by Jake Logan
“You bring out the worst in me,” the man said.
“Let me guess,” Slocum said. “Your name’s Gantt, and you’re the preacher in the church at the other end of town.”
“Look at the kind of man you hire, Whitmore. He . . . he’s nothing but a gunslinger!”
With that, Gantt swung about and stormed off, head high and shoulders squared.
“Righteous son of a bitch, isn’t he?” Preacher Dan looked at Slocum the instant he spoke, and then smiled ingratiatingly. “Some folks bring out the worst in me,” Preacher Dan mocked. “Turning the other cheek is hard sometimes.”
Slocum shrugged and went back to work. Some minsters did a better job of living what they preached than others. He decided Preacher Dan was needing to do some work on this. As to Gantt, something had riled him. Slocum was not sure it was simply competition for his flock. Putting his back to it, Slocum pushed another load of four-by-fours down to the church where the carpenters worked diligently to erect the walls. He helped them raise one wall and nail it to support studs. Then he stood back and tried to figure what Preacher Dan was going to do with the short beams he had been hauling from the store. It hardly mattered that they were donations. They were useless, unless they were going to be stacked behind the church and used as firewood when the season changed.
Slocum returned to the store for the planks, and had just wrestled the last onto the barrow when the owner came bustling out.
“A minute, son,” he said. “You the one who’s supposed to pay me for those?”
“Pay? I thought the wood was all donated,” Slocum said.
“If it is, it ain’t my donatin’. I go to Reverend Gantt’s church and ain’t changin’ my ways. If somebody else is footin’ the bill for the wood, send ’em along to me so I can get paid. That’s powerful expensive wood.”
“You saw it up special?”
“Of course I did,” the store owner said tartly. “Who in their right mind’d want four-by-fours cut to only three feet? No good for buildin’ anythin’ I ever heard of.”
“Nope, reckon not,” Slocum said. “I’ll let Preacher Dan know you want your money when I see him.”
“Do that. I’d like to see it in my cash drawer before I close.”
Slocum saw that wouldn’t be much longer. The sun was setting fast behind the mesa overlooking the town. He lifted the handles of the barrow and started it rolling to the church site. The carpenters had left for the day, so Slocum dumped the planks to one side of the church. He wiped sweat from his face, then remembered he had to return the barrow to the store.
As he wheeled it back, he saw Tessa juggling a stack of paper on the boardwalk across the street. She was so engrossed in finding one page and then moving it under others that she didn’t notice him. Slocum picked up his pace, left the barrow leaning against the store wall, and went after her.
He was almost within distance to reach out and touch her shoulder when she did an abrupt right face and marched into a store. Slocum stopped in the doorway and took a deep whiff. Printer’s ink. The clank of a printing press in the rear almost drowned out what Tessa was saying to the man wearing an apron and wiping his hands on a dirty rag.
The man took the pages from her and, holding them at arm’s length, peered at them.
“You sure this is all true, miss?”
“Right as rain, Mr. Crawford. This is exactly the kind of reporting the Bitter Springs Gazette has been lacking.”
“I’d need to be mighty sure before printing anything like this. It damn near accuses Gantt of being a crook.”
“He is a crook, Mr. Crawford,” she insisted. “See?” Her finger pointed to something on the page. Slocum wished he could see what it was. The newspaper editor’s eyes grew wider, and then he laughed.
“I’ll be switched. I knew he was too good to be true. The sanctimonious whoremonger!”
Slocum took a seat in a wicker chair beside the door so he could eavesdrop without being seen. Tessa had given the editor something about Gantt that sounded libelous. Slocum leaned back and pressed his ear against the wall to better hear over the clanking of the printing press.
“Rafe, stop printing the edition,” Crawford called out. “We got to rewrite the headline.”
“You mean the new church goin’ up ain’t our lead? That’s ’bout all that’s happened in Bitter Springs in the last six months worth the ink and paper.”
“Rafe, do as I say. Get the type ready to set on a new story.”
