Fraternity of the Gun Read online

  “We’ve got it, sir,” the sergeant said.

  Trehearn nodded to them and went out the door. All that was left now was to go back to his hotel, get a good night’s sleep, and then catch a train the next morning.

  * * *

  Clint spread Charlotte’s legs, then put her calves up on his shoulders. The hair between her legs was wispy, but as dark as the hair on her head. He used his fingers to part the hair and spread her pussy lips. Her sweet scent crept into his nose as he pressed his mouth to her. She was very wet, and he lapped it up while she writhed beneath him. She reached down to hold his head in place and gasped as he continued to work on her with his mouth, reveling in the taste of her.

  When he felt the rippling of her muscles beneath him, and she began to buck and leap on the bed, he quickly mounted her and drove his hard cock into her heat. Her eyes went wide as waves of pleasure swept over her again and again. He slid his hands beneath her, cupped her buttocks, which were coated with her sweet wetness, and he proceeded to fuck her until they were both exhausted.

  FIVE

  In the morning, after she had awakened and crept into his arms, he told her that he had to leave.

  “I thought you were going to be here another week,” she asked.

  “That was my original plan,” he said, “but something’s come up.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been called away,” Clint said. “That’s all I can say right now, Charlotte.”

  “I wish you had told me this last night,” she said.

  “Why? Would you have left?”

  “No,” she said, sliding her hand down between her legs and grasping him, “I would have kept you awake all night.”

  She stroked his cock until it was hard.

  “Any chance you could take me with you?”

  Mindful of the fact that she had him in her hand, he said, “I can’t.” And he didn’t want to. He liked women, lots of women, but he never let himself become so attached to one that he’d take her with him.

  “Well, in that case . . .”

  She mounted him and slid down on him. She rode him hard, intending to give him something that would stay with him for a long, long time.

  * * *

  Clint went downstairs to the lobby and had himself some breakfast in the hotel dining room before checking out.

  And since he didn’t know when he’d be back, he decided to have a New Orleans breakfast. He still ordered his usual steak and eggs, but he also told the waiter to bring him an order of shrimp and grits.

  He packed that breakfast away, then went upstairs to pack his things. Charlotte had returned to her own room, leaving behind her scent on the damp sheets. Too bad, he thought. Another few days with her would have been pleasant.

  When he was packed, he checked out, had the doorman get him a horse-drawn cab. On the way to the train station, he told the driver to stop at a telegraph office.

  “Wait for me,” he said, leaving his bag in the carriage.

  “Yessir.”

  Inside he wrote out his message and had the key operator send it to Washington D.C. Then he sent the same telegram to Labyrinth, Texas. For both he gave his return address as the Gotham Hotel, in New York.

  “Okay,” he told the driver, climbing back into the carriage, “the railway station.”

  “Yessir.”

  * * *

  At the station, he picked up the ticket that was waiting for him at the ticket booth. The government train did not provide him with a sleeping compartment or a berth, so he was going to have to sit up all the way to New York.

  He got aboard, satisfied to find that no one would be traveling in the car with him. If it stayed that way, he’d be able to stretch out to sleep later.

  He still couldn’t place the name “Ellen Terry,” but the name “Henry Irving” was starting to become familiar. He’d been to theaters in New York, Washington, Denver, San Francisco, and other places. Maybe he had seen the name in one of them—or more than one. If Irving was such a famous actor in England, he’d be known in theater circles here. Clint suddenly thought of another telegram he could have sent. Maybe he’d have time to do that when the train stopped in Saint Louis.

  The train jerked, and then started. He was on his way.

  * * *

  As he’d hoped, he had about a half-hour stop when he reached Saint Louis. He found a telegraph office near the railroad station and sent a third telegram to San Francisco. The recipient there was an actress he knew who was fairly successful, mostly for her beauty, not her talent. He asked her about Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, then asked her to respond to him at the Gotham Hotel.

  He got something to eat in the train station, then reboarded his train. This time there were two other passengers in his car, military men in uniforms. He hoped they wouldn’t be talkative.

  He pulled his hat down over his eyes to try to dissuade them.

  * * *

  By the time the train pulled into New York, his fellow passengers had decided he was antisocial. They had not once tried to engage him in conversation. Clint waited for them to disembark, then rose to his feet, feeling grimy and in need of a bath.

  He had arrived two days ahead of Henry Irving and Ellen Terry.

  SIX

  “I thought we were to be met at the dock,” Ellen Terry said.

  “We will be,” Henry Irving said.

  They stood on the dock with their bags around their feet. People were stopping to look at the well-dressed couple: a handsome man in his forties, and a very beautiful woman in her thirties, her hair tucked up under a hat so that her fine, long neck was there for all to see.

  “Then where is he?” she asked. “Or she? Or them?”

  “This is America, Ellen,” Irving said. “No one is on time. Just be patient, my dear.”

