Chapter 10
Your OLD MAN DIDN'T PAY THE MONEY," MOOSE said to Susannah. He crossed the room. Spiro came behind him. They stood in front of her.
"What are you going to do?" she asked. She sounded more curious than frightened.
Moose laughed.
"I suppose that you'll rape me," she said, rather as though making a suggestion. "I don't think you'd mind."
"What can I do?" she said, with wide, innocent eyes.
"I'm quite helpless."
"That's right," Moose said.
"If you untied my hands I might not be quite so helpless of course," she said. "I couldn't get away, but I'd be able to move a bit more. It wouldn't be so much fun raping me if I couldn't squirm and fight, would it?"
"It won't do you no good to fight "
"I know," she said. "But you might enjoy it more if I could squirm a little."
"This is quite a dame," Moose said.
"We won't hurt her much," Spiro said.
"Just hurt me a little bit," she said.
Trask moved to the window beside the door and very carefully looked into the front room. He was just in time to see the two men go into the back. He moved to the door and pushed very gently against it and found that it was locked. He was going to take no chances, there were at least two of them and they both had guns and Trask had to have the surprise on his side. He moved off the porch and went around to the side, walking on his toes over the soft ground. He had the gun in his hand and he was crouched and coiled and ready for anything.
"Untie her," Moose said.
Spiro went behind the chair and untied the ropes. They fell away. Susannah stood up and stretched. When she stretched her breasts swelled beneath the tight sweater.
"You're going to write a little note to your husband," Moose told her. looking carefully at her breasts.
"Sure," she said. "As soon as you convince me. I'm sure that a big man like you will be very convincing. I'm sure you'll know just how much to hurt me."
"Women say that I hurt," Moose said. He swelled his massive chest and glared at her. "I'm very big and I'm very rough and they say I hurt. But they like it."
"I'm sure they do," Susannah said. She arched her back. She was stiff from sitting tied in the chair.
"We're both going to hurt you a little bit at the same time," Spiro said, anxious that Moose did not forget that point. She looked at him. He was not big and she looked back at Moose. She smiled.
There was one small window in the room. It was too small for anyone to go through. Curtains covered it but they were not pulled all the way together. The dark sky showed through in the center. But neither Spiro nor Moose were looking at the window.
Trask was looking in.
He had gone all the way to the back and now he was standing on his toes and just his eyes were above the sill. He could see nearly the whole little room. He saw the two men and the woman standing in a group at the center and he saw the unmade bed against the wall. He could hear the murmur of their voices, but he couldn't make out the words. He didn't care about that. The situation was obvious and he knew what he was going to do, but he would not be rushed into it. No matter what were to happen in that room, Trask would not make his move until the time was right. He intended to save the woman, and this was probably the most gallant intention that he had ever had. Trask had a sense of humor, of a sort. He had taken the money that would have saved her and now he felt obligated to save her himself, provided he could do so without taking any great risk to himself. And he didn't like Moose at all, and welcomed the chance to show how much he disliked him. Trask loved action. He smiled as he stood at the window and he waited until the moment was right.
"You want to take your clothes off?" Moose asked
"Shouldn't you tear them off? After all, this is against my will. I really shouldn't undress so that you can rape me. that wouldn't be right."
Spiro took a step toward her She faced him. her chest extended and her hips drawn back. Spiro glanced toward Moose and the big man nodded.
Spiro took the neck of her jersey in one hand and yanked. It tore down the front and came away, a torn rag in his little hand.
Her breasts were large and they swelled against the thin restraining brassiere. The brassiere was black and her flesh was very pale and smooth.
Moose stepped in from the other side. He took the zipper of her slacks and pulled it down She looked at him. They were both more nervous than she. She turned so that she was facing Moose and he licked his lips. He took the top of the slacks in both hands and peeled them down. They were very tight. He dropped to his knees in front of her and pulled them down. When they were at her ankles she stepped out of them. Her panties were black, too. She stepped away from the gold slacks and stood facing both men again, with her feet widespread on the floor. The bed was behind her. She tossed her head so that her hair brushed over one side of her face.
"Get on the bed," Moose growled.
"You'll have to force me."
Moose nodded to Spiro.
Spiro advanced. She didn't move. He took her by the arms and shoved her toward the bed. She struggled, but not too much. He threw her down and she lay on her side and looked at him. She was disappointed. They were being much too gentle. She decided that she was going to have to make things harder for them.
