Dawn was just a faint impression on the horizon as two women crept silently through the maze of canyons and gorges that made up this stretch of the frontier. They had left their horses tethered to an old, withered tree trunk near the mouth of the canyon so they could creep up the path without their quarry hearing their approach.
The lead woman was a tall, strikingly pretty 24 year old named Ashley Peterson. Her long red hair was tied back in a ponytail which spilled out from beneath the broad-brimmed leather hat. Below, she had on a duster over old, patched jeans tucked into cowboy boots. The jeans and boots were of pre-war vintage, the hat and coat of recent make by craftsmen back in New Phoenix. The guns she carried were likewise pre-war; a battered MP5 submachine gun and a Beretta 9mm pistol tucked in a holster at her side.
Trailing a couple yards behind her was a short, athletic 19-year old named Maria Ruiz. Her black hair was tied in twin braids which framed a round, dark face. She was wearing a homespun jacket over pants and old, battered work boots. In her hands, the teen carried a long-barreled single shot sparklock rifle. Not as fine a weapon as Ashley’s prewar gun, despite the best efforts of New Phoenix’s gunsmiths, but it was far easier getting hold of black powder and lead slugs for it then pre-war ammunition. Besides, Maria was a crack shot with the rifle, rarely needing more than a single shot to down her target anyway. For those rare occasions, she also had a .35 revolver hung from her belt, opposite a long hunting knife.
The two bounty hunters had set out from New Phoenix, skirting the bombed out ruins of its old namesake, on the trail of an outlaw. Texas Bill O’Donnel had been building up a name, and a sizable bounty, for himself the last few years with his raids across the Mojave Confederation, New Texas Republic and the Angels Federation. In every town, his smirking, piebald head grinned out at the viewer from beneath the words: Wanted Dead or Alive. The man was a cruel and ruthless bandit, kidnapper and worse, slaver, dragging his victims south into the Cartel territories to sell. He seemed to take a particular pleasure in targeting young women and girls for enslavement, seeking out well known beauties who would be worth a good price as concubines and whores on the other side of the frontier.
His most recent outrage was burning the Baker homestead, not far outside of New Phoenix. The owner, one Thomas Baker, had been callously murdered while his wife Josephine and their two daughters, Emily and Sarah had been carried off by the outlaw. Mrs. Baker was a well known beauty in the region and the two Baker girls, the younger a lass of just 18 summers, took after their mother, blooming into fine young women. Prime merchandise on the auction block down south.
In doing so, however, the outlaw may have finally overstretched himself. With three uncooperative captives to herd, the outlaw’s progress had been slow, with little chance of covering his tracks. The Bakers were well known in the New Phoenix community. News of their abduction, and even distant sightings of the three unfortunates being led along, bound and gagged by the outlaw’s rope, soon spread far and wide, reaching the ears of the two bounty hunters. Ashley and Maria had set out, not more than a day or two after the raid. The women had long wanted to see the notorious slaver pay for his crimes and if they could collect the hefty bounty on his head, all the better.
The hunters had soon picked up the trail as it entered the desert that marked the frontier with Cartel territory. Not long after, they had spotted a small party of four, out on the open plain, too far to make out much detail, but with three figures on foot who seemed to be tethered to one another and to the fourth rode at the head of the line, it could be no one else but the notorious slaver and his latest victims.
Unfortunately, the outlaw must have spotted them as well, because the group soon veered off, disappearing into an area of rocky canyons and ravines. But if he’d been hoping to lose them in the maze of canyons, the outlaw would be sorely disappointed; the two had picked up his trail near the mouth of the canyon. With night falling fast, they knew he must be hold up somewhere for the night and so they had dismounted, tethering the horses loosely to a dead tree, planning to creep up on foot and take the bandit by surprise.
It was Maria who first noted the scent of smoke from a campfire. They were very close now. Silently, the women crept forward in the growing darkness until they came round a bend in the canyon. Ahead lay a large open clearing at the bottom of the canyon. There, at last, they found their quarry. The moon was almost directly over the canyon now, so despite the late hour, the bounty hunters could see everything quite clearly.
