Cheyenne Captive (20 page)

Summer played like a child in the shallows, enjoying the feel of the cool water on her hot skin, the scent of towering pines and wildflowers. Bright butterflies rose up as the breeze stirred the flowers and bird calls echoed through the rocky hills. It was a bright day, a day all gold and green and blue.

She played in the water a long time, lost in the naughty thrill of being naked, splashing about in the shallows like a small, sleek otter. She must get Iron Knife to teach her to swim, she thought regretfully. None of the women she knew in Boston could swim. The cumbersome costumes they wore to protect their modesty precluded such activity.

A long time passed before she noticed the sun was high in the heavens and all the women and children had gradually left the area.

Yawning, Summer stood up near the bank. it was only knee-deep there and she splashed with her toes, oblivious to her own nakedness since there was no one to see her.

Summer decided that she would go lay on the warm sand until that tiresome Council meeting was over and Iron Knife joined her. She had done all her work until tomorrow when she was supposed to help Pony Woman and Pretty Flower Woman make pemmican.

She paused, apprehension stealing over her. She felt a strange feeling of being watched. It had been foolish of her to stay at the river when there was no one else nearby. Iron Knife had cautioned her and she had ignored his warning. She would fetch her shift, she decided, and get herself back to the village until Iron Knife could accompany her.

But as she started up out of the water, a man stepped out of the woods, the Comanchero of this morning. He leered at her as he stepped over, grabbed her dress, and held it up triumphantly.

“
Bueno dias, señorita
.” His pointed teeth smiled in a wolfish grin as he walked toward her. “
No habla español?
Do you speak English or Comanche?” He spoke a curious mixture of border Spanish and pidgin English. Summer didn’t answer as she tried to cover herself with her hands and backed slowly to the edge of the water.

“Please, señor,” she pleaded. “My dress—”

He wadded the dress, tossed it to one side as he advanced toward the water. “Come here,
puta
. Whore,” he hissed. “You can’t be much if you’re livin’ with the Injuns, letting every red hombre top you.”

“Get away from me,” she warned, backing deeper into the water.

“You want money?” He held up coins. “I have ribbons, trinkets in my saddlebags.”

“My man will come if I scream—”

He threw his head back and laughed. “Señorita, I know Injuns well. I’ve spent my life among them,
comprende
? If I offer your man a little whiskey, some ammunition, maybe a rifle in exchange for an hour with you, he’ll be eager to share you.” The man moved even closer and Summer backed waist-deep into the water. She looked frantically behind her, afraid to go any deeper.

The man was up to his boot tops in the water now, motioning invitingly to her. “
Sí
, come out. Make your own deal with me. Why should you not get the gifts for your favors instead of me giving them to your man?
Comprende
?”

He scowled, pulling at his chewed ear. “If I have to get wet to get you, you’ll regret it!”

Summer felt the current pulling at her naked body. She was deep as she could go without being able to swim and the short, powerful man was wading out to her.

“Come here,
puta
, you whore,” he swore. “You’re ruining my good disposition that I should have to get wet to reach you, but perhaps hard to reach fruit is the sweetest,
sí?
”

Summer wished now with all her heart that she had listened to Iron Knife. But she had expected this Comanchero to sit through the council meeting, too. If she did scream, would anyone hear her over the usual noise of the camp?

Summer couldn’t get to shore without getting past him and he seemed to sense this.

“Come, sweet one,” he coaxed. “Maybe I will trade your man out of you and take you with me. I have a hideout with a hundred men at my command up in the hills of New Mexico. You could be my woman.”

“No.” She shook her head and the blond hair trailed in the water. “No, I will stay with the man I have.”

“Stubborn bitch,” he swore and let loose a string of oaths in Spanish as he spat in the river. He glided even closer through the water and she thought suddenly of a deadly water moccasin snake slipping through the current.

She couldn’t move any farther back. The sluggish river current was already tugging at her bare body. But if she stayed where she was, he would reach her in seconds. Clumsily, she struck out, trying to swim around him in a wide circle.

