Sundancer (Cheyenne Series) (28 page)

      
Cherishing and coaxing, he stroked new, more intense sensations from the core of her femininity. Her hips were motionless, cupped in his hands; her heels dug into the mattress on either side of his torso, her thighs spread wide. She was offering herself to him. And it was glorious beyond anything she had ever felt before. The starburst of orgasm came so swiftly, so intensely that it left her panting, too breathless to cry out.

      
Cain felt her arch up taut as a bowstring. Then the pulsing contractions began. He kept his mouth on her, firm and hot, until they began to fade. Swiftly, before she could recover from the lethargy of culmination, he slid up her body, covering her as his hand guided the thick aching length of his staff to the sweet portal it craved so desperately. He plunged swiftly inside with a guttural oath that was endearment.

      
Roxanna floated on a wave of blissful satiety an instant before she felt the steel power of his body lay claim to hers. His first thrust seemed as if it should have sundered her body in two. But it did not. She could feel the desperate, long-denied hunger in him and gloried in it. He had loved her thoroughly and deserved his own release. Eagerly she tightened her legs around his hips, arching up to meet his slick heavy plunging, only to feel the old familiar heat beginning to spread across her belly, centering where he was joined to her.

      
“Yes,” he whispered to the silent question in her passion-glazed eyes when they opened in wonder, then fluttered closed once more as she joined in the ever-quickening rhythm. He braced his arms on either side of her, raising his upper body so he could thrust deeper, harder. His teeth were clenched as he struggled to hold back, prolonging the incredible soul-engulfing pleasure, feeling her sweet tight sheath squeeze him. Finally, he could withstand the exquisite torture not a moment longer. Crying her name, he spun out of control, pulsing semen deep and high against her womb, as great shuddering waves of climax seared him, drained him.

      
Roxanna felt his body tense and his shaft swell even more deeply inside of her, filling her with the sweet liquid heat of his seed. Her own passion crested with his, each intensifying the other. Cain trembled as he collapsed on top of her. She welcomed the weight of his big sweat-slicked body, enfolding him in her arms, her legs entwining with his, murmuring a soft declaration of love low against his chest. He could not hear it over the ragged sounds of their breathing and the thundering of their hearts.

* * * *

      
The sightseeing trip west began early the next morning. The small group, hand-selected by Dr. Durant, assembled on the platform of the train station. Unfortunately, from Roxanna’s point of view, the Remingtons were among them. So were Silas Seymour and his garrulous wife and the odious Scovilles. She did not tell Cain that the rumors regarding her captivity had been spread through the upper echelons of railroad social circles. It would serve nothing, except to make him brood more about his Cheyenne blood tainting her. One benefit of this junket was that the scandalized curiosity and veiled hostility of their guests drew the two of them closer together. With no assignment to take him from her side, they slept and awakened together more days in a row than they had in all the preceding months of their marriage.

      
Roxanna adored waking up each morning to feel his big body curved around hers, an arm or leg thrown possessively across her. Often she would lie quietly just inhaling the scent of him, sometimes raising her head to watch him sleep, studying the magnificence of his long limbs and broad muscular chest, the cunning patterns of black hair on his skin. Occasionally she would reach out and touch the raspy bristle of his night's growth of whiskers. Of course that often awakened him. Then he would roll over and pull her beneath him, his quick passion igniting hers.

      
How different it was to live with a husband, to love him and laugh with him, to share his dreams as well as his body when he made love to her. Roxanna treasured every moment. Since Vicksburg she had never imagined that this wonderful life, the hope of every other young woman, would ever be possible for her. But the shadow of Isobel Darby still haunted her dreams, making the time spent loving Cain doubly precious.

      
The first few days of the trip were uneventful as the prosaic flat farmlands of Illinois and Iowa were traversed. Indeed the only breaks in the monotony were the lavish meals served by Durant's private chef, brought with him from New York. The second day out as everyone shared a breakfast of sweet pink ham, then lacy crepes and fresh strawberries, Ralph Benner, a native New Yorker, commented on the monotony of the scenery.

