by Georgina Gentry - Panorama of the Old West 08 - Apache Caress
Sierra nodded awkwardly, acutely aware of the heat of the arm pressing up under her breasts. She trembled in spite of herself.
“I won’t hurt you,” he whispered. “I watched you through the window for a while.”
The aroused tone of his voice left no doubt in her mind. He was going to do more than kill her. First he would rape her.
“Now, Dark Eyes, I’m going to take my hand away. If you scream, you’ll be sorry. Understand?”
Sierra nodded, too terrified even to think. He sounded desperate. What was he wanted for? Murder? If so, he wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.
Very slowly, he took his hand away from her mouth, but the one around her middle remained in place. The chains rattled as he moved.
“P-please don’t hurt me,” Sierra gasped, “take the gun, or the mule, anything; just don’t hurt me.”
“By Usen, I meant to throttle you with my chains; don’t know why I hesitated. Now what will I do with you?” His breath felt warm on her bare shoulder.
Sierra didn’t dare move or look back at him as he kept her pulled up against him. Rape. Yes, of course he would rape her. “My–my husband and six brothers will be home in a few minutes. You’d better go while you can.”
He didn’t let go of her, but his other hand grasped her bare shoulder. “You’re lying, Dark Eyes. You’re here alone; I know that.”
He sounded angry and exhausted. She must not cry or panic or take any unnecessary risks. But her throat felt so dry, she wasn’t sure she could get any words out. “Who ... who are you?”
“What difference does it make? They call me Cholla.”
She repeated the word in her mind, the same way he’d pronounced it; Chaw-yuh. She couldn’t even guess what language it was.
He spun her around to face him, and the chains rattled again.
The moon came out and shone through the open barn door as Sierra looked up at him. Shadows hid his face, but he was almost a giant of a man with the widest pair of shoulders Sierra had ever seen. And he was naked from the waist up.
“Do you have an axe or some blacksmith tools out here?”
He meant to kill her. “P-please,” she managed to say, “take the rifle and whatever else you want; just let me go.”
“The axe,” he insisted, his face still hidden by shadow. “I want to get these chains off.”
She almost gasped with relief. “There’s one by the woodpile next to the house.”
“Good. You lead the way.”
As Sierra watched, trembling with fear, he leaned over, grabbed up the rifle, caught her arm. “Okay, you pick up the lamp and let’s go.”
He held her so close against him, she could feel the heat of his bare skin as they started back up the path. Once she stumbled, and the sheer strength of the man kept her from falling.
Strong. Big. Dangerous. What had he been thinking as he watched her through the window? Sierra tried to block that from her mind. If this escaped convict would only let her live, she would submit to him.
When she pointed out the woodpile, he insisted on carrying the axe along with the rifle.
They went inside.
“Set the lamp on the table,” he ordered. He sounded weary and desperate.
Gingerly, Sierra did as she was told. He let go of her arm, and she whirled away, cringing against a wall as she saw his face in the light. A savage. He was a half naked redskin!
Her horror and fear must have shown in her face because he smiled without mirth. “Every white woman’s worst nightmare, right?”
She was too afraid to answer or even move.
“I saw you from the train,” he said softly. When he laid the axe and the rifle on the table, the chains rattled.
The train. In her mind, she stood by the wagon in the late afternoon, staring back at a handsome, half-naked man. How had he managed to get off that train? Every white woman’s worst nightmare? She doubted it, but she now had to face the reality of being raped and killed.
She took a good look at his massive body and saw the blood on his arm. “You’re hurt.”
He shrugged and slumped down on a chair. “I’m the winner. You should see the loser.”
Merciful heavens, he had killed somebody. That was how he had escaped. He had killed a guard and had nothing to lose by killing again.
A frown crossed his dark, high-cheekboned face. “Stop glaring at me. I could use some food.”
“Yes . . . of course,” Sierra stammered. She could stall the inevitable by feeding him. “I don’t have much; some bacon and leftover biscuits.”
