AS SOON AS news of the nearby buffalo herd reached the wagons, Joe Meek and Hawk saddled up and set out to do what they could to fill the wagon train’s larder. Accompanying them was young Tommy Fitzpatrick, whose job it would be to ride back to the wagons to fetch men to butcher the buffalo and mules to take the dressed meat back to the wagons.
They were in Blackfoot country, and whatever buffalo they cut down would, by right, belong to the people of that savage confederacy. Nevertheless, the train’s captain, Henry Shaw, was anxious to obtain as much fresh meat as possible before the wagons reached the mountains. There was another reason as well—the buffalo meat itself. For weeks they had had to be satisfied with venison, salt pork, and jerky. Now would come feast time. Rich, tender, and fiberless, buffalo was the most succulent meat of all.
They had ridden little more than a mile when they crested a low ridge and saw below them a vast herd of buffalo. So crowded were the buffalo that clear to the distant horizon the herd resembled one vast, humped carpet. Closer, on the river’s southern bank, the buffalo were less densely packed, and everywhere Hawk and Joe Meek looked, small bands of buffalo were grazing on the short, succulent grama grasses that carpeted the prairie. Patches of dust rose where some of the shaggy beasts rolled about on the ground, and here and there a battle was going forward among the bulls as the rutting season approached. They could hear the bulls bellowing hoarsely.
For a while Hawk and Joe Meek were content to sit on their horses and watch. Then they rode on down the far side of the ridge, heading toward a hollow that would take them to the rutted plain stretching alongside this side of the river, where they hoped to corral one of the smaller bands. A half mile or so from the riverbank, they spotted a small bunch – three cows and a young bull – grazing at the head of a wooded coulee. It was typical of buffalo in the open to graze in country pocked with deep ravines or narrow wooded coulees, the kind of country that made it difficult for horses to follow them.
Looking over the four buffalo, Joe Meek was pleased. “All we have to do is drive them into that coulee.”
“Hell, Joe,” Hawk protested. “It’s too damn close in there.”
“Who said we’d go in after them? I’ll circle around from the other side and wait for ’em. You just drive them at that coulee. I’ll wait for them at the entrance. It’ll be like shoo tin’ fish in a barrel.”
“I can shoot,” piped up Tommy. “I brought my rifle.”
The two men turned to look at the freckled, towheaded youngster. He was barely eleven and fatherless, but he could ride better than most men, and his greatest pleasure, it seemed, was to stick with the older men to listen and help out when need be. He was all-fired anxious to grow up and be a man, it seemed.
“Keep that rifle of yours quiet,” Joe Meek told him, “and stay back and wave your saddle blanket when we tell you to, and light out if that bull comes at you. You hear me, son?”
“Yes sir.”
Tommy stayed close behind as Hawk and Joe Meek headed toward the buffalo. Pulling up in a draw upwind of the great, shaggy beasts, the two men dismounted and crept up the side of the draw to take a closer look at them. They were about four hundred yards away, unaware as yet of their approach, placidly feeding on the grama. The young bull had lost his winter coat, but his appearance was formidable enough. He looked about ten years old and probably weighed nearly a ton. Approaching his prime, he was close to six feet tall at the shoulders and from muzzle to rump at least ten feet long. The cows seemed less formidable in appearance; but they were big and strong enough to intimidate any man on horseback.
Something alarmed the bull. He swung around, his head upraised as he tried to catch their scent, his narrow, sticklike legs moving him about with surprising nimbleness. Behind him, the cows backed up, their hind ends pointing at the coulee entrance.
“See that,” whispered Joe Meek. “They’ll go for the coulee first thing.”
“Go on. Get going.”
Scrambling back down the draw, Joe Meek leaped astride his horse and rode off, keeping in the draw. Hawk tightened his saddle girth, then checked his rifle’s load and that of his big Colt before mounting up. He turned to Tommy and saw that he already had his saddle blanket in his hand.
“When I wave my hat,” Hawk told the boy, “you start for the buffalo and wave your blanket. Make as much noise as you can. Keep them from cutting back this way. Think you can manage that?”
“Sure, Mr. Hawk.”
It was the first time Tommy had ever addressed him in that manner and Hawk made a mental note to speak to him about it later. When he had signed on as scout, he had used his given name, Jed Thompson. Turning back around in his saddle, Hawk dug his heels into his mount’s side and charged up out of the coulee, waving his hat and crying out like a Comanche. Instantly the three cows wheeled and made for the coulee—just as Joe Meek had predicted.
