"I don't believe it!" Link Morgan furiously raged. "You lousy little punks screwed up!"
"No! I swear it, Chief!" Leo Vincent pledged, his thin, pimply face drawn in fear of the barrel-chested man. "Honest, I wouldn't lie to you…!"
"You'd lie to your dying mother, you fink!" the police chief spat.
"Leo's telling you the truth, Chief!" Billy White, a runtish, long-haired boy put in. "We were going great when suddenly, there he was, coming right through her open window…!"
"And you're sure it was that Caesar bastard?" Link questioned.
"You're damn right," the good-looking, heavy-set Corky assured. "I saw him first… those crazy wild eyes…!"
"Like two chunks of fire!" Leo Vincent added. "And he had the medallion hanging from his throat!"
"We just harassed out of there as fast as we could!" Billy White added.
For a heavy moment there was silence. They sat in the police chief's little office staring at the big man who seemed to be meditating behind his scarred desk. A filtered glow of morning sunshine feebly attempted to penetrate the long-unwashed window above the lawman's head, lighting his flushed face and red-rimmed, tired eyes enough for them to note the first trace of his mean half-grin.
"You didn't sneak around to see what happened, did you?" he questioned, looking directly at Leo Vincent's acned face.
"Are you kidding, man…? With that Goddamned wild hound there?" the thin teenager retorted. "Like Corky says, we haul-assed…!"
"Then we tried to find you Chief," Billy said. "Once, we saw you but you were with the deputy. We figured we better let it ride 'till this morning."
"Well, for once you used your fucking heads," Link replied. "How far did you get with her?"
"We had her stripped and tied spread-eagle to the bed!" Leo Vincent told him, his young beady eyes lewdly narrowing as he remembered. "Fuck, what a sweet broad she is! Man, I've never seen anything like her, bare-assed and naked!"
"We'd even shed our own threads and were ready to swing!" Corky added. "Shit, I wanted a piece of her so bad…"
"You wore the masks like I said?" Link interrupted, wanting to be sure.
"Right," Leo answered. "Everything was going just like you planned it, Chief, until that friggin' dog appeared on the scene."
"Hmmmm…" the half-grinning lawman muttered. "I wonder what happened after you three hightailed it? I mean… after the way he raped my niece… I wonder?"
"You… you mean, maybe he fucked her, Chief?" Leo softly questioned.
"Well…? What do you think wise-boy… did he?" Link Morgan asked, digging a cigar from his desk drawer, his twisted grin still prevalent. "It's going to be damned interesting to find out. And maybe… just maybe, we accomplished what we wanted after all."
"You mean, the deputy is going to go crazy-mad if that Caesar mutt really fucked his wife, eh Chief?" Leo Vincent blurted, moving forward to the edge of his chair.
"Exactly!" the big man replied, spitting the bitten tip of his cigar away and striking a lucifer match! "Exactly, boy… and that's all we wanted in the first place, wasn't it?"
"Right!" the thin teenager replied, proud of the way he had analyzed it all and reveling beneath the police chiefs grin. "But I still wish we could've pulled it off, I'll tell you. She was fingering herself in the dark when we moved in on her, that's why she didn't hear us!"
"She was what?"
"Finger fucking herself… no shit, Chief, she was!" Leo, enthusiastically informed. "Ask these guys; they saw her too!"
"Honest injun, Chief, she was!" Corky corroborated. "Crap we'd've had a ball if it hadn't been for that fucking Caesar!"
"I never even saw or heard him slip into the room!" Leo Vincent exclaimed. "There I stood with my cock in my hand, already to go, when Corky says, 'Come on, Leo, it's the fucking pack-dog,' and I…!"
"He said what?" Link snapped, jerking the cigar from his mouth and leaning forward with widening, infuriated eyes. "Well, what did he say?"
"He… he said… come on, Leo, it's the…"
The big man's opened hand slapped hard against the desk top. "You stupid bastards, I give you masks to wear so the bitch can't see your faces and what do you do? Call each other by name! You Goddamned rattleheaded shits! How many Leo's do you think there are in Crescent Valley… or hadn't that occurred to you?"