“Sounds good compared to Army grub.” His moody gaze swept up and down her body.
She glanced down, realized all she wore was the flimsy, sheer chemise, and crossed her arms over her breasts to protect them from his stare. “Y-yes, I’ll get you some food.” She started across the room toward the fireplace. “You speak awfully good English for a . . . for a–”
“Savage?” he filled in with a derisive snort. “I was raised around soldiers. My mother washed clothes at the fort after my father was killed.”
She picked up a butcher knife, began to slice bacon. She glanced at the axe and rifle next to his hand. If he relaxed enough to let down his guard, could she possibly. . . ?
“Don’t even think it,” he said from his chair.
“You haven’t a chance,” she blurted out without thinking, surprised at her own daring. “You ought to turn yourself in.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “So the soldiers can kill me? I tried to play it their way, conform, do what I was told. This is what it got me. Renegades like Geronimo were right, after all.” He sounded angry, bitter.
He looked more like a renegade than a conformist. Those who did as they were told didn’t make waves; they stayed out of trouble. The nail that stands up will be hammered down. It was one of her immigrant grandfather’s favorite proverbs.
Sierra said nothing as she poked up the fire, put the skillet full of bacon on the coals.
“Smells good. You got any whiskey?”
Sierra hesitated. Robert had been brutal and a little crazy when he drank. She’d heard tales of how whiskey affected Indians. “No.” She didn’t look at him as she busied herself with the bacon.
“Like most whites, you’re a liar. Get it for me!” His tone left her no choice.
Sierra got the bottle out of the cupboard, brought it over. He stared up at her a long moment, looking utterly drained, his dark, rugged face lined with pain and fatigue. When he reached for the bottle, their hands touched, and she was acutely aware of the heat and the size and the power of this half-naked savage.
He took a small drink right from the bottle. “What’s your name?”
“Sierra.”
“Sierra.” He said it slowly as if savoring it. “Like the mountains?”
“My mother wanted to go West, but never got to.” Zanna. Sierra barely remembered her mother. Grandfather Kovats had taken his unmarried but pregnant daughter away from Hungary to avoid disgrace, but he had never really adjusted to America.
“Here, Sierra,” the Indian said, “see what you can do about my arm.”
“I don’t have any bandages.”
“Then rip up part of your petticoat and do the best you can.” He gestured with the bottle and the chains rattled.
Sierra tore off a scrap of her chemise. It meant that even more of her bare legs showed, but since her breasts were clearly outlined even to the dark nipples under the sheer fabric, she was almost naked already. The way he watched her as she knelt by him left no doubt as to what he was thinking.
He handed her the bottle. “Pour some of this on it, then wrap it.”
“It may hurt.”
“I’m no stranger to pain. Just do it and get it over with.”
Sierra took a good, long look at the big man. His lithe, sinewy body had numerous scars. A warrior. Here was a man who made the world meet him on his own terms. The kind of a man she had hoped Robert would be.
&
nbsp; “What are you waiting for?”
“If I hurt you . . .” She didn’t finish. If she hurt him, would he turn his strength and fury against her? Robert had had a foul temper. “If I hurt you,” she began again, “it . . . it isn’t because I mean to.”
His expression was cold. “You’d cut my throat if you got the chance. I saw the way you glared at me when I was on the train.”
Damn him anyway. With relish, Sierra took a deep breath and sloshed raw whiskey over the wound.
He gasped and closed his eyes briefly, gritted his teeth. Sweat broke out on his face, but he made no cry, not even a whimper. He has courage, she thought grudgingly. He may be a damned redskin, but he’s brave.
His fingers trembled a little as he took the bottle from her hand and drank from it. “All right. Now wrap it up.”
She had to touch his bare flesh to do that. His brown skin felt warm, and powerful muscles rippled beneath it. Robert had been puny by comparison, she decided. Then, shocked that she had had such a thought, she blushed.
“What’s the matter?” He looked at her keenly.
