Paul emptied his coffee, tossed his cup to one side and raised the blanket. “Come to bed.”
She slipped out of her coat and, stark naked, lay down beside him. He kissed her lips crushingly, then the nape of her neck, and his hand covered one of her high, full breasts, gripping it tightly as his lips fastened on its pap. It swelled instantly and she settled down with a deep sigh, forcing her weight against his hand and mouth to place tension on her breast, feeling the thrill of his touch flash down her abdomen and milk the wetness between her legs. She stopped breathing to control herself, but it was too late, and she shuddered violently as her thighs involuntarily pressed together and her hand went up to his penis, erect and pulsating, and she grasped it eagerly as a moan broke from her lips, her body arching as the flood broke its gates inside.
She drew him on top of her and her moans grew more intense and she plunged him within herself, her teeth fastening on his shoulder as her body became taut, a cry bursting from her lips as they flooded together, both continuing to thrust in a frenzy and flooding again, each aware of the insatiable need for the other, so perfectly attuned that they peaked at the same instant, needing only an ardent kiss on the mouth or Paul’s tongue flicking over a pap or her hand caressing him to usher hi a new surge of passion.
They lay quietly, her head resting on his arm, his hand stroking her breast, no longer hard and swollen with lust, but calm and soft with fulfillment, her fingers running lightly over his chest and stomach. They did not have to speak to acknowledge their feeling of oneness. They also knew that should Paul’s hand change for a few seconds from stroking Tina’s breast to fondling it by taking the tender pap in the tips of his fingers and pressing it, she would be ready immediately to have him inside her, and only a touch of Tina’s hand on his loins would ignite a new flame of desire, no matter how drained he was a moment before.
She nestled closer. ”Paul, tell me about yourself - where you were born, where you lived, your family.”
He kissed her brow. “The Sandersons go back - Lord knows how far. When I was born in the family castle north of London, there were three of the family alive, my uncle, who was the Duke, my cousin Percy’s father, who was the next oldest, and my father, the youngest. They got along quite well, but my mother was a rather independent sort who just wouldn’t kowtow to His Nibs, my uncle, morning, noon and night, so there was a bit of friction there.”
“What was she like - your mother?”
“I can’t describe her now. She died when I was ten years old. I do remember hair like gold and eyes bluer than the clearest sky in God’s world. She used to play with me all the time. I don’t think there was a single occasion when I called, “Mum,” that she didn’t drop everything she was doing to spend time with me. I know I loved her more than anyone on earth. Anyhow, we were all on a picnic, Mum and Dad, the Duke, Percy, his Mum and Dad, and myself. I was seven years old then and Percy about nine. Percy’s Mum and Dad took him in the punt for a ride on the lake. It tipped over. My Dad went out to them like a flash, shedding shoes and coat as he ran. He saved Percy first, then his Mum, but when he went for his brother, they both went under. Perhaps he was too exhausted; perhaps Percy’s Dad pulled him down. Nobody knows.
“Percy’s Mum was quite wealthy, so she returned to her family. My Mum’s family were tradesmen - another sore issue with the Duke - so he demanded to bring me up, as I was his second heir. I suppose Mum almost had a fit to think of leaving me with that miserly old rascal, so we went to her people - greengrocers. What a wonderful life it was with them!
“One night a fire broke out in the house. Mum dropped me out of a window to a man below, then jumped.” Paul’s face clouded over. “Only a dozen or so feet down. Why, people jump that far for sport. She landed wrong and broke her neck, so after the funeral I was packed off to my uncle, the Duke, cause everyone else died in the fire.
“Living with my uncle would have embittered any young lad, but after the warmth and love in the house of my Mum’s family, it was a nightmare. I suppose he wanted someone to be more unhappy than he. When I was sixteen, I ran off. It took a bit of doing to evade the police, but I got to France. Then suddenly, the years passed.”
“What did you do all those years?”
