pulled off the dark gray denim trousers, laying the LAPA ready to hand.
They were both desperate enough not to waste time on any preliminaries and he
roiled on top while she guided him into her. Krysty moaned softly as Ryan
penetrated her, thrusting, feeling her moistness and heat close around him. She
locked her heels in the small of his back, drawing him deeper, pushing up with
her hips at his steel-hard maleness.
They reached a juddering, simultaneous climax, and he lay down on her, his face
buried in her neck, panting as if he had run a long distance race across broken
ground. She touched him on the side of the face, kissing him with an infinite
tenderness.
“That was so good, Ryan. So good that I’d like to do it again.”
The second time, later, in the velvet blackness of the forest, was slower. They
explored each other’s body with fingers and lips, touching and arousing each
other. Finally he lay back, the short grass prickling his buttocks as she
straddled him, lowering herself teasingly slowly, so that the tip of his erect
penis touched and entered and then withdrew. Until she smiled and enveloped him,
throwing her head back as she pumped and rose and fell. The girl’s mouth opened
and she sighed with the pleasure of their lovemaking, her teeth white as
wind-washed bone in the twilight.
The second orgasm was without the hurry of the first, and for many minutes after
they lay tangled in each other’s arms. The night’s cold stole over them and
eventually they broke apart and pulled on their clothes.
“They’ll be lookin’ for us,” said Ryan.
“Not if they guess that we… Look, there, beyond that fallen tree.”
Ryan followed her finger, reaching for the pistol, then checking the movement.
Some hundred paces away from them, only a smudge of light against the dark
trees, he saw a man. Standing silently watching them.
“Who is he?”
“Looks like a mutie.” The man was old, and as Ryan’s eye adjusted to the night,
he could make him out more clearly. Barely medium height, with silver-white hair
tied in two long braids, each with a scrap of red ribbon knotting it at the end.
He wore a robe of some kind of animal hide, and it was decorated with a
staggeringly complex design in multihued threads and silks. His face was dark,
the eyes hidden in the deep sockets.
In the hair was a single feather, white as fresh snow.
Even as they watched him, the old man moved back a couple of paces and then
vanished among the pines behind him. It was done with great grace. Suddenly the
space where he had been was empty.
“Goin’ after him?” asked Krysty.
“No. Could be a trap. Maybe he’s the one who put them signs up, warnin’ us to
stay away.”
They moved fast, back to the safety of the war wag. Ryan’s hand never left the
butt of the automatic. Nobody said anything about their absence, although Ryan
caught Hunaker giving a sly wink to Samantha.
IN THE MORNING the Trader had gone.
The only person who had seen him leave was Abe, who had been on guard on the
river side of the war wag. Everyone gathered around the lanky man as he reported
to J.B. and Ryan Cawdor, just after dawn.
“No warnin’, but he was behind me. I turns and he pats me on the shoulder, like
he did when you’d done somethin’ real good. Know what I mean? I says to him,
like, how’s he doin’ and he says he’s never better.”
“What was he wearing?” asked J.B. “Usual. Carryin’ that old Armalite of his.
Steppin’ good, not stooped like he’s been. No cough. Looks past me to the trees
and the snow up beyond. Real cold. I seen his breath plumin’ out. Says he’s
goin’ for a walk, and not to take on if he’s gone some time. That was about
three, maybe four hours back.” Abe shook his head, the long flowing hair moving
from side to side. “He sure looked pretty to me, up and walkin’ tall.”
“He say anythin’ at all, apart from that?”