Her eyes flickered open, looked up at him, and saw the slight redness of his own nose. “You’re burnt, too,” she whispered and reached over, dipping her fingertips in the butter, rubbing it on his face, across the jagged scar.
He hesitated, as if unsure how to react while her fingers rubbed the oil across his high cheekbones and down into the open neck of his shirt.
“Take it off,” she whispered.
His eyes never left hers as he hesistated. “Baby, you’d better think twice—”
“I said take it off.”
With a shrug, he unbuttoned the shirt, pulling it off.
Cayenne looked at his big chest critically. “I thought you’d have Sun Dance scars.”
He laughed. “Comanches don’t sun dance. I’ve got scars, though.” He pointed to a long one on his ribs. “Here’s where a bear almost got me before I got him.” He touched one on his arm. “Here’s where a Ute missed my heart, caught my arm with that lance; cost him his life.”
She reached out, running her finger over the jagged scar on his cheek. “What about that one?”
He hesitated. “A Comanche named Pine da poi, Whip Owner, gave me that.”
Something about his hesitance, the forbidding look on his face, warned her off, but her curiosity got the better of her. “And did you kill him, too?”
He smiled in grim satisfaction. “Not that night. But a few months later I got him; got him in a way Comanches fear most. I strangled him.”
She winced at the satisfaction in his dark face. “You—you did what?
He nodded toward the loop of rawhide lying by his gunbelt. “Comanches fear to die that way. They think a man’s soul escapes up his throat, out his mouth as he dies. If he’s strangled or hanged, his soul can’t escape; it’s trapped in his dead body forever. I’m only sorry I didn’t have time to torture him. My uncle’s death was too easy.”
He looked toward the scalp hanging on the gray’s bridle and smiled slowly.
“Your own uncle?” Cayenne stared at him with helpless horror. Maverick was a strange, savage animal and yet she was attracted to him like a moth to a deadly fire. She knew she should be repulsed by his primitive cruelty, and yet when his hand reached out to touch her face, he was both gentle and hesitant.
Cayenne dipped her hand in the butter, rubbing it on his wide shoulders, down the powerful chest. His bronzed skin, like most Indians, was almost hairless. She hesitated only a moment, then worked her hand down the big chest, stroking his dark nipples.
He took a deep, shuddering breath and caught her hand. “You’d better stop while you can, Reb,” he warned. “You’re about to build a fire you can’t put out.”
She looked at him, her small hand completely enclosed by his big one, and she wanted him. “I know how to put it out,” she said.
He laughed uneasily, not letting go of her hand. “You’re mad at me, remember?”
He was a damned Yankee sympathizer, a Comanche, and a rough, arrogant cowboy who had tumbled her in the grass on a creek bank, taking her virginity. And yet, that was all outweighed by the ecstasy she had found in his arms, the way her body even now cried out for him. “Lie down,” she said. “I’ll cover you with butter.”
“My skin’s too dark to sunburn.”
“I’ll do it anyway.”
He chuckled. “Suit yourself, baby.” He unbuckled his gun belt and lay down on his belly.
Cayenne straddled his waist with her naked body as she rubbed the hot oil into his ropy back muscles. Never had she seen such a virile, powerful build. A stallion, she thought, a stallion of a man. “Roll over.”
He rolled over and she dipped her hand in the butter again, rubbing it on his wide chest and into his dark nipples, feeling them go taut beneath her fingers.
His eyes were as dark and deep as gray mountain pools. “Baby, you’re about to get into serious trouble.”
“Am I?” She leaned over then, kissed him.
With a groan, his hands came up, catching her face, and he kissed her deeply, thoroughly.
Straddling his body, she felt his manhood go rigid, throbbing against her hips. She pulled back, reaching down to unbuckle his belt. “Make love to me, Maverick.”
He breathed hard but didn’t move. “Uh uh, baby,” he shook his head. “You’ll never accuse me of rape again.”
She bent, running her tongue over his nipple. “Aren’t you planning to marry me when we get to
Texas?” If he lived, she thought with a pang of conscience.
