Lic Mee and Tommy moved the carpet and bed back to the center of the room. Neither discussed what had just happened. Tommy suggested that they clean up, but Lic Mee just said, “I’d rather get dirty. You heard what Lil said; you better behave or join the Police Chief as fish food.” She sat on the bed and pulled him towards her by the waistband of his pants. She dealt with the buckle of his belt and the buttons on his trousers with one hand while holding the waistband securely with the other. Within a minute she had freed his cock and taken it in her free hand. “You haven’t been giving me the attention you should Two-Tongues. I figured it was the heat, but this cave is cool, so I figure you might perform better here” With that she took his cock in her mouth.

Tommy was in ecstasy. As Lic Mee licked and sucked his cock, he fantasized about Nell joining them and his cock swelled. He wanted them both, but knew Lic Mee would never agree to it and besides Lil was becoming almost parental with regard to the girl. In his mind he saw her naked, watching, while waiting her turn and so he looked at Lic Mee and said, “Take off my boots and let’s do this right.” She responded by pushing him down on the bed, pulling off the boots and then the trousers. For her to undress would have taken too much time, so she just lifted the skirt of her dress and petticoats and mounted the swollen cock. She had started her period without really noticing it; the events of the day had superseded any cramping she might have felt, so her cunt was wet with her blood as she lowered herself down on him.

There was always a greater hunger/horniness during that time of the month. It was as if there was a deep itch that only his cock could scratch, but no matter how deep he drove it, the itch was just beyond. In reality, she preferred having the itch and loved trying to satiate it, knowing that to do so might last 4 days. As she worked his cock, he undid her bodice. Her breast were mounded above the tight fitting garment and he wanted them free for the taking. When the bodice was unbuttoned he slipped them out and began fondling and sucking. Lic Mee’s itch became greater and she rubbed harder. He had no idea what was driving her, but it fed into his fantasy of being had by Nell and Lic Mee at the same time. He thought about fingering or eating one while fucking the other, as he sucked on her nipple and squeezed her breasts. Lic Mee came and then came again, her orgasms and her bloody pussy showered his cock and when he finally poured himself into her, he could feel the hot fresh cum running down his thighs.

Lic Mee realized that her ride had cum to a satisfying yet abrupt end and decided to just sit astride her worn out mount locking his cock inside of her. “You did good Injun, I may keep you around.” she said as she wiggled her tight body with its captive still inside. “I think there may be a mess down there, so you just lay there while I clean you up.” She disappeared down the tunnel to the other cavern and returned with one of the Chief’s bags. “He won’t need any of what’s in here so I can use it to clean you up.” She opened the bag and found an undershirt, which she used to wipe away the blood and semen. As Tommy got dressed she continued to rummage through the bag. There were a few shirts that might fit him, pants that were too large, socks that needed mending and a letter. She looked at the address and realized it had come from the state capitol. “This is something you and Lil need to see” she said putting it in her bodice. She slid the case under the bed and turned to Tommy, “I like playing down here, meet me when I get off tonight. I have a feeling it might be slow cause I’m bleeding. Not too many like you out there who enjoy a woman on her moon, but then again you are my blood crazed savage.” She grabbed Tommy’s lantern and extinguished the torches, then led the beleaguered Sheriff up to the saloon.

The sun hadn’t yet set when she found Lil and gave her the letter from the capitol. It was from the Governor and appeared to be some sort of notice of consideration. In short it was advising the “late” Chief of the Seattle Police Department, that he was being considered as a candidate for Lincoln County Sheriff. His response was requested in order to proceed with his candidacy. The letter had been mailed a month earlier and there was no way of knowing when it was received or if it was responded to. Lil considered the options and decided that sending a telegram to the Governor saying “I have spent 2 days in the county seat (Libby) and will travel to Yaak and Eureka to get input from residents” and sign it “Ken Dougherty” was the best thing to do. Tommy could take the telegram form to the telegraph office and just say the Chief had taken a horse and rode North.

