Authors: Wesley Ellis
Lone Star 01 (12 page)
Breathlessly they crossed between the front door and hallway, fearing their footfalls might be audible. Jessica hesitated before continuing, bird-dogged by apprehensions, even though they heard nothing. Nothing at all ...
That was what concerned herâhearing nothing at all.
They crept onward nonetheless, through a succession of smaller rooms, pausing before entering each one to assure themselves of unobserved passage. Finally they arrived at the study door. This too was closed and locked. Swiftly, Ki picked the lock and pushed, hearing from its other side the rattle of a key in its escutcheon. They waited. All remained silent. Ki gradually eased the door wider, until there was room for them to dart into the study.
The study was black, save for a trickle of pale moonlight around the edges of the poorly drawn drapes. Jessica immediately went over, rearranging the drapes so they completely blanketed the study's small-paned window, while Ki lit a small reading lamp and Daryl gently closed and relocked the door.
Most of the study was taken up by a massive six-foot curtain desk, made of quarter-sawn golden oak, with sycamore inlays and pigeonhole cases. It rested with its matching swivel chair on an Oriental carpet, and was surrounded by walls of bookshelves that were crammed with leather-bound books and looseleaf folders.
“What're we looking for?” Daryl murmured.
Jessica shrugged, and started poking into drawers and pigeonholes, while Ki began sifting through the material on the shelves. She unearthed very little useful information, other than a curious letter postmarked from Washington, D.C.:
My dear Guthried:
I trust you're finding life among the savages and cutthroats not overly unbearable. Your endurance will be well rewarded, I assure you, and this is to confirm that I've already taken steps to arrange for five percent of the stock to be issued in your name. Of course, this is predicated on your success in purchasing all the land we require, and the subsequent merger of Acme with our new corporation. I'm also pleased to report that we've decided on the name of American Federated Development, which has a nice solid ring to it, I believe, without meaning anything. As soon as I receive your wire, I shall introduce my bill and guide it through to passage.
Yours respectfully, Dilworth Trumbull
Jessica pocketed the letter, frowning as she tried to remember precisely who Dilworth Trumbell was. A congress-man, obviously, butâ
“Jessie,” Ki hissed, interrupting her thoughts. “Come here and take a look at this, see what you make of it.”
Jessica and Daryl crossed to where Ki stood by one bookcase, his hands holding wide an unfurled surveyor's section map of Wyoming Territory. A red ink line had been drawn along the same hazardous trail Jessica and Ki had traveled from Uva to Eucher Butte, apparently indicating where an improved road was to be built. Another line ran in a haphazard wriggle from Eucher Butte north to the site of Fort Fetterman, then west and down to just below Casper, then south to intersect the Little Medicine Bow River, and then back across the Eucher Butte. Roughly estimated, the box-like shape it formed encompassed some 3,700 square miles of territory.
“Unbelievable,” Daryl gasped. “He's buying all that?”
“I guess so,” Jessica whispered. “Trying to, anyway.”
“He's already bought or optioned some of it,” Ki added, indicating where, within the box, blocks of property had been marked with X's. “And hardly any of it is good as range or farmland.”
Daryl shook his head in amazement. “Whatever Ryker wants it for, it'll be the largest land-grab since we revolu tioned from the Britishâ”
A moan cut him off, freezing all three of them. It was a low, muffled sound coming from somewhere nearby, and when, after a long moment, they didn't hear the groan again, Ki rerolled the map and picked up the lamp, whispering, “I'll go out first.”
“Wait,” Jessica cautioned. “Cast some light around. I swear that moan didn't come from inside the houseâor outside, either.”
Ki held the lamp higher, so that its feeble glow could better illuminate the dark nooks and crannies. At first nothing appeared out of the ordinary, until the study, concealed in an easily overlooked comer where two bookcases met, was reflected the outline of a small inset door.
