Page 10 of A Good Prospect

Chapter Five

“I apprenticed to a blacksmith in North Carolina,” Ophir stated after a silence of many hours.

Sal at last became alert. Since leaving Savage’s trading post, he’d just been trotting up and down the rounded emerald foothills in a numb state, swigging from the whiskey flask he’d demanded from Savage. This whole notion of Yankees, and most of all, “The League,” having the gall to organize on his land bent on outright confiscation was something he would not tolerate. Hatred had been building in the pit of his stomach ever since first viewing the once-boundless verdant valleys becoming choked with the garbage and offal of humans. The only item that even slightly lifted him from the depths of anger was Savage’s revelation that Ophir had been the finest boxer in Boston, presumably after winning his manumission from that Yankee who’d named him Cupid. Now, that was a hearty thought, a shirtless Ophir wrestling with a brutish, sweaty opponent. Surprising how easy it was to imagine his shiny shoulders furrowing as he walloped some red-haired cuss. If The League was as dangerous as Savage seemed to think, it would be pleasant to see Ophir’s pugilistic skills put to the test.

“That’s a valuable trade to know,” Sal said apathetically. He was distracted with an image of Ophir standing triumphant over some faceless defeated foe, hips thrust forward, his fibrous biceps bunched in victory.

Ophir added, “What I mean to say. I became expert in smithy work on machinery and tools. When we get back to Las Oliveras, I could take a look at your father’s mining equipment, see if it’s still usable. We may as well mine some of this gold for ourselves, if the damned leather-brained Yankees are just going to keep carting it away.”

“Esta bueno,”Salvador agreed, and pointed. “El Dorado Creek is right down there.”

Already Sal was dreaming of a particular wonderfully cool watering hole. He hoped it was still where his foggy memory recalled it to be, as he’d probably been half-seas over the last time he’d bathed there. His vaquero José was usually the companion who reminded him of things. He was glad Ophir was not one to drown his sorrows, as nothing good usually came when both partners wandered around “splicing the main brace,” as his seafaring father would say.

Salvador found the deep swimming hole shielded by walls of quartz-veined rocks, even more inviting than his memory allowed. A musical waterfall poured over a fifteen-foot ledge and into the hollow of the blue-green pool. Salvador immediately watered his mount and set to unbuttoning his calzoneras and untying the sash at his waist. “When we’re done with Hornitos, we’ll return to Las Oliveras. Give our readings to that surveyor Knut said was coming, and get that damned cow over to that poor girl.”

Into the pile on the ground went his linen shirt and cotton pants, and Salvador dove into the darkest part of the pool. His head emerged to gasp at the shocking frostiness of the water, and he almost swam to the opposite side to drag himself into the air, but soon relaxed into it. Heat emanating from his body warmed the waters around him as he floated on his back. He relished the bracing juxtaposition of the hot sun on his upturned face and the refreshing melted ice lapping at his ass and balls.

Yes, that poor girl, Thomasina Norris. Pretty girls being essentially a myth anywhere outside of the ranchos, Sal had been thinking more and more about that bedraggled girl who had probably been extremely enchanting about a year ago in Philadelphia, before hopping into her “Prairie Schooner” and coming to the Far West with that offensive bastard. She was tall by Californio standards, her hair the color of ripe apples had probably been abundant and shiny once, and Sal could tell by her accent she probably hailed from Ireland—he had met some of those people when he had lived in San José with his parents. They had been arriving since forty-seven due to a blight on their potatoes, and ensuing starvation. These sons of the Emerald Isle seemed quite jolly to Salvador, despite the horror they were running from.

As he floated, Salvador imagined what Thomasina had looked like a year ago in Philadelphia. Why had she agreed to wed that Niall louse? Sal had noted the pale, freckled skin of these Irish, and he now imagined a healthy, nurtured Thomasina, her neck proud and erect, holding her head high. How creamy her bare, broad shoulders were. When his dream eyes swept lower, over the uplifted slopes of her full, jiggling breasts, Salvador realized his penis was stiffening, even in the frigid waters of the pool. He didn’t care, and he allowed its length to pop from the water’s surface, warming his throbbing glans in the sun.

