Page 3 of Sure as Shooting

Chapter Two

Agua Fria, California

“Now, listen up, boys. I have it on good authority that Diggers have been exacting tribute from emigrants passing through our territory.”

Whit Whitney was fascinated by the commanding manner in which the frontier trader addressed the crowd of miners and pioneers gathered in the dining room of Boling’s Hotel. He had been fascinated with Huntley Ashbury since first setting sights on him in San Francisco, cooking the goose of that oiled fellow. Brash and bold, imbued with the rugged intensity of a mountain man survivor but overlaid with a genteel sensibility, Huntley Ashbury excited every instinct Whit had to reach out, touch, and learn from another man. Perhaps it was an anthropological desire to learn all he could about the new El Dorado of the Far West, but Huntley Ashbury stimulated every last nerve in the doctor’s body.

“It’s always been my understanding with the Indians that it’s better for us to be friends. And friends we’ve been until recently, since I set up my first trading post in the San Joaquin Valley.”

During their journey here from San Francisco, Whit learned that Huntley had been a member of Frémont’s Battalion during the Mexican War, afterward establishing trading posts and living among the Indians, leading tribes against other tribes as one of their chiefs. Huntley’s obvious facility with languages was evidenced now as he turned to each pioneer in turn, seemingly fluent in Spanish, German, and French, the trading language of “keskydees,” so named from their habit of constantly querying “Qu'est-ce qu'il dit?”

Huntley continued, “Now I return from San Francisco to find that Moore up at Desperation Gulch has been dropped and left in the dust.”

A fellow who was apparently one of Huntley’s agents, Greeley, added vehemently, “I usually see at least twenty Indians every day coming here to trade in their gold, but the past month I’ve seen one, maybe two per day.”

“Hell, Greeley,” scoffed a fellow with only three fingers on one hand. “We all know you’re just hot because some gophers stole your gold when you buried it.”

Most everyone in the dining room laughed then—though obviously not Greeley.

Huntley Ashbury frowned in apparent frustration. “I’m trying to tell you boys—my squaws have told me the truth. They gain nothing from telling me a pack of lies. Cassady, you especially should be paying me mind, with your dandified establishment up there on your bar. If you want to continue stealing business from me, you’ll set out additional pickets to keep a watch for these marauders.”

Cassady, apparently a rival trader, snorted and hacked a gob of spit onto the wood-planked floor of the dining room. Even though he was a doctor, accustomed to seeing all manner of a man’s innards, Whit’s stomach clenched in disgust. People were supposed to eat in this room. “Ashbury, you’ve just been listening to a lot of hot gas. Mountain men of your class are inclined to adopt the superstitions of the Diggers that you’ve been living with. You’ve just been listening to the bloviating talk of a few lazy vagabonds.”

“Oui,” said a keskydee. “These alleged attacks are only a quarrel between you and some Diggers…perhaps over a woman?”

“Hell,” said someone else who apparently had a grudge against the Frenchman. “Your wife in Boston didn’t even know you was coming west until she read your name in the newspaper passenger list.”

The meeting devolved into accusations then. Men in California clothed themselves in curses as though they were garments. Whit was immensely relieved when Huntley Ashbury stood and hitched his chin at him to indicate it was time to leave. No one seemed to notice or care they were leaving, and they stepped into the warm open air of a late autumn foothill afternoon.

They started down the dirt street toward the structure Whit knew as Huntley’s house, although he hadn’t yet been inside. Upon arriving in the putrid stage this morning, so bumpy they decided to ride on top of the carriage rather than bruise their skulls, they’d been beset with squaws clamoring for Huntley’s attention. Whit knew that Huntley had many Indian “wives,” but the way they grabbed at this hardy pioneer of commerce was obscene. Didn’t they have anything better to do? Whit knew little of Far West Indians, having come to San Francisco on a ship through the Isthmus of Panama. And how could Huntley handle the needs and cries of so many women? These were only the women at this one trading post. Huntley had at least four other posts.

