Bozeman by Christmas

Emma nodded. Mary held her heart and said, "oh the poor girl."

"A woman here ought to have a husband," George said with a pitying shake of his head.

"Or at least have Christmas dinner with us," Mary added. "Just the thought of her alone tonight. It breaks my heart."

Emma's heart ached too. She pictured River sitting in her room. Or alone at the saloon with haggard men and whiskey. The subject matter was too much for Emma.

"She's a strong woman who seems able to take care of herself. Anyways, why don't we open gifts?" she said, doing the best from keeping her voice from quivering.

"Darling, in the middle of dinner?" asked Percy at the odd suggestion.

George shrugged and said, "why not? Now's a good a time as any. We're all still sober and in a festive mood."

Emma brought gifts that she had packed from England for the parents and for Percy. They were almond Christmas crackers from a popular London confectionary. Emma received a wool shawl from Mary and a delicate and impossibly ornate diamond necklace from Percy. He draped it around her neck.

"Don't you look just like royalty," Mary said as she admired the glittering jewelry.

In that moment they heard singing voices outside the window.

"Carolers!" Percy said. He jumped from his seat and ran to the double door that opened out onto the balcony. Like an excited child, he shouted, "come watch with me," and swung the doors open.

They joined him at the threshold of the balcony. Emma nestled into Percy's warmth and he wrapped his arm around her as they stood and watched the carolers under the glow of the lampposts in the snowy street. The other hotel guests joined to watch from their rooms. The carolers sang 'Away in a Manger' with a slow cadence.

Emma glanced over to where River's room was but did not see her standing on her balcony.

When the carolers disappeared, the family finished their dinner and retired to the hearth. Mary poured hot wine and Percy smoked a tobacco pipe they all sat quietly to listen to the crackle of the logs. George fell asleep in his armchair, and Emma rested her head on Percy's shoulder. The fire helped her thoughts wander back to the cabin. She thought of the whiskey. And the shattered window. The cut on her rib. And the kiss. The kiss that led to the discovery of the wonderful touch of another woman and to ecstasy. She then thought of sherry. That River never had sherry before. And that thought turned into an idea. A conspiracy to see River once more. She ought to be taken some sherry, Emma thought.

"Do we have any sherry here?" she asked to no one in particular.

George rustled awake to the word 'sherry'. Mary raised an eyebrow at her and replied, "I believe we do. Are we in the mood for a glass?"

"No. I want to give a gift to River. She told me she never had sherry and would've like to try one."

Percy went to the liquor cabinet and grabbed a bottle and handed it to Emma.

"That is a decent one. Give her our regards."

Emma kissed him on the cheek and said, as if she had never said it before, "Percy, you're a good man," and nearly ran out the door.

Mary called out after her, "shouldn't you wrap that, dear?"

Rather than give her an answer, Emma opted to have pretended to not hear her. She marched down the hallway.

When River opened her door, Emma's breath stopped. River wiped a strand of hair from her face and smiled at her. She wore a loose linen blouse that glowed white in the blue shadow of the dim room. She looked like an angel.

"Is that for me?" River asked.

"It's sherry."

River motioned her into the room. The stove was not on, so the air was cold. Emma placed the sherry onto a dresser drawer and faced River.

River said, "well... should we have a drink then?"

In response, Emma walked towards River and put her hands on her face and kissed her lips with a long kiss.

River returned the kiss and swung the door shut with her foot. She pushed Emma backwards towards the bed and they both fell onto the bed together, kissing still.

"Drink the sherry tomorrow. I have to leave shortly, or they'll get suspicious," Emma said between kisses.

"Then you'll leave shortly," River replied. She reached a hand up Emma's skirt and ran it up her gartered stockings until she found her hot, soft fruit. She rubbed her thumb against the cotton that covered it, and Emma sighed deeply.

Emma took River's blouse off her shoulders and pulled them down over her breasts and touched the breasts with her hands and kissed them wet and stained them red with her lipstick. River's fingers found their way through the underwear to Emma's clitoris. After rubbing her to an appropriate moistness, River carefully pushed her fingers into her and out and continued this motion as they kissed each other madly. As Emma got closer to climax, River stopped to pull off her own blouse and underwear.

Naked, she climbed back on top, hiking Emma's skirt up to her waist to rub her mound against Emma's through her cotton underwear.

Clear of alcohol, Emma's mind pulsed with delirium with River's gyrations. She closed her eyes to bring her focus to the feeling of the tufted pubic hair, and the touching of their swollen clitoris through the cotton fabric. She grasped onto River's naked back to bring their bodies closer.

When the climax boiled up, she bit her lips to stop her screams, but the sounds came through her shut mouth. River kissed her mouth to quiet her and held her face with her hands as she crashed her naked body against her.

At the moment of her orgasm, she clasped her arms tightly around River to brace against the tremendous pleasure that surged within her. A moment later, River trembled and screamed out and collapsed on top of her. Emma enjoyed the weight of her body and the thumping of heart against her breasts and the feeling of her stickiness and sweat seeping through cotton.

Emma held River like she had never held another person before. The night was quiet and dark, and Emma wanted nothing more than to stay there forever. But when the remnants of ecstasy subsided, she thought of Percy's suspicion, so quietly she rose to her feet and fixed her dress and her hair in the mirror. River watched her from the bed.

After Emma looked herself over a last time to make sure nothing was out of the ordinary, she walked over to River to give her one final kiss. River stood to meet her and ran Emma's diamond necklace through her fingers.

