Slocum and the Yellowstone Scoundrel Page 13

“That’s a relief. We will catch up with Dr. Hayden in a day or two?”

  “Yeah, if he travels the way he has been, moving, then camping to map for a day or two before moving on,” Slocum said. He liked the way she heaved a sigh of relief. Her breasts rose and fell, then bounced just a little.

  “I spoke with William on our way back to the wagon, after we escaped the Indian camp,” she said, not looking at him. The sunlight slanted down and caught her hair, turning it into a halo that might have glowed from within. Her oval face and bright chocolate eyes were well nigh perfect. Slocum might have seen a more beautiful woman in his day, but right now he couldn’t put a name or place to it if he had.

  “He said you risked your life to save him, then again to get us out of the Blackfoot camp. The Indians were intent on doing terrible things to me. He said they would have kept me as a slave!”

  “Maybe not,” Slocum said. She turned on him, her expression flaring toward anger. “They would have used you as a scullery maid for a spell, then let one of the junior members of the tribe marry you. You would have made a good second or third wife.”

  “What! That’s worse! They couldn’t! That’s not civilized.”

  “It is for them,” Slocum said. “Prisoners taken in battle don’t usually fare that well. You’d have made a good squaw.”

  “Don’t be disgusting.” Her cheeks colored and her eyes flashed. Then she saw his grin. “You’re joshing me. Oh, you!”

  Slocum sat on the rear step leading into the darkroom as he watched her pacing about. He knew the signs when a person worked up to a decision. It wouldn’t take Marlene long to make up her mind.

  “You saved me. Twice. And William. But you’re a sneak thief. You tried to rob Gustav.”

  “Fact is,” Slocum said, “that peacock is the thief. I worked for a man by the name of Sean Innick out by Otter Creek in Utah. A thief stole all his wife’s jewelry. I caught the thief and turned him over the marshal, but a big ruby was missing. It’d been in Mrs. Innick’s family for a spell, and she wants to give it as a wedding gift to her daughter next month.”

  “But you said you caught the thief.”

  “Leroq hired the thief. The robber said he gave the stone to Leroq. I promised to fetch it back before the wedding so’s not to disappoint Mrs. Innick or her daughter.” He didn’t bother her with his momentarily wrong notion that Jackson might have been the one who had hired the thief. That would only muddy the waters.

  “That . . . that’s rather noble.”

  “You caught me hunting for it. I haven’t had a chance to find out firsthand from Leroq what he did with it.”

  “You wouldn’t have found it unless . . .”

  “Unless what?” Slocum’s sharp tone caused her to jump as if he had snapped a whip.

  “There’s no way you could know since you aren’t an artist.”

  “He didn’t have the ruby. I need to find where he stashed it.”

  “Did you find a mortar and pestle?”

  Slocum rubbed his fingers together as he remembered the gritty feel on the mortar.

  “Yes, you did. That grit you felt was the ruby. Did you find a jar of red dust?”

  “What was it?” Slocum asked suspiciously.

  “Gustav smashed the ruby, then used the mortar and pestle to grind it into dust.”

  “The ruby’s gone? Except the red dust?” Slocum felt as if he had stepped off a cliff. The five-hundred-dollar reward had just evaporated. “Why’d he go and do a thing like that? A dandy like him, I’d expect him to mount it to a stickpin and flash it around with his fancy clothing and all.”

  “Artists have put odd things into their paint for years—for centuries. El Greco used ground-up emeralds in his paint. When the picture was completed, the light reflected off it in a way unlike any other artist’s work. There was a distinctive hue, a look, a feel. Gustav uses rubies.”

  “Ground-up rubies,” Slocum said. “What am I going to tell Mrs. Innick?”

  “You would return to tell her?”

  “Of course I would,” Slocum said. “I gave my word.”

  Marlene came closer, her skirts whispering as she moved across the damp grass. She stopped a foot away from him.

  “I misjudged you terribly. I am sorry.”

  “You didn’t know the facts.”

  “I do now. You’re a very brave man, one who risked his life for me, one who wants to do right by a woman and her daughter who’s getting married.” Marlene moved even closer, then dropped to her knees in front of where he sat on the lower step.

  She reached out and worked at the buttons on his fly.

  “Let me apologize.”

  “You don’t have to,” Slocum said, but his words were at odds with what he felt as her feathery touch caressed his organ and her hot breath gusted around his crotch to excite him.