“Oh, I had a lovely life! I spent a few months as a stable boy at Chantilly - that’s near Paris - then joined the French Foreign Legion and spent seven months in Africa before they learned I was far too much under age for them to turn a blind eye, then a year training horses in Germany for a uhlan regiment - they’re cavalrymen - then a year working along the docks in Marseilles. Then I had the most incredible, experience: joined the Turkish cavalry in seventy-seven when war broke out with Russia. I fought with them against the Armenians for almost six months without learning a word of Turkish. Bloody bad business that. Those Turks, good fighters and all, but not a drop of compassion in their veins. Literally slaughtered those Armenians. After that, I roved about Europe a bit, well, visiting friends . . then to Russia and the Cossacks for a year, and finally here.”
“So, I was right - you are a fighter.”
“I suppose so, in a way. But I never really thought of myself as one, not like your father and brothers.”
“They have to fight.”
“Oh, come now, Tina. Nobody forces them to steal cattle and shoot people without a reason.”
She sat upright, the blanket falling to her waist, her breasts heaving with indignation, her magnificent green eyes flaming and flashing, as if smoke was ready to pour out.
“I will tell you a story now, my handsome, golden haired lover. Over forty years ago my Paw came to the Territory from Texas. It belonged to Mexico then. He got his first piece of land by contracting to round up the strays that belonged to the Mexican Dons, At that time you could ride for a week in any direction without seeing a soul - except Indians. There were the Navajos, the Zuni, the Apaches and the Mescalero Apaches, my mother’s people. Paw fought. them all - just to be left alone to round up the cattle that belonged to the Mexicans. They paid him with land because it was of no value to them, but it was what Paw wanted. After a while he got friendly with the Mescaleros and married my mother in a blanket ceremony. Ben was born right after, then a couple of years later they had Jamey, and after Jamey they had Kit. About that time the war with Mexico broke out and Paw joined up. When it was over, he took his bounty in land - virgin land. When it became a Territory, Ben was already ten years old and Paw and Mom had two more, Tom and Luke, making five.
“From the time Ben was six years old he was on a horse helping Paw, and then as each younger one could ride, he helped the same as Ben. Paw did all kinds of work to get land, and when he had so much that he couldn’t ride around it, he looked for cows. He started with a handful, and one night the Utes came from Arizona and stole them. Paw took Ben, who was thirteen and Jamey, who was eleven, and Kit, who was nine, and with eight warriors from Mom’s family, they trailed the Utes for five days. There was a big fight. Each of the boys killed a Ute and Mom lost a brother and a cousin, but they got back the cows. From that day on, Paw raided the Utes all the time, taking their horses and trading them for cattle.
“Just after I was born, the Civil War started, and Paw went off to fight for the North. He didn’t believe in slavery and he knew as sure as shooting the North would win. Ben, Jamey and Kit went with him, and when Tom turned sixteen, he rode for a month to join up with Paw’s regiment. Morn tried to hold Luke, but he went when he was fifteen. Paw became a colonel at forty-five years of age, and everybody joked, saying it was because he had his own army.
“They all came home safe, and God knows how. But they came with greenbacks in their pockets and every manjack had a bounty of land. You could buy cows at a dollar a head in Texas then, so Paw went down and bought two thousand head and drove them home with the boys. Each year, he and the boys sold the steers for anything they could get, but held on to the cows like they were life itself. By the time I was ten years old, we were the biggest r
anchers in the Territory.”
She turned to him, her face serious, a sadness in her eyes that tore at his heart. “Paul, you can live to be a million years old but you’ll never know the stigma of being a breed in the Territory. Whenever Mom went to town to shop, those ugly old hussies would giggle like cackling hens and whisper behind their hands. And don’t think Mom was decked out with moccasins and wore a feather in her hair. She was a beautiful woman and dressed just fine enough to let everyone know her husband was the biggest man in the Territory, but not too fine to look down on them.
