Slocum and the Devil's Rope Page 13

  Slocum rode slowly, aware of how Garvin clung to consciousness by a thread. It took almost an hour of wending their way through the still considerable rain to find the herd. Riding into the small camp caused the cowboys there to gape in wonder.

  “You looked like a drowned prairie dog,” Jonesy said, staring up at Garvin.

  “Help him down. He’s still feeling a bit rocky.” As if to prove Slocum’s point, Garvin fell off the horse. Jonesy caught him, staggered back, then lowered him to the ground.

  “Don’t reckon gettin’ muddier is a concern. Swear he must have river water in his veins by now.” Jonesy looked hard at Slocum. “You pulled him out of the river?”

  “Get him by the fire.” Slocum looked around. The rain made it impossible to light a fire. “Put a blanket over him, then cover that with a slicker. Catching pneumonia and dying would be a crying shame after what he’s been through.”

  Jonesy tried to pry the rope from Garvin’s grip and got a feral snarl as a warning.

  “He’s strong enough to do that himself.” Jonesy walked off to huddle with the other cowboys. They cast occasional frightened glances in Garvin’s direction.

  Slocum set about doing what he’d asked Jonesy to do. Garvin wouldn’t appreciate it, but it was the right thing to do. Once the cowboy was covered, Slocum stepped back and stared at him, wondering what dreams ran through the man’s head. A curious smile and a look of triumph made Garvin look like he was the cat that had just eaten the canary.

  “Rain’s lettin’ up, Slocum,” Jonesy said. “You want to press on? We kin make a couple miles ’fore it gets too dark.”

  “The ground is slippery. Let the sun come out and dry it up a mite,” Slocum said. “Tomorrow is good enough. Let the cattle rest up. They’ve got more travel ahead of them.”

  “Knowin’ where they’re goin’, they ought to want to ride on the trail forever,” Jonesy said, chuckling.

  “That’s why they don’t know,” Slocum said. He looked back at Garvin and wondered if the same was true with the sleeping cowboy. Did he know where he was going and should he just keep riding rather than arrive at the slaughterhouse?

  * * *

  “The weight’s burnin’ off the beeves,” Jonesy said. “Mr. Magnuson ain’t gonna like the condition they’re in.”

  “He can leave them in a feed lot for a day or two if that’s a concern,” Slocum said. “He won’t find these cows in any worse shape than those brought in from other ranches.”

  “I don’t know. Norton started earlier. His herd might not have gone through the rain.”

  Slocum couldn’t believe how difficult it had been moving the herd after the rain. The sun hadn’t come out to dry the soggy ground, forcing the cattle to use extra energy to slog along. Grass had been harder to locate, and the beeves had turned balky. Rather than one day to get to the railhead, it had taken three. Still, in spite of the struggle or maybe because of it, Slocum didn’t think he had ever seen a prettier sight than the stockyards and the nearby rail yard with two locomotives parked, long strings of empty cattle cars waiting for their freight.

  “I’ll go tell Magnuson we’ve arrived.”

  “Reckon he’ll be at the broker’s office,” Jonesy said. “That’s the building off to the side, away from the pens.”

  “You want to come along?”

  “Naw, I prefer the company of the steers. Listenin’ to them ranchers lyin’ through their store-bought teeth gives me the collywobbles. Just git us our money and all will be jist fine.”

  Garvin spoke up. “I’ll go with you. I want to hear how they dicker.”

  “Still thinkin’ on bein’ foreman?” Jonesy asked.

  “I will be. You wait and see.”

  Jonesy laughed and the mirth rippled through the other trail hands. Garvin bristled. When he rested his hand on the S&W at his hip, Slocum said, “Come on along, Garvin. They can handle the cattle for a while without us.”

  “Sons of bitches. I’ll show ’em, I’ll show the whole damned lot of them!”

  “We’ve been on the trail for ten days,” Slocum said, “and everyone’s tuckered out. Losing Hashknife and the chuck wagon wore on everybody, too.”

