Guns of the Border Region - Chapter Six

[It's been awhile since I posted last. Here's the latest installment of GOTBR. There's heaps of hard sex and violence here, so I felt moved to try to give it all a sweet center. Copyright 2009 by Charles Hoffman.]


CHAPTER SIX -- SHADOW’S REVENGE

Having gotten the drop on Sailor Clanton, Shadow quickly disarmed him and tossed his gun into a corner. Then she ordered him to strip. She turned the oil lamp back up while Clanton removed his clothes. When he was naked she noticed that his privates had shriveled to a small knot of goose-pimpled flesh. A loaded gun held inches from a man’s head will have that effect.

Shadow couldn’t resist some sort of cutting remark, “Not such a big man now, are we?”

“Screw you, bitch,” muttered Clanton. There was fear in his voice, tinged by helpless rage. Clanton enjoyed dishing out humiliation a lot more than he did taking it. He didn’t much like what happened next, either.

Shadow smashed him across the face with the barrel of the Glock, then struck him across the other cheek with the backstroke. It was payback for the pistol-whipping he had given her earlier. Clanton was rocked but managed to stay on his feet. He winced at the pain.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Shadow asked. Then, to Clanton’s utter astonishment, she put her gun aside. “Clanton, I’m going to give you more of a chance than you gave me,” she told him, “Let’s see if you can take me when I’m not tied up, without your gun and your boyfriends.”

It took a few seconds for it to dawn on Clanton that he had been granted a reprieve from a situation that had promised certain death. But once the realization took hold, he wasted no time to comment or mentally thank fate. Instead, he bored right in, lunging at Shadow and hoping to wrestle her to the floor.

Shadow had been expecting some such move and side-stepped it easily. She booted Clanton in the ass as he went stumbling by. Clanton went sprawling face-first onto the cabin’s dirt floor.

At this point it would have been easy for Shadow to pile on top of him and grind his face into the dirt. She was sorely tempted to force him face-down into the dirt until he asphyxiated. It was her plan not just to beat him up, but bust him up. She fully intended to leave him dead or permanently disabled. But she didn’t want to end it too quickly.

“Get up!” she snarled.

There were many who would have considered Shadow’s giving Sailor Clanton a second crack at her to be a reckless, foolhardy move. Clanton was bigger than she was, and stronger. Yet Shadow had put aside her anger long enough to weigh her course of action before committing to it. Clanton was no pushover in a fight, but he wasn’t as good as he thought he was. His penchant for taking on lesser opponents had given him an inflated reputation, in his own mind as well as others’. In terms of overall skill, he was Shadow’s inferior. Moreover, his physique, though impressive, was mainly for show. He looked pumped-up, even a little muscle-bound. He lacked the trim lines of a true fighter. And he would not be fighting in top form. He had been forced to strip naked at gunpoint, which rendered him more vulnerable in addition to being psychologically debilitating. Ending up face-down on the floor mere seconds into a fight also tended to undermine one’s confidence. Two cracks on the head from a gun barrel weren’t likely to help Clanton’s form either.

Clanton rose unsteadily and turned to face his former prisoner. Shadow shifted into her fighting stance. Clanton came at her, enraged, still seeking to overpower her by sheer force. He cocked back a clenched fist as he closed distance. Then he hooked his heavily-muscled arm at her as though determined to tear her head from her shoulders with a single blow.

Clanton’s hook to the head was poorly timed and executed, however. Shadow ducked under it with a supple weave of her body. She sprang up inside his guard, stung his face with a couple of quick jabs, then danced back out of range.

Clanton realized that he had a real fight on his hands and he wasn’t going to end this with one punch. He got down to serious business, assuming a boxing stance opposite his opponent.

Shadow was instantly aware that Clanton had sobered up and was now fighting with a clear head. She wasn’t about to let him get up to speed. Clanton moved in, flicking his jab. Shadow shifted to karate mode and deflected the blows with swats of her open hands. When her foe was close enough, she brought her booted heel down hard on his naked instep. She felt some of the bones crack as she counterpunched, then moved back out of range. Clanton wobbled unsteadily on his broken foot. Lame, he was a sitting duck.

Even so, Shadow remained wary about moving in on him. Unable to maneuver, his best bet would be to try to grapple. The smart move would be to soak up a few more of her licks in exchange for an opportunity to place her in some sort of hold or, failing that, simply seize her and hurl her to the ground --anything that enabled him to bring his greater strength to bear.

Given these considerations, Shadow refrained from rushing in. Instead she took this opportunity to taunt Clanton in the hopes of rattling him. She assumed a haughty demeanor, flaunting her naked breasts. “This is twice tonight you’ve come up short,” she said coldly, “Karla gave me a better fight.”

“You lousy bitch,” he grated, “Just let me get my hands on you.” His open hands trembled, betraying his urge to grab.

Stupid of him to telegraph that he’s going for the grapple, Shadow thought, What if I hadn’t figured it out already?

Stung to fury, Clanton hobbled forward despite the pain of his injured foot. Shadow let out a loud “Ki-yi!” and raised her hands to deliver karate strikes. Clanton raised his own guard in response. However, Shadow’s move was merely a feint. When Sailor Clanton was in range she kicked him in the balls.

Clanton folded instantly, crashing to his knees. Shadow’s kick had been dead on. Since he was nude, Clanton’s testes were totally exposed. His injured foot made his stance awkward, leaving him wide open for a ball-shot. Shadow saw the opening and took the shot. “Accept what is offered,” Pops had told her long ago during training.

Shadow laughed at the sight of Clanton on his knees, clutching his groin and clenching his teeth against the urge to retch. Clanton flopped onto his side and curled into a fetal position.

After a few moments passed and he made no effort to rise, Shadow ordered him to get up. She suspected he was “taking the count,” faking the extent of his incapacity and stalling for time. In this way he could recover more fully while planning his next move. Shadow wasn’t having any of that shit. “Get up,” she repeated harshly, “Get up or I will kick and stomp you to death where you lay!”

After waiting as long as he dared, Clanton began to stir. He rose slowly and unsteadily. Before he was fully erect, Shadow knocked him back down with a side thrust kick. This almost proved to be her undoing. Instead of dropping, Clanton rolled with the kick and allowed it to propel him backwards --right into the corner where Shadow had tossed his gun. He managed to land face-down on top of it.

Within the space of a heartbeat Clanton was rolling onto his back, aiming the weapon. But Shadow had caught the move. With a speed borne of desperate urgency, she reached her own weapon, snatched it up, swung it towards Clanton, fired.

Both guns roared in the same instant. Clanton was still rolling his body as he fired. His shot went wild. Shadow’s struck Clanton squarely. She continued to squeeze the trigger. Three more of the heavy .40 slugs slammed into Clanton. His body jerked spasmodically, the automatic dropping from his twitching fingers. When Shadow stopped firing he slumped back and sprawled lifeless before her.

She pumped three more bullets into him for good measure. For several minutes she glared down at the bullet-riddled corpse. He bare breasts rose and fell as her breath hissed through her nostrils and clenched teeth. Her anger remained unabated. It was as though Clanton had escaped her in some way. She kicked the corpse savagely, again and again. She stomped down hard on it until she felt ribs crack. Then she unsheathed her knife…

#

The moon was setting by the time Mike and Lyle made it back to the cabin. Both were so drunk they could barely remain in their saddles. Lyle’s foot got caught in the stirrup as he attempted to dismount, and Mike had to free him. Eventually they managed to get the horses tied up. They headed around to front of the cabin.

Even through their booze haze, both instantly sensed that something was amiss. The door to the cabin was ajar. The wan yellowish lantern light spilled out through the opening. No sound could be heard from within save for a faint rustling and squeaking.

Mike and Lyle were gripped by a sense of foreboding as they approached the threshold. Lyle touched the door with a trembling hand. He pulled it slowly open on creaking hinges. Abruptly two large grey rats shot from within the doorway and vanished into the night.

Lyle flung the door open all the way. He and Mike stepped warily into the cabin. They stood aghast at what they saw within. The woman was gone, but they took scant notice of this. Before them in front of the fireplace a man’s nude body lay sprawled in a pool of blood. It had been mutilated and decapitated. Several more of the big grey rats feasted on the cooling flesh. On the mantel above them rested a human head -- the head of Sailor Clanton.

Mike screamed some incoherent blasphemy. Lyle pissed himself. They beheld a scene of nightmare and madness. It would have been horrific enough had they been stone cold sober. Seen through the distorted lens of their drunkenness, the gruesome tableau took on a genuinely hellish aspect.

Lyle felt his knees buckling. Then the floor came rushing up at him. He crashed to earth inches from the headless cadaver. The rats gnawing at the corpse hissed and backed up but did not scurry away. For a terror-filled moment Lyle was assailed by the sick certainty that he was about to pass out, knowing that the beasts would then be upon him.

To Lyle’s relief, Mike grabbed a poker and swung at the rats. He managed to drive them away and chase them out the door. He returned and helped Lyle to his feet.

“Oh dear God,” Lyle rasped, “Could she have done this? Bitch. Goddamn she-devil…”

Lyle rambled on but Mike wasn’t listening. He was gazing in horror at Sailor Clanton’s severed head with its oddly distorted face. It was then that he noticed something on the mantelpiece near the head. It was a folded piece of paper that looked to be a note of some sort. Mike picked it up and read the following:

DEAR ASSHOLES,

IF THE LATE SAILOR CLANTON LOOKS LIKE A CHIPMUNK, IT’S BECAUSE HE’S GOT HIS NUTS STUFFED IN HIS CHEEKS. YOU’LL BE JOINING HIM IN HELL VERY SOON. YOU SHOULD BE FEELING WARMER ALREADY.

LOVE, TAMAR

“What’s it say?” Lyle demanded.

Mike read it aloud, crumpled it, and cast it away. He was puzzling over what that last part meant when he smelled the smoke. Turning, he noticed a flickering hellish red glare outside the cabin’s sole window.

“Shit!” he cried, “She’s set the fuckin’ cabin on fire. Let’s get out of here.”

Mike made straight for the door, Lyle a step behind him. As he opened the door to step out, he was deafened by loud rifle fire. He was struck in the face by splinters and chunks of wood torn from the doorframe as bullets slammed into it.

Mike took a quick step back, colliding with Lyle and sending them both sprawling to the floor. They quickly shuffled over to the protection provided by the thick walls on either side of the doorway.

By now flames had sprung up around other parts of the cabin. The interior was starting to fill with smoke.

“We can’t stay in here,” Lyle said, his voice edged with panic, “And if we go out she’ll shoot us. Can you see anything out the window?”

“I can’t see nuthin’, but I think I heard the horses run off.”

The flames were growing higher by the minute and starting to eat through the walls. The heat was becoming unbearable. Both men realized the peril of their situation. The front door was the only exit. Attempting to escape through it they would be silhouetted against the light within. Even if they doused the lantern they would still be visible against the flames --sitting ducks for the shooter. But the alternative was being roasted alive.

Once again they tried the door. Once again they were driven back by a hail of lead that zinged inches past their heads.

“That was close,” muttered Mike, “Close enough to hit us if she wanted to. She wants us to burn in here.”

Mike doused the lantern, leaving only the unsteady flickering glare of the flames. “Stay low,” he told Lyle as they made another dash for the door. He hoped that the smoke now pouring from the cabin would furnish concealment.

Mike rushed to the door in a crouch, then pitched backwards as hot lead tore through his chest. Another crack of the rifle and Lyle fell as though struck by a thunderbolt.

#

Shadow arose from her chosen position on the fringe of the woods. From there she had gunned down her prey. The cabin was now fully engulfed in flame. She looked upon the inferno in grim satisfaction. Setting the fire had been easy. Heaps of rags and kindling soaked in kerosene had been set in strategic locations. Twists of paper served as simple fuses to be lit when the time came --once her marks were in place.

After Lyle and Mike entered the cabin, she had appropriated the rifles and Clanton’s horse, and set the other horses loose. Then she lit the fuses and waited for the fun to begin. Those in the cabin had no chance. Clanton’s rifle was designed for hunting, but its scope was state-of-the-art military issue. She had no problem placing each round exactly where she wished. Lyle had gone down with a bullet in the heart. The round she sent through Mike’s chest tore through both his lungs. He would probably drown in his own blood before he burned to death.

Shadow had no compunctions about her actions. Clanton and his crew were a nasty bunch. By reputation and by Clanton’s own boasts, they were known to have wronged many a man and woman. Such persons had now been avenged. But more importantly, Clanton and crew had fucked with her royally. There was no way she could let that shit slide.

Christian stood nearby, holding the horses. He passed no judgment on Shadow’s vengeance. He had followed Shadow into her world of his own free will, and was obliged to accept that world’s grim unwritten laws. Here, it seemed, people settled their own problems. Any qualms he might have felt had been eased by the sight of the black bruise the barrel of Clanton’s automatic had left on Shadow’s face.

Together they watched the cabin burn. Christian said, “I hope the fire doesn’t set these whole woods ablaze.”

“I don’t care if it does!” Shadow spat bitterly. Then the last of her anger abated like a storm blowing itself out. The cabin collapsed upon itself, sending up a huge cloud of sparks and embers. But the clearing was fairly large and the fire did not spread.

The fire had burned down by daybreak. A thick column of black smoke drifted skyward from the blackened smoldering ruins. Fog had come in with the dawn. The clearing looked like some misty realm of the dead. Shadow turned away from the smoking heap of cinders that formed a cairn over the remains of her enemies. “Let’s go,” she said.

They saddled up. Christian placed a rifle in the long saddle holster and slung another over his shoulder. Shadow likewise slung the rifle she had used over her shoulder. She also had Clanton’s automatic. It was chambered for .45 ammo. She briefly considered re-arming Christian with it; he was big enough to handle the more powerful round. But she quickly thought better of it. Automatics had slides and safeties to work. These could prove difficult for a novice shooter, especially under stress. Better he stick with his revolver.

#

They headed south along a narrow trail, avoiding the more traveled roads. The pair rode in silence for awhile. Christian finally spoke up.

“Uh, listen, I’m sorry about last night. I mean, I didn’t mean to stare at you like that when I came in and found you. It’s just that…” he paused before taking the plunge, “…well, I’ve never actually seen a totally naked lady before.”

Shadow was stunned by the revelation. She almost laughed but managed to stifle it so as not to embarrass him. Then she thought of something.

“What are you talking about? You saw me at the Go-Go Lounge back in Wheeling.”

“I averted my eyes, actually.”

This time she did laugh. “You are something else, Churchy.”

Christian made no reply. He didn’t want her to know the whole truth. He had been sorely tempted to gaze upon her nakedness. However, due to his repressive Victorian upbringing, he was very easily aroused. If he had actually watched the strippers, he ran the risk of becoming tumescent. He would have been mortified had any of the rough Border Region crowd call attention to a visible erection in his pants.

Shadow wondered if she had hurt Christian’s feelings by laughing at him, even good-naturedly. She said, “And besides, you did just fine. You saved me from that Chester guy. If not for you, I’d still be tied up in Sailor Clanton’s unburnt cabin.” And, she thought to herself, You are going to be seeing a whole lot more of me real soon, you lucky bastard.

#

Further down the road, Shadow informed Christian, “I’m looking for a place to hole up. I’ve had a rough night. I need some place to fall back, rest up and lick my wounds. And I could really use a bath.”

Shadow knew where to find what she needed. They left the road they were traveling and headed west along one of the east-west routes that led to and from the New Settlements. It was almost noon when they arrived at a rustic inn located along the trail. The inn consisted of several primitive log structures in keeping with the frontier environs. A large main building housed a bar and grill. Surrounding it were some small cabins.

The travelers tied up their horses in the rear of the main building. They entered the tavern and ordered lunch. The meal was simple fare: chicken-flavored foodpaste fried in a skillet and served with some garden greens.

Shadow paid for the meal and a cabin for the night. She requested one with a tub as well as a bed. The innkeeper gave her the key. She and Christian went over to stow their gear.