Tommy had gone upstairs to take a real bath, while Lic Mee was readying herself to play Madame due to her period. As was her duty, Nell took the bathwater to fill Tommy’s tub.
Once she had filled the tub, she was expected to leave, but instead she locked the door and slid out of her dress. Tommy stepped out from behind the screen when he heard the door close, only to find Nell naked and beautiful before him. “Let me wash that whore off your body” her voice was almost pleading. He looked at her body and the fantasy renewed itself in his mind. He agreed to the bath and slid into the claw-foot tub. She knelt by the side of the tub and as her breast draped over the edge, began to bathe him. Tommy laid back as Nell took the sponge and began rubbing him.

She ran the sponge over his bare chest and then down his stomach; there were scars from fights and gunshots which she traced with her finger as she examined his body. Tommy watched her and as she drew closer to his cock and balls, he raised an arm out of the water and cupped a breast with his hand. He then started washing her breast as she washed him. She leaned in more, in order to wash his cock and drew her wet breast closer to his mouth. Tommy pulled at the firm mound of soft white flesh and she did not resist. Her soft pink nipple was sucked into his mouth and she released the sponge, allowing her free hand to grasp his already hard cock. Tommy wanted her, though he knew that to take her so close to Lic Mee’s room was both dangerous and insane, but then Tommy had no sanity when it came to his sexual appetite. He let go of her nipple and pushed her back; then braced himself on either side of the tub as he stood and stepped out of the tub. His body was dripping onto the floor as he pulled Nell toward him and embraced her. Slowly, he walked her backwards towards an outside wall and when she was pressed against it, lifted her up and lowered her onto his waiting cock while she wrapped her legs around his waist.

She did not scream, nor moan, but stared into his eyes as he gyrated his hips and pushed his cock in and out of her. She was his and wanted nothing more than to please him and as the gyrations continued she closed her eyes and became lost in her own fantasy. He caused her to cum and as she did he came to but it was in a softer, more tender way. She felt it and leaned forward draping herself over his shoulders as she brought her mouth to his whispering “Thank you” just before their lips met.

“Nell! Nell where are you?” It was Lic Mee’s voice and it brought a sudden end to a tender moment. Tommy put a finger to his mouth and they stood there wrapped in each other. The door knob turned, but the lock prevented her from entering. “Injun why do you have the door locked?” Her voice reflected her agitation.

“Because I didn’t want one of the other girls to wonder in and attack me” he said.

“Of course, you were just protecting your honor. I can imagine Marge and her massive breasts smothering you in the bathtub as you try to scream for help” Her voice softened as she spoke and then she laughed. “I have to get downstairs and find Nell, I need her to go to the apothecary and get some powders for me; these cramps are getting unbearable.”

“I’ll tell her when she comes to dry my back” Tommy said.

“You better tell her to run, if she does. Now get done before you get all wrinkled and turn into an old Injun” Lic Mee was gone before he could think of a reply. Nell was still on his hips, though his cock had shrunk and slipped from her pussy. She slowly unwrapped her legs as she was lowered to the floor. He stood there staring at the girl, amazed at her fresh beauty and then brought his hand to the back of her head and pulled her lips to his.

“You better dress and get out of here, if she catches you we may both be on the run” Tommy knew Lic Mee’s temper and there was no telling what she would do. Nell put her clothes back on and tried to dry the hair that had gotten wet as it hung on Tommy’s body.
Tommy unlocked the door and looked out to see if the hall was clear, then motioned to Nell to move quickly. She tried to kiss him one more time as she passed him at the door, but he just took her arm pushing her forward and closed the door. Nell stood in the hall for a second and then went down the back stairwell. Neither Tommy, nor Nell had noticed that Rita’s door was opened just a crack; just enough to view their good-bye. Rita had seen enough to know that Tommy was using Nell and she knew the poor girl didn’t have a clue.

