Untamed (30 page)

"It's not Daniel's boys so much as it is me." Josie paused, making sure that she chose her words with care. "I got stuck raising up twelve or so of my brothers from the time I was old enough to reach the stove. My entire life so far has been tending snot-nosed boys, and I'm sick to death of it. Maybe if they were girls I'd feel differently, but I doubt it. Does that make any sense to you?"

"A little, I guess." Sissy chuckled, her gaze fingering on the twins as they played in the yard. "You might think you hate kids now, but I bet you won't when your own little fellahs come along."

Josie bit her tongue, forcing herself to slow down and think her answer through. "Maybe," she said, lying. "But I know I'm not ready to be a mother yet. Think you can give me some hints on how to keep that from happening too soon?"

Sissy brightened, "Now that's something I know about. Trouble is, out here with no store, you ain't got the luxury of deciding if you want a rubber ring, a sponge, or a syringe for douching. Ain't but one thing you can do to keep from getting knocked up, and that's pulling out."

"What on earth is that?"

Sissy eyed her suspiciously. "You been with Daniel as a full wife yet?"

A sudden heat warmed Josie's cheeks. She had to look away as she said "Yes, but just the one time last night."

"Well? What'd you do then?"

"I didn't do anything. Daniel had..." She looked around, making sure they were still alone, then whispered the foul word. "A rubber. He said it was only good for the one time, so we need to think of something else."

Sissy laughed and sat back in her chair. "Overcoats is good for that, I guess, and they're supposed to last a lot more than one time, but even them newfangled rubber ones can get old or leak a little. Sometimes they just plain fall off."

Josie's face was growing hotter by the minute. "Daniel didn't have but the one... overcoat. What else can we do?"

"Pulling out, like I said."

"How do you do that?"

Again Sissy eyed her, this time with amusement. "I'll tell it as proper as I can, princess, so's I don't flusterize you no more than I have to. Let's say pulling out is like you inviting Daniel in for supper, but he don't stick around for the main course. See what I mean?"

Josie thought about that for a minute. By the time she'd figured it out, her entire face felt as if it were on fire. "Oh, my—yes. I think I understand perfectly. How often does that work?"

Shrugging, Sissy admitted, "Hard to say. Trouble comes, even if he don't, when a fellah don't know how hungry he is and he just has to have a little nibble on the way out the door."

She paused, making sure that Josie was still following along. She was, even though her face had to have been purple by then.

"Anyway," Sissy went on to say, "that little bit there can make you catch a baby, and it ain't something men are too happy about either. Sometimes when they leave before the main course, it fouls everything up so bad, a fellah can't even get his gun off afterwards."

Josie buried her face in her hands, too embarrassed to look Sissy in the eye any longer. Even if there were more options, she couldn't bring herself to ask about them. "Thanks, Sissy. You've been very... helpful." Then, forgetting herself, she asked, "What about you? Is pulling out what you and Long Belly are doing to keep you from getting in a family way?"

The amusement left Sissy's eyes, replaced by a deep sadness. "No, princess. I don't got to do nothing cause I'm barren."

"You can never have children?"

She shook her bushy head. "I almost did once, though. I got knocked up my first time out as one of Lola's gals. I was almost thirteen at the time and scared to tell anyone about it, so it wasn't until my belly tattled on me that Lola knew. She got rid of it that same day,"

"Got rid of it?" Josie couldn't imagine what she meant. "How did she do that?"

Sissy took a long time answering, and when she did, her gaze never left the table. "She poked a silver probe into my privates and then shot a lot of water up inside me. I don't know what all she done after that. I passed out from the pain."

Josie shuddered, "Lord almighty, I didn't know people did such things. Is that why you can't have babies?"

Nodding, Sissy explained. "Lola messed me up pretty good—so good, I almost bled to death. I ain't caught a child since."

Josie definitely didn't want to become a mother, but not at such a high price. Glancing out into the yard, she drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, giving herself a chance to think about how to respond to Sissy's sad story. She noticed that the men and the children had disappeared into the barn with the mounts. The wind had come up and the trees were swaying, yet oddly enough, everything seemed very still.

All she could think to say was, "Oh, Sissy. I'm so sorry."

This seemed to drag the poor woman out of the past and back to the present. Sissy looked up at Josie, her eyes clear again, and said, "Don't be sorry. I'm told my baby was a girl. At least this way I don't got to see her grow up a whore like her ma, and my ma before me."

Why was it that every time Sissy had something profound to say, Josie didn't have the first idea how to respond? She didn't even come close to finding the right words on this one before Sissy spoke up again.

"I guess it's time," she said in a strangely hallow voice. "Looks like I got to be going back to Lola's now."

Josie glanced into the yard and saw that Long Belly was standing at the hitching rail in front of the cabin, tying his paint alongside the mule. Both animals were saddled.

She turned to Sissy, grabbed her hands, and said, "But I don't want you to go. We're really and truly friends now, and I'll miss you terribly if you go."

Smiling, at least as close to a smile as she ever got, Sissy gently eased her way out of Josie's grip. "Maybe I'll come back and see you some time next summer, if you're still here. Right now, I got to go."

"I don't see why. All you've got to go to is a whorehouse. You don't really want to go back there, do you?"

"Wouldn't a been my choosing if anyone had asked, that's for sure." Sissy pushed out of her chair. "But that's what I do, and it's all I know."

Out the corner of her eye, Josie saw that Long Belly was headed up the steps. Making one last effort to keep her friend close by, she said, "There must be lots of things you can do, anything but whoring."

