Millie's Western Adventure (or Millie Moves West)

 Millie's Western Adventure

By Robert Lubrican

Bookapy Edition

Copyright 2020 Robert Lubrican

License Notes

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* * * * * * * * * * * *

Chapter One

Elizabeth Philby jerked awake as the train reduced speed and the gentle rhythm of the clack-clack that had put her to sleep changed. She had leaned against the window in her sleep and the book she'd been reading was in her lap where nerveless fingers had dropped it.

She looked out the window to see more of the featureless grassy plains that had been there when she'd fallen asleep. They must be close to the mountains by now. Elizabeth stretched her seventeen-year-old body, extending her arms and luxuriating in that special feeling that only comes from a nice stretch.

Her bonnet had been knocked askew by the window of the train, and she straightened it, sitting back in the seat. She'd wanted to take it off, but other women on the train left theirs on, so she did too. Besides, this was the first hat she'd ever worn that her mother hadn't made for her, or that she hadn't made herself. The fact that she'd spent a nickel of her last five dollars on it at the dry goods store next to the depot in St. Joseph didn't enter into things.

She was on her way to live with her aunt in the big city of Sacramento, California - a fact made necessary by the fever that had killed a quarter of the residents of St. Joseph, her parents included. The townspeople had gone a little batty trying to stop the killing disease and had burned the possessions of those who died of it. Everything Beth owned, in fact, was currently packed in the two suitcases stowed under her seat. The unsmiling banker back in St. Joseph had looked at the book on his desk and, despite the fact that there were numbers next to her father's name in that book, said he could not give her the money until the courts "worked things out". The banker had been willing to provide money for a ticket to California, assuring her he'd forward "the funds" from her parents' probate to her "when they become available."

Meanwhile, her parents' landlord demanded rent and neighbors had piled all her parents' things in the street and burned them.

In short, Beth had nowhere to live. She'd thought of Aunt Maureen only because, while she was sifting through the ashes of her life in the middle of the street, she'd found the remains of what had been a tintype picture of her mother and aunt. A book had lain on top of it and protected it from the flames.

A sign reading "Beaverton" flashed past the window.

She'd never heard of Beaverton. From her studies she knew it was a corruption of "Beaver Town", but there wasn't a tree in sight. Why would anyone name someplace with no trees (and therefore no beavers?) something like Beaverton?

The train was slowing and obviously going to stop. The porter came striding down the aisle calling, "Beaverton, Nebraska, ten minutes, Beaverton, rest stop, ten minutes."

Good, she could use an outhouse about now. She gathered her skirts and grabbed her parasol, the only thing of her mother's she'd been able to save, and that only because she had snitched it and hidden it at her friend Annie's house. The girls loved to parade up and down Broadway as if they were in the big city and her mother would never have allowed her to use the parasol for something so silly. She felt a twist of pain in her gut as she thought about her mother who would never scold her again ... or hug her either.

The train groaned to a stop and she stood up. Several of the other ladies stepped into the aisle, heading for the steps that led down to the platform. By the time she was in line there were four other women in front of her, waiting to use the old wooden structure that sat fifty dusty yards from the train station.

Fashion being what it was in those days, and taking a long time to undo and then do back up, Beth knew she didn't have much time when her turn finally came.

She might have made it, had the fat woman who used the outhouse just before her told the porter that Beth was in there.

But she didn't.

Even then, she could have run along the tracks and caught the slowly accelerating train once it left the station ... but for the actions of three boys who would become significant in Beth's life, though neither she nor they knew it then.

Said boys, named Chauncy, Benjamin and Michael, and all being thirteen years old, had decided to have some fun. The boys were together by virtue of their fathers all attending the same stock auction at the other end of town and couldn't resist trying to liven up the dusty place that they only got to visit once every two or three months. Hiding in wait with a rope and Michael's horse, they watched the pretty girl at the end of the line of women go into the outhouse. The idea was to throw a loop over the outhouse, whack the horse on the butt and thus tip the outhouse over. They would then abandon the rope, which was old and no good for herding cattle anymore anyway, and scamper off to chortle about their exploit.

The first part of their plan went well. Michael was good with a rope and dropped his loop over the peaked roof of the privy neatly. It caught on the latch that kept the door closed.

His horse however, was a newly broken mustang and while he was used to cattle and the boy who rode him, he was not used to a building coming crashing down right behind him. Consequently, memories of the open range flitted through the horse's limited intelligence and he decided to go there.

