Stick your nose in

A tribute to the TV legend Cheyenne Bodie played by Clint Walker

Cheyenne modelled by Christopher Villa

One

“Hey!”His strong manly voice rang out through the empty early morning air.“You can’t do that …”He strode out of the shadow of the building to make sure he could be seen. Usually the sight of him was enough to catch someone’s eye. The sight of his muscular bulk made them listen. He stood arms tight by his side, hands crunched into fists. Every inch of him looking like he meant business.

“She’s a lady .. what you doing, Harrison?The young rancher had her by the waist, had her feet lifted off the ground. She was crying out, it had been those desperate cries that had brought him striding around the back of the buildings. She was kicking, resisting. She looked terrified .. to all appearances, it looked like young Harrison was trying to drag her over to a nearby waggon. Snatching her.

“You listening to me ..?”The voice boomed strong but quiet. Brooking no defiance. He’d heard a woman crying out as he strode the still sleepy main street. Wondering where the next job came from. Thinking he needed to be moving on. A woman’s sharp cry from round the back of the store had cut into the air of the

deserted town.“Put her down, Harrison,” he warned. His hand pointed at the ranch-owner’s son, finger out-stretched .. but behind it was the unmistakable might of a balled fist. And the towering bulk of a threatening physique. It looked like Harrison was abducting the woman and was dragging her off against her will. The young rancher’s face looked shocked. But angry as well. Young Harrison was used to having his way. Wasn’t into having others stick their nose in.

“Nothing to do with you, mister. Get the hell out of here ..”Harrison spat out at him. Just as the woman’s heel dug into his leg. Coming to her rescue, he would have like to have laughed, she was plucky, not giving in. But you didn’t treat a lady like this. Word was, Harrison was a spoiled brat .. but she was not going down without a fight. Lucky he had heard her cries. No laughing matter, treating a lady like that. All he could hear was her terror, her cries for help. His help.“You heard me, Harrison ..,” he growled. “For the last time .. put her down ..”

The blow across the back of his neck threw him forward, Surprise collapsed a knee under him. Wobbling, head thudding from the blow. The second blow came out of the shadows and smacked into the back of his skull. He fell forward, grunting out in shock. The dirt rushed up to smack him in the face. Then everything went black.

Morton stood over the unconscious body. His rifle raised He gave the unconscious bulk a kick. The stock of his gun was poised to smack down into the bulky frame at his feet.“You want me to finish him off, boss?”Harrison shook his head. Morton could see he was shaken by the drifter’s sudden appearance. He looked lost for words.“No,” he said. Still struggling with the woman. “You lot .. don’t just stand there.”Harrison cried out as her heel caught his leg.“Help me get her into the waggon.”The other two men rushed out of the shadows to help. He cussed as she continued to fight doggedly in his grip. Losing his temper .. thrown by being caught out .. in anger he shook her hard, arms around her waist. Shook her like she was some rag-doll.

He shouted back over his shoulder to Morton.“Bring him .. “Harrison could think of nothing else right now. Pre-occupied with a wild cat.“Damn you, woman ..” , She kicked out at him again. Snarling, spitting.

Morton looked down at the lifeless man under him. He recognised the drifter. His shirt stretched over the broad back threatened to split under the strain. He remembered the cowhand from the bunk house. Washing with his shirt off. You couldn’t miss the strength on him.“Throw him in the waggon.” Harrison called out. A panic in his voice. Harrison gave the woman a slap for bothering him.

“Get him, guys. Tie him up.”Morton jabbed his boot into the unconscious hulk. He didn’t react, out cold. But the sight of those shoulders on him - Morton wasn’t giving the dude any second chances.

“We need to get out of here,” Harrison was calling out nervously. “Bring him ...”Taking no chances, Morton added, “Hog-tie the idiot. Want no more trouble from him …”Harrison yelped as her head butted backwards into her face.“The bum recognised me for Pete’s sake …”

Two

His head hurt like crazy. He was lightly moaning from the thudding in his skull long before he was aware what the hell was wrong with him. He couldn’t see, his vision swam. Something was pressed into his front. Something solid and unmoving. Words. Someone was talking, shouting. Angry words. Snarling, threatening. For some reason he knew the threats weren’t meant for him. Too distant .. yet close enough to be significant. Suddenly the pain rushed through his head again. A sea of confusion drowned his vision. He moaned, he tried to move, eager to get rid of the pain thudding in his skull. But he couldn’t budge.

