Shotgun Riders

by Orrin Russell

  Balum lurched forward for the fallen reins. Cynthia bolted upright on the driving bench, gripping his cock like a support beam on a sailboat. From the stagecoach came an uproar of complaints as all four inside were thrown around in pandemonium.

  Clutching the reins, Balum set his foot on the brake and whoaed the frantic team slower until finally they were brought to a stop in a huffing pile of horse lungs. Thunder boomed overhead again. Balum quickly buttoned his trousers just as Caleb and Joe jumped from the stage.

  “Now what in the hell…” Caleb started.

  “Horses got spooked,” said Balum. He looked at Cynthia, nodding in agreement, though he knew if his face was as flushed as hers-- red as an overripe strawberry-- that his words were useless.

  “Spooked my ass,” said Caleb. “It’s that arrangement is what it is. And it’s giving me a sore ass.” He pointed a finger at Cynthia. “I told you to behave yourself.”

  “What arrangement?” said Charlise, coming out of the stage. Her hair was disheveled and she was pinning the loose strands back behind her ears.

  “Cracker shit,” said Caleb. “Now get your ass back in the stage, girl. Joe’s going back to driving.”

  No one argued. The first drops of rain began to land; fat globules of water spread out and heavy. Cynthia climbed down from the bench and stepped back up into the stage interior. Charlise followed. Caleb held the door open for both. He looked at Balum and shook his head.

  Balum made an attempt at looking remorseful, but soon his lips parted and he broke into a grin. He laughed and took his hat off and ran his fingers through his hair as the rain began to fall harder. “You’ll laugh about it later,” he said.

  Caleb gave one last shake of his head. He stepped into the stage after the women, but not before Balum saw the smile begin. Stern as Caleb wished to sound, the man was already laughing.

  20

  Joe eased the team over the train tracks. The stage bumped hard against the rails, but for Joe and Balum sitting on the driving bench it was a minor discomfort compared to the storm. It had started slowly enough. Over the last few miles however, the sky seemed to take offense at their forward progress. It lashed the stage with wind and rain, flinging bolts of lightning into the ground all around them. By the time they creaked into Inglewood, Joe and Balum were soaked to the bone. The slickers they wore had been whipped around by the wind until they were tattered and useless, allowing rain to work its way beneath the material.

  The main drag had turned to a river of mud. Two dogs fought in the middle of it, the nature of their conflict known to them alone. The stage wheels rolled past them. Balum only gave them a sideways glance. He held the brim of his hat with one hand to keep it from sailing away and squinted his eyes against the rain.

  The town of Inglewood seemed to have no color other than brown. Brown streets, brown buildings, brown mutts fighting in the street. The lettering over doorways was faded. He struggled to make out the nature of the various establishments lining the streets. Somewhere among them all there had to be a jail.

  The bang of a wooden sign cut through the wind. He turned his ear to the noise and found the loose board clutching to the slats by two nails, and when he read the faded letters he pointed his arm.

  “That’s the jail ahead,” he shouted into the gale. “Drop me off with Buford. Let Caleb and the girls out at a hotel, you take the stage to the livery.”

  Joe lifted his head a moment to follow Balum’s arm, then slapped the reins across the horses’ backs and hollered them on. Their hooves splashed through the mud. Gobs of brown liquid cascaded up behind them.

  In front of the jailhouse Balum jumped down and slugged his way around the stage, his boots sluicing through the muck in great sucking sounds. When he opened the door Buford came tumbling out, helped by Cynthia’s foot kicking him in the rear. Balum grabbed the convict’s arm and pulled him through the muck. The sooner he got the fool into a cell, the sooner he could get back to the women. Ever since Cynthia’s stint on the driving bench, Balum had sat through the stinging rain with an ache in his balls and an endless series of fantasies playing out in his head. He relived the moments years ago in Bette’s Creek, his mouth practically watering at the thought of another taste. He pushed open the jailhouse door and shoved Buford in ahead, then stepped through with his shoulders hunched and closed the door behind him.

