by Jon Sharpe
“They are after us!” Birds Landing exclaimed. “What do we do?”
“Ride like hell,” Skye Fargo said.
5
Fargo raced to the west at a gallop. He had complete confidence in the Ovaro’s ability to hold its own against any horse, but they had spent most of the day on the trail, and now the stallion was bearing double. Unless he did something, and did it soon, the Ovaro would tire, with dire consequences.
An explosion of shouts warned him their pursuers were flying in heated pursuit.
Birds Landing said urgently in his ear, “Let me off and you will be able to get away.”
“No.”
“They will catch us if you do not.”
“We stick together.” Fargo needed to ask her more about Durn and the situation in Mission Valley when he got the chance. “Please stay on,” he added to be polite.
“Very well.” Birds Landing’s mouth brushed his earlobe. “For now I will do as you want.”
Then there was no time for small talk. Fargo had to call on all the skill he possessed. They were riding pell-mell at night, across rugged, broken country. At any moment the Ovaro might step into a hole or a rut and go down. Or they might come on a boulder or a log and be unable to avoid it. He must stay alert and focus on riding and only on riding.
His every nerve tingled. Suddenly a dark phalanx appeared ahead: forest. It could be their salvation if they could reach it.
Some of their pursuers were narrowing the gap, and yelling back and forth.
A glance showed Fargo that three riders were rapidly gaining and spreading out as they came so he could not flank them.
Birds Landing’s grip tightened. Fargo knew she was afraid they would be caught, afraid of what Durn would do to her. That business about a pit, and a wild beast Durn threw his enemies to—could it be true?
Something swished over their heads and brushed Fargo’s shoulder. Another glance showed that one of the riders had closed to within fifteen feet and had thrown a rope, but missed. The man would try again as soon as he had the rope back in his hand.
Suddenly they were in among pines and spruce. Fargo had to slow, but so would they. He had ridden in timber at night before, countless times, and he and the Ovaro moved as one, the stallion responding superbly to the slightest pressure of rein or leg.
A revolver blasted and lead smacked a bole to their right.
“No shooting!” bellowed the deep voice of Big Mike Durn. “I want them alive, damn you!”
Small consolation, Fargo reflected, since he doubted Durn would keep them alive for long. Him, at any rate. The girl was valuable. She had a debt to repay.
A low branch slashed at them out of the ink.
“Duck!” Fargo cried, and did so, feeling Birds Landing shift and press low against his side. They flew under the limb with barely an inch to spare.
Fargo wished the moon was out. Starlight was not enough. They might as well be at the bottom of a well. The thought spawned an idea, and he smiled. It just might work. He urged the Ovaro to go faster, increasing their lead a few yards. The roper had fallen behind; now he and his friends were twenty to thirty feet back.
Could Fargo find what he needed? A thicket would do but they had not come on one yet. Some of the trees had branches low to the ground, but not low enough. Then a small spruce hove out of the night. Only fifteen feet high, it was as broad as it was tall. Fargo swept around it, hauling on the reins as he did, and brought the Ovaro to a standstill so close to the tree, branches were scraping its side.
Heartbeats elapsed, and their three swiftest pursuers flew by on either side. Soon the rest thundered past.
Fargo counted nine, possibly ten. He braced for an outcry but his ruse worked. No one saw them.
One of the last riders was twice the size of the rest. Big Mike Durn chose that moment to shout, “Where did they get to? Don’t lose them or there will be hell to pay!”
Gradually, the drum of hooves and the crackle of undergrowth faded.
Fargo didn’t linger. Bringing the Ovaro out from behind the spruce, he reined to the northwest. A throaty chuckle reminded him he was not alone.
“You are sly like a fox.”
“We were lucky,” Fargo said. It could have gone either way. “Where to now? You know this country better than I do. Is there a spot we can camp for the night where Durn isn’t likely to find us?”
Birds Landing pondered, then said, “Keep riding. I will direct you.”
