“The stage company is willing to gamble on it. They’ve lost a lot of money with their routes shut down. Now that we’ve finally found and fixed the cut telegraph line, the stages must be going to run again. At least, we’ve gotten a wire there’s a special one coming through to Denver this afternoon.”
“They’ll think ‘special’ if they run into a war party!” Luther snorted. “Must be someone or something important on it to take that chance!”
The major shrugged. “Donno. Probably some bigwig stuck somewhere and getting impatient to get where he’s going; although he might think twice when it comes time to go.”
Winnifred turned away, already bored with her eavesdropping. It didn’t concern her, so she didn’t find it interesting except for the part about the stage coming through this afternoon. She’d send her father a wire that she was on her way so he could meet her. In fact, maybe Father had arranged this stage just for her; but no, if he had done that, surely he would have wired her here at the fort. As far as Carter Osgoode was concerned, what if that fortune hunter had deserted? That didn’t surprise her a bit.
On her way back from sending the telegraph, she saw Johnny Ace ride by. She tried not to look at him, but she couldn’t help it, wondering what he looked like naked. She envisioned him again, dark against her fair skin. In a rush of heat, she imagined herself with fair legs wrapped around a dark-skinned body. She bit her lip, chagrined. She must be just like her father after all.
Winnifred remembered little of Manning Starrett. Her father had been gone from her life a long time. But she did remember the night of the big argument.
Father had been serving in the army and was home again. How long ago had it been? A dozen years? More? Less? Winnifred couldn’t be sure. She only remembered she was young and it was before the war, because they still had slaves on the plantation her mother had inherited.
Her parents had sent her to bed. She was awakened by loud, querulous voices and tiptoed to peek around the door of her mother’s bedroom.
“. . . damn you, Manning, you’ve given me the pox! How could you bring your whores’ diseases home to me?” Her mother’s plain, homely face was red from weeping.
Her handsome father only yawned. “Oh, get your doctor to give you some mercury capsules; that’s what I’ve been taking. As to my women, you’ve known about them a long time, Clara.”
“They say it’s incurable!” More weeping. “They say–”
“Oh, shut up, you’ll wake Winnifred!” He stood there half-dressed, and annoyed.
“You don’t care about her any more than you do me! Admit it! You married me for my money!” She collapsed on the edge of the bed, sobbing. The small girl wanted to run to her, comfort her, but she stayed where she was.
“Okay, I married you for your money, you knew that. Why else would anyone marry a homely thing like you?”
“And now that you’ve about gone through that, I suppose you’ll finally leave me–”
“Why do you think I joined up?” His tone was scathing. “It gave me a perfectly honorable way of escaping for months at a time. Yes, I’m leaving for good. My hitch is about up and there’s rumors of gold in Colorado–”
“You don’t seem like the type to sweat over a pick and shovel.” Her mother’s tone was bitter as she glared back.
“There’s easier ways than that.” Father laughed. “Lonely rich women like yourself–”
“And dark ones–the kind you really like!”
“You’ll never really forget about catching me in your maid’s bed, will you?”
“I sold her down the river, but I couldn’t do anything about you!”
“All right! I like them with dark skin–niggers, Injuns, mixed bloods. And do you know why, my dear wife?” He went over, put his face close to hers. “Because they have hot, passionate natures, that’s why! Because, unlike you who lie there like a thin wooden board and submit, those dark ones are all mouth and claws and tits, and–”
“Stop it! Stop it!” She was screaming now, hands over her ears to keep from hearing him. “Get out! Get out!”
“With pleasure, my ugly, cold wife.” Manning grinned cruelly as he reached for his shirt. “As you said, the money’s about gone anyway from my gambling and wild ways. You and Winnifred may be able to survive on what’s left.”
“What about Winnifred? Don’t you care about your own daughter?” More hysterical weeping.
“I’m afraid she’s too much like you, Clara.” He turned and was gone forever.