With no rider to stop him, the horse managed to drag that outhouse three quarters of a mile before he came to a gasping, lathered halt, spraddle-legged and dripping foam from his mouth.

As for Beth ... her first clue that something was amiss was a loud yell of "Yeeehaaaawww!" outside the privy. This occurred shortly after she had finally gotten through all the petticoats to her underwear, which she untied by feel, and had just sunk gratefully onto the wooden hole that was about to bring her so much relief. She was in fact in the middle of a nice long stream when the world turned literally upside down. The frightened horse pulled so robustly that the outhouse toppled and actually rolled up onto its roof part way, before slamming back down on the dry, dusty soil.

Beth, of course, was hysterical. There was nothing she could do. The rope held the door closed and the structure slid first on its back, then on one side, before rotating in a complete circle as it hit bushes and clumps of grass on its short ride to infamy. And Beth just bounced around inside it, trying to protect her head and screaming her lungs out.

For the boys it was hysterical too - hysterically funny. At least until Michael realized his horse was running away and he had no way to catch him. He would not be able to explain this to his father if he didn't get that horse back. Besides, it had a twenty-five dollar saddle on it.

The incident didn't go unnoticed. It was a Friday, which was the day the stage came in with the mail and parcels ordered from back east, and passengers for the townspeople to fleece before they rode on. The train was faster, but it was also a lot more expensive than the stage line, so there was still competition there. And, when the train stopped, which wasn't often, there were economic possibilities there too, though those were somewhat limited by the fact that the train never stopped for long.

So there were a fair number of people out on the streets. One was Bessie Robinson, the Mayor's wife and a very important woman in town, at least in her own eyes. Hearing a crash, she gaped, astonished and secretly delighted, as the outhouse bounced out of town. Here, at last, was something worthy of gossip. She rushed toward her husband's office, where young Tommy Ralston was lounging on the porch. When he saw her, he hurried in - obviously to announce her, as befitted her station.

Tommy Ralston was in fact announcing the Mayor's wife, but not for the reason she assumed.

"Yer wife's a-comin', Mr. Mayor," he said, poking his head inside the office. This was his one opportunity to see the naked naughty bits of his sister, Mabel, without anyone yelling at him. She worked for the Mayor, sometimes writing things down, and sitting prettily behind a desk. She also got the honor of raising her skirts and receiving the Mayor's seed occasionally, meaning every chance the Mayor thought he could get away with it.

Like now. He was pretty close, and wanted to finish.

"Tell her I'm in an important meeting and can't be disturbed," he rasped, sawing his duly elected erection in and out of Mabel's tight, teenage pussy as she wiggled under him.

"She looks a mite excited," said Tommy, thinking back to how Mrs. Robinson's breasts had been bouncing all about as she hurried toward the office.

Mayor Robinson groaned. He was so close. "Use the spittoon," he gasped. Then he socketed his cock deep in the willing young woman who was quite sure the Mayor would cast aside his shrew of a wife and marry her just as soon as she was pregnant with his child. After all, Bessie Robinson had only given him one daughter, and that one had run away, to get married to a cowboy, of all things! Plus, she was a lot prettier than Bessie was, and half her age too.

Tommy, knowing what his mission was, went to the front door, stepped outside and "accidentally" kicked over the spittoon that sat right by the door on the porch. Its contents splashed across the entryway, making an evil, brown slick spot just as Bessie stepped up on the porch.

She jumped right back off the porch.

"You clumsy boy!" she yelled. "You could have soiled my gown!" Tommy looked at Mrs. Robinson's gown, which everybody else in town would have called a dress. That she was excited was easy to see, since there were two nice hard points in the bodice of that gown.

"Ah'm sorry ma'am," he drawled. "Ah'll clean it up. Won't take me but a minute while you wait."

Bessie fumed as the boy wiped at the mess with a rag he found somewhere inside. Her husband came to the door a few minutes later, his face red. "Sorry dear," he said.

"Why do you tolerate this clumsy oaf, Henry?" she complained.

"He runs errands for me, Bessie, now what seems to be the problem?"

Bessie told him what she'd seen and the two of them joined a crowd of people who had started out on foot to follow the trail of scrapes, broken bushes and dust that the outhouse had left.

What they found, when they arrived, made their blood run cold. Lying amidst the fragments of what had once been the outhouse were two bloody legs. That the legs were wearing high topped women's shoes, which identified the gender of the body, but nothing more could be seen because the rest of the structure had collapsed on top of the unfortunate woman.

