He picked up the fish and walked over to a flat rock, where he took out a razor-sharp hunting knife and stripped the meat from the bones. The woman took the trusty black frying pan from his gear and threw in some animal fat from a tin can in one of his leather pouches. She seemed to know just what to do. She heated the fat in the pan over the fire, and as soon as it was hot enough, she rolled the fish fillets in some flour and laid them in the pan. Sage could nearly taste them already, the aroma was so delicious. It only took minutes for the fish to cook, and they stuffed themselves on the tender, white meat.
“This sure beats that tough ol’ rabbit,” he told her, rubbing his stomach. He leaned back then and lit a cigar, watching her clean up the camp as though it were her duty.
Again it struck him what a good wife she would make, then was shocked with himself for having had such a thought. Sage MacKenzie needed no wife. As far as her helping make and clean up the camp and all, he could easily find an Indian woman for that. He had traveled with an Indian woman a time or two. Having such a woman around was handy, but not something a man wanted on his hands all the time. A man had to move around, sometimes be alone. Besides, white women weren’t made for the kind of life Sage MacKenzie led. Sometimes it seemed kind of nice to think of keeping this one, but he knew it was neither fair nor practical.
It still bothered him that he had lost control the night before, or had it been early morning? Yet now as dark settled and he watched the grace of her movements and remembered how it had felt to be inside of her…
She was unrolling the bedrolls. Again she put them together, opening the blankets over both so they could share.
“Make mine separate, Venado,” he told her. “You go ahead and go to sleep. I’ll sit up a while.”
She only looked at him with a smile, moving to stand in front of him and then unbuttoning her dress.
“No, Venado.”
She opened the dress and slipped it off her shoulders. She remained naked under it, and stood there before him, the dress around her feet. She reached out for him, and his reawakened needs would not let him refuse her. She knelt in front of him, taking one of his hands and putting it on her breast.
He put out his cigar in the dirt, watching the violet eyes. “Venado, I don’t love you. We can’t keep doing this.”
She leaned forward and kissed him lightly, and he felt her nipple harden beneath his palm.
“Damn you and damn my weakness,” he whispered, moving his lips down her throat. She threw her head back, smiling, hugging his head as he moved down to taste of her breasts while his hands moved down her back and over her bare hips. Her beauty and perfection were unmatched, and Sage’s manly instincts would not let him stop. It was too thrilling to taste her, to run his hand over every curve and hollow. He pushed his hand between her legs and her breathing quickened, and he knew that again he would break his vow not to touch her. Wherever she belonged, she was not there now. She was with Sage MacKenzie, and she was naked and beautiful and willing. Guilt and honor could not overcome her beauty and his needs. Sage MacKenzie was a big man with a big appetite.
He rose and carried her to the bedroll, laying her down on it, then undressing. If he was going to do this thing, there was no sense going to bed with his clothes on again. She watched him, again with almost childlike curiosity, touching that most manly part of him when he knelt down beside her. She caressed it as though utterly fascinated by its velvety softness and the way it grew as she stroked it gently.
“I said you were a witch, and I was right. Maybe you’re the devil in a woman’s body,” he told her.
He laid her back, and she parted her legs willingly, ready to please the bear of a man who had helped her, apparently remembering what he had done the night before.
“I guess you must have enjoyed it as much as I did,” he reflected. “I can’t argue with that, little woman. No red-blooded man would argue with that.”
He pushed himself inside her and she gasped and moved rhythmically with him. Again he wondered what went through her mind. Although she gave herself willingly, there was something innocent and sweet about her. She did not give herself wantonly. It was as though she were free of all thoughts of anything bad or sinful. She seemed to be simply a young woman who wanted to give him pleasure because it was the right thing to do.
He wondered if perhaps he was the only memory she had, the only human being who existed for her. She gave herself as though it were simply natural and right.
