by Gem Sivad
She ignored his sarcasm, because frankly, she could picture him in a cave with wolves, and asked politely, “Does your mother live with the Kiowa tribe?"
"My mother is Rachel McCallister of the MC3 Ranch. She's a white woman, like you."
While she was digesting that information, he did one of his silent maneuvers, moving much closer, leaving Naomi very conscious of his nearness. He stepped even closer; she could feel the heat from his body, as he rubbed a different salve on her cheeks. “Sun ointment—should make it quit burning."
His nearness and gentle application of the medicine flustered her. No one had taken care of her since—well—ever. She'd grown up taking care of others. Now this man leaned over her and squinted as he dabbed another kind of cream on her cheeks. “It does soothe the burn.” She couldn't resist and touched his hand that so gently applied the balm making her feel better.
"You're seducing me, aren't you?” She suspected that Charlie Wolf never made a move that didn't benefit him, but at this moment she didn't care.
"Yes,” he responded. “Your skin is too chapped. I want it soft under my lips when I taste you."
Naomi blinked at him, confused. “It's daylight. We need to travel now that I've rested."
"Its daylight, and we won't be traveling until dusk. Stars will be out tonight, and it will be clear enough to move.” He turned her toward the camp and her bed under the tree. “Meanwhile, you can tender the next installment of your payment to me."
"What?” her voice sharpened, disappointment a twist of pain. The man didn't need to remind her that she'd traded him liberties for his care. The hair and face creams seemed less special, and her momentary pleasure at being tended stopped.
"How many such installments will it take to close this account?” she snapped.
He leaned into her and murmured, before he claimed her mouth, “Depends on the amount of danger I incur in the course of the rescue.” And then his shoulders blotted out the sun, and he laid her to the ground, coming down on top of her on the blanket.
He supported his weight, blanketing her with his body. A few pulls and he removed his shirt, and then his pants, baring his flesh to press against her skin beneath his. His eyes darkened as he languidly fitted his knee between her thighs and pressed her open.
She closed her eyes, refusing to watch the pleasure he took in debauching her. But she could feel. Oh my, she could feel. The silk of his hair trailed across her breasts following his lips in a carnal path across her flesh.
When his tongue touched her navel, and then licked inside, her eyes popped open. He rimmed the sensitive area and sipped and kissed around her belly. When that same tongue traced a lazy path of licks and nips down to the soft curls that covered her core, she clapped her eyes shut again. He wouldn't—he couldn't—he did.
And she let him, like a wanton, she raised her heated flesh, reveling in the pleasure of his mouth and tongue on her silken folds. He arranged her body to his liking, cupping her rump in his hands so that he could lift her into his searching lips.
He nipped the sensitive nub at her apex and then sucked on it, pushing two fingers inside of her as she rose against his mouth seeking pleasure. Naomi moaned at the exquisite sensation.
He lifted his head, and his teeth flashed wickedly in a satisfied smile. His fingers continued pumping in and out of her, following the sway of her body as it clenched around them, sucking them back when he pulled them almost free.
She was gloriously, wantonly, free, she wanted what he had given her before. Her flesh softened around him and her body wept tears of desire that he bent and lapped up leisurely. “Please,” she whimpered.
"Please what?” he teased, rubbing his face against her belly, licking her navel, swooping lower to suck on her clit. And all the while his fingers thrust rhythmically in and out until her hips caught the movement, and she thrust upward each time he tried to withdraw.
"Want something else?” His voice was husky, no longer teasing but aroused, gruff. She opened her eyes in time to see his cock splay open her nether lips and replace his fingers that had been not quite enough.
He filled her. She pushed up with her hips, taking him as quickly as her body would allow, groaning at the incredible slide of pleasure that burned a path to her core. This part of him she liked. This part of his company she would miss. She gave herself up to passion and met each thrust with one of her own, each demand from her lover, with a request of her own.