Voices. No, one voice. Harrison, he recognised it. It came rushing back, that voice brought the memory back. Harrison abducting some woman. Then nothing. He’d been clubbed, he realised. Someone had bashed him about the head.“Now or later .. you she-devil .. you’ll sign ..”Young Harrison - not too far away. Threatening the same woman? He forced himself upright, he put some strength into his legs. Something coarse scraped against his chest.

“Forget it .. you’re wasting your time, god-damn you ..,” she snarled back. “I’ll see you in hell first ..”Harrison snorted back.“Don’t wish something you really don’t want .. bitch ..”

In frustration he slapped her across the face. Enjoying her yelp. Focussing on the reddening welt building on her cheek.“You WILL cooperate ..,” he growled. Determined. Going to get his way.“Like hell I will ..,” she gloried back. Smirking in his face. Making it crystal clear .. nothing he could do to change her mind.“To hell and back, missie ..,” Harrison warned. “I’ll beat it outta you …”

“You’ll do no such thing.”The strong male voice took them all by surprise. It took Harrison a few seconds to grasp where that voice came from. Around the other side of this tree, a strong rugged face peering around the trunk. Bundled up against the tree, his arms tied to a thick rope above his head.

An explosion tore through his lower back.“Shut your god-damned mouth.” An angry voice from behind. Belonged to the pain slammed into his back. His front bashed into the tree trunk. His grunt of pain splattered against the bark.

“Keep him shut-up, for Pete’s sake. Morton.”Morton did as bid. Again jarring the end of his rifle stock hard into the drifter’s back.Back on the ride here Harrison had turned on Morton. Nervous, confused.“Who the hell is he?”Harrison had clearly been shaken by the cowboy surprising him. Morton had explained about the drifter as they had ridden out of town. The guy unconscious and hog-tied in the waggon.“I took him on .. few days ago. Worked the ranch .. tended the cattle ..”The drifter had looked big and strong. Morton remembered him hammering fence-posts into the sun-baked earth. Shirt-off, drenched with sweat, glistening. The strength in that broad back unfazed by the effort. Like the back-breaking hard work was nothing to him.“Then Wilson here came back .. I let this dude go ..”Nervous, bad-tempered, shaken .. Harrison had snorted back.“Well he chose the wrong god-damned time to turn up again ..”

“See this, missie ..?”Harrison was holding up a thick leather strap .. arm out to the side so she could see. A sadistic glee had entered his voice.“You can make this easy on yourself .. Or …”He let the threat hang. Dangling with the brutal strap in the air. Harrison eyed her defiant snarl .. for a brief while. Long enough to make sure there was no misunderstanding ..“Or we use this on you …”

The manly voice growled through its pain.“Do that .. and you’ll answer to me …”Harrison shook his head. Lost for a moment. Then he recognised the voice. And where it came from ..“Morton .. for Pete’s sake .. what I pay you for ..?”Around the side of the tree-trunk Harrison could see the big brute of a man giving him a threatening look. The dude was tied up, hands uselessly tied to rope above his head. A futile threat. But still the drifter’s glower managed to freeze him in his tracks.

Aware he was losing control, Harrison made himself unfreeze from the icy threat behind that glower from the tree.“Morton. Shut his god-damned mouth ..”

Three

The strap tore down his back. Slicing pain into one shoulder. Yanking smarting tears out of jarring flesh. Surprised by pain he jammed his front into the tree trunk.“Shut it, mister. And keep it shut!”Morton underlined his feelings. Another hard leathered swipe cut diagonally down the back. The cowboy’s head jerked back, the muscles of his shoulders rigid.

He shot Harrison a glare. His back hurt. And now his anger was up. Even more determined to stop Harrison in his tracks. And by hell-and-high-water was he going to stand his ground.“You’ll regret that, Harrison,” he said softly. And all the more threatening for that. “Now let the lady …”He didn’t get to finish ... A biting lash tore across the earlier strokes. His face grimaced, teeth clenched together. Eyes now slitted into anger.

