Here is Chapter two. Two more to come next week.
Read Chapter 1 frirst
by patty, copyright 2003 - 2007
Connie’s sleep was deep and restful, even more so than the previous night. As her body renewed itself resting in the warm comfort of shelter and a real bed, her mind wandered through dreams. Dreams that were fueled and fed by the discoveries she’d made about the owner of the bed she slept in.In one dream, Mary sat at the table with her having tea when the man of the house came home, and the chore of explaining who she was and what she was doing there was taken care of by her gracious hostess. In another, the subject of who she was and what she was about never came up, because she was just there along side Royal traveling over rough trails with a wagon train. The terrain they crossed was familiar, flanked by snow-covered mountains and the rough rocky peaks of the saw tooth range. In her dream the same landscape that had felt so lonely and cruel when she traveled it alone, became wondrous and beautiful. Connie’s dream self took in the valleys and vistas again, and what had been imprinted as images filled with dread and discomfort, transformed and became the treasures they should have been.
A sudden hard shift in the wind blowing snow outside the cabin shook the glass in the window above Connie’s head. The sound woke her with a startle. It was daylight! She sat up and looked around the room, and quickly came back to where she was.
****************
Royal settled and groomed his horse, and took a few moments to feed and water the rest of the stock in the barn. Then, hoisting his saddlebags, that sack of goodies from his friend, the found pack filled with contraband and the IOU, he cut a path through the rapidly piling snowdrift between the barn and the cabin. The full moon that briefly illuminated his property as he arrived home had disappeared while he fed and bedded his animals. Snow was falling and the wind was picking up again. The air was markedly colder now than it had been when he was on the trail. His seasoned bones were resigned to the blizzard that was brewing. Royal was glad to be home before the storm got too bad, although he was plenty annoyed that his trip had been for nothing. Even though it had been pleasant to see Lilia and Caleb, the wasted day, the inconvenience on top of the close call with the weather added up to a hefty tab for the thieving intruder to pay.
The IOU explained a lot. The thief had been stealing eggs and food for the better part of the past two weeks, and from the looks of things he was planning to steal the horse too. Royal shook his head. Taking food was one thing. Something that could even be overlooked when it came down to right and wrong, but taking a man’s horse in the dead of winter miles from anywhere, that was a crime rightly punishable by prolonged imprisonment.
“In some parts that would get a young man hanged!” Royal muttered to himself as he thought back over the last few days. The ghostly wafting odor of the breakfast he missed out on, the neatly executed raids on his milk and cream in the larder … all of it made more sense now.
Royal didn’t relish the idea that he might be stuck with company for a time until the weather cleared, but he was certain who ever owned the pack, wasn’t likely to be far off. With the weather as bad as it was, even a thief would need shelter. “Better to have him where I can see him, than have to wonder when he’ll make a move on my horse,” he growled, and resolved to hunt for the culprit come daylight.
The cabin was warm. Coals and embers still glowed from the wood stove under the stew pot.
“Someone’s been here,” he nodded to himself and scanned the dark room.
There was no sign of life other than the reality that coals don’t stay stoked in a wood stove for more than eighteen hours on their own. Lighting the kerosene lamp, Royal moved quietly to check in the bedroom, and sure enough, there between his sheets was the smallish frame of the individual Royal surmised was his thief. He could only see the top of the boy’s head, the rest of him buried under the quilts, but the matted strawberry blond curls had the tossed thickness of youth. He grimaced when he realized the shadow on his pillow under the boy’s head was grime.
“At least I know where you are,” Royal spoke to the sleeping frame. “You’d best enjoy that bed while you can.”
He stepped away, and directed his energy to putting away the food his friends had given him, along with what he found in the barn. Royal shook his head as he went through the inventory that he unloaded from the pack. The boy’s booty would have made a significant dent in Royal’s winter stores. “This just might call for a good taste of a horse whip!” He ruminated over the implications of a full winter stranded with no horse and scavenged food stores. When the boy woke up, he was in for a very serious reckoning.
Lilia’s cakes distracted Royal from the anger that was brewing in his chest. “Fresh coffee would go nicely with some cake.”
Royal stepped outside, and cut another path to the larder, this one was made easier, because the structure was sheltered from the wind by the trees and the cabin. He scooped a full jar of milk and another of cream off the top. This morning he would have a breakfast fit for a king, and he just might make that thieving beggar watch him eat it too.
