by Lou Cameron
“I’ll try to remember that,” Stringer said. “But is Kid Curry a breed? I can’t say he looks like one.” She grimaced. “Some say he’s part Cherokee. Sundance told Etta, one night when he was drunk, that all the Logan boys was part colored. You’re right about it not showing. But Johnny Logan did have sort of kinky hair, and some say curious remarks about that led to his Shootout with Jim Winters a spell back.”
“Thanks for warning me they’re so sensitive,” Stringer said. “Kid Curry promised to introduce me to both his brothers when we join the main bunch, wherever.”
Pecos shot him a curious look. “Now why would he say a thing like that, Stuart? Didn’t you know both his brothers is dead?”
He blinked in surprise. “Not until you just now mentioned it. Wouldn’t he have heard about such sad news by now?”
“He must have been greening you,” she said. “Johnny was blown half in two by Jim Winters’s shotgun in Montana, back in ‘96. Old Lonny Logan bled to death in the snow when the law caught up with him in the winter of ‘99. You say Kid Curry offered to introduce you to ‘em, personal?”
Stringer nodded. “Let’s hope you’re right and that he was just funning. I don’t see how he could expect me to publish nice things about him if he means to send me where his brothers went. I’m not sure I deserve to go the same place, in any case.”
She was staring at him sort of wide-eyed and worried. “Etta always said Kid Curry was too crazy for her Sundance to hang out with. Butch lit out and never showed up no more after Curry rid so far out of the way to gun Jim Winters and them two lawmen just as the law was losing interest in that last big train robbery. Do you reckon them two gents I had to shoot could have been right about Curry losing his grip on the real old world the rest of us is stuck in?”
Stringer moved closer and tried to guess the odds on putting a comforting arm around her versus those of drawing back a ways. He knew women well enough to sense she might be less worried about him right now than her chosen leader. He kept his voice soothing as he told her, “The kid no doubt has more on his mind to vex him than you and me. The law’s not after me at all, and they may not be interested in you either, if you kept better company.”
“What about Slim?” she asked.
“I agree it would be mean to leave him behind. But where does it say we have to ride after the others with him? There’s lots of places to ride in this real old world, you know. It was Kid Curry who rode off on us when a pal got sick. You just said yourself that your kinswoman, Etta, may not want Sundance to play with him no more. I can see how a man who doesn’t seem to know where he’s going, and offers to introduce you to dead folk when you get there, could make any lady with a lick of sense consider thinking for her own self.”
She sat up and hugged her knees; thinking hard indeed. Since she hadn’t flinched the last time he’d edged closer, Stringer tried another few inches, and she didn’t seem to notice. He was close enough now for a lightning grab at the .44-40 riding her hip on his side. But then what? She still had another gun on her far hip.
Stringer knew the answer. He’d always wondered if false-hearted women buttering up a man to take advantage felt as shitty as they ought to. He knew it made him feel a little shitty, lying to many a sweet young thing when all he was after was sweet romance. This one was less likely to call a man a brute after he’d had his way with her. He’d already seen her kill two men, and he knew any man who tried to argue with her after grabbing one of her guns was just asking for sudden death from the other. But did he really want to escape that badly?
His objective mind told him he did. He’d already learned a lot more than any outsiders were supposed to know about the Wild Bunch, and the contract he’d signed with the San Francisco Sun hadn’t been a suicide pact. Kid Curry was unstable, and even if he remembered the deal they’d made, some of the others had already shown they didn’t care for outsiders tagging along. He knew he’d never get a better chance to get out of this mess. But the part of his brain that dealt with his emotions still thought that murdering a pretty girl, even a murderous one, was just plain wrong.
He was still arguing inside his skull about it when a shadow fell across them. Pecos had drew away from him and drawn her gun before Stringer could even look up. Then they both saw it was Slim. The lunger looked like a walking corpse.
Pecos put her gun away again as Stringer said, “Howdy. You sure look awful, Slim. How do you feel?”
