Black as Death

by George G. Gilman

  She was about forty feet away then and provided a tableau of wanton beauty. A girl on the verge of womanhood, close to six feet tall and with a high, firm-breasted figure — the wind pressing the sodden fabric of her dress hard against her flesh, contouring its every rise and hollow from ankles to shoulders. And streaming out the long blonde hair from her head so that the classically sculptured features of her oval-shaped face could be seen to be beautiful, even though they lacked the softening effect of the frame of tresses upon which so many not quite so comely women rely. She was no older than eighteen.

  She waited, without expression of discomfort or relief, until he had drawn the wagon to a halt. He had to shout to be heard above the hiss of rain, howl of wind and claps of thunder.

  ‘You must be making for Fairfax?’

  She held up the large and under filled carpetbag and he took it and she was up on the seat beside him, unaided, by the time he had set down the bag.

  ‘If that’s where you’re going, Mr. Gold, it’s fine with me.’ She spoke with a New England accent, the tone rather husky.

  ‘How come you know who I am?’

  ‘I was told.’

  The burlap-draped freight on the wagon sheltered them from the full force of the wind and he saw that, with her hair — still held in a semblance of ringlets despite being soaked — hanging to her shoulders, she looked very young indeed.

  He set the rig rolling, intrigued by her reply but showing no eagerness to learn the details behind it. While the girl sat silently beside him, as unmoved by the weather as he was: both of them maintaining an easy attitude that suggested it was the most normal thing in the world for them — total strangers — to be riding a wagon at night through the full ferocity of an Arizona thunderstorm.

  Then the bay horse threw a hind shoe — but good fortune caused this to happen at a point where the trail ran along the base of a bluff pocked with many deep caves.

  ‘We’re going to have to hold over here,’ he yelled as he angled the team toward an arched opening into the rock face.

  The turn placed them into the wind and her hair blew to touch its ends to his face.

  She waited until they were in the pitch blackness of the cave and the rig was stopped, the sounds of the storm muted. ‘Whatever you say, Mr. Gold.’

  The cavern was forty feet high and half that distance wide at the entrance. As he steered the team inside, he could not see what lay ahead and relied on the horses to use their equine senses. Until the length of the wagon was in shelter, when he commanded the halt.

  Her words echoed faintly.

  ‘I’ll rest the horses, then ride the good one to Fairfax and bring another.’

  ‘Good.’

  Lightning flashed and the cavern was seen for a second to be higher and wider than its entrance. And deep enough to accept three wagons and their teams in line astern on its sandy floor. But Gold did not move the rig further into the shelter. He climbed down from the seat, and feeling his way in the pitch darkness, unhitched the horses from their traces and hobbled them close by.

  If the girl made any sound, he did not hear it against the storm and the creak of leather, the thud of hooves on sand. But when his chore was done and another lightning flash filled the cavern, he saw she was gone from the wagon seat. Was sitting now, delving into the carpetbag on her lap, on a three foot high, bench-like flat rock against a wall of the cave.

  He lit a cheroot and kept the match alight to show himself the way to where she was sitting. And just before the heat of the flame forced him to drop the match, he saw she had found what she was looking for — something made of a delicate fabric which she used as a towel to dry the rain on her face. Then, as he sat down beside her, he started on her hair.

  ‘Bad night for walking.’

  ‘My name’s Emily Jane Freemont and my father died a week ago today. But you don’t have to worry about that. I’m all cried out. I thought I’d never stop, but I did.’

  ‘In my business, I have reason to know that grief doesn’t often go on for long.’

  ‘I was told you were an undertaker.’

  ‘Your father died in Standing?’

  ‘On the stage a day away. The people were very good. They fixed it for him to ride on top with the baggage. So I could fix for him to have a decent burial in a town cemetery.’

  She finished drying her hair and laid out the makeshift towel on the rock between them. In the glow when he drew against the cheroot, Gold could see it was an undergarment. A lace-trimmed chemise white and pink.

