Chapter 12

She rode beside her husband in the pickup, swaying as he rounded a curve too fast, holding to the inside door handle to brace herself.

"Steve-they'll be around. Don't pile us up."

He slowed the truck then, but his jaw remained set. She looked at the profile of his craggy face, at the scars of his life written there, and she loved him. Steve had been at the ranch when she got home last evening, because news of the fire reached him in town, and he wheeled right out.

They'd talked, there in the kitchen, and Jill sensed they were reaching for each other once more, trying to establish a communication that had been lost. Maybe it was because he was so coldly, furiously mad that her infidelity didn't matter any more-not as much as it had, anyway.

And possibly it was because Steve Devlin had gotten something out of his system when he screwed Sherry Pittman; some part of his manhood might have been regained when he took the girl's cherry and so doing, struck back at the man who'd laid his wife.

She said now, "You haven't told me what we're going to do, once we see Aaron Mercer."

He glared through the windshield. "Play it by ear, I guess. See what he tries, so we know where we stand."

Last night, she hadn't said anything to him about seeing him put it to the beautiful little girl at the hay barn; especially, she didn't say the scene had excited her almost beyond belief. No more than she'd told him about Aaron laying her, not once, but several times now, the latest being last night, after she'd been cleaned and polished to suit his taste. And he had made a project of screwing her then-teasing and forcing and showing off for the watchful beady eyes of Jojo.

Worse was the fact that Aaron had been right when he said she would respond as usual. Tired, worn out by the fire and its aftermath, scared silly by Jojo and ordered to fuck by a man even more frightening, Jill had found herself moving, squirming despite her disgust.

She was a nymphomaniac, she decided, after Aaron finally let her go; certainly she qualified as to having more than a morbid interest in sex. Even before she reached orgasm on Aaron's big, driving cock, she'd forgotten that Jojo was watching, that every detail of the copulation was being registered in his feral eyes. Aaron put on a show for the silent, hulking brute-or forced Jill to; they tried several positions, top to bottom, wrapped around each other, and always there'd been that thick, meaty rod working steadily in and out of her steamy pussy.

"How'd this guy get to you?" Steve asked, and she jumped.

"What-what do you mean?"

Impatiently, he repeated it. "When did this Mercer contact you first?"

"Oh, right after-after I found out that Boyce Pittman was going to foreclose, anyway. Steve, please be careful around him. Those men who jumped on you-they work for him, and they never let him out of their sight, day or night."

"Isn't that kind of weird, for a real estate developer?"

"That's what I thought," she answered. "Are you going to-to accept that big offer?"

He shook his head, and she sank back on the seat. Maybe when he listened to Aaron, he'd change his mind. Steve had seemed receptive enough last night when she broke down and told him all about Aaron Mercer and the cash offer, and explained how she thought Boyce was somehow involved with the man.

She even confessed to lying about Polaroid pictures, supposedly of she and Boyce together, doing it. To make him back off, she told him she did it to force him not to foreclose. And Steve said what's a little genteel blackmail, after a little genteel whoring?

But then he apologized to her sincerely.

So she didn't hit him in the face with a detailed report of everything he'd done to little Sherry Pittman; she held off asking him why he went down on that pretty child, why he'd eaten that almost hairless pussy, when as her husband, he'd never so much as kissed his wife's. Jill kept that secret. Just as she kept the secret of screwing Aaron, because it would only hurt Steve to learn that.

"There's the motel," he said, and turned the truck into the parking lot. "What room's he in?"

"Eleven," she answered, and had a thought that turned her mouth dry. Suppose Aaron told Steve himself, told him all about how his wife had been screwing in the motel room, how she'd been getting dicked by two lovers, only hours apart from each other? Suppose that Steve learned she had hurried to him on his homecoming night with Aaron's semen still trapped in her vaginal passage?

They got out and walked to room eleven; Jill looked at ten and twelve, but didn't see the drapes stir. They were there, she felt; Jojo and Lang were watching them and awaiting orders. She reached for Steve's hand and held it.

