by Jake Logan
She kept up with him on the mare. That evening, they watered their stock at the first stage stop, and then rode on. The less that people remembered them, the harder they would be to follow. A few miles north, he led her off the road and into some cedars. There, she began to gather some sticks and dry chips to make a cooking fire, while he unsaddled and unloaded the panniers and bedrolls. When the horses were hobbled and turned out to graze, he turned to her. She was busy tending some beans and water for coffee on her fire.
Her gray blue eyes looked up at him and they peered hard. She dropped to her knees and waved him over. Deliberately, she undid the tongue of his gun belt, and he caught it and eased it to the ground beside his boots. Then her finger fumbled with opening the buttons on his fly, and he shrugged off his suspenders. His britches fell to his knees and her palm gently weighed his scrotum; then her other hand inserted his half-hard dick in her hot mouth.
She drew it out and holding it with one hand, with the other hand slapped the shaft with impatience. Quickly, she reinserted it to suck hard on it, rubbing the head on the hard roof of her mouth with each thrust. He knew her purpose, and his hips ached to push it to her. At last, he strained forward and he came.
Despite her swallowing hard and fast, some of the white cream dribbled down both sides of her mouth, which was set in a pleased grin when she looked up. She nodded in approval and rose to kiss him—the fishy taste of his own sperm on her hot lips. They might never get to Deadwood at this rate. Who gave a damn?
22
He avoided as many stage stops as he could. So by the fifth day, they were well in the Black Hills and dropping off the mountain into Deadwood. Clouds were beginning to gather for the usual afternoon thundershower. The streets were already muddy from the monsoonal rains, and boards were laid out for people on foot to cross the streets. Of course, passing freight wagons only sunk the boards, but many dudes and demimondes tried to find such routes to cross over.
One whore shouted to Slocum “Mister, carry me across the street and I’ll give you a free toss in the hay.”
He winked at Sue Ellen and rode over to the porch, swept her up, and turned Turk toward the far side.
The woman looked him over. Her powder and cheap perfume were strong. Her full breasts were about to pop out of the low-cut dress, and her blond hair was as brittle-looking as wheat straw.
“You ain’t half-bad, cowboy. I work in Gustoff’s Saloon. I deal cards. But for you—” A loud clap of thunder cut off her words.
“I may look you up.” Turk didn’t like the thunder or the gawking onlookers lining the porch. He refused to get close enough for Slocum to deliver her to dry land, in this case the boardwalk.
“You, Whiskers,” Slocum said to a big man. “Climb down and take this fine young lady in your arms and deliver her safely on the porch for me.”
The strapping farm lad never hesitated, and waded out the few feet to receive her in his open arms.
“Lorena—at Gustoff’s,” she said to Slocum as the men sent up a cheer for her bearer.
Slocum nodded that he had heard her, and turned back to Sue Ellen and the packhorse. She led the way. They rode a block farther downhill to Black Gold Livery and rode through big open doors.
“You’re always doing things for the ladies,” Sue Ellen said, then laughed as she dismounted in the barn’s aisle and straightened her skirts.
“Not a bad job either.” He motioned to the open doorway and the sheets of waters coming down. The hard rain had opened up with more thunder and lightning to accompany it.
“What kin I do fur you all?” the hostler asked, grinning at her.
“Put up our horses for a few days.”
The whiskered man in filthy overalls nodded. “I only got one rule.”
“What’s that?”
“You can’t pay the bill, those horses are mine. No rebates, nothing.”
“How much a day?”
“With grain?”
“Of course.”
“Four bits.”
“High enough.” Slocum dug in his vest pocket and handed him two double eagles. “That should make two weeks. I don’t plan to be here that long.”
“And your name?”
“Tom White.”
“Marvin Bailes.” He swept off his floppy hat and spat sideways, then nodded. “My pleasure, Mrs. White.”
She acknowledged him with a nod.
“Come on,” Slocum said to her. “We need some real food.”
“Clancy’s got lots of it,” Bailes said.
“Thanks. I’m looking for a man named Josh—” Slocum turned back to her for his last name.
“Michaels. Josh Michaels.”
Bailes nodded. “I ain’t heard the name. What’s he riding? I never forget a horse.”
“A bay mare with Indian marks on her.”
“Both ears cropped?” Bailes asked. “He a big man, maybe six-four?”
“That’s Josh,” she agreed anxiously.
“Was in here few days ago, wanted to sell that Injun pony for two hundred.”
“Seen him since?”
“No. I figure he went down to Lead or he’s staying down there. That was the only time I seen him. Hell, he—” Bailes spat to the side and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “He may have gone on, too.”
Slocum thanked him and led her outside into the deluge. They ran for the first porch, and were soaked when they reached it. Shaking off some water, they laughed easily behind the sheets of water flowing off the porch eaves.
“Well, you know he’s here, or was anyway,” Slocum said to her above the rush of the rain.
She looked Slocum straight in the eye. “I don’t care if I ever see him again. I’ll find me someone up here who’s got some money and I can take care of him. That dumb farmer doesn’t even”—she lowered her voice—“have a hard dick, let alone a brain.
