The Man with No Name: A Historical Romance
By Montana Dawn

A man with no name comes upon the weather-beaten ranch house of the widow Karina Jameson, laiden with four sacks of gold and a strange story of granting her husband's dying wish. She gives him a good meal, a place to rest his horse and a bed for the night. He stays a week, and then is gone, leaving her the gold and his heart and a promise to return when he finds his name. Who is he? And what will he find when he searches for a name for his legacy?

CHAPTER ONE 
       

     The man with no name let his horse stumble to a stop in the front yard of the weathered ranch house. He sat on the weary animal’s back for a moment longer, knowing he should climb out of the saddle, let the beast rest his legs, take those heavy saddle bags off, and get him over to that tank of water. But the man, now that he saw a barn, some shade, and the possibility of a night’s rest, felt the same relief as the horse. He let all-consuming weariness invade his back and shoulders.

Before the wave of exhaustion passed to his thighs, he shifted his weight onto his left foot and swung his right leg over the haunches of his dusty sorrel. Gathering the reins, he let the horse plod along after him as he strode towards the shaded front porch.

A woman emerged from the front door just as he reached the bottom step, saving him the energy it would take to climb to the porch and knock on the door jamb. Grateful to the two dogs who had been announcing his arrival for the past five minutes, he waited for her to call them off. She did so with a couple of canine names he didn’t catch, sharp words that turned the loud, snarling mongrels into stiff-legged curs circling his horse and avoiding his eyes. He ignored them, never having considered them a threat. He knew them for what they were, alarms only, no real harm to a man with a rifle in his saddle boot and a revolver on his hip.

“You got a name, Mister?” the woman demanded.

His eyes raked her form from the wisps of ashen hair escaping the long braid at her back to the narrow waist cinched above a plain, home-spun skirt.  His gaze paused on  the soft brown eyes above a small, pert nose and her well-rounded breasts. He realized he hadn’t looked at an ordinary, respectable woman in a very long time, and he liked what he saw. The task he’d given himself two months ago, the one that ended here, at Jameson’s ranch, suddenly didn’t seem so burdensome, and some of the weight lifted off his shoulders.

“Hard to remember,” he admitted. “Last man I spent any time with called me Rubio, uh, Goldie.”

Her face took on a look of confusion. She couldn’t see the gold glints in his dusty hair, hidden under his hat, and she wouldn’t understand the irony. Marco had called him Rubio as a joke. It was almost a feminine name, from the Spanish Rubia, meaning a blonde woman. Marco meant something more like a White Man or Gringo, just as he’d called the brute they outwitted Angel for the way his sweet face hid the devil inside his skull. The man who couldn’t remember his own name had taken a liking to Marco’s nickname. It suited him, being named something the opposite of what he really was, seemingly weak and slow until he proved himself deadly with a gun.

“Or Carson. That will do,” he improvised. For the first time since he could remember, he cared what someone thought of him. The slight frown between her eyebrows disappeared.

“You look tired and thirsty, Mr. … Carson,” the woman said, knowing that wasn’t his real name. “You’re a long way from town. Would you and your horse like some water, a place to rest?”

He nodded, appreciating the fact that he didn’t have to ask. “Thank you, ma’am. The horse needs both water and rest. How far to Trinidad?”

“Twenty-two miles. You can stay here the night,” she invited, pointing to the barn just beyond the yard. A stock tank stood just inside the corral, next to a windmill.

Again he nodded. “You’re the widow Jameson?”

She narrowed her eyes before wrapping her arms around her breasts, shielding herself from his penetrating gaze. Well she should. He had taken too long and too hard a look at the curves above her waist.

“Karina Jameson,” she nodded. “My late husband was Bill Jameson.”

The man without a name nodded and touched the brim of his hat. “I was with him when he died. He asked me to bring you a message.”

She relaxed her tense shoulders and lowered her arms. “Well, then, you’ll be having dinner with me, and telling me all about it. Water and feed your horse, and get yourself settled, then come on over for some food.”

