by Kurt Barker
Maisie was silent for a while, then she looked up at Blackshot, propping her chin on his chest. “Hey, maybe she's a Pawnee, huh?”
“Why do you say that?” Blackshot asked.
“There's a Pawnee tribe that's set up lodges not too far from town; I just thought of it now. Maybe that's where she came from. Didn't you see their village by the river on your way into town?”
“It was pretty dark; I didn't even see a river,” Blackshot admitted. “But if there's a camp close by, I'd say there's a good chance that the girl came from there. She couldn't have walked too far in the state she was in.”
“You see a lot of the fellas from the camp around town sometimes,” Maisie said. “They usually seem nice enough, except for the one sour old guy that always starts arguments with the other customers when he comes in here. He complains about the price of the booze, too, but he always pays in the end, so I suppose that rules him out as a woman-beater. A fella that pays for his drinks can't be that bad.”
“Seems like a sound test of character to me. I'll be sure to mention that to the sheriff. It'll surely be a great help to his investigation.”
“The sheriff?” Maisie stared at Blackshot quizzically.
“Yes, of course. Tomorrow morning I'm going to go down to the sheriff's office and tell him all about what's gone on. I think he'd want to know that a serious crime like this has been committed right outside of his town, and he'll have to investigate and find out who did it.”
“You know, you're right!” Maisie said, sitting up. “You shouldn't wait until morning, though; you should be talking to the sheriff right now!”
She rolled over and reached underneath the bed; after fumbling about for a second she pulled out a wooden cigar box with a painted lid. Blackshot could not see what she took out of the box, but a moment later she sat up again with a silver sheriff's badge in her hand. Holding it up to her bare breast she intoned, “Very well, Mister Blackshot, tell Sheriff Grady everything you know about this case!”
Blackshot was incredulous. “First you're the doctor and now you're the sheriff?! I suppose you're the chief of the Pawnees, too!”
“Acting sheriff,” Maisie grinned, waggling a finger in mock reproach. “Every year when the winter cold starts setting in, our sheriff gathers up a posse of a few friends and rides south, 'hunting bandits'. He shows up again in the spring with a nice tan but never any captured bandits. He makes Pa the acting sheriff while he's gone, but since Pa likes to spend the winter inside a bottle, that means Doctor Maisie has to be Sheriff Maisie, too.”
Blackshot laughed and shook his head. “If I'd known you were the law around here, I'd have treated you in a little more gentlemanly manner.”
“No such talk!” Maisie retorted, wrinkling her freckled nose. “Sheriff Grady does not allow gentlemanly behavior in her bed; that's one law that you can believe will be strictly enforced!”
“Okay, Sheriff Grady, let's get down to business then. What are you going to do about that girl out there?”
“Oh, I already have a good plan worked out,” she replied. With that she slapped the badge in her hand onto Blackshot's chest. “As acting sheriff, I hereby deputize one Thomas Blackshot to investigate this case of unlawful assault with the full authority of the Dryer Hill sheriff's office!”
“Are you kidding me?” Blackshot burst out. “I can't stay here and play sheriff! I have to ride to Jessop in the morning to settle some business matters.”
Maisie put her hands on her hips. “Look here, you can't just blow into town and drop this problem in my lap and blow out again! I don't know how to handle this on my own! Besides, whoever worked over that poor girl is not someone to be trifled with, and if there's shooting to be done I reckon that a man who solves problems with a gun is just the man to put on the job!”
Blackshot groaned and rubbed his eyes with his palms. This mess had nothing to do with him, and now he was roped in with no good way out. Inwardly he cussed the girl and the sheriff and Captain Mike and the whole damn town.
Maisie bent over him, her nipples brushing the tight ridges of his abdomen. “And while the Dryer Hill sheriff's department can't afford to pay you for your services, there are a few perks to the job,” she murmured, tracing the muscles in his chest with her finger. “For instance, a deputy is entitled to have the acting sheriff suck his cock any old time he feels like it.”
