Howdy Pardners! Now this prob’ly ain’t yer first rodeo, so I don’t have to tell you that if it’s illegal where you are for you to be readin’ this adult stuff, then you ought to just click the ‘X’ in the corner and hit the trail, and that rustlin’, sellin’ and postin this here story anywhere else without my say so is just plum low down and illegal, so don’t do it, okay?
This story is for all of those wonderful Bimbo authors out there who’ve made me smile over the years. You know who you are. Much abliged to JHB fer makin’ it a heap better’n it’d have been on its own.
Be well and thanks for reading.
Bambee of the West
The town of Temple was like any other in the West: the streets were knee deep in mud, guts, and hot and cold running shit. When the wind was right, you could smell every outhouse in the place, and, when it wasn’t, you wished you could. It’s here, in this sea of cosmopolitanism, that your humble storyteller appears.
The double doors swung lazily aside, admitting a tall, commanding sort of man wearing a long coat and his going-to-town suit. He strode confidently across the crowded room with an air of polished wisdom which maybe belied his years, arriving at last at the bar itself.
“Whiskey,” he said, dustily, “the good whiskey.” The thing you needed to know in order to survive in the Old West was whiskey: it came in two kinds. There was the pissy yellowness in the bottles on top of the bar which would make sure your corpse’d be well past pickled by the time the undertaker came and fetched you—and if you were real lucky it’d kill you quick (but no one in the West was ever that lucky, not even Quirt Evans, and they say he was just about the luckiest sonofabitch that ever rode the trail). Then there was the good stuff they kept under the bar which wasn’t made fresh yesterday out back in the same tub where they wash the sheets. The good stuff was made somewhere clean; somewhere “soap” weren’t a four-letter word.
Our handsome stranger handed over the coins, tipping the bottle into the glass, watching the amber-golden nectar tumble over itself in a cascade of pure heaven.
“What the Hell, old timer?” a voice roused him from contemplating his first drink and he turned to see its source, a young cattle prod with greasy hair and a black-handled colt at his hip, “you’re in my place!”
The tall stranger just met the rude interruption with a calm stare.
“You listen to me, old timer!” The young gun raged, “You better listen!”
“And why is that?” the peace-loving, well-dressed stranger asked.
“Because I got a gun and you don’t, shit fer brains.”
“Who says I need a gun, sonny?” The tall man was still rock calm.
“Because if’n you don’t move on I’m gonna fill you full o’ holes.”
“Now sonny,” the wise range rider fixed the youngster with an even calmer stare, “I don’t need no gun, because, if a man with a gun shoots a man who don’t have a gun, they’ll hang him right quick. He looked deep into the younger dude’s eyes to see what wasn’t there. “Hell sonny, I’ve seen men hanged, and I’d rather die gut shot.”
The young prod stood silent, raging, but unsure.
“I don’t need no gun.” The stranger said, turning back to his patiently waiting elixir. The first sip hit his mouth like smooth, cold honey, turning to fire as it slid down his throat, like good whiskey should, but he still felt the eyes of the younger, outclassed gunny upon him.
“Now sonny,” he said, turning back to face the hothead cowboy who still stood staring, “I came here to have a few drinks, and maybe spend some time with one or more of these ladies here abouts, and if’n you keep staring at me like you are they’re going to think I’m spoken fer, and I wouldn’t want that.”
Still raging, the cowboy turned, shoving some unsteady drinker out of the way and into another unsteady drinker and storming off into the crowd.
And then he saw her coming down the stairs: Miss Kitty. On Saturday nights Miss Kitty would dance and do a song. I’m not really sure what day it was, but it sure didn’t smell like Saturday; maybe Thursday, or the one before it. She was the prettiest looking whore Temple had, maybe the prettiest in the West. Her um . . . riding partners stood out proud on her front like a two-mule team and her long, curly red hair smelled like roses. Miss Kitty was top of the line; it was worth four bits fer most folks just to look at her.
