Ask No Tomorrows

by Hestand, Rita

  “I guess you could call it that. I learned a lot, yes. I wouldn’t trade it for anything; safest place on earth to live.”

  “You said they think I’m dead?” Riley glanced at the grave in the distance. “That gives me a little advantage, I guess. But I wonder if it’s enough?”

  “You ain’t gonna know that ‘til you talk to them. I don’t see why you aren’t already there, talking to them.”

  “They won’t waste any time drawing the papers up on my land,” Riley argued. “Harry was mentioned in dad’s will. Dad thought a lot of him. I guess he wasn’t a very good judge of character either. I know exactly what Harry is up to. I heard the whole thing while I hid out. It won’t be hard for him to get that lawyer to work for him.”

  “Sounds like you and your dad were a little too trusting.” Sam sighed. “So what do you want to do, go shoot them dead?”

  “Could we?” Riley asked, turning to look at him point blank.

  “Riley!” Sam shouted, shaking his head in disgust.

  “You said so yourself, it’s my land.” Riley came closer. “Look Sam, I’m not dead, and I’m not crazy. I did nothing to encourage this whole thing, I’m the victim. I’m also no fool. But I’d do better getting a big city lawyer to defend me than any of these hoosiers. They’d back off then.”

  “Why don’t you go to Dallas then, talk to some of those big city lawyers and see what they can do?” Sam said in exasperation.

  “They are stealin’ my lawyer, I’ll have to find another.”

  She sighed, then looked at him.

  “With a town that big there should be more than one lawyer. That’s a dandy idea, Sam. Lets head for Dallas, then,” Riley suggested, turning back to the horse and checking the cinches.

  “I don’t recall sayin’ I’d go with you, Riley.” Sam frowned and adjusted his hat, then stared at her slumped shoulders.

  “‘Course you will, you’re not gonna let me fight this thing alone.” Riley whipped about with a smile on her lips. “You’re too much of a gentleman to do that.”

  “Gentleman? I’ve been called a lot of things, but not that. Look, Riley, I’m a black man and black men and white women…well…it’s not a good idea if you intend to live.”

  Nodog whined and eyed them.

  “You’ll do just fine by yourself.” Sam winked at the dog. Nodog flopped his tail. “You seem perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, Riley. So go on, take my horse, and get yourself to Dallas,” Sam instructed, trying to push her into some action.

  “Why you fightin’ this so hard, Sam?”

  “Fightin’ what so hard?” He whipped about to face her.

  “Me!”

  “‘Cause I don’t want to get my fool head blown off, that’s why,” Sam admitted. “Unlike you, I’m partial to my life.”

  “Is that the only reason?” Riley’s voice softened and she smiled.

  “Leave it alone, Riley.” Sam gestured with his hands.

  “I knew it. And I feel the same way, Sam…” Riley came closer now. “Just as curious as you are about it.”

  Sam felt cornered. “Look Riley, it ain’t gonna work. So let’s don’t even consider…”

  “Consider what? That we’re attracted to each other…” Riley’s smile broadened as she stood very close. “It’s the truth, the gosh awful truth. My daddy would turn over in his grave, but that’s just the way it is sometimes. You can’t fight nature.”

  On one hand he wanted to haul her into his arms and kiss the devil out of her, and on the other hand he wanted to get on his horse and ride as fast and as hard as he could away from her. She was trouble no matter how he looked at it.

  “There is absolutely nothing natural about you and me. We’ll not talk of that ever again, understood?” he asked.

  “Not until you’re more comfortable with the idea at least,” Riley said.

  “Comfortable? I’ll never be comfortable with that,” Sam rasped.

  “But it’s there, isn’t it Sam…” she whispered, her finger reaching up to touch his lips.

  “Stop that.” He moved away.

  “Maybe if you kissed me once, we’d get the curiosity of it out of our way and could forget it,” Riley tempted.

  For a minute he stared at her long and hard, his glance falling on her pink lips. If he shocked her enough would she shut up about it? If he pursued her would she run?

  “Maybe we couldn’t…” he muttered.