The cabin was small and dark, but the bed was big. It was common for travelers to share a bed in those parts, as in former times. Shadow removed her duster and hung it up. She now wore Sailor Clanton’s red mesh tank top in place of the one that had gotten torn off in the fight with Karla. Her nipples were plainly visible through the nylon garment, which did more to emphasize than conceal the ivory globes of her breasts. It was a sight that caused Christian to catch his breath. Shadow noticed and thought, Just wait, boy. You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.

In the meantime they had their work cut out for them. The tub was just a simple metal affair that had been placed in the middle of the floor. They had to get a fire going in the fireplace, draw water from a pump outside, bring it in and boil it in a cauldron over the fire.

When the tub was full of hot steaming water, Shadow told Christian, “I’ll go first. After last night I need a bath more than you. Don’t worry; the water will still be plenty hot when you get back.”

She gave Christian the key. He went out to feed and water the horses. When he was gone, Shadow undressed. She did not bolt the door from the inside, but kept her Glock close at hand.

When she was naked, she slowly lowered herself into the bath. The water was piping hot. She had to lower herself into it gradually, letting it creep up over her body inch by inch.

When she was fully immersed, Shadow relaxed and allowed the heat to ease away the aches and hurts of the past two nights. She luxuriated in the warm water smiling contentedly, in no hurry to leave the tub. At length there was a knock at the door and Christian’s voice from without; “Are you decent?”

With a wicked little grin, Shadow said, “Yeah, sure. Come on in.”

Christian entered the cabin and stopped short when he saw that Shadow was still lolling naked in the tub.

“Close the damn door!” she said sharply, “You’re letting cold air in.”

Christian, by now accustomed to instantly obeying her commands, shut the door behind her without further thought. The flames from the fire in the hearth lit the room redly. Shadow rose from the tub, wisps of steam curling about her. She stood before him, her lovely nude body dripping wet. “Besides,” she said coyly, “Do I look indecent to you?”

Christian did not answer. His mouth had gone dry and his tongue seemed to have swollen. He stood rooted to the spot, transfixed by the incredible sight of her.

As on the previous evening, Shadow had to snap him out of it. “Well, make yourself useful,” she commanded, “Fetch that towel on the bed. Get over here. Dry me. Chop chop, Churchy!”

He came to her as though drawn by the pull of gravity. Unfolding the large bath towel, he stepped behind her and draped it about her shoulders. Then Christian got to work. He started by patting dry her shoulders, then her upper arms. Lifting her damp hair, he dried the back of her neck. After drying her upper and lower back, he stopped.

“Lower,” Shadow instructed in a husky voice.

Christian patted dry her backside, thrilling to the touch of her firm rounded buttocks through the towel. He bent to work on her thighs and upper calves. Straightening up, he reached around her to towel off the front of her body. He avoided touching her breasts until she took hold of his hands and pressed them there.

“That’s good,” she whispered as she stepped out of the tub. She wrapped the towel about her, tucking in a corner of the damp cloth to hold it in place. Seating herself on the bed, she reached for a smaller towel to dry her calves and feet.

“Permit me,” Christian said somewhat meekly as he picked up the towel. Without being told, he kneeled before her and dried off her feet.

When he finished, she bid him to rise and led him over to the fireplace. The flames and the steam from tub and cauldron had made the small cabin interior quite warm.

“Time for you to get a bath,” she informed him. So saying she removed his vest.

Christian objected feebly; “Aren’t you…”

“Hush,” she whispered as she began to unbutton his shirt. Her fingertips lightly caressed the bare skin underneath, sending thrills along his nerves. She peeled off his shirt and cast it aside with his vest. He remained passive as she unbuckled his belt. She unzipped his pants and let them drop to the floor.

“Tidy whities,” she muttered disapprovingly, more to herself than to him, “Have to get you sexier underwear, Church-boy.”

As in a dream, Christian felt himself being swept along as she helped him step out of his pants and shoes. Finally Shadow yanked down his underpants to reveal the erection the bulge in his shorts had so blatantly indicated.

“My, you are a big boy,” she cooed teasingly as his stiffened member sprang free.

Christian was breathing heavily. His erection was red and throbbing. It seemed like he was ready to explode. That would never do. Once things started rolling, she didn’t want him to come too quickly.

Shadow reached down and took hold of his penis. Christian started to squirm.

“Now just relax,” she said soothingly, entrancingly, “Just trust me. Believe me, I know what I’m doing. Nothing is your fault. It’s that bad girl Shadow…”

After quieting him down, she began to gently masturbate him. It didn’t take long to bring him off. He groaned loudly as though in actual pain as he ejaculated into the fire.

Christian staggered, weak in the knees. Shadow placed his arm around her shoulders to support him as he leaned against her.

“That one was medicinal,” she informed him, “The next one will be more fun, and you’ll last longer.”

She guided him to the tub and helped him as he got in. The water was still nice and warm. Shadow picked up a washcloth and began to bathe Christian.

When he was all clean, she helped him out of the tub. She removed the towel she had been wearing like a sarong, and used it to dry him off. Now they were both naked. When he was dry, she took him by the hand and led him to the bed.

Christian allowed himself to be led. He was still a bit wobbly as he walked. He seemed dazed, almost like he was on drugs. Shadow knew that she was rocking his world. She was very understanding and patient with him.

When they reached the bed, she pressed lightly on his shoulders with her fingertips to ease him into a sitting position. “Just relax, Christian sweetie,” she said soothingly, “Just trust me, okay?”

She lifted his legs onto the bed. Another light touch of her fingers got him to recline. When he was resting against the pillows, Shadow climbed into bed alongside him. She smiled warmly at him.

Shadow leaned in to kiss Christian. He responded clumsily. “Don’t pucker your lips,” she told him, “I’m not your mother.” Or that little tight-ass you dragged me around looking for.

Shadow now proceeded to teach Christian how to kiss. He was a fast learner and quickly got the hang of it. When she sensed he was ready, she threw in a little playful tongue action. Before long they were locked in a passionate embrace..

Shadow felt well pleased with herself. Church-boy was coming to life. She had broken the shackles of his “moral” inhibitions and gotten his young red blood boiling. Now he rained hot kisses on her lips, face and neck. His hands roamed freely over her. He cupped her breasts, marveling at their warmth, their smooth roundness.

She was groping him as well. Her fingers lightly caressed his ball sac and felt it grow tight. Moving on, she was delighted to discover that his member was as rigid as an iron spike.

He was ready. She was ready. It was time. She rolled him gently onto his back once more. “Just relax,” she whispered, “And let me do all the work.”

She mounted him then. Straddling his body, she lowered herself onto him and guided him in. She began to ride him, slowly at first, gradually building to a more vigorous tempo.

Christian surrendered to her and let the experience wash over him. He felt himself responding, thrusting upwards to meet her downward plunges. He looked up in awe at her superb young body as she rode atop him. It was like a thousand forbidden fantasies come to life. His blood roared madly in his ears as he gave in completely and reveled in the sheer physical delight. Was he not a man, after all? And here was a woman who could tempt a saint.

Shadow could sense his climax nearing and timed her moves to his. That way she would be able to get off just as he did. She felt his body beneath her begin to shudder and convulse.

“Jesus Chri--” Christian blurted, biting his lower lip to keep from taking the Lord’s name in vain.

Shadow came then as well. Her body tensed as her orgasm rocked her. Then she collapsed on top of Christian. They lay together gulping air for a few moments. When their breathing returned to normal, she kissed him softly. Christian had bitten into his lip hard enough to draw blood. He now saw that blood smeared across Shadow’s lips like lipstick.

They disengaged and lay curled in each other’s arms for a long time. Later, Shadow left his side momentarily to add wood to the fire. Watching Shadow’s nude form cross the cabin, Christian felt a warm glow of manly pride. To think that he had possessed such a woman!

After awhile they coupled again, feverishly. Finally spent, Shadow smiled contentedly. She snuggled against Christian. The door was locked and bolted. The crackling logs in the fireplace shed a cheery warmth. Shadow drifted into a blissful slumber.

#

It was well past daybreak when Shadow awoke. There were only ashes in the fireplace now. Daylight filtered through the one small window, filling the cabin with a sickly grey half-light.

Shadow was startled to discover that Christian was already up. He had gotten dressed and was now seated in the room’s sole rickety chair. And he was crying. He wasn’t racked by anguished sobs or anything. He just sniffled and wiped away tears as though remorseful about something.

“What’s with the waterworks?” Shadow demanded, perplexed, “It wasn’t that bad, was it?” Like he would know.

“No, no, of course not,” Christian answered wistfully, “It’s not that. It’s just that my first time was supposed to be on my wedding night.”

Shadow was utterly bewildered and not a little angry. She had really thought she had made a man out of him. But now it looked as though the grey shades of his stultifying upbringing had reclaimed him.

“What is your friggin’ problem?” she said scornfully, “I can’t believe after a night with me you would still be mooning over some little candy-ass.”

“Oh, you don’t understand,” he replied in a hurt voice, “I was saving myself for marriage. When I was in school I took a purity pledge. No sex before marriage. I gave my word before God. I swore in Jesus’ name.”

Shadow glowered at him as she began to hurriedly dress. “And here I thought you were a man,” she said bitterly, hoping to hurt him, “And you go and start with this sissy shit. You are a real piece of work, Church-boy.”

When she finished dressing she pulled on her duster. She went out, slamming the door behind her.

#

Outside, Shadow mounted Incitatus. She rode off, galloping into the hills. She pressed the horse hard and did not stop until she reached the crest of a high summit. From this vantage point she could see mountains, hills and valleys spreading out below and rolling off into the distance. There was a large outcropping of flat rock. The day was clear for once. The sun was well up and warmed the rock with its rays. The outcropping furnished an excellent seat for taking in the view.

Shadow tied the pinto to a tree branch at the fringe of the woods. She began to rummage through one of the saddle bags. Presently she drew forth a small bag of marijuana and some rolling papers. Shadow was not an habitual pot smoker, even though she grew and sold the stuff. But from time to time she would use it if she wanted to relax and think something through.

After taking a seat on the outcropping, Shadow rolled herself a joint. She lit it and inhaled deeply. After a few hits on the joint her tension had mostly vanished. A few more and she was feeling really mellow. The sun shining on her and the sun-washed rock beneath her felt warm and pleasant. She relaxed and let her mind drift. Before long she was thinking of her last lover.

#

It was almost a year ago now, during the last deer season. By tradition, Westsylvanians observed the hunting seasons of the old Commonwealth so as not to deplete the wild game. That season she had been staying by herself in a tiny cabin near Tionesta. On the fateful day she had been hunting alone in the forest. There was about two inches of new snow on the ground. It was bitter cold, and she had seen little game afoot. Presumably most of the deer were bedded down. Finally, she discovered some fresh tracks. She trailed the deer for miles. At last she found it standing in a clearing. She had a nice clean shot at it.

She raised her rifle, took careful aim and squeezed the trigger. The shot crashed loudly and the deer dropped to the snow. Right away, Shadow sensed something amiss. The gunshot had reverberated too loudly to be an echo. The deer had jerked as though struck twice before falling.

Shadow stepped cautiously into the clearing. She was not surprised to see another hunter emerge from the woods. She raised a hand in greeting. The two approached each other and met over the fallen deer.

“I think I hit it first,” Shadow said, “But we--”

“You’re a woman!” the other exclaimed, almost incredulous.

Shadow’s heavy winter garb had concealed her gender until she and the man were very close. “Thanks for noticing,” she said, “Is there a problem with that?”

“I never thought to see a woman carrying a gun for deer. You must be Westsylvanian.”

“Naturally enough, since we’re in Westsylvania.”

“I think not,” he said as he consulted an electronic device strapped to his wrist, “This is Pennsylvania. You crossed the border awhile back.”

Show-off, Shadow thought, You and your fancy satellite tracking. All the satellites of the Old Union had been blown out of the sky during the opening days of the War. To this day none had been replaced.

“I am afraid you have entered the Islamic States illegally,” the man said bluntly.

Screw you, pal. “Well, I hope you’re not going to be a dick about it. Look, I’ll just head back.”

Abruptly the man’s tone changed and became more friendly. “Please forgive my appalling lack of manners. It is easy to lose one’s way in this wilderness. And the afternoon grows late. Were you to start back now, you may well find yourself still some distance from shelter when night falls. Allow me to offer you the hospitality of my hunting lodge. It is not far from here. And we can share the deer.”

“Fair enough. Let’s lighten our load a bit.”

Shadow unsheathed her bowie knife and impressed her fellow hunter with her skill in field-dressing a deer. Together they placed the gutted carcass on a sling the man provided.

Between the two of them, dragging the deer through the snow proved easy work. Along the way they introduced themselves. “You are very handy with a gun and a knife,” said the man, “Muslim women do not possess such skills. Of course, I should have expected different from a woman of the Border Region. I’ve visited Tionesta and some of the other border communities. My name is Yusef Davis.”

“Tamar Lane.”

“I’m so very charmed to make your acquaintance, Miss Tamar Lane.”

Pretty smooth, Yusef, Shadow thought, “Likewise.”

They did not have far to travel. Less than thirty minutes of hiking brought them to Yusef’s hunting lodge. It was located along a winding dirt road, and similar structures belonging to others could be glimpsed further up the road. Yusef’s cabin was fairly large, with several outbuildings adjacent. Before entering his cabin, Yusef knelt in the snow for his evening prayers. Shadow thought he looked very serene.

After he arose, they hung the deer in a shed. This task completed, Yusef escorted Shadow into the lodge. The interior was spacious with ample room for four beds and other comfortable furnishings. “Sometimes companions join me,” Yusef explained, “But this year I was hunting alone. Or so I thought.”

Inside the warm cabin, the pair removed their heavy outerwear. Beneath his cold weather garb, Yusef was dressed simply in jeans and a plaid flannel shirt. Shadow was pleased to note that he was trimly built and ruggedly handsome. He sported a thick head of tousled brown hair and a short beard that masked a strong chin. He looked more Nordic than Middle-Eastern.

Shadow pulled off her headgear and shook loose her hair. She removed her orange hunting coat, brown outer pants, heavy boots and thick woolen socks. Her remaining garments were her customary black. She wore very tight pants and a turtleneck sweater. Barefoot and clad thus, she resembled nothing so much as a mid-20th Century beatnik.

The cabin was furnished with electricity from a wind and solar powered generator. There was ample power for lighting and small appliances. After getting a blaze going in the fireplace, Yusef prepared coffee. He and Shadow relaxed in comfortable chairs.

“You brew an excellent cup of coffee,” Shadow told her host, “That’s high praise from me.”

“And you are most enchanting,” Yusef replied graciously, “And Tamar Lane is a lovely name, very poetic. It brings to mind Tamerlane, the great Muslim conqueror of Asia.”

“That’s what my dad thought. What about you? You don’t look Mid-Eastern. I mean, I know you have to be Muslim to be a citizen of the ISA, but how far back do you go?”

“My maternal grandfather was Syrian,” Yusef said with a smile, “But the rest of my forebears have lived in central Pennsylvania since before the Flood, or so it would seem. I’m a mix of German, Scots-Irish, English, supposedly some Delaware Indian if you go back far enough.”

“Our family backgrounds are sort of similar,” Shadow replied, “Except for the Syrian, of course. I’m descended from the original settlers of Westsylvania. But tell me more about you. Do you have a wife? Girlfriend?”

“No and no. My mother would like me to settle down, but I’m not really much of a ladies’ man.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

As they spoke, Shadow noticed his eyes straying to the soft mounds of her breasts, so inviting beneath the sweater. She got up to pour more coffee. Her ass was admirably displayed by her tight black pants as she walked. She could feel Yusef’s burning gaze.

“How about a refill?” she asked as she poured herself a fresh cup.

“None for me, thanks. It’ll keep me up, and I like to turn in early.” As though that were a cue, Yusef rose from his chair. He busied himself stringing a rope across the cabin like a clothesline and hung blankets over it to create a screen.

“That should afford us both some privacy,” he told Shadow, “Take one of the beds over there. Just turn the light off when you’re ready.”

“Oh, you’re no fun,” Shadow chided, “Is there anywhere a girl can freshen up?”

“Why, yes, as a matter of fact. The small building next to the shed where we hung the deer is a sauna. I built it myself and am rather proud of it. It’s just the thing to relax you and ease away tension. I usually unwind there before retiring. By all means feel free to make use of it.”

