Lone Star 04 (5 page)

There was a fly-specked window to Ki's left that gave a clear view of Main. As he stood at the bar, the window brought him a scene he found interesting. Torgler, their well-attired traveling companion, walked hurriedly down the street with a shorter, less resplendent friend. Whatever the two were discussing, Ki noted that the friend was clearly getting the worse end of the conversation. He was catching pure hell for something, and Ki would have given much to know what it was.

“You
drink
beers, mister, or just collect ‘em?”

“What?” Ki turned slightly to see the girl standing behind him. She was young, a girl with a slender, almost delicate figure. Wheat-colored hair framed an upturned nose and a fragile smile. Her eyes were enormous, a startling shade of green sprinkled with bright flecks of gold. They gave her a look of continual curiosity and surprise, and Ki found it hard to pull his gaze away.

“I'm a slow drinker,” he said finally, taking a sip to show her.

“If you was to buy
me
one, maybe yours'd go faster.” She showed him a lazy smile and sidled up to him. Her gown was cut low, the bodice consisting of faded red feathers that had seen better days. In spite of her willow-slim frame, Ki noted that her breasts were firm and well formed.

“I'd be glad to buy you a beer,” he told her, signaling the bored barkeep. “You rather have something else?”

“No, that‘s—that's fine.” She flashed him a smile with her eyes. “I'm Ruby. You goin' to be in town long?”

“Hard to say. As long as our business takes.”

“Our
business?” She raised a curious brow. “Oh, sure. I
did
notice you come in with her. Real pretty lady. She your girl?”

“Miss Starbuck is my employer,” Ki said evenly. “And a friend.”

“Oh. Well, of course...” Ruby glanced at the ceiling, and Ki made no effort to correct what she was thinking. “If you
were
goin' to be here some,” she said slowly, “might be you and me could—well, get acquainted, maybe ...”

Ki grinned. The girl had intrigued him from the beginning, and the more he watched her, the more she stirred the growing warmth in his loins. Those startling green eyes were a bold, wanton invitation. At the same time, her voice was almost shy, hesitant—as if she were afraid he might take her up on her offer. It was a contrast he found more than a little exciting.

“I don't see any reason why we shouldn't get better acquainted,” he told her. “Do you?”

“Really?” Her eyes sparkled with delight. She glanced quickly over her shoulder at the stairs that led to the second floor. “You think—right now'd be a good time?”

“I can't think of any better time,” he said.

 

 

The room was small and comfortable; there was a dresser with a bowl and a pitcher, and a bed with a big feather mattress and a bright patterned quilt. A heavy shade kept the harsh summer sun out of the room. “I've got a bottle up

“You like a drink?” she asked him. “I've got a bottle up here if you like.”

“No, thank you,” said Ki. He crossed the room and put his hands on her waist. She was so slender there, he could almost reach around her. When he bent to kiss her, she gave a little sigh and closed her eyes. Ki explored the warmth and sweetness of her mouth, letting his tongue caress each small and secret hollow. Ruby responded with a hunger of her own, drinking in his kisses. She guided his lips where she wanted them to be, showing him the way with tiny moans and sighs.

Ki let his mouth touch her cheeks and her nose and her eyes, then trail down the column of her throat. A vein pulsed in her neck. His fingers loosened her bodice, and Ruby reached up eagerly to help. When her breasts were bare, she slipped the hooks at her waist and let the gown whisper to the floor.

Ki stood back and looked at her. Ruby caught his expression and gave him a mischievous grin, well aware of exactly what he wanted. Stepping back lightly, she clasped her hands behind her, resting them in the cleft of her hips. The action gave her breasts a saucy tilt, and deepened the hollow just beneath her ribs. Gazing at him from under a veil of tousled hair, she looked for all the world like a little girl caught in the act—doing all the things she wasn't supposed to do. Ki knew she was well aware of what she was doing. It was the same startling contrast he'd seen below in the bar—provocative, hesitant, and overwhelmingly exciting.

“You like what you see?” she whispered.

“Yes. Very much.”