  “Couldn’t what?”

  “Forget it.” He swallowed hard.

  “Wanna find out?” she murmured.

  “No, now mount up and let’s get out of here,” Sam instructed. “Wait…there is a way…come here.”

  She walked closer to him.

  “We put that hair up and keep it up, dirty your face a little and keep those clothes about you, you could pass for a boy. We could even cut that hair off like a boy.”

  “That’s a dandy idea, Sam…” She smiled up at him. “I knew you’d come up with somethin’. Must be those Indians you were raised with. Thanks Sam…” And before he knew what she was up to she tiptoed and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

  Sam stood rock still and let the softness of her spill over him. For only a moment he let the kiss linger, then he jerked her away none to gently.

  She smiled. “I knew it. You liked it.”

  “Don’t ever do that again…” He grabbed her arms and shook her a minute. She stared up at him with startled eyes.

  “But why not Sam…you’d never make such a fuss unless you liked it.”

  For a split second he wanted to haul her back into his arms and finish what she started, but good sense prevailed. “Because from now on you are a boy. It’s for your own good, you understand?”

  She seemed to think about that and smiled. “Alright.”

  She braided her hair and then shoved it under her hat as he smeared dirt on her face. When her eyes clouded with tears he backed off, not saying a word.

  She mounted and looked down into his big frown. “You’re sweet on me Sam, and I know it, and one day we’ll just have to put it to the test.” Riley smiled at him, still holding the tears back.

  “Well, this ain’t gonna be the day.” He turned away and refused her the privilege of seeing his smile.

  “Maybe not, but it’s gonna happen Sam, and you know it as well as I do…” she boasted. “Well, are you comin’ or not?”

  “I want to put Nodog up in your lap for a while; he needs to heal good before he tries to walk very far.”

  “Good idea.”

  He turned to look at her and gritted his teeth. Then he hauled Nodog to her lap and mounted himself up in the saddle behind her. His arms went around her instantly and he felt her indrawn breath. He smelled the sweet lilac of her hair, felt the heat rising between them and tried not to think about what kissing her would do to him, but it was impossible. She’d barely touched her lips to his cheek and he knew he wanted more. But he was the man, the one in charge and he had to keep his distance, somehow. Once the idea was planted, he couldn’t quite get it out of his mind. It would be pure misery riding with her anywhere, he decided as he took the reins from her hands and headed east.

  She relaxed against him, fitting herself closer and leaning her head almost on his shoulder. He stopped. If anyone spotted them now they’d have no trouble at all figuring out she was a woman, in his arms.

  Unfortunately he was right, it was pure agony being this close with his arms around her and feeling her body moving in a rhythm with his and the horse. He quickly jumped down.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I’ll ride the front, you just hold on.” He grimaced. “Better yet, I’ll just walk a while. With Nodog in my lap there just isn’t room.”

  She smiled sweetly. “Just a matter of time,” she said under her breath.

  “You flirt with all men so outrageously?” he asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I don’t flirt at all. Just seems to come natural with you tho
ugh.” She chuckled.

  “I ought to marry you for the money, myself…” Sam grumbled.

  “Mm…now there’s a thought.” She laughed. “If we were married we could…”

  “I’m beginning to think Harry is right, you are crazy,” Sam muttered.

  “That’s the meanest thing you ever said to me, Sam.”

  Sam glanced up at her. “Instead of diggin’ your heels in at me, maybe you ought to be thinking about what you’re gonna say to them lawyers. And start acting like a boy, Riley. At least you got a name that sounds more like a boy than a girl. You just remember who you are and what you are and everything will be okay.”

  The light in her eyes went out and she nodded. “You’re right Sam.” She looked at Nodog. “Nodog, Sam is a hard man to figure, but I got plenty of time.”

  Nodog licked her hand and wagged his tail against the saddle horn as he snuggled against her.

  Chapter Five

  Sam glanced at Riley out of the corner of his eye; she’d been silent for a long while now and he wasn’t sure why.

