Miss Lynette Bowmar tugged at the rough ropes that fastened her prim hands to the cast iron head board. As it had the fifty or more times before it did no good and she was just as fast secured as when she had woken up, tied spread eagled to the bed upstairs in the Silver Snake Saloon.
Two months ago Miss Bowmar had taken the bone rattling stage from Springfield Illinois to Littlebird Creek in the Colorado territories to assume the position of school mistress to the freshly built school.
The town fathers had not been as forthcoming as perhaps they should about how "rustic" the settlement was. She had expected a thriving freshly built new city, instead she arrived to a grey toned dusty hamlet of less than 120 people. She had been put up in the rooms above the Saloon for the first night, but the smell of cheroot smoke and the incessant tinkling of the piano and high pitched shrieking of the dance hall girls had made her head ache, and the next day she demanded separate quarters and was shown a patched tent which was pitched behind the town meeting house which served as the school during weekdays where slack jawed farm boys and bored daughters of drovers attempted to learn their reading and ciphering.
The town had it's fair share of drifters and grifters passing through but she stayed in her tent at night, clutching her grandmothers bible her mother had given her and a single shot derringer her father had passed to her as she left. She had never fired it.
Two days ago a man had ridden into town on a black stallion. His saddle was fine black Spanish leather set with silver conchos. A saddle holster held a Winchester with an eagle feather hanging from the stud decorated stock. He wore a charcoal black duster grimed with the grit of the trail. A ebon low crowned hat sat atop a head sporting black hair that hung down to the turned up collar of the duster. A goatee and mustache the color of night framed his full lips, and his eyes were like those of a predatory animal. As he rode by he looked at herm shamelessly staring in her face and locking gaze with her. His eyes were a greenish brown of a pond at twilight, and the pupils were sable pits that seemed to stretch to the nether world. He reached up a gloved hand and tugged at the front brim of his hat as would a fine gentleman saying "how do" to a lady on the street. Lynette had shivered then and broke the stare and looked at the dusty street watching the hooves of his horse walk by.
That night when Mrs, Lee the Chinese woman who made her supper in exchange for tutoring her two sons after school hours (The fine people of Littlebird Creek would not approve of heathen Chinee sitting in school with their darlings. Sadly Lynette feared it might be because the two young men far outshone her other pupils!) she was whispering about the "Black rider" who had arrived today. She said he was called Buck Blacksnake, part Comanche and part demon so the stories went. Mrs. Lee said he was wanted in at least 4 territories and 2 states. The sheriff had suddenly decided to ride out and check on some ranchers south of town a few minutes after the dark visitor had arrived.
Now he had set up court in the saloon, playing poker with a red headed dance hall girl on his knee.
As she had went to sleep that night she had unloaded and reloaded her derringer and said the Lord's Prayer over and over again, each time when she got to the "Valley of the Shadow of death" she could imagine the muffled hoof beats of the dark rider behind her, coming out of that shadowy place of demonic despair.
She slept fitfully that night, the chill wind rippling the canvas of her tent. In one dream she fell into the pupils of his eyes, like a bottomless pit and as she fell her clothes were torn away until she was tumbling nude down the dark shaft of his stare. When she landed she was in the smoky bar of the saloon, dressed in the low cut garb of one of the dance girls. She was sitting on his knee, with his large tanned hand on her thigh, much higher than a mans hand should be unless it was one she had stood before a preacher with. A part of her was horrified but another part felt a tugging in her stomach as she looked down upon the upper swell of her bosom bare to the world and her nipples swelled and crinkled like they did on a cold morning on a trip out to the privy, but not from outer cold but from an inner heat.
When she awoke the next morning and prepared for her day. It was Friday and the children would be rowdier than usual. She was surprised at the number of absences that morning. It seems several of the farm families had chosen not to send their children to town that day. She taught as if in a fog. The dreams of the night before would come back suddenly and unbidden, making her knees weak and creating a humid state between her thighs. Surely this was the devils doing and she would pray for forgiveness as soon as the students left for the day.
About ½ hour before school let out, she heard the ring of spurs approaching the door. As Lynette looked up she saw the dark shape of the stranger standing in the door. He was over six feet tall and his hat brushed the lintel of the door and his broad shoulders did a good job of filling the door way. He wore a double breasted shirt with pewter buttons. A red scarf was tied around his neck. Faded black jeans ran down to black boots. Around his waist was a gun belt with a stag handled .44 in a tie down holster on the right side and a huge Bowie knife on the left. The classroom fell silent.
Lynette felt her throat tighten so that her breath was captured in her chest surrounding a heart fluttering like a moth trapped in a mason jar on a moonlit night.
She coughed and managed to gasp out, "May I help you, school is in session."
The man spoke in a low even tone, "Sorry to bother you, ma'am. I myself am a great admirer of education and those who disseminate it."
Lynette was shocked to hear such a sophisticated vocabulary from such a man.
He walked into the room as all the children sat silent and wide eyed looking at the dark apparition that had come upon them on this afternoon. A freakish late autumn storm was brewing outside and as he approached the front of the room, a flash of lightning illuminated the room making his apparel seem even darker by comparison. As the thunder pealed a few seconds later, one of the younger girls whimpered and Lynette's soul knew her terror.
Buck stopped by Trevor, the son of the local banker. He picked up the boys slate. "And what are you learning this stormy day young man?"
Trevor gulped but managed to blurt out, "The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States of America...ummm sir"
