Working the Lode (16 page)

“So he had nothing to do with General Vallejo’s ranchero?”

Quartus shook his head. “Not that I know of, unless he was robbing Vallejo.”

At the fort, Cormack went off to get new boot soles. Mercy was saying her goodbyes to Erskine in the assayer’s office, and Zelnora had some gold dust to trade for new Californio skirts and a chemise that wasn’t torn to tatters. Quartus, bosom
compañero
to the murderous brigand Joaquin Valenzuela, trotted along at her side. He pointed out various lethal weapons, holstered or not, about the persons of alleged cutthroats and mercenaries, all of whom Quartus was suddenly well-acquainted with.

“See that horse pistol Dan Carlton is wearing? You can take the head off a moose with that thing!”

Zelnora rolled her eyes. “Quartus. Dan Carlton is a farrier. He makes better money than most miners. He hardly needs to resort to shooting moose. Besides, the closest moose is two thous—”

“Ooh, there’s Reyes Feliz!” Quartus trilled, grabbing hold of Zelnora’s arm.

“And who is Reyes Feliz,” Zelnora said flatly.

“Who is Reyes Feliz? Why, he’s only one of Valenzuela’s main accomplices! I heard that Feliz was in jail in Calaveras County once, and Valenzuela pretended to be this fellow he’d just killed in San José. He walked right into the jail, presented the dead fellow’s papers, and sprang Feliz!”

“My, my,” Zelnora said. Yet the black silk kerchief tied in back of his head reminded her of one of the bandits who had accosted her and Cormack, and the ball-and-chain buttons that closed the sides of his
calzoneras
confirmed this. She had an idea.

“Quartus, we’re going to play a game with the bandits,” she whispered into his ear, then took him by the arm to saunter by where Feliz lounged against an adobe wall. Louder, she said, “My, Quartus. Can you believe we’re taking five hundred dollars a day out of our claim at Lion Island? But I heard the gold from around Sonoran Camp is even better.” She elbowed Quartus for his cue.

“Sonoran Camp? Why, yes, Zelnora, I have heard the same thing, also.” He spoke very woodenly, as though reading from a script. “There is some very pleasant gold around Sonoran Camp.”

They had caught Feliz’ attention. “I’ve heard of one fellow near Sonoran Camp mining a mass of twenty pounds, mixed with quartz. There must be a giant quartz vein around there.”

Quartus was warming to his topic. “Yes, we must make a plan to head down to Sonoran Camp.”

Zelnora continued loudly, “It is fortunate we are not going with those missionaries over the Sierra Nevada, for they live in poverty, and have absolutely no gold at all.” Feliz’ eyes were intent upon a spot about two feet beyond Zelnora’s shoes. He held himself still as a listening deer, not even breathing.

Quartus flung a dramatic arm. “My, yes! How destitute those ignorant missionaries are! What fools to start over the mountains in late July! Why, remember the Donner company, their bones discovered at their cheerless fires! Where oh where were the green and flowery plains of which they had dreamt?”

“Cheese it, Quartus,” Zelnora muttered from the corner of her mouth. Louder, she proclaimed, “All right, then, it’s decided. We leave for Sonoran Camp in four days. It is too unlucky we aren’t acquainted with anyone who can partner up with us, someone with valuable mining experience such as I have.”

Quartus was still orating about the Donner company’s fate. “They left their happy, happy homes with buoyant hopes and fond anticipations! So changed had the emigrants become, when the party sent out arrived with food, some of them cast it aside, preferring putrid human flesh!”

“Yes, yes, I’ve heard Sonoran Camp is also loaded to the muzzle with vagabonds,” Zelnora said, to distract him from his cannibalistic fervor. “Scoundrels from nowhere, rascals from Oregon—”

“Pickpockets from New York!”

“Yes, and accomplished gentlemen from Europe, interlopers from Lima and Chile, and assassins—”

Quartus pointed excitedly. “Assassins manufactured in hell to convert highways into theaters of blood!”

Zelnora smiled widely. “Yes, exactly!” Taking Quartus’ arm again, she felt she had gained sufficient attention from Feliz, so she strolled out of earshot. “We shall fit right in there, don’t you agree?”

Chapter Sixteen

“You’ve been so quiet lately.”

Cormack shrugged as he handed an Indian his nightly bowl of roasted beef and pork beans. He’d been forced to employ several to help wash gold after Erskine’s departure to Sutter’s Fort. His only rules for them were to work a full day without running off and to utilize pants, or at least breechclouts. They could wear any silly manner of hat they desired. One fellow had fashioned a hat from a gold washing pan, the most valuable tool in the entire state.

“I know. It’s just…my feet wet all day, hot sun on my head.” Zelnora handed him a bowl of beef freshly grilled on a willow stick over coals. He dumped a spoon of beans into it and handed it to the last Indian. “Just making me cracked. The very air around here’s like an oven.” It was a flimsy enough excuse that every man at Lion Island could claim. To distract Zelnora, he asked, “Where’s Quartus?”

“At the blacksmith, sharpening our shovels and axes.”

Cormack meandered to his favorite flat rock where they often sat in front of Zelnora’s tent. Raising the whiskey bottle, he poured himself a goodly cupful and a smaller cupful for Zelnora. “Elias Fowler’s having a bit of a fandango later on, would you like to go?” Fandangos in an all-male mining camp were often riotous affairs. Men took turns affixing a scrap of white cloth to their shirts to designate themselves as women, and the dancing proceeded thus, usually making enough noise to keep the wolves awake.

Zelnora accepted her cup. “That would be pleasant. You know, we could take a prospecting journey down to Sonoran Camp area. It might be a positive force upon your health, and the health of your…outlook. There is a Peruvian harvest of precious metal down there. I heard there were seventeen thousand dollars of flakes and nuggets taken out in one week. The prospect is most favorable.”

