Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2018 12:34:39 -0400
From: Milford Slabaugh <tommyhawk1@aol.com>
Subject: The Battle for Lonely Rock, Conclusion

                    THE BATTLE FOR LONELY ROCK
             Conclusion: The Closing of the Suzy Lee
                      By Tommyhawk1@AOL.COM
                  WWW.TOMMYHAWKSFANTASYWORLD.COM

     It took some convincing of King Carson, but I talked him into letting
me ride north toward the Union forces. If I couldn't find Hunter, maybe I
could convince the Union officers to help me blast the mine shut. With two
companies of Confederate soldiers headed this way from Houston and Fort
Worth, I thought they'd listen to reason. The battle I'd witnessed was
between only about a hundred Confederates and some three hundred Union
soldiers, the next battle would have men on both sides numbering in the low
thousands. Call it ten times worse than the slaughter I'd seen.
     King Carson headed toward the Suzy Lee, if he could do it unhindered,
he would set a fire inside the mine. Mines don't burn that well, but a
couple days of steady careful work tending and rekindling the flames, a man
could accomplish much the same thing as a dynamite blast by burning. Remove
enough beams and the ceiling would collapse. But would his men even take
his orders on that, given that they would be burning their livelihood and
their jobs?
     The sun was hot on my brow and I sweated profusely, wished I had
waited long enough to provision myself for this ride. I didn't even have a
canteen with me. If the Union forces had moved more than a short ways, I'd
be looking for water.
     Well, that was less trouble than it had been when I'd first arrived in
Lonely Rock some weeks before. I now knew the approximate locations of the
few streams and sources of potable water around. When I thought how some
six months before I had been a starry-eyed kid reading yellowish dime-store
novels and dreaming of adventure, I knew then how much my life had changed.
     The Union camp had been struck; I should have expected that. They
needed to crush the Confederate forces and then establish a defensive base,
their campsite had been no help for either of that. That, or they had moved
north to join with the forces coming down to join them. This was a lull in
the storm of the war, but no more.
     I looked at the sun, it was only a handspan from setting. I needed to
find a place to lie down for the night and tether my horse, and this former
campsite was as good as anything for that. I looked about the campsite for
some time, hoping for scraps of food or a blanket or such to have been left
behind, but there was nothing. Union soldiers are nothing if not tidy in
their habits, all I found was a lot of churned-up ground and holes where
tent-pegs had been driven. A few short lengths of rope, useless. I spent
the last bit of the daylight giving my horse water and then staking him out
by his bridle to a patch of grass near the streams edge. He nickered
unhappily and didn't seem to care much for the grass he cropped a few
mouthfuls of, but he was getting more supper this night than I did.
     I tried in the darkness for some time to start a fire using dried
grass and smacking two rocks together. They would spark...but not enough to
ignite anything. I finally gave up, stretched my saddle out for a pillow
and lay down. The night got colder and I shivered, miserable, through the
night. I was lucky enough it was summertime, a man could freeze on the
desert in the winter but was just uncomfortable without a blanket in the
summer.
     I awoke early the next morning, with dawn barely lighting up the sky
beyond that of total darkness, to the sound of a horse-drawn wagon pulling
up nearby. This wasn't that surprising, the Union campsite had been built
by the trail here. Nobody back East would have called it a road, but it was
a traveled area that a person with a horse or wagon could get through
without hitting large rocks or falling into deep holes, and with
wagon-tracks to show you the way to go. Not a road, but not quite
cross-country either, if you see what I mean.
     My new neighbor was almost formless in the way he sat on the
buckboard. Dusty, worn black pants, a dark gray shirt, a battered black
hat. Just your ordinary farmer or prospector or rancher traveling the road
with his load of goods. Several large boxes sat in the wagon-bed, two
unhappy-looking brown horses that didn't seem very well trained to the
wagon-hitch, and a saddled riding horse tethered on behind. God knows what
this man was doing driving his wagon in the middle of a war zone, but I
wasn't going to ask him any questions...except maybe, my stomach growled to
me, to see if he had anything to eat. Except I didn't have any money to pay
him with for it if he did. I could try to work for my food. Hell, I could
suck his dick for some food; I hadn't eaten since early afternoon of the
day before, my stomach was about to make me forget my pride entirely the
way it had when I was a prisoner.
