Sure as Shooting

by Karen Mercury

  Huntley then called for volunteers to continue to the Indian encampment, and many were content to remain where they were as the reserve force. Belle as a scout and Whit as the surgeon were required to push ahead, so at daylight they set off on foot along the bank of the Merced. Clambering on sheer, polished granite rocks, they had to occasionally wade into the rushing torrent to avoid being seen by the Grizzly village. Belle and Huntley had determined the village was on a high point at a bend in the river, situated so that it ruled over a vast view of the valley. They were within sight of the Indian campfires. All Indians now found were to be considered “hostiles.”

  Now, wading around an imposing granite outcropping, some men misjudged the deceptive depths of the stream or just plain stumbled. Captain Boling flailed about with no foothold, churning like a wagon wheel in the vortex of a pool. Paul Terrell lay on his stomach holding out his rifle butt for Boling to grab ahold of, and was similarly yanked into the racing tide.

  It took the brave and reckless Bud Pennington and his roommate Jim Fell to leap in and guide both men to safety. By that time at least five men had taken an accidental ice bath and had icicles shivering from the tips of their hair and the fringes of their buckskins. Huntley called for a short rest while he conferred with Boling.

  “Oh, this is hellish,” said Belle. She shivered in her bearskin robe, and she had not been among those who had taken baths. Indeed, clad in the robe and her elk skin moccasins, with her Oriental features, Whit could see where they had mistaken her for Indian.

  Whit asked, “Did you not get accustomed to this during your season with the Indians?”

  “No, never. I’ve already become very accustomed to Major Ashbury’s fireplace and the lovely warm oven of his kitchen. I did, however, develop a voracious appetite for acorn bread.”

  Whit made a face of disgust. “That’s about as despicable as eating dog.”

  “Oh, yes!” Belle warmly agreed. “I could never bring myself to touch dog, no matter how starving. I kept being reminded of my devoted dog Jack. He also died fighting off the Indians by the saline lake. I loved that dog like a child. I’d often hug and kiss him. Ned joked that I preferred Jack in my bed rather than him.”

  It was shameful that such a vibrant and intelligent woman as Belle had already suffered through so much turmoil in her life. The loss of her husband and child had touched Whit, but the dog was the ultimate insult. “We shall get you a new dog,” he proclaimed heatedly. “In my experience, that is the best way to get over an emotional loss.”

  Belle smiled in that wide toothy way that melted Whit’s heart. Belle, really, was the first woman he’d had any relationship with. There were no women in medical school. All the others he’d come in contact with had been his patients. “The dog idea is very thoughtful of you. I should like a large and fluffy one, the better to hug. So if one loses a child, the best thing is to become with child immediately?”

  “Well, yes. Especially in these frontiers with even the hardiest of pioneers barely staggering to survive. Women must have as many children as possible to replace the ones they’re liable to lose, and to help bear the labor burden.”

  Belle’s face became hardened again. Crossing her arms across her abdomen, she gazed distantly at some cliffs of magnificent height, gauzy in the distance. “Well, not me. I don’t wish to risk enduring all of that anguish again, the chance of losing another child.” She looked back to Whit. “In fact, I was going to ask you. As my physician now, of course. In your procurement of medical supplies, do you ever come across a sponge?”

  Whit frowned. “What, for sopping up excess blood and that sort of thing?”

  Belle lowered her voice even further, stepping so close to Whit her bear’s fur brushed his hand. “No, I mean a sponge from the sea, to act as a sort of pessary.” She looked furtively about, then locked her eyes onto his. “To prevent pregnancy.”

  Whit’s heart nearly stopped at the implications of Belle’s request. In a moment rare for him, he was actually speechless.

