by Lou Cameron
Joe laughed despite himself. “You’ve made your point. I can’t see these Yana kin of mine toe-dancing, but an Indian agent might be able to keep them alive, whether they like it or not. How do we keep the Army from slaughtering them in the meantime?”
“Hell, the Army has enough trouble tracking Indians that are really on the warpath. How are they going to find a band that’s only minding its own business in the tanglewoods? The old majapah is about to go into winter quarters. Soldiers just hate searching for footprints in stirrup-deep snow. So they won’t go far up in these hills, and in the meantime, I’ll have a talk with some decent officers and BIA agents I know.”
They were far enough from Quicksilver now for him to begin to build a smoke as he continued, “My real problem is the mastermind who stirred up all this trouble to begin with. I doubt the Army will even scout for Indians if I can tell them who’s behind all this nonsense.”
“Don’t light that yet,” Joe said. “We don’t know how many fake Indians your mastermind has working for him. Any at all must be costing him much money. What do you think he’s really after?”
“Me, for one thing,” Stringer said. “After that it gets harder to figure. There has to be something he doesn’t want me to write up for my paper. It can’t be that there’s a mining town or even a band of Yana in these parts. He’s guarding some other secret, and for God’s sake don’t ask me what his secret might be. For if I knew it, I’d know who he was, damn it.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
They split up near the wowi they’d left Nancy in for the night. There was half the night left when Stringer ducked in to see how the white girl was doing. The two Yana women seated by the ruby coals of the central fire nodded at him, said something he couldn’t savvy, and left, giggling at one another.
Nancy lay asleep, or half asleep, wrapped up in rabbit-skin blankets. She’d undressed for bed, judging from one bare shoulder exposed to the fire’s glow. Stringer glanced about for any bedcovers they might have left for him. There didn’t seem to be any. He now understood what they’d been giggling about. There was no way to tell them now that the naked white girl under all that rabbit fuzz wasn’t that total a pal of his.
Stringer went back out and got the bedroll from his saddle. He was spreading it out near Nancy when she opened one eye, gasped, and said, “Oh, it’s you. I’ve been so worried. Where have you been all this time?”
“Scouting. Go back to sleep. It’s not all that late. But we may have a long day ahead of us.”
“I’ve been trying to. I smell like a drugstore, and these rabbit skins smell just awful. Do you think there could be fleas in them?”
“I doubt it. Indians are more likely to have lice than fleas. Those herbs they rubbed you down with are likely to discourage ’em.”
He finished putting his own bedding together and commenced to get undressed. There wasn’t much light, and he figured if he kept his back to her she might not notice anything important. But she murmured, “Good heavens, do you think it’s proper for us to spend the night like this together, alone and naked?”
He muttered, facing the other way, “You can put your duds back on if you want to. I won’t peek. Who do you reckon we’ll have to answer to, about what?”
She replied, “Well, I know it’s not as if we were in the same bed with all our clothes off. But I fear that if anyone ever found out they’d still assume we’d been sort of naughty.”
He flopped down and drew the top blanket over his bare chest as he chuckled and said, “Yep, ain’t it hell to have the name and not the game? I’ve oft considered that about a gal who boards in the same rooming house, down by the bay. Her door gives her a quick beeline up the stairs to mine, and she wanders the halls so casual that I’m sure the other boarders think we’re lovers. I’ve wondered more than once why I bother acting so pure with her, since nobody seems to think I have been.”
Nancy wanted to hear more about the gal on the second landing. So he told her tersely about the fool flirt.
Nancy decided, “You’re right. No doubt all the others think you’ve been carrying on an affair with her, and I’d say she had one in mind. The poor thing must be awfully ugly.”
He shook his head. “As a matter of fact she’s an artist’s model and has the shape to prove it. Some times I think I must be a fool myself. But you know what they say about messing around where you work or eat.”
She sighed. “Only too well. The scientific world is small and prone to gossip. But what if you and that artist’s model managed to be, well, very discreet when you were out of public view together?”
