Gunslinger’s Lullaby Read online

  “Look here, you sexy little half-pint, you wouldn’t get away with that if I didn’t have this bullet in me.”

  “The point is, you do!” Easy said. “And until it comes out, I’m the boss! Got that?”

  Without speaking Reno snatched Midnight’s gun from his holster, cocked the pistol, and pointed it at her. “Apparently you’ve got more courage than brains. I told you to be quiet.”

  Instead of standing there frightened, she walked over to Reno and began to wrestle the gun out of his hand. She was caught by surprise when he managed to pull her down in his lap and kiss her brutally.

  The gang began hooting and hollering. “Atta boy, Reno, show her who’s boss!”

  She pretended to relax in his arms, embracing him while returning his kiss until the right moment finally came. At that time she suddenly snatched the gun out of his weak hand and pulled herself up and pointed the gun. “Now listen to me, you bastard. You go back to bed this minute. And you,” she said looking at the others. “Reno can’t ride. In fact, since he don’t want nobody diggin’ that bullet out of him he’ll probably die, and one of you will become the new leader. I’d advise you to think about that.” She looked down at the shock on Reno’s face and knew she’d struck a chord. She couldn’t stop now, so she glared at him as she spoke to Cheyenne. “Cheyenne, you need to go outside and pick out a nice shady spot where we can bury Reno ‘cause it won’t be much longer until he’s dead!”

  Reno tried to push himself up out of his chair. “I ain’t dead yet, you little spitfire!”

  “Yeah? Well, by the looks of you it won’t be long. Your eyes are almost shut, and your face is drained of blood which you will find in there on my bed!” Turning again to the others, she said, “As for the ranch hands, they do what I tell them. That means they’ll either kiss you or kill you, so you’d better do what I say.” She wanted to laugh when she saw these hardened killers watch everything she did in amazement. “Now, somebody help Reno back to the bed so he can die in peace.” She turned back to Reno and gave him a hard look. “It won’t take long.”

  The men looked at each other stupefied, and then got busy.

  * * * *

  That evening as soon as the dishes were done, Easy strolled out on the porch to sit back and watch the day turn to twilight, but found Flash sitting on the porch stoop with a rifle in his hand. “Where’s Midnight and Cheyenne?” she said as she sat down beside him.

  “Reno’s got ‘em out there gatherin’ eggs. He says while we’re here we need to pitch in and do some chores.”

  She snickered. “Well, that’s fine, but I usually gather eggs early in the morning. If they go diggin’ around under them chickens at this time of day, they may get pecked to death. Besides, do they know the difference between a hen and a rooster?”

  Flash laughed. “Probably not. I can just see ‘em trying to talk a rooster into layin’.”

  She saw him lift his gun when he heard movement in the bushes nearby. “What’re you lookin’ for?”

  “Just keepin’ watch is all.”

  Easy looked at him curiously. He had blond hair that drug his collar and a strong chin. When he looked at her with his sky blue eyes twinkling, she knew Flash didn’t have any trouble findin’ a woman when he wanted one. “What’s this I hear about your lightin’ fast draw?”

  “Long story,” he said as he kept his eyes trained on the path that led to the front gate.

  “That’s okay. I got time.”

  “Well, when I was about sixteen, I shot a man. He turned out to be a famous gunslinger, and his reputation just naturally came to me, along with about two thousand dollars he had on his head. A reporter type man from the east got wind of it and come lookin’ for me. He was a smooth talker that convinced me I was somethin’ special. I got some new clothes and strutted around town like a banty rooster. I didn’t bother to tell anyone that it was just pure luck that I managed to kill the outlaw. The truth is, he scared me so bad that I dropped my gun and it fired. Anyway, the guns started showin’ up in town and I was forced into either being as good as everyone thought I was, or makin’ a durned fool out of myself. So, I began practicing with my gun, and believe it or not, I got pretty damned good. So good, in fact that when a medicine show came to town I hooked up with it and became their moneymaker. They started callin’ me Flash because they said my draw was quick as a lightnin’ flash.

