by Jake Logan
“Vic, get that sumbitch off that bed.”
Vic took off in a run for the door.
“Who—who are you?” Mayorga asked, looking around like a cornered coyote.
Vic jerked him off the bed and pressed him to the wall. Teeyah had come in behind Vic, and was cutting the ties off the sobbing Little Britches.
Slocum looked around in the night—nothing. Where had the others gone? Too late again. “Vic, find out from him where’n the hell they went. I’m coming inside.”
In moments, he’d holstered the gun and held Little Britches in his arms. Partially wrapped in a blanket, she hugged him tight. “I knew you’d come. I knew it. I told those bastards you’d get them. Oh, Slocum—”
“When did they leave?”
“After they sold me to him—that one over there—” She motioned to the bare-assed prisoner standing against the wall, whose erection had expired.
“He use you?”
She nodded and held up two fingers.
“When did they leave here?”
“Midday. They left Angel behind to kill you if you came here.”
He held her tight and patted her back. “I’m sorry. We didn’t know anything.”
“I’m just glad you came for me.” She leaned back, and her eyelashes were wet with tears. “You are the best sight of my whole life.” And she squeezed him.
“They mention that I was coming?”
“St. John kept saying, ‘You men, Slocum gets here, I’m killing him.’”
“He knew we were coming?”
“Yes, he expected you.”
“There’s all kinds of things going on up here. Mulkey sold the bronco Apaches rifles.”
“Those were Fine’s guns.” She shook her head, then rested her cheek on his chest.
“How’s he figure into the deal?”
“I think he and St. John had the mine together and split the take. They wanted out of the mountains with the bullion they stole from there, but figured you would be after them. So I guess that’s why they kidnapped me. So they’d have bargaining power with you.”
“What about the guns?”
“They gave them to Mulkey for fresh horses and went on. They decided they were far enough ahead of you. They sold me to him this morning.” With a grim face, she jabbed her finger at Mayorga.
“And left Angel to deal with me? Where are they headed?”
“The springs at John Slaughter’s, I overheard them say. Then San Francisco.”
He wrapped the blanket around her. “Teeyah, help her bathe and find her some clothes.”
“Sí. Come with me.”
Slocum rose and walked over to the trembling Mayorga. “What did you pay for her?”
“I-I never—”
Slocum grasped the front of his embroidered white shirt in a wad and jerked him close. “If you don’t go to talking and fast, I’m whacking off your pecker.”
“Eeee!” Mayorga screamed in a high-pitched voice.
“Then your balls one by one.”
“Five hundred pesos. But I never knew—I mean, I never knew she was—”
In disgust, Slocum slammed him against the wall. “I know your kind. Money can buy you anything, but right now it ain’t saving you, is it?”
“No, but I could pay you. What do you want? How much? Oh, dear God. How much?” Mayorga held his hands up and cowered in fear.
“Why, for ten cents I’d stick a wagon tongue up your ass. Shut up, I need to think.”
“What should we do with him?” Vic asked.
“Tie him up. I don’t need him signaling the whole damn town that we’re up here. Then go check on the horses that are here. We will need some better ones.”
Teeyah was helping Little Britches get dressed in the kitchen when Slocum stormed in there. “Is there any food here for us to eat?”
“I think so,” Little Britches said, and forced a smile for him while putting on her pants.
“We can fix some,” Teeyah said.
“Good. We need to take off after those two, and I don’t think we can leave either one of you here. I better go look and see about extra horses.”
“Slocum?”
“Yes.” He turned to face Little Britches.
“I owe you my life again.”
He shook his head. “I was just here to help.”
“No, you didn’t need to—”
“I needed to all right. Those two scoundrels need to be behind bars or dead.”
She waved him on. “Go check on your horses. Teeyah and I can fix food.”
He went outside into the starlight. Vic had led up their horses.
“There is another horse in the corral,” Vic said, hitching their mounts to the pole pen.
“That must be Mayorga’s.”
“We still need another if we take both women.”
“I’d hate to leave Teeyah to the likes of Mayorga. He’d take out all his spite on her the minute we leave.”
“Sí, I agree. I can go back in the village and buy another horse, but I have no money.”
“Here.” Slocum gave him some money, grateful that Mulkey had been so shocked he’d found a writer that he’d never searched Slocum for valuables.
“How many should I buy?” Vic asked, looking amused at the folding money.
“Horses are cheap, huh?” Slocum climbed over and checked on Mayorga’s mount in the starlight. It was a stout gray barb stallion. The saddle was hand-tooled. He’d use it, being the biggest. Serve the bastard right to lose his best horse and saddle for what he did to Little Britches.
“In that village, money is short,” said Vic.
“Then get us an extra horse with a packsaddle to haul some bedding and things we can find here.”
Vic was on his horse and gone into the night. Slocum, satisfied the gray would suit his purpose, went back to the house. He could smell the wood smoke when he entered the room. Teeyah was making a large flour tortilla in her small hands.
“There are cooked frijoles we are warming up,” Little Britches said. “Did you find the paint horse?”
He shook his head.
“I think he was turned loose to graze. He’s not a bad ride.”
