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By the end of the second night, her bones were so sore and aching that she hardly slept. The wind howled outside and all she wanted to think of was the warm bed at home—her bed, their bed, the marriage bed that was once so covered with hopes and blanketed with promising dreams that now it tore at her to even imagine it.
By the morning of the third day, Hannah was thirsty, hungry and chilled. Though the fire had burned through the night, her chill was not from lack of heat.
Quite unlike his wife, Daniel showed few signs of tiring of their standoff. His calm, his steadiness, his even almost pleasant disposition scared her. She wondered for a time if he’d gone mad, this scene seemed so terribly strange.
Awakening, she stretched as best she could while remaining well-bound, then allowed Daniel to untie her so he could escort her outside to the small latrine he’d built there.
Back inside the shack, a river of tears began to run down her cheeks, unbidden, warm and salty tears. They opened the door to her emotions just a crack.
Daniel noticed but seemed to pay no attention until Hannah finally shouted in desperation, “Daniel! Please!”
“Please what?”
“Please can we go home?”
He shook his head. “When you’ve told me the truth.” He waited and she didn’t speak again, so he moved to the door to fetch another armful of kindling.
“I was raped!” she shouted as he opened the door.
He turned slowly. The sound of her voice reverberated through the room. He felt like someone had stabbed him in the gut, but he remained calm.
“And what else?” he asked, his voice uncommonly gentle. He didn’t move.
“They raped me … in my ass.” She could barely look him in the eye. “You were up here I guess, checking traps, while I was paying the price for Beau’s bad debts. Jolie was there too. The men came. We tried to resist and we had our asses beaten, then the three … took me like a dog humping a bitch in heat. I wouldn’t let them take Jolie and I wouldn’t let them use my … I wouldn’t let them use what’s yours… so they used my … my ass.”
Daniel waited for more, and when she didn’t continue, he asked, “That’s all?”
“No, it’s not all,” she said spitefully. “I was tricked into going out one night—you were gone again, I don’t recall now where you’d gone. A friend of Beau’s led me into the woods where Jarrett Cain was waiting to use me again. Then he brought me back before you returned with Jolie.” She stopped again, hoping that was enough.
Daniel nodded, but he wanted more. “So what happened while I was taking Jolie to Springfield?”
Hannah gazed at him wonderingly. Did he know that something happened while he was gone, or had he simply guessed? Did it matter? She hated to even think of those terrible days at Jarrett’s ranch—it was the worst of it, and the most condemning. But the inevitability of this confession couldn’t be ignored. She started, she might as well finish.
“I wanted to protect you from this, Daniel. I see no reason to speak of this horror, but you insist.”
“I do,” he confirmed without hesitation.
“Well then… I suppose Jarrett Cain’s boys must have been watching for me. They knew you were gone and were waiting for Travis to leave. They rode in as I was on the road to town—I’d promised Travis I’d stay with Damien and April. Right there on the road, they roped me, bound me and took me to Jarrett Cain’s ranch.” She closed her eyes so she could say the rest. “I was tortured there, raped … repeatedly. I don’t even remember the number of days…three, four, I think … It might not have stopped, except my time of the month made Cain send me off. I suppose he’d had enough of me anyway. But that was it. They brought me home, but I couldn’t stay there, so I left. I found Miss Mamie’s a much better place for a ruined woman like me.”
Daniel stood solemnly and unmoving by the door while she spoke. And when she finished talking, when she had no more to say, he moved toward her and sank to the floor beside her, gathering her in his arms, where she cried softly, her head against his shoulder. “You think I’m going to judge you for what you couldn’t help, Hannah?”
“You should.”
“I should, why?”
“It should never have happened. How can you love a woman who’s been the plaything of a dozen men?”
“I can because I love you, Hannah.”
“You still love me?” She was appalled and pulled back.
“How can you ask that? I’m not that inconstant.”
“But I am no longer worthy of your love.”
“I’ll be the judge of that, Hannah Crowe. You will not renounce me. You’d be renouncing yourself and the vows you made to me. Remember… for better or worse? Well, this is the worst of it. I’d rather have you as you are than not at all. You are the same to me, nothing has changed.”
She sat up straighter and looked him in the eye. “Don’t you understand. I have changed! My heart has hardened. My loins are tainted with the dirt of those men, and my mind is stained by the disgusting memory of my own foul lust rising like some demon and taking over. Don’t you understand, I thrilled to their touch,” her eyes flashed, “I ached to have myself filled and ridden hard by those hellish men. And as if that weren’t enough by itself, when Jarrett Cain came to Mamie’s brothel, I willingly took him to my bed again. I wanted him.”
