The Whip (18 page)

Nineteen

At the door of her room, Charley realized
with some amusement that her whip clothes were left scattered all over the bed.

She stepped in and closed the door, leaving Edmund alone and laughing in surprise outside in the hall. He knocked.

She called through the closed door. “Wait…wait a moment.”

“I’ve waited for you forever. I’ll wait as long as you like, my girl.”

She stumbled around in the dark, kicking and pushing the clothing under the bed. Not that it mattered, but for some reason she just didn’t want to break the illusion of this game they were playing.

Moments later, with a semblance of nonchalance, she opened the door to admit Edmund, closing it behind him.

In the darkness, he struck a match, illuminating his beguiled and intoxicated face. He looked over the flame at her and then turned to light the candle by the bed. She reached out and stopped him. She took his hand in hers and blew out the match.

“You are an amazing puzzle, my girl. The last thing I would have expected from you is modesty.”

He then seized her and roamed her body until he found the line of buttons. He bit off the top one and spat it onto the ground. He then began to undo the rest of the tiny pearl buttons. He was used to undressing a lady.

Charley laughed out loud in her drunkenness. It seemed he was better at those damn buttons than she was.

He skillfully continued to lift, unhook and untie. They lost their balance and fell onto the bed. He was again laughing and he was kissing her breasts and he was sucking on her nipple so hard, stretching it toward him using his teeth, that it hurt.

They went on like that, their two bodies colliding with a pleasure that was part pain. Together, they achieved a kind of passion that Charley had not felt before. She cared less than she had with Byron but…she followed wherever Edmund led, and she gasped as she broke open to new, unfamiliar sensations.

Soon afterward Edmund was sound asleep. Lulled by the stillness of the room and the sound of his deep breathing, she drifted into a brief shallow sleep herself.

In the moonlight she dressed once again in her riding clothes, white strips of cotton bound around her breasts—her hat, gloves and boots in their familiar place. She collected from the floor all of the night’s costumes, and stuffed them into her saddle bags. She watched Edmund for a moment as he lay there. He looked somehow like a young boy, his arms wrapped around his body protectively.

As she opened the door to leave, a soft voice from the bed murmured, “See you in Hangtown, Charley.”

Twenty

It had been over a month and Charley hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Edmund. Strange what a little mystery can do for a man…puts him in your head like a tune that won’t go away…drives you mad. She had been looking for him in every coach she drove, in every swing station she stopped at and in every saloon she downed a whiskey. She had not realized how remarkable it would feel to have someone else know her secret.

One rainy night, Charley walked into the Hangtown Saloon, and by God there he was. Finally. She sauntered over to his table, whiskey in hand.

Edmund looked up from his cards, not missing a beat. “Well, well, look who’s here. If it isn’t my favorite whip…Stagecoach Charley. How’re the horses treating you, m’boy?”

“Got a mind of their own, them horses sometimes,” she said. She looked down into her glass, trying to hide the annoying blush on her face. “If it weren’t for me keepin ’em in rein, they’d take off to—”

“Frisco, perchance?”

She let out a chuckle.

“You know, I’ve an inkling to head to Frisco again this week,” Edmund said. “Place I go sometimes. Dora’s? You’d like it there, m’boy. Stop in sometime. Friday night, payday night is quite…spectacular.”

“I think I heard of that place, ‘Gaming, whiskey and women,’ right?”

“Correct. Emphasis on the women.”

He winked and went back to his cards.

When the rain stopped, Charley started the long ride home. The dawn was bursting through the sky in purples and reds, and the smell of the earth was pungent. Her horse felt comforting beneath her. There was the familiar sound of hooves on damp soil, and her body felt light and strong…pulled back into Edmund’s entrancement.

For the last hour Tonia had been listening hard while going through the motions of her hateful homework. When at last she heard the sound of Charley’s horse plodding on the packed dirt outside the cabin, she jumped up from the table, knocking her schoolbooks and papers askew and almost knocking over the candle as well.

Anna, in the corner by the stove, looked up in surprise. Tonia was already halfway to the door.

“Tonia,” called Anna. “Leave Charley alone.”

Tonia stopped in her tracks just short of the door. “But mother.”

