THE HAND OF GOD

PART SIXTEEN:

Elizabeth had tried to get off the horse several times and Tommy was forced to tie her hands together, tie her to the horse. She rode in a daze, consumed with her last sight of Ben's eyes.

He knew this Indian who was taking her away, had made some sort of deal with him. They were going to kill him. In her place, they would kill him. She thought she'd borne unbearable sorrow before, thought she'd endured unendurable pain. But this was beyond that. She rode in absolute silence, unable to express a single sound. Inside, her soul was cracking and groaning and the noise of it was so loud nothing she could create with her mouth would be heard above it anyway.

Tommy led her away all afternoon and into the night before making camp. He seemed disturbed, wouldn't talk to her, wouldn't explain anything. Taking the rope that trailed from her bound hands, he tied it to a small tree and lay down across it so if she attempted to get to the tree, he'd be awakened. He turned his back to her, dismissing her, and went to sleep.

He'd not offered her a blanket and she sat, hugging her knees, shivering, thinking of Ben. Finally, exhausted, she tipped over on her side as close to the little campfire as she dared, and slept.

She woke just before dawn, shaking from cold, and sat up again, pulling her hands completely up into her jacket sleeves. The Indian was still asleep. Where was he taking her? And why? What had Ben said to him that would make him do this? Turning her head, she looked back the
way they'd come. How far? How far was she from Ben? She looked again at the man, narrowing her eyes. She would go no further. No matter what, she would not put more distance between her and Ben. Getting to her knees, she felt around in the dim light, finding a rock about the size
of an apple. "Forgive me," she breathed, bringing it down with both hands on his temple, praying she hadn't killed him. All she wanted was that he not follow her too soon.

She sat back, watching a small trickle of blood drip down the Indian's cheek, over his nose. Bile rose up her throat and she leaned quickly, checking to see if he were alive. He was and she sat back, dizzy with relief. Shaking her head to clear it, she felt at his belt, pulling out his knife
and cutting the ropes around her wrists. Greyfeather's pony was loosely tethered, dozing nearby. She took a blanket from Tommy, some dried meat, a chunk of flatbread, and a canteen, putting the bit of food in Ben's saddlebags. She also kept the knife and the rifle. Finally she took the rope and tied his hands and ankles, figuring he'd be able to get loose from her unprofessional knots, but that it might take him a while, and then she covered him with another blanket. He moaned and rolled onto his back, so she took his horse, too, letting it go several miles down the trail.

The dawn was beautiful, all lavender and soft peach, the colors merging, melding, changing tone as the sun came up. She was angry with it. How could it be so glorious...today? She was glad when simple blue took over and the early beauty was gone. Her teeth bit down into her lower lip as she rode, her heart encased in a cold wrapping of dread.

It was late in the afternoon before she approached the area where her hut was. She dismounted behind a large pile of rocks and, clutching the rifle, moved as soundlessly as possible toward it. She had no idea what she would do if the six Indians were still there, none at all. All she knew was that she had to get there, had to see if they'd taken Ben away or if he was still there. As she came around the rocks and paused, peering at the hut, she saw that the Indian ponies were gone. Was that bad or good? Was Ben gone, too? She looked carefully around, seeing no traces of them, then hurried to the doorway, bursting through it, Ben's name on her lips. Nothing. What had she thought, that he'd be sitting in the chair, that he'd be lying on the pallet, his arms extended to welcome her? "Stupid...stupid!" she muttered.

There were splotches of blood on the pallet blankets, but she remembered those from Greyfeather. The hut looked much the same. There'd really been nothing worth the Indians taking. They probably just wanted to get Greyfeather back to his father. "Ben," she sighed, "where ARE you?" 

She remembered all too clearly her last sight of him, knocked to his knees by the sudden blow. She closed her eyes. They meant to kill him. If they had, wouldn't they just have left him there outside the hut? Going out the door, she gazed intently over every place in sight, then began
walking off to the right around a bend where there was another huge area of tumbled boulders, mumbling frantic prayers as she went.

She didn't have to go far before she found him. Stopping in her tracks, she stared, paralyzed briefly by the sight. He lay on his back, curved over a large rock, arms and legs tied spread-eagled. Oh...God! Maybe they'd just left him like that to die? Maybe he was still alive? Sucking
in a huge lungful of air, she ran toward him, calling his name over and over. He was several feet up from the ground and she had to clamber over some neighboring rocks to get near him.

