The Company of Strangers

Jantallian

5

The haze of tobacco and alcohol prevailing in the Turner dining room was shattered by piercing screams which suggested an Indian attack at the very least. Emory and Rick leapt to their feet, thanking their lucky stars that their guests had departed some time previously.

"Get the men!" Emory ordered his son, but this was unnecessary, as they were already tumbling into the room, guns in hand. By the sounds reaching them from the farther regions of the house, a titanic struggle was taking place. They ran towards the source of the upheaval, unsure what could be happening, but realising that, whatever it was, it had implications for their whole operation.

Those implications were fully intended by the two who were the source of the uproar. Jess had carried Chantal swiftly and inexorably back up the stairs and along the corridor until they were close to the accommodation reserved for bona fide guests. Then he dumped her on her feet again and said briskly: "Now you're gonna kick and scream and fight, like I know y'can! An' don't worry about the consequences. They won't notice Armand ain't there and he'll escape with June come morning. Once he's given his evidence, we'll get you out of here too. Just play the innocent and they won't suspect you of havin' anything to do with it. Now – make like y' hate me!"

Chantal regarded him intently. Vivid in her recollection were the events of the past few days – the hope, the disappointment, the shock, the fear, the rejection. Now, none of it seemed to matter.

Jess must have seen this in her eyes. "Come on, Tal – if y' don't put up a good show, we're both gonna die!"

It was a good show. The Turners and their henchmen arrived to find her engaged in a violent struggle with the gunman, whose intentions were all too obvious. It took three of Turner's men to drag him off her and subdue him. Chantal, released, fled into Rick's arms. Emory Turner regarded the fury of his son and the belligerent stance of his latest employee with something akin to amusement. He jerked his head in the direction from which they had come and ordered: "Bring them!"

Once more ensconced in the dining room, Emory poured himself another brandy and addressed his son thoughtfully. "Is she worth it?"

Rick glowered and said: "She's valuable – and not just to me."

"True," his father told him, "but you need to learn the difference between the two!"

"I know! But" – he slammed his fist into the table - "no-one helps himself to anything of mine!"

"So?"

"I say we teach this saddle-tramp what that means!"

Emory waited until he had finished his brandy before he responded to this: "You're dealing with the man who outgunned Jim Dark. Apart from being inclined to poach other people's women, he's very useful, valuable even, in his own way. Don't touch his hands – and I want him to be able to see what he's doing afterwards!"

There was a horrible thud as one of the men hit Jess in the stomach and, as he doubled up, another blow caught him on the chin. Chantal jumped to her feet instinctively, her anger and fighting instincts surging to the fore; not for the first time, she was ready to fling herself into the fray alongside Jess.

Emory Turner mistook the movement. "Oh no you don't, little lady!" He grabbed her wrist and forced her to sit again. "No running away. You watch this and see how my son values your honour! Besides, I need to know you've not been trying to string this gunslinger along."

It was a long time before Chantal could ever put into words what the next ten minutes meant to her. At the end, by some miracle or maybe sheer cussedness, Jess was still standing – and not because the two men continued holding him by the arms. Chantal could see his ribs pumping frantically as he struggled to breath against pain of the beating. Blood matted one side of his face where a gun-butt had caught him on the hairline and more ran from a cut on his cheekbone. His shirt was seriously ripped and dark bruising shadowed the lean muscles of his chest and stomach. Rick Turner stepped up to him and the other two had to brace themselves against the lunging forward movement that their captive made. Chantal's mind blazed with contempt – Rick was brave enough when someone was restraining Jess for him.

Beside her, Emory said smoothly, "You're too good a gun-fighter to waste time over incidents like this, Harper. You get the point?"

Chantal saw Jess's head duck in what she thought of as the black-bull movement, but he simply replied, "Yeah, I get the point. Your son don't like sharin'."

Rick laughed coldly and gestured to the two henchmen to let Jess go. "Very bright of you to get the point so quickly, loser!"

"Greedy bastard!" There was a blur of movement as Jess's left fist crunched into Rick's jaw, lifting him from the floor to crash backwards against the wall. His out-flung body sprawled motionless and Chantal had moment of vicious triumph in which she hoped he had broken his neck.

Jess turned and faced Emory Turner. His eyes flicked for a millisecond to the girl next to him. "Neither do I!" he said between his teeth.

