Working the Lode (10 page)

Chapter Ten

Zelnora didn’t obey Cormack’s command. She had never shot at anything more frightening than a duck, but she was fully prepared to rub out anyone who would dare attack her mining camp. Following Cormack, she streaked it down to the campfire to hear Erskine shouting, “He’s choking on jerked beef! Do you have that tube thing you used to get McPherson to breathe?”

Zelnora couldn’t see past the clot of men hovering over the supine body, but they parted when Cormack arrived. Nutting’s face was red as an apple and he seemed unable to breathe, his arms flailing about. Cormack instantly flipped him on his stomach and punched two cupped fists into the pit of the man’s stomach. One, two, three times he punched between his ribs.

He told Erskine, “I lost the cannula when those Apaches raided us on the Gila. Get out your knife!”

Flipping Nutting onto his back again and dropping him, Cormack whipped the knife from Erskine’s hand. “Get my eagle’s quill from my tent,” he instructed his
compañero
with a sudden professional, level tone. Erskine took off like greased lightning to the tent while Cormack ferreted about with his fingers shoved down Nutting’s throat.

“Can you get it? Can you get it?” Men breathed down his neck with alarm.

“Nothing,” Cormack nearly whispered. “It must be lower than the forth tracheal ring,” it sounded like he said. As Erskine barreled back down the hill and placed the eagle quill on Nutting’s stomach, to Zelnora’s utter shock Cormack carefully placed the tip of the large knife at the base of Nutting’s throat.

“Hold his arms,” he instructed the men. With a smack of his palm against the hilt, the knife went through the throat muscle like cheese. What was he doing, some mountain man medicine? Did he intend to reach through a hole in his throat and remove the wad of stuck jerky?

The men looming over the body fell back in bewilderment, jaws slack. Blood that seemed darker than usual spurted through the hole, splashing Cormack’s hands and forearms. Cormack tossed the knife to the sand and dumped out the gold from the eagle’s quill. Almost more astoundingly than cutting his friend’s throat, he now inserted the hollow quill into the incision…and the man breathed through it!

Zelnora leaned back on her heels, overcome with amazement. No one uttered the smallest sound. Satisfied with his handiwork, Cormack said to Erskine, “This is a perfect cannula. I found that the shorter straight things keep it from dropping into the trachea. Raise his shoulders—Quartus, hand over that drum.”

“Bear’s ass!” Quartus whispered in awe, numbly handing over the beloved drum.

Cormack rolled the drum sideways under Nutting’s shoulders as the tomato shade of his face turned back into a shade more human, albeit sunburned. Cormack massaged as if to move the piece of meat down his throat, digging his fingers into the poor man’s neck.

At length, Bigler blurted out, “What in blazes did you just do?”

Erskine replied proudly, “Something called a ‘tracheotomy.’ I’ve seen him do it twice, once on the Lewis Fork and once in New York. Lots of doct—folks are afraid to do it, so they wait too long and the poor fellow has gone under before they get desperate enough to try.”

“Zelnora,” Cormack interrupted. “Go get that white shirt I was wearing. Can you cut it into strips maybe an inch wide?”

Zelnora fetched the shirt and cut it. With each strip she handed Cormack, he wrapped the tube snugly into Nutting’s trachea so it might stay without his holding it. She had seen several men choke to death in her time, at least two in the mines of Georgia, but never did it occur to her one could poke a hole in a man’s throat and have him breathe through it, bypassing his nose and mouth!

The millworker Sly finally asked Cormack, “Where in goddamn hell did you learn to do that? Something some Injuns taught you?”

“Yes,” Cormack said vaguely, still sliding his fingertips down the muscles of Nutting’s throat while Erskine poured whiskey on the bandages. “It’s medicine of some kind.”

“Medicine of some kind,”
bear’s ass!
Erskine had just told them he’d seen Cormack do it in New York, where they had presumably first met, prior to either one of them setting out for the Far West! This was no Injun medicine, and not something one picked up every day as an educated man of leisure in New York. Without thinking, Zelnora reached for the discarded bottle of whiskey and took several zealous swallows.

“There it goes!” Cormack reported cheerfully. Nutting gulped air through his mouth like upside-down whales Zelnora had seen dying on the beach, and Wimmer propped the mill worker’s torso almost fully upright against his knees.

“Goddamn,” said Nutting. “Did you really have to cut a hole in my neck, Bowmaker?”

“Ha ha!” cried Erskine joyfully. “
Viva Carlos Quinto!
You did it again, Cormack!”

Quartus sullenly took the whiskey bottle from Zelnora. “But now your gold is mixed back in with the sand.”

* * * *

“This way,
jefe
. I saw
el pelirrojo
go down that creek bed.” Three-Fingered Jack pointed with his revolver. Jack was chomping at the bit to go shoot at some oyster cans or animals of any kind, but Joaquin forbade the noise of any merrymaking now they were tracking the
norteamericanos.

“Alone?”

“Alone.”

“Good.” Maybe now they’d find out where the doctor câched all his gold.

There were more than thirty men working the Lion Island gold diggings, and the doctor known as Bowmaker had not returned to Sutter’s Fort to trade in his gold or register his claim. Joaquin knew by questioning—but not robbing—other men heading back to the fort that men had been washing three hundred dollars a day using Indian blankets as sieves, as no one was clever enough to construct a rocker as Bowmaker had done. Sutter had been sending up oxcarts filled with mutton haunches, peas, flour, kegs of gunpowder, picks and spades, and more men, so miners could concentrate on their work and have no need to hunt. Still, it was obvious Bowmaker was the main
jefe
of the island, as he’d been the discoverer. He had staked out what was obviously the most desirable length of riverbed. It would be easy enough to capture him and torture him into telling them where he’d câched his gold, then merely kill him. Bowmaker may be a toughened mountain man, but no one could hold out against Joaquin’s particular brand of Spanish torture.

