by Adam Brady
“This is not right, Dora,” he said gravely. “I’m not the man for you. I’m a drifter, and that’s what I’ll always be.”
“I know what you are, Buck,” she said, and then her smile faded and her eyes took on a serious look. “I knew all along.”
“Then get dressed,” he said. “I’ll fetch the horses out front and wait for you.”
“Don’t go,” she said as he turned to leave.
He stopped at the door and heard her feet hit the floor as she stepped out of the tub. He fought down the desire to turn and look at her.
“Buck?”
Her bare feet padded across the floorboards, and then her hands slid onto his shoulders and moved to his neck. He felt his body stiffen.
“Buck, I’m a woman,” she said. “I’m not a girl playing some game. I know what I’m doing.”
She moved closer, until her warm, damp breasts were pressed against his back. He held his breath.
“I know you’ll ride away one day, and maybe that day will come soon. That doesn’t change anything ...”
He stepped away so that he could turn and face her.
“What the hell are you sayin’?”
“I’m saying that you’ll ride out of my life and I’ll marry another man. I know that. It might be Ken Pritchard, with his shy ways and sly looks and never opening up about the way he feels about me. Or it might be Tom Buchanan, who says what he thinks and what he feels and the world can go to hell if they don’t like it. I have few men to pick from, Buck. I need a man, and I’ll take one and I’ll have his children and I’ll live my life as happily as I can and still look after pa.”
Her hands were down at her sides now, and somehow that seemed to draw his attention to her nakedness.
“I’ll have a husband, Buck, but I won’t have a lover. I’ll have nothing to remember you by if you don’t take me now. Please, Buck, don’t deny me this chance. Give me something pleasant to remember.”
“This isn’t how it should be, Dora.”
“Don’t you want me?”
“Sure I want you. What the hell do you take me for?”
“The greatest fool in the world if you don’t take me now,” she said, and then she turned and walked across the room and dropped onto the bunk against the wall.
She lay there for a moment then, slowly, she turned, a seductive movement that made Halliday’s breath catch in his throat. He crossed to her and she lifted her hands to the buckle on his gun rig. When the belt hit the floor, she began to pull at the buttons of his shirt.
He stepped away from her then, shucking off his clothes as he watched her. When he eased onto the bunk beside her, she said;
“I’ll never say you owe me anything after this. I promise, Buck.”
Then her lips found his, eagerly, passionately, while she pressed her body hard against his.
He began to fondle her breasts, and she moaned when his tongue licked her nipple. She began to feel for his pecker when a sudden gust of wind slammed the door shut. He felt Dora jump beside him, but then she straddled him and began to move her hips in a slow, sensual rhythm when he entered her.
Halliday began to move his hips in time with hers, gently squeezing her breasts and running his thumbs over her nipples. Then he hesitated.
“Don’t stop, Buck!” Dora begged him. “I want you to make me feel like a woman. Do it, Buck! I never want to forget you, Buck!”
Even though he tried, Halliday couldn’t shake the mental picture of his promise to Dora’s father when he’d said;
‘I’ll get her and bring her home.’
“Your father—”
“Never mind pa, Buck. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Make love to me ...”
A breathless half-hour later, Buck Halliday rolled onto his back and gathered her in the crook of his arm. They were exhausted and gleaming with sweat as they reluctantly returned to the real world. Then Dora sighed, and he could feel her tears rolling down his bare chest.
“Are you all right, Dora?”
She gave a little laugh and snuggled up closer to him.
“Of course I am, silly. But you better know that I’m going to want some more of that before morning ...”
Halliday closed his eyes and let his weariness take hold of him.
Two days without sleep nursemaiding a herd at times on his own, had left him spent. But if he didn’t get any sleep tonight, that would be fine by him.
There was always tomorrow ...
Three – Taking Dora Home
They did sleep, and when they awoke, they made love. Then they slept again, well into the afternoon, before making love once more.
Buck Halliday was pulling on his boots when Dora Hillary came up behind him and hugged him. She kissed his neck and worked her hands down the front of his Levi’s before he could buckle up his gunbelt, all the time those firm, sensitive breasts pressing hard against his back.
Halliday turned and held her wrist, and then he held her at arm’s length.
“We’d best be goin’ now, Dora,” he said.
“I just want to thank you, Buck. I’ll never ever forget you. I’ll always have that memory with me.”
Halliday gave her an affectionate smile.
“Time has a way of makin’ memories go dull around the edges, Dora,” he told her gently. “It’s nobody’s fault. That’s just how life goes.”
“I won’t forget one minute of the last twelve hours, Buck,” she said defiantly. “And I’ll never try to tie you down, but I will think of you every night, whether you’re in our bunkhouse or out on the open range. But you must promise me—on those terms—that if I come to you, you will make love to me again. You will, won’t you?”
She broke from his grip and clung to him desperately. Then she lifted her head and wheedled;
“Promise?”
“Only if you get your clothes on while I go ready the horses.”
“Promise.”
He kissed her and stepped out into the dusky light of late afternoon.
Dora was happy to promise, and she began to dress. She was buttoning her blouse when she heard the clump of a boot outside the door.
