The camp lay quiet under the stars. About half the men had turned in. The rest were swapping stories at the fires or playing cards or rolling dice. None were paying the least bit of attention to Pensee.
“What’s the matter? Can it be you are afraid? I didn’t take you for timid.” She snickered. “Or is it that you don’t like women?”
“If I liked them any more, I’d own my own whorehouse.”
“Is that so?” Pensee pressed her bosom to his chest, her hips to his hips. “Then why hesitate? Life is too short for hesitation. We must take what we want when we want or we may never get to take it at all.”
“Is that your outlook on life?” Fargo was scanning the camp to be sure they weren’t being watched. He didn’t see Onfroi anywhere and that bothered him.
“It is the only one to have. Why deprive ourselves of the pleasures life offers? Of food and drink and, yes, intimacy.” Pensee lightly ran a fingertip along Fargo’s chin. “Me, I deprive myself nothing. This way, when I die, I won’t have any regrets.”
“None of these gents are going to try and stick a knife in me?”
“Are you always so cautious?” Pensee rose onto the tips of her toes and nipped his chin with her teeth. “What if one did?
C’est la vie
, eh?”
“Doesn’t that mean ‘that’s life’?”
“
Oui
.”
“You’re not worth dying over.”
Offended, Pensee took a step back and put her hands on her hips. “That’s a fine thing to say to a lady who is offering herself to you. Have you no respect?”
“I could ask the same of you. You’re the one who doesn’t seem to care if I get stabbed or shot for touching you.”
Pensee burst into peals of mirth. “Touché. I admit I am thinking of only one thing.” She stepped up close again and placed her hand on his manhood. “I am thinking of this.”
Fargo felt himself stir. “Damn, you are a tease.”
“And you like it, admit it?” Pensee ran her hand over his hardening pole. “Goodness. You grow and grow.”
A constriction had formed in Fargo’s throat and he had to cough before he could say, “Isn’t there somewhere private?”
“Are you shy?” Pensee asked, and tittered. “Men! They act so big and tough. But in a woman’s hand they are kittens.”
“I’ll give you kittens,” Fargo said, and plunged his hand between her thighs. At the contact she arched her back and her mouth parted in a tremulous gasp.
“Oh! No.”
“What’s the matter? Are you shy?” Fargo gave as good as he got.
Pensee glanced toward the other fires and the tents, then clasped his hand and pulled him around the cypress to the other side. “One thing I am not is that, monsieur,” she said huskily. “But like you I don’t need an audience. That is how I got into trouble before I met Remy.”
“Trouble how?”
“There was this gentleman who shared my lack of inhibitions. We let people watch for money. You would think the world was coming to an end, to hear the upstanding citizens who wanted us hung for our crime.”
“There are limits,” Fargo said. Not that he had room to talk. He had done more than a few things in his time that most would brand scandalous.
“Not for me. Not then. Not now. Not ever. I like to live to the fullest. And if some are upset, that is their nature, not mine.”
“Did you bring me behind this tree to make love or talk me to death?” Fargo asked.
“Talk is a poor second to making love.”
With that Pensee melted into his arms. Her molten mouth fastened to his and her lips widened to admit his tongue. She groaned when he sucked on hers. He cupped a breast, pinched the nipple.
The night was suddenly a lot warmer.
Fargo pressed her against the tree. Her arms rose to hook around his neck and her pelvis glued itself to his. It occurred to him that he had left the Henry lying on his blanket but he decided to leave it there. He doubted anyone would be stupid enough to try and steal it.
“Why did you stop? Don’t you know what to do next?”
“I reckon I do.” Fargo rubbed his forefinger across her nether lips; she wasn’t wearing undergarments. She shivered and cooed and bit his shoulder, and not lightly, either.
“Do that again.”
Fargo did, dipping the tip of his finger into her. She ground against him and lathered his neck and his ear. At the same time she pried at his buckskin shirt, raising it so she could slide her hands underneath and rove them over his muscular chest and knotted belly.
“Nice. Very nice.”
Fargo could say the same but chatter was a distraction he could do without. He shut her up with another kiss and kept his lips there while he kneaded and tweaked her breasts. Soon her chest was heaving. Her breath fanned his throat as she bent to run her tongue from one side to the other.
