EXCERPT:

Down in the Caddo Parish marshlands, a young Indian stood in a tiny back room adjoining the butcher shop at Jake Minor’s Fish Camp. She clutched a tarnished knife handle in her fist and rested the sharp blade against the feed-sack dress draped from her shoulders and over her protruding belly. The knife, hidden in her bedding the day before, had been a tool used in butchering a hog for one of the camp’s regular customers. He had come late in the evening to pick up his pork. He had then left a steer—a steer that might hang in the smokehouse forever. Within the hour, neither she nor Jake Minor would be on hand to butcher it. She’d be gone and he’d be dead.

Her thoughts briefly touched upon the familiar face of the handsome young Mexican, Rowe...the only man she had ever trusted. Or loved. If only he could have taken her away. Now she had no choice but to continue this path.

On the other side of the rustic log wall, Jake’s skeleton key scraped inside the door lock. Shanna braced herself, each screech freezing the sweat beads bubbling from her forehead. Then came the familiar click as the brass lock slid from the doorjamb. In less than a moment, Jake pushed and the door sprang open.

Shanna was too terrified to move.

The flames in Jake’s icy-blue eyes flared at her through strands of straw-colored hair. Hair that circled his head like a fallen halo. Her body jerked in fear. What had she planned to do? But the knife seemed to have a mind of its own. Quick as a snap, her hand raised and the blade plunged into flesh covering Jake’s heart.

Vacantly, she watched blood spew from his hairy chest like muddy water from a broken dam. For an instant, a scene of the Red River flashed through her mind. Her father, mother and brother had camped along its shore. That day, she was nabbed and brought to Jake’s place by a terrorizing group of masked horsemen.

“You...c-crazy...sq-squaw,” Jake stammered, barely able to speak. He stumbled, his white hairy arms reaching for her.

Her body seemed still, yet she felt herself backing into a crate box used for a nightstand in the dim room. Her focus stayed glued on the one who had owned her half her sixteen years. Now, she watched the scene unfold: the fat man gasped, his white stare rolling over something on the dingy plank ceiling above her. And then—WHUMP!—his belly smacked hard onto the dank floor, humping twice before it sank to a final climax.

“Jake Minor is dead now,” she whispered, her unsure words bouncing from the four walls encasing her. Her psyche spun in and out of the scene. She stared at the bloody knife in her trembling hand. At the body lying on the floor alongside the narrow unmade bed where she had lain awake most of the night comprehending freedom. Now this panorama was surely a nightmare, even though she had accomplished this mission many times in her dreams. Jake Minor was an evil man, and death became him. Getting a grip on herself, her mind settled somewhat and she inched closer to Jake’s motionless body. There had been so many nights over the last eight years she had wanted to destroy this bad man. And now that she had, she was mystified. She must run away from this Caddo Lake marsh, from this parish, from all Louisiana without hesitation. She must find the main stream of the Red River and follow it north through the Arkansas backlands, and then northwest to the Land of Indians.

She watched as blood slowly formed a pool around Jake’s lifeless body. His obese lard-white trunk was now splattered with maroon, the muscles in his big arms useless to fight, and the thick pee-stained underwear covering his buttocks and legs now darkened with blood and muck. She had seen Jake passed out many times, but always from his consumption of too much corn-mash rather than death. During some of his blackouts, she had run away but had never made it out of the marshlands. Times when Jake had slept through her absence, his outlaw and whisky-making friends had hunted her down and brought her back like a trapped animal. After a painful flee attempt last winter, she had become too frightened to try again. Rather than for herself, she now considered the destiny of the seed ready to sprout from her womanhood.

Shanna put her hand to her stomach. “Soon you will be safe Little Soul.”

Unexpectedly—was it stomping on the plank porch outside the store? And then the cowbell on the screened door dinged as somebody entered. Heavy boots jarred the soft pine floor so the joists cracked. Shanna slapped her knife-filled fist over her mouth.

Run, she told herself. She peered wide-eyed around the cluttered room. There was no exit. The only door led to the storefront. And Jake had nailed wooden bars over the window opening after her last escape attempt.

Her body stiff, she analyzed the knife in her hand, the body on the floor, and the four walls penning her in like a bound swine in a slaughterhouse. She saw two, now four, now numerous broken images of her life, of this room, of Jake zapping here and there. These fragments seemed to keep time with the thump of boot heels stamping through the storefront.

She had killed one man today. She really didn’t want another notch on her knife, but should the intruder be one of Jake’s Raider Outlaws there surely would be trouble.
Bert, from way down in the parish, was due in next week. Perhaps he had come for his meat early. But Bert’s steer was hanging in the smokehouse and yet to be butchered. He would know that.

“Minor, you here? Might as well show your face.”

Oh no! The demanding voice jarred Shanna like a lightening bolt.

Oh my Ayimat Caddi, she cried silently, and more to herself than to the Great Spirit. Why had this bad man returned? Yesterday, he and Jake had done business, trading guns, animal skins and whisky. It wasn’t like one to return so soon.

“Minor,” he called again. “You held out on me. You still owe me.”

Shanna trembled at his words, then the silence, and then the ruffle of products being shuffled about over store shelves.

“You here Minor? Better come on out. I’m taking what you owe me with or without your presence. Come on out if you’re not too drunk. Else I might take the wrong stuff.”

