Part 7 (1/2)
Speares glared at the man, but checked his anger. Aside from the marshal, these three were the best of the posse. He couldn't afford to lose them.
He looked at Franklin, then canted his head to indicate the townsmen flanking the market hunters. ”Mr. Franklin here guarantees you each two hundred and fifty dollars-if the gold and and the girl are recovered.” Speares looked at the banker, flus.h.i.+ng beneath the brim of his black bowler. ”Ain't that right, Franklin?” the girl are recovered.” Speares looked at the banker, flus.h.i.+ng beneath the brim of his black bowler. ”Ain't that right, Franklin?”
Speares didn't wait for a response. ”Move out!”
”Sheriff,” Patchen called.
As the others spurred their horses south, Speares turned back to Patchen, standing before the stage. The deputy marshal looked at the woman in the green dress. ”What about your dead?”
Speares just stared at him as if he had no idea what the man was talking about.
”You're not going to bury them?”
”The best way to honor the dead,” Speares said, holding his skitter-stepping mount's reins taut in his right fist, ”is to shoot the s.h.i.+t outta those that killed 'em!”
The sheriff turned his horse and put the steel to its flanks.
Yakima whiled away the afternoon and early evening in the Saber Creek jailhouse by counting the stones in the ceiling, then in the floor, and by trying not to think about how far Wolf and the girl were getting away from him.
By nine o'clock it was fully dark, and the street traffic had died down. Yakima, lying on his bunk, ankles crossed, stared through the cell bars at the shotgun in the hands of the liveryman, Suggs, who slept tipped back in the sheriff's swivel chair.
The shotgun lay across Suggs's broad thighs. Fifteen feet away. But with the bars between the gun and Yakima, it might as well have been in the next territory.
Yakima's heart did a slow, hot roll.
He had to get out of here tonight. By sunrise tomorrow, the gang, Wolf, and Anjanette would be deep into Mexico-probably too far away to track. Speares and his men would most likely be dead, their b.l.o.o.d.y carca.s.ses strewn about some isolated arroyo.
The door latch clicked.
Yakima shuttled his gaze to the front wall as the door opened. A pretty redheaded woman in a low-cut red and black dress and a lacy black shawl poked her head through the opening, her plucked eyebrows arched. She'd gone heavy on the eyeliner and war paint, and the mole off the right corner of her mouth stood out from the rouge.
Suggs had jerked with a start when the door hinges had squawked. His shotgun slid off his thigh and hit the stone floor with a clatter. As he bent forward with a nervous grunt to retrieve it, the redhead laughed.
”It's me-Polly.”
Suggs looked up at her, and the lines in his face planed out.
”Kinda slow tonight,” the redhead said, closing the door and stepping into the room. ”I knew you were alone over here, with orders not to leave, so I thought you might be lonely.” Her eyes grew soft, and she sucked a breath to lift her opulent b.r.e.a.s.t.s. ”Want a poke? Half price for the man guardin' that killer in there.”
Suggs picked up the shotgun and sat back in the chair. ”I don't think so, Polly. If Speares got back and caught me . . .”
Polly stepped forward, hooking her thumbs into her bodice and pulling it down to her waist, the large, pale b.r.e.a.s.t.s jolting free. ”That your last word on the subject, Charlie?” She stopped before Suggs's chair, smiling. Suggs stared at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s like a little boy staring at a jar of colored rock candy on a mercantile counter.
He set the shotgun down against the desk and reached forward, palms out. ”My, those're some jugs!”
Polly stepped back with a laugh. ”Let's see the lucre, Charlie!”
Suggs scowled, glanced at the door, then the window, then turned back to the girl. ”I reckon Speares won't be back tonight.”
He glanced at Yakima, who peered out from beneath the hat tipped low over his eyes, lifting his chest slowly and regularly, feigning sleep. Suggs stood and poked a hand in his pocket, flipped a couple of coins on the desk. ”h.e.l.l, since he's gone after them d.a.m.n Thunder Riders, Speares prob'ly won't ever ever be back. No point in deprivin' myself of a half-priced poke!” be back. No point in deprivin' myself of a half-priced poke!”