Back inside he made himself comfortable in the rocker, and waited for his coffee to brew, and the cake to warm on the stove. He gave some thought to laying a full fire on the hearth on the other side of the room, but decided it was plenty warm enough with just the heat put off by the stove. The long hours on horseback and the late hour conspired with the chair and the warmth of the cabin to force Royal’s body to rest. His muscles gave up some of their tension, and the lids of his eyes drooped.
The rich aroma of brewed coffee crept into his awareness just as his catnap found its nadir. It was enough of a nap to leave him feeling refreshed, but not so much, that his body felt the loss of the real sleep it craved. The coffee did the rest. It would be daylight soon. Time to tend the animals, milk the cow, and deal with the miscreant that occupied his bed. Royal was re-energized, and it showed in his quiet determined posture.
Reading by lamplight, he filled the remaining hour before dawn engrossed in the life of a young man making his way on a Mississippi river boat. The new writer Mark Twain was making quite a name for himself by all accounts, and Royal could see why. The story was a good one. He would have to make a point to watch for new works next time he made it into town.
The dawn showed up late thanks to the heavy cloud cover and the muting blanket of wind blown snow that covered the cabin and the wilderness around it. The thief still slept soundly in his bed, when Royal decided it was past time to collect the eggs and milk the cow. To pre-empt any escape attempt, should the thief wake up while Royal attended his chores, he collected the boy’s coat and boots from the floor by the bed and propped a chair up under the door handle and secured the bedroom door shut tight. He might be fool enough to try and get out the window, but without boots and his coat, the thief wouldn’t get far.
Royal took the extra step of locking the cabin door as well. If the boy did shimmy out the window, it would serve him right to find himself stranded outside in the cold.
********************* Connie could smell coffee, and the door to the main room was closed. The man was home! He must have seen her, but why didn’t he wake her? Pushing the covers back, she climbed out of the bed, and immediately noticed that her boots were gone. She moved to the door, and found it jammed shut. The knob turned freely, but her full weight against it could not budge it. She was locked in! Frantic, she looked around for an alternative exit. The window was it.Standing on the bed, she pushed up the sash, and looked out at the forbidding scene made by the drifted snow still being deposited by a fierce howling wind. “I don’t have any boots!” she moaned to herself, and then looked around the room to confirm that she also didn’t have a coat.
What to do now? She was trapped with only a fool’s exit.
Her choice was to go back to the door, and pound on it begging to be let out. “Please sir! I can explain! Can I come out please?”
There was no answer, and no sound from the other room. “Has he gone away again?” she wondered.
Mild panic set in with that thought. “Please let me out! Please!” Connie pounded and shook the door again. “I have to relieve myself! I can’t do it in here!”
That thought made her scan the room again, and she found she was mistaken. Hidden just under the foot of the bed was a solid porcelain chamber pot. A beautiful blue flower design was fired into it. Close inspection found it clean, and there was even a dog-eared wad of old newsprint folded across the top. At least she wouldn’t have to disgrace herself if the man Royal ignored her for much longer.
Her next move was to go back to the window. She opened it, and scanned as far as she could see. There was a path cut in the drifts between the cabin and the barn, and the snow around it was freshly disturbed. In the other direction over in the shelter of the trees, the wood door to the larder was cleared, and recent tracks through the loose snow there could be followed back to the cabin as well. The man wasn’t far. Chances were he was down in the barn seeing to chores, just as he always did when she’d watched him from a distance.
“HEY!” she screamed as loudly as she could. “Let me the hell out of here! HEY! Do you hear me?”
She waited a full minute, and when there was no answer or movement from the barn, she yelled again.
“Goddamn you! Let me the hell out of here RIGHT NOW!”
Again there was no answer. Seconds passed, and Connie felt her temper flaring. She tried again.
“HEY! You GODDAMNED idiot peckerwood bonehead! Let me out of here!
”***********
Royal could hear the hollering from the cabin. “Sounds like the little cretin is awake Bossy,” he spoke to the cow. “Taking the lord’s name in vane too. Looks like a boy in need of some serious lessons has moved in on us old girl.”“The chores come first,” he scolded. “I’ll be up to deal with you presently. Just keep up that caterwauling and you’ll get a serious dose of my belt.
