Longarm and the Wolf Women (14 page)

She pinched his swollen nose between her thumb and index finger, and gave it a little twist. Even across the fire, Natcho could hear the sinewy crunch.

“
Ohhh!
” Eddie screamed, clapping both hands to his nose as blood streamed from the bits of cloth hanging from his nostrils.

“There,” Raven laughed, tossing several strips of the burlap over Eddie's head. “All better now.”

Natcho laughed as Eddie bunched the burlap over his nose.

Raven stood and moved around the fire toward Keats, the bowl in her hand.

Natcho laughed. “Your turn, amigo. Show her where it hurts!”

Sunflower had stopped chasing cinders to squat in the grass between the teepee and the fire, knees together, elbows on her knees, cheeks in her hands. She appeared bemused by her sister's ministrations. She kneaded the grass with her bare toes.

Raven stopped before Keats. He looked up at her sheepishly. His face was red, brows beetled.

Natcho guffawed. Even Eddie, still holding his nose with the burlap, tittered behind the wrap.

“Ow!” Sunflower exclaimed. “Ow-eee!”

Keats grabbed the bowl out of Raven's hand, cast an angry look at Eddie and Natcho, then stepped over the log he'd been sitting on, and stomped off in the darkness.

On the other side of the fire, Sunflower howled and rubbed her crotch. Raven chuckled, grabbed the bottle away from Eddie, then squatted down beside her sister. She took a long pull from the bottle, then handed it to Sunflower, who took a couple of long pulls before corking it and tossing it to Natcho.

The Mexican, surprised by the girl's stength, caught the bottle above his head. Both women looked at him, laughing.

He laughed, then, too, removing the bottle's cork and taking a long pull. He had a good mind to go over and take one of the women by force, but something told him they'd be more fun if they were willing.

They all lounged around the fire, smoking and drinking and chuckling. Laughter broke out when Keats strode out of the darkness, looking just as sheepish as before but walking a little less bow-legged.

He set the poultice bowl down beside Raven with a cordial nod. Drawing his breeches away from his crotch, he gave both Natcho and Eddie an owly look, wrinkling his nostrils, then grabbed the bottle out of Eddie's hands and returned to his log.

They passed the bottle around the fire once more, then Sunflower, who'd been turning the meat and arranging the sticks around the flames, deemed it done. She tossed a rabbit quarter to each man, then gave one to her sister and plunked down in the dust and grass beside Raven again, legs bent before her so that they framed a diamond between them. She went to work on the sizzling meat in her fingers with the passion of a famished gandy dancer.

As he ate hungrily, hot grease dripping down his chin, Natcho looked at the girls' bare legs, over which the dancing firelight flickered. As his hunger abated, his lust grew.

He snapped the bones and sucked out the marrow, then tossed the bones into the fire. Standing, he wiped his hands on his breeches, then went over to Raven and wrapped his right hand around her arm.

“I've had enough of your teasing, señorita.” He pulled her brusquely to her feet. She gave a clipped, half-surprised, half-delighted cry and dropped the rabbit carcass she'd been holding in her greasy hands.

Natcho drew her toward him, and to his surprise, he didn't have to force her. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him hungrily, savagely, ramming her tongue into his mouth and grinding her crotch against his.

Behind her, Sunflower laughed and clapped her hands excitedly.

Raven suddenly pulled away from Natcho, giving his lip a final, painful bite, then turned away and, laughing, ran to the teepee and threw back the flap. She looked at Natcho. He walked to her heavy-footed, his shaft so hard that it pushed painfully against his trousers, his loins fairly exploding with desire.

“No fire sticks,” Raven said, glancing at the Colt hanging off Natcho's thigh.

Natcho didn't give a shit. His eyes were on her heaving breasts, the cleavage glistening with perspiration, his mind roaming ahead to what she'd feel like pinned beneath him.

In seconds, he'd unbuckled the belt and let the pistol and holster fall. She grabbed his hand and pulled him into the teepee, which smelled like strange herbs and tobacco and musty hides. Several candles burned and dripped wax on a low shelf, offering meager light.