“Tolerable,” Slim said. “I just hawked up a mess of bloody oysters and then I noticed nobody was around. What are you two doing way the hell up here?”
“Nothing, thanks to you,” Pecos said. “Do you feel in shape to ride on, Slim?”
The skinny, pallid owlhoot patted the six-gun against his thigh. “This makes me strong as I need to be, I reckon. Where did all the others go?”
Pecos rolled to her feet. “I’ll have us there afore supper-time. I rid with Grat and the kid all over these parts as they scouted the country whilst planning that robbery. They’ll be holed up in a canyon we found. Or maybe I ought to say Kid Curry found it. He’d been working as a cowhand here-abouts for months before he called the rest of us in from near and far.”
As the three of them headed back down the slope, Stringer could see that Pecos was upset about something, and decided it was best to let her species work such mysterious moods out on their own. They were almost down to the ponies before she asked him, “If Slim hadn’t woke up just now, was you fixing to kiss me or go for my gun, MacKail?’
He laughed like hell and assured her neither thought had even crossed his mind. For some reason that made her cuss all men in a most unladylike way.
CHAPTER FOUR
They rode well into the afternoon before Slim started coughing bad again. Pecos called a halt where the invisible trail she seemed to be following led through a jumble of house-sized boulders and wind-twisted juniper. Slim said he was all right, but Pecos told him to get down anyway, adding, “It’s time for you two men to change to the spare mounts Banger and Will were kind enough to leave us. I watch my figure better, so my old paint ought to, last through the day.”
She pointed at a sand-filled sunlit hollow among the rocks. “Spread Will’s tarp yonder,” she told Stringer, “and Slim can repose a spell whilst we water and rest the ponies.”
Slim was still arguing about it, but since it made sense to Stringer, he did as he was told. By the time he’d built a sort of nest for Slim in the warm, dry den, Pecos had poured canteen water in the nose bags that came with every saddle. The brutes had been allowed to crop grass every time they’d stopped for a few minutes’ rest out of each hour. Water was always the real problem.
Once they had Slim bedded down with his own canteen and some opium pills he took for his lungs, Pecos scrambled up the rocks like a squirrel, albeit Stringer noticed her jean-covered rump was prettier. When Slim asked Stringer where the fool gal might be going, Stringer said, “For a lookout, most likely. Don’t take enough of that opium to knock yourself out entire. I’ll follow her topside and see what she’s up to.”
He did. There were plenty of toeholds in the rounded elephant-gray granite. When he got to the top, he found Pecos stretched out prone in yet another sandy hollow, peering anxiously over the south rim. She’d put her ugly hat back on. But it was still hard to see how he’d ever mistaken her for a young boy, now that he knew what her baggy jacket and sun-faded jeans really covered. As he moved to lie down beside her, she rolled on one side and drew on him. “Don’t creep up on a gal like that,” she said.
He reclined facing her. “Sorry, pard. I thought I made plenty of noise scraping up all those rocks just now. See anything back yonder?”
She shook her head and tossed her hat aside again. “Not even a buzzard, thanks to the way you got rid of Banger and Will. I think we’ve lost any posse out after us. I sure hope so. What do you think?”
He peered out across treetops and rocky ridges as far as the eye could see, and from up here
one could see a hell of a ways. “I can’t even tell where I am right now,” he said. “I’m lost as hell. On the other hand, some of the local cowhands who failed to join Kid Curry might well have signed on with the posse. Did your man Grat know about that canyon you mentioned, Pecos?”
“Sure he did, but he ain’t my man no more, and you can call me Opal some more if you’ve a mind to. I hadn’t been getting along so well with Grat before he deserted us.”
Stringer got rid of his own hat and rose to his knees for a better look south as he said, “If they didn’t follow the rest of us down that Whitewater creek last night, they might have followed old Grat up it. You say he’s been working in these parts as a cowhand, Opal?”
“Sure,” she said. “It’s dumb to tell folk you’re a train robber when you ain’t robbing trains. What difference does it make, now that Grat’s long gone?”
