Gathering on Dance Hall Road

by Dorothy A. Bell

  “Well, maybe we should’ve. But it’s too late now. We’ll have to brazen it out.” He found his boots and put them on.

  Melody found her blouse and put it on and started to button it up. “No one’s going to believe all we did was talk.”

  “Nope,” he said. “No one’s going to believe all we did was talk. I don’t believe all we did was talk. I am a fool. I’ll kick myself for being a fool for the rest of my life.”

  Melody burst out laughing and sat down beside him to elbow him in the ribs. “You were a gentleman. I shall never forget our first night together. Never,” she said, and flopped back in hysterical laughter, pointing her finger at him.

  “You think it’s funny?”

  Holding her side, she said, “I do.”

  He pounced on her, tickling her ribs, kissing her neck.

  Fighting for breath, Melody wiggled out from under him and landed on the floor of the wagon gasping for air.

  »»•««

  With Ranger and Maji tied to the rear, Van pulled their wagon to the side of the road to allow a string of three wagons, a small pony cart, four men, and two women on horseback to go around them.

  Melody pointed to a dilapidated old house off in the distance to the north surrounded by big oaks. “It’s over there. That’s the house. I don’t see the barn. It must’ve finally collapsed.”

  “Do you want to go up the lane, see it?”

  “God, no. I have nightmares about the place, and I don’t even have a clear memory of living there. I was only three. We found out several years after we moved to Laura Creek the owners of the ranch down the road took over the property when the bank foreclosed after our parents died. It’s their land now. I don’t care to disturb the ghosts.”

  He got the wagon back into the stream of traffic. Melody directed her eyes forward, her hand on his knee, fingers clenching and unclenching until they were well past the place.

  “What’s this festival about?” he asked to take her mind off of her nightmares.

  She shook her head and offered him a tight little smile. “There are several versions. One is, Scottish settlers headed west camped along the Wolf River and were ambushed by the Indians, or at least they thought they were being ambushed. The Indians surrounded their camp for two days. The weather turned on them with an early cold snap, and the settlers started to run out of food. They waved a white flag. Come to find out all the Indians wanted was to do a bit of trading. The Indians shared their elk, and the Scots had some knives and buckles. The trade took place, unwanted furniture and clothing for rugs and blankets, that sort of thing. Because both sides survived with no loss of life, the Scotts celebrated and showed off performing some of their Caledonian games. The Indians celebrated a good trade with some of their games. The party lasted for a couple of days. Now every year the Scots and the Indians get together to do a little celebrating with games, trading, and a horse fair. That’s my favorite version. The other versions are bloody and mean, and I don’t like to recount them.”

  »»•««

  They arrived at River Glenn at sundown in time to watch the Scotsmen in their kilts and sporrans light the torches that circled the center ring. The open meadow, surrounded by cottonwood trees, was crowded with wagons and milling people. Finding a spot for the Miller wagon took some negotiating as Ollie insisted she was a vendor and needed to be accessible to the public. Van and Melody were content to have their wagon placed among the campers in the far field.

  With the team unhitched and Ranger and Maji properly bedded down next to their wagon, Van and Melody headed for the center ring. The sound of the bagpipe’s siren wail signaled the opening of the festival.

  Melody stopped and shivered and folded her arms across her chest. “Those pipes, they give me gooseflesh. Listen to the echo. It does something to my insides. I can’t explain it. The sound makes me want to laugh and cry all at the same time. They used them in battle you know, to scare the enemy, much like the Indians scream before a charge.”

  “Like you did when you came charging up over the hill at me?”

  She giggled and nodded. “Yes, like that.”

  “Effective. And loud,” he said, taking her elbow to steady her as they crossed the field in the dark.

  ∙•∙

  The festivities had settled in for the night and the stars were out, no threat of rain or storm. Van spread his bedroll out on the ground beside Melody’s wagon.

  “What are you doing?” Melody asked. He couldn’t see her, not really, but he knew she stood at the rear wheel, just out of reach of the light coming from inside her wagon.

  “I’m going to sleep,” he said and smoothed down the end of the bedroll, which was still damp from the rain of the night before.

