By DJ Black
The day was so hot Amy Antrim was beginning to wilt. The horse under her too was hard on her tailbone but Col had given strict orders that she was to remain in the saddle ready for when the stage arrived. The 19-year-old Amy was sick of taking orders; that was what had brought her to the gang in the first place. But no one crosses Col Mitcham, not if they knew what was in their best interest.
The trouble was Amy had been waiting for half the morning already and she was not only hot and saddle sore, but she was bored. Then the chestnut-haired and brown-eyed Amy was always bored, which was another factor in her turning outlaw. She took off her hat and fanned herself vigorously, straining her eyes down towards the trail for any sign of the darn stage out of Bixby.
The terrain was pretty bleak and there wasn’t a whole lot of cover, the main reason Amy had been recruited to act as decoy. She pulled her colt from her belt and then eased back again. ‘If’en a gun is loaded and checked, then don’t mess with it,’ her Pa’s words came to her. She spat like she had seen a saloon girl do once, Pa wouldn’t have liked that. She grinned and spat again. Pa could go hang.
Pa had wanted her go to a school up north to be a lady like her long departed Ma. Amy had wanted to work horses on the ranch like her brothers, but it didn’t make no never mind what she wanted, Pa had spoken.
Amy stretched and lifted her backside from the saddle by standing in the stirrups. The rush of blood there felt good and put her in mind of… well something else her Pa didn’t like her to think of.
She turned her mind back to the job in hand and shook out her riding skirts to let some air in. She preferred pants, Pa didn’t like that either, but nor did Col. Maybe once she had proved herself, she drew the pistol again hefted it menacingly. In her mind she was a she-devil terror of the prairie, she aimed the pistol and said, “peeow,” and mimicked shooting. Then she blew some air and replaced the pistol.
Col had told her to leave it in her saddle bag, and that she was supposed to look helpless. She narrowed her eyes and thought mean thoughts; no one would believe that. The day sure was hot. She took off her hat and fanned herself again.
Then she saw it; a growing column of dust over on the trail. She watched it for a long minute and then kicked Honeydew into action. The old horse snorted and resisted for a second and then lumbered forward. She was soon at a trot heading for the trail to intercept the stage.
***
The stage coach crew were wary but not alarmed. The young woman up ahead was little more than a child and seemed to be alone. “whoa,” the driver yelled and pulled the stage to a halt.
“You alright there ma’am?” the guard called out, his scatter gun not quite pointing anywhere in particular.
Amy did as she had been told and smiled as she let Honeydew trot forward. “Is this the Bixby stage?” she asked.
The driver nodded slowly, what else would they be out here, “Something wrong with your horse? Where are your folks?”
Amy shrugged; she hadn’t been given a backstory, so she smiled again.
The horsemen came in hard fast, one of them fired a shot and Amy reached for her own pistol but in her excited rush she fumbled and it fell to the ground. Not that it mattered; thanks for Amy’s distraction the gang had surrounded the stage in a ring of guns.
Clem rode up and took the guards shotgun and Col glared at the driver until he tossed his own pistol form his belt.
Twenty minutes later the bags had been ransacked, the horses unhitched and the cash box was lashed between two of the stage horses now tethered to Col’s horse.
“Good to do business with you,” he nodded, his kerchief only partially hiding his face.
The gang and Amy wheeled horses and made for the high ground.
***
Amy was buzzing, she had just done her first job, and she was a bone fide outlaw. In her haste to prove herself further she kicked her horse to get in front of the gang giggling in excitement, until she realised she somewhat ahead. “How about that?” she said wheeling the horse around.
The gang were in a line facing her, Col in the middle regarding her like dinner. For a long moment Amy was confused and then she saw the malicious grins on their faces and began to feel panic.
“That was mighty fine kid, you did great, now toss me the iron,” Col said, “I told you not to take it anyway.”
“I can put it in my bags…” she offered.
“We’ll take your bags too,” Col told her.
“But…” Amy protested.
“And the horse,” Clem added, “Hell, we’ll take everything you got, including those fancy clothes of yours.”
“All of them, every stitch,” Col added.
