Dragon Fire

by Linda Ladd

  "Sweet Sue wants me to help you wash your hair," she said, holding up a stoppered blue bottle. "This hair soap smells real sweet, like real-live roses, and you just wouldn't believe how shiny and purty your hair'll look afterward when it gets dry again. All us gals use it near every day, 'cause Sweet Sue gets whole crates of it sent up special from Omaha."

  "You are kind," Windsor answered, modestly covering her breasts as Shirley unbraided Windsor's long queue hanging down the back of the tub. She carefully tipped a pitcher of warm water to spill over the thick blond hair, thoroughly wetting it, then applying the sweet-smelling shampoo.

  Although Windsor really didn't want to watch the couple across from her, she couldn't help herself. Sweet Sue was now scrubbing Stone Kincaid's broad brown back, but he wasn't paying any heed to her attentions. He was smoking a cigar and staring straight at Windsor.

  His eyes didn't waver, and she felt frozen in the intense burning revealed in their silver-blue depths.

  The same oddly disturbing sensations began to stir in her loins, deep in the core of her womanhood, more intense than ever before. She swallowed hard as his gaze left her face and went slowly down to her bare shoulders, then even lower, to where her crossed arms hid the soft mounds of her naked breasts. Windsor shivered.

  "I declare, I believe I could use a bath myself," Sweet Sue murmured across the way, her voice low with sensuous promise. "What do you say, Kincaid?"

  "Suit yourself. There's plenty of room."

  Sweet Sue laughed and reached out to jerk the curtains together, effectively closing off Windsor's view of whatever was destined to transpire between them.

  Windsor bit her lip, at a loss for the deep sense of desolation wounding her heart. Stone Kincaid and Sweet Sue had lowered their voices, and Windsor strained to decipher the intimate murmurs coming from their hidden alcove. Water splashed and sloshed out until streams ran from beneath the curtains, and when Windsor heard Sweet Sue giggling, she knew the painted woman had joined Stone Kincaid in his bathtub.

  The unwanted image of that scene branded itself on Windsor's mind, and she could almost see Stone Kincaid's arms around Sweet Sue's plump white body, his mouth pressing down on her red-painted lips. Windsor began to feel quite ill. Upset, she thrust away thoughts of what they were doing, concentrating instead on the conversation Joanie was having with Sun-On-Wings in the cubicle behind her.

  "Brave warriors no need woman wash them." Sun-On-Wings sounded highly insulted.

  "Oh, c'mon, hon, don't be so stubborn 'bout it. It'll feel right good, you'll see. And just look, you're all cut up and bruised, and scratched all over. Good Lord, what's been happenin' to you anyways? Did a jealous woman get hold of you?"

  "No woman. Bear."

  "Oooh, you must be as brave as a king to fight a big old bear, as young as you are!"

  "Sun-On-Wings brave warrior, grown man. No need woman wash."

  More splashing followed, and Joanie's voice became soothing, sugary, and persuasive. "Now there, don't that feel good? See, it don't hurt one little bit to let me do that to you, now did it? I never had one man yet that didn't like me to help him with his bath. It feels good, don't it?"

  A short silence ensued before Sun-On-Wings gave his begrudging answer. "Feel good."

  "You sure do have a pretty head of hair," Shirley suddenly said to Windsor, interrupting her eavesdropping as she tilted Windsor's head back and began to rinse away the soap. "Wish I had yellow hair. All the customers like yellow hair the best."

  Windsor didn't answer, grateful that Shirley was being so kind. This was one custom that she understood well. In China, the wealthy households always had concubines and female servants to care for the needs of the males of the family. But Windsor was surprised that Sweet Sue sent Shirley to tend to Windsor's bath. Among the Chinese, only the first wife of the master would be so honored.

  10

  Stone sat at the bar, morosely clutching the handle of an empty beer mug. For the past hour he had been watching Windsor and Sun-On-Wings through the long narrow mirror in front of him. He fixed his eyes unflinchingly on where Sweet Sue had seated them at a corner table, where they could eat their dinner yet go unnoticed by the boisterous patrons of the Pleasure Palace. They sat quietly while all around them the saloon was becoming rowdier with rough scuffles and drunken arguments as the hour grew late.