“No fair!” he gasped, arching up against her tongue. “No man’s responsible for what he says when a woman does that to him!”
“I come with a dowry of a nice ranch,” she whispered, and rubbed the edge of the dark circle hard with her tongue.
He swore under his breath, caught her shoulders, and pulled her mouth down on his nipple. “Baby, at this moment I don’t give a damn about a ranch!”
She moved off him, running her hand down his skin under his pants. His manhood throbbed hotly against her hand. And her body needed him as she had never realized she could need a man. “Make love to me, Maverick,” she whispered again.
With a low groan, he reached down, took his pants off, and pulled her to him in a crushing embrace. “Baby, you really know how to make a man want you! ”
She dipped her hand in the butter, rubbing it into his lean, dark body, and they clung together, both covered with oil, both kissing each other’s skin.
He pulled her hard up against him, kissing her lips feverishly. “I’m going to put my baby in your belly!” he said.
“Then do it!” she challenged.
He grabbed her, turned her on her back; took her hard and fast and deep. Cayenne dug her nails into his dark, powerful shoulders, tilting herself up so he could go into her very core while she wrapped her long legs around his hard-driving hips.
She arched herself to nip his nipples with her sharp little teeth, sending spasms of pleasure through him. “Ride me! ” she whispered. “Ride me deep and good ! ”
And he obliged with a savage frenzy, like some wild mustang stallion taking a mare. She didn’t care anymore whether this was right or wrong. He was her man, had been since the first fumbling innocent kiss on the boardwalk in Wichita. He was her man and she wanted no other.
Afterwards they lay naked and spent in each other’s arms, sleeping the hot afternoon away while the horses grazed. Toward dusk he awakened her by kissing her skin gently, running his tongue across her breasts. “Maybe that wasn’t such a waste of the butter,” he grinned down at her. “We’ll have to do this again sometime.”
She smiled contentedly at him, ruffling his black hair with her hand. For once, the troubled, closed expression he usually wore seemed replaced by a gentle peace. “I love you, Maverick Durango,” she whispered, “and you’ll like it on our ranch. It’s the Lazy M; now that can stand for Maverick and McBride.”
His expression changed suddenly, as if a disturbing thought had crossed his mind. He sat up and looked down at her. “Sometimes things don’t work out happily, Cee Cee, even when we wish they could.”
What was he driving at? Then she remembered his words about the man he sought vengeance against. “You’re still determined to go after that man?”
He nodded, turning away as if he didn’t want her to look into his troubled eyes, see his troubled soul.
“Why, Maverick? Why do you feel you must?”
“I—I made a vow I’d get him. I made it in blood.”
Whose blood? she thought with shock and horror, trying to imagine that scene. “Can’t you forget it? It happened so very long ago. Do you hate the man so much?”
What she saw in his face was brutal and ugly. When he finally spoke, his voice shook with a terrible anger. “I hate him so much, if he were on fire, I wouldn’t spit on him to put it out!”
“This revenge, this hate is liable to consume you! ”
He ran his hand through his black hair. “I don’t care about that as long
as I get him. I owe it to Annie Laurie.”
She imagined the white girl with a pang of jealousy. Wasn’t it an unusual coincidence that it was her father’s favorite song? Maybe not; it was a common old Scots folk tune. “Would Annie herself approve?”
Maverick looked at her and she saw real agony there. “No, she’d try to stop me. Annie loved the bastard right up ’til the end. But I intend to kill him for the hurt she suffered. And I won’t kill him fast; I’ll kill him Comanche style, very slowly and painfully!”
She felt a loss then, a deep hurting loss. “Then there can be no future for us if you’re going to spend your life looking for this man. You’re a tortured soul, Maverick.”
“My friends say I never forget a friend nor forgive an enemy.”
He was diametrically opposite in every way to the manner in which she’d been raised, what Joe McBride stood for. “I feel sorry for you,” she whispered, but she felt sorrier for herself, “What a horrible way to spend the rest of your life!”
He looked away. “I think I know where he is now. When I’ve done what I intend to do, would you still want me?”
