Chapter 6
Katie Mashburn paused at the doorstep to put her bucket down. Then she turned toward the wagon trace, shielding her eyes with her hand while she sought to identify the lone rider approaching the cabin. “Lettie,” she called out when she recognized the familiar figure of Luke Kendall, still a quarter of a mile away. “It’s Luke,” she said when Lettie came from the cabin.
“Is Jim with him?” was Lettie’s first spoken thought as she turned her gaze to follow Katie’s pointing finger. “He’s alone,” she answered her own question when she sighted the young half-breed. The disappointment in her voice prompted Katie to respond.
“That doesn’t mean Luke didn’t find him and warn him. Jim can take care of himself.”
The word that Luke brought back was not good. He explained why he had decided to return home with news of what he had found. He told them of the scene he had discovered after tracking Jim’s horse to the tiny stream at the base of the hill, and showed them Jim’s pistol. He could offer no explanation as to why the weapon was left on the hilltop, but he had to figure Jim had to be killed or captured for someone to have taken his pistol from him. When all the tracks had headed north toward Crow country, he decided it best to bring the news back to Katie and Lettie.
Katie glanced at Lettie’s face before questioning Luke more closely. It was obvious that Luke’s report had hit the young girl with devastating impact. Lettie had not been very successful in hiding her deep feelings for the tall young brother of Clay Culver. With each passing day since he had ridden off toward the Wind River country, Lettie’s concern for his safety became more and more intense until, finally, she confessed her love for him. It was not news to Katie. The signs had been quite obvious. Katie sympathized with her young friend’s plight. It was not an easy thing to love a man who would always hear the call of the mountains, and that seemed to be an inborn trait of the Culver men. Katie knew this from experience, though she did not express it.
“You didn’t see Jim’s body, or any sign of clothes or anything, though?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Then there’s a chance Jim’s still alive.” She looked at Lettie again. “I think there’s a good chance he’s still with the band of Indians Luke said he was riding with. I wouldn’t count Jim Culver out just yet.” She was trying to be positive for Lettie’s sake, but she truly did have confidence in Jim’s ability to survive. She did not discount the fact that there was also a pretty good chance that what Luke had surmised might be the truth of the matter. Also, knowing the Shoshoni blood that filled the boy’s veins, she understood his reluctance to follow a war party into Crow territory. She wished that Clay were there.
Turning back to Luke once again, Katie said, “Well, I suppose you haven’t had much to eat since you’ve been gone. Put your horse away, and I’ll fix you something.” She placed a comforting hand on Lettie’s arm. “You might want to walk down to the creek and fill the water bucket,” she said, thinking the young girl might need to be alone at this time.
Lettie understood and smiled sadly at her friend, glancing at the bucket Katie had just filled. “No, I’m all right.” They walked inside arm in arm.
* * *
At almost the same time Luke arrived in Canyon Creek, a huge mountain of a man riding a dirty gray horse approached the outermost buildings of Fort Laramie. Looking around him from left to right as he rode, he proceeded past the cavalry barracks and the sutler’s house directly to the sutler’s store.
Alton Broom had seen his share of grizzled old trappers and half-wild mountain men pass through the store since he started clerking for the post trader. But he had never seen the match of the brooding giant riding the gray horse up to the hitching rail on this morning. Some he didn’t remember. This one would be hard to forget, with an oversize body that resembled a mounted grizzly. This was the second time in the past few weeks the big man with the jagged scar down his face had shown up in the sutler’s store, claiming he was a friend of Jim Culver’s. Alton had told him that Jim left Laramie and headed for Canyon Creek.
Alton paused in a halfhearted attempt to sweep some of the dust from the front steps and watched Slocum dismount. Propping his broom against the wall, he said, “Last time you were in here, you were looking for Jim Culver, as I recollect. Did you find him?”
