by Sharon Ihle
Daniel smiled, trying to ease the poor woman's anxiety. Her expression remained unchanged.
"Hello," he murmured softly. "The Cheyenne call me Daniel-Two-Skins because I'm a half-breed, but I'm known in the Territories as Daniel McCord. What's your name?"
"Josie Baum." She glared at him with those beautiful agate-hard eyes. "That's the name of the woman the posse will be looking for when they come gunning for you and this savage."
Alarmed, Daniel shifted his gaze to Long Belly. "What did you do? Raise her up from another man's trap?"
"I am no a thief. I bought her as my gift to you."
"Bought me?" The woman shot a wary glance at Long Belly, and then turned her wrath on Daniel. "That's just not true. He kidnapped me, knocked me senseless, and then dragged me up here against my will. If someone doesn't take me back to Miles City this minute, the law will come gunning for the both of you, no questions asked."
Daniel shot Long Belly a serious, inquisitive look, all the prompting the man needed to defend himself.
"She lies. I bought this spotted-face woman from the House-That-Sells-Women. My coins were accepted. This female and her friend belong to us now."
"Her friend?" Daniel sat up a little straighter, straining his aching leg. "You bought two women?"
"There is another," Long Belly admitted. "She is a dark female with the hair of a buffalo. She is in the barn tending to the horses."
When the logic behind this hit him, it was all Daniel could do to keep from laughing out loud. Near as he could figure, Long Belly had gone to a whorehouse with the understanding that he could buy women there as slaves rather than for a few moments of pleasure. How he'd gotten away with such a brazen scheme was beyond Daniel, but he was, in a way, impressed.
"I'm sure you meant well, but I'm afraid you've made a big mistake. These women..." Daniel glanced at Josie, thinking she didn't fit his idea of .a prostitute in the least. "They can be bought all right, but it's just for a few hours or maybe the night. They sell their sexual favors, not themselves. Do you understand?"
As Long Belly pondered this custom, the woman beside him found her tongue again.
"We tried to tell him that back at Lola's, but he wouldn't listen. He attacked the place with an axe and scared us all half to death. You've got to make him take us back."
"You will hold your tongue and do as you are told," said Long Belly.
She turned to him, shoulders trembling, and shrank back a few steps.
"You will tend to Daniel-Two-Skins now," Long Belly went on to say. "As you can see, he needs much help. I will go see what is keeping your friend in the barn."
With that he turned on his moccasined heel and stalked out of the cabin.
Josie followed his departure until the savage closed the door behind him. Then she breathed a tiny sigh of relief. At least her captor hadn't claimed her for his own. Not that knowing she 'belonged' to the loathsome heap of man lying on the bed made her feel a whole lot better about her predicament.
She thought this Daniel-Two-Skins might be a mountain man of sorts, given the scraggly beginnings of a beard and unruly, shoulder-length hair. Both were as black as coal, tangled and unkempt, looking as if he'd used the blade of a dull axe to groom himself—if he ever did. Although it wasn't much reassurance, his startling Irish-blue eyes did seem to prove the fact that he was at least half white. What little she could see of his skin through the hair and buckskin clothing was darker than her own, a warm nutmeg.
Josie glanced up to see that he was staring at her, watching her with those bright, curious eyes as she studied him. It made her feel as if he might be imagining all the wicked things he wanted her to do to his odious body throughout the night. Nervous under the man's unrelenting stare and evil thoughts, Josie turned her attention to the cabin itself.
Lethargy and a modest loft hung over the large one-room dwelling, making it feel much smaller than it was, more like a trap than a home. It was a shambles of a place, with two wobbly-looking chairs, a floor that was more dirt than wood, a mound of unwashed kettles and plates, and a vast assortment of boots and articles of men's clothing scattered from one end of the floor to the other. The air smelled vaguely of wood smoke and stale urine. Not so unlike the atmosphere at Lola's Pleasure Palace.
"Josie?" Daniel said, startling her. "Don't be afraid of me or Long Belly. Neither of us means you harm."
