Black Ransom by Stone Wallace

then dress in faded and dirty dungarees, don a battered straw hat to protect his balding head from the sun, and step out into the yard to focus on nothing but the task at hand.
    Although she was ill, Harrison’s wife, like most women, yearned at times for some show of affection, a romantic word or gesture, but the judge was a man incapable of expressing tender feelings. His wife would have to settle for the occasional pat on the hand or peck on the cheek—and even those moments were infrequent. Gradually she had grown accustomed to Harrison’s determined avoidance of sentimentality, just as she accepted without question his constant need for privacy.
    However, she was less accepting when it came to her husband’s relationship with their daughter, Evaline. Since Harrison was often absent and spent so little time with Evaline, his wife felt he should take better advantage of those periods when he was home. As she would gently try to explain during rare moments of intimate conversation, their daughter was growing up and needed the guidance and wisdom of her father.
    More to placate his wife, Harrison did attempt to establish a semblance of a relationship, but he found it difficult to exhibit paternal interest in his child. Even simple communication with her seemed beyond his grasp. His “relationships” with younger girls had been of an entirely different nature. He valued them solely for one purpose. He neither understood nor cared about their needs. And this thoughtlessness extended even toward his daughter.
    On a deeper level, though it naturally was never expressed, Harrison inwardly resented Evaline for it had been his wish to have a son, which would never be, as Evaline’s had been a difficult birth and the doctor had frankly warned the judge that an attempt at another child could prove fatal for his wife.
    Nevertheless, Harrison took it for granted that, as her father, he loved her, though, as with his wife, it was never expressed through words or displayed by outward shows of affection. If he’d ever given it thought, he would not remember even having ever kissed her. Evaline, like her mother, had come to accept that reserve as simply his nature—perhaps an extension of his professional persona. She could not imagine there being any difference between the man she saw as her “father” and Judge Charles Harrison.
    Where Evaline had difficulty was in how he failed to acknowledge her accomplishments, which she was always eager to share with him. Since she saw him so seldom, Evaline sought his approval and felt a deep yet silent disappointment when such was not forthcoming. Harrison rarely if ever expressed pride in the high grades she worked hard to achieve in school, primarily to please him, or showed enthusiasm for her musical talents, particularly in piano, where she had received recognition in church recitals. Before she became sick and was more physically able, her mother had been the one to nurture her gifts and shower her with praise. Where she encouraged Evaline’s talents, her father responded to what he considered “frivolities” in a dismissive manner that was hurtful to his daughter.
    As such, a gap existed between Harrison and his daughter. Harrison never considered this a troubling proposition. As a man firmly set in his ways, he accepted his domestic situation as the way things should be, ignorant to the pain his uncaring attitude caused Evaline—or his wife, for that matter.
    Besides, he contented himself with the knowledge that soon he would be summoned to preside over another court case . . . and partake in the pleasures of another bordello.

SIX

    IN THE DAYS, then weeks, that followed, Ehron Lee Burrows struggled to keep the vow he had made to himself. Against the endless strain of long, arduous, sun-baked labor, busting rocks and clearing gravel-laden trails in the quarry while locked in painful leg irons, the taunting and outright