by Wesley Ellis
“I won’t tell him,” Ki promised. “That would not serve our purpose.”
“What is your purpose?”
“I am Jessie’s friend and I help her accomplish the things that she needs to do,” he said, not wishing to go into detail.
“You and she ... do you ... well, you know.”
Ki divined her meaning. “No,” he said, not feeling in the least bit offended. “Miss Starbuck and I are more like brother and sister.”
“Brother and sister?” Roxy shook her head. “I don’t know how any red-blooded man could be around that woman and feel brotherly. She even makes me look like a dowdy old laundrywoman. Her figure is better than mine and she’s beautiful. I’m just sexy.”
Ki had to smile at that because the description was right on the mark. “I noticed,” he said.
“Yeah, I thought you did,” Roxy added, studying him closely. “I never met a man like you. When I saw you the first time, I said to myself, ‘Roxy, there is a rich partly Chinese boy, and he sure is pretty. Probably not very tough or strong, but nice-looking all the same. Probably a lot better educated and with table manners and everything. I’m a coarse old stone and he’s a polished gem.”’
Ki shook his head. “That’s not true. I am nothing special at all. I have nothing. I aspire to be nothing but what I am. It is my purpose in life to serve Jessica Starbuck. To fight battles for her and to win them. To live with honor and dignity. Always.”
“My life doesn’t seem to have a purpose,” Roxy said. “I have been twisting circles in the wind my whole lifetime. The harder I try to do right, the worse I do wrong. You may not believe this, but Orin promised me that he would take care of my father. And I believed him and even thought I was in love with the man.”
“Love is ever changing, and yet it flows like a river without a beginning or end. It just is.”
Roxy’s eyes misted a little. “I never heard anyone talk like you do, Ki. You are special! I want you and Jessie to stay. We’ve no right to ask, but I’m asking anyway.”
“We will stay,” he said. “Miss Starbuck would never leave you to face your enemies without help. And neither would I.”
Roxy sniffled, momentarily overcome. “I wish I didn’t have this big bruise on my cheek so I looked so ugly to you.”
His fingers were long and supple. His fingertips stroked her cheek so tenderly that Roxy did not feel pain, but instead, a soothing pleasure. She swallowed, and had to clench her hands at her sides to keep from putting them around him. She was weak and he was strong. She had nearly lost all of her father’s love and respect and now she stood humbled and ashamed. Ki seemed able to look right through her into the cracks and dirty places. She wanted to run and hide but she was afraid he might let her.
“Roxy,” Ki whispered.
She was fighting away tears.
He gathered her hand in his own and led her toward the barn. When they passed inside, he closed the door behind them and they stood in filtered sunlight. A horse stomped and whinnied, expecting hay. A flock of pigeons fluttered into the air, then beat noisily around the interior of the barn to resettle on their roosts and coo softly.
Ki placed his arms around her and felt her tremble. He said, “I know that you feel like you are nothing. I have felt that way before many times. And you have been foolish, but who has not? Your heart is strong and you are good inside, Roxy. Your heart should be filled with happiness. It—and you—are beautiful.”
Roxy sobbed gratefully and threw her arms around his neck. She clung to him as if he were her salvation and light. “I don’t even know you and I love you already,” she choked. “Isn’t that stupid! Aren’t I such a fool!”
“No,” he told her as he gently picked her up and carried her over to a stall filled with fresh straw. He laid her down and said, “I will never marry, and when Jessie and I are done and your enemies beaten, we will leave.”
She hugged him with desperation. “Maybe I can change your mind.” She kissed him on the mouth hard. “I can be very persuasive, Ki!”
“I’m sure you can, but no. You have been deceived and hurt enough already. I must be honest with you now.”
“But—”
Ki placed his fingers over her lips. “I will only promise you this. When I leave, you will know without a doubt that you are beautiful inside and out. And more than that, Roxy. You will know that you are destined to love and be loved—always. This is my promise to you.”
Her eyes glistened. “I’m trembling. Do you have this effect on all women?”