“So if I lied to you about wanting to find him—well, you were well paid for your troubles to get me here, huh?”
“Well paid. Let’s go eat.” He looked toward the mountain-top for help, but it was obscured by the porch roof.
She took his arm. “You ain’t mad ’cause I lied to you?”
He leaned over. “No. Only, tonight I won’t feel sorry for him when we do it.”
She threw her head back and laughed, and squeezed his arm against the side of her firm breast. “I can hardly wait.”
“Me, too. Let’s find some food so I have the strength to do you justice.”
She looked at him as they dodged through the boardwalk traffic. “That’s what you call it? Justice?”
“Well, I’d call it that. It was a crime not to use you, right?”
“It is. It is.”
“Here’s Clancy’s. Let’s test Bailes’s choice.”
“I’m game.”
The meal served was fresh fire-seared elk steaks and new potatoes with skins on them, and it was delicious. Their meal included sourdough bread hot from the oven swathed in fresh butter, and mouthwatering peach pie. Slocum sat back full in the chair, relaxed, and looked across the table at Mrs Deception. There was little doubt she’d find herself a well-to-do man in this great jumble of humanity attempting to find their own Eldorado in the canyon and peaks the Sioux once called the lands of their gods. Before them, it belonged to the Crow, who the Sioux had run off. The Crow had thought this was their heavenly place.
Now many races slogged in the mud up and down the hilly streets. They drank bad booze and screwed the whores, white, black, red, and celestial, in the cribs and beds. These harsh-eyed searchers took the place of worshipful red men who camped at this place and prayed hard for restoration of the days when the horses made them kings of the hunters and the fiercest warriors on the plains—before the blueleg Custer came to these hills and sent out word to the nation that yellow iron was in the creeks for the picking.
George A. paid for that blasphemy with his own life on the Sweet Grass, as they called the Little Big Horn. But rather th
an restore the Sioux to a former life, Custer’s death that hot June day had only opened the door to a hotter hell for the Sioux leadership—Crazy Horse, who was killed while in military custody, and even Sitting Bull, who ended up starving in Canada.
“What shall we do next?” Sue Ellen sat on the front edge of her chair, hands clasped together before her, looking ready for anything.
“I could go play some poker. You could stand at my elbow, make sure all my drinks were just so, and stack my winnings neat in a pile when I go relieve myself. And look for a possible man.”
“Would such a man want a woman who’d lived with another?”
“They would if they thought they had stolen her away from him. Be demure. They will notice you. You have a fine figure. You’re hardworking and you handle things.”
She gave him a nod. “Let us start, then.”
He stood. “We need to win enough tonight to buy you a fancy dress and have your hair fixed.”
“How much will all that cost?” She frowned, waiting for his answer.
“A couple of hundred at least.”
“Whew, I only have a hundred—”
“That’s why we need to win tonight.”
They left Clancy’s, and ended in up in the Boomtown Saloon a block up the street. Slocum told her he needed no help from her spotting cards, but he liked good sour-mash whiskey. She was to taste all they brought him and decide if it was okay.
Soon, he found a chair among cigar-smoking high rollers with fancy vests and gold watch chains. They came in all shapes, from double chins to lean hard-looking ones—all in business attire. Waddy, a banker in his forties. A storekeeper named Dudley, with a pencil mustache and his hair combed and oiled to a sheen. Colbert, clean-shaven, rubbing his chin as he considered each card. McEntosh, the freight company owner who glanced at Sue Ellen from time to time and who was nearly forty. And Garvey, the hardware dealer, who glanced as well.
When the waiter with the cloth on his arm brought Slocum his first whiskey, she stopped him, motioned for the glass, and took a small sip. For a long moment, she considered the taste.
“Is this the best you have?”
“Oh, yes, madam.” His pale face looked frightened by her pointed words.
Then, with an impatient look at the man, she said, “Next time find a better brand.”
Her words and actions drew a smile or two around the table as she set the drink at Slocum’s right elbow. “Not his best,” she said in a stage whisper to him.
Slocum nodded and acted involved in his hand.
“You’re a lucky man having such a nice woman like that to look after yah,” McEntosh said privately to him. “My wife died a few years ago. I’d sure like to find someone like her. They’re damn hard to find.”
“I agree,” Slocum said, and raised five dollars.
As the evening progressed, his skills sharpened and his luck grew better. The pile of money stacked before him soon grew as he reeled in pots with a full house, jacks over tens, a flush, three of kind, and two kings that beat two queens. When he started to take a break to go to the facilities, she stood dutifully at the back of the chair watching over his piled wealth.
“Why not let her play in your place?” Garvey asked, waving his cigar. “Hell, we might win some of our money back.”
Slocum looked hard at her. She shook her head. He laughed aloud at the men, then spoke. “She feels sorry for you and doesn’t want to take any more of your money than I have so far.”
They all chuckled.
Soon, he returned and spoke softly to her. “You tired?” She gave a small shrug and dismissed his concern.
“Big day tomorrow.” He waited for her reply.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Good. Four more hands,” he said over his shoulder, taking his chair.
“Last chance to recover our money,” Garvey said, and looked hard at her.
“He may win more of it,” the banker Waddy said.
