Lone Star 01 (22 page)

“Here's lead in your guts!” the shape yelled.

And from behind Ki, Daphne threw a large rock, which beaned the shape smack in the middle of the forehead. The shape grunted in shock and pain, collapsing backwards into the brush with a resounding crash, his nerveless trigger finger twitching just enough to discharge the rifle into the air.

And all hell broke loose.

Volleys of rifle fire poured down into the pocket from the surrounding cliffs, lances of flame sizzling from the blackness and raking the clearing. The rustlers below reacted with desperate swiftness. No more than three had fallen from where they'd been gathering around the huge campfire, before the others spurred their horses for the brush or dove for the cover of the shacks and rocks. And even while seeking shelter, the rustlers were managing to return the fire, scattering a few shots at first, then retaliating fully.

Shocked and baffled, Ki and Daphne leaped for the brush into which their mysterious assailant had fallen.

“Where did all that shooting come from?” Daphne asked, bewildered.

“I have no idea,” Ki said, “but somehow you managed to knock out Deputy Oakes.”

“A
lawman?
Oh, no!”

“Oh, yes. But beggars can't be choosers.” Grabbing Oakes by one leg, Ki pulled him closer and then began to hurredly yank off his boots. “Quick, help me with his clothes,” Ki told Daphne, unbuckling the gunbelt. “You get his shirt, I'll take his pants.”

The deputy was stripped to his flannel underwear, while the gun battle raged around them. The hidden riflemen on the perimeter of the pocket were pumping bullet after bullet at the slightest glimpse of exposed flesh. And the rustlers were replying with a barrage of their own. From the shacks, rocks, and scrub, they were sending a shower of lead up into the cliffs. Some tried to bolt out through the entrance hole, but were blocked by bullets and forced back into the pocket.

There were other men on the floor of the pocket who were still out in the open. They were thrashing with wounds or dying in the muddy dirt. But for the most part, the rustlers were retaliating with withering brutality. Lead spanged and howled off the boulders and trees ringing the cliffs.

Impossible or not, Ki and Daphne had to brave it. Cursing, Ki began loping deeper into the brush, clasping Oakes's tentlike pants around his waist. Daphne, pausing on impulse to scoop up the deputy's rifle, then sprinted after him, the shirt flapping around her like some wide dress with too high a hemline.

There was no time for stealth. They ran toward the opposite side of the cliffs, veering diagonally to the left when they spotted a bouldered slope dipping down into the canyon, far enough away from the waterfall to miss most of the action centered there.

But some of the gunmen below turned from firing at the rustlers who were trying to get out the entry hole, and began blasting away at Ki and Daphne. Exposed on the steeply slanting hill and appearing to be running away—which they were—they were prime targets for the unknown attackers. Friend or foe, Ki had no way of knowing, and he wasn't about to try stopping to ask. Lead sang and ricocheted around the pair as they charged zigzagging down the slope. A bullet showered pieces of stone in his face, and he ducked reflexively, feeling a shard stab into his neck. He ignored it, seeing ahead where some horses stood tethered.

A handful of the gunmen broke from around the waterfall and came rushing forward with guns blazing to cut Ki and Daphne off. Clasping her hand, Ki fairly whipped Daphne off her feet as they raced for the horses, bullets buzzing around them. They only had time to grab one, Ki judged—the closest one, a moro with tan leggings.

Ki hoisted Daphne into the saddle, hurled himself at the reins, then flung himself up in front of her. Fighting the spooked, rearing horse, he shouted, “Hang on!” and jabbed both heels into the moro's ribs.

The moro bolted straight down the creek as a barrage of shots pursued them. Just to keep the pursuing mob respectful, Daphne twisted around and, with one hand clutching the waist of the wide-bottomed pants Ki was wearing, fired the rifle. She fired only once, there being no way she could lever a new round and still keep her balance.

“Throw that thing away and keep down,” Ki cautioned, feeling bullets clip past him. “All you're doing is making them madder.”

Riding furiously, they galloped away from the hail of lead. Scattered shots chased them as they reached the mouth of the canyon and pounded into the hills beyond. The shots did not cease until they were long out of sight and range.

After another quarter-mile, Ki slowed the horse, which was lathered and panting under its double load. They rode on blindly, through canyons and across broken uplands, and the longer they went, the more like a labyrinth it became. They would emerge from one brush-clogged valley only to crown a barren crag that would lead into yet another canyon, with yet another bench stretching beyond that. Without the moon or stars, it was impossible to gauge their direction accurately. But by keeping the pocket and the canyon with the waterfall in a general line behind them, Ki sensed that they were heading generally eastward, and would eventually come out close to Eucher Butte.

He let the moro seek its own pace, feeling less concerned now about pursuit. Daphne squeezed tightly against him as she rode more or less on the rim of the cantle, her arms hugging Ki around his waist, her face pressed against his bare back.

“Who were those gunmen?” she asked after a while.

“I've been thinking about that. Ranchers, probably. Fed-up ranchers and their crews, who finally learned where the rustlers were camped, and decided to do something on their own about it.”

“They sure are. They're finishing it for you.”

“Finishing?”

“You told me in the shed you were staying because you weren't finished. Well, you got to finish Volpes—and the ranchers, or whoever they are, are finishing his gang—so what else is there?”

“Volpes's boss, Ryker. I was hoping he'd show up personally, and maybe he would have later, except Volpes wasn't going to give us a later. And I was hoping to find out where the stolen cows are.”

“Oh, I know where. In a bunch of box canyons way up in the hills of the Block-Two-Dot range. You should've asked me. I overheard Volpes and Ryker talking about brand-blotching all the cattle they were keeping there, so when Ryker bought out the other ranches, he could restock them with the ranchers' own herds.”

