THE WOMAN WAS staked out on the ground in a spread-eagled attitude. Face up and by force sexually submissive in a way that her legs were held wide apart and her arms were trapped far to the sides. But she was wearing more clothing than the two Indian braves who were crouched on their haunches at a small fire some fifteen feet away from the helpless captive. Which was a situation Adam Steele found mildly intriguing when he first rode the chestnut mare into a position from where he was able to view the scene clearly.
This in the afternoon shadow of a grotesquely eroded outcrop of sandstone on the ridge of a barren hill. Having moved from the exposed to the shaded side of the slab of rock to make use of its scant cover and so that he could watch the trio over a different angle – his vision unimpaired by the shimmering heat and slow drifting smoke of the brushwood fire.
The Virginian had at first smelled the smoke of the fire as he rode at a leisurely pace along the smooth bed of an arroyo that cut a north to south course through the Big Maria Mountains of southern California. And followed his nose up from the arroyo and across a rugged-surfaced but shallow-inclined slope to the gargoyle like rock at the highest point on the ridge. The acrid taint of the woodsmoke and the stale odor of his own body were the only smells in his nostrils as he rode across the barren slope. Earlier he had been aware, too, of the animal scents of his mount. And now he scowled as he acknowledged that he stank worse than his horse after so many long days and short nights on the slow trek southwards. Or perhaps, because he was the kind of man he was, he merely imagined he smelled worse if he got close to other people less fastidious about such things, he would smell sweet in comparison with the mare.
Then the scowl became briefly more firmly fixed upon his face as he dismissed the implication that it matter what other people thought of him. Next lost the scowl and was impassive when he reined the horse to a halt on the ridge and saw the smoking fire, the two Indian braves and the captive woman. Remained on the totally exposed side of the outcrop for just a second or so before he backed the mare off the skyline and moved her cautiously around to the sun-shaded flank of the rock. Where he was momentarily puzzled by the lack of interest of the braves in their helpless prisoner, while for this same fleeting moment he saw the woman in her enforced posture as nothing more than an object of lust.
But then he scowled again, and matched the expression with a grunt of self-disgust as he had to consciously make himself be objective while he raked a cool-eyed gaze over the scene in its entirety. And moved his right hand away from his left which held the reins, to fist around the frame of the Colt Hartford rifle that was slid into the forward hung boot.
The ridge which was his vantage point was the most westerly of any consequence in the Big Maria range, forming the eastern limit of an area of part undulating and part pool table flat scrub desert that extended to what he guessed were the Little Maria Mountains some ten to fifteen miles away. Mesquite and saguaro, cottonwood and ocotillo, sagebrush and greasewood grew out on the flatland between the barren high grounds. There were sure to be some wild creatures which survived out there by preying on each other. Above the area, against a blue sky featured with small, stark white clouds, an eagle was circling at high altitude. Or perhaps it was a buzzard. The only sign of man’s intrusion on the region was the ugly scene about five hundred feet from where Adam Steele sat unmoving in the saddle of his immobile horse.
The two Indians had made their camp at the base of the quite steep drop from the outcrop-featured ridge for the very good reason that there was a waterhole there. Where they and their pair of burros had refreshed themselves after trekking to this place from the south – leaving sign in the dust and sand to show that each burro had carried a rider and somebody had walked behind: here and there was dragged, when exhaustion refused to be denied. And it was obvious from her disheveled state, if not from the fact that she was a prisoner, that it was the woman who had walked and been dragged. It looked, too, the way her face was powdered with sweat-tacky dust over ingrained dirt, that she had not been allowed to dip her head into the waterhole and drink.
Whether she was good looking or homely under the grime of long and arduous travel it was not possible to see from such a distance. But she certainly had a fine build, clear to the eye from the tight fit of her pants and shirt that contoured every rise and indentation of her torso and limbs. She was tall for a woman, and had long, slender legs. Her breasts were large and conical: looked youthfully firm.
Once again the Virginian vented a self-deprecating grunt, and needed to will himself to shift the center of his attention away from the black-clad and black haired woman. To concentrate to the same extent upon the two Indians, who looked like Apaches. About thirty years old, dressed only in undecorated breechclouts, weapons belts, moccasins and headbands with a single eagle feather at the rear. Mean looking, copper complexioned men with muscular builds who, Steele guessed, had endured a long and hard time of deprivation before they struck lucky.
