Slocum and Little Britches

by Jake Logan

  They pushed their horses southwestward to clear the mountains. Vegas knew some shortcuts so by the time they made camp late after sundown, Slocum felt they were making progress and in another day of hard pushing they should catch up with Lucia Valenta’s captors.

  “Maybe at Norte,” Vegas said. “We can catch them there.”

  Slocum agreed. There were many cantinas and things available for them at the town. The liquor, putas, and food would be easier to find there. They might even have to rest there.

  “You are upset over this kidnapping?” Silver asked him later that night in their bedroll. She was snuggled against him, and her warm skin felt good pressed to his own under the covers as the temperature dropped.

  “Lucia was never mean to her help. I have been around her. That woman’s cousin stole from her.”

  She chuckled. “What did she say? She didn’t get enough for the beating she got?”

  He shook his head at the thought of what the woman said. “And St. John won’t share a damn thing with those people.”

  She nested her rock-hard breasts in his chest. “I hope we find her.”

  “Oh, we will find her. Trust me.” He hoped it was not too late.

  “Where is that boy who brought you the message from her?”

  “Largo? I don’t know. He’s brave, but he’s also young and inexperienced.”

  She reached underneath her stomach and pulled on his tool. “Make me forget all the bad things.”

  “I hope that’s that easy.” He raised up and kissed her.

  They were soon caught in a tornado of passion. His thoughts were whirling like a spinning twenty-dollar gold piece on a bar top as he sought her depths with a burning-headed erection and his needs screamed at him. Then the passion died and they slept in each other’s arms.

  At dawn, they ate a beef jerky breakfast and hurried on. At mid-afternoon, they reached the outskirts of Norte. An old man with an oxcart who they met on the road had seen Lucia and her captors that morning riding into Norte. Slocum paid him two bits and the man grinned, swept off his hat, bowed, and thanked him.

  “Will they stop in Norte?” Silver asked when they rode on.

  Vegas nodded. “They have no boss with them, huh? And there are many things which they have in this town where they can spend any money they have.”

  “Where will we start looking for them?” she asked.

  “We’ll make camp and go into town after dark. They may know me,” Slocum said.

  Vegas shrugged and laughed. “They don’t know me. I will go look for them.”

  Slocum agreed. “Be careful and come get me if you locate them.”

  Later, as Slocum sat on his butt in camp, time ticked very slowly. The sun crawled across the sky to die in the distant Gulf of California. Red flares of the impending solar funeral at last signaled night was coming.

  Little Britchas hurried over, bringing him a plate of frijoles and tortillas bought earlier. Vegas had not returned, which meant he was still looking or was busy sizing up the situation. Slocum thanked her absently and began to eat. His appetite was numbed by his concern for Lucia in the hands of those bastards.

  At the sound of a horse coming, Silver stood up. “Vegas is coming back.”

  “Good.” He handed her his plate and went to meet the man.

  “They are in this village,” Vegas said, dismounting heavily. “They are staying at a fancy house. The woman is with them.”

  “Whose house?”

  “Some old general named Matteras.”

  Slocum whistled. “Cotteral Matteras.”

  “Who is he?” Vegas asked.

  “They use to call him the Butcher of Sonora. He poisoned Apaches at parties he hosted for them. He shipped all the mine workers that struck the Cantilena Mine off to the Yucatan and sold their wives and daughters into slavery. On the Yaqui River, he shot all the male squatters and his army raped the rest.”

  “Nice guy. Why would they stop there?” Silver asked.

  “He probably has a cell to hold her in while they raise hell in town.”

  “What do we do next?” she asked, busy filling a plate of food for Vegas.

  “We’ll go see if we can get her out.”

  “He has guards,” Vegas said. “Gracias.” He took the tin plate piled high with beans and tortillas from her.

  “I bet no one has challenged them in years,” Slocum said. “A sentry force like that gets laggard, especially in Mexico.”

  “You better eat. You’ll need all the strength you can find to get her out of there, I’d bet,” she said.