"I won't write that note," she said.
Moose smiled. He started taking off his clothes. Spiro followed suit. Moose put his pants over the back of the chair with his gun still in the pocket. Spiro took his shoulder harness off and put that on the chair also. Trask noticed this and judged the distance from the bed to the chair He was weighing his chances of going in the front door and reaching the back room before they reached the chair. It would be difficult to cover them or to fire from the window. It was too high and there was nothing on which to stand. He decided to wait. He could see that both men were soon going to be occupied. They might not even hear him break the lock on the front door, the way that things were developing.
Both men were naked now.
Spiro was very thin and white. He looked like a ghost, a very excited ghost.
Moose was darker, very strong and bristling with coarse black hair. Muscles bulged in his shoulders and chest. He was bigger than Trask but not as solid. He moved with slow, clumsy power as he walked to the bed. He dwarfed Spiro and the bed and even the room, but nothing was going to dwarf the white-fleshed woman with the black undergarments as she lay on the bed. Moose sat down.
The bed shifted and protested. Susannah moved a little away from him. Spiro got on the bed from the other side and she was between them.
"You are strong," she said, looking at Moose.
Moose grunted. He took her brassiere with one hand and twisted the material in his fingers and then tore it away. The straps snapped and left a red mark across her back. Her breasts, freed, rolled heavily on her chest. They were nearly perfect spheres and despite their heft they did not sag, they stood upright. The nipples were large and they had already begun to stiffen and stand away from the breasts.
"Nice," Moose said. "This is going to be very nice."
He gathered the elastic of her panties in his hand and tore them away too. He dropped them on the floor. She rolled onto her stomach. Her buttocks were round and white and firm. Her legs were together.
"Turn over," Moose said.
"Turn me!" she said.
He slid a hand under her. His fingers groped and found the nipple and he pulled. She rolled over onto her back. He pressed her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, hard. He pulled and it stretched away from her flesh. Susannah gasped. This was better! This was the way that a woman should be raped!
Spiro was not an original man. He grinned and took the other nipple and pulled in the same way. He shifted nearer to her but Susannah was looking only at Moose.
"Relax!" he snarled.
"No."
He crushed the nipple as hard as he could. The pain brought tears to her eyes, but she crossed one leg over the other and gritted her teeth.
Moose laughed. He released her nipple and his fingers dug into her legs. He moved them with brute force. When he let her go she let her legs stay where they were, one stretched out along the bed and the other trailing over the edge with her foot just touching the floor.
Moose moved to her. Spiro looked enviously on, still twisting at her nipple.
Then Moose stopped.
"Both at once," he said. He pulled her up from the bed so that she was kneeling. He motioned at Spiro. Spiro grinned. He stretched flat on the bed and Moose lifted Susannah and placed her near the smaller man. She looked over her shoulder at Moose. She had wanted Moose and r-ow she thought that she was going to have to wait but Moose had ideas of his own.
Spiro raised himself. Moose lifted Susannah and then placed her. He slowly let her down and Spiro guided himself to her and they settled gently. Spiro was not strong.
Moose knelt behind her. She had started to move a little, from habit, or perhaps from a desire to finish with Spiro so that she could have Moose. But Moose placed a hand on her buttocks and held her still. Spiro squirmed a little, and waited for Moose. Moose knelt close behind her and towered over her. He raised her a little and pushed her head down so that her face rested on the bed beside Spiro's head. She quivered there, not quite sure what to expect.
Moose took her buttocks in his hands.
"No!" she said.
"So I'm not big enough to hurt you, huh?" he said. "Not that way!"
He laughed. He slid against her. He pressed forcibly. She tried to move away but he held her and Spiro held her nipples in his hands.
Moose grunted.
He pushed harder.
"Please," she said. "Anything else. I'll do whatever you want. You'll hurt me...."
Her body resisted but he was very strong and ready. Very slowly they began to move closer. She screamed, her voice muffled against the bed.
"Any other way," she sobbed. "One at a time. Not that way." She turned and looked at him, crying now. She opened her mouth. He grinned at her, and gave one last great effort, and that was too late, she screamed once more with pain and then she buried her face into the bed and sobbed soundlessly. That hurt a great deal but that was not so bad, and that even began to be strangely pleasant.
Moose moved a slow rhythm.
Spiro moved faster, twisting savagely at her nipple: to pull her to him, he scarcely noticed with the greater burden of Moose, ever pressing. Her fingers twisted into the bedclothes and she waited and prayed that she would not be too badly injured.
