Chapter 23: The breakout
Faye Morgan looked at herself in the vanity mirror. Out of the corner of her eye
she could see Tibbs leaning in the doorway watching her put on her make-up. She
was wearing a black, waist cinch, sheer silk hose and button shoes. Tibbs had
told her, while he held his cock in her, that he was going to sell her to some
Mexican businessmen who intended on using her in a donkey show in Juarez. Good
looking, Anglo women commanded a high price. Tibbs had wanted her to look her
best when he showed her to the Mexicans.
When she was finished she examined herself in the mirror. It was a face she
didn't recognize. She never wore make-up. Now the face that stared back at her
was that of someone she didn't know. It was the painted face of a whore. Eyelids
tinted a dark purple, lips red and lush, the cheeks rouged and the eyebrows
darkened and arched. Whorish, true, but she had to admit that it was darkly
beautiful, too. Seductive.
Tibbs handed her a full length cape.
"All right, let's go," he said when she had the cape draped around her
semi-nakedness . . . .
.
Ish-kay-nay incanted over a firkin of bear grease; the nearest warriors dipped
their hands in and began oiling down their naked, muscular bodies and decorated
their faces with war paint made from roots and clay.
When the moon began to rise they gathered up their arms and silently followed
Gray Wolf and Ish-kay-nay down a rugged slope toward Red Rock. As they reached
the border of the town they split up into two groups: one following Ish-kay-nay
and the other Gray Wolf, each group making a 180 degree circle enclosing the
town completely.
In the moonlight Ish-kay-nay nodded at her nearest warriors toward the lookouts
posted on top of the buildings, and they separated, each singling out one of
them. With a long-bladed knife clenched between her teeth, she made her way
stealthily among the shadow of mesquite and sage until she reached the side of
the general store. Without a sound she climbed up the support braces of the
stairway until she stepped onto the top landing of the doctor's office. Stepping
lithely onto the guard rail she grasped the eaves and pulled herself onto the
roof.
Near the front she saw the silhouette of the lookout seated with his back
against a chimney. The red glow of a cigar brighten and grew dim. Ish-kay-nay
felt nothing but contempt for the white eye and his carelessness. He deserved to
die. And Ish-kay-nay would see that he got what he deserved.
She moved forward at a crouch. Her naked body glistened in the moonlight. Her
red and black war paint gave her the look of a demon, a spirit being from the
regions of the dead. Her bare feet made no sound on the tarred roof still
retaining the warmth of the sun.
Within steps of the man she held her breath. A faint breeze wafted his sweat
smell to her. Her nostrils dilated like an animal scenting its prey. He was big.
She would have to be careful, but she knew no fear. Only an intense excitement
that at bottom was sexual.
She took two quick steps and had her blade at his thick throat. Before he could
react she jerked the razor-sharp edge savagely across cutting deep. Involuntary
muscles caused the man's body to spasm violently. He gripped her throat with
thick, strong hands trying to strangle her, but she jerked away from him easily.
His hands couldn't get a grip on her oily flesh.
Blood spewed across her face and breasts as she repeatedly rammed the point of
the knife into his chest. The rifle he had been holding clattered across the
roof. The cigar left a glowing trail as it rolled down the incline. His feet
kicked up and down; with a shudder his body grew still.
Ish-kay-nay placed her lips against the wound of his neck and drank the warm
blood that squirted out covering her; softly, she offered a pray to the Great
Spirit . . . .
Doc Greely had been reading, by the glow of his lantern, about the poet John
Keats in a volume of his Encyclopaedia Britannica when he heard a thumping sound
on the roof. Setting the volume aside he went to the door wearing only his
undershirt and stepped onto the landing glancing up to the eaves.
"Hey, Joseph; hello there; you all right?"
He heard something, but he would never live to know what it was. An arrow
entered his back, went up through his left lung with the obsidian head coming
out his throat. He lurched forward clutching at the door jamb. He stared inside
at the lamp with its warm inviting glow and the volume he had been reading on
the nightstand. The last, incomprehensible thought that crossed his mind was
that he would never finish the article on Keats. A horrible pain staggered him
as blood filled his lung flowing up his throat and out his mouth. He staggered
several steps inside to his office and fell dead on the floor.
