Slocum and the Snake-Pit Slavers

by Jake Logan

  “It’s you,” he said, focusing on Tita. “Damn your hide.”

  “Now, is that any way to talk to me, John Slocum? I have, after all, saved your life.”

  “How do you reckon that? Seems to me you tried to take it. More than once!” He tried to sit up and found he was tied, hand and foot, and stretched out flat on his back on the big leather couch in the colonel’s study. At least it was padded.

  “Untie me. I have to get back to the mine.” He looked at her, but she was standing behind the man’s desk fiddling with something on the wall. “What are you doing?”

  She turned back to him. “I’m trying to open his damn safe. I know you know the combination, John Slocum. Tell it to me and I’ll let you go. Then you can go save your precious friends.”

  He sagged back against the cushion. “How could I have been so wrong about you? Don’t you care about any of them? About Marybeth Meecher? You said so yourself she was good to you, convinced your grandfather to let you dress like a woman.”

  “Yes, but what I didn’t tell you is that she also worked me like a dog.”

  He looked at her again, trying to decide if the whimper in her voice was for real. It wasn’t. She was about to smile, he could just tell. “So please, John, help me and we can go off together. How about that?”

  “Where’s the colonel? He would have taken his money if he’d left for good.”

  “He didn’t leave for good. He put all his money back in there and locked it in front of me, laughing the whole time, the bastardo.”

  “Tita, where did he go?”

  She snorted, shook her head at him. “He kept shouting about his gold, all his gold, how he needed to get it out of the mine right away. He’s a pig.” She turned back to the safe, then paused and slowly turned back to him.

  Slocum watched her face transform from a pleading innocent young woman to a manipulative cat. Her eyes narrowed, her mouth widened into a slight smile, and her tongue tip darted out, ran across her lips.

  “Untie me,” he said, not taking his eyes from her. “Untie me and I’ll help you.”

  “Help me, then I’ll untie you.” She glided over to him, lifted her shirt at the waist, and slipped it off over her head.

  “What are you doing, Tita? We don’t have time for games. Those people . . . they don’t have time for this . . .”

  He was tied to each end of the couch and couldn’t have used his bound hands even if he wanted to. She trailed her long fingers up his thigh and he felt his member respond, thicken despite his anger and determination not to. But it didn’t matter. She had stepped out of her skirt and kept dragging her hand along his denims up to his belt. His gun belt, he realized, had been stripped from him. He gritted his teeth and looked away, but the sight of her, massaging herself between her legs with her other hand, her eyes half-open, lids fluttering as if she were in the midst of a dream, it was almost too much to see. Almost.

  She unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned his trousers—and then she left him, disappeared behind him. Soon he felt her fingers at his wrists and he wondered if she was going to untie him. Then something cold and sharp touched his wrists. A knife. She held it over his face, smiled down at him, then quick as a flash she sliced through the ropes—but not all the way. He felt them give, worked his throbbing hands, trying to break through the last few strands.

  He heard the knife drop, then she came back into view and in another second had freed his stiff member. She bent to it without hesitation, flashing her eyes at him once as her mouth descended on him.

  He worked the ropes and he could tell they were nearly ready to snap free even as he watched her silky black hair bobbing up and down on him, drawing on him, and he could feel her teeth just grazing him where it was most sensitive. His breathing slowed, he tried to think of other things, but it was not to be.

  He kept working at the ropes as she stood abruptly, then climbed aboard him.

  “Tita, please, you know I obviously find you to be a pretty girl. But you are mistaken. There are people who need my help.”

  “I need your help right now, John Slocum.” She smiled at him as she purred the words, and with no hesitation, no buildup, she lowered herself onto him. He would have been a liar if he said it didn’t feel damn good, but it wasn’t exactly what he had in mind—and then the last of the rope strands snapped.

  She ground against him, her head thrown back and her breasts firm, the nipples stiffened, then collapsed down onto him, breathing hard against his chest.

