Untamed

by Sharon Ihle

  Using that moment of agony and confusion to his own advantage, Daniel shoved Josie aside and reached for the intruder's gun. As his fingers curled around the barrel, the stranger raised the weapon and fired a second round. For a horrifying minute, Daniel thought his hand might have been blown off by the blast. Then he realized that the stinging vibrations came from the repercussions of the shot, and not because his fingers were hopping around on the floor like five little headless chickens.

  In the time it took for Daniel to contemplate the condition of his hand, the intruder regrouped and launched another attack. The empty shotgun fell to the floor with a clatter, and then the willowy shadow was on him like a cat on a hare. Since Daniel's mending leg could barely accept his own weight, it was a simple matter to bring him down. Fists flying, the man sprang onto his prone body the minute he hit the floor.

  "I'll kill you, you dirty no-account bastard."

  Slender fists pummeled Daniel's face, but even in the midst of warding off the beating, he recognized the phrase as one that Josie had used on him.

  "What have you done to her, huh?" cried the stranger. Something hot and wet splashed down on Daniel's face. "Is she raped?" he went on, his voice wavering.

  The utterly bizarre reality that he'd been shot at and then attacked by an assailant who was crying—crying—struck Daniel in the funny bone, even as he took a blow to the nose. He might have laughed if something heavier than the sobbing man hadn't piled on top of him then, crushing him so that Daniel could hardly breathe.

  Long Belly, who'd thrown himself onto the stranger's back, all but growled as he said, "I have never counted coup on such pretty yellow hair before. Prepare to die."

  Daniel looked up to see that one of Long Belly's hands was filled with a clump of blond hair, the other with the handle of his scalping knife. When the blade touched down on the man's pale white skin, he shrieked in horror. That drew a high-pitched scream from Josie. Racing across the room, she threw herself on Long Belly's back.

  "Leave him be," she cried. "Don't kill him. Please don't kill him."

  Bodies piled three-deep on his chest by now, Daniel mouthed the words "get off," but all that came out was a guttural wheeze. From the corner of his eye, he saw Sissy's purple satin slippers approaching. Why not climb aboard? he thought irrationally, little stars popping behind his eyes. As he slowly began to lose consciousness, the slippers disappeared, no doubt to join the fray, and then a moment later, Daniel heard a muted clang. Two of the bodies immediately rolled off his chest—Long Belly and Josie. The third, his attacker, just lay there like a sack of mud, out cold. Daniel heaved the man to one side, and then climbed to a pair of very unsteady feet.

  "Damn," he said. "What in hell was all that about?"

  At the table, Sissy lit the lantern. Now that he could actually make out the intruder's features, Daniel saw that he was just a kid, fifteen, maybe sixteen—and that Josie had thrown herself across his prostrate body.

  "Caleb," she cried, slapping the boy's cheeks. "Caleb, honey, are you all right?"

  "You know this son of a bitch?"

  Through her tears, she admitted, "He's my brother."

  Daniel barely had time to digest that surprising fact before he noticed that Long Belly was still face down on the floor with Sissy kneeling beside him.

  "What happened to him?" he asked.

  "I thumped him with a frying pan before he could do something stupid to that boy." Sissy glanced up at Daniel with worried eyes. "Might a whopped him a little too hard."

  Pausing just long enough to determine that Long Belly was still alive, Daniel said, "He'll be all right. See if you can't bring him around." Then he limped over to where Josie struggled to do the same for the kid.

  "Is that really your brother?" he asked, even though he could clearly see a resemblance. The kid's hair was blond where Josie's was auburn, but they both had the same high forehead and stubborn square jaw. His features were delicately carved like hers, and would have been too feminine for a male if not for the boils of impending manhood rising up along his throat and. cheeks. The pale white skin there looked like a sockful of marbles.

  "He's not just my brother," she said, patting the young man's head. "He's my favorite."

  "Is he hurt?"

  Josie shook her head. "I think he just fainted."

  About then the kid's eyes opened, revealing the same mink-brown color as Josie's. He cast a wild glance around the room, sat straight up, then howled in pain.

