Authors: Darrell Maloney
“Now as I said, I ain’t seen no women for a very long time. But say I come across her, how many cattle and pigs would you give me in exchange for her?”
Again, David was in a difficult position. But he had to come up with numbers.
“We’re willing to give you a bull and two cows. A hog and two sows. You can breed them for butchering and have an ongoing supply.”
Martel laughed.
“An
ongoing supply
, huh? You sound like a college boy. You a college boy?”
“I went to college, yes.”
“I hate college boys. I hate ‘em with a passion. You college boys suck up all the money that workin’ folk should be gettin.’”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, sir…”
“And I believe you’re trying to shortchange me, college boy. I believe the going rate for a woman is two bulls and four cows and four roosters and ten hens. You can keep the pigs. I hate the stinkin’ creatures.”
“We would be amenable to those terms, certainly.”
Once again, Martel mocked him.
“
Amenable to those terms
? Stop it with the college boy crap. You’re giving me a headache. And my finger gets twitchy when I get a headache.”
“Yes, sir.”
“She your wife, this woman?”
“No, sir. She’s the wife of a very good friend.”
“Well, college boy, I ain’t been with a woman in ages. If I come across her, I’ll likely fuck her real good before I take her home. In fact, I may fuck her so good she won’t
want
to go home. What do you think your ‘good friend’ would think of that?”
“Please don’t do that, sir. She’s a good Christian woman. That would harm a lot of good people unnecessarily.”
Martel laughed.
“Well, I ain’t seen her. If I do, how do I find you to swap her for some animals?”
“You’d never find us. We live down a series of unnamed and unpaved roads. She knows the way and can show you.”
“Fair enough. Now get the hell off my land and don’t come back. I can already feel my finger starting to twitch.”
“Yes, sir.”
David turned and walked back toward the tree line, certain he was going to be shot in the back at any moment.
Bryan had his rifle trained on Martel’s head, fighting hard the impulse to ease back his trigger finger. Bryan Too and Brad had their sights trained on Martel’s cold heart.
To Martel’s credit, he chose not to raise his rifle in David’s direction.
If he had, he’d have fallen dead before he could have gotten off a shot.
David made it back to the tree line and disappeared into the woods, amazed that he was still alive. He picked up his weapons from behind the tree where he’d left them and made his way back to the rendezvous point at the end of the caliche drive.
Bryan Too and Brad were both waiting for him there, ready to plan their next move.
Bryan, on point, had positioned himself the farthest away. He therefore had the most ground to cover coming back to the rendezvous point, and would take the longest.
The other men tried to be patient, but after ten minutes it was painfully obvious Bryan wasn’t coming.
“Damn it,” Brad said, voicing the same sentiment all of them felt. “What the hell is he up to?”
Chapter 51
Martel lingered on the porch for a couple of minutes after David disappeared from view, and Bryan held his position. Once Martel seemed satisfied that the stranger wasn’t coming back, he turned and went back into the farmhouse.
Bryan left his position and skirted the edge of the woods, staying just out of sight until he worked his way around the house and on its west side.
Once again, he was letting his heart overrule his head. Common sense would have told him to rendezvous with the others and devise a plan that would get Sarah out of the house with little chance of her or anyone else getting hurt.
But Bryan had never been much on thinking logically. All he knew was that his wife was alone in that house with at least one very bad man.
And possibly others.
He knew that the man on the porch had threatened to rape her, and for all he knew could be doing just that at this very moment.
And he knew that Sarah had looked out the window for help.
He wouldn’t let her down. Damn common sense. Damn a game plan. He had no time.
He was making his move now.
David would have insisted that they wait until dark. After dark they could sneak up to the house and peer inside the windows to see what they were up against. How many bad men were there. How many were armed. Where they were in the house.
And, most importantly, where Sarah was in the house.
By the time David and the others realized Bryan wasn’t coming back, though, Bryan was already at the kitchen door, slowly turning the knob. And praying that it opened.
It did. It was unlocked.
His luck was holding.
He slowly eased the door open and peered inside. There was no one in the kitchen.
He slipped off his shoes while holding his handgun in front of him, and used his socked feet to push them to the side.
Then he slowly made his way through the den and then the living room. He expected to be challenged at any moment, but the first floor appeared to be completely empty.
