“You are sly like a fox.”
“We were lucky,” Fargo said. It could have gone either way. “Where to now? You know this country better than I do. Is there a spot we can camp for the night where Durn isn’t likely to find us?”
Birds Landing pondered, then said, “Keep riding. I will direct you.”
Night sounds wafted across the valley: the yip of coyotes, the hoot of an owl, the lonesome howl of a wolf. They had covered about a mile when a revolver cracked to the west and was answered by another to the south.
“Why are they shooting?” Birds Landing wondered.
“Signaling,” Fargo guessed. “Once they lost us, Durn broke them into groups.” That is what he would have done.
“Do you think he suspects you are the one who came to my rescue?”
Fargo couldn’t say. But the man who nearly roped them had gotten a good look at the Ovaro, and might describe the stallion to Durn. If Kutler or Tork were along, they would know right away.
“You are a fine rider,” Birds Landing remarked. “No warrior in my tribe could do better.”
“I have spent half my life in the saddle,” Fargo said. Or that was how it seemed.
Now that they were no longer being chased, Fargo was once again aware of the warmth of her body. Her bosom was still pressed flush against him. It made him wonder.
Eventually they came to a series of low hills. Birds Landing guided Fargo up into them until they came to a bench overlooking the valley. The lights of Polson gleamed far off. Even farther away, to the southeast, were a few more. The St. Ignatius Mission, Fargo figured.
At one end of the bench, screened by cottonwoods, was a small spring. The Ovaro wearily hung its head and drank while Fargo stripped off the saddle and saddle blanket. His stomach growled, reminding him he had not eaten all day.
Birds Landing heard. “You are hungry, too?”
“Starved.” Fargo could go for an inch-thick steak, or a roast haunch of venison. He settled for opening a saddlebag and taking out a bundle wrapped in rabbit hide. Opening it, he handed a piece of pemmican to Birds Landing. “I have plenty so eat as much as you want.” He untied his bedroll, spread out his blankets with his saddle for a pillow, and sank down.
“We are safe here,” Birds Landing said.
Fargo helped himself to pemmican. The ground buffalo meat had been mixed with fat and blackberries, and was downright delicious.
Birds Landing accepted another piece and eased down next to him. “Did you make this yourself?”
“I bought it from a Cheyenne woman at a trading post,” Fargo revealed. It was rare to find pemmican made with blackberries. Usually chokecherries or other berries were used.
Birds Landing smacked her lips. “You did say I could have as much as I wanted.”
“Here.” Fargo gave her a handful. As she took them, her fingers lightly brushed his palm in what might be construed as a caress. Again, Fargo wondered.
Her expression, though, gave no hint of her intentions.
Birds Landing chewed lustily. “For a white man you have been awful nice to me.”
“With the body you have, who wouldn’t be?” Fargo tested the waters.
Birds Landing blinked, then laughed. “You do not—what is the white saying? Oh, yes. You do not beat around the bush.”
“Life is too short for bush-beating,” Fargo said, and reaching behind her, pulled her face to his and kissed her full on the lips.
“Oh,” Birds Landing said.
Fargo entwined his fingers in her hair and waited for her to make the next move.
“A white woman would slap you now.”
“Some would,” Fargo agreed. “Some are as miserly with their kisses as they are with their money. Some give their bodies as rewards when their men please them. Some won’t ever part their legs because they think it goes against Scripture.” Fargo paused. “Then there are those who like to lie with a man as much as they like breathing.”
Birds Landing grinned. “That is the most you have said to me since we met. You must like it a lot.”
“I am not skittish when it comes to the female body,” Fargo teased, and kissed her again, harder, and longer. When he drew back she had a dreamy look about her.
“You kiss as good as you ride.” Birds Landing put a hand on his chest and bent to lightly run her tongue along his neck. “And you taste as good as you kiss,” she said with a grin.
“How do you taste?” Fargo asked, and molded his mouth to her throat. He nibbled and licked a path to her ear. She squirmed, breathing heavier, and digging her nails into his forearm.
They separated, and Birds Landing rimmed her mouth with the tip of her tongue. “It is not food I am hungry for now.”
“I was hoping you would say that.” Fargo moved the bundle of pemmican out of their way and eased her down onto her side, facing him. As he reached for her, she clasped his hand.
“I should stop you. Father DeSmet would say this is wrong.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” Fargo said, hoping she was not about to change her mind.
“How do they do it?” Birds Landing asked.
“Do what?”
“The priests and the nuns. How do they go their whole lives without? Are they not like the rest of us?”
“You’re asking the wrong person,” Fargo informed her. “I can’t go a week without getting the itch.”
Birds Landing laughed merrily. “We are alike, you and I. But for the sake of the priests, while I was at the mission school I did not lift my dress for men, even those from my own tribe.”
Fargo playfully hiked at the hem of her doeskin. “How about now? Any lifting allowed?”
“Were it any other white man, I would make Father DeSmet proud and refuse,” Birds Landing said. “But I am no longer at the mission, and for you I am willing to do that which he would forbid.”
Fargo kissed her again while running his hand up over her thigh to her flat belly, and from there to her breasts. He cupped one, then the other, and pinched her nipples through the dress.
Cooing softly in her throat, Birds Landing ground her bottom against his hardening manhood. She was not timid when it came to lovemaking, as she demonstrated by reaching down and placing her hand on top of his swelling bulge. “You are a stallion,” she breathed in his ear.
Fargo couldn’t respond, not with the constriction in his throat. He covered her luscious mouth with his and her lips parted to admit his tongue. Hers and his entwined in a silken swirl as her hand commenced to stroke him.
Fargo had to be careful. It would not do to explode before he was ready. He willed himself to ignore her hand and got her dress up around her waist. He caressed each of her thighs in turn, running his fingers from her knees to her nether mound and down again. Her legs were exquisitely smooth to the touch. She arched her back, then pried at his belt to release his member. He nearly gasped when her fingers enfolded him.
Fargo had always been partial to women who liked to do what came naturally to a man and a woman. His appreciation of Birds Landing rose as she cupped him, low down.
Time drifted on a tide of mutual lust. For long minutes there was touching and kissing and the press of hot flesh to hot flesh.
Fargo drowned himself in the feel and the taste of her. When he stroked her slit, she shivered and came up off the blanket as if seeking to take wing. He parted her nether lips, brushed her tiny knob. A few flicks were all it took to drive her into paroxysms of release.
Birds Landing cried out in the Salish tongue. Her fingernails seared his shoulders. Suddenly she clamped her mouth to his neck and bit him so hard, he thought she would draw blood.
“Like it rough, do you?” Fargo said, and plunged the rigid first two fingers of his right hand up into her.
Her mouth parted in a soundless O, and Birds Landing bucked wildly. It was all Fargo could do to keep his fingers inside her. He pumped fast and hard, clear in to the knuckles. Her eyes closed and she clung to him, rhythmically thrusting her bottom to match the tempo of his fingers. It was not long before she crested. Then, spent, she sagged against him.