”************** Connie was hopping mad, when she got no response from the barn after several minutes of screaming. She gave some thought to the possibility that the man wasn’t even there, but dismissed it, figuring it didn’t matter where he was, he had no right to lock her up, or to take away her boots and coat. “He probably put them in the other room,” she reasoned. I could climb out and go around and back in the front door for them?”The idea swam around in her thoughts for a moment. “What if they aren’t there?” she asked herself. “So? At least you’ll be out of this room, you could get some coffee, and you can meet the bastard on your own terms in his own front room.”
That seemed to satisfy her, and so she decided.
Her heavy, matted wool socks offered only momentary protection from the ice cold of the snow. Even though the wool was caked with weeks of grime, her warm feet quickly melted what snow stuck to the wool, and the wet became a wick for the cold. Her flannel shirt offered no protection from the wind, and the icy blast against her skin made her shiver and cringe, instantly reminding her that she had not taken the time to relieve herself yet. Her bladder contracted firmly against the hot fluid it wanted to expel.
She ran as fast as she could up onto the porch, and pulled hard on the door. It held fast. “Goddamn it!” she screamed. “Oh! You peckerwood bastard! Let me in!” Connie shook and pounded on the door. The combined effect of her anger, the cold and her urgent need to pee made her desperate.
The door would not give, and the sash of the window next to it held fast. She could see the small iron latch that held it down from inside. The only way to get it open would be to break one of the panes. She was angry enough that that kind of destruction was appealing, but something in her held it back. She turned and scanned the terrain beyond the porch. The outhouse was a good two hundred yards away. At least she would be out of the wind in there, she thought. Her feet were almost numb they were so cold. Another choice was to go back around and climb back in the bedroom.
Hopping up and down, and starting to feel even more desperate, Connie weighed her options. She decided on the bedroom, and ran back around. She hadn’t realized how high the window ledge had been. It was beyond her reach even standing on tiptoe. She tried jumping for the sill, but each time she landed it felt like jagged nails of cold pierced up into her bones. Her feet hurt too much to make the outhouse now, and she couldn’t get back in the window. Back on the porch, Connie fought tears of pain and frustration with the predicament she’d gotten herself into.
She was trembling, and her hands were now almost as cold and painful as her feet were. She made a fist inside the sleeve of her shirt, and tried to punch the windowpane in. She could not manage the strength needed to shatter the thick leaded pane with her hand. Hot tears scorched her icy cold cheeks, as she pulled her fist back again and again frantic to get back inside the cabin.
“Now you just hold up there!” Royal’s voice boomed behind her.
“Christ Jesus!” Connie screamed whirling around to face the big man who now loomed right behind her. Her bladder nearly emptied, but she doubled over and crossed her legs to stop it.
“Got yourself in a pickle have you?” Royal couldn’t help but laugh.
Connie only sobbed.
“Come on now. Get inside,” Royal had no patience for tears from a boy. Especially not one who deserved every ounce of the fix he was in.
Connie had no more capacity for rational thought. Her crazed acts and choices of the last half hour were the culmination of the slower spiral that had been her life out of control for well over a year. She knew the panic and sorrow would numb again shortly, but in that moment, trembling uncontrollably from the cold, the awful needle like pain in her feet and hands, and her desperately full bladder took over and wrenched it to the surface in a rush of tears.
“Lemme go!” she squealed when Royal’s hand clamped around her arm. He was simply steering her toward the door that was now unlocked and open. Unable to loosen his grip on her arm, or twist herself free of it, Connie reacted and launched a full on roundhouse kick to Royal’s leg. When her nearly frozen foot impacted the top of his boot the pain was excruciating, forcing her to crumble into a tight ball of agony.
Royal grimaced briefly, the kick was hard enough to bruise him some, but mainly it aggravated him. He lifted the small creature inside the cabin by its arm, and dropped it on the floor while he closed the door behind him and slipped himself out of his coat.
Connie stayed where he dropped her, curled in a ball, rocking and nursing her destroyed foot.
“I won’t abide a boy who bawls like a girl!” Royal growled when she didn’t straighten up after several minutes. “Get up and face me proper, before I give you a real reason to cry!”
His booming voice made it through Connie’s misery, and she looked up dumbfounded. “Boy?” she asked, at first confused, and then she realized his mistake. “I am NOT a boy!” Indignation was exactly what she needed to hold on to for distraction from her woes.
Royal’s jaw dropped as he watched the grimy creature on his floor, stretch out and sit up, where he could get a better look at it.
“A girl!? A girl has been living alone out here in these woods, pilfering and raiding my stores! What are you doing out here alone? How in Hades did you get this far all by yourself? Where in God’s name did you think you would get with my horse?” Royal’s disdain for a crybaby was gradually being replaced by surprise and disbelief.
