by Georgina Gentry - Panorama of the Old West 08 - Apache Caress
He is a proud man, she thought. Perhaps the loss of pride and dignity meant even more to him than the loss of freedom.
Once they got deep into Indian Territory, who knew what might happen to her? And if they were going to abandon the wagon tomorrow, she’d better take her chances on killing him tonight. How would be the best way to do that? Keen as his senses were, she could hardly slip up on him in the dark. And if she wasn’t careful and only wounded him rather than killing him, there was no telling what terrible retribution he’d inflict. She thought of all the stories she had heard about Indian torture and shuddered.
“What’s the matter?”
She glanced up, saw him staring at her. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“I saw you shiver. Are you cold?”
“Maybe I am at that. I’ll get an extra blanket from the wagon.” What a perfect excuse! Sierra went to the wagon, climbed in, dug out another blanket. Under it, she carried the pair of scissors hidden in the folds of her skirt. She spread the blanket near the fire. “I suppose I am a little chilly. The nights are getting a bit cold as autumn comes on.”
“Soon we’ll be farther south and maybe we’ll outrun the weather.”
“How do you intend to do that?” She lay down on the blanket, the scissors hidden by her side.
He rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully. “There’s bound to be a train through Indian Territory–maybe a freight train. If we could catch a ride in a boxcar, we could go a long way in a short time.”
Sierra shivered again. “I really am a little cold. We might as well conserve the heat and share blankets.”
“You sure?”
She couldn’t meet his penetrating gaze. “After last night, it’s not as if we were on formal terms.”
“I didn’t force myself on you,” he reminded her softly.
“All right, so I behaved like a mare in heat,” Her face turned bright red.
“I didn’t say that.” He brought his blanket, spread it next to hers. “If you’re regretting it–”
“I’m your captive and you’ll do with me what you wish,” Sierra snapped. “Don’t lie to me.”
“Go to sleep. We’ve got a lot of traveling tomorrow.” He closed his eyes.
She had expected him to demand her body, and she’d planned to stab him during the act when he least expected it. She felt the scissors cold and hard under her hand. Did she dare try to stab him in the chest?
No, alert as he was, he’d come awake as her hand came down, grab her wrist. She had to get him on top of her so she could put those scissors deep in his back.
Sierra turned over on her side, toward him. She pressed her breasts up against him. Then, almost as if she made the gesture in her sleep, she threw an arm across his body. In his sleep, he turned toward her, pulled her against the heat of him. She waited for something to happen, but he really did seem to be sleeping. Maybe it was like Robert said, maybe she wasn’t very desirable. Should she risk stabbing him? She was afraid to take the chance.
Sierra rubbed her breasts against his arm, tilted her pelvis so that her body touched his all the way down. He was awake now. She felt him come alert, the maleness of him harden.
“Sierra?”
She didn’t answer, pretended to be asleep, but she rubbed against him again. His mouth found hers and she relaxed her lips, let him probe inside with the tip of his tongue, then gradually sucked his tongue deep into her mouth as her hand slipped inside his shirt to stroke his nipples. His hand, fumbling with the bodice of her dress, felt hot as it cupped her breast.
Sierra gasped at the sensation. She had forgotten how good his hands felt as he tantalized her nipples. Then he pushed up her skirts. She wasn’t wearing any underthings.
His palm felt hot on her bare thigh. She opened his pants. His manhood was hard and hot and throbbing in her grasp. He undid the front of her bodice. With his teeth nibbling around her teats, Sierra forgot about her plan–about anything but the ache thudding in her belly. She pressed her breasts against his lips, wanting him to take them deep in his mouth, suck them raw until she couldn’t stand the sensation one more instant. She dug her nails into his wide shoulders.
She wanted him. That surprised her after all the times she had lain on her back, cold, unresponsive, letting Robert use her while she thought of other things.
Sierra pulled him on top of her, her heart thudding so hard, he must feel it under his mouth.
“You surprise me,” Cholla whispered.
