by Jake Logan
“Jeter’s watch? His horse? Slocum has them? Which one’s Slocum again?” Ambrose craned his neck around, but most of the men had gone into the Drunk Camel. With Luke at the doctor’s office getting patched up, nobody was tending the bar, and the posse all deserved a drink or two on the house.
“Where are Jeter’s belongings? Other than the watch and horse?”
Amy saw how her employer perked up like a hunting dog who had finally scented a bird.
“Don’t know for sure. Could be Mr. Slocum took ’em back to Jeter’s widow.”
“Jeter was married?” Ambrose rubbed his hands together. “I had heard hints of it, from down south, but there were no courthouse records and I never found a minister or priest who claimed to have married Jeter and anyone. But there were always rumors.”
“Don’t know the details, but Mr. Slocum seemed to. He said he’d go tell the missus that she ought to be wearin’ widow’s weeds.”
“Where?”
“As I said, Mr. Killian, I don’t know for certain sure, but I kin take you out to the oak where they hung Jeter.”
“Miss Gerardo, get a buckboard. Have it provisioned for—how long will the trip take?”
Billy rubbed his almost clean chin and said, “Took us less than two days to ride home, but we was takin’ it easy ’cuz of Luke’s head bein’ all stove in like it is. In a buckboard, prob’ly take you as long in a wagon as it did us.”
“Get provisions for a week, Miss Gerardo. Load my camera and plenty of photographic plates. No, no! All of them! Don’t hold any in reserve. I must be certain I have the pictures of Jeter hanging from that oak tree.”
“Ma’am, I kin help you, if you like,” Billy offered.
“She can handle such minor details, son. That’s what I pay her to do. You and I must talk. Give me all the details. Everything you know and what you suspect about this Slocum fellow. And don’t scrimp on the details surrounding Jeter’s hanging. I want to know it all!”
Ambrose put his arm around Billy and steered him toward the saloon to get him drunk. Amy took a step after them, wishing Ambrose was leading her off. Then, crestfallen at being neglected like this, she turned and went to the livery stables to arrange for the buckboard, team, and whatever supplies they would require on their trip to see the culmination of Ambrose Killian’s obsession.
23
Slocum stared at the cabin nestled between the ravine that hid the barn, the low hills where he had started Jeter on his run for freedom, and the lush green grass that was so at odds with most of the West Texas desert down around San Esteban and Fort Davis, and saw none of it. As if his eyes could pierce walls, he saw Ruth inside the cabin, sitting at the lone table, doing some small task. Sewing? Maybe she was fixing a meal. That would set well with Slocum about now. He hadn’t had anything to eat since leaving the oak tree where Jeter’s body still swung slowly in the hot Texas wind. How would she react to knowing that her husband was dead?
She had tried to stop Jeter from killing Slocum earlier, but that didn’t mean she would take the news well. In spite of this uncertainty, Slocum knew he had to tell her since it was only right. Ruth had to move on with her life, and doing it free of Jeter was going to be a boon.
Slocum turned and stared hard at the hills where he had spied on Ruth and the cabin, using her as bait to draw Jeter back. Somewhere in that rocky expanse Jeter had hidden the loot from all his robberies. It might be a considerable pile of money or it might be a few odd dollars. Slocum just didn’t know. Ruth ought to have it. If that seemed a way to go after he told her of Jeter’s unsightly death, he might suggest they hunt for the outlaw’s ill-gotten gains. He ought to get something for his trouble, but Ruth deserved it more.
Patting the stallion, he knew riding this horse was likely to be better reward than anything else he might get from Jeter’s life as a road agent.
He urged the horse onward. Sensing it was about home, the horse broke into a trot and took him to the cabin far sooner than he anticipated. Before he could dismount, Ruth came out, wiping flour off her hands. She had been cooking.
“John? Is he—?”
“He’s dead,” Slocum said, seeing no reason to beat around the bush. From her stricken expression, she knew the answer already. Why delay it longer than necessary since her feelings were going to be the same no matter what he said or did?