“I’m a woman, and I can look after myself!” Connie set her jaw in a defiant glare at the bewildered sputtering man in front of her. “Damn you arrogant men! Who says a woman can’t do for herself out here in this country?”
Royal felt the corners of his mouth threaten to smile. Filthy brown face and greasy matted curls not withstanding, “she was a pretty little thing,” he thought. “Same feisty spirit as Mary.” “You’re a skinny little runt of a girl, now you get up here and stand in the light where I can get a proper look at you.” he growled.
“No!” Connie crossed her arms on her chest and refused.
Royal gave her no choice, moving to force her to do as he said. “Don’t push me runt!”
“Hey!” Connie gasped as she found herself airborne, and then winced and complained when her tingling burning feet made contact with the wood planks of the floor. “Ow! Oh!” Her knees buckled, but Royal pulled her so she had no choice but to steady herself and bear her own weight. “Please! I have to relieve myself!” she suddenly begged.
Royal couldn’t help himself. Her announcement and the pained expression it came with was just about the funniest most endearing sight he’d seen in many years. It made him laugh.
Connie flushed hot with both embarrassment and anger. “It isn’t funny!” she hissed. “Everybody has to sometime!”
Royal couldn’t contain himself, he just kept laughing.
“You’re an ass!” Connie cussed, and turned toward the bedroom where she knew the chamber pot waited. It was a simple matter to slip the chair out from under the knob, and pull the door open.
Royal leaned back against the counter and watched her close the door behind her, not even trying to contain his chuckles and amusement.
“This changes things,” he told himself, while Connie took care of her needs out of his sight. He wondered how old she was, and just what on earth could possess her to run away on her own. There was no question he was going to find out, and make damned sure she was returned in one piece to her people. No doubt some father or young husband was out looking for her, or worried sick she’d met with harm.
Thinking along those lines quickly wiped away the humor and amusement he felt moments ago.
“So help me if she was mine!” Royal lifted his right hand in a firm gesture toward the bedroom door. “Mine or not, you’re going to get a good dose of what for.” Irritation over the inconvenience she’d caused him and the now waning threat that she might have taken his horse, was augmented by anger that a girl could be so fool hardy as to get herself in such a desperate situation so far from her people, leaving them worried and no doubt grieving over her.
He set about making breakfast, grim faced and intent on his thoughts
.*********** Connie barely made the chamber pot before her bladder exploded. Still trembling intermittently with the chill, she let her body relax with the relief. The ice cold of the porcelain quickly warmed under her thighs. Crouching there with a small measure of comfort returning to her body, Connie thought about her circumstances.“At least the man can laugh,” she told herself as she flushed again with the disgrace of the last few minutes. “Imagine thinking I was a boy?” she wondered, and then half regretted telling him she wasn’t. It was partly what she’d hoped for when she cut off her long hair, that men would ignore her for a teenage boy. She’d given it up when she saw herself in the mirror at the brothel though. Without the weight of length, her locks had curled up in a manner that just made her look like a younger girl. It was done now though. He knew the truth of that much, and there was no back tracking to change his mind.
Now came the problem of settling in with him, and explaining herself well enough that he’d let her stay until the weather was better suited for travel, and then let her go on her way without trying to take her back home. The big question was could she come up with a story he would believe? Another one that niggled was would she be safe from unseemly advances from him if he did let her stay? Connie’s upbringing taught her that a decent man wouldn’t do that to her unless he knew she was ruined. For that reason Connie vowed to keep the truth of her circumstances secret. If he thought she was just a runaway, she’d be better off. Her other concern was that if he knew she was little better than a whore, deflowered in a brothel above a saloon, he might force her to leave in order to protect his own decency. She didn’t know what would be worse, being cooped up with a man who used her, or dying of exposure in the lonely wilderness of an Idaho winter.
She really did want to stay. If only so she could read more from Mary’s diaries of her life with the man.
Connie gathered all of her resolve, and straightened her clothes. Her feet still tingled and burned, but they felt better once she took off her wet socks. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out of the bedroom into the main room where Royal was fussing with a cast iron skillet filled with strips of bacon. The warm space felt more like a home to her than her own had in all of the last year before her mother passed away.
“You got yourself sorted out?” Royal asked her, not looking up.
“Yes. What do I do with the pot?” she answered sidling over to see what he was doing.
