I did, and a thousand memories flooded my mind. I thought again of the day so long ago in her mother's backyard. I thought of the good times, and the bad, and no times at all. I thought of Blinky and what he had gotten me into, and what was it Jo Jo was keeping from me, and was this the time to ask?

We lay there on our sides, her bare body warm even in the chill of the unheated barn. She coiled her legs around mine and buried her head against my chest. I could hear her heart beating.

"Jo Jo, tell me all about it. What's going on? Whatever it is, we can work together."

"All right. I owe you that. I owe you the truth. I've been so unfair to you. The night Hornback was killed, you went to meet my brother ..."

"Go on," I said.

Then, the unmistakable creak of a foot on the ladder to the loft.

"Kip, c'mon now!"

Another creak.

"Cut your uncle a break."

No sound at all.

"Kip! You're starting to bug me. I've got some business to finish here."

Then a sound like a muffled voice.

I untangled myself from Jo Jo, and in the darkness, found the lamp once again, clicking it on.

Kip was there all right, but a large hand was clamped over his mouth, and he was tucked like a bedroll under a heavily veined arm that could have been sculpted from stone.

"Fool me twice," said Kit Carson Cimarron, "and you're dead."

CHAPTER 19.

THE STORK AND THE SNAKE.

"Let the boy go," I said, getting to my feet.

Cimarron dropped Kip to the floor.

"I tried to yell." Kip was on the verge of tears.

"It's okay," I said.

"I tried to warn you, Uncle Jake, but the big bastard just sneaked up on me. If I'd have seen him, I'd have kicked him in the nuts." When scared, some people clam up. Others just babble. Kip was a babbler. "I mean, he's uglier than Mike Mazurki in Some Like It Hot, and-"

"It's okay, Kip. Now, get out of here."

"...bigger than Richard Kiel with those steel teeth in The Spy Who Loved Me, and meaner than Alan Rickman in Die Hard."

"Now, Kip!"

Kip scrambled down the ladder. Cimarron hadn't moved. He wore jeans and boots and no shirt, his chest and shoulders throwing a huge shadow against the far wall. Next to me, Jo Jo was clutching the blanket to her throat.

"Josefina," Cimarron said, "what the hell's going on here?"

"Simmy, he forced me," she said, her eyes moist, her voice choking.

What!

"He hit me, just like he used to." Now the tears were gushing. "He tore off my clothes and just forced me."

Who he?

"You knew what he was like," Cimarron said, his voice devoid of emotion. "You told me yourself. Whatever possessed you to let him get close?"

It couldn't be me they were talking about.

"I don't know, Simmy. I thought he'd changed. He made promises to me. Oh, I feel so stupid, so filthy..."

So ashamed. She left that one out.

"Wait a second!" I turned to Jo Jo. "I don't know what game you two are playing. Maybe you get your kicks this way, but I don't. Now, tell Wyatt Earp the truth. Tell him why I came here."

"Jake wanted to take me back to Miami. He wanted me to leave you and go back with him, but I wouldn't, Simmy, and he became enraged. He hit me and called me names, and then he . . ."

"This is crazy!" I shouted. "You're both crazy. Every which way I turn, I get set up. Jo Jo, what the hell are you doing?"

"Shut up, lawyer." Cimarron's expression hadn't changed, and his voice had a touch of sorrow, of sad inevitability. "My woman goes out to the barn to polish up her saddle, and she doesn't come back. I mosey over, and I find you. First, you steal from me. Then you trespass on my land, and now you violate my woman."

He seemed to think about it a moment, then began speaking again, even softer, as if discussing an idea with himself. "No one could blame me. No, it would be understandable. I warned you. I told you what I would do, and you flouted me. My woman on my own property. How much can a man take?" He turned to face me head-on, his eyes drilling me. "I'm going to inflict some pain on you, partner, and when I'm done with you, there won't be enough left for a buzzard's midnight snack."

He moved toward me, slowly, methodically, with a sense of purpose. No excitement, no urgency, no flooding emotions to drain energy and detract from the business at hand. With his bushy mustache and bare chest and belly bulging over long pants, he reminded me of one of those bare-knuckled fighters of a century ago.

I put my arms up in a defensive mode, remembering the last time with Cimarron. At least now, I had my clothes on. "She's making a fool out of you, Cimarron."

"Now why would she do that, lawyer?"

I didn't know.

He stayed an arm's length away and threw two quick left jabs. They bounced off my shoulder, but not without reminders they'd been there. I feinted with a left and threw a straight right hand that he blocked with his left forearm, and it hurt me more than it did him, my supposedly healed knuckles flaring with pain.

He was a bigger, stronger man with a longer reach. Usually, that was me. I would have to maintain space-the outfighting range-then come right at him with direct frontal attacks. A tall, powerful fighter concentrates on offense and doesn't worry about defense. He uses the reach advantage to work over the opponent from a safe distance. A shorter, smaller fighter needs to in fight, defend, and counterattack by shortening the offensive space and lengthening the defensive space.