At dusk, they were mounted and on their way. Neither spoke of the powerful coupling that had lasted all afternoon. If they were battling silently, than Naomi felt that she had won this round. He intended to return her to Buffalo Creek. She refused to go.
"I'll follow you as soon as you leave town,” she promised. He'd been angry, their afternoon interlude of mutual satisfaction erased, but she rode beside him when they traveled toward the mountains and away from Buffalo Creek.
The next day, he found a similar spot; this time they lay together, his arms curling protectively around her until she fell asleep. He nudged her awake, hours later.
"It's time we see what you can do to protect yourself,” he explained as he ushered her to a clearing he'd already prepared.
The instruction in self-defense was really an excuse to interrogate her, Naomi decided as she lay on the ground where she'd collapsed.
"What happened to your family?"
"War.” Naomi declared the word flatly, not sure if she spoke of what had been, or the strenuous exercise that Charlie forced on her now. The men in her family had marched off to defend the South's honor and left daughters and sisters to defend their own.
"Your daddy keep slaves?” A tide of suppressed anger escaped.
Her hands clenched, and her breath came in gasps around her words, so enraged that her usual reticence in things personal was forgotten and grievances against the males in the world spilled forth.
"Of course not,” she snapped. “My father was a sharecropper who could barely scrape together the rent for the land he went broke on. He and my brother both joined the Confederate army the day we heard the South had seceded from the Union. Daddy and Beau didn't care about holding slaves or letting them go. They just didn't want to stay at home on a played out farm another moment."
"So you're not a rich girl?” He said rich girl as though an insult. But if he had to ask, it was a compliment of the highest order he'd never understand unless he saw the shack she'd come from.
"If you think that, then my sister, Comfort—wherever she is—is vindicated. When she left to get married, she gave me her copy of Godey's Lady's Book and told me to memorize it. I did."
"How old were you then?"
"Eleven when I went to live with the Lancaster family next door. That lasted two years, till they both died, six months apart."
She stood, hands balled into fists, waiting for him to come at her from the left. He feinted right and swooped in on her, taking her by surprise and tossing her to the ground once again; this time, he followed, coming down on top of her.
"Then what?” He was so close his breath ruffled her eyebrow.
"Then,” she said tartly, squirming under the very personal way he pressed his length against her, “I went to work taking care of myself, as I have done ever since."
"Don't think much of men, do you, Miss Parker?"
"Never if I don't have to...” a statement that of course wasn't true. Recently, she couldn't seem to think of anything other than men, specifically the man sprawled on top of her.
"Is that why you picked a school for females?” He held her face between his hands and stared down into her eyes as if he could see truth there.
Naomi stared right back, ignoring the way he pressed his hips against hers. She had worked her way up from a one-room schoolhouse teaching twelve ruffians,to a position of importance teaching deportment to young ladies. Of course, she had chosen to work with only girls. She prided herself on being able to choose; most women couldn't.
"I took a
job that would get me to Texas. I'm here to find my sister. That's all."
If her tones were more strident than they should be, she forgave herself. Her many purposes for being in Texas didn't include the man pinning her beneath him, but he filled her senses, stealing her will.
"I have not seen my sister since she left seventeen years ago. I plan to return to Alabama once I've assured myself that she has a good home."
"Why would you want to find someone who went off and left you?” He kept her from getting away and easily deflected her attempts to punch him when he stood and pulled her to her feet also.
"You are a weak, silly woman. You can't even defend yourself.” He whirled her around, forcefully demonstrating that she was at his mercy.
"Leave me alone.” She didn't like to think about the day that Comfort had left, or the years in between, when few letters had changed to no letters. “I don't have to answer your questions.” Her tone was harsh, brooking no dispute. It was the one that she used with students who didn't respond to soft persuasion.
"I say you do. What's got your back up—questions about your sister?” Charlie Wolf prodded her secret fears from her.
