Cold Steel and Hot Lead [How the West Was Done 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Karen Mercury

  Alameda said, “Minimally clad? Is there any role where a woman could cover up her arms and legs?”

  Rudy said, “It’s a burlesque, Alameda. This is one of the main attractions. Men as well as women enjoy looking at female forms.”

  “Why don’t you take a part, to shadow Franconi around?”

  “Some of them already know me. And everyone in town by now knows that we’ve vowed to find Kittie’s kidnapper. Franconi would just bolt if he saw us participating in his play.”

  Derrick said, “You don’t have to do it if you don’t feel comfortable. We can all just lurk outside and wait for Franconi to go back to his abode. Wherever he’s staying.”

  “Probably a tent,” said Rudy. “Cannonball!” He raised an arm to a fellow who did, indeed, look round.

  “No, I don’t mind,” said Alameda, although she clutched Derrick’s arm. He felt proud to be escorting such a fetching lady. Even the “spangled beauties of trapeze and limb” stared at Alameda in curiosity and envy. Perhaps envious that Alameda obviously wasn’t part of the performing life—yet. “It will be an exciting change from my life serving patrons at the Cactus Club.”

  “Say, Cannonball,” said Rudy. “Is Antonio Franconi performing in this play?”

  “Why, yes,” said Cannonball. “He’s playing the part of Count Wolfenstein.”

  Perfect. It would figure that such a culprit would play the part of the evil count. Perhaps whoever played the innocent girl would be his next target, if he was one of those fellows incapable of keeping make-believe separate from reality.

  “Can you point him out to us?”

  Franconi stood twenty feet away, arms held out at his sides so a costumer could stitch him into a nebulous black robe. He was a rather handsome fellow of about Derrick’s age, although he sported those ridiculous muttonchops that Percy favored. He read aloud from a small book, and Derrick inched closer to hear the dialogue.

  Franconi recited, “‘And how fares your lovely charge? But the fair Amina? Begone, sirrah!” Franconi looked around. “Wufgar? Where is my Wufgar?”

  Some woebegone fellow shuffled out from behind a wooden piece of scenery being painted to resemble a Roman coliseum. Or the inside of a barn, Derrick wasn’t sure which.

  Franconi commanded, “Track yonder knave and seize him!”

  “Aye-aye, sir,” said Wufgar unenthusiastically.

  “No ‘aye-aye’!” bellowed Franconi. “I’m a count, not a sea captain!”

  “I have no script!” wailed Wufgar.

  “We only had so many copies!”

  Cannonball had eyes only for Alameda. “And who is this luscious bite of chocolate? Why, she looks as though she could melt in your mouth. Did you bring her to perform as Stalacta, Fairy Queen of the Golden Realm?”

  Derrick asked, “Is the part of Amina filled already?”

  Alameda clutched Derrick’s arm. “I would like to be the Fairy Queen,” she whispered. “I can see just as much that way but maybe have fewer lines to memorize.”

  Cannonball said, “Rudy, remember that dear sweet trapeze girl, Temperance Somebody-or-Other? Her father plunged to his death when the folks holding the net beneath him failed to hold it.”

  “I recall her. How awful,” murmured Rudy.

  “Yes,” said Cannonball. “The net-holders were distracted when a clown’s pants split. I suppose they thought that laughing was more important than preventing an acrobat from splattering all over the grass. One must always be vigilant in this business! So we have given the part of Amina to Temperance.”

  Alameda shoved forward to shake Cannonball’s hand. “I will take the part of the Fairy Queen. What do I get to wear?”

  “This is Deluxe Dora,” said Derrick, recalling the name Percy wished her to use.

  “We have a most splendid costume for the Fairy Queen,” said Cannonball. He looked Alameda up and down with wiggling eyebrows. “I do hope it will be, ah, large enough for you.” He gestured for a gal to whisk Alameda away.

  “She will be safe,” Cannonball assured them. “I don’t allow any hanky-panky in my acts. And you fellows! Rudy, I have to thank you for taking care of Montreal Jed. That crowd was becoming very unruly and would have thrown him a necktie party for sure when that girl disappeared. Besides, he is much too weak for the showman’s life. Even while manipulating the little people, he passes into a dead swoon from apprehension. He is overly concerned with dirt, and that is one thing you cannot avoid in this business.”

