Chapter 2

Bounty hunter Brett Hollister had made good time crossing the badlands. He sensed that he had shortened the lead the two escaped murderers had established while he was keeping the widow Carmichael well occupied with his cock and her deceased husband's heavy black belt. His backside was all healed up and he took to the saddle like a man caught up in the fire of a spirited search for justice.

On the fourth day out, he drew up to an isolated ranch house set up at the entrance to a canyon heading back into the foothills of a low-lying mountain range. The house didn't look all that prosperous but the ground was heavy with grazing fodder and he could see a number of steers wandering about with disinterested lack of concern. The brands were a bit jumbled and he suspected some of them had been "saved" from abandonment by previous owners. Still, it was not any of his business and he tended to only stick with the task at hand. He could see a pair of interested parties checking him out from the shade of a wide porch and figured they were not a welcoming committee of any type and would be more than happy if he just passed by without any greeting at all.

The circling buzzards down the trail ahead gave him pause and he hoped they signaled the presence of animal and not human remains. He approached the carcass gingerly looked in every direction for some type of trap and found none. The buzzards were disturbed from their mid-day meal of beef leaving the partial remains of a downed steer with signs of severe trauma from some other kind of predator, most likely, a wolf or wolf pack. Apparently, it was one of the steers belonging to the ranch house at the head of the canyon. He pressed on, leaving the remains to the cleansing efforts of the wheeling carrion birds.

He had to swing south for a spell to avoid the steep terrain in his path. It was much more pleasant to follow the river into the foothills and avoid the dangerous slopes. There was no sign of other travelers and he assumed the area received few visitors. Just as he was about to break out of a tree-line on the near side of the river, he spotted a column of smoke wafting up into the brisk fall air.

He was immediately on the alert because this was an area where any sign of life usually meant trouble and he was not in any mood to take chances or any unnecessary risk.

Knowing his horse would make far too much noise he tethered him just inside the tree-line and gave him a hat full of river water to settle him down. Then he removed his spurs and his shiny belt buckle and moved quietly in the direction of the smoke.

He could smell the Indians before he either heard them or saw them at their nefarious work under the shade of the willow trees next to the river. They had already done in the males in the small settler party that had caught with their pants down trying to cross the river at the convenient ford. Those two bodies were contorted in an obscene manner with the fires built on the top of their bellies and now all but burned out with terrible finality.

The two females were both face down in the grass with their clothing removed from the waist down. The Indians had uncharacteristically elected to torment the females with their own anatomy instead of any tools of torture. He could not see either of the women's faces but could hear them sobbing with hopeless resignation at their shameful degradation at the hands of the savages. He knew they were both alive because he could hear their pitiful whimpers and saw their haunches moving about with the urge to escape their fate.

The two oxen were being led off by a group of squaws beating them vigorously on the flanks to make them hustle up river to some secluded hiding place. The cluster of four war-painted Indian males was trying their best to impress their virility on the others by hopping on and off the two subdued white female captives but the bounty hunter was certain it would not be long before they would be more interested in their beautiful long flowing hair rather than their female charms.

Brett felt reasonably certain he would be able to bring down two of them before the remaining ones could draw a bead on him but he was not too optimistic about taking down all four of them without suffering a serious injury. The shrieks of distress from the younger female being stretched by a mean-looking brave with impressive equipment between his legs made up his mind to intervene even though it carried a high degree of risk with it.

He lined up his Henry rifle on the brave mounted on the shuddering girl and drilled a new entry right between his eyes. As soon as he finished with that chore, he lined his sights on the one getting ready to lift the older woman's hair and took care of him as well. The other two melted into the trees and he was unable to distinguish either of them hidden in the tall waving grass. The females were silent on the ground, not moving for fear of something even more terrible happening although something more contemptible seemed entirely impossible to contemplate.

Brett moved into the silent clearing checking the trees for the two hidden savages. Apparently, they had decided to skedaddle and be satisfied with the two oxen as their reward for preying on the settlers. He rolled the two dead ones down to the river's edge where the buzzards would make short work of them along with the two settlers. The ground was far too hard to even attempt to bury them and it was much too far to try and transport them to a professional grave-digger.

The two females still had their faces buried in the grass and dirt and he stood there for a moment taking in the twin pairs of buttocks still pulsating from their early morning exercises which were totally unwanted and utterly degrading to their sense of dignity.

When he freed them from their bindings, they covered their bottoms and headed to the river to sit in the water and soak their battered behinds. He had moved the bodies of their male family members to the bank just down-river and they showed no inclination to treat themselves to a private viewing since there really was not point to it at this late date. The remains of all four were already starting to blow up in the heat of the sun and the buzzard's early warning system had been activated and the sky was filled with flapping black wings.