“I’ll find him at daylight.”
She nodded and busied herself stirring the bean pot. “His pistol and holster are on the table.”
In the flickering candlelight, Slocum found Mayorga’s gun set. He drew out the late-model Colt .45 and held it up to the light. A well-oiled smooth-looking weapon. Much better than Angel’s gun. The holster was fancy-tooled and the gun belt wide with fresh cartridges in the loops. He undid Angel’s adjusted belt and strapped on the finer set. It felt much better on his waist. He wrapped up Angel’s to put in the saddlebags—he might need it, too.
“Vic is getting horses,” he said.
“I am going with you?” Teeyah asked.
“Yes. I figure if you stay here that Mayorga might make you pay for his losses.”
She nodded grimly. “I have never been over ten miles away from this village in my life.”
Slocum wrinkled his nose. “Time you saw the world.”
They laughed with her.
How far away were the others? They had a half-day lead. Standing in the doorway listening to the night sounds of crickets and insects, he considered his options. If St. John and Fine thought they had a big lead, they might squander their time going north. Somehow, he didn’t believe that. They’d probably ride their horses into the ground—
“How many pack animals do they have?” He turned to look at Little Britches.
“Four.”
“All loaded with bullion?”
She nodded. “They had no camping equipment.”
“Were they stout horses?”
“Yes, why?”
“Then they have to find villages to stay at.”
She nodded. “They were going to get pack mules and supplies here, but something changed their mind. I never knew why.”
“Did
they know I was coming?”
“I heard St. John tell Angel to stop the gringo when he got to Agua Sierra. That he could meet them at a place called Cienga Springs.” She shook her head. “I don’t know where that is.”
Slocum nodded. “I have been there.”
“Where is it?”
“Across the border, beyond Tombstone.”
“St. John promised him lots of gold.”
Slocum acknowledged he’d heard her. “Lots of it all right.”
They wouldn’t have to share any with Angel. He wasn’t coming to the next party. St. John still must fear Slocum. Good. Anxious men made mistakes.
16
At dawn, they rode away from the casa headed north. They also left the disgruntled bare-assed Mayorga tied and gagged on the floor. Vic rode in the lead, the two women in the middle, then Slocum. The packhorse on a lead trailed them.
Mayorga’s fine saddle felt comfortable between Slocum’s knees, and the gray barb was a dream to ride. Little Britches, on the paint, looked less pained, and Teeyah was her usual spirited self.
At midday, they were in the base hills and watered at a stream.
“We can reach La Sierra by dark,” Vic said, holding the reins as the women went off to relieve their bladders.
“Is that a good place?”
“Oh, it is like all small villages. It was the last time I was there.”
“Maybe St. John used it for a stopover.”
Vic agreed. “His tracks go that way.”
Slocum nodded and looked back at the towering Madres. It would be hotter from there on. They’d miss the cool mountains before they were through with this business. The desert beyond between them and the border was flatter but unforgiving, a land of thorns and bad water holes that were few and far between.
“When were you over this country last?” Slocum asked.
“A few years ago. I worked at a mine in Tombstone.”
“This place you spoke of is how far from the border?”
“Three days, if you are going to the Bernallio Springs.”
“I know John Slaughter. I trust him.”
Vic nodded.
Slaughter would supply them with fresh horses in exchange for their tired ones and not rob them. By the time they got there, they’d need new ones. There was little forage to find and bad water, and pushing them hard would take a toll on their horseflesh.
“How are you doing?” Slocum asked Little Britches when the two returned.
She nodded under the straw sombrero. “I’m fine. Just to be away from those men is wonderful.” She swung playfully on his arm. “And of course to be with you.”
“I can’t guarantee for how long. There’s men that are looking for me. I never know when I’ll have to ride on.”
She nodded. “I know, but I’m happy for the time we share.”
He boosted her into the saddle. “Maybe someday you will be able to settle down and have a life of your own.”
“Someday, huh, Teeyah?” Little Britches laughed.
“Someday. Maybe, huh?” Her brown face beaming, she turned her mustang after Vic.
“Vic, watch those two, they are scheming.”
“I will, Slocum. I will.”
The desert’s heat waves distorted the saw-edged purple mountains in the distance. Twice during the afternoon, the barb shied sideways at the dry rattle of a disturbed sidewinder in the greasewood close by. Not seeing the serpent, Slocum rode on after the girls leading the packhorse.
The bloody sundown hung on the horizon to finish cooking his brain before it sank into the distant Gulf of California. A purple twilight spread across the land, and the jacales of La Sierra appeared. Dots of candlelight marked many of the buildings, and dogs began to herald the riders’ arrival.
“Everyone be careful.” Slocum pulled abreast of the others. “There may be bandits or even St. John here. We’ll find a rooming house to stay in if it is safe. Vic, you go in and find out what you can. We’ll wait here.”
“I can go with him,” Teeyah said. “They don’t know me.”
“One way to know St. John,” Slocum said. “He carries a nickel-plated pistol with an ivory-carved handle with a steer head on his grips. His mustache is about white, and he pulls on his right ear a lot.”
Teeyah nodded. “He is in this place, Victor and I will find him.”
