Deadly Manhunt (A Tony Masero Western)

by Tony Masero

  ‘Right, you’d best handle it; I’ve got to get Billy back and put him in the County jail. I’d give you some men to go along but I can’t afford to risk it with Rio still out there. They might come and try to break Billy out.’

  ‘Sure, I understand. I’ll check in with you later.’

  Joey was at his elbow again. “My Ma says I can go but I have to be back for supper or I get a whaling.’

  ‘She know where you’re going?’ Slade asked.

  Joey shook his head, ‘Nobody knows. Petey made me promise.’

  ‘Okay, come on. I’ll take you on my pony.’

  ‘You’ll get me back in time won’t you?’ Joey frowned.

  ‘I will,’ Slade reassured him. ‘Now come on.’

  Joey directed him back around his fishing pool and they headed due north with the boy sitting behind and his arms around Slade’s waist.

  ‘How did you find him, Joey?’ Slade asked over his shoulder.

  ‘He came to me,’ said the boy. ‘Must have been a few days after his Pa was shot. Said he was hungry and could I get him something. He was down getting water at the pool when I came to fish.’

  ‘Poor kid,’ said Slade. ‘He must have been in a bad way.’

  ‘He was still shaking,’ Joey admitted. ‘Seems he ran off after the shooting. The man came after him but he got away in the brush and kept running until he found the holes.’

  ‘The holes?’

  ‘Yeah, they’re some creatures den, or used to be. Holes dug in the ground. He got down in there and stayed put until he got too thirsty to stay, then he came back to the waterhole when I was fishing there.’

  ‘Hell, that kid’s been out there on his own nigh on three weeks now. It’s a wonder he ain’t dead already.’

  ‘I’ve been bringing him food and such. I gave him a canteen and a blanket. I tried to get him to come home but he wouldn’t have none of that. He cries a whole lot. I guess he’s only little.’

  ‘Joey, you should have told me.’

  ‘I didn’t know who he was so scared of, it could have been anybody. And he was at his wits end that I might let on, made me swear solemn that I wouldn’t say a word to a living soul.’

  They rode on for another fifteen minutes without speaking until Joey pointed ahead.

  ‘It’s there,’ he said.

  ‘Okay, you get on down and go up there,’ said Slade, lowering the boy down. ‘I don’t want to scare him off so you let him know its okay and I’m just here to help.’

  After waiting a while, Joey reappeared leading a sorry looking little boy by the hand. He was a diminutive child, his fair hair spiked and dust filled. His clothes had once been fine but were now dirty and torn, the grubby shirt hanging in ribbons about his frame. They approached slowly, the small boy hanging back and studying Slade nervously.

  ‘Peter,’ called Slade, when they were near enough to hear him clearly. ‘My name’s Jack Slade, I’m deputy marshal here. You’re safe now, son and there’s no need to have any fear.’

  Carefully, Slade dismounted, keeping it slow so as not to upset the child. ‘You can come on in now. I’ll see you’re taken care of.’

  Peter backed away slightly, hiding behind Joey’s shoulder. ‘You won’t let him get me, will you?’ his small voice quavered.

  ‘Nobody will harm you, I promise. I’ll see to it personal.’

  Joey pulled Peter from behind him. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘The Marshal’s okay. You’ll be fine with him,’ he reassured the frightened child.

  Slade went down on one knee to come level with the small boy, one hand holding his pony’s reins. ‘I found your Pa, Peter. I’ve taken him into town and we’ll see he has a fine burial. I guess he’d like it if you were there.’

  The two boys moved closer and Slade’s hard heart melted as he looked at the troubled youth. ‘Boy, I bet you could do with a sluice down and some new duds. Looks like you’re as wore out as your clothes.’

  ‘He shot my Pa and said he would do the same to me,’ Peter said in a rush. ‘But I ran off and he didn’t find me. But he came. He made a lot of noise. I was real scared.’

  Slade was eager to discover the source of such fear but he held himself in check realizing the boy was still desperate and digging up his troubled memories would only cause him more grief. The answers could wait until Peter was more comfortable and felt secure again.

  ‘Well, I think you’ve been mighty brave for one so young. Your Pa would be proud.’