"Look!" yelled Mr. Simpson, the storekeeper. He was pointing at an odd sight - that of a boy running alongside a horse that was saddled. The horse and its non-rider were heading away from the crowd and it was impossible to see exactly who it was, but it was clear that they had something to do with the outhouse.

"That's the horse that was dragging the privy!" shouted Bessie importantly.

Ralph Dugway, owner of the Beaverton Hotel, was pulling at the boards that had sheathed the outhouse, trying to uncover the body inside.

"Is she dead?" called Annie Buckminster, one of the few girls who had kept up with the crowd on its run to the scene of the crime. She was only thirteen, but could run as fast and far as any of the boys.

As if in answer to her question, there came a groan from the pile of wood in front of them.

"Get her out of there!" yelled another man.

A voice screamed, "Somebody go get Doc Fisk!"

There was a general milling of people who mostly just got in each other's way as Beth's limp body was slowly uncovered.

She was, to put it lightly, a mess.

On her 'ride', Beth had bounced against every possible protrusion that could tear her dress, puncture her skin and snag her hair. Her attempts to cover her head probably saved her life, but her arms and legs were a bloody mess. Her injuries were not actually life threatening, though everyone who saw her that day was quite sure she would expire any second. In fact, she had only one serious injury. That was a thick splinter, about the size of a man's little finger, that had penetrated her dress and the skin under it, near her hip and about two inches above the edge of her glossy, raven pubic hair. The tip had bounced off her hip bone and torn its way back out of her body before the whole thing broke off, leaving what looked like the impossibly thick piece of a broken arrow piercing her body.

The crowd, however, did not know that at the time, probably because her efforts to protect her head had not been entirely successful. Several sharp raps had left her mercifully unconscious, though she groaned several times as she was pulled from the wreckage. Upon getting her free, though, the men noticed she was both silent now and limp as a wet rag. They let go hastily, letting her drop limply in the dust and stepped back, horrified that the woman had died while they held her arms.

Thankfully, one of the other people who had seen the outhouse being dragged off had already realized the implications. She was known to the townspeople of Beaverton only as "Boots." She had arrived in the town one day, some years back, on a trapper's wagon, covered in bruises and welts. Her thin dress was in tatters and she was barefoot. Once the trapper had conducted his business, and despite the fact that she was only thirteen, at best, she calmly picked up a handy, broken wagon spoke and brained the man, announcing that he had beaten and raped her for the last time. She had then stripped the man's boots off his body and put them on herself, along with his six shooter, which she appeared to know how to use. She took the money he'd just received and asked the store keeper to show her some clothes. No one had argued with her. In the five years since then, she had taken up residence in an abandoned sod house on the outskirts of town, and hired herself out as a scout, tracker and hunter. Boots was the kind of woman who, when she saw the outhouse being dragged away by a rope on a horse, knew instinctively that there was someone in it. She also sensed that it was a rough ride, and that the doctor would be needed. To that end, she ran to George Watkins' Livery Stable, harnessed up a wagon, and went to pick up the town doctor.

Ten minutes later Doc Fisk hopped off the wagon seat with the ease of a man half his age, which was a ripe thirty-six years.

"She's dead, Doc," called Luthor Simmons, one of the men who had felt her expire in his hands. "Crossed the great divide just as you were gettin' here."

Doc Fisk looked up. "Well, she appears to have crossed back, Luthor, 'cause her chest is rising and falling. I always check that first, Luthor."

Several of the other people laughed and Luthor turned red.

"Come on," said Robert Fisk, the only physician within a hundred and fifty miles. "Help me get her up on the wagon so I can get her back to the surgery." He called his office 'the surgery,' because almost the entirety of his medical training had been in a camp surgery during the war of the rebellion, between the northern and southern states.

In short order Beth was laid out on the floor of the buckboard, a limp, bloody mess. As Doc Fisk glanced back at her his face was grim. She looked entirely too much like the patients he remembered from his early medical days. Since the war had ended, he'd gotten used to saving more patients than he lost. He hoped she'd help him keep his streak going, but it could turn out the other way.

Boots actually knew how to drive a wagon in a way that jostled the cargo the least. When he commented on it, she said she'd had lots of practice hauling drunken fur trappers around and the only way to avoid what she blandly called "problems" was to make their hung-over trips as painless for them as possible. When she'd arrived in town and made her splash, Doc Fisk had briefly examined the man she'd killed, and had then treated her own injuries. By the time he was finished with her he'd recommended that the town save the money on a burial and just have the man's body dragged off into the wilds to feed the coyotes.

