Disorder in the House

How the West Was Done 2

Disorder in the House The first train hurtles into Laramie City. Liberty Hudson is so full of exhilaration to be independent that when rowdy passengers thrust her into a stranger’s arms, she freely necks with him, but flees in a panic when the train reaches Laramie. The stranger is Levi Colter, the new Indian Agent at the nearby fort. His predecessor Shady has left him in the lurch, having sold all the supplies meant for Indians to settlers. The fort’s cook, Private Garrett O’Rourke, seems to know too much—that Shady has killed an Indian chief. Garrett realizes Liberty is the one Levi seeks—unfortunately, not before he kisses her and has fallen irretrievably in love with her, too. The men unite when a “talking board” warns them to protect Liberty from cold waters. Their love is cemented by prophecies and their practice of daily lessons from an Oriental love manual they discover. Genre: Historical, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Western/Cowboys Length: 53,369 words

DISORDER IN THE HOUSE How the West Was Done 2

Karen Mercury

MENAGE EVERLASTING

Siren Publishing, Inc. www.SirenPublishing.com

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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

DISORDER IN THE HOUSE Copyright © 2012 by Karen Mercury E-book ISBN: 978-1-61926-795-4 First E-book Publication: June 2012 Cover design by Les Byerley All art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission. All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

PUBLISHER Siren Publishing, Inc. www.SirenPublishing.com

Letter to Readers Dear Readers, If you have purchased this copy of Disorder in the House by Karen Mercury from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

Regarding E-book Piracy This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book. The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment. This is Karen Mercury’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Mercury’s right to earn a living from her work. Amanda Hilton, Publisher www.SirenPublishing.com www.BookStrand.com

DEDICATION For KH Would that thy knife were as sharp as thy final no.

DISORDER IN THE HOUSE How the West Was Done 2 KAREN MERCURY Copyright © 2012

Chapter One May, 1868 Laramie City, Dakota Territory The day the first train came into Laramie City was the day Liberty Hudson nearly had sex with Levi Colter. To start with, the train was a monumental enough event. Fireworks streaming past the train windows and a rickety band blaring “The Yellow Rose of Texas” heralded the arrival of the Union Pacific train at the end of the track. This freight brought crossties, plows, and tents, mostly for the warehouses of Liberty’s father, Simon Hudson, allegedly the wealthiest man in Laramie City. The secondand third-class cars were jammed with gamblers waving little flags and bawdy prairie flowers waving unmentionables, but Liberty had purchased a first-class ticket. Thrilled to ride on the first train to ever lay track this far west, Liberty had made an uncustomary splurge on this fancy ticket. It was invigorating to chug along in the fancy railcar decorated in burgundy and gold leaf, savoring the sense of freedom the open plains displayed to her.

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She first laid eyes on Levi—of course, she didn’t know that was his name back then—when she decided to go to the necessary. She had needed to piss for a while but didn’t feel like walking back there when the train was going over the dizzying new Dale Creek Bridge. The train swayed on the wooden timbers a hundred feet over the enormous chasm, seemingly floating in midair, and Liberty clutched the armrest of her seat. She had never been anywhere this terrifying in her thirty-two years. Engineers slowed the train to a crawl, but even then, passengers leaning out of windows reported that some boxcars looked about to tumble into the gorge. But she’d come west for adventure, and she really had to find the necessary once the train was shooting downhill safely past the bridge. Panting with excitement, Liberty wended her way down the center of the car, jostled from every angle by arm-waving rowdies reeking like a trash barge. She held her breath, highly annoyed to be shoved directly into the chest of one such shiftless loafer, but she looked up into the most stunning, glittering eyes she’d ever seen. And breathed. This fellow’s rich chocolate eyes simply brimmed with emotion. Lust, probably, but suddenly Liberty didn’t particularly care. Son of a gun, this man simply knocked her into the middle of next week. He even tried to reach a hand up to politely tip his Stetson, but he was also being jammed from all angles by the rancid armpits of gamblers waving playing cards, pemmican, and other garbage. “The whole kit and caboodle’s been getting a bit roostered,” he said in a vivid, seductive voice. “I know,” Liberty replied breathlessly. She just stared up at him stupidly, her breasts flattened to his warm chest that emanated the manly scent of hay. She knew this feeling that surged up and down her spine. It was desire, pure and simple. She had felt this upon occasion for a couple of beaus—and was overly familiar with it from her nightly assignations with her secret toy—but she’d never been this suddenly stimulated and

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overwhelmed by merely looking at a man. His eyes brimmed with many tales to tell, and she instantly knew the reality of his sweet but shattered heart. “I’m sorry a pretty vision like you has to be subjected to this.” She was about to say “I know” again, but a nearby roughneck suddenly bellowed, “Hey, Hiram! You’re so crooked you could swallow nails and spit out corkscrews!” “Oh, yeah?” Hiram hollered back. “You was the one who marked the card deck back in Omaha!” The brawl that erupted then caused nearly everyone to surge to that end of the car to get a better view. In the knot of limbs that encased her, Liberty was detached from the fellow with the magical eyes. She was tossed down the aisle by swearing men, and before she knew it, she found herself suddenly in the necessary, taking the place of a frazzled prairie flower who clawed her way to view the fight. More practical urges took precedence then. She sat back in her first-class compartment, barely aware of the scenery. Her entire body fairly buzzed with the thrill of her upcoming adventure in Laramie City—and the confrontation with the bewitching man. She was embarking on a new life just full of possibilities! She could possibly even wear trousers as she rode a horse about town—she had already left her only, rarely used corset back in Hyde Park, New York. Her first task would be to find her father’s house, allegedly the largest in the town. Her younger sister Ivy had already boldly ventured into Laramie City before her, while Liberty had stayed back East to take care of business matters. Their mother had passed on finally after a long struggle with consumption, and now Liberty wanted to shake off her reputation as being the level-headed, businesslike one. The monotonous restriction of her life while caring for her mother had created a fresh new passion for living. Liberty wanted to become involved in the politics of this brandnew frontier town! She longed to expand her passion for the suffrage

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of women. She had attended the National Women’s Rights Convention in New York in 1860, one of the last truly thrilling things she’d done in life. The convention had been a whirlwind of activity and stimulation that she sadly missed. The man she had just literally run into was a good omen. Liberty smiled as the loud merchant next to her talked someone else’s arm off about the price of lumber. The fellow in the Stetson had a very classically handsome face, as though he could scowl or be effectively menacing while orating, so he might even be a fellow politician of sorts. His intense, deep gaze and the cherubic bow of his upper lip had Liberty in a fuzzy daze. She was aware she was pleasantly moist between the thighs, remembering the feel of her nearly bare bosom against his chest. She barely noticed when dilapidated shacks came into view, signaling their arrival at Laramie City and the end of the line. The shacks seemed composed of logs, canvas, rejected railroad ties, and old wagon boxes—the usual disarray of the Hell on Wheels towns that popped up as the railroad progressed. Liberty strained to catch sight of any women, potential fellow suffragists, but she only saw a glut of men. Tracklayers probably, most of them, wringing out clothing, chewing on pipes, and, of course, imbibing liquor. Liberty snatched up her carpetbag—she could retrieve her trunk later from the baggage car—as the first fireworks trails landed among the ramshackle town outside. A distant tattoo of several drums attempting to play “The Yellow Rose of Texas” told her they would soon near the platform, and she wanted to at least be somewhat near the door when the train stopped. The remote strains of cornets and saxhorns floated over the hubbub of people crowding the aisle. A meaty hand even groped her ass, but she couldn’t tell who it was attached to. Thugs from the second-class car had apparently flowed into first class, and the corridor was one giant sardine can of body parts. When Liberty’s face

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was squished against a brass lamp bolted to the wall, a slight feeling of panic began to creep into her innards. The panic almost overwhelmed her when the train jolted to a stop. All the bodies crammed into the corridor lurched forward as one unit, the brass screw tearing her face. Surely they weren’t at the station yet! Outside, the horns of the band blared away merrily as though nothing was amiss. Men grunted out in pain. “We’re goners!” “Shit!” “Get your foot out of my pocket!” “You damned jackass!” “Lunkhead!” Steam hissed, but the big whistle didn’t scream as it should have if they were in the station. Had they hit something on the tracks? Liberty had no hope of moving the slightest inch—besides, where would she go? She was suffocating with her face between the lamp and the funky shoulder of a man who had apparently bathed in soot. Then, suddenly, she was free. She stumbled, falling, but fresh air surrounded her. Twisting in midair, she fell backward, looking up at the ceiling of a first-class compartment. She steeled herself, prepared to land on something extremely pointy, painful, or metal. She was pleasantly shocked when she fell on something warm and comfortable, with only a slight “oomph” of air expressed from her lungs. Dizzy and panting, she looked up. And found herself clutching the greatcoat lapels of the fellow with the dazzling eyes. In the midst of this tumult, he looked as calm as an unmuddied lake. The corners of his mouth turned up in a slightly bemused smile, as though he had not pulled her from the corridor. Oh no, she had just fallen into his lap! He still wore his Stetson at a rakish angle, but his necktie was slightly loosened in all the activity, revealing a powerful, full throat.

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In that rich orator’s voice, he said, “The train stopped because some pickled residents fell onto the tracks.” They merely panted at each other, Liberty intensely aware that her looped skirt exposed her petticoat at the ankles. Oddly, it didn’t bother her. Her breasts heaved, her camisole almost displayed in the U-shaped neckline of her walking costume. Maybe it was because the other inhabitants of the compartment were equally festive and distracted, hanging out the window, all in a mishmash. Suddenly Liberty yanked her torso upright as she clutched his lapels, and she planted a brazen kiss on him. He responded ardently, his large, soothing hands surrounding her waist. At first the kiss was dry and abrupt, full of the surprise of the moment. But when Liberty released his lapels to twine her hands around his hot, strong neck, their lips parted. She sucked on his deliciously full lower lip with abandon, snorting puffs of air against the side of his face. She inhaled fully his musky scent of dried grass, reveling in the warmth of his chest against the bare shelf of her bosom. His hands snaked up her back, clutching her to him as though she were his lover. When she heard him sigh, felt the adept skill of his nipping at her lip, she impulsively ran her palms higher, over the slight stubble of his well-formed face. She delighted in the sculpted feel of his cheekbones under her fingers, and she dared to lick the inside of his upper lip, smooth as a wet seashell. When she suddenly became aware that she was baldly squirming on top of a very insistent and well-hung cock, she had to break away. Her head fell back, and she panted boldly at the ceiling with her eyes squeezed shut in happiness. Just to have this utterly delicious man between her hands—nearly between her thighs—was the apex of rapture. Probably the one thing she’d been futilely dreaming to do, here in the Far West. And here he was. And her train hadn’t even arrived in the Far West yet.

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She licked the tip of his pointed nose. When she dared to open her eyes, she saw his dilated with desire, his lower lip slack with surprise. All her memories of being a sensuous woman, powerful with the force of sex, came flooding back to her. Liberty had thought her gift might be dead after years of disuse, but the dazed, wobbly look in this handsome stranger’s eyes told her she still had the skill. The train lurched and started with a hiss of steam. Steam curled in the open window between the various limbs dangling and waving there, slithering about the wide brim of this glorious man’s hat. Sinking her fingers into his fine, luscious mane of deep brunet hair, Liberty knocked the hat askew and plastered an openmouthed kiss to his lips. Spreading her thighs, when she wiggled her hips she knew the dampness seeping from her pussy was making a wet spot on the back of her skirt, and she didn’t care. As their tongues twined, Liberty made a little jump. She now straddled this exquisite stranger, her legs tangled in her skirts, her knee wedged against someone’s portmanteau. She fully felt the glory of his burgeoning cock as she blatantly humped him—this stranger she already knew she was in love with. They kissed with unabashed lust now, the handsome dog gripping her skull in his fingers, her long, curly black hair coming untwined from its bun and covering his stately face like a curtain. His groans reverberated deep in his chest, and she imagined she could even feel his bursting cockhead between the layers of their clothing. And then the train was truly at Laramie City station. The smokestack puked sparks and wood smoke, stinging Liberty’s eyes when she whipped her head around to look out the window. People waved flags in the window, and a couple of prairie flowers of the town leaned their bulging bosoms in, just inches from Liberty’s face. Some of her fellow passengers were already disembarking out the window, one hitting her in the shoulder with his boot. The reality of her situation struck her then. Sitting upright with her hands against the stranger’s shoulders, she stared at him, wild

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eyed. He must have been too stunned to even muster that enigmatic half-smile, and he looked like a man who had just been well-fucked, satisfied and yet thoroughly confused. She vaguely noticed he had a small, unusual tattoo on his collarbone, but she was distracted by the wisps of hair sneaking over his loosened necktie. “Son of a gun,” Liberty whispered, shocked. What had she just done? He tightened his grip on her shoulders and said dazedly, “Wait. Who are you?” In her panic, she said the first thing that came into her head. “Ivy,” she panted. “Ivy Hudson.” She lurched for the door, which wasn’t nearly as jammed with passengers now. She just barely remembered to whisk her carpetbag from the floor, where it had been stomped on. She only turned back for the briefest second, probably because she wanted one final, lasting impression of this man she knew she’d never see again. And she felt herself smile then, too. Yes. She was in love with him. He smiled now, too, that mysterious lifting at the edges of his luscious mouth. Liberty knew he hid some pain and knew he had come to Laramie on a new and challenging mission. But embarrassment forced her body to lurch down the corridor, shoving rowdy citizens out of her way, purposefully banging them with her carpetbag. “Excuse me. Let me by. I’m in a hurry.” How could she be in love with a man whose name she didn’t even know? She’d been carried away by the excitement of her new, adventurous life. Laramie City held a thousand people now, and she could easily get lost in the tumult. This beautiful man’s mission was probably farther west, for all she knew. This was the end of the line, after all, Hell on Wheels. Most of the passengers on this train were not staying here long. Once on the platform, Liberty shoved aside clamoring, “roostered” citizens with abandon. She decided this must be the main

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street, First Street, and she headed directly for the first hotel, where the proprietor could tell her how to find her father’s house. By that time, hopefully the crowds would have hidden her tracks from the stunning, glittering eyes of that exquisite stranger. And…how could she have given him her sister’s name?

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Chapter Two Levi Colter arrived at Fort Sanders to find the place deserted. Literally deserted. True, there was a soldier sleeping in the guardhouse next to the usual hangdog Brulé Sioux drinking tarantula juice out of chipped mugs, a pile of sunflower seed shells at their feet. The soldier woke up a little when Levi asked to see Shadrack Barnhart, Indian Agent. He even sat up straight in his chair as he replied, “Why, I ain’t seen Shady in over a month.” Levi fixed the private with his famous stare. “He’s out on the reservations, then?” Indian agents were supposed to spend some or most of their time actually with Indians, dispensing annuities. They would restrain the crowds of traders who wanted to cheat Indians and sell them illegal tarantula juice. An agent was supposed to teach Indians how to farm in the wind and sand with, say, a handheld hoe to crack the ice and plant tomatoes in zero temperatures. All this for the salary of a postmaster. The soldier wiped drool from the corner of his mouth. “I wouldn’t expect so. His office is empty.” “Empty? What do you mean, empty?” “I mean his knapsack is gone, horse, tent, all his trappings. Gone over a month ago.” “But he would take a tent and a horse onto the reservation,” Levi insisted. The private shook his head and drooled some more. “No, sir. Even the photograph of his mother is gone. Why would he take his ma onto the reservation?”

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Levi got directions to Shadrack’s quarters and proceeded across the vivid green grass of the parade ground. There were supposed to be six companies housed at the fort to protect Union Pacific tracklayers and grading crews, but only the occasional soldier or mountain man sharpening a knife came into view. Maybe they were all out protecting the railroad men. It was as silent as the grave—a shrub even tumbled by. Levi did pass one odd sight. A fellow leaned against Shadrack’s quarters, a headdress of eagle quills and ermine skins covering his face. A couple of small bison skulls hung from thongs over his shoulders, and his bison robe was adorned with pictorial representations of hunting. That wasn’t the odd thing. He was clearly a white man with luminous white skin, his silvery ringlets looking to have been dressed in Paris. He seemed to be purposefully hiding his face from Levi, but Levi was irritated, so he breezed on by and entered the rooms. The private was right. These rooms looked like a cyclone had blown through, as though Shadrack had left in a hurry. The bedroll had been torn off the bed frame and papers ripped from the walls, leaving only nails behind. A coffeepot even lay on its side on the floor, the puddle of liquid long dried. Levi sat at the work table to examine the few papers left there in the light from the small window. “Well, this is balled up.” Was Shadrack some kind of chiseler? He studied lists of supplies that Shadrack was supposed to have distributed to the Sioux. But in between the endless analyses of jelly, raisins, and stockings, images of that unique woman from the train yesterday kept poking their way into Levi’s brain. She was a stunner, of that there was no doubt. Levi had been so shocked when she had first slapped her voluptuous body up against his in the car’s corridor, their faces just inches from each other. Her silken eyebrows of the darkest Egyptian night framed almond-shaped mahogany eyes. Her eyes simply brimmed with fresh excitement and

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a desire for adventure. Her beautifully tapered nose came to a perfect point, with indentations as though a sculptor had pressed his fingers there. And when she smiled—which happened instantly, the second her eyes locked onto his!—she revealed perfectly creased dimples. Her face simply blotted out the crowd of roostered roughnecks milling about them. It had taken Levi many long moments to even note that her shapely and sunbrowned bosom was pressing against his clammy chest, that’s how taken he was with her angelic face. He had muttered something stupid—what was it, anyway? Something about the oiled thugs?—and she was suddenly gone. But her impression had lingered as though they’d been courting for months, as though her very spirit had carved a furrow in his heart. Levi forced himself to look at the pages before him. All right, something about wheelbarrows, neckties, and tea cozies. Tea cozies? Why in hell would Indians want tea cozies? Levi started to daydream again about his second encounter with the Egyptian stunner, Ivy Hudson. It didn’t behoove him to dream about their run-in in the firstclass compartment while he was scanning a ledger, because his cock would expand and elongate down his thigh. He had already spent a good part of last night at the Frontier Hotel in Laramie City frigging himself silly, but it hadn’t helped. And if anyone other than an Indian or a private entered the room, he’d have to stand, and his erection would look plumb silly, and— Hell. An authoritative fellow wearing fancy Cheyenne-leg chaps and an army cap entered the room, spurs jangling. The smell of fresh sweat swept into the room with him, as though he’d just ridden to the fort, and Levi was compelled to stand, clutching his greatcoat in front of his gun belt. “You Levi Colter, the new Indian agent?” “I am.” This fellow was unbelievably handsome, as though he should’ve stayed put in England and become a lord just on sheer looks alone. He shook Levi’s hand. “Neil Tempest, head of security for the fort.” He

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glanced skeptically around the room, nostrils vaguely flaring with distaste. Tempest’s accent was actually more Australian. Levi wondered if he was one of those former convicts who had come through San Francisco and raised so much hell there, so he had to tread carefully. “I see Shady hasn’t returned since I was last out here a few weeks ago. I was sort of suspecting he wouldn’t. He was wellknown for nicking supplies meant for Indians and selling them to settlers. He managed to amass himself a tiny fortune of twenty-five thousand dollars, so I heard.” That wasn’t unusual. On a postmaster’s salary, it was always tempting to chisel supplies out of the Indians. With a storehouse full of shovels, waistcoats, and valuable boots at one’s disposal and hordes of settlers clamoring for these things, the temptation was just too great. Levi said, “From the looks of these papers I just perused, it might even be worse than that.” He picked up one page and rattled it. “Looks like he accidentally left behind this bogus treaty covered with a bunch of scribbles where Indians might’ve signed away land that was rightfully theirs.” Tempest looked at the page. He, too, looked confused at the illegible “signatures” scrawled by alleged chiefs with names like Brave Buffalo and Caeser Moxus, accompanied by pictographs of dying bison, soaring eagles, and squashed tortoises. The pictographs didn’t have the ring of authenticity to Levi. Indians could usually draw much better than that. “I just saw Caeser Moxus the other day, but he didn’t mention any treaty.” Levi couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “Oh? Caeser Moxus is a real Indian’s name?” He was glad that Tempest chuckled, too. “Well, what we named him, obviously.” He waxed serious again. “That land in question is over by my ranch, out toward the Snowy Range. I was going to ride back there tomorrow night after I finish dispatching the latest load of murderers and thieves that we rounded up during the festivities last

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night. The new train arriving, you know. Everyone knocking up a lark. Those brawlers are mean enough to eat off the same plate as a snake. I’m to be made marshal of Laramie, so I can’t guarantee much security here at the fort anymore. I could investigate it for you, see what I find.” The festivities reminded Levi of something that was never far from his mind. This head of security might have heard of Ivy Hudson. Levi would like to accompany Tempest out to the Snowy Range, but he wanted to figure out who Miss Hudson was, or where, first. She must be related to this Simon Hudson fellow whose name was all over papers as a proprietor of railroad ties and lumber. A stunner like that wouldn’t last long in a gal-starved town like Laramie, if indeed she wasn’t already married and arriving there to meet a husband. And if so, she’d been having one hell of a last fling. That, or the husband in question was extremely heinous. So Levi said, “About those festivities. On the train yesterday—” But a new voice sounded in the tiny room. It was a voice of such resonance and command that both men stood at attention as though suddenly in church. “Caeser is dead.” The speaker was a very tall, athletic, dark-skinned gent. Although his Southern accent pinpointed him as being from the Georgia region, his proclamation gave Levi the expectation of seeing a toga-clad actor in a Shakespearean play. Again, Levi chuckled. “Et tu, Brute? Is this part of some assassination conspiracy?” Neil Tempest stepped between Levi and the serious actor. “Don’t pay any attention to him, Mr. Colter. Garrett’s just a cook here at the fort.” For a cook, he certainly cut an imposing figure. Garrett looked strong enough to strangle a steer. He was clad in the usual private’s hodgepodge of attire—the army was never good about replacing uniforms and usually seemed unsure of who was stationed where, anyway. It was usually left up to the soldiers themselves to cobble

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together a “uniform,” and Garrett had decided to strut about in a pair of tight and red long drawers, most pants probably being too short for his powerful, long legs. He protected his legs with a pair of fringed leather chaps, which were stuffed into worn Wellington boots. He had retained his official dark blue frock coat with sky-blue piping but had replaced the cap with a wide-brimmed planter’s hat. Strange getups weren’t uncommon in the West. Tempest turned to Garrett and asked, “What makes you think Caeser is dead?” Garrett addressed his answer to Levi and seemed to be staring at his neck, strangely enough. Maybe he was afraid to raise his eyes, being only a cook. “I just know it.” Tempest scoffed. “If you ‘know’ it, you must have also been present when he died. How did he die, then? Should I slap these bracelets on you and put you in the brig?” Garrett turned his beautifully heavy, almost Oriental eyes onto Tempest. He looked Marshal Tempest in the eye. “No, I wasn’t there when he was killed. It was just something I heard.” “Gossip, eh?” said Tempest. He finally regarded Garrett with seriousness. “This isn’t something that Caleb Poindexter might’ve told you, is it? Because I can check with Caleb.” Who the hell was Caleb Poindexter? Levi was becoming restless and wanted to get back to the subject of Ivy Hudson. His brain wandered to his second encounter with the Egyptian lass, after he’d saved her from certainly smothering in a thousand putrid armpits during the crush upon arrival yesterday. His prick had been stiffly at attention before he’d even yanked her from that packed corridor, but when she collapsed back on his lap, he knew he was hopelessly lost. One might even say in love with her. Yes, it sounded completely absurd, Levi knew that. He’d been briefly betrothed to a gal in Chicago when he’d been an idealistic journalist. When that hope and optimism had been abruptly shattered, of course he’d plodded through the usual roostered groupings in back

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alleys that young, disillusioned men were prone to. One always imagined that just one more faceless vertical fuck up against a trash bin with a half-cognizant gal would somehow enhance one’s opinion of one’s self, but of course it never happened. Anyway, Levi wasn’t the most gullible chowderhead on the continent when it came to love. By the time he came west and first became an Indian agent at the Standing Rock reservation, he had given up the idea of ever marrying. There were not many unwed belles in the Far West, and being a lowly agent wouldn’t hold out much hope of riches even for a sallow grass widow with eight children. But the moment Ivy Hudson had fallen into his lap—even before she had straddled, kissed, and nearly fucked him—Levi Colter had been a goner. Maybe it was her thick masses of slinky, sleek curls. When he had plunged his fingers through that pinned-up bundle of inky curls, all he’d wanted to do was tear out her hairpins and bathe himself in those tresses. She smelled of violets or some other prairie rose, as though she had a sachet tucked away in her bodice. When she sat up and wrapped her arms around his neck and plied him with that sly, talented mouth, violets had wafted over him. In fact, later that night when he’d frigged himself so furiously, he could smell the flowers drifting over him, as though she still thought about him at that very moment. Or maybe her ghostly hands even touched his cock. And he had sappily vowed never to wash that shirt again and balled it up in the corner of his trunk, to perversely sniff later. And he had certainly never expected her to straddle him! Why had she chosen him, of the hundreds of men in the train, to latch onto with her long thighs? When she wriggled her hips and humped him like a brazen vixen, he’d nearly come off in his pants. He imagined he could even feel her mushy honeypot clamped right down over his bulging prick, and it was only some vaguely remembered sense of propriety— which was practically out the window at this point—that prevented him from consummating their sudden coupling.

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That, and someone’s umbrella bashing his skull, and the fact that the train had stopped. She wore this airy, almost transparent gown of the “artistic” mode that modern women interested in dress reform were prone to wear. When she slithered away through the press of passengers, her skirts had been hiked up just enough to reveal that a wet spot saturated her seat. He had sat there, stunned, for many minutes afterward. There was a wet spot on his crotch, too. And now that he thought about it, perhaps he should never wash that pair of pants either. “What?” Levi now gaped stupidly. Neil Tempest had been saying something to him. “I’ve got to get back to town. I’ve got a whole railcar of rowdies to deal with. Thanks for letting me know about Shady, Mr. Colter. I’ll look into it when I get back to my ranch.” And Tempest spun on his heel, heading for the door of the agent’s office. Completely ignoring Garrett, who still stood there as though about to burst into a sonnet, Levi followed Tempest into the open air of the parade ground. That odd, spectral white man pretending to be an Indian was thankfully gone, and Levi said conversationally, “Say, Marshal. You wouldn’t happen to know a lady by the name of Ivy Hudson? I think she might be related to this Hudson fellow who sells railroad ties. Reason I ask. I met her on the train yesterday—” All of a sudden, Tempest stopped Levi cold. His arm went out at a right angle to his body like a picket fence gate, nearly slamming Levi in the gut. Clearly, Levi had said something wrong. Tempest’s eyes flashed angrily. “How could you have met her on the train? I was with her on the train yesterday. And I was with her all the time. I didn’t see you.” Hell. This must be the husband Levi had been dreading. Tempest didn’t seem like such a bad sort. He must have some deep, hidden flaws that made women run to other men’s arms. Obviously, Ivy had been fleeing from Levi on the train, knowing her husband, Marshal

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Tempest, was about to board looking for her. Levi had to step carefully. “Oh, ah, we only met very briefly. I saved her from a throng of roostered thugs. You know how worked up these railroad men can get. Pitching into each other. A regular husking frolic.” Hands on hips, Tempest frowned something fierce. He repeated, “But I was with her every moment of the day. She wasn’t out of my sight for one second.” Both men stared dumbly at each other, probably for different reasons. Marshal Tempest glowered, and Levi wondered if the door to his new agent’s office had a strong lock. Then came that resonant actor’s voice again, off to the side. “It wasn’t Miss Ivy. Mr. Colter, you met Miss Ivy Hudson’s sister.” Again, both men turned to regard Garrett with a religious intensity. His pronouncement probably made the most sense to Marshal Tempest, for he was the first to yell, “How do you know Ivy Hudson’s sister?” “I don’t,” Garrett said simply. “I’ve just…heard that Ivy has a sister who was coming into town.” It was slowly seeping into Levi’s entrails, with a great deal of relief. He guffawed as though he’d known the whole thing was a joke the entire time, practically slapping Marshal Tempest on the shoulder. “Yes, her sister! That makes sense! Did Miss Ivy tell you she had a sister coming into town on the train?” Tempest frowned thoughtfully. “She has several sisters,” he admitted. “And she did send a telegram to a Miss Liberty Hudson, of Hyde Park, New York. I wonder if that’s the sister you met, Colter?” With exaggerated heartiness, Levi assured the sheriff, “Yes, I’m completely sure that’s the one I met.” “Do you happen to know where she went when she got off the train?” Levi shrugged. “I was going to ask you that. She made a hasty departure.”

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Tempest finally relaxed, shooting Levi a friendly glance. “Wondering the same thing, eh? Wondering if she’s married?” “Well, I…” Luckily, Tempest saved him the embarrassment of having to ask. “She’s not. None of them are. Yet, at least. Miss Ivy is betrothed to me.” This time, Tempest did slap Levi on the shoulder in a brotherly manner. “I’m sure she went to her father’s house on Garfield Avenue. Vancouver House. Why don’t you stop on by when you’ve arranged matters here at the fort? From what I’ve heard, she’s a very lively sort and doesn’t know anyone in town. I’ll mention to her that I saw you.” “Oh, don’t bother, please!” Levi wondered why he protested so strongly. “We barely exchanged three words. I merely pulled her out of harm’s way when some roughnecks were half seas over.” He touched the brim of his Stetson to indicate to Tempest he wished to part, and they headed off in different directions. Why did he protest? It took him another three seconds to realize why. Liberty—oh, the name alone caused his heart to throb!—was no doubt extremely mortified by her behavior on the train. Just the sight of him would give her the noxious creeps. She had probably been counting on never seeing him again. She was the daughter of this wealthy lumber merchant and the future sister-in-law of the town’s marshal. She would never truck with a lowly Indian agent who earned the salary of a postmaster. Once again, Levi steeled himself to give up all romantic hopes.

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Chapter Three The two devilishly handsome white men were bickering over a couple of women. Naturally. The dashing new Indian agent, who Garrett already knew wouldn’t turn out to be nearly as crooked as Shady Barnhart, was becoming extremely nervous over one of Simon Hudson’s daughters. Garrett O’Rourke knew deep, abiding love when he saw it. And this Levi Colter was already deeply in love with the woman he’d claimed to have only met briefly. Garrett knew they had done more than exchange just a few words. He didn’t know exactly what they’d done, but it was definitely more than mention the weather. Garrett also knew that his own future was intertwined fatefully with this Indian agent, so he strode after Levi across the parade ground. “Mr. Colter. Please wait. Don’t you want to know about Caeser’s death?” Levi spun on him irritably. “You know entirely too much, don’t you, Garrett—whatever your name is! You mysteriously ‘know’ this Indian chief is dead, and you somehow knew it was a different sister I had met on the train. Yet you live at the fort here, three miles from town! Yes, perhaps you can explain how you know so damned much. Starting with Miss Liberty Hudson.” Garrett hadn’t figured out yet how to explain to Levi Colter how this information had come to him. It was far too embarrassing and potentially damaging to himself, especially if revealed to a man distraught in matters of love. So he said, “Perhaps it’s best if I just show you.” He withdrew a couple folded pieces of paper from inside his frock coat and handed them to the irritable, lovelorn man.

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This seemed to give Levi pause for thought. He slowly accepted the papers, the anger falling from his face. He abruptly turned to stalk back to the agent’s office, Garrett following with long-legged strides. Levi absentmindedly puffed at a pipe while reading the strange, foreign writing. Garrett had been appalled to see the writing, too. The handwriting was so spiky and unnatural and quite unlike Garrett’s own rounded penmanship. He was surprised Levi was taking it so casually and not tossing him out of the room on his ear. It wasn’t just the unusual handwriting that had Garrett shaking in his boots when he’d first viewed the letter. The information conveyed terrified him more than anything. There was no reasonable explanation for the letter. More than once since first seeing it a week ago, he’d considered the possibility that he’d gone loco—that he was studying to be a half-wit, as they said here in the Far West. Having no pipe of his own to smoke, Garrett had nothing else to do, so he watched Levi read. He knew from the various emotions that swept over the agent’s face which part of the letter he’d arrived at. He could tell Levi was a strongly sensitive man like himself, not a buffoon like Shady. Levi’s nostrils flared angrily when he read about Caeser’s death. He frowned in confusion when the writer described his own arrival yesterday in Laramie City. And his eyes became amazingly soft and limpid when “one of Hudson’s daughters” was mentioned. Levi Colter was obviously a man ruled by his emotions, which could be a good thing—or an extremely terrifying thing. Garrett’s eyes lingered over the tattoo on the Indian agent’s collarbone. It was exactly as the letter described, about one inch tall. If Garrett leaned forward a bit he could see that it was, indeed, a Christian cross of some type with a snake coiled around it. By the time Levi had finished reading, his pipe had gone out from neglect. Garrett tensed, waiting for Levi to haul off and belt him. Again, Levi surprised him by his intelligence and consideration. He merely put the letter down and stared thoughtfully at the wall.