“No,” he said with an amused smile.
“Ki, I want you to make love to me now. I want you to show me that Orin Grayson is not the only man I’ll ever have who could satisfy my hunger and make me feel all woman.”
“You are all woman, Roxy.”
“Prove it to me. Please, Ki, prove it to me right now!”
Ki did not need any further entreaties. He reached down and unbuttoned her blouse and then lowered his mouth to her proud breasts with the pink nipples already hard with desire. Ki’s tongue darted out and Roxy gasped. She arched her back and Ki listened to her heart pound and her breath quicken. Roxy moaned, a soft sound deep in her throat. She began to roll her shoulders from side to side as Ki gently nipped first one breast and then the other.
“Oh,” she whispered, “you haven’t even gotten my skirt off yet and already I’m hot and wet inside.”
“Maybe I had better get to that little problem,” Ki said, pulling away her skirt and then her pantalettes to reveal a dark, steamy mass of wet curls between her legs. He studied her with admiration. She was luscious-looking. Her waist was narrow and her hips flared out beautifully. Her thighs were satin-smooth yet firm and muscled. Ki’s fingertips caressed them gently and they spread open, wide and eager.
He pulled away and stood up for a moment to undress. When he loosened his pants, his manhood jumped out straight and so long that her eyes grew round with surprise. She reached up and grabbed his shaft and pulled him down beside her. Then, her mouth closed over him.
Ki threw his head back and closed his eyes, feeling her lips suctioning and her tongue laving his throbbing manhood. “I’m not going to be able to take this for very long,” he said with a happy sigh. “Not long at all.”
She rolled to her knees and her hair fanned over his crotch as she worked on him with obvious pleasure. Ki stroked her lovely hair and rocked back and forth, feeling the fire in him glow hotter and hotter.
When his hips began to quiver, Roxy pulled back and then placed her hands on his chest. She spread her legs on both sides of him and reclined on the straw. Then she grabbed his shaft in both hands and said, “You’ve got me hot already just thinking about this monster. Now show me how a man uses it on a woman like me!”
Ki was more than happy to demonstrate his ability. He knew that, despite her boldness, Roxy was afraid that Orin Grayson was the only man who could bring her to a climax. Ki wanted to prove that any man who cared to give as well as receive pleasure could satisfy her fully.
He lifted his lean, powerful hips over her and felt her hands guide his shaft into her hot, wet depths.
“Oh, Ki, it feels like a log inside of me!”
He chuckled, reached down and grabbed her knees, and pulled them both forward. This opened her even wider and he drove himself in to the hilt. Roxy’s eyes grew wide and almost amazed for a moment, then they slitted like those of a contented cat when Ki began a slow, rhythmic stroking. She crossed her ankles at the base of his spine and used her thighs to match his thrusts with her hips.
The straw crunched under their weight and it smelled sweet and wholesome. Ki lowered his mouth and used it on first one breast, then the other. His rhythm never varied until he felt her fingernails begin to dig into the flesh of his back. Then, he looked into her glazed eyes and knew that she was starting to lose control. Her breathing was coming in gulps and her hips were starting to jerk ever more violently. She was coming closer and closer to her moment and Ki knew he could
bring her there whenever he wanted. He waited a little longer until she began to moan and thrash.
“Please, Ki, hurry with me,” she begged. “I’m going crazy. I’m on fire!”
He quickened his thrusting and began to drive into her harder. She matched his strokes with fierce desire and their bodies grew wet and slick with perspiration and their love juices. Roxy tried to beg him again but she was almost incoherent and her lips moved soundlessly as her head tossed from side to side.
It was time. Ki had gone too far with a few women and driven them into a faint. He wanted this woman to stay aware every moment. “Now!” he grunted, letting his lean body loose itself from his mental control. His body began to slam in and out and Roxy’s hands moved wildly across his back.
“Yes, yes!” she screamed. “It’s coming, yes ... ohhh, yes!”