Night sounds wafted across the valley: the yip of coyotes, the hoot of an owl, the lonesome howl of a wolf. They had covered about a mile when a revolver cracked to the west and was answered by another to the south.
“Why are they shooting?” Birds Landing wondered.
“Signaling,” Fargo guessed. “Once they lost us, Durn broke them into groups.” That is what he would have done.
“Do you think he suspects you are the one who came to my rescue?”
Fargo couldn’t say. But the man who nearly roped them had gotten a good look at the Ovaro, and might describe the stallion to Durn. If Kutler or Tork were along, they would know right away.
“You are a fine rider,” Birds Landing remarked. “No warrior in my tribe could do better.”
“I have spent half my life in the saddle,” Fargo said. Or that was how it seemed.
Now that they were no longer being chased, Fargo was once again aware of the warmth of her body. Her bosom was still pressed flush against him. It made him wonder.
Eventually they came to a series of low hills. Birds Landing guided Fargo up into them until they came to a bench overlooking the valley. The lights of Polson gleamed far off. Even farther away, to the southeast, were a few more. The St. Ignatius Mission, Fargo figured.
At one end of the bench, screened by cottonwoods, was a small spring. The Ovaro wearily hung its head and drank while Fargo stripped off the saddle and saddle blanket. His stomach growled, reminding him he had not eaten all day.
Birds Landing heard. “You are hungry, too?”
“Starved.” Fargo could go for an inch-thick steak, or a roast haunch of venison. He settled for opening a saddlebag and taking out a bundle wrapped in rabbit hide. Opening it, he handed a piece of pemmican to Birds Landing. “I have plenty so eat as much as you want.” He untied his bedroll, spread out his blankets with his saddle for a pillow, and sank down.
“We are safe here,” Birds Landing said.
Fargo helped himself to pemmican. The ground buffalo meat had been mixed with fat and blackberries, and was downright delicious.
Birds Landing accepted another piece and eased down next to him. “Did you make this yourself?”
“I bought it from a Cheyenne woman at a trading post,” Fargo revealed. It was rare to find pemmican made with blackberries. Usually chokecherries or other berries were used.
Birds Landing smacked her lips. “You did say I could have as much as I wanted.”
“Here.” Fargo gave her a handful. As she took them, her fingers lightly brushed his palm in what might be construed as a caress. Again, Fargo wondered.
Her expression, though, gave no hint of her intentions.
Birds Landing chewed lustily. “For a white man you have been awful nice to me.”
“With the body you have, who wouldn’t be?” Fargo tested the waters.
Birds Landing blinked, then laughed. “You do not—what is the white saying? Oh, yes. You do not beat around the bush.”
“Life is too short for bush-beating,” Fargo said, and reaching behind her, pulled her face to his and kissed her full on the lips.
“Oh,” Birds Landing said.
Fargo entwined his fingers in her hair and waited for her to make the next move.
“A white woman would slap you now.”
“Some would,” Fargo agreed. “Some are as miserly with their kisses as they are with their money. Some give their bodies as rewards when their men please them. Some won’t ever part their legs because they think it goes again
st Scripture.” Fargo paused. “Then there are those who like to lie with a man as much as they like breathing.”
Birds Landing grinned. “That is the most you have said to me since we met. You must like it a lot.”
“I am not skittish when it comes to the female body,” Fargo teased, and kissed her again, harder, and longer. When he drew back she had a dreamy look about her.
“You kiss as good as you ride.” Birds Landing put a hand on his chest and bent to lightly run her tongue along his neck. “And you taste as good as you kiss,” she said with a grin.
“How do you taste?” Fargo asked, and molded his mouth to her throat. He nibbled and licked a path to her ear. She squirmed, breathing heavier, and digging her nails into his forearm.
They separated, and Birds Landing rimmed her mouth with the tip of her tongue. “It is not food I am hungry for now.”
“I was hoping you would say that.” Fargo moved the bundle of pemmican out of their way and eased her down onto her side, facing him. As he reached for her, she clasped his hand.
