by Jake Logan
“Oh, I think there is.”
“I might lie to you.”
“I can tell if you do, Mr. Sinclair.” She said his name with a wry twist.
“I’ll stop by,” he said.
Then she did something he didn’t expect.
Her hand went to his crotch and grasped his manhood through the cloth of his trousers. She took her hand away so quickly, he wasn’t sure if that had really happened. But the touch was enough to arouse his manhood slightly.
“See you around nine,” she said, and her voice was low and husky. He looked at the crowns of her breasts rising from her bodice.
“Count on it,” he said, then walked toward the door. He did not see Joe wave to him as he left. But he felt Ronnie’s eyes on him until the batwings swung closed behind him.
“Strange woman,” he said to himself as he walked down the dark street toward the café he had seen when he came into town.
He saw the shadows of men in between buildings, and the snouts of rifles that moved as he walked past.
Bledsoe had guards all through town. He saw the shadowy figure of a man atop one of the buildings and, farther down, the glow of a cigarette on another building.
He had his work cut out for him, he knew. And so did Rod and the other miners who wanted to take the town away from Bledsoe.
He knew it would not be easy, but he might get the chance to even the odds a little.
And he had only two days to lay the groundwork.
He looked into the window of the café and saw men at tables. Every one of them wore gun belts and had rifles within reach under their chairs.
This is no cowtown, he thought. It’s a damned outlaw hideout.
And he felt right at home.
19
Ronnie Sweet was excited. There was something about the man she knew as Dave Sinclair that intrigued her. When she entered her cabin, it was dark and she was early. She had left the saloon shortly after 8 p.m. She lit a lamp in her front room and then lit an incense burner in a small brass ornament. That night, she vowed, she would become a temptress. She sensed that she had finally met someone she could call a real man, no matter what his name was.
She undressed and put on silk mesh stockings, a short skirt she had made herself, and a filmy low-cut blouse that revealed a lot of cleavage. She put on slippers and dabbed cologne behind her ears and on her wrists. The fragrance was subtle, but alluring, with the faint scent of clover and roses. She hadn’t worn the cologne since leaving Kansas City.
She lit the logs in the small stone fireplace. The cabin was small and cozy. A short hallway led to her bedroom, with its brass bed, wardrobe, bureau, and dressing table with an oval mirror. Across from the bedroom was her pantry, and the back room was a small kitchen and storeroom, where she kept her hats, fur coat, and assorted high-heeled shoes and sandals.
Around nine, she heard a series of knocks on her door.
Her heart quickened as she opened the door.
“Come in, Dave, and welcome,” she said, a becoming smile on her face that brightened the faint dabs of rouge on her high cheekbones.
Slocum walked through the door, ducking his head to keep from cracking it on the lintel.
“Good evening, Ronnie,” he said.
“I’ll take your hat,” she said. “Have a seat on the divan and I’ll pour you a drink. I have Schnapps, rye, bourbon, whiskey from Tennessee, or crème de menthe.”
He removed his hat and handed it to her. She slipped it onto a peg jutting from a small hall-tree. He smelled her perfume and walked to the cowhide couch with its blue velvet throw pillows. There was a leather hassock a foot or two from where he sat down, opposite an easy chair of deerskin. The fire made the room glow with a welcome warmth.
“I’ll take your jacket if you like,” she said.
He unbuttoned his sheepskin jacket, wrestled out of it, and she took it to the hall-tree.
Slocum looked around the room. There were carved figurines of elves on the mantel above the fireplace, some Currier & Ives prints of New York hansoms and winter scenes in Central Park. No religious ornamentation anywhere he looked.
“Nice place,” he said as he watched Ronnie walk back into the room on whispering slippers.
“Thanks. I like its coziness, the quiet.”
“I’ll try a taste of Schnapps,” he said, patting his stomach. “Might settle the gristle from the steak I ate at the café.”
“Hiram buys cheap meat. You probably had old antelope.”
Slocum laughed. The lady had a sense of humor.
“I didn’t ask what it was,” he said. “But it was tougher than a boot.”
She poured two small glasses of Schnapps, carried them to the coffee table next to the hassock. She set the glasses down and sat beside her guest on the divan.
“I noticed a lot of men slinking in the shadows when I walked through town,” he said.
“They’re watchdogs,” she said. “Hiram’s hired gunmen.”
“What are they watching for?”
“The miners. If they come back, well, you can guess what will happen to them.”
“Mighty brutal,” he said.
“Hiram has not a trace of conscience. But let’s not talk about him. Let’s talk about you, Dave.”
“You think I’m someone I’m not,” he said.
“Oh, you’re someone, all right. Someone I’ve seen before. You have, shall I say, an unforgettable face.”
“Or maybe a double somewhere.”
She laughed. Then she reached over to the small table and picked up both glasses of the clear liquid. She handed one to him and raised her own.
“To your double,” she said. “By way of an opening toast.”
They clinked glasses and sipped their liqueur.
“Peppermint,” he said.
“Right. That should quiet down that antelope steak you had tonight.”
“Very soothing,” he said.