“You first,” Shadow said, “You’re the one who wanted to turn in early. I’ll just sit and enjoy some more of the coffee until you’re finished.”

“Very well.”

Yusef disappeared behind the makeshift screen and undressed. He emerged wearing a heavy robe and slippers, carrying some towels. He exited the cabin quietly.

Shadow sat alone for awhile and sipped her coffee. She smiled. She had taken quite a liking to the handsome stranger. He seemed very manly, yet gentle and good-natured. He was certainly worth getting to know better, especially now. The cold winter months had come. The days grew short. It was going to be a long cold night. And she had been too long without a man.

Shadow was not normally quite so impetuous, but this time it seemed right. With a sudden firm sense of resolve, she rose from her chair. She undressed and wrapped a large towel about her. Then she slipped out the cabin door.

Outside, night had fallen. Shadow stepped out into the frosty air. She was traveling no great distance, and so ignored the bitter cold and the snow beneath her bare feet. She approached the nearby outbuilding that housed the sauna.

Shadow entered the sauna and shut the door behind her, cutting off an icy blast of wind that tried to follow her in. She took a seat on a bench opposite a startled Yusef. “Thought you could use some company,” she said.

Yusef was taken aback. He was nude, with only a small towel draped over his loins. He glanced about to see where he had dropped his robe. It was out of reach. To retrieve it he would have to rise and in doing so expose himself. He could only fidget nervously.

“Why don’t you just relax?” Shadow asked, her voice soothing. “It’s so nice in here.” She spoke the simple truth. Outside was a chill winter night. Within the sauna it was as warm and moist as a tropical rain forest.

“Miss Lane, this is most inappropriate,” Yusef objected, “You should leave. Have you no modesty?”

In answer, Shadow stood up and let her towel drop. “Apparently not,” she said. Her nipples were still erect from her walk in the cold air. Her supple nude body was as white as the snows and rapidly becoming slick with dew droplets of sweat. “Still think I should leave?”

She saw the passion flame in Yusef’s eyes and had her answer. The next thing she knew she was in his arms. They locked together in passionate embrace. They kissed, his lips crushing hers, breaking off only long enough to gasp for breath. She could feel him grow hard against her. He became erect almost instantly, even though the steam-bath’s air was muggy enough to make a man drowsy.

She yielded as he pinned her against the wall with his body and, standing upright, entered her and began thrusting. Her long legs locked about his waist and drew him in deeper. Her arms snaked through his as her hands clutched his broad shoulders for support. Her nails raked his back. She climaxed with a wildcat screech. He gave a few more vigorous thrusts before exploding inside her.

The lovers sank to the floor where they lay spent, drenched in perspiration. Their strength returned gradually. They rose unsteadily and toweled each other off. Shadow remained weak as a kitten. Yusef wrapped her in a fresh towel, donned his robe, and carried her back to the cabin.

That night they slept soundly and serenely in each other’s arms, snug beneath warm blankets while the cold wind howled outside. They awoke before dawn and renewed their passion, then drifted back to sleep. They remained in bed throughout the long grey morning, leaving it only long enough to consume a simple breakfast.

Later in the day they butchered the deer. They enjoyed a hearty venison supper. Shadow stayed another night in the cabin. She and Yusef parted the following morning. She returned to her camp with her share of the venison.

#

Looking back on it now, Shadow felt a warm glow. The time she had with Yusef had been good. But they both knew that they could have no future together. Could she have a future with anyone? That question bothered her.

Shadow finished smoking the joint and resisted the temptation to roll another. Pot-smoking made her more introspective than was her wont. She didn’t usually sit around brooding, but right now she felt moved to examine herself and her motives, particularly in regard to the men in her life.

Christian and Yusef. Church-boy and Mosque-boy. What was it about them that had drawn her to them? They had both just been trying to clean up --in a bath and a sauna-- and she had to make them both get down and dirty. What was up with that? Did she take some secret delight in knocking these religious types off their high horses?

With Christian there was something more. She recalled the moment he had shown her the picture of his runaway fiancée. Shadow had loathed her on sight, she now realized, and had belittled her time and again; tight-ass, saccharine little candy-ass and so on. Had she been insanely jealous of a picture? Had the whole thing really been about stealing Christian’s cherry from Angel, his betrothed? And if so, why not? Some buck had undoubtedly stolen her cherry from him. When he finally realized that, he would thank her. It was for his own good.
Or was it? Maybe she was just a bad person. Like that time…don’t go there, don’t go there…like that time when she had actually toyed with the idea of “consoling” Pops after Steffy died. And what had that been all about?

No wonder she didn’t enjoy getting high so much anymore. Still, she realized the importance of dragging subconscious shit to the surface. Ignore it and let it fester, and it could trip you up later.

Having confronted her issues, Shadow felt mentally more relaxed. The sun was nearing its zenith now. The day was very warm. The rock outcropping on which she sat was big enough to stretch out on. She removed her duster and spread it beneath her. She lay back for awhile, just basking in the sun’s rays like a lizard. She was almost straight again when some clouds started to roll in. It never stayed sunny in these parts for very long. Time to leave this place.

Shadow rode back to the inn. A sheepish-looking Christian awaited her there.

“Thanks for coming back,” he said.

“Why wouldn’t I come back? I just needed a little time to myself.”

“Well, I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t. I behaved like an ass.”

She waited for him to elaborate.

“I didn’t mean to carry on so about my chastity vow,” he said, “The truth is that if I had really wanted to stop what happened between us, I would have. But I didn’t want it to stop. I wanted it to happen. I wanted it more than I’d ever wanted anything. And now I’m glad we made love.”

“Oh Romeo, Romeo, wilt thou can the ‘make love’ bullshit? We fucked, okay?”

This was like a dash of cold water in Christian’s face. “Well, it was more than that to me. And you’re not fooling me by acting hard. I think you’re a good girl, Tammy.”

Now it was Shadow’s turn to be taken aback. “Look Church-boy, you can call me Tamar or you can call me Shadow, but if you ever call me Tammy again I will knock your teeth out.”

“Well, in that case I won’t,” Christian replied coldly.

“Aw, forget it,” Shadow said, her voice softening, “Sorry to be such a bitch. It’s just been a hell of a few days. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

#

Shades of evening were gathering when they rode into view of Pops’ cabin. It had only been a few days, but to Shadow it seemed like years since she had last laid eyes on it. Now she was greatly cheered to see Pain come bounding into the yard. A few moments later, Pops emerged from the cabin.

Shadow swung down from Incitatus and ran to him. She threw herself against the older man, her arms encircling his waist, hugging him fiercely. Pops returned her embrace. He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead gently. Shadow was certain of more trouble ahead. For the moment, however, she felt safe in Pops’ massive arms.

Next: Thunder of the Feud

Guns of the Border Region - Chapter Five

[Here is another chapter of Guns of the Border Region. I've been told that I write great fight scenes, and think this chapter contains one of my best. Also, there's part that's very rough and grim. In writing about a woman adventurer character, I was forced to acknowledge a big potential hazard of such a lifestyle for the sake of honesty. It did hurt. I love my characters, and Shadow is a favorite. In creating her, I wanted to see if I could create a female character as tough as Conan. Not quite, but she's easily as tough as the Man with No Name. A couple of historical notes: Incitatus was the name of the race horse the mad emperor Caligula appointed to the Roman senate. James Bowie's reputation as a knife fighter stems from one battle, the Natchez Sandbar fight. Copyright 2009 by Charles Hoffman]

CHAPTER FIVE -- SHADOW IN JEOPARDY

The frontier village called Eden consisted of a dozen or so rude log structures. Most lined the road that passed through the settlement, with some others off on the few narrow side streets. The road and streets were unpaved and muddy from recent rains. From within the cabins, the muffled roar of shouts, music and laughter could be heard. On the streets, furtive figures staggered drunkenly from one den to the next. Dogs and pigs rooted through heaps of offal. Beyond the settlement was night and the impenetrable black forest. The sole illumination was from the torches that cast a hellish red glare over the scene.

Eden’s largest establishment and central gathering place was Maggie’s Creekhouse, so called because of the dark nameless stream that flowed sluggishly past its rear. It was twice the size of the next largest structure and typically crammed full of rowdy patrons. Beer, ale and moonshine whiskey were greedily guzzled. The revelers competed in bouts of cards, darts, arm-wrestling and various drinking games. Music blared from battery-powered boom boxes. The lurid light from two fireplaces and candles on the tables sent distorted shadows dancing madly along the walls.

A gust of wind from an opening door made the candles flicker. Heads turned to check out the new arrival.

Shadow crossed the threshold clad in her black duster. She scanned the crowd like some hungry bird of prey, but the one she sought was not there. She raised her voice to address the entire throng.

“Has anyone in this dump seen Sailor Clanton? I would have words with him.”

The Creekhouse patrons grumbled and muttered among themselves. Then one rose in the back to face her.

“I’ve seen Sailor Clanton.”

It was Karla, the self-proclaimed “baddest bitch in the Border Region.” She was about the same size as Shadow, but a pink mohawk made her look taller. Her body was more sculpted, owing to an obsessive workout regimen. However, Shadow knew that Karla wasn’t just show; she had trained with some top fighters. And like Shadow, Karla dressed to impress. She wore torn fishnet pantyhose topped only by her gunbelt and a scanty vinyl thong. Her tight knee-high boots were also of glossy black vinyl. Above the waist Karla wore a red latex tube top and a spiked dog collar. Her bowie resembled a larger version of a military ka-bar, and her sidearm was a 9 mm Parabellum --the Luger commonly worn by Nazis in old war movies. Shadow thought the latter was a stupid affectation.

Not to be outdone, Shadow doffed her duster and cast it aside. She stood revealed in her black leather crotch-huggers, boots, gauntlets and Go-Go Lounge tank top. The two women warriors glowered at each other across a sea of leering male faces.

“Where’s Clanton?” Shadow grated between clenched teeth.

“Whatever you have to say to Sailor you can say to me,” Karla retorted with a haughty sneer.

Shadow rolled her eyes at that one. “Oh, so that’s how it is. So how long have you two been playing hide the salami anyway?” she snapped, to the hoots and guffaws of the crowd.

Karla was unfazed. “Long enough for him to appreciate what a real woman can do for him, as opposed to some lame-ass black-haired brat.”

Shadow seethed inwardly at what Karla had implied. Of course that lying sack of shit Sailor Clanton had gone and told everyone he had scored with Shadow anyway. Something else he had to answer for, she told herself. Then, as simply as one might adjust a control knob on an appliance, she turned off her anger and put it aside. Shadow was too much of a pro to allow passion to cloud her judgment when entering a volatile situation. But she kept an edge in her voice as she said, “Just tell me where Clanton is.”

“No!” Karla smirked. “You gonna make me, Lane?”

“Fine,” Shadow said coldly. She had never liked Karla anyway, and now took grim satisfaction in knowing that the matter of their relative fighting prowess would finally be settled. Karla was as dangerous as a spitting cobra when backing up some guy, but Shadow was certain that she could take her one-on-one.

What happened next that night in the Creekhouse became the stuff of legend throughout the New Settlements, the story told and retold for generations. Patrons shoved tables and benches aside to clear a space for the combatants. Shadow and Karla divested themselves of their weapons. Karla’s were held by a couple of cronies. Shadow left hers in the custody of Maggie and Joe, the proprietors. Then, in the midst of dozens of yelling, roaring spectators, the opponents squared off.

At first the women circled each other warily, taking each other’s measure and getting a feel for their makeshift arena. They had ample room to maneuver and the packed earth floor provided sure footing. Both women were in fine form. Their fighting stances assured balance and stability while still allowing for fluid footwork. Both had their guard up. Karla’s fists were tightly clenched. Shadow’s hands were held more open, ready to shift from striking and blocking to trapping and grappling.

Shadow was waiting for Karla to make the first move. She knew that she would not have to wait long. Karla was impatient and liked to show off. Leave it to her to get the ball rolling with some flashy opening move.

Nor was Shadow wrong. Screeching a loud battle yell, Karla abruptly launched a wide swooping circular kick that shot off the floor and arced towards Shadow’s head. With a deft weave of her torso, Shadow ducked under it and came up in punching range of her opponent. Had she been fighting a man she could have punched him in the balls while weaving. Instead she stung Karla with two quick jabs to the face just as Karla’s kick completed its arc. Karla’s foot was firmly planted back on the ground when Shadow struck, so she was not knocked off balance. An instinctive counterpuncher, Karla lashed back with a right cross. Shadow deflected it by swatting it aside. Karla danced back out of range.

Shadow did not pursue Karla to follow up her attack. For the time being she wanted Karla to come to her. Her plan was to allow Karla to take the offensive for now, and thwart whatever she tried to do. She hoped to frustrate and anger her opponent in this manner, perhaps causing her to commit a fatal blunder. Otherwise, Shadow would pace herself until Karla started to run out of steam, then beat the crap out of her.

Shadow’s defensive strategy was a sound one. Karla possessed a greater repertoire of martial arts techniques, honed to finer precision, but Shadow had a better grasp of their practical application. For example, Shadow would never have used some high-flying kick as an opening gambit. Such kicks placed inordinate demands on one’s attention, timing and energy. They were easy to defend against --stepping out of the way would suffice-- and left one exposed and vulnerable to counterattack if they failed. Better to save the kick for the coup de grace, after the opponent had been softened up and was ready to go down.

Fancy kicks did look impressive, though, and Karla was a glory-hound who loved showboating before an audience. She couldn’t just outfight an opponent; she had to look cool doing it. Shadow considered this a weakness to be exploited. The Creekhouse spectators, on the other hand, shouted their approval. To the uninitiated, Karla appeared the more skillful fighter. Those more knowledgeable about such things kept their eye on Shadow. The din of the crowd grew louder. Some threw bets, others took them.

Egged on by the crowd, Karla was quick to wade back into battle. She didn’t want to lose the initiative to her foe. Shadow knew that Karla would try to smother her by keeping her penned against the rim of the circle formed by the spectators. Rather than allow that to happen, Shadow strode forth to meet her.

The two women met in the center of the ring. There they circled each other, boxer style, once again. Shadow surprised her opponent by lashing out with a roundhouse kick that swung out horizontally to strike at Karla’s thigh. Shadow did not overextend herself by committing any real power to the kick; it was merely a feint aimed at probing Karla’s defenses. This did cause Karla to drop her guard, but only for a brief flashing instant as she blocked the kick. Still, it created enough of an opening for Shadow to bore in.

The combatants were mixing it up now, exchanging body shots and glancing blows to the head. Karla broke away, backpedaling. Shadow went in pursuit. Karla drove her back with more kicks. The blows Shadow had landed thus far were not telling; it would take a lot more of them to begin to sap Karla’s strength. She needed to deliver some really good shots. Karla’s kicks weren’t landing, but they were keeping Shadow at bay. If Shadow could get in close and really duke it out with Karla, she could follow it up with some grappling and a little thing called judo. But Karla had her opponent pegged as an infighter. She altered her own strategy accordingly. Her plan now was to rush in, do some damage, then back out just as quickly before Shadow could react. Repeat as necessary.

Karla edged in closer. When she was near enough to her opponent, she leaped up and lashed out with a front snap kick. Shadow avoided it, but it created an opening. Now toe-to-toe, Karla struck with two quick jabs and a hook. Shadow blocked with her forearms, but before she could counter Karla had glided back out of range. Another rush by Karla yielded similar results.

Shadow remained cool and unfazed by her foe’s tricky maneuvers. She quickly divined Karla’s strategy. She decided to lay a trap by offering an opening, hopefully enticing Karla into making some reckless move.

When Karla came in again, Shadow shed the straight punch she aimed at her face instead of blocking it. To Karla, it looked like the blow had connected with full force rather than glancing off. Shadow staggered back as though stunned. Thinking her to be off-balance, Karla launched a spinning back kick aimed at blowing her foe off her feet. Rotating her body to generate force, Karla thrust out her leg with all the power of her muscular thigh. It was a kick that could have blasted open a locked door. But it never landed. As Karla pivoted, exposing her backside ever so briefly, Shadow struck with a kick of her own. It was a simple straight forward thrust that flicked out like a serpent’s tongue and tagged Karla squarely in her hard buttocks before she could fully extend her leg. Had they been standing in center ring, it would have sent her sprawling face-first onto the floor. Then Shadow would have piled on top of her and ended the fight very quickly. As it was, Karla toppled into some spectators who caught her and checked her fall.

