The study was black, save for a trickle of pale moonlight around the edges of the poorly drawn drapes. Jessica immediately went over, rearranging the drapes so they completely blanketed the study’s small-paned window, while Ki lit a small reading lamp and Daryl gently closed and relocked the door.
Most of the study was taken up by a massive six-foot curtain desk, made of quarter-sawn golden oak, with sycamore inlays and pigeonhole cases. It rested with its matching swivel chair on an Oriental carpet, and was surrounded by walls of bookshelves that were crammed with leather-bound books and looseleaf folders.
“What’re we looking for?” Daryl murmured.
Jessica shrugged, and started poking into drawers and pigeonholes, while Ki began sifting through the material on the shelves. She unearthed very little useful information, other than a curious letter postmarked from Washington, D.C.:
My dear Guthried:
I trust you’re finding life among the savages and cutthroats not overly unbearable. Your endurance will be well rewarded, I assure you, and this is to confirm that I’ve already taken steps to arrange for five percent of the stock to be issued in your name. Of course, this is predicated on your success in purchasing all the land we require, and the subsequent merger of Acme with our new corporation. I’m also pleased to report that we’ve decided on the name of American Federated Development, which has a nice solid ring to it, I believe, without meaning anything. As soon as I receive your wire, I shall introduce my bill and guide it through to passage.
Yours respectfully, Dilworth Trumbull
Jessica pocketed the letter, frowning as she tried to remember precisely who Dilworth Trumbell was. A congress-man, obviously, but—
“Jessie,” Ki hissed, interrupting her thoughts. “Come here and take a look at this, see what you make of it.”
Jessica and Daryl crossed to where Ki stood by one bookcase, his hands holding wide an unfurled surveyor’s section map of Wyoming Territory. A red ink line had been drawn along the same hazardous trail Jessica and Ki had traveled from Uva to Eucher Butte, apparently indicating where an improved road was to be built. Another line ran in a haphazard wriggle from Eucher Butte north to the site of Fort Fetterman, then west and down to just below Casper, then south to intersect the Little Medicine Bow River, and then back across the Eucher Butte. Roughly estimated, the box-like shape it formed encompassed some 3,700 square miles of territory.
“Unbelievable,” Daryl gasped. “He’s buying all that?”
“I guess so,” Jessica whispered. “Trying to, anyway.”
“He’s already bought or optioned some of it,” Ki added, indicating where, within the box, blocks of property had been marked with X’s. “And hardly any of it is good as range or farmland.”
Daryl shook his head in amazement. “Whatever Ryker wants it for, it’ll be the largest land-grab since we revolu tioned from the British—”
A moan cut him off, freezing all three of them. It was a low, muffled sound coming from somewhere nearby, and when, after a long moment, they didn’t hear the groan again, Ki rerolled the map and picked up the lamp, whispering, “I’ll go out first.”
“Wait,” Jessica cautioned. “Cast some light around. I swear that moan didn’t come from inside the house—or outside, either.”
Ki held the lamp higher, so that its feeble glow could better illuminate the dark nooks and crannies. At first nothing appeared out of the ordinary, until the study, concealed in an easily overlooked comer where two bookcases met, was reflected the outline of a small inset door.
On a wild impulse, Jessica went to the door, her saner self rebelling even as she eased down on its handle. The door opened against her gentle pressure. She peered down a short flight of stairs to a basement landing, glimpsing a dim finger of light lancing from somewhere farther back. And wafting up came the familiar odor of a wine cellar—that distinct blend of tannin, cork, and mold, which woke in Jessica’s memory the many genial excursions she’d taken with her father’s servants, when hunting bottles for dinner in the cellars of the Circle Star ranch.
“Shut the door,” Daryl pleaded. “It’s only a wine—”
There rose from the basement another moan, longer this time, with a clearly pleading tone to it, as though someone was being tortured.
“Oh, no, it’s not,” Jessica whispered back to Daryl. “It’s another Ryker lie, another trick to cover up something wretched.”
