Pale Moon Stalker (The Nymph Trilogy) (23 page)

Max shrugged off the shirt, then reached for the fringed bottom of her long tunic, commanding hoarsely, "Raise your arms, love. I want to touch your satin skin."

Eagerly she complied and he pulled the buckskin garment off her. Her flesh glowed like gold in the firelight. His hands traced the curves of her body with loving delicacy, beginning with her breasts, kissing a trail down from them to her flat belly. In turn, she ran her fingers through the pale hair on his chest, following its narrowing course to the waistband of his breeches. Quickly she unfastened the fly and tugged his pants down his narrow hips, all the while gasping with the pleasure his tongue, lips and hands were giving her.

"I can't wait, love," he said raggedly, pulling away to shuck off the moccasins he'd worn and kick away his denims. He pressed her backward onto the bedding, covering her body with his own, feeling her open to him, her thighs splayed, inviting his invasion while her hands clawed at his back.

"Yes, oh, yes," was all she could answer as he positioned himself and plunged deep inside her in one long, hard, life-affirming stroke. Sky arched up to meet it, eagerly rolling with each succeeding thrust, rubbing her breasts against the sweet abrasion of his chest hair. One hand cupped his head, feeling the soft curling hair. She drew his mouth to hers for a ravishing kiss, hungry, rough, not stopping as they rolled across the bedding until she was on top, riding him in wild passion.

Looking down at him, she marveled in some dim, distant part of her mind at the sheer male beauty of him, limned pale silver-gold in the rising moon's light.
This is my husband and I love him!
But then her body took over, leaving her mind far behind as they rolled again, off the bedding, onto the soft cool grass...and the sudden rush of culmination swept over her.

Max muffled her cries with his mouth, drinking in her ecstasy, reveling as her body clenched around his, driving him toward the brink. He slowed, wanting to make it last for her, but her own passion drew him closer, closer until he could withstand her unconscious wiles no longer. When she arched up, her arms tight around his shoulders, her mouth joined with his in that same unendingly furious kiss, he tumbled past the abyss, spilling himself deep inside her.

Panting and spent, they lay on the grass for several moments. Sky could feel his fingertips caressing her cheek and knew he was staring down at her. She opened her eyes and met his gaze, trying to read by the flickering firelight what lay behind those dark green eyes. She waited for him to speak, only returning his gentle caress by running her hand up and down his arm.

"This is habit-forming, m'lady," he said at last. "I'll never get my fill of you, Sky. Will you stay my wife when all this is done, I wonder? Hmmm?"

She blinked, her mouth gone suddenly dry. How should she answer? Her heart cried out yes, but her guilt over Will made her shy away from making a commitment, especially to the man she'd sought out to perform the task she could not do herself. "Max...I..."

"Shhh," he murmured softly, cradling her head against his chest. "Your hesitance speaks for itself. Let us wait and see what our Cheyenne friend's Powers have planned for us."

* * * *

The Powers have brought you and the Pale Moon Stalker together to heal each other, Sky Eyes of the Sioux. True Dreamer's words echoed in her mind as she lay beneath the bedroll, enveloped in Max's embrace. He slept soundly, at peace for the moment. But she stared at the starry, starry night, searching for answers...wondering if what the old man had told her was true, hoping that it would be so.

After another two days of hard riding, they reached Wichita Falls, a small rail town that had been founded a scant few years earlier but now bustled with life, and the seemingly inevitable violence of the frontier. When they passed a telegraph office, Max reined in and said, "Wait for a few minutes. I'm going to send a wire to London."

"You want to see if our mysterious Englishwoman and her Gurkhas have any connection to dear cousin Cletus?" Sky asked.

A harsh white grin slashed across his mouth as he dismounted. "Just so. Also, it never hurts to keep abreast of Cletus' latest peccadilloes, which might just provide us some idea what mischief he's about."

"Are you also going to wire the Lorings about McKerrish?" she asked shrewdly.

"Another enemy to watch. Yes, m'lady, I am."

