Page 21 of Hard Bounty

“You can’t do this!” she protested.

He chuckled. “Just watch.” He laughed again. “Actually, you won’t watch. You’llfeel. Get ready.”

She groaned and braced herself.

“I’m not going to stop…”

Whack! Whack! Whack!

“…until your bottom is so red…”

Whack! Whack! Whack!

“…that it hurts to sit in that saddle…”

Whack! Whack! Whack!

“…and you think about this all the way to Fort Smith!”

Mary arched her back and threw her legs up, her neck muscles clenched tightly as she scrunched her face in pain. “Why…are you being…so mean?” she howled.

“Mean? You think this is mean?” he said, not breaking stride as his hand continued to rise and fall, peppering her backside with blistering swats. “It’s time someone cares about you enough to do this!”

The implication that he cared about her wasn’t lost on her, though she couldn’t dwell on it too much at the moment. Her discomfort was growing by the second.

Her body went limp, and she hung her head as she sobbed, her teardrops splashing onto the shed’s dirt floor.

It was a long spanking.

Dreadfully long.

***

Hours later, as late afternoon was fading into early evening, Mary was finally in the mood to talk again.

Up to that point, back atop the horse and on the trail, she hadn’t said much. Now, she’d spoken volumes through the way she’d glared at John, and turned her head in shame, but that was about it.

Those two actions matched the opposing feelings she had: anger toward him and intense guilt from her own actions.

“So who took our horses? I didn’t hear any gunshots. Must not have had to do much to get ‘em back.”

John laughed. “Would you believe it was a kid? Couldn’t have been any older than thirteen. Thought he was going to make a big name for himself as an outlaw. Been reading too many of those blasted dime novels, if you ask me. Felt like a real man, stealing and then hanging out in a saloon. Heck, they wouldn’t even serve him a beer in there!”

“You didn’t arrest him?” she asked.

“A kid? Nah. Just scared him straight. Hopefully that ends his short-lived career as an owlhoot.”

“So you do have a heart,” she said.

Though he was riding behind her, she could feel his eyes burning into her. The intensity almost matched the burning she still felt in her bottom.

“You’re talking about your spanking,” he observed. A few moments passed before he continued. “What you don’t understand, little lady, is that I did that for your own good. Because I see potential in you. Heck, if I didn’t care about you, I wouldn’t care how you acted one way or another. But that’s not the case. You might not understand it, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”

She turned around briefly, casting a glance over her shoulder. Her eyes returned forward, though, as she didn’t want him to see the tear that was about to escape.

Her mind raced as she tried to determine what to say. Part of her, oddly enough, wanted to thank him for the spanking. Another part of her was still seething over it. There was a third part, too, that didn’t like the experience one bit but knew it was necessary. She felt clean now.

Still struggling to articulate a valid response, her thoughts were interrupted by a thunderous, crackling shot of a rifle.

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