Chapter 1

She was a feisty little thing, flaming red hair, large breasts spilling out of her transparent gown. “You like it? It came all the way from Paris France.”

I grinned. I’d been on the trail for two months with only my brother for a companion, and I was in need of a little female comfort. “I like it just fine, but I like what’s in it even better.”

I pinched a nipple lightly and she squealed, sliding around in my lap, feeling my raging hardon. Like I said, it had been a while. We had already discussed and agreed on price. I was to get her for the night, and for the price I could fuck her as much as I wanted. She even threw in a ‘French’ for that price, and I was pretty sure I was going to start the festivities with her mouth wrapped around my cock.

I looked over at my brother and grinned. He was just as randy as I was, and had latched down on a buxom little blond. He had her tits out, stroking the nipples as she moaned. The madam came into the parlor, grinning. “Enough, boys. Nobody gets to look for free. Take it upstairs and have a good time.” Bradley had made the same deal, and I had a feeling somewhere during the night we would change partners. After all, they were getting the same amount of money. What difference would it make?

I stood up, offering my soiled dove my hand, when all hell broke loose. A large, heavyset man charged into the parlor, mad as hell. “Delilah (like anyone believed that was her real name), what the fuck’s going on here? Get your ass away from that cowboy. We got a standing date. It’s Saturday night, remember?”

She blushed and stuttered, so I decided to smooth things a bit. “Mister, I don’t know what arrangement she has with you, but I’ve bought and paid for her services. She didn’t say nothin’ about no previous commitment to me, so I consider her a free agent. I’ll be gone come tomorrow, you can have her then.”

“Fuck you, saddlebum. Pick someone else.”

The saddlebum comment got me. Brad and I were just back from the Colorado goldfields, flush with money. Our little claim proved up, and when we found an eight pound nugget, the big boys came calling, after we’d settled the hash of a few claimjumpers. It really didn’t do to piss Brad off. They all offered us a deal, and we picked the best. They would run the mine, and we got fourty per cent. To cement the deal, they gave us twenty grand upfront. We intended to amble on down to Texas, find us a decent spread somewhere, and become gentlemen ranchers. Yeah we looked like bums, because it was a lot safer to look broke than to flash that kind of money around. Actually, the money was in a Wells Fargo bank except for a few hundred, and we had a certified letter of credit. If we found something we liked, we’d wire the bank and get the money transferred locally. Before they had bought us out, we’d cleaned out thirty thousand in ore and dust. For the time, it was a small fortune.

“If I’d wanted someone else, I’d already be with someone else. Now go away. Me and Miss D have some serious getting acquainted to do.”

“Back off, boy. Drop the bitch and get the fuck out of here.”

I grinned lazily. “Or what?”

He seemed confused. “What you mean?”

“I mean what if I don’t get the fuck out of here, as you put it? Is there a whore anywhere on this earth worth getting into a gunfight over? You need to draw those horns in before we stop being friends.”

“I ain’t your friend, kid. Move along.”

I’d gotten Delilah off my lap and stood, facing the asshole. Brad had dumped the little blond, standing off to the side. He had a couple of friends and now they had to face two fronts. You could tell it made them nervous. Apparently this was the Bull of the Woods, and wasn’t used to anyone bucking him.

I stood, looking bored. “Draw when you feel a mind too. Just don’t take too long. I got some serious fucking to do.”

He looked at me like it was the first time he’d laid eyes on me. I was in beat up trail clothes, lean from eating my own cooking, with shoulders and arms that came from swinging a pick and using a shovel every day for five months. I had a bullet hole in my hat thanks to a Kiowa who thought he was a better shot than he was, and a scar on my cheek from a Mexican pistolero whe fancied himself a knife man. Just short of six feet, black hair and far seeing grey eyes, I looked like a bundle of trouble waiting to happen. If he had any sense at all, he’d see my guns were the cleanest thing on me, one Remington in a side holter, the other rigged for a cross draw, and an old Navy Colt in another cross draw holster, the butt pointing to my left.

Just then the Madam came up, raising hell. “Goddamn you Buck, there ain’t gonna be no gunplay in here. I just got done putting up the new wallpaper, and I don’t need no more bulletholes. You boys need to take this outside.”

He turned to jaw at her and I moved. Caught by surprise, he turned just in time to see my fist before it made contact with his nose. I put every bit of the muscles I’d built up mining into it, and for a minute I thought I’d knocked his head off, it flew back so fast. I felt it crunch, and he went down, out like a light. Brad took advantage of the commotion to draw his pistols, an old LeMat I wished he’d get rid of, one of his Smith & Wesson Russian .44’s in the other hand. He grinned and spoke for the first time.

“You boys need to take him on out of here. You tell him when he wakes up if he wants to have any discussion with us, to look up the Walters brothers. We’ll be right here until about noon tomorrow.”

One of his buddies glared at me. “You sucker punched him!”

“You’d rather I spread his brains all over Miss Toussant’s new wallpaper? I ain’t braggin’ here, but he ain’t the first one to brace me with a gun. Tell him what my brother said. Now go home, or to another whorehouse, or back to the saloon. If I see any of you here before I leave, I’ll think you have evil intent and shoot you down where you stand. Now get out.”

“You’ll regret this mister. He’s the fastest man I ever seen with a pistol.”

“That may be so, but you ain’t seen me. Or my brother. Hell, he’s a lot faster than I’ll ever be. Now let sleepin’ dogs lie.”

They dragged him out, grumbling, and I turned back to Delilah. “Come on honey. You and me got unfinished business.” Brad had his blond over his shoulder, carrying her up the stairs while she squealed and laughed. First thing we did was get into the bath I’d had drawn. I wanted her clean and the trail dust off me. I made a note to give the maid a little something in the morning for all the water we spilled.

Delilah wasn’t the hellcat I was expecting, but the little blond, now she was something. Delilah did a half ass job on her French, but Blondie made me feel like she’d sucked my brains out. We swapped back sometime in the early morning, and I was just sliding into her when she woke. “Hey, the deal was for the night!”

“Still dark, honey, so it’s still night.”

...

Brad and I took another bath just before we left. I tipped Delilah a five, but gave Blondie a ten. Red was a little pissed off when we left. Blondie gave us both a big kiss and a promise. The next time we were through, it would be just the three of us. “Nobody’s ever fucked me to a standstill, but you boys came closer than anyone else. I’d like to see what it’s like when you’re both fresh.” We promised faithfully, knowing we would probably never see her again. We were decked out in the new clothes we’d had the local tailor make, feeling good about shedding our trail gear. I had on a black shirt with a twin row of pearl buttons, grey pants tucked into tooled black boots, with a brand new black Stetson and a red silk neck scarf. Brad had went with brown. We’d gotten haircuts and I’d had my handlebar mustache waxed. He grinned when he saw me. “You look like a dude straight off the train.”

“Well, yeah, but I always thought they was sharp dressers.”

We’d checked out of the hotel, and were lazing on the porch. We’d decided since it was late we’d eat at the diner before we left, another meal we wouldn’t have to cook. I was sitting with my feet up on the porch rail, my hat over my eyes, while Brad was sitting on a rocker. “Set up, boy. You got trouble comin.”