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Finally, he turned to Garrett, his eyes shimmering with emotion. He asked calmly, “How did you get this letter?” This was the moment Garrett had been dreading. But he couldn’t lie. Starting a new journey with a lie would just confound and distract everyone. “I wrote it.” Levi remained unperturbed. “I don’t understand. How could you have written it, when the writer refers to himself as Paddy Worth? Who is Paddy Worth, and how did you get this letter from him?” Garrett leaned forward, sighed heavily, and clasped his hands between his knees. He had been practicing this moment for a week. “Because a week ago, I came to, or woke up, or whatever you want to call it. But I suddenly became aware I was sitting at my table with a pencil in my hand. This piece of paper was underneath my hand, and the pencil was poised over the final word.” He pointed vaguely at the letter. “There. Moses Taggart.” Levi still said nothing. This man didn’t even blink, so he had obviously heard some loco things in his time. Garrett sighed deeply again and went on. “I didn’t even know there was such a person as Moses Taggart until after I woke up and asked around. It turns out Moses Taggart was some kind of chiseling snake who hung around Laramie City and vanished around the same time Shady Barnhart did. I figured if we could find this Moses Taggart fellow, we could find Shady.” Levi finally spoke, clipped and studied, as though he was used to public speaking. “And is it customary for you to do this? Wake up with a pencil in your hand to discover you’ve written strange things?” Garrett protested, “Not at all! No, sirree. I can testify that this has not once happened to me, Mr. Colter. I was just as shocked as you probably are. Of course I thought I might be as crazy as a run-over possum, but once the entire letter started making sense, I started to believe there might be something in it. Of course I wouldn’t approach you unless I thought there was some sort of veracity to it.”

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Maybe because he’d used the word “veracity,” Levi finally exhaled, too. Maybe he started to somewhat trust Garrett. Levi looked at the letter again and shook it. He said quietly, “I’ve heard about this sort of thing happening before.” Garrett held his breath. “You have? Because if you have, please enlighten me. It would ease my mind greatly if I knew this sort of thing had been known to happen.” Levi picked up his unlit pipe. “I used to work for a newspaper in Chicago. One day, some odd books came across my desk, The Spiritist Codification. Of course I thought the entire thing was a joke until I started reading them. Apparently the author had observed some mediums who could go into trance and communicate with spirits, sometimes writing down what the spirits commanded them.” Garrett was so stunned it felt as though his brain was bleeding. He had so many questions they all stumbled across his tongue at once. “But how—who—who has done that?” An amused smile played over Levi’s lips. “Rest assured, dear fellow, you’re in good company. Or,” he added thoughtfully, “at least in the company of other cracked eccentrics with a screw loose.” One question asserted itself in Garret’s head. “Would these mediums be in trance or aware of what they wrote?” “Some were aware. The writing simply flowed from their pens. Others went into a trance, which it appears you were capable of. They were completely surprised to see what had been written when they awoke. I believe they called this practice ‘psychography.’” Garrett leaned so far forward on his chair it tipped up. “And did any of what they wrote turn out to be true?” “Yes. Quite a bit of it, if I recall correctly. Apparently a select few mediums have highly developed abilities in this area, and some eventually become able to control it.” Levi chuckled reflectively then, as if fondly recalling something humorous someone had done while pickled, like slipping on a rotten apple. “I remember this one medium who went into trance and wrote about some fellow’s true love for a

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chambermaid. She was so astonished she didn’t know what to make of it and left it on her desk. The next day, a new client appeared at her door, wishing to know if her husband had been faithful. The client saw the psychography, and…Well, you guessed it. The names and places matched exactly.” When Levi chuckled, Garrett was finally able to exhale. He rose, swinging his arms about and pacing the small room. “So you do believe me, then!” “As far as you writing this, certainly. As far as a new Indian agent arriving, anyone could have known that.” Garrett was so carried away with emotion, he actually snatched the letter from Levi’s hand. He’d written it, after all. It belonged to him. He read aloud, “‘The new Indian agent with the tattoo on his neck will arrive, in love with one of Simon Hudson’s daughters.’” He flung his arm wide and cried, “How on earth could I have known that? And don’t try to tell me it’s wrong.” Levi stood now, too, nervously relighting his pipe. He paced, too. “You could have heard about Simon Hudson and subconsciously written that down. He’s the biggest merchant in town. You could have easily heard that he has several daughters.” “And that you’d be in love with one of them?” Levi stilled. He cranked his head slowly to face Garrett, and his look was deadly. Instantly, Garrett wished he had never said that. He now saw that Levi Colter had many layers to him. Like an onion, one had to be careful how slowly one peeled. One might get the poisonous layer capable of causing great damage. Garrett had evidently just found the murderous layer that no one ever wanted to touch. Levi snarled, “Don’t you ever. Ever. Mention that subject to me again.” Garrett exhaled and paced about again. Now he really didn’t want to ask about the tattoo, either. He had heard, through non-trancelike channels, that Levi had previously been the agent at Standing Rock Agency, but Sioux men didn’t tattoo themselves. So he must’ve

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gotten the tattoo in Chicago. “All right. Then why don’t we discuss what this Paddy fellow says about Caeser’s death?” That was a good move for Garrett to make. Levi visibly relaxed and went to the table to shuffle Shady’s papers around. “Yes. It appears that Shady has absconded with, or sold, all of the supplies meant for the Indians. I was expecting to find a whole storehouse full of sugar, ketchup, and”—he rattled another piece of paper and frowned at it—“skunk skins, and all I apparently have left to give the Indians is a sausage grinder.” “Yes,” Garrett agreed. “Shady used to say the position of agent at Fort Sanders was worth four thousand a year. I know his salary was only fifteen hundred. I’d like to help you find Shady. I can speak Lakota passably and used to interpret for Shady all the time. The post commander will give me leave.” He paused. “Shady also made off with something valuable to me.” Levi raised his eyebrows at Garrett, but thanks to the incident about Liberty Hudson and the tattoo, Garrett knew Levi wouldn’t ask him about it. “All right,” said Levi warmly. “But where do we find Shady and this Moses shit sack? All your letter said was that we’d find Caeser’s body under a rock with a pine tree sticking out of it. There must be a thousand of those. And what was that about a cactus?” Garrett read from Paddy’s letter. “‘Go to the cactus in Laramie where they eat.’” “Does that have any meaning to you?” “None at all. There’s a sort of cactus the Sioux peel and toast to eat, that’s all I know. White people call it whiskey-root.” “Maybe you can go into a trance again and find out.” “That would be a good idea. But I have no idea how I managed to do it the first time. So how can I do it again? How did the people in the books you read bring it on?” Levi looked thoughtful. He was an extremely handsome man, especially when looking thoughtful, and it was a pleasure just to gaze

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upon him. Garrett wanted to know everything there was to know about this man, maybe because their fates were obviously intertwined. “I think it was usually a surprise the first time, but they trained themselves to manage it, to induce it at their whim. Maybe you could sit where you sat the first time, to recreate the conditions.” Garrett grinned, knowing that he, too, looked exceptionally handsome when smiling, with his even, white teeth. “I’ll try. First, I’m going to Lieutenant Colonel Potter’s headquarters, to ask about leave.” Levi nodded. “Let me come with you to introduce myself, and you can show me the storehouse. I certainly hope old Shady left a mattress, so I have something to sleep on.” “Or maybe a few skunk skins,” Garrett said.

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Chapter Four “Welcome to the Cactus Club.” The Cactus Club wasn’t much of a club yet. Right now, it was just an enormous barn with tables and chairs and a long sideboard where Liberty ladled out stew for voracious townspeople. Neil Tempest’s partner Harley was overseeing the building of it, and when complete, it would have a soda fountain and fans. But for now, lines of starving and roostered brawlers came to put some food in their stomachs—and on their shirtfronts, shoes, and other men’s heads, sometimes. The only other restaurant in town, the Belle of the West, had become glutted with diners since the train’s arrival, so Harley had asked Liberty to help at the Cactus. She liked it for now, until she found something more worthwhile to do, and her sister Ivy ran the telegraph next door. She could tell this man was different—educated, well-mannered, even a bit shy—so she greeted him personally instead of slopping the chile con carne into his mug. He looked up at her politely from underneath the sootiest lashes she’d ever seen on a man, and she only caught a glimpse of his beautifully outlined eyes from under the brim of his white planter’s hat. But she must’ve been wrong, because now he merely gaped at her, his shapely lower lip drooping. “This place is called the Cactus Club?” he asked. “Yes,” she replied, already serving the next man in line. That thug went to pay the cashier at the end of the line, but already three men jostled to take his place. Normally another girl served alongside her, but Irene had gone an hour ago to the Bucket of Blood saloon.

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“Why is it called the Cactus Club?” “I think it has to do with the whiskey-root cactus.” Someone shoved this elegant man in the shoulder, causing some chile to splash the waist of his army coat. His wonderfully muscled, lean waist, Liberty shamefully noted. “Move it, buck!” the yokel shouted. But since he was built like a brick house, the man didn’t move the tiniest inch, so another roughneck shoved him. “Take a walk, shade!” Liberty knew how ugly these men could become even when not hungry, so she bellowed at them, “Shut your traps, or you flatheads ain’t getting no fixings!” She had already learned to talk like that, and she’d only been in Laramie for three days. This shut them up long enough for the army fellow to race around her side of the sideboard, put down his chile mug, and grab Irene’s ladle. “Let me help. I’m a cook.” In a flash, he was serving his former enemies. “Oh, my!” Liberty was genuinely touched by the assistance. A surge of warmth went through her, convincing her she’d been correct in her first assessment of this man. “You cook for the army?” He flashed a brief but wide smile at her. “Fort Sanders. Name’s Garrett O’Rourke. Nice to meet you.” “Nice to meet you, Private O’Rourke. I’m Libby. Then what are you doing here in town?” “I’m looking for a man named Moses Taggart. Have you heard of him?” “I’ve heard that he’s a lying, cheating toad. The gal who usually serves with me here told me that a month ago he gave her a black eye and stole a necklace from her. But no one’s seen him since.” “That sounds about like Moses Taggart. I’m actually looking for an associate of his who took something important from me, too. Would you happen to know where Taggart was last seen?”

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Liberty thought as she scraped the bottom of the cast-iron pot with the ladle. She didn’t want to assist anyone in a mission that might have violent results, as low as Taggart might have been. Then again, she liked to think she was a good judge of character, and she was profoundly impressed with Garrett’s demeanor. And Taggart had stolen Irene’s necklace. Still, she didn’t know Garrett. Anyone could put on a private’s coat and pretend to have been a cook at the fort. “What did the associate take from you?” Garrett didn’t miss a beat as he ladled out the remains of the beef stew. He didn’t even slop any over the edges of the men’s chipped mugs. But he looked sideways at Liberty with his expressive, stirring eyes, and she knew this man was incapable of a lie. “He stole my dead wife’s wedding ring from me.” Garrett continued to level his shivering, sad eyes on her even while scraping ladlefuls of nothing into men’s cups. They probably would have stood there over the empty pot until a hungry tracklayer hit them over the head with it, but Irene came back from the Bucket of Blood then and eased the ladle out of Garrett’s hand. “Thanks for the break,” Irene chirped. “They’re ten deep at the bar in the Bucket of Blood. Old Roy Farnsworth was trying to get fresh with me, but I told him I had to get back here and…” Irene continued blathering while Liberty and Garrett pulled away from the sideboard, still staring at each other. Liberty must have made an instant decision, for she found herself wiping her hands on her apron and saying, “Come with me.” Garrett grinned happily, and Liberty barked at Irene, “We’re going on a mission to find your necklace. Pot’s empty. Ned! More stew!” Tossing aside her apron, Liberty even dared to grab ahold of Garrett’s hand in full view of the crowd. It would have been easy to lose him in the milling, punching, stumbling horde—that was her reasoning. But frankly, it was nice to feel his broad, dry hand in hers, the long, tapered fingers twining around her own. When they bumped

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into each other in their weaving through the crowd, his firmly muscled body exuded a warm reassurance that gave her a giddy excitement. Maybe it was part of the new way she’d been acting ever since that run-in with the stranger on the train. Liberty had been constantly surprising herself with actions even a modern suffragist might find shocking. Something about her encounter with that alluring stranger had set into motion a whole new attitude in Liberty. For example, would she ever have dreamed she’d be serving a congregation of roostered railroad men? Mingling with prairie flowers, highwaymen, and gamblers, without the oversight of a chaperone? That was how things were done in the Far West. How she had wanted to ask Ivy about the stranger on the train! She knew she was in love with him. She could still feel his hands around her waist and his soft lips between her teeth. His handsome, stately face was etched into her brain, and she imagined she’d look up and see him standing next in line for her stew. He couldn’t be a tracklayer, gambler, or shyster—not dressed that way, in a clean greatcoat, clean Stetson, and smelling of hay. But she couldn’t ask Ivy. Not that it would have been unseemly— the sisters were close and not afraid of sharing secrets. It was just that Liberty could not describe the man to Ivy. She hadn’t gotten his name. And how many men in Laramie City wore greatcoats and Stetsons? The tattoo was probably the only descriptive feature, but Liberty had been too busy licking the tip of his nose to really notice what the tattoo was. She didn’t let go of Garrett’s hand until they were around the corner onto Grand Avenue. There, away from the crowd, she was forced to release him and stroll casually. She was aroused by his longlegged, loping gait. His long arms swung easily at his thighs, and he cast her many devilish, playful glances. From his beautifully rich drawl she reckoned he was from the South.

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Liberty said, “I’ll show you where Taggart was last known to live. Irene pointed out the house to me. Perhaps he left behind some indication of where he went.” “I thank you very kindly,” Garrett said in his beautiful, resonant voice. “It’s suddenly become a very important undertaking for me, to find either one of these gents.” “I’m very sorry about your wife,” Liberty said experimentally. Some people didn’t want to discuss dead spouses. Yet others looked for the chance to pour out their hearts. Garrett said, “Yes, she was a good woman. She died during the recent War Between the States. So you can see why I’m very anxious to get her wedding ring back from that shit—I mean, that bad egg.” Liberty laughed and wished she could take his hand again. She was becoming so fast, so loose! It had all started with the tattooed man, and she had been glad every night that she had brought her woman’s toy with her from Hyde Park. Every night she had been lost in such a whirlwind of lust for that man, she had plunged the long, fat implement into her pussy, imagining it was her secret lover’s penis. She writhed on her back on her mattress, imagining she was splayed out for his eyes only, trying to muffle her sighs from the household’s ears. She licked her fingers and pinched her nipples, pretending her lover nibbled and bit them. That explained it. That was why she was now having carnal ideas about Garrett. Her female hysteria had been leading her down dark avenues. She had been playing with her toy too much. Its use had only toned her muscles and increased the blood flow to her vagina. As a result, she now craved more. She must remember to put that gadget back into its box and slide it far under her bed. Otherwise, she might get so carried away and finally reach that “hysterical paroxysm” she’d heard about. Women had discussed it openly at the Women’s Rights Convention in New York, but none had seemed to have ever actually obtained that feared paroxysm. It seemed to involve a complete

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mental annihilation of a woman’s soul—that, or something so ecstatic one might die. One would have to be a tomfool blockhead not to notice that this elegant man who loped so easily next to her was not a thoroughbred of the highest order. He may have been a half-breed, one could tell a mile away from his lovely café au lait skin, but his exquisite bones were put together beautifully, like a sculpture of a Nubian god. “Don’t feel bad about cussing,” Liberty said now. “I’d cuss, too, in your shoes. Here’s the house.” It was just a small affair, a two-room hastily built house. Someone had gone to the effort to add a covered porch that wrapped around three outer walls, and there looked to be a well connected to the new city water system, but it was nothing fancy. “Should we bother knocking?” Garrett wondered. “Someone might be squatting in there.” Garrett knocked, but as expected, no rustling came from inside. He opened the unlocked door. The house was almost completely empty. There was never much garbage in the Far West—settlers found a use for everything. A table contained nothing but some steer bones, an empty bottle of pepper sauce, and a few scattered corncobs. The next room boasted an empty wardrobe and a bedstead with no mattress. “At least the windows have glass,” Liberty noted. Disappointed, they went onto the back porch and stared at the well. A shovel stood propped against the well, and Garrett had the idea to look into the well, but he saw nothing but water. He grinned at Liberty in that mischievous way. “Was hoping to find Taggart’s body in there.” Liberty perched on the edge of the well. “Can’t say as I blame you, Garrett.” She had already stopped calling him “Private O’Rourke.” He put his hands on his lean hips, and Liberty saw he was equipped with a pair of Colt Army revolvers. “They’re bad men, Miss

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Libby. Taggart’s associate, Shady Barnhart, was the Indian agent out at the fort. I used to help him, because I’m familiar with the Lakota language and he never bothered learning.” Liberty smiled. “He sounds like a regular shit.” Garrett grinned warmly. “Well, a few days ago the new agent came to the fort and found out that Shady made off with all of the Indians’ supplies. So this new agent is my partner now in tracking down these shit sacks.” Liberty stood, jamming her hands onto her hips, too. “This Shady bastard stole all the Indians’ supplies? No wonder there are so many damned little Indian nippers wandering around town literally sobbing with starvation! I’ve heard stories, too, about settlers just up and taking land that was supposed to be for Indians.” Garrett’s Nubian face took on the appropriate look of empathy. “That’s part of why we’re after Shady, miss. Seems he’s also sold off all the land he was supposed to give the Sioux.” Liberty walked in little circles fuming, she was so angry at these bastards. She instantly saw why Garrett felt compassion for the Indians. He had obviously once been a downtrodden slave, too, loathed by upstanding white society, and his lot had not much improved since the War and coming West. “How I detest people like that, Garrett! Part of what I wanted to do by coming to the Dakota Territory was to help, to organize. Son of a gun, I know that soon women will have the vote! And then we’ll see what’s what—women would never vote for anyone who would condone such outright thievery!” “Bully for you, miss!” Garrett’s waving fist urged her in her tirade. “Do you know that I bought a pair of men’s trousers yesterday at Freund and Brothers? By God, I’m going to wear them, too! I don’t care what all these stuck-up Mrs. Grundys think. That’s one of the reasons I came West—I knew there’d be more freedom, more

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liberties, things would be more relaxed. There would be more ground to pioneer!” Liberty knew she was making a scene like all possessed, but it felt good, and Garrett was encouraging her. “I know I’m not going to make a difference by serving chile at the Cactus Club, so I had an idea to start a school. A school, Garrett! Laramie City’s first school. With all these people coming to town, there are enough children to start a school.” “That’s a bully idea, miss! This new agent friend of mine could even help—would you be accepting Indian children in the school?” “I hadn’t thought about that yet,” Liberty admitted. “Maybe just the ones who already know English, at first.” “Wait!” Liberty was stunned when Garrett grabbed her upper arms, his beautifully fringed eyes aglow with excitement. He turned her around so that she faced the meager building, his face heavy with importance. It took her a few seconds to understand what he was getting at. When she did, she slowly lifted a hand to cover her open mouth. Taggart’s old house. Her new school! She grabbed ahold of Garrett’s upper arms, too, and they jumped around in circles. “Garrett! You’re a genius! I’ll figure out who owns the house—I’m sure we can buy it for thirty dollars—and then I’ll just have to find furniture and school supplies. Books, and—” Garrett tried to still her. “I can help. I’ve built many a table and chair in my time. We’ll just need to find lumber.” Liberty carried on. “Someone to paint it—oh, how about a nice red? I can’t have an unpainted school.” She was so abuzz with excitement she didn’t notice that it was Garrett’s turn to open his mouth, dumbfounded. He released her, stood erect, and took slow steps toward her new school. “What is it? What’s wrong?” “Someone told me to check the roof,” it sounded as though he mumbled.

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Liberty asked, “I thought you didn’t know where this place was?” Ignoring her, Garrett circled two sides of the building, scanning the roof. Liberty followed, more interested in the remodeling that would be required to bring the building up to par. Her father could supply the lumber for the desks and chairs Garrett offered to build. What a dear, offering to help her, when they’d only just met! She turned to go back inside the back door and visualize the new school afresh. But Garrett caught her by the arm. He was pointing at the roof. “There,” he said in a new, mystical voice. “See that thing sticking out from underneath the overhang?” “Yes,” Liberty said vaguely. It seemed important to Garrett, though, so she looked again. An implement that resembled a fireplace poker had been jammed into a gap, and now her curiosity was piqued. “How do we get it down?” It was about two feet too high for Garrett to reach even on his tiptoes, and there were no chairs in the house. “We could go drag that table out here, and—” It felt almost natural when Garrett got behind her and bent at the knees, encircled her hips in his long, strong arms, and carried her to the roof. It was exhilarating to be held up like this by such a solid tree of a man. His face was jammed against her back so firmly she could feel his hot cheekbone through her calico gown. He didn’t wobble or wiggle in the slightest as he lifted her, and she easily yanked out the object, which appeared to be a pair of tongs. “I’ve got it,” she said breathlessly. Her body twisted and turned as he let her down, and she had to lift the tongs so as not to bash him in the head. His closely shorn skull raked against her bare breastbone, instantly stiffening her nipples. When his sharply sculpted cheekbone slid against her neck, the creaminess of his skin made her lose all reason. As he set her gently on the ground, she stayed on tiptoes, the better to wedge the toe of her slipper into his boot top.

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Their faces met. He panted so heavily she was afraid she’d been too weighty for him, and she decided to eat less bread. Then she knew he didn’t pant from the exertion of lifting her. No, the corners of his eyelids were wilted with lust. She felt as though she clung to an immobile pillar, he was so muscular. One second she was searching his expressive, fervent eyes—the next second he was pressing her against the schoolhouse, voraciously kissing her. Garrett lifted her up the wall and burrowed his strong hips into her. He had her pinned against the wooden boards so firmly she was light as air, and it was easy to lift her other slipper and wedge it in his boot. The metal tongs thudded to the ground. He moaned in the pit of his throat as she nibbled and licked his succulent lips. The scent of his fresh sweat aroused Liberty so, the lips of her sex expanded and nearly clenched from wanting him. She felt his long donkey’s prick prodding her shivering pussy. Her pussy seemed to have a mind of its own for measuring and sensing, as her core instantly discerned that Garrett was possessed of a cockhead as big as her fist. Her pussy responded to this normally shocking tidbit by fluttering strongly, the entire inner canal of her sex clutching for that juicy appendage. It was admirable that he restrained himself from fucking her right up against the wall. He did not hump her fully clothed, as she had done to the man on the train with shameful abandon. He merely pinned her to the wall with his powerful hips and kissed her hungrily yet respectfully. It was obvious he was holding back his lust. Garrett O’Rourke could have strangled a wild boar barehanded, but he cradled Liberty’s ass as though he weighed baby chicks. She ran her palms over the coarse, cropped hair that covered his skull, something new and enticing. When he briefly pulled back a fraction of an inch to whisper, “Miss Libby…” against her mouth, she knew she had lost him.

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He pulled away completely, wiping his face with his hand as though to rid it of shame. He regarded her wide-eyed, as though he’d never seen her before in his life. He raised his hands in surrender, whispering humbly, “I’m sorry.” She giggled, to rid herself both of awkwardness and also of lust. “It’s quite all right,” she said lightly, to smooth over the moment. At least I know who you are. That other man, I didn’t even know his name. “It’s my fault. I’ve been lacking manners ever since I came out West. It must be all this”—she waved her hand to include the entire town—“hobnobbing about with roostered slobs who don’t have manners enough to carry guts to a bear.” Garrett shook his head and placed his hand on his chest. “No. It’s my fault. I took advantage of both our joys. You were excited about the school, and I was excited about the—” “Yes!” cried Liberty, glad for an excuse to change the subject. She bent to retrieve the tongs and looked at them remotely, as though they were her entire focus of interest. Certainly not Garrett’s giant cock tenting out the crotch of his red drawers as he unsuccessfully tried to stuff it beneath his army coat. No, the tongs were decidedly more interesting. “Yes, that thing,” Garrett said weakly, reaching out a hand to accept the tongs. He turned them this way and that, frowning. Liberty said, “I’m sure I’ve seen tongs like that around this town. I think it’s a railroad thing. Something they use to lay the railroad ties.” “Yes, it’s got markings on it. It says UP.” That stood for Union Pacific. “My father does a lot of work with the railroad, selling them lumber and ties. Can I borrow those tongs? I can show them to him, ask him what the numbers mean.” Garrett had finally relaxed enough to smile shyly as he returned the tongs to her. “That would be helpful.” “But how do I find you? Send someone to the fort?”

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“I’ve been granted leave, so I don’t rightly have a fixed address right now.” Liberty gasped. “You could stay here—in the schoolhouse! No, don’t protest, I insist. You’ve already promised to build desks and chairs, so you have more right to sleep here than any other old squatter.” Garrett shrugged, still smiling. “That would be nice. Until we leave on our mission.” “Well. You have to figure out where you’re going, first. And these tongs might help. You know, I’m sure my father would donate lumber for you to build furniture with. I’ll ask him tonight, when I tell him about the schoolhouse and everything else.” The smile dropped off Garrett’s face then, as though something had just occurred to him. “Who is your father, may I ask?” He was probably worried about some irate bruiser chasing him down for kissing his daughter. He didn’t need to worry about Simon Hudson. Simon was a follower of Spiritualism, a cohort of Alcott and Emerson who would be meditating next to a lake if there weren’t oodles of money to be made selling railroad ties. Simon had forced the entire family to live in a tent for a month once because he thought the world was coming to an end. Liberty touched Garrett’s arm almost timidly. “Don’t worry. My father is Simon Hudson. He’s the biggest lumber merchant around, so I’m sure he can spare the wood to build the furniture.” Garrett’s expression changed completely then. It was such a thorough transformation it was almost as though another being suddenly inhabited his body. He tensed, and his eyes grew wide with fear. “So you’re…Libby Hudson?” “Yes.” Liberty shrugged. “Libby, Liberty, whatever people wish.” “I just remembered something I have to do.” And Garrett O’Rourke turned tail and literally ran from the schoolyard. “Wait. Garrett! Will I meet you back here, say, tomorrow?”

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This sudden appointment was so urgent, Garrett barely had the manners to toss over his shoulder, “Yes, certainly! Tomorrow will be fine!” Liberty was left standing alone, holding a pair of railroad tongs.

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Chapter Five Liberty had been calling out to Garrett from the schoolyard like a…well, like a schoolgirl with a crush, embarrassing herself by chasing a man who didn’t want her. Standing there stupidly with a pair of tongs in her hand. What was she, a hussy? So now she had lost not one but two men. And the week wasn’t even over yet. Fearful that her feminine passions would get the best of her, Liberty trudged back to Vancouver House, hoping her father would be home. Simon was a restless person and didn’t spend much time there, but at least she could put down the stupid tongs somewhere. Garrett O’Rourke was probably thoroughly mortified he had kissed her. Perhaps if she had resisted a bit more, he would respect her. It was just her damned passion that had led her to fall so easily into the kiss. She’d already been primed for it with her constant reminiscences of the swashbuckling stranger on the train. She was more determined than ever to put her toy back in its box, to see what happened if she didn’t play with it for a week or so. Liberty wished there were some fellow suffragists here in town to discuss things like this with. How did any of them know what happened during hysterical paroxysm, if none of them had ever experienced it? Liberty knew that eventually curiosity would kill her more than the paroxysm would, and she would have to find out for herself. She cheered up when she saw her sister’s horse hitched in front of Vancouver House. Out here, women didn’t have to ride sidesaddle, and Ivy had been riding twenty miles back to her fiancé’s ranch every

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night when she finished sending telegrams for the town. Liberty hadn’t spent much time gossiping with Ivy since she’d arrived, as Ivy obviously spent most of her time with Marshal Neil Tempest. And there was a second man, the exotic Captain Harland Park, who oversaw the building of the Cactus Club among other things, who seemed to constantly be with them. Captain Park also rode every night back to Serendipity Ranch. Perhaps he was investing in Serendipity. Liberty might even have chased after Captain Park herself if it wasn’t so obvious he was smitten with Ivy. Neither man was at Vancouver House, and Liberty was glad. If she couldn’t talk to Ivy about this dilemma, who could she talk to? She wondered if Ivy had experienced this paroxysm. She found Ivy up in her bedroom packing a few things into a carpetbag. Liberty collapsed on Ivy’s bed like an empty sack. Ivy giggled. She moved to the dressing table where she had apparently been sipping from a glass of claret, and started handing it to Liberty. She stopped, for she must have remembered that Liberty was a temperance advocate. But today Liberty’s high ideals suddenly didn’t seem so important to her, for she snapped, “Oh, just hand it over!” She chugged as Ivy laughed openly at her. Unused to strong liquor, Liberty choked, and some of the wine nearly came out of her nose. Ivy said, “Temperance has a way of vanishing once one arrives in the Far West.” “I’ll say,” Liberty agreed heatedly. She sat dejectedly, cradling the empty glass between her knees, staring dully at the wall. “I have now met two men I would like to court.” Ivy abruptly froze, a half-folded blouse in her hands. “Two men? I haven’t even heard of one.” “I know,” Liberty nearly sobbed. “Because I didn’t know his name. Still don’t. I met him on the train. And just now I made the acquaintance of a Private Garrett O’Rourke, but he ran from me

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almost in tears. Probably in shock, because I was such a slut that I kissed him.” Ivy was still frozen like a statue when Liberty stood and breezed past her toward the claret bottle. She sloshed some liquor into her glass, drank half of it without snorting, and whined, “Garrett said he’d help build furniture for my new school. I’m in love with the man from the train, but now I think I’m in love with Garrett, too.” Ivy’s mouth finally moved. “Well, at least you know the second fellow’s name.” Whisking past her sister again, Liberty plopped down on the mattress. Slumped over, she stared blankly into thin air. Only half of her mouth chuckled at her sister’s joke. “Yes. There is that.” Ivy sat next to her on the bed, deadly serious. “Well, this isn’t like you at all! Have you ever even been in love? How do you know you’re in love with the train fellow without even knowing his name?” “I’ve never been in love, and that’s how I know I am now. Remember that Alain Broussard fellow I was so hot about?” Liberty turned her screwed-up, whiny face to her sister. Ivy wrinkled her nose with distaste. “That awful French fellow who wrote you that horribly sentimental poetry?” Liberty sighed limply. “That’s the one.” “Every time you’d say something, he’d sniff, ‘I doubt that very much!’ As though he didn’t believe in you. As though he had no respect for anything you said or did.” “Yes. That’s him.” “He wore those enormous lace collars that made him look like Gainsborough’s Blue Boy and always elbowed other men with this incredibly knowing look when he said, ‘Côte d’Azur, Côte d’Azur! The women, the women!’ As though he had a hundred women waiting for him in the Côte d’Azur, just lounging around on—” Liberty slapped Ivy’s shoulder with the back of her hand. “Enough!” “Well, he was quite handsome,” Ivy said soberly.

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“I thought I was in love with him. Comparing the way I felt about Alain and putting it next to the way I feel about the train fellow, well…there’s just no comparison.” Regaining her old strength and enthusiasm, Liberty pivoted on the mattress to face her sister. “Ivy, there was a world of difference! I must have just imagined I was in love with Alain, you see?” “Or maybe you were just young and immature? You didn’t know what true love was yet.” “That could be it. But suddenly, with the train fellow, I felt alive for the first time in my life! I wanted to possess him, to eat him, to absorb him into my soul. Does this make any sense?” Ivy smiled like a cat. “Yes. It does. And you felt the same for this Private O’Rourke?” Liberty tilted her head thoughtfully. “Yes. Well, nearly the same. It’s very hard to describe. I’d say with the train fellow it was more of a romantic love, the sort that makes you go absolutely insane, incapable of functioning until you can be in his arms again, do you know what I mean?” “Oh, yes.” “Oh, right. You must feel that way about Neil Tempest. Anyway, Garrett is more of a practical, warm sort of feeling. As though he’s someone I can depend upon.” Remembering that she hadn’t been able to depend upon him to stay in the schoolyard and say a proper goodbye, Liberty swallowed the rest of the claret and pouted. “Is it possible to be in love with two men at the same time, I wonder?” It was merely an idle question, but suddenly her sister became quite spirited. “Oh, yes! Yes, dear Liberty. I can tell you with absolute assurance that it’s entirely possible. And it’s just as you described. Loving two men with equal passion but in different ways.” Liberty sniffled. There seemed to be some importance to what Ivy was saying, only she couldn’t quite figure it out. “You mean it’s happened to you?”