  Tears were beginning to come from Peter’s eyes and he raised a grubby hand to wipe them away and Slade reached out a hand to take his. At that the little boy broke down into ragged sobs and without further words, Slade swept him up and hoisted him in the crook of his arm.

  ‘There now,’ he gentled. ‘We’ll get you back to town safe and sound and it’ll all be fine. Don’t fret so.’

  ‘He’s given to tears,’ said Joey rather callously. ‘I guess he had some kind of pretty soft home life.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Slade. ‘Still he ain’t done so bad out here on his own, has he now?’

  ‘Well, he’s still here,’ Joey observed with a practicality beyond his years. ‘So, no, he didn’t do so bad.’

  ‘And you did alright by him, Joey. I’m right proud of you.’

  Joey preened at the unexpected praise and allowed a tight little grin in recognition.

  ‘You want me to ride the pony?’ he asked.

  ‘You and Peter get aboard and I’ll walk alongside. ‘You alright with that, Petey?’ he asked the boy, now snuggling into his shoulder. The tearful child snuffled agreement and Slade hoisted him into the saddle, and then boosted Joey up behind.

  He let Joey down when they reached the fishing pool and admonished him to say nothing about Peter to anyone. Joey was only too glad to oblige as he sought no more trouble from his parents and he scampered off with a quick wave of farewell before he was late for his supper and his Ma took after him with a broom handle.

  Mounting up with the boy held before him, Slade rode into town and he felt the small figure sagging as he went. The child was exhausted and now he had Slade’s protective arms around him, he slid easily into a deep sleep that Slade realized he must have avoided for days so great was his fear.

  It felt strangely odd to Slade. Having such a small figure so dependent on him and he wondered at the sensation. He was touched by the obvious trust the boy showed and it moved his heart as he stared down at the rumpled head of dirty hair bobbing before him.

  ‘Don’t you worry, boy,’ he murmured. ‘Don’t know why it is but I have feelings for you. We’ll see you’re safe and cared for, that I swear.’

  He wondered in passing what Jane would make of the addition.

  Chapter Nine

  Slade needn’t have worried.

  Jane took to the vulnerable six-year-old boy as easily as he had himself, and before a moment had passed she was ordering that hot water and a tub was fetched up to the hotel room. Peter was to get a good scrub and Slade was sent off to find some new clothes for the boy at the general store.

  The town was alive with the news of the Kid’s capture and Slade heard all the gossip in the store. How the Kid was imprisoned in the County Jail, set up in one of the cages on the first story and guarded over at all times by the two deputies, Ollinger and Bell. Garret and his posse had set off immediately to try and hunt down the getaways Rio Palmer and his partner Ben Raymond, and wasn’t expected back for two or three days.

  With the help of a bevy of local housewives, Slade was able to pick out enough clothing of a size suitable for Peter and with the brown paper parcel tied and under his arm he set off again for the Wortley Hotel. Evening was drawing in fast and the town was setting up for its nightly round of drinking and entertainment. Already the regular show of patrons was entering the town in a variety of forms of transport and the idea occurred to Slade that it might be a good time to meet up with Lucy Blazer before her night’s customers forbade it.

  He st
rolled over to The Cool House and pushed open the swing doors. The place was medium full and Slade found his way easily over to the bar. A bartender was soon in front of him, polishing the surface and greeting him with an expectant nod.

  ‘What can I get you, Marshal?’

  ‘You got a girl here called Lucy Blazer, I believe,’ said Slade, setting down his parcel on the bar top.

  The bartender nodded, ‘Sure have. You want to see her?’

  ‘I do,’ Slade agreed.

  ‘Need a drink meantime?’

  Slade paused, through habit he almost agreed to a short one but caught himself in time. ‘Just the girl. She needs to answer a question or two.’

  ‘Well, don’t take too long, Marshal,’ the bartender said with a slow smile and an arched eyebrow. ‘The boss don’t like the girls away from their earning time and now he’s lost Miss Jane I guess you won’t be his most favorite person around here.’

  Slade looked at him coolly and warned the man in a low voice so that no one else at the bar could hear. ‘Listen, you ass. Just you get the Blazer girl and save the wisecracks. I hear that other lady’s name on your lips again and I’ll rip your damned face off, are we clear?’

  The bartender’s face dropped, ‘Sure thing. Right on it, Marshal.’

