Montana Gold

Parker acted like a young girl in the throes of some huge excitement that thrilled her soul. She hugged Mikasa, ran to Courtney to hug her, turned to Hayden and smothered him with kisses.

"I know how I'm going to celebrate today," she sang. "I'm not getting dressed all day long. Just get used to me like this all day!" she crowed.

"Parker, honey, by now after watching those epic video and slide shows of you, I know there are a lot of days you don't get dressed at all," remarked Mikasa with a throaty laugh.

"I know, I know," she laughed, "but this is different. I have a life inside my body, I'm pregnant by my Golden Boy, and this is so precious that I'll relive it always. Courtney." She giggled as she approached the camper, "Will you get my brush and brush out my hair, please? I need to be presentable for this wonderful day."

"Honey chile," replied the bruised girl with one of her first real smiles and an overemphasized Southern drawl, "I would never stand in the way of a gorgeous, pregnant, buck-nekkid gypsy woman who wants to strut around like that all day. But lemme tell you this, girlfriend, before this day is out you are going to be one overworked and exhausted lady. You don't get to wander around here free of charge with those gorgeous, huge boobs and that body."

As the three stared at her, Parker grinned, her eyes flashed, and she said, "Ohhh, goody!"

Chapter 20

Plans and Discovery

The four sat around a small fire in the yard beside the camper. The weather wasn't really cool, but there was an edge in the air that made having some clothes on a good idea. Mikasa and Courtney had already begun to feel a part of this small group.

"Ladies, we still have some work to do and honestly, I'm stumped." Hayden appeared puzzled as he sat with his arm around Mikasa. Parker and Courtney were busily trading suggestive looks when the conversation began. The girl's attitude and bearing had changed noticeably in the past few days, quiet and pleasing testimony to the fact that affection, respect, and genuine interest in her worked wonders for this long-abused lady.

"You all are my friends now, the only ones I've got," said Courtney softly and with a discouraged, defeated air. I want to be a part of you and whatever you are doing here, but I don't have anything...I'm even wearing borrowed clothes from you, you sweetheart." She glanced at Parker.

Parker gazed intently at her and remarked, "Courtney, it's what you do after you've lost everything that defines who you are. You've actually lost everything but yourself...the woman you are, your talents, and the ability to desire a better life. We want to help you make that new start.

"Look at me...do you really want to do this?"

Courtney trembled at the intensity of Parker's gaze. Then she realized that she really had no other option. Besides, there was something about these people, Hayden and this gypsy woman, that gripped her deep within. They had purpose...they had determination...they knew how to love each other...and they weren't afraid.

"Yes," she said, tears flooding her eyes. "Yes. If you'll help me."

"Of course we will, sweet girl. Of course we will." Parker kissed her eyes, the tip of her nose, and ended with by slipping her tongue into the girl's mouth.

"Pardon me if I sound pushy. I don't mean to," remarked Mikasa as she moved closer to Hayden. "You remarkable people are here to do some hunting for Henry Plummer's treasure, aren't you?"

Her expression was not one of self-importance or nosiness. She had an air of quiet interest and respect for Hayden and Parker.

Hayden and she had been of a mind for several days that since they were at a dead end in their search, they ought to bring in their two new friends. If they could add some local insight to where the outlaw sheriff might have concealed his loot, they'd all benefit.

"Yes, we are," he replied. "We work for a company, PRISM Designs, that engages in searching for antiquities and treasures. We're not interested in raping history or the valuables that someone might possess. But hidden treasure is just that...hidden. If we discover it, we quickly give a part first to those who own or control the area of discovery. We divide the rest up among our team members who make the find; of course, our company benefits as well."

"In our preparation," interjected Parker, "we found that somewhere back in his day, Plummer had been interested in a woman he never married, but she was closer to him than anyone else. Have you heard anything about that?" She looked tenderly at the girl beside her, then at Mikasa. She also winked her approval of Mikasa's closeness to Hayden.

"I...I...ummm," Courtney said in a soft voice, as if she were embarrassed about something.

"What is it, Courtney? Hayden probed gently, not wanting to give the impression that he was primarily interested in milking her for what she could do for them.