  ‘Father was in the newspaper business. He wasn’t very lucky. We failed again in Tucson. He heard there was no newspaper in Standing so that’s why we came. It was his heart caused him to die.’

  She leaned her back against the rock wall and sighed. ‘The world can be real cruel sometimes, can’t it, Mr. Gold?’

  ‘What else do you know about me except for my name and what I work at?’

  ‘That Standing folks like your father more than you, Except for the girls at the cantina.’ There was a flash of lightning as she spoke of the Mexican whores and he was able to see her face brilliantly lit. It showed not a sign of repugnance. ‘I saw you go in there tonight after the wagon was loaded. While I was eating supper in the restaurant and wondering what I would have to do for the price of my next meal and a roof over my head tomorrow night. Mr. Glazer, the sheriff, was also having supper. He told me about you.’

  ‘Because you asked, Emily Jane?’

  ‘Because I asked, Barnaby.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because when I first saw you in Standing, I felt the same way about you as you did about me when you saw me on the trail.’

  ‘You don’t beat about the bush, Emily Jane.’

  ‘Mr. Glazer said that neither do you. When you have anything to say. Which isn’t very often.’

  There was a long pause, almost as if Barnaby Gold were giving her an example of the taciturn trait in his nature. And during this minute or so, the sounds of the storm lessened.

  Then: ‘Any man who saw a girl like you out on the trail on a night like this would have given you a ride.’

  ‘I’m not denying it. And if a ride is all I get from you. I’ll be no better or no worse off in Fairfax than I was in Standing. There will be some kind of work I can do there to keep from starving?’

  Her tone added the query.

  ‘Sure; I guess so.’ He felt tongue-tied for the first time he could remember.

  ‘And since Fairfax is a much smaller town, there will be less men like your fellow undertaker in Standing. Mr. Ward. And Mr. Grogan, the butcher. Mr. Johnstone who has the restaurant.’

  There was no lightning flash to illuminate her face now. But her voice did not take on any tone of disgust as she listed the elderly widowers and committed bachelors who had propositioned her.

  ‘Isn’t that so?’

  ‘I guess they’re all decent enough people in Fairfax,’ he answered. ‘Enough of them, anyway, to be a good influence on those who might be like Clay Ward and the others you named.’

  There was another long silence between them, as Gold finished smoking the cheroot and the wind lessened still further, the thunderclaps fading deep to the south-west.

  ‘I’ve been known for my candor since I was a small girl in Portland, Maine, Barnaby. But I’ve never been so forward as this. Now that father is dead, though... I can cook and keep a clean house, sew and make small-talk with other women of all types. Since my mother died giving birth to me, it was necessary for me to do all those things for my father as soon as I was old enough and we started to move about the country.’

  ‘Goddamnit to hell, Emily Jane,’ Gold said, and he sounded almost breathless in contrast to the even tone in which she had catalogued her skills.

  ‘But how good I am at doing what the Mexican girls do, I don’t know. Because I have never allowed a boy to do more than kiss me on the lips. But I don’t think I’m being immodest when I say I know I look to have what men li
ke in that matter.’

  Gold rose to his feet. And his voice was almost as husky as that of the girl when he blurted: ‘The horses are well rested now. Time for me to ride.’

  ‘Whatever you say.’ She spoke without disappointment, petulance or sullenness. Agreeing to the will of another in much the same way as Barnaby Gold would have if their positions had been reversed.

  He swung around and strode to where the horses were hobbled. Released the black gelding and led him alongside of the wagon out into the now gently falling rain.

  ‘Be back in a couple of hours!’ he called.

  There’s nowhere else I can be,’ she answered without rancor.

  Riding the big black horse bareback through the slackening rain and then under a dimly moonlit sky streaked with grey clouds was no hardship to him. He had never been on a horse until his father brought him out to Arizona, but he had taken to riding with the same ease as he was destined to experience eight years later when he took up the handguns.

