Chapter 1
The girl sat on the open plain, grass swaying in the wind. The wreck of a wagon train surrounded the lonely figure, dressed in the clothes of her brother. She huddled beside the wreck of their cart, watching the animal that moved through the chest-high stalks.
A woman sat on the back of the horse, tall, dressed like a man. A black feather was barely visible in her long hair. She looked at the girl for a moment before reaching down and picking her up, lifting her onto the horse.
The two were surrounded, the taller, dark woman keeping the girl behind her. The gang of men kept their eyes fixed on the larger threat.
Movement.
Arms were grasped, a knife cutting down the front of her clothing. It was stripped away. She struggled, broke free. A blur. The men shouting to one another, hemming her in, a few grunts and noises of pain from them.
Her eyes widened, a whoosh of air leaving her lungs as the rifle butt sank heavily into her diaphragm. The gun was slipped between her legs, a second man grasping the wooden butt as the other man held the barrel. Sinking down, sitting upon the weapon for a moment. Breathing, sinking down.
The gun was lifted, her limbs dangling on either side of it as she was brought to the horse of the gang's leader. Set upon the saddle, backward. One man getting up for a better view.
Her head drooped back, legs straddling the saddle, arms spread wide, breasts jutting upward as the horn pressed between her shoulders.
The girl's hands were tied together, the man atop the horse holding the rope as they were led toward the town.
Chapter 2
Buildings to the right and left. Dirt road, wide. The buildings on the right part, make way for a large square, gallows at the center.
The woman was taken from the horse's back. The girl watched. Her body curved over the man's shoulder, legs dangling before her, hair falling between her arms, the one masking her face, chin pressed down just over her breasts. Her legs swayed as he walked, taking the steps upward.
Two men climbed up to the top of the cross-spar on which the nooses were hung, taking her arms and helping her to be lifted atop it, laid down on it. Hands explored her body.
Arms encircled her waist, lifted her into a sit. Ropes were tied on; she was pushed over to the side. The woman dangled under the beam, a rope under her breasts, looped around the beam loosely, another tied to that, moving down between her legs and up to the beam.
The men climbed up on the spar, then down, settling themselves upon her body, moving as they would, the last the man who tied the girl to a hitchpost nearby. Groans reached the girl's ears as rough hands grasped the woman's breasts, turned her over.
Mocking words were said as each man finished with his part of the game, leaving a little mark on the woman, the noises of protest she made growing weaker, until finally they came down to the ground again, the woman left hanging, bruised. The ropes made their presence known as gravity bore her weight down upon them.
Panting softly, she felt her eyes begin to slip shut. With a sigh, her body slumped, against what will remained in her dimming mind. Her legs straightened, head sinking lower, fingers uncurling, as her muscles grew lax and her body went limp.
Chapter 3
The girl opened her eyes to find her head resting on the woman's chest, an arm around her waist. They rode through the night, into a through a gorge. A dust cloud was being kicked up behind them, two men riding hard after them.
The men caught up, tossing the woman across the one saddle and the girl the other. They rode on, down into a large, open space, an old, raised portion of a dried out riverbed.
A dead tree stood there. The girl was tied there, gagged, the horses picketed to its lowest branches.
The woman was draped on her back over one of the smooth, large river rocks. The men examined her, one in front, the other behind.
The man from the front traced his way up her legs with his eyes, letting them rest on her taut stomach, muscles shuddering with the work of breathing and being stretched so. The man behind moved downward with his gaze.
Her arms stretched out, fingertips brushing the dirt, hair pooling like a small, ink black bit of water in the dust, lips barely parted, eyes half-closed. Her breasts bobbed with each breath. As the men listened, they could just make out the soft groans leaving her lips as she tried and failed to lift any part of her body.
The men turned her over onto her belly. The one who'd examine her chest laid down on her back and then moved onto his own. His companion laid down atop the woman. Finding some last reserve of strength, she pushed back and forth against them, grunting as the efforts only caused them to bear down upon her further as her body sank upon them when they stood as one.
Fists curled uselessly at her sides as her head rocked back and forth with their movements. Her groans only increased their force, and only when these ceased, chin sunk to her chest, did they halt. She was lowered to her feet as the men moved aside, half bent double. Her body drooped back against the rock. The men sat themselves down to watch the spectacle.
