by Jake Logan
“Ma’am.” The older one nodded curtly and turned back to Slocum. “My orders are to stop anyone from going in. Sorry, Mr. White, but he didn’t mention your name.”
Slocum used his left hand to rub an itch behind his ear. “He told me three days ago to meet him up here for some business we needed to conduct.”
The Texan never let down or even considered it before he shook his head. “I’ve got my orders.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name.”
Tex shook his head. “I never gave it.”
“That’s good. I’d hate to tell Taylor that Mr. Nobody stopped me and wouldn’t let me in to do our business after we rode half a day to get here.”
“You can tell him any damn thing that you want. You two ain’t getting past this creek.”
“That’s clear enough.”
It was the action of Tex’s horse that dictated Slocum’s next move. Obviously, a stinging insect was pestering his horse’s rear parts. When the gelding tossed his head back against Tex’s leg, it distracted the hired gunny enough that Slocum drew his six-gun and fired. His bullet struck the man in the chest. Hard hit, he threw up his arms and fell out of the saddle in a cartwheel.
The shot caused Blondie’s horse to shy to the left and go to bucking. He flew out to the side like a sack of barley. Slocum drove his spurs to the dun and sent him flying through the creek to get a handle on the recovering Blondie.
“Oh, shit!” Rory swore, and rushed past him after the loose bronc.
“Get your hands in the sky,” Slocum ordered the hatless cowboy, and he stepped off his dun. In two more strides, he had jerked the pistol out of the man’s holster.
“Who in the hell are you? I can’t believe you beat Yantzie to the draw. Damn, he’s killed twenty men.”
“It wasn’t his day,” Slocum said, motioning with his own gun barrel. “Start undressing.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t have time for a long explanation. I said get undressed.”
“What fur?”
Slocum shot in the ground inches from the man’s rundown boot. “Get undressed.”
“Hell, yes. Hell, yes, but I don’t understand—”
“Got both horses,” Rory announced, riding up with them in tow. “What’s he doing?”
“Undressing.”
“Well, by damn that’ll be interesting.” She rested her elbow on her saddle horn to watch him.
“You ain’t going to make me undress for her, are you?” Blondie whined.
“Keep undressing. Before you walk back to the ranch, you’ll have more excuses to go back to Texas than there are prairie dogs out here.”
Blondie took his shirt off over his head. Then he looked at Rory, then at Slocum.
“Keep undressing,” Slocum said.
“But in front of her?”
“She wants to watch, it’s fine with me.”
He nodded and undid his pants, pulling them off inside out while standing on one foot, then the other. “That good enough?”
“No, the underwear, too.”
“Ah, please—”
“Get undressed and tie your pants legs, then stuff your shirt and boots in them. You better make it good, ’cause I ain’t getting off to pick it up if it spills.”
She laughed aloud as Blondie moved about holding one hand over his privates and trying with the other hand to gather things. His skin sparkling white, save for his lower face and hands, he looked like a sheet.
At last, all of his things were tied on his saddle, and he stood cupping his privates with both hands.
“Yoakem at the ranch?” Slocum asked, mounting the dun.
“I don’t know any Yoakem.”
“Your damn memory need some lead in your ass to help it?”
“No—he’s been there a week.”
“That black wench there, too?”
“Her, too.”
“Good.” Slocum turned to Rory. “Ready?”
She had leads fashioned on the two horses and was on her own mount. “I’m ready.”
“What about Yantzie?” Blondie asked.
Slocum nodded. “You’re going to load him over his saddle.”
“Me?”
“You. Stand back, I want his six-gun.” He dismounted and gathered the Colt.
Blondie grunted and strained, but at last loaded the dead man over the horse. Slocum secured him with a rope. Then he handed Rory the lead and went to mount his own. “See yah,” he said to Blondie. Then he nodded to her and they rode out.
On the first rise, they could still hear him cussing and hollering when he stepped on something with his bare foot.
She snickered. “Why did you make him go back buck naked?”
“So he’ll have plenty of time to think about it and be convinced he needs to move on.”
“I damn sure would.” Then she laughed openly. “Poor guy was all shriveled up.”
“He’ll be shriveled if he ever tries to stop me again. Let’s lope. Daylight’s burning.”
So Yoakem and the wench were up there at the ranch, according to Blondie. His suspicion about Taylor’s connection with the bank robber was taking shape. Maybe they could get them both at the ranch.
18
Taylor’s outfit was spread over a wide swale. A creek bisected it, lined with cottonwoods. The pens and buildings were spread out. In the last light of sundown, Slocum scoped the area. There were several men in sight, but most looked simply like hired hands.
On one rooftop, he spotted a dark-complexioned lookout. Probably a breed. He carried a Winchester and looked like a tough. How many more gunhands were in there?
Slocum had to count Yoakem and the black widow as part of those killers on hand. With only him and a tough woman against that many—the odds weren’t the way he liked them. Still, if he waited too long, Taylor and the money might be gone. Yoakem wasn’t going to be left without his promised share. His gang would soon be back in jail—he could turn his back on them or feel some obligation to go and get them out. Still, taking on Taylor’s outfit single-handedly would not be smart.