  An oil lamp was the only light inside. Balum took his hat off and flung the water from it and placed it back on his head. In the shadows stood the sheriff. A young man, badge on his chest. Balum snuck out the affidavit from his pocket, now wet and half falling apart, and handed it over.

  “Sorry to bother you on a day like this,” said Balum, “but I need the use of your jail for the night. This here is Buford Bell. He’s an ornery bastard but we’ve got him chained up good.”

  Buford stood still and quiet before the sheriff.

  “He’s usually cussing and spitting at this point,” said Balum. “Maybe the weather sapped some of the fight out of him.”

  The young sheriff didn’t say a word. He hardly gave the affidavit a look. Just a peek, his eyes pausing nowhere on it as if he couldn’t read. He handed it back. In his other hand he held a key ring like he’d been waiting for Balum to show up all along. When he led Buford to the cell in back, Buford followed like a dog follows its master. He shuffled forward without a peep and took a seat on the cot. Not a word of complaint from him.

  Balum watched it all through the dim glow of the oil lamp. The sheriff still had not spoken. He seemed nervous. He also seemed familiar. Balum looked down, trying to place him. Something about his face seemed familiar.

  His eyes landed on the mud covering his boots. He thought about stomping it off, then reconsidered. He’d only get them muddy again outside, and the jailhouse floor looked freshly swept. All except for a smear of fresh blood. Balum stepped forward and looked down at it, curious. While a quarter of his brain wondered at the strangeness of the Inglewood jail, the other three-quarters dreamed of throwing Charlise onto her back and mounting her like a bull mounts a heifer in the breeding pen.

  He looked back up at the sheriff standing awkwardly at the cell door.

  “He’s got a passel of brothers that’d like to bust him out of here. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen them, and I doubt they’re dumb enough to try it, but all the same, don’t open that door for anyone.”

  The sheriff bobbed his head up and down like he understood.

  “That means you’ll have to spend the night in here with him,” said Balum.

  Another nod from the mute sheriff.

  “Again, sorry for the inconvenience.”

  The sheriff raised a hand like a man giving a farewell wave to a train. Balum half-raised his own. He’d seen a number of strange sheriff’s in his time, but this one beat them all. There were a half-dozen oddities Balum had just witnessed, but he’d have all day tomorrow to puzzle at them with a wad of tobacco in his cheek. Right now it was time for other things.

  The hotel Caleb had chosen bore a hand painted sign over the second story whose letters had completely washed away over years of wind and rain. From the entrance, Joe stuck his head out and waved Balum over.

  In a dripping muddy mess Balum stomped through the entryway. He took the key Joe had waiting for him, then walked across the reception floor to where the desk clerk oscillated in a rocking chair in such perfect cadence he could have served as a pendulum for a grandfather clock.

  “There’s two women in our party,” said Balum. “Which room are they in?”

  “Room five,” said the clerk, not interrupting the pitch of his rocker by a fraction.

  Balum looked at his own key. Room three. He crossed back over the reception area and down the hallway through which Joe had disappeared.

  The room numbers started with 1. He passed number two, then passed up his own room. Just before reaching room five, the door opened. Charlise stepped out, Cynthia behind her. They had done up their hair and applied blus
h to their cheeks. They looked warm and dry, and completely shameless in their low-cut dresses.

  Before they could close the door behind them Balum put a hand on Charlise’s waist and pushed her back through. “Get back in there,” he said.

  “We were just going out for dinner.”

  “Dinner can wait.”

  They had left a lantern burning on the bureau. On either side was a bed, duvets over the mattresses. Balum gave Charlise a push backward. She stumbled back until her legs hit the bedpost, and plopped down on the mattress. Her tits bounced and came to rest. Cynthia stood beside her.

  Balum put a toe of one boot against the heel of the other and pried them both off. He took his hat off and spun it like a disk onto the opposite bed. The gunbelt followed. He unbuckled it, flung it to where the hat had landed, and instead of unbuttoning his shirt, simply grabbed the bottom and stripped the wet piece of cloth from off his body.