     This man got off the wagon rather wearily, and went over to the stream
to drink, ignoring his horses. He stooped at the bank and, unlike me who
had simply put my face down to the water, began to scoop water up in his
two hands and drink like that. I was reminded of the Bible story of
Gideon's band, who were made up only of men who drank like that; the
preacher said it was a clear sign that they knew they were in a dangerous
area and were alert for trouble. But he didn't seem aware of me.
     I saw the gun at his waist and decided I'd better holler from a
distance. I held my hands out before me and away from my body and said,
"Howdy, stranger."
     Sure enough, he turned and whipped out his pistol, going from his
kneeling position to up on one knee. His face was heavily shadowed, for the
sun was behind him and he grumbled with a deep rasp, "Shit, kid, I nearly
shot you!"
     "I'm sorry, sir." I said. "I camped here last night. My horse is over
there behind that tree." No wonder he hadn't known I was here; with those
bushes and the tree between, I'd been invisible to him driving up, and I
hadn't noticed. The light at dawn can be tricky, shadows are still heavy
and hold sway over much of the land; it yields only reluctantly to the
light, a little at a time. "I was just seeing if you have any food with you
and maybe you'd share? And maybe see if you knew where the...the soldiers
are?" I wasn't ready to admit my Union sympathies to a stranger.
     He holstered his pistol and relaxed and said, "Now why would you want
to go back to either of those, Ben?" And a careless flick of one finger
knocked the hat back from his forehead so I could see his face.
     "Hunter!" I said. "God, I'm glad to find you!"
     He grinned that easy grin. "Not going to call me Joshua?" he
asked. "Oof!" That last because I had stooped over and grabbed him, was
hugging him hard as I could.
     "You scoundrel, you were impersonating a Union officer!" I said. "I
could have been in serious trouble if I'd stayed in that Union camp another
half-hour."
     "Why do you think I was so quick about getting you out of there?" he
said.
     "Well, now I got to go back." I said.
     "Why in the name of Hell would you want to do that?" Hunter asked
me. "Got some tucker in the saddlebags on my horse. Not much, but bring it
over and we'll split what there is. I'm kinda hungry myself."
     The grease-bag held two pieces of hard-tack and a few small strips of
already-fried bacon. "Kind of an odd tucker." I said. "The bacon's still
warm."
     "Raided it off a campfire while I was waiting to get the wagon."
Hunter said. "Some poor sentry got a knock on the head instead of a
midnight snack."
     "So I guess you aren't with the Union anymore." I said. I handed him
two of the strips of bacon (there were five pieces, but I kept the three
smaller ones, I was fair about it) and one of the pieces of hardtack. Then
I wolfed down my own bacon and it was ambrosial, hickory smoked and
salt-cured from the flavor of it. Then I set to the work of chewing the
hardtack, a long and not-very-pleasant experience, unless you're as hungry
as I was just then. I finished and then got a drink, making a mess of it
because I tried to do it like Hunter had. I was reduced to scooping it up
with one hand and slurping it off my palm, a slow and unsatisfying process
when you'd just had a salty breakfast.
     "Kid, you sound like a pig at the trough the way you drink." Hunter
commented laconically.
     I felt better just looking at him. "Well, if the sound of my slurping
mouth bothers you, maybe you got something that would fill it?" I teased.
     He laughed easily, but shook his head. "Kid, I got a troop of men
looking for me by now. I came here because I figured it would be the last
place they'd look for me. But I got to get this wagon on down the road. Now
tell me why you want to find the soldiers, and which ones? Union or
Rebels?"
     "Either, maybe." I said. "I got to get hold of some dynamite or
gunpowder, as much as I can. Probably the Union, they got more of it than
the Confederates do."
     "How much do you need?"
     "Enough to blow up a mine." I admitted.
     "Which one?" He asked. I found it odd he didn't ask why.
     "The Suzy Lee." I said. "It's the only one producing any silver to
speak of."
     "You're right about that, but how did you know?"
     "King Carson told me so." I admitted. "He was drunk and moaning about
how they took all his silver, and only the Suzy Lee left to produce any of
it."
     "So you want to blow it up, to get back at King Carson?"
     "Actually, it's King wants to blow it up, only the Confederates took
all his blasting powder with them, as well as all the silver in town they
could get hold of. He figures on blasting it shut and re-opening it after
the war is over. Rebels want to take it, and only give him their Rebel
scrip in trade."
     "So he sent you to borrow some from the Union?" Hunter said.