  “They’re a bunch of—”

  “Come on,” Slocum said sharply. He regretted asking Garvin to accompany him, but letting him stay with the others would create friction that too easily might erupt into gunplay. Jonesy wouldn’t take any guff off Garvin, and Garvin was itching to get into a gunfight.

  Tom Garvin took the loop of his rope and slid it over his head, wearing it like a Mexican bandido with his bandolier. With it over his right shoulder and dangling at his left hip, he kept his S&W handy on his right side.

  Slocum rode slowly through town, feeling the expectation all around. There was a nervous tension among the townspeople that was communicated to him. They were anxious for the cowboys to spend their money. They made huge profits off brokering the sale of the herds and the shipment back East, and the citizens were all counting on earning enough to live an entire year until the next trail drive.

  “They’re all starin’ at me. They think I’m a nuthin’,” Garvin said.

  “You aren’t anything,” Slocum said. He hurried on when Garvin bristled. “Jingle some silver dollars together and you’ll be their best friend in the world.”

  “I don’t pay for my friends.”

  Slocum refused to rise to the bait. Garvin was spoiling for a fight, and he wouldn’t give it to him. He settled down in the saddle and rode slowly, hunting for the building Jonesy had mentioned and getting the feel of the town. After the time on the trail, so many people crowded in on all sides. He both liked it and feared it. Open horizons and empty prairies were more to his liking than people all crowded together.

  “There,” he said. “You want to watch the horse.”

  “Think they’d steal ’em?” Garvin set his jaw and would gun down anyone getting too close.

  “Not with you looking so fierce,” Slocum said.

  Garvin frowned, not sure how to take the words. Slocum didn’t give him time to decide. He dismounted and went into the office. The large room was lined with desks, clerks poring over their ledgers. At the far side a better-dressed man who might have been a banker sat back smoking a cigar. Across the desk from him Mordecai Magnuson puffed furiously on a stogie of his own. The broker pointed at Slocum with the lit end of his cigar, said something to Magnuson, then puffed away so hard his face vanished in a cloud of blue smoke.

  Slocum strode over, touched the brim of his hat, and said, “Herd’s out by the pens, Mr. Magnuson.”

  “Took your sweet time getting here, didn’t you, Slocum?”

  “We had some trouble.”

  “Tell me later. How many head did you lose?”

  “Not more than a hundred.”

  “That’s good, but you ran all the fat off them, didn’t you?”

  “It was a harder trail than you said.” Slocum worked to keep down his anger. Garvin had irked him, but Magnuson went out of his way to needle him.

  “Blassingame should have been foreman.”

  Slocum was in no mood to argue the point. Losing the cook and so much equipment, staying on the trail with only the food scavenged from the destroyed chuck wagon, the rain, and the rest had worn his temper thin.

  “You ready to pay us?”

  “You’re jumping the gun, Slocum. I need to negotiate with Mr. Dunlap before that.”

  “How long’ll it take?”

  “You got yourself a pushy trail boss, Mordecai. I can’t blame him, though. It’s always good to be paid for your hard work.” Dunlap craned to one side and peered around Slocum. “There’s my appraiser. Let’s see what he has to say.”

  Dunlap’s man had waited for the herd to be put into pens, then he counted them a
nd gave his estimate of the value. Slocum stepped back and let the rancher and the broker dicker. The size of the settlement made him wonder if a bonus might not be in the offing. He watched Dunlap count out stacks of greenbacks, then hand over a large leather sack filled with twenty-dollar gold pieces. This went into Magnuson’s coat pocket. The paper money would be used to pay the trail hands.

  “Thank you, Mr. Dunlap,” Magnuson said, standing. “Always a pleasure doing business with a gentleman.”

  “Take a few more—to get you back home to your own supply,” Dunlap said, pushing a box of cigars to the rancher.

  “Come on, Slocum. We got some settling up to do.” Magnuson strode out, not waiting to see if Slocum trailed along behind.

  They stepped into the bright sunlight.

