by Jake Logan
“Oh, yes, I know. That is so terrible. Yesterday I sent four pistoleros over to help him find her.”
“Good. What happened up there, and who did this?”
“I only heard short bits, but they were all bad. I have guards posted all around my holdings. McCarty lost his left arm and took some more bullets, they said. The leader was a bandit who calls himself La Cucaracha.”
“Never heard of him before this.” He looked at Angela.
She made a slight “no” sign to him and then smiled for their host. “Ah, such a great hall,” she said after her first view of the two-story open room.
“I have many lovely things, my dear.” He boasted with pride and told the woman standing in the doorway at the side that they had guests; she must bring them wine and food.
Slocum was amused at how Angela acted so impressed with the place. He handed his hat to a young maid who also took Angela’s shawl and scarf.
Juarta showed them to the high-backed seats at the great table, Angela on the left and Slocum on the right of his head chair, which was larger and more kingly than the others. When they were seated, Juarta reached over and patted Angela’s forearm. “You are lovely, my dear. It is so nice to have you here as my guest. Where do you live?”
“San Antonio,” she lied, unfolding the linen napkin.
“Ah, where civilization abounds, no?”
She nodded.
“Someday you must invite me to your casa. I go to San Antonio quite often.”
“My casa is being remodeled,” she said. “Perhaps when the work is complete you might come by.”
“When will it be done?”
“Next year, they promise, but you know lazy workers.”
“Ah, I have many. Slocum, you are very lucky to have such a fine lady to accompany you down here.”
“She was tired of the hammering,” he said, hardly able to contain his amusement at her fabrications. He toasted both of them with his wine goblet. “To good health.”
“Such a shame this incident happened at the McCarty Hacienda,” Juarta said. “I hope you can sort it out for him. First the Apaches, now bandidos. They need to send some soldiers up here.”
“The Apache days aren’t over either,” Slocum said as the servants brought out enough food for an army.
“But most of them are over in Sonora. Not like the old days, when the Comanche came down here as well.” Juarta shook his head.
Throughout the meal the conversation went on about taxes and the central government in the federal district and its lack of concern for everything but the gold and silver brought out of the Norte. Juarta made several passes at Angela, which amused Slocum. The poor man had no idea she was a bruja—perhaps she had sprinkled stardust around the room to attract him. Juarta was, for Slocum’s part, close to embarrassingly struck by her beauty.
Slocum and Angela retired to their own room at last. Their host had offered them two bedrooms, but Angela had told him one was fine. The notion did not faze him, and a maid showed them to the larger quarters.
Slocum toed off his boots. “Tell me, do you have plans for Juarta?”
“Do I hear a jealous tone in your voice?”
“No, I simply wondered.”
“This would be much nicer quarters than my casa, wouldn’t you say?” She held out her hand to the rich items in the soft candlelight and the great feather bed in the center of it all.
“Nicer, not better.”
“Ah, but I must think about such things. Someday I will be old and wrinkled. Only old winos and whoremongers will want me. Before my looks die”—she began unbuttoning his shirt—“I would like to live under such a roof.”
“Ah, I agree that you should. I can leave you here if you wish.”
“No, the time is not right. That is why I took your room—well, partially why. I didn’t want to spoil Juarta’s greed for me by letting him climb in bed with me tonight and having a wreck the first time.” She hung her dress on the ladder-back chair and turned back to Slocum with the candlelight flickering over her ripe body.
He dropped his pants and stepped out of them. “What kind of a wreck?”
She winked at him. “Juarta would get so excited in bed that he’d spew his cum all over my belly before he even got inside me. Besides, I have you, and I know I will sleep tight when you finish with me.”
He kissed her and drew her nakedness against his bare skin. There was no end to what a witch would do to get what she desired—he’d seen one in action that evening and understood her ways. This hacienda would be much better than her casa in a settlement that had no use for her. Hugging her to him, he felt his erection grow between them. Morning would come too damn early, and it sounded like his amigo McCarty was in tough shape. But that was tomorrow’s worry. For tonight, Slocum put his concerns aside and lost himself in a wild lust for Angela’s flesh.
3
On horseback they rode side by side and pushed hard from before dawn for the McCarty Hacienda. Their refreshed horses made good time. By late afternoon, Slocum noticed the tired edge that Angela tried to mask from him. Then as the sun fell into a bloody death beyond the Madre foothills, they reached the edge of McCarty’s orchards.
“Have you ever been here before?” he asked her as they short loped through the orchards.
She shook her head.
“It is an impressive place. McCarty is an engineer and has set up an irrigation system for all these fruit trees, crops and grapes. It is very interesting.”
“Is he a gringo?”
“An Irish prince, I believe, who was educated in Europe, roamed the seas and ended up here. You will like him.”
She made a that-would-be-fine face and winked. “I will like being with you.”
“Fine. I hope my friend is healing.”
“I feel he will be, but after all he has suffered, he will still have a long way to go.”
“If you believe he is healing, I feel better already.”
“Halt, señor,” a guard ordered, backed by two rifle-bearing men who stepped into the road beside him. “What is your business here?”
