Caress of Fire

by Martha Hix

  He went for the animals, yet his eyes didn’t drop their guard.

  Cactus Blossom took the shovel and began to dig the fire trench. “Albino, since you know my man’s name, do you know where I can find him?”

  “I do. He’s one of our drovers.”

  Cactus Blossom, propping up the shovel and resting her wrist on it, shook her head. “No. It couldn’t be my Dung Eyes. He never works; it would dirty his hands.”

  “Dung Eyes?”

  “His eyes are the color of dung. It angers him when I call him thus. But his name fits. That is the Comanche way of naming.”

  “Mister Hatch’s eyes are brown. And he’s rather a dandy. We may be referring to the same man.”

  Cactus Blossom arranged wood in the pit, then leaned back on her heels. “I wonder why my man is driving cattle.”

  “He needed money.”

  “He had much wampum when he was with me.” She extracted flint from her pouch, then struck the wood. “I am a good hunter, a good cook, and an excellent trader.”

  “What do you trade?”

  “Myself. For the white man’s wampum.”

  Lisette had never met a prostitute, and her face turned scarlet. All she could answer to the announcement was, “Oh.”

  A finger going to her upper lip, Cactus Blossom squinted at the dying sun. “His medicine must have gone bad, if Hatch is desperate enough to work for his living.”

  By now, the longhorns were approaching, Tecumseh Billy at the lead. Lisette pointed to a flank rider. “There’s your man.”

  The squaw stood up and emitted a cry sounding much like the Comanche war cries that Lisette had heard the night Willie Gaines and the others had perished.

  “Dung Eyes!”

  Cactus Blossom ran, lithe and sure-footed, to Frank Hatch. “I have searched long and hard for you.”

  Gil stomped toward the duo. “What is going on here?”

  Grim-faced, Hatch glanced down at Cactus Blossom before turning his regard to the trail boss. “It looks as if my squaw has found me.”

  “No more couples on this drive,” Gil said, slicing his hand through the air.

  “You needn’t worry, McLoughlin.” Hatch tried to kick the woman away from her hold. “She’ll be going back the way she came.”

  “Good.” Gil doffed his straw hat to rub his brow with a forearm. “I’m glad to know you’re on my side in this.”

  Yet Cactus Blossom didn’t leave. She shared dinner with the Four Aces outfit, Cencero Leal serenading the group, and hand-fed her husband during it. Hatch didn’t act as if he enjoyed the treatment. When the supper dishes were washed and put away, she was still in camp.

  Lisette noticed Matthias watching the woman with open curiosity. As for the other men, a couple were straightforward in their dislike for the “Injun,” but most didn’t seem to mind her presence. Deep Eddy Roland, as usual, didn’t express an opinion, which was his way.

  Preacher Wilson, whom Lisette had grown to like as well as respect, said a prayer.

  “Do you know how to make son-of-a-bitch stew?” Fritz Fischer asked slowly, and received a pop on the back of his head from Oscar Yates.

  “Mind yer manners, boy. Don’t be talkin’ ugly in front o’ women.”

  “But, Oscar, Frau McLoughlin is familiar with it, and I was just wondering about–”

  “Now, my Susie could sure fix up a pot o’ the stew in question, lickety-split.” Yates continued with a long-winded tale about his much-revered departed wife and favorite cook. At the yarn’s climax, several cowhands were yawning. “... ’Course, our girl Lisetty, she be the only woman what could hold a candle to my Susie. Did I ever tell you ’bout the time Susie . . .” He was once more on the oratory.

  Dinky Peele, Wink Tannington, and Johns Clark emitted a collective groan and unfurled their bedrolls. Cactus Blossom stood up, extending her hand to Hatch. “We will sleep now.” Brooking no argument, she grabbed Hatch’s bedding.

  “Going with her, squaw man?” asked Attitude Powell.

  Hatch ignored the bearded man from Tennessee and swept his attention to the trail boss. “McLoughlin, I’d best talk some sense into the woman.”

  “You’d better, Hatch. You’d damned sure better.”

  The Georgian followed after his wife, and Gil turned to the men surrounding the campfire. “She will be gone on the morrow,” he said, his nostrils flaring. “The only female on this drive is my wife, and it’s going to stay that way.”