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“Oh, yes.” Ivy looked from side to side as though someone were listening. She whispered, “It’s happening to me right now.” Liberty’s jaw hung low as Ivy’s meaning slowly sunk in. “You mean…” “Yes. I mean.” “Neil and…Captain Park?” “Neil and Captain Park.” Liberty needed another glass of claret to allow this information to sink in. She stood at the vanity sipping, watching her sister in the mirror. Ivy had never looked more lively and vibrant. Liberty had thought perhaps it was the western sun burnishing her skin and putting roses in her cheeks, but now she knew it was…Two men? Liberty finally managed to say, “So…so…so…” “Don’t ask me how it works, but it does. Out here it’s different from Hyde Park. There are twenty men for every woman, and most of those women are prairie flowers or simply not desirable. Dear Liberty, men are simply growing on trees around here.” Liberty stuck out her lower lip. “Yes, but most of them aren’t the sort one would even walk on the same sidewalk with—if Laramie had sidewalks—much less passionately kiss, like I just did to two different men in the same week.” “You kissed the train fellow? And you don’t even know his name? Oh, Liberty! Whatever are we going to do with you? This Dakota Territory air seems to have gone to your brain.” Liberty grinned slyly. “As it has yours.” Ivy looked down at the floor in mock shame. Liberty sighed. “And I know which men I would like to decide between. But I have yet to court either one of them. And one of them I can’t even find.” “All right. Let’s start with the fellow you do have a name for. Garrett O’Rourke? Listen, is he a private at the fort, no doubt? Then Neil is certain to know him.”

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“Well, he said he’d return tomorrow to the school I found. I haven’t even told you about that yet. He agreed to build furniture for the children, can you imagine?” “Yes, what’s this about a school?” “Oh, I found a school, I didn’t tell you!” “No! Tell me now!” “Well, there’s an unused two-room building on Grand Avenue…” And the sisters talked for another hour.

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Chapter Six “So who is this gal again?” Levi asked suspiciously as they rode along Grand Avenue. “I told you,” said Garrett. “Libby, that’s all I know. She led me to Moses Taggart’s old house, and she says we can stay there when we’re in town.” “That’s the part I don’t understand. How does she have the right to allow us to stay in Taggart’s old house?” “I told you,” Garrett repeated. “Her father is some kind of big frog in town. He works for the railroad or something. Said she could find out what the markings were on those tongs that Paddy helped me find.” Levi’s main suspicion was that Garrett himself had eyes for this Libby. For instance, Garrett waxed a bit too passionate when asked to describe her. He speechified about her curls as black as night, her trim yet buxom figure, the apparently large size of her feet. Garrett even jawed excitedly about a mole on her shoulder. Her shoulder? How had Garrett seen her shoulder? But definite fireworks came into Garrett’s voice when he described how coquettishly Libby had ladled out the chile con carne. “You wouldn’t happen to be hot for this Libby, now, would you?” he asked his partner as they dismounted. Garrett’s face colored with embarrassment, Levi could see, even under the creamy café au lait color of his skin. He giggled with nerves as he tied his horse to the porch’s post. “Hot? Not me. No, sir. I’m concentrating on our undertaking. Hand on the plow, I always say. Eyes on the prize!”

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“Yeah,” grumbled Levi as they stepped up to the front door. “I’d say there’s a prize you’ve got your eyes on.” “Why are you knocking?” Garrett asked. “The door’s open.” “We need to get a lock,” Levi murmured as Garrett opened the door. Garrett allowed Levi in first. He didn’t need to do that. They were partners in this investigation, equals. Just because Levi was the Indian agent didn’t mean Garrett needed to kowtow to him. Garrett was probably just accustomed to being servile. “My, my,” Garrett marveled. “Will you look at this?” Levi looked around. “Look at what?” It was the most basic of rooms, about as fancy as Levi’s own rooms at the fort. Smiling widely, Garrett gestured grandly. “Look at what she’s done to the place!” “What?” All Levi could see was a table and three chairs. He wouldn’t like to see the place before Libby had done anything to it, that was for sure. Garrett strode about. “This is all new! She found chairs, put this tablecloth on…Why, she even found this flower vase. And these curtains. Yesterday this place had no curtains. She must’ve brought a whole wagon over here. This lamp wasn’t here. Oh, and look! Here are the tongs I told you about.” Removing his Stetson, Levi accepted the tongs. “Don’t get so worked up. She’s probably just starting to get it ready to turn into a school. These are railroad tie tongs. Tracklayers use them. Nothing so unusual in that.” The smile fell from Garrett’s face, and he seemed annoyed. “Other than that Paddy told me I’d find them stuck up near the roof.” “He didn’t tell you what you’d find near the roof,” Levi countered, just to be argumentative. He had a feeling he was being strung along just so that Garrett could get close to this schoolteacher. “You could’ve easily found a box of someone’s unwashed condoms.” Garrett rolled his eyes at his partner. “Now, why are you being so surly? My pal Paddy tells me what’s what, and I believe in him. If

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you have no interest in finding Shady and Moses, just tell me right now. You can go back to your flush life at the fort.” Levi stood tall. He knew he shouldn’t be scoffing at the things Garrett and Paddy wrote. After all, they had predicted his own arrival in town, his tattoo, and his love for Miss Liberty Hudson. Levi had not, of course, mentioned her name aloud since discovering what it was, as though it would be a bad omen to speak it. He had made a conscious effort to steer clear of Vancouver House, which appeared to be situated one block down and three blocks over. No, he would never head toward that part of town. “I’m not saying it’s all flapdoodle, Garrett. Most of what you wrote is infallible.” He stuck out his chest. “And as the Indian agent for Fort Sanders duly appointed by President Johnson, I have a duty to track down my predecessor—” Levi’s own blather was cut short when the back door opened to admit a block of bright sunlight and the form of—Levi gasped. Miss Liberty Hudson. “Hey!” Garrett called happily from somewhere on the foggy outer reaches of Levi’s awareness. “Here she is. Libby. It’s so very good to see you again. I’ve brought my partner, the Indian agent I told you about.” As Levi’s hand that held the tongs fell limply to his side, Liberty Hudson came toward him. She was the exact replica that had haunted his lusty visions for several nights and days now. Sleek curls framed her heart-shaped face. Her features were in perfect focus, just as Levi recalled—the sculpted nose, the intelligently bowed lips he had kissed, the shell-like ears. She seemed to hold her breath and float toward him, grasping a handful of flowers of some kind. Her eyes were leveled on Levi as she absently put the flowers onto the table without looking at them. Meanwhile, Garrett continued to chatter. About what, Levi didn’t know. All the blood seemed to have been sucked from his brain and into his vitals, mostly his cock. Tiny clear bubbles swam before his

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eyes because he had stopped breathing. The violet scent he recalled so acutely even wafted over to him when she stopped, only four feet from him. “You’re the new Indian agent,” she whispered. Levi couldn’t tell if this angered her or enticed her. “Yes, I am,” he had to admit. Her face was all aglow, as though lit up from inside. “You’re the one chasing after Shady Barnhart and Moses Taggart. Garrett’s partner.” “Yes.” He remembered to breathe. By coming forward to set the tongs down next to her flowers, he came within a foot of her. He inhaled her fresh violet scent as his cock elongated toward her lap. “Oh, so you’re already acquainted,” Garrett said innocently. It occurred to Levi that he should strangle Garrett. That entire blather about “Libby” had been an act, a bunch of hot gas! Garrett must have known the entire time that she was the daughter of Simon Hudson, the gal Levi had been pining for. Garrett had been standing right there when Marshal Tempest and Levi had come to the mutual understanding that Levi was not chasing after Tempest’s fiancée. And Levi had already nearly strangled Garrett once, just for insinuating that Levi might be in love with a Hudson daughter. Levi took his eyes from the Egyptian stunner in order to shoot his partner a murderous look. “You lowdown double-crosser,” he snarled. Garrett put a hand to his chest. “Me? What did I do? So look here, Libby.” “Liberty, if you wish,” she said, her eyes blazing wickedly. She finally smiled, perhaps having overcome the mortification at once again seeing the low-life pauper from the gutter who had had the grit to assault her in a railcar. She was a Hudson daughter, after all. She should be courting the son of some other railroad magnate, not dimpling her cheeks at Levi Colter. Garrett blathered on virtuously, “We see you’ve brought back the tongs. Did you get any information from your father?” He turned to

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Levi. “Her father is Mr. Simon Hudson, merchant of railroad ties, so we figured he’d know what these numbers mean.” Levi closed his eyes patiently. “Yeah, I’ve sort of figured that out by now, Garrett. You could’ve informed me beforehand.” Garrett was wide-eyed with surprise. “Oh, did I not mention that? You told me never to mention that subject to you ever again.” “What subject?” Liberty asked brightly. “Mr. Colter, did you have some bad run-in with my father? He’s a softy, I assure you.” Garrett wiggled his eyebrows. “It’s not your father he doesn’t wish to discuss, Libby. Now, about these tongs. Did you get any information?” Although she looked puzzled, Liberty picked up the tracklaying tool that Levi wished he could toss out the window. And throw Garrett out there with it, too. “Yes. Of course you know what the UP stands for. But these numbers indicate the station where the tool was meant to be used. In this case the Sherman Summit station, about twenty miles southeast of—” Abruptly she quieted. Raising her brimming eyes from the tongs to Levi, he instantly knew they were both thinking the same thing. Sherman Summit was where the dizzying Dale Creek Bridge had been built. The monumental engineering feat that had so roused everyone on the train that a certain young lady had gone wandering about in a car packed full of thugs. They never would have bumped into each other were it not for Sherman Summit. Levi finally dared to smile at her. “Yes,” he said softly. “We know where it is.” He was testing her. Testing her to see how she responded. He knew she must loathe him now, realizing that a mere Indian agent had put his hands on her. Had kissed her. Had dared to sink his fingers into that slippery bun and crush his open mouth to hers. He was awash with relief when she smiled back and continued, “It indicates the station of Sherman Summit. I hope that tells you something.”

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“Well,” said Levi, glad that when he took the tongs from Liberty, their fingers briefly touched. “These bloodstains indicate that someone was murdered at Sherman Summit. Or by someone working at Sherman Summit last month.” “Caeser Moxus,” Garrett breathed. At last, Liberty looked at Garrett. “Who’s that?” Garrett exhaled mightily. “I guess I didn’t mention that to you. But Shady Barnhart, well, we suspect him also of murdering this Indian chief and forging his name on a treaty.” Levi liked the way Liberty turned fiery then. “Son of a gun! That twisted shit!” She fixed Levi with her blazing eyes. “I certainly hope you are a more upstanding agent than that odious bastard, Mr. Colter!” Levi tried to look humble. “It would be hard not to be more upstanding.” Liberty continued, “What gives you that suspicion? That Shady murdered this Caeser Moxus?” Levi sighed. This would be the tricky part. Before Garrett could forge ahead with some balled-up answer that would permanently scare off Miss Hudson, he said, “It was written down anonymously in a letter Garrett received.” Liberty looked thoughtful. “This sounds like something Caleb Poindexter could help with.” Where had Levi heard that name before? He struggled to think. That was it. Marshal Tempest had mentioned this Caleb fellow as being helpful in Indian matters. “Certainly, if you think this fellow can help. Maybe you could set up a meeting. Don’t tell him about our suspicions first. Who is he?” Liberty said, “He’s a seer of sorts, apparently. My sister mentioned him to me. A visionary who assisted her fiancé, Marshal Tempest, in finding a murderer.” Levi had to restrain himself from rolling his eyes. Not another medicine man. He doubted the veracity of any of that nonsense. All of

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that chanting, smoke-waving, and piercing oneself through the breast to gaze at the sun—it all gave Levi the creeps. He had just seen too many people die when they thought they were protected by some god. Some of the herbal remedies worked, but he drew the line when it came to taking professional advice from a medicine man. So he said politely, “If it’s all the same to you, Miss—” “Liberty.” “Liberty, I’d rather not take counsel from a medicine man.” “Oh, but he’s not an Indian at all! Rather, he dresses like an Indian, but actually he’s quite white, from what I’ve heard.” Garrett chimed in. “I know that fellow. I often see him around the fort. Some people believe he’s a great seer. And some people think he’s just a loco blacksmith who powwows with spooks.” Levi remembered the fellow he’d seen the day he’d arrived at the fort, hiding his face under an eagle quill headdress. That fellow had seemed oddly important, so he now told Liberty, “All right, if you think he’s legitimate. Send for him.” He was blessed again with her smile, and he knew he’d done the right thing. “I’d like to help in any way I can.” They stared stupidly at each other for many moments, and then Garrett cleared his throat. “I’m going to, ah, you know. For the purpose of nature.” He headed for the front door. Liberty called after him, “Garrett! My father had some lumber delivered to the side of the house. Why don’t you check on it and see if it meets your specifications for the furniture?” The front door slammed, and Levi was alone with Liberty. It was impossible to translate the look she gave him. It was ardent enough, but was it lust or loathing that filled her eyes to the brim? Her heart hammered out a beat in the pit of her throat, giving her a vulnerable look that affected him to the core. He asked her softly, “So do you believe in this visionary business?”

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She looked down at her hand, trailing against the flower stems on the table. “Some of it, yes. My sister believes Caleb helped them catch the murderer along with the assistance of some…Well, let’s just say very spiritual things. Helpers, or beings. She says this whole town is surrounded by some spiritual vibrations that are causing all sorts of spectral havoc.” Levi tilted his head. He might be able to give her a vague picture of their recent psychography results and make Garrett look like a laughingstock at the same time. Both of these things interested Levi, because he had no idea what had gone on between these two yesterday. “The letter Garrett mentioned? It wasn’t written anonymously. It was written by him, while in a deep trance.” Her eyes met his, and a smile slowly grew on her face. “A deep trance? That’s a joke, right?” He shook his head. “Not at all. I doubted him at first, too. But most of the information was unknowable by Garrett or highly precognitive.” “Why, that’s fantastic! So he’s some kind of seer, too, like Caleb Poindexter!” If Levi had been trying to discredit Garrett, he had succeeded in doing the opposite. He rushed to regain the ground lost. “He—or rather his spirit guide, Paddy—wrote that the new Indian agent would arrive on the train with a tattoo on his neck and would be in love with—” Liberty caught her breath. She seemed to be fairly standing on her tiptoes with anticipation as she said all in a rush, “Yes, about the train! I know an apology is in order. I was acting on impulse when I met you. I was just so taken by—” “You don’t need to apologize, Liberty. It’s all forgotten now.” “But I don’t want it to be forgotten, don’t you see?” Desperation filled her eyes, and she took a step closer to him. She raised her hands as though about to grab his shirtfront, the way she’d grabbed the lapels of his greatcoat that day on the train before straddling him and

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bucking like such a brazen vixen. “Mr. Colter, I’ve been regretting that moment”—Levi’s heart fell—“yet reliving it in happiness ever since”—his heart leaped again—“and now you tell me that it was prophesized? I’m sure you took me for one of the prairie flowers on the train—” “No, no, no,” Levi said soothingly, daring to encircle one of her wrists in his palm. “Of course not. You’re far too refined for anyone to make that mistake.” Instinctively, he lifted his other hand and stroked her face with the back of his hand. Her eyes entreated him. To do what, he didn’t know. “Refined? Was it refined of me to throw myself on you like some kind of guttersnipe?” “No apologies are necessary.” “To fling my arms around you and—oh, hell!” And she flung her arms around him and kissed him. In a flash, they were on top of the table. Levi realized later he must have knocked her there. There was such a sudden groping of limbs, the feel of her satiny locks against his face, her oomph when she hit the table, it was really hard to recall later who had done what to whom. But it didn’t matter, because at last Levi had the bounteous Egyptian stunner beneath him. This was what he had craved for so many days, and in a sudden rush of pure lascivious hunger he bent over her. Propped up by one hand only, he swept away the candlesticks, plates, forks, whatever other homey things she had placed there, and smashed his eager mouth to hers. The sweet essence of the lupine flowers as they ground beneath her ass rose into his nostrils as she parted her thighs, showing she accepted him. One of her hands grappled with her skirts to free her legs of them, the other arm flung carelessly on the table above her head. When she succeeded in yanking her petticoat and skirt over her knee, she slung her legs about his, locking her ankles behind his

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thighs. She urged his pelvis into her very core, as though she intended to fuck him through all the layers of clothing. Her fingers frantically scrabbled at his necktie knot, and she whipped it away with a whoosh of silk. Not a blade of grass stirred outside, not the faintest scratching of a mouse inside, the room filled with their animal panting and gasping. Levi held himself off her so as not to crush her, but when she slapped her hand to his ass to urge him into her, he near about lost it. He remembered the wet spot on his pants after the train ride, the pungent fishy scent her pussy had left against his bulging erection, how he had nearly shot in his pants just from the simple act of a strange woman straddling him. Now he rotated his hips against her, wondering if she could feel the length of his stiff prick against the heat of her pussy. When again the fishy yet flowery aroma of her sex penetrated his nostrils, he wasn’t sure if the slime he felt against his cockhead was hers or his, the drops of seed that seeped out when one was aroused beyond belief. “Oh!” She cried out and raised her head to suck on his tattoo—of all things! She munched on his throat like a lioness at a kill, squeezing the globe of his ass, urging him into her. He fell to nipping the outer shell of her ear as he sloppily humped her. She didn’t—couldn’t— mean for him to fuck her on this very table, right here, right now? Now her tongue was snaking its frantic way down his collarbone to his pectoral, and she didn’t bother unbuttoning his shirt—just tore it so a couple of buttons pinged on the floor. Levi humped her athletically up the table, cradling her skull in his palm, her sweet little hellcat’s teeth now clamped down around his nipple, and that was when he really lost it. Shuddering, choking, holding his breath—dear God, he hadn’t shot inside his pants since he was a raw youth. But Liberty chewed away at his nipple as though she knew why convulsions wracked his body and was evilly intent on continuing it. “You,” Levi choked against her shell-like ear, “vixen.”

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And he was fairly certain she chuckled naughtily then. Dear God, no matter what this felt like later on, trying to walk around after spurting inside his own pants, it was worth every second of it right now. “You hellcat,” he gasped. She was plying one last tickling lick to his nipple when a loud, boorish voice sounded outside the window. It wasn’t Garrett, who after all had probably finished inspecting the lumber and pissing a long time ago. “Hey, Private O’Rourke,” the boor shouted. Levi and Liberty stilled, tilting their heads to listen. “Is Liberty Hudson here? There’s been a major donnybrook down at the Cactus Club.” Levi touched his nose to Liberty’s, and they both giggled guiltily. He eased off her, standing upright and pulling her up by the hand. He was glad of this lunkhead’s intrusion, because he had much more fuss to endure to make himself presentable. Liberty only had to smooth down her skirts, tidy her hair, and remove the lupine blossoms from where they were stuck to her ass. Levi couldn’t resist one last bite to the side of Liberty’s neck. “I’m not finished with you,” he whispered, causing her to break into a fresh round of giggles. “Meet me at Vancouver House at eight o’clock. I have an idea.” She shoved him away toward the next room and called out, “I’m in here, Zeke!” Levi practically stumbled over his own erection, which had only gone down to half-mast. He felt roostered, light-headed, with a happiness he hadn’t felt in years—if ever—saturating his spirit. He navigated into the next room and leaned against the wall. He removed a handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket as the lunkhead clomped into the house. “Oh, hey, Liberty. Yeah, there’s been a regular husking frolic at the Cactus Club. Harley needs you to come right away to help clean up. Seems that Earl Riser shoved Jack Hammer into the chile pot

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while it was on the fire. Well, Jack’s coat caught fire, so he ran into the back room to find some water. Only, Rusty Pipes handed him a jug of kerosene instead…”

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Chapter Seven “This is what I wanted you to see.” Liberty held her breath as she gestured at the item sitting on her father’s desk. Levi Colter looked sideways at Garrett, questioning. Garrett looked back to his partner, also questioning. Finally, Levi asked, “A basket?” She knew that would be their response. Of course they’d be puzzled she’d asked them to Vancouver House just to show them an upside-down oval basket with a sharpened stick passed through one end. So she explained. “You see, my father was very interested in Spiritualism. I remembered this Oriental item that he always had, and I vaguely recalled it was named fuji in China and had something to do with spirit writing.” She moved to the bookshelf for the crowning glory of the demonstration. “I found that little planchette which was used to spell out words from beyond the grave. That stick would point to a letter. But I couldn’t recall the other part of the equipment.” “You told her,” Garrett muttered to Levi. Reaching up, she withdrew a wooden board from the middle of a row of books. “So I looked around and found this.” She carried the board to the desk and placed it next to the lamp and planchette. Proudly and reverently, Liberty said, “A talking board.” The wooden board was crude, to be sure. A very faded alphabet had been scrawled across its polished surface. “Yes” and “No” were also written in opposite corners, “Good-bye” across the bottom, and the phrase “Carpe Diem” was engraved in the middle.

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“I’ve heard of talking boards,” said Levi. “But I’ve never seen one. Do you know how it works?” “Well, that’s the part I can’t recall. My father has gone ahead to the next Hell on Wheels town for business, so I couldn’t ask him. I looked around in his bookshelf but couldn’t find any text that would explain.” She looked up at Garrett’s skeptical face. “I thought this might be a method where you could use your talents, but with the additional participation of the two of us, the spiritual force might be stronger.” Garrett tossed Levi a look that could melt ice. Levi held the talking board to examine it, and he gave Garrett an innocent look. “What?” Garrett said, “What did you tell her, you double-dealing traitor?” “Only that it was you who wrote the letter giving the information about Shady and Caeser Moxus.” Levi shrugged. “And that you’d done it while in a trance.” Garrett wiped his face with his hand in disgust and embarrassment, but Liberty wanted to know more about that prophetic letter. Levi had mentioned that it also foretold his own arrival in Laramie, that this new tattooed Indian agent would fall in love with—well, someone. She had cut Levi off before he could finish the sentence, and she now regretted it intensely. Their activity that had followed, though, Liberty embraced with her entire heart. For many nights she had dreamed that Levi Colter— now she knew his name! And he seemed to be attracted to her!— would do just that. Toss her down upon a table and ravish her with his sly, talented mouth. And she’d been right. He had the body of a man accustomed to working with his hands in the frontier, not one of those cushiony “captains of industry” with stomachs the consistency of a soufflé. When his athletic body had crushed her to the table, she had run her hands down his back to fondle his rear. She knew it was sluttish to spread her thighs like that, but really, being in the Far West had a way

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of making one feel that time was of the essence. Things were so fleeting and temporary here. People came and went. It was only a matter of time before either Levi or Garrett—or both together, from the sound of it—would be gone. So she had spread her thighs and wrapped them around his sinewy hips so she could massage the wonderfully muscular globes of his ass. Her pussy was so soaked and clenching she could hear the clammy squishing when he rubbed his long, fat erection against her. His clothed prick had found the slit in her drawers, and she nearly thought she’d reach that mythical hysterical paroxysm just from the friction. She could tell that he held back out of gentlemanly decorum. He refrained from unsheathing his penis and penetrating her, probably out of fear of being discovered by Garrett. But she would have welcomed that. God, she would have welcomed being penetrated by that man. She knew Levi Colter was her destiny. She was fully, irrevocably in love with him. Liberty was no virgin and had coupled with much lesser men she wasn’t in love with. It was fun to flirt, to tease the poor man to the point of spending in his pants. It made her feel feminine and powerful and had released an absolute gusher of her pussy juices, to feel his fat cock quiver and jump in the throes of orgasm as it smashed against her pussy lips. But if he would be gone tomorrow—then carpe diem! Liberty put her hand soothingly on Garrett’s arm. “It’s all right, Garrett. I believe that you truly are channeling this Irish fellow Paddy. Carpe diem, see? ‘Pluck the day, trusting as little as possible in the future.’” Garrett stuck out his lower lip. “If that board says not to trust the future, how are we supposed to believe what it tells us? If we can even figure out how to use it.” Levi said cheerfully, “I believe it’s fairly self-evident.” He placed the planchette on the board. “This stick must be a pointer that would spell out the letters of the words.”

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“Yes,” said Garrett. “But how do we operate it? With our minds?” Throwing up his hands, he wandered to the other side of Simon’s study. “This is absurd. I’ll stick to doing it the way I have been. Alone.” “Yes,” Liberty agreed. “But it would be so much more fun if we could find a way for all of us to participate.” Maybe it was her imagination, but it seemed that Levi leveled her with a warm, knowing glance then. His fingers were on the edge of the basket. “See this rim? I wonder what would happen if we all put our fingertips along the rim. There have been many stories of spirits being able to affect physical objects, during séances, for example. Floating trumpets playing. Objects being flung across the room.” He shrugged. “It would make sense if the spirit—Paddy—was able to guide our hands to spell out the correct words.” “Have you been able to figure out who Paddy is?” Liberty asked. “Or was, I should say.” Garrett answered from the other side of the room, where he stood perusing some papers on another desk. “He’s obviously some Irish fellow, and he knows this area. He has a definite perverse interest in the circus. He’s constantly making circus references or going on and on about somersaults, leaps, pigeons, and—Ho, now, what’s this?” His fingers stilled on a paper he’d discovered. Liberty went over to the desk and stood so close to Garrett she could feel the heat from his arm against hers. He said, “Your father has an interesting collection of Eastern lithographs.” “Well, no, this desk is mostly used by Captain Park, a friend of my sister’s. He’s been translating some Arabic texts—oh, my.” Garrett had been interested in a colorful though childish lithograph of a Persian man and woman reposing on an outdoor patio. There was a fountain, some fruit trees, and an awning shaded the couple. The woman, dressed to the nines in many necklaces, an armband, and hair ornaments, kneeled on a rug. The man, however,

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was mostly naked aside from a head cloth and was penetrating her from behind with a very erect—and bald—member. When Levi came to stand next to her, being enfolded like that between the two men’s bodies nearly overwhelmed Liberty. She didn’t know if they had mentioned to each other that they had both, separately, kissed her. But it was incredibly arousing and bawdy to stand between the two men she desired the most, looking at a depiction of intercourse. When Levi spoke, she could feel his breath against her neck. “That fellow is really in an impossible position.” “It could work,” Garrett protested, his eyes already on another page, one of Captain Park’s manuscript translations. To join in with their boldness, Liberty noted, “The woman seems bald, too, as though she was shaved. I wonder if that’s a custom back—back wherever this is taking place.” “India.” Levi had to stand even closer to her to pick up a title page. He had evidently bathed since their encounter at the schoolhouse, as he again smelled of hay and musk. Her nipples stiffened almost painfully against her chemise to be between two such heated male bodies. “The Pleasure of Woman.” “Now I see,” said Liberty, “why my sister is so infatuated with Captain Park.” “My, my,” said Garrett. “He has been up to the devil’s work. Look at this, Levi. I shouldn’t read it aloud in front of a woman.” “Oh, give me that!” Liberty snapped, whisking it from Garrett’s fingers. Where did these men think she was from—Hyde Park, New York? She was a modern, forward-thinking woman, a woman who had attended a convention dedicated to the advancement of women in jobs, voting, and family limitation. She would show these jokers she wasn’t embarrassed. So she read Captain Park’s handwriting aloud. “‘Harichand went to each girl and pressed her breasts and put his hand between her legs and rubbed it a little to see if she was clean, properly shaved, and washed.’” She sighed deeply and looked at a far

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wall, as though contemplating the intellectual profundity of the text. But really, it was just quite stimulating to be reading bawdy text when flanked by two such lusty men. Garrett’s breath feathered her neck, and his hand lightly hovered over the small of her back. “That answers your question about the shaving.” When Liberty turned her head, their noses almost touched. “Would you like that?” she dared to ask. “I mean, if a woman were shaved?” As expected, there was a stillness in the room then, as though both men were shocked. But Levi quickly answered softly, “It would be different, yes.” Perhaps trying to change the subject, Garrett pointed to another page. “Look. Here’s a whole instruction manual.” Of course, at that, the other two turned their eyes to the page. “It seems as though some teacher is telling this fellow he needs to take an entire month just to…” He read, “‘The man should gently graze the left foot of the woman with such care and devotion that the woman would climax without him even touching her most intimate parts.’” He looked at his companions. “Is such a thing possible?” “I doubt it,” said Liberty, leaning closer to Garrett to read the manuscript. Her bosom skimmed his arm, and she wondered if he could feel the nub of her nipple extending with desire. “How is that possible? Just from touching her foot?” “Well,” said Levi, low and quiet. “You tell us. Is it possible?” “I doubt it,” Liberty said, trying to be flippant. How would she know? She had never climaxed. But she didn’t want to appear uneducated in front of two men—men were always more educated in matters of sex—so she distracted them by reading, “‘On the fourth of the month, he should concentrate on her neck. He should rub the base of her neck and kiss her profusely without letting her touch him until she is certain to reach ecstasy.’”

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She was shocked to the core to feel Levi’s fingers on her neck. She had piled her long curls up into a mounded bun, and her neck was bare. “Like this?” he said quietly. “Ah,” she gasped, without meaning to. His thumb circled her vertebrae lightly, and yes, indeed, her pussy lips expanded, filling with blood and longing. But that was probably because she was standing between two such alluring men. Levi said, “Does that mean ‘yes’?” Her eyelids fluttered, and she wobbled a bit on her feet. Luckily she leaned against Garrett’s strong arm, and Levi’s thigh against hers propped her up. “Yes,” she whispered. “And kiss her profusely,” Levi murmured. With his other hand he tilted her chin toward him. Her eyelids drooped so with lust she could barely make out his glittering, dazzling eyes before he kissed her. It was a chaste kiss. His wet lips parted, but he didn’t even attempt to sneak his tongue into her mouth. When Liberty eagerly tried to nibble at his luscious lower lip, he pulled back a fraction of an inch and murmured, “Garrett, read the next part.” Liberty tried to grasp Levi’s shirtfront and pull him even closer, but he uncurled her fingers and held them at her side. Garrett’s voice also came so close to her she felt his breath on her neck. “‘He should massage her right armpit with his nails until she completes the pinnacle of desire.’” Levi was now kissing the underside of her jaw, again chastely without licking her. “Do it, Garrett,” he said so quietly Liberty was certain Garrett couldn’t hear. But he evidently had, as Garrett’s long, hot fingers snaked up her rib cage. She assisted him by lifting an arm. Levi allowed her to drape it over his shoulder as Garrett’s fingertips sought the sensitive skin of her underarm. She was wearing one of her light and airy “artistic” white gowns that were supposed to free women from the bondage of undergarments, and Garrett’s nails so close to her tingling nipple were making her inhalations come in ragged pants.

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She tried to protest. “I doubt very much this would make anyone—Ah!” Levi pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat while gently massaging the vertebrae of her neck. Her head lolled back, and she rolled it back and forth, the better to feel his knuckles rotating there. It felt as though his fingers released a flow of acid down her spine, painful and sensual at the same time. Unfairly, Garrett pressed his erection to her rear, cushioned in her petticoat and gauzy skirt. That wasn’t in the book as far as Liberty knew, and she couldn’t tell if Levi noticed. But it was certainly effective. Her knees weakened, the pulpy petals of her sex expanded, and a drip of juice ran down her inner thigh. She was being enveloped in a warm, comforting cocoon, mashed between two such utterly desirable men. Levi’s musky hay scent mingled with Garrett’s fresh animal sweat. Garrett’s long donkey’s penis prodded at the mound of her ass as she allowed her head to loll loosely against his rigid chest. Levi slipped his free hand around the small of her back as he hunched into her, now pressing his hips to hers as he kissed her jaw. She was smashed between two enormous erections now, the column of Levi’s cock slowly, tantalizingly rubbing against her pubic mound. Meanwhile, Garrett’s fingernails scraped forward bit by bit until he caressed the outer rise of her breast, and his breathing came faster. Liberty felt the familiar surges of blood into her pelvis. She often felt this when playing with her toy. It always felt as though something was building up, flooding her pelvis with a torrent of lust. It was probably the crescendo of this deluge that would signal the feared paroxysm—the climax that would either kill or transform one. In her ear, Garrett recited, “‘The vulva possesses an intrinsic heat, shut in a solid heart and pent-up breast. Its fire communicates itself to him that enters it. It equals in intensity the fire of love.’” Lifting a foot to jam it into Levi’s boot top, Liberty was able to get a better angle on his cock’s rubbing against her clitoris. She

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eagerly pumped her hips in tiny, jerky motions, the better to frantically rub against his hard pole. But Levi removed his mouth from her jaw, whispering, “That part isn’t in the book…yet.” “No, Levi!” Liberty was shocked to hear herself wail to the ceiling. “Don’t stop! Garrett! What does it say next?” But she would not get to hear what happened next—not tonight, anyway. The front door of Vancouver House slammed shut then, bringing with it a breeze that rattled the papers on the desk. “Liberty! I’m home!”

