Chapter Four - Tequila Rose
That evening Sabbina once more settled into the bed in the mirrored pyramid. As she sipped her drink and ate the magic mushrooms Peter attached the electrodes to her head. 'If they've registered nothing unusual so far it would seem they are a waste of time,' she said
'No way. Even a lack of evidence tell us something. . . . . And have you decided on where and when you will concentrate tonight?'
'I thought to make it as different as I could and try for the early days of the American wild west.'
'Good idea. . . . Right that's done,' he grinned, 'Sweet dreams.'
She settled back and closed her eyes ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
As Clint went to feed the horses, a brief breeze swept through the door of their sod cabin and struck chill on Rose's bare, damp skin. With a quick shudder she slowly started dressing, her mind reviewing the events of the past hour - the feel of his warm flesh on her body, his palms weighing her breasts, his finger tips hardening her nipples, his lips exploring the satin of her inside thighs and, finally the tight grasp of her cunni squeezing his seed from him. It had been pleasant, it had filled a need, but what had become of the joy, the ecstasy, she was supposed to feel.
She gazed idly out of the meagre window to where the early morning mist covered the plain, hiding the distant mountains and confined their universe to a few hundred yards. She'd clearly made a mistake. Was it in choosing to marry? Using him as her escape from an overbearing preacher father. But she'd had little option, since he was the best of a poor selection. Maybe, in time, she would come to respect him, even love him, but for now she was unsatisfied. It might, after all, have been better to wait and hope for a real man to come along.
Or possibly her error was in insisting that he whisk her straight from the wedding onto the stagecoach and out west to this isolated homestead. She was finally free from her father's evangelistic fervour, but at what a price. Already, after only a month, the prospect of a future of lonely drudgery was more than she could bear. She accepted that life was also hard for him, especially compared to the ease of his clerk's job back east. But he was young, not as young as her, but young enough to adapt. His muscles were hardening already.
She watched him stride toward the barn, the bucket of feed heavy on one arm, the other holding his gun - though he carried that more in hope of a rabbit than any expectation of needing it; cougars were scarce; Indians long gone to reservations; they owned nothing to tempt bandits. He turned the corner of the barn.
'Hold it! Drop the Winchester. Arms above your head.' The unexpected command carried faintly.
A figure moved out of the shadows, its Colt a dull gleam. 'Sonny, get his gun.' A second figure moved from behind the barn door, reached down, and snagged the rifle.
The one with the six shooter was tallish, raw-boned, with a couple of days of dusty greying stubble decorating his chin. The other, Sonny, was a mere stripling, barely her age of eighteen.
'Who's in the cabin?' The voice was husky from long hours on the trail.
'Only my wife.' Clint was nervous.
'Good. Lead the way. Sonny you help Dan.' He gestured with the Colt for Clint to start back to the cabin.
As they turned a third figure shuffled from the barn. This one was three or four years older than Clint and, like the other two, covered in trail dust. He carried his left arm in a makeshift sling liberally spotted with dried blood.
'No sweat Tad. It's my shoulder that got hit, not my legs,' the figure said.
Menaced by the gun Clint started back to the cabin. If he hadn't been so occupied using her, Rose thought, he might have heard their horses. Though she doubted he could have done anything, he was - had been - a clerk, not a fighter.
As they entered she stared at them, green eyes wide, her fists tightly clasping the cloth of her pinafore.
'Good day to you, Mam.' The leader removed his Stetson with his left hand revealing grizzled, greying hair.
'I'm sure sorry to bother you, but Dan here got hiself shot by the posse, and we need to rest a while. Also we sure could do with some coffee and a flapjack or two. If yew would kindly oblige.' He glanced at Sonny, 'Take your eyes off her - yew've seen a skirt afore. Go find some rope. I can't stand here all day with my gun on this one.'
'But she sure is purty. Reckon I can't wait to get a piece of that.'
'Yew'll wait for as long as I say. Now get him roped up.'
They all just stood while Sonny found a hank of rope and hog-tied Clint - first binding his ankles together then stringing them up behind him and roping them to his hands. Unable to move he was laid on the dirt floor, against the wall.
'What about that grub, Mam.' Tad reminded her as he took off his long leather coat and chaps.
Rose turned to the stove, her auburn hair trailing, still tousled, to her waist. Briskly she fastened it back with a scrap of ribbon, her fingers combing out the worst of the tangles that had been created as Clint took her. Would she have to endure that Sonny between her legs; she trembled at the thought.
The one they called Dan only had coffee - his wound was obviously troubling him - but the other two ate as if they had been on short rations awhile.
Afterwards Tad looked at Rose, 'Where d'yew keep the whisky?'
'We don't. You'll find no demon drink in this house.' It might have been her preacher father speaking.
'Is that so. Well Sonny, I reckon yew'all are due a walk. Go look in my saddle bag. There's a bottle of tequila I been saving. Don't yew drink none, it's for Dan here. We gotta get that bullet out.' He stretched and meeting Dan's eyes said, 'Yew ready fur it?'
'As much as I ever will be. It's got to be done, but don't hurry, wait till the drink gets me.' His tone was low with an educated slant.
Sonny returned with two bottles. 'You're not alone in keeping a spare.'
'Give one to Dan. Don't yew touch the other till we be finished. . . . Mam, get me a bowl of hot water and a sharpening stone.'
When Rose took the steaming bowl to the table he was sharpening a hunting knife on the stone while Dan was guzzling one of the bottles of tequila. Sonny sat, his chair tilted back, tracking her with lascivious eyes.
'Here let me do it. I helped the local doctor for a while,' she offered; anything to keep occupied and away from Sonny.
'What yew reckon, Dan?'
Dan mumbled vaguely; the drink had worked quickly on his empty stomach.
'Sonny, grab his legs. We'll put him on the bed.'
Tad and Sonny lifted Dan and laid him on the edge of the double bed.
