THE OUTCAST OF LONELY ROCK, CHAPTER FOUR
"A Night at the King's Palace Saloon"
By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM
Jobias and I spent three days on the ranch, him teaching me basic ranch tasks and spending most of the rest of our time getting to know each other. For one thing, Jobias considered himself to be a fast-draw with a gun. "Been practicing it ever since I could hold a .45." he said. On the third day after our first "siesta," I set up six hand-sized rocks on a rail of the corral and he demonstrated. With me saying, "Now!" he whipped out his gun and bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang, all six rocks went spinning off the rail in about two seconds. I was amazed, all right. The horses were snorting and milling about in fright, trying to plaster themselves into the opposite corner of the corral, and Jobias laughed at their panic as he called out to them to calm them down.
"What's going on out here?" Uncle shouted angrily, stumbling to the door, hitching at his pants. He spent a lot of his time indoors, lying down on the bed; I guess sitting or standing was too painful for him and the trip out to fetch me had made him even worse for a while. "Don't you have a lick of sense, Jobias?" He asked as he saw what had been happening. "If you have to take potshots at things, do it away from the livestock!"
"Yes, sir, sorry, sir." Jobias said, but his humble tone was belied as he winked at me. "But as long as you're up, sir, may I have my wages, please?"
"Going to head into town and spend it all, as usual?" Uncle said reluctantly.
"At ten dollars a month, I might as well." Jobias said easily. "Not worth saving it."
"You get room and board with that." Uncle said as he fumbled out the coins and dropped them into Jobias' outstretched hand while biting his lip in frustration. I had been with Uncle long enough now to understand that; he had little money as it was.
"Another reason I go into town, to get a decent meal." Jobias retorted. "Want to come with me, Ben?"
"Sure." I agreed. The ranch life was duller than anything, and I had come to agree with Jobias that Uncle wouldn't have this ranch much longer. A chance to meet other people in town and, like Jobias, set up something for when Uncle went broke was foremost in my mind, but also the chance to see someone besides Uncle and Jobias was in that, too. A little drink, a friendly game of poker, just like in the novels. This, at least, I was certain wasn't distorted in the novels; Jobias had told me stories about his other excursions into town. So I got onto that sorry old mare of mine, Jobias saddled his younger and more active bay, and we took off in the heat of the day, leaving Uncle to the minute chores of getting his own water and feeding those three score of chickens in their coop on his own for once.
Lonely Rock, as I have said, wasn't a big town by any means, only a bare ten buildings, four of them built against each other in order to save on timber (a general store, an assay office, the sheriff's office and a blacksmith shop). Four of the other six were adobe, big square blocks, The ninth building, constructed of rock-and-plaster, was the tiny church at the end of the road. But the sixth was where we were heading, a large, two-story wooden structure with its name proudly painted in a huge sign, red letters on a whitewash background. "King's Palace." There we would find beer and hard liquor (I only drank a little at this time, mostly because you were expected to do it), a bed and bath in a room upstairs if we needed one, a game of cards with cowhands from the other ranches and, if the tales were to be expected, a group of no less than four beautiful ladies recently shipped in by King Carson to add entertainment to his list of attractions. These ladies would dance, one of them would sing, and they were all available for (ahem!) the rest of the evening at a small price. This was what Jobias was most eager about, miffing me somewhat (wasn't I enough for him?), but he explained it to me. "Aw, hell, Ben, you're great, but a woman is just different that way. I ain't never had me one of them yet, and I aim to tonight. Tomorrow it'll be just you and me again for another month." I had to admit that he had given me no promises and no reason to feel jealous; we had a partnership of convenience and mutual need, and nothing more. So I pushed down my resentment and considered him my friend once more.
You can imagine his disappointment when we arrived, to find only a couple of cowboys inside, and an empty stage all festooned for a show. "When's the show start with the dancing girls?" Jobias asked as he bought the first round of drinks, dropping his dollar on the counter and receiving his six bits plus a nickel in change. Ten-cent beers, the prices here were outrageous, I thought as I took a sip, and choked. Strong stuff, probably brewed in the back room, too! It was hot, too, from the heat of the past few days, and I looked at the icebox they had against one wall. I knew from the sign that inside it was more beer and some wines packed in ice-and-snow shipped from the mountains, and the price was a quarter for glass of beer. I licked my lips and wondered what cold beer tasted like, drinking it not in winter when everything was ice-cold, but cold in the heat of a summer's day. But not enough to spend a quarter, I only had eight dollars myself and no prospect of any more money any time soon. If the poker wasn't penny-ante, I wasn't playing!
