Page 33 of Runaway Hucow

“Oh my.” Tess pressed a hand to her throat.

“From the looks of it, a bunch of them had already been dead before the crash,” Peyton said. “They had bullet wounds on their bodies, and the airship had been all shot up too, which is why it crashed. We reckon the men flying it must have been bandits.”

“Sky bandits,” Tess whispered.

Sky bandits were a relatively new phenomenon in the west. In the old days, before the war between the North and the South, trains and armored stagecoaches had been the primary means by which firestone, humilk, and other valuables were transported to the east, and they’d always been plagued by bandits. Then, following the great railroad strike of ’77, airships started to gain traction as a new means of transportation. The best airships were manufactured by the Coppelius Corporation in New York. Joseph Coppelius had once claimed his flying ships were impervious to robbery. In reality, it didn’t take long before criminals hijacked some ships for their own use, and just like that, the profession of sky banditry was born.

“Were you able to identify the men?” Tess asked.

“No ma’am,” Peyton answered. “We’ve seen pictures of all the really famous sky bandits, like the James-Younger Gang and the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang up in Wyoming. These weren’t them.”

“Probably for the best they died in the crash,” Spike muttered. “Who knows what Roscoe would have done with them if they’d survived.”

“He doesn’t take kindly to bandits?” Tess asked.

“He doesn’t take kindly to outsiders,” Peyton said. “The only people who know about this valley are us and the Walkers who live down on the other end. Roscoe wants to keep it that way on account of the buffalos who live here. He’s real protective of the herd. We all are, but Roscoe is especially protective.”

Tess was starting to get the impression that the eldest minotaur brother was one tough customer, and that was saying a lot, considering how tough his two younger brothers were.

“So, what happened after the crash?” she asked.

Spike shrugged. “To tell you the truth, nothing much. We were worried we’d be getting a visit from the U.S. Marshals or the Pinkertons, maybe even the army. That would have posed a problem, since we’re trying to keep this valley a secret.”

“But nobody ever did show up,” Peyton said. “So I figured finders-keepers with the airship. Roscoe didn’t like that at first. He wanted to burn the damn thing up and bury the pieces that couldn’t be burned. I talked him out of it though.”

“Why did he want to destroy the airship?” Tess asked. She couldn’t understand why anyone would want to destroy such an amazing piece of equipment.

“Roscoe doesn’t cotton to anything new-fangled,” Spike explained.

“What about the windmill? The electric lights in the house?”

Spike smiled and shook his head. “Well, Roscoe’s got a soft spot for Peyton since he’s the baby of the family. He lets him get away with pretty much anything these days.”

“That’s not true!” Peyton said, bristling. “Roscoe lets me ‘get away’ with things because I use logic and reason to persuade him. Maybe you should try it some time, instead of using your fists and that damned thick skull of yours.”

Spike grinned and ruffled his Peyton’s hair. “I was only teasing, little brother. Don’t go getting yourself into a tizzy over it.”

Peyton swatted Spike’s hand away in annoyance.

“I’m not in a tizzy, thickhead.” He turned back to Tess, who was doing her best to suppress a laugh. “The truth is, as the number of airships grows, it’s going to be harder and harder to keep this valley a secret. But with an airship of our own, maybe we can run some nosy folks off. At the very least, we’ll be able to see what’s coming our way. That’s what I told Roscoe, and he finally saw the wisdom in that. So little by little, we hauled all the pieces into this barn and I started putting everything back together again. I was already using the barn to work on some smaller projects, but now the airship takes up most of my time.”

“When do you think it will be ready to fly?” Tess asked.

“I’ve already taken her up for a few test flights,” Peyton said. “But she still needs a little work before she’s safe for long-distance travel. I’d say another fortnight, maybe a little less.”

Tess suddenly remembered her agreement with Spike. She smiled and turned toward the dark-eyed bisonman.

“So that’s the reason you said I had to stay for fourteen days.”

Spike nodded. “In fourteen days, we’ll be able to fly you down to Duffy Ranch in Arizona.” His face grew serious, and Tess thought she saw a look of yearning behind his dark eyes. “If you still want to go, that is.”

He stopped there, but Tess sensed he wanted to say more, and she could guess some of the things he wanted to tell her.

If she stayed here with the bisonmen, she would never want for anything. There was food here, and shelter, and thousands upon thousands of acres to roam and explore. And of course there were the bisonmen themselves. They were strong, protective, caring—not to mention amazing in bed. Tess had never been with any other males before them, so she didn’t have anything to compare them to, but she knew she would never find another male who could pleasure her the way the bisonmen did.

That was just sex though, and sex wasn’t enough to make a relationship work on its own. Tess still barely knew the two bisonmen, and she hadn’t even met their other brother yet.

Spike must have seen how conflicted she was feeling, because he smiled and gently laid one huge hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to make up your mind right now, Tess. I apologize if I made you feel that way. Let’s see how you’re feeling at the end of the fortnight, okay?”