Black Hills Badman (13 page)

Fargo hiked at her doeskin. It fit so tight that getting it high enough took some doing.

Sweet Flower grew impatient. She pushed him back, sat up, and quickly shed the dress over her head. Carefully placing it next to them, she laid back down and spread her arms.

“I am bare-assed naked,” she said proudly.

“You are still wearing moccasins,” Fargo teased, and damned if she didn’t sit back up and take them off.

“There. Now I am bare-assed naked, yes?”

“As bare-assed as bare-assed can be.”

Sweet Flower grinned and plucked at his buckskins. “Now it is your turn. You must be bare-assed naked too.”

Fargo envisioned being caught with his britches off by some unfriendly warriors. “How about if I just take off my shirt?”

“It would not be right for you to wear clothes when I am bare-assed naked,” Sweet Flower replied. “If you will not be bare-assed naked with me, I will put my dress back on and go.”

Fargo proceeded to strip. He made it a point to put his gun belt within easy reach. As he turned to Sweet Flower, she placed her hands on his chest.

“This is strange.”

“What is?”

“You have a lot of hair on your head and a lot of hair on your face but you do not have much on your body.”

Fargo sighed. “Hair and bare-assed naked. Next you will want to talk about flying pigs.”

“Pigs? I am sorry. I do not understand. I have seen pigs. They do not have much hair. All they have is skin. Does that make them bare-assed naked? Or can only people be bare-assed naked? And how can they fly when they do not have wings? I am confused.”

“Shoot me now and put me out of my misery.”

“Sorry? You are hurting?”

“Only between my ears.” Fargo kissed her before she could say anything else. He hoped that was the end of the hair business but when he slid his mouth lower and nuzzled her neck, her hand found his manhood and groped around it as if she were searching for something. Then she giggled.

“You do not have much hair there, either.”

“Please tell me we are done with hair.”

“What you do have is soft and crinkly like my own.”

“God in heaven.”

“God? That is the white word for the Great Mystery. I do not think the Great Mystery has hair.”

Fargo rose onto an elbow and cupped her chin. “Sweet Flower?” he said softly.

“Yes?”

“Say the word hair one more time and you can make love to yourself.”

“You sound upset.”

“I am, as the whites would say, pissed, and when a man is pissed, it spoils his mood.” Fargo went to kiss her.

“I am sorry I pissed you. I have never made love to a white man and I do not know how white men like to do it.”

“Without talking. We like to make love to women who keep their mouths shut the whole time.”

“Even when we kiss? What if I want to suck on your tongue?”

“One. Two. Three. Four—”

“Why are you counting?”

“I need the practice. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.” Fargo stared at her.“Well?”

“Well what?”

“Is there anything else perfectly stupid you would like to say?”

“But you just told me to keep quiet so I do not piss you. I wish you would make up your mind how you want me to be. I am confused.”

Enough was enough. Fargo spread her legs and eased onto his knees between them. He touched the tip of his pole to her slit. Then, without any other foreplay, he rammed up into her. “Piss this.”

Sweet Flower came up off the grass with her back in a bow and her luscious lips parted wide. She grabbed him by the back of his head, pulled his face to hers, and gave him a kiss the likes of which few women ever had. Her hands were everywhere, exploring, kneading, caressing.

Now this was more like it, Fargo thought. He pinched a nipple and nipped her earlobe. He sculpted her other breast. All while he rocked on his knees and slowly thrust his hips.

Sweet Flower moaned. She cooed. She breathed molten air. Her nails dug into his shoulders deep enough to draw drops of blood. Her legs rose and her ankles locked behind him.

Fargo took his time. He was in no rush to get back to camp now that he knew the senator’s party wasn’t in any danger. It had surprised him that the Lakotas would even think of signing a peace treaty, but stranger things had happened.

A loud moan from Sweet Flower signaled her release. Her eyelids fluttered and she churned her bottom.

