The Brave

Sally nodded. "You know what it is for me?" said Sally. "An' this is a lil' strange, but...I think it's obvious now why I was wary of you when you walked in an' asked to see the sheriff."

"I guess," chuckled Wind.

"And you can imagine my panic when you said you were a bounty hunter," Sally continued. "But y'know what I realize now? If you wanted to turn me in, I'd let you. Wouldn't give it a second thought. You wouldn't hafta bind me or knock me out, I'd just go. Hell, if this is all part of some plan to bring me to the noose, I wouldn't even be mad. I'd follow you to my own death, darlin'. You mean that much."

Wind nodded, and moved her hand up Sally's arm. "Is it really that? Or do you feel that much guilt over what you did?"

Sally thought about it. "Lil' a' both, I guess."

"Well, if your conscience really is telling you that you should answer for your crimes, then I'll take you in, sure. I'll take it as slow as possible, but I'll do it. If you ask me, though...well, I'm biased against what a white man considers justice. I think even if you started the fight by trying to rob a place, being hung for defending yourself, your husband, and your friends against people serving the interests of very rich men isn't exactly fair as long as monsters like Garrick get to be sheriffs. I think turning yourself in won't change a damn thing. And I think the world would be worse off without Sally Stillwell in it."

Sally rolled once more onto her back, pondering Wind's words. "I guess I agree," she eventually said. "But there's another side to this."

"What's that?"

"Those people that I killed, whose names I never knew..."

Sally breathed deep, as if the question itself was as good as a bullet to her own head.

The outlaw asked, "How many of them were Sacred Stars to someone?"

Wind may have had a valid, if indirect answer for that question.

But the question didn't seem as important as the thought and the pain behind it, and that was something Wind had no answer for, except to pull her troubled cante skuye in close, kiss her on the cheek, and let her drift back to sleep in her warmth.

When she did, Wind gently rolled away, and reached into her bag to pull out her journal and pencil. She flipped through it, bearing the cringe of her other poems until she found a blank page, and wrote down a thought that popped into her head before she could lose it.

X. - Love and Mercy

Wind sat outside the tent for the next couple of hours with her journal, toying with the thought she had, trying to stretch it out into a full-fledged poem. Of course, she was a terrible poet, as she reminded herself every time she went back through her journal. She had, many times over the course of the week, considered burning the damn thing, assuming nobody needed to hear such deep, vivid thoughts as:

The chasm is dark, and still I fall
My skin stain'd and crack'd by the chill of its air
I open my arms and lay my soul bare
As the light of My World is swallowed by Sin's pall

Warrior-poets of history, eat your hearts out, Wind thought to herself, recalling her masterpiece.

The point wasn't to have a record to share, though; it was to ground her violence and anger in something tangible. It was a running reminder of how much of herself she had lost and kept losing in her odyssey, a roundabout way of keeping score to figure out if it was all worth it. By the time she rode into Grant's Hope, she was convinced the answer to that question was going to be "no."

The real answer was complicated. It demanded a recording, and it demanded she get it right, even if just for herself.

As the sun started setting, turning the desert sky from blue to pink, Wind felt the first tiny pang of oncoming hunger and decided that getting it right would have to wait. She started a new fire and grabbed her fishing pole...

But before casting off, she looked back to the tent, where Sally still slept with her demons encircled around her, relentlessly whispering in her ear. She'd be up soon enough, probably still feeling like hell, with little reprieve to be found in this land of near-nothing.

And it occurred to Wind that neither of them had bathed in quite a while.

The crackle of the fire stirred Sally out of her slumber. She was still exhausted; her sleep was dreamless, more of a mind shutdown than a genuine rest, and her wound was starting to hurt a little bit. She rolled out of her bedroll, figuring Wind needed to brew up more of that vile tea that made her feel better; maybe she could do that before she started cooking dinner.

All of those concerns ended up being left behind in the tent.

Sally had seen a sight like this before; Wind bare-ass naked with her back to the blonde. Before, Wind's hair was swept forward, and Sally was able to admire the tight skin of the native's back, but couldn't see much else as she was sitting on the bed and covered up with a sheet. Now, her wet, luxurious mane cascaded down that back to her waist, and she was standing up, revealing a firm set of hindquarters, a strong pair of thighs, and shapely calves half-submerged in the water.

