Slocum 315: Slocum's Gold Mountain

The storm had left the pass looking like a wonderland of white, with pines and spruce poking through to lend green accents along with the rusty brown and red rocks that reminded Slocum of the Rockies. He let his horse pick its way up the trail, and before he knew it, he was looking down a winding road on the far side of the pass. As he rode he thought and even fingered the curious map that had been stolen from Preston.

Most of all, he puzzled over the half gold coin. It had been meticulously cut in two, as if someone had used a jeweler’s saw to produce the precise zigzag pattern. But stranger yet was the scratch. Slocum held it up so the sunlight glinted off the tiny coin and highlighted the scratch. From one deep cut it ran diagonally across the coin to a notch on the edge. As straight as it was, Slocum doubted it had been accidental. Slocum tucked it back into his pocket. Worrying about it did no good without more information. If nothing else, he had half of a double eagle to spend.

As his horse made a sharp turn in the road, he saw Virginia City stretched up and down the eastern side of Mount Davidson. He had been passing mines for some time and had skirted the road leading to Gold Hill, the town on the far side of the mountain from Virginia City. Slocum wanted to find Preston’s brother quickly, give him the map and then move on. The storm had convinced him that he would be caught in the town if he waited until another roared down from the north. Winter was coming early this year, and Slocum had no reason to stay in a boomtown like Virginia City.

Slocum couldn’t remember how many towns like this he had seen. Right now, with silver flowing from the Comstock Lode like water down the Mississippi, men crowded the narrow streets and filled them from side to side. Some were prospectors looking to make their fortune by finding the big strike, the mother lode, the draw hole that would make them richer than Leland Stanford or Collis Potter Huntington. Others held more realistic goals, looking only to work in established mines. Still others sold merchandise to the miners and mine owners.

The mine owners got richer by the day because of the backbreaking labor of the miners. But perhaps the best of all were those merchants selling the goods necessary to keep the boom flourishing. They provided a service that kept the town alive, made a decent profit and breathed clean air and stood in bright sun.

Slocum tried counting saloons as he rode and gave up when he hit thirty, since he only rode on one street. Union Street below him on the mountainside looked to have as many, if not more than the one he was on. The brothels on Sutton Avenue were quiet now but would be doing a roaring business later, when the miners changed shifts. Asking questions in any of the houses of ill repute would get him nowhere. He would not bank on Preston’s brother also being a barkeep, but he knew no other place to ask and hope to get a reply. Even in a saloon it was a dangerous pursuit, since miners and prospectors disliked anyone asking too many questions, but Slocum had faced worse challenges.

He flexed his hand. The leather glove cracked as he did so. Being trapped out in the storm probably had been more dangerous. Facing the killer in a shoot-out definitely was more dangerous than knocking back a shot of whiskey here and there in Virginia City while asking after Preston.

As he rode slowly through the throng, his sharp eyes moved from one side of the street to the other. For no good reason, he picked the Firehouse No. 7 Saloon to start. Slocum dismounted, stretched his tired muscles, then made sure his horse was close enough to a water trough to drink its fill. Before long he would find the stables and see to a nosebag of grain for the horse. It had served him well getting across the snowy fields and up steep mountain passes to arrive here.

“Here” was like any number of other saloons he had been in. The only thing that struck him as odd about the Firehouse No. 7 Saloon was the relative quiet for so many men—and the men were, for the most part, dressed similarly. They wore rubber coats with bright brass plates on the breast and many had military-looking leather helmets on the bar beside them. As he neared, Slocum saw that the men were all firemen.

“This here’s reserved for volunteer firemen,” the barkeep said, but he was obviously impressed that Slocum didn’t bull his way in and had some recognition of social class. In most boomtowns, the firemen were at the top of the social heap. From the looks on these men’s faces, Virginia City was one of them. With fire an ever-present danger to the flimsy buildings that had sprung up like mushrooms after a spring rain, those who risked their lives to save both property and lives were a cut above the norm. In addition, such fire departments accepted a prospective volunteer only after rigorous initiation.

“Thanks anyway,” Slocum said, turning to go. From farther down the bar he heard whispers being exchanged among three of the men. Before he got to the door, one of the firemen called out to him.

“You don’t have the look of a miner about you,” the fireman said. “Not a gambler, either, not like most of the damn tinhorn thieves coming here these days.”

Slocum accepted the shot of whiskey, looked at it with anticipation, then downed it in a gulp. It was good liquor, not the cheap trade whiskey made with raw alcohol, gunpowder and rusty nails served in most mining towns.

