The shuffling sound from the next room was loud in the dark, quiet office. Still, it nearly went unnoticed as Maggie Ross buried her head in tomorrow's front page.
She hoped it wasn't Paul returning, urging her to get home and to bed. She'd bid him good evening after a quiet meal in the hotel, but her excitement over the next day's edition drove her back to the office for one last read:
Scandal she was familiar with, but what she and Shane McQueen were about to reveal to the citizens of Rio Bondo was beyond anything she'd seen before. Some of the town's most prominent citizens were clearly involved in crime and vice of the filthiest sort, and most of the ones that weren't seemed willing to look the other way for a juicy reward. In fact, she doubted that even Shane fully realized the extent of the situation. From what Maggie now knew, this "Rusty" woman wasn't to be trusted, Sheriff Prudhomme seemed to be more crooked than just lazy… and there were tantalizing references to one man controlling the lot. No name, no description: just a nickname: "Blackie".
Maggie was just running down a list of names of the mayor's relatives, to see if this was a variation on one of them, when she heard the sound again.
What the hell?
With an impatient shake of her glossy dark hair, she dropped the newssheet, took off her reading glasses, and looked around for the cat, or rat, that she assumed had made the sound.
Instead, she found herself looking up at a pair of ruggedly-dressed women: one tall and dark, one short and blond, both smiling… and both aiming wicked-looking guns at her; even in her shock and surprise, she was sure she recognized the shining revolver in the shorter one's hand as belonging to marshal Shane McQueen, and the marshal hadn't seemed the type to loan out her weaponry.
"Who…?" Maggie's mouth went dry, her tongue frozen, as she stared at the cowgirls.
"Never mind about our names," the tall one grunted, "we know yours. Yer Maggie Ross, you run this here rag, and Rusty tells me that pretty nose of your'n is stickin' way too far into her business." The short one nodded agreement, and Maggie now noticed that she carried what appeared to be a large burlap sack.
"What...what do you want?" Maggie tried to inject firmness into her voice, but she had no illusions that these two even noticed; the black hole at the end of Lorraine's pistol had her transfixed.
"Well, let's see..." Little Jill drawled. "I suppose it might have been this here stack of papers." She swept a hand backwards, upsetting a pot of ink, a flood of black now drenching Maggie's research.
"Damn you...." she gritted, but Lorraine's already imposing presence, heightened by the pistol in her hand, left Maggie grinding her teeth in miserable frustration as she sat in her chair.
"Then again..." Jill smirked. "Maybe we oughtta load up all these fancy letters and numbers." She kicked at the tall typesetter's desk, and lead type scattered like pebbles across the floor.
Jill crossed to stand beside Maggie's desk. As the terrified editor tried to brazen out her resistance, she felt Lorraine's huge hand grab the back of the chair, and turn it so she was now facing Jill.
"No, I remember now," the little blond outlaw grinned. "This here sack seems to be just about the right size to collect a newspaper woman who don't know enough to mind her own business. Stand up"
Jill reached to her belt, and slid a lariat from it. "If you give us any trouble..." there was no need to complete the warning: Maggie Ross had faced down crooked politicians and angry landowners in her day, but the threat of gunplay or imminent physical violence was something altogether new, and had her nearly paralyzed with fear. Though she tried to keep a mask of defiance on her face, it was a trembling pair of legs that obeyed the instruction to get to her feet.
Lorraine's huge hand grasped the terrified newspaperwoman, and Maggie felt her arms pulled sharply behind her back, driving breath from her lungs, her blouse constricting her chest as the heavy cord encircled her wrists, pinioning them side by side. She suppressed the gasp that she expected her captors were hoping for, then found herself with no choice but to cry out as more of the cord was used to yank her upper arms together, elbows nearly touching, the strain in her shoulders now making breathing even more of a chore. The cinched cord at her wrists held them crossed one over the other, her hands now utterly useless.
"A little tight for you, girlie?" Jill chuckled. "Just figger it this way-it'll keep you nice and secure while we deliver you. No chance of your comin' unwrapped by mistake!"
