Longshadow's Woman

Besides, “Rise an’ shine” sounded far better than her uncle’s, “Git your lazy ass down here and git to work, gal!”

Darther didn’t even bother with that much. If he was awake at daybreak, which was rare, because he usually stayed up half the night when he was home, drinking with Liam and planning ways to win the next race, he would kick her out of bed onto the floor. Kick her hard, too.

“Oh, how I hate that man,” she muttered. She tossed out the last of the corn, dusted her hands off and yelled toward the barn. “Rise an’ shine in there! Come on, time’s a-wasting!” He might not know what she was talking about, but at least he would know he couldn’t sleep all day.

Jonah was awake. He’d been awake for hours, lying on his back on the itchy blanket for no better reason than that he liked the oily wool smell of it. It reminded him of the blanket he had slept under as a boy before he had left his mother’s lodge.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he clamped his leg irons on, reattached the long chain, and stood, shaking straw from the blanket and folding it neatly. If he didn’t present himself, she would come in after him, armed with that damned Springfield, no doubt. He’d like to grab the thing and—

No, he wouldn’t. No scrawny, ignorant white female with colorless hair and the brain of a rock was worth losing his last hope for freedom. Clearing himself was going to be risky enough as it was, without the added offense of murder.

When she appeared in the open doorway, they eyed one another silently for a moment. She was not quite as shapeless as he’d first thought. Her hair was pale, not colorless. Looking as though it had been hacked off with a dull knife, it curled about her face, at odds with the firm set of her jaw, which was at odds with her small nose and large, wary eyes.

Jonah waited for her to speak, wondering if she would forget that he was only an ignorant savage and speak to him as if he were a man. He thought perhaps she was not cruel, only fearful.

She said, “Mornin’. Looks like another day with no rain in sight,” and unhooked the other end of the chain from the door frame. And then, as if remembering who he was, she said loudly, “Bath. Creek. You come now.”

And you go to your white man’s hell, he wanted to say, but didn’t. His time would come. He had learned patience in a hard school.

The creek was broad, but shallow, the water dark and clear. Judging by tracks on the worn bank, it served as a watering hole for deer and smaller animals. Some-one—the woman, most likely—had knelt there to wash, or to draw buckets of water. Trees overhung the banks, shedding a few yellowing leaves to drift slowly downstream.

Jonah turned to her and lifted a brow before it occurred to him that such a gesture might indicate a thinking being rather than a slow-witted half-breed.

“Here. It’s soap.” She handed him the chunk she had been holding. “You’re supposed to wet yourself all over and rub with this.” She mimed the action, which he found both irritating and amusing. “And don’t try to run away, because I’ve got ears like a bat.”

And the intelligence of an earthworm, he thought, letting amusement overcome his anger. With the lead chain wrapped around the wrist of her bandaged hand, she struggled to hold the heavy rifle in the other. Would she actually shoot him in the back if he waded across and climbed up the other side? Somehow, he didn’t think so. He wasn’t at all certain she could lift the weapon to take aim.

Awkwardly, she looped the chain around a hanging branch. She did not release her hold on the gun, neither did she release his leg irons. He could easily have freed the chain, but what good would it have done? Hobbled, he could hardly escape. There was still the Springfield, but even if she managed to take aim, he had a feeling it might not be loaded.

It was because he craved it, not because she forced him to do it, that he stayed, Jonah told himself. He eased down the muddy bank into ankle-deep water, closing his eyes as the abrasions under his irons caught fire. The pain burned right down to the bone.

“Well, get at it,” she snapped. “We don’t have all day.”

Pain and pleasure, pleasure and pain. Either of which, Jonah reminded himself, was better than merely existing as he’d been forced to do in that miserable hole of a jail.

“Use that soap,” she called out.

He looked at the ungainly chunk in his hand. As much as he hated the smell of it, he needed it to wash away the worse stench of the jail. Still dressed in the thread-bare shirt and canvas trousers he’d been wearing twelve days earlier when the sheriff’s men had come to take him away, he thought of how he must look. A once-proud warrior, a member of the Ten Most Brave—prisoner now to a small, witless woman.

He turned away, facing the direction where the winding creek disappeared in the woods. How far away was his own property? If he followed the creek, would it take him there?

He could sense her uneasiness, almost feel her eyes boring into his back. Did she truly expect him to scrub the places where he needed it most with her looking on? Was she so shameless?

His battered pride stung at being seen in this condition by an enemy, he wanted to strike out. To see her grovel, this miserable woman with her pale hair and her pale, sun-speckled face and her damned rifle. Clearly, she trusted him no more than he trusted her, but there was not one thing he could do about it for the moment.

Still standing only ankle-deep, he turned to face her. Crossing his arms, he smiled. It was not a nice smile. He watched her face grow red with anger. Saw her lift the heavy rifle and brace her feet apart as she tried to balance the barrel across her forearm. Jonah knew the woman was afraid of him. The thought pleased him enormously. Without lowering his gaze, he slowly uncrossed his arms, caught the back of his shirt in both hands and tugged it over his head.

Her eyes widened. The rifle barrel wavered. Still holding her wary gaze, he dropped his hands to the buttons of his canvas trousers. Deftly unfastening the top three, he allowed his trousers to slip over his narrow hips.

