Depredation #

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After school, Jim Rogers, the superintendent of McKinley Grain Company, was waiting for Albert outside of the school.  "Albert, your father wants to see you in his ranch office.  He sent me with  a wagon and team to drive you out there."

"What does he want," Albert realized that he had made no effort to seek out his father after his summons of last night.

"He don't tell me his personal business.  If it ain't about wheat, I don't want to know." Jim answered.

The ride out was dusty and bumpy.  Albert felt a gnawing at his insides.  His father was stern but, not insensitive.  Albert was sure his mother had given his father an earful.  His father preferred to spend time with his brother who was more robustly masculine.

"Well young scallywag, you have been up to sewing your wild oats, haven't you."  Alberts father was smiling as he sat back in his chair and laced his fingers across his abdomen.  

"I can't affirm or deny what you said unless I hear more of what you are talking about unless I hear more specifics,"  Albert was preparing his defense but, he didn;t want to offer up any information.

'I mean that little gal you been squireing around."  Mr. McKinley did not move or change his expression.

"Her name is Dahlia.  I don't know what you mean by squireing around but, I have been seeing her and talking to her.  I've held her hand and kissed her.   If that is what you mean." Albert was not giving an inch.

"Just don't get her pregnant.  That is probably what she is scheming so she can get a bundle of money to shut up."  Alberts father rocked forward and stopped smiling.

Albert was flabbergasted. He had no idea how to answer this ludicrous disrespectful message.  "She won't want a pay-off if she is my wife."  He turned sharply and walked out of the office leaving his father with his mouth agape.

"Jim, take this boy who thinks he's a man back to town."  Mr. Mckinley shouted from his office.

Albert smiled all the way back to town.  When he arrived at the carriage house of the mansion, he jumped down from the wagon and saddled his horse.

"What's happening here?"  There was a small crowd gathered on the side street leading to the secret meeting grove.

"It's Billy Herbert, someone beat him up bad," One of the town's layabouts reported. "He come runnin' outa them trees with his head all ablaze."

Albert turned and spurred his horse to a gallop.  "Mr. Rassenkamp is Dahlia.....alright...I mean...did she get hurt?"

"Not that I know of, why do you ask?"  BJ had been working hard all day and was preparing to close his shop.

"Its that crowd, Billy Herbert has been stalking her like a game animal...." 

BJ interrupted Albert mid-sentence, "Albert, you ride to the house, I'll go see what happened to Billy."

Albert, in a flying mount, topped his horse and sent it at breakneck speed toward Dahlia's home.  Bj sprinted to the gathered crowd.

"What happened here?"  BJ inquired of the dry goods store clerk.

"'ppears that Billy herbert was up to no good agin.  'n somebody bigger 'n' stronger roughed 'm up."  The clerk was too busy gawking to say much more.

"Was anybody else hurt?"  BJ demanded.

"Nobody 'ppears t' be.," the clerk told BJ without taking his eyes from the scene of the town physician administering aid to Billy.  "His head was a fire and both hands busted up purt bad."

BJ jogged back to his shop and went through the closing procedure.  Then walked quickly home.

"Mr. Rassenkamp,  Dahlia is  hurt but not too bad.  She is very tired and upset,"  Albert offered up to BJ. "She has a shiner, some bruised arms, and scratches.  Her dress is torn too."

"I'll stomp Billy, that little brute."  BJ raged at nothing but, everything.

"Sir, I believe that Dahlia has already taken that initiative,"  Albert spoke with pride.They both laughed.  

Ericia was tending to Dahlia's physical wounds while Albert sat on the bed beside her and tended to her psychic wounds.  Dahlia could feel both of their healing touches.  Albert was painting beautiful pictures in her mind,  Her Mamma's soothing herbal remedies relieved her body's aches. person.

"He tried to despoil me.  I was so scared, but I didn't panic.  He slapped me in the face.  He said he was going to show me what a real man was like.   He pulled up my dress and tore at my bloomers.  I kept backing away until I backed into the madrona tree.  I knew he was going to try to beat me with his fists. I ducked forward and down.  He kept hitting the tree with all his strength and he was screaming with pain but, he kept punching the tree."  She said in broken amazement.

"I backed away and set his hair on fire before I ran."  She was hiccuping now more than sobbing. 

BJ brought Joel into the room and called everyone to his person.  "No word about any of this leaves this room.  It will be dangerous to Dahlia if even a hint of our knowledge leaks from this room."  BJ looked around to each person who nodded their assent.  "If any body asks about your injuries, you fell from a tree you were climbing."

"I am proud and in awe of you for being so brave.  We can never go back to our spot.  I can come here or escort you to my house."  Albert was sincere and mature at the same time.

"What about your mother?" Dahlia beseeched him.

"You are my girl.  Nobody is going to ever come between us."  He smiled and held both her hands in his.  Dahlia looked up at his eyes she trusted him to be strong.  He traced little designs on her arm lightly with his fingers.  It gave her goose bump.  And then she saw it.  He was painting beautiful pictures on her arm that she saw in her mind.

"Dahlia, you did not make any of this happen."  Albert was looking at her bruises.

"I did I was there," She looked up at Albert with disbelief.

"Yes , you were there.  What I am saying is that your brain is uniquely capable of receiving and processing information that the rest of the world is blind to."  He raised his eyebrows as he continued holding her hands.  "It wasn't magic or witchcraft.  We have gifts.  However, we got them I do not know.  I do know that we can perceive things that not even we know how to deal with."

"I will trust you to explain all this to me.  It does make sense.   At least is makes as much sense as that new telephone device."  She squeezed Alber'ts hands.  Let's go outside and talk under the oaks."

"I can tell that you understand.   Mr. Marconi is a scientist with even a more interesting device that is wireless.  Then there is Nikola Tesla  the greatest of them all.  I will study their writing with you."  They continued to talk small talk of molecules, atoms, and electrons until Ericia called them in for supper.


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