Frontiers: Flint Murdock
Chapter 1: Spittoons

Copyright© 2019 by Paige Hawthorne

Western Sex Story: Chapter 1: Spittoons - A love story, in a way. Flint Murdock, a large man, rode into Little River, Territory of Montana, in 1887. He hired on as the peacemaker for the whorehouse in the Bighorn Hotel and Saloon. As he began to earn the respect of the sporting ladies, the local power brokers - saloon, sawmill, copper mine - were pleased with the relative peace that he imposed. Then, hired gun-hands begin drifting into town. Including two cashiered soldiers from Murdock's Cavalry days at Fort Laramie.

Caution: This Western Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Teenagers   BiSexual   Heterosexual  

“The frontiers of your mind are far more hazardous than any strange lands into which you may venture.”

Disraeli Hawking, London, 1861.


Masie, breathless, rushed up to me in the dining room, “Flint, it’s that Rufus again. Room six.” She was hugging herself like her tummy ached.

“Sarah?

“Sarah.”

“Wait down here.”

I picked up my eight-gauge shotgun and took the stairs two at a time. I could hear quiet sobbing sounds and the slap of a hand against flesh. The room was locked from the inside, but I had the master key that opened every door in the Bighorn Hotel.

Sarah, Mrs. Chambers’ newest whore, was curled into a ball on her rumpled bed. A thick naked man, buffalo skinner by the smell, brought his fist down hard, striking her ribs.

Sarah screamed, she’d been trying to hold it in.

I whipped him across the face with the barrel. Squashed his nose and shattered several front teeth. He shook his head, blood splattering, snarled, and leaped into the butt of my scattergun.

I caught him square on the forehead and he went down hard, out for the count. He was sprawled on his back, but his chest was moving up and down; he was breathing steadily.

Mrs. Chambers, full-length dress, perfect posture, came in. Shook her head, “Ugly mutt. Rank too.” She bent down, examined the two face wounds. Shook her head again, “There is no education in the second kick of a mule.”

“He was a slow learner.”

She looked back toward the hallway, “Lee!”

Three small Chinamen hustled in, hefted up the body, and carried him away. I kept his small .32 — a hammerless pocket pistol. I opened his wallet and placed all fourteen dollars on Sarah’s dresser.

A fourth Chinaman padded silently in, gathered boots, clothing, a black bowler hat. I tossed the empty wallet into the hat.

Mrs. Chambers watched for a moment as Gabby and Domino tried to comfort Sarah, tried to gentle her down. I went back downstairs. It was nine in the morning; the Bighorn Saloon would be pretty quiet until the miners and the sawyers got off shift around four.

I checked my Parker shotgun — none the worse for encountering the buffalo skinner’s head. Damascus barrels, solid English walnut for the butt. I had stopped worrying about nicking it years ago. One of the men who had courted my mother back in Indianapolis had drilled it into me — a weapon is a tool. Care for it, but use it when you need to.


Safeguarding whorehouse ladies hadn’t been a career goal. I’d left home to see the world. Had a year at a land grant college back in Laramie. Grew bored, ran low on funds, joined the Cavalry. It was still overpopulated by former Civil War officers and undermanned on the enlisted side.

Didn’t see much action out of Fort Laramie. By the time I saddled up, desertion was more of an Army problem than the Lakota and the other tribes. A few skirmishes that sure got my attention, but mostly it was a quiet hitch. The little Indian fighting I got into was usually at rifle distance. Our Company hadn’t lost a man in battle during my time in uniform.

A little book learning, a little Armying, I was 28 and drifted off again to see whatever else was out there. It was 1887 and I headed west, thinking I might look into what all that San Francisco talk was about. Got as far as Little River in the Territory of Montana.


My first day in town I slowed down, took a good look around. I usually did that before I drew rein. Then I paid the stable owner, Lou, twenty-five cents to board Scarface, my Appaloosa.

“Hotel?”

“Bighorn’s the best, but it’s expensive.”

My last meal had been some trail hardtack that I had to soak in coffee to soften up. A couple of days earlier I’d run out of salt pork and biscuit dough for my Dutch Oven, so I was ready for some pampering. A jot of whiskey, bath, dinner, maybe a sporting lady, a bed.

The bartender held up a bottle of Jameson, a question on his face. I nodded, been a while since I’d had anything but raw corn whiskey. He wore a crisp white shirt with a black string tie and green sleeve-garters.

He poured with a generous hand and said, “You’re a big fella.”

