Untamed

by Sharon Ihle

  Josie stood there in the cold for a time, not pondering Sissy's words as much as hating them. Hating her. Part of that hatred, she had to admit, was pure jealousy over the fact that Sissy was riding off on an adventure, leaving her behind to tend hearth and home. Of course she didn't feel a drop of envy over Sissy's escort, but with that exception, Josie would rather have been on the trail with a savage than trapped in that pigsty of a cabin with his half-breed brother, who expected her to wait on him hand and foot. At least on horseback, there was always some chance of escape. As for Sissy's remarks about friendship, Josie wasn't at all sure how to take them. She'd never had a close friend before and wasn't quite sure of the boundaries. In any case, she was too cold to think about that or anything except getting her frosty backside into the cabin before she froze to death.

  Resigned to her fate, if not happy about it, Josie watched the pair disappear into the forest, and then dragged herself back to the confines of her cage. The minute she stepped into the room, she noticed the water in the kettle was simmering, ready for her to go to work. So was Daniel.

  "If you've got nothing better to do with that pot of hot water," he called from across the room. "I could stand a little washing up."

  Josie glanced at him, thinking there wasn't enough water in all Montana Territory to accomplish the feat, then hefted the kettle off the stove and carried it to the side of the bed.

  "Where do you keep the soap and rags?" she asked.

  Daniel scratched his bead, giving her the impression that such items were foreign to him.

  "If you'll take a look in my possibles bag over by the corner," he finally said. "I believe you'll find some flannel scraps or maybe a couple of socks that would do the trick. I'm not sure about soap. I bought a pound or so a couple of years back, but I can't recall whatever came of it."

  Sighing heavily, Josie made her way to the corner where she found a dark leather pouch. After opening the outside flap, she spread the bag wide and peered into the depths. It contained an assortment of bullets, knives, beads, and packs of what were probably sugar or salt, but none of the rags appeared to be clean enough to touch, much less for use in bathing. Reaching gingerly into the pouch, Josie plucked out the cleanest dirty sock she could find, and then returned to the bed.

  With fourteen brothers of all ages in her keeping, it wasn't as if she'd never seen or bathed a masculine body. Thinking of the chore that way, as something she'd done a thousand times before, Josie made quick work of removing Daniel's clothing down to his drawers and assisted when necessary as he bathed himself.

  She was studying his broad chest as he patted it dry, taking in the fact that his smooth nutmeg skin was devoid of hair, and thinking how refreshing a sight it was after having lived among the apelike Baum boys, when Daniel asked a question that made her choke with surprise.

  "Will you help me get these drawers off so I can clean the rest of me?"

  "Ah... no." She fought a blush but felt her cheeks grow warm anyway. "I'd rather not."

  "No?" His bright eyes grew huge, incredulous. "After all the bare-ass naked men you've seen? Am I that damned hard for you to look at?"

  Since she'd been thinking how much better Daniel looked without his clothes, and that nothing about him from his sculpted thighs to his well-muscled shoulders reminded her in the least of her brothers, Josie's blush deepened. To save herself from further embarrassment, she almost blurted out then and there that she wasn't a whore and didn't go around looking at strange men's naked bodies. But then it occurred to her that he might think of her innocence as some kind of prize—and that she'd then find herself in yet another kind of trap.

  Handling the situation in the only way she could think of, Josie said, "This isn't a brothel and I'm not on duty. Just think of me as a kidnapped woman who's helping an injured man out of the goodness of her heart."

  Daniel stared at her for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then he gave a short nod and said, "Fair enough. Can I talk your good little heart into loosening that splint and taking a look at my leg? I've been laid up for about three weeks now and should be pretty well healed, but it feels like it's getting worse."

  Since Josie had set more than her share of broken bones and felt she knew quite a lot about the healing process, this struck her as odd. "Who set the bone for you?"

  "Long Belly, but I don't think that's the problem, That cow kicked a gouge out of my shin when she broke my leg, and right there is where it feels as if I met the business end of a branding iron. It might be a little infected."