Emory leapt up, his face convulsed with anger. But even with his son unconscious at his feet, his ruthless temperament accorded reluctant respect for any man who could take such a beating and still show himself a formidable and defiant fighter. He sighed and said somewhat regretfully, "I guess you need to cool down a little, young man. Hang him out in the breeze for a while, boys! It should give Mrs Dark some satisfaction, if nothing else." He looked hard at Chantal and added meaningfully, "I'm sure my son would appreciate a little feminine care when he comes round."

# # # # #

It took very little in the way of feminine skills on Chantal's part, once they were alone, to extract from Rick what was being done to Jess. She reckoned the information was worth a couple of unwanted kisses. Although his sadistic pleasure might have led him reveal more of what she needed to know, she did not want at any cost to arouse his suspicions that she was more interested in his victim than himself.

"In cases like this, we put the lifting gantry to good use," he told her gloatingly. "Strung up there overnight, even the most stubborn saddle-tramp'll come to his senses."

You don't know Jess Harper! Chantal was pretty certain any such action would merely infuriate Jess even further – just as she was seething with anger herself. She let nothing of this show in her face, while doing her best to escape from Rick's company and attentions as soon as she could. This would have been next to impossible if he had not been a heavy drinker and more interested in soothing his headache with alcohol even than with the attentions of a beautiful female. Chantal found herself escorted back to her room and advised to lock her door. She waited with all the patience she could muster before attempting a second surreptitious exit. All she had to do now was to find some way down to that gantry.

After some thought, she kicked off her high-heeled slippers, hitched up her skirt and tried unsuccessfully to toss back her hair, which was, of course, piled high in the elaborate style she had adopted for the dinner. Amazingly, the structure seemed to have survived the struggle she had put up against Jess, although she knew she would be feeling the bruises on her arms for certain. That brought her up against what he must be feeling right now after such a beating and being strung-up somewhere, somehow … she just had to get down to the cliff-face, but the only way she knew was through main entrance and the last thing on earth she wanted to do was to draw attention anywhere near June's buggy. Which way had they dragged him? She forced herself to recall the details of the struggle in the dining room. Through the service doors, of course! There must be a way out through the kitchen quarters; after all, it was the obvious place to haul supplies up to. She set off in search of the back stairs.

It took several minutes of sneaking and creeping before she was able to reach the now darkened kitchen and the back door. More time was needed to slide back the heavy bolts, and make use of the key which had fortunately, but carelessly, been left in the lock. At last she found herself in the kitchen courtyard, with the long shadow of the main beam of the gantry falling full across it in the bright moonlight. She scurried hastily round the perimeter, keeping to the shadows and silent as shadow herself, until she was under the towering structure and next to the winch mechanism. She considered this for a moment, but decided that, even if she could work out how to use it, the noise would be too risky.

Looking over the edge of the cliff, she could see nothing but two ropes going down into darkness. The cliff face from this point of view was in shadow and she had no idea how far below Jess was or how he was fastened. Even if she had something with which to cut the ropes, it would be stupid to do so with no idea of exactly what lay beneath except that it was a long drop. Besides, there might be a guard or even a gloating spectator or two. It was fortunate that a little further on she found a narrow and extremely steep path, which seemed to head in the right direction – down!

After several nasty moments – bare feet and a long dress were hardly helpful in negotiating a precipitous and rocky ledge – she edged round a couple of projecting bluffs and found herself back in the moonlight and only a few feet from Jess. The ropes from the gantry were bound tightly to his wrists, suspending him by his arms above the path. He had been pulled up just high enough so that he could get his toes onto the rock ledge under him, pushing up to relieve the weight on his arms and allowing himself to breath more easily – but not for long. As an exercise in cruelty, the punishment was excruciating. At the moment he was slumped forward, blood still running down the side of his face and soaking into his shirt. His eyes were closed, a line of bruises darkened his cheek and jaw, and he was breathing slowly and painfully, as if conserving every breath. Nonetheless, he was alert, and the instant she moved out of the shadow of the bluff, his eyes flashed open, startlingly blue even in the moonlight. He greeted her with a fierce grin: "We must stop meetin' on cliffs like this."

"It's getting to be a habit," she agreed with an answering smile; one which, however, was still tinged with the anger she felt on a number of counts.

"I'd call this more'n a habit!" He was looking her up and down with a certain air of déjà vu. "Is a ball gown what you usually wear for climbin'?" he demanded, then added, "O yeah, I forgot the first time we met."

"I was on a date!"

"Not when we met, y' weren't."

"Tonight, you idiot!"

