by Jake Logan
He worked the mares, colts, and yearlings out of the pen. So by late afternoon he had it down to his own bunch and rode Diamond, leading his borrowed pony. At camp he hobbled Diamond and turned him out—be a while before he trusted the gelding to stay around.
He washed his sun-heated face and hands in the basin set out, dried them on a stiff sack, then headed for the stew.
“Kinda showing off, ain’t yah?” Matt said, sitting on the ground wolfing down his supper. “Riding in on a bronc.”
“Two broke horses in that bunch,” Slocum said and nodded to Lopez, who never said much.
“Hell, I wanted to see you get your ass busted,” Matt said.
“Don’t run off. You still may.” Slocum took some of the corn tortillas to put on top of his stew and thanked the old man.
“I ain’t leaving,” Matt blurted out. “Gawdamnit, Corky, you’re so fucking ugly, the damn doctor probably slapped your mother for having you.”
“Go to hell.”
“I’ll send your ass there if you don’t shut up.”
“You ain’t my boss.”
Slocum wondered where the colonel was at. He didn’t let Matt pick on anyone like that when he was around. Matt was trying to rowel the kid up into a gunfight—a grossly one-sided event if it unfolded.
“Matt that kid ain’t bothered you,” Hadley said.
“Yes, he has.”
“Colonel Banks ain’t going to stand for you running roughshod over the crew.”
A sly smile crept over Matt’s whisker-bristled face, his eyes gleamed with pleasure. “I can send both of you to hell—”
The click of a shotgun hammer shut him up. Then the soft, accented voice of Lopez behind the stock said, “Nobody is going to hell but you.”
“Listen, you old greaser, you better pull that trigger or I’m cutting your balls off.”
“Get your stuff and ride out of cheer,” Lopez said.
Slocum watched the scene unfold. The old man was serious, and Slocum had no doubts Lopez’d blow daylight through the gunman if he tried anything.
“Banks owes me—”
“No. Señor—you have forfeited that money.”
“Like hell—”
“You want to live or me to put the money in your grave?”
“All right, but I ever catch you away from the damn gun—I’ll—”
“Go! Go now!”
Matt looked the bunch over. All the crew was standing, each one with a hand on his gun butt, and by the looks that Slocum saw on their faces—Matt was outnumbered. He might have been surly, but against those odds, he swept up his pack and went for a horse. He cursed under his breath and made plenty of threats, but in the sundown’s red glare he rode out promising to get all of them.
Slocum shared a nod of approval with Lopez. Good riddance.
At dawn, when the crew came in from a night of roping, they stretched out the three horses on the ground between two ropers; then, one at a time, Paco stole their seeds in the deft manner that Slocum had expected. He tied Judas halter to halter with the chestnut. The sassy burro would teach him to lead shortly. By purchasing some grain from the colonel to feed his two broke horses, Slocum could use them every other day while his other mounts healed. Hobbled, the new-found geldings mostly stood around downcast and sore from the surgery. But each morning when he returned from cow chasing, he’d saddle one and tie up a hind foot. Then, at night, he’d hobble that one and let it go to water.
Slocum averaged over two steers a night. The entire crew acted different with Matt gone. They laughed and joked at meals. The atmosphere was better—like relief had set in.
One evening after Slocum had switched the saddle off the roan, the colonel was in a talkative mood at the washbasin.
“Should have run Matt off a long time ago. We’re getting as many cattle as we did with him here. Maybe more.”
“How’s the tally?” Slocum asked.
“We have close to eight hundred.” He talked soft so their conversation was private at the back of the wagon.
Slocum nodded.
“While I was gone to get more yokes from that Mexican and some supplies, I raised a little money. There’s a couple of ugly whores south of here at a small community called Rio Frio and they’ve got some pulque to drink. Maybe we all ought to go down there and celebrate?”
“You mean the whole crew?”
“Sure, they’ve all been working hard. Move our camp to the lunar lake south of here tonight and the horses will have feed and water. We can be gone a day and night and then ride back.”