“You deaf, mister ..?”From behind Morton tore another stinging lash across his shoulders.“SHUT ..”He could not contain the grunt.“..YOUR ..”Pain rasped, trapped in his throat.“..MOUTH!”

Harrison yelled out.“Hold your horses.”He was holding up his hand. Talking to Morton. Smirking. Ordering the onslaught on the drifter’s back to stop.“Had me an idea ..”

Four

“Wanna play the cavalry, eh, mister .? Riding to the rescue ..?”Harrison had this busy-body of a cowboy by the hair. He’d yanked his head backwards. Forcing him to glare back at him sideways.“Knight in shining armour .. that how you see yourself ..?”When he thought the dumb fool was going to answer back, Harrison shook the head. Smirking into the furious look on the cowboy’s face. Dismissively he shoved on the back of the head. He slammed the cowboy’s forehead into the tree trunk.“Damn you, Harrison. I’ll get you for this ..” The cowhand’s anger was layered with a streak of pain from that thud to his head.

Harrison ignored him.“Rescuing some damsel in distress ..? How gallant,” he mocked. His hand slapped contemptuously across the back of the cowboy’s head.“Be careful what you wish for. mister ..”

Harrison was right up close. Confident that the drifter - for all his muscular bulk, for all the anger burning in his eyes .. he was not going to do any harm. Cord tight around his wrists was tied to thick rope around the tree-trunk. The brute was big and strong. But who was going to let an angry

bull like this loose? “Morton. Get that shirt off him.”

Harrison’s grip changed to the drifter’s jaw. Squeezed tight. Forcing him to look in his face. Sneering contempt into his snarling eyes. “So this god-damned idiot doesn’t want the lady hurt, eh? That how it is, dude?” Harrison could feel his own spit bouncing back off the dude’s furious face, they were so close, his head jerking as Morton tore at his shirt.Defying the anger in the cowhand’s eyes, Harrison mocked.“Wanna make something of it? Dumb fool?”

Driven to put this damned drifter in his place, Harrison tried to squeeze some pain out of the jaw. He laughed back in his face when all he got back was defiance.This dude is gonna keep on battling away, he thought. No backing down with this one. Walking right into his own trap.“Wanna stand in her place, do you?”Eyebrows raised. Like the pair of them had the same idea.“Offering to take it for her .. are you?”Harrison felt a rush of excitement at the idea building in his head. His hand stroked patronising over his prisoner’s face.“A gentleman, are you ..?”The hand gave three light slaps on the bristly cheek.“How gallant ..”

Morton had yanked the shirt off, revealing the broad muscular back. Still tugging the last shreds of material away from the powerful shoulders bunched up.“No skin off my nose, mister,” Harrison continued. “You wanna play the gallant. Some low-down drifter wants to take a beating for the lady .. what’s it to me?”Harrison squeezed down tight. His grip back on the jaw, squeezing. “Be my guest.”Digging his nails in hard. To let some low-life interfering busy-body know who was calling the shots.

Harrison glanced over at the waggon. “Doing me a favour, big man ..”His look got Cheyenne to look that way too, The woman was watching intently, she was by the waggon where two of his ranch-hands were mounting guard over her. Cheyenne saw her frown at what Harrison was saying. Sensing where this situation was going ..“Be a gallant. Spare her. Let the lady know .. see what she’s got coming to her ..”

He gave his prisoner a knowing look. Then he twisted around to look at the woman.“Kind of the dude, .. don’t you think .. to take it for you ..”Harrison’s tone changed. Hardened. Joking over.“But make no mistake, missie .. you don’t take your lesson ..? Gonna be you up against this tree ..”He glared at her. Making it clear, he meant every word he said.

Still menacing her with his look, not taking his threatening eyes off her, Harrison called over his shoulder.“Morton, lay it on. Lay it on good and thick ..”He glared at the woman. She was still glowering back at him from the waggon. But Harrison thought he saw an uncertainty creeping in behind her glare.“Let missie here see what she’s got coming ..”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Five

“What you want doing with the dude, boss?”Morton indicated with his thumb over his shoulder at the man tied to the tree, head pressed into the bark. Sometimes moaning out his pains. Dog-tired. Sweat glistening off the red stripes covering all his broad muscular back.“Dump him? Bullet in the back of the head?”Harrison shook his head.“Nope. Set him free. He’s done his job ..”Morton frowned, he looked suspicious. The boss sounded almost chipper.