“Then maybe you'd better have some, huh?”

“The idea had occurred to me.”

Ruby laughed, flopped on the bed on her stomach, and twisted around to face him. Ki slipped quickly out of his clothes. The big green eyes never left him; they touched him all over, followed him intently with a gaze he could almost feel. Her mouth opened slightly, lips full and lazy. She watched him in wonder, never speaking to him at all, saying all she wanted to say with her eyes. He cupped her small breasts in his hands, kissing the dusky nipples until they rose into hard little points. She was terribly sensitive there, and in a moment just the touch of his tongue set her trembling against him.

Ki let his hands trail lightly over her belly, down to the delicate silken nest between her legs. Ruby moaned, lifting her thighs up to greet him. Her fingers moved shyly down his body, almost afraid of what she might find.

“Oh!”
A cry escaped her lips; she touched his swollen member, grasped it softly in her fist, and guided it gently inside her. Ki felt the vibrant heat of her body, the warm and fragile flesh pressing around him. He thrust himself eagerly into that warmth; her legs whispered about him, urging him even deeper. Her arms found his back and raced to his hips. Ki thrust harder, no longer afraid the slender body would break beneath him. Ruby caught the rhythm of his love, matched it with her body and the quick little explosions of her breath.

Ki felt himself climbing toward an intense, almost unbearable peak of pleasure. Ruby gasped. Her body trembled and jerked against him in an uncontrollable spasm of joy. She cried out, threw back her head, and laughed as he surged free inside her...

 

 

“Think I'll ever see you again?” she asked him.

“I don't know,” he said. “Sometimes people come together again. I hope we do that, Ruby. You are a treasure I won't forget.”

“Honestly?”

“Yes. Honestly.” He buttoned his shirt and bent to kiss her. She said nothing at all, but simply smiled with her eyes.

Ki slipped a twenty-dollar gold piece on the dresser and left her. He knew it was likely four times more than she'd ever get in a place like Roster. Paying to love a woman was a thing he didn't wholly understand. Still, it was the path the girl had chosen, and he had meant what he said. He wouldn't soon forget her.

Chapter 4

The land was flat and barren for a good three miles or so out of Roster. Then the narrow dirt road snaked into gently rolling hills dotted with small clusters of trees. The trees looked tempting with their inviting pools of shade, but Jessie and Ki kept to the road.

“They didn't know anything, and of course I didn't figure they would,” Jessie sighed. “Maybe Bridger wrote something down somewhere, but I kind of doubt it.”

“No.” Ki shook his head and squinted into the sun. “It is as we said before. What he could tell us, he kept in his head.”

“Not figuring he wouldn't be here to deliver it in person,” Jessie finished. She paused, batting at an angry green fly circling the head of her horse. “Damn! They're a jump ahead of us, Ki. And nobody's being real subtle, are they? They must want that wheat land real bad. I wonder what they've told the settlers to get ‘em so itchy to sell—and lose money in the bargain?”

Ki didn't answer. He was thinking about Torgler, seeing him on the streets of Roster with his friend. A man like that wouldn't turn an eye in San Francisco or Denver. But he didn't belong in Roster. Not unless he was doing exactly what Ki figured he was doing . . .

 

 

“Good grief, Ki—can you imagine?” Jessie reined in her horse and peered down into the narrow valley. “Looks like we just rode out of Kansas into the far end of Europe!”

Jessie was right. The settlement looked nothing at all like an American town. The immigrants had clung to their Old World customs and taken little from their adopted land. Instead of scattering their houses over the limitless slopes of grass, the small, sod-roofed dwellings were huddled close together, one wall nearly butting against the next. Early-evening cookfires brought the smell of some strong, spicy soup wafting up the hill. Late shadows stretched across the valley, and to Ki, the shaggy-roofed structures looked like big lazy animals bunched together for the night.

Jessie and Ki made their way down the slope to the village. In the east, vast fields of wheat blazed like gold in the late summer sun. A little distance off, a dark line of trees showed there was water nearby.

