Prophet smiled. “How many of those kids are yours?”
‘They are all mine.”
Prophet turned his head to look at the sober old man. “All?”
The old man nodded proudly. “And all the women are my wives. All but Ka-cha-e-nee. She is the mother of my wife, Cha-lo-why-ka-nee.”
Prophet sawed back on the reins, halting the horse. “Wait a minute,” he said, incredulous, looking back at the old man again. “You mean to tell me that whole group is your family?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” Staring at the ground, Prophet thought it over. At least one of the old women must have been younger than she looked, to have had the youngest of those young ’uns. “I guess that explains why there aren’t any warriors.”
Prophet gigged Mean and Ugly into a walk, and the old man, whose name was Three Buffaloes, told Prophet in a desultory way about his life growing up with a band of Sioux along the Missouri River. When he was seventeen, he went to work at a large ranch as a hostler and a drover, and the cook taught him to read and write and to cipher. He became so good at horse gentling that he spent twenty years on the ranch, living among white people, making good wages.
“But I never felt right, living among the whites,” he said. “I always felt homesick. So when I was forty, I went back to my own people and took wives and had children— the children you saw in the camp.”
“That pretty girl, the older one—she your daughter, too?” For all Prophet knew, she might have been a wife.
Prophet sensed a proud smile on Three Buffaloes’ face, heard him inhale deeply. “Yes. She is my firstborn. Her name is Me-the-um-ba. In English it means Sunshine. She was born during the bright summer days of the sun dance.”
“A beauty, that one,” Prophet said, rushing to add, “no disrespect intended, Three Buffaloes.”
The old man put his hand on Prophet’s right shoulder. “None taken, Mr. Prophet.”
“Lou.”
“You may call me Three for short.”
Three went on to tell Prophet that he’d left his band a year ago, when they went on the warpath against the whites. “I do not like what your people are doing to my people, Lou,” he said, “but killing will do nothing but cause more killing.”
“I guess your people and my people have proven that already,” Prophet grimly allowed as they crossed a creek in a shallow canyon, the dark water splashing silver against the rocks.
The sun had set, and the western sky had turned a painter’s colorful palette, layered with high clouds.
“Yes. We have to learn to live together or not live at all.”
“That’s how I see it,” Prophet agreed.
There was a pause as they climbed out of the canyon and cantered across the prairie toward a low ridge at the base of which was a black line of trees. In the trees lay Three’s encampment.
“So you and your family are on your own, following the buffalo?” Prophet asked.
Three Buffaloes sighed. “On our own, yes. But the buffalo are all but gone. Around here the herds have been thinned to nothing by railroad hunters, like those who were using me for target practice. No, we follow the deer now, and the creeks and the rivers, and stay out of the way of the white people, though that gets harder every day.”
They rode into the encampment twenty minutes later, when it was nearly full dark. The children flocked around their father, and the women cooed around the big buck draped over the Morgan. They wasted no time in cutting the ropes, yanking the carcass off the horse, dragging it over to the big, sparking fire they had going, and starting to work with their butcher knives.
When Prophet had unsaddled his horses in the trees, and fed and watered them, he went to see Louisa. He stepped into the tepee in which a low fire glowed, smelling the steam, tanned hides, and woodsmoke. Seeing that the crone wasn’t there, he knelt beside the robe-cloaked figure near the fire and was relieved to hear her breathing.
She was unconscious, and her skin was pasty, but he listened to her heartbeat, and it sounded strong. There was a thick burlap compress on her shoulder that smelled as though it had been soaked in horse piss. It oozed brown liquid.
He touched her tangled blonde hair, caressed her smooth cheek with the backs of his knuckles, then stood and went outside, where the old women chattered happily as they worked. They already had two large shoulders roasting on spits and gleaming juicily in the firelight.
Three Buffaloes was there, too, lying propped against robes beside the fire, two little boys snuggled against his chest, sound asleep. When he saw Prophet, Three lifted a crock jug.