“My name is Slocum. Your patrón sent for me. This woman, Angela, is with me.”
The man doffed his sombrero. “Señora and señor, welcome to the hacienda. My patrón anxiously awaits your arrival. Diego, get your horse and show our special guests to the casa.”
“We can find our way,” Slocum said.
“No, señor, we are all so upset about the kidnapping of Señora McCarty and the raid made upon us, in the twilight someone might mistake you for a bandit.”
“I don’t want to be killed,” Slocum said and nodded for Diego, who was mounted on his horse, to go ahead.
At the house, the horse handlers came quickly and took their horses’ reins. Diego, hat in hand, introduced the two of them to the straight-backed woman at the door.
“Señor Slocum, this is Leona,” Diego said.
Slocum removed his hat and shook her hand. “Leona and I know each other. This is Angela.”
“Ah, at last you come,” the tall, proper woman said. “The patrón is sleeping. If you two wish to eat first, we will let him sleep awhile longer.”
“That will be fine.” Angela agreed.
Leona took Slocum’s hat and Angela’s shawl. “Come with me.”
“We can eat in the kitchen,” he said, shooing the woman on. “We aren’t that fancy.”
“The señora better never find out.” Leona looked to the high ceiling for help from her saint.
Slocum laughed. “Señor McCarty’s wife, Martina, is very proper,” he said to Angela.
“And I wish she were here,” Leona said. “We have not heard what ransom he even wants for her.”
“The note will come.” After this hombre La Cucaracha had all the pussy he wanted from her, he’d get serious about money. Slocum stepped into the kitchen, and everyone on the staff grew stiff backed and very somber.
“You all know Señor Slocum, and this is his la
dy—”
“Her name is Angela.”
They all said hello, welcomed them, then went back to work, or at least made it look like they were working.
“They are very hungry. What do we have to feed them?” Leona inquired of the crew.
“Roast beef,” one girl said.
“We can make fry bread,” another volunteered.
“We have some enchiladas that are still warm.”
“That’s plenty. Sounds great to us.” Slocum glanced aside, and Angela agreed.
“Sit at the table.” Leona gestured to the table, and Slocum thanked her.
The meal went well. Angela gushed over their wine and exchanged some words about the meal with him. When they finished eating, their hostess led them through the great hall and to the door of a bedroom, rapping on the door. Mitch called for them to come in.
In the room’s soft candlelight, Leona helped Mitch sit up in the bed, bracing him with many pillows. He was anxious for her to get through with her fussing but smiled at Slocum. The glaring thing for Slocum was that McCarty’s left arm had been amputated at the shoulder and his chest was wrapped in bandages.
“Hell of a fine mess I’m in, ain’t it?” Mitch said, looking disgusted. Clean shaven and with his red hair cropped shorter than Slocum had ever seen it, he looked pale under his red freckles.
“I understand they really swept in here on you?”
McCarty closed his green eyes and shook his head. “Like locusts. Most of us were working young horses at about eight o’clock in the morning, and they came in here like Apaches. Caught us off guard. I had no idea. Women rushed arms to the men. Three of them were murdered saving the hacienda. Several women were raped before my men took the hacienda back, and those bastards swept my lovely Martina away with them.”
“Leona told us there was no word of ransom so far?” Slocum made the statement a question.
“So far they’ve cut my bloody arm off me and dug two bullets out of my back, but no word on Martina. I’d give my very life for her safe return.”
Slocum took a ladder-back chair and pulled it up close to sit on. “Who can tell me all that I must know about this bandit?”
“The Cockroach, they call him. He must stay up in the Madres. Not many know much about him that I can find out. I have pistoleros all over listening and looking for him, and I get no word back.”
“Juarta said he sent you four men.”
“Yes, yes. Good men. I gave them money and sent them to go look for her as well.”
“You think he’s in the Madres?”
McCarty winced in pain from some small movement, then quickly said, “Aye, lad, I think the likes of them are up there.”
“Is there an Apache among your workers or someone who speaks their language fluently?”
Slocum exchanged a nod with Angela. He wanted someone adept at talking to the Apaches. They knew what went on up there.
“Cherrycow,” Leona said to McCarty as she fixed the sheet over his lap.
“Oh, yes, there is a man who lived with them for several years, as good as was an Apache. Leona, send for him. Also, have someone bring us back some Irish whiskey and some glasses. I’m tired of this raw mescal.” Leona nodded to a girl by the door, who slipped out to perform the errands. Then, as if he had not noticed her before, McCarty waved Angela into the light beside the bed. “I am a man of such poor manners, and he wasn’t going to introduce you to me.”
“Her name is Angela,” Slocum said.
Angela smiled at McCarty. “And you were so busy with the business of your wife. I do not feel slighted.”
“Bah on business. I am so tired of this bed I could burn it. Aye, but I am concerned for my lovely wife and her treatment at the hands of those worthless heathens.”
“Rest,” Leona said, holding his hand and then slowly releasing it. “You have much longer to go to be able to take any trail.”
“But I am so tired of this bed—”
She shook her head. “Your anger won’t rush your recovery.”