Tommy dressed and exited the bathroom. Lic Mee found Nell in the kitchen, washing vegetables for their dinner and sent her to the apothecary. When she returned she was told to go clean up the bathroom that Tommy (and she) had used. Nell was lost in thoughts of her interlude in the room, as she stared at the wall imagining the scene she had just played out. “He is using you, Honey. He’s like a dog sniffing every bitch he sees and you think it’s love” Rita’s voice was hard and stern. Nell tried to deny any knowledge of what Rita was inferring, but Rita went on. “I know he fucked you in Lic Mee’s bed and in here, and I can only imagine these weren’t the only two times. He’s playing a dangerous game and you are the one who will be hurt, I know this and you must know it too.”

“I know he loves me. He has made me feel things I didn’t think were possible. He didn’t hurt me like my stepfather did when he put his cock in me. He was gentle and loving and it made me forget about my past. I know Lic Mee likes to fuck him, but she’s a whore and fuck’s anybody that can pay” The words had barely left her mouth when Rita’s open hand met Nell’s left cheek. First Nell was shocked and then the sting of the blow made her wince.

“Lic Mee is what she is, because of bastards like Tommy Two-Tongues. Like you she was raped by a man at an early age, but unlike you she didn’t have someone like Lil to protect her; so she was sold into white slavery. She loves in the only way she knows how and in her mind she loves Tommy. He knows how she feels, but cheats on her anyway; just as he knows how you feel and takes full advantage of it. You must stop seeing him, before something happens”

“I can’t stop and I think something has happened”

“What?”

“I haven’t had a period in two months!” Nell’s response stunned Rita. The whores always knew each other’s cycles; several of them seemed to correspond, but no one paid attention to Nell’s, because it didn’t affect her work. “I’m going to have Tommy’s baby; that’s how much I love him.” Rita just shook her head.

“Child, you have no idea what you have done. You have no idea” Rita turned and walked out of the bathroom, shaking her head and muttering as she walked down the hall. She knew that she would have to tell Lil and that they would have to tell Lic Mee. Nell watched as she went down the stairs. She didn’t like Rita’s message and refused to believe that Tommy didn’t love her.

Rita went down the stairs and up to Lic Mee, “Where’s Lil? I need to talk to Lil”

Lic Mee saw a sorrow in Rita’s eyes she had never seen before; she knew something tragic had happened. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

“Just tell me where Lil is, I need to talk with her.”

“She’s at the hotel, we have a special guest coming and she wants his room to be just right.” Rita thanked Lic Mee and walked out the door. Lic Mee watched and wanted to follow, but couldn’t, because her duties wouldn’t allow it.

Rita contemplated what she would say to Lil all the way to the Libby Hotel. When she located her in the office, Lil looked up and like Lic Mee could see the pain in Rita’s face.
“What happened? You look as if someone just died” Lil put a chair behind Rita’s knees and lowered her into it. Again she asked “What happened?” only this time it was almost as if she was demanding to know.

Rita’s mind kept trying to find a way of telling her friend in a way that wouldn’t devastate her, but there was no way. “Tommy has been fucking Nell”, there it was said. Rita watched as Lil began to contemplate what she had heard. At first Lil looked dumbfounded and then her lips grew tight and she clinched her fist.

“Are you sure, how do you know?

“I caught them you might say; not once , but twice and when I confronted Nell she told me she loved him and was pregnant” Rita felt the weight of her knowledge lift itself from her shoulders. She watched as Lil collapsed into her chair and pounded the desk.

“That fucking little bastard, he just couldn’t be satisfied with what he had; no he had to take advantage of that poor girl. That fucking little prick, once Lic Mee hears of this he’ll wish he was dead. Pregnant! God in heaven is she insane, why didn’t she tell me?”

“I don’t think she has told anyone, especially Tommy. She thinks she loves him and that he loves her; she’s a child living in a fantasy”

“And he is a bastard, who knows what he’s doing. Go back to the house and send Lic Mee to me; she must know and I don’t want her around Nell when she finds out.”

Rita went back to the house and gave Lic Mee the message, “What’s going on, first you and now Lil, I want to know what happened”

“Just go, Lil will tell you; I can’t” Lic Mee’s concern made her run not walk to the hotel. She went to Lil’s office and found her friend sitting behind her desk with two glasses of whiskey in front of her. She watched as Lil tossed one back while offering her the second glass.