His boot heels clunked louder on the plank flooring. Then Shanna heard his stepping onto the gray slate surrounding the black cast-iron stove. She heard the soup ladle sloshing in the crock-pot. The thick aroma of day-old gumbo steam and the shocking taste of human blood blended in her nostrils. Gagging, she refused to vomit, and swallowed the sour matter bubbling in her throat.

The intruder sipped and slurped loudly.

This time she heaved, and everything inside her flew from her mouth and scattered with the bank of blood. She held her hand to her chest and hoped the man in the next room had not heard the commotion.

As seconds passed, blood flowed less and less from underneath Jake Minor. Suddenly, Shanna’s gaze fell to the sticky dark liquid now oozing like a nightmare underneath the door.

Maybe he won’t see, she told herself

Holding the weapon in front of her, Shanna crept toward the doorway. And then a sound like that of shuffling echoed through her head. He was searching for something.

She clutched the knife handle so tightly that sweat dripped from her hand. Be brave, she told herself. She stepped to the side and pulled open the door just enough to peep at the goings on in the storefront.

Guns. He’s taking Jake’s gun, she observed, then she quickly pushed the door shut.

She must have made some sort of noise during this quick maneuver. She caught her breath as the familiar man paused suddenly then tromped across the storefront.“Why you hiding in there, Squaw Girl?” he questioned roughly. “What you hiding from me?”

Unable to dismiss the hard knot tightening in her gut, she quickly positioned her body to serve as a door prop. Perhaps he would think Jake was bedding her and would leave.

“Where’s Minor?” he questioned, his voice louder as he neared.

“Jake’s in my bed,” she answered, her speech wavering with the lie.

Sudden laughter penetrated the log walling and filled the tiny room like a whoop of bad breath.

“Jake’s in my bed,” she said, more nervously than before.

“Let me in Squaw Girl.” He paused, and laughed. “Minor’s not apt to bed you. Not ’til you drop that papoose. It’s beneath him,” he said, his sarcastic voice generating chills to crawl like cold wiggling worms down her spine. She knew this man who did trading with Jake. She knew him too well and he frightened her.

“Come on, Squaw Girl, open up,” he coached. “I don’t aim to hurt you.”

She said under her breath, You hurt me many times. She recalled episodes of torture at Jake’s selling her to his evil customers, including this man. He had pinned her down and covered her mouth with his strong hand during his horrifying demands. Her cries had been silent through these excruciatingly painful ordeals.

“Come on, Squaw Girl.”

Motionless, Shanna waited for whatever was to come. “Holy damn!” the man said, his voice shockingly louder. “What you doing in there? Where’s all this blood coming from?”
Shanna looked downward. In wonder, she focused on the immobile body and the blood leaching from underneath it.

How much blood runs through one man’s heart? Doesn’t a human stop bleeding when he dies? Animals do.

“Where’s Minor?” The voice was more demanding now. “Squaw Girl, I’m talking at you. Where’s Jake Minor?”

Her eyes moved from Jake’s big frame to her own dainty fist still holding the deadly weapon. The scene clearly detailed the horrid reality. She had killed the brawny man. She had killed Jake Minor. He was white. She was squaw. She would hang for this. Her life didn’t matter much, but what about the innocent soul more than eight new moons in her belly?

“Open this door or I’m knocking it in on you,” he commanded. Then paused. “You do something to Minor? You surprise me Squaw Girl.” There was a brief silence, then a laugh. “Minor shoulda known you’d do him in sooner or later.” He paused again, and laughed again.

“Please, just leave me be.”

“Not on your life, Squaw Girl. Might as well open the door. I know what’s happened in there. You probably killed Minor in his sleep.” Shanna cringed at the heavy breathing coming right through the door. “I’m not going anywhere Squaw Girl.”

Shanna’s own breaths came in short gasps, but the air around her swarmed like attacking bees.

“There’s a bunch of mean men on their way here right now. Minor’s outlaws are coming. They aim to ride today.” He spoke precisely and slowly. “What they apt to do to you Squaw Girl? When they see this blood? Whoo-oo, they’ll be pissed. Whoo-oo. Minor’s outlaws won’t be a liking this a’tall. Not a’tall.” Again, he laughed.

“They ’bout twenty minutes behind me,” he went on, dragging his words like a sick puppy, as if he were waiting for his statement to catch up. “Now open the door and let’s make us a deal.” He waited. “You need me Squaw Girl. I can help you, you know.”

Shanna gazed at Jake, and then at the knife. She had fought men all her life and had always lost, except this time. Finally, yet much too late, she had gotten the best of Jake Minor. Now the time had come to scrap again. Could she fight this man and win? At the moment, there was only one thing to do. She moved from the door just as her intruder pushed it open.

Obviously stunned at the scene, the tall thin man paralyzed. His appearance was more like a tall oak carving than human. He began to rub the couple day’s growth of black whiskers protruding his thin jaws and chin. He took in the scene for moments that seemed like hours, and then he pushed his hands into the pockets of his gray linen jacket.

His jet-black pupils peered from the bloody mess on the floor to Shanna’s dark eyes. “Looks like you’re in a pickle barrel, Squaw Girl” His thick brows lifted. “Guess its up to me what happens to you now.”