Chapter 2

Robby, as usual, awoke well before the sun. He crawled into the warmth of his fringed buckskins, picked up his saddle pack, and slipped down the outside staircase of the burgundy brick home. At 15 years of age he had already attained his full height of 68 and one-half inches, ( He chose to say it that way because it sounded taller than 5 foot 8 and a half.), and was deceptively strong for his wiry build. His usual regimen consisted of a sprint around the hill to the stables, a quick mucking out of another day's filth, saddle his roan gelding "Farmer", and away for an hour's ride. Then back, curry out the accumulated burrs etc., and back up the hill to get ready for school. This April morning proved no different until he pulled up just out of sight of 'Home Hill' to check the gelding's right foreleg. He seemed to be favoring it a bit today. As he bent to pull up the offending limb, he heard the raucous chatter of a number of two cycle engines reverberating through the trees. With ears still cocked and listening to the diminishing sounds, he found a splinter of rock wedged beneath the shoe and causing uneven pressure whenever weight came to bear on the hoof. While he pried the brittle stone loose the thrumming of engines rose, then ceased, and a worry knot formed on his unlined forehead.

The bikes, for that's what he imagined them to be, could only have stopped at one place. His parents' house. The riders weren't unusual by themselves, but they had come the back way, up behind the house, instead of by the highway. This coupled with the early hour, and his father being in Houston on business troubled him, and served further to line his brow.

Gretchen Klienschmidt was seventeen months older than her brother Robert. Both had golden blonde hair and Kelly green eyes to match their mother's. Her wont was to stay in bed until the last possible minute before getting up and complaining bitterly about the early hour that Arkansas High School opened its doors. Today, she was up and dressed even before her brother had disappeared into the whitewashed barn below. She too had a horse stabled there, but much preferred the rear saddle of her boyfriend's 'Custom Zuk' to the labor of saddling and currying her mare 'Tara.' She had gotten up at this ungodly hour to meet and ride off with Marco because this was the day they, or rather Marco, had set for them to elope. A part of her still wondered why he had been so adamant yesterday about picking her up this morning, but with her father in Houston and her mother working graveyards at the hospital, things just couldn't have been timed better. She bent to pull the two suitcases packed with her ' absolute bare essentials' from under the bed, then struggled to drag them across the floor, out the captain's walk, and down the same stairs Robby used each morning. She stopped to survey the patches of ruby thistles speckling the meadow leading from home hill and the stables, to "Saddle Back Ridge" a quarter of a mile away, then she went back into the house to put together a quick breakfast for herself and Marco.

It was still a nippy forty-two when she first heard the muted howling of the bikes entering the thirty acre pasture, and she was glad she was wearing the purple downy vest beneath her jacket. It surprised her when she saw not one bike, but three coming down the trail to the stable. She started to run down the hill to ask why Marco had spoiled the romanticness, if there was such a word, when she stopped with a laugh at the memory of the two large suitcases to be packed along. She continued down the hill and stood hip shot next to the open stable door while the riders gunned their motors as one and shut down the engines.

" How ya been boys," she said, with an effort at seductiveness, as the three pulled off their gloves and swaggered up to the stable. " Are those guns ya got in your pockets are or you just glad ta see me?"

" Knock it off Gretchen. Is your brother back yet? " The speaker was a dark Latino who, even with high heeled cowboy boots, barely topped Gretchen's 5 foot 6 inch frame.

" No, he probably won't be back for another half hour." she replied more than a bit put off by Marco's superior tone of voice. " Why? Do you need him for something, or are you afraid he might try to stop me from leaving? It doesn't matter to me what he does cause I'm legal in Arkansas, legal enough to get married anyhow. All the squirt could do would be to tell mom and there ain't a damn thing she could do to stop me either."

" I ain't worried about your brother or your goddamn do gooder of a mother either, at least not yet." He spun to face his two companions " Alright you heard her. Get on inside and hop to it. Remember no fucking around. Shit, bitch let go of my fuckin' arm will you."

