Page 29 of Working the Lode

“What is wrong with…this person?”

“We do not know. She…seems to be consumed from inside. It is hard to explain. She coughs up blood, her skin is white, she is turning into a living skeleton before our very eyes.” Valenzuela did not like to think about it, but ignoring it had not made Antonia better.

Bowmaker nodded. “That could be many things. If it’s something an American doctor could treat, we will need to send for the medicine. Or there are many Indian remedies that have proven useful.”

“So then…you will do it?” Valenzuela held his breath waiting for the response. He had no other option. He could not take Antonia to a medical doctor in San Francisco or Stockton.

Bowmaker’s response was a tiny nod of his head. “If you give us the best, biggest claim. And Zelnora can tell if it’s not the absolutely best right smart claim around.”

Oh, joy in heaven! It had been two years since Antonia’s future had held anything other than doom, and now there was a glimmering of hope. Joy was such a foreign concept to Valenzuela that he wasn’t certain what he was feeling at first. Since his only method of expressing any emotion was physical, he rose to his knees, tossed down his knife, and clasped his arms about the white doctor, hugging him tight to his torso. “Gracias, gracias.” He held him so firmly about the shoulders it was immediately evident that his own prick, stiffening in his excitement, swelled up against the surgeon’s compact pectoral, and the white man did nothing to push him away, allowing him to press the side of his face against Valenzuela’s belly.

Mi dios, this man was athletic, hard as a boulder of quartz, without doubt the most beautiful man Valenzuela had ever beheld. Valenzuela even dared rocking his hips just a fraction of an inch into the robust chest, displaying to Bowmaker the length of his erection, and the man sat still as a rock with his hands at his sides, perhaps planning to reach for his knife and gut him.

Valenzuela was so washed away with gratitude he nearly didn’t care about this possibility. Sweeping his hand down between them, he cupped the other man’s chin in his hand and lifted his face. He could not decipher his expression, and he did not want to think too much, or his murderous rage might appear again. So he leaned down and kissed the doctor.

Buen dios, what a soft, pliant, lush mouth, tasting of whiskey and wood smoke. Bowmaker’s full lips parted, his breath snorting hotly against Valenzuela’s face, his hands running up the backs of Valenzuela’s thighs and stopping to grip his ass to him. Valenzuela tickled the tip of his tongue against the other man’s upper lip, and suddenly, they were locked in a potent clutch, tongues lapping together. Bowmaker squeezed his ass in powerfully large hands, and the tip of his prick threatened to burst out the crotch of his calzoneras.

Bowmaker suckled him so fervently they made loud smacking sounds. Valenzuela cupped the back of his skull as though he were a woman as he humped his strapping chest. He wanted nothing more than to lean the passionate pelirrojo man back onto the pine boughs, lock his thighs about his waist, and slide into his tight passage. What would it be like to nibble those erect nipples while the man threw his head back and exposed his powerful throat to Valenzuela’s bites—?

Suddenly he was tossed back, landing on his behind with a blinding jolt. Bowmaker had stood as straight as he could inside the low tent, and he was spitting into a handkerchief with what looked like disgust.

Bowmaker tossed the slimy kerchief in Valenzuela’s direction. He said thinly, “All right. We have a bargain.” And disappeared out the tent flap.

What had he done wrong? If Bowmaker didn’t enjoy kissing another man, he could have shoved him away before they expanded the kiss. Valenzuela’s history kissing women told him one thing. Bowmaker had savored the embrace. He had returned the kiss with as much ardor as he’d ever kissed Zelnora.

If Valenzuela’s men knew what he had just done, clutching another man to his erection and pasting his open mouth to his, he would no longer be respected as their leader.

But he knew he did not want to stop. He could repress and ignore it as he’d done for the past couple of months since he’d first seen Bowmaker stroking himself in the creek. But trapping emotions inside of himself was not a feat that came easily to Valenzuela. It was so much easier to act on them.