Emerald Valley

This chapter contains explicit sex. If you are under legal age, you aren't allowed to read this page. If you are under legal age in your state or country, and you or I get into serious trouble by you reading this short story, everyone will know you ignored this warning and read it anyway.

CHAPTER 6

After returning to the Nugget, Kyle went to the table where he and Woody had met. He retrieved his beer and walked to the bar. Glancing around, he realized the two men that had been standing close to each other and sharing a beer were gone. He fantasized they were upstairs, naked and clenched together.

Someone grabbed Kyle's arm from behind. He spun around and looked into the painted-up face of a woman.

"Buy me a drink, cowboy?"

"I'll buy you a drink, ma'am, but I don't do women."

The woman laughed. "I'll take that drink, cowboy. If you want the lowdown on any man in town, it's free to you."

Kyle turned to the bartender and tossed a dollar on the bar. "Give the lady whatever this'll pay for."

The bartender nodded and poured a double shot of whiskey with a beer chaser.

The woman leaned into the bar and pulled her drinks closer. She smiled at Kyle. "Thanks, cowboy. I'm Rose. Your type of man is always nicer to the ladies than the kind I deal with every night." She sipped her whiskey, then took a swig of beer. "What man do you have your eye on?"

"Let it lie, Rose," Kyle said. "I don't tell anybody who I have my eye on, 'cept him. An' most times not even him."

Rose laughed, then grabbed Kyle's arm and turned secretive. "I saw you with Woody. Stay clear of him darlin'. He's a mean one, and touched in the head. He rides that buffalo. Thinks he's Hannibal or something." She looked Kyle up and down. "You're a strong man, but Woody could crush you with his thumb if he wanted to."

"We was talkin' buffalo ridin'. Don't guess he'd crush me for that." Kyle touched the brim of his hat. "Enjoy your drinks, ma'am." He turned and began walking the room.

Spying a poker game in progress, Kyle ambled up to a man sitting with his back to him. The gent had a losing hand and Kyle hoped he would fold. Bluffing with cards like he'd been dealt was sure to clean him out, fast. Especially since he was sweating around the collar. Besides, he looked like a family man while the other three at the table had the slick look of professional gamblers, and by their fleeting glances back and forth, they all knew each other.

Kyle casually walked a complete circle around the table and snuck a look at each hand. He counted seven aces and all of them in the hands of the gambler trio. He knew they were planning to clean out the poor sucker with the losing hand even though the gent had a small pile of winnings with which they were letting him play.

"Mind if I join?" Kyle asked as he leaned over the table. "But, you're gonna have to tell me the rules."

"If you don't know how to play five card stud, we don't want you at this table," snapped a potbellied, silver haired man in an impeccable light-gray suit. He quickly hid his cards from Kyle's view.

"Five card stud?" Kyle looked at each gambler and raised his voice. "I ain't played five card stud with seven aces before."

"Seven aces!" the man holding the losing hand yelled. "What's going on here?"

The potbellied gambler slammed his cards face down, jumped to his feet and grabbed the front of Kyle's shirt. "You calling us cheaters?"

Before the gambler had finished his sentence, the barrel of Kyle's Peacemaker caved in his cheek. The man's eyes went wide and he let go of Kyle's shirt.

"I'm not only tellin' you you're cheatin'," Kyle snarled, still pushing in the man's cheek, "I'm gonna prove it." He snatched the man's cards off the table, then waved his gun at the other two professional gamblers. "Lay down your cards! Face up!"

Both did, at once.

Eight bar patrons gathered around the table and inspected the cards.

"I only see four aces, mister," one of the onlookers shouted. "They ain't cheatin'."

Kyle frowned at them. He jerked his pistol across the table at the man with the losing hand. "Show your cards!"

The man nervously did. He had no aces, face cards or any betting hand.

"You can't do this!" shouted the silver-haired, potbellied gambler, still on his feet. "You have rudely interrupted our game and falsely accused us of cheating!"

Kyle bent down the man's nose with his Peacemaker. "You don't want me to show your cards." He pushed in the man's nose even harder. "Do you! Well, I'm gonna show 'em." He tossed the cards on the table, face up. Three aces and two kings slid across the table.

"Damn!" shouted the losing-hand man. He shoved back his chair, stood up and put his hand on the butt of his gun. "You gents are cheating! Somebody get the marshal!"

"Ain't no need," Kyle said. "All of us can usher these crooks out of town."

"Good idea, mister," rancher Jim Greenley yelled. "Give Walt their winnins. It's probably all his anyhow. Then we'll give 'em the town boot!"

Several men shouted in agreement. Bret Harding, Grand Junction's butcher, shoved all the money piled on the table over to Walt Simmons. One-by-one, the gamblers were manhandled through the batwing doors and down the wooden steps to their horses.

"All my belongings are in my room at the hotel," whined the smallest of the gamblers.

