Sure as Shooting

by Karen Mercury

  “No, Bud’s a sharp fellow.”

  “What could he be gaining by not taking credit for the kill?”

  “He’s putting you in a position where you feel you owe him a favor.”

  Huntley nodded. “I wonder what favor he could possibly be angling for? I haven’t seen him since the battle. Doesn’t he have a room at Boling’s Hotel? Anyway. That’s not why I’m here.” The trader stood, downed the last couple swallows of brandy, and swaggered to the tent flap.

  Whit watched the shapely globes of the trader’s ass move under the leather buckskins, his long arms dangling at his sides. He got to his feet when Huntley reappeared, tugging a reluctant Digger girl by the arm.

  With evident disgust, Huntley fairly flung the girl in Whit’s direction. “Here. Can you take a look at her arm? Colonel Barbour and the Indian Commission won’t be here for a few more days, and her arm seems to be festering.”

  As Whit started for the girl, he noted her flinch, but she seemed to reserve special loathing for Huntley Ashbury, cringing from him so severely Whit felt compelled to ask, “And where did you find this gal?”

  Crossing his arms before his belly, Huntley leaned back against a tent pole. “She’s a handful, all right, Whit. You be careful of this one. Fact”—and Huntley made a dive for Whit’s medical instruments that were laid out on his surgery table—“you’d best keep all sharp tools away from this harridan. She’s the one who dropped that young Texan not ten feet from me, and then let an arrow fly at me when I tried to leave her be.”

  Whit seated the woman in a chair. She still tensed away from his touch, but she didn’t have the look of one who was attempting escape. “How could you have mistaken this gentle maiden for a warrior?” Whit laughed. For the woman was exceptionally well-made, much taller than any Digger woman he’d ever seen, long of limb, and quite elegant in her entire carriage. Huntley had apparently draped her in some filthy red miner’s shirt, and Whit had to roll the sleeve up to her shoulder to view the wound. He could easily tell under the man’s shirt that she had wonderfully pert, uplifted breasts. Considering she had probably been wearing no shirt at all when Huntley had first viewed her, how could the astute mountain man have been so dunderheaded?

  As Whit’s fingers slithered around the pleasantly soft skin of her underarm, his cock stiffened against his thigh. He wondered when he had last touched a woman’s skin. His last patient in New York, no doubt. Who was no doubt not nearly as comely as this maiden could be, if washed. Whit was very glad to think he might possibly still have some attraction to women. All hope was not lost. Perhaps he wouldn’t be destined for the houses of the nan-boys his entire life, after all. And now that she relaxed, her almond-shaped eyes seemed to regard him with a little more trust.

  He barely noticed Huntley’s eyes flaring with ire. But he sure heard his angry words. “Well, who wouldn’t mistake her for a Digger warrior, Whit? Look at her! Hair all gnarled, rotting horseflesh stuck in her teeth—”

  “Yes, but who shot her in the arm?” Whit asked pointedly.

  Huntley paused before answering, “Well. Me.” The girl gave Huntley a narrow-eyed look. “Well, why not? She’d just raised the hair of that poor Texan, took his face clean off!”

  “Hand me those tweezers,” said Whit. “I need to get this ball out. So what’s her name?”

  Huntley handed him the implement. “Who the hell’d bother asking her name? I’m just lucky to escape without an arrow through my balls.”

  She winced when Whit prodded into her muscle. He hoped the ball hadn’t shattered her humerus. It would be a shame to have to amputate such a lovely, elegant arm. “Ask her name.”

  Huntley sputtered but said something to her in Digger lingo.

  She wouldn’t look at Huntley, so she turned her doe’s eyes to Whit and said softly something that sounded like “Bel.”

  “Bel.” Huntley needlessly translated for Whit.

  Whit had found the ball, nestled right up against her humerus. Luckily she was an exceedingly thin gal with very long bones. He tried to distract her before inserting the tweezers an inch into her flesh and grabbing the ball. “Bel, my, what a beautiful name. Bel. Is that like the sound of a bell ringing? But you’ve probably never heard a bell…”

  “Ow!” she yowled when he yanked out the lead ball. He deposited it into the closest receptacle, Huntley’s empty brandy tumbler, and prepared for the flow of blood by pressing on her artery.

