Untamed (5 page)

Apparently missing the innuendo, she got down on her knees, took his injured limb into her hands as if she were hefting a sack of sugar, and then flung it onto the mattress.

Daniel yowled in pain. "Damn it all, woman. Can't you see that leg is broken?"

"I told you I wasn't a nurse, didn't I?"

Beads of sweat were rolling down his brow and his teeth were clenched against the pain when the cabin door opened. Long Belly came into the room with a second woman following along behind him.

"Ah, brother," he said, kicking the door shut. "See how dutifully my gift tends you? I have chosen well, have I not?"

Daniel grumbled under his breath, in too much agony to risk speaking yet.

"This is my woman," Long Belly announced, dragging her up to the foot of the bed. "She is called Sissy."

Daniel looked her over, his grimace fading as he made out her unusual features. "She's a little different, even for you."

With a sudden grin, Long Belly patted Sissy's full head of tight curls. "She wears the great mane of a buffalo, and so may carry within her its spirit. I am thinking of taking her to my people in a few days and making a gift of her. I will call her Buffalo Hair."

The newly christened 'Buffalo Hair' turned to him with a frown, but said nothing.

"What is your tribe, Buffalo Hair? I do not recognize it in you."

She gave him a blank look in return.

"Who are your people?"

Daniel laughed, and then clarified the situation for Long Belly. "Africans, I would say, along with a little something else. Am I right, darling?"

The dark-skinned prostitute turned her frown on Daniel, "My mother whored same as me," she said in a monotone. "She didn't rightly know who or what that little something else was, and neither do I."

Long Belly scratched his head. "Africans? Who are these people? Where do they roam?"

"If you'd paid more attention to the lessons I've been trying to teach you," said Daniel, "then you'd know where Africa is. It's a whole different continent. Your woman's people are not from around these parts."

"Africa?" Long Belly looked her over again, and then shrugged. "She is here now, she will be called Buffalo Hair, and she will do as I say."

"Good. Then send her to the stove." Daniel patted his growling belly. "I'm so hungry, I swear I can feel the weight falling off of me as I lay here. I could really go for some nice fluffy biscuits, a little gravy to dump over them, and ... what kind of grub do we have left in the smokehouse, Long Belly?"

"A barrel of pork," he said, "a couple of hangs, and an elk roast."

Daniel licked his lips and moaned. "It all sounds good to me. Why don't we let the women decide, since they're the ones who have to cook it?"

The dark-skinned whore shook her fluffy head. "I've been trained to do only one thing, and it ain't fixing grub. I don't know any more about frying pans than I do about having tea out of fine china."

Josie, who'd been happy to listen, not join this conversation, watched as Long Belly and Daniel both turned to her expectantly. Savages or not, this was one area in which she couldn't be persuaded by Satan himself. She'd starve herself to death before becoming the galley slave of these two. Careful to avoid both men's eyes, she set out for one of the two chairs at the small table. Thanks to the long ride astride the back of a mule, her thighs were bruised and her bottom felt as if she'd taken a beating, but she managed to hobble across the room without drawing comment from either man. Taking care with her tender bottom, she eased onto the sturdiest chair, and then stared out the window at the barn and the sparse forest beyond. She shivered against the cold, mildly longing for the smelly horse blanket.

"I wouldn't bother with getting too comfortable, Josie." Daniel was the first to address her. "While Long Belly is out getting supplies, you and your friend ought to be stoking up that fire. You're going to need a nice hot stove to bake up a decent batch of biscuits."

Purging herself of as much fear as possible, Josie swallowed the truth as if it were a dose of salts and lied through her teeth. "I won't be baking up biscuits or anything else. I don't know how to cook."

She didn't dare turn around to see how this information was received, but she could hear plenty of grumbling going on behind her. Plainly, this news not only astonished them, but didn't set well with the fellas either.

"You sure know how to go about finding me a woman," said Daniel at last. "Yessir, you really know how to pick 'em."

Josie looked up in time to see the savage shoot both her and Sissy a murderous glance. "I cannot understand women who do not cook," he muttered. "Perhaps we can teach them."

"In one night?" Josie said impulsively.

To that Sissy added, "Too bad you didn't buy Lola's cook while you were there, red man."

Long Belly considered all this, and then said, "I will cook our supper tonight. Tomorrow will be soon enough for these lazy females to learn chores they should already know."

Daniel shook his head. "You're taking those women back to Miles City first thing in the morning—make no mistake about it, Long Belly."

"That is not possible." The savage pointed out the window. "Have you looked at the skies? The leaves of the cottonwood fill the river, and even the horses at the mission school have grown many thick hairs since the last moon. A big storm approaches."

"Are you sure?"

As the savage assured his brother of what he'd seen, Josie's spirits fell. She'd noticed the changes in the weather, but had hoped somehow to be rescued long before now. If an Indian who knew his way around these parts couldn't get down the mountain, how would she ever get away from these beasts and their filthy cabin? As she considered her increasingly perilous situation and ways of making good her escape, Sissy came over and fell into the seat across from her. The savage headed for the stove, grumbling to himself as he stuffed chunks of wood into it. And Daniel drifted off to sleep, snoring intermittently as his brother wrestled with the frying pan over a hot burner.

Supper that night turned out to be a throat-puckering combination of rusty salt pork and canned beans cooked up by the savage. This was accompanied by a lump of hardtack that was so dried out and old, it didn't even soften when Josie dunked it in her coffee. After the meal was finished, both she and Sissy begged off the mountain of dishes by claiming exhaustion, which in no way was an exaggeration thanks to the all-night journey to this godforsaken place. Josie's eyes felt as if they'd been rolled in cornmeal, and her bruised legs could barely hold her upright.

