“I’ll take first guard tonight,” Fargo said when the men were debating who should have the chore. He might as well, since he wasn’t all that tired. That, and he said it loud enough so that Sarah heard as she was carrying Mandy off.
Soon the circle was quiet. All the emigrants had turned in. Snores rose from several quarters. The horses were dozing, and a nicely cool and refreshing breeze blew out of the northwest.
Fargo stood up and cradled the Henry. Time for his first circuit of the camp. He moved toward the edge of the circle.
Out of the dark stepped Sarah, her hands clasped behind her back. Nervously shifting her weight from one foot to the other, she whispered, “I thought you might like some company.”
“You thought right,” Fargo said.
6
Fargo liked how the starlight played off her long black hair. “Walk with me,” he said, and moved beyond the wagons on the west side of the circle. Before them, like a great salt sea, stretched the alkali flats.
Sarah faced into the breeze, the lower half of her dress molded to her thighs. “I like it at night. It’s so peaceful.”
“Are you sure about this?” Fargo asked.
Her face was inscrutable in the dark. “There you go again. Thinking of me first. You flatter me beyond measure and I have no idea why.”
Fargo put his hand on her hip. “It’s not much of a mystery. I’m not a monk.” He slowly ran his fingers down her leg.
“And I’m no nun.” Suddenly embracing him, Sarah covered his mouth with hers in a kiss ripe with need and lust. Her tongue darted between his parted lips and swirled enticingly about his.
“Nice,” Fargo said when they parted for breath. “Very nice.”
“You must think I’m a hussy.”
“You’re a beautiful woman without a husband. You’ve been alone for too long and you want to forget for a while.”
Sarah gripped his chin and bored her eyes into his. “Who are you? How can you see into the depths of my soul?”
“I’m a good guesser,” Fargo said. Which wasn’t entirely true. Just as he had honed his skills at tracking until he was second to none, so, too, had he become adept at reading people. At seeing past what they said and did to how they truly were. More than once it had saved his life.
“There has to be more to it than that,” Sarah said. “You’re a man of marvelous mystery.”
Fargo started to laugh but choked it off so as not to awaken the others. “I’m just a man. No more. No less. There’s nothing special about me.”
“In my eyes there is.” Sarah ran a finger along his chin. “I will never forget you for as long as I live.”
Fargo had no interest in hearing how wonderful he supposedly was. “Let’s walk a little more,” he suggested.
“I would like that.” Sarah grinned and arched her back, the swell of her bosom adding to Fargo’s growing hunger. “We can’t go too far, though.”
Fargo understood. She wanted to stay within ear-shot in case Mandy needed her. The alkali flats lay quiet and still under the celestial canopy but appearances were often deceiving. There was no telling who, or what, might be out there.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Sarah said softly. “I’m not very bold by nature.”
“Bold enough to gamble your life and your daughter’s on reaching California.”
“Necessity is the midwife to courage. I’m doing this more for Mandy than for myself. She has her whole life ahead of her and I want it to be a good one.”
Fargo’s arm touched hers—or did hers brush his?—and a warm tingle shot up it. The swish of her dress was a lure he could barely, for the moment, resist.
“We should reach Barnes Trading Post the day after tomorrow,” Sarah mentioned, “if what Swink and Raskum told us is true.”
“That soon?” For Fargo it was good news.
“They said it’s in a box canyon, cut off from the outside world by high cliffs. I always thought that was an odd place for a trading post.”
Fargo thought so too. Normally, trading posts were built where their owners could reap the most profits, not off in the middle of a wasteland.
“There’s water there,” Sarah said. “A spring that never goes dry. Plenty of grass, too, they claimed.”
“Did Swink or Raskum say anything else that might interest me?”
“Let me see.” Sarah pursed her full lips. “Swink was fairly quiet most of the time. Raskum was the one who liked to hear himself talk, and he was always going on about something or other. One time he mentioned that we were lucky to be taking the Barnes Trail because in three or four years the trading post will close and no one will take it ever again.”
