Caress of Fire

by Martha Hix

  A fist clamped his chest, his pride taking the pressure’s full force. Again, she’d reminded him he was nothing beyond a meal ticket to her dreams.

  Change her dreams.

  Dismissing his thought, he said, “You cannot, absolutely cannot, have the job.”

  Disheartened, she turned her back.

  He couldn’t stand all that dejection. And he considered himself. For too long he’d been lonely, had spent unending nights with nothing but stars above, or four empty walls. For the past half year, though, he’d spent a lot of time thinking about Lisette sharing his bed. Of course, meeting her had been a disappointment, but he was now convinced . . .

  “The only way it would work is if you’re a married woman.”

  “Out of the question.” She spun around. “Besides, you’re forgetting something: it takes two to make matrimony.”

  Jangling spurs cut through the night to draw their attention.

  Preacher Wilson called out, “I must have a word with you two.” The clergyman, his right hand holding a Bible, huffed up to the creek. “Mister McLoughlin,” he shouted with his superior tone, “when I signed on to assist you to Kansas, I had no idea you meant to make a Sodom and Gomorrah of our journey.”

  “Now hold up there, preacher!”

  “I, as a man of God, as a minister of the Gospel, will not hold my tongue. I believe you intend to hire this . . .” He wagged a finger at Lisette. “This Jezebel. I shouldn’t have to remind you dallying with an unmarried woman will bring you to hellfire and damnation.”

  “Listen here, preacher man, you’re making an unfair judgment about a decent young woman, and I won’t have it. If you intend to stay on, you’ll apologize to Miss Keller. Right now.”

  “I answer only to God.”

  “Fine. Then pack your duds and be gone at first light.”

  The preacher nodded. “That will be more than fine with me.” He huffed off toward the campsite.

  “Thank you for defending my honor, Mister McLoughlin,” Lisette said, her voice quiet.

  Weariness getting to him, Gil knelt down to pitch a pebble into the stream. He glanced at the stars, assessing the hour as midnight. What Lisette needed, what he needed, was a decent night’s sleep. Tomorrow he’d decide what to do about her.

  In the chuck wagon temporarily vacated by Oscar Yates, Lisette settled into a bedroll. Tired beyond imagination, she slept, but not for more than a couple of hours. She awoke to darkness. A coyote howled. She trembled, thinking about her prospects. Would she be the next night’s dinner for some wild beast?

  More frightening–would she meet Olga’s fate?

  Lisette jolted up from the hard bed.

  Pulling the stolen trousers up over her hips and tucking her shirt into the waistband, she leaned to the right, where she knew Matthias Gruene was nearby, guarding the wagon. She cupped her fingers around her mouth and pressed them against the canvas wall. “Are you asleep?”

  “Nein.”

  She grabbed the waistcoat, put it on, then pulled on her boots. Hopping to the ground, she said, “I must talk with you.”

  “Shhh,” Matthias whispered. “You’ll wake everyone.”

  “Let’s go over there.” She motioned toward the creek where Gil McLoughlin had scotched her dreams.

  A couple of minutes later she and Matthias were sitting by the water’s edge, Sadie Lou at their side. Nearby, a cow lowed. Lisette turned to the sound. She saw nothing but cattle.

  “They’re huge, Matthias, especially the bulls.”

  “There’re not–never mind.”

  Lisette continued to gaze at the herd. There was no set design to their hides; browns and rusts and blacks mixed with white in a myriad of patterns. Their horns–in no way did these descendants of Spain resemble their German milk cow cousins. The longhorns had a formidable spread to their horns, horns capable of ripping another cow to bits–or a person. Yet she didn’t fear them. In fact, earlier tonight, it had been a welcome sight, the head upon head of wide horns. The stink, now that was another proposition altogether.

  Again the coyote howled.

  Lisette shivered in the warm night. “I’m scared.”

  “Don’t be. The coyote is far away.”

  “It isn’t the wild animals, nor even the fear of Indians. Well, that’s not exactly so. Oh, Matthias, your boss is going to send me away.”

  “You mustn’t create your own problems. Life gives us all enough worry without our searching it out.” Matthias sighed. “It breaks my heart to see you unhappy. I know life’s been unfair, what with you losing all your family but Adolf.”

