by Jake Logan
2
Slocum’s mount was completely jaded when he, Manning, and Green rode their worn-out animals into Fort Huachuca stables area. Under the star-pricked sky, he dropped heavily to the ground. His horse blew dust with his nostrils close to the ground.
“Who in the hell’s name rode these army-issue animals to their death?” a booming voice called in the night.
“Among others,” Manning said, “General Crook’s personal scout, Slocum.”
“That you, Manning?” the big man asked.
“Yes, it is, Harris. And you get some men out here to rub these animals down and put them away in good shape.”
“I can do that.”
“I expect you can. Have a soldier show Slocum where the visitors’ quarters are at.”
“I know where they’re at. I can find my way. Is Captain Hayes back from the border?”
“He rode in an hour ago,” Harris said.
“Manning,” Slocum said. “You better go break the news to him about the border business.”
Manning agreed, handing his reins over to a green recruit. “He’ll be mad as hell.”
“It ain’t our fault. Tell him I’ll be by and talk to him about this Whey business in the morning.” Bedroll slung over his shoulder, he started up the line of cottonwoods for the visitors’ quarters. The long row of two-story officer homes faced the drive with their back doors to the dark, tall mountain rising above them. Nice place. Great climate. Aside from the large contingency of buffalo soldiers assigned there, it would have been a delightful place to serve—but the black units were considered by the officers in the ranks a non-promotion place to be.
But hell, they had too many officers that stayed in the service who once had been majors and colonels, and at that time they were lucky to have a captain’s rank. During big wars like the last one, they needed them all—in these times, they cut the military spending so much, those still in were lucky to have shoes.
He though someone was sitting on the porch swing when he put his boots on the first step. But shadows hid whoever was there.
“Evening,” he said, standing on the top step and looking back across the pearl star-lighted parade grounds.
“Evening,” she said, and the swing began to creak.
“You’re up awfully late.”
“I could say the same about you, mister.”
He used his thumb to tilt his hat back on his head. Still in too much darkness, he couldn’t see her clearly. Short. Her bobbed hair color looked light brown, maybe blond, about collar length.
He sighed. “Just got in from Bowie.”
“Go on inside. My room’s the first one on the right. No one else’s staying here.”
“Guess I’d have plenty of choices then. I’m sorry, my name’s Slocum.”
“I’ve heard of you. Man used to work for me just died this week, told me many nice things about you.”
“Luther Gray. I understood he was killed.”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry. Luther was a good man.”
“You ain’t needing work, are ya?”
He yawned and covered his mouth. “Not today.”
“What about tomorrow?”
“I can’t tell what it will bring. I never caught your name.”
“Willa Malloy. I have a freighting business.”
“I’ve heard about you.”
“Aw, they probably said that I cuss too much for a woman.”
He shook his head, and then dropped the bedroll off his shoulder to stand beside his leg. “No, that you are a legend at getting supplies to these forts.”
“Yeah, and I may quit the damn business for good. My husband Mike was killed two years ago in a barroom fight in Tucson. I thought I needed this business to keep myself from going crazy. Now—it’s making me that way.”
“I hope we can talk more later.” Slocum watched her pumping her legs back and forth so the swing would rock. He nodded and tipped his hat. “Till morning.”
A red Mexican wolf up on Huachuca Mountain cut into the crickets’ nightly serenade with a deep throaty howl. The sound echoed in the canyons twice. Then he went to wailing over again.
“I wish that horny bastard would shut up.”
Ready to go inside the dim lighted hallway, he stopped and looked back at her. “He bothers you, come on to the second room. That’ll be mine.”
“I may actually do that.”
“Suit yourself.” He went on inside, lit a candle, and found his room stuffy. He raised both windows and left the hall door open. The cooler night air came inside as he spread the bedroll on the floor. He hated bedbugs. When the bedroll was all rolled out, he toed off his boots, shed his vest, shirt, and britches. In his underwear, he blew out the light and climbed under the light blanket. In a few hours the temperature would bottom out in the canyon and he’d need a cover. His .44 wrapped in the holster near his head, he closed his eyes to the crickets, red wolf, and creaking of the house.