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Chapter Eight The trio froze when that lunkhead Zeke stormed into the house. Liberty was the first to recover, clutching her bodice to her and squirming out from between the two men. Breathing heavily, they rearranged their faces and their crotches, their backs to the study door where Zeke would soon be barging in. “That damned muttonhead,” Garrett groused from between clenched teeth, cinching his cock up underneath his gun belt. “Seems he’s always got the absolute worst timing.” For it was the same fellow who, not several hours earlier, had interrupted their sojourn at the schoolhouse with a story about some fire at the Cactus Club. Apparently there was ground beef all over the floor that only Liberty was capable of cleaning up. Garrett had been aware that Levi and Liberty had been canoodling inside the schoolhouse. That was his intention. Once he had realized that the woman he’d been kissing so fervently he had practically penetrated her upside the schoolhouse wall was the woman meant for Levi, he was glad to hand her over to his partner. There was power in this prophecy business, and when Paddy had dictated that the new agent would be in love with a Miss Hudson, Garrett knew he had to step aside. Now this. He had honestly just stumbled upon the pornographic Indian lithographs. He had no plans to continue to regale Liberty with indecent recitations. It was Levi, who he suspected of being a libidinous satyr, who had made the first motion to follow the instruction manual. Levi had first rubbed Liberty’s neck and kissed

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her while standing a few feet away from Garrett and had encouraged Garrett to participate. Since Garrett had already imagined he had to give up the idea of wooing Liberty completely, of course he was glad to cooperate. And it somehow felt right, pressing the woman between them. She certainly hadn’t resisted, not even when Garrett’s fingers had strayed from her underarm to the softly sloping rise of her breast. She had wiggled her bottom against his erection, and Garrett was even more stimulated when he felt Levi humping her from the other side. Each lunge of Levi’s hips caused Liberty’s ass to brush more forcefully against Garrett’s own erection. It excited Garrett to think he could have easily reached just a little bit farther and placed a hand on Levi’s hip, to encourage him to hump the stunning Miss Hudson. The sensation of allowing another man to witness his most private sexual doings and urges somehow stimulated Garrett. Like being one of those people who sought gratification by opening their greatcoat in a public square. In fact, it stimulated him so intensely he now had even more trouble than usual getting his stiff cock to obey and stay under the gun belt. “Yes,” grumbled Levi, stuffing his own prick up against his abdomen. “That potato-head seems to have a compass embedded in his brain. He can tell whenever anyone is getting randy and tears over to ruin it.” “Who is he, anyway?” Levi shrugged. “He’s some sort of adjutant for Simon Hudson and the railroad. But as far as I can tell, he’s an utter blockhead. Zeke, my man.” Levi greeted the clerk, who stood in the doorway gazing at their erections with a puzzled yet airy expression. “Liberty!” Zeke gestured as though a magician whose fingers would emit cosmic rays. “Just wanted to see if you wanted to attend the fandango at the Frontier Hotel, but I can see you’ve already got company.” He wandered casually to the sideboard, where he poured himself an overlarge glass

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of whiskey. “And to tell you that Jack Hammer is recovering all right from being set on fire.” Liberty seemed very calm and collected for a woman who had almost been discovered canoodling with not one but two men. Although she did take an atlas and place it over the compromising Indian lithographs. “Well, he never would’ve gone up in such flames if Rusty Pipes hadn’t of poured kerosene on him. We should replace that Rusty. He’s always pouring something on someone.” “Yeah,” Zeke agreed heartily. “He’s always spilling something!” He gestured with the whiskey carafe, sloshing the bookshelf with it. “Zeke, my man,” said Levi with authority as he came forward with the woven planchette. “Have you seen this before? Maybe you could tell us what it is.” Zeke’s face lit up with excitement as he grabbed the planchette from Levi. “Yes! This goes to the talking board! I haven’t seen that thing in ages.” “It’s right here,” said Garrett, and Zeke zipped over to Hudson’s desk with zeal. “Yes, there it is!” Zeke said fondly. “Carpe diem! Although I don’t know why they’re mentioning a fish on a talking board.” Garrett laughed, but Levi was more diplomatic. “Zeke, do you know how to use this thing? What’s the purpose of it?” Zeke waxed long-winded. “Well, you see. The spirits, as far as Mr. Hudson explains it, are capable of talking through us, of expressing themselves.” “From beyond the grave,” Levi prompted. “Yes, that’s it! From beyond the veil, they can reach out and touch our hearts with their innermost feelings. My own dearly departed mother reached out once and told me she was happy in the afterlife—” Garrett wasn’t so diplomatic. “And how do you work the board?” “Oh—that’s simple! You merely get a group, although I suppose you could do it with two people, sit around, and place your fingers on

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this planchette. The spirits move your hands to the correct letters, and soon it spells something out.” Liberty clung to Garrett’s arm, her eyes shining with passion. “Let’s try it.” “Yes,” Garrett agreed. “Maybe your mother will guide our hands, Zeke.” Items were soon gathered, and the table in the dining room was cleared of all objects, save for the board, candles, and a pencil and blank paper. The table was too long for them all to reach the planchette, so Liberty and Zeke sat at one side and Garrett and Levi around the corner from them. “You don’t have to hold hands,” Zeke assured them. “That would be pretty hard to do,” Garrett started to point out. “If our hands are on the planchette, how can we—” But Levi’s kick under the table shut him up. Liberty sipped her sarsaparilla. “What question are we asking?” Zeke said, “I want to find out if my mother is still with that greengrocer in the afterlife!” He heatedly gulped his own whiskey. Levi said calmly, “Why don’t we ask something that will interest all of us? For example, the whereabouts of Shady Barnhart.” “Yes!” cried Zeke. “I was wondering where that worthless jackass had gotten to, myself. One day he’s selling me a bunch of necklace beads wrapped in a skunk skin for four dollars, I mean just absolute extortion, and the next day he’s gone.” Liberty’s mouth was a thin line. “Zeke, he was supposed to give those things to the Indians. For free.” Zeke chuckled. “Ah, well! It’s just a bunch of…I mean…” Only his eyeballs moved, glancing from Levi to Garrett and back to Levi. “You know…Indians…” Liberty sighed with exasperation. “Besides, what do you want necklace beads for, anyway?” Zeke explained, “But it was such a good deal!”

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“All right,” said Levi. “Our question is, where is Shady Barnhart?” Everyone agreed they would pose this question, and they placed their fingers on the woven rim of the upside-down basket. They took it lightly at first, laughing and joking. It was actually Zeke who reprimanded them. “This is serious business, people. I’ve been witnessing some pretty important happenings here in town lately. I tell you, the psychic vibrations around Laramie are at their highest right now. Don’t laugh.” Garrett actually wasn’t laughing. He’d witnessed enough psychic vibrations lately to convince him of the truth in all of this supernatural stuff. He just felt self-conscious putting his fingers on a basket and looming over a board that talked about a fish. But almost the moment Zeke lectured them, the planchette began to move. Everyone gasped as it raced over the polished board to the letter S. Then an H. Then an A. “Shady,” whispered Liberty. Zeke said, “Don’t think ahead of time of what it might say. Try to keep your mind a blank. Otherwise your hands might accidentally intentionally push the planchette where you want it to go.” That made sense, but it still spelled out SHADY IS SCARING BRULE. “Brulé,” Garrett told a quizzical Liberty. “That’s the tribe of Sioux we have here.” Louder, he said, “Where is Shady scaring the Brulé?” ROCK WITH TREE. “Great,” said Levi. “We already knew that. But where is this rock with a tree? Paddy, is that you?” The planchette swished to where YES was printed on the board. “Paddy,” said Levi. “Where is this rock with a tree?” The basket spelled out SHADY SCATTERS BONES. Then, HE HAS WAKAN. Liberty frowned. “What is wakan, I wonder?”

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Garrett explained. “Wakan means anything that is strange or mysterious to the Indians. Like, if we call someone a medicine man. The Sioux call him wakan man. Taku-wakan means anything that is wakan.” “Yes,” agreed Levi. “They have another word that means spirit or God, but the word wakan is never used that way.” “So,” said Liberty. “Shady is being…mysterious or strange. By scattering bones.” “Yes,” Garrett agreed. “I suppose that’s how he’s scaring the Indians.” Zeke exploded, pounding the table with his fist. “Wakanana, I knew it!” The other three séance-goers jumped. “Wakanana, Illinois, was where my mother met that greengrocer Ernest! Ma! Ma!” he beseeched the ceiling with hands shaped like claws. “How could you do this to us? Why aren’t you with Pa on the other side?” “Son of a gun!” cried Liberty. “Zeke, I don’t think this has anything to do with your mother. Garrett just explained what ‘wakan’ means in the Sioux language. I think—” But Zeke was now on his feet, shrieking at the ceiling. “Ma! Pa crossed over to the other side five years ago! Why aren’t you with him? That chiseler Ernest was always trying to swindle us out of our school money, charging five cents for lettuce—how can you say you’re happy with him on the other side?” Garrett would have disregarded this as the grief of a misbegotten son—he had heard that Zeke had suffered a brain injury during the recent War—but just then, a shower of rappings engulfed the room. The three remaining séance-goers slowly pulled back from the table, casting glances all about, but it was impossible to tell where one rap sounded before another rap came from the other side of the room. Were they coming from outside the house? Or were tiny little fists knocking the interior walls of the dining room? And what were the rappings telling them? “Is it spelling out something?” Liberty wondered.

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Garrett said, “It seems like the more Zeke rants, the more insistent these raps become.” Levi suggested, “Let’s just put our fingers back on this thing and ask the next question.” So the three of them—Zeke had thrown open a window and was wailing out of it about the greengrocer—put their fingers back on the basket, and this time it was Garrett who asked, “Paddy, where is Shady? Where is the lone pine that sticks out of the rock?” Swiftly, as a hail of raps sounded all around them, the planchette spelled out BEWARE. “Beware of what?” Garrett asked logically. WATCH OUT FOR LIBERTY. “Oh, dear God,” murmured Levi. “Paddy! Something is going to happen to Liberty? Tell us what. When?” WATCH OUT FOR COLD WATERS. “Cold waters?” Levi asked frantically. “Liberty, does this make any sense to you?” “None at all. Maybe he’s suggesting I refrain from bathing in the Laramie River?” “It’s springtime,” said Garrett. “The water isn’t as cold as it was two, four months ago. Paddy, what do you mean? Why should Liberty watch out for cold water?” KEEP HER SAFE, Paddy spelled out before sliding the planchette over to the “Carpe Diem” writing. Then the planchette went silent. Garrett could tell that Paddy had left the room. The shower of raps went silent, too, like a clacking telegraph whose line had been suddenly cut. Perhaps stunned by the sudden silence, Zeke dragged himself away from the window, his face a mask of anguish. Reeling to the dining table with his mouth hanging in a sob, his sorrow was renewed when he looked at the talking board. He pointed at it with a shaky finger.

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“Carpe diem? That’s where the planchette landed? Why, oh why? That damned greengrocer is taunting me from beyond the grave about those damned rotten fish he sold me and my brother once!” Levi exploded like a shot. It was impressive the way he stood with fingertips splayed against the tabletop. He had a commanding, imperious presence that very much impressed Garrett, and he knew Liberty was in safe hands. “Dammit, you jackass! This isn’t all about your mother, may she rest in peace. This is about Shady Barnhart stealing from the Indians and driving them out of their land. While you were blubbering over there, we were getting a message that Liberty is in danger. We need to keep an eye on Liberty and watch out for cold water. Whatever that means.” Zeke collapsed in his chair like a properly chastised child. Levi huffed and puffed angrily as he stalked to the sideboard to pour himself some calming drink, and Garrett reached across the talking board to take Liberty’s hands. “I hate to say it, Liberty. But I think this fellow”—Garrett nodded his head to indicate the overwrought Zeke—“is your best chance at staying safe, seeing as how he lives in this house alongside you. Zeke!” Zeke regarded him with bloodshot, watery eyes. “Yes?” “Can you do that, man? Can you keep an eye out for Miss Liberty here? Some danger was prophesized, something to do with cold water.” Liberty added, “Maybe that Rusty Pipes is going to throw some cold water on me.” Garrett continued trying to get through to Zeke. “Keep an eye on her, Zeke. Don’t let her work at the Cactus Club if you’re not there, can you do that?” “What?” said Zeke absently. “Oh, sure, I can do that.” But Garrett had a feeling the joker wouldn’t. Garrett shared a meaningful glance with Levi, and he knew both were thinking the same thing.

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They couldn’t leave town to find Shady until the meaning of this cold water prophecy became evident.

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Chapter Nine Levi lay on his back in his rickety, uncomfortable bed, listening to Garrett frigging himself. True, they were probably both riled up from their encounter the night before with the stunning and brazen Liberty Hudson. Levi had taken a chance when he had invited Garrett to participate in his demonstration of The Pleasure of Woman. He hadn’t known if Liberty would be shocked or even refuse to see either one of them again. It was a risk that had, luckily, worked out. He couldn’t have even predicted he was about to take that risk until it suddenly started happening. He was carried away, no doubt, by Liberty’s proximity. He wasn’t expecting to reenact the manuscript from India, but suddenly her violet essence overwhelmed him, and he found his fingertips on the back of her neck. When he’d kissed her, in just the way the manuscript recommended—profusely, without letting her touch him—it had just seemed natural to allow Garrett to reenact the next step of the instructions. In the short span of time he’d known Garrett, the army cook had already become the most trusted partner he’d ever had. Garrett was standing right there, obviously aroused by the manuscript, and perhaps by Liberty’s presence as well. What healthy man wouldn’t be? Levi had seen the connection between those two, had sensed that she might be open-minded to Garrett’s touch, and— Hell, could Garrett possibly frig himself just a bit louder? His damned blanket was jerking away like a bucking bronco. Levi’s own cock was as stiff as a dinner plate. Of course, if he was hung like a bull like Garrett, he’d be stroking himself every minute of the day. Garrett was

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so well-hung that a few times he’d turned around he’d nearly brained Levi with his cock. Levi’s hand lightly meandered over his erection, recalling Garrett’s part of the instructions. He’d been aware that Garrett was cheating—was hulking that massive erection into the cleft of Liberty’s ass, when that wasn’t even part of the Indian sex guide. And he’d said nothing when Garrett’s fingers had strayed beyond the required armpit and up the tender slope of Liberty’s buoyant breast, where Levi hadn’t even dared touch yet. That was all right. He and Garrett were partners, and Liberty certainly wasn’t protesting. In fact, Levi was convinced that being crushed between two male bodies had heightened Liberty’s arousal. When he had started rubbing against her lap like a stag in heat, he was convinced she was about to climax. And she claimed women couldn’t climax from merely being kissed and toyed with! Levi, as her new bodyguard, vowed to redouble his efforts to prove to her that was a fallacy. He could tell by the moist, heated sheen to her eyes, the way her head lolled bonelessly on her neck, that she was about to reach crisis. It was just too bad he hadn’t been able to borrow any more of that manuscript before leaving Vancouver House. “Ah!” Garrett cried out, and the blanket stopped jerking. Thank God. Maybe now Levi could get some sleep. But he couldn’t. Not twenty seconds after Garrett’s pine bedstead stopped its annoying creaking, Levi tossed off his blanket and stumbled into the other room, his erection bobbing in midair. He supposed this room was the kitchen, parlor, and dining room all combined into one. Not much better than his rooms at the fort but with much less belching, cussing, and brawling going on. No, Garrett was a quiet, well-mannered, clean fellow. Levi couldn’t very well ask him to stop wandering around in the buff when he was only doing it to bathe. Levi reflected that he was often forced to watch Garrett’s massively strapping shoulders when he bent over

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the washtub and poured a dipper of water over his head to squeak it clean like a seal’s. Sure, it was annoying to watch the play of pectoral muscles wetly flexing as Garrett paraded about looking for his towel. Garrett might have even been doing it on purpose, to display to Levi his superior animal agility like some kind of hulking Ethiopian god. But what could Levi say? “Please get that long, brawny, plump cock out of my face before you give me a brain injury with it”? They were partners in all things, and it was ridiculous to get huffy over something so ridiculous. “Ow.” In the dark, Levi banged his shin against the table they had designated as a kitchen counter. He was just looking for his damned whiskey bottle, hoping it would help him sleep. He’d best light the lamp. “Ooph.” Levi ran right up against what normally he’d think was a wall. But it was Garrett—he knew from the heated creaminess of his chest against Levi’s and the plump brawn of his monstrous erection slapping Levi’s thigh. Apparently Garrett had not just ejaculated. “I was just—” Levi started to say. “—some water—” They clutched each other’s biceps as they did a little dance that only served to smack their cocks against each other even harder, the loud slaps resounding in the almost silent room. And before Levi knew it, he’d shoved Garrett up against the wooden counter, one of his knees between Garrett’s thighs to spread them, and Garrett’s monstrous donkey’s cock was in his fist. It was a sudden, sensual attack that had no forethought. Instantly Garrett spread his thighs, gripping the counter’s edge to give Levi a better angle on his cock. There were no protestations of inappropriateness, no proclamations of indignity. No shoving or yelling. It was just one sudden fluid animal movement that had Garrett practically climbing up the counter, Levi’s thighs pinioned under his, lifting him. And the giant appendage of a dusky cock was in Levi’s fist.

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His eyes were now becoming accustomed to the dark. In the light from the waning moon coming through the window, Garrett was even more statuesque and marvelous than his everyday self. Fully naked, he sprawled before Levi, wide open to whatever evil plan Levi had in store for him. The strange thing was, Levi had no plan. He had grabbed Garrett’s stupendous prick without even thinking, as though it was something his subconscious mind—there had been a lot of talk about that lately—had done without his approval. Now Levi’s fist pumped the cock, velvety, long, and hot in his grip, and he heard himself saying, “This is what you get, you goddamned impudent buck, for taunting me for days.” Garrett’s lanky frame shuddered as he perched on the edge of the counter. Levi saw him gulp air, his throat muscles powerful and gleaming. “I’ve been thinking about Liberty,” he gasped hoarsely. Gripping the big cock at the base, Levi slapped it. The meaty sound of flesh on flesh aroused him even more. “You have the impudence to talk about Liberty,” he said, although he knew his tone would encourage Garrett to talk about her even more. “You were thinking about her beautiful tits. The ones you almost touched.” “Yes,” gasped Garrett. He looked completely helpless, his giant prick in his partner’s hand, his nostrils flaring almost in fear. Yet he freely admitted, “She’s a beautiful woman, Levi. And we’re both hot for her. What will we do?” Levi brought a fondling palm to the balls he’d been yearning to feel since being forced to watch Garrett sling them about so casually. It had been maddening watching Garrett stroll about, the beautiful globes of his ass swaying tantalizingly. That Levi had come in his own pants while humping the glorious Miss Hudson hadn’t satisfied his carnal appetite. Apparently, it had only increased it. Levi had never dreamed he’d be stroking another man’s enormous donkey’s prick, much less enjoying it. It just suddenly felt right. It may have had something to do with what Zeke claimed was the

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sudden surge in “psychic vibrations” around town, but suddenly Levi discovered himself frantically pumping his partner’s colossal meat. He pumped it so eagerly the only sound in the room was the dry friction of the cock pistoning in his palm, and he slapped the swinging, full balls just to get satisfaction from the naughty sound. “We’ll share,” he grunted. “It’s really up to her, isn’t it? She liked the instruction manual you found.” “But you love her,” Garrett managed to gasp, his face contorted with what looked like pain. But Levi knew it was intense pleasure. “Yes, I love her.” Levi paused for a split second to rotate his thumb about the bulbous cockhead, to smear about the glob of semen that had burst there. “But you love her, too.” He just assumed that, to see how Garrett would respond. “Of course,” Garrett gasped. “Good god, you’re a fucking dog. Frig my cock, you bastard.” Garrett slapped a palm onto Levi’s bare shoulder to urge him on. His distended nipples were taut, and Levi bent at the knees to slurp a delicious, dark kernel into his mouth. Dear God, Levi felt nasty, sucking on another man’s nipple while pumping away at his shining, straining cock. But then, sex must be different between two men. Dirtier, nastier. Men could say dirty things to one another, could demand satisfaction, could drain each other’s pricks with no more ceremony than eating and bathing. Between men—Levi was finding out—there was no need or even the desire for pomp and niceties. And hell, he wanted satisfaction, even if it was his partner’s. He’d been so inflamed ever since bumping into Liberty Hudson on the train. Yes, the psychic vibrations must be to blame. Garrett was the channel for the psychic vibrations, and by pumping this glorious horse’s cock he would drain the milky life from him. Levi nibbled at the nubbin, just squeezing it gently between his teeth. Semen splashed Levi’s chest as he choked the pulsating member, joggling the cockhead with his thumb because he knew it would make Garrett twitch and jerk.

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Levi liked this about men, he had just discovered. After years of exploring his own body, he already knew how to pleasure Garrett. Women were often frustrating, capricious creatures. Maybe Liberty was right. Maybe women couldn’t climax simply by kissing and toying. Levi stood tall, still massaging the spurting cock as the semen dribbled over his wrist. He looked into Garrett’s beautifully outlined eyes as his partner’s chest heaved raggedly with the relief of orgasm. Levi felt no shame. He had just brought his friend off. Between men, there was no big deal. “You think Liberty will want to share?” Garrett asked. His expressive, stirring eyes melted with emotion. So Levi slapped the sensitive cock once more, to make his friend gasp and jump. Garrett shoved him away, and Levi chuckled. He knew that would be the response. “Sure,” he said, wandering off in the general direction of the table where the lamp was. “She seemed open to it when you started reading those instructions.” “If not, let her choose. Right?” Confidence was seeping back into Garrett’s voice now that he’d climaxed. Again, Levi knew that was the way of men. They were so much simpler and easier to read than women! “Right,” he said cheerfully. The growing lamplight illuminated his erection, casting an eerie yet humorous shadow against the wall, like a giant baby’s fist holding an apple. Levi grinned at the shadow and looked to Garrett, but his partner held up his hands in protest. “I’m going back to sleep, after I drink some water.” “You do that,” Levi agreed, uncorking his whiskey bottle. “But don’t you think it’d be advisable to get in touch with Paddy first? We need to find out what he meant about the cold water harming Liberty. We can’t go search for Shady until we know she’s safe.” Garrett gulped his water and exhaled mightily. “Yes. And I doubt that fool Zeke will be of much help. But you know what? I think old Paddy can get ahold of me in other ways.”

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“What do you mean?” Already in the bedroom doorway, Garrett lifted a hand. “Good night.” Levi shrugged. “Good night.” **** Garrett soared above the ramshackle town of Laramie City. Although it was nighttime, he could make out every shack of log and canvas. He flew weightlessly past the Union Pacific depot, where at this time of night only a few straggling carousers stumbled about. Behind the Cactus Club, someone he assumed was Rusty Pipes tossed out a cauldron full of something steaming. And of course, though the sun was due to rise soon, at the Bucket of Blood the musicians still played. Garrett thought the banjo player sounded about to keel over in a dead faint. He’d been soaring nightly for about a week now, and he knew it had to lead somewhere. There must be a reason he’d been flying about, watching Mr. and Mrs. Fowler fall out of their buggy in their furs and top hat, back from a dinner party at the mayor’s house. One night he’d attended a meeting of the Order of Oddfellows, where all the members put on a play wearing dresses with flowers in their hair. Or, worst of all, once he’d witnessed Henry Zuckerkorn, journalist for the Frontier Index, indulge his passion for spanking prostitutes dressed as schoolgirls. But to what avail? What was all this flying about showing him? Other than indulging in a passion for gossip. Tonight was different. Tonight he soared with a purpose. He wasn’t just content to flit about from tent to tent or even to speed over the horse corrals or the river, where he breathed in the fresh rapids and grasses, the fish frisky and jumping in their early morning constitutional. No, tonight he maintained the question in his head.

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Where is Shady Barnhart? With this in mind, Garrett thought he could get some answers. He knew he had to get away from Laramie City to do so, but before he left, he saw an odd thing. His spirit swooped into the saloon of the Frontier Hotel. A fellow with a thick, elaborate moustache sat with Simon Hudson, drinking ale. Garrett was irritated he should have to look at this mundane business, especially as they seemed to only be discussing the old college days at Amherst. His irritation seemed to propel him onward, for his spirit soon rushed up and away from the town. The dimly lit prairie opened up below him as he flew up the windswept slopes of the Laramie Mountains, populated with gnarled, deformed pines. Heartened to know he was heading toward Sherman Summit and the Dale Creek Bridge, he gladly soared over ridge after barren ridge. He raced up the dizzying slope of the bridge following the train tracks, and when his spirit shot out over the summit, he hovered there for a few seconds, enjoying the scene. Up here, he could hover as though in a cottony cocoon, imbued with joy at everything. He still thought about daily human life back in Laramie. For instance, he was very pleased with the recent turn of events with Levi. He had never voluntarily allowed another man to touch him, but when Levi had grabbed his cock, it seemed right and natural. It was as though they were two old spirit friends coming together—as though he’d known Levi in a previous incarnation. Garrett knew that Spiritualists believed that life continued in some angelic form after death. So he supposed he was a Spiritualist and should ask Liberty if he could borrow some of her father’s books. His—or rather, Paddy’s—prophecy that Levi would arrive in town indicated some sort of connection between them, some predestination that the paths of their lives would meet and converge. It did not seem strange at all that Levi had suddenly frigged his penis to completion. Perhaps Levi was accustomed to doing that with other men. It wasn’t so unusual on the prairie, where women were scarce.

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So Garrett just hovered over the Dale Creek Bridge and the summit where so many tracklayers had toiled and suffered, attacked by Indians. His ghostly body shivered to see a lone pine tree in the rising sun. Having fixated on it, his spirit automatically streaked to get a closer look. Yes, here it was. The Lone Pine Tree, sticking out of a great crack in an enormous boulder. However, just as he strove to inspect the tree closer for the body of Caeser Moxus, his soul flashed to another location entirely. It was a small Indian encampment of tipis, and outside one of them, some people were binding a wakan man into a buffalo robe. As Garrett swept closer, he saw they were binding a small boulder, a symbol of the gods, into the wrapping with him. They tied all his fingers and toes, wrapped the entire package in cords, then rolled him into the tipi. Now seeming to float at about human eye level, Garrett entered the tent. It looked as though this wakan man would heal one who was sick. Garrett recognized the ill man as Brave Buffalo, one of the bogus signers of the bogus treaty at Fort Sanders. The wakan fellow wailed and moaned the usual prayers. Having these four souls I make my campfires. The day that is determined for me, may it come earthward. Where have you gone, bird? Behold your friend. With a crown of glory, I come forth. That was the language of the sun as it rose in splendor. A young man then gave a wild yell and all torches were extinguished. The wakan man became fearful as a wind rose from nowhere and rattled the tent furiously. He called out, “Come carefully. Your father is very weak. Be careful.” The gods paid no attention, and a drum and a deer hoof rattle hanging over the wakan fellow’s head were beaten and shaken violently by invisible hands. Brave Buffalo’s teeth chattered with

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fever and fear—Garrett could feel the emotions of each person in the tipi. Everyone was terrified of the gods that would bang the drum and rattle the tipi so ferociously. The tipi was full of the little demons who babbled wildly, but even Garrett, who was familiar with the language, couldn’t make out what they were saying. Becoming suspicious, Garrett removed himself from the tent to see what was going on outside. There hadn’t been any wind before. And lo and behold, what did Garrett discover but two white fellows standing outside, shaking the tipi by its framework of lodge poles. Garrett went even closer to inspect the men. Moses Taggart. And Shady Barnhart. Automatically his fist drew back to strike Shady. Give me back my wedding ring, you bastard! But it was as though he were punching through mud. His normally powerful uppercut was like the feeble slap of a schoolboy. In fact, his punch didn’t even connect, didn’t slow Shady down in the slightest from his enthusiastic quaking of the tent. Of course, Garrett tried again and again. He even went over to Moses and attempted to smite him down, calling forth all the spiritual powers he was unfamiliar with to assist him. Again, it was as though he were trying to wallop some fellow underwater. That made sense. He didn’t have a body. Yet his anger at the charade these shysters were perpetrating only mounted. He tried roaring as loud as he could and didn’t elicit the tiniest response from either toad. His anger was nearly blinding him. Or maybe it was the rising sun that started to obliterate the vision of the two chiselers. But the entire encampment soon shimmered away into a soft and fuzzy glow. Garrett looked around. Where was he? “Garrett, my friend.” Caeser Moxus! Garrett was being addressed by the ghost of a dead Indian chief! Garrett saw Caeser then, but he was mainly a floating face being eaten up by the heavenly glow.

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“Yes, Caeser?” They didn’t speak through their mouths but through a sort of mind communication. “You have seen what those men are capable of. What they are doing to us.” “Yes, Caeser. And it’s my mission to capture them, to serve out justice. Can you tell me where you are buried? I believe you’re buried by that lone pine tree I saw.” “Yes. Come soon. Brave Buffalo will die soon with the lies of that wakan man who is working in cahoots with those white men.” “I aim to, Caeser. But first we have to stay in Laramie and protect a white woman from some cold waters. Do you know anything about that?” Caeser’s ghost answered Garrett something along the lines of, “I don’t know anything about a white woman.” Not a terribly helpful fellow when it came to matters that didn’t concern him. Obviously, the afterlife didn’t grant one omnipotent powers over things beyond one’s scope. And then the vision was gone. Garrett was back in his bed, as though he’d been tossed there by a giant hand in the heavens. He gasped and clutched his blanket to his chest.

