Daylight Robbery

Daylight Robbery

A Western Short Story

By Maryanne Peters

They picked the place to perfection. There were trees to conceal them, then a long stretch with a clear run either side of the tracks. Burt and Paddy could line up the driver from either side and have him stop the train, while Pedro and Dale came in behind the last carriage to go through the whole train from the back. Frenchie was on a hilltop where they knew the train would be coming to a halt, his Sharps rifle trained on the carriage.

They had hoped for a payroll box, but the lack of armed men in the van told them that thy had missed out. The best they could hope for was some cash from the passengers in the carriage behind the coal wagon.

There was the usual array. An elderly couple coming west on the call of their son, a tired looking mother with two youngsters set to join her husband, a businessman or two -- they would have cash. But there was one who immediately caught the eye of Dale, and at the same time Burt coming back from the front. She was quite simply the prettiest thing either of them had ever seen.

It was true that Elizabeth Huggins was attractive, but they would find no money there. She was poor. Her older sister was the really beautiful one, and she had married well, but Lizzie's hopes lay in the proposal of Hayden Hatch, to whose ranch in Colorado she was headed. By his representations he was a successful man, but he lived in the West -- a place of danger. But women must, and she was ready.

But not ready for this. The presence of the two train robbers with pistols drawn was too much for her. She fainted.

Gloriana Babbit was not sitting with her, but on the other side of the train. Still, she could see the young woman's distress and she rushed across to attend to her.

"Stay in your seat, Lady," Burt directed. "Everybody stay in your seats, and we will take what we can and leave you all be."

"You monster, can't you see that you have shocked this girl half to death!" Burt almost took a step back with the ferocity of Gloriana's words, and that fact made him smile. He admired feistiness in women, and this one in particular. She was tall and well dressed, but in black in contrast to Lizzie's sky blue. There was fire in her strong face with its large green eyes lined in black like a dance hall girl. But everything else about her said preacher's wife.

"Attend to her, then," he said. "And everybody else get your wallets and purses out."

"There ain't much here," Dale observed only seconds later. "The Mexican is checking the mail car, but it don't look good. It would seem a shame not to take something we can use." He nodded in the direction of Elizabeth Huggins now recovering under the care of Gloriana Babbit.

Gloriana could see them both, and she knew the sin of lust only too well.

"You will take this child only by shooting me," she said, holding the cowering Lizzie to her bosom.

"We'll take you too, then," said Burt. "Doubtless you will have a husband who will pay for your release".

Gloriana had no husband, much as she would have liked one. But her concern remained for this fragile and beautiful girl, and whether dead or captive, she could not abandon her. So she helped her off the train at gunpoint.

Paddy stepped down from the locomotive and told the crew to take off the brakes and open the valves. The train was soon moving, leaving behind the four now five men and two women, and five horses. There was a bag of some money and cashable items, and some captured handguns that they could leave on the track but took for trading.

"What are we going to do with these women?" said Paddy.

"The small one can ride with me," said Burt.

"I saw her first, Burt," said Dale.

"I won't abide any arrangement that might be considered indecent!" They all looked at the woman who should not be talking -- Gloriana. "We shall share a horse and two of you can share."

The outlaws looked at one another in turn.

"Best not argue about it now," said Burt, smiling at Gloriana. "Put the ladies on your horse, Dale. Tether it to Pedro's and you come up behind me. Let's get clear of the track and leave no trail."

They did that by sticking turning into the dry creek bed where by riding in single file over the stones their hooves would leave no sign behind. The train would stop again 15 miles to the west, and the law would follow the steel highway looking for their route.

Now on a wider trail Frenchie pulled up alongside the women's horse and asked Lizzie: "What is your name, Pretty One?"

"Gloriana Babbit," interjected Gloriana. "And what is yours? And the names of your friends, if they are your friends?"

"We have no names," said Frenchie with a smirk.

"Tell Burt and Dale that!" Gloriana had made a point. Frenchie thought about shooting her then and there. He was a killer, but from a distance. She was an attractive woman -- not young - perhaps aged 30, but spirited. He smiled.

"You can call me Frenchie, Gloriana," he said. "It is not a name."