  "Oh, horse feathers," he said, grabbing at his leg. "I think I blowed my foot off."

  Daniel glanced at the damage. "It looks like you blew off the side of your boot and maybe one of your toes, but that shouldn't keep you from getting your butt off the floor and telling me why you waltzed in here and took a shot at me."

  "He's hurt," Josie complained, taking a look at the injury for herself. "Can't you just let him be for a minute?"

  Daniel grumbled, but grudgingly allowed her the time to examine the wound. When she was apparently satisfied that her brother would live with most of his extremities intact, she helped him to his feet and then onto the chair by the door. That was when Daniel noticed that the kid had splintered his floor boards with the first blast, and with the second had blown off a corner of the loft, leaving part of it to dangle in midair.

  Daniel stepped around his brother-in-law, who was conscious by now, but too groggy and disoriented to realize what had happened, and joined the Baum siblings at the table.

  Pointing directly at the kid, he said, "You've got some explaining to, do. Get to it."

  Caleb glanced at Josie, who was shivering in her chemise, then at Daniel, who wore nothing but his woolen drawers. "Looks to me like you're the no-account bastard who'd better get to explaining. You been raping my sister?"

  Why on earth would the kid think a thing like that when his pristine sister could be had for a price in a whorehouse? Unless, of course, he didn't know that about her.

  Changing his strategy a little, Daniel set the young man straight. "I haven't been raping your sister, dammit. Do me a favor and stay put a minute while I get a few things figured out." He crooked a finger at Josie. "Put your coat on and come with me."

  For once, she did as he asked with no argument. When they were over by the loft, out of earshot, he whispered, "Doesn't your brother know you've been working in a whorehouse?"

  She stammered a little, and then said, "Mmmm, not exactly."

  "I see." Not that he did. "I'll keep that information to myself for the time being, but in exchange, you'd better make damn sure that he understands the way things have been between us. The truth."

  She sighed heavily. "Can I go back to him now?"

  Daniel thought she was being awfully uppity considering the circumstances, but he gave her a short nod and escorted her back to the table. Then he continued interrogating her brother.

  "Why did you shoot at me?"

  "I already told you. To rescue Josie from you no-account bastard kidnappers."

  That would have made sense given the fact that she had actually been kidnapped, but how had the kid found out? "Who told you what happened to her, and that you'd find her here?"

  Caleb's hateful glare remained steady on Daniel's face as he easily said, "I went asking about her at Lola's. They told me she got kidnapped by a pack of wild Indians that were headed upriver. When I got to the mission, the folks there said she might a come up here with a Cheyenne fellah that borrowed a boat. They also give me directions to this cabin."

  Daniel shot Josie a puzzled glance, but she refused to meet it head on. Turning back to Caleb, he asked, "Then you do know that your sister has been working at a whorehouse?"

  "Working?" The kid's pale skin went even whiter, almost transparent, as he stared at Josie and said, "Lord in heaven, was you actually working there... as a whore?"

  There wasn't a drop of uppity in Josie now. Her lips were pursed and her gaze darted around the room like a starving mosquito, landing here and the
re but never quite finding the sustenance she sought. In this case, he thought, escape.

  Josie finally said, "In a way, I guess."

  Daniel turned to look her straight in the eye, but she still refused to meet his gaze. "What the hell does that mean, in a way? Did you or did you not have paying customers while you worked at Lola's?"

  She shrugged.

  Daniel persisted. "How many men, Josie? More than ten?" She shook her head.

  "Less than five?"

  A little nod.

  It began to make sense now, puzzling as it still was, the little incongruities in Josie's behavior, the way she'd driven him mad with what he'd thought was artful innocence, the way she'd teased him, and then turned him away. Not precisely the actions of a seasoned whore.

  "I'll bet you've been lying to me about everything since the day I first set eyes on you," Daniel accused her. "In fact, you've probably never had a paying customer in your life, have you?"

  "Leave her be," said Sissy, climbing to her feet. "While she was at Lola's, all's she did was some clothes washing and such. It weren't her idea to work there."

