Chapter 1

Charles Franklin Peabody, who introduced himself only as Slim, was slumped in the saddle as the roan gelding he was currently riding ambled along through the scrub and sagebrush, picking its route by some mysterious process Slim didn’t understand.

Or care about, for that matter.

What he cared about right now was just staying in the saddle. Not long before, he’d had high hopes of getting himself a mail bag full of cash, when he stopped the train and robbed it. It hadn’t occurred to him that the people on the train might take offense to the mail car being robbed, and he for sure hadn’t thought they’d unlimber their guns and shoot at him. He’d gotten away, but took a bullet in the process. Since he hadn’t actually gotten anything from the train, he hoped to high hell that nobody had gotten a horse out of the stock car and taken out after him.

He was pretty sure the bullet that had hit him in the side under his right arm had passed completely through him, but it hurt like fire and he’d lost a lot of blood. All he could do was move on, though, until he found water. That was because he was also pretty sure that, once he got down off his horse, he wasn’t getting back up on it for a spell. He needed a place to lay up for a while, and that meant water.

He was half passed out when the screaming roused him. It was female screaming, and it was pretty much nonstop, the kind of gut wrenching scream that made a man’s legs turn to water. Later on, he would credit that screaming for saving his life, because he was pretty sure it covered the sound of his approach to the shady copse of trees the screaming was coming from.

While it bothered Slim enough to grip the handle of his six shooter, the horse didn’t care a whit, and walked right on into the little grouping of trees. Slim’s eyes took in a sight that made his gut tighten.

The girl was staked out naked on the bare ground, her arms and legs spread wide and tied so she couldn’t resist. A man stood between her legs, in the act of pushing jeans down. It was pretty obvious what he planned on doing. The girl’s face looked over to the new arrival, and she took in a shuddering breath to scream again. The black cowboy hat on the rapist’s head turned, exposing a bearded face. His eyes widened as he saw Slim, and he bent, reaching for the gun belt on the ground by his feet.

Slim’s reaction was instinct. There was no honor in waiting for the man to actually have the gun in his hand. Letting that happen was only inviting death. He drew his Colt and shot the man three times, aiming carefully, watching the dust jump from the man’s body where the slugs hit him.

The girl screamed again, a long, drawn out bloodcurdling scream, as the man who would have raped her fell to land across one of her thighs. She drew in breath and kept screaming, mindlessly. Now that the immediate danger was gone, Slim’s eyes picked out additional information. The girl was Indian. Straight, black hair framed the dusky skin of her face and neck. The skin on her breasts and stomach looked lighter. Her buckskin dress was lying several feet away from her. It looked like it had been cut off of her.

Slim looked around and saw the narrow gleam of water further into the trees. A creek. He hoped the girl didn’t kill him when he released her, because he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be able to do much to stop her if she tried.

He fell, more than dismounted from his horse, landing hard on his side and grunting with agony as the pain made the sun flash behind closed eyelids. He lay there for several minutes. The screaming kept on, and it was annoying enough that he rolled over and started crawling toward the girl. He happened to get to her left foot first and, fumbling his hunting knife from its sheath, he cut the rawhide strips that had been drawn so tight around her ankle they drew blood.

The screaming stopped, and was replaced by gasping sobs.

He barely made it to her left hand, which was opening and closing frantically, but then stopped as his knife approached. He couldn’t get the tip of the knife under the rawhide around her wrist, so he reached to cut it between her hand and the stake. Pain streaked through him as he pulled the knife blade across the string, and as it parted he couldn’t hold on to the knife any longer.

With a groan, he collapsed, as everything went dark.

When he became conscious again, it was suddenly, as if he was waking from a night’s sleep. His instincts were in good shape, and told him to keep his breath slow and even, while he listened. He cracked his eyes open. Based on the quality of the light, he thought it must be early evening. He heard nothing except the wind in the trees, and the faint sound of trickling water. Then the sound of a foot on sand startled him enough that he opened his eyes. He looked up to see the Indian girl standing above him, looking down at him. She appeared to be upside down, and his knife was in her hand.

