“Ice won't freeze on his hair, huh?” He slid the long gun back into the scabbard and started to dismount close to the wolf.
“That's right. He'll make the best hood I've ever owned.” Her face beamed at the notion of owning one.
All at once, Red snorted and acted upset at the scent of the wolf. Slocum chuckled at him, holding the reins tight to keep him under control.
“Why did you wait so long to make a fuss?” Slocum asked the horse. Then he grabbed the wolf's hind legs and dragged him over close to Wilma. With her own horse hitched to a tree, she ran over to help him. He used a cord to fill the slits he made with his knife between the lower hind leg bones. After he had one leg tied up, Slocum dragged him under a pine. The cord tossed over a stiff branch, he motioned for Wilma to pull the rope up and tie it while he held the bloody wolf in a bear hug up in the air. She deftly tied the other leg with the cord through the slit in it. The animal was now strung up and swung slightly in the stiff wind sweeping over the mountain.
He handed her a smaller jackknife to use to work on the wolf. The strong scent of the animal filled Slocum's nose as they began to slip the skin off his warm carcass. A coppery smell mixed with a testosterone odor wafted toward them and made both Wilma and Slocum fight not to gag. The pelt was in good shape for this late in the summer. The two of them stripped the prime skin away from the dark pink meat of the carnivore. Slocum's hands were full of fur to hold it aside as he used his sharp blade to quickly separate the hide's white underside from the wolf carcass muscles.
The hide was soon off the animal, and he shook it to get the sticks and debris out of it. Then he carefully rolled it up. Wilma cut the carcass down and saved Slocum's cord. Leaving the wolf's remains and stinking guts for the magpies and ravens, she turned to Slocum in the red fire of sundown.
“There's a creek we can wash up in at the base of this hill. He sure stank.”
Slocum nodded and finished tying the pelt on the back of his saddle. Red kept trying to sling his head around at him when he mounted. They set out in the dying sun's glow to descend the steep open grassy slope for the creek.
After washing up in the shallow water, Wilma smiled at him as they dried their hands on a flour sack. “Now was when Ermal usually got romantic.”
“You game?” he asked.
“I'm not as thin as I was then.”
“Well, you suggested it.”
She laughed and began to shed her suspenders. “Hell, yes.”
With her bent over and her hands braced on a large boulder, the sight of the red glow of sundown on her amble bare butt drew a smile from his lips. He dropped his own pants, unbuttoned his underwear, and stuck his dick between her bare legs.
Her hand reached under, caught his swinging stick, and slipped it into her slot. A long “Aww” escaped her mouth as he probed her. This was going to be better than he'd expected. She was tight and her ring of fire was swollen. With his hands on her hips to stabilize her, he drove his shaft up inside and she gasped.
“Oh, that feels wonderful,” she said.
He agreed. Maybe he'd have to find this Ermal and thank him. No, she'd said he was dead. With fury, he shoved his throbbing dick into her to feel more and more of the hot, tight hole. Each drive made his head spin until at last he felt the end rising out of his scrotum.
His hands tightened on her bare hips. Then from his throat came a moan, and his cum exploded out the head of his dick. She squeezed down hard on his spent shaft, and he had to catch her from fainting. When she turned around at last, she collapsed against him.
“Oh, oh,” she moaned. “That was wonderful.”
He agreed and saw the sun sink beyond the horizon. They would be late getting back to her cabin.
7
The next day, they picked out things they'd need to take along camping with Houston. They made two bedrolls so they could, as she put it, act decent around their host. Then she mentioned it would be a shame if they didn't go borrow Jennifer's horse and packsaddle.
Slocum agreed and set out with Red to go get the pony, if he could find her. There was no sign of anyone having been there lately when he found Jennifer's place again. The grave that Wilma had made for her looked settled. Lucky for him the chunky mare she used for chores came in looking for some company with Red about then. In no time, Slocum had the packsaddle and panniers on the animal and was headed back for Wilma's place.
