Rio Bondo
By Jeb
Chapter Four
Now, this is more like it!
Deputy Tess Jones sat astride her brindled pony, taking a deep breath of fresh prairie air. The road out to Cottonmouth was quiet and rarely-traveled, giving her plenty of time to think.
It was amazing how much things had changed in the course of just a week. The arrival of Shane McQueen had acted like a tonic to the entire idea of law and order in Rio Bondo. Even that fat slob Prudhomme had had to toe the line when he saw that she would brook no more of his foot-dragging.
Of course, Tess could imagine better ways to spend her day than riding to outlying towns to inquire after the whereabouts of Little Jill and Sweet Lorraine, but she did work for the sheriff, and it was more than he'd ever let her do before. She just hoped that things wouldn’t have all blown over before she got back to Rio Bondo!
***
Now, this is more like it!
Maggie Ross pulled a damp sheet of newsprint off the press, and cast an approving eye over the headline: "New Sheriff in Town." OK, not wholly original, or even entirely accurate, as Shane McQueen was actually a U.S. Marshal, but she liked the sound of it, and its significance was unmistakable: law and order were coming to Rio Bondo. The loose, underhanded form of government favored by a weak-kneed mayor, and exemplified by that buffoon Prudhomme, were about to be swept away by a yellow-haired dynamo. For two years, now, Maggie had felt herself to be the sole voice of reform in this benighted community; Shane McQueen was about to change all that.
***
Now, this is more like it!
Shane McQueen stepped out onto the hardwood boardwalk in front of the hotel, adjusted her hat against the morning sun, and went off in the direction of the office of Sheriff John Prudhomme.
It had taken some doing, but Shane found it eminently satisfying to have finally brought the lazy hound to heel.
Of course, it hadn't hurt that a few of Rio Bondo's less reputable citizens had decided to give her opportunities to show the sheriff what she could do.
There had been the drunken Flaherty brothers, outside the saloon, night before last, who had either not noticed the badge on her shirt, or had thought it some sort of prize for whoring. When Noel, the older of the two had pawed at her, she had shrugged a shoulder, turned, and presented the man with her darkest, most dangerous stare. Alas for poor Noel, he'd been far too inebriated for the scowl to register; and when younger brother Liam, from behind, had begun playing with her hair, Shane had paused to look around her-- they weren't alone. Sheriff Prudhomme and one of the city councilmen were just across the street, bemused grins on their faces.
"One warning." Shane had spun to get the wall at her back, and was looking straight at the two hulking drunks; she had already decided that Noel was more physically dangerous, but that Liam would probably go for the first gun.
And he didn't disappoint.
"S On'y a bit o' fun, ye bleedin' hoo-er," the older one slurred, reaching to the front of Shane's powder-blue shirt. Her white-gauntleted hand struck like a snake. Noel Flaherty was strong enough that, sober, he might have broken the Marshal's grip; as it was, she twisted his arm close to the point of dislocation before slamming a knee deep into his groin, and watching him crumple to the floor.
Even drunk, Liam Flaherty knew his way around a pistol, and not even the sight of his brother's collapse was enough distraction to keep him from reaching for the blue-black Colt at his hip.
The gun hadn't even cleared the holster when Shane turned sideways, and as Liam Flaherty goggled, crowded her lush figure hard up against him.
"Whuu...?" there was bafflement in the thick voice as he tried to find enough leverage to bend his elbow to pull the gun free. Instead, he found himself slammed up against the wall, his head filling with the Marshal's distractingly feminine scent, her shapely hip pressing against his, and his hand unable to get free as he felt Shane's hands clamp down on his gun hand, holding the pistol in place... then slowly turning the holster so that the mouth of the gun was now pointing straight between his legs.
"So, my drunken friend. Are you still going to shoot?"
Shane didn't think she'd ever seen anyone sober up so fast, the white spreading across Liam Flaherty's face as he realized that any significant pressure on the trigger would remove any reason for him to visit Rusty's in the future.
“Ah…ah…” Unable to move his gun hand, his mind now picturing an enormous, bleeding hole between his legs… Liam Flaherty turned paper-white, his eyes rolling back in his head, and slumped down in a dead faint.
Shane carefully eased his hand off the gun as he fell in a foul-smelling heap. She spun the cylinder of the pistol, emptying it, before dropping it to the ground next to its unconscious owner. She glanced across the street, smiling at the darkened faces watching her.
