by Betty Hanawa
"Nita, why don't you tell me the Ramirez family version of The Curse? Call's told me the Calverton family version."
"Tell me what you know first."
Angela undid the man's shirt she'd buttoned against the early morning chill with the shirttail tied at her waist. At Call's suggestion, underneath the shirt, she'd worn the skimpy top she had on the night before but left her bra at the hotel.
Call would have laughed at Diego's tongue falling out of his mouth, but he was too busy trying to keep his own tongue from slobbering over Nita's tits while she stretched her arms to the rising sun.
Angela pushed her glasses back up on her nose. “The Blue Stone River of Legend is a possible vein of turquoise known only to the Apaches. Distinctly possible as this area has a lot of copper in it, and turquoise is usually found where copper deposits are. That the Apaches mined turquoise and used it both in decorative and spiritual rituals is fact. Most Apache arrows contained small pieces of turquoise to lead the arrow on a straight flight. The mountain's been called Mourner's Mountain since the Apaches dominated the area. Like a lot of mountains in the area, this one is lousy with caves. Air blowing across the shafts leading down to caves produces a low noise that sounds like someone wailing. We've all duplicated the sound when we blow air over the top of a bottle we're drinking from.
"The Apache lore and folktales from this area agree on the usual story of the Apache maiden who gave the Blue Stone River location to her Anglo lover who was trapped in the caves and left to die by her tribe and that she still walks the mountainside calling for her lover.
"Call tells me the local variation is that an Apache who knew the Blue Stone River's location married into the Ramirez family, which is why the Ramirez family owns this mountain. The Ramirez family has ranched the area since the time of the Spanish Missionaries. A girl from the Ramirez family fell in love with a Calverton boy who was looking for the turquoise. That Billy Calverton found a few pieces is fact since Call now wears a turquoise ring made from a stone Billy gave his dad."
Call watched sorrow flit across Nita's face as she gazed at his ring and toyed with the chunk of turquoise hanging between her breasts. What made her sad all of a sudden? Like him, she'd heard this story dozens of times.
Angela continued, “When Magdalena Ramirez's family discovered the young lovers, her brothers killed Billy Calverton and hid his body in the caves."
Nita's head shot up, and she glared at Angela, then at him. Her lips thinned, making her cheek bones stand out in sharp relief. Call only hoped she didn't pull the knife she carried when she went hiking and stab him with it for telling Angela his family's side of the legend.
Oblivious to Nita's anger, Angela's voice thickened with sorrow. “Magdalena lost her mind when she found out about Billy's death and still wanders the mountain wailing for him. Her half-Apache grandmother put a curse on the Calverton males so that as long as she mourns for her lover, no Calverton male will be blessed with a happy relationship."
Call shook his head. “You know, I never have understood that curse. The Ramirez brothers killed a Calverton. How come the Calvertons caught the curse and not the Ramirez girl's brothers?"
Nita scowled at him and clinched her cup, pissed at him for questioning the curse and soaking her panties just by looking at her. “Because the Ramirez brothers didn't kill the Calverton boy,” Nita snapped. “He either ran away or most likely was shipped back East by his parents when Magdalena Ramirez told him she was pregnant. She died on the mountain, giving birth to a stillborn son while she waited for him to come back to her. That's why her grandmother cursed the Calvertons. Because her granddaughter died in pain and heartbreak. No Calverton since would be allowed to use a woman and throw her away."
In that moment, Nita decided that despite his obvious eagerness to fuck her, despite her body wanting him to, she would not give Call anything more than her body. And then only long enough to get him out of her system.
The Ramirez Woman's Curse was true. She was not going to allow a Calverton to use her and throw her away the way the last Calverton had used a Ramirez woman on this mountain nearly a hundred and fifty years ago.
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Chapter Six
"Calvertons do not desert their women.” Call narrowed his eyes over his coffee cup.
