Chapter 2

Sam Chisholm and his brash younger brother Saul had collected their first month's pay from the foreman at the new ranch-house and gotten all spiffed up for a night in town at the combination saloon and gambling den. Sam didn't hold much with gambling but his brother was certain he was the best poker player in all of Texas.

Of course, Saul lost most of his pay in less than an hour and had to borrow enough money from Sam to make a trip next door to the "comfort house" that had a full parlor of females to choose from all at the same price for a spin in one of the private rooms up above. One could tell when a room was occupied simply by the inspiring sounds of mattress springs squeaking loudly from behind a closed door. The female that Saul picked had actually picked him because she was no beauty and that was a fact. Her name was Tammy and she was a river girl with a terrible mouth on her with a vocabulary that would make a mule skinner blush beet red. On the other hand, she had round heels from all the sheets she had rubbed under countless frontier males with an itch to see the elephant.

She dragged the young man into the room eager to see what size he was sporting under his leather chaps. Needless to say, she was not disappointed because the Chisholm clan was all on the large size in that department and young Saul was no exception. After some exploratory introductions of the physical kind, Tammy got right down to business and suddenly found the young cowboy was wilting before he had actually begun. The desperate whore was driven to oral resuscitation but to no avail. When she looked up angrily at young Saul, he was snoring away totally disinterested in his surroundings including the irate Tammy. She silently took her fee from his pocket and that was all she took, leaving the remainder because she was no thief. Then, she bounced on top of the mattress for almost fifteen minutes certain that the noise would give fair warning to any other couples looking for a safe haven for some spirited fun. She left Saul stretched out on the bed feeling that she was not responsible for his safe-keeping. Maybe it would be better if she just went back downstairs and told his tall, lean brother that it might be wise to get him out of the room and back down on the sofa in the parlor safe and sound to continue his steady snoring. It would be nice if she could talk the older one into a bit of fun of his own but she had already hinted more than once and found him intransigent about taking a nice ride with her underneath him.

Sam felt embarrassed to be in the middle of all that female flesh and all he could think about was his dead wife Sally six feet under after being scalped by a pack of drunken Indians fresh off the reservation and itching to get revenge for the extermination of the buffalo and the loss of their way of life. He inhaled the sweet perfume and listened to the giggling but had no intention of following his randy brother up the stairs to take a ride on one of the young women with no hope of living a "normal" life and a lifetime of submission to rough riders with lust-filled hearts.

One of the more mature females with a look of despair on her painted face sat next to him and he was surprised she was also from Texas in a town that he had traveled through many times. She told him her name was Alice but he was reasonably certain that was a made-up name for her duties in the comfort house. He didn't want to pry into her real name or her reason for winding up in such a degrading way of life. She was still fairly attractive and he liked the fact she was sitting next to him but he knew that at any moment any drunk with enough coins in his pocket could contract for her services upstairs and she would be forced to drop him like a hot potato and head upstairs to a private room to furnish fifteen minutes of entertainment for the lust-filled customer. It was enough to keep him from feeling anything except pity for the woman and he treated her with politeness but absolutely no encouragement about feeding the kitty for a ride upstairs. She understood that and accepted it because it was an old story that her type was not considered "normal" folks even in the rough life of the frontier.

Alice was frowning at the interruption from the talkative Tammy.

"Your handsome young brother is snoring away upstairs. It might be advisable to get his ass back down here before some hot-head tosses him down the stairs to vacate the room for personal business."

Sam was amused at the thought of his silly brother looking for love and finding only a bed to snore away his dreams of lust because he was overly fond of the rot-gut whiskey this town served up with unsociable avarice. He removed Alice's hand from his knee and stood up ready to follow Tammy up the stairs for brother-removing duty rather than humping his heart out on a happy whore. Alice trailed along behind for want of interest from the male customers.

Tammy was not happy about the fact the spoil-sport Alice was ruining her opportunity to make a move on the big brother. He looked like he was ripe for a little fun and needed some excitement to wipe the look of boredom off his rugged face. She was so enthused about the possibility of doing the job that she considered doing it without a fee and claiming it was just to get the room available for more use that same evening. Now Alice was putting a damper on her game and she was not in a mood to take kindly to it.