Uncertain how long he’d been asleep, he awoke to someone knocking. Rolled over on his belly and propped up, he was hardly able to see more than a short figure under a blanket standing in the open doorway.
“Yes?” he managed.
“I’m accepting your offer.”
“Come on.” He turned the cover back and then rolled on his side, anxious to get back to sleep.
She quickly obeyed and snuggled to his back with her arms hugging her breasts. He could feel her shaking. Was she that cold or that afraid?
“We need more blankets?” he asked.
“I’ll spread mine over us.” He felt her sit up and add the extra cover.
At last he decided, maybe if he held her, it would drive out the cold, and rolled over. When he did and pulled her up against his chest—he heard her suck in her breath.
“What’s the matter?”
She wet her lips and took her time to answer him. “My husband’s been dead for years—”
“I understood that.”
“I’ve never been in bed with another man in my entire life besides him. I know—I know—people think I’m some army whore. But I guess when Luther Gray was killed two days ago—I went to pieces. I had no one to turn to. I’d been having nightmares about a big wolf jumping in a window and devouring me.” She drew in her breath. “Ah, shit, you don’t want to hear a crazy woman’s going off at the mouth . . .”
He caught her chin and kissed her on the mouth. The longer they kissed, the more relaxed she became, until she threw her arms around his neck. Snuggled tightly to him, she at last buried her face beside his ear to catch her breath. “I’m going to owe you for tonight. Take me away. I’m yours.”
“Let’s go easy then.”
“Oh, I don’t—know, I’m so fidgety. I might back out.”
“Start thinking about being on clouds and riding the wind on a flying carpet.”
She laughed and raised her butt so he could push the blousy nightgown up past her waist.
“That’s not going to work.” She sat up and shed it over her head, then fluffed her Dutch-bob hair. He could see the outlines of her pointed breasts quake when she turned back to him. In his arms, she rode on his chest and began to pick at the buttons on his underwear.
“Hell, let’s shed these drawers, too.”
She raised up and helped him unbutton the one-piece down the front. With her pushing it off his shoulders, he felt her small, calloused hands on his bare skin and kissed her hard. Then together they struggled the underwear off him. At this point, she must have discovered his emerging manhood and she drew in her breath, trying to get her small hand around his stalk.
“Oh, my God. I didn’t know men came in different sizes.”
“It ain’t how big they are. It’s how you use it.”
She nodded woodenly as he gently cupped her breast.
“I told you—I had no experience at this besides him.”
“You don’t need that either. Just let yourself go. You’re still so uptight, eith
er about us doing this, or that wolf out there, you’ll never enjoy it unless I can get you to relax.”
“I’m trying. I’m trying.”
“You’re still trying too hard.”
His mouth on hers, him on his elbow, he slid his other hand over her muscle-hard belly. The slick abrasion of his tongue seeking entry in her mouth undid the last of her resistance. She widened the V between her legs for his entry, and cried out when he touched her most private spot. But she caught his hand and shoved it back in place before he could withdraw it.
Like a fiddle string, she began to mellow, and soon dropped her knees open for him to probe her deeper. Raising her butt off the bedroll, she increased her breathing, and despite the dim light in the room, he could see her eyes begin to glaze over. In those next few minutes, she turned from stone to pliable clay. Need gathered his body in a tight ache. He molded the curve of her breasts and heard her sharp intake of breath.
He rose and crossed over between her legs. Once over the top of her, he gently inserted his dick in her moist gates. She gave a sharp cry at his entry, then raising her hips, pulled him down on top of her in an open welcome to take her. Unconditionally committed, she arched her back to take all of him.
“I’m flying. I’m flying.”
