This Loving Land - Dorothy Garlock [79]
“There’s never enough, kid. Never enough you can do to a woman. And an Indian woman ain’t worth the sole on-my boot. Now, you’re going to have to learn that, if you’re going to join up with me. Men, real men, got to take their pleasure where they can get it. You’re not one of those that like men, are you?”
“Well . . . no, Mr. McLean, but . . . ” The young voice was hoarse, strained.
“Then what are you balking for? Come on, get on her. Or can’t you get it up no more?” Travis’s voice was scornful.
“I already been on her once . . .”
“Once! Hell, boy,” he said the word insultingly, “I been on her three times and I’ll be on her three more. Come on, now. I want to see you hump her.”
“I . . . don’t think I can, Mr. McLean. I think she’s swooned or . . . dead.”
“She’s not dead. Only playing possum. Here, I’ll show you.”
An agonizing wall of pain jarred the stillness of the night, followed by convulsive laughter.
Something inside Slater welled up and burst. Wild with fury and pain, he dropped his hand to his gun and put his heels to Estrella. The horse leaped around the boulder, through the narrow passageway and into the firelight.
A naked Indian girl lay staked out, her arms above her head, her legs spread; her anguish and the marks of recent torment were obvious.
Slater’s blazing eyes took in the scene in a second.
“My God, Travis! Have you gone mad?” He swayed in the saddle.
Travis smiled. The malevolent look on his face caused frenzied rage to explode in Slater’s head. He lifted his six-gun as another explosion in his head sent him tumbling off the horse and into oblivion.
When he came to, his mind was a blur. He lay a few feet from the Indian girl, his feet bound and his hands tied behind him. The agonizing pain in his shoulder made him wish for pain-free oblivion. His head felt as if all the blood in his body was there, pulsing, throbbing, protesting.
Three men sat beside the campfire. Travis, a young kid with a fuzz of a beard on his face, and Armando, the Mexican from his own ranch. It was he who had knocked him from the saddle and it was he who had ambushed him. The bastard must have heard him tell Jack or Bulldog where he was going and rode out and waited for him.
Now Slater realized the gravity of his situation. They would never let him live. He would die without having made Summer his wife. And the ranch would go to the next living McLean, which would be Travis. He gritted his teeth in frustration.
“How’d you like to be the ramrod at McLean’s Keep, Armando?” Travis was saying. “Soon as this bastard is dead, the ranch will come to me. You know what that’ll make me? The largest landholder in the state of Texas. My old man had it fixed so I won’t get the Rockin’ S for another year, but I can take the Keep any time I want to. We can just ride in and take over. The soldiers are over east. Jesse’s with them. You can forget about that son-of-a-bitch. The first time I set eyes on him, I’m going to gun him down. He’s been a fly in my craw long enough. Mama’ll just have to find herself another boy!” He threw back his head and laughed. “What we ought to do is ride down and get Bushy Red and the boys . . . they ought to be in on this. There’s quite a few men at the Keep. If we kill off the stubborn ones, the rest will fall in line as soon as they see who has hold of the handle. There’s two split-tails at the ranch. A black-headed one that thinks she’s so nice her shit don’t stink.” The men snickered. “And a red-headed bitch I got a score to settle with. Men,” Travis announced proudly, “we’ll have us some nice women to diddle with.”
Slater squirmed, his guts tied in knots. Travis was insane, there was no doubt about it. And here he lay, trussed up like a hog about to be roasted!
Travis had seen the movement as Slater writhed in anguish. Taking a stick, he flipped a glowing coal from the campfire into one palm of the hands tied behind Slater’s back. Slater felt the pain shoot through him, smelled the burning of his own flesh, but he clamped his teeth shut and not a sound escaped