“He’s a grown man. He needs his privacy just as you or I do.”

“I don’t need any privacy. And Charley likes to talk with me. He’s told me so. And we never see him anymore. I miss him.” She took the last step towards the door, though she knew she’d go no farther.

“Tonia.”

“All right, mother,” she said in an exaggerated beleaguered tone. She removed her hand from the latch and turned back. “You know I think that Charley gives you more privacy than you want.”

At the sudden stricken look on her mother’s face, she knew that she’d gone too far. Defused now, she collected her books and papers into a neat pile on the table and got herself ready for bed. She put on her pretty flannel gown, white with little blue flowers, sewn together earlier that summer by her mother. Tonia’s heart was breaking with sadness and contrition. She splashed water over her hands and face. She climbed into the hard bed and lay down on her side. The sheets scratched her cheek and she was glad of it.

A few minutes later her mother climbed into bed and lay stiffly beside her.

“I’m so sorry, mother. I love you,” she whispered.

Anna slipped her arm under Tonia’s neck and held her close.

As Charley unbridled her horse, she had heard the loud voices coming from Anna and Tonia’s cabin. That cinched it. She wouldn’t be heading in there for some late night grub tonight. In truth, she hadn’t seen very much of them at all this last month. Charley and Anna had not discussed that thing that had happened between them that night. Easier to avoid the whole conversation…as though nothing had happened. Just slip back into their daily rhythms.

The following day Charley went into work to request a San Francisco run for the weekend.

When she arrived in San Francisco that Friday, she checked back into the Oriental Hotel. And once again, button by button by button, her clumsy fingers transformed herself from man to woman.

Twenty-One

The paint was peeling on the cracked sign hanging high above the door.

DORA’S
12 Dupont Street
GAMING * WHISKEY * WOMEN

The sign was shaped like a giant golden coin. Charley smiled…it looked just like the coin that had dropped out of Edmund’s pocket that first night she had tucked him in.

Edmund was at the gaming table, no visible sign that he’d noticed her come in. She went up to the bar to order a whiskey.

A man with crooked teeth leered at her. “Lemme buy you a drink, girlie.”

“No thanks, I can—”

“The man pays in these parts.” He sidled close, sniffing at Charley’s cool neck. He emanated sour sweat, bad breath and beer. “So, what’ll it be?”

When Charley did not respond but drew back, the man shouted to the barkeep, “Bring the gal a draft.”

Charley turned back to the gaming table. Edmund was gone. Had he not seen her?

Her drink arrived, frothy, and in a tall glass. She did not relish playing whore to a man with crooked teeth and a nasty smell. Then she felt a warm hand on the middle of her back, heard a familiar voice. Coins slapped on the bar.

“That’ll be on me Andy,” said Edmund.

Charley was relieved to feel his firm hand on her back, steering her away from the bar, away from the crooked teeth.

Edmund handed her the cold beer and she brought it to her lips. “Why don’t you take a long sip, my dear.”

She drained her beer in a most unladylike fashion. He allowed his hand to drift along her body in a most ungentlemanly fashion. He tugged at her hand, planted a kiss on the curve of her neck. She moaned her little moan, tugged back at him, and together they moved as one figure out the door, down the street, and up to her room.

Edmund taught her that weekend, among other things, his favorite card game, Ace-Deuce-Jack. But not before she was given a lecture on the ethics of card playing. Edmund believed all was fair in love and war, with one exception…he said in the game of chance, he never cheated—and despised anyone who did. Cheating at cards was something a gentleman should never do.

After one of their hands that Charley happened to win, Edmund tilted back the last of his brandy, turned Charley around, pushed her down on the bed and sat on her. She didn’t know what the hell he was doing. Her face was smashed into the mattress. Then, instead of the usual unbuttoning and tearing and lifting, she heard him singing. Full throated above her. An Irish ballad. A love song to Molly O’Flannery…whoever the hell that was. She started to laugh. Her laughter caused the bed to sway in such a way that she felt almost seasick. But she couldn’t stop…her head arched backward. Edmund’s tenor notes grew sweeter and higher. Her sides hurt. She felt breathless. Waves of elation grew inside her. Her body rocked as Edmund’s voice wound itself around her.

