Captive Travelers Read online

  The Indians were tall and remarkably quick. They dressed only in leather fringed leggings, breechclouts, and moccasins. Half naked, their bronzed chests and arms clearly outlined their tight, bulging muscles. All the Indians wore their shining black hair long, straight and hanging to their waists. They remained silent while they gazed around the room in a slow, sweeping motion. Their eyes were so intensely dark that they looked like black glass marbles. The expression they wore was bereft of any emotion, other than an arrogant confidence that was terrifying.

  The Indians spread along the wall with the door, blocking the only escape by merely standing against it with their muscled arms folded over their chests. From the corner of her eye, Rebecca saw Clara flinch each time a new man walked in and found his place. When one of the savages entered the room, Rebecca heard Clara gasp in recognition. Clara began to shudder and her hand quivered on the table.

  Clara had told Rebecca to be calm if the Indians ever came to the farm. It was a useless warning. Rebecca’s hands were all ready clenching her long dress, her palms sweating with nervous fear and mixing with the flour, forming a paste. Her eyes darted around the one room cabin in panic and she began to tremble.

  All but one of the Indians was tall and muscular. The last man to walk in was lean and wiry, with stringy muscles that proved his strength but remained ridged and roped beneath his skin. The savage had a cruel sneer, and he kept staring at Rebecca with cold black eyes that held neither the arrogance nor the confidence of the others.

  Clara’s voice was low, and she quivered, “That is Tokala, the Fox. He is not as big or strong as some of them, though he may want to show you off.”

  The lean Indian’s demeanor and presentation did not seem to belong with the rest of the group. In her old home, Rebecca would have thought he resembled a gang member, or maybe a junkie. She shrieked when the misfit walked up to her and grabbed her arm.

  The rest of the attack was a nightmare blur. Through most of it, Rebecca squeezed her eyes closed and screamed. The brave holding her kept an arm wrapped under her breasts and pulled her tight against his chest. Another Indian bound her wrists with leather strips, locking them together. He knotted a long tether to them and handed it to the man holding her. The savage circled her neck with the leash, and he kept clucking excitedly against her ear. Whenever she struggled, he made a trilling sound and pulled on the strap and cut off her air.

  Rebecca kept her eyes closed, and she sobbed and trembled violently at the sound of Clara’s screams. She was pleading with the Indian she had recognized, and Rebecca heard his guttural laugh in reply. A wail escaped Clara’s lips. The sound rolled into a bone-chilling shriek, and Rebecca’s eyes opened at the inhuman sound. She stared in stunned silence at what the Indian had done to Clara’s breast.

  Rebecca slipped into petrified shock, neither making a sound nor struggling. Her feet shuffled slowly behind the Indian as she was walked outside. The noose around her neck slackened. She scarcely felt the taut, lean arm wrap around her again, pulling her back and holding her tightly against a bare chest. God. Rebecca felt him panting with excitement, digging his thin arm under her breasts and lifting their heavy weight and bouncing them. Rebecca was numb, unable to move or speak.

  The farmers were brought out to the yard and Rebecca’s eyes were pulled to Clara. There was a slow moving commotion around her and, mercifully, her eyes drifted from Clara’s agonized face to Henry. He was running between two rows of the savages while they punched and kicked him. The farmer grunted, but he did not plead. He was running to Clara, and his soft brown eyes spilled tears while he tried to reach her.

  Tocho continued to grip Clara’s arms, forcing her to watch Henry’s punishment. Tocho had approached Henry in the field, and the farmer lied. He tried his best to convince them that Rebecca was freeborn, and not a traveler. Tocho knew Henry was trying to deceive them, and he knew that Clara had convinced him to lie.

  Tocho stared down at the woman. “Sahkyo, if you wish to stay with the farmer, you will not lie to me.” He turned and walked to the other Indians, without waiting for Clara to answer.

  After the farmers’ punishment, the Indians mounted their horses. Rebecca was led behind the savages by the leash attached to her wrists. Tokala gripped the other end, pulling the tether tight and yanking her arms out in front of her.

