Slocum and Little Britches

by Jake Logan

  “This is my jail.” Mulkey used his thumb to thump his chest.

  “I know, but even in the most barbaric countries, writers receive those items when incarcerated.”

  “That’s right, you’re in a barbaric country all right.”

  “What harm can pen, ink, and paper do?”

  Mulkey shook his head in fury. “Lock him up and find that other dummy that was with him.”

  “I promise you the International Committee for Jailed Writers will hear about this,” Slocum shouted as Pasquel led him away.

  “Fuck them, too!” Mulkey shouted after them.

  The jail was made of heavy planks and the barred windows were small. Considering the day’s rising heat, it would resemble an oven inside by afternoon. Where were the others, St. John, Fine, and the pistolero Angel? He could ask the same thing about Little Britches. He sat down on the wooden bed. That Apache was only there for one reason. Guns. And he’d use Slocum’s mules to haul them out, from the sound of things, then no doubt have mule steaks. Apaches would rather eat mule than any other meat.

  How would he ever get out of there? Pasquel had no doubt gone back to look for Vic. Another mystery—what had happened to his Yaqui? Slocum mopped his face in his hands. So they thought he was a writer. He might live a day longer. If Mulkey wasn’t dealing with the Chiricahua chief at the moment, he’d be asking Slocum pointed questions— really pointed.

  Too many questions were unanswered. Damn, this place stank of piss. He rose and began to pace back and forth. His best chance to survive was to get lots of rest. In the event he escaped, he’d get little or none. He stretched out on the bed, put his hat over his face, and closed his eyes.

  “Slocum?”

  He woke and said, “Yes.” Looking around the shadowy room, he wondered where the person was.

  “After dark, be ready to go,” the voice said in Spanish.

  “Sí. Who are you?”

  “An amigo. I must go.”

  “Yeah, thanks, amigo.” He sat up drenched in his own sweat. That had been a woman—he did not recognize her voice. Maybe if he’d seen her face or breasts, he’d remember her.

  At the least, he had an offer of help. No gun, no horse, this far back in the Madres—it would not be a Sunday picnic to ever get back to civilization.

  He heard the mules braying, and dragged the bed over to stand on it and look out the small barred window. As he watched two bucks tussle with a mule gone wild, a smile crossed his face. The animal was dragging them all over the place on his lead rope. Then he managed to kick one of them. The Indian folded, holding his belly and sitting on the ground. The mule tore loose from the other buck and left, kicking his heels over his back and cracking farts.

  The Indians and Mexicans all stood and watched him depart, cussing the air blue.

  One mule had vamoosed. Slocum and Vic had never had a problem with him. From his perch, Slocum had a good view of the yard. No sign of the kidnappers. It bothered him. Had they gone on already?

  Where was Little Britches?

  They soon led Red over fitted with a packsaddle and began loading him. Crap. Where was his Remington? His saddlebags? No doubt in the log office that Mulkey came out of when Slocum first arrived. He might have to forget that gun. They had crates of rifles on Red, the other mules, and Vic’s horse, too. How many guns did that Kia-enta buy? That many rifles should arm most of the broncos left in the Madres.

  The Apaches were drinking. Slocum shook his head. He’d not noticed it before, but it was obvious. They were in the jug. Probably why they got into that fit with the mule. Dangerous business, Apaches, gun sales, and whiskey. A little firewater and gunpowder could sure explode.

  Things finally calmed around the main building. The Apaches still had not left because the loaded animals still were at the hitch rack. Slocum could see one buck sleeping seated on his butt alongside the building—passed out.

  Satisfied that there was nothing that he could do about anything, Slocum stepped down. He needed a good drink of whiskey. He looked in the water pail—dead bugs and flies floated on the surface. Despite his thirst, he was not that bad off yet.

  A woman came with her head swathed in a scarf. She carried two burritos in her hand. She looked around to see if anyone was nearby, then stepped to the barred door.

  “Here is some food.” Then acting as if she feared someone might overhear her, she lowered her voice. “The woman you seek has left here. Victor will come for you— tonight.”