The bull, however, was not going to be intimidated. Pawing the ground, he lashed his tail, lowered his head, and charged. Hawk had no difficulty avoiding the first rush, but when he tried to cut after the fleeing cows, the enraged harem master took after Hawk with a speed that astonished and dismayed him. He flung his horse around just in time to avoid the bull’s horns. The bull skipped nimbly about to come at him again. Hawk raised his rifle and, sighting along the barrel, aimed at the beast’s brisket and fired.
He saw a puff of dust explode where the bullet entered, but the bull only shook his head at Hawk, as if to say he was not pleased. Then he came at Hawk again, more slowly perhaps, but just as determined. Hawk poured powder into the rifle’s muzzle in what he hoped was a double charge and spat a ball down the barrel after it. Pounding the rifle butt on the saddle to seat the bullet, he flung it up swiftly and fired point-blank at the charging bull. The bullet went into the buffalo’s right eye and appeared to explode inside his skull. And still the bull did not go down. Lumbering eerily past Hawk, he swung blindly around and charged off.
Hawk would have let him go, but he saw Tommy on the ground directly in the bull’s path, his horse thrashing on the ground beside him. Hauling his horse around, Hawk overtook the bull, emptying his revolver into the great, lumbering beast’s back. Every bullet raised dust on the beast’s pelt; but incredibly, the bull kept moving, heading directly at Tommy.
“Get down, Tommy!” Hawk yelled.
Obediently, Tommy flung himself into a shallow depression behind the horse. Then Hawk groaned as he saw Tommy’s rifle poke up, the muzzle aimed at the bull.
Again Hawk reloaded his rifle, swung around in front of the buffalo, and fired into its skull. But this time the thick cover of coarse, matted hair that covered the bull’s skull deflected the bullet. As Hawk swept past the bull, he heard Tommy fire his rifle. Turning in his saddle, he saw Tommy throw down his rifle and break into the open, fleeing in panic from the furious bull. Scrambling frantically over the rutted, stony ground, he fell, then got up, dodged, and would have fallen again if the bull had not caught him with his horn and tossed him over his back. Tommy lay where he struck and the bull circled around to finish the job.
Hawk jumped off his horse and went down on his knee, spat his last round into the rifle’s barrel, aimed swiftly, and fired. This time the bull took the round in his heart. Pulling up, he spread his legs to brace himself, reluctant to go down. With blood streaming from his mouth and his tongue protruding, his body rolled like a ship at sea, while his shattered head slowly turned from side to side. Then, as if a tap had been turned on inside the beast, a heavy gout of purple blood gushed from his nostrils, his knees buckled, and with a hoarse gasp, the animal fell over onto his side, his legs, rigid in death, extended.
Hawk raced to Tommy’s side. The boy was not conscious. But he was breathing and it seemed regular enough. From behind Hawk came the pound of Joe Meek’s horse. The mountain man flung himself from the saddle and crouched beside Tommy.
“Jesus, Hawk. What happened?”
“He was afoot when that bull caught him.”
Joe Meek pressed his ear against the boy’s chest. His expression showed immediate relief when he heard the steady pound of the boy’s heart. He sat back on his haunches. “He’ll be comin’ ’round, looks like. Just got the breath knocked out of him.”
“I’ll go see to his horse,” Hawk told him, taking out his revolver.
The horse had stepped into a gopher hole and snapped the bones in his leg. It was in considerable pain. Done thrashing by now, its muzzle was covered with foam and its eyes bulged out of its skull. With each breath came a feeble, wheezing cry. Hawk rested the muzzle of his revolver against its forehead and fired. Hawk looked back at Joe Meek.
“You better get over here!” Joe cried.
When Hawk did, he found Tommy awake, but in considerable pain and his face the color of a bedsheet. Beads of cold sweat stood out on his brow. Joe Meek spoke softly so Tommy would not hear. “Looks like he busted some ribs, and there’s a mean gash in his back where that bull’s horn took him.”
“Got any whiskey, Joe?”
Joe Meek took a flask from his saddle bag and held it to Tommy’s lips and commanded the boy to drink it. Tommy did as ordered. Not long after, he passed out, a faint grin on his face.
“What about them three buffalo?” Hawk asked Joe Meek.
“Got all three.”
“I’ll bring Tommy back and send out the butchers.”
Joe Meek nodded. “Tell them to make it fast and bring enough mules. I saw some hungry coyotes circlin’. It won’t take long before they go for them carcasses. I’ll do my best, but I won’t be much good after dark.”
