He cut the rope that bound her to the chair.
"On yer feet," he said harshly.
Silently Kaneha rose.
The man's knife moved quickly behind her and her shift fell to the floor. She stood there naked before them.
The youngest man licked his lips. He reached for the whisky and took a drink, his eyes never leaving her.
Holding Kaneha by the hair, his knife to her back, the oldest man pushed her over toward Sam. They stopped in front of him.
"It's been fifteen years since I skinned an Injun, squaw man," he said.
"But I ain't fergot how."
He moved swiftly around in front of her, his knife moving lightly up and down her skin.
A faint thin line of blood appeared where the knife had traced from under her chin down her throat through the valley between her breasts across her stomach and coming to a stop in the foliage of her pubis.
Sam began to cry, his own pain forgotten, his body wracked with bitter sobs.
"Leave her be," he pleaded. "Please leave her be.
They ain't no gold."
Kaneha reached out her hand. She touched her husband's face gently.
"I am not afraid, my husband," she said in Kiowa. "The spirits will return evil to those who bring it."
Sam's face fell forward, the tears running down from his eyes across his bearded and bleeding cheeks. "I am sorry, my dear one," he said in Kiowa.
"Tie her hands to the legs of that table," the older man commanded.
It was done quickly and he knelt over her, his knife poised at her throat.
He looked back up toward Sam.
"The gold?" he asked.
Sam shook his head. He could not speak any more.
"My God," the youngest man said in a wondering voice. "I'm gittin' a hard on."
"That's an idee," the man with the knife said.
He looked up at Sam. "I'm shoah the man wouldn' min' if’n we used his squaw a little bit before we skinned her.
Injuns are downright hospitable that way."
He got to his feet. He put the knife on the table and unbuckled his gun belt.
Kaneha drew back her legs and kicked at him.
He swore softly.
"Hold her laigs," he said.
"I'll go first"
It was almost seven o'clock when Max rode up to the cabin on the bay horse that Olsen lent him.
The cabin was still and there was no smoke coming from the chimney.
That was strange. Usually, his mother would be cooking when he got home.
He swung down off the horse and started for the cabin. He stopped suddenly, staring at it.
The door was open and moved lazily in the thin breeze.
An inexplicable fear came into him and he broke into a run.
He burst through the door and came to a stop in surprised shock, his eyes widening in horror.
His father hung tied to the center post, his mouth and eyes open in death, the back of his head blown away by the.45 that had been placed in his mouth and fired.
Slowly Max's eyes went down to the floor.
There was a shapeless mass lying in a pool of blood, which bore the outline of what once had been his mother.
The paralysis left him at the same moment he started to scream, but the vomit that rose in his throat choked off the sound.
Again and again he gagged until there was no more inside him.
He clung weakly to the side of the door, the sour stench from his stomach all around.
He turned and staggered blindly out of the cabin.
He sank to the ground outside and began to cry.
After a while, his tears were gone. He rose to his feet wearily and walked around to the back of the house to the watering trough.
He plunged his head in and washed the vomit from his face and clothing.
Then, still dripping, he straightened up and looked around.
His father's horse was gone but the six mules were browsing unconcernedly in the corral and the wagon was still under the lean-to in back of the cabin.
The four sheep and the chickens of which his mother had been so proud were still in the pen.