Chapter 2
The Thunderbird's high-pitched purr turned into a low growl as the rutted dirt road suddenly was surrounded by buildings and they were in Devil's Bend; a growl as though the sleek car resented its surrounding and preferred the open road.
Mark did too, for that matter, but he was still interested in the town. It was very small-a community of perhaps five hundred people, he estimated, with no more then half a dozen homes that really justified the term. The other dwelling places were dilapidated, weather-beaten shacks leaning at various angles of weariness and futility.
The balance of the Devil's Bend picture was in character; small, dirty, naked children played in the dust and dirt of the street. Slovenly women sprawled on steps and in squeaking rockers. Equally slovenly men took indolent ease on the benches and steps of the single business street. Had Mark wanted to be polite, he would have described the town as backward, which would have been a term of great tact and understatement.
He moved the Thunderbird forward very slowly, fearful that one of the urchins would suddenly dart into his path. Every eye within range glued itself to this extraordinary arrival and Mark interpreted his welcome as cautious and guarded-not as yet wishing to label it downright hostility.
He turned in beside a dun mule that could not have cared less and stared through the windshield at four lounging men who stared silently back.
Mark opened the door and got out, his movement matched by one of the men-huge, fat, dirty-who got up from what was probably a specially constructed chair and took three heavy steps forward.
"Good morning," Mark said.
"Morning." The return greeting was not spoken unpleasantly, but before giving it, the fat man glanced down at his own shirt upon which a five-pointed star proclaimed him County Sheriff. The gesture was either a warning or the man's own reassurance that the star hadn't been left home on the dresser.
"I'm Mark Hanes. I was just passing through, and-"
"That's a goddam lie."
He blinked and turned his eyes on the slat-thin man still seated who made this observation-made it in such a matter-of-fact, not-necessarily-hostile tone that Mark was definitely thrown off balance.
As he groped for words, the fat man spoke softly but with clear mockery in his voice. "What Fred means, mister, is that nobody just passes through Devil's Bend. The town is so blamed far from nowhere that you almost got to be looking for it. Nobody just passing through would pass anywhere near here."
Mark laughed as a concession to Fred's astuteness. This pleased Fred and he grinned. The village half-wit, possibly, Mark thought.
"As a matter-of-fact, I met a girl who recommended the country to me."
"A girl? I don't rightly remember any-"
"A girl named Carol Rice."
The fat man's mouth sneered openly. "Oh, her. She came in with a drummer that sells Bart's store. She stayed a while, God knows why, and worked for Sis Bennett in her restaurant."
"She was a tramp," Fred observed.
Mark felt heat under his color but saw no sense in defending a girl who was now merely a name and a memory-a lip smacking memory perhaps, for some of these men.
"She told me about the Devil's Bend country, so I looked on a map and came down this way."
"What's your purpose, mister?"
The sheriff's voice was still soft but his mouth shifted a trifle to reveal both suspicion and cruelty. Mark strove to control his annoyance. "The name is Mark Hanes," he repeated. "I'm a painter. I'm looking for scenes that lend themselves well to a brush."
"I'm Able Tate, Sheriff of Devil's Bend County. It's my job to keep the peace. I greet strangers when they come, which ain't very often." He paused to smile, a gesture no doubt meant to show cordiality, but all it did was heighten Mark's certainty that here was a cruel, ruthless man. "Welcome, stranger," Able Tate paid.
"Thank you."
"Staying long?"
"I really don't know. Tell me-can I travel the roads hereabouts in my car or will I have to make hiking trips out into the country?"
Able Tate turned toward his three cohorts as though in silent consultation. The slat-shaped man called Fred feaid, "Ain't many places you could turn that buggy around," and the other two seated savants agreed with solemn nods.
"Fred's right," Able Tate said. "If you want to gamble on meeting a team and wagon and figuring out what to do when it happens, all right."
Mark's logical question was, what happened when two teams met each other. But he held his peace, feeling the men might interpret that as argumentative. "Perhaps I'll risk a little exploration," he said. "And now I wonder if you could recommend a restaurant."
"Ain't but one. Sis Bennett's place. That's where your little friend worked." Able Tate pointed with a thumb and Mark followed it to regard a tumbledown building that looked a peril to life and limb.
