She wasn't going to beg. Not of a man like that.
Frank James was back by then, too. He was drinking from a wooden Confederate-issue canteen with his initials engraved into the wood. He looked at her, then knelt by her, lifting her head.
"Don't give her no water!" Justin said irritably. "I'll give it to her." He smiled, nudging at Shannon's rump with an evil leer. "If she's good, if she's real good, she'll get some water. You'll see, my friends. Old Justin knows how to take a Yankee shrew."
Frank ignored him, lifting Shannon's head, allowing a trickle of water to cool her face and seep into her mouth. She drank it thirstily.
"Frank!" Justin swore.
Frank told Justin what he should do with himself, and Justin jumped to his feet. Shannon watched the two men with interest, her heart thundering. If they would just rip each other to shreds…
Jesse, who was now leaning against the tree, paring off a bite of dried beef from a strip he'd taken from his saddlebags, spoke sarcastically. "That's good, you two. Real good. Kill each other. She's enjoying every minute of it."
Both men stopped. They stared at her.
"Let's all get some sleep," Jesse said. "You want her that bad, Justin, the girl's yours. But don't kill her. I ain't no murderer of women and children, and I ain't ever gonna be."
He stretched out on the ground, leaning his head upon his saddle. Frank swore and chose another tree.
The two light-haired men found their own shade, and Justin smiled as he settled down beside Shannon. She stared at him, her face against the earth, hating him. He laughed and reached out, slipping his arm around her, twisting her over and pulling her close against him. She squirmed and struggled, choking on the tears that threatened to stream down her face. "Bastard, I swear I'd just as soon die!" she hissed vehemently.
Justin laughed at her futile efforts. Tied hand and foot as she was, she wasn't going to do anything.
His hand hooked beneath her breasts as he pulled her against his chest and the curve of his body. His fingers played over her breasts and rested there. He whispered against her ear. "Just a few hours of sleep, honey. I apologize for being so exhausted. But just a little bit of sleep…I wouldn't want to disappoint you. I want to hear you scream and scream and scream…" Laughing again, he leaned his head back against his saddle, seeking sleep.
Shannon closed her eyes and set her teeth. She gave him time to fall asleep, then tried to edge away from him.
His hand tightened around her like a clamp. "Not on your life, my golden Yank. Not on your life." His fingers moved through her hair. Shannon held her breath, praying that he would stop.
He did. He dug into his saddlebags for another length of rope and grimly tied her wrists to his own. Shannon watched him in bitter silence. When he was done, he smiled and touched her cheek. "You're a beautiful Yank-lover, you know that?"
She ignored him. He lay down to sleep again, chuckling.
Shannon lay awake in misery until absolute exhaustion overwhelmed her. Despite her hunger and thirst and discomfort, she closed her eyes, and sleep claimed her.
To the best of Malachi's knowledge, there was no one on the lookout for the James boys.
But they were riding as if their lives depended on getting into the heart of Missouri just as fast as possible.
And they were hard to track. By the time he'd reached his bay and found Shannon's big black gelding, the raiders were already well ahead of him.
And they knew where they were going. Thank God they had turned southward, deeper into Missouri. It was land he knew. If he hadn't been accustomed to the terrain, he'd never have managed to follow them. They cut a course right through forest lands, knowing unerringly where they could take shortcuts and pick up roads again and disappear back into the forests again.
By midmorning he realized that they were following the course of a small stream. Malachi stuck with it.
He was exhausted. His leg was aching, and he was afraid that the fever might be searing through him again. An hour's worth of sleep just might make it a bit better…
But he didn't dare take an hour. He knew Frank and Jesse James only slightly. He'd met them once in the short time that Cole had ridden with Quantrill, and he'd found them to be reckless, sometimes ruthless kids. He thought it might be the Younger brothers traveling with them, another set of reckless youths.
He didn't think that the James boys were especially cruel or brutal. They were still sane, at least, he thought. Like the Younger brothers. They were probably still sane, if nothing else.
But the other man…
His name was Justin. Malachi knew who he was. Cole had seen him in action early on in the war, and the malice with which the man killed and the pleasure he took from his brutal actions had turned Cole away from Quantrill's gang completely.
But to the most decent bushwhacker out there, Shannon would be quite a tonic to swallow. And she wouldn't keep quiet. She wouldn't be able to do so. He had already heard her ranting and raving.
He didn't have time to rest, not for ten damn minutes.
He paused only to give the horses water, and to douse himself with it, and drink deeply. He chewed on the dried meat he had brought, and swallowed some of the liquor Shannon had packed him. It was good, and it helped to keep the pain in his leg at bay.
It was almost night again when he came upon them at last.
He was still a little distance away when he saw the horses grouped in the trees. There were no cooking fires laid out in the camp; in fact, it was barely a camp at all. The bushwhackers had merely stopped along the road.
Malachi was pretty sure that he'd be able to reason with the men; hell, at least they had obstensibly fought on the same side. But the war had taught him to take nothing for granted, so he dismounted from the bay and tethered her with the black gelding some distance down the stream from the raiders. Then he approached them again in silence, coming close enough this time to see the layout in the camp.
They must have been sure of themselves; very sure. No one was left on guard. Each and every one of the bushwhackers was curled up, sound asleep.
Or maybe they weren't so sound asleep. Men like that learned to sleep differently, with one eye open. If a fly buzzed through that camp, the men would probably be aware of it. He'd be a fool to go sneaking in, no matter how silently he could manage it.
And as he had suspected, Shannon was in trouble.
The Younger brothers were stretched out in front of an oak; the others were all laid out beneath other trees, thirty yards apart, and perhaps fifty yards up the grassy slope from the stream.
Shannon was bound hand and foot, and tied to Justin.
He swore inwardly, thinking she must have fought them tooth and nail, because she seemed to have lost Jesse's protection. Jesse, like many other bushwhackers, despite their savagery, still put Southern womanhood on a pedestal. If she had just kept her mouth closed and acted out the part of the Southern belle…
But she hadn't.
Sweat broke out on Malachi's forehead and his hands went clammy as he watched her. She was pale and smudged with dirt, but even so, her features retained their angelic beauty, and her tangled hair swept around her face like a glorious halo. Where the sun fell upon it her hair glowed like golden fire.
She was tied to Justin—but at least she was decently clad. She seemed to sleep the sleep of the dead, but even in that sleep, it seemed she strained with all her heart against the man holding her prisoner.
He hadn't touched her yet. Justin hadn't touched her, Mal-achi assured himself. But he. meant to do so.
At the periphery of the circle, Malachi inhaled and exhaled deeply, deciding what plan of action to take. He could try shooting them all, but the bushwhackers were damned good shots, and if he didn't kill Justin right away, he was certain that Justin would kill Shannon for the pure pleasure of it