Part 16 (2/2)
When Anjanette had finished lathering the woman's back, she held the soap over Toots's right shoulder. ”Here.”
Toots sank down into the water and plucked the soap out of Anjanette's hand. Again, her eyes strayed across Anjanette's full b.r.e.a.s.t.s. ”I'll wash you.”
”No thanks.”
Toots frowned and put some steel in her voice. ”I wash you you.”
Anjanette held the woman's gaze. Was Toots, in her own awkward way, trying to bury the hatchet?
Anjanette shrugged, turned around.
”Bend down,” Toots ordered.
”Huh?”
”You're taller than me. Bend down a little.”
Anjanette bent forward. Toots began running her soap-lathered hands across Anjanette's back. She was a little chagrined at the pleasant sensation of the soft, soapy hands on her skin. Toots stopped scrubbing, touched her finger to a slight bruise just beneath Anjanette's right shoulder blade.
Anjanette sucked a sharp breath through her teeth.
”That hurt?” Toots asked.
Anjanette didn't answer.
Toots continued scrubbing, rubbing both palms up and down and across Anjanette's slender back. There was a faintly mocking tone in Toots's voice. ”Jack getting rough?”
”Nothing I can't handle.”
”One thing you can expect outta Jack.” Toots ran her right hand down under Anjanette's arm, sliding her fingers across the side of Anjanette's round, firm breast. ”He'll get rougher.”
”I can get pretty rough myself.” Anjanette clamped her arm taut against her side.
”Me, though,” Toots said, sliding her hand down Anjanette's other side and snaking it forward to cup that breast, palming the nipple. ”I can be slow . . . easy easy-like.”
Anjanette thrust Toots's hand away and turned, crossing her arms on her chest, an angry flush rising in her cheeks. ”I don't care how slow slow and and easy easy you are. Keep your hands off my t.i.ts and don't come near me again!” you are. Keep your hands off my t.i.ts and don't come near me again!”
There was no warning signal in Toots's eyes before she slammed the back of her right hand against Anjanette'sjaw-a stinging blow, a fire ripping through Anjanette's lower lip.
As Anjanette's head flew back, Toots leapt toward her, wrapping her hands around her neck. Anjanette tripped on the slippery rocks and fell on her back in the water. Toots fell on top of her, driving Anjanette's head under the water as her fingers pressed into her neck, pinching off her wind.
Anjanette thrashed, panicking as the back of her head was ground against the rocks and the water washed over her face.
She looked up through her own bursting air bubbles to see Toots's face pinched with fury just above the surface, teeth gritted. She ground her knees into Anjanette's chest and ribs and dug her fingertips into her throat, as though trying to claw out her windpipe.
Anjanette, choking on water, flailed with clawed hands, but Toots, grinning maniacally, tipped her head back out of reach. Feeling as though her lungs were about to explode, Anjanette raised her right leg and pushed off the river bottom with every ounce of her remaining strength.
Toots flew to the side, splashed into the river. At the same time, Anjanette bounded up, water flying off her body, sucking air down her battered throat between choking coughs, her nose burning. She'd barely gotten up when Toots was on her again, rising up out of the river and throwing her head into Anjanette's belly.
Again they went down, but this time Anjanette twisted, punching her right fist against Toots's cheek so hard that Anjanette's own knuckles barked painfully. The big woman screamed and tumbled sideways. As she lifted her head once more, Anjanette staggered toward her across the rocks, water splas.h.i.+ng up around her legs, and jabbed her again with her other fist.
Toots screamed as her head flew back, and one arm dropped in the water. When she turned toward Anjanette again, the left side of her bottom lip hung down like a b.l.o.o.d.y leech.
Fire flashed in Toots's eyes. With a great rumbling shriek rising from deep in her chest, she leapt toward Anjanette.
They went down together, rolled, struggled back to their feet, shared slaps and punches, grunting and yelling. As Anjanette turned to parry another in a series of vicious blows, she glimpsed the rest of the gang, which had dwindled to only seven or eight men, gathered along the sh.o.r.e in various states of dress.
Behind the webbing curtain of fog, they hooted and yipped and clapped. A couple of them, including Toots's brother, Tomas, were shaking hands as though a bet had been placed. Considine stood before a willow snag in only his long underwear, boots, and cartridge belt, fists on his hips, grinning bemusedly around a cold cigar.
Anjanette turned back toward Toots as the big woman lurched forward and gave Anjanette's right breast a savage twist. Anjanette cursed sharply. Laughter and applause rose on the riverbank.
Made lucid by fury, Anjanette ducked a haymaker, then brought her right fist up hard into Toots's plump belly. Toots spat out a Spanish epithet and dropped to her knees, then lurched forward and pulled Anjanette's feet out from under her. Anjanette hit the rocks hard. Knowing how fast Toots could move in spite of her size, Anjanette quickly regained her knees, but somehow Toots had wrapped her arms around the back of Anjanette's neck.
Snaking her hand under Toots's arms, Anjanette dropped her head and slung the big woman over her right shoulder.
”Ahhh!” Toots screamed, hitting the river on her side and sending up an enormous, thundering splash. Toots screamed, hitting the river on her side and sending up an enormous, thundering splash.
Again sucking air down her battered windpipe, Anjanette scrambled to her feet. Toots pushed onto her hands and knees, hanging her head with exhaustion, bleeding from the half dozen cuts and sc.r.a.pes on her face, arms, and knuckles.
Anjanette staggered before her, grabbed her under her arms, hoisted her up.
Toots's dark, dazed eyes met Anjanette's.
”If you know what's good for you”-Anjanette head-b.u.t.ted the big woman so hard that Toots's eyes rolled back in her head and she went limp in Anjanette's arms-”you'll stay the h.e.l.l away from me, b.i.t.c.h!”
Anjanette dropped her arms. Toots fell into the river, lolled on her back, arms and legs spreading out around her in the current. Covering her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with her arms, already feeling one of her eyes swell and licking blood from her split lips, Anjanette headed for sh.o.r.e.
The men standing on the bank were exchanging money. Considine held her blanket out while Mad Dog stood beside him, grinning and squinting through puffs of cigarette smoke.
”I'm impressed, Chiquita,” Considine said. ”Not many men, let alone women, have ever beaten Toots in a fair fight.”
Anjanette grabbed the blanket out of his hands, wrapped it around herself and under her arms, folding it closed. She sneered at Considine and Mad Dog, then stooped to gather her clothes and stalked off through the trees.
When Considine had pocketed the twenty dollars he'd won from Mad Dog, he turned and began walking back toward the ruins and Anjanette. Nothing got him randier than two women fighting naked.
He'd moved only a couple of yards before a Mexican-accented voice called, ”Hey, Boss. Look there!”
Considine turned. Toots's brother, Tomas, was out in the river helping his sister to sh.o.r.e. He'd stopped several yards from the bank and, holding the big woman with one arm, pointed toward the opposite side of the river.
Three horses stood at the edge of the water, staring toward Considine. The other men had begun dispersing and heading back to their morning coffee fires before Tomas had yelled. Considine stared at the horses. At first he didn't think they were carrying riders, but he saw now that he was wrong. They were carrying riders, all right- the riders were sitting backward on the saddles, and they were lying belly down across their cantles.
Unless the fog was creating some sort of illusion . . .
Considine threw his cheroot into the river. He glanced at Mad Dog, then moved into the river, heedless of the water rising over his boots and climbing past his knees and thighs. He took long strides against the stream, swinging his arms, frowning at the three horses watching him warily, snorting, twitching their ears and flicking their tails.
<script>