SEDUCTIVE SUPERNATURALS: 12 Tales of Shapeshifters, Vampires & Sexy Spirits by Sheri Whitefeather, Maureen Child, Caridad Piñeiro, Erin Kellison, Erin Quinn, Lisa Kessler, Chris Marie Green, Mary Leo, Cassi Carver, Janet Wellington, Theresa Meyers, Elisabeth Staab Page B
Authors: Sheri Whitefeather, Maureen Child, Caridad Piñeiro, Erin Kellison, Erin Quinn, Lisa Kessler, Chris Marie Green, Mary Leo, Cassi Carver, Janet Wellington, Theresa Meyers, Elisabeth Staab
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If I followed that smoke, would I end up back at the camp?
There would be nothing to find but death, and yet it was a destination. I reached the hilltop and looked down into a wooded valley. Aspen and cottonwood trees grew wide and sprawling in the pocket of lush vegetation. This was not where my family had camped. Pine trees scattered darkly over the foothills, but the grove where I’d hidden was nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t see where the smoke came from, but it wasn’t from the smoldering ashes of my family. It was a campfire. I smelled food.
The Smith brothers? Had I stumbled across their camp? The taste of vengeance rose up inside me, bitter on my tongue. I wrapped my hand around my daddy’s shotgun and, once again, I began to run. I bolted through the trees with branches snagging at my hair and ripping at my clothes, but still I didn’t slow.
I could hear voices as I drew closer, but not the deep drawl of any of the Smith riders. These were women’s voices.
Confused, I paused. Why would women be out here with murdering outlaws?
In shadowed twilight, I crept closer. I could smell the fire—made of cow pies based on the noxious odor—long before I could see the flames.
At last I was near enough to see them. Three women, clothed as I was in traveling dresses of indistinguishable browns and grays, sat comfortably by a fire. One of the women was Negro, another was a mix of races I couldn’t discern—she looked to have been made from golden wax—and a third who had a mane of rust-red hair, pale skin and an Irish lilt.
The Negro and Irish women were sewing as they listened to the golden woman speak. Her teeth flashed white as she smiled. She seemed to be telling a story, and the others hung on her words, pausing with needles poised for the next stitch as she drew the tale out.
Beyond her, another Negro woman, this one large and lumbering and black as the night, moved about the fire. She wore a handkerchief tied around her head and an apron that seemed to glow in this world of black and white. She didn’t give the speaker the attention the others did, but she appeared to be listening all the same as she fried bacon and tended something else that smelled heavenly. My stomach growled so loud I feared they’d hear me.
They camped beside a wagon with a tarp strung from the side to posts pounded into the ground. I crouched, watching them, afraid to step into the open. I didn’t see a corral for horses or any livestock that might pull the wagon. Were these women stranded? Perhaps victims of thievery? I thought of the Smith brothers again. Had they been here? The laughter I’d heard said no, but people had a way of rising to the occasion when tragedy struck, and they had each other to see them through.
When I looked back to the campfire, the golden woman had finished her story. She sat beside the young Negro woman, who looked, upon closer inspection, much younger than my seventeen. The larger woman still hovered over her skillets, scorched skirts perilously close to the fire, but the redhead was nowhere in sight. Their laughter drifted back to me, waking an ache so deep it hurt. There had been laughter at our campfire each night when Grandma, burdened though she was by her wheelchair, Momma, and I would clean up after our meal.
A snapping twig to my right caught me unaware and I spun around. I was face-to-face with the redhead. She gave a shout of surprise, eyes round as saucers, skirts bunched around her waist, knees bent in a squat. She stumbled backward and fell on her bare behind. Embarrassment rooted me to the spot. I looked away, sputtering an apology.
“Saint Mary and Joseph,” she exclaimed in a lilting Irish brogue as she struggled to stand, yanking her drawers up and her skirts down at once. In an instant, the women from the camp had surrounded us.
“Where you come from?” the large black woman exclaimed.
I opened my mouth to answer, but the Irish woman interrupted me. “You’re head to
There would be nothing to find but death, and yet it was a destination. I reached the hilltop and looked down into a wooded valley. Aspen and cottonwood trees grew wide and sprawling in the pocket of lush vegetation. This was not where my family had camped. Pine trees scattered darkly over the foothills, but the grove where I’d hidden was nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t see where the smoke came from, but it wasn’t from the smoldering ashes of my family. It was a campfire. I smelled food.
The Smith brothers? Had I stumbled across their camp? The taste of vengeance rose up inside me, bitter on my tongue. I wrapped my hand around my daddy’s shotgun and, once again, I began to run. I bolted through the trees with branches snagging at my hair and ripping at my clothes, but still I didn’t slow.
I could hear voices as I drew closer, but not the deep drawl of any of the Smith riders. These were women’s voices.
Confused, I paused. Why would women be out here with murdering outlaws?
In shadowed twilight, I crept closer. I could smell the fire—made of cow pies based on the noxious odor—long before I could see the flames.
At last I was near enough to see them. Three women, clothed as I was in traveling dresses of indistinguishable browns and grays, sat comfortably by a fire. One of the women was Negro, another was a mix of races I couldn’t discern—she looked to have been made from golden wax—and a third who had a mane of rust-red hair, pale skin and an Irish lilt.
The Negro and Irish women were sewing as they listened to the golden woman speak. Her teeth flashed white as she smiled. She seemed to be telling a story, and the others hung on her words, pausing with needles poised for the next stitch as she drew the tale out.
Beyond her, another Negro woman, this one large and lumbering and black as the night, moved about the fire. She wore a handkerchief tied around her head and an apron that seemed to glow in this world of black and white. She didn’t give the speaker the attention the others did, but she appeared to be listening all the same as she fried bacon and tended something else that smelled heavenly. My stomach growled so loud I feared they’d hear me.
They camped beside a wagon with a tarp strung from the side to posts pounded into the ground. I crouched, watching them, afraid to step into the open. I didn’t see a corral for horses or any livestock that might pull the wagon. Were these women stranded? Perhaps victims of thievery? I thought of the Smith brothers again. Had they been here? The laughter I’d heard said no, but people had a way of rising to the occasion when tragedy struck, and they had each other to see them through.
When I looked back to the campfire, the golden woman had finished her story. She sat beside the young Negro woman, who looked, upon closer inspection, much younger than my seventeen. The larger woman still hovered over her skillets, scorched skirts perilously close to the fire, but the redhead was nowhere in sight. Their laughter drifted back to me, waking an ache so deep it hurt. There had been laughter at our campfire each night when Grandma, burdened though she was by her wheelchair, Momma, and I would clean up after our meal.
A snapping twig to my right caught me unaware and I spun around. I was face-to-face with the redhead. She gave a shout of surprise, eyes round as saucers, skirts bunched around her waist, knees bent in a squat. She stumbled backward and fell on her bare behind. Embarrassment rooted me to the spot. I looked away, sputtering an apology.
“Saint Mary and Joseph,” she exclaimed in a lilting Irish brogue as she struggled to stand, yanking her drawers up and her skirts down at once. In an instant, the women from the camp had surrounded us.
“Where you come from?” the large black woman exclaimed.
I opened my mouth to answer, but the Irish woman interrupted me. “You’re head to
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