  It was all Lisette could do to cajole him to a hideaway place of their own.

  He took the strongbox that had been hidden in the chuck wagon against “thieving redskins.”

  Lisette spread their pallet. At this point she didn’t know how to feel about Cactus Blossom’s presence in camp, since it seemed strange to have a prostitute among the men. Surely Mr. Hatch wouldn’t allow her to ply her trade.

  If Gil were to discover her occupation, he wouldn’t allow it, of this Lisette was certain, she thought as she watched him unbuckle Thelma’s belt.

  Tugging the shirttail from his Levis, he turned to Lisette; he rubbed the scar under his eye. “I get antsy when you get quiet. You’re not thinking about keeping that squaw around, I hope.”

  Lisette elevated her chin. “I like Cactus Blossom.”

  “Get it out of your head. This drive isn’t gonna turn into a paradise for women. And that’s that.”

  Maybe it would be for the best if Cactus Blossom did say her good-byes. Yet Lisette had enjoyed having another woman to talk with. Cactus Blossom was as different from Anna Uhr as dawn was to midnight–Anna would never sell her body, for goodness’ sake–but Lisette and the Comanche woman shared the camaraderie of women.

  And to send the woman on her lonely way brought back memories to Lisette . . . memories of being alone and uncertain. She didn’t wish for anyone to suffer that fate.

  “Lisette,” Gil said, stretching out her name, “I hope you heard what I said.”

  “You haven’t fared badly having a woman along.”

  “A woman. One, not two.” He pitched his boots to the ground and grabbed a cigar. He lit it, puffed in two quick draughts of smoke, then blew them out. “Get something straight, Lisette. I make the rules around here.”

  “Cactus Blossom is to be turned out, and there’s no arguing?”

  “As I said, I make the rules around here.”

  From his adamant tone, from the fierceness in his quicksilver eyes, Lisette knew there would be no arguing with Gil. It didn’t mean she had to like it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Frank Hatch didn’t need this complication.

  He cut a look of annoyance at Cactus Blossom as she spread his bedroll beside the shelter of a head-high precipice. Damn her. Why did she have to show up when everything was going so well for him and his plans for retaliation?

  She turned and said, “We must powwow.”

  “All I want is for you to leave,” he replied harshly.

  Her big black eyes looked squarely at him. “I would not be here if I didn’t think danger was upon you.”

  “You and your stupid heathen notions.”

  She shucked her buckskin sheath and stood naked under the moonlight. At one time Hatch would have been interested in the sight, but not anymore. And his revulsion wasn’t totally a result of the self-inflicted scars that crisscrossed her belly.

  She might be clean enough, but she was too sinful for his contradicting reasons and tastes.

  She walked over to him, thrusting her tits upward, and he reached to twist a nipple. “I see your milk has dried up.”

  She slapped his hand, answering, “It has.”

  “Nothing’s left of our daughter.”

  “I will never forget Weeping Willow.”

  “That I doubt. I don’t think you give a care that she’s dead.” Hatch cared, for all the good it did him. He ordered sourly, “Put your clothes on.”

  “I am in need of a man.”

  “Then go back to camp.
I’m sure you’ll find one there. You usually can, wherever there’s a hard cock. Try the bearded one–Powell. He should be a challenge, since you seem to disgust him almost as much as you disgust me.”

  “Would you like to watch . . . again?” was her languid response.

  “I might.” Ever since the real Mrs. McLoughlin had let him watch her with Elmo Whittle, Hatch had enjoyed the perversion. He cut a glance at Cactus Blossom. “It’d be the only satisfaction I could get from you.”

  “Then you will have to go unhappy. I will only trade my body to those I am interested in.”

  “Gotten persnickety, eh?” She nodded, and he scowled as she made herself comfortable in his bedroll. “Get out of there.”

  “No. I will sleep now.”

  Goddamn annoying heathen. “Then sleep on the ground. I need my rest for tomorrow.”

  “Why do you work, Dung Eyes?”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  He huffed over to kick her buttock. Meaning to scare him and scooting away before his foot connected, she gave him one of those mean Indian looks.