"Good. I'll send a wire, too. No sense letting Clint and Delilah worry about where we are."

"We're supposed to be in San Francisco," he replied.

Sky shrugged. "I'll think of some reason for the detour to Texas."

Sitting silently through this conversation, True Dreamer then added, "Women can always think of a reason for any matter." Sky gave a snort of female irritation but Max chuckled in agreement. "I will guard the horses," the old man said placidly.

Having "borrowed" the gruella from his reservation when he went in search of Fawn, he knew many men would never return prime horseflesh taken from the unwary as he intended to do. But he chose not to share that information with the Stanhopes for the present.

After sending their wires, Max and Sky rode down the town's Main Street with True Dreamer, following the directions of the telegraph operator to the closest livery stable, with a hotel directly across the street. The smell of newly cut wood and fresh paint filled the air, although most of the buildings were modest. Everything seemed new and clean. Most of the citizens, probably only a few hundred, seemed to be sober merchants, businessmen and farmers. Sky could only hope there would be no drunken gunfire to awaken Max's nightmares here.

When they reached the livery, they dismounted and entered the dimly lit interior. "Rather shoddy compared with the rest of the town. Perhaps we should look for another," Max said, smelling stalls that had not been mucked out in some time.

"This will be sufficient. I will remain with our horses and sleep beneath the stars behind the building," True Dreamer said.

As he spoke, a tall, lanky man with an improbable paunch ambled in from that very back door. His weathered face indicated that he'd lived either hard or long, perhaps both. From between the empty spot where his front teeth should have been, he spit a noisome slug of tobacco. It landed directly in front of the Cheyenne's moccasins. He said without preamble, "I don't take to no Injuns hangin' 'round my stable—less they's hangin' fer real." He smiled at his own supposed witticism, then added, "This here's a white man's bidness."

Max stepped closer to the foul-smelling fellow, the hard green light in his eyes deadly. "We'll make it worth your while. The rate for a room at that estimable establishment across the street," he said quietly.

The livery owner, who according to the sign out front was named Baldy, took a step backward at the menace emanating from the foreigner. "Lookee, here, mister, I cain't rightly do thet. My bidness'd be hurt, havin' a redskin hanging 'round." As he spoke, his eyes swept curiously over Sky, as if wondering if she, too, might be bad for business.

Max felt a brief surge of shame for his race, which immediately gave way to rage at the way this piece of offal was looking at his wife and his friend. His eyes glowed in the dim light as he reached for Baldy's skinny throat. "I might be forced to hurt something far more precious than your 'bidness,' you bloody ignorant—"

"My son, please let me take care of this matter," True Dreamer said, placing a restraining hand on Max's arm. "Do not soil yourself by touching this one. I have ways to make him suffer for his bad manners."

Baldy snorted, still keeping an eye on the dangerous-looking foreigner who wore a low-slung gun as if he knew how to use it.

After his quiet pronouncement, True Dreamer reached inside the sack slung over his shoulder and removed a gourd rattle. He threw back his head and let out a hair-raising cry. "Yeey Yah Ho!" Continuing the ominous chant, he began to shake the rattle and shuffle to and fro in front of Baldy, who backed off, his sunken eyes now widening with even greater alarm.

When the Cheyenne shook the rattle directly in front of his crotch, he gulped and asked Sky, "What's he doin'?" as if under the assumption that her "Injun" blood would enable her to answer. Or perhaps he was too frightened of the white gunman to say anything to him.

Sky noted with satisfaction that Baldy's complexion was turning as red as that of his nemesis and even in the relatively cool interior of the stable, sweat poured down his battered face. Turning from him as if he were some insect, she asked True Dreamer, "What medicine do you make, Grandfather?"

"Daughter, I place a curse on his man-lance. It will grow crooked and bend at the end like an old man's walking stick. His woman already refuses to lie with him. He now pays to share the blanket of a young Mexican girl who cooks food in one of the white man's feeding lodges. Even for money she will not want him when I finish my medicine." With that, he resumed his chanting and rattle shaking.

