Caress of Fire (29 page)

She was near him now, moistening her lips and lifting her fingers. Desire coiled through him as she tossed that heavy mane of hair over her shoulder. Her big eyes were welded to a spot below Thelma's belt. Her gaze cruised up to his face, and she murmured his name.

She's trying to seduce me
. He liked it.

Too bad he'd be riding out after Hatch as soon as the rain dance was over.

Over the beat of drums, he patted the ground, stood to take her hand, and said, “Sit down, honey.” “Not yet. First I dance.”

In a line to Gil's right, a dozen or more braves, each wearing nothing but loincloths and headdresses, along with arm and ankle bands, approached the circle. Chanting and singing, they danced to the fire.

Red Dawn appeared out of the shadows, her fingers lacing with Lisette's. “Come,” she said. “We dance.”

Lisette and the Osage woman took their places between the performing braves. Gil's eyes didn't leave his wife. Within moments, despite her girth, she caught the rhythm of drums, the cadence of the beat. When she neared him, he heard her chanting in a mixture of German and English.

Bending low, then arcing her arms toward the heavens, she sang, “Rain.
Regen.
Rain.”

Mesmerized, Gil leaned back on an elbow, extending a leg in front of him. Again she raised her arms. Again her feet skipped around the fire. This time his wife stopped in front of him. Curling her fingers, one at a time, she bent low over him. He got a whiff of herbal perfume. And wanted a big taste of his woman.

“Will you dance with me and our son, husband?”

“I'll embarrass myself if I do,” he whispered. “Old Son is on the prowl.”

“No one will laugh.”

He danced, and no one laughed–or if they did, he didn't notice. All he knew was the feel of Lisette in his arms. They weren't dancing in the Indian fashion; they held each other in an embrace that would have been shocking in white society. It would have been much closer, if their unborn daughter wasn't expanding her mother's stomach.

They hadn't made love in days. On the trail, he'd known she was tired, but she showed no signs of weariness tonight. He had to have her. There wouldn't be time to do it leisurely, but he got the impression she was just as ready for him.

“Old Son is wanting to pay a visit,” Gil murmured into her ear. “What do you think?”

“Why don't we find a quiet spot?”

“Excellent idea.” Yet he didn't act on their lusts. “Honey, there's something . . . I overheard Red Dawn–you do look awfully pregnant. I wouldn't want to hurt the baby.”

“Red Dawn may be a wonderful Indian, but she doesn't know what of she speaks.”

“Then it's okay, at six months to ... ?”

“More than okay.”

He danced his wife from the circle. Behind Red Dawn's lodge, he kissed her parted lips. Sweet, so sweet, they were tinged with elderberry wine.

“No wonder you were dancing, honey,” he whispered in a tease. “You're drunk.”

“And I'm thirsting for another sip of something good.”

“What'd that be?”

“Another one of your kisses, husband.”

“Happy to accommodate.”

His fingers furrowing through the mass of her hair, he took her lips again. He tried to press her to the outer wall of Red Dawn's home, but her girth rendered his actions inefficient. He wouldn't quit.

He grasped and pulled up the hem of her dress. His mouth descended to the cotton-covered bosom that captured his attention. Breasts full and hard-tipped met his questing tongue, and he laved them, each in turn. Lisette's hand tried to scoot between them; he stopped her movement.

“Tonight, my darling wife, you simply enjoy.”

Scooting downward, he placed the back of her right thigh on the top of his left one . . . and moved in. As usual–thankfully!–she wore no pantaloons to impede his fingers. His palm caressed her belly, moved lower to the thatch of silky pubic hair he knew to be the color of cornsilk, and he heard her moan of approval. God, she felt warm and eager and good.

His tongue flicking over her arm, he murmured, “Been a long time, honey.”

“Too long.”

Playing on their words, he drawled, “Oh, I think Old Son is just the right size.”

“And how do I know that?” she came back saucily.

Gil growled. “Want me to prove it?”

“Mmm. Yes.”

“In time, honey. In time.”