Karla felt herself being seized by rough hands that spun her about and shoved her back into the ring. There she collided with Shadow, who had stalked after her in pursuit. Karla had yet to regain her footing and fell awkwardly against Shadow, clutching at her for support. Her fingers locked in the fabric of Shadow’s Go-Go Lounge tank top. As Shadow backed away, the garment ripped down the middle. The ivory globes of her breasts bobbed free. The crowd went wild.

“Goddamn it!” she snarled angrily, “I liked that top.”

Stung to fury, Shadow seized Karla’s tube top with both hands and rent it asunder. The latex top snapped like a rubber band, flying off and away. Karla was left nude from the waist up. The crowd was on its feet and howling.

Her martial art technique momentarily forgotten, Karla struck Shadow across the face with her open palm. Shadow reeled from the blow. Karla skated back to the edge of the circle formed by the yelling mob. She stood poised, flaunting her magnificent semi-nude body.

“Yeah!” she screamed at Shadow, “My fuckin’ tits are bigger than yours too!”

Shadow said nothing. She stripped away the remnants of her tank top lest they hinder her movements. The women glowered at each other like two bare-breasted Amazon warriors.

For a tense moment the tableau held. Then, as if responding to some signal detectable to none but them, the women dived back into the fray. Karla strode forward. Shadow came only part-way to meet her, preferring to let her opponent come to her while she stood her ground.

Karla was visibly angry, and looked determined to put an end to the fight and her enemy right away. As soon as she was in striking distance, she unleashed a powerful karate straight punch. Chambered at the hip, it was driven by a twist of Karla’s supple body and a blind urge to smash. It was a finishing move, not an opening shot. Shadow blocked it easily, as well as the follow-up punch Karla delivered with her other arm.

The forearm block Shadow used to ward off the second blow flowed smoothly into an elbow strike that crashed into Karla’s face. Twisting to one side to deliver the blow, Shadow struck Karla’s other cheek on the backstroke. Karla was seeing stars and sought to clinch in an effort to pin Shadow’s arms. In a micro-second, Shadow weighed and discarded the notion of using a judo throw. Both women wore no clothing above the waist to grip, and their bodies were slick with sweat. Therefore grappling would be a futile waste of energy. Instead, Shadow drove her knee into Karla’s solar plexus. That would have knocked the wind out of most people, but Karla’s steely abs protected her. She merely grunted and struggled to hold onto her foe until her head cleared.

Shadow wedged her arms between Karla’s and pushed outwards in both directions. Karla’s arms were forced apart, breaking her hold. Karla was still dazed, however. Shadow resolved to make sure she stayed that way.

Shadow smashed a left hook into Karla’s head, striking with her open palm instead of a clenched fist. It was potentially a knockout blow, but Shadow pulled the punch. She wanted Karla conscious enough to tell her where Sailor Clanton was.

“Where’s Clanton?”

No answer. Shadow bitch-slapped Karla hard with the back of her hand.

“I can keep this up all night,” Shadow informed her. By way of emphasis she struck her again.

“Enough,” Karla gasped. She relented when Shadow raised her hand yet again. Shadow checked the motion and repeated her question.

“Need drink,” Karla croaked, indicating that her mouth had gone dry. She staggered over to where her posse awaited her and slumped down on a bench. Karla was handed a half-full pitcher of beer. She began to gulp it directly from the pitcher, some of the beer splashing onto her naked breasts. Putting the pitcher aside for a moment, she downed a shot of something followed by a chaser of more beer.

Shadow’s patience, never in great supply, was quickly exhausted. “Enough of this,” she snapped, “Now talk.”

In answer Karla’s lips curled in a wicked grin as one of her crew slipped her knife to her. The dazed look in her eyes had vanished, replaced by one of sheer malevolence. She rose and started towards Shadow.

Oh shit! She’s got a weapon. Thoughts flashed like flickers of lightening through Shadow’s mind. Get something in your hand, girl! Bottle. Better yet, heavy glass beer mug. Just grab something. Hurry! Her eyes darted about, searching for something suitable. Then she felt the comforting familiar shape of the hilt of her own blade as it was pressed into her hand by Maggie.

Shadow glared at her nemesis. “Are you sure you want to settle this with our bowies?” she said coldly.

Her eyes mad, Karla screamed, “To the death!”

“So be it.”

The women circled each other once more. The crowd was on its feet again, yelling, cheering, chanting the names of the combatants. Spectators jostled one another for a better view. A new round of wagering commenced. Gamblers shouted and waved handfuls of money.

Karla looked none the worse for the pounding she had taken moments earlier. The tough resilience of a Border Region adventurer was hers. She appeared as fresh and dangerous as ever. “I’ll carve you like a fuckin’ turkey,” she snarled.

Shadow said nothing. The time for talk had passed. She stood ready to do battle. To many onlookers it appeared as though she held her knife upside down with the sharp cutting edge facing upwards. But it was part of Shadow’s method. Held in this manner the blunt edge of the knife could be used to block and parry, preventing the keen edged blade from becoming nicked and notched. After fending off an attack, the knife could be inserted cleanly into the attacker’s vitals. A simple upward slash would then disembowel the enemy. This had been how men in olden times had fought with bowie knives, how the men of the Mississippi delta had fought, how James Bowie himself had fought on the Natchez sandbar.

Karla came rushing in like she was on fire, determined to press the attack. Shadow sidestepped and deftly parried her initial thrust. Karla’s knife-fighting technique did not match her empty hand skills. Her movements were predictable. Even so, she kept her blade in constant motion, a whirling arc of deadly razor-edged steel.

Where Karla was all fire and fury, Shadow epitomized icy control. Her movements were no less scintillating, but executed with a machine-like precision -- block, parry, riposte. Soon she had Karla on the defensive. She looked for some sign that Karla was beginning to falter. Then she could use the blunt edge of her blade to beat the knife out of Karla’s hand, disarming her and sparing her life.

No such luck. Karla’s iron arm never seemed to grow weary. Then Karla took Shadow by surprise with a wild slashing motion followed by a thrust on the backstroke. Shadow was only able to check the move by seizing the wrist of Karla’s knife hand. She sought now to drive her own blade home, but Karla also managed to grab hold of her foe’s weapon hand.

The women now stood toe-to-toe as each exerted her considerable strength in an effort to break the stalemate. Drenched in sweat, their naked bosoms heaved as they gulped down the cabin’s stale smoky air. The sleek cords of their muscles stood out in bold relief from the intensity of their exertions. The crowd that ringed them in howled and cavorted like devils.

Tense moments passed as the combatants shuffled about, their footwork slow and deliberate, as they jockeyed for some advantage of position. They inched closer together. Their sinewy arms strained as they fought to hold each other’s knives at bay. The women grappled in a deadly loveless embrace, the bare breasts of each pressed flat against those of the other.

Finally, Shadow caught a glimmer of an opportunity. Karla’s grip on Shadow’s wrist was less secure because of the gauntlet Shadow wore. Her hand began to slip. Shadow seized that instant to butt with her forehead and smash Karla’s nose. Karla was driven back and her grip was broken.

Her knife hand free at last, Shadow drove the blade to the hilt into Karla’s vitals. She then slashed upwards instinctively, ripping the blade free. Karla’s face was a white mask of agony as her entrails began to spill. Shadow quickly decided to end Karla’s suffering and afford her the dignity of dying without crying out. She plunged the clip point of her bowie between Karla’s ample breasts, piercing her heart and killing her instantly.

Shadow yanked her knife free and Karla fell dead at her feet. The din of the crowd faded and died. The spectators whose shouts had shaken the rafters mere moments before now loomed sullenly about like ghouls in conclave.

“What the hell are you assholes looking at?” Shadow demanded, “Two minutes ago you were all howling for blood. Well, there it is. She called the tune and you all saw it.”

Members of the crowd muttered incoherently. Shadow swore at them, her amber eyes ablaze like those of a basilisk; “Goddamn jackals and hyenas. Don’t let her lie there!”

Shadow dragged a long rude wooden table into the area that had served as the arena. She cleared it off with a sweep of her arm. With the aid of a few patrons, she laid Karla’s body upon it. Shadow closed Karla’s eyes, then tore down a bear pelt decorating one of the walls and used it to cover the body. Finally she set candles about the corpse and lit them.

The grim task completed, Shadow poured some liquor into a mug. She raised the mug in a solemn gesture, drained it, then hurled the empty vessel into the fireplace.

Maggie brought Shadow her weapon belt. Shadow fastened it about her waist and sheathed her bowie after cleansing it. She pulled on her duster. Before taking her leave she gave Maggie some money.

“See that she gets taken care of,” she told her. Then she was gone.

#

Upon taking her leave of the Creekhouse, Shadow returned to a small corral at the north end of Eden. There Christian awaited her with the horses.

“So how did it go?” he asked.

“Uh, not so hot.” She briefly recounted the duel to the death with Karla.

“My God! What’s going to happen?”

“Well, what passes for law around here doesn’t have a problem if someone gets killed in a fair fight. That sort of thing happens from time to time, and there were plenty of witnesses. But unless I miss my guess, one or more of those dicks back there are going to scamper and tell Sailor Clanton. He’s not going to like my killing his sweetie-pie. I know Clanton. If he’s not getting it regular, he gets cranky. He’s sure to blame me for what went down back there.”

“This can’t be good,” Christian observed.

“Yeah,” Shadow agreed, “But what choice did I have? I couldn’t back down from a fight. I’d be finished here. The same goes for my still. You can’t let shit like that slide.”

That ended the conversation. They mounted up and rode north for a few miles. At a fork in the road Shadow lead them down a narrow trail. From there they went off the path into a clearing.

“We’ll camp here,” she told him, “No fire. I don’t want to draw attention to our position. There’s no telling who will be riding the roads this night. Like I said, Karla’s buying it in a fair fight should have settled it, but it’s not like there’s some ‘code of the hills’ that’s going to protect us if someone decides to take up a vendetta.”

“I’ll take the first watch,” Christian volunteered.

“Never mind,” Shadow said wearily, “Incitatus’ll warn us if someone comes around. I want to zip the sleeping bags together so we can huddle together for warmth. And no argument from you, Church-boy.”

The clouds had parted, providing them with enough moonlight to prepare the camp without night goggles. While Christian was saying his prayers, Shadow removed her duster. He saw for the first time that she had lost her top during the fight. How beautiful her ivory body was in the moonlight! Christian averted his eyes, lest he succumb to impure thoughts.

Shadow spread her duster over the combined sleeping bags to provide additional insulation. Then she slipped in next to Christian. He found the nearness of her intoxicating, at once exciting and comforting. A lifetime’s worth of tension from the expectations of others seemed to seep out of him. He drifted off into a blissful slumber.

#

The sun was well up when they awoke. Shadow hadn’t meant to sleep so late, but the fight with Karla had been grueling. She arose and donned her duster. Christian had to wait in the sleeping bag for a few minutes until his erection subsided.

He rose presently and they broke camp. They led the horses back to the trail and were about to saddle up. Just then they heard a rustling in the brush and a voice.

“Hands in the air, bitch.”

A man emerged from the woods with a gun leveled at Shadow. He was a short, unkempt scruffy-looking fellow. She recognized him as one of the crowd from the Creekhouse. He had the drop on her. She had no option but to raise her hands. Keep your hands away from the gunbelt; don’t make him nervous, she thought. Maybe she could defuse the situation with talk.

“Okay, you got me,” she said, “Now suppose you tell me what this is all about.”

“You killed Karla,” the man said bluntly, “And she deserved better than to be killed by a tramp like you. I went out after you at daybreak, hopin’ to pick up your trail. Just my luck I happened to be goin’ past here when I heard youns movin’ around back ‘err. I left my horse back in the woods and hid, waitin’ for youns to come out.”

“Your name’s Chester, isn’t it?” Shadow kept her voice soft. She could see that the man’s face was red and puffy from crying. “Well Chester, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Karla barely knew you were alive. You saw what happened. It went down fair and square. It was her choice. You’ve got no call playing the noble avenger. None. So why don’t you stop all this?”

Chester wasn’t buying it. “I don’t care about any of that shit!” he roared.

After Shadow had left the Creekhouse, Chester had remained as the others began to file out. He just sat and stared at Karla’s body in repose, illuminated in the soft glow of the candles. He drank and cried and drank some more. But in spite of the whiskey he had downed through the night, he gun hand did not waver now.

“I don’t care about that shit,” he repeated, “She was a goddess. She’s in heaven now. And I’m sendin’ you straight to hell!”

Give Chester credit: he had gotten the drop on Shadow, a thing not easily done. But he made one mistake. He forgot about the tenderfoot.

Christian drew his revolver, aimed, and fired one shot into the center of the shorter man’s chest. It was enough. Chester pitched backwards without a sound and lay motionless in the brush beside the trail.

“Thanks,” said Shadow.

They looked down at their fallen foe. Chester lie sprawled at their feet, still as an old log. His eyes stared unseeing at the sky above.

Christian trembled, mouth agape, as the realization of what he had done began to creep over him. Shadow tried to snap him out of it.

“Just a flesh wound. He’ll be fine. C’mon Churchy, we gotta get outta here!” She dragged Christian over to the mare and all but shoved him into the saddle.

Shadow mounted Incitatus and they rode off together. Reaching the main road they headed north once more. After several miles, they stopped to water the horses at a stream.

Christian was still shaken by the encounter with Chester. “Why, oh God, why?” he muttered.

“Just another lovesick fool,” Shadow told him. After a moment’s reflection she added, “Love’s too precious to waste on ingrates. Remember that, Churchy.”

Christian began to regain some of his composure. “So now what?” he asked.

“I still have to find Sailor Clanton. This thing is getting out of hand. And to think that it would be over moonshine! I mean, I was expecting some trouble over my marijuana business in Transylvania. That’s why I have Martin and Ron as partners down there. We were ready; we had weapons and security equipment. Shit!”

“So what’s the plan now?”

“Try to locate Clanton’s whereabouts. We can make inquiries at some of the cabins up ahead, and at the roadhouses. If I can get word to him, maybe I can set up a meeting at some neutral location like one of the taverns.”

They continued on their way, keeping to the back roads. It was almost noon before they reached the first isolated cabins north of Eden. The information they were able to obtain was sketchy but sufficient. They learned that Sailor Clanton had been seen frequently in those parts over the last ten days or so, and that there had been a more than usual amount of activity along the main roads that morning.

“It all makes sense,” Shadow explained, “Clanton’s people are located still further north. He’s down here for a reason. He probably holed up in an old cabin near Eden. That would put him in striking distance of Leon’s place. And it looks like last night’s needlepoint with Karla has stirred up a hornets nest.”

Their next step was at a roadside inn called Bear Tavern. They ate lunch in the bar. Afterwards Shadow slipped some money to the proprietor and told him, “If Sailor Clanton should happen to show up here, let him know that I’ll be back here around sunset. We have business I want to straighten out.”

After they left the tavern, Christian asked, “Do we head north or south?”

“South,” said Shadow, “I want to spread the word around here that I’ll be awaiting Clanton at the Bear this evening. We’ll be back there before sundown. I don’t want to risk just running into Clanton on the road after dark. We’ll wait for him in the bar until midnight, then take a room there. We’re sleeping indoors tonight.”

Turning south, they revisited the cabins they had been to earlier. They left word there that Shadow could be found at the Bear Tavern come evening. Most of the cabins were located on back roads. From there they returned to the main road. Rounding a bend they found themselves face to face with a trio of men on horseback about a hundred yards away. All were armed with rifles slung over their shoulders. One of them was Sailor Clanton.

Shadow recognized Clanton instantly. Unfortunately Clanton had spotted her as well. He began to unsling his rifle.

