by Jake Logan
The colonel frowned at him. “Your’re always so damn grateful.”
“I told you my navel was gouging my spine when I hired on with you.”
Banks laughed. “It was my good fortune.”
Lopez had supper in the pot when they rode in. Brown beans and beef—he must have tired of his rice and beef, Slocum decided. He still took several corn tortillas and went to find him a place to sit on the ground. His personal mustangshad raised their heads up from grazing when they rode in the night before—they looked about recovered from the cutting. He’d need to take a couple along and break them out unyoking and bunching cattle for the colonel.
Before the sun showed more than a purple smile on the eastern horizon, he and Paco left camp, each with a repeating Spencer rifle and several tubes of cartridges the colonel had issued them. Just in case. Slocum took Roan, Diamond, Pacer—the dirty-colored buckskin, and rode Ute. His pack was on Diamond. Paco was outfitted with four head—one to ride and one to pack and two on the lead. Slocum led the string and Paco kept them trotting with a quirt. They hustled over the greasewood sea, and held up past noon to eat some pepper-jerky at a spring that Paco knew about.
They squatted on their boot heels and chewed the leather-tough jerky that Lopez had made from some critter that broke a leg or neck in the roping. Suddenly, the horses saw something and jerked their heads up looking east—a warning. Slocum’s hand went for his gun butt.
“Could be a coyote,” Paco said with his gun hand on the handle also.
“Could be a Comanche too.” Slocum rose slowly trying to see in the scattered mesquite for sign of any movement.
“To the right.” Paco pointed at a hatless figure wrapped in a blanket running low and away from them down the draw.
“Watch the horses.” Slocum picked up Ute’s trailing reins and vaulted into the saddle.
“It could be a trap too!” Paco shouted after him.
“I’ll see,” Slocum said. He wanted to cut the figure off before he reached any others. Then, perhaps Slocum could learn his business and how many more were around there. Ute was ducking the bigger mesquites, switching leads left and right in a hard run after the fleeing figure. Still, branches were slapping Slocum’s face as he bore down on the hard-running individual. Leaning low on Ute’s neck, he reached out and caught a fistful of blanket. Sliding Ute to a hard stop on his butt, he hauled the empty blanket over his lap in disgust—he’d lost the figure he was pursuing.
Then he twisted in the saddle and blinked twice in shock at what he saw. A stark-naked white woman stood with her arms folded over her pear-shaped breasts and looking defiantly at him. A young woman in her early twenties with a shapely body who looked angry as hell at him and modest about her exposure. What was she doing out there in only an Indian trade blanket? Damn. He reined Ute around and rode back holding the blanket out as a peace offering like some sheep-killing dog.
“Sorry, I thought you were a buck out to lift my scalp.”
She took the blanket, shook it out, and when it covered her nakedness, struck a dignified pose. “My name is Mary Van Housen.”
“Nice to meet you, ma’am.” Slocum removed his hat as he introduced himself to her.
“I am going to Fredricksburg, Mr. Slocum,” she said like someone on a stroll.
He acknowledged he’d heard her, but he was afraid she had no idea how far away it was.
“Do you live there?” he asked.
“I did until they made me a captive.”
“You have any family there?”
“No. They shot my husband. Murdered my baby boy because he cried—”
“Sorry, ma’am.”
“And I—and I—was repeatedly raped by them.” Her eyes looked sad and she raised her chin with a sniff to hold back the tears.
“I’m sorry about that too. How did you get away?” He slipped off his horse and squatted on his heels, not looking at her so she wouldn’t feel conspicuous.
“My captors were six boys—just boys—maybe fifteen— fourteen. I think it was their first attack on anyone. It was on our farm. They took me and Billy prisoner after they shot and—scalped John. It was very upsetting—I couldn’t get my two-year-old to stop crying—they killed him after they lost two of their own to a group of men who began firing on us for no reason.