No, not forever. He had returned one more time to commit her mother to an asylum. The disease he had given her had progressed to gradually destroy her mind. And now he was ailing. Revenge was going to be sweet, Winnifred thought with a determined shake of her beribboned head as she walked across the fort grounds to the telegraph office. He thought she was coming to Colorado to be a nurse maid.
Instead, first chance she got, Winnifred intended to put him in an asylum as he had done her mother, and take control of his fortune!
Chapter Seventeen
Winnifred thought of his final words as she returned to her quarters to pack. No, she wasn’t like her mother at all. Manning Starrett’s blood ran hot in her veins. In the next few years as her young body matured, she found herself drawn to the black and brown and cream-colored slaves of her mother’s plantation.
She began to spy on the slaves when they swam naked in the creek; when they made love in the barn, in the fields. Winnifred was fascinated by the rippling dark muscles, the intertwined bare legs and arms. So that was how it was done.
She began to have dreams, fantasies about dark-skinned males doing those things to her. She would lie in bed at night, aching with desire, and imagine some handsome swarthy stallion humping between her thighs. Yes, she was very much like her father after all. The fact terrified her because she wanted to be more like her saintly mother. Not that she ever acted on her lusts. The results, if she got caught, would be too terrifying. On the next plantation, such a thing had happened. The master had forced his beautiful young wife watch him geld her dark lover and then had killed them both.
The war began and things were terrible for everyone in the South. She could only be glad her mother was going insane and couldn’t know her whole civilization was crumbling into ruin around her. But it cost money to keep Clara in that place. In the last few months, there hadn’t been any and the slaves had all been freed so it was almost impossible to keep the plantation running.
The war ended and Clara died, insane and screaming. Manning Starrett had written to Winnifred right after her mother’s death. Yes, she would go out to Colorado Territory, pretend to be the loving, caring daughter–until she could seize control of his assets and dump him in the worst madhouse she could find.
Money was power. Once she had his, she would finally choose a man to take her virginity, a man like that scout, bronzed and virile. Her dreams would finally become reality. Maybe she would have more than one man. With money, she could have a whole harem of dark-skinned studs and thumb her nose at convention. Yes, when she was in control, she’d come back here and offer Johnny so much money to be her business manager or butler that he’d come to Denver and forget about that little half-breed girl.
Winnifred hurried back to her quarters and began to pack. She had her trunks ready and sitting on the porch of the trading post when the stage pulled in. As the driver and guard loaded her luggage in the boot of the stage, Major North came out of his office, frowned when he saw her, and came over.
“Miss Starrett, I didn’t realize you had decided to leave–”
She decided to ignore the disapproval in his eyes. “I’ve already telegraphed my father I’m on my way.”
“Just because the stage is running again doesn’t necessarily mean it’s safe to take it. If you’d stay a little longer, maybe I’ll get orders to begin sending an army escort with the civilian–”
“That’s hardly necessary,” she replied in her most snobbish tone. “I’m
quite weary, Major, of your miserable little fort. Besides, I’m sure it will be perfectly safe.”
“You notice no one else is taking the stage?”
Winnifred looked around. There weren’t any other passengers. Maybe they would pick up some along the way. “Major, my mind is quite made up. My father will be expecting me in Denver.”
And to preclude other discussion, she snapped her pink parasol shut with a flourish and let the driver assist her into the stage. She sat down with a flounce of blossom pink skirts, hair ribbons, and wide silk sashes.
The major gestured helplessly. “Miss Starrett, I won’t be held responsible by your father if–”
“Land’s sake! I didn’t ask you to!” She leaned out the window. “Driver, aren’t we scheduled to leave?”
The mustachioed driver tipped his hat to her. “Beggin’ yore pardon, ma’am, if I was you, I’d listen to the major–”
“I have a bonafide ticket, do I not?” Her tone was scathing.
