Eldorado…part one.

Chile 1855….

It’d been a long damned tired trip from home to Chile and I’d thought that I’d left all the excitement and the drama of America behind me. Well guess not, I just came to find out that South America was still an America of a sorts.

Just as wild, and just as filled with its own dangers. Like the tsunami that hit here a week or so ago. I wasn’t here but riding through the countryside the last few days I’ve seen plenty of things that really show the power of nature.

Part of me honestly wants to stop and help a few of these folks but one I’m a gringo until they take in that I’m a woman or that I look like one, then there’s the fact I’m white and American and a senorita.

Yep…heard right.

I look like a girl.

Sorta of a long story but I was changed, given things to make me like a girl by this bastard named Lucien and trotted out to be one of his attractions in his freak show. He had this fella whip up some stuff that had burn’t all the hairs off my face and another bunch of stuff that made me lose the other air on my body.

Unfortunately I’ve got a chest like my momma’s. She was well known for her bosom. And I’ll have you know part of me wishes for that dry heat of home…either back home in America or down home in Comodoro…well just outside out it about a five hour’s ride to where me and my girls have our place.

We called it Del Toro and it’s a ranch and it’s the one place that I can truly call home. We landed with a mess of people that ended up coming with us out of California and we all kinda banded together and I’m not really sure why I got elected to be “The Boss” but Jade and Dove are certainly the ladies of the house.

We’ve got cattle and we’ve got some good ground too for crops and Jade’s ideas of crops an mine are a tad different. I was raised in corn and grain country and some potatoes and themsuch.

Jade had us get fruit trees put in and that was a pain and seven fold I’ve never seen it done like she wanted yet we dug holes…hole to plant her trees in well transplant trees she’d bought from other people but we had buried them a foot and a half up the trunks and she’s dumped stuff into the holes like horse manure and cattle manure to dirt and sawdust and even things like banana peelings and such.

Gotta admit the trees took root again really well and we have lots of fruit and stuff. And I really do like to have good apples around and we have good apples and good pears and we have for the first time in my life seeing them a couple of them avocado trees and a few lemon trees too. I’ll got to admit…one of Dove’s lemonades in a canning quart right out of the well sounds really good ‘bout now.

Beef was my main idea but we have a dairy herd too and we make our own butter and cheese and jade introduced me to yogurt and sour cream. I’m not too big on either of them but they do go good with spicy foods.

We got lots of veggies too and that’s with the locals I’ve never really knew there was that many squashes and such. We got lots of variety and we even have stuff planted that sells. We grow lots of onions, they like the soil up our way.

It’s been a good life so far even though I know that if we weren’t as armed as we are that we’d have men up in our business trying to take what’s our just because we’re a bunch of women.

I’ve got two loves and I’ve fathered two children one from each despite the way that I look both are little girls and both call me Momma, Dove’s Mom and Jade’s Mummy.

Oh yeah…I guess I should of introduced myself.

I’m Nikki Steele.

People used ta call me “The Fastest Dress in the West.”

I’m getting looks I’ll admit that I must be a sight. A blonde woman alone with a straw cowboy hat on…hey they’re light and a vest in a pale yellow shirt with the front undone because it’s so damned muggy here and a pretty good sized set of breasts wearing pants and a set of gunbelts with two colts strapped to my sides and a fair number of blades and a bullwhip as well.

I’ve gotten inked too, my right arm has an Indian styled raven tattoo on the wrist and forearm that Dove had drawn for me and my left has a cross and rosary with a bunch of roses and a knife on it.

Yeah I’m not really what most folks have seen around here.

Oh and here’s Santiago.

So why am I all the way up here in Chile when I should be minding my own back home?

Damon Black…

Damon had been an ex-lover of Jade’s and he had shown up needing a place to stay and we gave him a roof over his head and food and work. He was a decent ranch hand and even not a bad fella to talk to if a bit different…he had came from New York City originally I guess and he was a bit of a tough bastard from things that jade had said and he had been useful now and then when some of the rancheros though we’d be easy pickings with the cattle.

But…

Damian the fella that took over everything that the bastard Lucien had sent us a crate on day last month out of the blue with a letter saying he’d be round to collect it and stay a spell.

When we opened it up there was a lot of stuff that jade said looked like really old Columbian Indian things and more stuff like journals written in Portuguese she thought. But with them was some things, pottery and what-not but this stuff had been inlaid with gold.

And there was a map? It looked like it might be a map up that big old river they got over there called The Amazon…but one word had been really clear in the journal that we did pick out and stuff.

“Eldorado…”

Well it took him a few days and the sonovabitch waited until I wasn’t home but he broke into the main house and he stole the stuff in the box.

Well that’d be enough to send me after him but he mixed things up with Jade and he stabbed her.

She lived but it was a close one.

Too damned close.

And I might be sort of a woman, but at the same time there’s enough of the old me that was raised not to let stuff like this stand. Dove was good and she understood and I left not just for getting those things back for our friend but there was a score to settle.

