by Jake Logan
Heddrow sprawled on his back and looked dead for a long moment. “God almighty, Tommy Jack, she done pulled my balls out the end of my peter.”
“You’ll get over it. Who’s next?”
Slocum wasn’t going to volunteer. Let Tommy Jack choose him. So he sat cross-legged in the noisy, insect-filled night and watched each one finger her while she jacked them off.
When it got to be his turn, he rose, shed his cutoff shorts and, with his erection in his fist, motioned for her to lie down on the ground. For the first time all night, she grinned big at the prospect of what he intended to do to her. Raising her knobby knees in the air, she spread them apart for his entry, knowing damn good and well what he aimed to do with her ...
Horses unloaded and hobbled in the bloody light of sundown, Slocum saw that Meagen was busy building a fire. He had no idea what she’d fix, but he didn’t care, watching her sweep the hair back from her face. Her cowboy hat rested on her shoulders as she worked.
“Boy, wouldn’t some fresh beef go good right now?” She looked up and smiled at him
“If wishes were fishes—”
“Yeah, I know.” Then she turned back to put several strips of bacon in the skillet over the fire. “There ain’t nothing out here but coyotes and jackrabbits, is there?”
“At least it’s a long ways from anything.” He dropped to his butt to sit and watch her cook. “It ain’t populated at all. You getting tired of this business?”
“Naw. I ain’t got a thing else to do. For that matter, I ain’t sure what I will do with my life. Maybe go work in some brothel for excitement. Maybe there I could almost forget what’s happened to my life. Those bastards killing my husband and taking me.”
“That’s not any answer. You could go run that ranch of yours. You have the feed put up. The hay fields cleaned up. Hire a few old cowboys, get some stock.”
She nodded, still looking downcast. “It will be harder for me, being a woman.”
“You’re tough enough. You can handle it. Some nice guy will come down the road for you—if you want him.”
“It won’t be the same....”
She took the hat off and set it on the grass, then leaned back with her hands behind her to brace herself. “After we eat this meager meal, let’s get in the bedroll and you can make me forget—all this business.”
He agreed, bobbing his head. “Where did you meet your husband at?”
“Carl came back from Kansas after two cattle drives and showed up at a dance. We lived west of Waco. My folks had a cow outfit, but my dad never had any boys—just four girls, and I was the oldest. So I was his hand. I never considered myself a girl. I even wore overalls to the dance. Carl came over and asked me to dance....
“I shook my head and looked away like I always did when some boy came by for a dance. God, then he sat down on the empty bench—right beside me. Holding his hat in his hand like he didn’t know what to do with it.
“I guess he asked me my name a dozen times, but I didn’t answer, I was so embarrassed. I wanted to get up and run. Then my youngest sister, Mary Ann, told him that my name was Meagen. Oh, she was ’bout five then, and she started asking him questions. Like, what was he going to do to me? Oh, it got worse, so I jumped up and pulled him up to dance with me just to escape her. I stumbled around in my run-over boots and it never bothered him a bit. Like he was used to women who couldn’t dance.”
She got up on her knees and with a fork dished out the browned bacon onto one plate. Then using a rag for a hot holder, she took the skillet off the fire. “We can eat off one plate, can’t we?”
“Sure,” Slocum said and waited for her to continue.
“My, my.” She shook her head and made a grim face. “You know, he was fifteen years older than me, or more. I never was certain. But he said he had money enough for us to start a ranch up there and he’d treat me nice if I’d put up with him.”
“He wasn’t hard to put up with, was he?”
“Not at all.” She chewed on her lip. “I’ll never regret a day in my life as his wife. I wished we’d had children, but I had a bad case of the mumps when I was twelve. A doctor told my mother back then I’d never have any kids.” She shrugged. “I guess you take the cards dealt to you and go on.”
Busy chewing on a piece of bacon, he nodded. “I’m amused at the thought of you being a tomboy.”
She dropped her gaze. “I damn sure was one.”
