Armed Robberies

1.

When she was nineteen, two bandits dressed-up as Indians killed Molly Sheridan's father and her three younger brothers, and burned their ranch. They carried her off, but hadn't tied her hands properly, perhaps because they'd got so drunk, perhaps only because they didn't imagine she could give them any trouble, bound or no. Thus as they were riding, she was able to get hold of one of their pistols, and shoot the men dead.

She would later regret that she had done the deed too quickly, and neither of the villains had any notion of what had occurred. There could be no satisfaction in that.

Sheriff Fane had proposed marriage to her, the following day. She had refused him. He was a cruel man, who delighted in whipping his horses and smoking cigars, and he had a particularly odious mustache. Molly did not hate all mustaches—but his she found unbearable. Perhaps it only seemed so, not because of any quality of its own, but because of the hateful face it grew out of, and the savage, staring eyes that went with it.

So he had taken her to town and left her in the charge of Cyrus Malley, proprietor of the Creaky Springs. In his view, there was nothing else to be done with her. She had nowhere else to go—"Excepting Hell, that is," he'd remarked, thinking his wits quite sharp.

Her mother had been taken a year since by fever of one sort or another, and Molly had no remaining relations in this world. Since she had not accepted the Sheriff's "protection," at the price he set for it, she was left with no other option but outright prostitution ... save starvation or perhaps suicide.

The hard realities of frontier life. There were rather few women in the West, at this date, and most of those that were, were whores.

But Molly Sheridan had not accepted those realities. She stole herself a horse and a rifle, then fled into the wilderness. She'd always had a knack with horses, as well as with firearms. Her daddy and her brothers thought it baffling, but now she'd put those gifts to use. It would prove her salvation.

She made herself a mask, out of one of the black stockings they'd given her to wear at the brothel. She became an outlaw.

Before long, she discovered she had talent for it. Being good with horses and with guns was obviously part of that, but only part. It also took a head for planning. For management.

Everybody knew who she was, from the very beginning, but she kept wearing the mask anyway. It seemed to give her power. She wasn't just a girl with guns, when she wore that mask. It made her frightening and formidable, and mythic, too. She was the notorious outlaw, Sheridan Shooter.

2.

She soon found a partner—a woman her own age named Swift-as-a-Snake. She was not an Indian, though she had an Indian name and wore Indian clothes. She claimed she'd been abducted as a little girl by Comanche's, raised up as one of their own, so she had no memory of her original family. But then a year before, and just days after she had been married, she got angry at her husband and killed the brave, and then was banished from the tribe. Like Molly she had chosen to become an outlaw.

She was a useful companion—skilled in tracking, and living off the land, and the very Devil in a scrap. But Molly didn't entirely believe Swift's story (she only ever called her Swift—the rest made too much of a mouthful). Something about her costume, and the way she spoke—it didn't quite ring true. It had a stagy quality. Once in a gully they'd spied on other Indians, around a campfire, and Molly had asked Swift to translate their talk, in order to find out their plans ... and she couldn't do it. Claimed she couldn't hear them clearly, though Molly could, and she'd been right beside her. And she'd been certain they were Comanche's. So if these were the people that brought her up, how come Swift didn't know their language?

Plus she was a huntress and a warrior. And as far as Molly knew, Indians didn't train their women to fight or to hunt—that was the braves' job. The squaws were s'posed to tend camp and the babies, and cook and sew, all the usual womanly things ... and Swift was no good at all at any of that stuff.

She would never confront her about it—it actually didn't make a difference to their partnership—but secretly Molly was convinced Swift was just another runaway, like her. Or else she was crazy. Maybe she'd got away from some lunatic asylum, back East. Or maybe she'd been an actress in one of those traveling troupes ... Those types were all little better than vagabonds. Molly could pass hours speculating about it, turning over various ideas and possibilities. But she was careful never to let Swift know her suspicions.

For a while—a period of weeks—they picked up a third "associate," and became known as the Sheridan Shooter Gang. An actual gang! With her as the leader! Their third member was a black man who called himself Horace Coal and said he'd fought for the Union in the War Between the States. He'd been captured and lynched by Sheriff Fane and his men. Molly and Swift had avenged him by lynching Sheriff Fane.

