by Jake Logan
“Penny for your thoughts?” Slocum said. He had just lit his smoke. He offered it to her.
Smiling, she shook her head no. “I was just thinking. About you, and the baby, and that sorry louse Billy Cree.”
But he didn’t appear to be listening. To her anyway. He was staring at the door, his brow wrinkled.
“Slocum?” she whispered.
And then she saw it—the knob, slowly turning. “Is it O’Keefe?” she whispered, even though she knew it wasn’t. He would have knocked.
A sudden surge of adrenaline coursed through her veins.
Slocum was already up and reaching for his guns. She didn’t need anybody to tell her what to do. Stark naked, she quickly rolled off the bed to the floor, and silently scuttled into a far corner.
Lydia was smart. He hadn’t had to tell her a thing, and already she was over in the corner, tucked behind the bureau and hugging her knees. And she’d had the sense—or the accidentally good graces—to throw the covers back up, so that it looked like somebody could still be sleeping there.
He had gone across the room, toward the door, and now waited in back of it, his back against the wall. He stood there, barely breathing, gun in hand, as the door slowly creaked open.
The first thing he saw was a hand, gripped to a pearl-handled Colt.
He knew that gun. It was Billy Cree’s.
Operating on reflex alone, he brought his pistol down hard, smack on Billy’s wrist.
Billy yelped and dropped the gun even as Slocum grabbed his arm and slung him across the floor. He heard boots running down the hall and down the stairs, as Billy skidded into the far wall.
Who did he have out there, helping him? He didn’t figure old O’Keefe could run that fast.
“Get up,” he growled.
“Goddamn it! You busted my wrist!” Billy howled, holding it close to his chest.
“Who was out there with you?” Slocum demanded.
Billy, in obvious agony, snarled, “Nobody! Go to hell!” Then he took a closer look. “You’re bare naked!”
Slocum rolled his eyes.
Lydia was already on her feet and wrapping herself in a sheet. “Give me that,” she said, holding out her hand. “I can cover this sonofabitch while you dress.”
Slocum handed over the gun without comment. He quickly pulled on his britches and gunbelt, shoved his boots on over his feet, and slithered into his shirt. Tucking in his shirttail, he started for the door.
“Just don’t kill him till I get back,” he growled, and slipped out into the hall. “Shoot first and ask questions later if anybody—and I mean anybody—tries to open this door. Unless it’s me.”
“Right,” she said, casting as evil a smile as he was likely to see down at Billy Cree.
Quietly closing the door behind him, Slocum pulled the gun from his left holster, shifted it to his right hand, and started stealthily down the hallway.
Panting, Charlie ducked around the corner of the building, his gun in his trembling hand.
“Get hold of yourself, boy,” he muttered, “get hold!”
He was in for it now. How had Slocum seen them coming, anyhow? They been tiptoeing out there in the hall. They’d heard Slocum and the lady talking. He was sure that they hadn’t been on the alert.
But then, when Billy opened the door, there was Slocum, the sonofabitch. Why, the man must be a mystic or a witch or something! It was the only thing Charlie could figure.
And now Slocum would be coming after him.
Great, just great.
He stilled himself long enough to take a long listen to the hotel at his back. There was nothing. No sound, not even Billy yelping about his goddamn hand. Some people could sure be babies about their wounds. Not Charlie. Charlie was what you call stoic. Brave and silent, that was his code.
Goddamn it.
But how was he supposed to kill Slocum when his gun arm was stove up? Thanks, he added mentally, to that bastard, Slocum.
“No, it was the woman,” he reminded himself in a whisper. “Now, just calm the hell down. Ice, boy. You’re ice.”
And strangely enough, his blood seemed to chill and his heart seemed to slow from the pounding thing it had been in his chest.
“All right, Slocum,” he whispered. “You’re gonna meet your maker at the hands of Charlie Frame, sure as I’m standin’ here.”
A smile started to snake across his lips, but before it was halfway there, a gun cocked. Right next to his ear.
He froze, and slowly, his eyes swiveled in their sockets to the left.
Sonofabitch!
“Ouch, boy! Careful, there!”
“O’Keefe, you gotta be more careful about who you let in this place,” Slocum said.
Lydia, who was treating O’Keefe’s bruised neck, said, “Now Slocum, how could he expect that Charlie would show up?”
“That’s the whole deal,” Slocum said, frowning at Billy Cree and Charlie Frame, who now resided in Billy’s old cell. They regarded each other angrily from opposite cots. “You got to be ready for the unexpected. All the time.”
Charlie snorted, and Slocum added, “You boys just go on ahead and kill each other, all right? It’ll save a jury the trouble of hangin’ you.”
“Yes, Charlie,” piped up Lydia. “Please go on ahead and kill Billy Cree. Pay you ten dollars for it.”
“Ten lousy dollars?” Billy, holding his hand, shouted. “That’s an insult!”
“I meant it to be,” Lydia cooed.
“Now, kiddies,” Slocum muttered. “Play nice.”
“I’m fixed, I tell you,” said Sheriff O’Keefe and pulled away from Lydia. “Gosh darn it, lady, I think you’re bloodthirsty.”
Lydia dusted her hands. “Isn’t any more I can do, anyway. You’re already starting to color up, Sheriff. You’re going to have yourself quite a bruise in the morning.”
“And no folks around to admire it,” O’Keefe said, shaking his head. “Life sure ain’t fair.”
“If you only knew what you threw away with being so blamed noisy,” Charlie muttered nastily to Billy. “You’d just kill yourself and get it over with.”
“Shut up before I crown you,” spat Billy.
“Like you could,” said Charlie. “You crummy two-bit outlaw. What’d you ever do ’cept rob a few stages and a bank, anyhow?”