“Don’t worry, sheriff,” she called sarcastically. “I’m not hurt. But these fellows might need a bit of attention… just like anyone else that gets in the way of me doing my job.”
And then there had been Jack Oak.
Jack was wanted in three states, and feared in a half-dozen more, a gnarled, rat-faced man who would rarely draw on an armed man… from in front.
Sheriff John Prudhomme had little use for back-shooting varmints… but he suspected that Oak had even less use for Federal Marshals-- and thought that arranging for the two to meet might solve at least one of his problems.
Subtlety wasn’t usually in John Prudhomme’s arsenal, but it didn’t take much to see to it that Jack Oak got a look at the glittering badge on Shane McQueen’s shapely chest.
"God-damn Marshals," the weaselly man snarled as he stalked off into the night. The next morning, though, as Prudhomme entertained more questions from Shane McQueen in his office, he saw Oak across the street. The gunman found himself a place to skulk in the alleyway beside the general store, nearly disappearing into the shadows. As Shane McQueen stepped out, closing the door behind her, she turned down the street, to her right… and far behind her, there was the tiniest of shuffling noises across the street… and the marshal’s trim form came to a dead stop, her head tilted slightly, as Jack Oak raised and cocked his gun.
Prudhomme goggled. He would have sworn that the "click" would have been inaudible at that distance, but something alerted Shane to the threat. With a liquid smoothness, she spun, dropping to a knee, while effortlessly clearing her pistol from its holster while at the same time angling her head so that the brim of her hat shaded the sun just enough to allow her to focus. Her right arm drew and came up in what seemed like a single move, and the two reports were already dying on the dry afternoon air before either Prudhomme or Oak realized that she'd fired.
The gunman seemed to blink in amazement, once, then pitched forward, his face smashing into the dirt, red already beginning to spread beneath his prone form.
As Shane carefully approached the body, she heard the heavy thud of footsteps behind her.
“Oh, mah Lawrd!” Prudhomme wheezed. “Yew awwright, Marshal?”
The tall blonde turned to look at the sweating lawman. “I’m fine, thanks, sheriff.” For a moment, the sheriff squirmed as her eyes drilled into his. “You know this man?”
"A bad'un, Marshal." The sheriff averted his eyes, not willing to meet the hard questions in Shane's gaze, while trying to quietly holster the gun he had planned to use to “avenge” Oak’s murder of the marshal.
Shane McQueen pursed her lips, giving the sheriff a look that had him nervously watching to see if her fingers were straying towards her own gun.
Finally, the blond head inclined slightly towards Prudhomme; then Shane McQueen turned on her heel and walked away from the still-sweating sheriff.
Can't wait no longer, he thought. This is getting too damn dangerous.
***
"Sheriff, I'm glad we could begin to see eye to eye on matters." If Shane had tried, she probably could have kept the tone of condescension out of her voice, but why bother? This sloppy, broken-down excuse for a lawman had been a disgrace to his badge when she arrived in Rio Bondo-- if she'd helped him restore even a portion of the dignity of the office, he ought to be down on his knees thanking her. And with Jack Oak now cooling off for the better part of two days in the undertaker's back room, the sheriff seemed to be taking her more seriously than ever.
The only frustration, for Shane, was that they appeared to be no closer to finding the two bandits she'd come in search of. Cleaning Rio Bondo of trigger-happy mavericks and drunken louts was all well and good, and had helped that sharp young editor sell some papers, but it wasn't what the U.S. government was paying her to do. Still, with Prudhomme's evidently sincere interest in helping her, she began to feel that the search might have taken a turn for the better.
Hell, maybe I’ll at least find my damn horse!
This morning, she had set out with him to interview local merchants, to see if anyone had sold supplies to either of the gunwomen. Prudhomme stood back and let Shane take the lead in what proved to be a series of fruitless interviews, after which they began trudging back to the sheriff’s office.
The sun was dead above their heads as they approached Rusty's place. The saloon was still quiet at mid-day, the front door closed.
"What about Rusty?" Prudhomme offered. "Talked to her yet?"
Shane had barely met the woman, but who better than the local madam to ask about a pair of women on the run?
"Good suggestion, Sheriff" Shane nodded as he pushed open the door. Shane thought a little praise could do no harm, especially since he seemed to have earned it for once.