  Ah, Vic is alive. Slocum nodded and took the food. The burritos felt warm in his hand and despite his lack of appetite, he was pleased they weren’t going to let him starve. Better yet, the news that Vic was going to be available to help him heightened his spirits.

  “Gracias.”

  She nodded and swept away.

  He was alone, and took a seat on the bunk to eat. Water to drink would have been nice, but he didn’t need it.

  If Mulkey thought he was just some loco gringo author, that was fine, but Slocum didn’t like that Apache. Kia-enta hadn’t recognized him as a former army scout—no telling when his memory might recover. Not that Slocum recalled the Apache, but there was no telling where he might have observed him.

  Kia-enta might have been part of the bunch that stayed mainly in Mexico, save for the disastrous planned attack they’d made on the small army patrol near the Whetstones, almost in plain view of Tombstone. Perhaps this Kia-enta had taken the place of the leader, who later fell off his horse into a creek and drowned or died of a heart attack. One thing, after this day he’d be better armed with the rifles he’d bought from Mulkey.

  Somehow, the worthless Freddie Fine had made this gun deal, but the woman who brought Slocum the food said the kidnappers and the woman had gone on. Why hadn’t they stayed there at the mine? They weren’t running away from Slocum. No, they could hardly know he was on their trail. Someone or something else had them on the go.

  Then he heard the first cannon-propelled grenade explode in the yard outside the jail. He jumped on the bed to see the cause. The Apaches may have been drunk, but the first round sent them scurrying around like wild ants, which spooked the pack mules and horses in the dust cloud.

  The Mexican army was coming. The Apaches knew better than to stand and fight a mountain howitzer, and even before the second shell was looped in, Kia-enta and his bucks were northbound ki-yacking like coyotes and slapping horse butts with leather in their haste.

  Slocum ducked at the whistling scream of the next incoming round. He had only a second to pray the explosive was not going to hit the jail, and was relieved when it fell on the far side of Mulkey’s headquarters. From his war experience, Slocum knew the cannoneer had his orders not to hit the structures that might contain gold. He smiled to himself—as long as they thought the jail might contain more precious contents than one gringo, he was safe.

  A woman rushed inside and fumbled with a key in the brass lock on the chain.

  “Here,” Slocum said, seeing that her unfamiliarity and shaking hands were getting nowhere. “Let me try.”

  He inserted the key and twisted. The hasp fell open, and she nodded and backed up for him to come out. “Victor has horses,” she said. And motioned toward the back.

  “I can’t wait.”

  Her skirt whirling around her legs, she led the way, checking outside where the dust boiled up from another incoming round that confused the armed men shouting and rushing about. She looked back at him. “Now.”

  They ran out, and Slocum scooped up a sombrero off the ground. He fastened it on his bare head in his haste so they wouldn’t mistake him for a fleeing gringo. They rounded a jacal, and he saw his Yaqui tracker seated on a half-spooked horse, holding out the reins of another bushy-maned mustang.

  Slocum grabbed the woman by the arms and kissed her hard on her ungiving lips, causing her brown eyes to fly open in shock. “You’re an angel. God bless you.”

  Then he was on the horse, in the old saddle that was too small for hi
m, with the stirrups too short. But he and Vic were leaving the mine in the same direction the Apaches had gone. He was using the sombrero to make the stiff-legged pony go faster.

  “What brought the federales up here?” Slocum asked as they rode hard through the head-high scrubby juniper and into the canyon.

  “They must have learned about the gun deal.”

  Slocum looked back and then he nodded. Probably so. Still, too many things were unanswered. Worse yet, where was Little Britches?

  15

  Slocum sat on his butt and gnawed on some hard jerky. They didn’t need to build a fire to cook pinole. No telling where in this mountain vastness one or more Apaches lurked. Vic sounded satisfied he’d found the tracks of St. John and company. Kia-enta and the Apaches had split off to the east, and the Yaqui felt satisfied that earlier the kidnappers had gone westerly.