  They’d traveled by night, and Sam walked alongside her and the horse for a long while. Halfway through the night, Nodog had enough of riding and jumped down. He sniffed the trial, and then left a weaving trail alongside of Sam.

  “Why you so quiet?” he finally asked, unable to tolerate her silence.

  “Been wonderin’,” she answered.

  “Oh, what?” Sam asked, not looking at her now.

  “How do I go about being a boy?” she asked. “I mean, it ain’t natural, and I couldn’t do much of a job for my father when he expected it. So tell me…how do I go about it?”

  Sam shrugged. He peered up at her and nodded. “Well, let’s see. You shouldn’t ought to smile too much. Boy’s growin’ into manhood don’t smile much, they take life too seriously. And…you should learn to spit, boys are always spitting…”

  “Spitting?” She sounded a little shocked. “Really? I never noticed. But okay, I can spit.”

  “Let’s see.” He stopped the horse.

  She spit down at the ground. It splattered everywhere.

  “Nah…that ain’t no way to spit. You gather it in your mouth with your tongue and aim it and spit hard, so it don’t splatter, more like your aimin’ to hit somethin’ with it,” Sam said and demonstrated.

  She shrugged. “Okay…yeah, I can do that.”

  “Try it,” he offered.

  She slathered it and looked at the ground, and aimed it at a rock. She hit it, and Sam laughed out loud. “That was pretty good.”

  “You do it enough.” She shook her head. “What about up here?” She raised her hand to her breast. “Not that I got that much to hide, mind you, but it could become noticeable.”

  Sam looked away. “We’ll do something about that as soon as we can. It ain’t like it’s real noticeable anyway. In the meantime, keep your shirt loose, so it’s not a problem.”

  “Oh…okay…And exactly how is my being a boy gonna benefit me or us?” she asked, as Sam put Nodog in her lap. “Well, anyone sees you with me, I can explain it easier. They hung your pa from a tree and I found you, wandering around on the prairie. People can accept such stories. But they’d never accept a white woman travelin’ with a black man. For any reason.”

  “Good point. That’s good thinking, Sam. Okay. I understand it now.”

  Satisfied, she didn’t speak again for a long while.

  Sam glanced up at her and noticed she was nearly asleep in the saddle.

  With a long sigh, he got up behind her and held onto her as they moved at a steady gait most of the night. He had time now to ponder why he was doing this. How’d he get so tangled up with a white woman? Had he completely lost his mind? He’d prided himself with using his head most of the time, but this wasn’t a good idea and he knew it. Still, she needed help. Unlike him, she had no training on taking care of herself in a survival situation.

  Nodog caught scent of something and trailed off the beaten path for a while, coming back with a whine.

  “Okay, have it your way, you stubborn dog.” Sam laughed.

  Nodog ran ahead of them now. Sam smiled.

  Sam knew the reason he was helping Riley: she was just so darn vulnerable. Not like most white women he knew either. She put no stock in color, that was certain, and unusual. She lacked a certain amount of confidence in herself, too. Why he didn’t know, she was nice looking, he particularly liked her small frame and long dark hair, and especially her angel eyes. Her smile and eyes was like peeking into heaven, and even Sam couldn’t deny that. He’d never seen such beautiful eyes as hers. She was also smart in some ways and a little too gullible in other ways to be on her own.

  He wondered about her father and the mother she never spoke of.

  It was times like these that he realized exactly how many people he had as a child to depend on. Grateful for Lee coming into his life, and appreciative of Chase Rivers, he’d had a mountain of people teaching him the things that would someday help him become a man. And seeing his nature clearly, Burning Tree, the Shaman of the tribe had taken Sam under his wing to teach him many more things; like how to heal himself with the earth’s gifts, how to find food when there was none, how to outwit his foe when he was outnumbered. Sam had been a good student too. Being the only black man in the tribe, he knew he might someday need all these things to survive.

  But Riley was a mystery to him. This girl seemed so alone. He wondered why, but he didn’t want her going it alone. There were bad people in the world and they would eat her alive.