Harrison noted Morton’s disbelieving glance. But his eyes went back to the body pressed against the tree. Grateful, he owed the dude, he’d persuaded the widow to give in. The bare back was on fire. Bright red painted every bit of that powerful back. Morton must have dished out getting on for thirty blows. Hard, forceful, nothing held back. His efforts had started flagging by the end, Morton getting tired.Sweat glistened off pain-red flesh. Those trickles of pain that dribbled down his backbone - part of the package that had persuaded the woman. The dude had worked hard to change her mind, his head now drooped, done-in, his body sagged into the bark of the tree. Pain throbbed, Harrison

thought he could almost see it pulsating and consuming the burning flesh on that muscular back. Finally the dude had worked so hard at convincing the widow he’d had to give in to exhaustion, his glaring silenced from taking a violent and sustained beating. But no way had the bull-brute given in, no pleading from this sucker. It had been the widow begging for them to stop. She’d do it! Do anything. Just stop!

Carefully Harrison watched those bunched-up shoulders rising and falling, the power in them as hard as his stubborn will. Labouring in heavy moves as the dogged dude sucked in air. Harrison felt his pig-headed flesh trembling, saw him rocking slightly in his bonds. His fists clenched into the pain, the muscles in his arm hard but burning-hot with hurt. Harrison nodded to himself. The dude had indeed been a great help, turned up out of the blue, not something Harrison had planned on. But he’d been a godsend. The widow had given in. And the fool had been taught a lesson too. About sticking his nose in where it didn’t belong. He’d not be doing that in a hurry again.

He was still struggling with the fires ablaze on his back. No point in wasting that effort, this was a pig-headed sucker they were dealing with. He was in pain, he was hurting, trembling under shimmering waves of heat. Morton had done a good job on him. Not one defined muscle of that deep etched physique was not throbbing with messages of pain .. he’d not forget today in a hurry. Just have to make sure of that. Gonna have to make sure the dude would think twice about showing his face around here again. Morton’s punishment had already burned a good warning into his brain. More of the same would ensure he’d not come sticking his nose into other people’s business.

Harrison grinned back. Assuring Morton.“Just make sure he knows not to return this way again.”Morton frowned. Unsure.“We’re not finished with him yet ..,” Harrison explained. His eyes broke down to the sweat-streaked strap in Morton’s grip.“Tell him I don’t want to see his ugly face within a hundred miles. OK?”Morton looked at the red-striped back. He shook the strap. Like asking, This what you mean?

Harrison nodded, impatient. He had work to get on with. Before that she-cat changed her mind.“Yeah, get back at him .. more of the same …” he snapped back. “Double the rations. Give it to the dumb fool .. give him the best you’ve got. So he can barely walk. He and Morton exchanged glances. His head gestured at the back running with sweat. Reckoning the dude was so obstinate he might still have something in him to dare face them down. Just gonna have to break that down.“Just make sure you make a lasting impression on him ..”Harrison’s eyebrows lifted. Understand? Know how far you’re gonna have to go with a dumb mule like this?“Then take him to the edge of the territory. Find him a shirt. But make sure he knows .. we see his ugly face again .. it’s gonna be curtains ..”

By the time Harrison had got to the waggon and was getting the papers out, Morton had already started on his prisoner again. Harrison laid out the papers for the woman to sign. Signing away her rights to the ranch. Persuaded by the violence she had witnessed on the stranger .. convinced that Harrison meant business. She knew she couldn’t take a walloping like Morton had dished out.

Torturing some poor bystander who’d got caught up in this. She signed. Signed away her livelihood .. she had no choice.

While she was doing as told, Harrison lifted his head. The beating had started again. Seeing how that muscled back spasmed now at every slap of leather on crimson-red flesh. And the dude was not able to hold back his cries every time. Trying to control it still but he was damned hurting. A yelp escaped a twisted throat.

“And when you’ve done him over that side, ..” Harrison shouted back. “ .. turn the idiot. Do his front too.”The woman looked at him. In disbelief. Tears in her eyes. Harrison ignored her. Just pocketed the document she’d signed.“Make it good, Morton,” Harrison admonished. “I want every fibre of that stubborn flesh singing.”The dude was shattered, not throwing back defiance in his eyes. His face crushed into the tree trunk. The back spasmed off another stinging blow.“You come this way again, mister ..,” Harrison shouted. Feeling good about himself. “ .. gonna know what it’ll cost ..”