“Fine with me.”
“A little pussy won’t hurt anyone.” The colonel laughed and clapped Slocum on the shoulder in a puff of dust. “Might double the number they catch when they get back.”
“All of us going?” Slocum asked.
“Naw. Lopez can watch things. He ain’t horny as the rest of us.”
“I’m ready.”
“Crew, listen up, we’re moving camp and sleeping tonight. We’ve got the steers all yoked you caught last night. Let’s move down to that moon lake and then we’ll ride into Rio Frio. The drinks and whores will be on me.”
“EEHA!” Hats flew in the air. Hadley busted a few caps in his pistol and locked arms with Corky in an Irish jig.
So, after the two-wheel cart half full of the crude yokes was hitched to two oxen, four saddle horses were harnessed and hitched, and all of Lopez’s camp stuff was stowed in the wagon, they set out in the starlight for the moon lake, a body of water without an outlet to its depression. Most lakes were shallow and dried up by late summer; others held liquid due to some recent cloudburst on the watershed-covered acres. This one, Slocum felt, would last them a while, and it attracted the wild cattle too.
Under the stars, they reached the new site and set things up in a party mood. It was past midnight when they fell in their bedrolls acting excited as little kids the night before Christmas.
For breakfast, Lopez cooked his usual frijoles and beef. The crew was covered with dirt as they wolfed down their food and went to saddle horses. Except for his hands and face, Slocum felt top-dressed in his west Texas dirt. His clothes, stiff with his sweat, had turned to adobe. He wet his lips and swung on Diamond. What the hell anyway?
When he came back, he promised himself he would ride the roan horse. That might be a handful even in the horse’s depressed mood from surgery. He was still proud and when Slocum had saddled him, he’d acted plenty tough. Threatening to bite or kick Slocum, his small ears laid back, he’d be a handful, but as Slocum jogged Diamond after the others— he sort of looked forward to it. About as much as he did thinking about the putas ahead. Whew, they better be ready—this bunch carried enough pecker power to awe a big flock of sheep.
“What’s so funny?” Hadley asked, moving in, obviously seeing the smile on Slocum’s sun-crusted lips.
“I imagined a flock of sheep stampeding at the sight of this horny bunch.”
Hadley slapped his chap-covered leg and agreed. “We may use ’em up.”
Dust churned up by their horses soon forced them to fan out in a line. It was a few hours before Slocum could see several distorted jacales through the heat waves. He pointed them out. They looked like a mirage on the southern horizon.
“That it, Colonel?” Corky asked.
Banks nodded. “That’s where it was last week.”
“Geez, I can’t wait—”
“You better wait till you get it in her,” Paco teased.
“I screwed a French girl in Orleans,” Corky said, looking starry-eyed from under his floppy straw hat. “Man, it was like screwing a mink. She was all over that bed and room.”
“Aw, yes, the high-yellow whores of the French Quarter are like butterflies with teeth.” The colonel laughed and threw his head back. “These putas ain’t that lively.” Then he snickered out his nose. “I damn near married one of the finest New Orleans whores in town—’cept I kept remembering my old daddy’s words. ‘Fuck ’em, so
n, but don’t never get plumb attached. They ain’t your kind.’ ”
They dismounted in a row in front of the adobe structure with faded letters on the wall—CANTINA. His horse hitched, Slocum loosened the cinch and looked around. He’d have someone feed it some grain—he about had the two broke horses in rock-hard shape. Grain for the two cost twenty cents, but he easily made that up catching cattle.
“EEHA!” the kid shouted, and parted the old batwing doors with both hands to enter. “I’m horny as a grizzly bear and twice as thirsty.”
“Ah, come in, Señor. I have plenty pulque and many fine ladies.”
“How many whores you got?” The kid blocked the door like he might turn away if the answer didn’t suit him.
“Three.” The bartender held up his fingers.
“Aw, hell, I can screw that many and want more myself.” The kid dropped his chin crestfallen. “But—I’ll share ’em. Come on in, boys.” Corky waved them on. “The pulque and pussy is on the boss.”
