by Jake Logan
He closed his eyes and shivered again. Desire built within him until he wanted to cut loose and let his hips drive his fleshy spike forward. But he held himself back to enjoy the moistness, the warmth, the way her tongue worked over the most sensitive parts, hidden away in her mouth.
“Umm,” she said, working her way back so she could look up at him. “You’re tasty.”
“And you want more than that in your mouth, don’t you?”
“You know what I want, John. I want this,” she said, gripping his steely spike and pulling downward. “And I want it here.” Betty hiked her skirts and rocked back on the cold stone floor. Her knees came up and then parted, wantonly revealing her privates.
Slocum let her guide him around, but he was the one who positioned himself at just the right point for the proper insertion. He felt the heat boiling from her innards. Then he experienced it fully. He sank deep into her molten center. He gasped when she squeezed down on him, her velvet sheath tightening. Moist, hot, tight—he was in heaven.
“Move, John, move. Give it to me. Give it all to me hard!”
He began pulling free. He reared up and braced himself on her raised knees, looking down into her lovely face. Her eyes were closed, and the expression on her face showed the level of her arousal.
Slocum shoved back in. The friction of his cock against her inner walls built as he started stroking with deep, sure strokes. He felt her nether lips engorge with blood and stroke along the sides of his erection every time he moved. So he moved faster to get more of this subtle, delightful stimulation.
Soon they were striving together, moving hips in unison to garner the greatest stimulation possible. Slocum panted harshly and fought to hold back the urge to let himself rush free.
“Yes, John, do it now, do it, please, ohhh!”
The sound of Betty’s emotional and physical release worked on him. She tensed powerfully around his hidden cock and then he could no longer control himself. His volcanic come spewed forth and all too soon he began to melt within her. Slocum sank forward, pressing her down to the rock floor. Faces only inches apart, he waited for Betty to open her eyes. Then he kissed her.
“You’re special, John. How I wish you—”
“What?”
“Nothing, nothing,” she said, beginning to writhe about under him in a manner showing she wanted his weight removed. He rolled to the side. Betty turned, looked down at his flaccid organ, then gently tucked him away. She sat up and pulled down her skirt where it had bunched around her waist. Once more she looked almost prim.
Almost.
“We need to get away from here, or Rafe will come after me,” she said.
“He’ll be hard-pressed to find our trail.”
“There were only two ways we could have gone from where we slid down the side of the mountain,” she said. “Even Rafe could figure out we had to go one way or the other.”
“He’s a lazy son of a bitch,” Slocum said. “And a coward. He shoots men in the back to save himself the effort of getting into a real fight.”
“That makes him all the more dangerous. And there are four of them. They could split up and two could go each way along the ravine. They can find us. Rafe will want to find me almost as much as the others will.”
“A matter of pride,” Slocum agreed. “More than that, he shot a man in the back to kidnap you. He would take it as an insult that he lost you after going to that much trouble.”
“Slim’s dead?”
“Very,” Slocum said. He considered for a moment and realized she would not have known. Rafe might have bragged on killing Slim Nestor, but more likely he was too intent on sampling the feminine delights Betty offered.
“Please, I want to get back to town.”
“What then?” Slocum asked. He had worked the problem over in his head and saw no easy solution. If Betty stayed in Aurum, Rafe would keep coming after her and more men would die. The only way out looked to be her leaving.
It was a good thing he had not sold the wagon and team. The thorn in his side, though, was wondering if he wanted Betty riding along with him. She had the look of a woman wanting to put a brand on his hindquarters. Slocum wasn’t ready to be corralled by any woman, but that was the way she would see it if he let her come with him when he left Aurum.
“Can’t rightly say,” she answered. “Something will come to me.” She looked at him and batted her eyelashes. That told him his guess was right. She was thinking of him as her exclusive property.