  “I grew up in that atmosphere until I was in my twenties. One day Reno was in the crowd, and being the cocky kid that I was, I challenged him. Reno, of course, took me on, and could have killed me, but instead he just shot my gun out of my hand. It was embarrassing, but it was what I needed to finally realize I wasn’t the hot stuff I thought I was. Me and Reno hooked up, and I been with him ever since.” He looked over at her. “Fascinatin’ tale, huh?”

  She smiled. “I guess that means Reno’s the fastest in the west.”

  “Don’t you bet on it. There’s always someone out there that’s faster. Reno taught me that.”

  “How often does he have to prove it?”

  “More times than he’d like to.”

  “How about we change the subject? I never did like talkin’ about death and dyin’.”

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “Shhhh!” Easy said, and pointed toward a bush. “See that hummingbird over there? Did you know that hummingbirds are not supposed to be able to fly? They say their little bodies are too heavy.” She turned and smiled at Flash. “It’s a good thing nobody told the hummingbird, right?” Her eyes moved up and looked into the sky. “I love twilight, don’t you? It kind of softens the day. You know, puts everything in silhouette.”

  When she didn’t hear an answer she looked over at Flash and saw him staring at her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Easy McClure, you ain’t as tough as you think you are. All that talk about hummingbird’s and such. Where’d you learn all that?”

  “Well, I did go to school, you know.” She flipped her hair around in a saucy manner. “‘Sides, Pastor Dunlap done taught it in his Sunday School class.” When she saw his doubtful look, she said. “Well, you know how preachers are. They can make a sermon out of almost anything. You know, faith is like the hummingbird. It helps you do things nature never intended, and all that.”

  “I wonder what he’d say about the lust I have in my heart for a certain little redhead?”

  Easy gave him a sassy grin. “We just won’t tell him.”

  As they giggled together Flash picked up a strand of her hair and looked at it. “I think you’ve got the prettiest hair I’ve ever seen.” His eyes moved upward and searched along her face. “The prettiest eyes, the prettiest lips, the prettiest—”

  “You must be missin’ your girlfriend.”

  “Nah,” he said, turning away. “I ain’t got no girlfriend. I wouldn’t ask no woman to live my kind of life. A woman here, a woman there, that’s the best I can do.”

  “It’ll change some day.”

  He looked down at her, his eyes turning soft and sexy. “Maybe,” he whispered.

  “Well, goodnight,” she said as she leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I need to check on Reno before I go to bed.”

  “What was the kiss for?”

  “For sayin’ I was pretty.” She indicated toward his lap. “Now that I think about it, that coffee was mighty hot, wasn’t it? Hope it didn’t injure anything…well, important.”

  “I reckon I’ll live.”

  She giggled. “Remember, the eggs have to be gathered first thing in the morning.”

  “I’ll remember,” he replied softly while enjoying her lingering lilac scent.

  Chapter 3

  Easy was tending Reno when she noticed that he was running a fever. She quickly turned and hurried back into the main part of the house. “He’s burnin’ up with fever.” she said with a worried look on her face. “I’m tellin’ you guys, if that bullet don’t come out you’ll be buryin’ Reno in the morning.”

&n
bsp; “Hell, woman,” Midnight said, “we know it’s got to come out, but Reno is so damned stubborn he won’t let us touch him. The man thinks that he’ll live forever.”

  “All right,” Easy said, wringing her hands, and pacing. “I guess it’s up to me.”

  “It’s useless to even try, Easy. If he ain’t gonna let us take that bullet out, he sure as hell won’t let you.”

  “That’s your problem, you idiots, you asked his permission. I ain’t askin’ his permission. I’m doin’ it whether he likes it or not, but I’ll need your help. You gonna help me, or are you gonna stand around here like three idiots and let Reno die?”

  Later, while owls hooted, cicadas serenaded, and lonely wolves howled in the distance, Easy and the boys slowly gathered around Reno’s bed. “All right,” Easy said softly. “Just stay still and listen.”