  Rebecca turned once, stumbling when the horse jerked her forward. She had one fleeting glimpse of Clara kneeling over Henry’s prone body. The sobbing woman was not even trying to close the bodice of her dress, and Rebecca could see the cornflower blue calico turning maroon from her blood. Oh god… and poor Henry! Rebecca watched until she saw him move. At least the farmers had not been killed because of her.

  In front of her, Rebecca watched the straight naked backs and flowing black hair of the Indians. The proud bearing of the men escorting Rebecca and her captor made her feel like a helplessly trapped animal. Before they had traveled the length of the wheat field, her wrists were all ready chafing from the leather bindings.

  Rebecca roused from her tormenting thoughts and she watched a tumbling web of sagebrush bounce by. They were leaving the trail beside the wheat field, and heading down the dusty path bordered by boulders, scrub brush and patchy grass. Her shock was slowly receding, the numbness leaving, until her mind began to shift back to the frightening aspect of the present.

  The first time she was aware of the rip in her bodice was when her jarring steps caused her breasts to sway into view while she trudged behind the horses. They bounced while she struggled to keep up, and the lean Indian guiding her kept turning around and staring at them. Each time he did this, he would lick his lips and give a quick trilling war whoop of victory.

  Tokala might not have had the imposing build of the other five Indians, but there was an unmistakable cruelness in his eyes. Rebecca had seen this before in the faces of people who teased and made fun of her. Rather than shining, lustrous hair waving down his broad back like the other savages, Tokala’s hair looked dry and caked with dust.

  For the most part, Rebecca’s mind was now consumed with the irrational hope that Henry could somehow manage to save her. Too many changes had occurred in the past few weeks… and Rebecca’s mind was shutting down. It was becoming difficult to reel in memories to distract herself because they all brought her back to the farm; back to Henry and Clara… and back to the Indians.

  Rebecca had been far too stunned by the ferocity of her capture to consider the rawhide binding her wrists and all ready cutting into her tender pale skin. She was slowly becoming conscious of the stiff, sawing edges. The women of the Wehali tribe had chewed on the bleached strips tied to her wrists, until the buffalo gut was gummy and flexible enough to hold securely. They wasted no time tanning or oiling the hide to make it soft and pliable.

  Although the Indian women may not go on the raids, the constant aggravation of the abrasive lashings assured them that their presence was known to the prisoners. One of the first torments the travelers suffered was the rough leather restraints. Depending on the captive’s infraction, burrs and thorns were occasionally embedded into the strips.

  The afternoon wore on, and Rebecca focused solely on trudging behind the Indians’ horses. Don’t you fall. No, no, no, Rebecca. You just keep on walking, and don’t you fall. She had given up trying to think of the farm, and she could no longer picture a single fantasy from any of the hundreds of novels she had read. The singsong litany to keep moving ran over and over through her mind.

  Rebecca’s fear dulled her mind to a different shocked numbness. Tenuous threads connecting her to her old life or the farm stretched and slowly pulled free. Her thoughts hid in dark corners, peeking out and frightening her until all she could manage was to silently ramble different chants that meant safety. Lift that foot, or you’ll kick a stone. Keep on walking. You know what happens if you fall, Rebecca. Your dress will tear on the rocks. Walk, Rebecca. Just keep walking, and don’t you dare fall.

  Yanked forward by err
atic tugs from the leash Tokala kept gripped in his fist, her exhausted body was quivering. Her legs were dead weight, dragging her forward in lurching shuffles. The only thought she could comprehend was being petrified of falling and having the cruel man drag her behind his horse.

  Occasionally, the savages would talk their Indian language. Clara had assured her that they could all speak English but they preferred not to when they were speaking with each other. She said it made them superior to be able to use the true speech. They never let whites learn it… only the words we need to know to obey them. Clara’s voice echoed through Rebecca’s chanting.

  They stopped well after dark, and Rebecca was pulled into a small clearing surrounded by boulders. She collapsed in exhaustion, the ripped hem of her dress sliding up and exposing the damage to her feet. Tokala walked over to her and pulled on the leash until she was forced to stand again. Her sluggish movements were robotic, and he jerked on the leash until she faced him.

