Holonovel, Chapter 3 (Part 4)

Posted on Fri Jan 25, 2019 @ 10:12am by Commander Caleb Ryan & Civilian Opal Oliver (Deceased) Dr

2,787 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Doors of Perception
Location: Holodeck 3
Timeline: MD06 1945

Jarred caught the eye of one of the cowboys at the saloon doorway and jerked his head in a meaningful gesture towards the back of Shane as he turned to leave. The hired thug repeated the head gesture to his friends and a group of them moved to surround Shane. Several blows were aimed, but it took a group of them to manage to drag Shane out of the store and back into the saloon. The store manager, happy to have the damage done next door, scurried around behind them and closed the adjoining mesh screen door in a fairly fruitless attempt to limit the damage to his property.

Inside the saloon, the manager there tried to shoo the group out into the street in a similar intention to limit the trashing of tables and chairs and so on, but he had less success and ended up just rushing around them, grabbing anything he could remove, and rushing out to the back with them. From the back, and for his own self-preservation and that of his livelihood, he then went out the back and rushed off to fetch the sheriff.

Outside, Carrie could hear crashing and breaking noises, and she could only guess and dread what might be happening. She saw Jarred leave the store just before the noise started and she looked for Shane but feared the worst when he didn't emerge. Then the crashing started and she couldn't just sit there and let him get hurt. She knew he could look after himself, especially in a fair fight, but she was certain that whatever had begun in there was not going to be even remotely fair or even handed.

She didn't know what to do but was very pleased to see the saloon manager set off for the sheriff's office. Jumping down from the cart, she took the whip from the side of the driver's seat and began to march towards the saloon, even though she knew full well that reputable women had no business going inside.

As she went through the swing doors they clattered together behind her but no-one stopped to look at her. What she saw horrified and angered her, but it didn't surprise her. It was taking four of the cowards to get ropes around Shane's wrists and ankles and they were using all their weight to pull in opposite directions, getting great amusement from stopping him defending himself. There was another of them grinning nastily as he punched and kicked at Shane relentlessly.

Carrie cried out, empathising with the pain she knew Shane must be in, his lip and cheek bleeding, his eye blackened on the right and cut on the left side. He was taking blows of tremendous force, aimed directly at his ribs, jaw, stomach, and head. Carrie couldn't bear to see what was happening, and in a rage of anger and distress she lashed out with the carriage whip, cracking the one who was punching across the side and back of his head with the flailing leather tails as she cracked it at him and lashed him backwards, away from Shane.

One or two of the others looked round and were distracted for a moment or two, but not for long.

With a surge of sudden strength, Shane wrenched free of the ropes. He launched himself at the biggest of the men, a strong uppercut actually lifting the man off the floor and him out, unconscious, and likely with a broken jaw and maybe missing some teeth.

Shane spun one of the ropes around into a garrote around the neck of another of the cowboys, choking him and maneuvering to keep the thrashing man between Shane and the other men as he backed toward the exit.

“Wagon,” he told Carrie, gritting his teeth against the pain of the beating. The man he held was only weakly struggling now as they reached the door, and Shane put his foot into the man’s back and kicked him into the others before hurrying out after her to the wagon.

Carrie scrambled up into the wagon's seat and untied the reins that were fastened around the brake. She freed it off and began to flap the reins against the flanks of the startled horse, causing him to raise his head and prance from one foot to another in anticipation of their leaving. Carrie steadied him and as soon as Shane had a steady foothold on the wooden step and his hands on the back of the seat, beginning to climb aboard, she barely gave him enough time to throw himself up the last few feet and into the seat itself before she had the horse moving and charging off at full tilt towards the edge of town.

"Are you okay?" she asked breathlessly, realising as it left her lips that it was a daft question but wanting to connect with him somehow and try to get an idea without taking her eyes off the road or her mind off the frantic escape and the normally staid but suddenly frightened horse who was trying to get his own head. She held him with experience, but she wanted to tend to Shane as soon as she could get them all clear. She had to try to be patient and make certain she didn't mismanage the horse and end them all in a ditch, or turned over by an awkward rut in the ill kept town muddy main road.