After a while, two more of of Temple’s fine attractions came down the stairs: Miss Sally and Miss Bambee. Miss Sally was prob’ly the next prettiest whore in the territory, with hair like the finest silk, and pillow ponies that was firm and round, not saggy and draggy like a lot of them mining camp whores. Miss Bambee, well Miss Bambee wasn’t exactly ugly, I mean stand her next to them saggy ones and she’d win, clear as day, but she didn’t exactly shine neither. In the sea of big chested whores that was the West, Miss Bambee was like an island … one of those flat, sandy little islands you read about.
Now another thing you needed to know in order to survive the Old West was whores: there were pretty ones and there were the really pretty ones, and then there were the ones you usually woke up with after drinking a bunch of the pissy yellow whiskey they kept up on top of the bar. The pretty ones and the really pretty ones would walk around the crowds of cowpokes and prospectors and the gamblers, sometimes doing a dance or a song to get the drunken bunch so horned up they didn’t care which kind they ended up with. The prettiest ones always went with the high rollers though, and as well mannered and dressed as our handsome stranger was, he weren’t one of those, so he poured himself another drink of whiskey.
From somewhere there was a loud whoop, and some cheers, and a fancy hat went flying up, getting’ hung on the big chandelier. Now this wasn’t no New Jersey phony; that chandelier was the genuine article. When Temple struck it rich and the railroad came along, Mayor Olly Perkins wanted the place to be respectable, and that meant the saloons were all out to outshine each other in cultured refinements. The Number Six Dancehall nearby even had oil paintings done by Wrangler Bob Barber. This one wasn’t to be outdone, and Mr. Jones—that is Parody Jones, the owner, himself come all the way from New Orleans—got that big crystal chandelier all the way from Vienna, or so they say. One thing was fer sure, that hat wasn’t comin’ down any time soon. It weren’t no loss, I mean, the dandy who owned it prob’ly came from New York City, or worse, wanted everybody to think he did. Ain’t nuthin’ worse than some dude steppin’ out in fancy slicker duds when yesterday they was shovellin’ shit fer some hog farmer. It gave the West a bad name.
Then it happened: a loud shot rang out, and a whole lot of runnin’ and scatterin’. Now I—that is, your kindly narrator—didn’t run out like the others, having paid good money fer that bottle, and because of some other reasons I’ll be gettin’ to in just a bit. The room cleared out and there he was, face down in a pool of blood, that ornery cattle prod from earlier. Seems he gave pushin’ to somebody who wasn’t of a mind to be pushed. Standing over him was Miss Kitty, a cloud of gray gunsmoke hanging in the air around her. That explained it; Miss Kitty was the reason fer no fewer than two dozen corpses in boot hill. They recently had to expand the place just because of her. Now, I never understood it myself, fighting and killing over whores; I mean you don’t own ‘em. It’s like payin’ someone to paint your wagon, only a whore the likes of Miss Kitty did more than paint it, or so they said—as I mentioned before, your handsome narrator could never hope to happen into her price range.
In the dead space, with the crowd scattered, all of the girls clustered on that dead body like he was street shit and they were flies … well, the first part might be right, but anyway, I’m getting’ off track. The whores pocketed everything they could lift: first the money he had on him, then his watch, and then Miss Bambee got to him and all that was left was his gun, and the fancy gold trimmed belt he wore it on (lady lookin’ thing if you ask me). Sure as hell she took it, and his boots—not that they were special, but them whores could smell a profit from a mile away and they’d have picked him down to his underwear if’n they’d had time.
As the last of them, Bambee I think, disappeared up the stairs with her loot, in came Deputy Taggart. He was a well meaning sort, I guess, maybe not the sharpest knife in the block, but he was big enough to get noticed in a saloon brawl and maybe not get his teeth knocked out in the process.
“Jeezus, Amos!” Taggart drawled, “he’s not even finished leakin’ on the floor and your girls have already done picked him clean!”
“I didn’t see nothing, Mr. Taggart,” Amos Tucker stepped clear of the bar, “There was a shot, and he was there dead when the crowd scattered.” At about that time it occurred to your narrator that they were all of a sudden staring right at him.
“Mister,” Deputy Taggart swaggered, “what’d you see?”