  He wondered if she got the ranch back, could she manage to keep it? How could they have just taken it over from her? What kind of people was she dealing with? Although, when he thought of George and John, he realized they were part snake, and about as low down as a man could get. He didn’t blame her for being scared, but still helping her wasn’t going to be easy.

  Chase Rivers warned Sam not to fall prey for the weak, but Sam had a natural soft heart and he couldn’t change that. Even though he’d been laughed at many times for taking in poor creatures, he couldn’t let them die. He’d been the one to take the stray wolf that was crippled into the camp. Nursing it back to health, it had become his constant companion. Lee kept trying to tell him he would never stay, but Nodog did stay. Although Nodog healed, he never once left Sam, the man who nurtured him back to health. He glanced down at Nodog now, happily scouting out the distance for him.

  Sam had been the one to risk his life for the other children in the camp too. Knowing he was older, he fought as an adult to defend the Indian camp many times when Lee and Chase were gone on scouting parties. Most of the time the Indian camp remained peaceful, but every now and then a renegade bunch of outlaws would try to take it over, and those were the times that Sam learned to fight and defend the weaker ones.

  He’d been doing it ever since.

  Yes, Lee and Chase had taught him well how to handle himself and how to defend, and he was grateful. But the one thing they didn’t teach him, couldn’t teach him, was how not to defend the weak.

  He glanced down at Riley once more. Did she have any family? Friends? She sure didn’t act like it.

  Or was she like Nodog, another stray. He’d protect her, as long as he could, for he knew it was the right thing to do, maybe not the intelligent thing to do, but the right thing. Lee had taught him values he’d never forget. It was the things Lee taught him that he held fast to, for Lee was a good man.

  Chapter Six

  It was nearly noon the next day before they stopped, finding the ruins of an abandoned shack. They scouted the place first and once Sam was sure it was safe, he made camp. Nodog didn’t leave his side, sniffing the place and wagging his tail that all was alright.

  Whoever had lived here had left little, and in a hurry, Sam decided as he tried to find food or comfort. Odd and end clothes were scattered about, as though they had either been gone through many times or thrown out for travel. Evidence of a couple of Ind
ian attacks and a partially burnt out floor left Sam with an idea that Comanches had raided the place a couple of times.

  “Not much of a place, but we can rest up here for a while,” Sam said. “Looks like a norther blowing in. Looks like we’re gonna need some shelter before long.”

  Riley nodded.

  He walked around the shack and opened a cellar door around the side. “Got a storm cellar too. And looks like we found a little food here. It’s all canned goods, but we can take some.”

  “I hate storm cellars; they are so dark, and there are spiders and sometimes snakes in them.” Riley shivered visibly.

  “Well, you may hate them, but if the weather is bad enough you might be glad of it,” Sam informed her none too gently.

  “I’m sorry, but I was bitten once…” Riley offered her excuse.

  “By a snake?”

  “Yes, dad had shoved me into the cellar when a bad storm came up and he’d gone to check the stock, and there was a rattler down there just waiting. With no doc around, I almost died. Old Gordy, he fixed me up though. He had some Indian cure and it worked.”

  “Gordy?”

  “Yeah, the hired hand I told you about that I trusted so much.”

  “That must have been a real experience. But your dad and this Gordy took care of you…?”

  “Yeah, I was pretty sick for a while, but I healed up. I was about ten when it happened.”

  “Look, I agree they aren’t the best places to be, but we do what we have to do in an emergency,” Sam added.

  “Yeah, but at least you know why I don’t like these kinds of places.”

  “I guess I do. We won’t go down unless we have to,” Sam promised. “Besides, Nodog can sniff out a place better than any two legged animal. If there are snakes there, we’ll know it before we go inside.”

  “Good. I trust your dog.” She glanced at Nodog who eyed her then wagged his tail.

  Sam went around the back and found a well. He raised the bucket and pulled the ladle from the handle. He trickled the water on his face then opened his mouth and tasted it. It was cool and sweet. He poured some into his hat and let Nodog have a drink then he did the same for his horse that he hobbled out back.