Working the Lode (13 page)

It was the meanest sort of action to haul a woman critter around a starving country—it was nigh on time to settle.

When “Old Uncle Ned” wound down and the other musicians convinced Quartus the song was ended, Zelnora turned to the stranger who had been holding her hand in the circle. He looked so familiar, yet she could not place him—probably some fellow who had been lounging about the fort.

“¿Cómo se llama?”
she asked the Spaniard.

She was pleased that he replied in perfectly accented English, for even after being in California for two years, she was not very conversational in Spanish. Bowing at the waist grandly, he said, “May I present myself, Antonio Carillo.” He even kissed her hand. Zelnora had always greatly enjoyed these well-mannered Spaniards. Even the lowest of their cabal spoke the most royal English and dressed with such affect, sometimes it was difficult to tell a peasant from the
gente de razón
. “I am a caballero from Don Vallejo’s ranchero in Sonoma.”

Señor Carillo looked steadily into her eyes, unblinking, much as Cormack often did in his level, probing way. This caballero unsettled her with his gaze that seemed to probe her for a different sort of information entirely. “Ah, perhaps that is where I saw you before. I visited General Vallejo with Mr. Ward Brannagh about a year ago. We much enjoyed the caballero’s demonstration of their mustang roping skills. I am Señorita Zelnora Sparks, from…Of Lion Island. Here is my, ah, my partner, Mr. Cormack Bowmaker.”

Grasping her hand, the caballero asked urgently, “May I have the next dance, Señorita?”

He whisked her away before Cormack could introduce himself. Zelnora was mortified to see the caballero throw his arms carelessly behind his back and pose immobile, dramatically. This meant a fandango song in general, and the guitar player was already executing sonorous glissandos, Quartus jumping in with gusto to tap out some bubbling Caribbean rhythm on his deerskin.

“¡Toca más rápido!”
Quartus trilled out happily. Languages were one of his many avocations.

And
rápido
they went, indeed. Zelnora held her hands gracefully disposed at her thighs, holding her Californio skirts that were already short enough to expose her ankles. Meanwhile, Señor Carillo rattled away, tapping his spurred boots with great dexterity, whipping his colorful serape around like the wings of a mad shorebird. He had not even set aside his sombrero. Under full head of locomotion, Quartus’ drum urged him to greater pinnacles of the fandango. People were cheering them! The blurry crowd of smiling faces clapped their hands in accompaniment, and the couple stomped their feet in ever faster staccato, until much to her relief another couple stepped in to give a hand to them, and they were allowed to fall into a more normal waltz step, barely moving.

“Ah,
eso fue encatador
,” the caballero said, smiling without baring his teeth.

“Yes, very lovely,” Zelnora agreed guardedly. This horseman, suave and handsome though he was, was overly kind to her, and she longed to be back at Cormack’s side. “That gentleman with the red hair is my fiancé.”

“Fiancé?” He raised one eyebrow as though he wasn’t familiar with the word. “And you are employed by Mr. Ward Brannagh?”

“I was. Used to be. I helped him run his store here, maybe that’s where we met before?”

“Why do you no longer work for him? He seems like a very good gentleman.”

“Oh, I am sure he is, to people who must do business with him. It is the…employees who have troubles with him.”

Señor Carillo moved with a genteel awareness, as though the entire crowd was watching him. “So what do you do in Lion Island with Señor Bowmaker?”

Zelnora tossed her head carelessly, attempting a light laugh. “Oh, the same thing most everyone else does these days.”

“Gold? Ah, a fool’s pursuit! You would do much better to be selling gold pans, axes, or better yet, cultivating vegetables, for none of these men have had so much as a bite of a tomato in years. Or fruit! On Vallejo’s land we have many fruit trees.”

“Oh, yes, my hus…my brother would very much enjoy some fruit juice,” Zelnora said passionately, carried off by the vision of an orange. She had heard Señor Carillo’s sentiment several times before. He was probably right.

“But you must be doing quite well in the mines, no?”

“Oh, yes, sometimes we dig about five hundred dollars’ worth a day—”

“Buenos tardes.”
Although the musicians had not been able to wind Quartus down from his frenzied drumming and end the fandango, Cormack stood there, rudely interrupting the dance.

Zelnora was relieved to release her handhold on the caballero, and he stepped back politely, tipping his hat to Cormack. “Señor,” Carillo acknowledged.

Cormack took her arm rather roughly. “Thank you for watching out for her,” he told the Spaniard, not unkindly. “We must be going now, however.”

“I understand.” Carillo nodded and stepped back a few more paces, hand held to his stomach in a tiny bow.

Cormack sped her off past the trio of musicians.

“Where are we going?”

Under his breath, Cormack said, “To the river.”

Zelnora looked in excited shame at the ground as Cormack nearly dragged her over the dried brown grass. “You know, that Spanish fellow is a caballero for Vallejo. He advised me to sow vegetable crops.”

“I wonder if he knows anything about that Sonoran Camp.”

“I doubt it. He’s very skeptical about any idea of gold.”

Chapter Thirteen

The doctor cradled Zelnora’s breasts in his hands as he kneeled before her, leaning her up against a large rock.

As he slurped from the tips of her nipples, she squirmed with delight. He humped her leg with his admirable penis that distended the crotch of his fancy buckskins until it seemed he may climax inside the leather. He was a thoroughly fierce grizzly bear, his dazzling white shoulder muscles shimmering as his shirt slid off his torso. He grasped Zelnora to him and sipped from her breasts, and then she flipped him around and shoved him back against the rock.