Raven scrambled over the bear hides and buffalo robes spread across the floor, and knelt before the row of candles. She crossed her arms before her supple body and lifted the dress up to her waist, revealing every inch of her slender legs and hips.

Pausing to adjust her grip, she raised her crossed elbows, and Natcho watched the deer-hide garment slide up her long, dusky body, jostling the dark-tipped breasts before passing over her face and climbing over her head, catching at her black hair as she cast the garment aside with a soft, windy rustle.

Raven's hair fell back into place. Her full breasts jutted. She laughed and stared at Natcho, who wasted no time undressing, albeit awkwardly, grunting as he stumbled around the lodge.

The girl ran her greasy hands over her breasts slowly, sighing as she cupped them, kneading the grease into them, the nipples hardening. Then she squatted, rubbed the grease into her crotch. Natcho was ripping off his balbriggans as Raven ran her hands down her belly to her crotch, black eyes glistening like obsidian in the candles' glow.

Her gaze smoldered like that of a half-wild animal with the springtime craze. Natcho's heart pounded in his temples, made his ears ring.

Finally, he knelt beside her, took her shoulders in his hands, pulled her toward him, and closed his mouth over hers. He threw her back on the robes. She spread her legs for him, grunting and cursing, running her hands down his back, the fingernails digging painfully into his skin. She raised her knees high and wide.

“Come on, you greaser bastard,” she grunted. “Give it to me, you son of a bitch!”

Her voice was a vague rustle in Natcho's ringing ears as he rose up on his outstretched arms and ushered his throbbing shaft through her furred portal. The rabbit grease made for easy going, and he slid into her quickly, plundering her core.

“
Ohhhhh!
” she screamed, digging her nails into his shoulder blades and throwing her head back against the robes, mouth drawn wide.

“
Uhhnhhh!
” he cried, pain mixing with passion.

He thrust into her, and she ground her heels into his buttocks.

Only a few thrusts later, his loins exploded. Holding himself deep inside her, he lifted his chin toward the teepee's smoke hole glimmering with starlight.

“
Madre Maria!
”

His body convusled, his hips spasming, seed jetting into her.

He slumped atop her and, when he found his strength, rolled onto his back, one leg crossing hers. He was breathing hard, his skin slick with perspiration.

She lay on her back, running her hands through her hair, sweat-slick breasts glistening in the candlelight. With a laugh, she turned over and pressed her breasts to his chest, pinching his ears in her hands, jostling his head. “Don't think I'm going to let you fall asleep, hombre. We've just gotten started!”

She cackled wickedly and kissed him hard.

Later, after they'd coupled two more times and the candles were nearly out, she rolled away from him. Her breaths grew long and slow.

“
Gracias, Jesus,
” he muttered, thoroughly spent.

Outside, Sunflower laughed. Eddie said something Natcho couldn't hear. The fire was a diminishing glow beyond the teepee's walls.

Natcho sighed deeply and closed his eyes.

A scream sounded.

Natcho snapped his head up and automatically reached for his revolver, his hand finding only the fur robe beside him.

Again, the man squealed and bellowed like a lung-shot stallion—the voice of pure terror and agony making the hair stand along the back of Natcho's neck.

“What the fuck?” he grunted, rising from the robes and crawling naked to the door flap. He fumbled with the flap's rawhide stays, hearing Keats yelling, “What is it?”

When Natcho finally ripped the flap aside, he poked his head out, blinking.

The fire had died down, but there was enough glow for Natcho to see Crazy Eddie kneeling before his saddle and blanket roll. Eddie was naked except for the burlap cloth tied around his nose. He leaned forward, hands crossed over his lower belly. Blood splattered his chest and dribbled in thin rivers down the insides of his thighs.

Sunflower was hunkered down on her haunches about ten feet in front of him, staring up at him. The girl was naked. Laughing, shoulders jerking, she covered her mouth with one hand while holding a bloody Arkansas toothpick in the other.

Blood stringed from the ugly weapon's curved blade to the dry brown grass below.

Keats knelt on the other side of the log he'd been sitting on earlier. He wore his bullet-torn opera hat and balbriggans, several blankets from his bedroll hanging off his shoulders.

He stared toward Crazy Eddie and the girl, his rifle in his arms, a befuddled, horrified look in his sleep-bleary eyes.