Blackshot sighed, and placed his hand atop Maisie's head, guiding it down toward his waist. As she fed his hard shaft into the wet warmth of her mouth, he rubbed his eyes again and thought of the envelope tucked in the pocket of his jeans. For a place that was only an hour's ride off, Jessop was seeming very far away right now.
Chapter 6
The next morning, Blackshot was awoken not by the sunlight that filtered weakly through the little window above the bed, but by the sudden jolt of Maisie's plump ass landing on his hips, and the sensation of his manhood being enveloped by the sticky heat of her loins.
Through blinking eyes, Blackshot saw that she was wearing his shirt, the sleeves extending well beyond her hands and flapping with her movements. The front was unbuttoned and Maisie's voluptuous bare breasts were jumping and compressing against her ribs as she rode his cock with admirable vigor.
“I've got a little hangover and this is the best cure I know of,” she announced, sweeping her tangled blonde locks back from her face. “And anyway, we can't afford Hair of the Dog in this joint, so this will have to do.”
“You're the doctor,” Blackshot replied.
“That's right, and Doctor Grady has been hard at work while you've been sleeping,” she grunted. “The patient seems to be doing well enough; no new bleeding, no signs of further problems.”
“Good. Is she awake?”
Maisie grinned and shrugged her shoulders. “Not officially; her eyes were closed the whole time I was looking her over, anyhow.”
“How about unofficially?”
“Truth be told, I got the feeling that she was awake and just keeping 'em shut. Still, I could be wrong; it was just- uh... just ah... a feeling.”
The last words caught in her throat as Blackshot's release emptied into her body in a hot torrents. With a low moan she leaned back, stretching her lithe body atop him.
“Oh, that did the trick,” she panted, climbing off of him and standing up beside the bed. “Or maybe my sore pussy is just distracting me from my sore head, but either way it works for me!” Maisie stripped off Blackshot's shirt and tossed it onto his chest. “You've got a big day of sheriff-ing ahead of you, so you'd better get up and at 'em. I'll fix you up some breakfast.”
Breakfast turned out to be a big bowl of stew consisting of beans and a stringy meat which had possibly once belonged to a coyote, accompanied by a cup of piping hot coffee that was impressive in its strength if not its flavor. Blackshot's hunger and the chilly morning made it all more palatable, and he ate it with gusto. Maisie, clad now in an embroidered blouse and gingham skirt, joined him at the table with her own mug of coffee, stopping first at the bar to add a dash of whiskey to the cup.
“It enhances the natural aroma,” she smirked, her freckled cheeks coloring as she noticed Blackshot watching her.
“I get the feeling your name is on the list, too,” he laughed.
“That's no way a deputy to talk to the sheriff,” Maisie scoffed as she sat down. “Before you leave, I'll need you to carry the girl out of here and put her in my bed. This town starts drinking early and I can't have her lying on the floor when the customers come in.”
“Aye aye, Doctor Sheriff Captain,” Blackshot replied, saluting.
He crossed the room to where the young woman lay and lifted her into his arms, gathering the blankets around her body carefully. She felt small in his arms, which almost surprised him, for in the light of day she looked less delicate and fragile than she had the night before. Her body was taut and strong, the body of a woman who spent her days on horseback and her nights under the open sky.
&nbs
p; The swelling around the girl's eyes had gone down, leaving dark purplish bruises in its place, but her face looked calm and serene. It was a beautiful face but also an insolent face; imperious, defiant. Recalling how he had found her, Blackshot felt the strange impression that she had survived until then through sheer determination to flout the will of her assailant, clinging to life in the cold and the darkness by nothing but stubborn contrariness.
Pondering this notion, he lay her gently on her side in Maisie's bed and arranged the covers neatly around her before returning to the barroom. Maisie was still sitting at the table, sipping her coffee.
“Well, what do you think?” she asked, arching an eyebrow. “Asleep or pretending?”
Blackshot shrugged. “Can the door to your room be locked from the outside?”
