Rachel and Amanda made their way out of the woods and up the hill that blocked the view of the woods from the lodge. Rachel had been conscious throughout their journey that only Amanda's sense of honor kept her safe. If it had been her desire, the huntress could have killed her at any time.

It was clear from the top of the hill that there was still activity in the lodge. Most of those who had come to witness the outcome had left when neither woman had returned by ten-thirty, the general assumption being that Amanda was having a late supper. About twenty-five people still lingered in the lounge at eleven o'clock, however.

"Well, a lucky few people will get to witness the defeat of the great Amanda Blake," the huntress observed sardonically.

"Let's go directly to the infirmary entrance and miss the crowd," Rachel suggested.

"Please, Rache, let's go through the main door. I don't want anyone saying that I was so ashamed of losing that I had to sneak in through a side door. Again, I'm asking that as a friend, not begging for it as a captive."

"Okay," Rachel agreed. She didn't want to cause Amanda any pain or humiliation. "If that's what you want."

"It's not just for me, Rache. Years from now, you may look back on this as a rather proud moment in your life. At least I hope you will. I want you to savor this experience. There may be some applause. I want you to hear it."

"Thank you," Rachel said, although she was not much interested in applause at that moment.

"One more thing, Rache. I'd like you to bind my hands behind me so that it's clear to everyone that I've been beaten."

"Amanda, I don't think that's necessary. Besides, with your hands tied behind you, you won't be able to lean on me."

"I'm feeling much better. A nice walk in the moonlight can do wonders." Amanda stopped and put her hands behind her back. "There are some strips of leather in my kit."

Rachel supposed that accepting defeat was not easy for Amanda and she wanted to do her best to be the gracious loser. This was not time to argue. She bound Amanda's wrists.

As they got closer to the lodge, Amanda laughed and said, "Oh, I think I see a familiar face. I might have known she would be here."

A lanky black woman stood in the doorway, scanning the hillside. Suddenly, she stepped outside for a clearer view and then immediately withdrew.

"Our arrival will be heralded," Amanda pronounced.

Rachel's admiration for Amanda had done nothing but increase since the hunt ended and now it grew even more as she watched the amazon move with strength and grace, hardly limping at all. Every now and then Amanda would wince as she stepped on uneven ground, but she didn't make a complaint. Rachel wished they had stopped for pain medication at the cabin. She felt incredibly proud of Amanda and she wondered why.

When they got to the door, Rachel asked, "Ready?"

Amanda's jaw was clenched tight. She nodded.

Rachel opened the door.

The lounge had emptied out and the lobby was full of spectators.

Rachel recognized some faces in the group. Colonel Stoneridge was there, of course. So were Scott and Jane. Dave, the man who had come to see her in the infirmary was present. The only other hunter she recognized was Randolph, still wearing a bandage on his nose. The black woman who had been watching from the doorway stood with a smaller, wiry woman who appeared to be of Indian heritage; the two of them were apart from the others, and Rachel decided they weren't hunters. The colonel seemed to know them; perhaps they had asked for permission to come to the lodge.

The rest of the crowd were male, except for Cheryl the waitress and another blonde woman. Some of the men were obviously very drunk. Rachel knew that the hunters she had met were a cut above the average. Randy may have been rather near the norm.

As Amanda had predicted, there was applause. The two non-hunting women smiled and clapped with some enthusiasm. Scott and Jane beamed at Rachel. The colonel leaned on a walking stick and seemed to quietly saying, "Huzza." Cheryl wrapped softly on the tray she was holding.

The rest of the group, however, was clapping and shouting loudly. A bunch of fucking drunken rowdies. To Rachel it seemed clear that they were not applauding her victory as much as Amanda's defeat. The thought flashed through her mind, "I don't want to share Amanda with these people. I don't want them to have one bite of her."

One particularly besotted man whom Rachel didn't recognize, stepped forward with a swagger and said, "All right! It's going to be good eating next weekend! I'm going to claim the chunk that I want right now." He was putting out his hand, intending to grasp Amanda's breast.