I shrugged. He wasn’t looking for trouble like some short men do.

“Mrs. Chambers is needing someone to oversee her operation. Security side.”

“Mrs. Chambers?”

“Owns the hotel and the whores. The restaurant too. Her husband has this saloon and the emporium next door. Part of the bank as well. Most of it from what I hear. And the Chink laundry.”

I nodded.

He held out his hand, “I’m Cheney.”

“Flint. What happened to the last guard?”

“A drunk gut-shot him. Bled out. Like to meet Mrs. Chambers?”

“Maybe. Bath first. Then dinner.”

He nodded at my eight-gauge, “What you hunt with that thing, locomotives?”


After we got past our one little dispute, Mrs. Chambers and I came to a handshake agreement. We’d try each other out for a week.

“One dollar a day, room and board.”

She had offered to throw in access to her whores as part of the deal, but I turned that down. “Figure the girls got a right to be paid.”

“They do what I tell them to.”

I shrugged, never got far arguing.

She looked at me oddly. A proud-looking woman, good looking, always wearing a full-length dress buttoned to the neck. “Don’t like girls?”

“Like ‘em fine.”

“Suit yourself.”

She tilted her head, looked up, “Anyone tell you how blue your eyes are?”

“Not lately.”


Masie beckoned to me from the little railing at the top of the stairs. No urgency, so I got up from the tall chair beside the bar and walked up. Taking my scattergun as always. Felt sort of undressed without it.

She was short and plump and apple-cheeked, “Sarah sure was grateful for you.”

“My job.”

Masie winked, “She’d like to show you how grateful.” Added, “On the house,” in case I wasn’t following along.

I caught a glimpse of motion down the hall. Sarah, probably naked, was leaning around the door to number six. She beckoned. I walked over and she backed into the room.

She was both the newest whore and the youngest. Claimed to be 18; I’d guess 14 at the tops. Sarah had a shy smile, a quiet manner. Fat, I’d reckon around 170, maybe 180. Soft. An ugly purple bruise on her ribs.

She stood, hands down by her sides, “I’d like to give you a proper thank-you. No charge, Mrs. Chambers okayed it.”

“No need, I pay my way.” I leaned my shotgun against her dresser and reached for my belt buckle.


The Bighorn was located in the heart of Little River — 6th and Market, west side of the main drag. Hotel on the south side, dining room in the middle, saloon to the north. All three had doors that faced Market Street. And all three were connected inside. Tidy operation.

The three-story hotel housed the whores on the north side of the second floor. Regular guests were on the south side. Best rooms on the top floor.

The dining room served three meals a day and did a pretty steady business.

The saloon was mostly quiet when it was light outside — a few regular day-drinkers, some hotel guests — but livened up at night. Especially on Friday payday.


Mr. Chambers — “Call me Ollie” — was a portly dandy. Got a shave every morning from Gabby, one of his wife’s whores. Had a Chinamen shine his boots, iron his suits, starch his shirts. Gold cufflinks, gold watch chain across his vest. Acted like he wasn’t nervous about Mrs. Chambers.

“Flint, it’s been mighty peaceful since you came on board. Appreciate it.”

I nodded. It was easy duty until it wasn’t. Didn’t happen very often, but I had to watch for trouble pretty steady.

Ollie was one of the town leaders from what I could tell. The sawmill owner — Hank Mosby — was another. And Harlan Goodwin who owned the copper mine. I wasn’t sure where Mrs. Chambers ranked. If she did rank, being a woman.

Most mornings, early, I took Scarface out for some exercise. Staying cooped up in the stables and corral all day wouldn’t do him much good. He loved to run, had to slow him down from time to time. Then he’d meander along, head down, nibbling on grass. He no longer had to smell for water, he’d learned where the creeks and small streams were.

Some days we’d ride down Market Street and head south of town to where a dozen or so homestead families were trying to scratch out a living. A little farming, but mostly they were trying to fatten up the cattle that had made it through the worst winter anyone in Montana could remember.

Once in a while, Scarface and I rode further south to Cottonwood Bend. There was a rail spur there with a single track that ran down to Billings.

Other mornings, we’d ride north, heading uphill. The Harlan Goodwin Mine operation was a couple of miles off to the right. Copper. Hank Mosby’s sawmill was a mile or so to the left of the main road. Mountains that never lost their snowcaps, shimmered off in the distance.

