DISCLAIMERS: My main characters tend suffer horrible conditions. This story is no exception to the rule.

SUPERBOWL: Go Pats, Go!

FEEDBACK: Please direct all feedback to p.phair@comcast.net. You can check out more of my writing at http://www.phair1.com

COWARD

by Phair

Part 10

"Rory, wake up. Wake up, Rory!" Rabbit's tone was urgent. "Wake up in a hurry."

Rory cracked open one eye and saw Rabbit frantically trying to dress, "Quota Day?"

"N'uh," Rabbit shook her head. "Something else. More trucks. Lots of guards. Always bad. Always cause hurtin' trouble. No good for felons or Rabbit when they come like this."

"Hope you're wrong about them this time," Rory remarked and grabbed for her clothes.

"Me not. Rabbit wrong sometimes but Rabbit never been wrong about the guards."

"I know you're not wrong," Rory sighed in resignation. She was fairly certain she was the reason the guards were on their way, "Rabbit, come on over here. Come on!"

Rory held her arms open. Rabbit was hesitant to waste any time getting out of the berth before the guards used forced to move the slower prisoners but she could not resist her heart's desire. She gave into the invitation quickly. She snuggled against Rory's naked body and let out her fears in little whimpers.

"Whatever this is, whatever they've come to do, just remember that I'm in love with you. You mean more to me than my own life," Rory held Rabbit firmly and kissed the top of her head. "You saved me more times than I can count. Rabbit, you're the only reason I'm still alive on this god forsaken frigidly hot piece of rock."

"They comin', they comin' for you? You think they comin' to take you away from Rabbit?" The force of Rabbit's hold increased with the intensity of her question.

"EVERYONE OUT OF THE TENT. NOW!" A familiar and stern voice from outside called above the droning of the engines of the now parked and idling trucks.

"You head out. I'm gonna pull some clothes on," Rory kissed the woman again but did not speculate on the answer to Rabbit's question. "I'll be right behind you."

Prisoners straggled out into the cold, pre-dawn darkness. The guards snapped on bright directional work lights from their trucks as the group gathered. Orders were shouted and prisoners muttered complaints but no heavy handed tactics were used until Rory appeared in the doorway.

"TAKE THE COWARD DOWN!"

Half of the guards rushed toward Rory with batons at the ready. The other half stood as cordon between the remaining prisoners and the intended target. A few stray swings leveled several prisoners as warning not to interfere with the guards' strong arming Rory over to the Captain.

"On your knees, Coward!" The Captain screamed and smashed Rory in the gut with his baton.

Rory collapsed to her knees and then face first to the rock hard surface, "Son of a …"

Additional comments were silenced by repeated blows from multiple batons. Several stray boot kicks connected with her back as well. Rory closed her eyes and hoped Bearses had a good hold on Rabbit. She didn't want Rabbit to get hurt trying to save a lost cause.

Once the pummeling stopped, Rory's wrist bands were activated. They connected and immediately started to cause pain. It was not so sharp as to incapacitate her but enough to let her feel the force of it. Two guards yanked her to her feet to face the Captain. His twisted smirk said everything Rory needed to know. She was caught and her punishment was going to be memorable.

"Coward, have you been growing food? Specifically, have you been grow potatoes with stolen dirt in the back of your berth?" He asked loud enough for all to hear.

"Yes, Sir. Do you need some? We have plenty extra," Rory gave a broad smile with her cheery answer.

The Captain backhanded her. Rory was staggered by the blow. Only the hold of the guards kept her from falling.

"Don't get smart, bitch! Growing extra food is against the rules!" The Captain screamed and spittle from his lips blew briefly against the breeze only to flag and land back on his crisp, clean uniform.

"If'n I may," Bearses voice interrupted. "I be in charge of thisn' tent and these felon."

Rory turned to look at the man holding Rabbit steady. She desperately mouth 'no' over and over in an attempt to stop his interference. The last thing she needed was for the Captain's attention to be draw to Rabbit. However, Bearses blissfully ignored Rory's desperate, silent plea.

"So what? You want to share a piece of her penalty?" The Captain stalked over to Bearses.

"Oh, no, Sir, not at all," Bearses maintained a calm tone. "It be just, there ain't no exact rule against growing things."

"What?" The Captain stopped in his tracks. "What nonsense are you talking? I make the rules here."

