Nan Ryan Read online

  “Have you forgotten who taught me?”

  “Who?”

  “You did!”

  The old Indian grinned impishly. “I old man. Forget.”

  But Diane could tell by the look of pride shining from his black eyes that he hadn’t forgotten at all.

  * * *

  The fierce August sun had finally began to slip below the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains on that same long summer’s day. The dry, withering heat had lost its potent sting. The thin air was beginning to cool.

  And Diane Buchannan, after having been thwarted more than once in her attempt to get a look at the Redman, was confident she’d now be successful. She had wisely planned this final excursion to coincide with the dinner hour.

  Colonel Buck Buchannan’s Wild West Show served three square meals a day prepared in specially equipped rail cars. The hours were set and strictly adhered to. The show people had to be at the mess tent during serving hours or miss the meal.

  This was one meal Diane had decided to miss. While the others were congregated for supper she slipped from the rail car she shared with Texas Kate, moved quickly in the opposite direction of the mess tent, and was soon skirting the oval arena and on her way toward the animal holding pens.

  The chatter of the diners faded and died away. The last of the day’s light disappeared. Diane hurried into and down a dim narrow corridor between a maze of wooden corrals. The farther she went, the darker it became. Horses poked their heads over stalls and neighed and whinnied excitedly. She automatically put her forefinger perpendicular to her lips and whispered, “Shhhh!”

  Ears laid back, eyes big, the high-strung show horses refused to quiet down. They put up such a racket Diane was afraid Shorty and his boys would hear them all the way over at the mess tent.

  They didn’t—but someone else did.

  Diane finally saw the end of the narrow passageway directly ahead and was relieved. She walked faster. When she was no more than two or three feet away, a match flared. She stopped abruptly. Her eyes flew up to a man’s face, partially illuminated by the orange glow. He was lounging against the last stall.

  She took a step forward. He threw a long leg up across in front of her and hooked a bootheel over the third rung of the stall opposite, trapping her. He draped a forearm on his raised thigh and leaned slightly forward, revealing his face.

  Smiling, he said, “Phil Lowery, Miss Buchannan. Billed and better known as the Cherokee Kid. Hope I didn’t startle you.”

  Diane stood her ground. She looked directly at the smiling man and said, “I don’t startle that easily, Mr. Lowery. Now if you’ll kindly let me pass.”

  “Where you going? Maybe we could go there together.”

  “That isn’t very likely, Mr. Lowery.”

  “Kid,” he corrected, “call me Kid. Where were you going?”

  “Surely it’s of no interest to you.” She glared down at his outstretched leg, penning her like one of the animals.

  The Cherokee Kid didn’t lower it.

  “You’re wrong there.” His gaze moved suggestively from her face down over her slender body. “Dead wrong.” His eyes slowly returned to hers. “You’re a very beautiful woman, Diane—may I call you Diane … that is your name, isn’t it?”

  She sighed with annoyance. “I had no particular destination in mind, Mr … Kid. I was simply taking a walk.”

  “I see.” He nodded, puffed on his cigarette. “Well, your grandfather would want me to caution you about roaming around down here alone.” Finally his long leg went back down to the ground. He took her arm. “Know what’s down here? Wild animals and wilder men.”

  “And I suppose you’re one of those wilder men,” she said contemptuously, making it clear he couldn’t frighten her.

  The Cherokee Kid smiled and ushered her out into the dusk. “I might be,” he said. “Care to find out?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “No? I don’t believe you. I think you’re curious.”

  “You’re dreaming,” she replied bitingly.

  He ignored the sarcasm. “I’ll walk you back to your quarters.” His fingers continuing to encircle her upper arm, he said, “Maybe you’ll change your mind by the time we get there.”

  “Don’t bank on it,” she said, more irritated with him than he could possibly have imagined. It seemed there was a conspiracy—and everyone in the troupe was in on it—to prevent her from seeing the Redman!

  When the edge wore off her disappointment, Diane found the Cherokee Kid a pleasant enough companion. He was far more forthcoming than Ancient Eyes when she questioned him about the Redman. He freely admitted that the wild creature had scared the living daylights out of him. Said he’d had to fight for his life in the unprovoked attack.

