Female Prey & the Elusive Prey (34 page)

“What does that matter?” Kimberley shot back. “I’m pretty sure that right now you’re thinking about fucking me along with all the other stuff you’re wondering about, but you’re not going to ask me for a date or my phone number, are you?”

Greg laughed uproariously. “Elf-Girl,” he said at last. “I just have to ask you if you’re planning to stay here or travel on.”

“Why?”

“So I know what my next move will have to be. You’re right, I AM thinking about fucking you, just like you’re thinking about fucking me, but if you’re staying here for a while I’ll have to try to seduce you, while if you’re going back on the trail I just have to catch you.”

Kimberley felt her face redden. “What makes you think I’m thinking about fucking you?” she countered.

“Oh, maybe not me, specifically,” Greg admitted, taking another swig of beer. “But it’s kinda obvious to me that you’re trolling for some kind of action. You’re in heat, Elf-Girl. You’re walking around trailing a cloud of pheromones, and this place was already reeking of testosterone. But I don’t think you’re just a cocktease, so you must have some kind of a plan. I wonder what that is.” He leaned back in his chair and just looked at her.

Kimberley took a long, slow pull at her bottle to gain some time to think. In spite of the act she had been putting on, she wasn’t all that self-confident in these surroundings, and Greg had turned out to be unsettlingly perceptive. He’d also used some words she wouldn’t expect from someone who dressed like a simple cowboy. Who was he? What did he do in real life? She had no way of knowing, short of asking him directly.

Chapter Nine

It was very dark and very quiet as Kimberley carefully opened the window of her room. She could hear crickets, other night insects, and the sound of her own breathing, but the trading post town seemed to be deeply asleep. Well, that suited her, except that it was a bit too much like the old movie cliché about it being too quiet. She eased her backpack out onto the porch roof just below her window with great care and waited. After a minute, which she measured on the cheap wristwatch she’d bought earlier, she eased one leg out onto the roof next to the pack. Straddling the windowsill, she waited for another measured minute, looking around and listening. Finally, she got out onto the roof and shut the window behind her…and waited again.

There was no noise or movement that even hinted that someone was out there in the dark, waiting for her. Wasn’t there another old movie cliché about something being too easy? She forced herself to take a couple of slow, deep breaths. Maybe this wasn’t too quiet or too easy after all. Maybe she really was taking everybody by surprise. She’d left enough hints that she’d be around in the morning to throw most people off, she thought. Still, what if one or more of the men here had seen through her deception? They could be lying in wait for her right now…

‘Easy, Elf-Girl,’ she told herself. As near as she could tell, her appearance here had come as an utter surprise. Female prey just didn’t walk into town all by themselves, safe zone or not. No, they probably only arrived as captives. So, it was unlikely that anyone had suspected that she’d be sneaking out at…she checked her watch again. The dial glowed faintly in the darkness…Three-fifteen in the morning. She attached a length of rope to her pack and crept cautiously over to the edge of the roof. It was a very sturdy roof and she was a small, slender woman. She made hardly any noise at all. She swung the pack out past the roof and lowered it slowly to the ground. There. Now all she had to do was get down herself, and she knew just where to do that.

She smiled to herself. Greg had been very persistent yesterday, half of the time trying to find out what her plans were and the other half trying to seduce her. It had been very flattering, but at the same time very annoying because there were a few things she’d wanted to do alone, and he just would not leave her alone. Maybe she could have told him to get lost, but that probably wouldn’t have worked. Not here, anyway. Perhaps she could have asked the bartender to evict Greg on the grounds that he was annoying her, but she didn’t think that that would have worked either. That had left only retreating to her room and locking the door behind her, waiting inside until Greg gave up and went away and Elf-Girl just wouldn’t DO that. In the end, she’d tried to excuse herself on the pretense of taking a walk to stretch her legs, but Greg had tagged along even then. Amused, she’d led him on a long, wandering hike through and around this place, returning to the saloon after first passing behind it so that she could see what was under the porch roof. Now she was making for the corner where an ornate wooden column would provide handholds. In a few minutes, she had reached the ground and retrieved her pack. One more time, she waited, listening intently. Still nothing. She shouldered her pack and faded into the dark woods.