  Lucy Blazer was a burly woman of statuesque build, and not one given to mincing her words. She had obviously seen enough of lusting men in their longjohns to know something about the meaning of life and not to be fazed by the knowledge.

  ‘You want me?’ she asked, bustling up to Slade, who had taken a seat at table hidden from the rest of the room by one of the hefty wooden pillars.

  She was dressed in a plumed and cream colored feather headdress, an off-the-shoulder corset bodice that laced in her waist to half its natural width and came down low enough to barely cover her big ass and heavy thighs. Pale pink stockings enclosed her legs and rose out of dinky black ankle boots obviously a size or two too small for her feet.

  ‘Take a seat,’ said Slade, pushing his package to one side of the table. ’You want a drink?’

  ‘Depends,’ Lucy answered, plonking herself down solidly and tugging at her tight bodice where it exposed a majestic spread of breast. ‘Is this talk or pleasure you have in mind?’

  ‘This is business,’ Slade answered.

  ‘Shoot then,’ said Lucy with throaty directness. ‘Get a move on, I’ve got hot rods waiting in line already.’

  ‘Charlie Willows, the clerk. He was a regular?’

  She sniffed and settled back in her chair. ‘Oh, yeah. Little Charlie. Actually he weren’t so little in the flesh, as it were.’

  ‘I don’t need the details. I just need to know where he is.’

  Lucy shrugged, ‘He lit out, didn’t he?’

  ‘That he did but do you have any idea where he went?’

  Lucy adjusted her feathered headdress, looked at the ceiling and sighed. ‘Marshal, I don’t make it my business to get in too deep with the boys that come calling. You know how it is, they just want a little relief and I’ll oblige them for the fee. Little Charlie was a regular keen humper though, I do remember that. He would go at it as if it were for the last time. Kinda nice really, when a little fella appreciates you like that. He even brought me flowers one time, though Lord knows why. Got all poetic, if you know what I mean? Said he would carry me off to his mountain hideaway, treat me like a queen and feed me on grapes and wine. That kind of stuff. I mean I don’t pay it much heed, most of the johns are full of that kind of bullshit when they’re about to come.’

  ‘He say where this hideaway was?’

  Lucy wrinkled her nose, ‘Naw, it was all pie-in-the-sky, Marshal. Just fancy words, didn’t mean a thing.’

  ‘Maybe it did. Think on it a spell. Did he ever mention anything at all relating to mountain?’

  Lucy chewed on her lower lip and looked thoughtful, ‘Can’t think of anything…. Oh, wait a minute,’ she chuckled throatily at some memory. ‘I do recall a time. Made me laugh alright. He was lying there with the sheet over him. Now this fella was thin as a rake, Marshall. I mean boney and thin as well as short of stature too. But he had a piece on him you wouldn’t believe.’ She held her hands apart in demonstration of size and Slade was duly impressed. ‘I mean,’ Lucy went on. ‘It happens that way sometimes. Regular guys, you know? They fit the mold but sometimes these little fellows, well, its almost as if nature is making up for their shortness of height, you understand?’

  ‘He was well equipped,’ said Slade. ‘I get the picture.’

  ‘Yeah, anyway, he’s laying there in the bed with this great boner on and it’s so big its hiking up the sheet. You know like a damned tent,’ she chuckled. ‘So he says – my, that’s as big as Old Baldy, ain’t it? – Tell you, Marshal, I had to agree. Damn me, if I didn’t.’ She wheezed happily at the memory. ‘Sure was a hill I didn’t mind climbing, I’ll tell you that.’

  ‘That it? ‘Old Baldy’, he didn’t say no more? What’d he mean by that?’

  ‘It’s what they call one of them big peaks in the Sierra Blanca’s, ain’t it? That one over by Dowlin’s Mill on the Ruidoso. Could be that’s what he was rambling on about but I wouldn’t give it much credence. As I say, they come out with all kinds of shit when the juices are flowing.’

  It wasn’t much but it was something to go on. It was possible that the clerk was running scared and had a place up there in the mountains. Somewhere safe he could run to. It was a way off in Mescalero country and a mite dangerous with all the braves getting hot under the collar but even so, it might be worth a look.