Whatever the reason, the glory of it made him shudder with ecstasy. He held out longer this time, wanting to enjoy it to the very last second and wanting her to enjoy it, too. He felt her tremble, and she arched up wildly then. Pulsating spasms pulled him deeper, and he knew she’d attained that mysterious realm women sometimes reached when mating, that point at which their desire and enjoyment were at a peak.
He rose up to his knees, running his hands over her thighs and lifting her hips, drinking in her utter beauty as she lay there before him, pulling him inside herself in the most perfect intercourse a man could experience. He held on until it was impossible to stop the surge of life that spilled out in response to the heavenly sensations she had created within him.
He pulled away from her then, a heavy feeling in his chest. For some strange reason he almost felt like crying. What was the “crazy woman” doing to him? Why did it have to be Sage MacKenzie who had found her? And what was this feeling she drew from him, a feeling that made him want to keep her forever? Men like Sage MacKenzie didn’t think such thoughts.
She reached up for him, urging him to lie down beside her. He could not refuse. He lay down, pulling her into his arms and drawing the blankets over them, and as soon as her breasts moved against his bare chest, he knew he would not make it through the night without making love to her again.
Venado made her first sounds the morning of the day they were to ride in to Fort Bridger. Sage awoke to an odd sound, like a cat crying. The woman was cringing under the blankets, pushing at him to try to wake him. He opened his eyes to see her staring wide-eyed at something, total terror on her face.
Sage jumped up, amazed he had slept so hard. The woman had a way of taxing his energies, for not only had he made love to her every night, but afterward he had lain awake sometimes for hours pondering who she might be and how right or wrong he was to be bedding her, and exploring his confused feelings for her. By the time he had fallen asleep, it had been an exhausted sleep.
Now he realized how tired he had really been. Never before had Indians snuck up on him, and that was what he was looking at now. Three Indian men sat across his cold camp fire. One of them grinned when Sage looked at them. Sage went for his rifle, then hesitated when the grinning one started laughing.
“Red Dog!” Sage sat up and rubbed his eyes, awake enough now to recognize all three men as Ute Indians he knew well. For the woman’s sake, he secretly thanked God that he knew them. “What the hell are you laughing about, you red devil?” Sage asked then in an irritated voice.
“We sit here long time,” Red Dog explained. “Watch Sage sleep.” He shook his head, still grinning. “We bad Indian, Sage be dead.”
Sage frowned, throwing off his blankets and standing up naked to pull on his long underwear.
“Yeah? Well, maybe you’d be dead.”
Red Dog leaned forward, eyeing the woman, who sat shivering and wide-eyed.
“Woman…” He touched his temple with one finger. “Eyes strange.”
Sage turned and looked at her, pulling his buckskin shirt over his shoulders, then kneeling down beside her. She grasped his shirt, pointing at the Indians and making the strange, terrified sound again. Sage grasped her arms.
“It’s all right, Venado. They’re friends.”
She met his eyes, and hers teared.
“I wish I knew what was goin’ through that head,” Sage said quietly. “Is it Indians? Is that the bad thing that made you like this? Were you taken by Indians?”
More tears
came and he held her close for a moment, stroking her hair. “It’s all right. You lay right here while I make a fire. These men over here, they’re Ute Indians. I’ve known them for years, traded with them many times. The one who speaks English is Red Dog, and the other two are Walks Slowly and Black Wolf. Nobody is gonna hurt you, Venado.”
He patted her shoulder and urged her to lie back down and keep the blankets over herself. He turned away from her, but her violet eyes remained riveted on him as he began building a fire.
“Who woman?”
Sage looked at Red Dog. “I don’t even know. I’m taking her to Fort Bridger—found her north of here in the mountains. She won’t talk. Something bad happened to her, but I don’t know what. She was sitting beside a burned-out wagon that had a man lying under it. He was burned up, too. I couldn’t find anything to tell who she is. You know anything about it?”
Red Dog shrugged. “No hear about crazy woman with purple eyes. She got bad spirits?”
Sage grinned. “No. I think she’ll be all right in time. Something just scared her bad, that’s all.”
“You want sell her?”