“I saw the crowd run fer the hills,” the tall, dignified stranger answered, “and then I saw that upstart asshole layin’ dead in his own juice.”
“Anybody know who he is?” Tucker asked.
“Oh, Hell! this is Hunt Bromley,” Taggart bent to get a closer look, his belly keeping him from bending far, “I near broke his head over at the Number six fer tryin’ to pick a spat with Frank Harlan, Dammit, I shoulda’ let old Frank do him in, then we couldda hung that rich, Yankee son of a bitch.” He looked around and found the other deputy standing nearby, “Huck, you get ahold of his legs and we’ll get him over to the jailhouse.” Then he turned to Tucker, “Amos, I’ll be back later on to talk to your whores, or the Sherriff will.”
One person you didn’t want to talk to was Sherriff Brown.
Upstairs, Bambee looked over her meager haul. Well, the boots would fetch a few dollars, and the belt another thirty or so, and the gun … She paused, looking at it. The gun … well there was something that drew her to it, and she found herself picking it up, turning it over so it glinted in the lamplight.
“Perty,” she said, her eyes drawn in by the sparkle of the engraved cylinder and the silver inlay.
Now it’s prob’ly time to tell you a little bit about the gun. It had been owned by a lot of people in its life, a lot of people. There was Tector Gorch, dead of a gunshot, and his brother Lyle, dead of six gunshots, and there was Bad Bob—no, not that one; I’m talkin’ ‘bout the original Bad Bob—shot through the chest with a hole so big that Miss Tessy over’n Abilene coulda’ done a bomba dance through it.
The original owner was Cactus Jack Slade. He was gunned down by no less than fifteen big lugs, and, as far as I know, his woman—a squaw, I guess—put some kind of hoodoo, voodoo hex on his killers, right as they rifled through his belongings. Not long afterward, there was a shootout where Swifty Morgan got perforated by John Blaine using Cactus Jack’s gun. Blaine was himself shot three weeks later.
You may be asking yourself how I came to know all of this, and how I might know what was now goin’ through Miss Bambee’s head and what she was doing in her room with the gun. The curse, it turns out, kinda works on whoever holds the gun, turnin’ and twistin’ their insides until the things they want seem biggern’ Texas, and well they get all on the rut, needin’ to go out and lock horns with the toughest hombres they can find. Not long ago there was this cowhand by the name of Jim Duncan who rode into Dodge fer a drink of whiskey, the good kind, and this Puffler called Roy Slade—Evil Roy Slade to be exact—came pushin’ at him. Well, things came to things and Slade drew his gun. The thing about the curse though, is that it doesn’t make you faster, or a better shot. It only makes you meaner, and greedier, and more likely to draw. Duncan killed Slade, but yeah, the tall, handsome cowhand who never caused nobody no harm got himself killed off about a week later by Bad Bob—the original Bad Bob, that is.
So you see, I’m a ghost.
Now, I’d be ‘bliged if’n you’d keep that under yer hat ‘cause, as I said earlier, I’m still wanting to get some time with one of the ladies hereabouts, and I don’t need that extra complication of them knowin’. Being a ghost don’t exactly come with an instruction manual and I can’t even know right now if’n my marryin’ gear works. I mean I can still drink whiskey all right, and I don’t even get hangovers any more—which is nice—but I still want to try it all with a lady, and the last thing this story needs is a necro tag. Damn, that kind of thing even wigs me out, you know?
Bambee looked at the gun with a gleam in her eye. “Perty,” she said again, turning to the mirror, her mind fillin’ up with all sorts of thoughts about keepin’ the gun instead of selling it. Up until now, the curse had only worked itself on menfolk, and here it was settin itself on a woman, and it might be said that women can be a lot stranger than men in a lot of ways. She turned to the mirror and looked at herself, holding the gun. The dress would sure have to go, she thought, if she was ever going to wear that gunbelt, which meant she was going to need a lot of new clothes. She giggled at the thought of herself striding through town in man pants, wearing a six gun. As she giggled, her um, fluff pillows jiggled a bit too, maybe not as big a jiggle as Miss Kitty’s had, but enough to make her giggle some more.