  Curious, Derrick wandered over to where a carpenter was constructing a mirrored box of some kind. What caught his eye was a small pot of vermilion paint, he assumed of the kind Jeremiah had accused Franconi of stealing from him. The carpenter had evidently been using the paint for highlights in the flaming scenery, perhaps the set for the act where the poor artist is lured into hell.

  The carpenter was a curiosity. Apparently near-sighted, he had to lean in very close to hammer his nails, and his hands were very shaky. When he banged his thumb with the hammer he cussed something fierce and set to punching the actual wall of the Oddfellows Hall. He even grabbed a passing stage worker who carried someone’s costume. He throttled this hapless fellow by the neck then tossed him on the ground before returning to his work.

  On an impulse, Derrick swiped up the little pot of red paint and secreted it in his pocket. He made an immediate break in case the irate carpenter noticed, nearly banging into a pretty brunette girl who tottered by on very high heels, looking down at the one glove she wore.

  “Why do I only have one glove?” she asked in a high, squeaky voice. “Has anyone seen the other glove?”

  Derrick was relieved for this distraction. Oddly, the carpenter became involved in the glove, too.

  “Your costume only has one glove!” he shouted at the poor girl, who slunk away, gloveless.

  Derrick was dead set on getting out of the theater before he was whaled on by the angry carpenter for stealing the paint. He drew Rudy aside from his conversation with Cannonball.

  “That girl with one glove was wearing next to nothing!” he told his friend. “Where is Alameda? I hope her costume has a bit more fabric to it.”

  “I don’t know,” said Rudy, “but we aren’t leaving here tonight without her. I don’t care what Cannonball says—there is always plenty of hanky-panky going on in the theater. I just saw a fellow tattooing a girl’s breast with a penis.”

  “He used his penis to tattoo her?”

  “No, he was drawing a picture of a penis. But that’s almost as bad.”

  “Yes,” Derrick agreed fervently. “And this carpenter is suspicious. He could pass for Italian also. Who is he?”

  Rudy craned his neck to view the carpenter. He was now standing back to observe his handiwork but was so wobbly he had to hold onto his wooden flames of hell. Probably roostered. “I don’t know. Let me ask Cannonball.”

  “Oh, boys!” called Alameda, strutting out from the stage wings. A costumer who followed her had removed her striped tunic, and it was blatantly obvious where Alameda hadn’t been able to button up the bodice of her sister’s gown. Her abundant breasts spilled forth, jiggling as she walked. Alameda waved a headpiece contraption of some sort, garnished with many gaudy gold ostrich plumes. “Look at the hat I get to wear!”

  The costume fellow was taking his job too seriously, cinching his measuring tape around the fullest part of her bust, so Derrick grabbed the hat from her. He whipped the tape from his beloved’s bust, crumpling it into the costumer’s chest.

  “We need to go, Alameda. Give the fellow that hat.” Derrick whisked her striped tunic from the costumer’s arm and draped it over Alameda’s shoulders.

  “But he is measuring me to alter my costume! Oh, it’s pretty and elaborate and feathery—”

  Rudy was now striding toward them. “Let’s go,” he said shortly.

  “But my feathery bodice—” Alameda protested.

  “We can discuss this over dinner, my duck,” said Derrick.


  Chapter Eight

  “I need to practice my knots.”

  Rudy spoke in his smooth performer’s voice as he uncoiled several lengths of various ropes from his steamer trunk.

  Rudy had informed Derrick he would be used to test Rudy’s new act, so he had willingly sat in the chair. Rudy had stoked the corner stove to balance out the icy wind that managed to steal between the chinks of the new Union Pacific Hotel building. He had taken this room, one of the better ones in the building, before the train had become stranded. Now that another blizzard had hit the town just after they had delivered Alameda to Albuquerque House, Rudy was hoping Derrick would be stranded here in his room as well.

  It was a delicious hope, and Rudy had already poured two whiskeys down Derrick’s parched throat. Derrick had willingly imbibed. After the strange doings of the day, it was understandable. Even after being in the circus world for a few years, Rudy couldn’t recall a day full of such fantastic doings as today. The day Derrick Spiro had been stranded in Laramie.

