Deed to Damnation

Angels and Demons

It was late when everyone made their way upstairs after the Christmas celebration. All but Henry and his men anyway. They had decided that they would play cards because nothing says Christmas like gambling, Ireland thought morosely, as she pulled the pins from her hair and stripped out of her holiday gown.
Henry had seemed determined to ruin her festive mood the moment he burst through the door and sabotaged her dinner. But even when he left her half dressed, disheveled and completely disillusioned, she refused to let him get away with his childish whim to do so.
Yes, the tears had tried to spring up. She was indeed hurt by his treatment of her but it was also not surprising anymore. She had come to expect it really but always hoped for something else. There had been so many times that he had done this in the past and the pattern was obvious. If he even felt a twinge of anything other than anger or avarice, he would kill it by taking absolute and complete control over anything in his path. The only difference was that before it had been with cold words and the execution of his dark, erotic needs that he disguised as punishment. He seemed to think that with every lash and with every scarlet stripe he left on her flesh, it could exorcise any feeling of warmth, an emotion he found to be a sign of weakness. This time though, there was a set determination to him, an icy demeanor that she had not seen since he tore into her life like a stampede of mad bulls and she wasn't sure how she was going to navigate through this rising storm.
When he showed up in the bedroom long after she had drifted off, he stumbled in. Feigning sleep, Ireland looked at him through her lashes. He was completely ossified. She had seen him drunk before but not like this. When he plopped down on the bed, he struggled getting his boots off and nearly tumbled forward. It wasn't like him to lose all control of his sensibilities. No matter when he drank, Henry was always aware of what was going on. She had observed that much over time.
Rolling over, she turned away from him, not wanting any of his drunken attention but no sooner had she pulled the blankets up to her chin, they were ripped away. She felt his fingers wrap around the slender strap of her nightgown and then the sound of it tearing away. She sprung up from her position and pulled the sheet around her as if it could stop him.
"Wife!" He barked and reached to grab her again.
She pulled her leg back before he could wrap his hand around her ankle. His own quick movement caused to fall forward clumsily and Ireland was able to scramble out of the bed before he could reach for her again.
"You deny me?" He bellowed.
He stood and tried to face her but again his rushed movement made him sway and almost tip over. It took a few moments too long for him to focus on where she was in the room.
"Henry.." she started, putting her hands out in front of her defensively.
The dim light couldn't shade his inebriation. His eyes were wild yet heavily lidded and he could barely stand. He rushed towards her and she side stepped him easily as he crashed into the wall, bouncing off to face her again.
She was sure the entire building heard them by now but no one would come. She knew that too. Not one person that lived under Henry Delarue's reign ever asked questions or stopped him from doing anything he wanted.
"I came back to have you, Ireland." He slurred. "And once is not enough. Come here!"
Ireland could never imagine lying with a man so drunk that he couldn't stand but she had heard the women talking among themselves sometimes. They would laugh about it and say how the money came easy with customers like that.
"So drunk, he couldn't stick me even if I had a bullseye on my twat!" Robyn giggled one time. "It didn't even work but I told him it was the best I ever had once he woke from his stupor. Dumb fool couldn't even remember if he fucked me or not!"
Henry was moving towards her erratically, tossing a small footstool aside and backing her into the washroom until she had her back to the wall. She wanted to disappear into it. He sprang on her, his weight crushing her and the smell of whiskey assaulting her nostrils. She felt trapped and wasn't sure what he would do. Forcing himself on her was definitely in his plans but he was out of his right mind and she feared he could beat her.
With the hardest shove she could muster, she pushed him to the side and thankfully he was so unsteady, he careened sideways, crashing into the wall and sliding down it until he was on all fours. She hopped over him, hoping to escape to the stairs.
"Odessa!" He roared, trying to find his footing again.
Odessa? She could hardly believe she heard him correctly but he had said the dead madam's name. If he was that inebriated that he couldn't realize who she was in his stupor, there was no doubt she was in terrible danger.
Without even thinking, Ireland grabbed the heavy cast iron pot she used to fill her soaking tub by the long handle and swung it as she turned to face him. He had just managed to get into an unstable stand when the bottom of the metal pot made impact on the back of his head. There was an incredibly loud clang when it struck and he went down again, a groan escaping him before he went still.
I've killed him!
She was sure she must have. But then she saw the slow rise and fall of chest and she breathed a sigh of relief. She needed help though. She had to get him into the bed because if he came to, he would definitely know something had happened and it might come back that she had brained him with a pot. And waking up on the floor of the washroom would almost confirm it if he didn't remember right away.
She ran next door to Missy's room and didn't even bother knocking. Her sudden entrance startled Missy who was sitting on her bed worriedly.
"Oh, Miss Ireland! Are you okay? What's happening in there?" She gasped.
"I just knocked Henry out and I need you to help me move him to the bed! He's too heavy!" Ireland exclaimed.
"You what?!" Missy asked, her eyes wide with astonishment.
She followed Ireland and gasped when she saw Henry's body sprawled out on the floor.
