This here's a story about One-Eyed Dick, the legend of the Mountain West. What, ya never heard of One-Eyed Dick? Why, you've heard of Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill, haven't ya? But I'm not surprised ya haven't heard of Dick, not really. His stories are not the ones ya tell to children, if ya get my drift.

No, Dick was not a giant, like Paul, nor a wild man like Bill. He wasn't a gunslinger like so many ya heard of. No, Dick was just a regular man with one outstanding feature. And man, was it outstanding, if ya know what I mean. They might have called him Three-Legged Dick, because of it. But since he'd had that fight with the Injun Chief Limp Spear that had cost him an eye, Dick had to wear a pirate's patch. And seein' how One-Eyed Dick was more polite than Three-Legged Dick, particularly around womenfolk and children, the other fellas started into callin' him that.

But Dick was more than just his equipment. He'd learned the arts of Eastern Love from Madame Sing Sing in San Francisco and the arts of Near-Eastern Love from India Sue in Saint Louis. It's said that the Tantrah Indians of the San Luis Valley initiated him into the rites of Quodoshka, but Dick would only smile and not say much when asked about that. Dick was a lover and a pleaser of the ladies, through and through.

Now this turned out to be more trouble than ya might think. True, Dick could satisfy any woman brave enough to enter his bed, leavin' her gasping and screaming from pleasure until she begged for mercy or a chance to sleep. Old women, young women, experienced women, virgins—he could satisfy them all. Heck, in one night, Dick could do enough to leave even a whore satisfied for a year or more, just grinnin' and wonderin' when he might ride back by.

So, as ya can imagine, this caused some problems with the menfolk. After Dick won his first couple of duels against fellas who were none too happy with what their wives had done with Dick, they generally stopped tryin' to kill him. But they also started makin' things a tad uncomfortable whenever he came to town and they absolutely refused to hire him for work.

Which was the real problem. Dick was always broke. He'd tried ranching, but sooner or later the rancher's wife would find a reason to slip out to the fields. Same problem bein' a farmhand, 'cept it was the farmer's daughters. Mining didn't work because Dick couldn't see well enough to spot the gold in and among all them other rocks. He'd done some trappin' and huntin', but while that filled his belly, it didn't exactly get him cash to buy clothes and other needs.

So he did the only thing left he could think of. He traded the Widow Preston some lessons in the art of Yab Yum Yummy for some lessons in music. Then, after talking to Pearl DeVere in Denver, he became the piano player in a whorehouse. It was perhaps the job he'd always been meant to have.

For One-Eyed Dick turned out to be a fine piano player. Menfolk would come in ta see him, and once they was in, it wasn't hard for one of the girls to persuade the man into takin' a backroom tour. And Pearl didn't mind if he spent the night with any of the girls, as long as he didn't leave 'em too tired to work the next day. The girls, of course, were more than happy to visit him for a night where it was all about them, instead of bein' all about their customers. And Dick—Dick was fine. He had three square meals a day, a small room with a double bed, regular female companionship, and enough spending money to buy drinks at the Rocky Mountain Saloon on his day off.

It was there at the Saloon that Nellie the Whore found him. Now ya ever heard of Nellie? No? Well, Nellie was, in many ways, a female Dick. She could screw and suck a guy until he was nearly dead from exhaustion, or pleasure, or a combination of the two. Of course, bein' a woman, her callin' had been clear from the time she'd first screwed an entire mining camp one night, and then again the next day. A whore she was born to be and a whore she was.

But like Dick, Nellie couldn't hang onto money. She was always blowing it on something, usually some fine French perfume or some frilly gee-ga outfit that could barely survive a gentle breeze, much less the pounding it'd get the next time Nellie had a gentleman caller. Besides, most of the menfolk had started to be a little wary of her. It wasn't that they didn't like what she could do to them in bed, but it was the way they felt afterward. There's nothin' quite so hard on a man's sense of self than to have a woman call for the next guy after he'd done his darnedest to satisfy her.

