Tomorrow's Woman

Extinguishing the Flame

Though outnumbered the Circle K’s gun men were ready and in position and in a matter of moments the survivors of Max’s unfortunate incident in the night were lying dead or wounded and John White was doing a jig in the bloodstained dust of his own ranch yard. Fortune had finally smiled upon him this day.

Walking up to a wounded Max Emerson he drew his pistol out and shot the man dead with a bullet through the forehead. Times were hard for any ranch hand unfortunate enough to have to work for an old miser of individual like John White and so the Circle K’s men went to busily stripping the slain of any wealth they could find.

It was about an hour and a half later when the riders of the Crazy 8 spread attacked. The Circle K had little warning, and so they weren’t nearly as prepared as they had been for Max’s force and though the fighting was bloody it was John White and all of his ranch hands that fell to a bullet this time.

The Crazy 8 had lost half of their riders in the fight and as Zeke Adams, owner of the Crazy 8 wandered about trying to make sense of all the extra dead bodies on the place, especially Max Emerson, a body of riders arrived from town. Zeke Adams swallowed as he noticed that the Marshall was one of them.

The Marshall drew to a stop and looked about at the utter chaos of the place and then his gaze came back to Zeke. “Do you have any way of explaining this Zeke?”

Zeke did not and in fact he was quite mystified as to why he’d even come here this day. There was no legal way out of the ramifications of what this looked like, which was a m******e perpetrated by him.

The only way forward seemed to be through more killing. He went for his gun.

He was punched backward instantly by the bullets of several deputies and the Marshall himself, while his own gun clicked repeatedly on empty. He’d forgotten to reload it after killing the last of John White’s gun hands.

Staring at it in empty shock as his life drained out of him, he fell to the dusty ground already stained bloody red from the others before him and died. His remaining men had already thrown down their guns as they too were not sure what they had somehow got mixed up in, but were suddenly the only witnesses to.

And just like that a war that had been about to start was ended. Shifting in the seat of my saddle upon my worn-out mount I gazed upon the scene below from a promontory about a mile from the Circle K.

I pulled on the reins and turned my horse and let it trot toward Ralph Eklund’s ranch, which was now the only big spread left in the valley. I reached his place about midday.

Every gun on the place monitored my approach until they were waved away by Ralph. Coming up to me on foot, he spoke, “What in tarnation is going on in this valley!”

“Well, it’s a bit of a long story actually and perhaps one best left unsaid. Suffice it to say though all of your competition, Ralph is gone. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

Glancing away from him I looked about the ranch yard and called out loudly, “And just in case some of you have been double hired to put a bullet in this man’s back, I wouldn’t as I’ll put two in you for every one he receives.”

Silence greeted my threat and glancing down at Ralph I said, “You’re a good man Ralph. It would do the valley a heap of good if you were to expand your operation and be the only big game in town, while letting the little guys get by decently with what they have.”

Ralph nodded, “It would be a good idea and I’d do it too, but I’m about broke as it is just taking on these extra hands I have for security purposes.”

I nodded and quietly said for Ralph’s ears only. “Well, Ralph there’s something of an unclaimed inheritance lying about. In fact, I guarantee you if you were to put in an offer for a certain somewhat badly charred ranch stead that you’d find the means for paying for it and everything else if you dug around the third post from the water trough back of the barn.”

He gazed up at me in shock and smiling I tipped my hat to him and rode out of the ranch yard. In many ways I owed that man a lot.

Without his prompting of Pedro I wouldn’t have a wife waiting at home for me. Giving so much to one man might seem too much to some, but I’d gotten even more wealth than he had in the form of one woman and so I could afford to be generous.

Thanking God, I cleared the last several miles of distance and made my way up the steep path to my home. The newly fashioned gate opened before me and I nodded my thanks to Sessina’s wide-eyed brother standing there balanced on a crutch.

Gazing about I took in the sight of sheep grazing on the steep slopes completely unmolested and it was a good sight to behold. The past was fast disappearing.

I pulled up in front of the house more grateful than any man could be to be where I was and to have what I did. Pedro was standing there grinning from ear to ear as if he knew everything that had happened.

Weariness hit me as I got down off the horse. He didn’t know though, but as he took the reins of my horse he gazed at me as if seeking confirmation that he could be as happy as he was feeling himself to be.