“Shit!” Shadow spat venomously, then, “After me, Churchy, and try to keep up!” So saying she abruptly reigned her horse about, vanishing into the woods. Christian was quick to follow.

As soon as they were off the road, Shadow gave the spurs to Incitatus and they were flying like banshees through the gloom-shrouded forest. Christian did his best to keep pace on the mare. From behind them in the distance, a voice: “After them! Kill him but take the girl alive!” Christian dug his spur-less heels into the mare’s flanks, exhorting it to greater speed.

Had she been on her own, Shadow may well have eluded her pursuers. There was no way they could have brought her down with gunfire, given the difficulty of firing rifles on horseback at full gallop while navigating through the densely-grown woodlands. Shadow wove her way through the thick trees, avoiding entangling brush, jumping her horse over fallen trees and narrow gullies. Christian soon found himself falling behind. He lacked her skill in horsemanship, nor was the mare he rode the equal of the great stallion. He was forced to circumvent obstacles Incitatus cleared with a bound. Shadow was forced to drop back lest he lose sight of her.

Shadow had just begun to slacken her pace when the mare pitched forward, throwing Christian from the saddle. He landed unhurt in some bushes, but his horse was down with a broken leg.

Shadow rode back to him and dismounted. She looked down at the agonized mare, drew her pistol and put it down. Hate to waste a bullet, she thought, Gonna need all of them. Just gave our position, too. She could even now hear their pursuers crashing through the brush, not far distant. But in spite of all that, she could not allow the animal to suffer.

She grabbed Christian by the shirt front and pulled him close; “Not much time, so listen. Clanton wants to take me back alive, but you stay and you’re a dead man. Get on my horse and ride; I’ll hold them off. Double back and hide somewhere. Follow them and see where they take me. Come get me when the coast is clear. Got it?”

Christian nodded.

Incitatus reared up with flailing hooves as Christian attempted to mount him. Shadow jerked hard on the reins and held him steady until Christian was in the saddle. The she smacked the horse sharply on the flank to send it galloping off.
Alone, Shadow looked about for cover. There wasn’t much. The stout trunk of a fallen tree afforded the best protection. Shadow dove behind it, lying prone with her Glock extended. Great. A handgun against three rifles, she thought. Not that Christian’s revolver would have added much firepower. And knowing that twit, he probably would have saved the last bullet for me in order to spare me a “fate worse than death.”

Shadow fired off a shot at her pursuers as soon as they came into view. This forced them to dismount and take cover behind trees while still some distance away. A moment later they opened fire with their rifles. Bullets whined through the air above Shadow or thudded solidly into the log in front of her.

Shadow returned fire as best she could. Her assailants pinned her down under a barrage of lead while darting from tree to tree, working their way closer. In the meantime Shadow expended her pistol’s ammo, including that of two extra magazines.

The barrage by Clanton and his henchmen began to slacken when they realized Shadow was no longer shooting back. She called out to them.

“Clanton, hold your fire! I’m coming out.”

Shadow rose slowly from her place of concealment, both hands raised. Her left hand gripped the butt of the Glock between thumb and forefinger. She tossed it away into the brush. “See? I’m unarmed.”

Sailor Clanton and his cohorts emerged from their own cover and approached her. Clanton strode forward with his familiar cocky grin and self-assured swagger. The others kept Shadow covered with their rifles.

“So,” Clanton smirked, “What happened to the boyfriend?”

Shadow glowered. “The ball-less little shit stole my horse and ran off. He probably won’t stop until he’s back in the Confederacy.”

“Smart lad. I guess he knew that you weren’t worth losing his life over. Good for some laughs, though. Get over here.”

Shadow stepped forward, hands still raised. Clanton instructed one of his cohorts to bring the horses over. A tough rawhide lariat was affixed to one of the saddles. Clanton used it to bind Shadow. He made Shadow extend her hands in front of her, then tied them together at the wrists. After fastening the other end of the rope to his saddle bow, he remounted his horse.

With Clanton in the lead, the trio of horsemen trotted back through the woods and onto the road. Shadow walked alongside Clanton’s horse, tethered to his saddle bow.

Clanton laughed. “This is how it’s done, boys. You bring home the spoils of war tied to your saddle bow. Just like Genghis Kahn.”

Clanton’s cronies hooted uproariously, as they did at all of his nasty jests. Shadow walked along in silence, hell seething in her brain. You are so going to pay for this, Sailor Clanton. When I get done with you, you’ll wish you had never heard of me.

They went south a mile or so on the main road before turning up into the hills. Presently they came to a dark cabin in a clearing surrounded by pines. The sun was already setting behind the hills, casting the scene in deep shadows.

Clanton and his men tied the horses to a hitching post behind the cabin. They holstered their rifles in long leather sleeves affixed to their saddles. One of the men kept Shadow covered with a sidearm, even though her hands were bound, while Clanton led her around to the front of the cabin.

They entered the darkened structure. One of the men lit an oil lamp. The cabin appeared to be an old hunting lodge, abandoned until lately. Several bunks, a table and some chairs comprised most of the furnishings. In the fireplace freshly burnt logs had been heaped atop cold ashes. The single room’s corners were thick with cobwebs. Dusty shelves had been freshly stocked with provisions, mostly canned goods and foodpaste. All of which indicated that Clanton and company had occupied the cabin only recently.

“Tell me something, Clanton,” Shadow said, “It was you who shot up my still, right?”

Clanton grinned, not thinking for a second to deny it. “Yeah,” he admitted freely, “Me and the boys here. Have you met Mike and Lyle?”

“I don’t remember every maggot I’ve ever seen,” she answered scornfully. Mike and Lyle were a couple of slack-jawed dullards, unhandsome, unimpressive in any way. She recalled that Sailor Clanton, so strong, handsome and bold, had always had a tendency to surround himself with losers. It was a trait that fairly reeked of insecurity and desperation, as though he sought to magnify his own superiority by comparison. For their part, toadies like Mike and Lyle got to bask in Clanton’s reflected glory.

Clanton drew an ugly black automatic and waved it menacingly at Shadow. “I’m going to untie your hands now. Don’t try anything stupid. Hate to lose you before the party gets started.”

Clanton undid the knots and unraveled the loops of the lariat that bound Shadow’s wrists. She rubbed them to restore circulation.

“Now let’s get you out of that coat,” Clanton said, “Lyle, help the lady off with her wrap.”

Lyle made a move to grasp Shadow’s duster. Shadow swatted his hand away; “Get your fucking grimy paws away from me. I’ll do it.”

Shadow unfastened the duster, shed it, and cast it aside. The eyes of the men, including Sailor Clanton, widened when they saw that she wore no top beneath her outer garment. Her white body was as lovely as ever, but as she stood glaring at them it looked as cold and hard as a marble statue.

“Impressive,” Clanton remarked, but the sheathed knife on her belt did not escape his notice. “Lose the belt,” he ordered, “Slowly. Left hand. Toss it in that corner.”

After she did so, Clanton visibly relaxed. “You got what it takes, girl,” he told her. “Of course, Karla had a bit more.”

“Well, I hope you took lots of pictures,” Shadow snarled back, “Because last night I used her guts for party streamers. I take it you heard.”

Clanton struck her across the face with the barrel of the automatic. “Yeah, I heard.”

Stung to anger, he barked an order to the others; “Grab her and get the rest of her clothes off.”

Mike prepared to seize Shadow by the upper arms to hold her steady. The next thing he knew he was sailing through the air. Shadow had swiftly executed a judo maneuver to grab him and flip him over her shoulder. She hoped to flip him into Clanton to create an opening for her to escape, but Clanton sidestepped. Mike crashed into one of the bunks, collapsing one of its front legs.

Clanton thrust the muzzle of his gun into Shadow’s face. “Chill out or I will chill you out. Permanently.”

Shadow submitted as Mike staggered back from where he had fallen and placed her in a full nelson. Lyle knelt before Shadow and began to yank off her boots. Shadow still had some fight in her and kicked out. Her spur gouged a deep gash across Lyle’s face. He rose howling and clutching the wound.

“Don’t be such a baby,” Clanton told him, “It’s a scratch. Just pour some booze in it to disinfect it.”

Lyle did as instructed. Clanton turned to Shadow. “As for you…”

He hit her again with his gun barrel. Rather than risk a concussion, she acquiesced after that.

After they stripped her, Clanton went to the bunk with the broken leg and kicked out the other front leg. The front of the bunk crashed to the floor so that the bed lie tilted at an angle.

“Tie her to that,” Clanton told his henchmen.

Shadow was forced onto the bed at gunpoint, the muzzle of Clanton’s automatic held inches from her head. They tied her by the wrists and ankles to the bedposts. Then Clanton personally secured all the knots to make sure they would hold.

Clanton stepped back to admire his handiwork. Shadow’s nude body was bound spread-eagled on the bed. She lie totally exposed and helpless.

Clanton looked down on her in smug satisfaction. “You know, girl,” he told her, “We could have had something. I could tell you were hot for me back then, just like I was hot for you. But you had to go and let your stubborn schoolgirl pride get in the way. This could be our second chance. Before long you’re going to thank me for this.”

“In your dreams, asswipe.” For all the seriousness of her position, Shadow showed no sign of being intimidated.

“We’ll see about that,” Clanton said simply as he took off his shirt. He yanked the front of it open like Superman. Doffing the shirt he stood revealed in a red nylon mesh tank top that emphasized the muscularity of his powerful sculpted torso. Shadow thought he looked gay.

Clanton stood before her preening and flexing his muscles, actually striking poses like he was in some bodybuilder contest. He peeled the tank top off over his head, causing his rock-hard six-pack abs to ripple and undulate. It was the sort of move that drew gasps from the audience on ladies’ night at the strip club.

Shadow was unimpressed. “Nice try, Clanton. But I’m still as dry as sandpaper.”

Clanton’s rakish smile vanished as he kicked off his boots. “That’s too bad,” he told her. And so saying he unzipped his pants. He let them drop, then stepped out of them. He doffed his undergarments to stand before her naked.

Once again, Clanton posed for dramatic effect. He stood with his hands on hips, looking like some laughing young god about to ravish a hapless mortal woman. Shadow noted with disgust that Clanton lacked even the decency to send the other men away before he clambered onto the bed. They stood near, egging on their hero.

“Give it to the whore, Sailor,” Mike smirked.

Clanton looked back over his shoulder at them. “She’s not a whore,” he growled. Then, as though this were a sign of weakness, he hastily added, “Whores get paid.”

Clanton caressed Shadow, fondling her breasts and supple limbs. He kissed her face and neck, whispering endearments; “C’mon baby. You know you want it. Just give in.”

Shadow said nothing. She was working to mentally distance herself from the situation. Clanton had a smooth touch; he was not unskilled. Shadow briefly considered pretending he was someone else, but decided against it. She wanted nothing to diminish the fires of her hatred.

Clanton quickly became hard. Soon he was thrusting inside her. He started with a gentle rocking motion, but before long his jackhammer pummeling was shaking the bed. He was endeavoring to put on a porn star exhibition for the benefit of his worshiping fans. They ate it up. As in a nightmare, Shadow saw their ugly sin-pitted faces leering at her grotesquely in the unsteady lamplight.

Lyle tittered and cackled like a madman, “Hee hee heee. Hee hee heeeee…” The high-pitched squeal was enough to shred lesser nerves, but Shadow remained stoic.

Mike was playing cheerleader; “Fuck her, Sailor! Fuck her real good. You the man, Sailor, you the man!”

Sailor Clanton grunted loudly as he climaxed and gave one last vigorous thrust for emphasis. He rolled off the woman, totally spent. He smiled in smug satisfaction. Shadow said, “Okay lover, you can start now.”

Clanton rose from the bed, his face red, speechless in his fury. He strode over to a pile of gear placed near the table and strode back brandishing a riding crop. Curses spewed from his lips as he lashed the helpless woman. Shadow writhed beneath the crop with clenched teeth and did not cry out. Mike and Lyle howled like jackals as they watched the lewd spectacle of the naked man whipping the bound naked woman.

When he had glutted his anger, Clanton flung the riding crop away. He began to dress.

“Hey Sailor,” said Lyle, “Don’t we get a turn?”

“If I don’t break her soon you just might,” replied Clanton. “In the meantime, we’re going down to Eden to pay our respects to Karla. It’ll give this little hothead a chance to cool off and think things over, maybe figure out what’s best for her.”

“What if she gets loose?”

“She won’t. Trust me; I know how to tie a woman up.”

A few minutes later, they departed.

#

Outside, night had fallen and a harvest moon had risen above the pines. Three horsemen galloped away from the lonely cabin. Hiding in the woods nearby, Christian watched them ride off.

After his earlier escape, he had circled back in time to witness Clanton and his men take Shadow prisoner. He had followed them from a safe distance, using the woods for concealment. Once they had arrived at their destination, he had waited for them to emerge once more.

Now Christian approached the cabin warily. He eased the door open and gasped at what he saw luridly revealed by the flickering lamplight within.

Shadow remained as Clanton had left her, tied spread-eagled to the bed. She was the first thing one saw upon entering the cabin. The bunk lie tilted at such an angle that it offered a clear view of her nude body in bondage. Her ivory flesh was crisscrossed with welts from her whipping with the riding crop. She was slick with sweat and her breasts rose and fell with her heavy breathing. The supple muscles of her superbly toned body flexed and stood out in relief as she writhed on the bed straining against her bonds.

“You can jack off later! Stop staring at me and untie me!”

Shadow’s sharp words snapped Christian out of his stunned paralysis. He crossed the cabin in an instant and began to fumble with the knots that held her immobile. He struggled with them for a few seconds until she told him, “Get my knife over there.”

Christian retrieved Shadow’s bowie knife from where she had tossed it. The keen blade made short work of he bonds. Another moment and she was free.

Shadow sat up. She flexed her fingers and toes and felt circulation return.

“Merciful God!” Christian exclaimed, “Those fiends! Will you be alright?”

“I’m alright now,” Shadow replied tersely, “It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve had some oaf grunting on top of me.”

Shadow dressed and they exited the cabin. They went back to Christian’s hiding place, where Shadow’s pinto was tied.

“Did you have much trouble leading my horse back here?” she asked.

“Actually, I got back on and rode most of the way.”

“I’m impressed. Incitatus won’t usually let anyone ride him but me. Do you have your gun?”

“Yes. And yours. I saw where you threw it and went back and got it.”

“Good boy. I spent all the ammunition I had on my belt, but I have a couple more clips in the saddlebags."

Shadow retrieved the ammo and reloaded. She told Christian, “You stay back here with the horse. I’ve got some work to do.”

“What sort of work?”

“When Clanton gets back here, he is in for a big fat fucking surprise.”

#

Maggie’s Creekhouse had been the scene of an impromptu wake that day. Karla now lay in a coffin that one of her admirers had donated. On the morrow the coffin would be nailed shut, loaded onto a wagon, and taken to its final resting place.

Sailor Clanton sat with his cronies, moodily drinking. “She will be missed,” he said, although he didn’t seem too broken up.

“What about the one back in the cabin?” asked Lyle.

“That bitch deprived me of the best piece of ass I ever had,” Clanton informed him. “It’s only fitting that she take her place.”

Looking as though he had made up his mind about something, Clanton slammed some money on the table. “Get drunk on me, boys,” he told Mike and Lyle, “I’m going back. Give me an hour or so. I’m going to try a more romantic approach. Don’t need an audience this time. Could be she might start to warm up to me.”

“What if she don’t, Sailor?”

“She’ll get it the easy way. She’ll get it the hard way. Eventually she’ll start to break.”

Sailor Clanton left to put his theory into practice.

When he arrived back at the cabin, the first thing he noticed was that it was dark. The lamp must have gone out. He tied his horse in back and went around to the front.

Crossing the threshold, he called out, “Honey, I’m home!”

No answer. Before his eyes could adjust to the gloom within, Clanton felt the cold muzzle of a gun being pressed against his temple.

“You’ll never get to Sea World that way!” said a voice in the dark.

Next: Shadow's Revenge

Guns of the Border Region - Chapter Four

[I'm back at last with a new chapter of "Guns of the Border Region." New readers can scroll down for previous installments. In this chapter, some new characters are introduced, and there is some more exposition giving details about my fictional world of the future. Actually, this is not a bad place for newcomers to start, since it gives the flavor of "Guns of the Border Region" and "Twilight's Last Gleaming."]