Molly was interested to meet his replacement—wondering what kind of fellow the new sheriff would turn out to be. A better opponent, or a lesser? She just had to wait and see.

A week before his ignominious death, Molly had given her virginity to Horace Coal. Swift had suggested it. She had herself been coupling with the man, at every opportunity. Molly had made no comment and done her best to turn a blind eye to it, as much as possible. But obviously she had been fully aware of what was going on. It had been rather embarrassing. Finally Swift had asked her outright why she never took a turn with the man. Molly hadn't really known how to answer, especially with respect to the obvious delight Swift partook in the act. Soon she found she was allowing Swift to convince her to give the whole strange sticky business a try.

It had been intriguing, more than anything else. Not a wholly satisfying experience—but not unpleasant. Yes, there had been pain, and a little awkwardness—but not half as much as she'd prepared herself for. Horace had been very careful with her—Swift had threatened to scalp him if he finished too quick, or hurt her more than was avoidable. Uppermost in her mind, immediately afterward, and whenever she thought it over since then, had been a desire to repeat the experiment. To try the act anew, and find out how the second time compared to the first. Now that she had a clearer notion of how it was performed. But then Horace had the inconvenient misfortune to get himself arrested and executed. And she had no one else on hand to explore the matter with.

She wished bawdy houses existed for the exclusive use of women. It was ridiculous, in her view—insufferable, in fact—that society had not addressed this need. As if it didn't exist. Of course it existed and always had—but all the fucking men suppressed it, the whole world over. And they always would, at least as long as silly women let the smug bastards get away with it.

3.

One day they robbed a stagecoach, or tried to, only to find out some other bandit had beat them to it. Cleaned out the dang-gone thing.

"Young feller, he were," said the driver. "Stopped us not ten minutes back. Damned saucy rascal."

Molly knew this driver quite well, though not by name. He was a civil old bugger. She had robbed his stage many, many times, and they had gradually established an easy rapport. Two people going about their jobs, trying to make the transaction as simple and hassle-free for the other as possible.

"He made me give him one of my gloves," put in one of the passengers, a pretty young lady, "To remember my face by, he said. He called me a Vision of Radiance." She did indeed appear to radiate, as she repeated that. And you could hear the capital letters.

"Impertinent scoundrel," growled her sour-faced chaperon. When her charge sighed wistfully, she earned herself a cruel slap from the stout old woman. "Hussy!"

"Now, now," said Molly, "No more of that."

"Don't presume to—"

"Hush," Molly said, putting her gun to the old woman's face. But she relented, when the silly girl she was sticking up for only burst into tears and pleaded for the harridan's life ...

"Don't hurt Aunt Maverly! Oh please don't hurt my dear old auntie!"

"Blast and tarnation!" Molly exclaimed, after they'd sent the coach on, "Hellfire and Jesus!"

"I track him," pronounced Swift, "I catch him, chop his pecker off. Keep it for trophy. 'Remember his face by,' like he told the foolish girl." She smiled her crazy smile, eyes sparkling.

"Never mind his dang-gone pecker," Molly countered, kicking at the dirt, "I want that dang-gone loot!"

"We go then. We get it."

4.

His real name was Lyle Leigh—he had decided his bandit name would be Wily Wildman. Wily not Willy. Perhaps he'd better spell it Whiley or Wyleigh, so there would be no confusion on that score, when it was printed on Wanted posters and in the newspapers, and perhaps even in the dime novels, if he was fortunate enough to become famous enough for that. Or infamous enough, rather.

Today's had been his first robbery. It had gone quite well. Not only had he secured for himself a nice haul, but he felt he'd made a fine impression on that pretty young lady. (She had certainly made a fine impression upon him.) Hopefully the story of his gallantly asking for her glove as a souvenir of her loveliness would spread far and wide, and furthermore he hoped it would do so with alacrity.

He had neglected to mention his new name, however. Hadn't occurred to him, until it was too late. The question had never come up. Everyone in the coach had been exceedingly cooperative—suspiciously so. None of them had bothered challenging his demands, the way he'd always imagined would be the case: "How dare you, sir? Just who do you think you are?" "They call me Wily Wildman," he'd planned on replying, "Scourge of the West!"

Well, perhaps next time.

That girl, though ... Good Lord. He couldn't get her visage out of his mind. Pretty as a picture.

