He lifted himself up enough to position himself at the gates of paradise.

  Outside, it was a cold, wintry night. Inside, warmth enveloped him totally.

  “Oh, yes, John, this is so good,” Molly sobbed out. She clutched at his upper arms and then slid her fingers down and hunched up enough to reach behind and grab his muscular rump. She pulled hard to draw him even deeper into her moist, intimate recess. Slocum allowed her to guide him that extra inch.

  For a few seconds he simply enjoyed the feel of such a hot, tight sheath of female flesh around his steely length. Then he began drawing back. Molly’s sobs of protest momentarily sounded louder than the wind building outside. Then her shrieks of pure joy filled the cabin as Slocum rammed back and ground his crotch into hers, stirring his rigid pole about like a spoon in a mixing bowl. The woman began twitching and bucking like a bronco. Slocum rode her well.

  Her knees pulled back until they were on either side of Slocum’s body. With a quick swoop down, he got one of his arms under her knee and lifted. This drove him into her at a different angle, giving both of them new thrills of carnal pleasure. When lightning bolts began surging up and down his length as he stroked powerfully, Slocum had to slow. He wanted this to last all night. But the woman wasn’t going to let it.

  She reached down between them and found the dangling hairy sac. Molly began squeezing it, teasing it, giving him sensations he had seldom felt before. Slocum leaned forward as he stroked inward, bending her knee back toward her chest. Her other leg curled about his waist to attempt the impossible task of pulling him even closer, even deeper.

  Slocum felt the woman trembling constantly, as if she had been thrust out into the storm. But the sex sweat beading her face and body belied that. He knew she was close to exploding in lust. He altered his pace and began moving with short, quick strokes guaranteed to excite Molly the most. And they did.

  She gasped, arched her back and lifted her hindquarters off the bed, and then vented a cry of pure ecstasy. As she cried out, the tightness surrounding Slocum’s hidden length compressed even more, squeezing him flat.

  This was more than he could tolerate. His careful rhythm vanished as he flashed back and forth, driving his meaty stake deep into her needy well. The heat mounted inside his loins, spread like wildfire and then exploded outward in a fiery rush that left him drained.

  He sank beside Molly on the cot and drew her close. She shivered and snuggled so she could bury her face in his shoulder.

  “You’re good, John. Maybe too good.”

  “I had some powerful inspiration,” he said. “And how can I be too good?”

  Molly mumbled something, pulled the thin blanket up over their naked, intertwined bodies and settled down. In a few minutes she was sound asleep. Slocum lay awake for a while listening to the fierce howl of the autumn storm blowing down along Mount Davidson and covering Virginia City with a new coating of snow.

  It was freezing outside but as hot as he could handle in the tiny shack. He fell asleep thinking it might be just fine spending the winter in Virginia City.

  5

  The screech of the wind died down a few hours before dawn. Slocum turned on the narrow cot and then opened his eyes when he didn’t feel the woman’s naked warmth against him. He scooted up a little in the bed to get a better look across the room to where Molly crouched by his gear. The bright light shining off the newly fallen snow outside lit up the inside of the shack better than any kerosene lamp ever could. Slocum clearly saw how the woman went through every item in his saddlebags, then carefully repacked them and moved on to check the pockets in his clothing.

  “How much?” Slocum asked. Molly jumped as if she had been stuck with a pin.

  “Wh-what do you mean?” she asked. She turned, not trying to hide her pert breasts or the furry triangle nestled between her thighs. Slocum knew she wanted him distracted from what he had just seen. It almost worked. Molly was a mighty pretty filly.

  “Whores collect their due from the men they roll around with in the sack,” he said. “How much do you charge?”

  “Oh, John, it’s not like that. Not at all. I . . . I was just—”

  “Trying to rob me,” he finished in a cold, level tone. Slocum swung his legs off the bed. The frigid air hit him like a sledgehammer. He quickly dressed, but the clothing had been laying out all night and was partly frozen. It took a bit of moving around to break the ice off his jeans and get his shirt on.