  Josie had hardly begun unwrapping the bindings that held the splint together before she knew without a doubt that Daniel had made a correct diagnosis. Blood and infected matter had seeped through the bandages, and she also picked up a slight whiff of decay.

  "I'm going to have to clean this out," she said when she got down to the angry wound. "I'll be as careful as I can, but it's probably going to hurt some."

  Daniel nodded, expecting this. "Whiskey's on the shelf above the stove along with anything else you might need. Would you be good enough to bring me the bottle? I think I'd like to get started on it before you get started on that leg."

  After that, Daniel didn't say another word. He took a few deep pulls on the whiskey, then lay back on his pillow and closed his eyes. By the time Josie had finished cleaning the wound and covered it with a warm poultice she'd made of flour, salt, and water, he was sound asleep. Or passed out. She didn't know which.

  It was as she was returning the whiskey and other supplies to the shelf above the stove that Josie came across the gun she'd been unable to fire earlier that morning. Determined to learn how to use the weapon should a threatening occasion arise, she took it with her to the table by the cabin's only window. Dropping onto one of the chairs there, she began a search for the hammer Daniel told her about.

  When she found the little lever that he must have been referring to, Josie pulled it back, pleased to see that at the same time, the trigger jumped to the center of the finger guard. Now it all made sense. Once, the gun was cocked, all she had to do was pull the trigger to fire a bullet. Only trouble was, Josie didn't know how to go about 'uncorking' the thing without shooting at something. She certainly couldn't fire the gun inside the cabin. If she went outside, Daniel would surely hear the explosion and wake up, probably mad. Touching the trigger seemed out of the question, which left only one other way she could think of to make the gun safe again. Since she'd pulled the hammer in order to make the gun functional, Josie reasoned, all she had to do was put the lever back in its original place to disable the weapon.

  Following this rationale, she pushed the hammer forward. It wouldn't budge. Understanding that the hammer was connected to the trigger somehow, she decided to hold it in place with her thumb, while lightly pulling against the trigger. The hammer began to move forward and then, without warning, slipped out from under her thumb.

  Much to Josie's surprise and horror, the Colt went off in her hand.

  Chapter 5

  Relatively pain-free for the first time in weeks, Daniel dozed peacefully with images of Josie's long auburn hair swirling around in his mind like ribbons of silk. Although she still had her tresses braided, and even then they were mussed, he had no trouble picturing what her hair must look like when she unwound and brushed it for the night. He boldly went on to imagine those luxurious locks pouring through his fingers, figuring they would feel like spring rain sliding between blades of sweet new grass. She would be kitten-soft to touch, he thought, recent memories egging him on, with just a dash of wildcat tossed in to make bedding her all the more interesting.

  Mercy.

  Daniel then found himself wondering what, short of paying her himself, he had to do in order to convince Josie she ought to share her favors with him. In fact, he was getting good and worked up over the idea, enjoying the surge of blood to his nether regions and trying to remember how long it'd been since he'd last felt such a rush of desire, when something hot and sharp, like a knife blad
e fresh from the fire, suddenly parted his hair. In the next moment he heard the sound of gunfire.

  Bolting to a sitting position despite the pain in his leg, Daniel reached up and grabbed the top of his head. When his fingers came away sticky with his own blood, he could hardly believe his eyes. Then he spotted Josie sitting at the table, his Peacemaker still smoking in her hand. "You shot me—you up and shot me."

  ."Oh, my God—no." Josie dropped the gun onto the table as if it were a rock, then leapt out of the chair and hurried to the side of the bed. "Where are you hurt?"

  When she tried to lean over him, Daniel reared back out of her reach. "Get away. I'm shot in the head."

  Still unable to believe that she'd put a bullet in him, Daniel fingered his scalp. By then blood was flowing freely over his forehead, a gory little river that turned into a waterfall at the tip of his nose, and then trickled down onto his bare chest and below. As he stared at the crimson puddle pooling in his navel, trying to make sense of it all, Josie crawled onto the mattress beside him.