The printer’s assistant grumbled, but Slocum heard the sounds of a printing press being dismantled to take off the printing plate.
“You want a job full-time?” Crawford walked across the print shop and sat at his desk. “You’ve got the makin’s of a first-rate reporter.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Crawford, this is just something I happened across. Why, I don’t even want credit for it.”
“No byline?” Crawford sounded hopeful at this. Slocum guessed that the editor didn’t much like Gantt and wanted to take credit for the story.
“Why, no, I wouldn’t know what to do with it,” Tessa said ingenuously. “If you can use this, be my guest. Go ahead and do what you have to with it.” She hesitated and then said, “Gracious me, I have to hurry. Do excuse me, Mr. Crawford.”
“I got plenty of work to do resettin’ the type,” the editor muttered.
Tessa was already out the door when he called out his thanks. She walked past Slocum without seeing him, her pace rapid as she headed for the hotel. Slocum caught up quickly with her.
She jumped a foot when he touched her arm.
“Oh, John, you startled me. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be so close by.”
“I hope you won’t jump at all my touches,” he said.
“Oh, I don’t know. I seem to remember getting really excited the last time you . . . touched me.” Her eyes dipped down to his crotch to emphasize her words.
“Work’s done for the day,” he told her, watching her reaction.
“Oh, so is mine.”
“Giving the editor of the town newspaper dirt on Gantt?”
She looked at him closely, then sidled up and put her hand on his chest. His heart beat a little quicker than before.
“We can talk about it later,” she said. “Afterward.”
“After what?”
“If you have to ask, you’re not half the man I know you are.” She slid her hand down his chest slowly and teased him with the briefest of touches at his groin. Slocum felt as if he were getting ready to turn cartwheels. He followed her into the hotel, then hesitated.
“Don’t worry,” she said softly. “The clerk is always drunk. See? He’s already passed out.” Tessa took Slocum by the hand and led him to the stairs going to the second floor. Every creak of the dried wood in the steps caused Slocum to wonder if the clerk would awaken and see them. It wouldn’t do Tessa’s reputation any good if it were known she was entertaining a man in her room at night. This was especially true since her pa was a preacher getting ready to build himself a church.
“Where’s your pa?”
“Oh, out,” she said vaguely. “Why ask about him?”
“I wouldn’t want him to—”
“Then let’s hurry,” she said, turning the key in the lock and pulling Slocum into the room after her in one quick gesture. She kicked the door shut and locked it as she turned to him.
He pressed her against the door and felt her soft body yielding under his. For a moment, his green eyes stared into her blue ones. Then her eyelids drooped just a little in invitation. As her lips parted, he invited himself to the party.
Their lips crushed, and he felt her tongue begin to intrude into his mouth. He let it. Over and over, their oral organs dueled, moving in ways that he knew would be duplicated later—farther down on their bodies. He was so stiff in his jeans that he was getting uncomfortable.
Tessa sensed his problem. She pushed him away and sank down so she knelt in front of him. Her nimble fingers worked on
his gun belt and then his fly.
“Oh, look what we have here. Is it cold?”
“It’s burning up,” Slocum said as she began stroking up and down his hardened shaft.
“Looks cold to me. Let me warm it up even more.” She bent down and took him entirely into her mouth with one smooth movement. He felt the rubbery tip of his manhood bounce off the roof of her mouth and then go lower, deeper, into her throat. He almost lost control then and there. Reaching down, he stroked over her silky black hair, guiding her as she moved up and down on him. He had never felt a woman better able to take his length like this, and it sent shivers of desire throughout his loins.
“Umm, tasty,” she said. “But how about putting it somewhere else to get really hot?”
“Where might that be?” he asked needlessly. Slocum was already lifting her up and turning her around. Tessa put her hands against the door and widened her stance as he lifted her skirts.
“I’m all ready for you,” she said in a husky whisper. She leaned into the door now, spread-eagle and facing away from him. “I want you so, John. I want you now.”