"You just lost them!" Walt Simmons shouted. "You were cheating me!"

"We can't go stealin' their things," Kyle said, calmly. "We do that an' we ain't no better'n them." He nodded to the crowd. "All you men take 'em to their rooms an' get 'em packed up. I'll bring their horses."

As four men to each gambler shoved the three down the street, Kyle glanced around and spied a man with long white hair and a grizzled white beard sitting in a rocker on the boardwalk near the door of the Nugget saloon. The old man held a half-empty bottle of whiskey.

Kyle walked up to the man. "Ol' timer, how 'bout helpin' me bring their horses." He held out his hand. "Name's Chase. Kyle Chase."

The old man shook Kyle's hand once. "Folks jist call me Purdy." He squinted up into Kyle's face. "Heard'a you. Ain't you that gent causin' a stir up Montany way? Heard you saved Tom Wheeler from bein' cut down by twenty horse thieves."

"That's a lie," Kyle said, dryly. "It was fifteen. Come on, Purdy. Help me get these horses over to the hotel." He placed two gold dollars on Purdy's leg. "On the way, you can tell me about Mason Coby."

With the hint of a smile, Purdy snatched up the gold coins and followed Kyle to the horses.

Leading the last horse and hobbling after Kyle, Purdy shouted, "Mason Coby! What you want to know 'bout him for?" He took a swig from his bottle.

"That stuff'll kill you," Kyle muttered. "It ruined a partner of mine awhile back."

"Don't you go yappin' 'bout my drinkin', sonny. You ain't seen the sorrows I seen. Sure it's gonna kill me. Already has. I ain't nothin' but the town drunk, an' you know that. That's why you picked me outta the crowd. But I ain't tellin' you nothin' 'bout that crook Mason Coby, even if he did bring his pretty li'l daughter back here from the East."

"Daughter?" Kyle asked. "I don't remember him having a daughter."

"Jist 'cuz you busted up that ring in Montany, don't mean you knows ever'thin'."

Still one block from the Elden Hotel, Kyle decided to pump the ornery old man. He liked Purdy.

"What's Coby's daughter doin' here?"

"Danged if I know why she came back. Prob'ly lookin' for some man like you to latch onto. She don't come outta that house sometimes fer days, an' when she does, the few women here ogle at her clothes. The men watch fer signs'a what's under 'em."

"This is a heck of a place to bring a woman from the East," Kyle said, glancing around.

"Francine's lived here ten years," Purdy said. "She's been away two. That back-East schoolin' made her into a purty woman."

"What's she know about her father?" Kyle asked.

"Probl'y nothin'." Purdy stopped and grabbed a tie rail for support. "I gotta stay here fer a minute'r two." He took a swig from his bottle.

Kyle slid his arm over Purdy's shoulder. "I know what it's like to drink your sorrows away. Done the same thing for two weeks after I left my partner. I left him cause he was drinkin' more'n you."

"Told you," Purdy snapped as he weaved back and forth. "You ain't seen the sorrows I seen. Mind yer own business!"

Kyle squeezed Purdy's shoulders to steady him. "Problem is...once you get locked into the sorrows of the past, you forget to look where you're goin'."

As they slipped the reins of the gambler's horses over the rail in front of the Eldin Hotel, Kyle heard shouting inside the building as men clomped down the stairs from the second floor.

"Walt, you can't take that man's diamond stick pin!" Jim Greenley shouted.

"He was cheating! They were planning on cleaning me out! I have every right to take it!"

"But they didn't clean you out!" Greenley yelled. "Thanks to that stranger, we found out they were cheatin'."

"You gentlemen don't have to be so rough," the potbellied gambler said as he was shoved out the open door of the hotel.

Kyle stepped up to Walt. "Give the man back his stickpin. Keep it an' Marshal Hooker'll be lockin' you up."

Walt Simmons frowned up into Kyle's eyes. "He was cheating me!"

Kyle glared at him and folded his arms across his chest. "You were gamblin'! They would'a cleaned you out, an' like a dumb yak, you wouldn't have known the difference. But your family would. Now, give back his stickpin, go home to your wife an' youngins an' learn your lesson."

Marshal Hooker walked up just as the three gamblers were being forced into their saddles.

"What's going on here?" Hooker asked.

"These men were cheatin' at cards, Marshal," Jim Greenley said. "This stranger caught them at it, and we're all tossin' them out of town."

Marshal Hooker squinted at Kyle. "Chase, this is the second stir you've caused in this town. What do you want here?"

"Already told you what I'm doin' here, Marshal. I was havin' that beer in the Nugget an' happen to catch these three yaks cheatin'."

"Why didn't you come get me?"

Kyle looked at the marshal's crotch, slowly raised his gaze to the lawman's face and smiled. "Didn't want to bother you over somethin' we could handle. Besides, I don't want to crowd your jail when the killer of Bill Lewis might be sittin' in there soon."