He chuckled, then his thoughts turned back to the present. Where were Bridges and his sidekick at? The last rays of sundown set the hills afire with their scarlet paint. They’d get him. He’d get both of them. They were marked men.
17
Barr awoke in his usual grumpy mood the next morning. Standing over him, bowlegged as a railroad tunnel he’d seen one time, was his man.
Kittles shook his head in disbelief. “Why, Mr. Barr, I swear if you don’t look plumb rested.”
“Well, I damn sure ain’t rested. My back hurts, and I’m constipated.” Why did he tell that drawling dumb sumbitch anything? Now Kittles would be telling him all kinds of remedies all day. No wonder Goodall had left that drawling bastard behind with Barr. “Mr. Kittles, go hook up the team.”
“Don’cha think we should wait on Mr. Two Hawks?”
Barr scowled at the man. “That blanket-ass Injun ain’t coming back.”
Kittles swallowed hard. “Well, Miss Erma ain’t got all your breakfast cooked yet, Mr. Barr.”
“What’s she been doing?” Barr pulled on his britches and tucked in his shirt.
“Doing? Why, she’s been plumb busy fixing you a nice breakfast.”
“Never mind.” He stomped into his boots and went off to piss. He ought to do it on her fire. Damn, that girl and Kittles would drive him crazy. The dew shaken off his lily, he put it away, engrossed in wondering what in the hell Bridges was doing as he buttoned up his fly. They had the word he’d talked about going to Tascosa, Texas. If that worthless Two Hawks ever brought him those horses ... Then Barr saw both of the worn-out horses lying down on the ground.
Horses never did that unless they were completely done. Damn, he’d have to wait for that Injun. He strode back to camp.
“Oh, Mr. Barr, looky, looky, he’s a-coming. Sure enough he’s a-coming. Yes sirree, he done be coming. Look at them ponies. They look fresh, don’t they?”
They looked to Barr like some damn Injun pintos. Probably wouldn’t go nowhere. It was too damn easy. There’d be something sour in the deal.
Kittles went and got the team up. On their feet, they shook like their hair was coming off. Maybe the Injun wouldn’t notice.
Erma came over to Kittles, wringing her hands in the apron. “Breakfast is ready.”
“I need to make this deal. Keep it warm.” He left her. She’d heard him.
“Well, Mr. Two Hawks, how you been since I last seed ya?”
“Good.”
“Which one goes on the right and which one goes on the left?”
Two Hawks blinked at him.
“One horse goes on this side.” He held up his right hand, then he indicated the left.
Two Hawks shrugged. He didn’t know.
“Mr. Hawks, have they ever been drove?”
He nodded. “Squaws take them for supplies.”
“Well, that’s good news, sir.” Kittles grasped his hand and shook it, wrapped in both of his. “I’ll just harness them, then. Which one is the riding horse?”
“Him.” He meant the red and white one he had ridden in on.
“Good. I’ll saddle him.”
“Where is watch and money?”
“Mr. Barr, he’s my boss. He has it all. He’s right over there, sir.” Kittles pointed him out like Two Hawks might not know him.
The Injun nodded, then went to Barr to get his money and watch.
Kittles put his blankets on the red piebald, then the saddle. Red snorted at him, but his action didn’t bother the cowboy. He completed the job and hobbled him like nothin
g at all. Then he took the black and white one and fit the collar on him. The bronc acted spooked when Kittles tossed on the noisy harness. Like most men used to harnessing horses of all kinds and dispositions, he went on strapping the rigging on until completed, then he hobbled Black. The tricolor horse was a head slinger. Kittles waded into him.
Barr watched as the Injun rode off on Kittles’s thin horse and led the team through the grass and mesquite brush. He soon was over the hill, and for Barr, that suited him fine.
The two horses harnessed and hitched, Kittles left the black hobbled so the team didn’t wander off, then hitched up his pants and headed for Erma’s cooking and smoky chip fire. She had fixed Barr a plate and coffee. He watched her serve Kittles.
No. He wasn’t asking that dumb hillbilly a damn thing about them horses. Come from somewhere up there in Missouri. Shit fire, in the past few days he’d learned more about that man than he could remember about himself.