“Well, what now?” she asked, nestled on the ground beside him.
“After dark, we take them on.” He handed her the scope.
“Wow, you think we can do that?”
“Fifty-fifty chance we can. We get the jump on them. Cover our backside, we can do it.”
She collapsed the eyepiece and handed it back. “I’m with you.”
“The difference between living and being dead are you shoot first, ask questions later.”
“I’ll remember that.”
He nodded. “We’ll wait till later.”
She agreed, and they went back to their horses and chewed on hard jerky. Seated on the ground, letting the jerky melt some in their mouths, then gnawing on it, they passed the twilight.
“Anything bad happens up here, I want you to know I’ve enjoyed you,” he said.
“Hey, we’re going to take them.”
“I damn sure hope so.”
Under the stars and small crescent moon, they slipped through the corrals and sleeping hip-shot horses, talking softly so they didn’t spook them. Slocum saw no sign of a guard on the roof. Maybe they had no night lookout. The soddy buildings were dark, save for some small lighted windows around where he figured the main house was. Carefully, he eased the gates open and shut for him and Rory. Then, after motioning to her, he moved to a lighted window. Someone coughing made them stop, but Slocum decided the sound was inside one of the buildings.
They reached the window and he moved a crate over to stand on it. Handing her his hat, he climbed on the box to look inside. From the side of the window frame, he could hear two men verbally arguing.
“—I don’t give a damn. I want my share and I’m out of here.”
“It ain’t that easy,” said Taylor. “You didn’t pull off the robbery and only made my situation worse.”
“Gawdamn you, my brother’s dead. My men are on the r
un, I hope, but they’re broke.”
“Why don’t we go to Deadwood?” Taylor asked.
“You can go there. I think that’s too public a place for me.”
Slocum didn’t dare look directly into the window. But he could see Taylor pacing back and forth.
“Just get out the money and we’ll split it.”
“It’s still in the bank,” Taylor said.
“Well, that’s stupid—”
Slocum smiled. Taylor could lie to his friends, but Slocum knew the man had left Ogallala with the funds in two suitcases, according to the teller. But no one would blame Taylor for not taking it to the ranch—hell, his crook buddy might steal it all from him. For now, Slocum needed to find Taylor’s money—that was more important than bracing those gunslingers. There’d be time for that later.
He eased himself down.
“What did you learn?” she asked when he joined her.
So they wouldn’t be overheard, he shook his head and motioned her toward the pens. When they were on the far side of the horses and corral, he stopped her. “Taylor didn’t bring the money in here.”
“Huh?”
“He don’t trust his friends.”
“I don’t blame him. Where’s the money?”
“He must’ve hid it somewhere between here and there.”
“Did he bury it?”
“No. He wouldn’t do physical work. He hid it in some abandoned homesteader’s place.”
“That would be like finding a needle in a haystack.” She shook her head ruefully in the darkness.
“How many such places did we pass coming up here that are close to here?”
“Two or three I noticed.”
“We want the one has his buggy tracks going up to it.”
“That means backtracking all the way.” She looked pained in the pearly light.
“No, I’m gambling that he ditched it close to here, in case he needed to grab it and run.”
“The first one is south of Beaver Creek that I can recall.” With a shake of her head she looked hard at him. “Ever think that they’ll figure it out when that naked yahoo shows up here, that they’ll know what we’re up to?”
“Cross that bridge when we get to it. Let’s get the horses and find that money.” He reached over and hugged her shoulder.
“How serious did he hide it, do you figure?” she asked, cinching her girth tight.
“It won’t be in plain sight. But he didn’t dig a grave for it. Besides, he had no tools on that buggy. I’d bet money.”
“What about the dead man?” she asked when they reached the horses.
“They need to bury him, not us.”
“What’ll we do with him?”
“Unload him and I’ll take him back up there and dump him by the corral.”
She went around the far side to untie him. Slocum soon shouldered his stiff load. Ahead of him, she kept an eye out, waving him to follow under the burden of the dead gunman. At last Slocum sprawled him out on the ground by the gate. He hoped his friends gave him a nice funeral. He hurried across the corral, stretched his tight back muscles, and fell in behind her as they hurried around the back of the pens.
“That’ll damn sure be a shocker when they find him.”
“It will be. Unnerve them maybe.” He looked around in the starlight. “I wonder where that naked cowboy went after we left him. He sure never made it up here.”
“We never saw him coming up here either.”
“Hell, he ain’t our worry.” He swung a leg over the saddle and checked his horse. She caught the reins to the two saddle horses, and they rode off at a trot for Beaver Creek.
It was past midnight to judge by the Big Dipper when they reached the tumbledown place and dismounted. Slocum lighted some matches and showed her the buggy’s narrow tread in the soft place. “Good sign, he was here.”
She pushed her hat back on her shoulders and frowned at him. “How’re you figuring all this out?”
“Lucky guessing.”
“No, that ain’t it at all. You got some kinda fortune-teller powers.”