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Chapter Ten “So has Paddy gotten ahold of you yet?” Garrett looked up from his sawing as though surprised to see Levi standing there. He was hunched over a sawhorse, clad in only his long red drawers, chaps, and his worn Wellington boots. Each motion of his arm with the saw against the boards only served to ripple the muscles in his back and shoulder, fascinating Levi. Garrett didn’t let go of his grip on the saw. He stood with feet spread wide apart, as though he’d posed there for the express purpose of arousing Levi. “Not in so many words, no. But I’ve been having these sorts of”—his free hand demonstrated something birdlike and fluid—“visions, I guess you could say. Visions I have when sleeping. Last night after…” He looked to the ground, perhaps in shame at recalling their encounter the night before, and he started afresh. “Last night I, or rather, my spirit, decided to take flight around Laramie.” “Really?” Intrigued, Levi put a booted foot on a block of wood. “What did you see? Anything compromising?” “Actually, yes. You wouldn’t believe the things that go on in this town. Do you know that newspaper fellow, Henry Zuckerkorn? Boy, does he like spanking ladies wearing uniforms. Anyway, that wasn’t the important thing. I wound up flying, or whatever you want to call it, over the Dale Creek Bridge. That’s where I saw the lone pine tree.” Levi raised his eyebrows. Garrett was certainly becoming a firstclass medium, and he constantly astonished Levi. If Garrett weren’t a man, Levi would almost say he was falling in love with him. He had the utmost respect for him, admired and trusted him, and he lusted after him. Were not those the requirements for this elusive “love”

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people professed to know about? “Do you think you could lead us to it?” Garrett nodded. “We could probably find it. It sticks out from the landscape surrounding it. But this part is incredible, Levi. I was in the camp where Brave Buffalo’s tribe has been driven. He’s sick, dying maybe. I was inside the tipi when it began to rattle, scaring everyone. Well, guess what.” “What?” Garrett looked at him pointedly, pausing for effect. “Shady and Moses were there, shaking the tent to scare people.” Levi paused, too, to let this sink in. “Do you know where the encampment was? They move all the time.” “That’s the problem. I just appeared there suddenly, so I couldn’t give you a map. But maybe this wakan fellow Caleb Poindexter could give us an idea. He’d know where Brave Buffalo is currently residing.” “Yes, Liberty said she’d find him for us. Rather an odd fellow, isn’t he? Slinking around dressed like an Indian.” Garrett shrugged, a beautiful play of pectoral muscle against his shimmering, slick skin. His hairless chest looked to be constructed of polished wood. “He’s a blacksmith who comes into the fort sometimes to collect the supplies for the tribes. He’s a mystic, a wakan fellow, probably one of those who got brain injuries in the war.” “Does he seem simple to you?” “Not at all. I can tell by his language that he’s highly educated. Like you.” Levi nearly lowered his eyes in humility. He should have said something modest, like “I’m not that educated.” But the fact of the business was, he was educated. A Harvard graduate, he’d been a journalist in Chicago for the Tribune before having his heart stomped upon by his fiancée, a beautiful vixen by the name of Myrtle Cedarberry. Levi didn’t even like to think about her name anymore,

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much less picture her face. That she had thrown him over because she didn’t agree with his ideologies had tossed him into a tempest of questioning ever since. That was probably why he’d taken such a lowpaying and remote job as Indian agent. He could rant his opinions freely, but there wouldn’t be that many people around to hear him. Instead, he said, “Thank you. I can tell you’re educated, too. How did you learn to read and write?” “My master taught me. He was starting to go blind, and he wanted me to read the papers and other things to him.” He shrugged. “He was my pappy.” Levi was stunned. It was one thing in the South to have a white father but quite another to go about mentioning it. “So, I take it he was rather a nice man?” “A nice man who wanted someone to read things to him. Listen,” said Garrett, in another tone of voice entirely. Now he did set down the saw and boldly faced Levi. The smell of fresh sweat meant that Garrett would soon be bathing again, a prospect that caused Levi’s cock to expand pleasantly. “About last night.” “Yes, about your vision. I really feel obligated to remain near Miss Hudson until we can figure out—” “Not about the vision. About this.” And Garrett kissed him. Levi had never kissed another man, and it was a strange new experience. He fell into it easily, relishing the taste and velvety feel of Garrett’s delectable lips against his. Garrett knocked his Stetson off to grab a handful of his thick hair, to hold his face to his. But with all things manly, they were soon locked in a clinch. Garrett’s long arms fully surrounded him and bent him back a little, as though he held a beloved woman, and Levi had to raise himself on his toes a bit to meet him face-to-face. Garrett’s warm, cowlike tongue licked his lips, and he parted them eagerly. They licked each other like giant cats, all muscular limbs and musky scents intermingling, Garrett’s slick chest leaving a damp

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imprint on Levi’s shirtfront. It was stimulating and different to run his fingertips along the base of Garrett’s skull. Having only kissed women before, it aroused Levi to feel the massive skull. There were no fragile, birdlike bones here. Everything about Garrett was raw, elegant, and succulent. Garrett’s long cock rose up and knocked against his thigh, and he ran his hand down Levi’s back to grasp his ass and grip him close. The long, stiff penis now rubbed against his own erection, sending delicious shivers into Levi’s balls, and the two men snorted hot breaths against each other’s faces. As their tongues intertwined with that hot urgency men were prone to, a thought vaguely crossed Levi’s mind. We should get inside. Laramie was a flat, open town. Two men shouldn’t be necking in the yard. But the thought wasn’t urgent enough for him to act upon. **** Oh, my. Son of a gun. At first Liberty thought she was just looking at two men discussing something. She continued taking the bags of sugar and flour from her cart. Since this would be the first Laramie school, her father had allowed her to order a wood stove for both heat and cooking, and she had brought other supplies. She had potatoes, bars of soap, another coal oil lamp, and wooden boxes full of ears of corn, onions, beans, pickles, raisins, and candles. All things the children— or the men—would want. She was taking the second box into the school when it occurred to her the men weren’t discussing anything. Or weren’t anymore. They embraced as they stood next to a sawhorse, licking each other’s mouths as though there were no tomorrow. Slowly, Liberty set the box down. It would’ve slipped from her hands anyway.

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Peering around the corner of the school, she watched avidly. The men’s jaws worked hungrily, Levi’s fingers massaging the base of Garrett’s skull as he’d massaged her vertebrae before. Garrett’s broad, tapered hand clutched Levi’s ass to his crotch, and they rubbed their bulging erections together. Liberty’s breath came shallow and fast. She had seen men kissing before, mostly in New York during the convention, but that was quite different. The New Yorkers were ganymedes and poofs, effeminate fellows who liked to act as women. Those men didn’t affect her to the core, as this sight did. Those big city poofs were fun, bright, and interesting, their color certainly livening up any dull proceedings. Most importantly, they were men who loved only men, and Levi and Garrett clearly loved women. Garrett had even been married once. Maybe it was just a happenstance, something they’d stumbled into. Liberty leaned against the corner of the house, barely daring to breathe, to find out more. Maybe they had just been sawing and hammering along when bam, someone had…given someone a fat lip with a hammer? So they were consoling each other? Liberty could really come up with no logical explanation for what she was spying, but it was incredibly stimulating. She’d never seen Garrett shirtless, and it was a sight to behold. His bicep muscles moved in separate bunches, like some of the stevedores she had seen along the Missouri who unloaded heavy things all day long. He plastered his glossy, nude chest to Levi’s, and it made Liberty shudder between the thighs to wonder what it felt like, being engulfed by those massive arms. His enormous prick was up like a mallet, the thin fabric of his drawers revealing the rim of the straining cockhead as he mashed it against Levi’s clothed erection. Levi left her so speechless she didn’t have a single thought in her head. The dashing Indian agent leaned his torso back as he clutched Garrett’s skull, and just the sight of the flat plane of his abdomen taut like that made Liberty’s knees turn to water. She clutched the corner

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of the house to keep from falling down, watching him suck and lick Garrett’s mouth. He gyrated his hips against Garrett’s swollen penis. When they detached suddenly, as though they’d shoved each other away, Liberty remembered herself. It was only a matter of seconds before they started looking around to make sure no one had seen them. So she smartly picked up her box and vanished inside the front door, heart pounding like mad. She commenced putting away the groceries, wondering what was taking so long. How long did it take for them to notice her horse and cart out front? She was stowing the wooden box under the kitchen counter when Levi banged in the back doorway. “Liberty!” He seemed surprised to see her. He came forward as if to help, but she was only fooling around with a coffeepot. “I brought more things.” She stated the obvious but didn’t know how to bring up what she’d seen. It was so rousing just to stand next to him again. Levi Colter seemed to emanate a sort of energy that her body just sucked up like life-giving liquid. As though without him she would certainly shrivel and die. When near Levi, her body fairly buzzed with his beneficial force. “I just came in and happened to see…” Levi looked guilty. “You saw me and Garrett.” She forced herself to look him in the eye. She didn’t want to scare him off. “Yes. Kissing.” Levi slowly inhaled and exhaled. “Look. I can explain. We were both very carried away by the activities at Vancouver House the other night. I hope you don’t think we’re just a couple of randy dogs—” “But I like randy dogs!” Liberty cried then clapped a hand over her mouth in shame. But it was true. “I mean, I like it when you two are randy dogs. Don’t apologize, Levi.” Softly she added, “It was very stimulating, what I saw.” Levi came even closer to her, taking her chin between his fingers. “I don’t want you to be confused. It’s you who I love.” His glittering, radiant eyes could never tell anything but the truth. “I’ve been in love

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with you since—well, since before we met, according to Paddy. It’s clear that our destinies have merged. I want to protect you, Liberty. I’m not leaving your side until we figure out what that warning was about the water.” “But you need to find Shady and Moses.” “I’ll find Shady once this dangerous matter is resolved. Why isn’t Zeke with you?” He smiled, and Liberty absolutely melted. “I’m happy you’re alone, but I asked that clown to keep an eye on you. Do I need to request Marshal Tempest assign you a bodyguard?” Liberty had never felt more feminine than at this moment. Levi’s stately face regarded her with concern and love. His enigmatic halfsmile dissolved any fears she may have had. “No,” she assured him, touching his tattoo. How she wanted to ask him what it meant, this snake coiled around a cross. “Neil has his hands full with more important things. I assure you, we have a very good bathtub at Vancouver House, so I don’t need to bathe in any rivers.” And she backed him into one of the chairs. He sat with a curious look that became soft and aroused once she straddled him, planting a slipper on either side of him, and sat on top of him. Just as they had been in the train, before someone’s boot and the train’s arrival had wrenched her from his embrace—forever, she had feared. Now she placed both hands on his shoulders. “The eighth, I think.” “Eighth what?” “The eighth day of the month. In those instructions Garrett was reading from. Well, I read them all, of course.” She touched her nose to his and whispered, “I even copied them down.” “Well.” Levi’s eyes traveled over her face with affection. “I must help you with your studies. So pray tell. What does the eighth involve?” Liberty recited from memory. “‘On the eighth day, he should put his lips on her breasts while joining the two and put his face between

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them and rub them.’” She left out the “until she ejaculates” part. She still didn’t believe that was possible. Levi smiled mysteriously. When he pressed his face to her bosom, a shudder ran the length of her spine. She arched her back, pressing her bosom into Levi’s warm, stately face. Liberty didn’t know what “while joining the two” meant, but Levi obviously had a very accurate idea. Rather gently, he pulled down the neckline of her gown while lapping like a kitten at the cleft between her breasts. Her breasts popped free, and he showed admirable restraint in merely fondling them while lapping between them. A shivering, buzzing sensation filled her inner cunt, moistening the entire channel so she could plant her pussy directly over his erection and hump. How sensual it was, clutching his rich mane of hair to her naked breast! His pointed nose was buried between her breasts—breasts that were perfect, she now knew for a fact. Full, round, and set perkily high, she was sure they compared favorably to any other tits Levi had ever suckled. He lifted them, one cupped in each hand, nuzzling the cleavage between them. Every time his tongue snaked out to lick her chest, Liberty gasped and wormed around on his erection. Again, she had found the slit in her drawers, and her naked pussy was plastered directly over his stiff penis. She giggled to wonder what his laundress thought of his stained clothing. Levi uttered muffled sounds as he moved his fingers to her nipples. Liberty held her breath, waiting for him to pinch down, and when he did, her pussy fluttered, as it allegedly did during the accumulation of blood leading up to paroxysm. The entire channel clenched as though wishing to suck his beautiful cock inside it. But it was impossible to reach climax without direct stimulation of the clitoris, Liberty knew. Or at least, that’s what the women at the convention had rumored. When he moved his mouth to replace his fingers on a nipple, Liberty clutched his skull and leaned into him. Yes, his nibbling and

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tonguing sent erotic surges down her spine and into her uterus, making it tremble and shiver. She knew this was the anticipation of paroxysm, but the climax itself was unknown to her. Could these sages from India possibly be right? Could she possibly “lose herself in waves of pulsation” merely by Levi nipping at her breasts? Liberty very much wanted to find out, for it seemed she was on that track right now. But Levi stood then. He held her up by her ass as she reflexively locked her ankles around the small of his back. He carried her like a sack of potatoes, setting her down lightly on the tabletop. He had the wonderfully disheveled look of a randy dog, and it made her feel thoroughly feminine to know she had caused that look in him. “You’re skipping the step!” she protested. “The eighth day!” Suavely, he said, “I was thinking of moving along to the next step.” She thought he intended to fuck her and worried she hadn’t brought her family-limitation pessary, a mixture of acacia gum she had obtained from a Chinese pharmacist in town. Although he stood tall between her outspread thighs, his erection bulging enticingly, he soon dropped to his knees, burrowing his head beneath her skirts. Liberty instantly tensed to have a man’s head in such an intimate spot. She considered herself a modern suffragist, revolutionary even in her pursuit of the women’s vote, and she had heard of such things. But she’d never experienced it herself. When he softly bit the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh, though, she relaxed a bit. His silken locks snaking against her thigh caused her pussy to flutter in anticipation, and she realized this was perhaps another way of bringing her to “the height of pleasure,” as the book said. Levi lifted her skirts and gathered them about her hips, and she felt his breath against the tip of her clitoris. Son of a gun. Her entire inner pussy clenched, as though mimicking the spasms of orgasm she had heard about. She lay flat on her back like a patient on a table, panic-stricken with fear at what this

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paroxysm might do to her. Or, worse yet—what if she didn’t even reach the dreaded yet desired paroxysm? These fears were all out the window in the next instant, when Levi dove into the slit in her drawers, delving the exquisite tip of his nose into her cunt. The talented fingers of one hand diddled at her clitoris as his fat tongue laved her labia. She gasped so loudly she was sure it could’ve been heard at the Bucket of Blood. She dug her fingernails into his poor shoulders and lifted her hips off the table. Shoving his shoulders under her hips to raise her, Levi’s twiddling fingers sent a flood of fluid into her pelvis. She gasped and uttered strangled animal sounds, feeling the expansion of sensation in her pussy. His fingers slickly toyed with her enlarged clitoris. “Levi!” she cried urgently, not understanding what she really wanted. But he seemed to know, for he moved his face up to suck on her clitoris. That was when she reached the crest, as the manuscript described. All the pent-up fluid in her pelvis simply crashed, like a dam breaking. Wave after ecstatic wave rolled down her inner passageway, a veritable flood of delirious passion that even had her chest and fingers tingling. Her torso heaved and bucked as she clutched his shoulders. Her pussy felt as though it would rupture if the waves got any stronger—and how could they, without sending her into a delirium of nerves? Levi sped up his lapping at her clitoris. She bucked like a steer being branded and cried, “No!” Yet she wanted it! Why was she crying “no”? Yet she wanted it to end! If he continued like this, something inside her would simply break. The disorder of this female hysteria would simply be the death of her! Thankfully, he seemed to know when to slow down. From the loud lapping sounds, Liberty imagined she had flooded his face with her juices. Embarrassed, terrified, and thoroughly enraptured, she feebly pushed his shoulders away.

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“Ah,” she said weakly, trying to raise herself on her elbows. “You moved right ahead to the seventeenth.” Levi still slurped slow, languid licks to her clitoris. She jumped with the buzzing sensations that shot up her abdomen and giggled. Her breath caught in her throat when she perched on the edge of the table. Garrett was down on his knees behind Levi. His face was buried in the bare cleft of Levi’s ass, and he was lapping away, too.

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Chapter Eleven Garrett could not bear it anymore, watching his partner’s head buried beneath Liberty’s skirts. Of course, initially he had watched intently. His cock was already stiff as a board after Levi had accepted his kiss. It had only inflamed him more to realize that Liberty had been watching them necking. If she were disgusted with their behavior, Levi would have to make up his mind how he chose to proceed. Garrett didn’t discover Liberty’s reaction, though, because Levi had run inside the house once they realized the jig was up, leaving Garrett standing there with a stiff prick and nothing to do but saw lumber. He became more and more riled the more he sawed, and eventually he came in the back door to discover this. Levi with his head bobbing up and down between Liberty’s thighs. Although Garrett fervently wished it was his head between those creamy thighs, he just watched. He couldn’t be jealous if they had agreed to attempt to share Liberty’s charms—if she were agreeable. So at first he merely stood, shivering with anticipation as he watched Levi expertly guide the woman to climax. Garrett had known enough female climaxes in his time. His beloved Sadie had climaxed with such force, and so often, most of their furniture was in disrepair. But this was a new era, with a new randy vixen. Levi clearly knew what he was doing, lapping away like that. And Garrett could tell that it was all very new to Liberty, as liberated from social restrictions as she claimed to be.

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When it became obvious that Levi was skillfully guiding her up the climactic slope, Garrett could bear it no more. Why did he have to watch and not participate? He strode across the room and positioned himself on his knees behind Levi. Levi didn’t miss a beat with his licking as Garrett unbuckled his gun belt, dropping it heavily to the floor with a clatter. Without ceremony, Garrett yanked the pants down to Levi’s knees and grabbed ahold of the jutting cock. He frigged his friend vigorously, reveling in the feel of his own slippery chest against the naked skin of Levi’s athletic back. Liberty was flung back on the tabletop, flat on her back, and Garrett could just see her bared breasts jiggling with Levi’s lapping at her cunt. Garrett pressed his distended erection against Levi’s ass as he frigged, but soon it wasn’t enough. The whole scene displayed before him, Levi’s tempting, shapely white ass waggling with the excitement of having his cock stimulated, it was all too much for Garrett. And he got down on his elbows, too, to lap away at Levi’s swaying balls. Garrett wiggled his erection against the wooden floorboards, it made him so randy to have Levi’s balls in his mouth. He snorted with the excitement of tasting the tangy, full balls. He slurped an entire testicle into his mouth, wondering if he was distracting Levi from his task at hand. He petted the stiff erection, pleased to find it nearly as large as his own. Five years ago? One week ago? No one could have predicted that Garrett O’Rourke would be getting such pleasure out of licking another man’s balls. But this was Levi. It was different. And when a surge of love rushed through Garrett, he flipped over beneath Levi. Facing the underside of the abused table, he sucked that plump erection right into his mouth. Levi moaned, and his hand came down to caress Garrett’s head to his crotch. Garrett was filled with devilment, knowing he not only suckled at his partner’s penis but also distracted Levi from his other task. Garrett inhaled the long, fat cock, swirling his tongue around the

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taut cockhead with delight, squiggling patterns on the underside of it, feeling the bulging vein there twitch and pulse. To Levi’s credit, he was relentless in his pursuit of his task. Garrett even felt by the lengthening and tightening of the prick in his mouth, by the choking sounds the woman made above him on the table, that Levi was about to bring her to crisis. Garrett was flooded with such admiration for his partner, that he could remain focused while on the receiving end of such energetic slurping, that he renewed his efforts around the twitching cock. Liberty went silent as her orgasm ebbed, and by the time Garrett saw her feet dangling above him, Levi detached himself from her. Levi hunched over Garrett now, kneading his scalp as he encouraged him to suck. Liberty’s flushed, surprised face appeared upside-down above Garrett, and just the idea of her watching him stoked him to greater heights. She said something like, “I should be the one doing that, Levi.” And Levi answered, “It’s okay. He owes me.” Garrett would have smiled if his mouth wasn’t stuffed full of cock. He pumped his neck and shoulders and sucked harder, pleased to feel the cock lengthen even more in his mouth. Garrett knew from his vast past experience when Levi was about to explode. His fingers stilled against Garrett’s skull, he inhaled tiny gasping sounds, and sure enough, Levi blasted Garrett’s mouth full of hot, salty jism. Spurt after spurt flooded his mouth until he was forced to swallow a giant gulp that filled the room with bawdy noise. Garrett slapped a hand to the bare ass to urge the cock farther down his throat until he nearly choked on the mass, his throat muscles clamping down around the hot prick. Levi, being experienced at this as well, obviously knew when he should withdraw, should stop strangling his partner with his massive beef. He detached with a sucking sound, and Garrett collapsed on the floor. Levi had enough energy to drag himself to the chair, where he sat like a puppet, completely played out.

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“Hey,” Liberty observed, chipper. “Garrett, you moved right ahead to the thirtieth of the month in the instruction manual.” “No,” mumbled Levi. “We’re saving the thirtieth for later.” Garrett raised himself on an elbow. It was amusing to see Levi like that, his cock swaying in the breeze like a rubber hose, halfway to his knees. He looked at Liberty to gauge her reaction. She smiled pertly at him, so he assumed things were all right with her. “Would you like me to be properly shaved?” Garrett was stunned. At first, he didn’t know what she referred to. Levi was evidently more well-versed in things, for it was he who replied, “‘Cleaned, properly shaved, and washed’?” “Yes, that’s it,” said Liberty. Garrett remembered the part Liberty had read aloud from The Pleasure of Woman manuscript. They often seemed to refer to their women as “bald.” “You’d like that?” he asked the woman, surprised. She shrugged. She hadn’t bothered stuffing her tits back in her bodice, and they joggled enticingly. Garrett’s mouth actually watered from wanting to taste them, too. “Sure, why not?” Hopping off the table, she busied herself at her new schoolmarm’s desk, her back to them. “I read the entire manuscript. The part that wasn’t written in some ancient Persian language, that is. There are actually recipes in here. There’s one for hair removal.” Garrett and Levi shared stunned looks of intrigue. Turning to face them, Liberty brandished a piece of paper. “‘Mix sandalwood and put in a cup of water with lime juice. Shake this mixture and then put on the hair. The hair will disappear and there will be a lovely scent.’” With raised eyebrows, Levi asked, “Where shall we get sandalwood? And in what form do you mix it, if it’s a wood?” “I know where to get it,” Liberty and Garrett both said, nearly at the same time. They laughed at each other. Garrett allowed Liberty to go first. “There’s a Chinese pharmacist here in town, a C. Chang. I obtained earlier some…” She became

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modest then. Strange for a woman whose breasts were still bared to the view of two men! “Go on,” Levi urged. “What did you obtain?” Liberty moved to clothe a breast in her chemise now. “Some feminine herbs. Good for female disorders. But I’m sure he’s got some sandalwood.” Garrett stood uncertainly, cinching his erection under his gun belt. “I’m sure he’s got it in oil form or maybe paste. It’s a fascinating shop, Levi. All sorts of dead, dehydrated critters hanging from the rafters.” Levi shrugged. “All right. Let’s go find some sandalwood. But let’s make sure not to use cold water to bathe her.” **** Levi’s chest was fit to bust with pride as they turned the corner onto First Street, where C. Chang’s shop was located. They had asked Liberty if she wanted to be seen in public escorted by them, and Garrett had offered to stay behind and work on making furniture. But she had insisted they both accompany her. “I’ve nothing to be ashamed of. I’m being escorted by the Indian agent from the fort and an army private. What’s wrong with that?” No one could find anything wrong with that, so they’d set out, Liberty taking a lacey parasol to shield herself from the hot spring sun. “Townspeople can kiss my ass if they don’t like me walking with you,” Liberty now said as they turned the corner. She walked between the two men, Levi taking ahold of her elbow, Garrett allowing her to hold her parasol. Levi enjoyed her bawdy, profane way of speaking. “Things are different in the Far West. Social conventions are much looser.” Liberty said, “I wonder why The Pleasure of Woman doesn’t discuss ways to please a man? You’d think that would be the foremost

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thing on their minds, over there in India. Not many cultures really place any value on a woman’s pleasure.” “But aren’t you glad they did?” Levi grinned and nodded to a couple of soldiers he vaguely knew from the fort. Liberty said, “Garrett. Have you heard from Paddy lately? Have you made any progress in figuring out the prophecy about the cold water?” “No,” said Levi. “But he’s seen the ghost of Caeser Moxus, the dead Indian chief. Apparently Shady and Moses are out there somewhere with Brave Buffalo’s tribe, fooling them into thinking they’re being attacked by evil spirits.” Liberty paused, her mouth open in amusement. “Really, Garrett? Great Caeser’s ghost! You honestly saw Caeser’s ghost?” “Pshaw,” said Garrett modestly. “He told me he didn’t know anything about a white woman but Brave Buffalo will die soon if this flimflam wakan man keeps mistreating him. We need to find Caleb Poindexter.” Levi added, “But we can’t leave you until we find out what this whole water thing’s about.” He held open the door of C. Chang, Proprietor. Liberty went first, followed by Levi. The shop was imbued with an overwhelming aroma of incense and dust, and his eyes had to adjust to the dim light. Jars of resinous amber, powdered safflower, and turd-like ginseng slowly came into focus. Counters displayed neat pyramids of peach pits, seeds, and piles of the whiskey-root cactus that was gathered locally. Levi jumped when something moved inside a jar, and he bumped up against a dried monkey from Inner Africa. Its human hands were stretched out in its death throes, and he took Liberty by the elbow to steer her away. “Private O’Rourke!” the proprietor piped up, startling them. He was a shriveled, robed fellow who suddenly popped up from behind the counter like a jack-in-the-box. “I see you have come here for more brain salve!”

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Levi stood at attention, amused. “Brain salve? Your brain isn’t sharp enough?” “No, no,” Garrett protested. “Not salve for the brain. Salve made out of brains.” “Oh, eyew,” said Liberty, recoiling from Garrett. She knocked up against a stuffed rattlesnake, its mouth wide open in an angry hiss. Garrett explained. “It’s made from bison brains. It’s for my— my—” He tried to point to his back, where Levi had noted some raised welts, probably from a lash. “Is good for removing marks!” declared C. Chang, Proprietor. Levi lightly quipped, “And that’s better than salve for your brain? Listen here, my good fellow. We’re looking for sandalwood. What form do you have it in?” “I have paste and oil!” C. Chang vanished again, into the darkness behind his counter. Levi shouted, “And bottled lime juice, if you have it!” That’s when he noticed Garrett staring fixedly at a gentleman who had already been in the shop when they entered. About fifty years of age, he was unremarkable in his dark blue walking suit, waistcoat, and beaver hat. The only thing that made him stand out was his enormous moustache flecked with salt and pepper, as though he were trying to hide bad dental work. Still, he looked a cut above the usual rowdies and loafers that traveled with the Hell on Wheels towns, and Levi wondered why Garrett seemed so fixated on him. The gentleman, when he caught sight of them, lowered his face beneath his top hat brim and fiddled with some dried rat or other. “Miss Hudson!” Chang cried, having appeared again to hand her a jar. “Your sister marries Marshal Tempest. I make prick tea for Marshal Tempest!” This time, both Levi and Garrett chortled openly. Liberty didn’t seem to think it was so funny, though, as she snatched the jar from Chang and advised the riceman, “You really shouldn’t go running about revealing medical secrets to the public at large.”

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“Secret?” Chang asked innocently. “What secret?” Louder, Levi said, “Do you have the lime juice?” Outside in the street, Levi leaned close to Liberty’s ear. “What medical secret are you afraid of being revealed?” The shell of her ear rose with color. “I made a pessary from acacia gum that he sold to me. It covers the mouth of the womb to prevent pregnancy.” “Ah,” said Levi. “Very intelligent.” That was good to know. If the lady ever even stooped to marrying him—when had that idea first struck him?—it would not be wise to have a child right away. Not with his postmaster’s pay. But her father would probably never hear of allowing Liberty to marry him anyway. She was probably destined for one of the sons—or one of the brothers—of Freund and Brothers. He had just professed his love for her, but he had been suspecting that Liberty Hudson, suffragist from Hyde Park, New York, was just toying with him. The Far West was a new, scintillating experience for her or any woman. She was cutting loose, spreading her wings, kicking up a fandango. And how more dramatically to prove to her father she was a liberated woman than to take up with an Indian agent and an army private? And both at the same time? However, Levi didn’t mind being toyed with. Not if the puppet master were Liberty Hudson. He would go along for the ride, as far as she’d let him ride her. “Who was that fellow you were staring at in the pharmacy?” Liberty asked Garrett. Garrett frowned. “I wish I knew. When I—my spirit—was flying around the town observing things such as Rusty Pipes tossing out some water—the water was steaming, so I knew it wasn’t the water we were looking for—I saw that gentleman and your father talking in the Frontier Hotel. I want to believe he’s a former college friend of Simon’s, as I think they were discussing Amherst. Did your father attend Amherst?” “He did!” cried Liberty.

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Levi said, “It was probably just one of those things. Mundane things you saw that have no importance. Remember, you also saw Henry Zuckerkorn spanking a prairie flower.” “True,” Garrett admitted. And that was the last they discussed of the heavily mustached gentleman. For the moment, anyway.

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Chapter Twelve Liberty stood with her arms held out from her sides, wearing only her chemise. She had stepped out of her drawers in the back room but left on her stockings and slippers out of modesty. Now she felt like a statue, there for the men’s perusal. When she had suggested shaving her labia, it had seemed like such a bold and courageous thing, something a subscriber to the weekly Revolution women’s newspaper would do. But now, standing here by the washtub clad only in her chemise, she felt the full critical inspection of the men’s eyes. After all, they could still wear their pants, even though Garrett was shirtless, in what she was starting to suspect was his favorite mode. “I feel as though I’m at the doctor’s,” she complained. “Or an artist’s model, waiting for you to sketch me. Oh son of a gun! What is that?” Garrett turned to her from the kitchen counter, where he’d evidently been sharpening a knife. Shrugging, he brandished it so that it glinted in the lamplight. “A knife? Oh, don’t worry. God, no. I’m actually sharpening this stone, see?” Levi stood behind her with soothing hands on her shoulders. “He’s done this many times before.” Garrett grinned playfully. “I used to shave my pappy’s head after he started going blind.” “But,” protested Liberty, “this is not a head!” Garrett placed the knife on the counter and came forward with a smooth stone with a sharp edge, like a flint. “Don’t worry,” he said in

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his resonant, rich drawl. “We’re men. We’ve done this a thousand times.” Levi pressed her into a chair. “You have to trust us, Liberty. Especially if we’re going to protect you from this cold water.” Liberty pointed at the washtub. “Maybe that is the cold water I’m supposed to beware of. Besides, isn’t this sandalwood and lime juice concoction supposed to remove the hair without a sharpened stone?” “Let’s try it on your leg,” Levi suggested. Sitting in a chair next to her, he placed one of her feet in his lap and removed the slipper. Liberty smiled with the pleasure of wiggling her toes against the erection that tented his pants. When he leaned forward to roll down her stocking, she captured a portion of his cockhead between her agile toes. She said, “This is the twenty-second day, only in reverse. ‘He should rub her rib cage with his toes.’ Didn’t you fellows wish for the book to be reversed?” Garrett pulled up the third chair and lifted her naked foot from Levi’s crotch. “That was your idea,” he reminded her. She was distracted when he placed her foot in his own lap, smack over his bulging erection. Now she wiggled her toes against his enormous member as he applied some of the sandalwood paste to a small area of her calf. “Oh,” she said. “That’s right. It was. Well, men wish for that kind of thing, anyway. I’ve got another wonderful idea while we wait for this paste to work.” She reached out for the table. She had placed her toy box there when she’d come out of the bedroom—the one she had swore to slide far under her bed and never open again—and now opened it. The look on the men’s faces was priceless when she revealed the toy. “Where’d you get a dildo,” asked Levi, “in Dakota Territory?” “Is that what it’s called? I brought this from home.” Lewdly, she replaced her other foot in Levi’s crotch so they could plainly see up her chemise. “It’s supposed to help with female disorders. And there’s

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a lot of disorder in my house.” She grinned. “It’s supposed to assist in reaching a climax, but I never…” Shy now because she didn’t want to admit she’d never climaxed before Levi had licked her, she positioned the dildo through the slit in her drawers. But Garrett tossed aside her foot and got to his knees, zealously removing her hand from the implement and taking control of it himself. He nudged it against her outer petals, and she angled her hips to give him better leverage. “You’ve played with these toys before?” she asked Garrett. “Not quite this shape.” Liberty’s was an ivory thingamajig she’d picked up during the New York convention. She suspected it was from Africa, the way it was carved with tiny elephants, or maybe India. “But we used to make our own, fashioned from oak.” He pulled her chemise up to reveal her bare knees and easily found her pussy’s opening, inserting the dildo an inch. He used the tiny shaking movements Liberty herself often used, and it was liberating to open herself up to another man again. To allow herself to be vulnerable enough to trust a man to penetrate her. “My wife used to enjoy playing with her trinket, as she called it.” “I suppose every woman has a different name for it,” Liberty said. “You’re a very good carpenter.” “Wait. Wife? What’s this?” said Levi. Garrett shrugged. “I had a wife.” Liberty asked, “Did you have children, too?” “No, we were never able to. Apparently I’m a very safe fellow, for nothing ever happened.” “That’s so sad. I’m so sorry. But maybe it was your wife’s ‘fault,’ too, did you ever think about that?” “We thought about that. She did have some female problems. Disorders, as you said.” “Wait,” Levi said again. Now getting to his knees, he shoved Garrett aside and took control of the dildo himself. Liberty felt vulnerably feminine, that the two men should fight over her like that.