  “Huntley,” he commanded in his doctorly tone. “Pour more brandy into my glass and hand it to her.”

  “Liquor for a Digger?” Huntley fumed but did as he was told. “Don’t you know that’s the worst sort of foolishness, giving liquor to Indians?”

  Bel whipped the glass from Huntley’s hand and swallowed all the booze in about four gulps. Whit could see her eyes smarting and watering, but at least it took her mind off her arm. When he tentatively released his thumb on the artery, only a minimal amount of blood flowed, and he was encouraged. “Cut me off a length of bandage, about two feet.”

  “Do you want Bud back as your assistant? I’ll try to find him.”

  To Whit’s surprise, Bel uttered, “Bud?”

  Both Huntley and Whit paused. They looked to her to repeat the word, but she just looked down at the ground, suddenly shy.

  Huntley handed Whit the bandage. “Oh, that’s their word for deer. She’s probably hungry.”

  “You haven’t fed her?”

  “Why would I give her food? We don’t have any horseflesh around here, partner. And the battalion made sure to destroy all their acorn baskets.”

  “You give her food because it’s the gentlemanly thing to do. That’s what the Indian Commission would do, anyway.” Whit didn’t like the way the bandage was going to be packing all the dirt inside her wound. “Hunt. Let me bathe her. She’s filthy. All this dirt will infect the wound.”

  Huntley cocked his hips skeptically. “Where are you gonna bathe her? The creek is the closest, but then you’d have to leave your patients for awhile.”

  Whit gazed at his friend evenly. “Why, who was bragging about having the grandest bathtub in town, not forty feet from this tent?”

  Huntley gaped. “Bathe? Her? In my bathtub?”

  Whit was about to become irritated with the trader. “She’s filthy, Hunt, and this dirt is only going to infect her wound. The wound caused by you, might I add. Besides. Once she’s cleaned up, I’m sure she’ll be mighty pretty. Don’t you have any need for a handy Indian servant girl? I certainly would. If I bathe her and train her, would you let me have her?” Was it Whit’s imagination, or did Bel gaze upon him fondly when he said this? Of course he imagined it. She was just responding to his kind, helpful tone of voice.

  Huntley actually cringed into the canvas wall of the tent. “You can have her!” he cried. “If you want a troublesome, salty shrew who is liable to put a knife through your skull, that’s your business. But I don’t even let my own squaws into my house. I’ll have someone bring a washtub and you can bathe her in this tent.”

  “Huntley,” Whit said pragmatically. “Bathing her in front of these patients? They might be injured, but they’re not dead.”

  On his cot Bill Little had propped himself up on one elbow. “You got my permission, Doc. It’s been awhile since I seen a fully naked woman, even if she is just an Indian.”

  Whit said, “You see what I mean, Hunt? This just isn’t right. Let me bathe her once in your bathtub—for medicinal purposes—and you stay here to ensure none of these—” Whit looked at the three American patients. Two of them looked about to ravish poor Bel, and the third had fainted dead away a long time ago. “These upstanding soldiers don’t keel over. Is your house unlocked?”

  “Yes. My cook Lupe almost always has hot water going on the stove. But let me come with you. These…upstanding men can take care of themselves. Right, Bill?”

  “I suppose.” Bill was clearly disappointed but couldn’t do much with an Indian arrowhead hole in his
lung.

  “Take your pistol.” Huntley even checked Bel’s fists for concealed weapons before they started on the short walk to his house.

  Whit walked in between the two others. He knew Huntley didn’t want to be near the woman, who he estimated as being perhaps thirty years of age. She walked along smoothly like a silent deer, her unlined face betraying absolutely no emotion.

  “Does it ever snow in the winter here, at this low elevation?” Whit asked, just to make conversation.

  Huntley shrugged. “Not really. A couple times a year, maybe. Nothing to inconvenience anyone.”

  Whit ventured to say, “I heard an informal ballot was taken this morning. The preference of most everyone for a battalion commander was you.”

  “Well, yes. That was after Sheriff Burney backed out. He’s needed here in town.”