"Sis Bennett sets a good table." Fred said, and for some reason Able Tate decided to introduce the man. "Fred Kelp," he said.
As he was turning away, Mark was struck by the tone of respect in Able Tate's words. Or was it fear? Mark paused long enough to say he was glad to know Fred Kelp, and moved off toward the restaurant. As he walked he felt many eyes upon him-a community gaze almost strong enough to lean against....
Sis Bennett proved to be an erect, cold lady of uncertain age, but as thin and dried-up as the bacon she served Mark along with his eggs.
She had little to say before the meal or while Mark was eating, but as he sipped the jet-black brew that passed as coffee, she said, "I hear you knew the girl that stopped off here for a spell and worked for me."
Trying at the moment to ward off strangulation, Mark could only nod as he downed the double-barreled brew.
"No better than she ought to be, if you ask me," Sis Bennett sniffed.
"I wasn't really acquainted with her," Mark said. "She was walking on the road, I gave her a lift."
Sis Bennett may have decided at that moment that Mark was no better than he ought to be, either. "Those leggy huzzies. Flaunting their lures before men. Just like those Jezebels out at Peace Haven."
"Peace Haven?"
"That outrageous cult over in Gilpin Valley where they walk around practically naked."
"I hadn't heard about it," Mark said diffidently. But obviously this was the cult Carol Rice had referred to. "A religious group?"
"That's what they claim," Sis Bennett said with a derisive sniff. "One of their ministers tried to give a street sermon here in Devil's Bend one day and they chased him out in a hurry you can bet. Standing there in that ridiculous white sheet spouting about peace and love and purity."
"Devil's Bend wasn't interested?"
She completely missed the sarcasm in Mark's question. "They sure weren't. Not his brand of love. We got our own ideas of right and wrong here in Devil's Bend."
Mark had enough. Perhaps if he stayed long enough, a possibility he was beginning to doubt, he could buy some outdoor equipment and do his own cooking out in the woods.
"How much do I owe you?"
"Dollar and a quarter," Sis Bennett said acidly.
Mark paid the check and wondered, as he left, what pleasure there was in being eternally sour.
He made a few short sorties into the woods that afternoon, hoping that Constable Tate would not let the town small fry loot his car by way of curiosity.
And he found that Carol Rice, whatever her inclinations and background, had an instinctive eye for beauty.
At one point he forced his way through a thicket and came out on a stone promontory that gave off over a long, lush valley. It was breathtaking. He had never before seen such shades of green. Down the center of the valley a phenomenal haze gave the illusion of a phantom river winding through a bed of richer green. He wondered if he would ever be able to duplicate the coloring.
He stayed on the promontory until sunset and for the first time, in his old life, the traumatic marriage with Candy, the Greenwich Village madness, seemed far away and unreal. Perhaps, he thought, peace of mind was beginning to come.
He returned to the ramshackle town and spent the night on one of Sis Bennett's corn shuck beds. It seemed that in addition to selling bad food she also ran a hotel of sorts--a place equipped even with a lantern to keep you from killing yourself on the way to the outhouse in the dead of moonless nights....
But sunrise the next morning made it all worthwhile. Mark observed it from the window of his room, a blaze of flaming glory that made his hand itch for a brush.
He left without breakfast, got into the car, and pointed it along a winding road that led in the general direction of the valley he'd seen from the promontory.
He discovered as he drove that the men of Devil's Bend had somewhat exaggerated the narrowness of the roads. They were hardly the kind of thoroughfares he would have chosen, but still there were many places to pass.
This seemed hardly necessary, though, because he met no one. At ten o'clock he stopped to empty a spare can of gas into the tank. He made other stops, ready to take out his easel and brushes, but always moving on in the hope of something more interesting. But he encountered not a single person nor even an animal.
Then, his eye wandering, he stopped suddenly and looked down into the valley below where his eyes caught movement. There were forms down there, people obviously, but too far away to even identify as male or female. The movement was such as would indicate running instead of walking and he watched for a while, not really paying much attention.
But a sharp movement of one of the runners focused his attention and he reached back for his binoculars. They were extremely powerful, fine navy binocs, sixteen power and carefully made.