  Rudy pulled a chair up next to Derrick’s and practiced slithering the length of reata rope between his fingers, weaving it in and out, testing its satiny quality.

  “Am I supposed to try and break free?” Derrick asked.

  “Yes. I’ll tell you when. Although here’s a little secret.” Rudy leaned into his friend confidentially. “Bear grease. Roll up your sleeves.”

  Derrick removed his cuff links and rolled up his sleeves to reveal what Rudy knew to be his athletic and powerful forearms. “So,” he said casually, seemingly unaware that his large, beautifully tapered hands were riveting Rudy’s attention, “the carpenter is Eliazar Castillo, the Spanish knife thrower who probably stole Jeremiah’s red paint. Percy could have mistaken him for an Italian in his vision. When he saw someone getting all contorted over poor Kittie’s body.”

  Rudy set down his reata and moved his fingers to Derrick’s necktie. Just the feel of the silk and the orange scent emanating from Derrick’s chest, plumped up his cock. “Yes, that’s entirely possible. You said he was acting quite disturbed.”

  “Almost maniacal,” Derrick agreed. When he helped Rudy remove his necktie their fingers touched, and Rudy inhaled the citrus aroma. All he wanted to do was bury his face in the heated crook of that savory shoulder!

  Rudy was not giving up on his ability to seduce this dashing politician. There had been more than a few men who had resisted but eventually caved under his suave charm. Derrick fancied himself a “regular, normal man”? Little did Derrick know. Most of the men who eventually twined their limbs willingly with Rudy, offering up their urgent, eager pricks for his delight, probably considered themselves “regular, normal men” to start with. That was part of the amusement in the seduction of men. Rudy enjoyed their resistance. It made it all that more delectable when they finally surrendered, to taste their virginal flesh simply melt with ardor underneath his questing mouth.

  Other men were Rudy’s only pleasure in life anymore, now that he no longer wished to dally with women.

  Rudy whipped the necktie aside and placed it on the settee. He fingered the top buttons of Derrick’s shirt. Derrick brushed aside Rudy’s fingers. “Yes, Castillo was raging at some poor girl who complained of having only one glove. ‘That costume only has one glove!’ he shouted. Poor girl. He looked about ready to decapitate her. He seemed like a fellow capable of extreme mayhem.”

  Derrick shrugged off his shirt, tossing it to the settee alongside his necktie. Rudy stood, ostensibly to gulp some more whiskey, but really to display his bulging erection. Life was short. “It’s a dog’s life,” his mother used to say. Meaning that it was so full of travails that one had best relish one’s pleasure when one could get it.

  Oh, absolutely glorious. Derrick’s pectorals were fully developed, what one would expect of a man who slogged across snowy fields on skis and bashed a ball around a baseball diamond. A sudden blast of wind squealed between some chinking, brushing over Derrick’s gloriously bared chest, stiffening his nipples. They puckered into tight buds that Rudy longed to suck. When Derrick leaned forward to massage some pain in his calf, the hard abdominal ridges creased, making Rudy’s mouth water with hunger.

  Leaning back in his chair, Derrick seemed completely unaware of his own beauty. Rudy was jealous that Derrick had been dallying in Alameda’s bedroom earlier that day. When Rudy had busted in, the feisty woman had been breathless, her mouth moist, obviously having just been kissed. And the erection nestled in Derrick’s trousers could have been seen a mile away. Rudy knew he had to make a move to assert his claim on this dashing politician before the woman mesmerized him. Men this thoroughly luscious only came along every…Well, never.

  Rudy paused, holding the jar of bear grease. “Wait. Glove, did you say? She only had one glove?”

  “Why, yes.” Derrick seemed intent on distracting Rudy from the glove. He now laced his fingers together at the back of his neck and gave Rudy a stunning show of his muscled, shimmering underarms. It was really only the thought of the glove that prevented Rudy from straddling him right then and there and shoving his cock down Derrick’s throat. That, and the idea that Derrick would paste him out flat if he tried. “I don’t know how a carpenter would know the costume details, but he seemed very adamant about it and looked about to wallop the girl if she protested a single second longer.”

