CHAPTER 5
Starr Bell unbuckled Deputy Amy Cole’s gunbelt and swung it off. The shapely, dark-haired, blue-eyed deputy, her wrists fastened behind her back with her own cuffs, steadily watched the gloating escaped con, who obviously enjoyed having a female officer in her power.
“You might as well give it up, Bell,” advised Amy. “You may have gotten me, but there’s no way you can get through the search we have around this area. Make it easy on yourself.”
Starr had Amy’s pistol in her right hand. She took a step or two toward Amy and grabbed the deputy’s uniform shirt with her left hand, pulling her close. Though the deputy’s hands were locked behind her and Starr towered at least five inches over the petite woman, she further emphasized her control by putting the muzzle of the pistol menacingly close to Amy’s left temple.
“And you can make things easy on yourself by keepin’ your mouth shut, Deputy,” Starr warned tightly. “I got no use for cops of any kind. Just because you’ve got boobs doesn’t mean I won’t be real nasty to you if you bother me. Understand?”
Amy nodded slowly, struggling to remain cool. Starr relaxed and lowered the pistol. The sardonic smile returned.
“ O’ course, in a few minutes you’ll be able to keep your mouth shut real well. I’m gonna see to that.”
“What have you done to Copper and Summer Smith?” Amy demanded.
“Nothin’ really. Don’t worry about them.”
Again she raised the deputy’s service revolver, this time toying with Amy’s nose.
“I’d be worried about myself.”
After three tries, Sky Ryder gave up trying to raise Deputy Cole and called the Sheriff. Winchell answered promptly.
“We’ve been listening, Sky. You think there’s trouble at your ranch? Over.”
“I’m getting pretty worried, Winch. First Copper won’t answer, then Summer Smith seems to be there when she shouldn’t be, and now Amy goes to check on them and doesn’t answer. It looks mighty fishy to me. Over.”
“I agree, Sky. I’ll radio for a couple of cars to come and help. We’ll start for your ranch right away. It’ll take us a while to get there, though.”
Deputy Barnes, Winchell’s driver spoke up.
“A few miles up, there’s that access road across the McCovey place. If we take that, we can be there in under an hour.”
“Did you get that, Sky?” asked Winchell. “Over.”
“Got it, Winch. I’ll meet you. Hummingbird out.”
“Don’t mention it, Sky. Sheriff out.”
He turned to Barnes.
“Step on it, Charlie.”
Barnes pressed on the accelerator, and the patrol car shot ahead.
Starr Bell reached her free left hand to Amy’s belt buckle and unfastened it. She pulled on the buckle end, and the tongue end slowly slid through the loops until it was completely out. Then she then unbuttoned the woman’s uniform pants.
“I don’t think you can use my uniform for a disguise,” said Amy calmly, as the smiling Starr gave her pants a downward pull and watched them fall to the floor.
“It’s not about disguise, Deputy,” Starr replied affably. “It’s all about controlling a prisoner. And a prisoner with nothing on is a lot easier to control.”
“So you’re going to strip me?”
Starr began undoing Amy’s shirt buttons.
“And I used to think cops were dumb.”
She pulled the shirt back off Amy’s shoulders to reveal a rather skimpy bra. Starr raised an eyebrow.
“With all you’ve got to keep up there, I thought you’d need a lot more than that to do it. Step back out of your pants.”
Amy did as she was ordered. The outlaw bent down and untied her shoelaces.
“Nice legs, too,” Starr drawled. “You musta been Miss Cactus or somethin’ before you became a deputy.”
Amy said nothing. If Starr really intended to strip her, it meant that she would have to remove the handcuffs at some point to get her shirt off.
When Starr had removed her captive’s shoes and socks, she forced Amy into the kitchen and made her stand while she rummaged in the drawers for a few moments. Emerging with a couple of washcloths, she sauntered over to Amy and pulled one of the sturdy wooden chairs from the table. Amy noticed several rolls of wide adhesive tape and a pair of scissors on the table.
