by Jake Logan
“You still aiming to keep your word?” She cut a look at him.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Oh, a big man like you could have any puta in Española. Why would he want to ride that far for some tomboy?”
“ ’Cause she invited me?”
She shook her head like she wanted to clear it. “You’ve got a way of twisting things around, like kissing me and then telling me you don’t kiss whores.”
“I don’t.”
She gave his knee a shove with hers and turned forward, driving her mules. “We should be at Kitchner’s station in a couple of hours,” she said.
“How far you plan on going today?”
“The hay bottoms. That’s where I turn west to the ranch.”
“How far is it from there?”
“A good day’s drive.”
“Us being along with you isn’t going to cause you any trouble with your brothers?”
“Nice of you to ask.” She wrinkled her nose. “Some snitch might tell ’em.”
“We can ride behind if we need to.”
She looked over at him and blinked her blue eyes. “You’re serious?”
Distracted by a red wing hawk’s screams, Slocum used his hand to shade his eyes to see the bird. “I’m very serious.”
“They just nag at me is all.”
“About what?”
“How I need to find a rich man to marry.”
“And?”
She laughed aloud. “What rich man would want me? I am not exactly a virgin.”
“Don’t tell him. He’ll be so excited he’ll never know.”
She reined the mules up to ford a clear stream that meandered over the road. “Looks shallow enough.”
“It’s fine.” He twisted to look back for Collie Bill—he was coming with Heck and the packhorse in tow.
“Get up!” Ready to go, she slapped the mules with the lines and they stepped gingerly into the water. Then they high-stepped and splashed across it. “You’re new to this country, ain’t ya?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I better tell you, us Boosters ain’t got a good reputation.”
“You don’t?”
“That’s right. But we’re cattlemen, that’s all. Lots of what they say about us are flat lies.”
“I wouldn’t know or care.”
“Good. You ever been married?”
“Nope.”
“I don’t figure you’d cotton to being home every night.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Oh—” She glanced aside at him for a second. “I knew the night I seen you that you were a butterfly cowboy.”
“Butterfly?”
“Yeah, flitting from flower to flower.” Then she laughed out loud. “See how dumb I am?”
He squeezed her shoulder. May Booster was her own woman. Did she really believe they were only cattlemen?
They reached Hay Flats in mid-afternoon. She told Slocum she was satisfied and could push west to the ranch in the morning. They helped her unhook the mules. She was concerned about reharnessing them in the morning.
“We can harness them, ma’am,” Collie Bill assured her.
Satisfied, she hiked off in the junipers to relieve herself.
“Learn anything today?” Collie Bill asked, putting up his harness on the wagon tongue.
“Not really. She says her brothers are only cattlemen, not outlaws.”
“Reckon she really believes that?”
Slocum laid his gear out. “Damned if I know. We know what they’re doing and have done or are accused of.”
“Hell, she’s a damn good distraction.” They both laughed.
At sundown, May fried up some thin-sliced venison meat and boiled some rice with skillet flour gravy. They ate her mouth-watering food, seated around on a tarp, and watched a northbound stage rush by on the main road.
“I hope we can hitch up those durn mules in the morning,” she said, acting concerned.
With his mouth full, Slocum nodded until he could swallow. “We can handle that.”
“I’ll miss you two tomorrow.”
“Is it a rough trip back into the ranch?” Collie Bill asked.
“It ain’t an easy road in a wagon, but with the snow melting I’ll make it,” she said. “But I’ll still miss the company.”
“We could ride along for a ways,” Slocum offered.
“Naw, you two have got business in Española collecting that money. Why, he might clear the country. You can’t ever tell.”
Slocum agreed and so did his partner, like he was in on the deal.
After supper, May washed the tin plates and Slocum dried them. Collie Bill conveniently turned in. Slocum led her with a bedroll under his arm uphill a ways under the stars. Making small talk, they soon had the bedroll unfurled and she began to undress. They stood on the top of it, with the canvas side under it to hold out the moisture. He toed off his boots, put his gun belt on the cedar bough, and then shed his pants. When he straightened, she stood naked before him, unbuttoning his underwear with fumbling fingers and a quick breath.
“Oh, I thought I’d have to wait weeks for this. I’m so excited I’m shaking.”
“You didn’t get all you wanted in the river?”
She drove a soft fist into his hard belly. “By no means. But it was as nice as it could have been.”
Their bare skin was swept by the cool night wind, and they weren’t long getting under the covers. She spread her legs out and nosed his half-hard erection into her. Then she raised her legs on both sides of him and pulled him down on top of her. “Make me scream.”
His aching hips had that intent. His erection soon was filling her and she gasped, “Yes. Yes, I knew it was going to be great.”
He buried it to the hilt in her pussy and she clutched him. “Stay.”
With her hips in charge, she began to rock on her back, and he felt her swelling inside as she worked him over pulling hard on the sore head of his dick. Her efforts grew wilder and wilder, until at last she came and fainted underneath him.
Slowly, she began to stir as he worked in and out of her.
