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  Back in the study, Whit was gratified to see that Huntley had disrobed as requested. He sat back on the velvet couch with his drink cradled between his thighs, and the vision was so striking Whit gasped. Stunningly beautiful. The smattering of hair spread across pectorals that were indeed juicy and firm, crowned by nipples rosy and peaked. And when Huntley raised one arm to weave his fingers through that thick mane of hair, half closing his eyes in anticipated relaxation, his shimmering deltoid led Whit’s eye to the exposed joys of a silken underarm.

  Whit stepped forward, professionally setting the bottle of oil on the ottoman and shaking out the square of sheeting. “You should lie on your stomach,” he said, “but take off your boots so you don’t muss your couch. This sort of medical massage strokes toxins away from the heart, and they generally wind up emanating out the feet.”

  “I’m intrigued,” said Huntley in a new, lazy tone of voice, removing his boots as Whit spread the sheet over the couch. “It’s been years since I’ve even met a real physician. Well, we had one in Frémont’s Battalion of course, but he usually traveled closely with Frémont and didn’t bother with us soldiers who had to sleep on the ground.”

  Whit sat on the ottoman. The line of satiny hair arrowed down Huntley’s ridged abdomen, the arrow vanishing into the broadfall of his fringed buckskins. Whit was face-to-face with what was undoubtedly an impressive prick, but his physician’s oath had specified something about “keeping myself far from all seduction.”

  “Lie on your stomach,” he instructed. “I learned this medical massage from some fellow visiting Glasgow from Stockholm. It’s a movement gathering steam across Europe. It really improves the circulation.”

  So the lanky, delicious woodsman lay on his stomach, splaying one arm over his head, allowing the one closest to Whit to trail on the ground.

  Rubbing the oil between his palms, Whit said quietly, “Allow me to tell you some boring details of my own life, to take your mind off any current stresses. You don’t have to really listen or respond. It just helps to have monotonous noise in the room. I normally use a metronome, but my dull voice will have to suffice.” With great trepidation, Whit laid his oily palms against the trapezius muscles of the shoulders. The warmth hit him with the force of a rampaging bison, and he barely remembered to apply pressure with his thumbs. “These are effleurage strokes,” he started out, as though he needed to remind himself.

  “Ah.” Huntley sighed, his lower jaw going slack.

  Whit made long, gliding strokes down the lovely sloping plane of Huntley’s back, squiggling his thumbs between the vertebrae as he’d been trained. It was tantalizing, the way the trough of his lower back began its graceful upward ascent at the hips, but these appetizing mysteries were covered by the rough buckskin. The fringed pants were belted at the waist, so Whit worked the muscles of the lower back, his fingertips occasionally slipping beneath the belt. It took all of his professional restraint to refrain from smacking the rounded rump—it was uplifted so appealingly as though begging for it, and Whit felt a few drops of semen spurt from the tip of his own cock, no doubt staining his trousers. Whit had spent many a delightful hour smacking the rump of a willing nan-boy, but he had never dared it with anyone he wasn’t paying in coin.

  He had actually never had congress with anyone he wasn’t paying in coin, aside from a fellow medical student in Glasgow. One night, while under the influence of Scotch whiskey, they had groped and fondled. The next day, no one spoke a word.

  “Ah,” Huntley sighed again, even swiveling his muscular hips into the couch to get a more relaxed angle. “Tell me your boring story,” he nearly whispered.

  Right. The boring story. Returning up to the shoulders, Whit swept his expert fingers down the athletic arm, lifting the hand to rest on his knee so he could massage each finger in turn. “You might want to know how a half-breed Cherokee came to attend medical school in Glasgow.”

  “Certainly,” Huntley said apathetically.

  It was stimulating how close the trader’s fingers were to his own burgeoning crotch. Whit could barely remember his own history. He started with the easiest part. “I was born to a Dutch father, who was a pharmacist himself, and a half-breed Cherokee and African mother in New York City in 1817. I attended the African Free School—”

  “So you’re thirty-four years of age,” Huntley mumbled.