  "That's right," said the kid, suddenly full up with self-righteousness. "Weren't her fault a'tall. Our pa dumped her at the pleasure palace to teach her a lesson. I come to bring her back home."

  "Then you've come all this way for nothing," Josie said, her belligerent self again. "I'm never going back home—never."

  While the two argued about Josie's future, Daniel stood there in shock. She wasn't a whore. Josie Baum was not a whore. She was just a rancher's daughter, probably a relatively innocent one at that, before he'd gotten his hands on her. Just thinking about some of the things he'd asked Josie to do—hell, the things he had done, like spend night after night seducing her with his mouth and fingers, not to mention the perversions he'd talked her into doing for him—made him want to dig a hole to China and climb into it. Daniel couldn't think of a punishment worthy of the way he'd dangled a rubber beneath her nose.

  In the midst of all his self-admonishments, he recalled what Josie's misguided brother had said, something about their own father dumping her at Lola's. How in God's name could any man purposely force his daughter to move into a whorehouse and then live with himself? That made less sense to Daniel than just about anything that had happened in recent weeks—and he had plenty to choose from in his bafflement pantry. Only one thing was clear to him by now, and that was painfully obvious—he didn't have any business keeping a decent young woman like Josie in his cabin, much less his bed, for another minute or another day. Somehow, if he had to fight bad weather, his blasted leg, or even Long Belly, he would make sure that she and her deluded brother were on their way to the mission at first light.

  * * *

  The next morning, as they saddled the horses and prepared for the journey down the mountain, Josie was nearly overcome by a sudden sense of sadness. She breathed deeply of the horses, picking up the scent of hay and other fodder, and realized that she would miss this barn and all its animal smells, miss them in a way she'd never missed the livestock she'd cared for on the Baum barn, including Old Duke. She would also miss Sissy, who chose to stay behind with Long Belly, a man who'd developed new respect for her since she'd bashed him with a pan. Somewhere in those musings Josie finally conceded that she'd miss Daniel most of all.

  Recognizing that about herself felt odd in light of the fact that he was a half-breed, one who only wanted her for one thing—well, two if she counted Sweetpea. The buffalo aside, Daniel wanted the same thing from her that all men wanted from women—a few moments of pleasure in exchange for a lifetime of hell. It was good she was leaving now before she got any more wrapped up in the man, better than good. After what they'd been to each other over the last few days, there was a terrifying, but very real possibility that she could actually fall in love with the mercurial man.

  Last night Daniel had been wonderful, more than accommodating once things had gotten straightened out. In light of the fact that Caleb had tried to kill him, and all her lies were out in the open, Josie wouldn't have been surprised if he'd turned them out in the cold. Instead, Daniel not only helped to doctor Caleb's poor foot, he'd even gone so far as to insist that she sleep in his bed. This left him curled up in a chair opposite her brother for the night. When she'd awakened this morning to the sight of those two together, she'd gone all blubbery inside, her heart filling with love to the point that it felt cracked. Even now, at the memory, a tear rolled down her cheek.

  "What's wrong, Josie?" asked Caleb, who was helping her to saddle the horses for the trip.

  She quickly wiped her cheek. "Nothing. Got some straw in my eye, I guess."

  Josie had almost forgotten how close they were. Caleb shot her a look that said he knew better.

  "All right," she said, not exactly truthful, but bringing up an issue that deeply concerned her. "I was thinking about the others back home. How are the little ones doing without me?"

  "Pretty good. Pa got old Beulah to come stay with them during the day and the rest of us pitch in at night."

  She nodded, relieved. With the exception of Caleb, Josie's only regrets had been leaving behind two-year-old Billy and four-year-old Matthew. Beulah, ironically, was Henry's grandmother, a kind, sweet woman, who wasn't up to many chores but would at least play with the boys and make sure they were properly fed and cared for.

  Wiping away yet another tear, Josie kissed her brother's cheek and said, "Go on and get your horse. I can finish with the mare myself."

  "The little ones are doing good," he reassured her. ''Honest."

  "Go," she insisted, lightly slugging his shoulder, and so he did, muttering to himself as he made his way down the aisle.

