Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
“My what?”
“Your wifely duties,” repeated Grey Coyote, his tone of voice the same as if he spoke to an infant.
Marietta was not the meek foundling this man might assume her to be. Perhaps she needed to demonstrate what she was made of, for if he expected her to…
Glancing down, she noticed she was, indeed, not far from the ground. With a sudden move, she swung her leg over the animal and jumped.
However, she had not accounted for the arm around her middle. Grey Coyote caught her before she hit the earth.
“Omph!” She hung along the side of the pony. “That hurt.”
Grey Coyote shook his head at her, but he smiled.
She glared up at him. As though she wasn’t dangling delicately from the side of the horse, she said heatedly, “Would you let me go?”
“Hau, if you really want to hurt yourself.”
“This was not my intention.”
“Ahhh.” He drew out the word. “Then it must have been your plan to leap down and set up camp?”
She sent him a sardonic look, but for all the antagonism she felt toward him, she voiced sweetly, “Of course.”
“It is not in my mind for us to camp here.” With a quick motion, Grey Coyote pulled her back onto the horse, setting her upright and seating her in a sidesaddle fashion against him. “We will stop when I have put a good distance between us and the Minnetaree village.”
She squirmed in his arms, but if her fidgeting bothered him, he showed no sign of it.
At last she glanced up at him…a mistake. From this position, the man was much too close, the musky scent of his skin altogether too pleasant, and despite his rain-soaked appearance, Grey Coyote was considerably too handsome for her own good.
Perhaps this was the reason why there was a tinge of desperation in her voice when she articulated, “Please, Mr. Coyote, it is very important for me to make my way to St. Louis with all due haste. There are correspondences I must attend to, there are people I must see and I…” Abruptly, she stopped.
What was she thinking? This man cared nothing for her concerns.
He gazed at her curiously, seemingly encouraging her to continue. Instead of speaking immediately, she clenched her jaw.
With brows narrowed in preparation for a good fight, she cleared her throat and said, “Now, Mr. Coyote, I am more than willing to help you, but there are some things a woman cannot do, and I will not… Well, you know what it is that I can’t… I won’t do…”
He frowned. “Hiya, I do not know. What is it that you cannot do?”
She gestured toward him, toward his midsection. “That…that…well, you know…”
Puzzled, he glanced down, then back up at her.
“That…that…” she stumbled, “…lovemaking thing. I will not—”
“Hau, hau.” He smiled slightly. “At last I understand. However, when I spoke of wifely duties, I did not mean I wish to engage in sex with you.”
That he had spoken the actual word in relation to her almost unseated her, but once again he steadied her before she could slip off the pony. He held her firmly.
She shot him as casual a look as she could. “Well, if not that… What did you mean?”
He speared her with a searching glance. “I would like you to clean the game that I bring to camp. To gut it, cook it and do other wifely chores. Gather wood for the campfire. Light the fire when we camp, mend torn clothing. Tan hides. Patch moccasins. Dry meat. Gather berries…all those duties a wife is expected to do.”
“Oh.” It sounded like hard work to her, although harmless, at least compared to what she had thought.
However, there was a problem. What did she know about cleaning game, or gathering firewood, tanning hides, or for that matter, cooking over a fire?
She had been a lady’s maid for a royal princess, not a scullery maid.
“I am skilled in mending clothing,” she said. “But I am not a cook or a gatherer.”
“Humph!” He pinned her with a scowl. “You were on the trail with the scout, LaCroix. Surely you—”
“Do you remember me telling you that I had a maid with me? Yellow Swan was her name, and she performed all those duties for me. I’m afraid I had my attention on other matters, affairs, if you will, that are very important to me.
So I didn’t pay heed to what she was doing, nor am I certain I would have learned completely from it even if I had. ”
“Humph!” was again all Grey Coyote uttered. But his scan of her was filled with curiosity.
“However, if you would be so kind as to take me to St. Louis,” Marietta was quick to point out, “I would try to help you.” Anxious now to please, she sought his gaze.
“Hmmm…” He eyed her carefully. “Say the name of the village again.”
“What? St. Louis?”
“Hau. It is a white man’s village?”
“It is.”