“Nothing. The bacon’s burning.” She jumped up, went to the fire, pulled the skillet off the coals. Sierra avoided his eyes while she got him some biscuits, filled a tin plate, put it before him. Her hand shook as she set the plate down, knowing what was bound to happen to her after he got his fill of food and liquor.
But he set the whiskey aside and grabbed the food.
She watched him wolf it down. “Didn’t they feed you on that train?”
“Not much.” He wiped up some of the grease with a bit of biscuit. “The fewer Apaches alive by the time they reach Florida, the better the Army will like it.”
Apaches. The same tribe that had killed her husband. Why, this very warrior might have been the one . . . She didn’t even want to think about it.
“I saw you loading the wagon,” he said. “Where are you going?”
“A bunch of people are coming for me at dawn–a wagon train. If you’re smart, clear out of here as soon as you eat.”
“Your’s looks more like a peddler’s wagon.”
He was smarter than she’d thought. Janos Kovats and his granddaughter had raised vegetables and sold them off the back of that wagon. Early last spring, they had been in town to buy seed, and that was how she’d met Robert.
She didn’t like the way the Apache was looking at her now.
“I know you’re wanting to get going,” she said, reaching to gather up the leftover biscuits, “so I’ll pack you some food–”
“And you think I’ll leave you behind to alert the whole countryside?”
Her blood almost froze in her veins. “Don’t kill me!” she blurted out. “I won’t tell anyone I saw you. I swear I won’t!”
He pushed his empty plate back, smiled. But there was no mirth in his cold, dark eyes. “Do you think me a fool or just a simple savage? I wouldn’t be out of sight before you’d be running to the next farm to spread the alarm.”
That leaves only one option, Sierra thought. He was going to kill her. The only question was whether he would rape her first..She watched his supple hands as he took off the bloodstained scarlet headband, tossed it on the table. He wouldn’t even need a weapon. Big as he was, the Apache could break her back across his knee, snap her neck with those powerful fingers.
The chains on the Indian’s wrists rattled. “By Usen, I’m not sure what to do about you. I sure can’t turn you loose.”
I will do anything to stay alive, she thought, to give myself a chance to escape. “Don’t kill me,” she said again, hating him. “Don’t. I ... I’ll do whatever you want, just don’t kill me.”
“If you’re offering me your body, I can take that anyway. There’s no one to stop me.”
There was no arguing with that logic. Sierra didn’t meet his gaze. He was playing with her, taunting her. He would rape her and then kill her.
“Dark Eyes,” he said, “you’ve added a complication I didn’t count on. But right now, I need you.”
He picked up the axe.
“Oh dear God, no! Please!” She fell on her knees before his chair. Tears came to her eyes and ran down her face.
With a clatter of chains, he reached out and caught a lock of her hair, fingered it. “I have hated the whites for betraying my people,” he said softly. “Sometimes at night, I dreamed of having one of their women naked and on her knees before me, begging, willing to do anything I wanted her to do.”
“I will!” Sierra said. “Anything!” Her breasts were almost brushing his buckskin-clad knees.
“Then help me get these chains off.” He held out the axe.
“What?” She was taken aback.
“You heard me.” He stood up, pulled her to her feet. “This axe will break the links if you swing it hard enough.”
He picked up the rifle also, led her over to the fireplace, reached for a sturdy log, and laid it on the hearth. Then he looked at her a long moment and again offered her the axe, motioning with the rifle. “Just remember, if you try to kill me and don’t get me the first time, an Apache knows how to make a person long for death.”
An Apache. He isn’t just an Indian, she reminded herself, he’s an Apache; a member of the tribe that left me adrift in a hard world. She hated him more than she’d ever dreamed she could hate a man.
He frowned. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” Keeping her features immobile, she accepted the axe. She would swing it hard and cleave his skull in half. He’d be dead even as he hit the floor.
The Indian knelt and spread his chains over the log. “Hit it hard and square.” He looked up at her as if reading her thoughts. “You haven’t got the guts to take the chance.”