  He held his arms above her back and slipped free of the last length of rope. It proved to be a long one, and he gently took her arms as she made soft sounds of approval, thinking he was trying to prod her into further activity.

  But too late she realized he’d bound her arms behind her back. He cinched the rope tight just as she began thrashing and kicking and he just pushed her off him when she almost bit his face.

  “Now, now, is that any way to treat the man with the combination to the safe?” He had no idea what the combination was, but she didn’t know that.

  Her thrashing stopped as quickly as it had begun. “Do you mean you will unlock it for me? For us, I mean?”

  “Sure, just give me a second to untie my legs.”

  “Untie me first, John. This isn’t fair.”

  “Now coming from you, that’s funny. I will admit, you are a perplexing thing.”

  “You say the strangest things, John Slocum.”

  “Yes, so you said.” He buttoned his fly, buckled his belt, and in one smooth motion, flipped her onto her stomach on the couch. She began howling and bucking again and he held her down with one hand at the middle of her back while he tied her feet with the other. It took some doing and he eventually had to rest a knee on her ass so that he could use both hands, but he got her lashed down tight. “Like a roped calf!” he said as he buckled on his guns.

  “You don’t know the combination to the safe, do you? You bastardo!” She looked up at him from the couch, her hair falling in her eyes. She blew at it and cursed a blue streak.

  “Now, now, Tita. That’s no way for a young lady to talk. Come to think of it, that was no way for a young lady to act.” He smacked her once on the backside and winked at her as she thrashed and bucked. He slammed the study door behind him, but her shouts followed him all the way outside.

  25

  The Appaloosa was still out front, as were the three dead cowboys where he’d left them earlier. He mounted up, then on a whim, he reached back and felt his saddlebag. Flat—no chunk of ore in there. So the colonel had retrieved it—no big surprise.

  Slocum clicked his tongue and sank spur as he nosed the Appaloosa into a flat-out run to the Snake Pit, hoping he wasn’t too late to help his friends.

  It took him the better part of a half hour before he saw the shifting specks in the distance that had to be the remaining rim guards. As they thundered closer, Slocum checked his pistols. Though he missed his Colts, and guessed they were back at the ranch someplace, these would do. They were the ones Everett had worn, but they were in good condition and obviously well cared for. He hoped like hell he wasn’t too late.

  As he approached, he heard shots and shouting, saw a long black shape that he recognized as he drew closer to the colonel’s barouche, though the closer he got, he saw no sign of the white-suited fat man.

  Where in the hell could he be? Unless he . . . no, no way he would have gone down there. Still, it was a possibility. Slocum knew the man had gold fever; he’d seen it the way the man had cradled that hunk of ore, just like it had been a newborn baby.

  He rode closer, then dismounted and led the horse just east, where the prison wagon stood behind the dozing beasts that pulled it. He draped the Appaloosa’s reins over the wagon’s front wheel, slid Everett’s rifle out of his saddle boot, and still unseen, took a head count.

  He saw all the way around the
rim now, and counted nine men, most of them on this side. There were a few in prone positions, and unmoving, but he couldn’t count them out of the fight. He wasn’t sure if they’d been shot or if they were shooters themselves, as various rim guards still cranked out random shots like deadly raindrops into the canyon.

  But the thing that interested him most were the two men working the hoist for the basket. They were lowering somebody down there. And if he had to guess, it was the colonel. Gold fever had got the better of him.

  From his place of concealment, Slocum dropped down close to the ground, crawled forward, and when he saw one of the near guards rise up and prepare to shoot down into the canyon toward where Slocum knew the mine entrance lay, he let him have it square in the chest. The man whipped upright, then dropped like a stone over the edge. Four more spun toward him, looking for signs of the new shooter, their weapons poised.

  But Slocum was quicker and he laced three of them, then got the fourth, a man who’d obviously got up on the wrong side of the bed, as he charged at Slocum, growling and yelling something about killing him. Slocum waited until the man gained a bit more ground, then cored his forehead with a well-placed shot.

