Sure as Shooting

by Karen Mercury

  This did not sit well with Belle. “So is that it? I’m only a prize? Two competitive men who can’t bear to lose? And you’ll dump me the second you feel you’ve won?” She was extremely fond of Whit and trusted him immensely, but she was not prepared to be “won” as of yet. Why, she’d just been rescued from an Indian encampment where she’d spoken nothing but a strange language for an entire year! And she had no wish to become knocked up again, so what use could she be to a potential husband?

  Whit took her hands between his gloves. “Miss Belle. You are far more than a prize, to either one of us. You are the first woman I’ve been on such a friendly and devoted basis with. Ever. You may not have noticed, but most of my truck has solely been with men. You’ve opened up entirely new vistas I never dreamed possible. Not least among them that women can be the most witty, intelligent, and companionable partners on God’s green earth.”

  Belle pouted. “And Huntley? How am I more than a prize to him? Because he wishes to keep a decent maid?”

  Whit laughed that dazzling, white-toothed smile. “Why do you belittle yourself, Belle? Did it occur to you Huntley could be smitten with you because you’re beautiful, smart, and fresh? He hasn’t been smitten since he lost his wife five years ago. This is all something new to him, and he doesn’t remember how to act. How to court. Me? I never knew how. So you are fresh from the mountains living with Indians. All three of us will just have to make up the rules as we go along.”

  Major Ashbury bellowed the order to “form into line!” The pair scrambled to join the ranks of the rear guard and “forward marched” without any effort at concealment.

  Bud was beside her, and his smile betrayed the glee he felt at once again engaging in combat. “We’re going to make mincemeat of those red devils!”

  “I have somewhat of a conflict,” Belle admitted. “I have no love for Chief Tenaya, but my tribe only showed me kindness while I lived with them.”

  Bud’s glee turned swiftly to rage. “After they murdered your entire family! How could you forget, Bellissima?”

  “I’ve not forgotten. I just wish they weren’t all doomed to be herded like cattle onto a small reservation where whites will continue to encroach.”

  “Have you forgotten?” Bud gnashed his teeth. “You are white, Bellissima! Would you rather it be you who was herded?”

  Not waiting for a response, Bud stomped angrily forward to join his compadres. Belle marched silently along, recalling the many Cherokee—Dr. Whitney’s tribe—who had passed through Missouri during the winter of 1838. Bedraggled, starving, given only blankets infected with the pox, they were supposed to walk very far around her town to avoid making any whites ill. Forced out of their ancestral lands in the States, they were being removed to Indian Territory, a place considered the bush where no one yet cared about using the land. She knew Whit had been born in New York City in 1817. But that could have easily been Whit, dragging his carcass past her house with eyeballs like death, meager flesh frozen to the bone.

  They discovered the Indian encampment where Belle and Major Ashbury had predicted it would be. Oddly, the village surrendered without a shot being fired. They all threw up their hands in submission, crying in Spanish, “¡Paz! ¡Paz!” Peace, peace! The chief recognized the major and they confabbed. Belle learned not by speaking to a Yankee but an Indian that Ashbury and the chief had agreed to send out runners into the Deep Grassy Valley to find Chief Tenaya and his band of Grizzlies. While Indians removed their belongings from their bark ochum huts, Belle learned from a few of “His Satanic Majesty’s” subjects that Tenaya was so far into the Deep Grassy Valley, if the snow continued the tribe could not leave, that it would be a long time for them to climb out of it.

  “Well,” Belle told Whit, who was dispensing aguardiente brandy to the exhausted troops. “You might just get your wish. We may have to enter the Deep Grassy Valley after all.”

  The Indians told her that to show their obeisance and willingness to go onto the reservation, they would apply torches to their own ochums.

  But it was Bud who lit the first torch and jubilantly held the flame to the first bark hut. He claimed he had found some rope reatas and a bridle in an ochum, which had been stolen from him in Agua Fria while everyone was awaiting action from the commissioners.

  * * * *

  After the surrender of some seventy-two Indians, Huntley left guards in charge and went to confront Whit.

