Chapter 5
Consciousness descended upon Cindy in a cold suffusing chill and weakly she raised her head, whimpering from the thumping pressure behind her eyes that swept over the forest floor twinkling with morning light filtered through tree tops. The birds sang joyfully, dissolving the horrors of last night's death chase through the woods. Wriggling on her stomach, she bent one leg, drawing up her knee and reached down to massage it. She swallowed dryly, the metallic taste of blood heavy in her mouth. She spit, then wiped her lips with the back of her hand that came away with specks of raisin colored dried blood.
Where . . . what was she doing here? Her gnarled fingers brushed through her hair, combing it free of debris. Painfully, she rolled over onto her back trying to make sense of nonsense. And Jed. . . where was he? Two vacuous brown eyes raked over the forest floor searching for answers that were not to come from that innocently mute source. Wearily, Cindy let her eyelids droop and the vision of those steel trap jaws and ice pick teeth made her whimper. Oh God, that bear.. . and Jed! She had to find the trail back to the campsite where her lover may be lying in a pool of blood, his face mauled. Oh, why hadn't she let him make love to her if that was to be their last night together?
Dizzily, she rolled over and managed to raise up on all fours, the thumping behind her eyes cruder now. Prisms of light sprinkled before her eyes as she struggled to her feet and leaned against a tree, grabbing her bruised arm. She needed water, food and medical help . . . and to find Jed!
For hours she tromped around the slopes stumbling and falling in dazed delirium. Girl Scouts had taught her nothing about wilderness survival and despite her zigzagging efforts to cross the trail, it trickfully evaded her. Afternoon found her in the grassy meadows surrounding Jenny Lake amidst a herd of mule deer making their daily trek to the waterhole, scampering in fear now as their moist velvety nostrils picked up the scent of man. Exhausted from hunger and thirst, she collapsed on the ground and fell unconscious while darkness gobbled up daylight.
Biting winds carrying fog from the lake below nipped through her woolen sweater and sweat soaked T-shirt, chilling her to the marrow. Cindy lay stomach down, pain spreading like a contagious disease over her body.
Perhaps it was a senile throwback to childhood days on the family's Idaho ranch. Religiously at the crack of down Jack Taylor added water to yesterday's grounds and rolled two cigarettes for the trail. Of all hours he loved dawn best.. . when the dew-kissed grass shimmered in the pink sunlight, intensifying as the sun peeked over the dark mountain crests.
The musty smelling hayloft wasn't much, but it was home. In exchange for taking care of the horse the Comstocks had insulated the barn's upper loft. In winter months Jack used the space heater to ease his rheumatism, but in springtime, like now, an extra wool blanket provided warmth enough.
Jack pulled on over his long-legged underwear yesterday's mud-stiff Levi's and yanked on a shirt lopped over the bedpost and kicked his way into his dusty cowboy boots. He examined his leathery face in the mirror, rubbing his hand across its four day growth. Naw . . . shave could wait 'til Sunday. He drank his muddy coffee steaming and black and smoked a cigarette. Hell of a life, being a bachelor cowpoke, but he wouldn't have it any other way. Those imagine city folk living inside that house were cozy, but hell, they couldn't survive a night in the woods. You had to be tough, calloused to take care of yourself. Jack wouldn't have traded his peaceful lifestyle for all the horses in Wyoming and Montana put together.
The Wyoming sky was a canvas of streaked warm colors when he tromped, spurs clinking and blowing up dust, out to the corral and saddled up the Palomino. Poor girl, what the hell they bought her for Jack couldn't understand. Nobody rode her except for him and that made him feel sorry for the mare. Everybody needs attention, he thought dolefully . . . old men and old horses.
A strange bunch, those Comstocks, he mused grunting and pulling himself into the saddle. Every weekend they came up from the city with another couple. For having all those friends they sure weren't hospitable folks. Hell . . . not that it was any of his business, but you'd think they'd take enough pride in the place to walk around the meadows or ride their horse.
Digging his spurs into the mare's side, the aging cowboy galloped off through the meadows, the winking blue jewel of Lake Jenny sparkling in the distance. "Whoooopeeee!" He clutched at the lips of his cowboy hat and waved it high in reminiscence of days in the rodeo ring, the fresh morning stillness awakening his senses with the jolting of the gallop. "Yaxmahhwwwhhhhhooooooo!"
Abruptly his eyes narrowed and his leathery hands tugged at the reins, tightening the bit. Frothing at the mouth, the horse whinnied and drew to a halt, rearing up on her hind legs against the pain in her mouth.
"I'll be a buzzard's uncle." The old cowboy pressed his hat to his chest and squinted in the near distance where something too big for a rock and too colorful for a deer carcass struck his vision. "Whoooaaaaa. . . baby!" He slid off the horse, his spurs jingling metallically as he dashed bull-legged through the wet grass, slow at first then breaking into a run. His leathery face cracked into a smile. "Jimpin' Jahosafats!" It was a girl and a darned pretty one at that!
Jack put his sinewy hands under her armpits and pulled her up like a baby long horn. Her curly black head wobbled lifelessly from side to side and then two brown sunken eyes centered in a badly scratched, though pretty, face stared into his wrinkled up face, Cindy screamed, kicking frantically and yelling hysterically. "Hate to do this, miss, but it's better for both of us."