“Yo toh hey,” she said. Considering the tone of her voice the last time he’d heard her use it, that voice was amazingly soft and melodious.

Slim didn’t speak Indian.

“Howdy,” he said. His voice cracked through a dry throat.

She moved off, out of his sight. Slim rolled his head to see what she was doing. In doing so he realized he was lying on his back, his head propped on (and crushing) his hat. His shirt was gone. She must have taken it off of him, and arranged him thus, which meant she didn’t plan on killing him. Not right away, anyhow. She could have done that already, if that was her intent. Considering what she’d been through, he wouldn’t have blamed her. Flies buzzed about the wound under his arm.

She came back with a mass of cloth in her hand, dripping as she hurried across the sand. It looked like a shirt, but it wasn’t his.

“To nah weh hata,” she said, kneeling beside him.

He started to say “I don’t understand,” but when he opened his mouth to speak, her hands brought the dripping cloth over his face and she squeezed. It rained all over his face and he sputtered, turning his head. A little got in his mouth, though, and he swallowed it automatically.

“Shey tah!” said the girl, louder. She was frowning. She went away again, and returned with the cloth dripping again. She opened her mouth wide, as if she were going to swoop down and bite him. He stared at her. She closed her mouth and opened it again.

“To nah weh hata!” she said, obviously trying to tell him something. She opened her mouth wide again.

He aped her, and she brought the cloth over his face again. Then he got it, and as she squeezed, he tried to catch as much of the water in his mouth as he could. She smiled and nodded. It took her three more trips before he lifted a hand to keep her from going again. It wasn’t a very efficient way of drinking, but it worked.

“Thank you,” he said.

She shook her head. “Tee tee ya nagen ho,” she said.

“I guess we don’t understand each other,” he said, more to himself than to her. “I appreciate it, though.”

He examined her. He must have been out for a while, because she’d had time to get her dress and cut strings off of it to use to stitch it all back together again. It covered her body now. It had been beautiful at one time, almost white and thin as though made from the hide of something very young. When she stood up again, his eyes slid up the inside of one bare leg to darkness that didn’t quite hide the black hair between her legs. His eyes shifted to find that she had been looking at his face, and knew where his eyes had just been. Her face revealed nothing about how she felt about that, but he said “Sorry,” instinctively. She said nothing, but moved backwards so he couldn’t see up her dress any more.

He tried to sit up, and the pain was like someone had hit him with a tree trunk. His shoulders fell back to the ground, just as her hand pressed on his chest. She was frowning, shaking her head. It was clear she was telling him not to try to get up. She stood and pushed her hand flat at him, like he knew some men did when telling a dog to ‘stay.’ His hat was off to one side of his head and he reached for it, to prop up his head again. That was when he realized it was black, and not his hat at all. It was the other man’s.

He lifted his head, looking for the man he’d shot. It hurt, but his curiosity was stronger than his aversion to pain. What he saw didn’t make sense at first. The man’s clothes and kit were all piled up in one place. His eyes analyzed the marks on the ground, and he came to the realization that something heavy had been dragged away. Looking around, he saw his horse tied to a tree, his lariat lying uncoiled on the ground nearby.

She had cut the clothes off the man and dragged his body away with the horse.

He was thinking about trying to crawl to the pile, which included the man’s gun belt, when the girl walked up to it, bent down, and pulled the six shooter out of the holster. She walked away again and then returned, leading another horse. It must have been the dead man’s.

He wasn’t prepared when she calmly cocked the pistol, placed the end of the barrel between the horse’s eyes, and pulled the trigger.

His yell was drowned out by the report of the pistol. The horse dropped like a stone and flopped, bonelessly on the dusty ground. He watched in horror as she took his knife and skinned the corpse, butchering it and folding the meat into the hide, which she dragged away from the remains. Then, taking his rope again, she tied it onto one leg of the carcass. His horse wanted no part of the dead animal, or her, covered in blood as she was, but she was firm as she tied the other end of his lariat to the saddle horn and pulled his horse, making it drag the body out away from where it had been killed.

