by Jake Logan
He pulled the trigger again and his six-gun misfired.
Both men saw him at the same time. Slocum kicked hard and dived almost parallel to the ground. He crashed into one man and knocked him into the wall. They went down in a tangle of arms and kicking legs.
“I got ’im, Jericho,” cried the other. Slocum heard the outlaw’s six-gun cock, but then came a flurry of shots that distracted him.
As Slocum wrestled with the one named Jericho, Cooley raced across the street to distract the other gunman. He fired once too many times. His hammer fell with a metallic click on a spent cartridge.
“No!” Slocum cried, shoving Jericho down as he tried to shove the other outlaw enough to disturb his aim. From the solid thunk, the outlaw’s bullet had found its target in Deputy Cooley.
Slocum drove his elbow down hard into Jericho’s face, smashing the man’s nose to a bloody swamp. Jericho let out a liquid whine and momentarily lost interest in the fight. Slocum scooped up the six-gun dropped by the outlaw and used it on his partner. Then he had to fire repeatedly into the bank. Silas and another outlaw had come to the aid of their partners.
Slocum rolled hard, smashed into a post, and managed to slither around so he came up behind it. The two-inchwide support for the roof over the bank entrance wasn’t much to hide behind, but it was all he had. He emptied the outlaw’s pistol in the direction of the door.
Silas left the outlaw who had shot Cooley behind and dragged in the one Slocum had fought. Jericho cursed loudly and promised vile things would be done when he caught Slocum. A tiny smile crept to Slocum’s lips. Jericho’s speech was slurred from having his nose all busted up. Then he realized his own plight. He presented a small target—but one big enough for an expert shot like Silas. Worse, Slocum’s six-shooter had misfired. He dragged it out and knocked out the cylinder.
“That’s you out there, ain’t it, Slocum? You workin’ for Galligan?”
“I’m doing this on my own, Silas.” Slocum got the punk cartridge out and reloaded. He didn’t have time to check to see if the others were properly seated. He snapped the cylinder in and spun it, making sure the mechanism worked.
Or at least he hoped that he had it working again.
“Throw in with me. We got a vault full of railroad money here. Might be a thousand dollars apiece. Why let Galligan get it when we can ride on out with it?”
“He know you’re crossing him?”
“Doubt it. He thinks me and the boys rode out to scout where the railroad was surveyin’ fer the tracks to come to this town.” Silas laughed. “Soon ’nuff, it’s gonna be a jerkwater town. They got a coal mine up in the hills to supply fuel and they promised to make the railroad crews real happy, if you know what I mean.”
“There’s not that many women around town,” Slocum said. He cocked his six-shooter and waited for what he knew was going to happen.
“Bringin’ in. Galligan’s promised all the whores the crews can bed. He’s settin’ hisself up to be the emperor of not only the pass but everything on either side. That includes this town. He’s gonna make himself a real empire.”
Slocum fired the instant he saw movement in the doorway. Silas only talked to distract him, maybe to gull him into revealing himself a bit more. The outlaw had no intention at all of welcoming Slocum to his gang since there was no reason.
Silas grunted as Slocum’s slug almost hit him. Bits of the doorjamb exploded into splinters and one of them might have caught Silas in the cheek. It was too dark to tell.
Silas disappeared back into the building, muttering to his men.
Slocum knew what was going to come next. They had figured out he was alone. They would rush out and overwhelm him. One or two of them might get hit, but they wouldn’t be much worse off then than they were now—and they wouldn’t be boxed into the bank.
A quick glance let Slocum locate the box of dynamite. He couldn’t run, and he wasn’t going to put up much of a fight with only his six-shooter. Standing behind the post, he sucked in a deep lungful of air and then ran as hard as he could before diving to confound the outlaws’ aim. He hit the boardwalk and skidded to the opened dynamite. Grabbing a couple sticks, he hunted for fuse and blasting caps but didn’t find them.
He stood again, put his foot on the crate, and kicked with all his might. The dynamite skittered to the door and came to a halt just inside. Slocum fired repeatedly into the box until he had only one round left.
