by Jake Logan
But his strength faded. The pain in his back from the recent plant wound felt as if someone had shot him. He dangled again, gathering his strength for a final curl upward. Slocum knew it had to be the finale. He was at the point of exhaustion and would certainly die if this didn’t work. Inch by inch he pulled himself up until the sharp-edged blade rested against the rope around his ankle. A quick slash sent him plunging to the ground. He landed hard on his shoulder but could not roll. The impact took his breath. Slocum lay for several minutes, painfully sucking in air, trying to get his lungs to believe they could take air again, recovering his strength.
When his fingers curled around the butt of his six-shooter, he was strong enough to tackle the scarecrow of a man who had left him to die.
He made no effort to walk silently. He plodded along, six-gun in his hand. He paid some attention to the trail now, but he had come this way before without tripping a snare. Speed was more important than caution on his way back to where he had left his horse and his gear.
Slocum stopped and looked around when he reached a spot where he had a clear shot at anyone robbing him of food or gear. His horse shied nervously and his equipment was strewn around. But of the hermit he saw no trace. Circling as he hunted for tracks, he spiralled in to where his bedroll had been stretched out in the dirt.
“Easy,” he said to soothe his horse. It bucked and tugged at the reins he had fixed around the bush. On hands and knees he studied the ground for trace of the man. To his surprise, he found nothing. It was as if the man had floated in on the wind, vandalized Slocum’s gear, then blown away on the wind, as light as a puff of fog.
“I’ll be damned,” Slocum said. He sat on his haunches as he studied the trees all around. He suspected the man was watching him. Slocum doubted there were two men out here lurking about, spying on wagon trains and rifling gear. He had been snookered by Rolf Berenson. He had been cautious about naming the man for fear of provoking violence. Berenson had instinctively known Slocum was after him—or maybe he acted this way toward anyone who ventured into the mountains. There was more than a hint of madness in the man’s actions and in his eyes.
Slocum vowed to get him back to his wife so she could put him in a sanatorium where he might get some help. What that might be, Slocum was at a loss to tell. Any sickness that couldn’t be taken care of with enough whiskey or a few days of fever was beyond his ken.
During his travels after he left Georgia so abruptly, he had seen his share of men who were crazy as loons, but most of them had been violent and too damned good with a six-shooter for their—and everyone else’s—good.
“So you took my food and left the rest,” Slocum said, conducting a quick inventory of what remained. “Why not take everything? You could use a horse. Maybe there’s a bit of you that won’t steal a man’s horse.” If that was true, then Berenson wasn’t too far around the bend. There were few things worse than a horse thief.
The more he thought on it, the more likely it was that Berenson had known he would get free and return for his horse and gear. Why else take only the food and leave everything else? Even Slocum’s spare Colt Navy was untouched in his saddlebag. He repacked slowly, considering what to do. The way Berenson had crept into his camp and then departed without leaving a single boot print anywhere showed skill matching an Apache. If the idea hadn’t been too improbable for words, Slocum would have thought it was an Indian who had done it. But an Indian would also have taken the horse. That meant victory over an enemy as well as wealth.
He could live off the land, but it would be more difficult going after Berenson. The sound of a rifle bagging a deer would alert his quarry. The time it took to hunt would hinder Slocum and give Berenson time to fade into mountains he knew intimately. Reluctantly, Slocum mounted and headed along the ridge, hunting for another way down to the canyon floor and the road back to Silver City.
It was just past sundown when he reached town. It had been a hard two days’ ride, but he had pressed on, barely slowing to get what he needed to stay alive. His belly rumbled, but he was more determined than ever to catch Berenson and bring him back. As he rode past the hotel, he heard his name.
“Mr. Slocum! John!”
He turned his horse’s face and then stopped in front of Edna Berenson. The woman looked concerned, and well she might be. He had returned too quickly for it to be good news. She probably thought he had found her husband dead in the mountains. Telling her the truth would be more embarrassing, but he had to.