Boots assisted him in getting the woman into his little office and then helped cut the rags that had been the woman's dress and underthings off of her. It was Boots who found the arrow-like splinter in the woman's abdomen.

"Shit, Doc. Might be a problem here." She touched the swollen purple skin where the wood emerged from the body.

Doc Fisk had been counting the 'problems' he was uncovering. The woman had clear, healthy skin and had probably been beautiful, but he doubted she still would be after this was all healed up ... if she lived. He looked to see what Boots had uncovered.

"Hmm, just like shrapnel," he murmured. "I can get that out pretty easy. I've got a bottle of whiskey around here somewhere, Boots."

She took that as an order and began searching for it, finding it under an old saddle in one corner that had been given to the doctor as payment for saving a badly broken leg. She uncorked it and took a swig.

Coughing and sputtering she handed it to him. "Doc, that's the awfullest tasting rotgut I ever slid past my lips."

"That's because it's not all whiskey," he said mildly. "I put some formaldehyde in there with it. I use it to sterilize wounds, not drink."

"Well, whatever that hide stuff is, don't ruin any more good whiskey with it," she grumbled.

"When you find whiskey in my office ... don't drink it," shot back the doctor. "Pour some of that around the wound. It's shallow enough I'm just going to cut right through the skin, peel it back and lift the splinter out."

"Damn, Doc, why don't you just pull it on through?" asked Boots. "Why do you have to cut her open?"

"Because if I try that, the pieces around the outside of it will just break off and stay in her. Who knows what kind of filth is on that wood. Leaving any in her would be a recipe for gangrene and it would probably kill her. Now hold her down. She may feel this."

Boots lay over on top of the woman and watched as Fisk produced a straight razor from a tray of instruments. He planned on cutting right into the wood, and he didn't want to chance damaging his single, precious scalpel. He stropped the razor, wiped it on his trousers and sliced across the flesh holding the splinter in. It practically burst open and the piece of wood came away in his fingers. Fisk pulled the flesh apart and plucked at a few smaller splinters. He splashed more of his sterilization mix into the open wound. The woman moaned weakly, but it was a reflexive action of her lungs. She was still unconscious. Then he sewed her up with coarse thread.

After he was sure there were no more places that needed actual surgery, he got a basin of water and began cleaning each place where the woman appeared to have bled, removing blood and dirt from her skin. He marveled at how fair her skin was. He looked at her hands and knew she did not work with them for a living. They were soft and the nails were neatly trimmed. As he cleaned her up, the doctor began to appreciate her beauty more and more. Almost all of the cuts and nicks he found had clotted already, so he left them alone to heal, assuming the woman lived. Finally she lay before him, now clean and very ... naked looking. He glanced at Boots, who was staring at the patient too. She had pulled splinters and leaves out of the woman's black hair and piled it all up above her head. Her hair had originally been held up by combs, but they were gone now.

"Damn, Doc," said Boots again. "She's a pretty one. Or she was. Layin' there like that, she reminds me of me after Jasper ..." She stopped short. Bob was one of the few people who knew the name of the man she'd killed. He also knew what Jasper, a self-proclaimed mountain man and trapper, had done to Boots after he'd bought her for a bottle of whiskey. He didn't like to think about it.

He bent to continue working on all the places the filthy interior of the outhouse had torn the woman's skin.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

After Michael caught up with his almost foundered horse and cut the rope that was tied to the horn of the saddle, he made his escape in the same direction away from town as the outhouse had gone, because he correctly suspected people would be coming from that direction. One look at the horse told him he couldn't ride it. It might die on him anyway. So he trotted beside it, heading for a gully he knew of that would let him disappear from sight and go around to the other side of town. He stopped, once out of sight, and rubbed the horse down with his shirt. Then he walked back towards town, hoping they could get to water soon.

When he got there, wearing his now smelly, but dry shirt, he mounted the horse and rode slowly down Main Street to the water tank, like he had nothing better to do than loaf along. Benjamin hailed him from the porch of the general store, where he was sitting and whittling with shaking hands. Chauncy, it turned out, had hightailed it to find his father, sure that he would be caught and hanged, or worse.

"Boy you messed up big this time," whispered Ben to his friend.

"What do you mean I messed up? We messed up, and don't you forget it!" said Michael, looking around to make sure no adults could hear them.

