by Jake Logan
“There used to be a ranch here,” he said, slaking his thirst by filling his tin cup full of water.
“It’s tied up in court,” she said. “The family was killed by Apaches over ten years ago. The heirs are arguing with some lawyers over it in court.”
“Who’s paying the lawyers?”
“Worthington, I think. He’s the one wants all the land he can steal or run the owners off of.”
“Interesting man.”
“How’s that?”
“You say he owns the sheriff. And he was behind getting your brother framed. He also is trying to buy up all this country?”
“Yes, all of that and more.”
“Where does he bank?”
She blinked at him. “I don’t know. Maybe at the bank in Antelope Springs. Cramer family owns it.”
“No, he’s got deeper pockets than that. That bank’s a small-town deal.”
“Why would that be important?”
“If we could convince his lender that the money he’s loaned Worthington is in jeopardy, he might get upset enough to stop the supply and call in his debt.”
“How do we find that out?”
“Oh, there’s got to be a way.”
She shook her head as if amazed at him. “You must sit up nights thinking of things.”
“Not lately.”
“Why?”
“Someone’s been keeping me from thinking.”
She looked embarrassed, then reached over and gave him a shove. “I’ll just let you think more. Let’s lope a ways.”
Barlowville sat in a valley of tall greasewood between a parallel pair of steep hills. The gray rocky ground yielded little grass or other shrubs save for the head-high creosote-smelling bush. Eroded jacales that needed plastering had small screaming children running around them, guarded in the doorways by blank-faced Spanish women who studied Slocum and Roberta as they passed. The three cantinas were in no better condition, and the only building he saw that was not made of earthen blocks was the store and post office. It sported rusty tin siding and, save for the tattered American flag flapping over it, looked like a sagging porch—on its last legs.
Even the black dogs that came out to bark at them looked underfed. Most of them would have been culled by a Sioux squaw as too thin to butcher. Slocum and Roberta reined up at the store and dismounted. Then he loosened their cinches.
“Sure ain’t the picture of prosperity,” he said, twisting around to look the place over.
“I don’t think these mines yield much.”
He nodded, and followed her inside. She bought a three-cent stamp from the whiskered man in the dusty overalls who stood behind the barred window, which was framed by the small mailboxes.
“Ah, yes, going to our beloved territorial—”
His words were cut short by the loud entrance of a drunken Indian who stomped in cussing. He was dressed in typical Apache garb: a once-white breachcloth, leggings, and a pullover shirt. Some silver pesos coins hung from his neck on a rawhide thong. He wore a red bandanna around his head, and an old greasy eagle feather hung on the right side of his head. Strapped on his waist was a holster and six-gun that he made no move to use.
“Rip! You fuck me! I give you too much gold! You fuck me!”
Slocum looked at the man behind the counter and then at the weaving Indian—probably a breed. He wore Indian rawhide boots knee-high with pointed toes.
“Gawdamn your blanket ass, Joe Black Horse, get your worthless Digger ass the hell out of here.” Rip pointed at the open front door. “I gave you credit for the rest.”
“Me no Digger. Me Apache.” Black Horse, or whatever his name was, was beating on his chest with his fist. He wore a silver-turquoise bracelet on his wrist.
Hands on his hips, the store man faced him down, spat on the floor, wiped his hairy mouth on the back of his hand, and then pointed at the door. “You come back sober and talk to me.”
“I be back.” Black Horse turned and stumbled out.
“You must know him,” Slocum said after he was gone.
“Aye, I do. Black Horse’s a breed. Excuse me, ma’am. But his maw got hooked on that hooch and took on them soldiers at Fort Bowie. So his father, I’d bet, was some Irish buck private.” Rip shook his head. “But he has a fine mine some’ers that none of them can find.”
“He have a claim?” Slocum asked.
