by Paul Bagdon
“You don’ know nothin’ ’bout horses,” Stone answered. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with this ol’ boy ’cept he’s gittin’ lazy.”
Lee swallowed again, and her ears cleared a bit. “All I’m saying is that these animals need water badly. Some of them are already weaving, and a couple are beyond the point where they can sweat anymore—they’ll die without water.”
“Woooo-eee!” Stone mocked. “You ain’t nothin’ but an ol’ wrangler!” Around him, the other outlaws chuckled. “Ridin’ a church pew with your voodoo man’s ’bout all the ridin’ you do, little lady.”
She met the outlaw’s eyes but didn’t answer.
“You Flood’s church partner, sweet thing?” he went on. “You an’ him set right up in front of a Sunday mornin’?”
He dismounted as Lee struggled to her feet, her hands sweeping ineffectually at the dirt on her skirt. In a couple of strides, he was in front of her. When he raised his hand, she didn’t cringe. He held his pose for a moment, then delivered the blow, his palm striking her cheek with a sound like the crack of a bullwhip. She stumbled back a step, but her eyes never left his face.
“Git on the horse,” Stone said. “An’ keep your yap shut until I talk to you. That there was jist a taste of what you’ll git if you cause me any trouble. Only reason you ain’t dead right now is that I need you to make sure Flood’s after me. Soon’s he’s done, so are you. The only thing is how you die—whether I gun you quick or I give you to Danny an’ the boys.” He leered at her then turned to the gang. “Mount up!”
Lee refused to allow Stone the pleasure of watching her raise a hand to the cheek that felt as if lamp oil had been poured on it and then lighted. Instead, she moved to where Stone’s horse stood, sweat dripping from his chest and belly, and stroked his muzzle gently.
The animal flinched when she moved her hand toward his face, but he calmed immediately when he felt her touch. After a moment she stepped to the horse’s side. She swung into the saddle effortlessly, her high-buttoned shoes a foot above the stirrups. Her left hand touched the horn of Stone’s saddle, and her right rested in her lap.
Stone mounted behind her wordlessly, settling himself onto the horse’s rump, reaching around Lee with his left hand to hold the reins. He banged his spurs against the horse’s sides, and the weary animal lumbered into a semblance of a lope.
The outlaws gave their boss the lead and spread out a bit in a ragged arrowhead, as if trying to avoid eating the dust of the point rider. One man stuck close to Stone, riding back a few yards on Lee’s right side. Every so often the man nudged his horse into a faster gait and drew up almost parallel to her. She met Danny’s eyes and refused to look away, but a shiver that contradicted the heat climbed up her spine each time he pulled closer.
She had been around hard and desperate men enough times to recognize that she had shamed the outlaw. She had taken away from him the only thing that mattered in his life: his reputation. The laughs of Stone and the others had cut him more deeply than any knife could. After all, a knife could only kill him; what she had done was worse than death. She had humbled him, dropped him to the floor like a kicked puppy. She knew that in his mind, she deserved to die.
After a while, the dull, mindless monotony of the ride ground away the sharpest edges of Lee’s fear. A tiny ember of anger that had begun to grow when Stone had slapped her was increasing in size in her mind and heart. She nurtured the sensation. Better to be mad than scared, she thought. There’s a way out of this. There has to be. She straightened her back a bit, sitting taller in the saddle.
Stone reined in, dropping his horse to an exhausted, toe-dragging walk. Many of the mounts of the gang were equally weary.
“We’ll set up by them trees ahead,” he said. “There’s water an’ some grazing for the horses.” He looked out at his gang. “Danny—you an’ Luke go on out an’ drop us some grub. I ain’t about to eat jerky after a score like we made today.”
Danny edged his horse closer to Stone and Lee. “What’re you gonna do with her?” he asked. “I don’ mind doin’ some huntin’, but I need to know what you’re gonna do with this woman. And I ain’t ridin’ out till I know.”
Stone shifted his horse so that he was sideways to Danny. “Oh? You sayin’ I don’ know how to keep a prisoner, Dan? Is that what you’re sayin’? You thinkin’ Miss Pretty here’s gonna escape before you git back?”
“That ain’t it, Zeb, an’ you know it. Thing is, she’s mine.”
