Chapter 9
CUNNINGHAM HAD A GOOD CACHE OF supplies-staple foods such as beans and rice, and a fair variety of canned goods, including some canned ground beef. Sally cooked up a meal that was a real treat after the stringy dried beef.
There wasn't room for everyone at the table, so at the old man's insistence, the women had to settle for the floor. Only Viola complained about this, Cunningham's women seeming to accept it as their natural lot.
Sam spent most of the meal making sarcastic remarks about the mythical treasure, which he'd already come to disbelieve in. Cunningham ignored this, and talked incessantly about how he would spend his share of the money: sending Sally off to finishing school to make a lady of her, dressing Desert Rose in the finest clothing and parading her around Albuquerque, buying himself a pickup truck.
When they'd finished eating, Cunningham suggested they have a smoke, then retire early so as to get a head start on the morning. He meant it literally: He planned to set out before daybreak, and said they would be at the diggings by the time there was enough light to work. At least the hike up the mountain wouldn't be so bad this time; they had nothing to carry but water and dried beef, as they'd left the picks and shovels there.
Without being told, Sally got up and began clearing the table. As she did so, Jud caught her eye, and she smiled a strange kind of beckoning smile. He couldn't help but wonder whether it was just the innocent smile of a girl, or the wanton invitation he would have taken it for had she been older.
Cunningham finished his smoke and announced that it was bedtime. Nobody objected. They'd all had a long, rough day.
Cunningham, Desert Rose and Sally took the bedroom, while Jud, Sam and Viola spread their sleeping bags to either side of the dining table. Almost immediately, Sam began to snore. Jud, with Desert Rose's proposition in mind, kept himself awake, a task that wasn't easy.
About forty-five minutes after they'd bedded down, Desert Rose appeared, tiptoeing through the doorway from the other room. Holding her finger up for silence, she motioned for him to follow her, then went on out the door.
Jud got up, slipped into his boots as quietly as he could, then rolled his sleeping bag into a bundle. He debated about what to do with Cunningham's rifle, and finally decided to take it along. It might be a good way of testing Desert Rose's motives.
She was standing outside the door. There was just over half a moon, and her dark face glistened in the light. Jud couldn't help but notice that her buckskin shirt was already half unbuttoned down the front, displaying enough copper-shadowed cleavage to generate a stirring in his loins that made him temporarily forget his fatigue.
"Good; you brought the sleeping bag," she whispered, reaching out to take his arm. "We can go over there against the bluff, or back into the forest."
"I don't guess it matters," said Jud. "Over there."
They walked the hundred yards to the gray-white bluff, which had appeared to be right behind the cabin from their vantage point in the woods yesterday. Jud dropped the bag, spread it with his foot, then walked over and leaned the rifle against a big boulder.
"You brought the rifle," Desert Rose said with a smile. "I see you still don't trust me."
Jud laughed. "I'm not sure who I trust any more."
He walked back to her, reaching out to place his hands on her shoulders, and drew her gently to him, feeling the firmness of her breasts on his chest, feeling her push her thighs against his. Their lips touched gently for a moment, then more firmly, her mouth opening to let him push his tongue between her teeth.
They kissed for a long time. Then they parted; drawing their heads back to look into each other's eyes.
"Are you tired?" she asked, a smile playing on her lips.
Jud nodded, saying nothing.
"And it's all for nothing," she said. "You know there's no gold."
Jud dropped his hands from her shoulders, taking a step back from her. So this was why she'd brought him out here. Just another trick. For the first time since early this morning, he was again certain there wax gold.
"Is that the only reason you wanted to come out here? So you could tell me that?"
She laughed. "No, you stupid bastard. I don't care if you dig up the whole mountain, as long as there's a little of that left for me at night." Licking her lips in a gesture that could suggest but one thing, she nodded her head, eyes fixed below Jud's belt.
Then in one quick motion her hands undid the buttons which held her buckskin shirt together, and she peeled it off her shoulders and let it fall behind her. Her dark copper breasts spilled out, jiggling enticingly. The deep maroon nipples were already swollen, taut and inviting.