Huntley Ashbury was an exceptionally handsome fellow, which was why Whit’s attention had been drawn to him in the first place. The only reason he’d stepped up to him in San Francisco and wrapped his arms around him wasn’t to prevent him from breaking that chieftain’s nose. No, Huntley’s remarkable height, the way his clean brunet hair cascaded in luxurious waves over his buckskin shirt collar, and his long, straight nose that came to a slightly aquiline but perfect point, all these things combined in a strong attraction in Whit. And once Whit had his arms tightened around the woodsman’s powerful torso, Whit knew he’d never be able to walk away and forget him. Huntley’s exceptionally full and luscious lips could curl sensually when intrigued with something and, like now, snarl alarmingly when riled.

“Those tomfool blockheads,” Huntley snarled. “Here’s damp powder and no fire to dry it! They’re all going to lose their topknots to those Diggers if they don’t take heed.”

Whit knew that these Indians didn’t scalp hair, but it was a mountain man’s way of saying his fellow citizens would soon “go under” if they didn’t take Huntley’s warnings seriously. “They’ll all be sobbing back to you like crybabies in a few weeks if you’re correct, which I believe that you are.”

“Damned out-and-out jackasses!” Huntley fumed, his long legs in their fringed buckskin leggings taking such furious long strides up the dusty street that Whit had to jog to keep up. The air, sweetly scented of golden dried grass, feathered Whit’s face as they approached the two-story wooden structure, the grandest house in town.

Three squaws wearing only deerskin skirts waited at the white picket fence that surrounded the house, but Huntley said something to them in their language, and they backed off. With an excited thrill Whit followed the trader onto the front portico and waited for him to unlock the door.

“You don’t allow your ‘wives’ into the house?”

Huntley grinned. “No, never. About the hardest work a fellow can do is to spark two gals at once and preserve a good average. It’s difficult enough juggling all of those squalling women—a man’s got to have his own privacy.”

They stepped into the welcoming interior of the drawing room. Whit was surprised at the oddly normal appearance of the house. He had expected maybe mounted grizzly heads on the walls, the only decoration a row of empty liquor bottles, and windows made of the same. But the tall windows all boasted real glass, a sturdy river rock fireplace beckoned from the end of the long room, and instead of animal skins on the shining oak floors, thick Persian rugs had been thrown. Huntley Ashbury, being the grandest trader in the foothills, could obviously afford all the finer comforts of life and would be the first to choose among them. Whit was pleased to discover that apparently Huntley even had an aesthetic sensibility, as looming down at him from up near the ceiling were several paintings in carved frames, landscapes of nearby vistas.

Whit followed him into an adjacent room, a study that contained a heavy carved desk and many tall bookcases laden with tomes from back east. Whit craved to peruse the titles on the spines, but his overwhelming urge was to discover more about this lusty pioneer who oversaw this empire. He stood casually by the desk as Huntley poured them two whiskeys.

Handing him a glass—not the usual tin cup—Huntley said, “I don’t think you’d be wise to go to the Ahwahnee Valley without an armed escort, especially not with that Bud clown. What’s his interest in the Valley, anyway? In the stage, he just sat there grinding his teeth, looking like he wanted to polish off every quail and goose that crossed our path.”

They went to a low couch covered in burgundy velvet and sat, using an ottoman as a table for their drinks. “All I know is he has it out for Indians. His wagon train from Missouri was ambushed somewhere on the eastern side of the Sierra, everyone killed except him.”

“I can understand his sensibilities regarding that.” Huntley was stunningly beautiful when he became thoughtful like this. His deep brown eyes seemed to soak up every color of the room. Whit noticed that while one eye appeared light brown, almost hazel, the other seemed permanently dilated in dark brown. “I wonder where he heard about the Ahwahnee Valley.”

“From some Indian chief, over near the large saline lake where his train was wiped out.”

“Big saline lake?” Huntley perked up, sitting upright. In the V of his buckskin shirt’s collar, revealed by the loose silk scarf he had knotted about his robust throat, Whit was titillated by a smattering of soft brown hair over hearty pectoral muscles. Whit’s penis elongated against his thigh, and he was glad he had kept his waistcoat buttoned. He could drape one forearm over the offending appendage and hide his arousal, but he knew his interest in the trader was of a sexual nature.