“Be careful.”
They rode off. Slocum dismounted heavily, grasping the large saddle horn. His sea legs held him up and he nodded over the saddle at Little Britches in the growing darkness.
“Why couldn’t we have met—oh, somewhere else?” she asked.
“Ah, you’d’ve been married and I’d’ve had to ride on anyway.”
She laughed and then, as if caught up in something, she shook her head in dismay. “How bad of me. I’d forgotten Hyrum. But I know now he’d’ve never lasted for long if we had taken that ranch. Shame, too; he wanted one. His father had the money.” She dropped her chin. “But he’d’ve never lived very long out here. This is a brutal country.”
“You’ve seen the worst side of it.” He’d finished loosening the cinches on their horses and turned to her.
She hugged him, and he clasped both sides of her small butt and drew her against him. “The absolute worst. There’s ranch folks all over that won’t ever experience the things you’ve been through.”
“Yet it is such a tough man’s world. No, my husband-to-be would not have survived. One day, St. John shot a poor Mexican for no more reason than the man did not take off his hat for him.”
“He’s one of those that spoils the rest of the apples in the barrel.” He rocked her from side to side. “This will be over one day soon.”
“Then we can make love and not look over our shoulders?”
“I hope so.”
“Will we have a bed together tonight?”
“I hope so.”
“So do I.”
Seated on the ground, they ate some peppery jerky and washed it down with tepid canteen water. The crescent moon soon began to rise and a coyote yipped at it. At the sound of horses approaching, Slocum rose to brush off his seat.
Vic must be coming back.
“They have left,” Vic announced as the two of them drew up their mounts. “They were here at midday and rode on.”
“And they hired three pistoleros that were loafing around there and out of work to go with them,” Teeyah said, handing him a burrito. Then she gave Little Britches another.
“Were these hired guns tough ones?” Slocum asked.
She shrugged. “I talked to a puta about them. She was really glad they were gone. She thought they were mean to her and her sisters after they ran out of money and stayed. Bullies, she said.”
“Do we have a room?”
“Yes, and there is grain for the horses.”
“Good.” He went to get the horses ready to go into town. If he’d been by himself, he’d’ve ridden on. The two women were tough, but not that tough. But they were on the outlaws’ tracks and eventually they’d run them down. Patience might be a good thing. The outlaws would get lax, careless, and then Slocum and his friends would swoop in.
They rode single file into the village. Vic reined up at a jacal and a bent-over woman came out with a candle lantern to meet him. They spoke softly in Spanish, and the rest dismounted. Out of habit, Slocum shifted the Colt on his hip, looking around in the night.
Vic gathered the horses. “The corral is in back. She said they delivered the feed I ordered.”
“I’ll help you get them settled,” Slocum said.
“Give me the packhorse,” Teeyah said. “We will unload it.”
Slocum agreed, and he and Vic took the other horses.
After watering them, he and Victor curried the horses’ backs as the animals crunched corn in the nose bags. Teeyah soon brought the unloaded packhorse. While it was being watered and fed, Slocum left Vic and Teeyah to wait for it to finish.
Little Britches met h
im and hooked an arm in his. “I have the hammock ready.”
“Good. They may be coming shortly.”
“No,” she said softly. “Teeyah has plans so we can be alone.”
“Oh. Fine,” he said.
In minutes, they were undressed and on the bouncy hammock. He was between her raised knees and bent over to taste her rock-hard nipples. She pulled his face up to hers and they kissed long and hard. His hips began to beg to probe her, and his rising erection ached to enter her gates.
Her small fingers closed on his shaft and guided it homeward. With her thin legs wide apart, he drove it home and she gasped, clutching him until her fingernails dug into his arms. He could feel her hard nail-like clit scratching the top of his shaft as they plunged in and out of passion’s arms.
His erection reached its fullest proportions and the head felt ready to split open as they continued, aided by the rocking of the hammock. At last, fire rose from his aching testicles and his molten lava spewed into her. They collapsed in each other’s arms and fell asleep.
At dawn, Teeyah returned with breakfast in a tortilla for each of them from a street vendor. The horses, watered and saddled, were ready to go. Slocum paid the old woman for the night and they rode on, eating their food on the trail.
At mid-morning, Slocum saw the dust boiling up in the north. When he pointed it out to Vic, the Yaqui nodded as if he’d already seen it.
“Who is it?” Little Britches asked him, motioning toward the dust.
“Could be the army.”
“Whose?”
“Federales.”
She nodded.
When he could see the flapping guidon, Slocum realized they were Americans, and when they drew closer, he could see the Apache scouts. He stopped his companions and waited.
An officer, a scout, and a noncom rode up.
“Good day, sir,” the officer said to Slocum, and he took off his hat for the women.
“Good day, Lieutenant. What can we do for you?”
“Are you Slocum?”
“Yes.” Slocum frowned.
“Sergeant, arrest this man and his associates.”
“What in the hell for?”
“I have two sworn witnesses that you and your associates sold arms to the bronco Apaches.”
“What witnesses?”
“There will be due time in court to inform you of all this information. You are under arrest for selling firearms to the combatants.”