Her blue eyes shone in the firelight. The logs crackled and shot sparks up the stone chimney. He settled back and gazed at her with admiring eyes.
“You look fetching tonight,” he said.
She crossed her legs. Under the short skirt, they were long and slender, and the mesh stockings revealed the lean lines of her lower limbs. The skirt slid back to just below her black panties.
“Why, thank you, Dave. You look . . . like the part you’re playing. A down-and-out prospector in old clothes.”
He laughed. She smiled.
“I’m not down and I’m not out. And I’m not playing a part.”
“I’ll think of your real name in time,” she said. A coy smile flickered on her lips, and she stretched one leg out as if to display her hosiery.
“What’s in a name anyway?” he said.
“So, you quote Shakespeare, too.”
“A word or two.”
“And you think I look fetching tonight.”
“Very,” he said.
“Well, maybe you’ll fetch me after a while.”
“I’d be tempted,” he said.
She uncrossed her legs and drew them up under her as she switched her positions so that she faced Slocum.
“There was talk after you left the Silver Slipper in Kansas City,” she said. “Mostly among the girls there. One or two of them seemed to have known you. Or wanted to know you better.”
“I wouldn’t know,” he said.
“I talked to one of them. Can’t remember her name, Patsy, or Maizey, something like that. She knew your name and she said you had been intimate with her.”
“What do you mean by intimate?”
“Oh, you know. Like lovers. She said you were . . . well, it might be embarrassing. She said you were a great lover. I think she used the word fantastic.”
Slocum chuckled.
“Cheap gossip,” he said.
“No, I don’t think so. There’s something about you, Dave, that most women would find appealing. At least, I find you appealing. In a strange way.”
She left him an opening, but he didn’t say anything. He just watched her. She was like a slinking cat there on the couch, her long lean legs gathered under her as if to pounce. She was, he thought, more than appealing, she was irresistibly desirable. In that position, her breasts seemed to flow out of their confinement, and he could see the tiny blue veins under the alabaster of her skin.
“There is a manliness about you that most men lack,” she went on. “Even in those old grubby clothes, it’s something you can’t hide. I’d like to see more of you, if you’ve a mind to stay the night.”
“Is that an invitation?” he said.
“Yes, and I surprise myself. I’m not used to going after a man, any man, but there is something about you that makes my heart pound faster.”
“I’m flattered,” he said.
He was flattered. And surprised. She didn’t look or act like a bold woman, but she was, at least, honest. And desirable.
He tipped the glass to his lips and his tongue burned with the scent of peppermint. It had been a long time since he’d tasted Schnapps. He thought it might have been in San Francisco, or New Orleans.
Ronnie sipped some of her drink. Both put their glasses down on the coffee table.
“Now, we’ll both taste good when we kiss each other,” she said.
So she was bold, he thought.
“Is that what you want, Ronnie? Sure?”
“I’m sure,” she said and scooted closer to him. She stretched her neck so that her face was close to his.
He took her in his arms and bent to kiss her.
They touched lips and he felt fire in his veins. Then he pressed harder and her lips yielded to him. Hungry lips. Wanton lips.
She clasped him in her arms and moaned with pleasure. They held that kiss for a long while, moving their lips back and forth as if to touch every inch, every centimeter of flesh.
When they broke, she sighed long and deep.
He looked at her. Her lips seemed to have swelled and so did his manhood inside his pants.
“That was everything I wanted just then and much more than I expected,” she said. “You’ve stirred up a glow inside me, Dave.”
He kissed her again and then felt her hand on his manhood. His cock swelled and began to straighten.
“It’s all there, isn’t it?” she sighed when they parted after the second kiss.
“It’s getting more there by the minute,” he said.
Ronnie laughed softly.
She began to knead his cock with gentle fingers and it continued to swell with engorged blood and stiffen until it was pressing against the buttons on his fly.
He reached over with one hand and touched the top of a breast. His hand slid inside her blouse and he stroked her nipple. It swelled under his touch.
“Yes,” she said. “That feels so good to me. So right. Let me unfasten this to make it easier for you.”
He took his hand away, and she straightened up and unbuttoned her blouse.
As she sat there, bare-chested and beautiful, Slocum drank in her beauty. Her breasts seemed perfectly matched and pert, but full. He leaned toward her and put his lips on her left breast. His tongue found her nipple and he took it into his mouth. He laved it with his tongue until it grew plump. Then he went to her other breast and excited her nipple until it stood out like a bolt of hard flesh. He stroked it with the tip of his tongue, and Ronnie arched her spine and threw back her head in sheer delight.
“I want you,” she breathed.
“Mmm, yes,” he said as he took his mouth away from her right breast. “I want you, too, Ronnie.”
“Let’s go to my bedroom and let the fire burn down out here.”
“I’m all yours,” he said.
She looked at him with a skeptical stare.
“Are you?” she asked.
“For as long as you want me,” he said.
She touched his crotch one more time and then slunk off the couch.
“Follow me,” she said and floated away from him like a dancer, her body flowing, her bare back shining with a tawny glow from the hearth. And sparks flew up the chimney like gilded fireflies or stars of purest gold.