“Ah’ve been better,” Shane grunted. He fell into the back of the wagon with the supplies that they had purchased, leaning against some bags of feed and flour, his arm holding his ribs. “But Ah’ve also been worse.” He gave Carrie a reassuring smile. “Keep yer eyes on the road, Mrs. White. Ah’ll survive.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, his fingers instinctively itching at the side of his leg where a holster used to be.

Feeling a little bit almost reprimanded by his continued insistence of the formality, Carrie went quiet and just concentrated on driving them back to the ranch. When they pulled up she dropped the horse’s reins over the rail to keep her there for a few minutes while she helped Shane. She made sure she could reach over to the water trough with sufficient loose rein to take a drink and then patted her neck. "I'll be right back, sweetie," she said and went around to try to assist Shane as he got down from the wagon, clearly in a lot of pain as she had never seen him move so woodenly. She was suddenly aware of how fluid his movements normally were because she realised she wasn't seeing that anymore now he was moving unnaturally.

It was odd that, now he was moving with less natural, subconscious confidence, she was taken by his physique and shape. He was a muscular man with a body to die for, and now that he was hurt it felt like she had lost something really precious. It was a bizarre, inexplicable feeling that she couldn't put into words in her own mind, let alone to him, but she felt almost a physical pain to see him suffering.

She moved towards him and tried to sneak under his arm to offer support into the house. He seemed to be heading towards the barn, but she was having none of that.

"No, Mr. Black. You have to be in the house until you're recovered. I can't have a wounded person in the dirty barn with the rats and mice and who knows what in the straw. I hate you having to live out there as it is and I won't allow it when you have cuts and abrasions that could become infected. It's not going to happen on my ranch. You're my employee. I have a responsibility to you," she said firmly and took advantage of his weakened state to steer him to the porch and on into the kitchen, talking so much that he couldn't get a word of protest in, not that he was getting a lot of breath to argue with, since he did appear to have some rib and chest problems that were crushing his breathing anyway. She managed to talk him out of any futile resistance.

This was the woman who took a driving whip into a saloon to defend him. She was having nothing of the modesty and reputation nonsense now. The townsfolk would already be shocked that a woman barged into the saloon at all, let alone getting into a fight! Who was going to be surprised if they found out he was living in the house now? None of them would likely believe there had ever been a time when he wasn't already doing that. Jarred had called her a whore, and although he had no right to do that, no doubt he would have been putting those sorts of slanders around before today, so what could change? He certainly would never stop being spiteful, so why adjust their behaviour to pander to what he might think, whatever lies he told people.

Helping Shane to sit down into a chair, Carrie fetched a large bowl, which she quickly filled with water from the barrel of clean water that she kept under the preparation table. She put a kettle onto the always gently smouldering stove, adding to the wood inside the base and stoking it to bring up the heat.

"I'll have some warm water to take the edge off that in a few minutes," she said, referring to the cold water in the bowl and pottering around the kitchen collecting up medicines, remedies, herbs, and poultice ingredients, piling them all on the table ready to apply to his wounds and bruises. "How do you feel, Mr. Black?" she asked tentatively. "I know that's a silly question, but I...I need to know how badly hurt you are. I need to tend to you and I…” His pain-filled eyes looked up at her and a band of pain constricted her heart, stomach, and lungs all at once, brought on by the meeting of their eyes. She stopped breathing and her voice faded.

Shane attempted a smile through his bloody lips and swollen eyes. “Feel like ya called the fight too early, Mrs. White,” he said. “Ah had ‘em on the ropes.” He gave a cough and clutched his chest. “Ah could certainly use a shot or two of that whiskey on the shelf.” He nodded to the pantry.

"Of course," she replied and hurried to the cupboard, returning with the bottle and a glass, but guessing he probably wouldn't fuss with the glass, given the condition he was in. "You're right, Mr. Black. I panicked and rushed in too soon. I do apologise," she added with a slight smirk flickering at the edge of her full lips. "I hope I didn't hamper your style. I'm not so good at the Marquis of Queensberry rules." She kept chattering as she began to use the cool water to moisten some strips of clean cloth that she kept in her first aid box. She applied them to the swellings around his eyes and face to try to lessen the swellings. She had a quick thought that perhaps the Marquis of Queensberry would not be someone that a ranch owner in this time period would know but Opal inside the act shrugged it off. It was too late now and she was doing her best to keep Shane distracted as the whiskey began to anaesthetise him.

