Hurriedly leaving the smoky cantina, the whore led the two horsemen across the alameda, a tree-lined walk, then on down the muddy street pocked with the holes cut by recent hooves and streaked with greasy rivulets carved by iron-rimmed wheels, each silvery, moonlit sliver of water afloat with the day’s refuse tossed from most every door leading into the rain-drenched darkness. On she took them to the poorest part of this squalid village, where the houses squatted like colorless mud toads amid the low-hanging smoke of cedar fires.
First she took them to a small stable, where they stripped their horses and pack animals. It was there the woman told the Indian to make himself a bed of straw. When Hook had loosened the lashes that held his bedroll behind his saddle and dropped it atop some hay in an empty stall, the whore shook her head.
“Oh, no,
Telling the Indian that they would be in the small hut across the muddy street, she led Jonah back into the storm and darkness, dodging puddles and piles of droppings gone cold with spring’s onslaught before ducking out of the rain. In the tiny room she lit a single candle. When he straightened there beside the short doorway, the crude door hung awap on its loose leather hinges, Jonah had to remove his hat to keep it from brushing against the low ceiling, his shadow cavorting across the near wall in the dance of flame thrown out by that tallow candle.
She had turned then, her black hair dripping with rain, catching the flicker of the single flame like a red mirror, hair strands hung in dark tendrils over her eyes as she pulled his coat from his arms, gently nudging him back toward one of the only two chairs in the room. It sat opposite the narrow rope-and-timber bed. She turned away and went to a small table, where he heard her tear a strip of cloth. His eyes danced across the walls—carved in the mud wall over the bed was a niche where stood a small painted saint, hands folded before him, a gilt halo perched on the crown of his head. Beside the door hung a figure he supposed was the Christ—this one fashioned poorly of corn straw and shucks. On its hand-carved head lay a wreath of bramble thorns, drops of bright red blood stained the brow.
She came to him, gently tore open the slash in his sleeve, and dabbed cold water onto the wound. He didn’t think it deep enough to worry over as she snapped a cactus leaf in two and squeezed its milky juice onto his arm, working it down into the long wound. That complete, the woman took the pieces of cloth she had torn from one of her own garments and wrapped Jonah’s forearm. Turning it this way and that, she inspected her work and her knot, then knelt before his knees.
Reaching for his belt, she hurriedly opened his britches. Jonah rose off the chair slightly as she took his flesh in her hands. He was the dry tinder, she the flame licking him into fire. He was rigid by the time she broke away to pull off his boots, then yanked his trail-stiffened canvas britches off his legs. In a damp trail of puddles tracked clear across the clay floor, she carelessly threw his coat and shirt.
His breath came short, in heavy gushes, spiraling in clouds of hot vapor in the cold room as she tucked her arms inside her chemise and pushed it down to her waist, exposing the small, firm breasts. With one hand she again took hold of his rigid flesh, the other hand encircling the back of his neck to pull him toward the dark aureole of her breast.
He hadn’t sucked long when he found the warm, sweetish liquid spilling across his tongue. That unforgettable taste compelled him to draw at the breast harder still, more insistently as she locked him against her, drove her hand up and down the length of him like a ramrod. Jonah moved his mouth to the other breast and found the nipple already dripping in milky readiness.
It was then that she drew away from him and said, “No,
She stood, right before him, pushing the chemise, skirt and all, down over her hips, stepped out of them, and flung it all to the low bed. Now she wore only the crude moccasins that were all most cantina women had to wear—nothing so rich as shoes imported from Madrid or Barcelona. Not even a pair of high-heeled dancing shoes brought up the trade routes from Chihuahua.
When at last she returned to Jonah, she took one of his hands and put it between her thighs, massaging herself on him, working his fingers back and forth over her warm cleft, into the very moistness of her. When she finally pulled his hand free and came astraddle him, settling slowly while he groaned in exquisite, delicious torment, Jonah wanted to explode.
