by Sharon Ihle
"You are Two Moons," he parroted.
"No, I am... oh, never mind. It doesn't matter what your name is, kid. They're still cookies, and no, it's not time to take them out of the oven yet."
His round face fell into a pout, a sure sign that he'd be thinking up ways to scare the hell out of her or just plain piss her off after he'd had his fill of cookies. Since she was in no mood to put up with any more of the boy's shenanigans, Josie decided to distract him. She'd noticed that both twins wore identical little bags around their neck, each of them made of blue and red beads fashioned into some kind of animal complete with round bellies, heads, and short little arms and legs made of strips of stiff rawhide. They vaguely resembled turtles.
After touching the bag that Long Belly had given to her, Josie pointed to the one tied around Two Moons' neck and asked, "What is that? Good luck medicine like mine?"
The boy shook his head and glared. "Ma gives me. Is bad medicine for evil like you. "
He poked Josie's belly as he finished the sentence, scaring a shudder out of her that ran the length of her body. Then he ran over by the Stove to wait for the miracle of the 'cooks.'
"Why you miserable, no-account..." Josie let the sentence and the thought hang, knowing that if she finished it the way she wanted to, the little pisspot would run tattling to his father, which would in turn make her life even more miserable than it already was.
Adding to her misery, Bang approached her after his brother fled, pulled open the neck of his shirt and pointed to his own bag.
"Me, too," he said in his husky voice. "Bad medicine for you."
"Yes," Josie agreed. "The both of you are plenty bad medicine, but I have some of my own for you."
She got up from the table then, went to the stove, and removed the pan of cookies. Smiling as she lifted them out of the pan, she said, "Have you boys ever heard the word `poison'?"
They looked at each other, big-eyed and wary, but said nothing.
"Poison is what makes my cookies so sweet." Josie held out the plate, offering them their pick. "Go ahead, eat up if you dare, you little goblins."
They eyed the cookies hungrily, but then ran away and scrambled up the ladder to their loft. About the time they disappeared over the top, Daniel blew in through the door. He was so cold he didn't bother to remove his jacket, but, immediately came to stand in front of the hot stove. Clumps of snow fell from the coat, melting into puddles all over Josie's clean floor.
"Give me that," she said, peeling the garment off of his shoulders and taking it to hang on its proper antler. As she returned to the stove, Josie glanced up to see the twins cowering at the lip of the loft. She smiled at them, showing way too many teeth, and sent them scurrying out of sight.
"Any signs of the storm letting up yet?" she asked.
Daniel chafed his hands above the burner. "Not yet, and it was at least twenty-five below out there before the wind came up again. The gusts are enough to slice a man in half."
Josie was familiar with winter storms and knew that twenty-five below could easily feel like fifty below when the wind was blowing. "Did you check on Sweetpea? And how are the cattle doing in all this?"
"The buffalo is fine, the cattle not so good." He shook his head in frustration. "That little warm spell we had crusted the snow already on the ground and now the cattle can't push their noses through it to reach the grass beneath. I stocked up enough hay to help them through the worst spells, but if this keeps up, it'll never last all winter."
Josie recalled how scrawny they'd been before the first blizzard. "There must be something we can we do to save them."
"Nothing I know of." Daniel turned to her, warning his backside. Exhaustion was etched in his features. "I wish to hell I'd been smart enough to have sent more than two head along with Long Belly and Sissy. All of our cattle might as well be butchered to help feed the tribe instead of leaving them to starve to death on my own land."
She couldn't imagine that so few cattle could be in such jeopardy. "They'll be all right. All we need is another break in the weather."
"I hope you're right." Grumbling to himself, Daniel pulled out the chair nearest the stove and fell into it. "I'm starved. What do you have to eat around here besides cookies?"
"I'll have to look," she said, suddenly irritable.
