A Westward Love Page 9

  The men swallowed their anger and went to examine the horse. Its stomach and throat had both been laid open by the grizzly’s deadly paws, and one leg had been broken. There was nothing to do but shoot it. Claire looked away as Summers put his revolver to the animal’s head and fired.

  Though both men remained bitter, their tempers had subsided enough that they were no longer threatening one another. There were sharp words when Morton insisted on cutting some of the meat from the dead bear, his stated purpose in shooting her in the first place. Summers objected, but Morton was adamant, and though Claire shared Summers’ distaste for the unfeeling way in which Morton had claimed the bear’s life, she sided with the trapper in agreeing that, the damage having already been done, bear steaks would make a welcome change from the dried meat that had been the staple of their diet.

  It was already late afternoon by the time the canyon they had been following ended abruptly in a cul-de-sac. They decided to camp for the evening and look for a pass through the mountains in the morning.

  On the surface the two men had gotten over their quarrel, but Morton at least made it clear that he was still deeply resentful. He refused to engage in any conversation with Summers, or even eat with the others.

  Claire made an attempt to coax the trapper out of his mood, pointing out that Summers had only been trying to spare unnecessary bloodshed. Morton’s answer to this was, “He wanted me to get killed.”

  “But that’s preposterous,” Claire replied. “Why should he want that?”

  Morton’s eyes narrowed coldly. “So’s he could have a free hand with you, that’s why.” He spat on the ground. “He’s afraid you might take a shine to me over him.”

  “But that’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it? You notice how he comes running every time he sees you and me together? Like right now Look.”

  As if to prove his point, Summers did approach them at just that moment. “I found this in the woods just over there,” he said, showing them a broken arrow with a flint head. “It’s Ute. Looks like it’s been there a while, but it’d be a good idea if everyone kept their eyes open just the same. Oh, and I found a stream too, nice clear water. Good place to fill canteens.”

  “I’ll find my own water,” Morton said. “And I don’t need anyone to warn me about Indians.” He turned his back on them, but not before he’d given Claire a look as if to say, “See?”

  “I could use some fresh water,” Claire said.

  Following Summers through the woods, she thought of Morton’s suggestion that Summers might be jealous. It was preposterous, of course. If anything, Summers had been more distant than ever with her since that evening they had danced together.

  She studied the tall, lean form ahead of her on the trail. The truth was she was rather sorry that he was so standoffish. Her feelings toward Mister Summers had changed considerably since they had left St. Louis. Summers did not show to his best advantage in the city. He was too coarse and too primitive for polite society. But in the wilderness the very qualities that served him so poorly in St. Louis became assets. He fitted into his surroundings, seeming as right and as natural as the aspen or the eagle. The scar that was so frightening to see in town seemed a symbol of his ability to survive out here. He was strong, fearless, self-reliant, a creature of animal instincts.

  And animal passions? The thought crept unbidden into her mind, and she scoffed at herself for even thinking of such a thing, particularly where such a man was concerned.

  And yet.... She watched the hide costume alternately stretch and relax over the muscles of his wide shoulders and his lean, firm buttocks. He moved with the unconscious grace of a racing stallion. Yes, he would make love with an animal’s passion—lustily, without inhibition or reservation; cruelly even, but with the cruelty of heat and urgency, not the calculated perversity to which her husband had submitted her.

  They emerged from the forest at the edge of a fast-running stream that sparkled and danced through a narrow rocky channel and then widened into a sunlit pool a few yards below.

  She was unaware that she was staring at Summers until he asked, “Is something wrong?”

  She started guiltily, as if her wicked thoughts had been etched on her face for him to read. “No,” she said, blushing and turning away to hide her confusion. “I—I was just admiring the scene. It’s quite lovely, isn’t it? And just look at that pool. I can’t tell you how I’d like a proper bath.”

  “Go ahead,” he said, grinning mischievously. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  She gave him a haughty look, taking her embarrassment out on him. “I’m sure you would,” she said. “But I’m not accustomed to bathing before an audience.”

  “There’s a lot of things out here you weren’t accustomed to, but that hasn’t stopped you from diving right in. And I’ll tell you the truth, you’re a hell of a lot better woman for it, too.”

  “Thank you. If I ever find that I need testimonials, I’ll be sure to call on you.” She knelt, filling her canteen with the clear, cool water. When she had thought about his remark, though, she found herself smiling; coming from Mister Close-Mouth Summers, that had been high praise indeed.

  CHAPTER TEN

  She woke late, to find Morton in the process of taking down the tent in which he and Summers had slept, and Summers nowhere in sight.

  “He went off on foot,” Morton explained in a surly voice. “Looking for a pass through the hills.”

  Since the evening before she had been thinking of the pool nearby and the prospect of a real bath. It seemed the ideal opportunity and, taking with her the small sliver of soap she had been hoarding for weeks, she announced her intentions to Morton.

  “I could come along and help with your back,” he said, leering.

  “I’ll thank you to stay right here. And if I so much as hear a footstep in the woods, I’ll shoot,” she added, indicating the revolver she had tucked into her belt.