  “You know we’ve never been close,” she said sadly. “But I do miss his boys.”

  She missed them along with all the departed Kellers. Mostly, she missed her mother and Olga. After these many years, she should have stopped, but . . .

  “You need someone of your own to love, Lise.”

  “That’s not what I need.” For some odd reason, she recalled Gil McLoughlin and his words about being married. What a peculiar thought. She gathered her wits. “Matthias, do you have any money?”

  “Five dollars.”

  “Would you lend it to me? I haven’t a cent, and five dollars would keep me from starving . . . if I make it to town.”

  “I said don’t create your own problems. Gil will make a wise decision about you. I don’t know what, you understand, but wise men don’t leave women stranded in the wild.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I suppose he’ll have one of us take you to Lampasas.” As she breathed a sigh of relief, Matthias broke a blade of grass. “Tell me, meine Liebe, what do you think of the Scotsman?”

  Suddenly warm, she recalled the morning in Fredericksburg when he’d admitted wanting to meet her. And she recalled how she’d responded– then as well as tonight. Her heart did a flip-flop.

  The defenses she’d spent years building had taken a battering.

  “Answer my question,” Matthias pressed. “What do you think of Gil McLoughlin?”

  “He doesn’t smell as bad as you do.”

  “I beg your pardon, naughty girl. I spent yesterday with the drag-riders, while the boss was way ahead of the herd.” He reached to thump her shoulder. “I’ll not have you making disparaging remarks.”

  She started to appease him, but her shoulders stiffened at a night sound. An owl, perhaps? Sadie Lou, who had been sleeping at Matthias’ ankle, roused up and sniffed the air. A covey of birds scattered from their roosts, a score of cows lumbering to their hooves.

  Several growls intermingled with Lisette’s “What is it? Do you think the horses got out of the remuda?”

  “No.” Pulling a revolver from his gunbelt, Matthias surged to his feet. “It’s Comanches.”

  Her limbs stiffened.

  “Be still,” her friend whispered.

  She opened her mouth, intent on shouting to the others, but he clamped his hand over her lips and cautioned against her calling attention to them. They rushed back to camp, Matthias guarding the perimeter, Lisette heading for the chuck wagon.

  She shook the trail boss awake. “Indians.”

  It didn’t take saying it twice. He charged from the bedroll, his cowboys abandoning their beds as well. All gathered guns. By now she heard war cries, dozens of them, plus exploding gunfire and thundering horse hooves.

  Cattle ran pell-mell.

  The night was lit orange with the flare of rifle and pistol fire as about a score of Indians circled and attacked. Cowmen defended them. Though frightened, Lisette wouldn’t run.

  She’d never fired a gun in her life, so she grabbed a butcher knife. Beside her, Gil yelled, “Get under the wagon,” but she didn’t. She was determined to do her part.

  A painted, vicious face came toward her. She swung the knife as he leaned down from his pony, but the bullet from Gil’s repeater rifle slammed into the Comanche’s chest. He fell not three feet from her.

  The Indian’s pony cut to the side, gallop
ed away.

  Gil yelled, “Get under the wagon, and I mean now.”

  This time she got beneath the wagon.

  The attack lasted another five, maybe ten minutes before she heard retreating horses. Pain grabbed her ribs when she forced air from her lungs. It was then she realized she had been holding her breath for quite some time. Worried about the trail boss and Matthias and the others, Lisette called out, “Are you all right?”

  “Some of us are.”

  Recognizing her friend’s voice, she scrambled from her place of safety. “What about Mister McLoughlin?”

  “I’m okay.”

  There was an uncharacteristic gruffness in his voice, and when she studied him, she knew why. Shoulders drooping, he stood over the still body of Willie Gaines. Willie, poor Willie. He’d said she reminded him of his sister . . . and he’d wanted to eat her cooking all the way to Kansas.

  Lisette had to force back tears. To cry would be a show of weakness in character with her gender.

  And there were more tears to stifle. Two more men were dead. Ernst Dietert and the guitar player, José; both had been on night patrol. Ernst had been a good, honest, hardworking man, José a fine musician. Those poor, poor men.