“I surprise myself,” she answered truthfully and opened her thighs for his thrusting. He was built big, and she felt every inch of him as he thrust in her, faster and harder each time.
Her hand went to find the scissors. She kept her mind on what she intended to do as his passion built. At the moment he reached the zenith of his pleasure, she grasped the scissors, hesitated a split second as she brought them down.
Out of the corner of his eye, he must have seen the movement, because he dodged ever so slightly and the sharp blades cut his shoulder a glancing blow.
“You white bitch! Try to kill me, will you?” He slapped her. Scarlet dripped down his arm and chest. “You want blood? You got blood!” He wiped his blood across her breasts and rolled off her. Then he grabbed the scissors, threw them into the brush.
Too terrified to move, Sierra lay there, breathing hard, her ears ringing, his warm, scarlet blood smeared across her naked breasts. Merciful heavens, now he will kill me, she thought, since I failed to kill him.
But he was too intent on his injury to notice her. Swearing mightily, Cholla tore away part of her skirt, wrapped it around his arm. “I should have known better! I should have known it was an act! You lie just like the other whites!”
“What did you expect?” she stormed back at him. “You kidnap me, drag me across Missouri, scared for my life-”
“By Usen, I’ll know better next time!” he raged. “And to think I was beginning to–”
“Beginning to what?”
“Nothing, Mrs. Forester! Nothing!”
“How do you know my name?” She was on her feet now, half-naked, smeared with his blood and shouting. Her nerves had been stretched too taut by everything that had happened over the past few days. She didn’t care anymore if he killed her. She expected that sooner or later anyway, and she was weary of the tension.
“You told me,” he said. “Remember?” He looked up from his bandaging.
Had she? She couldn’t remember. Should she try to run for the woods again? He was swift as a bobcat and had the stamina of a mountain goat. He’d only hunt her down. She stood, watching him finish the bandaging, waiting.
He got up, grabbed her arm, twisted her hands behind her. “I’ll know better next time.”
“Next time?” She almost spat the words at him. “Go ahead and kill me. I expect it!”
“And waste a good hostage?” His mouth twisted into a hard, mirthless grin. “I need you, Sierra, in case I get trapped somewhere. I don’t think white soldiers will shoot at a human shield, especially a pretty one like you.”
She struggled, but he tied her up anyhow. This is what I get for taking chances, Sierra thought miserably as she lay down on the grass and watched Cholla spread out blankets by the fire. If she’d been obedient and done exactly as she was told, he might have freed her by now. Grandfather had warned her about having the attitude of her mother. She vowed right then and there that if she escaped this ordeal alive, she would take a job somewhere and blend into the masses, conform as Grandfather had urged.
Cholla slept peacefully enough it seemed, but Sierra didn’t get much rest. The next morning, he dug through their things, made two backpacks of the barest kind of necessities, and turned the old mule loose in the lush, wild grasslands nearby. As he had already pointed out, the mule needed a good rest before it could go any farther, and old as it was, it deserved its freedom.
He dug through the trunks. “I guess we have everything we can use.” He picked up the photo of Robert. �
�Don’t you want this?”
So he had seen the photo. She thought about his question a minute, shook her head. She was tired of being a hypocrite, even though she still hated the Indians for widowing her and leaving her defenseless in the world. “He never even bought me a wedding ring; that’s how little he cared.”
He gave her a long, searching look. “All right then, come on.” He jerked his head toward the south. “We’ll hike through the hills, and maybe somewhere along the way, we’ll find a train or maybe a good horse.”
“You don’t have anything to trade those Indians for a good horse.”
He looked her up and down. “Don’t I?”
She trembled at the thought. “Aren’t you going to untie me?”
“And risk getting killed again? You can walk with your hands tied behind you.” His tone was curt as he pushed her ahead of him on the trail.