  It turned out he was right, and none of the prone rim guards were alive—a good thing, as the remaining four—two of whom had been working the basket mechanism—proved to be tricky to pin down. He managed to wing one, who whimpered like a struck dog, then wonder of wonders, the other three all looked at one another and shook their heads, seemed to come to some sort of decision. They all threw down their rifles and stood near one another, their hands resting on their heads, angry looks on their faces.

  “Where’s Mulletson?” Slocum growled at them.

  A big, shaggy man who looked and smelled like a buffalo nodded toward the rim. “Just afore you come, he told us to lower him down there. He’s gone loco. I’m plumb done with this outfit.”

  “You bet you are. And any others besides. Now let’s go.”

  It didn’t take Slocum long to round up the three, plus their whining, winged comrade, and stuff them into the prison wagon. He used the key that Marybeth had ripped from around Everett’s neck when she wrestled with him days before. She’d given it to Slocum before he left the canyon, thinking it might be useful. And she had been correct once again.

  “What a woman,” he said as he clicked the padlock closed on the prison wagon. Then, just in case one of the men had a key on him, he jammed into the door two steel bars he found under the wagon’s seat.

  “That should hold you fools for a few minutes.”

  Then he bolted for the canyon, unsure of what he was about to see when he peered over the rim.

  26

  A wave of relief flooded over Slocum as he looked down the ropes tethering the basket to see Marybeth waving up to him, smiling and shouting. Despite the fact that her dress was a torn, ragged mess, that her hair hung in her face, and dirt smudged her arms and cheeks, she looked stunning to him. And better yet, all the slaves thronged about her, looking up at him and waving. And many of those gaunt faces were smiling.

  They quickly loaded the basket with a handful of slaves and Slocum worked like a madman cranking the massive wooden gear assembly. By the time the first load was topside, he gave serious thought to dragging two of his prisoners out of the wagon to run the thing for him. But he felt like this was something he definitely had to do himself. And so, small load after small load, he brought his friends to the top of the canyon.

  The smaller ones made their way to the guards’ now-empty camp along the southern end of the rim, and brought back what foodstuffs they found there. The others helped Slocum crank the wheels until, in the last basketload, Marybeth Meecher emerged, smiling, and she and Slocum hugged while their freed friends cheered.

  “What about Eli? Mulletson?”

  Marybeth’s smile faded. “They’ve gone gold crazy, John. The colonel more so than Eli. But Eli’s hurt. He was shot saving us from a stick of dynamite one of these idiots threw down at us.”

  “Is it bad? Can he walk?”

  “Yes, but . . . the colonel’s down there with him. In the mine. He walked right by us, acted like we weren’t even there. They’re both acting strange, John. It’s that damned gold.”

  “I know. Makes men crazy.”

  “The colonel, he has a gun, and he was carrying that hunk of gold you brought with you. Oh John, when I saw that, I thought for certain you’d been killed.”

  She hugged him tighter. “It’s okay now. But I have to go down there, try to help Eli.”

  “John, Eli has a short-fused stick of dynamite. The one he saved us from. He kept it. I don’t know what he has planned, but I don’t think he wants to come back up.”

  “Oh Lord,” said Slocum.

  “John, do you have to go down there?”

  “What would you do, Marybeth?” Slocum waited a moment, saw her nod reluctantly, and said, “You and the others, lower me down. And wait here for us. We’ll be up presently.”

  He kissed her, then climbed into the basket.

  “There is one good bit of news, John.”

  “What’s that, Marybeth?”

  She smiled as he disappeared below the rim. “The colonel—he was bit by a snake within a minute after he got out of the basket!”

  “Poor snake!” he shouted up at her.

  “John, be careful. They’re everywhere down there.”

  He nodded but didn’t respond. His mind was on another type of snake.