  Since Stone's party had arrived in town, more miners had trekked down from the Ringnard, despite the inclement weather. Most had wasted no time in laying out their hard-earned coin for the well-heralded talents of Sweet Sue's girls, but several dozen were happy enough to remain in the taproom swilling whiskey and playing poker. Stone frowned. He had already had too much to drink, and he knew it. It was rare for him to imbibe at all, much less to guzzle liquor like a landbound sailor as he had done for most of the night. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time he had overindulged. He had always considered it a sign of weakness to crawl into a bottle for comfort, but tonight it hadn't seemed like such a bad idea. After he had bathed and shaved, he'd felt the need for a hefty dose of pleasure, and the brand Sweet Sue peddled so ably at the Palace had sounded damn good to him. He deserved it after all he had been through since the train was ambushed.

  Shoving his mug across the polished bar, he watched George, the barkeep, turn the spigot and fill the mug to the brim, then expertly blow off the head of foam before sliding it back to Stone. Getting drunk just might get Windsor Richmond off his mind for a while. Nothing else had worked to rid her from his thoughts, that was for damn sure. Now, with all the beer and whiskey he could down readily available, not to mention a highly desirable, skillful lover like Suzy willing and eager to please him, maybe he'd be able to forget her.

  Sweet Sue arrived and pressed up close against him, and underneath the counter, he felt her fingers close over his thigh. He looked at her as she slowly slid her palm higher. Stone smiled, lifting her other hand to his lips.

  Even as he did, his gaze strayed to Windsor, and despite the further liberties Sweet Sue was taking beneath the bar, his mind returned to the tantalizing vision of Windsor earlier that evening. She had looked so small and innocent sitting in the big bathtub across from him, and so beautiful she made a man's insides ache.

  Her hair had been wet and slicked back until it hugged her shoulders like a rich mantle of dark gold, and her white breasts had mounded above the water, soft and glistening with droplets, enticing him, tormenting him. It had been she, not Sweet Sue, whom he had wanted to pull into the tub with him. The urge had been so powerful, he'd had to consciously restrain himself from doing just that. Each time the girl named Shirley had touched Windsor's hair, Stone had watched with jealous eyes, coveting that pleasure for himself.

  Frowning, highly aggravated with himself, Stone threw back his head and methodically set about draining his mug to the bottom. She's a nun, a nun, for God's sake, he berated himself with vicious self-disgust. Why couldn't he get that thought through his head? Why couldn't he quit dreaming about holding her, touching her?

  Cursing his stupid obsession with the girl, he suddenly reached for Sweet Sue, pulling her to him and kissing her hard. Instantly, she pressed herself closer, rubbing her full breasts against his chest. Despite her ardent response, he released her almost at once and ordered another drink, resolving not to glance in Windsor's direction again.

  "So you want the little nun," Sweet Sue murmured, incredulity coloring her words. "And don't you dare deny it, darlin', 'cause I happen to know you too well. You've got the most god-awful lovelorn look on your face that I ever saw." She startled Stone by booming out a hearty laugh. "For shame, Kincaid. You're a naughty one, to be sure, lusting after a religious gal like her."

  Stone grinned. Sweet Sue was a good friend and perceptive as hell. "Yeah, you're right. And that's not even the worst part. She's not only an innocent nun, she's as crazy as the day is long. Not to mention the fact that she's nearly gotten me killed three times since I first laid eyes on her a month or so ba
ck."

  Sweet Sue's amusement faded, and she leaned her elbow against the bar, observing him as he took a sip of beer. "She is a rare beauty, I have to say. Though, even as pretty as she is, I never would've figured her for your type."

  Stone gave a derisive snort. "She's not anywhere close to my type. She's too weird. How many people do you know who carry wild monkeys around in their suitcases? Despite all that, I can't get her off my mind, no matter how hard I try." One end of his mouth curved up in a half grin as he caressed Sweet Sue's cheek with his thumb. "But now that I'm here with you, I'm counting on you to help me change all that."

