Miss Murray on the Cattle Trail(19)
“He’s inviting us to stay the night,” Zach said.
She sucked in her breath. “Together? In the same tent?”
“Guess so. His hospitality, his rules.”
“Oh.”
The chief motioned to them again and pointed at the teepee.
“Yep,” Zach said. “Together. Like under the chuck wagon in camp.”
“But without Roberto,” she said in a small voice.
“Yeah, no Roberto.” He stood and reached out his hand. “Come on.”
He led her to the smaller teepee and ducked inside. Dusty stuffed her notepad and pencil into her shirt pocket and followed.
* * *
Zach found he couldn’t stand upright except in the center of the teepee, so he settled onto the pile of furs arranged on the far side. Dusty paced around the interior, peering closely at the structure’s rawhide seams and gazing up at the smoke hole at the top.
Finally she dropped down beside him, pulled out her notepad and started to write. After a moment she began pawing through the layers of furs and skins on the pallet where they sat and then scratched some more on her pad.
“Zach,” she whispered. “What kind of fur is this?”
Lord God in heaven, never for one moment did this woman forget she’s a newspaper reporter!
“Bear, most likely.”
She wriggled her bottom on it and he sucked in his breath.
“It’s so soft!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t know bears were so soft.” She scribbled something with her pencil.
“Yeah, they’re soft all right.” She hadn’t yet noticed that there was only one pallet.
It was dim inside the teepee, and as night fell, the available light faded into shadows. When Dusty could no longer see to write, he figured she would notice their sleeping situation. And that presented a problem.
He could be gallant and offer her the single pallet, but he honestly didn’t fancy sleeping on the bare ground. It was hard, and it would get cold before morning. He pondered what to do, and she went on squinting and scribbling until she could no longer see. Finally she sighed and stowed her pencil and pad back in her shirt pocket.
He waited.
“This is such a grand adventure, isn’t it?” she said.
“Yeah.”
“I thought going on a cattle drive would be the most exciting thing I’ve ever done, but now I think maybe it’s coming to this Indian camp.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yes, Zach. I imagine I am the only newspaper reporter in the entire country who has ever seen a real Indian camp. What tribe do you think this is?”
“Maybe Nez Perce.”
She gazed around at the walls of the teepee. “Are these structures made of deerskin?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re quite comfortable inside. They probably shed rain and snow in the winter, too. And stay warm and cozy.”
Zach waited, saying nothing. He knew the exact moment their single-pallet sleeping arrangement dawned on her because she suddenly broke off in the middle of describing how the camp smelled. “Kind of chocolaty, with something like vineg—”
He almost laughed out loud.
“Vinegar,” she finished. There was a long pause. “Zach?”
Here it comes. “Yeah?”
“There is only one—”
“Yeah,” he said yet again.
“Oh. Well, I don’t suppose this will be much different from sleeping next to each other under the chuck wagon, will it? Except that...” She bit her lip.
Zach didn’t trust himself to say anything, but he was sure smiling inside. More than smiling. He didn’t figure Miss Write-It-All-Down would put anything about this sleeping arrangement dilemma in her newspaper. Kinda took the starch out of her, he guessed. Dusty without starch might be good.
“Zach?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you...tired? I mean, are you, um, sleepy?”
“Nope.” He was lying through his teeth, but she didn’t need to know that.
“Oh.” She sounded so disappointed he had to chuckle. Quietly.
“I bet you’re tired, though,” he offered. “After that long ride.”
“Well, it wasn’t as bad as riding in all that dust behind a big herd of cows.”
“Steers,” he corrected.
What now? he wondered. Were the two of them going to struggle to stay awake until one of them slumped over in spite of themselves? In spite of herself? He shot a surreptitious look at her, but now it was so dark inside the teepee he couldn’t see her face clearly.
She let out a big sigh.
“Tired?”
“Well, yes,” she said slowly. “Aren’t you?”
He worked hard to keep his voice as noncommittal as he could. “Nope,” he said. “Not tired at all.”