“Cinco hombres?” The bartender set five mugs on the bar and looked for the answer.
When the kid nodded, the barman said, “Dis is on me.”
“Very generous,” the kid said, and waited as the man poured the yellowish slurry in each one, a cheap version of thick Mexican beer fermented from corn.
“What’s your name?” the kid asked.
“Ah, Dialgo.”
“Good. Dialgo, I’m toasting the colonel.” Corky raised his mug and the others joined him. “Hurrah to the colonel.”
“Yes,” said the others.
Mug in his hand, Slocum had noticed the dust-coated trophy deer head over the back bar. There were also a large smoky mirror and a near-life-size painting of two chunky nudes with the devil himself finger-fucking one of them with her legs spread wide apart, the second one fondling his large erection with a look that said she might soon eat it.
Enter the three putas—a wide-hipped and short one led the charge through the curtain from the back room. “Ah, Chihuahua, the vaqueros are here, girls.”
“Yes!” the other two screamed like schoolgirls, jumping up and down.
Corky, with foam on his fuzzy upper lip, swept over and squeezed her around the waist. “You ready to fuck?”
“Sí.” Her dark eyes flashed with excitement.
“Get on the table.”
“Oh, no!” She looked offended at the very idea.
“Oh, yes,” he said and stripped down his suspenders.
Impatient with her disobeying him, he took her by the waist and put her on the table, then unbuttoned his pants. Soon he held a long pink dick in his fist, throwing her dress back and scooting her to the edge. He pushed her down on the top of the table, gathered her brown legs, and waded between the short sausage-shaped limbs to insert his dick in her cunt with a hard plunge forward of his hatchet ass.
She cried like it was too big, and everyone laughed. The race was on. Her heels around his neck, he was hard-humping her pale brown ass. His breath raged in and out. He continued on and on to the cheers of the crowd. “Fuck her, kid!”
Then his butt hunched in a final drive and he stepped in gathering her hard toward him. He gave a short grunt, a hard hunch into her, and then his face paled. He staggered back and shook his head looking around bleary-eyed. “Who’s next?”
The colonel clapped him on the shoulder. “Better have a drink and share them.”
“Thank you, sir, but I’m just getting started.”
“We’ve got all day and all night.”
“I guess so,” he said, tucking his still-half-hard dick in his pants. “You know, Colonel, that was about as good as that New Orleans stuff.”
Hadley stepped over and took the wide-hipped one by the hand when she slipped off the table. She smiled at him like a cat about to eat a large fish, and took him quickly through the curtain into the back. No more tabletop fucking for her.
The short one in her teens, Lenora, came over and inspected Slocum and Paco. “Toss a coin, mis amigos. Winner gets me first.”
Paco flipped a small gold coin in the air and slapped it on the bar.
“Heads,” Slocum said.
Paco nodded with a smile. “You win her.”
“Come,” she said before Slocum changed his mind. She dragged him past the colonel, Corky, and a whore called Farita who were drinking the sour pulque.
Down the hall, Lenora took Slocum into her sweltering room. The sunshine shone in the high window and sprayed the dull room with golden light. She cleared the blouse off her head and exposed her small breasts topped with pointed dark nipples, while he toed off his boots. Then she unlaced her skirt and wiggled out of it with a grin. Under her tits, her belly made a slight bow, disappearing over the thatch of black pubic hair.
He dropped his suspenders and unbuttoned his shirt. Then he pulled the kerchief off, handing it and his hat to her. She held the hat over the V where her legs met and smiled at him.
“You like me?”
“Oh, yes.” Hell, he’d like a bucktooth goat at this point.
She hung his hat on a peg, then came and undid his pants, spreading them open so they fell to his knees. Then she cradled his scrotum in her palm and kissed the hairy top of his flat belly. Crowded against him so her hard nipples nailed his skin, she used both hands to carefully roll his nuts around, forcing him to stand on his toes.
“I am too rough?” she asked with a mischievous grin.