Bambee wasn’t the fastest bullet in the gun, but she knew the way to a man’s heart, and not the same way that a grizzly or a crazy killer with a big bowie knife knows how to get there. Bambee’s way was warm, squishy and soft, like her chest was starting to feel at the moment.
She giggled even more as she saw her frilly blouse stretch and those pretty pearl buttons start to strain and then pop, one by one, as her two friends started to grow right before her eyes. All of a sudden she got dizzy—well, dizzier than normal fer her—and fell back on the bed in a sudden flash of sex and sweat.
As much as it makes me uncomfortable tellin’ this part, I really got to. I mean, it involves her lady parts and all but if’n I wussy out you might not get the real story as you ought to.
The feelings overcame Bambee in a rush, and and all by ‘emselves like, her hands pushed off her dress, and her corset, and them things the ladies wear under their corsets. Her hands was exploring the new territory of her bosom in earnest, sending warm fuzzies all through her brain and she didn’t even notice some of the things that were happenin’ to her body, like how her face was going from sort of frumpy to high-boned, clear-skinned perfection, and how her legs were somehow getting longer as she stretched and pawed herself on the bed.
Slowly, the warm sparkles made their way south, followed by her hands, and her mind flittered out like it was a dollar in the hand of a drunken cowpoke, not that she had a whole lot to lose in that department. As her mind turned to a tizzy of sex and soft fleshy thoughts her body … well, it shook and quaked in what … well, I don’t know what you call it but, damn, does it feel good. About that time she fell asleep, knocked out by all of what she was going through.
“Miss Bambee,” boomed the voice of Deputy Taggart, “are you in there?” Suddenly, Bambee was wide awake. She looked over at the boots and the gun and the gunbelt that’d slid onto the floor during her tussle, then she looked down at her body and realized that now all she could see down there was that her pillows, I mean her breasts, her boobies she thought— they were enormous, bigger’n Miss Kitty’s even, and they hung in the air like some kind of life preserver, not slunkin’ down like they are supposed to when a woman takes of her lady underthings. She knew that the deputy was going to be really mad about her pilferin’ that dead cowboy’s things, but she had an idea.
“Yes, Mr. Taggart,” she stood up, fluffing her suddenly very long blonde hair and facing the door, “I sure am.”
“Miss Bambee,” Taggart said politely, “can I come in? I need to ask you about that feller from earlier.”
“Why sure, Mr. Taggart,” Bambee fluttered. “Come on in.”
As the door swung open, so did the deputy’s mouth, dropping almost clear to the floor, and his eyes … well, they went as big as saucers as he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Whatever can I do fer you Mr. Taggart?” Bambee flounced her now bountiful, seemingly weightless ullage. She walked slowly over to him with a sway in her backside that would best a fifty dollar hitchin’ horse.
“Tarnation, Miss Bammmm…bee.” Taggart stuttered, his face going white and his hands shaking.
“Is there some problem, Mr. Taggart?” Bambee asked, sorta blowin’ the words right into his ear while her long arm reached over his hat and tickled his other one. She finished him off by pushing her full naked self, new pastureland included, up against him as close as she could. Whatever brains he had were quickly flowing out as the blood rushed to parts lower down.
“You had questions fer me, Mr. Taggart?” Bambee cooed in her now very fluffy voice. I’ll say this, the man lasted a Hell of a lot longer than I would, a Hell of a lot. “Didn’t you, deputy Taggart?”
“Um, gulp,” Taggart fought to find some part of his brain that was still payin’ attention to him, “Miss Bambee, I’m, um, sorry to bother you and all but …”
“But what, Mr. Taggart?” She sashayed herself up against him even more.
“B-But… Oh Miss Bambee, shucks,” he was all done and she knew it, “Um …”
She smiled, running her hand all the way from his knee to the fullness in his pants, which was considerable, and, after lingering there fer a time that must’ve almost started to hurt, all the way up to his lips and then released her hold of him so she stood, swaying a little bit just in front of him. “What is it that I can do fer you, Mr. Taggart?”