“It could make a lot of difference if Grat meets up with any posse and fails to convince them he’s just a good old boy who belongs in these parts. Do you figure he’s smart enough to lie instead of run for it when he bumps noses with the law?”
She stared soberly up at him. “Land’s sakes if you ain’t sly! I don’t know if Grat’s that smart, but if he is, he just might get away with it.”
He lay back down beside her. “You’d know him better. He might even be slick enough to join any posse he runs into. I don’t suppose he’d lead them to that mysterious canyon for the reward on at least Kid Curry, right?”
She gasped. “Oh, Lord, there is a lot of paper out on the kid, Slim, and half the others, now that I study on it. I told you me and Grat hadn’t been getting on so well of late, and if Grat felt all that devoted to Kid Curry, he’d have never rid off on us like that!”
Stringer moved a little closer on the soft sand, saying, “All in all, I’d say that canyon you’ve been leading us to all day might not be the best place to keep heading for.”
“You’re wrong,” she said. “We still got to warn our pards.” He was glad she seemed to be including him in her list of pards now. As he placed a casual hand on hers, he said, “If the law doesn’t find out about the place from Grat or anyone else, the gang doesn’t need to be warned. If the law has found out about it, they would have hours ago. If Grat didn’t manage to ride through ‘em, we could be riding into a trap. Can’t you see it’s too late to help them if they need help, and no sense going on if they don’t?”
She put her free hand on her topside gun as she sighed. “I can see how you could be trying to lead me down the primrose path to perdition too. You must be able to tell I think you’re pretty as well as sweet-talking. But I’ve been lied to by many a man in my life, and this is a mighty serious game we’re playing.”
She didn’t draw. So he didn’t let go her other hand as he told her, “Banger and Will would no doubt agree. But I’m not out to trick you, Opal. It’s the sure path to perdition I’m trying to lead you and even old Slim away from.”
“That’s easier to say than prove,” she said.
“If you’ll kindly refrain from drawing that gun, I may be able to convince you of my sincere good will, honey.”
“I ain’t sure I want you to call me honey just yet,” she replied. “But what did you have in mind?”
He reached under his jacket with his own free hand. “I’m about to draw a gun,” he said. “Not at you. To show you. Keep it in mind that I’m keeping my trigger finger out of the trigger guard and know better than to point any gun at anyone I don’t mean to shoot.”
Then he showed her the nickel-plated Harrington & Richardson .32 he’d found in Will’s bedroll a few minutes before. But when she asked him, soberly, where he’d gotten it and how long he’d had it he saw no reason to refrain from looking her right in the eye and saying, “I learned to pick pockets covering another outlaw gang one time. The point is, I’ve had all day and a lot of chances to do you or Slim dirty if that was my intent.”
She looked so relieved that he saw no need to elaborate on why the last owner had packed it away like that. It was a sort of pretty little whore pistol, and if ever a gunsmith got around to fixing the busted mainspring, it might even shoot again.
Opal could see it was loaded, and he quickly put it away before she could ask him to fire it at anything. “I reckon it’s all right for you to call me honey, then,” she said. “But you sure are a sneaky rascal.”
They both laughed. Then he noticed how warm and languid her hazel eyes were getting and that she’d let go her gun grips. So it seemed only natural to reel her in and kiss her.
She kissed back in a way that made him believe she hadn’t been getting along with her deserting lover of late. But when he started to unbutton her hickory shirt with his free hand, she protested, mildly, “Hold on. What if old Slim decides to come up here?”
“The hell with him,” Stringer growled. “Let him get his own gal.”
“Oh, well,” she sighed. “We’re going to look just as ridiculous doing it with our duds on as off, I reckon.”
But he still found things complicated, once he had her gun rig set aside and her shirt unbuttoned down the front. For the current dictates of Edwardian fashion had things all bass-ackwards. Even the sassy young modern gals old Charles Dana Gibson drew wore skirts and rode sidesaddle in the same. It was widely held that only a downright harlot would be seen riding astride or wearing pants at any time. Yet anyone with a lick of common sense could see the longest skirt had pants beat hollow when it came to getting at a woman.