"I've never seen him so drunk." Ireland told her. "He called me Odessa!"
Missy's expression was a mix of both shock and horror.
"Jesus!" She exclaimed. "He's in a real bad way. We're gonna drag him in my room and leave him there. I hope you don't mind if I bunk with you tonight."
Ireland looked confused.
"Why your room?"
"Because," Missy said, grabbing a hold of his ankles, "when he gets up in the morning I want him so befuddled he won't know what happened. I'm gonna do a whole lot of lyin'. Pick him up under his arms and help me. We gotta do this quiet."
Ireland didn't know how much Henry weighed but by the time she and Missy dragged his body next door and managed to put him on the bed, both women were breathing hard and sweating from exertion. At least no one had caught them in the act.
"We're gonna leave him here and tomorrow you're going to let me do the talking." Missy instructed. "I don't know how much he's gonna remember but with any luck, I can twist that memory."
The two retreated back to Ireland's bedroom and although they were physically tired, neither could sleep right away. Who knew what tomorrow would bring and Henry would certainly have questions. Right now though, it was Ireland that had more than a few.
"Tell me the truth, Missy. Who was Odessa to him? And how much do you really know about Henry?" Ireland asked. "What happened that made him so cold?"
The two of them laid together in the dark, talking softly late into the night like very young girls spilling childhood secrets to each other. Except it was Missy doing more of the telling as Ireland listened quietly.
It was not that long ago that Missy had told her of his time in the military and had left it at the fact that he had killed a lot of folks. But she suspected it was the things he saw that had probably turned him into the hardened man he was today.
"You gotta promise me that you'll never tell Henry that you know any of this." Missy warned. "Only reason I know is because of some very intimate pillow talk I had when I was fucking Marley on the regular. I had the same questions you had and when I got those answers, I wished I didn't know. He would kill Marley if he knew he was talking behind his back."
Ireland stayed quiet for a moment wondering if she really did want to know those things. But if she was ever going to understand the man she had taken as a husband, she needed to know.
"I promise." She whispered and hoped that she wouldn't regret it.
As it turned out, Henry's stint in the military was far from ordinary. Like so many others, he joined the great Civil War in 1861 at the age of 26. He was a union soldier originally out of Kansas and had seen battle often.
"He lost his mentor in one of those fights." Missy explained gently. "He looked at that man like a father because his own daddy was mean as a snake."
Ireland learned that the death of his regiment leader and a good portion of his soldiers could have been avoided if the higher ups had only listened to his commander's plan of attack and that was when Henry had started to become jaded.
"It wasn't too long after that that he joined a group called the Jayhawks. They were a mean bunch, Miss Ireland. They were renegade union soldiers that still fought for the north but they didn't listen to those in charge. They organized to fight groups of southern boys called the Bushwhackers. They was just as wicked as them Jayhawks and before long, murderin' was just how you made your way. Marley said Henry's killed a lot of people. Maybe even a hundred. Kinda turns ya' cold to human life, I guess. He carries it still."
Men certainly had no qualms about doing what they felt if there was a need, real or imaginary, Ireland thought with heartbreak and frustration. She thought of her father in that moment. He had kept her protected but hopelessly ignorant to the ways of men treated each other in the untamed country. She remembered the long voyage out here and the hired guns that were required to ensure a safe journey. The women on the wagon train always seemed so jumpy and cautious whenever they needed to stop and rest the horses and they would whisper of hidden dangers. But Ireland had only been a twelve year old child straight out of an all girls preparatory school. In a sheltered environment like that, they never taught about atrocities that could occur on the uncharted path out west. They never taught her about dangers at all.
Even her own father had been susceptible to the evils of want and greed. There was never murder involved as far as she knew. But he had turned from the faith he had instilled in her until she barely recognized him with the help of booze, gambling and according to Henry's version of him, whores as well.
"And what of Odessa?" Ireland finally asked.
Missy sighed heavily into the darkness.
"I can only guess." She admitted. "What I know for sure was that she took good care of us girls. She was smart but ruthless and knew how to play the game. I think Mr. Henry was enthralled by her and how good she was at the hustle. I think she may have made him believe that she loved him although I don't know if she ever told him those words. But he had come to trust her and she betrayed him by stealing and playing with his emotions. I think it pushed him over the edge. You were right to be afraid of him tonight, Ireland. I'm pretty sure he's dealing with the same raw emotion. I think you found the heart he wants to pretend doesn't exist and he's fighting it with all he has."
Ireland turned on her side and looked at her friend. She was staring at the ceiling, lost in quiet thought, her eyes shining in the dim lighting. They gleamed with unspilled tears.
" Do you know why I know so much about him?" Missy sniffled.
Ireland reached over and pulled her friend into a gentle embrace to comfort her.
"It's because I wanted to find his heart once." She continued. "But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't do it. I almost believed he didn't have one. That was until I seen him with you. I hope you can do what I couldn't. The memory of Odessa is going to be an obstacle as high as those Black Hills."
And Missy couldn't have been more right.