Morton turned to one of the other ranch-hands. “Jake, you wanna lend a hand.”Morton’s face was running. His shirt dark with effort and sweat.“Get that belt of yours off. You stand left, I’ll give it him right.”While waiting, Morton’s finger nails clawed a burning white trail down the breadth of the sweat-streaked back. He smirked at the jerk of pain. The back sweaty and hot.He spat down his victim’s ear.“Don’t like the way he kept giving me that look …”A knuckle dug into a bruised muscle. Digging out pain.“Gonna wipe that off this god-damned ugly face.”The knuckle dug deeper. Pained flesh spasmed.“You hear? Brute?”

Six

Pain sizzled down his front. Harrison’s paid men had forced him round after they’d gone for his back again. Bloody-minded, furious as hell, he’d kicked out. Hurting with every move they tried to force on him. Doggedly going to get his own back. He’d used all he could to vent some of the anger raging in his blood. But three of them were going for him. None too carefully, no concerns where their fists landed. He must have taken thirty lashes with that strap now. He was weakened by pain. He was out-numbered. Eventually they got him turned around, hands clenched above his head still. To make their mark, Morton unloaded a barrage of fists into Cheyenne’s bare gut. Anger behind every blow. The force scraping his lashed back against the coarse bark behind. Burning, breathing hard. And angry as hell.

It lanced down his chest, Morton’s anger-driven strap. Like a burning stick .. from his shoulder .. scorching .. sizzling down over his sweaty chest. The force of the blow rammed him back into the tree. Splinters scraped through bare burning flesh. Re-igniting the embers glowing on his skin. His breathing jolted with the shock, impossible not to gasp out.A moment later .. hit across his ribs .. from the other side, two of them going at him .. a sharp blow from sweat-hardened leather .. biting into skin .. pain cutting into his grunt of pain. Twisting it up into a gasp. Flames breaking on his skin. Fire bursting in sparks in his brain.

Biting down on the pain. Bloody-minded, clenching together his jaws. Cheyenne’s face contorted into a fury. Not going to give these god-damned suckers the benefit. The sight of Harrison watching .. stood by the waggon .. turned towards him .. enjoying the thrashing his men were dishing out .. By hell .. by god-damned hell, he swore, he was not giving in to this. Chest high out of defiance, belly flat. Searing blows spinning spasms of pain off his skin but like hell gonna stand up to them. No idea what he had got himself into .. just come to the aid of some woman - he had thought Harrison was taking against her will . not understanding what this was all about ..Damn-it .. a guttural animal-like cry escaped his throat, annoyed with himself. Another scorching torch seared across his belly.Oh, he understood alright .. like hell he understood. Understood that Harrison was not getting away with this. Over his dead body …

Another eye-watering slash tore across his chest. His torso lifted, his whiplashed back scraped against the bark of the tree. Pain burst over his back. Fiery hurt ignited his chest. A branding iron. So often he’d branded some steer. Now it was his turn. Searing agonies again burst into flames across his ribs. The slash of hardened leather tore across his front. But .. damn them to hell .. that pain was gonna stay crushed in his throat. Not giving these suckers the satisfaction. Not going to give up his pain.

Morton was getting increasingly irritated. This god-damned dog was fighting back. Manfully trying to suppress his pain .. As if .. . Morton nodded to his buddy, Jake .. a knowing look. Morton wanted this low-life to give it up. Getting off on the power .. bending this bull-headed brute .. breaking his will. Like hell he was going crush those insolent looks. Not having some drifter stand up to him. His one mean-minded look said it all. Jake got the message. This sucker thought he was something special, did he? Was not giving in to the pain they were dishing out, eh? Spitting at their efforts .. dare he? Sneering at their determination .. spitting at their efforts. Jake gave a grunt .. well take that, sucker. Jake redoubling his strength .. putting everything behind his strike. Taking no nonsense from this fool. Catching the sucker around the side .. pain twisted him. Slashing out with all he had .. giving it him into sensitive flesh. Triggering a violent shockwave around his sides. His thick leather-belt zipping around the sides. Dance, sucker. Rewarded by a sharp yell. But caught in the last moment, trapped in the damn dog’s throat, fighting not to show. The sucker defending himself. Refusing to give it up, eh? Jake felt his heart rate spike. Here’s another one, dude. A cold sweat filmed his back. The rush of a challenge. The blast of a response. Here, mister .. Try this one for size.Another .. and another strike .. thrown with everything Jake had .. laid on top of the first .. Bawl, damn you .. give it up!