"Excuse me for a minute," she said, hopping up and hurrying into the camper. In a moment she returned with the small tote bag she had brought with her. She emptied it carefully beside her on the hard packed earth. She held a picture, a small framed tintype of a man and a woman standing in front of what they recognized as the Bannack Court House.

"My mother passed this down to me from way back in my family," she said with quiet pride. Ralph wanted it like crazy. It's a picture of Henry Plummer and the woman he was going with. I don't know her name."

"Her name was Joanna, Courtney, and she'd be something like your great-great grandmother. Maybe add one more 'great' in there. Hayden answered. "You have something right here that is far more valuable than you realize. This looks like one of the very few actual pictures of Henry Plummer."

"How interesting!" exclaimed Parker, extending her had to hold it. "Why do you think Ralph wanted it so badly? Is that why he used to beat you? Because he knew you had it, and for some reason it was really important?"

"Yes. He talked about it all the time. He knew something that he never told me, but..." She lapsed into silence.

"Courtney, may I see it for a moment?" Hayden held the picture carefully, marveling at the sharpness of detail in the old picture. He turned it over. It was held in the old frame by small nails securing a piece of ancient pasteboard.

"May I take off this pasteboard?"

"Yes. Do you think there's something in there? I've never looked."

Hayden withdrew his Leatherman multi-tool from its small black nylon holder and selected the pliers to carefully withdraw the seven small-headed nails holding the picture in its frame.

Beneath the cardboard lay a folded yellowed piece of paper. The group sat breathless as Hayden carefully unfolded the scrap.

Parker walked over to stand behind him. He felt her bend over his shoulder to look at the crabbed writing. Her breasts bulged from the low neckline of her sweater, resting heavily and softly against his shoulder and face.

"Love you, Golden Boy," she whispered. "You're mine."

"It looks like a poem of some sort," he remarked with a smile, snuggling his face against her warm flesh.

"Well, read it, Beautiful Man!"

"It says,

'Windy, dry places are the most peaceful.'

'Never thought I'd leave the trail for balder spots.'

'If only I had a couple of hours to set things right...one way or the other.'

'Into the darkness, sloping to my gun hand.'

'Trash all around the dark little piles.' "

Chapter 21

The Translation

"What can that possibly mean," wondered Mikasa with a quizzical expression.

"All right, let's assume it's important and that it somehow provides one or more clues to the whereabouts of X, Y, or Z...we don't really know what. Only that Ralph wanted it awfully bad."

The four sat quietly for a full half hour before Hayden spoke. "We have to think like Henry did. 'Windy, dry places are the most peaceful.' 'Never thought I'd leave the trail for balder spots.' I've always wondered if Plummer hid something in the opposite direction from the area around the road to Virginia City. Could this mean that he's left the main road, trail, and has gone someplace high and dry?"

"That could imply a hilltop or a mountain," added Mikasa, now intensely interested in this new venture.

"Okay, good shot," smiled Hayden. "He's gone up high and away from the beaten path where he's done most of his thefts. Parks, do you remember that area back in the hills where it looked as if someone had actually done serious prospecting and digging up there?"

"Yes. Yes! I do remember that, Hayden. I wonder if...," the dark woman mused wordlessly, her eyes closed.

Okay, let's move on."

"If only I had a couple of hours..." what if that told how long it would either take him to get there one way, or if it referred to an hour going and an hour coming back?" Courtney's face shone with excitement.

"You're right again," Hayden complimented her. "Gypsy, remember you told me on the way up here that just before they hanged Plummer, he said that if they'd give him a horse and two hours he could bring them enough gold to make them all rich?

"Let's assume that he means it's an hour one way to the hideaway and an hour to get back. Parks, how long do you figure it took us to ride up to that area where we saw somebody had dug a shaft?"

"About an hour, give or take a bit," she smiled at him. She once more bent over his shoulder, and this time she bared her left breast to press it against the right side of his face. "About an hour.

"So that," sweet lover, "may be what the phrase 'one way or the other' implies, I'll bet you dollars-to-donuts. Given what he said at his hanging, we can ignore 'the other' and focus on 'one way.' He meant that it would take two hours all told, and it was one hour one way to the gold. Then an hour back. Make sense?"

"Do you have any spark of an idea how tough you make it for me to think while you do that?" he asked, desperately trying to be serious and failing completely. He turned and kissed her hard nipple. She held his face there briefly.