“Yes, ma’am.” At this point, the driver gave the officer a resigned look, sighed, shrugged, and climbed back up to the seat of the stage along with the shotgun-wielding guard.
Johnny Ace rode by just then but didn’t even see her as he passed. She had a sudden vision of herself lying naked beneath this virile, noble savage. He was thrusting between her thighs, driving deep into her virginity. . . .
Major North looked in the window. “Miss Starrett, does your father know you’re doing this? Do you have his permission?”
“Of course!” she lied. Actually she’d sent a wire for him to meet the stage, and wasn’t waiting for a reply. He might tell her to wait until the latest outbreak was settled. Winnifred didn’t want to spend one more night here, knowing that Johnny Ace was mounting that little chit of a half-breed when he was so welcome in Winnifred’s bed.
“Well, then . . .” The major looked undecided as to what he should do.
“Are you prepared to drag me off this stage bodily, Major?”
He backed down. “No, of course not, only–”
“Thank you for your hospitality,” she drawled. “You must come to call on my father and me if you should ever be in Denver.”
Major North sighed and nodded, stepping away from the coach. Evidently he had decided not to cross her and bring her wealthy father’s wrath down on the post. She didn’t look back as the stage pulled away.
They didn’t pick up any passengers at the next stage stop or the one after that. What they got instead were dire warnings of Indian signs and smoke signals.
The second day, she wished she had listened to Major North. The stage pulled into the station–what was left of it. The driver swore as it lumbered to a stop and Winnifred stuck her head out the window to see what he had upset him.
Smoldering ruins. The station and all its buildings were heaps of blackened rubble. Here and there, a wisp of smoke still drifted into the still air.
The driver and the guard climbed down, poking about in the wreckage. Impatiently, Winnifred jerked open her door and climbed out, too.
Both men carried guns as they walked about, looking. Winnifred stood by the stage, not quite sure what to do. “Maybe someone dropped a kerosene lantern,” she suggested, “and the fire spread.”
The driver looked back over his shoulder at her. “Then the people would still be around, wouldn’t they? If I was you, miss, I’d stay in the coach.”
She didn’t like being told what to do. Besides, she needed desperately to relieve herself. She spotted the outhouse still standing, went over, and yanked open the door. She stumbled back, screaming.
The body was pinned against the inside of the door with a feathered lance. Evidently the man had been surprised just as he began to pull up his pants to come out.
The two men came running.
“Is it Hank?” the driver said.
“Yep,” said the guard, “or what’s left of him. ”I’ll bet we find his helpers off in the brush somehow.”
The driver pulled an arrow out of the body. It had striped feathers on it.
The guard nodded, and looked toward the wooden crates tied on top of the stage. “We need ammunition, and they’re shipping Bibles from Boston!”
“Maybe if they attack us, we can quote Scripture to them.” The driver spat a stream of tobacco juice.
Winnifred blinked. Sure enough, the wooden crates on top of the stage were plainly marked: BOSTON BIBLE SOCIETY.
It was all so ridiculous. She began to laugh. Then suddenly the sights and smells overcame Winnifred and she stumbled off into the brush to be sick. It was there she found the helpers–or what was left of them.
This time, she couldn’t even scream. She could only sob and run back to the coach. This couldn’t be happening to her. No one would dare frighten or inconvenience the daughter of the richest, most powerful man in Denver–would they? Money and power bought everything.
The driver strode over to where she had run from. She heard him cursing. Then he came over and leaned in the window. “Miss, you stay with the coach. Hank and I’ll bury them.”
She was sobbing now and afraid–very much afraid. “Land’s sake! Let’s leave right this minute! Right this minute, y’all hear me?” She clutched her parasol to her. It seemed the only evidence she had at the moment that somewhere out there was an orderly, civilized society that cared about such niceties.
The guard leaned on his shotgun. “We can’t just go off and leave them, miss. It may be days before a cavalry patrol comes by here.”