Hawk mounted up. With surprising gentleness, Joe Meek lifted the unconscious boy up into Hawk’s arms. With a quick wave, Hawk started back to the wagon train.
As Hawk rode down the line of wagons, he caught sight of Tommy’s mother standing by her wagon. She was talking to Ma Bounty. From the trek’s beginning, Ma and Jake Bounty had kept their wagon close behind the wagon belonging to Tommy’s mother. An older couple with no children, they had taken the widow and Tommy under their wing. As a result, the two families had come to be regarded by the other settlers as a single family group.
Glad the widow was with Ma Bounty, Hawk pulled up beside her. Tommy’s mother turned, saw Tommy in Hawk’s arms, and uttered a small, frightened cry. Jake Bounty hurried over to join his wife. He reached up for Tommy. Hawk gave him to the older man, who held the boy in his arms while his distraught mother peered anxiously down at him. Seeing no wound and smelling the whiskey, she looked at Hawk in utter confusion.
“He reeks of alcohol!” she accused.
“We did that to cut the pain.”
Her face went white.
“How bad is he?” Jake asked anxiously.
“Maybe a few cracked ribs. He’s got a horn wound in his back that better be looked at.”
Nodding grimly, Jake carried the boy over to his wagon, Tommy’s mother clinging anxiously to Tommy’s hand as he did so. As soon as Ma Bounty, already in the wagon, helped the boy inside it, Hawk spurred his horse on down the line to see to the waiting men and packhorses.
He was in a hurry. As Joe Meek had warned, the wagon train’s butchers had to get to those carcasses before there was nothing left to dress.
Even though the wagon train had not yet reached water, Henry Shaw decided to halt where they were and make camp for the night. What with Tommy’s injury and the need to bring in the buffalo meat, the wagon train’s captain saw no sense in trying to make it any farther that day. There were twenty-six wagons in the train, and once under way the caravan stretched at least a half mile or so, which meant pulling up this early would be an added chore. But the stock needed rest; too much hurrying wore them down, and since the oxen had already hauled the wagons almost ten miles that day, Shaw was willing to settle for that.
A dry camp, however, was not a pleasant one. The families would have to depend on what remained in the water barrels attached to their wagons. The women complained bitterly to their men—until they were reminded of one of the reasons for the early halt. Fresh meat was on the way! Fresh buffalo meat!
Soon, cooking fires sprang up everywhere as the freshly butchered buffalo meat reached the train. A great deal of it was set aside for the long journey that still lay ahead of them, but the rest was quickly divided among the settlers. The best and only way to cook fresh buffalo meat was over an open fire, preferably on a spit. Some of the settlers used sticks or long knives held over the flames, but most families constructed spits resting on forked sticks. As more mules arrived laden with meat, additional fires sprang up, fueling an impromptu celebration. As darkness fell, men took out their whiskey jugs and others their fiddles. Dancing began in the firelight, and many young swains, eager for more serious play, took this opportunity to disappear with their lady friends into the darkness beyond the wagons. Meanwhile, the succulent meat filled the night air with a heady, mouth-watering aroma.
But Hawk was not a part of the celebration and neither was Joe Meek. They were crouched in Jake Bounty’s wagon with Tommy’s mother, watching while Doc Gurney and Kate Bonner, his confidante and helpmate, bent over Tommy, who was fully awake now, twisting and moaning in pain as the doc swabbed out the wound in Tommy’s back. He had already bound Tommy’s broken ribs.
He pulled back, finished with the horn wound, and let Kate wrap it with bandages. Tommy closed his eyes, exhausted, and allowed his mother to kiss him on the forehead; then he turned his head and slept. Satisfied there was nothing more they could do, Hawk and Joe Meek dropped lightly from the wagon to the ground. Hawk turned to help the widow, and Doc Gurney and Kate Bonner followed.
“Give the boy plenty of water,” Gurney told Tommy’s mother. “He needs fluids. Washes out the humors, it does.”
“What else doctor?” she asked.
“That’s all for now.”
“Doc, will Tommy be all right? How badly is he hurt?”
“He’s got a few cracked ribs, but they’ll mend soon enough. I’ve bound them securely. Just see to it that he doesn’t do any ridin’ before he’s mended. He might puncture a lung. As for that wound, as I said before, just see to it that he gets plenty of fluids.”
“And make sure he rests,” said Kate.
“That’s right,” Gurney agreed. “Plenty of rest. So his body can heal.”