Her climax was an earthquake that shook Fargo to his core and set off his own eruption. He rammed into her again and again, pounding her until he had no energy left to do more than sink down on top of her and rest his cheek on her breasts. He closed his eyes.

After a while Sweet Flower asked, “Did I make you happy?”

“You would make any man happy.”

Sweet Flower smiled and playfully pulled at his beard. “This tickled me. I almost laughed a few times.”

Fargo didn’t care to get her started on hair again so he didn’t respond.

“If I ask you for a favor, will you do it?”

Half dreading it would be something silly, Fargo said, “That depends on the favor.”

“I still want to see the white woman and her child. I heard Little Face and the one called Owen mention them. I would like to see the kind of clothes they wear and how they do their hair.”

Fargo was more interested in something else. “They were talking and not using sign language? I did not know Little Face speaks the white tongue.”

“The one called Owen speaks Lakota.”

This was news to Fargo, too. Owen must have had previous dealings with the Sioux. “Where did you hear them talk?”

“They were in Little Face’s lodge. I only heard a little. It is not polite to listen outside lodges.”

“How do your people feel about the treaty?”

“The what?”

“A man has come from the Great White Father to talk peace with the Lakotas. The White Father wants the Sioux to sign a paper that says the Sioux will never again kill another white.”

“No one told me this. All I heard them talk about was the—” Sweet Flower stopped, and stiffened.

Fargo looked up. She was staring over his shoulder at something behind him. He twisted to see what she was seeing—and his gut balled into a knot.

Not ten feet away stood several warriors. Two had arrows nocked to their bowstrings, the strings pulled back, the shafts ready to fly.

The third warrior was Little Face, the Lakota who hated him.

Fargo went to reach for his Colt.

“Touch it and die, white dog.”

Fargo froze. He didn’t doubt the threat would be carried out. The two warriors with Little Face looked eager to sink their arrows into him.

Sweet Flower shifted from under him. “What is the meaning of this?”

“I saw you follow the white men who came to our village,” Little Face said in his usual flinty tone. He wore his buffalo robe, and his face was pinched in displeasure. A small face, it was, much too small for a man his size, which was why he had the name he did. “I came after you to find out why, daughter.”

Fargo was flabbergasted. He glanced from her to Little Face and back again and didn’t see any resemblance at all.

“I asked Long Forelock and Bear Loves to come with me and help me stop you,” Little Face had gone on. “I have planned for too long to have you ruin things.”

“I wanted to see the white woman,” Sweet Flower said.

Little Face grunted. “Instead I find you lying with the white man I most want dead.” He glared at Fargo. “We meet again, He Who Walks Many Trails. I have waited a long time for this.”

Sweet Flower gave a start. “
This
white man is the one you always talk about? The one you want to kill so much?”

“You did not know?”

“I did not see him when he came to our village that time. I was with Left Handed Buffalo then, remember?” Sweet Flower calmly picked up her dress. “I am sorry to lie with your enemy, Father.”

“That you would lie with
any
white man saddens me. You know how I feel about them.”

“I was curious.”

Little Face sighed. “Your mother was the same way. She tested my patience just as you do.”

“I miss her,” Sweet Flower said.

“I miss her, too. She was a brave woman. She took a Blackfoot arrow meant for me.” Little Face stared at Fargo. “I wanted a white woman to take her place but this one persuaded the council to let her go back to her people.”

Fargo finally found his voice. “Tell your daughter why you wanted a white wife.”

“Why did you, Father?” Sweet Flower asked.

Little Face’s smile was positively vicious. “So I could treat her as she deserved. Every day I would beat her. Every day I would kick her and spit on her. Every day she would wish she could die but I would not let her. It would have given me great pleasure.”

Something occurred to Fargo. “If you hate whites so much, why did you agree to talk peace with them?”

Little Face squatted, his dark eyes glittering with delight. “Do you truly think I would? Knowing me as you do?”

“No.”

