by Jake Logan
“Certainly.” Then Obregón was gone.
Slocum slapped his Colt back in his holster. Angela joined him in the predawn chill, hugging her arms. “It’s cold out here.”
“It will soon be hot,” he promised her.
“Was it him you shot at?”
“I think so. It all happened so fast, and there was not much light to shoot by.”
“What will he do next?”
“Try to escape.” Slocum’s belly growled. They soon would need some food.
“You don’t think he will try to kill you?”
“Yes, he will. Now harder than ever. Let’s go back inside.”
“What if he sneaks back?” She took a last look at the night and the dark live oak where the figure had disappeared.
“One thing at a time,” he said and turned her toward the casa.
Obregón returned from the village while Slocum and Angela ate the fresh food prepared for them. Joining them in the kitchen, Obregón, his sombrero in hand, reported. “The jail is gone, so are the bandits. I think we got all of them. Any who are left must be burning the ground to get the hell out of there. The people of the village dragged the last two out of beds where they were raping women and hacked them to death.”
“Good enough. Now we need to find Salazar. Sit down, amigo, and eat first. He can wait.” Slocum indicated the seat opposite his.
“Ah, you are hungry, no?” a sweet thing from the kitchen crew asked his man and then brought him a heaping plate of food.
“Oh, gracias.” Obregón looked in awe at all she brought him.
“You are very welcome, señor. You have saved all the women who work here. We are all very grateful.” She curtsied for him and went back to work as the other women applauded them.
“Wow,” Obregón said, sounding impressed as he sat down. “We have made a big deal in this place, no?”
“Yes, a very big change to this simple village.”
Busy eating, the man asked, “Who owns this place?”
Slocum looked at Angela for the answer.
“They said a man named Crawford, but he is in Mexico City right now. Salazar simply took this place over.”
“A good thing for him that he was gone, or he’d be dead too, huh?” Obregón dove into eating.
Slocum, amused by the man’s hunger, agreed and winked at Angela. “Obregón, you weren’t hungry, were you?”
The man paused. Then he looked at Slocum and Angela like he had just noticed them. “This is such good food, I don’t want to miss a bite.”
He went back to eating, and they laughed.
19
“Where will he hide?” Angela asked, sitting up in the great bed, holding the sheet up to cover her bare breasts as morning light slipped into the room from behind the drapes.
Busy dressing, Slocum pulled on his leather britches. “A good question. Salazar left the live oak, according to Cherrycow, who tracked him out of the grove. He had to have some help to do that. Cherrycow thinks I hit him. There were spots of blood, he said.”
“I heard part of that conversation. I hope he is right. Maybe Salazar will crawl off and die.”
“I doubt we have that good of luck. But anyway, I think he’ll go back to his headquarters and raise another bunch of outlaws.”
“Using his power over their minds, huh?”
“It has worked so far.”
“You are right.”
An hour later, he and his men held a parley squatted in the lacy shade of a large mesquite. Few of the Cockroach’s men could have escaped their assault. Several were blown up in the jail explosion, many more killed in the efforts of Slocum’s men and the villagers to pick them off separately, and the Cockroach’s segundo was no longer breathing.
“Will he run to Mexico City?” Angela asked them.
“No, his power is over the people up here. He will try to kill us. We are the only threat to his reign over these people.” Slocum regretted not managing to shoot him the night before. Salazar was worse than a plague on these mountain people—getting control of their minds, then making them do criminal things for him. Of course, the rape and pillage they’d done to this village probably didn’t take much encouragement on Salazar’s part—but he still led them.
“So?” Angela looked wistfully at him. “What is next?”
“Sierra Vista.”
“Ah, sí.”
Two days later when Slocum led his crew over the pass, the red tile roofs of the peaceful village gleamed beneath them in the bright mountain sunshine. The sight made him satisfied that at last they had arrived. Gathering cumulus clouds had begun to form, promising a shower or two, as regularly soaked the afternoons. Maybe a drencher, maybe only a sprinkle, rainstorms kissed the mountains somewhere every afternoon. From the looks of the thickening clouds, the rain would soon start.
They rode directly to the great casa outside of town that Salazar had occupied before, but found it empty. No one was there. An old wood seller on the road said everyone there had left several days before, and he lamented that there was no one there to buy cooking wood. It obviously must have hurt his economy.
“Is it safe to go to your amigo’s place?” Angela asked.
Slocum nodded, and they rode on to Don Carlos’s house. The clop of their horses’ hooves on the stone street was noisy, and his friend was on a balcony when they rode into the courtyard.
“Good to see you, amigos,” he said to them, smiling at their return.
Donna rushed from out front door to be hugged and swung around by Slocum.
“How are things? Are you married?” he whispered in her ear.
“Yes, yes.”
He set her down with a wink. “Good for you.”
“Thanks to you, my friend.”
“Quit flirting with my wife,” Don Carlos shouted, and everyone laughed.
“You should have married an ugly woman. How could I not flirt with such a lovely one?”