  “What the hell is this?” Reno asked as he looked at Easy and the boys as they stood looking down at him. “Get the hell away from me, all of you. I’m…” Suddenly a pain hit him, and Reno grimaced, and clenched his teeth.

  “My God, look at you. Sweat is fallin’ off you like rain.” Refusing to wait any longer, she began moving around the room giving orders. “Flash bring me my knife, and drown it in alcohol. Cheyenne, sit on him if he won’t be still any other way. Midnight, stand beside me and watch. If I can get through this, you’ll have to cauterize the wound.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m the boss now, Reno,” Easy said, giving him a thick twig to bite down on as she took the knife that had been boiled and bathed in alcohol, and began.

  He growled, struggled against strong hands that refused to let him move, and after drinking laudanum like it was whiskey, he fell into a deep sleep until it was all over.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doin’?” Flash whispered.

  “I did it for my dad, and I’ve watched the doc do it a million times, even assisted him on more than one occasion.”

  After several digs through flesh and blood, she let out a big sigh. “There, it’s done,” she said as she held the bullet up for them to see before she dropped it in a bowl on the table.

  Just then Midnight came in holding a branding iron in his hand to cauterize the wound. While applying the glowing rod to Reno’s shoulder, Easy quickly turned away, and rose from her squeaking chair.

  When she stumbled, Flash managed to catch her before she fell. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m just tired,” she said, as she made her way to the stairs.

  “You’re about dead on your feet. Let me help you,” he said and swept her up in his arms and carried her to a bedroom upstairs. “You done real good, Easy,” he whispered as he laid her down. “You rest now. We’ll watch Reno.”

  She looked up at him with lazy eyes she could hardly hold open and said, “I’d like to see your fast draw someday, Flash.”

  He smiled. “Sure…someday.”

  * * * *

  During the days that followed the eating table became the central area where discussions were held and plans were made. Today Easy was walking around filling and refilling their coffee cups as she listened. They were talking about sending one of them out to scout the area to see if the posse had come back.

  “Cheyenne should go,” Midnight said. “He’s half Indian and can track better than any of us.”

  “Not a good idea,” Easy said as she lingered close. “There’s always a chance a man alone could be captured or shot. If you send two the other has a chance of escaping and can come back and alert the other two.”

  “What if they capture both of them?”

  “So what? Two’s always better than one for lots of reasons. Even I know that when you tie something up you always use a double cord for strength, right? The same principle is true here.”

  “Where’d you learn that?”

  “My pa. He taught me lots of things. I don’t think any of you should ever go out alone. You always want backup.”

  “I think she’s right,” Cheyenne said. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. He looked up at her. “Was your pa familiar with the practices of the Indian tribes?”

  “I don’t know. It just makes sense, that’s all. If the Indians do it that way it’s because they’re a smart people.”

  Cheyenne agreed, and invited Easy to come and sit beside him to discuss things further, always getting her opinion.

  During these sessions they got to know each other well, and offered to carry heavy buckets of water, or do things for her they knew she would have difficulty with alone. All this led up to a familiarity between them, and she found herself the recipient of deep, penetrating looks, an occasional touch, or the deliberate brush of a muscled body against hers. The first time was when she happened to find Cheyenne and Midnight down at the lake. Their wet bodies and rippling muscles sparkled in the dappled sunlight, taking her breath away. She stood in the shadows and watched for a few minutes until one of them looked up and caught her snooping.

  * * * *

  Cheyenne waded close to Midnight and mumbled under his breath. “Don’t look now, but it seems we have a visitor. I’ll give you three guesses as to who’s hidin’ out watchin’ us.”

  Midnight looked up. “Yeah? Where is she?”

  “Over there in that clump of bushes. You just follow my lead. I’ll get her out of there.”

  “You’re on.”

  Together they rose up out of the water as naked as the day they were born. While wrapping towels around themselves Cheyenne began talking loud enough for her to hear. “Have you noticed that Easy seems to be more boy than she is girl?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean she never wears dresses. And her face, have you ever noticed the moles she has growin’ on her face? She’s beginning to look like a real witch. Brrr, I’d hate to meet her on the trail at night. She’d scare you to death.”

