looked around in panic.
“Why did you say that? Did you see him? Did you see sign of—”
“Shut up, Mister. You talk too much,” Letty said.
Emory shut his mouth.
Eulis got the wagon in place.
“You ready?” he called.
“Let ’er rip,” Letty called back.
Emory felt the first tug as the rope tightened around his chest.
“Easy… easy,” he begged, as the pull tightened even more. His lower half was still planted where Black Dog had put him, and he couldn’t feel any give. “Wait! Wait!” he begged.
“Ease up!” Letty called.
Eulis halted the mules.
Letty looked down at Emory.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t think this is gonna work,” Emory said. “I don’t feel any give below.”
Letty picked up the shovel and dug a bit more from around his waist, apologizing every time she nicked his hips and his butt with the shovel.
“Lord have mercy, woman,” Emory finally begged. “You’re gonna unman me with that shovel blade.”
“I’m not trying to hurt you,” Letty said. “However, if it happened, it would certainly take care of your weakness for other men’s women, wouldn’t it?”
Emory turned loose of the rope and started digging the dirt from around his waist, himself.
“Get back! Get back, damn it! You’re a scary woman and that’s a fact!”
“Are you ready?” Eulis called out.
Letty looked down at Emory, who was frantically digging dirt from around his waist.
“Yeah, he’s ready!” she yelled.
Emory looked up in disbelief and grabbed the rope just as the mules gave him another tug.
He screamed out in pain.
“More!” Letty yelled.
Emory’s scream intensified and then suddenly he was out and flopping on the ground like a fish out of water. He was out and from the waist down, as naked as the day he was born.
“Whoa!” Letty called. “He’s out!”
“Praise God,” Eulis said. He untied the rope and then drove the team and wagon up to the rock.
“My pants! Where’s my pants?” Emory groaned.
Letty looked at the man’s dirty bare ass, then leaned over and peered into the hole.
“Would you look at this,” she said. “They’re still in the hole. We pulled you right out of your britches.”
Eulis circled the rock and then stopped, taken aback by the man’s nudity.
“What happened to your pants?” he asked.
Letty pointed to the hole.
“We pulled him right out of them.”
Emory rolled over on his back then sat up, scrambling to get the rope from around his chest before this crazy pair decided to drag him behind the wagon just to see how much dust he could raise, then cupped his hands over his crotch.
“Would someone please hand me my pants?”
“You still got your legs,” Letty said. “Get ’em yourself.”
Emory cursed beneath his breath and tried to stand up, only to find his legs were still too numb to bear weight. He stumbled and fell to his knees, baring his nude ass in an even more embarrassing pose. It occurred to him then how much he disliked this woman.
“Here,” Eulis said. “I’ll get ’em for you.”
“I would certainly appreciate it,” Emory said, and glared at Letty.
Letty purposefully looked at what he could not hide and then grinned.
“You sure must have a high opinion of yourself,” she said.
Emory frowned. “What makes you say that?”
She pointed to his dirty, shriveled dingus.
“You oughta know that you can’t take a woman away from her man with something like that.”
Eulis purposefully ignored them both, but Emory gasped. He’d never been insulted in such an intimate manner by anyone, let alone a woman. He stumbled to his feet just as Eulis pulled his pants from the hole, and yanked them out of Eulis’s hands. He stumbled to the wagon, leaning against it to steady himself as he put on his pants. When he was completely covered, he eyed Eulis.
“You got yourself a real mean woman.”
Eulis looked at Letty, who was rolling up the rope they’d used to pull him out of the hole, then grinned.
“Yeah, I know.”
“How do you put up with her?” Emory asked.
“Mostly I just let her have her way,” Eulis said.
Letty snorted beneath her breath, and tossed the rope in the back of the wagon.
“If you two are through talking bad about me, it’s time we got moving.”
“You heard the woman,” Eulis said. “If you want a ride to Cherry Creek, you better get in.”
Emory grabbed onto the wagon and started trying to climb in, but his arms and legs were still too weak.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Letty said.
She bent down, grabbed him by the ankles with her good arm, then both lifted and pushed as he was pulling, which catapulted him into the