by Jake Logan
“I will ride with you. I came with you. When the killers of my son and husband are brought down or in jail—then I will have time for my own life.”
“Have it your way.”
“You expected him to come, didn’t you?”
Slocum nodded. “A bruja told me he was coming.”
“Who?”
“A witch.”
Amused at him, she shook her head and then followed him to the courtyard. The vaquero nodded to them at their approach. His lathered horse danced around him despite some jerks on the bits to settle him down; he was still running the race he’d made to get there. Cardin, his arms folded, waited for them, scuffing the side of his knee-high riding boot sole in the thin dust.
“Montoya says the man that you seek will be in Santa Fe by nightfall.”
“Good, I’ll find him. Gracias,” he said to the straight-backed man in the gold braid vest.
“Montoya, Pepe and Altovar will be happy to accompany you. They’re very discreet.”
“Why not? They must know Santa Fe better than you do,” she said.
“Send two along with me. I don’t want to spook him away.”
“Montoya, you and Altovar help him,” Cardin said.
“Wear some old clothes,” Slocum said. “That nice outfit might warn him.”
“We will. Where shall we meet you?” Montoya asked.
“Get a booth in the Isabella Cantina. I will join you there.”
“Sí, Isabella’s.” The man nodded to his boss and led the hot horse away to the stables.
“I have an old sombrero I can loan you,” Cardin said.
“Make it two,” she said and headed back for the house.
“She’s not serious, is she?” Cardin blinked his eyes in disbelief at Slocum.
“Sounded serious to me. She’s had one thing on her mind since that gang stormed in her store and shot her family—that’s seeing they all answered for it.”
“But this could be dangerous.”
“She’s been there. You won’t discourage her. I’ve tried. Three of that gang are pushing up daisies, and the other two soon will be if she has her way.”
“A hard side to a beautiful woman. A black widow, no?”
“No, they kill their own.”
“But she is such a lovely woman. How can she?”
“I thought that the hot day in Kansas when she hired me. Thought she’d get bogged down in this business and quit.” Slocum shook his head. “She’s not going to, and she can outshoot many men.”
“But it is one thing to shoot a tin can . . .”
“And another to shoot an outlaw busting outside with his gun blazing at you.”
“She didn’t?”
“Oh, yes.”
“I hope your plan goes well and no one is hurt tonight. My men are as tough as any.”
“Your segundo hired them?”
Cardin blinked. “You have met Valdez?”
“No, but I have watched him. You are very fortunate to have him. Such men are rare these days.”
“You amaze me. You infiltrate my casa and know all about everything. Come, I can use a strong drink.”
Slocum looked around. The place was calm again, save for the plodding of one horse. A small brown-skinned boy, barefooted, led the nearly dry bay back and forth at a respectable distance. Caked-on salt frosted his chest and shoulders. He occasionally dropped his head and coughed.
“There is no donna here?” Slocum asked.
“Not for many years. Louise died over a decade ago, and I thought no one could ever fill that gap.”
Slocum nodded.
“She was on a stage. Apaches attacked it south of Socorro. She’d gone to see her family in El Paso and was coming home. Two of my brave men died as well, defending her.”
“We’ve all lost many.”
“Yes, but I should have been on that stage so I could be with her.” He blew his nose, but even looking off, the wetness in his lashes gave him away.
“No, God had some other plans for you. Look around. You are king to all these people. They live and eat well; they are not in harm’s way.”
“You are saying what?”
“I am saying I envy you and what you do here.”
“It is expensive, so many to feed . . .” Cardin opened the liquor cabinet and took down a bottle of Kentucky whiskey.
Slocum nodded at him. “Days, weeks, even months, from now this will be over. I will wire you and tell you where she is at.”
“But what will you do?” Cardin handed him the half-full tumbler.
“Ever wonder where smoke goes? One minute it is there, the next you don’t know.”
“What then?”
“It will be your turn to convince her who you are.”
“I’ve never known a man quite like you. You could take her and the money she has and go to Mexico—South America.”
“I’ll send you the wire.”
Cardin stared at him as if unsure what to say, then tossed down some of the whiskey and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “May God speed your journey.”
“I can use his help.”
14
Slocum stood against the building’s adobe side and put the last of the roll-your-own to his lips. He inhaled and then blew out the final mouthful. After appraising the darkness and shadows, he looked over at the Sonoran sombrero, with the shorter wearer’s back to the wall and feet set out in sandals. Ready or not, it was time to go. In a flip off his forefinger and thumb, he sent the last sparks from his cigarette out on the dirt street. With an elbow he nudged the short one beside him and spoke in Spanish. “Let’s go to Isabella’s. I am thirsty.”
A mumble answered him and he led the way, pausing for a moment to look at the horses hipshot at the rack. His six-gun in his waistband under the serape, he reset it so it didn’t gouge him so much and went through the space between the ponies to the porch.
“Hey, you got some dinero, ah—mi amigo?” A drunk staggered over with his hand out.
Slocum shook his head. The drunk blinked, then stared at Slocum’s hard look in the half-light as if he had seen death—his own—and backed away. “I am sorry. I am sorry.”
