by Jake Logan
When she did, Harry stepped up, but Riley caught his arm. For a moment Slocum thought they’d come to blows. Then Harry swung his partner around. Both men stared down the street. When they went for their six-shooters, Slocum turned to see what interested them more than Tamara.
He cursed under his breath. Drury and Baldy rode in from the north. Drury had seen better days. Always thin, he looked as if he had one foot in the grave now. His face was paper white and his eyes burned with balefire. In spite of his condition, he spotted the specials before Baldy.
Harry and Riley went for their guns, but Drury got off the first shot. No matter that he looked like death warmed over, he proved more accurate than either of the specials, too. Harry yelped as hot lead tore past his cheek. A spatter of blood caused him to wipe furiously to clear his right eye so he could sight. As he rubbed, Riley got his smoke wagon firing, but his accuracy was less than adequate for the task. His rounds all went wide, giving Drury and Baldy the chance to wheel about and gallop away.
Slocum moved into the street, his Colt leveled, but the chance to join the fight had passed.
“You stepped in front of me, John.” Tamara’s voice was choked.
“Did you get hit?”
“You blocked them from hitting me. That’s why you weren’t able to gun them down.”
Slocum had instinctively put himself between the woman and the outlaws. This had prevented him from getting a good shot.
“Those two fools scared them off. Now we’ll have to chase them down.”
“My horse is in the stable, in the stall next to yours.”
“Come on.” Slocum took Tamara’s elbow and hurried her along to the livery, where the stableboy stood in the middle of the street, his mouth gaping.
“Did you see that? Them two gents started firing, and the two on horseback shot back and—”
“We need our mounts,” Slocum said, shaking the boy out of his shock. “Now.”
“I’ll get them for you.”
He vanished into the stable. Slocum started to speak but found himself saving Tamara again, this time from a wagon clattering down the street at a breakneck speed. His arm snaked around her trim waist, and he spun her about out of the way of the rig. For a brief instant, he reached for his gun, but then relaxed. Taking a shot at the reckless driver accomplished nothing. He had probably been spooked like the rest of the sleepy town. With a declining population, those most inclined to shoot it out had left for more spirited towns.
“Thanks again,” Tamara said, catching her breath and patting her hair back into place. “That’s twice in a couple minutes that you’ve saved me.”
“The driver was in a powerful hurry to get out of town.” Slocum stared after the empty wagon.
“Here’s your horses,” said the stableboy, handing over the reins.
“You know who that was in the wagon?”
“Ain’t seen him before. He bought the wagon from Old Man Hansen. You know him. The fellow who wears that leather mask. Got his face all blowed up in a mine explosion. Tore the skin right off down to the bone, or so they say. He wears it so he won’t scare the kids.” The stableboy coughed and looked sheepish. “Truth is, he’d scare me out of my wits if his face is half as ugly as everyone claims.”
“The wagon driver,” Slocum said. “You don’t know him?”
“That’s what I said. You hard of hearin,’ mister? Old Man Hansen’s sorta deaf, too. Blowed an ear off and—”
Slocum swung into the saddle. Tamara stepped up onto her horse and rode close.
“What’s wrong, John?”
“Nothing,” he said, seeing that the wagon had vanished down the road leading due west.
He put his heels to the mare’s flanks and trotted off, Tamara keeping pace. Staring in the direction taken by Drury and Baldy, Slocum turned cold. The two specials had gotten to their horses but found it difficult getting mounted. Both men sported wounds from the brief gunfight, Harry having taken the worst of it.
“Hey, wait!” Riley shouted. His foot tangled in the stirrup, and his horse started, forcing him to hop along. “Slocum, you can’t go after ’em. Them’s our outlaws to arrest.”
“They know I’m with you now,” Tamara said.
“Did you learn anything at all from them?”
“Not much more than what you’d guessed. They overheard Drury and Baldy talking about coming here. Even those dimwits understood what that meant.”
“Where would they stash the stolen silver?” Slocum was thinking aloud and didn’t expect an answer. He tried to visualize the lay of the land.
They were some distance from the railroad tracks and much farther from where the train had been robbed on the steep grade leading to the pass.
“This is the town closest to the robbery, John,” Tamara said. “Are you still here or has your mind wandered off like a little lost sheep?”
“Sorry,” Slocum said. He kept trying to understand what was going on.
All the two specials cared about was getting the drop on the outlaws or maybe gunning them down so they could take scalps in for the reward. Slocum knew he had to be smarter than that. Collingswood had hired him to bring in the outlaws, then fired him. Retrieving the silver was going to make for a fine payday, but Slocum knew a quarter of it was already lost when Jackson died.
“Off the road,” Slocum said suddenly. He trotted into a ditch and followed the channel uphill to a stand of trees.
“There they are,” Tamara said with some distaste as Harry and Riley galloped past.
“There’s no way we can find the outlaws. Drury was too spooked. He and Baldy would split up and get together somewhere else.”
“You can find them, though, can’t you, John?”
