Page 84 of Runaway Hucow

“Listen,” Spike said, turning to face the crowd. “And listen good. The auctioneer is dead. I know some of you worked for him. If you feel loyal to the man for more than the money he paid you, you’re welcome to try and avenge him, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I’ve got two shots in this here 4-gauge, and there’s a sharpshooter up there in that airship ready to pick off anybody who decides to try something—not to mention the bombs. Keep those guns holstered, let us be on our way, and nobody else has to get hurt. Draw, and we’ll kill every last one of you.”

“That ought to do it,” Tess whispered.

“Let’s hope so,” Spike whispered back.

Spike, Roscoe, and the two Walker men were all wearing harnesses with metal loops on the front. All four of them attached their harnesses to the hooks hanging down from the airship, then they each grabbed ahold of one of the hucows. Spike took Tess. The Walkers and Roscoe took the three they had rescued from the stable. Under other circumstances, Tess might have felt a twinge of jealousy seeing Roscoe holding another hucow like that, but not tonight. She knew the alpha only had eyes for her.

“Hold on,” Spike said, clutching Tess tightly against him.

From above, there came a whir of machinery, and the ropes started to rise, lifting all of them off the ground. Tess’s heart climbed into her throat as the town square and the crowd receded below her. She could see the faces of the townspeople lit by the orange glow of the burning stage. Not one of them attempted to draw a weapon and shoot.

A few seconds later, Tess and her companions had all been pulled up through a pair of trap doors in the bottom of the airship gondola. The crane mechanisms stopped whirring, and the doors closed beneath them. The males set down the women they were carrying and unhooked their harnesses.

They had done it. They were aboard the airship.

The interior of the gondola was long and narrow, with windows lining both sides. With three minotaurs, three men, and four hucows inside, it was positively crowded. Peyton was at the front of the gondola, manning the controls. He glanced back over his shoulder, and when he saw that Tess and his brothers were alright, a big smile spread across his face.

“That went well,” he said. “Now let’s get the hell out of here, shall we?”

“Hang on,” Roscoe growled. “I’ve still got a few more things to say to these motherfuckers before we leave.”

There was a speaking device built into the ship’s control panel. Peyton called it a “microphone.” When Roscoe spoke into it, his voice was amplified by sound machines on the outside of the airship.

“Don’t come looking for us,” Roscoe said. “Any man comes looking for us is only going to find death. And another thing. As of tonight, the auction is closed. Once that stage is done burning, don’t build it back. We’re going to be watching and listening. You can keep your saloons and whorehouses, but if we learn that hucows are still being bought and sold in Crooked Valley, I swear to God we’ll come back here and burn the whole damned place to the ground.”

He turned and looked back at Tess.

“Think that’s clear enough for them?”

“Only time will tell,” Tess said.

She was pretty sure the people of Crooked Valley would not try to call Roscoe’s bluff. She hoped for their sakes they wouldn’t, because she knew from experience that the alpha never bluffed. He always made good on his promises, and his threats.

Especially his threats.

“Okay,” Roscoe said. “Let’s go.”

Peyton gave a nod and turned back to his controls. The airship started to move forward. When Tess looked out the window, she could see the eagle flying alongside them in the dark. Within a few short minutes, the town was far behind them, and the fire was but a tiny ember flickering in the distance.

CHAPTER 43

It was only a few days later when Shannon Duffy’s airship came flying over the rim of the valley for a second time. She and her mates were making their return trip from Denver back down to Lamentation, Arizona, and as promised, they stopped in to pay a visit to Tess and her mates. Roscoe sent Chase down the valley with a note for the Walkers, and a little while later, the human family arrived on their wagon, along with the three rescued hucows, who had been staying with them ever since the events in Crooked Valley.

Spike and Peyton brought the table out into the yard, as well as some blankets, which they spread on the grass, picnic style. The Walkers had brought some refreshments with them, including lemonade and some baked goods to snack on, and Peyton opened a couple jugs of cider for the adults to enjoy. The oldest of the Walker boys broke out a fiddle he’d brought with him, Shannon’s mate Tanner broke out his guitar, and before long, they had quite a party going. It was the first time Tess had ever had a party, and she enjoyed it.

She enjoyed it a lot.

The adults talked and laughed and even danced a little to the music. Some of the Walker children played fetch with Shannon Duffy’s red wolf pup, and Chase kept the other children entertained with his aerial acrobatics. Grazing bison stood in the distance and watched quietly, curious about what their crazy, two-legged neighbors were doing.

As Tess had hoped, Shannon and her mates agreed to take the rescued hucows with them to Arizona. The three women were still a bit shaken from everything that had happened, but they were eager to go live on Duffy Ranch, where they would be treated much more humanely than they would be anyplace else in the west.

And Shannon did Tess one other favor. It was one of the main reasons Tess had wanted her to come back to the valley.

Like so many of the new and wondrous machines that were being manufactured these days, the branding machine Shannon had picked up in Denver was a product of the Coppelius Corporation. It wasn’t much to look at, just a wooden box not much bigger than Peyton’s telegraph machine. Inside, it contained a perplexing mass of brass mechanisms and copper wires, as well as some crystal prisms for focusing light. On one side of the box was a narrow slot, rather like a ballot box. On the other side, hung an insulated wire. On the end of the wire was a brass cylinder about the size of a cigar with a little glass lens on its tip.

“It uses amplified light to do the branding,” Tess explained. “It still hurts, but not as bad as an old-fashioned branding iron, and the pain goes away as soon as the branding is finished.”

“Did they give you a demonstration in Denver?” Tess asked. She and Shannon were standing inside Shannon’s parked airship, along with Peyton and Shannon’s mate, Logan. Logan was showing Peyton how to operate the machine while Tess and Shannon watched.