Billy leaned forward. “It’s more than you’ve done, you hick!”
“That’s right, boys,” Slocum said as he took Lydia’s arm. By the clock on the wall, it was after ten. Time for him to be in bed. With Lydia.
“Just keep it up,” he added. “I’d be obliged.”
“Me, too,” Lydia said as he drew her out the door.
“Shut up, bitch!” shouted Billy Cree.
“Night, O’Keefe,” Slocum said, and closed the door behind them.
“I can’t say I’m looking forward to traveling with those two,” Lydia said with a shake of her head.
“Don’t worry about it,” Slocum replied. “I’ll send somebody back for ’em, when we get to Apache Wells. Talked to O’Keefe about it, earlier. He’ll hold on to those boys for a few days, until a marshal can come and fetch ’em.”
“That’s the nearest town?” she said. “Apache Wells?”
He nodded.
“I wonder what happened to the other one. Ed.”
“Still back there, according to Charlie,” Slocum said. He’s walkin’ in, like a good boy.”
“How did Charlie get to town so fast, anyway?”
Slocum shrugged. “Easy,” he said. “He ran most of the way. And I guess that just before Billy came riding down on us like a house a-fire, he’d abandoned a spare horse. Charlie picked it up.”
Lydia hugged his arm. She shook her head. “He’s absolutely crazy, isn’t he?”
Slocum chuckled. “Wouldn’t be a bit surprised, honey.”
They came to the hotel, and stepped up on the walk. Slocum put his hand over hers and turned toward her. “Now, what you say we don’t t
alk about those two anymore? Let’s take advantage of this night, and that nice mattress upstairs.”
She grinned up at him, her eyes and moist lips glinting softly in the moonlight. “Sounds fine to me, Slocum. How long will it take us to get to Apache Wells, anyway?”
Slocum opened the door and held it for her. “Couple of days.”
She passed through. “Will O’Keefe be all right? I mean, with Ed coming and all?”
Slocum lit a candle. He said, “You met the same Ed that I did?”
She cocked her head to the side, then grinned just a little. “You’re right. O’Keefe will be fine. Two days on the trail, you said?”
They started up the stairs.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, thinking about the nights more than the days.
And she was, too, because she said, “Then we’d best take advantage of this mattress while we have it, hadn’t we?”
22
By the time Ed Frame dragged himself into Cross Point, Slocum and Lydia and the baby were long gone, and he found himself greeted by the nose of Sheriff Dusty O’Keefe’s trusty Greener.
“You Ed Frame?” the sheriff asked, after he’d introduced himself and relieved Ed of his side arm and rifle.
“Maybe,” Ed replied wittily.
“Right,” the sheriff said, and jabbed the shotgun’s nose into Ed’s belly. “I knowed it was you the second you come limpin’ in here with that game leg. It gangrened yet?”
“Don’t think so,” Ed replied with a gulp. Frankly, he hadn’t thought to check. But it didn’t smell funny, which gave him hope.
“All right, then.” Another jab with the shotgun. “Turn around and march on down the street. When you see the jail, turn in.”
“But I never done nothin’!” Ed complained. “Never in Cross Point, leastwise.”
“That’s true,” said the sheriff with a curt nod. “You ain’t. But still, I got to hold you till somebody gets this mess sorted out. Now, march. Your brother’s waitin’ for you.”
Ed started moving, but he asked, “You mean a skinny old coot like you got my brother?”
“And Billy Cree, too,” the sheriff announced proudly. “Slocum helped me some, I reckon. He’s one heck of a fella, that Slocum.”
Slocum and Lydia pulled into Apache Wells a day later, and Slocum, after a long talk with the judge, managed to arrange Lydia’s adoption of “Unnamed Tyler”.
“I suppose he ought to have a first name,” Lydia said back at the hotel after a celebration bout of lovemaking.
Slocum jammed an extra pillow behind his head and rested one hand on the generous pillow of Lydia’s breast.
“What, then? I reckon you can name him Justin, after his pa.”
“Maybe. Or after his savior. You have a first name, Slocum?”
“John.”
“John Tyler,” she said, considering. “John Justin Tyler. I like that.”
“Sounds fine.” He was looking at Lydia’s hair. It was spread out over the pillows like a great golden fan, and sparkled in the sunlight that peeked through the curtains. “You decide about where you’re goin’?”
“East or west, you mean?” She pursed her lips.
He nodded.
“West,” she said. “I think west. There’s nothing for me back east. That was just a dream I had, when I knew I couldn’t have it. You know what I mean?”
Slocum supposed he did, and grunted in the affirmative. He wanted to bury his face in that hair of hers. Or maybe dive headlong into those great big blue-green eyes. It was a dilemma.
“So I suppose I’ll take him—baby John, that is,” she added with a smile, “out to California. It was where his folks were taking him, after all. Maybe somebody there knew his uncle. And besides,” she added, “I have to look out for his interests, now.”
Slocum was only half-listening. He lowered his head and lapped at her nipple, then took it into his mouth.
She put her hand behind his head, cupping it, and softy said, “You didn’t hear a word I said, did you?”
He lifted his lips long enough to say, “Sure. California.” He got back to business.
Lydia squirmed and made a little purring sound, down in her throat. “Some men just have a one-track mind,” she whispered, and slid her hand down his chest, toward his crotch.
“Some ladies, too,” he said, chuckling, around her nipple.
“Oh, there are no ladies here, Slocum,” she said, lifting his chin.
Smiling, she kissed him.
Watch for
SLOCUM AND THE LADY REPORTER
304th novel in the exciting SLOCUM series from Jove
Coming in June!