“We’d best drop the subject, lest she owe you a debt of gratitude as soon as I get back to the city. I’m not sure I could trust such a sassy gal to be discreet in any case. No offense, but you gals can be as bad as us men when it comes to playing kiss-and-tell.”
She protested, “Speak for yourself. I’ll have you know my father still thinks I’m a shy little virgin. I never talk about my, ah, romances.”
He moaned and pleaded, “Why me, Lord? Why do gals insist on telling a man about all the other men who’ve used and abused them until he commences to feel left out?”
Nancy laughed. “I never asked you to spread that bedroll over there, you know.”
He blinked, started to tell her not to be such an infernal tease, then wondered why anyone with a lick of sense would want to say a thing like that and threw off his blanket to crawl her way instead.
There was just enough ruby light for her to see what he was armed with as he started to get under the rabbit fur with her. She gasped and said, “Wait, I’m not sure I meant that the way you seem to have taken it!”
Then he tossed the top robe aside to expose her smooth bare torso, and she was taking all he had to offer while he kissed her hard to keep her from making any more silly remarks.
From the way she moved her athletic horsewoman’s hips in time with his thrusts he assumed she had no more to make. But as they came up for air she protested, “Oh, my God, you’re… going all the way with me, you brute!”
He asked her if she wanted him to stop. She wrapped her legs around him, protesting it was too late to stop now. This was just as well for both of them, since no man born of mortal woman could have stopped just then.
When they climaxed and finally had to stop, at least for a moment, Nancy sobbed, “This is awful. I can’t blame you. I know I brought it on myself by speaking so freely, but don’t you agree you’ve behaved just terribly? And, oh, what are we ever to do now?”
He didn’t answer. As he began to move in her some more she gasped and pleaded, “Oh, don’t! You musn’t take advantage of my weakness again and… and… if you stop now I’ll kill you!”
So he didn’t, and by the time he’d persuaded her to try it dog style on her hands and knees she was laughing as she told him how shocked she was by his, and her, animal nature. By the time she got on top to take control of the situation she seemed to feel they were old pals who didn’t need to apologize to one another for behaving so pleasantly wild. As she climaxed and fell down against him to crush her perky breasts to his bare chest, Nancy admitted, “This is wonderful. I have to confess I really needed some. Father is such an old fuss, and that silly Johnny never even looks at me.”
He asked what about Uncle Jake. She told him not to be a brute, adding, “A girl has to draw the line somewhere. You promise you won’t tell anyone about this, not even your Indian cowboy?”
He hugged her closer and said soothingly, “Let old Joe get his own gals. Knowing him, he’s likely got one about now.”
She giggled and asked if Indians did this the way white folk did.
He said, “Hell, old pard, there’s only so many positions anyone can get into.”
She replied with another giggle. “I know. I once filched a copy of Justine from the restricted stacks at the university. De Sade didn’t know what he was talking about. Half of his suggestions hurt, and we couldn’t even manage most of the positions.�
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He didn’t ask who’d helped her with the experiments. He didn’t want to know. But that did lead them into trying some mighty wild positions as the night went on, including some he’d never even heard of before.
They enjoyed—or at least ate—a hearty breakfast of acorn meal and elk jerky. Then they came upon a secluded mountain tarn on their way back to town, and Nancy said she felt itchy for whatever reason. So they enjoyed an early-morning dip al fresco. Then Stringer examined Nancy’s creamy skin for any sign of poison ivy, noticed she looked even blonder all over by broad day, and that of course led to some fun in the ferns before even she agreed they really ought to get back into Quicksilver before they were missed.
But they had been already. So when they were spotted topping a rise a lot closer to town a member of the patrol fired a shot in the air to attract their attention, and they all met up in the draw between.
Old Clem Watson was in command, of course, with Porter, the site manager, and a dozen other riders Stringer only knew to nod at. Watson said Jimbo was leading another patrol, and that Trevor and some mighty annoyed hard-rock men were with him.
