Apache Caress

by Georgina Gentry - Panorama of the Old West 08 - Apache Caress

  It began to rain again. Cholla got the cowboys’ blankets and wrapped them both around her when she began shivering. Then he handed her the bottle of whiskey. “This should warm you a little.”

  “Aren’t you cold?” she asked.

  “No.” However, she noticed he hunched up a little in the straw and wrapped his arms around himself. “The weather’s beginning to turn bad,” he muttered. “If we don’t get farther south–and soon–we’re going to be caught in some snow, or at least sleet and a cold wind blowing down from the north.”

  She didn’t even know what month it was for certain, much less which day. It had been several weeks, maybe more, since this whole ordeal began, but the constant traveling, and everything else that had happened, had made time unimportant.

  Sierra smiled suddenly and took a sip of the whiskey, handed him the bottle. “It’s bound to be October. They’re dedicating the Statue of Liberty this month.”

  He looked at her blankly and took a drink.

  “One of our countrymen, Jozsef Politzer, who started out with the St. Louis newspaper, was a major fund raiser for the pedestal for the statue. I understand it’s going to have some poem on it about: ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. . . .’ ”

  “Does that apply to Indians?” He glared at her and handed the bottle back. “What is this thing? This statue?”

  “Everyone’s talking about it.” Sierra tried to explain. “It’s a statue of a lady holding a light to guide immigrants to freedom in America.”

  “So they can build houses on Indian land?” He raised one eyebrow. “Doesn’t it strike you as ironic and dishonest that at the very time they’re putting up this statue dedicated to freedom, your government is throwing Indians in prison in Florida and stealing their land?”

  She had never thought about it before, and she didn’t like the uneasy feeling it gave her. “On the other hand,” she said boldly and took a long drink, “what about all those people starving in Europe or crowded into filthy tenements in big Eastern cities? Is it right for them to suffer while the Indians have millions of acres and only use the land to roam on?”

  He frowned, then conceded that perhaps she might have a small point. “I suppose in the long run the Indians will either conform or be caged or killed.”

  She looked at him. Was there any black or white to this? She couldn’t see someone like Cholla being a faceless part of the masses. He was too much a rugged individualist. The times were going to change whether people like the Indians suffered or not.. “White women aren’t treated any better in our society than red men,” she said.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe that doesn’t say much for the society. You’d make a good lawyer, Sierra–if you were a man.”

  “A hundred years from now, I might get a chance to be a lawyer. By then, they may even let women vote.”

  “Maybe by then Indians can vote and be lawyers too,” he said. “I hope my people aren’t still being mistreated a hundred years from now.”

  “Mistreated! Your people have been scalping white children! Indians need to become civilized, make some progress.”

  “Conform, you mean?” he almost snarled it at her. “When we tried, we were tricked. There isn’t much progress to be made sitting in a stone cell or running from the cavalry.”

  “Cholla, in the long run the only way women or your people are going to come out ahead is to rear up on their hind legs and say, ‘I’m as good as any white man and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Once we get the education, we can force them to recognize us, but we’ve got to beat them at their own game. We’ve got to be better than they are at business and law and medicine.”

  “I thought your slogan was: ‘The nail that sticks up will be hammered down.’”

  Had she ever really believed that? She had too much of her mother’s blood after all. “That was my grandfather’s slogan. He and his countrymen had suffered terribly in the Old Country.”

  “So now all of them crowd on ships and come over here and my people suffer; all the Indians suffer.”

  “And there’s no help for it.” She shook her head. “Nothing either of us can do about it. Maybe someday one of us will have children who will help change things, or grandchildren or even great-grandchildren.”

  Her voice trailed off and she glanced up to catch him watching her thoughtfully. Maybe she imagined it, but she didn’t see so much hatred in his eyes as she had before. “What happens tomorrow?”

  He looked out at the night coming on in the chill rain as the train moved through woods and hills, headed south. “I don’t know.”

  For the first time since she had seen him, he looked weary, almost defeated. She didn’t want to pity him, feel for him. But he was only a man after all, not a screaming, red-skinned savage like those in the dime novels. He had fears and hopes and loves. She thought about the dead Apache girl and wondered what had happened to her?

  “Do you have any idea where this train goes?” The whiskey was beginning to warm her insides as she lay back on the hay beside him.

  “No.” He shook his head, rubbed the back of his neck. “As long as it’s heading south or west, that’s all that matters. If I’m going to be killed, and I intend to be rather than be captured, I want to die as close to home as possible.”

  It occurred to her then that he was resigned to his own death. He’d rather die than be looked at through bars by curious whites, as if he were an animal.

  “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”–but not American Indians, she thought suddenly, seeing things from his point of view. She felt chagrined and embarrassed for the whites.

  It dawned on her that she must not feel this way. After all, these savages had killed her husband as well as dozens of settlers who just wanted a few acres to live on. She turned it all over in her mind, confused now as to what she had once thought was right and wrong. Sierra felt him shiver next to her, remembered she had both blankets. “You cold?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Why had she asked? Did she think he would admit to it? He had given her both blankets, had fought a life and death battle to keep those men from raping her. In some ways, he was more chivalrous and caring than her husband had been.

