by Jake Logan
“Where will you go today?” she asked as if it perturbed her.
“To a rancheria in the mountains. To look at some horses.”
She gave him a haughty glance. “Do you have money to buy fancy horses?”
“No. I’m going to look at them for another man. He has money.”
“Will he pay you well?” She tied her long black hair back with a ribbon.
He nodded and yawned.
“You could stay here today. Obregon’s pack train people won’t be back here until Thursday. Then you could go to the fucking mountains.”
“Mountains do that?”
“No, but you seem to like to.”
He scratched his scalp. “You saying we could stay in bed all day if I put off going to look at those horses?”
“Yes. Yes.” She turned around and began attacking him with the hairbrush. The blue silk shift fell open, and he could see her tight tits shaking as he restrained her arms from striking him and she struggled to hit him some more.
Damn, he had a hellcat. He wrestled her down on her back in the bed. She rolled and tossed to escape being underneath him. Her dark eyes shot darts of anger at him, and Spanish words came from her mouth as she called him a seducer of his own mother. With her white teeth gritted, she tried to knee him in the balls, but he avoided the attempt, using his weight to press her down.
Then he forced her slender legs apart with his knee and she arched her back to escape him. But she was not quick enough for him now, and he had her legs parted and he was hunching his half-hard dick at her with a fury. He struck pay dirt and she screamed “No!” at his entry.
Then she threw the brush away and clutched him like a drowning person in a swift river. He sought the depth of her, plunging in and out wildly with his hardening shaft. He was lying on top of her hard breasts, clutching her buttocks in each hand as he screwed her for all he was worth.
The world swirled around him, his breath rasped in his throat. She bit him on the chest not once, but several times. Hard enough to draw blood. He grew so fierce with her, she began to moan and toss her head, begging him to come. Then, at last, he felt the rising fountain and pressed as hard as he could into her.
She raised her butt off the bed, clutched him, and screamed, “Yes!” Then she slid into a faint.
He didn’t go look at horses that day or the next. Thursday, he passed the stiff-looking guards and their long file of mules as he rode up the mountain on his quest to buy mares for Don Montoya. Under their strict orders, none of the guards so much as recognized him. They were on the alert for bandits—anything that might endanger the train. When they passed him in their long trot headed for Portis, he rode on up to Sorrell’s Rancheria.
Sorrell’s wife Magdalena had lunch ready, and opened the door when he came on the porch. An attractive woman in her early forties, she wore a sweeping dress and caught his arm. “Lunch is ready for you. But you have come two days late. My husband has gone to Mexico City, so you have missed him.”
“Forgive me. I was detained.”
She stopped in the doorway to the dining room and looked him over. “Not in jail, I hope.”
“No.”
“Well, it is much more interesting to have you here without Phillip anyway.”
He kissed her. They lingered in the doorway for a long while tasting each other, before she pulled him over to the table of food.
“So much food,” he said, looking over the spread.
“You better eat well, I have big plans for you.” She pressed her breasts against his arm and smiled like a fox.
“Señora! Señor! There is a boy here says he must see the señor.”
“What for?’ She looked displeased at the interruption.
“I better go see,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” What could be wrong in Mexico to take him away from an afternoon with her?
Taking leave of his hostess, he followed the out-of-breath hefty housekeeper through the tile hallways to the courtyard, and there a familiar boy named Pancho sat upon a lathered horse. The anxiousness in his dark eyes told Slocum something was bad wrong.
“Oh, Señor, Armando sends for you. Banditos robbed the pack train today in Portis and they have killed most of the guards.”
“Gracias, I’ll get my horse and ride for there at once. I must tell the lady I am leaving.” And he dreaded that.
“Ah, what was it?” she asked, coming down the hallway to meet him.
“I have to go. Bandits robbed the ore pack train and they need me.”
“What for? Obregon has tons more ore in his rich mine.” The look of impatience swept her face as she waited for his reply.
“My friend Armando has asked for my help. I will go help him.”
“But what about me? I need help too.”