"In the midst of your enjoyment of her monster breast," giggled Mikasa, "what else do you think all this means?"

"Parker, sit here beside me. That'll save me from your torture," Hayden ordered, grinning at the others. She moved to his side away from Mikasa and sat down.

"All right...now, do what you do best...go ahead, I know what you're gonna do!"

Parker obediently removed her right breast from her sweater, cupped both to jiggle them softly, then sat back with a 'Who, me?' smile.

"Oh, Lord, Parker. You are so big, girl!" exclaimed Mikasa, unable to take her eyes off Parker's heavy, creamy flesh.

"The better to eat you, my dear," she replied. "And to let you milk me when I start making it."

Mikasa blushed lightly and whispered, "Thank you, Baby. That'll be fun."

"OKAY, okay!" Hayden's voice rose over the lascivious goings-on by the fire. "You people apparently can't get serious here, so we are going to the hills to work out this riddle. Go get dressed...or whatever you call 'dressed.' Parker, if it's not asking too much of my pregnant woman, would you get the ATVs out of the Peterbilt and gas 'em up. I'll get the weapons and some tools."

"No sooner said than done, you luscious beast," laughed Parker who was now having a grand time.

Chapter 22

The Mine

Courtney and Mikasa returned dressed somewhat for the occasion in jeans and tank tops. Hayden wondered aloud, "Doesn't anybody around here ever wear a bra?"

"Of course not," replied Parker gaily. "When we know very well what breasts do to you men and how we can reduce you to quivering blobs of jelly with a great pair of tits, why would we ever wear a bra?"

For her own part, she had done nothing more than swap her light sweater for a tight tank top, pull on black denims, and strap on a Ka-Bar combat knife.

Mikasa reminded Hayden of their need for a first aid kit, and Courtney asked where to get water and food. He was pleased that they were all thinking about this and were taking useful parts without having to be told.

"Parks, ride behind me. Courtney, will you ride behind Mikasa. Mikasa, you know how to drive one of these, don't you?" She nodded. "Thought so."

He wore a GALCO shoulder harness for a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver. Parker had removed the Ka-Bar and replaced it on a ballistic nylon belt with which also carried her Combat Magnum and a pair of speed loaders. Hayden gave Mikasa a Mossberg pump shotgun. To Courtney he handed a belt of 12-gauge slug and 00 buckshot rounds.

"Remember...Rule One of 'Wellington's Basic Survival Techniques' is, "If we need a nail file, we'll take a chainsaw," he grinned at the women, repeating his words to Ralph the night before.

They set off for the back woods and hills.

Once more the all-terrain vehicles made their way quietly into the hills and then high lands above and beyond Bannack. There was very little conversation among the four, but that did not stop Parker and Courtney from fondling everything they could put their hands on with the driver in front of them.

Parker snuggled her breasts against Hayden's back and slid her hands into his shirt, clasping his own firm mounds and toying with his nipple rings. Courtney surrendered all pretense of any hesitation with her lesbian friend and placed her hands on Mikasa's thighs. As they drove she gradually slipped them beneath her short skirt and found her bare.

She playfully tugged the short pendants she found attached to the woman's pussy rings, bringing sighs and smiles from her driver. If she'd had a lifetime to guess, Courtney would never have imagined that she would be free of her nightmare and would be riding an ATV with her lover on a mission to find old gold.

The team of four bounced and jounced their way over the terrain, each consumed with personal thoughts and desires. The young man leading the women had their full confidence, something that surprised them now and then. Hayden acted and reacted with a maturity and self-control that was almost unheard of in men his age.

He looked different from what they'd expected leaders to be, tough, hard-bitten, ill-tempered and so-on. Here was Hayden Wellington, certainly a leader, yet almost with the appearance of a woman if one looked only at the hair and mouth. There was no mistaking the body as that of a trained, strong man. Today his long hair hung down his back in a huge pony tail.

With powerful hands and arms he controlled his vehicle. His khaki shirt, unbuttoned for the most part, displayed his powerful frame...and those unusual, sexually-charged breasts and nipples. His jeans showed the miles of hard work wear that couldn't be faked with artificial cuts and tears.

Each of the three wanted him and, with the exception of Parker who already owned him, they were growing to love him...deeply. He had already consumed Parker Scott with his adoration.

