Joelle's Secret Read Online Free Page B

judge and tell what they’d do to you if you don’t leave me alone.”
    Suddenly he laughed. “There’d have to be a witness to that. You and I are here all alone. You thought you’d outsmart me, didn’t you?” Anger flared in his eyes. “Well, you didn’t. You make up your mind at this, girl. I’m going to have you. If you don’t marry me, I’ll have you anyway.” She turned her back on him and stiffened, for she would not put it past him if he attacked her right then. He didn’t speak again, however, and she leaned over and put her head against Blackie’s glossy hide. Her legs felt weak.
    “What am I going to do, Blackie? What am I going to do?”
    * * *
    HARPER HAD GONE TO town, and Joelle could not get away from his words and knew that he had enough evil in him to do exactly what he said. She paced the house, tried to pray, and finally went into the main room. Over the front door was a shotgun she had often used for hunting rabbits. She pulled it down and took two shells from the drawer of the table beside the wall. She placed the shells inside and clicked the barrel into place. Then she went into her room and placed the shotgun beside the door. She studied the door for a time. I’ve got to lock that door, she thought.
    She went to the barn and soon found a hasp but no lock. Going back into the house, she fastened the hasp on the inside of her door, then she took a railroad spike that had been a souvenir of her father’s and tried it. It made a snug fit. She removed it and felt somewhat better. He can’t get at me through that door, and if he does, I’ll shoot him. She didn’t know whether she could shoot a man or not, but she knew she would have to do something.
    She spent most of what was left of the day outside and took a short ride on Blackie. Afterward she went into the house and fixed a supper of eggs, fried ham, and biscuits left over from breakfast. She went to her room. It was not late, but she felt safer after she had fastened the hasp. She took her mother’s Bible and began to read. A frightening thought came to her: I feel like I’m on a desert island with nothing here to help me or to love me—and a savage is out there waiting to get at me.
    She picked up the book Miss Harrelson, her teacher at the school, had given her and began to read. It was Shakespeare’s play As You Like It, and she had liked it so much she’d read it repeatedly. The plot amused her, a story of Rosalind, a youngwoman who had to flee her wicked uncle. She had dressed herself as a young man, and in this disguise, had met a young man, who thought she was a boy. Then Rosalind offered to help the young man learn how to win a woman’s love—so she (a girl pretending to be a boy) became a girl pretending to be a boy pretending to be a girl! It was foolish and utterly unreasonable, but as Joelle read, for a time she was able to get her mind off her problems.
    Finally she put the book aside and began to get ready for bed. She put on her warm flannel nightgown and got into bed. She tried to turn her mind from what might happen and thought of her mother’s dream, but Joelle couldn’t believe that anyone would come to help her. Her mother had been an imaginative woman, as she was herself, but she had never heard of dreams having much meaning. Hers never seemed to. She left the lamp burning for a time and read a chapter of the Bible, but she didn’t grow sleepy.
    Finally she heard a horse approach, and she stiffened. She lay there frightened and heard the front door close. She waited and heard the heavy tread of Burl Harper coming down the hall. “Let him go by this room,” she prayed in a thin whisper.
    But that didn’t happen. She heard the steps pause outside her door, and then she heard Burl Harper say, “You awake in there?”
    Joelle threw the cover back. She got the shotgun and backed away from the door. “Go away, Harper. Leave me alone.”
    She heard him try the door, and he cursed. “You think you’ll