“Oh, my Gawd, I fainted,” she mumbled, and tossed her head.
“Ever do that before?” he asked, braced over her and gently pumping his rod through her tight ring.
“No. Whew, I’m crazy.”
“Hang on, you ain’t through yet.”
In minutes, he had her breathing harder than a freight train on a steep grade. Her hands clutched his upper arms to hang on as she met his every thrust. Penetrating her with his fiery swollen rod, he was working up a real storm when he finally came. She followed suit, and they collapsed in each other’s arms.
There wasn’t much sleeping that night in his bedroll. In the cold predawn, he washed his face with a handful of snow and then dressed, groggy, sore, and went off to start a cooking fire for her.
Slocum and Collie Bill hitched the mules while she stirred up some food and coffee. Then they packed and saddled their own horses, so by the time the first peach sky lit up the saw-toothed eastern horizon, everything was ready to roll, and they ate their meal squatted on their boot heels.
“Man, I could sure use you two every trip,” she said. “You two can really handle those mules.”
“We get along.”
“Hope you two collect that money.”
“We will, little lady,” Collier Bill said, and went to refill his plate.
“In ten days?” she asked Slocum under her breath.
“I’ll do my damnedest.”
“That’s enough.” And she smiled.
With Gauge’s blanket-wrapped body tied down over the packhorse, they waved good-bye and she drove her mules west. Slocum watched her disappear in the junipers, and swung in the saddle.
“I’m surprised you can still walk,” Collie Bill teased.
Slocum leaned back in the saddle against his stiff back. “It is a miracle.”
14
Slo
cum and Collie Bill reached Flores Station by afternoon. Manuel was nowhere in sight, and Juanita rushed out and stared at the sight. “You two return, I see. Who is the dead one?” She frowned at the sight of it.
“Man named Gauge from Texas,” Collie Bill said, and swung off his roan. “The stage wrecked up north near the Colorado line. A woman was trying to get him to medical help and he died. We figured the stage folks would send his things on to his kin in Texas.”
“They ought to. Guess we better bury him.”
“Lead us to the shovels,” Slocum said, and looked around. “Your husband isn’t here?”
“No, he went to help them get the wrecked stage. You didn’t see him on the road?” A worried frown wrinkled her smooth forehead.
“When did he go up there?” Collie Bill asked.
“Yesterday evening, he rode his bay horse up there and said he’d be back in a day.”
“He could have rode by our camp while we were asleep. We spent last night at the hay flats.”
She gave a worried look to the north, then gathered her skirts and nodded at them. “Come on in. I can tell you haven’t eaten much since you left here the other day.”
“You run this by yourself?” Collie Bill asked.
“I can. He’s had to be gone before. I’m fine.”
“Any word from Perla? I mean Señora Peralta?” Slocum asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee while she scurried about getting food ready to cook.
She stopped in the side door and looked back at them. “She is fine as far as I know.”
“Good,” Slocum said, and noted how Juanita acted on edge. “I just wondered about her.”
In minutes, Juanita returned with some large slabs of red meat in her hands. It looked like elk to him. “Manuel shot a nice one the day you left. I cut off two big steaks.”
“You’re going to spoil us,” Collie Bill said, straddling a ladder-back chair and setting his tin coffee cup on the table.
“You both need spoiling. Just sit down, food’s coming.” She stoked the range’s firebox and wiped her forehead on the back of her hand. “It’ll be ready in a jiffy.”
“No rush. We can bury Gauge after we eat.”
“Was he kinda balding and wore a suit?” she asked.
“That’s him. Guess he ate here that night?” Collie Bill said.
“Yes. He was a nice man. I’m sorry he’s dead.”
“You need any horses harnessed or got ready?” Collie Bill asked her.
“Not till nine o’clock tonight. There’s a stage going south then.” She chewed on her lower lip. “Maybe they will have seen Manuel on the road.”
“I’m sure that he’s fine,” Collie Bill said to reassure her.
“I hope so.”
They ate her large steaks, fried onions, and potatoes from her cellar along with sliced sourdough bread and butter. Slocum felt too full to dig a grave, but after the meal they both went up on a rise where she told them to bury Gauge, and began shoveling dirt.
The wind came down out of the north and some clouds appeared before sundown. They finished the grave in the twilight, and she brought a lamp up for them to see by. Slocum went down in the grave and Collie Bill handed him the body.
“The money—” he said, and lowered the light down to Slocum.
“I’d forgotten all about it,” Slocum said, working in the narrow grave with loose dirt crumbling in on him as he moved around to untie the ropes. At last, he had the wallet and money out of the man’s suit coat. He handed it up to Collie Bill.
“You won’t mind pulling off his boots?” Collie asked.
Slocum had had all the dead body he wanted, not to mention sharing the hole with the body. But he agreed.
“I just wondered,” said Collie Bill. “Some men store their money in their boots.”
It was difficult to get to his footwear, but when Slocum pulled off the first shoe, paper money showered down.
“Look at it,” Collie Bill said. “Where did he get all that new money?”