It was a game of waiting, of patience. The day slipped on, the sun rising toward its zenith. Sweat glistened upon the dark skin, her body growing weaker. She would sink to the sand at one point, at another sling her arm over the rock, but be unable to do much more than pant. The other arm came next. Inch by inch, dragging upward. Their eyes followed her.
Gasps. Her world spun, the blinding ball overhead forcing her eyes to shut. The men stood as the woman's final efforts were being spent. A heel brushed against the stone, but found no purchase. Arms slipped and hung in the air. Her shoulders rested upon the highest point of the rock's curve, breasts shuddering as she breathed, rising, falling, rising, rising.
A sighed, low moan. Consciousness gone once more. A chill breeze picked up, presaging the night to come in the hours beyond, bringing relief too late, raising gooseflesh on the men and the woman's form. The men turned to make their camp, but not before smiling. The breeze had given them a last, savory view, the woman's dark nipples spiking with its touch, sharpening what had already been hardened before.
Chapter 4
The night had come. The breeze had risen. The woman lay where she had been left. Slowly, as if by some unseen force, her body slid to the side until she rested on her stomach, half over the hill the rock rested upon.
Her arms shuddered as her body rose, flopped forward, rose again. Her own weak panting filled her ears. Then her body was sliding forward, turning. She tumbled down the incline, body bouncing from rock to rock, scraped by the sharp, worn stones.
For a moment, she hung in space, the rocks gone. Then, "Oof..." Her eyes opened. She lay spread eagle on a pile of silt, body curved to the shape of the mound. "Mmm..." The sandy substance crumbled beneath her weight, molding to her form. It was almost a boon to feel it cup her aching chest, each breath coming with an added groan.
For a moment, she rested, until her head swing to the right, the left, and finally upward. Her breasts dragged through the sand, coated with it, as she stood upon her feet once more.
The woman's triumphant return to standing was short lived, body curving backward, falling. Arms dipped, followed by her head. Legs splayed, sliding down the small mound. She landed at the bottom of the gulch, tumbling onto her stomach, panting.
Her head was lifted again as she rose to a kneeling sit. Her mind forced her eyes to gaze toward the hill she had fallen from, the dead tree there, but couldn't rouse movement in the arms that hung at her sides. Her head began to sink, her body to sag. She slumped, forward pressed to the ground.
Chills coursed through her body as her breasts grazed the ground, legs straightening as her shoulders remained stubbornly held up, even as her lips kissed the dirt. Finally, even these fell, breasts pressed into the ground. Breathy groans left her body as rain began to patter against her skin, gently at first, then falling like needles of ice.
The gulch began to flood.
Water rose around her body. She found herself lifted to her feet, toes brushing against the bottom as it and the dust upon her body turned to mud. The water spun her about. Her arms were spread, face above the torrent, chest rising and falling, battered by the sharp, falling needles. She looked upon this for a moment, eyes half-lidded. "Mmm..." The rounded flesh dappled with water, prickled with goosebumps, sore with bruises and cuts. Drops flew down, struck. Her nipples grew ever more pained, stuck in hardness by the water. Then the torrent turned her. Her back was lashed now, arms and legs brushing the detritus taken up by the flood, knocked about by old logs, dragged across unforgiving, submerged rock.
Morning. Daylight.
Trees grew to the edges of a bank, a bank made of the flood-smoothed stones and littered gravel of many years. Water had collected in small puddles after the great torrent near the edges.
The woman lay in one such puddle. "Ahh..." White stones lay in her vision, body half upon them, half upon the scooped gravel that held the puddle. The water lapped at her body. Her hand tightened around one of the smooth stones, lungs gasping up what breath would be allowed to her for the time she had. She pulled herself forward, breasts burying themselves in the gravel of the pool. "Uhn..."
Pulled, dragging against the smoothed stones. "Oh..." Her head drooped, hand releasing the rock she had clutched at, dropping to one side. "Oh..." She felt the touch of each of the stones, muscles once more refusing her commands as her eyes shut. Rest. Rest was what it commanded. "Ohh..."
