Slocum 315: Slocum's Gold Mountain

“Where you been, Slocum?” Sheriff George strode up, two deputies flanking him. Both men carried shotguns and looked as if they had eaten something that didn’t set well in their bellies.

“Don’t give me any lip,” the lawman snapped. “We got reports of gunfire down at the cemetery. You wouldn’t have been there and exchanged rounds with one of the Montroses, would you?”

Slocum wondered what the source of the man’s information might be. The sheriff had not been too inclined to poke his nose into trouble inside Virginia City before. Why now? The lack of a town marshal had opened up licentiousness and outright crime, but not that much.

“Was that it? Was that all you done?” Sheriff George looked as dyspeptic as his deputies. “Hand over your six-gun, Slocum. We got to go investigate this here crime.”

“No crime, and I won’t give you my gun.” Slocum widened his stance slightly. He didn’t want to throw down on the sheriff. In a way, he liked him. But that didn’t mean he trusted George to take his gun when the sheriff’s next act would be to heave him into the hoosegow and probably throw away the key.

“You’da kilt Big Jack yerse’f if you’d caught him, Sheriff,” said the scrawnier of the two deputies. “Looks like he done you a favor.”

“Was Pierre Arnot one of the family in cahoots with the Montrose gang?” he asked. Slocum saw George’s reaction and knew the answer right away.

“Big Jack was pokin’ round Pierre’s grave?” This caught the sheriff’s attention. He turned to the skinny deputy and snapped, “Get the gear. What we got in the wagon out back o’ the marshal’s office. Bring it all down to the cemetery. Now, damn you, and don’t go lollygaggin’ about, even if you see that whore you’re sweet on.”

“I’ll go with you, Sheriff,” Slocum volunteered, enjoying tweaking the lawman. If George hunted for something—the map?—he wouldn’t want anyone to see what he unearthed after he dug up Arnot’s grave. He obviously thought Big Jack Montrose had been intent on retrieving something from that gravesite rather than back-shooting Slocum.

Sheriff George pushed the man in the direction of the marshal’s office, glared at Slocum, then stalked down the street with the other deputy trailing behind like a lost puppy dog. Slocum’s amusement died when he realized the sheriff was intent on finding the stolen gold, too. He thought there might be something hidden in Pierre Arnot’s grave that had drawn Big Jack Montrose there. Slocum wasn’t so sure about that. He believed Montrose had trailed him there and thought he had a chance at murdering him and then robbing him of the map.

Slocum was glad he had never mentioned either the map or the gold coin to the lawman. He wasn’t sure George was honest and wanted to recover the hoard because it was the right thing to do, or if the man wanted it all for himself. A million dollars in bullion was a mighty solid reason to abandon a dented tin star and a salary of a hundred dollars a month.

Slocum crossed town, avoiding the rowdier places but keeping a sharp eye out for anyone who might be trailing him. The sheriff was too busy digging around the cemetery, probably looking for the map. Slocum wondered if the lawman might roll Big Jack Montrose into the same grave that he opened to hunt for the map, then close the grave on the pair of outlaws. It would save them all a world of trouble since Eustace Montrose wasn’t likely to take the loss of another son calmly.

Slocum doubled back a couple times but saw no one tailing him. He avoided two volunteer firemen out on the town because he didn’t want to get involved in swapping drinks with them as they staggered from saloon to hurdy-gurdy to whorehouse.

His steps slowed as he approached the outbuilding behind the ruins of the hotel. Slocum wasn’t sure if Erin would still be there. She had been upset with him about following the map directions and taking the stolen gold for his own. For a moment he considered how she might be right. He remembered his original distaste for the chore of taking Preston’s pitiful legacy to Seamus and his outright contempt for the notion of a treasure map. That had changed since Seamus’s death. Learning that the bullion had been stolen added to Slocum’s yen for a golden return on what had been his sworn duty.

“Sorry,” Slocum said, but he wasn’t that sorry. Erin was dressing. Her blouse hung open, revealing her luscious breasts. Her legs poked out from under a too-short skirt, giving Slocum a clear view from her ankles all the way up to her thighs.

“Your friends in the fire engine company. They took up a collection.” Erin actually blushed. “They went up and down Union and D Streets asking.”

Slocum knew these streets were where the cribs and brothels were most likely to be found. Sparky and the rest of the volunteer firemen had solicited spare clothing from whores for Erin. That she had accepted showed how desperate she had been.

“I didn’t know when they gave them to me, but I’m so ashamed, John. After I found out, I didn’t want to give them back.”