"Ain't no show." the bartender said, a dark, swarthy man, half-Mexican, I understood from Jobias' talk on the ride. He was the illegitimate half-brother of King Carson, Jobias confided, a secret that was worth your life to tell to King Carson's face or in more than confidential whispers. I agreed to keep the secret myself and not let on that I knew.
"No show? What about them four ladies that you were bragging about last month?" Jobias was outraged.
"They went to Wichita instead." the bartender said, not without some satisfaction. "King Carson got a special delivery letter on the stage three days ago."
I remembered the letter that had put me all alone on the stagecoach that day, and the price I had paid, and drowned the memory with a drink. Those bandits may have been my first, but they weren't my last, and never would be! I looked around, saw we weren't observed, and slipped an arm around Jobias for a quick hug before letting go.
Our beers finished, I managed to convince Jobias and two other hands from the Bar C Ranch to play for penny-ante stakes (without much trouble, the real gambling wouldn't start until nighttime) and managed to hold my own against these other three players. But at sundown, I began to crave a visit to one of the adobe buildings which was an honest-to-God restaurant; I could smell the odors of steak and fresh-baked bread from here and after days of beans and fried dough, it was a heavenly aroma indeed. Jobias was disgruntled at leaving; he was on a winning streak and currently had about thirty dollars despite the penny-ante stakes (one of the players seemed determined to play every hand to the bitter end, and most of the money Jobias had was that guy's; I was down only about fifteen cents), but at my urging and the word of one of the other players that he was hungry, too, and felt like quitting, we got up and I splurged twenty-five cents on a steak dinner and the works. Bread with fresh butter, sweet milk, baked potato with heavy cream and some green spice on it I hadn't seen before, and a big piece of apple pie after, I ate until my stomach bulged out. Jobias was chomping at the bit and I got up reluctantly at the end, and we went back to the saloon.
I was staggered; at the poker table now was the stranger from the plains, the one I called Hunter! The other was a gentleman dressed in fine clothing, a businessman dropped onto these rugged plains.
I walked up and Hunter saw me, shook his head slightly at my grin, and I dissembled, treated him like a stranger, giving him a noncommital nod.
"How'd'y'do, King Carson. Mind if we play?" Jobias said to the gentleman. "I've been winning all night and am feeling lucky."
"Our stakes are two bits." the stranger said. "Steep for a pair of cowhands."
"Too rich for my blood." I immediately agreed.
"Then sit where you can't see our cards." the gentleman said. I don't want you signaling your friend when I bluff."
I agreed, and went over to sit at the bar, where I saw Jobias' hand easily and a part of Hunter's. It didn't matter, I wasn't going to cheat anyone.
"A drink?" the bartender asked me. He was handsome, with clean white teeth, his skin was a smooth medium brown, his hair straight black and neat.
"Just a beer, and cut it with water this time." I said.
"More than usual, you mean?" The bartender grinned, and I grinned back. "Coming right up."
"Thanks." I said and took my drink. I chatted with the bartender when he wasn't fetching other drinks, and he seemed ready to stick near to me as much as he could. I leaned there, nursing that one beer with small sips, and watched for the next two hours as Jobias steadily lost the money he had won.
"I guess Jobias was right." I said to the bartender, Danielo ("But call me "Elo"), "You get on a winning streak, you should stick where you are."
"There's more to cards than luck." Elo said enigmatically.
"Ben!" Jobias was calling me.
"He wants a loan." Elo predicted. "Don't do it, young friend. There is no luck to be had for him this night."
I went over. "I need two dollars to stay in this hand." he said urgently.
"I can't spare that kind of money." I said. "You know Uncle isn't paying me a wage."
"But I can't lose!" He said. He showed me his hand, three kings. They were playing five card draw, it was a damned good hand.
"Well...I said. "Okay, I guess. But you pay me back next month."
"Going to take more than two dollars to stay in this hand." King Carson warned. "I'm raising again when it comes back to me."
Jobias bit his lip and looked baffled. "I got my horse and saddle." he said.
"You already owe me your Indian blanket." Hunter reminded him.
"Unless your horse is different than the one you had last month, I'm not interested." King Carson said.
