Untamed Journey Read Free

over to the window. She
wondered if it would be pure suicide to try and shimmy down the
vines alongside her window in petticoats and lace. She smiled –
she’d no doubt just break her leg and have to set it herself. And
then she’d really be trapped in the lone company of Jasper
Smith.
    An insistent pounding on the door startled
her out of her reverie. Ruth set her shoulders back and grabbed her
satchel off the bed. She was determined not to be a coward, not
ever again. She’d lived in fear through the four long years since
losing her parents. She’d promised Papa not to be afraid. It was
time she lived up to that promise.
     
     

Chapter 4
    F rank Masterson
silently promised himself this would be the last – the absolute
last - whore he’d take up with, as he lugged her lifeless but still
warm body into the alley behind the saloon. He paused to catch his
breath and wipe the sweat that was dripping into his light blue
eyes. She sure was heavy for someone so young, he thought
resentfully, as he carted her down another flight of rickety
stairs.
    He cursed as he stumbled and jammed his
shoulder into the side of the clapboard building. Women were all
greedy and clingy, to his way of thinking, but this one could cause
him no end of trouble. He’d barely smacked her and the tiny bit of
a girl went flying into the table edge. He hadn’t meant to kill her
– just shut her whining mouth for five damned minutes. He hadn’t
paid to hear her whine.
    He’d soon have a wife for that purpose.
    Masterson chuckled. He’d have to be more
patient with the wife, he warned himself. He couldn’t stand a
skittish woman ducking around corners every damned time he walked
into the room. His mother had been just like that, which is why the
weak bit of skirt hadn’t survived his father’s hand past
Masterson’s eighth birthday. But he had survived his old man and
outdone the bastard tenfold.
    As he settled the rapidly-cooling corpse into
the buckboard, Masterson fantasized about Pa turning in his grave
at his only son’s success. He glanced over his shoulder, then
quickly covered the back of the wagon with the piece of canvas he’d
stolen from the blacksmith’s shop. He tied it down and prayed the
wind didn’t kick up tonight. He tucked a last bit of lace under the
canvas and pulled his hat down over his face. He wasn’t known in
this town, but the West was smaller than most people knew, and he
was always careful.
    He climbed up on the buckboard and slowly
rolled out of town. It wasn’t yet sunrise, and most of the lonely
cowboys and miners had been carousing until three. There was no one
about as Masterson drove around the back side of town, and turned
the team toward the lone cemetery. If he were lucky, there’d be an
open grave he could toss her in and cover her up just a bit. If he
weren’t so lucky, he’d maybe have to dig up someone fresh and toss
them in together.
    “Some lucky bastard just might get a whore to
warm him up in Hell,” he muttered under his breath, figuring he
could do worse himself when his time was up.
     
     

Chapter 5
    “T ime’s up Halper,”
Mike shouted to be heard over the rising wind. “We’re coming
in.”
    Mike cocked his well-oiled musket before
whispering to his silent companion. “Don’t suppose they’re gonna
surprise me on my birthday and come out nicely?”
    Jackson cracked the barest hint of a smile.
“Twenty dollars says they’ve already left.”
    “What the hell?” Old Mike dribbled a mouthful
of tobacco juice on his snakeskin boots as his toothless smile
dropped open in surprise. He whispered right back at Jackson.
“We’ve been here all night. Them city lawmen ain’t much use
tracking, but they can’t have missed three mounted men going out
the back. You and me took the front. Ain’t nobody got past me on my
watch, and the best Injun scout couldn’t crawl past you on a
moonless night in the pourin’ down rain.”
    “Relax, Old Man. I let them leave less