  27

  When the basket touched the bottom of the ravine, late-day shadows were drawing large. Slocum wondered how long he had to be down there this time. It was a place he hated, especially so at night. In the lengthening shadows, he clearly saw shapes moving along the ground—snakes. Damn snakes everywhere.

  He shucked a pistol and stepped from the basket. Get to them and get out again, at least with Eli. Shoot the colonel if he so much as looked sideways. He stalked across the bottom of the canyon and entered the gloom of the near-dark but familiar mine entrance.

  Far ahead, he thought he detected a faint, quivering light. He was right—it was a candle, flickering in the distant gloomy recesses of the mine. With each step, he passed yet another damn rattling snake, until the entire tunnel seemed to vibrate with the serpentine din. The snaky commotion seemed far more extreme than any he’d heard over the past few days as a captive in the deadly little canyon. The odd thought occurred to him that maybe the snakes were angry because all the slaves had gone.

  He didn’t dare slow his pace, but he kept one hand on the wall to guide him, the other hand held his pistol, and up ahead he heard voices becoming more distinct the farther into the mine he walked.

  He rounded one last corner and the near-dark gave way to a sudden honey glow from a reflector candle lamp in Eli’s big hand. Slocum held his pistol before him, but neither Eli nor the colonel paid him much attention.

  “Mulletson, Eli, let’s go right now. The snakes are coming out in big numbers and we have to go!”

  Neither man looked at him. The colonel looked pasty and puffier in the face than usual—had to be the snakebite. Eli looked peaked and dizzy. The colonel held a derringer pointed, when he remembered, at Eli. Their conversation was a heated, if halting, argument. As near as Slocum could tell, they were arguing about gold, the damn gold, and that was when Slocum saw the candlelight glinting and reflecting off the vein of pure gold beside the two men. Each had a hand outstretched, caressing the glinting rock face.

  The hate in the air was something Slocum could almost touch, and why shouldn’t it be? Slave and slaver, both now in possession of a fortune and neither would get it.

  Eli’s odd gold fever broke for a moment, and he looked at Slocum square in the eye and held up the short-fuse stick of dynamite. Slocum saw for the first time that his friend’s shirt glistened, soaked with blood from what must
have been his bullet wound.

  Eli held up the dynamite and the candle. The colonel weaved and tried to hold up the derringer.

  “I’ll give you half a minute to get the hell out of here, John Slocum, then I’m touching it off.”

  “No!” shouted the colonel. “It’s my gold! All mine, you . . . you slave! You don’t deserve it! I do! I am the only deserving one . . .”

  “Eli,” said Slocum, one hand outstretched and slowly stepping closer to the two men. “This isn’t what you want. We can get you a doctor, plenty of chance for money in the future. We’ll look for it together . . . It’s what friends do.”

  The big man smiled at Slocum. “Thanks, but I have all I want right here—more gold than a man could ever spend, and the chance to remove this little speck of evil from the world.” He smiled wider and raised the lantern and the dynamite. “Take care of my free friends up there, you hear? And take care of yourself, friend.”

  Slocum nodded and tried to smile. Then he pulled in a quick breath, turned, and ran like hell.

  For thirty seconds he held his breath.

  For thirty seconds he heard the colonel’s enraged screams mingle with the hissing and rattling of angry snakes. And over it all rode the big, booming laughter of Elias Jones, free man.

  The blast thrust Slocum forward as if pushed by a massive, unseen hand. He sprawled on the ravine floor, rubble raining down on him. When it subsided, he looked back to where the black, gaping maw of the mine entrance had been, and saw only a pile of raw, smoking rock.

  John Slocum wiped grit from his eyes and heard shouts from people above. He walked to the waiting basket without looking back.

  “Sleep well, Elias Jones . . . friend.”

  Watch for

  SLOCUM AND THE HIGH-COUNTRY MANHUNT

  413th novel in the exciting SLOCUM series from Jove

  Coming in July!