Slocum and the Trail to Tascosa Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Bottoms Up

  Slocum jerked Horace up in his face so he could smell the whiskey breath on him. “Where’s Bridges keep his money?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You better get to recalling where it’s at, or I’m pouring kerosene all over your privates and setting them on fire.”

  “You son of a bitch, you wouldn’t do that to me.”

  “She would, if I don’t.”

  “Oh, hell, I know who you are—you’re Slocum. And that’s the whore from—”

  Slocum bashed him over the forehead with the barrel of his handgun and shoved him inside the barn’s dark interior.

  “Say one bad thing about this lady, and I’m sticking this gun up your ass and blowing your brains out the top of your head ...”

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  SLOCUM AND THE TRAIL TO TASCOSA

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Jove edition / January 2011

  All rights reserved.

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  eISBN : 978-1-101-44600-3

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  1

  If there was anything different from Slocum’s last time in North Platte, Nebraska, when he rode into town that early fall day, it was all the people. Thousands, it looked like to him, and a hundred more boomtown tents housed stores, saloons, whorehouses and dry goods. Farm implement dealers were there with spanking nice wagons neatly stacked on top of one another. New steel turning plows, harrows, drills, rakes and hay-mowing machines were all displayed—everything some foreign-talking honyocker needed to homestead, and down at the depot they were getting off the passenger trains like ants.

  Plenty of Texas cowboys who’d driven herds of cattle up to stock the new ranges loafed around the town, looked for work and tried to decide if they should go back home before they got frozen in up there. Blue-winged teal were already gathering to fly south.

  Slocum dismounted at Wilson’s Wagon Yard, boarded his dun horse, Buck, for fifteen cents a day and strode back through the crowed boardwalk to the Red Lion Saloon. Inside the smoky interior, he made his way across the noisy, packed room to the bar and ordered a large beer. His plan was to wash down some road dust and see if the bartender on duty knew where he could find Charley Farley. The letter in the many times forwarded envelope in his inside vest pocket said his old trail-driving buddy would be easy to find.

  “Hey, what do you need?” the weary-looking barkeep called to Slocum through the small window of open space between the backs of some horsy-smelling teamsters at the bar who were busy talking and hoisting their glasses.

  “A tall beer and some information.”

  “I’ll get the beer first,” the mustached man said. “It’ll be ten cents.”

  The price for a mug was the same anyway. Many times boomtowns jacked their prices up, claiming it was hard to get their supplies there.

  Slocum put the dime on the bar and the man nodded, taking it to the till. It must be harder to collect bar bills in these crowded places. Cash on the line, he’d called it. Slocum looked around. There were several women working the crowd. Most of them were tough-looking women—but hell, a horny guy had no prejudice.

  “Here’s your beer, mister. What else?”

  “Charley Farley. You know him?” Slocum asked over the noise of the crowd and an out-of-tune piano plinking away in the background.

  The man acknowledged that he knew him. “But he’s dead.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “Shot, I guess. They have shootings all the time.... I’ve got to go. Ask the law.”

  “Sure. Thanks.” The man was gone.

  The sourness of t
he beer filled Slocum’s mouth. It was cold, and he let it flush out his dusty throat going down. He held the mug up to the hazy light and watched the foam slide down the sides into the remains. Here’s to you, Farley. Sorry I’m too late for the final arrangements.

  He took another big swig of his beer. He’d better see about Charley’s next of kin. Charley must have had some. The law in town would have that information. Slocum might even know some of the men with badges from three years before when he was up here last.

  “Hey, big boy.” A five-foot-three gal in a red fluffy dress began to adjust the sides of Slocum’s wool vest and blocked his way. “I know you.”

  “Inform me. From where?” he said, looking down at her exposed divided cleavage.

  She swept the light-colored hair back from her face and beamed up at him. “I’m Leta. Leta Couzki.”

  Leta Couzki? He couldn’t recall any Leta. “Maybe you’ve got me mixed up with someone else?”

  She clapped him on the arm and whispered, “Slocum, I’ll never forget you, darling.”

  “Well, put that way, I guess you do know me.” Then he laughed.

  “Let’s find a place we can talk.” She motioned to the rear of the saloon.

  “Sure,” he said, then finished off his beer. He reached between the two clumps of back-to-back teamsters and set the glass on the bar.

  “Catch me later,” the bartender said over them. “I remember something about your man—the guy you mentioned.”

  “I will.” He turned back to Leta. “You ate?”

  She shook her head. “I could use a meal. You buying?”

  “Sure. Is business that slow here?”

  “Not really.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “I’m too choosy. Come on, follow me.”

  She elbowed a path toward the swinging doors, cutting into the masses of close-packed customers. He grinned as she literally shoved men aside to make a passageway. A man would have drawn a fight if he’d done it like that, but the customers looked around at her, grinned real big and let them through.

  Outside, she made another track through the people crammed on the boardwalk between the hitched horses at the rack and the walkway to finally emerge out in the street, looking both ways. “Wade’s Diner. Best food in the entire area, and they’re clean too. Come on, now’s our chance.”

  The café she found for him was slack on business. In midafternoon business always fell off between lunch and supper. At an empty booth in the back, she scooted in midway and then had him sit across from her.

  The waiter came over. Taking charge, she ordered coffee and a special plate lunch for both of them. After a check with Slocum to be certain it was all right with him, she sent the waiter off.

  “What’s your business in North Platte?” she asked, raising her leg up and hugging her skirt-clad knee above the tabletop.

  “An old friend, Charley Farley, who they tell me is dead, asked me to come up here and help him.”

  “What did he need, for heaven’s sake?”

  “My help,” he said.

  “Everyone needs your help. What was he doing?”

  “Trying to run cattle, I imagine.”

