“You think the critter got him?”
“All I know, Mr. Sartain—”
“Mike.”
“All I know, Mike, is that he disappeared somewhere between town and our cabin on the South Platte, and I never found hide nor hair or him...or his wagon or his mule. I thought I’d stay on and keep cutting wood for the riverboats that pull through in the spring, but I got so lonely. Pa an’ me were out there alone together since Ma died ten years ago, now . I just couldn’t stand it. Decided to pull my picket pin. Pa had stashed away a few dollars, so I decided to head to Sundance and buy a train ticket, head south for New Mexico. I got a brother down there somewhere. I’m hopin’ to look him up. I feel the need to be amongst family.”
“Family’s important,” Sartain said.
“You have family, do you?”
The Revenger shook his head as he stared broodily into the darkness, in the direction in which the beast had carted away his prisoner. “Never did have any family but the doxies who raised me in New Orleans.”
He glanced at the girl regarding him now with a faint sadness in those long, slanted, deep-blue eyes. “I was an orphan born to a soiled dove who dumped me on the street when I was only five. She ran away with some Yankee.”
Sartain sipped the last of his now-cold coffee and sighed. “No, Jewel and her grandfather were the only family I had once I left the Quarter, and now they’re dead. So it’s just me and my horse, and possibly just me if that old cayuse don’t return for his parched corn.”
“I’m sorry.”
Dorian had said it as though she’d truly meant it, as though she truly felt his loneliness. Sartain turned to her, vaguely incredulous. Unexpectedly, she leaned toward him and pecked his cheek.
“Why, Miss Dorian,” Sartain said, stunned by the girl’s forwardness.
She smiled, squinting those beguiling eyes. “It’s not every night a girl gets to meet one so famous...for avenging his girl. Right romantic, if you ask me. I feel safer now than I did a few minutes ago...even with that beast on the lurk.”
She paused, her soft eyes probing his, flicking fleetingly down past his belly and then up again. “I bet you could make a girl feel even safer, couldn’t you? Wrapped in those big arms of yours...”
Sartain felt a warm hand grab his crotch. Unfortunately, it was an imagined one.
Dorian tipped her coffee back, set down the cup, slapped her thighs, and rose. “I’d best retrieve ole Blaze and bed him down. Brr, it’s a cold night! I hope you got more wood for that fire.” Casting him another coquettish grin over her shoulder, she strode resolutely into the darkness, in the direction from which she’d come.
Still feeling her warm, full lips on his cheek, Sartain couldn’t help turning his head to admire her retreating rump, round and tight beneath the hem of her heavy coat. He sighed, threw out his coffee grounds, and built up the fire once more. He considered his woodpile. It would have been enough fuel for him, but Dorian, being female, would likely need it a little warmer, though he sensed she was every bit as tough as any man out here. Women, however, had a way of making men feel honor-bound not to mention pride-bound to please them.
Especially those who looked like Dorian.
Sartain looked around, wondering if the beast was anywhere near. He saw no reason for the predator to return so soon after killing Scanlon, whose carcass would likely keep the animal busy for a good long while. Still, it was with a heavy sense of reluctance and caution that he leaned his rifle against the log he and Dorian had been sitting on and tramped off into the woods to scrounge for fuel.
With more snow coming down, it was getting harder to find wood that wasn’t buried. He found another large branch concealed beneath a blowdown cottonwood and a few smaller branches on the lee side of a low knoll.
He hauled those back to the fire. Dorian had led her horse—a large black and white pinto—to the edge of the firelight, where she’d unsaddled him and was now carefully running a curry through the animal’s fur even as the wind blew her hair and swiped at the horse’s mane and tail, pelting them both with freshly fallen snow.
Still, she took her time, smiling dreamily, working with almost meditative slowness, running one hand over the coat in front of the brush.
The girl took pride in her horse. That was plain and one more thing the Cajun liked about her. In fact, the two seemed as one.
She glanced over the horse’s back to find him staring at her as he used his feet to chop the long branches into smaller ones. He shrugged and grinned.
