Black Room: Door 3

by Jade London

  “Get dressed, girlie. We’re leaving.”

  “Conrad will return any moment. You’d best leave.” I endeavor to sound calm.

  He grins, an evil curl of his lips. “I don’t think so, honey. He’s on the other side of the valley. Won’t be back for some time.”

  “He’ll come after you, you know. It won’t go well for you when he catches up.”

  Charlie’s evil grin just widens. “Maybe so, but by the time he catches up, I’ll have had my fill of you, and he’ll be welcome to what’s left.”

  He crosses the room, boots tromping on the wood floor, leaving snowy footprints. He tugs off his glove and reaches for me. I recoil, but he’s faster. He pinches my nipple with frigid hands. Then he gathers a handful of my hair and hauls me off the bed, tossing me across the room. I fall to the floor; scalp aching, hip stinging where I hit the floor. Fear has me scrabbling to my feet, backing away from him, but there’s nowhere to go.

  He levels the shotgun at me. “Quit draggin’ this out, girl. I’ll shoot you and fuck you right here on the floor as you bleed out. Don’t think I won’t. I’d rather have you intact, though, so I can enjoy your…charms for that much longer.” He thumbs back the hammer of his shotgun, the sound deafening in the silence—snick-click. “Now. Get dressed, or I’ll drag your carcass out there naked.”

  I dress quickly, because the venom in his dead gaze tells me he means every word he says. As soon as I’m done, he pinions my arm in a bruising grip, shoving me outside into the blistering, blasting, and knife-sharp cold. The wind has risen to a howl and the snow blows horizontal, obscuring everything. There’s a snow-matted horse tied to the rail of the porch, and Charlie unties it, and then tosses me up into the saddle, just behind the pommel, and he hops up behind me. Shotgun in one hand, reins in the other, he hauls the horse around, kicks it in the side to get it moving. The horse bolts forward into a jolting canter. I can see nothing through the blowing snow, but Charlie somehow knows where he’s going, or the horse does. I grip the pommel with both hands, cling to the horse with my thighs, and try to keep my seat, try not to think about what Charlie’s going to do to me.

  Chill slices into my bones, bites my nose, my cheeks, my fingers, my toes. Fear is a heavy lead ball in my gut, rising up into my throat.

  We ride, and ride, and ride. As we begin an ascent, I know we’ve left the valley. In among the trees, we get some shelter against the driving snow, but not against the razor cold. I don’t recognize the landscape around us from the ride down, which makes me think he’s not going back the same way. Once you’ve left the valley, options open up a good bit as far which direction to go. And with the blinding, driving snow filling our tracks as fast as we’re making them…my hopes of rescue dwindle down to nothing. Conrad may not even know I’m missing.

  Time loses meaning. Nothing exists but cold and snow and the sway of the horse. Even fear recedes to a dull knot in my gut.

  Until, suddenly, Charlie tugs the horse to a stop, just inside a clearing between the trees. Not even a clearing, really, just a few yards of empty space between the pines.

  “Shit.” Charlie’s voice is a frustrated hiss.

  I peer through the snow, and my heart leaps, skips a beat.

  Conrad.

  On foot, his hat angled down across his face, coat pulled back to reveal the handles of his revolvers. His hands are loose at his sides, but his body is coiled, tensed. He’s a rattlesnake bunched into a ball, seconds from striking. A panther in the tall grass, all fur and muscle and deadly grace.

  Charlie swings off the horse, casual, unhurried. Shotgun held one-handed, barrel tilted toward the ground.

  “Must be pretty green,” Conrad says, barely audible in the thick, hushed snow-soft silence, “to think you could sneak into my valley, into my home, and take what’s mine without me knowing.”

  Charlie flexes his empty hand, curling the fingers into a ball and releasing them. “Come on, Conrad. You ain’t really gonna shoot me over a woman, are you?”

  “You know my last name, Charlie?”

  An odd question, and Charlie tilts his head in confusion. “No. Should I?”

  “Killian. My name is Conrad Killian.” He says it like it’s supposed to mean something.

  The silence is somehow tenser, now, with that name out in the open.

  Charlie rolls his shoulders. “I suppose I’m not entirely surprised. Ain’t that many men named Conrad out this way, after all.”