Was he right? Or was it that she couldn’t cut another human being in half, even a hated savage? Sierra felt angry at him and at herself. For a long moment she paused. Either way, she couldn’t do it. She swung the axe. Sparks flew and metal rang as she hit the link.
“Again and harder!” He commanded. She swung it again, and the link snapped. “Good!” he said. “Maybe somewhere down the line, I’ll find a blacksmith shop that has the tools to take the cuffs off. Now my feet.”
He kept the rifle leveled on her as she chopped those chains in two. Then he reached out and took the axe out of her hands.
Her one chance–and she hadn’t taken it.
He sighed heavily and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve got to have some rest, but what am I to do with you?”
Sierra was afraid to answer. He did look weary and spent. Maybe he’d drop off to sleep and she could run for help, although the next farm was a mile away.
He got up, rummaged around in a box of things in the corner, came up with the rope she had been using to tie up boxes. “I think I won’t be able to sleep unless I know you aren’t going anywhere.”
She knew better than to argue with him. At least he wasn’t going to rape her–yet. She watched him walk over, pick up the knife she’d used on the bacon, put it by the rifle and axe.
The scissors. She thought about the pair of scissors in the trunk. Not much, but better than nothing. She couldn’t get them now without arousing suspicion, but maybe later . . . if he didn’t kill her first.
He piled the weapons up on the table and went over to the small rug in front of the fire. “Come here.”
She didn’t know what else to do but obey him. She had a feeling that he had always been one who took command.
He stood, towering over her, so close that when she breathed her nipples almost brushed against his massive chest. “Put your hands behind your back.”
She obeyed. Without saying anything, he reached around her with both arms, tying her hands behind her. For a long, heart-stopping moment, she was in his embrace, his hard chest rubbing against her breasts as he tied her hands. She felt his body all the way down hers; even his manhood through their clothing.
She must have made a small sound of dismay, for he stopp
ed suddenly and looked down into her eyes. His breath was warm on her cheek, and his manhood went rigid against her. Very slowly, he pulled the straps of her chemise off her shoulders, pushed the lace bodice down so that her breasts were bare.
He looked her up and down a long moment and Sierra felt like a slave girl on an auction block. She dared not protest or do anything to anger him, trussed and helpless as she was.
“I always wondered what it would be like with a white woman,” he whispered. “White soldiers make whores of our women, but they would kill me for even doing this.” Cholla reached out, cupped her left breast in his big hand, ran his thumb across the nipple. Abruptly he slipped an arm around her bare shoulders, pulled her up against him and kissed her hard, forcing his tongue between her lips, his hand still squeezing her breast.
Sierra closed her eyes, unwilling to look at him as he handled her, ran his tongue deep in her mouth. She felt his hard manhood throbbing against her as he stroked her nipple.
He pulled away from her with a shuddering sigh. “Lie down on the rug, white woman.”
With her hands bound behind her, and her chemise down to her waist, she did as he ordered.
He knelt on one knee and looked down at her. She saw the hard bulge of his manhood throbbing against the tight buckskin. He was finished playing with her. He would do it now.
He ran his dark hand across her white breasts and down her belly. She felt the heat of it through the thin fabric. Then his hand trailed slowly down her bare thigh. His fingers were hot, but their heat was not as intense as that in his dark eyes. Very slowly his hand traveled down her leg, and then he caught her trim ankles in it and reached for another piece of rope.
He wasn’t going to ... ?
Her expression must have mirrored her surprise and disbelief because he paused. “I said I’d imagined what it would be like.” The savage looked at her with an intense hunger that she had never seen in Robert’s eyes.
Then he sighed and lay down next to her on the rug. “I’m sure there’s a bed, but I’m used to nothing more than a blanket before a campfire.”
Of course, she thought with relief, he is exhausted. She wouldn’t even think about what would happen after he had some rest. He dropped off to sleep almost immediately.