Hayden slowed his ATV as he topped the hill, dodging scrub and low pine growth. At a low hanging, wind-twisted pine he stopped and got off his buggy. Parker, Courtney and Mikasa followed.

Now that they were there a second time, they found the area to be partially concealed from being simply a bare hilltop. A few weathered scraps of wood piling lay scattered about, nothing that would call attention to there being the adit of a mine nearby. Though the temperature was pleasant, the atmosphere was close, and they had all begun to perspire heavily.

Hayden removed his shirt, tossing it aside onto the seat of the buggy. He ignored the hungry stares of the three women at his muscular abdomen and breasts with their bouncing nipple rings.

"Parker and Courtney, please help me with something here," said Hayden. "Mikasa, will you check around in all directions with the binoculars just to be sure we are alone and unobserved."

"Lord," whispered Mikasa to Parker, "I have died and gone to heaven. How are we supposed to get anything done with him like that?"

"Let me make it harder for you," snickered Parker. "It never gets any easier. I want to tear into him right now and we've been together for a year."

"Okay, "Into the darkness...that has to mean that he...we...enter the mine. 'Sloping to my gun hand...' Hah! What could that mean?"

"Hayden, what hand did Plummer use to shoot with?" Parker stared at him with a glint in her eyes.

"Parks, way back in the history you explained on the way here, you said something about Plummer and some other guy both running for sheriff. People liked the other guy better...,"

"Yep. In the first election when the town had advertised for a sheriff, Plummer and a butcher named Hank Crawford ran against each other. People liked Crawford better and he won. Plummer hunted down Crawford with a coach gun, but Crawford was waiting for him and loaded up his right arm...his gun arm...with buckshot.

"Plummer was right-handed, so that put the quietus on his gun-fighting skills...for a bit. Plummer wasn't a quitter. He started practicing with his left hand and actually got as good southpaw-style as he was before. He was deadly, and when Crawford heard about it, he quit and turned in his badge."

"So, he's left-handed now! That has to be what 'sloping to my gun hand' means. Whatever it is, it's on the left side of the cave, or something."

He and the two women began scraping at a dirt-covered depression in the ground. As they worked, they uncovered the heavier outlines of an opening in the ground. When they'd cleared the flat spot, the outline of a rough, long-hidden door appeared. There were no hinges; the sole means of getting the heavy thing open was to insert one's fingers or a crowbar into the horizontal cutouts in the inner sides of the horizontal side boards and haul upwards.

With all four of them pulling up on it, the dry, dusty cover reluctantly came loose to reveal the firm shape of an opening to a larger area below. They had found Henry Plummer's secret mine.

""All right, ladies," we can't afford to have anyone slip up on us. I need each of you to take a thirty minute stint at the door here to keep watch. With the shotgun. The rest of us will search and spell each other as time passes."

"Makes good sense," said Mikasa, taking up a positon just inside the mine shaft on a small ledge at the door of the adit. "I'll stay up here first."

The three unclipped their flashlights and moved into the dark shaft. As Hayden and Parker suspected the entire shaft quickly turned to limestone, the geological structure that underlay this area and produced the altered sediments that farther down the valleys gave up gold. An overcoating of dust softened lines and partially concealed everything.

They moved carefully around a small bend in the low tunnel. Hayden glanced at Parker and grinned at her. As he suspected, her sweat soaked the skimpy tank top, making it cling to her torso like her own skin. One heavy breast had already worked its way free and swung invitingly in the beam of his light.

"Like what you see, Golden Boy?" she chuckled. "It's all yours, lover. I'm not even started!"

"I certainly do like what I see," giggled Courtney. "Do you think I might get some, too?" she asked.

"Of course, baby! I'm pretty sure there's enough of these to go around." Parker grinned and jiggled her chest furiously. "I promise...you'll have all you want tonight. And in case you haven't noticed, Courtney, you have a wonderful pair of tits yourself. Bouncy, heavy and all stuck to that tank top."

"Girls, girls, this is what guys call pissing on fireplugs. Take a look at this. See these long depressions in the floor here on the left...that, me beauties, is just about the size of a government ammo crate back them. And I'll bet you when we get it up it'll have contained .45 - 70 Government rounds. Help me dig. Courtney, lovely lady, stop drooling over Parker's tits and use your shovel to dig it out."