The woman marched me out of the circle- and three more women followed. They all couldn’t have been older than twenty. We walked to the river, and without any ceremony they started to strip.

  They were small and stocky, but well-muscled. After shucking off the clothes, they put them in neat little piles by the riverside. I copied them and plunged into the freezing water.

  For so long I’d been denied a bath, not wanting to risk it around the cowboys. The women giggled, circling me in the water. They pulled at my hair to take out the burrs. Murmuring to each other, they fingered the coily texture.

  They used little sand from the river to scrub, and urged me to do the same. We finished in no time. No one wanted to stay long in that water. The women threw the clothes over their wet bodies. I eyed my own pile of rags distastefully. But I couldn’t help it. I put them on. Then we all left the river and returned to the camp.

  Once in camp, I was relieved of my battered dress after all. They put me in a Spanish-style skirt and a deerskin shirt. It made a very odd combination. I looked like one of them. Or like one of their dolls.

  The skirt had pockets, much to my relief. When they looked away I slipped the gold bar from my old dress to these pockets. I handed the ratty dress to one of the girls.

  “Please burn this,” I said. She raised an eyebrow.

  “Burn.” I pointed at the fire. Made a silly gesture with my hands.

  Her eyes crinkled; she shook her head. Fanning out the dress, she laid it flat on the ground for them all to look at. I guess they wanted to salvage what from it.

  And then an old woman came to put a stop to our fun. Tittering, the young women returned to the skinning fires and went back to work. But the leader- the one Joseph had spoken to- slipped me a little cup of grease. She made motions of running her hands through my hair. Presently her daughter returned with her abandoned needlework. With the grease I got my hair under some control. Then I sat there and watched them all. I figured it would be a while until Joseph returned.

  But Cal came to find me instead. He looked mighty annoyed.

  “We are staying the night,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Iron Eye needs my help, in exchange for the horses.”

  “But-”

  “Not to mention,” interrupted Cal, “There’s a band of Comanche camping along our route. And the chief ain’t so friendly with me. Here we can have Iron Eye’s protection.”

  He stopped. He had just noticed my new outfit. “Who did that?”

  “I don’t know. Joseph talked to some woman.”

  He nodded. His eyes roved over my body. “It’s an improvement.”

  “Thanks,” I said glassily. “I thought you said you were friendly with the chief.”

  “I’m friends with Iron Eye, who leads this band.”

  “So-”

  “Yes, there is a difference. Kiowa and Comanche are friendly to each other. But they’re two different people with two different sets of friends and enemies. Just like you and me.”

  I didn’t know what the hell was going on, or why a day-long trip had suddenly extended to two. Cal strode in front of me. There was no point arguing with him.

  He brought me to a little tipi on the very edge of camp.

  “We’re gonna stay here for the night,” he said.

  I crawled inside, and immediately wanted to crawl back out. It was hot and stuffy. He turned to leave me there.

  “I want to come with you,” I said.

  “This is mens’ business,” he said firmly.

  “I don’t care. Remember- I didn’t ask to come here.”

  He folded his big arms across his chest. “I guess you’d rather I left you in that camp for them to take advantage of you.”

  “Well-”

  “You think I didn’t see ‘em lookin’ at you? You want to know what they would have done if I’d left you there on your lonesome?”

  “I know what they would have done,” I snapped. “Maybe you should pick your men more carefully.”

  He had stepped closer to me. Closer than I was comfortable with.

  “You’ll listen to me, Ada. Just stay put here.”

  “I ain’t one of your men, Cal Sampson,” I snapped. “I’ll go where I damn well please.”

  That brought him up short in a hurry. I don’t think a woman had ever talked back to him like that.

  I said, “You got trouble with your men ‘cause you lord over them,” I continued. “If you wasn’t such a mule-driver they’d like you more.”

  “I don’t care if they like me,” he snapped. “I care if they listen.”

  “And I’m tellin’ you that’s your problem. But it ain’t mine. I don’t like you, and I don’t got to listen to you.”

  He left the tipi. I wished I had aim enough to throw my shoe at him. He would have deserved it.

  ᢇ

  I spent the rest of that evening in the stuffy tipi, bored as the devil. It seemed to me like this whole predicament was, somehow, Cal Sampson’s fault.

  After while I decided to get out of there. I’d say I was looking for Joseph. No one would have a problem with that, would they?

  I left the tent and immediately regretted it. In Boston you’d get in trouble for staring too hard at anything, even your own pocket watch. But the Kiowa didn’t hold that belief. They looked away when I turned to them, but then went right back to staring. I wondered if any had ever seen a black woman before.

