Sweat trickled down from Trevor's hat brim, stinging his eyes.
Looking a short distance across the sparse sand, the canteen with the ragged bullet hole through it enticed him from just 8 feet away. But he knew that any attempt to get over to it, much less safely back behind his sandstone shelter, just to check for a splash of hot brackish water in it, could easily cost him his life...and Katie's.. if she was still alive.
All was quiet. Even the three black turkey buzzards, drifting in lazy circles far up above him in the pale cornflower blue Arizona sky were as silent as death...and seemingly as patient.
The .45 caliber Colt Peacemaker weighed heavily in his hand, causing him to switch hands every so often to wipe the sweat from his palm and loosen up his stiff fingers.
Below him in the ravine, his long dead horse lay baking in the brassy sun, with bottle flies buzzing around its bloody nostrils.
Farther down the ravine, and around the corner beyond his vision, he knew that his beautiful young fiancΓ© was in the hands of the Comanche's, the same heartless bastards who had bushwhacked them as he and Katie had been on a pleasure ride just hours ago.
He also knew with a sense of dread that it had to be Kato's band. The worst of the holdouts.. a ruthless leader of renegade killers, and owner of more than 20 blue coat scalps... And also Trevors bitter enemy.
*****
Sitting on the sand in the shade, Katie searched for a way out of her terrifying predicament.
"My father owns more land and cattle than any man in Arizona," Katie said to the dirty dark eyed Indians standing above her in a circle. "He will give you mucho horses and guns!"
She smiled to let them know that she was friendly. But the vile, smelly men hovering much too close merely stared at her out of black, uncaring eyes.
They were waiting on someone, probably their leader. But they were obviously very interested in her for themselves as well.
She had seen the same bold hard looks from the buffalo hunters, trappers and mule skinners, the ones who loitered outside the seedy saloons in the town of Caprock. She had felt their eyes on her, measuring her figure with their filthy minds ever since she had filled out into a woman a few years before.
Knowing that the derelicts in town dare not disrespect her, Katie had learned to return their leers and unspoken lust with her own little teases, sweet bits of "accidental" cleavage, bare leg as her skirt would catch a breeze, and a little extra swing of her hips. She had even sucked on a candy stick provocatively and patted her chest with a damp handkerchief when she knew they were gawking at her. She knew it drove them crazy, but that there was nothing that the shit bags could do about.
But this was different. These savages had nothing to fear, much less proper respect for a lady.
One of them knelt beside her, and as she tried to scoot away a violent kick to the ribs from another captor behind her served as a harsh reminder that she was to stay put.
The big one who had kneeled near her suddenly boldly reached out and put his hand on her breast, squeezing it through her expensive bodice and light blue gingham dress that she had worn for Trevor. It shocked her. Katie started to slap his hand away, but the look in his eyes stopped her. It was like looking into the eyes of a wolf... dangerous, calm, in control...and with a tendency towards cruelty. It made her remain still as he felt her breast. Clearly, he was going to fondle squeeze her plump firm breast if he damned well wanted to, whether she liked it or not.
Seeing this blonde's breast groped caused excited chatter among the others. From her position on the ground, she could partially see underneath their loin clothes to witness numerous uncircumcised penises, some that bulged with impressive girth and stiffness, the first manhood that she had ever seen.
Then on the other side of her, another smelly Comanche, her father's age, knelt and squeezed her other breast. Katie closed her eyes, and felt other warriors kneel beside her in the sand, and soon many hands were on her skin... on her flat belly that she was so proud of, her shapely legs, her slender arms, her pretty face, her breasts, and one all the way up her dress to the hem of her panties.
It was too much. Struggling to crawl away, Katie shrieked and fought but was pinned down and her beautiful clothes were torn off of her while she squirmed and protested with every curse word that she knew. Her arms were held fast, and two men began sucking her breasts while another tried to insert a dirty finger into her exposed vagina.
Exhausted to the brink of collapse and helpless, Katie surrendered to an unavoidable rape by these filthy Indians. She closed her eyes tight and tried to will herself to die. "Wait until they find out I'm a virgin," she thought in a faraway mind, "The only unmarried, 19 year old virgin within 50 miles. They'll be so happy." Then she began to sob.
Then as suddenly as it had started, the hands were off of her, her hymen and maidenhood intact.