“With blood on your hands?” She cringed away from him in dismay. “Maverick, do you think a preacher’s daughter could marry a man she knew had cold-bloodedly tracked a man down and killed him the way ranchers do coyotes?”
His face turned remote, the eyes cold and hard as gray steel. “To my way of thinking, he’s no better than a coyote.”
She reached out, put her hand on his shoulder. “Give it up, Maverick. For your own sake, stop this vengeance quest! ”
He shook her hand off, standing up, and she thought he was after all only a magnificent, uncivilized savage. Maybe it was just as well that things had come to this. She had been about to tell him about the three men who had ridden into the ranch a couple of weeks ago and holed up there. And now it was her job to do something about them because Papa couldn’t—or maybe wouldn’t. Well, if Maverick survived the confrontation with Slade, he could ride on to his vengeance. If he didn’t maybe she wouldn’t have to feel so guilty, knowing that she had saved some unsuspecting man’s life. Maverick Durango had no more heart, no more conscience than the Comanches who had tortured her father and had changed the McBride family’s lives forever.
The distance between them was too far, the chasms too deep for them to ever cross, Cayenne thought sadly as she looked at his cold, remote features. She stood up and began to dress. “I guess this is where we leave it, then.”
He reached for his shirt. “I should have realized you’d do this,” he said coldly. “Try to use your body to stop me. I suppose I’d do the same thing in your place.”
She stared at him in puzzlement. “My stars! What on earth are you talking about?”
He grabbed up the rest of his clothes, smiling without mirth. “By damn, you know what I’m talking about! ”
She started to argue that she hadn’t the faintest idea what he was driving at but decided by his hostile expression that he wouldn’t believe her, whatever she said.
They traveled for several days only in the darkness until they were deep into the Cherokee Outlet of the Indian Territory. They kept a remote politeness between them as they rode, and each spread his own blanket for sleeping. He made no more moves to touch her, and sometimes when she lay watching him sleep, she longed for his embrace, his caress. But she knew nothing would come of it, that their worlds were too far apart, so she did not reach out to him.
I’m going to put my baby in your belly. She wondered curiously if he’d made good that promise, thrilled with the emotion of carrying the big half-breed’s child, then realized it was an impossible dream. Even if he survived the showdown with the trio back home, the two of them could never have any kind of a life together—not unless he finally forgot his vengeance and stopped this restless search for that mysterious man he’d vowed to kill.
Sometimes as they rode across the flat, hot prairie, she wondered about that doomed man-who he was, what had ever happened to him. It had been a long time. He might not be on the frontier anymore. He might even be dead. But when she thought about it, she, like Maverick, felt a surge of contempt and hatred for the man who had left his wife to the Indians. She wondered idly why Maverick’s “squawman” father had not helped her? Then she recalled he’d said something that indicated to her his father had died when he was quite small, leaving him at the mercy of the others. Well, no doubt they hated him because of his white blood. Had they mistreated his Indian mother, too? ? But she was dead also; he’d said that.
Once as they rode along, she absentmindedly whistled the old folk tune! . . . Maxwell’s braes are bonnie, where early falls the dew . . .
Maverick looked over at her and she broke off. “I’m sorry,” she blurted. “I’d forgotten what the song meant to you.”
“It’s all right,” he shrugged. “Somehow, when it comes from you, it doesn’t hurt. It just brings back the good memories. Go ahead and whistle.”
Had Annie been his woman or only his unfulfilled love? Even though he’d left the Comanche at fourteen, she’d heard the Indians mated early. Annie Laurie. Cayenne felt helpless against this ghost. Annie would always come between them until the day that Maverick was willing to let go of her, let her fade away in peace. Jealousy bedeviled. Cayenne because she couldn’t bear to think of any woman in his arms but herself.
So they rode across the Cherokee Outlet. Once Maverick spotted signs of a war party—a broken blade of brass, an almost invisible hoofprint of an unshod horse. But they kept riding. And everywhere were dead buffalo. Flies and buzzards flew up from the stinking carcasses as the pair rode past.
