by Jake Logan
“Oh, yes. Stay right there while I throw these dirty clothes in the hall so they can be washed.”
“Sure.” He smiled when she held two fingers to her lips to make a loud whistle, then tossed the clothes out the partially open door.
“Now where were we?” She came prancing across the floor to him.
“I am standing here—waiting.”
Her palm slid under his sac and nimble fingers gently squeezed his balls, putting him on his toes. She rammed her breasts into him and pressed herself hard against him. Then she turned her face up, eyes closed, for his mouth to meet hers.
“Tonight I will make you forget all the women in your life,” she said.
Tall order, but he’d sure try her. He nodded for her to continue as their lips met. A hot tongue snaked past his teeth and she was lashing his mouth with it. She began to rub her pubic patch on his upper leg.
Her frantic hand began to pump up an erection. His head swirled, and he spun her around and bent her over with her hands braced on the chair seat. Then he spread her butt and pushed the stiff aching dick against her wet gates. With her hand, she inserted him, and she bowed her back when he pumped it in her.
“Madre de Dios, such a wonderful wand.” She bent lower so he could enter her deeper. His hands cupped under her and played with her swinging breasts. Surging in and out of her, he became dizzy with the action, and he gripped her hips while pouring the meat into her. Their coupling went on and on until he felt the tingling sensation deep down. His flank went tight against her firm butt and his stick exploded.
She collapsed, and he had to hold her up until she regained her senses. Recovered, she twisted and threw her arms around his neck. Her kiss was sweet and she clung to him. “The water may be cool . . .”
“I don’t care,” he said, and helped her into the tub.
“I’ll get more . . .”
They slid down in the tub. Straddling him, she closed her eyes as if overcome by pleasure and began soaping a cloth. “Judas, you are wonderful.”
“Good.”
“No, it is not. At sunup, you will leave me.” She made a pouty face.
He cupped her left breast. Raising it out of the water, he bent over to kiss it and she rose for him to do it. “We can go till then anyway,” he said.
“Ah, sí. We can make love all night long, huh?” She dropped the cloth and took his head in her hands to keep him working on the rock-hard nipple he was teasing with his tongue.
Slocum wasn’t as certain as she sounded about doing it all night long, but at the moment, she tasted like candy and he had a big sweet tooth to satisfy. They kissed, washed, kissed, and then rinsed, dripping water on the tile floor as they stepped out of the tub. He held her by the arms and kissed her hard.
She dried him furiously fast, and then turned the towel on her luscious creamy brown body beaded in droplets. Satisfied at last, she tossed the towel aside and charged him. With her firm breasts in his midsection and her pubic bone against his upper leg, she took his breath away by jerking on his hardening erection.
Then they scrambled on the bed. She caught his face and they kissed, with her hot tongue searching his mouth. Still kissing, they twisted until she was underneath him. Her shapely knees raised and spread apart for him. Then she scooted down for his entrance.
When the head of his dick slipped inside her, she sucked in her breath and then gave a cry. He wondered if she wanted the entire house to know what they were doing. But the notion quickly evaporated. His butt wanted to sock it all in her to the hilt, but her contracting ring felt restrictive at each stroke. Moaning, she raised her hips off the bed to meet him, and he surged past the ring.
“Madre de Dios . . .” She closed her eyes behind the thick lashes.
“All night?” He shook his head, never missing a beat. She was beautiful, her breasts firm under his chest. Then her nail-like clit began to score the top of his hard-on each time he went in and out.
Her moans became louder. She tossed her long dark hair in her face and with breathless words urged him onward.
Then she gripped his arms, arched her back, shoved her pubic bone at him, and strained. All at once, she fainted and he felt the rush of fluid around his shaft.
“Oh, m-my—God,” she mumbled, and threw her arms back on the bed.
He leaned down to whisper in her ear. “It isn’t over yet. Get ready.”
He reached under her, cupped the firm cheeks of her ass in his hands, and began to probe her hard. Hip bone to hip bone, he rocked on top of her. The walls began to contract and their breath grew short. Then he gave a deep lunge and from the bottom of his sac came a fountain that filled her.
Raised up on straight arms so his weight was off her, he smiled down at her. “How was that?”
“Wonderful,” she managed, and wiggled under him. “But I can’t do this all night.” She shook her head in disbelief.
“Oh?”
“Get down here and hold me.”
He laughed and obeyed her. Morning would be there soon enough. Damn it, Little Britches, I’m coming for you.
14
The temperature at predawn was cool in Lucia’s yard. Two pack mules were loaded with bedding, food, and supplies for him. Maybe enough for an army, Slocum discovered while checking the panniers and then helping the workers tie them down with a diamond hitch over the canvas tops.
“I don’t know how we can ever repay you,” Lucia said, busy ordering them around and looking like she’d missed someone or something. “But you know you can come and rest and relax here any time and stay as long you like.”
“Yes, I know that. Thanks, but what is wrong?” he asked.
“The gold bars St. John took. I need them back. I can’t pay my workers without them. I owe money to the Bank of Sonora in Guaymas.”
“If I can recover the bars, I will have them shipped there or take them there and deposit them in your name.”