Nita shook her head at the spinning déjà vu that hit when she looked at Call standing against the cliff side. She still didn't understand why his eyes were blue in the fantasies that took place on the mountain or in the caves. Call had brown eyes, not blue. And she saw him with brown eyes when her fantasies took place in her bedroom or any place else, like in the diner booth.
"No Calverton has ever deserted his family,” Call repeated. He tossed away the last of his coffee and jerked a rag from his backpack and crammed it into the cup. He shoved the rag and cup into the pack, snapped the fastenings, then slung the pack on his back. “Especially their pregnant women."
"Yeah, well, tell that to my mom. Right, Diego?"
Diego dried out his cup and slid it into his pack. “My father did not desert our mother. He's always made sure he was around for me and that Mama had ample money for me."
"Besides,” Call said coldly. “The Ramirez brothers killed the Calverton boy."
Nita barely missed Call with the dregs from her own coffee cup. “Ramirezes don't murder."
"You always have thrown like a girl, little sister,” Diego said.
"That was a warning shot. If he can't admit the truth and keeps slandering our family, the next time it'll be boiling hot and in his face."
Despite Nita's glare, Call met her gaze without flinching.
His face grew shuttered, his eyes hard. “And Ramirez family members have slandered Billy Calverton for one hundred and fifty years."
"Not slander. Truth. Truth hurts,” Nita shot back and rammed her cup into her own pack. She saw the box of condoms she'd added this morning after a sleepless night with only her vibrator for company. Stupid, stupid. Even now, when she was so mad she could spit, her cunt practically oozed cream.
"The Calvertons are my family, Calder.” Diego faced Nita. “The Ramirez blood also runs strong through me, Juanita."
A wave of guilt flash-flooded through Nita at Diego's calm comment. Just what he didn't need in his life, to get stuck in a fight between her and Call the way he'd been stuck in fights between his parents all his life.
Echoes of the screaming fights between Diego and Call's dad and her mother in their front yard vibrated through Nita. Her always-volatile mama exploded into the stratosphere hotter than a New Year's Eve bottle-rocket just as soon as Patrick Calverton parked his truck. Patrick was just as loud. The neighbors for blocks practically hauled out their lawn chairs to enjoy the screaming match.
If Diego were leaving for his time with his dad, Nita clung to him crying. She thought Diego's dad was the devil cursed with the evil eye. Consuelo Ramirez Calverton Gonzalez said so at the top of her lungs, in three languages, using words Nita got her mouth soaped for when she repeated them. She didn't want her big brother going to the devil.
Diego simply hugged her and promised her presents when he came back. And he'd come back. He always did. Then he'd put cotton balls in her ears and suggest she go stay in her room until he left. He'd climb into the truck where Call sat. They all waited until the two screaming adults were both hoarse. Then Patrick would slam the truck door behind him, and Diego went away for a while. But he always came back.
When Diego came back, the fight between his parents started again as though it had never ended.
Nita was a teenager before she realized Patrick was all bark and no bite. It took another ten years before she actually became friends with him.
She asked her quiet, easygoing papa once why Patrick and her mama screamed so much. He simply smiled and said, “That's the way they are."
After Diego left with his dad, her mama and papa would disappear into their bedroom.
Nita felt her cheeks he
at. She'd always thought her mama was crying for Diego when she and Papa stayed in the bedroom.
Now, the way her cunt flowed, she realized her mother probably had the same reaction to Patrick that she was having to Call—a weird combination of wanting to kill him and fuck him at the same time. No wonder her papa always smiled when Patrick came to the house.
"It's time to put the legend of the Ramirez girl and the Calverton boy to rest,” Diego said. “The blood of them both runs through me. You are my sister and my brother. The legend isn't important. Let them rest, both of you. Let's head to the caves."
Decisively, Diego strolled past the “No Trespassing” signs and posted notice of private Ramirez land. He began the climb over one of the rockslides that blocked the long ago deer trail through the sparse brush. Angela pulled on her pack and followed.
Nita picked up her pack and felt Call balance it while she settled it on her back.
"Thank you,” she said quietly.
