“A married virgin,” said Jake. “Imagine that.”

  “What are you doing?” I whispered.

  “Fixing that.”

  My body melted in his arms.

  “Take your breasts out, Minnie.”

  He helped me slide the shift down over my shoulders. My breasts felt heavier than usual. I tried to cover them; he brushed me aside. His touch was relentless, steady. He wanted me.

  “Fighting gives me a cockstand,” he whispered. “Makes me want to bury myself in a woman. You know what that feels like? To take a man inside you?”

  “No.”

  My nightdress was now totally around my waist. His fingers slid up my thighs. They searched. They were scorching.

  “Like that,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  He fucked me. That was the word for it, the word they used. He fucked me with his fingers, his lean body hovering over mine, his handsome, foreign face concentrated with desire.

  Swaying with barely-controlled delirium, Jake took a hand to the fastenings of his pants. I was so wet my body had started making its own sounds. He fucked me harder. His trousers sagged; the thing inside them fell forward, swollen and heavy.

  It was masculine, brutish, raw. Just like Jake. The head was a puffy, rounded tip. He placed my hand on the length of it, guiding it down to the roots, where it sprouted among a nest of black and curly hair. I found I couldn’t breathe. The thought of something so big forcing its way inside me...

  “Do you want it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He pressed me with his hands.

  “Yes,” I gasped.

  “Open your legs.”

  I opened them. He slowed his rhythm down, showing me everything I could have. He would know what he was doing. He seemed to know what I wanted before I even thought it. How could I say no? I trembled madly. Yes, I wanted him. I wanted him more than life.

  “Say it,” he said. “Out loud.”

  “I want you.”

  He swung his legs over me and leaned down. His fingers withdrew with a slick sound. I tried to install it in my memory, all of it. The way he smelled, his breath, his skin. But in the end I remembered practically nothing.

  He slid inside me. It was easy- but maybe his fingers had opened the way. The moment he reached the base he stopped, waiting, in case I was going to shriek or jump around.

  Then, he began to move.

  With the first thrust I shot upward. The feeling was indescribable. Jake led me down again, controlling me with the deliberate movements of his hips.

  Inside me whirled with light. Nothing else in the world existed but Jake, who gathered every sensation in my body into a single point, and then hammered them to pieces of oblivion. I wound myself around him. His skin felt hot. His breath rasped out.

  “So soft,” he grunted. “Soft. I knew it. I knew you’d feel like this.”

  And then suddenly, with a groan, his whole body went tense. He withdrew and fell away. He flopped back on the bed. I could still feel the impression of him inside me.

  “Shit.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My side,” he said, sounding near a laugh. “God damn it, it fucking hurts. Look at it.”

  It was too dark to see. I reached over and felt for the bandage wrapped around his wound. Something wet and sticky met my fingertips.

  “You opened it!” I exclaimed.

  He laughed, then gasped. “Oh God. I’m a fool. I’m sorry, Minnie.”

  I was giggling too. “It’s alright.”

  He snatched for my hand as I pulled it away. “This is a sight embarassing.”

  “It’s alright.”

  “I don’t want to bleed all over the bed. Think you can doctor me again?”

  I slid out of bed. Realized, belatedly, I was naked. There was no fire, and hardly any moonlight.

  “I got a matchbook in my belt pouch,” said Jake. “Be sparing with those, mind. They ain’t cheap.”

  I struck a match. The lantern caught the tiny flame, throwing the room into a pretty, dull light.

  I tended to Jake again, ignoring the soreness between my legs. His cock had softened a little. As I peeled apart the bandage around his waist, he hissed.

  “It hurts?”

  “Do what you need to do.”

  I tended him again, feeling his eyes on me the whole time.

  “I owe you one,” he said.

  “If you take me home before you get killed,” I said dryly, “I’ll call your debt off.”

  “You ain’t mad at me for debauching you,” he said.

  “No,” I whispered.

  “It’s a long way from the Meadows yet. A week or so.”

  “I know. What’s that got to do with you and me?”

  He waited for me to finish. Then he drew me up and grabbed my chin. I shuddered. I didn’t know Jake at all, and still couldn’t tell just what the look in those cold blue eyes meant. He might be any kind of man. He hid the truth of himself very, very well.

  “What if between now and then,” he murmured, “I feel like taking you again?”

  “You mean doing it? Like just now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I liked it.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah.”

  He said, “You’d let me do it again?”

  “I would.”

