Blackwell Bounty

Chapter Sixteen

                "...and there's no guarantee, 

                that this will be easy.

                It's not a miracle ya need, believe me. 

                Yeah I'm no angel, I'm just me,

                but I will love you endlessly.

                Wings aren't what you need, you need me."

                                                Endlessly by The Cab

After that, it took some convincing on Cal's part to get everyone moving in the right direction. Edith wouldn't even spare him a glance, let alone speak to him, as if he'd contracted some sort of plague that would spread to her even by the sight of him. Skinny was downright wounded by his uncle's scolding and he carried with him the melancholy of the berated, the likes of which Edith had never witnessed before. It was as if the flame of Skinny's lively spirit had been completely and irrevocably extinguished. The sight was utterly calamitous, even though she knew that the young man had brought this upon himself with his immaturity. How could it be that Edith, only one or two years Skinny's senior, could see the world through the eyes of an adult?

In the end, Edith had huffed out an indignant breath and marched over to the spotted mare. When Cal tried to assist her up onto the horse she'd swatted his hand away impatiently. Silently, Edith hoisted herself up onto the mare and, without waiting for either of the men, urged the steed into a trot steered away from their makeshift camp.

She was angry with Cal -- angry and hurt. The fact that she was away from home, from all that she knew, did not help the state of her mind either. Edith kept hearing Skinny's recollection of what was transpiring in Blackwell at this time. "At the moment, Amos is turnin' Blackwell upside down." While Edith had run away with Cal to save herself, the rest of the town was suffering through Amos' wrath. The lives of her family and friends were in danger of being taken. If anything happened to them...

Edith couldn't consider it. The thought was far too painful, but it was branded into the back of her mind like the marks burned into the tough hides of cattle, forever to bear and never to be forgotten.

I might return to find everything I've ever known has been taken from me.

It was this thought that brought her to the decision that she could not hide away while Amos wreaked havoc on all Edith cared for. The threat of Amos' cruelty was a heavy weight upon her shoulders, but the worry for her father and the town she called home was a much heavier burden. Cal wanted to protect her; she understood that. But she wanted to protect her father. Or at least, if he was to die in the near future, Edith wanted to be there with him in his last moments. No one should die alone.

Somehow she had to find a way to get back to Blackwell when Cal took the money back to Amos. No doubt he would refuse if she entrusted him with her plans, but after he left then there would be no one to stop her from going wherever she pleased. Edith would allow him to believe she would sit still and twiddle her thumbs idly while he went off to get himself killed, even if she thought he should know better than to believe that by now. Calvin had hurt her, but Edith couldn't truly bring herself to feel spiteful. If it would comfort him, then she would let him have that last bit of consolation so that he might face Amos believing he had not sinned again.