This comment in no way relieved her fears. She knew firsthand how cruel and vicious Indians could be, and as far as she could tell, the savage who'd kidnapped her was no different from any other. If this man was, as he claimed, a half brother to the savage, Josie doubted that he was much more civilized.
She speared him with the most vicious gaze she could manage. "I'll see you both hang for this if you don't make that Indian take us back to Miles City soon."
"Long Belly will take you back all right, but not until tomorrow." He sighed heavily. "In the meantime, I'd sure appreciate it if you'd help me lift my leg back onto the bed. It's killing me."
Josie rather hoped that it would. She didn't move.
Daniel stared back at her, impressed by her gumption, misguided though it might have been. While he did mean to make sure that she and her friend were returned to their people, he didn't see any harm in making use of her services until then, especially since Long Belly had already paid for at least that much. In fact, it could be argued that she owed him a little of her time.
"If this is the best you can do," he said softly. "I might as well turn you over to Long Belly for the night. You're not a hell of a lot of use to me,"
Her eyes flared and Josie lost her obstinate stance. "I'm not a nurse," she said, sounding much less defiant. "I don't know the first thing about broken legs and such."
"You don't have to," Daniel assured her. "Just get on over here and help me lift it onto the bed."
She moved grudgingly, but finally reached the edge of the mattress and held out her bound wrists.
"How am I supposed to help you with my hands tied?"
Daniel leaned up long enough to remove the binding, a satin sash that looked as if it had come from a fine dressing gown. He caught himself wondering if it was a gown she wore when plying her trade, then imagined her nude beneath the slick satin.
"Now what?" she asked.
Suddenly more interested in her than his injury, Daniel collapsed against his pillow and grinned. "I'll leave that up to you."
Apparently missing the innuendo, she got down on her knees, took his injured limb into her hands as if she were hefting a sack of sugar, and then flung it onto the mattress.
Daniel yowled in pain. "Damn it all, woman. Can't you see that leg is broken?"
"I told you I wasn't a nurse, didn't I?"
Beads of sweat were rolling down his brow and his teeth were clenched against the pain when the cabin door opened. Long Belly came into the room with a second woman following along behind him.
"Ah, brother," he said, kicking the door shut. "See how dutifully my gift tends you? I have chosen well, have I not?"
Daniel grumbled under his breath, in too much agony to risk speaking yet.
"This is my woman," Long Belly announced, dragging her up to the foot of the bed. "She is called Sissy."
Daniel looked her over, his grimace fading as he made out her unusual features. "She's a little different, even for you."
With a sudden grin, Long Belly patted Sissy's full head of tight curls. "She wears the great mane of a buffalo, and so may carry within her its spirit. I am thinking of taking her to my people in a few days and making a gift of her. I will call her Buffalo Hair."
The newly christened 'Buffalo Hair' turned to him with a frown, but said nothing.
"What is your tribe, Buffalo Hair? I do not recognize it in you."
She gave him a blank look in return.
"Who are your people?"
Daniel laughed, and then clarified the situation for Long Belly. "Africans, I would say, along with a little something else. Am I
right, darling?"
The dark-skinned prostitute turned her frown on Daniel, "My mother whored same as me," she said in a monotone. "She didn't rightly know who or what that little something else was, and neither do I."
Long Belly scratched his head. "Africans? Who are these people? Where do they roam?"
"If you'd paid more attention to the lessons I've been trying to teach you," said Daniel, "then you'd know where Africa is. It's a whole different continent. Your woman's people are not from around these parts."
"Africa?" Long Belly looked her over again, and then shrugged. "She is here now, she will be called Buffalo Hair, and she will do as I say."
"Good. Then send her to the stove." Daniel patted his growling belly. "I'm so hungry, I swear I can feel the weight falling off of me as I lay here. I could really go for some nice fluffy biscuits, a little gravy to dump over them, and ... what kind of grub do we have left in the smokehouse, Long Belly?"
"A barrel of pork," he said, "a couple of hangs, and an elk roast."