"Ben?"  Her hands trembled over his chest. "Ben?"

His head was tipped to the side, his lips parted, and she received no answer from him. "Oh... Ben," she moaned, letting her hands rest on him. His vest was sticky and she pulled her hands away, looking in horror at his blood. She turned his face a little, but it lolled back. Finally her
fingers went to his throat and she gasped with relief. His heart was still beating!

Sliding back to the ground, she used Tommy's knife to cut the ropes binding his ankles, then she clambered back up, stretching and straining to reach the ropes around his wide-spread wrists. As she cut the last rope, he began to slide off the rock. She grabbed his right arm, trying to
lower him more slowly, but he was too heavy and the rock too smooth. With a small cry, she felt him slipping out of her grip. He hit the ground feet-first and simply crumpled into a heap at the base of the boulder.

As fast as she could, she made her way down to him, flinging herself to her knees beside him, crying, trying to straighten him out. When she had his limbs arranged better, she sat down, pulling his head and shoulders high onto her lap. Tears dripping down her cheeks, she smoothed
his hair back from his face, grimacing at the fresh bruises and cuts that covered it. "Oh, Ben," she moaned, "what have they done to you, what have they done?"

Reaching down she unbuttoned his vest and shirt, spreading them apart. His lower abdomen

was soaked in his own blood. Somehow she'd managed not to lose her shawl and she bundled it up, stuffing it down his undershirt, pressing on it with both hands, overwhelmed with a sense
of utter helplessness to save him. In her despair, she began rocking back and forth with him,

just pressing and rocking.

Some time later the barest moan escaped his lips. "Ben!" she whispered, leaning close to his ear. "I'm here, Ben. It's LizzieBess and I'm here now."

The tip of his tongue came out just enough to lick his lips a bit. "L..Liz...Bess?" he rasped.

"Yes, Ben, it's me. I've got you now. I've got you in my arms. Can you feel them, Ben, can you feel my arms?"

He moaned and moved his legs a bit as pain enveloped him. "L...Lizz...Bess," he tried again. "Tom...Tommy...he was takin' you...takin' you away...for me."  He opened his eyes all the way, the shadows of suffering darkening their green.  "You...you...shouldn't be...shouldn't be...here."

"I am here, Ben. I couldn't leave you. I had to...."

"Saddle...saddlebags, LizzBess? You still got...my saddlebags?"

"Yes, Ben. I brought them with me."

"Good," he sighed, closing his eyes a moment, panting. "Hidden...hidden pocket. Find pocket, Lizz...LizzBess. Find pocket."

"I will, Ben, later. Not now. I'll look later when you feel better."

He opened his eyes again. "Not...you know that...LizzBess...not."

"Yes, yes, you are, Ben! You've got to, you've just got to!" Fresh tears coursed down her cheeks. "Oh, Ben, why'd you do this? Why'd you DO this?"

He managed the barest smile. "'Member, LizzBess...'member I told you it was...it was...habit formin'?" He stifled a groan. "I was...right." He almost chuckled at the morbid humor in that, but the sound escaped and turned into a moan.

His blood was soaking through her shawl and she tipped her chin up so he couldn't see her face and let the grief of it take hold of her features. She breathed through her mouth a moment, regaining control for his sake, and looked back down at him.

"I always...always said, LizzBess...that the day I died...," he let his lids close briefly, "that the day I died...I was...I was gettin' sprung from hell." He moaned again, finding it harder now to contain them. "Guess...guess...I'll be findin' out...if that's true."

"Greater love than this, Ben, greater love than this hath no man that he lay down his life for his friend."

"You think...maybe...that's enough, LizzBess?" He breathed raggedly for a while. "I...I...sure would like to...to see you again...some day."

"How much, Ben? How much would you like that?" She was sobbing openly now.

"Everything...LizzBess...means ev'ry thing."

"Enough that you could ask Him to forgive you?"

"That much...yes."

"But you'd have to mean it, Ben. You'd really have to mean it."

"If...if it'd keep me...from bein' away...away from you...I'd mean it."

"Just two words, Ben, just two words from the heart."

"Look...look...in eyes, LizzBess. Look in eyes."  She was the nearest thing to something heavenly he'd ever encountered.

She leaned close, latching her gaze onto his.  "For...forgive me."  His voice was little more than

a sigh.