  Slocum laughed. “Yes, Mother. Vegas, tell us more about the place.”

  “It has high walls and armed guards at the gate. I went on a nearby hill and discovered there are several buildings inside besides the large casa.”

  “Maybe we should wait till they bring her out?” she asked.

  “Have you never breached a castle before?” Slocum asked her, picking up his plate and sitting back down on the ground to finish his meal.

  “Oh, yes, many times,” she said.

  They all laughed.

  Later, in the dark, they crouched in the night near the compound wall. Slocum had discovered a weak link in the chain. An old gate left unlocked.

  “I am certain we can get it open and slip inside.”

  “Then what?” Vegas asked, squatted on his heels with them.

  “Then we storm the castle.”

  The man nodded.

  “What should I do?” she asked.

  “Bring the horses on the run when we come out with her.”

  “What if you don’t find her in there or they capture you?”

  “Then we go to our next plan.”

  “What is that?”

  “I haven’t figured it out yet.”

  She laughed. “I’ll be ready. When do I give up on you getting out?”

  “Sunup and we aren’t out, you draw back and go home.”

  “Are you serious?”

  He looked hard at her. “Dead serious. We aren’t out of there by sunup, you go home.”

  She twisted around to look at Vegas, who affirmed Slocum’s words with a sharp nod. Then she shook her head in dismay. “You two are crazy.”

  Slocum nodded. They were, but he knew no better way to rescue the lady. He owed her that much. Somehow, in the next few hours, they needed to get Lucia out of there and be gone.

  “How will you signal me?” she asked when they dismounted in a dry wash above the general’s palace.

  “Get back up the hill and watch for us to come out the gate. Then bring those horses on a dead run.”

  She nodded. “I really am worried.”

  He kissed her and then rose. “So are we.”

  Vegas nodded at her. “Vayas con Dios.”

  “You two will need God’s help worse than I do.”

  They left her and hurried under the stars toward the gate on a path through the cactus and the greasewood brush. Slocum lifted the latch, and the walk-in door built in the gate opened on creaky hinges. Inside, they both crouched for a moment to get their bearings. Then Slocum indicated the lighted house and they headed for it.

  They heard the chatter of women talking in the kitchen, and skirted to a pair of dark French doors. Slocum tried the latch and it opened. Both men slipped inside. The room contained a large bed that the light from outside shone on. The walls were covered with volumes of books in book-cases. He decided it was a library and guest room.

  At the door, he listened, heard nothing, and opened it. The hall’s small candle lamps shed an orange glow as the two men eased out and headed for the front of the house. Footsteps coming made them slip into a dark room. At the cracked door, Slocum could see it was a waiter returning with a tray. He stepped out and coughed.

  The man turned and frowned at the .44 in his face. With his gun muzzle, Slocum waved the man into the room. “No tricks or you die.”

  “Who—who are you?”

  “Hush. Where is
Señora Valenta, the woman they brought in today?”

  “I know nothing—”

  Vegas laid his knife’s edge at the man’s throat. “You have only minutes left in your miserable life. Where is she?”

  “Top of the stairs in the first bedroom.”

  “Tied up?”

  He shook his head. “No, she is having a Chinese dream.”

  “Opium.”

  Vegas returned Slocum’s stern nod.

  “We’re going to tie you up and gag you,” Vegas said in the man’s ear, and began to bind his hands behind his back. “You make one sound, we’ll come back and cut your throat.”

  “I won’t. I swear.”

  “Your life depends on it, amigo,” Slocum said.

  “How do we get upstairs?” Vegas asked the trembling waiter.

  “There are stairs in the back of the house.”

  Slocum gave Vegas a nod. When the man was securely bound and gagged, they slipped outside again and worked their way around. Time was sand in an hourglass, drizzling away. The fact they had Lucia doped made Slocum upset. It meant carrying her out of there, and she would be unable to help them or herself. They slipped in through a rear door. The women were wrapping up their work and leaving the kitchen. Slocum and Vegas squatted behind a wall and waited as the women’s voices trailed off into the night.