Little River wasn’t exactly booming, but it had some seasonal growth to it. Come the thaw, new buildings began springing up. Another saloon, another church. Small houses, a couple of stores. It was like some pent-up need to replenish, to stretch the muscles after a harsh winter.

Now, it would have been better to wait for the lumber to dry, but Little River was too impatient. The green lumber would eventually warp, split, crack ... but that would be down the road.

The day I arrived in early March, there was still considerable snow on the ground. The town was twelve blocks, north to south. And two more blocks east plus three more west. I felt a sense of quiet urgency. A small settlement turning into a hamlet, now into a town.

Little River was named after a trickly waterway that the locals called Little Creek. I guess ‘River’ sounded grander so the creek got promoted.

After the worst of the winter passed, the sawmill hired up again, adding a second shift. The copper mine ran pretty much year round. The work was steady, not always safe, but steady. Both Mosby and Goodwin paid their crews in cash every Friday evening.

Drinks, cards, drinks, whores. The Bighorn had a tall sporting lady, name of Domino, who doubled as the piano player. Dramatic style — hands raised to shoulder height, then slammed down on the keys. More noise than music, but the customers didn’t seem to mind. And they didn’t seem to mind when someone took her upstairs for a poke.

Technically, I worked for Mrs. Chambers — her hotel, her whores. But I stationed myself in the tall lookout chair next to Cheney’s bar in the Bighorn Saloon. That’s where most of the customers came from. And that’s where trouble usually started.

The bar was well stocked compared with many of the ones I’d seen since I’d headed out West. Both the bar and the backbar were made of mahogany with that distinctive grain pattern. There was a big mirror behind the colorful liquor bottles. And a large, almost life-size painting — a nude woman reclining on a brass bed — hanging above the mirror. The woman bore some resemblance to Mrs. Chambers.

The card games were the standard ones, Faro being the most popular. But also Three-Card-Monte and Stud Poker.

After a week or so of watching drunks throw punches, upend card tables, reach for pistols, I realized it would make my life easier to settle saloon things down before they escalated to whorehouse things.

I tacked up a notice on the outside door that led to the swinging doors. ‘Check all guns at the bar.’

Two days later, I added, ‘Knives too.’

Then, ‘No pissing in the spittoons.’

Only a few of the customers could read very much, so I ended up explaining Flint’s Rules in person. There was some early grousing, but I think many of the customers were relieved. They weren’t gunfighters; they were mostly just working men in a town where everyone was heeled. Better a chipped tooth than getting shot during a stupid, drunken brawl.

The occasional professional gambler who drifted into Little River seemed grateful for the no-gun policy. The cowboys passing through town — well, some smiled and checked their guns; others needed a little persuading.

After they got used to the practice, Cheney and the other bartenders were happy to collect the weapons and store them behind the bar.

It was a good first step.


Ollie Chambers and I never discussed the new rules even though they applied to his saloon. Since he didn’t comment, I didn’t bring the subject up either.

Word had gotten around Little River — don’t fuck with the big guy in the Bighorn Saloon. I hadn’t had to shoot anyone; usually a quick belly-punch took the starch out of them. That and the thought of what damage an eight-gauge could do.


It was a sunny Friday morning; pay would be doled out that evening. An old, old colored man, Herbert Greene, stood on the wooden sidewalk outside the Bighorn. He held the half-door open, but wouldn’t come in. The look he gave me was so forlorn, I went out to talk with him.

Skinny man, a ring of white hair, bent over from a lifetime of stoop-labor, “Mr. Flint, Miss Clare’s got trouble.”

“At the cafe, Mr. Greene?”

“Yes sir.”

Market Street was dry and hard-caked that day. We needed a shower; of course then it would turn wet and muddy. I crossed over and turned right. Three buildings south. I rested my shotgun on my left shoulder and opened the door to Clare’s Cafe. The breakfast crowd had been gone for hours.

Just another drunken kid, about 20. I learned later he’d just been fired from Hank Mosby’s Sawmill. On payday too. Name was Doug Lape.

Lape was large with a big chest and a bigger belly. He was hatless with a pale forehead line. A pearl-handed pistol in his right hand, his dick in his left.

Clare Spacey, about 60, arms crossed, had a frown on her face. She looked at me, shook her head, mouthed, “Drunk.”

The kid hadn’t heard me enter, but he sensed movement and whirled. I slammed the barrel down on his wrist and the pistol went off on its way to the floor. The front window shattered.