He focused them and brought the scene below to within fifty feet of the car.
And got the shock of his life because three men were chasing a girl.
The girl had been trapped in a comparatively open area, a sort of lawn where only a few bushes broke the flat contour. The girl was young. She could not have been more than twenty, Mark judged. She was indisputably beautiful. Deeply tanned, her long, slim legs flashed as she dodged the outstretched hands of one of the men and came to bay with her back to one of the thicker bushes.
She wore a low-cut blouse and a skirt that had been ripped from hem to waist in two places and was thus little more than pieces of flapping cloth. As she turned and dodged, the torn skirt revealed luscious thighs as richly tanned as the lower part of her legs and the neck and bosom not covered by the skimpy blouse.
Also, one quick twist of her body momentarily uncovered the mark of rich, lush, brunette womanhood that proved her naked under the skirt.
In spite of himself, Mark felt a quick quiver of excitement as the action unfolded.
At that moment, the girl crouched on the alert, for all the world like a beautiful, healthy young animal-Mark was reminded of a graceful doe-trapped by a dog pack.
There was fear in her face, a face as arrestingly beautiful as the exciting body below it; fear and what might have been termed as a kind of resignation.
The three young men who formed Mark's fanciful dog pack were of a cut. Sloppily dressed as had been all the Devil Bend men Mark had seen. Their expressions were also identical. Grins and sneers, looks of lustful anticipation.
As Mark stared, the three moved in closer, the girl crouched to spring away when the time came to try to save herself again.
As Mark scowled through the binocs, realizing the drop from the road was too sharp to go to the girl's aid, one of the men lowered his hand, deepened his leer, and made an incredibly obscene pumping gesture against his body.
The girl's lip twisted in disgust. Then one of the men lunged in and almost got his hands on her. She dodged away and ran to another thick bush and the performance was again to be repeated. But the man was now holding the front half of her skirt and she was naked from the breasts down.
The girl was closer to being taken now. Actually, she had moved into a tighter trap and the three men were so confident that one of them laughed as he tauntingly exposed himself while the other two laughed hugely at the filthy action.
The girl's eyes widened as they saw what the action revealed. Instinctively, she crouched lower, cringed away, and pressed her knees tight together.
This reaction was her downfall because at that moment, one of the men lunged in, got a hand on her arm, and she was lost.
She reacted to this instantly, kicking and clawing like a beautiful wildcat. He got behind her to escape punishment from her finger nails and wrapped his arms around her waist. Grinning, he lifted her and the other two roared with laughter as they moved close from either side and she reared high and kicked out at them in either direction.
The added female charm this revealed made Mark gasp and he thought of Candy's last lustful, alluring, posture there on the bed back in New York.
But Candy was only a passing thought. What was taking place below was immediate and real. The man holding the slim, bronzed brunette carried her to the center of the open area. There, trapped by the three who stood in a circle around her, she was put down, again much like a doe encircled by three watching dogs.
But there was no pleading. Again she stood on the alert, crouched and ready to spring away. Except that now there was no direction in which to go. The circle was too small.
The girl turned slowly seeking a way out. As her back came around to one of the men, he stepped forward, his extended hand moved in a jabbing motion low down, and Mark's mouth dropped open at sight of such callous, cruel, obscene treatment of a helpless girl.
He saw the girl's eyes pop wide and her lips twist into a yelp of pain. He stared as the man followed her stiff-legged, clumsy forward hop-her reaction to the savage indignity. Her body arched from the hips and she reached instinctively backwards to fend off the vicious thrust.
Her action almost incapacitated one of the men from laughter. Obviously he thought this one of the funniest things he had ever seen.
The girl, in three agonized hops, got clear of the man's abusive hand and tried to dodge past the exposed tormentor. In odd clarity, Mark saw her eyes flash down at the obscene exposure as she moved past him.
Instantly the man stopped laughing, caught her in an outstretched arm and carried her, kicking, screaming, and struggling, a few steps backward.
This inadvertently brought him to a low bush which obstructed Mark's view of the place where the man threw the girl heavily to the ground.