  Easy tried to stay down, but her anger grew with each word.

  “And what about them wrinkles—?”

  “Nah, now wait a minute, Cheyenne. She’s too young to have wrinkles. What you think is wrinkles is really…well, they’re worry lines that’s all. After all, she’s been under a lot of strain here lately.”

  “All right, I’ll give you that, but that’s not her biggest problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s her weight. Have you noticed how big she’s gettin’? If them jeans she wears get much tighter they’re just gonna rip right off her.”

  Suddenly she burst out of the bushes yelling. “You bastards! I don’t have lines on my face, and I ain’t gettin’ fat! As for my jeans, they fit me perfect.”

  “Well, look who’s here, Cheyenne, it’s Easy.”

  “You been spyin’ on us, Easy?”

  “I came down here to bathe. I used to have some privacy before you gorillas came along. By the way, what’re you two doin’ this far from the house? Ain’t you afraid of bein’ seen?”

  “You know, she’s right, Cheyenne. We need to get back up there. Besides, Reno might need us.”

  Cheyenne was looking at Easy with a gleam in his eyes. “Nah, Flash is there. He knows where we are. Besides, this little bathing party just got interestin’.”

  Easy saw the look in his eyes and glanced from one to the other. She knew what they wanted, but did she dare give in? The truth was, she wanted it too, and they were both so damned good looking. Her gaze moved from muscled chests down to perfectly proportioned legs…

  …don’t swish that pretty little ass of yours around too much, these men ain’t seen a female in months…

  The words, when she’d first heard them scared her, but now it was different. She waited for cold fear to wash over her, but instead it was a fire crawling into her belly. She wanted it as much as they did, and found her resistance melting into that fire inside her.

  Before she decided what she should do, the two of them began walking toward her, the towels around their waist bei
ng pulled off slowly. She almost lost her breath when she imagined what it would be like to have cocks that long and large pushing up inside her. She backed away and bumped into a tree, finding herself closed in by Cheyenne.

  “Too many clothes, Easy,” Cheyenne whispered in her ear as he leaned toward her.

  Her eyes closed, and her breath came rapidly when his hands began slowly unbuttoning her blouse. Her breath turned to a moan as his naughty play turned her to jelly. Slowly he moved his fingers up to her face, stroking her lips and pushing his fingers into her mouth. She instinctively began sucking. She reached up and took his hand as if she wanted to devour it. She opened his hand and kissed his palm, and then brought them down to lay on her breasts. She pressed his palm against her nipples, feeling them stiffen against him.

  “Ever had an Indian Brave before?” he whispered while his hand went down and rested between her legs intimately. “We know secrets the white man don’t. We keep our squaws satisfied. I’d like to make you happy, Easy. Both me and Midnight could make you feel real good.”

  “Yeah?” she said, her voice breathy. “What about my moles and…?”

  Cheyenne chuckled. “I’ll keep my eyes closed.”

  “Why you…!”

  “Come on, Easy,” he said as his hands squeezed and rubbed. “You know we was just funnin’.”

  “Well, I…Oh, Cheyenne,” she whimpered as she looked up into his dark eyes—an Indian’s eyes—eyes so dark and liquid she felt as if she were drowning in them. Those eyes seemed to tell the story of wild, untamed sex on the reservation. Suddenly she felt him undressing her. She knew she should object, but somehow she couldn’t. Instead she lifted her hands and began to strip herself of the last obstacle between them. Whatever this Indian, and this rowdy, undisciplined cowboy had to offer, she wanted it.

  She could sense Cheyenne’s barely controlled power that coiled inside his body. His strength, his rippling muscles that felt so hard to her tingling fingers as she stroked him. With a wanton tongue she leaned forward and hungrily licked him. Her mouth scoured every inch of his chest, drawing his elixir into her belly, feeling it was the sweetest poison she’d ever tasted.