Ki covered her mouth with his own and his mind soared into an explosion of ecstasy. Dimly, he felt the girl under him bucking and thrashing as his own body began to spasm with mighty convulsions. His hot seed filled her with great, driving spurts and it went on and on until he crested and there was nothing more inside of him to put into her.
Their bodies continued to rock and twitch for several exquisite moments. Then they lay still, gasping for breath and feeling their heartbeats gradually return to normal.
Roxy hugged him tightly. “Ki, I never, never believed it could possibly be so beautiful. So strong and soaring. I ...” She shook her head. Her hair was wet and plastered to the edges of her face. She could not put into words how wonderful it had been.
“You have freed me from all my doubts,” she whispered to him. “As long as you stay, I’m your love slave.”
Ki laughed. “You underestimate your own powers. As long as I am around you, I won’t be able to get enough of your womanhood.”
He started to pull away but she gripped him tightly with her arms and legs and her womanhood. “Uh-uh,” she whispered. “Stay right where you are. I want to see how fast you recover and how often I can use you as a stud.”
“You’re shameless,” Ki said in a teasing voice.
“I know,” Roxy replied, pulling his face to her breasts and wiggling them until he felt his desire start to rebuild. “And when I find a good thing, I make the most of it.”
Ki could feel his shaft rapidly stiffening again. He would take her again before resting. Only this time, it would be even slower, more delicious than the last. He would discover exactly how long Roxy could circle around and around the lip of ecstasy without toppling over the edge.
Chapter 12
Jessie had sent a few telegrams the very same afternoon that Dan Bonaday had died. And now, as she read them, she nodded with encouragement. The Starbuck empire was widespread and extremely diversified. Jessie had mining interests scattered throughout the world, and several of them were in Nevada. Not that she always owned big mines outright, though that was often the case, but sometimes she owned just enough stock in them so that her interests were always of paramount importance to the board of directors. What she had asked Mr. Friendel was to provide her a list of the Nevada mining companies in which she currently possessed significant stock ownership.
The list she received by telegram included three names and one of them, the Jumbo Mining Company, bore a Reno address. Jessie had no difficulty whatsoever in locating its office and gaining an introduction to its president, Mr. Archibald Potter.
He was a talkative, potbellied man who was rumpled and relaxed and seemingly content with being in his sixties. he smoked a briar pipe that would not stay lit and whose chewed-up stem he used liberally to punctuate his sentences.
“My dear Miss Starbuck, this is a great honor!” he said after one of the office clerks escorted her into his small but comfortable office. “I once worked with your late father, and it was a high point of my middle years. Alex Starbuck was a man’s man if ever there was one.”
“How did you work together?” she asked, taking the seat that was offered.
“Many long years ago I was educated as a geologist. Your father, of course, was a brilliant seaman and entrepreneur. He was interested in mining and I had the great pleasure of showing him claims all up and down the eastern slope of these Sierras.”
“I see.”
“We overturned a lot of rock in the month we traveled together. You know, your father could have traveled like a king. He was rich enough, of course, but he insisted on traveling fast and light. We slept out under the stars. Ate jerky, beans, and sourdough biscuits, roughed it like a couple of old prospectors down on their luck. Nobody knew who he was and he wouldn’t let me tell them anything except his first name. ‘Course, they never dreamed who he was or what he was worth. If they had, well, there are some desperate men crawling around out there in the deserts and hills.”
“I know,” Jessie said, deciding she liked and would trust this simple, straightforward man. If her father had been willing to trust his company and judgment, Jessie figured she could do the same. “Mr. Potter, I—”
“Archie. Please call me Archie. Everyone does.”
“All right. Archie, I have a problem. I am trying to help another old friend of my father’s. Actually, I should restate that to say, a couple of the descendants of an old friend.”
“Who are they?”
“Bill and Roxy Bonaday, of the Bonaday Stage Lines.”
“They still in business? I heard they went under the same day that Dan passed on.”
“That’s not true. They are being forced into insolvency by the Sierra Stage Line.”
