Chapter 19

After Mary's crazy rage, Lou 's enjoyment of her companionship wore thin quickly. When he first arrived at the cabin, that very first night, he had gotten a fore taste of her special brand of strangeness. He hadn't known then, but he sure as shooting knew now. It wasn't his fever that had him hearing kind of funny. There hadn't been a soul out there with her while she bathed. There wasn't anything but sage and sand anywhere close to this God forsaken shelf perched halfway down the canyon spur. She'd been talking at voices in her head.

There'd been the times she looked out into nothing. Her eyes got dark and glassy and it was like she looked right through a person, but at the time he'd not put a lot of significance to it. Some folks have strange ways, and that's a fact. Doesn't make them crazy. She was gentle in her caring of his wounds, even if ignorant about tending hurts. Her conversations were educated. Her manners were sweet, charming even.

Mary was a right elegant young woman, no doubt about it. Being alone in the middle of nowhere, living in a falling down shack, hadn't taken that away. She was shapely and had a fine head on her shoulders, too. Mostly. It was the in-between times that were getting to him. Anytime she slipped off into one of her trances, the muscles across the back of his shoulders bunched up tight as a mule's ass. He couldn't help but expect her to set off screaming again. The lady could be down right frightening. It plain took a fair amount of effort anymore to feel at ease and enjoy the good things about her.

From the first, Lou had found himself looking at her with appreciation. She'd been looking his way too. Lou chuckled, in spite of himself. Why that one night Mary'd gotten so horny for him, she pranced around in that wet nightgown, showing off her womanly curves and nearly broke him. But then, he didn't fight her off when he came back from finding Patrick and she jumped right into his arms, either. Funny thing was, she had been frightened of him when he showed up covered in blisters, meat thin on his bones and half dead from lack of water. Maybe his bedding her had set her off. Maybe that had shaken something loose inside her. Rattled her brains, maybe. Hell, he didn't know.

Lou scratched at his beard. The lady had a way of causing him to itch, just under his skin. Right before that hell-fire fit of hers he was still feeling pretty good from their love making. She was really beginning to show how much she enjoyed being pleasured. Surprised him real good, finding out that a lady like her could turn into such an enticing little vixen in bed. The more he thought about it, though, the more he leaned towards getting out of there. There wasn't any telling when she might go off again. And there wasn't any telling what she might take it into her head to do when she did. No, he was decided. It just wasn't healthy sticking around too much longer.

Lou watched as Mary puttered around the cabin. She had begun putting little lady like touches around the place. He could give her that. She'd even made a little doily looking thing out of the lace of her petticoat and put it on the plank table. She liked to sweep the dust off the hard pack floor, then after she'd stirred it up, wipe it off the shelves and table. If she just weren't so damn crazy he'd be tempted to stay a bit longer.

The posse, his main reason for wanting to lay low after he'd healed from his injuries, would have long since given up and gone home. Of course, he knew that one a ways back. Hadn't been any real reason for leaving, until now. As long as he remained shy of any towns, he could find himself a horse and get out of this state. He decided that was what he wanted most, and he'd better do it while he still had a hide. The mule standing in the corral below them would make leaving a lot easier, but he didn't feel right about taking the animal from Mary. It wasn't her fault she was crazy as a snake bit bronc. She had nursed him to health, shared her food and her bed with him. He was a no-good, but not that much of a heel. Old Jenny was going to stay behind, even if she would get him clear a whole lot quicker.

As Mary passed close by where Lou sat next to the table, he snaked an arm around her waist. Can't leave without a good-by, Lou told himself. Besides, when he left he wanted to carry with him a fresh dose of that fire of hers. Might be a while before he got a taste of woman nice as Mary again.

Mary didn't take a lot of convincing. When Lou's arm wrapped around her, she stopped in the middle of carrying a tin coffee mug back to the dry sink and smiled in a surprised kind of way. Setting the mug on the table, she allowed him to pull her onto his lap and nuzzle his nose between her breasts. I could enjoy having this little gal at home tending the fire. It's a damn shame she acts so strange, Lou cussed to himself. Didn't make a lot of difference though. He had things to do before settling down. And the longer he stayed, the harder she was going to take his leaving.

When Mary climbed over him and got up out of bed to tend the fire he decided it was time for getting gone. Dragging out his good-by wasn't going to make it any easier. He patted the round slope of her buttocks as she passed by. "I'm going to be leaving," he announced, sitting up and reaching for his pants.