Daniel licked his lips and moaned. "It all sounds good to me. Why don't we let the women decide, since they're the ones who have to cook it?"
The dark-skinned whore shook her fluffy head. "I've been trained to do only one thing, and it ain't fixing grub. I don't know any more about frying pans than I do about having tea out of fine china."
Josie, who'd been happy to listen, not join this conversation, watched as Long Belly and Daniel both turned to her expectantly. Savages or not, this was one area in which she couldn't be persuaded by Satan himself. She'd starve herself to death before becoming the galley slave of these two. Careful to avoid both men's eyes, she set out for one of the two chairs at the small table. Thanks to the long ride astride the back of a mule, her thighs were bruised and her bottom felt as if she'd taken a beating, but she managed to hobble across the room without drawing comment from either man. Taking care with her tender bottom, she eased onto the sturdiest chair, and then stared out the window at the barn and the sparse forest beyond. She shivered against the cold, mildly longing for the smelly horse blanket.
"I wouldn't bother with getting too comfortable, Josie." Daniel was the first to address her. "While Long Belly is out getting supplies, you and your friend ought to be stoking up that fire. You're going to need a nice hot stove to bake up a decent batch of biscuits."
Purging herself of as much fear as possible, Josie swallowed the truth as if it were a dose of salts and lied through her teeth. "I won't be baking up biscuits or anything else. I don't know how to cook."
She didn't dare turn around to see how this information was received, but she could hear plenty of grumbling going on behind her. Plainly, this news not only astonished them, but didn't set well with the fellas either.
"You sure know how to go about finding me a woman," said Daniel at last. "Yessir, you really know how to pick 'em."
Josie looked up in time to see the savage shoot both her and Sissy a murderous glance. "I cannot understand women who do not cook," he muttered. "Perhaps we can teach them."
"In one night?" Josie said impulsively.
To that Sissy added, "Too bad you didn't buy Lola's cook while you were there, red man."
Long Belly considered all this, and then said, "I will cook our supper tonight. Tomorrow will be soon enough for these lazy females to learn chores they should already know."
Daniel shook his head. "You're taking those women back to Miles City first thing in the morning—make no mistake about it, Long Belly."
"That is not possible." The savage pointed out the window. "Have you looked at the skies? The leaves of the cottonwood fill the river, and even the horses at the mission school have grown many thick hairs since the last moon. A big storm approaches."
"Are you sure?"
As the savage assured his brother of what he'd seen, Josie's spirits fell. She'd noticed the changes in the weather, but had hoped somehow to be rescued long before now. If an Indian who knew his way around these parts couldn't get down the mountain, how would she ever get away from these beasts and their filthy cabin? As she considered her increasingly perilous situation and ways of making good her escape, Sissy came over and fell into the seat across from her. The savage headed for the stove, grumbling to himself as he stuffed chunks of wood into it. And Daniel drifted off to sleep, snoring intermittently as his brother wrestled with the frying pan over a hot burner.
Supper that night turned out to be a throat-puckering combination of rusty salt pork and canned beans cooked up by the savage. This was accompanied by a lump of hardtack that was so dried out and old, it didn't even soften when Josie dunked it in her coffee. After the meal was finished, both she and Sissy begged off the mountain of dishes by claiming exhaustion, which in no way was an exaggeration thanks to the all-night journey to this godforsaken place. Josie's eyes felt as if they'd been rolled in cornmeal, and her bruised legs could barely hold her upright.
It was as she was contemplating a place in which to sleep that the savage approached with yet another demand.—a chore Josie had no intention of taking on.
"You may wait until morning to clean dishes," he said magnanimously. "But tonight you must dump my brother's slop pail before you can rest. It is there in the cabinet by his bed."
Josie gagged at the thought. "Do it yourself," she said recklessly.
This enraged the savage. "You will do as you are told, and you will do it now."
Josie backed against the door, afraid that she'd pressed her luck with the Indian one time too many, but then Sissy surprised her by stepping between her and the furious man.