Amy thought about drawing down on them but Col looked like he wanted her to try. “Look you can’t just…”
“Oh we can, we surely can,” Col grinned, “Now we ain’t got time for any fun, the posse out of Bixby will be on us soon enough, but if you want help getting naked… maybe we can…”
Amy could scarce catch her breath as she dismounted and began hastily undressing. Her blouse and skirt came off easily.
“You gonna shoot her boss?” Clem asked.
Amy stood in her camisole and bloomers, hugging herself defensively.
“Yeah, I reckon, in about 10 seconds if she ain’t naked.”
In a moment Amy stripped down to her boots and hat, tossing the clothing at Clem so he didn’t come any closer. A hard ask with her hands still guarding her flesh.
“Don’t she look cute in just that hat?” Col grinned, he didn’t mention the boots.
Then leading her horse and taking everything that made off leaving Amy naked on the prairie.
“Why’d you go and do that?” she wailed once they had gone. She stamped her feet in frustration. The posse would be here soon, catch her with her pants down to take the blame. ”Darn it,” she yelled, and stomped and kicked at the ground. She thought of worse curses and then said them too, in a long angry tirade.
She had poor choices now, waiting for the posse wasn’t one of them. Chasing down the gang was pointless and a sure way to get caught. There some farms and a couple of towns west maybe a day and a night if she moved fast. At least she had the boots, but the juxtaposition of her hat boots on a naked girl made her feel silly.
“Damn it,” she yelled once more for the sake of it.
***
The day was long and the sun was not kind on her skin. Her shoulders felt like her bottom after one of her daddy’s spankings, her back and actual behind not far off such ravages. Then the sun, mercifully ahead of her where she had intended, going west as she was then it dipped into an array of fire; purple clouds like Navajo smoke dancing across the flames as the sky burst to orange.
Amy felt the chill of the lingering cold yellow sky as the last of the day took its leaving. Then every light breeze, once welcome and cooling felt like a morning brook.
Then one by one as the sky faded to black the stars exploded until there were more pinpricks of silver than actual deep blue charcoal sky. It was breath-taking and she fell to her knees to review the splendour.
“Lord have mercy,” she sighed, feeling something that she could not name and forgetting all that she was and all that had befallen her. Then the cold reached her and she cursed Col and his gang, breaking the spell. “Bastards,” she yelled into the night, “You God damned sodamist bastards,” she yelled, it being the worst words she knew.
Then she was moving, step after step, dragging the hard ground to her with every step and pushing it away with her heels to throw her forward into the night. Every once in a while she would stumble, sometimes badly and she would scramble to her feet cursing at the night. Least ways she had the moon at her back and the Big Dipper to her right kept her west in the void where sky and horizon were joined to be almost unseen.
Exhaustion took her down and her aching legs began to slow. Perhaps she should rest, she thought, if she did cross a trail in the dark she would never know it. If she slept, would she wake? Could she sleep? She stopped and stretched, doing so she saw the lights way off ahead of her. Two or three, but spaced out as to suggest a collection of homesteads or a town. She bent to support herself hands on knees and found a smile.
***
Jack Standing was a big man, not fat, but killer lithe. More than two yards high, his shoulders were twice the width of hips and his squared off jaw was set hard as if daring the world to challenge him. He wasn’t sure he liked the job in hand, runaway women were not his usual line, but John Antrim was paying to get his daughter back and he had no qualms at all about how Standing did that.
The only complication was the involvement of the Col Mitcham gang, if she was in with them then the only way through was with a whole lot of dead folks lying in the dust. However, Standing reckoned that one way or another he would have cut Amy Antrim loose when he was done with her and all that remained was to pick up the pieces.
It had already been three days and the news of the Mitcham hit on the Bixby stage had gotten around. The word was that the posse was in pursuit of five men heading east. Five was the number Mitcham usually ran with, and that with the fact that no one had mentioned a girl meant that Antrim’s daughter was either already dead or on the run. Standing reckoned on the latter and decided to head west.
There was but three towns a short hop from there, and if a body were to miss one then there was the North-West Trail, which would be hard to miss even in the dark.
Standing kicked his horse to a trot and headed for the nearest settlement.