He agreed with a solemn nod and looked back at Slocum. “What are your plans for this Apache?”
“If he knows the language, we can talk to them,” Slocum said. “They will know where this man hides in the mother mountains. A rock is not turned up there that the Apaches do not know about.”
“I never thought about them.”
“They may help us find the Cockroach, for a price.”
“How much would that be?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll let you know.”
“I have money. But I would have to get large sums from faraway banks.”
“Wait till you hear from the bandits or from me.”
Mitch narrowed his eyes. “I need her back.”
“I understand, but you know how vast a country it is to search for her in.”
“Yes, I’ve been over lots of it. How many pistoleros will you need to take with you?”
“Besides the Apache man, perhaps two more tough hombres. I don’t want a super large party. Too many men and you can’t move fast enough when you need to.”
“What else?”
“I can arrange all the rest with your people. You should rest,” Slocum said, concerned they were wearing him out.
“Damn, I’m sorry to interrupt your life—but I have to have my son’s mother back.”
“Angela and I had nothing else to do.” Slocum laughed and shared a smile with her as the good whiskey arrived.
Later in their own room, Slocum and Angela undressed and talked about his friend and the tough situation he was in.
“What do you think?” Slocum asked her.
She shook her head. “He is a survivor, like I suspected. But he will be many weeks recovering, and he is like you. You’d be a poor patient.”
Slocum hugged her neck and then bent over to kiss her. “I would be a good patient.”
“Not with your arm missing. His loss makes him worry much about what he will do when things are like normal at his ranch. He worries they’ve stolen his virility.”
She shed her dress over her head and stood as naked as Eve when she turned back to face him.
“He wasn’t shot down that low.”
“A man’s mind has more to do with that than his missing arm or any other body part.”
Looking at her ripe body took away Slocum’s breath, so he hugged her to his own. “Like me. I have problems.”
Pressing her exposed mound against his growing erection, she laughed aloud. “Sure you do, silly man.”
They scrambled into bed, tickling each other and giggling like two children, Slocum finding spots she absolutely couldn’t stand him touching without her laughing. Finally, with their fingers locked, he pressed her down on the bed and moved on top. Then using his hips, he swung his pendulum around and hunched the nose of his great stick into her gates.
She threw her head back, spread her thighs wider apart and moaned. “God, that feels so wonderful.”
They untangled their hands and he reached under her, clutched the hard cheeks of her butt and drove his spear to the bottom of her depths.
“Yes! Oh, that feels awesome. ...”
For him too.
Before sunup, one of Leona’s helpers knocked on the door. Slocum woke with his face buried in a goose down pillow. In a dry voice, he managed, “We’re coming.”
“Sí.” And the helper was gone from outside the door.
“Who’s we?” Angela asked, moving away from his threatening hands. “Damnit, I can sleep in, can’t I?”
Off the bed, he still came back after her. “No. No, we need to head for the Madres tomorrow morning, and we have much to plan for and get ready.”
At last, with Angela up and Slocum pressing her against the door, he made a trap by planting his hands on the wall on either side of her shoulders and then kissed her. She savored his mouth hard. He soon reached between her legs and teased her clit with his middle finger.
“Oh, no.” She moaned an
d moved her hips toward his rising appendage.
“Oh, yes.”
When they finally walked across the great hall from the wings, Leona was standing in the kitchen doorway, arms folded.
“Francisco is here, and so is the Apache,” she said. “You are late.”
“Sorry, we must have fallen asleep again,” he said and ushered Angela ahead. “You start eating. I’ll speak to my guests.”
A kitchen girl served him a mug of steaming coffee, and he went to talk to the tall man by the door.
“You must be Francisco.” Slocum shook the man’s hand. Tall for a Hispanic, Mitch’s segundo looked at him eye to eye. They stood at the back door of the kitchen and then stepped outside to talk in private.
“I have the one who lived with the Apaches here. We call him Cherrycow.”
“I will speak to him. You must have lots to do.”
“That is no concern. Recovering the señora is the most important thing. Mitch said that you would probably like some mountain horses to ride up there?”
“Definitely.”
“We will shoe a dozen for you today.”
Slocum mentally counted four—no, five—riders and four packhorses. “Nine will be enough.”
“There will be nine shod horses. He said you needed two pistoleros.”
“Two is all, plus the Apache. Too many and you can’t move fast enough when it is necessary.”
“I agree. The toughest men I have are Obregón and Jesús. They will be ready to ride in the morning.”
“Fine. What about supplies?”
“Leona is in charge of that. This is Cherrycow.” Francisco waved a short man dressed as a peon over from a seat in the garden. “Cherrycow, this is Señor Slocum.”
“Good to meet you, señor.”
“Francisco, I imagine you are anxious to get things going. Cherrycow, come inside and eat with us.”
“I can wait here till you are done, señor.”
“My name is Slocum—no patrón, no señor. Come and meet Angela.” He wasn’t taking no for an answer and herded the shorter hombre inside the warm kitchen and out of the cool morning air outside the cookery.
Angela took Cherrycow’s sombrero and ushered him to a seat. “Nice to meet you.”