“This is the part I like best,” said Starr with a grin. “Open real wide now.”
Amy watched as Starr rolled one of the washcloths into a ball. With no other choice, she opened her mouth. Starr jammed the cloth inside, filling Amy’s mouth to her back teeth. As the deputy coughed and fought her gag reflex, Starr cut several pieces of tape from one of the rolls and plastered them over the woman’s mouth, sealing in the packing. She inspected her work closely.
“Very pretty,” she mused with a couple small nods.
Without warning, she suddenly took both of Amy’s breasts in her hands and gave them a firm squeeze. The woman’s resulting yelp was greatly muffled, but still surprisingly loud. Starr now shook her head.
“Pretty, but not good enough. We’ll have to work on that some more. Now, sit down.”
Amy started to sit in the conventional manner, with her back to the back of the chair, only to be stopped by a loud but harmless slap on the behind.
“Around here,” Starr ordered, pointing to the side of the chair seat.
Stepping around to the side of the chair, Amy sat as told. Starr had picked up one of the rolls of tape she had set out.
“I got to do this one other time,” said the outlaw nostalgically. “Cold cocked a woman cop in the courthouse in Tucson, cuffed her with her own cuffs, gagged and tied her with her stockings, and shut her in a closet so I could get away.”
She knelt and began wrapping tape around Amy’s bare ankles. She sighed.
“They caught me though. She woke up and managed to crawl to the door and pound on it for help. After that, I promised myself that if I ever had to tie up a cop again, I’d do it right.”
She finished with the deputy’s ankles and started on her legs just above the knees. She smiled malevolently at Amy.
“And I’m glad I got such a cute one to work on.”
Amy looked evenly at Starr. Behind her back, the deputy was trying to get her thumbs as close as she could to her little fingers. Her hands were slender, and with a bit of luck she might be able to slip them out of the cuffs.
She would bide her time with Starr Bell.
Starr turned to the table and reached out.
“I’d rather have done this slow and nasty, but the fact that you’re here makes me think I’d better not waste any time. So…”
She turned back to the bound deputy. In her right hand she held aloft the scissors.
Amy screamed into the gag.
Fred Merrill took a drink from his canteen and looked down the road. A couple miles away was the ranch house of The Flying Coronet. He groped in his pocket and pulled out an old-fashioned pocket watch. After looking at it with a frown, he put it away.
“Should we go on the next spot in the fence, Fred?”
He turned. Joe Bailey waited for his decision. Behind Bailey, Wade Norman was taking a long pull from his own canteen.
“Take it easy with that water, son,” advised Merrill, hanging his canteen from the pommel of his saddle. “You never know how long it may have to last.”
He glanced again in the direction of the house then turned back to Bailey. He shook his head.
“No, Joe. It shouldn’t have taken that little deputy this long to check on Copper at the house. I got a feelin’ something’s wrong. We’d better have a look ourselves.”
Bailey was a man of few words. He strode quickly to his horse and pulled his .3030 Winchester rifle from its saddle holster. A quick reach into his saddlebag produced some cartridges. He began to load.
Merrill took out his own rifle and began loading. Wade Norman gulped and wiped his lips. Fred Merrill nodded reassuringly to the boy.
“Let’s mount up, boys,” said Merrill.
Starr Bell finished tying a knot behind the kitchen chair. She surveyed her work with quiet satisfaction.
“There now. That’s what I call quality work.”
A miserable Deputy Amy Cole looked over her situation. She knew there would be no escape now. She could not even shift her position in the chair.
Following her initial scream when Starr had taken up the scissors, Amy had held her breath. The felon had just laughed at Amy’s reaction and used them to cut away Amy’s uniform shirt and bra. She had then used Amy’s belt to secure her arms just above the elbows long enough to unlock the cuffs and rebind her wrists with tape. Starr had then removed the belt and looped the woman’s arms and torso with more tape loops.
“I sure hated to take that belt off,” she said ruefully, with a caress of Amy’s breasts. “It sure made these babies stand out real good.”