“Lou, join me.”
“What do you have there, Three?”
“Rhubarb wine. Got the recipe from the cook who taught me how to read. It is a staple with me, like meat and fry bread. I seldom have a meal without it.”
The old man grinned broadly, showing brown, crooked teeth. His eyes flashed in the fire’s glow.
“Well, I never was one to turn down a drink,” Prophet allowed, sitting beside the old man and crossing his legs Indian style.
He took the jug, sipped, and smacked his lips appraisingly. The wine was tart but refreshingly bubbly, and its warmth and alcohol bite fought off his fatigue. “That ain’t bad, Three,” he said. “Not bad at all.” He tipped it back.
“I hope you don’t mind one thing,” the Indian said as Prophet handed him the jug.
“What’s that?”
“I told my women I shot the deer.”
Prophet waved it off. “No problem.”
The old man hesitated, looking chagrined. “And one other thing.”
“What’s that, Three?”
“I told them it was I who saved you from the railroad hunters.”
Chuckling, Prophet reached for the jug. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Tonight, Lou, and until you leave here, you must sleep in that tepee there. I will bed down with my children.”
“I can’t turn you out of your tepee, Three.”
“You must. It is the Indian way. Besides, I have an old man’s pride to thank you for.”
“That’s not neces—” Prophet stopped and raised his eyes as the lovely Indian princess, Sunshine, walked before the fire, the slit in her dress revealing a succulent, golden thigh. She glanced at him with cool disinterest and disappeared in the shadows between the tepees.
Seeing the look on Prophet’s face, Three Buffaloes laughed with delight.
After partaking of a goodly portion of the buck, cooked until the skin had split and the dark meat was lightly charred and rife with flavor, eaten with his hands and washed down with wine, and after several more hours of Three’s delightful conversation under the cold, bright stars, Prophet moved his gear into Three’s tepee, undressed, and rolled up in a bearskin.
He didn’t know how much time had passed before he heard a tap on the closed tepee flap.
“Who’s there?” he said, keeping his voice low, believing it might be Three returning for something he’d forgotten to move into his children’s lodge.
“Shh.” It was a female voice. One of Three’s wives?
Prophet was baffled as he watched the figure-shaped shadow move into the lodge and heard the sibilant sounds of cloth rustling. He smelled bear grease and the subtle, flowery musk of a woman. A young woman.
A girl?
“Who is it?” Prophet said again, louder this time, his hand near the gun and cartridge belt coiled up beside him.
Finally, the figure squatted beside him, lifted the bearskin, and slid down next to Prophet, who felt the unmistakable caress of a young woman’s hair and naked flesh against his own. Slender arms encircled his neck. There was a warm, moist whisper in his ear:
“I came to repay you for saving Papa’s life.”
“Sunshine?”
The girl laughed huskily, running her hand down his chest and hard belly, finding him, and squeezing, and laughing again, but it was more of a delighted squeal this t
ime.
Prophet didn’t know what to do. Shocked and baffled, he slid a few inches away from her, but there was nowhere to go. “Jesus, I didn’t know you spoke English. Jesus, what’re you... what’s happening here? What if your father ... ?”
But then she’d crawled under the bearskin, the long, straw like strands of her hair brushing his belly. She took him in both hands—her soft, exploring hands—and then her mouth was over the end and sliding down, down ... down....
And Prophet shut up and fell back with a deep-throated groan of surrender.
Chapter Five
BEFORE DAWN, SUNSHINE got up and began building a fire. Hearing the soft snaps of the kindling, Prophet awoke and opened his eyes.
Silently, he watched the naked girl build the fire in the lodge’s tawny shadows. When she’d coaxed a flame into being, she waited until it had grown, cracking and snapping, then set two small pieces of Cottonwood atop it. Crawling on her hands and knees, her black hair swinging from side to side, she slid back under the bearskin.