  Huntley was in a sweat about having discovered Whit and his maid screwing, or whatever they were doing in that cave, when he’d imagined that at least Belle, his ostensible scout, would follow him up the cliff face. His plan was to become on friendlier terms with her, to make some headway. Where Whit, that sensual surgeon, had already frigged her cunt most intimately, Huntley had only held extremely remote and civil conversations with her. But not only did they not follow him up the mountain, they retreated into a romantic cave under a sparkling cataract. Belle had emerged rearranging her animal skins about her body, looking as flushed as a well-fucked woman, and Whit had a superior smirk on his face.

  Huntley didn’t like it one bit. Belle was the first desirable white woman he’d seen in five years and he was not going to allow that prurient physician to impress her with his sexual tricks. After being told that Dr. Whitney was treating various battalion men for frostbite, Huntley finally discovered him high atop a granite table. With a southern exposure, the snow didn’t remain here long, and Whit was looking through a glass at one of the distant natural wonders he was constantly in awe of.

  Whit smiled disarmingly, handing Huntley the glass so he could look too. “See that cliff face—as if half of a vault had completely sheared away and fallen to the valley floor below?”

  Huntley had no interest in the natural wonders of things. “What’s going on with Miss Belle and you? What were you doing in that cave?”

  Whit frowned. “You are utterly void of sentiment, Major Ashbury. Here you are on the lip of the most wondrous valley in the world, and all you want to know about is screwing.”

  “Oh, I’m certain you two were discussing wondrous valleys inside that cave, and certainly not screwing!”

  “We most certainly were not screwing, Huntley! It’s far too soon to assault such a tender flower, such a golden lotus—”

  “Wait. What’s this about a golden lotus?”

  “Her pillow book. The Chinese use many terms to describe a female vagina, such as ‘Open Peony Blossom’ and ‘Golden Lotus.’”

  “Golden Lotus…” The term seemed so familiar to Huntley, for a moment he completely forgot his anger. He paused, looking out at the half of a dome that Whit was so fascinated by. Then he remembered. Jim Bridger. His dream. Bridger had told him to go into the Deep Grassy Valley and find the woman with the golden lotus!

  His jaw must have dropped in astonishment, for Whit took him by the upper arms. “Huntley! Are you all right? Have you been getting any sleep lately?”

  Huntley pressed Whit back against a mossy boulder. “Yes, perhaps too much sleep. Listen, Whit. Have you ever heard of dreams instructing someone to do something?”

  Whit grinned in amusement. “Why, yes, Huntley. Have you never read your Bible?”

  “Yes, yes, whatever. So if a dream came right out and directly instructed you to do something, you would pay definite attention to it?”

  “Why, yes. Yes, I would. What did this dream tell you to do?”

  Huntley pinned Whit more fervently to the boulder. “The dream told me to go into the Ahwahnee Valley to find the woman with the Golden Lotus!”

  Realization swept quickly over Whit’s face. “Why, that could be only one woman, Huntley!”

  “Exactly! How many other women even know what the Golden Lotus is? So listen here, partner. I need you to stop monopolizing Belle and give me a chance. We need to let her lead us to the valley floor past that cathedral spire she mentioned, but you also need to allow me some ‘crafty ideas’ of my own when it comes to Miss Belle. She hasn’t set he
r sights entirely on you, has she?”

  “No, but…”

  “But what?”

  “But she has an opinion of you. That you’re not entirely too skilled in matters of sex or willing to be open-minded to learning. She’s very voracious sexually and has quite an appetite. If you want her Golden Lotus, you’ll need to practice some skills—”

  “Not skilled!” Huntley shoved Whit harder into the rock. “I’ve fucked hundreds of women who were obviously not disgruntled—women who came back for more! You think I’m closed-minded and straitlaced in matters of sex? I’ll show you—you’re not the only one who has European leanings and desires!”

  Huntley surprised himself when he plastered a large sucking kiss to the one section of Whit’s neck that wasn’t covered by the scarf. Pressing the entire length of his body to the sturdy physician, he pinned him there and sucked, tonguing the neck until he tasted raised gooseflesh. Whit’s thighs instantly parted to allow Huntley to hump his engorged crotch to his, and Huntley madly clawed the heavy greatcoat from Whit’s shoulders. When Whit again grabbed a handful of Huntley’s pigtail in his hand and yanked his head back, Huntley snapped his head forward and planted his mouth on Whit’s.