  “I wasn’t doin’ anything of the sort,” she said primly. “I was just tryin’ to help you out. You got a map to give my brother. I was goin’ take it so I could give it to Seamus myself. That’d save you the trouble.”

  “When did I mention any map?” Slocum began to wonder how many people knew of Preston’s map—and what it meant.

  “That’s why you’re in Virginia City, ain’t it? To give Seamus our brother’s map?”

  “I’ll pass it over to him personally. That’s mighty thoughtful of you to want to take on my sworn duty, but I’m not like that,” Slocum said mockingly.

  “Oh, John, I know how you are. You’re a magnificent stud!” She came to him and pressed herself against him hard enough to flatten her breasts. Then she moved in small, beguiling circles that rubbed her body all over his chest. Slocum returned her kisses without much enthusiasm. He was beginning to wonder if he ought to spend any more time in Virginia City than necessary to see that Preston’s map was given to its proper owner.

  “When might Seamus be back?” Slocum asked.

  “I can’t say. He’s up in the mountains workin’ a claim. With this much snow, he might be days and days.”

  Slocum went to the door and tugged on it a few seconds before it opened. The snow had drifted less than knee-high. On the flat, only an inch had fallen. The wind had been fierce, but it was still too early in the season for a significant snowfall.

  “If you know where he is, tell me and I’ll ride out so he won’t have to be bothered.”

  “I, uh, of course, John,” Molly said. She gathered her clothing strewn around the tiny cabin and began dressing. In spite of himself, Slocum appreciated the sight of all that sleek white skin slowly vanishing behind her frilly undergarments and then all disappearing behind her heavier dress. She knew he watched, and she made dressing into a show, thinking that would further bring him under her thumb.

  She didn’t know John Slocum.

  “Fix some food, if there is any,” Slocum said. “I can hunt a rabbit, but that’ll take a spell. This late in the fall, the rabbits are mighty skittish about getting out of their burrows in the snow. They haven’t had a chance to change coloration from brown to white.”

  “Oh, there’s plenty to eat around here,” Molly said, turning around and searching as if she had no idea what might be in the meager larder. She rummaged about in an old dynamite case and fished out a solitary tin plate and some canned goods. She looked up and smiled. “Hope you don’t mind canned tomatoes and peaches for breakfast. That’s ’bout all I got here.”

  “I’ve eaten worse,” Slocum said.

  “Have you now?” she said, grinning. “Tell me about it while we chow down.”

  Slocum found himself spinning wild tales that had nothing to do with his actual experiences. Something about Molly was beginning to turn him wary. But she was one fine-looking woman, and that eased a considerable amount of the uneasiness.

  After they had eaten, sharing off the single tin plate, he went outside and tended his horse. The animal had fared well in the lean-to. The shed was out of the wind and the water in the trough hadn’t even frozen all the way. The horse had poked holes in the icy crust with its nose and had continued to drink during the night. But the horse needed more hay, which Slocum gave from a small pile under a tarp.

  He led his saddled horse back around to the front of the shack. Molly was gone.

  “Don’t that beat all?” he muttered. Her footprints in the snow led downhill toward Virginia City. If he wanted to track her, he could have done it with his eyes shut. This caused him to frown. The woman had to know that, since she had made no effort to hide her path. He wasn’t going to find Seamus Preston without her help, not if the miner was hidden away in the valleys and ravines meandering throughout the mountains. Some of the canyons were downright treacherous and others hard to find. Those were the ones most prized by prospectors since others might have missed them and left the mother lode undiscovered.

  Slocum went into the shack and boiled himself some coffee. A quick check showed that the map still resided in his coat pocket where he had put it. He touched his shirt pocket and outlined the sawed-up gold piece. On impulse, he took it out and used the leather thong running through a tiny hole in the piece to make a necklace for himself. The cold coin dropped against his skin and warmed immediately, safely out of sight.

  As he drank his coffee, he thought on his night with Molly. Before he could come to any conclusions, he heard the steady clop of approaching hoofbeats. Slocum swallowed the rest of his coffee, stashed the cup in his saddlebags and walked around his horse to see Molly riding carefully up the trail toward the cabin.