The man who sometimes thought of himself as Rubio Carson touched the brim of his hat again, nodded, and turned to his weary horse. The animal had seen the water tank, and gladly stepped off in that direction when he released the reins. The man made no effort to repress either the horse’s enthusiasm for the water and rest, or his own eagerness for the upcoming meal.

* * *

“More pot roast?” Karina asked her guest, a serving fork in her hand as it hovered over the platter. She had brought out the good dishes, the ones she rarely used because she didn’t want to chip them. She hadn’t served anything on this blue and white china for more than a year.

“Thank you, ma’am. I could eat some more,” he agreed, wiping his mouth with a napkin.

Karina caught herself smiling at him, as much with pleasure at his desire for more of her food as at his manners. It had been a long time since she’d had a man sit at her table and remember how to use one of her linen napkins instead of the back of his hand.

“Help yourself to more carrots, beans, potatoes, and gravy, too,” she urged him.

He met her eyes, straight on, piercing gray eyes that brought a big lump to the middle of her throat and kept her from breathing.

“You must have experience of men coming off the Llano Estacado,” he said of the flat, featureless plain to the south, from which he had had just come. “We must all arrive thirsty and with empty bellies.”

“I’ve seen no man survive that plain,” she admitted, “without an Apache guide. I’ll admit I’m curious how you made it.”

Carson quirked a corner of his thin lips up in a rueful smile. “I’ve lived to cross a worse desert, thanks to your late husband.”

Karina waited while he refilled his plate, and she poured him another cup of coffee. When he seemed satisfied with the quantity of food before him, she urged him to tell his story. “What happened? Tell me about William.”

Swallowing a mouthful of food, the gray-eyed stranger glanced at her. “His name was really William? William Jameson?”

“Yes. Why? Did you know him by another name?”

She watched the impassive face of the handsome man sitting across her table. His gaze didn’t flinch as he shoved another forkful of pot roast, dripping with gravy, into his mouth. She knew what alias her husband often adopted, and where this man who called himself Carson had taken his assumed name.

“Bill had family in the north. I supposed when he went to fight for the South in Texas, he might not use his real name,” she explained.

 “He never told you about the payroll?”

That wasn’t the question Karina expected. The stranger favored her with his penetrating, gray eyes, eyes that could see into a woman’s soul. Would a man like him know what to do with what he saw there?

“Payroll? No. I don’t know anything about a payroll,” she admitted.

“Jameson was with a group of Texans that robbed the Colorado Volunteers of their payroll. Secret like that breeds distrust. No one in Jameson’s platoon is alive today.”

Karina watched the man who called himself Carson spear a succulent chunk of roast beef with his fork and raise it to his mouth.

“How much?” she asked.

“Two hundred thousand, in double eagles.”

Karina couldn’t even imagine such wealth. What would one person do with all that gold?

“Where is it now?” she asked.

“A man named Marco has half of it,” Blondie grimaced. “Assuming he’s still alive.” He hesitated and quirked a half smile.  “No, he’s alive. Son of a –.” He stopped, evidently remembering he was in the company of a respectable woman. “That man is too tough to die. He’s probably looking for me, but I don’t think he’ll follow me north across the Llano Estacado.”

“And the rest?”

“Jameson, he told me what to do with the rest.”

He didn’t look at her, just kept eating her pot roast and caramelized onions. He seemed to enjoy her food, but she had lost all of her appetite.

“Is that the message you bring to me?” she asked after a minute of his silent eating.

Carson pushed back his plate. Only a smear of gravy marred the surface of the blue and white china. He took a sip of the coffee from the delicate cup, and wiped his mouth on the white napkin. Finally he met her eyes.

“Your husband was dying. ‘Get me water,’ he begged, ‘and I’ll give you my greatest treasures.’” The man with no name looked away, as if he had done something reprehensible.

After he sipped his coffee, he continued. “I gave him the canteen, all of it, and then asked him what the treasures were. He told me where he had buried the gold. I guess he knew he was going to die.”

