Millie's Western Adventure

by Lubrican

Chapters : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17

Chapter Seventeen

Still upset, Bob walked around town for a while, to settle down before going back to his office to go to bed. Along the way, he saw lights in windows, and smelled the odors of cooking. He heard snippets of conversation from open windows or doors. These little domestic scenes made him feel lonely and empty. He felt like a fool for letting a girl almost young enough to be his daughter get under his skin and steal his heart.

Finally, he turned toward his surgery. He was still a hundred yards away when he saw a figure walking through the night, towards him. The moon was half full, and he recognized Boots' hat and buckskin shirt in the silver glow of the moon's light. He started to call out to her, but didn't really feel like company.

He stopped as Boots walked directly to his surgery, opened the front door, and went inside. She thought he was already there, obviously. He wondered what she wanted, and hurried toward his office.

The candle had been lit in his bedroom. What was she doing back there?

"Boots?" he called out. She coughed. "What are you doing, Boots?" he asked.

Her buckskin shirt sailed through the doorway to his bedroom. He took a step closer.

"What the hell are you doing, Boots?" he growled. "I told you I can't do what you want."

Her leather pants flew out of the door and landed on her shirt.

"Dammit, Boots, knock it off!" he groaned. "This has not been a good day, and you aren't helping things at all."

The light of the candle was suddenly snuffed out.

He went to the doorway, stepping on her clothes in the process. He stood there, uncertain.

"Come on, Boots," he said. "You don't want to do this."

"Yes I do," she whispered.

"Go see Dusty," said Bob.

"I can't," she whispered.

Then he heard movement, and she was up and right in front of him. Her hands came to his shirt buttons, and flicked at them, unbuttoning them.

"Please," she whispered.

He knew something was wrong. Something was off. When she kissed him, she gripped his face with both hands and he knew instantly it wasn't Boots. Her hands were much too soft to be those of the scout. His own hands came to her head, where there was too much hair.

But it was the delightful scent of her perfume that made him realize it couldn't possibly be Boots.

He pushed her away and fumbled for the candle and a match. The flare of the match was blinding in the dark and he squinted, touching the flame to the wick. He looked to see Millie, stark naked, standing a foot away from him. As he looked, she went back to his bed and lay down on it. She spread her legs.

"Come to bed, Bob," she said.

"What the hell is going on here?" he gasped. He recognized the medical symptoms of hyperventilation in his own body. His vision narrowed until her face was all he could see. He took deep breaths and willed himself to calm down.

She lay, obviously comfortable being naked in front of him. His eyes strayed to the scar where he had sutured her wound. It was clearly visible, but looked completely healed.

"I want you to make love to me," said Millie.

"I don't understand," moaned Bob. "Where's Boots?"

"She's in my room at the hotel," said Millie. "I couldn't very well leave as myself. People would have noticed. But nobody would think a thing about Boots leaving. So she loaned me her clothes."

"But Dutch," said Bob, helplessly.

"What about him?" asked Millie. Her left hand strayed across her abdomen. Her fingers ruffled her pubic curls. One finger slipped lower, to casually stroke her clitoral mound.

"He said he was going to the room."

"His room," said Millie.

"Not your room?"

"Dutch isn't my type, Bob," she said. "You're my type, Bob. Why do you think I came back?"

"You said it was to do business," he said weakly.

"Yes, that was part of it. But not the main reason I came back. Come to bed, Bob."

"I can't," he groaned.

"Yes you can. We can talk about all of this tomorrow, Bob. Right now I want you to make me a woman. Come to bed, Bob, and make love to me."

"What about your virginity?" he snapped. "Have you lost that while you were gone?"

"No, Bob. My virginity belongs to you."

"But don't you understand I can't take it?" he almost yelled. "We're not married! I can't just take your virginity!"

"Boots said you'd say that," said Millie. "She told me what to do."

"What?" Bob didn't understand.