  “What if I kept you in the wagon,” he said, “Wearin’ nothing but that pretty little nightie. And I told you to sit there and wait for me all day thinking of me getting between your legs.”

  His thumb brushed my lip.

  “I’d like that,” I shivered.

  “What if I pissed you off?” he said, his voice like velvet. “What if I hurt you?”

  “I’d slap you. I’d beat you up.”

  “You would?”

  I had never slapped anybody. Not even John Miller. But I could picture myself slapping Jake. That seemed a significant difference.

  “If I piss you off,” said Jake, “You got to slap me. You got to get mad. You got to fight me like the devil.”

  “I don’t want to fight you!”

  “Maybe you won’t have to,” he said, kissing me hard for a moment. “But I want to know I’m not taking advantage of you, Minnie. I want to know if I did something you’d let me know.”

  I understood. It somehow made sense.

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “Good.”

  He kissed me again. He weighed my breasts, teasing the nipples with his fingertips. Like me, he couldn’t help himself.

  “Married or not,” said Jake, “You’re mine for the next week. We do whatever we want.”

  “Okay.”

  “Come here and love on me again.”

  I slipped again between the sheets. This time I straddled him. So he wouldn’t rip his stitches. His eyes widened, his lips parted. He grabbed my bottom again and guided me forward.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Reaching the Meadows took longer than anticipated. In that time I felt myself changing. I seemed to have a new pair of eyes; I was becoming aware of the causes my own thoughts and feelings. Realizing that just because I had been told a thing was bad, it did not actually make it so. Each new day held a discovery of some hidden prejudice I had nurtured that no longer seemed important.

  For instance, it was not so bad to sleep on the ground. Curling up in Jake's blanket, with the stars above our heads, was rather nice. On the road you couldn't stick your nose in the air about everything. Going to the bathroom in the tall grass, washing up in rivers and streams, and cutting my legs up in blackberry patches would have been unacceptable two months ago. Now I found it hard to care.

  Jake didn't have funny ideas about what a proper girl should and shouldn't do. Along the ride we came across a peach tree, laden with fruit so late in the season. Sweet rotting peaches littered the ground. We smelled them before we saw them.

  "Some dessert, Short?" Jake called to our companion.

  Shortie made a face. "I can't abide a peach. Worm-eaten these are."

  But Jake pulled up the horse.

  "Minnie, get us them peaches."

  "I can't reach those!"

  "Climb the tree, goose. There's a branch right there."

  "Jake, I can't."

  "Put your weight on that and-"

  "It'll snap."

  "Naw it won't. Go on, my mouth is waterin'."

  I glared at him. "Girls don't climb trees."

  Shortie barked a laugh. Jake stared at me in flat amusement.

  He said, "I'd do it, but my side is painin'. The stab wound."

  I said, "Wasn't hurting you too bad when you chased me with that stick-bug."

  "I must have opened it up again," he grinned. "Go on, you can climb it. Get those little ones at the bottom."

  "Jake, no!"

  "Hurry up!"

  I dismounted and huffed to the tree. Shortie leaned back, giggling. But now Jake was all business.

  "Your skirt's gonna get in the way."

  “How do I-”

  "Tie it to the side. Knot it."

  I did so. He directed me where to put my foot.

  "Don't close your eyes, Minnie!" he barked.

  "I'm up too high," I shouted.

  "To a grasshopper. You ain't five feet up. Look- reach to your left."

  The peaches were the smooth-skin kind, a pretty red and orange. I picked four. The branch under my feet gave a crack.

  "Help!" I screamed.

  Jake wheezed, "You're fine. Drop ‘em gentle."

  I shimmied down the tree so fast I about scraped my palms open. Jake took the peaches from me quickly.

  "You're tremblin'. Sakes alive, Minnie, I never seen someone make such a fuss over a little tree."

  "Then you should have climbed it," I snapped.

  He drew me up into the saddle and kissed me, laughter all over his face.

  "Thanks."

  I couldn't be angry with him. Secretly, I was proud of myself. I had never climbed a tree. Jake bit into the peach, a big bite all the way to the pit. His eyes closed.

  "Heaven," he said. “Just like I remember.”

  I took a bite myself. It was.

  "When I was little we'd steal peaches from the Henley orchard," he confided. "It's about my favorite thing in the world, a good peach."

  Shortie made a face. "Tastes like sweet mush. I hate the texture."

  "More for me," Jake shrugged.

  "You ever get caught stealing the peaches?" I asked Jake. He had never talked about his childhood. Those wild days with the other McCoy brothers.

