THIRTY-SEVEN
Because she knew the way back home so well, Tina was able to lead Clint straight through a dark, moonless night. All he had to do was keep Eclipse fairly close to her horse and they always had level ground beneath them.
Once they arrived at the farm, Clint signaled for Tina to stop before getting too close to the house, barn or stable. “Stay here for a moment,” he said. “I want to make sure everything’s all right.”
Tina let out a heavy sigh, but did as Clint asked.
Clint flicked his reins, which got Eclipse moving at a decent pace that didn’t make too much noise. Now that Clint’s eyes had become adjusted to the dark, he could see well enough to know if someone was lying in wait in the vicinity.
A quick circle around the house, barn and stable showed Clint that everything seemed to be pretty much as he’d left it. Nothing was burning and all of Wes’s things were in their place. Considering how well organized the old farmer was, that was saying plenty.
Knowing that Tina was watching him, Clint motioned for her to come with him and put the horses in the stable. When he got to the stable door, Clint jumped from his saddle and took hold of the reins so he could lead Eclipse inside.
Tina rode straight into the stable as soon as the door was open. Once inside, she swung down and marched directly at Clint.
Clint heard the steps coming his way, but was still surprised when he turned around to find Tina bearing down on him with such force. “Whoa,” he said as he braced himself for the impact. “What are you doing?”
The question had barely passed Clint’s lips when Tina walked straight into him and shoved him into one of the two empty stalls. Clint tried to keep his footing, but was stumbling backward too quickly to keep it for very long. When his heel knocked against a floorboard and he started to fall onto a pile of hay, Tina was still right on top of him.
They landed in the hay awkwardly, but with more than enough padding to keep either of them from getting hurt.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Clint asked.
Tina’s hands were all over him, pulling his shirt, tugging his belt and touching him anywhere she could find bare skin. “You know damn well what I’m doing,” she replied. “And I’ll stop if you want me to.”
“Don’t you think…I mean…what if…”
“Just say the word,” Tina said as she pulled Clint’s jeans down, “and I’ll stop.”
She stayed still for a moment with one hand on Clint’s leg and the other wrapped around his growing erection. The longer Clint went without being able to form a word, the wider she smiled. “Didn’t think so,” she said.
Clint looked around at the stall. Like most everything else on the farm, it was immaculately clean. Even the pile of hay they’d found had been perfectly shaped. The gate at the front of the stall was just over waist high, which meant Clint couldn’t see anything beyond it from his spot on the floor.
It was quiet and dark enough to make it seem like they were the only two people on the entire farm. As if to chase away the last of his reservations, Tina’s lips wrapped around the tip of his cock and slid all the way down to its base.
“Good Lord.” Clint sighed as he let his head rest back against the hay.
He could feel her lips tightening around him as her head started to bob up and down. As she sucked him faster, Tina ran her hands up over Clint’s chest and then raked her nails gently over his stomach. Soon, she was licking him like she would a stick of candy and humming contentedly all the while.
Clint leaned back and savored the feel of her lips running up and down his penis. He ran his fingers through her hair until he was brought to the height of his pleasure. And, just before he was pushed over the edge, he closed his fist around some of her hair and eased her back.
Tina’s eyes widened, and she allowed herself to move however Clint wanted her to move. She watched him intently as he reached out with his other hand to grab her by the wrist. When Clint pulled her down with him, Tina let out an excited breath.
“My, my,” she said as she landed on the hay and twisted around so she could look up at him. “What have we here?”
Clint was on his knees with his back straight so he could look down at her. Reaching out to unbutton the front of her dress, he said, “Maybe I should just have a look for myself.”
He got the front of her dress open halfway before he simply pulled it off of her. Tina gasped at the rough feel of his hands, but didn’t complain in the slightest. In fact, she wriggled her shoulders and arms so she could make Clint’s task a little easier. When he placed his hands upon her large breasts, Clint felt Tina’s body practically melt.
While leaning down to kiss her, Clint slid his hand up along her leg and under her skirts. Tina slipped her tongue into his mouth and moaned silently as his hand got higher and higher up along her thigh. By the time his fingers were drifting through the downy hair between her legs, Clint felt Tina’s chest heaving against him with one labored breath after another.
When he’d started to touch the smooth skin of her inner thigh, Clint had intended on savoring that moment as well. But the more he touched her, the harder it was to hold himself back. He could feel Tina straining against him as well. Her muscles twitched beneath her skin as if every part of her wanted to wrap around him.
Clint’s fingers glided along the wet lips of her pussy and then eased their way inside. Her body was hot and moist. He barely got inside of her before Tina was arching her back and letting out a strained moan.
“Don’t make me wait any longer, Clint,” she begged. “I want you so bad.”
By the time she’d finished that sentence, Clint was gathering her skirts up around her waist. Tina spread her legs and wrapped them around him so she could pull him closer. Once Clint felt the tip of his cock brush against her dampness, he thrust his hips forward and buried himself inside of her.
She felt so good that he forgot about everything else. All Clint could focus on was the way Tina’s muscular legs locked around him and the way her arms were clamped around the back of his shoulders. Her entire body bucked in time to the pumping of his hips. Her small nipples grew hard the moment he touched them.