“Ki . . .” Jessie pulled in her horse and pointed curiously off the trail. “Look there. What do you suppose that is?”

Ki glanced at the lone fencepost rammed into the earth. “Flowers of some kind,” he muttered to himself, then slid off his mount and walked to the post. A large, intricately woven wreath was hung from a single nail driven into the wood. Ki snapped off a few of the white blossoms and brought them back to Jessie. “Wolfsbane,” he told her. “I have seen the plant before. It's poisonous, by the way.”

Jessie took one of the flowers, looked at it, and shrugged. “Some kind of custom, I guess.”

Ki mounted up and followed her down the hill. Now he could see that there were more of the posts, scattered in a rough circle about the perimeter of the village. Each held one of the pale, flowery wreaths.

Several of the settlers spotted them coming, stopped what they were doing, and watched the pair approach. j waved a greeting, but no one waved back. There was a small, open common in the center of the village, and she urged her mount in that direction. A group of men clad in baggy gray smocks and trousers were gathered there, and one stepped forward to meet her. Jessie smiled. The short, white-bearded old man met her greeting without expression and set his stolid frame directly in her path.

“What is it you want?” he said roughly. Hard blue eyes flicked from Jessie to Ki. “Is nothing here to see. You ride on now.”

Jessie exchanged a quick look with Ki. “We need to talk to whoever's in charge. Oh, yes. The elder, isn't it?”

“I am in charge,” the old man said curtly. “What is it you want, girl?”

“My name is Jessica Starbuck,” Jessie told him. “And I—”

“Huh?
You?”
The man blinked and stood up straight. He turned to his fellows, and his stony features split in a weathered grin. Jessie caught her name several times in the rapid, throaty speech, and heard it passed through the crowd.

The bearded man strode forward and thrust out a stubby hand. “Get down, please, Miss Star-book. Excuse the very bad manners, yes? You are mos' welcome here!”

Jessie took his hand, and the man made a courtly show of helping her off the horse. She introduced Ki, and the fellow greeted him like a lost son and slapped him soundly on the back. Jessie caught the name Gustolf—whatever else came after was unpronounceable and she let it go at that.

Gustolf ushered them quickly through the now-friendly crowd and guided them toward a cottage slightly larger than the rest. Fully half the village tried to follow them inside, but Gustolf sternly waved them away and closed the heavily timbered door behind him.

“All of them you must meet,” he said, waving his hand expansively. “That is for later, though. Not now. Now we have a glass of Gustolf's very finest wine in honor of Jeskya—Jess-i-ca—hah! I say it! Jess-i-ca Star-buck and her friend. Sonia! The good wine, and make sure the glasses are all clean!”

Ki decided Gustolf was a lusty old man indeed. The deep lines in his face said he couldn't be a day under seventy, yet the girl he introduced as his daughter was a slender, dark-eyed beauty no more than nineteen or twenty. Her skin was pale olive and honey, so fresh and smooth that it seemed to glow. She greeted her father's guests shyly, then ducked her face under a riot of thick black hair and hurried about her business.

“So.” Gustolf raised his glass to Ki and Jessie. “I drink to the Star-buck name, lady.” He downed the drink quickly and wet his lips. I . . . read about your father.“ He looked at the table and shook his head. ”It is bad. I am sorry. He was a good man, and we owe him much here.“

“Thank you,” said Jessie. “I appreciate your thoughts.” The wine was sharp but slightly sweet. It left a delicate, fruity taste on her lips. The wine, the dusty amber bottle, and old Gustolf himself blended easily into the somber, Old World mood of the cottage. The few pieces of furniture present were dark and massive, heavily carved with thick leaves and twisted vines. Faded icons of painted and gold-leafed wood with candles mounted beneath them hung about the walls, along with a pair of crossed, crescent-shaped blades that Jessie sensed were far older than anything else in the house. In spite of the sultry summer evening, a fire was crackling in the big stone fireplace. And, to add to the unwanted heat, Sonia was cooking over an enormous black and silver stove that filled one whole side of the room. It was clearly a family treasure, one that had been shined and polished through several generations.