“They are,” Ike said. “They’ll be here. Let’s just give them a little more time.”
Clint nodded, and settled down to wait.
TWELVE
Parker and Hector made their way back to their hotel while Bent Miller followed Clint Adams and his friend Ike to the Gold Mine Saloon. Bent remained outside when they went in, and was still there when they came out. It looked as if they were waiting for someone.
He decided to try a little experiment.
A couple of blocks away he found five men looking for trouble. They did not, however, want it from Bent Miller.
“We ain’t lookin’ for you, Bent,” one of them said.
“That’s okay, Rango,” Bent said. “I just got a tip for you about some fellas who are carryin’ a lot of money.”
Four of the men perked up, but Rango asked, “How much is a lot?”
“More than the five of you have got on you now,” Bent said.
“Okay,” Rango said. “That’s a lot.” He turned and looked at his friends, who all nodded.
“Okay,” Rango said, “so where are these fellas?”
Bent told them…
Clint saw the men well in advance of Ike. Ike saw that Clint’s attention had been drawn, so he turned and looked.
“Uh-oh,” he said.
“You armed?” Clint asked.
“I got a gun in my coat.”
“Make it available, Ike. In case you have to reach for it.”
Ike opened his coat.
The five men approached, fanned out. Clint’s gun and holster were clear of his jacket.
“How are you fellas doin’?” one of them asked.
“We’re doing fine,” Clint said.
“That’s what we hear,” the man said. “We hear you’re doin’ real good. Like you got some money you’d like to donate to us so we can be doin’ fine, too.”
“No,” Clint said.
“No? Whataya mean, no?”
“No money for you,” Clint said. “Move along.”
“Move along?” the man asked incredulously. He looked around at his friends, who flanked him.
“‘Move along,’ he says. ‘No money,’ he says.”
The other men laughed. They were all wearing guns, but Clint noticed that two of them had their jacket hems over the butts of their pistols. No need to worry about them unless they made a point of freeing them.
“Okay,” the middle man said, “hand over the money.”
“What money?” Ike asked. “We don’t have any money.”
“We wuz told different.”
“Really?” Clint asked. “By who?”
“That don’t matter.”
Clint looked around them, beyond them, into the shadows. He thought he saw someone watching. He thought he knew who it was. Somebody who was interested in standing back and watching, seeing what he had left.
These men were a sacrifice.
“You don’t want to do this,” he said to them.
“Why not?” the middle man, Rango, asked.
“Because we might be carrying money,” Clint said, “but it’s not enough for all of you to die for.”
“Hey,” one of the other men said, “who is this guy? He thinks he can kill five of us?”
“He knows he can,” Ike said.
The men looked at him.
“Whataya mean, he knows he can?” Rango asked. “How can he know that?”
“Because,” Ike said, “his name is Clint Adams.”
All five men stared at Clint.
“You know,” Ike continued, “the Gunsmith?”
THIRTEEN
Clint had spent many years trying not to use that name, but these days if using it could help avoid killing, he used it.
“That’s right,” he said. “Still want my money?”
The five men exchanged glances, but it was the middle man who made the decision for all of them by going for his gun.
Clint drew, fired once, killed Rango.
The other four men froze.
Ike took out this gun, but Clint put out a hand to stay his action.
“You men still want our money?” he asked the four.
The four men remained frozen.
“Come on,” Clint said, “one of you has to speak for you all, or you all die.”
“No, no,” one of them said. “No, we don’t want nothin’.”
“Then like I said before, move along.”
They didn’t have to be told again. They scattered and ran in four different directions.
Across the street in the shadows, Bent Miller smiled, almost laughed. The name had saved Clint Adams. Oh, he’d been fast when he drew, but he’d only had to shoot one man. Had the others had the nerve to draw, the Gunsmith would be dead.
In fact, from where he stood, Bent Miller could have drawn and killed the Gunsmith now, but then he wouldn’t get paid for it.
He remained where he was, not wanting Adams to see him. Not yet anyway.
“What was that about?” Ike asked, putting his gun away.
Clint’s eyes still scanned the shadows as he ejected the spent shell, replaced it, and holstered his gun.
“Somebody was testing me,” he said.
“Did you pass?”
“Maybe.”
From behind them four men came out of the saloon.
“Ike?” one of them said.
Clint turned quickly, but Ike said, “Easy. We’re waitin’ for them.”
“Well, okay, then,” Clint said. “You take care of business, and I’ll keep watch.”
Ike turned and approached the four men who had come out of the Gold Mine. Clint continued to study the shadows.
Bent Miller knew that Clint Adams felt his presence. Should he step out, get it over with right now?
The smaller man, Ike, did his business with the other men while Adams kept scanning the shadows with his eyes. He couldn’t see Bent, but he could feel him.
One of the things Bent Miller prided himself on was his patience. He could stand still, right where he was, until he took root if he had to. He had no doubt he could outlast the Gunsmith.
No doubt.
Clint could hear the rustle of cash as money changed hands, and then the men dispersed. Ike appeared at his side again.