"Hey, it was your horse that bolted," said Ben, folding his arms.

"What happened while I was getting my horse?" Michael asked, ignoring Ben's attempt to lay blame.

"They all went out and brought that woman back. At first I heard they thought she was dead, but Doc Fisk took her to his office and she was still alive, I guess."

"What are we gonna do?" asked Michael, his voice beginning to rise in panic. "If she dies, they'll do something bad to us!" It was considered extremely poor taste to abuse a woman in the West. Men had been known to mysteriously die for doing that, not to mention that it was a perfectly good excuse to arrange a festive town hanging.

"Let's go over there to Doc's and see what we can find out," suggested Ben.

The two boys ended up outside the south wall of the doctor's office, which fronted a narrow alleyway between that building and the home of Tilly Sumpter, the oldest woman in the county. She was deaf and half blind, so they didn't worry about her seeing them out her windows. Cautiously, Mike edged an eye up to the window of the surgery and peeked in. He gasped and sat down hard in the dust with his back to the building, taking in great heaving breaths of air.

"What's the matter?" whispered Ben as loudly as he had the courage to. "Is she dead?"

"I don't know 'bout dead, but she's as nekkid as the day she was born!" gasped Mike.

Ben shot to the window and shaded his eyes as he peeked in. Mike hadn't been lying. The black haired woman was there, lying on a long table, on top of a sheet. She had marks all over her body, but she surely was naked. Ben could see the pink tips of her breasts and a few black hairs down where he knew her legs joined. He was about to say something to his friend when a strong hand gripped his shoulder painfully.

"I knew I saw somethin' movin' at the window!" crowed Boots as she took her captive into custody. She had kept Mike from warning his friend by the simple expediency of pulling her revolver on him and pointing it right at his face, while putting one finger up to her lips.

Now she holstered the weapon and pulled Mike up to his feet. "You two are comin' with me," she ordered.

Doc Fisk looked up from his examination of the still unconscious woman as Boots dragged the two boys into the office. Their eyes were already bugged out, but when they saw the naked woman they almost had conniption fits.

"Boots!" he barked. "You can't bring those boys in here while I'm examining a patient!" he said sternly.

"But Doc, they wuz peekin' in the winda," she said by way of explanation.

Bob knew what was going through the boys' minds. His patient was a beautiful woman, if a pretty well beaten up one at the moment. "Just take them out back and shoot them," he said, as if it were one of the things he said daily. He watched Boots carefully, though. You never knew what Boots would take seriously and what she wouldn't.

"It wasn't me ... honest... It was Mike who done it!" squealed Ben, turning coat on his friend almost instantly.

"Did what?" asked Doc. He didn't think the boy was talking about peeking in a window.

"It was Mike who tipped over that outhouse. I just watched, Doc. Honest! Please don't let her shoot me, Doc ... Pleeeeaaaaase." He bawled and sank to the floor in a hopeless puddle of boy. A puddle of something else formed under him as the crotch of his pants darkened.

Mike saw his life flash before his eyes as he remembered looking down the barrel of the Colt .44 that Boots carried. It had looked big enough to crawl into. As he listened to his friend ... his former friend ... spilling his guts, he decided that he'd rather get a bullet in the back than see it coming.

So he jerked loose from Boots' grasp and ran for the door.

Sheriff Miller chose that moment to come through the door, which opened inward. So when Mike's brain was telling him to reach for the door handle, which he thought was about two feet away, the edge of the door impacted his face, right in the middle, breaking his nose and loosening two teeth. He bounced backward, landing flat on his back, his head hitting the floor with a dull thunk.

Just like that, Doc Fisk had two unconscious patients.

Ben scrambled to his feet and his hands shot up in the air. "I give up, Sheriff. Don't shoot!" he yelled as loud as his shaking voice could.

The amazing thing was that it only took ten minutes to clear everything up. Ben was assured that he was neither going to be shot, nor arrested. Mike regained consciousness, was helped up and Doc went to work on his nose, threatening to amputate it if the boy gave him any more trouble. Sheriff Miller announced that it was necessary for him to 'document' the injuries on the victim whereupon he began a close and detailed inspection of the unconscious woman's body.

When another male face appeared at the window, Doc knew things were getting out of hand.

"Out!" he yelled, and he chased them all out, including Boots, who said she'd just wait on the porch, in case he needed her. Then he pulled down the shade on the window.

At last it was quiet.