The acne-faced boy turned his gaze slowly toward his teenaged cohorts, the realization of the big man's words suddenly dawning upon him. If everything went off all right, fine… if Caesar raped her, fine… or if she hadn't heard Corky call out his name, fine… but, supposing she had!
Link quickly gained his feet. "You three better plan to make yourselves scarce for awhile… and don't give me any Goddamned back-lip! I don't care what you tell your folks, but you're getting out of town…!"
"Where… where'll we go, Chief?" Leo questioned, sensing a cold chill moving up his spine.
"I don't give a damn… just go… go up to the cave and rough it for a week or so… or until we put an end to this fucking pack situation. There's food there, everything you'll need, including a jar of pot… and don't go blowing your minds completely, you stupid jerks!"
Billy White broke into a wide grin. "Sounds crazy to me, man!"
"Me too," Corky agreed. "Anything to get away from mowing that Goddamned lawn at home…!"
"Never mind the comments, just get moving!" Link ordered. "The sooner you three are out of town, the better I'm going to feel…!"
Alone, the big lawman sat irritably mulling over the fiasco of his carefully laid plans. He had pulled a half-emptied fifth of cheap bourbon from a desk drawer and was drinking it raw from the bottle. He needed something to give him a pick-up; he was dead-tired and not a frigging thing was going right. Those Goddamned numbies, they'd probably have blown it anyway. Maybe it was just as wed the dog had shown up and chased them off… Christ, he couldn't help but wonder if the big bastard had socked it into her. They'd said she was tied spread-eagle on the bed and naked as a whorehouse bitch… Damn he'd liked to have seen that, himself! She was one luscious broad, all right… and fingering herself, they said… sonofabitch, he was getting a hard on just thinking about that…
Link took another pull at the bottle, thinking at the same time that he hadn't used his head by slapping Nell Carter around either. She was no Jean Blakely, but she'd been a good fuck and always ready… and now she was gone. Hell, he'd been drunk… couldn't even remember what the hell she'd said to irk him, and then, the next thing he knew he was cuffing hell out of her. Still, he hadn't realized that she'd packed her things and cleared out until yesterday morning when he'd walked into the kitchen and found Annie getting breakfast.
"What're you doing, taking up housekeeping?" he'd growled, his head throbbing and his guts churning with a hangover.
"Someone better, I think," his teenaged niece had replied. "Your housekeeper walked out two hours ago, bag and baggage."
"She what…?"
"That's right, Uncle, she's flown the coop," the pretty young teenager had said without looking at him, moving around the kitchen in her nightie and wrapper with more efficiency than he'd ever dreamed she had. But then, why in hell not, she was sixteen, practically a grown woman, and a well-built one, at that. Fucked, too, he'd thought, standing there looking at her, even if it was by a Goddamned dog. At least, she knew what it was all about.
"What for, did she say…?"
"I don't think she could with her lips all swollen up," Annie had sharply replied, taking toast from the toaster and buttering it. "She was lucky to see where she was going with those two black eyes… must have ran into a door or something, eh…?"
Link grinned to himself at the girl's quip, remembering. He tilted the bottle up once more and swallowed noisily several times. The little imp, she was something else. He knew she had no respect for Nell from the beginning, but she'd tolerated her. That Goddamned fucking Caesar… taking her young cherry. He'd kill that sonofabitch yet… but he'd sure like to know what happened between the wild mutt and Jean Blakely. Imagine, that luscious piece fingering herself… Christ, he'd sure like to throw a fuck into her… must be Blakely wasn't doing a very good job of it, if she had to resort to playing with herself.
His long, thick cock had stretched into a heavy, weighted hardness at the conglomeration of his thoughts, straining inside his clothing, and he shifted and pulled at his crotch to ease the bind. He picked up his cigar from the ashtray lighting it again while his liquor-roused brain filled with patches of thought concerning Jean Blakely nakedly finger-fucking herself, and his dead sister's daughter moving around the kitchen in her nightie and wrapper. Sonofabitch, maybe both… but at least one of them had been fucked by that weird mutt…
The ring of the telephone interrupted his lewd reveries. He hesitated to answer it, wondering if he wanted to get involved in anything this morning before catching some sleep. Christ, he'd been up all night, making sure that Blakely didn't take a notion to go home… It rang several more times before he picked it up from its cradle…
"Police Department."