Making circular motions, his middle finger delved between her feminine lips to find the flashpoint of her sexuality. It was there for him, swollen already, and slick with her juices. “Ah, honey,” he groaned, and continued to caress the place that was his alone. Her breath was coming in short rasps, her moans intermingling with his growls of approval.

And he had his own heightened reaction. While he had been stiff for her, it seemed as if he would burst, so spurred was his arousal. Over and again, he expressed his love. And he told her how much he wanted to be inside her . . . at the moment she reached her climax.

“Do it, Gil. Do it.”

“Help me.”

Her fingers undid Thelma's buckle, the six-shooter and holster falling to the ground. Just as Lisette began to fiddle with the buttons on his britches, he heard a voice. Iron Eagle's. Quickly, he stepped back and adjusted Lisette's dress.

Damn. He hurt to step away from his wife–in more ways than one.

“White brother, the ceremony has stopped.” Moonlight mirrored warpaint. “Now we find Frank Hatch.”

West of the Osage village, Frank Hatch slept on the ground and dreamed of his greatest triumph to date.

Under the broiling Territory sun, Delmar Hitt had stopped the hoodlum wagon, had ordered Rattler to untie the captives. “Leave Hatch to me,” he had said.

Ochoa, Wink Tannington, and Jimmy Two Toes were released from their rope bonds, and after stretching their cramped muscles, they jumped to the ground. Tannington bestowed a look of loyalty at Hatch before accepting a revolver from Asher Pierce. The Mexican did likewise.

Two Toes simply grunted, unharnessed the team, and grabbing a hank of mane, leapt onto a paint's bare back.

Rattler and Asher rode to the Indian's side.

Turning those beady Yankee eyes toward the sole occupant of the wagon, Hitt peered over the sideboard and curled his lip. “You stupid bastard, you may have ruined our chances of rustling the Four Aces' herd.”

“I don't share your pessimism.”

A knife in his grip, Hitt climbed onto the wagon bed. In one upward movement, he sliced through the binding on Hatch's legs. A fatal mistake. Hatch kicked a leg, catching the gang leader in the groin.

Hitt screamed, dropped his knife, and clutched himself. He fell to the side and rolled over.

In that same instant, gunfire cracked. Rattler Smith rode toward the wagon, but Tannington shouted, “Stay where you are.”

Frank Hatch's tied hands grabbed for Hitt's knife, and quick as lightning, he swung his arms. A jolt shot through him as knife connected with bulk.

“Awwwwwgh!”

Blood spurted onto Hatch's face. The feel of it was revolting, but he couldn't let anything stop him. Delmar Hitt tried to turn. Using all his strength, Frank Hatch yanked the knife out of the carpetbagger's back, then plunged again.

The force of his efforts reverberated through his bones as the life went out of Delmar Hitt.

“You won't be calling me disparaging names again.”

A dead quiet took over, a silence as dead as Delmar Hitt.

Hatch yanked the back of his hand across his mouth, wiping smears of blood onto his sleeve. Triumph surging through his veins, he stood. “Are you men with me, or not?”

They were.

Ah, what a glorious day.

In his sleep, he yawned. Again something tapped against his mouth. Over and over. Frank Hatch recoiled against the blood. He spat. He shook his head, the motion cutting short his dream of triumph.

Lying on the ground, he awoke and opened his eyes. Someone snored; another broke wind. He spied Jimmy Two Toes milling around the spent campfire. Again Hatch slashed the back of his hand across his face, but he wasn't wiping away blood.

Rain. It was raining.

The best part was, his wonderful dream had been true. Delmar's bones were bleaching somewhere on the Chisholm Trail, and his henchmen–along with Tannington and Ochoa–had become the Hatch gang.

Such a pleasant sensation, even better than watching Elmo Whittle pump the first Mrs. McLoughlin.

Frank Hatch spread his arms on the ground, and rejoicing in his luck and the cooling rain, he fell asleep again. This time nightmares attacked him. Cactus Blossom throwing their deformed baby off that damned cliff. She didn't even cry, little Weeping Willow. Not as she tumbled over the precipice, not when her father lowered himself to the canyon floor to wrap his arms around her poor, twisted body. He had tried to shake life into her. There was no use. She didn't breathe.