Her hand moved. Her first and middle fingers formed a spear, aimed at her sex. She eased the tips between her vulva and then, to his astonishment, stabbed them deep into her channel, wincing as she did so. She let out her breath in a whoosh, and he realized she'd been holding it. She pulled her fingers out and held them up to see. They were stained pink with the blood of her ruptured hymen.

"I'm not a virgin any more, Bob," she said, her voice husky. "And I accept your proposal of marriage. Now will you please come to bed ... or do I have to go spend the night with Dutch?"

Her mention of Dutch was what did it. That and his sudden realization that he'd been had by a very clever and very determined young woman. She had known all along what she was going to do. So had Boots. They had conspired over this ambush.

"You're insane," he said softly.

"No. You promised me I wouldn't go insane from masturbating, and that's all I've done since I rode that stupid train away from here. I'm not insane, Bob. I'm horny. Horny for you."

Suddenly, he was iron hard in his pants. Her little yips of "Yes" and "Hurry" as he kicked his boots off and then pushed his pants down, inflamed him.

He was a confused mixture of horny, angry and full of admiration as, naked, he flung himself on top of her. He was angry enough to enter her too roughly, but her whimper of pain wasn't accusative. Rather, it stabbed into his conscience, and he stopped, deep inside her. He kissed her eyes and cheeks, moaning how sorry he was for being a beast. She kissed him back, though, and said "I knew it would hurt."

He held still until her hips started moving, convincing him she had adapted. Then he moved out and back in. Her hiss, this time, was of something other than pain, and he grinned. He had always known she was passionate. Now that this amazing thing was happening ... the thing he had dreamed of so often, and been so completely positive that would never, ever happen ... his own passion was banked.

He planned on making the next half hour one she would never, ever forget.

They lay there, in each other's arms, out of breath and sweating. Bob had rolled to one side, so as not to crush her, but her arms were still around him tightly.

"I ... didn't ... know," she panted.

"Know what?"

"That it ... would be ... like that."

"And, are you ... pleased?"

"No."

"You're not?"

"Not hardly."

"Why not?" His voice sounded injured.

She had regained her breath enough to speak full sentences.

"It wasn't nearly enough. That feels too completely wonderful to have been over that quickly. How do I get it hard again? I want to go again."

He laughed, until she wiggled out from under him and climbed on top of him. She grabbed for his wrists and tried to pin them to the bed. He could have lifted her easily, but let her have her way. He felt something wet on his stomach and lifted his head. His sperm was dripping from her sex, onto his belly.

In that instant, he realized the seriousness of this whole situation. He had bred this woman. She might be pregnant with his child.

"Will you really marry me?" he asked.

She had been trying to put on a mean face, wrinkling up her brow and frowning. Now she relaxed and stared down at him, her face framed by hanging, black hair.

"I'll just die if I can't," she said softly.

"What if Aunt Maureen does not approve?" he asked.

"I told you all the things I learned from her," said Millie. "I didn't tell you what she learned from me."

"And what was that?"

"That I am a wild and headstrong young woman, who will not be pushed around. That money doesn't mean as much to me as happiness. That I can be happy owning only one or two simple dresses ... as long as I have the man I love."

"I thought she was going to sponsor your coming out party," said Bob.

"She can't," said Millie.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not a virgin any more," said Millie, smiling.

Millie was on her knees on the board floor. The bed wasn't big enough for both of them to be on it, in terms of what she was doing, and still be comfortable. She watched her hand slide slowly up and down his stiff penile column. She gazed as she pulled the foreskin off the plum-shaped, purple head. She leaned forward to lick that smooth, purple skin.

"It's hard enough," he gasped.

"I'm having fun," she said, kissing the tip and teasing the little slit in it with the tip of her tongue.

"I thought you wanted it inside you," he panted.

"I do."

"I will happily put it there," he said.

"Boots told me about something else too," she said.

"Oh no," he moaned. "What now?"