She turned to the door at once, smiling in anticipation. But this was not the man who had made her sigh and purr with pleasure. This was Adam Walsh with a gun in his hand and his face twisted with rage.
Dora gasped and instinctively backed up against the bunk.
Walsh remained standing in the doorway, and he was no longer the lovesick cowpoke who had followed her around like a faithful dog.
“You’re nothing but a tramp!” Walsh snarled. “I wasn’t good enough for you, huh? You had to have a goddamn drifter instead! So where the hell is he now?”
“Right behind you, yeller belly,” Halliday said in a voice as cold as winter ice. “Turn around slow an’ easy—but drop the gun before you make a move.”
Dora saw the anger turn to fear in Walsh’s eyes. Sweat broke out on his forehead as he began to turn.
“Drop the gun, I said!” Halliday warned.
Walsh gulped and began to shake his head.
“I didn’t mean no harm, Halliday. Honest, I didn’t.”
“You’re comin’ back to the ranch to explain yourself,” Halliday told him. “You can tell Mr. Hillary and your pards why you ran out on us.”
Dora saw Walsh’s finger tighten on the trigger.
“You can go to hell, Halliday!” Walsh yelled, and then his gun lifted.
Dora bent and picked up one of her boots from the floor and threw it at his head.
“You’re gonna get it later, Dora!” Walsh roared.
The words had barely left his mouth when Halliday rushed through the doorway. His bullet hit Walsh in the shoulder and threw him off-balance. Walsh’s gun roared, and a shower of dirt and splinters fell from the rafters.
Walsh staggered and grabbed at the windowsill to keep himself from falling. He was trying to bring his gun up again, but he seemed to lack the strength.
&
nbsp; Halliday knew now that he was up against a man who could not live with his shame. Walsh was a man who had discovered for himself that he was yellow, and the discovery had made him into something worse than a mad dog.
There was no malice in the single shot that Halliday fired, it was simply a killing shot to put a disgraced man out of his misery.
Walsh was dead not long after his body hit the floor.
Dora ran to Halliday and pressed her face against his chest.
“Oh, Buck,” she sobbed, “why did he come? Why did he have to find us?”
“It’s all right now,” he said, and put his arm around her and led her out into the sunshine.
He went back inside then and prodded Adam Walsh with the toe of his boot. Satisfied that the man had breathed his last, he lifted the body and carried it outside. Dora went back inside to finish dressing.
There was a hardness in Buck Halliday’s eyes now—all the romance of the last few hours gone but not forgotten.
White-faced and in shock, Dora felt so shaky that she had to sit on the bunk to pull on her boots and catch her breath. Then she went back outside to the horses and waited there with her head lowered as Halliday went in search of Walsh’s horse.
She knew now that Halliday was the man she wanted, no matter what promises she had made to him.
Tears welled in her eyes again. Somehow she had to make him want to stay.
Halliday returned with Walsh’s horse and after wrapping the dead man in his own bedroll, he roped the body across the horse’s back. Then he accepted the reins of his sorrel from Dora and swung into the saddle.
His eyes took in the surrounding terrain and the slanting sunlight. He figured that it would take them about three hours to get back to Rocking L. He hoped that would be time enough to convince Dora that what had happened between them would be their secret, never to be shared with anyone—her father, in particular.
Dora rode up beside him and gave him a shy smile. Then she let her mare have her head. Halliday hesitated, watching her go and admiring her spirit.
He was about to give his horse more rein when he heard the gunshot.
The sorrel reared so suddenly that Halliday almost fell. While the sorrel was back on its feet, two more gunshots came at him and one slug cut a strip of weathered wood from the front wall of the lineshack.
Halliday saw Dora turning back toward him, and before he could tell her to run, two men came out from behind the rocks, firing as they rode.
He jerked on the reins and forced it up close to the lineshack, where he came out of the saddle and slapped the horse on the rump to get it running. Then two more shots came so close that he was forced to stay behind cover.
But where the hell was Dora?
When a long shadow cut suddenly across the yard in front of him, Halliday fired at it. He heard his bullet smack into flesh and bone, and then he heard a grunt. It was the man who dressed like a dude—wounded and wasting no time in scampering behind the rocks.
Halliday then saw Dora, fighting to gain control of her wild-eyed mare.
“Head for home, Dora!” Halliday yelled, but she shook her head. “Go, dammit!”
She turned the horse’s head around but still hesitated, and then the thin outlaw in black showed himself in the rocks.
Halliday fired twice at him, and he dropped from sight as Dora finally kicked her mare into a run.
The thin man had only gone for his horse, and now he was spurring after her.
Halliday charged into the open, ignoring the next burst of gunfire from the dude. He could not see the man, but he had pinpointed his position from the rising gunsmoke, and now he ran toward him, firing from the hip.
His bullets tore into brush, scattering leaves and stems and flushing a terrified jackrabbit that went zigzagging into the rocks.
Halliday went after the dude, who was now on his feet and backing away. The rustlers had threatened Dora’s life, and suddenly Halliday wanted to make them pay.
