“Many of my people would see the white eyes dead, but Red Horse knows the truth. All peoples white eyes, Indian, the dark-skinned ones, and the yellow people from beyond the endless sea—all have good and bad. Some also stand tall above all others—some like you, McKenna Riker. Much bravery did it take to face the evil in this canyon tonight.”
Never one to take compliments without a measure of embarrassment, something she had inherited from her grandmother, her father liked to say, she looked down, feeling a blush on her cheeks. Slowly she looked up and found him looking at her with eyes that betrayed his interest. Tentatively she brought her hand up and placed it on his wrist and slowly let it travel up the length of his arm until it rested on his cheek.
“I would like to show you an extra measure of thanks … for helping me before.”
“Not needed. Meant what I said before, Markham very good white eye.”
“Fine, then don’t consider this thanks. Consider it something I just want to do.” Her lips separated, and she brought her mouth to his. Their tongues mingled as she pivoted around straddling him, her hands ran through his long strands of ebony hair as their lips ground in a frenzy of simmering passion. A tingle shot through McKenna’s body, thrilled knowing that she was just getting started.
Without wasting more of their time, she trailed the length of his long hair further down until she had found his large arms and the edges of his biceps. His hands caressed her back briefly too before confidently caressing her ass and then reaching through her blouse for her breast.
"Red Horse touch you." he whispered into her mouth and she couldn't be more pleased by his modesty.
She bit his lips and kissed him passionately, urging him on. When he squeezed her breast harder than he had before, she let out a soft whimper, unable to hide how much his touch pleased her.
"Here." she urged him, unbuttoning her blouse and freeing her corset so he could have her entire breasts to himself.
His eyes went wide with lust as he experienced the nudity of a white woman for the first time, especially one so endowed. Red Horse briskly knelt in front of her as he slowly gripped her right breast and then inched his head lower, so he could pull her taut nipple into his mouth. His tongue glided all over her areolas while his lips clasped tight around her erect nipple. Once he had begun a steady suck, McKenna slid her hand down to grip his cock, getting it out of the clothing that kept them hidden.
He grunted happily, and she bit back a chuckle. The man had no idea the things she planned to do to him. He might initially not want her gratitude, but he was definitely going to be fully gratified with her once she was done. His big cock was a bonus that she fully intended to enjoy.
He moved on to her left breast at the same time that she began to stroke him. McKenna squeezed him hard, loving the feel of his hardening cock. The moment he grunted again, she pulled him up to sit beside her while she began to loosen his trousers.
"You, you...McKenna Riker."
He was lost for words, and she understood. She placed a finger on his lips to shut him up while she eventually helped him out of the rest of his clothes. Once that was done with, she pulled him with her towards the ground by the blazing campfire and held his cock close to the opening of her pleasure hole as they lay side by side.
"Now." she whispered into his ear. "Ram deep inside me and show me what you can do with that Indian cock."
It was done. Her words were an aphrodisiac that was to drive them both to rippling climaxes. Red Horse held her thighs and rammed deep into her, grunting with each thrust. She held his neck, glaring into his dark eyes over her shoulder and muttering more commands to urge him on.
"Harder Red Horse! Harder!" she spat, and he groaned aloud, pummeling her honeywell as ordered with his rigid cock.
The heat from the campfire was nothing compared to the heat of desire that rose inside of her. Her vision blurred while her thighs shook under the weight of her ecstasy. Red Horse had gotten to his peak and had no way to stop at least not yet. He let out louder groans and rammed faster and deeper until his body convulsed behind her.
"Motherfu.." McKenna's voice trailed off morphing into a whimper. She felt the heat of her climax at the same time that Red Horse thrust his last with a mild groan. He briskly slid his cock out of her, erupting his streams all over her chest and abdomen. A few drops of his warmth gently rolled down her thighs and she chuckled at how that pleased her in a weird way.
For a minute, neither of them moved. They let out soft gasps, catching their breath and lost in the euphoria of their lovemaking. His large hand that usually gripped a hammer worked to play with her hair, curling it around his finger.
"Always wondered if white woman could pleasure like Indian woman."
"Well?" McKenna asked as she reached up and stroked the side of the man's chiseled, handsome face.
"I say yes...but Red Horse soon ready to go again just to be sure." he smiled at her as he lowered his head to plant quick kisses on each of her nipples that stirred again under his attention.
"With pleasure. Let's find out...even if it takes all night!"
CHAPTER 24
In his room on the second floor of the Hotel Franco, Riker’s naked form lay underneath the blanket that covered him from the waist down. He was propped up against the headboard with his hands clasped behind his head as he waited.
Things had moved quickly following the dissolution of the meeting. Before going to the hotel, Riker had overseen the disassembling of the stack of black powder kegs in the gun shop. While he had done that, the town undertaker who was one of the participants at the meeting had busied himself collecting what was left of the would-be mass murderer who had paid for his crimes with his life. No one could say who he was as there wasn’t enough left of him to identify.