“Leave it for now, you can take it to the outhouse when the wind eases up. Wash your hands under the pump, and sit,” he gestured to the sink, and then the table.
Connie obeyed. The water was cold, but it felt good. With her hands clean, she also made a half hearted effort to splash and rinse her face. Only a full stomach would make her feel better now. She sighed and relaxed as she sat down at the table.
The next several minutes passed quietly, with only the sounds of breakfast being made. Royal poured coffee for himself, and started to pour milk into a tumbler for Connie.
“I prefer coffee,” she tilted her head, half afraid to complain, but drawn by the aroma.
“How old are you?” Royal regarded her with reservation.
“Twenty two,” she lied.
Royal twisted a wry smile that told her he knew it was a lie. “Now that’s a likely story,” he answered by filling her tumbler the rest of the way with milk.
“Please! I really do drink coffee. I have for a while now I swear!” Connie looked at the tall cup full of white liquid with disgust.
“Milk!” Royal growled. “You’ll drink milk.” With that he dropped a plate of scrambled eggs and three strips of bacon in front of her, and sat down behind one heaped doubly high with the same for himself.
Connie wrinkled her nose at the milk again, but picked up her fork and made short work of the eggs.
Royal watched her, taking his meal at a slower pace. The girl ate like a pup not sure when its next meal was coming. “Ease up there and slow down or you’ll make yourself sick.”
Connie looked up, realizing what she must look like she flushed again with embarrassment. “Shorry,” she said over a mouth full of eggs, and then she straightened up to assume a more dignified pace and posture.
“What’s your name?” Royal asked when she took her next bite.
“Commyee,” she answered again over a mouth full of food. “Sorry, it’s Connie,” she corrected when she saw the quizzical look he gave her with the first answer.
“Well, Connie, I know you haven’t been starved for the last week or more, so I guess you’re just short on table manners?” Royal offered a wry grimace with his observation. “Is it Constance?” he added.
Connie nodded, but said nothing. She waited for Royal to say more, and when he didn’t she went back to her plate and finished the meal. She left the milk untouched, and eyed Royal’s coffee cup jealously each time he sipped the rich smelling brew.
“I’d kill for some of that,” she said when he got up to refill his cup.
Royal smiled to himself, and turned to look at her tumbler. “Drink that first,” he answered. “Can’t have this stuff stunt your growth.”
“I’m grown!” Connie complained, and shook her head no to the beverage in front of her.
“If you want coffee you’ll drink that first,” Royal was firm. His tone of voice belied the amusement he felt. Mary had been just like that when he made her drink milk. “Must be a woman thing?” he scoffed privately at how someone could turn their nose up at something so good for them and tasty as a simple cup of milk.
Connie made a better show of cooperation than Mary would have. Even though the idea made her want to gag, she lifted the tumbler and drank it down quickly. “Yuck!” she complained. “You skimmed off all the cream!”
“We don’t use cream for anything but cooking and coffee,” Royal pointed out. “If I catch you stealing it to drink again I’ll blister your hide for you.”
“Again?” Connie looked up surprised.
“Don’t you tell me that wasn’t you skimming cream all this past week or more!” Royal warned.
Connie winced under the piercing flame of his expression. “OK,” she dropped her eyes to the table. It was clear he wasn’t a man to be lied to.
“I suppose you want sugar for this?” Royal asked, placing a cup of hot coffee on the table next to the empty tumbler of milk. Connie looked up, and nodded.
“Please?” she answered.
Royal put the whole canister in the middle of the table, and handed her a spoon. “Go easy with it,” he warned, and settled back down in his seat across the table.
Connie smiled, and fixed the cup the way she liked it, with two hefty spoons of sugar and a good scoop of cream. Royal’s face crinkled with disgust.
“That’s the last time you destroy a perfectly good cup of coffee like that in this house!”
Connie looked up, concerned by the timber of his voice. “What?” she asked.
“No more than half a spoon of sugar next time, and just enough cream to color it,” he tipped his cup toward her to show her the color he meant.
Connie ignored his obvious disgust. “It’s good this way, you should try it,” she smiled and savored the liquid.
“You’ll not waste supplies on a childish sweet tooth!” Royal reiterated, aware that she seemed to miss his meaning.
It was Connie’s turn to growl. “Alright! You made your point! Now who’s the one short on manners?”
“What are you doing out here?” Royal latched onto the annoyance he felt with her quip, and decided to get down to business.
