Welcome back, tiny, select audience of fabulous Dusty's Trail readers! Here goes with another plot-what-plot chapter about the meandering BUSTY relationship.
Will they, won't they? Oh just get on and do it!
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"You two lovebirds behavin' yourselves in there?" came Lulu's voice from outside the wagon.
Betsy blushed and took her hand away from Dusty's forehead. She had been stroking his hair while he dozed. "Yes, Lulu, we're behaving ourselves."
The showgirl hauled herself up into the wagon, rocking it slightly and bringing Dusty out of a light snooze. He blinked sleepily and tried to sit up, then remembered he was in the back of the wagon and fell back onto the pillows and cushions with a contented sigh.
"We-ell, look at you, all wrapped up like a bug in a rug," Lulu grinned, eyeing his supine form covered in blankets from neck to toe. "All right for some, huh?"
"I could tell you where the ant nest is if you want a day off for yourself," Dusty retorted, wriggling his shoulders into the pillows to get even more comfortable.
Lulu gathered her skirts and sat down on a small wooden stool next to Betsy. She rested her elbows on her knees and leaned forward to tug gently at the blanket. "So, Dusty. Tell me where you got bit," she chuckled.
Dusty, his eyes shut, frowned and pursed his lips. "You all know where I got bit," he said. "Everywhere."
"Everywhere?" Lulu said saucily.
"Everywhere," Dusty confirmed. "Even on my ear."
"You bin rubbin' in that potion?"
"Yes, Lulu."
"Everywhere?"
"Yes, Lulu."
Lulu laughed softly and tugged the blanket again. "If you need any help gettin' into those hard-to-reach places, just give ol' Lulu a shout, huh?"
"Lulu!" exclaimed Betsy, fidgeting with mortified embarrassment.
Dusty pulled a hand out from underneath the blanket and smacked Lulu's wrist. He was grinning, although his eyes were still closed. "Ain't no place I can't reach, Lulu," he said mildly.
"Sure now? Cause there might be some you missed."
"Nope. I got 'em all. Plus, Betsy helped me."
"She did?" Lulu turned to Betsy and eyed the prim schoolteacher up and down. "Little Miss Shy ain't quite so shy these days it seems."
"Lulu, please!" said Betsy, her face burning. "Poor Dusty's been though a terrible time. You shouldn't joke about it. I helped put the potion on his back and shoulders, not anywhere else, if you must know."
"And my legs, Betsy," said Dusty, helpfully.
"Just the lower half," Betsy added quickly.
"Just the lower half, huh." Lulu looked at Dusty, who seemed quite happy reclining on his cushions being fussed over. "Well, it looks to me like he's havin' about as terrible a time as the King of Arabia. I bet you'd be feedin' him grapes one by one, if we had any."
"Hey, that would be neat," Dusty agreed, opening his eyes to look sidelong at Betsy. "Would you feed me grapes if we had any, Betsy?"
Betsy straightened her shoulders and asserted herself. "I don't think you're quite that helpless, Dusty."
"Still. It'd be neat, bein' fed grapes."
Lulu laughed throatily and nudged Betsy. "See. He ain't so dumb."
"Maybe you could cut up an apple into small pieces and feed me those," said Dusty, hopefully.
"Would you listen to His Royal Highness," Lulu grinned. "Dusty, you sure you ain't a Brookhaven?" She leaned back on her stool and reached for her silver hand mirror, primping her towering blonde curls. "Anyway, I came in here to tell you that Cal and Andy caught some kinda fish in that river. They might be arguin' over whether it's salmon or not, but at least we got somethin' for supper now besides beans and boot leather."
"I sure wish I'd been down there helpin' 'em," said Dusty sadly. "We'd-a had twice as many fish by now with three of us instead of two."
"Dusty, no offence, but I reckon the only thing you'd catch is yourself by the seat of your own pants," Lulu teased.
Mr. Callahan's deep voice and Andy's cheerful one could now be heard coming back to camp. Lulu primped her curls one more time and got up to leave the wagon. "Hey, Dusty- should I tell Cal you volunteered to clean the fish?"