She didn't complain or put up an argument because at that point, Josie wasn't sure why she felt so agitated. She sure didn't like the way Daniel had asked her to fix his food, but it was more than that. As she fried up a thick ham steak, warmed up a few biscuits left from breakfast, and added some fresh grounds to the coffee pot, she finally realized what was bothering her so—she'd bargained her way right back into her former role as housekeeper and cook to a bunch of ungrateful males. She might as well have never left the Baum ranch.
By the time the meal was ready, Josie was so steamed, she slammed the plate down in front of Daniel rather than serving it, and then threw herself into the seat across from him.
He looked up, astounded. "What was that all about?"
Since she couldn't exactly explain it herself—she had, after all, agreed to cook for the man—Josie folded her arms across her chest and kept her thoughts to herself,
"Aren't you going to say anything?"
There was absolutely nothing she could say in her own defense.
Daniel's fist hit the table, "After I've spent all morning freezing my ass tending stock while you're in here warming your fanny at a hot stove, is this as nice as you can be?"
If the words hadn't been so close to the ones her stepfather and brothers had used on her all her life, Josie might have apologized then and there and been done with it. Instead, something inside her snapped, freeing her cantankerous tongue.
"What do you expect me to do?" she asked. "Get down on my hands and knees and kiss your feet each time you come through the door? I said I'd cook and clean. Being nice doesn't have a damn thing to do with our bargain."
Daniel's mouth dropped open.
"And neither do your brats, by the way. Do you think I actually enjoy being penned up in here with those two little pisspots running me ragged from morning to night? Is this supposed to be my idea of heaven?"
"Now hold on a minute."
"No, you hold on, and while you're at it, think about this—maybe if you stayed in here looking after your own kids and let me take care of the cattle, all the animals on this hellhole you call a ranch would be doing a lot better than they are now. I know I would."
Her face hot, the blood pulsing at her temples like hammers, Josie fell back against her chair.
Daniel just sat there and stared at her for a full minute before he finally commented on her outburst. "Oh, damn, Josie. Are you pregnant?"
Her anger had been real, red-hot and bubbling over with so much righteous indignation, she thought her head might explode. Daniel's statement was like a bucket of ice water in the face and a chicken feather at the bottom of her foot. She burst out in uncontrollable laughter.
"Does that mean you're not pregnant and that you're going to let us live, after all?"
"Yes, on both counts." Still chuckling, she added, "I didn't mean to bite your head off, but I'm feeling kinda poorly this morning. I guess that makes me a little irritable.''
"You're sick?"
"Not exactly." Josie explained as delicately as she could. "I'm, ah, doubled up with the female complaint."
"Well, thank the Lord for that." He wiped his brow. "I was more than just a little worried after our first night together."
Finally able to get to his meal, Daniel wedged a thick chunk of ham between the halves of his biscuit, and then stuffed the entire thing into his mouth. Josie waited until he'd finished eating before she asked for clarification.
"Why would you be worried? I thought we were particularly safe that night."
"The damn rubber fell apart," he explained sheepishly. "I don't know why it broke, but that made it completely useless. In other words, you might easily have gotten pregnant."
> Josie clutched her throat in horror. "Don't you think you might have told me there was a problem?"
Daniel shrugged. "I couldn't see the point in worrying you. After all, the, ah, horses were already out of the barn, so to speak, and there wasn't any way to put them back where they belonged."
Feeling flushed, hot all over, Josie collapsed against her chair and fanned herself.
"Are you all right, sweetheart? Your face is really red."
"I think I could use some air."
"Well, I suppose a walk to the barn might do you some good, especially if you meant any of what you said about switching jobs with me."
The smile Daniel gave her after that suggestion was impossible for Josie to interpret. Either he understood her frustration at being trapped in the cabin, or he was making what he considered to be a joke.
Josie glanced out the window. "I'd love to go have a look at Sweetpea, but I can't even see the barn through the snow."
"I had a little trouble finding it myself, so I strung a rope between the barn door and the front porch. Just hang onto it all the way. And Josie—don't dawdle out there. If you close your eyes, they might just freeze that way until spring."