      
Mrs. Scoville took umbrage on behalf of her husband's agricultural constituents. Drawing herself up, she said glacially, “You can keep all your high and mighty Rocky Mountains, even the fancy European Alps. I for one would far prefer to gaze out over a fertile American cornfield any day.”

      
“So would a hog,” Sabrina Remington drawled just loud enough to carry across the aisle to the Scovilles' table.

      
‘‘Well, I never!” Cordelia Scoville huffed, turning as fuchsia as her dress.

      
Roxanna almost liked Sabrina for a moment...but it passed. Even Cain smothered a smile behind his hand as Dr. Durant quickly changed the subject.

      
When the train rolled into Nebraska, the terrain began to change dramatically. Rich cultivated fields gave way to vast trackless stretches of wilderness where tall stands of wild grasses dipped their gold and russet blades against the fierce plains winds.

      
“It's so desolate out here. Why ever would anyone want to come west?” Cordelia Scoville asked pettishly, gazing out the dining car window at luncheon one day.

      
“What is the railroad going to transport? It seems to me there's not a cash crop that would grow between the Missouri River and California,” the congressman chimed in.

      
Thomas Durant's deep-set eyes narrowed on Scoville, but his smile was politic as he replied in his smooth manner, “The wealth of the Orient, for openers, Congressman. Just think of it, gentlemen—and ladies—the riches of China and India brought to California by American clipper ships, loaded on rails across America, then sent by American sail to the rich markets of Europe.” He steepled his hands and looked over well-manicured fingers at the people surrounding him. Durant loved to pontificate. “Why, the route across this continent will revolutionize world trade, eliminating the lengthy and dangerous passage around the Cape of Africa.”

      
“What about that canal Napoleon III is building at Suez?” Burke Remington asked. “A pathway between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean would revolutionize world trade even more.”

      
Silas Seymour harrumphed, then spoke in his pompous deliberate way as if on cue from Durant. “Ferdinand de Lesseps’s Frenchmen have been attempting to complete that Promethean endeavor for nearly a decade. It's an engineering fantasy which will never be translated into reality,” he pronounced.

      
Not wanting to dispute Seymour's blithe dismissal of the Suez project, Cain shifted the topic. “The real reason for the transcontinental lies here in the United States, most particularly in the West. Rails will link this country together and enable stockmen and farmers to develop the land the way mining interests have already tapped into mineral wealth.”

      
“You sound positively idealistic, Cain,” Remington said cynically.

      
“What will happen to your Indians when all this civilization comes with the completion of the rails?” Scoville asked. His narrow little weasel face squinted in concentration as he leaned forward, verbally daring Cain to respond.

      
“They're not
my
Indians, Congressman,” Cain replied in a level voice. His eyes bored into Scoville’s.

      
The little man quickly subsided. “I only thought...that is, since you're part Indian, I assumed you had an opinion on the issue.”

      
“I do. The Indians will lose...everything,” Cain replied flatly, then dismissed Scoville coldly, turning to stare out the window at the trackless rolling hills of western Nebraska.

      
Roxanna interjected a comment, and conversation shifted away from the ugly insinuations of Scoville. Feeling that Remington woman's lascivious gaze on Cain, she placed her hand on her husband's arm. He turned, giving her a look which indicated he was used to all such manner of innuendos. But she knew they still hurt.

      
The next morning they sighted their first buffalo, a small scattered herd that had wandered south. Several of the men seized guns, all jabbering excitedly.

      
“Haven't had a shot at one of the old beasts from a running train all year,” Silas Seymour said, carefully arranging a hat on his windblown pompadour.

      
“A hundred dollars says I down the first one.” Ralph Benner, one of the directors, waved a Winchester around as carelessly as if it were a child's toy.