Hesitating only long enough for Ki to move ahead with the lamp, Jessica followed him down the steps, Daryl trailing reluctantly, gripping his old Remington revolver. At the bottom stretched two rows of bottles stacked in ceiling-high tiers, and the finger of light she’d seen from upstairs was emanating from a half-open door at the end of this corridor. The bottles, the tiers, the cellar itself were all quite new, Jessica observed, probably dating from the same time as the addition of the study to the main house above.
Moving between the rows toward the door, Jessica rationalized her reckless urge by arguing that the more she learned about her enemies, the more effectively she could defeat them. And for starters, she wanted to find out who was moaning and why, and if it had anything to do for the reason behind the cellar’s existence. That it was a ruse, a blind to disguise some other purpose, was clear to her; no host in his right mind would build a wine cellar so far from the dining room.
Reaching the end of the tiers, they saw that the door was in a plank wall that partitioned the rear of the cellar into a separate room. Open to view through the widely ajar door, the room was brightly lit by a library lamp hanging from a ceiling joist. Its floor was matted with straw, and its walls were thickly padded with canvas quilting; spaced around the room were big wooden blocks carved out in places to fit the shape of the human body, with leather thongs and belts, and innumerable chains dangling from their fronts and sides.
A woman was shackled to one of the blocks. She was on the good side of forty, Jessica judged, with black hair to her waist, pendulous breasts, and large quivering thighs. She was entirely naked, except for leather sandals and metal-studded leather cuffs at her wrists, to which the chains were padlocked. Her lips, breasts, and loins were painted to accentuate her sexuality, and her eyes were treated with mascara to look twice their normal size. And from her neck to her knees, her flesh was a mass of lacerations, new redder welts laid crisscrossing over older pink scars.
Guthried Ryker was similarly naked, except for a leather belt heavily studded with iron, which he wore around his pudgy waist. He also had on sandals, but instead of leather cuffs, he wore gauntlets. He was patently aroused, his erection jutting like a ship’s boom from his hairy groin. And held in his right hand, slapping lightly against his leg, was a vicious cat-o‘-nine-tails.
Sensing an intrusion, Ryker wheeled to face the group in the doorway. His pursy mouth gaped open, and instinctively his right hand made a slight whipping motion with the tails, which he instantly checked. Ki remained still, guardedly poised. Daryl stared dumbfounded, his revolver pointing downward. Jessica glowered rigidly, infuriated and disgusted.
“What are you doing here?” Ryker snarled.
“What are you doing here?” Daryl blurted in shock.
Ryker blinked, then chuckled throatily. “Why, just a little recreation, m‘boy. A little stirring of the blood to relax me.”
“Release her,” Ki said, coldly but calmly.
“Come now, let’s not be naive about this. My friend is being well paid for her pain.” Ryker moved almost imper ceptively into a crouch, adding: “And I do believe Dolores enjoys it, too.”
“I’m sure Trumbull will enjoy it, when I write him,” Jessica retorted with poisoned sweetness. “I’m sure he’ll be delighted to share this with the other stockholders of American Federated.”
She had no intention of writing Dilworth Trumbull or anyone else; her threat was merely to throw Ryker off his stride, and see what came of it. Nothing did, at first. Ryker showed no alarm, no fear, only a deep surprise. A tense silence gripped
the room.
Then, with the suddenness and speed of a striking snake, Ryker’s hand shot back the tails and snapped them forward. Jessica had no time or space in which to avoid the blow, so she caught the full blow of the lashes across her breasts and belly. It felt like a shatter of glass in the skin, in the sensitive lair of flesh beneath—it was not one redhot sting of fire, but a general cracking agony that caused her to shudder, screaming.
But even before Ryker could complete the arc of his swing, Ki had released one of his shuriken throwing blades from the sheath strapped to his arm under his shirt. The spinning, razon-sharp star glinted in the lamplight as it left his fingers. And simultaneously, Daryl raised his revolver and triggered.
