Chapter 2: Jenny’s Story

 

Mac kicked Valiente, and they cantered through town. To his surprise, no one shouted, no one followed. Soon the town was out of sight. Mac slowed Valiente to a walk.

The violence in the tavern troubled him, and he didn’t know what had prompted it. He needed to reach the Aurora by the next afternoon, but first he had to decide what to do with the girl. “Where do you want to go?” he asked.

“Where are you going?”

“Waverly. But I can take you home first.”

“Not home.”

“Then where?”

“Waverly will do. I can’t stay in Arrow Rock.”

“Why not? Peterson said the marshal would agree we shot in self-defense. Waverly’s two days from here. I can’t take you that far. It wouldn’t be proper.”

“I don’t care.” Jenny’s voice was no more than a whisper.

Mac shrugged. If she didn’t give him another option, he’d have to take her to Waverly. “Your name’s Jenny. Jenny what?”

“Geneviève Calhoun.”

“Where do you live?”

“Farm outside Arrow Rock.”

“I should take you there. Won’t your parents worry?”

He felt her shake her head against his back.

“Why’d the sheriff pull a gun on me?” Mac asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You work for Bart Peterson? The tavern owner?”

“He’s my stepfather. Mama married him last year.”

“What happened to your father?”

“Suffered a fever not long after we moved to Missouri. Never really recovered. He died last year.” She sighed. “I surely miss him.”

She spoke with a slight Southern accent. “Where are you from originally?”

“Louisiana, where Mama grew up.” That explained the Southern accent and the French name. “Papa bought land nearby, but lost it. We moved to Missouri when I was eight. Then Papa died. Mr. Peterson runs our farm now and keeps the tavern in town.”

“Why won’t you go home?”

Jenny shook her head again.

They passed farm houses on hills along the dirt road, some fairly prosperous, surrounded by fields of new corn, cotton, and hemp. As the afternoon heated and the sun shone on their faces, they encountered an occasional cart or solitary rider. Mac tipped his hat at the people they passed, who nodded in return.

By late afternoon storm clouds rolled toward them and a cold wind blew. It started to rain. Mac hunched into his leather jacket and pulled his hat lower on his forehead. “There’s an oilskin in my saddlebag,” he told Jenny. “Put it on to keep the rain off.”

As daylight faded, Mac steered Valiente into a clearing off the road by a small stream. “We’ll make camp,” he said. “Go on to Waverly tomorrow. Need to be on the road at sunup to catch the steamboat.”

Mac unsaddled Valiente and let him graze, hobbling his hooves with a length of rope. He tied a tarp to a low branch on an oak tree at the edge of the clearing. “This’ll keep most of the rain off,” he said.

He started a fire in front of the tarp. The wood hissed and smoked until the flames caught, but finally Mac felt heat push the cold away. He pulled hard tack and coffee out of his saddlebag and boiled water. “It’s not as good as your dinner at the tavern,” he said smiling, “but we won’t starve.”

Jenny hesitated, then took his offering.

Mac tried to make conversation as they ate. Jenny said little and watched warily as he moved about the camp. After supper he handed her the saddle blanket. She shied away like a spooked pony.

“Take it,” he said. “I have a coat, and you don’t. It’ll get cold. Maybe rain again.”

Mac checked Valiente’s hobbles, then said, “Don’t mess with him. He’s skittish in the mornings, particularly around strangers.”

Jenny tensed when Mac sat beside her. Her skirt swished as she moved as far away from him as possible while remaining under the tarp.

He took a blank journal out of his saddlebag and began to write. About the shooting. The girl. His hopes for the journey. After putting away the notebook, he lay down, huddled in his jacket, and slept.

Mac woke to the sound of water dripping. Rain pooled on the tarp above him and oozed through. His wool trousers were damp, and the smell of wet, charred wood from last night’s fire wafted in the cold air.

At the sound of a shrill whinny, he bolted upright. Jenny was bareback astride a rearing Valiente. The hobbles lay on the grass between his prancing hooves.

“God damn it,” Mac shouted as he ran toward Valiente, “I told you not to touch him!”