So they flew and flew. Despite the predawn’s cool air, sweat greased their bellies and they fought to find the end. He kept pumping her twat harder and harder until he realized that deep in his scrotum the artillery was loading. He rode her with long hard strokes, while she rose up to meet each one with such force, he thrust the breath out of her, making her gasp with sounds of pleasure. All the way inside her with his back arched like a bow, he delivered his cum. He lay there panting and savoring each spasm.
“Oh, my—” she managed, and melted into a soft cushion underneath him. With the back of her hand resting lightly on her forehead, she shook her head. “I learned another thing for the first time—tonight.”
“What’s that?” he asked, sitting up on his knees between her legs.
“Every man doesn’t do it the same way either.” Her hand rested on his thigh with bold familiarity.
“Did I pass?”
“Pass? What’re you talking about?”
“Did you like it?”
She struggled up on her elbows. “Enough. I’d rest you all day for the night work.”
He shook his head and grinned. “Can you sleep now or do you need another round?”
She peered at him in the dim light with a look of disbelief. “You serious?”
“About doing it again, yes.”
She blew out her breath. “My land’s sakes. Let me sleep a few hours and then can we do it again?”
“Whatever. It’s your call.” He smiled to himself as she turned on her side against him.
He pulled up the covers and then curled around her. Thirty minutes later, with all thoughts of their sleep forgotten, their raw closeness and a hunger for each other brought up a need that struck them again.
By dawn, he was yawning his jaws open and dressing while seated on his butt. She’d gone next door to put on her clothes. Strapping on his holster last, he went to her room, where she had gone to dress.
“Do you think Luther really shot Whey?” He stood in the open doorway.
“He said he did before he died.” Busy brushing her hair furiously, she paused to clean out some of the loose hair from the bristles. “He wasn’t a braggart nor did he ever lie to me.”
“I knew the man. No word on if they learned anything about Whey’s death?”
“No, they’ve vanished like they always do.”
“Hayes’s man, Sergeant Manning, thinks they beat it back to Mexico.”
“Why not? The U.S. Army can’t chase them down there. Poor dumb Mexicans can’t fight them, and they won’t let our men do it.”
Slocum nodded. “What are your plans for today?”
“Mine?” She blinked in shock at him for asking.
“Sorry, if it’s private.”
“No, no, I wasn’t expecting you to ask me that.”
“Why not?”
“I thought most men got what they wanted out of an affair and ran off somewhere to brag about it. You have a wife?”
“No.”
“You should.” Then she put her hands over her mouth, snickering about the idea. Her amusement soon turned into red-faced embarrassment.
He walked over, hugged her to his waist, and looked down into her blue eyes. “I had fun last night. I’m not opposed to doing it again.”
She looked at the sky and drew in her breath. The thunder of boot heels on the porch moved them apart.
A young red-faced private burst in the front door and announced, “Captain Hayes wants to talk to you at once, sir.”
Slocum nodded to her with a private wink. “See you later, ma’am.”
3
Slocum and the private headed for the mess hall. Red-faced, Captain Benjamin Hayes came bursting out of the bachelor quarters. “Slocum, hold up!” Half dressed, he finished putting on his blue and gold jacket before he extended his hand to shake with Slocum.
“Let’s go eat in the mess hall. What in the hell’s Crook’s problem up there?”
“It ain’t Crook. It’s politics between Washington and Mexico City. Them folks down there ain’t forgot what we did to them last time we were in their country.”
“My God, man, that was clear back in the thirties.”
“Them Mexicans got a good memory of that ass whipping.”
“Hell, we’re only chasing a handful of Apaches.”
“Crook’s hands are tied. Does your intelligence think that Luther shot Whey?”
“My intelligence is right now probably down in the town, drunk on their backsides in some sleazy brothel, trying to catch a new case of clap.”
“At least they aren’t out where the buzzards can pick out their eyes. Other words, you don’t know shit about Whey or his condition or if he was shot at all?”
“Exactly. I only know what I’ve heard. Mrs. Malloy spoke to me about the matter when she first arrived in the fort. Anything else was gossip on the wind. We couldn’t be so damn lucky as to have one of them lead bastards dead.” Hayes opened the mess hall door for Slocum to go ahead.