"The man she left town with was a bad man if I ever saw one.” Naomi admitted this to Charlie, wishing she was wrong, but knowing she wasn't. “Comfort married him because he was the only one who ever asked."
There had been plenty who took without asking, though. Naomi held that back, not wanting to reveal the sisters’ shared shame. When Comfort had brought home her first meal paid for with her body—she'd prostituted herself for a chicken and two ears of corn—the girls had cried together.
The memory gave her resolve.
"And you, Naomi ... how come you're still unwed?"
She blinked at him, trying to discern his reason for asking. Then she told him the truth. “I guess I was just fortunate. No one ever wanted me."
She didn't know what she'd done to anger him, but his lovemaking that afternoon was rough, forceful, and prolonged, and she was sore by the time he was satisfied and rolled off.
She was angry with him but didn't know why. “Are you going to give me more self-defense lessons?"
She didn't know why she'd ever thought his face unreadable. She didn't need to hear the disdain that dripped from his voice. She could see it in the jut of his chin and arrogant tilt of his head. “You will have to use your brain to get out of trouble, I can't teach you violence unless I can figure how to harness your tongue."
That night, before they started riding again, Deacon McCallister rode into their camp. Not more than two hours later, Sam McCallister joined them.
No one commented on her presence, and the men spoke as if she was not there.
"Jericho and his wild bunch are camped in that box canyon ahead. I couldn't get close enough to hear the gist of the argument, but he and the old man driving the kidnap wagon have been going at it since I been here the last day. Jericho sent half his men out scouring the countryside, but I have no idea for what."
Sam McCallister had the most interesting news. “I wired the families, notifying them of their daughters’ abductions and then lit out before I had to deal with a bunch of bawling mothers.” And then, as an afterthought, “The U.S. Marshal telegraphed his approval for payment. The reward money is waiting in Eclipse. All we have to do is bring in Jericho, just like we planned."
Naomi played that over in her mind once and then again. “When did you start chasing Jericho,” she asked Sam, keeping her voice light as though making light conversation.
"We've been dogging his heels all summer,” Sam admitted. “And I'll be for damn sure glad when he's dead and we can quit."
"He has a large reward?"
"The biggest ever,” Sam stopped, aware of the silence behind him. “What?” He turned, asking the question of Charlie, who glared in his direction.
"You talk too much."
"What is the plan?” she asked the brothers, since she knew that she would get no answer from Charlie Wolf.
"The plan is for you to wait here, while we go in, rescue your students and bring them back to you, and we take the bad men to jail.” Charlie explained her role as just-stay-put.
The men left and she waited. It occurred to her that they might get killed. She was afraid that she was too far away from the outlaws’ camp to know if something went wrong. She did wait ... for a while. And then she climbed on the already saddled buckskin mare and rode toward the Comanchero camp.
The mare's head came up and she broke into a trot, alerting Naomi that they were near. Had night sounds not carried so clearly, she might have blundered into the camp and become a captive too.
A horse ahead of them nickered a greeting. She pulled up fast, and slid to the ground, covering the buckskin's nostrils. Now what? Charlie was going to be really angry with her. That was the one sure thing she knew.
Other than that, she was somewhere unknown with a gun she didn't know how to use. Pa Lancaster had spent plenty of time teaching her how to snare, clean, and cook a rabbit, but shooting hadn't been among her lessons.
Looming to the right of where she stood were shadowed boulders that had tumbled down from the cliffs above. Naomi led the mare to the first dark area. The boulder was tall and bigger across than her one-room shack in Alabama.
In the sheltered niche, there was just room for the horse to turn around. It was almost a perfect hiding place; but she hesitated, holding the reins and looking at the big slab of granite, until the buckskin fidgeted, reminding her to move. She didn't know what else to do with the horse.
If she turned it loose, it would go straight into the camp. She looked around for something to fasten the reins to, but couldn't see a thing. Finally, she just let the reins trail on the ground, hoping the animal had been taught to ground-tie. She thought about riding back the direction from which she'd come, but the laws of probability told her that all of her night blundering on horseback would get her in trouble.
