A Horse Called Mogollon (Floating Outfit Book 3) (3 page)

With the blind impulsiveness of
a young man in love, Colin gave small thought to the enormity of
the task he set himself. While Felix Machado and the other
mesteneros
had taught him much
about their trade, adding to his inherited flair for
horse-management, he could not pretend to know the mustanging
business as thoroughly as had Jeanie’s recently-dead
father.

If Trader Schell, rated by many as the
best mustanger in Texas, had failed to find a way to capture
Mogollon, it seemed unlikely that Colin could hope to do better.
Yet the challenge of the situation aroused his fighting Scottish
blood. Just as the knights of old went to perform difficult tasks
to satisfy their ladies, so Colin intended to make the capture and
training of Mogollon his quest.

Returning to his waiting horse, Colin
silently swore by all the sacred oaths of the Clan Farquharson that
Jeanie would own and ride Mogollon on the day she became his
bride.

The
man who had recently quit Beatrice,
the
Vicomtesse,
de Brioude’s bed was not her husband. Watching the door
close hurriedly behind him, she smiled and rose languidly from the
mattress which had served as a love—or lust—couch.

Five foot eight in height,
the
Vicomtesse
had a marvelous body. The black silk tights she drew on
clung to her magnificently developed legs and hips like a second
skin. Above them, her waist swooped in and her stomach showed not
an ounce of surplus fat. Then her nacreous torso widened to
accommodate two melon-like breasts which jutted forward so firmly
that their nipples pointed to the front. Topping the voluptuous
body, she had a full-lipped, sultry, beautiful face framed by
shoulder-long black hair.

Directing her languorous gaze
towards the door, Beatrice gave an annoyed sniff. Instead of
concentrating on the pleasure at hand, her
bedmate had spent the past hour
worrying about the
Vicomte
coming and catching them; ignoring her repeated claim that
Arnaud would never leave a card game until it ended. Taken with his
inexperience—pathetically juvenile considering he was over twenty
years old—1st Lieutenant Charles Lebel’s concern that Arnaud would
return had tended to make their liaison far less satisfactory than
she had hoped. On being allowed to rise, he had hurriedly climbed
into his uniform and almost fled from the hotel room.

Without adding to her attire,
she crossed to the window and looked down at the dusty,
wheel-rutted main street of Fort Sawyer. She liked little of what
she saw. Brownsville had been dull and boring enough, but her
present location was even worse. A chuckle broke from her as she
saw Lebel leave the hotel. With such a French sounding name, he
ought to have been a far better lover. P
erhaps, as he was to command the de
Brioudes’ military escort during their hunting expedition, she
might be able to help him improve his technique. Tall, dark-haired,
handsome, he had a fine, virile body under his uniform. Certainly
he was the best prospect of all the men who would be accompanying
herself and her husband.

Watching Lebel cross the street,
Beatrice chuckled even more. He had drawn up and knotted his yellow
bandana to conceal the marks left on his neck by her teeth. Then
the chuckle died away as she noticed something which jolted her
attention from the young officer.

‘
Mon
Dieu!’
breathed the
Vicomtesse,
but the tone and the glow that sprang into her
eyes was neither pious nor reverent. ‘Now there is a
real
man.’

Probably the same sentiments
would have occurred to the majority of women: even if they did
not
utter
them with such heartfelt vehemence and immediately start to plan
how to lure the man who had attracted the comment into
bed.

Striding by Lebel, the object of
the
Vicomtesse’s
attention exceeded the lieutenant’s six foot by a good
three inches. Under a white Stetson, its band decorated by silver
conchas, curly golden-blond hair topped a tanned, classically
handsome face. A tight-rolled blue silk bandana dangled its long
ends down a tan shirt that, like his brown Levi’s trousers, had
been made to his measure. That tremendously wide-shouldered,
lean-waisted giant frame could not have been clothed so perfectly
from the shelves of a general store. His trousers’ legs hung
outside fancy-stitched high-heeled boots produced by the same
masterly hands which had made his gun belt. Of brown leather, the
latter carried a brace of ivory-handled Army Colts, in the
fast-draw holsters tied low on his thighs.

Gripped in his left hand by its
horn, a heavy range saddle bearing his
bedroll, a coiled rope and a booted
rifle, rested upon his right shoulder as if it weighed five rather
than over fifty pounds. Eagerly Beatrice’s eyes roamed over him,
stripping away his clothing in her imagination and feasting her
gaze on the immensely powerful body that must surely lie beneath
them.

With a sense of ecstatic elation
she observed that the blond giant was turning and walking towards
the building in which she stood. For the first time since her
arrival, she
found herself regarding Fort Sawyer’s finest hotel with
something like favor. A dandy-dresser like that handsome blond
would certainly make use of the place if he planned to stay in the
town. Which meant that she would be saved the trouble of going to
find him and could all the quicker come down to serious
matters.

In a fever of eagerness,
anticipation and excitement, Beatrice ran to the bed and started to
dress. A glance in the
dressing table’s mirror told her that she needed
to give her face some attention. With the adjustments made, she
slipped into a white silk blouse, feeling its cool embrace against
her naked torso and leaving its flounced front open just a shade
lower than could be termed decorous. A divided skirt of soft
doeskin came next, ending just below the tops of her calf-high
black riding boots. To emphasize the slender contours of her waist
and set off her hips and bust to their best advantage, she drew
tight the decorative silver buckle of a wide black leather belt.
Deftly she adjusted a scarlet silk band about the rear of her head
to hold her glossy hair tight behind her ears then allow it to
dangle loose on her shoulders. Finally she donned a pair of black
leather riding-gloves to hide her wedding ring from the blond’s
view.