When he spread his legs, melted ice bathed his asshole, burning from days of being seated in his saddle riding. His floating feet felt so light he seemed lifted in the air. He allowed himself to imagine the entirety of Thomasina’s younger Philadelphia breasts, bobbing and hovering somewhere above his face as she offered them to him. Salvador had never fucked a white woman who wasn’t a hooker. It was difficult to imagine an upstanding, devout woman such as Thomasina doing much more than baring her breasts, but Salvador was in a pleasant dream. So he glided on his back to the bank where he’d left a bar of rough tallow soap. He dragged his torso into the sunlight and found a stable foothold so he could lean, unencumbered, and revel in the sensuality of soaping his dusty chest.

He sighed with satisfaction when he splashed water to rinse his chest. The combination of sun and the whiskey he’d drank relaxed him. All the anger evaporated from him as he became bolder in his bathing, socking the heated waxy bar into his armpits, almost lovingly soaping his taut bare stomach, rinsing. In his romantic state, his hand slipped lower to lather his pubic bone as he dared to imagine how buttery Thomasina’s ribcage would feel if he dared dabble his fingertips over that unknown, sacred area.

A sound—a squeaking, to be exact, that he thought was a large rodent—came from the bank to his right, and Salvador opened one eye. What was Ophir doing, squatting on the bank with hands dangling between his knees? Ophir appeared to be staring directly at him, expressionless, limpid eyes unblinking, as still as a majestic deer. In his corned state, Salvador probably had not been shy enough about displaying his enormous erection. Perhaps because he continued to be pleasantly stewed, his splayed fingers wended their way through the silken bed of pubic hair, waggling his long, thick penis with abandon.

He closed his eyes, but the image of a young Thomasina had vanished. As he rubbed the soapy bar against the base of his cock, the earlier figment of Ophir glancing up from his vanquished foe drifted in to replace it. Salvador allowed this image to stay. As he became increasingly aware of the darker man’s eyes on him, Salvador’s fingers squiggled a soapy trail down to the crown of his cock, the thumb lingering there to rub a circular pattern across the mushroom head. He felt bawdy and erotic, his other foamy hand slipping down to cup his balls, which by now had drawn up tight and hard next to his body. He massaged them salaciously, pleased to be an object of interest.

He had imagined Ophir’s body many times since the day they’d met, when his fingers had accidentally brushed against that monstrous cock. His chocolately torso was astounding, the ridges of muscle up his abdomen like the corrugations of a city road, perhaps from years of prizefighting, a silken ribbon of hair arrowing down to his pubic bone. Sal had even been lucky enough to admire the high, mounded globes of his ass as Ophir was dressing one morning. His mouth actually watered when Ophir bent to one side to retrieve an item of clothing, and the head of his long penis was visible hanging down between his thighs.

Salvador fretted that he may secretly be, unbeknownst to himself, a sodomita, one of those perverse fellows who had sexual congress with other males. But if so, why had these thoughts never occurred to him until he had met Ophir? He had brooded back and forth until he’d finally dismissed these censorious thoughts. No, he merely admired the sculpted beauty of Ophir’s body, much as he’d remotely admired a likeness of that David fellow in one of his father’s books.

Now his fist pumped the length of his cock assiduously, delighting in the slippery tension that rushed into his groin as he sped up his ministrations. Spreading his feet apart on the icy stones, he caressed his thick penis and fondled his balls passionately—as though Ophir’s steady gaze was stoking him to greater heights. A sudden surge had him gasping. No, no, he must not ejaculate yet! He stilled both hands, panting, and opened his right eye.

Ophir was now sprawled on his butt, thighs spread, one broad hand covering a deliciously conspicuous bulge in his crotch. He had the same steely, unwavering gaze, but when Ophir gave the long donkey-like appendage a distinct squeeze, Salvador’s right eye closed again. It only took three or four masterful, powerful strokes of his fist, and he ejaculated in such a sudden surge, he could hear the arcs of semen splashing against the surface of the cold pool. His breath held, his head tossed back as wave, and unbelievably, another wave of lust pulsed in his hand.

