Page 20 of A Good Prospect

Tamasin interrupted. “If Don Salvador wins, I shall do all his washing. For an entire week. You told me miners pay six dollars for a dozen garments, so that should be worth a couple of California bank notes.”

Salvador maneuvered so that he walked in between the other two, and he spoke fondly down at coppery crown of the girl’s head. Her braided hair, glossier now than when they had first met, was so shiny it looked as though plaited with satin ribbons. “Why should you have to pay if Ophir loses?”

“Because I’m betting it won’t happen,” she said, blank face innocent of all guile.

Salvador was speechless. Speechless she could be so witty, and awestruck that she was counting on him losing!

Ophir wisely did not lord it over Sal, and merely said, “Very smart girl to bet on the winner.”

Inside the barn, the men staked off a ring of twenty-four feet square. There was always plenty of rope, being constantly needed to make reatas, so they roped off the ring, while Tamasin went to the hacienda to get a bottle of water and a sponge, the necessities of the umpire. After stripping to their pants, even peeling off their cotton undershirts, Ophir declared Sal’s boots were unfair.

“You Californios wear boots so pointy, it’s almost like you’re wearing spikes.”

“All my zapatones are like this.”

Ophir pointed at the ground as he circled Salvador in the ring. “Well, it shall be a fair, stand-up fight. You know there are no blows below the waist, and no kicking or striking with the knees.”

This time, Sal did spit on the ground. “You think I’d stoop to that?”

They were fairly growling at each other in barely-leashed anger by the time Tamasin returned with her bottle, handing Ophir a peso coin to toss.

“I am the fancy,” Tamasin stated as she tied one red and one blue silk sash to a stake in the middle of the ring. She looked up at the two blank-faced men. “Oh. That is the audience who admires the prizefighters. In Ireland, anyway. It is called ‘the noble art.’”

“How do you know so much about boxing?” Salvador inquired. He was smoking to think that once again, Ophir bested him for Tamasin’s affections. Sal was not a prizefighter. He was only a hardheaded cowboy.

“Oh.” She backed out of the ring, sucking at her water bottle. “Sometimes they would come up to Ireland, put on exhibitions. People would travel for a hundred miles to watch them.”

Ophir smiled. “Then you’re the perfect umpire. Remember, now. Thirty seconds.”

“Thirty seconds,” Tamasin agreed.

The men walked casually to the center of the ring and squared off with raised fists. They frowned violently at each other, but Salvador was not concerned. How superb of a boxer could Ophir be? If boxing was the only time he’d squared off with an opponent, he knew nothing of serious frontier brawling. How many noses of fellow rancheros had Salvador broken in his time? A dozen, at least. Boxing was for girlish men. Androgynous fools who would rather fight by arbitrary rules than to break them.

“Tamasin?” Ophir queried, his shoulders muscles bunched with furor.

“Oh! Am I supposed to say something? All right, men…Fight!”

They started with a series of jabs that didn’t connect, and Sal grew even more confident. He had never seen an organized prize fight before, but he’d seen fellows lock horns hundreds of times. It was usually over a cow, horses being dispensable in California, and women being nearly nonexistent. Then Ophir landed a couple of punches on Sal’s chest, and Sal frowned even fiercer. He knew he surprised Ophir with a straight left to the jaw, knocking him off balance. Sal chuckled to himself. No doubt Ophir had never noticed he was left-handed.

Ophir seemed angrier, too. Sal had to duck from a vicious hook, and by the time he stood erect again, Tamasin was calling “Time!” Manfully wiping their unbloodied noses on the backs of their hands, they sulked to their own corners of the ring. Salvador was gratified that Tamasin came to his corner, not Ophir’s, and offered him a swig from the bottle. He nearly gagged when he realized it was whiskey, not water, in the bottle. His eyes watered as the fiery liquid bloomed inside his nostrils—he hadn’t had any whiskey in a week or so. But he managed to swallow, and nodded at her in gratitude. She smiled at his feet, shy and modest. Why would he make her feel modest, unless she was thinking something shameful?Was it that she stood not one foot away from his toned and vigorous chest, already shiny with sweat? Having come from some sort of nunnery, she probably hadn’t had much occasion to glance at men’s sweaty chests.

They grappled again. After more jabs that barely connected, they both took sudden swings that left them in a clinch. The slippery contact of Ophir’s hairless, polished chest against his was a shock to Salvador—as though Ophir would be acutely aware of the rubbing of his own clammy silky chest hair. This angered Sal even further, and he brutally shoved Ophir away, only to land a combination of blows against that sculpted chest. Before Ophir had a chance to respond, Tamasin was calling “Time!” again, and this time when they retreated to their corners, they glowered at each other.

Again, Tamasin handed Salvador the bottle of whiskey.

“When did you start drinking whiskey?” Sal inquired, giving her a sideways glance. He assumed a gal from a nunnery did not drink booze.

“When I came here.” Tamasin held her hand out in the shape of the bottle by way of asking for it back. “Knut started giving it to me, to kill the pain. It works quite well,” she said lightly.

Sal half-turned to hand her back the bottle, forcing her to gaze upon what he’d been told was a gloriously athletic chest. He could tell she tried to force her gaze to his face, but her eyes kept glancing down. Casually, he lifted his arms to the crown of his head, to smear his hair out of his eyes.

“All right,” she nearly whispered. “Fight.”

Salvador smiled down at the woman. He knew his cock was lengthening, filling with lust, and the fairly tight pants did not rein the erection in very effectively. He knew the bulbous head was rising, pointing directly at the lap of her silk Californio skirts. “I don’t think Ophir heard you.”

She blinked her dream away and grinned a fresh grin. “Fight!” she called out.

Freshly invigorated now, when they squared off Salvador realized he was fighting to earn Tamasin’s respect. The two men fell immediately into a ferocious set-to, each throwing a dizzying combination of wallops and punches. Salvador had never been this furious with Ophir, due to some ancient masculine effort in his blood to win the female from his rival. Tamasin only handed him the whiskey because Ophir did not imbibe firewater, not because she found Salvador more manly and deserving of her progeny.