The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,158

mare had smelled the water and stumbled down the creek bank and into the water with such thirsty desperation that Letty couldn’t bring herself to care that her plans for a bath had been thwarted. She unpacked their meager store of supplies, walked up the creek a short distance to try and find some water that hadn’t been muddied, filled their canteens as well as a small bucket, and started back to camp.

Even though she couldn’t see him, she could hear Eulis talking to himself as he gathered up dead fall for firewood. It sounded to her as if he was practicing a sermon. She had to give him credit for perseverance. Never in a million years would she have believed that her moment of desperation when the real Randall Ward Howe had up and died on her that their lives would have taken such a drastic turn. Sobering up the town drunk and passing him off as the preacher from back East had been the gutsiest and the craziest thing she’d ever done. That it had worked still amazed her. And here they were, following Randall Howe’s itinerary down the Amen Trail, preaching and marrying and burying wherever the need arose. She didn’t know what awaited them in Dripping Springs, but after what they’d endured, it was bound to be a snap.

Still following the meandering creek back to their campsite, Letty paused to resettle the canteen straps on her shoulder and get a better grip on the bucket. As she did, something rustled in the bushes behind her. She turned abruptly, and as she did, accidentally spilled the water in the bucket she was carrying. Disgusted that she was going to have to make another trip back for water, she stared into the darkness, trying to see what was there. Nothing moved. She stared for a moment more, then bent down, picked up her bucket and started backing up.

The sound came again, only off to her right.

Her heart started to thump erratically. Whatever or whoever it was, there had to be more than one.

Letty never had felt comfortable being outnumbered and decided it was time to call for help. She raised her voice. Not loud, but enough that she hoped to be heard a short distance.

“Eulis!”

He didn’t answer her, although she could still hear him preaching somewhere off in the distance.

She took another step back. The sound followed her—now from behind. She spun, the bail of the empty bucket held tight in her hand and ready to swing.

“Eeuulliiss!”

She was moving away now at a swifter pace, and because she wasn’t looking where she was going, she fell. Head over heels—bucket up—canteens down—and into a tangle of scrub brush and vines. The vines came loose as she fell and once loose, automatically curled around the first thing in which they came in contact, which happened to be Letty’s arms and neck.

Certain that she’d been captured by heathens and wasn’t long for this world, she began to scream in earnest.

“HELP! HELP! EEEEUUULLLIIISSS!!! THEY’VE GOT ME!!”

Something rustled near her left ear—scratching closer and closer in the dead leaves and dirt as she struggled helplessly to get up. Now it was around her ankle, then her wrist. She whimpered.

“Don’t hurt me,” she begged, then took a deep breath and started to gag.

Eulis was right in the middle of his third recitation of the Ten Commandments and was down to Thou shall not kill when he thought he heard Letty call. He paused, tilting his head to one side as he listened. He heard crickets, some birds, and a coyote somewhere off in the distance on an early evening hunt, but no Letty. Shrugging off the notion, he bent down to pick up another stick of firewood and resumed his recitation.

“Thou shall not commit—”

“HELP! HELP! EEEEUUULLLIIISSS! THEY GOT ME!”

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Letty! Something was happening to Letty! He dropped the armload of firewood and started to run, calling out her name as he went.

Letty heard Eulis calling, but was too busy dying to answer. Every breath she took was followed by a retch that turned her guts inside out. She tried once more to call Eulis’s name but couldn’t stop puking long enough to say the word. She was caught in a snare of vines, lying in her own puke, and except for one other time, as scared as she’d ever been.

For a couple of seconds she was twelve years old all over again—listening to her