Karina looked away before asking, “And his other treasure?”

Karina waited, her gaze now fixed on the gray eyes that drifted over her form. She felt a flush rise to her face, one brought on by his close scrutiny. She should resent the way he looked at her, but for some reason, she didn’t. She didn’t feel threatened by this grim-looking, but oh-so-attractive man. He made no alarming moves, his body stayed relaxed, he spoke with courtesy and used better manners than she had seen in a man for years. She didn’t want to insult him by seeming to take offense at anything he did or said.

“Jameson said he had one other treasure. His wife. His words were, ‘One treasure to care for another. It’s only right.’”

Karina blinked. William had thought about her after all, there at the end. Running off to war, leaving her alone, claiming he’d bring her riches, from a war that could only impoverish all those who fought in it. She thought he’d run away, left her alone to fend for herself. She thought he’d gone and broken her heart.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “I don’t understand.”

He shook his head. “I don’t either. He died with the next breath.”

Karina sat across the table from the man who called himself Carson, not knowing what to say. He had come to her aging ranch house, with its leaking roof and doors that wouldn’t lock, and told her that her husband had died speaking of her as if she meant a great deal to him.  Had this man come to comply with a dying request?

“So you have the gold?” she dared to ask him.

“In the barn.”

She regarded him with a steady gaze. He returned her look with one that said nothing.

“You have room for pie?” she asked, not allowing her heart to stop beating, nor her mind to dwell on the answer to her question. She didn’t know him, or what he proposed to do with the gold he had put in her barn.

His thin lips curved up into a smile, one that revealed strong, white teeth. “What kind?”

“Cherry.”

He appeared to consider her offer for a moment before allowing the smile to transform his face into a thing of beauty. “I think so,” he agreed.

* * *

He drew in another lungful of the cigar smoke, letting the flavor linger in his mouth and nasal passages. Some men favored whiskey, but not the man who couldn’t remember the name his mother had given him. The small, aromatic cigars called cheroots hooked him with that numbing calm on lips, nose, and mind, especially after any meal. After the dinner he’d just shared with Jameson’s widow, he especially required the sharp, narcotic tang in his mouth.

He leaned up against the rail on Karina Jameson’s porch and watched the top edge of the flaming sun slip below the western horizon. One moment it flared a brilliant orange. The next, the deep blue hues of the night sky swallowed the dwindling glow. Not a wisp of a cloud caught an errant beam of reflected light. Faster than he could count them, stars began to pop out of the darkening sky, and a cool breeze puffed the cigar smoke back into his face.

He crushed the inch-long cheroot stub into the heel of his boot just as Mrs. Jameson opened the screen door of her parlor and came out onto her porch.

“It’s going to be a pleasant evening,” she offered politely.

He nodded, caught speechless by the halo of silver created by the light of the lamp in her front parlor as it passed through the fine hairs escaping her ashen-blond braid. Before he could stop himself, he rose from the rail and reached toward her. His fingers brushed her cheek.

She turned her head, not away from him, as he expected, but towards him, colliding with his hand, her lips opening to say something and closing on his rough knuckle in the imitation of a kiss. He felt a jolt of desire surge straight to his loins. With the utmost of control, he stifled a moan from deep in his chest.

She cleared her throat, but didn’t take her eyes away from his.

“I have more coffee. Do you want another cup before I throw it out?” she asked. Her voice held steady. He wondered if his would do the same when he replied.

Not daring to risk betraying how she affected him, he simply nodded and followed her back into the house, hoping she’d keep her back to him until he could slide the bulge at his groin under the table.

“William may have left some whiskey. I can look for it, if you like,” she offered as she poured two cups of coffee.

“The coffee’s fine,” he managed to rasp, genuinely not wanting any liquor. He watched her as she sat the cup in front of him, and then moved to fetch the cream, a luxury he rarely indulged.

He tore his eyes away from her narrow waist. If he didn’t, he’d be staring at her breasts again, something he’d done too much of already this evening.