On a wild impulse, Jessica went to the door, her saner self rebelling even as she eased down on its handle. The door opened against her gentle pressure. She peered down a short flight of stairs to a basement landing, glimpsing a dim finger of light lancing from somewhere farther back. And wafting up came the familiar odor of a wine cellarâthat distinct blend of tannin, cork, and mold, which woke in Jessica's memory the many genial excursions she'd taken with her father's servants, when hunting bottles for dinner in the cellars of the Circle Star ranch.
“Shut the door,” Daryl pleaded. “It's only a wineâ”
There rose from the basement another moan, longer this time, with a clearly pleading tone to it, as though someone was being tortured.
“Oh, no, it's not,” Jessica whispered back to Daryl. “It's another Ryker lie, another trick to cover up something wretched.”
Hesitating only long enough for Ki to move ahead with the lamp, Jessica followed him down the steps, Daryl trailing reluctantly, gripping his old Remington revolver. At the bottom stretched two rows of bottles stacked in ceiling-high tiers, and the finger of light she'd seen from upstairs was emanating from a half-open door at the end of this corridor. The bottles, the tiers, the cellar itself were all quite new, Jessica observed, probably dating from the same time as the addition of the study to the main house above.
Moving between the rows toward the door, Jessica rationalized her reckless urge by arguing that the more she learned about her enemies, the more effectively she could defeat them. And for starters, she wanted to find out who was moaning and why, and if it had anything to do for the reason behind the cellar's existence. That it was a ruse, a blind to disguise some other purpose, was clear to her; no host in his right mind would build a wine cellar so far from the dining room.
Reaching the end of the tiers, they saw that the door was in a plank wall that partitioned the rear of the cellar into a separate room. Open to view through the widely ajar door, the room was brightly lit by a library lamp hanging from a ceiling joist. Its floor was matted with straw, and its walls were thickly padded with canvas quilting; spaced around the room were big wooden blocks carved out in places to fit the shape of the human body, with leather thongs and belts, and innumerable chains dangling from their fronts and sides.
A woman was shackled to one of the blocks. She was on the good side of forty, Jessica judged, with black hair to her waist, pendulous breasts, and large quivering thighs. She was entirely naked, except for leather sandals and metal-studded leather cuffs at her wrists, to which the chains were padlocked. Her lips, breasts, and loins were painted to accentuate her sexuality, and her eyes were treated with mascara to look twice their normal size. And from her neck to her knees, her flesh was a mass of lacerations, new redder welts laid crisscrossing over older pink scars.
Guthried Ryker was similarly naked, except for a leather belt heavily studded with iron, which he wore around his pudgy waist. He also had on sandals, but instead of leather cuffs, he wore gauntlets. He was patently aroused, his erection jutting like a ship's boom from his hairy groin. And held in his right hand, slapping lightly against his leg, was a vicious cat-oâ-nine-tails.
Sensing an intrusion, Ryker wheeled to face the group in the doorway. His pursy mouth gaped open, and instinctively his right hand made a slight whipping motion with the tails, which he instantly checked. Ki remained still, guardedly poised. Daryl stared dumbfounded, his revolver pointing downward. Jessica glowered rigidly, infuriated and disgusted.
“What are
you doing
here?” Ryker snarled.
you doing
here?” Ryker snarled.
“What are you
doing
here?” Daryl blurted in shock.
doing
here?” Daryl blurted in shock.
Ryker blinked, then chuckled throatily. “Why, just a little recreation, mâboy. A little stirring of the blood to relax me.”
“Release her,” Ki said, coldly but calmly.
“Come now, let's not be naive about this. My friend is being well paid for her pain.” Ryker moved almost imper ceptively into a crouch, adding: “And I do believe Dolores enjoys it, too.”
“I'm sure Trumbull will enjoy it, when I write him,” Jessica retorted with poisoned sweetness. “I'm sure he'll be delighted to share this with the other stockholders of American Federated.”
She had no intention of writing Dilworth Trumbull or anyone else; her threat was merely to throw Ryker off his stride, and see what came of it. Nothing did, at first. Ryker showed no alarm, no fear, only a deep surprise. A tense silence gripped the room.