“Drink it! And then drink another” Lil was not asking, but rather telling her what to do. Lic Mee drank the first glass and started to say something, but Lil just refilled the glass and told her to drink up. Once the glass was emptied, she refilled it, but didn’t say anything. Lil looked into Lic Mee’s dark eyes and saw the concern. “I need to tell you something and I want you to just sit and listen. You, Rita and I are family and we watch out for each other. There are some things we can prevent and some we must accept regardless of how painful they are. I had to accept the fact that men would take advantage of me at an early age. Just like you, I let them use and abuse me until we escaped from Seattle. Unfortunately location has nothing to do with how a man acts.”

“What are you saying” Lic Mee asked

“Tommy has been cheating on you and has been taking advantage of Nell.” The words had a foul taste as they left her mouth. “He’s got her convinced that she loves him and she may be carrying his baby.” The second sentence tasted as bad as the first. She watched the fury build in Lic Mee’s face and shoved the full glass of whiskey in front of her.

“I warned him what would happen if he did this. He knew better than to screw one of the other girls, because he knew it would get back to me, but Nell that was a different story. I want to hurt them both, but know it’s not her fault; it’s that horny little pricks fault.” She tossed the drink down her throat and the glass across the room. “It’s time Tommy Two-Tongues got fixed and I am going to do the job myself”

“Tell me what you want us to do; Rita and I will back you up whatever it is, but I don’t want you hurting Nell” As mad as Lic Mee was, she wasn’t blaming Nell; the girl was almost simpleminded and she knew that Tommy had manipulated her. No her anger was with him and she wanted to see him suffer if not die. She told Lil that she was supposed to meet him in the cavern beneath the saloon, but she knew the room beneath the hotel would better suit what she had in mind. She told Lil to tell him that there was a change in plans and that she wanted to play in the dungeon under the hotel. She wanted Lil and Rita to wait in the tunnel between the two caverns until they were asked to come out. Nell was to be kept busy until Lic Mee was ready; she wouldn’t be hurt physically, but there was no way to prevent her from being hurt emotionally. The girl had to understand how she had been used; she had to understand Tommy was not in love with her.

Lic Mee took a couple of lamps and went down the stairs to the dungeon beneath the hotel. She lit the torches around the room and then built a fire in the forge in the room’s center. The door on the forge was closed to prevent smoke from filling the room and as the fire got hotter, Lic Mee formulated her revenge.

Lil had returned to the house and found Rita taking care of the clientele. It was a slow night; Marge and Dolly played cards while Copper Penny serviced a client upstairs. Nell performed her chores, but was nervous. She knew Rita had told Lil about her and Tommy, but Lil hadn’t said a word. The tension in the house was palpable and even the men who were visiting felt uneasy when Rita was sharp in her responses. Lil went to the Sheriff’s Office and told Tommy to meet Lic Mee under the Hotel. “What’s up Lil, why so glum” Tommy asked, but Lil didn’t respond. “So she wants me in the dungeon, huh. I wonder what my little China doll has in mind.”

“I couldn’t say, but I’m sure you’ll find out” Lil said as she exited the office.

By midnight the last client had left the house. Nell was busy stripping the linen and making the beds so hat the girl’s could retire between clean sheets. Lil had gone to the saloon and had told the bartender to close up too; he left and she locked the door behind him. The streets of Libby were quiet; as Lil returned to the house she saw Tommy leave his office and start for the Hotel. She went back to the house and got Rita; they went to Nell’s room and found the girl preparing to go to bed. “Why are you here, you can’t make me stop loving him!” Nell knew the women’s presence in her room was not good.

“Just come with us. We have something you must see with your own eyes and promise we are not going to try to talk you out of anything” Lil took Nell by the arm and led her out of the room. The three women entered the saloon by the back door and lit lamps to take downstairs. There was an eerie silence when they reached the cavern beneath the saloon. As they adjusted their eyes to the light; they could see a faint glow at the other end of the tunnel. Suddenly they heard a scream that sent a cold chill through each of them. It wasn’t a woman’s cry, but that of a man in pain; it was Tommy’s cry and Nell began to respond, but Lil put her hand over the girl’s mouth. “Be quite or I will gag you. You will watch and listen without saying a word and when the time comes I will let you speak” Lil held Nell’s arm and the girl and she knew there was no escaping to rescue Tommy. She had no idea what to expect, but knew the pain he was enduring was due to his love for her. As they approached the other cavern, they could hear the crack of the buggy whip and Tommy’s cries became louder.