And just when he thought it couldn’t get any better, Clint felt himself beginning to slip from the pile of hay.
Tina’s eyes snapped open and she quickly reached out to steady herself as her body also took the short slide to the floor.
Both of them laughed for a bit as they regained their balance and straightened out the tangle of arms and legs. By the time he got himself upright again, Clint swore he’d heard every move he made echoing within the stable.
“Maybe we should call it a night before your father comes in here,” Clint said. “He may just let his shotgun do his talking before he says a word.”
Tina crawled on the floor until it looked as if she was going to use the hay to pull herself to her feet. But rather than climb up, she buried her hands into the hay and leaned forward while arching her back. “You sure you want to leave so soon?”
Clint let his eyes wander along the curve of her back and the rounded lines of her buttocks. “I guess all good things come with a bit of risk attached,” he said.
“That’s what I like to hear.”
Grabbing her by the hips, Clint entered her from behind and pumped into her a few times before his knees began scraping against the rough wooden floor. He backed up and stood before offering a hand to Tina. She looked disappointed at first, but then she hopped into his arms the moment she had her legs beneath her.
Clint caught her and held her up just long enough to feel her legs wrap around him. He backed her up against the rear wall and cupped her backside using both hands. Tina reached down between them and guided his rigid cock into her. All Clint had to do was thrust his hips forward and he was back in business.
It was a good thing that Tina was so petite, because she bounced and writhed against him as he pounded into her over and over again. Before long, it s
eemed as if they were doing a dance up against that back wall. When the dance was over, both of them were panting breathlessly and clinging to each other in the dark.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Although he hadn’t ridden far, Mark Rowlett felt as if he’d dragged himself a hundred miles by the time Smalls called for everyone to stop. They’d arrived at a small trading post a few miles east of Thickett. Mark hadn’t even known the place was there and hadn’t heard a word about it from anyone in the area. Once he and the rest of the men rode a bit closer, he realized why it was such a secret.
By the looks of it, the place might have been a fort at one time. There was a small cluster of shacks surrounded by the remains of a wall made up of warped, rotting timber. Although there was a main gate, there were at least half a dozen other gaps in the wall big enough to drive a wagon through.
Only a few of the existing shacks appeared safe enough to use. Smalls led the way past a corral and what looked to be a storefront. The only other shack that showed any signs of life was teeming with some of the mangiest whores Mark had ever seen. Considering how he spent his time when he was away from Lynn, that was saying quite a bit.
“There’s my girl!” Smalls shouted and pointed to a fat redhead with teeth that would have been more comfortable in a horse’s mouth.
The redhead smiled and strutted over to the edge of a row of flat planks in front of the shack. “Well, I’ll be,” she said. “Look at what the cat dragged in. Come on, girls. It looks like we got us the makings of a real hootenanny.”
Responding to that were the rest of the whores who’d been lounging in and around the shack. They wore their profession the way a lawman wore his badge. A couple of the women had loose blouses thrown over them, which they didn’t even bother to button up. The rest simply wore dirty slips that only covered them from the waist down.
“Set my partners up with some entertainment,” Smalls said. “And some whiskey for my new friends here.”
“What about you, Tommy?” the redhead asked as she rubbed herself between her legs. “I kept it nice and warm for you.”
Smalls climbed down from his saddle and eyed the whore as if she was a cut of fine meat. “I’ll be right there, honey. This won’t take long.”
Mark looked over to Joey and gave a quick nod. Tightening his grip on his reins, he said, “That’s fine, but we should really be—”
Reaching up to grab hold of Mark’s elbow, Smalls pulled him down so quickly that Mark was barely able to get one leg out of the stirrup and onto the ground. “Nonsense!” Smalls bellowed. “Least I can do is give you boys a drink. Besides, Vin don’t like it much when someone refuses our hospitality.”
Vincent had one arm around a skinny topless woman with pasty skin and scraggly blond hair. Even so, he had his eyes on Mark and his other arm hanging down close to his holstered .38.
Since John, the third gunman, was also waiting to see what the next move was to be, Mark struggled to get disentangled from his other stirrup and said, “Come on, Joey. Let’s not pass up a free drink.”
“That’s the spirit!” Smalls said as he roughly slapped Mark on the shoulder. “Come on over here and tell me about this deal you had to offer.”
“Oh, right. The deal.”
As much as Mark had wanted to bolt out of that dung heap as quickly as his horse could carry him, he knew he would have been lucky to make it ten feet before Smalls and his partners opened fire. Now Mark wasn’t even able to take a step in the wrong direction without Smalls’s iron grip shoving him toward one of the darker shacks.
“Come on, boy,” Smalls said to Joey. “That pussy’ll be right here when you get back.”
Joey climbed down from his saddle. A tall woman with darker skin approached him with a pleasant smile on her face. She held that smile when she looked at Joey’s horse and led it away as if it had somehow been handed over to her for good.
“I’ll be honest with ya,” Smalls said. “You might’ve been a bit of help in town, but you seemed useless on the trail. You men fancy yerselves as bad men?”