  “And you’re not?”

  They had gone around back to the kitchen door, and Huntley held it open for them. “I’ve got that youngster Stephen Holt to take care of my store here, although I don’t have a replacement for Greeley yet. When it comes to an Indian campaign, I’m their man. I just hope this Colonel Barbour doesn’t keep us cooling our heels until after the first big storm arrives. That’ll just complicate things.”

  Lupe was in the kitchen, and Huntley spoke to her in that Spaniard jargon that was starting to become familiar to Whit. Lupe took a large cauldron of heated water and led the Indian woman into what was presumably the downstairs bathroom off the kitchen.

  The men repaired to the study through the foyer as Huntley explained, “There’s a much fancier bathroom upstairs. But this one is used for when men return from the mountains funky as a hog’s ass.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Whit. “It’s good enough for a filthy Indian girl, then.”

  Huntley closed his eyes patiently, a tumbler in one hand and the whiskey bottle in the other. Whit thought, He must have forgotten. The last time we were in this room, I tried to stroke his penis. He ordered me out, and now here I am. “Doc, you’ve got to understand. That woman tried to kill me. I tried to kill her in return. I know it’s your altruistic physician’s code or whatever you call it, and I find it highly admirable. But I just can’t subscribe to that code. Not when she lifted the hair off a fellow standing not five feet away from me and wanted to pay me the same compliment.”

  Whit took the whiskey bottle from his friend and poured his own drink. “You take it too personally. You were merely caught on opposite sides of a battle. Do you seriously think every Indian in that camp was some evil-doing nefarious son of a bitch? No, they’re just protecting what they believe is theirs, just as our side was doing.”

  Huntley swallowed a few gulps of whiskey. “I’ll admit as I always considered myself a friend of the Indians. But it looks as though I’m forced to take sides, and I’ve got to come down on the non-horseflesh-eating side of things. Let’s face it, Doc. This Indian way of life is a thing of the past. Since gold was discovered, a veritable flood of mankind has invaded these parts. When the gold gives out, they’re not going back home. Towns are just going to turn into cities. People will need more houses, and I’m the man to fill those houses with the trinkets that modern man demands.”

  “Yes,” said Whit thoughtfully. “Bud was talking about wanting to open a trading post, too.”

  Huntley’s eyes narrowed. Whit had seen this sudden ire rising in him many times, and it was amusing to watch the way the sculpted upper lip raised in a snarl. “You tell him he can open his own trading post…up on the American River.”

  The American River was where Sutter’s men had first discovered gold a few years back, and it was a hundred and fifty miles to the north. Whit remarked, “Maybe that’s the favor Bud’s expecting from you.” Whit put down his tumbler and headed for the study door. “I’ll go check on Bel. I’ll need to dress her wound again once it’s washed.”

  “Yes, you do that,” snarled Huntley, and Whit thought he detected a shred of jealousy. “And I’ll stand guard outside the door.”

  Whit fairly rolled his eyes as he strode back to the kitchen. If Bel was going to be Whit’s maid, Huntley was just going to have to forget that she’d taken a shot at him. “¿Es el paciente allí?” he asked Lupe, proud of what he hoped was understandable Spanish. Is the patient in there?

  He must have been correct, for Lupe beamed widely. “Sí,” she said enthusiastically, pointing to the closed bathroom door.

  But now he had to ask in English, “Can you fetch one of Mr. Ashbury’s calico shirts?”

  Whit accepted a fresh pot of hot water from Lupe. At the door, he hesitated. He felt odd to be bursting in on a naked woman and had to remind himself that in his profession, he’d done it thousands of times. But somehow, Bel didn’t feel like a patient to Whit. He’d known her only half an hour, but already she felt like…well, a maid, probably. That was it. He felt odd because she was already more like a maid to him.

  Bel didn’t flinch when he opened the door, shutting it behind him. She lay sprawled in what was probably the largest bathtub in town. Much larger, anyway, than the one in the bathhouse connected to Boling’s Hotel. A window allowed diffuse winter light to bathe her torso. Her burnished brown arms were draped over the sides of the tub, her head, the dark brown hair wet and sleek like a seal’s, propped up against the wall in an uncomfortable position. Her eyelids barely flickered to acknowledge Whit, and he realized she must be exhausted after the battle and long march back to Agua Fria. Not to mention, missing whatever relatives the Mariposa Battalion had wrenched her from, or polished off.

