-fast instant, unanswerable questions appeared to flit around behind her confused, darting, trapped-animal’s gaze. One cheek twitched when she snapped back, “You expect me to believe that load of horse manure, mister? After you and your gang rode up from the river in the early morning dark and. ...” A racking sob shook her from head to foot before she gasped, “And murdered my parents.”
Hands in the classic gesture of surrender, I said, “No one here had anything to do with your family’s terrible passing, miss. Before God, I swear it. Me and Boz live not far down the river. We run a little bit of a horse-raising operation, for the immediate time being anyways. All the shooting woke us before the sun got up good. Came on quick as we could. Deeply regret as how we didn’t make the trip as fast as we probably should’ve. Just had no idea of the urgency.”
Face covered in a layer of sweat, muddied with the powdery red dust of west Texas, she gritted her teeth so hard it sounded like a squirrel breaking walnuts. She sliced the knife back and forth through the sultry air. A single, enormous tear formed in the corner of one eye. The salty pearl bled onto her twitchy cheek and carved a tiny gully through the dirt down to the edge of a grime-caked jaw. Jewel-like droplet hung there for a second, then fell onto her heaving breast.
“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” she yelped. “I got away during all the confusion. Went back when I thought you and your men had finally ridden away.”
Shook my head. “Wasn’t me or Boz,” I said. “Can’t say it enough. We had nothing to do with what happened earlier this morning.”
“Well, say what you will, I saw what evil men did to my parents. Oh, God, all that shooting scared me so ...” A racking sob sawed its way through the girl’s body. She rubbed bitter tears on the upper part of a dirty arm. “So much noise and confusion. I ran. Couldn’t stay. Ran until I found this spot to hide myself in.”
“You don’t have to run, or hide, anymore, child,” I said. “We’re not here to hurt you.”
Her face twisted into a mask of deeper fear and pain. “I’m still not sure what happened to my little brothers. Don’t know exactly what has become of them.” Then as though speaking to someone not there, she mumbled, “I suppose it’s likely they died in just as dreadful a manner as my poor mother and father.”
Not much I could’ve added to her brutal assessment. So I just kept silent and waited.
Then, of a sudden, she crow-hopped sidewise, stumbled, but regained her footing. She waved the knife at me again. The haggard look of stark terror and puzzlement on her pretty face intensified as she said, “For all I know, you could just be spinning a windy whizzer, mister. Just so I’ll give up my only weapon. Only thing I’ve got to protect myself. Perhaps my only salvation.”
In a voice tinged with sadness and understanding, Boz called out from his spot at the mouth of the ravine, “Oh, no, child. The man’s tellin’ the truth. My friend Lucius Dodge don’t lie. Honestly, we come here to help.”
The panicked girl’s nervous eyeballing flicked from one of us to the other. Then, she growled like a kicked dog.
“Broke our hearts when we found your ill-fated kin,” Boz continued. “ ’Specially them poor buttons. Took us the most part of the mornin’ to make sure they was all properly cared for. Even put God on notice as how their immortal souls ’uz comin’ his direction. Now, why don’t you lay that big ole gut cutter aside, come on back to the ranch with us?”
I took a hesitant step or two toward the tormented child’s defensive position. Drew to a halt just a few feet away from her. Offered an open-palmed hand and then said, “Believe me, you’re safe now, darlin’. Truly, there’s no need for the knife. Why don’t you go on ahead and give it to me?”
The wary waif’s darting, sapphire gaze sizzled as it flitted from one of our faces to the other. “I’m not your darlin’, mister. I don’t even know you. Either of you,” she sneered. “My daddy didn’t raise any cowards, fools, or shirkers. So, I think I’ll just keep the knife, ’less you’d like to go on ahead and try to take it away from me.”
Another short-lived smile flickered across my parted lips. I took half a step backward. Hands raised in submission, I feigned shock and fear. “Well, no, miss. Don’t think I’d want to attempt disarming a determined young woman like you,” I said. Then, I tapped the side of my head with one finger. Thought of something I should have known to ask at the very outset. Said, “My friend, Boz, there, has already told you my name. Got any problem with telling me yours, miss? Do have a name, don’t you, child?”
As if I had somehow reached across six feet of open space and slapped her, the straw-haired youngster’s head snapped backward and bumped against the dirt wall at her back. Appeared to me that the thought of sharing her name with strangers—strangers who might have had a hand in murdering her luckless family—had not occurred to the feisty youngster.
“Uh, well, uh. Why don’t you go on ahead and tell me yours again?” she demanded.
In as soothing a voice as I had ever heard my rough-and-ready partner use, Boz came nigh on to whispering when he eased up a step or so behind me and said, “We can do that, missy. If it’ll make you more comfortable, we can sure ’nuff do ’er. Like I done said before, this here’s Lucius Dodge. Man’s famed near and far as a fearless enforcer of the law and protector of women and the downtrodden. My name’s Boz Tatum. Me’n Lucius been friends for almost as many years as you’ve been alive. Now, how ’bout you? What’s your handle? Your name, that is.”
“Boz is only trying to reassure you, child,” I added. “Wouldn’t want you, or one of us, to get hurt, now would we? Especially after everything that’s already transpired this sad and fateful morning.”
Then, as though suddenly overcome by a power outside herself, the hesitant youngster appeared possessed of a steely calm that surprised both of us. She made a little show of sliding the heavy-bladed butcher’s knife behind a thin leather strap tied around her narrow waist. Then, she held both skinny arms and empty hands out for us to examine.
“I’ve put the knife away” she said. “No knife. See?”
Boz and I both nodded.
Then, as if she had only just that moment managed to remember something long forgotten, she said, “Clementine. My name’s Clementine.”
“Well, now, that’s a right pretty name,” I said. “Yes indeed, that’s right pretty.”
“Don’t treat me like I’m stupid or helpless,” the girl snapped. “I’ve matriculated at Miss Hildegard Tyler’s School for Young Ladies in New Orleans. Studied reading, writing, mathematics, history, philosophy, and debate. I’m smarter than most grown men, by a long shot.”
Couldn’t help but smile at her feistiness. Said, “Why, yes, ma’am. Believe you likely are.”