“I had a dream a couple nights ago. It was a sad dream, but not frightening. I saw Les being killed. The posse got him?”
“I tried to take him alive, but he was quite a fighter.”
“There was a ledge,” she said. “High up on the side of a mountain and you two fought and he got away. Then the posse closed in.”
“They hung him,” Slocum said.
“I didn’t dream that part. J-just that he was dead.” Ruth turned abruptly and dashed into the cabin. Slocum had done his duty and told her. He could leave Jeter’s few belongings on the porch and ride away. He could have done that, but he didn’t.
Slocum swung his leg over the saddle horn and dropped to the ground. The impact caused his legs to buckle slightly. He was still weak from his fight with Jeter, and might take a few more days to recuperate. Fishing around in his saddlebags, he got the few items of Jeter’s that the posse had left. Clumsily carrying them, he went up the steps and stopped just outside the door. Ruth sat at the table he had seen so clearly, face buried in her hands, sobbing hard. She looked up, wiped her eyes, and sniffed.
“I’m sorry, John. I didn’t even like him, but he was my husband. That sounds strange, I know, but it’s the way it was.”
“I have his belongings,” Slocum said. “Some of them at least. Where should I put them?”
“There. On that box is fine. I don’t know what I’ll do with them. His gun? That horrid six-gun must have killed dozens of men. He never bragged on it to me, but I knew he was proud of gunning them all down. It was the way Les was.”
“I should go. If there’s anything—”
“John,” she said, staring at him. Her brown eyes still brimmed with tears, but the firmness of her chin and the set to her body told him her grieving was about over. Almost.
“You don’t have any way to get into town,” he said. “I’d forgotten. I’ll ride in and fetch back a buggy. Or if you want to take along any of this, I should get a wagon.”
“There’s not much I want from here, John. There’re only bad memories, memories of days and nights waiting anxiously for Les and not having him return. Then he would suddenly appear when I was about to give up hope I’d ever see him again.” She sniffled a little more. “How could I want him to come back to me and at the same time to die and never darken my door again? It doesn’t make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Slocum said, going over and pulling out a chair to sit across from her at the table.
“You’ve seen a lot of dying, haven’t you, John? I see it in your face.” Ruth reached out and placed feverish fingers on his cheek. Without taking her hand from his face, she stood and moved around the table. A quick sweep of her arm sent the plate and other settings flying. She sat on the table and hiked up her skirts. “I need you, John. I need you more than I ever thought it was possible to need a man.”
Slocum said nothing. He had seen this reaction before too. A woman needed a connection with life when faced with death. He had seen it in men too—he had felt it himself.
His hands pushed up her skirts, slowly revealing her bare legs. They were trim and white and warm. Slowly he spread those legs and exposed the nut-colored nest between her thighs. He bent forward and kissed gently, then dragged his tongue the length of those trembling pink flaps. A shudder passed through Ruth’s body. She leaned back on the table, supporting her weight on her arms. Her head lolled back and her chest heaved in reaction to his mouth moving up and down her nether lips. When his tongue entered her, she lifted her rump off the table and tried to grind herself into his face.
Slocum’s hands went under the woman’s buttocks and clutc
hed at them, holding her firmly in place as he kissed and licked and sucked at her juices. The trembling became a shudder that rattled the woman’s teeth, but Slocum never slowed in his oral assault.
“More, John, I want more than your sweet mouth.” Ruth sank back to lie on the table. She hiked her feet up to the top edges and held them wantonly wide. “I want you inside me, John, all the way. I need you!”
Slocum said nothing as he kissed higher, pushing unwanted clothing out of the way as he went. He got to the woman’s belly. His tongue dipped briefly into the deep well of her navel and then slithered upward. She worked frantically to open her blouse. By the time he reached her breasts, they were bare and shaking, the red cherry tips hard with need. He suckled first at one and then the other, but as nice as this was, Ruth wanted something more.
So did he.