"I'll go straight to the barn, take a fast peek at Sweetpea, then I'll come right back." She pushed away from the table. "Who knows? Maybe by then, I'll feel like being a little nicer."
"One can hope."
The smile he gave her after that was unmistakable and impossible to misread. It was the expression of a contented, satisfied, and truly exhausted man, one who'd probably be sleeping by the time she got back from her airing.
Josie slipped into Daniel's jacket and headed out into the storm. Welcoming the bite of freezing winds and even the blowing snow that spiked her cheeks, she easily found the barn, thanks to Daniel's rope, and quickly slipped inside. The cavernous building was dark except for a crack of light at the back door, which was ajar. That made it relatively easy to pick out the outline of two figures that were huddled near the crack.
Giving herself a moment to recover from the shock of finding someone else in the barn, Josie realized that the intruders were peeking out the door and into Sweetpea's pen. Recognizing the buffalo robe of the man on the right, Josie stormed down the center aisle.
"Long Belly," she shouted, alerting him to her presence. "Damn your no-account hide. What do you—"
The Indians turned at the sound of her voice, spears raised. When they pointed their weapons directly at her and then started her way, Josie noticed two sudden and terrifying details. The men were savages all right, their long hair in braids and faces painted, but Long Belly was not one of them. And neither of the heathens looked the least bit pleased to see her.
Chapter 20
At the Cheyenne reservation camp, Sissy curled up in front of the extravagant fire Long Belly had built for her a couple of hours before. She could hardly believe how warm and comfortable she was inside the crude structure, or that the bed could be even softer than the one she'd shared with Long Belly at the cabin. Even more surprising, given her treatment by whites, his tribesmen seemed to accept her without prejudice.
Astounded by the changes in her life since the night Long Belly had spirited her away from the whorehouse, Sissy fussed with the latest in a series of gifts he'd, given to her. Today's presents included a pretty gold bracelet and a pair of fancy moccasins made with bright yellow beads and porcupine quills dyed red. They would be a nice addition, she thought, to the even fancier footgear he'd brought her yesterday, a pair of thigh-high boots done up with colorful beads and big silver buttons that jingled when she walked.
She slipped into those soft deerskin boots now, tugging them tightly over her feet, and caught herself marveling over this new, remarkably attentive Long Belly. Not a day had gone by in the week or so since he'd brought her here that he hadn't come to the tipi with gifts ranging from jewelry to baskets to clothing. If that wasn't miracle enough, he hadn't once pressed her for sex, insisting that he would never degrade her again by so much as touching her before their marriage. That gave Sissy more than just a little pause, especially as she considered their nightly assignations in the weeks leading up to their departure from Daniel's cabin.
Now, ironically enough, all Sissy could think about were the times when she'd begged the Lord to please give her a few days of peace with no man touching or invading any part of her body. After tasting this luxury for several days, she was surprised to find that her newly awakened desire pestered her as unrelentingly and persistently as any whoremonger ever had. The resulting frustration alone was almost enough temptation for Sissy to give in to Long Belly's pleas for an immediate wedding. But not quite.
She was still determined to make her decision based on what she wanted, a bewildering but thrilling dilemma she was facing for the first time in her life. It wasn't an easy thing to decide, especially in the face of the reception she'd received when the weather cleared long enough for Long Belly to present her to his family and friends.
Other tribal members, especially the children, seemed positively awestruck whenever they happened upon her. Long Belly said they were fascinated by her skin color, unusually curly 'buffalo' hair, and all the wild tales he'd told them about the great buffalo spirit that lurked within her. Sissy knew she'd done nothing for anyone to hold her in such high esteem, but she couldn't honestly say that she didn't enjoy her elevated status or the warm and tingly sensations that came with it.
"Buffalo Hair?" came Long Belly's voice above the crackling fire. "May I enter?"
"Come on in," she called back, amused by the overly polite suitor he'd become.
After Long Belly stepped inside, careful to leave the flap open, he offered Sissy the small bowl he carried. "I bring you soup to warm and fill your belly. The snow no longer falls, but the air is like a frozen pond."