He shook his head. The outlaws had enough head start to lay a trap. Any ambush would get rid of the two specials, but Slocum thought Drury and Baldy wouldn’t stay together. Once they split up, they doubled their chances of outrunning pursuit. The land around was forested and hilly, making tracking difficult. He might get lucky and find a trace, but Slocum doubted it. So far his luck had been poor.
Standing around Newburg for two days waiting for the outlaws—and Tamara—to arrive had made him antsy. Harry and Riley presented as much a danger to him as the train robbers.
“We can’t let them ride away,” Tamara protested. “Think, John, where would they go? You’re the expert. Where would an outlaw hide?”
“They want to take the silver and hightail it. The three remaining outlaws intend to load it on a wagon and get away from here. With the railroad sending out posses, the outlaws’ anxiety over losing the silver has to be great. Their own lives would be forfeit if they were caught, but with so many riders scouring the countryside, the silver is at risk of being found.”
“How does that get us on to Drury and Baldy’s trail?”
“Back to town.”
“Town, but—” Tamara stared at him. Then her eyes widened and she smiled. “The wagon that almost ran us over. You think that was the third robber?”
“We won’t find the other two, not with Harry and Riley on their trail.”
“You’re so clever. You asked the stable hand if the driver was a local.”
“He had never seen the man before. That doesn’t make him a robber, but the coincidence is too much to ignore.”
She bent over so her lips brushed his cheek.
“You’re a genius, and I love you! Come on. Time’s wasting!”
They made their way back to Newburg and immediately took the same road as the reckless wagon driver.
“Did you get a good look at him, John?” Tamara glanced in his direction as they rode almost knee to knee. “I heard the horses and the wagon, but you swept me off my feet too fast to see him.”
“I didn’t,” Slocum said, distracted by her nearness and trying to work out
which of the wagon tracks belonged to the driver whom he felt in his gut to be the last of the gang. “I can’t find the tracks, so we need to ride fast.”
“Fast? I like it hard,” she said, giving him a broad wink.
Slocum put his heels to the mare and rocketed away. Tamara kept up, but her horse flagged before Slocum’s, forcing him to slow and finally to come to a halt. He didn’t understand what was wrong. They had topped more than one rise in the steep road and had a view miles ahead. No one was on the road, much less the wagon and its driver.
“We can’t keep going like this,” she said, patting her horse’s neck.
“Walk the horse, trot, then gallop, walk, change the gait, and rest a few minutes.”
“That’ll cover a lot of distance, but why haven’t we overtaken the wagon by now? We’ve ridden for more than an hour and covered more distance than he ever could have.”
Slocum nodded agreement. He had thought the same thing. They hadn’t been more than an hour behind the departing wagon and traveled twice as fast—or more.
“We keep going another half hour, then we decide what to do.”
“I need to rest. So does my horse.”
“We can rest in a half hour. Change gait, cover ground.” He led off. Tamara gamely followed, but he soon saw that her mount stumbled and would soon collapse under her.
At the end of the half hour, they had covered another three miles without sighting the wagon. Slocum hadn’t noticed anywhere the driver had left the road, and it was inconceivable they hadn’t overtaken the rig by now.
He voiced his concern.
“He might have tried running us over, gone a ways out of town, then circled around,” suggested Tamara. “That means we’d have to choose another road and—”
“He didn’t,” Slocum said positively. “We would have seen him if he’d gone after Drury and Baldy. The road south is too steep and goes away from the silver, wherever it’s hidden.” He pointed ahead. “East along this road takes us to a spot near the train robbery—”
“Where the silver is hidden,” she finished. With a sharp intake of breath and a release that set her breasts to shaking delightfully, she said, “What can we do?”
“Rest the horses, set up camp here, where we can see the road but not be seen.”
Tamara smiled. “I understand. If we missed the wagon between here and town, if he had hidden somewhere along the road, he’ll have to pass us to get to the silver cache.”
“I can use some grub.”
“And a rest,” Tamara said, but Slocum heard the contradiction in her voice.
He dismounted and led his mare to a spot that gave a good view of the road through the trees. The driver would be almost on them before he noticed anyone watching, while Slocum had a view giving more than fifteen minutes’ warning of any traveler. He gathered wood and made a small fire while Tamara prepared the food for cooking. They worked in silence, exchanged only a few words while they ate, then spread out their blankets and lay back.
But it wasn’t to rest.
The tension had been growing between them all day—since Slocum had rescued her from getting run over.
“I want to thank you,” Tamara said.
“The wagon?”
“No, for this.” She pressed her hand down on his crotch. He had been hard for some time.
“If you like it, why don’t you take it out?”
Her fingers danced over the buttons and popped the fly open. His manhood rushed out, tall and proud and straining.
“I’m afraid you might be chilly, all naked and hanging out like that.”
Before he could say a word, she dropped down and enmouthed his length. He gasped as her tongue swirled about the sensitive tip and then worked down the underside to poke into his balls. She kept pressing and pulling until she had him fully out of his jeans and could concentrate her full oral assault on him. Sucking hard on the plum-sized tip, her cheeks went hollow, and Slocum thought he would go crazy with lust.