He heard a door open and then the scratch of a match. He stood up and walked toward the hallway. Light poured from a doorway off to his right and he heard the rustle of cloth from inside the room.
When he entered, Ronnie was stark naked and standing by her bed like a statue, like a Greek goddess on a pedestal.
“Hurry,” she husked and turned to pull down the comforter and fold it at the foot of the bed.
“You’re wearing too much clothing,” she said. “And you’ve got one too many guns on you.”
He laughed and unbuckled his gun belt. Then he slipped off his miners’ boots and stripped out of his clothes.
Ronnie lay back on the bed, her head resting on a pillow, her hair fanned out in dark velvet strands. A lamp glowed beside the bed, and Ronnie reached over and turned the wick down low.
Dave Sinclair’s clothes lay in a puddle on the floor.
It was John Slocum who crawled into bed beside Ronnie and took her in his strong arms.
She melted against him and they kissed. The kiss was long and rampant with passion.
“I don’t care who you are,” she whispered. “But I’ll know it someday. For now, it doesn’t matter.”
Slocum smiled and she spread her legs wide beneath him.
Like a flower opening to the sun, he thought.
Like a delicate flower full of the pollen that he would turn into honey.
20
When Ronnie spread her legs in an open invitation for Slocum to mount her, he took a moment to gaze down at the dark thatch between her perfectly formed long legs. Her legs formed a V, like an opened gate to pleasure and paradise. He moved over her and prepared to dip his body to couple with hers. There was a smile of anticipation on her face. A beckoning smile. An invitation.
He lowered his body over hers. Her hand reached out and grasped his rigid stalk and she guided him to her portal with a gentle hand.
He pried the portals of her pussy apart with the gleaming crown of his cock and dipped into her fiery cauldron. She quivered beneath him and her body cupped his in a natural and loving coupling.
“Ah,” she sighed as he sank deep, the warmth of her as soothing as a summer breeze. He stroked her with slow smooth slides of his cock and she responded with an undulating body that was like a warm sea wave beneath him.
“It’s so good,” she breathed and he kissed her.
“Better than good,” he whispered and kissed her again.
“I knew it would be. You have a scent about you. A manliness I admire.”
She was a woman of deep feelings, he could tell. There was a dimension to her lovemaking that he could not fully fathom, no matter how deep he plumbed the mystery of her. She was all curves, hillocks, and valleys, and she delighted him with her smooth rhythms and willing thrusts of her loins.
She clasped her arms around his back as if to hold him tighter against her rippling body, and he stroked her face with a single finger, squeezed an earlobe with a gentle pinch. She responded in kind, her hands flowing to his buttocks and pulling on them so that she could take him deeper into the warm oils that bathed his cock like a soothing balm.
She bucked with pleasure as an orgasm erupted from the core of her cunt. The spasms ripped through her veins and flesh with the velocity of an invisible windstorm. She cried out in a language only understood by lovers. It was a cry of pleasure and the cry of a wanton satisfied beyond belief.
“Oh, oh, Dave,” she sighed, “th
at was wonderful. You touched all the nerves inside me. You touched the magic and made it sing like a violin.”
“You put it very nicely, Ronnie,” he said, and pulled almost all of the way out of her and then slowly sank into her again.
Her body responded with an upward thrust, and they were impaled for a long moment as he held himself tight in her depths.
She climaxed several more times as if electrified. Still, he held back his own pleasure. He gave her every inch, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, and enjoyed the sway of her hips, the upward thrust of her loins, and the clasping pussy that gripped with flowing muscles deep inside her.
“You come slow,” she said after several orgasms. “I’m amazed that you can hold your seed like that.”
“I’m slow to come because I want to pleasure you,” he said.
“Slow to come,” she mused as if to herself.
Then she bolted half upright.
“That’s it,” she said. “I know your name. Slocum. Slow come.” She laughed, and her laugh startled him.
“You’re making a pun,” he said.
“I sure am. Slocum. John, isn’t it? John Slocum.”
“If you say so,” he said. “I’m not admitting to anything. My name is David Sinclair.”
“Bullshit, it’s Slocum. I heard people talk about you in the Silver Slipper. They knew who you were. John Slocum. And you have quite a reputation. Not only as a gunfighter, but a ladies’ man.”
She knew, he thought.
He could no longer hide it. Ronnie knew who he was. Now the question was, could she, would she, keep his true identity a secret? There was only one way to find out. Ask her.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m John Slocum. But I don’t want anyone in Sawtooth to know who I am just yet. Can you keep my secret?”
“I can and I will,” she said. “Now that I know who you really are. It’s an honor to know you and to be with you.”
“The honor is mine,” he said gallantly.
“Oh, it will be so hard to call you Dave when I want to scream, ‘John, John!’”
“You must, though.”
“Why are you here under false pretences?” she asked.
“Can’t you tell? There is something rotten about this town. The miners, the prospectors, hired me to gather information about Bledsoe and his band of cutthroats and backshooters.”