Now that she had caught up to the outlaws, Naomi admitted that she didn't know how to rescue her students. She had hoped that Charlie Wolf would tell her his plan, but wasn't surprised when he didn't.
It appeared the payment of her body she had tendered in advance for Charlie Wolf's bounty hunter expertise was a sham, giving him reason to seduce her. He'd been going to capture Jericho anyway.
She wasn't sure how that knowledge affected her. She felt like a fool and admitted that her self esteem that had blossomed under Charlie Wolf's attention now wilted under the knowledge that he'd falsely let her hire him, tendering her body as payment.
She shrugged off the loss, at least temporarily, and assembled the little she knew. Multiple outlaws were camped not too far inside the canyon, and Harvey Collins was with them—she could hear his agitated tones sporadically, even though she couldn't understand individual words.
A deeper voiced male was yelling, and it sounded like it was aimed at Harvey. Good, the miscreants are arguing among themselves. I need to get inside that camp while they are looking at each other.
The time of day was on her side. It was half dawn, and mist drifted in undefined swirls, appearing in random spots over the dew-covered ground. A slight breeze carried camp sounds and smells toward her.
She needed to know how many men were inside, where the girls were located, what armaments were on display, and how to sneak the girls past the Comancheros without being seen. Naomi crept around the boulder and dropped to the ground.
She was reminded of early morning trips through the woods with Pa Lancaster. He'd fixed her up in baggy trousers, pretending, she'd thought then, that she was a son. He'd taught her to walk lightly, crawl carefully, and slither smoothly. She could almost hear his voice as she obeyed old teachings.
Crawling on her knees, Naomi was thankful for Mr. Wolf's deerskin pants. As she approached the clearing, where ground cover became sparser, she carefully lowered herself flat to the ground. It wasn't that easy, moving only inches in as many minutes, but the bu
ckskins that she wore blended with the underbrush, allowing her to creep closer and closer to the camp.
She was unfamiliar with the Texas night life, but in Alabama, the snakes would have been a threat. Hoping her path was free of creatures, she belly-crawled toward the sound of the argument, until she lay behind a scrub bush not ten feet from the two men arguing.
Around them, Naomi counted six men—three squatted by the fire, a fourth stretched flat, leaning his head on his saddle, while two still remained asleep, although Naomi had no idea how that could be with all the shouting going on.
"Old man, I brought these girls to you for a price. Deliver or get out. I can find a different use for the women."
Harvey talked fast. “I figured you'd not have need of an old man once you got your shipment. I stashed the guns close to where I picked up the girls."
The man named Jericho slapped Harvey across the face and made as though to cut him with his knife. “The baby chicks will remain ours, right, Comancheros?” The three squatting at the fire looked with interest at the wagon, and Naomi knew that was where she'd find her students.
"Not so young as all that, boss, couple of those girls look ripe for the pickin’ to me.” It was the man lying on his saddle, hands behind his head, who spoke. He grinned suggestively at the wagon.
Naomi could see that Harvey Collins had gotten himself in a predicament, and now he wasn't sure he'd make it out with skin intact. She listened to the leader harangue Harvey in a mix of languages, shifting angry words back and forth from English to utterances Naomi didn't recognize. Harvey Collins seemed desperate to soothe the Comancheros but determined to keep the girls for his own scheme.
"Don't be foolish, Jericho.” Harvey was adamantly protecting the kidnapped students. “I can't ransom those girls back to their families if you've ruined them. Hell, there's thousands of dollars riding in that wagon. We made a deal. You get me the girls, I bring you a shipment."
The Comanchero leader lowered the knife and put it back in its sheath. “Until I receive payment, the girls belong to me. If that's later than sooner—” He shrugged and nodded toward the other men. “—then the girls’ futures may be different than you planned."