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  “This valley intrigues me,” said Doc. “If the waterfalls truly are hundreds of feet tall—”

  “You damned Digger!”

  The bellowing was so piercing that even the knot of men crowded around the gold barrel shut their traps and pricked up their ears. Huntley and the doctor swiveled their torsos to see what the uproar was, Huntley irritated that his conversation was interrupted.

  A short, combustible fellow with black hair that stuck out every which way like an oily haystack stood in the grog shop doorway. He was so enraged that he seemed wider than he was tall, with angry hands held out from his sides as though he gripped bombs. His jaw worked furiously as he gnashed his teeth. “Let me get hold of your beggarly carcass and I’ll use you up so small that God Almighty himself can’t see your ghost!”

  Huntley half rose from his chair. “What in the name of…”

  The only Indians in there were connected to him, so when the short, smoking fellow raised his talons and made a rush for a pile of bottles and casks where the Diggers cowered, Huntley darted sideways directly into the fray. This might have been a ruse to distract everyone’s attention away from the gold barrel. He easily grabbed the man by the back collar of his woven Spanish waistcoat and held him in the air, his legs furiously wheeling as though he were snowshoeing on a frozen lake.

  “Hold it right here, you shrimp!” Huntley hollered. “What’s all this business about whaling on one of my Indians?” Huntley had just whaled on one of them, but that was his business.

  The shrimp sputtered and pointed. “He stole—he stole—”

  To Huntley’s surprise, it was Dr. Whitney who stepped in then, his elegant hands gently extricating the waistcoat collar from Huntley’s grip. “I can handle this,” he told Huntley calmly. Once the shrimp’s feet were safely on the ground, the doctor turned him by the shoulders and bent down to look him in the eye. “Now, Bud. You know those Indians didn’t steal anything from you. We haven’t been anywhere near them since we’ve been in San Francisco.”

  Bud’s eyes darted from side to side, and he seethed through gnashed teeth. “I want a whiskey.”

  Whitman closed his eyes patiently. “All right, then.” Whitman handed Bud an eagle’s quill, presumably full of gold dust, and the shrimp sped off to the bar. Huntley looked on in astonishment at the calming effect the doctor had on the maniac, and Whitman steered him once again to a quieter spot. He leaned his tall, spare body into Huntley, practically pressing him to the wall. “That’s the fellow I was just telling you about—the one who told me about the deep secret valley. He’s all right. He just has a screw loose when it comes to Indians. Locked horns with some of them when crossing the plains to get here.”

  “If you say so,” Huntley said mildly, again falling under the spell of the exotic physician. Even in the sweaty atmosphere of the grog shop, a tantalizing aroma of spice—cinnamon?—wafted from the doctor’s shirtfront. “Does that doughhead intend on coming to Agua Fria with us?”

  Dr. Whitney smiled with casual confidence. “Oh, I think Bud would go anywhere I told him to.”

  Huntley found himself grinning stupidly, too. “I can see why.”

  He later looked back upon this odd meeting with a sense of anger at himself. What a fool, to fall so easily under Dr. Whitney’s spell! Huntley Ashbury was the biggest trader in the Sierra foothills, and nobody’s fool. He dictated arrangements, he set terms, and he instructed others what to do, not the other way around. But meeting the unusual doctor seemed to have sent all the blood in his head flowing in strange directions, to places it wasn’t normally meant to flow.

  Chapter Two

  Agua Fria, California

  “Now, listen up, boys. I have it on good authority that Diggers have been exacting tribute from emigrants passing through our territory.”

  Whit Whitney was fascinated by the commanding manner in which the frontier trader addressed the crowd of miners and pioneers gathered in the dining room of Boling’s Hotel. He had been fascinated with Huntley Ashbury since first setting sights on him in San Francisco, cooking the goose of that oiled fellow. Brash and bold, imbued with the rugged intensity of a mountain man survivor but overlaid with a genteel sensibility, Huntley Ashbury excited every instinct Whit had to reach out, touch, and learn from another man. Perhaps it was an anthropological desire to learn all he could about the new El Dorado of the Far West, but Huntley Ashbury stimulated every last nerve in the doctor’s body.