“Why, Lord, no, laddie. He’s got him a mine them Spaniards found and the Apaches killed them for taking that yellow iron out. Now them Apaches are all up at San Carlos.” Rip shrugged. “He may be the only one left that knows where it is at. He might have been just a kid with a war party when they got them Spaniards, and then they concealed the mine. The rest of them renegades might all be dead save for Black Horse.” Rip looked like he was satisfied that that was probably what had happened.
“What kind of a source is it coming from?” Slocum asked.
“Rose quartz. I’ll show you some.”
Rip took a velvet bag from the open safe and poured some of the gold out on a brass plate with a clink. They were huge nuggets. Some as big as Slocum’s thumbnail. He picked up a large one and examined the traces of the rock that had been attached to it. Then he showed it to Roberta and they both nodded. Dead Man’s Spring. No words were necessary.
They thanked Rip, and Slocum bought a small sack of peppermint candy before they left. With each of them sucking on a piece, they tightened their girths and swung in the saddle.
“Hey, hey,” a man shouted at them, coming on the run down the dirt street. “Wait, wait. I just want to talk to someone who speaks English.” He was in his early thirties and wore a snap-brim felt hat, whipcord riding pants, and knee-high English boots.
Slocum checked his horse and looked at Roberta as if to ask who he might be. She shrugged and shook her head as if she didn’t know the man.
“Haney Thorpe.” He made a bow, obviously enthralled at the sight of her.
“Her name’s Bob, mine’s Slocum.”
“Well, I told you mine. I am in a bit of a fix here.”
Slocum held on to the cap of his saddle horn with one hand clasped over the other. “What’s that?”
“I have a well-drilling rig, but it’s broken down and I have no money to fix it.” He turned his palms up.
“What’s broken?”
“The wheels—they must have been half rotten when they sold it to me. But if you can’t move it, you can’t drill wells.”
“How many wheels are under it?” Had they found a drilling rig? No, this was too good to be true.
“There are twelve wheels under it—see, it is so heavy it has two wheels on each side and others on extra axles.”
“How heavy is it?” Slocum asked.
“It requires eight teams of oxen to pull it.”
“You have the oxen?”
“Oh, yes. They’re fine.”
“Let’s go look at his problem,” Slocum said, and turned around to look at Roberta.
She agreed, and Thorpe took off to run ahead of them while talking all the time. When they rounded the bend, Slocum could see the smokestack of the steam engine. Heavens, it must be the size of a locomotive. It was a large steam engine with reels of cable. It had to weigh ten tons.
“Why did you haul it up here?”
“I was going to drill a well for the Ferguson Brothers’ mine.”
“Did you drill it?”
“No. Their gold vein played out and by the time I got here, they’d closed the doors and left the country.”
Slocum dismounted and began to examine the busted spokes. They were old wood and brittle, but they could be replaced.
Haney was right beside him, out of breath. “What do you think?”
“They can be repaired. Some of the other parts of the wheels will need to be repaired, but mainly you need new spokes in all the wheels.”
“New wheels’ll cost over a thousand dollars.”
Slocum shook his head. “It will take maybe two weeks to get the
lumber and make new ones.”
“Where? How? When? What can I do?”
Slocum saw Roberta look away about to laugh when he put his hand on Haney’s shoulder. “We’re going to make a sled and take this rig to her ranch. You can drill her an artesian well with it while I rebuild those wheels.”
“Huh?”
“You heard me. We’re making a sled and going to slide this down to her ranch, and then while I fix the wheels, you can drill her a well.”
“Is it downhill to her place?”
“No. But they had sleds before they had wheels.”
He blinked his blue eyes in shock. “How far away is her place?”
“It’ll take us a few days to get there by the wide route we’ll need to take. While you’re drilling, I’ll get the wheels rebuilt.”
“Can you do that?”
“Yes. To move it, I’ll need to find some mine timbers for runners.” Slocum looked around. Where would he find some? “You just have your teams ready. Day after tomorrow, we’re hauling ass out of here.”