“Good,” he said, wiping his lips. “Could I buy you and your friends one?” These men might be the social upper crust in Virginia City, but they weren’t above accepting a free drink. In a few minutes Slocum had made the acquaintance of the lieutenant and his two aides.

“Name’s Sparky and these here gents are my good buddies Hugh Lawson and Big Ed Zelowski. Ain’t his real name. Nobody’s ever been able to pronounce it right, so that’s his moniker.”

“Ed,” the huge man said, grinning and showing two missing front teeth. “It’s Ed they can’t pronounce.” The men laughed at what had to have been a joke told a hundred times. Slocum joined in.

“You gents probably know everyone in town. I’m looking for a man named Preston.” He watched their expressions change from joviality to caution.

“That’s between me and him, when I find him. Let’s just say I have an inheritance to pass along from his brother. You don’t know anyone named Preston?” The trio was still chary to talk about any Virginia City inhabitant with a stranger, but Slocum guessed they didn’t know Preston. To be certain, Slocum described Preston the best he could, but he might have been describing half the men in town. There was no rule requiring Preston’s brother to look anything like him, either.

“Sorry we can’t help you, Slocum,” Sparky said. “Most of us don’t get out of town much. We work in the Silver King Mine, when we’re not servin’ the community as firemen.”

Slocum listened to them go on about the fires they had fought, how some were difficult and others easily extinguished. He made appropriate sounds and nodded occasionally to keep them talking, but got no further clue as to whether they knew Preston. Probably not, since there were so many newcomers to town. Not only were there prospectors and miners, but also lumbermen and freighters and scores of other professions necessary to support a town digging millions of dollars of silver from the ground. The smelter at the foot of Mount Davidson employed more than two hundred men, most all of them having come to Virginia City within the past few weeks. Slocum knew all this from what the firemen said in passing.

“You certainly know how to throw a party,” Slocum complimented, “but I have to get settled in. Any idea where I can find a room for the night?”

“Slocum, that’s ’bout the funniest thing we heard in a spell. Ain’t no hotel rooms in this danged place. A couple on the edge of town are bein’ built, but no tellin’ when they’ll open. What rooms there are sleep a dozen men across—in each direction.”

“Likely to charge more ’n you’d care to spend, too,” chimed in Hugh Lawson. “That’s why there’s so many rickety buildings. Can’t put ’em up fast enough for the folks blowin’ into town.”

Slocum drank another round with the firemen, then drifted away as they got down to serious discussion of fighting fires. He reckoned it was better than listening to them talk about drilling, blasting and swinging pickaxes deep in the claustrophobic, boiling hot stope of a silver mine, but he wasn’t sure.

As he stepped out on C Street, the cold wind whipping down from the elevation warned him of another Washoe Zephyr blowing in. He looked around and wondered how awful it might be staying here over the winter. Miners were notoriously bad gamblers, and he had plenty of money for a stake in any game likely to be held in a saloon along this street. Trying to pick the right time to leave between storms might get him frozen solid in some unexpectedly high pass if he guessed wrong.

“Not so bad,” Slocum said as he walked along the street, glancing into saloons and dance halls. He saw plenty of soiled doves and even more miners willing to pay their price, whatever it might be. As he walked, however, a desolation settled on him. He might have looked square at the man he sought and not known it.

A particularly nasty-looking gambling establishment drew him. Slocum stood back, fended off the advances of the Cyprians plying their fleshy wares, and watched the miners gamble. A good faro game would make him a rich man before spring came back to the Sierras. Even splitting the take with the saloon owner, Slocum knew he could make thousands of dollars from the wild, ignorant way the miners bet. They were no different here than back in Truckee at the Stolen Nugget Saloon.

Slocum shrugged, finished his drink and went back outside. Darkness and considerable cold had wrapped Virginia City by now. Gaslights sputtered noisily along C Street and cast pale yellow light enough to read a newspaper by, if he had a newspaper. Slocum took two quick steps and jammed his spur down on a sheet of paper blowing past.

He had his newspaper. Scanning the Territorial Enterprise quickly showed him a listing of ads. If it came down to it, he could run a small ad asking after Preston’s brother and offering a modest reward for that information. In a town of fabulous wealth, there was always crushing poverty. A five-dollar gold piece might go a long way toward loosening a tongue. Slocum tore out the masthead with the newspaper’s address and tucked it into his coat pocket. Then he looked around, wondering where he might pitch his blanket for the night. Somewhere away from this main street.