But he laughed easily as he reached, caught her wrist, and started back toward shore. She struggled and fought him as he dragged her toward land and he turned and forced her head under water.

She came up choking and coughing and he laughed, showing gleaming, sharp teeth. “You got too much spirit,
puta
whore! El Lobo likes his women docile as sheep. You need the fight taken out of you and I’m just the hombre to do it!”

Summer strangled on the water, without enough air to scream as he dragged her into the shallows, twisted her hands behind her back.

He grinned down at her, water dripping from his clothes. “I told you you’d be sorry if I had to get wet, gringo bitch. Now, I’ll show you how to make a woman docile. When I get through with you, you’ll be glad to lay on that beach and take my weight without a whimper just so I won’t hold you under again.”

Realizing what he intended to do, she struggled, tried to cry out for help. It was a long way to the village, she thought with sudden clarity, and she might not be heard over all the noise of barking dogs and playing children.

Even as he stood dripping in the ankle-deep water, he suddenly hooked his foot behind her slim legs, tripped her so that she fell backward. As she went down on her back, he moved her imprisoned wrists above her head and fell heavily atop her.

By lifting her head, she could keep her face above water, but otherwise she was helpless. His weight prevented her from moving and his strong grip held her wrists pinned above her head against the sand of the river bottom.

His face loomed close to hers and she could smell the stench of garlic and rotten teeth as he bent to kiss her. She struggled and tried to bite him, wincing from the sharp conchos and metal of his belt on her bare skin.

He smiled. “You’ve got more spirit than I thought, señorita. This is gonna be mucho fun.” He reached with one big hand to touch her forehead and applied pressure. With horror, she felt him gradually submerging her face.

Her straining neck was no match for his brute strength as he forced her head backward. He was going to drown her in ankle-deep water! In panic, she fought to get out from under him, lift her face out of the river. She felt the cold water splashing against her cheeks, her nose. Then, he had the back of her head against the river bottom and she felt the water covering her face completely.

In cold horror, she fought to get back up to the life-giving air, but through the cold water she could see his evil face laughing with delight. Summer gasped and choked in panic, straining all her muscles to get out from under him.

After a long moment, he took his hand off her face and she managed to raise her head up out of the water although it lapped around her cheekbones. Summer gasped for air, choking and coughing while he laughed.

“See, white whore, when you struggle or try to scream, your head gets submerged again. You think I won’t drown you? Si, I would.” He nodded. “I wouldn’t even mind taking you dead. A dead female is mucho docile. I know, I’ve done it before.”

He was crazy
, Summer thought in desperation. Why hadn’t she listened to Iron Knife about coming to the river alone?

“Listen,” she gasped. “Let’s get up on shore and make love. It would be better than this.”

He didn’t move, leering down at her as he lay on her. She was struggling to breathe with his dead weight on her naked body.

The dirty Spaniard was enjoying tormenting her, she realized suddenly as his hand moved slowly toward her forehead again. The thought came to her that he was becoming sexually aroused from scaring and torturing her. She stared up in horror at the hand coming down toward her face.

“No!” she protested, trying to free her hands from above her head, arching against him in protest. “Let me up! My man will kill you for this!”

“You said the wrong thing, white bitch.
Comprende
?” and his expression was mean and ugly. “I know Injuns. I’ll give him a few trinkets from my trade goods and he’ll let me use you any way I want. Now, submit!”

But Summer struggled again, trying to escape his crushing weight on her small body and looked up to see his hand descending relentlessly. She did her best to keep her face above water but his fingers were on her forehead again and he was forcing her head back, under the water so that her nostrils were barely covered. Desperately, Summer tried to hold her breath, but the pressure of his hand never let up. Finally, she had to take a breath and her nose and mouth filled with water. Never had she known such panic! He was drowning her and she was helpless to save herself.

Finally, he moved his hand and she managed to get her face to the surface again, gulping air in great gasps.