When she returned, she tied up his horse again, put together a fire, which she lit with, of all things, a lucifer she took from a small metal box. Her movements in lighting the match, however, indicated she was not well practiced in doing so, which convinced him the box was loot from the dead man’s belongings.

By the time she had cooked some of the horsemeat over the fire, Slim’s stomach was at war with his mind. When she approached him with the meat, he turned his head and said “No!” She pushed it at him, and he said “No!” again and covered his mouth. His stomach told him he was much too hungry to be picky about what was available to it. Besides, he needed food to heal. When she offered a third time, he dropped his hand and closed his eyes. He felt her push the meat between his teeth, and just tried not to think of what it was. He was surprised that it tasted good, and his eyes popped open. Instead of thinking of what he was eating, as she fed him, he examined her more closely.

He hadn’t been around that many Indian maidens. He assumed this one was a maiden, because she looked like a girl to him, quite a bit like any settler girl he’d ever seen, except for her skin color. And the way she was dressed, of course. Her hair was tied back, making a very long pony tail that she had tied with a number of pieces of rawhide, several inches apart up and down the length of it. Young though she might be, however, her form was fully that of a woman, with proud, thrusting breasts. His memory of seeing her naked, staked out, was a bit fuzzy. He remembered her nipples were dark brown, but that was about it. It seemed like her breasts hadn’t looked as big then as they did now. The repairs she’d made to her dress had been hasty. Apparently she’d just poked holes along where the dress had been cut off her, and then used pieces of fringe to tie the edges back together. Now that she was close to him, he could see her smooth skin through the gaps.

She was pretty, and his body acknowledged that. He didn’t feel bad about that. His dick got stiff any time he saw a pretty girl or woman. It had done that since he had grown hair down there. He didn’t know for sure how old he was, but he was pretty sure he had a couple of years on this Indian girl. Not that it mattered. He’d shot her rapist. He wasn’t about to try to take the man’s place.

When she brought him water again, though, he figured out the shirt she was using was that of the man he’d killed. He balked at drinking that way, and took it from her, throwing it off to one side. She looked confused. He pointed to his horse and then made as if he had a cup and was tipping it to drink from. She looked from him to the horse and back. She clearly didn’t understand.

“Help me up,” he said, holding out his hand to her. She stood there, on her knees, watching him. He reached for her hand and gave it a little tug as he tried to lift his torso off the sand. She shook her head, and gave him the ‘stay’ sign again. He shook his head too and pointed at the horse.

It took half an hour, but she finally helped him sit up by pulling on his good arm. He pantomimed drinking from a cup again, which she didn’t get. But when he cupped his hand and drank from that, he saw the understanding rush into her eyes. He pointed again, jabbing his finger toward his horse.

She rose and investigated his kit, tied on behind the saddle. When she figured out how to untie it, she brought it to him, watching as he unrolled it. She understood the purpose of the battered blue enameled cup immediately, and went to the creek with it. He watched her drink two cups herself, before she brought him one. Then she drank another one, and brought him one. He pointed at the horse again and drew in the sand, trying to make the likeness of a canteen. She watched, and then shook her head, but more as if sadly, rather than to say she didn’t understand. He jabbed his finger at the drawing and then at the horse. She stood, went to the horse and brought him his canteen. Then he understood why she’d shaken her head. A bullet had struck it, apparently from great distance, because the bullet rattled around inside the empty - and now useless - container.

Sitting up strained his resources, but he looked around, able to see more. He saw his shirt and hat, piled neatly off to one side. His horse looked okay. He wished he could get the saddle off. If he hobbled the beast, it could forage without getting too far away. It needed water too. When he tried to get up, though, the pain made him see spots again. She was there, kneeling beside him, her hands fluttering about him, trying to make him stay down.

In the end, he signed for her to bring the horse to him. It didn’t step on him, but when he extended his arm he still couldn’t reach the cinch buckle. She understood, though, and worked at it for him, until the saddle was loose. Her movements suggested she had done this before, and it was then he remembered the horse she’d shot for food had no saddle on it.