  "Maybe," Sweet Sue answered, glancing at her young blond rival, "and maybe not. But I'll tell you one thing, I'm sure willin' to give it a hell of a good try."

  Stone smiled and out of the corner of his eye he saw Windsor and Sun-On-Wings rise from their chairs and move down the hall toward the bathhouse.

  "Good," he muttered to himself, "now I won't have to look at her. C'mon, Suzy, show me how much you missed me."

  He pulled her into his arms, eager for her full scarlet-painted lips to erase all his tormented thoughts of softer pink ones.

  Windsor glanced over her shoulder just as Stone Kincaid began pressing his mouth against the black-haired woman's lips. He had kissed the woman named Sweet Sue many times since they had left the bathhouse earlier that evening. He must like her very much, she thought, and was alarmed at how low she felt about that realization, how her heart lay heavy inside her breast, so hard and cold that it hurt her to breathe.

  The Old One had foreseen that her woman's body would betray her, that she would be tempted to lie with a man and give up her desire to reach fulfillment. She had not understood then, but she did now. And she hated it, because she could not control her body or her mind as she had always been able to do in the past. Clamping her jaw shut, she set about steeling her resolve, deciding then and there that she would subject herself to long, strenuous meditative trances in Order to seek the strength to resist the constant yearnings Stone Kincaid set on fire inside her.

  When she and Sun-On-Wings reached the bathing chamber, the room was deserted, but Sweet Sue had ordered several tubs to be pushed back so that narrow cots could be placed inside the cubicles nearest to the wood stoves. As they shut the door behind them, Jun-li swung down from the ceiling beams and hung by his tail, apparently tired of his lonely imprisonment in the small room. Sun-On-Wings knelt and fed the capuchin the handful of beans he had saved from his supper plate. Eager to perform the comforting lines of the ancient sutra, Windsor moved to the cot nearest the door.

  "I am tired. I must go to my bed."

  "Bed? What is bed?"

  "The white man sleeps upon soft racks such as this," she explained, sitting down on the thin mattress.

  Sun-On-Wings eyed the contraption, "Why need bed? Ground here warm and dry."

  Windsor shrugged. "It is their custom. In the Temple of the Blue Mountain, the priests and their disciples lie on simple mats upon the ground. But in the great households, there are padded couches for repose. I have seen them."

  "Sun-On-Wings need no rack. Sleep on buffalo robe," he told her, striding to the other end of the room and stretching out close beside the red-hot stove. Windsor watched Jun-li settle down beside the Indian youth, and feared her little capuchin friend had deserted her for his new companion.

  Exhaling a heavy breath, she drew the curtains together, then sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed. Once she had assumed the lotus position, she began to block out the music and loud conversation filtering to her from the saloon.

  Time passed, but she found concentration difficult. She felt too tired, too confused to subjugate her mind in the usual manner. Her inability to reach into herself alarmed her, for such a calamity had never happened before. Finally she gave up and stretched out on her back and stared up at the ceiling.

  Stone Kincaid was probably upstairs with Sweet Sue, she decided despondently. He would have taken the pretty white woman there, as she had seen so many of the miners do with the other women while she and Sun-On-Wings ate their supper. Briefly, and for the first time in her life, she pondered why women had been created for the pleasure of men. That was the way it was in all the far provinces of China, and that was the way it was here among the barbarians of the West. Women were born to serve men, to please them with their looks and their actions. Women were made to obey. Women were weak; men were strong. Women were yin, men were yang. But why?

  For long hours after she heard the soft whistle of Sun-On-Wings' snores, she lay still, her hands laced behind her head, contemplating ideas, new doubts, and questions that would have been alien for her conjecture before she had found Stone Kincaid in Chicago. Before he had come into her life, she had always slept calmly and deeply, without worry or plaguing dreams of men and women lying together in the carnal way. Now she rested uneasily, taking long to attain slumber and awakening often, as if she were waiting and longing for the impossible to happen.

  She tensed when she heard the door open. She sat up quickly as it banged against the wall. Shuffling noises informed her that someone had come into the room. Then Stone Kincaid's voice came from the other side of the canvas curtains, the low-pitched growl she was beginning to associate with his ire.