It wasn’t long before he wished it would stop—the wantonness was so intense it almost hurt. He gripped the back of his neck and allowed his penis to drool, the currents of warm air feathering it painfully. A splash about the size of a white-tailed buck cleaved the water to his right and snapped him out of his erotic trance. Ophir had calmly slid into the pool.

Salvador almost laughed at the clumsy way Ophir swam. For such a graceful athlete, he had probably not had much experience swimming in North Carolina. But he had obviously forced himself to learn in California, and for that Salvador had to give him credit. Releasing his grip on his balls, Salvador eased himself into the water to his armpits and called, “You swim like a steer.”

Paddling closer, Ophir threw a handful of water in Salvador’s general direction. “I haven’t grown up in the water like Californios.”

Salvador smiled. “That’s riding. Californios can ride before they can walk.”

* * * *

Ophir was perplexed.

As they zigzagged lower over the foothills toward Hornitos, Ophir became more and more confused. And the more confused he became, the more he thought about the six-shooter warmly holstered at his hip, ready for the cross-draw, as he’d been practicing. He thought about what Savage had said, about the danger of The League in Hornitos, and he knew he just wanted an excuse to shoot someone—something he’d never done before. While mining alone, he’d managed to shoot a deer once, and once he’d killed a quail with a rock. But while traveling with his partner Salvador, he left the hunting to that more worthy Californio.

He realized he was angry, frustrated by watching, and being seen watching, Salvador masturbate in El Dorado Creek. His first instinct, upon seeing Salvador floating airily on his back in the aquamarine pool, his shimmering sienna form appearing to hover a full two feet above the water’s surface, was to look away in deference. Regular men simply did not gaze at each other nude for longer than was necessary—two seconds at the most. But he was oddly drawn back when the proud crown of Sal’s cock breached the water, turgid like a burgeoning mushroom. He’d viewed the man’s prick before of course, as he clothed himself in his layers of cotton and leather, fascinated by the way he wound his red silk sashes about his waist. Ophir wanted to dress like a vaquero as well, it was so dandy and dashing, so he paid close attention to the way Salvador shrugged into his short cream-colored leather jacket, scalloped into incredible patterns of red and blue—how he yanked on his zapatone boots into which he slid a knife, ever ready at hand. Hundreds of times he’d watched, so as to better copy, the manly swagger with which Salvador wound up his deadly lasso to throw at a beef—this was why Ophir knew intimately the spheres of Salvador’s ass, undulating manfully as he sauntered to saddle his mount, as though a colossal Californio saddle, laden with silver and gold, weighed as much as a spoon.

But he’d never seen him floating on his back, and certainly had never seen him clutching his own prick, his lower jaw hanging slightly loose, lower lip shining with a speck of spittle in his concentration. It was a frankly fascinating sight, the Adam’s apple bobbing in his muscular throat as he tried to swallow, nostrils flaring, the beaded brown nipples hard from the icy water. Ophir soon found himself flat on his ass, his own jaw slack at the beauty so brazenly displayed to him—yes, to him, since he’d seen Sal open one eye, notice him, and not miss a beat as he lathered up his thick cock. Ophir gulped air to see Salvador massaging his balls, foam squeezing between his fingers, even his strong wrist shapely and graceful.

With hips jutting forward shamelessly, Salvador’s silhouette presented a fine image to Ophir, the pool’s reflections casting otherworldly shapes on the underside of his sculpted chin. As he frigged his cock, even the vein that ridged his bicep turned a darker shade of green, like the sky right before a thunderstorm. Ophir barely noticed his own hand going to his crotch to caress himself, he was so enraptured by his view of the sinewy hips twitching, the athletic haunches contracting when Sal impressively ejaculated. Ophir didn’t realize until much later that he stopped breathing when the jism arced out across the water several feet, a stream of diamonds caught in the sun. He became shamefully aware that he longed to have been there to taste the semen, and even to wrap his lips around the bulbous head of that cock.

So he splashed into the pool to cool himself off, to rid himself of that shame, to breathe.