  “I had to fetch my horse.”

  “You left your horse in town all night?” Slocum asked, shaking his head. “Why didn’t you ride him up here then?” He distinctly remembered her saying she didn’t have a horse, but he didn’t remark on this lie.

  “The way we came was more fun,” she said, giving him her impish grin. “Come on now. We got miles to ride if we want to get to Seamus ’fore the sun sets.”

  “It’s that far?” Slocum gauged the time from the sun rising to the east, then checked his pocket watch.

  “Not so far, but I reckon we can find reasons to take quite a few breaks along the trail,” Molly said. She laughed, sawed on her reins to get her horse turned and headed upslope. With a wild rake of her heels, she set the horse to trotting away from the shack. Slocum wondered what he was getting into, but he mounted and followed at a more cautious pace. The rocky trail was slippery with ice and snow, and being stranded because the horse broke a leg was the last thing Slocum wanted.

  Slocum let the woman take the lead but watched her carefully. From the way she paused at various forks in the road, he wondered if she had any idea where her brother worked that claim. Too much didn’t ring true, but Slocum couldn’t complain much. It had been a good way to spend the night, Molly curled up next to him during the worst of the storm.

  The sun finally poked above the mountain peaks and began melting the snow, turning dirt into cold, clinging mud.

  “How long you and Seamus been in Virginia City?” Slocum asked when they halted for a noonday meal. They had to eat from Slocum’s larder since Molly had nothing in her saddlebags.

  “Oh, a while. Who keeps track of time?” she asked.

  “Tell me about your brother.” Slocum watched her closely.

  “Seamus is quite the worker. Always out in the hills, pokin’ into the rock—”

  “Not Seamus. Your other brother.” Slocum rested his hand over the coat pocket holding the map Preston had wanted him to deliver. The blood on this half sheet of paper was beginning to wear on Slocum. It had been worth killing Preston for, and the outlaw who had murdered him had gone to his grave for it.

  “I got a lot of other brothers,” she said, her blue eyes fixed intently on Slocum. She knew what he meant but danced around answering. Maybe because she couldn’t. Slocum let the matter drop and turned to his plate of beans and bacon. Molly’s evasiveness bothered him but he got a sense of danger building from some other quarter.

  “You know, John, you’re actin’ mighty strange today. What’s wrong? It’s not me, now is it?” Molly demanded. “Is it somethin’ I did—or somethin’ I didn’t do and you wanted me to?”

  Slocum cleaned his tin plate and returned it to his saddlebags without answering. He looked down the canyon where they had spent a good part of the morning making their way up the steep trail.

  “You know them?” he asked.

  “Who are you talkin’ ’bout?” Molly asked. She jumped to her feet and followed Slocum’s gaze. “Damnation! We got road agents on our tail.”

  Slocum guessed many men had been on Molly’s tail, but that wasn’t his concern. He watched as the dark figures moved past an unmelted snowfield, counting softly to himself. Eight. That number ruled out prospectors. Those were solitary characters, sometimes with a partner, usually willing to tough it out hunting long weary hours by themselves. It might be lonely, but if they hit it big, there wasn’t anybody to share it with. Or so they thought.

  These weren’t prospectors.

  Slocum guessed they weren’t miners on their way to a dig, either, by the way they occasionally stopped and studied the ground. Slocum had made no effort to hide their tracks since they had followed the narrow trail. Even if he had tried to cover the hoofprints, it would have been time-consuming and difficult since they were the first travelers to come this way since the snowfall. Dirt could be smoothed over. Repairing hoofprints in snow was nigh on impossible, though he had heard how the Nez Perce did it to confuse their enemies.

  “Do you know who they might be?” he asked.

  “I . . . I don’t know who they are. Just men out on the trail,” Molly said without conviction.

  “Where does this trail lead?” Slocum asked. He looked into the mountains and knew there wasn’t a pass here. Geiger Pass to Reno was to their north. The train from Gold Hill had laid its tracks some ways south. Not casual pilgrims, not railroad men, certainly not prospectors in such a pack—that didn’t leave much else but road agents working this trail, hunting for prospectors taking nuggets back to Virginia City for assay.