Ignoring him, Slocum shouldered his way though the batwing doors into the smoky interior. Men were betting on the chuck-a-luck wheel and shouting as they lost or won fistfuls of money. A black-haired woman wearing a frilly black and red dress was sprawled on top the bar with her exposed bare legs spread apart, kissing some guy with his finger poking her cunt. Several dust-floured men were around them, overseeing the action with mugs of beer in their hands, cheering the man on.
Slocum found Montoya in the back booths and let Wink slide in first. “Sorry,” he mumbled to her under his breath.
Beneath the wide sombrero, she shook her head to dismiss his concern. A short barmaid came over and Slocum ordered two beers. When she was gone, he spoke to Montoya. “Where is Altovar?”
“Earlier, he paid a man two pesos to look in all the stables and wagon yards for this one. A while ago, that one came and got him. He thinks he’s found the one you want, at Espinosa’s Livery. He went to see if that is him.”
They both looked as the woman from the bar came by riding piggyback on the finger fucker. Her shouting and screaming for him to hurry made the crowd laugh. Her bare legs flailed and kicked as he held them up and they went by the booth. Catcalls of obscenities and what to do to her filled the blue air.
“Let’s go now,” Slocum said and slid out. He eyed the crowd, saw no threat and let Wink go first. Halfway to the front door, a red-faced mick stepped from the bar and reached for her sleeve.
“Hey, you—”
Slocum had him by the wrist quick as a cat; ducked under it, wrenching it out of place, and then threw him at the bar. He smashed into it, spilling another’s beer and causing some grumbling. Holding his arm to his side, the mick whined. “Damn yah, ah, yah broke me frigging arm.”
“No, worse than that, I dislocated i
t. Keep your gawdamn hands to yourself from now on.” The threesome went outside without another incident.
On the porch, Montoya gave a head toss and they went east.
“You all right, Chappo?” Slocum asked her as they hurried after their man, up the walk past the dark houses and stores. All the time, Slocum was looking in the shadowy night for any movement or threat.
“Whew, tough place,” she hissed at him.
“It got a little raw in there tonight, even for Isabella’s.”
“Why did he reach for me?”
“I guess he thought you were a kid and he planned to pick on you.”
“I had my hand on my gun. If you hadn’t stopped him, I was going to jam it in his guts.”
“You’re learning,”
“Trying . . .”
“Come on. Montoya wants us,” he said, seeing the man waving to him.
“What’s happening?” Slocum asked the man when they reached him in front of the livery.
“He took his horse and left with a woman earlier.”
“Can we find his horse? He will probably murder her.”
“Altovar is coming. Maybe he will have an idea.”
“Did he learn her name?”
“Señor, the livery man says he left only a short while ago with a Mexican woman,” Altovar said, looking around displeased.
“Did the man know her?”
Altovar shook his head.
“If we don’t find her, that woman will be dead,” Wink said.
“Each of us go in a different way and ask about a man and woman with a horse. Wink, you stay with me.”
“What will we do if we find him?” Montoya asked.
“Arrest him and bring him back here.”
“We are not the law, señor.”
“Tonight you are—he offers resistance, kill him. He is wanted for murder in several places.”
They both nodded, and Montoya said, “Señor Cardin said we should help you. We will do our best.”
“Be careful.”
They agreed, and Montoya went east, Altovar south, and Slocum, with a head toss to Wink, headed north up the dark street. They met an old man walking with a stick.
“Mi amigo, a while ago, a man went up this street with a woman and a horse. I need to find him.”
“No see them. No see them.”
“Gracias.” Slocum hurried on, and a woman came to the lighted doorway of her casa. He removed his sombrero at the yard gate. “Señora, a man, a woman and a horse went by here a short while ago.”
She stood in the doorway. “You mean that puta, Lupe. She is always bringing poor men home and robbing them.” Then she came down from the doorway and pointed up the street. “See that second hovel across the street at the next corner. She went up there not thirty minutes ago with that poor man and his caballo. Bet she has already robbed him.”
“Gracias,” he said with a head toss for Wink to follow him, and started across the street.
“Think it’s him?” Wink whispered, catching up.
“We’ll soon know,” he said. “You cover the back. Get in a good place to cover any escape. I’ll hold up till you are in place.”
“It won’t take me long.”
“Be careful.”
She was gone, and he gave her plenty of time to get set, listening to some couple verbally fighting nearby. The jacal had some candles lit on the inside, but thin drapes covered the windows on the street side. At last ready, he drew his Colt, went to the front door and knocked.
“Go away. I have business tonight,” a woman inside said.
He knocked again, hoping she would come and open the door.
“Not tonight!”
Again he rapped on it.
“Go away, you donkey dick, I am busy.”
“I’ll handle him.”
He wished he’d known Henny’s voice.
“No—” she pleaded.
“You no-good dumb son of a bitch—” He jerked the door open. Slocum struck him over the forehead with his gun butt, jerked his gun away from him as he went down to his knees, and stood over him as the woman screamed.
Wink burst in the back door, her gun ready. “Get him?”