“How do you manage here, by yourself?” he asked, hoping to distract himself.

“Neighbors help. I hire two or three cowhands when I need them to round up the herd. Branding time, you know, or to take the steers to market.”

“You’ll have the suitors lined up, more proposals than you know what to do with, rich widow like you,” he observed.

“Am I rich?” she asked, sharply.

A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Jameson wanted you to be.”

He bet she didn’t need to hire a man for more personal services, the kind he had more and more of a mind to provide for her, given the least sign she would welcome them. The good food and the coffee had revived him, made him feel more alive than he had for days. He felt urges he’d forgotten he had.

A brief frown creased her forehead, and she looked away from him, shifting in her chair.

“I suppose a rich widow could go anywhere she wanted, San Francisco, St. Louis, Boston. Set up a nice house, spend the day visiting with neighbors.” She stared into the lamplight on the table as she pictured such a future.

“Find herself a rich man to spend her evenings with. Go to plays, and musical performances, if that’s the sort of thing she likes,” he contributed to the daydream.

“Travel around the world. See places she’s never even heard of before,” Karina continued, the crease above her eyebrows disappearing.

“If that’s what she wanted,” the man without a name breathed. He’d had the same kind of thoughts. It hadn’t occurred to him that he’d find a like mind at the edge of the Llano Estacado, wearing homespun skirts and a long braid down her back.

“She’d need a companion, someone who didn’t get tired of new places or strange food,” she mused. She waited, but when he didn’t say anything, she added, “Someone who didn’t drink too much.”

The man with the streaks of gold in his hair pulled one long leg from under the table and rested it beneath his chair. She knew he didn’t want her husband’s whiskey. Was this the invitation he awaited? His cock throbbed beneath his belt. Every word, every phrase that came from those moist lips could be read as encouragement to a man thirsting for the comfort of an experienced woman, a woman with no man.  How much longer should he wait to see if she meant what he thought she said? If he stood now, she would see how much he wanted her. Hell, a bat could see the rod in his pants from a hundred yards.

He leaned forward, closing the gap between his abdomen and the table, taking no chances she might catch a glimpse of the monster lurking in his lap.

“Me, I like new places,” he agreed. “I’m not one to stay anywhere for long.”

This was dangerous ground, so he changed the subject. “But now, the horse and I both need rest. If we could stay a few days, I’d be glad to do some chores, whatever you need a man to do around the place.” And I mean that, in all ways, he thought, schooling his face to prevent a leer.

She smiled, a slight flush creeping across her cheeks. Had his lust been so blatant after all?

“Why, that’ll be just fine, Mr. … Carson.” She stumbled on his invented name.  Refusing to meet his eyes, she reached for his empty coffee cup and skittered over to wash basin, giving him leave to go.

He rose and walked to the door, hoping to escape before she caught him in his state of arousal. He heard the swish of her skirts behind him. Her nearness made him clumsy. Pulling open the screen door to walk out, he had to step back. He collided with her. Turning, he found himself holding her, an act he had tried so hard to avoid, yet had desired so greatly.

The damage done, he could no longer control his weary body. He tightened his grip, pulling her closer, all the time watching her honey-brown eyes for signs of alarm. He saw none. She melted into his embrace, her curves fitting his hollows, as if she had been made for him. Painfully aware of his own erection, he pressed it against her thigh, letting her know his state of arousal. She tensed for a moment, and then returned the pressure, telling him with the simple motion that she would accommodate his need. He drew in a shuddering breath, before dropping his lips to hers.

When she pulled away from him, it was to take a gasp of air, for he hadn’t let her breathe. She stepped away from him, a smile of wonder on her face, and took his hand in hers.

“You’ll leave the barn to the animals tonight,” she told him in a tone that brooked no argument. “My bed will hold two comfortably, and I want you with me tonight.”