  “You didn’t answer me. Why do you work, Dung Eyes? I feel you have evil designs on something here.”

  “You do too much thinking.”

  She stilled, and he knew her ears were pricking. Slowly she went for her knife, then lunged out from the ground to decapitate a rattlesnake–that had been slithering toward him!

  “Well, you’re still good for something,” he allowed as she sliced off the snake’s tail and deposited the rattles in her pouch which held a score of this and that, most of it as detestable as the possessor. “At least I can depend on you to protect me from danger.”

  “That is why I am here. The silver star in Lampasas is looking for a murderer. A man died in a fire, and you are known as one who sets fires.”

  “No one knows that but you.”

  “You are wrong, Dung Eyes.” She pointed the blade in his direction, no doubt to ward off another kick in the butt. “Word has reached the law that you are wanted in several towns for starting fires.”

  “Yankee houses. I just burn carpetbaggers’ houses.”

  “If you send me away, I can tell the law in Fort Worth where to find you.”

  “Bitch, I ought to slit your throat.”

  “You won’t, Dung Eyes. If you had been capable of killing me, you would have done it when the sun was rising over Dead Buffalo Bluff.”

  “Don’t remind me,” he bit out, closing his thoughts on her morning of ultimate sin. “I’d just like to know why the hell you’re interested in staying with me.”

  “I have no interest in staying with you.” Cactus Blossom put away her knife. “I am interested only in making certain you do no harm to the nice albino lady.”

  “If that’s all you’re worried about, then you can leave. I have nothing against the”–he clipped off “new,” since it would be best to keep the squaw in the dark. “I’ve nothing against Mrs. McLoughlin.”

  “But you have something against her man. I can see it in the dirty brown of your eyes.”

  The damned squaw knew him too well. She knew he wouldn’t kill her, and bring trouble on himself in the McLoughlin camp.

  “If you hurt Long Legs, you hurt Albino,” Cactus Blossom said. “I will not allow you to work your evil.”

  “I doubt you’ll get the chance for anything but moving on. McLoughlin won’t let you stay in his camp.”

  Cactus Blossom settled back in the bedroll. “His woman will not make me leave, and you should not try to keep me away. Don’t forget, Dung Eyes, I can protect you from danger . . . or I can tell the silver star where to find you.”

  Hatch had to think on this a while. No way would McLoughlin allow Cactus Blossom to stay, but if he did, Hatch decided her presence might work in his favor, which was another reason to keep her alive.

  Already he’d sensed that Lisette had a soft spot for the squaw, and Hatch wouldn’t have anyone thinking him ungentlemanly by sending her on her way. Why not use it to best advantage?

  Fingers of dawn touched Lisette’s eyelids. She lay in her husband’s arms, not wanting to start another day. Already she was late with breakfast, but leaving the cradle Gil provided was as simple as pulling teeth. Of course, she ought to be angry, what with his refusal to allow Cactus Blossom to stay with Mr. Hatch, but she understood his misgivings.

  A pitiful bawling opened her eyes.

  As she raised her head, nausea roiled. Taking a deep breath to quell it, she saw a mother cow and her newborn. The pair were about twenty feet from this pallet, the cow licking the birth-wet face. Lisette’s heart tugged; she knew the calf would be left behind once the drive headed out.

  Pulling away from her husband and picking up a canteen of water, she turned her back on the pitiable sight of Mutter and Kleinkind and went behind a bush to vomit up the contents of her stomach.

  Finished with that and with a modicum of ablutions, she accepted her condition. She smiled. A babe was growing.

  What would happen now? The trail drive was a long way from the railhead. Could she, would she, should she continue the trip? Of course she could and would. She wasn’t some delicate flower in need of pampering. She was pioneering the trail, healthy as a horse, and babes had been incubated under far worse conditions.

  She returned to the spot where she and her husband had slept. He was dressed, his forefingers grasping the mule-ears of his boot as he pulled it on.

  “Good morning,” he said, and smiled at Lisette.

  The newborn calf, a dozen paces to Gil’s rear, captured Lisette’s attention again. The mite was suckling an udder, his mother standing quietly with a look of pride and accomplishment on her shaggy, bovine face.