CHAPTER FOUR -- TROUBLE IN THE ALLEGHENIES

As they passed ever deeper into the wooded hill country, it seemed to Christian as though they had entered a haunted world of fog and ghosts. It had been only a few days, but sunny skies seemed like a vague, distant memory that required an effort to grasp. Indian summer had fled like a thief in the night, leaving no trace of its passing. Fall had come at last. Leaves drifted down from half-bare trees to carpet the forest floor. Dark walls of lofty solemn pines surrounded them, eclipsing further view. Upon reaching a summit, Christian was finally able to discern the lay of the land. The Alleghenies were wholly unlike the Rocky Mountains of the far west. There were no jagged peaks or bare cliffs. He saw only tree-covered slope beyond tree-covered slope, stretching from horizon to horizon. Over all arched the ominous grey sky.

Christian was walking his bike along a narrow woodland path. Shadow rode on ahead in silent gloomy majesty. He made no attempt at banter or small talk. The setting killed any such notion, and he knew that her keen ears were alert for any sound that hinted danger. He was seeing a different side of her. No longer did she seem the lively, vivacious girl who had swaggered through the boom towns. Here she was quiet and reserved, with a touch of sadness about her. Yet Christian knew that this, too, was the real Shadow. All along he had sensed the somber core within her. Christian was the child of a warm, breezy, tolerant land. Shadow was the child of a grim one.

Although Christian was cheerful and optimistic by nature, the eternal twilight gloom of the forest was beginning to depress him. The eerie wind that sighed through the black boughs, the fog that hung in the ravines and gullies, the tiny streams that trickled silently over the rocks; all were taking their toll on his spirits and causing him to grow uncharacteristically moody. It would only get worse after dark.
Last night they had camped in these woods. Shadow had used some rat traps from her saddle bags to catch some squirrels. She had deftly skinned and cleaned them with her bowie, then roasted them over a campfire. “A little whiskey would make this an old-time Westsylvania supper,” she had told Christian.

After they had eaten, they had rolled out their sleeping bags. Christian had volunteered to take first watch. He wanted to do his part even though he knew that Shadow was a light sleeper, and any unusual sound would instantly rouse her and Incitatus. Christian sat alone by the fire while she slept. The overcast sky shut out the light of the moon and stars. Beyond the glare of the campfire, all was utter blackness. The silence of the night woods was relieved only by the far-off hooting of owls.

Sitting there by the fire, Christian had felt himself growing nervous and actually fearful of the dark. He began to understand the mindset of the ancient Celts and other such people who had imagined the black forests around them to be the haunt of werewolves, witches and wandering spirits. How easy to scoff at such things within the security of one’s cozy home, where one controlled light and warmth with the flick of a switch, and where food and all manner of comforts were within easy reach. But alone in the darkness of the night woods, the old atavistic fears were astonishingly quick to return.

Shadow had relieved Christian around midnight. After turning in he had fallen asleep quickly, only to be troubled by disturbing dreams he could not recall upon awakening. Then he had felt Shadow’s booted foot nudging him awake shortly after the chill grey dawn began to lighten the forest. Soon they were on their way again, moving ever further into the woods.

Christian was relieved when Shadow informed him that they were almost within reach of their destination, and would not be spending another night outdoors. “Pops’ cabin isn’t too far from here,” she said.

“Pops? Who’s Pops? Your father?”

Shadow actually grinned upon hearing the question. “Nah,” she replied with a hint of a laugh, “Just some lovable old coot I know.”

The news that Shadow had one or more friends nearby did much to lift Christian’s spirits. He looked forward to being among people again. The shades of early evening were already closing about them. He was eager to get a move on.

They had not proceeded much further when Shadow abruptly halted the pinto. She raised a hand as a signal for Christian to stop and remain still. A few seconds passed before he too heard the sounds that had roused her attention. Some large animal was moving through the brush, very near by.

A tense moment passed. Then the beast emerged from the forest to stand before them in the middle of the trail mere yards away, barring their path. Christian’s eyes widened as though it were an actual monster that confronted them. It was an enormous dog. The huge black canine shape was short-haired and not unlike a Great Dane, but with the heavier, more massive build of a mastiff. It looked to weigh a good two hundred pounds. Its fangs were bared in a snarl, but it did not bark. The beast’s eyes seemed to glow redly. Surely such a hound as this guarded the gates of Hell!

Christian began to fumble for the gun in his pocket when Shadow snapped, “Stand down, Church-boy. That’ll only get you killed.”

Christian obeyed, freezing stock-still to avoid provoking the beast. Shadow swung down from Incitatus, tossing Christian the reins to hold. “Besides,” she told him, “This is a friend.”

The appearance of the monster dog in the road had been startling enough. Now Christian was astonished to hear Shadow call out to the great hound; “Pain! Come to Mommy!”

At the sound of her voice the dog’s tail began to wag excitedly, whipping back and forth. The brute trotted over to the woman. Abruptly rising to its hind legs, the huge dog placed its forepaws on Shadow’s shoulders and began to lick her face. She grimaced as the big wet tongue lapped her nose and cheeks. Shadow shoved the dog’s massive head aside. “Enough, you big goof. I don’t need a bath.”

The dog shuffled forward on its hind legs, forcing Shadow back in a kind of dance-walk. Catching the playful spirit, Shadow wrestled the beast to the ground. The dog rolled over onto its back, tongue lolling between its jaws. Kneeling beside it, Shadow scratched and tickled its belly.

“Who’s a good boy?” she cooed, “Pain’s a good boy! Such a good little puppy! Yes you is! Yes you is!”

After finishing this sport, Shadow rose and walked back over to Christian with the dog at her side. Christian made a tentative gesture to pet the animal. The dog lifted its lip to bare its fangs, a low growl rumbling in its throat.

“Pain, be good,” Shadow admonished, “Churchy is our friend.”

Christian forced himself to remain motionless as the dog circled about him, sniffing here and there. When the dog sniffed his crotch, Christian clenched his teeth as he fought down the panic that arose at the thought of those massive steel-trap jaws closing about his privates. After agonizing minutes that seemed an eternity, the dog went away and seated itself beside Shadow.

“I think he’s accepted you,” she told Christian.

“Well, that’s a relief,” he replied, “I sure hope you’re right about that. How do you know this dog anyway?”

“Pain is Pops’ dog. I told you he lived close by.”

Christian nodded. He remained fretful of the beast, but thought it a good thing that an old man out here should have the dog for protection.

Shadow remounted Incitatus and they were on their way once more. The dog, still wary of the newcomer, kept close to Christian. Presently Shadow led them down a fork in the trail. Through gaps in the trees, Christian could discern a clearing and a large cabin within it. As they approached it, the dog broke from his side to race on ahead. They entered the clearing.

A tall man stood before them. He had been splitting wood and gripped a large axe with both powerful hands. At the sound of their approach, he had ceased his task. He awaited their coming motionless as a bronze statue, senses alert to identify friend or foe.

The man standing in front of the cabin was perhaps seventy years old, but age had neither stooped nor withered him. He stood erect, well over six feet in height, and was seemingly carved from solid oak. His physique was that of a titan. He wore black jeans supported by a wide leather belt drawn tight about his trim waist. His calves were sheathed by knee-high brown leather moccasins topped with six inches of fringe. The man had stripped to a grey tank top for his labors, exposing his broad shoulders, deep chest, bull neck, and corded sinewy arms. His pate was bald, but the hair on the sides and back of his head had grown long, flowing onto his heavily muscled back and shoulders. A thick walrus mustache masked his upper lip. Both hair and mustache were white as hoar-frost.

All this Christian took in at a glance as his party entered the clearing. As Pain gamboled in ahead of them without barking a warning, the man relaxed. When Shadow rode in on Incitatus, he dropped the axe and strode forward to greet her.

“Shadow-girl!” he called out in a deep booming voice.

“Hi, Pops,” Shadow said demurely as she dismounted.

Pops? Christian was taken aback. This was the “lovable old coot” Shadow had spoken of? Christian had pictured a kindly, doting elfin figure. This man looked to him more like Odin, the chief Viking god of ancient pagan mythology.

The old man and the girl grasped each other in warm embrace. Shadow rested her head on Pop’s deep chest as his massive arms enfolded her. Then, with a hearty laugh, he gripped her about the waist and lifted her high. Shadow was no light-weight, but Pops whirled her about as though she were a child.

By the warmth of this greeting, and just by the way they looked at each other, Christian could tell that the old man and the girl were extremely close. When they were all done with their hugs and kisses, Pops asked Shadow, “So who’s the new boyfriend?”

Shadow made the introductions. “Pops, this is Christian Foster. He’s from the Confederacy.”

“Confederacy?” asked Pops, addressing Christian, “Whereabouts?”

“North Carolina.”

“Mighty pretty country.” The two men shook hands. “Name’s Connor O’Rourke. Shadow and some of the young folks get a kick out of calling me Pops.”

“I won’t,” Christian promised, “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. O’Rourke.”

“Likewise, son. Let me show you around a bit before we lose the light. Then we’ll head inside for some supper.”

While Shadow corralled Incitatus in a small barn and stowed her gear in the cabin, Pops gave Christian a tour of his property. Pops’ cabin was a fairly spacious log home. A smaller cabin it had presumably replaced was used as an outbuilding. There were fields for crops, now harvested, and areas for livestock. Christian was duly impressed when shown a bathhouse with its own water heater and a cold storage unit for perishables.

“I use solar panels to power these,” Pops explained, “Of course we get so few sunny days that I also have `em connected to a windmill over on that hill.”

The tour complete, they adjourned to the cabin where Shadow and Pain awaited them. The cabin was divided into a large front room that included areas for cooking and dining and a smaller bedroom in the rear. The main room was dominated by a large stone fireplace. The comfortable furnishings included a large number of bookcases crammed full of tomes.

Christian commented on the oil lamps on some of the tables; “No electricity in here?”

“Don’t really need it,” replied Pops, “But have a seat at the table and I’ll fix us all some supper.”

Pops fried up some venison sausage and served it with some potatoes and greens. It made for a hearty repast. Afterwards Christian, who had never previously eaten venison, remarked on how much he enjoyed it.

“That was delicious, Mr. O’Rourke. I don’t think I’ve ever had sausage quite so tasty.”

“Well, better than that foodpaste shit, anyway,” Pops admitted.

After supper they relaxed before the fire while Pops played his guitar for awhile. Shadow listened as though enchanted. She had always loved to listen to Pops sing and play; it never failed to bring her comfort. Stretched out on the floor alongside Pain, she gazed up at him like some adoring teenage fan. She was captivated by the music and the faraway mystic look in Pops’ strange blue eyes. They were that bright shade of blue that appears white in black-and-white photographs. Set in Pops’ dark, scarred face, they seemed to blaze forth with some inner fire. Shadow had long ago dubbed that particular hue “volcanic blue” in a poem she had written.

After playing an old folk ballad called “For the Love of Barbara Allen,” Pops set his guitar aside. He turned his volcanic gaze towards Christian.

“So,” he said abruptly, “What is your story? How came you to cast your lot with our Shadow-girl?”

Having been welcomed with such hospitality, Christian thought it only fair to “sing for his supper,” so to speak. It occurred to him that people in isolated regions passed many an evening swapping stories. Moreover, he had quickly taken a liking to Pops. And so he felt no qualms as he narrated his odyssey in search of his runaway sweetheart.

When the tale was told, Shadow added her commentary; “I told him it was nuts to begin with, and ten times more nuts to come with me all the way to the New Settlements.”

“Well,” Pops mused, “Men in love do foolish things. Or perhaps the wanderlust has taken hold of him. Or maybe he just can’t get enough of you, Shadow-girl.”

Christian visibly blushed. Pops and Shadow shared a little laugh at his expense.

“It’s getting late,” Pops declared, “You kids take the bedroom. I’ll just doze here in the comfy chair, right by the fire.”

“Oh, but we couldn’t…” Christian objected.

“No, no, I insist. I’ll be more than fine right here with Pain.”

“Well, thank you for all your hospitality, Mr. O’Rourke. I look forward to talking with you some more. You must have seen a lot of history.”

“Indeed,” the white-haired man muttered, “Indeed I have. Now off to bed with you.”

#

The bedroom was cozy and had its own fireplace. The large bed looked to be the most comfortable in the world. Shadow was surprised, yet not surprised, to see Christian unfolding his sleeping bag next to it.

“Why the hell don’t you just get in here with me?” Shadow demanded as she slipped beneath the covers. She was clad in a simple nightshirt she had obtained from one of the drawers. “I promise not to try to have my way with you. Of course, if you like we could cuddle a little bit maybe. Nothing wrong with that.”

“No,” Christian said flatly, “It is better this way.”

“Suit yourself, Church-boy. Most guys would…aw, forget it.” Pulling the covers close about her, Shadow rolled over to face the wall. She was asleep before he had finished his prayers.

#

In the main room, Pops tossed some more wood on the fire. Wrapping himself in warm woolen blankets, he sank back into the comfy chair. Pain was curled at his feet.

Pops looked to the fire, taking comfort from the warm bright crackle of the flames. It’s hell getting old, he thought. Yeah, sure, you can still twist the head off the average young buck. But that won’t bring anything back.

Physically, Pops was in remarkable shape. It was his mind that had grown weary.
What was it the kid had said? That he’d seen a lot of history? Oh, hell yes. Too damn much history.

The worst thing about getting old, he mused, was that the world that one was born into receded further and further into history, never to be retrieved. It’s during one’s formative years that one’s standards for what’s right and normal are conceived. Since the beginning of modern times, virtually every generation had grown up in a different historical era from its predecessor. Changes in societal norms, technological innovations, shifts in international alliances, economic fluctuations; all had come at an increasingly accelerated pace since the Industrial Revolution. The pace of this change often exceeded people’s capacity to cope with it. Many came to feel overwhelmed by it. A sociologist had referred to this phenomenon as “future shock.” How much more disorienting, then, was it to live through a truly tumultuous era?

What must it have been like to first see the light in the days of imperial Rome and breathe one’s last during the Dark Ages? Connor O’Rourke and his generation had a pretty good idea. O’Rourke had been born seventy-two years earlier in what had then been the western part of Pennsylvania. His father had been a Black Irish immigrant who had married a local woman of old Scots-Irish pioneer stock. He had grown up in Evans City, Pennsylvania, USA. The USA had stood for United States of America.
During his boyhood, he had often heard that America wasn’t what it used to be. It was a frequent lament of men who were as old then as he was now. Even then Europe was arguably more powerful than the US, China definitely so. But militarily, economically and culturally, the United States was still a force to be reckoned with. The trouble was that the nation seemed to be running solely on momentum. The country’s mentors were lax when it came to new initiatives aimed at assuring America’s continued preeminence.

At that time, Europe was the up-and-coming power. But it was not the Europe of old. For generations, Muslim immigrants and their descendents had been supplanting the indigenous European races. European Christian civilization was on the wane. Indeed, O’Rourke’s father had emigrated from Ireland lest he find himself inundated by that rising tide. Germany was already an Islamic Republic before O’Rourke himself had been born. When he was in his early teens, the European Union formally reorganized as the Islamic Federation of Europe.

While Europe was melding into the new superpower, America was fragmenting along ethnic, class and cultural lines. The middle decades of the 21st Century saw the nation torn by social strife. The country’s 300th birthday in 2076 was widely greeted with cynical indifference.

The War had come but a few years later. A coalition of Mid-Eastern nations, with Iran at its center, finally moved to wipe out their mutually-despised foe, Israel. America was obliged to come to Israel’s defense. No sooner had it done so than the Islamic Federation of Europe issued a formal declaration of war against the United States of America. The American military, gutted by decades of neglect, proved no match for that of Islamic Europe. The eastern US came under relentless attack. Within weeks, America was fighting wholly on the defensive. The nation took a pounding that left it wrecked and ruined. The coup de grace was the invasion and occupation of New York City. O’Rourke had been in New York when it fell. He had been lucky to make it out alive.