  She came and stood right behind him. “Out here?”

  “Yeah, out here.”

  “Why?”

  He got to his feet to tower over her and looked around at all the other camps nearby, their fires glowing in the dark. A group of men sat around one campfire; he could hear the low rumble of their voices, and sometimes laughter. Ollie, he knew, remained, hovering over her Dutch-oven, busy baking for tomorrow.

  “Looks safe enough,” he said. “Grounds flat here, no big rocks. Your wagon and the Miller’s wagon gives me some shelter. It’ll do.”

  “You don’t want to be with me, then?” she asked, her voice cracking, and even in the dark, he could see her pretty eyes full of hurt.

  Damn the woman. “Go to bed, Kit.”

  She put her hand on his cool cheek and her other hand went around his neck. “I just thought we’d share my wagon now. Ollie knows. Jerry knows. No one’s said a word against us being together. All these people,” she said and pressed her body against his, “they don’t know us from Adam’s Aunt Mable, so…come on, get in the wagon and we’ll…we’ll talk awhile, and hold each other.”

  He removed her arms from around his neck. “So this is your attempt at using your feminine wiles on me, is it? You are evil. No, go to bed.”

  She slapped his chest. “Fine,” she said and turned her back on him.

  “Fine,” he said when she stomped away.

  “I won’t beg,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t want you to,” he said, watching her climb into her wagon.

  She stopped and turned to say, “I hope you get frostbite,” before she disappeared into her wagon.

  He sat down too hard and bruised his backside on a sharp rock. He chucked the stone out into the darkness cursing. He removed his boots and tucked his long legs into his bedroll. The ground beneath him was cold, and yeah, there were rocks, lots of rocks. He cursed and curled up on his side. “Idiot,” he told himself.

  Behind him, the wagon creaked, thunks and bumps indicated Melody was throwing things. At last quiet, he closed his eyes in a futile attempt to go to sleep. A sharp kick to his backside brought him up to a sitting position. He threw back his bedroll, ready to defend himself.

  “Move over.” To get him to move, she kicked him again with her bare foot. “Here,” she said, tossing a pillow in his face. “I brought two extra blankets. It’s cold out here, and I bet your bedroll is damp. I have my own. If we put yours under us and mine on top, we should be more comfortable.”

  “Kit, go back inside your wagon and go to sleep.”

  “I have my own bedroll. I want to snuggle, so get up and let’s get comfortable. We’ll share body heat and be nice and cozy.” On her hands and knees, she tugged on his coat sleeve to get him to move.

  He grabbed her arm. “I don’t think so.” And that’s when he realized she wasn’t wearing any clothes again. Well, she wasn’t naked, but she was in her underclothes, and he knew damn well what that looked like, the world could see her body through the thin cotton. He lurched to his feet, snatched the blankets out of her hand and draped them over her shoulders. With that done, he backed away from her and stumbled backward over his bedroll, landing on his butt in the meadow grass.

  Ignoring him, Melody s
pread out his bedroll and laid hers on top, arranged the pillows side by side, and the blankets. She patted the covers. “There. Stand up. Brush the grass and dirt off before you come to bed,” she said, making herself comfortable under the covers.

  Van rolled out of the grass and onto the blankets and took her by the shoulders to give her a good shake. “You are playing games with me. I don’t like it. And don’t start talking to me about copulation again.”

  “Well, we most certainly will not copulate, not out here in the open, for heaven’s sake. You are absolutely right about that. You’re getting grass on my covers,” she said plucking at the blankets.

  He let go of her and dropped his head. “Kit, you have to listen to me. We can’t sleep together.”

  “But we did, and the world didn’t come crashing down around our ears.”

  “I know, but it would be tempting fate to continue. I can’t promise I won’t…I won’t molest you.”

  “Molest me?” she said in too loud a voice.

  “Shhh, for God’s sake, people can hear us. Voices carry out here.”

  Scooting down, she laid back. “I know you won’t do anything I don’t want you to.”

  “But who’s going to stop me from doing things I don’t want me to do?”

  “You don’t want to touch me…hold me?”