  “So, you got two questions to answer for yourself, Markham. One, can you swing that shotgun up before I clear leather? And two, is it worth it to try? If you’ve heard of me, you’ve heard the stories.”

  “And they’re all true, I suppose?” Charlie sounds skeptical.

  “Some are, some aren’t.” Conrad is utterly calm, to look at him, to hear him. “That’s what you’d best sort out for yourself, and fast.”

  I can see Charlie thinking about it. I can see his finger tracing the trigger guard, contemplating his chances.

  The horse underneath me senses the violence in the air, scents the roiling tension. He whinnies, dances back a few steps. I clutch the reins and pat the horse on the neck and whisper to it.

  Long, long moments of silence. Nothing but the snow blowing, and the two men facing each other.

  I feel it happening before I see it. Hear it, before my eyes can make sense of it. Thunder blasts, deafening in the tiny clearing. My horse screams, rears, dances backward, and I have to cling to its neck and lean forward and jerk the reins hard to one side to keep my seat. I feel vibrations against my ribcage, but it’s not thunder, it’s Conrad’s guns, drawn faster than the eye can track, crashing rounds out so fast, one after the other, the individual blasts meld and ripple into a single ear-numbing roll of thunder, stabbing spears of flame flashing.

  Charlie jerks several times, six or eight slugs slamming into his torso even as he levels his shotgun. Conrad doesn’t move, doesn’t lower his guns, doesn’t dodge. The shotgun booms, but the spray of shot goes high and wide, scattering snow from branches over Conrad’s head and far behind him, snapping branches and sending pine needles exploding in a puff.

  Charlie topples forward face first in the snow, and red stains the white in a spreading bloom.

  Conrad passes one of his revolvers so he’s clutching both in one hand, snaps open the chambers, digs in his pocket for shells, thumbs them in, closes the chambers and replaces the firearms in their holsters. Not a word to me, he just turns in place, disappears into the trees on the other side of the clearing, and then reappears sitting a horse, a small white and brown paint mare.

  “Gotta move,” he grunts. “We’re well outside the territory I’ve claimed as mine.”

  “So?”

  “So the gunfire will be drawing company, and I’m in no mood for getting in a fight with the Utes. Too damn cold.”

  I’m not inclined to argue, so I nudge Charlie’s horse into a trot behind Conrad, and follow him as he winds his way through the forest.

  After a while, I can’t keep the questions in any longer. “Conrad? What stories?”

  A silence. “After my wife died, I told you I started hitting the bottle.” Another pause. “Made me mean. Sort of earned myself a reputation as a gunfighter. Part of the reason I steer clear of society, these days. Too much temptation to pick up the bottle again, and too many people might recognize me. You develop the kind of reputation I did, it makes the young bucks come after you, think they can prove themselves by trying to take me on. Not what I want for myself anymore. Not the kind of man my wife would have wanted me to be. Can’t rightly put down the guns, not out here. So I keep to myself. Charlie’s the first man I’ve had to draw on in quite sometime, not counting the dustups with the Utes.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “That he’d taken you?” He pats his horse. “Horses have keener senses than we do. They scented his horse, made ‘em nervous. That horse ain’t one of the herd, and they knew it. Made ‘em antsy. And when m
y horses get antsy, I pay attention. Saved my life more than once, knowing when my horses don’t like a situation.”

  We ride once more in that silence that is so uniquely ours, comfortable, but with layers of meaning. Now it’s the knowledge that Charlie’s corpse back there ended up that way because of me. How easy Conrad made it look. How inhumanly fast he’d drawn those revolvers. Faster than thought. The guns were drawn and bullets were flying before Charlie could even aim his shotgun.

  For me.

  Over me.

  Because of me.

  Should I be more upset about Charlie’s death? More affected?

  No. I’m not. Not at all. He was going to do…terrible things to me. And Conrad saved me. Came after me, and shed blood on my account.

  All of this is weighted and tangled by what we did, just few hours ago. I’m still sore, aching from it.

  I have to bite my lip, remembering. I can see his body in my mind. The hard angles and heavy muscle. The thick member jutting tall and proud, straining, a droplet of pre-cum beading at the tip.