Though she was uneasy about the tone and timber of Marco's speech Gretchen did not fully react until the announcement that the three Hispanics were going to enter the house. Then she grabbed the leader's arm to demand an explanation.

" Marco, why are you sending them up to the house? I've got everything packed and in those suitcases there." She pointed up the hill to the swing tree where two large hardsider Samsonites stood guard by the old oak.

" You have got to be shittin' me. You can't possibly mean to take those goddamn trunks with you. Look lover," with the last he lowered both his eyes and his voice until it cut like a sword through the morning chill. " I told you that you would only be able to take the bare essentials and I meant the 'BARE' essentials. You have got until we get back from the house to get rid of all the fluff and put what you need, and I mean really need, into... those."

He pointed to a small set of saddle bags hanging just inside the open door to the stable. " Now get to it damnit." He spit as he pulled back to slap at the already cowering, crying girl.

" OK, Marco. OK, don't hit me. I'll do what you say, just don't hit me. I won't even ask what you want out of the house, but I don't understand anymore. " She wailed as she crawled up the hill to get the bags.

" Alright, chica. " Marco abruptly crooned as he realized that he did still need this gringa's help. " I'm sorry I lost it. There is a lot going on today you don't know about, and I'm uptight. You go ahead and fill those saddlebags up with your stuff. After we leave I'll tell you about everything comin' down. OK, my precious burrito? " The last was said with a leer and a low chuckle as he stared at the full cheeks she had poured into her Calvin Kliens. Gretchen nodded, took the offered hand and walked with them as far as the swing. Marco delegated the smaller of his partners to take the bags down to the stable and bid him return at a run.

When Fredo rejoined them, just out of sight of the stable, Marco reached into his pants and pulled out a dull black automatic. He checked the chamber, and then stood and watched his two friends check their old Colt Police Positives. When they finished, he sent Jesus around the front to watch for Mrs. Klienschmidt's maroon cadillac, and took the other youngster through the back door into the house.

Robby was not unusually suspicious by nature but when he turned back because of the stone shard, he knew it was not the real reason he was returning early. He didn't even try to rationalize why he stopped well inside the tree line and removed the Marlin Saddle gun from its scabbard. It was not until he 'injuned' up to the edge of the trees to look toward home hill that he realized this was only the second, or maybe the third time he had taken the 1894CS along on his morning ride.

He paused for a minute to recall those other occasions and remembered both times he'd had a real need for the gun. Once to kill an old lobo that had been bothering some of the local ranchers, and the other time he had found the Granddaddy of all rattlers sunning himself on the bank of one of the creeks near the Red river. His thoughts jerked back to the present when he spotted the movements of four people in the stable yard. One he identified immediately as his sister Gretchen, and he felt certain that one of the others was the latino she was hung up on, Marco. He started to rise to get Farmer and head toward the house, when he saw Gretchen fall, and what looked like a fist raised to strike her. He stared toward the group, and wished he could hear what they where saying. He knew even if he were at the grove of pines on the hill near the house, he would not be close enough to hear anything. He had almost decided to innocently gallop up to the stable when he noticed the three denim clad figures regroup at the back of the house. The odd movements of one of them could only be the cocking of an auto-loading pistol.

Jesus had been with Marco, Alfredo, Gretchen and Juan Lopez when the do-gooder bitch had finked on them for smoking grass behind the High School. Juan was still doing time for contributing when all he had done was join them after they lit the joint. The only reason the rest of them were out was because they had been minors. He knew something big was coming down today, but only cared that he had finally received the okay to teach the blonde puta a lesson she would never forget. He had watched her strut her ass around in those fancy clothes of her for the two years since that afternoon. Every time he had seen her he had gotten hard just thinking about the ways that he would use the delicious gold crowned body. He stopped halfway around the front of the house to cut the phone wires and rip a three foot section from the line. Then he moved to the low hedges next to the carports to hide himself and wait. He spent the first ten minutes sharpening his blade and dreaming about those tetas that he would gnaw on and then cut from her body. Then his thoughts began to get grotesque.