Her fingers reached around clumsily and worked at his fly. She got one button undone before Slocum stood upright and finished the job. He let his jeans drop as he stepped closer to the table. He grabbed a double handful of assflesh and pulled her toward him. The purpled tip of his manhood rubbed across her gash. Then he sank into her until his crotch pressed intimately into hers.
Ruth cried out once. Then she was silent. Her eyes were screwed tightly shut and her face had become a mask. Then she bit her lower lip and began to move. Her hands reached out to grip Slocum’s forearms. Her hips began to gyrate, slowly at first, and then with wilder, wider movements. All Slocum had to do was stand there, erect and hidden within her, to get the full benefit of her desires.
He felt the tightness of her channel as she squeezed down moistly all around him. And he loved the sensation of her inner muscles flexing as he gripped her buttocks. Lifting her up allowed him to inch into her even more. This small movement was enough to bring a cry of stark desire to the woman’s lips.
“More, move, oh, oh!”
She tensed again and threatened to rob Slocum of all his control. He withdrew, then slowly entered her once more. This time there was a liquid sound that worked on his senses and sent ice-pick jabs of delight down into his own loins. He moved slowly, but was doomed to speed up until the friction between their flesh was more than he could stand.
He thrust fiercely, gripped her ass tightly, and then withdrew slowly. The pressures mounted within him, causing him to ache with need. He began stroking with a more rhythmic motion, and this sent him soaring. The liquid fire within spilled out. His cries mingled with hers as she once more tensed with the ultimate release of the sexual tensions locked within her.
Slocum stroked until he began to melt within her, then bent forward and lightly kissed her. Brown eyes fluttered open and a smile came to her lips.
“That was what I needed, John. You did it so well too.”
“We both needed release from our ghosts,” he said. He started to straighten, but her arms circled his neck and brought his face back to hers. They kissed for some time, and only then did she release him.
“You taste good,” she said.
“So do you.” He ran his fingers over her belly and worked lower. His middle finger slid once more into her and wiggled about.
“Oh, nice, so nice,” she cooed, “but later. Not now. There’s so much to do, to think about and do, oh.” She caught his wrist and held it to keep him from moving away. “Don’t stop. We can talk about what to do later. Right now I want more of this.” She stroked up and down his arm. “And this.” Her fingers lightly tapped his flaccid organ.
“You’ll have to coax me,” he said.
She did.
24
“Can’t be more ’n another few minutes,” Billy said, looking around. No matter how he studied the countryside, though, Amy noticed that the young man’s eyes always returned to her. She preened a little to get him to move along, maybe pushing out her chest a bit more than she would have normally. She was a small woman, but that only accentuated the size of her breasts—and she knew it.
Amy turned in the hard seat to look out of the corner of her eye at Ambrose. She wished he knew it. He drove the wagon like a man insane, hitting bumps in the road hard enough to rattle her teeth. After a pair of days of this Amy wished she had stayed in San Esteban, no matter that she was out here alone with Ambrose.
Alone with Billy Cassidy and Ambrose, she amended. The one man looked at her like she wished the other would. She sagged a little on the hardwood seat.
“What’s wrong, Miss Gerardo?” Ambrose snapped the reins and kept the team pulling hard up a slight incline. “We’ll be there soon. Our guide says so.”
“He might be lost or taking us in circles,” she said wearily. That much was true. She didn’t put it past Billy to get them lost so he could spend a little extra time gawking at her.
“There’s no way he could have us driving in circles. These canyons don’t allow it.”
“There, there it is. The tree!” Billy stood in his stirrups and pointed ahead.
Amy had ridden along with Ambrose enough to instinctively grab on as he whipped the team to even greater speed. She was jostled and tossed about, but it was over quickly enough. Ambrose yanked back on the reins and simply stared. She put up her hand to shield her eyes from the bright sun, and saw it.
Him. It. Jeter swung slowly in the wind, hands bound behind his back, a knotted rope around his neck.
“They did hang him,” Ambrose said in a voice almost too low for Amy to hear. “Sons of bitches! I wanted him alive to stand trial.”
“You want I should cut him down, Mr. Killian?” shouted Billy.