His hips lifted from the blanket as he tried to sink deeper into her mouth. She held her head stationary and let him thrust until he bounced off the roof of her mouth and went deeper into her throat. When she swallowed, he felt the motion all around his hidden length. It sent a shockwave along his fleshy shaft and into his loins. He knew what a forest felt like now as a fire crept closer and eventually engulfed it. Slow heat, warmer, hotter, fierce heat that devoured body and soul. Her fingers stroked over his hairy balls and then tugged. Slocum had to concentrate not to lose control. Everything she did with her mouth, how she fondled him, the heat of her gusting breath against his groin, all conspired to push his arousal up more and more.
She began bobbing her head up and down, mimicking the motion that suddenly appealed more to him than having her lips stroking the sides of his erection.
He reached down and pushed her away.
“Your turn,” he said. Her bright eyes turned into small suns, burning with lust.
She went end for end and straddled his head, her knees beside his ears.
“No, I want—”
“Lick,” she ordered. “All over. I want to feel your tongue on my body like this.”
She bent down and sucked him into her mouth again. Slocum groaned and sank back. Looking up, all he saw was a mountain of cloth. He began pushing away her skirts until he exposed her legs. Caressing her thighs brought immediate response. She sucked harder. He ran his hands along the insides of her legs, letting the sleek flesh flow like satin under his fingertips. When he succeeded in getting her skirts bunched around her hips, he saw the delicious target she wanted him to sample.
He reared up and applied his mouth to her privates. In reaction, she worked even more furiously on his manhood. He kissed her nether lips, then ran his tongue along the pinkly scalloped flaps until they trembled. Tasting the thick juices oozing from her interior spurred him on. Grabbing her around the legs, he pulled her hips down so she spread wider across his face.
His tongue shot out and ran about, just within the portal to her heated center. She trembled as he continued to explore orally. At the same time he knew his own genitals were getting full attention from her mouth. He pulled her down more so he could drive his tongue deeper into her. Then he raced around the rim of her opening.
Tamara emitted small sounds of passion, without once releasing her lips from their station over the end of his cock. Then she started bobbing up and down, taking him faster and faster. He matched her pace until she began grinding her hips into his face in obvious, silent demand for what she wanted most. He thrust in and out with his tongue and then his world exploded. Tension mounted and he found himself unable to restrain the white-hot rush. He spewed forth his load, and she sucked it all up as she squeezed down hard on his balls.
The rush of sensation passed, and he renewed his tonguing until her legs clamped down hard on either side of his head and she shook hard as if caught in an earthquake. Then she stretched out, her legs straight on either side of his head. Slocum disengaged, rolled over, and came up to lie with her in his arms.
“That was incredible, John. And you taste so good!”
He kissed her almost as hard as she kissed back. Before the sun sank behind the mountains to the west, they found new ways of enjoying each other.
And the wagon never passed them.
12
“How can this be, John?” Tamara Crittenden stood in the middle of Newburg’s main street, staring at the deserted buildings in disbelief. One or two curious residents still in the town poked their heads out, looked at her, then went back to their business, meager though it was.
Slocum turned in a complete circle and shook his head.
“He gave us the slip. I’m damned if I know how he did it. If he’d hidden the wagon along that road and ridden on horseback from there, he’d have had to pass us.”
�
��He didn’t. And there weren’t any side roads.”
“Not that I saw.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. They had ridden back to town and had spent the last hour asking anyone who would talk to them if they had seen the driver and his wagon.
The answer to both had been a puzzled “no.” More than one curious citizen asked why they were interested. From the responses, Slocum doubted the train robber had bought off everyone. After asking the same question so many times, one of the men interrogated would have shown a hint of lying. All were honestly mystified. Newburg wasn’t a town where anyone got lost. It was too tiny and getting smaller by the day as the last of the diehards moved on to greener pastures.
“You looked? Hard?”
He turned on her. The flash of anger silenced the woman. Slocum took it as an insult to his talent and his integrity that he had missed the trick that had allowed a man driving a wagon to simply vanish.
“I’m sorry. I hunted for tracks, too, and I saw nothing leading away from the road. Even identifying the ones made when he left town after nearly running me down didn’t amount to a hill of beans.”
“The wagon tracks disappeared in the dust before the first hill,” Slocum said. He’d gone over every possible tactic and come up with nothing. “Abandoning the wagon and riding the team away is all I can figure.”
“Then he’ll have to get another wagon if he wants to load the silver and drive off with it,” she said.
Slocum walked to a spot in the shade and sat on the edge of the uneven boardwalk. The rough plank under him reminded him of the times he had been whipped for misbehaving when he was a young boy in school. He hadn’t been the best student and had paid for his sass. Now he thought of the splintery boards against his ass as new punishment for not being good enough. Pushing his failure from his mind, he went back over everything he had learned about the robbery. The three had come to this town and had fled when the two specials opened fire on them instead of trapping them good and proper.