Cowgirl Thrillers

by Barbara Neville

46 My Big Mouth

 

  “Argh.” I open an eye, disoriented.

  Someone squeezes my shoulder from behind.

  I roll over, and focus my bleary eyes on a face. Wolf. He is holding the shush finger to his lips. Been seeing that a lot lately. Am I a chatterbox? I sit up, a bit dizzy and rub my eyes.

  He helps me stand and leads me to a ladder. I climb up into the skylight with Wolf behind, steadying me. The skylight is open. We crawl onto the roof.

  Wolf hands me a nice sniper looking rifle. I check the action, ah, .243, I like it. He tilts his head in the universal follow me sign and leads the way toward, well, somewhere. I am still disoriented. After a few yards, he gets down on hands and knees and looks back at me.. So I follow suit. We crawl over to a low wall. He looks through a cross-shaped loophole near the corner of the roof. Then he pulls back and motions me to look.

  He whispers in my ear, “Watch, if bad guys come out, go in, whatever. Shoot to kill. You steady enough now?”

  I nod.

  He pokes his rifle though a loophole on the other side of the corner and sights down the barrel.

  Between the two of us, we have an almost 270-degree view of the ground below us. The area just outside the front entrance to the fortress. On the other side of the wall are rock piles set in to camouflage the manmade wall from below. There is camo netting hung just above us to hide it from the taller mountains nearby. We sit patiently for a while. Nothing happens. Fine by me.

  “Okay, Wolf go scout. You have a clear head?”

  I nod and say, “I’m okay.”

  “I go below. You watch both ways,” says Wolf. “Also, not shoot favorite lover.”

  “What makes you so sure yore my favorite?”

  Wolf just smiles, sure. Gotta love a self-assured man.

  He crawls over the wall and heads out into the rocks to our left. I watch all directions and keep an eye on his progress. It is boring work. Of course, if I miss anything, we could all die. A minor point. There is always reincarnation. If it exists.

  Wolf circles and looks for sign. Finally, he climbs the hill back to my position. He leads me over to a different skylight and opens it carefully, while I cover him. We sit and listen for movement or voices for a few minutes. Nothing.

  He leans down and scans the room for enemies. He ties off a rope and we rappel down into the roman baths. The noise of our movements is covered by the running water of the fountains. The downside is, we land in a tub full of water.

  We drip a minute, towel off quickly and go. We do a room-by-room search, our pants still dripping some as we make our way through the bedrooms and their bathrooms. The kitchen. The map room show signs of our battle. Wolf leaves the clinic and shop area for last. The room with the unconscious Crystal holds only her limp form. Wolf lifts her head, there is a pool of blood under it. The blood is coagulated.

  We continue down the hall to the fork, Wolf goes to the room where Dropsy was. One dead man, knifed. A stranger. No Dropsy.

  We hear faint voices. We go back across the fork in the tunnels and stand against the wall by the doorway to the clinic.

  A voice is saying, “Get them all tied good. They are not amateurs.”

  I peek around the doorframe on my side, revolver at the ready. I nod the okay and Wolf scoots across the doorway, revolver aimed in, ready to shoot. No one notices. Soames is in there. He is giving the orders. Drops and Mitch are tying Spud, Sir Jacob and Buzz.

  I hear a…

  ‘Psst’

  …behind me. I turn my head, it’s Michael.

  I shrug and tilt my head toward the door. Trouble is, we can’t shoot because the bad guys are standing between us and our friends.

  Michael knows my shrugs well. He can hear Soames talking. He guesses the situation. He holds up his hand, gripping a knife. I look at Wolf who sees Michael and holsters his revolver. He also pulls out a hog sticker and nods okay. They look at me.

  I peek around the corner, pistol barrel first. Mitch is in the middle. He spots me, his eyes widen and he falls, limp, to the floor. As if I shot him. Hunh. Soames and Drops, surprised, both look at Mitch.

  I nod. Wolf and Michael slide down the wall and slip around the corner, crouching, into the room.

  I aim at Soames and yell, “Hands in the air! Now!”

  He turns and aims toward me, just as Wolf grabs his hair from behind and slits his throat.

  Meantime, Michael has knifed Drops, who lets go of his gun as he falls. I hold my sights on Mitch, who hasn’t moved since he fell.

  Clean up is easy. All dead but one. A little blood on the floor adds color to an otherwise drab room. Ha ha.

  “They shot this sucker,” says Michael, listening to Mitch’s chest.

  “The guy catches a lot of bullets,” I say. “Hope he lives to answer some questions.”

  Sir Jacob squats down and checks.

  “Let’s take him back to the clinic. It seems superficial,” he says.

  Four of us lift Mitch, keeping him mostly flat. Heavy fucker. We walk the down the tunnel to the clinic and lay him on a bed.

  We leave the doctors to their life saving work and return to retrieve the dead bodies. We carry them to Sir Jacob’s forensic death lab room.

  “Good riddance to the evil Soames,” I say as we lay him out on the gurney. “Hope his Lordship chops him up and runs him through the meat grinder, just to make sure he doesn't recorporate. Is that the word? Well, come back to life will do.

  47 My Only Friends