His fingers stroked up her legs, tracing over firm muscles and finally finding the curved, fleshy half-moons of her ass. He hiked her skirt up even more and placed both his hands on her buttocks. Kneading the twin mounds caused her to gasp and sob with need. In no hurry, he took his time to enjoy the silky flow of her skin under his fingers. Only when she went a little weak in the knees did he slip his hands around to her belly—and lower.
She cried out when he slid a finger into her wetness. He moved it slowly in and out until Tessa thrust herself back against him and begged for him to enter.
“Please, don’t tease me. I want you inside me. I need you, John, I need you so!”
Pulling back on her hips molded her perfectly to his groin. His shaft parted the thick cheeks and then surged lower and forward to enter where his finger had been only moments before.
The sudden entry took both their breaths away. The heat and wetness and tightness all around him worked to make him lose his control. Slocum held on, and the urge subsided, but not the desire. He reveled in the feel of female flesh all around his length.
She began pushing hard against the door and thrusting herself back into him to make him sink even farther into her constricted passage. Slocum let her do this a few times, and then reached around her body to cup her breasts. Crushing down on them, pulling her toward him, he levered himself forward and sank balls-deep into her.
Tessa cried out and began quivering all over. He started a slow, methodical movement that quickly turned ragged as he was crushed flat by her strong inner muscles.
Pounding hard now, he slammed her repeatedly against the door. She shoved back as hard, grinding her hips around him until there was no turning back for either of them. She bent forward as far as she could and shoved her hips into him as he slipped powerfully forward. This triggered a carnal fire that consumed them both.
It was Slocum’s turn to sag a little in the legs. He held on and swung Tessa about, and dropped her onto the bed in the small hotel room. He collapsed beside her. She lay stretched out on her back, legs dangling off the side of the bed and her arms high over her head.
He reached over and stroked across her still-hidden breasts.
“There are buttons,” she said softly.
“You want me to unbutton your blouse?”
“I want you to rip it off!”
Like a tiger, she swarmed over him, ready for more. It was a while before he could deliver—but he did. All through the night he did, until the faint rays of sunlight poked through the window at dawn.
It was only when he felt a naked Tessa stirring in the circle of his arms that he remembered that she had never told him why she was working so hard to destroy Gantt’s reputation. Then she awoke, and he forgot all about it again until he left her room, enjoying every instant of remembering how he had come to be so sore.
12
Slocum wandered around the construction site, wondering at how the church was proceeding. The walls had been pushed up into place and the roof needed to be nailed down. But this part did not make Slocum curious as much as the large pile of dirt behind the church. He remembered how the foundation had been dug down a ways, unlike most of the buildings in town. Some, like the saloon, could be dragged off if enough horses were yoked onto the building. Skids rather than solid foundations were the usual method of construction in Bitter Springs. Air flowed freely beneath, and let anything that might get dropped onto the floorboards seep through into the dirt.
But Whitmore had insisted on a foundation with the corners of the church driven down a ways into the ground to anchor it. Slocum scratched his head when he saw that the pile of four-by-fours was smaller than the day before. He had moved every last one of the wood beams and knew how many there had been. He walked through the shell of the church, hunting for the spot where the three-foot lengths had been used, and could not find it. More than that, some of the planks were missing, too. Slocum shrugged it off. People would steal anything, even from a church.
“Jethro!” called Preacher Dan. The man hurried over. “I was hunting for you.” He looked a bit flustered.
“The construction getting you down?” Slocum asked.
“What? Why do you say that?” The man was thinner than before when Slocum had hitched a ride into town with him, and a tad on the pale side, as if he had the ague.
“This is a big project,” Slocum said. He waved his hand about carelessly to see where Preacher Dan’s eyes stopped. Slocum was disappointed that his ploy failed. The man’s eyes never wavered from Slocum’s.
“So it is.”
“Looks like you’ve got a bit of thievery going on, too.”
“How’s that?”
Slocum saw how the preacher reacted, as if he had been caught at something immoral if not downright sinful.
