Cheyenne Captive (30 page)

“You’re hurting me!” she complained, looking regretfully at his body. He was built like a big, powerful grizzly bear and there were gray hairs in the mat on his chest. She thought of Iron Knife’s hairless, rippling muscles.

“I’m gonna hurt you a lot more before I’m through,” he promised fiercely as he threw her down on the bed. “I like to hurt women when I love ’em. It makes it better somehow. I like it even better when they hurt me!”

She started to argue, but he was already on top of her. Jerking her legs apart, he pushed her knees up to her shoulders and rammed into her like a big, snorting buffalo bull. He dug his fingers into her shoulders, hurting her but giving him more leverage as he pushed her knees still higher. His tongue was hot in her mouth and she whimpered. That seemed to goad him to dig in even harder. Remembering he had said he liked to be hurt, she clawed his back until she felt the blood come fresh and wet. It seemed to drive him into a frenzy and she hadn’t realized how much she liked to hurt men until now.

It excited her to hurt him. But before she could enjoy him to the zenith of her passion, he suddenly exploded within her and lay across her ripe body like a dead man, leaving her angry and unfulfilled.

“For that poor show, I should make you pay money!” she panted in frustration. “I should call the sentry and have him throw you in the guardhouse.”

He leaned on one elbow as she squirmed under him and laughed lazily. “Wouldn’t do you any good, honey! Who’d listen to a little squaw? Especially if I offered the guard a go at you for keepin’ his mouth shut! Don’t worry, you little slut, you’ll get all the hump you want when the others come in a minute.”

“You think they’ll come?”

“To have a go at you and them big titties of your’n? Hell, yes, they’ll come! Now, let’s see if you got any other talents besides just doin’ it regular like.”

“I don’t think I want—” She never got a chance to protest. He rolled over and grabbed up a big whip lying on the bedside table.

“Don’t tell me what you don’t want,” he ordered and his voice held a mean edge. “If you’re gonna make big money you got to do special things; know what I mean?”

She wasn’t sure she did, but as she hesitated he looped the whip lash around her neck. Gripping both ends, he pulled it tightly around her throat until she gasped for air.

“Ain’t this how the dog eaters kill the puppies they’re havin’ for dinner?” he asked softly. “Just garrote by pullin’ both ends of the lash?” He pulled both ends with his big hands and her hands went up in a panic, unsuccessfully trying to get her fingers under the thin leather. He smiled at her fears and she knew he enjoyed frightening almost as much as he enjoyed hurting.

“Missy, it’s easy to kill a woman this way, real easy!”

“Please!” she gasped, frightened now. He was a little crazy, she thought. “Please! I’ll do anything you want!”

“Anything?”

“Anything!” She glanced desperately toward her clothes, where she had hidden her little knife. It was too far away, she couldn’t reach it.

“On your knees, bitch!” He jerked her off the bed by the whip lash and she clawed frantically at it. He was not only sadistic and crazy, he was also drunk. For the next few minutes, he did unspeakable things to her, never loosening the lash around her throat. And after that, he wanted her to do unspeakable things to him. She rather enjoyed hurting him. It had not occurred to her that men would pay for such as this. Gray Dove decided she might enjoy working as a white man’s whore. She figured it was a soft, easy life and she was basically lazy.

The men from the saloon came about then and as the scout himself dressed, he made her parade naked up and down in front of the men so they would offer more money.

She was not left unfulfilled that night as the soldiers and cowboys paid to mount her. She even began to have a grudging respect for the scout who drove hard bargains for her favors, taking nearly all the money the soldiers had left from their pay.

The men brought the little private along who had been passed out across the table. The scout charged the other men money to watch when the private said it was his first time.

The boy had drunk too much whiskey,
Gray Dove thought contemptuously as he sweated and pumped over her for a few minutes with no results. After awhile, the other men started to jeer him.

“Hey, Billy, you done rode far enough to get from here to St. Louie!”