Ish-kay-nay jumped down from the eaves back onto the landing. Below in the alley
she saw her brother, Bear Claw, grinning up at her. His naked body wet with the
blood of a white eye, his cock hard with the lust of killing.
She felt an intense need to fuck with him, but she managed to push the thought
out of her mind. They would have time later. First, they had more white eyes to
kill . . . .
.
As Tibbs followed her down the steps, Faye heard a noise like the pad of bare
feet coming from behind. Turning she saw a spinning object arc up from the back
corner of the Lantern into the light of the doorway. A dull thud sounded and
Tibbs rocked on his feet tumbling past her down the stairs and crumbling on the
ground. A tomahawk clattered down the steps next to her feet. Hurrying down the
steps, she leaped over Tibbs' body and raced across the rutted street. She
didn't dare turn to look as she lunged against the jail door, falling inside as
it opened. Regaining her feet, she flung it shut and slid the iron bolt locking
it.
A dull glow came from a lamp on Tibbs' desk. Next to it was a tray with a
half-eaten meal on it. Faye stepped back into the gloom. She called out softly,
but no answer came from either of the two cells. She stepped forward and felt a
slight give of the trapdoor beneath her foot. Going to the desk she took the
lamp and peered down at its outline.
Kneeling she slid the countersunk iron bolt back and, grasping the iron ring,
lifted the heavy door up until it fell over under its own weight onto the floor.
She held the lamp up and looked down. A naked man was lying curled up on his
side on hard packed clay some fifteen feet below.
"Green?" she called out.
The man gave no response. He looked dead, but she thought his chest moved
slightly. On previous visits to the jail she had seen a ladder lying against the
back wall. She set the lamp down and went to it. The poles and rungs were made
out of cedar, and it looked heavy. It was. She dragged it to the trapdoor
angling it in about half way and raised up on the end; when she knew it would
clear the jail roof, she let it drop down into the pit.
She took a wash cloth and wetted it in the washbasin sitting on a pedestal
behind the desk and holding the lamp and washcloth in one hand climbed down the
ladder.
Close up she could see that he was still breathing. In the narrow confines of
the clay walls she felt an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia; she pushed it
out of her mind with an effort by focusing her attention on rubbing the
washcloth over his face. She heard him murmured softly. Slowly he opened his
eyes, blinking, blocking the glare from the lamp with his hand.
"Can you get up?" she asked. "We've got to get out of here. Gray Wolf and his
braves are attacking the town."
Green shook his head as if he were trying to clear it of cobwebs and nodded.
"I think so," he said, rising up on his elbows.
She helped him to his feet, standing behind to help him start up the ladder.
"There's some food on Tibbs' desk."
This seemed to spur him on. He fumbled and slipped a couple of times but finally
made it to the top. He could smell the food. His stomach was growling. It had
been a week or more since he'd had anything to eat. He staggered to the desk and
grabbed a hunk of bread off the tray as he fell into the chair behind. He ripped
off a mouthful and chewed at it savagely and reached for the dipper in the water
bucket and slurped noisily from it. He slopped the bread into the leftover gravy
on the plate and shoveled it into his mouth and grabbed up a piece of partially
eaten steak cramming it into his mouth, only half chewing it before swallowing.
When nothing was left he licked the plate and his fingers and fell back in the
chair in a swoon as he waited for the hunger dizziness to pass.
She told him about the tomahawk and Tibbs falling down the steps.
"Tibbs took your guns with him after he hit you over the head."
Green nodded. He could feel his strength returning, his head clearing.
"They'll be around here somewhere."
He started opening the desk drawers. In the second one he found his cartridge
belts, guns and holsters. Beneath were his shirt, boots and buckskin pants. He
also found some smokes and some matches which he stuffed into the shirt pocket.
