Chapter 24

"Shut up!  All of you just shut up and sit down!  I'll have it for you in a minute!."


Laura Shepherd adjusted the squirming baby on her hip as she scooped up eggs from the frying pan and laid them in the serving dish.  "Rebecca, hold the baby for me.  It's not like his father is going to hold him for me."  Her words were said loudly so that her husband could hear her over the noisy children, hungrily awaiting their breakfast.

"That kid ain't mine and we both know it.  Neither is that one,"  his finger stabbed the air in the direction of young Hannah.  "I got blue eyes and you got green ones.  How the hell could we have brown eyed kids?  They're both the bastard whelps of that young buck I hired when I was laid up after my accident."   He rubbed the deep, purplish puckering scars that marred the entire right side of his face and left him unrecognizable as the man he used to be.

"You think he's the only brown eyed man in the world you dumb horse's ass,"  she said in an indignant voice.

"No, I guess he ain't at that.  As I recall your precious Hannibal Heyes had brown eyes too. "

Her head snapped around in surprise at the mention of that name.

"What?  You think I didn't know about all your little newspaper clippings and seedy paperbacks?"  He stood and marched angrily to the maple wood  pie safe that sat in the kitchen corner.  He yanked open the right hand door and drew out a large earthenware crock.

Laura  dropped the spatula she held into the hot greasy skillet.  Her face was a mask of barely contained fury.  She rushed her husband determined to rescue all that remained of Hannibal Heyes in her life.

He eluded her grasping hands and ran to the fireplace where he dumped the entire contents of the crock into the fire.

"No!"  she  yelled frantically as she dropped to her knees in front of the hearth.   In vain she made an attempt to rescue the fragile papers with the poker.

"Humph.  If you'd put as much effort into cleaning this place and keeping these kids in line as you do mooning over that junk maybe I'd give a damn about going to work everyday and busting my ass to support you."

She pinned him with a look of pure hatred.  "If you had treated me like something other than a whore and a maid all these years maybe I'd give a damn about you and these rotten kids!  I hate you, Bradley!  Do you hear me?  I hate you!"

He scowled at her, the ugly scars on his face drawing and creating a monstrous look.  His eyes held a mixture of anger and hurt as he struggled with the venomous words his wife of thirteen years had just hurled at him.   He grabbed his hat and stormed out the front door of the small dwelling that was attached to the back of the blacksmith's shop.

The room went silent except for the sound of the eggs that were popping and burning in the skillet.  She watched helplessly as flames consumed her books and clippings.  A small hand touched her arm.  "Go away Hannah!"

Baby Hannibal started to cry.

She wanted to be alone.  She had a plan to carry out.  She was even more determined now to see it through.
"Get out!  All of you!"  she yelled over her shoulder at her children who sat quietly now, silenced by the angry words of their parents.

"We ain't had no breakfast yet, Ma.  And the baby needs his diaper cloth changed,"  Rebecca Gail said in a barely audible voice.

Laura stood and turned towards her offspring.  "I said get out," she said in a low threatening tone.   "Now!  And take the baby with you!"

All five of the oldest children hastened to the door with Rebecca Gail holding baby Hannibal and John Thomas leading little Hannah Belle.  Rarely did they listen to their mother.  Her threats were always empty.  But today something in the sound of her voice told them she meant business and it was probably best if they did as she said.  They left the small house, leaving the door slightly ajar.  A cold wind blew in from the cracked door and  swirled around her thin body causing her to shiver.  It also made the flames in the fireplace dance higher.  It didn't matter.  She didn't  need those things anymore.  Because she would have the real thing soon enough.  All it had taken was asking a few questions last night at that barn dance to learn that Hannibal Heyes was using the name Joshua Smith and he was working on a ranch in Red Rock for a man named McCreedy.

 She went to the bed she shared with her loathsome husband and reached underneath to pull out an empty carpet bag.  She began packing her belongings inside.  If all went according to plan, tonight she'd be in Red Rock with Hannibal and that little tart he thought he was in love with would be nothing but a memory for him.  She'd make him forget all about her.  If she had had a little more time last night before that interfering little trollop had come along she was sure she could have talked Hannie into leaving with her.  Hannibal Heyes was hers.  Had always been hers.  She'd spent the last ten years dreaming of him.  And now that she'd found him again she wasn't going to let anything stand in her way of realizing her dream.  Not her bratty kids, not her scarred miserable excuse for a husband and certainly not that snooty little  prudish girl he'd been with last night.

A girl wasn't what he needed.  Hannibal Heyes needed a woman.  And that uppity tease probably hadn't let him so much as feel her up.  Her frown slowly turned into a sinister grin.  Her eyes took on a devilish gleam.  Yes, she knew exactly how to lure a man like Hannibal Heyes away from her.   She began packing things in earnest.  It was a long ride to Red Rock.  She would take one of the horses and leave when Bradley came in at noon for his lunch.  The only thing that could stop her now was Hannibal Heyes himself riding into town to take her away from this miserable existence.