Texas Bill had made his camp where a small desert spring nurtured a patch of shrubs and a withered old tree. A large black thoroughbred was tethered to the tree, nibbling at the leaves of a small shrub. A few yards away, the coals of a small campfire smoldered in a ring of stones set on a patch of sandy ground. Beside it, the outlaw lay recumbent, wrapped up in a cloth bedroll. His back was to the two bounty hunters, but there was no mistaking the way the moonlight glinted from the bald head which poked out from the blankets. He slumbered, apparently unaware of the enemies sneaking up on him.
Not far away, Ashley spotted the Baker girls. The teens were seated on the ground by a large boulder, legs out in front of them, upper bodies bent over near double. Despite the awkward position, they were also asleep, though a fitful and uneasy sort of rest. The girls wore shackles on their wrists and ankles, joined by long chains to collars circling their slender necks and leather muzzles over their mouths, but apart from that nothing else. Their naked figures bore the obvious signs of the abuse their cruel abductor had inflicted on them during the long journey. Of the girls’ mother, the bounty hunters saw no sign. Doubtless she’d been cast aside somewhere out in the desert when she couldn’t keep to the demanding pace their captor had set the day before, so as to not slow down his flight from the pursuing bounty hunters.
Seeing how the Bakers had been cruelly treated since their abduction, Ashley was sorely tempted to put a bullet in the sleeping figure’s back, right then and there. It would have been a trivial shot for her, let alone Maria. But two thoughts stayed her hand. The first was a feeling that a single bullet to the back, whilst asleep and unaware, was too quick and easy an end for the sadistic slaver. She wanted him to know he’d at last been brought down, and by two women of the sort he’d hunted and enslaved so many times before. He would have the long ride back to New Phoenix to think about that, and about the rope waiting for him there. And for the second point, bringing him in alive for trial and hanging would get the two bounty hunters the full price on his head, while his miserable carcass was worth only half as much.
Silently, Ashley gestured to her partner, followed by a short, clockwise twist. The other woman nodded, catching her meaning at once. Off in that direction, a dozen yards from their position, was a cluster of boulders, broken off from the cliff face above in some past storm. They gave good cover from the direction of the campsite to anyone crouched behind and from there Maria would have a clear line of fire at the sleeping bandit, with no risk of hitting his prisoners or Ashley, as she snuck up on him.
The redhead waited a minute as the other girl shimmied, almost on her belly, to the hiding spot. Then, as Maria laid the barrel of her rifle along the rounded top of the largest boulder, Ashley started forward, hunched near double, her own gun likewise pointed at the form beneath the blanket. She took her time, confident that, between her and Maria, one of them would nail Texas Bill should he be foolish enough to try anything. She was still about ten yards away when a gun shot suddenly shattered the stillness of the night.
Ashley yelped as a puff of sand marked the impact of a bullet in the ground, not more than a foot away from where she stood. Nearby, the captive teens were roused from their fitful slumber and began struggling against their shackles with a loud rattle of chains The bounty hunter’s first thought was that her partner had inexplicably let off an ill-timed and uncharacteristically bad shot, but a quick glance over her shoulder towards the rocks showed no cloud of smoke from the black powder weapon. The woman holding it was looking around, trying to figure out where the shot had come from. It wasn’t easy, the report had echoed off the canyon wall, making it impossible to tell from which direction the initial sound had started.
A second later, another shot rang out, impacting even closer to Ashley then the first. At the same time, the figure underneath the blankets came to. With a panicked “mmpphh!” the figure began to squirm, throwing off the blankets and to Ashley’s shock, it was not the outlaw she’d expected but his missing captive: Mrs. Baker! Like her daughters, the poor woman was completely naked, save for her restraints. These consisted of a leather muzzle and collar, like those the girls wore, but instead of shackles, the older woman had been roped into a cruel hogtie, doubtless to keep any rattling of chains from giving away the outlaw’s deception. To further sell that, Texas Bill had shaved the poor woman’s head. It had been done in a hurry, leaving patches of stubble, all that was left of what had once been fine golden locks visible on her scalp where the knife had missed. And speaking of the outlaw…
“Don’t move, Red, or the next bullet’s goin’ in your gut!” The voice of the outlaw followed his second bullet. Like the gunshot, it was hard to get a fix on his location, but he was definitely somewhere up above, hidden in the cliffs overlooking the whole area. Ashley froze, cursing. She was caught out in the open, with no cover for more than a dozen yards. She’d be riddled long before she could escape the trap she’d unwittingly walked right into.