  Belle continued, “You know. To block the entrance of sperm. The Japanese used balls of bamboo paper, and in Africa plugs of chopped grass, but I’ve heard the Jewish sponge is the most—”

  Whit found his tongue. “I know what it’s for, Miss Pennington,” he mocked haughtily. “I’ve also heard of inserting a half of a lemon, which would make sense, as it would block the entrance, and also perhaps the astringency—”

  Belle said with irritation, “Yes, and I’ve heard that drinking the water a blacksmith uses to rinse his tools with works, but that would probably cause a miscarriage—after the fact! No, no, it sounds much safer to use a sponge. Perhaps soaked with some nasty agent, to discourage the...” She looked around at the shivering, numb men of their battalion. It looked as though Major Ashbury was sending Boling and Terrell back to the reserve camp. Whit should attend to them to ensure they hadn’t caught fever yet.

  “Yes, like mercury,” Whit said sarcastically. He was finally able to ask his foremost question. “If you are asking me this, I am presuming that you intend to engage in the sorts of activities that would render it necessary to use a sponge?”

  Belle’s look then became girlish, like a minx ashamed of her bawdy conversation. She fluttered her eyelashes, dusted with ice crystals. “Yes, I was hoping to engage in that sort of—”

  Huntley clapped a hand onto Whit’s shoulder. “I’ve ordered Boling and Terrell back to the camp to dry their ammunition. We’re marching now.”

  Indeed, everyone shouldered their rifles and ammunition. Some were even starting off at a slow gait up the river’s edge as Whit and Belle smiled sheepishly at each other.

  Whit said, “I’d like to know more about your plans—”

  But Belle was already turning to follow Huntley, who had started off at a rapid step, quickly overtaking the men in the lead. As scout, she was obligated to keep up with Huntley, and she carried the lightest rifle and little ammunition or other accoutrements. Exhaling and inhaling mightily of the healthy air, Whit steeled himself to follow.

  Once past the other battalion “boys,” Huntley increased his speed to an Indian jog trot. Whit saw him look back over his shoulder with a twinkle in his eye, as though he were leading Whit and Belle into some mischief. This hardly seemed the time for high jinks, with the enemy so near at hand, but Whit sped up accordingly, his vanity challenged. Even Belle with her athletic fighting spirit couldn’t be expected to keep up with the King of the Tulareños!

  “What is he doing?” Whit angrily demanded of Belle as they ran side by side.

  “I have no idea, Whit! Look, now he’s going up that rock formation!”

  Like a darting lynx, the buckskin-clad mountain man sprang across a deep channel in the granite rock and almost directly up a rock wall. The rock face gave evidence to the terrific force of nature where a glacier had moved in ages past, and Huntley scrambled up like a spider. He continually looked back at them over his shoulder, so they had no choice but to make a running leap across the chasm too. Whit’s skills as a woodsman were already being tried, and as he scurried up the cliff he became angry with Huntley.

  Huntley had done this on purpose, obviously to test Whit’s endurance. Huntley had probably imagined that Belle would follow him, Whit would fall behind, and Huntley would have Belle alone. Huntley climbed toward a mountaintop crowned by a cone of light gray granite, and Whit slowed his pace. As hoped, Belle reduced her climbing speed and soon was clinging to the rock face, reaching out a hand for Whit to clasp.

  Giggling and red-faced with exuberance, Belle pulled Whit into a grotto in the juncture of two rock slabs. A sheltered nook populated with delicate ferns and brilliant lichens, over their heads plunged a noisy waterfall, a wall of comet-like streamers that sheltered them from view like a curtain. The ledge was comfortable and secluded, and Belle sat cross-legged, having chosen to wear a new deerskin skirt for this expedition.

  “He wanted only me to follow!” she cried.

  “
I noticed that.” Whit sat behind Belle and enveloped her in his thighs. He tried to embrace her, her bearskin robe so thick it was like hugging—well, a giant fluffy dog.

  She craned her neck to talk to him. “Why do you think he did that? We’ve already determined where the village is. We don’t need to march up this cliff to reach it.”

  Whit propped his chin on her furry shoulder. The flying waters not ten feet from them cast mutating rainbows on the interior of their fissure, lighting it up angelically. “He wanted to be alone with you. I’ve noticed he’s jealous of the closeness you and I share.”