  “You go on, Mr. Magnuson,” Slocum said. “My cinch strap needs tightening. I’ll catch up in a minute.” Slocum put his hand against his horse’s side to keep it in place. The broad leather cinch had been cut almost through somewhere on the trail. He could ride a little while longer, but before returning to the Bar M, he had to get the saddle to the town saddle maker for repair.

  Magnuson grunted and mounted his horse. Garvin hastily joined him, riding alongside. What the two men might have to say baffled Slocum, but they were talking as if they were old friends. He shrugged it off and saw where one of the holes in the leather cinch had torn, making the saddle slip. Driving his knee into the horse’s belly to be sure it had emptied its lungs, Slocum cinched the saddle down one more notch. It wouldn’t be comfortable for the horse, but Slocum didn’t expect to ride this way very long.

  As soon as he got paid, he’d have it fixed properly.

  Gunshots echoed from the direction taken by Magnuson and Garvin. For a moment, crazy things flashed through his mind. Garvin had shot Magnuson. Magnuson had shot Garvin. Slocum swung into the saddle and galloped after them.

  He found them in a side street. Two men moaned and writhed about on the ground.

  “Road agents, Slocum, these road agents tried to rob Mr. Magnuson but I stopped ’em!” A smoking six-gun in Garvin’s hand gave mute testimony to that.

  “Why were you not riding along with us, Slocum? Never mind. Garvin saved me from being robbed—and saved your pay. You and the rest of the crew ought to thank him.”

  By now the marshal and two deputies had come running up, waving sawed-off shotguns around. They were getting ready for a bunch of rowdy cowboys in their town and were loaded for bear.

  Slocum watched the lawman get the two robbers to their feet and move them along to the town lockup. He had made a point of getting a good look at the robbers’ faces. Neither was a member of Pendergast’s gang.

  He almost dared to hope that Pendergast had moved on. But Slocum knew that wasn’t likely with so much money from the cattle sale to be stolen. When the other ranchers put their year’s income into the town bank, Pendergast would strike then.

  Slocum started to warn Magnuson, but the rancher cut him off with a brusque wave of his hand. Trailing the rancher and Garvin made him feel like a servant, but he did work for Magnuson.

  And there was the matter of his boss’s daughter. Slocum couldn’t forget Christine, no matter how poorly her pa treated him.

  15

  “Quite a drive, wasn’t it, Slocum?” Tom Garvin crowed like the cock of the walk. “Yes, sir, and it ended up real good, ’specially for me.”

  “Good of Magnuson to give you a reward for saving his hide from those thieves.”

  “I’d had a real run of bad luck ’fore that. Better for me to be in the right place than you.” Garvin rode closer. “You didn’t have nuthin’ to do with that robbery, did you?”

  Slocum looked at him sharply. All the way back from the railhead Garvin had skirted around asking this very question. Now that they rode under the arch with Bar M brand emblazoned on it, he finally felt confident enough to ask.

  “No.”

  “You coulda made a passel of money.”

  “So could you,” Slocum said. “You wouldn’t even have needed to rob a dead man.”

  “Ah, them bastards didn’t need what they had in their pockets.” Garvin pulled out a watch and held it up, letting it swing slowly in the bright sunlight. Somehow, the golden gleam wasn’t what it should have been, but that might have been Slocum remembering how he had taken it from a man he had gunned down with no good reason.

  The four rustlers were an annoyance and nothing more for Slocum. Two had died trying to shoot it out. That was their bad luck. But Garvin had gone after the other two when they wouldn’t have caused any more trouble—had gone after them with the sole purpose of shooting them down.

  “How you going to spend your reward? You have a lot more than the rest of us.” Slocum tasted some bitterness with those words. Magnuson hadn’t paid him top hand wages. Slocum might as well have ridden along on the drive and nothing more without the stress of being the trail boss. Without him, they would have lost a hundred or more head than had reached the feed pens alive and kicking.

  “Not sure yet. Maybe get myself a better saddle. This one’s fallin’ apart from the trail.”

  Slocum looked at his own saddle and had to agree this was a decent investment to make. Taking care of his gear in the middle of stampedes and gully washers hadn’t been all that easy.

