But where Alice Layety was concerned, diversions were simply that, and never quite enough. All came around again like the sun or the hands of a clock—an itch, an ache, sorely unnerving, a constant ticking lust that would not rest and wound tight once more at each sight of her. By mid-summer Bill noted a lapse in concentration, vision blurred, hand-speed not quite up to snuff; he began to wonder if he could maintain the edge much longer; age and odds gaining. He needed to calm his nerves and wanted satisfaction. There lay only one source. He hedged, not exactly patient, took his chance one hot day in August after settling some rough business, blood still up like the sun and heat. “Word” placed Hans out of the picture.
Alice occupied the last room in the Hotel, number 39, third floor, overlooking the street—chosen by design as the stairs kept legs and figure trim. All domestic chores hired out to laundress, maid, seamstress, cook; each of whom she tipped amply. But she was strict in her business, and made certain her girls were treated with the best mercurial preparation and a twice daily dose of salts. China root was also brewed as a preventative. Though foremost she insisted her girls take weekly steam baths, sensing that the heat and perspiration would purge their systems and keep them free of infection. Same with their clothing and bedding. All kept clean and fresh as conditions allowed. And she kept her own books; records jotted in a lovely hand, business well in the black.
Despite her duties, most days she took time to write in her journal: short tales, fragments of memories, sketches of persons known, depicting any manner of things experienced or imagined. Her long interest and love of the word renewed of late by a famous journalist who’d visited the “Devil’s Den of the Prairie,” collecting tales and observations of potential interest to readers back East. And nothing could titillate man nor pen more than Alice Layety. A mutual seduction, for she was flattered to meet a man of letters; she dropped her instinctual guard and granted him access, albeit to pen only. He was clever, charming, and quite harmless as it proved, at least vis-à-vis a woman; his lust preferred another realm, sharing Alice’s attraction for the male; in fact, he openly admired her choice. Hans gladly left them alone. Through most of May and early June he invariably sought her presence, squired her about town, opening each door, seating her at the table, conversing in flowery language laced with apt French phrases. For her part, she provided many spicy details of the West, its notorious characters, certain intimacies divulged—unprintable, of course, but nonetheless savored by a connoisseur of the demimonde—meanwhile cloaking her own tale in mystery.
Observing their liaison, Hickok, already piqued, no doubt felt doubly slighted—The Prince of the Pistoleers chafing from lack of attention, the journalistic indulgence which was his usual due. Today he aimed to settle on both accounts.
She sat at the desk, writing in her journal, the window open to a stray breeze; alone with her thoughts in the hot afternoon, she wore only a light chemise, the brown of her nipples shown through with the moist swell of her breasts. The door opened suddenly and she glanced up. Bill stepped in and hung his hat on the hook. What he lacked in courtesy, he gained in boldness.
“By all means, do come in, Sheriff.” Her voice dripped sarcasm as she set her pen aside. “But it seems your calling card went missing.” He smoothed the carpet with his boot and strolled her way. He stood by and ran a finger over the edge of the desk as if checking for dust, then dryly noted:
“Been writing to your New York dandy?”—he leaned closer to grasp her chair.
“Why…jealous?” she glowered, fixing him with her eyes; “Sorry he didn’t spend his time with you?”
“A four-flusher with hundred dollar words. He ain’t my type, Alice. But we’ve had us some times, ain’t we,” he grinned knowingly.
“State your business then get out!” She slammed her journal shut.
“No way to treat an old friend, Alice,” he said, touching a strand of her hair. “A bird in hand’s worth two in the bush. In your line of business you need a friend at hand. And you ain’t been at all friendly.”
“I have a companion. And the girls have standing orders to satisfy your needs, whenever and whatever.” His finger traced back of her ear and along her neck, flushing her skin.
“Yeah…saved one awhile ago”—his voice low and appreciative—“Killed a Texas trail-hand set to carve up your little mulatto pixie, Melissa.”
She’d heard the gunfire across the street. His finger moved still lower, tracing her breasts. “Problem with your pay…?” she asked as her breath quickened.
“None…long as I’m paid in full. Like in Hays.”