“Ma’am,” he said, touching the brim of his hat.
“You’re back so soon. Is he—?”
“No, he’s alive,” Slocum said with a touch of bitterness. “He made a complete fool of me.”
“What?” Edna’s eyes went wide.
“He snared me like a rabbit. By the time I got free, he had stolen all my supplies. The man moves like a ghost through those hills.”
“He’s better than you? You’re admitting it?”
“Got the better of me this time,” Slocum said.
“I . . . come in. The street is no place to discuss this.”
Slocum wanted food more than he did talk, but she had given him a considerable amount of money and he felt he owed her this much. Dismounting, he followed her into the hotel. The clerk’s eyes went wide and his mouth moved like a fish out of water when he saw Slocum. Slocum ignored him as he followed Edna upstairs to her room.
She ducked inside, and he pressed behind. The room seemed even smaller than he remembered, but he had since been on the top of a mountain and had had a vista of a dozen miles or more.
“You can’t stop hunting, John. It’s important that you bring him back,” she said urgently.
Slocum intended to replace the supplies Berenson had stolen and go back after the man. He knew better what he was up against. Rolf Berenson wasn’t going to get the better of him twice. Before he could tell Edna he wasn’t giving up, she took a quick step forward and pressed warmly into him. She looked up into his eyes.
“Please, John. I need you to get him back. It’s worth . . . anything. Anything at all,” she said. Her voice went lower until it was hardly a whisper. Then she kissed him.
It took Slocum by surprise. A man’s wife was begging him to find her husband and get him back into the fold, and then she kissed him. She mistook his confusion for compliance.
“I know how lonely it must be on the trail. You don’t see another human being for days on end. Weeks, or even months.”
She reached down and began unbuttoning her blouse. The fancy pearl buttons popped open one by one, exposing more of her chest. The swells of her breasts threatened to come tumbling out. And when she finished with the last button and pulled the blouse back, they did. Slocum found himself staring at their perfection. Firm, high, he wanted to take them into his mouth.
“Go on,” she said, cupping her left pap and offering it to him. “I want it, too. Oh!”
She gasped as he stooped and sucked in the cherry-hard nub and began gnawing on it. His tongue whirled about like a miniature tornado until the woman sagged down. He put his arm around her waist and held her close, moving to the other boob. Licking and sucking, he pulled the nipple far into his mouth. When he pressed his tongue into it, he felt the frenzied beating of her heart.
“Oh, John, I want more than your mouth.”
Edna reached down and pressed her hand against his belly. He winced. He had strained every muscle there trying to cut himself down. She mistook his move as an effortto get his gun belt under her fingers so she could unfasten it.
Before he knew it, Edna had his gun off and lying on the floor. And she did not stop there. She unbuttoned his jeans and worked down the fly, opening one button after another until she could go digging. They both knew when she found the hidden treasure. Her fingers worked up and down until Slocum began to stiffen.
“I knew it,” she said. “You want me as bad as I want you!”
The only answer Slocum could make was a groan as she sank
down and engulfed him with her ruby lips. Her head worked back and forth as her tongue gave to him the same stimulation he had lavished on her only minutes before. She toyed with his balls as she took him ever deeper into her mouth. He felt the tip of his manhood bounce off the roof of her mouth and sink down her throat an inch. It was his turn to feel weak in the knees.
Edna abandoned her post at his groin and worked up his body, kissing and nipping at him.
“I feel kinda lonesome down there,” Slocum said. “Your mouth was keeping me good company.”
“I can keep you even better company,” she said, hiking her skirts. She didn’t wear anything under those skirts. He gazed on the tangled nest between her legs—and then it was gone. She spun about and presented her hindquarters to him. Waggling her bare ass in invitation, she thrust herself backward toward him.
“Take me, John. I want to feel you moving inside me. Burn me up with that cock of yours!”