“Hey, honey, you shoulda charged that one by the mile!” She was tired of this. Shoving him off, she ignored his humiliated face. “Next time, soldier boy, I charge you by the hour!”

The men hooted and laughed. The boy shamefacedly gathered his clothes and they all left.

It was almost dawn now as she turned to the big scout and held out her hand. “Okay, give me my share.”

He ran his fingers through the pile of gold coins greedily before dividing them and pushing her pile toward her. “Honey, you just made me as much as I usually make in a month! Give some thought to us goin’ in business together.”

She smiled and said nothing as she took her share and quickly dressed.
Why should she cut him in when she did all the work?
It occurred to her that if she didn’t end up as Iron Knife’s woman, she had stumbled on a way to get rich off the whites in the gold mine country. She heard some of the tribes had gotten so bad on whiskey, they were working their women as whores around the white trading posts to buy liquor. She’d gladly whore for Iron Knife if he wanted her to; even give him all the money. But she had a feeling that warrior would not be willing to share his woman with other men.

“It’s morning,” she said as she finished dressing. “Will you take me to the captain now?”

He yawned and scratched his scalped spot. “I forgot about that. Why’d you say you needed to see him?”

“I didn’t, White Man.” She wasn’t going to let anyone else carry the story, beat her out of the reward if there was one. Gray Dove had tried to get rid of Summer by killing her and that hadn’t worked. This would be easier because someone else would do the work and she wouldn’t have to worry about hiding the body.

“Hell, missy, let’s go get some breakfast. I’ll take you to the captain after that. I’m so hungry, my belly thinks my throat’s been cut!”

The sergeant at the mess first thought it might be against regulations to feed an Indian, but he looked like he was afraid not to, Gray Dove decided as she watched him look at the scout. Her admiration for the big man grew. She liked power and fear. He seemed to wield both well.

Now as they walked away after eating, he belched loudly and reached for a cigar. They crossed the parade ground and he pounded on a door.

A high, nasal voice asked sleepily, “Who is it?”

“It’s me, sir,” the scout said. ”It’s important.”

“It better be!” The young man peered around the door as he opened it. ”It’s unusual to wake an officer on a Sunday morning for no good reason.”

The captain had bad skin,
Gray Dove noticed as he peered at her. “You woke me over a damned squaw?”

“She says it’s important!”

“I hope for your sake it is! Nothing but trouble and boredom ever happens out here on the frontier. If I ever manage to get transferred back to New York—”

He didn’t finish the sentence as he flung the door wide and motioned them in. His shirt collar hung open and he sat down behind his desk and Gray Dove sat down across from him. The white scout stood behind her, smoking his cigar.

“It’s about the white girl—” she began.

“What white girl?” He paused in the middle of a yawn. She had his undivided attention now.

“The one who disappeared off the stagecoach a few weeks ago.”

“Gawd Almighty!” The scout moved around to the side and looked at her with wide eyes. “Honest, Cap’n Baker, if I’d knowed it was that important, I’d have brought her last night.”

The officer picked absently at a pustule on his thin face. “Are you talking about Miss Van Schuyler?”

Gray Dove leaned back in her chair, enjoying their undivided attention. She studied them both through the haze of smelly smoke. “I don’t know her by that name,” she answered. “They call her
Summer.’”

“Summer! Summer Priscilla Van Schuyler, the missing Boston debutante!” The captain leaned toward her excitedly. “Where is she?”

She laced her fingers together, enjoying the moment. The white girl was rich and important, she could tell by the man’s excited tone. “First, is there a reward?”

“Why, you damned, greedy little—!”

“Now, Cap’n.” The scout gestured with his cigar. “We both know that girl’s rich father sent gold down here as a ransom, and that maid of hers is still in town waitin’ with the uncle for some word. This little squaw probably don’t know nothin’ after all. She’s just heard a little gossip.”