It was midafternoon when he got back and the day had proved warm. They packed the canvas panniers full of things they'd have had to leave behind otherwise. Everything was ready by sundown for the next day's departure, and they drank Wilma's fresh-made coffee and sat together on a log in the sundown's red glow.
She elbowed him in the ribs. “I don't ever recall sitting and talking down the sun with a man in my life. All the men I've known were either swinging at me or cussing me out for something they considered important that I had no hand in.”
He chuckled. “You've had a tough life, girl.”
“I'll damn sure miss you whenever you light a shuck on me.” She dropped her face and leaned forward, shaking her head ruefully. “I ain't been around a man yet that treated me like an equal as well as you do.”
“Just think about all the good times.” He reached over and rubbed her back between the shoulder blades.
“Don't quit whatever you're doing. Man, does that feel good. Those muscles are tighter than a fiddle string.”
He went to work using both hands on her backbone and tight muscles. She moaned in a low voice at his attention. Poor thing must have been mistreated a lot in her lifetime.
“Why are you up here by yourself anyway?” he asked, curious about why she was living like a hermit.
She laughed. “A cowpoke named Shorty Harrel was the cause.”
“Sounds interesting. Tell me the rest of the story.” His hands busily continued attempting to chase the stiffness out of her back.
“I was cooking for some freighters going from Cheyenne to Buffalo. Shorty was the scout and sort of the wagon boss. Well, we got friendly on the road. I guess on the road with no parlor house handy, he got horny too, huh?”
He agreed to get her to continue.
“Well, the third day out he came around where I was cooking and told me about a mining claim he had in the Bighorns. How when we got up there to Buffalo, we could go up here and work that claim. He thought he had a streak of gold and silver.” She shook her head and scowled about it. “Course I thought there might be a chance he wasn't lying about all of it to get in my britches. So I went along and he snuck a few passes in my bedroll on the road.”
She wrinkled her nose at the notion and continued. “He damn sure wasn't a real lover. I've seen stray dogs stayed hard longer. But I wanted a vacation from being the head cook and dishwasher for those grubby freighters. You never know, this might have been the lucky mine.”
Slocum agreed with a nod, then rose and put a few more pieces of dry wood to flare up the fire as the night gathered. He could only imagine how dusty and dirty human bodies got on the road with so few places to bathe in as there were between Cheyenne and Buffalo.
“So after we got up to Buffalo, he brought me up here. We borrowed a packhorse to bring our supplies up and he took it back. There was no vein of nothing in his digging and I knew I'd been snookered, but he didn't come back and three days passed. Then a deputy brought his belongings and his horse up here for meâhe called me Mrs. Harrel.
“ âI'm sorry, ma'am, but heâyour husbandâhe must have been drunk and fell down a flight of stairs. Couple freighters said you were his next of kin, ma'am. So I brought you all of his things we could find.”
“ âWas he in a whorehouse?' I asked that boy wearing the badge.” She laughed. “He blushed like he had been caught naked at an old maids' gathering and swallowed his Adam's apple a couple of times. Then he said, âYes.'
“Shorty had twelve dollars left in one of his boots. Must have saved that back. I found it later. So I set into staying up here as long as I could. That was two years ago. Ain't done bad. Guess being up here alone I got kinda lazy about bathing. Your coming's been a good influence on me. I rejoined the human race.”
“Amazing how you ever made it, girl.”
“Naw, before this I was married to men that beat me about every night. I've been raped by worthless bastards where I did not even know their names and who left me for dead after they were through.
“See why I stay up here and did without?”
He nodded and turned her to face him. He kissed her and she fell into his arms. At last he hugged her to his chest. “Let's go to bed.”
“Damn right. You know we may not get a chance to reconnect since we'll have separate bedrolls on this search.”
Hugging her shoulder, he laughed. “I bet we don't have any problem getting away from Houston for some private time.”
“Now you're thinking. I'm plumb spoiled by your attention, you know that?”
“I am too.”
They undressed and climbed under the covers nakedâin minutes they were coupling and fighting their way to some high reward. His piston was pounding her, and she was on the bottom, struggling to give back all she received for himâwith all that she had.