He should have abducted her, maybe. Just for the evening, anyhow. He wondered if she would have come, if he had asked—or rather, when he ordered it. You don't ask a girl's permission, if you abduct her. Wouldn't work, would it? How much fight would she have put up? He liked to imagine it wouldn't have been much of one.

But realistically he'd never have dared. No sir. It was nice to think about, but actually trying it would have been too much to take on. Especially on his first durn job! Even if he'd managed to carry her off, he wouldn't have known quite what to do with her—how far to go. What if she had started crying or something? Believing he meant to kill her ... He wasn't the sort that would enjoy that. His fantasy was to seduce her—not torment a girl like that with ghastly, unspeakable fears ... No, the whole thing would have turned into a horrid and frankly ridiculous mess.

Still he couldn't stop thinking about her.

5.

"What in tarnation?" said Molly, "Hell's he doin' to himself over there?"

"Can't you see?" said Swift.

"Sure I can see. I just don't dang-gone understand it."

"Men do that plenty. All damn time. Whenever they be alone."

"Why?"

Swift just looked at her like she was an idiot. And the more she thought about it, perhaps it was a silly question.

She rubbed her own private parts, sometimes, in her bedroll. Before she fell asleep, or sometimes first thing when she woke, before she really got up ... but it had never occurred to her that other people would let themselves do that, except lunatics in asylums, like she was taught as a child. A schoolteacher had told her that, as she recalled, and once she had overheard the town minister saying something similar to somebody. So she had always assumed it was something wrong with her, a perverse weakness of her nature she couldn't personally overcome—and she had been ashamed of it, whenever she did it. But she hadn't been able to help herself—nor did she try very hard. For after choosing the life of a bandit and murderer—even though every son of a bitch she'd killed had damn gosh well deserved it—some extra sinning along such lines as those couldn't mean much, measured against all the rest.

Evidently other people outside of asylums couldn't help themselves, any better. Actually, it felt rather wonderful, finding that out. She wondered if Swift did it to herself, too. Probably she did. She wondered how often ... Funny to think the girl had maybe been doing the same stuff the same time she was doing it, at night or in the mornings, on the opposite side of their camp fire. But both of them hiding it from each other, under their blankets.

They'd tracked the other outlaw here—and it hadn't taken long; Swift really was extremely good at that sort of thing—to this creek in the woods, where he was bathing. But not really bathing ... he was sitting on the shore with his back against a log and his pants around his knees, and he'd put on the long white glove he'd taken from the pretty girl in the stagecoach. He was cranking his engorged manhood, with that gloved hand.

Oh, hey, now she got it. He was imagining it was the girl—the girl's hand on him, in the glove. He was jerking himself really hard—rubbing it like he was trying to set the thing on fire. She was surprised he wasn't hurting himself. You'd think his poor thing would tear right off. Did he actually like how that felt? But he must or he wouldn't be doing it.

Swift stood up to attack him, but Molly caught her by the arm to stop her. "Wait. Just hold on a minute."

Swift snorted. "You want see him spurt?"

"No," Molly said. But then realized she was lying. That was exactly what she wanted.

"You like him?" asked Swift.

"No," Molly answered again, "Of course not!"

"He is good-looking boy," Swift said. "You not agree?"

Well, now she put it like that ...

"You want to make sport with him?" Swift asked.

"What? What?" But shocked as she was at the suggestion, there was no confusion—she knew exactly what Swift meant. For that was Swift's personal euphemism for all activities of the mature and carnal nature. She only referred to them in that particular fashion. Making sport.

"Before I cut off his pecker," Swift went on, "Might as well put it to some good last use."

For a little bit, all Molly could do was gawp at her, with her mouth hanging open, shaking her head. "You are one crazy bitch, you know that? Do you realize how completely durn crazy you are?"

Swift just shrugged, and then her brow furrowed in thought. "I should stop him now, before he make himself spurt. Don't want him to spend all his strength, before we get hold of him."

"Jesus! We're not gonna—"

But Swift shushed her. "I go tie him up now. Make him ready. You wait here."

"Swift, don't you dare! Swift!"

But true to her name, she was already springing from the underbrush where they'd been crouching, to race silent and menacing toward the unsuspecting bandit, oblivious in his own bliss. Rather than a snake, though, she was more like a wolf bearing down upon a rabbit.