Chapter Two

Doc stared down at the girl on his table. He was beginning to be concerned. She'd been out for a long time. She was very pale, and that didn't bode well. He picked up the needle he'd used to stitch up her wound and began prodding various places on her body, looking for reaction. He got normal pain reflexes from her body, suggesting the nerves were working, but she didn't wake up.

Next he pressed his ear to her chest, listening to her heart. It was strong, but seemed slower than normal. She was clearly in shock. He began reviewing ways he could increase her heart rate to move her blood faster through her body, which would get more blood to her brain, too. Almost all of them required the patient to be awake and helping.

Something popped into his mind. It had been part of an argument several of his teachers had engaged in, back when he was training for the war. That argument hadn't been about wounded men. Rather, it had been about a way to invigorate the spirit of a woman. It had been entertaining then, listening to the older men proposing that stimulating a woman's sexual parts could have medicinal value, but now it suddenly seemed preposterous. Still ... she was naked, and good looking under her injuries, so rationalizing it was easy.

He thought about it now. His gut instinct was that it was clearly wrong. It bordered on rape. A man caught doing it to an unconscious woman could be strung up for it. On the other hand, she might die unless he got her blood flowing. The shock could kill her otherwise. And while the theory of it all was something to be argued, the results - if it worked - were clearly what she needed right now.

Doc looked around to make sure he hadn't missed closing off all the ways people could see into his surgery. When he was satisfied he was alone, and that there were no witnesses, he began to stroke the woman's skin, massaging her. He knew this was causing pain where his hands moved over her injuries, but if that pain woke her up, all the better.

Her breasts had not been injured. He felt a bit peculiar molding his hands around them, moving them around on her chest. They were firm. He had seen no stretch marks, and the tight density of her breasts under his hands convinced him she'd never given birth, or suckled a baby.

This was causing feelings in him that weren't welcome. It had been a long time for Doc, since he'd had a woman. And he'd never had one who was young and pretty like this one. Not that he intended on doing anything past getting her heart beating harder, but it still seemed like rape - that's what it would be in his mind, with her unconscious like this. Without conscious intent, his hands took on a more languid motion as they moved from massaging her breasts, to playing with them. It was still part of a massage, technically, so he felt only the discomfort brought on by the guilt of enjoying it. The nipples, which had been flat, almost non-existent before, now showed signs of life. They rose from the pale areolas, until he could pinch them between thumb and forefinger. When he rolled them they became stiff and turgid. He felt the amazement a physician always feels when he could observe how the body worked, even if he didn't understand all the processes.

He realized he was stiff in his pants. He looked at the patient. She was still white as a sheet. He thought of the rest of it, as it had been described by an older doctor, back when they took a break from receiving hurried semi-formal instruction, before being sent off to the battlefield. There were arguments, for and against what he was thinking of, in his mind. What decided him was the fact that if she never woke up, there'd be no possibility she'd find out, and therefore no hurt or embarrassment. And if she did wake up ... well as long as she didn't do it while he was actually engaged in things ... it was still unlikely she'd ever know what he'd done.

He wet the first and middle fingers on his right hand in his mouth, and slid them to the woman's vulval vestibule. He had to stop and spread her legs so he could get better access, then returned his fingers to her sex. He felt for the clitoral bulge and massaged it gently, rubbing his fingers in a small circle.

While he did this, he watched her face. He rubbed for two or three minutes, and was about to give up, feeling shamed, when he began to sense moisture seeping from her vaginal canal. Another couple of minutes passed and she was obviously wet. The slippery nature of that wetness made his motions much smoother. Almost suddenly he saw color coming back into her cheeks. Her breathing deepened too and her breasts rose higher. Her nipples were now turgid and hard. He kept rubbing until there was a significant increase in moisture between her legs.

Well, that part of her body was working fine, and he was pretty sure that was more than just nerves reacting to stimulus. That reaction involved the brain, and his feelings of guilt vanished as he decided it had been the right thing to do, from a medical point of view.

He didn't like this at all. Actually, the reality of it was that he liked it entirely too much. That was the real problem. He felt like some kind of animal for thinking that if she lived, and couldn't pay for her care, then perhaps some arrangement could be worked out. But only if she were amenable, of course.

Something struck him and he stopped his clitoral massage. He went to her feet and spread her legs more, pushing her feet up beside her buttocks. That opened up her crotch to him obscenely, but got her in the position she needed to be in for what he wanted to find out. With opposing fingers he pried her sexual lips open and peered at the bottom of her vagina. The thin, translucent membrane was easily seen.

