The Blackfoot Trail by Charles G. West

Author:Charles G. West
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Chapter 9

Starbeau grinned as he thought to himself, She ain’t swishing that little tail back and forth like she used to before she got rode good and hard. Sitting in the shade of a tall pine that had somehow managed to grow up through a crack in the huge boulder he was using as a backrest, he made himself comfortable while he watched the battered young girl carry wood for his fire. She had made an attempt to escape when they had stopped at midday to rest the horses, mistakenly thinking he was not watching her closely when she went to fill the coffeepot. It was a desperate attempt and she paid a painful price in the form of a beating that left her bleeding and bruised. Though small in stature, she had never been a frail girl. But the abuse at the hands of the evil monster had taken its toll, and the small portion of food allotted to her was not sufficient to sustain her. She was not sure how much longer she could survive.

“That’s enough wood for now,” he yelled at her. “Get over here and cook my supper.” He watched as she dutifully did his bidding. He was going to miss the pleasure of ravaging her body, he was thinking. But he was about to reach the point where he deemed it time to put her out of her misery. He didn’t know the country well enough to be sure, but he figured that he should be reaching some of the mining camps before riding very much farther. Her defensive practice of pretending she was dead when he had his way with her was infuriating to him, anyway. Like mating with a possum, he thought. He made up his mind then. One more go-round and I’ll cut her throat. Having made the decision that this was to be her last night, he smiled to himself in anticipation of the night’s entertainment. The killing promised to be the more enjoyable part to Starbeau. I might even let her have a little bit more to eat tonight, he thought.

Lost in the moment of anticipating his evening’s entertainment, he was suddenly distracted by the girl’s movements by the fire. In the process of adding more wood, she had abruptly frozen, bent over with a sizable limb poised over the flame, but suspended motionless. Something had caught her eye, causing her to stare at the forest beyond the stream. Following the direction of her gaze, he was startled to discover three Indians at the edge of the trees, mounted, silently watching the activities of the girl by the fire.

He immediately grabbed his rifle and prepared to fire, but the Indians made no move to attack. Instead, they calmly watched both the white man and woman for what seemed a long time to Starbeau as he remained seated by the pine tree trying to decide whether to shoot or not. Maybe they were friendly. He didn’t know one Indian from another, so he couldn’t say what tribe they were.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.