The woman had been just part of their spoils and they had no use for her yet. First had need of the burros with the Mexican style saddles to reach this waterhole on the fringe of the Big Maria Mountains. Where they had staked out their captive to await their pleasure. While they refreshed themselves and the animals, which were then hobbled in the scant shade of a cottonwood to one side of the waterhole. Then the brushwood was collected and the fire was lit, and food was set to cooking in pots – the ingredients of the meal and the utensils used to cook it taken from the packs carried by the burros. This on the other side of the waterhole, downwind from where the gentlest of hot breezes caused the smoke to drift. The braves as unshaded from the blistering heat of the sun as was the woman, but uncaring about this familiar discomfort as they squatted on their haunches and gorged themselves on fiery-smelling chili washed down with strong coffee. Talking and laughing – about their good fortune, perhaps – and totally ignoring the captive woman. As oblivious to her as they were to everything else about their surroundings: including the lone horseman on the ridge above and slightly to the north of them.
After the Virginian had seen that the saddles and accoutrements carried by the burros had a Mexican style to them and then smelled the chili being cooked and eaten, he glanced back at the spreadeagled woman. And decided from the jet blackness of her very long hair and the not so easy to see bone structure of her filthy and anguished face that she had Hispanic blood in her veins.
Then activity close to the fire drew the focus of his attention back to the Indians and he saw that the midafternoon meal was over. Tin mugs and plates were simply hurled to the ground as the braves came up off their haunches. The woman sensed from the abrupt ending of the talk and laughter that the period of being left alone to dwell on the hopelessness of her situation was ended. And she snapped open her eyes and turned her head so she could see her captors. Continued to stare at them, wall-eyed and seemingly incapable of experiencing any kind of emotion any more as, after they had taken the cooking and coffee pots off the fire, they clawed aside their breechclouts to expose themselves and urinate into the spluttering flames.
The occasional flame flickered and here and there a wisp of smoke rose from the circular heap of ashes after the two braves, still obscenely exposed to the vacant stare of the woman, moved away from the fire toward her. There was nothing hurried about the actions of the Indians, which seemed to heighten the menace of their evil eagerness to take the woman whom they were certain of having at their mercy.
Adam Steele was equally deliberate as he eased the rifle from his boot and thumbed back the hammer to cock the action of this very special Colt Hartford revolving model. And then brought his left hand up from the saddlehorn, letting go of the reins, to grip the barrel as he pushed the stock against his shoulder and rested his cheek to the polished and fire-charred rosewood. Drew a bead on the broad, naked back of the Apache on the left – the one who was sliding a hunting knife from a sheath on his weapons belt. Intending to use the gun glinting blade not to slice through her bond, or to kill her. Instead, to cut the clothes from her sweating and trembling body, so that the second brave who was in process of unfastening his belt and removing his breechclout would be unimpeded as he came down to take her.
They were perhaps six feet from her when they veered to left and right, to go to either side of her. And she sucked in a great gulp of scorchingly hot air that acted unwittingly to provocatively emphasize the thrusting firmness of her upper body. In fact, the intake of breath was used to power an outburst of shrill and fast-spoken Spanish. Uttered not in the tone of a plea for release – instead was quite obviously a diatribe of invective. Which, whether they understood it or merely guessed at its meaning from the tenor in which it was delivered, drew further gusts of laughter from the Apaches.
But then she curtailed the tirade as she caught sight of the mounted man up on the ridge in the deep shade of the rock. And needed to do a double take to be sure she was not seeing a vision conjured up by her anguished mind. While for the stretched seconds of her sudden silence the Apaches who now were standing close to her head and between her splayed legs thought she had run out of breath or was suddenly paralyzed by throat-constricting fear. Until she bellowed, the loudest yet:
‘Tirar, hombre! Tirar a matar! Haga el favor, señor! Madre de Dios!’
The saliva of relief flooded into her throat and she choked on it. Had to spit it out before she could go on. While the brave with the knife stooped and made to cut open her shirt from the neckline. But saw something compelling in her staring eyes that forced him to look in the same direction – and to snarl a monosyllabic warning to his naked partner as he straightened up and whirled.
‘Shoot them!’ the woman shrieked. ‘Kill them! Please, I beg of you!’
Relief had been displaced by misery as she was convinced the stranger had left his attack too late. For both the braves had swung around to face the horseman now – the one with the knife having dropped this so that he could draw an ancient Navy Model Colt from his weapons belt. While the naked Apache had snatched a long barrel Smith and Wesson Russian revolver from the belt he had been about to dispense with when the single word warning was spoken.
‘Cabron!’ the woman hissed through clenched and exposed teeth. And then the sneer formed by the line of her drawn back teeth became a smile when she saw the puff of smoke at the muzzle of the stranger’s rifle. A smile which broadened as she raced her eyes along their sockets and she was in time to see, at the same instant she heard the report of the rifle shot, the small dark hole appear in the chest of the brave who stood at her head.