  Her lips touched the tip, then sucked gently to draw his limp length into her mouth. He didn’t stay limp long. Her eager tongue swirled and stroked until he was steely hard in her mouth. Then she began moving back and forth with a tormentingly slow motion that went from the purpled knob on the end of his cock all the way down until she had him entirely in her mouth.

  She backed away, pushing him out with her tongue. Her lips kissed and caressed, then she moved back to take him fully again. This time she turned her head slightly so his manhood rubbed across her soft inner cheek. As she moved with more determination, her lips tightened in a firm, warm circle around him. He moaned and leaned back, elbows on the next step up.

  “That’s about the finest I’ve felt in a while,” he said.

  She mumbled something around the thick plug in her mouth, then began moving faster, her head bouncing to and fro. Her fingers worked into his jeans and stroked over his hairy balls, pressing and massaging and teasing until he tensed up. The pressures built within his loins. He felt the hot tides mounting, but he wanted more.

  Her tongue cradled the sensitive underside of his length. She combined all her ways of stimulation. Her cheeks went hollow as she sucked. Her tongue massaged and stroked across the sensitive head. Her fingers tightened around his balls, and then she tugged as she sucked. The coordinated effort was more than Slocum could withstand.

  He exploded like one of the geysers. She rode him, drained him of every drop, until he began to melt in her hot mouth. Marlene rocked back on her heels and looked up at him with a wicked expression. Her tongue slipped between her red lips as she snared a tiny white drop at the corner of her mouth.

  “You’re tasty,” she said.

  “That was—” Slocum stood suddenly and began tucking himself back into his jeans. He reached for the Colt slung in his holster—Jackson had escaped the Blackfoot without having to fire it and had been glad to return it to Slocum.

  “What is it?” She struggled to her feet and stood at his side.

  “I saw movement out there.” Slocum pushed her behind him, hardly noticing the flare of pain in his left forearm.

  “Oh, it’s only William. That didn’t take him long,” she said. In a low voice she said, “Perhaps we can convince him to go take more photos?”

  “Mr. Slocum, Mr. Slocum!” Jackson hurried over, juggling his equipment like a circus performer. He never quite dropped any of it, though he came close in his haste.

  “What is it, William?” Marlene stepped away from Slocum.

  “It’s Gustav. Gustav Leroq!”

  “What about him?” Slocum demanded.

  “His wagon’s not a mile from here, abandoned. He wasn’t anywhere to be seen!”

  Slocum mounted and rode, following Jackson’s tracks easily in the soft ground. If Leroq was dead, Slocum would never know for certain if he had destroyed the ruby—or if he had hidden it somewhere so cleverly that Slocum had missed it in his earlier search.

  14

  It took Slocum
less than fifteen minutes to spot Leroq’s wagon pulled down into a ravine. From the look of it, the wagon had been parked there before the prior day’s rains. He circled the area hunting for tracks, but the rain that had erased any trace of a trail for the Blackfoot had also erased tracks Slocum might follow to find Gustav Leroq.

  He dismounted and fastened his pony’s reins to the rear wagon wheel. He climbed into the wagon bed, intending to hunt once more for the ruby. He didn’t doubt Marlene when she said Leroq might have destroyed the ruby, but he had to be sure. The glass jar with the red powder in it was on top of the box with the rest of Leroq’s paints. Slocum pulled the cork and rubbed the powder between his fingers again. The grit might be from ground-up ruby. The sunlight glinted off the dust in the jar in a way that bedazzled.

  He grunted. That was what Marlene had said. The ground ruby mixed with paint caused a special reflection in a drawing. Like a watermark. This glint certified the painting was a Leroq original. Slocum recorked the jar and dropped it back into the paint box. If that was Innick’s ruby, there wasn’t any point in returning the powder to the sawmill owner.

  Slocum made his way to the back of the wagon. As he started to jump down, he noticed that one of the fancy crates Dillingham had made for Leroq was out of place. He turned it around, then opened it. Inside rested two canvases on frames that hadn’t been there before. Heaving one up, he matched the scene with that on the other side of the mountain pass where Slocum had rescued the artist from the Blackfoot hunting party. He dropped it back into its slot and looked at the other.

  Turning to face the mountains, he matched this scene with the one Jackson had been so eager to photograph. While he couldn’t tell how long ago Leroq had painted the picture, it couldn’t have been too long. Slocum pressed his thumb into one corner. He left a fingerprint in the still tacky paint. When he held the thumb up to the sunlight, the paint glinted with a subdued reddish hue. Leroq had painted this using Innick’s ruby.