Archie expelled a deep breath. “I’ll be honest with you, Miss Starbuck. Up until about four months ago, we did all our business with Dan Bonaday. I liked the man very much. He was rough, but a man of his word. I trusted him. But then, it got so that Dan couldn’t guarantee his shipments anymore. We lost several thousand dollars in gold, and when highwaymen took another Bonaday coach along with our entire Candelaria payroll, I had to switch companies. A man can’t sustain those kinds of losses very long and stay in business.”
“And you switched to the Sierra Stage Line.” It wasn’t a question. Jessie knew that the man had, for there was no other stage company in town.
“Yes, we did. Seemed the only thing we could do. I had heard the rumors that the Sierra Stage Line might be up to some skulduggery. But damn it, Miss Starbuck, I got my own company problems. I told Dan that when he asked me why I was no longer using his stage line. He got mad as hell and we had a few harsh words.”
Archie shook his head. “Dan could get real hot and nasty. I just refused to deal with him. And I’ll tell you this, every single shipment of gold or payroll has been delivered by the Sierra people since we gave ‘em our business.”
Jessie stood up. She looked out the window into the street without really seeing anything. “Archie,” she said at last, “I understand your position—but I think you are wrong. The people robbing and sabotaging the Bonaday line were most certainly gunmen hired by the Sierra Stage Line.”
“You can prove that?”
“No. But it stands to reason who had the most to gain.
How many Sierra coaches were being robbed?“
“None.”
“That’s right. What is happening here is that once the Sierra line is the only one left, they’ll jack their freight, bullion, and passenger charges sky-high. Over a period of one year you will be brought down to your knees. And if you try to do your own freighting, you’ll suddenly have highwaymen all over your wagons. Archie, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see that you, and others like you, will be hogtied over a barrel. I need your help to see that never happens.”
Archibald Potter nervously relit his pipe. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Give the Bonaday line back your business.”
The man shook his head doubtfully. “Miss Starbuck, I have to send twelve thousand dollars to cover a payroll down in Candelaria. Now that is about a hundred and eighty miles of the most godforsaken coun
try you ever laid eyes on. The stage line will stop a dozen times at towns, outposts, and way stations. And in every one of them there is danger. Now I ask you, how could you possibly agree—as one of this company’s major stockholders—to allow the Bonaday line to handle that kind of money, given their past history?”
“I couldn‘t,” Jessie answered truthfully. “But there will be a few changes on this run. Namely, I and a man named Ki will be on this stage and nothing will stop us from delivering as promised.”
Archie shook his head. “Miss Starbuck, the last time I lost the payroll, fifteen highwaymen attacked the Bonaday stage just a few miles south of Genoa. It would have required a small company of United States Cavalry to prevent that robbery. I certainly appreciate your bravery, but—”
“Archie, I will guarantee delivery. And if we don’t get either your payroll through or the bullion back here safely, then I will make up the loss.”
“You’d do that?”
“Gladly,” she said.
Archibald Potter scowled. Clearly, he did not like the idea of Jessie putting her own money or life in jeopardy. “And there is nothing I can do to talk you out of this?”
“Nothing whatsoever.”
“All right,” he said, “I’ll do it. With your guarantee, I’ve nothing to lose. Of course, I’d want that guarantee in writing—just in case you have a ...” The older man was clearly embarrassed to put into words what they both knew he meant.
“Fatal accident?” Jessie supplied. “Of course I’ll put it in writing. And you are correct to ask for it. I’m a stock-holder and I would have thought you remiss in your duty not to ask for the guarantee in writing.”
“A mere formality, my dear. Your life concerns me far more than the money, or even the gold you will be transporting in your strongboxes. I don’t understand why you are going to this extreme risk.”
“It is a matter of principle. We either allow people like Orin Grayson and Lee Ford to gain some measure of control over our lives and businesses, or we do not.”
Potter nodded as he tamped his pipe. “You’re Alex Starbuck’s daughter, all right. Godamn it if you don’t make me feel like buying a Bonaday stage ticket and a double-barreled shotgun to take along!”