Ma Bounty leaned out of the wagon. “You go on and get some rest yourself now, child,” she called to Tommy’s mother. “We’ll watch over the tyke.”
“Just be sure to change the bandages,” Kate Bonner told Tommy’s mother. “Keep them clean.”
“Now, now,” broke in Gurney. “Stuff and nonsense. There’s no need to bother about that.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Kate insisted. “You just be sure to keep them bandages clean.”
“If you say so,” Tommy’s mother replied uncertainly.
As Kate left with the doctor, Tommy’s mother turned to Hawk, a frown on her face. “Which one do you think I should believe?”
“Kate, I’m thinkin’,” said Hawk.
“I agree,” said Joe Meek. Then he turned to Hawk. “See you later. I got business with the captain— and I can smell that buffalo meat from here.”
Hawk found himself alone with Tommy’s mother and realized suddenly that he was staring. For better than a month he had been unable to ignore her presence on this wagon train. He had noticed from the beginning the considerable skill and uncommon patience she had exhibited handling her oxen team. She kept her wagon up with the rest. It was always neat and her oxen healthy. She kept herself and the boy clean, doing the work of a man and a woman, and never once went looking for help.
It occurred to Hawk that he had never addressed her by her first name. “I don’t want to go on callin’ you widow, Melanie. Do you mind if I call you by your first name?”
“Why, Jed, of course not. I was wondering why you were so formal.”
“Didn’t want to presume.”
“Some call you Hawk, don’t they?”
“Reckon they do, at that.”
“I heard you were part Apache.”
“No, I’m not part Apache. I’m from Kentucky, Melanie. My folks were killed by the Comanche, and afterward they brought up my sister and me. They’re the ones who named me Hawk.”
“Golden Hawk.”
“Yes.”
“I suppose that’s because of your hair,” she said, looking at it with glowing eyes. He thought she was going to reach out and stroke it and found himself wishing she would.
Then he thought of Raven Eyes.
“You better get back to your wagon,” he told her. “Yes,” she said. “You must forgive me. I am very tired.”
Then she glanced past him, at the many fires in front of the wagons. At that moment they both seemed to catch the whiff of roasting beef. At once both of them knew what the other was thinking.
Hawk smiled at Melanie. “Maybe we ought to get some of that buffalo meat,” he told her. “Before it’s all gone, I mean.”
Melanie nodded eagerly. “Until this moment,” she admitted, “I had no idea how hungry I was.”
From a family that had shamelessly gorged itself, they obtained generous portions of dripping meat and went back to Melanie’s wagon, where, their backs to a wagon wheel, they devoured the succulent flesh. When they were done with their feast, Hawk became acutely aware of Melanie’s presence beside him as she licked her fingers while glancing boldly at him with her fiery green eyes.
Hawk found himself looking back just as provocatively.
He was not thinking of Raven Eyes any longer. Melanie was just about as fetching a widow as he had come upon in a long, long time. She seldom hid her thick, chestnut hair under a bonnet, and her full, mature bosom apparently hated corsets as much as he did.
Without a word she reached out to him, her hand catching his chin and gently pulling his face close to hers. Leaning close, she kissed him on the lips. It was a long, moist kiss.
Pulling back, she whispered, “Wait here!”
She ran to Ma and Jake Bounty’s wagon and climbed inside. She was in there for at least five minutes. Then she hurried back to Hawk through the darkness. “Tommy’s sleepin’ fine,” she told Hawk. “Ma says he has no fever!”
“I’m glad of that, Melanie.”
“Come up into the wagon, Jed. Now. If you don’t I’ll never forgive myself … or you.”
He laughed and got to his feet. Taking his hand, she pulled Hawk up. Clambering into the wagon after her, Hawk’s eagerness made him clumsy. Melanie did not bother to light a lantern. The wagon’s darkness closed about them like a throbbing, passionate womb. In an instant, it seemed, both of them were naked, entwined, clawing, sucking at each other, neither one able to get enough of the other, both of them on fire with a scouring, ravaging need.
As he plunged repeatedly into her moist depths, he thought guiltily of Raven Eyes, groaned inwardly, then surged on, wildly, almost angrily. Under him, Melanie’s thighs opened wide as she raised her knees until her ankles were locked behind Hawk’s back. She rocked back then as her head began to thrash violently from side to side, her face a tight mask of concentration. Hitting bottom with each stroke, Hawk eased off a bit, fearful of hurting her. But she rose anxiously up to meet his thrusts and grabbed his hair with both her hands.