The War ended soon after that. European intelligence got wind of nuclear options being considered by rogue elements of the US military. Moreover, the logistics of invading, subduing and occupying the vast American continent were costly and problematic. The original root cause of the conflict, Israel, was by this point moot. The United States would never again pose a threat. The IFE stood to gain much in the way of concessions from a chastened America should hostilities cease at this juncture. An armistice was conveniently proffered by Europe. The Third World War had come and gone with the appalling swiftness and destruction of a hurricane.

Early the following year, the World Peace Conference convened in Paris. The treaty that resulted from it was commonly referred to in America as “Versailles II.” The Conference had not been conducted in the Versailles palace. Rather, the allusion was to the treaty that had further humbled a defeated Germany in the aftermath of World War I.

Among the provisions of the treaty was the mandate that American states with large Muslim populations be allowed to hold a special election to determine if Islamic law should be adopted as the supreme legal authority. As of the late 21st Century, this pertained to most of the Northeastern and Midwestern states. The Special Election was held in 2081. The measure passed in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Illinois. This did not go down easy in the non-Muslim areas of Muslim-majority states. In western Pennsylvania, there was considerable resentment over a vote that had been tipped by populous Muslim strongholds to the east such as Philadelphia. The western counties erupted in revolt. The Pennsylvania Uprising was underway.

The rebellion had quickly spread to neighboring states affected by the Special Election. In the meantime, activists in western Pennsylvania issued the Westsylvania Manifesto. The Manifesto declared that, by virtue of having adopted a higher legal authority than the United States Constitution, the states in question had for all intents and purposes seceded from the Union. That being the case, the framers of the Manifesto deemed it only right and proper that the western counties secede from Pennsylvania.

The Westsylvania Manifesto sparked secession movements in neighboring states. In Pennsylvania, the movement culminated in the Freedom March that took place in the spring of `82. Thousands of western Pennsylvanians trekked across the Alleghenies towards the state capital of Harrisburg. Many were armed with deer rifles and other weapons. Some carried the blue flag of the long-ago Whiskey Rebellion. Connor O’Rourke had been among the marchers.

The governor of Pennsylvania attempted to quash the Uprising by turning out the National Guard --a move that backfired spectacularly. The Pennsylvania Guard mutinied en masse and threw in with the Freedom Marchers. A calamity was averted when the western counties of Pennsylvania separated peaceably from the eastern portion of the state.

Other states followed suit, with southern Ohio, south Indiana and south Illinois separating from their parent states. The precise legal status of the sundered portions of these states was unclear. Local districts still retained their Congressional representatives, but no new senators or governors were selected. Government in those areas was now conducted at the local level. The seeds of the Border Region had been sown.

The adoption of Islamic law in the Northeast and Midwest, and the subsequent division of some states, was overshadowed just a few years later by an even more momentous turn of events. In 2085, in a move that had long been anticipated, the southwestern states seceded from the Union to join Mexico. Nor did the balkanization of the US end there. In 2089, the northern New England states, separated from the rest of the country by the Islamic states, also seceded and joined Canada. The trend continued into the `90s, with the Pacific Northwest also joining Canada and the Florida peninsula seceding from the state and the nation to form half of what became known as Greater Cuba.

Shadow had been born at the beginning of the last decade of the old century. At that time this part of the country was already Westsylvania, already Border Region. The War was a decade in the past by then. The Southwest and northern New England were already out of the Union. Shadow was only a baby when the Pacific Northwest and Cuban Florida broke away. She was not yet a teen when the Islamic States of America finally declared full independence. The United States of America, as it had existed before the War, when it had been whole and unsundered, was something she had never known.

To the younger generations, those who had come of age during and after the War, the old flag was no more than a symbol of ignominious defeat. For many decades, even well before the War, the political, commercial and cultural life of the nation had been shifting to the South. In the `90s it became common to refer to the downsized nation as “the New American Confederacy.” The term carried a note of irony, owing to the fact that it had not seceded from the Union; rather, sections of the Union had seceded from it. During the New Constitutional Convention of 2104, the name “New American Confederacy,” in common usage for over a decade, was formally adopted. The New Constitution mandated that only Christians could be full-fledged citizens of the new nation, a measure aimed in part at stemming further balkanization. The new flag retained the red and white stripes, but the blue field now contained a cross instead of stars. When the old flag was lowered for the last time, only old-timers were seen to shed any tears.

#

Pops started awake, rubbing his eyes. The fire in the hearth was burning low. He had dozed off while watching the flames, letting them conjure visions as he thought about the past. He had relived the last forty years first in his thoughts, then in the visions in the fire, and finally in his dreams. Now it was daylight.

Pops rose and went outside. He followed a winding narrow path that led to a small forest glade. Within the glade was a single grave marked by a Celtic cross chiseled from stone. Pops had carved it himself and set it there in place of the rude wooden cross that had been there. As though suddenly pressed by some great weight, he sank to his knees before the grave.

“Oh, Steffy,” he groaned, “I miss you, girl. I miss you so much.”

#

Shadow and Christian awoke to the smell of breakfast cooking. Pops had prepared another hearty repast. There was more venison sausage, fresh eggs, coffee and biscuits.

Over breakfast Christian asked Pops, “Have you known Shadow a long time?”

“Long enough to teach her most of what she knows about the fighting arts, not to mention cards and a lot of other things.”

“I’ve learned a lot from Pops,” Shadow admitted, “And we’re also business partners. Did he show you the still?”

“Still?” Christian echoed, “Uh, no. He showed me the solar panel and windmill set-up, but no still. And you have a still for…?”

“Making moonshine, what else? We get a lot of trade from our neighbors on the other side of the line,” Shadow explained, “See, we’re right on the very fringe of the Border Region here. Cross the county line headed east, and you’re in Pennsylvania--as in the Islamic States of America. The Pennsylvanians in these parts are rural, pretty friendly. Some of them come over here to visit and do a little bartering and some business. Being Muslim, they’re not supposed to drink. But a lot of them aren’t all that devout, so there’s good money to be made selling them moonshine. So that’s basically my whole racket. In the spring and summer I sell reefer to the Christians down south, and in the fall I sell moonshine to the Muslims up north. Pretty sweet, huh?”

When Christian made no reply, she added, “You need to check out the still. Come on!”
So saying, Shadow took Christian by the hand and led him out the door. The still was located some distance from the other areas he had been shown. It was encircled by chain-link fence and stood beneath a metal awning to protect it from the elements. Christian had expected to see some crude ramshackle affair, in keeping with the pictures he had seen of moonshine stills from olden times. But the apparatus he saw before him was a fairly modern, sophisticated-looking piece of equipment. It would not have looked out of place in a laboratory.

Shadow explained the workings. “It can make liquor from corn, wheat or barley. Most of the equipment was originally designed to make ethanol for flex-fuel hybrids. But it’s been many a year since any cars have been seen in these parts, so we adapted it for other use.”

“Did Pops build this?” Christian asked.

“Pops and I worked on it together. He provided a lot of the technical know-how. But it’s my baby. I purchased the equipment with money I made selling pot. The whole moonshine thing was my idea. There are other moonshiners further up in the mountains, but most of what they make is just cheap rotgut compared to what we’re doing. There’s always a demand for a superior quality product.”

Shadow was explaining the workings of the still when Pops emerged from the cabin. He was clad in jeans and moccasins, as before, and had donned a green hunting shirt. The latter was a long tunic-like garment that fell to his mid-thighs. It was belted at the waist. The belt supported Pop’s sidearm, a Glock 21 chambered for .45 caliber ammo, and an Alaskan bowie with a coffin-shaped wooden handle and a massive twelve inch blade.

“Ready to head up to see Leon?” He asked Shadow, “I know he’ll be happy to see you.”

“Leon’s my other partner,” she informed Christian. “He looks after another one of my stills.”

Presently they set out for Leon’s cabin, located some distance to the north. Shadow rode Incitatus, Pops rode a huge black stallion he called Balor, and Christian peddled his bike. They left Pain behind to guard the cabin.

They reached Leon’s cabin by midday. As they entered the clearing, they were greeted by two men, one black and one white. The black man was medium height and strongly built. The white man was tall, lanky and youngish looking. Both were armed. The white man carried a twelve-gauge pump shotgun. The black man bore an M-16 assault rifle.

At the sight of the weapons, Shadow’s alertness kicked into high gear. This did not bode well. The white man she did not know, but the black man was an old friend.
She called out to him.

“Leon! What goes on here? Has there been any trouble?”

“Trouble? Yeah, you could say that,” Leon replied grimly, “When we heard you ride up we thought there might be more on the way. We grabbed our guns and headed out to see what’s what.”

Pops and Shadow instantly drew their own weapons and scanned the surrounding woods for any who might be skulking about.

“It’s cool,” Leon assured them, “Wasn’t really expecting anything in broad daylight, but it pays to be on the safe side.”

The old man and the young woman dismounted and led their horses to Leon’s corral. Once the animals were squared away, Pops said, “Suppose you tell us what this is all about.”

“Better to show you.” Leon led the party around back to the other side of the cabin. Shadow cursed long and loud at what she saw there.
They were looking at what had been a still as sophisticated as the one at Pops’ place. Now it was a wreck, shot full of holes.

Shadow’s face was a bone-white mask of rage. She was looking at the ruin of considerable work and investment. “So what the hell happened?” she grated.

“Last night around ten we heard the animals acting up. I thought a bear or something had come around. I grabbed my deer rifle and headed out. I hadn’t taken two steps off the doorstep when I came under fire. Well, I dived back in here. Thank God these cabin walls are thick. I handed the rifle over to Arthur here, got the M-16, and we tried to return fire from the windows.

“Well, it’s a good thing these cabin wall are so thick. See those chips and holes? That wasn’t from woodpeckers. Anyway, we traded shots with whoever was out there, when the other side of the house came under attack. We split up, with Arthur defending the rear window.

“After awhile the shooting subsided. We waited out the night. This morning we went out to scout around. If we hit any of them, the others took them away. Didn’t find blood or anything, just a lot of spent shell casings.”

“Any idea who did it?” asked Shadow.

“Not really. But I think the object was to wreck the still. The initial attack was just to keep us penned in the cabin. Looks like a move by someone to run us out of the moonshine business. By the way, who’s the new guy?”

“I was about to ask you the same question.”

It was Pops who made the introductions. He started with Leon’s companion.
“Shadow, this is Arthur Gretch. He came to us while you were away.”

Shadow clasped Arthur’s hand warmly and said, “Nice to meet you. We don’t have enough handsome men around here.”

This brought a smile to Arthur’s normally sad countenance. He was quick to return the compliment, “I feel like I’m meeting a legend. Leon has told me so much about you.”

“Charming, too. Not many guys these days know how to talk to a lady.”

While Arthur and Shadow were getting acquainted, Pops introduced Christian to Leon. “Leon Jackson, meet Christian Foster. Chris is from the Confederacy.”
Christian shook hands with Leon, pleased at not having been called “Church-boy” or “Churchy.”

“So what brings you all the way out here?” asked Leon.

“It’s a long story.”

“Arthur’s from the Confederacy too,” Leon said, indicating his tall companion.

“Hi,” said Arthur, and that was the extent of his greeting. He took a step back as if to indicate that he did not wish to shake hands.

They all sensed the sudden chill. And they all knew the reason for it. One look at Arthur’s clothes told the tale. He wore moccasins and a leather belt he had acquired recently, but the rest of his garments were those he had worn since leaving the Confederacy. Shirt, jacket and pants were of the cheap, loose-fitting, pajama-like variety typically worn by the working classes in the Christian South. Such garments were commonly referred to as “peon jammies.” They stood in stark contrast to the well-tailored travel garments worn by Christian. Christian was a member of the professional classes. Arthur was one of the working class peons. Except when the latter served the former, the twain did not intermingle.

Shadow sought to ease the tension, “Well, whatever brought you guys to the Border Region, this is where you are now. And it looks like we could use all the help we can get.”

“So it would seem,” Pops added.

Then Shadow thought of something else. “Pops, if someone’s looking to bust up our moonshine business and get the racket for themselves, your place is likely to get hit next. We should get back there.”

“We’ll come too,” Leon told her, “We can help defend the place. And besides, I wouldn’t mind a little payback. It‘s good to see you again, Shadow. We were expecting you back maybe a week or so ago. Funny knack you have for showing up just as a brawl is about to go down.”

“Funny? Oh yeah, it’s hilarious.”

#

Pops, Shadow and Christian helped Leon and Arthur load a wagon with gear, weapons and provisions. Leon hitched a horse to it, and he and Arthur followed the others back to Pops’ cabin. They arrived just before dusk and managed to get everything unloaded before darkness, which came quickly in the mountains, had fallen.

After supper, Pops rode out to patrol the various roads and by-ways that formed the vast perimeter surrounding his property. Christian accompanied him. When Christian informed the older man that he knew how to ride, Pops saddled one of his mares. They rode out together. Both men wore lightweight night vision goggles, no more cumbersome than glasses. Pops had even devised apparatus for the horses, using old 21st Century night vision hardware. In this manner they could traverse the dark roads without an obvious source of illumination that would draw the attention of other night riders.

Back in the cabin, Shadow tried to get a conversation going with Arthur. It wasn’t easy. He wasn’t exactly shy, just unaccustomed to other people taking an interest in what he had to say. She felt that was too bad. He had a full head of thick tousled brown hair, and his eyes were a nice shade of green. She thought he would be very good-looking if she could get him to smile more.

“You don’t like Church-boy, do you?” she asked in an effort to draw him out.

“Uh, no, that’s not true,” he replied slowly, after taking a moment to choose his words, “He actually seems like a decent enough sort. It’s just that…” a pause here before committing himself, “…the fucking suits can’t be trusted.” And so saying he summed up the prevailing attitude held by the workers towards the professionals in the New American Confederacy.

Arthur Gretch had been born thirty-one years ago in the shadow of Atlanta, the Confederacy’s greatest metropolis. His parents had been in early middle life when they married. At that time his father’s resources finally seemed sufficiently adequate to enable him to merge his life successfully with that of another. His mother had been the eldest of seven children, and had spent the better part of her life helping to care for her siblings until all were grown.

Arthur’s father had died of overwork and exhaustion while Arthur was still a toddler. Arthur and his mother were left to survive on public assistance. His mother was a sorrowful woman who always seemed frightened of everything. He remembered her crying frequently.

When he was old enough, Arthur was shoehorned into an inferior public school. The curriculum seemed designed mainly to teach students how to tell time, follow a schedule, remain stationary where posted, and enable them to follow instructions. The reading program, for example, aimed at making students functionally literate, but not at fostering any real enjoyment of reading.

Upon “graduation,” Arthur entered the workforce. He lived with his mother well into adulthood. He was pleased to be able to furnish her with some small simple comforts. When she died, he was forced to move out of public housing. Even a tiny one-room apartment proved to be a strain on his budget. He opted to move into the “peon barracks.” There he had a bed and a locker. Such spare time as he had was spent mingling in the common areas. The “peon barracks,” like the public housing he had grown up in and the apartment house he resided in briefly, was an unadorned cinder block structure. Members of the working class were housed far from those they served. They were shuttled on special bullet trains to the more fashionable areas to perform their tasks.

In church, the virtues of family life were extolled. However, Arthur had no desire to start a family. He couldn’t see siring children who would grow up with the same disadvantages he had known. Nor could he see sharing a wretched existence with some stooped, pinch-faced woman of the working class --so many prematurely grey, wearing their hair in buns while still in their thirties. How unlike the belles of the middle and upper classes.

Arthur had served their kind while working as a waiter in a coffee shop. They had been resplendent in their finely tailored clothes. He had served them in silence, with a name tag affixed to the apron he wore over his peon jammies. How haughty they had been, so self-assured, while the men and women of his class lived in constant dread of the next horrible thing to go wrong. The professional and upper class women thought nothing of treating him as their personal flunky, when they deigned to notice him at all. When not needed he was invisible to them, part of the background like the wallpaper. It doubtless never occurred to any of them that a male of Arthur’s station would look upon them with lustful thoughts. He was less than a man to them.