"I am Lizzie," said Lizzie, but only to Gloriana around whose corseted waist her arms were clenched.

"So Gloriana, do you have a husband who might want you back," sniggered Burt.

"Burt," she said deliberately. "You are in luck, because I have many husbands and they all want me back. You just need to take young Lizzie here to the nearest town and leave her there. I am sincerely hoping that you are God-fearing men and will not lay a hand on this girl in sin."

"The time for God as at the end of life, and for me that ain't now," said Dale. "Until then I fear bullets not lightning bolts."

"If you do something to me then I would be worthless to the man I am contracted to marry," said Lizzie, speaking up with surprising volume.

"A virgin!" piped Paddy. "Sure it's a rare thing in these parts."

"I have never understood a man's attraction to the hymen," said Gloriana. "Somebody with experience can offer one hundred times more pleasure to a man. Not that I am offering, but I could claim twice the experience of any one of you men, as a minimum. Not let us agree to let this child go. Leave her to her groom who is prepared to commit, whether or not that man can pay. You want a ransom paid and some fun to be had. I can give you both. Little Lizzie here will give you neither."

"So how do we reach these many husbands of yours, Gloriana?" asked Burt. "It seems an unlikely story but as I get to know you it sounds almost believable."

"I can leave a letter with Lizzie in the nearest town. A few telegrams and a place to deliver the money to is all that is needed."

"We should at least have our way with the younger one before we leave her," said Paddy.

"Will you draw lots to see who is first," sneered Gloriana. "But the word of God is clear...". She produced a small bible from her bag and held it up. "The sin is to take the betrothed woman against her will. And the punishment is death. Think again about those lightning bolts, Dale."

And as if to confirm the presence of God, they all heard the rumble of distant thunder.

Burt pulled up and all the horses stopped. His steered his mount back to the two women, and stared at Gloriana. "Who are you?" he said slowly.

"I am a creature of God, as are you, and at his mercy, as are you," she said.

But he saw a hunger in her eyes. She wanted him. He knew it. And in that moment, he wanted her. The young girl was a delicate thing, a bone china bowl to be cracked by the first soup poured into it, and rendered ugly and useless. But this woman? This was something else.

"You write your letter then, and the names of the people to send it to," said Burt "We will give it to the pretty girl and have her take it to the telegraph office. Tell them to take the money to the top of Hamukana Hill on the Tonkawas Indian Reservation by next Sunday. Let your many husbands show us what you are worth, and maybe you can add 5 more husbands to your list in the coming week.

"We will see if you are man enough for that," said Gloriana with a Mona Lisa smile on her face.

They stayed hidden in the gulch as the sun set, and bade Lizzie climb up and walk the few hundred years into the small town, which the letter in her hand, a story on her tongue and weight off the rest of her.

They rode on. Burt knew of a hundred hideouts, some little more than rocks to conceal and campfire, some of them deserted homesteads, abandoned mines and even an old Mexican monastery, long left to the Godless.

It may have been any of these places, for it was so dark when they arrived it seemed that the horses had sniffed it out. There was a place for a fire with some iron, and some bedding other than what was rolled behind the saddles.

Burt's voice could be heard first: "Dale, if you are the hungriest for a woman, I invite you to be the first to seek the favors of the fair Gloriana." Nobody could see, but they could hear the grin with his words.

"Come to me Dale," she said. "You will find me in the dark. I smell of lilies when everybody else here smells of sweat and dung."

"I'm coming," he said, for the first time. He was to say it again after some grunts. He last words before falling asleep were. "Oh my God!" but with some expletives added.

"Are you ready for me Burt?" her voice sung through the blackness. "Sniff the breeze and find your way."

The enjoyment of his colleague had left him needy, so he stumbled over other bodies towards the sweet smell. He could feel her soft hair now let loose and then his rough hands were touching her skin -- the smoothest skin he had ever felt, with not even the fine down you would expect on a woman.

"Shall I suck you dry?" she whispered.

"If there is something left after I fill your cunt," he whispered back.