She reached for her derringer, but he caught her wrists and wrenched her to her feet, spun her around and pinned her to the wall, pressing her with his groin, intoxicated by her heat-roused scent. “You’ve been taunting me with that tail, Alice. Now I’m gonna…”
She spit in his face. “Like the taste of blood?” she hissed; her lip bleeding.
“Did you wag to that Back-East fag about me?”
“My my…Wild Wild Bill…man of legend and he didn’t even stroke you once…”
He licked the ends of his mustache and pressed harder, relishing her fight.
“You want pain, Alice? Is that your game today?”
“If Hans finds you here, he’ll rip that smirk off your face and make you eat that gun you wear.”
“Yeah, your big blonde stallion. Got you corralled, ain’t he? Waitin’ all alone in your stall, waitin’ to raise your tail. Bet he grunts like a horse…hung like one too.”
“If you must know”—her green eyes cutting—“he’s got enough to mock you and every other so-called man I’ve known!”
He shifted his hold and clamped both her wrists in one hand, hurting her now on purpose. He yanked the chemise to her waist and dug a knee between her legs while his free hand ranged at will, clawing her creamy smooth flesh. Then he edged to her panties and reached deeper; a bit cruel, but deft, knew exactly what pain she liked.
“Do it…do whatever,” she gasped, her breath hot and faint, her thighs weakening. She parted her lips and fed her tiny mouth to his plunging tongue, fed him her blood’s thick sweetness as each quaffed the other’s breath. “Give it to me, Bill,” she urged, compliant to his every touch; “Rake me hard, hurt me…please!”
Bill, in a male frenzy, loosened his hold to let her play, for she could play so well. With a quick flutter of her hands she unfastened his pants and had him free. And in the next instant—before he knew she gripped anything more—she drew his pistol from its holster, clicked back the hammer, and shoved the barrel under his nose.
“Makes you look like a pig, Bill…kind of cute,” she teased, steadying a bit, her legs still shaky; but eyes cold and hands firm—one on the pistol while the other clenched his prides, nails set to rip, granting a due measure of pain. With his hands raised and trousers to his knees, she backed him slowly to the bed.
“Easy now,” his lone appeal, thinking, That’s a hair trigger…as she pressed him down and climbed on top.
“Tut-tut. Not nice to lead a girl on…,” she said, wetting her lips; “No, mustn’t start what we can’t finish”—coy and coaxing as she hiked the chemise to straddle him. “You haven’t got a whole lot, Bill”—playing him now as she settled her hips. “Give it to me hard…come on, Killer…hard and fast. Make me smile or I’ll put one through your brain.” No idle threat, for she prized her pleasure.
At last set free, closing the door, Bill was a lucky man and knew it. He danced down the stairs, spurs a-jingle, not quite certain whether he’d been unmanned or restored, but without a doubt he felt precisely satisfied. And perhaps it was the moment’s calm, the flesh relieved of pent-up tension that betrayed him. While crossing Front Street, Hans abruptly appeared like an accusative ghost. Though Hickok was careful not to strut or gloat, something more subtle gave him away; he simply looked too blamed lucky. Had he been playing poker, any fool could have guessed he held four aces and none would have called. Hickok gav
e a nod and hurried past, hoping not to be called in this case either; he felt those pale-blue eyes knife his back as he ducked into the Long Branch to hide in a game…try his luck at cards.
Hans had seen him leave the Hotel. Glanced to her window and grew suspicious. His boots thundered up the stairs and down the hall. A fortnight gone, he answered her welcome with a blunt question.
“Vhat vas he doing here?”
Not the least shaken, she answered with cool assurance.
“A business matter, Hans. All settled.” And to her mind, the truth. But he knew better, could see that rose color in her flesh, and that certain angle of her hip telling of a conquest, flaunting her sensual prowess like a cat leaving a kill.
XXXII. The “Living Water”
A rainbow spread over the land following a brief welcoming rain, the first to fall in many weeks. Numerous fires had swept the plains during their journey south; several times Caspion had to set backfires to counter the threat. But at last they arrived, for a time, delivered. Moneva pointed to the arching vision and exclaimed: “Nonuno!” The word also meant “trap” in Cheyenne—for the land lay trapped beneath the vast bow of color. And there, at its long descent beyond a growth of cedar ran the “living water,” Ameta nene ma’p, she had longed for. Buffalo Creek was spring-fed and flowed swift and clean northeast towards the Cimarron.