  "Don't be such a baby," she said, talking to him as if he were a child. "Let me take a look at the damage."

  Daniel couldn't get the image of the smoking gun out of his mind. "Why should I? You just tried to kill me."

  "No, I didn't—honest. I was just trying to find that hammer thing you told me about."

  "Your search was successful. Now leave me the hell alone."

  "I said I'm sorry, didn't I?"

  Daniel was looking for a contrite expression to go along with the words, some sense that she meant what she said, but it was as obvious as hell that it wouldn't be forthcoming from this defiant female. To the contrary, she seemed downright pissed that he wouldn't just let her rip into his scalp.

  Hands on hips, Josie said, "If you don't let me see how badly you've been shot, you might just sit there and bleed to death. If that's what you want, it's fine by me. I'm going out for a little air."

  "No, wait." Half-afraid she might be right, Daniel grudgingly agreed to an examination. "Go ahead and look, but this time be careful. I've had just about all a man can take for one day.''

  "Baby," she muttered as she hunched over his head.

  Daniel might have come up with a snappy reply, but by then, Josie's full breasts were rubbing against his shoulder as she worked, making him all too aware that they were unbound, free of the corset he'd heard white women wore beneath their clothing. Aware of a sudden and surprisingly urgent response in his groin, Daniel strategically draped his hands across his lap as Josie parted his hair—this time with her fingers.

  "Ugh," she said, grimacing as she peered at the wound. "What a mess."

  "How bad is it?" he asked. "Did you blow some of my brains out?"

  "No, you fool. It's just a little messy, a scratch that's hardly worth sewing up."

  "How can you be so sure?" Daniel recalled the endless list of tasks she claimed she could not perform, despite the decent poultice she'd made for his leg. "I thought you didn't know anything about nursing wounds and such."

  "I don't," she said, climbing off the bed. "Tending to something as insignificant as this must be instinctive. Hold still a minute. I'm going to get a rag or something to help stop the bleeding."

  Josie made short work of cleaning and patching him up after that, and even donated a strip of her petticoat, figuring it was the cleanest thing in the cabin with which to bind the wound. It was. Thanks, Daniel assumed, to the accidental shooting, her defiant attitude had also undergone a welcome transformation. In fact, Josie seemed most agreeable, a situation he figured he'd best take advantage of while she still felt that way.

  "I'm about starving to death," he said, urged on by his growling belly. "I also feel kind of weak after being shot in the head and all. Think you could rustle me up some flapjacks?"

  Daniel could see that a refusal was perched on the tip of her tongue, the automatic response he'd come to expect no matter what was asked of her. After that moment's hesitation, however, she surprised him.

  "I suppose I could try. How do I make them?"

  Directing her to the shelf above the stove and the bin of flour beside it, Daniel gave her step-by-step instructions that culminated in a reasonably edible meal. The flapjacks weren't particularly light, but not too bad for someone untrained in the culinary arts. He'd warned her to keep a close watch on the cakes as they cooked, but somehow Josie managed to burn them anyway, frying them to a deep charcoal color that matched the layer of soot covering her face and clothes. He'd been meaning to fix that stove pipe for a while now, but with the busted-up leg and all, hadn't quite gotten to it.

  "Who put this stove together?" she asked irritably, eyes glowing through soot like a cat's in the dark. "Whoever did it ought to be shot."

  "You've already taken care of that," Daniel said, drawing the first burst of laughter from her. It was a pleasant sound and made him feel comfortable enough to add, "Why don't you drag up one of the chairs and eat with me?"

  She hesitated, looking at him cockeyed for a moment before grabbing a chair and settling in next to the edge of the bed with her plate. "I do have a couple of questions about you and Long Belly, if you don't mind."

  Daniel couldn't think of anything to do with their relationship that would make him uncomfortable, so he gave her free rein. "I don't mind a bit. What do you want, to know?"

  "For one thing, you two call each other brother. You don't look that much like brothers—are you?"

  "We're not related by blood at all. My wife was his sister, so he's my brother-in-law. We've been calling each other brother since the wedding."