I met his gaze and said, “No one will be by to bother us from now on. Maybe starting tomorrow you can acquaint me with the ins and outs of raising sheep.”

His arms came around me in a bear hug as he emotionally said, “This I can do Senior!”

He let go then and moving off with my horse I heard him talking to God. Something had definitely changed for the better here it would seem.

I walked through the door of my house and followed my nose to where I found Sessina in the kitchen. She turned when she saw me and quickly moved to pull out a chair at the table.

She was smiling and crying at the same time. I sat down only to be surprised by the feel of her arms coming around me from behind in a tight but brief hug.

She kissed my ear and then before I knew it, I was being served a meal fit for a king. I ate with satisfaction and as I did she watched me the whole time with something in her eyes that I liked an awful lot.

“Did you read my Bible?”

“All night and all day.” She said and then added, “I learned to pray again. My papa too. We even prayed together and now your home and…. and God is very good!”

Food forgotten I sat there watching as her happy tears flowed down her warm dusky colored cheeks. Wiping at them, she moved closer and said, “I have much to learn, but this I know. God will help me. He helped me when I wasn’t even looking for Him and now that I truly know Him and His Son Jesus I can’t but thank Him all the more. I do not deserve everything I have been suddenly given, but I…… I will do my best to show Him my appreciation just the same.”

A single tear fell down my cheek and looking away, I said, “Yeah, me too.”

She was pulling me up out of my chair then and before I knew it she was leading me outside.

Curiosity took hold, “Where are you taking me?”

She glanced back at me impishly and said, “You stink.”

There was no denying that. I heard water and then we turned a corner and I saw a pool of water at the base of a waterfall that was too picturesque for words to describe.

Sessina stepped ahead of me and as I stood mesmerized by first the falling water I soon became mesmerized by something else – the sight of Sessina’s clothes falling to land on the ground beside the pool.

I watched as she bare as the day she’d been born stepped into the water only to look back at me with such a smile of open invitation as to start a stilled heart beating again. Everything in the past that had been a torment along with everything that had been stolen from me had somehow been repaid almost virtually overnight and like Sessina I didn’t deserve any of it.

“Thank you God.” I said heartfeltly.

It was all that could be said really, it would never be enough, which was why for the rest of my life I would make my life about Him instead. Free of my own clothes I stepped into the water in pursuit of my wife and found her in the cascade of falling water.

The water was cool, but her full lips pressed onto mine were warm. Her bare thigh stroked up my side invitingly and I stooped down to slide both of my hands beneath her thighs as I split her legs around me.

I let her slide down until just her knees were hooked over my arms. My hands full of her perfect bottom I pressed her back against the smooth wet rock at the back of the waterfall.

With the water cascading onto my shoulders, I drove my way into where I had ached to be all day, even as her fingernails dug into my shoulders with passion. I knew she was sore from yesterday, but I couldn’t stop myself from the abandoned relief that it was to simply be back inside of her.

I surged back and forth into her hard and before long I felt her teeth bite into my neck and then she was screaming as her nails dug into my back. She was such a wild one and yet despite her passionate personality it was I who had her dominated and crying out I shuddered in orgasm deeply within her, even as she began wetly kissing the spot she had bitten on my neck.

I let her legs come down and I slipped out of her. We stood together hugging each other and then she was taking my hand and leading me back to the house.

“Your father?”

She laughed and said, “Has orders to stay away.”

Smiling, I followed her into our bedroom. “You don’t have plans of ordering me about do you?”

With a look of erotic playfulness she said as she turned, “Only if you let me.” Then she was kissing down my front until eventually she was on her knees and my resurgent passion for her was buried in her hot eager to please me mouth.

Groaning, I rested a hand on the bed post even as I knotted the other into her rich black hair. A man simply couldn’t ask for more in a wife than this and I thanked God over and over on the spot for the gift of her to me.

My verbally spoken thankfulness to God only seemed to drive her to greater passion and soon I found myself erupting in her mouth as if I had an endless supply of seed when it came to this woman. Pulling back, she licked every last bit of my essence free from my shaft and then standing up, she pulled me onto the bed with her.

Joy was something to be felt and yet weariness beckoned. I tried to force it away as I simply didn’t want to miss one moment of the warmly nuzzled in contentment of her form pressed in against me.

She was kissing my chest softly and with a sigh, I fell asleep with my arms about her.