He had seen a cemetery downhill before it had gotten too dark. Cemeteries were peaceful enough places to sleep. Superstitious miners weren’t likely to bother his sleep there, and Slocum was far removed from having any irrational awe of the dead. He had seen too many corpses to believe they ever came back.

Making his way back to where his horse waited impatiently, Slocum got the feeling of eyes following him. He turned and looked over his shoulder once but saw no one stand out in the crowd. The feeling had intensified by the time he mounted his horse and turned its face toward the road winding down toward the cemetery.

“Mr. Slocum,” came a soft voice that filled the evening like a nightingale’s song. A woman stepped from the deep shadows at the side of the Firehouse No. 7 Saloon. Slocum shielded the light from the nearby gaslight with his hand and studied her. At first he heard the soft whisper of her skirt hem across the boardwalk and the click of her shoes against the wood planking. She was dressed plainly, but what struck him most was her lack of a coat on such a chilly evening. She huddled forward a little, hands clutching her elbows in a vain attempt to hold in the heat.

His eyes worked up quickly to the heaving bosom and then to her face. A pale white oval, that face was about the loveliest he had seen in quite a while. She had the sophisticated air of the ladies in San Francisco but the edge of a frontierswoman. Her auburn hair flew about wildly as the wind whipped around the building. She appeared unaware of the hint of new snow on the air as she stared boldly, making Slocum feel he was the center of the universe.

“Perhaps he didn’t quite trust you, Mr. Slocum,” she said. Then she laughed. “No, he trusted you completely if he sent you after Seamus.”

Slocum nodded, absorbing information he had lacked. Preston had been Irish, judging from the faint brogue in his words. Having a brother named Seamus and a sister going by Molly fit well.

“Where can I find Seamus?” Slocum asked. The woman stepped closer, brushed a shock of hair from her eyes and looked up at him. He felt he could get mighty lost in this woman’s bright blue eyes.

“I need to find a place to sleep tonight.” Slocum turned up the collar of his coat as the wind took on a steel edge of a storm. “From the way the wind’s blowing, I’d better go to earth pretty quick.”

“Come on up to our place. Me and Seamus, we got a shack, it’s not much, up on the side of Gold Hill. You’re welcome to wait there for him.”

“Lead the way. I’m not turning down such a charitable offer, not if I’d be out in the snow otherwise.” He saw how she bit her lower lip, glanced down at her feet, then looked back at him almost shyly.

Slocum thrust out his left arm. Molly grabbed his hand and let him pull her up behind him in the saddle. She settled down quickly, her arms around his waist. He didn’t put up any fuss when the woman’s hands drifted down and rested over his crotch. The sensations moving into his loins as they rode grew until Slocum was about ready to explode by the time she had guided him up the steep side of the hill and along a narrow dirt path to a tumbledown shack.

“This your place?” he asked. Somehow, he reckoned a woman as pretty as Molly would have a better place. Maybe not one like the millionaires down lower on the hill but better than this rickety line shack. But, he reminded himself, Virginia City was a boomtown and finding any shelter was hard. This might be the best she and her brother could manage. From her worn dress Slocum guessed Molly and Seamus didn’t have a great deal of money.

“No matter how humble, there’s no place like home,” Molly said, releasing her grip around his waist and sliding lithely to the ground. She smoothed her skirts but the wind whipped them up, giving Slocum a quick look at the woman’s ankles. She knew the effect she had on him. Molly flashed a quick grin that bordered on the lewd, then pushed the door open and went inside without a word.

Slocum saw a lean-to around back that served as a crude stable. He dismounted, led his horse to it, then made sure some hay was in a trough and that the horse had ample water. If it got too cold, the water would freeze, but not drinking would be the least of the horse’s—or Slocum’s—worries. Taking his gear, he went back to the door leading into the shack.

He stooped dead in his tracks in the doorway. For a second, he thought his eyes played tricks on him. Maybe a snowflake had fluttered in and temporarily blurred his sight. Or shadows cast by a flickering kerosene lamp playing through the room made him see what wasn’t there.

“Do tell,” Slocum said, dropping his saddle just inside the door. He took off his gloves and shucked out of his gunbelt, but he never took his eyes off Molly Preston. She was buck naked and lolled back on the cot stretched on the far side of the room.