  “Oh.” Belle seemed to like that, the dimples deepening in her cheeks, and she settled her head back against his collarbone. She had even braided her long tresses in a myriad of braids to keep it out of her eyes. She so much resembled an Indian and she was so indispensible to the campaign, it was determined to keep her far from the battle. “But why? He seems to view me as just some savage maid, at best.”

  “He views you as more than that,” Whit assured her. “I do believe he intends to fight me in some manner for you. Although I don’t know if it’ll come down to a bout of bare-knuckle boxing.”

  “Fight for what? To see whose chamber pot I’ll empty first?”

  Whit chuckled. His warm breath seemed to be melting the ice in her braids. Crystalline droplets rolled harmlessly down the bear’s fur. “Not exactly. He seemed aware of our activities of the other night, and he was intensely jealous.”

  “Jealous—why? He wishes he was a doctor, too?”

  Could Belle possibly be that oblivious? Then again, she hadn’t known what a female orgasm was—that a woman was even capable of such heights of bliss. She had argued that it didn’t serve a biological purpose, as an orgasm did in a man, so was still stubbornly insisting it must be something other than an orgasm. “No. He wishes he was the one with a hand between your thighs, coaxing you to orgasm.”

  “Oh.” Belle snorted skeptically. “Whit, tell me. Your technique with your hand. Are there any other methods a man could use to bring about the same result?”

  “An orgasm. Why, yes, of course. Although I confess, I’m not terribly experienced in the other method that comes to mind. But I imagine it’d be much the same as the manual method.”

  “Using…what implement?”

  They stared at each other, Belle’s face so close it became fuzzy and unfocused. Whit petted the velvety side of her face with the backs of his gloved fingers.

  Then he kissed her.

  Oh, he knew absolutely beans about kissing a woman. He may have kissed a girl when he was a lad, but that was another foggy and dubious memory. However, he doubted that men kissed very differently from women. More forcefully perhaps, and when in the throes of a driving fuck, maybe even viciously. So Whit just toned down the aggression, assuming the mechanics were all the same, although women might not see the finer aspects to having their mouths plundered with a tongue.

  So he kissed her gently, as he’d been known to do to the Miss Nancys of his acquaintance. Her plump lips were surprisingly pliable and soft, and she let her head fall back submissively. Whit smacked on her lips tenderly before he found the courage to slide the tip of his tongue into her mouth, and she didn’t flinch. No, she parted her lips almost eagerly, even twisting between his thighs so they faced each other, slinging her moccasins over him so she nearly sat in his lap. She gripped handfuls of his greatcoat lapels in her bare fists, but Whit had to clumsily take off his gloves, finger by finger, in order to touch her face and throat.

  It was bracing to be huddled here, covered in the dancing prisms of rainbow light filtering through the racing waterfall. Hiding from Major Ashbury added another element of danger and thrill, to be sure. And just the idea that he was finally kissing the most desirable woman he’d ever known gave Whit a new, fresh sense of power. This was not medical massage or anything remotely clinical.

  He withdrew slightly, rubbing his lips against hers. “The other method I was thinking of is a tongue.”

  Her expression was delighted, although a bit confused. “A tongue can do what your fingers did?”

  Whit grinned, too. “Certainly. Why not?”

  Immediately he laid her back onto a bed of ferns. Pushing her knees apart, he raised fistfuls of her deerskin skirt, revealing her pristine new drawers. Belle folded her arms under her head so she could avidly observe Whit’s technique, as though they were still practicing medicine.

  Whit had no idea what to do, but he knew female anatomy intimately, so he imagined he could puzzle it out. Having spent hundreds of pleasant moments with his face slurping between various male thighs, Whit now dove on in. He lifted Belle’s knees with his shoulders and found a comfortable position, wiggling his chest in the ferns until he could breathe freely. Finding her clitoris already swollen and quite extended, Whit stuck out his tongue and lapped.

  He could do this. If not, he wouldn’t be “some kind of expert at pleasuring,” as Huntley had termed him. He had given thousands of women orgasms using only his fingers. A tongue should not be much different. And Belle was an eager student, having reached her crisis recently after a relatively short amount of time fingering her. In fact, she had been perhaps the most explosive woman he’d ever manipulated, coming in a constant stream of spasms for well over a minute. Most women whimpered a few times and opened their clear eyes with satisfaction and a wry smile. Not Belle. She had bucked and shuddered like a regular she-devil, the contractions appearing to wrench her entire uterus.