  Whit was so shocked at Mr. Ashbury’s propensity for math he stopped his finger-stroking, merely massaging the forefinger as though it was a small penis. Huntley’s hand was entirely relaxed, yet he was doing complex arithmetic ciphering in his head! This irritated Whit—he liked to be the one in control—and without forethought he swept his hand back up the arm, laying Huntley’s hand like a dead weight on the carpet, and used both hands to massage the deltoid. His fingers delved into the provocative underarm he had so longed to manipulate, the steamy depths making his own prick twitch so violently he was glad Huntley’s eyes were closed. His cock was so massive, it had been often described as a limb unto itself, and at times such as this it became increasingly difficult to disguise it.

  “Yes, thirty-four,” Whit agreed vaguely. Now, where had he left off in his story? “A tutor of mine helped me apply to several American universities, but of course I was turned down by all of them, although all my tutors agreed I was exceptionally bright.” Pouring more oil into his palm, his fingers delved even deeper, sliding between the sheet and the sinews of Huntley’s seductive pectoral muscles. When his fingertips brushed and then tickled the stiff peak of his nipple, Huntley gasped, his eyelids fluttering. Gooseflesh spread out over his shoulder and down his arm, but he remained passive. Huntley even adjusted his hips again, as though humping the couch.

  It took all of Whit’s concentration to continue his monotonous story, for he could feel the semen gushing up the underside of his cock, and he wanted nothing more than to ejaculate all over that muscular, velvety shoulder. “Yes, this tutor helped me get accepted into the University in Glasgow, and I quickly obtained my bachelor’s and then my master’s, all at the top of my class.” His story was helping to distract the trader’s attention from his stroking, so he dared to slip his hand one more time across the athletic chest, this time pinching the delectable nipple with determination, causing Huntley to inhale sharply and arch his head back a bit into the submissive posture Whit so enjoyed. Whit longed to shove that shoulder back and nibble on that nipple—to discover how loudly this delightful pioneer gasped then—but he didn’t dare upset the balance he’d been creating. Massaging the breast area was a part of this medical massage—only perhaps not paying such undue attention to another man’s nipple.

  He tried to sound authoritative. “Strokes go toward the heart to aid blood flow. I don’t want to rouse you, but you must lower your buckskins beneath your knees.” With a remote physician’s voice, he instructed, “Try to do so without moving the blood away from the heart.”

  Like a passive sleepwalker, Huntley slowly placed both hands beneath his chest and raised his torso just enough to unbuckle his belt. His head hung down lethargically—the desired result—his lovely mane of thick hair covering his face as he slid the leather over his ass. Whit assisted him the last few inches, succeeding in clearing his knees before the patient collapsed onto his front again, this time with his chin resting on both folded hands.

  It was beyond his most outrageous gratification to view that succulent butt, so white in comparison to the rest of the mountain man’s body, so delightfully revealed inch by inch, like those bawdy yet bored nautch girls in Paris whorehouses removing clothing one piece at a time.

  He should not have suggested this massage to Huntley. Not when the trader presented such an irresistible piece of ripe fruit under his questing hands. Was it too much to think…Huntley would be amenable to being handled more forcefully? He hadn’t walloped Whit upside the head…yet.

  Yes, Paris. That was where his story could continue.

  Whit smeared more of the musky oil between his pal
ms. “My master’s degree, yes, then my medical degree a year later. I went to Paris for an internship…” Both hands now plastered to the slope of Huntley’s lower back, Whit had to rise slightly off the ottoman to apply the necessary pressure. While his thumbs described circular rotations to the tailbone, his erect cock pointed directly at the savory globes of the Huntley’s ass.