  I’m daydreaming, thinking of him, thinking of getting back to the cabin and getting him naked. Getting my hands on his cock. Getting it inside me again, stretching me out, filling me, making me ache and writhe and tumble over the edge…

  I’m woken from my daydreaming by Conrad abruptly halting his horse at the edge of the clearing.

  Fifty paces away, in a line abreast facing us, clad in thick furs, armed to teeth with rifles, bows, hatchets, a few spears, a wicked looking club made from a thick bone with a knobby, craggy rock tied to the end—

  Twenty Ute warriors.

  Grim, silent. Deadly threat exudes from each one.

  *

  “Hands up, Hannah. Let the reins dangle on your horse’s neck and hold on with your legs. Don’t say a word. Don’t take your eyes off them.” Conrad murmurs this low, so quietly only I can hear him, and even then I have to strain to catch his words. “Just keep riding straight between them.”

  He follows his own instructions, raises his hands shoulder high, gripping his horse with his knees, letting the reins drape over the paint’s neck. Clicks his tongue, wiggles his heel against her side and scoots his butt forward in the saddle to get the paint walking. I do the same, and our mounts move side by side toward the line of warriors. No one speaks. No one moves, save our horses. We sway in the saddle, and I keep my eyes on the line of warriors. Their dark eyes glitter, pierce.

  The one holding the club shifts on his horse and tightens his grip on his club.

  Conrad’s hands sink lower by a few inches; each of the warriors visibly tense, hands tighten on weapons, eyes narrow, breath is held.

  The only sound is the soft crunch of hooves in the snow. The sky overhead is gray, heavy. The forest behind us is a thick dark presence, with the valley spreading away below us to our right. I can see the cabin, a tiny dot in the far distance, and a needle-thin string of smoke trickling up from the chimney. A herd of horses wheels in the snow, like a living cloud of flesh and muscle and fur blowing in the wind. The snow has stopped, for now, though more is on the way. Breath puffs in white clouds from our mouths, from the horses, from the warriors.

  We’re so close now that I can smell their horses, hear the heavy breath of the mounts, see the black mouths of the rifles and the keen jagged edges of their hatchets. The pits and divots in the bone of the club handle, the rough-spun fibers of the hemp rope binding the rock in place. Eyes follow us, gimlet and gleaming and cunning. Ready to pounce at the mere suggestion of violence.

  Why don’t they attack? What do they want?

  Fear knots in my throat as my horse’s front flank nudges one of the warriors’ horses— the one with the club. The one whose eyes never leave me, not for a second, not even to blink.

  We’re parallel, now, me and that warrior. He’s on my left, head pivoting on his neck to watch me. He’s handsome, in an exotic, frightening way. Sharp features, deep-set eyes, cunning, intelligent, cold dark brown eyes. Not wicked, like Charlie. Just—the eyes of someone utterly unlike any I’ve ever seen. Alien. Those of a warrior through and through, a killer, but only when necessary. Not for sport, or for pleasure. Someone well acquainted with the dealing of death, as a fact of life. He’s assessing me. It’s difficult to read such alien eyes, such unfamiliar features, but there might be a glimmer of lust there, too.

  His eyes remain fixed on me.

  My horse is uneasy, head bobbing, shaking. Ears back, swiveling. Blowing skittish breaths. This isn’t one of Conrad’s horses, not as well trained. Not as calm or steady.

  And then a bare hand darts out, quick as snakebite, and snares my reins. My horse halts, and I’m left trembling. Helpless. The warrior touches the tip of the club to my chin. He’s not smiling, not quite but almost.

  Conrad says something I don’t understand—in Ute, I realize. In a calm voice, but hard as stone. It’s a demand, despite the numbers arrayed against us.

  The warrior continues to stare me down, and I want to look away, but I don’t. I don’t dare. I hold his eyes and try my damnedest to keep my fear tamped down, to keep my face calm, my expression schooled into blankness. The stone of the club is ice-cold against my chin, setting my teeth to chattering, but I don’t dare move a muscle, not so much as an eye blink. I’m not even breathing.

  “Give horse.” The warrior’s voice is higher than I expected, smooth as a frozen pond.

  “Conrad?” It’s all the query I can manage, and it’s weak and tremulous.

  “Climb down, nice and slow.”

