The Red Hills (9 page)

For which he was relieved.

There wasn't any point in trying to reason with Menges.

It was obvious to Crow that whatever kind of mind the man might once have had, the years of frustration and drinking had taken an irreversible toll of it. Menges was as close to being insane as made no difference.

The storm passed as quickly as it had risen.

'Where's Kemp?'

'Outside, Sir.'

'Where?'

'Gone to the necessary to ease his stomach pains, Sir. He's ill with it.'

Menges nodded, sliding down in his chair, hands fumbling at the collar of his tunic. 'Damned hot in here. By God but it is! Lieutenant Crow. Call for Trooper Simpson to aid me to my quarters.'

'Sir.' Crow stood up, still managing to avoid Angelina's eye, and told the sentry to fetch the Trooper. Simpson was Menges's favorite informer within the unit, eager to make Corporal at the expense of other men that he brought into trouble.

The Captain struggled to get to his feet, the liquor fighting his balance. His face had gone livid, hectic spots of crimson and purple splashed on each cheekbone. Crow watched him with a detached interest, wondering whether some kind of falling fit or apoplexy was going to carry him off and spare Crow the trouble of murdering him. But the moment passed and he was able to lurch his way from the tent.

He was singing a mournful ballad about making sure that the grass was kept mowed on his grave. Crow was surprised to hear that Menges had a beautiful lyric tenor voice, rising with the echoes of the song, only breaking when Simpson arrived to help him.

'Crow!!' yelled the Captain, his voice carrying easily through the thick canvas of the tent. 'You hear me, croaking Crow? I wish that we was goin' to lick the Indians down in the Black Hills. Know why?' There was a bellowed laugh. 'If we did there'd be so much fuckin' blood that they'd be callin' 'em the Red Hills of Dakota. Get it? The Red Hills of fuckin' Dakota!!!'

'He will not return, my fiery stallion,' whispered Angelina Menges, steady sliding her chair nearer to Crow. Wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue, sliding it along her half-open mouth in a provocative manner.

'The sentry?'

'No. I know that Silas's orders are clear on that. The man is to remain there unless called for.'

'Why?' Crow was puzzled. It seemed an odd command to order.

Angelina's cheeks flushed in the dim light of the guttering oil-lamp on the table. 'He has the habit, Crow, my dearest, and pray do not be offended, of possessing me when drunk, here on this very floor.'

The idea was strangely attractive to Crow. It would be another way of getting back at the hated Menges. To couple with his wife in his own eating quarters. It would be like rubbing his nose in the ruttish whore's infidelities.

'Here?'

Her voice was so quiet he could scarcely hear it. 'Yes, my proud wolf of the snows. Here. He is a beast. If it were you that asked me to do it here. That begged me to take off my clothes and laid your strong hands upon my naked breasts. Forced open my weak thighs and rammed yourself between them, possessing me and taking me so forcefully...'

Her breath came in long shuddering panting gasps, and her eyes were rolled so far back in their sockets Crow could only see the whites. Her right hand had delved beneath her long skirt and it was obvious to him that she was touching herself, aiding the arousal that came from her own words.

It sickened him.

And excited him at the same time.

'The Captain could come back,' he said, unable to decide what he meant by that. Whether he hoped Menges would return or whether he hoped he wouldn't.

'No, my dearest heart. Silas sinks into this hoggish slumber and there is no waking him. But let us make haste. Take what we both desire. Sip at the cup of illicit passion. Drain the nectar of forbidden love and eat the fruits of amour.'

Crow knew there would be no turning back from it. The woman was in a worse state than the previous night. If he tried to refuse her now he guessed that she would make enough of an outcry to rouse the whole of the camp.

Anyway, he decided that he didn't mind that much.

Their coupling was much like before. With her tearing her dress in her haste to remove it while he mounted her in the dirt and trampled grass, securing his own pleasure, with Angelina Menges panting to her own climax.

They lay together in a close, sticky embrace, while she gripped him in her strong fingers, whispering endearments in his ear. Crow absently allowed his own hands to wander over her sweating body, fondling her breasts, enjoying the feel of her nipples hardening again under his touch.