When her captive was thoroughly bound, Starr had swung the helpless officer around so that her back was to the chair back and bound her to it with ropes. Several turns passed around her waist, both above and below her breasts, directly over the tape loops that held her arms uselessly to her body, and a few over her lap. Finally, the escaped con had looped a line over Amy’s ankle bonds and pulled on it from behind the chair, forcing the helpless beauty’s feet back under the seat. When Amy’s toes were just about to be pulled off the floor, Starr anchored the line on the chair back and tied it off.
“How do you like law enforcement now, Sweetie?” cooed Starr as she circled the chair, eyeing the helpless deputy.
Amy looked away.
After removing the band holding Amy’s hair in its bun and letting the dark tresses fall free, Starr faced her voluptuous captive. She took a breast in each hand, and alternately caressed and kneaded them gently.
“What gorgeous breasts you have, deputy,” she said dreamily. “So soft, so warm…”
She trailed off, closing her eyes. She bent over Amy and nuzzled and played with her nipples. The policewoman squirmed and mewed in protest. Starr opened her eyes and straightened up. She smiled evilly at Amy.
“Don’t like that, huh? Well, I gotta remember that you’re a deputy and always on duty. So let’s get you into uniform.”
She stepped over to where Amy’s cut up shirt lay, leaned over, and unpinned the badge from its place over one of the pockets. After hefting it to test its weight, tossing it in the air and catching it a couple times, and reading it silently, Starr sauntered back to the chair bound woman. Her fingers played idly with the badge, as she studiously regarded Amy.
“You just can’t be without a badge,” she declared. She continued in a mock-musing tone: “Now where should we put this?”
She touched the badge to Amy’s right nipple, drawing a gagged shriek from the bound woman. Starr pulled the badge back.
“Oh, that’s right,” she scolded herself. “It goes over your heart.”
She moved it over to the other nipple. Amy shook her head wildly, protesting into the gag with all her might.
“Get ready, Deputy.”
Starr spread the pin out, testing the point with a fingertip. Amy closed her eyes.
Starr bent low and pinned the badge to Amy’s panties. Amy felt the tug on her panties and opened her eyes. She moaned a little in relief. Starr laughed and picked up the roll of tape again.
“I gotta do a little more work on that gag before I go, Honey.”
The outlaw ran the tape over Amy’s mouth again, this time completely circling her head. Five times she wound the tape roll around, not stopping until the adhesive was completely exhausted. Again, the gloating woman tested the effectiveness of her work by squeezing the helpless deputy’s breasts. This time, the prisoner could only hum through her nose at the indignity.
“That’s a lot better!” declared Starr. “Now for the final touch.”
She stepped over to the cupboards and began searching, pausing just long enough to look back at Amy with a wicked smile.
“And I do mean final.”
After some moving and rattling of pans, Starr found a metal pie pan.
“The other stuff I need is in that back storeroom,” she informed Amy, as she hurried from the room with the pan.
Amy Cole writhed experimentally in her bonds, but knew at once that it was useless. The sticky tape could not be slid off like handcuffs, and, bound against the back of the chair as she was, there was no way she could hold a sharp object against her bonds to saw through them. Not that there was any way she could get anything sharp into her hand, even if she could find something. With her feet pulled back so far under the chair seat and only the tips of her toes on the floor, it was going to be impossible to move her chair around the room. When she wiggled with all her might, the chair creaked but did not wobble. She doubted that tipping it over would break it apart so she could crawl free.
Further reflections were interrupted by Starr’s return. The fugitive carried the pie pan, now half filled with amber fluid, very carefully. She set it on the counter.
Amy looked questioningly at Starr.
“Now don’t you worry about what’s in here, Missy. This little trick can’t fail.”
She pulled a few paper towels from the roll near the sink and laid them in a trail from the pie pan to the window curtains nearby.
“I learned this one from a gal who was in prison for arson. It musta worked: she got sent up for it.”
