Chapter 1

Author’s Note: This story has been posted to Literotica.Com with the full knowledge of the original author, JimBob44. No part or whole of this story may be reprinted in any other format or on any other web site without the express written consent of the original author.

Any and all persons engaging in any sexual activity are at least eighteen years of age.

This story has been edited by myself, utilizing Microsoft Spell-Check. You have been forewarned; expect to find mistakes.

“Peggy Sue? Where are you?” Margaret Susan Williams heard her sister in law’s voice sing out.

Despite her irritation of Jennifer Williams using the hated nickname,” despite her struggles with the cumbersome cast iron pot, Margaret smiled. Putting the heavy pot onto the wood stove and pouring some water into the pot, Margaret turned to see her friend standing inside the kitchen.

“Today is Saint Valentine’s Day,” Jennifer announced, holding out a paper wrapped parcel.

“It, why, so it is!” Margaret agreed, glancing at the paper calendar on the kitchen wall.

“I know, it is not much, but…” Jennifer said, handing the parcel to the well-endowed blonde girl.

“Oh, Jennifer, were your brother so inclined,” Margaret complained as she carefully unwound the bright red ribbon that held the paper closed.

“Hmmph! Jonah,” Jennifer scoffed, then quickly, grabbed a wooden spoon and scraped the residue along the sides of the sizzling pot.

“Oh! Jennifer! Chocolates?” Margaret gasped, delighted.

“And the ribbon. I saw the ribbon and just knew it would be perfect for that beautiful hair of yours,” Jennifer said as the two friends shared a hug and lip to lip kiss.

Jennifer helped Margaret prepare the noon meal. As they worked together, the two eighteen year old women did touch often. A brush of the hand or the caress of the other’s arm caused the two to share a smile. A few times, Jennifer did pause in her slicing the onion to demand a taste of the chocolate upon Margaret’s lips. With an impish giggle, Margaret would oblige her sister in law, delivering a noisy kiss upon Jennifer’s pouting lips.

Just before the meal was completed, Jonah, Jennifer’s older brother came in and grunted a greeting to his sister. Showing her husband the chocolates and the pretty ribbon, Margaret reminded her husband that it was St. Valentine’s Day, a day for lovers to display their admiration and affection for one another.

“Poppy cock,” Jonah sneered.

“What? And why is it poppy cock?” Jennifer demanded, hands on her slim hips.

“It’s poppy cock,” Jonah stated. “We’re married. I have no reason to waste time or money on such frivolities.”

“Then I have no reason to prepare the evening meal,” Margaret snapped, slapping his plate onto the wooden table.

“That is all well and good; been meaning to drop in at Paddlewheel’s Saloon,” Jonah said, smirking at his aggrieved wife.

“With, with those dancing girls?” Margaret gasped, scandalized.

“Yeah,” Jennifer laughed a scornful laugh. “Those dancing girls? Would tell you to leave and come back when you’re a man.”

Jonah muttered some epithets directed toward his headstrong sister under his breath before stomping out of the house. His boots made a thunk-thunk sound as he walked across the sagging floorboards of the hovel.

“I, I certainly, when I wed, I certainly did not envision this being my lot in life,” Margaret confided to Jennifer, a catch in her voice.

“Oh, I know, I know,” Jennifer soothed, hugging her friend and running her hand up and down the blonde’s back.

Darkness had fallen by the time they heard Jonah’s horse enter the small corral. His evening meal was barely warm, his plate and cup of milk had been on the table for two hours now.

Jonah scowled at his sister but said nothing as he sat at the table. He kept his head down as he methodically chewed his meal. He made a face when he drank his milk but still said nothing.

“I uh, I stopped by the Paddlewheel,” he finally mumbled as he used the hunk of bread to wipe the last of the gravy from his plate.

“Oh Jonah!” Margaret said, disapproving.

“And uh, Pat and Merlin and uh, Lee?” Jonah said, unable to look at his wife or his sister.

“What? What foolishness did you get up to?” Jennifer demanded, voice hard.

“Jennifer, need to just get. Just go on home, hear?” Jonah snarled at his sister. “This don’t concern you none, hear?”

“What did you do?” Jennifer demanded, pushing a hank of her waist length brown hair out of her eyes.

“Well, see, Sweetheart, it were like this,” Jonah said, pleading with his wife.

“Oh so now I’m ‘Sweetheart,’ am I?” Margaret said, lips tight.