She stood and, with athletic ease, stepped up onto the bed and straddled him. She sank down to her knees and reached for his erection, positioning it. She sat down a little too quickly, considering her level of experience, and winced as her under-lubricated pussy accepted the intruder.

"This is unnatural," said Bob.

"Be quiet. I'm a cowgirl, and you're my bull."

"Boots taught you this?"

"She told me about it. It's her favorite way to do it with Dusty."

"Damn," groaned Bob, as she experimentally squeezed the invader with strong, youthful muscles.

She leaned forward, and he actually saw her eyes widen in delight. She rubbed her sex along his belly, or tried to. His penis kept her from being able to move freely. Her moan of ecstasy made him realize what this position must be doing to her clitoral bulge.

"Oh yes," she whined. "Oh Bob, I love you. I want to do this all day, every day."

"If you do, you're going to have a baby within a year," he warned.

"Okay," she sighed.

He watched, fascinated, as she had three hysterical paroxysms in a row. Then, inflamed himself, he rolled her over and thrust into her until he spurted.

An hour later, they did it all over again.

Bob woke, with the fleeting memory of Tilly Sumpter's rooster's morning call in his ears. He smelled Millie immediately, a mixture of sweat, the vestiges of her perfume, perhaps, and raw sex. Her turned his head and got a face full of her hair, which had its own delightful scent.

She moved, muttered and burrowed against him, smacking her lips. He could hear her breathing change, and knew she was awake. Her head moved and her hand came up to brush the hair from her face. The dim morning light coming through the window let him see her eyes.

"Again?" she sighed.

He laughed. "It's morning, woman. We have to get up."

She was able to pout with both her wordless voice and the way she wiggled against him. Then, suddenly, her eyes opened wide and she sat up, her hair flying.

"It's morning? Oh no! I have to get back! Boots is still there! How will she get out? How will I get back in?"

She jumped up and looked for the leather clothes she had borrowed last night, only to throw them on the floor as soon as she could. Bob watched fondly as buckskin covered bare skin. He realized he was hard, both because it was morning, and because of seeing that skin.

"I love you," he said out loud.

She spared him a glance, and a quick smile. "That's good, because you're stuck with me. I only got a one way ticket."

"And Aunt Maureen is really accepting of this?"

"We don't have time to talk about this now, Bob!" she barked. "I have to get back upstairs to my room somehow."

"Keep your pants on," he said, sitting up. "We'll get you there."

She stopped. "I don't want to keep my pants on. I want to be naked. I want to go back to bed. When can we get married? When can I be your wife so I don't have to get dressed any more?"

"You'll still have to get dressed after we're married," laughed Bob. "At least when I have patients."

She was pulling on boots ... boots that had belonged to a man now dead. Obviously she hadn't thought about that in her fervor to complete her ambush. Bob decided not to bring that to her attention. She looked up at him.

"We're not living here, you idiot. I'm going to have a house built for us. A big house."

"Oh really," he said, smiling as he pulled on his own clothes.

"Really," she said. "Aunt Maureen has the list of materials and laborers. She'll get them all on the train as soon as I telegraph her to send them."

"You seem pretty sure I'd agree to all this," said Bob.

"Aunt Maureen said you would."

"I've barely met the woman," said Bob.

"Yes, but I told her all about you ... about us."

"Everything?" Bob's voice was high and astonished.

"Eventually. When she saw how distraught I was without you, she questioned me closely. She was very proud of you for leaving my virginity intact. She said such men are rare. Once she knew I loved you - which she was not happy about in the slightest - she told me I needed to come back here to make my life complete, or I'd end up resenting her for taking me away from you."

"I don't mean to be disrespectful, but that sounds silly to me. If you'd have stayed, you'd have had your pick of men."

"I already did," she said. "We don't have time for this now, Bob! What are we going to do?"

"Put your hair up under the hat, keep the brim low over your face, and follow me."

"How do you work this thing?" she complained, holding up Boots' gunbelt. "She put it on me at the hotel."