“All of it! I want it all inside me!”
At once he plunged in deeper than he would have imagined possible.
“Yes…yes…yes…yes yes—oh, yes!” she told him, exploding under him, erupting like a primal force, her legs scissoring him so violently, he found himself gasping.
A muffled cry escaped her, and she flung her hand over her mouth to prevent the cry from reaching the next wagon. For a long, delicious moment she came in a series of wild, slowly subsiding explosions. He kept his own climax back for as long as he could, then surged wildly on, thrusting deep into her and letting himself come.
A moment later, both panting happily like youngsters making out behind a barn, he collapsed forward onto her magnificent breasts, stayed there for a moment, then rolled off her.
Turning to him, she blew a lock of damp hair out of her eyes. “You must forgive me, Jed,” she said.
“For what?”
“I acted so—”
“… So human,” he finished for her, speaking gently. “I imagine it’s been a long time for you, hasn’t it?”
She sighed. “Yes. Oh, yes. Too long. Women are not supposed to want such things, I know, but, Jed, I was married for nearly eight years, and … well, I’m so glad you understand.”
He took her in his arms and hugged her gently, thinking this time of Raven Eyes without pain. As soon as he and Joe Meek got this wagon train through the mountains, Hawk would be on his way back to her.
Melanie’s warmth prompted him to pull her closer. Though his cup had been emptied earlier, he realized now it hadn’t been a cup at all, but a gallon jug. Gazing deep into Melanie’s green eyes, he found no bottom there. Smiling provocatively, she leaned back and waited for him. He bent his head over her and took one firm, incandescent breast in his hand. Drawing it into his mouth, he caressed its rock-hard tip eagerly with his tongue.
Her hands came up and pressed eagerly against the back of his head, then slid down along his spine until they reached his tight buttocks. Still pulling hungrily on her nipples, he let his own big hand move slowly over her full, rounded belly, halting at her thick, coilly nap, thrusting his fingers through it to the pubic mound under it. Probing gently lower, he felt her grow moist under his fingers and she lifted her thighs eagerly to his touch.
“Ah …” she sighed, pressing his head deeper into the sweet warmth of her breasts. “Mmmra!”
He exulted in the willing pliancy of her body as her hips moved against the throbbing warmth of his erection as it lay hard against her.
“Now,” she whispered urgently. “Please! Now!”
His lips released her breast and he lifted himself slightly. She slid her torso swiftly under him, her legs opening eagerly as he slipped in, the muscles at her entrance closing tightly. Thrusting slowly, languorously, with her lifting to meet every stroke, they made love, moving to a deep, natural rhythm. They had become something more than a man and a woman.
They had become primal forces content to follow a deeper, more universal beat until, at last, their fierce need for completion took over, and their pace increased into a kind of silent, yet wondrous struggle. Great, huffing sighs burst from her, but the need for silence prevented her from crying out. This need for concealment gave an impetus, it seemed, to their swift, violent rush as they plunged over the edge in a series of internal detonations that left them both rocking happily in each other’s arms at the wild, delicious memory of it.
A sweet drowsiness fell over Hawk. He lay on his back beside her, his chest rising and falling steadily, Melanie’s head resting on him. He dug his fingers deep into the luxuriant glory of her thick, sweaty curls. The funky smell of their lovemaking filled the wagon. He dozed for he did not know how long, and when he awakened, Melanie was bent over him, her melonlike breasts swinging close to his face, their nipples astonishingly erect.
“Now I’m really aroused,” she told him, a mischievous light in her green eyes. “You have awakened me fully, Jed!”
Swiftly she climbed onto him, resting a knee alongside each of Hawk’s hipbones. She toyed with his moist erection, guiding herself onto it with gentle fingers. As she dropped her pelvis, taking him in deep, then sucking him in still deeper, he offered no protest and allowed her to have her way with him.
She began to move rapidly up and down as if she were riding a horse. Grunting eagerly with each forward thrust, she leaned forward and let her nipples swing across Hawk’s face. Lifting his head slightly, he closed his lips around one of her nipples and hung on. She went a little wild then, bucking back and forth with a fury that set off a spark deep in his own nearly depleted loins. Astonishingly, he felt himself building swiftly to a climax. He grabbed her thighs and began pulling her down brutally onto his erection and in a few wild, explosive moments, it was all over.
And this time he did sleep until, in order to observe the proprieties, Melanie awakened him with kisses about his face and neck, then helped him dress, after which she pushed him unceremoniously out into the early, predawn darkness.