  Charlise and Cynthia watched him undress. He could see by their faces they knew what he was going to do, but were wondering just how he would go about it.

  “Take your clothes off,” he said to Cynthia

  She stood beside the bed, her lips slightly parted. Without any word of contest, the girl obeyed. She reached behind her neck and unbuttoned her dress and let it fall from her shoulders into a pile on the floor. Beneath she wore a white corset imbedded in whale bones. Her thighs were large and smooth and white, and aside form a pair of white cotton panties, were completely bare. She raised her legs out of the dress and kicked it aside.

  Balum’s movements nearly mimicked hers. He unbuttoned his trousers and let them fall, then pulled down his long johns, revealing a raging erection that pointed into the center of the room like the main mast of a ship thrust into the sky.

  “Oh my,” Charlise touched a finger to her lip. “It’s just like I remembered. Have you come to get your payment for giving us our stagecoach ride?”

  “You’re damn right I am.”

  “Cynthia must have gotten you all worked up.”

  “The both of you did,” he said. He stepped forward to where she sat on the edge of the mattress.

  She made no move when he approached her. When he grabbed the bust of her dress and tore it down, she gasped. Before she could say anything Balum threw her to her backside and pushed the skirt fabric up her thighs and bunched it around her waist. The panties she wore were crimson red and made of silk. He tucked a finger in the edge and pulled them aside, then sank his face between her legs and plunged his mouth against her vagina.

  Already she was wet and dripping. As he ran his tongue over the contours of her pussy, she squeezed her breasts together and let a long aching moan escape her throat.

  “I want some,” said Cynthia.

  The girl took a knee at the base of the bed. Balum twisted his hips around so his cock faced her. She took it in her hands and stroked it. For a moment, Balum pulled his mouth from Charlise’s cunt and watched the younger of the two as she guided his cock into her mouth. The same intoxicating sensation he’d felt on the stage swept over him. He put a hand to her face and felt her cheek as she took the length of his cock down her throat.

  Charlise reached her hands down to Balum’s head and pulled his face into her. She wanted more, and he gave it to her. He licked her inner thigh, flicked his tongue lightly along her pussylips, and pressed it into her clit while she moaned and ran her fingers through his hair.

  With his own hands at her hips he turned her over, inverting the two of them at once. Charlise flipped to her knees, Balum to his back. Her cunt was still hovering over him, and he pulled her onto his face while Cynthia crawled on top of the bed beside him.

  He could see nothing; his face was lost between Charlise’s thighs. He felt the mattress shake as Cynthia accommodated herself. She grabbed his cock and lifted herself over his hips, then sank onto his shaft and shuddered as the fullness of his cock entered her.

  Enveloped in the smell of pussy, Balum let his hands roam up Charlise’s torso. She still wore the dress bunched at her waist, though the bust had been torn away. He gripped her breasts in a blind lust. As large as own hands were, they could not come close to fully holding the circumference of Charlise’s massive tits. He squeezed and fondled, pinched the nipples and shook them in his hands, and with every jiggle his cock grew harder in Cynthia’s pussy until he felt he could hardly breathe.

  In a heave he pushed Charlise off his face. Into his vision came Cynthia. She faced him in a squat, her feet on either side of his hips. Her knees were spread wide, and as she bounced over his cock he could see it appear and disappear into her tight pink cunt. To balance herself she held his hips, which caused her upper arms to squeeze her mammoth breasts together. He watched, captivated, until Charlise’s face appeared in front of him. She cupped his stubbled jaw and kissed him. Her tongue slid into his mouth. Balum sucked it, sucked her lips, licked her jaw and her neck, grabbed her swaying tits in his hands and squeezed until she cried out and slapped them away.

  He knew if he let Cynthia ride him she wouldn’t stop until one of them came, and in the state Balum was in, he knew it might be him first. He bucked her off and she yelped and flopped onto the bed beside him.

  In a leap, Balum was off the bed and on his feet. He took Charlise in his arms and bent her over the bed and hiked her dress back up over her waist. Her hands were braced in front of her, her knees on the edge of the mattress. Her ass was firm and round, and he ran a hand up her cunt, fingering her and enjoying the moans vibrating from her throat.