Stone slid down from his horse and took a few steps toward Danny. Stopping and widening his stance slightly, he placed his left foot several inches ahead of his right. His gun hand hung next to the pearl grips of his revolver. A wash of sweat broke across Danny’s forehead.
“You . . . you got no call to draw on me, Boss. All I was sayin’ was—”
“What you was sayin’ is it’s you who gives the orders in this gang, an’ it’s you who makes the decisions. That’s what you was sayin’.”
Danny’s throat moved, as if he were swallowing a lump. Taking a hesitant step backward, he focused his eyes on Stone’s gun hand. He looked as if he knew he was going to die. But it appeared that he had to draw—it was better than being shot down with his weapon still holstered. Sweat dripped into his eyes, and he squinted against the sting.
“Mr. Stone,” Lee snapped, her voice as strident as that of a schoolmarm addressing a classroom of unruly youngsters, “I’ve been riding for several hours without stopping, and now I need some privacy. I’ll walk ahead to the trees. I’ll expect you and your men to wait here.”
Stone burst out laughing, as did most of his men. Danny swallowed hard once again and then forced a laugh that squeaked as it left him.
“If that don’t beat a full house, I dunno what does,” Stone sputtered. “First, it’s my friend Danny here takin’ over my gang, an’ now I got a woman givin’ me orders ’bout when she wants to tinkle!” He turned to his men. “I s’pose I oughta jist up an’ retire from outlawin’—git me a job as a store clerk or a preacher!”
The gang stood gaping at their boss. For a moment there was an uneasy silence. Lee couldn’t help but wonder what they all must be thinking. Their boss’s bursts of joviality were probably just as likely to lead to bloodshed as to laughter.
Stone looked away from his gang and nodded to Lee. “Go on, then—I’ll give you a couple of minutes an’ no longer.”
Lee strode off toward the copse fifty yards ahead of her with the uncomfortable knowledge that the eyes of Zeb Stone’s murderous gang were on her back. She forced herself to walk normally, but she felt tightness across her shoulders and queasiness in her stomach. She knew she’d saved a man’s life a few moments ago, but that thought gave her little consolation. He’ll still be happy to kill me as soon as Stone gives him permission to do so.
She pushed the thought of Danny away and remembered the blaze she’d seen in Ben’s eyes as he’d attempted to negotiate her release. She’d never seen that fire before in all the two years they’d known each other.
She almost felt like smiling as she thought of how they’d first met. Within a week after she’d bought and moved onto the Wesson farm, Ben had ridden up to introduce himself. She’d noticed his manners—she always noticed good manners in men—and had found him far more gentle and introspective than she’d thought a Texas lawman could be. She’d made tea, and she’d had a difficult time keeping a straight face as his callused fingers attempted to handle the delicate china tea set she’d inherited from her mother.
She’d also been surprised to find that Ben was a Christian. The fact that he was a gunslinger—a man who killed when necessary—disturbed her. But over the past couple of years, her feelings toward Ben had strengthened and grown, and she knew he felt the same about her.
Lee’s thoughts were suddenly jerked away from Ben. The chunk of shod hooves on the dirt told her horses were approaching, but she didn’t turn to the sound. Zeb Stone rode up to her and slowed his horse to her pace.
“Yeah. I don’ want you wanderin’ off, though. Fact is, if you try anything, I’m gonna have Danny come after you. I’m gonna tell him I don’ want you back, jist that I want him to find you. See what I mean?”
Lee took a deep breath before speaking. She wanted her voice to show no emotion. “I have no choice but to obey your orders at this point. But this isn’t going to last long, and then you’ll pay for what you’ve done.”
“Your beau gonna gun me?” Stone said with a smirk. “That ain’t the way it’s gonna be. What you are right now is bait, sweet thing, whether you know it or not. I spent a lot of time settin’ this whole thing up, an’ I’m gonna meet Ben Flood jist like I did once before—in a saloon, in front of lots of witnesses. Only difference is, this time I’m gonna kill him, an’ I’m gonna watch him die.”
The frigidity in the outlaw’s voice made Lee shudder, yet she couldn’t bite back her response born of the fear, frustration, and humiliation she’d suffered at the outlaw’s hands. “You’re not half the man Ben Flood is!”
Stone leaned to the side and grasped for Lee’s hair, a curse forming on his lips. Lee stumbled away from the hand clawing at her and instinctively raised her own hands to her face—and then she saw the opportunity she’d waited for all day. Stone was leaning far out of his saddle, off balance.