  “Oh, Gil,” Lisette murmured, “aren’t they wonderful?”

  “Huh?”

  And then she spied Cactus Blossom, a knife in her raised hand, stealing toward the animals.

  “Don’t you dare!” Lisette rushed forward. “Cactus Blossom, don’t!”

  Shaking her head, the Comanche woman sheathed her knife. “What is wrong now, albino? Don’t you eat calf? It makes for tender eating. Even the toothless of my tribe can enjoy it.”

  “We aren’t interested in hearing stories of your damned tribe,” Gil said. “What are you still doing here?”

  Cactus Blossom continued forward and stopped in front of Lisette and Gil. “I was looking for you and your woman, Long Legs. I have fixed a meal and coffee, and it grew cold while we waited for you.”

  “My wife does the cooking for the Four Aces crew.”

  Actually, Lisette rather enjoyed the idea of having a break from all those ghastly cooking smells. You should be ashamed of yourself. Meals are your responsibility, and Gil depends on you.

  “You’d rather have your woman cook than warm your tepee?” Cactus Blossom was saying. “You are a strange man, Long Legs.”

  “Mrs. Hatch, if you’ve eaten, I suggest you be on your way.”

  “Gil, we can’t send her off on foot.”

  “Go see Fritz Fischer, Mrs. Hatch. Tell him I said to give you a horse from the remuda.”

  “I am not Mrs. Hatch. I am not wife to anyone.”

  “It figures,” Gil groused. “Take Hatch with you. Take two horses and be gone.”

  “My man doesn’t want to go. He wants to work for you.”

  “If he wants to be with you, he’ll go.” Gil slapped his hat atop his head. “Come on, Lisette. We’re wasting good daylight hours.”

  Lisette wasn’t in the mood to argue about anything. Yet as she walked past the calf, as Gil strung a rope around the mother’s horns to lead her back to the herd, Lisette stood her ground.

  “If Cactus Blossom wants to go along with us, I think we should let her.”

  The Comanche woman beamed at this.

  Gil did not.

  He motioned to Cactus Blossom. “Go back to camp. And right now, God damn it.”

  She turned on the ball of a moccasined foot and disappeared
in the direction of the campsite.

  His face set in a hard line, Gil asked Lisette, “Are you trying to tell me how to run my cattle drive?”

  Lisette scowled. Gil wouldn’t even want the Madonna along on their journey. Qualifying her statement, she said, “I’m telling you I could use some help.”

  “Yates and Pigweed can do it.”

  “That crabby old man and that slow-witted boy?” she asked, and disliked herself for playing dirty and skewering two men who’d treated her as if she were some sort of duchess. Nonetheless, she wasn’t contrite enough to back down. “You know I haven’t been feeling well, and Cactus Blossom would be a comfort to me.”

  “Don’t do me this way, Lisette.”

  “I’ve been given to understand most trail cooks have assistants to help them.”

  “You need help, ask for it. In the meantime, please don’t appeal to my sympathies.”

  “All right, fine. I’ll just go on being lonesome, and you can go on being the big cattle baron, making his own rules. And the Lord help anyone who gets in your way.”

  “What do you mean, lonesome? You’ve got your work, you’ve got more than a dozen cowboys at your beck and call, and you’ve got me. How can you be lonesome?”

  “I miss having another woman to chat with.”

  “Then you should have stayed back in Fredericksburg. There’re a lot of women there.”

  Irritated at his cut-to-the-bone remark, she stepped back, and her annoyance turned to a wish to get even. She huffed over to the mother cow, took the rope from its horns, and wound it around the calf’s neck. The babe gazed up with trusting eyes; his mother threw back her mighty head to bawl a protest before tipping a horn at Lisette.

  “What are you doing?” Gil asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know, making mincemeat pie?”

  Thrusting her nose in the air, Lisette urged the wobbly calf along. She might not have any control over whether Cactus Blossom stayed, but she, by darn, wasn’t going to leave this poor little baby for the buzzards.

  Babies had special meaning to her.

  Gil grasped the strongbox and tucked it under his arm. “If you’re wanting to make mincemeat we’ve got plenty of suet in the chuck box.”