  When he finally plunged himself into her she howled loud enough to jolt the desk clerk from his rocker. Balum didn’t give a damn. He slammed his cock into her, the sound of his hips making slaps nearly as loud as the unhinged jail sign flapping against the clapboards outside.

  Cynthia sat on the bed rubbing her pussy and watching Balum pound her mother with a growing look of impatience on her face. Balum caught her eye, and motioned her forward with a finger. She crawled to the edge of the bed, her tits swaying side to side, and when she reached him he drew his cock from Charlise’s pussy and sunk it into Cynthia’s eager mouth.

  He gave two slow pumps, then eased it back into Charlise. Cynthia remained where she was, her mouth open. A low, nearly inaudible hum came from her throat. He pulled out again and fed it to her. His legs trembled. He felt himself on the edge of collapse. She sucked in loud slurping noises, and suddenly he pulled his cock from her mouth and turned her around on the bed beside her mother.

  Then he stepped back. The women’s asses side by side wiggled in front of him. His cock stood rigid and throbbing, and he waited a moment, admiring the bounty of flesh while he gathered his breath.

  Charlise turned her head around and looked back at him. “Balum, please, I’m about to cum. Stick it in me.”

  Balum didn’t argue. He stepped forward, put a hand in the bend of her hip, and slid his cock back into the deep slit between her legs. With slow, measured pumps, he brought her to climax. She shoved her forehead into the mattress and arched her hips, and when she came her body shuddered and fell limp and exhausted on the bed.

  Cynthia had not moved. She remained on hands and knees, watching, and with one step sideways Balum was behind her. Before thrusting his shaft inside her, he knelt and melted his face into her pussy. Instantly his nose and lips and cheeks were dripping in Cynthia's juices. She shivered, nearly crying, and when he stood finally and entered her, her breath stopped completely.

  With a forward lean over her back, Balum cupped her hanging breasts. He felt no different than he imagined the bull buffalo feels in the height of rutting season, latched onto a willing female, a pent up season of heat raging inside him. He felt her body shake beneath him, felt her pussy tighten as she came. He turned his face and rested it on her back, feeling the warm layer of sweat on his cheek.

  Charlise lay not a foot away. Her hand gently massaged her pussy. She looked him in the eye and made a kissing motion with her lips.

 
; Balum’s breath had nearly stopped. A surge of adrenaline filled his chest. He pulled out of Cynthia’s cunt and turned to where Charlise lay. He laid the tip of his cock against her open mouth and stroked his shaft until he exploded, covering her face in hot white cum. It splattered over her nose and streaked through her hair. It dripped into her mouth, and she ran a tongue around her lips and swallowed.

  Just as the last gush left his cock, Cynthia grabbed it and cupped her lips around it. Balum felt the head of his cock swell, and a shudder went through him as his orgasm ended in the girl’s mouth.

  He drew out and put his hands on his knees and caught his breath. In front of him on the mattress, Charlise and Cynthia giggled and licked cum from their faces.

  “We were going to go out for dinner,” said Charlise, “but I think you just gave it to us.”

  21

  The train whistle woke Balum. It blared through the small window of his hotel room before a single rooster had pumped its chest to welcome in the morning.

  He lurched upright. He grabbed at his hip for his gun, but only slapped the bedsheets. It took a moment to recall where he was. So many nights sleeping on the plains, a man could have a stroke waking up to the shock of a roof and a bed. He laid back down but his mind wouldn’t rest. He tossed some, then swung his legs over the side of the bed and got dressed. Shirt and trousers, gunbelt, boots, and finally his hat.

  In the hallway all was quiet. He tiptoed over the floorboards to room five and tapped at the door. He waited, tapped again. He jiggled the handle. Nothing. Finally he rapped his knuckles on the door, but still no one answered.

  In the reception area the rocking chair tipped back and forth with a new occupant; a middle aged woman with horn-rimmed glasses. She sipped black coffee and gave Balum a once-over when he came out of the hallway.