Guadalupe's Tears Read Online Free PDF Page B

They say you brought it on your own self, for not leaving when you were told.” She paused and cast an ugly glance at the manacle and chain. “Any time someone breaks the law—whether it be men’s law or God’s law--they send them up here to you for judgment.”
    “Maybe I should feel remorseful, but I don’t, strangely enough,” Lee said.
    “They’s bad men, everyone in Casey is bad. You ain’t doing no sin in feeding off of them as far as I can tell.”
    “What do you mean?”
    Livvy moved closer to him. “That she devil Phaedra showed up two years ago, and not in the usual way. But in a covered wagon filled with folks that’s done died of cholera. All of them was dead but she weren’t. She told the white folk she could keep the town safe from Comanches if she was allowed to feed off anyone who comes along, but if they didn’t agree, then she’d feed off whoever she pleased in the town.” Livvy offered a half-hearted laugh. “And when they said no, she did. She killed every first born chile in town.”
    “What does this have to do with me?”
    Livvy settled back on her heels. “Well, I looks at it this way. These good white folk knew what they were getting into. They let Phaedra turn you into one of her kind. And then afterwards chained you up here and turned you into the town’s pet. Now, I know a lot about being a slave, since I’ve been one since I was a baby, and I know it’s a hard cross to bear. But they’re doing to you the same as me. And I figure if we work together we could both be free.”
    “Aren’t you afraid I’m gonna eat you up, little girl?”
    “I ain’t afraid of death,” Livvy said lifting her chin. “And I ain’t afraid of you, either.”
    “Alright, smart girl, what have you got in mind?”
    “I figure if I turned you loose, you’d be free to feed on anyone you like. Like, maybe Massa Bruce the bartender. And probably that evil old preacher too, since keeping you chained up in here was his idea.”
    “And how do you think that’s going to happen?” Lee asked.
    Livvy smiled again, the failing moonlight etching the line of her cheek. She opened her hands, revealing a ring of keys. “If I turn you loose, will you do as I ask? Will you make me a free woman?”
    “I promise.”
    “I don’t know, white man’s word don’t mean much to me,” Livvy said, and for an awful moment, Lee thought she was about to change her mind. Or was she teasing him? It wouldn’t take much to wrest the key from her, break her scrawny neck and then set out to do as he pleased. He looked into her eyes, so young, so earnest. There was a fluttering of hope in them. She wasn’t going to go back on her word. She was afraid he was going to go back on his.
    “I’m not a white man,” Lee said. “I’m a dead man.”
    Livvy handed him the key.

 
    Chapter Five
     
     
    Lee took the key like a starving man accepts a slice of bread. With trembling hands he unlocked the manacle and slid it quietly aside. “My clothes,” he said to Livvy who watched him free himself from the shackles. She had a hungry look on her face as he did it, the way Lee had seen men who were about to turn hunting dogs loose on their prey. She rose slowly, not quite turning her back to him, which he appreciated because Lee himself wasn’t sure he could be trusted. She walked around a musty old feather bed and opened an armoire. From there she extracted his jeans and shirt. She tossed them over the bed and they landed in a heap at his feet. “Boots,” he commanded as he pulled on his jeans. She reached down and picked up his pair of scuffed boots that still had the red dust from the street on them. He smiled like a grateful dog at her as he pulled them on, then he stood, stretching to his full height. He rushed to her then, and she gasped, astonished at his swiftness. She was in his arms in a matter of seconds; his arms closing close around her, his lips pressing hard against hers. He pulled away then, seemingly