Chapter 23:

Jubilee finished breakfast and changed quickly into her working clothes. She wanted to get in some time with Savage before Stamping Buffalo came.

Savage laid back his ears and snapped when she came near, but quieted when she smacked him firmly across the shoulder. She wasn't going to fool with him today; she'd taken yesterday to measure him up, and she was going to try a different tack with him today. He looked surprised at her sudden show of firmness, then meekly ducked his head so she could slip the halter over his ears. He followed her quietly out to the training corral, and broke into a quiet walk when she commanded him to.

His initial surprise wore off as the morning progressed. By the time the sun hit its zenith, he was tossing his head and pacing fractiously. She snapped at him, snarled at him, and once touched him lightly with the whip, but it did no good. Finally she lowered the whip, held the rope, and simply watched as he cavorted and kicked around the corral, apparently pleased with himself.

She finally came to the conclusion that he really was asking for it. She remembered what Logan had told her about his taming of Storm; he'd told her that he had to beat some sense into that stubborn head. She hated whipping horses; she knew what a whip felt like, and she didn't want to inflict that kind of pain on any living being; but she had learned a lesson from Molly; sometimes you have to wallop some sense into that stubborn head. She let him rest and have a drink of water while she ate a couple slices of cold beef slapped between two slices of her bread and butter, then went back out to the corral.

They started with a gentle walk, but this time, when Savage balked, she tapped his rump gently but firmly with the whip. Surprised, he did what she wanted him to do, starting to walk. But after a few rotations, she saw him eyeing her speculatively. That was her only warning. He broke into a canter without her command.

She signaled him to stop, tugging on the lunge line at the same time. He threw back his head and reared. She pulled him down, disciplined him with a firm tap on the rump with the training whip, and watched as he dropped back down, surprised and unhappy with the sudden turn of events.

They kept working, and by the middle of the afternoon she saw the saw the idea had finally sunk in. He was supposed to obey her, do exactly what she said, and he'd avoid getting smacked with that whip.

She finally stopped him with a simple word and went up to him, patting him and talking gently. He nuzzled her, not affectionately, but there was more respect for her than there had been that morning. She stepped back finally and urged him in a gentle walk to cool him down. Buffalo had not come, and she knew, from how far away his tribe was, he would not be coming today.

She was jerked from her musings by the sound of a gunshot splitting the quiet. Someone must be hunting. She jumped reflexively at the sudden sound in the quietness of the afternoon, then calmed back down.

Not Savage. The horse reared, eyes rolling wildly, and even though she shouted at him to stop, her sudden tug on the lunge line out of simple surprise had told him otherwise. He reared again, then burst into a frantic run across the corral, whinnying. Jubilee stood where she was, trying to stop him by standing in his way, but when it became apparent that he wasn't going to stop she flung herself out of the way, dropping the rope as she did so. He kept running, and for a moment she thought he was going to crash into the fence, but at the last moment he gathered himself and sailed over the fence with a foot to spare. The last she saw of him, he was pounding off into the tree line.

She swore as she got to her feet and ran for the barn. Grabbing her tack and a long coil of rope, she whistled for Thunder as she ran back out. Thunder came to a stop beside the gate, sensing her urgency, and she threw the saddle on his back and yanked the girth straps closed, then flung herself on his back. She dashed through the gate, paused to push it closed, then took off across the prairie after the escaped horse.

She tracked him into the tree line and up into the low hills. She paused by the bank of a stream, looking for his exit point, when a voice behind her laughed unpleasantly. She whirled.

A horse was tethered to a tree not too far away, and leaning against another one was the Railmaster, Matthew Walbrook. He laughed again. "Well, hello," he said. "You might be a bit more grown, but I'd definitely remember you no matter how big you get. Is your protector here?" he peered back down her trail.

Jubilee's mouth went dry. She couldn't lie and say Logan was; there was no sign of him. There was no one out here but herself and Walbrook. "I must go," she swallowed. "One of Master Logan's horses escaped, and I have to find him and bring him back."

She touched her heels to Thunder's flanks, and was about to ride away when Walbrook said, "Where's your pass?"

She froze. The pass! Logan kept a pass for every occasion in the jar of money in the cabin. She had forgotten to pick up the right one in her hurry to catch the escaping horse. "I—I was in too much of a hurry," she whispered, voice dropping. "I forgot. Please…"

"Get off the horse!" it was a whipcrack demand. Jubilee slowly dismounted.

"You know the rules! You're not to be on horseback without permission, and you're not to be off your master's property without permission. You've been caught on horseback, with no pass; that's 25 lashes; you're off your master's property, that's 20 lashes. You've got forty-five lashes to take, girl, start stripping. The sooner we get done the sooner you're going to get to go find your master's horse." He uncoiled the long, familiar black bullwhip from his belt.

Jubilee screamed in terror and panic, and threw herself at Thunder, trying to scramble onto his back and flee. Walbrook lunged for her, caught the sleeve of her dress, and the thin, worn material tore. He let go of the sleeve and caught her wrist, throwing her back against the tree as he grabbed the coil of rope from Thunder's saddle. "Well, thank you for bringing me something to tie you with," he smiled, his eyes gleaming. He grabbed her right wrist and tied the end of the rope around it, then grabbed her other wrist and pulled her chest tight to the tree and tied her left wrist to the right one. Her legs kicked frantically, but she couldn't escape, with her arms tied hugging the tree. She saw the gleam of steel, and seconds later it sliced through the cloth of her shirt and skirt. A quick rip, and she was nude.

Walbrook leaned in and smiled as his hands roved across her backside. "Well, nice and pretty. If I'd known you was going to turn out so pretty I'd never have sold you to him. How many times have you spread your legs for him, hey?" She threw her head back and screamed for help. Maybe a passing patrol of soldiers, or Indians. Anybody.