There was nothing to do but start walking. With her hands tied behind her, however, her balance wasn’t very good. And when a fly lit on her nose, she couldn’t brush it off. Besides that, as the day progressed, her arms began to ache from being tied. But Sierra decided she could be as stubborn as he was. If he expected her to beg, he was going to be very disappointed. All day they traveled toward the south, through oaks and walnuts that were already turning flame red and gold and russet with the coming autumn.
Twice she stumbled and fell, and strong hands reached out, hauled her to her feet, pushed her forward. Along about dark, she began to balk. “I can’t walk much farther.” She sank to the trail, but his big hand yanked her upright. “You will walk.”
His voice had such a hard edge that it scared her. Whatever softness toward her she had sensed in this man was gone now.
“If I reach the point where I just can’t go any farther, are you going to put a bullet between my eyes and leave my body where it falls?”
A look of anguish came to his rugged features for a split second, and then his face became inscrutable again. She wondered about it a moment, then decided she had been mistaken. There was nothing weak or sensitive about this man–not now, not ever. She had begun to think of him as a human being. Well, she had been a fool. He was nothing but a fierce, heartless savage.
Heavens, suppose she was even now carrying his child? What does it matter? she chided herself as she stumbled forward. He’s not going to let you live long enough for him to know or care.
She fell again, sank to her knees.
“Get up or you’ll die right here.”
“Whatever you do to me, I ... I can’t walk any more.” She looked over her shoulder at him. The bloodstained bandage on his arm reminded her that she had failed, but she was glad she had tried. If only she hadn’t hesitated at the very last second, those steel blades would have gone deep into his back, maybe into his heart, killing him instantly.
She closed her eyes, waiting for the gun against her forehead. Instead he swung her up in his arms, hung her over his shoulder and began to walk. She felt like a sack of potatoes. The Apache must need a hostage bad to go to all this trouble to keep her. She’d reached such a point of exhaustion that she didn’t care whether she died, as long as she didn’t have to keep walking.
A cool breeze came up suddenly and thunderheads built along the horizon in the pink and lavender dusk. From a long way off, thunder rumbled.
Cholla set her on her feet. “We may get a rain, and it’s almost dark. We need to find shelter.” He looked around, gestured to a hill ahead of them. “There might be a cave over there, or at least a ledge we can get under to wait this out.”
The wind blew again, bringing with it the fresh scent of rain. Lightning cracked across the sky. Sierra needed no urging, she began to run toward the cliff ahead, Cholla right behind her. She stumbled and fell over a limb, and he pulled her to her feet and they kept running. Her face felt hot, was damp with perspiration, but the wind was cool on her skin. As she ran, the pins began to come out of her hair, and long locks blew free about her shoulders.
Cholla raced ahead of her, up into the rocks, looking around for shelter. The storm began as she ran toward him, a few drops at first, then more and more. The sky seemed to open up as she staggered onward, drenching her with wet, cold rain. She couldn’t make it. But even as she hesitated, he came dashing back, scooped her up easily, ran with her through the rocks, and took her under an outcrop that formed a shallow cave back into the side of the hill.
Sierra sat shivering and miserable, watching it rain as her captor built a small fire from the bits of wood and pine cones that had lain under the rock overhang. Then he stripped off his clothes, draped them on rocks to dry. She averted her eyes, determined not to look at his perfect, virile body.
He came over, knelt, untied her, began unbuttoning her dress. “Get those wet things off,” he ordered.
She slapped his hands away, then opened her backpack and discovered that in her haste, she hadn’t packed an extra dress. Undaunted, she went behind a rock, stripped off her wet things, laid them over the rock, and wrapped herself in her blanket before returning to sit by the fire.
He glanced up at her, didn’t say anything as he roasted the rabbit he had killed with the bow late in the afternoon. He had even salvaged the coffee and the little pot. When he held out a cup of the steaming brew to her, she took it in both hands and savored its warmth gratefully. “So now what happens?”
“Just like I said, Dark Eyes,” he tore off part of the crispy meat and handed to her, “I thought I heard a train whistle this afternoon, or maybe I only imagined it, but that would be the fastest way to travel.”