  "Sure," said Jake. "Pa gave me a cootin'."

  We headed on. The sweet taste lingered in my mouth all night. If only Mama knew. I'd run off with a lover, seen a razor fight, slept in a whorehouse and swam stark naked in a river. And now I was climbing trees.

  "You ruined me," I told Jake that night.

  "Ruined?" He was utterly unoffended. "Ain't nothing to ruin in you, Minnie. You're your own element."

  "I think I'm better for being ruined," I said.

  He snorted. "If we all lived by other folks' rules, we'd be a world of boring sorry sons of bitches."

  "Amen," Shortie grumbled.

  *

  We reached the Meadows at night, after traveling all day to make up time. Storm clouds were closing in from the North. Jake figured it would be bad.

  By the time we reached the Meadows a driving rain had picked up. Our house was dark. Soaked head to foot and shivering, I could hardly parse out what I would say to Mama. The whole long story would have to come out- including my aborted marriage. And to protect my image I would have to lie about Jake.

  But Jake did not like liars. And it would be a weak thing to do. He didn't like weakness, either.

  Because I respected Jake I wanted more than anything for him to respect me.

  But what about Mama's respect?

  I was so tired. Maybe I could lie now, and tell the truth in the morning.

  "I'll head off to Sarah's," Shortie called over the rain. "I'll come by tomorrow, Jake."

  "Stay the night in the barn," said Jake. "Shug should be there. He'll make you a bed."

  Shug was an extra hand Pa called on sometimes, a watchman. He was a drunkard. Knowing this, Shortie shook his head.

  “I’ll take my chances ridin’,” he said.

  “You sure?”

  Shortie had the mail bag stuffed down his shirt for added protection against the rain. I could hardly make his lumpy figure out in the darkness. "Sarah's ain't that far. I rather a clean bed than some straw."

  "Suit yourself."

  Shortie rode off. Jake led the horse to the barn, clamping his hat on his head against the cold.

  The barn was dark, and empty.

  "Shug?" Jake called.

  An echo replied. Cursing, he fumbled for his oilcloth. The matches were wet.

  "Hell and shit."

  In the darkness, fumbling and swearing, he got the saddle off and bit and bridle free of the animal. Feeding was out of the question and would have to wait. The horse didn't seem to happy about it.

  I leaned against the barn door, my heart pounding.

  "Where's Mama's horse?"

  "Don't know," said Jake. "Maybe she's out."

  "I guess Shug's getting drunk."

  "Most likely," said Jake.

  We closed up the barn. The house was dark, and locked up tight. The rain churned on miserably, nailing the sky to the ground. I felt sure we would catch our deaths.

  "There's a broken window out back," I chattered. “The lock’s busted. Unless Mama fixed it.”

  We slogged to the back of the house. In the distance a collection of lightning stormed. One struck nearby, for an instant lighting up Jake's face. He was drawn, pale and nervous.

  "Something don't feel right, Minnie."

  "Just open the window," I squeaked. "We'll deal with your feelings when we're dry."

  It was the kind of answer he would have given to me. We were starting to sound like each other. He slid a knife through the gap and fiddled; the window sprang open. Making a step with his hands, Jake shuffled under the window and nodded to me. I climbed up and in.

  The house seemed to stand at attention. It was all pitch-black and smelled of dust. My skin crawled. I stumbled through the house by memory, like a ghost, and unbolted the front door. In another minute Jake came around. He stomped the mud off his boots before ducking inside.

  With all that racket, no one had answered. No one was home.

  "Where did she go?" I wondered.

  "For Christ's sake," said Jake. "Get a light in here."

  Mama always kept her matchbooks in the kitchen. We both felt around blindly. Jake found them first.

  The lantern was in its usual spot. We got it going. Jake moved immediately to start up the woodstove.

  "Get out of them clothes," he said.

  It was obvious the house was unoccupied. I got us clothes- some of Pa's for Jake, one of my old nightdresses for myself. Jake was fluffing up bits of kindling. His hands shook with cold.

  "Mama's travel case is still in the room," I said.

  "She must have packed light."

  "She never goes anywhere without it."

  My uneasiness grew. Jake struggled with the fire for a long time.

  "I'll do it," I said.

  I took over. He undressed right there in the kitchen and slipped into Papa's shirt and battered trousers.

  "We'll figure out about your Mama in the morning," he said. He sounded bone-weary. "There anything to eat here?"

  Nothing but preserves and some crumbly crackers in a tin. They were very stale. We ate the preserves down to the last scoop.