Lorraine guffawed at her partner's jibe, and reached around the captive, to wrap lariat cord about the trim editor's torso, encircling her in a sort of yoke that gave a nearly obscene prominence to the breasts that strained at her blouse. The cord was pulled and cinched here and there with a glee that Lorraine did nothing to hide. As the rope bit and gouged, even through her clothing, Maggie realized she was in the power of a woman who didn't know her, had no reason to dislike her… and yet could still treat her in the most hateful way imaginable. Maggie was no more than an object to this monster-and not a particularly well-liked one.
The binding of her legs was, if possible, even more terrifying, as it carried the very real danger of her tumblng to the floor, with no hands to break her fall, and no indication that her captors would be inclined to do so either. Rope constricted her thighs over her skirt, gouged at the soft flesh behind her knees, and shredded what remained of her stockings. Each time she felt Lorraine yank at the lasso, she swayed crazily, until the pinioning of her legs together left her almost teetering.
Satisfied that they'd bound their prey inescapably, Jill reached to a pocket and pulled out a dusty-looking red bandana.
"Now, open up," the blond outlaw grinned.
"Please…" Maggie flushed with shame at the whimpering tone in her voice, but she was already frightened almost beyond words, and the idea of her mouth being stuffed and gagged was, for some reason, the most frightening part of it.
Lorraine slowly raised the pistol to Maggie's face, the cold steel of the barrel grazing her cheek. "Got sumpin' here I can stick in your mouth that you'll like one helluva lot less." Her eyes bored into the captive's, drinking the fear like nectar.
Maggie closed her eyes, feeling tears start to flow now, as she parted her lips. She opened her mouth as wide as she could manage, hoping to have the misery over as quickly as possible, but her captors were clearly just as interested in making her miserable as in making her silent: Jill's strong fingers crammed thick bandana fabric into Maggie's mouth until the bound woman felt she should choke. Meanwhile, Lorraine twisted a fist in Maggie's dark hair to hold her head still. Their actions were so forceful and unrelenting that it came almost as a relief when a scarf was tied tightly over her mouth to hold the gag in place. After the knot was brutally secured at the nape of her neck, Maggie realized that she was now going to have to learn a new way to breathe.
Maggie gave a startled grunt into the gag as she felt herself lifted with ease in Lorraine's massive arms. The tall cowgirl held her captive toward Jill, allowing her partner to bind Maggie's ankles together without even having to bend over. Jill then picked up the sack she had dropped to the floor, and Maggie began to flail madly- the idea of being encased in that musty-looking fabric was even more horrible than what she had already endured.
"NNNNggggghhh!!" Nonsense hummed around her gag as the two cowgirls tended to their business. Lorraine controlled her captive's squirming with no more effort than she would have had with an infant, and Jill began to pull the lip of the sack up along Maggie's body.
"Hhhhgggnnn!" Maggie redoubled her gagged screams as she saw the lower part of her body disappear into the sack, the insane fear burning in her brain that she was being swallowed by a darkness from which she would never escape. As the sack was pulled up to her chin, she turned watering eyes on her captors for one last pleading look; her heart sank at the looks of indifference they returned. Jill pressed one hand to the top of her head, and forced it down as her other hand drew the harsh fabric across her face, up and over, finally knotting it off.
At once, it seemed that the supply of air in the room had halved. With her mouth stifled, Maggie's desperate gasps for air drew the cloth up against her nostrils, hampering her breathing even further. She tried to will herself not to panic, but inside the darkness of the sack she could see explosions of color in front of her eyes as her body began to feel deprived of air. She closed her eyes, and for the first time since she was a child began to offer silent prayer for her life.
Maggie felt herself turned in Lorraine's arms, and more cord was now being wound around the outside of the sack. It hardly seemed possible that she could be restrained any further, and the extra bonds that now snaked around her torso served to heighten the terror of her imprisonment.
The sound that came from the inside of the sack was no longer a muffled scream, but small muted sobs. Maggie Ross had never thought herself a brave woman, but she had spent her entire adult life crusading against the corrupt and powerful. And for all of that, she had never imagined just utterly powerless she could be. She was in the hands of enemies who clearly planned the worst for her, and any hope that Shane McQueen might be in a position to effect a rescue dwindled, as she realized that the only reason for Jill and Lorraine to be at large, and carrying the marshal's guns, would be that Shane had somehow been neutralized, sinking her even further into despair.