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That Levi wanted to be in control of affairs made her proud. She was worth fighting over. He positioned himself between her thighs, his free hand clamped around the back of her neck, his thumb rubbing her there, like he had done in her father’s study. He reamed her slowly with the dildo, opening her up, spreading her. He asked modestly, “Is it true that you never climaxed before today?” “It’s true,” she admitted. She speared her fingers through his thick head of hair and rubbed him like a cat. “Why didn’t you? You’re obviously capable.” “I was afraid. I had heard so many things about it. Women would call it the ‘little death.’ I couldn’t find anyone who had actually experienced it, so many of the stories were probably myths.” “Well. You didn’t die.” He was excruciatingly handsome when he grinned like that. Just gazing into his stately, beautiful face was a pleasure, and Liberty’s thumb outlined his shapely lower lip. Behind him, Garrett had returned to his chair, grabbing one of her feet and placing it against his cock. She squirmed her toes against the enormous head of it, eliciting one of the devilish glances that she loved so about him. She said, “No. In fact, it was so enjoyable I’d like to repeat it. Over. And over. You have a very good technique. I think I could easily become addicted to repeating that many times.” “There are other ways to achieve that, you know.” Liberty lifted an eyebrow at him. “Oh, yes? Perhaps you could demonstrate.” Without warning, Levi slid the dildo out of her and grabbed her about the hips. She assisted him in whatever he was trying to do, following his lead to get off the chair and to her knees between Garrett’s thighs. She was unsure what Levi wanted, so he lifted her hand and placed it on Garrett’s cock. Hunching over her from behind, he murmured in her ear, “Pleasure him.” He squeezed her hand that held

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the hulking cock. “Bring him to orgasm. Massage that giant tool. Feel how big it is in your fist.” She was quick to unsheathe the enormous appendage from the crimson drawers. It filled her fist like a tree branch, and she stroked it as though milking a cow. It stood up tall, proud, and purplish, the intriguing vein bulging with seed. Levi murmured in her ear, “Suck that milky jism right out of that strapping penis, Liberty. Swallow the salty, delicious seed. Slather that giant, dark limb with your tongue.” Levi’s bawdy talk riled Liberty. This was something she did have experience with. Apparently it was something Frenchmen always wanted, for she had done it quite a bit to Alain Broussard. So, confident in her abilities, she sank her mouth down over the taut crown. Garrett inhaled with a hiss and caressed the back of her head. This was not going to be easy. She had gotten a sore jaw from sucking on Alain, and his cock wasn’t half this mammoth. Behind her, Levi yanked her drawers down to her knees. He nudged her ivory toy at the entrance to her channel. When he brought his other hand around her front and fiddled with her clitoris, her entire pussy clenched with wanting the object inside her. But she couldn’t talk with her mouth full to tell him to insert it, now. But the adept way he was fingering her let her know she would come soon, with or without him manipulating the dildo. So she wiggled her hips to let him know she wanted more, thankful that he clairvoyantly understood and slid the thing inside her a couple of inches. “Isn’t that delicious?” he murmured. “Cup that big, bulging ball sac while you suck that big tool.” Liberty did as instructed, aroused by the passion in his demands. It was evident by his zeal that he wished he were the one sucking on the big appendage, and the thought of him doing just that sent waves of sensuality into her pussy. She swallowed another inch, then another inch, fluttering her tongue about the veined underside of the prick. Her fingertips just

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barely met around the heft of it, and it was a new pleasure to be speared at both ends by two different men. Levi’s fingering of her engorged clitoris was rousing her to lusty heights, urging her to relax her throat muscles to swallow more of Garrett’s cock. She was afraid she would come much too soon this time, so she wiggled her hips, hoping Levi would get the message to slow down. But he reamed her with the ivory implement even more enthusiastically, encouraging her, “Suck it, Liberty. Suck that beautiful, big member. Take that entire dusky prick into your mouth so you can feel him discharge down your throat.” Liberty was taken by surprise, then, when Garrett started choking on his own moans and clasped her head to his crotch more firmly. Suddenly she, too, was choking on a deluge of semen that rushed down her throat, and she struggled to swallow it. Levi must’ve been able to tell Garrett was coming, for he now impaled her rapidly with the ivory tool while his dancing fingers against her button whetted her sexual fever. The fluid that flooded her pelvis reached the saturation point, and the dam broke. Waves of ecstasy raced through her pussy, clenching the dildo inside her until she was huffing for air. Still Garrett came, gush after gush of salty seed filling her mouth, and, at last, she had to detach just to breathe. Gasping like a beached fish, she clasped Garrett about the hips as Levi slowed his toying with her clitoris. She twitched and jumped at every pang of rapture that clutched her pussy, rubbing her ass against Levi’s stiff cock with pleasure. Pleasure that she and Garrett had found release but Levi hadn’t. It was a childish, teasing, and mischievous thing to make Levi wait for his own release. Then again, men were childish. She smiled and collapsed against Garrett’s lean abdomen. It was an easy thing to tease men into coming back for more. “Land’s sake,” Garrett sighed, limply stroking her head. His prick pulsated against his sinewy hip.

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Liberty wiped her nose with the back of her hand as her hips sank to the floor. Levi jiggled the dildo around inside of her. Its fullness made her twitch and shiver, as though she were still climaxing around it. “You’re some pumpkins,” Garrett said. Liberty smiled weakly. She liked being called a pumpkin, for some reason. It was a very comforting, affectionate thing to say. “As for you,” Garrett drawled. “You’re just a fucking dog.” Levi cradled Liberty between his thighs. “Hey. If I was such a fucking dog, wouldn’t I have looked for my own satisfaction?” “That’s true.” Garrett grinned, devilish. “You’re going to get a horrible swelling, a pox of the balls, if you don’t come every twelve hours.” Levi removed the dildo from Liberty’s pussy with a squishing sound. He regarded her fondly. “I don’t mind. Hey. Where’d you put that stone?” The hair under the experimental patch of sandalwood paste did not come away without the help of the stone. So Liberty had to haul herself onto a chair and expose her pussy to the men’s views. Levi, being the more vibrant of the two at the moment, took the pestle of paste in hand and slowly, admiringly, applied it. “I don’t want you fellows waiting around town for me,” said Liberty. “While you’re hanging about waiting for something to happen to me, Shady and Moses could be getting away.” “We’re not going anywhere,” said Levi. “I see you brought the talking board over. We could give that another try, to find out more about the cold water.” “I believe it’s getting late,” said Liberty. “My father has some company coming over tonight, and he wanted me there for dinner. Ivy is going back to her ranch as usual when she finishes work, so I’m the one who has to carry the social obligations. Boys, I really, really, want you to go find Shady. At the very least, you know where that

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tree is now, so you can prove Caeser Moxus is dead and couldn’t possibly have signed that treaty.” It was Garrett who answered this time. He had finally roused himself from his relaxed position and was standing, stripping off his chaps and drawers. Buck naked, he was a gorgeous sight, a veritable statuesque Nubian god with creamy skin flowing over finely molded bones. “We’re not going anywhere,” he repeated. Levi had finished with the paste and was planing away the hair on her pubic mound with the sharp edge of the flint. It worked quite well, but it was strange to see her everyday hair disappear with the stroke of the blade. She squirmed with nerves. “And shouldn’t you take Neil Tempest with you? He’s the marshal, after all. Does an Indian agent have authority to arrest anyone?” Levi said absentmindedly, “I sure as hell can, according to the law of Judge Lynch. We don’t need to harass Marshal Tempest with this matter.” He rinsed the rock off in a bowl of water. “He’s got enough to do with all these brawling bog crawlers in town.” “Yes,” agreed Garrett, wrapping his lower extremities in a light Indian blanket like a toga. “Some of them aren’t traveling on to help build the railroad. The two lines are supposed to meet in Utah. But some of the worst sorts are still lounging about—well, you’ve seen them, Liberty, at the Cactus Club.” “Yes,” she said remotely, absorbed in Levi’s task. “Most of them have moved on to the end of the line at Fort Steele. Some are just too lazy to keep working. And we get stuck with the lazy ones.” “Tell us about your wife,” said Levi. He parted Liberty’s labia to scrape inside the lips, concentrating with the intensity of a surgeon. “Where is she now?” Garrett was pouring himself and Liberty sarsaparillas. “Sadie has gone on to the great beyond.” Liberty had not questioned him about it. Some people did not wish to talk about something that painful and others seemed to find solace in talk. “Typhoid fever swept through

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our plantation in sixty-five. Took almost everyone, so I decided to join the army.” “Including your pappy?” Liberty asked. “Pappy and mammy.” “What was Sadie like?” Garrett placed Liberty’s glass of sarsaparilla on the table and paused. “Sadie was bold and brash, just like you.” “You’ll get your ring back,” said Liberty. “Paddy Worth will make sure of that.” Garrett nodded. “You missed a spot, O Great DaVinci.” “I’m not done!” Levi protested. It felt odd indeed to be bald between the thighs. Her labia lips protruded so blatantly, like a giant cloven hoof. Levi had her sit down in the washtub, where he splashed her and rubbed her with a bar of soap, unnecessarily thorough in his ablutions. Squiggling his fingers against her vulva, he rinsed and made sure she was “clean, properly shaved, and washed.” Leading her out of the tub, he allowed her to drop her chemise and cover up. “This feels strange,” she said when she stepped back into her drawers. “Every step I take rubs against the lips.” Levi wrapped his arms around her and kissed her gently. “I welcome the chance to explore you naked, but I know you have to get back to your father’s. Let me walk with you.” It was quite kind of Levi to escort her back home without making demands. It was her experience that men basically only used one to gain something, sexual or otherwise. It was very rare that a man appeared to do something out of the kindness of his heart, as Levi was doing. Escorting her, staying in town to protect her—he and his partner did things for the sheer goodness of the doing. Each step of her walk back to Vancouver House rubbed against her newly bald pussy. She felt shameful and excited at the same time, knowing she was shaved under her skirts. She had a perverse and

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stimulating secret, as though each man who glanced in her direction knew what she looked like naked.

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Chapter Thirteen Simon Hudson was asleep with his eyes open. It was heartening to know that he still did this. Liberty had to smile when she came downstairs for dinner and discovered her father sitting at his desk chair staring at the wall, an empty whiskey glass before him. Affectionately, Liberty refilled his glass but didn’t try to wake him and went to find the cook to check on the dinner’s progress. Since she seemed to be the only other guest at this dinner party, Liberty went into the parlor with a copy of Crime and Punishment to read. However, she had just settled into a chair when a movement not ten feet away startled her, and the book flew to the floor. “Oh!” she gasped, with hand to her beating heart. The mustachioed fellow from the pharmacy stood there, helping himself to a glass of port! “I’m sorry you didn’t see me,” he said. She noted he didn’t say, “I’m sorry to have frightened you.” No, it was all her fault to not have seen him! Still, he was obviously Simon’s dinner guest, so Liberty stood to shake his hand. “I’m Cole, your father’s business associate, an old friend from college,” he said. “It appears he fell asleep sitting behind his desk, so I came in here for some libations.” Liberty poured herself a glass of water. “Yes, he’s done that for many years. Falling asleep while sitting up with eyes wide open. Did he do that back in Amherst?” He laughed—a bit too heartily for Liberty’s liking. But he was an old friend of Simon’s, and she had to tolerate him. “Not back then,” he said. “But when we worked together at the Tool and Die, he sure

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did. Once, I discovered him asleep by the lathe machine with his hand just inches from the drill bit.” “Oh, my,” said Liberty. It sounded dangerous, but Cole was probably just reminiscing about the hilarious memories. And it was true that Liberty and her sisters often laughed about Simon’s sleeping habits. Remembering, for instance, the time he’d fallen asleep standing up when he was supposed to be giving a wedding toast. “He could have just been meditating. He does that a lot, with his Spiritualist beliefs. Are you a believer? Were you one of the group containing Alcott and Emerson? My father was very much interested in that Transcendental stuff. It’s possible that I’ve met you before, if you are.” “I was there when he came to Brook Farm,” Cole proclaimed. Brook Farm was a misguided attempt in the forties to build a utopian communal farm in New York where everyone could connect with the soil and be as one, or something of that nature. Simon hadn’t lasted long there, thank goodness. There was no tea and butter, and if anyone wanted meat, they had to pay extra to sit at a separate table. “Nathanial Hawthorne and I were boon companions,” he bragged. “Yes,” said Liberty. “After his Brook Farm experience, didn’t Hawthorne write ‘Thank God, my soul is not utterly buried under a dung-heap’?” Cole chuckled, as if that were just another fond memory that probably hadn’t seemed so rosy and wonderful at the time. “We would share everything back in those days.” Snapping out of his reverie, he asked Liberty, “So Simon tells me you are a forwardthinking suffragist. That you favor the women’s vote.” “Why, yes, I—” “That’s a good thing. A mighty good thing.” Why is that a good thing? “So you favor the women’s vote, too?” “Oh, certainly. Why not? The more liberated women become, the better for men, no? Why is it not helpful for men to have women assume a larger proportion of the work? It’s not as though they’ll be

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taking jobs away from us, because women’s jobs are the ones men don’t want anyway.” Liberty opened her mouth to protest, but Cole barreled on. “When I saw you in the pharmacy with those two men, I said to myself, ‘Cole. Now there’s a liberated, modern woman.’” “Oh? And what made you think that?” Cole wiggled his rather bushy eyebrows. “Two men, my dear. And you were purchasing sandalwood with the two men.” Liberty started to panic. She tried to bluff. “So? What’s so meaningful about sandalwood? It can be used for many things.” She did not address his obsession with the “two men.” Cole moved closer, as though about to elbow her knowingly. “It is well-known in more contemporary and stylish circles what sandalwood is used for.” Liberty had never felt more naked, as though this odious man’s eyes could bore right through her costume. She felt he was leering at her shaved pussy, and she backed away a few inches. “I don’t know what you’re referring to. We were just using it to soothe a burn.” Cole closed up the gap between them, sidling up as though they shared a secret. “A burn, eh? Those two fellows looked like they were burning, all right.” Liberty drew herself up. “One of them is the new Indian agent at the fort. The other is an army officer. I don’t believe there was any ‘burning’ going on.” “Now, now.” Cole lifted a hand to her chin. Liberty jerked away reflexively, but his hand followed, and some of the merriment was sucked from his eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with wooing two men at once for a modern, newfangled suffragist such as yourself.” How could she say “I’m not wooing them” when she was? “Well,” she choked out. “I wish to woo them both until I can decide between them. That’s logical.” She had been worrying about how to introduce Levi and Garrett to her father. There was nothing wrong with courting two men. But he

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would probably find a lot wrong if he knew the extent of their intimacy. She would have to ask Ivy how Father had taken to her arrangement with Neil Tempest and Captain Park or if he was even aware of it. Simon could be fairly oblivious when it came to his daughters. Sometimes there was simply no point in mentioning certain things to him. And there certainly was nothing wrong with Ivy’s living situation. Dozens of people lived at Serendipity Ranch, helping with the cattle or whatever cattlemen did. But Cole was bringing up a very touchy subject for Liberty. And in a manner that gave her the creeps. He tightened his grip on her chin, and she was backed up against a settee. “I wonder if your father would appreciate knowing that two men are simultaneously poking his daughter. And one of them a mulatto. Although we did share everything back in the Brook Farm days.” “There’s no ‘poking’ going on, Mr.…Cole.” She answered truthfully. So far, they had not committed intercourse. If she were a virgin to begin with, she could honestly say she had maintained her virginity. So far. Cole pinned her to the couch so closely she could feel the heat from his repulsive erection against her lap. She did not wish to be rude, but she would have to extricate herself from this room, if she could find a polite way to do so. “Oh, I’ve heard different. A woman who lives two doors down from your new schoolhouse has witnessed some untoward things going on. She’s quite shocked. Men in various states of undress parading about. If one is to believe her, your two beaus are even fond of spooning each other unnaturally.” His thumb rubbed Liberty’s lower lip, but she didn’t dare pull away now. Not until she discovered his intentions. She suspected it was Cole himself who had witnessed the untoward things while lurking about in the bushes and spying, which would explain how he had developed a fixation on her. “I might need to tell the town council that your men are sodomites, experienced in Greek love. However, I

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could be convinced to withhold my knowledge. It will be our secret, Liberty.” Cole breathed booze onto her face, but she didn’t dare move. “I’ll make sure your father never hears of it, either.” What was in it for Cole? “Would you be doing me this favor out of respect for my father? Because you’re old college friends?” She realized that by asking that, she was also admitting that he spoke the truth. “Not at all,” Cole said smoothly. He gripped her shoulder with his fossilized claws. “I’d be doing it because I expect certain favors in return from you.” And he pressed his ugly, dry lips to hers. **** When Levi returned from escorting Liberty home, he mentioned to Garrett that he’d seen that mustachioed fellow from the pharmacy. The one Garrett had seen in his dream, laughing about Amherst College with Liberty’s father. He had passed him by in the road, and it had seemed to Levi that the fellow had wiggled his eyebrows knowingly. About what, neither one of them could figure. What did the fellow pretend to “know”? So they spread out the talking board to find out more. “I wonder if it’ll work with only two people,” Garrett mused. “What did Zeke say?” Levi said, “That he supposed it would work with two people. Although it might be better if we had a third.” Just then, as Garrett was lighting a couple of candles to create the proper atmosphere, there came a loud rapping. At first Garrett thought it was the spirits, rapping as they’d been doing during the séance at Vancouver House. He looked about the room, waiting for more raps. “Hey!” The clownish voice of Ezekiel Vipham came from the front porch. “Let me in!”

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Levi rose to open the door, shooting Garrett an exasperated look. “We could use a third, but he’s got to promise not to talk about his mother.” Zeke fell into the room as though coming in from the arctic. “Hoo, boy!” He went to warm his hands at the wood stove. “I don’t suppose Liberty’s here, is she?” Garrett said, “She had a dinner to attend at her father’s.” “Right,” said Zeke. “I wasn’t invited. Simon thinks I somehow don’t create the proper atmosphere that would encourage people to do trade in Laramie. What does that even mean?” “That he thinks you’re scaring off other merchants?” Zeke spread his hands wide. “Why would I be scaring people away? I’m perfectly presentable in mixed company.” Levi smirked. “Why, indeed, would you be scaring people away? It doesn’t behoove your business to be revolting people.” Zeke grimaced. “He probably just wants Liberty there. After all, you’ve got to admit, she’s much easier on the eyes. Who wants to look across the table at a worn-out, balding fellow like me? Speaking of tables! I see you’ve got the talking board out. Shall we try it?” Without an invitation, Zeke sat himself at the table, and Levi poured him some whiskey to lubricate his thoughts. Levi had a caveat, however. “Yes, we were going to try it. Just a warning, though. It won’t have anything to do with your mother.” Zeke’s fingers were already fluttering over the wicker planchette. “Aw, why not? I need to find out more about this repugnant greengrocer who has overtaken Ma’s life.” Garrett said soothingly, “That’s not as important right now. We need to know about this friend of Simon Hudson’s, the college buddy from Amherst. That’s our question, and we’re sticking with it.” Levi added, “If we get any answers, you can ask about your mother afterward.” Garrett thought Levi was being entirely too generous. He started the session by addressing his spirit guide. “Paddy, are you there?”

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YES. “What can you tell us about this college friend of Simon Hudson?” The planchette spelled out AMHERST. “Yes, we know,” said Garrett. “But why does he keep looking at us? What is his interest in us?” GREEK LOVE. Zeke guffawed. “Greek love, that’s a good one! Is your guide Paddy trying to tell us that Cole Waters is interested in other men? That’s rich! He’s come all the way to Laramie to sell glass when really all he’s interested in is bumfucking—” “Wait.” Levi’s voice was authoritative, booming through the room. Loud enough to shut up Zeke, who waited. “You say this Amherst fellow’s name is Cole Waters?” “Why, yes,” said Zeke uncertainly. “That’s his name, all right. The Waters Glass Company. Kind of has a ring to it, don’t you think? See, water is transparent, and so is glass. I thought it was a pretty flashy name, myself. But if he thinks he can come to town just to get his hands on my johnson, he’s got another thing—” “Cole Waters.” Levi shot Garrett a meaningful look, his eyes flashing with significance. But Garrett failed to see the importance in the name. He shook his head blankly, questioning. “Don’t you see?” Levi shouted, halfway standing from his chair. “The board, last time we used it! It said to ‘watch out for cold waters’!” Land’s sake. The meaning began to sink in to Garrett’s fluffy brain. “It was just a manual error!” he shouted. “Yes!” bellowed Levi. “It meant to say, ‘Watch out for Cole Waters.’ Only the planchette must’ve moved onto a D instead of the E.” Garrett snapped at Zeke, “Probably pushed aside by your stupid hands, you lummox. Worrying about your poor mother in the spirit

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world when you were busy flailing about, knocking the planchette aside with your bumbling fingers.” Levi held out a calming hand. “All right, all right. Obviously, this Cole Waters jackass is going to do something to Liberty. But we need to know what. We can’t just run around making accusations—” “Of what, we don’t even know,” Garrett added. “And if he’s that interested in Greek love, why would he be doing something to Liberty anyway? All right. Let’s formulate our question.” Garrett suggested, “How about this? Paddy, in what way does Liberty need protection from Cole Waters?” The planchette sped to spell out DEFILE. The table was practically knocked over in the men’s zeal to race out the door. Garrett had to barrel back to blow out the candles and to buckle on his gun belt as he hopped down the front stairs, taking them two at a time.

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Chapter Fourteen Liberty’s automatic, natural reaction was to push Cole away. But he remained glued to her torso like a slick of oil on a muddied lake. He gripped her skull in his scummy fingers, forcing his loathsome mouth onto hers. As though this were a desirable way to seduce a woman! What was so damned attractive about forcing oneself upon a woman? Liberty had her hands full with two beaus— she didn’t need some hairy associate of her father’s getting all hot for her. He was gripping her so forcefully it was difficult to even wrench her face away from his. Now he even stuck a boot behind her slipper and tripped her up! She fell back onto the settee, and he tumbled on top of her. Since he was much heavier than either Levi or Garrett— their beloved faces flashed across her mind then, as though taunting her with what she was missing at the moment—she was now hopelessly pinned. She felt like a writhing spider under a big boot, all her flailing limbs sticking out from under his ample body. He clamped his mouth over hers, this time trying to slide a disgusting tongue like a cooked oyster into her mouth. Liberty hated oysters, and she hated this man even more, so she bit the tip of his tongue. She made sure not to bite hard enough to wind up with a nauseating specimen in her mouth, but it did the trick. He pulled back a foot or so in order to shriek, “You damned bitch!” and belt her with the back of his hand across the face. This enraged Liberty so thoroughly, she renewed her thrashing. “Leave me alone, you damned filthy bastard!” She hoped her father, Lupe the maid, or the cook Josefina might come running.

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Now Cole had his hands around her throat. “Is this what you want? Do you want me to tell your father that your two beaus are more interested in each other than in you? Their careers will be ruined. And no one’s going to want you at all after I’m done with you.” He must have been pressing his thumbs against her larynx, for she couldn’t even croak out any cuss words. So she spat in his face, the gob sticking to his nose. He let his guard down for a split second, releasing the pressure on her throat. Liberty’s legs were tangled in her damnable skirts, but she managed to squeeze an arm in front of his chest. She didn’t have much room to punch, but the belt she managed to connect to his face was enough to injure his pride, if nothing else. “You twisted degenerate!” she shrieked. Her knee that she wrenched up was muffled by many layers of fabric—she had never wished so ardently that she would be allowed to wear men’s pants!—so she bit him. Ah, the relief when he rolled off her and onto the floor! She didn’t pause to admire her teeth marks in his face but leaped to her feet and grabbed the first, and heaviest, thing she saw—an unopened bottle of whiskey. She didn’t pause, either, to warn him or give him a chance to get out. Gripping the bottle around the neck in both fists, she bashed him over the head as he writhed on the carpet with his hand to his face. It made a dull thud that was very satisfying. She drew the bottle over her head, ready to strike again. The front door burst open, and Levi and Garrett raced in at full chisel. It would have been humorous, how frantic they looked, if there weren’t a body on the floor. Levi’s hair stuck out every which way, as though he were the one running from an assailant. Garrett even had to grab onto the doorjamb to stop himself from continuing down the hallway, he was tearing so fast. Liberty didn’t make the connection that their arrival had anything to do with the perverse Cole. They must

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have been going like sixty over here on some other matter—another matter that involved drawing their pistols and leveling them at the prone Cole. “Agh!” Cole yelled as he writhed on the floor. Levi advanced on the man, though it was clear that at the moment, Liberty had the upper hand. “Get up, you godforsaken louse!” Garrett stood abreast of Liberty. “What did he do to you?” “Tried to do is more like it,” she shot back. With his free hand, Garrett lowered the whiskey bottle she still brandished overhead. “Tried to kiss me, and maul me, and—ick!” “That damned bitch bit me!” Cole was sitting up now but gazed in surprise at his bloody hand so probably didn’t see Levi’s pistol three feet from his head. “Get up, you lowdown bushwhacker!” Levi bellowed. Pride rose in Liberty’s chest at the authority he put into his voice. Liberty stepped forward and kicked the college alumnus in the thigh. Not as hard as she would’ve wished. But this was a society where Judge Lynch prevailed, after all. “He told me he was going to the city council to insinuate that you two were sodomites if I didn’t allow him to maul me.” “Oh, well!” Rolling his eyes, it was Garrett’s turn to kick the glass salesman with his worn but sturdy Wellington boots. “What were you thinking, man?” Levi must have had a more level head, for he shoved the pistol barrel right upside the wound in Cole’s face, using the leverage to assist the man to stand. “All right, here’s what’s happening. You’re going out that door, never to return. If I don’t hear that you bought a ticket on the next train east, I’m having you arrested for assault.” Cole stared at him, dazed, for a split second, so Levi rattled the pistol against his face. “Go, man!” He pointed at the door. “Go! And I don’t want to hear a single word about the city council. There’s a train at eight in the morning. I suggest you use it!”

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“Good God!” Cole blathered, but he headed toward the front door. “She was the one who acted all sluttish toward me! She was like an animal, like a hawk with talons, scratching me, biting me! Like an animal, I tell you!” Garrett kicked Cole again in the bum, causing him to stagger forward and clutch at the door. “Let’s give this vermin a parole!” he suggested hotly. Levi followed Cole onto the front stoop, the barrel jammed between his shoulder blades. “You’re not welcome in this town any longer, Waters.” Waters still protested. “But it was she who assaulted me! I had no control—she was all over me!” Apparently tiring of his lies, Levi shoved him violently with the pistol. Liberty really wanted to belt the louse again, but it was satisfying enough the way he stumbled over the step and fell to his knees. When he got up, his trousers were ripped, and blood trickled down his face where she’d bit him, so that would have to suffice. But he wasn’t done yet. Lupe and Josefina stood in the foyer now, too, and Zeke Vipham hotfooted it up Garfield Street as though he’d just heard about the melee. Cole Waters waved his arms wildly and proclaimed, “You can’t run me out of town like a common criminal! It is you who are the common criminals, with your groping and your—Agh!” It was impossible to believe, but at that precise moment a glorious bald eagle soared down the road. It was clearly at least seven feet from wingtip to wingtip, and it floated carefree right down the middle of the road. A more stately and majestic bird could not have been imagined, even if it had not been gliding around in the dark, after sunset. Its white-crested head was fluffed out in apparent anger, though, its yellow eyes flashing with intent, and it glided lower and lower as it neared the house. The eagle made a beeline for the ranting Cole Waters. There was a collective gasp once everyone realized the bird’s intention. It sailed

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low enough to tangle its claws in Waters’s hair as though Waters were a mere field mouse, talons just as vicious and destructive as he himself had just described Liberty’s. Slowly flapping its enormous, billowing wings, the eagle made as if to take off with Waters. “Agh!” cried Waters, and he whipped his arms around to beat off the bird. Reeling and stumbling, he started down the center of the street toward downtown. He navigated like a roostered man making Virginia fences, zigzagging wildly. He nearly plunged headfirst into the bed of the Fowlers’ cart, and many neighbors came out front to get a better view of the strange sight. The eagle kept its steely grip on Waters’s hair. With its dark brown wings flapping against the blackened night sky, it looked like only a white bobbing head as it dragged the hapless assailant downtown. Liberty was the first to laugh. Perhaps it was all the pent-up emotion of the assault she’d just endured, but suddenly she was engulfed in an enormous round of laughter. It overtook her so thoroughly she had to clutch the porch railing to prevent falling down. Levi and Garrett joined her, holstering their weapons and gripping each other’s shoulders. Lupe and Josefina even laughed, Josefina waving a ladle with hilarity. In the midst of this, Simon Hudson came onto the front porch, and his mussed hair made Liberty renew her laughter. “Took you long enough to get here, Simon!” Zeke accused. “It was the most amazing sight! An eagle appeared out of nowhere and attacked your friend Cole Waters—” “Who?” asked Simon, apparently still sleeping. “When?” “Hey,” gasped Levi. “It took you long enough to get here, Zeke. Weren’t you right behind us?” Zeke protested, “I just ran because you were running.” Now he laughed, too. “I had no idea why!” Liberty became aware that an Indian stood in the street. Immobile, he grasped a buffalo robe around his form, and his long silvery locks

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cascaded in curls over his shoulders. He seemed to appear from nowhere, and she was instantly drawn to him. Ignoring the amusement on the porch, she stepped into the street. The Indian didn’t even blink as she neared him. Initially she thought he must be very old to have such silvery hair, but as she got closer, she realized he was young. Younger than her, perhaps, and not an Indian at all but a white man masquerading as one. His round angelic face was set with two black buttons for eyes, and his cherubic lips smiled slightly as she approached. “Did you see the eagle just now?” He nodded with confidence. “I was the eagle.” Did he not understand her? “No, I said did you see the eagle just now? It attacked that man we were trying to run out of town. Almost as if it read our minds.” “Caleb!” Zeke shouted from the porch and came bounding over. “So good to see you again, brother! Did you see the eagle just now that was—” Zeke abruptly went silent as a look of recognition swept his face. “No…” He seemed to doubt whatever thought crept into his mind. “That can’t be.” “It can be,” said Caleb simply. For this must be the longed-for Caleb Poindexter, the great seer who had assisted Neil Tempest in shackling a murderer. Her sister had intimated that he had some powers of turning into an animal—a bison, if Liberty recalled correctly—but she had shrugged that off for obvious reasons. So she turned to Zeke. “Zeke, just now, did you see Caleb walking up the street? He seemed to appear out of nowhere.” Zeke sputtered, “I saw nothing. I saw the eagle practically carrying Waters off, then nothing, then suddenly Caleb was just…here.” Caleb shrugged. His eyes were so light blue they were nearly gray, giving him the wild look of an untamed aborigine. “I don’t need

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you to believe that I was the eagle. I’ve come here to tell Garrett where to find Brave Buffalo’s tribe.” Zeke insisted, “But I was there the day you turned into a bison, too! Tell her, Caleb. Tell her what you’re capable of.” Caleb told Liberty calmly, “I have the ability to use animals’ bodies to achieve different ends. Tonight I thought it might be fun to borrow an eagle, since that potato-head saw fit to accuse you of having talons. Show him what real talons feel like.” “But…” said Liberty. “How did you know what that potato-head said to me? We were inside the house.” “He has visions!” Zeke cried. “Isn’t that right, Caleb? I tell you, Liberty. He’s a werewolf with the power of acting on other people’s minds.” He slapped the seer with the back of his hand, right across a pictograph of someone slaying a bison that was painted on his robe. Garrett was standing next to them now. “How does that work, Caleb? For I’ve been having some awfully strange visions lately, too—some that I would have preferred were left unseen—mostly while I sleep.” Caleb furrowed his porcelain, unlined brow. “Yes, I could tell that you have some powers, Garrett. Some visions come to me in dreams, but some—like the one I had earlier today—occur while I’m wide awake. I suddenly saw this fellow with a giant moustache attacking someone who seemed related to Ivy Hudson, only it wasn’t Ivy. So I knew it must be the new sister in town I’d heard of.” Liberty protested, “But you came here to tell Garrett where Brave Buffalo’s tribe is.” Caleb said, “Yes, and to see if I could help change the outcome of this Waters fellow’s antics.” He smiled with satisfaction. “Sometimes it’s fun to see if I can have an effect on the world around me, on the outcome of certain events. Are they predestined to happen, if I see them in my visions? That’s what you’ve got to ask yourself, Garrett. If you see, for example, someone dying. Can you have any effect on

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that outcome? I think it’s not written in stone. It’s more like a blackboard that one can erase and change with the power of will.” “Well, thank God for that,” said Levi, sticking out his paw to shake Caleb’s hand. “Who knows what might’ve happened if you didn’t show up to assist.” Liberty draped herself over Levi’s shoulder. “Oh, you fellows were doing just fine. How manly of you to sweep in there acting all martial.” Garrett said, “Hell. I’d say you were doing just fine before we got there, Liberty.” He smiled at Simon Hudson, who had finally woken up enough to join them. “She bashed him over the head with a bottle.” Simon asked, “How did you know to come, anyway? How did you know what was going on?” Levi and Garrett exchanged uncomfortable glances. It was Garrett who finally admitted, “The talking board told us.” Liberty knew that her father’s face would light up when he recalled his talking board. “That old board!” he cried, as if the board were a son of a gun, another old college friend. “So you’ve been using it? And it helped you out? I tried telling you, Liberty. That board once helped me find my favorite brand of ale. I could not find a single bottle of that stuff in Hyde Park.” Liberty asked, “So what did the board tell you? Go and find Liberty?” Levi said, “Not in so many words. Once we figured out that fellow’s name was Cole Waters and the board had made a manual error—” Garrett butted in. “Thanks to Zeke rattling the planchette around, all worked up over his mother.” “And then Paddy spelled out DEFILE, and we raced right on over here. Caleb, is that an example of altering the future?” “I’d say so. If you had ignored Paddy, who knows if those events might have remained unaltered? Now, who is this Paddy? I’m

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interested because I had a message from a Paddy, and I don’t know any fellow named that.” Zeke clutched the front of Caleb’s robe. “What is the message? Does it involve a Mrs. Grace Vipham of Downer’s Grove and a greengrocer named Ernest?” Levi closed his eyes patiently. “Zeke.” Zeke cried, “You said I could ask questions if your questions were answered!” Levi told Caleb, “Paddy is Garrett’s spirit guide.” Simon grinned gleefully. “Spirit guide? This is fun!” Caleb answered, “Paddy apparently wants you to find something he left behind in the mountains. If you find it, he can move on in the spirit realm.” Liberty touched her father’s arm. “Father. I would like you to meet Levi Colter. He’s the new Indian agent at Fort Sanders. And this is Private Garrett O’Rourke from the fort.” Simon shook their hands and said, “Why don’t you all come in for a cocktail? Caleb, maybe you can give me some more information on my gout.” Liberty said, “They can join us for dinner, since our only dinner guest was just run out of town.” “A bully idea!” Simon cried. He headed for the house, clearly eager for the cocktail. “Lupe! Set several more places at the table. I don’t know why I trusted that Cole Waters fellow. Even back in college, he had dubious interests. He was always going on about a machine that can print out documents for you. All you have to do is strike the letters and each letter will print. He claimed it was much faster than handwriting. What did he call it?” He chuckled. “The Writing Ball, I think.” “Ridiculous,” Liberty agreed. She dared to take Levi’s arm as they ascended the porch steps. “Thank you for listening to Paddy and showing up to save me.”