  “It’s always been my understanding with the Indians that it’s better for us to be friends. And friends we’ve been until recently, since I set up my first trading post in the San Joaquin Valley.”

  During their journey here from San Francisco, Whit learned that Huntley had been a member of Frémont’s Battalion during the Mexican War, afterward establishing trading posts and living among the Indians, leading tribes against other tribes as one of their chiefs. Huntley’s obvious facility with languages was evidenced now as he turned to each pioneer in turn, seemingly fluent in Spanish, German, and French, the trading language of “keskydees,” so named from their habit of constantly querying “Qu'est-ce qu'il dit?”

  Huntley continued, “Now I return from San Francisco to find that Moore up at Desperation Gulch has been dropped and left in the dust.”

  A fellow who was apparently one of Huntley’s agents, Greeley, added vehemently, “I usually see at least twenty Indians every day coming here to trade in their gold, but the past month I’ve seen one, maybe two per day.”

  “Hell, Greeley,” scoffed a fellow with only three fingers on one hand. “We all know you’re just hot because some gophers stole your gold when you buried it.”

  Most everyone in the dining room laughed then—though obviously not Greeley.

  Huntley Ashbury frowned in apparent frustration. “I’m trying to tell you boys—my squaws have told me the truth. They gain nothing from telling me a pack of lies. Cassady, you especially should be paying me mind, with your dandified establishment up there on your bar. If you want to continue stealing business from me, you’ll set out additional pickets to keep a watch for these marauders.”

  Cassady, apparently a rival trader, snorted and hacked a gob of spit onto the wood-planked floor of the dining room. Even though he was a doctor, accustomed to seeing all manner of a man’s innards, Whit’s stomach clenched in disgust. People were supposed to eat in this room. “Ashbury, you’ve just been listening to a lot of hot gas. Mountain men of your class are inclined to adopt the superstitions of the Diggers that you’ve been living with. You’ve just been listening to the bloviating palaver of a few lazy vagabonds.”

  “Oui,” said a keskydee. “These alleged attacks are only a quarrel between you and some Diggers…perhaps over a woman?”

  “Hell,” said someone else who apparently had a grudge against the Frenchman. “Your wife in Boston didn’t even know you was coming west until she read your name in the newspaper passenger list.”

  The meeting devolved into accusations then, mostly involving men who were “full-size, live dandies with delicate gold picks and kid gloves, about as handy as ringtail monkeys,” to hear tell of it. Men in California clothed themselves in curses as though they were garments. Whit was immensely relieved when Huntley Ashbury stood and hitched his chin at him to indicate it was time to leave. No one seemed to notice or care they were leaving, and they stepped into the warm open air of a late autumn foothill afternoon.

  They started down the dirt street toward the structure Whit knew as Huntley’s house, although he hadn’t yet been inside. Upon arriving in the putrid stage this morning, so bumpy they decided to ride on top of the carriage rather than bruise their skulls, they’d been beset with squaws clamoring for Huntley’s attention. Whit knew that Huntley had many Indian “wives,” but the way they grabbed at this hardy pioneer of commerce was obscene. Didn’t they have anything better to do? Whit knew little of Far West Indians, having come to San Francisco on a ship through the Isthmus of Panama. And how could Hunt
ley handle the needs and cries of so many women? These were only the women at this one trading post. Huntley had at least four other posts.

  Huntley Ashbury was an exceptionally handsome fellow, which was why Whit’s attention had been drawn to him in the first place. The only reason he’d stepped up to him in San Francisco and wrapped his arms around him wasn’t to prevent him from breaking that chieftain’s nose. No, Huntley’s remarkable height, the way his clean brunet hair cascaded in luxurious waves over his buckskin shirt collar, and his long, straight nose that came to a slightly aquiline but perfect point, all these things combined in a strong attraction in Whit. And once Whit had his arms tightened around the woodsman’s powerful torso, Whit knew he’d never be able to walk away and forget him. Huntley’s exceptionally full and luscious lips could curl sensually when intrigued with something and, like now, snarl alarmingly when riled.

  “Those tomfool blockheads,” Huntley snarled. “Here’s damp powder and no fire to dry it! They’re all going to lose their topknots to those Diggers if they don’t take heed.”