"Bill Lewis!" Bret Harding yelled. "How do you know about Bill Lewis?"

Marshal Hooker frowned at Kyle, then glanced around at all the men. "This man is Kyle Chase. He said he's the new foreman at Bill Lewis' ranch." He glared at Kyle again. "I should have asked you before, but I'm asking now, you got proof you're the new foreman?"

From his shirt pocket, Kyle produced a folded sheet of paper. He handed it to the marshal and stood stone-faced while the man opened it and read.

Marshal Hooker looked at Kyle, then scanned the faces of the men standing around. When he saw Ralph Bardell, the president of Mason Bank, he shoved through the crowd and handed the paper to him. "Does this look like Logan's writing?"

Taking one look at the flowery script, Bardell nodded his head. "It's Logan's all right." He frowned at Kyle. "Don't try pulling your weight as foreman to get any of Bill Lewis' money. No one touches that money until Judge Stevens reads the will."

"Don't need to," Kyle said. "This mornin' I took four thousand off four yaks that shot Dix an' left him for dead. They was paid two thousand each for shootin' Dix."

All the men standing around gasped.

"Is Logan dead?" someone asked.

"He ain't dead. I saw it happen an' patched him up."

"Who paid the men to kill him?" Jim Greenley asked.

"I ain't sayin'," Kyle said. "Not yet, anyway." He looked at Marshal Hooker. "I know Dix's ranch is outside your territory, but the man that paid 'em to kill Dix lives here in town. I don't know who you're sleepin' with in this town, but I aims to catch him. When I do, I'm lockin' him up in your jail an' keepin' the key so nobody here lets him go."

Kyle charged through the crowd and headed for the general store. Behind him, he heard shouts from some of the men about what the marshal was going to do about the three gamblers still sitting on their horses, the murder of Bill Lewis and the shooting of Dix Logan. Kyle chuckled to himself. He'd planned on making himself known in town and had accomplished that quite well. He also felt that he woke up the men of the town and gave them something important to ponder.

After loading all the supplies on Maggy and paying the eighty-five dollar bill, Kyle arrived at Woody's house at ten minutes before six. He led both horses into the barn, unloaded Maggy and stripped the saddle off Killer. He stalled the horses in opposite corners of the barn, fed them oats and gave them water.

Kyle climbed the porch steps and knocked on the door.

"Come on in!" Woody yelled.

Opening the door, Kyle entered the house and stopped mid-stride. He saw Woody sitting naked in a long oval tub of water...in the middle of the parlor.

"What kept you," Woody growled. "If I sit in this tub any longer I'm gonna look like a damn prune. Get your clothes off and get in here. Water's getting cold."

Kyle grinned as he shut the door. His cock lurched as he scanned the muscles on Woody's chest and arms. Woody's wet, chocolate skin glistened in the sunlight streaming in from the west.

"Kind'a forward, ain't it?" Kyle asked.

"Forward! What the hell does that mean? I expect my guests to wash up before dinner."

Chuckling, Kyle began shucking his boots and clothes. He loved men like Woody. They were just like himself, brash, bold, good-looking and loved the feel of another naked man. Nothing made him understand masculinity more than making love to another man built like himself. And bigger was even better.

Kyle stepped into the water. He started to sit down opposite Woody, but the bigger man bodily turned him around and pulled him down so Kyle's back was nestled against his wooly chest. The blacksmith slid his left arm around Kyle and slid the other hand to Kyle's crotch. After Woody got Kyle's dick hard, he briefly let go and reached underwater for his own hard cock, which he gently slipped into Kyle's butthole.

Kyle sighed and relaxed onto Woody, gyrating his butt around the blacksmith's rock-hard cock.

Woody chuckled. "Thought you'd like that."

Kyle sighed and leaned back against Woody. "Only with men like you."

Both men came together.

After shifting positions in the tub, they faced each other with Kyle's dick inside Woody and Kyle jacking Woody's dick. It took a little longer this time, but they both came while their bodies mashed together during a kiss with searching tongues.

After soaping and rinsing, Woody leaped out of the tub. Dripping wet, he leaned over the glowing fireplace, pulled away the screen and added a few wrist-sized limbs.

"Why you got a fire goin'?" Kyle asked. "It ain't cold in here."

Woody chuckled as he replaced the screen. "That's for dessert." As he strode into the kitchen, he said, "Supper's on. It's antelope stew."

Shortly, he came into the room carrying two big clay bowls of steaming stew. After setting the stew on the floor in front of the fireplace, he went back to the kitchen for two agate-iron mugs of black coffee.

Naked, they ate together on the bear rug in front of the small fire. After setting the empty bowls aside, they wrestled, licked every part of each other's body and sometimes nestled together with their hard dicks touching for long periods of time.

Dessert lasted far into the night.