Slocum straightened. His back already ached. With his hands on his hips, he walked over to Roberta as she held the horses. “Where’s the nearest sawmill?”
“Smoothers has one over in Pine Canyon.”
“Can we get there by dark?”
She shook her head. So they’d lose another day.
“I want to be at his mill at sunup. Will he take credit?”
“I suppose. He and my dad were good friends.”
“Fine, let’s find something to eat and set out for there.”
“I can feed you,” Haney said.
“Lead the way.” With a wave, he sent the man on and mounted up. He wasn’t sure he could stand Haney for that month or so ahead.
“Where did he come from?” she asked with a frown.
“I don’t really care. I want that well drilled.”
She agreed, and they followed Haney. It was going to be tough, but the solution to one of her problems could be that steam engine.
Chapter 6
Abe Smoothers was a tough man to deal with. Even in the early morning at his kitchen table, he asked lots of questions about the whole thing. He’d not heard that her brother Searle had been framed and sent to jail. But his dislike of Worthington and the current sheriff finally brought him around to agreeing to help them.
“I can send a wagonload of skid lumber over there today,” he finally said. “No, we better send two. You two are in a real fix. But what if he don’t strike any water?”
“We aren’t even thinking that,” Roberta said, passing around the biscuits that Smoothers’s Chinese cook had made for their breakfast.
“We can sell it off for postholes,” Slocum said.
Smoothers laughed. “Make quite a fence. While you’re skidding that rig to the ranch, me and the boys here at the mill can make you some spokes. I’ll need the measurements, but I’ve got some dry ash and walnut.”
Slocum put down his fork, reached across the table, shook his hand, and thanked him. “This is going to work.”
“Young man, I consider myself a good judge of men. I know them that get things done and them that talk about doing ’em. I can see you’re a doer, and she sure is.” Smoothers smiled and his eyes crinkled in the corners. “This may be fun. I’d like to see how it all gets done.”
Slocum wasn’t turning down any help, but he didn’t know what Smoothers thought was fun.
They left for Barlowville in two hours. Both wagons were loaded with heavy runners. Smoothers drove four mules abreast on his wagon. Dan, his right-hand man, and a helper named Zeke drove a double team of Belgiums.
They came in a trot with a jingle of harness and an urgency that excited Slocum. They brought jacks, saws, drills, chisels, hammers, and long bolts. The project had become important to Smoothers, too.
Long past dark, they were still working by candle lamps. Smoothers crawled out from under the carriage and said the sled would work.
“We have to pull it backward about a quarter mile,” Smoothers said as Roberta fed them all from a bucket of beans and bacon, filling tin plates with a dipper.
“That’s downhill,” he added. “We can turn it down there.”
Slocum agreed. “First light, we hook the oxen.”
Haney, numb from the work and all that was happening, nodded. “Then what?”
“We start for the ranch when we get it headed right.”
Sitting on the ground and shaking his head, Haney acted like he could hardly eat, drumming a spoon on the side of his plate. “I never believed this would happen.”
“It’s going to happen. Better eat up. Sunrise, we go backward to that flat and turn it around there,” Slocum said while eating his supper.
When he was through eating, Slocum rose stiffly. His hands were aching. He dropped his plate and spoon in the sudsy pail manned by one of Haney’s crew. Slocum went to where Roberta had put their bedrolls. He took off his hat and seated himself cross-legged on one of them.
She soon joined him and dropped down on her roll.
“I better go back and check on things tomorrow at the ranch,” she said.
He agreed. “You be double careful. Phelps ain’t through. Even if he admitted to Gantry what they did to you.”
“I know. I know. What if Worthington gets wind of this—”
“He may know more about this country than we do. And if he thinks well drilling’ll help you, he’ll sure try to stop us.”
She rose on her knees and kissed him—kissed him hard. Then she looked pleadingly into his eyes. “Damn, I liked it just you and me. This is a madhouse.”
“Come on. We need to find us some privacy.” He slapped on his hat, then gathered his bedroll under his arm, and they went down the draw.
