Tina Vasquez - Texas Ranger (Part 8)

Posted by rache on December 17, 2008 at 19:29:59:

Tina Vasquez - Texas Ranger (Part 8)

West Abilene Tech was a small school. The running joke was "Which College do you go to?" … "WAT" … "I said, which college do you go to?"

The office of the college president was small too, but well appointed and appropriately austere. The man it belonged to was Ethan Moore and he came from a long line of Texan's dating back to the Alamo and beyond. A tall, wiry academic with thinning gray hair and a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose, Ethan didn't particularly look like he'd do very well in a battle, but that's what he found himself in at the moment.

Sitting on the other side of his antique mahogany desk was a rather attractive woman named Barbara Welch. She did not come from a long line of Texas heritage. In fact, Barbara didn't even come from Texas at all. She was from Connecticut, of all places, and had gone to college at Vassar, wherever in the hell that was. Ethan thought Barbara had permanently clenched teeth; they just never seemed to open with the rest of her mouth when she spoke.

She was 38 and the women's athletic director. Barbara coached the swim team at WAT and was very good at it. The woman had been on two Olympic teams, even winning a medal one year. She'd been on the thousand meter relay team that had set an NCAA record that still stood and her team at WAT was ranked nationally, and that was a big deal in a small town like West Abilene.

Barbara was also tall and lithe, toned with muscles that didn't look like muscles. They just made a man want to reach out and…

Ethan looked out the window for a moment and closed his eyes.

As I was saying, Barbara was very attractive. She had rather short black hair that suited her pretty face, hazel eyes, and smallish breasts that gave her a pleasing, graceful shape. Barbara refused to wear a bra, but mainly because she was very nearly always in her blue and gold one-piece bathing suit. Her legs were long and tan and lean.

A man who could appreciate all of that in a woman, he really could, was leaning against the college president's bookcase that very minute. But he wasn't in much of an appreciative mood. His name was William "Buck" Riles, Coach Riles to everyone concerned, and he was the men's athletic director and the AA college football team's head coach. They were the Tigers and at football games half the people said, "There's Tigers!" and the other half said, "WAT Tigers?" and then everyone cheered and said "Yeeeeah! WAT Tigers!"

Coach Riles was nearing 50 and had been teaching eager young Texas boys how to play Texas football for nearly three decades. He was the third winningest coach in Texas collegiate history and had been to three bowl games. He was short, three full inches shorter than Barbara, but barrel chested and strong as a bull. He had sandy gray hair and a cowlick that just wouldn't stay down. His skin was leathery and creased from countless seasons in that hot Texas sun. He had a wife and three children, all girls unfortunately, but nothing was more important to him than good hard played Texas football. And that included the WAT women's swim team.

"I am being realistic, Ethan. If my girls are going to compete on a national level, this is the bare…" Barbara stressed the word, "…bare minimum that we need to do it."

"That's thirteen thousand dollars over your budget, Barbara." Ethan took off his glasses and rubbed his nose.

"I've looked at the books, Ethan. You can get it," she looked at Coach Riles briefly, "out of the football program."

"Now hold on there a minute, missy!" Coach Riles straightened up. He'd been expecting this as soon as he'd heard about the budget meeting the woman had asked for. "This here's Texas football. This ain't some mamby-pamby back east Yankee charm school!"

"Mamby-pamby?" Barbara looked at the stout man, knowing he was putting on the good 'ol boy act just for her benefit. "Is that a football term?"

"Don't you get smart mouthed with me," Riles warned her. "Football brings a lot of money to this school. Hell, to this whole danged community. Folks don't pay good money to see girls going swimming, we got the pond for that." He looked at the college president. "You tell her Ethan."

"Now Barbara," Ethan began. "The football program does make us some money, it's a valuable resource that supports an awful lot of programs that we otherwise couldn't fund. You know that. But…"

"Oh, please, Ethan. You spent 35 thousand on a new stadium that hasn't been filled to capacity once since it opened. You have a local radio contract bringing in five grand a year, and some team promos that might bring in another two. All your money comes from national and state college education funds, boosters, and NCAA profit sharing. Don't tell me football is big business around here, because it's running in the red."

"Running in the red? What? You little…" Coach Riles almost said a bad word, but he didn't. "Now you looky here, none of that matters a whit cause it's Texas football, you understand?"

Barbara nodded. "I understand fine. That's your entire argument: it's Texas football. Well excuse me, but it's time for a reality check. Texas football isn't the only game in town, coach. Didn't you hear the news? We're national. West Abilene is on the map."

"What's she talking about, Ethan?" Coach Riles fished a cigar from his pocket and clamped his teeth around it.

"ESPN2 is coming to town. They want to do a couple of our swim meets, the big ones against Texas A&M and Arizona State." Ethan looked kind of happy about it too, which made Coach Riles decidedly unhappy.

"When's the last time you played a real football team, coach?" Barbara rubbed it in. "My girls are favored over those schools. We're ranked third in the nation behind UCLA and USC." Her voice softened a little. "I'm not asking for a lot, just what we need. You can afford it coach, everybody knows about the Fun Budget."

Ethan turned around and sighed; sincerely wishing she hadn't said that.

Coach Riles stared at her. "That 'Fun Budget' as you call it is a valuable recruiting tool. There ain't nothing illegal about it, now you know that Ethan." He jabbed his cigar at the college president who couldn't see the gesture. "I got to get good players, good players mean wins, wins mean bowls and bowls mean money, and that means…" he shrugged like the answer was obvious, "…good players."

"Riiiight," Barbara nodded. "Okay. Anyway, what it means to me is that the NCAA might be interested in that new truck your quarterback is telling everybody he's getting. Or how about the uh…pep squad that came down from the Mustang Ranch in Nevada to pep up the defense?" She stared at Ethan's back. "That was 8 grand right there." She looked back at Coach Riles. "Your running back, Lopez? He goes home every month to Phoenix, roundtrip and all expenses paid. The wide receivers got, what was it? Oh yeah, 2500 dollars apiece in clothing expenses last year. I didn't know Armani made football jerseys, coach. Do you want me to go on?"

