by Neil Hunter
Billy-Jack stared at Bodie defiantly, his face sticky with blood and dirt. “Who the hell says so?”
“I do,” Bodie said. He let Billy-Jack see the cocked gun he was holding. “Now, I get any kind of crap from you, boy, I’m going to let this trigger go and blow that pecker of yours right off!”
Billy-Jack stared down at the open front of his pants that exposed him for all to see. He glanced up at Bodie, and getting the message that Bodie meant every word he said, Billy-Jack suddenly decided that the most important thing was to button up his pants.
Billy-Jack and Pike took the reluctant lead of the small procession that moved out of the livery and up the street. At the door they paused while Angela and Bodie helped the old man who ran the place to his feet. Though hurt, the old man was madder than a wet hen, and he threatened the pair of gunmen with everything he could think of from simple hanging to castration with blunt wire cutters, begging the lady’s pardon. He fell in beside Bodie as they carried on along the street, finally reaching the jail. By the time they got there an interested crowd had gathered — for the second time that day.
The marshal glanced up from his paperwork to find his office crowded fit to bust. He looked from face to face, taking it all in, and wondering what the hell had happened to Ridgelow.
“You got rooms for these two?” Bodie asked, indicating Billy-Jack and Pike.
“I guess,” the marshal said. “We got charges?”
“Damn right we do!” the old man from the livery yelled. He stuck his head across the desk, jabbing a finger in the direction of the bloody gash. “See what the bastards done to me? Like to killed me!”
The marshal grunted. “Clem, if I was you I’d get off up and see the doc. Get him to take a look at that. Then later you can come by and make out a statement.”
The old man nodded, eyes fierce as a swooping vulture. “Damn right I will!” he snapped. “Throw the goddam book at ’em!”
After the old man had gone, closing the door behind him with a bang hard enough to tear it from its hinges, the marshal sat back. “Let’s get on with it,” he said.
“Assault and attempted rape on Miss Crown,” Bodie said.
The marshal’s face hardened. “That right, Miss Crown?”
Angela nodded. “If it hadn’t been for Mr. Bodie turning up when he did ...” There was no need for her to say more.
The marshal stood up. He snatched a ring of keys from a hook on the wall and led the way through to the cell block at the rear. Unlocking the first cell he stood aside and let Bodie push Billy-Jack and Pike inside. The marshal locked the cell and followed Bodie back to the office.
“Would you like a drink, Miss Crown?” the marshal asked.
Angela shook her head. “I’m fine now, Marshal. Really.”
“I’m sorry this had to happen while you were visiting Ridgelow. We don’t normally have problems like this.”
“I’m afraid this is something which has followed me from High Grade,” Angela said.
“Well, they won’t be going back,” Bodie said.
“Hell, no,” the marshal agreed. “I’ve got enough to hold ’em for trial.”
“You might have them locked up for a while,” Bodie pointed out. “On account of the main witness leaving town in the morning.”
The marshal grinned. “It’ll be a pleasure to keep that pair locked up. For the rest of their damn lives if I could find reason enough.”
“Have a look through your wanted dodgers,” Bodie suggested. “You’ll find your reasons there.”
The marshal pondered on the thought for a moment. “Come to think of it,” he said, “one of ’em did look familiar. What’re they called?”
“Billy-Jack Struthers and Pike Cooly,” Angela said. “They both work for Jonas Randall.”
The marshal glanced at Bodie. “Appears to me, Bodie, that Miss Crown has put you in the picture concerning High Grade.”
Bodie didn’t answer, but Angela nodded. “I put my proposal to Mr. Bodie.”
“And?” the marshal asked.
“At the moment I am waiting for his decision.”
“Hell, no,” Bodie said quietly, “I’m waiting for your word, Miss Crown.”
“Angela stared at him, puzzled. “About what?”
“Time we set out in the morning!”
Angela smiled at him, then glanced at the marshal. “Does that answer your question, Marshal?”
“Yes. But it don’t do a thing to console me.”
“Over what?”
“Over the fact that I ain’t coming with you. That’s a pity, ’cause I got a feeling that High Grade is shortly going to be one hell of an interesting place to be.”