Early Sunday morning, Edmund lazily watched from their bed as Charley once again dressed back into her skivvies, trousers, shirt and boots. Nodding at her crotch, he threw Charley one of his socks.

“Aren’t you missing something this morning, my dear?”

Grinning, Charley stuffed the sock down the front of her pants. “There. Big enough for you now?”

“The bigger the better, my dear. Actually…on second thought, why don’t you drive your coach back today in your low-cut dress? I’m sure the miners would be as delighted as I have been.”

“Are you speaking of your delight with my dress or the sex?”

“My delight with fucking you, my darling. Always the delicious fucking.”

Blushing hard, she grabbed her saddle bags, leaned over the bed and kissed him.

He whispered in her ear, “See you on the road sometime, Charley girl.”

Twenty-Two

At the edge of San Francisco Bay on Montgomery Street, sat the new, red brick, green shuttered Wells Fargo stagecoach office. After checking in, Charley breakfasted next door at the Union Saloon on excellent bread, potatoes, hung beef, eggs, and strong tea. Upon arriving back at the station, she was surprised to see Edmund standing there with that insinuating smile he gave to everyone. Standing there as if he were just passing the time of day.

“Fancy seeing you again, Mr. Bennett.”

“Hey there Charley, my good fellow. Spur of the moment…figured I’d join you on the ride back to Sacramento. From there I’ll be heading up to Knights Landing for a good game.”

“Suit yourself,” Charley said with some sniffing and pretense of indifference. She cut herself a chunk of plug tobacco with her jack-knife, put the fresh chew under her lip, and climbed up onto the driver’s seat.

Edmund went to climb up to the seat of honor next to Charley but it was already taken. With his usual charm and silver dollars however, he persuaded the gentleman who had been occupying the seat to move inside the coach. Edmund said the rocking made him ill within, and that the other passengers would bless the gentleman for his good deed, saving them all from his breakfast.

As soon as Edmund was seated, Charley grabbed the reins and shouted, “Git acoup. Git alang, my beauties.” Her hoarse cry cut through the damp morning air. And they were off.

Fifty miles, seven hours, and four swing-stations later, the coach pulled up to the home station in Suisun City, the half-way point between San Francisco and Sacramento. Dusty and fatigued, the passengers crawled out of the coach—all trying to outrun each other on their way to the outhouse.

Charley yelled out, “Coach leaves at 1:30 sharp. You got thirty minutes.”

After leaving the stagecoach in the hands of the two young stock tenders, Charley went inside with Edmund and sat down at the communal table with some of the other passengers for a quick meal.

They were about finished when Edmund looked down into his grease-laden plate. “Hog and hominy is not quite what our appetites deserved after our weekend of drunkenness and debauchery, eh Charley?”

Before she could even react, one of Charley’s regular passengers, Ennis Christman, piped up. “Well, this is a whole lot fucking better than what we get at the mining camps…a cup of coffee strong enough to float a millstone—worse than this shit if you can imagine. Beaver liver and tail stew plus a piece of fat pork, fried, or should I say burned, and to top this god-awful mess off, a pancake apiece fried in the pork fat, and about as heavy as its size in lead. And it ain’t cheap either. The coffee alone is two bucks.”

“Thank-you my good man,” laughed Edmund. “You have now ruined all of our appetites for at least the rest of the day.”

He stood up and headed back out to the waiting coach, with Charley and the rest of the amused passengers in tow.

Following the group, Christman continued his chatterings, “…but still cheaper than fucking raisins. I know one miner who bought a box of raisins and paid weight for weight about four thousand dollars in gold dust for ‘em. It’s true. Shit. Can you believe that? Does cure scurvy though. Hell, maybe I should be picking grapes instead of diggin’ for gold…”

In time, Edmund and Charley would develop a tacit understanding. They never spoke of her secret. The great game just added to their pleasure. That something unspoken always slipping in and out of their arms.

Charley could sense Edmund not only made love to Charlotte, but to Charley as well. The vision of Charley on the driver’s box, sweaty, dirty, whipping the six-team, powerful and brave as any man. She imagined it excited him to feel Charley beneath him or on top. As it excited her…the freedom to be a man and a woman in the same body…at the same time.