"Pretty," Forrest said as he and Bell emerged from a doorway on the left.
Hedges pushed between them and into the room, the stench of burnt powder harsh in his nostrils. A man was sprawled in the center of an expensive carpet, his head and chest a mass of torn flesh soaked with blood. An elderly woman sat upright in a winged chair, not moving, even to breathe. Her eyes were open but unseeing. Blood trickled down in an inverted vee from a neat hole just above her white hairline.
"Frank, I've got me something real good,"
It was Seward, shouting from upstairs and as Hedges turned out of the room he saw Forrest and Bell heading up the elegant stairway at the end of the hall. A girl screamed and then made a choking sound as the crack of a harsh slap accompanied a curse from Seward. Hedges took time to glance into the room across the hall and saw Douglas and Scott raising bottles to their lips. Between them lay the crumpled form of a woman, the front of her dress turning from white to red. He was about to vent his anger upon the men but another scream from above, followed by raucous laughter, sent him hurrying up the stairway. He found them in a bedroom at the front of the house, the three men advancing on a pretty young girl of no more than sixteen who was backing into a comer, stark terror leaving her eyes blank but pulling her mouth wide as she continued to scream.
"Hold it!" Hedges barked.
The girl pressed her slender body into the angle of the corner, clawing at the walls with her hands as the three men spun to face the cold anger of their commander. Forrest replaced his look of lust with a cold grin.
"You want first go, Captain," he asked quietly. "Might be messy. Looks like fresh meat to me."
Hedges forced his tone to a low key. "She's no Arizona hicktown whore."
"Right. Right, Captain," Forrest agreed, still grinning and nodding his head enthusiastically as the girl began to whimper and stare blankly at Hedges. "I ain't had nothing like this since I don't know when."
"I'll kill any man who touches her," Hedges warned.
"Spoils of war," Bell insisted. "If I don't get me some soon, I'll burst clean out of my pants," Seward shrieked.
"Why, you ain't got enough to fill a Colt barrel," Bell said with a burst of laughter, ducking as Seward threw a punch at his head.
"Ain't I just!" the younger man yelled, reaching under his tunic for his belt buckle.
"Whatever you got; I'll blast it clean off soon as I see it," Hedges warned him.
Seward jerked his hands away as Bell laughed. "You'd have to be a good shot, Captain."
Hedges spat. "I'm good."
"Enough to outgun three of us?" Forrest said in a menacing tone.
Hedges flicked his attention to the big man and saw a Colt leveled at him. He looked at the other two and found them staring at Forrest with open-mouthed amazement, making no move to back the play.
He grinned. "You're two guns short," he said, bringing up the Spencer.
Forrest shook his head. "I can count, captain. And I got a better view than you;"
Hedges' body swayed forward an inch as the muzzles of two guns were jabbed into the small of his back. "You aren't being smart," he said, glancing to left and right over his shoulders, into the glazed eyes of Douglas and Scott.
"Man never is when he's got an ache between the legs, Captain," Forrest answered. "Only one way to cure that ache and we got the doc right here."
The girl's body shuddered and she cried out.
"Get his guns, Billy," Forrest ordered.
Seward hesitated, then moved, being sure to keep out of the line of fire. "Gee, I'm sorry," he muttered as Hedges surrendered the Spencer and made no attempt to stop him removing the holstered Colt and the saber.
Seward tossed the weapons into a comer and Douglas and Scott hustled Hedges into the room. Forrest licked his lips, spat and returned the Colt to its holster. He turned sideways, took two shuffling steps and then reached out a hand. His fingers curled over the neckline of the girl's dress and the harsh sound of the material ripping was almost as loud as her cry of alarm. Her body was pale and slender, with breasts only just beginning to develop.
"Ain't a hell of a lot of woman," Forrest complained as he clasped a breast in one of his grimed hands and dug his nails into the flesh.
Douglas and Scott had moved to the side of Hedges now and when the captain seemed about to take a step forward they lunged their Colts into his hips. Scott's gun hit dead center on his wound and he grimaced with pain.
"She ain't goin' a get any bigger while we're waiting here, Frank," Bell pointed out, his eyes examining every minute detail of the girl's exposed body.
"Please, you're hurting me." Her voice was no more than a hoarse whisper as she reached up to clasp Forrest's wrist. Forrest laughed.
"Lot of people get hurt in a war," he told her. "That's why men like a few home comforts before they go and risk getting killed or crippled."
"Yeah, that's right," Seward yelled" glancing at Hedges as if he considered Forrest had justified what was going to happen to the girl. "You ought to be happy to put out for us. We're fighting for you."
Forrest suddenly lifted the girl and tossed her on to the bed. "You first, Billy," he snapped. "Never did like riding an animal that wasn't broke in."
"Whiskey downstairs, Frank," Douglas said as Seward fumbled for his belt.
"Get it, Rog," Forrest commanded.
Bell held back and only went finally, and with reluctance, after Seward had dropped his pants and underwear and thrown himself on to the unprotesting girl. She cried out once, as the thrusting male hardness seared into her and then she lay still, fingers digging into the bedcover and blank eyes staring at the ceiling while Seward grunted and sweated out his lust. Bell returned with an armful of bottles as Seward sighed and rolled clear of the girl's splayed body. At a nod from Forrest he set down the bottles on the floor and hurried to the bed, his face made ugly by the keenness of his excited anticipation as he tore at his restraining clothing. As Bell entered the girl Forrest crossed the room, picked up a bottle of whiskey and broke off the neck on the edge of a lowboy. He held the shattered bottle aloft and allowed the liquor to cascade down, catching some in his mouth.
"Watch the Captain," Douglas demanded of Seward as it became obvious Bell was reaching his climax.
Seward moved forward with reluctance, drawing his Colt and his expression showed something close to shame as he leveled it at Hedges. But Hedges paid no attention to him. He found himself fascinated by the look on the girl's features. Her lips had begun to move, mouthing silent words, he guessed in prayer. But there was no play in her green-gray eyes, which continued to be fastened on the ceiling above the creaking bed, as if she had induced a trance.
Douglas flung himself between her legs, emptied his loins and made way for Scott while Bell took over the guard duty on Hedges. Finally, his cruel eyes glazed by the liquor, his lower jaw hung loose and low, Forrest stumbled over to the bed and stood, swaying as he glared down at the abused body and blank face.
"Look at me, girl," he demanded as he fumbled to loosen his uniform. "I like my women to look at me so they can see what they're getting."
The dull eyes continued to stare at the ceiling as the lips moved in their silent plea. Forrest lashed out. A hand, slapping her hard across the cheek, rocking her head to one side. She whimpered, but remained impassive.