When breakfast was over, Erma hurriedly washed and Kittles dried the dishes. It took them forever to load the wagon.
“I don’t want you or Erma hurt none. I’ll jest drive them ponies around a little, if’n you’d hold my horse and when I get on the seat, pull them hobbles off the black one.”
“Good. I can do that.”
“I’d sure be mighty pleased for you doing that.”
Kittles climbed on the seat and took the reins. Erma unhitched his horse from the buckboard. Barr slipped off the hobbles and backed away.
Reins in each hand, Kittles quietly clucked to them. Nothing. Barr closed his eyes. That damn Injun has screwed him—his man slapped them harder.
Then in an explosion, the pair reared and began walking on their hind feet. Then the team hit the ground racing. Kittles was standing up, fighting the bits, but the wagon raced out of sight with Kittles shouting, “Whoa! Whoa!”
Cowboy and horses topped the crest of the hill, flat-out going to the races. Sumbitch, he’d have a damn wreck and leave them stranded out there. No need to run after him, he’d never get far.
In disgust, Barr threw his hat on the ground and thought about stomping it to pieces.
“What will happen to Maynard?” Erma sounded concerned.
“Who gives a damn about him? I suppose that saddle horse you’re holding will buck us off. I’ve got more bad luck than three men.”
“Listen. Listen,” she said. “Maynard’s coming back.”
Barr squatted on his heels, absently snapping off dry stalks of bunchgrass. “I bet he can’t stop them. Wave at him when he goes by.”
The open-mouthed team, ears back, came flying over the crest of the hill, and with his feet braced on the dashboard, Kittles sawed their mouths until they slid to a halt.
“They’ll be just fine, Mr. Barr.” He jumped down and still held the reins. “Here, you can drive them.”
What was he getting into? Oh, damn. In a frenzy, Erma quickly loaded the rest of her cooking things in the box in back, gathered her dress tail and then scrambled onto the seat.
“Why, Mr. Barr, they’ll be just fine,” Kittles assured him, still holding the reins as his boss climbed on the seat. Barr took the lines and shook his head.
Kittles ran for his horse. Keeping the reins tight, Barr turned the team in a wide, cautious circle. Both horses acted like they were walking on eggs. At last they slipped back onto the narrow road, and were stepping out—Barr still was not certain, guiding and holding them back so that they wouldn’t run away.
A few miles down the road, Barr still wasn’t convinced the Injun ponies might not break him in two. When two prairie chickens busted out for the sky from some low brush beside the road, the team spooked sideways. Erma suppressed a scream and her hand squeezed his leg. Barr stayed with them and held them from breaking and running away. It worked, but it sure upset his stomach.
What were Doss and his hired men doing? Had they caught up with Bridges? How would he ever know? Damn. He was trapped on this spring seat by these unbroken broncs that any minute might run off and kill him in a wreck.
And where was that damn Slocum? The headache began to pound in his temple.
18
The sun’s golden crest breaking over the horizon, Slocum was deep in the bedroll on top of Meagen. With her silky legs wrapped around him, he savored her lithe body’s moves and the obvious pleasure she shared with him. His eyes closed for him to savor the sensations every time he plunged in and out of her satin gates. Sneaking a peek from time to time he saw her open mouth tense in moaning as he hunched his skintight manhood into her.
Consumed in the wildfires of passion, their lovemaking grew more forceful. Her eagerness and needs urged him on. He shoved his aching erection to the bottom of her well, and it exploded in a screaming finality. When both found release at the same time, they collapsed in each other’s arms.
“Should we get up?” she asked in his ear.
“Hell, I guess.”
She braced herself up on her elbow and moved the hair out of her face. “We need to keep chasing Bridges.”
“Oh, I agree.” He closed his sore eyes and then tossed back the top cover. “Oh, here comes the reality of our lives.”
She pulled him back and kissed him. “Thank you.”
He smiled. “Pleasure was all mine, girl. All mine.”