  “I’m a little warm,” she lied, and tossed one of the blankets to him. In the darkness, he took it. Now she was cold. She snuggled down in the hay as the train rattled its way through the darkness. The clickety-clack lulled her to sleep.

  Somewhere in the middle of the night, she found herself drawn closer to his warmth. She felt his arm go around her and pull her up against him. His virile body seemed to radiate heat. She went back to sleep wrapped in his arms, her head on his shoulder.

  When she half awakened sometime later, he was kissing her face, half-asleep himself. Without even realizing she did so, she slipped her arms under his shirt, pressing her breasts against him. Outside, as the train swayed along into the darkness, cold rain continued to fall.

  “Sierra?” he whispered.

  She didn’t answer, knowing he asked permission. It isn’t like him to ask, she thought. He was a man who took what he wanted, and besides, she wasn’t certain what her answer should be.

  His lips brushed along her jawbone, his breath almost featherlike on her skin. “Sierra? Are you awake?”

  She closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep. Her pulse began to race, but she decided she must not let this man have her body. She must not give him permission. She must not .. It was hard to remember why she must not when her emotions raced and the scent of his male skin was so close to her face. His hands were callused as they stroked her breasts. I cannot lie here, pretending to be asleep, she thought, as he ran the tip of his finger around her breast and then down to stroke her navel.

  She didn’t open her eyes, but she gasped at the sensation of his hand on her skin.

  “Just as I thought,” he murmured. “You are not asleep.” And
his mouth came down to cover hers very gently.

  She tried to remember that she must not let herself enjoy this newfound sensuality. She must resist or lose her dignity. Still, she let his probing tongue open her lips as his hand slid down between her thighs. Didn’t she want to stop him? Of course I do, she thought indignantly, but she couldn’t keep from spreading her thighs so his fingers could stroke and tease her body.

  Her pulse seemed to be thundering in her ears.

  “Kiss me, Sierra,” he whispered. “You’re my captive, please me ... I want my captive’s caresses.”

  She should fight him off and protest, but she couldn’t seem to bring herself to do so.

  “I’m going to put my child in your belly, Sierra, and even if you bear it without me, when it moves in your womb, when your breasts swell with milk for it, you won’t forget me. Someday maybe the grandson of my loins or my great-grandson will do all those things you talked about, lead my people, help my people.”

  “No, I won’t be used like this.”

  He pushed her shift up, then rolled over on his back, positioning her above him. His big hands clasped her breasts, pulled them down to his hungry mouth. Where her thighs joined, she felt the erect, throbbing heat of him against her.

  “Ride me, Sierra,” he whispered urgently. “Beg me for it. You want me inside you, I know you do. . . .” His hand now went to her small waist holding her against him while his tongue worked its way across the skin of her breasts until he found first one nipple, then the other.

  An ache began to build deep inside her as he sucked hard, making her nipples raw and tender. She couldn’t stop herself from pressing her breast against his mouth, wanting him to take as much as possible of it in. The scent of him was all over her, and it excited her. His maleness was a molten chunk of steel between her thighs.

  He was steel, and she was flint. Sparks and fire. Rubbing against him only built the flames of passion between them. At any moment now, Sierra thought dazedly, he’s going to flip me over on my back and I won’t have to make a choice. He will mate with me whether I want it or not.

  His almost feverish hands pawed under her buckskin shift; she wore no underthings. He molded her hips against his loins, pressured her body against his until his manhood rubbed against her.

  The aching void in her was growing, becoming unbearable. She had to have it filled, to have him penetrate her quivering, silken depths. Flint and steel make a fire that can only be cooled one way. Without even realizing she did so, Sierra rose up and came down on him hard, feeling that fiery heat go all the way into her depths.

  “Ahhh!”

  She didn’t know if he made the sound of pleasure or if she did. And it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but riding him, using his hard male body to pleasure herself. His hands were on her waist, guiding her, raising her slightly, bringing her back down on him while his mouth teased and caressed her nipples.

  “Kiss me, Sierra.”

  What could she do but obey her captor? As the train rocked on gently through the rainy night, she leaned on her elbows so he could still stroke her breasts, took his rugged face between her two hands and ran her tongue along his lips.

  His mouth opened and she probed inside with her tongue, her excitement building. She teased the interior of his mouth and then he held her close and sucked her tongue deep into his throat.

  His hot maleness seemed to be throbbing almost uncontrollably deep within her, and then she realized it was her own body, going into spasms she could not stop, instinctively wanting to squeeze the life-making seed from him and keep it in her belly.

  He bucked under her, grabbing her waist, lifting her, bringing her down hard, impaling her on him.

  When he began to give up his seed, she was barely aware of it because spasms swept over her. Flint and steel . . . Sparks and fire ...

  When she awakened with a sudden start, she realized it was almost daylight outside and the train had stopped moving. She didn’t have time to think about last night, she wasn’t even sure she hadn’t dreamed it. But Cholla was up on one elbow and he looked worried.

  “What is it?”

