Blood at Bear Lake (10 page)

Then—he could scarcely believe it—Mrs. Coyle bent down low. He could feel the warmth of her breath on him there. And she took his softly into the warmth of her mouth.

His unexpected shout in the silence of the night startled the woman so badly that she screamed and fell backward.

Into the fire.

That made her scream again as she hurriedly rolled off the ash-covered coals.

Joe bounded to his feet and grabbed her by the wrist to help pull her free of the fire. She ended up sitting on the ground with her hair disheveled and a dark smudge of ash covering a burn on her backside. She was bawling and babbling something, the words tumbling out so fast and slurred that he could not make them out.

For his part, Joe's pants, still open, had fallen to knee level when he jumped up. Now he hastily retrieved them and got himself covered again and fully buttoned.

Snorting with disgust—more with himself than with Mrs. Coyle—he added wood to the coals and built the fire up so he would have enough light to spread some soothing grease on Mrs. Coyle's burn.

But while he did that, dammit, he intended to get some answers out of her.

“I just . . . I just wanted to make you
like
me,” she blubbered between sobs. “So you would, you know . . . take
care
of me. So you would take me to California.”

“I already told you,” Joe said, taking another dab of lard out of the bucket and spreading it onto her butt. A too damned nice butt for comfort actually. He was a married man now. That was not necessarily easy to remember. Especially when he was rubbing grease over that tight and shapely ass. “Already told you, California ain't the direction I'm headed. I got serious business back in Wyoming country.”

“I would be good to you, Joe. I would dress nice for you and fix myself up real pretty. I would do anything you want, Joe.” She lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “
Any
thing.”

“Dammit, stop tryin' to tempt me.” He sat back from where she lay facedown on his blankets. He grabbed a handful of wiry grass and pulled it free of the soil, then used the grass to wipe his hands.

Mrs. Coyle rolled over, ignoring whatever pain that must have cost her and likely smearing lard onto his blanket, too. She was still naked, her breasts hanging free. He could see droplets of milk gathering on the tips of her nipples and gleaming in the firelight. An errant but insistent thought made him wonder what that milk would taste like. “I would be so very, very good to you, Joe. Truly I would. Don't you want me, Joe? You are looking at me here. Would you like to have some of this?” She lifted her right breast on the palm of her hand and leaned forward as if holding it out to him. “I'm a good milker. My baby was fat and healthy on my milk.”

Joe ignored the offer. Or tried to. “Why should I believe anything you tell me? You lied to me already.”

She scowled. “I never,” she said indignantly.

“Woman, I don't even know your right name.”

“I told you that. My name is Brenda Coyle. My husband was Jonathan Coyle from Warfordsburg, Pennsylvania. My baby was Abraham Coyle. We named him in honor of President Lincoln. Our home was . . .”

“Why'd the Wickershams call you Tessa?” Joe interrupted.

“That one boy, Thomas, he called me that. It was a big joke to the three of them. Their family used to own a nigra slave called Tessa. They said she was fat and ugly but she made good milk and was the nursemaid to any young'uns on the farm. Orphaned animals, too, sometimes. They said they used to sneak over to the slave shack sometimes and get milk from her, too. They said their daddy would beat them black and blue whenever he caught them, but they would go back again anyway. They said woman's milk is way better than cow's milk. Do you think so, Joe? Would you like some of my . . .”

“Shut up!” Joe snapped. “An' go cover yourself. I done told you. I'm a married man.”

“But I . . .”

“Go. Right now, dammit, or I'll give you a worse beating than the Wickershams ever thought of.”

Sighing heavily, she stood, gave him one more look, then went back to her wagon and climbed into it for the night.

Joe lay down again.

But he had a terrible time getting to sleep that night.

26

EXCEPT FOR THE lack of sex—and he could have gotten that from her, too, simply for the asking—having Brenda Coyle in camp was very much like having an Indian woman, which he had done every winter for years and years back in his fur-trapping days.