Jonah admitted to losing forty dollars at a few hands of whist. Margaret and Jennifer both gasped in dismay; Jonah and Margaret were in arrears to Mr. Sullivan, the man that ran the mercantile and, until they could shear their sheep, they’d have no income. Sheep-shearing was quite a few weeks away.

“Forty? How, how could you be so foolish?” Jennifer demanded.

“Done told you. Ain’t none of your concern,” Jonah snapped at his sister. “This is between me and…”

“How? How could you be so foolish?” Margaret wailed.

“Now, see here,” Jonah spat, grabbing his wife’s arm. “There is a way; Stephen, the man that tends the bar said them dancing girls…”

“Dancing!” Margaret screeched, horrified.

“You, you would sell your wife? You would sell your wife to those low down…” Jennifer growled, angered.

“You just best stay out of this; this is between me and my wife,” Jonah snarled at his sister.

“You would allow your wife to be sullied?” Jennifer growled and toppled her brother with a savage right cross to his left eye.

“Oh Jennifer, what? What shall I do?” Margaret sobbed, clutching tightly to her dear friend.

“Don’t fret,” Jennifer said. “My brother may not be man enough to defend his wife’s honor but I certainly shall.”

“You, you struck me!” Jonah sobbed, clutching his swelling eye.

“You. Get on, get on home to Mama,” Jennifer sneered as she slithered out of her dress. “Peggy Sue, where is Jonah’s Sunday’s finest?”

Both Jonah and Margaret stared at the small apple sized breasts and hard nipples, the concave belly and the thatch of brown curls at the juncture of Jennifer’s slim legs. Jonah grinned foolishly as he beheld his sister’s smallness of chest and her lack of hips. His Margaret did possess some fine breasts and the hips of a comely young woman.

“The cupboard in the sleeping quarters,” Margaret stated as the nude woman scampered to the other room in the small home.

Jonah spied his sister’s slim haunches, then looked at his wife’s posterior displayed in her form fitting gown. Along with her fetching features she also possessed a fine figure. It was no wonder Stephen had suggested Jonah convince his Margaret to dance, perhaps entertain a few men.

“What? What are you fixing do?” Jonah asked as Jennifer returned, cinching his belt about the waist of the trousers.

“Who is the best whist player you know?” Jennifer said. “Your, our Peggy Sue will do no dancing.”

Grabbing Jonah’s Sunday hat from the peg by the door, Jennifer pulled her thick brown hair and stuffed the hair into his hat. She then grabbed his.45s and holsters from the table.

“Boots. And be quick about it,” Jennifer said, sliding her slippers from her feet.

“What?” Jonah asked.

“Boots. Your boots. Give me your boots,” Jennifer ordered.

“I will not,” Jonah said.

“Would you have your other eye blackened as well?” Margaret said, balling up her own fist.

Grumbling, Jonah slid the boots from his feet. Working quickly, Margaret gave the worn leather a high polish. Should anyone look closely enough, they would see that the boots’ heels and soles were quite worn, but to the casual glance, they appeared to be fine boots indeed.

The piano player was jangling a jaunty tune. The stranger entered the saloon wearing fine clothing and surveyed the scene. For a long moment, the stranger fixed a gaze at the three girls that danced and cavorted about on the small stage. The stranger acknowledged the lovely red head’s flirtatious smile with a nod.

“What’s the game?” the stranger asked Pat, nudging the empty seat away from the table with a highly polished boot toe.

“Whist; ten to open,” Pat said, appraising the well-dressed stranger’s clothing and footwear.

“Name’s Lee,” the balding man at South said, reaching a hand across the table.

“William,” the stranger said sitting to the North.

“I’m Pat,” the large man at East said. “And that there’s Merlin.”

“Ain’t seen you around Scribeltz afore,” Merlin commented.

“Yeah, Scribeltz, Arkansas ain’t all that big,” Lee said.

“Ten to open?” William asked, dropping a ten dollar coin onto the table without answering their query.

Pat dealt the cards, flipping the queen of clubs face up to begin the play. Much as William suspected, the play figured heavily in Pat and Merlin’s favor. East and West were also very quick to drop the next hand so that the previous cards could not be challenged.

In the second to last hand, Merlin put down the ten of hearts. William played a three of hearts, the last heart in the stranger’s hand. Pat put down the king of hearts and smiled. Lee put down the queen of hearts and gave William an apologetic shrug.

“Know, I expected be hornswoggled by these two,” William growled, fixing Lee with a steely glare. “After all, they’re playing as a team.”

The piano player stopped playing the lively tune. The number of girls had been reduced to just one brassy looking blonde dancing about on the small wooden platform. When the music stopped, she stopped her cavorting and stomping and kicking. She glanced at the nervous piano player then swiveled her gaze to the four whist players.