"You little whore…" Riles stared at her.

"My girls get what they need," Barbara told the two men seriously. "Or I'll put your football program on ESPN Primetime."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"That was the budget meeting on Friday?" Tina asked. "The day Barbara died?"

"Yeah," Ethan nodded, sitting in the front seat of the Ranger's car while she drove them towards the Howard Johnson's and Emily Thomas.

"Was she right?" Tina asked him.

"About the budget?" Ethan sighed. "Yeah, Barbara wasn't stupid. Riles was grabbing a lot of money and passing it around."

"And you knew about it?"

"I knew," the man said. "Everyone knows. Football is like religion around here and people want to believe."

It wasn't much of an explanation, the college president thought, and certainly not an excuse of any sort, but it was the truth nonetheless. The football program was part of the college and the college made the community. It had just gotten out of hand is all and that was Ethan's fault, he knew, more than anyone else's. He didn't have an excuse for that either.

=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Shit," Vasquez breathed as soon as she found the door to Emily's room ajar. The anchor for the chain lock had been pulled out of the door frame, leaving the wood torn and splintered.

"Stay here," she told Moore softly, pulling her Beretta from her purse and she stood to the side and pushed the door open slowly.

There'd been a struggle, that much was obvious. The cheap motel furniture was askew, a chair fallen over and one of the bedside lamps broken on the floor. The mattress was pushed across the box spring and Tina found Emily's purse and her car keys, but no sign of the woman.

"What happened?" Ethan wondered, looking in from the doorway and Tina shook her head.

"Are you the police?" an old voice asked and Ethan looked to see grey haired woman of about seventy peering from her motel room two doors down.

"Uh…Detective?" Ethan called Vasquez.

"We heard the noise," one of the women, Bernice, told Tina and she was the younger of the two sisters, being only sixty-six.

"I wanted to call the police," Mona, the older one, said.

"But we're on our way to Santa Fe," Bernice nodded. "My granddaughter just had her first baby."

"Eleanor Rose," Mona nodded.

"We don't want any trouble," Bernice said. "And those two men…"

"One was black," Mona whispered.

"…Well, we were so frightened!"

"I understand," Tina nodded sympathetically, but it was a struggle to control her emotions. "These two men…One was black, the other one…"

"Oh, he was white," Mona almost smiled. "A young man too and so handsome. I thought he was the girl's boyfriend."

"I knew he wasn't," Bernice wrinkled her nose and adjusted her tortoise shell glasses with both hands. "She was too old for him."

"Okay, they were both young?" Tina asked with a patience she didn't feel. "Like…How old would you say?"

"Oh, well it's hard to tell with the darkies," Mona frowned.

"About thirty, I think," Bernice said.

"No! They were younger than that," Mona looked at her sister and then looked at Tina. "We only saw them out the window."

"Just for a second," Bernice nodded. "I wanted to call the police."

"Yes ma'am," Tina nodded. "The white one, what did he look like?"

"Oh! He was handsome," Bernice said.

"He had black hair and, um…It was short too," Mona said.

"Kind of brown hair," Bernice decided. "He was clean though. Such a nice looking boy."

"The other one looked mean," Mona actually shivered. "Those people frighten me."

"Okay," Tina glanced at Ethan and the man shook his head. "You said they took her downstairs…"

"Right past our door!" Bernice nodded.

"Downstairs," Mona said. "They carried her. The black one did, over his shoulder like a sack of flour."

"She wasn't struggling?" Tina asked "Yelling or…"

"Oh no," Bernice shook her head.

"I think she fainted," Mona nodded. "I know I would have!"

"They put her in a truck," Bernice said. "A white one."

"It was brown," Mona corrected her sister.

"Cream colored?" Bernice looked at Mona and they both nodded.

"What kind of truck?" Tina asked.

"A pickup truck," Bernice said. "It had those big tires on it."

"One of those monster trucks," Mona agreed with a smile. "Like Bigfoot."

"She likes monster trucks," Bernice explained. "It's too noisy for me."

"Setter," Ethan said and Tina looked at him. "Mike Setter. He's the quarterback of the football team. He drives a truck like that. I don't know why he'd…"

"Where would they take her?" Tina cut the man off. The why wasn't all that important to her just then; whoever had Emily had a thirty minute head start on the Ranger.

"I don't know," Ethan rubbed his jaw. "But I know someone who probably does."

"Ladies, thank you for your help," Tina said to the sisters and about then she noted one of the sheriff's patrol cars pulling into the parking lot. "A deputy will be up here shortly to take your statements."

"Oh," Bernice nodded at that.

"We'll be able to leave town, right?" Mona wondered. "We don't want any trouble."

"You'll be fine," Tina forced herself to smile. "Congratulations on your new granddaughter."

"She was nice…" Tina heard one of them saying as she and Moore left the room quickly.

"…for a Mexican," the other woman agreed.

"Riles?" Tina asked and the college president nodded his head.

"He lives on campus," Moore told her. "He'll have a good idea where his boys are."

"I hope so," Tina sighed.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Now what?" Riles frowned as he looked through the screen door leading to his front porch. "Come to arrest me?"

"Later," Tina said. "I'm looking for one of your players…"

"Mike Setter," Ethan said and Riles narrowed his eyes, looking past Tina and he hadn't realized someone else was there with her.

"Haven't seen him," Riles said, putting his eyes back on Tina. "So if you ain't arrestin' me…"

"But you know where he is," Tina said, pulling the door open with her right hand and behind her the college president's eyes widened as he realized the woman was holding her pistol behind her back.

"Nope," Riles put on a wry smile and shook his head and all of that was a little more than the Ranger was willing to put up with under the circumstances.

Vasquez grabbed the man's shirt with her right hand and jabbed the muzzle of her 9mm painfully into his crotch with the other one, pushing the surprised football coach back into his own living room. He was a thick man, and strong, but none of that seemed to matter as the woman holding him spun a very surprised Buck Riles around and pinned him against the wall like a wayward schoolboy. Tina, like any Texas Ranger, wasn't uncomfortable with physical confrontation when it was necessary.