Jud didn't make a move. He just stared at her, still skeptical.
"Jud," she whispered, "you don't have to mistrust me forever, do you?"
He laughed. He really didn't want to; he didn't want to mistrust her at all.
"I'm cold," she purred. "Take your clothes off and let's get in the sleeping bag."
Jud pushed her back, looking down at the curvaceous breasts. He nodded and began taking off his shirt.
The mountain air was chilly, and he hurried to get his boots off so he could remove his trousers and get into the bag. As he was knelt over to undo the laces, Desert Rose scurried across to the boulder, grabbed the rifle and leveled it on him.
It was all very undramatic. One minute he was careful, suspicious, wary as a wild animal; the next he was shivering from the cold, but at the same time panting like a dog after a heated bitch-off his guard completely.
And Desert Rose, still naked to the waist, her coppery skin goose-bumped from the cold, was holding the rifle on him and laughing.
"Oh, Jud, you should have known better! You are so weak and gullible." She smiled, her knuckles white with her tight grip on the gun. One finger curled like a rattlesnake around the trigger.
Jud, one boot on and one off, straightened up and stared into her face. He'd almost be willing to bet his life she wouldn't shoot him. Almost. . .
Well, he'd wanted to test her; that was half the reason he'd brought the rifle out. The least he could have thought to do was unload it before he gave her an opportunity like this. But there was one thing he found at least a little amusing: Sam wasn't going to like this at all.
"Put the gun down," Jud said.
She laughed again, causing her breasts to jiggle. In spite of everything, Jud could feel that his prick was hard as a rock.
"Now you are my prisoner," she said. "You are the hostage."
Jud took a cautious step toward her. "Put the gun down," he said, his voice surprisingly calm.
She laughed. "What if I did? Would you take me with you under the sleeping bag and make me very warm and happy for a while?"
Jud laughed. This was, aside from its more somber facets, a very amusing situation.
"You know I would, baby," He mocked the tough movie hero type with his voice.
"Take your pants off," she said tersely, gesturing toward him with the gun barrel.
Jud stared incredulously. "What?"
"I said take your pants off."
Her face was serious, cold and hard, she wasn't kidding. Shrugging with self-consciousness, he leaned down and unlaced his other boot, then pulled it off. He straightened up, looking back at Desert Rose. She hadn't moved, and her expression hadn't changed, and for the first time, Jud realized that she was pointing the gun not at his belly, but at his crotch. He quickly unbuttoned his trousers, and in one motion pulled off both them and his drawers. His prick was only about half hard now, and getting softer by the minute.
Desert Rose stared at him for a moment longer. Then her face relaxed into a smile. She flicked the safety on and tossed the rifle away, then reached down and began unbuttoning her buckskin trousers.
Jud started to break and run for the gun, but realized she was still a good five feet closer to it than he. He decided to let well enough alone. He watched her peel the buckskins off her hips, baring her copper colored belly, the dark V of her snatch, the contoured thighs. Then he turned and walked to the sleeping bag, folding its top flap back and waiting for her to come and get in first.
She walked slowly over to him. She shivered from the cold, but rather than immediately get into the bag, she wrapped her arms around him and pushed her naked body up against him. He could feel the hair of her cunt touching his thighs, feel her breasts against his arms. Her lips touched the side of his face, and then she stood up on tiptoe to reach his lips.
Jud turned slowly, then grabbed her arms and violently held her away from him. Now that the humiliation of finding her with the upper hand had worn off, he was very angry.
"Don't ever do that again," he said, his voice quivering with the rage that was still building inside him. He dug his fingers into the soft flesh of her arms.
"How do you think I felt last night?" She was still smiling at him.
Jud tried to smile too. He didn't blame her. What he'd done last night wasn't exactly the kind of thing that should endear a woman to a man, at least not one with spirit. But he couldn't control himself now. The anger was still raging in him.
"Don't ever do anything like that again!" he heard himself repeating. '
He involuntarily tightened his grip on her arms, his fingers digging in even deeper. He heard her give out a little gasp of pain, but it scarcely registered.
"Jud?" she asked, disbelieving him the way he was now.