  * * *

  New York had gotten bigger, more crowded, and it had taken Clint longer than he’d expected to get to the docks. When he reached the boat, he saw people waiting on the dock, but immediately knew who his two were. They were standing still, their heads held high, eyes raking the crowd. The man was as calm as he seemed. The woman, though, was agitated.

  Clint walked over to them. She saw him coming and lifted her chin even higher. She said something to the man, and he turned his head. He had a noble profile.

  “Mr. Irving?” Clint asked. “Miss Terry?”

  “Yes, I am Henry Irving,” the man said. “This is Miss Ellen Terry.”

  Clint nodded to the both of them, then touched his fingers to his hat, but the woman wasn’t looking.

  “My name is Clint Adams,” he said. “I’ll be your . . . escort while you’re in our country.”

  “Escort?” Ellen Terry asked. “I thought you were to be our bodyguard.”

  “Well, that, too,” Clint said. He looked down at the collection of bags that surrounded them. “Are all these bags yours?”

  “Of course they are!” Terry snapped.

  “Actually,” Irving said, “most of them belong to the lovely lady.”

  “I get some teamsters to help carry them to the carriage,” Clint said.

  “Why did you not come here with them?” Terry asked.

  “I didn’t know how many you had,” Clint said. “I thought I might be able to handle them myself.”

  Irving laughed and said, “Obviously, you have never traveled with an actress.”

  “Actually,” Clint said, “I have, but American actresses.”

  “Yes, well,” Irving said, “I imagine they are quite different.”

  “Just wait here,” Clint said. “I’ll be right back.”

  “You are going to leave us unattended?” Ellen Terry asked.

  “Just for a few minutes,” Clint said with a smile. “Try to stay out of trouble.”
r />   He turned and walked away.

  “Such insolence!” Ellen Terry said.

  “He can afford to be insolent,” Irving said. “Do you know who that is, my dear?”

  “I didn’t pay attention to his name,” she said.

  “You should have,” Irving said. “His name is Clint Adams.”

  “Should that mean something to me?” she asked.

  “It would if you knew anything about the West,” Irving said. “He is called the Gunsmith.”

  “A gunsmith?” she repeated. “They sent someone who fixes guns to accompany us?”

  “Not a gunsmith, my dear,” Irving said. “The Gunsmith. He is a legend in the West for his prowess with a pistol—and, I believe, with women.”

  “Hmph,” she said, “a ruffian like him?”

  “Actually,” Irving said, “he seemed quite smooth to me.”

  “Then you are easily impressed.”

  “We will see.”

  * * *

  Clint found three men to help with the luggage, gave them a dollar each, and brought them back to where Irving and Terry were still waiting. Ellen Terry still had her nose high in the air.

  “This way, folks,” Clint said. “They’re bringing the bags.”

  “Be careful with that trunk!” Ellen Terry snapped at them.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Aren’t you going to supervise them?” she asked Clint.

  “They know what they’re doing, ma’am,” he said. “I want to get you to the carriage as quickly as possible.”

  He started walking, hoping that they were following.

  This job was not going to be a walk in the park.

  SEVEN

  Clint got Irving and Terry situated in the carriage, and then supervised the men as they piled the bags up on top. Terry stuck her head out the window and kept up a running criticism of their work.

  “My dear,” Irving said at one point, “bring your head back inside and relax.”

  “I don’t want them to leave any of my bags behind,” she said impatiently, “or damage any of them.”

  “This is what they do,” Irving said. “Everything will be fine. Besides, this time Mr. Adams is supervising them, as you wanted.”

  “I hardly think he’s qualified,” she complained.

  Irving shook his head as she stuck her head back out the window and started snapping at everyone again.

  * * *

  “You gonna be working for her for long?” one of the men asked Clint.

  “Oh, yeah,” Clint said. “She’s my cross to bear.”

  “Take my advice,” the man said, “and put her over your knee the first chance you get. That’s what a woman like that needs.”

  “I just might follow that little piece of advice,” Clint said.

  He gave each of the men another dollar, then got into the carriage with Irving and Terry.

  “You propose to ride inside, with us?” Ellen Terry asked in surprise.

  “Ma’am,” Clint said, “we’re going to be riding all over this country together, and I expect to share all the same accommodations with you. If that’s all right with you?”

  “It most certainly isn’t,” she said with a sniff, “but I suppose I have little to say about it.”

  Irving gave Clint a pitying look. Clint felt sorry for the actor, having to come all this way on a boat with her.

  He banged on the wall of the carriage for the driver to start up.

  * * *

  Clint took them to the same hotel he was staying at, the Gotham. Clint had a very official-looking letter that told the hotel they were to bill the United States government for all expenses. Of course, Trehearn—as well as Ellen Terry—had expected Clint to take them to the best hotel in the city, but Clint decided against it.