“I should stop you. Father DeSmet would say this is wrong.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” Fargo said, hoping she was not about to change her mind.
“How do they do it?” Birds Landing asked.
“Do what?”
“The priests and the nuns. How do they go their whole lives without? Are they not like the rest of us?”
“You’re asking the wrong person,” Fargo informed her. “I can’t go a week without getting the itch.”
Birds Landing laughed merrily. “We are alike, you and I. But for the sake of the priests, while I was at the mission school I did not lift my dress for men, even those from my own tribe.”
Fargo playfully hiked at the hem of her doeskin. “How about now? Any lifting allowed?”
“Were it any other white man, I would make Father DeSmet proud and refuse,” Birds Landing said. “But I am no longer at the mission, and for you I am willing to do that which he would forbid.”
Fargo kissed her again while running his hand up over her thigh to her flat belly, and from there to her breasts. He cupped one, then the other, and pinched her nipples through the dress.
Cooing softly in her throat, Birds Landing ground her bottom against his hardening manhood. She was not timid when it came to lovemaking, as she demonstrated by reaching down and placing her hand on top of his swelling bulge. “You are a stallion,” she breathed in his ear.
Fargo couldn’t respond, not with the constriction in his throat. He covered her luscious mouth with his and her lips parted to admit his tongue. Hers and his entwined in a silken swirl as her hand commenced to stroke him.
Fargo had to be careful. It would not do to explode before he was ready. He willed himself to ignore her hand and got her dress up around her waist. He caressed each of her thighs in turn, running his fingers from her knees to her nether mound and down again. Her legs were exquisitely smooth to the touch. She arched her back, then pried at his belt to release his member. He nearly gasped when her fingers enfolded him.
Fargo had always been partial to women who liked to do what came naturally to a man and a woman. His appreciation of Birds Landing rose as she cupped him, low down.
Time drifted on a tide of mutual lust. For long minutes there was touching and kissing and the press of hot flesh to hot flesh.
Fargo drowned himself in the feel and the taste of her. When he stroked her slit, she shivered and came up off the blanket as if seeking to take wing. He parted her nether lips, brushed her tiny knob. A few flicks were all it took to drive her into paroxysms of release.
Birds Landing cried out in the Salish tongue. Her fingernails seared his shoulders. Suddenly she clamped her mouth to his neck and bit him so hard, he thought she would draw blood.
“Like it rough, do you?” Fargo said, and plunged the rigid first two fingers of his right hand up into her.
Her mouth parted in a soundless O, and Birds Landing bucked wildly. It was all Fargo could do to keep his fingers inside her. He pumped fast and hard, clear in to the knuckles. Her eyes closed and she clung to him, rhythmically thrusting her bottom to match the tempo of his fingers. It was not long before she crested. Then, spent, she sagged against him.
“It is not over yet,” Fargo whispered in her ear. He parted her legs wide, knelt between them, and aligned his throbbing sword with her moist sheath. Her eyes met his, and he rammed into her.
Once again Fargo lost all sense of time. He was aware of his body, of pulsing with pleasure, of Birds Landing squirming and grinding and lavishing wet kisses on every square inch of him her mouth could reach. She reached the pinnacle yet again, her inner walls contracting.
Fargo could no longer hold back. He impaled her, over and over. Her coos and cries became louder, but not so loud that they could be heard far off.
Afterward, Fargo lay on his back, spent but content, and listened for sign of their enemies. All appeared to be tranquil. He started to drift when the crunch of a twig snapped him awake.
Fargo groped for his Colt. Something was out there, and it was stalking them.
6
As quietly as he could, Fargo put himself together. No sounds came out of the encircling cottonwoods but he could not shake the feeling that unseen eyes were watching them. Fully dressed and lying on his side, he bent toward Birds Landing to warn her.
Suddenly a figure in buckskins glided into view, cat-footing stealthily toward them.