  Whit knew that these Indians didn’t scalp hair, but it was a mountain man’s way of saying his fellow citizens would soon “go under” if they didn’t take Huntley’s warnings seriously. “They’ll all be sobbing back to you like crybabies in a few weeks if you’re correct, which I believe that you are.”

  “Damned out-and-out jackasses!” Huntley fumed, his long legs in their fringed buckskin leggings taking such furious long strides up the dusty street that Whit had to jog to keep up. The air, sweetly scented of golden dried grass, feathered Whit’s face as they approached the two-story wooden structure, the grandest house in town.

  Three squaws wearing only deerskin skirts waited at the white picket fence that surrounded the house, but Huntley said something to them in their language, and they backed off. With an excited thrill Whit followed the trader onto the front portico and waited for him to unlock the door.

  “You don’t allow your ‘wives’ into the house?”

  Huntley grinned. “No, never. About the hardest work a fellow can do is to spark two gals at once and preserve a good average. It’s difficult enough juggling all of those squalling women—a man’s got to have his own privacy.”

  They stepped into the welcoming interior of the drawing room. Whit was surprised at the oddly normal appearance of the house. He had expected maybe mounted grizzly heads on the walls, the only decoration a row of empty liquor bottles, and windows made of the same. But the tall windows all boasted real glass, a sturdy river rock fireplace beckoned from the end of the long room, and instead of animal skins on the shining oak floors, thick Persian rugs had been thrown. Huntley Ashbury, being the grandest trader in the foothills, could obviously afford all the finer comforts of life and would be the first to choose among them. Whit was pleased to discover that apparently Huntley even had an aesthetic sensibility, as looming down at him from up near the ceiling were several paintings in carved frames, landscapes of nearby vistas.

  Whit followed him into an adjacent room, a study that contained a heavy carved desk and many tall bookcases laden with tomes from back east. Whit craved to peruse the titles on the spines, but his overwhelming urge was to discover more about this lusty pioneer who oversaw this empire. He stood casually by the desk as Huntley poured them two whiskeys.

  Handing him a glass—another nice detail, not the usual tin cups—Huntley said, “I don’t think you’d be wise to go to the Ahwahnee Valley without an armed escort, especially not with that Bud clown. What’s his interest in the Valley, anyway? In the stage, he just sat there grinding his teeth, looking like he wanted to polish off every quail and goose that crossed our path.”

  They went to a low couch covered in burgundy velvet and sat, using an ottoman as a table for their drinks. “All I know is he has it out for Indians. His wagon train from Missouri was ambushed somewhere on the eastern side of the Sierra, everyone killed except him.”

  “I can understand his sensibilities regarding that.” Huntley was stunningly beautiful when he became thoughtful like this. His deep brown eyes seemed to soak up every color of the room. Whit noticed that while one eye appeared light brown, almost hazel, the other seemed permanently dilated in dark brown. “I wonder where he heard about the Ahwahnee Valley.”

  “From some Indian chief, over near the large saline lake where his train was wiped out.”

  “Big saline lake?” Huntley perked up, sitting upright. In the V of his buckskin shirt’s collar, revealed by the loose silk scarf he had knotted about his robust throat, Whit was titillated by a smattering of soft brown hair over hearty pectoral muscles. Whit’s penis elongated against his thigh, and he was glad he had kept his waistcoat buttoned. He could drape one forearm over the offending appendage and hide his arousal, but he knew his interest in the trader was of a sexual nature.

  The truth he had discovered while going to university in Glasgow. He had androphile proclivities. Perhaps because Scottish lasses—or lasses of most other nations—were not apt to spread their thighs for a man of color, Whit had found release in the “nan-boys” of the back alleys. Through this secretive pastime of his, he had discovered he had a very abrupt and assertive nature. He was quite fond of taking on the role of the aggressive fucker, in particular when he found an invert with thick, sweeping dark hair that he could grasp in his fist while humping, holding his skull fast to his shoulder while he slurped on his expanse of submissive throat. Whit’s cock was larger than most, and perhaps he intimidated some of these nan-boys with the length of it, but in this way he’d discovered that he enjoyed playing the part of the dominant aggressor.