The going was very slow. If anything, it seemed even darker than last night. Branches reached out to slap at her face. Roots, vines and rocks tried to trip her up. But she was Elf-Girl now, perfectly at home in the woods, and she pressed on. She wanted to have as much distance as possible between her and that nameless trading post town before dawn. At some point tomorrow morning someone would discover that she’d gone and shortly after that, men would be hunting for her. She was sure that Greg, at least, would be on her trail…and possibly Ralphie and his buddies. She wouldn’t care to be caught by Ralphie. Greg, on the other hand…well, she might not mind being caught by him, but not too soon. He’d been funny and charming, as well as persistent. In fact, he’d been the best date she’d had in months and under other circumstances, she might have invited him back to her place. As it was, she’d been sorely tempted to do that anyway. He’d been right about her being in heat, and she’d thought very hard about having him help her scratch that particular itch. But…after that, what? She still didn’t have a clear idea of all the rules of the place. Did having willing sex with one of the hunters mean that you were now his captive, even in a safe zone? Why take that chance?

It seemed as if she’d been walking all night, and dawn still hadn’t arrived. She shed her pack and sat down with her back to the trunk of a huge old tree. She didn’t know how far she’d actually come or in what direction. She’d started out heading South, but it was very easy to wind up walking in circles when you couldn’t see anything. Anyway, she was tired. She hadn’t really gotten much sleep. It had seemed like a good idea to try the old trick of drinking a lot of water before going to bed so that you’d wake up after a couple of hours, but now Kimberley suspected that it worked better for men than it did for women. She had indeed woken up, but well before midnight. Even at that hour, she could hear noises from the saloon: voices, music, off-key singing. So, she had used the bathroom, and then just to be safe, drank more water. She’d woken up again a little after 1:30, still heard noise from below, and repeated the exercise. The third time she’d woken up, it had finally been quiet. Well, at least this way she hadn’t had to resort to an alarm clock, which would have killed any possibility of a stealthy exit.

She looked up to see if there was any brightening of the sky anywhere that might herald the dawn. No good. There seemed to be an impenetrable canopy of leaves overhead, and she just didn’t feel like getting up to move out from under this big old tree right now. Maybe in a minute or two…

Light flickered at her eyelids. She opened her eyes, blinked, and had to turn her head away. The Sun was up now, bright light streaming in through the trees at an angle. There was just enough of a breeze blowing to produce that flickering effect as leaves and small branches moved. Still feeling very tired, Kimberley shifted wearily to a more shaded spot. It was time to get up now, but she didn’t really want to. Still, she couldn’t hit a snooze button to delay the sunrise. Yawning and blinking, she stood up, leaning one-handed against the big tree, wishing vainly for a nice hot cup of coffee. She ran her fingers through her short, curling hair, yawned again, shook her head. This legend-making business was hard. But then, if it was easy, anybody could do it. Where had she heard that phrase? No matter. She picked up her pack and shrugged it back on. Time to be moving…carefully, of course. She pulled out her map. This early in the day, she didn’t need to use her compass.

As near as she could tell, the four safe zone trading post towns south of Gordburg proper were no more than five or six miles apart and connected to each other by dirt roads. She’d originally planned to visit each one of them at least once. That would have taken her, she guessed, no more than three or four days, leaving plenty of time for some determined man to run her to ground and hold her captive for a satisfying length of time. But from her long, wandering conversations with Greg yesterday, she’d gotten the impression that there were another four such places on the North side of Gordburg, plus even more further out in both directions. She’d tried to find out from him just what “the Farm” mentioned by Barbara’s captors was, but he’d been irritatingly vague with his answers. It did not seem, though, that the Farm was any kind of safe zone, and there might be more than one of them. None of this showed up on her map, which seemed to be like the one they’d given her last year; accurate, but incomplete. Incomplete or not, she was where she was. She could probably still hit the other three safe zones on this side of Gordburg according to her original plan, but she couldn’t see any way of visiting all of the northern ones as well without using up all of her vacation time doing it. Should she just stick to her original plan or come up with a new one? Either way, she didn’t have to decide right away. For now, she could settle for just getting to the next safe zone. There would be coffee there. She headed East. There was only one safe zone to the West and going there right now would feel too much like going down a dead-end street.