Seven

“On second thoughts …”Harrison had sauntered back over to the tree. The woman had been dumped back on the waggon and Harrison’s ranch-hands were driving her off. Robbed of her farm. Driven to it by threat of violence. Signing away her inheritance and livelihood. Shivering at the violence taken out on some stranger.Harrison threw her a final look. But she was looking at the stranger who’d got dragged into this mess and had taken a vicious beating. For her. Because of her. Their eyes met. The cowhand felt a shiver of horror pass through her. Then quickly she averted her eyes. As if she could not bear to look at him. Guilty?

Harrison contemplated the looks that had passed between the two of them.“Trust her ..?” he wondered to himself. He shook his head.“If she should go to law .. claim she was forced ..?” His gaze followed her away, huddled together on the waggon. Shaking.After all, no money had changed hands .. why would she give her farm away?“Your words against hers, boss ..” Morton had sidled up to his boss. Understanding his doubts.Harrison nodded.

“Except …”His head turned to the cowhand. Still tied against the tree, his hands above his head, beaten chest inflamed. Harrison saw again that look that had passed between him and the widow .. that understand between them was now shot at Harrison .. but changed. The drifter’s look of sympathy had transformed into a glower. And that look was pinning Harrison to the ground. Fixed by angry determination. Furious at this injustice.

The man’s chest was drenched with sweat. Sweating from a good beating he had taken. His bare back enraged from the strap, his front blotched and angry red. Dozens of stripes had been torn across his front, his men giving him their best, in the hope of some bonus for doing a good job. The dude was panting, his torso shivering with the after-shocks, his body grabbing for strength-restoring air.But for all that .. Harrison felt gripped in a furious glare. A look that said .. given the chance .. free from these ropes .. the cowhand would smash his face in .. the big muscled bull would turn all that power and strength on Harrison and tear him limb-from-limb.He may have taken hell of a beating .. he may have got as many as forty lashes on his back and dozens more dished out on his front .. but this dude was not broken. He looked far from subdued. There was a fire in him. It was like every lash across his flesh had ignited his rage .. a fire that was not going to be put out. It would not take a moment’s hesitation to turn that pounded muscle into brutal fighting fists .. even now .. even after what he had taken. This was not a dude to take a beating and meekly walk away. Not a man who listened to good advice and did as told.“.. can’t afford me any witnesses ..,” Harrison said half to himself.

Morton had joined him, moved right next to the tree. Harrison could feel the heat off the bare skin. The sweat of anger radiating off the dude. Not just from the beating, he suspected. He was feeling the furnace of anger that was raging through this dude’s blood.“Want me to finish him off?” Morton asked unconcerned. “One bullet. All it’d take ..”Harrison cast his eye over the body pinned against the tree. The raised arms elongated the might in his chest. This stranger was a big risk, Harrison realised. He’d told Morton to cut him loose .. make sure he learned his lesson .. give the sucker a few dozen more on his front .. then send him packing. Those biceps were at rest but they were as thick as some men’s calves. That power was backed up by pig-headed strength of mind .. this was no dude to walk away quietly from this. Down below, powerfully muscled in his belly, his pants had drooped, he was muscle all the way down. And stubborn .. stubborn as hell. The look Harrison was getting from him .. clear as the stripes on his sweaty chest .. a big threat, this dude …

“Think you’ll get away with this, Harrison ../”.The dude’s voice came menacing. His spirit was unbroken .. even though he had just heard Morton offer to plug a bullet in his head. No lying down and taking it on the chin .. not with this guy ..