  I just wanted to get out of the rows of tipis, away from the close air. I wanted to be alone. So I left. I ended up walking out to the horse herd. In the distance young boys were having a horse race. They started at a swift canter, then moved to a full-on gallop, leaving clouds of prairie grass in their wake. The Indian ponies were squatter than those of the cowboys, but sure-footed, and very strong. When the race ended the boys did tricks- standing on the horse’s back at a full gallop, swinging under its throat, vaulting over the flanks and riding backwards. Round laughter carried across the prairie. Their silhouettes came up black against the setting sun.

  I felt at peace.

  Once the sun disappeared for good, I could hardly see but for the light of the little campfires. I had to head back. It wouldn’t be good to be seen by the young boys. They might not be as kind to me as the women.

  But I went down to the river instead. The tide this time was high, eroding the yellow sand. I sat on the banks and thought about California. So Cal wanted to put me down in Baxter Springs- wherever the hell we stopped first. But I meant to go out to California. Maybe there was a way to convince him to take me along, the whole way. Then I could see about taking on with a group going out West.

  I fingered the gold bar in my pocket. They would help me get there. As long as I didn’t get caught...

  Some noise behind me made me turn. It was Cal.

  “I’ll go back now,” I said. “I just needed some air.”

  His face was wreathed in shadow, and he stood very still.

  I frowned. “Is something wrong?”

  “You’re awful pretty,” he said. His voice sounded strange.

  I blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “Come here.”

  He stepped towards me and reached out. My feet were glued to the earth. I slid into his arms and my face came up to look into his. He brought his lips down to kiss me.

  I let him continue, but then the shock was too great. I broke the kiss. His blue eyes flashed.

  Blue eyes?

  I tried to step away. He held me fast. And in the little piece of moonlight I got a good look at his face. A good, long look.

  It wasn’t Cal.

  I screamed and tried to back away. The man laughed.With both hands he grabbed my bottom and jerked me against the fork of his legs. I beat against his chest with both hands.

  He loosened his arms. My chance to run. I sprinted back to the circle of tipis. The whole way I felt him following me, or maybe I imagined it. I could still feel him, smell him, all over my body.

  Somehow I ended up right back where Cal had left me- at the front of the little saggy tipi. The paintings on the side were faded, but I could make out a row of grinning birds. They were laughing at me. I sobbed for breath. A Kiowa woman stopped in front of the neighboring tipi. She held a rusty lantern in her hand. She blinked at me like an owl. Her eyebrows raised, taking in my strange attire.

  “For Pete’s sake,” I snapped. I opened the flap of the loaned tipi and pushed inside.

  And ran smack into Cal.

  “Oof,” he said. I knocked him back through the flap.

  “What’s goin’ on?” he demanded.

  At the sound of his voice I came undone. I screamed like a trapped goose.

  “What the fuck?” he roared, grabbing for me.

  I tried to dart from the tent flap, but he moved fast. His arms came around my waist and jerked me against him. To my surprise- horror?- I could feel the ridge of his dick through his trousers.

  “It’s me,” said Cal. “Ada, it’s me.”

  It was the same voice he used to calm the horses. And it worked. I let him hold me for a minute. Got control of my breathing. Then I broke from his embrace and turned to face him.

  “I saw someone,” I hissed. “At the river. He looked just like you. Mister Sampson- what the hell is going on?”

  “What?”

  “Your twin is runnin’ around out there trying to kiss people!”

  “What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

  I told him what had happened. He grabbed my hand and pulled me inside, then bent to tie the flaps. I sat down on the borrowed buffalo robe, trying to see him through the gloom. Had he just been sitting here? By himself?

  A sharp, familiar smell explained it. I felt about. My hand touched something cold and glassy. Something round. I picked it up by the stem and shook it. Nothing less than a bottle of mash whiskey, almost half empty! So not even the upright Cal Sampson was immune from the vices of liquor.

  “You just been gettin’ drunk, while your men sit out there waitin’ on you, huh?” I threw at him.

  “What?”

  “You heard me!”

  “I told you, we can’t leave tonight.”

  “That don’t mean you have to go on and get piss-drunk.”

  “I’m not drunk.”

  He moved over to me and came right up to my face.

  “Do I look drunk to you?”

  Thump, thump. My heart. I couldn’t see him. But I could feel him- every inch of his big body. I could smell him, sage and leather and hides. He seemed to fill the little tent. My breath caught in my chest.

  He reached around me and held the bottle in front of my face.

  “I got another night before I got to go out there and fix this mess,” he told me. “And as I see it, you owe me a favor.”

  “A favor?”

  “Well, it takes a miserable son of a bitch to be ‘round these men for another two, three months.”

  “And?”