By now Fargo’s pants bulged. He needed release. Unbuckling his belt, he lowered his holster and the Colt, then let his pants slide down around his knees. As his pole came free she let out a soft cry of delight.
“
Mon Dieu!
I have struck gold.”
Eagerly, she enfolded him with her fingers. Fargo had to clamp down a mental lid to keep from exploding before he was ready. The constriction returned as she delicately ran her fingernails up and down and then cupped his jewels.
“I would like to chop this off and keep it with me always.”
Fargo’s rising ardor deflated. He looked at her, half inclined to swat her hands away. “What did you just say?”
“I was joking. I wouldn’t cut you, my handsome tug-mutton. It is just that you are a stallion.”
“Your handsome what?”
Pensee didn’t reply. She had tucked at the knees, and the next Fargo felt, his member was sheathed in velvet. He braced an arm against the tree and closed his eyes.
The velvet sensation went away but only long enough for Pensee to ask, “You like, yes?”
“I like, yes,” Fargo confirmed, and gave himself up to the pleasure. She stayed tucked a good long while. Several times she brought him close to the brink but each time she showed the savvy not to send him over.
“Damn, you’re good.”
“
Merci
. But in truth I am bad.” And Pensee chortled in naughty glee.
Fargo pulled her to her feet, spread her legs, inserted his tip, and looked into her eager eyes. “Ready?”
“Always.”
A lunge, and Fargo rammed up into her. For a few seconds she was still, transfixed with rapture. Then her body began to move of its own accord and Fargo went with the flow, ramming ever harder and steadily faster until she tossed her head wildly and thrashed uncontrollably. But she didn’t cry out. Instead, she sank her teeth into his shoulder.
Fargo didn’t stop. Her velvet sheath grew wetter. At his next thrust she went into a paroxysm of ecstasy, lost in the delirium of another release. Fargo kept ramming. She clung to him, spent but wanting more. He rocked on his boots, virtually lifting her off the ground. Then his own moment came, and it was everything it always was, the moment when a man felt most alive, the moment a man lived for.
Covered with sweat, they coasted to a stop and Pensee sagged and whispered, “
E
’
tonnant
.”
“Eh?”
“It was wonderful. I thank you.”
“Any time.”
“I will hold you to that.” Pensee kissed him, then closed her eyes. “I am so tired and content I could fall asleep standing up.”
“No need for that.” Fargo slid out of her and pulled himself together. As he strapped on his Colt he heard splashing from the swamp. Not much, and not loud. A gator, he figured.
They walked around the cypress to his blanket. The Henry was where it should be.
Fargo sat and patted a spot next to him. “You’re welcome to join me if you want.”
“I would like nothing better. But I usually sleep by myself so as not to have the men jealous of one another.
Comprendre vous
?”
Fargo shrugged and sank onto his back. “Whatever you think best.”
“Tomorrow is another day, yes?”
Struggling to stay awake, Fargo rose onto his elbows and stared after her until she went into a tent. Then sleep claimed him and he knew nothing until his eyes snapped open and he lay there wondering what woke him.
Fargo felt sluggish, as if his blood was pumping in slow motion. He was content to lie there and drift back to sleep. He closed his eyes and rolled onto his side, and that was when the strangeness struck him.
There wasn’t a sound to be heard.
The swamp had gone completely still. A silence so deep, not even a mosquito buzzed. No croaks, no bellows, no roars, no screeches, no bleats of any kind.
Puzzled, Fargo raised his head. He couldn’t see many of the stars through the canopy but he did spy the Big Dipper and by its position he guessed it had to be close to four in the morning. He slowly sat up.
The fires had gone out and the tents were dark. Fargo remembered Remy saying that they never let the fires die at night. He wondered if whoever was keeping watch had fallen asleep. He debated getting up but decided he was worrying over nothing and was about to lie back down when a darkling silhouette appeared, moving toward the water, with an odd hopping gait.
What the hell? Fargo thought. There was something familiar about the figure but he didn’t realize what until a low titter reached his ears. Grabbing the Henry, he rose. The figure had reached a canoe and was clambering in. Fargo ran toward it as a paddle swished. The canoe faded into the dark.
