Part 14 (1/2)
”Wait!” Anjanette called as she leapt out of her saddle. ”You're gonna lose me!”
Ooose meeee, ooose meeeee! faded the echo. faded the echo.
Quickly, Anjanette tied her horse to a deadfall tree, then moved through the fog to the stream's edge, doffing her hat and unb.u.t.toning her s.h.i.+rt. She jerked, startled, when shots exploded upstream-three quick reports followed a second later by a fourth.
A man laughed. Another howled, wolflike, the echoes filling the canyon, seeming to somehow disturb the gently swirling fog.
Somewhere out in the foggy stream, Considine laughed. ”Most Mexicans never come down here. Bad medicine an' such. But the boys must've run into someone who didn't wanna share their camping spot!”
He laughed again. There was the sound of splas.h.i.+ng water.
When Anjanette had flung aside her skirt and pantaloons, she hefted her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s in her hands, soothed by the silky, warm fog touching every inch of her naked body. She stepped out into the lukewarm water, over the smooth, polished rocks of the bottom, hearing echoing laughter, splas.h.i.+ng, and hooting from upstream. The water felt like warm milk as it inched up her calves, knees, and thighs.
She peered into the fog ahead, the far rock wall a purple ma.s.s before her. ”Jack?”
”Come on, baby!” Considine yelled. ”Follow my voice. There's a cave. Our own private bathhouse, and the water's hot enough to scald a pig!”
His echoing laughter was suddenly m.u.f.fled. Anjanette cursed, at once soothed by the humidity and warm water pressing against her legs and spooked.
Ancient Indian ruins. River of No Return. Canyon of Lost Souls.
The fog became the tendrils of a million ghostly beasts; the laughter of the celebrating outlaws seemed to be the cackling of a thousand ancient Indian demons.
She moved to the rock wall, pressed her hands against the sandstone, and worked her way slowly upstream, raking her left hand against the stone. In the rock, she saw chiseled images of horned creatures and human stick figures with arrows sticking out of them and more figures leaping off a cliff into what looked like the toothy jaws of some snarling biblical beast.
The sandstone wall opened suddenly-the ragged entrance of a cave. The floor of the cave was the floor of the river, with a strong current pus.h.i.+ng out of the cave and against her ankles. Ducking slightly under the low ceiling, she moved into the cliff face, the crenellated cave walls surrounding her, adorned here and there with more chiseled figures.
The air was moist and close, steam snaking around the protruding rocks, the smell as cloying as that of wafting powder smoke.
She peered into the steamy shadows, her vision penetrating only a few yards or so. ”Jack?”
A voice sounded far back in the chamber, but she couldn't make out the words.
Anjanette continued forward, moving slowly along the cave's bending right wall, trailing one hand along the wall in case the bed of the stream suddenly gave way beneath her. She felt a burn of annoyance-why hadn't Jack waited for her?-and the nettling p.r.i.c.k of fear as the bizarre wall etchings gaped out at her.
And yet the steam, the water lit by fires in the earth's bowels, and the exotic, mysterious cavern where she found herself naked, the sand almost hot beneath her feet, sent spasms of sensuous pleasure trembling through her, so that she felt the nipple of her left breast rise beneath her palm.
Even Jack's childish game of hide-and-seek was somehow compelling, alluring. Old Antoine's rough saloon, with its fetid spittoons and puddles of spilled whiskey, beer, and vomit, was already a distant memory.
She followed the stream around a long bend, peering ahead, the water gurgling against her thighs, moving ever deeper into steamy darkness. As the floor of the stream dropped slightly, the thick, warm water inching up to her belly, and all ahead was darkness, she let loose a curse and stopped.
”Jack, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, I've had enough! Where are are you?” you?”
She jumped with a startled grunt as arms snaked around her suddenly, hands closing around her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, squeezing. The body behind her pushed her forward brusquely. She stumbled in the deep water, the hands on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s holding her upright.
”Come on, little b.i.t.c.h,” Considine barked. ”Spread your legs for me!”