The barrel of the gun struck the dirt a moment before his trousers crumpled about his ankles. Jonah felt like laughing aloud. Didn’t the foolish woman realize that he could not remove them as long as his legs were bound together by this damnable iron bracelet?

She gasped and turned her back, but not before he had seen her eyes widen on his body. He might have enjoyed the small triumph even more had it not been for his burning ankles and various itches that made him want to shed his skin like a snake.

Bending, he scooped a handful of mud and gravel from the creek bottom and began to scour his belly. The woman had quickly turned away after one horrified look at his nakedness. Now, enjoying his brief moment of privacy, he scrubbed and scratched and nearly purred with the pleasurable sensations.

“Hurry up, you’re taking too long,” she called without turning around.

He had taken as long as he dared, but nowhere near as long as he wished. Reluctant to dress in the same filthy clothing, Jonah grunted to gain her attention. When she cast a quick glance over her shoulder, he held his bundled shirt in front of his privates and gestured with the remnant of soap that was left.

Grudgingly, Carrie nodded. There was no point in putting buggy clothes on a clean body, so she told him to go ahead and scrub his clothing, but to be damned quick about it. She added the swear word to be sure he knew she meant business, the same as she did with the mule.

Turning away to avoid catching another glimpse, she pretended a great interest in the few remaining blossoms on a honeysuckle vine, but she couldn’t dispel the image of that magnificent male body. Merciful heavens, the man was a—he looked like a—and his skin wasn’t red, it was sort of almond-colored. Or maybe butternut.

He was so taut, not flabby like Darther. What would it be like to—

Stop it, Carrie Adams, don’t even think about such things!

Sensing when it was safe to turn around, she noted that he was fully dressed again, although the wet clothing clung to his body in a way that looked uncomfortable. Realizing that she was staring, she nodded abruptly toward the path and they set out once more, the prisoner going first, Carrie and the Springfield marching along behind. She tried to concentrate on a mental list of all the things she intended to accomplish before day’s end, but her gaze kept lingering on his wet hair, glistening like coal under the early morning sun. Even in chains the man was arrogant. The way he moved—the way he held his head. Those wet clothes…

He’s just another mule, Carrie, no more, no less! Five stumps. Think about those, not about the way he looked standing there in his bare skin.

And she tried, she really did. All the way back from the creek she focused her mind on the task ahead. At the rate of five stumps a day, the field would soon be cleared, and once the stumps were gone, her hand would be healed, and she could hitch up the plow and turn under the brush, allowing the roots and grubs to die over the winter months.

Think about that, Carrie, not about—

But oh, my mercy, he was so pretty to look at. It wasn’t the first time she had seen a man’s body. She had seen her uncle once when she’d barged into the kitchen while he was in the tub. At least she’d seen his knees, his bald head and his bony shoulders.

And Darther, she thought with a shudder, who was pale as whey, with rolls of flab, with his little bitty thing hanging down like a dead worm.

She shifted the rifle to a more comfortable position, wishing she could trade it for something smaller, and tried not to think about male bodies, naked or clothed.

Back at the barn, she gestured to the mule, and then to the harness she had devised for pulling stumps from the ground. Her prisoner nodded, made a few minor adjustments, and then hitched up the mule. Sorry, the miserable traitor, didn’t once attempt to kick or bite, and Sorry purely hated being hitched up to anything.

At least he did when it was Carrie doing the hitching.

Damn-blasted mule. Damn-blasted sneaky Indian.

She glared at her prisoner, and because she was later than usual getting started—or because she hadn’t taken time to eat her usual breakfast of black coffee and cold biscuits, her mind began to wander once more.

Behave yourself, Carrie! He’s a prisoner, a thief and probably worse. You need him because with only one good hand, there’s no way you’re going to get that field cleared, so don’t even think about his—about the way—about his thing!

Pointing to the lane that led off behind the cabin to the cut-over field, she gestured for him and the mule to go first. Without a word spoken, the blasted mule picked up and walked, sweet as pie, trailing the makeshift harness behind. Carrie kept her gaze focussed on the distant trees and forced herself to concentrate on how to direct a man who didn’t speak English. Didn’t speak anything, so far as she could tell.

Even if he wasn’t all that bright, he probably understood a few words, a few simple commands. So she took a deep breath and spoke aloud, hoping the sound of her voice could drown out the image of a beautiful naked man standing ankle-deep in her creek. “Best way I know is to dig out under the spreading roots enough to saw through the biggest ones,” she said gruffly. “Once Sorry pulls the thing over, we can saw off the taproot and haul the stump out of the ground. Oh, lordy, you don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you?”

Shaking her head in frustration, she pointed to the biggest of the five stumps she intended to tackle today. “Dig,” she commanded, and pointed at the spade she had left in the field the last day she’d worked, too weary even to drag her tools back to the barn.

They were so late getting started that the heat was already miserable, making her think longingly of the cool, clear creek. The one thing she truly liked about summer was that the days were long enough to include a soak in the creek. With no close neighbors, it was safe enough as long as she kept an eye out for snakes. It was a chance to scrub all over without having to haul and heat water, bail out the washtub and then mop up the kitchen floor afterward. A chance to sit and dream for a few peaceful moments—to try to remember the stories she had read when she’d gone to the missionary school. She did like reading stories. Over those early years she’d been well schooled, although she’d since forgotten most of what she’d been taught.