"You might want to take a moment to think about it," Vasquez breathed. "I'll blow your balls straight to hell if I have to ask again."

"Ethan…You see what she's doin' here?" Riles swallowed hard and his face was turning red with anger and not a little fear. The woman looked and sounded very serious.

"Not sure I do, Coach," Ethan said slowly.

"Where is he?" Tina asked, her green eyes flashing through the shadows covering her beautiful face.

"Canyon," Riles gasped with a grimace as Tina pushed her weapon against his scrotum even harder, angling the pistol upward. "Mule Creek Canyon…Fuck!"

"You know where that is?" Tina asked Moore without looking at him and the older man nodded.

"About an hour from here," Ethan said.

"Buck? What's going on?" the man's wife was coming out of the kitchen and Tina let him go.

"I'll have your badge for that," Riles glared at the Ranger. "That's police brutality…I'll sue your ass, bitch…"

Tina was already out the door and she didn't bother answering the man. She was an hour behind Emily now and if Riles was lying…Having a gun shoved into his balls was going to be the least of his worries; it was the bullet that would really hurt.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"That goddamn Yankee bitch!" Coach Riles slammed his fist into a locker as he pushed through his locker room towards his office. Mike and Dale looked at each other and shrugged. They were the team's star quarterback and middle linebacker respectively and they were just finishing a good workout.

"Coach is pissed again," Dale said.

"What else is new?" Mike looked at his thumb, he'd pulled the tendon the other day, but it seemed to be healing okay. "Maybe I should see what's going on."

Dale nodded and grabbed a towel, heading off to shower. Mike, being the quarterback, was the team's leader on the field, and off it too. He was a big and good-looking 22 year old senior, and the boy was looking at European Football, since he had serious doubts about getting drafted by the NFL. He wrapped a towel around his waist and knocked on the coach's open door. It would be better to talk to the coach first, Mike knew, rather than let the man stew and decide to take out his anger on his players during practice. Coach was like that sometimes and nobody enjoyed it.

"Coach Riles?" he ventured. The coach was sitting in his old swivel chair, smoking a cigar and looking through an old playbook.

"Yeah?" Coach looked up. "What is it Mike? How's that thumb, boy?"

"It's good coach." Mike held it up and worked it a little for the man. "I just uh, heard you come in a few minutes ago. Is everything okay, coach?"

"What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, hell, everything's fine." He looked at Mike and an idea suddenly struck him. "Hey, what do you think about that swim coach?"

"Miss Welch?" Mike shrugged. "I dunno, she's okay I guess." He was looking at the coach's face trying to figure out what Riles was looking for. "She's got a great body."

Coach grinned. "Hell yeah, she got that boy!" She also had balls the size of Texas watermelons, sticking it to him the way she had in front of that little prick Ethan. Well, two could play that game…Texas style! Coach Riles laughed to himself as his puzzled quarterback shrugged and turned away, heading back to his locker.

"Hey, Mike."

The young man turned around and looked at Coach Riles sticking his head out the door. "Yeah Coach?"

"How about we call a little team meeting this afternoon, round 4:30 or so. Just the offensive line, you, and Lopez. I got a new play I want to look over with you boys." He stared at his young quarterback until the young man nodded.

"Sure, Coach."

"And let's just keep this under our hats, huh? Defense don't need to know," Riles winked and went back in his office, closing the door.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"This here's Texas football, you girly girl!"

"I can't believe you did that!" Lisa Thomas laughed at Barbara as the older woman did a fair imitation of Coach Riles.

Lisa was only 19 and a college freshman. She was awfully pretty, with sunny blonde hair and bright blue eyes, a generous mouth and a tight little body that being on the swim team had toned into something special. She had an unexpected gift for the water as it turned out, much to her surprise.

That Friday afternoon, Lisa wasn't in the water, she was laying on Barbara Welch's bed, bare naked and basking in the afterglow of making love with her coach, friend, and lover. She played with her hard brown nipples absently and rubbed her thighs together, trying to tease Barbara back into bed.

"Yeah, I can hardly believe it either, but I did it!" Barbara smiled and felt her own body still flushing. "I got us the money. Now all we have to do is win, girlfriend."

"That's not…all…we have to do, is it, Barb?" Lisa smiled impishly and the older woman shook her head happily.

Barbara crawled across the bed into Lisa's waiting arms, kissing her sweetly on the mouth. Barbara had always been gay, but she'd always avoided getting involved with a student at all costs, until meeting Lisa. Somehow love just had a way of making you forget about what you should or shouldn't be doing. And a moment later, feeling the girl's smooth warm body moving beneath her, Barbara sighed and forgot about everything.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Or something like that, Tina figured, and Ethan had spoken of what he knew and suspected, giving the Ranger his own visions of what had happened the afternoon before Barbara's murder. Maybe he was right, maybe not. Nobody would ever know what Barbara and Lisa had shared the last time they were together, but Tina could imagine the warmth between them easily enough. The love they found in each other and it wouldn't have been so different from her own feelings about Emily.

"Why do you think they took her?" Ethan asked and Tina shrugged.

They were driving down a dirty road through the Texas night as fast as Tina dared. It was unpaved and unmarked and the big Crown Victoria bounced wildly at times, but she wouldn't slow down and right then Vasquez was pushing eighty miles an hour and thinking that was much too slow.

"People get away with something, they figure they can do it again," Tina said and if there was a anything she regretted about her chosen profession, it was this. Tina knew exactly the sort of things that could happen to Emily and she tried hard not to think about the cases she'd worked in the past.

"I wonder if they know who she is," Ethan frowned, thinking it was all too unfair to be coincidence or bad luck. Barbara, Lisa, and now Emily…

"You think they'd care?" Tina asked him, sparing the man a glance even as her foot pressed down on the gas.

"No," Ethan shook his head.

"Me neither," Tina frowned, thinking they would soon enough. She'd see to that personally.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"What are you doing?" Tina looked at the man as she stood near the open trunk of her car.

