The Daughter by C.B. Cooper (robert munsch read aloud .TXT) 📕

June 1865
She walked among the dead and dying, the smell of death hanging heavy in the air. In the distance, lightning lit the sky, turning the dark approaching clouds an angry purple. The light breeze picked up and blew a small gust of wind that held the promise of more to come with the approaching electrical storm.
She studied the faces of the men laying scattered about, until she finally found the one she was looking for.
His face swam to the surface of her memory, a bit murky and a little out of focus, but she was sure it was him. It was the scar that she hadn’t forgotten. The purple, puckered flesh that ran from the corner of his left eye down to the tip of his chin.
He sat with his back against a log, bent over, clutching his swollen distended stomach, like a woman in the throes of labor. He was too focused on his own pain to notice the stranger that walked among them, until a swift kick to the bottom of his boot got his attention.
Looking up through blurry, anguished eyes, he tried to focus on the figure before him. The dark figure loomed before the dying firelight, dressed all in black from head to toe, the face, hidden in the shadow of a black stetson, pulled low, where it met the upturned collar of the black trail duster. Maybe it was the way it stood, but something about it, felt menacing. Whoever it was, they weren’t speaking, just watching him, waiting for something.
He tried to swallow, but his throat was so dry it felt like his tongue had turned to dust in his mouth. Grabbing the canteen next to him, he raised it to his parched lips. Empty. He threw the vessel back down in angry dispair.
Never in his life had he felt pain like this. Hell, he’d been shot, more than once, in his life. He’d been stabbed in the gut and slashed in the face by a disgruntled Cajun whore up along the banks of the Mississippi. He’d even had his leg and some ribs busted by a damn loco horse. In those cases, revenge had always made him feel better. He’d killed all the men who had managed to get a shot off first, one man he tracked across three states before he caught up with the sorry som’ bitch. The whore had gotten her just deserts when he’d wrestled the knife away from her, slashed her throat, and then fucked her hard, as her life ebbed from her body. But, he had always held a soft spot for animals, so a well placed bullet had ended it fast for the horse.
None of those things had caused him even one-tenth of the pain he was feeling now.
Slowly he closed his eyes and willed his body to surrender.
A bucket full of cold water jerked him back from the refuge he so desperately sought.
“Wake up!” the eerie voice echoed through his head.
Coming to, he tried once again to focus on the person before him. “Help me.” he managed to moan.
“I’ll help you, if you tell me what I want to know.”
The words seemed to be coming from the person in front of him, but they echoed in his head, as if coming from inside a long tunnel, and it sounded almost… feminine.
Shaking his head, he tried to clear away some of the fog, as well as some of the water. “What is it you want to know?”
“You rode with Jarvis and Adams. Where are they.”
His body was suddenly wracked with the pain of a thousand knives being buried deep into his stomach. Screaming out in pain he fought the urge to vomit. The last time he’d done that, it was nothing but big pools of gelatinous blood and something that looked suspiciously like stomach tissue.
The dark figure waited patiently for him to answer the question. When he was finally able to speak again, he cried, “You’ll help me?”
“You have my word.” it growled.
“They split the group.” he croaked. His answer was punctuated with groans and gasps. “Half went with Jarvis… up to a place called… Idaho… wants to start a damn town. Adams… to… Oregon, I think, he’s going to build a town too. Stupid bastard’s… think their gonna be kings…or something. And me? I was headin’ down to Ol’ Mexico… ’fore I got waylaid, that is.” Squinting, he tried to make out a face in the one before him. “Who are you?”
The figure seemed to ponder the question before answering. Dark and murky came the reply. “Angel.”
“Angel, huh?” he smiled hopefully, through the tears and pain, “Angel of Mercy, I hope?”
“No… Angel of Death.” the figure said, and turned to leave.
Panicking, he cried to the retreating shadow, “Wait! You said you’d help me!”
The figure stopped and turned at his words.
Striding back towards him, the long black duster was thrown open with a snap. The wind that had suddenly sprung up, caught the edges and billowed them out, lending them the look of dark leathery wings, like some evil creature sent straight from the Devil himself.
“I’ll help you...”
The leg was brought straight back, then it swung forward, driving the pointy toe of her boot into the white quivering mass around his belly. “Find your way to hell!”
Two things happened at once. A black gooey substance shot out of his mouth, and his distended belly quivered, then split open, like a buffalo bladder full of water, spilling its vile contents out onto the ground.
The outlaws mouth open and shut a few times, before he slumped sideways and hit the dirt, already dead.
Directly above, lightening cracked and thunder boomed, rolling and rumbling in protest.
Lifting her face to the dark boiling sky, she yelled above the harsh wind, “Vengeance is mine!” sayeth the daughter.
Turning, she walked to the edge of the camp and scanned the area that lay beyond, until she found the spot she was looking for.
Earlier, after the men had made camp, they had nearly ran for the cooling waters of the deep slow moving creek, leaving their camp blissfully unattended, finally giving her the chance to work her magic. Later, all the men had returned to camp, except one, he had fallen asleep in the shade of a giant sycamore tree, and now he was back, watching from the cover of the trees. The screams and cries of the heavily poisoned men would have alerted him to the danger before he reached camp.
Inhaling deeply, she imagined she could almost smell his fear. Discovering that all eight of the hard cases you rode with were wiped out by a single stranger, could probably do that to a person.
“I know your out there,” she called loud enough to be heard above the storm, “I’m letting you live so you can deliver a message! You tell Jarvis and Adams, I’m coming for them!”
She looked down as she felt the hand tug on her foot. “Help me…” the dying outlaw begged weakly.
Lightning flashed, and in that split second, the man recognized her as the girl they had left for dead. Frantically, he clawed for the gun on his hip, “Fuck…fuck!” he cussed, his voiced strangled with fright.
Pulling her own gun, she smiled at the look of pure fear in the outlaws eyes.
Bringing her boot down, she stomped on the hand that grasped the pistol, crunching the bones in the outlaws hands with the heel of her boot. He screamed in pain and outrage. Toeing the weapon away, she knelt down and shoved the cold steel of the gun barrel under his chin.
Another bright flash reveiled her black, souless eyes. “No… fuck you.”
Pulling the trigger, the bullet entered the fleshy underside of his chin, then exploded out the top of his head, scattering bits of bone, blood and brain matter about.
Standing, she turned her attention back to the tree line and shouted above the howling wind, “You tell ’em I’m coming! I’m coming and I’m bringing Hell with me!”