  “I ain’t the type to go sneaking around after something if I want it,” he said furiously. “If I wanted you bad enough, I’d take you right here and now, Miss High and Mighty.”

  He took a step toward her as if he meant to do just that. For an answer, she drew the revolver. He stopped, his eyes going from her face to the gun, and back to her face again.

  “It’s him, ain’t it?” he demanded, his lips curling in a sneer. “You’re wanting him as bad as he’s wanting you.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” she said, angry that the charge had turned her cheeks red.

  “You’re the one’s being a fool.” His voice became low and ominous. “You picked the wrong man. When he’s rotting at the bottom of some canyon, then you’ll be stuck with me or no one. And I’m telling you now, I don’t take to being second choice.”

  “Then I can assure you, you won’t be. Not second, not third, not ever.”

  For a moment she thought she might really have to shoot. He looked as if he would like nothing so much as to spring upon her, though his look was more murderous than desirous.

  At length he turned his back on her with a muttered oath and went back to his work, dismissing her. She glanced over her shoulder once or twice as she started for the woods, but he seemed to have forgotten her.

  She found her way to the stream with no difficulty. She waited a few minutes, standing in the shadow of a tree in case Morton really did try to follow her, but the woods remained empty and silent and after a time she concluded that she was truly alone. She shed her clothes quickly, eager to make the most of the privacy, and plunged into the icy water.

  * * * * * * *

  Summers himself had paused to bathe in the same stream, though considerably downstream. Now, carrying his shirt in his hand so that the morning sun could dry his back, he made his way to the camp. He had found the pass he had been seeking, and as soon as they broke camp they could be on their way. In addition he’d found some ripe berries, which were now tied neatly in a bundle in his neckerchief. They’d make a nice addition to breakfas
t.

  It was not breakfast, however, nor the mountain pass that was occupying his thoughts. It was the girl. He wanted her. He wanted her bad.

  Of course he was no fool, and he knew that months of doing without could make any woman more attractive. He was no stranger to abstinence, however, and he was fully aware that this was something more.

  The very depth of his desire for her frightened him. He had lived too long free and untrammeled. Worse, he had seen what happened to other frontiersmen who thought they had found the right woman and gotten married. It never worked. There were just certain men, and he was one of them, who couldn’t get themselves roped in that way. A man was never free after that, never able to call his life and his time his own. They stopped rambling, those married men, or when they went it was with a heart heavy with guilt, or with no heart at all. A heart couldn’t be two places at once, no matter how you tried.

  Now his heart belonged to the west, to these mountains and plains, and even that damned desert lying somewhere ahead of them, waiting to scorch the meat off their bones. How could he give it to a woman? Where was a woman worth all that?

  Not even the Englishwoman. He’d just have to put her out of his mind, stop thinking the way he’d been thinking lately. No good could come of it; and worst of all, it made a man careless. And that, to a man who lived as he did, was an even worse sin than marriage.

  Yet for all his efforts to put her out of his mind, he knew instinctively when he came into the camp that she wasn’t there. At once he was alarmed.

  “Where’s the girl?” he demanded.

  Morton jerked his head in the direction of the woods.

  “You damned fool,” Summers swore. “I told you this was Ute territory. You shouldn’t have let her go off by herself.”

  “She didn’t exactly ask my permission,” Morton snapped. “And who the hell are you to tell people what to do anyway?”

  Summers was already gone, running lightly and noiselessly through the woods. He had remembered her remark yesterday about a proper bath. Though he had teased her about watching, that was the furthest thought from his mind just now. Even after all this time traveling, she was ill prepared to be off in the woods by herself. An Indian would be upon her before she had any warning, not to mention a mountain lion.

  He slowed his pace as he neared the stream. There was a sound of splashing from the pool. Plenty of noise to attract anybody or anything that happened to be in the area, he thought disgustedly.

  He paused on the fringe of the woods, first looking around to see if the noise had indeed attracted danger, but everything seemed safe.

  Finally he turned toward the pool, opening his mouth to call to her, but the sound died in his throat.

  She had climbed onto a rock to lather her body with the soap. The sun glinted on her naked flesh, on the upturned breasts with their roseate tips, on the tiny waist and the flaring curves of her hips. By God, she was beautiful. How had he ever thought her figure spare?

  He stood transfixed, watching her lower herself into the water again and splash around, rinsing off the soap. She swam back to the shore and climbed out, shivering in the cool morning air.

  Her clothes had been folded neatly and left on a rock, her gun atop the pile. He watched her move toward them, his eyes drawn to the fringe of golden hair that marked the V of her thighs.

  He was so entranced by her naked beauty that he almost didn’t see the danger threatening. But some instinct, born of years in the wilds, noted the tiny flicker of movement on the rock by her clothes, and all thoughts of desire and beauty left him, replaced by a cold chill.

  “Don’t move,” he said sharply, stepping into the sunlight.

  She stopped short, mouth forming a surprised oval. “Mister Summers!” she cried indignantly, trying unsuccessfully to cover her more intimate parts. “How dare—”

  “Goddamn it, I said don’t move!” he roared. The tone of his voice halted even her protestations and she stood frozen in place, staring wide eyed at him.