Bob fastened it on her, his face inches from her bulging breasts. He leaned forward to kiss one and she slapped his head.

"Have you no manners?"

He laughed, and headed for the door.

"Boots" entered the hotel behind Bob, and then darted left towards the staircase that led upstairs. Bob waved at Harvey, said good morning and asked him where Martin was, all in an attempt to keep Harvey's attention on him. Then he said he was going on into the dining room.

"When Boots and Miss Philby get down here, please extend my invitation to them both to eat breakfast with me."

He was on his second cup of coffee when Boots and Millie arrived. Millie had somehow gotten her hair up in whirls, held with combs, and was wearing a slightly less fancy gown than the day before. Boots' face was stretched by a big grin.

"Hey, doc," she said. "Sleep good?" She laughed. Millie slapped at her with what Bob realized was a folded up fan.

Dutch appeared, dressed to the nines. He bowed to the ladies, including Boots, and seated himself without invitation.

Bob, no longer worried or upset, was happy just to eat. Nobody else seemed eager to talk either, and they all set to the plates they were brought with vigor.

When Dutch was finished, he again wadded up his napkin and threw it on his plate, before turning to address Millie.

"I think we have what we need. If you agree, then it's time to flag down the westbound train and return to Sacramento to get the ball rolling."

"I agree," said Millie, without further comment.

"Will you be returning with me?" he asked, casually.

"No. Please tell my aunt that all is in order here, and I'll be sending further information by wire as to who the agent will be."

"What about the land?" he asked.

"Boots will find that for us," said Millie.

The man, without any further comment, rose and walked out of the dining room.

"Who is he?" asked Bob, able to voice his curiosity at last.

"He works for my aunt," said Millie. "He's sort of a trouble shooter. If she has an operation, or in this case is trying to start an operation, he is her agent if she can't, or doesn't want to be there herself."

"What operation is she starting?" asked Bob.

"Her idea was to buy a ranch and get into the cattle business," said Millie.

"Just like that?" Bob was astonished.

"She hires experts to run her operations."

"So that's why you met with the local ranchers yesterday," he said.

"Yes. We offered to buy out anyone who was willing to sell."

"Just like that."

Millie smiled. "That's pretty much how she does things."

"She must have a lot of money," said Bob.

"She owns her own bank," said Millie.

"And you gave all that up and came back here?" Bob felt weak and light headed.

"I love you, Bob," she said, as if that was all the reason she needed. "Besides," she went on, "I didn't actually give it all up. I'll keep an eye on things here in Nebraska, and further west, when we start selling beef to the Government to feed the Indians on the reservations."

"I see," he said.

"When I'm not teaching school," she added.

"You're kidding."

"Or having babies," she went on.

"It sure is fun tryin'," grinned Boots.

"So did anybody sell?" asked Bob.

"Mr. Wilkenson agreed to our terms," she said.

"Really? Frank Wilkenson, of the B Hanging Arrow brand?"

"As I understand it, he had one son, who went back east to become a lawyer. With what we're paying him, he can go back east and live with his son. I also told him he can live on the ranch as long as he likes."

"So who's gonna run it for you?" asked Bob.

"I'll be the owner's agent," said Millie.

Boots preened. "An' me and Dusty's gonna run it fer her!"

Bob's mouth dropped open.

"You ... a cattleman?"

"Well, actually, Dusty will be the foreman. All I'm gonna do is scout fer 'em when they drive a herd west, to the Indians. The rest of the time I'm gonna be the foreman's wife." She grinned.

"Well I'll be damned," said Bob.

"Now," said Millie. "I have one more surprise for you." She stood up.

"I'm not sure I can survive another surprise," said Bob. "I might have a heart attack."

"If you need a treatment after you see it, I'm experienced in the kind of treatment you need," said Millie, her voice sultry. Boots laughed, delighted.

Bob got more and more curious as the two women led him towards the livery stable. He couldn't imagine what would be there. George Watkins met them at the door. He was beaming.