May 1865

The soldier squatted on his haunches, peering intently at the small, but well kept cabin across the field from the stand of trees that hid him. It was barely breaking daylight when the door opened and a girl walked out.
He studied her form as she headed across the yard to the barn where the animals were kept. She appeared to be sixteen, maybe seventeen years old. She walked, not with the carefree bounce that so many girls of her age had, but with long purposeful strides. She wore denim britches and a cotton work shirt, her long dark curly hair was pulled back on the sides in a clip of some sort, the rest left free to cascade down her back. As she pulled the barn door open, he noticed with a frown, that she also wore a gun, holstered and hanging from her trim hip.
The soldier waited for what seemed like an eternity for her to reemerge from the barn. In that time he imagined her inside going about her daily chores. Feeding the animals, taking the time to stop and talk to them. Inspecting each with an ever watchful eye, always on the look out for injury or illness.
He turned his attention back to the house.
He could see a faint light that had been left burning, setting the inside of the cabin a glow. He watched the muted light within, looking for any change in light or shadow, that would alert him to someone else’s presence. He saw none.
Loud squealing from the barn drew his attention. Hogs, weanlings from the sounds of it, fighting over slop. As the sound diminished, he pictured them quieting down, all lined up in a row, their curly tails wiggling in their excitement, doing their best to get as much as they could before it was gone.
A few minutes later the girl reemerged. Watching her walk back across the yard to the cabin, he felt his heart constrict with longing. Unconsciously, his finger’s reached out, hesitantly, as if he could touch her from this distance. All to quickly she disappeared back into the house.
He sat where he was and wrestled with his options. One part of him wanted to walk across the field and claim what was rightfully his, the other told him to cut and run. He sat pondering that very idea, when a gun barrel nudged him in the back.
He froze for half a second, then grinning to himself, he shook his head. “Hello, Gracie.”
Ben Walker stood slowly and turned to face the beautiful dark haired girl behind him.
“Daddy?”
Grinning at her with sad eyes, he said, “It’s been a long time, Angel girl. I see you haven’t lost your touch any.”
For as long as he could remember, she’d had the ability to sense when someone was coming. Same as she always knew were something was hiding, animal or human. Her older brother Luke, hated playing hide and seek with her when they were little. She’d hide her eyes and count, and no matter how far he went, or how good he hid, when she was done counting, she would walk right to wherever he’d been hiding. Damn’dest thing he’d ever seen.
Finally, over the initial shock, Gracie smiled back, “Been wondering when you were gonna show up.”