Her knees smashed into a large, flat boulder before her, and she gritted her teeth against the pain. ”Jack, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, you're hurting me-”
Considine cursed and bent her forward across the rock, and before she could protest again, he spread her legs with his knees. She felt the sudden, sharp pain of his violent penetration and the burn of her bare flesh grinding against the boulder.
”d.a.m.n you!” she cried as Considine bucked against her, one hand on the back of her neck, pinning her head to the rock.
”You know you want it,” he grunted. ”You always always want it!” want it!”
She gritted her teeth in pain as the outlaw leader bucked, grunting and digging his fingers into her hips. Her chin against the rock, she groaned and cursed.
Mercifully, it didn't take him long. When he finished and stepped back, releasing her, she pushed off the boulder, straightening, her feet sliding on the rocks.
She slapped him. The crack sounded like a pistol shot.
”b.a.s.t.a.r.d!”
Considine stared back at her. She couldn't see much of his face in the darkness, but the steady silver light in his eyes-at once cold, savage, insane-sent a chill down her spine.
As she fell against the rock, ready to parry a blow, Considine chuckled. His eyes softened. He brought a hand to his face. ”I'm sorry, Chiquita.” His voice was low, soft, barely audible above the gurgling stream. ”I thought we were only playing.”
Anjanette swallowed, crossed her arms over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. ”I don't want to play like that anymore, Jack.”
She pushed past him and started wading back the way she'd come.
”Don't go getting serious on me, now, baby!” Considine yelled behind her, his voice darting around her like a ricocheting gunshot. ”I was only joking joking!”
Chapter 17.
At eleven o'clock that night, about three miles from the canyon where the Thunder Riders had holed up, Marshal Patchen filled his coffee cup from a speckled tin pot and sank back against his saddle. He glanced over at Sheriff Speares, who sat on a rock about six feet from the low cook fire, hunkered deep in his wool coat and staring out at the darkness while smoking a quirley and sipping from his own steaming coffee cup.
Patchen could tell that the sheriff was mentally licking his wounds. Speares had been made a fool of by the Thunder Riders, then saved by a man he'd thrown in jail. Knowing now that he shouldn't have jailed the breed in the first place-obviously Yakima Henry wasn't one of the gang members-was even more embarra.s.sing.
Patchen absently fingered a raw buzzard peck on his right cheek. Of course, he was as much a fool as Speares, but Patchen had been a fool before, so he didn't take it as hard.
And he would be a fool again.
No man-especially a lawman lawman-could expect not not to be a fool now and again on this savage frontier. The trick was to learn from your foolishness and to continue living in spite of it. to be a fool now and again on this savage frontier. The trick was to learn from your foolishness and to continue living in spite of it.
Patchen crossed his boots and hunkered down inside his mackinaw, resting his coffee cup on his thigh. ”Tell me, Speares-why are you still so determined to take down this gang? Your nose is broken, your posse's been wiped out, you've been buried up to your neck in sand, nearly had your eyes pecked out, and you're over a hundred miles south of the border. Can't just be the gold gold you're after. you're after. Or Or the girl.” the girl.”
Speares continued staring into the darkness, holding his Winchester across his thighs. The quirley between his lips glowed brightly. He removed it, staring at the coals as he slowly exhaled tobacco smoke through his nose. ”I used to ride with that kill-crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”
Patchen studied him. ”Considine?”
”Several years ago, when I was a kid. He fed me to a catch party. For a joke joke. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds strung me up, left me hangin', d.a.m.n near killed me. But I worked myself free. Gave up the owlhoot trail-'ceptin' a couple times- and vowed that if I ever had the chance I'd kill the murdering four-flusher.”
Patchen laughed. ”Instead, he got the gold you were guarding, shot up your town, and nabbed your girl!”
Speares turned a hard look on Patchen, holding the cigarette between the thumb and index finger of his right hand. ”I'm glad you think it's so d.a.m.n funny.” He lifted his chin and squinted his eyes. ”What about you you? You're just as far from your jurisdiction as I am from mine.”