Whap! His hand stung against her cheek and her head again went limp. The Palomino horse came at a gallop when she heard the familiar whistle, and Jack flopped Cindy's lithe, bruised body over the horse's rear quarters and headed back home.
The poor lady needed help he couldn't give her. Pretty thing. A moldy, smelling hay loft was no place for a girl to regain consciousness. Gosh, if he were thirty years younger he might take her . . . but hell, he was just a broken up rodeo cowboy. Too many bull hooves had smashed in his face to make him a lady's man, but looking down at her spread out on his bed, her breasts rising and falling in unconscious sleep, made something inside of him churn that he thought had died long ago.
Mindless of the hour, he left Cindy in the hay loft while he headed for the house. For all his boldness Jack turned yellow belly when it came to facing the Comstocks on their turf. Seldom did they show themselves and never their guests. An aura of secrecy enshrouded that house that made him keep his distance.
His gnarled knuckles banged on the screen door, hat pressed tight to his chest and he ran his fingers through his gray hair in a last ditch effort to appear kempt. Paul Comstock opened the door, looking none too pleased by the early morning intrusion. The terry robe he wore had been pulled on in haste and sleep lines were etched around his dark eyes.
"Mr. Comstock . . . ? " Jack spoke through the mesh door. "Sorry to bother you, sir, but I found a girl out in the lower forty. Poor thing's needin' help. 'Spose I could bring her in?"
Paul's face registered no concern, only irritation. "Where is she now?"
"Who the hell is that?" bellowed Zelda from the bedroom, her shuffling slippers growing louder as she emerged, pulling tight the belt of her peignoir. Without makeup she looked younger than he'd remembered her to be, her high aristocratic cheekbones hinting at a youthful beauty far from lost, though a hardened set to her jaw negated the softness of ultra-femininity that her frothy peignoir tried to impart. Her long bleached blonde hair was swept back from her forehead and he noticed for the first time her widow's peak that gave her a diabolical, witchy look.
Jack sucked in his breath and clutched his hat tighter to his chest. Jesus God, the woman was naked under that flimsy thing! The puffy outline of her nipples and darker patch between her thighs was no secret under the fluffs of yellow nylon. Zelda glowered through the screen at Jack.
"For Godsakes, let him in and close the door before we all catch pneumonia," she grumbled, throwing herself down into the sofa and pulling her legs tight under her while her gimlet eyes raked over Jack's dirty Levi's and dusty boots. Five burgundy fingertips opened a silver cigarette box on the glass etagere. Paul hastened to her side to light her cigarette, an effort for which he received no appreciation.
"He found a girl unconscious out in the fields."
. "How old is she, cowboy?" she asked with flat disinterest, her high cheekbones hollowing as she puffed on her cigarette, blowing the smoke out of her flaring nostrils. Jack's blue eyes rounded. "Oh, I'd say about nineteen, maybe. Pretty young thing, she is."
"Oh?" A wry smile crossed Zelda's smirking lips while she glanced at her husband below raised eyebrows. "Our new blood has arrived, dear." She turned to Jack, looking him in the eye for the first time. "Bring the girl in and let's have a look at her."
Dumping her over his crooked shoulder like a sack of feed, Jack toted Cindy down the ladder, past the corral and over the lawn to the Comstock's cabin where smoke belched from the chimney. Inside, Zelda had personally attended to preparing the second guest bedroom on the first floor, her mood lightening now that fate had sent a new toy to her doorstep. Upstairs the Greenleys slept on, incognizant of the new development in the week long party that Paul Comstock's perfidious wife had so cleverly arranged.
Panting and grunting, the old cowboy shuffled into the guest bedroom and lay the girl down on the white chenille bedspread, a whimpered groan escaping Cindy's swollen lips giving them a sensuous, pouting appeal that struck a cord in Zelda's lustful heart.
"What a gorgeous young thing!" grinned the lady of the house, her fingers all aflutter, yanking at zippers and twisting buttons, preparing the girl for washing.
Cindy lay in dazed consciousness, hovering between wakening and sleep, her curly black hair still lustrously shiny, strewn with things of the woods that Zelda plucked disgustedly. One chocolate eye peeped open as she felt foreign fingers working at her sweater and moving her injured arm thoughtlessly. A hospital. . . she must be in a hospital. Cindy's eyes struggled to stay open this time, expecting to see a motherly-faced nurse dressed in white, but instead she focused on a smirking, threatening face.
"No! Oh . . . where . . . oh God . . . " Cindy rose feebly on her elbows; overcome by the effort, she collapsed back on the bed.
"You'll be all right, angel darling. We'll take care of you . . . you bet we will," Zelda rasped huskily. "Now roll over and help me get this filthy T-shirt off of you," she instructed impatiently, then in a softer tone: "And let me see those . . . young titties."
"Oh!" Cindy put her hand to her aching head. "I . . . I . . . Jed . . . where's Jed?" Her voice trailed off in a weak whisper, her eyes staring blankly, seeing nothing.
Jack peeked his head around the doorway, his hat still pressed reverently to his chest, eyes wide with concern, though it was Zelda's yellow-hazed naked buttocks that held his rapt attention.
Zelda spun around. "If you're going to stand around gawking, cowboy, make yourself useful and get those lazy-assed maids to heat some milk. My poor baby is dehydrated!" snapped Zelda, shooting at her husband an urgent look that as much as said, "Get that dirty cowpoke out of my house!"