  It was obvious Whit enjoyed being the dominant party. While Huntley had enjoyed being submissively pleasured by such an overbearing, arrogant man—it was much easier to pretend one didn’t truly want such attentions when one was merely passively lying there—he needed to display to Whit that he was not just a meek Miss Nancy but could control their activities, when he chose.

  They had not kissed since that night they’d spent in Huntley’s bed—had not even discussed it since they had both come stumbling out of his bedchamber to be served breakfast by a curious Belle—but it was just as delicious and randy as Huntley recalled. Indeed, Whit was a master of all things sexual, elevating such a simple thing as a kiss to the heights of erotic prowess. All thoughts of the responsibilities he had back at the base camp evaporated as both of his hands dipped beneath Whit’s waistcoat, adeptly manipulating the broadfall buttons of his buckskins.

  Huntley broke away with a big sucking sound, and both men were panting as though they’d swum across a lake. “Listen, you bastard,” Huntley growled, knowing both men were aware he meant it affectionately. “You sneak into my bed and suck my prick?”

  Whit gripped Huntley’s hair. “You liked it,” he snarled back.

  “Sure as shooting I liked it.” Sliding a hot palm down the hard plane of Whit’s abdomen, Huntley encountered that slab of beef he’d been so terrified of. Its sheer pulsing heft had probably scared off every woman poor Whit had ever encountered, and was probably why he’d never married. But right now Huntley felt bolder and bawdier than he ever had, and had to prove to Whit he could embrace things of a carnal nature—prove he was skilled enough to learn the tricks to pleasing Belle and her Golden Lotus. The hot prick sprung into the frigid mountain air, and Huntley fondled the great length of it, massaging the overwhelming ball sac. Dr. Whitney was hung like a donkey—how did the dainty, small-boned Belle deal with such a prodigious cock? “Who wouldn’t like having their cock sucked by such an expert bumsucker? Someone who is obviously very skilled and talented at it?”

  “Damned right I’m skilled. I love nothing more than swallowing a nice hot load of male jism.”

  Huntley gasped at the audacity of that statement. He began to doubt his own ability to gobble such a monstrous member.

  Now Whit became a bit coy. “But I recently discovered,” he panted, “that a lady’s flowing jism can be equally as delicious.”

  All right, that did it! The challenge was accepted as Huntley abruptly collapsed to his knees and inhaled the massive horse cock into his mouth.

  For something that Huntley would have found abhorrent and unthinkable as recently as a month ago—or perhaps last summer—he found it oddly satisfying to gorge on another man’s pulsating meat. The submissive way Whit relaxed his thighs and directed Huntley’s skull by using his pigtail as reins imbued Huntley with power. Knowing he was creating such colossal satisfaction in the man who was probably his closest friend, well, there was nothing wrong with that, and Huntley fell into a natural rhythm.

  In fact, it was delicious, to use Whit’s term. The hot cock was so taut Huntley felt the shininess when the glans rubbed against his upper palate and filled his throat. He found if he breathed in and loosened his throat muscles, he could take the massive appendage almost all the way to the base, where his lips brushed the thicket that nestled the amazing donkey’s prick. He could constrict his throat around it, pumping it as he laved his tongue about the underside in a zigzag pattern that caused Whit to gasp and twitch. A method he had enjoyed when Whit had been sucking on his own tool.

  He palmed the ball sac while sucking, not unlike the boys’ game wherein they tried to rub their stomachs with one hand while patting their heads with the other. It required great concentration and Huntley was shocked to hear Whit gasping out various coarse and lascivious filth that was decidedly unmedical.

  “That’s right, Hunt, suck my giant prick. You love filling your mouth with my savory meat. You’ve been dreaming of sucking on such a hulking, masculine tool for a long time. Admit it. Admit it!”

  But of course Huntley could admit no such thing with his mouth full. He was surprised by the force of the stream of semen that spouted into the back of his throat, and this time he very nearly choked. Whit made strangled sounds as he discharged down Huntley’s gullet, spout after spout of warm, pungent jism. Huntley managed to swallow, as Whit had earlier demonstrated to him, and Huntley had learned from hookers it was an insult to spit it out.