She was a virgin!

Doc was puzzled. A girl this old anywhere west of Kansas City would have a baby by now, maybe even two. She came off the train, but whoever was accompanying her had not showed up. True, once the train had left, her husband ... or chaperone ... would have to get it stopped and then walk back, unless he ... or she ... had a horse in the baggage cars. But they should have heard something by now, even if it was just a telegraph message. She'd been missing from that train for hours.

He looked back up at her face. Her cheeks were pink now, though her breathing had slowed since he stopped stroking her clitoris. He moved up to her shoulder and, stared at her. Yes, her color was much better now. He had done enough. He started, intentionally, to turn aside but, unable to resist the temptation, bent over to suck one of her nipples into his mouth. He nursed on it, feeling its rubbery length in his mouth, and playing with it with his tongue. He pulled off and was amazed to see it had extended even further, maybe half an inch. The baby that suckled these nipples was going to be a happy, happy baby. He did the other one and slid his hand back to her groin.

She moved! Then she moaned. He stopped his manipulations of her immediately and got his smelling salts. He waved them under her nose and she frowned. Then her eyes popped open. He saw terror in those eyes and wondered what was going through her mind.

"There, there," he said soothingly. "You're all right now. You don't need to be afraid. Everything is fine now." He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently to reassure her.

Her eyes focused on his. They were blue, brilliant blue, a blue so bright and deep it was like looking into a deep pool of water.

"Where am I?" she asked faintly. "Who are you?" Her eyes filled with something he recognized immediately. "It hurts! Everything hurts!"

"My name is Doctor Fisk. You were injured in an ... accident. You're in my surgery. What's your name, miss?"

"I'm ... I'm ..." her eyes went out of focus, as if she were concentrating on something inside her head. "I don't know who I am!" There was a weak, but rising tone of panic in her voice.

"There, there," he murmured again, patting her shoulder. "Let's not worry about that right now. You've had a bump to the head, and you'll probably remember everything in a little while. Don't worry about it for now, all right?"

Her chin lowered as she looked at the hand patting her shoulder.

"I'm naked," she said, as if she were pointing out that she sometimes wore her hair down, instead of piled up on her head.

"Your clothing was torn to shreds and I had to take it off of you to treat your wounds," he explained.

"Oh," she said. Clearly she was still not able to understand everything. "I have other clothes. Don't I?" her question confirmed that she wasn't sure about that. She tried to sit up.

"Owwwww," she cried and collapsed back on the table. She began moaning piteously.

"You must try not to move," cautioned Doc. "I had to sew up one of your injuries. You're going to have to stay here for a little while, to recuperate. You just lie there and I'll go and find something to cover you with."

Those astonishingly innocent and deep blue eyes traversed the ceiling and fixed on his face. He felt movement in his groin and realized he was still erect. Just this woman's eyes were enough to make him think about ...

He pushed those thoughts out of his head. He turned and went to a cupboard where he knew there was a horse blanket a cowboy had paid him with for sewing up a nasty gash where he had been gored by a longhorn. He pulled it out. He hadn't had any use for it until now, since he had an old buggy that he'd been given for delivering a baby and saving the mother's life when the delivery got ugly. That was pulled by a swaybacked horse that had to be sixteen years old if it was a day, which was his payment for taking off old Joe Miller's left leg after it went gangrenous because of infection in a compound fracture. As he unfolded the blanket he could tell it wouldn't do. It was much too rough, and there were horsehairs all over it. Besides, it smelled terrible. He kept looking, but there was nothing in his surgery that could double as either clothing or suitable covering for his patient.

Doc went to the door and opened it, peering outside. Boots was napping on the porch, her hat down over her eyes and one foot cocked up.

"Boots!" he barked.

She put one finger to her hat brim and pushed it up, looking up at him. "Ya don't haf'ta yell, Doc," she said.

"She's awake. I need some clothes for her, or a sheet or something to cover her up with. Clothes. She's going to have to have clothes. See if they'll give you something at the general store. And if they demand payment, remind them that I pulled their oldest boy's tooth when it was giving him fits and they never paid me for it."

You never could tell how Boots would react to a given situation. She went from napping and complaining to instant explosive activity. She jumped up and took off running like a scalded cat, causing several people to dive for cover, since when Boots was moving like that, gunplay usually erupted soon after.