  In the kitchen that they entered, it smelled of cooking odors, with garlic and onions. They moved across the dimly lighted area, and found the door to the dark staircase that the waiter had promised. At the head of the stairs, Slocum put his ear to the door and listened. He heard voices that he suspected were in the lower part of the house.

  He turned the knob, opened the door, and eased onto the second-floor balcony, which was fenced by a railing. Vegas joined him. They stayed close to the wall, hoping no one saw them, and moved toward the door Slocum hoped was Lucia’s room.

  He turned back and nodded to Vegas, who held his pistol close to his face ready for anything. They exchanged a look of satisfaction and started on again. The creak of the floor sounded like a scream and made them stop.

  At last, Slocum opened the door and eased inside. Vegas quietly closed the door. Slocum went over by the bed where the soft lamplight shone on Lucia’s ashen face. The thought of how these perverts had used her body made him angry and sick to his stomach. She slept, or was passed out.

  “Lucia, Lucia, wake up.”

  She mumbled. “What?”

  “It’s me, Slocum. Can you wake up?”

  “Nooo.”

  “I’m getting you out of here,” he said, taking the covers back and seeing she was in a thin negligee. He swept her up in his arms and nodded to Vegas. “Let’s go.”

  “Sí,” the man said with a grim look written on his face in the flickering light.

  Slocum shifted her in his arms. All they had to do was get downstairs, across the yard, through the gate, and signal for Silver to bring the horses. A long ways to go, but with luck—they’d need it. They went back the balcony, and Vegas led the way to the entrance to the back staircase.

  Voices and laughter from below filtered up to them from the main hall. Vegas opened the door and let Slocum, with Lucia in his arms, into the dark hallway. Step by step, he descended the stairs. He shifted his load and she moaned softly.

  “It’s okay. We’re getting you out of this hell,” he whispered.

  At the foot of the stairs, he unlocked the door, boosted her in his arms, and stepped into the kitchen.

  “Where are you going with her?” a voice demanded.

  Slocum turned to face a large man holding a pistol on him. “Going for some air. It was stuffy in there.”

  “You make joke?”

  “No—”

  Vegas came out of the door to the staircase and shot the man. The lamp went out from the percussion of the shot. Acrid gun smoke boiled up in the room. The big man crumpled and Slocum headed for the rear door with Lucia in his arms.

  He could hear the shouting, and hoped the gunshot would signal Little Britches to come at once. Vegas ran beside him across the open yard toward the side gate. “I couldn’t think what else to do.”

  “You did—” Slocum caught his breath. “You did wonderful.”

  “They are coming.”

  “Shoot whoever you have to.” His legs and arms ached, but he found some new strength.

  At last, they were at the gate. Shots began to thump into the wooden gate as Slocum ducked, opened it, and went through. Once outside, he looked back, relieved that Vegas had secured it closed. The sound of hoofbeats coming down the arroyo made his hard-beating heart slow a little, and Little Britches shouting to the horses made him feel some comfort.

  Vegas rushed out to catch his horse. He bounded into the saddle, and Slocum handed him the limp Lucia. He took her and his barb lunged away in the night. Half aboard his own saddle in the starlight, Slocum saw the gate burst open and a face appeared.

  He shouted for Silver to run and drew his Colt. Shooting across his own body, he slung lead at the gate. There were shouts from someone hit and then as Red tore out, Slocum’s six-gun clicked on empty. All he could do was holster it and urge the stout mountain horse away.

  With the drum of Red’s hoofbeats under him, he chased the fleeing figures of Silver and Vegas ahead of him. His breath came in shorter gasps as he tried to fill his aching lungs. There would be pursuit. But for now they were free. Staying free was what might be tricky.

  11

  By sunup, they had recovered their packhorse and were headed into the Madres. Vegas knew of a place where he felt they could hide out for a while in the mountains’ vastness. The rescued Lucia was hardly coherent, and Vegas carried her in his arms like a large doll. Slocum sent the three of them on while he dropped back and checked on their back trail for any sign of pursuit.