"He's right. Let's let it go. We'll never know the full story."
Nita nodded and started along the trail behind Diego and Angela. She glanced back at Call. The familiarity of the cliff face and trees at Trail End suddenly hit her.
If the rockslide opposite where she stood was gone, the trees were shorter and the manzanita bushes weren't so thick, then this would be the cliff edge from her fantasy yesterday—the fantasy of being a virgin seduced in the sunlight and shade by a blue-eyed man who looked like Call.
Although from what she remembered, she had done as much seducing as he had. She'd definitely been hot for him.
Nita shook away the half-memory. It was a fantasy, that's all. A dream. She'd just modified Trail End to match that silly idea of being a virgin in a recreationist play. Ridiculous.
But she couldn't forget those blue eyes.
Diego had the razor wire gate opened by the time she and Call scrambled over the rockslide.
"Good,” Nita said when she noted the thick brush on either side wasn't disturbed. “Looks like the spelunkers finally got the message they're no longer allowed on our property."
Call snorted. “If those damn assholes, who don't know the first thing about spelunking, hadn't sued your family for damages caused by their own fucking stupidity, the caves would still be open to the spelunking clubs."
"Yeah,” Diego said with equal disgust. “The president of the local club approached me the other day about opening it up again. I assured him the family council would reconsider. When hell froze over."
"Did the damn assholes win their lawsuit?” Angela asked.
Nita wanted to shriek at Angela's calm question. It wasn't Angela's family who had to go to the expense of defending a frivolous lawsuit.
On the heels of that thought, Nita realized she didn't envy Angela's non-involvement. She wanted Angela's serenity.
Nita herself got so enraged over every little thing. She calmed only when she shaped the silver wire around the agates and jaspers she found and polished. She touched the turquoise nugget that hung by a silver chain around her neck, always her inspiration.
Annoyed as the damn assholes always made her, she did understand their hunger to find the Blue Stone River. Idiots. The Blue Stone River turquoise belonged to the Ramirez family. Even if they found it, they couldn't market it. Stupid crooks deserved what they got when the roof fell in on them. Just damn lucky they had only broken bones and concussions. They could have been killed.
"No, the jury decided the Ramirez Ranch did everything necessary to avoid people getting hurt,” Nita said. “Call had drawn up liability waivers that everybody had to sign before they came onto the ranch. They'd been through the orientation and had a map."
She followed Call further up the hillside. She appreciated him moving more slowly, in addition to the view of his jeans molded to his ass. “Plus the area they were in when the timbers from the old copper mine fell was clearly marked with “Danger” and “No Trespassing” signs. Idiots cut the yellow tapes blocking the passage and moved the barricades. Their own damn fault they got hurt. Everybody who goes spelunking knows it's not worth your life to go into those dug out old mining portions. It's only a matter of time before those rotten timber supports give way."
"Did the Ramirez family take much copper from the mine?"
Beginning to have trouble breathing again, Nita gratefully put her hand in Call's to use his support in the climb. Despite his years in the law office and courts, his hands still held the slightly roughened texture of someone who worked the cattle ranges.
"Not really. It helped when they were establishing the ranch, but it got exhausted pretty quick,” Diego told Angela. “The so-called Blue Stone River is a myth. There was some turquoise, but not much. Plus, back then turquoise didn't have the appeal it has now. It was a cheap Mexican and Injun rock. Nobody else much cared."
"More fools they.” Call wiped a thin sheen of sweat from his forehead.
Nita watched him absentmindedly rub the cabochon turquoise in the plain silver ring. Her nugget felt warm against her skin. She wrapped her hand around it to feel its vibrations against the throb of her pulse. Usually it settled her and helped her focus. Now it sent waves through her hand to bounce against her bones and echo through her muscles and skin. It seemed to heat even as she held it. The warmth started in her palm, but spread rapidly to the top of her head, then down through her body.