"Chief Morgan…?" a husky feminine voice questioned.
"Yes…"
"Lydia Newell, Chief," the voice throatily informed, though he had already placed it. "Are you busy?"
"Not when a pretty little girl like you calls me this early in the morning," he answered, feeling debonair as hell with the effects of the bourbon, and his swollen cock throbbing in his pants.
"Wow, that's some come-on from the law enforcement office! I recommend you publish the idea in the police gazette, or whatever it is you people use," she said, her warm voice teasing. "Little old ladies might just flip…"
"That's my problem girl… little old ladies," Link said, grinning into the piece.
"Hmmm, I sense the bulling male coming to the forefront… but that isn't why I called you, Link," Lydia said. "Right now I'm in no mood to even waste words."
Link's smile faded. He sat up in his chair, dropping the cigar into the ashtray. This was the daughter of the most powerful man in the valley, and Aaron had made a point of letting him know she would call on him if she had problems while he, her father, was out of the country. He said: "What is it, Lydia?"
"Two nights in a row now, our herds have been raided. All together we've lost eight sheep and five dogs! Like I told Blakely, the sheep we can stand, but the dogs, no!"
"Has the deputy been out to the A and B?"
"Yesterday… and he did nothing. Suggested I make a government claim for our losses… but I don't know a damned thing about that, Link. Besides, what am I supposed to do, file papers every day? It's that Goddamned Caesar and his pack…"
"Yeah, I know, Lydia. You heard about Annie?"
"Yes… what a horrible thing," the husky voice sympathized. "And there'd be more, I'm thinking, if something isn't done… which is why I'm caging you. Frankly, I think our deputy sheriff is getting too Goddamned big for his britches!"
The big police chief licked at his lips, his mind racing to analyze her every word. He said: "There're those of us who'll readily agree with that. But… but I think you've got something in mind… right, girl?"
"Maybe," she huskily replied. "But… but I think you and I better get together and discuss it, Link… not over the telephone."
"I'm with you."
"I-l know you don't see eye-to-eye with Mr. Blakely, and right now… neither do I!"
"You… you sound like you might want his…" Link started, then cut himself short.
"His nuts! That's what I want, Link, and I'll tack them up on the wall of my bedroom!" she lewdly spat into his ear. "And I don't care what method I use in getting them… understand?"
Link couldn't control his grin. "I think so," he slowly answered, knowing the history of their affair and how Mark's sudden, unexpected marriage to Jean had destroyed it. He sensed the bitter jealousy in her tone, along with the vengeance. Shit, she was something else, too, and wild as a hawk! What a fuck she'd be… if she wasn't Aaron Newell's daughter…! "How can I help you… baby?"
He heard her light titter of laughter. "Boy, are you some lover this morning," she taunted. "What's wrong, has Nell taken to separate bedrooms?"
He didn't bother answering the direct question. "Just trying to be of public service, little girl," he said, pleased with the way he was toying words and suggestive endearments with her, his heavy cock pulsating in his pants.
"Okay, if I can trust you in the same room with me," Lydia's sensuous voice half-whispered. "Come out to the ranch as soon as you can. I've an idea that might prove profitable to both of us. It's a little lurid, but should it work, Darling, we both can get what we want."
Again, Link licked at his thick lips. Darling, she'd said. The young bitch… if she wasn't Aaron's daughter…! "I'll be there in twenty minutes," he said. "And you know you can trust old Link…"
Jean Blakely awakened to a typical, sunny California morning, a warm sensation of pleasureful gratification mellowing her curvaceous young body. She sighed, stretching languorously beneath the thin covering of the satin sheet, finally aware of her nakedness. She seldom slept in the complete raw, she idly thought, especially when Mark wasn't beside her, and he had been on duty last night, hadn't he…?