"Ah-ah," Walbrook sorted through the rags that used to be her clothing and grabbed her torn sleeve. 'Wouldn't want you to be rescued by some of your redskin friends, would we, now?" He stuffed the cloth into her mouth, tied another strip behind her head, keeping all of it in her mouth, then lowered his head to her shoulder and bit the sensitive skin at the junction of her shoulder and neck. She screamed as blood welled up, and flowed, but since she was effectively silenced by the cloth, nothing came out but a muffled moan.

He stepped back, drew the lash back, and struck.

She shrieked. It had been almost four years since she'd felt the whip on her back; her feet danced frantically, and she pulled in vain against the rope tying her hands. The rope had withstood the tugs of countless wild horses; it was not now going to give from her helpless pulling. She was trapped.

He paused after the first ten, watching her frantic writhing as blood streaked the pale skin of her back and ran down her legs. She could barely scream anymore, the agony was unbelievable. She had taken five and six before, but the judicial whipping she had received from the sheriff in Jackson had been nowhere near as vicious as this one was. And she still had thirty-five more to go. She choked on her sobs, the wet cloth filling her mouth making it hard to swallow, and tears and saliva coated her face. She sobbed in pain and humiliation as he kicked her legs apart standing there and ran his hands between her thighs.

The soldiers never bothered her anymore. Six months after Remy left, they had stopped accosting her and using her body. She hadn't been used in three years, and her body had closed up to almost virginal tightness. His finger hurt as it probed into her, but worse than the pain was the humiliation. Throwing her head back, she could see the tightness of his trousers across his groin as he stepped back and raised the whip again.

Ten more, and she leaned into the tree, sobbing in agony. He hadn't confined his attentions to her back; he'd lashed the backs of her legs and her backside, too. Twenty bleeding red lines decorated the back of her body from shoulders to calves, and she was almost ready to pass out from the pain.

She stirred weakly as he untied one wrist, but instead of releasing her he pressed her lacerated back to the tree, causing her to scream in fresh agony as the rough bark dug into the open wounds. He ignored her pain and pulled her arms behind her, tying her wrists around the tree again. Then he raised the whip again, and it was so much worse, now, she could see it coming and could scream in terror before the lash struck her. He placed the last twenty-five across the front of her body.

She passed out twice, once while he was hitting her breasts, thrust out by her tied wrists, and again when he was whipping her lower belly and upper thighs. He woke her up by striking her face repeatedly with the heavy butt of the whip, and when she was semi-conscious he cut her down from the tree and dropped her to the ground, ignoring her sobs as he brutally violated her.

She was unconscious when he finally got off her, and he stood looking down at the limp, sprawled body under him as he pulled his trousers back on and tucked his shirt in. He pulled his foot back, kicking her hard in the ribs. He heard the snap of cracking bone.

A silent white wraith slipped through the trees, catching him by surprise. It passed him briefly and paused just outside his reach, and he didn't realize he was cut until he looked down and saw the blood staining his pant leg.

Snow stepped further into the clearing, his eyes catching the last rays of the setting sun, and snarled, every tooth showing whitely through the darkness. He'd come back to the human dwelling after a night spent rambling the forest, and found no one there. He'd sniffed around, found the scent of his mistress mixed with the scent of the horse, and went to the horse trough for water. When the horse came back, his mistress would return. All he had to do was wait.

When she didn't come back, and there was no sign of the male human who lived here either, Snow became concerned. He slid under the fence and loped off into the hills, stopping every so often to sniff the ground for his mistress's scent. When he finally did find it, it was mixed with blood, and he growled low in his throat, too softly for anyone to hear. He sneaked forward, circling the clearing by the stream, and approached it from downwind so his scent wouldn't spook the strange horse he smelled in the clearing.

There was another human scent in the clearing, and the smell of his mistress's fear and pain was strong. He had become used to that scent associated with this man; he hadn't smelled the scent in a long time, but he would never forget it. He snarled again as he saw his mistress lying on the ground. Her human fur was stripped from her, as it only was when she was bathing, but there was no smell of water on her. Only the bad human male. And blood. He decided he didn't like that combination, and he darted in, slashing the male's leg to the bone, before leaping away, out of reach of the fire sticks that humans used to kill food. From that distance he regarded the man carefully.

The bad male didn't retaliate with fire, and Snow, looking around, didn't see one of the fire sticks. He took a risk, leaping for the man again, and the man stepped back, pressing his back against the tree that was also liberally coated with his mistress's blood-and-pain scent. Snow leaped, snarling triumphantly, and the last thing Walbrook saw before the sharp white fangs laid open his throat was the startling blue eyes of the wolf. Those eyes pinned him, accused him with the death of the young woman silently lying on the ground not two feet from him. The sight of that still body was the picture he took down with him into darkness.

Snow sniffed curiously at the dead human male. He had been so easy to kill. Even sick prey was harder. These humans were fragile after all. He'd never thought they were so easy to kill. He took one last sniff as death settled over the body with its throat torn out, then, ignoring the spasmodic twitching, he loped over to his mistress.

She still lay where she'd fallen, still and quiet. Snow sniffed at her, whined a little, pawed at her face gently. She was lying still. It wasn't good. She should get up and put her human fur on so they could go back to the human den they lived in.

He sat down beside her, patiently, waiting. After a long time, he sniffed and whined at her, pawing her, then scratched her limp hand gently with a paw. There was still no response. The moon rose, full, silvering her body, and Snow decided that maybe she couldn't put her fur back on. Would the other male, the one who shared the den with his mistress, be able to do it? He got up and trotted purposefully off into the trees, heading for the human den.