Mark stiffened in indignation. Again he looked at the steep descent from the edge of the road into the valley. Perhaps he could make it. With a rope, he would certainly have no trouble.
But to his eternal shame, as he remembered it later, he was held a little longer by the spectacle he was witnessing through his binoculars. The bush was perhaps two feet high and the man had thrown the girl close against it on the other side.
Mark could see the man's head and shoulders and upper torso as he went down, obviously to his knees, over the girl. Her legs came up, spread wide as she kicked at him desperately, but merely flailed the air.
The man must have been holding her arms against the ground as he grinned down at her because the legs continued to thresh, much to the amusement of the other two men who had moved to vantage points and were looking down at the struggle.
Then Mark saw the girl's attacker seize her ankles and push them even wider apart and put forward leverage on them. One of the observers had gone to one knee, now, and was peering behind the bush at what this revealed. His reaction to what he saw was disgusting in that he looked up at the other observer, leered evilly, and licked his lips in appreciation.
Mark could see the girl's feet and lower ankles extending above the top line of the bushes approximately in the same location of her head-or where her head had to be.
Then the man lowered himself upon her and the story could be read in the straining movements of the girl's feet. The man's back could be seen rising and falling in rhythmic movement, the girl's legs straining each time it disappeared.
Mark, the rope and the road edge forgotten, sat staring, half-hypnotized by the even movement of the man's body.
This went on for several minutes, the girl's feet at times strained backward out of sight. The two observers were both hunkered down now, watching the rape closely, their faces a picture of concentrated lust.
Then the action quickened. The man's grip on the girl's ankles loosened and his hands dropped away. But the feet and ankles strained backwards of their own volition.
Mark's subconscious threw another memory picture up into his mind-the time when, drunk and wild, he had locked Candy's legs back over her head and under the rod in the headboard of the bed and then sat back and laughed at her struggles.
A wave of guilt swept him and he banished the picture. At that moment a high-pitched scream from the girl below, the first sound that had reached the high road, signalled an end to that particular attack, and Mark sprang from the car. As he did so, the man arose from behind the bush and staggered away. His place was instantly taken by a second man.
Desperately, Mark dug into the back seat and found the rope he'd brought along on the advice of the travel guide he consulted about routes.
He looked around for a place to attach it and found none. There was only the Thunderbird itself. For a few moments, he considered the risk of leaving the car there in the road. Then the ridiculousness of such a consideration while a girl was being raped down below came to him forcibly and he attached the rope to the axle of the Thunderbird.
From this point on he could pay no attention to the action in the valley below. He was too busy with the steep descent. The wall down which he moved was jagged and dangerous. He got two nasty bruises, at times he had to stop and hang precariously from the rope in order to get his breath.
Finally he reached the bottom and found himself in a thick, wide area of almost impassable undergrowth. He orientated himself and began struggling away from the wall.
The light for clearance took a good ten minutes and he breathed a sigh of relief as he came out of the underbrush and had nothing but open grassland between him and the scene of the savage rape.
But it had taken too long. As he ran into the open park and dodged through the bushes to reach his goal, he saw that the men had finished with their fun and departed.
Only the girl remained.
She lay where they'd left her. When she disappeared behind the bush, she'd been wearing a waist but even that was now gone and she was completely naked.
When she saw Mark, the fear returned and her eyes asked, Have you come to do it to me too?
The look tore at Mark's heart. "It's all right," he said, and he quickly took off his jacket and spread it over her.
She had been cringing away but now, her eyes questioningly upon his, she seemed to relax. Instantly, her nakedness came into her mind and she pulled the lower edge of the jacket down slightly.
"Are you all right?" Mark asked. The words seemed stupid and inane in his own ears. Of course the girl was not all right, any idiot could see that.
But she seemed grateful for his interest or perhaps for the sympathy in his voice and the safety it indicated. She dropped her eyes and as she did so, a bitterness came into them. A bitterness also reflected in her voice as she said, "Don't worry about me, mister. I'll survive. I'm used to it."
Mark stared in consternation. "Used to it! My God-"
Again she looked at him-as though really seeing him for the first time. "You're new around here, aren't you?"
"I was just driving through. My name is Mark Hanes. I'm an artist and I'm looking for something to-"
"To paint?" she cut in. "Why did you come out here to this ugly country?"