And then he was shaking her, so hard that her head flopped back and forth, out of her control. And she was trying to cry out, trying to tell him to stop, and he could hear and surmise that that was what she was trying to say, even if she were unable to get the words out.
Then something collapsed in him. The rage drained out as a valve somewhere in his subconscious opened. He turned loose her arms, and his hands fell limply at his sides.
Desert Rose dropped to her knees on the sleeping bag, and he could see the deep crimson welts he'd made on her arms. And then she slid her arms up around his thighs, pulling herself up, burying her face between his legs. He could feel her tears on his thighs.
Jud reached down and ran his fingers into her long black hair, taking hold of it and gently tugging her head away from him, tilting it back to turn her face up.
Her eyes had a wild, wanton look-a look of spirited surrender. Her cheeks glistened in the moonlight, and her lips were parted, the tip of her tongue showing between her teeth. Her breath came in short gusts.
For a minute Jud just stared down at her. Then he pushed her back so she reclined on the sleeping bag. He studied her dark, shapely body, as much at his disposal now, he knew, as it had been last night when she was literally his prisoner.
He dropped to his knees between her outspread thighs. Only vaguely aware of the cold, he ran his hands quickly over her body, exploring her rounded breasts, moving down her silken stomach into the triangle of thick hair.
She spread her thighs even more as his hand moved between them, the fingers playing for a moment at her already moist labia before he pushed them into her pulsing cunt, prompting a sharp gasp of pleasure and a quick upward arching of her hips.
And at the same time he leaned down, touching his lips to her cheek, then running them down her neck and across the rise of her breasts, finally taking one hardened nipple in his mouth and biting and sucking furiously on it.
"Oh, Jud!" she wailed. He felt her begin to contort her hips madly against the skillful prodding of his finger.
And then he felt her arms go around his back, her nails digging into his flesh, slashing in mad frenzy, urging the full weight of his body down on hers.
He resisted for a moment, pushing his finger deeper into her cunt, and then he withdrew it and dropped onto her, his prick pushing against her warm inner thigh.
Frantically she reached down across his buttocks and between his thighs, straining to reach his prick. Finding this impossible, she teased his balls for a moment, then withdrew her hand and arched her hips up, reaching under her own thigh to find his cock and fit it to her labia.
And then both her hands were on his buttocks, urgently tugging him downward. At the same time she was making upward lunges with her hips, driving her loins against him until his prick was in her to the hilt.
Jud set a hard-driving rhythm, lifting himself and thrusting hard into her, and she responded with frenzied undulations of her hips.
The velocity of the rhythm increased. She threw her" legs up around him, locking them behind his back. He felt the fullness of her breasts against his chest, the tautness of her nipples. She punctuated his thrusts with little purring sounds, and all the while her hands ran frantically over his body, her nails still slashing, giving him a sensation of mingled pain and pleasure.
The crescendo continued to build. Jud's craving became maddening fury. Power surged in his body, finding focus in his driving loins as the motion of their bodies became still more furious. Her purrs changed to cries of ecstasy; she dropped her legs from his back, planting her feet wide and bending her knees, giving more leverage and at the same time opening herself wide. Her hands came to rest on his buttocks, and with each of his strokes she pulled him deeper into her.
"Oh, yes!" she cried. "Harder!"
And though he'd thought he was going as fast as was possible, somehow he managed to respond, again increasing the tempo.
The sound of their bodies smacking together competed with her cries of pleasure and Jud's hoarse and frantic breathing.
And then they moved into the last realm of frenzy. Jud felt a surging in his loins, felt himself seem to blow up in a final burst of power and fury, then spew out into her. At the same time, her body tossed wildly beneath him in a series of sporadic contortions that defied rhythm.
Her hands left his hips, running quickly up his back and through the hair on his head. She held her hips arched up for an instant, and after a last series of twitches, her body sagged limply.
Jud collapsed on her, his hands running gently down her flanks. He felt her inner muscles tighten on him, caressing his prick one last time. She sighed happily and pulled the flap of the sleeping bag over them, wrapping her arms about him and holding him to her.