The Runaway (3 page)

There was a woman in his house! Why was he out here in his barn clutching his thick cock in his hands, massaging himself through his pants? Why was he fumbling with the knot of his belt instead of going back into the house and pulling Delilah up against him? She had to be grateful he had saved her life. Wouldn’t she want to reward him?

The rope came loose and his pants dropped down to his knees. His cock was hard, jutting out in front of him through the circle of his fingers. His balls ached with need. His heart raced faster than any horse he’d ever seen.

He stroked his rigid flesh up and down in the darkness wishing it was Delilah’s fingers touching him. He paused to lick his hand remembering his brief glimpse of the woman’s dark thighs, wishing her dress had hitched higher—that he’d had the courage to push it up about her waist and see what a woman hid between her legs.

His hand moved easier now, squeezing hard on his thick shaft as he pumped his hand up and down his length. His pulse throbbed beneath his jaw and sweat beaded on his forehead. It just wasn’t right. A woman had finally come to him and he was out here in the dark like always while she—what was she doing in his house? Was she thinking of him? Was she wishing he’d come back inside like a man and teach her how to be a woman?

He was on the very edge of spitting now—his dick harder than he ever remembered. She’d actually touched him with her breast, pressing it against his body when she’d fallen against him. He wished he’d had the courage to cover it with his hand—pull back her dress, expose the dark tit and…

“Uhhn, uhhn, uhhn,” he grunted.

In the dim light that filtered through the cracks in the walls, Carson could see his cock spitting seed into the darkness. His knees weakened and he slipped down until his ass hit the dirt. His breaths grew deeper and the sticky mess began to coat his hand while he continued to stroke himself.

“It’s not right,” he repeated—audibly this time. “You got yourself a woman in your house, but you don’t have her. You ain’t never going to have her. She may be a runaway, but you’re a dirt poor sodbuster. You ain’t got nothing to offer her.”

He wiped his hand on the ground, unable to fully clean himself, then hitched up his pants and left the barn.

Chapter Four

Worry

Delilah watched the door swing closed behind Carson unable to believe that he had really left. Her foot hurt something fierce, but her fear of the man overrode the pain. Not that he had given her any reason to fear him yet—but he was a man. She knew what he was thinking. She knew what he was planning. All men were like the Colonel. He’d come back through that door when he was ready, throw her on to the floor, beat her if she resisted, and ram that evil prick between her legs…

Her hands shook with fear entwined with fury, but Carson didn’t come back inside. He’d really walked away.   Perplexed, still unable to truly relax, Delilah pulled her foot back into her lap and examined the cut he had made. It had stopped oozing blood but the surrounding flesh was still filled with puss and fluid. She squeezed it. The pain was nowhere near as intense as it had been when the bramble was lodged inside her. Disgusting fluids oozed from the gash and she wiped at them with the hem of her smock. Then she spied a damp piece of cloth near the pallet and cleaned her foot more carefully. It looked as if he’d gotten the entire offending splinter.

Despite her fears of the man, Delilah began to relax. Sure he was probably just getting her fit to walk so he could turn her back over to the Colonel, but once she was fit she’d be able to run again. She’d been running a long time now—fifteen or twenty days. Once her foot had healed she’d be fit to run some more. No one could catch her when she was able to run.

If only she knew how much time she had. Was the Colonel right behind her, or did she have a few days to get well?

Her mama always told her not to fret over things she couldn’t help, so she tried to put the fear out of her mind and concentrate on restoring her strength. She crawled over to the little fire in the middle of the floor and dished out the remains of the soup the man had made there. It had gotten hot since her first bowl—steaming hot—but that just made it taste better.

She ate the soup, drank more water, and thought about the gun above the door. Should she get it now and kill Carson? Or should she bide her time with him, get what she could from him, and then run again.

She’d probably have to kill him before she fled. If she left him alive he might come after her for the reward or point the Colonel toward her trail. She didn’t want to kill anyone, but she refused to go back to Arkansas. She wasn’t going to be the Colonel’s slave no more!