Slocum got to his feet and went to the cave mouth. He stared out into the dawn. Deeper in the cave, his horse nickered. Getting the horse to water and letting it graze awhile was necessary if he wanted it to carry both his and Betty’s weight all the way back to town. He stepped out, stretched, and knew something was wrong. Very wrong.
He threw himself to the side an instant before a bullet whined past him and ricocheted off a rock. Slocum grabbed for his six-shooter, but found he had not bothered to put it on before coming out to get the lay of the land.
Slocum kept rolling and came up behind a boulder so he could see the hillside above the cave mouth. The glint of morning sunlight off the barrel of a pistol told the story.
“Didn’t think you would find me, Rafe,” Slocum called. “But now that you have, it makes sense you’d try to shoot me in the back. Like you did Slim Nestor. Like you probably have done a dozen times before.”
“Not that many, but you’ll be one closer to that dozen, Slocum.”
“She doesn’t want you or your partners, Rafe,” Slocum said. “Let her go.”
“I paid for a woman, and I’m gonna take her!”
He fired a couple more times, but the shots were made in anger. He missed by a yard, though it drove Slocum down behind the rock. If Tornquist ever figured out he didn’t have a six-gun, the miner would come rushing down the hill to finish the job he had started.
Slocum peered around the rock and saw a frightened Betty standing just inside the cave mouth. He made silent gestures showing the danger. Betty nodded numbly. Then Slocum made shooting motions and pointed to his bare hip. He repeated the shooting gesture.
Betty disappeared into the cave.
“You ain’t firin’ at me, Slocum. That mean you’re outta ammo? Or maybe you don’t have your smoke wagon. That it?” Rafe Tornquist stood, fully exposing himself. When no bullet ripped at him, he laughed heartily. “You ain’t got a gun! That’s rich.”
Tornquist slipped and slid down the slope, heading directly for Slocum.
“You’re fixin’ to meet yer maker, Slocum. I want to kill you real slow so you don’t fergit Rafe Tornquist fer the rest of eternity you spend in hell!”
“I won’t forget you, Rafe,” Slocum said, moving from behind the rock. Betty threw him his Colt Navy from just inside the cave. Slocum went into a gunfighter’s crouch as he grabbed the six-shooter in midair and began fanning the hammer. All six bullets struck Rafe Tornquist in the chest. The miner took a few more steps, lifted his pistol, and stared at it stupidly. His eyes rose to Slocum, then he fell facedown and slid past in the loose gravel.
Slocum watched as the miner came to a halt a yard beyond. He looked up at Betty where she stood with a hand over her mouth.
“Let’s ride,” Slocum said. “It’s time we got back to town.”
14
“What do you think the other three will do?” Betty asked.
“Hard to say. I doubt there’s a whole lot of friendship among them. If anything, they would see Tornquist’s death as giving them a bigger slice of the pie.”
“The mine’s got a lot of gold in it,” Betty said. “I heard them talking. They got more than enough to send for me.”
“For Tabitha,” Slocum corrected.
“Yes, of course, for Tabitha. But when she never arrived, they claimed they had paid for me.”
Slocum wondered what Rafe had done with the bag of gold dust that Edwin had sent to settle accounts. It was a minor point, but Slocum still wondered i
f he might be able to retrieve it. He wanted something for all his trouble. He felt the pretty woman’s arms around his waist and smiled a little. He wanted something more as a reward than what he had already received for rescuing Betty. All he had been paid to do was deliver the women. Nothing had been said about guarding them once they had arrived in Aurum.
“Would what happened back there be considered a common-law marriage?”
“What?” The question took Slocum by surprise. “I don’t follow you.”
“Well, I was in Rafe’s bed and he claimed me. Does that mean we were married?”
“Reckon the lawyers would have fun with that,” Slocum allowed. “There might be the question of consummating the marriage. With you all bound up and gagged, there wasn’t much chance of that.”
“Oh, really?”
Slocum glanced over his shoulder. “You mean the son of a bitch raped you while you were all trussed up like a Christmas goose?”