"You be in charge but there be only six hard and fast rules. That what the gov'ment said when I be sent here. They goes like this; no scapin' nor temptin' to, no fightin'," Bearses rolled his eyes toward the sky as he tried to recall the list of 'DO NOT,' "no pregnant felons, no touchin or bein' disobedient to guards or tent leader, no shirkin' at work, no killin' anybody even 'tis self, and that be that. Nothin' 'bout grow extra food on the list. Nothin' even 'gainst stealin' nor theivin' for that matter."

The was silence when Bearses stopped speaking. Nobody on either side moved. The Captain's fury was evident in the red glow growing on his cheeks. Little beads of sweat began to form on his brow. Then his eyes widened with a sudden thought.

"Bearses," the Captain finally broke into a sickening smile, "isn't that the Coward's whipping bitch you're holding?"

The Captain laughed loudly when Bearses gave a reluctant affirmative nod. He continued to laugh as he sauntered back to Rory. Without warning he grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her ear next to his lips.

"You tell these fuckers that I specifically ordered you not to grow or plant things or I'll tie your bitch to a pole and whip every last piece of skin off of her!" His snarl was fierce.

"I broke the rule. I did it myself. I was ordered not to grow food. No planting. Nothing. I disobeyed a direct order. Again! Just like before." Rory continued to shout her confession until the Captain slapped her two or three blows in rapid succession across the face.

"There see. Two violations. The act itself and disobeying a direct order," The Captain announced with a flourish of a hand gesture. "Guards secure the Coward to the whipping post. It's time to make her weep."

"No, no do, no, my job, no hurt Rory," Rabbit struggled wildly in Bearses' arms. "Me her whippin' bitch. Me take the lash. Me suffer her. Me suffer. My job. Me suffer, Rory."

"Stop it girl. Petra, give me a hand," Bearses hushed in a low tone to avoid drawing additional attention to Rabbit.

Petra grabbed Rabbit by one arm and around the neck. "Easy, honey, easy. Don't fight us. Jeff…,"

"No," Bearses stopped her. "we don't be needin' him here."

Petra didn't understand why Jeff wouldn't be needed as Rabbit was putting up a fierce fight but then, she didn't argue the point either. Too much depended on getting Rabbit under control. Rabbit battled like a wild thing trying to break free.

"STOP!" Bearses grabbed Rabbit by the hair and hissed in her face. "Rory's standin' tall. Don't be shamin' her none. Don't make her a useless sack of bone by watchin' 'em kill you. Let her feel brave again. It can be your'n gift to her, Rabbit."

Rabbit stopped her struggle. She sagged against Bearses' chest. Her tears came in shivering sobs.

"She deading. Rabbit deading too," Her voice was muffled in the folds of Bearses' shirt.

"S'right girl. I'll let you bunk with my women and me. You'll not freeze, I'll see to it," Bearses hushed the words and stroked Rabbit's hair as he spoke. "You no need to be worried."

"No freeze outside. Freeze inside. Crack like Web if Rory deading. Never make warm again if Rory deading," Rabbit's voice quivered as she spoke her worst fear out loud.

Bearses was stunned by Rabbit's announcement. It took him several seconds to fully understand what the woman meant.

"Girl, you be lovin' the Coward?" He felt Rabbit's answer when her head nodded yes. "Then you'll not be watching this travesty, by God."

Bearses turned Rabbit fully from the scene before them. He wrapped his arms around her head and pulled him close to his chest.

"Shut your eyes. Don't be watchin' this." He ordered in a voice hoarse with emotion.

The guards dragged Rory to the punishment post outside the tent. She was stripped naked before being secured to it. A few groups of prisoners from other tents gathered to watch as well as all the felons from her own tent. Usually, public floggings were cause for celebrations as it delayed the work day and lowered the general quota. But, today was very quite. Many of the surrounding tents with frail occupants had received potatoes from Rory's hidden stash. While a majority of felons didn't think of other felons as likable, Rory was one felon who was not hated by those in her tent and outside of it.

"This woman, this Coward violated two rules. She endangered not only herself with her self indulgence but the rest of you as well. As Commanding Officer, I will not allow individualized behavior to endure! The punishment for the Coward is thirty lashes by my whip. Private Ellis will have the privilege of delivering the blows himself."

Rory rested her forehead against the pole and chuckled to herself, "No good deed goes unpunished."

"BY GOD!" A voice from Bearses' tent of felons called out.

A prisoner in the neighboring tent braved, "She saved you. Where's your honor, man!"