He closed in on the dude, and for several minutes they kept up a running gun battle. Then the dude disappeared among the boulders and appeared almost immediately, riding hell-for-leather away.
Halliday emptied his gun after him and then hurried back to his horse, reloading on the way.
The dude was out of sight when Halliday kicked the sorrel into a run and went after Dora and the men whom he feared were on her trail.
Halliday had never seen the face of the thin man, not during the attack on the herd or now at the lineshack. He would know the dude anywhere, though. He also remembered that Walsh had identified one of them as being Tom Rainer.
He rode hard to reach the spot where the last of the light was enough to show him the place where Dora and her pursuers had left the trail, their tracks leading into the hills.
He was relieved to know that Dora had headed that way. With night approaching, she could at least find cover up there.
The sorrel’s hoofs struck rock again after crossing the hard-packed dirt on the plains. Halliday reined-down and stared upward as he strained to hear the slightest sound.
Tom Rainer looked like a light breeze might blow him off his feet, but he was hard and wiry and mean as sin. From the first time his hand had closed over a gun butt, killing had come naturally to him. For him, the only pleasure that came close to taking a life was taking away a woman’s self-respect.
That’s what he wanted to do now, as he stalked Dora Hillary through the hills, bent on exacting revenge for the three men who had died at the hands of Buck Halliday.
He smiled as he guided his mount up the rocky trail, knowing that soon he would catch up to the girl.
Cole Turner would probably finish the big man who had been amusing himself with the girl back at the lineshack. If not, he would do the job himself.
There was no moonlight as yet, but the stars were enough to show him the girl, silhouetted against the cliff face as she clung to her horse.
Rainer had been in this country before, and he knew she was heading straight for that old rockslide and would have to turn back. His smile widened. He came out of the saddle and ran to cut her off.
When he finally stopped, the girl was no more than fifty yards away and coming directly toward him. He hid behind a tree and reloaded his six-gun. Then he simply stood quietly and waited.
When he showed himself, Dora pulled back on the reins and tried to turn her mare around. But Rainer had chosen his ambush site well. The mare had little room to turn, and the rockslide was blocking the trail ahead.
“Got you covered, girl,” Rainer said. “You might as well climb on down and take what’s comin’ to you.”
Dora lashed at his head with his reins, and Rainer felt the sharp sting of the leather split his cheek.
“You can’t expect me to be nice to you when you act like that,” he smirked.
“Leave me alone!” Dora hissed, kicking out at him now with her boot. “I’ll kill you if you come near me!”
Rainer ducked under the reins and grabbed her leg. Dora tried to kick him away, but he gave a quick jerk and almost dragged her out of the saddle. The mare lurched forward, and Rainer kept his hold on Dora’s leg until she slipped helplessly from the saddle. Rainer threw himself down on her as she lay on the ground.
Dora’s fear was now replaced with blind fury. She fought him like a tigress, biting and scratching.
Rainer was so surprised by the violence of her attack that he hesitated and backed away for a moment, but then her nails raked his face and without quite realizing what he was doing, he clipped her on the chin with the butt of his gun.
She slumped back on the ground, her sudden helplessness seeming to excite him all the more. He bent over her and tore open her blouse.
She groaned from the pain as he roughly squeezed one breast, then he pulled up her skirt. Her eyes suddenly opened and widened as she looked up into a face of pure evil.
Rainer felt the cuts on his face and then glanced at his bloodied fingertips and snarled;
“You’re gonna pay for that, you bitch! The hard way!”
Dora knew now that her only chance of survival was to fight the man off. She lunged up at him, screaming and going for his eyes.
Rainer protected his face with his forearms until he managed to force the girl up against a rock. Then he holstered his gun and used both fists, pounding at her face again and again until she fell back and her head struck the boulder.
Rainer dragged her away from the boulder and threw her down on her back. He bent down and tore away her skirt, and then he stepped back and simply looked down at her, letting his lust grow until it had completely consumed him.
There was a smear of blood on the boulder and more on the ground beneath the girl’s head.
“I sure hope you ain’t dead already,” Rainer rasped as he undid the buckle on his belt.
Buck Halliday waited for the moon to go behind the drifting clouds before he dismounted and began to climb the rocky path on foot. He was taking his time, moving only when the moonlight did not throw his shadow across the open hillside.
Dora Hillary was hiding somewhere up there, he told himself, and he was coming for her.
The only sound he could hear was the wind, and he held his gun in readiness as he climbed, one cautious step at a time.
Something rustled in the brush off to his right, and he spun with his gun trained on the very spot that had been the source of the sound.
Something small and dark darted away, and Halliday eased the pressure off the trigger.
He came to the spot where the thin man had waited in ambush with his horse. The manure was still fresh, and that had to mean he was close.
He resumed his climb.
When he reached the top, he could see something white on the ground.
When he looked close enough he saw that the something was Dora. He still forced himself to wait and watch until he was sure that the thin man had gone.
Long before he decided to make his move, he knew that it was way too late for Dora.
He forced himself to look at what the thin man had done. Her face was almost unrecognizable, her body a mass a bruises and congealed blood.