Slocum wasn’t going to deny her. The ache he felt was growing and could only be relieved by fast, sure movement hidden away in her heated interior. His hands stroked over the sleek white half moons of her butt as he positioned himself. She braced herself on the brass rail at the foot of the bed. Slocum pressed into her from behind so that his fleshy shaft slid under her and came up, parting her nether lips.
A few quick strokes lubricated him in the flow of her inner juices. She was sobbing with need by the time he drew back, found the right target, and finally sank balls-deep into her. The sudden, smooth entry took both of their breaths away. Slocum held himself there, revelling in the sensations ripping into him. The hot press of her butt into the curve of his groin was nice, but the heated sheath circling his hidden length was even more exciting.
Slocum reached around her and caught her dangling breasts in his hands. Fingering them, stroking, and finally cupping them caused Edna to jerk and move all around him. The pressure she exerted on him caused Slocum to begin stroking with more power and authority. The friction of his movement lit the fuse deep within his loins and eventually set off the powder keg buried in his balls. He exploded within her. She cried out, too, but Slocum was past caring.
He thrust fiercely until he began to turn flaccid. Edna sagged forward and away from him.
“That was so good, John. It’s been so long for me. You’re the medicine the doctor ordered.”
Slocum stepped back and stared at her naked behind. She let her skirts down and turned, still bare to the waist. She was a mighty pretty sight, and Slocum felt twitches in his limpness again.
But she was all business now. She grabbed her discarded blouse and quickly put it on.
“You will go find Rolf, won’t you, John? Please?” The promise was obvious: He returned with her husband and she was willing to continue their lovemaking. If this quick rut could be called that. Still, it was what Slocum needed. He did not tell her he had intended to find Rolf Berenson anyway.
“I’ll find him,” he promised her. “I’d better go get some grub so I can be on the trail at first light.” Slocum waited for her to invite him to share her bed, but the offer never came.
“That’s good,” she said. “You don’t need any more money, do you?”
“I still have plenty. It was my fault I lost my supplies. I’ll pay for more out of the hundred you gave me.”
“Good, good,” she said. Slocum saw that her mind was already on other matters, things that did not concern him— things that might not even concern Rolf Berenson.
He buttoned his fly and cinched down the gun belt around his waist. He thought Edna was waiting impatiently and trying not to show it. Slocum took his sweet time, interested in how she would react. Edna almost pushed him from the room when it was apparent he was properly attired again.
“I don’t know if I’ll see you off in the morning, John,” she started.
“Don’t worry. I might be gone before daybreak. Depends on getting my supplies now.”
“Then you’d better hurry,” she said. This time she did push him out of the room. He stood in the hotel corridor staring at her closed door. Slocum shook his head, wondering what that was all about.
Not that he was complaining.
8
Slocum knew Arlene Castle was somewhere around town. He heard the clerk at the mercantile talking about how her pa had bulled his way in and was already engaged in a knock-down-drag-out fight with the mayor for the land. The mayor and the only other lawyer in town had already squared off for what looked to be the fight of the century. Slocum was glad to pass by all of that, but he felt a twinge as he rode from town with more supplies resting behind him—and without having said good-bye to Arlene.
He had not even let her know he had returned. As he rode, the terrain disappeared around him as the lovely brunette filled his thoughts entirely. Avoiding her had been easier, but he was not sure if he owed her at least a “howdy” and a “good-bye” whenever he came through Silver City and left.
“Too short a time. She and her pa ware busy fighting for their land,” he told himself. His horse canted its head around and fixed one big, brown, accusing eye on him.
“Pay attention to the road,” he said, patting his horse’s neck. The horse snorted and shook and kept on with its even gait, taking them back into the Gila Wilderness on Rolf Berenson’s trail.
Still, the notion that he ought to have seen Arlene ate away at his conscience, though what he and Edna Berenson had done in her hotel room hardly entered into his mental wrestling match. That had been unexpected, though not entirely unwanted. If nothing else, it gave him an immediate comparison with Arlene. Sitting on rocks while they screwed still seemed a whole lot more fun than being with Edna in her room.