"Never noticed that before. It's pretty," she muttered.

Emma's throat tightened as she took a step back and tears welled in her eyes. She couldn't see River clearly through the burning tears, only an apparition in the shadow.

"Why did I do it?" she croaked through burning tears.

As her answer, River held a compassionate finger to her cheek.

Emma cleared her eyes and looked upon River with one last good look and ran out of the dark room into the lighted hallway and shut the door behind her.

~~~

The next morning, Emma woke to find Percy shaving out by the window, where a silver sunlight came through and illuminated him. When he heard her stir, he looked over with a face full of foam and sang, "good morning, love. Merry Christmas."

With a deft hand slicing a steel blade gingerly on his foam-covered jaw, Percy said, "my parents asked for us to join them for breakfast. Shall we?"

"Mmm... That sounds lovely," Emma said.

"What did Miss Langtry think of the sherry?" Percy inquired.

"Hmm?"

"The sherry you brought her last night. How did she find it?"

"Oh, that. We hadn't opened it, if that's what you're asking."

"Ah. You were there for such a long while, I suspected perhaps that you were having a toast to celebrate your misadventure together in the mountains."

Emma's face flushed. "No, I just wanted to chat with her a bit. She seemed lonely."

Percy stopped shaving and dropped his hand with the razor down to his side and he said, looking at her through the mirror, "that's why I love you so much Emma. You have such a gentle soul. How on earth did I ever find you before anyone else? I must be in God's good graces. Anyways, freshen up for breakfast, will you?"

Emma blew him a kiss and climbed out of bed.

With a suitable dress on, she accompanied Percy downstairs. They walked through the lobby and as they passed the reception, the receptionist called out to her.

"Madam? I have a note for you."

She walked over to the desk and the man there handed her an envelope.

"Miss Langtry asked that I hand this to you when she left this morning."

"I see. Thank you, sir," Emma responded and slid the envelope into her handbag.

She wrapped her arm around Percy's and walked with him to the dining room.

They took a bright table by the tall windows that faced the street and waited for Percy's parents with tea. Spotting a friend of his, Percy slid out of his chair.

"There's Sam. He's with the Northern Pacific railroad. I want to say a quick hello."

"Sure Percy, I'll just be here."

Percy gave Emma a quick peck on the cheek and walked over to where Sam was standing with a group of suited men.

Emma took the opportunity to open the envelope. The letter was etched with a concerted pencil:

Dear Emma,

As a fair warning, this letter should be kept in your strictest confidence.

I am not sure how to convey in words exactly how I feel about the past two days. I just hope to be as truthful to you as I can.

I have never before been with another woman. But I always suspected that I was destined to it. So what happened in that shack in the hills was no accident. At least not on my part. It was bound to happen. Just so happened that you were the one it happened with.

If you feel like I ruined you, I'm sincerely sorry. Please forgive me for the pains I have caused.

But know that I will be forever thankful for having met you and will be forever in bliss that you came to me again on Christmas night.

Today I make for Livingston. But thanks to you, I have Hong Kong now set in my heart. When I take that steam ship, I will take it from Tacoma. I will call on you there.

River

With joy swelling in her chest and in her eyes, Emma closed the letter. In her mind, she composed a short response letter. Dear River, I will wait for you. Yours truly, Emma

~~~

The railroad was repaired the day after Christmas and the train came bearing Emma's aunt and cousin. They took a first-class cabin to finish their journey to Tacoma. Emma sat beside the window and rested her head against the glass to watch the city turn to prairie. She tried sleeping but couldn't with the racket of the train. Mary gave her laudanum. It filled her head with effervescent thoughts.

When she left London, Emma's parents warned her of this country. They warned her of the frontier. They warned her that the rules here were different than in London. That crossing the great divide between the civilized world, Emma's world, and the wilderness would require a certain amount of courage and grit that most cut from her cloth did not possess. A soft soul that had only known a soft life would perish quickly here. Emma prepared herself by filling her soul with courage and grit before she made the journey westward, but as the civilized world melted away to the east, and the wild mountains and the virgin cedar and aspen and the snow came to meet her, in her short twenty-six mile exposure to it, she discovered more than a rough wilderness. She discovered River. Through River, she discovered something about herself for which she had not prepared for. Something that had been hidden deep within her. A wild, true spirit. Maybe it wasn't River that stirred it from slumber, maybe it was simply an exposure to the things her parents warned her of.

In any case, with every mile that the train pushed towards the rising Rockies, that wild, true spirit within her waned. As she looked out upon the plains of Montana, to the roaming dots of buffalo, the vultures in the big sky, to the blades of windswept snow that rolled with the train westward, the spirit waned.

After the Rockies she would be in Spokane. After Spokane, Ellensburg, and after Ellensburg, Tacoma, where the conquering heroes of the west had settled down to become soft souls, as they had always intended to.

She imagined River. River was beautiful. Every line on her face and every speckle in her eyes confirmed that she was not of Emma's world. She was of the wilderness. She was of the west. She was with an indomitable spirit. Emma knew that she loved her, and that she wanted more of her.

She took the letter secretly from within her corset and glanced to Percy to see that he was sound asleep in his seat across from her. She unfolded the letter and read it word by word like every pencil mark was a precious drop of water. Then she read it again, and when the words were memorized, she placed it back within her corset where it secretly warmed her heart.

She rested her head against the window and with the rhythmic shaking of the train, and the clacking of the wheels on the rails, and the laudanum, she dozed into sleep and dreamt of Hong Kong.