“Sorry,” he said, stomping down on another branch, “but it ain’t every stormy night a beautiful blonde walks into a man’s camp.”
She smiled, lowered her lids slightly, and continued combing the horse.
When Sartain had broken all the branches and piled them neatly beside the fire, he added several to the weakly guttering flames and picked up his rifle.
“I’m gonna scout around a little,” he said. “If you’re hungry, there’s beans and bacon in my grub sack.”
“That’s all right,” the girl said. “I have a rabbit and a pot of soaked beans in my own gear. I’ll fry ‘em up and we can at least turn in with full bellies.” She frowned as she gazed off, worry in her eyes again. “Unless you think it’ll lure in that...whatever it is.”
“I doubt it,” Sartain said, shouldering the Henry. “I got a feelin’ my, uh, friend will sate the thing’s hunger for tonight, at least.” He gave a droll snort. “Scanlon was a big fella.”
Still, he strode cautiously off into the night.
When he returned twenty minutes later, Dorian was dishing them both bowls of steaming beans and rabbit. She’d brewed a fresh pot of coffee, as well.
As Sartain sat on the log beside her, picking up his smoking plate, she handed him a cup of coffee. He glanced at her to find her staring into his eyes again, as though she were still studying him, probing him, as though she were still not quite sure what kind of a man he was. Or maybe there was something else in the look. Some secret thought that she was holding deep inside her, that was motivating her with her only half-realizing it...
He didn’t say anything but only accepted the coffee, which he set between his boots, then got to work on his plate.
They ate together, sitting side by side on the log, sharing occasional fleeting glances. Mingling with the moaning of the wind, the ticking of the snow, the ragged breathing, and crackling of the fire were the sounds of their eating, the frequent clinks of their forks against their tin plates. Once, Sartain caught Dorian staring at him mysteriously again, but she turned away quickly, snorting with embarrassment, and forked more beans and meat into her mouth.
He liked the way her mouth moved as she ate. She was no dainty eater but hungrily shoveled the food in between those rosy red lips, the top one upturned slightly, alluringly. Occasionally, juice from the stew would dribble out a corner of her mouth, and she would give him a sheepish glance as she swabbed it with her tongue or with a quick brush of her wrist.
As Sartain shoved another forkful into his own mouth, he saw her scoot closer to him, felt her press her hip against his. He could feel the warmth of her body through her jeans and her coat that hung beneath her waist.
He thought he could feel the curve of a breast beneath her arm, as well. He could also feel the bulge of what was either a gun or a knife strapped to her near side.
Nothing so strange in that. A girl would be foolish to travel unarmed out here.
Sartain glanced sidelong at her. She was watching him again, eyes bright, a devilish smile quirking her lips as she held her fork in front of her mouth and licked it as thoroughly as a cat cleaning itself while she gazed at him.
That imagined hand gently wrapped itself around his crotch again.
He must have betrayed his lust with an expression, because, lowering the fork, she chuckled and snorted and then lifted her coffee cup, raised it in salute to him, and threw back the last of the belly wash. A little dribbled out the far corner of her m
outh and ran down along her chin, continuing down her neck. It glistened golden in the firelight.
Unable to restrain himself, Sartain leaned over and licked the dribble off her neck. He kept his tongue on her neck for a time, licking her slowly, and then pressed his bearded mouth to the smooth skin just above her throat.
She didn’t move away but drew a sharp breath and held it.
She’d frozen as soon as he’d touched her. She held her plate out to one side in one hand, the cup out to the other side in her other hand, as though she were making an offering of her body. When he looked at her, she’d raised her chin slightly, canting her face to the night sky, her eyes closed, with the corners of her mouth slightly lifted.
Slowly, she lowered her chin, and her eyes, cast dreamily, met his. He could see her irises opening as the firelight struck them. Her lips were slightly parted. Her chest rose and fell as she breathed.
Sartain moved his head toward hers, pressed his lips to her lips.