Seeing that Prophet was awake, she nibbled his ear and giggled. Prophet smiled but shook his head. “You best leave before your father finds you here.”
She fondled him. Despite his anxiety that Three Buffaloes would discover them together, he grew quickly aroused, his protests dying on his lips.
A moment later, she crawled on top of him, and he placed his hands on the silky skin of her thighs, caressing with his thumbs, then placed his hands on the russet orbs of her small, firm breasts swaying above him as she moved, sighing and murmuring ... sighing and murmuring.
The passion built to a crescendo, until she stiffened and threw back her head, and Prophet, climbing out of his own hot bliss, reached up and clapped a hand over her mouth, stifling her scream.
They fell sideways together, rolling and snorting with muffled laughter. A few minutes later, the girl rose and dressed as Prophet watched. He grew aroused all over again as the lithe cinnamon nymph collected her hide dress and pulled it up her legs and belly, covering the lovely breasts with their still-jutting nipples.
Without so much as a good-bye or even glancing at him, she tossed her hair out from her neck and ducked through the flap, gone.
Prophet fell back, his guilt no longer tempered by the delight of the girl writhing beneath him. He’d frolicked with a girl whose father had only a few hours ago become his friend, while Louisa Bonaventure lay fighting for her life in a tepee only a few yards away.
“Law, law, Prophet,” he sighed to himself, using his mother’s old expression of pained exasperation. “You’re lower than a backwater crawdad.”
When he was dressed, he went out and looked sheepishly around for Three but saw only one of the wives fanning the cook fire to life with her apron. Relieved, he went into Louisa’s lodge. The crone was sitting beside her, legs crossed, singing softly with her head thrown back, eyes closed.
Ignoring the woman, Prophet dropped to a knee and studied Louisa, who was sweating like she’d been running across a hot desert. Her heartbeat was still strong, however.
Having taken more than his own share of bullets, Prophet knew it could be days before the fever broke.
He went out, fed and watered his horses, and returned to the encampment where Three was enjoying a morning cup of coffee near the breakfast fire, around which all the women had now gathered. The old Indian hailed Lou heartily and insisted he join him for coffee while the women prepared their meal. Avoiding the old man’s gaze, and more than a little worried about how the old man might react if he found out Prophet had diddled his daughter—even if it had been Sunshine’s idea—the bounty hunter manufactured a cheerful grin and extended his hand for the cup.
“How did you sleep?” Three asked when Prophet had taken a seat.
Prophet’s body heated from the center of his back to the top of his head. “Very well,” he choked. “Very well... thanks very much.” He couldn’t look at the man; only at the fire over which bread was frying and more of the buck was cooking.
“And the girl... did she treat you well?”
Prophet jerked a look at the old man staring at him. Three’s eyes were utterly without malice, waiting. Then Prophet saw the girl standing behind her father, her hands gently kneading the old man’s shoulders and eyeing the uncomfortable Prophet smokily.
The bounty hunter’s tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth, and his throat was sandy. He knew his face was brick red.
“It is the Indian way,” Three explained with a smile, “to offer our women to our guests. Sunshine has welcomed many of our visitors with special, man-pleasing methods taught her by my wives.”
Prophet had heard of the Indian custom, but still his voice was locked deep in his throat.
“If you wish visits from any of the others,” Three said, extending his hand at the women chattering around the breakfast fire, “please remember, Prophet—my women are yours.”
Prophet glanced at the others. One of them turned to him and cackled, opening her toothless mouth and jiggling her enormous, sagging bosom, igniting the others, as well as the old man and Sunshine, to uproarious laughter.
‘Thanks, Three,” Prophet said, his ears still scalding but finding his voice at last, though he doubted it was audible above the convulsions. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
But the only one he kept in mind was Sunshine, who visited his lodge again that night, the next night, and the next, and who after sweating and grunting with him for several hours each visit, left without so much as a parting word or nod in the morning.