  “We’ve stopped at a station. I see people around.” He had his face against the cracks, staring out.

  But even as it occurred to her this would be a good time to yell for help and get the renegade captured, he clamped a hand over her mouth. “Keep quiet, Sierra. Remember, you look like a squaw in that getup, and there’re a lot of renegades and outlaws in Indian Territory. They might not believe you’re a white girl when you tell them.”

  As if she could make that decision anyway, with his hand across her mouth. She looked down and realized her nipples were red and swollen. She flushed at the thought of how she had behaved last night.

  Cholla was right about one thing; in this getup and with her black hair in long braids, she looked Indian. He still might trade her off to some passing male for a good horse or some supplies, and who would believe she was the missing white widow? She’d be some buck or half-breed’s prisoner and no better off than she was now.

  He made a disgusted noise as he looked out. “I think we’ve got trouble. A couple of railroad men got aboard. If we could just get off–”

  The train let out gusts of noisy steam, rattled a little, whistled, began to move.

  Very slowly he took his hand off her mouth. “I had thought about getting off here, but I’m not sure where we are and the tribes of the Territory don’t like Apaches.”

  The train began to pick up speed, chugging and hissing. Could she pull away from him, jump out of the boxcar before it began to move any faster? There was bound to be a telegraph office right here at the railroad.

  He caught her wrist. “I know what you’re thinking, Dark Eyes. I don’t intend to let you go yet. I still need you.”

  The train began to move away from the yard. It had only been a place to load water and wood for the engine, after all.

  “You realize,” Sierra said, “that they might be looking for me? Why don’t you jump off the train? You can be long gone by the time the train crew finds me.”

  “Because I need you, Sierra. I need you to warm my blankets, to be my hole card in case I get trapped. As long as I’ve got a use for you, I don’t intend to let you go.”

  “When?” she insisted, angry with herself as well as with him. What kind of slut was she to let herself be used to pleasure her captor? A prisoner who wanted to stay alive–and her body was something that he seemed to enjoy.

  His attention was elsewhere. “A couple of tough-looking railroad men got on this train, detectives or yard guards most likely.”

  “For what reason?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe nothing. Maybe looking for us. Maybe checking the train once in a while for tramps or stray cowboys riding for free.”

  If they found her, she was saved . . . unless, as Cholla had suggested, she looked so Indian herself, the railroad men wouldn’t listen to her and would throw her off the train as a free-riding squaw.

  For an hour or so, nothing happened. The sun had come out and the day warmed. Then Cholla, looking through the end of the boxcar, stiffened. “They’re in the next car, Sierra, they’ll be able to see us in here.”

  The concern in his voice was evident.

  “Even if we hide behind something?”

  “The hay isn’t enough. Maybe if we climb up on top of the car and lie flat–”

  “Get on top of a moving train? Are you loco? No, thanks.” She folded her arms and sat down. “I’ll just wait until they get here and explain I’ve been kidnapped. You can do what you please.”

  “All right. If they think you’re just some squaw catching a ride across the Territory, that’s your problem. Try to land soft when they throw you off the train.” He put on his backpack, stuck the pistol and knife in his waistband, and started through the small escape door at the end of the car.

  “Wait, I ... I think I’ll come with you.” She grabbed up her bedroll.

  “Be
careful,” he warned, as they climbed the ladder at the end of the swaying car, “one slip and the last thing you’ll see are those big wheels coming at you.”

  Here she was risking her life again because her captor had put her in a life-threatening situation. Sierra got madder as she thought about it, but she hung on desperately as she climbed to the top of the car. She crawled along the top, trying to cling to the swaying train. She’d show him! Damn him, she wanted the satisfaction of living long enough to testify against him. Maybe she could get him hanged rather than sent to prison.

  The car lurched and Sierra flattened herself, hanging on tightly. She didn’t have time to think about weighty matters right now, like the satisfaction of watching him hang. She was too busy just trying to stay alive. The noise, the smoke, and the cinders blew past her while the car clattered and swayed under her. It seemed a long way to the ground, and the train was moving fast on this straightaway. I wouldn’t have to fall under the wheels to die, she thought in terror. At this speed falling from the top of the train would be fatal.

  “Hang on, Dark Eyes,” Cholla shouted, and he crawled over next to her, put his big arm across her back.

  Immediately she felt safe, remembering the strength of the man. With him hanging on to her, protecting her, she wouldn’t fall. Then she had mixed emotions as she reminded herself that if it weren’t for the Apache, she wouldn’t be in this mess.

  The landscape whizzed by in a dizzy panorama of green trees, gold and scarlet leaves, and bright red sumac bushes. Up ahead she could see the twisting, snakelike path of a river. At the same time, she saw two heads as the railroad bulls climbed the ladder at the end of the car ahead, gestured and shouted.

  The roaring train swept their words away, but their angry frowns left no doubt the two men were coming after them. They not only had pistols, they had billy clubs. They climbed to the top of the swaying car and, obviously used to walking on the roof of one, started toward the couple.

  They would be crossing the river bridge in another half-minute. If the men threw them off, would she die when she hit the water?