  The sight of his black eyes, inches from her own and ripping through the shock, caused her to shake her head and begin crying, again. Not real. Oh, god. This can’t be real. Rebecca trembled and looked at the other men for help. The savages stood, leaning against their horses, amused.

  Tokala ran his hand down her side, and Rebecca flinched and tried to pull away from him. Her shriek was muffled by the gag, and he laughed at her fright and continued to paw her. She prayed to return to the shock that had managed to numb her mind and keep her from being so afraid.

  He slid his hand over her hip and she screamed. An overwhelming terror washed through her. She felt his fingers grip a fat cheek of her bottom and dig into her flesh. “Ganali,” he stated, in a guttural growl. In the background, Rebecca heard the other Indians laughing. The man clutching her said something Rebecca did not understand to them, and they laughed again.

  Tokala stared down at her, and fisted the torn neckline of her dress when she tried to pull back. The Indian narrowed his eyes to a malicious glare, and he lifted his mouth on one side. “It means ox,” he sneered. “There is a lot of meat on you.”

  Rebecca was too frightened to be embarrassed. Tokala grabbed one of her breasts and squeezed, pulling her over to a tree. Oh… oh, god. No amount of trying to move her mind to another place and time worked when his thin fingers bit deep into her soft flesh, mashing her nipple. She was completely in the current moment, surrounded by savages, and feeling the painful explosion of Tokala’s grip on her breast. “Aaah.”

  Tokala smiled at her muffled scream and the panic in her eyes. He was truly a great warrior to have been rewarded with a captive of his own. Tokala was determined to show his tribe how much she feared him, and how well he could control her. He tied her leash to a branch, and returned to unbridle his horse.

  Rebecca had barely managed to keep from sliding into hysterical panic. The relief of dulled shock seemed to cloak her mind again, and to push back the fear. She sat down and looked at the bruise forming on her breast. The shock slowly dissipated, allowing her terrified thoughts to return to what the Indian had done to Clara. Rebecca panicked and wailed behind the gag, trying to close her bodice with her shaking, bound hands.

  “Ganali,” Tokala yelled angrily. Her eyes snapped up, and he shook his head. He put his hands in the center of his naked chest and pulled them apart. His meaning was clear: he wanted her to open her dress.

  Rebecca dropped her hands to her lap, and one large breast sagged out of the ripped material. She stared at it and watched her tears fall on the bruising while muddied thoughts of churning butter, eating ice cream, watching Henry… Oh, god.

  “Ganali,” Tokala demanded. He made the same motions with his hands, but she could not move. He stormed back over to her, and reached down. Tokala gripped the material in both hands and ripped it to the waist. He pushed it back so that her bountiful breasts were exposed, pushed together by her arms, and seeming to explode from the torn calico. Rebecca was naked from her neck to her navel. She screamed and kicked out at him, and he looked down and laughed at her. Tokala stared proudly at her massive breasts for a moment. He puffed out his chest and walked back to the others, but they were ignoring his antics while they built a rough campsite and fire.

  “They love to humiliate us,” Clara’s voice echoed in warning. “I think they like that, more than the other things.” Clara had spent eight years as a captive to an Indian.

  Rebecca lifted her tearing eyes and she studied Tocho. She remembered Clara’s gasp of recognition, and she realized that he must have been her captor. Tocho felt her looking at him, and he stared directly at her with absolutely no expression or emotion. Rebecca quickly dropped her eyes, thinking about the painful punishment Clara had endured. You’re wrong, Clara. They like the ‘other’ things, too.

  Rebecca sat in silence, her breasts bared to the savages and her large brown nipples tightening in the cool air. The Indians gnawed off bites of jerky and drank something from a leather flask. They were still talking about her, and several times they looked over. Many of the times the glances were accompanied by laughter, and her face flushed deeper in shame.

  Tokala stood up and walked over to her again. Rebecca panicked and kicked him once, and then she tried to push back against the tree. “Ganali, let me see what it is I now own.” His eyes narrowed, and she began screaming behind the gag. Tokala grabbed the material at her waist, and he pulled.