The cold tightened her already firm breasts and made the feisty woman’s nipples spring up hard and red atop the hills of snow-white flesh. Those succulent mounds might be snow white but they weren’t cold, not like the snow beginning to fall faster outside. Slocum found that out quickly when he sat on the edge of the cot, bent low and sucked one of the nips into his mouth.

Molly gasped, sagged back and shoved her chest upward so he could better tend both of those tasty tidbits. Slocum obliged her by licking, sucking, kissing and then moving to the other nipple. As he worked to tongue the rubbery tips, her fingers frantically sought to free him of his clothing.

Slocum repositioned himself a little and let the woman work feverishly to get him as naked as she was. As she worked, he drew back and studied her. Molly’s body was sleek and firm and damned near perfect. Her alabaster skin slipped like velvet under his exploring fingertips and then rippled in excited anticipation when he reached a sensitive spot on the inside of her thigh. Molly’s legs parted of their own accord to reveal a coppery-colored nest of fur hiding the location where both wanted Slocum to explore further.

“If you keep working like that’s a pump handle, you might just cause a gusher,” Slocum said. The woman’s hand had curled around his rigid manhood and worked up and down furiously. He slipped about on the narrow cot so she could hang onto his hard length but so he got an even better look at her naked beauty.

“John,” he said, then shut off any further talk by locking his lips against hers. The kiss deepened as their desires rose to match the wind howling louder and louder by the minute. Slocum’s tongue probed out and dueled with Molly’s. Hers slithered back and away and then swirled about his, stroking and racing to and fro until both were gasping for breath.

Then Slocum worked lower with his kisses, going to her chin, back to her closed eyes, all over her cheeks and ears and sleek, arching neck. Not content, he slipped lower to lavish more kisses on her firm breasts. The gooseflesh had vanished as her heart raced faster. Slocum nibbled first on one nipple and then the other, tasting the woman’s salty sweat. He spiraled down one milky white cone of teat flesh, frolicked orally in the deep valley he found and finally worked his wet way up the other.

By the time he reached this summit, Molly thrashed about on the bed. She moved around, positioned herself and opened her legs widely so she could wrap them around his waist. Slocum was firmly held in place—as if he intended to go anywhere.

“Oh, yes, John, this is so good,” Molly sobbed out. She clutched at his upper arms and then slid her fingers down and hunched up enough to reach behind and grab his muscular rump. She pulled hard to draw him even deeper into her moist, intimate recess. Slocum allowed her to guide him that extra inch.

For a few seconds he simply enjoyed the feel of such a hot, tight sheath of female flesh around his steely length. Then he began drawing back. Molly’s sobs of protest momentarily sounded louder than the wind building outside. Then her shrieks of pure joy filled the cabin as Slocum rammed back and ground his crotch into hers, stirring his rigid pole about like a spoon in a mixing bowl. The woman began twitching and bucking like a bronco. Slocum rode her well.

Her knees pulled back until they were on either side of Slocum’s body. With a quick swoop down, he got one of his arms under her knee and lifted. This drove him into her at a different angle, giving both of them new thrills of carnal pleasure. When lightning bolts began surging up and down his length as he stroked powerfully, Slocum had to slow. He wanted this to last all night. But the woman wasn’t going to let it.

She reached down between them and found the dangling hairy sac. Molly began squeezing it, teasing it, giving him sensations he had seldom felt before. Slocum leaned forward as he stroked inward, bending her knee back toward her chest. Her other leg curled about his waist to attempt the impossible task of pulling him even closer, even deeper.

Slocum felt the woman trembling constantly, as if she had been thrust out into the storm. But the sex sweat beading her face and body belied that. He knew she was close to exploding in lust. He altered his pace and began moving with short, quick strokes guaranteed to excite Molly the most. And they did.

She gasped, arched her back and lifted her hindquarters off the bed, and then vented a cry of pure ecstasy. As she cried out, the tightness surrounding Slocum’s hidden length compressed even more, squeezing him flat.

This was more than he could tolerate. His careful rhythm vanished as he flashed back and forth, driving his meaty stake deep into her needy well. The heat mounted inside his loins, spread like wildfire and then exploded outward in a fiery rush that left him drained.

Molly mumbled something, pulled the thin blanket up over their naked, intertwined bodies and settled down. In a few minutes she was sound asleep. Slocum lay awake for a while listening to the fierce howl of the autumn storm blowing down along Mount Davidson and covering Virginia City with a new coating of snow.

It was freezing outside but as hot as he could handle in the tiny shack. He fell asleep thinking it might be just fine spending the winter in Virginia City.