“The wood beams, some planks. I can’t see that they were used, and they’re not on the pile outside.” Slocum did not mention the extra dirt.
“Oh, those,” Preacher Dan said in relief. “I traded a few items for nails. I had plumb forgot to get nails. How foolish of me, but you are right that this is a big project. I’m not used to such construction.”
“Been giving your sermons out of the wagon for a spell?”
“Yes, that’s right,” Preacher Dan said. “I need you to go to the courthouse and find the deed to this property. There’s a chance I don’t have clear title to it as I had been promised. That’s always the way when you’re depending on donations. ”
“The land was donated? Like the wood?”
“I am very fortunate that the people of Bitter Springs are so generous,” Preacher Dan said, his eyes going to the sky as he placed his hand over his heart.
“Why not ask the land office clerk to do the title search?”
“I’d like to keep this quiet in case the land’s not free and clear. Then we can work to make things right. There’s always a few folks in town willing to gum up the works.”
"Gantt?”
“Among others,” Whitmore said. His eyes darted across the street. The bank president stood just outside the door, watching closely everything that happened around the church.
“You and Thompson have a parting of the ways? He seemed to take to Tessa.”
“Oh, no problem with the bank. Mr. Thompson has been quite generous offering a loan. I am trying to build the church without going into debt, and it looks as if we will make it. Unless the title is in question. Can you do that for me, Jethro?”
Slocum saw a few workers close by exchange looks. Whether they had overheard, Slocum couldn’t say, but it was a good idea to have Preacher Dan continue calling him by the name Jethro. To change now in public would arouse suspicion, and suspicion would lead to someone making a query to the Texas Rangers. The last thing Slocum needed was a Ranger or two poking about and matching his description with the one Ranger Jeffers had undoubtedly given.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Slocum said, still wondering why Preacher Dan didn’t send Tessa to do this errand. He smiled ruefully at the thought the woman might be too busy digging up dirt on Gantt and anyone else trying to block the new congregation. As Slocum walked away, he nodded in the banker’s direction. He wasn’t surprised when Thompson ignored him.
After all, Slocum was nothing more than a hired hand and beneath the notice of a rich, important citizen like a bank president. Slocum smiled. The gold in the safe—that should be in the safe, if Rebel Jack was right—would be removed one way or another. Slocum concocted plans that had nothing to do with using a cannon to blow open the safe. He needed to know under what circumstances Thompson opened the safe. That was the best time to strike. If he timed things right, he could rob the bank and be gone long before Holtz and his gang even knew the bank had been robbed.
Having the former Johnny Reb and his henchmen after him was no worse than knowing the cavalry and the entire company of Texas Rangers wanted a piece of him. Slocum could dodge all of them just as easily as some. If he rode with saddlebags full of gold, that gave incentive.
Whistling tunelessly, he walked to the far side of town, turned away from Gantt’s humble church, and went to a building only slightly more elegant where the town records were kept. Any trials were conducted in a saloon, and there wasn’t a town marshal. All that kept Bitter Springs going was in this building—a mayor, a clerk or two, and whoever cleaned up the floors.
Slocum found the small room where the land office records were kept.
“Hello? Anybody around?” He went inside and peered down rows of records kept in bound volumes. Seeing the clerk was out, either on business or to grab a quick beer, Slocum began looking at the books holding the recorded land deeds. He had poked around in such files before, and quickly figured out the system used in Bitter Springs. Less than twenty minutes later, he had the information Preacher Dan wanted. Slocum scribbled down the pertinent record numbers and names and tucked the paper into his shirt pocket. His fingers lingered there a moment.
The money from the desert strongbox had been there. Now there was only that single scrap of paper. If he had kept riding, he wouldn’t have gotten caught up in Rebel Jack’s harebrained scheme and almost been killed in the mine. He shrugged off his bad luck. Toombs’s cousin—if Josh was even that—had paid with his life for trying to kill him. Slocum called that even, but burning the money had been a blow.