About a million sparrows flew out of the trees at her shout and Pablo’s scream. But Helen wasn’t done yet.
“Eeeh!” she snarled out, real loud, spinning in a circle, and dealt a hand chop with the heel of her palm to Sancho’s gaping jaw. Like a domino, he fell on the ground next to Pablo.
Then, she made some other grunting noises, like, “Uuut!” and “Oooot!” and “Hah!” while she danced around in a series of dramatic karate poses. Rafe was almost certain those noises translated roughly to, “Who’s next?”
She was either a martial arts expert, or nuts.
Ignacio eyeballed her lethal antics with disbelief, but not fear. He just raised his pistol, pressing lightly on the trigger. “One step and I shoot, puta,” he warned.
Panting from her exertions, Helen faced him, knees bent and hands raised in an attack position, as if she was actually considering another move.
“Don’t, Helen,” Rafe shouted behind her.
“Butt out,” she replied without looking at him.
He decided not to persist, fearful that his advice would prod her to do the opposite. But, luckily, she appeared to recognize her weak position with Ignacio and dropped her hands.
Ignacio made a threatening growl but didn’t move as Helen proceeded to glide by the numbskull, her chin raised with disdain. She seemed unafraid, except for the slight trembling of her hands, which she clasped together.
Rafe exhaled, never realizing he’d been holding his breath.
She stopped halfway back to the campfire and assumed another one of her karate poses. With one quick chop of her hand, she cut through a three-inch dead branch propped against a boulder. Then she made eye contact with each of them. “If any of you dares to try that corkscrew thing on me, this is what’s going to happen to your precious private parts.”
With those ominous words and several gasps in response from the bandits, Helen stomped off.
Rafe, for one, got the message. He was pretty sure the three bandidos did, too.
This is one ballsy babe. Rafe shook his head in admiration, unable to take his eyes off her departing back.
Helen’s wet hair hugged her head, and her soggy clothes outlined her fine body as she stormed away from them all. Barefooted, she continued toward their blankets near the horses, her hips swaying with her wide strides. She sank down cross-legged on the ground and pulled a comb out of a saddlebag. While they all gawked at her, she idly combed out the long, red strands, as if she hadn’t just felled three grown men.
God, she was like some Celtic warrior princess.
I think I’m in love.
But then Rafe glanced at the other men, and realized Pablo and Sancho were regarding her in the same way. Ignacio, though, glanced back and forth speculatively between Rafe and Helen.
“That woman ees big trouble,” the ruffian proclaimed, turning to Rafe. “How do you stop from killing her?”
“Self-control,” Rafe answered, unclenching his fists. He’d been apprehensive that the bandit might go after Helen, and he was prepared to fight for her. But it would have been a losing battle with Ignacio holding the firearms, and his two pals placed between him and Helen. No, the time wasn’t right yet.
“The puta ees too fearless.” Ignacio shrugged then. “Ah, well, after she corkscrews me five or six times, I weel sell her to a brothel in San Francisco. The cribs in the bay city weel take the fight out of her soon enough.”
“How about me?” Pablo whined.
“And me?” Sancho added. “Don’t we get corkscrewed, too?”
Ignacio nodded. “We all get our turns.”
“You’re not screwing Hel… my wife,” Rafe lashed out. It was a rather foolish assertion in the face of Ignacio’s revolvers, but they would touch her over his dead body.
“I weel do whatever I want with the whore,” Ignacio declared icily. “Perhaps it weel be tonight. Then again, maybe I weel wait till after your death mañana. We shall see.”
On that happy note, he forced Rafe to walk in front of him back to the campsite, where he hurriedly donned his damp clothing. Ignacio headed back to his tree, where he plopped to the ground, his gun in his lap, eying his captives with evil intent the entire time.