Sage got the fire going. “No, I don’t want to sell her. Besides, what would you want with a crazy woman? She’d bring you bad luck.”
Red Dog nodded. “I think you right, Sage. You got tobacco?”
“I’ve got some.” Sage got some coffee going. “What the hell are you doing up and about, sneaking up on a man this time of morning, Red Dog?”
“We hunt. More of us at fort. We see your fire last night—come here to see who it is. Maybe enemy Indian. Maybe take scalp. Sage sleep so good next to woman, could have two scalps—one Sage’s, one woman’s.”
“You don’t have to rub it in,” Sage answered sarcastically, digging a tin of tobacco out of his parfleche. “Here. That’s a gift in gratitude for not bringing us harm. How far am I from the fort?”
Red Dog took the tin eagerly. “Leave soon—be there when sun is high in sky. Some white people there. Maybe know this woman.”
Sage nodded. “Good.”
“You make fun with woman? She feel good?”
Pain moved through Sage’s heart. “Yes,” he answered, the guilt rushing through him again. “I make fun with woman. She feels good.”
“Why not you keep?”
Sage watched the fire grow. “I’m not a man to tote a woman around all the time, Red Dog, you know that. I’ve got to be alone.”
“She cook?”
“Yes.”
“She no can talk?”
“No. She can’t talk.”
“Then you should keep. Quiet woman who cook and who feels good naked worth much.”
Sage took some biscuits the woman had made the night before from their supplies and bit into one. “I don’t need your sage advice, Red Dog. Besides, she’s a delicate thing. She’d never survive long living the way I do. An Indian woman would, but not one like this one. She should be with her own kind.”
“You her own kind. You not Indian.”
“You know what I mean.” Sage eyed the man, a smile wanting to move over his lips. “You ol’ bastard. You’re making fun of me, aren’t you. You’re trying to rile me.”
Red Dog grinned. “Red Dog no let you forget you sleep while Red Dog sit here and watch. Sage man who hears tiny nut drop from tree far away. But when with woman, he no hear anything. Maybe Sage is getting old and deaf—or maybe woman have Sage too happy and pleased, put spell on him.”
“She doesn’t have any spell on me. And not you or anybody else will ever sneak up on me again, I guarantee it. I’ve just been extra tired lately.”
Red Dog laughed. “Too much moving at night when should be resting. Red Dog take woman in day, sleep at night. Safer.”
“Just shut your mouth and chew some of that tobacco for a while,” Sage answered. “I don’t need you to tell me what to do with a woman.”
Red Dog just smiled and nodded, putting a wad of tobacco in his mouth and handing the tin to Walks Slowly. He said something to both the other two Indians, and they all laughed hard.
Sage knew it was all in good fun, but he felt like shooting all three of them at the moment, as well as himself. He hadn’t thought of it as just “making fun” with the woman. It was more serious than that. But he could not let it be. He would take her to the fort today and it would all be over. He got up and retrieved a clean dress for her, taking it over to her and realizing her eyes had never once left him. It made him uncomfortable to see just how much she had grown to depend on him. What would she do when he left her at the fort?
He walked back to her and threw the dress down beside her, holding up one of the blankets in front of her then. “Put your dress on, Venado. I’ll hold this up. They won’t see.”
She was shaking and tears still spilled quietly from her eyes.
“Go on. Put the dress on so we can have some breakfast.”
She slowly got up, dropped her blankets, and quickly dressed. Again she seemed so close to normal. The frightened whimpering sound she had made earlier told him she did indeed have a voice, and the tears denoted returning emotions. She had smiled, now she had cried. She understood him when he told her to dress. She cooked for him, knew how to make camp and clean it up. Why in God’s name didn’t she speak?
The dress was again too big. It was a light blue, plain cotton dress, too big in the waist and shoulders, but fitting decently. She pulled on her moccasins, then hurried over to his parfleche, looking warily at the three Indian men, who all watched in curiosity and amusement. She removed a quill brush and brushed out her hair.
