“It’s getting dark,” Linda said suddenly.
I lifted my eyes to the sky. The sun was dipping low over the horizon, splashing the sky with brilliant reds and oranges. The peaks of the mountains glowed brilliantly as the dying rays lingered in the crevices and hollows. A crescent moon hung palely against the deepening wash of night, sharing the sky with the sinking sun.
And suddenly it was black. There was no transition, no dusk, no violets or purples. The sun was simply swallowed up, and the stars devoured the sky with hungry white mouths. The moon grinned down like a bigger, lopsided mouth against the blackness, and a stiff breeze worked its way down from the caps of the mountains, spreading cold where there had once been intolerable heat.
Linda shivered, hunching her shoulders together, pressing her elbows against her sides, hugging herself against the cold.
“You’d better get some sleep,” I said.
“And you?”
“With that pig across the way?” I asked. “I’ll stay awake, thanks.”
She grinned. “Carrera will sleep. You can bet on that.”
“I wish I could bet on that. I’d go right over and make sure he never woke up.”
“My, my,” she mocked, “such a tough one.”
“Hard as nails,” I said, a faint smile starting on my lips.
“You know, I don’t even know your name.”
“Jeff,” I told her. “Jeff MacCauley.”
She rolled over, trying to make herself comfortable. It wasn’t easy with her hands and feet bound. She settled for her left side, her arms behind her, her legs together.
“Well,” she said, “buenos noches, Jeff.”
I didn’t answer. I was watching the rocks across the clearing. Carrera may have planned on sleeping the night, but I wasn’t counting on it.
She woke at about two A.M. She pushed herself to a sitting position and stared into the darkness.
“Jeff,” she whispered. There was the faintest trace of an accent in her voice, and she made my name sound like “Jaif.”
I pulled the .45 from my waistband and walked over to her.
“What is it?”
“My hands. They’re... I can’t feel anything. I think the blood has stopped...”
I knelt down beside her and reached for her hands. The strap didn’t seem too tight. “You’ll be all right,” I said.
“But... but they feel numb. It’s like... like there is nothing below my wrists, Jeff.”
Her voice broke, and I wondered if she were telling the truth. Hell, I didn’t want the poor kid to suffer. I held the .45 in my right hand and tugged at the strap with my left. I loosened it, and she pulled her hands free and began massaging the wrists.
She breathed deeply, and the moon sent silver beams dancing across her breasts. “Ahhh,” she said, “that’s much better.”
I kept the .45 pointed at where her navel should be. She looked at the open muzzle and sighed, as if she were being patient with a precocious little boy.
She leaned back on her arms then, tilting her head to the sky, her black hair streaming down her back.
“Oh, it’s a beautiful night,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Just look at the moon, Jeff.”
I glanced up at the moon, taking my eyes off her for a second. That was all the time she needed.
She sprang with the litheness of a mountain lion, pushing herself up with her bound feet, her fingernails raking down the length of my arm, clawing at my gun hand. I yanked the gun back and she dove at me again, the nails slashing across my face. She threw herself onto my chest, and her hands sought the wrist of my gun hand, tightening there, the nails digging deep into my flesh.
I rolled over, slapping the muzzle of the .45 against her shoulder. She curled up like a caterpillar for a second, nursing her shoulder, and then she exploded again, teeth flashing, nails bared.
I flipped the .45 into my left hand and brought my right back across my chest. I slapped out backhanded, catching her on the side of her face. She fell backwards and then lunged forward again. I slapped her twice more, and she went into the caterpillar routine again, curling up into a soft little ball, her head bent, her chest heaving.
She looked up at me suddenly, her eyes sparking. “You lousy bastard,” she mumbled.
“Sure,” I agreed.
“Hitting a woman!”
This struck me funny somehow, and I began laughing. I saw her eyes flare, and she bit her lip as I laughed louder. She pushed herself up from the ground, murder in her eyes. She hopped forward, and I backed away from her. She kept hopping, her feet close together, the material from her skirt keeping her in check. And then she toppled forward, and she would have kissed the ground if I hadn’t caught her in my arms.
She kissed me instead.
Or I kissed her.
It was hard to tell which. She was falling, and I reached for her, and she was suddenly in my arms. I held the .45 in my right hand, and it felt like a cannon pointing out into the darkness. My left arm tightened around her waist and she lifted her head. There was a question in her eyes for a single instant, and then the question seemed to haze over. She closed her eves and lifted her mouth to mine.
There was sweetness in her kiss, and an undercurrent of danger, a pulsing emotion that knifed through me like an electric shock. She pressed against me, and her body was soft and womanly, and I forgot the marks of her nails on my arms and face, forgot that she could be as deadly as a grizzly. She was a kitten now, soft and caressing, and her breath was in my ears, and the movement of her body was quick and urgent. I lifted her, the .45 still in my hand, and carried her to the deep shadows of the rocks.
The stars blinked down in wonder, and the wind sang a high, contented song in the jagged peaks around us.
Sunlight spilled over the twisted ground like molten gold, pushing at the shadows, chasing the night.
She was still in my arms when I woke up. I stared down at her, not wanting to move, afraid to wake her.
And then her eyes popped open suddenly, and a sleepy smile tilted the corners of her mouth.
“Good morning, darling,” she said. Her voice was still lined with sleep, as fuzzy as a caterpillar.
“Hello.”
She yawned, stretching her arms over her head in lazy contentment. She took a deep breath and then smiled archly, and I looked deep into her eyes, trying to read whatever emotion was hidden in their brown depths.
“Your boyfriend,” I started.
“Carrera?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
Her face was serious, so serious that it startled me.
“No?”
“No.”
“Well, anyway,” I said, “he’s still got my ten thousand.”
“I know.”
“I want it back.”
“I know.”
“I want you to help me get it.”
She was silent for a long while. When she spoke, her voice was a whisper. “Why?”
“Why? Holy Jesus, that’s ten thousand bucks! You know how much work I did to get that dough...”
“Why not forget it? Why not... forget it?”
“Sister, you’re crazy. You’re crazier’n hell.”
“Carrera will kill you. I know him. Would you rather be dead without your money... or would you rather be alive without it? Alive and... with me?”
I hesitated before answering. “Ten G’s is a lot of money, baby.”
“I’m a lot of woman,” she answered.
“Yeah.”
“Well?”
I shook my head. “If you help me, I can have both. We can do a lot with that money.”
She considered this for a moment and then asked, “What do you want me to do?”
“You’ll help?”
“What do you want me to do?”