Nicademus: The Wild Ones (14 page)

She nodded. “His son.” She took another drink. She knew that wasn’t the story he expected to hear. It was the story she swore never to tell, even after she saw the same foolish love in Annabelle’s eyes for the forbidden. Tonight opened all those wounds for her. “What Shepherd loved, more than anything, was breaking a girl.” She looked up at him. “Do you know what that is?”

“I’ve heard the term,” he replied bitterly.

She nodded. “Of course you have. Men, no matter the color, all have the taste to dominate the weak.”

“Cora—”

“Every three months new girls came, young and innocent, like me. And I prayed for it. Wanted him to find someone else to break, to keep him off me.” She wiped at her tears. “Her name was May. Shep hadn’t claimed her yet. He was too busy with his other pets. But I knew May would be the one.” Cora looked up. Her greatest sin was her damnation. And even now she couldn’t bring herself to accept what had been done. “I tricked her into drinking one night. Told her I’d help her get back to her people. Filled her with liquor until she was sick with it. Vomiting. Then I cleaned her up and put her in my bed. Because … I knew Shep would come that night for me.” She reached for the bottle. “It was the plan Daniel and me come up with. After Shep beat me so bad I couldn’t walk for days, he wanted to kill his father. I begged him not to. He wanted to run away with me. We both knew he couldn’t. So the only thing we could do was plan my escape—and use May to do it. She … she never had a chance. Better her than me, right?” Cora poured until she reached the rim of the glass. She drank down every drop before she could continue. Tears dropped from her eyes. “I’ll never forget the look on Daniel’s face when he put me on that ferry with money in my hand. He even gave me fake papers. I knew I would never see him again. And you know what he looked like? He looked like a man relieved to have me go. Men can’t deal with what they can’t have. And Daniel could never have me and the respect of his father or his political dreams. So it was best to free himself of me by sending me away and calling it love. If he had asked I would have willingly entered
placage
and been his, on his terms, that’s how foolish I was then. So eager for love that I believed Daniel was my only choice. He wasn’t. What man wants to fight for a woman so broken, so hated by society? So desperate for life she’d sacrifice another young girl in her place to cling to it.”

“You were trying to survive,” he said.

“I deserve to be barren, to be here.” She reached for her gun and ran her hand over it. “And I’ll kill him before I let him take me again. I want to be the one to put a bullet in Tyler Shepherd. I want to see him die at my own hands. Get revenge for myself, for May, for my Ma and every woman who never had a choice.”

“We can beat him. He don’t know about the outlaw. Not yet. I’m thinking of using that man to get us out of this. Hand him over and send Tyler Shepherd on his way,” the sheriff suggested.

Cora gave a bitter laugh. “You sound dumb.”

“Watch your tongue, woman!” he snapped. “I’m talking reality here. No way in hell you could ever kill Tyler Shepherd. And if-in you could there would be no way I can keep you from hanging for it.”

“You go to hell!” she hissed. She glared at the sheriff. “Ain’t no bargaining with Tyler Shepherd. He gon’ want revenge for what Annabelle done. You can give him all the gold in the bank and it won’t change nuthin’. It’s you he hate, you and everything this town represent.” Cora pushed up from the table. The sheriff stood and grabbed her arm before she could walk out on him. He turned her to face him.

“I love you, Cora. Have since the very first day you stepped off that train in Tulsa and agreed to move here to this town. I’ll kill Tyler Shepherd for you, if it would open your eyes to what’s here between us, woman. What we share.”

The doors to the saloon swung opened. Red Sun walked in. Cora broke free from the sheriff and ran straight for him. He caught her with one arm. She hugged his neck so tight she was lifted from her feet. She cried tears of relief. “Thank you, God,” she breathed.

He stroked her back but didn’t respond. When she stopped giving thanks she looked up at him and saw that the rage in his eyes was focused on the sheriff. Ben Taylor picked up his hat and walked out of the saloon without a word to Red Sun.

Cora stepped back. “I thought they had gotten you.”