He drew a deep breath and made certain they were alone. Satisfied no one was in the hall, he swept her in his arms and kissed her—hard. When their mouths parted, she sighed and put her forehead on his chest in surrender. “All right, if you must go. Don’t forget to come back.”
“No, ma’am. I won’t.”
He pushed Sarge hard for Portis. At dark, he reached it, had a stable boy walk Roan dry, and found a bandaged-up guard in uniform seated at a table by himself in the cantina. He introduced himself as Salarus and shook his head in defeat when Slocum joined him.
“Where is your boss?”
“Dead like the rest.”
“Who was it did this?”
Armando, in a fresh white apron, joined them. “I have sent word to Obregon. But he will be another day getting my message. These men have been good customers of mine. I will miss them all. They killed seven of them, and I thought maybe since the banditos are gringos you could run them down.”
“Who did this?”
“A Colonel Williams and his men.”
“Williams?” Slocum shook his head in disbelief. What was he going to do with gold ore anyway?
“Sí.”
“What did he want gold ore for?”
Armando looked at Salarus and the man nodded. “Why—” Armando lowered his voice. “We can’t tell everyone. It was not all gold ore. That ore you can take across the border has no tax. This had gold bars as well under the ore. You savvy?”
Slocum nodded as he looked across the cantina at the dust dancing in the shaft of light. That was why Willams wanted it. “Which way did they ride?”
Armando pointed north and then looked hard at Slocum. “See why we could not tell the authorities?”
Slocum nodded, considering all of the things he needed to do. They had a two-day start on him.
“I know Obregon will pay you well.” Armando said. “He is a very rich man.”
“I can ride with you,” Salarus said.
Slocum looked at the bandaged man and shook his head. “I’m not a doctor. You better stay here.”
“But they are a tough bunch—they took us by surprise.”
“That’s what I plan to try.”
“But—I could get you some pistoleros from around here.”
“I’d not dare trust them. Get me two of those good horses that the guards rode and saddle both of them. I want four sticks of blasting powder, caps, and cord too. I’ll leave Sarge here. You look out for him.”
“Sí, but these men—”
“I know them. They aren’t that tough.”
“If anything happens to you . . .” Armando wadded the apron in his hands.
“Get me some food too,” Slocum added.
“No problem.” Armando ran off.
“Now tell me all about the robbery,” he said to Salarus.
“We were in camp when they struck. . . .”
The sunset’s last bloody rays knifed across the desert. The shadows grew longer by the minute and small mountains became dark-sided as the daylight shrunk. Slocum rode one of the fine powerful horses in a hard lope and led the other at his right side. Every hour he switched mounts without dismounting, simply slipped off one and onto t
he other while they ran. If his plan worked, he should overtake the pack train by sunup.
His biggest concern was running into them in the middle of the night. It was a chance he had to take—they would hurry like a house afire to get over the border to escape any Mexican law. Then, in Texas, they’d settle down and laugh at their good fortune—maybe even celebrate. That was where he hoped to overtake them—celebrating their success.
He crossed the shallow Rio Grande and saw the flickering lights of Red Star, Texas. The small village was home to many smugglers, and he expected to find Willams among them. When his horses stopped and shook hard on the sandy bank of American soil, he turned an ear and heard a jackass bray. Not a burro, but a mule’s large throaty rasping bray.
They were there. He headed for the livery corral, and could see in the shadowy light the loaded mules in the pen.
So as not to draw attention, he rode on past and went behind some jacales to dismount. When his horses were hitched securely, he made his way back to spy on the pack animals.
Who was guarding them? No one? No one. Getting those mules to run would be impossible, especially by himself. So he didn’t stand a chance of stealing them and outrunning the crew, even with their spent horses. He needed to settle this with the big man, Williams—but how and where?
Williams’s run-hard and put-away-wet crew must be tired. They might be asleep or drunk. This could be his chance to slip in and reduce their numbers. His shoulder against the adobe corner of the jacal, he watched a woman coming from the back door of the cantina. She wrapped herself in a blanket against the night chill and hurried toward where Slocum stood in the darkness.
He caught her and clamped a hand over her mouth, dragging her back in the darkness. “Easy, lady, I won’t hurt you,” he said in her ear. “I need information. Is the colonel in there?”