The pouch with five hundred in gold was gone.
Standing, he looped the belts over his shoulder and unholstered one of the
pistols. He moved to the door, the awkwardness fading somewhat, and opened it
cautiously.
The moon was full. Beyond the borders of the town the desert sand glowed with a
silver sheen. Green glanced up and down the street. The tops of the buildings
were deserted. He couldn't see any of the posted guards. Indians would be posted
now, he figured, lying in wait. They would be able to control the town from the
roof tops. Anyone who set a foot outside would be dead.
Green moved back from the doorway and went to the stove opening it.
"What are you doing?" Faye asked.
"Take your clothes off," Green said, as he began darkening his face with soot
from the inside of the stove.
"My, do you think you're up to it so soon?"
"Not that," Green grinned weakly. "We may be able to get out of here if we can
pass for Indians. You've already got your war paint on. All you need to do is
strip."
Green waited for her to shed the cape, waist cinch and hose. When she was naked,
he bundled up his clothes and boots and crossed to the rear door motioning for
her to follow. He blew into the chimney of the lamp putting out the flame and
slowly opened the door. Moving within the moon-cast shadows of the building
Green led her toward the livery. Looking out into the desert all seemed normal,
but Green occasionally detected a faint movement that told him Indians were
concealed behind sagebrush just waiting for a signal to attack -- no doubt, as
soon as Gray Wolf had positioned all his warriors on the roofs. Green was
certain they had the town surrounded by now. With all the cowboys drunk and off
guard, it would be a massacre.
The back door to the livery had been busted open when they reached it. Someone
was moving around inside. Green knew that to an Apache horses were the same as
money. Gray Wolf had no doubt ordered some of his warriors to collect the horses
in the livery and take them back to their camping ground to later go into his
own private herd.
From the front of the livery came the faint glow of a lantern. Green motioned
for Faye to wait; he moved silently up the alleyway staying in the shadows of
the stalls.
The liveryman was hanging naked from the loft by a rope tied around his cock. He
was dead; blood dripped from multiple wounds. Two warriors, their oily bodies
glistening in the glow of the lantern, were entertaining themselves by twirling
his body around and around and releasing it while holding the points of their
knives against the skin flaying off the flesh as his body spun about.
They were too engaged in their sadistic torture to notice Green who grasped the
handle of a nearby pitch-fork sunk in a pile of hay. He swung the handle hard
against the back of the head of the Indian nearest him, then rammed the prongs
into the throat of the other one as he turned. The Indian tried to shout, but
his vocal cords were pierced. He grasped the handle of the pitch-fork in his two
hands and staggered backwards until he hit up against the wall of the tack room.
Green jerked the pitch-fork out of his grasp and stabbed it into the back of the
other Indian, hearing one of the prongs make grisly contact with his spine.
Green got his pinto out of its stall and saddled up, along with a bay for Faye.
A partial loaf of bread and a large wedge of cheese wrapped in wax paper -- the
liveryman's meal -- sat next to the lantern on an oak barrel. Green stuffed
these into a saddle bag hanging over a stall door after taking a large bite out
of the cheese.
He released several more horses and mounting up guided them toward the back of
the livery.
"As soon as we're out of town head for Widow Holbarth's place," he whispered as
Faye mounted up. "You'll be safe there for the time being and be able to get
some clothes."
"Where are you going?"
"I've got some business to take care of; I'll meet you at Holbarth's later."
Following the loose horses out of the back of the livery they whipped their
horses into a gallop and sped swiftly out into the moon-glow desert.
Rising from the shadows of the tack room, where he had been hiding, a huge man
lumbered into the light of the lantern. He touched the back of his head where a
tomahawk had hit him. Luckily, he thought, it had been the blunt end and not the
bladed end that hit him. He quickly stripped off his clothes and stuffed them
into a canvas bag and saddled up one of the remaining horses that Green had not
released. As he galloped out of the livery and reached the safety of open
country he turned the horse in the direction of the Holbarth place.