Now Dick was perhaps the one man who could satisfy Nellie in bed, and they'd put it to a test once in Deadwood. They'd screwed and they'd sucked and they'd buggered for three days, screamin' and howlin' and moaning all day and night, up until word of Wild Bill Hickock's murder reached them. Bill had apparently gotten sick of listening to them when he was playin' cards downstairs, and so moved to sit with his back to the door, where the street noise kinda masked the sounds. Well, Jack McCall snuck up on him there, and ya know the rest of that story.

So Dick wasn't exactly happy to see Nellie walk in the door of the Rocky Mountain Saloon. He knew she was a heckuva screw, but he also still felt guilty about Bill, and he wasn't sure he could risk it happenin' again.

However, Nellie made a beeline over to the table where Dick was sitting. Without any invite, she just sat herself down.

"Whattya want, Nellie?" Dick asked, lookin' at her careful and suspicious-like.

Nellie just grinned. "Same thing I always want."

"I'm not sure you and I is a good thing..."

Nellie snorted. "Of course we are. But this time I want more than your dick."

Dick took a slug of whiskey and waited for her to continue.

"I've got a lead on the Spring of Perpetual Wood and I want you to help me find it."

Now that caused Dick to sit up straight. He'd heard about the Spring of Perpetual Wood from his time with the Tantrah Indians. The spring was supposed to give any man who drunk from it an erection that would last for hours. It was also supposed to be ten times better than Spanish Fly in sendin' a woman into heat. The Indians had said it was just a legend and he'd figured it must be so. But Dick knew legends usually had a kernel of truth in them somewhere.

"Now why'd you want to find it?" he asked. "It's not like you need it."

Nellie smiled. "It's not for me. It's so I can bottle it and sell it."

That caused Dick to stop and think. Many a time, a man had sidled up to him and asked how he did it, with the ladies and all. Dick'd tell him it was just training and raw ability, but often the man wouldn't accept that, bein' sure Dick had a secret of some kind. He'd been offered fortunes a ton of times for his secret and there'd been many a time he'd been sorely tempted to take their money, if he'd actually had something to give 'em in return.

"So what's in it for me?" he asked.

"Forty percent," she said, "plus I suck you off every morning and screw you every night while we're looking."

Dick shrugged. He knew she'd probably suck him off anyway, just for the fun of it. And the screwing was a given, if the two of them were out in the wild with no one else around.

"Why forty percent?"

"I'm buying the supplies," she said, "plus I'm the one with the lead."

"So why me?"

Nellie grinned, broad and wide. She leaned in so as to make it so no one else could hear.

"Because the spring is owned by a woman with an insatiable appetite for men. I figure you can distract her while I fill the canteens."

"I dunno, Nellie. That could be mighty hard to do."

Nellie laughed. "Hard is the point. I'm sure you can twinkle her toes."

"I still dunno. I got to think about it."

"You think," Nellie said, patting his hand. "You think tonight, because I've got to get supplies, and that means spending some time with the grocer. I'll come by Pearl's in the morning and we can head out then." With that, she stood and left, only stoppin' to wink at a cowboy who'd catcalled after her.

Now Dick wasn't too happy that Nellie had presumed he was gonna say yes, but as the night wore on, it was pretty clear that's what he was gonna do. For one, another of Pearl's customers had sidled up to him while he was playin' and asked what his secret was. For two, he spilled raspberry pie on his best pants after dinner, and he knew the stain wasn't gonna come out, meanin' he'd have to buy another, which got him thinkin' about how much he could use some more money. But the final straw was that night with the Williams sisters when Tilda mentioned her sick Ma, that Tilda was payin' the doctor to see. Now the Williams sisters weren't really sisters—they just found that some men would pay a lot more to be with both of 'em together if they thought they was sisters—but Tilda's Ma really was sick. And Dick got to thinkin' that maybe a little extra money would let him help Tilda and some of the other girls out. So when Nellie showed up the next morning, Dick said he was willin' to go.

"Good," Nellie said. "My lead's a man I was with in Central City. He said I was the second best he'd ever had." Her face soured with the memory. "So I asked who was the best and he told me about this woman he'd met who'd put a drop of water in his whiskey before they went at it all night long."