He stood, still chewing, his mind taking in her movements, the taste of the food, and the little cabin, but not processing the information. He began to undress. She blushed and stepped outside, and he handed her the bundle through the window.

"Thanks, Miss Hendricks," he said.

"Jocelyn."

When he woke, Jocelyn was sitting on the cabin's tiny stool, oiling his boots. He either felt safe in the Eagle camp, or she had sneaked in during his deepest cycle of sleep: he did not remember her reentering the house-wagon.

"You're leaving?" she asking, getting up to show him his newly washed traveling clothes.

"Soon." He sat up, still wrapped in the blanket, and tried to blink the gum out of his eyes.

"To find your wife?"

"Wife? She's more of a guide. I suppose I rely on her better than some men do their own wives."

"I know it's none of my business, but do you and she-?" She trailed off, darting an embarrassed look at him'from her lowered head.

"No-we joke about it. Maybe under different circumstances I'd think differently."

"I had a boyfriend. He went on a drive to Denver, never came back. That was over a year ago now. I guess he wanted to see the city. I was hoping for a letter, a message, but he never explained himself."

"I'm sorry."

"He used to make me feel... all warm and safe. Last night, when you talked to me, I felt warm and safe again. I wanted to kiss you."

Valentine felt lust and compassion war within him. She was an alluring young woman, but he was leaving almost within minutes. "Jocelyn, I'll bet every young man in this brand would walk through fire to kiss you. We're strangers."

"The guys here are good men. I've known diem all my life. All the older ones act more interested in the fact that I'm the Wagonmaster's daughter. The young ones are just. . . kids in men's boots, if you know what I mean. You're ... serious."

Valentine thought it a strange word. Perhaps it was apt.

She placed the boots on the floor and sat at the edge of the bunk. "Since that meal after you rode in, I've been thinking about you. You probably think I'm just some silly hick girl. I'm not looking for a man permanent. If anything, you going away makes it better for me-I can just lose myself in it without worrying about the future. Know what I mean?" She took off her bandanna and shook out her thick chestnut hair. She planted her palm between his pectorals; his heart thumped hard against his ribs, as if it were trying to touch her.

Valentine rose from the bed toward her, and they fell into each other's arms, need making the embrace smooth and unembarrassed. Even better for Valentine, it was unself-conscious. Instincts sublimated during months without touching a woman surged inside him, spilling out like rising floodwaters over an earthen dike-in an instant the barriers dissolved. He took her rich, sage-sweetened hair in his hands as he kissed her.

"David, who are you? I... feel like I'm in heat," she gasped as he explored her neck with his mouth, the rest of her with his hand. He helped her wriggle out of her clothes. His blanket had already fallen away, leaving him nude and aroused and pressed hard against her.

He laid her down to the sheets, and she parted for him. Her hands gripped, pulled at his back as he entered. She melted around him, greedily taking what he gave her, but what she gave him was even sweeter. Forgetfulness. For those minutes there was no battle, no hunt, no responsibilities or fears, only a trembling woman in his arms. Their lovemaking was just kisses and softness and warmth and wetness and lust and motion, thrusting motion in which there wasn't a last night or tomorrow just a climax like a lightning flash in the dark of the angry void that was his life, a paroxysm that left him even more hungry for her and the oblivion of her body.

He trotted out of the Eagle's Wings camp on a bay quarter-horse gelding. It was like riding on a mobile tower: the horse measured over seventeen hands and had a rear end like a rowboat. The Eagles lined up to see him out of the gate. Valentine felt honored by the gesture, though he flushed at the little half-wave Jocelyn gave. He saw her hands clasping and unclasping as he rode out, and felt guilty.

Valentine's only souvenir of the fight was a metal helmet, a piece of Kevlar with coal-scuttle flanges protecting the neck. With his battered vest, it would add to his disguise should he have to resort to posing as a Trooper again. Whoever had worn it invested in a cork-and-webbing liner and khaki cotton sun sheath, which did an admirable job of keeping him cool.

He searched the Twisted Cross camp. It stood in the lee of the little ridge south of the larger, horizon-filling one that sheltered the Eagles' camp.

A pair of outriders scavenged the wreckage, throwing everything from useless-looking scrap metal to expended shell casings into a wagon. Valentine rode up to them.

"The man with the tommy gun," one of them said, waving back. "Hey, mister, we got word you were looking for piles of four of anything. I think we found what you're looking for-that or these boys sure have a funny way of taking care of their dead. Look at Sam beside the trail yonder." He pointed down the rutted cross-country trail.

Valentine joined the waving outrider and found a little collection of four Reaper heads, arranged in a neat pile like cannonballs in an old fort. Bluebottle flies were already thick on the dead flesh; in places, masses of maggots had already exposed black bone.

He closed his nose and mouth and knocked over the pile with his toe. Beneath the gruesome marker was a folded piece paper. He picked it up and recognized Duvalier's hand.

Ghost,

I'm moving south to the Platte. I listened to the camp, and there's another contingent over in Broken Bow. Just go south to the highway and follow it east, or read your map. If they've pulled out of there, let's meet south of Omaha where we talked about. I listened in on their General, and their Headquarters is there. They call it the "Cave," whatever that is.

Don't be impressed with the pile. This is wounded I finished off while they were trying to get back to their camp.

Tags: E.E. Knight Vampire Earth Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net