  He couldn’t fight this, didn’t want to fight this. “Of course I want to touch you and hold you, that’s the problem.”

  She opened the covers for him. “It’s cold. I’m cold. Come lay down with me under the stars. Look at them, Van. We’re little dots compared to all those stars out there. Isn’t it wonderful? We don’t really matter at all. What we do, or don’t do, doesn’t matter when you look at all of that up there.”

  He complied, did as ordered, and crawled in between the covers.

  “Now, put your arm over my waist, and your other arm beneath my head and I’ll back into your body, like this,” she said and rolled onto her side to place her sweet little butt right into his hips.

  Torture, sheer, exquisite torture. Soft, so smooth and warm, round, little butt. Firm, would probably fit perfectly in the palm of my hand. And small, sweet to touch, breasts. And that tummy, I have to kiss that tummy. I’ll give her a damn good… No! No, I will not.

  “Last night reminded me how much I’ve been missing my friends,” she said, her voice a whisper, and he thought he felt a tear on his wrist, the wrist he had beneath her cheek. “We used to sit up all night talking. Or rather they talked, and I listened. They talked a lot about boys and stuff, and I didn’t have much to say on that subject. Anyway, talking with you was different, we talked about all kinds of things, stuff I could talk about, like horses and what we like and what we don’t like.”

  She rolled over in his arms, and his hand slipped from her hip to her bare tummy. He closed his eyes to hold his lust in check. “If we’re going to do this,” he said, after clearing his throat and taking his tongue out of the roof of his mouth to moisten it, “You will have to shut up. And stop moving around. I will not guarantee your virtue will survive the night if you keep moving around.”

  She snickered and rolled over again to face him, her hand going to his jaw. “Oh, my virtue is safe,” she said and giggled.

  “Ha!”

  “I can defend myself.”

  He lay very still, holding his breath. “Can you defend yourself from this?” he asked, his hand sliding between her legs at the apex, his fingers moving in a slow, short glide back and forth and up and down with only the thin cotton fabric of her bloomers to prevent him from slipping into her womanhood. “Or this,” he asked, his mouth seeking her throat, kissing his way down to her chest until he found an erect nipple poking through her chemise.

  She sucked in her breath and held it. “No,” she answered, and released her breath. “No, against that I have no defense. But,” she said and put her hand on his shoulder to push him very gently away, “I know you, and you will not disrespect me by taking unfair advantage of the situation.”

  “The situation is one you instigated. There is a question of who is taking advantage of whom here.” His hand stopped stroking, his lips stopped probing, and he raised his head to bring home his point. “The point is, there would not be a situation if you would go to your own bed.”

  She sighed, rolled over on her other side and resumed her position with her back to his front. “Hmmm, yes, that’s true. This is lovely though,” she said, sighed and dropped off to sleep.

  And Van lay wide awake, parts of his body throbbing, begging for satisfaction.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Maji sidled and pranced, flicking her tail, tossing her head, and the bells weaved into her mane jangled. The tribal dancers had taken the field, drummers drumming, warriors singing, dancing, men and women chanting. With her hand on Maji’s neck, Melody whispered in the horse’s ear and moved her farther away from one of the smelly torches that illuminated the center ring. “It’ll quiet down in a minute. I’m sorry if this is making you nervous. I wasn’t thinking. I guess coming here with all these other horses, and around the…the energy and you coming into season…I’m sorry.”

  Melody stroked Maji’s chest and her lower lip tucked between her teeth. Maybe time for me to grow up too. I’ve been play-acting, pretending. Van’s right, most of the time I have no idea what I’m doing.

  “And you Maji, you should be grazing in a lovely field with a proper suitor, and a warm barn to keep you safe and out of storms.”

  Me too. I deserve a safe place out of the storm. I deserve someone to hold me and love me. I sure as hell deserve more than a dinky wagon. I want a safe place, a place to call my own. A place I can make my own. When Van leaves, I’ll be alone. Really alone. More alone than I’ve ever been before. I don’t want to be alone. Not now. I don’t want to go home and be my parent's little girl. I can’t do that. I won’t do that. I have to speak to Van.