Standing straddling the corpse, Slocum passed handfuls of currency up. Both Collie Bill and Juanita were taking the money he handed to them. When he was satisfied he’d gotten all of it, he removed the second boot and more money showered down.
“What are you thinking?” Collie Bill asked.
“We came close to burying a fortune.” Slocum laughed and bent over to pick up more. He wished the man had left some word about next of kin, but he’d never had a chance. When all the money and the lantern were at last handed up, he let Collie Bill pull him out of the hole. Back on top, with his hands on his hips, he straightened his stiff back.
“How much is there?” he asked Juanita, who was sorting it in the lantern light.
“A couple thousand, I’d say.”
“Is it real?” he asked, holding two bills up to the light.
“Feels real.”
“There are good counterfeiters.” He looked at the details on the bills.
“You think it is phony money?”
“If it is, it’s really good. But folks take counterfeit money and go all over the country cashing it in and getting real money back in change.”
They began to shovel dirt in the grave. On her knees, she was busy stacking the bills and counting the piles held down by small rocks in the lamplight. The grave was three-quarters completed when she announced the total as 918 dollars.
“Wonder where he got it,” Collie said.
“We may never know.”
“He might not have any kin.”
“What then?” she asked.
“I guess we’d be the finders and get to keep it.”
Collie Bill stopped shoveling. “You saying we should telegram that sheriff and ask if he has any heirs in Texas?”
“That’s an idea.” Slocum looked at stars and noted the clouds were moving in. Probably snow again in the next twenty-four hours.
They finished the grave and Slocum said a few words; then they walked back to the stage building. The lamps inside were shedding yellow light out the small windows.
“Which horses do we need to get ready?” Collie Bill asked her.
“Let’s get our coats first, it’s really turning colder, and then I’ll show you. But really, I can do it by myself.”
“No way,” Slocum said. “You cook and we can harness the horses.”
All three laughed as they headed for the front porch. Inside, she placed the money in a desk drawer for safekeeping, and they put on their coats. Outside, Juanita stood on the corral fence holding up the light, and showed them the horses to catch. When the horses were caught and harnessed, they were tied to a rack. And the three went back to the house.
She busied herself making meals for the next passengers to arrive, and served Slocum and Collie Bull two large pieces of huckleberry pie. Both men took their time cutting off small pieces with the sides of their forks and eating the tart sweet delicacy one dab at a time.
“I’d say this is as close to heaven as a man can get,” Collie Bill said.
“Enjoy it. You two sure earned it,” she said, putting on a wrap and getting ready to slip outdoors. “I’m just checking on the stage.” She looked up at the clock on the wall. “It’s thirty minutes late.”
Slocum nodded. “I’m sure it will get here.”
But she was already outside and had closed the door.
“Juanita’s sure nervous about everything tonight, isn’t she?” Collie Bill considered the last of his pie. “I may lick this plate clean.”
“First, over us not seeing her man on the road, and then, the stage was due here at nine and it’s nine-thirty.”
“I ain’t figured that either about Manuel. If he rode up there to the wreck, he went right by us.”
“Probably when we were sleeping.” Slocum cradled the cup of coffee in his hands.
“I didn’t figure you slept much last night.”
“I wasn’t looking for no rider on the road up there in the junipers.”
They both laughed.
Juanita came back inside. “It’s snowing.”
“Came early,” Slocum said, seeing the flakes melting on her shawl. “I thought it would be another day before it arrived.”
She opened the potbellied stove and tossed in some split wood. “That should hold it for a while. Sure taking lots of wood.”
The door burst open and the mulatto’s dark face pushed inside. “Señora, come out here!”
Slocum’s hand went for his gun butt. Collie Bill was on his feet. “What for?”
“It’s her man.” Sims turned in the open doorway and waved to someone outside. “You two bring him in.”
“What has happened to him?” Her face was washed of color as she rushed toward the doorway.
“Collie Bill, stop her,” Slocum said. “They’re bringing him in.”
She gasped at his words. “Bringing him in? What’s happened to him?”
“Go easy,” Collie Bill said, standing in her way.
“My poor Manuel—what happened to him?” She was wringing her hands and then holding her fists to her mouth. “Oh, no.”
“We’s don’t know, lady,” Sims said. “He must have been thrown off his horse. We found him beside the road and no sign of his horse. His neck, I think, was broken.”
“Oh, no!” Hysterical, she let her flood of tears break loose.
Two men carried Manuel’s limp body in the front door. Slocum directed them to the rear of the house and the sleeping room. Collie Bill tried to comfort her as they followed the men with the body.
“Where did you find him?” Slocum asked Sims.
“On the stage road about dark. Oh, ten miles north.”
“Past the hay flats?”
“Yeah, way north of there, why?”
“He’d gone to help with the wrecked stage.”
“We heard they wrecked one up there and some guy died in the wreck.”
Slocum nodded. “We buried him.”
Sims folded his arms over his barrel chest as if appraising Slocum. “You’s pretty handy showing up all over, ain’t you?”