Tabitha Read Online Free PDF Page B

details after all these years. But I am beginning to see how it could
help. I want . . . I want to try.”
    “Are you certain?”
    Tabitha sat up and inhaled deeply. “Now that I have begun, I
do not want to stop until I recount the very moment Jesus came to rescue me. I
must tell it all so that my story ends in hope.”
    “As you wish, dear girl,” Rose responded. She took up her
pen and, shaking her head, silently reread the last lines.
“This . . . woman. This Opal .”
    “Yes. Opal.” Tabitha spoke the name with soft dismay. “You
know me, Miss Rose. As you might imagine, even at fourteen I was a handful.”
    Tabitha twisted a napkin in her hands. “Opal may have bent
me, but she did not break me. Not entirely. And not right away. However, it was
not for lack of effort on her part.”
    ~~**~~

Chapter
3
    Late the following day when whatever drug Opal had given me
had worn off, she came back to her room. “It is time for us to talk, Tabitha.
Get out of bed and get dressed.”
    She sat in the same chair I had sat in the night before and
addressed me as I, groaning, sat up in the bed.
    Well, I cursed her. I cursed Opal with words I’d often heard
Cray use, words foreign to my tongue but suited the burning rage I felt toward
Opal.
    Then I saw the man watching from behind her chair twitch his
shoulders. He was a hulking mountain of a beast with a protruding jaw and dull,
piggy eyes. His hair, cut in a ragged line around his collar, was the same dull
brown as his eyes.
    He flexed his hands, clenching his fists by his side, and
the muscles on his arms bulged like thick tree limbs. He was a monster. A freak
of nature.
    “You will curb your tongue, Tabitha,” Opal said softly.
    It was not a request. The menace in those few words made me
wonder how I had so utterly misjudged her the day before.
    I saw my clothes, washed, dried, and folded, on the end of
the bed. Remembering the coins I’d stitched into the hem, I covered myself with
the sheet and grabbed at the skirt.
    The four half dollars were gone.
    “Where are m’ coins? M’ money?” I demanded.
    “We will not speak until you have dressed,” Opal answered.
    With one eye on the menacing figure standing behind her, I
scooted behind the dressing screen and pulled on my clothes. It was not easy—my
body ached from the rough treatment of the previous night. I flinched when I
bent over to put on my shoes. All the while, I seethed, but my anger was a thin
veneer atop the horror of the night before.
    Then I stood before Opal, defiant and smoldering, but
holding my tongue in check—for the moment.
    She watched me and was amused. Her amusement only made me
angrier.
    “I want m’ money,” I said through gritted teeth. “Ya ain’t
got no right to it. I want t’ leave Fullman. Now.”
    She chuckled under her breath. “Yes, I am sure you do.
However, as I mentioned yesterday, I have an agreement with Cray.”
    “Ya lied to me,” I hissed.
    “Not at all, I assure you,” she smirked. “Cray, in return
for all the supplies he requested, traded what he had to offer. It was an
equitable exchange. It was advantageous for both of us.”
    Her gaze studied me in a detached, practiced manner. “You
are thin and have not come into full womanhood yet. We need to fatten you up a
bit.”
    “I want m’ money,” I insisted.
    Opal sighed. “I want to speak the truth to you, Tabitha, so
there will be no hard feelings between us. When Cray arrived a few days back he
offered you to me in return for a grub stake so he could continue his search
for gold.”
    “O-offered me? I-I don’ understand.”
    Opal smiled. “It is not the first time a man has traded a
woman for supplies, my dear. What is important now is that you understand how
things are and cooperate.”
    I still could not fathom Opal’s words. “Are ya sayin’ he sold me?” The events of the night before swept over me and so did panic. “But
he . . . he cain’t sell me! He don’t own me!” I
was