Bodie took Angela’s arm and steered her towards the door. Over his shoulder he said, “Marshal, I don’t know what you mean!” But it wasn’t the truth. And even if he hadn’t known fully he would have had a good idea.
Chapter Five
They were two days out of Ridgelow and high up in the barren, sun-bleached hills. On all sides lay serried ranks of dun-colored rock. The terrain was a great sprawl of sameness. Rock and dust, ravine and cliff. Smooth slopes of weathered stone, wind-scoured, crumbling ridges. Here a silent canyon, empty and shimmering with the trapped heat radiating down out of a sky so blue it hurt the eyes. And in all the time they had been travelling they hadn’t seen another living soul or heard any voices other than their own.
The fact that they seemed to be alone worried Bodie more than anything. He instinctively mistrusted outward appearances. The further they travelled the greater became his unease. This man Randall, who had been astute enough to send a couple of men after Angela Brown, would keep the borders of his domain well patrolled. Bodie figured that by now he and Angela were close enough to make contact with those guards. It could mean trouble at any given moment. More than likely Randall’s men would be the shoot-first-question-later type. Which didn’t bother Bodie too much. He could give as good as he got. Maybe better.
Mid-morning of the third day found them on a thin trail clinging to the side of a towering cliff. The trail, dusty and loose-surfaced, was only just wide enough to take the heavy, loaded wagon and its four-horse team. If Bodie had fostered any misgivings concerning Angela Crown’s capabilities as a teamster, they were swiftly dispersed. She handled the wagon better than most men, negotiating the trickiest stretches of ground with an apparent lack of concern. So when they found themselves on the narrow cliff trail, Bodie rode a little way ahead, scouting the surrounding area, knowing that he could leave the wagon to Angela.
And that was the way it went. Smoothly, without a hitch. Until some son of a bitch started shooting at them with a rifle!
It was Bodie who called the hidden rifleman a son of a bitch. He added a few other choice insults, too, but after that he found he was too busy trying to control his spooked horse to waste time on name calling.
The rifleman didn’t appear to be trying to actually hit them. Either that or he was the worst shot ever to pull a trigger. Even so, there were a lot of bullets coming their way. They howled off the rock face at Bodie’s back, making a hideous noise as they whined off into the sky. Bodie managed to get out of his saddle, dragging down on the reins to keep the horse from rearing back over the edge of the trail. There was a long drop on the far side of the trail and Bodie didn’t fancy taking the quick way to the bottom.
He managed to drag his rifle from the saddle sheath. Jamming it between his arm and body he worked the lever, jacking a shell into the chamber. Sweat was already oozing from his pores, what with the effort of trying to calm his horse and being covered in fine, choking dust. There was also the added threat of being crushed against the side of the cliff by the solid bulk of his jittery horse.
Down on one knee Bodie scanned the surrounding terrain, smiling grimly as he pinpointed the rifleman’s position. Each time the man fired he showed himself briefly. And there was also the tell-tale burst of powder smoke.
Letting go of his horse’s
reins Bodie put his rifle to his shoulder, waiting for the rifleman’s next appearance. He didn’t have to wait long. There was a flash of color against the dull rock on the far slope, the gout of smoke as the rifle exploded.
In the fraction of a second following the shot, Bodie touched the trigger of his own weapon. The rifle blasted a spear of flame, the sound of the shot slamming back and forth between the rock faces.
A further shot added its noise to the rolling echoes. It came from the other man’s rifle — but now the muzzle was aimed skywards, and the man himself was falling forwards, slipping loosely over the ledge of rock he’d been hiding behind. For a brief moment he hung suspended, then all at once, like some floppy doll, he slithered across the bare, sloping rock, gaining momentum before he spun out into empty space. He fell, striking rock far below, leaving a great red smear on the paler stone.
Bodie got to his feet, eyes scanning the close area in case there were more. His search revealed nothing — but, as before, that didn’t mean a thing.
“Mr. Bodie?”
Bodie made his way along the trail. He found Angela, a rifle in her slim hands, concealed behind the wagon.
“Somebody doesn’t like us,” Bodie commented. “Is this the way everybody gets welcomed to High Grade?”