He came at me again, and I sidestepped, glancing a left off his temple as he came by me. I fought the urge to throw a combination and waited for a chance to counterattack. I didn't have long to wait.

He turned and came back squarely. I spun around to get more room behind me and retreated in the peacock style of kung fu. Cimarron lunged at me with a looping left, the weakest punch he had thrown, and I stepped inside and peppered him above the eye with a right and then a left hook aimed at his chin that caught him on the neck.

I jumped back again and let him advance.

"Chicken shit," he called out. "What's the matter, you afraid?"

"Go fuck a sheep." My wit knows no bounds.

This time, he stayed out of my range, feinted a left, and shot a foot at my groin. It lacked the speed of the Mae kekomi front thrust kick, and I avoided it by taking a step backward. He nearly lost his balance, and I was tempted to step forward, but I resisted, and he caught himself, cursed, and came at me again while I circled, keeping him from pinning me against a wall.

He tried another kick, this one shorter. I was in a praying mantis defense, and I hooked his heel and spun him off his feet. He landed with a thud on the wooden plank floor, and again, I fought the urge to attack. Get tangled up wrestling on the floor with him, and I wouldn't have a chance.

He got up and approached me warily. This time I was holding my own. I had hung around enough gyms to pick up the odds and ends of the manly art of self-defense, and at the moment, I was using the womanly art of Wing Chun. It's designed to help a woman fend off a man, and I wasn't so full of machismo that I missed its relevance here. The object is to wear down a larger attacker by making him miss. My strategy was to infuriate him, make him lose his patience. At the same time, I was testing his endurance. With him chasing me, throwing punches would deplete him.

There's an analogy in the animal kingdom. A stork attacks a snake with its beak, but the snake darts away, then lunges for the stork's head. The stork deflects the counterattack with its wing, and the whole process starts again. Whoever wears out first will likely lose an eye or suffer a fatal bite. If both are exhausted, they withdraw and live to fight another day.

Right now, a draw sounded just fine. I had come here, adrenaline flowing, wanting to inflict serious damage. I had felt strong, my confidence fueled by virtuous anger. Now, I was merely defending myself, having been wrongfully accused. The power of righteousness resided in K. C. Cimarron's meaty fists.

This time, he faked the kick, and I dropped a hand to deflect a foot that never came. He hooked me in the ribs, either with his right fist or a sledgehammer, I couldn't tell which. I used my right hand as a claw, the kumade in karate. I went for his eyes and ended up sticking two fingers in his nose. I was too close inside, and he wrapped his left arm around my head. He cocked his right hand to smash me in the face, and I pulled back with all my strength, flexing my knees, twisting my torso, trying to break free. My movement threw him off, and his punch landed on my forehead, but he never let go.

We moved like that, back and forth across the loft, a couple of drunken sailors trying to dance. He was puffing hard now. Big, but not in shape. I caught the whiff of sour mash whiskey on his pained breaths. As we struggled in each other's grip, feet scuffling along the wooden floor, I found a point of leverage, planted my feet, pivoted a hip and swung him backward into the wall. His head thunked off a wooden plank, causing more damage to the wood than his skull. When he came off the wall, his knees seemed to buckle, and I went at him.

Mistake.

He was playing possum. I threw a left, which he ducked, and then he came inside and doubled me over with a short right to the gut. I gasped and he moved behind me, slipping an arm under my chin and across my neck. I flailed away at him, but caught only air, and his grip tightened, squeezing off my air.

Still choking me, he slammed me headfirst into the wall. This time, the plank cracked, or maybe it was my skull. I heard Jo Jo screaming. "No, Simmy! You'll kill him! Don't!"

How thoughtful.

How considerate.

How late.

I was about to black out, but just then the pressure eased around my neck. I opened my eyes, but I was dizzy, and Kit Carson Cimarron seemed to be spinning around me. I lifted an arm to fend him off, and he grabbed me by the wrist, twisted it behind my back and spun me into the wall again. This time, I hit it with my full weight, and the plank tore loose and fell to the ground outside. I am wider than the plank, or I would have gone with it, which would have been fine with me.

I bounced off the wall, and he grabbed me by the same wrist, twisted it behind my back again, and whipped me the other wav where I smacked into a wooden railing that looked over the stalls. Maybe the railing had termites, or maybe the equation of my mass times my velocity was too much energy for the old wood. Whatever the reason, the railing split and I fell through open space.

I landed with a thud on a thousand pounds of Appaloosa. It was moving, and making noise, and I slid to the floor, where it stepped on me and kicked me. I covered my head with my arms, and rolled over, spitting out blood and dirt and straw, trying to focus my eyes. Above me, half a ton of horseflesh was baring its teeth, stomping its feet, and loudly complaining about sharing its stall.

I was aware of voices. Jo Jo was shouting, but I couldn't make out the words. Kip was out there somewhere, too, saying something, and suddenly, I was worried about him. If Cimarron killed me, what would he do to the little witness?