For once, she didn't cry in agony.

Her father sobbed, for he had loved but two things in his life: Charlwood and Weeping Willow.

In his sleep, Frank Hatch became almost human. Almost. For his dreams turned to yet another triumph: the one of beating Cactus Blossom at the art in which she had trained him–the knife.

Through the pouring rain, Gil spied him–sleeping on the ground. Back in Lampasas he hadn't recognized Frank Hatch as being the son of Charlwood, but there was no way he could be mistaken now.

He and his fellow raiders circled the campsite. His eyes cut from side to side, counting a half dozen forms on the ground. Damn it, where was the seventh?

Iron Eagle and his braves advanced on four men; Deep Eddy and Matthias pulled guns on a form that had to be Tannington. Gil slipped Thelma from her holster, cocked her hammer, and put the barrel against Frank Hatch's forehead.

His finger froze, unable to pull the trigger. During the war, he had promised himself not to take another human life. But if he didn't kill Hatch . . . given the Georgian's background of violence, he might turn on Lisette.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.”

His eyes flashing open, Frank Hatch clutched the ground before grappling for his knife. “I'll cut your heart out, McLoughlin.”

“No. You're through murdering. I won't fault you for Blade Sharp. But this is for your kinswomen. And Cactus Blossom.” He pulled the trigger. “And especially to protect my wife.”

 

 

When Gil put an end to Hatch's evildoing, Lisette slammed closed her eyes and retreated farther into her hiding spot near Hatch's encampment. Sickened by the goings-on around her, she thought about the events that had led her to chase her husband.

She had ridden a Four Aces' gelding and found the scouting party as they neared the blackjack brake. Of course, Gil had ordered her to stay in the safety of the village, but despite her earlier confidence, she wouldn't let him out of her sight.

She had feared if she did, she'd never see him alive again.

Then something moved behind her. She started. An arm reached around her, pulling her backward; a hand closed over her mouth.

“You die.”

It was the voice of Jimmy Two Toes.

 

 

When Gil found the chestnut gelding bearing the Four Aces' brand as it meandered around the trees lining the death site, he knew Lisette hadn't stayed in the Osage village. Damn her! And Jimmy Two Toes had to have captured her.

He was the only one not accounted for, the only one of the seven not dead–eight, actually. Tannington had lived long enough to say that Delmar Hitt had been dead for days, at Hatch's hands.

Rain–the rain Gil had wished for a thousand times–beat like needles onto his upturned face. It would cover tracks. And darkness, eerie darkness, enveloped the night; it would be hours before daylight.
Hours.

“We'd better split up,” he said to Iron Eagle.

“I do not think he will go to my village. You and I, white brother, should travel toward the setting sun.”

Gil nodded. “The obvious place to search, since Jimmy Two Toes is no great thinker. He'll probably head toward the cowpath. Matt, you and Deep Eddy scour the woods to the north. Pigweed, Johns, Eli–take the area south of here.”

Iron Eagle assigned braves to both groups.

Never more scared in his life, for he feared losing Lisette, Gil searched the boggy woods, Iron Eagle at his side.

Dawn broke. Gil found a turquoise bead, a copper medallion. They had been part of the necklace she'd worn the previous night. His heart slammed against his chest.

“White brother, look.”

The relics in his tightened fist, he turned in Iron Eagle's direction before studying the ground. Water pooled in deep horse tracks. Tracks leading to ...

“The Valley of Many Buffalo.”

 

 

He was going to kill her.

Lisette knew this to be so of the enormous Indian Jimmy Two Toes. Furious upon witnessing his partners' demise, he shoved a bandana in her mouth and pushed her, stomach forward, atop his mount. He jumped up behind her. His revolver stayed trained on her back.

Within an hour, his paint pony fell under the extraordinary weight. He left the horse, rain falling on its carcass.

Urging her on with the point of his revolver, Two Toes led Lisette through the night. Shivers from the wet and from her fear racked her body. Her teeth could not stop chattering.