  “Could be claim jumpers,” Slocum guessed. If that were true, he and Molly had nothing to fear. Slocum didn’t believe it for an instant. These men studied the trail—the trail he and Molly had left. It didn’t take much for him to figure out they wanted the map riding easy in his coat pocket.

  “You don’t know what kind of animals prowl these here mountains,” Molly said uneasily. “We ought to be sure they don’t find us.”

  Her obvious nervousness told him she wasn’t in league with them but that she knew them.

  “Which way is your brother’s claim?” Slocum asked. “It would be a good idea to head some other way, at least for a while.”

  “There, no there,” Molly said, flustered. She kept looking downhill where the riders appeared and disappeared between high boulders bordering the trail. She turned and pointed to the right. “We can go up into that there branchin’ canyon and hide, leastways till they’re gone.” The auburn-haired beauty watched their backtrail more than she looked ahead where she had suggested they take cover.

  Slocum didn’t bother telling her that there was no way to sneak off without the eight men knowing right away. The snow was turning to mud in the warm autumn sun, but they had to cross too many patches of snow to avoid leaving a trail a blind man could follow. Slocum jumped to the top of the largest boulder and studied the terrain where they had to go, if they sought refuge in that canyon. As far as Slocum could tell, it was as good as any other hidey-hole and had the advantage of being closer than other canyons meandering off into the higher mountains.

  “We can throw them off the trail for a hundred yards,” he said, jumping down. “Follow me as close as possible.”

  He settled his saddlebags so they rode easy on the horse’s hindquarters, checked to be sure his spare Colt Navy stashed there was loaded and ready, then swung into the saddle. Slocum walked his horse slowly across a rocky stretch, then kept to the patches of thick mud as much as possible. He kept his eyes straight ahead, figuring Molly would follow as well as she could.

  “John,” she said in a choked voice, “are they gonna catch us?”

  “Not if I can help it. Keep quiet. Voices carry in the mountains.” What he said was true, but Slocum also wanted to concentrate on picking his path carefully. Another hundred yards brought him to a snowy patch that could not be avoided. He chose parts of the snow where shadows were cast by the rocks higher on the trail. These would vanish as the sun sank low in the west, but the geography was on Slocum’s side. Twilight came fast because of the high mountains they rode into.

  “John, what if they do catch us?”

  Slocum glared at her. There would be a fight somewhere along the way, and he did not want Molly griping constantly. He needed to direct his full effort toward the difficult task of getting the hell away from the riders. Unlike the woman, he didn’t need to look at their backtrail to know the men were coming on like some inexorable force of nature.

  He had delayed the road agents by a few minutes, if luck was with him. They had to find a place to make a stand if they couldn’t outleg the men.

  He saw it a ways down the canyon to their right. The steep cliffs were too sheer for him to hope to reach the rim before the men on their tail spotted them. There were probably several trails chiseled in the rocky walls that would allow them to reach safety above, but he had no time to find them.

  “There,” Slocum said. “That mine.”

  “I don’t see any mine—oh, there,” Molly said, squinting as she spotted what he had already seen. “That can be dangerous, going into an abandoned mine.”

  “Most were left because there wasn’t any silver inside, not because they were going to collapse,” Slocum said. If a miner thought there was even a single ounce of gold or silver remaining in a hillside, he would reopen even the most dangerous mine shaft with his bare hands.

  “We kin ride real fast and get out the other end of the canyon,” Molly said. She chewed her lower lip and looked about desperately, like a trapped animal.

  “Don’t think there is another end to this canyon. From the way it just stops ahead, it’s a box canyon.”

  “What? You led us into a trap!”

  Slocum restrained himself. She had been the one who had pointed out this canyon as a refuge. He began to think Molly had no notion where Seamus Preston worked his claim and had never ridden this way before today. If he wanted to be sure of his own safety, he ought to leave her behind. He ought to but couldn’t.