“No wonder none of the stolen cows ever showed up.”

“But Ki, about the ranchers—why're we running from them?”

“I only
think
they're ranchers, Daphne. They're certainly not the army, and for lawmen they're lousy shots, lucky for us. But, ranchers or not, they didn't know who we are, and didn't act inclined to find out while we were still breathing. And then there was that strange stuff Deputy Oakes was babbling...” Ki paused, then added, “Besides, did you want all those men to catch you naked?”

“No.”

“The newspapers would have gobbled it up. ‘Nude Queen of the Outlaws Captured in Shootout.' You have have had a hell of a time getting a fresh start, with that bandied about.” Hastily, Ki amended, “Don't get me wrong, Daphne, I'm laying no claim to change you. Do exactly what suits you best. I'm only saying ... well, maybe this way you've got a choice you didn't have before.”

There was a giggle. “Your neck's turning red.”

“No, it's not. Not me. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I'm changing my mind. I'm taking you in for charges.”

Daphne gasped. “Me? You're having me arrested?”

“You bet. Serious offense too. They'll probably hang you for it. Stoning a law officer while he was performing his duties.”

“I see. Is that worse than horse-thieving?”

“Hm, you've got a point. On third thought, you're too pretty and I'm too young to be strung up. Maybe by the time we've found our way to Eucher Butte, we'll have figured out an arrangement.”

Daphne kissed him lightly on the spine, a purr to her voice. “I'm all for giving it a try.” Her fingers coiled down from his waist and slithered inside the baggy top of Ki's borrowed pants, burrowing deep to touch his manhood. Gently she began stroking the fleshy shaft.

Ki felt himself responding, growing painfully rigid. And he realized that, whore or not, Daphne was not merely acting passionate now, she was genuinely aroused and eager.. She simply loved making love! Obligingly, he leaned back slightly to allow her more room, her talented fondling driving him wild. She unbuttoned his fly.

Now Ki was open and exposed to Daphne's squeezing massage. Rarely had he felt so hard, so thick and throbbing, and he reined in sharply by a grassy knoll. “Daphne, at least let go of me long enough so we can get down, will you?”

Daphne had other notions. “Why dismount to mount?” she murmured, and with agile grace she hooked her left leg across his hips, and began sliding around from the cantle. Poised almost facing Ki by the front of the seat, she gently drew out his aching erection and cupped his sensitive scro turn with her other hand. “Now scrunch back. I've got the saddlehorn in places I'd rather not.”

Ki moved up onto the cantle, while Daphne balanced on her knees to rise over his thighs. Deputy Oakes's pants were so large on Ki that, despite being stretched by Ki straddling the horse, the open flaps of the front lay wide and unhin dering. Rolling the tail of her shirt out of the way, Daphne looked down between their bellies at their coupling. Then, guiding him in with one hand, she slipped down the full length of her haunches to squat blissfully impaled upon his shaft. “Ahhh ... !” she cooed, smiling rapturously.

The horse, misunderstanding the motions of her thighs and legs, began slowly trotting forward again. Head arched and mouth wide to emit sighs of raw pleasure, Daphne swiftly matched her pumping rhythm with the easy tempo of the horse's gait. She strained against Ki, her arms clutching him tightly around his back, while inside, Ki could feel his urgency burgeoning with every surge of her satiny sheath. He was hardly aware of anything but the incredible sensations of the thrusting, compounding movements as he held her upright, tonguing her breasts, hearing her whimpers.

And as the horse jogged through the meandering canyon, and they jogged along with it, Ki realized dimly, peripherally, that the slopes were broadening and the land ahead was widening. Glancing fleetingly over Daphne's heaving shoulders, he vaguely saw, beyond an intervening ridge, plumes of smoke lifting against the gray drizzly sky. Eucher Butte, it had to be.

“We're almost out,” he whispered, tonguing her ear.

“You're in,” she whimpered. “I can feel you, deep.”

“Out of the hills. And what a way to go.”

“Yes ...” Again she whimpered.

“We're going out with a whimper
and
a bang.”

Chapter 16

“How d‘you expect me to go arrestin' properly,” Deputy Oakes was complaining, “when I'm wearin' only my long johns?”

“You'd better get to doing your duty right snappy,” Daryl Melville retorted, “before you lose them too. Making us believe you were going to help, so we'd uncuff you! And give you a rifle! Then hightailing it away, sneaking around on your fat carcass!”

“Well, I was gonna fight!” Oakes rubbed the middle of his forehead, where clotted blood gave him the appearance of having a red third eye. “I did, too. Struggled somethin' fierce when that howling mob attacted me, but I was overpowered and knocked out.”

“Howling mob!” Toby Melville scoffed. “You tripped.”

“No such! And I didn't snitch m‘own horse, neither.”

They were standing in the front room of the outlaws' log cabin, feeling agitated and pumped up in the aftermath of their successful battle. A few men were with them, guarding a half-dozen wounded rustlers, who were slouched grimacing with pain and brooding over the fate they knew awaited them. The combined ranches' crews were still combing the pocket, remorselessly hunting the stubborn holdouts of Volpes's now shattered gang.

Jessica entered from the clearing, her arms filled with Ki's clothing. She placed the bundle on the table, alongside his daggers, his jammed
shuriken
devices, and his other weaponry, which she'd found in a rear room of the cabin. Then, stalking over to the nearest rustler, she demanded with cold fury, “What have you done with him?”

The rustler looked up with filmy eyes. “Who? The gent Volpes brung here?” Pink spittle drooled from his mouth. “Nothin‘. He killed Volpes and vamoosed, just afore you laid into us.”

Jessica sighed, relieved. “He's alive.”