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Levi put on a modest face. “You were doing a good job of saving yourself. But it certainly didn’t hurt that we listened to Paddy.” “I wonder what it is he wants you to find.” Levi shrugged. “Maybe his dead wife’s jewelry.” After dinner, Caleb drew Liberty’s men a detailed map as to where they might find whatever Paddy had left in the mountains and where he believed Brave Buffalo’s tribe was currently located. And it seemed there was nothing left to do but to allow Levi and Garrett to go search for Shady and Moses.

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Chapter Fifteen “That’s right,” said Levi. “Hold her bud in your mouth. Slather your tongue all over her flower,” he said, using the terms of the erotic manuscript. Liberty was splayed back on one of their beds, wearing only a white camisole, her naked pussy revealed for the first time in all its glory. Levi noted that already the shell pink of her clitoris had turned a darker rose when Garrett had lapped away at it. It expanded and elongated in response to his stroking, protruding from the labia enticingly. Levi had no doubt Garrett could bring her to climax using only his strong tongue, but now it was Garrett’s able-bodied ass that excited him. Crouching on the floor behind Garrett, Levi ran a hand over the solid ridges of his abdominal muscles. He hunched over his friend, luxuriating in the heat of the dark body pressed to him. His lips felt as though they would be burned when he mashed them to the vertebrae at the back of Garrett’s neck. He slid his hand down and into the crisp bush at the base of Garrett’s jutting cock. He always loved the first moments when he gripped that monumental tool. It made his mouth water to squeeze the heft of it. Levi realized it was entirely possible to love a man. It was the same, yet strangely different, as loving a woman. Touching, stroking, loving each other seemed to enhance his own virility, not detract from it. It had something to do with the duality that Caleb had been discussing the night before. Caleb considered himself a “Two Spirit” who loved both sexes equally. But Levi had a feeling that if one touched the actual person of Caleb, one’s body would be extinguished

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in a column of pure flame. That was how strongly Caleb’s spirit burned. He was a powerful seer indeed, not just the scorned blacksmith and “Spookist” that some citizens claimed. Levi had been eagerly waiting for this moment. Garrett’s face was busily buried in Liberty’s bald muff, so Levi unbuttoned his chaps and slid his red drawers to the floor. He rubbed his cockhead against the velvety, hot skin of Garrett’s ass, humping his friend like a dog while clutching the hardened limb of his cock. Reaching to take Liberty’s dildo from its box, Levi rubbed the pointed end with the soap she’d brought from Freund and Brothers, a mixture of fat and wood ashes. He nudged it against the tight rim of Garrett’s ass, waiting for a response. If Garrett didn’t like it, he wouldn’t continue. But then, Levi had never known a man who didn’t enjoy being reamed up the ass. Garrett moaned as his fat tongue plied Liberty’s engorged clitoris. Levi felt his plump cock twitch in his hand when he massaged the anal ring with the dildo, so he slid it in an inch. It went easily, as though being eagerly sucked in. He pumped Garrett’s taut cock while fucking him with the dildo. Groaning against Liberty’s button, Garrett humped his hand eagerly, gyrating his muscular hips. Whether he craved Levi’s fist or the dildo, Levi didn’t know. But his mouth watered watching the play of muscles in Garrett’s back, the creamy skin sliding over sinews as he clutched Liberty’s hips, his head bobbing up and down as he licked. Leaving the dildo wedged up Garrett’s ass, Levi dropped to the floor and twisted his body, his shoulders flat against the floorboards. Garrett slumped, too, pasting his haunches to the floor and spreading his thighs wide, allowing Levi to continue fucking him. Levi was face-to-face with that impressive meat now. Sentences from the erotic manuscript came into his head. “He was used to being with more than two women in the same room at the same time, but this situation was something that he had not even dreamt about. The man next to him

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was relaxing on pillows. One of his feet was stretched out, trying to reach the organ of the young man who was massaging him.” It had aroused Levi to hear Garrett read that chapter aloud. “This pleasure is different from the pleasure that you get from a woman,” one character had claimed. “A woman may be soft and inviting, but a man is more challenging and rewarding in the ultimate pleasure.” He had never held a man’s penis in his mouth before, but just looking at the bulging, dusky cock throbbing in his fist made Levi dive on in, sucking more than half the length down his throat. From the sounds of Garrett’s gasps, Levi knew he’d hit the right combination of sucking and reaming. It was difficult at first to coordinate the two actions. He found he could do them in tandem at the same speed, raising his head to the humid crotch at the same time as he inserted the dildo and withdrawing both at the same time. Listening to Liberty’s catlike mewling let him know she, too, was close to climaxing against Garrett’s face, so he swiftly learned to synchronize his toying. He was proud to know that, being a man, his mouth was bigger than Liberty’s and he was able to inhale more of the impressive penis. When it lodged up against his tonsils he nearly choked on the cockhead and was gratified that he learned to back off a tad and continue. Nudging the dildo as far up as he could, Levi jiggled it around, to find the sensitive spot he knew was there. Ah. He knew he’d found it when the anal ring grabbed at the dildo. Ah, yes. Several energetic blasts of seed filled his mouth, and he swallowed quickly, enjoying the pungent, salty seed as it flowed down his throat. The cock pulsed and jerked in his mouth as he fucked the smooth ass with the implement, and his loud slurping sounds made him even hotter, more eager to sup every last drop of jism from his friend’s prick. Meanwhile, he could tell by the guzzling sounds on the bed above him that Garrett was putting his all into his pussy-licking. When

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Liberty’s choking cries lodged in her throat, Levi knew she was coming. A wave of satisfaction rushed through him to know she was being pleasured, too. He didn’t need to climax himself, as long as he knew the others were satisfied. When he milked the last succulent drops from Garrett’s prick, Levi raised himself on his elbows and watched over the edge of the bed. Liberty still jumped and twitched at every stroke of Garrett’s tongue, her toes planted on either side of his torso, curled up toward the ceiling. She gripped Garrett’s shoulder and dug her nails in, her mouth open in a soundless curse. She looked heavenly with her long black curls all spread out over her heaving breasts, just a wide-open spitfire reveling in the pleasure her men gave her. Levi stroked the soft instep of her foot as the book had instructed, causing her to gasp and slap his hand away. “You animal!” she said playfully. “Not my foot!” Garrett panted with the exertion of his activities. He slumped down to the floor next to Levi, his cock moving like a giant slug against his thigh. Levi grinned crookedly at his partner. “So how was it? Delicious, no?” Garrett wiped his face with his hand. “Oh, land’s sake, Levi. I haven’t eaten a woman’s pussy in ages. Forgot how juicy and tasty it is.” He reached up blindly to grab ahold of Liberty’s toes. “You come like a house on fire, my dear.” “Not her foot,” Levi reminded his friend, who promptly released the toes. Normally Levi would have been jealous and irritated to hear someone else call his woman “my dear,” but coming from Garrett, it didn’t irk him. The dinner with Mr. Hudson had gone smoothly. Hudson was full of questions about fort and Indian life, and Levi had been amused to see how openly Hudson accepted Caleb and his visionary antics. Apparently Caleb had earlier cured Hudson’s gout with herbs, and he seemed hell-bent to believe that Caleb had not only

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overtaken the body of the bald eagle but earlier had possessed a bison that somehow assisted Marshal Tempest to arrest a murderer. Levi felt good about his prospects in Hudson’s eyes. Hudson seemed to like him. But then, Hudson seemed to like everyone, including that odious Cole Waters character. It was the monetary situation that troubled him. Maybe Hudson didn’t know how little an Indian agent made. Or if Hudson did, maybe he was waiting for a quiet moment to inform his daughter that her choice was unacceptable. That she had to marry one of the Freund brothers. Or— the worst outcome of all—maybe Liberty herself scoffed at Levi for being a pauper and was just stringing him and Garrett along because it pleased her. Because it gave her expertise and talent she could later practice in her marriage bed. Rising, Levi went to the other room to pour himself a whiskey. He refilled Garrett’s and Liberty’s sarsaparilla cups, too, and sat. Soon Liberty came into the room. Since she had thrown her chemise back on, Levi couldn’t gaze upon her shaved mound, but she made up for it by sitting in his lap and stroking the side of his face. She had a new, troubled expression. “Now you can leave tomorrow morning and find Shady.” Levi couldn’t tell from her expression if that was a good thing or a bad thing. “Yes, it’s part of my job. I have to bring that jackleg to justice.” “To find Garrett’s ring.” “To find Garrett’s ring, to get whatever recompense I can from the supplies Shady stole. Whatever I can salvage from the land he hasn’t sold.” “Don’t forget about sorting out that crooked wakan man who is in cahoots with Shady.” Liberty sighed. “I’m going to miss you, Levi Colter. I dearly wish I could accompany you.” Levi sipped his whiskey and regarded the woman. She did seem genuinely sad to see him leave, even if it was only for a week. “Now, you know we can’t do that, Liberty. Your father would throw me a

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necktie party, for one thing.” Good. He had steered the conversation around to her father. But now he was stuck bluntly asking, “What does your father think of me?” “Oh, he likes you very much.” “As a…bodyguard? Or as a…friend?” Liberty made an exasperated face. “No, silly. As a beau, of course. He’s aware of our feelings for each other, as much as my father can be aware of anything.” Nervously, Levi wrapped one of her curls around his forefinger. He couldn’t even look her in the eyes when he said, “So the idea of us marrying has come up?” “Not in so many words, no. But a man’s intention is obvious if he is courting a woman, is it not? I mean…” Now Liberty’s voice became uncertain, with a shaky undertone. “That is the intention, no?” Levi was relieved he could honestly soothe her. “Of course it is!” He sank his fingers into her thick mane of glossy locks. “I would never compromise you if I had no marriage intentions. I fell irrevocably in love with you the moment I saw you on the train, Liberty Hudson. I knew then that you’d be the only woman for me. I pined away, absolutely hopeless until I saw you again. Even then I was convinced you’d never have me as your beau.” Liberty frowned. “Why not?” He had no choice but to be honest. “Because an Indian agent makes as much as a town postmaster. And that is no life to expect a lady to endure.” Liberty smiled with apparent relief. “Oh, who cares, Levi? I’ll soon make money as a teacher, and I’m sure my father will give me a stipend. It’s the least he can do for abandoning us in Hyde Park to die as spinsters.” “I don’t want your father’s money.” If his pride wouldn’t allow him to accept payments from Hudson, what were his options? He didn’t even want a wife of his to have to work as a schoolteacher to

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make ends meet. At the moment he was just happy that Liberty appeared to see nothing wrong with his financial status. And now she fingered the tattoo on his collarbone. He was glad to change the pointless subject, but now he was chagrined to realize the subject would be a sore one. “What meaning does this tattoo have? It seems to have some religious significance, as there’s a cross.” “Yes, it’s religious,” Levi agreed. “The snake around it means double-crossing, snakelike behavior.” “About something religious,” Liberty prompted him. Levi sighed. “Yes. When I was a journalist in Chicago, I was engaged to wed.” He felt her stiffen, so he rushed to reassure her. “My fiancée, however, broke it off, only a week before the wedding.” “Why?” Liberty breathed, her eyes round. Levi had to look away, at one of the new student’s desks Garrett had built. “We held different religious beliefs. I had not thought that would be a problem, as I was aware of her views, but she thought it an insurmountable impasse. I offered to convert to her religion, but she didn’t think that would suffice. It didn’t matter to me which version of the Bible I read from, but she wanted someone baptized in her faith.” “I’m so sorry. That must have been painful.” “I was so full of anger and despair that I had this tattoo made, to remind myself to be skeptical. That lurking under the apparent love of women can be a…” “A snakelike venom? That was terrible of her to throw you over for something that doesn’t really matter, Levi. Don’t you worry about me and my beliefs?” Levi smiled. “As long as we both believe a man can turn into an eagle, I think we’re safe.” She looked lovely with her head thrown back like that, wide open and honest with him. “Yes, we do have all those beliefs in common, don’t we? We both believe in the afterlife and that the spirit of some Irish fellow can force Garrett’s hand to write prophecies that later turn out to be true.”

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Levi had to laugh, too. “And that someone’s spirit can soar over the mountains and watch a hornswoggling toad scare the bejesus out of some Indians.” It did all sound completely loco, but Levi had seen too much cracked stuff lately turn out to be true. He didn’t think he had a screw loose. People who didn’t believe were the ones who were out of their heads. Garrett had gone out the back door, and they could hear him now hammering something together. Levi asked, “When do you plan to open your school? We’ll need a new place to meet once that happens.” “Yes, which is why I’m not in any particular hurry to open,” Liberty admitted. “We don’t have enough desks and chairs, for one.” “Did you receive the slates and books you wanted?” “Oh, blue blazes, no. I only sent the telegram asking for them a few days ago. Although with this new fast train, it’s entirely possible they could arrive any day now. Still, I don’t have nearly enough desks, so you needn’t worry about having no meeting place for a while.” Levi stood, placing Liberty on her feet. “I’m going to go help Garrett with the furniture. I want you to be able to open up your school as soon as possible.” As he turned to go, he thought he heard Liberty say something. He couldn’t be sure, though, so he turned back to face her. “Excuse me?” She looked so prim and proper, her hands folded in front of her lap. “I said I love you, Levi Colter.” Such happiness had never filled him! Levi’s heart actually felt about to burst with emotion. He was so overcome he could only reply stupidly, “I love you, too, Miss Hudson.” Then he put on his Stetson and went to help Garrett hammer.

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Chapter Sixteen They had found the lone pine tree sticking out of the rocks easily enough. After a twenty-mile ride out of Laramie City, they had followed the railroad tracks to where the workers had actually jogged the track aside to preserve the tree. On the trip into town two weeks earlier, Levi had just been too preoccupied to notice it. As the duo rode up, they noted a fellow standing by the tree. He wore a leather vest and looked appropriately grizzled as he apparently watered the tree from a wooden bucket. As the train was stopped nearby, Garrett assumed he was an engine driver or a stoker, but it did look suspicious that he was even standing there atop one of the huge boulders that surrounded the tree. Dismounting, Garrett and Levi walked around the tree, kicking up stones here and there. Having finished his watering, the engineer gazed reverently at the tree. Garrett and Levi shared questioning glances, and finally Garrett spoke. “Why do you water this tree?” The engineer didn’t answer immediately, as though Garrett had interrupted his prayer. At last he allowed, “This is where old Grenville Dodge was nearly murdered by Injuns in sixty-five when he was surveying this route. He rode lickety-split like greased lightning past here to reach Cheyenne. So us engine drivers have agreed to water it, to keep the memory alive.” This didn’t sound any less suspicious, although Grenville Dodge was the Union Pacific’s chief engineer. Garrett heaved himself up onto the rock formation and noted the earth the geezer watered looked recently disturbed. Sliding down into the depression, Garrett kicked

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some earth until he uncovered what looked like a body part. But it was dark in the hollow, so he squatted down. Squeamishly he used his bowie knife to move aside a few lumps of the clay soil. Sure enough, a moccasin was revealed, and Garrett clambered back up the rock. He gestured with his knife. “You ever notice that there’s a foot sticking out down there?” The engineer looked but didn’t seem surprised. “I been watering this tree for weeks on this leg of the journey, and I never noticed no foot before.” “And you’d remember if you saw someone hauling a body and tossing it down there?” “I think I’d remember that. I’m not a drinking man.” “So you’d say it wasn’t there two weeks ago?” “I couldn’t say. But I’m not a drinking man.” Garrett tipped his planter’s hat to the engine driver and waved an arm for Levi to climb up on the rocks. “Bring the shovel.” Together they descended into the darkened hollow. “I don’t truck with any departed bodies,” Garrett stated. Since the war, dead humans had given him the creeps, so he graciously allowed the rightful Indian agent to dig and reveal the body. “I’ll be able to tell you if it’s Caeser Moxus or not.” Luckily, Levi apparently had no such compunctions, and he struck the shovel into the soil around where it looked the head might be. “No point in robbing the grave,” he opined. “Might as well leave him here, since it appears to be well-watered and respected.” Garrett pointed out, “His tribe will want to bury him properly. You know those scaffolds they place them on, high enough so the critters don’t get them.” “They also bury well-known people in secret hiding spots. And we can’t very well drag him around with us while we’re looking for Shady.” Squatting, Levi crumbled the clay from the corpse’s face. “Here you go. Is this Caeser?”

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Garrett bent over only close enough to identify the face. Half his forehead had a caved-in look that could have been created by the railroad tongs. “Yes. That’s Caeser Moxus.” Levi regarded the chief. “Just as we were told.” Feeling creepily like a body snatcher, Garrett watched as Levi removed a necklace from the chief, for purposes of identifying it to his tribesmen. He was glad when Levi crunched it up and put it in his own pocket. “What you doing down there?” yelled the engine driver. “Whose body is that?” “Don’t worry.” Levi waved up at the fellow. “I’m the agent from Fort Sanders.” Quieter, he said to Garrett, “Would you like to say a prayer? Something in Lakota?” Garrett closed his eyes and became still within. He strove to recall the words used at the last Sioux funeral he’d been to. “Ate Wankantanka, Mitawa ki…” he started out. My Father, Great Spirit. Who sends the wind and the white snow from the north, to make your creation clean and pure. Father, make me clean and pure within my heart, that I may be accepted in your sight and judgment. He was surprised the Lakota words came back to him so easily. It had been three months since he’d attended a Sioux funeral. He was the unofficial interpreter at the fort, the official fellow being a bastard from Yankton who didn’t know beans about Indians. As he spoke the Lakota words, a vision came to him. Out of the blue, he saw a white man’s hand shoving a bag full of what he knew to be hollow eagles’ quills into a recess in a cliff’s face, sort of a small natural stone cave. He didn’t know how he knew the bag was full of quills, and he didn’t know who the white fellow was. “You have added another day to my life, for which I give you thanks with all my heart. Amen.” The image of the hand and bag was gone, and there was no point in telling his partner about it, since he had no idea what it meant.

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Except that Garrett knew that eagles’ quills, in the hands of white men, usually contained gold. **** Garrett held Levi in his arms, his silken head cradled in the crook of his arm. Levi’s hand strayed absentmindedly across Garrett’s chest, and he was probably thinking about the mission ahead of them—to find Shady, following the map Caleb had drawn for them. They were spooning together under their buffalo robes because it was cold. Simple enough. But feeling Levi’s naked haunch against his hip was making Garrett hot. When Levi brushed his fingertips against Garrett’s nipple, his cock stiffened, jerking the buffalo robe in the light from the campfire. Garrett tried to change the subject. “When you wed Miss Liberty, we probably won’t see each other anymore.” Levi’s response was instantaneous. He popped his head up to glare righteously at Garrett. “Not at all! I still have to work at the fort, you know. I’ll have to distribute future annuities to Indians, even if Shady didn’t.” He laid his head back on Garrett’s chest and resumed his remote stroking. “But where will you live with Liberty?” “I don’t know.” Garrett knew it was Levi’s destiny to marry Liberty. Paddy had told him so. But the idea that he’d have to remove himself from their vicinity—the idea that he’d never again be able to do something as simple as hold them in his arms and kiss them—filled his stomach with doom and dread. Garrett didn’t want to sever relations with them. Levi and Liberty brought an affection and security to his life he hadn’t felt since before the war. As if he now wanted to change the subject, Levi’s hand drifted over Garrett’s abdomen, quickly meeting up with his bulging

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cockhead. Levi cupped it as he peppered Garrett’s exposed throat with small, gentle kisses. “I’m not going to stop knowing you,” Levi said. Knowing you. There was a big difference between knowing someone and continuing to make love with them. Perhaps Garrett became insecure then and wanted to cement his hold over Levi. But he reached out to the satchel that he’d placed near his head, withdrawing a tin of bear grease. Bear grease was useful for many things such as greasing saddles and hair, but now Garrett took a big palmful of it, sensuously applying it to Levi’s cock. Levi flung the buffalo robe back and unfurled his spine, stretching slowly and sinuously as Garrett massaged his prick. The cock gleamed erotically in the moonlight, and as Garrett pumped, he realized he was jealous of Liberty. She would get to share Levi’s bed, to make intimate decisions about their mutual future. Garrett would be tossed back to his cook’s kitchen at the fort, making giant cauldrons of chile con carne for apathetic and bored soldiers, listening to their belches and brawls as he tried to sleep at night. Alone. Garrett released the cock and got to his knees. Displaying his backside to his partner, he handed him the bear grease tin. The meaning was promptly evident to Levi, who eagerly kneeled behind Garrett, smoothing a finger full of grease against his anus. “You sure you want this?” Levi hunched over his partner, his erection bobbing between Garrett’s thighs, brushing his ball sac. “I don’t want to hurt you.” “You’re not going to hurt me,” Garrett scoffed. He knew the implication, the roundabout taunt about Levi’s prick size, would rile him. It worked. Levi positioned his cockhead against the anal ring and pushed. Garrett breathed, trying to relax. He had never been impaled by anything other than the ivory dildo, which was considerably narrower than the penis now spearing him. When Levi grabbed his erect tool and stroked it lovingly, Garrett did relax. Maybe this was

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part of The Pleasure of Woman book that he hadn’t read. Some method two men used to control each other’s reflexes and responses. It was working. Garrett relaxed his backside as he concentrated on the hand frigging him, and the cock slid inside him until it almost reached that sensitive spot—the spot Levi had reached with the dildo before. “I want you to fuck me, Levi.” Levi murmured into his ear, “I want to fuck you. God, I want to fuck you. You’re an absolutely delicious thoroughbred, Garrett. I’m going to screw you until you cry out in ecstasy. I want to watch your seed shoot across the grass.” Levi’s nasty talk aroused Garrett to greater heights. He raised one knee and placed his foot flat on the buffalo robe to give Levi better access, hunching over submissively, squeezing his own ball sac for lack of anything else to hang onto. It was a thin line between pain and pleasure. The fist pumping his meat brought waves of desire into his pelvis, filling his balls with thrilling lust. Gooseflesh rose on the globes of his ass as Levi fell into a humping rhythm, sighing and shivering with rapture as he fucked him. “That’s right,” Garrett encouraged him. “That’s good, Levi. Keep screwing me. Shove that big prick right up my ass. Plunge that fat, well-hung cock inside me. I want to feel you explode inside of me— Ah!” It came unexpectedly fast. Levi’s cockhead hit the sensitive spot far up inside his rectum, triggering a massive ejaculation. So Levi got his wish, as a shining arc of Garrett’s jism shot several feet across the grass. Garrett gasped and clutched the hand that frigged his cock. Levi’s cock pulsed wildly inside his channel as he came deep inside Garrett. Garrett reveled in the submissive sensation of being fucked, being the receptacle for such a delicious, massive load of semen. Levi clutched his chest to him, gasping rhythmically as he stabbed Garrett’s ass with his jerking prick.

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At last they fell down onto the buffalo robes, limp hands splayed across their stomachs, sighing at the starry bowl above them. The fire was fading into extinction, the charred wood crumbling as it hissed and collapsed upon itself. Levi pulled a robe up over them. It was odd that he gently kissed Garrett’s face. Garrett shivered, wondering if this were Levi’s swan song, his final act of love before committing only to Liberty. Of course they would continue to “know” each other. They had to work together at the fort. But would Levi turn aside his head in shame every time he had to come to Garrett’s kitchen for his daily bowl of stew? Garrett sank into such a deep, all-encompassing sleep that he had no visions at all. His spirit didn’t soar over the surrounding countryside. In fact, when he woke, his last memory was of Levi nuzzling his face into Garrett’s underarm. Garrett wrapped his arms around his lover, trying to think only of the moment and not of the desolate future.

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Chapter Seventeen They crested the ridge of the Laramie Mountains. It protected the valley where Caleb’s map indicated they’d find Brave Buffalo’s people. Levi held a glass to his eye to get a better view of the cook fires and tipis. About fifty tipis were spread across the green carpet below, people milling around in the smoky mist of this early morning hour. “We should find Shady’s camp,” said Levi, as they had already discussed. “Shady’s not liable to be hanging around the people he’s terrorizing.” “We could find the crooked wakan man first,” Garrett suggested. That was a new idea and entirely possible, but Levi was skeptical. “And do what? Torture him into telling us where Shady is hiding? No, his camp’s got to be up here somewhere, within quick riding distance of the encampment. No sense in riding in there to shake everyone up.” Garrett added, “They probably wouldn’t believe you that their wakan fellow is in cahoots with Shady anyway.” So they circled the valley, passing under fantastic rock formations where a giant hand had stacked up boulders as big as ten men. They rode under a cloud of spotted orange-brown butterflies. They must have disturbed them, and the butterflies gave away their position when the gathering rose as one and fluttered overhead. But Levi had to wonder if Caleb’s spirit infused them, so he followed the path they seemed to indicate, bringing them lower and closer to the Indian encampment. As he rode, Levi’s mind wandered back to Garrett and the intimacy they’d enjoyed last night. He didn’t want to give up Garrett,

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and he knew Liberty didn’t want to either. Didn’t Liberty’s sister Ivy savor an unusual relationship with both Marshal Tempest and that Captain Park who had translated the erotic manual? He would have to ask Liberty about it. Perhaps he would have to accept Simon Hudson’s largesse if he wanted to build Liberty a proper house. He didn’t want her living in the schoolhouse, as so many schoolmarms did. Or he could go back into journalism like his friend Henry Morton Stanley. But a newspaper might send him to the Ottoman Empire to be imprisoned, like Henry. He could be of no use to Liberty if he was languishing in Istanbul eating bugs and wondering where his expedition had gone. Perhaps he could go back to the Tribune in Chicago and write for them about the ever-changing and wild Western frontier. But eventually they’d send him somewhere else. Journalism was not conducive to raising a family. A family! Why was this thought suddenly crossing Levi’s mind? Well, that’s the way his thoughts were trending lately, since bumping into the stunning and brazen Miss Hudson on the train. It occurred to him she wasn’t the sort to want children, with all of her talk about pessaries and family limitation. She didn’t seem the sort to take kindly to “involuntary motherhood,” the talk of all the suffragists. But for the first time in his life, Levi found himself yearning for a child. Oh, this was ridiculous! He didn’t even have enough grubstake to build Liberty a proper house. He was content with her covering her womb with acacia gum, for now. Ahead of him, Garrett had stopped. Levi rode abreast as Garrett whispered, “What in the hell…” Levi looked where Garrett was looking. On a bare knoll below them, he could make out a couple human shapes engaged in some activity. Thinking they may have stumbled across a romantic tryst, Levi raised his glass. This was no romantic tryst. Levi could tell by the foxes’ tails attached to his heels that one figure was the wakan fellow they

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sought. On the ground next to him lay his ceremonial pipe dressed with a fan of eagles’ feathers. “That’s Shady,” Garrett breathed. “What’s he doing?” It looked as though the other, wiry figure in the battered slouch hat was kicking something. Levi focused the glass and saw that Shady was kicking bones. “Bones? What are they—bison bones?” Levi had to look twice, squinting and focusing on the bones, to realize that the femur Shady kicked was much larger than a buffalo’s. How could that be? The bison was the largest mammal on the prairie. Only an elephant might have a larger femur, and Levi doubted that anyone had transported a bunch of elephant bones to this remote spot simply in order to kick them. He handed the glass to Garrett. “Why would he be kicking bones?” Now it looked like Shady was jumping up and down on the oversize bones. “Would they use bones to make some kind of ceremonial tea or something?” “That’s not what they’re doing,” Garrett whispered. Soberly, he handed the glass back to Levi. “It looks like he’s destroying dinosaur bones.” Dinosaur bones? Jamming the glass back into his eye socket, Levi asked, “Dinosaurs? I’ve never stumbled across any of those, although I’m sure it’s possible. Why would he be destroying them?” Garrett said, “The fossil remains of the mastodon are thought to be the bones of some god. This is probably a place of worship, and Shady means to scare the people further when they discover the bones all shattered and scattered about.” Levi lowered the glass. “Let’s go get him.” Girding their gun belts around their waists, the two men set off down the slope. Levi wore his revolvers with their butts to the fore for a quick draw. He wasn’t concerned with Shady getting the drop on him, even though they were heading onto the treeless knoll. Levi had

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spent many a boring hour at Standing Rock practicing his shooting, hitting bottles. He was a quicker draw than any other white man he’d seen. That, coupled with the fact that Garrett split off from him and would sneak up a rise behind the wakan medicine man, gave Levi the grit to proceed in full view down the rise. Shady whipped his head around to view Levi. He paused with his foot on a rib bone that was entirely as big as Shady’s decrepit, crumpled body. Of course, Shady’s hand instantly went for his holster, but he didn’t draw, merely yelled, “Who are you?” Levi waited until his horse had ambled closer and he could dismount. “Levi Colter,” he said, trying to sound affable. “New Indian agent out at Fort Sanders. Your successor.” Instead of being glad to meet a fellow Indian agent, Shady Barnhart squared his shoulder and squinted suspiciously at Levi. “What’re you doing way out here? Shouldn’t you be back at the fort getting all your supplies in order?” “I would be,” said Levi, “if there were any supplies to get in order. But it seems you left me with absolutely no supplies, aside from a sausage grinder.” Now Shady tried the brotherly approach. Hiking up his pants, he tilted his head and drawled, “Well, I reckon you’ll just have to start from scratch selling your next shipment of supplies.” “It’s not just the supplies, Shady. It’s the land you’ve been selling to settlers. Land that was meant for Indians.” At that, an owl hooted from somewhere over the lip of the knoll. The wakan fellow jumped in the air at the sound. Levi almost laughed at the way his treacherous limbs went all stiff and he leaped back several feet. The hooting was odd, because Levi didn’t think there was a single tree down there, so where would the owl be perched? Shady was unperturbed by the sound. “Well, you can look forward to many such economic transactions yourself, Colter. I was even kind enough to leave you some land to sell. I wasn’t able to

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make the transaction for that piece over by Serendipity Ranch, since old Caeser Moxus went and died on me.” “Before you could forge his signature.” Shady grinned toothlessly. “Yeah, heh heh. I forged it rightly enough, and you can use my penmanship as examples for your future dealings. The key to drawing the squished turtle is, you’ve got to make its face look rightly anguished, with squinty little eyes and—” That was it. Levi pulled the bracelets off his gun belt and stepped around behind Shady. “What you doing, Colter?” Shady shrieked. The wakan fellow’s eyes got big and round, and he ran over the edge of the knoll with hands held out in front of him as though feeling for invisible bushes. Apparently he startled the owl there, for more hooting was heard. Levi didn’t care. “Arresting you, obviously.” He had only snapped one cuff onto Shady’s wrist when the diabolical Indian agent yanked himself free. He did a jig over to a pile of stones that had obviously been erected for ceremonial purposes, kicking frantically at them. He was a thrashing fool with the bracelets flying, and it was difficult for Levi to get a bead on him with his revolver. So Levi strode to the pile as he leveled his revolver at Shady’s chest, the chest being the biggest target. “Off that pile, Shady. Give me your weapon.” “No one’s getting these damned rocks and bones!” Shady wailed. “I’m sick of these heathens burning shit, flinging dung, and yammering stuff that don’t make no sense! You’re not taking me in, Colter!” One of his more strenuous kicks dislodged a round stone beneath his feet, and Shady went falling to his ass among the rolling boulders as the pyramid disintegrated around him. His right, cuffed hand reached for his pistol, but Levi was quicker on the trigger, shooting off one of Shady’s fingers. “I don’t want to have to shoot you again,” Levi said honestly. “So you’d best stand up and let me finish cuffing you.”