Sally wondered how to react to this out loud. Then she realized they were well beyond games at this point, so she just reacted like she did in her head: "Well, then!"

Wind looked over her shoulder. "Hey, you," she said. "Just finished washing up, thought I'd catch our dinner while I was in here."

"I'm startin' to think you don't do this by accident," said Sally, unbuttoning her shirt.

"I didn't do this by accident," explained Wind. "You walking in on me with breakfast was an accident, just one I decided to have fun with. Wait, what are you doing?"

"Joinin' you, stupid." Sally had her shirt nearly unbuttoned; she hadn't worn a corset underneath it like she usually did, and neither Sally nor Wind missed the damn thing at the moment, but unfortunately

"Uh-uh," urged Wind, quite seriously. "Doctor's orders. That wound can take some moisture but it stays away from the river for now."

"Are you shittin' me?"

"Better safe than dying in agony."

"Urrrgh!" Sally growled as she tied her shirt closed under her chest and slumped to the ground, arms crossed. "You're a real prick-tease, y'know that?"

"How would you know?" quipped Wind. "I don't see any pricks around here."

"You KNOW what I mean, dammit!" This woman was awful. Just the worst.

Sally heard Wind's fishing line start to spool out. With remarkably little effort, Wind took hold of the crank and started to reel her catch in, turning just a bit to the side as she did so, giving Sally a luscious glimpse of a pointy, puffy tit. At the same time, a large trout broke the surface of the water, pulled up by Wind's line. The image the native created—this gorgeous, powerful being of nature, so beautiful in her element—made Sally wish she was a master painter, so she could commit the whole thing to some sort of canvas and cherish it forever.

This woman was amazing. The greatest.

She created one more beautiful image for Sally as she turned fully to the side, holding the fish close to her chest and tenderly pulling her line's fly out of its maw, whispering something to it as she did.

"What are you saying?" asked Sally.

"I'm, uh, thanking it," Wind said, suddenly a little shy. "For feeding us tonight. Promising to honor it. I've been a little sentimental about these things lately."

"I like seein' you sentimental," said Sally.

Smiling, Wind turned and revealed her whole front to Sally: her small, pointed breasts sat wide on her chest, standing full and proud with dark, puffy nipples that made Sally's mouth water. Her stomach was trim and tight; the musculature of her abdomen was outlined much like Sam's was, but it was more faint and feminine, and it guided Sally's eyes down to the thick triangle of curls that covered Wind's womanhood.

Right on cue, still smiling wide, Wind asked, "Is there anything you don't like about me?"

"Right now," moaned Sally, "your lack of shame's sure shittin' me off."

"Oh really?" Wind's walk ashore turned into a sashay, spreading her arms in display, somehow even sexier with a dead fish in one hand and a fishing pole in the other. "Am I offending your delicate sensibilities, cante skuye?"

"You're offendin' the part a' me dyin' to grow a cock 'n screw you stupid!" the blonde whined.

The native laughed, gutting her fish over a large nearby rock. "Give it time. You need food before you do that. Food and medicine."

Sally's eyes bulged in shock. "Wait. You got medicine that can actually gimme a johnson?"

"Pain medicine, you silly white girl." Wind gave Sally's shoulder an affectionate squeeze on her way to the campfire, where she plopped the gutted, de-boned fish into the skillet.

* * * * *

Wind didn't intend to probe into how Sally became an outlaw. It was her business, it was obviously painful, and it wasn't terribly important to the native. She had mercifully covered herself up with one of the two border blankets she bought from a Navajo trader in the area (they were sitting on the other one) while they tucked into their fish, so now that Sally wasn't drooling over her love's perfect body, they found themselves in this weird place where the silence between them was comfortable without feeling appropriate. So they tried to talk about something. And the only thing they could think to talk about was, well...

"I was seventeen," said Sally, "and my family had owned this ranch; wasn't big, but it was ours, and we were proud of it. Sam was a boy my age who lived in town—this was up in Colorado, on the other side of the mountains, a town called Millhead. I'd see him over the years whenever my Pa took me in to sell goods 'n run other errands, since I was eventually gonna take over the place. He was a troublemaker, an' he could really drive me crazy, but it somehow got a little harder to say goodbye to 'im each time.