It was a beautiful day. Under other circumstances, Kimberley would have enjoyed it immensely. She loved the outdoors. Under the current circumstances, her enjoyment was diluted. Well, not diluted, exactly; more like mixed with a heady dose of adrenalin. She was in danger out here, fair game for any man or men she might encounter. The thought of it gave her a delicious shudder, but she didn’t want to be caught by just any man…or men and certainly not just yet. She made her way carefully through the woods. From time to time, she’d stop to check her map. It wasn’t much help, because she wasn’t sure of her location after last night’s wandering. Still, it was a bit reassuring just to look at the thing every so often.

She stopped for a rest and a drink from her canteen. She’d covered about two miles, she thought, and hadn’t seen or heard anybody. On the other hand, there seemed to be a lot of rabbits and deer in this part of the woods, and every time one of them fled at her approach, kicking up leaves, she’d jump and look around for the source of the noise. Her nerves were jangling, but the presence of so much wildlife should indicate that there weren’t any other people around…shouldn’t it? She took a last mouthful and capped her canteen. Time to be moving again.

This time, she used her compass, trying to angle towards the road which had to lie somewhere to the North. She didn’t want to travel on the road, but if she could just see it, it would help to guide her towards the next safe zone…and coffee!

After another hour of walking, she stopped again. She’d seen no sign of a road or anything else manmade, just more damned rabbits and deer. She felt irritated. Where the hell was the road? It had to be close by. She opened her map again and folded it back up without looking at it. It couldn’t help her right now. When she started out again, she didn’t use the compass. She just kept the sun to her right.

She found the road at last, after fifteen more minutes. In fact, she almost fell into it as she edged her way between some thick bushes. The road was just on the other side of them, sunken about a foot below ground level. The minute she realized that, she slipped back behind the bushes and stood still, just listening. At first she heard nothing except for the occasional bird, but then…

What was it? She couldn’t place the sound. Well, sounds, actually…but whatever was making them was heading her way from the West. Pursuers? She knelt down quickly. She very much wanted to risk a peek to see whatever it was, but resisted the urge. If it just stayed on the road, it would pass right in front of her and she could get a look at it then. She realized that she was trembling, ever so slightly. The noises came nearer…

Oh, for crying out loud! It was a stagecoach drawn by four horses moving along at a slow trot, hooves clomping, chains jingling and springs creaking. She only got a very quick look, but she saw the driver, the guy riding shotgun next to him, both dressed like cowboys, and the two young women riding along in the coach as passengers. Passengers? Was that stagecoach some kind of traveling safe zone? This seemed to be yet one more little detail she hadn’t been told about. The sounds of the coach faded away into the distance.

Now what? She debated what to do for a few minutes before deciding that right now a bold move might be the safest. She stood up and pushed through the bushes again, stepping down carefully onto the road. She set off in the direction that the stagecoach had taken, walking along as if she were perfectly safe and untouchable. She even whistled a little tune.

Through luck or boldness or some combination of both, she reached the next safe zone in just about fifteen minutes. It seemed to be a larger place, but it still clung to the Old West motif. The stagecoach, now parked in front of the saloon, only added to the atmosphere. Unchallenged and practically unnoticed, Kimberley stepped through the swinging doors and stopped just inside.

The two women she’d glimpsed riding in the stagecoach earlier were at the bar, drinking beers and basking happily in the attention being paid to them by half dozen men who surrounded them. The women were laughing at every comment and lame joke their admirers offered. To Kimberley, they were acting as if they were a bit drunk, but they couldn’t have been here long enough to get more than a mild buzz, even if they’d started drinking the minute they’d hit town. Then she realized that they were indeed drunk, but on excitement, not alcohol. This was curious. She pushed her way to the bar and ordered coffee. The bartender couldn’t hear her over the noise.