by Jake Logan
“What is it?” Jones shouted.
“The damn place is deserted.”
“Deserted?” Bixby drove his horse into their midst.
“I’m telling you there ain’t a damn soul there. Kinda spooky.”
“Where in the hell did they go?” Bixby demanded.
“Be goddamned if I know,” the scout called Tony said. “They wiped out their tracks or drove some animals over them.”
Slocum—what in the hell are you up to now? Bixby narrowed his eyes, gritted his teeth and clenched his fist. I’ll get you, you dirty, no-good bastard.
18
Slocum short loped the gray through the silvery open parts of the road and swung wide of any community that might report his travels to Bixby or the sheriff that he didn’t trust either. Making good time, he crossed the shallow river where he’d first met Bixby and they’d fought. He let the gray drink and blow.
In five minutes, he was back alternating trotting and short loping the big horse. The sharp aroma of campfire smoke forced him to rein down the gelding and search the inky night for the source. His ear turned to listen, and he patted the gray on his wet neck as he snorted and tossed his head with impatience. No need to signal his arrival, if it was the two deputies.
Another snoot full of the smoke and he hitched the gray to a cedar bow. He jerked the Winchester out of the scabbard and headed around the pungent-smelling evergreen. A few yards later he could see the blazing campfire. He counted two men and the prisoner, then a third joined them. The bare-headed one seated in the firelight and bound by handcuffs was Rafael.
Damn those three. What excuse had they used to arrest him? Didn’t need one—he had to be an inconvenience to them. Slocum drew the hammer back on the Winchester until it clicked. For two bits he’d turn the pair into buzzard bait. Lawmen—they didn’t even resemble lawmen, let alone act like them.
Slocum moved in closer, making his way slow and careful toward them. He could hear them talking at last.
“You better get ready, boy,” the thicker-set deputy said to Rafael. “They hang horse thieves in Texas. Especially Mexican ones.” Then he laughed loud—a big, haughty sound that carried in the night. “Yeah, stretch your skinny neck until your face turns purple and you poop in your pants.”
Rafael didn’t answer his tormentor. Only sat there in the firelight, acting unperturbed by the situation except for an occasional glance down at the bracelets on his wrists.
“Grab some stars!” Slocum told them.
The three deputies jumped up in the firelight, but they had the caution to raise their hands quickly.
“You must be Slocum,” the bearded one said. “You ain’t getting through. We’ve got guards set up all along the way to San Antonio.”
“Where’re the keys to those cuffs?” Slocum demanded, not doubting that shutting off any leakage of information to the authorities was the primary goal of the sheriff and the Colonel.
“We ain’t got them.”
“Then use your teeth and go to biting the chain between his hands in two.”
“Ha!”
“Find those keys and fast or you won’t have any teeth behind those whiskers.”
“Here,” the bearded one said and reached in his vest pocket. He tossed the keys on the ground and Rafael swept them up.
“I’m glad to see you, señor.”
“Slocum,” he corrected the man. “Get their guns, then handcuff them together. Each facing a different way.”
“Why’s that?” the bearded one frowned at him.
“So one of you can walk forward and one can walk backward.”
“You can’t—”
“Shut up,” Rafael said, squeezing the cuff tight on the man’s wrist. “It will be a good way for you and your no-good partners to walk.” With that said, he swift-like kneed the big man hard in the crotch. “How does that feel to you, son of a bitch?”
Rafael caught the other wide-eyed deputy, whirled him around and cuffed his wrist so he faced away from his partner. “You’re lucky, bastardo. I should have cut both of your nuts off.”
“I never—”
The bearded one straightened up, and before Slocum could warn his man, he made a grab for Rafael. Not quick enough, though—the vaquero gave him a boot toe in the balls that made him scream, then drop to his knees doubling over his privates and hollering in pain.
“They got horses?” Slocum asked.
“Sí, I will get them.” Rafael took off on the run and returned leading four horses.