  At her door she turned to face him, got a better look at him. From the mellow light streaming out the open door of her quarters she saw that the Kid was not only tall and very strong-looking but also quite handsome.

  His hair was a thick dark blond; his eyes were a sparkling green. His nose was straight, mouth appealingly full, chin heavily cut He was clean-shaven. His white shirt was freshly laundered; his beige trousers were meticulously pressed, his boots shined. He was obviously dressed for an evening out.

  “Well, good night, Kid. I’m tired, think I’ll go to bed.” Teasingly she added, “What about you? You going right to bed too?”

  “Yes.” He was quick to answer. “As a matter of fact, that’s exactly where I’m going.”

  It wasn’t a lie.

  A quarter of an hour after leaving Diane, the Kid walked through the front door of Jennie Rogers’s House of Mirrors, an establishment its owner called the “plushest whorehouse from the Missouri River to the West Coast.”

  A bevy of beautiful, elegantly gowned young women sat about on sofas of lush gray velvet in a spacious second-floor parlor. While a smiling black man played “A Bird in a Gilded Cage” on a dark walnut grand piano, the Kid stood in the room’s entrance and looked the women over.

  He knew what he wanted. Quickly he chose a slender, youthful-looking woman whose raven black hair spilled around her bare shoulders and down her back to well below her waist.

  “That one,” he told the madam, and Jennie Rogers motioned to the exotic-looking Cheralynn.

  “The queen’s suite, Cheralynn,” the madam instructed when the dark-haired woman reached them.

  Nodding, Cheralynn swished her long, flowing hair back off her face, took the Kid’s hand, and led him down a silent corridor to a birdcage elevator fashioned of gold bars. There was barely room for two people inside. It was impossible to keep their bodies from touching. The tiny elevator had been Jennie Rogers’s idea. She wanted her customers to start getting in the mood before they got upstairs.

  It worked on the Kid. Exiting after the brunette, he could hardly wait to get her in bed.

  “Jesus Christ,” he muttered when Cheralynn led him into a spacious room containing only one unorthodox piece of furniture.

  A long, narrow carpet of plush red velvet led across a floor of gleaming white marble to a raised dais. Upon that dais sat a high-backed throne of shimmering gold gilt. From somewhere high above, white rays of light poured down in a bright circular pool enclosing the golden throne in hot, luminous brilliance.

  The Kid was intrigued. “What’s it for?”

  “Fantasies,” said Cheralynn. “If a customer chooses, he can pretend to be a commoner who is allowed—ordered —to make love to his queen.”

  The Kid grinned. “Let’s give it a try.”

  Minutes later, wearing nothing but his beige trousers, he marched up the long red velvet carpet to the raised dais. Cheralynn sat upon the gold gilt throne. She was believable as a sovereign in a hastily donned long, flowing gown fashioned of gold braid intricately sewn together. The gown’s sleeves were long and tight; the bodice was snugly fitted and high-throated. The skirts were very full, swirling about the arms of the gold throne and concealing her gold-slippered feet.
/>   A long gold lamé cape lined with soft white ermine was hooked at her throat, then swept dramatically to one side to fall down over the throne’s arm and lie prettily in a gold and white ermine pool on the polished white marble. On Cheralynn’s dark head was a crown of gold decorated with semiprecious stones. In her right hand was a golden scepter.

  She spoke, and her voice was low, firm. “Come forward, my obedient subject, and state your reason for seeking an audience with your queen.”

  The Kid moved directly to the dais. He bowed from the waist “Your Royal Highness, it is my duty and my urgent desire to make love to you. Grant me this, I beseech you. Bestow upon this wretched commoner this one wish.”

  “Come closer,” commanded the queen.

  The commoner climbed the dais’s steps, stood before her. The queen lifted her golden scepter, touched it gently to his swelling groin, and said, “If your peasant’s body responds to my staff of sovereign authority and readies itself properly to enter the royal flesh, then you may have your wish.”