"Got it all right here, like you said, Miss Millie ... er ... I'm sorry. I cain't remember your real name."

"Millie is fine, Mr. Watkins. I'd like to show the doctor now."

George led them to the wagon he kept there for hire. The bed was piled high, and covered by a tarp, which George whisked away, creating a cloud of dust.

There were crates of different sizes. Bob looked at one label, which said the contents included one Archer Daniels Barber/Dentist chair, with padded head rest. Another one said "Surgical Instruments." Another appeared to be an entire case of laudanum!

"What is all this?" he asked.

"This is enough equipment to establish your own hospital. It's the latest. Some of it comes from China and isn't even available back east," she said.

"This won't fit in my surgery," said Bob.

"Of course not," said Millie. "We'll have to build you a new building, of course. Materials for that will come with the materials for our house."

"I don't believe this," said Bob, his voice choked with emotion.

"Don't worry," said Millie. "I know how hard it is to get used to things you aren't used to." She turned to Boots. "I need you to actually talk to Dusty about all this, Boots," she said. "I don't want to wire my aunt that everything is ready unless I know everything is ready."

"He'll do what I tell him to do," said Boots. "He already said he'd do anythin' if I agreed to get hitched to him."

"Well you can do what you want, then," said Millie. "Bob and I have things to discuss ... in private ... in his bedroom."

Boots blinked. "Oh! Sure! I guess I could go make sure Dusty unnerstands everythin' just so."

"I thought you might see things that way," said Millie.

An hour later, Bob and Millie were sweaty and out of breath again. Millie's sex was weeping his thick, white spend again as well. She told him not to plan on going anywhere until supper.

Miles away, in an almost empty bunkhouse, vacated by most of its residents at Boots' request, she let her cowboy between her thighs once too often. On her way back to town, one of the sperm Dusty had injected into her, found her egg. The fact that she was riding a horse didn't deter the resulting fertilization one bit. When she stepped down from her horse, in town, the egg had just attached itself to the wall of her uterus.

She tied up her horse, took her first step as a mother ... and didn't even know it.

Most change in a small town, especially a remote small town on the Great Plains in the eighteen-seventies, took place in one of two ways. The vast majority of small towns changed only very slowly, sometimes taking decades to make enough difference for the occasional visitor to even notice.

Then there were the tumultuous events, which brought large change quickly to a small town. A bank robbery is one example, where an entire community's assets could disappear in a cloud of dust and, within a few months, half the town had left because they couldn't sustain themselves.

On November the third of 1873, however, what changed Beaverton Nebraska forever, was not the taking of something from the town. It was the addition of something to the town. And like a tornado coming from clear skies, there was almost no notice.

That something was up was clear when an unscheduled train arrived at four in the morning. Furious activity began immediately, as more than two hundred men got off the train and began unloading it. First came twenty-five wagons and more than seventy dray horses from box cars. Then a wagon was pushed into place and, while a team of men hitched up horses to it, others loaded it with stacks of lumber and other construction materials. As one was filled and then moved out, another was pushed into place. Eventually there were five wagons being loaded at once.

But there was much more than building materials on the train. There were also huge stacks of white canvas, which turned out to be tents, along with sides of bacon, sacks of flour and even fresh vegetables. Milk goats were unloaded and tethered wherever people could find to tie them. Even cords of fire wood were moved from the train to wagons. When all the wagons were full, stacks of materials were placed on the ground, until they could be retrieved later.

By the time astonished townsfolk gathered - and every single resident of the town was present - the sun was only just then breaking the horizon in the east, and the locomotive was building up a head of steam to continue east with what was now an empty train.

The mayor, hatless and in his night shirt, but with booted feet, was with Sheriff Miller, who was fully dressed, deep in conversation with the man a few others in town had seen, and remembered only as Dutch. As the light grew, people realized that fully half the group of men laboring to move materials about had slanted eyes, and black hair, sometimes worn in a topknot. They looked vaguely Indian, but wore pants and smocks made of cloth, rather than leather.