Abruptly, Jean sat upright in the bed, the thin sheet falling to her slender waist, exposing the lush twin mounds of her rounded white breasts. My God, had she dreamed it, or had it actually happened? The pleasant torpor she had momentarily enjoyed immediately dissolved into anxious alertness as her brain was flooded with a barrage of frightening mental reflections! Habitually, she tossed her head then brushed the disheveled tresses of her long blonde hair behind her naked shoulders. It had to have been a nightmare… all of it, she logically reasoned, swallowing at the tightness in her throat. But then, as she moved in the bed, she sensed the viscid wetness dampening the warm, smooth flesh of her vaginal lips and soft inner-thighs and quickly pressed the sheet back to investigate.
She both saw and felt with her exploring fingers, the still moist saturation of her sparse young pubic-hair and the sticky secretion seeping from between her legs, causing the narrow ribbon of pink intimate flesh to sparklingly glisten. My God… it was true… not a nightmare! It had actually happened! Caesar… he had been there and… and made love to her!
Jean's brain reeled in combination shock and sensual revival as it began to vividly recount all that had happened, even to the three who had burst in on her in the darkness while she was… was… yes, fingering herself! But, had that part really happened… had they been there… tied her to the bed…? Anxiously, she swung to the floor and gaped around the room! Yes… there was her shredded nightie… and the bonds they'd tied her with! Stockings, they had used… and Caesar had untied them with his teeth! Oh God… that beautiful animal, she breathlessly recalled, tiny sensations of loving warmth rippling through her naked loins and tremorous belly at the memory of him…!
The rattling sound of a key in the front door-lock startled her. Mark… he was just coming home! Quickly, she picked up her robe from the boudoir chair and slipped into it, buttoning as she moved about the room snatching up all the telltale evidence, her confused mind racing along a new vein. As much as she wanted to tell him everything, she realized that she could not… not even of the three who had broken with the intentions of raping her! How could she explain why they had left without doing what they'd came for? She would have to bring Caesar into it, and that she had no intentions of doing! Mark would never rest until he'd killed the great dog, which, she desperately realized, would be the equivalent at that unsettled moment, of destroying a part of her…!
"Oh, so you're already up," Mark said, filling the doorway and smiling tiredly at her. "I thought maybe I could sneak in and kiss you awake."
Jean managed a nervous little smile in response, taking the small bundle of silkish items she had gathered to a dresser-drawer and carelessly tucking them away. "If I'd known, I would've waited and pretended," she said, crossing the room to him and raising her lips to be kissed.
Mark did, hungrily slipping his arms around her to draw her tightly against him. He kissed her warmly, then raised his head several inches to gaze into her beautiful face. "About yesterday, baby… cripes, I'm sorry. I was so damned exhausted… but next time it's going to be different, I promise you that!"
Jean stretched upward and kissed his lips, wholly conscious of his sincerity. Momentarily, a gentle glow of deep love filled her, commanding her immediate attention at the feel of his strong, hard body pressed against the soft yield of her own. God… how she wished she could tell him everything… but how could she…? She placed her hands onto his chest and gently pressured away from him.
"You must be hungry, Darling," she said, taking his hand and moving into the hallway. "Come on, I'll fix us some breakfast."
"I'm starved if you want to know the truth," he replied, moving wearily along behind her. "Walking the streets all night isn't exactly my cup of tea. I don't know how the old beat-cop ever stood up under it. No wonder they called him 'flatfoot'."
With a sigh, he slipped into the breakfast nook and leaned his head back to watch her wash her hands, then measure ground coffee into the percolator. Jean felt his keen eyes on her back and an uncontrollable tremor of guilt chilled the length of her spine. She was even hesitant to ask him what had happened… if they had seen or heard the wild pack… afraid she might somehow betray her wonderful animal-lover and the forbidden secret they shared together. She could hardly keep the great dog out of her mind, remembering in lucid retrospect flashes of the ecstasy he had brought her…!
