As Longarm chuckled in agreement Minerva whispered, "Waigon?"
He said, "Thunderbird. I thought you were taking down a heap of Comanche, Miss Minerva."
She sighed and said, "I keep hearing new words. Didn't you say you were a Christian, Matty?"
The little breed shrugged and said, "When they are giving presents at the agency Sunday school I am. At times like these, when I have to look out for myself, I remember your Jesus Ghost didn't know how to fight when they came to kill him. He let himself be killed without a struggle, as if he was not a man of puha! When I asked the missionary about this, he said I was too savage to understand what the Jesus Ghost was doing for me. Maybe he is right. Nothing the Jesus Ghost ever did for me would keep me dry and feed me fine beans if I was out here on my hands and knees, praying like a Saltu girl !"
Longarm put a warning hand on Minerva's knee to keep the white gal from arguing religion with a pagan breed in the middle of such a storm.
The rain seemed to be easing off as the wind, if anything, blew harder. It got dark as hell, save for the ruby glow of their wind-fanned night fire. When Minerva suggested they build the fire back up, Longarm sadly asked, "With what? Those sage brush roots and cow chips we started with were dry when I first put a match to 'em. As of right now there's nothing flammable for miles that ain't wet as a mad hen."
He patted her knee in the dark again. "We'll be warm enough under our bedding, and it ain't as if we ain't had a long hard day. So what say we all turn in with the extra tarp over us?"
Minerva took his wrist in both hands to move his hand down the inside of her thigh, under her damp summer dress, as she allowed his words made a lot of sense.
He started to ask her what in thunder she thought she was doing. But he knew little Matty could hear every word, and it was all too clear what she was doing once he discovered, with the back of his hand, she was wearing no underdrawers between those smooth and almost clammy bare thighs.
He murmured, "I didn't know you were feeling scared again, Miss Minerva. I'd be lying if I denied you're making me feel... just about as nervous. But can't it wait until all three of us make it on to Fort Sill and that swell hostel I told you about?"
She began to rub his bare knuckles along the warm crease in her fuzzy lap as she half murmured, half moaned, "I thought we were all bedding down for the night out here, Custis."
On the other side of him, Matty yawned and declared, "You two do as you like. I'm tired. I've eaten. I want to go to sleep now. I have spoken!"
Suiting actions to her words, the little breed raised her end of the casually spread bedding and proceeded to get under some of it. Longarm didn't ask how much of her own duds she was shucking as she tossed at least some yards of damp cotton atop the tarp beside him.
He just got to his hands and knees so Minerva could get under at her end. Then he wriggled in between the two of them, having removed no more than his hat, boots, and gun rig. As he snuggled down he felt Matty's bare back with one hand, and didn't explore further down her arched spine. To the other side of him, Minerva lay naked as a jay, facing him, and he didn't have to depend on accidental brushes with either hand. Minerva had his right hand gripped in both hers as she hauled it back down to her fuzzy moist groin and whispered, "As I was saying before you interrupted me, you shy boy..."
"Minerva, for Pete's sake!" he protested, not wanting to say anything less delicate.
The passionate schoolmarm seemed to follow his drift. For she was casual and innocent as she quietly asked, "Are you still awake, Matty?"
The young girl muttered, "Go away. I was plucking sweet grass to weave a yattah for my umbea, and you brought me back from the dream country. Talk to Custis if you can't sleep."
Minerva did. She whispered, "She's too sleepy to pay attention, even if the wind wasn't flapping that canvas over us. Won't you even finger me, for land's sake?"
It seemed the best way to quiet her down. But even as he started to strum her old banjo with lust-slicked fingers, he murmured, "It can't be later than six or eight. So it ain't as if this was all that desperate a situation, ma'am."
She began to move her compact hips as if she was being laid as she moaned, "Speak for yourself. This is all so deliciously sordid, and for all we know, those Indians could be creeping up on us this very minute! I want to come again before I die, and doesn't this remind you of that night we did it in that Pullman berth with those Hard-Shell Baptists sleeping just across the aisle from us, Ace?"
Longarm had a better notion what was eating her now. He'd met other gals who seemed to get a dirty thrill out of taking chances at being caught in the act. There'd been that older gal back home in West-by-God-Virginia who'd never let him have any in her hayloft unless her sister was milking the cow down below.
The sister had been more sensible about doing it out in the woods a mile from their dear old dad and his Greener Ten-Gauge. But then there'd been that French gal touring with Miss Sarah Bernhardt who'd confided she just loved to suck dick in a theatre box, with the show going on and the orchestra droning passionate sounds.
He knew he ought to be ashamed of his fool self as she proceeded to unbutton his fly while she snuggled her naked body closer. But of course he never was. Her naked body felt more tempting in the dark than it looked inside a summer-weight outfit in sunlight. So he kissed her back when she pressed her parted lips to his and hauled out his rock-hard organ-grinder. For he was made of mortal clay and when you got down to brass tacks, what in thunder was a sixteen-year-old kid going to do to them if she figured out what they were doing to each other?
As if she'd read his mind, without taking her lips from his, or missing a stroke as she pulled his pecker, Minerva begged him to put it in her, adding, "It feels so romantic out here on the wet windswept prairie with the children fast asleep!"
He fingered her faster to encourage what she was doing to him, but he still felt awkward about the other gal under the covers with them, and so he whispered, "Wait till we get to that hostel at Fort Sill and I'll romance the hell out of you across a brass bedstead with the lamp lit and the mirror tilted our way!"
To which she demurely replied, "What kind of a girl do you take me for? I could never go up to a man's rented room like some woman of the town!"
He said, "I figured we'd hire separate rooms and act sort of sly, seeing you find that exciting. But how about your own place or, hell, your schoolhouse back at your agency? That sounds sort of risky to my way of thinking."
She sniffed and stopped stroking, just hanging on, as she told him, "It would only be distasteful. The door bolts on the inside and none of my Indian pupils would dare attempt to break in. And there's no soft place to lie down, and the whole place smells of chalk dust and unwashed children and their greasy lunch bags."
He sure wanted her to move that soft hand on his hard shaft some more. He tried slowing down with his own fingers. She called him a meany and began to stroke him some more even as she pleaded, "Can't we finish right, darling?"
When he didn't answer, she murmured louder, "Matty? How are you coming with that basket for your momma?"
When there was no answer, Longarm reflected that the wind-flapped canvas and moaning prairie all around was making at least as much noise as discreet screwing. So he moaned himself and rolled atop her with his duds on, at first.
Then his naked shaft was in her to the hilt, and she was peeling his duds off for him with her hands as she moved those school marmish hips in a way that might have made her a rich woman in Leadville or Virginia City. The best part was that they didn't bounce the solid prairie under little Matty the way they'd have surely bounced any bedsprings they were sharing with her. Longarm didn't ask why Minerva tossed the top tarp aside as she wrapped her slender but surprisingly strong legs around his waist and softly begged him to thrust harder and faster. He knew full well how his bare ass would have whipped the covers back and forth across that sleeping kid's skinny naked hips. And thinking about the dark tawny Matty's younger and likely even tighter little twat, just inches away from the one he was in, inspired him to start hitting bottom with every stroke as Minerva gasped, "My Lord, you're not at all like Ace after all, and to tell the truth you may be curing my warped hankerings for that tinhorn brute!"