The inside of the saloon was blessedly cool and dark, and Shane blinked a few times to accommodate her eyes to the change from the blazing sun outdoors, and then saw Rusty.
The big redhead stood behind the bar, washing glasses, which struck Shane as an odd thing for the proprietor of the establishment to be doing, until she remembered that she'd thrown Rusty's regular bartender in jail the night before for waving a gun around indiscriminately.
"Big John," Rusty greeted Prudhomme. "And Marshal... McQueen, isn't it?"
Shane nodded. "If you have a few minutes, I'd like to ask you a few questions."
"Questions?" Rusty had set aside the glass, and had taken a bottle from beneath the counter.
"About some women I am trying to find."
"Ah. Well, women are a sort of specialty of mine, that's true." She picked up the glass she had been washing, filled it with liquor from the bottle in her hand, and handed it to Prudhomme.
"Thank'ee, ma'am," the fat man smacked his lips, and grinned at Shane. "One of the perquisites of the job, as ya might say," nodding at Rusty. "Sorta perfessional courtesy."
Shane tried not to let the distaste show in her face; perhaps Prudhomme's attitude toward his job hadn't changed as much as she'd hoped, but drinking at noon didn't show much evidence of seriousness of purpose.
Rusty poured a glass for herself, then nudged the bottle in Shane's direction.
"Wet your whistle, Marshal? You must be hot after traipsin' all over town."
"Have you some spring water?" Shane did her best to remain cordial-- no sense annoying
this woman before she had a chance to interview her.
"Suit yerself." The redhead filled a small glass from a carafe and set it down on the bar. Shane took a sip-- grateful for the cooling beverage. She slipped off her hat and set it on the bar, running long fingers through her sweat-dampened hair. She leaned forward, elbows on the bar, hands folded, and began.
"Now, let me describe these two women."
Rusty leaned closer, her eyes alert. As the marshal began to fill in the details of her hunt for the two cowgirls, the big redhead laid a pudgy hand atop Shane's wrist, as though the two were sharing an intimate confidence.
Rusty leaned forward, opened her mouth as if to speak... and with a flick of her wrist, dashed her drink into Shane McQueen's eyes.
"Aggghh!" The burning sensation forced her eyes to close, even as Shane realized the danger. The muscles of her arms spasmed, trying to raise her hands to her streaming eyes, but the hefty redhead was leaning all her weight on the marshal's trapped hands.
Shane blinked madly, trying to force the alcohol from her eyes, but before they could even begin to clear, her head was rocked forward by a crashing blow on the back of her head. Sheriff John Prudhomme had slammed the heel of a meaty paw into the back of her skull, throwing her head forward, nauseating her with pain and dizziness. As she wobbled, he sank his fat fingers into her thick golden mane and yanked her head back, her eyes blinking madly against the pain and tears.
She didn't know if the strangled sound she managed to produce would get much farther than her straining throat, her head was bent back so painfully, but the sheriff had no plans to allow her to test that. With his fist in Shane's hair, Prudhomme was able to jam one of the bar rags into her gaping mouth; she gasped and gurgled for air as the foul rag was forced past her teeth and deep into her mouth. The fat sheriff then grabbed a leather strap from his pocket, and used it to force the cloth even more deeply into the blond marshal's mouth; the tanned leather bit cruelly into her cheeks as he knotted it behind her head.
Rusty had shifted her weight slightly, and instead of merely leaning on Shane's wrists, now, she had begun to bind them with stout cord. The trapped lawwoman had no leverage, her head was spinning from Prudhomme's blow, and it was child's play for Rusty to tie her wrists tightly together.
With the bar between her and Rusty, Shane could do nothing to prevent her hands from being bound; the only thing she could do was to kick backwards, and she had the small satisfaction of hearing the fat sheriff grunt in pain as she connected with his shin. That was all the satisfaction she received, though, as she took another blow from his hand across the back of her head, sending her vision dancing with sparks.
As Rusty finished cinching the knot at her wrists, Shane tried desperately to clear her head, and resist the woman, when she felt herself even more restricted by a lasso that was dropped over her shoulders, and about her arms, then yanked painfully tight, pinning her arms against her torso. The tug was accompanied by a throaty cackle from behind her.
"There ya go, blondie," Sweet Lorraine gloated. "We'll get you wrapped up all nice." Even through the cloth of her shirt, Shane could feel the lasso biting into her flesh, and as Lorraine wrapped it around again, and pulled it tighter, the trapped marshal found it getting hard to breathe.