Chapter Five

Conversation

Carson returned to his house at sundown. He’d spent the day weeding his fields and watering his poor garden. He was tired and hungry and very curious about the runaway he’d left in his house. He’d half expected her to try and move on despite her hobbled foot but there’d been no sign of movement from his little shack.

He pushed his door open and peered inside. The woman sprang up from the pallet as if startled from a deep sleep. She made the mistake of putting weight on her bad foot and cried out with pain, lurching against the wall of his home and shaking the whole structure. Carson resisted the impulse to rush to her assistance choosing instead to remain framed in the door unmoving.

She hugged the wall for several seconds before she remembered where she was and calmed down.

“Evening, Miss,” Carson said.

She straightened up, careful not to place any weight on her bad foot. “Evening,” she said.

He loved the sound of her voice.

“Thought I’d cook some dinner,” Carson said.

The woman considered his suggestion for a moment. “That sounds like a good idea.”

Carson entered slowly, bringing a few tufts of long grass and a dried buffalo pie with him. He knelt down in the center of the room, placed the grass on the cold ashes and blew across them. The embers flared instantly to life, suggesting that Delilah had added some wood to the original fire. He fed some twigs into the sudden flame, and then slowly built the blaze with larger sticks. When the fire was sufficient to ignite it, Carson placed the buffalo pie on top and waited while it began to burn.

“Tomorrow I’ll try and catch us some meat,” he said. “Tonight we’ll have more potatoes.” He put the water on to boil and laid out a motley collection of vegetables—carrots and turnip in addition to the spuds.

Delilah watched him—eyes following his movements as if she expected some trick to take away the food.

Carson cut the vegetables, dropping the pieces into his pot. Meat would help the flavor but he didn’t have any more. Tomorrow he’d check his traps and take the big rifle out to see if he could find something.

“How long have you been out here?” Delilah asked him.

The question so surprised Carson that he almost dropped his knife. The little woman had spoken to him! He felt so excited that for a few moments he couldn’t think of an answer. He just lifted his eyes to look at her. The dark brown face was mostly hidden behind her tangle of hair but he could make out the curve of her cheek and the darker brown of her beautiful eyes.

He remembered her question. “It’s been years,” he said. “I moved on when my ma died, found this place, and started farming.”

“It was just here?”

Carson nodded, “Just sitting here with a scraggly crop dying in the fields. I don’t know if the owner died or gave up and moved on. I never found no sign of him ‘cept a bucket and a couple pots. I figure he died, but there weren’t no body and no animals in the barn so maybe not.”

That was the longest speech Carson had made since he found this place and the effort drained him. Delilah took her time absorbing his words—so much time that Carson went back to slicing his vegetables. He wasn’t prepared for it when she spoke again.

“And there are no other people?”

Carson dropped the last of the vegetables into the pot, wishing again he had some meat to flavor the soup. “Sweet Water’s about three days walk to the east,” he told her. “It’s got some people. Times Injuns pass by—it’s their country, so they tell me. Then there’s you.”

The woman straightened her back as Carson talked. It didn’t look like fear to him. It seemed like she liked what he had told her. That was good. Carson wanted her to like it here.

He stirred the pot with his spoon and wondered how to get her to talk some more. He couldn’t ask about her home, she was a runaway slave girl. Could he tell her she was safe with him? He’d never hurt her, but how could she know that? He decided to keep silent.

“Is it hard,” she asked, “being all by yourself?”

“Not so you’d notice,” Carson told her. “Got a mite lonely at first, but I got used to it.”

“Why do you stay?” Delilah asked, then sucked in her breath like she wished she could take back the question.

Carson’s shoulders sagged. She wasn’t impressed with him at all. “It’s my place,” he told her. “Where would I go?”

“I just meant,” Delilah started, but her words trailed off without completing the thought.