“We’ve got a long ways to go. They say there are more guards. We’ll have to be careful.”
“Sí, señor. I thought I was by them. So I got on the road.”
“Can we find a back way?” Slocum tossed his head at the deputies, not wanting them to hear.
“It will take a long time,” Rafael whispered.
“I’d rather get there alive. They’ll have lots of people out looking for us. We probably have sizeable rewards on our heads.”
Rafael nodded. “Let’s ride.”
At daylight, they came down a long canyon, the dim wagon tracks lined with thick live oaks. Slocum could hear goats and chickens ahead.
“Whose place is this?”
“A cousin of Tina’s. Her name is Erlene.” Rafael smiled like he knew something. “She will like you.”
“We safe here?” Slocum didn’t give a damn what she liked—he was tired from all night skirting through the hills to avoid detection.
“Oh, very safe. She won’t tell anyone. We can stay here till sundown,” Rafael said.
A couple of dogs went to barking and a dark-haired woman appeared in the doorway of the jacal, wearing a pistola on her hip. She was smoking a corn-husk cigarette. Her full breasts pushed hard on the thin dress material and the deep cleavage looked like a canyon.
“What do you bastards want?” she asked, looking narrow-eyed at them and twisting her shoulders in a sullen way.
“We want to buy some food and take a few hours’ rest,” Rafael said.
“I know him.” She tossed her head at Rafael. “Who in the fuck are you?”
“He’s Señor—”
“Shut up, donkey dick, he can talk for himself.”
“Howdy.” Slocum dropped from the saddle, pulled the crotch of his pants down and undid the girth on the gelding. “My name’s Slocum.” Then he undid the bull-hide chaps, hung them on the saddle horn, took off his spurs and did the same with them.
“Slocum,” she said and looked at him haughtily.
Rafael started for the door of her jacal and went by her to search inside. Then when she turned, looking indignant at him, he reached back and gave her a hard swat on the ass with his hand. She bolted forward with a sharp scream. Ignoring her swearing, he gave a head toss for Slocum to come on.
Rafael scowled at the woman. “Fix us some food. Where’s a place to wash up?”
“Over there. I could blow your ass off, you know that?”
“You were going to do that you’d’ve already done it, Erlene.” He poured water into a pan.
“What are you doing here, donkey dick?”
He stopped washing his hands and looked pained at her. “Quit yakking and fix some food. We’re starved.”
Slocum suppressed a grin and edged around her to join him at the washbasin.
“Men! They always are the ruination of my life.” She shook her fist at the stick-and-wattle roof. “Slo-cum, why do you come here?”
“So he can hide out from that crooked sheriff and Bixby and get to San Antonio to contact the Rangers to come get them.”
“What is so hard about that? I mean, how many men do they have?”
“Many,” Rafael said. “They shot Pedro, the boy. Slocum had to get him back from them. Then they jumped me and if he hadn’t come along—”
She smiled, came over with a parry knife in her hand, put the toe of her foot on the edge of a chair, drew her dress up so it exposed her shapely brown leg and for effect pointed the
knife at them. “Those hombres need to be skinned and nailed on a fence.”
“I told you she would be glad to see us,” Rafael said, like she wasn’t even there.
She turned and frowned at Rafael. Must be a story there, Slocum decided.
“I would like that boy of Bixby’s skinned, too,” she said.
“He’s dead.” Rafael made a face behind his mustache.
“Who did it?” She looked back and forth at them.
“Slocum did it.”
“For that I owe you a toss in the bed, hombre.” Her dark slits for eyes met his and she nodded.
“Fix us some food. We’re hungry now,” Rafael said, drying his hands.
“Hmm,” she snorted out her rather slender nose, which had a small bridge like she must have once broken it. “You men are all hungry or horny.”
“Right now we’re hungry.”
