Slocum and the Rancher's Daughter
Page 17
With her hand, she circled her bulging belly. “You won’t hurt it.”
“Maybe later,” he said, and kissed her cheek.
Acting satisfied, she went waddling off. He was glad to be out of that situation, though he’d bet money she’d be a sweet lay. After a check of the stars, he went to find himself some food.
He slept in the next morning. When he awoke, he discovered that Louise had crawled into the hammock without any clothes on and was jacking him off. Needless to say, he had to finish that event.
“When will you go after this man?”
“When the sun goes down.”
With a breast stuck in his chest and her on top, she pressed his hair back and looked him in the eye. “I don’t wish to run you off.”
“Someone coming?”
“No.” She frowned black at him. “I mean, I don’t want you to leave.”
“I savvy, but Tucson is a bad place for me to stay very long. A big gringo in the barrio attracts too much attention.”
“We are in the country.”
“It’s still part of it.”
“Where will you go?”
He shrugged. “Away.”
She wrinkled her nose. “You are a strange man, Slocum. You have a spell on me. I sleep with a man, I compare him to you. He never measures up. I can find no one better, so I take no one, huh? Then I hope you come back and see me again soon.”
He smiled. Always, she was honest.
At dark, he made his way into Tucson. He found the cantina and then the house. There were lights on inside. Taking care, he circled it and from the alley, he slipped inside the adobe-walled yard. There was an open lit window, and he eased up to it to listen to the conversation he could barely hear.
“Damnit, Gantry, unless we break him out of that jail, he’ll turn his guts inside out telling them everything.”
“I missed killing him—”
“You’ve missed several things—Slocum getting out of jail—you should have killed him, too.”
“Gawdamn it, Worthington. I did all I could.”
“No, you haven’t done it all.”
“Why the gun—”
Two shots rang out and Slocum saw Gantry grab his guts and fall forward as gun smoke boiled out of the room.
“Why me . . .” Gantry gasped.
Coughing hard, Worthington came to the window to try and breathe. “ ’ Cause you no longer fit my plans.”
Slocum found a uniformed policeman a block away. “There’s been a murder.”
“Who did it?”
“A man named Worthington. He shot the former sheriff of Saguaro County.”
“Why did he do that?” They were both walking briskly in that direction.
“’Cause they were in a crooked deal together that went wrong.”
The policeman nodded. “Where is the body?”
“It was in the house a few minutes ago.”
“Stay here,” he said, and showed him that he wanted him to keep back. “I will go see about this matter.”
“He shot him in the back room.”
From across the dark street, he watched the policeman talk to Worthington in the lighted doorway. When Worthington refused him entrance, he insisted he had to look inside. They argued and the policía drew his pistol. He soon disappeared in the house.
Satisfied, Slocum smiled to himself, and then he turned on his heel to be lost in the night. Worthington would stand trial for murder—fancy lawyers might have trouble getting him out of that charge.
He went back to Louise’s, toed off his boots, and shed his clothing. He found her asleep and naked on the shifting hammock. With his body nestled around her and a firm breast in his hand, he closed his eyes and went to sleep.
A cold north wind swept off the snowcapped mountains. In his sheepskin-lined jacket, he sat on the spring seat and drove the matched team in a jog. The town of Magdalena sat in a great basin surrounded by high peaks, and to the east it opened to the Rio Grande Valley. A skiff of snow from the night before had dusted the road and the sage-brush. The narrow tracks of the buckboard marked the white stuff as he dropped downhill toward the main rail cattle shipping point in New Mexico. The letter in his pocket read: Dear Tom. I will arrive there on the eighteenth about three pm from my connection in Messillia. If you can believe those train schedules. Love, Cora.
The sun offered little warmth, and he hoped she hadn’t frozen to death in the passenger car coming over. He had several blankets for her to wrap herself in going back.
After confirming the possible arrival time in the depot, he went outside, sat in the buggy with a building blocking the wind, and waited. The train whistle ended his short nap, and he looked up to see the smoke churning out the stack as the train pulled up the grade to the depot
He stepped down and walked across the street. The porter was putting down the step and a couple of men in heavy overcoats came off next. Then he saw fringed shotgun chaps. She wore a man’s leather coat. Her shoulder-length blond hair was under the new stiff white felt hat. Cora Harte had arrived in Magdalena.
He felt touched, and hurried over to hug her. On the platform, he swung her around and then kissed her. “I wondered if you’d even really come.”
“Silly man.”
“Well, we’ve got a long ride.”
“Tell me about this cabin,” she said, clutching his arm.
“You worried and want to go back?”
“Of course not. I make a deal, I keep a deal, Tom White,” He set her down and took her luggage from the porter and tipped him.
The black man thanked him for the tip and said, “I bet Mrs. White, she sure be glad to be here.”
“Yes, sir.” Slocum looked at her standing beside the buckboard. “I bet she sure will be happy.”
He wanted to sail his hat a mile. When her suitcases were in the back, he helped her up on the seat, and then he went around to get on the other side. The engine gave a loud whistle, released the air brakes in a hiss of steam, and began chugging out of the depot backward. It was the end of the line.
With a cluck to the team, they were headed back, too—to Tom White’s snug cabin.
Watch for
SLOCUM AND THE BANDIT DURANGO
358th novel in the exciting SLOCUM series
from Jove
Coming in December!
And don’t miss
SLOCUM AND THE TOWN KILLERS
Slocum Giant Edition 2008
Available from Jove in December!