This brave took a staggering step backwards, with blood trickling from a hole at the side of his left nipple and a groan of anguish spilling out of his sagged-open mouth. Then he fell hard to his knees and folded forward, in such a way that the woman had to wrench her head to the side and jerk it up off the ground to avoid being smothered beneath the blood-run chest of the now dead Apache.
The second brave, totally naked except for his moccasins and single feathered headband, triggered a shot from his long barrel revolver just as the first one started to fall forward – had taken the time to bring up the Russian in a double-handed grip and steady his aim. The woman was concerned with evading the falling corpse when she heard what sounded like an echo off the hillside of the revolver shot. But then the dead man was sprawled full length on the ground and she was resting her head against his unfeeling hip – able to see the second Apache go down. Killed by another heart shot against the impact of which he struggled to stand upright and, as a result, toppled like a felled tree, his body and limbs not becoming lax until his brain ceased to function when his fall was almost complete. He weighed heavily in an arched back attitude over her lower right leg and foot. She watched in horrified fascination as his former extended erection softened and withered.
Up on the ridge beside the outcrop of weathered sandstone, Adam Steele swung quickly down from his saddle. He still held his rifle around the frame with one hand. On his face was an expression of dark anger that found outlet in a snarled obscenity. This as he got both feet on the ground at the moment the mare lurched to the side, away from him. And for several moments leaned against the sheer face of the rock in a desperate attempt to remain upright. While in her bulging brown eyes there was an eloquent plea to the man. That she was doing her best to stay on her feet because this is what she thought was expected of her – but she wanted badly to sprawl out on her side. Then the blood that had entered her punctured lung showed on her teeth and lips, a deeper shade of crimson than that which oozed from the wound in back of her first rib on the left side.
‘You were the best, girl,’ the Virginian said softly, his accent still as strongly of the South as it was the day, long ago, when he was forced to leave the state of his birth.
And his expression was for a short time one of compassionate understanding as he took deliberate aim at the head of the dying horse, to squeeze the trigger and blast a bullet at point blank range into the brain of the animal. To kill her instantly on her feet, so that she felt nothing physically nor emotionally as she dropped heavily to the ground at the foot of the outcrop.
‘Señor!’ the woman called, pain in her voice, from the base of the slope. ‘I am grateful to you for what you have done already. All I ask of you now is that you set me free so that I may move away from these heathen savages!’
There was little blood from the head wound. But a great deal was spilled from the animal’s mouth when she hit the ground and the impact had a pumping effect as her holed lung was compressed. The vital organ punctured by a million to one chance shot that the Virginian should not have given the Apache the time to fire.
‘Señor! You hear me? You understand? Usted comprender?’
During both periods she shouted up the slope to him and, throughout the utter silence in between, Adam Steele stood absolutely still: the rifle canted to his left shoulder, his face altering in expression from compassion through regret, to bitter anger and finally to impassiveness. And only when he had run the gamut of these emotions to reach ice coolness did he turn from the waist to look away from the dead mare and down at the woman who leaned against one dead Apache and was partially underneath another Indian.
‘Understand English, lady!’ he called to her. ‘And I heard you! Be with you when I’m through up here!’
He leaned the rifle against the outcrop and stooped beside the carcass. There was a split in the outside seam of his right pants leg between knee and shin, and this gaped when he bent his leg, so that he was able to insert a hand and draw a knife from a boot sheath. He used the knife to cut free one of his saddlebags. Then replaced the knife and unfastened the ties that had kept his bedroll in place while he rose. He was also able to salvage the reins and the blood-stained bridle and bit. The saddle and the other bag and both canteens were trapped beneath the immovable dead weight of the carcass.
‘I do not wish to sound ungrateful after what you have done for me, señor,’ the woman called, irritably impatient, as Steele reached for his rifle and turned to move away from the horse. ‘But every second I am forced to remain here with these dead savages seems to last an hour!’
‘I’m through now,’ he answered and now she looked up at him again, after keeping her eyes tightly closed for a long time. And smiled her relief that he was starting down the steep slope.
‘Please hurry!’ she shouted, suddenly distressed again. ‘Oh … Madre de Dios! It is starting, señor! Mi regia!’ Her tone became shriller and she struggled against her bonds and the dead Indian who draped one of her legs – like she felt there was a chance she could wrench herself free by brute force. She swung her head from side to side. Then became limp, exhausted in defeat, the back of her head toward the Virginian who continued to pick his way carefully down the treacherous slope. ‘It is too late,’ she said miserably. ‘It has started now. How do you say it … my period has come.’
‘It’s that kind of a day for you, I reckon, lady,’ Steele answered evenly. ‘Just one bloody thing after another.’