Nita assured herself it was the higher altitude and rapidly climbing sun that made her remove her heavy shirt and tie it around her waist. The fire burning in her had nothing to do with her turquoise. It certainly didn't have anything to do with the way her pussy ached. That was caused by the overuse of her vibrator yesterday afternoon and last night.
She'd also spent too many hours at her workbench. She stretched and arched the stiffness out of her back, then glanced at Call to see him once again fixated on her boobs.
She couldn't decide whether to use those condoms or not. He still pissed her off, but she'd had too many fantasies through the years. Did she want to fuck him without the emotional bond of making love?
There had been boys and men off and on since Senior Prom who were great fucks. She'd imagined herself “in love” with a couple of them, but it hadn't taken long to realize she didn't know what “in love” meant. Part of her remained distant from her lovers. She analyzed their performances and grew bored with them outside the bedroom or wherever they fucked.
Again, she could imagine the attraction between her mother and Call's father. When she and Call fought, she felt more alive than when she had sex with other men. Her brain raced, her blood pumped, she got lost in watching his face and eyes. When his mouth opened and closed, she could almost feel his tongue and teeth savoring her body.
She looked at Call and realized how much she'd missed her buddy from sandbox days when she made mud pies and he pretended to eat them. Call had been the one to find out about her and What's-his-name? Jason? Jordan? Jack? Jack! Yes, Jack.
A sigh of relief went through her that she finally remembered his name. The relief that Call hadn't told her mama or papa or, God forbid, Diego about Jack had been even headier. Instead, he'd handed her a box of condoms and told her to make sure Jack used them every single time. Then he told Jack he'd make sure he wouldn't have anything to put in the condom if he ever found out Jack hadn't used one.
Nita could still see the hurt and disappointment on Call's face when he confronted her and Jack. At the time, she'd been too pissed to realize maybe Call was upset with her about more than her not saving herself for marriage. Now she wondered if Call had felt the same pull for her that she had for him.
It had damn sure taken him one hell of a long time to show any interest in her. A broken marriage and three engagements convinced her Call didn't see her as anything other than a surrogate sister—until he walked into the diner yesterday.
Maybe she would use the condoms.
Her skin prickled from the sun and dry air. She tried to get more of the hot air into her l
ungs while she climbed the mountainside. She imagined the cool air in the caves.
After they got to the main cavern, she planned to head straight to the hot spring pool for a nice long soak. She'd strip her clothes and lower her naked self into the mineral water. She'd let the warm water relax her muscles and dream of Call.
She could feel her phantom fingers caress her nipples in anticipation of Call joining her. She'd slither her hand down her belly through the heavy water and fondle her folds. When she brought herself almost to orgasm, she'd look up and see Call watching her from the pool edge.
His dick would be stiff, and the first jewel of cum would sparkle in the lantern light. He'd get into the water and take her there in the pool. His dick would pound into her as hard as the rock she'd lean against.
Nita's breathing grew harsher the more he thrust. She heard the water suck and splash in the rock pool. Her hands dug into his butt, trying to grind him deeper into her. She would feel like she was splitting in half at the strength and force with which he took her. But she wouldn't want him to stop. It felt too good. It felt...
"Nita. Nita."
She twisted in Call's arms, trying to avoid the cold water he patted on her neck and face.
"It's okay, Nita.” Call's voice soothed heavily in her ears. His arm held tight around her stomach keeping her next to him. “You just took the incline a little too fast. Got a bit of altitude dizziness."
Nita squinted against the bright sunlight. Diego draped another wet rag around her neck while Angela patted one on her face.
"Drink a bit of water,” Call suggested and held the bottle to her mouth.
Nita obeyed, then drank more.
"We'll sit here a bit longer,” Diego said, “before we decide if we're going onward or back."
"On,” Nita managed to croak.
"We'll wait,” her brother said firmly.
"I'm okay,” she muttered.
"You will be,” Call assured her. “Frankly, this old city lawyer needs a rest. It's been five years since I've done this kind of climbing. I thought I was in damn good shape, but the altitude is getting to me, too."