Another odd comment, Fargo thought. Trading posts depended on trails, not the other way around. The people using the trail kept the trading post in business. If every trading post along the Oregon Trail were to abruptly close, thousands would still use the Oregon Trail every year.
“Raskum talked about how he was going to be rich one day, if you can believe that. He said he would have more money than he knew what to do with. Trying to impress me, I guess. It was the only time I ever saw Swink mad at him. Swink told him to shut up, or else.”
“That’s all?” Fargo had hoped for information that might explain the disappearances of the other wagon trains.
“Most of what Raskum said to me was personal,” Sarah said, “and most of it was rude and lewd. Once he had the gall to tell me to my face that there would come a day, and soon, when I would beg him to help me and he would laugh in my face.”
“Was he drunk?”
“Sober as could be. When I told him I would rather die than be beholden to him, he said they all felt that way until they learned different.” Sarah paused. “What did he mean by that, you think?”
“Who can say?” Fargo responded, but he had a suspicion. He looked back. They had walked about fifty yards. Far enough, yet not too far. Stopping, he bent and placed the Henry on the ground, then unfurled and wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to him. She smelled of lilacs and soap. “You can go back if you want.”
“No,” Sarah whispered. “I’ve wanted you since the moment I set eyes on you. But I’ve never done anything like this before. Never been so impulsive. My husband courted me for a year and I still didn’t give in until after we were wed.”
His groin twitching, Fargo waited for her to make the next move.
“This is like a dream to me. I’m not sure it’s happening, or if you are even real.” Sarah searched his face. “Are you?”
In answer, Fargo grasped her hand and placed it on the bulge in his pants. She stiffened, and for a moment he thought he had gone too fast and she would pull away. Then her fingers began caressing him and his bulge became a redwood.
“Oh my,” Sarah husked. “You’re very well endowed.”
Fargo kissed her. This time it was his tongue that slid between her lips and stroked her tongue in silken stimulation. She moaned and ground her hips against him, the fingernails on her right hand biting into his shoulder.
“It’s been so long,” Sarah breathed after a while. “So very, very long.”
“Let’s make up for lost time,” Fargo said, and cupped her breast. He felt the nipple harden and pinched it, eliciting another, louder, moan.
“Oh yes! I like that.”
Lowering his mouth to her neck, Fargo kissed and licked until she was squirming and cooing. When he squeezed her breast, she raised her face to the heavens, her mouth parted in an O. But she did not cry out. She was holding it in. She did not want anyone to hear them. She did not want her fellow emigrants to brand her a tramp. He squeezed her other breast and sucked on her earlobe and she squirmed all the harder, her nipples brushing back and forth across his chest.
Fargo began undoing her dress to gain access to her charms. She helped, as eager as he was for release, and when his mouth enfolded a taut nipple, she went rigid and her fingernails nearly drew blood.
“Yess
sssssss.”
Fargo lathered her left breast, then her right, sucking and massaging until both were heaving and her hot breaths fanned his neck. One of her ankles hooked behind his legs and she clung to his shoulders, her soft, scented hair spilling over his shoulders as well as hers.
“More,” Sarah husked. “I want more.”
So did Fargo. He hiked at her dress, pulling it above her knees, and delved his right hand under its folds. To his amazement she wore nothing underneath. Nothing at all. She had removed her undergarments in anticipation of this moment. His fingers brushed her velvet thigh and he stroked up one and down the other.
Now it was Sarah who was kissing his neck and nibbling on his ear. It felt as if her mouth had been forged in the molten core of a volcano. She rose higher to plant kisses on every square inch of his face.
Fargo caressed in small circles from her right knee to her downy thatch, and she shivered and nipped lightly at the sensitive skin on his throat. Extending his middle finger he slid it between her legs and let it rest on her moist slit.
“Ohhhhhhh,” Sarah mewed. “I want you so much, Flint.”
The mention of the name he was using jarred Fargo into glancing toward the wagon train. He mustn’t forget why he was there, mustn’t forget that two hundred and five people had disappeared. The night was tranquil, though, the prairie schooners were undisturbed.