“Slocum. I owe you my life. How can I repay you?”
“There is no need to worry about that. You and I have bonds deeper than that.”
She nodded and bit her lip. “But Vegas—”
“He is a good man for you.”
She looked around and lowered her voice. “Where is Kalia?”
“Sleeping. She was worn out.”
A smug smile behind her lips, she nodded as if pleased by his answer. “She’ll be too sore to walk. But I could have told her that. The Yaqui is not here yet.”
She spotted someone and shouted to him. “Where is his man, Benito?”
“Coming, Señora. He is on his way.”
“Does he have a horse?” she asked.
“No, but I have one for him.”
She waved the man on. As if satisfied, she took Slocum by the arm and once they were around the wall, she whirled him around and hugged him in the shadows.
“I am so grateful to you.” She looked up and shook her head. “And you wore her out? I am impressed, but I should know. Vegas will be good for me. He is a strong man and will learn the business in time.”
“Yes, he will be a good one,” Slocum agreed.
“Kiss me. I think your man is out there.”
He did, and when he released her, she sighed. “I remember how it felt. Lucky Kalia. I may go wake and tease her. Take care of yourself, find that girl, and kill that bastardo St. John for me. And do what you can about my gold.”
“I’ll try to oblige you. Where is Vegas?”
“He is still sedated or he’d’ve been here. You must be careful.” She hugged him quickly and stepped back.
He could still recall her body naked in the bed with him. Damn, he better go meet his guide. Lucia ran for the house. He stepped back around and met Vic, as they called the small Indian.
“Vic, you have been in the Madres before?” Slocum asked in Spanish.
“Sí, and I can speak English, too.” The short man grinned.
“Good, we’ll talk in English. These kidnappers and killers have t
aken flight north toward the bronco country.”
“They took your woman?”
“Yes. Little Britches. I followed them but had no supplies, and the horse I rode was done in.”
Vic nodded as if satisfied. “If they are up there, we will find them.”
With the cinch on his saddle tight and his Remington in the boot, Slocum dropped the stirrup, satisfied he was ready, and swung aboard Red. He waved to the gathered workers, and then rode out with Vic leading the mules. He hoped it all went well for them at the mine and that he and Vic would find Little Britches.
Vic impressed him more and more as the day wore on. First, the man never complained. He could still read the two-day-old tracks. Also, he explained to Slocum as they rode about the many places where those outlaws could have gone to hide. The day passed swiftly. They made camp high in the mountains near a small spring that watered the animals. The open highland meadow provided some grass for them to graze.
“Why are you at the mine?” Slocum asked.
“My late wife Lisa.” He crossed himself. “Her family all worked at the mine. When I married her I told her I could work there, too. So when she died I stayed there.”
“Many of your people are across the border.”
“They have to go there. The federales chased them from their land on the river.”
“You don’t wish to join them?”
He wrinkled his nose and squatted down on the toes of his sandals to look at Slocum. “I am more Mexican now than Yaqui.” He held up the cross from around his neck. “You know, the padres left us for many long years, and we had our own church without them. So it is different than the other one.”
“Catholic is Catholic, isn’t it?”
“Oh, sí, but we have things they don’t have and they have things we don’t have.” Vic laughed, shrugged, and stirred his beans with a wooden spoon. “So we go to heaven, huh? That is what is important?”
“Yeah, and I ain’t in any rush to get there,” Slocum said, seated cross-legged on the ground.
“Nor am I.”
At daybreak, they had coffee and reheated beans, and were soon on the trail. Slocum had oiled down the Remington with a rag earlier. The long gun looked fine, and he hoped the sight had not been jarred since he last used it.
They moved up to the high ridge and the kidnappers’ tracks went over the lip.
“They may go to the Puerta Mine,” Vic said, riding along and looking at the prints. “It is all that is over on this side.”
“Who runs it?”
“A gringo named Mulkey.”
“What’s he like?”
“I have no words in English for him. Malo hombre, huh?”
Slocum laughed. “Nice guy.”
“No, he makes his people work hard for little pay and cheats them at his store. He is no good.”
“Why do they work for him?” Slocum asked as they were forced to ride single file on the narrow trail.
“They are afraid he will kill them if they try to leave.”
“I guess he’d hide the kidnappers out for a fee, huh?”
“If he could make any money, he would.”
Slocum looked off to the lower peaks in the east. Way out there was the Gulf of Mexico. Sandy beaches. Pretty brown-skinned girls to bring you mescal under a grass roof and to do the hat dance for you. He was high in the mountains where the altitude made his head thump and there were no women for miles.
“How far is the mine?” he asked.
“Maybe a day’s travel.”
“When we get there, can we slip in and see if the kidnappers are there?”
“He has some guards, but they mostly keep the workers in line. No one would come all this way to rob him, the mine is so sorry.”
“Why does he keep working it?”
“Oh, they get some gold from it, but if he had to pay help real wages, he couldn’t make it.”
“I’m concerned about Little Britches.” Slocum took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead on his short sleeve. “She’s catching hell from those bastards.”
“We’ll keep riding tonight.”
“Fine with me.”