     "Well, with the Confederates bringing up men from the south, I didn't
think they'd object to closing the mine right now." I said. "I figured it
was worth a shot."
     "Nah, it wouldn't do you any good." Hunter said. "They won't have any
powder to spare you."
     "Why not?" I asked, ready to defend my rather tenuous plan.
     "Because I got a good bit of it right there in my wagon." he said,
tossing his head toward his wagon. "It's loaded with boxes of dynamite,
actually."
     One of these days, Hunter is going to stop surprising me. This wasn't
such a day. "You have an entire load of gunpowder there? Didn't they ask
you what you wanted it for? Or try to arrest you?" Last I'd heard, Hunter
was being sought out for arrest for impersonating Joshua Whelan, a Union
officer.
     "They would have if I'd asked them, instead of just taking it. You're
on the run from the Rebels, Ben, I'm on the run from the Union right now."
     "But why did you want that much gunpowder?" I asked.
     "Why, I want to blow up the Suzy Lee." he said. "How does that sound
to you?"
     "But why?" I asked him.
     He just cocked one eyebrow at me and I shut up. Hunter had been
patient...for him...in answering my questions. Instead, I said, "Well, in
that case, let's go do it." The Suzy Lee was a good twenty-five miles away,
by heavily-loaded wagon, that was a four or five-hour drive over the rough
terrain.
     "In a bit." Hunter demurred. "I have been awake for 48 hours straight
now, and I need to take a nap."
     "With the Union troops looking for you?" I said. "You can't! Uh, tell
you what. You lie down in the wagon and try to sleep there. I'll drive us
to the Suzy Lee."
     It wasn't settled that easily, but he was ready enough after I
countered his arguments. He was dog-tired and needed sleep and ready to
risk capture in order to get it. With me to drive the team and him under a
blanket in the wagon, he was that much safer. So we got aboard, shuffled
the boxes around to make room for him inside, and his horse was happier
with the saddle and blanket off of it and over Hunter. My own horse joined
his behind the wagon and off we went. I had to drive through Lonely Rock to
get to the Suzy Lee, but I wasn't worried about that any longer. Lonely
Rock was deserted.
     Not quite, it wasn't. The Confederate troops had come to Lonely
Rock. I didn't recognize any of them, a new troop just arrived, or some
company or part of company I hadn't met before. They didn't know me, but
they recognized the contents of my wagon.
     I was met by sentries who stopped me and looked in my wagon. Hunter
was inside there and covered up, perhaps completely asleep now (I hadn't
heard anything from him for quite some time) but their eyes were focused on
the boxes. "Dynamite! Hey, Cap'n, this man's got an entire wagon full of
dynamite!"
     My heart sank as the officer strode up to me. Another stranger, that
was my only hope. I had to stay calm. Act like it's perfectly sensible to
be driving a wagon full of dynamite through Lonely Rock. Where? Where was I
going?"
     "Where are you going with that dynamite?" the officer barked at me.
     I looked right at him and decided then that, if I was going down, I
was going down with style. "The Suzy Lee Mine, sir." I said.
     "Why are you taking dynamite to the Suzy Lee Mine?" he asked
suspiciously.
     I drew up in righteous indignation. "Sir, how else can you blast a
mine than by using dynamite? You want the South to have the silver, don't
you?"
     "Well, yes, but...."
     "We can't peck at solid rock like chickens with a pickaxe!" I stormed
at him. "Got to blast it loose. King Carson...Colonel King Carson," I
emphasized, "is at the Suzy Lee right now, waiting for this dynamite. Do
you want to come with me and explain to him why he can't have it?"
     The officer looked baffled, and quite young. I wondered how he'd
gained his rank, it wasn't by dint of his being a solid citizen. Probably
from a rich family.
     "All right." he said just when I thought he was going to make me step
down from the wagon after all. "I'll send a contingent out with you. You
make damned sure you go right to the Suzy Lee, though, or they'll shoot you
in the back!"
     "Yes, sir." I saluted him and he returned the salute and stalked away
triumphantly.
     A half-dozen young men on horseback were assembled. I regarded them
haughtily. "My partner is asleep in the wagon." I said. "Don't get jumpy
when he wakes up, you hear? Hauling dynamite is hard work. You'd better
ride up ahead a ways so your horse-clatter and jabbering won't bother him."
     They obeyed me like I was General Lee myself. When we were clear of
Lonely Rock, I heard it. Softly at first, then louder. Hunter was laughing.