  Huntley possessed that luxurious head of hair that Whit admired, and when Whit had embraced him from behind in San Francisco, his penis had prodded a shapely, muscular ass. The athletic slope of Huntley’s lower back was a hard, solid plane, so when Huntley had squiggled the breadth of his shoulders in Whit’s embrace, Whit’s nipples hardened into lusty points to feel the scraping of the subdued frontiersman’s buckskin shirt. It excited Whit to imagine grabbing a handful of that shiny, wavy hair, yanking the head back to rest on his shoulder, and bestowing an openmouthed kiss on those full cupid’s lips. It aroused him even more when Huntley had appeared to enjoy lingering with their bodies plastered together, content to be controlled, perhaps even aware of the fat erection nudging against his succulent rump.

  The sorry truth was, even in Whit’s wildest imaginations, this scenario always ended with Huntley walloping him upside the nose, just as he’d smacked that chief into oblivion. Androphiles—especially men of color—were usually looked upon as criminals. But Whit knew he had to follow Huntley into the Sierra foothills—at the very least, he could travel into that mysterious valley and write about those lofty waterfalls in some anthropological journal. In the meantime, he could observe this beautiful specimen of manhood and gauge his reactions to Whit’s muted suggestions. Or, the more whiskey they drank, perhaps the suggestions would not be so muted.

  Huntley told Whit, “That lake sounds like the lake of the Mono tribe, lorded over by that Chief Tenaya I mentioned to you in San Francisco. He’s the one who warned me out of the Ahwahnee Valley.”

  Whit fingered the rim of his whiskey glass. “I wonder if it’s the same chief who told Bud about it.” He was about to say, “We could go back to Boling’s Hotel and get more information out of Bud,” but he was much more interested in saying, “I suppose there aren’t many acceptable white women to court in these parts. No one that I noticed in San Francisco, anyway, although they claim the female population is exploding, compared to what it used to be.”

  Huntley’s face clouded. His beautifully clear brow furrowed, and he looked at a spot on the Persian rug. “Nope. None at all in these parts, unless they come attached to another fellow. And most of the women who make that long, worrisome trek across the plains seem to arrive used up, stale, aged. Ones that make it at all.” He sighed deeply. “My own wife and son were killed coming across t
he plains—by weather and toil, not Indians.” Abruptly, Huntley straightened and collapsed his torso against the cushioned back of the couch, cradling his glass between his athletic thighs. “I suppose that Bud fellow isn’t such a clown, after all, if we’ve got that in common. I suppose he’d be a good man to have if we get up a battalion to chase down those murderous Diggers.”

  Whit frowned, too, and all he wanted to do was reach out and caress that leather-clad thigh. Instead, he said brightly, “I’ve an idea. In Glasgow I studied something called medical gymnastics. Will you allow me to practice upon you? I hate to see you so gloomy, and this has been known to enhance the blood, to invigorate the muscles, and thus improve one’s mood.”

  Huntley flashed him a sideways, somewhat suspicious glance but was intrigued enough to ask, “Gymnastics? If it involves running of any sort, I’m plumb tired out.”

  “No, all you have to do is lie there,” Whit assured the man. “Where did the stage driver put my bags?”

  “In the foyer, I believe. Just lie here?”

  Whit stood. “Yes, it’s very relaxing. Take off everything—your shirt, cravat, whatever else you have on your torso. I’ll be right back.” He looked down at the dubious man and smiled what he knew to be a doctorly, comforting smile. “Trust me. I’m a physician.”

  Now Huntley did look plumb tired out, and he grinned feebly as Whit left the room. In the foyer, he rummaged through his medical bag for his bottle of oil of musk root and a square of cotton sheeting. He took this opportunity to adjust himself, unbuttoning his waistcoat and nestling his cock up against his hip. His interest in practicing medical gymnastics against the person of Huntley Ashbury was mostly clinical in nature—all right, maybe fifty percent clinical. Just being allowed to gaze at the frontiersman’s athletic torso would be payment enough. But his desire for the man was so powerful, Whit fervently prayed he didn’t ejaculate inside his trousers the moment he laid his fingertips upon his shoulder.