The denizens had eventually all drifted back to their homes for the evening, many, Riker was sure, would have a sleepless night in anticipation of the next day when they officially began to organize. Others, he was sure, would sleep soundly for the night for the first time in a long while knowing the promise of hope had taken root. Riker knew he had his work cut out for him though as, clerks, farmers, and other assorted professions didn’t make for ideal foot soldiers, but that was all he had to work with.
Whenever he and McKenna returned east to check in with their superiors in Grant's White House, they often had to listen to Easterners' fanciful visions of what life must be like in the western lands beyond the Mississippi. They always laughed to themselves when the most common stereotype was brought up to them that everyone in the West was a natural-born gunslinger who could work magic with a pistol. The reality was far different, and because of their line of work, it was only the people that knew how to wield a six-shooter or rifle that they often encountered.
As he idly watched the flickering gas lamp next to his bed, he thought back once more to the events of earlier. He’d expected some sort of arrival at the church by Dalton’s Peace Officers, but nothing had materialized. That hardly meant they were out of the woods yet. If anything, it meant Dalton was taking his time planning his next counter move. He’d shared that belief with Luther Beckett just before the man prepared to return to his ranch. Callie had said she would return later on a borrowed horse from her friend, Nellie, who worked at the feed store. Luther seemed to hesitate before agreeing, but as she was a grown woman in her late twenties, she was free to come and go as she pleased.
After her father rode off, they bid farewell to her brother, who was still worried about the coming conflict and returned to the hotel with Jorgenson. The man insisted that Callie also have a room and a bath while he rounded up some dry clothes from one of his daughters to replace her still-soaked attire from her final plunge into Dalton's Creek. Jorgenson had placed her across the hall, and unseen by Callie seemed to give Riker a knowing wink before he hustled off to round up his daughters to start fetching pails of hot water to fill the baths in each room.
The baths were arranged quickly as Riker lea
rned there was a hot spring out behind the hotel from which the girls had fetched the boiling water. During the brief time they had waited, they had relived their harrowing ride down the river, happy to be able to laugh at the events now. Their flirting intensified, but Riker sensed she was holding something unspoken inside, and he was confident he knew just what it was.
She would want to know more about his status as a lawman. He'd brought it up back at the ranch but had never had the chance to explain fully. Riker couldn't blame her. He'd dropped a bombshell on her like that with no elaboration, and he had little doubt she was wondering why he had not mentioned it at the church meeting. He would tell her all, of course, but right now, he was more interested in what lay ahead.
It had been no surprise that he finished his bath first and had been left waiting. He knew from Mickey that women were prone to take their time soaking in a tub. His own sister always enjoyed lounging in a hot bath as a respite from the dusty trails they traveled about as they roamed the West carrying out the directive Mister Lincoln had set down for them so long ago.
He shut his eyes for a moment envisioning the lovely Callie enjoying her soak. There was a charge between them, an attraction that neither of them could deny. Riker considered himself as honest and forthright of a man as they came, but that didn’t excuse him from having a weakness. His was one collective with the woman who had shared the same womb with him those nine months before they had come kicking and screaming into this world. Their weakness was the opposite sex.
It was certainly no secret between Nash and McKenna because it seemed inevitable wherever they traveled one or both of them wound up bedding some new lover. The Rikers had been blessed in that besides their attractive features which included his handsome angular face ending with his strong jaw they had been gifted with their strong, fit physiques. Riker’s was a bronzed, well-honed, muscular body capped off with an endowment most men would envy, and she with her hourglass figure and considerably well-packed breasts that always seemed at war with the fabric that sought to contain them.
Their attributes were, fortunately, greasing their way for their conquests. Nash was especially thankful for his seeming ease landing the ladies, as he loved everything there was about women. The way they looked, the way they smelled, the way they carried themselves and most of all he loved the way that they knew how to put their soft and supple bodies to work in the company of a man.
For McKenna, he knew, following a night they were celebrating their capture of a notorious outlaw and she had gotten stumble drunk, she had let slip a little more than she might usually share. She had admitted that she thoroughly enjoyed the physicality of men with their rippling muscles and their ability to pleasure her with the tool the good Lord had graced every man with. For all the good they tried to bring to the West in the line of duty, they allowed themselves their casual carnal pleasures as something of a reward with no shame nor regrets afterward.
Riker was jolted out of his thoughts by the door swinging open. His eyes arched in surprise to see Callie had not donned the clothes left to her by one of the Jorgenson girls. Instead, she clutched them to her chest as she stood there naked. For a moment, it took his mind to catch up with the fact that her boldness was born of the fact the hotel was empty according to the owner. He swept all that aside as he drank her in.
Her waist was trim and impressive, not a trace of any fat, and below it, her hips curved out in pleasing ways. At the center of it all was an inviting triangular patch of the same golden hair adorning her head. Her legs were short but shapely, and as a whole, he found her quite appealing. His pleasure only increased as she entered the room and used her foot to kick the door shut behind her and then dropped the bundle of clothes in a nearby high-backed chair.
She was wholly uncovered now, and he nodded in appreciation. Her boobs were pleasingly round-tipped with quickly hardening buds that seemed to dwarf her areolas. Callie tossed her blond hair over her shoulder as she sashayed to the bed and climbed into it, slipping beneath the blanket and drawing up next to him.