“Drop the guns and get your hands up!” The outlaw ordered. “That goes for the girl hidin’ behind the rocks too. They won’t do you any good!” He proved it a second later, pinging a shot off one of the boulders to Maria’s left. His position, wherever it was, had the teen completely outflanked. “Come on girlies! Get ‘em up! You won’t be the first bounty hunters I’ve plugged. I’d have shot you down already, if you weren’t such pretty gals. I prefer you alive…but don’t think I won’t kill you if you give me any trouble!” His nasally voice contained an unmistakable sneer to it, that of a bully confident that he was completely in control of things and could hurt others with no fear of consequences.
Unfortunately, much as it burned her to admit, Ashley couldn’t disagree with that idea at the moment. The two of them were caught dead in the sights of a ruthless outlaw and killer. He clearly knew how to use that rifle of his, not that it would take much skill to gun them down at the moment. They were caught in the open, like fish in a barrel, without even a visible target to shoot back at. If the two didn’t want to die here and now, their only choice was to do what he said, play along and hope the outlaw slipped up and gave them an opportunity to turn the tables again.
Glumly, Ashley dropped her submachine gun, nodding to her partner to do likewise. Maria hesitated, but set down her rifle and stood, unbuckling her gun belt, placing it and the revolver beside the long gun. She stood up, raising her hands, while Ashley upholstered and dropped the 9mm pistol on the ground and brought her own hands up.
As soon as they had done so, the outlaw ordered Ashley to step away from her guns, to a spot in the center of the clearing and for Maria to join her. The two bounty hunters shared looks of stunned amazement, mixed with growing terror as they realized how things had gone wrong for them and how much trouble they were now in. If there were any doubts as to what they could expect from their captor, his next order laid them to rest.
“Now, I’m sure you ladies wouldn’t have thought to hide a weapon somewhere on you, but just to make sure, both of you strip naked!” The undisguised lust and eagerness in the man’s voice suggested another motivation for his order, but either way the two women didn’t have much choice in the matter. When Maria tried to argue, the bandit shot another bullet at the ground near her feet, making both women jump. Reluctantly, they started to undress.
Ashley pulled off her duster. Underneath she wore a shirt of homespun, which she started to unbutton. Beside her, Maria likewise dropped her jacket on the ground, revealing a pre-war tank top. Taking the hem in her hands, she hesitated a moment, steeling herself for the same as she pulled the garment up over her chest. Ashley slid her own shirt off her shoulders and down her arms, letting it fall to the ground. Both women were now topless, shivering as the cool air blew across their bare breasts, making them stand out, prominently.
Next, the pair removed their boots. Ashley unbuckled her belt and unzipped her jeans. Maria had already taken her belt off, so she just pulled her pants down her long, curvy legs. Last to go were their panties. They hesitated, but knowing they had no chance, pulled the underwear down and stepped out. Faces red, the women stood back up, well aware the eyes of their unseen captor were doubtless admiring the fit, toned bodies now revealed to his gaze.
He must have been enjoying the view, because it was a long moment before they heard him again. “Go to the rocks there. Yes, those ones.” Ashley and Maria shuffled slowly over to the rocks where the two Baker girls sat chained up, still squirming and sobbing through their muzzles in extreme agitation. Ashley couldn’t bring herself to look them in the face. She and Maria had been the girls' only hope of rescue but now, thanks to their carelessness, they would be joining the girls in bondage instead. And all too soon at that.
Beside the teens was a cloth sack which clanked loudly at the bounty hunter picked up and, as instructed by their captor, turned it over. She flinched, seeing the contented spill out onto the ground: chains, shackles, collars and gags. Everything needed to reduce two women to helpless captives.
“Pick up a gag, Red.” The outlaw ordered Ashley. Cringing, the young woman bent and took one of the pair from the pile of restraints. It was of recent make, consisting of leather wrapped around a thick wooden bit, with a complex web of straps coming off either end to wrap the head of the unfortunate wearer and ensure she would be unable to slip the gag from between her teeth once strapped in place.
“Now...put it on your partner.” Face pale, Ashley turned towards Maria. The other woman whimpered quietly, but opened her mouth to let her partner slip the leather wrapped bit between her teeth. After a few awkward minutes figuring out how the straps went on, Ashley got the gag secured tight.