“Paw was fit to be tied. After eight children and almost thirty years of marriage, he loved Mom more than could rightly be called decent. He talked to the men in town, and it hurt him to do so, but they all hemmed and hawed and said it was just a lot of woman talk, so Paw decided they weren’t worth bothering with. A month later he had the biggest wedding in the Territory and married Mom in a Christian ceremony in front of .a preacher. There must have been five hundred people who came - dons from Mexico and judges and cattlemen from Texas and railroad people from the east - but only a handful of the people who lived nearby.
“From that day on, Paw said the Birmans had only the Birmans to count on, and he sorta declared war on everybody else.”
Paul let out his breath. He drew the blanket up over Tina’s shoulders. “That’s no reason for your father to steal cattle and murder people.”
“Paw doesn’t see it that way. He says that somebody is going to take the cattle so it might as well be him. And murder? Paw never backshot a man in his life, and he’d whip any of the boys who did. But he isn’t about to give anyone the upper hand. Your men were shot fair and square.”
“My God,” breathed Paul. “You actually believe that.”
Tina’s shoulders drooped. “You ever lose someone you loved?”
“Yes, my mother. Why do you ask?”
“Mom was in town shopping one day. She had just got in the buggy to start home when a drunk came out of a saloon and began shooting. He wasn’t after causing any trouble, only whooping it up. One of his bullets must have ricocheted and grazed the horse. It ran wild down the main street. Kit was there, coming out of the store with some packages. He said there were fifty men on the street and every last mother’s son could have helped, but none did. The buggy overturned just as it got out of town. Morn suffered for two days before she died. The day after the funeral, Paw burned down the town. He and Sam and Luke went to jail for three years.” She shook her head sorrowfully. “We Birmans - we’re mighty happy being by ourselves.”
Paul got up, slipped on his coat and boots, and took branches from the pile at the rear of the cave, placing them butt first into the fire.
“You’d better bring in one of those pieces of deer-meat,” said Tina. “It must thaw out before lunch.”
“You mean go out there without my pants on?” asked Paul.
She chuckled and bent her head down to hide her face. “Ill warm you up when you return.”
They spent the greater part of two days in bed, too en- grossed in each other to give more than a passing thought to the weather or whether it was night or day, or, if it was day, if the sun was shining. It was more than passion which drove them into each other’s arms, for they felt the same thrill and joy, and even the same desire, long after the initial fires of ecstasy had dimmed. He knew he was overwhelmingly in love with Tina, and it was evident that she was as deeply in love, too, but their affection and uninhibited enjoyment of each other’s bodies seemed an adjunct to a feeling far above the primitive drives of sex and the expressions of fondness. He could not explain it, for he had never really been in love before and therefore could not associate this unusual closeness with anything he had experienced. He did know, however, that he could remain in the same room with this intense flame of a girl for the rest of his life and not tire of touching her or listening to her speak or just watching her move from one point to the next. Besides being the most magnetic person he had known, she was also a gold mine of information.
“Tina, did your father take my cattle?” he asked during an interlude in their love-making.
She was looking closely at the several scars on his body and seemed on the verge of inquiring about them so he added hastily, “The first herd, I mean.”
She leaned down and kissed a scar on his chest. “How did you get this?” she asked, not at all inclined to be distracted. She waited patiently while he told the story of the battle with the Berbers in North Africa, then she kissed a scar on his hip and inquired about that one. It was only when he saw her staring at the scar on the inside of his thigh that he broke off the account and grabbed her in his arms, wrestling with her until her shoulders were pinned.
“And where did you get this scar?” he said, kissing her in the deep cleft between her breasts. “And this one?” he slid down and kissed her abdomen. “And this one?” he kissed the soft, moist lips between her legs.
She went wild.
Later, she held him in her arms, his head resting on her breasts. “My golden lover,” she whispered. “How much a woman you have made of me.”
“I would say that the mysteries of birth helped a bit,” he chuckled,
“I want to make love to you like that,” she said thickly.
“The very next moment I can gather enough strength to lift a finger, I shall be delighted to show you the rest of my scars.”
She kissed the top of his head. “Now?”
“Impossible. You would be flogging a dead horse. Now, back to my question. Did your father take my cattle?”