Lowering his mouth to hers, Fargo sucked on Sarah’s tongue while slowly parting her nether lips. He touched her swollen knob. For a few moments she was perfectly still, then she cupped him, low down, and did to him as he was doing to her.
“Don’t stop,” Sarah begged. “Please don’t ever stop.”
Fargo did her one better. Suddenly sinking to his knees, he parted her legs wider and nuzzled into her core.
“What are you doing?” Sarah asked. Then, “Oh! Oh! No one has ever done that to me before!” From her throat issued a drawn out groan that wafted on the breeze. Her hands fell to his head and she knocked his hat off and pressed his face hard against her. “Ahhhhhh. Like that! Like that!”
Fargo inserted his tongue and her inner walls rippled in response. He swirled it, relishing the taste of her womanly nectar, and suddenly she gasped and gripped his hair and thrust herself at him, gushing again and again. The lower half of his face became drenched with her juices. When he pulled back and rose, she sagged against him, spent.
“I’ve never,” Sarah whispered.
Fargo stroked her hair. He would wait a bit. Pleasure, like good whiskey, should be savored, not rushed.
“Do you,” Sarah began, but could not bring herself to ask the rest until he squeezed her arm in encouragement. “Do you think less of me?”
“Why would I?”
“What we’re doing. A lot of people consider it wrong. We’re not man and wife. We’ve only just met and here I am giving myself to you.” Sarah placed her cheek on his neck. “I’m not the person I thought I was.”
“You don’t hear me complaining.”
“I have no regrets, though,” Sarah said.
While she was talking Fargo had freed his manhood. Bracing himself, he rubbed the tip where it would excite her the most, then gripped her hips and slowly fed himself into her.
The loudest groan yet fluttered from her, and Sarah threw back her head and closed her eyes. Her hands found his shoulders and she wrapped her legs around his waist, her ankles behind his back.
Fargo rocked upward on the balls of his feet and sank back down again. Settling into a rhythm, he felt her inner sheath mold to him like a scabbard to a sword. She matched him thrust for thrust. Her mouth was everywhere: his lips, his chin, his neck, his ears.
Their explosion was a long time coming. Fargo built up to it slowly, pacing himself. She went over the brink first. Her eyes widened and she mewed and then she exclaimed, “Again! I’m there again!” Her hips churned and her thighs clamped harder and she drenched him.
Fargo coasted to a stop. Sarah was breathing heavily, pure rapture on her face. Her arms relaxed and her legs grew slack. He gripped her hips as if to ease her off but instead rammed up into her with renewed vigor.
“More?” Sarah said in amazement, and after that she did not say anything for a long while.
A precipice loomed before Fargo. A precipice he had been over many times. His blood roared in his ears and he was slick with sweat. A constriction formed in his throat. Another moment, and the night spun, and he was swept along by a tidal wave of bliss. It was an eternity before he coasted to a stop.
They held on to one another until Sarah disentangled herself and smoothed her dress. “Thank you, Mr. Flint. I needed that.”
“You have it backward,” Fargo found his hat and jammed it on his head, then hiked at his gun belt to adjust it. The Colt started to slide out but he caught it and gave it a practiced twirl.
“My husband never liked guns much,” Sarah mentioned.
“He never kissed you there, either,” Fargo said, touching between her legs.
Giggling, Sarah pecked him on the cheek. “How did you get to be the way you are? To always do what you want. To not care what others think. To be the person you want to be and not the person everyone expects?”
Fargo shrugged. “I ride my own trail.”
“I wish I could. But it’s harder for a woman than a man. Anyone who says it isn’t is a fool.”
A slight sound reached Fargo’s ears, a sound he could not quite identify.
“We should get back,” Sarah said. “I don’t like being away from Mandy. She’s all I have in this world.”
They linked elbows and strolled contentedly toward the prairie schooners. Fargo could still taste her in his mouth, and her skin was a lilac bouquet. “Has Sloane told you about tomorrow?”
“What about it?”
“You won’t be last in line, eating everyone’s dust. From now on everyone will take turns.”