She saw an image of it in her mind. Grasping Stone’s arm at the elbow, she could shift her body at the waist and use Stone’s momentum and her own strength to wrench him off the horse and onto the ground. She’d scream at Stone’s horse and swing into the saddle with a running mount and . . . then what? The weary horse didn’t have enough pluck in him to move faster than a lope, and a few of the men in the gang were riding good stock, horses she could see had bottom and heart. Would Stone make good on his promise to send Danny after me? Would he come himself? Either way, she knew she’d be recaptured and killed—or raped first and then killed.
Lee turned her back just as Stone tackled her from his saddle, taking them both down in a heap of boots and skirts and dirt. Her breath was knocked from her as she struck the prairie, and she heard a quiet “pop” inside her head as her nostrils once again began to pump blood. Stunned but able to move, she tucked herself as tightly as she could, arms over her face, awaiting the fists and boots she knew would come. The ground shook under her as the gang rode up, and she gagged on the salty blood that ran into her mouth.
But the blows didn’t come. The world became as silent as the inside of a casket. Nothing moved. It was as if even time had ceased to pass, as if the universe was waiting with her for that first jolt of pain. Lee held her eyes closed so tightly that red shapes floated inside her eyelids. Please, Lord . . .
“Git up.”
She wasn’t sure of what she’d heard. She didn’t move for a moment. Then she opened her eyes and slowly brought herself to a sitting position. When her feet were under her, she stood. The evil—the frenzied glisten in Stone’s eyes—forced a gasp from her.
The outlaw’s voice trembled, and his words seemed clipped, as if each of them had to be forced past the tight white lines of his lips. “The next time you mouth off to me, you’d better have a gun on me an’ be ready to kill me, ’cause there’s no other way you’ll live another minute.”
Lee’s voice was as calm as she could make it. “I still need a moment of privacy.”
“Go then.” Stone faced his men. “I changed my mind. We ain’t stoppin’ till mornin’. We’ll water the horses an’ rest ’em an hour, then we’re ridin’ out.” He faced Danny and Luke. “Like I already said, I want you boys to go on ahead an’ kill somethin’ for us to eat in the mornin’. Wash it up good an’ hang it so it don’t rot overnight.”
Luke nodded, gathering his reins. Danny began to speak but then clamped his mouth shut. He wheeled his horse, and the two men rode off.
When Lee returned to the waiting outlaws, she carried in her pocket a narrow, three-inch-long piece of stone, probably shale or flint, that she’d noticed near the base of a much larger rock. The edge of the piece wasn’t sharp—she ran her thumb over it without a cut—but the tip was triangular and could be considered a primative stabbing weapon. She’d smiled ruefully when she dropped the piece of stone into the pocket of her skirt; it was better than no weapon at all, but not by much. Still, the slight weight of it was comforting. She was no longer unarmed.
“This plug can’t carry double no more,” Stone announced as Lee walked up to him. “You’re gonna ride on that chestnut over there.” He pointed to a lean, hard-faced man slouching in the saddle of a horse that appeared to be an unlikely crossing of a Thoroughbred and a Clydesdale. The horse’s chest was broad, and his ears indicated alertness. Lee noticed immediately that his legs were straight, and his coat showed he’d gotten more care than most of the other outlaws’ mounts. This one, Lee decided, wouldn’t give a good short horse a race, but he could probably cover ground forever.
She walked to the hawk-faced man. As she stood looking up at him, she guessed that, although he was Mexican, there was Indian blood in his very near ancestry. But what most drew her eyes to his face was a raised scar that ran from his right ear downward, through both lips, and under his jaw. On first glance, the scar looked fresh because of its swollen redness, but she noticed that the flesh appeared hard and settled, as if it had been there for a long time.
Her gaze traveled to the horse again. The bit in the chestnut’s mouth was what Mexicans called a spada, and it had long, curving shanks. Inside the horse’s mouth was a frog, a silver plate the size of a twenty-dollar gold piece that crushed the animal’s tongue against the floor of its mouth and put sharp pressure on the bars, the sensitive areas behind the horse’s teeth along the jawline.
“This bit is cruel,” she said. “It looks like you take some care of your horse—why not get that thing out of his mouth and—”
“I ride him, he carries me, we have no arguments.” The man slid his left foot out of the stirrup. “Stone says you ride with me, then you ride with me. Get up behind me or argue it out with him. I don’ care.”