“Ow, ow, ow, you broke my fucking wrist.” Lape cradled his arm into his stomach and bent over, tears of anger, pain, puzzlement.

I used my left boot to nudge the Colt, behind me.

I looked at Clare. She shook her head again, “He wouldn’t pay for his biscuits and honey. Tried to pee in the coffee cup.”

“Sorry for your troubles.”

I tucked the Colt into the back of my belt and gripped Lape’s left arm tightly. He was crying harder now and trying not to. Hurt in his eyes like a little kid. I duck-walked him across Market, down the passageway by the Bighorn Hotel, out to the back where I put him in the small toolshed. “Put your business away. I’ll be back after you sober up.”

In the saloon, I called, “Lee!” and two Chinamen came scampering. “Kid in the shed, broken wrist.” I pointed to my own wrist. Then to my billfold. I hoped Lape had enough cash left to pay for a new window. The Chinamen nodded and scurried out.


Hank Mosby, the sawmill owner, was a Little River regular on weekends. He was tall and skinny and hit the Bighorn Saloon, the Buffalo Cut Bar across Market Street, and a rickety shack past the north edge of town. The No-Name Bar. A wooden plank across two 50-gallon whiskey barrels. A raw place.

All told, there were seven bars in town. Eight counting No-Name. Two churches — Baptist and Lutheran.

The mine owner, Harlan Goodwin, wasn’t so sociable. About the only time I saw him around was when he and his foreman loaded their buckboard up on food and supplies for his crews. “I don’t got time to i god waste it in bars.” He was quiet, almost sullen, and kept to himself. Someone to keep an eye on. A hard old cob, who was thick through the chest and arms. Muttonchops. Chewed tobacco.

I learned, you learn a lot by just listening, about the local gentry. You’d think grown men would have figured out by now that whores have good hearing and some of them have good memories.

I liked lying there, after my business had been conducted, resting. With a friendly sporting lady curled up beside me. I’d think about what the rest of the day would bring, about how long I’d stay in Little River. San Francisco still on my mind.

Mrs. Chambers ran between 12 and 15 whores, although it varied. Some drifted south for the winter. Most of them came back to the Bighorn Hotel — they were treated fair, paid fair. And now they were under my protection.

Three weeks after she hired me, Mrs. Chambers raised her prices from 75 cents to one dollar a poke. Twice as much as the whores in the other Little River saloons charged. She told me, “I’ll lose some customers for a while, but they’ll be back.”

Like women everywhere, so far as I knew, the Bighorn ladies chattered among themselves. All the time. Compared customers, men in general, potential boyfriends. Male peculiarities — physical appearances and odd bedroom preferences. They joked with each other about how the younger cowboys who drifted into town were always falling in love with them.

They also passed along gossip, speculation, lies, and, once in a while, valuable information.

I didn’t have a favorite whore; I liked most all of them. And the variety. But over time, I learned that Ying Lee, the daughter of one of the Chinamen, was the smartest of the bunch.

I wasn’t exactly sure which one was her father, they mostly ran in a pack, kept to themselves, lived in tiny huts south and east of town. In any case, Ying had been given — which I took to mean sold — to Mrs. Chambers when the girl was six or seven. Maybe eight, maybe five.

The Chinese had been working on the Northern Pacific Railroad, but they finished the line from Billings to Livingston and a pack of them drifted north. They’d been in Little River ten or fifteen years, settled in pretty smooth. Worked hard, kept to themselves mostly.

Ling was charged with whorehouse laundry. Which, out West, probably wasn’t as big a job as in a fancy house like in St. Louis. But sheets, undergarments, towels, washrags ... it added up. Especially when you included sweeping, dusting, chamber pots.

Somewhere along the line — I didn’t bother asking when — Mrs. Chambers decided it was time for Ying Lee to contribute directly to the bottom line. The first Chink whore in Little River.

Some customers were scornful, others curious. “Yep, her pussy runs up and down just like a regular woman.”

Mrs. Chambers told me, “Ying Lee gives half her earnings to her father. Sometimes more. But that doesn’t much matter — he still wishes she’d been a boy.”

Mrs. Chambers was pretty smart. Maybe plenty smart. She didn’t mind when a sawyer or miner got sweet on one of her girls. Repeat business. She did lose a whore once in a while. Usually to a young customer who saw an angel in bed. Or convinced himself he could convert her once they were off on their own. Maybe he could, I suppose it was possible.