With a smile at her captive, Starr reached into a pocket of her jeans and took out a short stump of candle. It appeared that she had broken or cut off the top of an unused tapered dinner candle. She took a kitchen match and lighted it, then gingerly placed it in the middle of the fluid-filled pan.
“You see, the candle burns down, sets off the stuff, which sets off the paper, which sets off the curtains, and in no time at all, poof! The whole room goes up. And I’m not even gonna blindfold you. You’re gonna have to sit there and watch it.”
She watched with amusement as Amy’s eyes grew wider. The helpless deputy shook her head and moaned a plea into her gag. Starr laughed again, then stepped closer to massage Amy’s breasts one more time.
“I’m just sorry I won’t get to know these beauties a little better,” she purred regretfully. “What a waste.”
Summer Smith lay quietly now. She had exhausted herself in her struggles for release and was now breathing slowly and deeply. Copper was tired, too, but her silence was aimed at trying to hear what was going on in the rest of the house. She had heard Starr talking and some other vague sounds, so she knew that someone else was there, but who? A rescuer? Another prisoner?
The bedroom door opened.
“Well, how y’all doin’ in here?”
It was Starr’s voice. Copper heard footfalls come across the room toward the bed. The fugitive laughed mirthlessly.
“You two did some mighty fine struggling, didn’t you? Too bad it didn’t do any good.” Starr sighed. “I knew that you wouldn’t get loose.”
Copper felt Starr’s hand slide between their panty covered crotches and pull on the rope between Summer’s legs. The rancher gave a mew of alarm and thrashed for a few seconds.
“I hope that this little number gave ya a good reason to shake it, Summer.”
She laughed again.
“It’s too bad that I can’t stay and help myself to both of you, but I gotta move faster than I planned. So I can only take one of ya with me. Who wants t’ come? Let’s see hands.”
Neither woman moved a muscle.
Copper felt something slide between her and Summer again, this time about waist high. The ropes around their waists began to tug rhythmically, then loosened. Starr was cutting them free.
The other loops that held them together were also cut, then Starr came around behind Copper and sawed through the hogtie rope. The girl gratefully straightened her legs, only to have Starr roughly swing them off the bed and sit her up. The outlaw worked on the blindfold knot. When it fell away, Copper blinked several times, trying to adjust her eyes.
Starr hurried back to Summer’s side of the bed. Using pieces of the long ropes she had just cut, Starr attached the rancher’s chest ropes to the head of the bed and her knee bonds to the foot. Summer remained hogtied, gagged, and blindfolded.
“Oh, you sweet thing, you,” breathed Starr, bending over and stroking Summer’s lush form. “What a shame we won’t get to have any fun.”
She kissed both of Summer’s nipples, then returned to Copper. She ran a hand over Copper’s breasts.
“I love seein’ these bounce when you hop, Honey, but there’s no time now.”
Bending over, Starr put her shoulder into Copper’s midsection, hoisted the girl up, and carried her from the room.
As they passed the kitchen doorway, Copper caught sight of Deputy Cole bound to her chair and gave a mew of alarm. Starr did not break her stride as she continued to and out the front door.
“Cute, isn’t she? I wanted to have some fun with all three of you, but I got to thinking that her showing up means that sooner or later, others’ll come after her. The best thing for me to do is to get out and take one of you with me as a hostage.”
She pushed open the gate and stood Copper next to Summer’s station wagon as she opened the passenger door.
“And what better hostage could I have than the niece of the famous Sky Ryder?”
She took Copper under the thighs and around her torso, folding her into a sitting position, and slid her into the passenger seat. With her hostage in, Starr slammed the door and went around to the driver’s side.
Copper looked anxiously back at the ranch house.
“Oh, don’t worry about them, Kid. They’ll be all right.”
Copper looked quizzically at Starr.
“Would I lie to…”
She leaned over and stroked one of Copper’s breasts.
“…a bosom friend like you?”
Laughing, she started the car and drove onto the road.