“I know where his camp is,” Red Sun said. “Annabelle? How she?”

“Foolish. Reckless. Fearless. Take your pick.” Cora smiled. She went to the doors of the Blue Moon and drew them shut behind the swinging doors. She bolted them inside. She turned and saw Red Sun removing his irons and his belt.

“We gon’ have a town meeting in the morning,” she said.

“Why he here?” Red Sun asked.

“You know why he come,” she replied.

Red Sun cut her down with a stern look. Cora rubbed her hands together and walked toward him. “I told you I am nice to him to keep this place open and to keep the peace. What he wants don’t matter.”

“The fact he wants anything from you matters to me,” Red Sun corrected her.

She smiled. “You jealous?”

He grunted and waved the question off. She went after him. She stopped him before he headed to the bar. “Come upstairs with me.” She put a shaky hand to his chest. “I need … I can’t be alone right now.”

He took her hand in his. He kissed her palm. Cora broke into tears and he hugged her to him. She clung to him until her body stopped shaking and then together they went to her bed.

**

“Are you sleep?” Annabelle asked.

“I can’t. Not tonight,” he whispered back. He lay in bed with her resting on his chest. His vision blurred at times but sleep never came.

“Me either,” she sighed. “What you think the sheriff and town gon’ do?”

“I’m thinking the only way they come out of this is if they give Tyler Shepherd something he wants more than revenge.”

Her head lifted. “What?”

“Me,” he said and looked into her eyes. “Your sheriff can’t keep this contained. Not with those men dead by my hand and the Indian’s. He has to give me up.”

“That’s not true!” she said. “We protect our own. You’re one of us now. I’ll make them see it.”

“I am not one of you, Annie. I’ll never be!” Jeremiah reminded her.

She stared at him with such refusal and rebellion in her eyes he regretted his words. He loved her loyalty but he was no fool. He saw the plan all over the sheriff’s face. He saw how nonchalant he was about the safety of the Indian. He had to come up with his own plan that guaranteed his life and safe passage.

“I say the best idea for us is the one where I run,” he told her.

She sat upright on him. The damp cushion of her pussy lips pressed down on his lower abdomen. In the dark the silhouette of her body made her even more alluring. She considered his words in silence. Before he could conjure another explanation she leaned in with her hands flat to either shoulder. The smell of sex and lavender filled his nostrils. A strong aphrodisiac, he suffered a painful spasm in his dick. And when her breasts swayed, his eyes were again drawn to them. Jeremiah licked his lips, unable to look away from their thick dark points. “I won’t let you go. I just won’t,” she said. “Do you know why?” she asked.

“Tell me?” he replied.

“Because I never give up on someone … never,” she smiled.

“I have another idea.” He dragged his vision up from her nipples to look into her eyes. “One I was afraid to ask.”

“Ask. Ask me anything. What is it?” she said.

“Come with me. Run with me,” he said.

Stunned, she sat upright again with her eyes stretched around the meaning of his request. “Run? To where?”

“Wyoming! Marriage is legal there.”

“How you know?” she frowned.

“During the war. I met a man. He told me he had a native in Wyoming. A wife. Said he only joined the war to help his brothers and father. But when it was done he was going back. There is so much land that is open for the taking. And I got the gold. We can start there, set up there. Be free together.”

“And leave my home? Leave Nicademus?” she asked as if the thought was a physical pain for her.

“Be my wife. Start a family. With me. I know it sounds crazy. Maybe it is crazy. But life is short, isn’t it? We don’t get much in choices. When we need to make one, we should make the best one.”

Jeremiah ran his hand over the top of her thigh. “What you say?”

“I don’t know, Jeremiah ‘One-Finger’. I got to think hard on this.” The rest of her words died in her throat. His hand went lower. He used his thumb to press in between the folds of her pussy and his nail scraped against her clit.

“Sit on it for me, Annabelle,” he requested.