  He walked them to their rooms, first Ellen Terry, then Henry Irving.

  As they entered Ellen Terry’s room, she stopped short and looked around with a disgusted expression on her face.

  “These are my accommodations?” she asked.

  “For now.”

  “This was the best you could do?”

  “No, ma’am, it wasn’t,” Clint said. “But this is where I wanted to put you.”

  “You wanted to put us?” Terry asked. “Since when do you make those decisions?”

  “Since I became responsible for your welfare.”

  “You are also,” she said, “responsible for my comfort!”

  “I’ll see that extra pillows are sent up,” he said. “Good night.”

  He pulled the door shut, joining Irving in the hall. They both heard something shatter against the door.

  “I am sorry, old chap,” Irving said, “but she is a bit temperamental.”

  “That’s a bit?” Clint asked.

  “She is a wonderful actress, though,” Irving went on, “and quite a charming woman when you come to know her better.”

  “Mr. Irving, no offense,” Clint said, “but I don’t think that woman and I are going to come to know each other better.”

  * * *

  He took the actor to his room, down the hall. Clint had a room between the two actors.

  “This will do,” Irving said as they entered. It was the same room Terry had.

  “I didn’t want to put you in the best hotel in town because that’s what people expect.”

  “What people would that be, dear boy?”

  “Well,” Clint said, “anybody who wants to do you harm.”

  “My good fellow,” Irving said, “I seriously doubt that anyone would want to do either of us harm. I believe our two governments are just being overly cautious.”

  “Well, there’s nothing wrong with that,” Clint said. “Precautions are important.”

  “Yes, well,” Irving said, removing his jacket and his purple cravat, “I suspect a man in your position would feel that way.”

  “My position?”

  “I know who you are, you see,” Irving said. “I’m quite pleased that your government chose a legend of the Old West to safeguard us. I don’t feel it was necessary, but I look forward to many evenings of chatting with you about your adventures.”

  “My adventures?”

  “But of course,” Irving said. “Your feats of derring-do, as it were. I say, have you ever thought about stepping on the stage?”

  “My friend Bill Cody has been trying to get me to do that for years.”

  “Buffalo Bill Cody?” Irving said, almost with glee.

  “That’s the one.”

  “Oh, my good man,” Irving said with delight, “we are going to have many hours of conversation, aren’t we?”

  “I’ll check back with you a little later on, sir. I’ll go and make sure all your luggage is brought up.

  Clint stepped out into the hall. He didn’t know what was going to be worse—Ellen Terry not feeling he was worth talking to at all, or Henry Irving wanting to hear about his feats of derring-do.

  EIGHT

  Clint made sure all of Ellen Terry’s bags were delivered to her room. He remained outside, where he could hear her berating the poor bellmen who had brought them up.

  They moved on to Irving’s room next. He knocked and the tall actor opened the door.

  “Ah, my bags,” he said. “How delightful.”

  The bellmen brought in his two bags, and one trunk, and Clint noticed that he tipped them nicely.

  “Clint, I wonder if you would stay a minute.”

  “Of course.”

  He walked the bellmen to the door, then closed it firmly behind them.

  “I wonder if we might repair downstairs to the bar for a drink.”

  “You want a drink?” Clint asked. “I can have something brought
up—”

  “No, no, you don’t understand,” Irving said, “I want to drink among . . . the people.”

  “You mean . . . the common people?”

  Irving had the good braces to look abashed.

  “Yes, I suppose I do sound like a right snob, don’t I?” he asked. “Let me explain. I am an actor, and the way I learn my craft is to watch people as they move about every day. Ordinary people.”

  “I understand.”

  “I probably still sound a right pratt, but I would like to go downstairs for a drink.”

  “All right,” Clint said. “Just let me go to my room first to freshen up.”

  “I tell you what,” Irving said, “why don’t we wait until after dark?”

  “Suits me,” Clint said. He figured they could have a drink, and then get something to eat. “I’ll come back in a couple of hours.”

  “Excellent,” Irving said. “I have to have a change of clothes myself.”

  “All right,” Clint said. “And I better check on her ladyship, as well, before we leave.”

  “Good luck.”

  “I’ll need it.”

  He left Irving’s room and walked to his own. He entered, put his back against his door, and took a deep breath. He wasn’t ready to deal with Ellen Terry again, not at that moment.

  * * *

  Later, he walked to Ellen Terry’s room and knocked.

  “Come.”

  He opened the door and entered. She was seated in front of a low table with a mirror. Her hair was down past her shoulders, and she was brushing it. She was wearing some sort of dressing gown. Beneath it her body appeared soft and supple. The room’s windows were dark, as the sun had gone down.

  She regarded him in the mirror.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” he said. “Henry and I are going down for a drink. Would you like to come?”

  “To a common bar?” she asked, arching her eyebrows. “No, thank you.”

  “Suit yourself.”