Dumbfounded, he followed where she led. He’d never felt so out of control. A gunslinger, quick on the draw, he felt helpless to take independent action. As if he’d drunk a full bottle of whiskey instead of a simple cup of coffee, he could no more keep from following her than a baby in the freezing cold could stop from crying. The man without a name trailed the woman into her bedroom and stood staring at her, stupidly, while she shut the door behind him.

The door blocked the dwindling light from the parlor windows, and cast the bedroom into a dim twilight. Through a lustful haze, he watched her glide across the bare, wooden floor, strike a match, and light a single, tall candle in an ordinary tin holder. She turned back towards him, her breasts heaving more rapidly than they should have after the short walk from the front door to the bedside. She hesitated only a brief moment before smiling and reaching out for him.

Her hand, a magnet, pulled him towards her. He didn’t understand the attraction. He’d been with women before, women with lush curves and painted faces, intoxicating smells and gaudy clothing. He’d shown them his coins and watched them hide the money in a safe place, then they’d offered a bare leg or breast for him to caress. He liked to touch women’s bodies, especially women he knew he’d never see again. Each one was different, satisfying his need, without asking any questions.

He knew instinctively this time would be different. He wouldn’t be satisfied with one time with Mrs. Jameson. She’d leave him wanting more, far more. And she would torment him with questions, even if she never said a word. He should shut his eyes, grab hold of his iron will, turn his back on her and go to the barn. Leave with his tired horse in the morning, before he laid eyes on her again. Do what he came to do and leave.

She touched the outer rim of his ear with a light fingertip, and he felt overwhelming desire surge like a bolt of lightning to his cock. Instead of using his strength to leave her, he concentrated instead on not embarrassing himself by engaging in premature gunfire. If she insisted on this engagement, then he would give her what she wanted.

In the first movement over which he felt he had some control, he lifted his hand and deliberately encased her left breast.  She smiled and moaned as he brushed his thumb across the pebble-hard nipple under the thin layers of cotton blouse and chemise.  With his other hand, he traced the curve of her back to her waist, slipping down until he cupped her bottom through the skirt and petticoats. The sound deep in his throat might have been a growl. He hoped that the animal in him didn’t frighten her.

Apparently not. Instead of pulling away, she pressed her heavenly body against his, accepting his rock hard erection in the hollow area between her thigh and belly. Her arms encircled his torso, hands interleaving between his leather vest and his cotton shirt, fingers pressing into his muscles, kneading the hardness of his back and shoulders.

She smiled at him, pulling the tails of his shirt out of his trousers. He cast her a look of mock alarm.

“After only one kiss?” he asked.

“That counted as more than one kiss,” she replied in all seriousness.

“I like kissing a woman,” he admitted, putting action to words, capturing her lips under his and tasting her again. Ah, yes, just as sweet as before, those stabs of desire that flamed with every little twitch and movement of her generous mouth. He focused on that beautiful, rosy-edged orifice, slipping his tongue around hers, nibbling at her lips, teasing at the edges of her mouth with both tongue and teeth until he made her laugh with the joy of his play. Just as he felt the little tremors of chuckles begin in her belly, he cupped her breast again, and lightly pinched the stony nipple. The laugh turned into a gasp of intense pleasure.

Without taking his attention from Karina’s breast, the man without a name deftly shoved shell buttons through their holes, revealing more and more creamy skin. When all six buttons had parted from their closures, he let himself enjoy the sight of her wearing only her chemise. He had seen too many whores using corsets in naughty ways. How refreshingly erotic a simple chemise could be, the darker areola of this woman’s nipple showing through the thin cotton, her natural shape begging a man to strip away the final layer of cloth to reveal her in all her naked glory.

As his gaze lingered on the dark cleavage between her breasts, Karina did not let the man’s idleness go to waste. She took advantage of his obvious distraction and began to work at his buttons. He stared at the darkened shapes beneath the thin cotton of her chemise, as she slipped the white china disks through their holes, and pulled aside his shirt, exposing finely honed muscle, sprinkled with fair hair, and not a few white or pink scars from old wounds. He watched the increasing pace of the rise and fall of her soft breasts through the thin cloth of her chemise as more and more of his skin lay exposed to her view. The rapid rise and fall of those darkened places as she toyed with his buttons made his cock strain against his trousers.