As the red sun lightened their path, rain ceased.

Two Toes clamped a hand around her wrist. “Halt. We go there.”

With the gun, he pointed to a steep embankment leading down to a wide fissure in the earth. Her heart stopped. This was where he would leave her... dead.

“Go, Yellow Hair.”

His hand pushed her shoulder; she stumbled but he caught her, jerking her upright and shoving her toward the canyon. She fell on the muddy decline, her stomach thudding against the steep ground. The baby didn't move.
Hermann, don't die on me. I'll get us out of this, somehow . .
.

Jimmy Two Toes loomed above her.

“Get up, Yellow Hair.”

Pushing her sodden and tangled tresses out of her eyes, she struggled to her feet and descended to the valley floor. Two Toes limped next to her. The vale was spongy from last night's downpour, and littered with mud-flecked buffalo skeletons and arrowheads. Her moccasins were no match for those sharp objects. Pain shot up her legs, pooled in the center of her aching back.

“Sit, Yellow Hair.”

A knee-high boulder jutted out of the ground. Huffing and puffing, she eased onto it and took a look at her captor. In spite of his limp and the drop to the valley, he didn't even appear winded.

She glanced down and saw her beautiful new dress in damp, clinging tatters. It shouldn't bother her, not when she and Hermann were in jeopardy, but it did. Thankfully, Gil's son moved within her.

“My dress is ruined,” she murmured aloud, but certainly not to Jimmy Two Toes.

“Take it off.”

“I
...
will
. . .
not.”

“White women look good without dresses. Nice white titties. Make prick hard. Take off dress, now.”

Under no circumstance would she quail under his leer; she sneered at the Indian. He epitomized all she had once hated in his race.

“Me young and horny. Many white women like. You will like, too.”

Never would she give herself willingly to his lusts. And she would not let him murder her unborn son. Never. What should she do? Her attention riveted to the revolver. If she could get possession of it ...

But how?

“Pull up dress.” He waved the pistol. “Me want see nice white legs.”

Maybe she could shame him into sense. It was doubtful, but she had to try. “What would your wife think if she heard you saying these things to me?”

“Bertha my woman, but she in Fort Worth. You with me. She not know about it. Take off dress.”

The shame angle wasn't working; maybe stall tactics would.

“I'm too tired for sex.”

“Me not care if you have headache. Bertha have headache all time, but me not care. She have titties down to here.” He turned his palms up at the line of his waist. “I like big titties.”

“My breasts don't reach my stomach.”

“They plenty big.” He took a step toward her. “Me see for self.”

No one was going to see her breasts but Gil McLoughlin. No one. She placed a hand over her bosom. “I will not allow you to molest me.”

“Do not know word ‘mollusk.' ”

“Neither do I.”

“Yellow Hair, you want see my prick? It very big.” He unbuttoned his pants to display the prize. “Make good scr–”

“You aren't as big as my husband,” she said haughtily, swallowing the gorge in her throat.

“It soft now. Get bigger if white mouth kiss it.”

“That is disgusting.”

“Do not know word ‘disgusting.' ”

“Think of yourself, then you'll know the meaning.”

“ ‘Disgusting' bad word?” At her nod, he went on. “You not think disgusting later. White women call me ‘ladies' man.' ”

As far as Lisette was concerned, Two Toes had nothing to recommend him. “How much did you have to pay them to say that?”

“Yellow Hair have tongue like war club.”

He planted his crippled foot on the boulder; Lisette reared back from his presence as well as his odor. Suddenly it was all she could do not to laugh. What a ludicrous sight he made, all mud and ugliness and waving revolver, standing with his privates exposed.

“You have mean tongue, like Bertha,” he said. “You change if want be Two Toes's woman.”

“I am Gil McLoughlin's woman, and I carry his son.”

“I make my son.” His chest puffed. “Teach him Crow ways. He grow tall as tree, proud to have good Crow name.”

If he considered raising Hermann as his own, Lisette decided, then he wasn't going to kill her.