Connie looked up wary now that his tone of voice had become harder and serious. “I’m going to Denver, and then maybe San Francisco,” she answered.
“Where are your people?”
“I don’t have any, my mother died a few months back. I have no one,” she answered.
“What about your Pa?” Royal eyed her skeptically.
“Dead years ago,” Connie offered.
“No brothers, sisters or step father?”
“No.” Connie couldn’t look him in the eye with the last half-truth.
Royal could tell she’d lied, but something in her expression made him gentle down. “So you do have people,” he nodded.
“No one I can go back to I don’t!” Connie spoke up. Annoyed that it had been so easy for him to get so close to her secrets.
“Well you’re not going to make Denver this winter. Even if you had managed to take my horse, you’d have died trying!” Royal matched her ire with his own. “Why’d you hide out there so long stealing from me? Why not just knock on my door and ask?”
Connie considered the question for only a second. “How was I supposed to know you weren’t some kind of outlaw?”
“Mighty dangerous activity stealing from a desperado I’d say. What if I’d caught you red handed? Back when you thought I was an outlaw I mean?” Royal chuckled.
“Well I figured out from the grave that you were married once and I guessed from the numbers on it, it’s been too long for you to be some bank robber and not be in jail by now, so I figured it was safe enough to take a few things,” Connie explained.
“But not safe enough to knock on my door and ask for help?” Royal brought her back to the earlier question.
Connie didn’t answer. Her mind wasn’t fast enough to get around the rape she’d suffered and the fact of it was what made the question impossible to answer safely. If he got any idea that she was spoiled goods, she just knew her life would go from bad to worse.
“So you chose to be a thief instead of to trust an old widower?”
When he put it like that, Connie couldn’t help but feel shame, but she also reacted to the accusation from the hurt she felt.
“I don’t know what I was thinking you damned peckerwood! And I’m not answering any more of your questions!” With that, she pounded her fists on the table.
There was dead silence for what seemed an eternity. Connie watched the vein on the side of Royal’s forehead fill and drain as the muscles of his jaw worked.
“You know little girl, when I thought you were a boy I was of a mind to take a horse whip to you. Then I settled on giving your tail a good blistering for all the stress and worry you must be causing your folks, not to mention the trouble your thieving put me to. Since you don’t have any folks to speak of — if you can be believed on that account — I half dismissed that idea. Now I’m of a mind that just maybe a good hard lesson in manners is exactly what you need.”
Connie examined his expression looking for the question that should be there if he was issuing a warning. There was no question in his eyes.
“I don’t need any damned lessons from you,” she answered, figuring she was already cornered. “You never even knew I was here until now, what damned trouble could I have put you too?”
“A forty mile ride, half of it in a blizzard, to replace laying hens I thought had quit laying? You don’t think that’s trouble?”
Connie gasped, and her eyes opened wide. She almost laughed at the absurdity of what she just realized. “So that’s where you took the idiot horse to!”
“That’s where I took my horse to. The horse you were planning to steal if I read your IOU right,” Royal pointed out.
“I guess it’s a damned good thing I made you go and get hens then. Since I couldn’t very well steal your damned horse while you were riding it!”
“You’ll quit that cussing this minute!” Royal stood and leaned across the table toward Connie.
Connie glowered back at him. A tiny voice told her to let it go and offer an apology, but her temper wouldn’t let her listen.
“No!” she snapped back, with a glare that was pure defiance.
Royal caught Connie by her shirt, just under her chin, and used it to lift her out of her chair and around the table toward him. “You’ll do as I say, or you’ll wish you had! LET – ME – TELL – YOU!” Royal punctuated the last words he spoke with four solid spanks to Connie’s backside.
“Don’t!” was all Connie could manage to say, before she found herself draped across the very determined man’s lap.
“I’ll tell you don’t!” Royal answered with several more solid spanks. “Don’t cuss in my house! Don’t sass me when I tell you to do something!”
“Ow! Hey! Cut it out! You can’t do this!” Connie became a kicking struggling bundle that Royal had some trouble holding still. His response was to redirect his efforts from Connie’s bottom to the tops of her thighs. But what used to work to make Mary settle down and take her spanking, only served to anger and energize Connie more. She screeched, kicked and twisted wildly.
“Stop! You can’t!” she howled.
“I can and I will!” Royal reinforced his intent with several even harder spanks.
“You sorry piece of shit! You son of Satan, low life bastard!” Connie screeched. “Lemme go!”
Her fists pummeled into Royals left shin and calf muscle, and her legs folded up and crossed over her bottom.