"I don't mind no slop jars," she said. "I'll take care of it."
Even though Sissy had already started for the cabinet, the savage still looked as if he might come after Josie and do her bodily harm. Just as she reached behind her and began fumbling with the latch on the door, Daniel spoke up, diverting the Indian's attention.
"Yessir, Brother," he said with a laugh. "Picking this woman for me was a mighty fine idea. Why, she's turned out to be what I would call the perfect gift. Mercy."
The savage kept one evil eye on Josie, but a smile tugged the corner of his mouth as he said to Daniel, "Perhaps if I beat this perfect gift of yours, she will be even more perfect."
"Perhaps," Daniel agreed, drawing a gasp from Josie. "But I'm too tired to listen to her caterwauling tonight. Beat her in the morning, if you must. For now, I think we could all use a little sleep."
Josie wasn't sure if her punishment had been delayed or if she'd earned a complete reprieve, but she was relieved when Long Belly went along with the suggestion. After Sissy returned with the empty stop pail, the savage chased her up the slender ladder that led to the loft—his lair, Josie assumed—then returned to the main room with one final order for the night.
"You," he said, pointing to Josie and then the bed, "will join my brother now."
"I can sleep, in the chair just fine," she answered, not feeling nearly as brave as she sounded.
"In this, you will obey."
Faster than she thought any human could move, the savage was on her. Gripping Josie by the arm, he dragged her to the edge of Daniel's bed. "You will warm my brother and you will do it now."
"If she'd rather not," Daniel said. "I don't care where she sleeps."
That reprieve lasted only a moment. Still hanging on to her, Long Belly objected violently. "This she is trained for, is she not?"
With a shrug, Daniel had to agree. "From what I've seen of her, I would say it's probably the only thing she can do.''
"Do you deny that you long for this female beside you?"
Daniel eyed her with a look that gave Josie a case of goose flesh. "It'd sure beat the hell out of getting cow-kicked."
"Then it is settled. I have paid for this woman's services," said the savage. "And in this, she will submit."
With that he flung Josie onto the bed beside Daniel. Then he blew out the lantern and added one last order in the darkness.
; "Call to me, my brother, if this perfect gift does not use her training in ways that please you. I would be happy to beat her tonight if she fails in this."
Chapter 4
The following morning when Daniel awakened, his first thought was the same thought he'd had for at least three weeks running—why bother to wake up at all? He was sick of lying in bed, sick and tired of the stink of the sheet beneath him, and sick to death of his own useless body. He'd had other injuries in the past, including bullet and arrow wounds, but never had he been so completely debilitated, so helpless and utterly useless.
Mostly Daniel hated being confined by these four log walls. As a man who'd always lived in the out of doors—in a hastily erected lean-to, tipi, tent, or more often than not, right out under the stars on his bedroll—being stuck inside was giving him a powerful case of the jimjams.
He shifted his hips, seeking fresh mattress lumps to squash with his worthless body, and connected with something soft, a surprisingly warm object he initially mistook for his down pillow. Then he remembered the woman, Long Belly's perfect gift. He glanced her way, pleased to see that her expression was free of the hatred he'd seen yesterday.
Daniel shifted a little, testing the depth of Josie's slumber. She didn't move so much as an eyelash. Thanks, no doubt, to the arduous and sudden trek she'd been forced to make, she was dead to the world. Rolling slightly onto his right side for a better view of his unexpected bed mate, Daniel studied her a little closer. The rigid lodgepole she'd been when she first stretched out beside him last night was gone, in its place an agreeable, lithesome willow. He wondered which tree she would resemble when she awoke to find him staring at her. The odds heavily favored the pine.
Not that Daniel blamed the woman for her obvious distress. It hadn't been her idea to come here, that much was sure. Still, he found her defiant nature a little puzzling. He would have expected someone in her line of work to be more like her friend Sissy, resigned to the situation. Josie, on the other hand, was a study in contradictions, chief of which was her surprising modesty. The woman had actually slept in all her clothes, right down to her shoes.