"Ugh, Lulu," said Betsy, squirming at the thought of scales and fish guts.
"You can tell him I volunteered to eat the fish," Dusty said, folding his hands behind his head and deliberately settling even further into the pillows.
Lulu left the wagon, still laughing to herself and muttering something about The Sheik of Araby. When she was gone, Betsy looked at Dusty and shook her head, smiling at his expression of relaxed contentment.
"If Mr. Callahan sees you looking so pleased with yourself, he'll set you back to work before sundown," she told him. "You'll be out there greasing axles before you know it."
"Mr. Callahan wouldn't do that to me," Dusty asserted. "Not in my condition."
Betsy smiled, leaned closer to him. "You don't look in too bad a condition to me," she said gently.
"Ow," Dusty grimaced. "I'm in agony."
"You will be, if Mr. Callahan thinks you're pretending," Betsy said, reaching out to brush his hair back as she'd been doing before Lulu appeared.
"That's nice, Betsy," he murmured, closing his eyes again. "Sure, the ant bites hurt, but you bein' here makes me feel a whole lot better."
"I wouldn't want to be anywhere else," she confessed.
Dusty revelled in the feel of Betsy's gentle, soothing touch against his brow. "What about swingin' on the porch of your little house with the white picket fence?"
Trust him to remember that.
"Right now? I still think I'd rather be here."
"I wouldn't," Dusty said, pulling a face. "You know where I'd rather be? I'd rather be sittin' at a soda fountain eatin' the biggest banana split ice cream sundae you ever saw, with two bananas and four scoops of vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce all over." He licked his lips and made satisfied murmurs of pleasure as he imagined devouring this sweet sticky treat.
"And what about me, Dusty?"
"You said you'd rather be here."
"Wouldn't you want me with you at the soda fountain?"
"You can't be in two places at once."
"Okay then, I wouldn't want to be here if you weren't here. I'd rather be sitting at the soda fountain with you."
"You would?" Dusty looked genuinely excited. "Wow. I don't have enough money for two sundaes, but I'd share mine with you any day, Betsy." He smiled happily at the thought.
"I'd like some raspberry sauce on my half," Betsy sighed. "Plus a sweet red cherry."
"And if we kissed after, you'd taste of chocolate and raspberry and vanilla and banana and cherry," Dusty said, looking like he'd just discovered a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
"And so would you," Betsy replied, feeling a small thrill ripple through her from head to toe.
"And I wouldn't smell of ant potion."
Betsy leaned closer. "I don't even notice it any more."
Their lips touched.
"Mmm, raspberry," murmured Dusty.
They kissed slowly.
After a few moments, Dusty slipped his arm around Betsy's shoulders and gently pulled her off her small wooden chair and onto the blanket.
"Dusty..." she protested feebly, before giving in and resuming the kiss, this time lying next to him, with him beneath the blanket and her on top of it.
The sounds from outside, Cal and Lulu and Andy and the clatter of pans and buckets and the creaking of the wagon and the horses whinnying on the outskirts of the clearing, they all seemed to recede into the distance, becoming swirled and muted and far away, as though underwater. Time drew in on itself and sat huddled and waiting in the warm afternoon as Dusty and Betsy kissed, Dusty's arm around her shoulders and his other hand in her thick, dark hair, while Betsy's hand rested safely on his chest and the fingers of her other hand clutched tightly to a corner of his pillow.
"Mmm. Vanilla," Dusty said softly. "Chocolate...and cherry..."
Betsy caught a faint whiff of something and wrinkled her nose, her lips breaking free of Dusty's. "Fish," she said.
"Vanilla, chocolate, cherry and fish?" said Dusty, aghast.
Betsy's mouth drew downwards at the same time as her eyebrows puckered. "I can smell fish," she said in disgust.
Dusty sniffed the air. "Oh yeah, so can I. Andy must be cleaning our supper." His eyes brightened. "Which is good, because I'm starved."
"It's foul," Betsy muttered. "The wind must be blowing it this way."
"It ain't as bad as the ant potion," said Dusty, trying to kiss her again.