  Rudy gestured with the bear grease jar. “Does this ring any bells for you? One glove?”

  Derrick stuck out his lower lip thoughtfully. “No. It should?”

  “Yes.” Rudy resumed his seat, set down the bear grease, and picked up the rope. Gently, he motioned for Derrick to lower his arms and place them behind him. He threaded the ends around Derrick’s wrists. This wasn’t one of those bogus knots easily undone. Rudy wanted knots that might be done by an audience member, not trick knots undone by any blockhead. He had studied seafaring knots and was using a figure eight double ending with a midshipman’s hitch to ensure that Derrick, a novice, would never be able to escape unassisted. Derrick made a few nominal efforts to wriggle free, but it only served to flex his pectorals as he thrust his hips lower in the chair.

  Rudy said, “Remember when Montreal Jed took one of Kittie’s gloves, saying the vibrations would lead her back to the present? That’s a typical illusionist’s trick to get the audience to concentrate on the glove, to think it has some special meaning. It doesn’t really.” He gave a final yank on his knot, satisfied.

  “Yes, I recall that. Did you notice where he put her other glove?”

  “Yes. Just down on his tray along with his other garbage. I doubt that whoever stole her had time to grab the glove before grabbing her.”

  Derrick squirmed as he looked down at the open jar of grease. “Unless the midgets were in cahoots. We still need to interview them.”

  Rudy scooped a couple fingers’ worth of grease and applied it to Derrick’s wrist, corkscrewing his palm around the stout thickness of it as though he were jacking his prick. He scooted his chair a few inches to the left so that it would inconvenience Derrick to look at him and took care to rub the grease into Derrick’s palms, where it warmed to his touch. “We’re not going anywhere else tonight. You think I want you wandering around the train or the circus in this dark blizzard?”

  Derrick chuckled, looking straight ahead at the windows. “I haven’t always been a dainty legislator, you know, a weak scribbler. I was a captain in the Union Army, at Antietam, among other lovely vacation spots. Then I owned several gold claims and the best saloon in South Pass. I didn’t always sit around the senate chambers smoking cigars.”

  Rudy now massaged the upraised hands for pleasure more than anything. He didn’t really want Derrick to escape his bonds—didn’t think he could. Derrick’s protestations gave Rudy the chance to discuss the subject utmost on his mind. Derrick’s body. “I didn’t think you got so well-built just arguing about bills and measures with other prigs. It’s obvious you’re an enthusiastic sportsman. Alameda mentioned you
wanted to find some skis.”

  Rudy dared to daub another few fingers’ worth of grease in a circular motion to the graceful slope of Derrick’s shoulder. Smooth as cream, his fingers slipped around the brawny muscles, and Derrick allowed his head to tilt back in acquiescence.

  “She enjoys sports, too,” Derrick said, a bit hazy now. “She’s a fetching spitfire of a woman. The first woman I’ve sincerely wanted to court since my wife passed to the other side. I was going to ask you if I had your permission to court her, but I don’t suppose you mind.”

  Rudy’s fingers froze on the creamy shoulder. I do mind. And it wasn’t just that he wanted Derrick for himself. Oddly, it was also that he wanted Alameda.

  This idea horrified Rudy. Several years ago he had vowed to never allow himself to love a woman again. It wasn’t worth it to open himself up so fully to a frontier woman when they were the first ones always killed. Having shallow and meaningless encounters with only men meant he would never have to endure having his heart ripped out and stomped on the prairie.

  “Why would I mind?” he lied, and resumed his massage.

  “I didn’t think so.” Derrick rolled his head about, obviously enjoying the touch. He seemed to be drifting into a reverie now. “I should be glad you’re a poof and not in competition with me. I’m surprised she’s made it this long in Laramie without being claimed by anyone—one of those Freund brothers or any of the other hundreds of roustabouts in this place. She’s ravishing, Rudy. Do you not enjoy women at all? Have you always been this way?”

  Oh, boy. Rudy would have to further distract Derrick from this topic, because he did not wish to discuss women. Taking another dollop of salve, Rudy slid his greasy hand down Derrick’s pectoral, the crisp chest hair stimulating his palm. When he pinched the tight nipple, Derrick gasped and squirmed in his bonds.