Taking with him Three-Fingered Jack, Garcia, and Feliz, the group started down the steep declivity that led to a creek that fed into the American River. Over a few small hillocks, Joaquin heard the burble of the creek itself. He knew the water’s rush would obscure any rustling Bowmaker made as he câched his gold, probably in the trunk of an old oak. Joaquin was surprised no other white men followed as well, but then they all seemed to be trusting men, leaving their tools lying about at night, their tents unguarded during the day.

Indicating the other three men should wait, Joaquin slipped down a slight rise, skating on muddy oak leaves. It was simple to catch a glimpse of the glaring white of the doctor’s back as he stood waist-deep in a spot where the creek formed a pool. Bowmaker bent forward, the dappled shadows of oak leaves playing in an artistic chiaroscuro pattern across the sheer blankness of his back—no marks, freckles, or birthmarks whatever obscured the purity of his skin—well, perhaps a dusting of freckles across his shoulders. Joaquin was distracted by the strength of the sinews that undulated rhythmically under the skin of his flawless back. Did his own muscles move like that, like the flanks of a sturdy buck? Perhaps he himself was more slender than the doctor, who after all spent his days shoveling gravel and had probably walked for years across tall mountains, while the most strenuous thing Joaquin did was lift a pistol and order others about.

He did not often spy on naked white men who played in the sun, so he was riveted to a tree trunk, realizing the man was bathing. He had imagined Bowmaker had an underwater câche—that would be the clever sort of thing the surgeon would do—but no, he was rubbing his hands over his thighs under the water, and now his chest, socking his soapy hands into his underarms. Joaquin’s nostrils flared with curiosity when the man turned to face him, bending backward like a graceful willow at the waist and knees, wetting his hair in the stillness of the pool. His chest was absolutely magnificent, Joaquin thought jealously. The pectorals were robustly developed, the abdomen ridged with the sort of hardworking muscles no one in his band possessed, and he could even see the solid shaft of his penis when Bowmaker bent backward again to rinse the soap from his hair. If Joaquin squinted his eyes, he imagined he could view through the clear water the full thick and fleshy length of it, and
mi dios
if the goddamned doctor didn’t take the rough bar of soap, move up the ledge a few steps to bare himself to the speckled sun, and with two hands begin to lather up his enormous penis.

Joaquin was shamed to discover his breathing had quickened at the sight of the man’s nude body, pleasuring himself so blatantly. Yes, he was right, the doctor’s meaty tool was as magnificent as his body had promised, and Joaquin’s own penis engorged obscenely inside his
calzoneras.
Oh,
madre de dios
, how contemptible and disgusting to be aroused at the sight of a man slathering soap up and down the length of his admirable penis. There was obviously no gold câche here, so he should be leaving, but Joaquin couldn’t shade his wicked eyes from the view of the man taking immense titillation in what was no doubt the velvety feel of his long penis as it slithered through his agile fingers. Bowmaker leaned his shapely buttocks back on a mud ledge, spread his thighs, and took thorough enjoyment in stroking his fist the full heavy length of his penis, squiggling his fingers over the shiny bulbous crown until his jaw went slack. The sight sent waves of lust down Joaquin’s spine, stiffening his own cock until he had to pull his serape around himself and restore his pistol to its holster. He admired the way Bowmaker’s muscular pectorals jerked and shimmered in the sunlight, and the stiffness of his nipples made Joaquin’s mouth water.

Well, Joaquin was a wicked man, there was no question of that. What harm was there in perversely admiring the view of a long, donkey-like penis being stimulated to orgasm? He only wished his own penis was so long and beefy. He lustily desired to see the man ejaculate what certainly would be jets of delicious, hot semen—

What was he thinking? Turning to face the hillside, Joaquin squeezed his eyes shut, his heart pounding. What sort of filthy bastard was he, imagining things unacceptable to any decent Castilian? He needed to return to camp and say several—or several hundred—
ave marias
. What sort of penance would they demand from a murderous bastard who turned into pudding while spying on another man frigging himself?

“Maria santa!”

Oh dear Lord, it was Three-Fingered Jack, who couldn’t bear to obey orders, and had followed him.

“Shut up!” Joaquin hissed.

But it was too late, Bowmaker had heard the idiot and, with wide deer’s eyes, was already scrambling backwards up the muddy embankment like an agile spider, his stiff prick bobbing in the air.

“Maria santa!”
Jack giggled again, and Joaquin gripped him by the arm to haul him back over the hillock. Of course they had been seen, Bowmaker knew someone was trailing him, and all because this moron couldn’t resist snickering at the sight of an erection!

Once safely over a couple of hillocks, Joaquin tossed the fool to the ground and, enraged, punched him several times until he felt the satisfying crunch of cheekbones under his knuckles.

“You idiotic mule!” he shouted quietly, as Bowmaker might have decided to chase down his stalkers, and a mountain man seldom pulled the trigger without sending the bullet to the mark.

Although his nose poured blood into his mouth, Three-Fingered Jack still giggled like a girl. “He was fondling his own prick!” he excitedly told the others, and they, too, fell to laughing like the imbeciles they were.

Joaquin snorted hotly through his nostrils. “He saw us! We’ve got to get out of here!”

They had left their horses over the next ridge, so they set to scrambling over the rise. Indeed, Bowmaker had dressed hurriedly, and Joaquin just saw the roots of his fiery hair pop over the rim of the hill before they skied down the side of another one. They were accustomed to fleeing, but Bowmaker was accustomed to chasing, more out of curiosity than murderousness, Joaquin concluded after many long minutes running.