And she never so much as looked at him during the day.
Prophet became so enraptured by the nightly visits that he had to admit he was in no real hurry to leave the encampment. Rarely had he ever experienced such bewitching, otherworldly charms without the usual complications the next day.
It was enough to turn him into an Indian.
But then Louisa’s fever broke, and she regained consciousness. She healed for another week, moving around the camp to rebuild her strength, and resolutely declared herself fit to resume tracking Handsome Dave Duvall.
“Who?” Prophet said. He and Louisa had just returned to the camp after taking their horses out for a light run. Her left arm was in a rawhide sling.
Louisa stared at him, aghast. “Who!”
Prophet jerked in his saddle, startled out of his reverie of last night’s blissful coupling with Sunshine. “Oh, Duvall. Right. Handsome Dave. Sorry, I was just thinking I better help Three grease those wagon hubs.”
“I know whose hubs you were thinking about greasing, Lou Prophet,” Louisa scolded, turning and gigging the Morgan away. “And you’ve only got one more night left with your lovely Indian princess, so you better enjoy it!”
Prophet stared after her, his sandy brows hooding his eyes. How in the hell had she found out?
Embarrassed and indignant, he yelled after her, “It’s not my fault you went and got yourself ambushed, you silly greenhorn! I should’ve left you to the wolves!”
The next morning they said good-bye to the Indians—to all except Sunshine, that was, to whom Prophet had bid his own special farewell the night before, half hoping Louisa heard the screams—and pointed their horses toward Bismarck. Duvall was no doubt long gone from the territory by now, but Bismarck would be the best place for sniffing out his trail, however cold.
Prophet knew he should have left Louisa with the Indians and tracked Duvall while his trail was still fresh, but he’d been reluctant to leave the girl with strangers, however benign they’d turned out to be. Besides that, he knew how badly Louisa wanted to be involved in Handsome Dave’s capture. If he’d taken the outlaw down alone, he doubted she’d ever forgive him.
Sunshine had had no part in Prophet’s decision to stay with Louisa. At least, not a very big part.
They’d ridden half the day when Prophet realized Louisa hadn’t said more than three words to him since their conversation about Sunshine the day before.
“How
come you’re so quiet?” he asked her over a small coffee fire at high noon.
She looked at him testily, wrinkling her pert nose. “Who’s saying I’m quiet?”
“You ain’t said more’n three words all day.”
“Maybe I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“You’re jealous of Sunshine. That’s why you’ve been so damn quiet.” He smiled, bemused.
She looked at him dully and tossed her grounds on the fire. She stood, walked to her horse, stowed her cup in her saddlebags, and mounted up. She reined the Morgan around and headed off at a lope.
When Prophet caught up to her, heeling Mean and Ugly abreast of the cantering Morgan, he said, “If that isn’t it, what is it?”
“You disgust me,” she said, looking straight ahead, her hat shading her stern face and her chin thong bouncing on her poncho. “Spending every night with that girl. You hardly knew her.”
“Three Buffaloes was just trying to make me feel at home, that’s all. And so what if I didn’t know her? I thought I told you—”
“Yeah, you told me all about how you sold your soul to the devil, and take your pleasure whenever and wherever you can. That’s disgusting, too. All of it. You act like nothing means anything. Like there’s no use in ever acting right because it’s all wrong, anyway, and there’s no God that cares about us.” Her voice was taut with anger.
“I’m sorry, Louisa,” he grumbled. “That’s just the way I see it.”
Later, he shot a couple of quail near a prairie pothole and roasted them over a fire that night. When it got dark, he checked on the horses, then came back and fished some gray cloth and a whiskey bottle from his saddlebags.
“I best change your bandage,” he told Louisa, who sat cross-legged by the fire, holding her coffee cup to her breast.
“It doesn’t need changing yet.”
Lou Prophet 4 Page 4