But Arthur was a man, with a man’s cravings. He lived in the peon barracks, subsisted on foodpaste, and put money aside all year so that he might enjoy a steak and a woman on his birthday. The steak had been tough, but the hooker had been nice. She had really tried to help, and made a sincere effort to make him feel better.

How livid he had been, then, just a few Sundays later, as he sat rigid in his pew listening to his minister disparage “loose women” from the pulpit. The preacher had railed against “harlots” as a disgrace to “good upstanding women,” and warned that any man who trafficked with them was destined to share their fate in Hell. Arthur had glared back at the man as though his eyes could shoot laser beams of concentrated hatred. He decided then and there to flee the Confederacy and strike out for the Border Region.

He had moved from town to town, gradually working his way northward. In the cities and towns of the Border Region he had found rich and poor, but no aristocrats and peasants. He could have settled in one of the city-states, but they were not his goal. His objective was identical to that of young men of bygone centuries whose options had been limited --to go to the frontier.

In the New Settlements he had met Leon Jackson, who was working to expand his farm and needed assistance. Leon was Border Region born and bred, the descendent of Pittsburgh steel workers. He had treated Arthur as a peer from the beginning, and Arthur was proud to call him friend. It was here that he had met a man such as Pops O’Rourke…and now a woman such as Shadow.

Shadow. God, what a woman! Never had he seen her like. She was beautiful, bold, dynamic, and sensuous beyond all belief. And she treated him like a man. Arthur felt a fierce glow of pride awakening at the thought of this, for Shadow made the women who had treated him with such disdain look like a bad joke.

This is where I belong, he thought. In the Confederacy, he had walked hunched over. His skin had looked pale and pasty. Now he walked with head held high. He looked healthy and invigorated. His frame had filled out. Here he breathed clean mountain air. He performed meaningful productive labor instead of inane tasks. He realized he mattered and thought, I’m home.

These thoughts passed through Arthur’s mind as he listened to Shadow narrate some of her adventures for his entertainment. The conversation took a more serious turn when she told him, “There could be more trouble on the way. Will you stay and fight?”

“Fight? You bet I’ll fight.”

#

It wasn’t long after that when Pops and Christian returned from their vigil. They had nothing to report.

“That doesn’t mean they won’t show up,” Pops told the rest, “Since they hit your place early on, they might hold off until the wee hours before dawn. Or they might not come at all.”

Shadow and Arthur took the next patrol. Arthur had never been on horseback before coming to the Settlements, but he’d been in the saddle a number of times since. In any case, the mare was gentle enough for a novice rider. Christian didn’t care to see the two of them ride off together, but refused to admit to himself that he was feeling any sort of jealousy.

After the pair had departed, Christian asked Pops if there was much money in moonshine. In answer, Pops conducted Christian to a small safe in the back room and opened it. Within it were stacks of bills, fastened by rubber bands, of various denominations.

“Islamic States currency is good for personal transactions in most of this end of the Border Region,” Pops explained, “Come spring Shadow exchanges some it at her bank in Pittsburgh at the current rate. But take a look at this.”

Pops withdrew a single small stack of a different kind of currency. “Fuckin’ Euros,” he stated bluntly, “And the ISA insists they’re not a colony of Muslim Europe. Pah!” He tossed the wad of bills back into the safe, slammed the door and spun the lock.

Back in the living room, Pops and Leon filled Christian in concerning the history of the New Settlements.

After the War, the eastern part of the Old Union lay in ruins. The infrastructure was so badly wrecked that food and other essentials could not be transported any great distance. Relief efforts were spotty at best. Once things became better organized, people in blighted areas took to tilling what they cynically referred to as “defeat gardens.”

In the eastern rural regions, the Amish were instrumental in mentoring residents in the ways of self-sufficiency. Those residents in turn tutored others. After the Special Election and the subsequent Westsylvania secession, the Amish who had long dwelt in the northern and eastern parts of Pennsylvania chose to migrate rather than live under Islamic law. They resettled in what became the northeastern fringe of the Border Region.

In the meantime, adventurous Westsylvanians who felt they had sufficiently mastered the necessary skills opted to embrace the rugged frontier existence their ancestors had known. The New Settlements gradually formed in areas between Amish enclaves. As in the frontier days of old, there were brawls, feuds and other outbreaks of violence. But none raised a hand against the peaceful Amish, who were revered as mentors. Like frontier physicians, the couriers who regularly brought news of the outside world, and roaming troupes of entertainers, the Amish were considered untouchable.

By way of holding up his end of the conversation, Christian told of growing up in North Carolina and of life in the cities of the Confederacy.

“`The New American Confederacy,’” Leon sighed, “I can’t get over that. You have to understand that as a black man, the term `Confederacy’ has certain unpleasant connotations.”

“No one down there has a problem with it,” Christian informed him, “The name actually got started with the notion that it didn’t secede from the Old Union…”

“…The Union seceded from it. Yeah, I know. I heard it.”

Ignoring the interruption, Christian continued, “When they finally had the New Constitutional Convention, that became the name almost by default. That’s because everyone had already been using it for over ten years. So rather than call it something else, they just went with the name commonly used. By the way, black and white contributed equally to the new society. In fact, it was a couple of black clergymen who helped popularize the term `New American Confederacy’ during the previous decade. So race isn’t really an issue.”

“Maybe not. But class is.”

Christian didn’t have a rebuttal for that. For working class citizens of the Confederacy, opportunities for upward mobility were disgracefully few. But that state of affairs had hardly come about overnight. For well over half a century before the War and the breakup of the Old Union, American society had been polarizing along economic lines.

“I take it you don’t think much of the Confederacy,” Christian said at length, “But parts of it are beautiful, like where I grew up. And there are exciting things being done there these days.”

“Oh, I’ve been there,” Leon told him, “And a lot of the people are nice. But the government and business leaders give me a pain. They carry on like the Confederacy is this younger, leaner successor to the Old Union. But the sad fact is that on the world stage the New American Confederacy is a third-rate weenie power. Mexico has more clout internationally.”

As well it might, Christian thought, with California and the other former southwestern US states now part of it. But he didn’t argue the point because he didn’t feel all that passionately about it. The truth was that he felt little in the way of patriotic sentiment regarding the New American Confederacy as a political entity. Christian had been in his early teens when the New Constitution had been adopted, too old to feel any sense of nationhood regarding the Confederacy. Likewise, he had little regard for the defeated and broken Union he had been born into. But for all of that he had fond memories of growing up in North Carolina. He did hope that the new country would one day wax strong and prosperous.

Christian didn’t feel like talking much after that. It was getting on towards morning and Shadow and Arthur had not returned. He wondered about the delay. And then a thought occurred to him.

What if they had come across some cozy spot and were getting better acquainted? Were they even now enjoying a lover’s tryst? As the notion crossed his mind, lurid images came to him unbidden: Shadow and Arthur nude, locked in passionate embrace. He imagined them writhing, coupling.

Christian muttered a prayer between clenched teeth, calling on God to help him banish the obscene images. With an effort, he forced himself to think about other things, like baseball and the dog he had had as a kid. After a few tense minutes, the devil let go of him.

The internal battle had left him shaken and sweating. He took a few deep breaths and grew calmer. Panic gave way to reason. Shadow wasn’t that kind of girl. She might not be a proper Christian woman, but it wasn’t her way to copulate with some man she had met only hours earlier. Probably. And even if she had done it once or thrice, she certainly didn’t do it with every guy she met. That much he knew. Then another thought occurred to him.

Why did he care so much? What was it to him anyway? He was forced to take a cold, sober look at the situation. Did he actually have feelings for this woman? Angel was lost to him. He had to accept that. Why was he now interested in Shadow? Was he indeed interested in Shadow?

A month earlier he would not have thought such a thing possible. Here was a woman who danced naked in front of men, sold drugs, sold moonshine, killed men in gunfights, danced naked in front of men… She was bold, savage, wanton, an outlaw. She was the sort of woman men dreamed of in those dreams they did not confess. He knew that many a man longed to possess such a woman. And if he had a woman such as Shadow, he would be the envy of many men. And that, he realized, would wipe away the shame and humiliation of Angel having left him. Was that the root of his growing infatuation with Shadow? Was that all there was to it? How was he any better than the leering patrons in a Wheeling strip club?

But there was more to it than that. He genuinely cared about Shadow. He had seen her warm, thoughtful side. She was, in his view, a decent person who had adapted to tough circumstances. He had taken a real liking to her as a person. That, combined with her undeniable sexual allure, made for a potent cocktail that could go straight to a man’s head. He could end up falling hard for her, if he hadn’t already.
This raised another question for Christian to ponder. If he had fallen for her and decided he wanted to be with her, what next? Could he really “make an honest woman out of her?” The man wasn’t born who could tame that hellcat. If he wanted to remain with her, it would have to be on her terms. That meant starting a new life in the Border Region. He had a good life in the Confederacy, and a fine profession. Once he completed the business at hand, could he really chuck it all and leave home, friends and family?

Christian knew that he must decide these matters soon. Shadow would not remain available forever. He knew that Arthur was interested in her. He could tell by the way he looked at her. In the Border Region, especially here in the New Settlements, they were equally eligible as suitors. If Christian wanted Shadow, he needed to make his move soon. If it wasn’t already too late, that is. Shadow and Arthur still were not back.

Christian found himself wondering once again if they were somewhere making love. Then, for the first time in the course of all this morbid brooding, he considered the possibility that they might have come to harm. A fine friend he was, not to have thought of that before this. He felt himself growing really anxious when he heard them ride up.

Shadow and Arthur‘s patrol had been uneventful. While they were out they detected no sign that any intruders had ventured into the area. The group bedded down after that, sleeping through part of the daylight hours. At any given time one person remained awake and on watch. The following evening they repeated the vigil. Shadow took the first patrol. Christian volunteered to accompany her before anyone else had a chance to speak up.

Out on the trails, they rode together in silence. Shadow remained alert for anything out of the ordinary. As for Christian, it was as though he had been struck mute. When he tried to break the ice with an innocuous comment about the possibility of rain, his tongue felt swollen and his mouth had gone dry. A swig from his canteen relieved the parched feeling. He now felt he could talk without his voice cracking, but was actually glad he had been unable to speak a moment earlier. He didn’t want to embarrass himself by saying something that made his sound like a blithering idiot. He knew he had to frame his words carefully before he spoke.

It was not the first time this paralyzing awkwardness around women had afflicted him. It had always been so. There had been times when he tried too hard and made the worst sort of fool of himself. On other occasions he had attempted to play it cool and let golden opportunities slip through his fingers. So what to do now? After much deliberation, he decided to err on the side of boldness.

When the moment seemed right he told her, “I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate you.” This evoked a quizzical look, a raised eyebrow, and an odd little half-smile.

Christian groaned inwardly. Way to go, Casanova, he told himself, How can you miss with a line like that? But at least he’d made an opening move. If he followed it up subtly and discreetly, he felt that a smart girl like Shadow was sure to take the hint.

After they returned, Pops and Leon went out on patrol. That left Christian, Arthur and Shadow alone in the cabin. The situation made for some awkward moments. In addition to class resentment, she could sense the jealousy simmering between the two men and their sexual tension regarding her. Shadow worked at smoothing things over. It wasn’t easy. She managed to steer their conversation onto innocuous topics, and gradually felt the mood in the room lighten.

#

Following the second night on alert, with still no trouble materializing, the group assembled the next day to discuss future strategy.

“We can’t keep doing this,” Shadow told the others, “They’ve tipped their hand, so they know we’ll be ready for them if they strike again soon. The smart move for them would be to lie low, bide their time, and lull us off guard before they hit us again. We can’t wait around for them to do that. We need to take the initiative, take the ball away from them, take the fight to them somehow.”

“That could be a tall order, considering that we don’t even know who ‘they’ are,” Leon reminded her.

“Well, somebody knows,” Shadow replied after a moment’s reflection, “Assholes like to brag. People hear things. Nobody in some shit pile like Eden can keep his mouth shut.”

“Eden?” Christian asked abruptly, “What’s Eden?” His curiosity had been piqued as much by the Biblical name itself as by the context.

Pops filled him in. “Eden is one of these little hamlets in the Settlements where people gather to mingle. You have your trading post, taverns, gambling joints, whorehouses; all made of logs mostly. Eden’s the nearest one.”

“I’d like to go right up there and find out what the hell’s going on,” Shadow announced.

“Except everyone will clam up when they see you,” Pops gently reminded her, “They’ll know it was your still that got hit, and nobody is going risk getting caught in the crossfire if there’s a feud brewing. They wouldn’t tell me anything for the same reason. Everyone knows we’re in business together.”

“Same goes for me,” Leon added, “Arthur would be better, but plenty of people have seen us together by now. I even took him up to Eden a couple of times.”

“So that leaves me.” It was Christian who had spoken, to the surprise of the rest. Their heads all turned his way. He had their attention. “Nobody knows me,” he continued, “I’m a total stranger. I could act like I got sick of my life and set out for the New Settlements. I could talk to people about all sorts of things, the way a person who didn’t know his way around naturally would. That way maybe I could find out what really happened.”

“No way.” It was Shadow who vetoed the notion. She had no intention of letting Church-boy blunder into a potentially lethal situation. It was one thing to ask him to carry his weight in a fight with her there to watch his back. But this was different.

“No,” she repeated emphatically, “What do you think you are, anyway? Some sort of secret agent?”

Christian took that with a smile. “I might surprise you,” he said.

“No, no, and no!”

“Enough,” rumbled Pops, “We can’t just stumble around swinging blind. We need to figure this out better.”

“So who’s the competition?” It was Arthur’s turn to speak up. “I mean, who else is making moonshine on a big enough scale that he might want the market to himself?”

Pops knew the Settlements better than most. “Well, let’s see,” he said, “There’s the Wayne brothers, Bruce and John. There’s Peter Gonzales, Babs Kowalsky, Chuck Newman…oh, and Sailor Clanton. I believe you have a history with him, Shadow.”

“Don’t remind me!” Shadow groaned, her face reddening with both anger and embarrassment. It had been a few years back. She’d been a kid then, dumb enough to almost fall for someone like Sailor Clanton. Lots of girls already had. He was a swaggering young rogue, devilishly handsome. There was no denying that he was a hunk, with his trim muscular body, black hair, blue eyes and killer smile. None knew how he came to be called Sailor; if he had actually been to sea or even seen it. It was just something that added to his mystique.

At least that’s one youthful indiscretion I managed to avoid, Shadow thought. She had almost succumbed to his considerable charms. But even then she had been nobody’s fool. She knew damn good and well that Sailor was incapable of taking her or any other woman seriously. To him, she would be just another notch on the bedpost, another conquest to brag about to his doltish pals. While she certainly didn’t mind a romp in the hay with a handsome, muscular stud, she wasn’t having any of that shit.

Unfortunately, Sailor Clanton was not the sort who handled rejection well. When Shadow spurned his advances, he tried forcing himself on her. She didn’t go for the ball shot, which he would surely be expecting, as her opening move. Instead she snaked a vertical-fist punch to the center of the face, breaking his nose and blinding him with tears. Then she kicked him in the balls and left.

Looking back on the episode, Shadow now felt certain of one thing. “It’s Clanton,” she announced to Pops and the others.

“How do you know that?” Leon asked sensibly.

“Because no one else in the Settlements is that big an anus,” she told him, “He’s had it in for me since I shot him down when he tried to make it with me.”

Shadow felt certain she was right. During their acquaintance, she had found Clanton to be petty and vindictive. He was just the sort to nurse a life-long grudge. In rejecting him, she had hurt his ego. The broken nose she had given him marred his good looks ever so slightly. That did not endear her to him either. Clanton was vain as well as proud.

“Honey,” Pops said sympathetically, “You may well be right. But we need a little more to go on than your woman’s intuition before we start a feud with Sailor Clanton, his family, and his cohorts.”

“You’re right, Pops,” Shadow admitted, “We’ll have to make sure he’s involved. If he is, well, maybe he’ll listen to reason. Maybe I can sweet-talk him, or we can cut some sort of deal. Or maybe we’ll have to fight it out after all. But whatever the case, I have to confront Sailor Clanton.”