Apache Caress (7 page)

With an abrupt curse, he swung her up into his arms, carried her back to the fire. “You’re right; I don’t know why I don’t let you go or kill you. You are more trouble than you’re worth!”

Sierra felt her heart squeeze with fear, but she managed to keep silent. Maybe he wanted her to beg for mercy. She was just stubborn enough to decide she wouldn’t. Maybe she wasn’t a mild little mouse after all.

He set her down on a blanket near the fire, tied her ankles together. His hands felt hot on her bare skin. Then he took a deep breath and stood up, looking down at her. She had a feeling he was fighting an urge to throw himself down on her and use her body until he was sated. Finally he tossed a blanket over her and lay down next to her on another.

“With autumn coming on, it may get chilly tonight,” Sierra said, dreading the cold, long night.

. “In that case, you’re welcome to share my blanket,” he barked and turned his back to her.

As Sierra tried to get comfortable with her hands bound behind her, she stared at his powerful back. Even under the shirt, the ropy muscles were evident. She’d seen old scars. No doubt he had survived many a fight. At least she hadn’t been raped . . . yet. He didn’t intend to let her go; she could sense the change in him just since they had camped.

It must have been nearly dawn when Sierra half awakened, shivering in the chill air. She felt heat radiating near her and snuggled closer to it. As she drifted back off to sleep, she was only dimly aware that strength enveloped her and pulled her into a circle of warmth. Feeling oddly safe and secure, she drifted back to sleep.

Lieutenant Quimby Gillen awakened just before dawn, stretched and wondered where he was.

Oh, yeah. Trixie’s bed. With a grin, he rolled over and rising up on one elbow, looked down at the sleeping, naked girl. The tart wasn’t half bad. Too bad Robert wasn’t here so they could enjoy her together like they’d done that Apache girl.

Gill lay on his back, listening to Trixie snore and remembering that night last summer. For the next weeks, both officers had almost gone crazy, listening for a footstep behind them. Maybe Cholla didn’t know, but on the other hand, their nerves were raw, thinking he might be stalking them, just waiting for the right time to make his move....

“Blast!” Gillen rattled the little paper bag as he took out a lemon drop. He crunched down on the candy. “This is about to drive me loco, wonderin’ if Cholla knows and if he’s just waitin’ for the right time to take revenge.”

“Maybe he’s not as smart as you give him credit for.” Robert shook his head and sipped his whiskey. “Even so, we go on lots of dangerous patrols. Maybe on one of them our Injun scout is liable to get shot and killed, and who’s to say the hostiles didn’t do it?”

“Sergeant Mooney would never let you get away with it.”

“That damned Injun lover!” Robert gulped his drink, wiped his mouth. “He and that Lieutenant Gatewood are loyal to General Crook. I won’t feel safe ’til both of them get transferred out of Arizona.” His pale turquoise-colored eyes gleamed. “Besides, it’s only fair. My big sister Emily was raped by Injuns more than twenty years ago, and she’s been crazy as a loco weed-eating horse ever since.”

“Was they Apaches?”

“Naw, Comanches. But Injuns are Injuns.” Robert brushed the shock of blondish hair back. “Emily was ugly as a mud fence anyway–and fat too. No man in Austin would have married her, even with all our family’s money.”

Robert Forester had everything Gill envied; money, family, connections. And he looked out for Gill, too, just like Gill’s brother had.

Gill offered the bag of candy to the Texan, but Robert shook his head. “How can you eat that damned stuff continually?”

“My old man owned a store and never let me have any out of the jars on the shelves. I always said when I had my own money, I’d buy all I wanted.”

“The height of ambition,” the elegant officer commented, and Gill wondered if he was being laughed at.

“If we ever find that Apache gold, Robert, we’ll have all the women and liquor and candy we want.”

“If Cholla doesn’t get us before we get him first!”

“Gill honey? You’re talkin’ in your sleep.”

With a start, Gill sat straight up in Trixie’s bed, looked around. Bright sunshine streamed in the window and across the stained wallpaper. “Oh, blast. I must have dozed off. I’ve got to get back to the bridge.” He gave her a long, searching look. “Did I say anything?”

“About what?”

“Never mind. I got to go see what’s happening.”

“It ain’t that late, and you checked with the corporal at midnight. There wasn’t nothin’ happenin’.”

“That’s probably true. Cholla ain’t loco enough to try to get across the river at the biggest city on this end of the river.” Trixie was right. If anyone spotted the Injun, someone would come to tell him. And the tracker dogs would be here late tomorrow. Then the Army would start looking in earnest. So far, the government had managed to keep it out of the newspapers, so the citizens wouldn’t panic.

He got up and dressed hurriedly. “I’ll be back.”

Trixie beamed at him from the rumpled bed. “I just knew you was the right one, Gill. I’m gonna tell my other patron today that I’m finished with him and all his big talk about gettin’ me into show business. I’m gonna end up singin’ in San Francisco, right?”

“Sure, honey, sure.” He reached for his hat, made sure he had a little bag of candy in his jacket. Singing. He had better uses for that talented little mouth–and so would that bunch of eager troopers around the fort.

Gill found himself actually whistling as he went down the stairs. Blast, he would have a hard time paying for her train ticket, but he could consider it an investment, just like any businessman. Once he got Trixie out to Arizona, he’d keep her on her back, working until she had calluses there. What Robert hadn’t lived to do, his buddy would do. At least that thought kept him from worrying about what was gonna happen to his Army career over that damned Apache’s escape.

