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Bowmaker might be among the despondent.
    By the time she reached the store, the men had already tied up their animals and had dismounted. Mr. Bowmaker assisted Quartus, who seemed to have lost all sensation in his limbs, as he nearly slithered into the woodsman’s grasp. With arms uplifted, Bowmaker’s shirt cleared his ass, and she viewed the round, muscular shape of it under the tight leather when he moved. Oh, better than a compass, she would give Quartus one of these Indian drums she had seen about the fort!
    Shoving the basket of food at Mercy, Zelnora skipped to Mr. Bowmaker’s horse. She should have greeted Quartus first, as he leaned, wobbly and red-faced, against the flank of the horse, but without thinking, she stepped right up to Mr. Bowmaker. He looked calmly down at her, unperturbed by what was obviously a strenuous and taxing ride, his clear tourmaline eyes flickering with some new kind of mischief. Reaching up, she tucked a loose lock of ginger hair back into his head scarf. His scalp steamed with sweat and exertion, yet he looked as unflappable as a member of Congress.
    “Cormack,” she said, presuming to call him by his Christian name, “Quartus gave you my message?”
    His eyes roved over her face, a pleased grin lifting one corner of his mouth. “Zelnora. Yes. I was very happy to receive it.”
    She grabbed his bicep and tugged. “Then let us go to my cabin. He told you Brannagh was away in San Francisco for awhile?”
    He allowed himself to be dragged toward her cabin, though Quartus was slowly sliding onto the ground in a puddle of boneless limbs, and Henry Bigler, a fellow missionary, was suddenly there, tugging at her other arm.
    “Sister Sparks!” Bigler cried urgently. “We need your expertise for a matter of—”
    “Yes. Can we talk later, Henry?”
    The couple fairly jogged up the hill to her cabin, a small twelve-by-twelve canvas room, the sides hung with chintz. The toilet table was a trunk set upon two claret cases, and the women’s looking glass was the sort that came in paper cases for doll’s houses. The washstand was another trunk with a large dish for the bowl, but the two pine beds with their straw mattresses were perfectly serviceable, and here Zelnora gently shoved the man back upon the cotton ticking.
    He leaned against the rough boughs of the headboard, one arm slung above his head, the thumb of his other hand hooked under a much-worn belt. Zelnora plunked her rear end down next to him and leaned against his solid chest, toying with the shoulder fringes of his shirt.
    “Cormack,” she nearly sobbed, her mouth slack and watering for the taste of him. He seemed perfectly content to wait all day and perhaps even drink some tea, so she moved one hand to his scarf and slid it from his head. “How I’ve missed you. I don’t know how in the short space of time we spent together, but I’ve got such a case on you, not a minute passes I don’t think about your bewitching eyes, sparkling so mischievously…” Placing her mouth against his face, she whispered, “What is it that you think of when you look so bewitching?” He did smell of sweat after his long hard ride from the mill, but he was imbued with his own individual scent of pine, wood smoke, and melted snow, as though the sweat itself had crystallized on his skin.
    He chuckled a little as he removed his hand from his belt and brought it round her shoulders to hold her peacefully, as a lover would…if he was capable of love. Was he?
    “I think about fucking you, Zelnora. This child is gut-shot. The first second I saw you by the fort, my prick got hard, and all I could think about was fucking you. Plunging my hands into these heavy braids—no, let me—then sliding my cock into you so deeply you’d think you’ve gone under. You’re some now, Miss Sparks, the biggest kind of pumpkin.”
    He slithered his fingers between her plaits and unbound them as they panted into each other’s mouths. It was hardly realistic