The other wrangler, the one who had left Muskrat Watkins in the lurch, was leading a horse with an army saddle. How he had acquired that outfit was a mystery to me. I felt my insides turn to jelly as I sat there on my haunches and looked at someone I had no wish to ever see again. Wife and child, my ass. A slow smile spread across his face as I stood up slowly, prepared to run.

I took a step and another one but that was all. He rode his horse directly in front of me and planted it sideways, eyeing me like a bird of prey watching a mouse blundering about. “Well hey there, Missy,” he said. “When ol’ Poker Joe described you, I figured we’d met before.” He ran his tongue over his lips and smiled until his gums showed. “This is some howdy do.”

I ran, knowing it was utter folly, but determined not to give up easily. I snatched up the long train of my riding habit and ran. Screaming was pointless. I had been left behind by Poker Joe and Hawk. We both knew it.

He let me run a little way, maybe to tire me out, or maybe to toy with me like a cat with a mouse. I aimed for the little gap in the coulee I had ridden through so recently, hoping for someone to ride to my rescue. I wouldn’t have minded the Seventh Cavalry about then.

The wrangler played with me until my side started to burn. I had reached the point when I wanted to surrender when a rope dropped around me and I was thrown to the ground like a calf ready for branding.

I hit the ground so hard that my teeth bit through my lower lip. My mouth filled with blood and I struggled to rise. It was a pointless attempt; I knew it and he knew it. The wrangler flipped me on my back and yanked the rope off my legs. “Please no,” I managed to gargle through the blood, polite to the end.

When he put his hand on my throat and clamped down, I remembered similar sounds coming through the thin wall when he attacked the prostitute, so many weeks ago. I clawed at his hand and tried to bite him until he cuffed me on the side of my head. He jerked out a knife, transferring it to the hand pinning me down, and slammed his knee between my legs. When I tried to push him away, the knife bit into my neck. I lay still then and closed my eyes, not ready to give up, but out of ideas.