     "What else was I supposed to do?" I said defensively. "It worked,
didn't it?"
     "It sure did, kid!" he chuckled. "It sure did. How much further to the
Suzy Lee?"
     "Another hour or so."
     "I'm going back to sleep then." And he did. Me, I had butterflies in
my stomach. What was I going to do when I got there?
     "Hunter?"
     "Hmm?" He had gone right back to sleep!
     "What do I do when I get there?" I asked him.
     "Beats me, kid." he said. "I'll think about it. Wake me when we get
there."
     Yeah, right, like that was going to be a cinch.
     I woke Hunter as we got close to the Suzy Lee. Of all of King Carson's
mines, this one was the biggest operation. A long sloping shed led from the
mine shaft down to the water. There was a foundry to melt down the ore, and
mercury to let them bake out the silver into its pure form. Raw metal ore
came in one end, and pure ingots of silver left the front gate.
     King Carson was standing on the tower that was the ventilation
shaft. They actually used a windmill to pump air through the shaft, so the
workers could breathe. I knew it was a nasty, thick, noxious place to be
just the same. And men worked in it fourteen hours a day, six days a week,
spending their money in the small store King Carson had set up nearby their
camp. I knew from talking with people that nobody who went to work there
ever seemed to get ahead by a nickel from one week to the next, it was
subsistence wages and what you had you spent on the food which was horribly
overpriced. Most of the miners were never seen in Lonely Rock.
     He worked a whistle that used the windmill's power to blast a loud
note through its metal throat. "Ta-hrooooo!" it called out. I had heard it
faintly even back in Lonely Rock sometimes, here, it was deafening.
     Hunter clambered up onto the buckboard beside me.
     "You got a plan?" I hissed to him, for the soldiers were now all
around me.
     "Maybe. You got a piece of paper on you?" he asked me.
     I did, a letter I had been writing on to my mother. It had been in my
vest pocket and had stayed there through my long incarceration. I pulled it
out.
     He stopped me from giving it to him. "Perfect." He said. "You just
hand that to King Carson and let me do the talking."
     "Great!" I said and meant it.
     "Shipment of dynamite for you, sir!" the sergeant in charge of the
squad with me called to King Carson.
     King Carson looked at me. "Got it for you right here, Colonel, sir!" I
called out and handed him my letter to my mother.
     As King Carson unfolded it, Hunter said, as if casually, "Message to
you from General Hammond, sir, about what you're to do with this here
dynamite."
     King Carson rose to the occasion. "Hmm, yes." He said as he read my
screed like it was official orders. The mine began to disgorge its work
force of men.
     King Carson motioned them over and climbed onto the windmill where a
cross-bar gave him an impromptu dais upon which to address the men. They
gathered docilely; this must be a common enough thing for King Carson to
do. When they were gathered, some fifty or sixty men, he spoke up, "Men,
upon orders from Richmond, I am to close this mine for a period of
forty-eight hours. Rest assured that you will not lose wages for this
period, and you may return at that time. Foreman, is anyone left inside the
mine?"
     "Just Kepler, sir." the foreman said. I happened to know Kepler was a
watchman; he kept an eye on the mine when it was closed.
     "Fetch him out." King Carson said. "Closure is to be complete. Men,
you may return to your homes now, and return this Sunday morning. I'll work
you the next two Sundays to make up your time lost here now."
     There was grumbling at this, but the men seemed more willing to accept
it now they knew they'd have to make up the time than they had when he'd
offered it to them without a catch. I guess miners expect to be taken
advantage of.
     Done with that, there were only the half-dozen men who had come with
Hunter and me. "You, too, you must leave now."
     "But sir...why, sir?" the sergeant asked. "Our orders were to protect
the dynamite."
     "And you have." King Carson said. "We'll unload it here and hide it
where no damnyankee will ever get hold of it."
     The soldiers chuckled at that and they departed, and now it was just
King Carson, Hunter and myself at the Suzy Lee.
     "You look familiar, sir." King Carson said to Hunter. "Have we met
before?"
     "Not to my recollection." Hunter said.
     "I hope my friend's trust in you is not misplaced." King Carson said
to him.
     Hunter looked at me. "Ben is my friend, too, sir. As good a friend as
he is to you."
     King Carson frowned at that, but he said, "Do you know the proper
placement and handling of dynamite, sir?"
     "I do." Hunter said.
     "I don't." I admitted.