Maisie smiled. “I was thinking the same thing.”
Chapter 7
It was a cloudless morning and the sun glared brightly on the fallen snow, but the air seemed scarcely warmer than it had the previous night and the wind cut through Blackshot's clothes and chilled him to the bone as he tramped across the frozen lot to the stable. He led Khamsin outside and, once in the saddle, guided him down the hill behind the saloon toward the narrow river that glittered in the sunlight through the naked branches of the trees. If the black stallion was bothered by the biting cold, he showed no signs of it, trotting easily through the mushy snow and snuffing up the crisp air in great steamy billows.
Upon reaching the bank of the river Blackshot found it to be little more than a creek, shallow and stony with ice forming at its edges. At one point the water ran at little more than a trickle, and it was here that he crossed and found a sort of trail on the other side, running parallel to the water in a low place between two shallow ridges. He followed the leaf-strewn track as it and the river curved away from Dryer Hill, and after a few minutes he spied the sloping roofs of the Pawnee lodges rising from a clearing beyond the bare trees.
At almost the same time, Blackshot saw another rider on the trail; the man wore a threadbare blanket over his jacket, and his long braided hair was streaked with gray. A handful of rings dangled from his ears and the jagged furrow of a scar ran the length of his copper cheek. He was riding away from the clearing, about a hundred yards distance from Blackshot and nearly the same space from the camp.
Without apparently looking up to see Blackshot, the old man turned his horse suddenly from the trail and crossed the river. Before he disappeared from sight among the trees on the far bank, Blackshot caught a glimpse of a rifle butt extending from the blanket at his side, and saw that a pistol hung from his hip as well.
The crunching of his horse's hooves through the snowy leaves grew steadily fainter and then were gone. Most likely the man was going hunting, nothing more, but something about the encounter put Blackshot on edge, and he kept watch on the far bank of the river from the corner of his eye as he rode on.
Once he arrived at the small Pawnee village, he spotted a woman with a child in her arms and another beside her, standing in front of a lodge. He rode up to her and tipped his hat.
“Good morning, ma'am,” he said. “I'm looking for the chief.”
“Good luck,” the woman replied curtly.
“Thanks, but I was hoping you could tell me where I could to find him.”
“Hmm... Try Houston.”
“You know, I like a good riddle as well as the next guy, but at this rate we'll be here all day. C'mon, let me in on the joke; It'll be our little secret, you and I.”
The woman rolled her eyes and snorted derisively. “It's a joke all right! The chief has gone 'hunting bandits' with that no-good sheriff from that town up on the hill; his two brothers went, too. They've gone down where it's warm and you won't see their faces around here until spring!”
“Sounds like a very civic-minded family,” Blackshot said. “Who stands in for him here while he's bringing peace to the lawless West?”
“Why? Are you selling something?”
“Not today. I'm standing in for the no-good sheriff and I need some information about a crime that happened around here last night.”
The woman grinned sardonically. “In that case, go talk to Mama. She's the chief's wife; everybody calls her Mama. She'll be as happy as a clam to see you.”
“Fine, anything I can do to brighten someone's day.”
The woman pointed out the lodge belonging to the chief and his wife, and Blackshot bid her adieu and made his way there.
Mama was a round, jovial woman with a beaming smile and long white braids, and she was indeed happy to see Blackshot, especially when she learned what a juicy story of intrigue he had to tell her! She listened with rapt attention, interrupting frequently with questions about the poor girl's health and just where exactly she had been found.
Unfortunately, Mama was not able to satisfy Blackshot's curiosity they way he had satisfied hers; she did not recognize his description of the mysterious girl as being anyone in the tribe, and as far as she knew, no one had gone missing from the village. However, this did not stop her from regaling him with every good bit of gossip that she had from the camp and the town and the surrounding farms, none of which had even the slightest connection to his investigation.