She had not been this terrified through the entire war. She sat there trembling while the pair dug a hasty, shallow grave for the tortured remains.
The guard said, “Maybe we should go back to the fort and get an escort.”
“And suppose them Injuns are between us and the fort? All the sign looks like they rode out here east. Besides, remember there seemed to be some reason this stage had to get to Denver. Remember how the man stressed that point?”
There were no fresh horses. The Indians had stolen them all. So they went on with the tired team they came in with, but much slower now.
Winnifred began to calm down. If the stage was stopped by Indians, she would hurry to tell them she was Manning Starrett’s daughter. Surely even the Indians had heard of him. When they heard that, they would not only let her go unharmed, they might even give her an escort to Denver.
On the other hand . . . As the coach bumped along through the swirling dust of the hot day, she envisioned being captured by a handsome Noble Savage who looked a lot like Johnny Ace. No, he wouldn’t just be a warrior; he would be an important chief. He would fall in love with her, and mesmerized by her beauty, he would kidnap her and have his way with her.
She leaned back in the seat and fanatisized about his skillful lovemaking that brought her to unbelievable heights of ecstasy. He would pledge his undying love and they would cavort naked like true children of nature. Finally she would go on to Denver, but Handsome Chief would come there often and climb her trellis in the darkness to couple with her again and again.
Oh, if only the real thing turned out to be half as good as she imagined when it finally happened! Winnifred’s pulse pounded with excitement and desire as she replayed the Noble Savage Carries White Girl Off fantasy in her head.
Winnifred wished she could have a bath. The heat of early summer settled over her like the dust churned up by the stage. The wide sash of her pink dress was smudged and dirty, her hair ribbons hung limply, and her hair was falling down her neck as her hair pins loosened. The lace parasol had been tossed on the opposite seat as useless.
She would not think of how miserable this trip had turned out to be. It would soon be over. When she finally reached Denver, there would be money and excitement. She intended to make her father pay dearly for what he had done to her mother. But in the meantime, it would be wonderful to be part of wealthy Denver society.
She imagined being the center of attention at a ball. “Tell me, Miss Starrett, is
it true you came through hostile territory on the stage?”
She would wave her fan airily, flirting with the handsome men who clustered around her. “It was nothing, really. Some of the Indians rode right up to the stage and stopped it.”
The women stared wide-eyed. “Weren’t you petrified?”
“Land’s sake, no!” She would flutter her fan. “What y’all don’t understand is that these Indians are just like simple children–Noble Savages. A handsome chief fell in love with me and begged me to come live in his tipi. But I told him, of course, that I had to get to Denver to attend this ball, so he let me go.”
Even the men listened with admiration. “Miss Winnifred, you are so beautiful and so very brave!”
She liked that daydream so much, she relived it a dozen times as the stage swayed along. Well, it could happen. Somewhere between here and Denver, the stage might stop to rest the horses. Winnifred would find a stream to bath in. She would look up to find a handsome, virile Cheyenne chief watching her from the stream bank. He would look just like the idealized paintings in her poetry books.
When she started to scream, he would say to her in excellent English, “Don’t scream, Beautiful One. I’ve been following your coach all these miles. I want to be your first man and teach you to enjoy love!”
And he would grab her, tie her up, and kiss her tenderly all over as he carried her over beneath a tree and made passionate, tender love to her. Maybe he would tie her up. After all, a lady couldn’t be blamed for letting a brown stud make love to her if she was helpless and at his mercy. She couldn’t stop him because she was a captive–nor did she want to.
He would be so handsome and virile and so wonderful when he finally entered her, his dark body straining against her pale one. His name would be something like Flying Hawk, or Running Horse. He would beg her to go with him and live in the woods, where they would make love continuously and eat roasted deer and berries. At night, they could lie in a tipi and listen to the rain outside while they made love.
Cheyenne Caress Page 25