“Alright! If that’s how you want it that’s how it will be.” In the next second, Royal had Connie shifted forward with her legs trapped between his and both her hands trapped at the small of her back. He had no trouble yanking her trousers down. And even though he found she was wearing long underwear, the drop seat offered no impediment to his purpose. The buttons flew across the room with hardly a pull. Once he had her bottom exposed, he set to work making an impression.
Connie was livid and wild. “Lemme go! Lemme go!”
Royal spanked hard, ignoring her pleas, and increasing his efforts each time profanity came out of her mouth. Connie’s screeching was a surprise to him. He expected some objection, a little howling and some tears, but the fury that came from the little spitfire he held was a force to be reckoned with. Taming her mouth was going to take a good deal more effort than he planned on.
“You can’t do this!” Connie screamed after several minutes of hard blistering spanking.
“That’s enough of that! I can, and clearly I am doing it! Now you settle yourself and start behaving!” Royal demanded.
“You shut up! You feather brained peckerwood ass! Lemme go!” Connie’s voice was raw and cracked. Royal wondered if her throat was hurting from the abuse of her screaming as much as her bottom must have been.
“What did I say about cussing in this house!” he applied his hand to her thighs again hoping against hope that she would realize that tactic would keep being used whenever the spanks to her backside seemed inadequate.
“You stop that!” Connie renewed her struggles. “That hurts too much!”
“That’s exactly what I wanted to hear!” Royal chuckled, and he applied two more hard swats to her legs.
“Ow! Stop!” Connie howled.
“You want this to stop, you act like I’m getting through this thick hide of yours and into your brain,” Royal kept spanking.
Connie’s bottom was a solid deep red. Bluish welts shaped like his fingers were beginning to mottle each cheek. Royal knew the pain had to be intense.
“You’re hurting me!” Connie confessed. “Lemme go!”
“When I’m sure you’ve learned a good lesson, I’ll let you go,” he grinned to himself and kept spanking.
“You need to stop it RIGHT NOW!” Connie’s scream was defiant. Her angry efforts to fight him and get away had managed to distract her from the scorching pain in her backside, but she was quickly becoming exhausted, and the pain was beginning to register. Defiant outrage still ruled her mouth, but she felt her pride loosing ground.
“Then you need to behave yourself RIGHT NOW!” The spanking continued uninterrupted.
“Ow! Please!” Connie changed tactics and the tone of her voice. Trying to sound beaten and pitiful, she bucked against his hold and complained. “It hurts! Please! Lemme go!”
“It’s supposed to hurt!”
“Ow! Please!” Connie let go of some of the tension in her muscles and tried to slump in a posture she thought he would read as defeat. “You’re killing me! Please! Lemme go!”
“You ready to listen to my rules now?” he asked punctuating each word with a few harder spanks.
Connie bucked again as her body objected to the harder impacts. “Ow! STOP!” she cried angrily.
“Guess not?” Royal resumed the spanking in earnest.
Connie let loose with a last flame of outraged temper. “I said stop it! You peckerwood son of a bitch!”
Royal pushed her torso down hard, causing her thighs to lift up out of her drawers. With white flesh exposed, he set about making it as inflamed as the rest of her posterior. “You’re one fool little girl, I’ll say that much! A fool little girl with more temper than sense, something that you’ll find a painful combination in this house!”
Connie tried once without success to lift her torso up and buck the renewed onslaught. Her muscles failed miserably, and Connie felt her whole being give in to defeat. Her screeches became sobs and her howling became hiccupping whimpers.
Royal felt it too, and redirected the spanking back up to her buttocks. He kept it up for at least another minute.
“Are you ready to obey me now?” he asked.
“Yes,” Connie hiccupped. “Please lemme go!”
“No more cursing?”
“No.”
“What about sass?”
“No more I promise!”
“No more thieving or skulking around?”
“No! Please! I promise!”
“That’s more like it,” Royal relaxed his grip and released her hands. Connie took them back, and braced them in front of her on the floor. Tears and a long clear trail of snot fell from her face to the floor between her hands. She tried to wipe her face, but her eyes and nose made the slobbery liquid flow copiously so that a new string dropped to the floor almost as soon as the first was smeared across her cheek.
Royal held her like that as if he was waiting for her to say something. Connie pushed up, and then pulled trying to get off his lap. “Please! I’ll be good! I promise!” Her plea came partly from fear that he might start spanking her again because she’d tried to get up.