“Um, Miss Bambee I’m powerful sorry …” Taggart stopped short, hanging frozen fer just a flint before he turned and closed the door behind him. I think he ran almost clear to Denver before he stopped, prob’ly fer a real cold shower. I wouldn’t blame him a bit; in fact, I’da likely had two cold showers.
Bambee looked at herself in the mirror and laughed—a breathy, busty blonde laugh to be sure, but also a laugh that had the curse written all over it. She all of a sudden knew what she wanted. She needed to go shopping.
Looking around, there were almost no clothes in the room that fit overn’ her new endowedness, so she took her frilly blouse from before and tied it at her waist, almost not containing her plenty, and on top of that she put on a black leather vest some cowpoke had left in her room after his wife had come calling out in the hall, and his hat and trousers which’n he’d left behind too. She did put on some of those women’s things under the pants, but I still don’t know what they call ‘em.
A few minutes later, Miss Bambee stepped off the bottom stair into the flowing sea of western cowboyhood and even the fancy player piano near the wall stopped cold. I may be dead, but I’m not de … oh Hell, you know what I mean, right? Your humble narrator was stumbling inside his brain with his pants stuffed like Trigger. Even Miss Kitty stopped, stunned. The former Miss Bambee was gone, and into her shoes—or rather the former Mr. Bromley’s boots—had stepped the western equivalent of one of them Greek love goddesses, except this one had all her arms and parts and they was full open fer business.
Bambee must’ve had to step careful just to avoid steppin’ on all of the slack jaws and slobberin’ tongues as she went across the floor. With her hips and her smile, I think she made marryin’ business with everyone she passed, just by bein’ there. I know I’ve paid a week’s wages fer not near half the marryin’ business I got off one fleet glimpse of what she was givin’ off.
It were full on a minute before anybody woke up and noticed that she had left, like she floated right out the door while we were all left floatin’ on whatever spell she’d cast on our brains.
Bambee walked down the planks that lined each side of the street. Another thing you needed to know to survive in the West was to stay on the planks; if’n you didn’t, nobody might never see you again. If you were real lucky, it was just mud you sunk in, but, to be honest, I don’t think there was any such thing as just mud in the West.
She stopped in front of Olsen’s General store, which was smack between the Johnson Hardware store and the hotel, owned by Noble Johnson himself, no known relation to Ben Johnson, the owner of the hardware store. In the West it was always the same: fer every ten saloons there was always one general store, one hardware store, and one hotel. It seems only decent folk ever find reason to go to one, and what’re decent folk doin’ in the West?
The store was closed, as such things always were at this time of day. Hell, it was half past six and ain’t no respectable store open past five. But that wasn’t a problem in Bambee’s new way of thinkin’; she pulled her colt forty-five and shot at the lock. Of course, she hit the window, about two down from the door, but it didn’t matter; in a few minutes she was inside, lookin’ at the clothes, especially the boots because those bequeathed her by the late Hunt Bromley just weren’t much to look at.
“Hey!” Bambee turned at a shout that came from the stairs. It was Mr. Olsen, the owner and proprietor of the store, at least when his wife wasn’t about. I don’t think God created anybody that liked Mrs. Olsen, she was just that sort. Maybe deep down Mr. Olsen liked her, but I’d put good odds that he was just too afraid of her to do anything else. “What are you? … Miss Bambee?” Olsen had the same look on his face that prob’ly still inhabited those she’d walked past in the saloon.
“I want clothes, perty clothes.” Bambee said, swaying as she walked to a pair of shiny leather wellingtons.
“The store is, um, closed.” Either Olsen was the rock of Gibraltar, or he really was that afraid of his wife.
“I want,” Bambee held up her gun and pointed it—I guess she had it aimed at Mr. Olsen, but it were clear that her and skilled gunplay weren’t saddle pals—“clothes, perty clothes.” The gun waved a little, like she wanted to make her words louder.
“Um, Miss Bambee,” Olsen’s rock of resolve seemed like it was crumblin’ like aunt Essie’s muffins, “Miss Bambee, I can make an exception this time, we happen to have the best ladies clothing this side of New York City, and the only thing better than that is Paris, France.