She looked at him for a brief pause as her mind registered what he meant. Then a naughty smile of delight crossed her lips. She slipped down. She rose on her knees and reached for his dick that was now engorged with blood and adrenaline, making it feel hard as stone. Her hand closed around it at first, moving with long strokes, and then she angled herself for descent. Her pussy convulsed and the heat of her vaginal walls rippled around his cock as she went straight down. He circled his hips and screwed up into her until he was thrust deep. And it was too much. The soft feel of her thighs and ass resting on top of him was too welcoming, too sweetly lush and heavenly. His hands went beneath her ass and squeezed. And when she bounced up on his cock, he aided in lifting her by the grip on her ass. He brought himself nearly half way out and then she was slammed down, bringing him all the way in.

“Move, move, wildflower,” he pleaded as she worked her hips with a sweet push and glide. “Feels good, Annabelle, fuck, yes, it feels good.”

She rocked her hips, delivering powerful surges of pussy warmth and tightness that broke him down. Jeremiah put his hands up behind his head and gripped the iron rings of the headboard. He stared at her as she fondled her left breast and molested her clit while riding his dick. Never in life had he seen or felt such passion.

It was too much.

Jeremiah flipped her. He shoved his hands under her ass and slammed into her harder. His dick thrusts scooted them both up to the headboard as the bed rocked and creaked. Her lovely pussy shredded every ounce of pride and self-preservation he had left in him. Soon he couldn’t breathe. His breath escaped him in short jagged spurts as his entire body went rigid and he unloaded in her. Shuddering through his release he collapsed.

“Please. Please, Annie,” he said, kissing her collarbone and clinging to her sweat slicked body while still buried inside. “Because if you don’t come away with me, I can never leave you behind. I won’t.”

She looked worked over.
A swollen lip, bruising on the side of her face, there was no disguising the viciousness of the attack. But she tried the best she could with the strained vision in her left eye and her murky reflection off a dusty mirror to tend to her wounds and clean her face.

“Annabelle?”

“In here,” she answered.

Jeremiah appeared at the door of the closet sized vanity room she had made for freshening up and changing. She could see the concern and worry etched over his face. Annabelle carried so much guilt and regret over the events of the past two days that she couldn’t make eye contact with him.

“I’s fine. Just fine,” she assured him. She tucked her blouse into her skirt. The slip beneath made the fabric drop in creases from her hips and swirl at her feet. She did her best to look proper. “You ready?” she asked.

“I am,” he replied.

She nodded. She chose to braid her hair straight down the middle. Let everyone in town see what had happened. Let them understand what they faced. She wouldn’t hide her choices or mistakes, no matter how much ire it was certain to draw.

“About last night. What I asked of you,” Jeremiah said.

She turned and put a finger to his lips to silence him. “Don’t speak on it. Let’s hear the sheriff out and then decide what to do. Okay?”

He nodded.

Warm with gratitude, she hugged him and felt safe when he returned the embrace. For a long moment they stood there embracing each other. She pressed her cheek against his chest and listened to his heartbeat. She felt it. They belonged to each other. It was funny to her how life took turns. Here was a man she would have never envisioned caring for. A man she was raised to not trust, to hate. Somehow new love had found a way.

“I loves ya,” she confessed. “I want you to know that, Jeremiah. I done discovered it ma-self. I loves ya.”

“I love you, Annie. I love you deeply.” He held her even tighter. She wondered if these feelings were the same as what her ma felt for her pa when he asked her to run for freedom. The hopelessness of their situation, the adventure of breaking her mother’s chains and owning their lives, the determination to do whatever necessary to be together. Those emotions overwhelmed her now. And what if she was with child and didn’t know it? How could she ever let Jeremiah ‘One-Finger’ Polk go?

For the second time since the nightmare began she cried. Something rare, if ever done in front of anyone. Red Sun had taught her well.
Save you tears for the living
, he said the year they returned and visited her parents’ grave.
The dead don’t need them anymore.
And yet the tears flowed, like the waters from the Kiamichi River that constantly spilled into Buck Creek. She felt cleansed and replenished. When she was done she lifted her head and smiled. “Let’s go face the town.”