Slocum didn’t respond until he looped the reins over the rail and stepped up onto the porch. He liked to tower over people when he talked to them. “No, I didn’t,” he said. “Over at Canyon Creek, they said I just missed him. Figured I’d find him here. Ain’t you seen him?”
“No, can’t say as I have. Leastways, if he’s back at Laramie, he ain’t been in the store.”
Alton’s reply genuinely surprised Slocum. He had been so confident that Jim had set out for Fort Laramie that he hadn’t made allowances for other possibilities. He was not ready to concede the fact that his instincts had sent him on a wild-goose chase. He still felt certain that Culver had been heading to Laramie. “Are you sure he ain’t been in? Maybe when you wasn’t working?” Slocum’s irritation was beginning to show through in his tone.
“I’m sure he ain’t,” Alton replied, somewhat mystified when the sinister-looking brute seemed to blame him for Jim Culver’s absence. “I tend the store every day it’s open. I remember him well enough—came in here with a young lady. But I’m telling you, he ain’t been in since early winter, just like I told you last time.”
“Well, this time he don’t have the girl with him, just him. Hell, he coulda changed some since winter. Maybe you just didn’t recognize him this time.” Slocum locked his dark eyes on Alton’s, his thick eyebrows knotted in a deep frown as he appeared determined to force the clerk to remember.
Alton began to become uncomfortable with Slocum’s unjustified anger, and he felt a measure of relief when two cavalry troopers walked into the store. Slocum turned at once to stare at the two soldiers. Alton, eager to divert Slocum’s intensity, was quick to enlist their help. “Either of you boys see anything of a young feller name of Jim Culver around the post lately? He’s Clay Culver’s brother—might be looking for Clay.” When his only response was a blank stare and a shake of their heads, he added, “Feller here’s looking for him.”
The soldiers looked at each other, questioning. Then the taller of the two said, “Don’t know his name, but a young fellow I ain’t seen around here before has been hanging around Cora’s for a couple of days now.”
Slocum’s eyes immediately lit up. He turned back to Alton. “What’s Cora’s?”
“Cora’s a whore,” Alton replied. “She’s set herself up in a tent on the other side of the bridge. She used to work as a laundress, but she found out she could make a sight more money selling satisfaction to the soldiers.”
“How do I find her?”
“Hell, you can’t miss her. Go across the bridge, then go to your right and follow the river about a quarter of a mile. She’s got a wagon with a tent beside it, right on the riverbank. You can see it from the bridge.”
Without another word to Alton, or a thank you to the two soldiers, Slocum turned and walked out the door.
“Damn,” Alton swore quietly. “That is one dangerous-lookin’ man. I’d hate to have him lookin’ for me.”
* * *
Slocum was more than a little interested in the stranger hanging around Cora’s tent. He would take a thorough look around the post, searching for his man, but not until after paying a little visit across the river.
The bridge was new, made of iron, and just completed that very year. As he walked the gray across, he kept his eyes trained on the bank on the other side. From the bridge he could see Cora’s wagon and tent, just as Alton had said, and there was a horse tied out front. Slocum gave the gray a little nudge with his heels.
When he was within about fifty yards of the tent, Slocum slowed the gray to a walk to prevent the occupants of the tent from hearing him approach. He guided his horse, plodding slowly through the soft sand of the
riverbank, to a stop beside a bay Morgan with a white star on its face. Looking at the horse, Slocum felt his lips part in a thin smile. He dismounted and walked around the horse to find a Winchester .73 riding in the sling. He rubbed his fingers over the other side of the smooth stock until he felt a rough spot. His grin wider now, he drew the rifle out and turned it over to discover the initials J.R.C. carved in the stock. He chuckled. It was almost too easy.
* * *
“I’ve told you, Johnny, you got your money’s worth. You know my rules. You have to pay to play, so if you want another turn, it’ll cost you the same as the first.”
“Hell, after all the money I’ve paid you this week, I ought to get a free one.”