“Jonas Randall is no fool,” Angela stated. “He wouldn’t stake everything on Billy-Jack and Pike. He’d want someone else, closer to home, to watch for me in case I managed to get this far.”
“Sounds like a man who covers all his bets.” Bodie helped her back on the wagon, then returned to his horse. As he settled in the saddle he glanced over the edge of the trail. Below he could see the crumpled, bloody body of the would-be ambusher.
“Mr. Randall ain’t going to be too pleased about you, feller,” he murmured. “Not with you falling down on the job and all!”
They moved on, slowly picking their way along the trail. Shortly it opened out into a high, flat plain. There was grass here, even a few trees. Bodie spotted water gleaming through the intertwined branches.
“We’ll stop here a while,’ Bodie said. “Let the horses rest. You want to fix something to eat?”
Angela pulled the wagon to rest close to the bank of the shallow stream. She set the brake and climbed down off the seat.
“Something on your mind, Mr. Bodie?”
He glanced at her. Damned if she didn’t figure his every move! That was the trouble with a smart woman. Always having to prove just how good she was.
“I want to take a ride back. Have a look at that feller.” Bodie twisted round in his saddle. “Pretty open hereabouts. Not much chance of anyone sneaking up on you. I’ll be back as soon as I can. You have any trouble you start shooting and we’ll worry later.”
Angela was opening one of the supply boxes fixed to the side of the wagon. “Don’t worry about me, Mr. Bodie. If I see something I don’t like the look of you’ll get to hear about it!”
Bodie nodded. He reined about and put his horse to a fast trot, cutting away from the marked trail. He soon found himself riding down through the rocky fall of land that would eventually bring him to the base of the high cliff they had just negotiated. It took a good half-hour to reach the bottom. Once there Bodie had little difficulty in locating the body of the man he’d shot.
The body lay wedged against a jutting outcrop of stone. The long drop and eventual contact with the rocks had finished what Bodie’s bullet had started. The man’s body had burst open like some huge, ripe fruit, and there was a lot of blood and pulped flesh spread across the surface of the rock. Oddly the face itself was hardly marked, though the back of the man’s skull had split wide open. Bodie took a good look at the face, memorizing the features before he returned to his horse and backtracked along the rocky cliff bottom, up the long slope, and returned to where he’d left Angela.
She had a fire going and food cooking. A pot of coffee threw its aroma out to reach Bodie as he drew rein. He eased from the saddle, looking for Angela. She wasn’t in sight and he felt a momentary rise of alarm. Then he heard the sound of splashing coming from the direction of the stream. Bodie tethered his horse and crossed to the bank, pushing his way through a tangle of brush edging the water.
“Coffee’s boiling over,” he said, taking off his hat and scrubbing his hand through his thick hair.
Angela Crown’s head came round with a snap, eyes blazing, soft mouth set in an angry line. She was up to her thighs in the middle of the stream as naked as the day she’d been born, her supple body gleaming wetly in the bright sunlight.
“Mr. Bodie, I’m beginning to believe you’re a Peeping Tom!”
Bodie inclined his head, his face set. “Miss Crown, you could be right. Trouble is I never have been able to control myself. Seems like my ma was right. She must have told me a hundred times if I didn’t stop doing it I’d get into bad habits!”
Still glaring at him over her shoulder Angela reached up to push a stray lock of hair back into place. She began to speak, but her lips formed into a smile instead.
“I’m inclined to think your mother was right,” she said, and Bodie was quick to notice that some of the frost had left her voice.
“You got to admit, a pretty woman’s like a piece of nature. Man who sees it, well, he’s just naturally going to take a look.” Bodie turned and headed back to the cook fire.
“Mr. Bodie ...” Angela’s voice drifted in his direction.
“Yeah?”
“Would you bring me the towel from on top of my travelling bag please?”
Bodie stepped across to the wagon. He spotted Angela’s clothes folded in a neat pile and beside them her bag, with a large towel laid over the top. He picked up the towel and went back to the steam. Standing on the edge of the bank he held the towel open.