Satisfied that she presented a
picture no red-blooded man could ignore, Beatrice left her room.
When the big blond failed to appear in the passage, she went down
the stairs. Preparing to give a cough, or some equally
attention-drawing sound, she came into sight of the entrance hall
and its reception desk. What she saw brought her to a halt and
tightened her full lips into angry lines. While she had been
dressing, it appeared that another woman had beaten her to her
quarry. Not, the
Vicomtesse
told herself, that the other would be a serious challenge
as a rival.

Two inches shorter than
Beatrice, and at least ten years older, the woman had shortish,
curly blonde hair. If the
Vicomtesse
had been charitably inclined, she would have
admitted that the other carried her age well. Her face was
good-looking showing strength of will and a sense of humor in its
lines. Although firm-fleshed and without flabby fat, the gingham
dress worn by the blonde did nothing to help her buxom
figure.

Making sure that she did not
come into sight of the desk, Beatrice listened to what was being
said at it. Much to her
delight, she saw the chubby, jovial clerk handing
over two room keys, but his words robbed her of most of her
pleasure.

‘
Seventeen for you, Mrs. Schell, and I’ll put you in
Fifteen, Mr. Counter.’

While that placed the giant four
doors from the de Brioudes
’ rooms, the buxom blonde would be between them.
Beatrice’s hope that the woman would be his mother ended and her
thought that they might be strangers faded away.

‘
I saw
you bringing them hosses in this morning,’ the clerk continued.
‘They looked a real fine bunch.’

‘
Good
enough,’ Mrs. Schell answered cheerfully. ‘What do you say,
Mark?’

‘
Why sure,
Libby,’ replied the blond giant, in a deep voice that sent shivers
of anticipation through the listening
Vicomtesse.
‘They’re real good.’

‘
Too
good for a bunch of Yankee fly-slicers,’ sniffed the
clerk.

‘
Maybe,’ Libby Schell said. ‘But they’re paying cash money
for ’em, ’stead of notes-of-hand on cattle that can’t be sold ’cept
for hide and tallow.’

‘
Likely,’ admitted the clerk, knowing that the Schell family
had supplied horses to more than one rancher who could only promise
to pay in cattle. ‘Front!’

A bellhop darted from the rear of the
building. Like almost every boy in Texas, he wanted to be a cowhand
and could recognize a magnificent example of that hard-riding,
hard-playing fraternity when one stood before him. So he studied
Mark Counter with an air of hero-worship.

Although Mark would achieve
considerable prominence as a member of Ole Devil
Hardin
’s
floating outfit, at that time he was practically unknown. During
the War, he had been a 1st lieutenant in Bushrod Sheldon’s cavalry
and his taste in uniforms had brought him into conflict with
numerous senior officers. He had gained a reputation as a peerless
bare hand fighter, possessed Herculean strength and could handle
his matched Army Colts with considerable precision. Due to his
being so much in Dusty Fog’s company, he would never receive his
full acclaim as a gun fighter. Dusty always declared that Mark ran
him a close second in matters
pistole
ro.

Son of a wealthy Big Bend ranch
owner, Mark had helped
Dusty and the Kid on the important mission in
Mexico. Like the Kid, he had accepted the Rio Hondo gun wizard’s
offer of employment. Guessing that being a member of the floating
outfit would offer opportunities for good companionship, fun and
excitement, he had decided against going home. There were two older
brothers at the R-over-C, so his presence would not be required. A
top hand in all aspects of cattle-work, Mark had proved an asset to
the OD Connected.

Suddenly the
bellhop
’s
eyes swiveled from Mark to the stairs. Following the direction of
the boy’s gaze, Libby, Mark and the clerk looked to where Beatrice
made her appearance. Ignoring the frank, adolescent scrutiny of the
bellhop and the clerk’s equally thorough study, the
Vicomtesse
made a hip-swiveling
promenade to the desk. While she took pleasure in having males of
any age looking at her with approval, she had bigger fish to fry.
Directing a quick, suggestive glance from under her eyelashes at
Mark, she turned her gaze to the clerk.

‘
Could
you please tell me,
m’sieur,
if I can hire a horse to go riding?’

‘
Sure
can, ma’am,’ the clerk replied, hardly able to tear his eyes from
where Beatrice’s nipples made twin hillocks against the material of
the blouse. ‘Go to the livery barn across the street. You can’t
miss it.’

‘
Will
the horse be trustworthy,
m’sieur?’
the
Vicomtesse
continued, flashing a radiant smile at Mark. ‘I
mean, one I can manage without difficulty.’

If it was possible for five foot eight
inches of lascivious femininity to look and sound fragile, or in
need of protection from the evils of the outside world, Beatrice
came close to doing it. Unfortunately the clerk ruined the whole
effect.

‘
How
about your husband, ma’am?’

‘
My
husband?’ countered Beatrice, trying to make it sound like the
clerk had made a mistake about her marital status.

Although he sensed that somehow
he had said the wrong thing, the clerk went on,
‘Ain’t he going riding with you,
ma’am?’

Ever since the gorgeous woman
had made her appearance, Libby Schell had been watching her.
Studying the by-play without showing any noticeable interest in it,
the
blonde
waited to see which way it was going. Despite having married young
and spent much of her life roaming the Texas range country with her
husband, she had acquired considerable knowledge of human nature.
So she recognized Beatrice as being a walking mantrap and admitted
that the beautiful foreigner was supplied with a perfect bait for
the prey.

Libby glanced at Mark, guessing
that he was the one Beatrice
’s words had been aimed at. Like the clerk and
bellhop, the blond giant examined the newcomer with considerable
enthusiasm.

‘
Well,’
Libby mused. ‘If Mark can’t handle hisself around a married woman,
he deserves all the grief he’s likely to—’