  “Thinkin’ on gettin’ me a rifle, too. And a lot of ammo for my trusty iron.” Garvin slapped his right side. The S&W hardly moved at the newfound attention.

  “Just don’t use one of the rounds to shoot yourself,” Slocum said, riding ahead to the bunkhouse and leaving Garvin to grumble about smart-ass remarks.

  Slocum dismounted and went inside. He considered sprawling out on the bunk and grabbing some shut-eye, but something else worried at him. After stowing his saddlebags under his bunk, he led his horse to the barn, took care of his gear and the horse the best he could, then went looking for the reason he had bothered returning to the Bar M.

  Christine Magnuson had to be around somewhere.

  He poked his head into the kitchen. The oven was cool and there weren’t any signs Christine had even thought of starting supper for her pa. That meant she was out on the range somewhere, maybe gathering herbs for her cooking. Slocum knew the exact spot where she’d go.

  Trooping down an arroyo, he cut up the steep bank after a quarter mile and went into a stand of oak trees. Strands of poison oak crept around some of the trees, and he avoided those the best he could, though he got tangled in a briar bush before he found the game trail through the woods that Christine always followed. He had approached it from the side. If he followed it to his left, it led back to the ranch house.

  He went to the right and heard a musical sound from ahead. Christine was singing to herself as she plucked the various plants, roots, and leaves for her cooking.

  “You sing mighty purty,” Slocum said.

  Christine jumped, saw who he was, and put her hand to her throat. She let out a huge sigh. The sight of her breasts rising and falling under her bodice distracted Slocum from what he had intended to say.

  “You snuck up on me, John. You know better ’n to do that. I might have shot you.”

  “You carrying a gun?”

  “No, but I might have been.” She moved her half-full basket of greens around and sat on a stump. With great deliberation, she lifted one leg up and put her foot on the stump so her skirt hiked up, giving Slocum a tantalizing view of bare leg.

  “Reckon I’d have to come to your rescue if you got into trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble do you anticipate me getting into?” she asked impishly. With a slow movement, she rocked her knee to one side, giving him a view of her bare inner thigh—and higher.

  “Looks like somebody stole your undies.”

  “Do tell? Well, my observant marshal, maybe you
’d better check the scene of the crime for clues.” Christine rocked back on the stump, both hands behind her so she could get her other foot onto the stump while keeping her knees spread wide.

  Slocum had other business with her, but that could wait. He put his hands on her knees and held them apart when she tried to close up.

  “Why, I do declare. Are you going to take advantage of me?” She batted her eyelashes at him. “Poor li’l ole me!”

  He dropped to his knees and kissed first one snowy thigh and then the other. She moaned softly as he worked his way up to the thick bush between her legs. His tongue slid out and raked along her nether lips. The pinkly scalloped flaps began to tremble as he licked and sucked, kissed and tongued her most sensitive flesh.

  “Oh, Detective Slocum, what are you finding there?”

  “The scene of the crime. Something’s missing.”

  “Whatever could that be?” She gasped when he ran his finger into her and began flexing it. She gasped and sobbed and leaned back farther. “I-It’s not that. That’s not supposed t-to be th-there.”

  “What else could it be?”

  “You,” she said in a sex husky voice. “I want you in there.”

  “Another finger?” He began stroking in and out, slathering her inner lubricants all around.

  “No! Your dick! I want you in me! I need it in me!”

  With her sitting on the stump, Slocum didn’t see how that would be possible. He ran his hands around and caught up the doughty lumps of her ass cheeks. He squeezed down, causing her to moan even louder. As she rocked forward, he got his feet under him and lifted. Christine was light and sailed upward.

  A quick spin and she had her legs wrapped around his waist, his crotch pressed into her naked one. Slocum sat down fast so they reversed positions.

  “Your turn to play hide and seek.”

  “Seek,” she said. “Yes, definitely I want to seek . . . this!” She worked his fly buttons open and released the raging stallion behind those cloth gates. Her mouth engulfed the tip. She teased it with her tongue and lips, then shoved it out.