She clung on his arm. “No shame in me, uh?”
“Two grownups can do what they want.”
“I hadn’t thought about that—grownups. Yes, we are.”
“I thought so.”
In the starlight, she looked up at him as they hurried away from the fire’s glare. “Slocum, what if we don’t find water?”
“Then we tried.”
“You’d gone to a lot of trouble for a try.”
“That’s my way.”
“May be why I’m so damned infatuated with you.”
He found a flat area and went to the far edge in an open spot. With a flip, he unfurled the bedroll, looked around in the silver light, and felt satisfied they were alone.
He grinned down at her considering with excitement what was about to transpire, as she cautiously unbuttoned her shirt. Then he toed off his boots. He bent over and kissed her on the mouth. He lost his hat as he swept her in his arms. A need rose in both of them. Hugging her hard to him, he tasted the honey of her lips, and the tip of his tongue traced the edge of her even teeth.
His hand under her open shirt felt the firm right breast, and the touch made his heart quicken. With great care, he fondled the firm flesh, feeling the nipple rise like a volcano’s peak. On and on they kissed, until they were out of breath. Then they tore their faces apart and gulped for air, shedding clothes like their lives depended on it.
In seconds, they were scrambling to get on top of the bedroll, skin pressed to skin, with her pulling him down on top of her with her knees raised and spread open for his entrance.
“Slocum—oh!”
His erection eased through her ring of fire and she pushed her hips at him. They were locked in passion’s grip. Deep in his butt was a fierce force raging to probe her fiery furnace. Her bare heels were spurring him on as she raised her hips to meet him, and he went for more and more. The blazes raged. Her walls began to contract on his throbbing head, and the thrusts grew tighter. Then her nail-like clit began to scratch the top of his rock-hard dick. He plowed into her bottom depth, and the fire rose in his testicles and he came.
She cried out through her clenched teeth and fainted. He supported his weight over her, until slowly she
began to open her bleary eyes and shake her head. “Damn you.”
With a grin, braced on his arms, he pushed his still-stiff rod deeper into her. “You through?”
“No.”
“Good. I wasn’t either.”
“I may not walk again.”
“Be a shame . . .”
In the dim light of predawn, Slocum could see the yoked white steers being hooked on the long chain by the two Mexican boys and Haney. After checking their sled runners, Smoothers and his men were doing some last-minute work on a runner under lamplight.
“We’re all going to have to steer using the tongue.”
Smoothers clapped the dirt off his hands. “It’ll take all of us to hold on to it so it don’t jack under and turn the rig over.”
Slocum agreed.
They ate fried corn mush that the Chinaman cooked. Haney called him Lo and he was a shy little man, who stayed back and nodded if anyone looked at him. Finishing with coffee, Slocum met Benny and Carillo, Haney’s drivers.
“They’re worried about this sled business,” Haney said.
Slocum nodded. “It’ll work, but it will be slow.”
Haney nodded, and then spoke in Spanish to the two men.
Smoothers joined them, and he also spoke in Spanish to the two drivers. Then the process was ready to begin.
Roberta joined Slocum with their two saddle horses. “I’m going to watch them back up,” she said. “Then I’ll head out and see you tomorrow night.”
Slocum agreed. Smoothers had parked one wagon and Dan, his man, drove the second one. Zeke, the older one, was with Smoothers and Haney on the tongue. The word was passed that they were ready. The oxen began to take up slack on the long chain. Whips popped. And once the chain was taut, the rig began to creak and then slide, inches at first. Then the steers began to ease the huge load along, and the men on the tongue shouted, “Hurrah!”
Chosen as the scout, Slocum rode ahead. Many adults and children lined the road to observe the event. Roberta rode with him, and acknowledged the onlookers as the creaking load came slithering along behind them.
Dan and the wagon had gone ahead, and he was already unloading some timbers for the sled to slide over a washout in the road. Slocum dismounted and joined him.