“Yes. Upjohn paid him twenty thousand dollars to rustle them, besides allowing Paw to keep them.”
Paul raised his head. “Twenty thousand dollars! Just to steal my cattle? Why would he want to pay such a large sum of money?”
“He wanted to strip the land. The ranch wouldn’t be worth much without cattle.”
“But couldn’t he find someone to take them for nothing?”
“Four thousand head? Where could anyone else put them? You can’t sell them with the Three Barbs brand on their hides - no buyer would touch them. And there’s no ranch large enough in the Territory to hide them, except ours. Paw set up a ranch in Arizona with a brand similar to yours, just for this operation. He’s rebranding your cows and driving them to Arizona little by little. In a year or two he’ll be able to sell them clean as a whistle. But knowing Paw, he’ll probably keep them and start building up another herd.”
“Tina, why is Upjohn after my land?”
“Paw seems to think you have oil on it. Upjohn had a stranger looking it over a couple of years ago when it was up for sale, but your uncle bought it before Upjohn could make his move. Upjohn was fit to be tied when he heard it was sold. Paw thought it might be gold or silver, but when he learned the stranger was a mineralogist from the east, he figured it must be oil.” She laughed. “Paw must have spent two thousand dollars bringing in people to find out for sure, but nobody can say yes or no.”
“What I can’t understand is why your father would do this thing. After all, he appears to be wealthy enough without having to steal cattle. He could go to jail for life, I understand.”
“Nobody is ever going to catch Paw.”
Paul grinned. “You are very fond of him, aren’t you?”
“I couldn’t love anybody in the world, except you, as much as I love him.”
“You may have to do without him when we leave here. You’re coming with me, you know.”
“I know. But even if I’m a thousand miles away, I’ll still love him. Paw will understand.”
“We’ll start out of the mountains in two or three weeks - if your leg heals by then.”
“It will be all right in a week.”
“Not by any means. If you travel before it’s completely healed, you’ll lose that leg, especially from the cold.”
“Are you going back to your ranch?”
Paul shook his head, “What for? Your father took the new cat
tle too, didn’t he?”
“He moved them right away. They were being driven to a little valley on our ranch near the Twin Forks when I came after you.” She looked him directly in the eye. “Paw will give you the money for them and the first herd, but he won’t let you restock the ranch. That would mean tangling with Upjohn.”
“What would he fear from Upjohn?”
She drew his head back on her breasts. “Paul, I want you to listen to me carefully and don’t argue with me, Sell out to Upjohn and take the money from Paw and we’ll go away. You don’t know Upjohn like we do. Upjohn can snap his fingers and Paw would start running like a scared rabbit a minute later.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“You would if you ever saw Upjohn blow his nose and two hundred top gunmen jump right up from under his feet. In a showdown, the best Paw could expect is a draw - Upjohn losing a million or so of money and Paw losing everything he has.”
Paul got up and stretched. “I’m getting dressed. We need wood.”
“Paul, find me a good branch for a crutch.”
“You stay off that leg.”
She rose and balanced herself on her good leg, pressing her naked body to his and kissing him on the lips.
When they drew apart, Paul sighed. “What a woman won’t do for a crutch.”
She laughed and slapped him on his rump. “Get dressed and cut your wood. I’ll show you why when you get back.”
As he was about to leave, she stopped him. “You must help me put on my pants.” When he grinned, she did not blush - she grinned back.
Paul brought in a load of wood and a long, sturdy branch which was forked at one end. While Tina prepared lunch, he whittled out a very suitable crutch, padding the upper part with strips from the blanket he had torn for her leg splint. When they had eaten, she practiced with the crutch while he dug up her carbine and sixgun. The moving parts were frozen solid, but there was no rust after having been under the snow. He thawed them out slowly, wiping each part carefully with his shirt and lubricated them with oil from a small container in the stock of his rifle. He made a sling for the carbine by using a piece of the rope, then placed the belt holding her sixgun around her waist.
The Cossack Cowboy Page 21