Dropping to her knees, it was her turn to suckle at his body. She smeared her face all about his jutting erection, eliciting deep rolling growls that Joaquin Valenzuela could hear from his hiding spot behind an oak.

“Let’s do it,” said Three-Fingered Jack, clinging to Joaquin’s back as was his habit, cocking his pistol next to his
jefe
’s ear.

But Joaquin could not be moved to give the order, as Zelnora was now unbuttoning the leather broadfall, lifting Bowmaker’s tantalizing, hefty cock in her hand, and smearing the glistening braids of her coiffure all over it. Bowmaker arched his pelvis to her and threw his head back, slack-jawed, the perfect vision of a virile buck in the throes of lust, his muscular throat swallowing his moans. His shirt slid farther onto his elbow, revealing an erect, delicious nipple. Joaquin’s mouth watered, his breathing quickened, and he was glad his serape hid his own erection.

“Mi dios, que grande.”
Jack giggled derisively. “How can she eat all of that?”

Irritated, Joaquin shoved the majordomo off his back, into the open where Bowmaker could have easily seen him, had he not been focused on pumping his cock into Zelnora’s mouth. “We should get him when he’s unaware…” he muttered. “Right before he climaxes.”

Although he had been berating himself for his arousal when viewing the doctor masturbating in the creek, Joaquin had no intervening scruples about carrying out his plan. If anything, his stimulation at that sight, and his incessant reliving of the incident, spurred him on to greater peaks of revenge.

He forced himself to remember his innocent days when first coming to California, when he was a monte dealer in various raucous newborn towns. He’d borrowed a horse from his brother only to find out it was stolen. The ensuing mob had gone after both him and his brother, though his brother had paid for the stolen mount. Spaniards were held in low esteem, and the ensuing trial was a travesty where they were only allowed to bring forward their own testimony, no one else’s. His brother was hung upon the nearest limb and Joaquin, tied to the trunk of the same tree, flogged nearly to death. He was released and told to leave, but he’d vowed revenge upon
norteamericanos
in general.

Many people just viewed him as a cruel, brutal cutthroat, without awareness of the incidents that had created the modern Joaquin Valenzuela. The abuse that Spaniards endured allowed him to easily gather his band of slovenly ill-tempered brigands that included Reyes Feliz, the brother of Joaquin’s murdered wife.

He had rubbed out nearly all of those responsible, but it seemed his group of bandits
had gathered such momentum that they could not stop this lucrative business now, and their fame was such that they had to continually enact bigger and more vicious acts in order to keep the fear of them alive, and their fortunes stocked.

Bowmaker appeared ready. The slick, shiny root of his cock strained, and his outspread thighs were vulnerably open to the woman’s suckling.

“Let’s go,” Joaquin said, and the four men surged forward down the rocky riverbed, their colorful serapes flowing like a flock of tropical birds.

They were quiet as could be, having already cocked their pistols. The other three men wore black silk kerchiefs covering the lower part of their faces, but Joaquin didn’t bother, having just made the couple’s acquaintance at the fandango. It took nearly a minute for the orgasmic mountain man to note their arrival, and his eyes popped open with the alacrity of the peerless hunter. Instantly, Bowmaker grabbed Zelnora by the shoulders and shoved her behind himself. Maybe she was accustomed to this rough sort of play, for she didn’t utter a word of surprise or question his actions, merely cowered behind his thighs while his glorious, donkey-like penis slowly shriveled and returned to what must be its natural everyday state…much to Joaquin’s regret.

The bandits came within ten feet of the mountain man, leveling their pistols at his head. Joaquin did not plan upon Bowmaker drawing his own formidable Colt’s revolver, and he admired the furious rage that lit up the other man’s eyes.

“What is it you want?” Bowmaker barked, attempting to stuff his penis back into his buckskins with his free hand, without much success. He tugged his white shirt back over his satiny shoulder, but his alluring nipple, stiff with stimulation, was still exposed.

He must know he was outgunned. Even though Zelnora now brandished a laughably tiny pocket pistol, if they shot any one of his men, Joaquin’s men would shoot back, so there was nothing to be gained.

“Your gold, Bowmaker. Tell us where you’ve câched it and we’ll take you back to Lion Island. We’ll let you go once we’ve found it.”

It was amazing the way he held the heavy Colt’s absolutely steady, not shaking an iota unlike Joaquin’s fellow bandits, who apparently couldn’t lift anything heavier than an
aguardiente
bottle. “These doings won’t shine in this crowd…
Valenzuela
. I ain’t telling you about any câche, just so you can whale upon every single other Lion Island miner.” He pressed down on Zelnora’s shoulder to urge her to stay her trigger finger.

Joaquin grinned, glad of the opportunity to challenge the white man. It would not have been any fun if he’d surrendered right away.
“Sin ventaja, no salen.”
They never attack without odds.

“If you don’t leave, you’ll be in a frightening fix,” Bowmaker said.

What “fix” exactly, Joaquin had no idea. Four pistols were aimed at one and a half, and the woman could easily be subdued. It would be scintillating to see how the mountain man reacted to such an event, so Joaquin ordered Garcia and Feliz to remove her from her hideaway behind his legs.

As Garcia yanked her round to Bowmaker’s side, to Joaquin’s surprise the mountain man brought a swift and deadly elbow into Feliz’s jawbone, cracking it audibly. Feliz fell away to the rounded rocks below, blood rushing from his mouth below his mask, along with, most likely, a renegade tooth, and as a natural reaction Garcia pressed his barrel directly onto the white man’s temple.