It was hard to leave a bed full of a woman like her. He got up, dressed and built a chip fire. The smell of the smoke from these types of fires never appealed to him, but it was the only fuel at hand. In a short while after they ate and with the low heat of the sun on their backs, they checked on the outpost. No word or sign that Bridges had been there. They had no grain for sale either. So Slocum and Meagen rode on, leaving the half-dressed white trader scratching his belly.
“Lots of nothing out here, isn’t there?” she asked when they topped a ridge and looked over the deep draws in the grassland. All of this country had been Comanche land before the army shipped them off to the Oklahoma reservation. The buffalo gone, longhorns were taking their place.
“One more hill to cross,” he said and laughed.
With the packhorse in tow, they traveled the narrow wagon ruts that wound off the high point into the deep canyon. Slocum hoped they’d find some water in the depth of this draw. It looked like a poor place for finding moon lakes, the water pools trapped in many places in this land. If the two of them didn’t find some, it would be a long day for the horses without water.
A small seep was pooled in the bottom of the draw, enough water to refresh their horses. They stood by their mounts and let them slake their thirsts. Stiff from all the days in the saddle followed by sleeping on the ground, Slocum flexed his shoulders against the sore muscles.
“This has been half fun and half hell, hasn’t it?” Meagen asked.
He laughed. “Oh, I’ve enjoyed it. You’re a good traveler.”
The horses finished drinking, and she checked her horse’s girth. Slocum came up behind her and kissed her neck. “Don’t expect too much. This is a tough town we’re going to.”
“Is there no law there?”
“There’s law, but it isn’t very actively enforced.”
Swinging into the saddle, she laughed and shook her head at his comments. “No active enforcement, huh?”
“You’ll see.”
That afternoon they passed through the crumbled adobe site where St. Vrain had built a trading post during the height of the buffalo hunting. All the wooden buildings had been torn down and removed from the site in this land where lumber was scarce.
“The buffalo hunters and traders held off hundreds of Cheyenne, Kiowa and Comanche warriors here. Some hunter with a Sharps .50-caliber shot an Indian a half mile away during the battle. Quanah Parker was wounded up here. Some bucks rode in and swept him up off the ground, saved his life. They were good at that.”
“Not much here today.” She stood in the stirrups and looked it over.
“No, just another place where men got killed settling this land.
During the war, ten years before that attack, the mountain man Kit Carson brought a cannon and some four hundred men over here from New Mexico and fired it down the Canadian River at all the Indians camped along the river. Soon he decided that there were too many of them and went back home.”
“Bloody ground,” she said.
He agreed. Knowing where he was at also told him that in two days they’d be in Tascosa. Good. There were only two of the outlaws left. The toughest of the gang of killers and rapists to face them. Meagen pointed out a moon lake and they rode over there in the late afternoon.
He dropped heavily out of the saddle and unlaced the sweaty girth. A hot breath of pungent horse odor escaped from the wet saddle blankets when he hefted the rig off his horse’s back. He set the blankets on the horn and spread them out to dry.
He sent Meagen off to find some fuel while he unloaded the other two horses. In a short while he had the packhorse emptied and Meagen’s pony off grazing. While he was occupied, she piled up several mounds of dry cow patties. He soon ignited the fuel in a recent campfire ring he found and kindled up her cooking fire.
“Whew,” she said and mopped her face on a kerchief. “We’re getting better at this setting up, aren’t we?”
With a hug, he caught and kissed her hard, then he winked at her. The sun would soon escape the panhandle, but they’d have a fire to cook upon. A tall cloud bank in the north concerned him. He watched the last rays of the sun dance on the high face of the clouds.
“We may have rain tonight,” he said, setting up to cover their tack and panniers with a tarp—simply in case.
“I thought it never rained up here?”
“It don’t often, but you can get a year’s total in a couple of hours.”
In the bedroll after supper, before he closed his eyes with his arms wrapped around her, the faint sound of thunder rolled across the high plains. Rain was coming.
Where were his enemies—Bridges and Horace, Barr and his men? Some were ahead, some behind them. He and Meagen in the middle—a tight place to be.