Chapter 10 Escape
Honey slowly returned to the land of the living some hours later. She was
still lashed to the kitchen table, and her body felt as if she'd been run over
by a herd of cattle. Her grease-spattered breasts were still lightly stuck to
the table's surface.
She could see throught the kitchen window that it was pitch dark outside,
and she could hear crickets chirping, but she had no way of telling whether it
was ten o'clock at night or four o'clock in the morning. There didn't appear to
be anyone in the kitchen with her; she could see no one in front of her and
there was no one visible in the mirror which would have shown anyone behind her.
Nor could she hear anyone breathing.
When she pulled at the ropes which held her, she sensed that her bindings
had loosened a little during her prolonged ordeal. Her right wrist, in
particular, seemed to have a little more freedom of movement. She remembered
that her bacon-turning wrist had probably been on the receiving end of more
grease than any other part of her body. And slowly she began to work that
well-greased hand against the confining leather strips.
She was desperately thirsty - it must have been twelve hours since she'd
last had anything to drink. The tepid pitcher of water on the counter near the
stove looked like the elixir of the gods to her at this point.
Little by little, the blonde captive worked her wrist back and forth in the
rawhide until... at last! She could feel her wrist sliding out of its leather
binding. Silently she used her freed right hand to help loosen the knots that
encircled her other wrist, and then, moment later, the bindings on her
belt-lashed legs.
But what now? she pondered as she pulled up the partially-ripped white
panties that had been rolled down to the tops of her thighs. First she grabbed
the pitcher of water and lifted it to her mouth, gulping the tepid water
voraciously, heedless of the the water that spilled out of the corners of the
mouth of the pitcher and dripped down onto her peerless pink-nippled breasts.
Were the gunmen gone? Perhaps they had had their fun and left. But they
had said nothing about leaving tonight, so it was best to be on her guard.
When she had finished drinking she armed herself with a carving knife, and
considered whether she should try to find some clothes, or whether she should
just flee as she was, in her half-shredded panties. In west Texas at this time
of year the peak daytime temperatures frequently exceeded ninety degrees, but
the nights were were cool, in the fifties. Clothes would be nice. A gun from
daddy's gun rack would be even better. If Jack and Ernie hadn't already hidden
them away.
As she eased the door that led from the kitchen to the parlor open, it
creaked loudly. She could hear someone snoring loudly but unevenly not far away
in the pitch-dark house. Unhappily, she gave up the idea of looking for clothes
for her escape - it was just too risky. There were no candles in the kitchen,
and looking for one in the parlor in the darkness was too dangerous. If she
stumbled into something, she would probably wake whoever was sleeping out there.
She decided she would have to go out the back door, and make her escape as
she was - wearing only the white, rather the worse for wear, panties.
She considered possible escape routes. The Wilson house was the last one
on the dirt road; treacherous rocky hills rose above the house on three sides.
The only way out, for any of them, was along the dirt road that led back toward
town. The cattle grazing land extended for acres and acres back from each side
of the road. The nearest farmhouse, the Dunbar ranch, was about three miles
down the road, and the town perhaps five miles beyond that.
All she had to do was get to the corral, get a horse, and ride the three
short miles down the road and she would be safe.
Still carrying the carving knife in her right hand, she carefully opened
the back door of the kitchen, and inched her way outside into the blackness of
the night. She paused momentarily, as the cold night air enveloped her nearly
nude body. The night was dark save for a few patches of stars in the cloudy
night-time sky. It was a full moon tonight, Honey remembered from the almanac,
but the moon was apparently hidden behind the clouds.
She paused, shivering, conscious of her tender nipples hardening in
response to the chill in the air, while she waited for her eyes to become
accustomed to the darkness. As they did so, she began edging her way carefully,
silently, across the short distance between the house and the horse corral. But
then she rememembered - Casey's horse had snapped a leg right before the hands
had left on the cattle drive, and he had borrowed her own palomino. The only
horses in the corral, with the men all gone, were Ernie's and Jack's. So she
would have to try to make a getaway on one of them. And hope that the pair of
lazy hounds that made their home in the barnyard would keep their peace.
As she approached the corral though, she made out the sleeping figure of
Ernie, leaning against the corral gate, an empty whiskey bottle lying alongside
him. Apparently he'd staggered out to the corral to feed or water the horses
and passed out at the gate. To get a horse out of the corral she'd have to get
past the little weasel. Her grip tightened on the knife. Should she flee on
foot? Or try to mount one of the intruders' horses? Wouldn't that be bound to
wake Ernie, who almost certainly wore his gun? Should she try to stab the little
ferret-faced man and then escape?
As she frantically considered the possibilities the bright moon momentarily
peaked out from behind a patch of clouds; she could see the gleaming handle of
Ernie's gun protruding from its holster at his waist. If she could stab him,
and take the gun... Surely that was her best chance.
Stealthily she tiptoed forward toward him, gripping the knife tighter,
ready to strike. But just as she was about to plunge the butcher knife into his
chest, she was startled by the barking of one of the barnyard dogs. They had
been sleeping nearby, and had gotten a whiff of the bacon grease that had clung
to her chest and congealed between her legs, and began barking.
The barking woke Ernie Gibbs from his inebriated stupor just in time to see
Honey standing over him, brandishing the big knife. "What the fu...?" he began
groggily, and then quickly tried to turn sideways and reach for his gun all at
once. Honey stabbed wildly with the knife, and buried it deep in his upper left
arm, but his right hand continued to fumble for his gun, as he attempted to
scramble to his feet. The half-naked blonde slashed at his right hand with the
knife, but only landed a glancing blow.
As Gibbs' bleeding hand tightened on the gun, beginning to draw it from the
holster, Honey threw herself at the gun hand, hoping to disarm him. As she
landed on him, she clawed and wrestled with him for control of the gun, twisting
his wrist back and forth. Hampered by the stab wound in his left arm, Ernie was
no match for the athletic blonde. With a supreme effort the desperate
bare-breasted blonde turned his gun wrist so that it pointed away from her, and
then she jerked back suddenly as the gun exploded with a deafening BANG!! Ernie
fell forward on his face in the dirt, motionless. In the moonlight, Honey could
just make out the scarlet stream that issued from his bleeding head.
Her heart pounding furiously, Honey forced herself to think. The gunshot
was bound to wake Jack. There was no time to lose. She reached down, grabbed
the gun out of Ernie's unmoving hand, opened the corral gate and ran toward
Jack's horse, Cyclone. As she did so, though, Ernie's horse, startled by the
gunshot, shot out of the gate and headed down the dirt road, leaving Cyclone as
the lone horse in the corral.
The barefoot blonde approached to try to mount him, but the black stallion
would have no part of it. He reared up into the dark night, high on two legs,
and then, just as the moon dipped behind the clouds once again, the horse came
down hard on her wrist, sending Ernie's gun spinning somewhere into the darkness
of the corral.
Honey peered into the inky blackness of the night, but it was useless. She
couldn't see the gun.
And there was no time to look for it, because she could see the faint
glimmer of a candle through a window in the house. Black Jack had probably been
roused by the gunshot - it would only be a matter of a couple of minutes, at
most, until he came outside looking for Ernie.
Desperately, Honey chased Cyclone out of the corral, so that Jack would
have to follow her on foot.
And then she began to run. For her life.
Because Black Jack Slocum wasn't going to be in a pleasant frame of mind
when he found his partner lying face down in the corral.