Then he heard Martel yelling loudly in an upstairs bedroom.
“What do you mean, ‘
honey, who was that man?
’ Here’s better question, you stupid little bitch. What in the hell were you doing looking out of the window when I told you not to? Am I gonna have to punish you again?”
Then Bryan heard a voice that was distinctively Sarah’s. There was no mistaking it.
“I’m sorry, honey. I was just worried about you, that’s all. Please don’t handcuff me to the bed again. I…”
“Handcuffs are the least of your worries now, bitch. I may just have to kill you this time.”
What Bryan heard next sickened him, and spurred him into action. It was the unmistakable sound of flesh on flesh, as when someone punches another.
And he could hold himself back no longer.
Caution be damned. Bryan sprang up the stairs and into the open door of the master bedroom.
Sarah was cowering in the corner of the room and trying to cover herself from the additional blows she knew were coming. Martel was towering over her, a hulk of a man. Instead of bending over to punch her, he let loose a vicious kick to her midsection.
What alarmed Bryan the most was what Martel held in his hand: a Bowie knife with a nine inch blade.
Martel started to let loose a stream of profanities at her, then noticed someone rushing him from the corner of his eye.
He half turned and said, “Who the hell are…”
It was as far as he got before Bryan hit him square in the mouth, knocking out his two lower teeth and busting his lower lip wide open.
Chapter 52
Outside the house, at the end of the long drive, David faced a dilemma.
Bryan had had plenty of time to return to the group. And he hadn’t.
That could mean he’d done something rash and very stupid. That wouldn’t have been a surprise to any of them.
Or, it could mean something else.
It could mean that he was scouting the perimeter of the house, looking for a good way in, so the group could better plan their assault on the structure.
The others looked to David for guidance.
“Hopefully he didn’t go all John Wayne on us. Surely he’s not that stupid.”
“He might be. But I hope not.”
“Let’s work our way back through the woods to where we left him. Brad, he left his radio on, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Don’t talk into it, in case he’s in or near the house. Key your microphone three times every thirty seconds or so. See if he responds. If he hears the duress code, he should respond. If he’s able to talk, he’ll answer and we can ask him where the hell he is. If he responds in kind, we’ll know he’s close to the house and can’t speak.”
“What if he doesn’t respond at all?”
“Then he’s an idiot who needs his ass kicked. That means he’s turned his radio off and has gone in alone.”
The trio quickly worked their way around to the front of the house, just inside the forest’s tree line and just out of sight of the house.
They were hoping against hope they’d stumble across Bryan, on his way back.
But there was no sign of him. They found his position, and he and his weapons were gone.
There was nothing they could do but follow his path and continue around the side of the house.
On the west side they found the same kitchen door that Bryan had found.
It was closed, and Bryan was nowhere in sight.
“Where in the hell is he?”
At that moment, a blood curdling scream came from within the house.
Sarah had found her voice.
And the three men sprinted across the yard toward the kitchen door.
Chapter 53
Martel was a mountain of a man. And he was fiercely protective of things he considered his, or things that belonged to another and which he wanted for himself.
He considered Sarah one of those possessions. Nothing more, nothing less.
It never dawned on him, not even once, that she was a living breathing human being, worthy of the same considerations and freedoms that he had.
Compassion and empathy were two things Martel was just incapable of feeling.
Bryan was losing the battle. He’d never taken Karate, or Judo, or any of those other cool things kids take when they’re young. He’d been busy playing little league and Pop Warner football to learn how to defend himself against a much larger aggressor.
But Bryan had one thing going for him. In the battle of right or wrong, he had justice on his side.
And in the America where Bryan grew up, justice always prevailed.
Always. Without exception.
No matter how much bigger and badder the evil guy was.
Bryan had succeeded in kicking the knife out of the big man’s hand. In doing so, he sliced open his ankle. And his blood was flying everywhere as the two tussled on the ground.
But Bryan wasn’t the only one losing blood. The big man was bleeding profusely from a nose that was probably broken.
At least Bryan hoped it was. He’d certainly hit him hard enough to break it.
The two continued to exchange blows. Bryan knew to stay close to the man, and to take his swings only when he could score a clean hit. If he’d backed away and let the man take a good swing, the strength of the punch might have knocked him out cold.