She soon stirred a skillet sizzling with onions, squash and peppers. While the griddle steamed, she made flour tortillas with her hands, using her palm to occasionally test the heat of the black metal sheet she planned to cook them on. On her knees she worked swiftly. The aroma of her cooking soon filled the casa as they sat on crates. From a pot she drew out strips of marinated meat and added them to her skillet.
“The last of the goat I butchered,” she said.
Both men nodded that they heard her, and observed the cooking operation.
“How is my cousin Tina who lives at the ranch?” she asked.
“Fine. I think she is pregnant again,” Rafael said.
Erlene wrinkled her nose and stirred the frying food. “She likes babies.”
In minutes, she served them some thick recooked frijoles, her skillet full of steaming hot vegetables and meat, with piles of tortillas to wrap it all in. They ate in silence, but Slocum knew he was being inspected as she looked hard at him over the tortilla each time she took a bite.
“Where are you from?” Erlene asked between mouthfuls.
“Other places.”
“I know that.”
“I came down from Oregon.”
“Ah, what is it like up there?” she asked, taking another bite of her food.
“Lots of forest. Pines in the mountains.”
“You see the ocean?”
He shook his head. “Never was that far west.”
She looked disappointed. “I want to see that once.”
“What the hell for?” Rafael asked.
“ ’Cause I ain’t never seen it, stupid.”
Rafael shook his head in disgust. “You have a perfectly good farm here your husband left you.”
“Oh, yes, donkey dick. A wonderful place. You see any chandeliers hanging over your head? That polished staircase? I have a two-bit goat ranch and I don’t have any dinero to buy silk dresses to wear when I go to the Gulf and see the fine sand.”
“Screwing in that sand would make you sore,” he said and laughed.
She made a bad face at him and spoke to Slocum. “He is an idiot.”
Slocum smiled and shook his head at their conversation. Her fresh food drew the saliva to his mouth and her obviously inviting actions seated cross-legged in front of him made him think about her ample body.
At once she looked around the hard-packed floor as if she’d forgot something, and rose to her feet in an exposure of her bare legs. “I’ll get us some wine.”
“Good. I was about to choke,” Rafael said and took another big bite.
The red wine served in tin cups, she took her place again. “How far away is Oregon?” she asked Slocum.
“Two thousand miles or more.”
“Your ass get sore riding a horse that far?”
“Sometimes.”
She looked at the ceiling. “Mine aches thinking about it.”
“Where do we sleep?” Rafael asked.
“You can sleep on that pallet.” She pointed to one in the corner. “He can sleep in the hammock out back.”
“You must be the honored guest,” Rafael said, undoing his gunbelt.
Slocum nodded and considered the wine left in his cup. They better get some rest and try to push on into San Antonio during the night. “We’ll leave here at sundown.”
“Sí,” Rafael agreed and headed for the pallet.
Slocum downed the rest of his wine and she took him by the hand. “I’ll show you the hammock.”
“Good,” he said and rose. She led him outside into the glaring sun, then up a small pathway to a hilltop and into a shady grove. The day’s heat was beginning to rise—a soft wind swept the glen, and while the temperature would increase as the day went on, he knew this was the best place to sleep.
He nodded in approval at the wide swing. It would be much cooler out there than in the jacal.
“Get your clothes off,” she said in a low voice and began undoing the buttons down the front of her blouse, spilling her melon-size breasts out of the garment.
She wore nothing under it, he decided, toeing off his boots and watching her shed the skirt. Below the slight rise of her belly was the darkest, thickest bush of pubic hair he’d ever seen. When she dropped her butt on the hammock, her actions caused her great boobs to quake.
When he’d finished hanging his clothes and holster on the stubby limbs, he heard her suck in her breath.
“This may be better than the ocean,” she said and rolled over into the swinging bed.
Her legs spread apart, she pulled him on top of her. “Put it in. Oh, my, I can hardly wait. My. My. . . .”
The feel of her calloused fingers directing his half-hard dick into her added to the stimulus. Though wet with her fluids, the entry was tight and grew even tighter as he pumped it into her. His erection quickly became stone hard and stiff.
