Chapter 1

Brett Hollister was not too happy about going through the badlands in order to reach the wagon train, but the only other route would take far too long to catch the Anderson party before it departed for free land in the West. He had not been able to catch up to them in Oklahoma territory and now he needed to make up for lost time by crossing the dreaded badlands and risk run-ins with both outlaws and Indians on the war-path.

He turned over his short string of two back-up mounts to the widow lady that had offered him a place to stay while he was mending up from a bullet in the backside sent his way by a drunken Calvary trooper with no ability to see anything at all in his stupor. Brett was sorely tempted to shoot the yahoo in just retribution but the fellow was sprawled out on the barroom floor snoring like a baby. The sheriff had rewarded his sense of restraint by turning him over to the voluptuous widow Carmichael who had become close to a recluse in her new status of "recently widowed".

The lawman turned bounty hunter had been tracking a pair of escapees from Yuma prison that had already left a swath of death and destruction across three States that made them "Wanted Men". The eldest was Graham Collins who managed to charm the females who came into his sphere of influence with sure-fire success. He was the least dangerous of the two convicts but by far the most intelligent. The other target of his current search was an ugly-looking half-breed called Apache Bill. Bill was reputed to have caused the "Massacre at Miller's Crossing" by taking serious liberties with a young girl whose only crime was to work for Wells Fargo in the dispatcher's office and knew the combination to the money vault.

Young Molly Muldoon was not what one would call a pretty girl but she was young and had a nice laugh. The sad part was she never laughed much after Apache Bill was finished with her. It seemed unlikely that her spoken husband-to-be Wallis Stetson would be inclined to go through with the nuptials now that she was ruined at the hands of an escaped convict.

Brett had interviewed the girl extensively after the incident and discovered that she had a wonderful sense of acceptance for her situation and was already ready to move on to greener pastures. She gave him detailed descriptions of both men right down to minute observations triggered by her desperate circumstances.

The Massacre itself was not much of a massacre in terms of sheer horror but there were four bodies up at the barber shop sitting in wooden coffins ready for the last trip to Boot Hill.

Thankfully, Apache Bill did not use his knife on poor Molly as he was inclined to do with most of his crime scene victims. He seemed to have been more interested in scaring her into cooperation in the primary mission of getting the money vault open before a posse could be formed to chase them out of town. His use of the female for depraved purposes was almost an automatic celebration of seeing so much cash money to fill their saddlebags.

The older and less emotional Mister Collins watched his partner make the female Wells Fargo clerk take "it" from behind with disinterested eye because he was an individual with strong instincts for survival. Those same instincts for survival outweighed his need for female flesh because in all honesty he never lacked for companionship with his genetic good looks and generally dashing appearance. They had already shot down the stagecoach guard who had the uncommon bad sense to attempt to draw on an already unholstered firearm.

The episode rose to "Massacre" level with the unexpected entrance of three Calvary dragoons fresh from the field after unsuccessfully tracking a band of Sioux who had jumped the reservation with intent to collecting as many scalps as possible. They were none too steady after spending most of the afternoon in the Palace Emporium drenching their innards with cheap rotgut of dubious origins.

Apace Bill was so incensed at the interruption right at the special moment when he was just ready to anoint the Wells Fargo female clerk with his half-breed spunk that he started shooting without warning. Of course, Mister Collins joined in because he was always a hair-trigger sort of fellow it the truth be known.

The poor female clerk, who went by the name of Molly, was so impressed by the sudden demise of four men before her violence-hating eyes that she forgot to struggle and seemed to become excessively cooperative while they concluded their business and galloped off to the badlands. It was several days before she was able to adequately describe the two interlopers and relate that they called each other "Bill" and "Grey". Their descriptions matched the wanted posters of the two escapees perfectly and at least the posse and assorted bounty hunters including Brett Hollister were able to draw their own conclusions.

In the course of his debriefing of Molly Muldoon, Brett discerned that she was shaken right down to her very core more by the violence than at the liberties taken by Apache Bill. She confided in him that she had come west on the promise of employment by the combination bank and shipping concern that included steady pay and full room and board the entire length of her contract. He was surprised that she was adamant about continuing in her present position despite the unfortunate course of events in the past week.

Before departing the scene of the Massacre for the badlands, Brett did his best to take the young girl's mind off the incident and soon had her laughing and flirting again with a sparkle in her pretty eyes. The night before he saddled up, they returned from the steakhouse to her empty quarters and joined their joyful flesh together with little thought to rhyme or reason except for pure and simple pleasure in excited release. They repeated the merging of their bodies several times that night in variations that expanded Molly's wealth of sexual experience. She was like a fine instrument played by a skilled cock-master taken down a mutually satisfying lust-driven road of sheer delight. All thoughts of her previous degradation at the hands of the evil half-breed Apache Bill were banished from her mind and she soon returned to her normal happy self after Brett's departure and his continued determined pursuit of the troublesome pair of escaped convicts.