Sage took out the buckskin tunic he had found her in and showed it to Red Dog.
“You recognize these designs, Red Dog? Can you tell me what kind of Indian might have made this? I’ve never seen one quite like it. The woman was wearing it when I found her.”
Red Dog studied the beadwork on the tunic, frowning and showing it to the other two men. “Many black beads—maybe Blackfoot. But knots of thread at top each one. Blackfoot no do. No see threads like this before. Design three corners.” He traced the triangular shape of the design. “No Blackfoot. Blackfoot make four points, never three.” He shook his head. “I do not know this design.” He looked over at the woman, who was eating a biscuit, staying on the other side of the fire from them. His eyes caught her moccasins. “Moccasins have long fringes, drag ground. No Indian Red Dog knows have such moccasins—fringe leave track on ground. Never see such long fringe on moccasins.”
Sage sighed. “Well, maybe somebody at the fort will know.”
“No Indian these parts. No Crow. No Shoshoni. No Sioux. No Blackfoot. No Cheyenne. No—”
“You don’t have to name them all, Red Dog. I know their signs, too. That’s what puzzles me. If it’s no Indian in all these Rocky Mountain parts, then that woman came from someplace far away—maybe the south. I know the area some, but not much.” He shook his head. “This gets more confusing all the time.”
Red Dog rose. “Red Dog thanks you for tobacco. We go now. We just stay to play joke on Sage MacKenzie—see how long it take him wake up. Woman see us before you. That is bad, Sage MacKenzie.”
There was a twinkle in the man’s eye and Sage grinned. “Get the hell out of here, Red Dog. I’ll get you back some day, you’ll see.”
Red Dog put a fist to his chest. “Red Dog better man. Too bad, MacKenzie.”
“Go on with you.”
The three Indian men left, going to horses they had left farther back so as not to awaken Sage. Sage studied the dress a moment longer, then stuffed it back into his parfleche. His heart began to weigh him down as he realized he was only hours from the fort now—only hours from parting with his Venado. He turned to watch her as she sat quietly and ate.
“You probably think we’ll just travel more today and you’ll be with Sage again tonight, don’t you?” he asked quietly. Guilt and sorrow suddenly moved through him in a painful wave. He sighed deeply, trying to rid himself of
the sudden urge to keep her and never let her go. “It’s best this way, Venado. You’ll understand that when you’re well.”
He began cleaning up. This morning he wasn’t very hungry. There was an ache in his stomach. In fact, his whole chest hurt. He couldn’t imagine what was wrong with him. The woman stood up then, walking over to him and touching his arm, looking at him with questioning eyes before suddenly hugging him tightly.
Sage swallowed back a lump in his throat. “Come on, we’ve got to get going,” he told her, pushing her away.
Chapter Five
“There’s really not much at Jim Bridger’s place,” Sage told the woman, hoping that if he made casual conversation he could overlook the ache in his heart. “It’s not even a fort, really. We just call it that. It’s just a trading post—a few mud and thatch huts and a log supply house. I expect the man doesn’t have much left in the way of supplies this time of year, though. It’s really a meeting place for us mountain men—trappers and the like. That’s what Jim Bridger is himself, only it got so he could make more money running a supply station than he could off furs and skins. It’s getting that way for most of us. I expect I’ll have to consider what I’m going to do. No money in trapping anymore, not that I need much, but it’s got so more and more a man needs funds to survive.”
They came to a ridge that sloped gently downward for a good two miles, opening into a vast, green valley that appeared quiet and serene.
“Pretty, isn’t it? See the fort way out yonder, not far from that river down there? By the way, that’s the Green River. I hear tell Jim’s got a blacksmith there now.” He pointed out the surrounding mountains. “See all around us? Mountains everywhere.” He breathed deeply. “Makes a man happy to be alive. I always said it’s as though these mountains were put here in a great circle around this valley to protect it—like God meant there to be a resting point here for weary travelers, a meeting place for lonely men.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Kind of dumb, I guess.”
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