”Now you're talkin'!” Unpinning her hair from the back of her head, Polly skipped toward the open door of the jail's only other cell, to the right of the one Yakima was in. She glanced at Yakima, wheeled toward Suggs. ”What if he wakes up?”
Suggs chuffed. ”So? The breed ain't long fer this world.”
Yakima continued raising and lowering his chest slowly as Suggs followed the girl into the cell, awkwardly dancing a little jig and humming a few bars of ”Old Arizona.” Yakima could see part of what they were doing out of the corner of his right eye, without turning his head.
When Suggs had pulled his pants down to his knees, nuzzling the girl and giving her a.s.s a couple of sporting slaps, they crawled onto the cot on the other side of the barred wall. Suggs raised the wh.o.r.e's dress above her waist, positioned himself between her spread legs, and began thrusting.
Yakima let them get going hot and heavy, grunting and sighing and giving the cot's leather springs a good workout, before he poked his hat back off his forehead. He dropped his boots to the floor, eased across the cell, and stuck his left arm through the bars. He wrapped the arm around Suggs's neck and slammed the man's head against the cell wall so hard that both cages shook.
The redhead and Suggs screamed at the same time. The redhead stared up in horror as Yakima slammed Suggs's head once more against the bars and held him there, closing his arm taut around the liveryman's neck. Suggs groaned and choked, his face swelling and turning red as the redhead rose up on her elbows, yelling, ”Stop! No!”
Yakima turned his gaze on her. ”Get the keys from the desk or I'll kill him!”
She tried wedging her fingers between Yakima's arm and Suggs's neck. ”Let him go! You're killing killing him!” him!”
Yakima tightened his grip. ”I will will kill him if you don't fetch those keys p.r.o.nto! I'll tear his head clean off his shoulders!” kill him if you don't fetch those keys p.r.o.nto! I'll tear his head clean off his shoulders!”
Suggs gasped, eyes bulging, and threw his left arm out, gesturing toward the desk.
Sobbing, the redhead scrambled out from beneath the liveryman, rose from the cot, and ran into the main office. She grabbed the key ring off the desk and started back toward the cell in which Suggs was slumped on the cot, head grinding into the bars.
Yakima turned to stare at her over his right shoulder. ”Unlock my cell door!”
She slipped on the stone floor, nearly falling, as she turned suddenly and lunged toward Yakima's cell. She hadn't pulled her dress up, and her big b.r.e.a.s.t.s bounced and her red hair hung across her shoulders as she fumbled the key into the lock. It took her several tries to finally get the key turned, and then the bolt gave with a satisfying clank.
As the door swung slightly outward on its rusty hinges, Yakima released Suggs, turned around, and pushed it wide.
He'd taken one broad step toward the desk, over which his cartridge belt and holstered .44 were coiled on a hat peg, when the outside door sprang open. A thin, long-haired man in a wool tunic and a broad-brimmed felt sombrero stumbled in, then stopped suddenly, eyes bright, as two others came up beside him-including the Mexican, Spanish Lluna, whom Yakima had fought on his last visit to town, in the Saguaro Inn. All wielded rifles, revolvers hanging off their hips or under their arms.
”Well, well-looks like we got here just in time, gents!” The thin man c.o.c.ked his rifle and aimed from the hip at Yakima's belly. ”The breed was about to take a stroll!”
Chapter 9.
Yakima froze, glanced at the shotgun leaning against the sheriff's desk.
”Forget it, breed,” said the third man, flanking the thin gent, raising his own Winchester and narrowing his flinty eyes. ”You'll never make it.”
”Hey, don't go and spoil our necktie party, heathen,” said Spanish-a bulky Mexican wearing a green greatcoat, red bandanna, and low-crowned sombrero. A streak of white, like lightning, marked his s.h.a.ggy black beard.
They were ten feet away, but Yakima could smell the liquor on their breath.
The thin gent's gla.s.sy hazel eyes slid to the wh.o.r.e standing near Yakima, who quickly pulled her bodice over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Suggs was on his hands and knees on the cell floor, shaking his head as if to clear it as blood dripped from the gash in his right temple.
”Hey, Suggs,” said the thin man, laughing while keeping his rifle trained on Yakima. ”Speares might not have felt the need to specify, but I believe he wanted you to guard the breed, not turn the jail into a wh.o.r.ehouse.”