Watson said, “You two missed a heap of excitement last night. I take it you was up here together alone overnight?”
Stringer replied, “No. We were surrounded by Indians.” While Nancy just went on looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Stringer saw he might have raised more questions than he’d just answered. So he added, “We rode out yesterday afternoon to study Indians, Miss Gore here being in the Indian-studying business. We met a handful who seemed friendly enough. But on the way back someone more hostile pegged at least one arrow at us. So we thought it best to hole up until daybreak, and you have my word that neither of us got much sleep last night.”
Watson replied, “I didn’t neither. They hit us harder. This time it was a full-scale raid. They got into the dynamite down by the smelter and commenced to blow things to smithereens, including the smelter. Caved in the mine, too. The only thing left to thank the Lord for was that the savages didn’t know which of the buildings in town might or might not be occupied.
Another rider volunteered, “We got one damned Digger for sure and likely winged at least a dozen more as they run off whooping and shooting back.”
While Stringer was still digesting this, Porter shot a wary look around the higher ridges to either side and said, “I’d say we ought to head back while we’re still one-up on them, boys. With Miss Nancy and Stringer accounted for, nobody from Quicksilver seems to be lost, strayed, or stolen.”
Nobody argued with the man who paid their wages. But Porter was gracious enough to let old Watson remain in the lead as he fell back to guard or perhaps flirt with Nancy. This left Stringer riding closer to Watson. He wasn’t sure he ought to be. On the other hand, he didn’t want to seem too possessive of the lady he’d just possessed, unchaperoned, now that so many others could peek.
He tried to keep track of what Nancy was saying to Porter back there. It would have been easier if old Watson wasn’t jawing at him about things he already knew about. Having set off the blasts himself, Stringer hardly needed to be told how slick the charges had been placed. So he listened with half an ear as he tried to think how Nancy could slip up. It was safe to assume she wasn’t telling Porter she liked to get on top, and when you got right down to it, she had no way of knowing about Stringer’s other sins of the evening.
The second time Watson bragged about Indian casualties, the man who didn’t see how there could have been any raised an eyebrow and listened tighter. Watson was saying, “Diggers have no shame. The young squaw they brung along on the raid was sort of pretty before a lucky shot blowed one side of her skull off.”
Stringer frowned and replied, “I never heard of a gal going along on a raid. You’re sure they nailed a woman?”
Watson spat and said, “Of course it was a woman. Did you think we was all blind? I know some Digger men wears their hair long and braided, but she was naked as a jay when we found her on the slope by the dawn’s early light. Can’t say which of the boys got her. Everyone was shooting considerable. It was my own grand notion to put her on ice so’s we can show her to the county coroner if and when he ever gets here. The infernal county seems to think we’ve been joshing them about wild Indians. This time we got us a specimen to show ’em, along with all that wreckage they left in their wake.”
Stringer asked cautiously, “I take it they didn’t blow up the telegraph shed, then?”
“Oh, they blowed the shed off its foundations,” Watson replied. “But wire bends, and the set stayed screwed to the table. We ought to have us a sheriff’s posse and at least a troop of cavalry up here anytime now. That’ll learn them infernal Diggers.”
Stringer didn’t answer. He began to build a smoke to give himself time to think. Watson said no more about the raid as they rode on a spell. Then the old man suddenly blurted, “I’m glad you was up here in the hills with another gal last night. For I fear I spited you some, in my thoughts at least, earlier.”
Stringer sealed the straw-colored paper with his tongue before he replied, “Oh? How many gals might you have figured I was with at one time, Clem?”
Watson looked away but didn’t really surprise Stringer when he said, “Last night I was sleeping when the Indians commenced to blow things up. I run into my old woman’s room to guard her with my life, and well, she wasn’t there.”
“She likely ran outside to watch the fireworks with everyone else.”