She was changing clothes, which may have seemed a little odd, but running around the desert at night in high heels and a business suit wasn't going to get her too far. It didn't take but a minute anyway and Tina was buttoning her jeans beneath the modesty of her skirt while Moore looked politely in a different direction.

"Going with you," Ethan Moore said.

"No," the Ranger shook her head. "Stay here with the car. If I'm not back in half an hour, use the radio…"

"You don't know how many of them there are," Ethan was shaking his head. "I'm in it now, I always was. Let me help."

Tina looked at the man and she knew she wasn't being smart. She hadn't done anything like she was supposed to, not since finding Emily's motel room empty. She should have called for backup and Moore was right, she didn't know how many of them were out there. She could hear the music coming over the rise a few hundred yards away. She could see the glow of a large fire. Maybe it was just the two of them, Setter and his black friend, but more than likely it would be more than that.

"You ever shoot a gun?" she asked the college president.

"I'm from Texas," Moore almost smiled at the woman and he looked down. "I did a tour in ‘Nam. I think I can remember how to shoot one of those," he pointed at the M16 strapped into the trunk.

"Yeah?" Tina nodded. "Alright. You wear this though and you stay behind me at all times, understand? I do the talking and I do the shooting, you just keep your eyes open."

Moore took the Kevlar vest from Tina's hands after removing his suit coat and he put it on. She picked up the M16 assault rifle and a thirty round clip, ramming it home and snapping the bolt before handing it to the man.

"The safety's on," Vasquez told him seriously.

"Yeah," Moore nodded and after nearly forty years his hands felt right at home around the weapon.

"Take a bunch of these, stuff them in your back pocket…" she gave him a dozen plastic zip-ties, thick and strong. "Anything goes wrong, you get back here and drive away. Don't wait on me. Don't try and be the hero."

"I'll be okay," Moore said, watching as Vasquez fed eight shotgun shells into her Remington 12 gauge.

It was a semi-automatic shotgun and Tina worked the bolt, chambering a round before replacing it with another in the magazine. Vasquez was already wearing light combat webbing over her blouse and the Ranger's Beretta hung just beneath and to the side of her left breast. She picked up a small, but powerful flashlight and handed it to Moore who pushed it into his pocket.

"Ready?" Vasquez asked the man and Moore nodded.

On the other side of the rise a bonfire was going, fed with broken pallets some of the boys had stolen from behind the supermarket. There were several kegs of beer already tapped and four vehicles parked nearby. One of them, a large pickup truck, was blaring rap music from a boombox mounted atop the cab. There were six boys there, young men really; all large and healthy as they whooped and yelled, some of them sitting near the fire, a couple sitting on the tailgate of beat up station wagon, and one of them, a large black man, was dancing around a seventh figure who was busy raping the woman trapped beneath him.

Emily Thomas was laying spread eagle on a blanket, her wrists and ankles tied to tent pegs driven into the hard desert scrub. Her clothing had been cut away, some of it, the rest torn from her bruised body. No amount of begging had brought the woman sympathy from her attackers and her cries for help had gone unnoticed in the remote Texas night. She'd screamed herself hoarse and that had only amused the young men who'd taunted her at first, pushing her between them as they took turns groping her body, occasionally slapping or punching the woman if she tried to resist too much.

By luck of the draw, a man named Larry had the pleasure of "breaking the bitch's cherry" as they liked to call it. He was well over six feet tall and some three hundred pounds of football player, black as coal and eagerly stabbing his swollen prick into the pale woman beneath him. She'd been dry and tight as hell in the beginning, but now the center for the WAT Tigers was laughing and telling his friends how wet and hungry that pretty blonde cunt was for his big black cock.

"Thirsty bitch? You ain't been fucked yet!" Steve laughed loudly, grabbing Emily by the hair and pouring a large cup of beer into her open mouth like he was trying to drown her. The blond haired boy laughed as the helpless woman choked and coughed, spitting as she jerked her head one way and then the other. They'd already forced her to drink quite a lot and the alcohol was almost something of a mercy as Emily slipped into shock.

"White pussy!" Roy laughed and he was naked, dancing around so his massive black belly jiggled in the firelight. His cock was already hard and he held it in his fist, shaking it like a club. Watching his friend pummel the woman's cunt, stretching her pussy around Larry's thick penis, was making him impatient for his own turn with her.

"Tap that shit! She's lovin' it!" Miguel laughed and he gave Mike a high five as they sat together with their backs to the fire. All of them were more than happy with Mike and Roy's blonde contribution to their little getaway.

"Be fuckin' that bitch all weekend, man!" Mike said. "Gonna bust that slut wide open!"

BLAM!!

The boombox exploded beneath the angry report of a shotgun blast and for a brief second there was a profound silence as the seven men stared at the one woman who was holding the weapon.

"Umph…" Emily choked out a weak sob and then everyone was yelling.

"Texas Ranger! Everybody down!" Vasquez shouted, looking over the barrel of her shotgun. "Down on the ground! Now!"

"Who the fuck are you?" Roy demanded, still holding his cock.

"That was my tunes, bitch!" Miguel frowned, staring at the cab of Mike's pickup truck where his boombox used to be.

"Don't shoot! Jesus!" Mike was holding up his hands.

Larry was pushing himself off Emily, his eyes wide as he looked around in the confusion. Since most of his friends were between him and whoever was shooting, he decided to take off running the other way.

"I said down!" Vasquez turned towards Ray McGregor and Billy Dennison, who were still sitting on the back of Billy's station wagon.

BLAM!!

Tina fired again, this time shooting out the driver's window of Billy's car, which actually belonged to his girlfriend. That dropped most everyone to the ground, Tina was happy to see, except for Miguel who was still staring at what was left of his boombox.

"Down! Get down now!" Tina yelled at him and Miguel blinked as he realized he was staring down the barrel of a 12 gauge shotgun from less than a dozen feet away. That woke him up and he dropped quickly.

Larry was down for another reason. Having decided to run for his car, the man had made a circle around the edge of the firelight and he suddenly found Ethan Moore standing in the way.