Carson stirred the pot again. Even a runaway could see how little he’d made for himself taking over another man’s failing farm and acting like it was his own. He wanted to get up and leave, but the food wasn’t ready yet and he was hungry.

Chapter Six

Dishes

Delilah wished she could bite the words back and swallow them. She hadn’t meant to insult Carson. While she still didn’t trust him, he’d been kind to her so far, leaving her mostly in peace and feeding her. She’d just risked turning that inside out and unleashing the beast that white men held inside them. She didn’t know why he’d left her alone this long and she didn’t want to do anything to raise his interest. She wasn’t going to be used again—not no way, no how would she lay back and let the Colonel or anyone like him force his way between her legs.

But Carson, despite the hurt she’d given his pride, didn’t look to be getting angry. He stirred that pot with a frown creasing his brow and sad thoughtful eyes staring into the soup. They were pretty blue eyes—not like the Colonel’s squinty brown ones. And where the Colonel had that God-awful black beard jutting far below his chin, Carson had only a scruff of dirty blond whiskers two shades darker than the tangled mess of his hair.

Delilah’s eyes widened with sudden concern. Carson wasn’t handsome! Thinking about him like that would get her turned back over to the Colonel. She couldn’t afford to think of him as anything other than a tool to use for her escape—someone to help her heal enough to run again. He wasn’t someone who could be liked or trusted. White men were too dangerous to think of like that.

The silence grew uncomfortably long but Delilah didn’t know how to break it. What do you talk about with a man who’s completely cut off from the world? She couldn’t imagine such a fate. On the plantation in the slave quarters there had always been plenty of people. She hadn’t liked all of them but she’d never been lonely. Out here in the middle of nowhere there was nothing to hear but the wind running through the long grass and nothing to see but the sun over head. She didn’t understand how anyone could choose to live out here.

Abruptly, Carson dropped the spoon into the pot, picked up the lone bowl and cup, and stalked out of the small house leaving Delilah alone again. His departure caught Delilah by surprise and she didn’t know what to do. Should she call out? Should she go after him? When would he return?

She struggled to her feet. Her right foot still could not fully support her weight although the swelling had reduced somewhat. She hobbled around the little room bracing herself with her hand. When she reached the front door she pressed it open slightly and peered out the resulting crack. The orange hues of sunset brightened the western sky and cast long shadows across the land. There was no sign of Carson.

She cautiously stepped outside taking her first conscious look across the land. There was a little field south and west—it hardly seemed sufficient to support one man much less two. To the east there was an even smaller garden. Behind the house to the north and west stood a barn—small by the standards she was used to but much larger than the little shack that Carson lived in, but still no sign of Carson.

Delilah limped her way from the shack toward the barn. She caught sight of him kneeling almost directly behind the house near a little pool. He held something in his lap, scrubbing it. After watching him a few moments she realized it was the bowl.

Carson was cleaning the dishes before their meal.

The sight made her want to cry.

She painfully made her way up beside him and sat down, careful to keep her feet out of the water despite thinking that it would feel cool and good on her fevered flesh.

Carson glanced briefly at her when she arrived but made no other acknowledgement of her presence. He returned his attention to the bowl.

“I didn’t know where you went,” Delilah told him.

He grunted. Did that mean he was angry or did he simply not know how to hold a conversation? How long had he been alone?

He was having trouble with the bowl, scratching at the caked on grit with his fingernails. The dirt was days if not weeks old so why clean it tonight? Was it really for her? She was just a chance for Carson to earn a little money and escape this hovel, wasn’t she? So why had his pride been hurt when she asked why he didn’t leave?

He finished with the bowl and rinsed out the cup. “We should eat,” he said as he got to his feet. He extended a hand to help her which Delilah surprised herself by accepting.

He was much stronger than he looked. Every pound he possessed must be made of bone or muscle.

His long silences were getting to Delilah. She needed to hear some talk. “It’s good of you to help me,” she said.