  She looked at the tin squares on the ceiling for help. “He needed a cowboy?”

  “No, his trouble was with a large rancher.”

  “The Barr Ranch, huh?” She dropped her knee down and oversaw the waiter putting their steaming coffee cups on the table.

  With the waiter gone again, she turned back to Slocum. “That bunch causes lots of trouble around here. What did he want you to do about it?”

  “Help him, I guess, fight them.”

  “Well, you say he’s dead. I didn’t know him.”

  “Tell me, what are you doing working in a saloon?”

  “I plan to open a place of my own here in town. So I’ve been finding me some investors. I don’t work the teamsters and cowboys, dear, and I pay the owner twenty-five percent of what I earn. So he doesn’t mind.”

  “How is that going? Finding investors.”

  “Damn good. This was my last day working over there.” She smiled big at him. “Work starts on my house as soon as the lumber is delivered here by the railroad.”

  “Sounds good.”

  She pointed her finger at him. “You’re the frosting on the cake. You and I are going to have a party tonight to celebrate. All right?”

  The waiter appeared and set plates heaped high with sliced beef, mashed potatoes, flour gravy and green beans before them. “Anything else?”

  After looking the setup over, she nodded her head. “Oh, bring us some bread and butter.”

  “Coming right up.”

  Looking a little put out with the man’s interference, she exhaled out of her pert nose and then she made a displeased face after him. “Back to our party out at my tent. We’ll get a couple of bottles of champagne and let the night flow. How will that be, darling?”

  “I guess my business appointments can wait.” The first forkful of food drew the saliva in his mouth. This was a good place to eat.

  She laughed, and with her utensil in hand, she looked over the items on her plate. “Eat well. I have big plans for you tonight. What were yours?”

  “Get a shave and a bath and clean up.”

  “Good idea. Do those things. I’ll make you a map to my tent.”

  Slocum paused his eating. “Give me a couple of hours and I’ll join you.”

  “Oh, that would be wonderful. You sure won’t regret it.”

  After the meal, she stood on her toes and kissed him in the café doorway. “In two hours?”

  “I’ve got your map. I’ll be there.”

  They parted company, and Slocum decided to make a quick trip back to the Red Lion Saloon to ask the bartender what else he’d remembered about Charley. It turned out that the bartender remembered Charley mentioning that he had a wife—now his widow.

  Next, Slocum went to the place with a painted sign that read BATHS. The Orientals who ran the bathhouse were very polite, and a small woman in wooden-soled shoes showed him to his tub. “They bring you water. Here you soap. I put towel on this chair.”

  The room smelled musty like old gray water. A small window over Slocum’s head was open, and the town’s street noises drifted in. The woman left, and he began to undress. Soon two girls with steaming buckets came in and poured the contents into his tub. They bowed and left.

  He shed the towel from around his waist and eased himself into the hot water. No telling what he’d do next—besides go to Leta’s party. Why had Farley been shot? Had the big rancher shot his friend or hired the one who shot him? These were things he needed to know in order to avenge his friend’s death.

  Settled in the tub, he closed his eyes and let the vapors go up his nose. This was heaven. At last he’d found it. The heat felt wonderful on his stiff back muscles. Nebraska had never been this good to him before.

  He’d have to see about Farley later.

  Udall Barr sat at his rolltop desk in the corner of the large living room and closed the ranch’s ledger book. A five-foot-nine man in his thirties, he listened to the springs in his swivel chair protest as he leaned back and tented his fingers together like a spider on a mirror. Erma, the farm girl who’d begun working at the Barr Ranch a couple of months ago, walked in carrying coffee, and it reminded Barr of the first time he’d had sex with Erma.

  That day nearly two months ago, he’d been sitting in his desk chair just as he was today, but his thoughts hadn’t been on the expenses he’d recorded in his ledger—it was fixed on having sex. How long since he’d had any? The last time must have been two, three days before. He’d looked up at the underside of the cedar shingle roof. His log house was snug. It had to be for this cold climate, but he wanted a majestic two-story mansion like them rich folks in Dallas and Fort Worth lived in.

  Leaning back, he dreamed of having all that, with a young wife to wait on him.

  “Mr. Barr?” It was Erma, the newly hired farm girl, coming
across the room. His housekeeper, Mozelle, had hired Erma to help her. A little on the chubby side for his taste, nonetheless she was all he had besides his hand to relieve his horniness that afternoon.

  He twisted the chair around to face her. “Yes, Erma?”

  “Did you want some coffee or anything?”

  “No, Erma. Come over here.”

  Hesitant and wringing her hands in a rag, she chewed on her lower lip. “Is something wrong, Mr. Barr?”

  He waved her closer. “Nothing is wrong. You know I really like you?”

  She shook her head, gazing at the floor. “I really like working here, Mr. Barr.”

  He patted his leg. “Come sit on my lap.”

  “Oh, I could never do that.”

  “You like working here, don’t you?” He gave her a serious frown to send her the signal that he was not pleased with her refusal.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then come sit on my lap.”

  “I sure am embarrassed doing this.” She took a place on his knee and chewed harder on her lower lip.

  He bounced her a little on his leg, then he cupped her face in his hands, pulled her over and kissed her on the mouth. It was like smooching with a cold fish. Her eyes flew open in shock.

  “Oh.” At last she gasped for air. When she tried to get up, he forced her to remain seated on his lap.

  “We’re going to have a good time this afternoon. Do you understand?”

  “What—what are we going to do?”

  “Oh, you’ll like it, my dear. Stay still now.”

  “But—but—”

  “Close your eyes.”

  “What are you going to—?”

  He felt her firm breast beneath the dress material and smiled. Her hand clasped his to restrain his actions.

  “Now, Erma, you need this job here, don’t you?”

  “Oh, I do, sir.”