  Now, as Whit lapped away at her stiff extension, Belle gave vent to such vocalizations that he suspected he was performing correctly. Since they were in a mossy, freezing cave and not one of Huntley’s bedrooms, perhaps she felt free to let loose with some violent, expressive articulations of her own. As Whit lapped away rapidly at her tiny erection, she humped his face with abandon. She nearly strangled him when she wrapped her thighs around his head, shutting out all sense of hearing, except for some loud but ladylike exclamations such as, “Blue blazes!” and “Hellfire!”

  With his expertise in the occupation of bringing women to orgasm, Whit could tell from her jerks and twitches that she was nearing climax. Her prepuce became so meaty and juicy, and he applied his tongue with vigor, lapping the entire length of it. He was rewarded for his efforts.

  Belle came with a ferocious power, laying all other orgasms he’d witnessed in the shade. Again, she held her breath, as if to pant would be to allow her soul to leave her body. Whit was inspired to slide a middle finger, probably cold as an icicle, up her cunt in order to feel the power of her ejaculations. Indeed, her inner pussy walls clenched around his finger so tenaciously the circulation was nearly cut off.

  And the juice flowed until it dripped from his chin and trickled down his wrist. Whit flicked his tongue until Belle began to pant and whimper. He slowed his supping then, withdrawing completely when Belle pressed on his shoulders, weakly entreating, “Please. Stop. No. More.”

  Whit panted, too, and wiped his creamy face on the back of his hand before drawing on his gloves. Belle lounged with her head weakly to one side, a relaxed smile on her face.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “That will work, too.”

  Whit was about to laugh with her when suddenly she shot bolt upright. Her braids all in disarray around the bear fur of her shoulders, she stared fixedly at a spot beyond the waterfall.

  “What is it?” Whit whispered. Although how she could have heard anything over the sound of the rushing water was a mystery.

  Rapidly yanking her skirts down below her knees, Belle got to her feet, bent over under the cave’s low ceiling.

  “Someone is there. Crunching in the snow.”

  Whit whipped aside his greatcoat and fumbled at his gun belt for his revolver. Belle was swifter, shouldering her rifle, and they crept to the waterfall, hunched over like gnomes.

  Chapter Twelve

  Huntley appeared extremely furious to have two weapons leveled upon him.


  “Land’s sake!” he shouted. “What’re you trying to do, take my topknot?”

  Whit immediately holstered his revolver. “Huntley! My apologies, partner. Belle here just heard footsteps in that patch of snow.”

  Huntley looked at Belle suspiciously. “Heard footsteps? From under the roar of that waterfall?”

  She shrugged. “I’m a scout, right?”

  “Yes, and what a splendid scout you are! You couldn’t even manage to follow me to the top of that narrow ridge without getting lost in a cave.”

  “Ah.” Whit smiled in a conciliatory manner. “We weren’t exactly ‘lost’ in the cave, Huntley.”

  Pride swelled in Belle when Huntley’s expression changed to one of jealousy. He actually looked quite handsome with his nostrils flaring like that. He appeared to want to vent his rage on Belle, but turned instead to Whit. “Screwing while you’re supposed to be hunting down Indians? Listen, I’ll have more to say on that subject later, but right now, I’m about to order the boys into a skirmish line. You can come or not as you wish, but I’d suggest you hang back.” He frowned his most ferocious frown at Whit. “Seeing your penchant for pulling weapons on individuals who are not the enemy.”

  Without anymore ado, Huntley leaped over a granite ledge and was skittering down the cliff face, back to where he’d left his men. Belle followed soundlessly in her moccasins, but when they had nearly regained the battalion, she stopped Whit.

  “He does seem very angry that we were…intimate in the cave.”

  Whit appeared unconcerned. “We both enjoy a challenge, the challenge of competition. And it seems I’m winning this hand, since he’s barely said a civil word to you.”