“I tell you, we got sumpum’ comin’ outa this too, Mr. Vandiver.” Duncan was stand
ing a few inches from Kurt and looking defiantly up into the taller and more powerfully built man’s face. “Juney and me, we been waitin’ a long time to bring Jared Lockett down. And you owe us for heppin’ you these past weeks. Ain’t we done everythin’ you axed us to? Didn’t we do right by you with that Mendez woman?” He thrust his face even closer to Kurt’s.
Kurt spoke softly. “I don’t care what you do to her after I’ve had mine, but right now you’re not touching her. Now the two of you get lost. When I need you again, I’ll let you know.” His superiority and carelessness was a mistake. He underestimated the Duncans’ feral instincts.
At a small, quick signal from Wat, June threw her arms around Kurt’s neck and toppled him to the ground. He landed facedown in the soft earth of the cave, June lying on his back, pinioning him on the ground with surprising strength.
Duncan laughed bitterly. “That’ll teach you to cross a Duncan, Mr. Vandiver.” He all but spat the name. “You hold him, Juney, while I service Miz Lockett here. Vandiver, you watch. You may pick up a few pointers.”
June laughed into Kurt’s ear, a soft, seductive laugh, and ground her hips against his buttocks. Kurt lay perfectly still, chagrined that he had let this lowlife get the best of him.
“Now, Missy, I’m gonna show you what a real man is like.”
Lauren watched with terror-glazed eyes as Wat Duncan approached her. His lips were pulled back in a lubricious grin, revealing putrid teeth. His black eyes raked her body and she shrank back against the damp stone wall. He licked his lips as he knelt down in front of her and reached out to the top of her shirtwaist and began unbuttoning it.
Lauren’s hands tried to push his away, but they seemed capable of only useless flutterings. His efforts grew more frantic as he ripped her chemise and laid bare her breasts, made fuller by pregnancy.
“Lookey here, Juney,” he whistled. “Did you ever see any tits purtier than these? Soon’s I’m done, you can play with ’em ifn’ you’ve a mind to.”
Lauren hadn’t intended to do it, but she opened her mouth and a scream that originated in her deepest self propelled its way out of her throat and pierced the dim enclosure.
June jumped involuntarily at the startling cry and Kurt used that split second to roll from under her and unsheathe his gun from its holster. He couldn’t imagine why Duncan and his sister had overlooked it. He pointed the Colt directly at the center of Duncan’s back and pulled the trigger. Lauren felt the thudding impact as the bullet entered Duncan’s body. If a bone hadn’t stopped it, it could have exited his body and entered hers.
He fell heavily against her, a puzzled expression on his ugly face. Blood bubbled out of his mouth. Lauren screamed again, fighting frantically to push his weight from her. She managed to lift him enough for her to slide from beneath him, and almost fainted when she saw his blood soaking into her clothes.
June stared transfixed at the body of her brother, emptying its blood onto the earth. She growled a savage sound as she attacked Kurt, who was still lying on the ground. They rolled together, punching wildly, thrashing arms and legs. June’s thighs flashed whitely in the lantern-lit cave as she struggled for possession of Kurt’s gun. Then another shot blasted through the cave. Lauren watched breathlessly as the two forms locked in combat lay still.
Finally Kurt moved, extricating himself from June’s death grip on the front of his shirt. He slung her limp arms from his impatiently, pulling his legs from their entanglement with the dead girl’s. He practically crawled to the heap of supplies that Duncan had gathered for him. Finding another bottle of whiskey, he uncorked it and tilted it to his lips, watching Lauren all the while.
He drank deeply, then lowered the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Several bloody scratches ribboned down his cheeks. June had managed to inflict her own brand of pain before she had died at the hands of this ruthless man.
Lauren was encapsulated in a mild stupor, viewing the atrocities happening before her apathetically. Her head was pounding with a cadence that was deafening to her ears and agonizing in its intensity. The walls of the cave were slowly tipping first one way and then another, and her eyes refused to focus on any one thing.
“You goddam well better be worth it,” Kurt snarled at her as he stood above her. As she tried to focus her eyes, his form swayed in a sickening rhythm. He reached down to her and, with hands magnified to the size of hams by Lauren’s distorted vision, grabbed her shoulders and hauled her suddenly to her feet. She closed her eyes as pain shot through her head. Dizzily she tried to stand upright.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” grunted Kurt as he feasted his eyes on her. He seemed unaware that her eyes were glazed and, if not for his support, she would have collapsed. One of the large hands closed over a tender breast and squeezed her nipple roughly, while with the other hand, he worked feverishly with the fastenings of his pants.
Lauren recoiled, and for the first time began to struggle against him. “That’s right, Lauren, fight me a little. I don’t want you completely docile.”
She saw the swinging movement out of the corner of her eye just an instant before the rifle butt cracked into Kurt’s skull. His eyes rolled back into his head before he fell heavily to the ground. He dropped Lauren in his fall and she collapsed beside him.
“Miz Lockett!? Is that you?” Crazy Jack Turner knelt down beside her cautiously. She focused on his hideous face, but never had anyone looked so beautiful to her. “What in hell is goin’ on here? Where’s your husband?” Lauren had a fleeting impulse to laugh. Of all things to ask at a time like this!
“Mr. Turner,” she croaked. It was difficult to get her thick tongue to form any words. “Help me. Where are we?”
“You’re in the back of my house, that’s where. I thought no one else on earth knew about the rear door to my cave, ’ceptin’ me. I heard the screamin’ and shootin’ and came through the tunnel to see what in hell the racket was all about.”
He surveyed the bodies lying sprawled on the cave’s floor. “Whoever shot those two should be decorated,” he said without emotion.
Lauren realized that this must be an alternate entrance to Crazy Jack’s house that jutted out of the rock wall above the river. The mutilated face gazed down at her with kindness in the eyes. He looked away, embarrassed, as she vainly tried to cover herself with the bloody remnants of her chemise. She tried to talk, but the words would not come. Her brain seemed incapable of forming a coherent thought. He sensed this and leaned over her. “Let’s get out of here before that—”
He was interrupted when his breath was expelled in a great whoosh as Kurt’s booted foot caught him in the stomach. Crazy Jack fell backward and rolled to his side, reaching for the rifle he had set down on the ground as he knelt over Lauren. Kurt was quick to note the action, raised his pistol, and fired. Lauren’s scream was stifled by shock as Jack’s body jerked when the bullet struck it. She looked at the prone figure. He was bleeding from a hole in his chest. “Oh God,” she groaned. When does this nightmare end? she wondered.
Kurt kicked the sole of Jack’s boot. “Godalmighty! Have you ever seen anything so ugly? I’d heard of this crazy old hermit, but thought he was only a legend that mothers used to scare naughty children. Surely, my dear, you don’t prefer his company to mine?” he questioned as he noticed her whimpering and edging away from him. “Come—”
“If you touch her, you’re dead.” The words came out of the shadows on the other side of the cave near the entrance.
Lauren knew Jared’s voice immediately. He had spoken, but she was as confused as Kurt, who whirled toward the voice and then stood stock-still, frightened and bewildered.