  When they’d stopped, Vic had handed him an older cap-and-ball Colt. He thanked the man. Under his examination, he discovered the weapon was loaded and had fresh-looking copper caps on the nipples. The gun had been oiled and cared for over its life. Still, he never considered such an older model as a hundred percent reliable. Later models and cartridge ammunition were a better bet unless he had loaded the weapon himself and knew the powder quality. Still, he felt grateful for the Colt. At least he was armed.

  “Any notion where they might be going?” Slocum asked him.

  Vic shook his head. “There are some abandoned ranches along the foothills and a town or two. They might go to Agua Sierra.”

  “What’s there?”

  Vic shrugged his shoulders. “A mission church, a couple of cantinas, a store, the usual. It is a poor village.”

  “How far is it?”

  “We can be there by sundown.”

  “We better check it out.”

  Vic agreed and they mounted up. Slocum had let out the stirrups, but aside from the pony’s backbone, riding bare-back might have been better than using the old saddle.

  They rode up to Agua Sierra after dark. Under the stars, they watered their horses in the rushing stream at the edge of the smattering of jacales, and then went into the square where the trumpet music flowed out of a cantina.

  “They know you,” Victor said as they hitched their horses at the rack. “So keep your head down. I can do the talking.”

  Slocum agreed with a bob of his wide-brimmed sombrero and followed Vic inside. The scream of some excited puta sounded over the loud music.

  One of the women rushed over to appraise Vic as he studied the room’s contents. Mostly Indian, she was not pretty, her eyes too squinty in the corners, nose too wide, and lips too thick. The low-cut brown blouse exposed her tube breasts, and she shook her ample hips suggestively at them.

  “Ah, you are a big man,” she said to Vic.

  He ignored her and said to Slocum. “Come on, Pancho. We will have some cerveza. What is your name?”

  She pressed her body familiarly against him and grinned up as if pleased he had asked. “Teeyah.”

  “Well, Teeyah, get us three cervezas and we will sit in the back.” Vic nodded toward the rear.

  “Ah, sí, hombres. Welcome to my small village. The bartender he expects money for his cerveza.” She held out her palm.

  Slocum pressed some coins in it.

  “Gracias, mucho grandes hombres.” And she was off.

  They found a vacant table in the darker rear against the wall. Settled in, Slocum watched her return with their beer in large ceramic mugs. Foam spilled over the edges. While several customers had looked them over, they soon drew less interest than the vaquero in his leather pants and vest that stomped with another puta to the music.

  Vic put his arm on her shoulder and spoke softly in her ear. “Teeyah, we look for some gringos and the one they call St. John.”

  Her oval brown-eyed gaze shifted from Vic to Slocum. The carefree look in them had vanished. Her brown throat moved from swallowing hard. “What is your business with them?”

  “They have a woman. An American that they kidnapped.”

  She nodded woodenly.

  “She is a friend of mine.”

  “They would cut my throat in minute if they knew I told you anything.”

  “We won’t tell them,” Vic promised her. “They are here in the village?”

  “Sí. They are here. That gringo who sells whiskey to the broncos—”

  “Fine, Freddy Fine,” Slocum said with a disgusted shake of his head.

  Vic nodded. “St. John?”

  “Sí,” she whispered.

  “Angel, the pistolero?”

  “Sí. That bastardo, too.”

  “Where are they?”

  “In a casa on the hill. It isn’t hard to find, but be careful, they are bad-hearted men.”

  Vic raised his mug to Slocum. “To our success.”

  Slocum agreed with a clunk of his mug. “There is an American woman with them?” he asked Teeyah.

  “Sí.”

  He nodded. All they had to do was storm the casa and get her out safely. There was no need to ask if she was all right—he’d learn that when he rescued her.

  “Gracias,” he said, and squeezed her hand.

  A big man burst in the door with a pistol in his hand and bandoliers of bullets strapped over his chest. “Where is that gringo?”

  Slocum realized they were in the darkest part of the room. He shoved her on the floor and drew his gun as he dropped to his knees. He took aim at the large form and fired. The percussion of the pistol shots doused the lights.