The young bastard was actually moaning a little, with his head thrown back and his eyes closed and his mouth hanging open, as much as Molly's was. He looked like he was about to die. But happily.

Swift was just two steps away from him ... He didn't stand a chance.

6.

"Oh Jesus! Oh dear lord Jesus, save me! Save me! Jesus!"

Listening to the kid carry on and on like this had only been amusing for a minute or two. Now it just made her feel embarrassed, as well as a little sick in her stomach.

Molly wanted them both to get gone. They could just leave the guy tied up here. They had all the loot now, such as it was—not much of a haul. And they'd made their point. They'd unmanned this guy, catching him so quick and easy—he wouldn't cross them again. Even if he tried to get back at them, he wouldn't pose a threat. He was too young and too stupid and too weak. Now that fact was established, Molly had lost any interest in Swift's crazy games. Not that she had much enthusiasm for any such nonsense of this sort to start with. But she hadn't told her partner yet. She knew the girl wasn't gonna take it well. Swift was quite clearly still enjoying herself very much. You could see the gleam in her eyes.

Well, Christ. This was going to be awkward. What a mess. Some days nothing in tarnation turns out like it's supposed to.

Swift had tied the boy to the top of the log he'd been sitting against, when she captured him, with his arms stretched over his head and his legs bound straight together at the knees and ankles. His pants were down around his calves and she'd also unbuttoned the front of his shirt. Now she was toying with his exposed nipples with the tip of her knife.

"Maybe I slice off one of these. Keep for souvenir. Maybe I take both."

"Please don't! Please just don't! Please don't hurt me! Please!"

"Maybe I take something else." She lowered the knife to his crotch. His pecker wasn't hard anymore, no sir. It had shrived up in terror. Molly hadn't known a grown man's pecker could shrink that small. It made her feel sad for him. It wasn't as nice to look at it as it was before, in its state of excitation or whatever you preferred to call it.

"You've got all my money, I don't have anymore. If I had anymore stashed some place, I swear I'd tell you—but I don't! This was my first ever robbery! I'm new in the territory! That's why I didn't know about you and your partner! You have to believe me! Please be merciful! If you let me live I swear I'll go far away and never come back to these parts! I swear to God! Please, I'll do anything! Anything you want! Tell me what to do! Just tell me! Please!"

"If it was my decision alone," said Swift, "I would cut your throat."

"Oh God! Oh no! God no! Please!"

"Hush. My partner doesn't want me to. My partner has taken a liking to you, when she saw you."

"What? Really? What do you mean?"

"Swift, don't put words in my mouth! I never said nothing like that. Cut it out!"

"She is shy about these matters. But don't be fooled by her denials. I know her better than anyone else. We might keep you alive, if you can make yourself useful. How does that sound?"

"Useful?"

"Yes. But look at your little pecker now. It wasn't this little before." She sheathed her knife and then fiddled with his piece with both hands at once. It failed to get any bigger or stiffer, though. Swift gave the boy her most menacing frown. "What good is this to us? No good at all. May as well just cut it off, if you can't make it hard again."

"Give me a minute. You gotta give me another minute. It's hard like this."

"No it isn't. This is the problem."

"I meant it's hard for me—in these circumstances. You got me too scared and frazzled. Won't you untie me?"

"No."

"I'm not used to this kind of stuff."

"You mean you are virgin?"

"No, I meant, being tied up and bossed around like this. Look, how about this ... My cock's no good, but I'm good with my tongue. Come up here and I'll show you. You'll probably like that more anyway, if you're like most girls."

Swift's frown became a smile. "You will be useful after all, it seems. But it's not me you must show. It is my partner."

"Yeah, so you said. Well then, I'm ready. Bring her over. I'll make her smile."

"Come, Molly. Put yourself over his face."

"No! I'm not gonna do that! Yer dang crazy!"

"Why you still act this way? You will like this. I promise. Trust your partner. Try and see."

But still she hung back. "I just couldn't do it, Swift. I'm sorry but no. It won't work. Certainly not with you watching me."

Swift looked half-offended and half-amused. "If that's all it is, fine. I shall leave you in peace." Her mock-Injun accent had slipped for a minute there, but Molly saw her swallow and then she'd got it back. "I go check horses," she pronounced, and then stalked off through the trees.