Tangling his other hand among the long curling tendrils of pubic hair that matted across her smooth belly and down between her legs, probing beneath it and feeling for the bud of flesh that rolled greasily at his movement.

Angelina Menges truly had the longest and curliest pubic hair of any woman that he'd ever known.

'Again, my lord of creation and light,' she whispered to him, her breath tickling his ear.

Crow wished that she wasn't so given to slushy talk. He hated a talker.

'What?'

'Again, my...'

'Now,' he interrupted.

'Yes. If you...'

It was a cunning way of ensuring that he couldn't keep his faith in his own masculinity and refuse her. Repeating to himself his insistence that this would be the very last time, Crow rolled on top of her, allowing the woman to guide his body against hers, feeling himself slip easily inside her.

'What are you thinking, my dearest love in all the world?' Angelina asked.

Crow had been wondering whether it would be better to kill her husband in the camp or out on patrol. Either way it would need to look like an accident.

'I was thinking only of you,' he replied with a smooth dishonesty that had always stood him in good stead with women. He knew what women liked said and if that made them happy and helped them to part their legs for him, then why should Crow begrudge them such a very small pleasure as humoring them?

'Ooooh,' she sighed, locking her heels together in the small of his back to clamp his body closer to her. Groaning with delight as she felt him swell to fill her completely.

More completely than any man that she had ever known.

His face as it looked down into hers from a couple of inches distance was completely without expression. A mask that had human features painted on it. Despite the glow of her lust for him, Angelina Menges felt a chill at that face. The eyes like dark marble, glittering in the semi-darkness at her. The mouth, thin-lipped, partly-open with his own exertion, showing perfect white teeth.

'You killed a lot of men, Crow?'

The regular pounding at her never stopped. Never checked for a single heartbeat. Rhythmically thrusting deep inside her, withdrawing slowly until she wanted to scream, and then driving back at her, ramming her hips hard into the dusty grass.

'Huh? A lot?'

It would have been easy to bring his hands up from her body. To settle them around the slender swan-neck.

Tightening them.

Feeling the nails digging into her skin, shutting off the prattling mouth so that he could concentrate on the only thing that really mattered to him. His own satisfaction and pleasure. In another place and at some other time he might have done it.

But the price was too high.

'Plenty, I guess?'

Without even being out of breath Crow continued to plough Angelina's lonely furrow, beginning to whisper to her.

'You really want to know about killin', do you? Then maybe I'll tell you.'

The chill in her body spread at his words, unfolding a dreadful list of death and brutality.

'There were three brothers in Omaha. Slit the throat of the first and hung him by the ankles from a hook in the barn like a hog. He was around fourteen. Second one I clubbed with the stock of the scatter-gun, spreading his brains all over some green corn out back of the house. Figure him for eleven. Last one I threw down the well and dropped rocks on him to stop him yellin'. He'd be around seven. Plenty of gall in them kids.'

Angelina Menges couldn't believe what she was hearing.

When Silas had told her they had the new Lieutenant joining them, she'd asked about him. But her husband didn't know much. Good officer. Tough. Knows Indians. Not frightened to pull the trigger when it has to be pulled That was what he'd said. But nothing about the man's past. A load of rumors. Brought up by Crow Indians. Killed his own father. Raped his own mother. Betrayed a whole wagon train to the Utes one winter. Ate human flesh in the Sierras. The flesh of his wife and child. They couldn't all be true. Maybe none of them.

Maybe.

'Crow ..' she began, frightened by the way his voice betrayed nothing of the horror that he was talking about.

'You wanted to know, so you listen. Listen good, Mrs. Menges. Get to know what goes on out of sight of genteel little ladies like you. Hear all about it. It had been raining. But the house burned. Ma and Pa were in there. Tied to chairs. Saw the kids killed. Then they followed them on. Kept the circle unbroken. Sun came out. I stood away from the smoke. Smell of roasting flesh always makes me sick. Ever since... The rain and the sun and that pillar of smoke. All under the most beautiful Omaha rainbow you ever seen.'