Spiro gasped. She noticed nothing but she knew from the way he quivered that he was finished. She could see him moving away from her then. She slid off and flattened out on the bed and Mooses' weight crushed down as he kept up the slow rhythm. And then he moved faster and that hurt even more, but she knew that that would not be much longer.
He grunted.
Carefully he moved away.
"How was that, baby?" he asked.
But Susannah could not speak.
Trask stepped away from the window. He pursed his lips. It had been an interesting scene. But now he had other things to do. He went around to the front door. He tested it with his weight and it moved slightly. The lock was not strong. He held the gun ready in his right hand and put his left shoulder to the door and heaved. The door resisted for a moment and then the lock gave and the door swung in. He stopped it before it banged against the wall and stood crouched beside it, gun up and pointed at the other door, waiting for the two men to come at him.
But they hadn't heard.
Trask moved across the room to the other door. Susannah was face down on the bed. Spiro had gotten up and was grinning. Moose was sitting on the edge of the bed. He grabbed Susannah by the hair and raised her face. She looked at him. She was no longer so confident. But, in some strange way. she had enjoyed what they did for her. She didn't really want them to stop, but she didn't want them to hurt her any more than they already had. Her body ached. And she saw that Moose was quite ready to go again.
"Wait a minute...." she said.
He pulled her toward him by the hair. She slid along the bed and he raised her face above him.
"You get me excited," he said.
He pushed her down.
Spiro chuckled.
Susannah tried to turn away from him, but he pulled her back, roughly. At least, she thought, this won't hurt me.
Spiro crouched on bended knees to get a better view of the proceedings.
Moose closed his eyes, smiling.
"Nice and slow and easy," he said.
"And don't bite," Spiro added.
Susannah moved. He showed her the rhythm that he wanted. Spiro waddled a bit closer and placed a hand on her back and began to caress her, wanting her to hurry so that he could take his turn at this new punishment.
That was when Trask walked through the door. He threw the door wide open and it banged against the wall and he came through in a half crouch with the gun in his right hand held well in front of him, toward the bed. He had expected the two men to be off the bed by now. He didn't want to shoot when they were clustered around the girl.
Spiro acted on instinct. He didn't even look at the door, the moment he heard it open he threw himself over backward, away from the bed and toward the chair where his gun was. He did a backward roll and came to his knees behind the chair. He was very fast and agile.
Moose pulled Susannah off him and stood up. lifting her with him and between him and the door. When he saw Trask he snarled like an animal.
Spiro pulled his gun from the holster and Trask moved his gun in that direction and fired. The bullet struck Spiro in the right hip and knocked his leg from under him. He fell to the right, just as Trask fired again, and the second shot missed and slammed through the wall.
Lying face down Spiro got his gun up and fired too quickly. The angle was wrong and he overshot. Trask crouched lower and shot twice just as Moose threw the girl across the room at him.
The first slug hit the floor three inches in front of Spiro's face and as the splinters flew up the second bullet came in five inches farther back and hit him in the face. It tore his jaw away and his scream was a bubbling, horrible thing. The gun dropped from his hand and he half rolled over, clutching at where his mouth had once been.
Trask spun to face Moose just as Susannah hit him.
Moose was a strong man and the girl hurtled through the air and banged into him squarely. Trask. off balance, fell backward against the wall with her on top of him.
Moose took two long steps and leaped onto the pile. He grabbed Trask's wrist in one hand and the gun in the other and twisted savagely. Trask kicked out and tried to roll free and the gun was torn from his hand. But Moose held it by the barrel and could not shoot. He swung it like a club at Trask's head. Trask blocked with his forearm. Moose's wrist hit the arm and the gun, held loosely, flew out of his hand and clattered across the floor toward where Spiro was still making gurgling noises.
They both straightened up. They faced each other. The naked woman was stretched on the floor between them. Moose's eyes darted toward the chair where his gun was still in his pants and near where Trask's gun had landed. Trask looked straight at Moose. Neither dared move toward the guns. The girl was sobbing, Spiro was gurgling, and they seemed to face each other for a long while before either moved.
Then Moose roared, in rage and confidence. Moose had never lost many fights. He was heavier than Trask and he had made a business of bashing other men. He knew that he wouldn't need a gun for this.