With a curl of her lips, her voice took on a seductive tone. "Back on the river, I told you ‘later.'"
He flashed her a grin. “And I am to take it that later is now?”
“Almost,” she said as she snuggled up next to him and splayed herself across his chest, one of her hands gently massaging one of his pectoral muscles. Her eyes looked up at him, and in them, he could see her burning curiosity.
“I want to know who I’m going to make love to in this here hotel room. Who are you, Nash Riker? What are you all about?”
“Go ahead.” He laughed gently. “Ask your questions.”
“Do you begrudge me for asking them, Nash?”
“Not at all. I’d have questions too,” he reassured Callie as her fingers continued to roam through his chest hair, and he found himself liking her touch a great deal. Her lips parted, and the questions came.
"The first one is personal, and if you don't wish to answer, I'll understand. The second one is professional," she said as her fingers halted their meandering, and she brought one of her hands up to caress his cheek.
“Just ask, Callie.”
She took a breath before continuing, “Okay, I’d like to ask you about that scar on your back. I could see its outline through your soaked shirt after we got dumped into the river. Also, I want to know what you meant back at our ranch when you said you were a lawman.”
He reached one of his hands up and brushed her cheek with it before he moved it into her hair, twirling the strands about his fingers.
"The truth is they're both connected. They have been ever since that day in a field in Pennsylvania. In a way, you might say that was the day that I was reborn as what some people call me—Lincoln's Lawman."
CHAPTER 25
FIELD OF BATTLE
GETTYSBURG, PA
JULY 3, 1863
There had been many a pivotal day in the history of the nearly one-hundred-year-old republic, and this one dawned brilliant, temperate, and tranquil for all men present whether they wore Union blue or Confederate grey. The difference lay in the moods of the combatants. Flush with victories in the preceding battles, the proud Army of Northern Virginia could smell more victory in the summer air.
They had surely taken losses in the previous battles, but they had been small in scale and had managed to weaken the Federal army so much that this day seemed to assure total victory, and the prize was the most prosperous of all the Northern states that remained in the crumbling nation.
For the Union troops, despair was as much a companion as the man standing next to you. Only the night before, the crackle of the telegraph lines had brought the sobering news of General Robert E. Lee’s triumphs. A million men had risen to help preserve the Union, but it was all seemingly becoming in vain as the grey-coated juggernaut fought its way ever northward. England had made a pitched effort in two previous wars to conquer the young America and now the Union was on its heels, at the hands of its own former countrymen.
It was under this foreboding cloud of doom that a young twenty-one-year-old, newly promoted captain, found himself as he awaited the coming battle. Nash Riker's rise up the ranks had been nothing short of meteoric. His skills with guns were second to none, and that coupled with his bravery, had catapulted him from the lieutenant he had been when he had enlisted to the captain that he was now.
As he stood with as much calmness as he could muster, Riker felt a deep frustration growing. He was still recovering from a recent gunshot he had received to his wrist. Until he was completely healed and could wield a gun like he sometimes felt born to do, he had been temporarily reassigned to artillery duty. Closing his eyes, he wished for this war to be over, the Union to mend, and his return to his beloved West.
Riker watched in admiration as Major Daniels commanded the battery, and it was indeed an impressive sight to behold. The man was calm and collected as could be despite the savage cannonade that thundered around them, one the men
on both sides could not know wouldn't be topped until the next century when the globe fell into its first world war. The ground shook for over an hour like an earthquake that had come to stay. Running from one battery position to another was like running on tilted ground and had been a challenge for Riker to stay on his feet.
The young officer continued to stew in his frustration over the recent wound to his gun hand had left him only in the role of a messenger between the commanding officers of the batteries engaged on the Gettysburg battlefield. Suddenly the rumble of artillery fell away, and when it ceased, there was a brief moment of silence that seemed so strange after the seemingly unending explosive battery rounds.
“Riker, take that cannon and its crew and reposition them down to the front. Place it right up against the stone wall there and man the lanyard! We need to be ready if those Dixie boys start firing again!” Captain Daniels ordered.
"Yes, sir!" Riker responded, happy to take on an active role of yanking the cord that would fire the Union cannon as the men fought valiantly to save the splintering United States. He gave quiet thanks that the man he had befriended so long ago was the one guiding the tortured nation through the most significant challenge it had ever faced. If there was one man who could preserve the union, it was Abraham Lincoln, and Riker believed that to his core.
As the stink of gunpowder from the cannon hung in the air, following orders, Riker immediately commanded the young men to move the big gun and orchestrated it into position as their captain had instructed him to. The Confederates were advancing, and he wanted to be ready. Shots were being exchanged, and he moved, bent over from person to person, making sure the men were holding firm. Some of them were quite young just in their teens, an age he was only a couple of years removed from himself, and he wished, that perhaps these boys could have stayed home and not been forced to grow up on a blood-soaked battlefield.
Six-Guns Or Surrender (Lincoln's Lawman Book 1) Page 15