Brenda rose early and worked like a dog building up the fire, making coffee, scavenging wood, frying meat, and watering the livestock. Joe figured she intended to be on her best behavior with him now. He had refused her offer of sex to make herself wanted in his camp, so now she was trying to ingratiate herself with him as a camp swamper.

Joe smiled to himself as he hunkered beside the coals with a last cup of coffee. This helpfulness was something that was not going to sway him . . . but she was damn sure welcome to keep it up. Just as long and as much as she cared to.

He could not help thinking just a little wistfully that it was a fearsome shame he could not take her up on her first offer. She was a mighty fine-looking woman.

He couldn't help thinking, too, that he really would have liked a chance to try some of that milk that was dripping out of her and wetting the front of her dress this morning. Her teats were full to overflowing now with no one to take the milk from her.

He wondered if . . . just as a charitable sort of thing . . . He shook his head. No, dammit. Best put
that
sort of thought well aside.

“Would you like more coffee, Mr. Moss?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Coyle. This is enough for me.” He glanced toward the east, where a bright red sliver of sun had begun to appear on the horizon. “It's getting late.”

He stood, tossed the last of his coffee onto the coals, and handed her the empty cup. “If you will excuse me, ma'am, I'll get the animals hitched. Are you sure you won't change your mind about that lead wagon, ma'am? Might be some valuable things in there, things you could sell when you get wherever 'tis you're going.”

“No, Mr. Moss. I already told you. I want none of their possessions. They were evil men and they did me wrong, but even so, I won't profit from their deaths. Thank you, though.”

“You wouldn't mind if I paw through there, then?”

“Do whatever you wish, sir. The wagon is yours. I certainly don't want it. Besides, you've already made it clear you don't want me, so I got nothing to say about what you do. I got no claim upon you.”

“Very well. Then if you'll excuse me . . .” Joe touched the brim of his hat and left the breaking of camp to her.

He had been waiting for daylight so he could see while he rummaged through the contents of the wagon that had belonged to the Wickershams. Brenda wanted her own things in her own wagon, the one she and her husband had started west with, but nothing that had been property of her captors.

Joe had already emptied the pockets of the three dead men. He did that when he disposed of their bodies the evening before. He did not consider the act to be any sort of robbery, but a matter of simple practicality. Leaving perfectly good cash money lying there for the vultures and the coyotes to scatter would have been foolish. Not that the Wickershams had had so very much in their pockets when they died. He had taken thirty-some dollars in coin from them and another twenty or thereabouts in currency. All of it rested now in the pouch at Joe's belt.

And he had it in mind that those three brothers would not have set out for California with less than a hundred dollars in hand. Somewhere inside that wagon was their stash, and again it would have been sheer foolishness to leave it for some future traveler to find.

He crawled inside the overloaded wagon and, ignoring the stink of other men's sweat, began swiftly examining things, and then when he was done with each item, tossing it out over the tailgate.

“Mr. Moss, what are you doing in there? I thought you wanted to get on the road today. Why, it'll take me half the morning just to get this all packed back where it belongs.”

“I thought you said you didn't want none o' this crap, Mrs. Coyle.”

“That's right, I don't.”

“Well, I don't neither an' it's in my way.”

“Oh, it does seem a shame to let such a nice teapot go to waste. It's silver, I do believe.”

“It's yours, ma'am. Figure it's a gift from me t' you.”

“Why, I . . . thank you, Mr. Moss.”

“My pleasure, Miz Coyle.” Joe continued with his task, throwing out each piece one by one, clothing, furniture, and all.

He salvaged all of the coffee and bacon the Wickershams had been carrying, and some of their lard and flour. Mrs. Coyle took the rest of those along with the silver teapot.

Still, Joe kept looking.

He finally found what he had been searching for contained in a cloth bag tacked to the back of a drawer in a little chest that held harness-making tools.