Miss Bambee was trying the wellingtons on fer size. “Paris France has the pertiest clothes in the West?” she stood, walking a little in the big, tall shiny boots.
“Well, yes, Miss Bambee, Paris France is known the world over for the most beautiful ladies clothes anywhere.”
Bambee seemed like she was considering the fact. I’m not sure though, because, as I said, even cursed, Bambee’s lamps didn’t go all the way to bright. One thing most people didn’t know was what Bambee’s real name was, or what Bambee stood fer. I’m not sure Bambee even knew what it stood fer. I mean her real name couldn’t be Bambee could it?
Could it?
Bambee seemed to make up her mind and she wiggled herself slowly right up to Mr. Olsen, reaching out her soft hand to touch his cheek, then ran that hand all the way down to where his pants were growin’, “Where is …” her hand moved up just enough to put a little light pressure on Mr. Olsen’s growin’ bulge. “Where is Paris France?” She said slowly in her slow fluffy voice.
“Um,” Mr. Olsen was surely the hardest rock in the territory whether out of fear or gumption, but the cracks were startin’ to show. “It’s that way, he said pointing South, “…Er, um, that way,” this time he pointed due East. It prob’ly didn’t matter because Bambee had prob’ly never even been outside county before, and wasn’t much fer direction. She turned and left, still wearing her new boots.
“Nels!” A loud, incredibly shrill voice cracked like a teamster’s whip from upstairs, “What are you up to down there?”
“Um, nothing dear,” Mr. Olsen managed through his fear. I tell you, I’m even afraid myself and I’m just the narrator, and a ghost to boot: “I’ll be up directly.”
We all stood, stunned, just like before, when Bambee came back in the saloon. Even the womenfolk couldn’t look away. Bambee spelled sex, and she spelled it with a capital “M” in letters that stretched from Temple all the way to Walla Walla. Did I mention that Bambee couldn’t spell? Well she couldn’t, but it sure didn’t matter none to anybody there that evening, that is until … until all of a sudden, there was Sherriff John Brown: he walked in tall and tough like a seven foot brick wall of pure lawman, followed by his trusty deputy, Mr. Taggart. It were clear that Sherriff John Brown meant business.
“Hold it, Bambee.” The Sherriff said in his booming voice while Taggart took position beside him, a double barreled shotgun at the ready. “We’re gonna have to have that there gun, maam, and we’re gonna have to take you in.”
“Sherriff,” Bambee turned her full lady magic on the man, which seemed to allow the rest of the room to breathe, us havin’ been held like statues fer … Hell, I don’t know how long, “what ever is the problem?” She swayed herself powerfully as she walked toward him, her hands running down the edges of the tied blouse, showing him just a little bit more.
If Mr. Olsen was Gibraltar, Sherriff John Brown was the whole Rockies and them Sierras too, because he didn’t even break a sweat. Later on it was whispered that maybe he was one of them kind that don’t fancy girls, like they have up in Kansas City, but with him there in the room they didn’t say nuthin, ‘specially nuthin’ they didn’t want him to hear. “We’re takin’ you in Miss Bambee, fer disturbin’ the peace and destruction of property, not to mention stealin’ them there boots.”
Bambee turned the magic up all the way past ten, the whole room was under again, but it still didn’t seem to faze Sherriff Brown, because he went fer his gun. There was a shot, and then some more and all Hell broke loose and it wasn’t until a full ten minutes that we all got our wits back and realized that Miss Bambee was gone again and there were two dead men on the floor.
Now I know what yer thinkin’ but it ain’t true. Miss Bambee did draw and fire, as her cursed reflexes directed, but she didn’t shoot the sheriff, and she didn’t shoot the deputy, neither. No, she still couldn’t shoot fer all the tea in China, her shot went wild and hit the big crystal chandelier, and that fell down, killin’ Sheriff Brown and deputy Taggart dead as beaver hats.
Bambee, well she left town, ridin’ off into the sunset on her way to Paris France, wherever that is. And me, well I got another drink of whiskey, still wonderin’ just what sort of whore might want to mix tackle with a handsome, though someways ethereal, classic frontier specimen like me.