"Dusty, it's dreadful!"
"Betsy? Can't we go back to tastin' vanilla and chocolate and cherries?" he pleaded.
He looked so mournful then that Betsy forgot all about the fish smell and kissed him again. This time he wrapped both arms around her and held her even closer, and the hand that she had placed on his chest moved up to his neck and flattened itself against the heat of his skin. She felt the hard beat of his pulse against her palm. What on earth would her mother say if she saw this kind of behaviour?
Out here though, wherever they were, halfway between East and West and Heaven and Hell for all she knew, the rules were different. Okay, maybe not all the rules, but a lot of them. The ones that told her she had to be a good girl, always- they had definitely altered. Why, she and Dusty were altering them right now. How else could she explain the sudden urge to crawl under the blanket and feel his hands all over her?
It was then that Betsy heard her mother's voice as loud and clear as a bell inside her head. Elizabeth! What do you think you're doing! Get away from that filthy boy- right this minute!
Shocked into obeying, even though the voice was inside of her own head, Betsy pushed herself off Dusty's chest and hauled herself into a sitting position, pushing her wayward hair out of her face and straightening her blouse and skirts. Her face burned and her lungs squeezed out torn scraps of air. "W-what am I doing?" she murmured, then realised she'd said it out loud.
Dusty's eyes grew wide. He too pushed himself up off the pillows. "Oh, my Gosh, I'm sorry Betsy, I don't know what made me do that, it's just...I was just...you know..." he trailed off, mumbling about banana splits and chocolate sauce and then stopped talking altogether. He stared at her as if she'd slapped him.
"Oh, Dusty, what are we going to do?" she said, desperately.
"I don't know," he replied, looking panicked. "Nobody ever asks me that!" He looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, "I know- let's run away together!"
"What?" Betsy looked startled, then nonplussed. "Dusty, I was being serious!"
"So was I!" came the indignant answer.
"'Let's run away'?" Betsy sighed. "First of all, we're already running away, the whole wagon train heading west is like running away. And second, we're already lost, so where would we run to if we don't even know where we are now? And third, Dusty, what would you and I do if we did run away?"
"I don't know- you asked!" Dusty felt silly now, sitting there in his undershirt in the middle of the afternoon and only covered by a blanket. "We could, I don't know, join an Indian tribe. They'd never find us there."
"Dusty, I don't want to run away, get even more lost or join an Indian tribe! I was only thinking about how we're supposed to...you know, control our feelings for each other."
"Oh. That," said Dusty, falling back onto the pillows.
"Yes, that."
Dusty stared up at the curved wagon hoops and the grubby tarpaulin stretched over them. His ant bites started itching. "Betsy, can you hand me my ant potion?" he asked plaintively.
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Betsy sat outside with her chin in her hand. Dusty hadn't answered any of her questions and had eventually shooed her outside so that he could apply the foul smelling ant potion. No, he didn't need any help, thank you. He'd looked fed up and frustrated. Once again a beautiful kiss had turned into an awkward situation. But how could it have turned out any other way? Betsy had been sprawled out on the blanket with him, acting like a wanton hussy, even if she hadn't meant to be. Then she'd just as quickly turned off the heat. The heat that had been threatening to engulf them both.
She sighed, recalling the feel of his lips on hers. She was beginning to want it all the time, that gentle caress, the way he had of making the whole world disappear while he kissed her. And the chaste way in which he held her- he had never once let his hands stray near any part of her that was inappropriate for him to touch.
Unfortunately, it was that very chasteness that just seemed to make the fires burn hotter.
A thumping, banging noise from inside the wagon made her look round. "Dusty? What are you doing in there?" she called.
"I'm gettin' dressed," came a mumbled retort. "I ain't lazin' around all day no more."
Betsy got up and went to the back of the wagon, standing near the tailgate without looking in. "But Dusty, you're not meant to be up and about just yet. Andy said you needed to keep those bites clean and not let them get infected, at least until they've gone down!"
"Everyone thinks I'm lazy," Dusty muttered.