"Needless to say, we didn't see hide nor hair of that damned vicious brute," Mark commented with a yawn, his bitter reference to Caesar reflexively vexing lean. "We heard them, though, baying up in the hills, and once there was a hell of a howl right here in town, but none of the sentries saw anything."
"He… he probably won't come back into Crescent Valley again," Jean protectively said. "Maybe he'd just take his pack elsewhere…"
"And maybe he won't," Mark replied, rubbing at his tired eyes. "Anyway, we can't afford to take that chance… not with a wild sonofabitch that dares attack young girls and actually rapes them… Damn, you know, I still can hardly believe it! A wild animal like that actually making a sexual assault on a human female…"
"He doesn't sound very much like a base animal to met!" Jean sharply asserted, unable to contain herself at her young husband's degrading remarks of the massive, loving dog, and sorry immediately after.
"Hey… that's a crazy thing to say, honey," Mark declared, leaning forward on the table of the booth to more closely observe her. "I don't get your meaning at all. What else would you call a wild and vicious brute-animal?"
Panicky, Jean sought for an answer, berating her own impulsive stupidity. As one lie begets another, so might one indiscreet statement, she realized, as she said: "Did it ever occur to you that maybe he was seduced into doing what he did?"
For a long moment, Mark didn't speak… couldn't. He merely sat staring at his young, ravishing blonde wife, while she busied herself with frying-pan, eggs and the like at the stove, not so much as tossing him a single glance to accompany her absurd question.
"C-Christ, Jean… did I hear you right?" he managed, swinging his feet around until they stuck out from the booth where he sat, almost reaching to the center of the small room. "You really couldn't mean that… little Annie Purcell actually seducing the wild bastard?"
"Well, why not?" Jean snapped, caught up in this malicious web of her own making, and further enraged by her husband's spurious terms for Caesar. She sensed her blue eyes smoldering as she glared at him. "To me, that's far more feasible than Caesar's attacking her! She's a wilderness girl, isn't she… a huntress and all of that? What's so impossible about her somehow seducing him? Women have done it before with dogs and donkeys, and God knows what-not! Well… haven't they…?"
Suddenly, more fascinated than shocked, Mark continued to stare at his lovely wife, the full realization of her words weirdly adding up to him. Christ, was it possible? Like she said, it made a hell of a lot more sense than the Goddamned beast raping her! She could have ripped her own clothing to shreds, and that certainly sounded more in keeping than the other way round! But… but how could she get next to that damned wild monster… and would she dare try…? What the hell…!
"Baby… I think maybe you've just opened a new can of worms… one nobody but another woman would ever think of!" Mark said, getting to his feet to pace meditatingly around their small kitchen. "In fact, maybe you've just hit the nail smack on the head… though I can't see why she would cry rape, unless she was looking to gain some warped notoriety… you know… like the Salem witch trials…"
"Well… I'm not all that certain Mark," Jean interrupted him, swallowing tightly as she realized the possible damage she could be doing to an innocent young girl's reputation. "I-I merely meant to imply that Caesar may not be as bad as he's painted…" She paused there, almost hearing her husband's eyes as they clicked to fasten on her. God, why didn't she shut up…?
"Hey… what is this with you… referring to this crazy vicious wild dog as 'him' and 'he' rather than 'it'… calling it Caesar…? Have you been listening to Granny Obert again? Have you, Jean?"
"How do you want your eggs?"
"Never mind that, answer my question, baby," he said, going to her and taking her gently by the shoulders, forcing her to face him. "Have you…?"
Jean dropped her eyes with an intentional 'naughty-girl' reaction, her protective brain racing, aware that he had provided the out for her. She sighed.
"Yes," she finally replied. "Yesterday morning… I wanted to know more about the stories… the myths, as you say…"
"And what do you say, Darling?" he partially smiled, his eyes searching hers.
She made a tiny nod, as if reluctant to do so, but knowing it was the surest way of escaping the situation she had been sinking deeper and deeper into… as well as protecting their unacceptable relationship of hours before.
"Myths, right?" he insisted.
