Chapter 41

It took us four days of steady riding to make it to Portales. For two of those days, I thought my butt was going to fall off from the endless hours in the saddle. Connie laughed at my whining and teased me about it until I shut up.

As we rode, if we weren’t talking, I was singing. I was dredging up songs from every era I’d lived through by the second day. Connie liked the singing as much as Melosa did, so I started teaching her the words of her favorites. Connie had a sweet voice with a slight quaver to it. Her voice reminded me a little of Tammy Wynette, and amazingly, she and I harmonized together very nicely.

I dredged up the Tammy Wynette songs I remembered and taught them to her. She liked ‘Your Good Girl’s Gonna Turn Bad’; the lyrics actually amused the crap out of her, being she was a dance hall girl and all. She didn’t much care for ‘D-I-V-O-R-C-E’, but she went gaga over ‘Stand by Your Man’.

“I like that song, Tyler. It says how I feel about you. Even though you are not so smart sometimes, I still love you because you are my man. I will teach that song to your other women, because they feel the same way.”

Uh, I didn’t exactly know how to take what she said, know what I mean? It’s a little hard on the old ego when your woman says she loves you, despite the fact that you are a doofus.

On the afternoon of day four, or according to my ass, day fourteen, we rode into Portales. We stopped at the livery stable and let our horses slurp up some water, then I led us over to the swinging doors of the Cock and Bull Saloon. I pushed open one of the doors and stepped aside so Connie could walk through. She snorted derisively and pushed me inside. One of these days I was going to have to have a serious talk with Connie about how quickly she was shedding any semblance of Victorian manners.

I looked the place over as soon as my eyes adjusted to the dimly lit room, then led the way to the far end of the bar. The place wasn’t exactly bustling with business, as there weren’t more than half a dozen patrons in the joint. I caught the bartender’s eye finally, and ordered us a couple of beers. He looked around nervously, and I followed his gaze as it settled on this big, ill-natured looking cowboy. The big man stopped the barman with a gesture and stomped towards us angrily.

“We don’t allow no squaws in here, Injun lover,” he said belligerently.

Before I could formulate a scathingly witty rejoinder, Connie whipped out her pig-sticker and had the point a micro millimeter away from his throat. The big man actually had to go up on his tip toes to prevent being skewered. This was just too much fun to let pass!

I said something in Japanese to Connie, hoping it sounded like Comanche to the other men in the room. She gave me a funny look and I returned her a sly wink.

“Now you’ve done it friend,” I said. “Just stand still and everyone stay calm, while I try to save your life.”

As soon as I said that, Connie rattled off some real Comanche and jiggled the knife a little. The big man looked at me uncomprehendingly, so I made up a translation.

“She said that she was going to cut out your tongue for insulting her husband. Well, that’s better than I hoped because the last man to insult me is a eunuch now. I’m afraid you just made a grave error, amigo, because my woman is the daughter of the Comanche War Chief, Knock-a-Homma, bravest of the Braves. She is my woman because she was too mean for any of the braves of her tribe. I lost a bet with her father and had to take her. Her Indian name is Fawn Who Castrates Grizzlies.”

The man’s eyes grew as big as tea saucers when Connie reversed her grip on the knife, dropped her arm, and pressed the point up into the man’s genitals. I had to turn my head to keep from cracking up as the cowboy unsuccessfully tried to control his beer swollen bladder.

I made a slashing motion with my hand.

“Idi wah kahzuma,” I said in an authorative voice.

Connie shook her head and launched into another spurt of Comanche, punctuated with little jabs of the knife that made the man squeak. When she finished her little diatribe, the man turned to me beseechingly.

“Please Mister, don’t let her cut me, I got a wife and a passel of young-uns at home,” he pleaded contritely.

I nodded and flung out a few more Japanese words. Connie looked at the man fiercely, but lowered her knife.

“Buy Fawn beer,” she threatened menacingly.

The big cowboy threw a quarter onto the bar and lit out for parts unknown, as the rest of the patrons stood around gawking. I looked around and smiled.

“Let that be a lesson to you boys, don’t start no shit and there won’t be no shit. Now have a beer on Tyler McGuinn, and let’s all be friends.”

I waved to the bartender and clanged a couple of cartwheels on to the bar, next to the disappeared cowboy’s quarter.

“A beer for my sweet little lady and me, my good man, and a round for the house if you please.”