Cormack nodded. “These diggings are drying up, I’ve noticed over the past week.” Casually, he added, “I sent Erskine down to San Francisco to bid on a lot—there’s one I favor on Pacific Street.”

Zelnora set her cup down. “A lot? A lot for a house? I mean…what do you want to do with a lot?” She was trying to remain aloof, Cormack could tell, but her eyes shone with the idea of a permanent structure in the settlements.

He looked up at gnarled oak branches. “A house, sure, why not? Brannagh will bid fiercely against me even if he doesn’t have any particular plans for it, but…Erskine is to pretend the lot’s for Sutter, since his plantation has been abandoned by all workers and his creditors are calling for his loan.”

Zelnora didn’t appear to hear anything about Sutter as she scooted off her rock and came to sit on the ground between his thighs. “A house? What sort of house?”

Sticking out his lower lip, Cormack appeared to ponder, though he already knew his answer. “Haven’t really thought about it. I do admire Vallejo’s hacienda, with the three foot thick walls and that giant river rock fireplace. I’d like to give you windows with real glass, too.” This was his first specific mention of their future together, and as much as he knew it’d please Zelnora, it would dredge up even more fresh questions. He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved at the question Zelnora chose to ask.

“You’ve been so reserved ever since…since Valenzuela robbed us.”

Cormack’s cock stiffened, maybe at her thumb rubbing his thigh, or embarrassingly enough, at the mention of Valenzuela.

He had not been able to get that memory out of his mind, Valenzuela tossing him across his knee like a recalcitrant child and slapping his rump so erotically. Valenzuela could have beaten him much harder with the quirt, but he didn’t. Cormack was now convinced the spanking was of a carnal nature, and Valenzuela had certainly succeeded if his goal was to make Cormack randy. Sure, Valenzuela was probably attempting to rile him into admitting where his gold câche was. Yet he had spent hours pondering—was it the spanking itself, or the fact that it was administered by a domineering, tyrannical male, that had firmed his prick and elongated it to unheard-of proportions?

And the stiff ridge of the bandit’s own cock rubbing against his when his ass was upended to the cloudless sky above…One could not falsify an erection. But was it only the joy at having another human helpless in his clutches that had inflamed the lusty brigand? Did he truly not thirst for the taste of another man’s cock in his mouth, as Cormack now had to confess he himself did? He felt he dishonored Zelnora and his wishes for a future with her when he envisioned sheathing a cock in his hand and frigging it till it spouted jets of semen.

“Yes…” Cormack admitted, leaning back onto his palms and spreading his thighs. “It did agitate me to have our gold absconded with. And to look like such a feeble beaver kitten in front of you, allowing those dolts to take the gold.”

Zelnora chuckled hoarsely, her hand closing over his cock and squeezing. “Cormack…they took only the hundred dollars or so we had on us, the rest we’d already deposited with Aaron. I know it’s not the value of the gold or the fact we were robbed that irritates you…” She looked casually down to where her thumb tantalized the plum-sized head of his prick under the deerskin. “There is no fault of our own we were overwhelmed by four armed men. If you resisted, one or both of us would’ve been shot.” Her thumb swept the length of the underside of his cock, and Cormack’s eyes started sliding shut. “I am wondering if you feel shamed due to the physical reaction you had at the coaxing he did to tell him where the gold is hidden.”

Ho, boy, if she kept that up for another thirty seconds he would come inside his buckskins. He well nigh would admit to anything right now. “Yes…” he breathed. “I had a physical reaction. That no-account bastard was pretty near frigging me. It’s shameful that you saw my tool so erect at the hands of a nefarious Spaniard such as that.”

“Bear’s ass, what’s the shame?” Zelnora scoffed. “It was simply a physical reaction. Who wouldn’t be stimulated under such circumstances?”

So Zelnora didn’t think him a fragile poof to be aroused by the rugged touch of another man’s hand. Encouraged by her approval, Cormack’s fingers went to the broadfall of his buckskins. “Yes, I think that’s it,” he said offhandedly. “Other people admiring your body has a salutary effect.” He released his cock for her enjoyment.

Brandishing his member in her hand, Zelnora whispered, “Yes, they were envious of your big plump penis…And who wouldn’t admire you? The men fondled their own crotches, they were so lost in admiration of you.”

This was the manner of talk he wanted to hear. When Zelnora bent her lovely swan’s neck and lapped at his prick, Cormack gasped and yanked her to her feet. They stumbled into her tent where he dropped her on her back onto the bed of pine boughs. She gripped his cock in her little fist and circled the head with her lips as he rocked his hips into her, his balls already full to overflowing.

She had admitted she had never licked a man’s penis before meeting him, but she had since been a ravenous student, taking him far into her throat as though she gobbled a bowl of ice cream. He humped her sweet face carefully, her fingertips pressing into the globes of his ass to encourage him. He fucked her mouth so thoroughly that within several minutes he felt about to erupt as he sank his fingers into her masses of shining hair that spilled over the cotton ticking, her locks glossy against his balls.

“Dios maldiga a ese Español.”
Cormack groaned as he poised to explode into Zelnora’s eagerly suctioning mouth.

Just then, something foreign, cold, and wet pressed against the side of his throat. In his ecstasy, Cormack at first thought Zelnora crushed an item such as a necklace against him. When he realized both her hands gripped his ass, he thought perhaps Quartus bungled around with his phrenology tools, studying the shape of his neck.

Then he felt the warm pressure of a solid chest against his back.

And Valenzuela hissed into his ear, “Why do you curse this Spaniard?”

Chapter Seventeen