When Lang opened the door, Jill wanted to run. She tugged at her husband's hand and tried to tell him silently they'd better flee, but Steve pulled her inside the suite. Lang closed the door behind them, and she caught a faint scent of his cologne, something a woman would wear, a perfume heavy and clinging.

Aaron was in slacks and shirt, both silvery gray; the color at his throat was funeral black. He said, "Bourbon, gin? The Scotch is only fair, and-"

Steve cut in. "No drinks, no crapping around. You ordered my wife to bring me here today, and although I don't see any bars or stars on your shoulders, we're here. So get with it."

Lifting one eyebrow, Aaron Mercer said, "Oh, yes, the military mentality, and the typical enlisted resentment. All right; we'll get with it, since time is important to me just now. I sent for you, and your lovely, accommodating wife, of course-so you can both sign a quitclaim deed on the Rafter D. You'll receive my check for seventy thousand, and there's another made out to Mid-Oregon Trust, which will be delivered today."

"Look-" Steve said, and Jill clutched his arm desperately.

Aaron ignored the interruption. "Lang-if you'll bring those documents here, please?"

Steve moved, and she brushed against his body, trying to somehow block him from being hurt. Beneath his denim jacket, she felt something. My god, she thought, he's got a gun!

He said, as Aaron took the papers from Lang, "Stick them up your ass, Mercer; better yet, shove 'em up your queer's ass-he looks like he'd enjoy it more."

Lang's indrawn breath hissed through suddenly clenched teeth, and Aaron snapped, "No, Lang!" To Steve and Jill, he said, as if they were quietly talking over a legitimate business deal, "You've hurt Lang's feelings, so please sign these now."

Jill said, "Steve-please. Aaron, keep him back and I'll sign-"

Roughly, Steve jerked her back to his side. "The hell you will! I don't need your goddamned money, Mercer! The barn was insured, even if the hay wasn't, and we can build another barn. We can build the Rafter D into anything we want. If we can't work our way out of this bind, then I'll let the bank take the ranch first. Under the Homestead laws, Pittman can't sell it for at least two years, and for some reason, you're in a big hurry."

Lang put a cigarette into the corner of his lips and struck a match to it. He held the match for a long moment, then blew it out. He leaned to drop the match in an ashtray. Aaron said, "All right!"

And Lang straightened up with that long, thin knife winking deadly in his fist.

Jill gasped, "Steve!" and her husband shoved her aside with his hip. Against the wall, she saw Lang eeling toward her husband, and saw Steve reach under his denim jacket.

The .45 automatic in his hand wasn't shiny. It was dull blue, and the mouth of it looked big as the end of a feed barrel. It stopped Lang in his tracks, and Aaron stood carefully still. Steve looked down the length of his arm at Lang, looked down the blue steel bulk of the pistol. It seemed to Jill that the air in the room grew thin and tight, and she could hear the pulsing of her own heart.

Steve said, "The man said I hurt your feelings. That right, boy? That right, you pretty little son of a bitch?"

Lang made some awful kind of mewling noise.

Steve said, "Let go the knife."

Lang dropped it; it didn't make any sound when it struck the thick carpet.

Then Steve took a pair of quick steps, and wiped the end of the gun viciously into Lang's cheek. The slim man went to his knees, and Steve hit him where the neck and shoulder join. Lang fell over, his legs twitching.

Aaron Mercer still hadn't moved, and Steve said to him, "You're being smart," before lifting the heel of his cowboy boot and slamming it down upon Lang's outspread fingers-the lax fingers of his right hand.

Jill winced and shut her eyes, only to open them too soon. Steve was putting his mark on Lang's face, grinding the same bootheel into the man's cheek.

"Put your knife to me again, you little bastard!" Steve said, but Lang was beyond hearing him.

Swiveling the gun muzzle to Aaron, Steve Devlin said, "Stay off my back. Stay off my wife's back. If you're half as smart as you are smartass, you'll get the hell out of town and stay gone. I won't sell my ranch, and if you screw with me or my wife again, I'm going to blow holes right through your goddamned head; your head, Mercer-not this queer's head, and not that big ape's head, but yours. Do I get through to you, big shot? Do you read me loud and clear?"