"We got Ben's horse and saddle, too!" Jobias said.
"Hey!" I protested.
King Carson laughed. He was blond, fairer-haired than I was, and younger than I had expected when first hearing of him, less than thirty, he carried himself like...well, like what he was, a powerful man, owner of everything he surveyed. Quite handsome, I could see his body through his open jacket and the way his shirt and vest clung tightly to his body, and I licked my lips looking at it. "Still not interested."
"Aw, come on, Mr. Carson, what do I have to do to stay in this hand? All I need to do is call." Jobias begged.
"Well." King Carson said, and Jobias seized this weakness.
"Come on, sir, you name it, it's yours. Anything I got." he panted.
"Well, you know my girls didn't come through like I had planned." King Carson said. His hand rubbed his crotch as he looked at Jobias.
Jobias grinned like an idiot and he laid his cards down on the table face-down and immediately tugged off his shirt to show his broad chest. "If that's what you want, sir."
"What about if I win?" Hunter asked.
"Either of you. Or both of you. Together or separate. Whatever it takes." Jobias said and ran his hand over his chest in a lewd motion, gyrating his hips in a way that made me throw an erection, for it reminded me of how those buttocks had been gyrating as they plunged into me just the night before.
Hunter appreciated it, too. "That'll work for me." he agreed. "Call only." he modified. "He can't raise any."
"Except for one thing." King Carson said.
"What's that?" Jobias asked eagerly.
"I want your partner instead."
I didn't get it at first, and then I did. "Me?"
Jobias went over to me and hissed, "Come on, Ben, I ain't going to lose this. You seen my hand!"
"Well, yeah, but...." I looked at King Carson. I'd never had much money, and he almost dripped with it, the cut of his clothes, this place that he owned, the way he had played his poker almost slapdash, not seeming to care if he won or lost as long as he had a good time. "What if you don't have the winning hand?" I asked Jobias, but I was looking at King Carson.
"Then I take you right here, with everyone watching." King Carson said, and he smiled. Something in me melted at that smile, sent my erstwhile self-reliance into puddles in my feet, damned small puddles, too. I understood why he owned a lot of this county, he owned anything he set his mind to getting.
"Come on, Ben, you do this and I'll give you half the pot. Man, there's nearly a hundred dollars in there!"
Half of a hundred dollars. Three kings in a game of five-card draw. And a fourth King standing there looking like a blond-haired god. To this day, I'm not sure which of those three made me say it. "Okay, you got a deal."
King grinned at me on one side of his face, and suddenly, I didn't need to watch what was about to happen. He had a higher hand.
But I did. Hunter raised King Carson twice more, but then King called and the cards were displayed. Hunter had two pair, aces and sevens.
Jobias pantingly displayed his three kings. Then King Carson showed his almost apologetically. Four fives. And the fourth king Jobias could have really used.
"My one king beats all three of yours." King Carson said. From the roar that tiny joke gained, I knew that the other men in the room all worked for him. Laugh at the boss' jokes, you know.
I looked around at the silent room. Besides Elo and the three players, there were over a dozen men in the room. All of them were young, from my age up to early forties. All were cowhands out for a night of fun. And from the looks on their faces, I was the first course!
"Just you." I said hastily to King Carson. "Just you, sir."
"Certainly." He said almost daintily. Then he nodded to two of his men. "Strip him."
I was grabbed and hauled up onto one of the other tables by two cowboys who were standing nearby, like guards for King Carson. Not given the chance with the hooting cowboys around me to even do this decently. They were hauling at my pants while one of them worked off my boot, but before he could get to the other, my pants were yanked down over them. Fortunately, I had quite a lot of slack in the legs, they came off my leg with some difficulty, leaving me bare below the waist save for one boot. "Whoo, look at that, the kid's randy for it." one of them crowed. "I want a chance at him later, when you're done with him, sir."
"He only agreed to me, so step away, Chester. Tim, that'll do." King Carson said as I saw, now that the men left off from me, that a cowhand had opened King Carson's pants and had been slathering his cock with his tongue, getting it slicked up for me.
Another cowboy began to unbutton my shirt, but at a harsh look and a "cease and desist" motion of the hand, he quickly stopped. "Now back off, all of you. I want to take my time over this." He look my unresisting legs and lifted them up and away from my body, one to either side. "Do you need some assistance, young man?" he asked me. "I can have my boys stroke your body and incite your desire."