     "Just watch me." Hunter said. "It'll be easy enough."
     And it was, they simply piled the boxes against the beams. I was
surprised that the fuse was run all the way down the middle to the back;
when I asked, they explained. "Dynamite has to breathe the same as you and
me. We ignite the front boxes first, the others won't blow, they'll be
stifled by lack of oxygen. At that, half of this may not blow in the first
charge."
     "All the better." was King's only grunted comment. King was a
gentleman, but he knew dynamite as well as anybody I'd ever seen before or
since. I guess a man who's a miner has to know this sort of thing.
     Done, we went outside. King Carson said to Hunter, "Will you do the
honors, sir? I find myself unable to shoot my own dog."
     "Fair enough." Hunter said.
     "Come, Ben." King said, putting an arm around my shoulder. "We'll
watch the death of my best mine shaft from the ventilation tower."
     "I'll be right along." Hunter said as he reached into his pocket for a
match.
     King nearly rushed me to the tower. I was surprised but when I
clambered up onto the upper deck with him, I found out by his question to
me. "How long have you known this man?" he demanded.
     "About as long as I've known you." I admitted. "I count him as a
friend and he's the one who rescued me from the Rebels."
     "Have you? Has he?" King said, each not an incomplete sentence, he
meant just what he asked. And it was enough.
     "Yes." I admitted.
     That took some wind out of his sails. "Will you be going with him?" he
asked me.
     Hunter was a drifter and a man of mystery. "No." I said. "My home is
in Lonely Rock. I won't leave it unless I just have to."
     "You won't have to." King Carson said. "I can see to that. I know the
way, now."
     "I'd appreciate that." I said to him.
     "This war has taken my men and my silver." King Carson said. "It won't
get you, too. I swear that to you." And he stopped, as if trying to say
something more.
     And I knew what that was. "King, there are times when I look at you
and want you really bad. And there are times when I look at you and you
scare the shit out of me. At times like that, a friend like Hunter is a
real comfort."
     "Which way do you feel now?" he asked me.
     A fair question. I'd be dependent upon King Carson's intervention to
stay out of the Confederate prison. That put me in his power. But his power
was about to take a real beating, leaving the rest of him behind.
     "A little of both." I said truthfully. "At the same time."
     Hunter was climbing up to join us. "She'll blow in about another ten
minutes, long as that fuse it." he said. "I just hope to Jesus it doesn't
splutter out on us and have to go in and find it. A fuse that burns too
slow can ruin a man's entire day by setting off the powder just as a man
gets to it wondering what happened to the kablooey."
     I looked at Hunter, then at King, then at King looking at Hunter and
at me, then Hunter looking at King and at me. Then King looked back to
Hunter and said to me, "I'll share you with him."
     "Good." I said.
     "That's good." Hunter said. "Last time, you made me just sit and watch
while you fucked him."
     King looked at Hunter. "So we have met before. I thought so. Why did
you conceal that from me?"
     "I can keep a secret." Hunter said. "Like your role in this mine going
sky-high. But I can keep it better if you're willing to share."
     Hunter walked up to us and grabbed my butt. Really grabbed it,
hard. "Mmm, I've missed this tight little ass of yours." he said. "I got to
ride like hell when this mine blows up, but I'm going to get one more time
with you before I go."
     I couldn't help it, I had to sigh, the rough feel of Hunter's hand on
my butt, squeezing it like an overripe melon, threatening to burst wide
with every pulse of pressure upon it.
     I gasped as he squeezed once particularly hard and that opened my
mouth and Hunter pressed his lips over mine and kissed me hard,
open-mouthed, his tongue shoving into me like a thick pink snake, it seemed
to fill my mouth and I half-choked, groaned as the hand closed on my
crotch.
     Hand? But Hunter's hands were one across my chest holding me in place
and the other still holding with a death-grip on my buttock.
     King Carson. He was stepping in to share me...stake his own claim
being a better way to phrase it. His teeth nibbled at my ear and I wondered
if I was about to be torn between these two men.
     King's hand was bringing my cock to surging, pounding life, it
strained at my pants and he palped the turgid flesh, his other hand sidled
in to the small of my back and he pressed his own manhood against
me. Hunter did the same and I was pinned between two shafts of burning male
desire, hard pricks were rubbing against my thighs and side from both
directions. Now Hunter had hold of me by my shoulders, he had relinquished
the lower ground to King Carson and King moved his hands up to caress my
savaged buttocks from behind and to feel for my fly buttons with the front.