“You know the rules,” Cora insisted. It would be another two weeks before the soldiers got paid, and she needed the money. If she let this one have a free one, the word might get out, and she would be arguing with customers over free ones from then on. She wasn’t getting any younger. She might not have many good years left. Already a fresh-faced youngster from the infantry barracks was unable to perform because he complained that he felt like he was trying to make love to his mother. It was discouraging to hear, but she was old enough to be his mother.
Johnny Malotte stood there with nothing on but his shirt and his boots, trying to make up his mind if another tussle on Cora’s straw-tick mattress was worth spending any more of his cash. In her long robe now, she looked considerably more fetching than a short while ago, when they had completed the first transaction. Long overdue when he arrived at Fort Laramie several days before, he had tried to catch up as fast as his constitution would permit. Unfortunately, his meager fortune was literally draining from his lower body parts to the extent that he was soon going to be unable to buy supplies. It occurred to him that he could rectify the situation by knocking the voluptuous Miss Cora in the head and recovering his investment. He was ready to leave Fort Laramie and head to Montana territory, anyway. Pleased with the plan, he cheerfully pulled some currency from his shirt pocket and said, “You win, darlin’. Let’s get to it.”
After carefully tucking the money away in a little black-and-gold Oriental jewelry box, Cora untied her robe and let it fall to the plank flooring of her tent. Aroused by the anticipation of another bumpy ride along this well-worn trail to sexual fulfillment, Johnny stepped forward, eager to embark. Cora managed a tired smile for him as she settled herself on the straw mattress and once again opened the pale, flabby gates to paradise, the aging hinges sufficiently oiled now by U.S. currency.
If the sagging curves and mushy thighs were of major concern to Cora, they were no bother to Johnny. His needs were more of a primitive and animalistic nature, and he set to his task with a vengeance. Working away with the single focus of a rutting elk, he soon began to tire the lady out. And she realized what Johnny already knew—that so soon after the first trip, it was going to take a good deal longer for him to reach his destination.
“I think you’re about finished, honey,” she gently suggested.
“Hell if I am. I ain’t nowhere near,” he replied between rapid grunts for breath.
She endured for several more minutes before announcing, “That’s it; you’re done.”
“The hell you say. I ain’t fell outta the saddle yet, have I?”
“You don’t get to rent me all day for two dollars. I can’t help it if your pump’s dry. You got your money’s worth.”
“You heard the little lady. You got your money’s worth.” The gruff voice came from behind him. Startled for an instant, Johnny recovered immediately and spun around to defend himself. He was fast, but not quick enough to avoid the rifle barrel that smashed the bridge of his nose and laid him out cold on the rough plank floor.
After briefly checking to make sure Johnny was unconscious, Slocum turned to the terrified woman on the mattress. Taking a few moments to assess the field Johnny Malotte had been in the process of plowing, he suddenly cocked his lip to form a crooked smile. “No reason for you to be afraid. I ain’t gonna hurtcha. This here man is wanted by the army back at Fort Lincoln for killin’ a soldier in Virginia.” Cora was still too terrified to speak, able only to stare wide-eyed at the frightening giant standing over her. Slocum continued to stare back at her until a long-dormant urge began to worm its way into his brain. It was a need that didn’t surface but once in a great while, but when it did, it couldn’t be ignored.
Having seen that look on the faces of hundreds of men, Cora realized what might be coming next, and the dread of it made her shiver.
Breaking off the eye contact, Slocum turned his attention back to the man lying at his feet. Taking a coil of rope he carried in his other hand, he tied Johnny’s hands together. “Reckon I’ll have to put his pants on before I tie his feet together.” He dragged Johnny away from the mattress far enough to give Cora room to help. “How ’bout pulling his boots off so’s I can pull his britches on.” It was not a question. Slocum paused when he thought more about it. “What the hell’s his boots on for, when his pants is off?”
Cora shrugged, not answering, but immediately did as she was told, hoping she had misread the intent she had seen in the awesome brute’s eyes moments before. This was not her day, however.