To her credit, Jenny didn’t fall, but clasped the stallion’s mane and bridle tightly. She looked relieved as Mac grabbed the bridle. Valiente pawed the ground, but didn’t rear again. Mac held him with one hand and helped Jenny dismount with his other arm.

As she slid down, Mac caught her against him. She’d seemed like such a little thing at the tavern, but in his arms she had more substance than he’d thought. She stumbled into the bushes, retching.

“Are you hurt?” Mac asked when she returned.

“No,” she gasped.

Mac allowed his temper to flare. “What in hell’s name possessed you to ride him?” he yelled.

She hung her head.

“Damn it! I told you to leave him alone. Where in blazes were you going?”

“Away.”

Mac grabbed her arm. “Were you stealing my horse or trying to kill yourself? What’s going on?”

She didn’t speak for a long time. Mac waited her out, keeping his hand like a vise on her arm.

“I’m expecting.”

She couldn’t mean what he thought she meant. “Expecting what?”

“A baby.”

She did mean what he’d thought. She was too young. Mac dropped her arm. “Where’s your husband?” he asked.

She trembled. “I’m not married. I don’t know who the father is.”

Shocked, Mac said, “Forgive me, but you don’t look like the kind of girl who’d take up with several men.”

She blushed and slumped to sit on the wet ground.

Mac waited for her to say more. He didn’t want to ask again.

Jenny looked up at the trees above them where a robin sang. She spoke, stumbling over her words. “Three months ago. Before Christmas. At the tavern. The Johnsons came. Both of them. For dinner.”

She stopped. Mac sat beside her.

“Jacob stared at me. Sheriff asked him if I was pretty. Jacob didn’t say anything. Then his father asked, had he ever . . . had he ever been with a woman. Jacob turned red. Sheriff laughed.”

Jenny plucked one green grass blade, then another and another before she continued. “After they ate, Sheriff asked for a room. Mr. Peterson gave him a key. Sheriff pulled Jacob up the stairs behind him. Asked me to bring them whiskey.”

She kept plucking the grass. “I told Mr. Peterson I didn’t want to. He said do what Sheriff asked. Take the bottle upstairs. So I did.”

Jenny stared at the clouds and wiped her hand across her forehead. The hair bristled on Mac’s neck as he waited for her to continue.

“I knocked,” Jenny said, still looking skyward. Her voice was so soft Mac barely heard her. “Sheriff opened the door and pulled me in. He took the bottle. Pushed me toward Jacob. ‘Have at her, son,’ he said.”

Tears streamed down Jenny’s face. “So he did. I fought, but Sheriff held me down.” Her white knuckles brushed her cheek.

Her pain was palpable, but Mac didn’t dare touch her.

Jenny took a shuddering breath. “Then the sheriff. While Jacob held me. I tried to fight, but there were two of them.”

At that, Mac did reach out, but she flinched, so he pulled his hand back. She sobbed, but had more to say.

“When they were through, and laughing, I sat up. Mr. Peterson was in the doorway. Watching. Sheriff said it was his turn. So he did. I couldn’t do anything, couldn’t stop it.”

As a child, Mac had seen a kitten stoned by other boys. He’d nursed the cat back to health and cared for it until it died of old age. He’d seen callousness and evil—maybe even caused some, given why he’d left Boston. But Jenny’s story angered him more than anything in his experience. Maybe killing Isaac Johnson had been God’s will after all. Maybe Jacob should have died as well. And Peterson.

“Now you’re with child,” he said when her sobs lessened.

She nodded.

“Who knows?”

“Mammy Letitia, my old nurse. She guessed. She told Mama yesterday morning. Mama thinks it’s the boy on the neighboring farm.”

“Shouldn’t you tell your mother the truth?”

“About Mr. Peterson? I can’t. Mama’s having a baby, too. In a couple of months. She’s seen him looking at me. She said I was wicked.”

Mac stared at Jenny. “Your mother thinks it’s your fault?”

She looked at the ground.

It could be true, he thought. His mother had dismissed a servant girl in similar circumstances. “What will you do?” he asked.

“Just take me away,” Jenny said. “Please. I can find work.”