“What the fuck . . . ?” Keats bellowed, lower jaw hanging.

Natcho sprang off his knees.

At the same time, searing pain lanced his back, setting his entire body leaping and quivering. He screamed and swung around, his right elbow slamming against the side of Raven's head as she raised the bloody skinning knife for another stab.

She grunted loudly then mewed like an enraged wildcat as Natcho's blow threw her back into the lodge's purple shadows.

Feeling blood flow from the wound beneath his right shoulder blade, he threw himself headfirst through the door. Eddie screamed again. Natcho caught only a glimpse of the blonde dancing around, wielding the knife as Natcho dove for the pistol in the holster lying in the grass where he'd dropped it earlier.

Labored, animal grunts and thrashing brush rose on his left. He was about to turn that way, when Keats shouted, “Stop!”

Natcho turned back toward the softly glowing fire. Keats was rising, his fat gut jiggling behind his skin-tight balbriggans.

As he cocked his heavy-barreled Spencer and began ambling ahead and left where the girl was screaming and slashing Eddie with the toothpick, a large, bearlike figure appeared from the darkness behind him.

A club rose. It arced downward, the heavy end smashing across the top of Keats's head, pancaking his opera hat. Keats groaned and dropped to his knees, face pinched with agony.

Natcho ran forward and cocked his .45, hesitating a moment as he tried to decide whom to shoot first—the bearlike figure with the club or the girl still dancing around Eddie, screaming, laughing, and slashing.

The sounds of four running feet grew to his left. Raucous growls rose. A shadow flickered.

He wheeled in that direction, swinging the cocked pistol. But before he'd turned full around, the huge, furry, red-eyed creature bounded up from a dead run, throwing itself toward Natcho.

The Mexican triggered the pistol into the air as the beast slammed into his chest, lifting him two feet off the ground and throwing him backward.

“
Ugggaaaahhhh!
” Natcho cried as the air left his lungs in a single rush.

The back of his head hit the ground so hard that his vision blurred. The beast stared down at him, eyes blazing, long nose wrinkled as the hackles rose to show the long, sharp, sickle-like teeth.

The beast jerked his head down, closed his jaws around Natcho's neck, and tore his throat out.

Camped along the Diamondback River, dozing against a rock with his rifle across his thighs, Longarm snapped his head up. He raised the Winchester and looked around.

He'd heard something.

It came again—a long wolf howl.

The cry died slowly. Then there was only the rush of the river over the rocky bed behind him, and Comanche John's snores around their near-dead fire ahead of Longarm and right.

Longarm remembered the wolf dung John had spied along the trail. He cursed again. Less than fifteen minutes after returning to the trail after John's encounter with the three men he'd fleeced at cards, they'd had to stop because John's horse had thrown a shoe. Stopping had been the best thing. It was growing dark, and John had needed to bathe his cuts and bruises. But Longarm had been impatient to get on the trail of the wolf and the three unshod horses.

The tracks and his own gut feeling told him that he and John were close to Magnusson and his wolf women.

Now he flipped the tarnished lid of his old Ingersoll, tipped the face to the starlight. Only three o'clock. Two hours before false dawn. There was no point in getting started earlier than that, as there wouldn't be enough light to pick up the sign they'd spied earlier—if the horses and wolf were even part of the same group.

He smoked a cheroot and listened for the wolf, hoping to get a sense of the beast's direction from his and John's camp. When he'd smoked half the cigar and the wolf hadn't howled again, he gently ground the coal in the dust beside him and returned the cigar to his shirt pocket. He set the rifle across his knees, hunkered low in his sheepskin, crossed his arms on his chest, and closed his eyes.

He dreamed that he and Cynthia Larimer were coupling on a polished walnut table, the girl writhing beneath him, screaming. But when he opened his eyes, Cynthia's face was that of a grinning wolf, blood dripping from the long, curved teeth.

Then the wolf became Merle Blassingame, and Longarm was running down a long flight of stairs while Merle was shooting at him from the top, the bullets whistling around his ears. Merle was naked except for Longarm's hat, her huge breasts jouncing as she fired her long-barreled .44 while lifting a high, keening, mocking howl.