  The thin material ripped easily, and Rebecca realized that although he was not as big as the others he was still very strong. She kept kicking and screaming, batting and clawing with her hands, while he pulled the dress from her. The Indian kept smiling his cruel leer and clucking excitedly until she was naked.

  Rebecca tried to curl her big thighs up to cover her pussy. There were six men staring at her. Some were laughing, and some looked as though they were getting aroused. Oh god. It’s a dream. It’s all some crazy nightmare. None of this is real. No matter how she tried, her fear would not allow her to claim the shocked numbness she was begging for.

  “Ganali, up,” Tokala demanded, and began pulling on the leash.

  Rebecca shook her head wildly, knocking off her cotton cap. Her hair was a mass of short, bleached, blonde curls. A heroine in one of her novels wore sassy blonde curls, and Rebecca decided it would suit her. Tokala pushed his fingers through the strands and pulled. There was a look of disgust on his face. “Why did you shave your head?”

  Was it not bad enough that the shaman had announced he had pulled the bit of ox tail with the tooth of the fox? Tokala was proud to be a rare warrior with a white woman of his own, even if she was an ox… but her shaven hair was an embarrassment. He took this as another insult to a warrior, as if she had planned it.

  Rebecca shook her head, terrified of the Indian and trying to push him away, while he gripped her hair and forced to stand. He dragged her to the fire, with her feet giving way and her knees buckling. Tokala stood straight, keeping his fingers threaded through her short hair. “You see my ox?” he bragged. “This is Ganali.”

  Tocho studied her for a moment. Like most his friends, Tocho did not understand why the shaman cast the fox tooth when so many warriors did not have a captive. He did not question the shaman’s reading, though the spirits had once more proven their signs were mysterious. He threw a small twig on the fire, and said, “You have a bald white ox, Tokala. She is a big beast for a fox.” The other Indians laughed.

  Tokala’s eyes narrowed. How dare they make fun of me? Tocho is the only one of them to be honored with a white woman of his own. He bowed out his chest. “She is mine.”

  “Easy, Tokala, we know Ganali belongs to you,” Tocho placated. He knew he had stepped over the line by suggesting the man could not handle her. Tokala was very strong and fast… for his size.

  Tokala reached between Rebecca’s legs. Even with her thighs pressed together there was a generous mat of dark brown curls for him to grab. “Besides, she is not bald,” he laughed. He used her pussy hair as a handle, and she felt hi
m deliberately rip out a few hairs. She shrieked while he pulled her towards a large bough stretched off the ground and lashed to boulders on the ends. “Come see my ox hole,” he taunted to his friends.

  Tocho jumped up, and he pulled some leather strips from the pouch on his waist. One of the other Indians picked up a thin branch, and the other three followed his example. Apparently, Tokala was going to thank them for making the journey with him. As she was only an ox and belonged to Tokala and not the whole tribe, it was his right to share her.

  Tokala hopped over the bough, leaving Rebecca on the other side. He began pulling the leash. She was sobbing and confused, and she tried to lift a leg to climb over. It was too high without the use of her hands. She felt the bark press into her thighs as he kept pulling until she began to bend forward, leaning her over the bough.

  Oh please. Rebecca wailed and begged muffled sounds behind the gag. She was terrified and in pain, with her breasts swinging on one side of branch and her wide ass facing the approaching Indians. She stared at the ground, watching shadows of the men stretch towards the boulders and trees in front of her, lengthening and disappearing into the darkness as they walked up behind her.

  All her weight was on her belly, and it flared to the sides of the wood cutting into her soft skin. Rebecca felt a tugging on her wrists, and she managed to lift her head just enough to see Tokala tying her leash to the tree. She was stuck in the uncomfortable position, folded in half. Her head sagged and she stared at the ground while the men began to laugh again behind her. She continued to shriek and buck in terror.

  “I think I will have fun taming my wild ox,” Tokala said. He slapped her bottom on the way over the bough.

  Oh god. What are they doing? Oh god. Rebecca tried to turn her head. She felt leather being wrapped around her ankles and she attempted to kick the hands away. No, oh god. She hung her head and wailed, looking under the bough and between her thighs while the Indians spread her legs and tied the ankle restraints to stakes in the ground.