Chapter 4

When Caleb Winters drove the last leg of the journey into the county courthouse, he figured he would soon be free from the two war widows Constance and Dorinda and their older sister the unmarried Eliza. It hadn’t bothered him that they had shown not the slightest hint of respectable behavior with the patrol from the Fort and had all allowed themselves to be used quite shamefully by the three officers with the patrol like they were common whores ready to be abused and dumped at the earliest opportunity. In point of fact, he had already sampled Eliza’s assets with great enthusiasm and found her to be sound bottomed and a serviceable mount by any standard.

They were supposed to meet their mail order husbands at the courthouse and then proceed to their respective farms and ranches without delay.

Caleb knew there was trouble because he only saw two men waiting in the shade of the wide awning over the wooden plank sidewalk in front of the official building that also housed a post office and a bank of sorts for travelers and local citizens.

They quickly discovered that Constance and Dorinda had their future partners intact but that the rancher for Eliza was already six feet under up in Boot Hill after a run-in with a gambler with aces up his sleeve and a derringer hidden there as well to explain his actions in a violent way often a solution to matters of civil and criminal discourse in the Post-Civil-War West. It looked like Eliza was doomed to a life washing clothes in the laundry or servicing the rough men of the west in the brothel above the saloon where most unattached females often found refuge if they were able to furnish satisfaction to the sex-starved male populace in the territory.

The sight of her instant tears was enough to convince him to offer her the shelter of his yet unseen ranch not too far distant in an outbreak of pity that he knew would probably come back to bite him in the ass if history was any judge.

Caleb took the team and the rig back to his room at the hotel and told Chan Ling to pack her shit because he was taking her with him to the ranch house in Diablo Canyon and they had to get on the road before noon because he wasn’t planning on stopping anywhere for an overnight stop what with all the hostiles running around out in the wilderness with the soldier boys in short supply and all locked up inside their silly forts with more Indians outside than back on the reservation where they belonged.

She saw Eliza sitting in the lobby drinking a hot cup of tea and figured out she might not be getting the bridal bed with him right off the bat but it was a better offer than washing clothes or selling pussy at the brothel above the saloon. So she bided her time and nodded her head in agreement solving another problem for Caleb before the departure. His last problem was with the Schoolteacher and her charge in the room next door because they were hesitant about striking out on their own with the future uncertain and the prospects mighty dim for landing on their feet.

For reasons unknown even to himself, he offered Mrs. Livingston rooms at his ranch for herself and her charge the pretty young thing Laura with her shy submissive eyes and willing body ripe for the taking in the bargain as well.

He knew he should be looking for ranch hands to get the untested spread back into shape and that the road ahead was packed with brewing trouble. It was not the time to be filling up the ranch with a house filled with females instead.

Now he had Eliza, Chan Ling, Mrs. Livingston and her protégée Laura all filling up his bedrooms with their delightfully feminine forms and distracting him from the day to day operations of a booming cattle business and the profits it promised with a cool head and doing his best to stay out of trouble in the days ahead.

Caleb cleaned his guns that evening instead of humping any of his new-found harem because he knew the storm was coming and he wanted to be ready for any contingency no matter how deadly the outcome might be.

He stopped at the saloon and picked out the pair of scouts that had helped him out with the previous renegade problems on the trail and they were both broke and happy to be gainfully employed even if they were outnumbered by the females on the new spread which was totally unusual in the sex-starved west.

The older scout was called Honcho and he was a half-breed from down Mexico way. It was hard to determine his age but he was still able to poke a whore and his knife throwing skills made him a dangerous man in a world of six-guns blazing away in the crash of gunfire and the acrid scent of gun-powder hanging in the air after a gunfight at close range. Sure, the mixed breed brown skinned hombre was faster with a blade than he was with a firearm but dead is dead and it was only the results that really mattered when all was said and done on the way to Boot Hill.

Honcho had a noticeable limp which he had gotten in the Indian wars and it was said that Geronimo was fearful of having him on his trail and he skedaddled whenever he was rumored to be anywhere in the vicinity of the Indian bandit and his band of revenge-driven renegades hidden away in the high country near the Mexican border.

The weather-beaten bearded man was known to have a bible always close at hand and he would often pull it out and read something in a voice so low that one had to be right sharp to hear the words. Inside that bible, he had a photo of a beautiful woman with long dark hair and a smile so sweet you could forget about sugar in your coffee after looking at it up real close like and with both eyes open and focused.

The younger scout was a former priest who had filtered down from the Spanish Missions way out in California. He was on the run as an escaped outlaw responsible for the deaths of dozens of new converts all trampled in a stampede of Texas cattle that were spooked by the bells ringing out over the herd at a time when they were already on the edge of bolting at the slightest loud noise. He was new to the territory and it really wasn’t his fault but the blame was set squarely on his shoulders by the new Governor and he got caught up in the world of outlaws on the other side of the law through no fault of his own.

His real name was Padre Francisco Diego and he came from an influential family back in Madrid where he had spent his youth in sin and debauchery addicted to all females with a gleam in their eyes for oversized cocks. He had changed his ways and joined Mother Church after his younger sister a virginal girl of great beauty had been raped and murdered by a group of Gypsies drunk on wine and looking for females on the loose and anything of value to steal and escape to their mountain hideouts away from the authorities and a court of law.