Page 82 of Runaway Hucow

The hucow was standing next to the bar with her hands bound behind her back. She had exchanged her cotton shift for a shirt and a pair of jeans. Nevertheless, the auctioneer recognized her immediately. She was a pretty little thing, just as he remembered her being, and the top few buttons of her shirt were unfastened, giving him a clear view of her deep cleavage. The auctioneer felt his cock twitch inside his trousers, then he remembered the way the hucow had seduced him in the stable two weeks before, and his lust shifted into anger.

There would be time enough to toy with her luscious body once he was finished torturing her. But first, he had a transaction to settle.

He turned his attention to the bounty hunter, who was standing directly behind the hucow. The man was a giant, close to seven feet tall, and his massive frame was draped in a heavy buffalo hide cloak. His head was adorned in an Indian war bonnet fashioned from a buffalo’s head, with a pair of curving black horns.

The auctioneer vaguely remembered seeing this man once before, standing near the back of the crowd during the auction. He hadn’t paid the giant much attention at the time—the auctioneer only cared about bidders—but he paid attention to him now. As he strode forward, the auctioneer peered at the bounty hunter’s face, but his features were hidden in shadow.

“You always keep the lights so dim in here?” the auctioneer asked.

“Trying to conserve oil,” the bartender answered, not even looking up from the glass he was cleaning. The auctioneer thought he heard a slight tremble of fear in the man’s voice, but he couldn’t be sure. “As you can see, business isn’t exactly booming.”

“Maybe if you turned the lights up a little, you’d get more customers,” the auctioneer said. “Then again, probably not. If you turned the lights up, folks would be able to see what a dump this place is.” He turned his attention back to the bounty hunter again. “This is an unusual choice of venue, friend.”

“I just wanted someplace quiet to make the exchange.”

“Fair enough,” the auctioneer said. Then he lowered his eyes to hucow’s face. Her expression was blank, but he could see the fire of hatred burning behind her eyes. She was going to hate him a whole lot more after he was through torturing and raping her. The auctioneer would have liked to punch her in the face right here and now, but he kept his emotions in check and said: “I’ve been looking all over for you, heifer.”

The hucow gave him a quizzical look.

“What?”

The auctioneer raised his voice and repeated himself. “I said I’ve been looking all over for you, and now that I’ve got you, I’m going to teach you a lesson.”

“You don’t have her yet,” the giant bounty hunter said. His voice was like rolling thunder. “You have to pay me first.”

“Of course,” the auctioneer said. “Of course.”

He reached inside his vest and drew out a stack of one hundred crisp five-dollar notes held together by a paper strap. He tossed the money onto the bar beside the bounty hunter.

“Five hundred dollars,” the auctioneer said, glaring at the hucow. “That’s five times what your troublesome little ass is worth at auction, but I’m going to get my money’s worth out of you.”

“What?” the hucow said again.

“You deaf or something?” the auctioneer shouted. He was starting to get irritated now. “Maybe you need to clean the shit out of your ears.”

That was when he noticed something. The hucow didn’t have shit in her ears, but she did have something in them. Cotton. Two great big wads of it stuffed inside, good and deep.

The hairs on the back of the auctioneer’s neck stood up.

He didn’t see the giant draw his gun. It just sort of appeared above the hucow’s head. The thing looked more like a double-barreled cannon than a shotgun.

Two quick blasts shook the saloon. The auctioneer didn’t see what the gun did to his two bodyguards, but he felt it—a warm spray of mist that landed on his cheeks and the back of his neck.

Then the hucow drew her gun. Her arms weren’t bound behind her back as the auctioneer had thought. She’d just been holding them like that so he wouldn’t see the pistol she was carrying, a five-shot .45 Colt revolver. She aimed the end of it right at the center of his chest.

“Dear God!” the auctioneer screamed. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“What I should have done when I had the chance,” the hucow said.

Then she pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER 42

Tess had thought it would be hard killing a man. As it turned out, it was actually quite easy. She didn’t take any pleasure from putting a bullet through the auctioneer’s heart, but neither did she feel any remorse about it. The man stared at her for a moment, his eyes wide with disbelief behind a rising puff of gunsmoke. Then he slumped bonelessly to the floor and lay there in a spreading pool of blood. It looked almost black in the dim light of the saloon. His two bodyguards were already lying dead behind him.

Tess yanked the cotton stuffing out of her ears and dropped it on the floor next to the dead men.

“You shouldn’t have taken that out,” Spike said behind her. “There’s liable to be more shooting still.”