  But no one said a word.

  Lisette, also silent, stoked the embers of last night’s fire and made a pot of good, strong coffee. Johns Clark and Oscar Yates carried off the seven dead Comanches. She didn’t know where they were taken. And didn’t care.

  It did matter about the men of the Four Aces. She watched as the trail boss carried Willie to the crest of a hill. The wrangler, Fritz Fischer, toted Ernst; Matthias carried José.

  With shovels from the chuck wagon, Fritz and Matthias began to dig the hard-packed earth. The other men rode out to round up the cattle that had scattered during the attack. Stone-faced, Gil McLoughlin set to work fashioning three wooden crosses from oak limbs.

  At daybreak, ten mourners and a seemingly unruffled Blade Sharp laid the three cowhands to rest.

  Preacher Wilson said the proper words over their creekside graves, concluding with “. . . in the name of God Almighty, Amen.”

  They backed away from their fallen colleagues, all but the trail boss; hat in hand, he lingered. Lisette knew his grief was deep. Not knowing what else to do, she patted his arm. Turning troubled eyes to her, he settled his palm over her hand.

  “I–I’d better get breakfast,” she said, embarrassed by the intimacy.

  Lisette returned to the wagon and set about making breakfast. She had no desire to eat, and doubted the men did, but all would need sustenance for whatever lay ahead.

  The salt pork fried, she set the pieces on a platter. There were no eggs, of course. She made flour-and-water gravy; milk would have given it better flavor, but even she was aware that longhorns were notoriously poor milk-givers. Lifting biscuits from the Dutch oven, she looked up and saw Gil McLoughlin speaking with the preacher. The clergyman nodded every once in a while. Hopefully Eli Wilson wouldn’t leave, as he’d threatened during last evening’s tirade.

  When Lisette rang the triangle-bell, Sadie Lou wagged her tail and sat up on her haunches. “You’ll be fed, Liebling.” Within a half minute, the Four Aces crew assembled. Gil McLoughlin stood close by As the men filled their plates, she couldn’t help but notice the trail boss staring at her. Each time he caught her watching him, he flushed beneath his tan.

  Unnerved, she hastened to set a food dish on the ground for Sadie Lou.

  When she stood, she met the trail boss’s gaze.

  “Lisette, if you’re not too hungry, I’d like a word with you.” He gestured to a score of cattle. “Let’s . . . let’s walk over there.”

  “Ja.”

  By the time they reached the appointed place, Lisette was a bundle of nerves. Her eyes shifted to the left . . . and she screamed. A tonsil-vibrating, high-pitched scream.

  A bull, his nostrils dilated, was charging her. His massive thews, his twitching tail, his horns–wide as the beast’s body was long, and capable of great destruction –all of this was coming at her, from no more than fifty feet away. She whirled to flee, but Gil stepped in front of her and put a restricting hand on her forearm.

  “Settle down, it’s okay,” he said softly. “He won’t hurt you. It’s a handout he’s after. Yates’ll take care of him.”

  For some reason, she trusted his word.

  The bowlegged cowboy appeared, whistled to draw the bull’s attention, and led the enormous animal away. Lisette heard the tinkling of a cowbell; when she ventured a look at the bull, she noted a bell attached to an end of one horn.

  She could have died of embarrassment.

  “He’s one of your lead bulls, isn’t he?” she uttered in a tone very like a child’s.

  “My best. He’s Tecumseh Billy. We call him T-Bill for short. Couldn’t do without the lad. He guides the other leaders, and they keep the herd headed up the cowpath. This drive would be lost without him. He’s been with me for all three trips to Abilene.” The trail boss shuffled his boots. “He’s almost a pet.”

  She stepped to the side and mustered as much dignity as the situation allowed. “Adolf had only one milk cow, so I’m not accustomed to bulls.”

  “Uh, Lisette, there aren’t any bulls on this drive. T-Bill’s a steer. Do you know the difference? A steer’s harmless. But a bull can make it ’round the bend, and force his partner there . . . if need be.”