“Perhaps we should flip a coin to see who gets to sleep on the pallet?”
“You got a coin?”
“Well...no, I don’t. Do you?”
He had a shiny new two-bit piece in his pocket, but for some reason he couldn’t explain he didn’t want to mention it. “Nope,” he lied.
“Zach, what are we going to do?”
He stretched his legs out in front of him. “About what?” he said blandly.
“About sleeping tonight,” she huffed. “We can’t both occupy this little pallet, um, together.”
“Guess not, if it’s gonna tie your drawers up in a twist.”
She jerked as if he’d shot her. “What?”
He tried not to look at her face in the gloom, but he could imagine it, her blue eyes getting all wide and her mouth dropping open.
“You heard me.”
“Well, yes,” she said, her voice frosty, “but I have never heard such a reference to my...drawers. Really, Zach, it is most improper.”
He was glad she couldn’t see his face; the smile that tugged at his lips would be a dead giveaway. At this moment, the picture her drawers conjured up in his imagination was making his jeans feel too tight. Not only that, he admitted, but he was enjoying it!
Before he could come up with what to say, she had skittered off onto another subject.
“I wonder what that stew had in it,” she mused.
Zach didn’t want to tell her. A band of starving Nez Perce would eat anything that walked or crawled, and he suspected the flavorsome supper they’d been served was most likely dog meat. But he wasn’t telling Dusty that. Guess they’d eaten that cow he’d given them down to the hooves.
However, he was learning that once Dusty was curious about something, she didn’t give up.
“What do you think it was, Zach?”
“Dunno. Tasted good, though.” He held his breath, hoping she’d drop the subject.
“Yes, it did. Very rich and flavorful. I wonder what Roberto would think of it?”
He knew damn well what Roberto would think of it. Roberto believed in beef. Period.
She wriggled her bottom around on the furs for a few seconds and then surprised him again. “Perhaps we could take turns sleeping tonight.”
“You mean one of us gets the soft bed and the other gets the hard ground?”
“Yes, and then we could trade off. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
He suppressed a snort. Trade off? Hell, no, he wasn’t gonna “trade off” with a perfectly good pallet available.
“Sure,” he said. “You can take the first shift.”
“All right,” she said with some reluctance in her tone. “At least it’s a warm night.”
“Yeah.” It was more than warm; it was getting hotter inside this teepee by the minute. He moved to adjust his jeans over his swollen member, then slid off the pallet. Dusty tipped over onto the furs and stretched out with a tired sigh.
He had just closed his eyes when he heard something, a rhythmic whump-whump coming from somewhere outside. It took him a minute to pinpoint the source; the sounds were coming from the teepee next to theirs.
Whump-whump, whump-whump.
Dusty sprang upright. “What is that noise?”
It took only sixty seconds for him to figure it out. Whoever was in the next teepee was hard at making the oldest form of whoopee known to man. Probably the chief and his woman. He gritted his teeth and hoped Dusty wouldn’t guess what it was.
She listened hard for a few minutes. “Zach? Is someone...?” Her voice trailed off as understanding sank in. “Oh. Oh, my.”
They listened in silence as the thumping went on and on. And on. Zach’s groin began to ache.
Dusty didn’t move, just sat motionless without speaking.
“Why don’t you get some sleep?” he suggested. He noticed his voice was a bit hoarse.
Whump-whump.
“Oh, yes,” she said in an uneven voice. “I guess I should.”
All at once the pounding ceased, and a woman’s voice gave a high, choked cry. Zach closed his eyes. That was followed by a man’s guttural shout, and right then Zach thought he would come apart.
Dusty said nothing. Quietly she lay back down on the furs, and he tried to keep his breathing steady. He stretched out full length on the hard ground and clenched both hands into fists. Don’t think about it.
Thank God she wasn’t asking any more questions. Guess she’d figured it out to her satisfaction, and that thought made him hot all over. The idea that they were both thinking about the same thing at the same time had him rock hard and hurting.
It was going to be a long, long night.
* * *