“Get it out. Throw the dynamite out!” Silas cried.
Jericho must have been closest. He reached down, picked up four sticks, and for a brief instant presented Slocum with the target he needed. His remaining slug hit one of the sticks in Jericho’s hand.
The explosion of the remainder of the case picked Slocum up and hurled him out into the street. He landed hard on his back and kept skidding. The roar and rush of brick fragments passed over his head. He rolled onto his belly and cradled his head with his arms as mortar, flaming wood, and other debris came down on him.
“He blew up my bank. The son of a bitch blew up my bank!”
Slocum shook his head to clear it. His ears rang but the banker’s screams cut through the dying sounds of the explosion in his head. Pushing himself to hands and knees, then to an unsteady stance, feet widespread, he saw the townspeople waving rifles and charging forward.
“Where were you when we could have used you?” he asked. Nobody answered. The banker and the rest surged past him into the bank, now fitfully burning.
Slocum squinted and saw two outlaws dragged out from the bank, still fighting. The explosion had stunned them, leaving them easy prey for the crowd.
“String ’em up. There. That limb’s about right!”
Slocum started to complain. He’d put a round through Silas’s worthless hide, no matter if the gunman was armed or unarmed, but necktie parties never set well with him. He had been on the receiving end of a lynch mob when he hadn’t done anything to deserve it and had barely escaped with only rope burns around his neck. Silas and his henchman deserved to hang, but letting them swing after they’d been tried and sentenced by a judge was the right thing.
No lynching.
“No!” He tried to go after the mob, now pushing and shoving its victims toward the hanging tree.
“He . . . he’s dead,” came a sob. Slocum turned to see Flora Cooley kneeling beside the deputy. “They killed him.”
“He saved my life,” Slocum said. He tried to walk, but his legs buckled under him.
Flora spun about, caught him, and together they collapsed into the dirt, Slocum atop her. He tried to get up only to find that the explosion had left him dazed. Strong hands lifted him and then Flora was on one side and Doc Radley on the other.
Slocum felt his toes dragging in the dirt as they pulled him along. More than once he tried to stand but his leg bones had turned to jelly.
“You lie down and rest. Other than that crease on your side, it don’t look as if you’ve been in much of a fight. Leastways, nuthin’ compared to the one you’ll be in when Lou finds who blowed up his bank.”
“The robbers did,” Slocum said, grinning a little. It hurt his face to smile that much so he stopped.
“You stick with that story. Lou Underwood ain’t too bright at times, and if he’s got his bloodlust all sated by hangin’ the varmints in the bank that you didn’t blow up, you might be in line for a reward.” Slocum winced as the doctor cinched up the bandage on his ribs. “But don’t count on it. Lou’s so tight he can squeeze a nickel and make the buffalo bellow.”
Slocum lay back and the room spun around a mite, then settled down.
“You look after him a spell, Flora. I got my hands full with a couple of broken necks, more ’n likely.”
Slocum heard the door slam. He tried to sit up but the brunette forced him back down to the table.
“You heard Doc. You should rest.”
Slocum wanted to leave Thompson as quick as his stolen horse would take him. His resolve on freeing Beatrice
was fading fast. Even if he got back behind the wall and pretended nothing had happened, Galligan might think he was part of Silas’s gang and shoot him out of hand. Or find one of his more inventive tortures for the amusement of the fine citizens of Top of the World.
“Did my husband really save your life?”
“He did.” Slocum looked into the woman’s eyes, expecting to see tears. Instead he saw . . . something else. For a moment he couldn’t figure out what it was and then she kissed him. Hard.
When Flora broke off the kiss, she kept her face close to his.
“I owe you for all you did trying to help Gus. You brought him back alive and the doc was patching him up when . . . when he died.”
“I owe him,” Slocum said. His head felt as if a wasp’s nest had taken up residence inside. But he wasn’t in so much shock that he didn’t know what the woman was doing. He felt his gun belt being unfastened and then she worked on the buttons of his fly. “What are you doing?”