Slocum excused himself after the four hands. With his lady on his arm, he strode out of the saloon into the night. In the darkness, he paused on the porch to look down at her. “You hungry?”
“Not for food.”
He nodded. With his winnings, they could stay at the best hotel—the Alhambra at the head of the hill. He waved down a passing hansom cab, swept her up and loaded her inside, and then stepped in.
“I wondered how you’d miss the mud,” she said. Her laughter rang like a silver bell.
After the bath in the hotel room, their tryst in the bed was one of flesh slammed against flesh. Her lithe willowy body was so consumed by his great erection that in the end she fainted with a moan.
Unable to sleep, after a short while he stood at the window and looked down on the dark busy street. In the streams of light from the saloons, he could see various individuals fording the muddy thoroughfare. He quietly dressed, strapped on his six-gun, left her deep in sleep, and went downstairs.
In a short while, he moved into the noisy crowd that filled the Number Five Saloon. Whores and barmaids moved among the customers, here and there running a palm over a prospective man’s crotch in the close quarters, as if to test his willingness to buy their bodies. Some men impulsively grasped the dove before she could get away, and gave her a big kiss and felt her tits up good.
It was the black one that Slocum noted. High-class yellow is what they’d call her in New Orleans. She fit the description of the black widow that Yoakem ran with. Obviously, the spawn of an attractive slave woman and her master—in her late teens. Slocum kept away and avoided meeting her glances as she worked through the crowd, only pausing before the better-dressed men.
Then he noticed her connect with a well-dressed man. Slocum smiled at their deal making. Although he could not hear their conversation, he knew they weren’t talking about the weather. Minutes later, the two began to flow toward the front door. Slocum discreetly followed them, wondering if her former companion was about town.
On the boardwalk, the man, obviously struck with her charms, pulled her into the space between two buildings. Her back arched from the wall as he kissed her and ran his hand openly over her slinky crotch. She never stopped him, only clutched his arms tight and stood on her toes to kiss him. Then they rushed down the crowded boardwalk, and Slocum had problems tailing them but kept the man’s expensive beaver hat in sight.
They disappeared into the Anthony Hotel, and Slocum paused, making certain that Yoakem wasn’t lounging around the place. In the shadowy night, it was never easy or sure. When he stepped in off the street, he found the lobby empty except for the night clerk.
The man looked up. “Rooms are fifty cents. Cash.”
Slocum nodded. “What room’s the black whore in?”
“Huh?”
He cut the man a dark scowl. “I’m a deputy U.S. marshal. What room’s she in?”
“I don’t—”
Slocum reached across the desk, grasped him by the shirt-front, and jerked the man toward him. “What room and who’s she fucking with?”
“John Smith.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Thirties—five-ten—cowboy-dressed.”
“Hair?”
“Brown.”
Slocum released his hold some. “What room?” “Two-oh-five.”
“Give me the key.”
“But—”
“Give me the key and keep your mouth shut, or I’ll see you get some prison time for being an accomplice.”
“Oh—no,” the man wailed.
When the key was in Slocum’s left hand, he released the clerk, then nodded grim-faced at the man. “Not a word.”
“No—no—word. I swear.” The man crossed his heart.
“Good enough,” Slocum said, and considered the flight of stairs. They should be tearing up the bed by this time. “I was never here.”
“Right, sir.”
He left the lobby and climbed to the second floor. At 205 in the dimly lit hallway, he listened a
t the thin door and frowned, unable to detect what they were doing. She was speaking severely to her john.
He eased the key in the hole, and was relieved there was no key on the inside. With ease, he turned it as quietly as possible, then, with a steady twist of the knob, unlatched the door. It creaked enough that she twisted her naked body around wide-eyed with the whip in her hand.
In the glow of the lamp, he saw the bare white body tied hand and foot to the bed. The prisoner raised up and cussed. “Get the hell out of here.”
Slocum used his knee to reshut the door, never taking his gaze off the two of them. In two steps, he took the whip away from her and shoved her butt-down on the bed. “Now ain’t this nice. Now I’d say go ahead, but I see that your spring has wilted.”
“Untie me. Right this minute.”
“Shut up or I’ll send you out of here strip naked.”
“By Gawd—”
“Mister, you ain’t giving the orders. I am.”
The man obeyed, and the black girl raised her chin up and looked at him in defeat. “What you want?”
“Yoakem.”
She dropped her chin and shook her head. “I ain’t seed him.”
“Who’s he?” the naked john asked.
“Shut up,” Slocum said. He didn’t need the man butting in—his deal was with her. The john would be lucky Slocum didn’t expose him to all of Deadwood for the jerk he was. Bound up and letting her whip him like some boy—jeez, some people had some weird ways.
“Where’s Yoakem?” Slocum insisted. “You know I can beat your ass and get the answer.”
“Weathers Mine,” she said under her breath. Her small dark pointed breasts shook as she moved to clutch them in her arms and hug herself, never looking up at him.
“Who’s Weathers?”
“Some guy owes him—”
Slocum nodded. He had what he came for. With a head-shake of disgust, he tossed her the strap. “You can go back and whip him good.”