“How did you manage that miracle?”
Before Fargo could answer, the night was pierced by a high-pitched scream of sheer terror. It wasn’t the scream of a man or a woman. It was the scream of a child, of a young girl.
“Mandy!” Sarah cried, and flew toward the wagons.
7
Skye Fargo figured that Mandy had woken up, found her mother gone, and panicked. Kids her age did that. His main concern was for Sarah. The caterwauling was bound to wake up everyone else, and they would wonder what Sarah was doing up and about so late. Scooping up his rifle, he hurried after her, wishing Mandy would stop her screaming.
The next moment she did, only to cry, “Ma! Ma! Help me! He’s taking me away!”
Then, just like that, the night went silent.
Fargo poured on the speed. The girl was in trouble. Real trouble. He overtook Sarah and streaked past her into the circle. Sloane and the other men were up, armed with rifles or pistols. Women were clutching children. He reached the Yager’s prairie schooner and was about to leap onto the seat and check inside when hooves drummed in the dark and a forlorn cry wafted across the alkali flats.
“Maaaaaaaaaaaa!”
After that, nothing.
“What’s happening?” Peter Sloane demanded, waving his rifle. “Was that the Yager girl?”
“Mandy! Mandy!” Sarah pushed past him and frantically climbed onto her wagon. “Little one? Where are you?” She was denying the evidence of her own ears. “Mother is here!”
Fargo ran to the Ovaro. He didn’t bother with his saddle or the bridle. Grabbing hold of its mane, he swung up and rode bareback into the night. He hoped the child would cry out again or that he would hear the other horse but the only sounds were the ruckus being raised by the emigrants and the sigh of the wind.
When he was about where Mandy’s cry had come from, Fargo drew rein and turned his head this way and that, straining his ears. To no avail.
Swinging down, Fargo searched for tracks. He might miss them in the dark but he had to try. Roving in ever wider circles, he was about to admit defe
at and come back again at first light when he spied large pockmarks leading into the distance. Kneeling, he ran his hand over one. It confirmed his worst fear. The horse had not been shod.
As much as Fargo would like to go after her, he didn’t. Tracking at night was slow and tedious. Even if he used a torch, it would take hours to cover ground he could cover much faster in broad daylight. Common sense, if nothing else, dictated he wait until morning.
Swinging onto the pinto, Fargo headed for the wagons. The emigrants were milling about. Sarah was by her wagon, her arms across her bosom, her head hung low. Fargo did not have to see her face to know she was in the throes of deep despair. Peter Sloane and several others surrounded her.
“I don’t understand, Mrs. Yager,” Sloane was saying. “What do you mean, you weren’t here? Where were you?”
“I went for a walk,” Sarah answered without looking up, her voice choked thick with emotion.
“At this time of night?” Sloane said. “What were you thinking? How could you leave your child alone?”
Fargo entered the circle and stopped the Ovaro next to his bedroll. As he slid down, the emigrants scurried over and immediately beleaguered him with queries, all of them talking at once.
“Where’s Mandy Yager?”
“Why did you rush off like that?”
“What was all the screaming about?”
Fargo held up a hand to quiet them. He turned to go to Sarah but she was shouldering through them, tears glistening palely on her cheeks. She gripped him by the front of his shirt, her eyes asking the question she could not bring herself to voice aloud. “Mandy has been taken,” he confirmed.
Sarah groaned and sagged.
“What do you mean by taken?” Mrs. Jurgensen asked.
“Kidnapped,” Fargo made it clearer. He wanted to enfold Sarah in his arms and comfort her but it might bring more grief down on her shoulders. He had to be careful or he would compromise her.
“Who would do such a thing?” another woman wondered.
“Was it Swink?” Nickelby threw in.
Fargo told them the truth. “It was a Paiute.”
Sarah groaned louder and her legs buckled. She would have collapsed had Fargo not caught her about the waist. Gently lowering her onto his blankets, he leaned her back against his saddle. She did not seem to notice. Her face had gone blank, her tear-filled eyes were wide and unfocused.
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