“I had hoped at first they were rangers, but they went crazy at the sight of the war party and began shooting like mad. Bullets whizzed all over and around us. One struck the horse they had put me on—but he turned out all right. Only a shallow wound. Two of the boys were dead, though, and the other four mad as hornets. I even thought they’d kill me for a while.”
“You were lucky.”
“They took all my clothing so I wouldn’t run away. I was forced to accept them—” She looked ready to cry again and bit her lower lip. “Two nights ago I stole a blanket and a horse and rode away.”
“Where’s the horse?”
“He got afraid of a rattler that struck at him and I slipped off his back to calm him. But he had a head-slinging fit, pulled away, and ran off with his tail held high and headed back for his Comanche friends, I guess.”
“Ma’am, Paco and me are working for a man gathering his cattle. It’s our job, but you could come along and later this fall someone could take you home.”
Lines wrinkled her smooth forehead. “How far away is Fredricksburg?”
“Couple hundred miles, I’d guess.”
“Oh,” she said in pained defeat. “I thought it was only a few more.”
“No, it’s several days ride from out here.”
“But I have no clothes—” She sighed in defeat.
“I’ve got a spare shirt that would make you a short dress—” He nodded, appraising her size. “Should come below your knees, and later I promise we can find something else in a town close by.”
He rose with a ringing of his spurs and went over to his saddlebags. The white dress shirt he’d saved for something special was wadded up; he tossed it at her and kept his back to her while she put it on.
Without turning, he asked, “How’s that?”
“Oh, you can look now.” She finished buttoning the front, and it reached below her knees when she straightened. “Thanks, I feel much better.”
“Little big in the shoulders.” He laughed, and she smiled back.
“I’ve been without clothes for several weeks. This shirt makes me feel, oh, so much better, but it’ll soon be dirty.”
“It can be washed.” He swept up her blanket and handed it to her. “Paco may think I’m dead. Let’s go find him.”
“What’s he like?”
“A solid, one-eyed Mexican fellow. You’ll like him.”
He swung in the saddle and then bent over offering her his arm. She hugged it and he set her on behind him. “Keep your heels out of his flank. He’s goosey enough without that.”
At his back, she squirmed to get in place, and her hands were on his hips for balance as she settled in. Looking down and seeing her fine, shapely, snowy legs beside his dirty canvas pants on both sides, he booted Ute off to find Paco.
He rode up to the frowning Mexican and swung her down. “Paco, meet Señora Van Housen.”
Paco swept off his big sombrero and bowed for her with a laugh. “I send him after Comanche and he brings back a wonderfully beautiful lady—good day, Señora.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Paco. My name is Mary. Señor Slocum has offered me your protection until someone is going to my home.”
“Oh, I am only Paco. But you are very welcome in our camp.”
Slocum handed her the blanket and dismounted. “She’s been running from them for several days with only a blanket to wear. The horse she stole from them got away from her.”
Paco looked saddened at her pain. “I am so sorry, Mary.”
She raised her chin. “I’m alive. God looked after me. I am prepared to return to my people.”
“We need to make camp here tonight. We’re about a day
’s ride from the north end of our operation,” Paco said to Slocum.
“Looks fine to me.”
“What’s your job here?” she asked Slocum.
“Unyoking wild cattle. The cowboys catch them, brand and work them, then put them in yokes. It gentles them down.”
“Sometimes.” Paco laughed and shook his head in disbelief. “Nothing is easy out here.”
Slocum agreed, and undid the diamond hitch over the pack. She moved in to help him, pulling off the tarp covering.
“I could almost cry. Finding two strong men in the middle of—” She looked around and wet her lips. “Nowhere.”
“No need to cry. We’re just some ranch hands.”
She whirled and looked hard at him. “No, you are my angels.”
“How long since you ate anything?” Slocum asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t recall.”
“That’s what I thought. You’re delirious from lack of nourishment.”
Her sunbaked forehead wrinkled. “No, I’m not.”
“No, but I bet you can eat.”