“Could have,” Betty said coyly. “You couldn’t tell, could you? It’s just my word against that of a dead man.”
“And his partners.”
“They weren’t there all the time. I was alone with Rafe.”
Slocum wondered what Betty was angling for. He frowned as he considered all she was saying. Betty had not mentioned Rafe taking advantage of her once she had been tied up. From what he could tell from his brief observation from the knoll across from the mine, the four were waiting to take turns. Rafe Tornquist might have started early, but Slocum thought Betty would have mentioned it before now. She had been incensed at the miner, but in her words there had not been the outrage of a raped woman.
“There’s the edge of town,” Betty said. “Is there a judge in town?”
“There’s not even a marshal,” Slocum pointed out. “A circuit judge comes through once in a blue moon. Otherwise, Aurum is wide open.”
“There must be a mayor,” Betty pressed.
“Never heard. Closest thing to law in a boomtown like this would be the land agent. He usually doubles as assayist as well as county recorder. Might even try to collect tax, though I doubt he’s too successful. Any real law enforcement would be done by a vigilance committee.”
“A land office,” Betty mused. “Let me get off at the land office, John. I need to ask some questions about the Dead Man’s Revenge.”
She dropped to the muddy street and looked up at Slocum. Her brown eyes positively glowed. Betty smiled and touched his arm, then swung about, skirts swirling, and rushed into the land office. Slocum rode a few yards, then curiosity got the better of him. He dismounted and sauntered back to the land office. The door stood open, and he could see Betty and the land agent behind the counter. The man wore wire-rimmed glasses, had sandy, thinning hair, and looked to be about forty. He was lapping up all the attention Betty lavished on him.
“That doesn’t seem fair, not at all, Mr. Fremont.”
“Call me Franklin,” the land agent said, pushing his eyeglasses up with his index finger so he could get a better look at his lovely client.
“Why, thank you, Franklin. And you must call me Betty. Now, tell me it isn’t silly for a man’s wife not to inherit his claim.”
Slocum straightened and turned so he could lean against the wall of the land office and listen to what went on inside without drawing attention.
“That’s the way it is. Ever since Colorado became a state, there’ve been all kinds of absurd laws.”
“But not one preventing a widow from benefiting from her husband’s hard work.”
“You and Rafe, you are married?” Franklin Fremont sounded uneasy.
“Were, Franklin, were. We were married. Rafe met an untimely end. The frontier can be so cruel.”
“And it can be kind,” the man said. “Please, Betty, come on around and set yourself down. Tell me all about it.”
“Oh, Franklin, you’re so kind. It was tragic. His partners turned on him and shot him down. All three of them. Each put a couple slugs into poor Rafe and left him some distance from the mine.”
“The Dead Man’s Revenge mine,” Franklin said sympathetically.
“That was so aptly named. Ironic, too,” Betty said, sniffing slightly
“So you and him was hitched.”
“Common-law marriage,” Betty said.
“Then you might be able to claim some part. Now, proving Rafe’s partners had anything to do with his killing might be hard.”
“How could I possibly accept those three as partners, knowing they are stone killers?”
“Might be a town meeting could put a fear of God into them. Been a while since we whupped up a committee of vigilance to set things right.”
“Oh, Franklin, is that possible? But they would flee! They know they are guilty. They would not want to be brought to justice for killing my husband.”
Slocum had heard enough to know how Betty maneuvered the land agent to see things her way. A town meeting might produce the vigilance committee, but it would be going after the wrong men. Still, Slocum appreciated how easily he had been extricated from the problem. He smiled ruefully. Betty’s story did more than exonerate him. It made it impossible for anyone but Betty to make any claim on the mine without sticking his own neck into a noose.
Running Rafe’s three partners out of the state would improve life in Aurum, but Slocum felt uneasy at the way Betty was doing it with her easy lies. He walked away, shaking his head. He had to admire her for her daring. She had turned a terrible experience into one that might make her rich. If Betty had not come up with this scheme, he suspected she would have worked some other confidence game. He had seen this in her and had denied it to himself.