  Watching him walk away, Josie smiled, still amazed by the daring rescue attempt he'd made on her behalf. Barely sixteen, Caleb was seven years younger than Josie, and the fourth of Peter Baum's sons. She thought of him as her favorite brother for a lot of reasons, chief of which was the fact that Caleb reminded Josie the most of her mother and the least of her stepfather. More than once she had shielded this most fragile of her brothers from Peter Baum's whip. More than once, she had failed. How on God's green earth had he managed to convince the man to let him come after her in the first place?

  As Caleb led his buckskin gelding out of the stall, she asked, "Does Pa know you've come after me?"

  Read hung low, he quietly said, "No, I run off in the night. I was kind a hoping that he'd forgive me when I came back with you, though."

  "Caleb," she said, going to him. "I meant it when I said that I'm never going back. You've got to understand that. I know that Pa'll beat you bloody if you go home without me, but I just can't go back there."

  He looked at her with their mother's eyes, and smiled. "I guess maybe I knew that all along. If you ain't going back, then neither am I."

  This suddenly didn't sound like such a bad idea. "You want to throw in with me?"

  Caleb lit up. "Sure do. What's your plan?"

  "I figure on starting up my own cattle ranch when we get back to Miles City, and just wait until you see what I found to get us going."

  "Cattle ranching, Josie?"

  Caleb's face fell into a pout, not entirely a surprise. Each morning when Peter Baum rode off with his sons to ride the range, Josie had longed to go with them instead of seeing to her endless household chores. Though he'd never actually said so, Caleb's expression often mirrored those thoughts in reverse. If she ever got any help around the house, it was he who offered his services, and with more enthusiasm than he ever showed mounted on the back of a horse. Often Josie had wished that she could just up and exchange skins with Caleb, a sentiment she suspected he shared.

  "I've got an idea," she said, seeing a way to make both their wishes come true. "I'll ride herd over the cattle, and you can stay home and manage the ranch. What do you think?"

  'I think," he said, extending his hand, "that we got ourselves a deal."

  Laughing with him, she sa
id, "Get your horse saddled up. I'm going to go get my buffalo."

  "Your what?"

  "My buffalo, Sweetpea. She's the surprise I was telling you about, the one that's going to get us started in the ranching business."

  Caleb scratched his head. "You can't start a cattle ranch with a buffalo."

  "Oh, yeah? Who says I can't?"

  "I do, for one," said a third voice.

  Josie turned to see Daniel leaning against the open door of the barn. All the tenderness she'd felt for him earlier vanished. "And I say you're dead wrong. That buffalo is going with me and that's that."

  He strolled down the aisle toward them, his leg so well-mended, his limp was even less noticeable than Caleb's.

  "Even if you figure out a way to herd that animal," Daniel went on to say, "and I don't think you can with that buffalo slowing you down, you'll never make it back to Miles City before the next storm hits."

  "Take another look outside," Josie said with a laugh. She'd been pleased to encounter the sun when she stepped from the cabin that morning, even though a few clouds lingered over the mountaintops like clusters of fat sheep. "The weather has warmed up so much the snow is beginning to melt."

  "I noticed." Daniel paused a moment to rub the buckskin's nose. "Unless this is your first winter in Montana, I think you already know how fast the weather can change in these parts. You'll be taking enough of a chance just trying to get yourselves back to Miles City before the next storm hits."

  He had a point, but Josie wasn't about to concede it or Sweetpea to him. "It can also stay nice and warm for a couple of weeks or more. I'll take my chances."

  Daniel turned to give her a particularly pointed look. "Long Belly says he heard some white owls calling last night. It sure as hell wasn't the sun that chased them out of the Arctic this early. Leave that buffalo here. I'll see that she's well taken care of."

  Josie hated to admit that Daniel was right, but in this case, he was. Even then she stubbornly went out to the corral and made a feeble attempt at fashioning a halter for Sweetpea in hopes of leading her away from the cabin. The minute the buffalo saw the rope, she panicked and nearly ran Josie down. There didn't seem to be any way to justify the risk of taking the beast back to Miles City at her own, unpredictable pace, not with the weather every bit as unstable.