“I’ve got so much to be embarrassed about,” Erin said, her eyes not meeting his. “You saved my life last night. Everyone says so. And when you asked for the gold coin, I got mad. It’s not that unusual that you’d want to find the gold Seamus and the rest stole. I never asked if you were going to return it for the reward.”

“No, you didn’t,” Slocum said. He was glad she hadn’t. He would have been honest and told her he wanted it all for himself and made her really angry. He hoped she wouldn’t now since he wouldn’t lie to her now, either. It was one thing making off with gold already stolen. It was another matter entirely lying or going back on your word.

“The clothes don’t fit too well, do they?” she asked. She looked up with her blue eyes gleaming. A faint smile danced on her ruby lips again, and she leaned back slightly, bracing herself on her hands and drawing up her knees. “I suppose I ought to take them off.”

“After just putting them on?” Slocum saw what was on her mind, and it had occurred to him, too, the instant he opened the door and saw her. She was one fine-looking woman. He felt himself responding to the banter, until it got downright uncomfortable being in his jeans.

Slocum bent over and reached for the blouse, to move it away from her shoulder. Erin batted his hand away. He looked at her in surprise.

“Don’t use your hands,” she said. Her voice had turned husky, and her eyelids drooped to half-mast. When she shoved her chest out and let the blouse flop open to expose her succulent, snowy white breasts, Slocum got the idea.

This time as he bent forward, he supported himself on his hands and used his teeth to worry back the cloth from her shoulder. He kissed lightly as he went and occasionally let his tongue dart out to touch spots he thought would be most sensitive. His instincts were unerring. Every wet lick of his tongue caused a new ripple of desire to pass through the woman’s body.

Slocum couldn’t answer because his mouth was occupied with stripping her blouse off. He had finished with one arm and worked the blouse down over the other, to leave Erin sitting on the blanket, naked to the waist. In the faint light of the rising moon filtering in through cracks in the walls and roof, her skin turned to liquid silver. But no metal had ever been so soft, tender and seductive.

He brushed lightly over one nipple and then the other. They tasted salty as he suckled and then nipped with his teeth. His tongue shot out and crushed the hard nub down into the softness below. Erin groaned and sank back to lie on the blanket. Her strength had fled as Slocum kept up his oral assault on her body.

He slid down the steep slope into the deep valley between to lavish more kisses her. He pushed aside the double eagle coin segment he found there. It would have been easy to snare it in his teeth, yank and win it as his prize. But Slocum wanted something more now.

Slipping from side to side, he went lower and lower across her belly. He paused a moment to dip into the deep well of her belly button, but this wasn’t his goal. His tongue whirled about like a tornado and came to the tight waistband of her skirt. Here Slocum started to cheat, to use his fingers to release the button.

He was not going to gainsay her. His teeth locked around the large button holding together the skirt, and then he reared back, tossing his head like a magnificent stallion. The thread yielded, the button pulled off and Erin’s skirt flopped open. He pounced on it like a mountain lion going after a rabbit. Using only his teeth, he pulled and harried and finally dragged the offending skirt away from the aroused woman’s middle, to expose the spot he most wanted to sample.

His lips kissed the heaving dome of her belly and then glided directly lower to the top of her pink nether lips, where he found a tiny bud growing. He licked and sucked and kissed and then drew it into his mouth as far as he could.

Warm thighs crushed down powerfully on his ears and held him at his post. He realized Erin had reached the breaking point. He thrust out his tongue and slid from the quivering button of flesh into the woman’s moist interior. He began a steady motion that lifted Erin’s hips off the blanket and ground her crotch hard into his face.

Slocum’s tongue began to tire, but the woman showed no signs of wanting him to leave. He surfaced for air, turned and lightly nipped her inner thigh. This set off a new tremor that passed through her trim body like an earthquake.

As her legs parted this time, Slocum moved between them and up on her body. He kept licking and kissing, but now he was struggling to get himself out of his pants. He succeeded and released the fierce, hard length that had been trapped for too long.

Before Erin could protest, he kissed her full on the lips, slid an arm under her left knee and lifted so her ankle rested on his shoulder. Tiny animal noises came from her now. Her eyes were clamped shut in ecstasy, and she tossed her head from side to side as the sensations rippling through her body built in intensity once more.

She cried out in rapture as Slocum moved his hips, knocked on the gates to her inner fastness, then rushed inside. He gasped when he felt himself surrounded by her moist warmth. For a frenzied heartbeat, he paused, relishing the crush of her heated flesh around his. He withdrew slowly, savoring every inch of the retreat until only the thick head of his manhood remained with her.