Soft and plump and sweet.
She opened them. He slid his tongue into her mouth and found hers there, welcoming him, mashing against his, entangling itself around his as she groaned deep in her throat. He held her more tightly, feeling her bosom heave against his chest, as he mashed his mouth hard upon hers.
He heard the clatter as she dropped her plate and her cup to the ground. He felt her run her mittened hands up and down his back, pressing them hard against him through his coat.
His coat.
Her coat.
Her mittens! His gloves!
Frustration bit at him, and he cursed as he lifted his mouth from hers.
“Damn ridiculous,” he spat, “with all these clothes on. I want to get at you!”
She gaped at him, snapping her eyes wide with the same lust and passion that was boiling through his own veins.
Sartain rose and threw several good-sized branches on the fire. The wood had dried out as it had rested there against the fire ring. It quickly blazed, crackling, but smoking only a little.
He grabbed his bedroll. Dorian grabbed her own soogan comprised of two wool blankets and a buffalo hide and, down on their knees together by the fire, they rolled out their night gear including their saddle blankets, glancing at each other frequently, eyes cast with the hunger of the desire raging through their every fiber.
At one point, Dorian laughed.
“What’s so funny?” he asked her, chuckling then, too.
“I’ve...I’ve never...felt the need to be with a man so intensely, Mike!” She laughed again and, sitting back on the heels of her fur boots, swiped her hat from her head and began unbuttoning her coat.
“Best take off only what we need to do the job,” Sartain said, frowning at her with concern. “Damn cold night.”
She shook her head, throwing her hair back. She looked almost angry now as she said, shivering, “I want you to get at every inch of me. We have a good fire and enough blankets. Come on! What are you waiting for?”
She gazed at him, open challenge blazing in her long eyes.
Chapter 6
Sartain glanced into the darkness. The beast was gone. It was feeding on Scanlon. It had no reason to return here tonight.
Still, The Revenger grabbed his Henry rifle and leaned it against the log, within a quick, easy grab. Then he removed his shell belt, the big LeMat, his bowie knife from around his waist, coiling the belt around both sheaths and set the rig on the ground near the fire.
Rising, he unbuttoned his coat and tossed it over the log.
Dorian stood before him, also undressing. She’d removed her coat and trousers, and she was now peeling cream cambric long johns down her legs that were slender and firm and as white as porcelain. She wore a buckskin blouse and what appeared to be a metal talisman of some kind around her neck. Hanging by a leather thong, the talisman, likely an Indian artifact found on the prairie, danced across the twin bulges under her blouse.
Keeping her thick socks on her feet, she went to work on the hand-sewn blouse’s bone buttons, staring smokily at Sartain, who’d kicked out of his boots, shrugged out of his shirt, and was now shedding his denim trousers.
He couldn’t help looking around the camp once more.
Only shadows cast by the fire danced around him and his mysterious lover, this unexpected Nordic sprite of the wintery woods. The only sound was the wind and the creaking branches. He reached over toward the fire ring, grabbed a branch, and tossed it atop the leaping flames.
His gaze glanced across a holstered six-shooter and a skinning knife in a long, beaded sheath. The two were coiled inside a tanned leather belt buckled around the horn of Dorian’s saddle, which rested just above where her hair fanned out upon the ground. So entranced had he been by his desire for the girl that he hadn’t seen her remove the weapons.
The gun appeared an old Civil-War model Colt. The skinning knife had a handle carved in the shape of a fox skull, with dark, bead-sized eye sockets. Something told the Cajun that the girl, at once rough-hewn and purely, simply lovely, had carved the handle herself.
They were oddly masculine accouterments for a girl, but she’d been raised out here by a man who had likely taught her such backwoods craftsmanship. Not so odd, after all. Nothing to worry about, he decided as he and Dorian enjoyed one another.
Sartain looked at her.
She gazed at him, her eyes opaque with animal desire, pinched with the bittersweet pain of a mammal’s carnal need. Deep lines cut across her high forehead. He smiled tenderly as he sandwiched her beautiful face in his large, brown hands and kissed her.