“No! I want photos first. I want everything recorded for posterity.”
“That one of your kin, Mr. Killian?”
“What? Never mind. Let me have a few minutes with him to pay my respects.”
“What then, Ambrose?” Amy hardly realized she had used his first name addressing him. He was so excited that he paid her no heed. “How will you celebrate?” She could send Billy off on a wild-goose chase if Ambrose really wanted to celebrate.
“There’ll be no celebration, not yet, Miss Gerardo,” Ambrose said. “Set up the tripod over there. I want to get as much light on the body as I can for the first shot. We are losing the sun rapidly because the sun sets behind the hills so quickly. If too much is in shadow, it will not photograph well.”
Amy did as she was told, dutifully moving the camera around, occasionally reaching out to stop Jeter from swinging too much. She wished she had gloves. Touching the outlaw’s corpse was distasteful since it had begun to decay. Not even the carrion-eaters were interested in pecking away at the body now. It was all she could do to even look at it. Crows had pecked out the eyes and other soft tissue. Coyotes had jumped up and nipped away at the legs, and general putrescence made the rest of the body too ugly for her to bear. If anything, though, Ambrose was in his element.
More than an hour later, he took the last photograph and had her begin the tedious process of stowing the camera and the cases holding the exposed plates.
“Help me cut him down,” he called to Billy.
“Well, all right, sir, if that’s what you want. Mind if I ask what you’re gonna do with the body?”
“Take him back to town for burial. The undertaker’s got a fancy coffin all ready for him.”
“More pictures, huh?”
“That’s right. And I’ll want to take one of you with the body laid out in the coffin. You can stand over him, pistols crossed on your chest.”
“I didn’t do that much. It was all Mr. Slocum’s doing. Well, gettin’ Jeter to run was. Capturin’ him wasn’t much of a chore. He was all cut up and had bled so much he was weak as a kitten.”
“You’re too modest,” Amy said, grinning weakly. “I’m sure you did more than you’re letting on.”
“Well, I did help tie the noose,” Billy said. “But it was Marshal Eaton that put it round his neck. Some of the men argued over whether we ought to set fire to the horse’s tail to make it run. The arguin’ got so bad, the marshal
just whacked the stallion on the rump and there was a dull cracking sound and it was all over.”
“How . . . colorful,” Amy said, a little sick to her stomach.
“There, be careful,” ordered Ambrose. “Don’t break off anything. I want his body intact.”
“He’s surely heavy fer a man what’s been dead for a week almost,” Billy said, wrestling with the body.
“And I want the rope. I want every inch of it, and don’t disturb the knot.”
Billy did as he was told while Amy and Ambrose watched. She saw a strange light come into Ambrose’s eyes, and didn’t like it.
“We ought to get on the road back to town as soon as possible,” she said. Her heart sank when she heard his answer.
“Slocum left with Jeter’s belongings.”
“To take them to Jeter’s widow, yup, that’s right,” said Billy, dusting off his hands as he joined them. “Got the body all trussed up so it won’t bounce out of your wagon.”
“Can you follow a trail?” Ambrose asked.
“Me? I know a little, I s’ppose. I could never have tracked Jeter. He was too good. Even Mr. Slocum had trouble, and he’s ’bout the best I ever seen.”
“Track Slocum, will you? Track him to Mrs. Jeter’s place. I’ll pay you an extra five dollars.”
Amy saw the way Billy looked from Ambrose to her. A smile split his face. The young man would have paid five dollars to spend another couple days on the trail with her. She wished Ambrose had seen that. It might give him ideas.
“You got yerself a deal, Mr. Killian.” Billy thrust out his hand. Ambrose shook it without the slightest sign of distaste at what the young man had just been doing.
“Never knew this place existed,” Billy said. “Real purty, ain’t it? A man could make a decent life for himself here.”
“And for his family,” Ambrose Killian said. “That cabin’s got smoke coming from the chimney. Somebody lives here.”
“Could it be Mr. Slocum?” Amy asked. “Billy said the tracks led directly here, no hesitation, no wrong turns.”