“See anybody?”
“No,” Clint said, “but he’s there.”
“Who?”
“Bent Miller.”
“You think he sent those men?”
“He told them we were holding a lot of money,” Clint said. “That’s all they had to hear.”
“And he stood back to watch them kill us.”
“He wanted to see me in action.”
“And he did.”
“Not the way he wanted, though,” Clint said. He looked at Ike. “You talked them out of it.”
“I did?”
“You told them who I am.”
“Oh, that,” Ike said.
“All right,” Clint said. “Is our business done?”
“Yeah, I paid them. In the morning our boats will start upriver.”
“And when do we start upriver?”
“Soon after that,” Ike said.
“Then we can go back to the hotel now and get some rest?”
“You don’t wanna go back into the saloon for another beer?”
Clint thought a moment about the girl who had brought him the free beer, and then said, “Oh hell, why not?”
FOURTEEN
Only after Clint Adams and Ike Daly went back into the saloon did Bent Miller come out from the shadows. The body of the dead man remained lying in the street.
There was no formal law in Skagway at that time, so the body would probably stay there until someone decided to move it. Nobody would be looking for whoever killed him. His four partners would probably never be seen again, so the only men in town who knew that Clint Adams killed Rango were Ike Daly and Bent Miller.
Not that it mattered. Skagway was what Tombstone, and Dodge, and Abilene
used to be in the old days—lawless.
Bent left the area, leaving behind him the lights and noise of the Gold Mine Saloon. There were other saloons where he could get a drink, and a woman, and he wanted both.
Clint came back to the entrance of the saloon and watched as Bent Miller came out from the shadows. He sipped his beer, then turned when someone tapped him on the shoulder.
“Were you lookin’ for me?” the girl asked.
The girl’s name was Lana, and somehow she managed to have a tent of her own.
As they entered, Clint saw he would not be able to stand up straight, the tent was so small.
“Don’t worry,” Lana said, opening the front of the stove and lighting it. “You won’t be standing up for long.”
The stove gave off immediate heat. Lana’s bed was a cot that would not support both their weights.
“Sit,” she said, “while I make a bed on the floor.”
Clint sat on the cot.
“I should have said,” he told her, “I don’t, uh, pay—”
“I’m not askin’ for money,” she said. “I just want your cock in me.”
He was shocked, although he tried not to show it.
“Too bold?” she asked, spreading blankets on the floor.
“If it doesn’t bother you, it doesn’t bother me,” he said. “But why me?”
“Because in the mornin’ you’ll be gone,” she said. “A lot of these fellas will be here tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. I don’t need a lovesick man followin’ me around for days.”
“But there are others who won’t be here.”
She smiled, knelt in front of him, and touched his face.
“You appealed to me,” she said. “Isn’t that enough? And it helps that you’ve had a bath.”
She stared into his eyes while her fingers undid the buttons of her own shirt. When she removed it, she shivered for just a second, and the nipples of her small, firm breasts stiffened. Next, she worked on the buttons of his shirt. When she removed it, she ran her hands over his chest. They were warm, but he also shivered.
He leaned down and kissed her. In the midst of the kiss, she pulled him down to the blankets. She undid his gun belt, which he laid on the cot right next to them, and then his trousers. She reached inside, grasped his penis, and said, “Ahhh.”
He closed his eyes as she stroked him, then grasped his trousers and pulled them all the way down. She kissed his belly, his sides, his hips, and his thighs, finally centering on his hard cock. She held it in her hands, kissed the underside, licked it, wet it, made him moan before she took it fully into her mouth…
It was nickel night at the whorehouse. Men came in with their pockets jangling, but Bent Miller knew they were idiots. For most of them, one nickel would do the trick, and then they would be done for the evening.
But not him. He had been there many times before, and the girls knew that he would use three or four of them before he was done. Estralita said he was “much man,” and Delores said he was “insatiable,” although most of the other girls didn’t know what that meant.
The madam, Lily, met him at the door with a big smile and a powdered bosom that threatened to spill out of her dress. Bent hoped it wouldn’t, because he was afraid her tits would fall right to the floor.
“I knew you’d be here on nickel night, Bent,” she said.
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
“I’ve got a new girl, just came in on the boat today. Ain’t been touched yet.”
“I ain’t interested in no virgin, Lily.”
“No, not a virgin,” she said. “I just mean she ain’t been touched by anybody since she got here this afternoon.”
“Oh,” Bent said, “well, that’s okay, then. I might as well start with her.”
“Out back, tent number three.”
Bent looked at the girls who were seated on pillows in the main tent. Blonds, brunettes, and redheads, black girls and Chinese girls. Lily offered them all to the men of Skagway.
“What’s her name?” he asked.
“Francesca,” she said, “but you can call her Frankie.”
“What’s she look like?”
“White skin, black hair, nice body. You’ll like her.”
“Okay,” he said, “but save me the Chinee and the black one.”
“Okay, Bent.”