  “And, Miss Ada Bell, I don’t like bein’ a miserable son of a bitch. So here we are- I’m in the mood for cheerin’ up, and you’re here owin’ me a favor. So you can pay me back by gettin’ drunk with me.”

  “I don’t owe you nothin’.”

  “No?” said Cal. “That’s twice I’ve saved your ass, Ada.”

  I could almost see his smile through the dark. No doubt, he’d been on the bottle. I never would have expected it. But if anything it made him more playful- more loose. I think I liked this new Cal.

  I took the bottle from him. “I’m only gonna have a sip.”

  “That’s fine with me.”

  “Then you’re gonna tell me who the hell that was out there that looked and sounded just like you.”

  I drank.

  “Good girl,” said Cal. He took the bottle and had another swig. “I’ll tell you. It was my brother.”

  “Your what? Your who?”

  “My brother. Samuel. Samuel Sampson. They call ‘im Sam Twist.”

  “How the hell did your brother get here?”

  “You got a mouth on you,” he said. “I never met a woman who swore so much.” He handed the bottle back to me. “Let’s get out of this damn tipi.”

  We left. At the center of the Kiowa camp a great fire burned. By its light we made our way over towards the horse herd. The snatches of conversation died down; Cal draped his arm around me protectively.

  “Sam goes where he likes. Must be pure coincidence he ended up here.”

  “Seems real convenient.”

  “The plains are like that,” said Cal. “You’re always bumpin’ into people from the past.”

  “He’s friendly with the Indians, too?”

  “I told you my family was from Carolina,” he said. “We made our way out here when me and Sam was about seven. Daddy got on the wrong side of some Kiowa, and some braves came through our little ranch and raised hell. Took me and Sam hostage.”

  “Oh no.”

  “Mama and Pa didn’t survive the raid. But me and Sam got tossed to different bands of Indians for a couple years. Until a man named Old Eagle took a liking to me, and had me adopted. Sam went with another band.”

  “I see.”

  “Well, I was thirteen when Old Eagle died, and his sons had just about had enough of me, so they booted me out. Don’t know what happened to Sam after that. He fell in with the Comanche, I b’lieve. Last I heard of him, there was a bounty on his head in Texas. Horse thievin’.”

  It was a lot to make sense of. “Do you get on with Sam?” I said.

  “Nope,” said Cal. “Can’t stand the bastard.”

  “But you get on with the Kiowa,” I said. “They killed your parents.”

  “It wasn’t Iron Eye’s band that killed them,” he said. “It was another band. It ain’t as simple as you think.”

  “Nothing about you is simple, Mister Sampson.”

  He stopped and threw himself down in a bed of dropseed. I sat next to him. He drank from the bottle again and passed it back to me.

  “You want to be careful of my brother,” he said. “He ain’t as friendly to the women as me.”

  “Pshaw! You always got such concern for my safety.”

  “A thing I question every day.” He opened one eye and raked it boldly over me. His hand came up. I froze. It stroked the fabric of my new shirt. Felt my bicep.

  “You’re uncommon strong, for a woman.”

  “You’ll find out just how strong, if you keep touching me.”

  He met my gaze. I saw the challenge there.

  “Don’t you dare-”

  But he moved fast, too fast for me to counter. He jerked me down on top of him, then rolled over, pinning me in the bed of dropseed. His mouth came down over mine, hot and wet, scorching. My mind reeled. We were drunk- I could smell the sweet whiskey on his breath. I could feel it giving him courage. Just as it loosened me in his arms, made me wet and wanting.

  His hand gripped the hem of the Spanish skirt. He shoved it up over my waist, hard. I needed him. I needed to feel him. His fingers moved higher, delving into that wet, sucking place between my thighs...

  I parted my legs for him. I didn’t care anymore. He could do what he wanted to me. He could hold me down, pin me to the earth with one thrust of his hips, and I would let him. I would let him take me.

  He froze. “You a virgin?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Even drunk he was the same Cal Sampson- the upright man, the gentleman. I didn’t want Cal Sampson the gentleman. I wanted Cal Sampson the cowboy.

  “We shouldn’t,” he said.

  “We should.” His fingers were in my venus, working that deep and secret place hard. I creamed all over his hand. Arousal and whiskey were deadly things. Suddenly I wanted him inside me more than anything. I’d heard that it hurt for women, but pain would be nothing compared to the eventual pleasure. I gripped his dick over the rough cotton trousers.

  We should.

  And then the jangling of belt buckles, the rustle of my skirts. The hot muscle between his legs, poking bluntly at my secret parts, and then with a hard thrust, joining me to the hilt. I bit a scream into his shoulder. He was not a small man.