  He bowed. Then his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides while the naughty majesty slowly molded and shaped his responsive male flesh, wielding her golden scepter in a most provocative manner. The Kid found it incredibly exciting to stand there before Her Royal Highness as she guided the scepter slowly up and down and all around until he thought he would explode.

  The queen, licking her wet red lips with the tip of her pink tongue, watched that physical evidence of his desire expand before her eyes until he was straining and surging against the tight, confining trousers. Finally she took pity on him.

  Lifting the scepter to tickle his hair-covered chest, she said, “No nobleman has ever boasted a more impressive erection. Come forth and do your duty—claim this royal flesh.”

  In a flash the Kid had skinned out of his pants, grabbed her by the hand, jerked her up off the throne, and sat down on it, his long bare legs apart. He drew her close, shoved her long golden skirts up, and was delighted to discover she wore nothing underneath. The elegantly gowned queen climbed astride her pulsing naked subject.

  While the hot white lights spilled down over them, the gowned, caped, crowned queen allowed her big naked servant obediently to make love to her while seated on the throne of gold. Her grateful subject clung to the throne’s golden arms and thrust rhythmically, glorying in the wet heat of the female flesh he could feel enclosing him but could not see because of the swirling golden skirts.

  The accommodating monarch clung to the naked peasant’s strong neck and expertly ground her bare bottom down on him, glorying in the sensations caused by that rock-hard male flesh which she could feel so intensely up inside but couldn’t see for the golden skirts covering them.

  It was great fun right up to the royal release. The Kid enjoyed the princely game so much they changed positions and played it again. Only this time he wielded the scepter. Afterward Her Highness, sagging against his damp chest, nuzzled her nose in the thick chest hair, gave a flat brown nipple a playful lick, and said, “There’s a nice soft bed in the next room. Shall we go there now?”

  “By all means, Queenie,” he said, grinning like an imperial imp. “I promised a new friend of mine I’d go straight to bed.”

  Diane waited only until the Kid was well out of sight. Then she slipped back outside and hurried through the deepening dusk toward the corrals. She raced right through them this time, ignoring the indignant whinnying and snorting of the horses.

  She hurried on to outlying pens and cages. Her anxious search didn’t take long. She found the Redman where she expected him to be. And how she expected to find him.

  Caged like an animal.

  An identical cage, housing a powerful mountain lion, sat squarely alongside the Redman’s. Heart in her throat, Diane ventured near the cages. She stood there staring, shifting her attention back and forth between the man and the beast.

  Both restlessly paced their cages.

  Both growled threateningly, low in their throats, as they watched her watching them. Their eyes gleamed with fierce hatred. Powerful muscles bunched and pulled in their long, lean bodies.

  Diane shivered.

  Which was the more dangerous? Human or animal?

  She edged up closer to the mountain lion’s cage. His head lifted, revealing a distinctive diamond-shaped patch of raven fur beneath his tawny throat. He snarled and swiftly pounced, shooting a sharply clawed paw through the restraining bars. Diane gasped and jumped back in fear.

  When her pulse had slowed, she moved toward the Redman’s cage. He stopped his restless pacing, stood flat-footed, and stared unblinkingly down at her. His face was granite hard; the eyes, locked on her, were black and menacing. The cheekbones soared; the nose looked as if it had been broken. The mouth was full yet appeared alarmingly cruel. Coarse, tangled black hair reached almost to his bare bronzed shoulders and was streaked with silver around his mean-looking face.

  A soft suede leather loincloth tied atop one bronzed hip and a wide beaded band encircling his throat were his only clothes. Long, leanly muscled arms hung at his sides. His bare bronzed feet were planted firmly apart in a proud, defiant stance. Those dark, hypnotic eyes dared her to step closer.

  Boldly Diane threw back her shoulders and stepped closer to the near-naked savage. Then screamed and jumped back in panic when the Redman leaped like lightning, thrust a bare arm through the restraining bars, and reached for her.

  Her heart pounding in her chest, she backed away, her frightened eyes riveted on those long, grasping fingers, that dark right wrist upon which a wide silver cuff bracelet flashed in the summer twilight.

  Chapter 6

  The big day had finally arrived.