Bent liked to sample women of all sizes and color. He knew lots of men who said one pussy was like another, but they all felt and tasted different to him.
“Tent three?” he said.
“That’s right,” Lily said. “Just go in. I been savin’ her for you. She’s waitin’.”
Bent walked through the tent and went out the back flap. There he saw smaller tents in a row. He counted, and went into number three.
FIFTEEN
Clint rolled Lana onto her back, pulled her trousers down, and discarded them. Her skin was white and smooth. She’d had a bath earlier in the day, but she still smelled like she’d been at work—smoke and sweat, not an unpleasant combination of odors, especially since the sweat was her own.
He kissed her legs and thighs, worked his lips over her belly to her breasts. He held them, squeezed them, bit the nipples. Her kissed her neck, her shoulders, even her armpits, where the dark hair tickled his nose.
“I stink,” she said, trying to pull his head away.
“Girl sweat never stinks,” he told her, licking her there.
“Omigod!” she said. “You’re getting me so excited.”
He crossed to her other armpit, kissed her, then worked his way down her body. Now he pressed his face to the dark bush of hair, probed into it with his tongue until he found her sticky wet and ready. He licked her until she screamed, then mounted her and dove into her. Most women’s pussies were hot, but in Alaska it felt like he was driving himself into molten lava.
“Ohhh, God,” she moaned as he fucked her. “Yes, this is what I wanted.”
The interior of the tent was warm from the stove, and from the heat given off by their bodies, which had both begun to sweat. In a little while they’d be cold as their bodies cooled, but at that moment it didn’t matter if they were in Alaska, or down South in New Orleans. They were both hot…
Bent Miller entered the tent. The woman sitting on the cot looked up at him quickly, with wide eyes—not exactly frightened eyes, but surprised.
“Are you Frankie?” he asked.
“That’s right.”
“So this is tent three.”
“Y-Yes.”
She was wearing a robe, but he could see that what Lily had told him was true. She sure had black hair, and her skin was very white, indeed.
“I’m Bent Miller. Did Lily tell you I’d be here?”
“Yes, she did.”
It was warm inside, thanks to a small stove in the corner.
“Stand up,” he told her.
She did.
“Take off that robe.”
She removed the robe and he liked what he saw. A bush of black hair between her slender thighs, tits like peaches. He took them in his hands, palmed them, popped the nipples with his big thumbs.
“We’re gonna have some fun,” he told her.
She nodded, winced when he squeezed her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers.
“Just stand there,” he said. “I’m gonna get undressed.”
“A-All right.”
He removed his hat and his shirt, then undid his gun belt and set it aside, where he could still get to it if he had to. He removed his boots and trousers, until all he had on was his long johns. He was going to take his time taking them off, because he liked how impressed the girls looked when they saw how big he was down there.
But before he did that, he reached for her, ran his hands over her body some more. He turned her around so he could paw her ass, slap her ass cheeks until they were red.
“You’re a little skinny, but nice and firm,” he told her.
“Um, thank you.”
He run his thumb down the crease between her ass cheeks, found her anus with it, stroked that a bit, then put his thumb in his mouth, wetting it. He went back to her anus and pressed his thumb to it, then slid it into her butt hole.
She jumped, startled.
“You ever had it in your ass?” he asked.
“N-No,” she said.
He slid his thumb in and out of her ass and said, “Then you’re in for somethin’ new.”
He took his thumb from her butt hole, stuck his fingers into the waist band of his long johns, and peeled them down. By now because he had played with her body some, his cock was fully hard. It sprang out from his underwear and her eyes widened.
“Ain’t seen that before, have you?” he asked her, stepping out of his long johns and leaving them on the floor.
“N-No,” she said. “Never.”
“Well, then,” he told her, “come on over here and get acquainted, girl!”
She got down on her knees…
SIXTEEN
Clint and Lana lay huddled together beneath blankets. Although the stove still gave off heat, the fact that they were covered with sweat by the time they concluded their coupling led them both to be chilled.
“So when exactly would you be leavin’?” she asked him.
“In the morning.”
“Too bad.”
“I thought that was the whole point,” he said. “That I would be leaving.”
“Well,” she said, “that was before you did what you did to me. I guess I wouldn’t mind if you stay around a few days.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Or,” she said, “passed this way again?”
“Maybe, when it’s time for me to leave Alaska,” he said.
“Well,” she said, snuggling closer, “that will give me somethin’ to look forward to.”
She slid her hand down to his crotch.
“The night’s not over yet,” he pointed out.
She closed her hand over him and said, “I can see that,” with delight. “Not ready to go to sleep?”
“Oh no,” he said, “being with a beautiful woman has a way of keeping me awake.”
“So unlike other men,” she said in his ear, “in so many ways.”
Bent Miller left Frankie lying on the floor, curled up into a ball. The pain he’d caused her had rendered her unconscious. Too bad, he thought. She had been pretty good. When she woke, she wouldn’t be much good to Madam Lily for a few days.
Forty Mile River Page 4