The .44-40 bullet hit a split second before the shuriken. Daryl’s hasty shot blew most of Ryker’s left ear off. Ryker howled, clapping his left hand to the stump of his ear, toppling back and to one side. It wasn’t until he’d bumped into the block where the woman was chained that he noticed Ki’s shuriken embedded in his right shoulder, close to his neck. If he hadn’t jerked off balance when first struck by Daryl’s heavy lead slug, the shuriken would have sliced into his throat and killed him instantly.
“Goddamn you!” he bawled, still falling against the block, sending it and the woman over with him as he crashed to the floor. The woman was shrieking now, struggling futilely in her chains, kicking out and managing accidently to catch him in the groin with one sandal. Which pretty well took care of his withering erection, and any other notion of resistance he might have had. The cat-o‘-nine-tails dropped from his nerveless fingers, and with eyes filming and legs turning to jelly, Ryker collapsed, unconscious, on the straw.
“Let’s move,” Jessie snapped, moving from the door. “Fast!”
Daryl hesitated, bewildered. “But that lady in there—”
“We don’t have the time, the keys, or a way to take her if we could get her loose,” Ki yelled, propelling Daryl along between the rows of bottles. “What we’ve got are your poker-playing pals from the bunkhouse, doubtless coming fast after hearing your shot!”
Chapter 8
Up the stairs to the study they raced, then through the ranch house, back to the pantry. They reached the rear door just as the crew from the bunkhouse came rushing in across the yard.
Both Jessica and Daryl had their revolvers leveled, when they and Ki stepped out. The half-dozen men hauled up short, their own pistols drawn, pointing every which way but the right way.
“Far enough,” Daryl ordered. “Toss your guns away.”
The crew milled indecisively, stymied by the two revolvers aiming straight at them. Then, one by one, they gave in, throwing their weapons off into the darkness. Eyeing them warily, Jessica, Ki, and Daryl moved off the porch and began edging around toward the side of the yard where, beyond, they’d posted their horses.
“Your boss isn’t dead,” Jessica told the crew, her large-framed .38 never wavering in her fist. “Fact is, he’s down in the wine cellar, way in the rear, waiting for you boys.”
They continued backing away from the disarmed group, and were almost to the corner of the first outbuilding again when they stiffened, listening. Hoofbeats sounded in increasing tempo, heading along the road from the pass, directly for the yard.
“Hot damn!” one of the gang cried. “They’re coming back!”
“Yeah, we’ve got this bunch trapped!”
It was true. The three could hear the riders sweeping in toward the ranch behind them, and the men they were covering were regaining their nerve, already scrambling for their thrown pistols.
Jessica, Ki and Daryl pivoted as one, and started running for the protection of the outbuilding’s shadows. “Get them!” they heard a raspy voice shout, and the bunkhouse crew, finding their weapons, began firing eagerly in their direction.
When they came to the back of the outbuilding, Daryl swiveled and his Remington spat flame. A man dropped and another cursed. Joining Daryl, Jessica fired with deadly precision, scattering the initial charge of Ryker’s men, downing two more. Thundering battle broke loose in the yard, pistols bucking, lead searching.
In the dark, bloody confusion, the trio managed to run in a crouch away from the outbuilding. They streaked, ducking and zigzagging, to the edge of the yard, then cut toward the grove where their horses were waiting. They knew they had a bare minute before the approaching riders would descend and spread out hunting for them—and in that minute they’d have to be gone, or be dead.
They were merely flitting silhouettes in the field between the yard and the trees, when the riders galloped in. A quick, shouting uproar and the blood-cry of pursuit rose from the yard, and the riders turned, roweling their mounts toward the fleeing trio.
They dove into the trees, Jessica and Daryl holstering their pistols as they all grabbed reins and leaped for saddles. “‘Bye, boots,” Daryl said regretfully as they wheeled their horses away from the Block-Two-Dot. Then, breaking from the grove, he shouted, “It’s a race for it! Head for the pass!”
They bent over their horses’ withers, and the animals chewed up the ground. Shots snarled after them, but the swaying riders behind them couldn’t aim effectively, their bullets off target, high and wild. They didn’t bother to return the fire. It would be nip-and-tuck all the way to the pass.
