HAD THEY GONE HOME

Had they gone home when they returned at Christmas, instead of dallying along the riverbank, Oliver and Twink would have prevented the fire, and the Baxters and Mrs. Hutto would have arrived at the house to see the horrific fight that they had anticipated and feared. Oliver was being brutally beaten by five of the six Forresters, while the sixth, Gabby, easily restrained the struggling, screaming Twink.

As the newcomers gasped at the sight, Lem snarled at them, "Well, here you Baxters are, interferin' agin! I knowed it! Penny, my brothers shoulda let you die o' the snakebite!"

Penny held his hands out to his sides in supplication. "I ain't fightin' you! I know it's no use! But please don't do this! Don't kill nobody!"

Lem wasn't finished. "What about you, Skeeter, you want more o' this?" He held up his fist at the boy.

Slowly shaking his head and backing away, Jody faintly murmured, "No. But I'm with Pa: please don't kill Oliver. It jest ain't right."

"So you wa'n't gonna interfere no more, iffen we saved your pa, eh boy? Your word don't mean nothin', do it?"

Ory surprised the men by pushing her way to stand directly in front of Buck. She declared loudly, "Buck! You know better than this! You are better than this! Please, be the kind-hearted feller I know you kin be!"

He frowned down at her in contemplation and guilt.

For her part, Mrs. Hutto knelt by her son's prostrate form. "Oliver, for the lord sake, stay down! Don't make it easy for 'em!" she urged in a quiet voice.

"Ma, I have been. They drag me up each time, to face 'em," he mumbled back to her.

At that moment, Mill-wheel reached down to do exactly that. Oliver's mother threw herself protectively across her son, screaming, "No!!!"

Oliver continued to mumble, "Ma, how'd they git here so fast? They live miles away! But soon's me and Twink got here to the house, they was on us a'ready!"

"They was at the doin's," she murmured in return.

"Oh lord!" he muttered.

Mill-wheel had hesitated at first, seeing Mrs. Hutto in his way, but now he made up his mind, and hauled her up instead.

"Git your hands offen me, you brute!" she hollered, as she was hefted to her feet as easily as if she weighed nothing at all. Mill-wheel held her by the arms, facing him, and glared her to silence.

Meanwhile, Twink twisted in Gabby's grip, and managed to bite him. He howled and then punched her into unconsciousness. She crumpled to the dirt. Lem grinned and laughed at the spectacle. Simultaneously, Buck and Mill-wheel raised their eyebrows at Ory and Olivia, respectively held in their grasps. Both older women were cowed into silence by Gabby's unsubtle demonstration, and by Buck's and Mill-wheel's look, with its accompanying stark message that women were not to be spared Forrester fists, and meekly lowered their own eyes. Buck and Mill-wheel gently moved them aside, as Arch and Pack dragged Oliver to his feet once more.

Hastily, before he could get hit again, Oliver told Lem frantically, "We're married! She's my wife now! We was married in Boston! Don't that mean nothin' to you?? We got nothin' to fight about no more!!"

Lem hesitated, with fist drawn. Arch and Pack continued to hold Oliver for Lem. The only clean-shaven Forrester looked to each of his brothers in turn, silently polling their opinions.

Buck spoke aloud what all of the bearded five were thinking. "Up to you, Lem. Your decision whether this makes a difference or not."

Twink moaned, coming to, and it helped Lem make his decision. He eyed all three Huttos and all three Baxters, as he said, "If...we spare you-all...."

The intended victims held their collective breath, scarcely daring to hope.

Lem went on, "I want three things. First: Twink: why'd you betray me? Why'd you lead me on?"

Now propped up on her arms where she sat in the dirt, she shook her head, partly to clear it, and partly in reply. "I ain't. I loved both o' you. But the fight scared me away. I was afeered someday one or more o' you-all might beat me like that. And I think Gabby jest proved my point." She glanced up at him in both fear and resentment.

Lem nodded slowly, and then went on, "Second: Oliver: jest how bad you wanta git outta this fight?"

Oliver glanced around at the six Forresters, who were all too ready to beat the life out of him, and out of his family and friends. He nodded. "Plenty bad. I'll...do anything you say." He cringed, partly with shame, but partly with worry over just what would be required of him.

Lem looked smugly satisfied. "Then, I want you to beg for your life, and the lives of the others. On your knees."

Cooperatively, Arch and Pack pushed Oliver down so that he knelt before Lem.

With no hesitation, Oliver begged eloquently for mercy for them all. Lem wasn't the only Forrester who enjoyed that. Every one of them did.

"And my third condition," Lem announced with relish. "I wanta scare the very devil outta the folks o' this town, for the second time tonight." He referred, of course, to Buck's having draped himself in the fur of the bear Slewfoot, hours earlier, and having entered the doin's growling and swaggering like a bear, and terrorizing the townsfolk.

"How?" asked Penny.

"We're gonna make the blasted town think we kilt the bunch o' you." Lem's eyes twinkled nastily.

"How?" Oliver echoed uneasily.