Lee slid her foot into the stirrup and eased onto the horse’s rump. It took less than a minute for the stench of the body in front of her to cause her to begin breathing through her mouth. The outlaw was redolent with the smell of wine, unwashed clothing, and old sweat.
Stone had mounted as well and was talking with a Mexican outlaw. The man, gaunt almost to the point of emaciation, had a yellowish-looking cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth. He drew on it frequently, making the ember glow, but didn’t take it from his mouth.
Lee could make out only a few words of their conversation. “. . . bring him to me—don’ kill him . . . five thousand dollars plus your share of the bank . . .”
Lee tensed, and her fingers grasped the cantle tightly. They were talking about Ben. She shuddered as fear crept up her spine. If Ben were captured, both their lives were over.
* * *
3
* * *
Ben didn’t have much to say to Nick before he rode out of town. The deputy knew his job—knew it well. And although Ben hadn’t yet told him, a rail town in West Texas was about to offer the young deputy its sheriff’s badge. He had written enthusiastically to the incumbent lawman, praising Nick’s skill and devotion to his work. He knew it would be a good move for Nick; being a deputy was a hard duty, particularly under a man like himself.
The moon that night was half full, affording plenty of light for riding. Ben didn’t bother to search for tracks; he knew Stone was headed either for Mexico or a hideout in the same direction. With the robbery so fresh, the outlaws wouldn’t head to a major city, where there’d be both lawmen and bounty hunters.
Snorty had been a tad fractious as they left Burnt Rock, doing some crow-hopping and even pitching strongly a couple of times. He wanted to run, and he was showing his frustration in every way he could, outside of flat-out fighting to get
his head. Once they got to the outskirts of town, Ben gave Snorty all the loose rein he wanted, and the horse launched into a churning scramble of acceleration that lasted only a few strides before he was in a full gallop.
Ben loved the speed as much as Snorty did. The cool, liquid rush of night air that still tasted faintly of the sun, the steady, pounding thunk of hooves as they struck the sand, the sharp glint of the moon and uncountable stars, all brought Ben as close to God as he felt he could be in this life. But tonight there was a deadly urgency to his speed, and it drained his pleasure. Tonight, the moon and stars were simply sources of light to help him find Lee.
After a couple of fast miles, Ben brought Snorty down to an easy, ground-covering lope. Snorty, true to his name, woofed through his nostrils in satisfaction, his edge of nervousness gone. Then Ben rode in a fashion introduced to him by an Indian friend: galloping for four or five minutes, loping for ten, jogging for ten, walking for ten. A horse with the stamina of Snorty could repeat the cycle longer than a good rider could stay awake in the saddle.
This rhythm was an automatic thing, like breathing or blinking his eyes. Although he carried no watch, his internal perception of time told him when the pace needed to be adjusted. There was no thought process involved; he simply knew when a change would be good for Snorty. He rode without effort, more comfortable on his horse’s back than in the easy chair he’d ordered from the Sears and Roebuck catalog.
Ben tried to keep his mind clear as he rode, but suddenly an image of his mother’s eyes jolted him back almost twenty years. He could see the terror in them and the lines of weariness on her face. He could see the living room of his parents’ house; it’d been cold that night, but there was no fire in the fireplace. He could hear his mother’s voice . . .
“An’ then they come in as brazen as could be an’ took your pa’s bulls, Benjamin. You know how he felt about them animals. That Zeb Stone, he rode right on up to the porch where I was standin’, an’ stopped an’ had this smirk on his face. He said, ‘Thanks for the beef, ’ol woman,’ an’ I told him them was your pa’s prize bulls an’ couldn’t he take some other cattle. He pulled his gun an’ put a bullet right in the bigger bull’s eye, an’ the poor critter fell right there an’ never moved again. I ain’t ever gonna forget that smirk, Benjamin. It looked like Satan himself was settin’ there on that horse. I had the shotgun we keep around the house right there, behind the door, an’ maybe I should have defended our stock, but I was so awful scared that my hands was dancin’ and I could hardly think straight. When your pa got home the next day, I couldn’t do nothin’ to keep him from going after Stone an’ his men. I begged him, but you know how he was. He wouldn’t listen . . .”