  He did not hurry on the ride into Fairfax, taking the time to think long and deeply about the beautiful young girl waiting back in the cave. It was still before dawn when he reached town and no one else was awake.

  He bedded down John Hogg’s horse in the blacksmith’s stable and left town again with the team which pulled the hearse. And on the return trip to the cave he maintained the same easy pace as before. But this time it was simply to conserve the strength of the two geldings. There was no more thinking to be done on the subject of Emily Jane.

  The round trip had taken the best part of three hours and dawn was on the verge of breaking when he led the horses into the cave, which was beginning to fill with the first grey light of the new day.

  Emily Jane seemed not to have moved from the bench like rock. Showed no sign of having slept. And had certainly done nothing to her hair and face the way most girls would have in similar circumstances.

  ‘You should have got out of those wet clothes for a while,’ he said. ‘You could catch a bad chill.’

  He hitched the horses to a front wheel of the wagon and when she saw him do this she got to her feet, a smile of subdued eagerness lighting her pale blue eyes and parting her full lips over very white teeth.

  They’re dry now, Barnaby. But I’ll get out of them if you want. And since you didn’t harness the animals to the wagon...?’

  She let the query-marked sentence hang in the lightening, warming air.

  He halted six feet in front of her.

  ‘It would have to be marriage. If we lived in Fairfax. And right now, I couldn’t leave and have the responsibility of —’

  ‘Emily Jane Gold...’ She looked pensive, then smiled more brightly. ‘It has a good sound to it.’

  Her high-necked, long-sleeved, ankle length dress — a lighter shade of grey now that it was dry — had buttons at the back. When she reached to unfasten them, the movement thrust forward her firm, conical breasts. He could feel her eyes watching his face, just a little nervous, as he gazed at her undressing. She wore a chemise as delicately styled as the one which still lay on the rock. And pantalettes and hose of silk, leather shoes styled for city wear more than trail walking.

  She showed no sign of seductiveness as she took off and discarded each item of clothing. Nor shyness, until there was just the knee-length chemise protecting her total nakedness.

  ‘Since this is my first time, Barnaby, I’ve no idea what I should say now.’

  ‘Since you’re not a whore, I’m not sure, either,’ he answered, as he took off his topcoat and spread it on the sand between them.

  Then he undressed, as artlessly as she had done, but took the time to roll up his jacket and pants to form a pillow.

  ‘I’ve seen father. We were very frank about such things. I know what to do, but not how... Oh, I never saw father like that.’

  Barnaby Gold straightened up from pulling off his long-Johns. And when she saw the state of his arousal, her composure cracked for the first time.

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t,’ he told her, and stepped across the makeshift bed. To take her in his arms and kiss the lips which were offered to him, her head tilted, her eyes closed,

  He felt the twin pressures of her breasts against his chest through the chemise. Her thighs remained pressed together, reluctant to admit his pulsing need. Her arms embraced him, her fingers touching his skin lightly. He reached down the length of her body, caught hold of the hem of the chemise and raised it. She held him more firmly and for a moment he thought she was seeking to prevent him taking off the final garment. But there was attack, not defense, in the way her fingernails began to dig into his back

  He used his superior strength to draw their bodies apart. But their lips remained locked until the chemise was bunched up around her neck.

  ‘Barnaby, Barnaby, please help me to be good. Better than any whore you’ve ever had.’

  He tossed the chemise aside and held her away from him; She tried to press her nakedness to his, but he prevented this, afraid of climaxing before the coupling was complete.

  ‘Easy, Emily Jane,’ he said softly, and picked her up in his arms. Where she became totally submissive. Allowing him to stoop and lay her on the coat with her head on the pillow. When she closed her eyes and allowed her thighs to part slightly.

  Her skin was pure white and flawless, her nipples and their aureoles pale pink, the triangle of hair at the base of her belly just faintly darker than the blonde on her head, getting lighter and finer in the line that reached up to her navel.