Now it was Maria’s turn to return the favor. Groaning softly through the bit, she knelt and grabbed the second gag. This one was pre-war; it consisted of a leather panel, holding a thick, stubby plug made of silicon rubber. A similar bunch of leather strapped came off either side of the panel. Glumly, Ashley opened her mouth and leaned forward to let Maria slip the plug inside. She groaned as the gag filled the space near completely, crushing her tongue down beneath its bulk. The straps were wrapped around her head and tightened, forcing the plug in deeper.
Now it was time to restrain the newly gagged women. The two sets of restraints set out for them each consisted of a metal collar, handcuffs and leg irons, all joined together by a single chain about five feet in length. The arrangements were a motley assortment of prewar scavenge and modern craftsmanship, the collars and leg irons obviously knocked out by a blacksmith, from scavenged materials while the handcuffs seemed to have been looted from some police station or jail, likely in the chaos following the collapse of the old world order and so made their way into the employ of the slaver. At the commands of their captors, the women chained themselves.
First the leg irons were closed around the women’s ankles. Then the collars went around their necks, leaving the chain running from the front, down to their shackled feet. The chain hung somewhat slack on Maria, but the tall redhead was forced to hunch slightly to accommodate her own. Both were locked on with somewhat worn and battered locks. The handcuffs had been crudely welded to one of the links of the long chain, so they hung about waist height. One at a time, the women took the cuffs and closed them around their wrists, hearing the dismaying ‘click’ as the cuffs locked shut. Now they were completely helpless at the hands of the cruel outlaw that had captured them.
“You ladies wait right there. I’ll be right with you.” The leering gloating in the man’s voice was all too clear. Briefly, Ashley entertained the hope that, while their captor was engaged in climbing down from his hidden sniper’s perch, the two captives could try and effect some sort of escape, but a moment’s thought killed that idea. With their ankles hobbled by chains, the two could only manage a slow shuffle. It would be impossible to get out of the open and into cover, much less make any sort of a run for it. The truth was they were entirely helpless in the clutches of a ruthless and dangerous outlaw.
After a few, awkward minutes of waiting, they saw their captor appear on the cliff face overhead, a dark form clambering down the steep side. Watching this, Ashley prayed the villain would lose his grip, plummet to the ground and break his neck, but to her disappointment, the outlaw kept his grip and was soon standing on level ground before them. Texas Bill was short, standing a few inches shorter than Maria and more than half a head below her taller partner. None-the-less, his confident swagger, in contrast to the captives’ hunched misery, left little doubt who was in charge here.
The outlaw was bareheaded, his bald pate glinting in the thin moonlight. The rest of his thin, wiry figure was clad in the sort of fashion popular among those who had embraced the raider life in this new post-war world: lots of black leather fitted with an array of jagged metal studs and spikes. The tools of his cruel trade were all too visible: slung over his shoulder crosswise was a long scoped rifle while holstered at his hip was an intimidatingly big Magnum revolver. The gun belt was also hung with restraints: a couple more police-grade manacles, large well worn ballgags and, opposite the gun, a short whip with a single coiled braid of dark leather.
As the slaver approached, his thin mouth split into a leering grin showing a jumbled mix of rotten and metal teeth, some of the latter intimidatingly spiked. “I must have been a good boy this year…” He mused in a mocking tone, approaching the chained up bounty hunters. “I figured I’d get some bounty hunters chasing after me, but I never would have guessed they’d be a pair of hot pieces of ass!” He laughed, reaching out with dirty hands to grab Ashley’s.
The young woman grunted indignantly as he continued, one hand going to her breasts while the other slid between her legs to tease her naked snatch, but if anything her outrage only seemed to encourage his exploration of her helpless body. Her angry grunting brought only mocking laughter from the slaver. The loud jangling of the chains as she struggled against her shackles only served to highlight the truth of the matter: she and her partner were both the helpless captives of this cruel and ruthless slaver and they could do nothing to stop him from doing whatever he wanted with them and their fit, young bodies.