      
“Ooh, I'd love to try my hand, Burke. Could I shoot one?” Sabrina Remington cooed to the senator, who sat back in bored amusement as the other easterners bounded around like children.

      
“Really, Mrs. Remington, fire a weapon?” Hillary Seymour said, raised eyebrows indicating how uncouth she considered the idea.

      
“I say, Cain, have the trainmen slow the engines so we can get a better shot,” Durant directed imperiously when Cain entered the parlor car.

      
“No one's going to shoot buffalo from this train,” he said to a chorus of angry exclamations.

      
“Why ever not? I always allow my guests a little target practice. It's quite the sporting thing,” Durant said in frosty affront, glaring at Cain.

      
“I'll arrange a shoot when we reach North Platte. The sportsmen”—he emphasized the word scornfully—“will have better luck on solid ground.”

      
“But what harm to pop a few as we ride by?” Scoville asked in affront.

      
“That's just it—you ride by. You leave the carcass to rot, hides, meat and all. There are hungry people who can use the buffalo you shoot.”

      
“Hungry Indians?” Burke Remington taunted.

      
“They were still people the last time I checked,” Roxanna snapped, thoroughly disliking the arrogant and cynical senator as much as she detested his sluttish young wife.

      
“Phil Sheridan's policy is to decimate the buffalo so the hostiles will starve. I understand Grant agrees and he'll be president soon,” Remington said, looking over at Cain. “What do you think of such an idea?”

      
Cain shrugged. “Barbarous but effective. Inevitably whites will win. What starvation and soldiers don't kill, smallpox and measles will.”

      
“What a ghoulish plan,” Hillary Seymour said. “Surely an enlightened, civilized society can think of a better way to deal with savages.”

      
“This is men's business, Hillary,” Silas said peremptorily to his wife, then turned to Cain, red-faced and blustering. “We want to have a bit of sport. You can't—”

      
“Jubal MacKenzie put me in charge of this little junket, gentlemen, and I don't intend to have a bunch of greenhorns shooting their own feet off, not to mention each other.” He reached over and relieved Seymour of his shotgun. “And what do you think you can do with this? That game is so far out of range for this weapon you'd stand a better chance of throwing rocks and hitting a buffalo.”

      
Seymour's face turned an even brighter cherry red as he harrumphed angrily, but he made no attempt to retrieve the weapon from Cain. Then the sharp report of a rifle echoed from the rear car. With an angry oath, Cain stormed for the door between cars, pausing long enough to order, “If anyone else fires a weapon on this train, they will shortly thereafter be walking to North Platte.”

      
Just as he reached the car and jerked open the door, another shot rang out and a young buffalo bull standing outside the shelter of the herd went partway down, then staggered back onto its feet and moved slowly toward its fellows. “Scoville, you son of a bitch, I told everyone no shooting from the train.”

      
The congressman smirked. “I hit one. That's all I intended to do.”

      
“And you didn't kill it,” Cain said savagely, seizing the carbine from the little man's hands as Scoville backed away.

      
The others in the party had filed after Cain in curiosity. He stormed past them, shoving the weapon into Durant's hands. “Put this and all the others away after the train stops.”

      
“Stops? I thought you said we weren't to have a shoot until North Platte,” Ralph Benner said.

      
“We aren't. I have to finish that bull. No hunter worth his salt leaves a wounded animal to suffer.” He made his way through them and vanished into the next car. In route he encountered Mrs. Durant with several of the other women. “Tell all the ladies to be prepared for a stop.”

      
She nodded as he continued forward. Shortly the train slowed to a halt and a livestock car was rolled open. The passengers disembarked to watch as a bay gelding was led down a ramp, bridled but not saddled.

      
“Just like the dime novels,” Sabrina said with a wicked chuckle as she watched Cain swing up and ride off bareback.

      
“I say, perhaps this will be a better show than just popping off the guns in front of the ladies,” one of the directors interjected. Eager to watch Cain dispatch the quarry, several others brought out pairs of field glasses, far safer for them to operate than firearms.