'No...'

'Yes, Ma'am. That was five.'

'But why? Why did you do that to them? What had they done to you to deserve.?..' Her voice failed her. Her own impending orgasm had slipped away from her, forgotten in this creaking trunk of a nightmare that she had unwittingly forced open.

Crow went on remorselessly, as if she hadn't spoken.

'They sort of merited it. Way I look at life it's all about eyes for eyes and gut-shots for gut-shots. That family had been murderin' settlers on the trail for a year and a half. Nasty ways, Angelina. Includin' them sweet little boys. I was asked to stop them. I stopped them.'

He was still driving into her, quickening imperceptibly as he neared the end.

Still he talked. That low voice, gentle and mild. Listing some of the dead. Men and women and children. Names and places blurring into her memory so she couldn't recall them. Tucson and Denver. Deadwood and Leadville. Phoenix and Nogales. Abilene and Dodge and Wichita.

'You get to forget the faces. Like the women you bed. Maybe you recall one or two. A girl in Juarez one rainy Easter who had a special trick with her body. Married lady up in Lubbock, Texas. Name was Peggy Sue. Knew some fine games. Same with men. They're dead, Angelina. I recall some that died different. Most just up and died. You asked me how many. Damned if I know. Faces. Bodies. Blood and brains and guts. White men. Indians. Mex bandits down south-west in Sonora. Too many.'

Unwittingly the girl had probed at a raw nerve he didn't know existed. Levered open a door in his memories that he had kept resolutely closed. Still, it didn't matter. It was past.

When he stopped talking Angelina realized that he had said all he was going to say. She was grateful for that, her mind only being able to cope with so much horror. Once again she was aware of his body filling her, easing back until it was nearly out and then shooting back into her like a train. She reached her arms around his shoulders, surprisingly broad in such a lean man, and clutched at him as if he could save her from some fear.

Or perhaps save her from herself and the life that she had slipped into.

Crow was near to his own climax, half-closing his eyes at the sensations of pleasure that flowed through him.

Feeling the woman's stomach fluttering as she too came towards satisfaction.

His own body stiffened as he ejaculated into the woman, holding her so tight that she winced, opening her own eyes.

Gasping.

Crow opening his own eyes and seeing her face close to his, staring over his shoulder as though she had seen Satan.

Turning his head and looking back, knowing with a sick certainty what he would see.

Silas Menges in the doorway of the tent. Watching them.

Crow expected to feel a bullet rip into his naked back, but just waiting for death wasn't his way. The woman's legs had become unlocked from round his waist and she was making an odd whimpering noise, deep in her throat, like a beaten puppy dog. He pushed out of her, with a sucking, wet sound, rolling sideways to where his gun was bolstered in his leather belt. Reaching it.

Still waiting for the shot.

Coming up with the shaped butt of the sawn-down Purdey in his hand, clicking back the double hammers.

Only then looking up again at Menges. Knowing in that moment that he wasn't going to die.

Not there and then.

Naked and conscious of how vulnerable he was, Crow looked into the eyes of Captain Menges, watching his right hand as it twitched over the buttoned holster on his hip. Waiting.

Angelina lay in the grass, her long pubic hair matted and curled together from their love-making, thighs still spread, staring up at her husband like a rabbit hypnotized by a prairie rattler.

Behind the officer Crow could see the rat face of Trooper Simpson, and he knew who to thank for the reappearance of Menges. He wondered in passing whether the Captain would actually reward Simpson for dragging him along to witness the degrading exhibition. It's bad enough to suspect a wife of being unfaithful. It's infinitely worse when you see her in the act, moaning her passion while another man pins her to the dusty earth.

'What do you want, Silas?' she asked suddenly, breaking the stretched silence.

'I wanted... I thought... Oh, my God!!'

He seemed shrunken, hardly appearing to notice that the naked Crow was holding the scatter-gun pointed at his stomach from a couple of yards range. Unable to take his eyes from his wife's body. Goggling at her breasts, the nipples still erect, and letting his gaze return again and again to her thighs and the mute unassailable evidence of what had been going on.