Colonel Rutherford's Colt by Lucius Shepard

Spirit—a repository for the secret wisdom of an ancient race. When she used traditional herbs to draw rattlesnake poison from her husband’s hand, which was swollen up like a Mickey Mouse hand, and started talking to the cute kid about his warrior heritage, Rita lost patience.
    â€œSee if something else is on,” she said to Jimmy, who had gained possession of the remote.
    â€œAin’t nothing else but preachers and infomercials,” he said grumpily.
    â€œTry the preachers. They’re funny sometimes.”
    â€œHow come you never complain when it’s some dumbass movie about white people?”
    â€œThis is about white people, Jimmy.”
    â€œIt’s got Graham Green in it. You like Graham Green.”
    â€œGimme the damn remote!” She reached beneath the covers, hand-fought him for control. Her fingers brushed his dick, felt it twitch. She fisted it, squeezed. “Give it to me.”
    He grinned. “Keep that up, I’ll give you something.”
    She loosened her grasp, stroked him gently. When he was ready, she came astride his hips and fitted him to her. With her knees high, she sank down, slid forward, rocked up, then sank down again . . . a luxuriant rhythm that triggered a jab of pleasure with each repetition. Her thoughts circled with the languid regularity of her movements, passing from momentary observation to momentary oblivion and back. The way he looked. Sleepy but rapt. Like a boy doing his best to stay awake to watch the end of his favorite show. His fingers gouged her ass, pulling her down harder, sending a hot charge into her belly. She grabbed the headboard, kept it from banging the wall, and let him guide her. Behind her shut-tight lids, a thin strip of light traced a curved horizon, the sun in eclipse. Something shifted inside her, a switch clicked, a relay engaged, something . . . and a passway opened, allowing the charge in her belly to spread throughout and build into a wave. Distantly, she heard the chuffing of Jimmy’s breath and herself saying love words. She tossed back her head and caught a glimpse of gray Sunday through the cracked drapes. The wave was still inside her, but it had grown taller than her, wider, as if the real Rita was a tiny creature living deep in her flesh, in the shadow of the wave, and when it broke she seemed to be lifted and tumbled and almost killed. All but a flicker of her flame extinguished. Waking to the world again, she felt ungainly, out of her medium, a beached mermaid straddling a man who pumped furiously into her, his head raised, face flushed, going at it like a cocaine monkey. She rolled her hips to bring him off. His fingers hooked her waist, grinding her against him until he went rigid and said, “Oh, shit . . . Jesus!” She unstuck strands of hair from her sweaty face, worked her hips some more as he softened, then collapsed half-atop him. He made a contented noise in his throat, ran a hand along her flank.
    â€œCan I have the remote now?” she asked.
    â€œI love you,” he said groggily.
    The words made her heart fail, so it had to jump back into rhythm. Whenever that happened, she always wondered if it was love or some associated terror that caused it.
    â€œI love you,” she said, kissed him, and searched around under the covers for the remote, found it down beside his knee.
    He closed his eyes, breathed deeply. “Don’t put on no preacher, okay?”
    She sat up in bed, channel-surfed until she hit a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Bugs was on the battlement of a frontier fort, firing a cannon at Yosemite Sam. She watched a few minutes, then took to surfing again. Channel 13 was showing an X-Files episode, but it was almost over. Jimmy murmured something, then he said, “Aaron . . .”
    She cut the sound on the TV so she could hear. “What’s that?”
    â€œI have to write Susan,” he said
    â€œJimmy, you awake?”
    He