***
The barn on the edge of the quite large town offered her a haven with water, straw for a bed and even a few oats to slack her hunger. Light was already breaching the sky to the east by the time she burrowed into the hay, but by then she was cooked.
The morning cam fast and it was only the chickens that were up. From her place under the hay Amy watched a young girl feeding livestock and an older woman taking in some laundry. Amy waited until the first went behind the woodshed and presumably her mother went inside, and then she scrambled out.
There were men’s pants on the line, a good pair too, maybe for a boy. The gingham shirt was well made too and although a little damp, it was the best she had to hand. With no fiddling women’s under things she was dressed like a man in a trice and strolling off to what she took for the main street before her theft was even missed.
The town was not large, but she had seen smaller set-ups. There was a sheriff’s office, a bank, a church, a school next to it, and further along a general store. She wondered if her late lodgings served as the town livery, but there was certainly no saloon.
Amy grinned, she was a mean assed outlaw and these were little lambs to be fleeced. Assuming the sheriff was not all that, she could help herself to ready change at the bank or store, and then get a horse and be on her way.
A few people noticed her, quite a few, the town was too small not to see a stranger in their midst, but she was a just girl, wasn’t she? Amy astrolled to the sheriff’s office to take stock of the opposition.
By the time she reached the white-washed brick hut that served as the sheriff’s office there were quite a few people stopping to regard her and even follow. One or two of the braver ones were getting set to approach her.
Time to go outlaw, she thought and stepped inside.
Deputy Martin sat at the only desk eating a sandwich and he paused mid bite. From his startled gormless expression one would think he had never ever seen a visitor before. He certainly had that lanky field-hand look about him, like he was failed farmer shoehorned into this job. Amy dropped her stance to rest on one hip and gave him her best beguiling smile.
“Ma’am?” he said, now abandoning the sandwich and taking to looking her up and down.
Amy guessed a girl in men’s clothes was not quite thing in a small town. She wondered how he would have reacted had she still been naked. On the desk were the cell door keys and a pistol. This was going to be a cinch.
“I wonder if you can help me,” she flashed a smile and even fluttered some eyelashes.
“Eh…” Deputy Martin countered eloquently.
Amy closed her eyes in frustration and then quickly readopted the faux charm offensive. “Sir, I think there is something in your cell back there,” she pointed, with a distressed damsel expression.
Martin looked back through the door and frowned.
“Back there ma’am?” he sounded doubtful.
Amy nodded enthusiastically and the deputy dragged himself to his feet and ambled to the cage door for a look see.
Amy took a brief moment to shake her head in disbelief before taking up the pistol and the keys. By the time Martin looked back Amy was pointing her gun at him. Her face was painted with her meanest expression and she cocked the piece expecting to discharge a round to make her point.
Martin got the message and threw up his hands.
“In there,” Amy said as sharply as she could manage as she pointed with the barrel of the gun.
Deputy Martin backed up until Amy tossed him the keys and invited him to lock the doors from the inside.
***
Amy stood on the sidewalk outside the bank and took a huge bite of an apple stolen from the display outside the store. She had already fired a couple of shots and now she was grinning inanely demanding a horse, a saddle bag of supplies and the keys to the bank.
A few minutes before an old man with a shot gun had confronted her, seemingly with the reluctant backing of the storekeeper, judging from his apron, and another man in a derby who had a small pistol that sat uneasily in his hand.
Amy had fired a shot, although not at all certain of her aim, sending the old man’s hat backwards off his head. At this Mr Nervous and the storekeeper had dropped their guns and run at this point, closely followed by the old man.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls…” Amy yelled, “I do think you need to take me seriously,” she fired another shot and most of the townsfolk began to scatter.
Amy took another bite of the apple.
“Quite the hat killer, aren’t we?” said a dark deep voice behind her.
Amy rounded on the speaker and levelled her pistol, “Sneaking up on a girl are we?”
The big man didn’t flinch, nor did his draw his weapon. He regarded Amy with an almost casual disdain as if wondering what all the fuss was about.
Amy could see at once that the man had an edge; the same edge that she had seen in Col Mitcham, only sharper maybe. Still he had not drawn a gun and she was aiming hers right at his belly
“Your Daddy wants you home,” Standing told her.