“Repaying you for all you’ve done.”
Before Slocum could say a word, her mouth engulfed his manhood. He was half rigid from the way her fingers had fumbled around in his jeans to pull him out. He hardened fast in the warmth of her mouth. Flora’s tongue worked in quick circles around the sensitive tip and lifted his hips off the table.
Slocum groaned. This put a strain on his injured rib.
“Sorry,” she said. “Is this better?”
She stepped back and wiggled. Her bloomers fell around her ankles. She kicked them free and then stepped up and straddled Slocum’s waist.
“You don’t do anything. I’ll do it all for you.”
“To me,” Slocum got out as he felt her wet warmth at the very tip of his shaft. Flora rearranged her skirts and squatted down. He sank an inch into her clinging interior. And then he gasped as she relaxed and took him full length.
“Oh, you fill me up inside. You’re so big.” She pressed her hands down onto his shoulders to hold him in place and began lifting her hips. He felt himself slipping from her, like a spat-out watermelon seed. And then she shoved herself back down and he was once more engulfed in her moist warmth. Muscles tensed and massaged his hidden length until he moaned. This time it was in pleasure. She used tricks he had seldom seen—felt!—before.
Then her hips began to rotate slowly. He stirred about within her and grew even harder. When he reached the point that his erection was so hard he wanted to cry out, she rose and paused. Her face was beaded with sweat and her face flushed. The red flush extended down her neck and across the tops of her snowy breasts.
Just the sight of her heaving bosom and knowing he was the cause of her arousal almost made him come like a young buck with his first woman.
“You’re about the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said. Slocum groaned as she slowly lowered herself once more. “Or felt.”
She laughed in delight and then began rising and falling in a rhythm destined to rob them both of speech. Her every move pushed him a bit closer to losing control. Hot tides rose within him, edged along his length. Steely control held back the flood because he wanted to experience even more. But her determined movement all around him finally took its toll.
His white-hot rush flooded her. Seconds later she cried out, arched her back, and drove her hips down hard into his, as if trying to split herself apart on his fleshy sword.
And then she sank down. Slocum felt himself turning limp and slipping from inside. She rested her cheek against his chest.
“That was mighty nice,” she said.
“Was,” he agreed. He clumsily put his arms around her, not sure what to do. His head felt like it was going to bust open at any instant and the strength hadn’t come back to his legs yet. With the lovemaking she had just lavished on him, he wasn’t sure he could do anything but fall asleep, but it was hardly right having her atop him like this.
“Your husband’s not dead an hour,” Slocum said.
“This is what I needed. A strong man, a man to take my mind off the awful things that happened to Gus. Besides, we never had much of a marriage.” She stretched out her legs and completely pinned him down with her weight.
“The doc’s going to be back soon,” Slocum said.
“You’re right,” she said reluctantly. Flora sat up, slid her legs together, and dropped off the table. Just then the door opened and Dr. Radley came in, mumbling to himself.
“They got their nerve. They wanted to leave them varmints danglin’ fer the buzzards. Had to convince them to plant them out in the potter’s field. Used their own saddle blankets. I swear, I think Lou is gonna sell their horses.”
“That’s his due, isn’t it?” Flora asked. She moved cautiously. Slocum saw that she pushed her bloomers on the floor around to get them out of the doctor’s sight.
“Ought to be yours,” Radley said. “Lou’s vault held. Not sure how he’ll get the damn thing open since the explosions ruined the safe’s lock, but all the railroad money’s still there. He lost a building but nothing in the safe. No, sir, not a thing but a building ruined.”
Radley cast a gimlet eye at Flora, then at Slocum.
“Thought I told you to rest up,” he said.
“You did,” Slocum said.
“I need a drink after everything’s happening tonight.” Radley went to the door, turned, and said, “And you pick up them frilly underpants of yours, Flora Cooley. I don’t want to see ’em on my floor in the morning.” Chuckling, the doctor left.