They raised their lodge in a secluded meadow just up from the stream, where they could hear the waters riffling through the shallows, the sighing wind, and taste the air sweetened by surrounding grasses, flowers, and trees. The sky was pristine blue; plums ripened on the hillside. One could almost forget the Iron Monster cutting the ancient trail of the buffalo and crossing the path of the People; forget the Veho plow tearing the Earth, the windblown clouds of dust and smoke, the blood of Ho’ne staining the grass; almost forget one’s past suffering and exile—truly, in the arms of her beloved, she could almost forgive. Compared to where they’d been, it was an idyll of solitude, peace, and plenty. A place where death, Nae’van, would seem forbidden, allowed perchance to enter but not to inhabit; the Spirit Hunter’s haven, where the Opposite World focused, where laid the mystery and fruit of their being. Although the buffalo had vanished thereby, there was adequate game: deer and antelope shyly approached the stream, wary of man and their own reflection; ever abundant in the timber were turkey, quail, fox, and raccoon; and through the water, the fast-swimming beaver, Homa, that surfaced like shadows from the depths and with a splash of their tail swiftly submerged again. The Little People of the Water maintained many lodges along the Buffalo.
Caspion caught a large rattler close by their camp; trapped its head beneath his heal and snapped its neck. Long and thick as his arm, the Shi-shin o’wuts made a tasty meal. “Epeva”—they both agreed it was good. The skin would make a handsome sheath; and Moneva saved the shi-shin, or rattle, so her baby would learn early on that the warning sound of the crawling one meant “Hoxtao!”—Extremely no! For there were always more about, and their bite could cripple horse or man and easily kill a child.
They sat on a hillside in the afternoon sun, sharing the first ripened plums. Moneva took one to her lips, “Ne-me-nam…my berry,” she teased, smiling to him; then placed it in his mouth, “Ni-ne-nam…thy berry.” They laughed and kissed, tasting the juice on their lips; and they “shared affections cloudless sky” and “watched the dying of the day” as in Moneva’s song. Again through the evenings he sang her the song among others. They shared an interlude of renewed courtship; abstinent now, for her time was near, awaiting the child and the autumn, awaiting the arrival of Cupé and Hatchet Paw. They shared an eternity of the heart—each pulse paying homage to the Maiyun.
The Moon of Ripened Plums had waned to half when Cupé and Hatchet Paw appeared one evening, announcing themselves with the raven’s cry as the shadowed night closed round. They’d often camped nearby—once with Wears The Wind and Falling Shadow—and were drawn again each autumn when the scent of ripened plums carried on the wind or whenever they desired its tranquil seclusion; a location known to few and seldom visited. Cupé and Caspion led the animals to water while the women shared a joyful reunion. Hatchet Paw was happily beside herself, having feared she would arrive too late to help with the birth. And curious of the plums, she asked if there were many and were they sweet? Moneva assured her that if anything the plums and wild grapes were more plentiful and succulent than ever, that the long drought and hot sun had enriched the fruit.
With a bountiful harvest in mind they set out bright and early next morning. And with all the excitement and pleasant exertion, and perhaps because it was her first time, Moneva ignored the early signs of labor; not until her water burst did she become aware of what was happening.
Her eyes widened as she sang out: “No-o! No-o! Ah!”—expressing her surprise.
Hatchet Paw glanced up and answered in kind: “Na’ko-e!”—then rushed to help.
Both had spilled their baskets to the ground, abandoning the harvest to the squirrels and birds that noisily descended in their wake. Hatchet Paw, quite stout and nearly a full head shorter, steadied Moneva, helping her down the steep hillside. “Now we will pick the ripest plum of all,” she urged cheerfully. Moneva’s laughter was cut short by a sharp pain as she clutched her side and smiled.
At the lodge Hatchet Paw promptly shooed the men away and closed the flap; though herself barren, she was an accomplished midwife, often called upon. Cupé had witnessed all before and wandered off chuckling at her sudden sternness—like a badger guarding her hole when assisting a birth. Meanwhile, Caspion paced anxiously outside the lodge, wearing a path around the periphery, listening for the least cry of alarm. But there came none; the Cheyenne learned from an early age to bear their pain in silence, to accept the ordeal as proof of their worthiness. So a warrior bore his wounds; so a woman bore her child.