"Look at me, girl." Sissy stood tall and proud, a neat trick considering that the top of her head barely reached the five-foot notch on a door frame. "How many white men or women are going to hire someone like me as anything but a laundress or a maid? l couldn't even get one of them jobs if what I used to do came known, and it would. Thanks for trying, but I know where I belong."

The door opened before Josie could renew her efforts, and in came Long Belly. He glanced at her briefly, and then directed his comments to Sissy. "Come outside with me, Buffalo Hair. I must speak to you, alone."

Sissy started toward him, but Josie hopped out of her chair and blocked the path. "No, you stay. I'll go. That way you two can have a little more privacy."

With one last look at her friend, Josie impulsively threw herself into her arms for a quick hug. Then she turned and ran out the door.

Chapter 18

Trying not to think of Sissy or how much she was going to miss her, Josie decided to lift her spirits by checking on Sweetpea. Completely avoiding the barn—she was in no mood to face Daniel or his little goblins—she walked down to the privy, and then made her way around back to the pen. She found the buffalo lying in a small wallow she'd dug in the snow, happily chewing her cud. Three heifers had joined her in the enclosure during Josie's absence, apparently the doings of Long Belly. As she approached the bison, it cocked its head and sniffed the air, then went back to chewing.

"Hi, Sweetpea," Josie called, bending over to reach through the pine rails and scratch the hide beneath the buffalo's thick matt of long, dark hair. "I see some of your old companions have moved in with you. Were you lonely?"

The animal grunted in ecstasy as Josie continued to scratch her shoulders, her small beady eyes languid and sleepy. Shifting positions so she could reach a little farther down the animal's back, Josie straightened her spine at the same moment something slapped against the back of her legs. Leaping away from the fence, she glanced down to see a slender pine branch lying in the snow at her feet. It was stripped of bark and sharpened at the tip into a little spear.

She glanced behind her, alerted by the sounds of muffled giggles, and then caught a glimpse of Daniel's heathen twins hiding behind a tree. Josie considered ignoring them and simply walking away, but she knew from experience with her own brothers that they'd just keep after her until a few rules were established. Spear in hand, she marched over to the pine tree.

"All right, you two," she said, catching sight of their bobbing heads. "Come out of there this instant."

The boys remained huddled behind the tree. Josie ducked first to the right as if chasing them down, and then veered around to the left of the tree at the last second, trapping them as they tried to run away. They wore little buckskin shirts and trousers, but were barefoot in the snow.

"Stop right there," she said, cutting off their escape. "Which one of you threw this at me?"

Two pairs of the biggest, blackest eyes she'd ever seen looked up at her, round and innocent. They muttered something to each other in Cheyenne, and then shrugged their small shoulders.

"Don't you speak English?" she asked, watching as their eyes grew even rounder and more guileless. "Well, hell."

Getting down to their level, Josie dropped to her knees. She held the branch up in front of their faces, and then shifted the spear from hand to hand, looking from one boy to the other. "Who... threw... this?"

The twins shot furtive glimpses at each other, but gave no indication that they understood her.

Josie touched the branch to the shoulder of the child on the left and asked, "Are you Bang?"

No response. "Two Moons?"

The child continued to stare at her, as adorable and silent as a porcelain doll. "Your father hasn't even taught you kids what your names sound like in English?"

They smiled in unison, still blissfully ignorant of Josie's careful interrogation of them. It was then she decided that it was just as well they couldn't understand her, especially considering that she'd decided to rename them Hell and Damnation.

"All right," she said, her tone less friendly. "Pay attention, you little pisspots, even if you don't know exactly what I'm saying. Since you can't understand me, I'm just going to have find another way to teach you some manners."

Josie climbed to her feet to regain her height advantage and waved the spear. "First of all, never, ever throw something like this at me again, or this is what you'll get in return."

She snapped the branch in half over her knee, and then brought the two switches down hard on the palm of her hand. The boys flinched and stepped away from her.

Josie smiled. "Finally, a language you understand. In that case maybe you've also figured out that I'll be blistering your worthless backsides with a switch, not my own hand, next time you try something this stupid." Punctuating the threat, she whacked the branch against her palm again.

The boys cried out in unison, then took off running for the barn.

"Hey, wait up, you two," Josie called, afraid she may have demonstrated her point a little too forcefully. "I'm just trying to teach you a lesson."

It occurred to her then that it might not be a bad idea to catch up to them and calm them down a little before they went running to their father. She ran as fast as she could, but was no match for the boys' fleet little feet. By the time she got to the barn and stepped inside, the twins were huddled behind their father's legs, big-eyed and innocent.

"What did you do to my boys?" Daniel demanded. "You scared them half to death."

They didn't look that all-fired scared to Josie. In fact, the one on the right wore a smirk.

"They shot me with an arrow, or whatever this thing is." She held up the sections of pine. Broken in half, the children's weapon suddenly looked no more lethal than two sorry pieces of kindling.

"How terrifying for you." Daniel's gaze, already narrow, became murderous. He barked something at the twins in Cheyenne, apparently ordering them out of the barn. The little piss-pots crawled out from the hiding spot behind their daddy and made for the door, each of them flashing Josie a smug grin that Daniel couldn't possibly see.

Suddenly, it promised to be a long, hard winter, and not necessarily because of the early snows.

In the cabin, Long Belly surprised Sissy by reaching out and gently touching her cheek. She backed away from him, rubbing the spot, and said, "Don't do that. I don't like it."

Long Belly advanced on her again, strangely persistent. "Why is this? Why will you never let me touch your face or put these hungry lips on your mouth?"

Sissy didn't know the answer to that herself. Nor could she explain why a simple gesture like touching her check seemed somehow more intimate than what he did between her legs.