By the end of the day, on a plot of land that took up a good four acres to the west of town, twenty-five tents had been erected in neat rows, radiating out like spokes from a larger, round tent that curious onlookers could see contained stoves and fire pits over which huge cauldrons were hung. The banging of pots and pans could be heard a hundred yards away.

These were the men who would build a small hospital, and what could only be described as an American manor, for the doctor and his wife to live in.

The structures went up more quickly than anyone would have dreamed. Part of that was because snow was expected, and would complicate plans when it arrived. Within two weeks the frames of both buildings were complete. Two weeks later, a regular westbound train stopped, and Dutch got on it to return to California. Paint was being applied to the exterior of the hospital as the train pulled away. They only got one day in which to paint, though, because the day after Dutch left, it snowed eight inches.

In all, the men stayed for two months. During that time they were paid a fraction of their anticipated wages, and almost all of that money stayed in Beaverton. Maureen Hatfield had learned long ago not to pay her men the bulk of their wages until the job was finished. They got enough to supply them with some comforts, but when the work was done, there was much more for their families to use when they got back. And that money, though it was restricted to about fifty cents a week, amounted to more than six hundred dollars in cash that went into the Beaverton economy. Some of it went to the saloon, though Minerva's women couldn't hope to take care of the needs of two or three hundred men. She took care of that little problem by tripling her prices, which meant only those men most determined to sate their lust showed up. Conversely, the girls all found that the strange looking men, who were eventually determined to be Chinese, were polite, well-spoken and, all in all, delightful to be around.

The general store reaped huge rewards from the inflow of cash. And normal residents also got in on the wealth by taking in boarders who didn't want to live in a tent, or who needed something repaired, and had no time to do it themselves because they were on a rush job.

It changed the town forever.

Even when the two new buildings were finished, the changes didn't stop. When the hordes of men boarded another special train to return to the west coast, a few decided they liked Nebraska, and stayed. Some of them recognized acre upon acre of unused, but fertile ground, almost none of which was being used to grow crops. Others were hired to work on the new ranch which the woman they called "Mamasan Hatfield" had bought. In all, some twenty men stayed. Tents had been left for these men, who lived in them while they examined Boots' sod hut and learned how to make houses that were better than tents to survive the winter in. They designed a cutter that could be pulled by two horses, had the blacksmith make it, and then worked as a team to cut enough sod to build fifteen one room huts within two weeks, each set on a five-acre lot. Once that was done, five of the men rode off in a wagon to learn how to be cowboys at the M H Bar ranch, which had supplied the beef that the construction crew had eaten while they did their work.

Two weeks later, women and children arrived, to live and work in those sod huts, and to practically double the population of the original Beaverton. It more than doubled the population of the school, filling it to capacity.

Change continued in Beaverton over the years. Maureen Hatfield recognized several opportunities that others had not. Not only did she sell beef to the Government, for the Indians in the Colorado Indian Territory, she also reckoned that beef could be shipped to market west of the Rockies as well. The population was growing on the west coast, and the usual supplies of beef were stretched thin. As such, Beaverton grew even more, and a spur track was put in so that cattle cars could be parked for loading and then switched onto a westbound train. That required more personnel be stationed there, and Harvey's job became a full time enterprise. The Chinese inhabitants settled in and eventually intermarried. Minerva needed more girls, and rode the train to California to recruit them. Two more restaurants were established, and another bank was built. Bessie Robinson caught her husband screwing Mabel Ralston on his desk, in the middle of the day. Mabel's brother, Tommy tried to keep Bessie out, but a rumor had finally made it to her ears. As Tommy followed her into the office, the irate woman grabbed his pistol and shot her husband four times before Tommy could wrestle the gun away from her. No one in Beaverton was aware she even knew how to operate a single action revolver.

Just about everyone would have said those changes were made possible by the return of the woman who had been bushwhacked by three thirteen-year-old boys, making mischief on a lark. The town had changed her ... and she had, in turn, changed the town. And the kind of change she brought was so powerful that it turned the whole town upside down.