Scuffles erupted as Private Ellis limped over to the Captain. Nervous guards wrestled with prisoners. They were eager to quell the prisoners' feeble attempts at a rebellion. The Captain, irritated by the delay the skirmishes caused, increased the pain Rory's arm bands were sending her.

"Please, ah no, stop, no more, please," Rory shrieked unable to contain her begging against the vicious pain.

The prisoners immediately stopped their struggles with her words. They believed she was speaking to them. The moment was not lost on the Captain. He saw her full potential at that moment. He understood the threat she posed to the status quo.

"Time to squash this bug," he sniffed. "Private Ellis, if you would begin. I'll do the count myself."

The young man stepped within ten paces of the bound prisoner. He snapped his whip in a test crack and it bit him back on the wrist. The whip was dropped with a curse.

"Take your time, boy. I've got three hundred years and three days to spend tied to this damn post," Rory sneered at the young guard over her shoulder.

The prisoners erupted into fits of laughter. They hooted and howled but their jeers were directed at the guards and not the condemned. Private Ellis scrambled to reclaim the whip. He took a firm grasp of the handle, steadied his healing legs, and let the leather fly.

"ONE!" The Captain shouted.

There was no need to shout. The crowd fell silent as a stripe of red was left in the whip's wake. Rory had not screamed. She leaned heavily on the post wondering how she would endure twenty nine such blows more.

Ellis struck again and again with no real rhythm. Each hit differed in intensity and placement and strength. His novice handling of the whip gave no solace to Rory. She could not prepare for each subsequent strike. Several cracks snapped by without even hitting her skin but those were not credited to her. Still, she tensed and prepared for them just the same.

"Fifteen!"

Rory screamed at the tearing of her skin. What had been a tiny opening on strike ten, rendered completely from mid back to hip. Blood pulsed from the rip and ran in rivulets down her legs. Her knees buckled and she began to wretch.

"Twenty One!"

Rory's eyes rolled back in her head. She could barely stay conscious under the relentless assault on her bare skin. Pain was her whole world now. She growled and cried and spit and puked and pissed and shit as her body tried to escape the torture but the pain persisted. Rory was agony's handmaid.

"Twenty Five!"

"Still not dead," Rory mumbled to herself as the next crack struck. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." The repetitive explicative was screamed aloud much to the cheers of her fellow felons.

"Fuck 'em, Rory!" was the spontaneously chanted back from several corners of the gathering of prisoners.

"Thirty!" The heavily perspiring Captain shrieked over the other voices in an effort to silence them.

All fell quite except for the uneven sobbing from the beaten prisoner. Her body hung by the wrists from the punishment post. Her legs were crumpled beneath her. They could not support the aftermath of the whipping she endured in spite of her best efforts to get to her feet when the whip ceased it's movement. Blood flowed as freely from the open wounds on her back as the tears poured from her eyes.

"Punishment completed. You may all set out to your worksites. Except the prisoner named Jeff. He is to report to my truck post haste," The Captain said in an official voice.

"Son of a bitch," Petra shouted as her man walked over to the other side. "You turned her in, didn't you? May God strike you low for what you have done."

Jeff ignored her comments. He merely followed the guard's directions to the back of one of their vehicles. Once settled in the back, he flashed a brilliant smile to Petra.

"He's lost his mind," she gasped.

Bearses shook his head even as he kept a firm hand on Rabbit, "No girl, he's lost his soul."

"The Coward had suffered the punishment for her immediate transgressions. However, I'm going to request an execution order as she is a persistent threat to the security of penal colony. Guard, send transmission to headquarters now."

The Captain's announcement was met with jeers and posturing by the prisoners but no real threats of riot. Prisoners were a defeated bunch. It would take more than one woman's whipping and death to rally them, of this the Captain was sure.

"That's a negative, Captain."

"WHAT?" The Captain roared.

"Headquarters rejects the execution request. It orders the immediate transport of the Prisoner Rory and…?"

"And what, man? Spit it out!"

"And, her spouse to Base Level 1, sir." The guard was baffled by the order.

The red returned to the Captain's cheeks. "Fine! Load the Prisoners Rory and Rabbit on to my vehicle. I'll take the bitches to Level 1 myself." The Captain thought to himself as he watched Rory's limp body dragged to his truck, "Let those pompous asses try to deny me my execution in person. They'll give me my due, I make sure of it!"

TBC

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