BAP-BAP-BAP

Three rounds of 5.56mm ammo kicked up dirt and gravel just a few feet in front of the boy and Larry stumbled with fear and confusion, having not seen Moore at all until the rifle flashed in the old man's hands. He fell flat on his face and as he started to scramble back to his feet, he felt the cold steel of the M16 against the back of his neck, pushing him back down like the finger of God.

"D-Don't shoot me!" he breathed.

"You know where you are, son?" Ethan asked him softly.

"Moore?" Vasquez was shouting for him, but Ethan ignored her for the moment.

"You're in Texas," Moore said. "You're a black man raping a white woman…in Texas."

"Ethan! Are you okay?" Vasquez called again. "Talk to me!"

"Shootin' you would be a favor," Moore whispered, feeling the trigger giving way beneath the pressure of his finger.

"Moore!" Vasquez frowned because she didn't know where he was and she had six nervous, frightened, half-drunk men on the ground in front of her. If one of them tried anything she'd have to put him down quick and hard and she didn't want that.

"Yeah!" Moore eased his finger. "I got one," he told Vasquez and he gave Larry a kick in the thigh. "Crawl to the fire…Don't get up. Crawl."

"Emily? Are you okay?" Tina called out to the woman, but got no reply and it was a long five minutes before she could check on her.

Moore bound the boys' wrists together using the zip-ties, yanking the plastic tight with a sharp ratcheting sound, while Tina covered him with the shotgun. She searched them quickly once that was done and lined them up nice and neat and face down on the dirt, telling Moore in a loud voice to shoot anyone who tried to get up or free himself.

"Oh, I wish one of them would," Moore replied seriously, holding the seven college boys down while Tina moved to take care of Emily.

The woman was in shock, shivering and barely conscious as Tina cut her free from the tent pegs. She'd been beaten, not terribly, but enough and Tina had to fight back her emotions. Tears threatened the Ranger's eyes as she checked Emily's body, wanting to be sure she could move her safely. Emily's once beautiful face was bruised and her lips swollen and cut. Her body too was discolored in places and her sex was torn from the brutal rape she'd been forced to endure.

Emily was alive though and that was enough to be thankful for. Tina spoke to her gently and the woman's eyes widened slightly at the sound. She groaned weakly and tried to smile perhaps, but couldn't. Her lips moved and finally all she could manage was a small nod. Emily knew Tina was there and that was enough to let her close her eyes and escape the pain of what she'd been through.

The bruised woman slept for the ninety minutes it took for the ambulance to arrive. Deputy Hansen was leading it with two more deputies following in a borrowed school bus of all things. It had seemed like the easiest way to move seven suspects back to West Abilene. Behind the bus another car followed, this one carrying the two uniformed state troopers that Mahoney had called up from San Antonio. Another Ranger would be there in the morning to take over Tina's case, a detective named Hearst who was very good at his job and Tina was satisfied with that.

"Drive my car back for me, Ethan?" Tina asked the college president.

"You want to ride in the ambulance?" he asked and as much as Vasquez did want to be with Emily, she shook her head.

"No," Tina said and she started walking towards the school bus.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

One of the perks of being the swim coach was unlimited access to the pool. Lisa was taking a bath and then she'd fix a nice dinner for the two of them, but Barbara liked to exercise, especially after making love, it just felt so good. Since moving in together, unofficially of course, it had become their habit to make love as soon as classes were over. Then Barbara would go for a little jog, two miles to the pool facilities, and then swim for a solid hour before jogging back home to have dinner. This day was no different, and she bent over the tub to kiss Lisa quickly as the young woman splashed at her and told Barbara to hurry back.

The hot Texas sun was low in the western sky and it felt good to be outside. It had been a very, very good day all around. Barbara was going to get her money, television was coming to town, and her girls were going to show the rest of the country what they could do. All she needed now was a nice swim and a good dinner, and a long night with Lisa…Barbara sighed, wondering how she'd gotten so lucky.

The pool at West Abilene was an indoor facility, with small windows way up high and some folding bleachers along one wall. It was old, and not in the best of shape. It was in desperate need of maintenance and would get it soon enough. Barbara tried to imagine the place packed with spectators and better yet, with ESPN's cameras.

Barbara walked through the pool area and towards the short stairs leading to the girl's locker room. She was going to shower the sweat off and change into her suit. She passed the small room where the sauna and Jacuzzi entrances were, noticing the lights were on and wondering why. The so-called 'Therapy Room' was a waste of money, in Barbara's opinion, but the sauna and hot tub been installed before she'd arrived at WAT and the girls liked them. But there shouldn't have been anyone in there.

"Hello?" Barbara called out, pushing open the door to the sauna first. It was cool inside; nobody had been using that all week. Barbara frowned and turned around just as she heard a noise behind her.

A couple different pairs of big hands grabbed the woman, lifting her off her feet so that more hands could grab her flailing arms and legs. She started screaming and her attackers carried her quickly into the Jacuzzi room.

"Miguel, go lock the doors!" someone said and Barbara felt a beefy hand clamp down over her mouth, stifling her cries for help. She looked around wide-eyed and recognized the men as members of the football team. They were all huge too, the ones holding her, because they were Mike's offensive line. The smallest was 6'3" and weighed 240 lbs, the largest 6'6" and 310lbs of ebony muscle. Barbara was a strong, healthy woman, but her hopes for escape sank quickly as she realized who and how many were holding her.

"Listen Coach…" It was the quarterback, Mike something, talking to her. Barbara tried to remember their names, but couldn't. She thought she could reason with them, if she could only remember their names. "Stop fighting and listen."

The young man's voice was reasonable and she let her body relax, but the men holding her down, pinning Barbara to the hard tiled floor, were not letting her go. They still held her tight.

"You be a good girl now, Coach. We heard about what you did today, messing with our Fun Budget. That ain't too smart, understand me?" One of the big football players looked at Mike and growled a little. It was quite frightening to Barbara, but Mike just waved his hand at him. "So you owe us, Coach. Big time, you understand? You wanna fuck with our football team, so now we wanna fuck with you. Got it?"