Amy wasn’t ready for that and was taken aback. For a second or two she swept the street with panicked brown eyes for her father or any of his ranch hands, before fixing her toughest gaze on the stranger. “Well, sod you, you sodding bastard,” Amy spat.
Standing almost laughed “Put down the gun and come with me,” he said as he took a purposeful step forward.
Amy levelled the gun and it fired, she wasn’t quite sure if she had intended that, but she missed all the same. It was quite a strain on her thumbs to re-cock it, but she could do it well enough. Trouble was that action put the barrel skyward and in three more steps Standing had closed and deftly took the pistol from her hands.
In another casual act he swept the 19-year-old up off her feet and carried her like stage bag under his arm.
“You bastard, you sod, you…” she began her tirade as she impotently punched and kicked at the man.
This time people were laughing, perhaps as much from relief as anything, but the outlaw was captured.
Still Amy put up a spirited fight until Standing had finally had enough and sat on a store barrel cross from the bank. Amy was tumbled carelessly across his lap and with one easy hook of his thumb Amy’s breeches were dragged south.
If the man was surprised that Amy had on no drawers he didn’t show it, but then Amy shrieked in surprised protest enough for both of them. The townsfolk shrieked too, but with enthusiastic mirth at Amy’s debagging.
“You can’t do this,” Amy gasped her voice low with her competition to breathe.
“I wonder,” Standing said, “And spanked her bare bottom hard with one large hand.
Amy gasped and began to kick again.
“No, looks like I can,” Standing said and spanked the girl’s bare bottom again.
The one handed applause was soon added to by the babble of laughter and catcalls of people mocking the captured outlaw. Standing ignored them as a steady hard and thorough cascade of hand meeting bottom continued to delight.
“Bastard, bastard, you can’t do this to me,” Amy wailed as she kicked and twisted across Standing’s lap.
“Yes I can,” Standing shrugged, “I can and will, all day if necessary, all the live long week it takes to get you home if you insist.”
“Please,” Amy wailed, close to tears.
Standing ignored her and continued to give her the spanking she had earned so diligently. He spanked on so hard and fast that Amy’s once white bottom was red going on russet.
“Please, please,” Amy begged and then descended into bawling.
“Are you going to behave?” Standing slowed the spanking, but did not quite end it.
Amy grit her teeth, outlaws did not…
Standing spanked her harder and faster again, “Does anyone have a razor strop?” he called.
“Alright, I’m sorry,” Amy wailed.
“Are you going to behave?” Standing asked her again.
“Yes,” the 19-year-old conceded in a strained voice. Her face was a hot red, but as nothing to her bottom, which as the blasting hand ease she remembered everyone could see,
“Louder, these good people can’t hear you,” Standing scolded.
“Yes,” Amy yelled.
“Yes what?”
“Yes I am going to behave.”
Standing set her on her feet. Immediately a woman ran forward and announced that Amy had her son’s pants and her husband’s best shirt. Both were reclaimed without the least resistance from Standing or Amy.
“I’m naked,” Amy hissed as she doubled over trying to guard her breasts and sex with her meagre two arms. The posture did nothing to hide her exceedingly red bottom.
“Yeah I get that,” Standing shrugged, “Did someone steal your clothes?”
Amy dropped to a foetal crouched posture to hide as much of herself as she could, “Obviously,” she rasped.
“That’s a bitch ain’t it, thieves and the like,” Standing replied.
Amy glowered and would have stomped and raged if she was so vulnerable already. She was ready for a moral lesson.
Standing accepted a rope form the storekeeper and bound Amy’s hands and then without waiting and before the townspeople started getting mad rather than amused he made to go.
“You can’t leave me like this,” Amy hissed, still trying to make herself look small,
Let’s see,” Standing said as he mounted his horse and led Amy stumbled behind him, “No we’re good, look I can.”
“I’m naked,” Amy squealed as the gathering townspeople laughed and cheered.
“Yep, let us hope you don’t get cold,” Standing said and set the horse to the trot so that Amy had to jog along after him.
“You bastard, you wait until my father…” she broke off; she figured he might even approve of this.