It started with that influx of laborers, and the influence they had on ordinary, everyday events. And people had to accept that change, whether they wanted to or not. Progress could not be stopped. And, since almost everybody in town benefitted hugely from the change she brought, the townsfolk looked the other way, in a manner of speaking, concerning one of the other things she did ... a thing that would otherwise never have been tolerable. It was, perhaps, even more powerful than the economic change she brought, because it affected the way people would think about things in the future.

And that thing was her wedding.

After she returned, Millie was busy almost all the time with her initial duties as agent of Maureen Hatfield. Dusty knew cows, and cowboys, but he didn't know business. Frank Wilkenson, once paid for his ranch, had taken off like the Devil himself was after him. So there was no one to do the books. Then there was the supervision of the building of the manor. Bob called all the shots when it came to the hospital, but Millie wanted the house to be just so.

There just wasn't time for a wedding, to say nothing of a honeymoon.

That did not, however, mean Millie withheld herself from carnal delights. Bob's old surgery might be a hovel, by comparison to what was to come, but it was still where he lived. And Millie, who lived in the hotel, couldn't very well entertain a man there.

So there were many torrid nights in Bob's room, where he pinned her to the bed, lunging between thighs spread in welcome, or lay under her as she played cowgirl, riding him to repetitive pinnacles of ecstasy. Bob took great delight in watching her orgasms, and his standard practice was to make sure she had at least one, before releasing himself to experience his own passion. Not being a fan of coitus interruptus, he always pushed hard when his essence flowed into her body.

It wasn't that she didn't want to get married. It was that, knowing she would marry only once in her life, she wanted to make sure that when she did, it was the perfect ceremony. Neither of them planned on his seed taking root in her fertile garden.

But it did.

And that is why her wedding was both a sensation, and something that changed the way people looked at such things on a fundamental level. For when Millie, as she was known by everyone in town, walked down the aisle of Pastor Divine's church in the spring of 1874, It was obvious she was great with child. It was also obvious that she didn't care that tongues had been wagging, and that half the people in the church were there simply to see if lightning would strike her as she did what she was doing.

It did not.

What made that all the more remarkable was the fact that Boots, who was giving her away because Millie had no father to fulfill that duty, was also great with child as she escorted Millie down the aisle.

Except that it appeared that Boots was the bride, dressed in a beautiful gown, being escorted to the front of the church by Millie, because Boots also had no father to give her away.

And the source of this confusion was that two grooms waited by the altar, one on either side of a beaming Randy Divine, who believed that if God was angry about any of this, it was His business, and no one else's. He was therefore quite happy to conduct the double ceremony and make honest men of Bob and Dusty.

Both women were beautiful, which was expected in Millie's case, and the reason that half of the people were there in the church in Boots' case. Everyone (especially three boys named Michael, Benjamin and Chauncy) wanted to see what the wild woman looked like as a man tamed her. You could have heard a pin drop when the minister's welcome said they were all there to witness the joining of Elizabeth Millie Philby to Robert David Fisk, and of Charlene Hennesy to Charles Paul Kenworth.

There was a mass intake of breath as he said Boots' real name. That air stayed in full lungs as the woman herself turned and stared out at the congregation with a frown marring her made up face.

Then, of course, there was the fact that Boots had felt naked at the Founder's Day Dance, when she wore a dress without her gunbelt. She had sworn that would never happen again, and was true to her word. That gunbelt, strapped on over her frilly blue gown caused as much of a sensation as her enlarged waist itself.

Considering how unconventional the wedding was, Reverend Divine's ceremony was almost anticlimactic. At least until he got to the part where he asked if anyone had any reason why either of the marriages should not take place, to speak then or forever hold his peace.

He glanced down at Boots' six gun, and added a few words.

"While I am compelled to ask the question ... I recommend you hold your peace."

The End

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