"Anyway, this guy Vance MacDougall, who ran this much larger ranch, he wanted our land, and his brother managed the bank that owned our mortgage. I don't...I can't tell you just how hard we fought to keep it, what we were doin' to make these payments we shouldn't 've had to make. In the end, Pa's heart gave out, Ma broke 'n followed soon after, and I was left with almost nothin'. I rode into town an' stayed at an inn with what little money I had left to my name. So one day Sam's visitin', and he asked me 'What do you want more than anythin' right now? What can I do to help?' I thought about it, and I realized...we paid all that money to the bank for nothin', and I damn well wanted it back."

"Wait." Wind was loving this. "So you're telling me it was really your gang, not Sam's?"

"We didn't think they'd take me serious," said Sally, causing Wind to applaud and laugh. "It got to the point where we were both fixin' to get hung, sure. But once we started dealin' with Vic and Clem and others, it helped for them to think Sam was in charge. I didn't mind at all; Sam could be real charismatic, and he actually had a few damn good ideas. If anythin', he was just as much a leader as I was. End of the day, though, he always said he'd sleep on whatever plan we all cooked up, and I'd make the final call in bed."

"So what happened to that rancher that ruined your life?"

"MacDougall? Our first few jobs was all about putting a boot on his throat, but before we could really piss him off and get the Pinkertons on us, he died of consumption, an' family squabbles led to his ranch collapsin'. It was a little...unexpected. Naturally we weren't ready to calm down, an' we figure that can't be the only corrupt operation out here, so we kept goin'. Sam 'n I decided we'd steal enough to get a plot of land for ourselves, build a house, and live out our days bein' left the hell alone." Sally took a final bite of her fish. "You know the rest. I don't mean to give a sob story 'bout how I had no other choice and that somebody else was the real bad guy, I'm sure you heard it all before."

Wind shrugged. "I talk to some bounties I bring back alive. A lot of them just wanted money or glory."

"Well, hell, I wanted money," said Sally. "What's it matter how I justify it?"

"True," nodded Wind. "How'd you get so introspective? At what point did you realize that you might have been going about it all wrong?"

"Not long after Vic put a bullet in Sam's back," said Sally; Wind had expected her to take a moment to think about it but she had come right out with it. Sally sensed her surprise and explained. "When you lose someone you share so much of yourself with like that, you think about everythin' you coulda done different, every chance you had to walk away, every reason you came up with to keep goin'. We were angry, an' we were right to be angry, but we were still greedy, plain 'n simple. Much as I hate Vic for what he did, s'only fair we got ended by someone greedier."

Wind nodded. Blanket still clasped around her, she moved behind Sally and wrapped her up inside, resting her head on the blonde's shoulder with a little kiss on her cheek. "You know I don't mean to replace him, right?"

Sally leaned her head slightly back, raising her hands to hold the ones comforting her. "Well as I know I can't replace her," she said, running her index finger across Sacred Star's bracelet.

Wind tenderly turned Sally's head toward her face and kissed her lips. The sky had darkened into another clear, starry night with a full, large moon up above. The air was still and cool, warmed by a crackling campfire; the soundtrack of the night alongside the gentle trickle of the river they camped on the bank of, occasionally punctuated with gentle breezes, frogsong, and a distant coyote. In this great open space, their world had never been smaller. When they broke their kiss, they kissed again, and again, because all they wanted was more and the concept of selfishness carried no weight in this place, at this moment.

When Wind moved down to Sally's neck to heat things up, the blonde gasped in delight as the native's tongue and not-too-firm teeth sent tingles up her face and down through her breast. It also gave her a chance to warn her love of something important, however. "I ain't sure I know how this works with you," admitted Sally.

Wind broke from Sally's neck, leaving a small red mark. "What do you mean?" Her whispered voice was coy in Sally's ear as she pressed her tiny breasts against the blonde's back, rubbing up and down her sides in a slow descent to her flanks. "All I'm doing is changing your bandage," she politely explained.

Wind lifted the end of the bandage wrap slowly and peeled it away, round and round, layer by layer, kissing Sally's neck and shoulder as the wrap became thinner and thinner until it was little more than a snack for their campfire.

The wound had closed at this point; the stitches were out, and the bandage was mostly to keep it from getting too wet. Wind ran her gentle fingers across the puckered, honeyed surface; it was still tender to the touch—"Sorry." "S'okay."—and was almost certainly going to leave a scar.

So the native's hands drifted up somewhere less depressing and far more exciting.