Where Sweet Lorraine was, of course, Little Jill wouldn’t be far away, and indeed, from behind Shane, a pair of small, clever hands slid to the marshal's waist, and Shane finally began to give in to despair as she felt her pearl-handled bulldog repeaters pulled from their holsters.
Shane was well and truly trapped. The wrist bonds, the lasso pinning her arms, the gag, and the fact that her guns had been stripped from her, while her enemies outnumbered her at least four to one-- it had probably taken no more than twenty seconds for Shane McQueen to be transformed from feared lawwoman to helpless captive, unable to call for help, or even to struggle effectively.
Moving swiftly for all her bulk, Rusty came around from behind the bar. She stood in front of the marshal whose reddened eyes were now clear enough for Rusty to read the unaccustomed fear in them.
Good. About time she learned that. The big redhead leered at her captive, then delivered a sharp slap to a tear-stained cheek, sending the cloud of golden tresses flying, and smiling at the grunt of pain that produced behind the gag.
From behind, Shane felt Lorraine pass another length of rope through her legs to the waiting Rusty. The big redhead smiled again at Shane's helplessness as she knotted the rope to the cord at Shane's wrists. From behind, then, Lorraine yanked up on the rope, forcing the marshal's bound hands down to her groin, the rope pulled hard up between her legs, bending her body painfully forward. With Lorraine holding onto the rope, there was no way for Shane to stand upright; indeed, it felt as though her arms were going to be pulled right up behind her through her legs. Her shoulders ached already from the strain, and as Lorraine yanked on the rope, the only thing keeping her from sprawling face-first on the dirty floor was the painful bondage.
Rusty reached to pick up Shane's discarded hat. She set it jauntily on her own coppery hair, then reached down and took a fistful of Shane's streaming mane. The bound and gagged marshal had no choice but to allow herself to be dragged along by the hair, her hands forced painfully into her crotch, nearly splitting her.
Shane's eyes had finally begun to clear when she was dragged out the back door, and into the blazing noon sun. She gave an involuntary whimper into her gag as she desperately tried to keep her eyes open, in the hope that she might see some hope of rescue. They wouldn't co-operate, though, and she found herself squinting against the mad succession of blinding bright light and dark shadows as she was led through an alleyway between the buildings.
Finally, she was able to see that they were approaching what appeared to be the rear entry door to a large, white house. Even if she'd known the streets better, she wouldn't have recognized the place from the rear anyway, or have any way of telling anyone where she was being taken.
The interior of the house was cool, quiet, and opulent-- doubtless it belonged to one of the prominent citizens who was benefiting from Sheriff Prudhomme's corruption. Before she'd had a chance to get any more of her bearings, Shane was dragged up a wide, winding staircase; twice she stumbled, the only thing keeping her from falling back down the stairs the rope between her legs and the grip in her hair.
She was brought down a corridor with a tall whitewashed door at the end. Her captors came to a halt in front of it, and Little Jill yanked on the handle, to reveal a small storage closet.
As the door was held open, Shane felt herself turned around and forced back into the closet, still blinking back her tears as she got one last good look at her abductors: the two cowgirls were grinning, Prudhomme was watching the harsh rise and fall of her chest, and the big redhead was sneering at her contemptuously.
Sweet Lorraine reached behind the captured marshal, and pulled up hard on the rope running between her legs, fastening it to a bar above her head. With a laugh, she slammed the closet door closed before Shane had a chance to even shift position. Now, her weight bore her down on the rope, and the confined space left her no room to lift a leg high enough to step over the thing.
Stupid. Careless. Shane sighed into her packed mouth. Admit it-- arrogant.
She knew she’d underestimated Prudhomme; she’d failed to look beneath the surface, trusting the glitter of her U.S. Marshal’s badge, and her prowess with a gun, to intimidate the criminal element in Rio Bondo. Instead, it was clear now that there was more to the troubles in this town than just a lazy sheriff and a few gun-toting drunks. Something about this place stunk deep down… and she was now about to get to the bottom of it, though not in the way she’d hoped: her plans hadn’t included being bound and gagged in a dark, stuffy closet.
After two more futile tries to find a more comfortable position, Shane rested her head on the door, exhausted.
Save your strength, she told herself. You'll need it.