"Sit down," she invited him, taking the bowl and setting it aside. "Are you saying that everyone else is outside having supper while I'm sitting here getting waited on like a queen?"
"Many have gathered around the cooking fire," he admitted, easing into a cross-legged position by the opening. "Not all have ventured outside."
His glance fell on a feathered crucifix featuring what Sissy thought might be the Cheyenne version of Jesus, and her polite suitor suddenly became a jealous child.
"Where did this come from?" he asked, grabbing the cross.
"A fellah come by and gave it to me. I couldn't understand a word he said, but he insisted that I keep it."
"Was the man His Bad Horse?"
She shrugged. "He didn't mention nothing about no horses."
Long Belly glared at the figure on the cross. "Hesowxemehne would do this. He has studied at the mission."
"What'd you say his name was?"
"Slippery Monster, a man who once was my friend. I think he carved this dog soldier to make himself proud with Blackrobe at the mission. Now he uses it to court my woman."
Court his woman? Sissy could hardly believe that she had one suitor. How was it possible that she had two?
The crucifix clutched firmly in his hand, Long Belly got to his feet. "Hesowxemehne will be very sorry he came to you after I stake him out beneath the Big Hard Face Moon tonight."
"Hey," she said, climbing to her feet. "I don't want no one getting staked or hurt over me. Your monster friend didn't do nothing wrong or treat me bad. You leave him be."
Long Belly scowled, but said, "I must speak to him then, only speak. And then I will return with a better gift—a fine young horse just for you."
Then he tore out of the tipi so fast, Sissy didn't even get a chance to thank him for the soup. She supposed that she really ought to have at least told Long Belly that she'd finally come to a decision regarding his proposal. She didn't know much about the proper behavior when it came to accepting or declining a man, but it struck her that informing him the minute she'd made her decision would probably be the kind thing to do.
Sissy glanced around the tipi at all
her lovely gifts, thinking what a shame it would be when all of this ended—not just the presents, but the adoration and attention that came with them, everything she'd never had before and would never have again.
She would have to tell Long Belly about her decision, no doubt about it. But maybe it could wait until tomorrow.
* * *
Inside the cabin, Daniel was not sleeping, but wondering what could be taking Josie so long. She'd said that she was just going to have a quick look at her stinky friend, not spend the night with the damn thing. He wandered over to the counter and helped himself to a handful of cookies. As he stuffed one of them into his mouth, Two Moons cried out from the loft above.
"No, no, Papa, do not eat," he said in Cheyenne. "Ma Jofess makes these with poison, and you will die."
"Poison?"
Daniel looked up to see that both boys were peering down at him in horror. What in the hell had Josie done to them this time? And why, oh why, couldn't she make a little more effort to get along with the twins?
"What makes you think the cookies are poisoned?" he asked.
"Ma Jofess is evil," he said.
"And says she has bad medicine for us," added Bang.
"She wishes us dead," Two Moons finished. "And even told us of the poison."
Daniel knew that Josie wasn't particularly fond of the boys just yet, and that they hadn't completely accepted her, but he also knew this poison theory had to have stemmed from a big misunderstanding.
"Ma Josephine likes to make jokes," he explained with a chuckle. "But I think they might be a little difficult for you boys to understand. She's been feeding you these cookies for a week now and no one got poisoned." He sniffed a cookie, and then took a bite of it. "They taste and smell exactly the same as they did before—delicious."
With that, he stuffed the rest of the cookie into his mouth, but even that wasn't enough to convince the boys they were safe. They stayed put, whispering to each other in their own unique version of Cheyenne.
Daniel wandered over to the window and glanced outside. Snow was still falling, but in gentle flurries now, making it possible to see the barn. There was no sign of Josie, who should have returned by now. Daniel thought about how nervous the buffalo had been when he tossed some hay to it and the cattle, and a certain uneasiness came over him. What if her damned pet had turned on her, goring a big hole in her chest and leaving her to bleed to death in the snow? It was too real a possibility to ignore.