The bullet ripped through the broad brim of his hat and sent it flying into the air.
It took Slocum a second to come out of his self-absorbed thoughts and realize someone was shooting at him.
“Berenson!” was his first notion, then he discarded it as he ducked low and got his horse galloping at an angle to where the shot must have been fired from. He had not seen the runaway man with a weapon. He tried to remember if Berenson had even carried a knife, but could not recollect it. Rolf Berenson certainly had carried neither rifle nor pistol when he had so neatly snared Slocum.
More lead flew, convincing Slocum he was being ambushed by at least two men and possibly three. He rode flat out for a stand of pines promising cover from the fusillade coming at him from the right side of the road.
Then he realized he wasn’t escaping, he was being herded.
The glint of sunlight off a rifle barrel ahead warned him he was riding down the muzzle of death. At the last possible instant, Slocum flung himself from his horse. The animal raced ahead, frightened by the gunfire. Slocum hit the ground hard, felt his shoulder dig into soft dirt and grass, and then managed to roll. He came up to a sitting position. He fumbled a bit getting the leather thong off the hammer of his Colt, then he opened fire at the man hiding in the woods.
Splinters flew on either side of the ambusher. Slocum ignored the lead trying to bury itself in his back. The other owlhoots had no compunction against shooting him in the back, but he presented a poor target for them. If they had missed with their first shots when he was blissfully ignorantof their existence and they had all the time in the world to aim, only a random shot would likely find him now.
Four rounds spent. He had two left. Then he saw his opportunity. The man in the woods stepped away from his protective tree trunk to get a better look. Slocum aimed and fired. He was experienced enough to have a “feel” for a killing shot and one that only winged. This one was a solid hit in the middle of the man’s chest.
The gunman stared down stupidly at the red spot rapidly spreading on his shirt, looked up at Slocum in disbelief, and then toppled like a felled tree. Slocum wasted no time scampering to the woods, both feet digging into the soft dirt and his left hand occasionally pushing him so that he looked more like a crab than a human. He reached the saf
ety of the pines without getting shot.
He grabbed the dead gunman’s rifle and spun about, dropping to one knee and carefully aiming. He had been a sniper during the war—a good one. He had had the patience to climb a tree and wait in hiding all day for a single shot at a Yankee officer. Cut off the head and the snake dies. It sometimes worked that way, and Slocum had turned the tide of battle more than once with his marksmanship. Other times, it made surviving officers timid. Either way, he had succeeded.
Slocum waited, but nobody poked their noses out for him to shoot off.
Keeping a sharp eye on the road for any movement, he reached down and flipped back the dead man’s coat. Pinned on his vest was a battered deputy’s star made out of a hammered silver Mexican peso. Slocum ripped it off and looked at it more closely. He could not read all the worn lettering, but “Texas” remained and confirmed his suspicion. The dead man was one of Mayerling’s deputies.
And Mayerling had tried to ambush him.
Slocum faded back into the woods, found his frightened horse and soothed it, took time to reload, and then set out on foot to settle the score with Mayerling. He tried to remember the men who had been with Mayerling, but he had not gotten a good look at their faces. He had seen three men, but that did not mean others didn’t follow behind Mayerling like ducklings after their mama.
Reaching the road, Slocum studied how best to cross it. He moved like a feather on the wind, reaching the far side and flopping into the ditch beside it. He saw the only spot from which Mayerling and his henchmen could have fired on him. Slocum made his way up the hillside, taking advantage of any cover he could. When he reached a spot where the dirt was tromped down by horses’ hooves, he let out a long, heartfelt curse. Mayerling had taken a few shots at him, then run like the yellowbelly that he was. Slocum knelt and picked up a spent cartridge. The brass was still warm. He threw it away, stood, and began slowly tracking Mayerling and those with him. They had descended from the ridge, going away from the direction where Slocum had approached.