Eventually, Texas Bill finished groping Ashley and turned to Maria. She looked away, grunting a desperate prayer through her gag as his hands roamed over her figure, but it, like those of all his previous victims, went unanswered. He laughed lustfully. “Oh yes, I bagged two fine pieces of merchandise here! Pity I won’t have more time to enjoy you myself, but the livestock auction down south starts in three days and I don’t want to miss it, but I’m sure whoever is lucky enough to buy you will enjoy introducing you to your new roles in life, slaves!”
He laughed, turning to dig into another bundle, like the one the shackles and gags had come out of. Ashley and Maria exchanged terrified glances as he straightened up again and fixed a short rope lead between their collars, tethering the women together. Their fates had now been sealed: to be dragged south and sold into the grueling life of bondage and slavery.
With a rough order to the two new slaves not to move, not that there was much they could do in their present circumstances, Texas Bill went to prepare his other captives for the coming day’s march. He went to Mrs. Baker first, extracting her from the bedrolls she’d become entangled in during her panic at the shooting. To the surprise of the two former bounty hunters, as soon as the slaver reached the struggling woman and snapped an order at her, Mrs. Baker froze, giving a muffled yelp of terror. She held still giving only the occasional sob as her captor untied the ropes lashing her hands and feet.
“Lay, slave!” He commanded and the miserable captive obediently rolled onto her back, placing her hands on her head, legs stretched out, ankles spread a couple feet apart. She lay unmoving, even as the slaver went to fetch another set of restraints like the ones the ex-hunters and the woman’s daughters were currently wearing.
Seeing the way Ashley and Maria stared in shock and horror, Texas Bill chuckled. “Yeah, she’s learned her place as a slave...once I beat it into her and her girls a couple days. You’d do well to follow her example. It’ll save your sorry hides a whippin’...not all of it, of course, but a bit.” He laughed at the two women’s dismayed moans, taking up the set of shackles. Heading back over to Mrs. Baker, the slaver soon had the collar fastened around her neck and shackles snapped shut on her wrists and ankles, rendering her a helpless captive as before.
The slaver gave her a sharp command of “Up slave!” As the older woman struggled to stand, her movements hampered by the heavy, restrictive chains, Texas Bill went to her two daughters. He knelt, and Ashley saw that the teens had been secured for the night by the simple expedient of slipping a large padlock through one of the chain links near the collar, then another several links above the ankle fetters. This forced the girls to curl up, almost into a ball, and made any sort of movement, beyond pointless squirming, impossible until they were freed by their captor.
Once the girls were upright, groaning through their gags at relief at being allowed to stretch out once more, their captor ordered the sisters to line up behind their mother who had, by now, gotten to her feet and was standing in place, head bowed low, glumly awaiting her master’s next command. The Baker family stood still as short rope halters were tied to their collars, joining them together. They were then marched over and the two ex-hunters were attached to the back of the slave coffle.
The five captives stood in place, fidgeting in their restraints and shivering from cold and, particularly for the two new slaves, fear, as the slaver broke camp. The rest of his gear was gathered, along with that the two ex-hunters no longer needed, and tied it up into a bundle which went over the back of his horse’s saddle. By this time, dawn was just breaking over the canyon as the bandit mounted up and drew his short whip.
“Okay slaves...thanks to this little detour, we're behind schedule…” He said in the same mocking tone. “So you’re gonna have to march quickly today if you don’t want to be late to your auction!” While Ashley and Maria would rather have preferred to miss the slave auction altogether, as presumably the Baker women did as well, their muzzles made it impossible to express that opinion. At any rate, there was the additional argument of the whip in the slaver’s hand.
“Git on, slaves!” He barked and the whip lashed out, catching Mrs. Baker on the flank, adding a new, livid red stripe to the faded whip marks decorating her bottom and thighs. She yelped into her muzzle and stumbled forward, chains clanking loudly. As the two teens trudged after their mother, Ashley and Maria tried their best to follow, but found it tricky moving with the ankle fetters. The whip lashed out twice more in quick succession, each landing squarely on the new slaves’ naked backsides.
As the women screamed through their gags in pain, the slaver growled, “Move it! Or you’ll feel the whip again!” The eagerness in his voice told the slaves they would be feeling it again regardless of what they did, but nothing they could do would stop that. All they could do now was try and minimize their suffering as best they could. Sobbing brokenly, they shuffled faster, trying to keep up with the other slaves. Leaving the campsite behind, the coffle set off, trudging through the desert canyon towards the distant slave market that awaited them far to the south...