“You know me well.” Little Face grinned. “I will tell you why I have agreed to meet this Kee-ver. But first.” He turned to his daughter. “Go back to our village and wait in our lodge. We will talk when I am done here.”

Fargo saw that she had put her dress on. He thought maybe she would say something on his behalf but she didn’t even look at him.

“As you wish, Father. Again, I am sorry.”

“I am disappointed. But you did not know. Now go. I have much to do.”

Sweet Flower put a hand on Little Face’s shoulder. “Be careful, Father.” With that, she was gone, sprinting off through the trees.

Little Face turned back to Fargo. “Life holds many surprises, does it not? You did not guess that you are here because of me.”

“I must have missed something?”

“Heed me. Listen and learn, for you do not have long to live.” Little Face was enjoying himself. “I have hated you since you took the white woman from me. I would have killed you that night for asking the council to spare her but you have too many friends among the Lakota. They would be angry with me.”

Fargo glanced at Long Forelock and Bear Loves, hoping they would lower their bows so he could try for his Colt.

“I had to swallow my anger. I had to hold my hate inside and let you ride from our village. But I vowed to have my revenge. I spent many long nights thinking how to do it. I needed to lure you back without you knowing it was me who lured you.”

“You speak with two tongues. I am not here because of you. I was hired to guide the man the Father of all the whites sent to talk peace with the Lakotas.”

“Who do you think got word to this man asking him to come? Who do you think suggested he ask you to be his guide?”

Fargo wasn’t buying it. “You still speak with two tongues. How could you know to contact Senator Keever?” He had to use the English words since there were no Lakota words for “senator’ or “Keever.” “How would you get word to him?” Even as he asked, the answer hit him with the force of a physical blow.

“The one called Owen went to this Kee-ver for me. It was Owen who told Kee-ver that you should be his guide. Owen did so because I asked him to. I led him to think you were my friend.”

The sheer deviousness of Little Face’s scheme began to sink in. “You son of a bitch,” Fargo said in English.

Little Face laughed. “You are mad. Good. You will be even madder when I tell you the rest.” He folded his arms across his knees. “My inviting this Kee-ver to talk peace came to me in a vision.”

Fargo kept glancing at the other two. But, damn them, they held their bows steady.

“I have counted coup on whites,” Little Face rambled on. “Many Lakotas have. Yet no matter how many we kill, more keep coming to our land. They do not fear us as they should, as our other enemies do, and I want the whites to fear us. I want them to fear us so much, they will never set foot in Sioux country again.”

“Nothing you can do would make them fear you that much. They will think nothing of it.”

“In my vision I saw differently. In my vision I saw a pack of wolves trying to bring down a bull elk. The elk gored them with its antlers and kicked them with its hooves. But no matter how many it hurt or killed, the wolves did not give up. They kept coming, again and again.”

Fargo waited. There would be a point to this. There was always a point to a vision.

“Then the leader of the pack leaped at the elk’s throat and the elk caught the wolf on its antlers and pinned it to the ground and an antler pierced its heart and it died. Do you know what happened next?”

Fargo refused to answer.

“The rest of the wolves went away. Their leader was dead and they gave up the fight. Do you understand? Do you see what that meant?”

“I am sure you will tell me.”

“The bull elk was my people. The wolves were white men. For the white men to go away and not bother my people, we must kill one of their leaders. We must kill a man high in their councils, a man they all know, so that when they hear he is dead, it will fill them with fear and they will stay away from our land.” Little Face smiled smugly.

The devil of it was, Fargo reflected, that killing a United States senator
would
create quite a stir. Every newspaper in the country would carry the story. People would be more fearful than ever of venturing into Sioux territory. “Why did you pick Keever?”

“I asked Owen to tell me who was great in white councils. He could only think of a few, which surprised me.” Little Face uttered a snort of disgust. “I have always known whites are stupid, but to not know their own leaders. When I asked Owen how this could be, he told me that he had no interest in what whites call . . .” He stopped, his brow furrowed as he tried to recall the word.