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Episode Six of The Robin Hood of the Range
But as he rode out of the barn, Cates couldn’t resist the urge to
inflict more pain. He carefully rode toward Isaiah’s body, stopping several
yards away. The body of the hired hand was moving a bit. He was still alive.
“Hey Isaiah!” Ricky shouted. “I know you wanna see your friends
the Bolgers. Now, bleedin’ to death can take a long time.” He drew his six
shooter. “So, I’ll hurry along your journey.”
An explosion sounded from underneath Isaiah’s body. Despite his
fatal wound, Isaiah had managed to pull the trigger of the old scatter gun. He
had been unable to aim, but his shot didn’t completely miss its mark.
Ricky Cates yelled in pain, holstered his gun and spurred his
horse. He needed to get away from the Bolger place and find help, find another
farm or ranch where the fools believed in the Robin Hood of the Range.
Episode Six
***
“Are you listenin’ to me, girl?”
“Yes, Pa.” Cissy Runyan looked down at
the food on her plate. She always looked down when her father talked to her.
“Tomorrow afternoon, Harry McGivern is
gonna come by. He’s lookin’ to buy a horse for his boy. The kid’s got a
birthday comin’.”
“Yes, Pa.”
“I want you to pretty up and be nice to
McGivern. Show him that little buckskin we got. McGivern will say the horse
looks scrawny. You tell him it will only take a week or so to get more meat on
the horse’s bones.”
“Pa, if we took better care--”
Dencel Runyan grabbed his daughter’s red
hair and pulled back. He moved his face in close to hers. Cissy could smell the
whiskey on her father’s breath. “You don’t tell me how to run the ranch.
Understand, girl?!”
“Dencel, please--” Iola Runyan reached
across the table and placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder.
“You stay outta this!” The man glared at
his wife, who immediately retreated, then looked back at his daughter, tightening his grip on her hair.
“Don’t never talk back to me!”
“Yes, Pa.”
Dencel continued to hold on to Cissy’s
hair.
“Please Pa, let go. It hurts.”
Dencel Runyan slowly relaxed his grip,
then used his hand to grab a potato from a bowl on the table. As he cut open
the spud he glared threateningly at his daughter.
Cissy pushed her food around on the
plate for a few minutes and even managed to swallow a couple of bites before
speaking to her mother. “May I please be excused, Ma?”
“Honey, try to eat a bit more. Breakfast
is a long way off.”
“The food’s very good, Ma, but I just
ain’t hungry.”
A look of resignation came over Iola
Runyan’s face. The woman was accepting one more small defeat. All of her days
were becoming a jumble of small defeats.
“I need to get to the barn and tend to
the horses,” Cissy spoke in a soft but firm voice.
Iola
glanced at her husband who was now shoving food into his mouth, indifferent to
the two women at the table. The woman smiled weakly and nodded at her daughter.
Iola and Cissy shared a secret about the barn.
Cissy
rose from the table, quickly ignited a lantern, and headed outside. She was
anxious to get to her escape. The last time the family had gone into town, her ma
allowed her to buy a dime novel. Iola had slipped her daughter the money, which
Dencel would have wanted to be used toward a jug. Cissy had bought Ricky Cates: The Robin Hood of the Range
and, so far, had only read it once. The publication now lay beneath a pile of
hay in the barn. She was looking forward to a second read.
As she walked past a corral in bad need
of repair, the girl wondered if she would ever leave the ranch. At sixteen,
Cissy had often thought of running away, but it seemed wrong to leave her ma
alone with her pa, who was drinking more and becoming harder to live with by
the day.
When Cissy opened the barn door she
gasped in surprise and stepped back. She glanced upwards at the sky, where
clouds seemed to be playing some strange game with the moon, then she slowly
returned her eyes to the barn.
Tomorrow:
Episode Seven of The Robin Hood of the Range