“You can tell him in about a week,” Standing said.
“A week,” Amy shrieked.
“Be quiet or I will give you another spanking,” Standing told her.
***
It took over a week for the rough journey on account of the posse, which Standing figured might want to take Amy in. In which event he wouldn’t get paid. Luckily for Amy he relented at the end of the first day and gave her a poncho to fend off the night, but which scarce cover her bottom let alone her legs during the day.
Every step nearer home caused Amy to relay her adventures and each day she began to feel a little less certain about their value. Thoughts and feelings like a nagging twist in her tummy. Still the days dragged on, even as she was dragged behind Standing’s horse.
Finally though, Jack Standing rode through the gates at the Antrim ranch, leading a stumbling half naked Amy behind him.
Amy stood head bowed futilely tugging at her poncho in an attempt to cover her legs, and bottom which peeked out behind.
John Antrim weighed her up and decided she was generally fine before addressing Standing, “Any trouble?”
“Not so much,” the hunter replied.
“She kill anyone, have any law after her?”
“Not that I know of,” Standing answered, “Maybe the Bixby posse, but maybe they don’t have a name and they certainly have little reach. If they don’t get the Mitcham gang then there is nothing to connect the gang to your daughter. If they do, well hell, I figure they won’t be too worried about her… can’t know for sure.”
John Antrim nodded in acceptance, then to Amy he said, “And you, you sorry sight, what have you got to say for yourself?”
Amy pushed out her lower lip and looked like she might cry, “Sorry Pa,” she sniffed.
Antrim sighed, “No my darling daughter, sorry is what you are going to be…” he said, “I found a school in Europe that takes in genteel women and tames them for marriage or anything that is needful… they tell me it is in Prussia, which is in Germany I think…”
Amy gaped and made to protest.
“Don’t worry you’ll have a while, I am planning on bi-weekly trips to the woodshed for you until you have to leave… this side of the ocean you won’t sit a dining chair, let alone a horse… and I mean bare bottom out there where everyone can see…”
Amy worked her mouth, she wanted to plead with him and swear on bibles that she had learned her lesson, but then she remembered the stage and the town… and that growing sickening feeling she had felt since Standing had spanked her began to bloom.
“There is a bed, a meal and your money up at the bunkhouse,” Antrim said to Standing, “You have my thanks.”
Standing tipped his hat in mock respect to Amy and led his horse away.
“Now young lady,” John Antrim beckoned to his daughter, “You can have something on account.”
Amy gulped and shot a look at the woodshed just yonder on the rise. It was half open to the rest of the ranch with no privacy at all. However, John had something else in mind and taking hold of her sat on a rail and draped her across his knee.
“I love you, you brat,” I told her, and then baring her bottom in front of everyone he began to give her the spanking of her life.
“No Daddy no,” she wailed, “Not here…”
“Here is good, in front of all those who know of your shame and mine,” John Antrim said sadly.
“Ow, ow, ooh, I’ll be good; please I’ll be good…” Amy wailed.
John spanked the surrendered bare bottom about as hard as he was able, even at the discomfort of his own hand, “By rights I should send to the house for your mother’s old hairbrush, and use it like she used to,” he spanked on.
Amy began to cry, “Don’t Daddy don’t…” these last words took her down.
Once the disappointed rage abated John pulled his daughter close, “You are restricted to the house until I take you to the woodshed,” he told her without anger, “You will go to your room and until I can… I think it best that you eat in your room,” he squeezed her tight.
“Please Daddy,” she wept, “I am so sorry…”
“This was not a prank or high jinks,” he said, “People were harmed, you may yet have to face the law… I don’t think I can…”
“Let me stay with you…” Amy sobbed.
“This school will serve you well, I have made up my mind,” John sighed.
“But until then… I know you’re going to… I deserve it… b-but p-please…” she sobbed, “not in my room.”
“If you stay downstairs you will go to the corner, as your mother used to do it, and stay there no matter who sees,” John told her, relenting just a little.
Amy nodded, she knew what that meant, but she also knew that maybe he would begin to forgive her. “Yes Daddy,” she sniffed.
DJ Black
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