     Nero fiddled while Rome burned, ignited by his own hands. While King
Carson's dreams were burning down the fuse, by his own hand, King Carson
was playing with me. I knew then what was driving these men. King and
Hunter were each in their way taking their lives in their hands by this
act, more than I had, the unknown person in this conspiracy. The Union men
knew Hunter had stolen the dynamite and the blown-up mine was an obvious
use of it. The Rebels knew King Carson had accepted the dynamite and again,
the mine would tell them clearly what he had done. In this dangerous
position of theirs, they had me, pleasure and delight, perhaps for the last
time. They would take me while they still could.
     King had my pants undone, my belt unfastened, I felt it first as the
cloth loosened about my waist and my clothes were coaxed from me. I found
my mouth free as Hunter released me to fumble at his pants, and I let out a
groan before King claimed my mouth for his own. His kiss was close-mouthed
but ardent, he was kissing me, kissing me long and sweet.
     "You can have that end." Hunter said. "I'll take the other. You can
fuck him when I'm done."
     I felt King Carson tense at this, then relax again in the manner of a
cat held fast in your arms. He would accept this...for now. Later on, at
some other tryst, Hunter might find things different.
     I softened the blow by reaching for King's fly. He felt me do so and
helped me, and we got the buttons undone together just as Hunter pulled my
lower body out and bent me over. King Carson fumbled at his fly and a pink
dong appeared in his gray uniform, accompanied by a rush of male aroma,
clean and silken and delicately perfumed. King Carson poured perfume in his
baths, I knew. I hadn't noticed before this that King Carson had bathed
only some short time before this. I was dusty and Hunter was downright
grimy, but King Carson was clean and his skin tasted and felt like a
delicate velvet cake my mother had made once, and I had enjoyed pressing it
with my tongue against the roof of my mouth, feeling the softness and
smoothness of the cake. His cock was like that, exactly like that, as the
cockhead compressed against the roof of my mouth and my tongue rose up to
cup it and hold it there tightly.
     Hunter made some heavy, almost disgusting spitting sounds, and I knew
he was rubbing his saliva onto his cock. I was about to get that fat
schlong shoved into me once again, and I knew I couldn't help but groan
happily about it. I began to nurse King's cock and hoped he would treat my
sighs as sounds of contentment as I sucked his cock.
     The hard shaft plunged into my bowels with the familiar fury of a
locomotive entering a tunnel, a well-planned fit, and I moaned, turned my
mouth and rocked my lips about King's prick, and King gasped in pleasure.
     Hunter pulled back out and shoved his prick into me again and each
time, I again couldn't help but emit my murmurs of delight as he moved
within me.
     "See, this boy loves having a man's cock up him." Hunter said, and I
knew he was being a deliberate contrast to King, the gentleman and the
ruffian, the dandy and the laborer, gentle and rough, clean and dirty. I
was caught between two worlds of joy, that of refinement and that of
grittiness, I could share these men in my heart because of their different
natures, revel in their distinct attitudes and actions.
     I think King picked up on this, or perhaps he merely saw the way to
gain an advantage in their contest for my body. "Let's lower him down onto
his knees." He suggested. "Then I can get under him while you pummel him
from behind and give him some pleasure for his own."
     "Why not?" grumbled Hunter.
     They moved me, my pants about my shins and hindering me, onto my knees
and then King crawled down to lie upon the deck and sidled under me. His
head found my crotch as his cock returned to the range of my lips, and
Hunter's dong found its entrance again as well and as I sank onto King's
cock, Hunter's prong plowed into me once again.
     "Gmph!" I grunted as he shoved in hard. The lubrication was gone now,
only my relaxed bowels eased the way for his second assault upon me. That
and the pleasure that poured from me as King began to suck my cock.
     Hunter began to slam into my body, he was past any gentleness now, and
he was humping me furiously. I moaned a protest sound at him and he said,
"Going to blow any second, kid! It's going to blow!"
     He was close, I decided and I let him continue to pound and abuse my
buttocks for his joy, his rough hands were clutching my waist and I felt
the hard callouses upon them like distinct scratchy areas. King's hands,
though, which caressed my thighs and absorbed some of the impact from
Hunter's thrusts, were smooth and soft, without any pads of thickened flesh
upon them to diminish their sensual, sinuous dance over my tender thighs.