Joe did not take time to count the coins in the bag, but it was satisfyingly heavy and all the coins were gold. He did not see any silver when he looked into the poke. At a guess, there should be more than a thousand dollars in gold there, perhaps considerably more.

“We can hitch up an' go now,” he said as he climbed back out of the wagon.

“What about all of . . . this?” She pointed to the jumble of goods he had thrown out of the wagon. “Do you want me to put it back?”

“Why? I ain't takin' it. You said you don't want it neither.”

“But . . .”

“Miz Coyle, the livestock that's left to you an' the brothers are in bad shape. If they was healthy, it'd be all they can do t' pull one wagon, never mind two. So I figure t' build the strangest damned . . . excuse my language, ma'am . . . strangest dang mixed hitch anybody ever seen. But I'm thinkin' with all of 'em pulling your one wagon, we can get you back to a little Mormon settlement that I seen the last time I was through here.”

He grinned. “Didn't pay much attention to it then, bein' as how them Mormons don't much hold with carousing an' I wasn't yet a married man at the time. But I figure you can settle there long enough t' get rested an' wait for a train t' pass through so's you can get on to California.” The grin became wider. “Or get you a husband if you don't mind becoming a Mormon.”

“I don't know what the Mormons hold with, Mr. Moss.”

“Don't you worry about that. Fifteen minutes after we get there, you will have been told all about it. An' fifteen minutes after that, you will've been baptized Mormon if you're willin'. Now, if you'll excuse me, I reckon that wagon sheet will make a good cover for the packs on my mule an' I think I'm gonna take it.” Joe turned and began untying the white canvas sheet that covered the bows over the bed of the Wickershams' wagon.

27

THE FARTHER EAST they went, ever closer to the Green River that he remembered so fondly from the fur-trapping days of his youth, the closer they got to Paiute country. In the old days, he and the boys referred to the Paiutes as Digger Indians.

The Diggers were known as the poorest of all the tribes. Man, woman, or child, they went naked except for the dust and filth that covered them. The problem with the Diggers was that while they were still poor, sometime in the last twenty years or so the bastards had gotten some firearms in hand, most of them stolen from the many wagons that passed through on their way to California.

It turned out that the Diggers were mean and sneaky sons of bitches once they had better weapons than the sticks they used to hunt with. Nowadays, they thought it grand sport to rob and kill any white men they could lull into inattentiveness with their begging and bowing.

Joe knew that, knew it good and well, and there was no way he would have let a pack of Diggers close to his odd little caravan of one wagon and a pack mule.

He was, dammit, lulled into inattentiveness, though. Not by any display of innocence staged by the Diggers. He became complacent because on the eighth day, swinging south of the salt desert and inland salt sea, they finally reached civilization.

Almost.

They were within three miles of the Mormon settlement, he judged, Joe riding well out in front of Mrs. Coyle and her plodding oxen, and he could as good as taste the fresh meat and fruit pies he fully intended to indulge in once they got there. One more ridge to cross, maybe two, and they would be there.

His mouth was watering in anticipation of the fried chicken and oven-baked biscuits he knew would be available in the settlement. It was all he could do to keep from trying to hurry the wagon along. He would have, too, had Mrs. Coyle's animals been in better shape.

As it was, they were in bad need of some decent feed and a long rest. One ox in particular worried him. He suspected the animal might never recover from what it had been through, and probably should be butchered. It would be too tough for steak, but would still be useful for stew meat or for jerky.

Steaks. Beef sizzling over the fire. Thick and juicy slabs of red meat that . . .

Joe was shaken out of his reverie by an ear-shattering whoop from his right and another from the far side of Brenda Coyle's wagon.

Half a dozen arrows rose out of the scrubby brush that a civilized man would not think thick enough to hide a jackrabbit, much less a fully grown Digger Indian.

At least one arrow hit one of Mrs. Coyle's oxen— naturally, the one hit was one of the healthier animals, Joe immediately grumbled to himself—and the beast jerked its head, rolling its eyes and bawling in pain.