  The trail boss spoke with a double meaning, and Lisette sucked in her breath. He was no steer, if looks were any indication. Gil McLoughlin was all virility and potent vitality.

  She turned all red and flustered.

  At last she found a voice. “I’ve a lot to learn. And I apologize for overreacting.” Since you’ll never hire me now.

  Blue-gray eyes assessed her face. “Don’t be apologizing. You didn’t know.”

  “But I am a quick study.” She forced a confident stance as she met the doubt written in the trail boss’s features. “And I’ve got something on my side that you’ll find to your liking–the will to persevere.”

  “You did recover quick-like.”

  His doubt turned to something akin to admiration, yet he didn’t utter another word for interminable seconds. Lisette became worried again.

  “Lisette,” he said at last, “I’ve done a lot of thinking over the past few hours.”

  This didn’t sound good.

  “I’m in a terrible fix. I really have no option.”

  This sounded even worse.

  “It’s a long way into town, and your reputation would suffer. I’ve got to think about my men, one in particular. I understand Blade Sharp was talking with you last night.” A long-fingered hand rubbed the back of his neck. “He’s an acceptable cowpuncher, but he’s no gentleman.”

  Oh, just spit it out.

  “Another thing,” he said. “I know you and Matt are friends, but a man’s a man. You distract him. And you do yourself a disservice, inviting trouble with your forwardness.”

  She did not admire his bent toward the judgmental, and defended herself with, “I am what I am.”

  “Yeah, but you agitate the others, too, in that man-noticing-woman way. Well, maybe not the preacher.” He mopped his brow with his bandana. “Lisette, the men need to keep their minds on cattle and the elements and Comanche attacks. Each’ll be doing the work of two now.”

  “I know what you’re trying to say, and–”

  “No,” he broke in, “I don’t think you have any idea.”

  She looked at him. Doffing his Stetson, he exhaled and ran his fingers through that thick crop of curling, raven-black hair. Oh, Gott in Himmel, why did she have to think about his handsomeness? And why did she recall how refreshing it had been, his teasing? More than anything, she couldn’t stop figuring that he would prove no steer . . .

  “Lisette,” he murmured, “I’m not going to send you away.”

  “Danke.” Rushing forward, she threw her arms around his neck. He was warm, s
olid–all strength and power. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Despite the horrors of predawn and the scare of Tecumseh Billy, this was a fine, fine day. The sky had never looked so blue. The birds had never sung this sweetly. Gil McLoughlin had answered all her prayers.

  Chapter Five

  He dislodged Lisette’s arms from around his neck; her relief turned to apprehension, especially when the trail boss glanced across the stream, back at her, and scowled. She didn’t breathe. Surely he wouldn’t renege on the job offer still fresh in her ears. Would he?

  Of course he wouldn’t. He didn’t strike her as a man who made empty promises.

  “Excuse me.” He strode to the halfway point between the creek and camp. “Herd ’em up, boys,” he shouted. “Yates, leave the chuck wagon be. We’ll catch up with you.”

  The “we” confirmed her confidence in him.

  His men began to make a ten-wide column of longhorns, with Tecumseh Billy leading the pack. The boss, striding along the cactus- and cottonwood-lined path, returned to Lisette’s side. He kept a distance of three or four feet.

  “I need to ask some questions,” he said gravely. “They’re on the personal side, but a lot rides on this. You’re not a woman to ... you don’t . . . I couldn’t have–it’s like this.” He ran his hand down his mouth in a nervous gesture. “A loose woman could turn this drive into more trouble than any redskin could wreak on us. I can’t have that.”

  She could certainly assure him on this score. “No one shares my bed, Mister McLoughlin. No one.”

  “I thought so.” He expelled a sigh. “You’ve got to understand, it was a question that had to be asked.”

  “I understand.”

  “Lisette, it won’t be socials and teas, not here and not anywhere between here and Kansas.”

  The calm assurance in his gaze wrapped around her like a warm cloak on a winter’s day when he added, “Don’t worry, I’ll cushion you from the brunt of the hardships. And the work.”

  “I neither ask for, nor will I accept, special treatment.” She glanced at the herd disappearing over a rise. “You won’t find me screaming at the likes of Tecumseh Billy again, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”