  After he had feasted on the sensuous sight of her nakedness for several seconds, she snapped open her eyes and asked: ‘Don’t I please you, Barnaby?’

  ‘Just do what comes naturally, Emily Jane,’ he answered as she smiled upon seeing that his wanting had not diminished.

  Then she closed her eyes again, and submitted without even a token struggle to the pressure of his knees splaying open her thighs.

  He had never taken a virgin before, so that what happened next was as unexpected by him as by Emily Jane. She was wetter than any whore he had known, and the entry was almost as easy. She cried out in pain rather than pleasure, but just for a second contracted as if seeking to reject his penetration. This was an instinctive reaction — and so were all the others which followed in a frantic period which could have lasted no more than thirty seconds.

  The scream became a moan. Her legs parted wider and were raised. Her arms came up from the sides to encircle his back. One hand went to his head to bury his face in her neck as she fastened her open mouth on the flesh of his shoulder. She matched her body movements precisely with his. Her erected nipples were like points of heat on his chest. Her legs encircled him and she locked her ankles together. Her teeth sank into his shoulder, then were torn free by the powerful urge to voice the sounds of passion which rose to her throat. ‘Faster, deeper, more, more, more, oh, oh, ooooohhhhh...’

  She climaxed several seconds ahead of him and her muscles became lax. But as he continued to pound his own wanting into her, it brought her to the brink of new arousal. And at the moment of his draining she was as demanding as ever. So that it required all his lust-diminished strength to break from the locks of her holds around him.

  The taking of her maidenhead had spilled a lot of blood, stained both of them. A virgin she undoubtedly had been and, because of his lack of experience with any woman who was not a whore, Barnaby Gold Junior felt no uneasiness as he sprawled out on the sand and she lay on the coat: both of them breathing deeply as they recovered from the frenetic copulation. And she said:

  ‘Barnaby, what have I been missing until now?’

  They were married two days later.

  *****

  The sun was setting, splashing a blood redness across the sky, when he rode to within sight of the stage line way station; at the head of the valley. He had seen smoke from a chimney smudging the sky for a mile or so, but did not see the building from which it came until he rode around a stand of pinyon at the edg
e of a broad plain.

  The station was of timber, sited in the trees on a patch of land which had been cleared to provide materials for its construction. There were two buildings, one of them long and low to provide living accommodation for the man who ran the place and a rest room for stage passengers, and the other higher — a stable with hayloft under, the peaked roof, out back with a corral at the side and a fenced yard in which some chickens ran.

  A man was feeding the fowl as Gold showed on the trail. But when he saw the newcomer he hurled the pail of bran to the ground and ran into the low building. To reappear on the threshold after banging open the door, when the black gelding was reined to a halt on the hard-packed area where countless stages had paused for the teams to be changed.

  He was holding a Winchester, the hammer cocked, slantwise across his chest. A short, skinny, almost completely bald man of about sixty with a round, small-eyed face on which any expression other than a scowl would have looked out of place. He was dressed in dungarees and work boots. No shirt.

  The glow of a stove fire showed in the room behind him. In the dying rays of the sinking sun, Gold could just make out the lettering on the sign which was nailed above the open doorway. Huachuca Vista Way Station.

  This here place only got facilities for stage line passengers, mister,’ Steve Brodie said, his high-pitched voice even more unfriendly than his expression and stance.

  ‘I can pay for a bed and food for myself. Stabling and feed for my horse.’

  ‘Stage line pays well enough for me to get by.’

  Gold clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, ‘I heard you didn’t welcome strangers, Mr. Brodie.’

  The Winchester was angled away from his body with a fast movement. But did not quite travel far enough to aim at the mounted young man. This as the scowl took a firmer hold on the bristled, dirt-grimed flesh of the older man’s face.

  ‘How you know my name?’

  ‘From the man who told me you don’t welcome strangers. Driver of the Tombstone-bound stage.’