Something snapped inside Rachel.

By God, she thought, I might not be able to kill Amanda, but I can gut you stem to stern, you bastard.

She grabbed her knife.

However, Amanda beat her to the punch.

Unable to use her hands or her feet, Amanda bent just enough to bring her forehead down to a level with her assailant's nose and lunged forward.

Quite by accident - his reflexes certainly weren't responsible - the drunkard turned his head slightly and took the blow on his left cheek as well as his nose. He got his hand to his face about the same time that his arse hit the floor.

Rachel leaped forward, planted her foot firmly on the hapless hunter's crotch, and pointed her knife at his throat.

Her brown eyes flashed with rage.

Her anger went over the top when she saw that the man was staring at her bare vagina, of which he had a very good view.

"Eyes on my face, fuckhead!" Rachel shouted.

Gulping, the man obeyed.

"By God," Rachel spat. "First you try to grope my prize and now cast your filthy eyes on my womanhood. You're not only a boorish lout, but you're a fickle slut as well. Unlike my prize, you're hardly worthy of the name 'hunter.' The next time I see you here, I want to see you in a deerskin jock strap and running shoes. Right?"

When the man hesitated, Rachel ground her foot into his vulnerability.

"R-r-right," the man stammered.

Rachel's glare passed over the crowd, who, for the most part, were staring in open-mouthed astonishment.

"Is there anyone else here who wants to lay hands on my prize?"

There were not enough quick responses of "no" to satisfy the enraged hellion.

"I'm cutting her loose," Rachel declared, and quickly followed her words with appropriate actions. "We've both had a hard day. But you know how women are. No matter how tired we are, we always have enough energy left to do some housecleaning. How about it, Amanda? Want to clean house?"

Amanda looked at Rachel with a that's-my-girl twinkle in her eye as she nodded her head and rubbed her wrists.

"Okay, anybody else want some of what this plonker got?" Rachel sheathed her knife and surveyed the room.

The first thing she saw was Randolph heading for the door.

She also saw that she had some friends in the room.

She noticed that the black woman and her friend were looking the hunters over as though they were shopping at a bazaar.

The colonel was fingering his walking stick.

Jane was rolling up the sleeve of her shirt and nudging Scott to do the same.

"No takers?" Rachel asked belligerently. Seeing no one move, she put her hand on Amanda's shoulder and applied a gentle pressure in the direction of the door leading to the infirmary.

Before she moved, Amanda looked down at the prostrate hunter and said, "Richard, I'd see a doctor if I were you. I think I heard something crack."

There was hardly a murmur as the captor and her prize left the room.

Once on the other side of the door, Amanda said, "Rache, that move I made really put the pressure on my ankle. Could I have your shoulder again?"

"Better than that!" Rachel bent over and put her left arm under Amanda's thighs.

"Rache! What are you doing? You're going to kill your back. I outweigh you by... oh, shit!" Amanda felt herself being swept off her feet. "You said you couldn't carry me."

"It's only about forty feet to the emergency room. This doesn't make me Wonder Woman. I can take care of what's mine."

"I do believe you can," Amanda said. She couldn't remember the last time she had been carried.

The doctor on duty in the infirmary, got to his feet as Rachel kicked the door open.

"My prize has injured herself. Please heal her wounds." Rachel said, setting Amanda down on the examination table.

The stunned doctor looked at Amanda. "Your prize?"

"That would be me," Amanda said, looking at Rachel with an ambiguous smile. "It's my left foot. I've twisted my ankle and there's a wound that may be infected."

The doctor laid his hand on Amanda's forehead. "I would say infection is almost a certainty." Glancing at Rachel's side as he began to unwrap the Amanda's bandage and binding, he said, "You seem to have picked up a wound, too, Rachel. Somewhat less serious than the one you had the last time I saw you."

"You have a good memory, Dr. Zimmerman."

"So do you, Rachel. Jones, isn't it?"

"Well, I'm not likely to forget the name of a man who's seen what I look like on the inside."