A great sigh escaped her lips and she bit his chest near the left shoulder. As she hunched her ass forward for all of him, his pubic bone soon nestled against the dense brush and they were lost in the fiery passion.
His legs ached with cramps and she groaned and grunted as she fought for more and more. The world around them spun like a top, and he pounded her until at last he felt the gnawing pain in his gonads and the rise of the hot flow toward her. His world dimmed and she cried, “Yes!”
She arched her back for him, raising off his knees on the springy hammock. The head of his skintight wand exploded and they fell into a sweaty pile. At last the rising wind swept over their bare skin, cooling them. Slocum fell asleep.
A dog barking woke him. Half-asleep, he rolled out of the swinging hammock, bare feet on the dirt, and hurried over for his pistol. He could see nothing out of place, but something warned him. It wasn’t right. He slipped on his pants and then he heard the shots from below.
What the hell was going on? Must be close to noontime, he decided. He sat on the ground to jerk on his boots. With all the stickers and goat heads, he had no intention of trying to move about barefooted. The shots had come from the jacal, but he couldn’t see a thing from his place in the trees. He put on the shirt and vest, never buttoned it, and with his hat on his head and his six-gun in hand, he headed down the path for her casa.
Then he spotted several men on horses. He ducked behind a cedar with wide boughs and could hear someone ranting. “That sumbitch Slocum ain’t here. He must be on his way to San Anton.”
“Let’s ride. That bastard gets there, we’re all done for.”
“Them two ain’t talking.”
Slocum winced. They must have shot Rafael and Erlene. What could he do? There were half a dozen riders down there milling around making lots of dust. Somehow he needed to get to San Antonio—if he couldn’t do anything for the two of them.
“Let’s ride. We’ve got to check some more places!” the leader shouted and they galloped away.
At last, when he looked inside the jacal, Slocum shook his head at the sight of her naked body sprawled on her back on the floor. Blood covered her face and he bent over to close her wide open eyes. A naked Rafael stretched out on his side near by
her, several wounds seeping blood from his back and chest when Slocum rolled him over. Inches from his open fingers lay his Colt. He was dead, too.
Shaken by the wanton butchery, Slocum buttoned his shirt and went back to the doorway for a breath of fresh air. That rotten bunch would pay for this. He needed to wrap their bodies, then find someone to bury them. Without a guide, he’d have a hard time reaching San Antonio in any short while. Rafael had known this back way. For him to take the main road would be far too dangerous; if they’d found her isolated place, there was no telling how many hired guns they had out looking for him.
He secured the bodies in blankets and barred the door so animals couldn’t get inside. Then he saddled the gray and wondered why they’d never noticed his horse and saddle. They were in a rush, he guessed. The gray and Rafael’s horse were both in a trap and somewhat out of sight. Perhaps they’d dismissed the second horse as hers was all he could think—damn, it was a waste to shoot those two.
On the road east, he met some firewood gatherers with an empty train of donkeys, a grandfather, father and two sons. He paid them twenty pesos for the burial detail and they promised to do it properly. The money represented a large sum of cash for them and they started out at once, saying they knew the señora and her place well.
Leaving them, he stood in the stirrups and trotted the gray. Close to sundown, he stopped to water the gelding in a shallow crossing.
“Don’t make a move. We’ve got you covered.”
Slocum closed his eyes and sunk in the seat of the saddle. Damn!
19
“Sheriff sent me,” the out-of-breath deputy said. “To tell you he’s got Slocum. Brought him in last night.”
“Dead, I hope?” Bixby asked, standing in his robe on the porch in the morning sun.
The deputy leaned over to talk softer. “Got him drugged. McKlein intends to try him and send him up. Then no one can say he didn’t follow the law, if they do send Rangers up here.”
“Risky damn business. You tell him he can move into the Debaca place anytime. We cleared it out yesterday.”
The deputy smiled and agreed to inform the sherrif.