"That don't look like a bandage," remarked Sally, as Wind worked at the knot tying her shirt closed.

"Well, clearly you need to be washed, too," said Wind, toying with the ends of the knot. "Why would I put a new bandage on you before wiping you down? That doesn't make sense."

"I s'pose it don't."

Sally shifted her shoulders back and Wind pulled the shirt's knot apart. Sally eased the shirt away from her bare shoulders to reveal a fair pair of soft cantaloupe-sized breasts, shaped like two perfect teardrops that looked as warm and inviting as any pillow after a long time out on the frontier. Wind actually gasped when she saw them.

"Mmm. Thought you saw these already," said Sally with a smirk.

"I had other things on my mind then," said Wind.

"Well then, did ya go blind?"

"Just for a moment." said Wind.

"I'll take it." Wind couldn't resist an extended grope of the blonde's tits, lifting them up past their sag and squishing them together and tweaking the pale nipples between her fingers. Sally loved it, and when the native's long hair began to brush against her arm, Sally reached up to run her fingers through it until she was gently massaging the scalp.

"Oh, that's nice," Wind breathed, her hands continuing to explore Sally's upper body while she dragged her own smaller tits up and down her love's upper back.

After some time, Wind eased off and laid Sally down onto the blanket, then crawled down to her prone waist. "Of course," Wind said, undoing the buttons of her trousers, "we can't really bathe you while you're still wearing pants."

"That'd be just silly," Sally agreed, lifting her hips so Wind could more easily haul the garment off her body.

Divested of her modesty, Wind's eye was immediately pulled to Sally's pretty pussy, her womanly down—somewhat thinner than Wind's—matted with arousal and glistening in the firelight. The native leaned back to take in all of her, orange and yellow light dancing across her voluptuous pale body, head tilted upwards to appreciate her own fit, bronze beauty.

Wind made a decision. She leaned forward, brushing her hair back and forth across Sally's hips, her belly, her breasts, her neck, causing the blonde to breathe shallow until the native locked her smoldering gaze upon her cante skuye's blissfully anxious face.

"I've been thinking," she whispered. "Why go through the trouble of bathing you when I'm about to make such a mess out of you?"

"Ohhh, good point," moaned Sally.

Wind dragged two slow fingers over Sally's belly and sternum, up her neck and chin before gently probing her thick, kissable lips. "Don't worry," said Wind. "I haven't been with anyone in a couple of years. You've got nothing to live up to. Just enjoy yourself...and open your mouth for me."

Sally did as told, and Wind gently slipped her fingers inside, probing the cavity of her mouth, careful not to gag her while relishing the tongue corkscrewing around her digits. The blonde began to move back and forth on Wind's fingers, sucking on them like the little cock it was fated to be. In that spirit, the native began to gently slip back and forth inside, watching Sally's cheeks cave in and her eyes close in bliss as she sucked and moaned passionately on her. The visual was astonishing; Wind couldn't help but think that Sam was a lucky man.

When she had her fill, Wind pulled her saliva-slick fingers out of Sally's mouth and dragged them back down her body, brushing over her bush until they were massaging her dripping, steaming vulva.

"God, you always made me so wet down there," gasped Sally.

Wind said nothing, continuing to move her fingers in circles around Sally's slippery, swollen lips.

"Oh! Oh please, inside, lemme feel you insaaaaaahhhhhd!" Wind had obliged, slipping her digits inside Sally's tight entrance with her fingers curled upward, pushing in and out, in and out.

The motion was familiar and comforting to Sally, who laid back and enjoyed her lover's work as she normally did while Wind continued to watch her bounce intently, letting her relax, breathe in, sigh out, smile, raise her precious ivory arms in bliss.

In and out, in and out. Waiting.

In and out. Waiting for the right moment.

In and out. Waiting for her to be just...

...relaxed...

...enough...

In and out, in and out, in and turn, probing the side of her vaginal wall instead of the top under her mound, giving Sally a fun little jolt as Wind continued to watch her face, cracking only the barest smile.

Looking up at her lover as her fingers continued to twist and slide within her, Sally was reminded of the days Wind wasn't as forward, where her warm, funny personality was revealed only in fits and starts. Instead of hiding behind a cold, murderous exterior, however, now the native was in a state of total erotic focus. It was as if Wind had been starved and could only feed on her lover's pleasure.