“Sure as hell do,” Joey grunted as he stepped into the dark shack.
The shack was something of a saloon, since there was liquor being served from behind a sorry excuse for a bar. Although the men who were already there looked like they had one foot in the grave, they still had enough steam left in their engines to laugh at what Joey had just said.
Smalls was laughing too. He kept right on laughing as he drew his pistol, thumbed back the hammer and jammed the barrel up under Mark’s chin. “I like men with gumption, so I’ll tell you what. Pitch your deal and I’ll let you know if I like it.”
“And…if you do?” Mark asked.
“Then I don’t decorate this here ceiling with your brains.”
Mark tried to nod, but found it difficult considering the placement of Smalls’s gun. “There’s some gold being held by a farmer.”
“Huh?”
“That’s right. Gold. Lots of it. I saw a chunk as big as your head being stashed in his barn.”
“Bullshit,” Smalls grunted. He leaned forward and lowered his voice to a fierce whisper. “How stupid you think I am?”
“It’s there. I saw it,” Mark insisted. “But there’s someone there protecting it. A gunman by the looks of him. He got a look at us, so he’ll know we’re coming.”
“Just one gunman and you couldn’t get that gold yerselves?”
“The gunman and the farmer,” Joey corrected.
Smalls laughed under his breath and nodded. “Right. A gunman and a farmer. Come to think of it, I could see how you two might get chased out of there. What’s yer deal?”
Swallowing and pulling in a breath, Mark said, “I show you where the gold is. We go get it and we split it up.”
“My men’ll be doing most of the work, so we’ll get most of the gold,” Smalls said.
“Fine. I’ll be happy with taking one of the women there for myself. She’s mine and nobody else touches her.”
Smalls let out a slow sigh through a slack jaw. Finally, he lowered his pistol. “Fine. Take us there and we’ll get the gold. If it’s there, I can buy all the whores I want. If it ain’t, I kill you both after taking that woman you fancy so much. Deal?”
“Sure,” Mark said as if he had any other choice. “It’s a deal.”
THIRTY-NINE
Clint felt as if he’d only just fallen onto his bed in Wes’s house when the door creaked open and the farmer stuck his head inside.
“That you, Clint?” Wes asked.
Straining to sit up, Clint replied, “More or less.”
“I heard the bank in town was robbed.”
“You heard right.”
“See why I didn’t trust that place?”
“Yeah, Wes. You made the right call on that one.”
“You still want to sleep?”
Clint filled his lungs with cool morning air and wondered if his answer would actually make a difference in what came next. “It’d be nice.”
After a pause, Wes nodded. “I’m making breakfast, so I’ll let you rest until it’s done.”
“Don’t bother,” Clint said as he swung his feet over the side of the bed. “I’m awake now. Are the others waiting for me?”
“Nope. Tina and Lynn are already working.”
Considering how tired he was and what he’d done to get that way, Clint could only imagine how Tina was feeling. When he did imagine it, he couldn’t help but grin. “What are they working on?” he asked as he walked down the short hallway to the modest kitchen.
Wes was already standing at the stove and tending to some bacon frying in a skillet. “They’re helping me hide the gold.”
“They know about it?”
Wes shook his head. “Nope. Far as they know, they’re just fixing up the mess I left in that pumpkin patch. Tina was always after me to plant some cucumbers, so now’s as good a time as any. It shouldn’t be long before that ground looks good as new and nobody’ll suspect t
here’s much of anything there besides some seeds.”
“What about the rest of what we talked about?”
“You mean turning my farm into a damned fort?” Wes asked.
Clint helped himself to some coffee and lifted the hot brew to his mouth. “That’s not exactly what we talked about, but we’re thinking alike.”
“You want me to prepare this home to fight off some kind of attack,” Wes grunted. “Sounds like a fort to me.”
The coffee was just good enough to stay down when Clint drank it and just strong enough to shake the remaining tiredness from his bones. “The two men who came by the last time have joined up with some dangerous men. Real killers, as a matter of fact.”
Wes looked up from the skillet and asked, “Like them bank robbers?”
Clint nodded. “Those are the ones. You get pretty good news up here on this farm.”
“The whole damn town and everyone else within ten miles heard about that bank robbery. Since Thickett don’t normally see them kind of men, it ain’t much to figure out. So Mark had a hand in robbing the bank and killing the locals?”
“Mark shot one of them, but I don’t think he was there to rob the bank.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I crossed paths with the robbers on our way into town,” Clint replied. “Mark was with them, but he looked like he was being dragged along. Besides, I’ve seen enough of Mark and his goal to know they don’t have what it takes to rob a bank. A candy store, maybe, but not a bank.”
The old farmer laughed as he divided up the bacon onto plates that were already holding a healthy serving of eggs. “From what Lynn told me about them, I’d say you were right. Mark always struts around like a bad man, but don’t do nothin’ more than talk to back it up. Talk and slap around a woman, that is. I hope the asshole gets what’s coming to him.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Clint said as he picked up a plate and walked over to the table. “They always get what’s coming to them.”
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