“Oh, yes. Anytime. A few weeks with them and you eat whenever you get a chance as well as whatever there is available, which sometimes is extremely disgusting.”
“I bet so. Paco’s dragging in more deadwood. I better start a fire or we won’t ever eat.”
“I can do that. You have a match?”
“One?”
“One will do if it will light.”
“Take two,” he said, and went to busting up sticks into kindling with his hands.
The fire was soon under way, and she began to chunk up the back strip of beef that Lopez had sent along. A fresh enough kill—it shouldn’t have spoiled—wrapped all day in a wet flour sack to keep it cool.
When the fire got hot, she browned the chunks in the small iron kettle, then set them aside. She put water in the kettle and set it to boil for the brown rice. Slocum saw she was proficient enough at cooking, so he went and tossed his saddle and pads on the foot-stomping roan. With its hind foot drawn up, all the roan could do was act tough and shake his long thick mane in defiance.
After the saddling, Slocum left the gear on to condition him to it. He and Paco went back and squatted away from the fire. She’d made some dough, and handed them long forked sticks.
“Want some bread?” she asked.
“Sure,” Slocum said and moved in. Taking the dough ball she gave him, he put it on the stick and began to hold it over the fire.
Soon, Paco joined him, laughing. “I am sure glad, mi amigo, that you found her. I dreaded our cooking all day coming up here.”
Slocum agreed. In a few minutes, the bread on his stick was brown. He offered her half of his because she was busy stirring the rice. She set the spoon aside and took a chunk and tossed it in her hands. “Still hot.”
He agreed, and rearmed his stick to bake more while he ate his half. As he nibbled on the fresh warm bread, saliva rushed into his mouth. Her involvement in camp routine left him time to study her. Attractive, with long dark lashes that sheltered large brown pools that showed her emotions and pleasure—perhaps her gratefulness to be in their care. Her mouth looked made to kiss with a rose petal for a lower lip. Not tall—she might be all of five feet two in her bare feet— with thick curly dark brown hair that fell to her collar and, despite her abuse and captivity, looked glossy.
Her figure he could imagine under the too-big shirt, from what he’d seen when she was naked earlier. A slender waist, with shapely legs under the black V at the base of her flat stomach, and the pear-shaped breasts that poked dark circles on the shirt material. Seated cross-legged opposite the fire from her, he could only imagine the horny young bucks thinking what a fine fucking machine they had all for themselves. It also might be something they cherished enough for them to invest some time in finding her and restoring her to their camp.
“You figure they followed you?” he asked.
She swallowed hard. “I had hoped maybe they’d gave up.”
“What do you think?” he asked Paco.
He looked up with his good eye and made a stern face. “No way. I figure they’ll be along.”
“We better post a guard.”
“If we don’t want some skinning knife at our throat, we better. I’ll take the first watch.”
Somewhere out in the twilight, a coyote yodeled at the moon and another answered. The quarter moon was about to rise. Slocum nodded in agreement. “Guess we better keep ourselves well armed and ready for them.”
“That’s the way I see it.”
“They ever say what tribe they belonged to?” Slocum asked her.
She looked up from her cooking and shook her head. “They only spoke some bad Spanish. Mostly swear words and I never understood much else. They were Comanches, I know that.”
Rising to pour them more coffee, she shook her head as if caught in deep thought. “I tried to hide my tracks for a day.”
“Don’t matter. They can find signs where white men would give up.”
“You worry me.” With the pot in her hand, as Slocum watched, she faced the night wind, and it softly shifted her hair and began to cool the temperature.
“We’ll all have to become aware.” Slocum blew on his steaming coffee to cool it.
“Señora, those bucks won’t get you again. They will only lose their lives in this camp,” Paco said.
She nodded that she’d heard him and set the pot down at the fire’s edge. “They are cunning and cruel killers.”
Slocum agreed.
The meal of rice and beef was as good as he could recall. When he looked to Paco for his opinion, he agreed. “Señora, she is good—no, it is very good food.”