"Oh Mark… I don't know… I guess so," Jean answered him, but still unwilling to readily deny her wonderful animal-lover. "I don't know, anymore than I'm capable of accusing Annie Purcell of such a thing…"
"Don't let the Annie idea bother you, baby," he assured, letting go of her and going back toward the booth. "Whether you're right or wrong there, none of us will ever know. I certainly wouldn't make the issue of it. What could it prove one way or the other? Only a nasty piece of circumstances for Annie, and no one wants that. Besides, it wouldn't change a damned thing, the pack has to be destroyed either way…"
Jean started to speak but the ringing telephone stopped her. She made a motion toward laying down the spatula to answer it, but Mark was enroute.
"I'll get it," he sighed. "It's undoubtedly for me… probably one of the ranchers wanting to know what the hell I'm going to do about the sheep he lost last night…"
Jean held up on cracking the eggs into the pan. The coffee was ready and she poured herself a cup, noticing the trembling of her hand. A cold sensation of illicit sensations shivered through her. For the first time in her life, she realized, she had blindly been ready to sacrifice… to hurt another person's reputation in the protection of her own… and a lover's! Dear God, this must be what an adulterous woman felt…!
"Hey Steve, you old hack!" Mark's jubilant voice severed her thoughts. She moved toward the doorway, holding her coffee cup to listen, a pleasant recognition drawing a smile. "How's Carol?" she heard him ask as he dropped onto the arm of the overstuffed chair. "Wait a minute…" he said, then to her in the doorway: "It's Steve Foster! Yeah, Steve, I had to tell Jeannie who was piping me this early in the morning from the big town… Yeah, that's right. What's up, anyway…? Well, that's the way it looks, Steve… and there's a reliable doctor's report to substantiate it. But where did you pick it up? I didn't know it was national news… Well, thanks for that, anyway! If this got an Associated United Press headlines we'd be snowed with reporters, and that we don't need right now… Yeah, still running wild and furious, but no more girls…" Mark laughed. "I can imagine with that lurid rag you represent… Listen, why don't you come up? Bring Carol with you. You guys can stay with us. Jean needs someone like Carol right now… Oh, anytime… tomorrow if you can make it! Good… just as soon as you can, then… Right we'll be looking for you, buddy… right, 'till you get here… Bye."
He cradled the phone, stood and wasted toward her, a pleased smile lightning his handsome face. "Good old Steve," he said, reaching out to slip an arm around her waist and walk her back toward the stove. "Some guy up here from L.A. on a fishing trip told him about the pack and Annie Purcell's rape. So that expose magazine he works for is ready to send him up. He and Carol will be here in a day or so to spend some time with us. Sound good?"
"Great," Jean smilingly replied. "Lord, it seems as if we haven't seen them in years, instead of months."
"It does at that, baby," Mark said, dropping heavily into the booth once more. "Maybe that's what we both need… old friends to put our minds straight, eh?"
Jean continued to smile toward him, an excited sensation of warmth abruptly filling her at the thought of Carol… of Steve coming. She crossed to the booth and bent down, cupping his face in her hands to kiss.
"How would you like your eggs, master?" she whispered, the first plans of a wonderful, indulgent evening with this man, her husband, before their guests arrived, trickling through her mind.
"Burned."
"Sunnyside or flipped?"
"However you burn them best, baby," he teased, slipping a hand inside her robe to cup the full resilience of one hanging breast.
"You devil!" she hissed. "Don't you want to eat?"
"What else do you think I'm searching for?" he managed, his big hand gently caressing the rounded, soft mound, erotically taunting its tiny nipple.
Jean gasped to his warm fondling touch, further delights building in her mind. "Tonight," she softly suggested. "A beautiful evening together… and you manage that mister deputy sheriff… an evening of love with your wife?"
Mark couldn't restrain his harsh breathing. He grabbed her and kissed her. "Like all the Caesars in the world couldn't stop me, baby!" he vowed, his big hands caressing the smooth skin of her pretty face.
"And your eggs, Darling…?"
"Lay them! Lay them and I'll eat 'em raw…!"