As soon as the barkeep turned towards his tap, another cowboy came walking towards us. Connie started reaching for her knife, but I stayed her hand. I recognized the man as one of the cowboys from the ranch at which my brother worked. The man stopped a few feet from us and eyed Connie warily.

“That really you, Tyler? We heard you was dead.”

“An obviously untrue rumor, Otis. How are things with you?” I asked as I stuck out my hand.

Otis allowed that things were just dandy, and asked me where I’d been and what had I been doing. This was one of those times where I didn’t think it was prudent to give out too much information, so I told him I was working in El Paso and living on a small spread I’d bought. Even that little bit of news was enough to make Otis Griggs whistle.

“Dang, boy, no one here thought you had it in you to go straight, that’s why it was so easy to believe the stories that you was dead.”

Having lived with my Uncle Ty Ringo’s memories for the last six months, I had to agree. Remembering my manners, I turned and introduced Connie. I couldn’t resist continuing to perpetrate our little fraud.

“Otis, may I present my wife, Fawn. Fawn, this here is an old friend of mine named Otis Griggs.”

Connie flashed me a happy smile at being called my wife. She stuck out her hand daintily and in a perfect imitation of Belle, said, “Charmed, I’m sure, Mister Griggs.”

Otis cut his eyes towards me at her finishing school Southern drawl.

I just shrugged in reply.

Otis filled me in on the happenings around Portales and Clovis, the town right up the road to the north-east, during the seven months I’d been away. He said my brother was doing fine, but was too good a man to be working for old man Eustis. I couldn’t agree more.

Connie and I left the saloon, collected our horses and headed north. If my memory of geography was anywhere close to accurate, the ranch that Ray ramrodded was located to where Cannon Air Force Base was situated in 1977, about seventeen miles north of Portales. Seventeen miles was a pretty good stretch, and we’d never make it to Ray’s before late that night. Yet, Connie was firm in not wanting a room in Portales for the night.

“We’ll sleep and make wild love under the stars again tonight, my husband,” she said.

After seeing her in action with her knife at the saloon, I wasn’t about to argue the point. Besides, we’d been making wild, coyote howling love under the stars for the last three nights, and I had enjoyed every second of it. The fresh air jacked up Connie’s libido and added about twenty-five decibels to her already loud yowling. You know, life is pretty darned good when your biggest complaint is how loud your woman yells when you give her the big O.

We found a place to sleep on the bank of the Portales creek. The creek was low in its bed, but was still flowing. In this part of the country, flowing water this late in the year was a nice surprise, because most streams, creeks and even some rivers dried up until the snow melts off in the Spring.

Later that night, I put Connie on her hands and knees and let her howl at the moon as loud as she wanted as I plundered her tight little cleft from the rear. I loved holding onto her narrow hips as she gyrated that muscular little ass around like a jitterbug dancer. I don’t know why I did it, but that night I swatted her on the ass and teased her.

“This is the way I will have to take you when your belly is too big with our son to do it any other way.”

Connie moaned and turned her head to look at me over her shoulder. Her eyes were glittering onyx gemstones.

“You would have a baby with me even though I am a half breed?” she asked in wonder.

I turned serious and answered her.

“I love you because you are you, Conchita Raphael, and I would be honored to be the father of your children. We’ll start making them whenever you are ready.”

Turns out Connie was already ready, because she pulled away from me, spun around and gently removed the condom from my rampant penis.

“It will probably not be tonight, my warrior, it is too close to my time, but who knows what magic the gods of my ancestors may bring to us out here,” she said.

We made a different kind of love that night. It was so sweet ... so tender and emotionally charged, that it left us both with tears in our eyes. Yet it was also passionate and thrillingly intense. After my second mind numbing climax and Connie’s who knows how many, I tried to roll off her to the side, because I couldn’t hold my weight above her for much longer. Connie clamped those steel cable legs around my waist and pulled me down on top of her.

“Don’t move, My Love. I want to feel our skin touching for a while longer,” she said.

I agreed, but rolled us both over until she was on top of me. Connie sighed and wiggled until she was comfortable as I stroked her hair. I pulled the blanket we lay on over her back, and we fell asleep.

The next morning, Connie woke me up when she slipped down onto my morning erection. When the sleep cleared from my eyes, she was perched smiling on my woody.

“I had a vision last night, Tyler. In it we made a son during this trip. I dreamed our son had a son who was a great warrior and married a woman much like Anna Lopez.”