  I shift in preparation to dismount, but the warrior grunts a negative. He jerks his chin at me. “Not you, horse.” He twists in his saddle and jabs the club at Conrad. “You horse.”

  Conrad swings down, lithe and easy. His hands remain visible, away from his weapons. He begins loosening straps to remove his saddle from the paint.

  The warrior grunts again. “Give saddle.”

  “No way.” Conrad flips the girth strap free, lifts the saddle off, rifle in the scabbard and all. “Horse, but no saddle.”

  “Give saddle.” More insistent, now.

  Conrad’s eyes swing past the warriors, to the wheeling herd of paints. “I keep my saddle, and I give you two more horses.”

  The warrior squints over his shoulder. His jaw flexes, tightens, tenses, and then loosens. He splays his palm out, fingers spread apart. “Five horse.”

  “Two.” Conrad hefts the saddle to his shoulder. “Only offer I’ll make.”

  “Three horse.”

  Conrad starts walking toward his valley. “Fine. Three horses. Tomorrow, though.”

  The warrior spits, an angry, volatile gesture. “Now.”

  “Only you, then. And leave your club.” Conrad stops, fixing his cold brown gaze on the warrior.

  The warrior is silent for so long I worry he’ll refuse, and he still has my reins in his grip. I haven’t taken my eyes off him. His skin is leathery, dark from the sun. That club, though; there are ochre-brown stains in the creases of the stone, bits of something stuck in clumps here and there—blood, and hair, and bits of skull.

  And then, roughly, abruptly, he tosses his club to a companion and releases my reins. A subtle shifting of his weight has his horse backing up, and then the horse wheels in place and the air is filled with flying snow and the thunder of hooves as the warrior and horse gallop past us and down toward the valley.

  Conrad gives me a glance loaded with meaning—start moving, that look says. I nudge my horse into a walk, and the other warriors watch us go, Conrad on foot, carrying the saddle on his shoulder through the shin-deep snow like it’s nothing.

  Once we’re out of sight of the Utes, I glance at Conrad, who seems to be in no rush at all. “Shouldn’t we hurry down to make sure he doesn’t steal your horses?”

  Conrad shrugs. “They’re honorable people, in their own way. We made a bargain, and he won’t go back on it. It’s one thing to attack me and kill me in a fight, take my horses as
spoils. That’d be honorable to him. To agree to a bargain and then go back on it? Take more than we agreed to, or shoot me in the back? It wouldn’t ever cross his mind. His honor as a warrior and a man is everything to him.”

  “Why bargain at all? They could have killed us easily. I don’t think even you would have survived against those odds, not like that.”

  “Not a chance in hell. If I’ve got cover, maybe I could fight off that many. But they had the drop on us. We’d have been dead before we hit the ground. I’d have taken a few with me, but—no, we didn’t stand a chance.”

  “Exactly. So why did he bargain with you?”

  Another laconic shrug. “Who knows? Just the way they are, I guess—inexplicable, sometimes. That particular warrior has had his eye on my stock for a while, and this was a chance for him to get his hands on some of my horses without having to pay for them, or fight for them. He knew I’d barter, since the odds were against me, and because you were there. Best I can guess as to why.”

  It takes us quite a while to reach the valley with Conrad on foot, but when I offer to let him ride, or to walk myself so the horse carry the extra saddle, he just snorts in derision and continues on without further response.

  It’s nearing dark by the time we come to the herd of horses and the Ute warrior. He’s on foot, his horse wandering free, pawing at the snow for grass beneath. The warrior is squatting in the snow, watching the horses, toying with a length of rope. Conrad sets his saddle down in a patch of bare grass beneath the shelter of a nearby pine and moves to stand a few feet away from the warrior.

  Conrad whistles, once, sharply. The warrior eyes him, then returns his attention to the horses, who are approaching Conrad now, clustering around him, nuzzling him with their noses, bumping him with their shoulders. Conrad shoves them away, roughly but playfully, and a few trot in circles, shaking their heads.

  The warrior rises to his feet, reaches a bare hand out toward one of the animals, a tall, lithe, brown stallion with white patches on its rump. The beast whickers nervously, but approaches, sniffs. Dances back a few steps, shakes his head.