She nodded and he eased his hand off her lips. “Sorry, but they killed some men in Mexico. How many are in there?”
She held up her fingers on one hand at him.
“Fine. Is the colonel drunk?” he whispered in her ear.
“Sí.”
“How about the others?”
“They are all drunk.”
In his saddlebags were four armed sticks of blasting powder. If he— “Who else is in there?”
“Two putas and the man owns the bar, Cortez.”
“Can you get those two out?”
“I don’t know.” She trembled.
“Tell them to come quick, someone is having a baby.”
“But what if they won’t come?”
“I don’t want them caught in the cross fire.”
She nodded woodenly. “How long do I have?”
“A few minutes. Can you hurry?”
She agreed, and hurried back toward the cantina. He had to hope she didn’t tip the bandits off. When she disappeared inside, he went to the back wall and began to drill a hole with his skinning knife in the adobe to set the stick. Number one was soon packed in about head-high on him; the second one was easily bored next and set about six feet away.
Too his relief, the three women soon came out and rushed off in the dark. Chattering away in Spanish about birthing problems, they headed away from the cantina. He lit both fuses and then hurried around in front. From across the street, he could see the lighted interior.
He ducked when the explosion went off and belched a great blast of dirt out the open doorway. Then, in the starlight, the “deaf’ outlaws spilled into the street, cursing and quizzing each other who’d farted that bad.
“Shuck your guns. Hands in the air or you all die. There are five rifles pointed at you.”
“Okay. Okay,” came their replies. Guns dropped in the dirt and men emerged from the relative darkness with their hands raised high. They moved into the center of the street peering around for him and his army.
“How did you find us?”
“I followed the horse biscuits. Where’s the colonel?”
“Right here, you sumbitch!” The red flare from his pistol muzzle came from the doorway.
Slocum’s .44 answered him twice. There is a sound of impact when a bullet solidly strikes a body like a thump on a watermelon—both Slocum’s shots sounded that way. Williams’s next round went into the dirt as he crumpled to his knees and went facedown.
“You all better run west. My men’ll start shooting at the count of five. One . . . Two . . .” They fled and he was alone.
“Señor, gracias,” a woman said in a soft voice from the shadows.
He tipped his hat and went for his horses. It would be a long drive back without help. He’d find out how generous Obregon really was. And there was Donna, my, my.
He shook his sleep-deprived head and blinked his dry gritty eyes. Maybe he could slip up and be there in Abilene in the spring. Better get them mules rolling.
Early June in Kansas, and the wind whipped the prairie flowers in bloom. The fresh-cut pine boards on Joe McCoy’s new cattle pens smelled like turpentine. Slocum was drinking good whiskey from the neck of a bottle and passing it around. One-eyed Paco, grinning like a tomcat that had just topped a female in heat, took his turn at swigging it down. And working on a tablet with a pencil, dressed in his snow-white shirt, black tie, and small black hat on the back of his head, Hertz was figuring numbers.
“It has been a long damn ways up here from Texas, mi amigo.”
“Ought to make you lots of money.”
Hertz looked up at them as if amazed. “It really did.”
“Sounds like the Estrella Cattle Company is in business.”
“Yes, thanks to you. What do you need?” Paco asked Slocum. “What can I do for you?”
“A couple of fresh plain horses, and fifty bucks. I ran mine in the ground to get up here in time.”
“Amigo, I am a little short—” Paco teased, and then broke out laughing. He clapped Slocum on the shoulder, which raised a cloud of dust. “I’m sure glad you came by for this day. We got Mary on her farm in Texas too.”
Slocum nodded. He knew all about her, he’d been by to check on her. “Matt ain’t in this world anymore either.”
“Good. The colonel?”
“He killed him. Told me so.” That was enough. There was something happening out there in the West, new places he needed to see. He’d be heading that way when the sun came up, unless some Abilene doxie forced him at gunpoint to stay in her bed.
Watch for
SLOCUM IN SHOT CREEK
344th novel in the exciting SLOCUM series
from Jove
Coming in October!