"Yeah – y' can explain to me what the devil you thought you were doin' later," he said absently, as he shifted his weight once more and drew in a couple of deep breaths.

Chantal was not going to stand for this from a man who had just got himself entangled with a married woman, but it would have to wait. "Where's your knife?"

"Left boot, on the inside."

She pulled it out and was about to make short work of the first rope when he stopped her with a petrified yelp: "Don't!"

"What's the matter? I thought you wanted to be cut down?"

"Poco tonto, think what y're doin'!" Jess implored. "If y' cut through one rope, I'm gonna drop down at the end of the other. It'll pull my arm out of its socket, even if it don't actually break my shoulder!"

Chantal gave an involuntary shudder at the thought of this and asked hastily, "What are we going to do?"

"Y' saw almost through both ropes, the same distance. Then we pull hard an' when they snap at the same time - with luck - end up down there." He jerked his chin towards the dark water below.

"Is it deep enough?"

"Yeah – they bring big boats up here with supplies. Lucky there's none below right now. We've got a clear jump."

"We?" Chantal stared at him in surprise. "Are you expecting me to jump too?"

"Of course you're jumpin' with me! You don't think I'd leave you here, now, do y'?" he demanded impatiently. Then, seeing her bewildered expression, he explained with an air of one addressing a small child: "It ain't gonna take long for them to work it out. Anyone with the brains of a flea could see you're the one most likely to cut me down. 'Cos the only other candidate is June Dark – an' she certainly ain't gonna be savin' my hide, is she?"

"Even though you spent the night with her?" The words tumbled from Chantal's lips before she could stop them.

"I spent a damn' uncomfortable night sleepin' in an armchair!" Jess growled defensively.

There was a startled silence as both of them realised they had given away rather more than they intended. Jess was once more the quickest to recover, reverting single-mindedly to his original point: "An' you ain't jumpin' into a river with me dressed like that! Get that dress off."

"Otherwise you'll rip it off, I suppose?" Chantal scowled, remembering the fate of her shirt the first time they met. This was hardly fair, as she was totally disregarding the fact that it had been a complete accident and not certainly Jess's intention at the time. In any case, the suggested action would be extremely difficult for him, tied up as he was.

"You suppose nothing of the kind!" he retorted irritably, hitching another couple of painful deep breaths. "You'll just damn' well do as I tell you!"

Resisting a temptation to reply "Dans tes rêves!" for the sheer hell of it, Chantal settled for smiling sweetly at him, at least until he went on: "And if that's a corset you're wearin', take that off too!"

"What would you know about corsets?"

"Enough to know you can't swim in 'em. Now get a move on, Tal - my arms ain't gonna hold out for ever!"

Chantal glowered at him for a moment, before beating a retreat round the convenient corner in the rock. This was not from any sense of modesty – after all she was shortly going to be swimming in her underwear – but because she was darned if Jess was going to see her struggling with anything, even the awkward fastening of a ball-gown. As she did so she reflected that, every time they met, Jess Harper had a devastating effect on whatever she was wearing and didn't seem to give a dollar what she was wearing or she looked like - except for her hair. Sure enough, when she emerged again minus the dress, he just glared at her piled up tresses and, with what little breath he had, snarled: "An' loose y' hair - tie it back. You won't see a thing if that creation collapses in the water."

Dropping her bundle of clothing, Chantal followed this sensible procedure with a sigh. When she had done so, Jess continued to issue orders: "Roll the whalebone up loosely, so there's space for air. Now fold it in the dress – keep it loose an' full of air - then tie the dress into a bundle as tight as y' can."

She did this, demanding grumpily at the same time, "What on earth is all this in aid of?"

"In aid of somethin' which'll float an' give us some buoyancy. Now, can y' pull my boots off an' use the straps to fasten them to my belt?"

This done, the final instruction was: "When the rope goes, grab the loose end – it'll keep us together. Once we're in the water, use the bundle to help you float. An' we're goin' upstream, not down!"

"Pour l'amour de Dieu!" Chantal groaned. "If I'd known rescuing you was going to be so complicated and such hard work, Jess Harper, I'd never have started!"

"Yes, y' would," he told her softly. "Now, use the knife carefully! Ready?" When she nodded, he began, against all expectation, to laugh and added: "An' can y' hold my hand, please?"

"Only for a very good reason!"

" 'Cause I hate heights!"

Seconds later a double splash shattered the surface of the river.

Translations:

Dans tes rêves. In your dreams.

Pour l'amour de Dieu. For the love of God.