Ankle still on his shoulder, he bent forward again and entered her more slowly this time. The contrast between his first all-out thrust and this slow invasion caused her breasts to rise and fall rapidly, delightfully, as she gasped for breath. He kept up the agonizingly slow thrust and retreat until he wondered how he could stand even another instant of it. His loins were ablaze with need. He felt the hot white tide building inside and fought to contain it.

He wanted as much of this stark, animal pleasure as possible. But Erin foiled him. She reached up and stroked his face, his cheeks, his lips, thrust her finger into his mouth. Then her knowing hands moved down his hirsute chest—and surged lower. Her teasing fingertips danced lightly on one of the tight, hard spheres dangling beneath his erect shaft. It was as if she had dipped her fingers in acid. Every touch sent shocks through him.

Slocum grunted, ducked his other shoulder to scoop up her right leg and draped that ankle over his shoulder. Bent double, she could only accept his every move. Her upper legs pressed down hard into her breasts and crushed them flat. His stalk buried deeper and deeper into her until Erin cried out in release once more.

This was more than Slocum could stand. He fought to hold back his own ultimate pleasure and could not. Sliding forward as far as possible into her core, he split apart and spewed forth his load. He lost all sense of time and place as he moved, friction heating his entire length and giving him the ultimate in human pleasure.

Spent, he released her legs to fall on either side of him. He put his head down on her breasts for a moment, then rolled to the side. Erin’s arms curled around him as she clutched him tightly.

“Not much later, I trust,” she said, but she returned, to put her head against his chest and listen to his strong heartbeat.

Content for the moment, Slocum lay with his arms around her and let his thoughts tumble and flow in odd directions. No matter how he remembered the lusty coupling with Erin, thoughts of gold always intruded. He found himself in the same situation as Eustace Montrose. He had half the map and all of the double, and it still didn’t tell him where the gold was stashed. Whoever had thought up the system had wanted to be certain no one sneaked back to get the loot without the others along. Slocum had three-quarters of the information and was as far from getting the gold as Montrose.

Working a deal with the outlaw and his cutthroat family hardly seemed likely. Montrose had slaughtered all his partners in the crime. Both Prestons were dead, as well as the Arnot family. Dealing with such a hardcase was out of the question, unless it was with a six-shooter pointed at the man’s gut.

Slocum sat bolt upright and grabbed for his six-gun. He disturbed Erin out of her light sleep. She rolled over and clutched at the blanket in a fit of unnecessary modesty.

“I heard Molly calling. From outside.” Slocum hastily pulled on his clothes, making sure to settle his cross-draw holster properly so he could get to his six-shooter if necessary.

Erin took a bit longer to complete her toilet. She scrambled to her feet when Slocum opened the door and peered into the darkness.

“Does she need your help?” Erin’s tone carried a mixture of anxiety and anger. “How’d she know you were here?”

That thought had crossed Slocum’s mind already. He drew his six-shooter and pulled open the door a bit farther to poke his head out for a quick look. He saw a faint figure on the far side of the burned down hotel that might have been Molly Preston. She waved to him, then walked away.

“Wait!” Slocum stepped out of the shed, still cautious of a trap. “Molly!” She kept walking, never looking back. Slocum found himself caught between running after the elusive woman and remaining with Erin.

“I need to talk to her. She might know where the rest of the map is. If not, she certainly knows more about what’s going on than either of us.”

Slocum ignored Erin and plunged into the chilly night. To the north lay Virginia City, bright and bawdy. To the west rose a steep slope to the top of Gold Hill, and south were more mines than he could count. Molly headed in that direction.

“Molly!” His cry fell on deaf ears. He saw her walking at a steady pace but rapidly widening the distance between them. Slocum broke into a lope that devoured the ground and brought Molly more clearly into view. Then he skidded to a halt when he heard Erin shriek in fright. On the heels of that anguished cry came a bass laugh that rumbled like thunder through the still night.

Slocum watched as Molly disappeared around a bend in the road, then reversed his course and dashed back to the outbuilding, cursing himself for being lured into a trap—but not for him. For Erin. He kicked open the door to the shed and thrust his Colt Navy in before him.

Slocum picked up the paper and read the few words on it. Eustace Montrose had Erin. He didn’t have to say that he would kill her unless Slocum turned over the map. That was unstated.

So was how Slocum was supposed to exchange the map fragment for the woman’s life. Eustace had not wasted ink on such details. All Slocum could do was wait.