  He’d performed this procedure many a time, mostly on male patients, but never on one he so desired to fuck in “the Italian fashion.” He was starting to feel light-headed, so he took a perch on the cushion next to Huntley’s hips and breathed deeply to continue his story. “I returned to New York, opening a medical office on West Broadway…”

  When he poised his greasy hands at the lovely gluteal incline, every word of his story completely evaporated, and he swept his palms up the satiny expanse. It seemed that Huntley even spread his thighs apart slightly when Whit leaned into him, rotating his thumbs enthusiastically to part the globes. Holy Mother of Joseph, he could not do this. Could not do this without losing restraint and completely ruining the fine balance he had built up with the trader. I simply must stop, must leave the room. Tell him we are done, this is the end. Whit managed to keep his hands moving in a professionally kneading manner against the ass so buoyantly delicious it was like a baked loaf of bread. When he leaned up another inch and saw Huntley’s penis pinioned to the sheet between his extended thighs, well, Whit no longer had control.

  It was extremely odd, the way almost half an orgasm exploded out the length of his cock, soiling his trousers, and probably the sheet on which he sat. This had never happened before, certainly not without being touched.

  The heel of Whit’s hand slipped off the greasy slope of the ass, and his fingertips brushed against the tight head of that delicious prick. Whit could have sworn the penis twitched with pleasure, but the next thing he knew, the trader was lunging upright, violently throwing Whit’s torso off his body.

  “You goddamned perverted fucker!” Huntley roared.

  Whit was on his ass on the carpet, painfully aware of the wet stain at the hip of his trousers. He was so thoroughly mortified he was only vaguely aware of Huntley’s naked torso, his erection standing stiff at attention as he attempted to stuff the prick back into his buckskins. The trader stood looming over him like a pugilist who’d just knocked him to the floor.

  Whit put up his hands in protest. “I’m sorry…” he said feebly.

  Huntley was having none of it. He even kicked Whit in the thigh—admittedly, not as nearly as hard as he could have—and bellowed, “Get out! Get out of my house, you goddamned degenerate!”

  Whit stumbled out of the study so ingloriously, he left behind his bottle of musk oil, remembering to grab his bags from the foyer. It took him an hour just to regain his composure.

  Chapter Three

  “I know that all about me are my friends, and as a friend to all, I wish to talk.”

  Huntley paused, as was traditional, and took a long pull off the pipe before passing it to the next Indian. He continued in the solemn, dramatic tones the Diggers were accustomed to. “I know that some of you don’t wish to be friends with white men and are trying to unite the different tribes to make war. I’m here to tell you. It is better for the Indians and white men to be friends. If Indians make war on the white men, every tribe will be exterminated. Not one will be left. I’ve just been where white men are more numerous than wasps and ants. If you arouse the anger of the Americans, every Indian will be killed before they are satisfied.”

  This impromptu meeting had been called in front of Huntley’s Agua Fria trading post that morning with the arrival of José Juarez and his band. Huntley welcomed the opportunity to address the group that included about thirty Diggers from other tribes.

  Sheriff Burney had easily been summoned, Agua Fria being so small that one instantly knew if someone expectorated on the other side of town. They’d been joined by several town luminaries, such as Boling from his hotel, the assayer Paul Terrell, Adam Johnston, special agent to the governor, and Philip Din of the tenpin alley and gambling establishment.

  Huntley wanted to remind José Juarez of the events in San Francisco, the unmitigated might of the white man he’d witnessed with his own eyes, so he now intoned, “José Juarez here has just returned with me from the place where the white men are numerous. You’ll believe him when he tells you they are more powerful than the Indians.”

  Respectfully, Huntley handed the pipe to Juarez, today clad only in a jacket and socks. They stood before the log where people conglomerated in front of his trading post, and Huntley waited for Juarez to issue a statement of agreement. He knew enough of Diggers’ character and intelligence to know Yankees were considered trespassers on their property, but he’d already lost four horses to them—and no horse was too valuable for an Indian to eat.

  “What did Ashbury tell them?” Phil Din wanted to know.

  Boling was the only other fellow present who could speak the Indian lingo. “That they’d better shake and call it done, or there’ll be hell to pay.”

  The Americans nodded in satisfaction.

  Juarez suddenly took a step forward and declared with alarming gusto and energy, “Our brother has told his Indian relatives only some of the truth! We did see many white people, but the ones we saw are not like the tribe that digs gold in our mountains. When the gold diggers go to the big city, they give their gold for strong water and games, and when they have no more gold, the city dwellers drive the gold diggers back to the mountains with clubs. They strike them down, as your white relative struck me when I was in the big city.”

