Quicksilver Passion (116 page)

Cherokee was so lean, he could count his own ribs when he ran his hand over them. He wondered for a long moment if he would survive until the war ended. Men were dying in military prisons from neglect and disease and no one seemed to care.

What was going on in the outside world, he knew very little, except when a new prisoner came in who could report the progress of the war. Almost always it was bad news for the South. He got no mail nor could send any, so he only hoped things were going well for his partners and Silver back in the Rockies.

Otherwise, they got rumors, and half-truths from their Yankee guards.

Shiloh had been the bloodiest battle of the war up to that point for both sides. Almost twenty-five-thousand casualties.

The telegraph had finally been strung completely across the country in the fall of ’61, and the Pony Express had ended its runs. It had lasted only eighteen months and lost money the whole time, bankrupting its owners.

Last year, Southern troops, barefooted and desperate had detoured toward the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in an attempt to capture a big shoe store there. Instead, they were spotted by Union troops, attacked, and beaten back with heavy loss of life on both sides. Lincoln made a short speech to dedicate the Union graveyard. His Gettysburg Address impressed most newspapers only with its brevity.

There was a new weapon being discussed, the Gatling gun, that could shoot hundreds of cartridges in minutes. It would be the ultimate weapon if it could be gotten into production before the war ended, which was doubtful.

The South seemed to be hanging on by sheer willpower, with heavy losses and devastation everywhere. In the North, contrary to popular sentiment, instead of marching off to war singing
Glory, Glory Hallelujah,” there were draft riots with many killed because men objected to being drafted into the army. They said there were a thousand killed in New York City alone. In the South, where people were starving, there were bread riots. Lincoln was running for reelection this coming November, but the war had dragged on too long and his popularity was down.

The South was still in love with the song
Dixie,” not seeming to realize it was a minstrel show song written by a Yankee who was furious over its becoming the Confederate anthem.

This past January, songwriter Stephen Foster had died, a hopeless, penniless drunk in New York’s Bellevue Hospital.

Out on the Western frontier, the South had been stirring up the Indians to fight the government troops in order to keep the Union stretched thin. There weren’t enough Yankee troops to fight the South and keep the Indians under control, too. There had been rumors all this year that the Union was desperate enough to recruit captured Southern prisoners of war to put on Union blue and go west to fight Indians.

Cherokee watched the moon move slowly past his tiny window, throwing the shadow of the iron bars across his face and the grimy wall.
Silver
. Where was she and did she ever think of him? If he lived until the war ended, would she still be in Buckskin Joe? He took a deep breath and seemed to smell the wild flowers of the Colorado high country; or was it her perfume he remembered? A breeze rustled through a distant tree and he thought of her high, sweet voice and how, like quicksilver, her mood could change from gaiety to passion.

It was so hot in the narrow cell. Cherokee would have gone insane ages ago if it hadn’t been that he could escape in his mind. He closed his eyes and went back to Colorado. He stood on the narrow balcony outside Silver’s window, and in the August heat, her window was open.

He climbed through. In the flickering light of the lamp she always kept by her bed, he saw her lying on top of the covers, her blue silk nightdress unbuttoned all the way down in the heat. A light sheen of perspiration shone on her satiny skin and her pale hair spread over the pillow.

I’ve finally struck it rich
, he said, looking down at her.
I’ve brought you gold dust from my own mine
.

Her aqua eyes flickered open, and she took a deep breath, her full breasts moving in the light.
Cherokee? Oh, I’ve waited forever for you to make love to me again!

He held out the bag.
I’m not poor anymore
.
I’ve got plenty of gold and I want you to have it
.

She started to protest, but he silenced her with a gesture. Opening the bag of gold dust he poured a steady stream in the cleft between her breasts and slowly moved his hand so that he left a trail of gold down her belly that overflowed her navel. Then he moved lower still. It felt erotic to be caressing her with the costly treasure, pouring the little stream down both her naked thighs and then back up again, covering her mound with priceless gold.

