Sun-scorched Judgment
Copyright© 2026 by Trace Linden
Chapter 1
Western Sex Story: Chapter 1 - Western adventure mixed with raunchiness marks Mr. Linden’s debut work. It’s 1872, and young Caleb Warner, hoping to become a miner, instead finds himself navigating criminal goings-on while uncovering the needs of the women in the high prairie town of Judgment. Soon enough, he finds himself in a big ol’ heap of trouble.
Caution: This Western Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Consensual Fiction Western Polygamy/Polyamory
Once outside the train, the summer heat could finally move, courtesy of a gentle breeze. Not that the red and gold-painted car’s upper windows hadn’t been open, but they’d only stoked the oven inside the long cabin. Then again, the heavy air also sluiced the pungent, cloying reek of Judgment, Wyoming’s crowded streets into Caleb Warner’s nose.
Taller than the crowd of other departing passengers and with broad shoulders stretching a shirt of blue plaid cotton, he ached. The ride from Cheyenne hadn’t been long, but an unyielding wooden bench had proven too cramped for his build. Plus, he’d made the mistake of falling asleep. As he stood on the platform, rolling his neck, tortured cords popped and cracked.
A wide-brimmed felt hat smacked against a thigh clad in rough gray wool, launching dun-colored puffs. Calls from high above drew his focus. A pair of birds, likely turkey vultures drawn to some unmoving prize, wheeled in a sapphire blue sky streaked with wispy clouds.
Once the slouching hat again sat on sweat-soaked hair, a sigh escaped cracked lips. It got lost in a hiss from further ahead; a plume of steam was billowing from the black locomotive.
His gaze drifted. A line of gray-tinged peaks clung to the northern horizon. So close to his goal. A long way from Chicago, where Pa lay buried and his younger sister, Hannah, toiled. Even longer from the outskirts of Baltimore, where a loving mother’s bones rested on a hill above the winding, rock-choked Patapsco.
“Only a few hundred miles of prairie to go,” he muttered, adjusting the weight of a low-slung holster.
One of the few things left from Pa. The weather-beaten leather had served his father well in the war. Snug within, its walnut grip protruding, rested another keepsake.
A reliable, single-action, .44 caliber revolver. Six cylinders of paper-wrapped cartridges. As Pa had explained years ago while teaching him to shoot the 1860 Colt, the goal should never be to use it ... but he had.
Quiet tittering brought him to the shade cast by the timber awning of the main station building. A dress of crushed velvet, its hue matching the sky and fringed with white ruffles, snatched his focus. Though the owner’s curvaceous frame was petite, an ample bosom strained the bodice topped with a bow of snowy chiffon. Also blue, a hat perched atop great swooping loops of thick sable hair, held by glinting slender gold pins. A delicate, white-gloved hand was waving at a window in one of the forward-most coaches.
When the lady turned, a slanting beam of sunlight illuminated a radiant smile. A quiet whistle left him as his ribs tightened. Although the faintest feathering at the corners of glinting eyes marked her as older, she possessed a beauty rare—very rare—for such bleak parts. Full red lips, high cheekbones, and a narrow, firm chin. His nostrils flared as if to smell the expensive perfume sure to grace the flawless skin of such a woman.
“Ah, doncha be a starin’ too long, young sir. Those purty tail feathers ain’t nuthin’ but trouble.”
The quiet, raspy voice drew him to a grizzled, wiry black man. In the gray twill uniform of a rail line porter, he was leaning on an empty luggage cart. After shifting his attention from the distant figure to Caleb, he flashed a narrow grin.
“Trouble?” Caleb asked.
“Yessah. Trouble. Leastaways her husband is.”
“Husband?”
“Colonel Morrison. The man kinda runs this heah town.”
“He the mayor?”
With a soft chortle, the porter scratched his chin.
Motion in the shade pulled Caleb’s attention. Another lady was descending the short stairs from the train. Also a striking beauty, but with spun gold hair, she wore just as fancy a gown. Charcoal, with silvery tracings and trimmed in delicate black lace. Arm-in-arm, the pair laughed while heading from the platform.
“Nuh-uh. Don’t work like that,” the man replied in a quiet voice.
While shaking his head, the porter watched the women disappear. He sighed and used the back of a sleeve to wipe sweat from a high forehead. Quick eyes scanned the burlap bag slung over Caleb’s shoulder.
“Reckon you’ll be wantin’ a place t’stay,” he added.
Caleb nodded. “Yeah. Just passin’ through, though.”