Gill yawned as he approached the patrol. “Anything new, Corporal?”

Young Finney looked exhausted as he saluted. “Nothing at all, sir. The men are tired of this duty.”

“Can’t blame them for that.” Gill flagged down a carriage and waved the occupants out. He loved annoying and inconveniencing his betters. “Maybe when the dogs get here they’ll scent out where that Injun jumped from the train. At any rate, maybe the brass will send us somewhere to look besides this damned bridge!”

Trixie spent the day practicing her scales and sipping patent medicine. She liked the feeling of well-being she got from the stuff; it was better than getting drunk. Besides, she had promised her preacher father that she would not touch whiskey. Medicine was not the same thing.

She was excited about going West. She’d sensed that her present gentleman was growing weary of her and now sometimes made excuses not to see her. Besides that, he was always afraid to take Trixie anyplace, afraid his wife might see them together and his powerful father-in-law would come down on him with a vengeance. Trixie knew more about the family than her patron did. Some of it she was sure would shock him. Anyway, her gentleman friend wasn’t doing anything to help Trixie’s career. Just like in bed, he promised more than he delivered.

Trixie waited until late afternoon, almost time for the business to close. She got dressed up, complete with a big picture hat. Looking in the mirror, she knew she looked just like the Cameo girl. She took a big swig of patent medicine, went downstairs and out onto the street.

In the distance, she could see the patrol still stopping traffic on the bridge. This evening Gill might come by, and she wanted to be able to tell him she had made a clean break with her other patron and was free to go West.

Trixie went around to the building’s side entrance and walked down the hall unnoticed. A few minutes ‘til three o’clock, almost closing time, and not many people around. She opened the door of his private office. “Hello, sweet.”

Otto Toombs looked up from the pile of mail before him, frowned, and resumed slitting a letter with a brass opener. “I’ve told you before not to come to the bank. Suppose my wife should happen in or one of my worthless brother-in-laws-or my father-in-law decides he needs to go over some figures with me?”

Trixie thought about it a minute, decided there was no point in telling Otto that several other members of Otto’s family still paid for the pleasure of her company now and then. “I just needed to see you, Otto. Don’t worry, there ain’t hardly nobody in the bank, and nobody seen me come in; I made sure of that.”

“Trixie, if you are ever going to make it as a big time entertainer, you need to improve your grammar.” He frowned and pushed back his chair, stood up.

“I can remember when you didn’t pay no attention to the way I talked.” She batted her eyes at him, came around the desk. While she was here, maybe she could get a little traveling money.

The paunchy man laughed. “You hot little bitch! I sometimes forget between-times how talented you are!”

Somewhat mollified, she went into his arms, looked down at the things on his desk. “What’s that?”

“Oh, this?” He picked up the bloody, dirty, red rag. “Damned if I know. Something I picked up off the table at the Forester place when I was out there yesterday.” He tossed it back on the desk.

Trixie pressed her generous breasts against his vest. “I could use a little money, Otto.”

“You’ve been hitting that cocaine stuff again, haven’t you? Trixie, I told you that stuff’ll kill you, I don’t care if everyone is singing its praises.”

She sulked as she sat down on the edge of his desk. “Does that mean old Hiram won’t give you no pocket money?”

His florid face turned a shade darker and he scowled at her. “Don’t rub that in, Trixie. Someday you’ll go too far. Here.” He took a silver circle out of his pocket, tossed it to her.

“What’s this?” Trixie turned it over in her hand, examining it before tucking it safely in her purse.

“I’m not sure what it is.” The banker shrugged. “Looks like a piece of jewelry or something. Something else I picked up out of the dirt behind the barn at the Forester place; looks like there was some kind of scuffle there. Maybe it’s an old Spanish coin or something. There’s always been tales about that crazy old Hungarian hiding money on the farm. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t give the widow an extension on the note; I aim to find out.”

She grinned at him and lit a cigarette. “Why did I think it was because you was tryin’ to put that girl in a spot where she needed money bad enough to do
anything
for it?”

“Now, Trixie, she’s a hero’s widow.” He fingered the diamond stickpin in his tie. “I’ll admit I offered her a job cleaning around the bank offices.”

She laughed coldly. “Otto, you’re all heart.”

He pulled her to him, put his hand on the swell of her breast. “Since you’re here, Trixie . . .” His voice trailed off as he put his mouth over hers, pushed his tongue in deep. “You got time . . . you know what I like. . . .”

She knew what he liked, all right. When he was in Trixie’s bed, he liked to pretend Trixie was the elegant Julia Griswold Toombs. Then he did things to Trixie he would no doubt like to do to his wife and didn’t dare.

“Trixie, please, you know how cold my wife is–”

“Is she?” She was baiting him.

“I’ve told you enough times. She never lets me touch her; cold as a corpse, that one.”

She pulled away from him. “I’ve often wondered why that elegant beauty agreed to marry you.”

“Her father hurried her into it.” He looked at the pile of mail on his desk and sighed. “I wasn’t naive enough to believe the fancy Griswolds would want a man who made his money off slaughterhouses in their blue-blooded family.”

“Aren’t they originally from Philadelphia?” She smoked and thought about the elegant Julia. “I see her going by with her old man or brothers every once in a while, in that fancy carriage with the matched black horses.”

Otto nodded and pursed his mouth. “At first, I thought there was some scandal attached to her, like maybe she was expecting a baby, but she’d never let a man do enough to get her in a family way. Would you believe I had to rape her on our wedding night? I told her I had a legal right to her body and she spat in my face.”