"What?" Mary whipped around to face him. "Oh my Heavens, you can't mean that." Dropping onto his bare lap, she threw her arms around him. She hung on so tightly, she nearly choked the breath clean out of him. "You don't mean that. You can't mean that. You wouldn't run off and leave me like that. We're too close for you to be going off now."

Pulling her arms loose from around his neck, he insisted. "I'm afraid its time for me to be heading down the trail. I can't be staying here. I got things to do. You'll be alright. Its not like I'm going to leave you alone out here. Soon as I get to town I'll send someone to fetch you."

Mary's face brightened and she pulled herself tight to his chest again. "Well then, take me with you."

Lou pried her arms loose once more. Gently, he moved her from his lap. He hated like Hell to be causing her such grief, but time was time.

"Say something. Tell me. Why can't you take me with you?" Mary's voice was climbing, a shrill, desperate note slipping in. "Oh God, I can't stand the thought of being left here."

Ignoring her outburst as best he could, Lou grabbed his denims and bent to pull them on. He'd heard his share of hysterical women. Mary was quickly becoming just another one of them. Damned if it didn't look as if she might go off on one of those fits. Lou sure didn't want to go through that again.

As he straightened from his bent over position, getting to his feet with the waist of his pants in his hands, she screamed, "I'll die here all alone!"

Then, without warning, Lou's world turned black.

When Lou said he was leaving, the tightness in her belly started to build again. It grew at an alarming rate. The very idea of being totally alone climbed her spine to clench her chest in a vise like grip as well. Finally the compression squeezed her very breath, and the exhale turned into a scream of hysteria.

For the second time, Lucifer took complete control. But this time his wishes reigned because of their innate rightness. Mary knew in her heart that Lucifer was her true protector.

Buried deeply, Mary could hear Mother's warnings in a veiled sort of way. She fairly twittered her aghast disbelief in Mary's delivering the striking blow to Lou's head. To Mary, Mother's worried tones were an annoying tickle. How could Mother be more concerned with Lou than with Mary, when Lou had declared his intent to abandon her own daughter? Couldn't Mother see it was Lucifer who was truly protecting Mary now. He'd warned her so many times, but she hadn't listened.

Now Mary understood. Just as every other man in her life, Lou wanted the pleasure to be his. He had tired of her. He would deny the goodness of their loving and wander off to ruin the heart of the next woman he met, regardless of the consequences to Mary. There were no options. She had to protect herself. She had to take complete control or suffer the desert's loneliness until death or demons took her.

With Lucifer talking her through every step, Mary had reached for the heavy cast iron skillet and swung. Now Mary stood over Lou's prostrate body, her eyes once again wearing that particular glaze that frequently accompanied her fits. The heavy cast iron skillet clutched in her hand, Mary's movements were leaden. First, she carefully set the skillet back in its place on the dry sink. Bending over the bed, she pulled at the tucked corners of the blanket and drug it to the floor, then rolled the limp form of the man who had played with her affections onto one edge. She left his denims hanging at his knees where they had dropped when he lost consciousness. There seemed no need to remove them. Slowly and deliberately lifting one corner of the blanket, she pulled it across Lou's bare chest and awkwardly held legs and tucked it under his body. She then rolled the unconscious man up like a moth in its cocoon, just as Lou had done to her. Without hesitation, but with continued methodical motion, she went to her trunk, lifted the latches, raised the lid, and extracted a spool of thread and a needle.

"Give him an honest return for his selfishness, we will," Lucifer spat. "You keep him trussed up like that, too. You heard him. He doesn't give a tinker's damn about you. I tell you now that he never did. He wanted your body is all. And once the taste of virgin staled, the bastard showed his true self. The fact that you still need him didn't mean a thing."

A muffled voice sounded somewhere in the background of Mary's mind, ineffectually trying to interrupt Lucifer's tirade. She stretched to make out the actual words. Even as she did so, Lucifer jumped to the front, completely blocking everything else. "You won't be hearing much from Mother for a while," Lucifer laughed, sharing his joke with Mary. "Found I can do to her what we did to Lou. Just wrapped her up and shoved her away."

Mary's brow knit. It seemed unfair that Mother's disagreement with Lucifer caused her to be locked away. But then, she nodded her head, her blank eyes seeing the wizeness of Lucifer's actions. Mother's concern with propriety had overtaken her concern for her own daughter. Just as Lou must learn his own concerns would not be tolerated when they had the power to destroy Mary, Mother must learn her place.

"Yes, Mary. You are beginning to understand. You must come first. Your needs, your desires, your safety comes first."