Aaron said slowly, "You've made a bad mistake, Devlin. You should have never, marked up Lang like that; it was even worse than causing him to lose face before his boss. You really should have killed him."

"I've had my say to you," Steve said. "Come on, Jill."

With a gentle shove of his left hand, he urged her to the door behind him, and his right hand dropped to hip level, the .45 rock-steady there. Jill felt for the knob, her eyes darting from Aaron to Lang's still form, her heart beating quick time in her chest. She said, in a voice that didn't sound at all like her own, "The door's open, Steve."

"Go on out; I'm right behind you."

She backed through the door, feeling behind her with an extended boot, staring at her husband's broad shoulders, and Jill thought that now the load was rolling off her back, that now Steve had come into his own and was putting a stop to people who tried to force her, to force him.

His left hand was on the knob, and he pulled the door shut with a bang as he stepped outside. That's when Jill saw the blur of the huge hand swing over her face and opened her mouth to scream a warning. It never got past her throat. Jojo's hand clamped over her mouth and jerked her head viciously into his chest.

Something cold and hard poked into her right ear, and it hurt.

"Move the gun behind you." Jojo said. "Do it, Mac-or I blow her fuckin' brains all over the parking lot!"

Steve said, "Take it easy-don't hurt her-"

"Behind you," Jojo said. "Turn the knob with the same hand; you can do it holdin' the iron. Mr. Mercer?"

She saw the door swing back, and Aaron said, "I have it, Jojo. Please come back inside, Devlin. And Jojo, do bring her along before somebody sees this little charade."

He carried her like a doll with the sawdust leaked out, her feet above the carpet, and it was difficult breathing around his splayed fingers. Jojo kept the gun muzzle in her ear. When he took it out and let her go, she collapsed upon the couch, her boots only inches from the mashed hand of Lang. Jill sucked for air and shivered.

"Hit him, Jojo," Aaron said. He held Steve's pistol easily, with familiarity, and Jill found a ragged second to think about that.

Then Jojo hit Steve in the body, hit him twice with great, sledging blows that drove Steve back into the wall, bent over the pain in his belly. Jojo moved close and pounded him some more, hitting him in the chest and along the neck. Steve tried to stay on his feet and couldn't. He slid down the wall and Jill moaned in sympathy.

"He'll keep awhile," Aaron said. "Take poor Lang into the bath and clean him up, Jojo. When he's awake, bring him out and make an ice pack for his hand. Oh, yes-and take his knife with you; I think when he recovers that he'll want it very much."

Jojo picked Lang up, carried him into the bath, and some crazy, frightened trick of Jill's mind saw herself being taken into that room, saw the hairy man with the big, slow hands as he soaped her breasts and belly, as he ran his fingers foaming into her labia and played games with the ring of her anus. She drew back from the too-real imagery, and her teeth locked into her lower lip.

"The papers are on the desk here," Aaron said. "Sign them, Jill; there are several copies, of course, but each blank where your signature is required, is marked with a penciled X. Make your name legible."

Somehow, she got off the couch, and somehow, she struggled through the carpet that seemed to be dragging at her legs. Reaching the desk, she reached for the ballpoint pen and missed it; she reached again. Against the wall, her husband lifted his head, but it sagged forward on his chest, and maybe she only thought she'd seen his eyes flicker open for a second there.

Jill signed the first part of the document, fumbled the page over, and dutifully signed each of the succeeding pages, being careful with her name, writing it clearly and heavily upon the paper. When she was finished, she put down the pen and looked at Aaron Mercer. He was still holding Steve's pistol.

"Aaron; let us go. Oh, please, let us go; don't hurt us any more."

He didn't actually smile; it was only a motion of his lips, quickly gone. "My dear, your husband is a stupidly stubborn man. Whether or not he has to be hurt depends upon his cooperation."

She stood there uncertainly. "He'll sign."

"I hope so," Aaron answered, "but I don't really think so. Not right away. He'll have to be convinced, and Lang will be most happy to convince him."