“No,” he gasped, short of wind, and hunched himself toward her as his erection in the form of a limber fishing pole began to rise and stiffen.
Her hungry mouth played on his chest as she continued to massage his testicles. Then she knelt down on her knees and used the tip of her tongue to taste the head of his dick on the underside. Catlike, she licked on it first, then encircled the expanding head with her fiery mouth. Her actions sent electricity like lightning up his spine. He clutched his fingers in her thick hair and brought her head toward him. Then, with fury, she began to suck on it, swallowing more of the length with each charge.
At last, with spittle and fluids running from the corners of her mouth, she gasped, “The bed,” and dove on it.
In an instant, she was on her back with her legs spread apart. She pulled him down on top of her—crawfishing under him to insert his aching iron rod in her gates. With an arch of her back, she cried out in pleasure when he began to probe her. His swollen organ filled the gap and the walls contracted in spasms as he pumped in and out of her. He ground his pubic bone on hers, and the coarse hair felt on fire from the friction. The tip of his dick was ready to explode. He looked down as she tossed her head and heavy curls on the sheet, crying, “Mother of God! Está muy grande!”
She wrapped her small legs around the back of his and hunched to him in rabbit fashion until her large clitoris grew rock-hard under his dick’s action. Then she threw her arms out and gasped. He felt his own charge gain momentum to fly out of his scrotum, and when he came, she clutched his arms so tight it hurt.
He could feel the waves of tremors in her belly underneath his own, and he strained hard, drove himself deep as he could go in her. This time, in both sides of his ass, hot needles shot into him and he closed his eyes as he braced above her and came again. Whew, what a lay. Who said them French whores were so good? Oh, Lenora, you wonderful angel.
4
The next day, hungover and his balls as sore as his dick, he rode Diamond home with the rest of the aching heads. He glanced back once or twice to see the heat-wave-distorted jacales and wonder about the young puta Lenora—not a real pretty girl. Her nose was too thick and her lower lip too fat. He’d known lots of better bodies, but few who could screw like that—with meaning. It was her big eyes, and thick hair to run his fingers through and clutch, that he remembered most. Then her groaning even when he later used his finger to play with her huge clit. A heavenly angel among the dried bunchgrass, mesquite, greasewood, pear-cactus beds, and gyp water of west Texas. He could still taste and smell her
musk above his own sweat and Diamond’s.
“Slocum, we need to start taking the yokes off those first steers we worked six weeks ago or so. I intend to drive them all up to Mason and winter them there till grass breaks out,” the colonel said as they jog-trotted northward. “In the morning, you and Paco can take some supplies and horses and ride back up north. Start collecting the steers and getting the yokes off. I want to save all of them damn yokes I can, so pile them up on the wagon tracks and we’ll collect them going out. I may need a second cart to haul all of them.”
“You taking the herd to Mason when we get them shaped up?”
The colonel nodded. “I’ve got a place up there with some grass and water to hold ’em.”
Slocum moved in close. “What’re they worth in Missouri?”
“Eight, ten cents a pound at Sedalia, last I heard.”
“That would kill a hundred dollars for each head.”
“Yeah, but it’s risky damn business and catching them ain’t cheap.”
Slocum agreed—nothing was easy. He lifted the reins to check Diamond to match Bank’s horse’s gait. With eight hundred to a thousand head of steers up there, he was talking thousands of dollars. No wonder they ran the risk of Bald Knobbers and hillbilly rustlers while getting to the railhead. If a man ever made it there, his days would be easy from then on.
Banks rocked his saddle with his hand on the horn as they rode on. “I figure I can buy a damn fancy place for that kinda money.”
“Why, sure, I’d hope to hell you can.”
“I’ve got to get them to market first.”
Slocum nodded in agreement. “Man’s got dreams, he needs to fill ’em.”
“What about you? You got any dreams.”
Slocum shook his head. “All in my pipe. I guess they have gone up in smoke.”
“Something will show up.” Banks nodded like he was convinced it would happen.
“We’ll see. Thanks.”