“Thank you, Mr. Bodie,” Angela Crown said. She turned slowly, her eyes fixed on his expressionless face, and walked out of the water. A faint flush of color marked her smooth cheeks as Bodie’s eyes travelled appreciatively over her naked body. Water spilled in crystal drops from her long thighs, glistened on the youthful swell of ripe breasts, nipples erect from contact with the chill stream. She flicked water from her flat stomach, fingers barely missing the dark triangle of hair at the junction of her thighs, and then she turned her back on him, allowing Bodie to place the towel around her slim shoulders.
“Thank you for the towel,” she said, then followed him towards the fire. “And for the compliment.”
Bodie brought two cups and poured coffee for them both. Angela seated herself across the fire from him, still wrapped in the towel. She took the cup he handed her and drank.
“That tastes good,” she said. For a moment she studied him seriously, her smooth brow furrowed. Then: “I can’t go on calling you Mr. Bodie!”
“Just — Bodie,” he said. “It’s enough.”
“How enigmatic,” Angela observed. “Are you a man of mystery, Bodie?”
“He laughed. “Hell, no! Just a man doing his job.”
“There are men and there are men,” Angela declared. “Some are like blades of grass. Identical. Unremarkable. And then there are men who stand apart. They do it with such ease you can’t avoid noticing.”
“And?” Bodie asked.
Angela laughed, the sound light and natural. “And you are one of those who stands apart. I’m right aren’t I, Bodie?”
Bodie drained his cup and reached for a couple of plates. He spooned out beans and slices of bacon. Handing one of the plates to Angela he said, “You’re talking over my head, Angela Crown. I’m just a simple feller. More than happy just watching you bathing in that stream.”
“And is that as far as you go, Bodie?” Angela asked. “I mean, just watching?”
Bodie coughed as he almost choked on a mouthful of beans. There she went again. He glanced at her. Angela was eating slowly. As though she’d had nothing to do with the bold question just asked.
“A question like that, Angela Crown, is liable to lead to a lot
of complications. Maybe we be better to leave it unanswered a while.”
Angela put down her plate. “My mother had a saying, too. There’s no time like the present. Have you heard it?”
Bodie nodded. “Yeah. I figure it’s got a lot going for it.”
She leaned across the space between them. “So there we are,’’ she said very softly.
“You sure you know what you’re saying?” Bodie asked, not in the least surprised at the warm ache rising in his groin.
“Bodie, I always know what I’m saying. I wouldn’t be running a business if I couldn’t make decisions and stick to them.”
“And there I thought you’d hired me for my gun,” Bodie said dryly.
Angela made a slight movement with her shoulders, letting the towel slide down her body. “Bodie, you’re a hard man!”
He couldn’t hold back a grin at that. “You don’t know how right you are,” he said.
Angela came and knelt before him, slipping her bare arms round his neck. Her face tilted up towards his, her lips soft against his own. A warm sigh whispered from her throat as she kissed him, swelling to an expectant groan as Bodie’s arms encircled her naked body, his strong hands caressing the supple curve of her back, moving down to cup her firm, round buttocks. He pressed her against him and felt her urgent response as she became aware of his own hardness. Angela began to grind her hips and thighs against Bodie’s groin, teasing him with her tender flesh. He twisted her off balance, lowering her to the softness of the grass edging the stream. Angela lay beneath him, her fingers busy with the buttons on his clothing, her breasts rising and falling fiercely with her agitated breathing. When he was naked she dragged him to her, luxuriating in the feel of his muscular body against her own. Soft ripples of sound bubbled from her lips as she felt his hands exploring the contours of her body, rising with the swell of taut-nippled breasts, then slipping into the hollow of her flat stomach. A husky gasp followed the contact of his hand with her dark pubic thatch, her sleek thighs spreading in unashamed abandon. She waited expectantly, her body quivering when Bodie entered her, thrusting firmly into the soft warmth. Angela curved her body up to meet him, gripping him with long, powerful legs. She gave herself completely to the moment, letting his surging drive carry her with it, enjoying to the full every penetrating thrust, letting it build and swell, until it culminated in a long, warm flowing explosion that spread through her whole body, making her cry out in delight before it ebbed, slipped away, leaving her in drowsy comfort, locked in his arms, content for the moment.