The running back, Lopez, was coming back, having just locked the building down tight. Then he'd locked the locker room, and just now he turned the lock on the door to the Jacuzzi room. That was a lot of locks between Barbara and freedom, she realized. But deep down inside, Barbara Welch was feeling real fear for the first time, and it was stealing her reason.

"So you just give us a good time and we'll let you go, understand?" Mike smiled as the beautiful woman nodded beneath his center's big hand. Her eyes were wide with fear, he saw, and that was a good thing. She wasn't stupid, Mike thought. Barbara would do as she was told. She'd get a nice good long gangbang and they'd send her on her way, maybe repeating the lesson every once in awhile just to remind her she was still in Texas and nobody messed with Texas football!

"Who knows?" Larry chuckled in the woman's face. "A dyke like you might even enjoy it, Coach."

"Okay guys, let's do it!" Mike grinned at his frontline and Larry, the team's center, pulled his hand away from Barbara's mouth. "We're all gonna do you, so just relax and enjoy the ride, Barbie."

Barbara didn't say anything, but her eyes grew damp with tears of shame as the men started ripping off her clothes. Mike had thought of giving her the chance to take them off herself, but he didn't want her too relaxed. This was a punishment, a rape, not some Yankee orgy designed to make the bitch feel good. No, he wanted her scared just like Riles told him. It would make her easier to control anyway, he thought.

"Goddam! Look at them titties!" one of the men said, pawing at her like an animal and squeezing her firm flesh. Barbara bit her lip and closed her eyes. She tried to cover herself, pulling up her legs, and covering her breasts with her arms, but the boys just pulled her back again. They weren't really holding her anymore, just playing with her.

"I'm gonna make her suck my dick!" someone said.

"I want some of that ass, Lordy!" another person said.

"We all gonna fuck her all night long, ain't that right Mike?" the biggest man asked.

Barbara was suddenly terrified as the quarterback responded. "Long as it takes, Roy. We fuck this bitch as long as it takes."

She bolted with the sudden knowledge they weren't just going to rape her vagina, they were going to rape her everyway they could, as many times as they could. She started screaming again and kicked out blindly, catching Mike squarely in the balls. He groaned and dropped to his knees, his face going white.

The other guys grabbed Barbara and got her quickly under control, laughing and joking while they did it, but as soon as they saw their quarterback was in pain, the man they were supposed to protect, their good natured annoyance turned to anger.

"Fucking…bitch!" Mike groaned.

Ray slapped Barbara's face hard, so hard that her teeth rattled and a little blood appeared at the corner of her mouth.

"You stupid whore!" Roy grabbed her and flipped the dazed coach easily over the edge of the Jacuzzi so her head and shoulders went into the turbulent water. Barbara shook her head as Roy began slapping her bare ass hard with his huge hand. She screamed into the water and felt panic seize her heart. She closed her mouth as it filled with the warm bubbling water, tasting the strong chlorine which was burning her eyes.

Mike sat on the floor, starting to feel a little better. He'd been knocked in the balls before, of course, but damn that woman had some strong legs and had caught him unprepared. Lopez was next to him and together they watched Roy spank that sweet bare ass until it was burning red. The rest of the offensive line was cheering him on, laughing and joking about it.

Barbara struggled uselessly against the big fist wrapped around her neck, pushing her into the water. She tried pushing against the bottom of the Jacuzzi with her hands, but it was no use. She tried kicking with her feet too, but a couple guys just grabbed them, holding her tight. She felt her ass being burned raw by the constant and painful spanking she was getting. It terrible and humiliating. She felt her lungs burning as well and fought to hold her breath.

Roy finally pulled the woman's head out of the water and the guys laughed as Barbara gasped and coughed, sputtering with a sudden sob. "Let's just do her like this!" someone said and that was all it took. Mike was feeling better and watching that cute ass getting tanned had given him a terrific hard-on despite the ache in his balls, or maybe because of it. Somehow the atmosphere of raping Barbara Welch was an awful lot like that of a football game.

"Me first!" the quarterback said, claiming the woman as he rose to his feet and dropped his pants. "Kick me in the balls, bitch? Fuck you!" Mike moved behind her as Roy made room, never letting go of Barbara's neck. The big football player kept her bent over the tub and Barbara screamed as she felt Mike rubbing his cockhead around, looking for the entrance to her womb.

"Shut the dyke up, Roy!" Lopez called out, laughing and stripping off his own clothes. He was going second, before those big linemen really stretched Coach Welch too far for him to feel it.

Roy pushed Barbara's head under the water again and she jerked against the strong hands now gripping her arms and wrists, pulling the woman in opposite directions. Barbara's shoulders ached and threatened to dislocate as Roy pushed her head down further. The woman thrashed wildly when Mike finally caught her vaginal opening with his prick and shoved himself inside the woman hard, burying his cock inside her unprepared sex completely with one thrust. He grabbed Barbara's hips, grinning at his teammates as he fucked the woman mercilessly.

"Oh fuck yeah!" he laughed. "She is so fucking tight!"

He had no way of knowing Barbara had never been with a man before. Not even once in her life. She'd never wanted or needed to feel a penis inside her body and now, this first time, Barbara's mind screamed out against it. She kicked her legs uselessly as they were spread around the man raping her, banging her knees sharply against the hard fiberglass of the Jacuzzi as if to punctuate Mike's urgent thrusts. She wept beneath the water, unable to vent her pain and loathing any other way. Rape! Her mind screamed, over and over again. They're raping me!

The man holding her down lifted Barbara back up after nearly a minute, giving her a few seconds of precious air before he pushed her down again. "Hey, I'm going next you guys! Whoever holds the bitch goes next, new rule!" Roy grinned, proud that he'd thought of it.

"After me!" Lopez called out, stroking his stiff Hispanic cock. "You block for me, remember?"

Roy nodded a little reluctantly. "I'm third!" he amended his new rule and then laughed. "You fumble though and I'm going for the end zone, Lopez." Everyone laughed at that because Lopez had a reputation for dropping a few and it was a sore spot for him.