  The afternoon’s parade down Denver’s wide Broadway Street had been a smashing success. People lining the sidewalks and leaning out the windows of tall buildings had no idea that a major disruption had occurred just prior to the parade’s start.

  It had been decided that the Redman of the Rockies would take part in the grand parade. Expensive color flyers had been hastily printed up, extolling the beauty of the refined trick rider Miss Diane Buchannan and the wildness of that totally uncivilized and highly dangerous brute, the Redman of the Rockies.

  As it turned out, the Redman proved to be almost too dangerous. Shorty Jones had waited until everyone in the parade procession was lined up in place. Then the skinny little animal wrangler, cigarette dangling from his lips as usual, carried a rope, steel wrist irons, and a heavy chain to the Redman’s cage.

  The strategy was to cuff the creature’s wrists together, loop the linked chain around his neck, mount him astride a big paint pony, and tie his bare feet underneath the horse. The Cherokee Kid, mounted on his big gray gelding, would then lead the paint pony and the nearly-naked savage right down Broadway, allowing every man, woman, and child a good, long look at this savage beast, the Redman of the Rockies.

  Shorty stepped up to the creature’s locked cage. The key to the cage had been taken from its secret hiding place in Ancient Eyes’ quarters. Other than the old Ute chieftain, only Shorty knew where it was kept. Key in hand, Shorty unlocked the barred door, opened it, and stepped up inside.

  And grunted in shock and pain when the fierce Redman knocked him flat on his back. The cigarette flew from Shorty’s mouth. The chains and steel cuffs fell from his hands. The Redman exploded from the unlocked cage and ran so swiftly he was a hundred yards from the exhibition grounds before anyone could react. Shouts and yells of warning went up from the troupe. Diane, astride her black stallion, turned in the saddle and stood in the stirrups. She drew in a quick breath when she saw the nearly naked Redman sprinting barefoot across the plain, a picture of graceful ferocity.

  The Cherokee Kid and a half dozen mounted Rough Riders wheeled their horses and galloped after the fleeing savage. Despite their inequitable advantage, the Redman almost managed to elude them.

  Running for his very life, the creature raced with lightning speed toward the foothills t
o the west, his silver-streaked raven hair streaming out around his noble head. His long bronzed legs were churning with swift, longstrided precision when all of a sudden a bare foot struck a sharp rock or he sprained an ankle. His powerful, fluid gait abruptly changed. Any hope he’d had of getting away disappeared with that one misstep.

  The Cherokee Kid spurred his gelding forward and managed to catch up with his prey. Hugging the lunging mount with his knees, the Kid leaned down, snagged a handful of the Redman’s flowing black hair. He yanked hard. The Redman’s body was jerked backward. He stumbled, fell to his knees, struggled up again.

  The Rough Riders encircled him. A well-thrown rope fell over the Redman’s bare shoulders and tightened around his chest, trapping his arms at his sides. A couple of riders dismounted, wrestled the Redman to the ground, and tied his hands behind him. The Kid stayed in the saddle. Smiling, he led the recaptured Redman back to the fairgrounds. Applause rose from the troupe as the Kid cantered his mount, purposely making the Redman run and stumble on his injured foot to keep from falling.

  The runaway redskin was promptly placed back in his cage and the door securely locked. He would still have a part in the parade—couldn’t disappoint the public—but he’d remain behind bars, locked safely in his cage. The wheeled flatbed supporting his cage would be drawn down Broadway by a quartet of horses.

  While the workmen made the necessary adjustments, the Colonel reined his mount over alongside the Kid.

  The Kid looked up, shook his blond head, and said, “That was a close one, Colonel. I’m afraid that savage is nothing but trouble.”

  “On the contrary, Kid,” the master showman calmly replied, “he’s a godsend. We’ll make his attempted escape a part of the show.”

  The Kid frowned. “You mean … no, I don’t think—”

  “This is not the East, Kid. The people in Colorado still remember the Meeker Massacre. We’ll set the creature free in the arena. Let him attempt an escape.” The Colonel smiled broadly, blue eyes twinkling, and added, “Then you’ll ride in and recapture him to the sound of deafening applause.”