It was not long before he stood before her wearing only his jeans and his boots.

“This is the way I have wanted to see you since you first rode into my yard,” Karina admitted, running light hands across his bare shoulders. “You’re younger than I thought.”

He chuckled a little, deep in his chest, knowing that the sun and wind had made his face and hands prematurely old. “I suppose I’m only about thirty,” he admitted, knowing he looked a good decade older in his dusty clothes. Without his shirt, the smooth skin on his chest and upper arms made him much closer in age to the woman he held in his arms.

He saw the lust for him flare greater in her eyes, knowing they were of an age, not separated by years of wear, disease and misery. Agony, perhaps, gun battles, and who knew what sorts of miseries women suffer, but not so much different in the end than men, perhaps. The leavening of time seemed to bring them closer.

He began to unbutton her chemise, his eyes all the while riveted to the cleavage that dipped between her breasts. As the last button parted from its hole, he paused, looking deep into her eyes. She smiled, another invitation, admiring the open desire she saw in those deep, gray eyes. She could not have missed the glitter of amusement he felt  as he crooked the corners of his mouth up into an open grin.

“Ah, woman. I do want you,” he breathed.

Her grin widened. She reached for his hand, guiding it to the opening of her chemise. “As I do you,” she answered. She placed his calloused palm under the unprotected weight of her naked breast, and pulled aside the limp, cotton chemise so he could see what he held.

A shock of pleasure took him, rocking him from hand to cock and back again. It seemed to affect her much the same way, from the look on her face, the way her eyelids fluttered, focused one moment on his face, the next on some inner delight. The sensation of pure, untainted joy reverberated back and forth from her body to his until he didn’t know where it began or ended. Who helped the other with which one’s clothing, how it came off, or when they moved from standing up next to the bed to lying down on it, he couldn’t recall later. Everything became pure sensation, the pleasure of her touch growing into the need to caress her, the desire to feel her handle him urging him to taste and nibble and suck where he never would have thought a man might want or need or even dream to do such a thing to a respectable woman he had just met.

Suddenly, she clutched at him, as if she felt herself falling, loose over a cliff, with nothing to hold onto but a man without a name. She clung to, but in such a way that he knew he wasn’t where she wanted him. Twisting around, he fell between her legs, filling her and surrounding her at the same time, thrusting in, pushing her deeper into the void, but giving her everything he had promised in the moments leading up to this climax. Holding back, knowing intuitively what was needed, he thrust, slowly, deeply, steadily, as her woman’s parts convulsed around that part of him that was most man. Crushing her cheek against his bearded jaw, she cried “Man!” into his ear.

He responded with a long, deep thrust that ended with a shudder and gasp before he collapsed, pulling her with him as he rolled them to their sides. He did not let them disjoin, did in fact thrust in again as the connection loosened.

“Karina,” he rasped into her hair. “You got me.”

She heard something like despair in his voice, so she had to ask.

“Is that so bad?”

The answer he gave came in the form of a gentle snore.

* * *

The morning Karina woke and found herself in bed alone, she wasn’t surprised, except that he had stayed as long as he had, more than a week. She had not figured him for the staying kind of man, and the horse had seemed ready to travel after three or four days. Four sacks of gold on her kitchen table surprised her even more. She had expected a gunman with no name to be mercenary, and to take it all with him. Instead, he had left all of the gold with her.

The note lay under one of the heavy bags.

I may have started a young-un. He’ll need a name. 
            Gone to find it. Back soon as it’s done.

He’ll need a father, too. My heart is yours, if you want it.

So he was the staying kind, after all.

If you enjoyed the first chapter of
The Man with No Name,
please contact Montana Dawn at

montdawn@msn.com

If you are a publisher or an agent,
Montana Dawn will be happy to entertain solitations.