His crew laughed, and they dismounted too. Angela ran to hug Donna, who told Slocum to follow them inside. Then the two females left him. Chattering like magpies, they sauntered back inside, arms hooked together, deeply engaged in a conversation.
“Did you get him?” Don Carlos asked when he came downstairs.
“Not yet. We had a close encounter two days ago. We took out his gang down at Los Piñones. He is not at the casa outside town here.”
Don Carlos nodded. “I caught a hint about him. They say he is at the Hernandez Ranch on the Río Verde.”
“We can rest our horses and head there mañana.”
“Good. I have some excellent American whiskey.”
“Sounds good,” Slocum said and nodded to the men to take care of the horses. He followed after his friend.
“How are things at the mines?”
“No problems. You have La Cucaracha so involved in getting you that he has no time for robbery.”
“I may have wounded him in our encounter two days ago. Cherrycow said there was blood on his trail.”
“Shame you didn’t kill him. The son of a bitch.” Don Carlos poured some whiskey into two glasses, then handed one to Slocum. “Here’s to his death.”
“I have him on the run. We’ll get him.”
“Oh, sí. But it would have been nice if he was already dead.” They clinked glasses and took sips of the fine bourbon.
Slocum nodded his approval. “The rope is getting much shorter.”
“I hope that people appreciate all you do for them.”
“The ones that count do.” Slocum nodded and took another sip of the good stuff.
20
Slocum woke early and, after voiding his bladder, dressed and went to the kitchen area. He found the crew busy preparing breakfast. Donna blinked at him and then drew her bathrobe tighter and more proper.
“You are up early,” she said.
He took a freshly made sopaipilla and a small honey bowl from one of the saucy-eyed younger girls. “Gracias.”
Th
en he turned to Donna. “I wouldn’t want to miss a thing that goes on down here.”
She hugged him and pressed her hip to his. “Well, we are always glad to see you.”
“I thought that now you are his wife, you would sleep in, huh?” The sweetness of the bite of food flooded his mouth.
“Being married makes no difference. I have to be certain everything is just so or I am not happy. How is the man’s wife you retrieved?”
“Recovering. This business he uses is hypo—”
“Hypnosis. I have read about it. Do you think this is how he manages these people who work for him?”
“What do you know about it? I only ever saw one doctor use it. During the war he did it to help wounded men through surgery without ether, to dull the pain.”
“Mind control is what they say it is, but no one seems to know much else.”
“Salazar must have gone to Europe and studied it over there. He’s from a rich family, so it would be no problem for him.”
She nodded. “Now, if I could use it on these girls.” They both laughed.
“You are leaving today?”
“Yes, in a little while. The ranch is a two day ride. So we can leave at a decent hour for that one.”
“Aren’t you afraid he’ll ambush you?”
Slocum nodded. “But I have good scouts.”
“You must, and God also watches over you.” She gave him a kiss on his cheek, then went off to organize something the girls were doing.
He and his “good scouts” rode out around eight o’clock, with the sleepy-eyed Angela shaking her head aboard the dun horse. Yawning big, she rode in close to Slocum. “I am not a morning person, I have decided.”
“Oh, just now. You’ve been doing good though.”
She forced a smile. “With you, I have to be.” Then she openly laughed at something else and shook her head to dismiss it.
He’d miss her when all this was over. But he soon needed to meet a man about taking his herd of steers to Kansas. Time to get things ready up there. Walter Kenny expected him. The days had flown fast with all this tramping up and down the mountains. He hoped to close this matter soon and be rid of this Cockroach once and for all.
Slocum made arrangements with a small rancher for them to camp on his land. Hardly more than a boy, the rancher said he ran some cattle in this high country and also caught and broke mustangs to survive. His pregnant young wife carried a baby that still suckled her. But they were happy, and knowing they were a small subsistence farm, he made sure his crew ate from his pack goods.
From the stacked hides, Slocum decided the ranch family lived on deer meat. His name was Laredo and his wife’s was Pia. Pia and Angela talked together much of the time they were there. Slocum felt certain that she did not have many females come around—she about talked Angela’s ear off.
Later when they were alone in the pines above the ranch house, Slocum and Angela whispered to each other in the bedroll.
“You know she was sold at twelve to a whorehouse?” Angela asked.
“Who did that?”
“Her father.”
“Nice guy.”
“He also sold her two older sisters earlier to that same man. She doesn’t know what happened to them. Laredo was one of her first customers, and later he took her from that place and married her in a church. But she worries that they still look for her.”
“Probably she should.”
“There is no way you can make her safe?”
He chuckled. “No, I have no great powers.”
She snuggled her body suggestively against him. “I simply wondered.”
He agreed and kissed her. In another day he hoped to confront the one causing all the current grief in this land.
The following day, they reached the ranch in late afternoon and were close enough to see cooking smoke escaping the casa’s chimney. In the corrals, a handful of horses stood hipshot. They had been ridden hard and had dried salt encrusted on them from their hard push up there.