Baldy, meanwhile, looked as if he were about to crumple onto the filthy straw-covered dirt floor. Once again, True Dreamer's visions about others had hit the mark. Max suppressed a grin, but exchanged a look with his wife, who merely nodded her head in understanding, as if to say,
Just wait...

"Who's that ole bastard been talkin' ta 'bout me?" Baldy choked out breathlessly. If Earlene found out about Rosita his life wouldn't be worth a plug nickel. He shuddered. The foreigner wouldn't have to shoot him. His wife would.

"I'd watch my tongue if I were you," Max said. "We just arrived in town. The old man, my wife and I have spoken to no one. True Dreamer is the most powerful medicine man I have ever seen."

Now it was Sky suppressing her amusement as she said earnestly to the chanting old man, "Grandfather, the Powers might take offense that you use the gift they have given you to do such grievous harm. The Everywhere Spirit created us all and wishes for us to increase. If you curse this man's 'lance' so that it cannot be used for its proper purpose, surely you might offend the Powers."

Max watched as she actually wrung her hands while True Dreamer ceased his performance and listened to her supplication. He appeared lost in thought for a moment. Baldy, meanwhile, was swaying back and forth, too frightened to speak. His shirt was drenched with sweat.

At length, the medicine man sighed. "You may be right, Daughter. But there are times when the workings of the Powers confuse this old man. Why did they make so few of the True People and so many whites? Why do they allow the whites to breed like prairie dogs?" He signed once more and closed his eyes. "Sometimes I think the Powers did not carefully think out the Grand Design."

Sky's hand flew to her mouth. "Grandfather! That is blasphemy!"

Max had to bite his lip to keep from laughing now and suspected part of the reason for his wife's hand over her mouth was to hide her own suppressed laughter. She mimed horrified shock even better than she did trembling anxiety.

"W-whut's...uh, whut's he gonna do? Yew gotta stop him—p-please!" Baldy croaked to no one in particular.

Then True Dreamer spoke, but not to his victim. "You are right, Daughter. I must not bend his lance. I will simply curse him with the great burning stone itch." He resumed his shuffling, chanting and gourd rattling.

"Awe, now w-whut's th' burnin' stone itch?" Baldy asked Sky, who seemed the one to be reasoning with his enemy.

But it was Max who replied, "Your bollocks, man, your bollocks. I saw him do it to a couple of nasty chaps up in the Nations. Not a pretty sight. They were digging at their crotches like a couple of hounds scratching fleas, crying and begging True Dreamer to remove the hex...but he simply rode away, leaving them to suffer." Max gave a shudder as if truly recalling such a spectacle while he watched an utterly convinced Baldy start digging at himself.

"L-listen, yew kin stay here—no charge, all right—for f-free—jest stop thet rattlin' and s-spell s-settin'!" the liveryman pleaded as he flattened himself against the stall bars. "Make 'im stop!" he begged Max and Sky, looking from one to the other.

We're without shame!
What a musical hall act this would be!
Max forced his expression to remain stern and serious. "Grandfather, you really should stop before it's too late. Can you not sense that this miscreant has seen the error of his ways?" he asked, knowing Baldy had no idea what a miscreant was. As for the Cheyenne, Max wouldn't bet on it.

True Dreamer stopped and looked at Max. "Do you think so, my son?"

"Yes, sir, I do," Max averred solemnly.

"Good." With that abrupt pronouncement, the old medicine man stuffed his rattle back in his sack and picked up the reins of their horses, leading them toward the open corral behind the stable.

Once True Dreamer had left the stable, Baldy peeled himself from the splintery support of the stall and gathered his composure, swallowing several times before he was able to speak. "No hurry 'bout payin' me fer th' horses. Jest head on over ta th' ho-tel and git yerselves comfortable." With that he scrambled out the front door of his own establishment and toward the nearest saloon.

"The pair of you could teach Clint Daniels a thing or two about the art of the bluff," Max said to Sky.

Fixing him with a level expression, she asked, "What makes you think it was a bluff...white man?" Then she burst into laughter.

Chapter Twelve