Slocum started back to the hotel to see how Wilhelmina was faring. He heaved a sigh of resignation when he saw the huge crowd still milling about.
Loud voices came from the direction of the hotel, but they were not arguing. As he approached, he tried to get a better view, but too many miners blocked him from seeing the hotel porch.
“What’s going on?” Slocum asked.
“Auction.”
“What’s being . . .” Slocum’s voice trailed off as he heard the stentorian voice of the hotel clerk call, “Mr. Elkhardt is willing to give up his right to this fine young lady in exchange for one hundred dollars, gold.”
“He’s auctioning off his mail-order bride?” Slocum stared in wonder. Then anger built. Wilhelmina was not chattel. He pushed through the crowd until he was at the front, but he hesitated when he saw how Wilhelmina beamed. The man beside her—Elkhardt—looked excited, but nobody was in the least upset. If anything, there was a carnival atmosphere about this.
“The bidding starts at one hundred dollars,” the hotel clerk called. “Anything in excess of this will be split between Miss Wilhelmina and Mr. Elkhardt.”
“Two hunnerd!”
“Three!”
Slocum saw the miners searching their pockets for bags of gold dust and even nuggets. Wilhelmina had put herself up for auction after coming to some accommodation with the man who had bought and paid for her.
“Why’s he giving up such a good-looking woman?” Slocum asked.
“Money. Elkie’s flat broke. His mine petered out, and he heard ’bout a new strike up north, almost at the Wyoming line. With a good stake, he can get rich up there and have his pick of the women in Denver.”
“But Wilhelmina is here, and he’s already paid for the right to marry her.”
“They didn’t hit it off so good. Woman’s always got the right of refusal, but she’s got to repay the man. Them’s the rules.”
Slocum heard the bidding turn frenzied as miners saw a chance to do more than buy a pig in a poke. Elkhardt had taken a risk that the woman sent over from Salt Lake City would be ugly with the disposition of a rabid skunk. Wilhelmina was none of those things, but the lure of gold was greater than his need for a wife.
Slocum wondered if Elkhardt and Wilhelmina had decided on this auction before or after going to bed. It
hardly mattered. Wilhelmina would be wealthy in her own right from her future husband’s bidding. And Elkhardt would have more than enough money to outfit him for a season or longer of prospecting.
Slocum drifted away from the crowd when the bidding hit one thousand dollars. Wilhelmina was certainly no pig in a poke now. She was stately, pretty, and willing to go with the man who had the most money.
Both Betty and Wilhelmina had found their way to getting what they wanted most, as had Tabitha. A woman might not be able to own real estate, but she could maneuver around and become rich in her own right.
“John! John!” He turned to see Sarah June waving to him from the front door of a mercantile.
“Howdy, ma’am,” he said, tipping his hat to her. She beamed at him.
“It’s good to see you, John. I heard about what happened with Betty. How terrible.”
“She’s making it all good,” Slocum said, looking in the direction of the land office. He saw Betty arm in arm with the land agent as they left.
“I’m happy for her. What about you? Are you all right?”
“Fine as frog’s fur,” he said. “You pleased with your husband?” He saw the fever burning in her eyes. As if she worried that he might see, the light faded and she turned partly away from him.
“Oh, yes, I am quite happy. I am sure in the coming days I will be even happier.”
“Heard tell Heywood is rich.”
“Oh, not at all. That doesn’t matter to me. It’s the man I wanted most.”
Slocum hesitated. Lemuel Sanders had said Heywood was a partner in the Lucky Lady, and Slocum had seen for himself the riches coming from the depths of the mine. He wondered if Heywood was hiding some of the gold from his new wife, though in Aurum that seemed a bit far-fetched. Everyone knew everyone else’s business. All Sarah June had to do was ask.
“Glad that you’re settling in just fine, Sarah June.”