"Here it comes, coach!" Mike yelled as he felt his cock starting to erupt in the depths of Barbara Welch's violated pussy. Roy pulled her head out so she could cough and gasp while she felt a man's hot seed inside her womb for the first time in her life.

"No more, Pleee…" her begging was cut off as Roy pushed Barbara back down. Mike pulled out and walked away chuckling and stretching a little. Miguel took his place, finding her stretched hole easily, dripping with his quarterback's fresh sperm streaked pink with blood, and he pushed inside.

"Jesus Cristo!" he looked over his shoulder at Mike. "This little puta is tight, bro! I thought you had a dick!"

"Fuck you!" Mike laughed. "Dyke bitch probably never been fucked in her life! We're doing you a favor, cunt!"

For Barbara, who had thought Mike's penis was huge, Lopez felt like he was tearing her in two. Even with the added lubrication of the Mike's hot sperm, her muscles had just never experienced anything like it. Barbara had never been into toys, just tongues and fingers and the gentle love she found in another woman's arms. She opened her mouth and voiced her pain and outrage into the water, making her own bubbles to mix with the soft jets of the tub.

It took nearly ten minutes before Lopez was finished, shooting his spunk even deeper than Mike had. Roy had been careful about yanking Barbara's head out of the water every minute or so, sometimes a little longer, but not too bad. He turned the job over to Steve, and shucked off his pants quickly to expose a massive club of a prick.

"Blue 32! Blue 32! Hike…Hike…Hike!" Mike yelled at his center, everyone laughing, and on the third 'hike!' Roy slammed his cock into the lovely swim coach's pussy as hard as he could.

Not too many of the girls he'd gone out with had even wanted to try and take all of him, even the whores from Nevada the coach had flown down, but this one would. Roy had no doubts about Barbara Welch as she struggled beneath him. He gave a loud grunt of approval as he felt the thick blunt head of his cock bottom out against Barbara's cervix, but there were still several more inches to go. He just needed to try again!

Barbara felt an intense shock of pain deep in her belly when Roy entered her. The thin soft tissue of her vagina was caught between her own protesting muscles and the awful insistence of Roy's oversized member. She felt as if he'd stuck a knife in her womb and twisted it and then suddenly, it was a thousand times worse as he plowed mercilessly against her cervix. She took a breath in painful surprise, unable to stop herself from doing so. Her whole body was jerking violently, and the boys actually had to fight to hold her legs, while Steve just leaned down harder on her neck and shoulders.

Water flooded Barbara's lungs and the pain in her sex became acute, the worst she'd ever known. Far worse than any menstrual cramp, worse than anything she'd experienced or even dreamt possible. She was unaware of Roy's movements, of how he pulled his huge cock back and rammed himself in so hard he'd thought he'd broken his cock in two. The man actually pulled it out to look at it. He was quite relieved to see it was fine and he looked around a little sheepishly before slamming it home a third time, striving for that extra two inches of room that wasn't there.

It wasn't there until the eighth or ninth inhuman stroke, when his cockhead finally battered its way as deeply as possible, bruising and tearing the soft flesh around it. Barbara coughed and retched beneath the water as her lungs rebelled against the watery breath she'd taken instinctively a moment before. But every cough made her lungs draw inward once again and more water entered her lungs. Her body's reaction to the situation was making it worse, drowning her, and even as she fought it valiantly, Barbara knew she was going to lose.

The coach's body jerked wildly, and then went limp for a moment, then spasmed again comically and then finally there was nothing. The guys laughed and Roy slapped Barbara's ass hard while he fucked her easily now. "Shake it for me, bitch! Come on coach!" And he laughed hard as he stroked his cock happily in and out, not noticing the thick blood that covered his shaft until Larry pointed it out.

"I think she was a virgin!" Larry said. Then he bust into a huge grin and laughed. Roy just looked around proudly as he fucked her even harder.

Beneath the water, Barbara's eyes were open, staring sightlessly into the murky water created by the warm jets around her. Her mouth was open and tongue lolled between her teeth. Her last thought, as panic and fear and pain had finally and mercifully passed, had been that she would miss Lisa very much.

"Hey, Steve, you better give the bitch some air, man!" Roy was getting ready to cum any second and he wanted to see Coach Welch's beautiful face when he filled her tight little cunt with his sperm. He'd been saving it up for awhile and this was gonna be a special load!

Steve pulled Barbara's head out of the water, expecting her usual coughing and sputtering and hopefully a little begging, so he could dunk the stupid bitch again right away. "Ohhhhhh fuck!" Roy shouted as he sprayed his cum deep against the ruins of Barbara's cervix. "Holy fuck! Take that, Coach!" He was laughing and still cumming when he realized everyone else was quiet and staring at the woman, even though Steve had dropped Barbara's head back into the Jacuzzi.

"Is she…" Roy looked at Steve as his cock jerked weakly, finishing his orgasm into the dead woman.

"She's dead!" Steve said. "She's fucking dead!"

"You did it!" Billy said, pointing at Steve.

"No I didn't!" He pointed at Roy's bloodstained prick. "He did it!"

And then everyone was yelling, looking around with wide desperate eyes. They all felt the same thing, a great deep sense of being totally and irrevocably fucked for life. They'd raped and killed a woman. A white woman in a state with more minority inmates on death row than any other two states combined. Roy, Billy, and Larry were black. Miguel was Hispanic. Their eyes were wide and frightened as they stared at each other and shook their heads.

"What are we gonna do? Holy shit! What are we gonna do?" They all said the same thing and they all looked at Mike, naturally, since he was the quarterback.

"First thing. We finish it." He looked around and nobody else quite knew what he meant. "You're up Steve. Fuck her," Mike insisted.

"Uh, Mike…she's fuckin' dead, man." Steve looked around and the guys nodded.

"We're in this together, right? We're a team right?" Mike looked around, feeling a surge of something that was definitely not fear. "You sorry fucks! We all killed her and we're all gonna fuck her! We're a team and we're all in it."