With a head shake to dismiss their praise, she looked embarrassed by their words. “I just fixed what you had. There will be enough, I think, for the morning.”
“Plenty,” Slocum said, and cradled his cup in his palm.
“I am going to slip out of camp and set up a guard,” Paco said.
Slocum agreed with: “Wake me.”
“I will, amigo.” With a rifle in his right hand, Paco slipped off into the night.
“He is a good man,” she said.
Slocum agreed and finished his coffee. “We better turn in.”
“May I sleep with you?”
He considered her request and his bathless condition. “I’m grubby, dirty—ah—”
“No, I want to sleep in your arms. I’m sorry if I am so forward. But I feel it’s the only way I’ll sleep.”
He nodded that he understood, and when she finished washing the few dishes and utensils, he picked up his bedroll. “I don’t ever sleep close to the fire. First place invaders look.”
She softly agreed, and followed him into the starlight to a place where he scuffed away with the side of his boot the sticks and clods from his intended bed site. Bedroll unfurled, he sat and removed his boots and socks. When he glanced up, she was dutifully unbuttoning the shirt. He undid his and hung it on a bush, then his pants. Seated on his butt, he felt her bare arm slip around his neck and a bare breast brush his arm as she settled in his lap.
“Hold me.”
His arms engulfed her and he tucked her to his chest. Feeling the emerging erection beginning to be born under her, he looked into her eyes and all his guilt about his whiskers and no bath was swept away. Their mouths sought each other with a hungriness that bordered on madness. Her arms around his neck, her nipples were buried in his skin like steel roses on stems. Her palms clutched his bristled cheeks as she sought more and more. In his mouth, her hot tongue flamed with her needs.
Then she reached between them and began to glide her hand up and down his hardened tool. At last breathless, she shoved him down on his back with the flat of her hand and scurried furiously to rise up, then settled with a sharp cry when her tight ring passed his hammerhead. Like a jumping jack, she bounced on him. Her walls began to contract and his blood-swollen dick felt on fire when she slip
ped off him with a soft: “Please, get on top.”
He moved between her white legs, which spread apart, and was grateful to be back buried in her hot cunt. As he drove it into her, she arched her back to receive all of him. They both strove to reach the next plateau of pleasure in a hard-fought battle. Then lightning struck his butt and an unseen hand crushed his gonads and he exploded inside her.
Exhausted, they collapsed in a pile. Her form curved with her back against his stomach, and his arm wrapped over her, one hand softly cradling her breast. Beneath the thin flannel blanket he had spread over both of them, he savored the warmth and the smoothness of her skin. What a way to go to sleep.
5
“Wake up,” Paco whispered. “Both of you. We got company.”
“How many?” Slocum threw the blanket back and reached for his shirt.
Paco squatted a few feet from them in the starlight; the rifle over his lap made a dull glint in the starlight. “Maybe all of them.”
“Where are they?” Keeping low, Slocum sat and struggled to pull on his pants knowing he didn’t need to be a silhouette against the sky. Britches on, he lay back and buttoned them.
“When you get that white shirt on, put a blanket over it or you’ll make a target,” he said to Mary.
He knew she was trembling in fear. To comfort her, he reached over and clutched her arms under the blanket she used for cover. “We won’t let them get you.”
Woodenly, she nodded and acknowledged she’d heard him. He handed her the shirt, and she scrambled to put it on while he pulled on his socks. “They on foot?” he asked Paco.
“I think they left their horses back in a wash west of here. That’s how I heard them. Their horses coughed and Roan gave them his gruff whinny.”
“He’s pissed ’cause he’s had my saddle on him all night anyway. Mary, follow me. Paco, you go south and we’ll go north and try to circle around them.”
“I guess we better shoot them.” Paco said with a wary shake of his head.
“We better. It’s us or them.”
Dressed, Mary squatted beside Slocum, hugging her arms as if cold. “I’m afraid.”
He reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “We can handle them.”