That got him to reconsidering a family tradition, and when he chuckled, Opal asked if he was laughing at her tits. He kissed the nipple of the one he had a grip on and assured her he liked her cupcakes just fine. That part, at least, was true. He’d thought she was just naturally dark until he’d gotten her creamy chest exposed to the afternoon sunlight. Her young body was firm and athletic, even where the sun and wind couldn’t get at it, and her breasts, while a mite small, were firm and formed delightfully. When she still wanted to know what was so funny if it wasn’t her exposed chest, he told her, “I was just recalling what my Uncle Donald told me as a shaver about the old country our clan came from. Back there we ran about in kilts and enjoyed a rep for raping cows and stealing women. I used to think a man looked sissy in checkerboard kilts. But I can see certain advantages to ‘em right now.”
“You’ll never get these jeans of mine down unless I help,” she said. “Get rid of your own, and that jacket too. The gun in your inside pocket hurts my ribs, not even bouncing.”
So they parted company just long enough to shuck at least those parts of their costume that got in the way. She somehow looked even more naked with her open shirt and jacket on as he rolled aboard her in just his shirt, with his own jeans down around his ankles. Then he’d entered her and they both went deliciously crazy for a spell. But after he’d ejaculated in her, his brain began to function better, and while he wasn’t rude enough to take it out of a lady while she was still moaning and groaning, he did find himself staring thoughtfully at the two guns she’d tossed to the sand, almost within reach.
Opal seemed to be, taking his somewhat distracted movements as consideration. “Oh, Jesus,” she crooned, “this sure feels lovely, and I fear you’re going to have a hard time getting rid of me, Stuart MacKail!”
That might have cooled him off like a bucket of spring-water if she hadn’t been so pretty and been gripping him so tightly with her warm internal contractions. He found himself moving faster with her, even as the logical parts of his mind weighed how much he liked her against how badly he wanted to get away.
He knew how much he’d hurt her if he got the drop on her now. It would be just as kind, and no doubt safer, to just haul off and knock her out as she lay spread eagle and exposed to a sucker punch to her pretty little chin. But that still left Slim, down below, and Slim had been left in charge of the two gun belts old Banger and Will had no further use for.
He knew he might be able to knock Opal out and get her t
wo guns without really harming her all that much. The only way in hell he’d get by Slim, if Slim was even half awake, would be to slide down the rocks shooting. Neither Opal nor Slim were given to meditation. Both were too dangerous to mess lightly with. As he went on making love to Opal, he wondered, as he’d sometimes wondered before, whether he might be too decent for his own good or an outright coward.
He knew real gunslicks never hesitated. That was what made them gunslicks. He who hesitated in a stand-up confrontation between armed men—or women, come to think of it—was lost. A lot of good men had died in those split seconds it takes for a sensible cuss to decide whether this was for real or whether one could still talk one’s way out of it. He had come close to dying that way, more than once, and every time he’d managed to come out alive, he’d promised himself that never again would he think twice if another armed man even looked at him ugly. Yet here he was, doing it again, and what in thunder was he waiting for?
“I like it slow like that, up to a point,” Opal said. “But now I’m getting to that point again and…I know. Let me get on top.”
He did. He could think even better on his back with her doing all the work. But damn, she sure looked pretty as she crouched over him like that, moving her bare bottom so sassy. As if she’d read his mind, she smiled down at him and said, “I don’t care what they say, I like it like this in the daytime, when we can see what we’re doing to each other. Do you like it this dirty, too, honey?”
“It’s not dirty,” he said. “I’ve got my jacket under my bare rump and the sand up here was clean to begin with.”
She started moving faster, panting. “Oh, yesss! It does feel clean and natural, like we was Adam and Eve afore they was taught shame by the Lord. I’ve never understood that part of the Good Book. I mean, don’t it seem silly they’d have felt the need to wear fig leaves right after they’d been screwing in that garden with nary another soul to peek at ‘em?”