Inside, Hatcher Paw moved with calm assurance, skillfully attending to her charge. She brewed the Bark Medicine tea and bade her drink—“It will help ease your labor.” Moneva lay against a backrest, naked from the waist down, the birthing robe beneath her, knees propped and legs spread—she breathed deeply, awaiting the next contraction, preparing to push. Hatchet Paw quickly dug two holes with a shoulder-blade bone to stirrup her feet, then began softly coaxing, “Nohetto…go ahead,” when it was time to push and “Nes…quit,” when she should rest. As the contractions quickened, all else faded from Moneva’s mind—no thoughts of the world without, of the child within, nor of Hatchet Paw before her—reacting only to the gentle urgings: “Nohetto…now then” and “Nes…rest you,” occurring at ever shortening intervals. There lay before her only the ordeal which she welcomed like a warrior entering the Sun Dance, for as they endured the long pain, pulling against the thongs skewered to their flesh, so she lay pushing to free the skewers tearing from within as the struggling fetus dropped and turned, entering its own ordeal—the grave egress of birth.
Moneva clawed the ground, her head thrown back; faint, dizzied by the pain, she gazed through the upper swirl of the lodge, her vision funneled, delivering her to another time… Still a young girl, standing on a dead tree that had fallen into the river; through the rippling depths she spied a tiny cave, shed her dress and dove to explore. Entering, she groped her way through the utter darkness, the passage mud-slick and narrowing; but too frightened and curious to turn back, she struggled on. As the tunnel curved upward, something warm and furred wedged against her and shuddered past; she gave a desperate kick towards the dim light above. At the shadowed surface she breathed like a plant sprouting to the sun. Not wishing to meet up with the beaver, nor risk a return through the narrow passage, she tore a hole through the dome of the lodge; the exterior so overgrown with briers and roses that by the time she escaped their grasp and again clutched her dress, she was thoroughly mud-splattered and bloody, yet exhilarated beyond words. All prior experience dwarfed by the moment’s joy…
Like a bright awakening the birth-cry filled the l
odge. Moneva opened her eyes, free of pain…delivered. The umbilical was cut and tied; the baby wiped clean, wrapped in a soft skin and passed to its mother. Hatchet Paw then discreetly removed the birthing robe and bundled it with strands of rawhide.
“A daughter,” she announced to Caspion, directly upon leaving the lodge; the father was allowed to enter while she trundled off to give the afterbirth a proper burial.
Moneva, admiring the tiny vessel so vibrant and alive, so long hidden from view, murmured softly of her love as she readied to nurse. “I see you, Mae-ce-vez…little red bird”—repeating—“Ni-vo-maz-eme…I see you.” The little head nestled to her breast and with a single squeeze the milk flowed; Moneva nudged her nipple to the hunting lips and felt a blush of ecstasy as the child gave suck. Caspion had been standing quietly by, watching, only now as he knelt beside her did she notice. He smoothed the hair at her temple and asked how she felt. “Peva…good,” she answered with a smile.
But looking down at the child, he sensed profound unease—another presence, a separate being, wholly different, that had suddenly appeared, created through their love and passion, imbued with instinctual hunger questing to feed, a baby girl of black hair, reddish skin, and eyes reflecting his…trapping the Blue Sky Space and her father’s love at a glance. He surrendered utterly to the sweet innocence perceived therein and gave his heart to the pure one.
“Moneva’s little red bird,” he cooed to her—yet feared to touch.
“Nameho,” Moneva said, clasping his hand to hearten him, “she is ni kas go nam, thy child also. Mez hesta…the heart of us both. Na hesta na nam…our heart. And you must name her.”
He laid his hand to her soft little head and whispered “Mez hesta,” weighing the responsibility that grew and deepened with each delicate pulse. Among the Cheyenne, as Moneva requested, the father named the child—a name it would carry until it gained another; a name commonly taken from the father’s family. His thoughts stirred; he chose a name he’d seldom voiced, though countless times he’d traced the letters carved on her stone: “H-E-S-T-E-R…” He preferred it softened.
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