The earth blurred under pounding hoofs. The rolling beat of pursuing horses echoed loud and thundering. The pass was an eternity away. The fusillade of avenging lead buzzed close by their heads.
The murky slopes of the hills loomed closer, and finally they could see the black maw of the pass. Jessica risked a quick glance behind her. She could plainly hear the onrushing riders, but could only make them out as a group bunched together in the hazy darkness. From her brief glimpse of their bulk, however, she estimated they were just the bunkhouse crew, and not the combined force.
At last they plunged into the narrow pass, Daryl slightly in the lead, urging his buckskin to greater speed. Short moments later, the towering walls of the pass echoed as the pursuers swept in after them along the rutted trail. The chase continued, the pass gradually rising and blending into the foothills and opening out into a draw. Beyond, a wide rock-strewn plateau extended to another maze of night-heavy ridges and canyons. Naked of trees, the plateau gleamed under moonlight, which made pearls of the stones littering their path.
The three rode hard across the flat. The only sounds were the deep panting of the horses, and their drumming strides against the rocky soil—and the faint rataplan of hoofbeats coming after them.
“Ryker’s boys still have us in sight,” Jessica said loudly.
“Not for long,” Daryl shouted back. “They’re going to wind up chasing their tails all night, when I get done confusing them. Nobody ‘cept my dad knows these hills better’n I do.”
Reaching the edge of the plateau, Daryl began skirting a twisted ravine, gesturing toward a side trail some distance ahead. Jessica and Ki veered to the left, following him as he swung onto a barely visible track at a dead run. A canyon embraced them, shrinking to a sinuous gorge of solid stone that reverberated with their passage.
Daryl slowed his buckskin and motioned for Jessica and Ki to do the same. Their huffing bays were glad to oblige. They moved on along the granite floor, their easy lope giving off very little noise that could be traced. Behind, the sounds of galloping horses echoed off the rock as the Block-Two-Dot crew entered the canyon.
“Haven’t lost them yet,” Ki said, glancing back.
“We will,” Daryl replied confidently. “Thing is, I don’t want them to be able to hear when and where we cut off. It’s up a ways—”
“Wait,” Jessica interrupted. “Listen.”
The two men tensed, straining to catch what she was hearing. Then, from ahead, faint at first, but growing swiftly, rose a deep, earth-trembling roar. Still riding at a loping pace, they became increasingly alarmed the farther they went along the snaky gorge. But they couldn’t stop or go back, because of the pursuing ri
ders; they couldn’t turn aside, because of the steep slopes and flanking boulders on both edges; they could only continue heading toward the rolling, pounding, fast-approaching tumult.
A few rags of clouds shuttled across high stars, blown by a rush of wind from the north. They caught the moon, released it again; and as the pale light trickled back into the gorge, the trio rounded a sharp bend and faced a looming herd of cattle.
Hastily they reined in, aghast at the sight of this brown wall bearing down on them heads tossing, eyes rolling, horns clacking. It was not a big herd, but it didn’t need to be, squeezed as it was within the narrow gully. It was being driven at a rapid clip by punchers on horseback outlined against the starry sky, their prodding shouts lifting above the drubbing beat of hoofs. A little in front trotted one curly-horned, wall-eyed steer that seemed to be the leader.
“I know that brute!” Daryl yelped. “Them’re my cows!”
“You can have them!” Ki retorted. “Back! Quick!”
His voice was drowned in the deafening roar, but Jessica and Daryl saw him wheel and start heading back the way they’d come. They wrenched their horses around to follow, Daryl’s buckskin kicking and plunging, Jessica’s bay dancing, ears laid back and eyes wild.
Fear was in the air, fear of this mass of flesh closing inexorably, no more to be halted than a tornado. To yell and wave would be futile; to shoot would be like damming a flood with loose rocks, and could easily result in panic, spooking the steers into stampeding in the only direction they could go—straight ahead.
The dark trail blurred under their horses, their pace too swift for talk, and none was needed. Each could sense the tension and dread in the others, as they galloped around another tight curve, and surged directly toward the oncoming Block-Two-Dot gunhands.
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