Â
Before dawn, they both woke up, hungover from their repeated acts of lovemaking, ate a cold breakfast, and then rode off in the first light to meet Houston.
They arrived at his camp midmorning, and Houston rose up from his canvas chair looking ready to ride.
“Glad to see you could make it,” he said, doffing his hat for Wilma. “My horse is saddled and I am packed. I'll be ready in a few moments.”
The stout roan mountain horse he rode was under a Western saddle, and a flop-eared jackass bore his packsaddle, bedroll, and other things. Leading the mule, Houston came back to camp in a lope. Wilma had already put his folding chair inside and fastened the ties on the canvas door of his tent.
“Fine, fine,” he said, and they headed out for Ten Sleep on a narrow way cut in the towering mountain's sheer face. Houston led since he'd been over it recently and knew the best way to go better than Slocum.
“You ever been down this way?” Houston turned and asked Wilma.
Grim faced, she shook her head. “And I may not come back on it either.”
“Aw, we'll make it,” Slocum said over his shoulder.
“You know, I'm not really certain right now.”
“You'll be fine,” he assured her and laughed. But in the tight spots he twisted around in the saddle to be certain her horse made the necessary steps to get by them. Up where eagles soared, they wound off the top toward a small silver stream that bisected the gorge. Still a long ways down there, and no rails to catch them on the right side. The rock face rising skyward on the left scuffed his boots in tight places.
They rested on a wide ledge and Slocum dropped his reins, skirting his horse and Jennifer's horse under the diamond hitch. He helped Wilma down, knowing with all the tension of the trip that her legs might not stand when she did climb off her horse. He'd seen others who were scared of heights after they'd had to ride down a cliff face. He held her in his arms as she tried to gain her sea legs.
“How did you know I'd be this bad off?” she whispered, looking pale under her tanned face. Her large breasts were shoved into his chest, and she hugged him tight. “I'm getting better.”
At last she kissed his mouth, then pushed on him and stood back on her own boot heels. “I'll be fine.”
He smiled and left her beside her horse. “Need help remounting, I'll be back.”
“I'm fine.”
With his stirrup hung on the horn, Slocum tightened his girth a smidge. Satisfied with his checkup of the saddle, he could smell Houston's pipe smoke wafting back to him. The man had squatted down ahead of his horse and was using a brass telescope.
“I hope those bastards still have my field glasses when we catch them,” Houston said after Slocum joined him.
“We can hope anyway. Seen any big sheep?” Slocum asked.
“Several, but it's hard to see with this old scope how big their horns really are.”
“Those must have been good glasses.”
“They cost several hundred francs in Paris.”
Slocum shook his head. Trophy hunters' ambitions cost money, but everyone to his own hobby.
“We should be on the canyon floor in three more hours.”
“Good. I'm ready to be on the lower level.”
“How is she?” Houston asked Slocum in a lowered voice.
“Shaken, but she's tough.”
“I noticed that. Do you think I could hire her when this is over? It would sure be nice to have a woman around the camp to help take care of things. I suppose I can ask her.”
Slocum nodded. “Do that.”
“I'd hate to be flat turned down.” Houston put the pipe back between his teeth and relit his bowl with a scratched wooden match and a few puffs.
After a short rest, they all rose, ready to continue. Slocum went back to load Wilma onto her horse. She winked at him and bounded into the saddle. “I'm not done in.”
“Good.” He clapped her leg, then edged back to Red. Once in the saddle, he waved that they were ready, and Houston's mule began braying either in protest or simply as an ornery jackass complaining. The train was soon moving.
Keeping to Houston's time schedule, they ate a meal about two P.M. along the gurgling stream. Wilma boiled water for coffee, then served it with some cold biscuits and venison. They were seated on peeled logs around the well-used campsiteâobviously a site to rest, and no doubt used by many travelers who took this route. Indian and white men alike had no other route they could go; this funnel forced people to use the narrow passage they had just gone over to cross the mountains.