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crossed earlier. Late this afternoon, after the passage of the mules and cotton wagons, the river had been even cloudier than its normal red-brown color, but now its flow was darkly smooth and serene. The liveoak-lined banks were shrouded in darkness, lit only by the moon which had been full two nights ago. Frogs croaked in a chorus from the shadowy far bank, their song punctuated on this side by the hoot of an owl somwhere above him in the tree brances. The heat of the day had faded into a beautifully balmy summer night with just the hint of a breeze.
Behind the gnarled trunk of one of the liveoaks, Maria slipped off her clothes.
“All right, Bowie,” she called softly, “turn your back, I’m going into the water.”
He heard the soft rustle of the grass behind him as Maria made her way past him, then the small plosh of the water as she waded into it.
"You can still swim, can't you?" he asked. "I think it gets deeper not far from where we crossed."
"Of course I can, silly! Oooh!" He heard the squeal come from a little farther away as she waded deeper.
"Is it cold?" he called over his shoulder, imagining her pearly-white skin as the water closed over her calves, then her thighs...
"No, not very," she called back. "It feels wonderful, actually, after this hot sticky day."
He heard a deeper plosh and smothered a groan. The river water would be swirling lovingly around the juncture of her body and legs, then up around her breasts, bathing those parts of her he only dared imagine in his dreams.
"Mmmm," he heard Maria sigh in appreciation and heard the plunk as she submerged completely, then a splash as she surfaced again.
"It's heavenly, Bowie! You ought to come in!"
"I'm supposed to be guarding you, remember?" he retorted, still facing away from her. And I’ not supposed to let you tempt me.
"You could guard me just fine from down here, you know," she called back.
"Not if my pistol's back up here on the bank. And I'll remind you that you had me turn my back while you undressed."
"Oh, pooh, everything's covered with water," she said. "It's not like you could see anything."
Maria Taylor could tempt a marble saint right off his pedestal, he thought. He turned around.
Maria was submerged to her neck, and he could only glimpse flashes of the pale flesh of her arms as she tredded water, the river lapping around her. Her hair was slicked back, seal-black and bripping. Droplets of water sparkled on her eyelashes and cheeks. In one hand she clutched the cake of soap she had brought.
"Bowie...?"
"Yes?"
"What were you and Mr. Garcia talking about in Spanish, back up at the wagons? You know I don't speak Spanish." There was a wistful tone in her voice as if she'd felt left out.
"Oh, nothing, Manuel just made a joke," he said. There was no way he could tell Maria that Manuel had wished him luck with his wooing.
"Hmmmff," she said. "He could have been saying almost anything, and I wouldn't know."
"You about done?" he said, to change the subject.
"No, I have to wash my hair. I still think you ought to come in," she said. "Come on, you'd find it very refreshing." She beckoned to him, her slender bare arm flashing in the moonlight.
She'd asked him to stand guard for her, but who was going to protect her from him? Bowie thought. Unbidden, the image came of him shedding his clothes on the riverbank and, bareass-naked, swimming out to join her, and their white limbs twining in the sheltering brown swirl of the river.
"I don't think that's a good idea." He turned his back to her again, because a part of him thought it was a very good idea indeed and was responding with enthusiasm.
"So you'd rather stay smelly?" Maria asked.
"I'm not smelly!" he protesed. But maybe he was. It had been a long, hot day, just as she'd said.
"Maybe I'll take a quick dip after you get out and get dressed," he called to her. He wondered if she'd steal glances at his naked body from behind the tree.
"Whatever you think best..." A quick glance over his shoulder revealed that she had turned around in waist-high water and was lathering her hair, her arms upraised to her head as she worked the lather through her hair. His mouth went dry.
The minx, she knew perfectly well how she was tempting him--she just didn't understand what the results of tempting a man could be, he told himself. Beckett, the likes of her isn't for the likes of you.
He forced his head back around and waited until he heard the splashing that would indicate she had ducked under to rinse the soap out of her hair.
"Ready for me to throw you the towel?" he asked. It would take all his self-control, he knew, not to stare as she emerged from the river, water streaming off of her, like Venus arising from the waves.
There was silence. "Maria, you ready for that towel?"
"Bowie..." There was something about her quiet tone that warned him something was very wrong.
He turned, and saw her standing motionless in the dark water. At first he couldn't see why, but then as he stared into the dimly-moonlit water he saw the eddying disturbance of the water and the sinuous shape of the creature that was circling her.
And then it raised its black head out of the water slightly and he saw that it was a snake.
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