“That’s what she told me an hour later, when we finally met up. I reckon you think I was a fool to marry up with such a young and, ah, restless woman, right?”
“Wrong. I’ve learned never to advise other men on war or marriage,” Stringer said. “Suffice it to say you ought to be ashamed of yourself for suspecting me of adultery, pard.”
Watson shot a thoughtful glance back at Nancy and sighed. “Well, it ain’t adultery unless one or the other happens to be married. If I ever find out who she was, ah, watching fireworks with, I’ll blow his fucking head off. I may be getting old, but a man has rights, damn it.”
Stringer lit his smoke and murmured, “I’d go easy on such talk, Clem. You don’t want the whole town talking about it.”
Watson grimaced and grumbled, “They likely are, and laughing at me already. They say the husband is always the last to know. You already knew, didn’t you?”
Stringer took a thoughtful drag of Bull Durham before he asked the old man quietly where he’d come up with that notion.
Watson said, “She told me over breakfast that you’d been up to something sneaky that first night you stayed in our hayloft. I naturally asked her how come she’d been out back looking into your sleeping habits, and she naturally changed the subject. But can you blame a man for mulling such words over in his head more than once? The more I studied on it, the less sense it made.
Why would a gal who’d been up in a hayloft with a gent want to spite him to her own husband? You’d think she was a woman scorned, if that didn’t sound so impossible. I may be getting old, but I ain’t that old, and I’ve seen my woman in her nightgown feeling horny. There’s just no way a young stud like you could have turned her down if she’d been up there in the hay with you, right?”
Stringer shrugged and replied, “I’ll allow I’d have found such an offer mighty tempting, no offense. What sort of sneakery might she have said she caught me at? I hardly ever jerk off in front of a lady.”
Watson smiled despite himself and said, “You’d have hardly had to do that if she was up in that loft with you. She said she went out back to make sure you was comfortable and that you wasn’t there. That was when I asked her just how comfortable she meant to make you, traipsing about in her nightgown, and that’s when she clammed up. You know what I think really happened?”
Stringer forced himself not to look away as he said, “I’m all ears, since you seem to be all mouth this morning.”
Watson protested, “I just go
t to confide in some damned body, and you’re the only man in town I’m sure of. I think she slipped out to play slap-and-tickle with her true lover and that she was afraid you might have spotted her in that white nightgown. So she mean-mouthed you to me afore you could mean-mouth her. Are you sure you didn’t spot her slipping off to meet some other man?”
Stringer swore he hadn’t seen the treacherous bitch leave the premises. This was the simple truth when one studied on it. So Watson contented himself with another doubtless meaningless threat against his unknown rival. Stringer thought it was hardly possible the poor old gent’s woman was only betraying him with one but it would have been cruel to say so.
He didn’t want to hear any more about her, so he muttered an excuse about neglecting Nancy and dropped back to join her and Porter. She shot him a relieved look. Porter said in a too jovial tone, “We were just talking about you. Is it true you can savvy Digger talk?”
“I savvy some Miwok, and all the Great Basin tribes talk much the same and call their lingo Ho. But I don’t savvy Yana, the lingo they speak around here. Miss Nancy and me had an English-speaking Indian translating for us. I doubt it could have been him or the Yana we met up with who pegged arrows at us later, though.”
Porter went into a familiar speech about Indian treachery, allowing that Diggers were as treacherous as Indians got. Stringer knew better than to argue, and he saw that Nancy, bless her, had neglected to give a full account of their recent adventures. Likely she was sort of shy about them.
To change the subject, Stringer asked the site manager what his future plans were, now that the mine adit was sealed and the smelter out of business. Porter heaved a fatalistic sigh and said, “We quit while we’re ahead. As I told you before, this remote operation was marginal at best. Rebuilding the smelter and retimbering the shaft, once we dug it out, would cost thousands. I wired company headquarters on what they left of our telegraph, and they agree it’s just not worth it.”