Disorder in the House [How the West Was Done 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (18 page)

The eagle made a beeline for the ranting Cole Waters. There was a collective gasp once everyone realized the bird’s intention. It sailed low enough to tangle its claws in Waters’s hair as though Waters were a mere field mouse, talons just as vicious and destructive as he himself had just described Liberty’s. Slowly flapping its enormous, billowing wings, the eagle made as if to take off with Waters.

“Agh!”
cried Waters, and he whipped his arms around to beat off the bird. Reeling and stumbling, he started down the center of the street toward downtown. He navigated like a roostered man making Virginia fences, zigzagging wildly. He nearly plunged headfirst into the bed of the Fowlers’ cart, and many neighbors came out front to get a better view of the strange sight. The eagle kept its steely grip on Waters’s hair. With its dark brown wings flapping against the blackened night sky, it looked like only a white bobbing head as it dragged the hapless assailant downtown.

Liberty was the first to laugh. Perhaps it was all the pent-up emotion of the assault she’d just endured, but suddenly she was engulfed in an enormous round of laughter. It overtook her so thoroughly she had to clutch the porch railing to prevent falling down.

Levi and Garrett joined her, holstering their weapons and gripping each other’s shoulders. Lupe and Josefina even laughed, Josefina waving a ladle with hilarity. In the midst of this, Simon Hudson came onto the front porch, and his mussed hair made Liberty renew her laughter.

“Took you long enough to get here, Simon!” Zeke accused. “It was the most amazing sight! An eagle appeared out of nowhere and attacked your friend Cole Waters—”

“Who?” asked Simon, apparently still sleeping. “When?”

“Hey,” gasped Levi. “It took
you
long enough to get here, Zeke. Weren’t you right behind us?”

Zeke protested, “I just ran because you were running.” Now he laughed, too. “I had no idea why!”

Liberty became aware that an Indian stood in the street. Immobile, he grasped a buffalo robe around his form, and his long silvery locks cascaded in curls over his shoulders. He seemed to appear from nowhere, and she was instantly drawn to him.

Ignoring the amusement on the porch, she stepped into the street. The Indian didn’t even blink as she neared him. Initially she thought he must be very old to have such silvery hair, but as she got closer, she realized he was young. Younger than her, perhaps, and not an Indian at all but a white man masquerading as one. His round angelic face was set with two black buttons for eyes, and his cherubic lips smiled slightly as she approached.

“Did you see the eagle just now?”

He nodded with confidence. “I was the eagle.”

Did he not understand her? “No, I said did you
see
the eagle just now? It attacked that man we were trying to run out of town. Almost as if it read our minds.”

“Caleb!” Zeke shouted from the porch and came bounding over. “So good to see you again, brother! Did you see the eagle just now that was—” Zeke abruptly went silent as a look of recognition swept his face. “No…” He seemed to doubt whatever thought crept into his mind. “That
can’t
be.”

“It can be,” said Caleb simply.

For this must be the longed-for Caleb Poindexter, the great seer who had assisted Neil Tempest in shackling a murderer. Her sister had intimated that he had some powers of turning into an animal—a bison, if Liberty recalled correctly—but she had shrugged that off for obvious reasons. So she turned to Zeke.

“Zeke, just now, did you see Caleb walking up the street? He seemed to appear out of nowhere.”

Zeke sputtered, “I saw nothing. I saw the eagle practically carrying Waters off, then nothing, then suddenly Caleb was just…here.”

Caleb shrugged. His eyes were so light blue they were nearly gray, giving him the wild look of an untamed aborigine. “I don’t need you to believe that I was the eagle. I’ve come here to tell Garrett where to find Brave Buffalo’s tribe.”

Zeke insisted, “But I was there the day you turned into a bison, too! Tell her, Caleb. Tell her what you’re capable of.”

Caleb told Liberty calmly, “I have the ability to use animals’ bodies to achieve different ends. Tonight I thought it might be fun to borrow an eagle, since that potato-head saw fit to accuse you of having talons. Show him what
real
talons feel like.”

“But…” said Liberty. “How did you
know
what that potato-head said to me? We were inside the house.”