"No-one thinks you're lazy, little pal," said Mr. Callahan, surprising both Betsy and Dusty who didn't even know the big wagonmaster was in the vicinity. "You break those bites you'll be in bigger trouble than y'already are. Now get back in that bed."
Betsy and Mr. Callahan both heard Dusty's huge, dramatic sigh.
"Yes, Mr. Callahan."
Mr. Callahan patted Betsy's arm and winked. "There," he whispered. "He's had his little protest, now he'll rest easy."
When Dusty was once more down to his underclothes and back under the blankets, Betsy again joined him in the wagon.
"Don't laugh at me," he pouted when he saw her smiling.
"I'm not laughing at you, Dusty," Betsy smiled even more widely. "I was just thinking what a terrible patient you are. Maybe we should get Lulu back- you were fine when she was here."
"I wasn't kissin' Lulu," he said, still pouting.
Betsy looked at her hands, realising they were clasped primly in her lap. She twisted her thumbs together. "I heard my mother's voice," she said, looking everywhere but at his perplexed face. "Telling me to stop."
"Your mother? When did your mother get here?" Dusty asked incredulously. "And how did she get here? And where is she now? Is she with Mr. and Mrs. Brookhaven?"
"My mother isn't here, Dusty, that's the silliness of it. I just thought I heard her voice saying what I knew she would say if she saw me kissing a man the way I was...the way you were...the way we were kissing."
"Oh." Dusty frowned. "I guess she wasn't too happy, huh."
"Oh, Dusty, my mother would have a fit if she saw how I was behaving. She wouldn't even approve of holding hands unless both our sets of parents had all been formally introduced and we'd been on half a dozen chaperoned dates first."
Dusty pushed himself back into the pillows. "Really?"
Betsy nodded. "I guess you didn't have quite a strict upbringing, did you?"
"Not that strict," he shook his head in sympathy.
"Oh, Dusty, I feel so confused. I like you a lot, but I know how much my mother and daddy would be disappointed in me right now."
"Why would they be disappointed?" Dusty asked. "What have you done wrong? You're not a horse rustler or a bank robber or an escaped prisoner or a jewel thief or a low down, dirty, rotten varmint. You're not any of those things. You're the kindest, nicest person I know, and you're a schoolteacher and you're heading out West to teach all the poor kids how to read and write. They should be more proud of you than anything. And if I ever meet them, that's what I'll say." he squared his shoulders assertively. "But maybe not the bit about the low down, dirty, rotten varmint."
"Why, Dusty, that's so sweet of you," Betsy said, her eyes moistening with tears. "I don't know why I worry so- I just want to do everything right."
He longed to put his arms around her. "Betsy, if the way I feel about you ain't right, then I don't know what is."
"Oh, me too, Dusty. Me too." With that, Betsy got off the chair and lay down on top of the blanket again, burying her face in his chest and letting him put his arms around her.
They lay like that for ages, Betsy held gently in Dusty's arms while he breathed rhythmically and comfortingly beneath her and the acrid smell of ant potion burned into her memory. Betsy had never felt this way about any man before. No-one made her heart flip quite the way Dusty did. He didn't even have to do anything- he just had to show up wearing that battered old hat with his hair and the sun in his eyes and if he fell over something, why that just made her heart flip twice. His gentle, happy nature and his forgiving attitude and his acceptance of his own limitations just made him stand taller in her eyes until she saw him as a giant. Nothing and no-one that made her feel this safe, this secure and this wanted, could ever possibly be wrong. This isn't wrong, mother. It isn't. So hold your tongue because I'm a grown woman now and I can make my own decisions.
After a little while, Dusty spoke. His voice broke through her silent reverie and reverberated through his chest making Betsy's cheek vibrate and all the hairs on the back of her neck stand up in a good way. "Betsy..." he began, slightly breathlessly.
"Yes, Dusty?" Betsy sighed, equally breathlessly, wondering what beautiful words would come out of his mouth and soothe her troubled mind.
"Do you think Andy's done guttin' those fish? Because I don't mind tellin' you- I'm starved!"
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