Slocum and Flora looked at each other, then laughed. For Slocum, there was an element of hysteria in it, but it burned away the last of his shock. And then Flora made sure he was in tip-top condition one more time.
11
“Why?” Slocum had to ask. He propped himself up on the table on one elbow and looked at the lovely woman. Flora Cooley smoothed her skirts—the same skirts that had been draped over Slocum’s waist so she could get unhindered access to his crotch with hers.
“You’re a brave man and—”
“Your husband just died. He’s the hero. He saved me.”
“Gus and I, well, he was out of town a lot,” Flora started. She bit her lower lip and looked contrite. “It surprised me that he would give his life for anyone else.”
“Much less a drifter?” Slocum asked.
“Oh, no, John. That’s not what I mean. Marshal Menniger is the real power in Thompson, and he’s just come here not so long ago. The deputies do as they’re told, and Gus was one of them. He never showed too much initiative, preferring to stay in the background and go along with whatever the marshal asked of him.”
Slocum hadn’t seen Cooley that way at all, but maybe she hadn’t seen him under such pressure. Cooley had survived the armored wagon rolling down a hill and through force of will had kept himself alive on the arduous trip back to Thompson. Even as bunged up as he was, he’d joined Slocum to go after Silas’s gang. The two of them taking on a dangerous man like Silas didn’t jibe with what Flora said.
“He might not have been town marshal but he had his eye on the badge,” Slocum said. There hadn’t been anything definite that Cooley had said, but the way he talked about the job and the town made Slocum think the man’s ambitions didn’t stop there. A federal marshal roamed a huge portion of western Wyoming and had a great deal more power and responsibility. Again, Gus Cooley had never mentioned it but Slocum had the feeling in his gut that even this might have been nothing more than a stepping-stone for the deputy’s aspirations.
“Oh, no, he would have said something about that. All he ever did was ride the circuit around town and serve process. He got paid five dollars for each eviction notice he served. And he didn’t do that so much.”
“Did he drink up the money?” Slocum thought he knew the answer when Flora hesitated, then shook her head.
“Didn’t think so. I bet he salted it away. He might have been a deputy but he probably left you with a fair amount of cash.”
“The bank,” she said in a low, cho
ked voice. “He had the money in that bank, and the robbers would have taken it.”
“He died so you wouldn’t starve.” Slocum thought Flora might feel bad about what they had just done after he pointed this out to her, but she smiled wanly, came to him, and kissed him with real passion.
“You’re so good to take Gus’s part in this, John. You’ve got a heart of gold. You do.”
“Doc Radley knows what was going on between us just before he came in. You think he’s the kind to talk in his cups?”
“For all his bluster, Radley doesn’t say much, and I’m not sure he drinks. That’s not something I would really know, now is it?” She bent, fetched her bloomers, and stepped into them. The look in her eye was devilish. Flora made a big production of turning away, then bending over and presenting her curvy hindquarters to him as she wiggled into them. For a brief instant, Slocum caught sight of what was under the skirts and then they dropped back to a chaste ankle level. When she turned, she was a little flushed. Flora knew exactly what she’d done and how tempting it had been for him.
Had she attracted Gus Cooley in the same way? Slocum wasn’t inclined to think on the matter. He heaved his feet off the table and bent forward slightly when his head tried to go in a direction different from his body. The dizziness passed enough for him to try a tentative step or two. The weakness he’d experienced after getting caught in the explosion was about gone now.
He reached for his gun belt and the six-shooter there when he heard loud sounds coming from outside. Slocum stopped, hand still on the butt of his pistol, when Radley came back into the office, followed by the banker and a handful of others.
“Fresh from stringin’ up them bastards,” one man said.
Slocum had seen men who got a taste of lynch mob violence. For two cents, this one would string up someone else just for the sight of watching his victim kick out his last dance at the end of the rope. Slocum strapped on his gun and felt better for it with a mob like this, no matter that they were likely the town fathers. These pillars of the community were looking for crossbeams to swing more outlaws from.