“What you saying, friend?” Lee asked, returning William’s gaze with a hard glare of his own.

“I’m saying, three hands back, that queen of hearts would have won that hand but you put down the five of hearts, throwing the hand to Pat here,” William said.

It was quiet, but since the stranger was listening for the sound, the stranger heard the ten gauge shotgun being dragged out from underneath the bar. William dropped to the floor, diving to the right.

The blast was horrendous. The buckshot that had been intended for the head of the stranger tore a crater into the chest of Lee.

William pulled the left pistol and put a bullet into the head of Pat, just above his left eye. The shot toppled the dead man backward. The pistol in William’s right hand put a bullet into Stephen’s throat as the bartender hurried to reload the breech loading shotgun. Merlin whirled, raising his own.45 but William was already squeezing off the next shot. Merlin dropped his pistol as the slug entered his head, right between his two beady eyes.

“Y’all have yourselves a good evening, hear?” the stranger said cheerfully to the piano player, the dancer, and the two cow hands that cowered behind an upturned table near the small stage.

William scooped the two hundred dollars from the table, nodded to the others and ambled toward the door. William’s boots made a slow, steady ‘thunk-thunk’ dragging sound from table to swinging doors.

“And no, my sister in law shant be dancing here,” William said just before stepping out into the chilly February night.

Outside of the Paddlewheel Saloon, Jennifer Williams pulled the hat from her long hair. She fanned her sweating face, then dropped the heavy coins into the saddle bag. Throwing her leg up and over, Jennifer mounted the gentle steed. She paused for a moment, looking toward the steamboat that slowly made its way down the Kelliken River. In another hour, that big paddle wheel would slowly make its way upriver then dock at the rear of the saloon.

With a sigh of longing as she watched the carefree boat making its way, Jennifer turned and rode to the small house her brother and his wife called home. Tying the horse off at the rail, she stepped onto the weathered boards of the small hovel.

Entering the home, Jennifer relayed the happenings of the evening to Jonah and Margaret. Jonah hung his head in shame at how easily he’d been duped by the three players. Margaret smirked at her husband’s chagrin.

Suddenly, Jonah’s head snapped up. His face went ghostly pale.

“Wait, you, you said you kilt Stephen?” Jonah croaked.

“Had his ten gauge in hand,” Jennifer said, wiggling out of Jonah’s jacket.

“Oh, dear God,” Jonah whimpered.

“He’d already tried killing me once,” Jennifer defended. “Tried shooting me in the back at that; damned coward.”

“What? What is it, Jonah?” Margaret demanded, seeing the stricken look on her husband’s face.

“Stephen? Mister Myndee’s boy?” Jonah reminded Jennifer.

Jennifer paused in removing the fine starched white shirt. She looked at Jonah, realization dawning on her beautiful features.

“Robert Myndee? One owns all of Blouchen County?” Jennifer whispered.

“One and the same,” Jonah agreed.

At first, Jennifer reasoned she would be safe. After all, the Myndee clan would be looking for a slim man named William. They would not be looking for Jennifer, or Jonah.

Then Jennifer remembered that she had made mention of her sister in law as Stephen lay on the sawdust strewn floor. She had told the dying man that her sister in law would not be dancing at his saloon. She did not know if anyone had heard her words, but then again, the piano player had stopped playing and the woman had stopped her hooting and cheering and dancing the moment William had confronted Lee about his part in their subterfuge. Perhaps one or the other or the two cowhands had heard William’s declaration. And the two young cowhands; they might be in the employ of Robert Myndee.

“We must make haste,” Jennifer urged Jonah and Margaret.

“We?” Jonah sneered. “We do not need to run. I did not shoot three men tonight. I did not shoot Robert Myndee’s boy.”

“No, but they will know your Margaret, my Peggy Sue is the root of this event,” Jennifer snapped.

“And I will tell Mr. Myndee my foolish, headstrong sister is at fault,” Jonah laughed a bitter laugh. “So, who is the smart Williams here this evening?”

“You, you would betray, you would betray your own sister? You would, after all, had you not been so foolish to lose all that we had,” Margaret snarled hatefully at her husband.

“It is her foolish, headstrong…” Jonah stated.

Margaret’s slap toppled him from his chair. Her swift kick into the crotch of his denim trousers caught him squarely in his small testicles.

“A sad day. A sad day indeed when your sister is more of a man than you should ever be,” Margaret spat at the grunting man as he lay on the floor.