I ride carefully making my way through the crowds; with things being the way they are here after the big wave the streets are busy. I get a really serious look from a bunch of missionaries from back home with their whole collars and crosses.

I don’t mine the faithful but I can’t stand those that are faithfully ignorant and faithfully bigoted. And even without knowing me they don’t like my appearance. A woman’s gotta keep her place.

My colts are good reasons though why they and a lot of the locals aren’t harassing me. Women are sort of seen in that same way down here sometimes but they also get that there are some that won’t fit all the rules.

I’m mannerly and tip my hat to the preacher and his flock as I ride by. “Preacher.” I keep going and I head to where there’s a place where I can stable my horse. I’m looking for someplace I think I can trust. Like I said…there’s a lot of folk that’ll cheat you just because you’re a woman.

I find a small livery still open and I stop here because there’s a woman and two girls that look to be her daughters mending tack. I’m going to wager they do other things here too and this is one of those smaller family style stables.

“Ola senorita can I help you?” This older man comes out from the inside of the barn area.

“Yessir, I’m lookin for a place to stable up for awhile.”

“How long mees?”

“I’ll pay for a full night.”

“That’s a decimo mees.”

I reach for my wallet out of my back pocket and pass him a decimo, that’s a dime here considering the state of affairs that’s a fair price.

I leave Lola to him and get some of my things arranged and I head into the streets with a picture of Damon on a scrolled up piece of paper that Dove had drawn and start asking around. I spend a few centavo here and there to grease the pig as it where and one old timer nods and points me to a place down towards the docks.

I pay him a decimo kind of mostly because he’s got an honest face and people round here can use the odd bit extra. I’m moving through the streets trying to not get too caught up in the likely literal crap and stuff that’s here there’s still no indoor plumbin here abouts, heck my place has indoor plumbing…

I’m actually thinkin about Damon and a bit about taking a bath when I’m hit with a shoulder tackle into an alley and I’m wrestling with three men. They’re going for my guns…one’s ripped my shirt open and ma girls would’ve been floppin if not for my corset that I’m wearing and they seemed pissed off.

“Damned puta, what’re you doing with things like these, you don’t deserve to carry them and pretending to be a man.”

They’re Chilean or hispano of some kind by any rate and they look like they’re street toughs, they also look like they’re thinking of rapin me.

I get titty fondled by the shirt ripper and I see red…he’s busy thinking he’s going to get something he’s never going to get and I let him do what he’s going to do…it’s only have a minute before he’s grabbing for my pussy and gets a handful of my fella-bit.

“Matre de dios! Shee’s a senior!” he’s freaked out and he’s shocked the others…it’s an opening. I headbutt the guy trying to get his mitts on my guns. I break his nose with a crunch and he yelps but he let’s go of my arm for an instant.

I draw and pistol whip him it the temple, point the gun at the other fella holding me and do the first click of the hammer being pulled back with ma thumb. He flinches thinking he’s going to get shot and I draw with my other hand and shove that one into the mouth of the fellow who’s got his hands all over my breasts.

His mouth wasn’t open…so I went through a few teeth. He was gonna do something until that hammer get’s thumbed back on him too.

“You stupid concha de tu madre! Ye ever try something this damned stupid ever again and I swear I’ll do more then bash ya up I’ll be pulling the damned trigger!”

I move until I’m back to the main street again and honestly there’s a part of me that’d be more than happy to just shoot these sons of bitches and be done with it but I don’t want trouble with the law herebouts.

I glare at them and nod towards the end of the alley but the other side. I pull the colt from the fella’s mouth and he falls to his knees spittin teeth and some blood. I put the barrel to his head. “I ever see you three again I’ll shoot first and as questions later you got me?”

He nods gagging. I look to his friends and they nod too. “Get the fuck out of here.”

His buddies grab him and they take off running and dragging him with them. I hear one of them yell once they’re safely around the corner end of the alley. “Fuckin puta! You’re gonna get yours!”

Yeah…I either see then back with friends to help or I’ll never seen them again. I’m bettin on the second cause they looked like they were each others only friends anyway.

I wait a few minutes more and I head to a stall where there’s a woman selling clothes and I buy a new shirt there from her and put it on, it’s a medium men’s white style of shirt but it’ll do. She’s nice enough to give me a cloth and a bucket of water for me to wipe myself off with…she even helps me loosen my corset and re-adjust ma girls back to rights and gives me a tug to lace back up.

I leave her with a tip and a thank you and I head to the tavern where Damon’s supposed to be.

I look around and I see him at a table with a few other fellows and he’s playin cards. I look at the bunch he’s with from all over I’d guess and maybe even his crew. I walk over to his table and I take a seat and pull the knife he used on jade and stick it into the table.

Damon’s cold..he looks at the knife, then at me.

“Y’know why I’m here.”

“I do and you came all this way?”

“I did.”

“Won’t do you any good Nikki, you’re outnumbered here and you’re not that fast!”

He tips the table towards me and I shove my chair back sliding back over the floor and I draw…

Oh lovely…

We’ve all drawn.