They rode past sundown, and then by the stars. The trail was less perilous, and they finally stopped in a grove of pines a few hours before dawn. Vic wanted to scout at the mine before daylight, and was afraid the mules might give their presence away if they camped too close.
Slocum hitched the stock out of sight and fed them corn in feed bags. After daylight, when Vic did not return, he climbed up higher on a rock formation to survey the entire country. With his field glasses, he could see the mine and the tailing dump. There was little human activity he could make out at the distance. If Vic wasn’t back by evening, he’d go look for him. The man might have been forced to hide somewhere down there until dark so he wouldn’t be discovered.
Meanwhile, he needed to backtrack up to the last stream they’d crossed in the night and water the horses and mules. In case someone came on the main trail, he kept to the edge of the timber while going there. In two hours, he had them watered and was coming back. He was about to think about a nap when he heard a yip. Only Apaches yipped like that.
Where were they? He dismounted in the cover of the trees and caught the two mules. He didn’t need those jack-asses braying at any Apaches. From his place, through the glasses, he saw a handful of the Indians a quarter mile away riding fine stolen horses under good saddles.
What were they doing up there? No telling. No way to warn Vic either that they were coming. They were headed for the mine for some reason. He kept looking at the mules close by—all he needed was for them to start braying.
“Don’t move, hombre. Raise your hands slowly.”
Slocum froze. He could hear the rowels of the man’s spurs approaching from behind. He’d gotten careless. His heart hurt under his breastbone. Captured, he couldn’t help anyone. It might even cost him his life.
The man jerked Slocum’s .44 out of his holster. “Don’t try nothing, hombre. We’re going to the mine and see what my patrón has for you.”
No doubt the swarthy full-faced man, wearing a bandolier that was partially filled with cartridges, meant business.
“What’s your name, gringo?” The man motioned him toward the horses with his gun barrel.
“Tom White.”
The man laughed. “Well, Señor White, why are you here watching the trail to the mine?”
“I am writing a book. What’s your name?”
“Writing a book.” The pistolero began to laugh. “Why— why I bet you can’t even read.”
“I didn’t say I was reading one, I said I was writing one.”
“Who—who for?” The man was laughing so hard his brown eyes were full of tears.
“For you to read.”
“I can’t read, stupid.”
“And your name is? I want to get it right in the book.”
“You are going to put me in the book?” He touched his chest with the muzzle of his handgun.
Slocum shrugged. “If I know your name.”
“Pasquel, Pasquel Vansenta.”
Slocum nodded as if that made sense to him.
The man looked hard at him. “What would you write about me?”
“I met a pistolero named Pasquel Vansenta in the Sierra Madres.”
“Then what you write?”
“He was a man of the gun.”
Pasquel nodded. “What else?”
“What is your wife’s name?”
He made a face. “I don’t want her in that book with me. Get on your horse. Where is the hombre rode here with you?”
“Huh?”
“Two saddle horses. I am not stupid. I followed you to the stream and back here. I never saw him.”
“I don’t know.” Slocum mounted Red. The Remington in the scabbard under his right leg was empty. He’d be lucky if he ever saw it again. There was always hope, but the sinking feeling in his gut was not cheering him up.
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“Ride on,” Pasquel said, and gathered mules and Vic’s horse to take with them.
“Who are we going to see?”
The man laughed. “Señor Mulkey, the patrón.”
“Maybe he’d like to be in my book.”
“Maybe.”
They rode out of the pines toward a log building on an open flat. There were four of the Apache horses standing hipshot in the area in front. The mules began to bray like they could smell Injuns.
Some men rushed out with rifles in their hands and seeing Pasquel, they relaxed.
“Kinda jumpy, ain’t they?” Slocum asked.
A big man who Slocum did not know walked out and folded his arms over his chest. This must be Mulkey, the man Vansenta called the patrón. Mulkey appeared to be more interested in the mules than in Slocum. “Good mules. We can use them. Kia-enta, get out here.”
An Apache appeared in the doorway. He wore a red headband. His nose had been broken several times until it resembled a beak, and the ravages of smallpox scarred his face. With the eyes of an eagle, he looked Slocum over before he even turned to the mules.
“They would do,” he said in guttural Spanish. Then, his sinewy arms folded over his sleeveless shirtfront, he considered Slocum. “Who is he?”
“Tom White,” Slocum said.
“What the hell you doing up here?” Mulkey asked.
“I’m writing a book.” He looked around at Pasquel as if to ask if he could dismount.
The pistolero nodded.
“A book? What about?”
“Mines in the Madres.”
“What does he do?” the Apache asked with a frown that furrowed the tight skin on his forehead.
“Writes books.”
The Apache shook his head. “How?”
“With a printing press,” Slocum said, looking around as if surveying the place for his book.
Mulkey glanced over at Pasquel and shook his head. “Put him in the jail. I don’t have time for him now.”
“There were two of them,” Pasquel said. “There were two saddled horses.”
“Then you find the other sumbitch,” Mulkey said. “After you lock this one up.”
“May I have some paper, pen, and ink to write on while I await you?”
“Huh?”
“If I am going to be in your jail, you should provide me with the instruments to write and paper at least.”