“Perhaps…”
“Oh, sir, if you would take me there—”
His glance at her was sullen. “I might…if I do not find what I seek at once, and if it is in a direct line to the place where I must travel. And if—”
“Oh, sir, I would be—”
“And if you can prove yourself to be of use to me on the trail.”
“On the trail? Oh, I see. Yes, yes, I would do all I can. Truly I would. And what I don’t know, I could learn. I have been told that I acquire skills quickly.”
Grey Coyote raised an eyebrow. He gazed at her oddly, and despite the heavy downpour and its inevitable result, he seemed to peer at her in a way that pierced deeper than mere flesh.
Had he found her wanting? Did he realize that her promises stemmed from hope rather than ability? Flustered, Marietta said, “Honestly, I promise you that I am a quick study.” She gulped, and, holding her breath, she waited for his next words.
But she tarried in vain. Aside from the thunder, which continued to rumble overhead, and the occasional crash of lightning in the distance, there was no reply.
The fresh, crisp air that follows in the wake of a storm rang in the sunset.
They had left three of their horses hobbled at the foot of a butte and had begun the climb to the top of a flat-topped jutting mound.
Though they had chosen to traverse up the most gently sloped side of this small mesa, it was still a steep incline.
The butte was certainly an interesting sight, thought Marietta, for it seemed to pop up out of the prairie as if by accident. All the rest of the land around it was flat. Beautiful, mysterious land, yes. But flat.
The rain had stopped hours ago, leaving its signature on the plains by bathing the land in the glow of a multicolored rainbow and a dusky, crimson sky. The rainbow sat south of them, Grey Coyote having pointed it out to her earlier.
At present, Marietta sat atop their little steed while Grey Coyote led the pony up the slope.
This was a rather difficult concern for her.
It wasn’t as though she were exerting herself in any way, but rather, what was hard about it was trying not to notice Grey Coyote.
He had removed his cloak and shirt, having long ago draped both of them around her.
That this left him standing before her in no more than leggings, breechcloth and moccasins shouldn’t have taken her attention. Yet it did.
His style of dress was savage, wild. She tried to tell herself this was so, as if only by downgrading him could she find relief. But in the end, it didn’t matter what she did or what she thought. He was a magnificent sight.
Every muscle of his back seemed to be proportionately placed, all centering down to narrow hips. His leggings and breechcloth were tied around his waist, though both fell down indecently low on him. She tried to avoid looking there, for it tended to lead her gaze downward toward his tight buttocks.
He had a tall, slender build, perhaps six feet in height, and his long hair fell in dark strands across his back. In one hand, he carried a lance, and around his shoulder and falling down low over his backside was his sheath, full of arrows, as well as his bow.
His thighs and calves were firmly encased in buckskin.
The snug leather emphasized every lean muscle as well, and, as he climbed the butte, she watched the strain of his muscles.
On his feet were moccasins, which made little sound over the ground, even as he stepped from rock to rock.
Only the pounding of the pony’s hooves interrupted an otherwise balmy, silent journey.
This man believed he was her husband. The idea seemed suddenly erotic. Oddly she wondered if she truly wished this man to think of her in a platonic way.
Hastily, she pulled herself up on this particular line of thought. It was unproductive, for regardless of what happened here, she was merely passing through this country.
Yet, it did no harm to look, did it?
How she wished Princess Sierra were here right now. If she were, Marietta would confide in her, share her thoughts, perhaps discuss the ways of men. But the princess wasn’t here. Indeed, Marietta would have to decide on these matters on her own.
And decide she did.
As the two of them wound their way up the incline, Marietta’s reflections drifted to other concerns, and she found herself wondering about Grey Coyote’s reasoning.
Surely their trail didn’t require them to climb up and over this butte, did it?
Couldn’t they go around it? Or was there some other reason for their trek?
At last, they reached the top of the little mesa, and as soon as they did so, Marietta was no longer left in doubt as to what was in Grey Coyote’s mind. It wasn’t from necessity that they were here. Indeed not. Grey Coyote had come here by choice.
Standing quite still, he gazed at the sunset laid out before them. As though only now remembering her, he looked behind him, and Grey Coyote motioned, indicating that she should slip down from the pony.
Wasn’t he going to help her down? Disappointment washed over her. It was too bad, for she had begun to think of Grey Coyote as a savage sort of gentleman.
“Sir,” she said, “do you mean to not aid me in getting to the ground?”