  “You’re right Maji, this isn’t where we belong. This is for show. It’s not the life for us. I’ll take you home. Do this one last performance. Ignore the stallions in the herd. Ignore the bells and the noise and the milling people. One more performance, just one more.”

  She searched the crowd but couldn’t locate Van. He said he’d be over by Ollie’s wagon in time to see her performance. He promised. He’d gone off with Jerry to see the horses, but he said he’d be back in time.

  ∙•∙

  Van tied the little piebald pony off next to Ranger. He had no idea why he’d purchased the little filly; she would never amount to much, but she had a way of holding her head and her tail, she looked proud of herself, even though she was runty and a bit punchy. He told himself he’d make her a Christmas gift to his new niece, Joy. His sister-in-law Birdie, who loved horses, would take the pony in hand and make her a good mount for the little girl.

  He crossed the meadow in the dark, dodging the other festival-goers, not paying much attention, and smashed into the back of a dark figure clad from head to toe in black. He tipped his hat and begged pardon and moved on. The man reeked of whiskey and something sour and vaguely familiar.

  The Indian dancers were leaving the field as he stepped over the tongue of Ollie’s wagon. The announcer announced through his megaphone the Rain Spirit Dancer. The distant sound of gentle bells followed the announcement. The cheering crowd quieted down to a low buzz.

  Melody appeared, a graceful, elegant figure, holding her staff of feathers, clad in her mother’s white, form-fitting leather dress, her hair pulled to the side with a leather ribbon, decorated with feathers of white. Maji, right beside her, stepped high, prancing. Melody turned once, and Maji turned in a tight circle once. Melody danced to the left and Maji mirrored her move. They danced to the right, circled. Melody skipped and twirled in Van’s direction, and they made eye contact. He nodded, and she smiled. She raised her staff and Maji came up on her hind legs and stepped backward, Melody partnered her going forward. Van had never seen that move before; it was amazing. T
he crowd went wild.

  A sharp pain in his side made him think he’d encountered a briar and he brushed at it and felt the sting of a sharp-edged blade on the top of his hand.

  A smell, a putrid smell of vomit and whiskey sneaked up on him, wafting over his shoulder. “I gots this knife offin’ a poor deputy what had it stuck in his neck. It’s gonna go right ‘tween yer ribs, let the air out’a yer lungs. But first, take me to that horse of yours. I’m gonna slit his throat, and yer gonna watch him bleed to death.”

  “Like hell,” Van said and brought his bent arm back in a swift move, jabbing his assailant in the gut with his elbow. Kramer stumbled back, one hand to his stomach. Van looked around for a way to defend himself. The crowd, including Ollie, Jerry, Mick, and Jim were all watching the show. One of the torches was close at hand. Van lurched for it, but Kramer cut him off, slicing his coat front.

  “So, it’s gonna be like that is it?” Kramer said, snarling, slicing the knife through the air inches from Van’s nose. “Well, I got nothin’ to lose. I don’t mind a little play. Give me great pleasure to mess up that pretty face of yours,” he said, lunging at Van, murder in his eyes. Van managed to step to the side to avoid the cut to his jaw, but the wagon behind him didn’t leave him much of an avenue for escape.

  “They’re gonna hang me anyway. Might as well hang’ me for killin’ a horse as well as a clod-bustin’ yokel,” Kramer said, coming after him.

  Van felt the tongue of Ollie’s wagon on the back of his leg and moved to step over it but lost his balance. Kramer moved in; knife raised, slobbering, giddy, and laughing, he slashed Van’s arm.

  ∙•∙

  They’d started their circle dance when Maji rose up on her hind legs and whinnied, slicing the air with her shod hooves. It wasn’t part of their play. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she came down hard and bounced back up on her hind legs. Melody looked around to see what had frightened her. The sound of another blood-curdling laugh rose above the noise of the crowd.

  She looked at Van to see if he’d heard it too. He grabbed for a torch, but a figure in black lunged at him, blocked him from pulling it out of the ground. Melody knew that dark figure. Kramer. The man in black, he was here.