  He thanked Lucy and taking up his parcel he went on back to the hotel.

  Jane had the boy sleeping in their bed and was sitting in front of a dressing table brushing her hair by candlelight. She was naked to the waist and wore nothing but some drawstring knickerbockers and Slade stopped in the doorway drinking in sight of her by the glow of the candle.

  ‘You smell of saloon,’ she said without turning from his reflection in the mirror.

  ‘That’s right,’ he agreed, not hazed by her critical tone.

  ‘I thought we had an agreement.’

  ‘We do,’ he said, laying the parcel down on a table and coming over to stand behind her. ‘And it still holds.’

  He rested his hands on her bare shoulders and savored the feel of her smooth skin. She laid aside her brush and kept her eyes fixed on his.

  ‘Then what were you in the saloon for? I thought you went out for some clothes for the boy.’

  ‘That’s right, they’re there,’ he said, with a nod in the direction of the package.

  ‘They sell little boy’s clothes in saloons now?’ Her tone was hard and pointed.

  ‘No, but Lucy Blazer sells something to big boys in there.’

  ‘You just went to see her?’ Jane’s tone shifted down a notch to a more friendly level. ‘No drinking?’

  He bent over and kissed the nape of her neck, she smelt clean and her skin was warm to the touch. With a soft smile she tugged her long copper-colored locks to one side allowing him to kiss her more fully.

  ‘Well, that’s alright then,’ she said, snuggling her cheek next to his as his hands slid over her shoulders and fondled her breasts. ‘I see she stirred you up a little bit though,’ Jane teased.

  ‘She don’t come near,’ he reassured her.

  Their lips met in a long drawn out kiss as Slade’s light touch played across her upper body, his long fingers caressing her roused nipples.

  ‘Don’t forget we have company,’ Jane said when they parted for air.

  ‘So, I see,’ Slade answered with a glance over to the sleeping boy. ‘He alright?’

  ‘Tired out,’ she said, looking across with a maternal eye. ‘He’s such a sweet kid. He didn’t deserve ending up alone like that in the desert. A rough deal for such a small one.’

  ‘We’ll have to get bigger rooms,’ Slade observed as Jane got up from her chair and languidly threw her arms around hi
s neck and pressed herself close. ‘I ain’t sharing you in our bed with no six-year-old.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she breathed, her face tilted so that their eyes met. ‘I’ll see to it. In the meantime you want to make do with the floor.’

  Slade wrinkled his lips. ‘Hell, must we?’

  ‘Can’t use the bed, we’ll wake up Peter.’ She let him go and bent over and pulled the drawstrings free at her knees and untied the ribbon at her waist and allowed the loose pair of knickerbockers to drop to the carpet. She stepped free of the undergarment and stood completely naked before him.

  Slade marveled at her slender form as the candlelight grazed her lean limbs and molded her proud frame in the shadowy side light. His eyes glinted in the light and he tugged off his jacket feverishly.

  ‘Woman,’ he said, ripping at his tie. ‘You sure put a fire in me.’

  ‘That’s the trouble with us saloon girls,’ she chuckled, leaning over the candle and cupping the flame before blowing it out. ‘You boys just can’t resist us.’

  They came together standing in the center of the room, both naked, their bodies pressed close together. Jane’s hands reached down to find him in the darkness. ‘Oh my!’ she said. ‘You are on fire, aren’t you?’

  ‘Damned right,’ Slade breathed hoarsely.

  ‘Let’s see if we can dampen your ardor a little then,’ she said, kissing him lightly on the lips and pulling him down to the carpeted floor.

  ‘Daddy!’

  The cry startled them both and Jane got up and hurried over to the bed where Peter was sitting up, sobbing loudly. ‘Daddy! Where are you?’

  ‘It’s alright, honey,’ Jane soothed, taking the boy in her arms. ‘You’re safe, you’re with us now.’

  Slade mumbled a string of curses as he hunted for his pants in the darkness and struggled to put them on. He struck a match and lit the candle again.

  ‘There,’ whispered Jane to the fretting child. ‘You see, everything’s okay.’

  ‘I thought I was back in that hole. I didn’t like it,’ the boy whimpered.

  ‘That’s all done now, Petey,’ Slade said softly, bringing the candle closer and setting it beside the bed.