  She was even more stunning clean, of course, and once again Whit had the feeling she was not of these mountain tribes. Fully a foot taller than the tallest Digger maiden, her breasts rode high and saucy. He had also noticed that she had unusually good dental hygiene, her rather large teeth bright and clean. Whit couldn’t help but think, If she smiled, she’d be a regular bucktoothed beauty.

  “Bel,” he now said, pulling up a stool and seating himself. He placed the cauldron of water on the floor and dipped a towel into it. “I need to wash your wound,” he said, though he knew she couldn’t understand him.

  She gazed at him with a look of utter trust. Whit had seen enough mistrustful patients in his time, some skeptical because of his skin tone, some patients just plain cracked and determined to fly off the handle when someone came near them holding a scalpel. Her eyes were the almond-shaped eyes of the “ricemen” from China. Whit had heard that ricemen had only recently arrived on California’s shores, so she couldn’t possibly have had a riceman parent.

  As he unwrapped the bandage that was gluing the dirt to her wound, Whit found himself talking, just to hear the sound of chitchat. “You’re a very striking girl. I’m hoping you will consent to be my maid, although I really don’t have anywhere to live as yet. I was hoping Huntley Ashbury—that will be Major Huntley Ashbury now—would offer me one of his rooms in this grand house, but we had a bit of a…a misunderstanding awhile back. Now I suppose that hospital tent is my home. Not terribly pleasant with the groaning, belching, and farting all night long. I’ll have to come up with some new arrangements.”

  She watched with detached interest as Whit used the clean towel to sponge dirt from the hole in her arm. “I wonder if Indian women are liable to hysteria. That’s the ‘womb disease’ of modern women. For years I’ve been following a treatment laid out by Hippocrates. It would be interesting indeed to try this treatment out on you, but how do I know if Indian women become hysterical? Marriage sometimes cures the disease, so this form of treatment is especially useful on widows, those who live chaste lives, and nuns. All other women might just engage in intercourse to alleviate hysterical symptoms.”

  Her eyes flickered about his face, clearly alert and intelligent. “I should ask Huntley about Digger women.” He chuckled fondly. “He’s the obviously expert on womb hysteria in Indian women, that’s sure as shooting! I wonder if an Indian woman would respond differently to the massage treatment
. I wonder if she would reach crisis sooner, or not at all? For sometimes it is a great burden on a physician, treating these ‘out of health’ women. You would not believe, Bel, how long it takes some women to reach a crisis when manually manipulated. Most physicians loathe it, how sore their wrists become! But none dare stop doing it, since it’s the most common disease except fevers, and most women require regular treatment.”

  He sighed. The wound was not bleeding, and he wanted it to dry before applying the fresh bandage. “Stand, please. You might not realize it, but you’re sitting in a tub full of grimy sludge.” To demonstrate, Whit stood, gently tugging on her injured arm. It would help if tomorrow she would swim in Agua Fria Creek.

  Whit had to admit to himself, he wanted to view the maiden standing naked and brazen before him. Since he didn’t see her strictly as a patient of his, he didn’t feel the need to “keep himself far from all seduction,” part of the physician’s oath he’d taken. The oath went on to state, “Especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.” Was a maid a slave? Well, not if he paid her. His cock was already at half-mast as she rose from the tub, the gray water sluicing off her long limbs, her sun-browned body emerging as a siren from the sea.

  “Wonderful,” Whit said in a half-whisper, admiring the tantalizing slope of her lower back where it flared to her hips, slipping down into the blindingly white globes of her shapely behind.

  Whit mouthed a word. “Wait…”

  They both stood stock-still. Bel had a vague smile, as though waiting for Whit’s approval. Whit’s eyes were fixed on her ass.

  He reached the bathroom doorknob in one enormous stride, and flung the door open.

  “Huntley!” he bellowed, but he didn’t have to yell loud.

  Huntley was standing right there.

  Chapter Six

  “Huntley!”