I looked at the rough cowhands, and then back to him, all clean and civilized. "No, sir." I said. "Just be gentle with me."
"I will, son, don't be concerned about it." And his cockhead pushed against my anus.
I wanted to touch this powerful man, to feel his body, but he pushed away my hands that sought out his arms to cling to him. I ended up with my arms thrown back and my legs wrapped about his waist instead; at least that was something, I had my body around his this much at least.
His hand reached down and grasped my cock and the sheer thrill of that one touch, those soft hands unsullied by labor, caused me to groan and my cock poured pre-come onto my stomach as he pushed up the foreskin, making it wrinkle over my glans. He smiled at this, such a gentle smile, and then his cock gave almost a twitch as he flexed his buttocks, his cockhead bent over as it impacted my asshole, crumpled upon itself, I could feel his shaft bending almost, and then my anus gave way and suddenly his cockhead was inside of me.
"Ahhhh!" I groaned. "Oh, sir, that's good!" I moaned up at him.
He grinned. "If I'd known I did not need my coins, I would have saved myself the trouble." He said.
I looked over at Jobias, wondering if he would react jealously in his own turn, and at Hunter, that enigma of the plains. But both of them were watching me quite calmly, in fact, Jobias seemed almost proud of my reaction to King Carson's cock inside of me. Beyond them, Elo rested one elbow on the table and watched these proceedings carefully. They were silent, but the cacophony of the Bar C men, their constant run of jokes, chuckles and leering sounds, made this nothing less than a public exhibition on King Carson's part. Yet still he behaved to me quite kindly, the quiet dignity of a cavalier from my books, holding his strength in check to permit me to accommodate him.
Then he pushed into me again and I groaned, in surprise as well as in some pain. King Carson was huge! I hadn't noticed it in the brief glimpse before, but now I was being stretched wide by the huge prong that was shoving into me. King Carson was being careful about it, but he was also inexorable, his pressure went on and on without ceasing.
"Oh, oh, sir, it's so big!" I groaned "I can't handle it."
Then, for the first time, a frown crossed his handsome face. "But you lost the bet and now I am claiming what is mine." he said sternly.
"Yes, sir." I panted. "Oh, God! Just slower, please!"
But it was like my pleading angered him, and now the gentle knight of the West was gone, and he pushed into me harder, a scowl upon his face as he split me open with his massive pud, and I grunted, making strangling sounds as he impaled me with the wedge of his manhood.
Another hard thrust of his hips and I yelled out, a genuine yell of pain, for now he had pressed his full length into me! I hadn't had one this big before, not the bandits, not Hunter, not Jobias, I was being pushed to the edge of my limited experience, and I heard a sound I couldn't believe, an animal snarl that slipped from the lips of this gentleman of the plains.
"You're mine, now." He grunted softly, a tone that in the general din would not have reached my comrades' ears. "You're all mine, now. When your uncle sells that ranch, you come to me, you understand me?"
I did not reply to this, I instead looked into his eyes the way a deer looks at the trapper as he comes to collect his prey, helpless, almost cooperating in the process of losing its life. There is a time to struggle and a time to surrender, and my time had come.
And so I lay tamely on the table as King Carson claimed his prize of my ass, he began to hunch into me with a rough passion, and I looked over to see the calmness of my friends turn to consternation. From them to the cowboys of the Bar C, all watching their boss as he fucked at me.
Then up into King Carson's eyes, burning with a fire of possession, and that flame kindled some kindred blaze inside of me, and I groaned, suddenly feeling the strength in his prick, the way it pummeled my ass, taking me because it was his right, his given gift by divine privilege, and I was but abetting the will of the Creator of us all, as I felt my prostate flare from the rub it gained from King Carson's mushroom-headed cock.
The table beneath me wasn't perfectly level on the floor, or perhaps the floor itself was to blame, and it began to rock with King Carson's thrusts into my body, making a loud banging on the floorboards, just audible over the clamor of the Bar C cowboys urging their employer on with cheers for him and sneers for me, the hapless victim.