Her face crumpled, completely crumpled. He was leaving. She could tell he was getting ready to go and her insides were collapsing upon each other. But he rallied to say something else. "Sa...saddlebags. Deed. For you. Place for you...ok? Every...thing...in pocket...you keep. Promise me...you keep."

"I promise, Ben, I promise."

He looked into her eyes again. "Love you, LizzieBess. Love you."

"Oh, God...I love you, Ben. Please! Oh, God...don't leave me. Please, Ben...don't...."

He gathered himself for one last word. "Kiss...."

She bent her head, taking her hands off his chest, placing one on either side of his face, placing her lips atop his. Briefly there was a returning pressure from his, then they relaxed and one long, final sigh of breath came from him into her mouth and she knew he was gone. She kept her lips there, not breathing, just holding his last breath.  She didn't want to let it go, couldn't let it go, so held and held it until she needed to breathe again herself, so she swallowed it, feeling it slide down inside her, willing it to take up residence there. The last of him she could ever take inside herself. Then a sound began, somewhere deep where mourning has its secret origins, and worked its way up her being, gathering splinters and shreds from her heart, as she clutched him tightly, rocking again, rocking and rocking, until it burst from her lips in a primeval wail of grief.

It took her what seemed like hours to scoop out a place for him near where he lay. Desperately, doggedly, she scooped with a large, thin rock, mounding the dirt into a pile to one side. He was heavy now, heavy with that solid weight that comes with death, and as she moved him she remembered bathing him so recently, his flesh warm, tingling beneath her touch. She arranged him carefully, his hands resting on his chest, his shirt and vest carefully rebuttoned. She'd
noticed his hat lying not far from the boulder and picked it up, turning it in her fingers a while before she set it atop his hands. Then she changed her mind and leaned down, taking it up again, rubbing her fingertips around its brim. "No," she said firmly, and placed it on her own head.

She sat a while, just looking down at him, not ready to cover him, not ready to have him be beneath the soil. She knew she could never scoop dirt over him as he lay, scoop dirt atop that face that meant everything to her. Finally she got up, leaving him as he was, picked up the saddlebags and went wearily back to the hut to get a blanket to cover him with. She stoked the embers, using a bit of paper to catch the fire again, and sat down at the table, unbuckling the bags.

At first she could find no secret pocket, but after much probing, her fingertips found an irregularity on one side and she lifted a cleverly-tucked flap. There were three envelopes inside, two small and one fairly large. She opened a small one first, finding a woman's ring. She had no idea what story might lie behind it, but it had been important enough to him that he'd hidden it there, so she slipped it on her finger. It was a small emerald and made her think of his eyes in

the firelight. Next she opened the other small envelope, finding the deed he'd mentioned. Her eyes skimmed down it, noting that it seemed to be for a fairly sizable piece of land just outside

of some little town named Redemption. She smiled at the word. Ben was sending her to Redemption.  That was good. She had absolutely no place to go but there.

The large envelope was filled with paper money, lots of paper money. She knew it most likely was stolen, but she had no idea from where, no way, not really, to return it. And he had made her promise to keep whatever she found in the pocket. "Oh, Ben," she sighed, resting her cheek on the saddlebag. 

Then she gathered up a blanket from the pallet and walked slowly back to the boulder. He lay with his head at the base of the huge rock and she knelt a long while, looking at him again, looking and looking, then she kissed her fingertip and leaned down, touching it to his lips. "I'll
see you again, my Ben. I WILL see you again!" 

She spread the blanket over him. It was too late to do anything about Greyfeather's bloodstains. Somehow that was fitting, anyway. Ben was dead because the Indian had died. The first few scoops of dirt she made atop the blanket almost killed her with the pain of them, but she kept
on, grimly, until the grave was filled. Then she began to gather stones, covering the dirt with them, mounding them as the sun began to set. The sound they made, the thick, dull clonk of rock upon rock would haunt her dreams for a long time to come. When the cairn was large enough
that she thought he'd be safe, she used her scooping rock to scrape out the shape of a cross on the boulder where he'd been tied. It would be his headstone. Afterwards, she knelt beside his grave, praying for a long, long time, then totally exhausted, lay beside it, pulling another blanket
over herself. She fell asleep, her hand cupped around a rock atop where he rested. In the morning she'd get on Greyfeather's pony and try to find Redemption.

ON TO "THE HEART OF GOD" SET NEARLY 8 YEARS IN THE FUTURE...

BACK TO LIBRISCROWE

BACK TO PART 15

BACK TO INDEX