Then, with the suddenness and speed of a striking snake, Ryker's hand shot back the tails and snapped them forward. Jessica had no time or space in which to avoid the blow, so she caught the full blow of the lashes across her breasts and belly. It felt like a shatter of glass in the skin, in the sensitive lair of flesh beneathâit was not one redhot sting of fire, but a general cracking agony that caused her to shudder, screaming.
But even before Ryker could complete the arc of his swing, Ki had released one of his
shuriken
throwing blades from the sheath strapped to his arm under his shirt. The spinning, razon-sharp star glinted in the lamplight as it left his fingers. And simultaneously, Daryl raised his revolver and triggered.
shuriken
throwing blades from the sheath strapped to his arm under his shirt. The spinning, razon-sharp star glinted in the lamplight as it left his fingers. And simultaneously, Daryl raised his revolver and triggered.
The .44-40 bullet hit a split second before the
shuriken.
Daryl's hasty shot blew most of Ryker's left ear off. Ryker howled, clapping his left hand to the stump of his ear, toppling back and to one side. It wasn't until he'd bumped into the block where the woman was chained that he noticed Ki's
shuriken
embedded in his right shoulder, close to his neck. If he hadn't jerked off balance when first struck by Daryl's heavy lead slug, the
shuriken
would have sliced into his throat and killed him instantly.
shuriken.
Daryl's hasty shot blew most of Ryker's left ear off. Ryker howled, clapping his left hand to the stump of his ear, toppling back and to one side. It wasn't until he'd bumped into the block where the woman was chained that he noticed Ki's
shuriken
embedded in his right shoulder, close to his neck. If he hadn't jerked off balance when first struck by Daryl's heavy lead slug, the
shuriken
would have sliced into his throat and killed him instantly.
“Goddamn you!” he bawled, still falling against the block, sending it and the woman over with him as he crashed to the floor. The woman was shrieking now, struggling futilely in her chains, kicking out and managing accidently to catch him in the groin with one sandal. Which pretty well took care of his withering erection, and any other notion of resistance he might have had. The cat-oâ-nine-tails dropped from his nerveless fingers, and with eyes filming and legs turning to jelly, Ryker collapsed, unconscious, on the straw.
“Let's move,” Jessie snapped, moving from the door. “Fast!”
Daryl hesitated, bewildered. “But that lady in thereâ”
“We don't have the time, the keys, or a way to take her if we could get her loose,” Ki yelled, propelling Daryl along between the rows of bottles. “What we've got are your poker-playing pals from the bunkhouse, doubtless coming fast after hearing your shot!”
Chapter 8
Up the stairs to the study they raced, then through the ranch house, back to the pantry. They reached the rear door just as the crew from the bunkhouse came rushing in across the yard.
Both Jessica and Daryl had their revolvers leveled, when they and Ki stepped out. The half-dozen men hauled up short, their own pistols drawn, pointing every which way but the right way.
“Far enough,” Daryl ordered. “Toss your guns away.”
The crew milled indecisively, stymied by the two revolvers aiming straight at them. Then, one by one, they gave in, throwing their weapons off into the darkness. Eyeing them warily, Jessica, Ki, and Daryl moved off the porch and began edging around toward the side of the yard where, beyond, they'd posted their horses.
“Your boss isn't dead,” Jessica told the crew, her large-framed .38 never wavering in her fist. “Fact is, he's down in the wine cellar, way in the rear, waiting for you boys.”
They continued backing away from the disarmed group, and were almost to the corner of the first outbuilding again when they stiffened, listening. Hoofbeats sounded in increasing tempo, heading along the road from the pass, directly for the yard.
“Hot damn!” one of the gang cried. “They're coming back!”
“Yeah, we've got this bunch trapped!”
It was true. The three could hear the riders sweeping in toward the ranch behind them, and the men they were covering were regaining their nerve, already scrambling for their thrown pistols.
Jessica, Ki and Daryl pivoted as one, and started running for the protection of the outbuilding's shadows. “Get them!” they heard a raspy voice shout, and the bunkhouse crew, finding their weapons, began firing eagerly in their direction.
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