While she was gone, Doc interrogated his patient.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

He didn't learn much, because she couldn't remember much. Each time she tried and failed, she grew a little more frantic and he had to calm her. He had no idea how long this amnesia might last, but he tried to calm her as much as he could. He decided that if she had a name that might help. Her pain was stronger than she was used to dealing with too, which caused delays as she tried to cope with it. He offered her whiskey and was not at all surprised when she snapped that she didn't drink. He'd already decided this girl had breeding. And all that did was make it even stranger that no one had inquired about her.

"Well," said Doc, "Until you remember your real name, how about we call you Millie. Is that suitable?"

"I suppose it's as good as any name," she said. "What's to happen to me?"

"Until we find out who you are, and where you're supposed to be, I think we could put you up in the schoolmarm's house. We don't have a teacher right now, and that place is empty." A thought came to Doc. "I don't suppose you can read?" he asked.

"Of course I can read," she said immediately. "How odd! I can remember that, but I can't remember my own name." She frowned. "At least I think I can read," she said doubtfully.

Doc looked around and saw an old copy of the Prairie Gazette by the stove. He had planned on using the pages in it to start fires in the stove when cold weather arrived. He retrieved it and handed it to his beautiful patient. She unfolded it as if she'd handled newspapers before and began to read.

"The trouble between the sheep ranchers and the cowmen was exacerbated recently when six sheep were found shot and left to rot on the Anderson spread. Josh Anderson vowed to find out who had committed the heinous crime and exact revenge."

Doc whistled. "You can sure read. There's two or three words in that paragraph I don't even know the meaning of."

He pointed to the words and she explained them to him. Doc went to his desk and got out the list of what people owed him for his services. "Can you add up those figures?" he asked.

Millie added them in her head, without even a nib. Doc got his quill and added the figures himself. She was dead on.

"Millie, my dear," he said. "I believe we just found ourselves a new school teacher!"

"I'm a teacher?" she asked, clearly puzzled.

"You know far more than most folks in these parts. If you can teach kids hereabouts to read and cipher, that's plenty." Doc began quizzing the naked girl about world events he was aware of and found that she knew much more about things than he did. She obviously came from back East, where news was easier to get.

Boots came tearing back into the surgery. In her hands were a gingham dress and a pair of boots that looked like they might fit a young man.

"I had to convince the storekeeper that he needed to part with these things," she said. "But he wouldn't go for the frilly unmentionables the ladies wear around here. This is the best I could do without gunplay."

Doc smiled. "You did just fine, Boots. I'd like to introduce you to Millie, our new school teacher," he said grandly.

"She remembered who she is?" asked Boots.

"No, but we found out she's probably as smart as most of this town all put together, and until we can figure out who she is she's going to teach school."

"I am?" asked Millie. "Don't you have to talk that over with the school board? Or at least the town fathers?"

"Don't have a school board, and the town fathers will do what I tell 'em. Less'en they want to support you while we make inquiries. Since that would come out of their pockets I doubt very much they'll want to argue about things. You got injured at their Depot, so I suspect they'll be only too happy to trade you room and board for teaching while things get straightened out. You just act all snippety, like a lady would and complain about how shabby that little house is, and a few things like that. You might mention that you have a lawyer friend back East who might be interested in how you got hurt and abandoned and all that. And bat your eyes at them a lot. You're a handsome woman Millie, and that will play long and hard for you with the old geezers you'll be dealing with."

The situation was so odd for all of them that, when Doc helped Millie make a painful transition from lying on the table to standing beside it, the fact she was still stark naked didn't seem to affect them as it might have under other conditions. Boots gazed frankly at the lush curves of this woman and sighed. She'd never look like that.

"You sure are pretty ma'am," she said.

"Why thank you," said Millie automatically. Then she realized how naked she was and blushed. "Oh my, you must think me a hussy." She tried to cover her breasts and crotch, with little success.

"Now, now" said Doc. "I've seen you already, when I examined you, and Boots is a woman too, so there's no need to feel uncomfortable. Let us help you with the dress. It's going to be painful for you to bend over or raise your arms for a while."

Boots stepped up to help and, together, they got Millie's arms up as she winced and bit her lip. They slid the dress down over her nakedness and it flowed over her breasts. It caught on her hips, but a tug got it down. She looked completely normal, except for the fact that the cloth sliding over her nipples had caused them to spike. Millie saw that as she looked down, and covered her breasts with her hands.

That was a preview of Millie's Western Adventure (or Millie Moves West). To read the rest purchase the book.

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