  “There’s a rattler not more than a foot away from your hand,” he said, watching the snake and not her as he drew his gun. “He’d have got you for sure when you reached for your clothes.”

  She let out a long, shuddering “Oohhhh,” and tried to stop the trembling that had set in. She watched Summers, too frightened to turn her head and look for the snake. But she could hear it now, the rattling sound, the warning that he was about to strike.

  The gun roared; she screamed and stumbled backward, throwing her hands over her face, beginning to cry. It seemed only a second later that he was there holding her to him, comforting her. She opened her eyes and saw that there was blood on one arm.

  “Bullet kicked up a piece of stone that nicked you,” he said, seeing her eyes go to the blood. “Just a scratch. I’ll wash it out for you.”

  She saw the snake lying dead on the rock, or rather, the snake’s body, as its head was gone. She shuddered again and buried her face against his bare chest.

  Only gradually did she become aware of the feel of him, of his bare, hard chest with its faint cover of dark hair, of his arms, strong and warm, about her, of his thighs, pressed against her, and the unmistakable swelling there. She stirred in his arms, trying not to feel the heat that was spreading from her sensitive nipples as they brushed against his chest.

  “I must dress,” she said, trying to free herself from his embrace.

  He made no reply. For a moment he continued to hold her tightly against him. Then swiftly and easily he bent and swept her up into his arms.

  “What are you doing?” she asked weakly as he carried her along the stream’s bank. “I—please,” she stammered, putting a resisting hand against his chest.

  “You knew this would happen sooner or later,” he said. “I just decided on sooner.”

  He put her down gently on a bed of pine needles, warmed by the morning sun. She felt dazed and frightened, yet strangely exhilarated. She watched him shed his trousers and his boots.

  How magnificent he is, she thought, with the sun behind him and the blue sky framing his naked body. There was his powerful chest, the muscles rippling like a washboard over his flat belly, and the line of dark hair that led downward to the long, thick column that stood out before him as if leading him to her.

  He paused, about to toss his trousers aside, and said, “You ain’t going to scream or fight me or anything, are you?”

  She let her eyes move slowly upward until they had met his, and her lips parted in a tremulous smile. “No,” she said in little more than a whisper, “I’m not going to fight you.”

  He was at once urgent and searching and yet, as she had somehow known he would be, gentle. He explored and ravished with his mouth, his tongue, his hands. Finally she felt the insistent probing between her thighs, and then the sweet warmth seemed to engulf her.

  She lifted her arms about him, running her hands over the smooth hard surface of his back. “I don’t even know your name,” she said.

  “It’s Camden,” he said, kissing her ear.

  “Camden,” she breathed, “Camden,” saying it over and over like a song on a gently rising note, until it had become more a moan than a name.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Winter came, cold and white, and she was grateful for Summers’ body, warm against hers in the tent they now shared. She was grateful too for the way he had skillfully awakened her body to the full pleasure of sex. She had always thought that it could be enjoyable with the right man, but with Peter it had quickly deteriorated into a test of her endurance. With Summers, no matter how long it lasted, it seemed always to end too soon.

  She tried not to think too often of the husband she was cuckolding. Perhaps in London or Virginia, or even St. Louis, she might have been consumed with guilt for what she was doing. Though her marriage to Peter had not been a happy one, and though she had flirted with other men—as much to annoy him as to flatter herself—she had never seriously considered being unfaithful to him.
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br />   Here things took on a different perspective. Perhaps it was the towering mountains glittering under their snow wraps, or the tall, majestic pines, or timeless sea of stars in the night sky that dwarfed man’s petty problems. Peter might be a thousand miles or more in any direction, or just a few feet below where the horses’ hooves sank into the snow. It was impossible to guess if he were alive or dead, and if alive, whether she would ever again see his face. She had begun to perceive that a journey such as this one might be forever, even if one reached the mystical land of gold. If Peter had reached it, it was unlikely he would have set out again to return to her.

  But Summers was here. His warm, strong body covered hers at night, and by day he led the way through the winter-treacherous mountains. Summers knew which nuts to gather before the snows had caught them. Summers killed deer and dried the meat to replenish their meager supplies. Summers had even made a poncho for her from deer hide. It was most welcome as the temperatures dropped lower and lower.

  They spoke rarely of their relationship. She supposed he was no more in love with her than she was with him, though she loved much about him. She was, for want of a better term, “at peace” in his company. He was as rugged and spectacular as the landscape through which they rode, and it seemed entirely right, at least here in this wilderness, to have become his mistress.

  Morton accepted the change in their relationship with quiet resentment. He no longer made direct overtures to her, but once or twice she had a peculiar feeling, as if she had been suddenly stripped naked in the cold. She would turn to find Morton’s eyes on her, burning with a deep, almost feverish light. Afterward she would cling to Summers in the darkness of their tent with a passion kindled by fear, until his skilled ministrations had released the tension built up within her.

  The two men were coolly reserved toward one another. Both were too acquainted with the dangers of the wilderness to risk expending their energies on their animosity. There was no telling when one’s survival might depend upon the other, but they made no pretense of friendship and spoke to one another only when the trek necessitated it.