“Come and look,” he said and turned to the howling woman. “Shut up or I’ll do the same thing to you.”
Wink pried the man’s hand away from his face and then nodded. “He’s one of them. It’s Henny Williams.”
“Who are you?” Henny asked, looking first at her then at Slocum.
“The woman you did not kill in Kansas,” she said, the pistol still in her hand.
“Yeah, I told that dumb colonel we needed to be sure that you were dead ’cause you was the only one could testify against us. But he said they got you.”
“Tell me one thing,” she said, cold as ice. “Why did you cut up all those women?”
“I had to. They was whores and they would tell on me.”
“Tell who?”
“My mother.”
“He murdered whores?” Lupe asked, wide eyed in the flickering light.
“Lots of them,” Wink said with a bob of her head, and holstered her .32.
Slocum breathed a sigh of relief at her actions and nodded his approval. “Tonight he’d have killed you, Lupe.”
On her knees Lupe began to cross herself and pray in earnest to the Virgin Mary.
“Come on, Henny. They’ve got a cell for you.” He jerked him up by the shirt collar, and with the wanted man in tow, they left Lupe to her fervent prayers.
“You won’t let them hang me, will you? Will you?”
“I’d do like the French did to your kind, pull you to pieces with teams of horses.”
“Oh, no. Oh, no!”
“Shut up!” Slocum said, jerking him along by the collar and turning back in time to see Wink kick him hard in the butt.
“Why do that?”
Hands on her hips, she scowled at him. “I really wanted to shoot his ass off, so that had to do.”
Slocum chuckled, and soon they were both laughing, with their sullen prisoner marching ahead of them.
15
“Where will you go next?” Cardin asked.
“Wichita,” Slocum said.
“Why there?”
“We can take a train to there from here. Then we can ride down in the Indian Territory easy from that point. There’s been a few train robberies lately in the Nations that they say our last man on her list was in on.”
“Isn’t that a dangerous country?” Cardin asked.
“You can get your horses stolen while you’re taking a bath,” she said, and they laughed with her.
Cardin took them to the station in his carriage and shook Slocum’s hand. “Very interesting to meet you. You are indeed a very different man. But I’d be damned glad to have you covering my backside in the event of trouble.”
Then he swept off his hat and bowed to her. “You, my sweet lady, are a rose in a thicket of thorns. Mind that man; he has your interests in his heart.”
“Thanks,” she said and hugged his neck. “We thank you and your men for all their help. Kansas is sending lawmen out to take him back and stand trial. We have one more.”
“What will you do after that?”
She paused. The bright sunshine shone on her tanned face and she shook her head. “I won’t know until this is over.”
“If you need anything—anything—wire me. Men, money, help.”
She nodded and thanked him. He held her hands out at a distance. “I lost my first wife to Apaches. I stand here today and wonder if I will ever see you again.”
“Perhaps,” she said and smiled for him.
Slocum tossed their saddles on the car platform and then their war bags. He assisted her on the steps of the waiting car, waved at Cardin, and they went inside the coach. In a jerk of cars, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe passenger service pulled out. They found a place, and the porter helped them lug their gear to it.
Slocum tipped him a di
me and he smiled. “You all sure have a good trip now.”
The rock of the train, the acrid smell of coal smoke swept back in the car, the clacking of expansion cracks in the track, stopping at stations and buying food from the hawkers, back on, and each hour another twenty-five miles passed. So two and a half days later, they climbed down in the night’s darkness at the Wichita depot. A black baggage man came with a handcart. “You’s need a taxi?”
“Yes,” Slocum said. “Cattleman’s Hotel.”
“I sure gets you one.” Their things loaded on his cart, the man hauled their luggage around in front and began dickering with the taxi driver. He finally turned back and began loading their things in the taxi. “He takes you’s dere for a dollar.”
Slocum gave him two quarters for his efforts. “Thanks.”
The ride to the hotel was quiet compared to his recollections of the trail drive days. All-night sessions of shooting off pistols were a simple enough part of the times; wild women running naked down the streets in races that drew many bettors out in the torchlit street. The law turned its head sideways, and the gaming went on, with more bare breasts and exposed butts on the line ready to charge off at the starter’s gun. Goddamn it, rest of you boys don’t shoot this time till after the race starts.
Slocum helped Wink off the taxi at the hotel. Inside he took a room for them and ordered up a bathtub and hot water. The desk clerk promised it would be taken care of immediately. They went upstairs and waited in the room. In a few minutes, the tub arrived, and two black youths soon packed up pails of steaming hot water for their usage. Left alone, they began to undress, numb from all the travel and the lack of any good sleep in the past two days. After they’d both bathed, they fell on the bed side by side to sleep twelve hours like logs.
“Whew,” she said seated on the side of the bed, brushing her hair with long strokes. “It’s good to be here, but that was a long trip.”
Slocum agreed, standing at the window looking at the street below. “Trains are the quick way, but they aren’t the easiest.”
“What do we do next?”
“Get a meal, pick out some horses and head south.”
She looked up and wet her lips. “I kinda thought we might go tomorrow.”