It was as she was contemplating a place in which to sleep that the savage approached with yet another demand.—a chore Josie had no intention of taking on.

"You may wait until morning to clean dishes," he said magnanimously. "But tonight you must dump my brother's slop pail before you can rest. It is there in the cabinet by his bed."

Josie gagged at the thought. "Do it yourself," she said recklessly.

This enraged the savage. "You will do as you are told, and you will do it now."

Josie backed against the door, afraid that she'd pressed her luck with the Indian one time too many, but then Sissy surprised her by stepping between her and the furious man.

"I don't mind no slop jars," she said. "I'll take care of it."

Even though Sissy had already started for the cabinet, the savage still looked as if he might come after Josie and do her bodily harm. Just as she reached behind her and began fumbling with the latch on the door, Daniel spoke up, diverting the Indian's attention.

"Yessir, Brother," he said with a laugh. "Picking this woman for me was a mighty fine idea. Why, she's turned out to be what I would call the perfect gift. Mercy."

The savage kept one evil eye on Josie, but a smile tugged the corner of his mouth as he said to Daniel, "Perhaps if I beat this perfect gift of yours, she will be even more perfect."

"Perhaps," Daniel agreed, drawing a gasp from Josie. "But I'm too tired to listen to her caterwauling tonight. Beat her in the morning, if you must. For now, I think we could all use a little sleep."

Josie wasn't sure if her punishment had been delayed or if she'd earned a complete reprieve, but she was relieved when Long Belly went along with the suggestion. After Sissy returned with the empty stop pail, the savage chased her up the slender ladder that led to the loft—his lair, Josie assumed—then returned to the main room with one final order for the night.

"You," he said, pointing to Josie and then the bed, "will join my brother now."

"I can sleep, in the chair just fine," she answered, not feeling nearly as brave as she sounded.

"In this, you will obey."

Faster than she thought any human could move, the savage was on her. Gripping Josie by the arm, he dragged her to the edge of Daniel's bed. "You will warm my brother and you will do it now."

"If she'd rather not," Daniel said. "I don't care where she sleeps."

That reprieve lasted only a moment. Still hanging on to her, Long Belly objected violently. "This she is trained for, is she not?"

With a shrug, Daniel had to agree. "From what I've seen of her, I would say it's probably the only thing she can do.''

"Do you deny that you long for this female beside you?"

Daniel eyed her with a look that gave Josie a case of goose flesh. "It'd sure beat the hell out of getting cow-kicked."

"Then it is settled. I have paid for this woman's services," said the savage. "And in this, she will submit."

With that he flung Josie onto the bed beside Daniel. Then he blew out the lantern and added one last order in the darkness.

"Call to me, my brother, if this perfect gift does not use her training in ways that please you. I would be happy to beat her tonight if she fails in this."

Chapter 4

The following morning when Daniel awakened, his first thought was the same thought he'd had for at least three weeks running—why bother to wake up at all? He was sick of lying in bed, sick and tired of the stink of the sheet beneath him, and sick to death of his own useless body. He'd had other injuries in the past, including bullet and arrow wounds, but never had he been so completely debilitated, so helpless and utterly useless.

Mostly Daniel hated being confined by these four log walls. As a man who'd always lived in the out of doors—in a hastily erected lean-to, tipi, tent, or more often than not, right out under the stars on his bedroll—being stuck inside was giving him a powerful case of the jimjams.

He shifted his hips, seeking fresh mattress lumps to squash with his worthless body, and connected with something soft, a surprisingly warm object he initially mistook for his down pillow. Then he remembered the woman, Long Belly's perfect gift. He glanced her way, pleased to see that her expression was free of the hatred he'd seen yesterday.

Daniel shifted a little, testing the depth of Josie's slumber. She didn't move so much as an eyelash. Thanks, no doubt, to the arduous and sudden trek she'd been forced to make, she was dead to the world. Rolling slightly onto his right side for a better view of his unexpected bed mate, Daniel studied her a little closer. The rigid lodgepole she'd been when she first stretched out beside him last night was gone, in its place an agreeable, lithesome willow. He wondered which tree she would resemble when she awoke to find him staring at her. The odds heavily favored the pine.

Not that Daniel blamed the woman for her obvious distress. It hadn't been her idea to come here, that much was sure. Still, he found her defiant nature a little puzzling. He would have expected someone in her line of work to be more like her friend Sissy, resigned to the situation. Josie, on the other hand, was a study in contradictions, chief of which was her surprising modesty. The woman had actually slept in all her clothes, right down to her shoes.

How could a prostitute be too shy to discard even a scrap of her clothing? If indeed she'd been worried about unwanted advances, the chemise beneath her gown would certainly have 'protected' her just as well—another oddity. Why did she feel she needed protection from an invalid when any man off the street could have her for a price? It wasn't as if he'd given her the idea that he planned on going where he clearly wasn't wanted. Daniel was not the kind of man who condoned or used force on women, and he hadn't given Josie any indication otherwise. Yet when he'd reached for her last night, she'd threatened to kill him. He simply couldn't make sense of her.

She stirred then, touching his upper thigh, unconsciously testing Daniel's control. After the death threat, he hadn't sought her comfort again, and now he had to wonder why he'd been so generous. Surely not because of the broken leg. A woman in her line of work would know plenty of ways to ease a man's needs, several of which wouldn't disturb his injury in the least. Just thinking about a couple of those ways, not to mention how good it felt to have her warm body snuggled against this, made him think that maybe he'd been a damn fool to let her off so easily. From the few murmured grunts and groans he'd heard in the loft before drifting off, he had an idea that Long Belly hadn't been nearly so thoughtful of the dark-skinned whore who shared his bedroll.