  What? Huntley’s jaw dropped, and his arms hung limply at his sides. He looked at the cunning chief’s face, and Juarez shot him a vindictive glance. It was plain the melee in San Francisco had not been forgotten.

  Juarez continued, “The city whites will not go to war with us. They cannot bring their big ships and guns to us, so we have no cause to fear them.”

  Many other Indians had joined them by now, and Huntley felt like tearing the pipe from the traitor’s paw. True enough—three-masted clippers couldn’t make the journey up the San Joaquin River, but what absurd logic! Huntley had heard many such examples of convoluted Indian logic in his time, but this one topped all. It would be bad manners to interrupt Juarez, though, and now that infuriating Dr. Whitney and his grumpy associate Bud had joined the American side of the audience.

  Dr. Whitney stood with folded hands, unruffled and expressionless, tilting his torso this way and that to get a better glimpse of Juarez. Huntley barely took note of the disheveled Bud, probably clad in that ridiculous woven Spanish vest and those olive trousers that looked to have been stolen from a member of Frémont’s expedition. No, Huntley’s attention was fixed solely on the elegant doctor. He had not stopped thinking about him for a moment since the events of the day before.

  He might have overreacted to the effects of the medical massage. It was probably true that medical gymnastics involved stroking the nipples, even tweaking them. What did he know about these newfangled techniques? Dr. Whitney had studied in Glasgow, Paris even. Europeans did things differently and were in the forefront of almost every new idea, ideas that were often considered absurd by Americans. So his cock stiffening when the doctor had fondled his nipple, well, that was just a normal physical reaction, maybe even the desired European result.

  But when Whitney had grabbed handfuls of his ass and rotated so heartily he could feel Whitney’s hot breath on his asshole, vulnerable and open to the air, well, something hot and emotional had surged in him. He knew Whitney could view his cock pressed against the sheet, taut and throbbing between his thighs. Maybe this was not a shameful sight for a doctor of European training. But when Whitney’s hand had dared to slip lower and actually tickle the underside of his erection, all reasoning went out the window. By that time Huntley was so randy he could have torn the door off a barn with one arm. But since he’d booted the doctor from his house, he’d felt inc
reasingly more guilty about his own behavior. He had definitely overreacted.

  He’d had to immediately run out and fuck one of his squaws just to relieve the arousal created by the doctor’s marvelous hands. But Indian women only lay there until he was done, so that was hardly any release. No one, not even his poor departed wife, had ever touched him the way the doctor had. No one had ever stimulated him in that manner. Perhaps it was akin to some opiate, to want to find out more about this, to keep coming back for more.

  Juarez handed him the pipe. It was his turn for a rebuttal. Huntley quickly cleared his head and strutted about to regain command. “I have listened attentively to what my friend the chief has said. He has told you only some truth. He has told you of things he saw in his dreams while ‘strong water’ made him sleep. The white men we saw in the city are all of the same tribe as the gold diggers in our mountains. They are all brothers, all of one tribe. All can climb the mountains, and if war is made on the gold diggers, all white men will come and fight against you. Their numbers will be so great, every tribe will be destroyed that joins in a war against them.”

  Huntley was just getting into a good rhythm when the pipe was yanked from his hand. This was unheard-of, yanking the pipe, interrupting a man in the middle of an eloquent speech! Juarez paraded in agitation, gesturing excitedly at his fellow tribesmen, as though unaware he wore no trousers and no shoes.

  “Ashbury’s tongue is crooked! This trader is not a friend to the Indians. He is not our brother. He will help the gold diggers drive us from the country. We can now drive them from among us, and if the other whites come to help, we will go to the mountains. If they follow us, they won’t find us. We will kill them with arrows and rocks.”

  Adam Johnston, the special agent, shook Huntley by the elbow. “What in the name of Sam Hill is he saying? I don’t like the looks of this.”