Pants on and securely hog-tied, Johnny began to groan, his eyelids fluttering, as Slocum dragged him over by the tent flap and dumped him there. Satisfied that his prisoner would await his pleasure, he turned his attention to other matters. “Reckon it’s been quite a spell for me, but as long as you’re open for business,” he said, and began unbuckling his belt.
Oh, God, no, she thought, reaching for her robe in an effort to cover herself. She imagined it might be the same as mating with a buffalo, which held no fascination for her whatsoever. But the man looked so violent, she feared for her life if she refused. Still, she made an effort to avoid the gruesome encounter. “Well, I usually don’t receive gentlemen after my lunch hour.”
“It ain’t no problem then,” Slocum responded, “’cause I sure as hell ain’t no gentleman.” He could see the lack of interest in Cora’s eyes. It didn’t bother him. The few times he had done it before were with whores, and they all seemed reluctant. His lust was unusual at this particular time, but there was something about Cora’s wearied body that suggested this was the time to take care of his biological needs. He untied his trousers, letting them drop to rest on his boot tops.
Cora could see that she had no choice. Still, she was reluctant. “You’re too damn big. I’d have to charge you more,” she said, trying to gain as much as she could from a bad situation. “It’ll cost you double.”
“Don’t surprise me none,” he calmly replied, and reached in his shirt pocket for the money.
“All right.” She sighed loudly, resigned to the task ahead. With his money in hand, she no longer feared for her life, and she prepared to receive him. “Come on, then. Let’s get it over with.” He dropped to his knees, hovering over her like a black storm cloud. “When’s the last time you took a bath?” Cora complained.
He grinned. “I don’t know. When’s the last time it rained?”
“Don’t it bother you? Him laying tied up over there?”
“Don’t bother me. He ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
It was as she had anticipated: coarse, brutal, even animal-like, but also short. The comparison to a bull buffalo came to mind again during the passionless assault, as she bit her lip to endure the rough encounter. But soon it was over and he abruptly withdrew. Without so much as another glance in her direction, he pulled his britches up, grabbed Johnny by the ankles, and was gone, leaving her slightly dazed and wondering if it had really happened. In only a few minutes’ time, she heard the horses moving away from her tent. Unable to move for a brief time, she wondered if it was time to find another way to survive in this world. She was certain of one thing, however: If the situation ever presented itself again, and she were given a choice, she would opt for the buffalo.
* * *
; Content with himself, Slocum left Cora’s tent behind, leading Jim Culver’s horse with Johnny Malotte reeling drunkenly in the saddle. They had almost reached the bridge over the North Platte when Johnny’s head began to clear and he realized where he was. Aware of a painful throbbing in his face, he remembered the blow that had crushed his nose. He tried to lift his hands to his injured nose, but discovered they were tied to the saddle horn. Lifting his head, he saw the broad back of a huge man riding before him. Who the hell is he?
His head clearing rapidly now, he called to Slocum. “Hey! What the hell’s going on? Who the hell are you?”
Slocum turned in the saddle to look back at him. “Have a nice little nap, didja? I thought for a minute there I’d cracked you a little too hard. I promised the captain back at Fort Lincoln that I’d do my best to bring you back alive. Course, I might’n be able to do that if you don’t behave yourself.”
“Fort Lincoln?” Johnny gasped, confused. “I ain’t never been to Fort Lincoln. You got the wrong man, mister. I ain’t had no trouble with the army anywhere.”
Slocum laughed. “You’ve been to Virginia, though, ain’tcha? I reckon the army sees things a little different than you do. They don’t cotton much to having folks murder their officers. But, what the hell, I reckon some folks is just picky about things like that.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Johnny railed. “I ain’t murdered no army officer.”
Slocum was enjoying his prisoner’s protests. The few men he had brought in alive all protested that he had the wrong man. “Mighta slipped your mind,” he said with a chuckle, “about that lieutenant in Virginia.”
Evil Breed Page 7