He sprinkled the glittering dust back up her belly, around her nipples, and over her breasts. The sheen of perspiration made the gold dust cling to her skin so that when she breathed, it glittered in the moonlight.
A golden idol
, he thought,
and now I’m going to worship at this shrine of love
.

Very slowly, he unbuttoned his shirt, threw it to one side, reached to undo his belt, let his pants slide to the floor, and stepped out of his boots. She lay there, glistening in the moonlight, a fabulous fortune in gold reflecting light from her ripe, naked body.

My grandmother says you’re all whores, but I don’t care
.
I’ve paid a fortune for this privilege,
he said.
Now give my my money’s worth
.

She held up her hands to him and he lay down on her feeling the priceless gold clinging to his hot, damp skin, too. Then he entered her and began to ride her like a stallion servicing a mare in heat. She locked her glittering legs around his hips.
I’m not a whore, Cherokee
.
I’ve waited all this time for your return
.
No matter how things seem, I’m not a whore
.

I don’t care what you are
.
I love you, Silver. I can’t help myself.

Her breasts glittered in the moonlight like two costly jewels and he put his hands on them, cupping them, pushing them up for his mouth. He could feel her muscles tightening on him, her supple body rippling under his in the rhythms of love. Even her flawless, beautiful face glittered with gold and it excited him to think he had strewn the costly powder with such abandon. This mating would cost a king’s ransom, but he would call it worth it. He dared not hope that she could love him for himself.

He slipped his hands under her small hips, tilting her up for his long, slow thrusts. Tonight, he would put his baby in her belly. When she was big with the fruit of his seed, she would have to turn her back on everything the Nugget represented and go away with him to be his mate in some cabin high in the Rockies. There would be so much gold that he would spread it for her to roll in before he coupled with her. Afterward, she would dance naked for him, clad in nothing but the glittering gold dust, the bracelet he had given her, and the sliver shoes.

Her hands were on his waist even as her long legs locked his body to hers. She arched under him, pulling him down into her, biting his nipples and digging her nails into his back in a frenzy.
Deeper
, she begged,
deeper!

He had meant to make it last a long, long time, but her body seemed to be pulling the very juice from him, demanding that, like a virile stud, he service her need. They rolled about on the tangled covers in a frenzy of mutual passion and desire, the gold dust sparkling in the moonlight as their bodies moved. He couldn’t get any deeper into her, although he tried. His male rod felt big as a gold bar, throbbing and hot as molten metal in her depths.

And then she gasped and pushed her tongue deep in his throat, her nails digging into him even as her glittering legs held him prisoner.
Give it to me
, she whispered,
give it to me
.
You know what I want!

Her nipples felt swollen under his chest as he held her very close and rammed into her one more long moment of ecstasy. Then her body began to grip his maleness, forcing it to give up what it was she wanted, squeezing the very life juice from him into her waiting womb. They thrashed wildly for a moment and then, as they reached that crest at the same heartbeat, they froze into stillness—the only sound the creak of the bed, the quivering of muscles, and the whimpers of urgency.

He was pouring himself into her, giving her everything he had to give and it still wasn’t enough. Her body locked onto his, demanding still more, and he was filling her with virile seed. Filling her . . . filling her . . .

Cherokee woke trembling and gasping. For a long moment, he was not sure where he was or what had happened to Silver. Then he realized he was still in the sweltering, cramped cell with the moonlight shining full upon him and he turned his face to the wall and banged his fist bloody against the stones in misery and despair.

The next day, he was again thrown in with the general prison population and discovered there were new captives being admitted. And among them was his old friend, the redheaded blacksmith, William Dowdy.

Bill! By damn! You’re a sight for sore eyes! How’s Shawn? How’s the war going?”

The young man’s mouth dropped open in amazement.
Cherokee? We thought you was dead!”

If I have to stay in this hellhole another six months, I very well may be! Tell me the news!”