Then he turned and said to his aide, “Private Cozzy, have us two horses saddled. Make it three. We may all three ride down to where Santa Cruz flows in out of Mexico and speak to Meyer Arnold. He knows more about what goes on down in Mexico than anyone.”
“My saddle is down there at the stables,” Slocum said after him. Cozzy nodded and hurried off to obey his orders.
“Good boy,” Hayes said. “I understand that back home he got the local mayor’s daughter knocked up and he was not who the mayor had in mind as his son-in-law-to-be. So he gave him a choice, either join the army or go to prison on some trumped-up charges.”
When they were seated in the officers’ mess, a KP served them coffee and took their order for eggs.
“Fried, over easy,” Hayes said, and turned to Slocum.
“Scrambled like the rest of me.”
Hayes was in a chair across the table doctoring his coffee with sugar and canned milk. “You’ve been in Mexico recently?”
“Yes. Tom Horn and I were in the Madres for six weeks with a handful of scouts.”
“Have any luck locating them?”
Slocum shrugged and lifted his steaming coffee, letting it soften the beard stubble around his mouth. “They’re down there all right. I told Crook they were there and not constipated.”
“Did he laugh?”
“I can’t recall exactly, except he mentioned he was glad they weren’t constipated from them eating rats and piñon nuts.”
“So why are you here?”
“Hell, I wanted to resign. There is nothing we can do with only a handful of scouts to hem them in. You know Crook. He talked me into coming down here and finding out all I could about this Whey incident.”
Hay
es nodded sharply and then blew on his half-milk, half-coffee. “If something hadn’t gone wrong in that raid, those bucks would have finished off Mrs. Molloy’s bunch in short order and taken what the hell they wanted and then pissed on the rest.”
“I think you’re right. Something went bad wrong. They wiped out Lieutenant Kary and his men like they were toy soldiers. What, a year ago?”
“About that long. Her outfit would have been a damn sight easier to massacre. I’ve ordered a patrol to meet her outfit halfway from Tucson each time she comes down from now on. Nice lady.” Hayes shook his head, then looked around to be certain they were alone before he spoke again. “I’d damn sure like to have her in my bed.”
Slocum casually nodded. Right. She wasn’t half bad in his either.
Their food plates, delivered to him and the captain, were heaped with eggs, biscuits mounded high with flour gravy, crisp bacon, and fried German potatoes.
“I get all this eaten, I’ll be ready to shovel out the stables,” Slocum said.
“Better eat well while you can.” Hayes used his fork to make the point. “In Mexico, I bet you ate enough beans to fart the canyons full of gas.”
“I’ve ate my share.”
Between his forks full of food, Hayes managed to say, “I’d hoped we could have pursued them.”
“Anything to get off your ass?”
“Exactly. Southern Arizona is not the tourist capital of the world, and never will be more than a few adobe jacals, some sidewinders, and a few chaparral birds darting around. Hell, there ain’t half enough water in this country to do anything. We damn sure didn’t get much buying this land from Mexico.”
“We’ve got a snow-proof route for the railroad to the West Coast.”
“And hell, we can’t even get it built across through here.”
They finished their meal and when they went outside, Private Cozzy had their horses ready in front of the mess hall.
Hayes stretched his arms over his head in the early morning sunlight to the crackle of a thousand birds using the green oasis the army had set up for their border operation. “It’s a real paradise here.”
“Not a bad place,” Slocum said, then thanking Cozzy with a nod for the reins as he handed them over to him. The tall, leggy bay acted alert enough when he prepared to mount him. Once in his saddle, he reined him up. His choice of horseflesh and the supply officer’s actual pick were two different things. He wanted a mountain horse, short coupled, handy as a cat on the steep trails, and able to survive on what he could find in this arid land. The army wanted a cavalry horse that could answer the bugle and charge across a level field. There were damn few such fields they’d fight over in Arizona or northern Mexico that would meet those criteria.