Eight

“AHA,” Harrison was shaking his head. Turning down Morton’s offer to tidy up loose ends. Harrison had seemingly been lost in thoughts. His eyes were still surveying the power in that torso. Still turned on him .. looking at him unnerved. Harrison was taken by the chill he’d felt .. he felt the risk of turning this dude loose .. sensing an unbreakable spirit that would refuse to bend to reality.“No. Not like that .. “Morton had understood the threat. The need to keep this troublemaker’s mouth shut .. permanently. “Someone else can do the dirty work ..” Harrison looked the torso over once more. Nodded to himself. Come to the right conclusion.Someone else could do it for them. Finish off this heady mixture of physical might and bloody-minded will .. Harrison had convinced himself .. he couldn’t afford to let this risk go free ..

“Send a message ..,” he said. His eyes were still all over this muscled torso .. striped with thick angry red .. running with sweat .. feeling the heat of its fury. Harrison was still feeling the need to defend himself against an assault from this muscular will power. The dude was tied up, he was hurting, he’d taken a good beating. But still that spirit was putting up a formidable fight. A fight that told Harrison his change of heart was right.

“Get the word to Gray Moon. Tell him I’ve got one for him.” Angry at being stared down, annoyed at feeling intimidated, Harrison made a move. His hand

gripped the cowhand by the jaw. Yanking his head into his own look. Trying to threaten back. Asserting his own will against this implacable glare. The glare persisted. But suddenly Harrison felt his spirits lift, his eyes lightened. Realising he had the upper hand. All that glowering was useless. This dude was tied up and was not going to get free. Not till Harrison chose what to do with him. And he had just the thing .. “No harm in keeping in with the neighbours ..,” he jibed. His words meaningless to the cowhand. “Never know when you might need a favour ..”

His sense of power could not resist. It broke off the squeeze on his victim’s jawline. A finger traced a path down the deep rift between the cowhand’s muscled plates on his chest. Toying with him .. taunting his helplessness. Rubbing his nose in it .. sticking it to him .. his finger easily sliding in the grease of pain on his front. His hand stretched out. A thumb caught at a nipple. Hard with hurt. Firm with the anger racing through this dude’s blood. Harrison smirked. Futile, all that useless fury. But the man just could not stop himself. He was eaten up by anger, the fool.“The Comanche have a taste for a White-eyes still,” Harrison explained. “Given half a chance.”He shrugged .. seemingly indifferent.“In their blood .. if you get me drift. Never got it out of the system .. the savages. Just never tire of spending time with some big muscled dude .. a White-eyes in their clutches.”Harrison gloated.

The thumb continued to maul the anger-hard nipple. “Hands off .. if you know what’s good for you ..”The voice came at him strong, calm. Manly. But Harrison just shrugged. His eyes mocked the threatening glare. As if saying, Want to make something of it? What you going to do?“Reckon you’re just their type. Some White-eyes who reckons he’s unbeatable. Nothing I can do to you, eh dude?”His finger tapped at the hard muscle on the chest.“Strong-built .. muscular .. pig-headed as hell. Built to take it. Thinks he can stand up to anyone .. How about going up against some redskin savages … ?“

Harrison could see the dude had caught his drift. His eyes had creased into slits. But the voice remained quiet, controlled. Not raising his voice. No sign of fear. “You’re going to regret this, Harrison. Like nothing in your whole miserable life ..”

Harrison feigned a shudder. He was enjoying himself now .. Gray Wolf, .. hand this fool over to the Comanches .. an inspired idea. He winked. Taunting this dude’s vanity. As if there was anything the interfering fool could do to carry out his threats. On the other hand .. Harrison knew .. better than ever .. his gut feelings had been right .. letting this dude go .. too much of a risk.

Gray Moon was the answer. Perfect.“Morton ..,” Harrison’s eyes did not leave his victim. But his words issued deadly orders.“Tell Gray Moon .. We’ll meet him at sundown. By the river. Got something special for him.”Behind he heard Morton snort out a laugh.“This one .. he won’t want to pass up ..” Harrison concluded.His victim snarled back.“Harrison .. you’re a dead man.”Harrison shrugged. Quietly he answered. Quiet . just like this fool had threatened him. But

Harrison had more reason to feel in control. Confident .. he’d made the right decision. Gray Moon …“Pretty soon, dude ..”Harrison smirked into his victim’s face.“ .. you’re gonna wish YOU were …”

Nine

Ten

end