“You just settle yourself there for a minute while I think,” Royal folded the flap of her drawers back up over her bottom, but held her firm across his lap. It was a habit he got into with Mary years ago. Before he’d end the punishment he’d hold her long enough to be sure all the spunk and temper was gone. It rarely took more than a few minutes to be sure, and with this little ball of fire, he wasn’t going to take any chances that her temper wasn’t properly spent.
Connie sobbed and lay there, humiliated and exhausted.
One thing was sure Royal thought to himself. He wasn’t as spry as he’d once been. This kind of activity felt like a lot more exertion than it had when he was twenty.
After another minute or so, Royal relaxed and let Connie get up off his lap. When she stood and pulled at her trousers getting them back up, he looked into her clear blue eyes. She looked worn out, and completely defeated. For the first time he got a good look at her from head to toe. She was barely five foot tall, mostly skin and bone, but with a little flesh where a woman should have it. And she was filthy. The clothes she wore were stained and matted. The cleanest part of her was her face, wiped clean in patches where the back of her dirty hand had smeared her tears and streaks of snot across her cheeks.
“You need a bath, and then you’re going to wash those sheets you soiled last night,” he announced.
Connie balked. In her mind a bath meant going out into the snow, down to the creek, and rinsing herself with the ice cold fast moving water. “I’m not going out there to freeze to death by any stream!”
“You won’t have to,” Royal advised her. “Take that ladder over there and climb up in the loft. You’ll find a deep steel tub. Bring it down and fill it half way with water from the pump over there.”
“But that water is ice cold too!” Connie objected.
“Just do as I say,” Royal didn’t want an argument, and the look he gave her reinforced that.
Connie considered refusing to do it, but she didn’t want any more trouble from the man. She pulled the ladder away from the wall and leaned it up against the floor of the loft she hadn’t even noticed was there. Climbing the ladder she was mindful that her backside burned like fire. She’d been spanked a time or two in her young life, but this was far and away the hardest and most severe she’d ever experienced. “For a nice man, he sure has a hard hand,” she grumbled to herself.
There were several large chests and folded linens on one side, a cradle and more linen on the other. In the middle was the large tub Royal sent her up for. It looked heavy, but was surprisingly light. Before climbing back down, Connie dawdled a bit looking around at the other things there. She was curious about what was in the chests and boxes, and fascinated by the finery of the fabrics and linens folded on top of them. There were extra quilts and sheets too.
“Get a move on up there!” Royal called her down after a few moments.
“Can I sleep up here?” Connie asked when she hefted the tub over the side and turned to come down the ladder.
“We’ll discuss that later. Right now you get filling that thing up.” Royal had laid an armload of wood and kindling in the hearth and was lighting it. In addition there was a very large pot starting to steam on top of the wood stove. “Put the tub on the stone hearth by the fire, and use the bucket to fill it.”
Connie smiled when she realized her bath wasn’t going to be with cold water.
While she hauled the bucket back and forth to the tub, Royal stripped his bed of the sheets she soiled, and laid them on the floor by the tub. Then he climbed into the loft, and came down with some folded clothes and a large quilt. He put them on the hearth next to the heating tub. “You’ll put those on when you’re clean,” he pointed to the clothes.
It took a little more than an hour for the water in the tub to heat enough for Connie to consider getting into it, when she told Royal she thought it was ready, he checked it and nodded, and then hoisted the huge pot off the stove and topped off the tub’s luke warm water with the pot’s scalding water.
“Get the soap from the sink, and get in,” his order was gruff.
“But you can see me?” she objected. “It’s not decent.”
“I’m going out to clear the paths to the barn and the outhouse and then check the stock. I’ll be at least an hour maybe more. If you need longer than that I’ll look the other way. Now get in that tub before I whack your tail some more.”
Connie blushed, and turned her back to start undoing the buttons on her shirt. She kept her movements slow giving Royal time to dress for the weather outside. When the door closed behind him, she moved quickly to the window to make sure he was headed away from the building.
The hot water felt glorious, and even though her bottom throbbed, Connie felt comfortable and at peace. It felt like the most natural thing in the world for her to be in this house. Having her bottom bared and spanked by a stranger felt strangely natural too, in fact, Connie marveled that the most embarrassing thing about it was how much of a childish hellion she had been when it was happening. She told herself that if he ever had cause to spank her again, “and I’ll make damned sure he never does,” she’d try to take it with less fuss.