“He has visions!” Zeke cried. “Isn’t that right, Caleb? I tell you, Liberty. He’s a werewolf with the power of acting on other people’s minds.” He slapped the seer with the back of his hand, right across a pictograph of someone slaying a bison that was painted on his robe.

Garrett was standing next to them now. “How does that work, Caleb? For I’ve been having some awfully strange visions lately, too—some that I would have preferred were left unseen—mostly while I sleep.”

Caleb furrowed his porcelain, unlined brow. “Yes, I could tell that you have some powers, Garrett. Some visions come to me in dreams, but some—like the one I had earlier today—occur while I’m wide awake. I suddenly saw this fellow with a giant moustache attacking someone who seemed related to Ivy Hudson, only it wasn’t Ivy. So I knew it must be the new sister in town I’d heard of.”

Liberty protested, “But you came here to tell Garrett where Brave Buffalo’s tribe is.”

Caleb said, “Yes, and to see if I could help change the outcome of this Waters fellow’s antics.” He smiled with satisfaction. “Sometimes it’s fun to see if I can have an effect on the world around me, on the outcome of certain events. Are they predestined to happen, if I see them in my visions? That’s what you’ve got to ask yourself, Garrett. If you see, for example, someone dying. Can you have any effect on that outcome? I think it’s not written in stone. It’s more like a blackboard that one can erase and change with the power of will.”

“Well, thank God for that,” said Levi, sticking out his paw to shake Caleb’s hand. “Who knows what might’ve happened if you didn’t show up to assist.”

Liberty draped herself over Levi’s shoulder. “Oh, you fellows were doing just fine. How manly of you to sweep in there acting all martial.”

Garrett said, “Hell. I’d say
you
were doing just fine before we got there, Liberty.” He smiled at Simon Hudson, who had finally woken up enough to join them. “She bashed him over the head with a bottle.”

Simon asked, “How did you know to come, anyway? How did you know what was going on?”

Levi and Garrett exchanged uncomfortable glances. It was Garrett who finally admitted, “The talking board told us.”

Liberty knew that her father’s face would light up when he recalled his talking board. “That old board!” he cried, as if the board were a son of a gun, another old college friend. “So you’ve been using it? And it helped you out? I tried telling you, Liberty. That board once helped me find my favorite brand of ale. I could not find a single bottle of that stuff in Hyde Park.”

Liberty asked, “So what did the board tell you? Go and find Liberty?”

Levi said, “Not in so many words. Once we figured out that fellow’s name was Cole Waters and the board had made a manual error—”

Garrett butted in. “Thanks to Zeke rattling the planchette around, all worked up over his mother.”

“And then Paddy spelled out DEFILE, and we raced right on over here. Caleb, is that an example of altering the future?”

“I’d say so. If you had ignored Paddy, who knows if those events might have remained unaltered? Now, who is this Paddy? I’m interested because I had a message from a Paddy, and I don’t know any fellow named that.”

Zeke clutched the front of Caleb’s robe. “What is the message? Does it involve a Mrs. Grace Vipham of Downer’s Grove and a greengrocer named Ernest?”

Levi closed his eyes patiently. “Zeke.”

Zeke cried, “You said I could ask questions if your questions were answered!”

Levi told Caleb, “Paddy is Garrett’s spirit guide.”

Simon grinned gleefully. “Spirit guide? This is fun!”

Caleb answered, “Paddy apparently wants you to find something he left behind in the mountains. If you find it, he can move on in the spirit realm.”

Liberty touched her father’s arm. “Father. I would like you to meet Levi Colter. He’s the new Indian agent at Fort Sanders. And this is Private Garrett O’Rourke from the fort.”

Simon shook their hands and said, “Why don’t you all come in for a cocktail? Caleb, maybe you can give me some more information on my gout.”

Liberty said, “They can join us for dinner, since our only dinner guest was just run out of town.”

“A bully idea!” Simon cried. He headed for the house, clearly eager for the cocktail. “Lupe! Set several more places at the table. I don’t know why I trusted that Cole Waters fellow. Even back in college, he had dubious interests. He was always going on about a machine that can print out documents for you. All you have to do is strike the letters and each letter will print. He claimed it was much faster than handwriting. What did he call it?” He chuckled. “The Writing Ball, I think.”