She could see the evil delight gleaming in his eyes and remembered suddenly catching her young sister pulling the wings off flies at the music-room window. Her sister had worn just such an expression.

The Comanchero’s swarthy face was very close to hers now and he whispered, “I think I might want to take you from behind, bitch. Do you realize I could drown you in only an inch of water as I mount you with both my hands on the back of your head?”

He would do it
,
too
. She knew that now, looking into the crazed face only inches from her own. Her neck ached with the strain of holding her head up out of the water and she could hardly breathe from the heavy weight of him across her. She tried to wiggle her fingers pinned in the mud above her head and realized her arms were going to sleep with the circulation cut off as it was.

“Please!” she managed to gasp. “I’ll let you do anything you want if we get up on the riverbank.”

“Anything?” She could see the cruel ideas lurking behind the wolfish eyes. Lord help the poor Texas ranch women who had fallen into his hands on raids!

“Anything,” she whimpered, trying hard to hide her anger and appear as docile as he wanted.

He laughed and stood up, jerking her to her feet. “I didn’t think you wanted to die! Maybe I might give you enough pleasure that you will want to accompany El Lobo back to the Sangre de Cristo mountains,
sí
?”

“Maybe,” she managed to say as he dragged her toward the shore.
He was going to have to kill her first before she let him rape
her, she thought with stubborn determination. Summer was buying time for herself, hoping against hope that someone might come down to the water and go for help. She wanted it so desperately, she imagined she saw Pretty Flower Woman watching from behind a tree.
Terror does strange things to the mind
, she thought desperately, because when she looked again she saw nothing.

El Lobo dragged her dripping and coughing up on the beach and took her in his arms, running his big, dirty hands up and down her naked back. She could feel the heat of his hard manhood against her bare belly as he reached to unbutton his pants.

“I’m gonna take a quick sample,
señorita
, without ever taking my clothes off. If you’re as good as you look, I’ll trade you away from your Injun. I might not even make you service my men at the stronghold; just me alone.”

His wet, slimy mouth was on hers, forcing her lips apart as she still gasped for air and one of his callused hands cupped her breast, squeezing cruelly.

Summer relaxed in his arms a moment, trying not to retch on the taste of his filthy mouth exploring hers, his hands running freely over her soft skin.

If he would just let down his guard . . .

It was now or never! She pretended to respond to his lust, molded her body against his dripping wet clothes. His body relaxed its guard a little as he enjoyed the kiss. This was her one chance and she took it. In a quick, desperate move, Summer brought her knee up, caught him in the groin. As he moaned and turned loose of her to grasp himself, she broke away and started to run. She didn’t quite make it.

The Comanchero swore viciously in Spanish as he reached out, caught her arm. “You bitch!” he swore. “You conniving bitch! I’ll make you wish you had never done that!”

She tried to scream but he had his hand clasped over her mouth again, dragging her to the water. She fought with everything she had, knowing this time he was going to drown her and rape her dead body. But she weighed less than half his weight and she was like a broken doll in his grasp as he dragged her into the ankle-deep water.

“Now,
puta!”
he swore. “I told you I’d do this. Didn’t you believe me?”

He threw her down on her belly in the shallow water, knelt with one big hand on the small of her back, and threw his full weight on it so she couldn’t get away.

“Aha!
señorita
.” He laughed gleefully. “I’m gonna put one boot on the back of your neck and put your face in that mud. After I hold you under a few more times, it’ll take the fight out of you, no? And if not, I will enjoy you every bit as much unconscious or dead!”

She could feel his big boot on the back of her neck now. Her own terrified face reflected back at her in the dark water only inches from her nostrils with his ugly face looming in the background.

His boot came down on her neck with his weight behind it and her own horrified image came up to meet her. She could feel the rough grit of the sand bottom on her tender cheek as he pushed her face under and she fought in terror to free herself.

It seemed an eternity that she struggled and fought, feeling his hand on the small of her back, his boot on her neck as he pressed her face against the river bottom. She held her breath as long as she could before she had to breathe in and the water rushed into her mouth and nose.