In his telescope, Slocum counted a half dozen armed men moving about the place. Night would take care of those odds. Slocum and the others moved farther away from the casa. Finding a fresh spring and a small valley for the horses to graze in, they camped for the afternoon until after dark, when Slocum planned to raid the place.
Being familiar with the setup of the ranch down there from when they had rescued Martina would make it easier for him and his men to take the place. He simply wanted to get Salazar this time. He was deep in thought when Angela joined him, seated with his back to a large pine tree.
“Where will you go from here?”
“San Antonio. I promised a man I’d ramrod his trail herd to Kansas, and that’s not far away.”
“You won’t need me along, huh?”
“Trail driving is a tough business. Very remote country. We don’t see much civilization.”
“When will you return to San Antonio after the drive?”
“Fall.”
“Can I figure on having a damn good reunion with you then?”
“That’s long drive and lots of rivers to cross.”
“For you, hombre, I can wait.” Hands behind her head, she smiled as if in anticipation of the reunion event.
“What can you do in San Antonio until then?”
“Whatever. I’ll be waiting.”
“I might—”
She put her finger on his lips. “I will be waiting.”
He agreed.
After darkness, he and his crew descended on the ranch. He told Angela to wait a ways back from the ranch house in a grove of pines until things were clear. Squatted down, he whispered, “If anyone finds you or you get in a tight place, remember, clap your hands three times—it might stop them.”
She frowned at him. “Why is that? You said before it might paralyze them?”
He looked off toward the lights in the house and the Chinese lanterns outside. “It has to do with how his spells work. Just use it if you need it.”
“Clap my hands three times?”
“Yes.”
“I will.”
He patted her leg and set out. Six-gun in his fist, he scrambled from big tree to big tree, looking for any signs of the guards patrolling the main casa. His men were coming in from various sides, and his plan to take all of them was ambitious. Lightning speed might do it.
Shots sounded from the south, and the guards directed all their attention in that direction. Then a stick of blasting powder went off. Men were screaming and stumbling around outside the house by the time Slocum reached the edge of the building.
With his right arm in a sling, Salazar shouted orders from the house. Satisfied that no one was behind him, Slocum stepped in.
“Don’t move a muscle.”
“Ah, I recognize that voice. At last we meet again.”
“Salazar, drop the derringer in your left palm or die.” Slocum cocked his Colt’s hammer back with a click, ready to gun him down. His poised finger was on the trigger—the derringer clunked onto the porch.
“Good. Now move out of here, slow-like.”
In the darkness, Slocum’s men walked in holding Winchesters ready at their hips. They began to disarm the other gunmen, shoving them down to sit on the ground.
“Well, well, I underestimated you again,” Salazar said.
“You’ve simply run out of your nine lives.” He shoved the man forward.
“How is my lover, Martina?”
“Much better, away from you.” Slocum was not satisfied that they had the entire place under control.
“What a shame, she was such a fine nymphomaniac, I miss her badly.”
“She damn sure doesn’t miss you—”
“Gentlemen,” Salazar said with a new look of evil on his face. “My men, the ones you did not get, now have you covered.”
Slocum saw them step out of the shadows with rifles in their hands.
Salazar laughed aloud at the new situation. He whirled and pointed
his finger at Slocum. “Who do I shoot first?”
Then someone clapped their hands three times, and the armed men went stiff.
“Get their guns,” Slocum shouted and dove for the man nearest him. He wrestled the rifle from the outlaw’s hands and then whirled around to face the raging Salazar.
“How did you learn that?” Salazar snarled as the pistoleros took charge from the dumbstruck guards.
“It worked. It worked,” the excited Angela cried, coming into the flickering light of the lanterns.
Slocum walked over and thumped Salazar on the chest with his index finger. “From the woman you abused.”
“You can’t do anything to me. The law won’t let you—”
Obregón stepped in and clutched Salazar’s bad arm. “Listen, hombre, we ain’t taking you to no fucking federales for them to turn you loose. You killed my compadres. You raped some of the finest women on this Earth. There ain’t a prison good enough for a damn cockroach like you.”
“What—what are you going to do?” Salazar’s face paled.
“Hang you,” Slocum said. “When it gets light enough. You also killed a great lady I knew and liked.”
Salazar sneered at him. “That whore was only bait.”
“Like Obregón said, you will be bait yourself for the vultures and buzzards in the morning.”
“I have money. Lots of money. How much do you want?”
Both men shook their heads. Obregón spat on him.
“Keep your money. It will make the fires of hell even hotter.” Obregón turned on his heel and walked away, making the others line up the bandits, hands tied behind their backs. They stood hangdog as the sun first peeped into the deep valley holding the ranch.
Twelve blindfolded bandits stood before the barn. Obregón had cut out two youths from the gang and forced them to watch as three men were stood up, and then fell to the ground, each one shot in the heart. This was done four times, and Obregón was only forced to dispatch one who had not instantly died from the rifle bullets. Then he ordered the two boys to carry the bodies over and dig a large common grave for all of them.
A rope was fashioned into a noose, a saddled horse of the outlaws’ was brought forward and Salazar was placed upon his back, the noose secure around his neck.