"Ugly? I'd hardly say that. Why, it's beautiful. The trees, the hills, the valleys-"
"Maybe it looks that way to you. But I don't think any place is any more beautiful than the people in it."
"You're very beautiful," Mark said and was immediately embarrassed by his own words. They seemed out of place. It was inane, complimenting a girl who had just been cruelly raped.
It seemed to please her however. He noted this as he smiled and covered the awkward situation with a show of briskness. "I'll gather up your clothes," he said. "Then we'll go to Devil's Bend and report this outrage to the sheriff."
"No. We can't do that."
Mark, reaching out to pick up the remnants of her skirt, turned back in a slow double take. "In heaven's name-why not?"
"The Prophet says we must bear persecution in silence."
"Look, I don't know who The Prophet is, but this is hardly persecution. This was a felony. Men are hung for this crime. We'll go to the sheriff."
"He wouldn't do anything."
"What do you mean? Of course he'll do something. You have a witness. I'll identify the men."
"They were Kelps."
"I don't care who they were. I'm only interested in the fact that they're dangerous criminals."
Mark had gathered up her torn clothing and she was dressing after a fashion. "The sheriff hates us. He won't do anything."
Mark had not been able to accept what she'd been saying. Now, realizing she was serious, he forgot about her nudity-forgot everything but the monstrousness of what she was telling him. He did not explode, however. Characteristically, he paused to choose his words and then said, "Let's get this straight. You say that the Sheriff of Devil's Bend Country would refuse to act in the face of a witnessed rape?"
"They were Kelps."
"What's that got to do with it?"
"The Kelps are a big and powerful clan. Sheriff Tate is afraid of them. But that's only one part of it. Sheriff Tate hates Peace Haven. He and the rest of them don't understand us and so they hate us. That's the way it is with some people. They hate what they don't understand."
"That's ridiculous. The law is the law. The sheriff is sworn to uphold it."
She was dressed now, the torn skirt and blouse revealing more of her beautiful body than it hid. But Mark could not have been less interested.
"But none of that matters," she said. "The Prophet forbids us to resist or complain about persecution."
They appeared to be back where they started, so it seemed to Mark like a good time to ask, "By the way, you didn't give me your name."
"Patience White."
"And I assume you're from the place called Peace Haven."
"That's right. I've been there for three years. I have another year to stay."
"You mean you are forced to stay?"
"I signed the paper. It was better than prison."
"There's a lot here I don't understand, but we'll get to that later. What I'm interested in now is reporting a crime." Patience held up a hand, but he dismissed it with a gesture. I'll make the complaint myself." He paused. "I think you said something about being used to it. That means it's happened before?"
"Yes."
"Are you telling me this is a common thing?"
Patience was trying to tie two threads together so that her beautiful breasts would be more adequately covered. "The Prophet says persecution is ever with us."
In exasperation Mark took her by the shoulders, turned her around and looked into her eyes. "This Prophet of yours-whoever he is. Does he actually know that you've been waylaid by this scum. Waylaid and raped?"
"The Disciple knows. He alone speaks with The Prophet on such subjects."
"And who is The Disciple?" Before Patience could answer, Mark again waved his hand. "Oh, don't bother to tell me. I'll find that out in due time. How far are you from Peace Haven?"
"It's two miles down the valley."
"Can I drive you there?"
Patience looked up toward the Thunderbird. "I can get home all right. I'll walk straight down the valley." She looked around. "Where is my basket?"
"I came down here to pick berries. That's why I was so far from Peace Haven."
Mark saw it-a wicker basket with the berries spilled out. He gathered them up and put the basket in her hand. "I think I can find Peace Haven all right after I have a talk with Sheriff Tate."
"I wish you wouldn't. It will do no good."
"There's something wrong with your thinking," Mark said decisively. "I don't usually meddle in other people's affair's but this is different. There's some kind of a deep, festering boil here-that's how this thing impressed me-and somebody's got to stick a knife into it and see what comes out."
"You will only find trouble. All those who resist persecution find grief and trouble."
"That may be," Mark said, "but it looks to me as though you've found grief by not resisting it...."