  "You have a wife?" She said it as if finding a woman to marry him had been a miracle.

  "Had," he snapped. "She died a couple of years ago."

  "Oh." Head bowed, Josie generously added, "I'm sorry."

  "No need to be."

  Obviously eager to move onto a new topic, she asked, "Is that why he doesn't listen to you, even though you are the agent in charge of his tribe—because you're not Cheyenne?"

  "Oh, but I am." Daniel supposed he ought to be insulted by her insinuations, and in some ways he was, but most of what she assumed was true. Crunching his way through the remains of a flapjack, he said, "He probably only half listens to what I tell him because I'm only half Cheyenne."

  "Then you two were raised together?"

  Daniel shook his head. "I never even met Long Belly or the other members of the tribe until they were rounded up and sent to this reservation a few years ago—you know, after that Custer mess at the Little Big Horn. That's when I decided the Cheyenne needed my help more than the soldiers did."

  He paused there, waiting to either see or feel her revulsion over the fact that he was aiding the very band of cutthroats who'd helped annihilate the white man's fair-haired general. It took less than a minute for her to come through with a properly offended expression.

  "I'm not sure I understand what you're saying." Josie's mouth was pinched and her cute little nose tilted upward. "You mean that you and Long Belly actually took part in Custer's defeat?"

  Daniel was sorely tempted to answer in the affirmative, to claim that yes, he and Long Belly had fired the fatal bullets that ended the general's life, but instead, he hit her with the truth.

  "Long Belly's family was there, camped on the Little Big Horn, but he wasn't much more than a boy back then and didn't participate in the battle. I was still scouting for the army at the time, though not for the Seventh, and helped Mackenzie's troops locate and nearly annihilate the Cheyenne camp a few months after Custer's defeat."

  Josie's expression softened dramatically and her eyes lit up. "Then you must be some kind of war hero."

  Daniel smiled, but an ache filled his throat that started from his heart. "That depends on how you look at it—through white or Cheyenne eyes."

  His appetite gone, Daniel dropped his plate on the bed and thought back to the revelations that made him the man he was today. That was back when he first realized that
the military had figured out that one of the quickest ways to bring Indians under control, and thereby dependent and subject to the white man's regulations, was to destroy their main source of survival and independence—the buffalo. To his everlasting shame and horror, Daniel, along with his father, took part in the destruction of the great bison herds, at least until he realized what was happening to his own mother's people. By then, it was nearly too late.

  Leaving those details out, he explained, "It wasn't until after a large group of Cheyenne were sent back here to starve to death that I decided they needed and deserved my help more than the army did."

  "Starve to death?" Josie dropped a bite of flapjack back onto her plate. It landed with a hollow clunk. "But how can they be starving to death here in these mountains, of all places? Surely these people know how to hunt."

  Trying to hang on to his private feelings on the subject, Daniel said, "It's impossible to hunt game that's been slaughtered to extinction by your enemies, the way the buffalo and antelope have been here in these mountains."

  "There's no game left?"

  Daniel shrugged. "A couple of elk and deer, I suppose, but they're few and far between. Sometimes the Cheyenne resort to picking off a few head of stray cattle from the ranches along the Tongue River—and that, as you might imagine, doesn't set too well with the ranchers. That's one reason Long Belly and I are trying to start up our own cattle ranch. If we do well enough, we plan to turn it over to the tribe."

  Josie considered all this a minute, then frowned. "I still don't understand how they can be starving with all the supplies you bring them on behalf of the government. I know several white families that could have used a little free flour last winter."

  "They're welcome to it," he said, barely hanging on to his temper. "Of course, to qualify they have to have been driven at gunpoint off the land where they were born and raised, then agree to live under conditions that make them sick and to adapt to ways of life they detest, such as farming. Oh, and they also can't complain when the government breaks promises and treaties, or when it expects them to suffer quietly at the hands of crooked traders and white horse thieves. And forget about religion as you know it—they have to change all those beliefs, too. Still think you know some white folks who deserve free flour?"