She did not need further instruction. He felt her legs over his shoulders and her soft hands kneading and needing his cock, guiding it towards her entrance. It was tight, and he felt as big as he had ever felt.

"You're the first in here tonight," she said softly. "Tell that it does not feel like home".

It did feel like that. It felt as if he had been roaming in the wilderness for years without reward, which her basically had been, but now he was in a place of comfort, and place he would not want to leave. And se was working it somehow, like softly biting him with her second set of lips making each stroke seem like the first and the last rolled in as one. She was moving to, removing the effort from him, and allowing him to truly feel. Then his heart seemed to stop. He had fucked many woman, but it was nothing like this. He let out a bellow like a mating moose. They all heard it, which is not what was intended.

"Oh my God!" he said.

"You others will have to wait until morning," she called out. "I am exhausted."

They all got their turn, but always in the dark. There were nights when she would take four. Including two where should could pleasure one with what lay between her legs and another with her mouth or her soft hands, that seemed to be sex organs of their own.

When they arrived at San Alvaro Gloriana was universally adored, and everybody was clamoring for her attentions.

"Tomorrow is a day of rest boys," Burt called out as they unsaddled their horses in the courtyard of the ruined monastery. "But as she has told me that the sabbath should start at sunset, tonight will be her night of rest. If her husbands come through then tomorrow we will have some money to add to our joys."

"And if they don't pay up, then I guess that means you are ours for good, Gloriana?" said Paddy.

"You heart will give out before I will," she grinned back at him.

"Mine is the Abbot's chamber," Burt said to Gloriana. "It is a place for quiet Christian contemplation. Will you come up and join me in prayer, Mistress?"

She smiled, and all the others knew that prayer was the last thing on her mind, and on his too.

The room was spartan, but there was a bed and a straw stuffed mattress softened by some added bedspread. It was all he needed.

She dropped to her knees in front of him. She said: "For what I am about to receive, I thank the Lord."

He laughed. He said: "Not you mouth today, my Sweet. I need to see you in all your glory, Gloriana, as God made you."

"As God made me? He had a hand in it, but I did some of my own work too. If you want to keep the mystique, ask me not to undress. But if you want to see me naked, prepare to be amazed."

Her dress and then her underskirts dropped, and her corset was loosened so that soft flesh erupted. He had lain with her like this many times, but as the corset loosened further he saw that the breasts were not as large as they seemed. Her waist had been shaped by corsetry and gave her hips width. Now all that was required is that the final slip fall from her soft, smooth and pale body.

"What the...?!" Burt stepped back. "What is that?"

"That is my clitoris," she said. "You have probably never heard the word before. A woman's anatomy is unknown to most men."

"I know one thing, and that is that is a cock, and you are no woman!"

"Now Burt," she adopted a scolding pose. "You have been inside me enough to know what I am now, whatever I once was. You wanted to see what you have been enjoying, along with all your boys, and here she is." She stepped forward and pulled a pin from her hair letting it tumble down.

He looked in her face. She was beautiful in a way that no other woman was. She was strong and in control. She was worthy. She was hungry. He needed her.

"Maybe I am wrong," said Burt. "Lie down and let me find out."

She pulled him to the bed by his shirt, the pulled it off him. She pecked his chest and neck with kisses and then thrust her tongue into his mouth as if it was a crazed rattlesnake.

Minutes later they lay together. He held her tenderly. She toyed with his belly button.

"Tell me about this place where will go tomorrow, where you will collect your money and I will be free," she said.

"Hamukana Hill has a flat rock on the very top where the Tonkawas leave their chiefs after they are dead to be carried away by the eagles or even by the great thunderbird, but it is usually the vultures that pick the bones. It is a sacred place, and because of that and the fact that it is on the reservation, the law cannot be there."

"You are a smart man, Burt. If only you were an honest one... and a rich one."

"Would you agree to marry me if I was?"

"I have so many husbands, as you know."

"If there is no money on Hamukana Hill tomorrow then you belong to us -- you know that, don't you."

"There will be money," she said. If there was nothing then her life would be worth as little as being a plaything for a band of outlaws.

"I find myself hoping that there will not be," said Burt, kissing her sweet-smelling head.

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2021