  “Do it, Hunt. Suck my big Indian cock. Eat my hot load of tasty jism until you’re full.”

  Huntley made one last heroic gulp and detached himself. He kneeled as though defeated, wiping off his mouth with the back of his hand while the enormous panting prick bobbed in the air above him. When he looked up, he saw Whit was equally as devastated, gripping the boulder as though it were the only thing holding him up, and Huntley had to grin.

  “That’s right,” he said confidently, trying to regain the upper hand. But he had to struggle to get to his feet, and clear bubbles swam before his eyes.

  Exhausted yet self-assured, Huntley braced his elbows against the boulder on either side of Whit’s wobbly neck. “That’s right,” he said again. He knew he’d gained new stature in Whit’s eyes, and this meant the world to him. “You didn’t think I could swallow such a hot, weighty load of jism, did you?” He wanted to kiss Whit as Whit had done to him, to deposit some of the jism back onto his partner’s tongue. Let him taste—as Whit had probably done hundreds of times before.

  Whit had a weak hand on Huntley’s shoulder, but he was looking at some distant point behind Huntley. Probably another one of his natural wonders. Huntley slapped him affectionately on the cheek.

  “Enough, Whit. Am I not one of God’s holy temples too, aside from your mountains and gorges?”

  “Belle,” it sounded as though Whit said, and his eyes looked glazed and shocked.

  “Yes. Belle.” Huntley chuckled and thought he needed to slap the surgeon harder. “You do promise me, you’ll give me a chance to prove myself to her?”

  “No. Belle’s here.”

  “I’m sorry.” Belle’s high piping tone came from about twenty feet behind Huntley.

  He spun around in time to see her stepping quietly, obsequiously, toward the men.

  By Saint Michael! How long had she been standing there?

  Chapter Thirteen

  What a wonderful treat to stumble upon on this table of broken granite cliff.

  It was rude to spy on someone when they didn’t know you were there, Belle knew. But when she hoisted herself up the last rocky outcropping, leveraging herself using the trunk of a gnarled dead pine, she was unbelievably stunned at what she saw.

  Major Ashbury on his knees, inhaling the stupendous length of Dr. Whitney’s prick.

/>   Belle was so astonished by the completely unexpected sight, she fell back against the dead tree trunk, sucking in her breath.

  She had known that they enjoyed canoodling about together, as she’d seen them both emerge from Huntley’s bedchamber one morning with telltale satisfied expressions. But she hadn’t heard any enormous proclamations of lust, especially not the fresh and lascivious things Whit was now loudly proclaiming. “Do it, Hunt. Suck my big Indian cock. Eat my hot load of tasty jism until you’re full.” When Whit had lapped at her clitoris not hours ago, his mouth had been too busy to make any such proclamations, and it pleasantly shocked Belle to hear such bawdy talk coming from the devilish surgeon.

  It was way too late to make her presence known—it would pile on the agony if, in addition to being known as a spy, she didn’t allow Major Ashbury to complete his lewd act to fulfillment. What a sight it was, Huntley clinging to Whit’s sinewy hip while massaging his pendulous scrotum. Whit with thighs spread, gripping a handful of the major’s beautifully glossy hair.

  Belle was amazed at the girth of Whit’s penis. She’d seen few white men naked in her life, and of course less than a few with erect tools, but Whit seemed fully twice as long and thick as her husband or lover had been. Instead of frightening her, this excited Belle. A trickle of juice seeped from her pussy and ran down her inner thigh as she clasped her bear robe closer about her. Her entire body buzzed with a strange energy, an unknown excitement at watching these two handsome men perform what surely was an unnatural act.

  When Whit came, Huntley boldly gulped. Belle had performed that trick with her French beau, and she knew how difficult it was to gulp such an urgent, bursting load. By the time Huntley was finished with his meal and leaned weakly against Whit, Belle was light-headed.

  And then Whit saw her. She should have pulled up stakes and departed back down the cliff. That way her lack of manners would never be known. When Whit’s eyes widened and he cried out, “Belle!” she knew she was buggered. She had to step forward and admit she’d been watching.