  The big man’s last shot went into the dirt floor. In their panic to escape the cantina, customers and putas wedged the back doorway full of squirming bodies. Others raced over the big man’s form to get out the front door at any price.

  Acrid gun smoke burned the lining of Slocum’s nose. On his feet, he stuck the gun in his waistband and pulled Teeyah up. “You all right?”

  “Sí.” she mumbled in the darkness.

  “Vic?”

  “I’m all right.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Angel. St. John’s man.”

  “Let’s get out of here. Those shots may have warned them.”

  They headed for the door. Slocum stopped and rolled the big man over, then undid his gun belt and holster buckle. He jerked it off. Angel moaned.

  “I’m dying—help me—”

  “Like you’d help us? Go to hell.” Slocum swept up Angel’s pistol. He’d not need it where he was headed. Then Slocum turned his back on him and started out the dark doorway after the other two. The holster set was too big for his waist, so he slung it over his shoulder. Later, he could make a new hole for the buckle.

  They mounted up, and Vic hoisted the woman up behind himself on the horse. They rode out under the stars. Slocum looked back but saw no pursuit. That Angel must have thought he was unstoppable to bust into that cantina like that. They’d been lucky.

  “How did he know we were in town?” he asked the woman riding alongside.

  “There are men in this village would sell their own mother for a puta. Someone ran and told him so.”

  Slocum nodded.

  “There. See the lights.” Teeyah pointed to the casa on the hillside. Some candlelight shone in the windows and open doors.

  Stopped on the trail, Slocum asked, “Is that St. John’s place?”

  “No. It belonged to Señor Cruz. But he ran for his life when they came.”

  “I would, too,” Slocum said, and dismounted.

  “You know this man St. John well?” Vic asked Slocum.

  “I had two run-ins with him when I was in charge of guarding the pack trains for the mine.”

  “I am surprised he is still alive,” Vic said.

  “You can’t always kill everyone. Caught him off guard and got the drop on him so he had to listen to me. I warned him once not to try to rob the mine trains.”

  “It did no good?”

  “Right, he must have been deaf.”


  “What can I do to help?” she asked, on the ground busy straightening her skirt.

  “Does he have any sentries?” Slocum asked, trying to see in the night.

  “I’ll go see.”

  “Whoa.” He caught her arm. “We didn’t bring you up here to get hurt.”

  “Oh, they won’t hurt me. I may hurt them, but the bad one is dead in the cantina back there. I owe you for that.” She put her hands on her hips in defiance.

  “First, St. John ain’t a saint. Freddie Fine is a white slaver. And also, I don’t want to risk Little Britches being hurt any worse than she has already been.”

  Teeyah agreed.

  “Now, we’ll all three go up there and then decide how to take them.”

  “Good enough,” she said, and they began to close in on the house, using a draw and some junipers for cover.

  With Angel’s .45 in his fist, Slocum was glad to have a more dependable weapon, though it didn’t save the former owner’s life.

  They stole close enough to see there was no sentry. Using the pungent-smelling juniper bush for cover, they could hear someone talking in Spanish.

  “Who’s that?” Slocum whispered to her.

  “Sounds like Don Mayorga.”

  “Who’s he?”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “Some rich man who hangs around.”

  “What’s he do?”

  “Nothing. He is rich.”

  Slocum nodded and motioned to Vic that he was ready to move in. They began to advance on the casa, both men armed and Teeyah with her skirt hiked to her knees in case they had to run for it.

  “. . . ah, Señorita, now that you are mine,” the man’s voice said.

  From the open window, Slocum caught sight of Little Britches naked and bound on a bed. Her hands were tied spread-eagle to the sides. Mine—what did he mean? Where were the others?

  When Slocum dared look again, the bare-assed bastard was crawling on top of her.

  “Hold it right there,” he shouted, and pointed his gun through the window.

  The man bolted upright on his knees with his erection flopping around. “Who in the fuck are you?”