Maverick shook his head and muttered, “Used to be the hunters at least stayed above the ’Dead line’ that marks the Territory because there were plenty of buffalo still on the Kansas plains and the hunters were terrified of the tribes catching them on Indian lands. But they’re getting bolder and greedier as the buffalo thin out.”
Cayenne tried to keep track of the days as they rode but it was hard to do. She figured it must have been late in the evening of the last week of June when the pair came upon the three supply wagons camped on the prairie a few miles above the Cimarron River.
“Hello the camp!” Maverick shouted from a distance, not wanting to risk getting shot at by nervous teamsters.
Four white men armed with rifles stood up, inspected the pair at a distance, and waved them on in.
Cayenne felt relief at finally seeing other civilized people. They rode into the camp and dismounted. There were four giant freighter wagons loaded with goods. Teams of big mules grazed contentedly on the sparse buffalo grass among the red Indian Blanket blooms that Cayenne knew as “Firewheel.”
The big bearded leader waved the pair in by the campfire. “Howdy, folks, get down and set a spell; I’m Pat Hennessy.”
Cayenne smiled gratefully. “It was getting mighty lonely out here; glad to see some human faces. I’m Cayenne McBride and this is Maverick Durango.”
Maverick touched the brim of his hat with two fingers and dismounted. He started toward her but one of the young drivers rushed over and helped her dismount. The half-breed frowned but said nothing as he knelt by the fire, and it came to her suddenly that his displeasure was created by the other man’s hands on her waist. Why, he thinks he owns me! she thought defiantly.
The good-natured leader introduced the other three drivers. “This is Rand, Byrd, and Fleming.” He handed Cayenne a cup of steaming coffee and she sipped it gratefully.
“Thanks,” she sighed.
“You two are sure taking a chance,” Hennessy said. “We are too, I reckon. They warned us not to try to come from Fort Supply, but we got food that’s got to be delivered down to the Kiowa at their reservation near Fort Sill.”
Maverick shrugged and sipped his coffee. “I told the lady the Territory was workin’ alive with war parties, but she’s stubborn.”
Hennessy pulled at his beard and smiled. “A mite
headstrong, is she?”
Maverick favored her with a slight smile. “You might say that.”
Rand, the driver who had helped Cayenne dismount, winked at her. “The best women are like good mustangs—a little wild and headstrong until broken by the right cowboy.”
Silence fell over the group. Maverick looked at the flippant driver with an expression that made Cayenne shiver. “Don’t ever try to break a filly out of another man’s string.”
Cayenne felt the tenseness in the air as the two men eyed each other like fighting dogs.
Rand was a little too handsome, a little too sure of his charm. He smiled at Cayenne and looked at her left hand. “I don’t see no man’s brand on her.”
Maverick put one hand on his thigh, within easy reach of his pistol. “That don’t mean she’ll be willin’ to wear yours,” he said so softly. Cayenne barely heard him but there was no mistaking the cold threat in his gray eyes.
“My,” she said, a little too brightly to break the awkward silence, “aren’t we glad we stumbled onto you all! We’re headed to the Texas Panhandle, south of Palo Duro Canyon. Where’d you say you’re headed, Mr. Hennessy?”
The big man nodded toward the wagons. “We hope to make it into the Darlington Indian Agency by July 4.”
Rand rolled a cigarette. “There’ll be a big Independence Day celebration there probably, dancing and all.” His eyes looked Cayenne over, desire evident. You two got no business out here traveling alone. You should go along with us to the agency.”
Maverick sipped his coffee, glowering at the man. Why, he’s jealous, Cayenne thought, and heady with her suddenly discovered power, she couldn’t resist flirting a little.
“Why, Rand, that sounds like fun. I’ll bet you two-step beautifully”
Maverick glared at her but she ignored him.
Hennessy cleared his throat. “We may not be there long enough to party, Rand. If we don’t get this food to those starving Kiowa down in the Wichita Mountains, they’ve sworn to join the Uprising.”
Comanche Cowboy (The Durango Family) Page 11