Once Bitten: Twice Mad

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty: Perhaps I Broke It?

May 1st 1887

Comanche woke to the sound of flesh hitting flesh. He opened his eye just a crack and saw something that had him leaping from his bed of hay on the barn loft and swinging down the ladder.

"You stupid bitch!" J.B. exclaimed, blood flying off his lips as he staggered and fought to stay on his feet. Frankie swiped her bloody knuckles against her shirt and shook them as she grimaced.

"No, you're the stupid one so far as I can see!"

"Dammit, I had my eyes closed!" J.B. growled. Comanche was aware of everyone else stirring up on the loft. Colt and Katherine were making their way down the ladder while Silas and his woman were watching the confrontation from above. "I thought you was somebody else."

J.B.'s eyes strayed to Katherine but Comanche was more worried about what J.B. had done to Frankie to earn that bloody mouth and swelling eye.

"He touched you?"

"Don't you worry about it none, injun." Frankie shot back. "It ain't no concern of yours who touches me."

Comanche took a step back and swallowed back his anger and hurt. Frankie was simply in a temper and Comanche had learned in the weeks they'd spent together that when Frankie was in a temper she tended to get mean.

"Hell I didn't mean to touch her!" J.B. insisted, as he took a step forward and then backed up quickly when Frankie's fist clenched.

"What did you mean to do then, ya bastard! Cuz it felt an awful lot like you mean to grab my......"

"That's enough." Colt stated as he grabbed J.B. and shoved the man away from Frankie. "Now, I got a few damn things to lay out to you and if you don't like them then you can just get on down the road and see how long you last out there alone."

"You ain't no better'n me, Colt." J.B. growled and Comanche had a feeling this was a conversation that had been a long time coming. It made the indian wonder just how long J.B. and Colt had been riding together.

"That's where you're wrong, J.B., but that's beside the point." Colt shot back and Comanche found himself chuckling. He liked Colt. The man seemed cocky and arrogant but he also seemed more than capable of backing those traits up. J.B. seemed more like a cocky and arrogant weakling who was simply blowing hot air.

"Colt, now really isn't the time for fighting." Silas urged from above them. "I can still hear some of those rabid out there."

Comanche could hear them too though it sounded like it was barely more than a few. The majority of that horde, or herd, whichever you wanted to call them, had moved on during the night.

"Now is the perfect time, Silas." Colt countered. "This bastard is pushing things too far. Now I'll turn a blind eye to most things since I ain't nowhere near perfect myself but when you threaten women and touch them without permission, that's when I have a problem."

"Dammit, I thought Frankie was Katherine, Colt, I had my eyes closed."

"I told you last night that we couldn't do that anymore," Katherine whispered as she wrapped her arms around herself and looked down at the hay strewn dirt at her feet.

"Come on now! You can't just turn it off like that." J.B. argued.

"She can and she did." Colt snapped. "You'll keep your hands off the women and you'll stop with your threats. Lay hands on Katherine or Frankie again or speak to Charlotte the way you did last night at the camp and I'll feed you to a rabid myself."