But I found a place for myself in this role, I was if not an equal to him, at least a participant, it was his cock but my ass, and he could not plunge into me or pluck his cock back outwards again without giving me my wage of pleasure with each sally and return of his hard pillar into my body. I felt my entire body flame with passion, as if every nerve in my body had ignited at once, and I groaned and felt my cock almost scream in pain it became so hard and I was spraying of a sudden, my jism flying everywhere, and splashing King Carson's dark coat with random beads, but most of it splattering my bare stomach and my cloth-covered chest, peppering me with heavy ovals of my jizz, me yelling my joy into the suddenly-silent room, all voices quieted to hear me rejoice in my portion at King Carson's lovemaking. King Carson looked almost bewildered at my reaction, for my ass was clamping onto his cock hard and he was trapped by me, forced into small hunches into and out of my body to continue his fuck, and his fair-skinned face suddenly flared bright red, and his body lost its grace and became a grotesquerie of jerky motions, and I felt the hot seed of King Carson's cock as it pumped out of his shaft and into my body, sizzling my innards with its hot desire, and him out of control, flailing about, lost in his climax.
And I gripped him as he seemed about to stumble and held him tight to me and clutched him and the table rocked about like a thing possessed by demon spirits, as he flooded my bowels and then was quiet, sobbing out his exhaustion into my ear.
"Oh, oh, oh!" he whispered in my ear, for me alone. "Oh, thank you!"
"Thank you." I hissed back as softly, not wishing to embarrass this man. "You were great!"
"My money was indeed risked in a proper venture." He said to me and as I puzzled over this turn of his mind, he rose up and pulled away, his cock springing from me still hard as if with a cork. "Elo, give me a damp cloth." He ordered.
Elo brought out a pair of wet rags, and I used one on my body. King Carson didn't even do back up his own pants, Elo (was he really King Carson's brother?) cleaning the now-flaccid rod and placing it back in the pants, refastening them and rose up as if this was a routine duty for a bartender of a Western saloon.
"You're a mess, kid." He observed as he saw my futile efforts. "Elo, take this young man up and give him a room for the night, with a bath. My treat, a bonus paid for a job well done."
"Thank you, sir." I said almost proudly.
"You pay your debts in full and with all honor. I look forward to employing you when your uncle sells his lands to me." he said. He looked over at Jobias and I saw from his face that my friend would not be joining me in such an employment.
Elo took me upstairs while I looked back and saw the poker game recommence, this time without Jobias, who was of course now broke. He didn't seem inclined to leave, though, and I wondered as I saw him talking to the other cowhands. Would he sell his body for some more money to drink and gamble with? And could I sneer, having given my body to King Carson for that purpose. No, that was different. Or was it?
"You may bathe in here." Elo said as he used his tinder-box to light the lamp.
Something on his face told me. "Elo, what did you mean when you said that there was more to poker than luck?"
Elo looked around. "There are questions that should never be asked." He replied and walked away.
I shrugged and stripped, stepped into the bath. The water was unheated, but it was not the muddy water of my uncle's ranch, appearing to have been filtered perhaps by being run through several lengths of cloth; it was nearly clear. I stepped in and bathed, feeling worn out by the events of the evening. As I finished and was dressing, I heard voices outside in the street.
"You've been giving our boss trouble." was the voice of one.
"Well, what does he expect when you play a game of poker?" That was Jobias.
I stumbled over an unseen spittoon and missed some of what happened next but I got to the window in time to see the results. I saw Jobias in the moonlight and a shadowy figure beyond. I saw Jobias make his lightning-fast draw. And saw it was not quite fast enough. A loud roar of gunfire, more than two I was sure though they sounded together, and Jobias fell!
"Jobias!" I yelled out and then turned. I had to get out there, to see.
I saw the men from the stairway top, saw Hunter far forward in the press of men pushing to get outside and see what had occurred. I was a poor last figure in this stampede, and then had to push my way through to see anything at all.
There were two men holding a dark-clothed figure...Hunter!
And a big man, wearing a shine on his chest I assumed was a badge. "We have law in this town." the big man (sheriff?) was saying. "But with this many witnesses, I think you'd better be fitted out for a coffin, don't you?"
"What?" I was shocked. Hunter couldn't have been the one who did it. I saw him in the crowd going out the door.
I looked around at the many faces around me. All working for King Carson. "Damned shame about your uncle's ranch-hand." one of them said to me with a significant nod. "Your uncle can't possibly keep that ranch now, can he?"
"What?" I said. I was confused, bewildered. And the men walked away in several directions, leaving me alone in this town, at night, with only a puddle of blood, all black in the dust of the road, to mark the place where Jobias had fallen.
END OF CHAPTER FOUR
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