  "Where the hell are you, Windsor?"

  Surprised, she quickly rose, but her privacy curtains were swept back with a squeal of metal rings before she could speak. Stone Kincaid stood before her, obviously very drunk and very angry, his fists dug into his narrow hips. As he stared at her, the thunderous frown riding his brow gradually loosened into puzzlement.

  "Where the hell's the kid?"

  "He sleeps by the stove. You are too full of spirits to see him."

  "Damn right."

  Stone took a step toward her, staggered sideways, caught himself, then blearily tried to focus on her face. "Except that it doesn't work that way with you. You're always inside my head, making me think stupid things and do stupid things."

  Suddenly, with a quickness that surprised her considering his state of drunkenness, he reached out and grabbed her shoulders. Windsor could have easily evaded his grasp, but she did not try. She stood perfectly still as his long fingers tightened around her arms and drew her up toward him until her face was only inches from his own.

  "Tell me how to get you out of my mind," he whispered softly, his eyes examining her face, his breath strong with the odor of beer. He pushed her backward, forcing her to sit down on the cot. Then he went to his knees, leaning against her until his chest pinned her back to the bed.

  Windsor's heart went wild, thudding, skipping beats, then racing out of control. Afraid of her own response to what he was doing, she lay unmoving beneath him as he threaded his fingers into the hair at her temples, holding her face still while he spoke to her in a low and tortured whisper.

  "I put my hands in Suzy's hair, just like this, and I kissed her mouth and held her body, and I didn't feel a thing. All I thought about was you. I wanted her to be you, damn you."

  Then his lips came down on hers, hard and eager, hotly, forcefully scattering any rational thoughts she tried to garner, warming her body until an alien sound was torn from her throat, a moan of both pleasure and despair. But her muffled cry seemed to inflame Stone Kincaid, and his fingers probed at the front of her silk tunic, pulling loose the shoulder tie enough to slide his hand inside against her naked flesh. At the same time, his lips sought the side of her throat, and she groaned helplessly, squeezing her eyes shut, breathless, intoxicated by what his lips were doing to her body as he pulled her top down so he could see her breasts.

  Stone suddenly pulled back. Breathless, Windsor watched him stare down at her with burning eyes as he jerked open the front of his shirt; then he was pressing his chest against her, his black chest hair crisp and rough against her bare skin. He was panting hard and gripping her tightly, one hand clenched in her hair, the other sliding down over her bare stomach into the waistband of h
er silk trousers. He cupped her hips, bringing her violently up off the bed and clamping her against the hardness of his loins while he leaned back his head and groaned with pleasure.

  "Nun no have man."

  Sun-On-Wings' accusing words came from right beside them. Windsor's eyes flew open, and Stone lunged off her and to the floor on the side of the cot, his Colt out of the holster and in his hand. The Osage youth stood his ground, staring defiantly at him. The shock of the moment seemed to sober Stone a bit, and he scowled blackly as he resheathed his revolver.

  "You're gonna get yourself shot someday, sneakin' up on a man like that," he warned the boy in slurred speech. He transferred his fury to Windsor, who had weakly pushed herself upright on the bed, and shakily righted her clothes. "And you, you stay away from me, you hear?" he muttered hoarsely. "I mean it. I don't need you. I don't want you. Suzy's upstairs waiting for me right now."

  He proceeded toward the door in an unsteady gait, but halfway there, he changed course and collapsed facedown on one of the cots. He muttered angrily for a moment, then lay still, both arms hanging over the sides. Windsor and Sun-On-Wings eyed him for a moment, then looked at each other.

  "White man's firewater bad medicine," the boy said, making the feathers in his scalp lock dance as he shook his head. "Arrow-Parts-Hair not act right."

  Windsor took a deep breath and nodded. "The best cure for drunkenness is while sober to see a drunken man," she quoted with conviction, then moved to where Stone Kincaid lay in peaceful oblivion. With effort, she tugged an old patchwork quilt out from where it was neatly folded under his legs and used it to cover him. She pulled shut the curtains around his bed before returning to her own cot.