"You-all're gonna play dead. Nice and limp. We're gonna carry you right back into the doin's...and dump you in the middle o' the church floor in a heap. Oliver on top, so's they kin see his battered face. Six of us, six of you, each one of us totin' one o' you." He shrugged magnanimously. "After ever'body has time to panic, you kin 'wake up' and git up, and show you're alive. I'll give Oliver a leetle kick to leave you know when."

One by one, each of Lem's brothers caught on as Lem spoke, got tickled by Lem's diabolical plan, and laughed. By the time that he was finished speaking, all of the Forresters were laughing raucously.

Mrs. Hutto shook her head at the outrageousness of it. "You 'spect us to walk all the way back to the doin's? After what we've all been through??"

"Naw," Lem assured her. "Somebody might see you-all walkin' and spoil the surprise. No, each of you'll be draped over one of our horses." He grinned.

Oliver raised a timid finger. "Kin I ask one question?"

Obviously pleased by Oliver's humbleness, Lem generously gestured for him to ask.

"In the future, iffen we run into you-all, in the store, in the doin's in future years, wherever, kin we 'spect your mercy to still hold?"

Lem nodded. "Long's you keep bein' as humble and respectful as you're bein' now. Don't start nothin', don't do nothin' to rile us, and we'll leave you be. Might even say, 'Howdy'."

"Thank you," Oliver said, and meant it; his gratitude was genuine.

Lem became more businesslike. "Okay, let's mount-up and ride. Oliver, I'm takin' you, and I'm dumpin' you last, and on top." With that last part, he reminded his brothers that they were to dump their burdens first.

Gabby dragged up Twink from the ground, and slung her over his shoulder. She cried out, in pain or dismay, no one was sure. Ory eyed Buck uneasily, as he lifted her into his strong arms, and gasped and clung to him, frightened and disoriented. Mrs. Hutto glared as Mill-wheel seized her, and refused to give him the satisfaction of appearing alarmed or discomfited. Arch took Jody in a fireman's-carry, and Pack did the same to Penny. Penny sighed quietly at the indignity, but made no real protest. Each Forrester easily mounted with his prisoner, and slung him or her across his saddle in front of him.

Oliver murmured to no one in particular, "I've had nightmares, start out like this."

Buck and Mill-wheel grinned over at him, genuinely amused.

As the horses galloped, Twink moaned, "This is makin' me dizzy!"

Gabby replied, "Jest don't you dare puke down my leg, or you'll wish to hell you hadn't."

"Arch?" pleaded Jody.

"What?"

"Your saddle-horn is hurtin' me, diggin' into my guts."

"Suffer."

"Cain't you shift me a mite?"

"Shift yourself. But iffen you fall off on your head, don't complain to me."

"Buck? I'm slippin'!" worried Ory.

"Jest stop squirmin'. You'll be all right."

"Hold onto me!"

"I got you. Quit squirmin', I said."

"Ezra, he'p me!"

"What you figger I kin do, wife? Cain't you see I'm in the same mess as you?"

"I cain't see nothin' from this angle!"

"You ruffians!" fussed Mrs. Hutto. "This here foolishness is spoilin' my purty dress!"

Before any Forrester could reply, Ory retorted, "You got plenty more. I'd not complain about that, was I you."

"Hush, all o' you," ordered Lem. "We're gittin' close. I don't want the townsfolk to hear you. You're dead, remember?"

Moments later, they drew up in front of the church. The big men began to discharge their reluctant passengers.

Obeying Lem's command to be quiet, Ory whispered, "Buck, please! Leave me down gentle!"

The Forresters dismounted as well, and scooped up their various victims.

"Play dead," Lem demanded. "Now."

All victims drooped and sagged obediently in the arms of Forresters.

The Forresters crashed through the church doors. Between the slamming tumult and the blast of cold air that accompanied them, every pair of eyes in the church was instantly on the arrivals. A chorus of gasps and exclamations of horror sounded and resounded as the powerful dark men carelessly dumped their victims in a disordered heap.

A murmur of "They kilt 'em!" whispered through the crowd. Husbands and wives clung to each other. Children scurried to hide behind their parents. More than a few people dove under tables.

The Forresters laughed harshly, enjoying their spectacle, and their effect on the townspeople, to the fullest. Then, Lem exchanged looks with his brothers, turned to the pile of victims, and delivered to Oliver a kick that was, strictly speaking, harder than necessary.

"Ow!" Oliver protested, and then clambered off of the others.

The townsfolk stared, aghast, as the "dead" rose, muttering complaints and dusting themselves off. Ory stumbled, off-balance, and Buck steadied her and gave her a tolerant smile.

"You-all was fakin'?!" demanded an outraged town.

"We had no choice at all!"

"B'lieve me, we didn't wanta!"

"We had to obey!"

"'Twas the only way we could git outta bein' kilt for real!"

"They made us do this!"

As the various victims answered all at once, the people of the town gathered the gist. Gradually, they turned to the Forresters, and one man bravely asked, "You-all done upsettin' Christmas now?"