I tried to clear my head. I heard footsteps on the ladder. Heavy footsteps. I hoisted myself to my feet, grabbing the mane of the horse. If this were a movie, when I fell, I would have landed astride the mighty steed without doing any damage to my private parts. I would have whispered some magical incantation in the great beast's ear, and he would pound down the door to the stall. With a Hi-ho, Silver, I would have scooped up Kip, and we would have galloped out of the barn and into the moonlight, the evening breeze tousling my hair.

But this wasn't a movie, and I could barely see, and as best I could tell, my head was covered with a mixture of blood and horseshit.

The stall door swung open, and I heard his voice. "C'mon out, lawyer. I'm not through with you."

I eased back to the wall, behind the horse, where they tell you never to stand. I smacked him on the rear, and he bolted through the open door, with me right behind.

K. C. Cimarron was not born yesterday, and he had a lot of quick for a big man. He stepped to one side and did not get trampled or even brushed by the horse, but at least I had a moving pick bigger than Charles Barkley, and it got me out of the stall without being clobbered.

The horse bolted for the open door, and I stepped that way, but Cimarron anticipated the move. He blocked me, and I raised my hands in surrender. "Enough. I've had enough."

He stood there watching me.

"Simmy!" Her voice came down from the loft. Shrill and hysterical. "Simmy, he raped me! Are you going to let him go?"

Wait a second. Didn't she just try to stop him from killing me? Just what the hell was going on here?

"No," he said, stepping to the wall and pulling down a bullwhip from a wooden dowel peg. "He's not going anywhere. I'm going to flog him. I'm going to leave scars he'll remember till the day he dies."

The yell came from my left. Cimarron and I both looked that way.

"I am Spartacus!" With that, Kip charged him, a five-pronged pitchfork aimed at the big man's groin. Cimarron pivoted to one side, reducing the target to his flank. The blades glanced his leg, and then in one smooth motion, Cimarron grabbed the pitchfork just where the wooden pole met the steel fork. He did have a lot of quick.

With a flick of the wrist, he lifted boy and pitchfork, Kip hanging on, as if practicing his pole vault. Cimarron shook the pitchfork and Kip tumbled to the floor.

"Next time," I said to my nephew, "don't yell first."

"No need for this," Cimarron said, cocking his arm, and sailing the pitchfork over my head. I ducked anyway, and it landed with a thud in the far wall, where it sunk in and vibrated like a tuning fork.

"Now, boy, you git out of here," he said to Kip, who hesitated.

"I'll be all right," I lied, and Kip headed for the open barn door, looking back at me with sadness and fear.

"Now, you," Cimarron said. "Let's finish this."

We stood maybe fifteen feet apart, facing each other. "I've never touched a woman against her will in my life," I said. "She's lying to you. I don't know why. I don't know who killed Hornback, or what happened to Blinky, or why Jo Jo came up here, or even why I followed her, but I know I didn't touch her."

Cimarron brought his right hand up behind his ear and snapped his wrist forward. The bullwhip flicked toward me unseen, and cracked, the tip catching me on the shoulder. I thought I'd been stabbed. I backed up, trying to get out of range, and Cimarron advanced, lashing the whip at me, coming up short. He lowered his arm, flicked his wrist, and this time, the tip caught me on the thigh, sending a stinging pain down my leg.

He had cut off my path to the open door, and now I hobbled toward a window, but this was one he had boarded up after the hailstorm. Two steel support posts supported the loft here, and I squeezed between them to block the oncoming whip. Cimarron still tried, though, snapping the leather against the steel posts with the sound of ricocheting gunshots.

After three or four tries, he dropped the whip and just came after me. I backed farther along the wall, studded with dowels hung with bridles, reins, and blinders. Still facing Cimarron, I moved backward, my hand feeling along the wall, until my fingers wrapped round the cold metal of a bit and bridle.

He was on me then, reaching for me with open palm, trying to grab me around the neck. As he did, I swung the bridle, and the bit cracked his front teeth and sunk between his jaws. I kept pushing and he gagged, his tongue stuck under the bit. I had his head bent back, and still I pushed, cutting the sides of his mouth, his tongue and gums, forcing his mouth open, farther still.

Then he bit down.

He clamped the metal bit between his jaws and stopped my movement. Both my hands were on the bridle, and both his hands were free. He boxed my ears with a thunderous double punch. I sank to my knees, my head ringing, and he kicked me in the solar plexus. I pitched forward, heaving, and he grabbed my hair and knocked me over backward. I stumbled back two steps, tripped over a two-by-four railing and tumbled into a corncrib. I was on all fours, gagging, staving off the urge to vomit, trying to catch my breath.

Cimarron stood watching me, his eyes blazing with hate. His tongue flicked the corners of his mouth, where blood trickled down his chin. I tried to get to my feet, but the corncobs rolled under my feet and I fell. When I looked up, Cimarron was pointing something at me. At first, I thought it was a gun.

I blinked twice.

"Don't move, lawyer, or I'll nail you to the barn wall. I'll crucify you, and no court in the land would convict me. Even the Lord would understand."

I was trying to get up again.