“Ridiculous,” Liberty agreed. She dared to take Levi’s arm as they ascended the porch steps. “Thank you for listening to Paddy and showing up to save me.”

Levi put on a modest face. “You were doing a good job of saving yourself. But it certainly didn’t hurt that we listened to Paddy.”

“I wonder what it is he wants you to find.”

Levi shrugged. “Maybe his dead wife’s jewelry.”

After dinner, Caleb drew Liberty’s men a detailed map as to where they might find whatever Paddy had left in the mountains and where he believed Brave Buffalo’s tribe was currently located.

And it seemed there was nothing left to do but to allow Levi and Garrett to go search for Shady and Moses.

“That’s right,” said Levi. “Hold her bud in your mouth. Slather your tongue all over her flower,” he said, using the terms of the erotic manuscript.

Liberty was splayed back on one of their beds, wearing only a white camisole, her naked pussy revealed for the first time in all its glory. Levi noted that already the shell pink of her clitoris had turned a darker rose when Garrett had lapped away at it. It expanded and elongated in response to his stroking, protruding from the labia enticingly. Levi had no doubt Garrett could bring her to climax using only his strong tongue, but now it was Garrett’s able-bodied ass that excited him.

Crouching on the floor behind Garrett, Levi ran a hand over the solid ridges of his abdominal muscles. He hunched over his friend, luxuriating in the heat of the dark body pressed to him. His lips felt as though they would be burned when he mashed them to the vertebrae at the back of Garrett’s neck. He slid his hand down and into the crisp bush at the base of Garrett’s jutting cock. He always loved the first moments when he gripped that monumental tool. It made his mouth water to squeeze the heft of it.

Levi realized it was entirely possible to love a man. It was the same, yet strangely different, as loving a woman. Touching, stroking, loving each other seemed to enhance his own virility, not detract from it. It had something to do with the duality that Caleb had been discussing the night before. Caleb considered himself a “Two Spirit” who loved both sexes equally. But Levi had a feeling that if one touched the actual person of Caleb, one’s body would be extinguished in a column of pure flame. That was how strongly Caleb’s spirit burned. He was a powerful seer indeed, not just the scorned blacksmith and “Spookist” that some citizens claimed.

Levi had been eagerly waiting for this moment. Garrett’s face was busily buried in Liberty’s bald muff, so Levi unbuttoned his chaps and slid his red drawers to the floor. He rubbed his cockhead against the velvety, hot skin of Garrett’s ass, humping his friend like a dog while clutching the hardened limb of his cock. Reaching to take Liberty’s dildo from its box, Levi rubbed the pointed end with the soap she’d brought from Freund and Brothers, a mixture of fat and wood ashes. He nudged it against the tight rim of Garrett’s ass, waiting for a response. If Garrett didn’t like it, he wouldn’t continue. But then, Levi had never known a man who didn’t enjoy being reamed up the ass.

Garrett moaned as his fat tongue plied Liberty’s engorged clitoris. Levi felt his plump cock twitch in his hand when he massaged the anal ring with the dildo, so he slid it in an inch. It went easily, as though being eagerly sucked in.

He pumped Garrett’s taut cock while fucking him with the dildo. Groaning against Liberty’s button, Garrett humped his hand eagerly, gyrating his muscular hips. Whether he craved Levi’s fist or the dildo, Levi didn’t know. But his mouth watered watching the play of muscles in Garrett’s back, the creamy skin sliding over sinews as he clutched Liberty’s hips, his head bobbing up and down as he licked.

Leaving the dildo wedged up Garrett’s ass, Levi dropped to the floor and twisted his body, his shoulders flat against the floorboards. Garrett slumped, too, pasting his haunches to the floor and spreading his thighs wide, allowing Levi to continue fucking him. Levi was face-to-face with that impressive meat now. Sentences from the erotic manuscript came into his head. “He was used to being with more than two women in the same room at the same time, but this situation was something that he had not even dreamt about. The man next to him was relaxing on pillows. One of his feet was stretched out, trying to reach the organ of the young man who was massaging him.”