“You’re right, of course.” The young officer leaned back in his chair and surveyed Gray Dove. “Just after the money and never even saw the girl.”

Now it was her turn to smile. “The missing girl is small, has long yellow hair and pale blue eyes. She was taken from a Butterfield stage a few miles into the Indian Territory. Everyone else was killed. She wore a red dance-hall girl’s dress.”

The captain sat up straight in his chair and his mouth fell open. “That’s right,” he said. “We talked with the saloon girl when the maid recognized the blue silk dress the slut wore.” He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a gold locket, tossed it across to Gray Dove. “Is this the girl?”

Gray Dove studied the miniature a long moment. “No, this is not the girl,” she answered positively, “but she looks a lot like this.”

“That was a trick!” The captain smiled, obviously pleased with himself. “If you had said it was, I would have known you were lying. This is a miniature of Miss Van Schuyler’s mother. We found it under a seat cushion in the wrecked stage. Otherwise, we’d never have known she was even on that Butterfield.”

The scout reached over and took the locket from Gray Dove’s fingers and studied the dainty miniature. “If I had a woman who looked anything like this, I’d purdee pay money to get her back! She does remind me a little of a gal I loved once but my gal’s hair was a little more red-gold.”

The captain took the locket from the man’s dirty fingers with an impatient gesture and returned it to his desk drawer before turning back to Gray Dove. “Tell us what you know and I will see you get the reward. Where is the girl?”

She hesitated, trying to decide how to handle this without endangering Iron Knife or bringing trouble to the tribes and, ultimately, to herself. “Some Indians have her.”

“Aha!” the captain said triumphantly, jumping to his feet. “And they’ve heard about the reward and want to bring her in, is that it?”

“Not exactly,” Gray Dove hedged. “She’s a captive, but the one who has her probably wouldn’t bring her in for any amount of money.” The thought infuriated her all over again.

“I knowed it!” The bearded man slapped his knee and guffawed. “Some Injun buck’s taken a shine to her and we’re gonna have to kill him to get her back!”

“No, I don’t want you to do that!” She grimaced at the idea. Whatever happened, she wanted nothing to happen to Iron Knife. “You won’t have to go to the Indian camp at all. You couldn’t find it anyhow.”

The big scout tipped his hat back and looked at her with new respect.
Greedy, conniving people always appreciate those qualities in others,
she thought.

“Missy, what you got in mind?”

“You won’t have to come to the camp at all,” she said quickly. “Just give me the reward and I will bring the girl here.”
She would, too,
she thought grimly,
if she had to knock her unconscious and throw her across a horse.

The captain picked at his face. “You must take me for an idiot!” He snorted. “We just hand over the money and let you ride out, never to see you again! We’re not even certain you really know where the girl is.”

The bearded man moved over to sit on the edge of the desk and exhaled smoke thoughtfully. “But Cap’n Baker, just suppose the little squaw really does know where she is and we pass up our one chance to get Miss Van Schuyler back?”

“We can’t just give her the money and let her ride out of here—”

“Hell, that ain’t what I had in mind!”

“I won’t take you to the Indian camp,” Gray Dove said stubbornly. “He who has her is not there right now. But he would know if the soldiers had been there and would come looking for you. I want her gone before he returns but I will not tell you where the camp is.”

She didn’t much care whether anyone else but herself and Iron Knife got hurt but she didn’t want this betrayal traced to her through the soldiers either.

In the silence, the captain waved the smoke away. “Christ! Put that thing out! It smells worse than you do!”

The scout frowned and tossed the cigar butt into the spittoon next to the captain’s desk. “I got an idea that might be pleasin’ to everybody,” he said finally.

“I don’t know about all this,” the younger man said uncertainly, “Maybe I shouldn’t make any decision at all until the colonel gets back.”

“And let him take all the credit?” the scout asked contemptuously as he spat into the spittoon. “Ain’t you the one who’s been hopin’ for some kind of medal or promotion so’s you can go back to New York?”