     "Uh, guh, guh, guh!" Hunter panted. I felt his sweat splash upon my
back as he thrust at me, felt his body heating up not just in his crotch,
but all over, and I knew he was nearing his climax. I relished the thought
of this, this rugged plainsman was humping my ass while an officer and a
gentleman sucked my cock as I sucked his, the mixture was delightful, the
contrast was ecstatic. When Hunter's groans reached their crescendo, I
found my own passion rising as well and my world became blurred by
climactic splashes playing throughout my body as my ears were filled with
the roars of male lust and then the hot seed poured into me as Hunter's
moans became more urgent and less potent in their fury, he was gushing out
his energy, his maleness, his strength was draining from him, filling me
with his jism, and I moaned out a cat-like cry of my own as my desire
reached its peak and I ejaculated copiously into King's sucking mouth.
     King choked on it, I think he was caught by surprise and perhaps he
even had meant to pull away from me when I reached my peak, but with Hunter
having brought me to climax, he felt he must match that in some way and he
held on, I felt his lips sucking me as I squirted into his mouth, he was
trying to actually drain my sperm from me, I couldn't pump it out as fast
as he drank it, he was literally draining the very energy Hunter had poured
into me, taking it back out for himself.
     I finished my climax, and knowing that I had stopped sucking King
while I had been wracked by my orgasm, I grabbed hold of his pud and I
pumped at him while I continued to hold his cockhead in my mouth and I
wobbled my lips about the glans.
     King gasped, his own pleasure was expressed in soft sighs of sounds,
reaching nearly an ooh-ooh-ooh at the end, and then he gushed upwards into
me and I studiously drank him down, determined to wring every bit of
pleasure for him I could in this, and my hand jerked at his spit-slimed
column as I savored the salty man-juice, and then he was done and I licked
the last droplets from his cockhead and then rose up to rest my butt upon
my heels and regarded this Confederate colonel, this power in Lonely Rock,
lying beneath me panting, his broad chest heaving in his pleasure as he
caught his breath once more.
     "Quite an explosion, eh?" I said to Hunter.
     "Hasn't gone off yet." Hunter said. "I hope I don't have to wade in
there after it."
     I started to speak, and that was when it blew.
     It wasn't a ka-blam, it was more like thunder. Low, solid, rippling
sound, and each puff of sound was louder than the one before, and then it
was a small spike of fire and black smoke that billowed out, and then it
was done and there was a rumbling, but this was the rumbling of falling
stones.
     I looked and the long shed wavered at its highest point and then
slewed over to rest on the ground to one side, but that was the entirety of
the damage done there.
     "That did it good." Hunter said. "What did you think of it, kid?"
     I stood up and began to pull up my pants. "I expected the noise to be
louder."
     He smiled and shook his head. "Loud sounds take up energy. We put that
where it would do the most good. Nearly a half-mile of solid rock now
closes up the Suzy Lee."
     "And now I am nearly destitute." King Carson said as he finished
fastening his fly and regarded the ashes of his dreams. "War has now taken
everything I had built up for ten years."
     War. It had forced me to suck cock in exchange for food, it had taken
all of King Carson's riches and left him merely prosperous (he still owned
a lot of ranches and livestock), it had turned Hunter into a wanted man if
he hadn't been before. It had changed everything, and yet...in another way,
it had changed nothing.
     "I'd better take on off, kid." Hunter said.
     "Do you know where you're going?" I asked him.
     "Around." he smiled. "Just need to lay low a while, until people can
forget what I looked like. Maybe I'll shave off this mustache and crop my
hair, go bareheaded like you do."
     I had to laugh at that. But if he did just that, I wouldn't be able to
recognize him, and I was sure nobody else would, either. "Maybe you should
do that."
     "See you around, kid." Hunter turned and unhurriedly moved toward his
horse. He saddled up and rode off just as the men from the miner's village
arrived to assess the damage.
     I looked at King Carson. "What are we going to tell them?" I asked
him.
     "The truth." he said. "I can keep the men busy on my ranches, building
fences and such, for quite some time. They'll have work and a chance to
clear out their lungs. And I'll encourage those who will to join the army."
     "Which one?" I asked.
     "Does it matter?" he said.
     I reckoned it didn't. I went to find me some long-delayed luncheon,
while King talked to his men. After that, I'd head back to the Salcedo
ranch, and wait there for my next adventure to arrive.

                             THE END
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