Sierra ate her meat and looked out at the pouring rain. “You really think you can do this, don’t you?”
“Do what?”
“Make it all the way back to Arizona Territory.”
“Maybe not, but I have to try. I’m not one to give up and be pushed along with the herd.”
If anyone can make it, he can, she thought, or he’ll die trying. Or kill anyone who gets between him and his goal.
When she looked up, he was staring at her. “I’ve had time to think,” he said, and touched his bandaged arm gingerly. “You hesitated at the last minute with those scissors–why?”
For some reason, the question angered her. “I’ve got bad aim. Believe me, I meant to bury them in your back!”
“Maybe so.” He stared at her a long moment, not saying anything. She wished she knew what he was thinking. “You’re a cold one, Dark Eyes, like a black widow spider, plotting to kill the male even as he mates with her. I thought you said you never took chances, that you always conformed?”
“Desperate circumstances call for desperate measures,” she retorted.
He raised one eyebrow at her. “You’re not such a mouse as you pretend to be. There’s a little flint to you after all.”
She was suddenly weary of being baited, of wondering whether he was going to kill her or just put her through such misery she would wish she were dead. Without another word, she stretched out on the dry pine needles and leaves.
“Don’t you want to come over here by the fire?”
“No, I’m doing fine back here.”
“You know, with autumn coming on, snakes are denning up for the winter–maybe even in the back of this cave.”
Sierra sat bolt upright. “Snakes hibernate?”
He nodded, then yawned and stretched before spreading his blanket by the fire. “You’re welcome to come over here.”
She got up, still holding her blanket tightly around herself, went over and sat down on a rock. Outside lightning still crackled and rain poured down, a sweet, clean scent blowing in to mix with the pungent smell of the burning pine cones. When she looked over at him, he had drifted peacefully off to sleep, but the weapons were under his arm so she couldn’t possibly get any of them without waking him.
Damn him anyhow. At least he hadn’t tied her up again. It occurred to Sierra that she could slip out of the cave and run. Where? It was dark out there and pouring r
ain. He had the weapons and the food. Even her ragged dress was hanging up to dry, and she didn’t know where in hell she was except somewhere in northeastern Indian Territory ... maybe. She wasn’t even sure of that. Tonight wasn’t the time to try another escape. Cold and cramped, Sierra lay down on the ground near the cave entrance and dropped off to sleep.
All too soon, it was dawn and she didn’t feel like moving, even though Cholla was up and dressed. “Sleep well?” he asked.
“You know I didn’t.” Her tone was pointed and sarcastic.
He seemed to ignore it. “I’ve been outside looking around,” he said as he poured her a cup of coffee. “The rain’s stopped, and I swear I heard a train whistle in the night. I think we’ll try to find the tracks, maybe catch a ride on a boxcar.”
She sipped her coffee and stared at him. “Haven’t you heard any of those stories about men trying to catch rides on freight trains. You can fall under them and lose a leg.”
“The other choice is to keep walking south.”
Sierra thought about it a long moment, looked down at her sore, blistered feet. “Let’s try for the train.”
“Here, I’ve been working on something for you. Remember that deer I killed a few days ago?”
Sierra nodded, wondering. Then he handed her a pair of butter-soft moccasins and a deerskin dress. Her clothes and shoes were ragged. She looked from the outfit, back to him. “Why, thank you.”
“It’s not much.” He looked a little chagrined. “I’m not used to doing woman’s work, but your feet looked sore.”
Even though she wouldn’t have admitted it for the world, she was touched that he had noticed. For a savage, he was showing a sensitive side she hadn’t realized he possessed. But then, she reminded herself fiercely, I wouldn’t be in this godforsaken place, footsore and ragged, if he hadn’t kidnapped me weeks ago.
Sierra went behind a rock, changed into the new, butter-soft things. Then she braided her hair rather than put it up in its usual bun.
He looked at her approvingly. “You look like an Indian girl now; you’re dark as one, too, what with the sun.”