Myself, I didn’t pick Ying Lee any more often than any of the other girls. But I’d learned to listen to her. Pillow talk, it’s called some places.

Through Ying, some of the other whores, through overheard barroom gossip, I began to piece together a picture of how things really worked in Little River.


One afternoon around two — it was a Friday and things would liven up later on — I was perched up on my lookout chair by Cheney’s bar. Shotgun by my side as always. A woman with her bonnet ripped half off, burst through the swinging doors and, sobbing, raced straight toward me.

I stood, a courtesy drilled into me by my mother and two aunts. I didn’t recognize the woman — she wasn’t a whore and she didn’t live in Little River. Her nose was obviously broken and her eyes were puffy. Blood trickled down over her lips.

“He’s gone crazy! He’s going to kill me!”

“No. No, he won’t.”

The woman looked about 40, but I doubted she was much over 20, 25, something like that. A hardscrabble life.

“He told my daughter I’m a whore. My daughter!”

The saloon doors banged open a second time, “Where is that fucking cunt!”

A short, bearded man, barrel-chested, bandy-legged, whiskey-breathed, staggered toward the bar. The woman whimpered and sidled behind me.

He had a big Army Colt in a flap holster. That would take some time. But he also gripped a Bowie in his fist.

I yelled, “Shut up!” as loud as I could. Which is considerable. He skidded to a stop, startled at the volume.

As always, time slowed down for me. I could see the room clearly, everyone in it, could feel the sudden silence, punctuated by the woman’s raspy breathing. I thumbed my shotgun and the sound of the hammers snicking back seemed louder than my yell.

He stared at the two barrels pointing at his chest.

I guessed from his muddy work-boots and mended-up clothes, rope for a belt, that he was one of the homesteaders south of town trying to scratch out a living in an inhospitable setting.

I spoke slowly, evenly, clearly, “Drop the knife on the floor.” The woman behind me was trying to quiet her breathing.

He stared. I motioned the barrel toward him and he let go of the knife. As it clattered to the floor, I said, “Unbuckle your belt, let it drop.”

He’d lost the face-off the moment I had yelled at him. And he was just now starting to realize it. The glower began to fade from his face and his hands trembled just a little as he let the belt, holster, and Colt fall to the floor.


Ollie Chambers leaned his back on the bar next to my lookout chair. Chaney poured him a Jameson. Ollie took a small sip and shook his head sadly, “Flint, that sodbuster’s wife is still upstairs. In one of the rooms where we keep the whores.”

“Empty room.”

He took a small sip, “Not the point. I’m not running a charity operation here. This is a for-profit business and that woman is eating into the bottom line.”

I shrugged, “Name is Mrs. Robinson. Rebecca Robinson.”

“I don’t care if she’s Florence Fucking Nightingale, get her out of here.”

Hmm. This was our first set-to.

“I’ll pay her rent.”

“That’s not the point.”

Mrs. Chambers had entered the saloon through the dining room passageway, “And just what is the point, Ollie?”

He whirled around, startled.

“Uh ... look ... this is ... er, a business operation, dear. Flint goes gallivanting off to Clare’s Cafe. Dereliction. Now he busts up an argument between a dirt farmer and his wife. And takes the wife’s side.”

Mrs. Chambers seemed to grow taller, “Mrs. Robinson is my guest for the duration. I’ll be getting her some necessities from the Emporium.”

Ollie bit back his words. Probably for the best.


Rebecca Robinson giggled, “Again? Good Lord.”

I was standing beside the wash basin and she had been cleaning my equipment. Nature took its course. She shook her head, “I ain’t seen but two, Flint, not counting my brothers, and they’re nothing like this.” She used both hands to heft me.

She was a plain looking woman, 27, with one child. But she had a spark to her once she let loose. Nice big bosom too. Firm, her whole body was firm from dawn to dusk chores. Big hands, calloused, but she could gentle things along when she wanted to.

Rebecca and I had partnered up about a week after her husband had left town without his weapons. I’d return them when he apologized to her. He was probably still coiled up with resentment and pride and embarrassment. But Rebecca said he’d come around.

“Chet was a good man, a boy really. But the pressure got to him. Broke him. It’s so hard out here. And last Fall the agent the Army used ... well the cattle prices didn’t cover our bill at the Emporium. Not even close. So Mr. Chambers says we got to give him our land to pay for the food and clothes and tools and...”

I put my finger up to her lips. She looked into my eyes, then closed hers and stood on tiptoe. That was the start.

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