And Trask smiled, the way he had smiled when he dropped Ken Fee out of the window. Trask had never lost a fight.
Moose stepped forward with his right cocked and his left held low. Trask feinted a step backward and then stepped in behind a straight left. It was a ramrod shot and it landed directly on Moose's mouth. Trask could feel the teeth yield and the lips crush between them. He ducked low and stepped aside and Moose's big right missed over the top. They faced each other again and Moose was not stunned. Trask had knocked men out with that left jab and he could see that he was in for a very hard battle with this big man. And he smiled again.
Moose came in. Trask tried the same feint and Moose shifted to his right, took the left high on the head and shot his right under it to the body. It was a good punch but it felt as though he had hit solid rock. Trask didn't even grunt. He dropped his right cross onto Moose's temple and Moose hit the floor on hands and knees and bounced. He leaped up instantly, shaking his massive head to clear it. Trask hit him with the straight left again, and this time his nose went. Blood leaped out like a waterfall and Moose fell back against the wall.
Trask stepped in to throw the left again but he forgot about the girl. His left foot tripped over her leg as she started to sit up and he fell forward against Moose.
Moose got one arm around his head and grabbed his wrist with the other and began to squeeze. He twisted and Trasks face came up, his neck strained. Moose got his weight into it and Trask turned over as they slumped to the floor with Moose on top. Moose's arms were like a vice on Trask's neck.
Susannah was sitting up now, watching with open mouth. She was too stunned to try to escape or to try to help Trask. And she didn't even realize that Trask was helping her. She sat quite close to the struggling men and watched, her heavy breasts dropping just a bit, both nipples already swollen with the crushing that Moose had given them in his fingers.
Moose put all his strength into the twisting, grinding motion. Trask gritted his teeth. He hit Moose in the face with a right but he couldn't get any weight behind the punch with his shoulders on the floor. He pushed against Moose's throat and forced his head back and slammed a chop at his throat. Moose's arms loosened just a little, and Trask was able to reach down along his body. Moose was naked and Trask hit him, his hand closed and began to crush. Moose moaned and heaved himself away. He was up first and he kicked, but he was barefoot and his toes landed on the forehead. Then Trask was up, too, and angry. He got his head down and went in with hooks to the body. Moose met him and they stood toe to toe and slammed away. Moose felt his wind starting to go. His fists seemed to bounce from Trask's body harmlessly and Trask's fists were sinking deeply into his stomach. Moose tried a right to the head but Trask was low and he hit him right on the top of the head. He felt his knuckles push out of place. Moose knew that he was going to lose this fight. Moose felt afraid. He lashed out desperately with his left and Trask moved back a step and Moose turned and ran.
He ran through the front room and out onto the porch, his naked body gleamed in the night. He ran for the car. Trask did not follow immediately. He had gained a bit of respect for Moose's strength. He went to the chair and got the gun and then he walked slowly through the cabin and onto the porch.
Moose was in the car, behind the wheel. He was trying to start it. It wouldn't start. Trask knelt on one knee and rested his gun arm on the porch railing and carefully shot at the side window. He saw the cracks spread out in a wide circle and saw Moose's head leap. The head was still there and he fired again and this time the head bounced right across the car and banged the opposite window and Moose slumped out the length of the seat and lay very still. His big head seemed to have been pushed out of shape.
Moose would bash no more.
Trask went back into the cabin.
Susannah was standing now. Spiro was no longer flopping on the floor. Trask didn't bother to see whether or not he was dead. Trask didn't care.
"Get dressed," he said "We have to get out of here."
"Who are you?"
"Just a guy," he said.
"You saved me...."
"You didn't look like you needed much saving."
She looked shocked for a second. And then, slowly, a smile crept over her face. She raised her hands to her breasts and cupped them together. She ran her thumbs very gently over the swollen nipples.
"Look how they hurt me," she said. "They squeezed my nipples and...."
"I know. I was watching from the window."
She didn't look embarrassed. She rubbed the nipples some more and they seemed to become more swollen and firmer. But Trask was not interested. Not then. Not in the aftermath of killing two men.
"Get dressed," he said again.
Susannah shrugged. She began to gather her torn clothing and put it on as best as she could. She put Moose's shirt over her torn jersey. They went out to the car and Trask dragged Moose's body out and left it on the ground. He fixed the car and got in.
"You deserve a reward," she told him.
"Maybe I'll give you one," she said, with her eyebrows up, rubbing her swollen nipples.