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But Shady seemed possessed by some irrational thought patterns, for he struggled to his feet, cupping his bleeding, cuffed hand to his chest, and skittered back toward the mastodon bones. Almost wearily, Levi followed. What other limb would he have to shoot off? He’d rather bring the fellow back to the fort alive for proper justice to be administered. Since Shady was a government agent, he doubted it would involve Judge Lynch. However, if Levi delivered Shady to Brave Buffalo’s tribe… As Shady stomped on the bones some more, uttering slogans about red men and their final destruction, Levi merely reached out and lifted Shady’s revolver from its holster. He placed it in his own holster that wasn’t currently in use. He would just have to wait this one out, until Shady ran out of energy or had stomped all the bones to smithereens. A renewed burst of owl hoots, much louder this time and increasing in urgency, sounded directly behind Shady’s writhing body. It would have been humorous the way Shady jolted stiff as though hit by a lightning bolt if he hadn’t fallen directly back onto the pointed tip of a mastodon rib. The one he hadn’t been able to stomp into dusty smidgens. Levi’s jaw hung loose when he saw Shady wriggling around, the tip of the rib protruding from his side, directly between two of his own ribs, presumably. That was astounding! Garrett certainly knew how to make some convincing owl sounds. “All right, Shady,” Levi said calmly. Squatting down next to the writhing agent, Levi was able to shackle both hands together at the small of his back before he sat down, too, to ponder how best to get the dinosaur rib out of Shady. “You know, you’re wrong, Shadrack,” Levi told his associate. “You’re stealing from the government when you’re selling these supplies and lining your own pocket.” “Get this damned thing out of me!” Shady howled.

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“I don’t think that would be helpful,” said Levi. “I think that dinosaur rib is the only thing holding your liver inside.” He thought. “If that medicine man hadn’t of run off, maybe his mumbo jumbo could help you, don’t you think?” At last, Shady fainted from the pain or loss of blood. Levi started wondering where Garrett had gone. Just as he thought this, Garrett himself appeared over the lip of the knoll but directly opposite where the owl hoots had emanated from. He hauled the hostile wakan man by the arm. The fellow was so reluctant to come, his feet dragged against the grass. Garrett’s mouth turned into an O when he saw the immobile Shady, seemingly a goner. “How the hell did you get that bone into him?” Levi said, “The issue here is more like how the hell did you make those owl sounds when you were way over on that side of this knoll?” Levi pointed to where the hoots had come from. “Were you ever over there?” Garrett frowned. “Not at all. Hey, I don’t think you should take that bone out of his back. He’s liable to bleed to death before we get him back to the fort.” “And wouldn’t that be a shame,” Levi agreed. “Well, I need to know where my wife’s ring is first, before he dies. You have another pair of bracelets for this fellow, don’t you? I don’t look forward to keeping him in line until we can get back to his camp.” Levi had another pair of bracelets he had meant for Moses Taggart, and as he walked to his horse to retrieve them, a bewildering and beautiful thing happened. An enormous snowy owl suddenly rose overhead, its blocky, fluffy body ruffling with the air current. Levi instinctively put up an arm to shield his head, especially after the encounter with the bald eagle the other night. But the owl merely landed near his horse, blinking at him with its gleaming yellow eyes, outlined like a fancy prairie flower’s. It

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shivered as though cold, looking from Levi to Garrett with some sort of expectations. Levi and Garrett looked at each other. Garrett said something to the wakan man, who answered back. “He says this owl has been possessed by the spirit of a white man.” The wakan man yammered some more, and Garrett interpreted, “A white man who wished for something bad to happen to Shady.” “Caleb?” Levi whispered, looking from Garrett to the owl. The owl blinked but did not turn into Caleb, so Levi put the bracelets on the medicine man, and they went to inspect Shady’s saddlebags. They were lucky to find the ring formerly belonging to Garrett’s wife, although Garrett could find nothing resembling the necklace a coworker of Liberty’s had claimed was stolen from her. That they might find when they found Moses. They set off toward Brave Buffalo’s village. It wasn’t an easy journey, for they had to lift the entire mastodon rib along with the unconscious Shady and drape him across the skirt over the horse’s back, trussed up like a dead deer. In Brave Buffalo’s camp, Garrett let them know their wakan man had been deceiving them, but as suspected, no one bought it. Levi was forced to release the medicine man, but when they saw Shady with the mastodon bone sticking through his ribs, they were quite prompt in agreeing to allow him to shackle Shady to a lodge pole until they could come back for him. “We should’ve asked them if they wanted to allow their medicine man to treat him.” Levi grinned as they rode away in the direction Caleb’s map had indicated they would find Paddy’s wife’s jewelry. **** Paddy’s cache turned out to be only a quarter mile from the encampment.

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“No wonder Paddy has it in for Shady and Moses,” Garrett commented as he dismounted. “They’ve been perpetrating their flimflam directly over where he stashed his wife’s goods.” They wandered around, looking for two triangular rocks angled together to make a pyramid at slightly higher than eye level. The grotto did have a mystical feel that brought gooseflesh to Garrett’s shoulders. Garrett said, “I’m wondering what we’re supposed to do with this jewelry once we find it. Who will we return it to, for instance?” Levi said, “No one ever said it was specifically jewelry. For all we know, it’s just a jar of his mother’s special jam recipe.” “Or another map leading us somewhere else.” Garrett sighed. “I’d really like to get back to town tonight. Oh, wait. What’s this?” The second Garrett saw the mossy, triangular rocks, he was struck with one of those odd feelings. The feeling that he had seen this exact thing not very long ago. It usually came in the form of a hunch that he may have dreamed this exact thing, but it was always very difficult to pinpoint the time when he had this dream. The feeling always evaporated as quickly as it came, leaving just an impression that he was repeating the identical actions he committed earlier in the dream. Repeating them over again, as it were. So when Levi’s hand moved to pull back a triangular rock, Garrett already knew what lay in the opening behind it. “It’s a bag,” he blurted out. “What?” “There’s a bag in there full of eagles’ quills.” Levi looked strangely at him but didn’t question his knowledge. And sure enough, when he removed the second triangular rock and allowed Garrett to stick his hand into the dark cave, Garrett came away holding a leather bag. Mossy and moldy but capable of protecting the eagles’ quills he knew he’d find in there. At least a hundred quills spilled over Garrett’s palms, and he instantly knew by their weight they contained gold dust. They had

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been stoppered with clods of packed dirt, and Garrett gave one to Levi to open up. Levi shook the bright dust into his hand and looked up meaningfully at his partner. Garrett said, “Last night. I had a vision. I saw a hand stuffing this bag into the rocks. It must’ve been Paddy’s hand.” He was almost as thrilled to know that he’d seen Paddy’s very hand as to realize that he held a fortune. “How long ago, though, did he cache this stuff here?” Levi asked. “There was a big gold fever up near South Pass last July. Paddy must’ve been alive as of then to have amassed this much gold.” “What else is in the bag?” A folded piece of moldy parchment turned out to be a gold claim. It verified Garrett’s suspicion that Paddy had been mining around South Pass, because the claim was ownership in a Carissa Lode. And the owner’s name was Patrick Worth. Levi’s eyes shone. “Old Paddy! He sure was an industrious fellow.” “Sioux attacked some miners around South Pass last summer, drove everyone away. I wonder if Paddy means for us to reopen his claim.” “We can find out by consulting the talking board when we get back. The Mormon Trail goes right through South Pass.” They replaced the triangular rocks and strolled back to their mounts like pigs in clover, just chattering away about the gold and old Paddy. “How much gold do you figure this is?” Garrett asked. “Can you tell by hefting it how many pounds it is?” “Well, subtracting the weight of the bag—the quills don’t weigh anything worth recording—I’d say there are at least five pounds here.” “The going exchange rate is eighteen dollars an ounce,” said Levi. “Now, if we figure—ho, what’s this?”

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For Garrett had put his foot through a board. Levi instantly drew his pistol as though the board would bite them, but Garrett knew what it was. Squatting, he gently lifted the board from the clay into which it had been compacted. “A headstone.” And, as certainly as if he’d seen it also in a vision beforehand, he made out the hand-carved lettering. “Patrick Worth. Eighteen twenty-nine to death in eighteen sixtyseven. Last year,” he added needlessly. Levi was crouched down next to him, breathing onto Garrett’s neck. “Carpe diem,” he read reverently from the tombstone. Garrett recounted solemnly, “‘Pluck the day, trusting as little as possible in the future.’” Simultaneously they both looked up at the sky. “Thank you, Paddy,” Garrett whispered.

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Chapter Eighteen Liberty absolutely flung her arms around Levi’s neck when he returned to Laramie. It was no matter that he smelled of dust and grass and he had a corpse slung over his horse that seemed to have an enormous bone sticking out of its back. No matter that a hundred people were watching, including her father. She was going to throw her arms around her beloved and squeeze him until his eyes popped. Levi had telegraphed ahead from Sherman Summit about his triumphant return with Shady Barnhart and Moses Taggart. They had discovered Moses trying to trade a necklace of porcelain beads to a Sioux chief for a large hunk of land, and he’d been easily arrested. The Fort Sanders post commander, a Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Potter, was on hand to receive the prisoners, after Dr. Wallis figured out how to remove the dinosaur bone from Shady’s back. For now, it was simply divine to breathe in her beloved’s aroma as men who didn’t even know Levi crowded around to shake his hand. “Is that really a dinosaur bone?” Liberty at last asked, watching three men attempt to remove the body from the horse without jamming the bone any farther. Only a few men were shaking Garrett’s hand, fellow soldiers from the fort. She didn’t dare embrace him as avidly as she had just embraced Levi. There probably would have been a larger welcoming crowd if some of the townspeople had not been the beneficiaries of Shady’s trading schemes. “Believe it or not, it is. A mammoth bone.”

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A rather short, energetic fellow with an overlarge nose grabbed Levi by the arm. He held a pad and pencil. “I’m Henry Zuckerkorn, journalist for the Frontier Index.” Levi smiled widely. “Oh, a fellow journalist. What can I do for you?” “Well, if you could tell me, how did Shady come to have a dinosaur bone sticking through his ribs?” Henry Zuckerkorn. The name rang a bell with Liberty. Without forethought, she found herself asking, “Are you the fellow who enjoys spanking the prairie flowers?” “That’s right,” said Levi. “That’s amazing you recall that, Liberty. Yes, Zuckerkorn. That’s the name we heard. Spanking them while they’re dressed as schoolgirls, am I correct?” Zuckerkorn’s face blanched. “How did you…” Liberty shook Levi by the arm. “Dearest. This man wants to write an article about your heroic arrest of the crooked Indian agent. Why don’t you give him the story about the dinosaur bone?” But Zuckerkorn was already gone, darting like a fugitive into the crowd. After many dinner and fandango invitations, they were able to extricate themselves and head down Grand Avenue to the schoolhouse. While her men had been gone, Liberty had paid a couple of tracklayers to build more desks and chairs. A couple of bog hoppers who had been tracklayers painted her building a bright apple red. Her shipment of schoolbooks and slates had arrived, and she already had more than enough students to pack the classroom. She would have to set a date for her first class. She sadly knew it would be the end of an era—the happiest era of her life. It had been the ultimate gift, having the freedom to reenact scenes from The Pleasure of a Woman manuscript with her two men. She walked between both men as they rode. She tried to speak lightly and casually. “The school is almost ready to open.” The very air around them became heavier with the implications of this. She

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really didn’t need to say, “We’ll need to find a new place to meet.” That was already weighing on everyone’s minds. Liberty was surprised, however, to hear Garrett say, “I think we may have a solution for that.” “Wait till we get to the house,” Levi assured her. While Garrett criticized the workmanship of the new desks and Levi watered and unpacked the horses, Liberty opened a bottle of champagne she had smuggled from Vancouver House. Levi would like it, and she thought she’d have a glass as well. Having been a teetotaler, liquor affected her more strongly than most. She could get roostered after a few sips. So she tried it out first. Hmm. The bubbles effervesced in her nostrils and made her forehead feel airy, but she definitely wasn’t roostered. She should try some more. She nearly spat out a mouthful when Levi’s voice came unexpectedly close to her shoulder. “My dear,” he declared. “You’ve changed quite a bit in the short time we’ve been gone. Drinking? In the daytime?” “Very funny.” She slapped his shoulder lightly. Then she straightened his necktie. “I imagine you’ve changed quite a bit, though. Your first task as new Indian agent, and you’ve caught the culprit who was ruining your business. Stealing from the government.” Levi sighed. “I know there are some in town who won’t be congratulating me. Citizens who benefited from Shady’s dealings. We can probably get the land back for the Indians, but obviously the supplies are long gone.” His soulful brown eyes shimmered with emotion. Abruptly, he fell to his knees before her. She assumed he intended to lift her skirts and bury his head under them, which was fine with her, but he only took her hand. He addressed her, those radiant eyes pleading. “Liberty Hudson, I have been in love with you since the second I first saw you on the train. I want nothing more than to treat you gently, and I will never

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take for granted the small measures of your love and friendship. I will always love you with my heart first and then my body.” He was quoting from the sensual manuscript, and Ivy was pleased he’d obviously read the entire thing. But this was some elaborate way of getting his head under her skirts. He went on, “I know I don’t have much to offer such a stunning, talented woman as you. But I’d be forever honored if you would accept my proposal of marriage.” He seemed to become a little embarrassed then, for he added with a quirky smile, “You are one hellcat of a vixen, Miss Hudson. I want to devote my entire life to making you happy.” Overwhelming emotion rushed through Liberty’s breast. She had to sit, her knees were so weak. She blindly reached behind her for a chair, and Garrett raced forward and placed one under her. What was that wet stuff on her face? Blue blazes. I’m crying! Garrett shoved something into Levi’s palm. Levi looked at it, at first with surprise. Then a smile of recognition spread over his stately face, and he offered the shiny thing to Liberty. She had to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand to see that it looked like a ring. A ring that Garrett handed to Levi? Now Garrett got down on one knee next to Levi and put his hand on Liberty’s knee. “What do you say, Liberty? Levi would like to put Sadie’s ring on your finger, because after meeting you, I can’t imagine ever loving another woman as much as I love you. Right, Levi?” “Right,” Levi said and slipped the silver ring on. “Oh, Garrett. I love you, too.” Liberty laughed through her snot. “But I haven’t said ‘yes’ yet,” she pointed out. “Oh.” Levi sobered up. “That’s right. You haven’t. Will you marry me, Liberty?” “Yes.” Levi flung his arms around her and squeezed her so tightly she couldn’t breathe. But it was just as well, because her eyes were

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brimming with tears and her nose running down her lip. When Levi pressed his open mouth to hers in a lusty kiss, all she could think was, oh well. I suppose this is what married people do. Kiss snotty faces. She kissed Garrett then, too, and admired the sapphire ring. Levi shouted out the door for a nearby loafer to go get him another champagne bottle and one for himself while he was at it. Garrett cleared off the talking board, moving coffee cups and a box of chalk. He told Liberty, “Levi wanted to ask you that before we told you about our discovery. Remember the map Caleb drew us, showing us something Paddy wanted us to find?” “Of course. Did it turn out to be his wife’s jewelry?” Garrett allowed Levi to answer. “Not exactly. More like five pounds worth of gold dust and a claim to some mine in South Pass. So we need to ask Paddy what he wants us to do with it.” “Five pounds?” Liberty cried. “Remember? Caleb said he’d move on into the spirit realm once you found whatever it was he wanted you to find. Maybe he just wants you to keep it.” “Well,” said Garrett, seating himself opposite Liberty. “As much as I’ll miss old Patrick Worth—we found his gravestone, did we tell you? He died last year—I guess I’d prefer knowing he was happy on the other side.” “Unlike that poor greengrocer Zeke keeps harassing,” Liberty added. Levi rolled his eyes. “Poor Ernest. He’s doomed to float in noman’s-land between the living and the dead as long as Zeke keeps giving him grief.” Garrett put his fingers on the planchette. “Let’s check in with Paddy, if he’s still there. Paddy, what do you want us to do with this gold?” Liberty tried to quiet her racing mind as she mentally called for Garrett’s spirit guide. Five pounds of gold would be the answer to their prayers, but they could certainly not go against a dead man’s wishes. And before Garrett even spoke, the rappings that sometimes

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came began to sound against all four walls. This time, they banged out a rhythmic pattern, as though playing along to a snappy number like “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” In fact, it sounded suspiciously as though the spirits drummed out the rhythm to that very song that the band had been playing at Laramie depot when Liberty’s fateful train had steamed into the station. She smiled at her engagement ring, propped so prettily on the rim of the planchette, lifting her ring finger to admire it. She nearly didn’t notice when the planchette zoomed nearly away from her grip and quickly spelled out SPOUSE. The basket came to a standstill then, and all three séance-goers looked grimly at each other. It was Garrett who finally said, “He wants us to give it to his spouse.” Then the planchette leaped back into action, darting to where NO was handwritten on the talking board. It then proceeded to spell BUILD HOUSE. There was a collective sigh of relief at that. Liberty cried, “I must have made another manual error with the planchette. I’m sorry. I was just admiring my ring.” “Build house!” Levi yelped victoriously. “That’s much better than giving it to his spouse.” “Wait,” said Garrett. “Let’s make sure of this. This is too important to make a decision based on a manual error. Let’s rephrase the question. Paddy, do you want us to build a house with the gold?” YES. “Let’s rephrase it again,” Liberty suggested. “Paddy, what do you want us to do with the gold?” BUILD A DAMNED HOUSE. All three leaned back in their chairs, grinning ear to ear with relief. “I’d say that’s pretty definitive,” said Levi. Liberty said, “Wait. Maybe this isn’t even Paddy. Maybe Zeke’s mother is somehow really communicating with us or some random

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spirit bypassing this house. Let’s ask a question only Paddy would know. Paddy, how did you die?” TYPHOID. “Well, that doesn’t help,” said Garrett. “Any spirit could be spelling anything. How about this? Where is your mine located?” SOUTH PASS CARISSA LODE. “What do you want us to do with the mine?” BUILD MORE HOUSES. “Very funny,” said Liberty. “Let’s try this. Is that you making those rapping sounds?” YES. “All right. Why don’t you play ‘Rocky Road to Dublin’ against this table here?” “Liberty!” Garrett seemed to be appalled. “Why not, Garrett? He’s Irish. It’s a popular tune. He’d be likely to know—” Sure enough, the rapping against the walls stopped, and a soft rapping started against the table. Liberty looked at her men’s hands. They were clearly visible against the planchette. And the soft invisible fists were clearly tapping out “Rocky Road to Dublin.” Liberty began to tap along with her hands and feet, and Levi even gently crooned, In Mullingar that night I rested limbs so weary Started by daylight next morning blithe and early Took a drop of pure to keep me heart from sinking That’s a Paddy's cure whenever he's on drinking The mood was so jovial Liberty even recalled some of the lyrics, and she sang along. One, two, three, four, five Hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road All the way to Dublin

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whack fol-lol-de-da! Garrett did not look amused when Levi and Liberty began to beat the table so loudly they overwhelmed the gentler sounds of Paddy’s taps. “All the way to Dublin!” they bellowed in tandem. “Wait!” Garrett commanded, getting to his feet. He even stayed Levi’s banging arm with his hand. They stopped, and so did all of the rapping. They looked blankly at the table, expecting it to start up again. Liberty actually felt a sadness, a loss, as though a good friend had died. An overwhelming sorrow that was somehow tinged with joy filled the room, and she looked up at the ceiling. And the planchette, all on its own, swept across the talking board, hurtling to a stop across the word GOOD-BYE. “Good-bye, Paddy,” Liberty whispered. Garrett slowly sat, his wide eyes on the innocent and immobile planchette. His despair was plain, and he pathetically put his fingers on the basket’s rim once more. “Paddy?” he whispered. Levi said soothingly, “Caleb told us Paddy would move on in the spirit realm. I know he’s become like a brother to you.” “He’s always there when I need him,” Garrett nearly sobbed. Liberty stood behind Garrett and wrapped her arms around him. It was attractive that Garrett was so distraught over losing his teacher. She nuzzled his neck and whispered, “But it’s a new beginning, Garrett. Paddy has given us this gift to thank us for all the work we’ve done tracking down Shady and Moses to stop them from dancing on his grave and taking advantage of those Indians.” “Yes.” Levi rose. He came over and sat between Garrett’s thighs. “And that diabolical wakan man who was perpetrating all that flapdoodle on his people. From what I’ve seen of the Sioux, they won’t keep him in power long.”

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It was a good sign that when Levi massaged Garrett’s thigh, his cock elongated and expanded. If he were truly overcome with grief at Paddy’s loss, he would have thrown things against the wall or walked sullenly by the river. He would not be turning moist, lusty eyes to his partner. Levi continued, “Now we have a mine, Garrett. A mine! Have you thought about what this gift means? It means you don’t need to sling swill at the fort any longer.” He squeezed the juicy cockhead, and Garrett’s eyes fluttered. His nostrils flared, and he sank down lower in his chair. “You can tell the army to get off your back, that you’re going it alone from here on in.” Liberty knew how to further distract Garrett from his moping. Stripping off her blouse, she joined Levi on the floor between Garrett’s legs. She yanked her chemise down so her breasts bobbed, exposed and buoyant, and she smashed them to Garrett’s erection. Wriggling her shoulders, she frigged him with her breasts. It must have stimulated Levi, for he wasted no time in getting to his knees behind her and packing his own hard prick into the cleft of her ass. “Garrett,” she said. She squirmed her shoulders in a seesaw motion so the mounds kneaded Garrett’s lengthening tool. “Just think. We can build a house here in town now for all three of us. How large would you like your bedroom to be?” Finally a smile appeared at the corner of Garrett’s mouth. “A closet is fine, as long as I’m with both of you.” Levi leaned over Liberty’s shoulder to capture Garrett’s mouth under his own. They kissed hungrily while Levi humped her from behind like a feral dog. Almost immediately, Levi broke the kiss. Before Liberty even knew it, he had taken her in his arms and was carrying her into the other room. “We must celebrate our engagement,” he said with sparkling eyes. It was exhilarating to be literally swept away. Liberty had never felt so feminine as when Levi tossed her back onto one of the narrow bedsteads. The way he absolutely tore off his gun belt and flung it to

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the floor had Liberty stripping off her chemise and drawers and baring her shaved pussy. When she took the pins from her hair, her glossy locks covered her shoulders like a curtain. To look up and see two men smiling down appreciatively was enough to have her plunging her own fingers into her pussy, not surprised to find it slick. Without ceremony or any further ado, her nude fiancé dragged her toward him as he kneeled beside the bed. He gripped one ankle in each fist and she came willingly, spread-eagled. She bounced along so fast that before she knew it, his cockhead was nudged against her pussy. He gripped his prick and shook it up and down, rapidly diddling her clitoris and himself at the same time. Meanwhile, Garrett appeared behind Levi and was now massaging his own cock through the red drawers. When he whipped off his leather chaps and kicked Levi’s knees apart with one of his Wellington boots, Liberty’s pussy clenched and pulsed with craving. Garrett kneeled behind Levi as he unsheathed his splendid cock. Surely he’s not going to impale Levi with that thing? She was distracted from Garrett’s amorous antics when Levi’s cock nudged its way up her channel. She had not been fucked in so very long. Even the practice with the dildo didn’t prepare her for the fullness of Levi’s fat prick. Instinctively, Liberty propped both bare heels against the shelf of his lower back, straddling him to accept his plumpness inside of her. He stroked her face as he fucked her shallowly. “I want you with every cell in my body, Liberty. I want to come between your long, creamy thighs. You’re a sensuous peach of a woman, and I want to be with you till I die.” His sentiment was so powerful Liberty melted on more than one front. She bucked up against him to drive his cock deeper inside her, but suddenly she remembered. “My pessary!” Tossing Levi off of her, she stumbled into the next room and grabbed her reticule. She removed the small bottle and navigated back to the bedroom. She had been prepared for this eventuality. Even if

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Levi had not officially asked her to marry him, she would have brought her bottle of gum acacia with her. In the doorway, she stopped dead in her tracks. Garrett was hunched over Levi, his beautifully muscled ass bobbing, clenching with robust intent. His ball sac hung between his powerful thighs, slapping up against the back of Levi’s thighs as he fucked him. Slowly, full of wonder, Liberty walked around the men. It was fascinating to see the athletic Garrett with his nostrils flaring as he drew back a few inches in preparation for burying himself to the hilt inside his partner. Levi, with eyes closed, propped himself against the bedstead, a mixture of pain and bliss on his stately face. Liberty was riveted to the spot to watch Levi roll his head about on a rubbery neck as he accepted the full penetration of his partner’s penis. Liberty climbed back onto the bed and wrapped her legs around Levi’s waist. His prick was tight and full, standing out stiff at attention, fired up by the fucking he was receiving. Tilting her hips toward the ceiling, Liberty emptied some globular gum acacia into her pussy. She would use Levi’s bulbous cockhead as a plunger to jam the stuff up against her womb and protect it from being invaded by sperm. As she positioned his cockhead to plug up her hungry pussy, she murmured, “How does it feel being fucked by that beautiful buck? He’s well-hung, isn’t he? He’s got a tight, velvety cock, reaming you up the ass with it. How does it feel to be fucked by another man?” She purred her words of encouragement as she bucked her hips to accommodate Levi’s stiff tool. It stimulated Liberty to be filled with Levi’s cock while Garrett was fucking him. Levi lodged his cock inside her, and every time Garrett swung his hips and penetrated his partner, Levi was thrust against her. So Levi impaled Liberty deeper with every thrust of Garrett’s hips, and he was stuck in the most delicious place imaginable. Every time Garrett skewered him, Levi gasped, his eyes

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rolling up into his head. Liberty knew the pleasure was outweighing the pain because his own cock stayed up like a hammer inside of her, twitching and jerking. Garrett ran his hands up Levi’s chest and pinched the bullets of his nipples. Levi grunted and gasped. “Great Caeser’s ghost,” he whispered. “It feels like I’m being fucked by an enormous, virile buck.” Liberty ran her fingers through his damp hair. “Relax,” she advised. “I need to relax to accept your strapping, beefy cock.” “Oh God, Liberty.” Levi hunched over her, gluing her to the mattress. From this angle she could easily feel each stroke of Levi’s cock, the breeze from his swaying ball sac against her bare ass. “I’m being humped by this loco satyr, and it’s making me so hot I’m going to explode in your pussy.” Just as Levi uttered these thoroughly nasty words, Garrett threw his head back and gave a choking, snarling cry. It was fascinating that Liberty could feel Garrett coming inside his partner’s ass. The twitching and jerking of Garrett’s cock in turn made Levi’s penis pulse inside of her. The two men were plastered to each other, sweaty torsos clasped together, as they pumped their creamy life. Liberty felt the spurts against her cervix as she flung her thighs wide, embracing her fiancé so wholeheartedly that her heels dug into his shoulder blades. Levi pinned her to the mattress with his powerful hips as he ejaculated in her, and the spicy citrus aroma of the gum acacia mingled with his jism bloomed in Liberty’s nostrils, saturating her with pleasure. She bit down on Levi’s earlobe as he pumped his last milky spurts into her, and she felt free. Free from all restrictions, all moral constraints of modern society. She was wrapped up in a robust fuck with her two men, being pumped full of Levi’s semen just as Garrett was flooding Levi with his. She was all tangled up in the most proper and ideal spot on earth—the one spot her heart belonged.

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She must have fallen asleep—imagine! I fell asleep after all that!—because the next thing she knew, Levi was separating from her. A flood of juice dripped from her pussy as she was unplugged. Levi slumped with his head against her thigh. She sat up to cuddle his luscious head of hair to her abdomen. “When shall we marry?” she asked quietly. “We don’t want to step on your sister’s toes, as she has to marry Marshal Tempest.” “True. Us Hudson girls have been so lucky here in Laramie. Perhaps I should send for my other sisters.” Levi’s head popped up, his eyes wide in terror. “There are more of you?” “Two more. Don’t worry. They need to stay in Hyde Park to take care of the house now that Mother’s gone.” “Why don’t we marry right away? Next week? Give Ivy a chance to plan a lush wedding. This way no one can accuse the new schoolmarm of dallying around.” “That’s true. Then I can open the school as soon as three more desks are built.” “Where do you want me to build this house that Paddy instructed us to build? Near your father’s?” Liberty made a face. “No, thank you. Here in town maybe, but not near Father. Now, where has Garrett got to?” Slipping her chemise over her head, she found Garrett sitting at the table by candlelight, pencil poised over a blank sheet of paper. Liberty took a seat to sip some champagne, but she didn’t disturb her lover. She knew that Garrett was attempting to channel Paddy Worth one more time. He could not accept that Paddy had moved on. All at once, his pencil began to fly over the paper. Liberty didn’t want to interrupt, and she tensed when Levi entered the room, buttoning his trousers with a snap of the wrist then banging the front door to retrieve the fresh champagne the loafer had left on the stoop. But Garrett kept writing, sentences flowing rapidly.

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After a while, Liberty silently went to stand behind him and peer over his shoulder. “This is a new beginning,” Paddy wrote. “Thank you for freeing me, Private O’Rourke. “Never let your partners go, O’Rourke. They are your most valued possession. Whack fol lol de ra!” Standing, Liberty wove her arm through Levi’s and began to sing as he joined her in a jig. Then off to reap the corn and leave where I was born I cut a stout blackthorn to banish ghost and goblin In a brand new pair of brogues I rattled o’er the bogs, And frightened all the dogs on the rocky road to Dublin. One, two, three, four five Hunt the hare and turn her down the rocky road all the ways to Dublin Whack-fol-lol-de-da! Garrett, who had formerly disapproved of their irreverent singing, now tossed down his pencil and joined in the jig. And he lifted his knees higher than anyone as he stomped the wooden floorboards with his Wellingtons.

THE END WWW.KARENMERCURY.COM

END NOTE Lazzat un Nisa (The Pleasure of Woman) was first hand-copied in a mixture of the ancient Urdu and Persian languages by writer Mohammed Abdul Latif Muzdar Mehdune in 1850. The original manuscript dates back to the 16th century. The main subject is Harichand, who goes on a journey to find exotic gifts and beautiful women for the enjoyment of the king. The manuscript gives advice on sexual techniques. An instruction manual centers on how a man can arouse a woman during the twenty-eight days of the month. Apparently after learning this, a man can stimulate a woman whenever he wants. She will be so aroused that she will have an orgasm every time she merely thinks about him. If only it worked that way. But it’s nice to imagine!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Karen’s first three novels were historical fiction involving precolonial African explorers. Since she was always either accused or praised (depending on how you look at it) for writing overly steamy sex scenes, erotic romance was the natural next step. She is currently writing about the rough-and-tumble paranormal world of the transcontinental railroad in Wyoming and lives in Northern California with her Newfoundland dog.

Also by Karen Mercury Ménage Amour: Going for the Gold 1: Working the Lode Ménage Amour: Going for the Gold 2: Either Ore Ménage Amour: Going for the Gold 3: A Good Prospect Ménage Amour: Going for the Gold 4: Sure as Shooting Ménage & More: Going for the Gold 5: Blowing off Steam Ménage Everlasting: How the West Was Done 1: Training Ivy

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