Fargo froze, hoping the man would think he was asleep. Then he saw that the stalker had a bow, and spied what could be the top of a quiver poking above the man’s right shoulder.
It was an Indian, not a white man.
Since they were in Flathead country, odds were the warrior was a Flathead, or Salish, a member of Birds Landing’s tribe. They were on friendly terms with whites but Fargo never took anything for granted. He had his thumb on the Colt’s hammer, ready to snap off a shot the moment the warrior raised the bow to unleash a shaft.
That was when Birds Landing stirred and muttered in her sleep in the Salish language.
The warrior stopped. He appeared to be staring intently at Birds Landing. When she did not stir or sit up, he edged forward.
Waiting until the warrior was almost to his saddle, Fargo sprang. The warrior’s hand flew to the haft of a tomahawk at his waist but before he could wield it, Fargo was on him. Fargo gave him a hard shove while cocking the Colt and declaring, “Don’t move or I will shoot!”
Fargo had no idea if the warrior spoke English. He did not want to kill him, if he could help it. It was bound to stir up trouble, which was the last thing the Flatheads needed, what with the promise of a reservation in the offing.
The warrior fell onto his back and stayed there. He made no attempt to draw the tomahawk or resort to his bow.
Birds Landing sat up with a start. “What is it? What is going on?” Her eyes fastened on the warrior and she exclaimed something in her own language.
The warrior calmly answered.
Rising, Birds Landing said to Fargo, “Do not shoot! He will not harm us.”
“How can you be so sure?” Fargo demanded.
“He is my brother.”
Fargo slowly holstered the Colt but kept his hand on it as the two Salish warmly embraced and addressed one another in their own language. He waited for Birds Landing to explain what her brother was doing there, and when it became apparent she had forgotten about him, he coughed and said, “Remember me? I want to know what your brother is doing here. How did he find us?”
Birds Landing tore herself from her sibling. “Forgive me. His name is Thunder Cloud. He was off hunting when Kutler and Tork came to our village, and when he learned what they had done, he came to Polson to find me. Since he dared not let himself be seen, he watched from a gully.” Birds Landing spoke to Thunder Cloud and he replied. “He says that he saw Indian women going in and out of the Whiskey Mill, and guessed that is where I must be. He was nearby when
you rescued me.” She squeezed her brother’s hand. “He followed, and only now caught up.”
Fargo noticed how young Thunder Cloud was, and the look of dislike the warrior gave him. “Have you told him you and I are friends?”
Birds Landing hesitated. “He knows what we did and he does not approve. But he never likes it when I am with a man, whether the man is white or red.”
Just what Fargo needed. “What is he liable to do about it?” He was not fond of the idea of taking an arrow in the back.
After a brief, sharp exchange, Birds Landing said, “He will not do anything. He understands it is between you and me.”
The way the warrior was looking at him, Fargo was not entirely convinced. “Has he seen any sign of Durn and his men?”
Another flurry resulted in: “He says we have lost them. That they gave up and turned back toward Polson.”
That was good news in two respects. “Then we are safe,” Fargo said in relief, “and I can leave you here with your brother and get on with what I came here to do.”
“Leave me? So soon after—” Birds Landing caught herself. “Must you?” she asked simply.
“Yes.” Fargo had learned a lot so far, about how Durn was taking over Polson. But one thing he had not learned, and which the army would want to know, was how Big Mike Durn intended to take over the entire territory.
“If you go back, Durn will have you killed.”
“He is welcome to try,” Fargo said, and began gathering up his saddle blanket and saddle.
“I am worried for you,” Birds Landing said. “You are one and they are many.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Fargo walked to the Ovaro. Were it not for the brother’s glares, he might be inclined to stay the night. He threw on his saddle blanket and smoothed it out, then saddled up. Tying his bedroll and saddlebags on took no time at all. As he stepped into the stirrups, Birds Landing came over and held out her hand to shake, white fashion.
“I better not kiss you. Thunder Cloud would not like it.”
“He sure doesn’t like me much,” Fargo remarked.