“No, we’re just lucky. I’ll get a candle out of my saddlebags. See if there is something to put it on to carry around with us.”
She kicked around the side of the shack, and soon found a rusty sardine can. “This will work if the night wind don’t blow it out.”
He agreed and stepped though the doorway. She held the can while he lit the candler, melted wax to hold it, and then set it in the congealing lump. The flame threw shaky light on the walls, and their two shadows looked like giants on the newspaper-covered sides of the room.
“It ain’t in plain sight,” she said, searching around the dusty old furniture with mouse holes in the stuffing. She raised up the divan and found nothing.
“They would be large suitcases,” he said, viewing the rafters and climbing up to look at the pack rat nest in the loft.
“They sure ain’t in here.”
He agreed, and they went to the chicken house next, where a musty ammonia stink burned his nostrils. A few old homemade nests, some stick roosts, old chicken manure, and feathers were all that was in that building.
“Whew,” she said, coming outside. “I forgot chickens smelled so damn bad.”
“There’s only two more places to go,” he said, carrying the blown-out candle lamp.
“What do we do if it isn’t here?”
“Good question.” He ducked under the fallen-down roof edge and went inside the cow barn. More of a shack than a barn, with sod walls and a few stanchions. Besides a broken three-legged stool, there was little more than dry cow pies, cobwebs, and pack rat nests.
The last place was a tall open-sided shed that faced the south. Old dusty hay was still stacked inside, and the feeder that went across it was where the stock once ate.
“We may be looking for a needle in a haystack.” She laughed and clapped him on the back. “He hide it under all that old stuff? I’m ready to sneeze.”
“No, he’d’ve been telltale dirty when he got to the ranch.”
“Well, where else we going to look here?” she asked, going to the area where the hay was forked to the animals, looking high and low for any sign.
When she returned, he blew out the lamp. “Let’s get some jerky and sleep a few hours.”
“Sounds good. Slocum, we’ve looked everywhere but in that fallen-down outhouse over there.” They walked over to the structure, which had seen better days. He handed her the lamp and used his shoulder to straighten it with a creak of old lumber, so she could pull the door open. It fell off the rotten leather hinges, and forced her to step aside to miss it hitting her.
She laughed. “Give me a match and I’ll look inside while you hold it up.”
He fished one out and used his shoulder against the building’s side. “Be careful.”
She lit the candle, stepped in, and shortly backed right out. “Whew, still smells bad. It sure ain’t in there or under the seat.”
“Damned if I know,” he said, looking across the pearly starlit prairie.
“It was a real good idea, and there are other places like this one we can check out.”
“There has to be a place here we haven’t checked.” But where else could it be?
They gnawed on jerky, washed it down with tepid canteen water, unfurled one bedroll, and undressed. Standing undressed in his stocking feet, he pulled her to him, and the gentle night wind swept the cheeks of his bare butt. She flipped her short hair back and they kissed. With her lips under his, her nakedness stirred up emotions he thought were buried deep in his weariness.
In minutes, they were both huffing for their breath in the bedroll. His pained erection was plunging in her contracting ring—he closed his eyes to savor the pleasure. Her mouth open, she moaned and tossed her head, lost in a sea of wild freedom. Until at last their pubic bones rubbed on each other. She hoisted her butt up for his deepest penetration, and cried out when he came.
Th
ey fell in a pile and slept entwined with each other.
19
In the predawn’s faint glow, he squatted on his boot heels by the small fire where he boiled water for coffee. She came back from the creek, drying her face on a towel, and squatted beside him, then held her hands at the fire to warm them in the heat.
“These folks must have had a fraidy hole. Living out here in tornado country and all. We always had one in Missouri on the places where I grew up.” She swiveled around looking for it. “There’s got to be one here. Like for a root cellar, huh?”
Slocum stood up and stretched his stiff back. “You’re right. It has to be here. But where?”
“Could be under the house and we missed it.”
“You’re right. Watch the water. Root cellar or not, I need some hot coffee.” He set out for the house and went inside the dark room. He began to move everything, but there was no sign of any door or covering in the floor.
“Find anything?” she asked when he came outside.
“Not in there.” He went around the south side and looked hard at the pile of wood and posts. Some showed sun bleach, and he decided they had been somewhere else and recently stacked there. After he pulled the trash aside, he found the door and opened it. It was only a half door in size. He lit a match and cautiously stuck his head inside—there were enough prairie rattlers in that country that he didn’t need one to object to his intrusion.
“Hey, I found them,” he shouted.
Two large leather suitcases sat on the floor of the dank cellar. He dropped back on his heels and laughed.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, arriving on the scene.
“I guess the fact we found them.”
She bent over to see them and then, as if satisfied, she straightened. “Well, we got them. What next?”
“I want to check and be sure they have the money in them.” He eased himself through the opening.
“Sure.” She took the first case from him, grunting at the weight when she hoisted it out. “Man, it weighs a ton.”
“Here’s the other one. I’m coming up.”
“Got it. Wow, he really packed them.”
On her knees, she unstrapped the case as he emerged. When he was out and beside her, she lifted the lid. They both stared at the sight of all the cash inside.