Lorraine shifted her hold, and the tightly-wrapped bundle of bound brunette slid up onto her shoulder. Maggie's breathing, difficult already, was made near-impossible once her stomach landed hard against Lorraine's shoulder. The whoosh of air past her gag seemed to take Maggie's consciousness with it, and as Jill and Lorraine made their way out of the shambles they had made of Maggie's office, their captive fell into a merciful blackness, never even seeing Jill light the fire that consumed her office, and her life's work along with it.
***
Though she knew it was useless, the sight of Maggie Ross dumped so callously to the floor enraged Shane into yanking at the bonds holding her to the chair, golden hair flying as she shook her head furiously, growling into her gag.
This earned her nothing more than a casual backhand from one of Rusty's roustabouts, and the hard-faced madam threaded fat fingers deep in Shane's golden mane, pulling the hair hard enough to draw tears, delighted at Shane's impotence to relieve the pain; the marshal bit down hard on the gag to avoid giving her captor the satisfaction of reacting even further. Rusty studied the blue eyes watering over the gag, her own face beaming at this further evidence of her power over her erstwhile enemy. With a rough shake of her captive's head, she released Shane's hair and turned her attention to the prisoner that Jill and Lorraine had delivered.
Shane gave an involuntary moan into her gag as she watched Maggie Ross try to raise her face up from where she had been deposited on the floor. As Jill undid the last ropes holding the sack in place, Maggie's neck strained as she tried to see just what her situation was… and another hopeless sob melted into her gag as she saw that Shane McQueen, too, was a bound and gagged prisoner.
After emptying their captive from the sack, Lorraine picked up the cruelly-tied newspaperwoman as though she were no more than a child, and threw her into a hard wooden chair of the kind that Shane was fastened to. The ropes still wound around her body and legs barely allowed her to bend into a sitting position, and she hung her head, hair hanging over her face, exhausted and used up, until Lorraine's meaty fist once more grasped the thick tresses as a handhold to force her head up and regard her captors.
And, now, Rusty's guests had two targets for their abuse. If anything, Maggie's reporting had threatened even more of them than Shane had, and they made no attempt to hide their satisfaction at having their great gadfly completely under their control. Men whose greed had been exposed on her front page leered and snickered at her half-exposed breasts; a well-dressed woman whose husband had been forced, after one of Maggie's stories, to give up hundreds of acres of misappropriated land threw a drink in her face, and laughed as the liquor stung her eyes and dribbled down her chin.
Shane fared no better from the gathering of monsters: Prudhomme, in particular, took advantage of his preeminence in her capture by pawing the front of her shirt and fondling her lewdly, her arms jerking instinctively, and uselessly, unable to afford her any protection from the disgusting hands. If the stony gaze she offered over her gag discomfited him at all, he gave no sign.
As the novelty of molesting two helpless, bound, and gagged women began to wear off, a knock at the door was followed by the entrance of one of Rusty's young whores. She spared barely a glance for the captives, and whispered into the big redhead's ear.
"Excellent." Rusty patted the girl on the head, dismissed her, and turned to her guests.
"Well, folks," she began; the look on her face was far too satisfied for Shane to believe this was anything but bad news for her and Maggie. "I'm pleased to say that I've just received word that my old friend Don Pedro, the Alcalde of Malo Suerte province across the border, has need of some new house slaves for his hacienda.... and how fortunate that I seem to be able to supply him with an ideal pair."
The watery green eyes met Shane's, and the marshal swallowed her terror like a lump in the throat. She'd be damned if she'd give this whore the satisfaction of seeing her fear, but she was once more suffused with an emotion heretofore unfamiliar to her: the terror of being wholly in someone else's power. She twisted in the chair, reflexively testing her bonds again, the unfamiliar emotion of panic starting to churn in her stomach.
"Get a good price, there, Rusty?" came a drunken call.
"Don't worry, Bob," Rusty smiled down at Shane's useless struggles, delighted at the arrogance rapidly leaving the blue eyes, "Every penny will go into acquiring more luxuries for my best customers!" She nodded to Little Jill. "You ladies get yourselves ready to ride-you've got a delivery to make!"