“I swear; it was her idea! She came on to me and I did it, but only once!” Lic Mee laid another lash across his back, which had begun to bleed.

“Liar, you were seen” she screamed as two more lashes found his back.

“I love you” he cried out, “I was just fucking her, it meant nothing”

The words stung Nell’s ears almost as much as the lashes stung Tommy’s back

Lic Mee looked in the direction of the tunnel. “Bring her here” she demanded

The two women led Nell to the scene. Tears were flowing down her cheeks as she approached the woman with buggy whip and the man she loved. Her head was lowered and when she got to him she said, “I know you love me, that’s why I did what I did. Tell them, it’s only because she’s torturing you, that you said that; tell them”

Tommy turned to Nell and looked her straight in the eye; there was no sign of love or compassion or anything comforting. “All I wanted is your cunt, you stupid little bitch! You were fresh and I enjoyed fucking you; that is all and I can’t say it was worth what I’m going through now” Tommy’s pain had given way to rage. He struggled at the manacles that secured him to the wall. He had been a fool to allow Lic Mee to restrain him this way, but he thought it was just play and that they would end up fucking while he was restrained. He turned to Lic Mee and demanded to be freed. She responded by bringing the whip down on his back again.

“You are a pig, Injun and right now in no position to demand anything.”

She turned to Nell and said, ”You were a fool to get involved with this bastard, but then again so was I. Hell he’s not even white trash, he’s worse and if given the opportunity he’d do it again.” Nell’s heart was breaking, because she knew Lic Mee was right. Her stepfather had been brutal when he sexually assaulted her, so she knew it was wrong, but Tommy had been gentle and passionate. She wanted it to be love; she wanted to be loved.
She had fooled herself and now even her pain had faded into rage.

Nell grabbed the buggy whip from Lic Mee’s hand and started beating the bound captive. She had struck him a half dozen times before they wrestled the whip from her hand. At first he howled like an animal in a trap, but as the rage intensified he took the pain.

“I will settle with each of you bitches, when I get lose” he screamed

“What makes you think, that you will ever get lose. I think you have pretty much sealed your fate, Tommy” Lil said. The four women talked for a while and then reached an agreement. They walked over to the forge and each drew out one of the brands which Lic Mee had rested in the hot coals. Lic Mee went first, she put the red hot iron into his side as he screamed and tried to recoil. When she removed it, the word “LIAR” was burned into his flesh. Nell burned the word “CHEAT” into the opposite side. Tommy went limp and passed out. Rita looked at the remaining brands and seared the word “THIEF” into the middle of his back. The smell of burning flesh nauseated the women, but the job was not done. Tommy was almost unconscious when Lil unlocked the manacles. He fell to the ground on his bleeding burned back. Lil looked down on him and said “You couldn’t keep it in your pants; you had to spread it around. Well I guess you are the real whore now.” She took the last iron and burned “WHORE” into his chest and as he started to rise in pain struck him in the head with the iron.

“Bring him” Lil commanded. The other three women drug the limp body through the tunnel to the cavern with the well. Lil moved the bed and opened the trap door. They pushed Tommy’s body into the water and watched it sink down just as the Police Chief’s had. The door was closed and the bed replaced. Lic Mee began to sob, her rage had dissipated and the reality of what had just occurred had set in. She looked at the bed they had used just that morning and remembered how good he felt inside of her; she would never feel that again. Nell wept; blaming herself for all that had just happened. They had been like a family for almost a year and now were suffering a loss; one that they had caused.

Not only had they killed a member of their own family, but the acting sheriff. He had delivered the bogus telegram to the telegraph office earlier that day explaining the Police Chief’s disappearance, but how would they explain his?