  On his stomach scanning the country for a sign of dust, he found nothing in his scope, and soon caught and mounted Red to catch up with them. He hoped that they could soon find a place to rest. His eyes were dry and sore from lack of sleep. A few hours’ rest, if they could risk it, might freshen all of them. The mountain horse cat-hopped up the steep-sided slope, and he was soon on another flat racing to catch up.

  They stopped beside a spring that fed a small stream, green with watercress. The pure water flowed out of a large hole in the rock. Slocum bellied down and soaked his face.

  Little Britches sat on her butt and rested her forehead on her knees. Still drugged, Lucia slept on a blanket on the ground close by. Vegas squatted on his heels and smoked a corn-husk cigarette.

  “I knew when that hombre spoke to you in the kitchen we were caught,” Vegas said. “It didn’t do my heart any good.”

  Slocum dried his refreshed face on his kerchief. “Little Britches, you all right?”

  She looked up and then nodded woodenly. “Fine. I think now that we’re up here, it all kinda caught up with me.”

  Slocum agreed and rose. He walked over to look at the sleeping Lucia. Maybe the drugs would soon wear off. No telling what they had given her. A wonder they hadn’t killed her. That lousy St. John had made much worse plans for her than murdering her. He simply had hired some slovenly careless jerks in Freddie Fine and Tigre.

  Silver came over and hugged his arm, looking down at Lucia. “Will she be all right?”

  “She’s a very strong person. But she’s been through hell.”

  “Is there anything we can do for her?”

  “I think by the time we get to where we are going to camp tonight, the drugs they gave her should be wearing off.”

  “She’s very pretty.”

  Slocum nodded and scooped Lucia up. He handed her to Vegas, who was on horseback, and laughed. “Tough job, but someone has to do it.”

  “Ah, toughest job in my life.” The row of his even white teeth showed his pride in being allocated the job of transporting her.

  They all laughed, and Slocum ran for his horse.

  They rode single fi
le up the confines of the deep canyon. The high-water marks showed signs of flash floods, with driftwood and debris from past floods lodged in place over their heads. The sound of horseshoes striking hard rocks echoed off the canyon walls. Slocum kept looking at the dizzying heights above and the circling vulture. He hoped the black bird didn’t know something that Slocum didn’t.

  The temperature rose in the confinement of the stone walls. Some scant vegetation clung to the meager dirt on the ground. As they climbed higher, a breeze funneled down the canyon, and Slocum winked at Little Britches.

  “We may live yet.”

  “Whew, it is cooler up here.” She looked over at him. “I think Vegas is talking to her.”

  “Good.”

  “Will they find us up here?”

  “Who knows? They won’t want her alive bringing the authorities down on them for stealing her mine. I have figured some of their plan out. If they had nobody to say she died, then her heirs don’t get the mine. No one can argue that she didn’t leave St. John in charge.”

  “So how do we get the authorities to do something about him?”

  “Get her well enough to meet with them.”

  “Oh, this all sounds so complicated.”

  Vegas turned his horse back and rode alongside of Slocum. “He is here,” he said to the woman in his arms.

  “I-I can’t thank you enough—”

  “Save your strength, Lucia. We can talk more later.”

  “But all of you are such brave people. I know you carried me out and they were shooting. Oh, I could do nothing. It wasn’t a dream, was it?”

  “No. Señora, it was real and he carried you a long ways,” said Vegas.

  Lucia nodded and fell asleep again.

  “Vegas, you tired of holding her?” An eagle screamed above them and distracted Slocum. He smiled as the dark-colored bird of prey challenged them again from on high.

  “No, no, I would ride to the end of the earth holding her in my arms,” said Vegas.

  “Fine.” Slocum winked at Little Britches. “I’ll let you.”

  That evening, Slocum gave Lucia his extra shirt to wear. The tail came almost to her knees, and she laughed. “Ah, it is a little short, but better than nothing.”