She tipped a little of the remaining cool water into another bowl and added the hot from the kettle, allowing her to dip a couple more strips of cloth into the resulting warm water, which she used to clean the blood off his arms, neck, and the front of his shirt.

She avoided making contact with any bruising or wounds as much as possible and eventually gave up on trying to clean up the shirt. "Let me get you something to wear," she said and hurried upstairs, she fetched a clean shirt from a chest in the back of the wardrobe in the spare room where she had kept her father's clothes. There were some signs of the most recently torn up shirts that she had taken the first aid cloth strips from, but beneath those there were some that were too good to tear up which had been kept folded and stored. She fetched out a dark coloured one, bearing in mind that Shane always chose to wear black, and took it down quickly.

She held it up for his approval and asked, "I'd like to lend you this. It was my father's, so it's a bit old fashioned, but I'm afraid I couldn't bring myself to save my husband's clothes, but father had been gone longer and it didn't hurt so much to have some useful linen around. I hope it's not too macabre?"

Waiting for Shane to approve or decline the shirt, she moved to replace the current cold compresses and replace them with more from the bowl of cold water on the table, leaving the shirt on the back of the chair until he gave his opinion on whether he would wear it or not. She didn't word it out for him, but her choice was either he would wear the navy check or she would just leave him bare chested. He simply had to part with the ragged blood-soaked shreds of the shirt he started out with this morning.

“That’s fine, Mrs. White,” Shane murmured. The whiskey was starting to work and he took another long swallow. “Ah’ve got clothes in the barn, too.” He got up, a bit unsteady on his feet now because of the whiskey, and picked up the shirt. He hissed as he tried to put it on. “Mebbe later…” He stood there bare-chested.

Carrie couldn't contain her natural instincts as he stood before her. Despite his bloodied and bruised surface, his torso rippled with muscle and the softly curling chest hair, wet now from the washing off of the blood, was totally irresistible to her. She had been so well behaved for so long. Unable to stop herself, she reached out gently and just softly touched him, more of a caress than an actual intrusion. She didn't want to hurt his bruises or wounds.

"You took all this for me," she whispered. "I know you wouldn't have had this happen if you hadn't met me." She paused and then went on moving closer to him and looking up into his battered face, reaching up one index finger to trace his jaw line as if it were precious porcelain.

"I don't know how to thank you for being here for me over these last few weeks, and now all the gratitude you get is to be beaten up over me." She looked sadly at his wounds and mournfully back up at his face again.

Shane’s strong hands settled at Carrie’s waist. “Ya don’t know what Ah was before, Mrs. White,” he pointed out. “Meetin’ you ain’t the first trouble Ah’ve been in.” Indeed, there were indications of trouble before, the puckered round scars of bullets, the jagged scar of a knife blade, on his torso.

His hands tightened at her waist, holding Carrie in place as his mouth lowered to hers, hungry, filled with passion and desire.

Carrie returned his kiss without any hesitation at all, her own desire and hunger just as passionate as his. She had been longing for this to happen, watching him with what she had to admit amounted to a growing need for his strong arms around her, his sculpted body everything she could ever want and more. She didn't honestly care what trouble he'd been in before. She was infatuated with him and had been for some time. Lately it even felt stronger and more of her needed him, emotionally now as well as physically.

She melted into his kiss, losing all sense of the world around them and just tasting heaven from his lips being pressed against her own. She had no idea how long they stayed locked together just exploring their combined new feelings and needs.

Chapter three complete, came the voice of the computer as the holodeck froze around Caleb and Opal. Caleb didn’t stop kissing her, though, running his hands up along his girlfriend’s body as their tongues dueled.

TBC

Cdr. Caleb Ryan/Shane Black
Executive Officer

Dr. Opal Oliver/Carrie White
Civilian
NPC Cdr. Dr. Amia Telamon

 

RSS Feed