The two cowgirls left the room, and a good half dozen of Rusty's gunmen took up station to watch as the captives were prepared for their journey. Two of the guests used penknives to cut the ropes that held the marshal to her chair.
Unbound from the chair, Shane staggered to her feet. A miserable nubmness spread through her limbs, and she could feel fierce buzzing up and down her arms and legs.
As was her instinct, she was sizing up the situation, trying to see how it might be turned to her advantage... but in this case, she really couldn't see a way: weaponless and barefoot, arms and legs barely responsive, with Rusty's armed bullyboys at the door, and with Maggie still bound and gagged, a hostage to her good behavior, this wasn't the time for pointless heroics. Patience, she told herself. Patience.
Rusty next cut the cord that bound Shane's wrists behind her; then, with no effort at gentleness, drew the marshal's numb, near-useless arms around in front of her, and used a rawhide strap to tie them together: her wrists were crossed over each other and fastened with a harsh yank.
Over her shoulder, Shane could see Maggie being served the same way: her original bonds replaced by a simple strapping of her wrists together in front of her. Guns at their backs, the two gagged women were led by their tied wrists, on stumbling legs, down the stairs and out into the cool Rio Bondo night.
Moonlight gleamed on the polished leather of a pair of saddles: Jill and Lorraine's horses had been kitted out for a journey, and for a moment, Shane wondered at the fact that she couldn't see where she and Maggie were to ride-there was no wagon, or second set of horses.
The answer became clear when Lorraine casually hefted Maggie up in her arms, and threw her face-down across the horse's back, in front of the saddle. As Lorraine held the captive editor in place, Jill squatted down, reached under the horse's belly, and tied a length of rope to the leather strap that bit into Maggie's wrists. She then pulled it taut, forcing the captive's face down into the flanks of the beast, then wrapped the other end several times around Maggie's ankles before knotting it securely. The prisoner screamed into her gag as she was stretched painfully tight across the animal's back.
Lorraine grinned as she watched Shane take in the sight.
"Whatcha say, marshal? Ready to go for a little ride?"
Shane growled into her gag, and prayed for the day she could face the woman on equal terms. Instead, bound and gagged, still aching from her captivity, gunmen still watching over them, she could do nothing as Lorraine seized her around the waist, did a bit of casual groping, then hefted her up off her feet.
As Lorraine tossed her like a sack of grain, Shane's vision filled with the dark, shiny coat of the horse's back, then she found herself folded like a newspaper across its back. Her hair cascaded about her face and trailed nearly to the ground as she felt her wrists and ankles fixed as Maggie's had been. Her shoulders and back screamed their own protest as the bonds were secured, and now even biting on the gag couldn't suppress her moan of pain.
Lorraine then mounted the horse across which Maggie Ross had been bound. She slowly ran a hand along the captive's backside and down the backs of her legs, delighting at the outraged trembling that produced.
"Nice," she giggled. "Wonder if that Don Pedro feller would mind if you had a little workout afore we got to his place." Maggie's gorge rose, and she found herself insanely praying for something to hasten their arrival at the hacienda… anything had to be better than the lewd depredations this woman had in mind for her.
Having mounted up on her own horse, Little Jill smiled at her partner's actions, then regarded the captive bound in front of her own saddle. Jill might not have Lorraine's special yen for the "pleasures" of other women, but she couldn't remember a picture that pleased her more than that of marshal Shane McQueen's supple form strapped helplessly before her. As the horses got underway, the sight of the denim-clad buttocks bouncing up and down in front of her gave her a charge that rivaled any she'd known. Jill laughed out loud, and used her open palm to deliver a sharp smack to Shane's ass. The quivering response, and grunted outcry, gave her a feeling of satisfaction unlike any she could remember: sheer, unbridled power. A once-dangerous enemy was now completely at her mercy… not that she planned to show much of that.
The pair of horses moved on, bearing their bound and gagged cargo, desert moonlight silvering the polished leather of the saddles and the glossy mane of hair that fell about Shane's face. She sagged against the horse's body, cursing herself for overconfidence and carelessness: for the first time in her career as a law-woman, she knew complete defeat… and she and Maggie were now to pay a terrible price for it.