* * *
“What is this?” Sartain asked her later as they lay side by side in their warm, makeshift bed made even warmer by their bodies spooned against each other.
He’d plucked the talisman off the ground and was studying it from over her right shoulder. It was nearly perfectly round and could fit snugly in the palm of his hand.
“Hans found it a long time ago. Gave it to me for a present. In his own way, he told me it would bring me luck.”
“Who’s Hans?”
“My brother. Dead now,” she added quickly. “A sickness got him. It didn’t get me, though, so maybe he was right. I keep hopin’, anyway.”
It appeared to be hammered metal, possibly stone. It had cracks and a patina of small, blue-green tufts of oxidation. Swirling designs had been etched across it, above and below a slightly curving, sickle-like shape running from one side to the other. Some of the designs appeared to be animal claws, some teeth. There was a moon and a star and a small wolf’s head captured in mid-snarl, peeking out from behind the speckles of oxidation.
Sartain had seen many such fetishes back in the bayous of Louisiana and in the French Quarter of New Orleans. He wouldn’t have called this one pretty, and he didn’t hold much with superstition, but he knew that when folks were convinced that such totems brought them luck, they often did.
“Tell me how you came to do what you do, Mike,” Dorian said, plucking the amulet out of his hand and rolling toward him, resting her jaw on the heel of her hand. Her hair was beautifully mussed as it hung past her shoulders.
The talisman curved between her breasts to rest against the blankets. He liked that she wore it. It marked her as an exotic, wild-child of the prairie. “Tell me about your girl, Mike. The lover you killed those soldiers for.”
Sartain winced inwardly at the recollection, for any mention of Jewel was like a sharp knife prodding an open wound. It used to be that he’d felt guilty about lying with other women. But he was a man, after all. A living, breathing man with a man’s needs.
And as much as he still had trouble admitting it to himself, Jewel was gone. If she were in a place where she knew anything about what was happening here in this world, she’d understand.
“That’s all right if you don’t want to tell me,” Dorian said, pressing her lips to his chest, kissing him tenderly.
“It was years ago, now,” Sartain said. “Five...six… I came home f
rom the War, became a galvanized Yankee—”
“What’s a galvanized Yankee?”
“Since I’d been a Grayback, fought on the side of the Confederacy during the War of Northern Aggression, I had to swear allegiance to the Federal army...in order to join the frontier cavalry, you understand. It’s called becomin’ ‘galvanized’ to the federal ways.”
He shrugged a shoulder. I had nowhere to go after the war and knew really only one thing—fightin’—so I decided the cavalry would be the best place for me. Besides, I’d never been any farther west than New Orleans. So, I swore allegiance, got stationed at Fort Huachuca in the Arizona Territory...”
His gut tightened with the dread of those cloying memories. Dorian’s gentle hands took some of the teeth out of the horror that, despite the pain, was good to remember from time to time.
Good to remind himself why he was here, doing what he was doing...
He swallowed, licked his lips as the girl continued to enjoy him.
“My patrol was ambushed one afternoon. Chiricahuas. They—”
“What’s ‘Chiricahuas’?” Dorian asked through a whisper.
“Apaches. Desert Injuns. A nasty bunch, though who could blame them? We were—are—interlopers in their ancestral territory. Anyway, the entire patrol was ambushed, wiped out, except me. I was badly wounded. Somehow, when the squaws were sent in to finish off the wounded soldiers, they didn’t find me lying in the brush and rocks. I must have been shaded or somethin’...I don’t know. An old prospector and his granddaughter...Jewel...found me, nursed me back to health.”
“Jewel,” Dorian said.
“Yeah,” Sartain said, wincing at the pain of the memories. “Jewel...”
“Was she your girl?”
“Yeah. She came to be my girl. Became...well, she got in the family way.”
“Oh,” Dorian said, her tone growing ominous, as though sensing the dark way that the tale would turn.
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