As he was politely extracting himself from her clutches, the old woman gave him one bit of information that he could use; a man of the tribe named Tall Eagle had just returned from hunting (real hunting, not bandit hunting) and he would know better than she if a young woman was missing from the village, she told him with a knowing wink. With that she let Blackshot escape with the directions to Tall Eagle's abode.
After wandering among the lodges for a bit, trying to make sense of the murky instructions the chief's wife had given him, Blackshot saw a pretty young woman emerge from a lodge near the outskirts of the camp, wrapping a blanket around her naked body as she hurried into another nearby house. Smiling, he walked straight for the lodge she had left, knowing that at last he had found the house of Tall Eagle.
Tall Eagle was a youthful but powerfully-built man with a crooked nose and a laconic smile, and he welcomed Blackshot into his home as cordially as if they had been lifelong friends. After accepting the drink that was offered him, Blackshot described the mystery woman to Tall Eagle, but the young man could only shake his head; he was very sure she was not from the Pawnee camp. He assured Blackshot that while all the attractive young women in the village were safe and sound, he would still make it his business to check on each one of them and confirm their whereabouts just to allay any concerns.
When Blackshot asked if he had noticed any unusual activity around the area last night, Tall Eagle admitted that he did not know; on his way back from hunting he had stopped to confirm the whereabouts of a particularly energetic young redhead that resided in a farm about a mile south of the village, as he sometimes did when her father and brother were not at home, and while he could attest that she, too, was safe and sound and in excellent physical health, he couldn't say much about any goings on in the village that night.
And so it was that Blackshot left the Pawnee lodges, with the sun higher and his spirits lower than when he had arrived. He was no closer to finding out the identity of the injured woman or that of her attacker. As he steered Khamsin back toward the trail to Dryer Hill, he saw Mama outside her lodge, surrounded by a group of the older women. They were all talking in hushed tones and glancing at him as he left.
They would go up to town to see the girl, Blackshot was sure of that. Maisie was a smart woman and would know better than to let anyone in to see the girl, but it would mean a long day for her. Still, he couldn't worry about that now; he still had to investigate what happened and so far he was stuck on square one. If the girl didn't live in town and didn't belong to the Pawnee tribe, then where the hell did she come from? She hadn't been dropped into the woods by a bird; she had to have come from some place!
Where had she slept the night before? She must have camped somewhere nearby. Alone? Blackshot
didn't think so; if the girl was traveling, she probably had some companions. Maybe the man who whipped her was one of them. Perhaps they had quarreled for some reason, although what kind of quarrel would have lead to such a vicious beating was anyone's guess.
In any case, they could have been passing through the area; people that nobody around here knew or had seen before. They could have even been a family, or perhaps, a gang? Maybe no one had seen them because they had made sure no one would; kept their camp hidden far from the eyes of the townspeople or the tribe... or the law.
Then again, the girl might well have been alone; on the run from someone and hiding the best she could. If that was the case, then she hadn't hidden well enough. He, or they, had found her and worked her over with a vicious fury, but for some reason had stopped short of killing her.
Blackshot turned the Arabian down the hill and crossed the ice-rimmed creek. Is was no use speculating like this without enough information; he would go back to the place where he had found the girl last night. Even though any tracks would be lost to the snow, perhaps he would find clues in the daylight that were missed in the darkness.
As he crested the grade on the other side of the river, he heard a sudden rustling in the underbrush up ahead, and a lean brown jackrabbit burst from beneath a bush and rushed past him into another snowy thicket. Acting on instinct, Blackshot jerked the reins sideways and the stallion lunged off the trail, just as the crack of a rifle sounded and he saw the flash of fire right in front of his face.
Chapter 8
The bullet whizzed past Blackshot's head, close enough that he could feel its heat on his cheek as it tore by, and cracked the trunk of a sapling behind him. He dug his heels into the stallion's flanks and it leaped forward into a run as the rifle barked again. Hearing the slug rip through the brush just behind Khamsin's flashing hooves, Blackshot palmed one of his Colts and squeezed off two quick shots in the direction of muzzle flash he had seen.