Fargo came to the water, and stopped.
From out of the night came another titter. And something else. “Mad, mad, mad, mad, mad!”
“Hell.” Fargo turned and raced toward the tents. Smoke was rising from the nearest fire so it hadn’t been out long. He stopped and hunkered to poke at the charred logs and get the fire going again but someone had poured water on it. Three guesses who.
Fargo moved to the next fire. It, too, had been doused with water. And sprawled beside it on his stomach was the man on guard. Bending, Fargo saw that the back of the man’s head had been caved in by a heavy blow. He rolled the body over and Onfroi’s empty eyes stared up at him.
The Mad Indian’s handiwork.
Fargo imagined how it had been. Onfroi, perhaps dozing by the fire, the insane old warrior creeping up the shore and striking him from behind with the hatchet or a rock and then dousing the fires and fleeing. But why put out the fires? Fargo wondered. Why not use the fire as a weapon and set the tents ablaze? Maybe kill a few more hated whites?
Suddenly a low, rumbling grunt issued from the trees beyond the tents.
Ice filled Fargo’s veins. Now he knew why the Mad Indian had doused the fires. He turned to shout a warning but he had figured it out too late.
Out of the night it hurtled, a living engine of destruction. As big as the biggest grizzly, as powerful as a bull buffalo, it emitted a strident squeal of fury and tore into a tent. Canvas ripped and tent poles snapped, and then men were screaming and cursing and the thing came ripping out the other side with part of the tent clinging to its bulk and a limp human form flapping up and down in front of it. The creature tossed the body aside, wheeled with lightning swiftness, and charged a second tent.
Fargo jerked the Henry to his shoulder and snapped off a shot. If he scored the slug had no effect. In the blink of an eye the second tent was reduced to ruin and there were more screams and curses added to the din.
The monster was wreaking havoc.
Fargo ran toward it, thinking that if he got closer he could try for a head shot. The tent exploded and out it came, bearing down on him. He fixed a hasty bead but before he could fire he was slammed aside as if he were a twig. A pale, curved . . . something . . . flashed before his face, missing by a whisker. He hit hard on his back, the breath knocked out of him.
Bedlam reigned.
Men were swearing, shouting, voicing their death wails. Guns boomed. Women shrieked. Above it all rose the squeals and screeches of the beast as it ran amok, destroying and slaying in a wanton rage. The thing was unstoppable. Fargo saw a man run up and fire a revolver, the muzzle inches from the creature’s head, but it had no more effect than his own shot.
The creature’s head swept up and the man sailed end over end, catapulted through the air as effortlessly as Fargo might toss a pebble. The man thudded to the ground only an arm’s-length away and wet drops spattered Fargo’s face and neck. He half rose, his gorge rising too at the sight of the Cajun’s ruptured belly and chest. The creature had ripped the man open from navel to neck, tearing through clothes and flesh and bone, and the man’s organs were spilling out.
Fargo groped for the Henry and found it.
More men were down. There were scattered bodies everywhere.
And then the voice of the woman Fargo had made love to just hours ago wailed in desperate terror, “Help me! Someone please help me!”
Fargo rose and raced to Pensee’s rescue.
10
Her cry came from a tent that was still standing.
Fargo ran toward it. Without warning the side burst outward and the beast, squealing ferociously, was on him. Fargo dived to one side. He glimpsed it as it went by, glimpsed the gleam of a curved tusk and a hide covered with bristly hair. Its hooves drummed past his ear.
Another second, and something struck Fargo across the shoulders, something heavy. Dazed by the blow, for a few harrowing seconds he thought the creature had turned on him.
Then someone groaned.
Fargo rolled and pushed. The person on top of him slid off, and he rose to his knees. He still had the Henry and he jammed it to his shoulder.
The creature was streaking toward a lean-to. In it huddled two men too terrified to do more than scream as the beast smashed into their flimsy sanctuary and reduced it, and them, to crushed ruins.
Fargo fired. He was sure he hit it but the thing didn’t break stride or stop. It crashed off into the night, the brush and the trees no hindrance at all.