"A team, yeah!…uh-huh, that's right!…Fuckin-A…Texas football!" All the guys were talking, getting themselves pumped up. The point, they understood instinctively, was that none of them were innocent but as if to prove it, they'd all have to consummate their crime. It was an issue of trust and one that could only be understood and rationalized in terms they understood.

"Now get in there and play some ball, Steve!" Mike pushed Steve closer to Barbara's body as it hung over the wide edge of the Jacuzzi, her pussy leaking blood and cum after Roy's cock had finished with it.

Steve grinned at Mike and looked around, the guys were nodding and getting excited again. They were a team and that meant everyone had to do it. Even if the bitch was dead, it had to be done, because that was the rules for the game they were playing. Steve's hard cock slid easily into the dead woman's cunt and he grabbed her hips hard, digging his big dick inside over and over while his teammates cheered him on.

After him, another of the boys went, and then another. Until every single one of the players had done Barbara at least once. Mike, Roy, and Steve all did her a second time, and Miguel and Larry had done her in the ass. Then they did her again, just because they realized they'd never get to do it again, and even dead, Barbara Welch was pretty hot. She was a lot better at sex than most of their girlfriends, they agreed happily, at least about taking it in her butt.

Eventually in their euphoria of testosterone fueled aggression, they even forgot about her being dead, yelling at Barbara to take more and slapping her ass while they fucked her. They didn't bother with moving her either; the position was perfect. All they needed was her sweet holes and no backtalk, the perfect woman. Barbara Welch was thoroughly sodomized over the next several hours until all of the young men were spent and well satisfied. It had been a good game and they high-fived each other enthusiastically.

Afterwards they took Barbara into the showers and washed her carefully, paying particular attention to her pussy and ass, both of which were stretched and gaping. Her bowels were totally loose of course and as they washed Barbara, some feces floated out with all the sperm that had been deposited in her once virgin ass. A couple of the boys complained, but not much, this was Texas after all. Once she was cleaned they dressed Barbara in her swimming suit and dumped her body in the swimming pool, face down. They collected the clothes they'd ripped from her body and tried to wipe anything they might have touched, which proved fruitless because they'd probably touched everything. But at least they got the Jacuzzi area and the doors.

"Alright, huddle up!" Mike said and Lopez and his linemen gathered around in a little circle. "Now we all fucked her." Everyone nodded at Mike who was kneeling. "And we all killed her." They looked at each other, but nodded again. "So nobody talks about this, got it? Ever. To anyone." Mike slapped Larry, his center. "You make sure they understand." Larry rubbed his cheek and nodded. "Anybody asks, we were in the gym, all of us together, pumping iron. Coach will say he saw us, you got it? Tigers on three…1…2…3!"

"Tigers!" they all yelled together.

Mike tossed Barbara's clothes in a dumpster behind the McDonald's when he stopped to get a Happy Meal. He didn't feel real hungry, but he figured he'd better buy something or it would look suspicious. The girl working the drive through was a freshman he'd seen around the college, and she smiled at him and finally asked for his autograph while he waited for his fries. She gave him her phone number with a very pretty blush.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"That's about it," Mike said with a shrug

He was sitting in the back of the bus, handcuffed and strapped in with one of the seatbelts all the kids loved to ignore on their way to school. At the front of the bus, the quarterback's six friends and accomplices were glancing over their shoulders at him, but nobody was saying anything. Just Mike as he told the story to Tina and now it was over.

"That's it huh?" Tina nodded, looking at her notebook. "Okay."

"You're gonna get me that deal, right?" Mike asked her. "Like you promised? I can't go to jail."

"Yeah," Tina nodded. "I'll speak to the prosecutor. See what I can do."

"Okay," Mike smiled. "Good."

Tina shook her head as she got up, unable to look at the young man any longer. She'd speak to the prosecutor alright, but Mike wouldn't like what she had to say.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

"Hey," Emily smiled from her hospital bed and the whole world was suddenly brighter.

"Hi," Tina paused with just her head inside the room and then stepped in gently. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay," Emily said, sucking her top lip and nodding while the two women just looked at each other for a few seconds. "Sit down…"

"Yeah," Tina sat on the edge of the bed, close to Emily's right hip.

"I thought you were avoiding me," Emily said softly.

"Oh, no…" Tina shook her head. "The, uh…The prosecutor didn't want me talking to you until after he got your statement."

"Oh," Emily nodded and then smiled. "I got your flowers. They're beautiful."

"I see that," Tina looked at the bouquet sitting next to the bed and she swallowed hard. "Emily…I found your sister…"

"Lisa? The woman's blue eyes widened as she sat up from her pillows. "She's alive? Where is she?"

"I'm sorry," Tina winced, reaching for the woman and pulling Emily close.

The two women hugged for a long while and Tina explained only as much as Emily needed to hear. After a time, as the sun began to set through the windows, Tina was lying on the bed, on her side facing Emily and nobody disturbed them. A nurse had peeked in, but left without saying anything and the two women hadn't noticed. They didn't speak until finally Emily took a deep breath, touching Tina's lips with her fingertips and looking into the Ranger's soft green eyes.

"You saved me," Emily sighed. "I remember you were talking to me and I tried to tell you I was okay."

"I should have gotten there sooner," Tina blinked rapidly, wanting to look away, but she couldn't.

"No" Emily stroked Tina's cheek.

"I'm so sorry," Tina swallowed hard and she looked at Emily and she was crying again, seeing the woman's face clean and beautiful and marred with bruises.

"It's over," Emily said. "I got hurt, but I'll heal…"

"Emily…"

"…I got dirty," the woman gave a small shrug. "But it'll wash away."

"…I love you," Tina whispered.

"You saved me," Emily pulled Tina as close as she could, wrapping her arm around the woman's neck. "And now you found my sister for me."

"Yeah," Tina put her arms around Emily, pressing her face into the woman's soft blonde hair.

"Don't cry," Emily breathed, kissing Tina's wet cheek. "You're here now. You've given me everything."

"I love you," Tina repeated beneath Emily's lips.

"I love you," Emily said and she covered Tina's mouth with hers.

The End