Examining Amanda's wound, Dr. Zimmerman asked, "How did you do this?"

"I shot myself in the foot," Amanda replied.

"Congratulations. It must have been a difficult angle. Rachel, there should be a nurse down in the break room, third door to the left. Would you fetch her, please?"

"Yes."

What the hell has got into me, Rachel asked herself on her way to get the nurse. I'm acting like a barbarian warrior princess. When I saw that horse's ass about to take advantage of Amanda, something took hold of me. I must say, though, it seems to suit me.

She poured herself a Styrofoam cup of coffee before following the nurse back to the examining room. As she reentered the hall she saw something most unwelcome. The hunter Amanda had laid out on the floor was being helped into the infirmary by Dave. Well, he's going to have to wait his turn. She swallowed her coffee in a single gulp and strode quickly to intercept them.

"My prize is being examined by the doctor. No spectators allowed, Richard - isn't that what Amanda called you?"

Richard was covering his nose with both hands, somewhat muffling his voice as he said, "Look, I'm hurt. That bitch hit me a good one."

Rachel stepped forward, her nostrils flaring. "That WHAT hit you?"

"I mean, your prize hit me a good one," Richard said sheepishly.

"Don't you think you deserved it, Dick? I'm sure you don't mind if I call you 'Dick.'"

"Yes, I deserved it. I'm sorry."

"If you were really sorry, Dick, you wouldn't have tried to grope her in the first place."

"Listen, I'm in pain."

"Well, you're ambulatory, Dick, so you can't be hurt too badly. My prize is in greater need of treatment. Of course," Rachel said, taking another aggressive step forward, "I can probably fix it so that a triage nurse would give you priority.

"We aren't armed," said Richard.

"Oh, is that what's bothering you?" Rachel pulled her knife from its sheath and tossed it behind her, then folded her arms over her chest. "Neither am I. Now what's your excuse?"

"Come on, Richard. It's not worth it," said Dave. "For God's sake, she somehow got the best of Amanda. Let's go back to the lounge and wait."

As the two men retreated, Rachel said, "Deerskin jock strap and running shoes will become you, Dick. You'll look very cute."

After picking up her knife and, by an act of great self-control, removing the smirk from her lips, Rachel returned to the examination room. She didn't put any blame on herself for not explaining that she had not "got the best of Amanda" in any physical sense.

"Ah, Rachel," said Dr. Zimmerman, "I'm afraid Amanda is playing host to a rather nasty little invader. It's very virulent, in that it's taken a rapid hold on her system, but the good news is that it should be possible to subdue it completely within a few days. I've given her as much general antibiotic as is safe and she should feel much better in the morning. By tomorrow afternoon, I should have results from a blood test and, if is the same thing as caused some illness among those who drank from the stream last year, the treatment is very familiar to me. Amanda took it directly into her blood stream and that's why she's having such a rapid and severe reaction. She'll have a very bad night tonight. She'll probably become delirious."

"I'll be staying the night with her," said the nurse.

"Wait," protested Amanda. "Do I have any rights left at all? I don't relish the idea having someone present while I'm raving like a bloody lunatic. Can't you just restrain me?"

"Oh, rest assured that you'll be restrained," the doctor chuckled. "You'll be on an IV and we can't have you pulling it out. But somebody needs to monitor your fever and pulse rate and change your IV bag so that you don't become dehydrated."

Amanda shifted uneasily. She eyed Rachel's knife as though she might want Rachel to use it on her.

"Doctor Zimmerman, could I stay with Amanda?" Rachel asked. "I'm not sure I know how to take a pulse, but..."

"Oh, it's all electronic, Rachel. All you need to do is read numbers. But, you've had long day and you won't get much sleep. I'll give you a timer that will wake you up every twenty minutes. And Amanda's right. She might be rather talkative."

"I can handle it." Rachel turned to Amanda. "Would it be all right for me to stay with you?"

Amanda clenched her teeth, shut her eyes, and nodded.

"Alright," said the doctor. "Nurse Armstrong will get you set up. But first, let me take a look at your wound, Rachel."