  Slocum stuck the painting back into the case and closed the lid. From his position in the wagon, he slowly turned in a full circle to catch any sight of Leroq. The rain had wiped out any tracks, and the artist must have been ridden away on one of his team the day before, since one horse remained. Slocum stared at the mountains, envisioning the scene that artist had painted.

  “Where else would he paint if he’d already done this view?” Slocum asked himself.

  He wasn’t an artist. There didn’t seem to be any other scenic view that would appeal to a man who had a month or more of travel ahead of him. From what Slocum remembered of Yellowstone, there were far more breathtaking views of waterfalls and vistas from mountaintops. Leroq wouldn’t waste time here when he could preserve his paint and canvas for later in the exploration.

  Where would he go? Slocum turned away from the mountains and looked toward the east. He saw no reason why Leroq would ride that way. Hayden intended to move north; to the west, the mountains blocked travel, and Leroq had already come from the south.

  Slocum stepped from the wagon to horseback and trotted north, the only direction that made sense for Leroq to travel. Less than an hour later, he came upon a small town set in a shallow bowl on the plains. He caught his breath. He had thought they were farther from civilization than this.

  Marlene had probably been right when she said Leroq had ground up the ruby. Everything Slocum had found—or not found—in the artist’s wagon supported that. Still, he had to know. If nothing else, he would take Leroq back to Marshal Smith, though what good that did anyone was a puzzle. Putting Leroq in jail for the theft did nothing to get the precious stone back.

  As Slocum rode slowly down the main street, he felt all eyes on him. There was only one road leading into town, coming from the south, and he was on it. Nothing from any other direction. This was an outpost, maybe supplying the local ranches. Strangers in this area had to stand out like a sore thumb.

  He went into the lone saloon and went to the bar. The wall-eyed woman canted her head to one side and asked, “Who you want?”

  Slocum tried not to show surprise as he answered, “A dandy named Leroq. He rode this way in the last day or two.”

  “You and ever’ single gunslinger in the county.”

  “Do tell.” Slocum indicated he wanted a beer. Whiskey would have been good, but he needed more than a single shot sliding down his gullet. It had been a long, thirsty ride to find yet another place where Leroq had gotten himself into hot water.

  She dropped a mug in front of him. Slocum nodded in appreciation when he felt the cold mug. Cold beer went down a sight better than warm. He drained it, then asked, “What trouble’s he in?”

  “Stole a tinhorn gambler’s stickpin. A fine headlight diamond worth a thousand dollars.”

  “Or so said the gambler,” Slocum concluded. He didn’t get any argument. “Anyone see him swipe it?”

  “Who else? He was the only stranger in town.” She closed one eye and studied him. “You a bounty hunter after that flashy dude?”

  Slocum said nothing. Being named a bounty hunter irritated him, but he realized that stood him in good stead. He didn’t have to explain why he wanted Leroq.

  “You got some competition. The gambler fellow hired himself a couple cowboys from the Lazy T to fetch him back and hang him.”

  “The gambler offer a reward for the diamond?” Slocum wondered how much had been offered. Two empty beer mugs had to be his limit if he wanted to stay sharp. There might be another reward in the offing.

  “Can’t say, but them boys was mighty eager to get on the dandy’s trail.”

  “Thanks,” he said, dropping a dime on the bar to pay for the beers. It felt good having a roll of bank notes in his pocket but he wasn’t likely to get much in return for paper money issued by a Salt Lake City bank.

  He stepped out and felt eyes on him again. It wouldn’t do much good to ask after Leroq, not with locals already on his trail. Another outsider only took the bounty money away from the town. The cowboys were locals and would spend their reward at the saloon, at stores, at the local whorehouse.

  Slocum took the time to go to a saddle shop and dicker awhile to buy a new saddle and gear. If he had to ride, using stirrups was better than doing it bareback. Along with this he stopped at the general store and bought some victuals for the trail. Only then did he concentrate on his real mission.

  There was no reason for Leroq to ride east or west. Slocum had come from the south and hadn’t seen him. That meant the artist had gone north. He mounted up, appreciating the feel of a leather saddle under him once more, and rode in that direction. As he left town, he watched the people whisper and point. From their reaction he knew he had again read Leroq’s intention well. The man was hunting for scenic territory to paint and wasn’t going to find it anywhere around this town.

  He reached the rim of the bowl holding the town and stared at the horizon. Too much land to search. He angled to the northwest. The only place he knew Leroq would return to was the wagon. He might cut off the artist on his way back. A half-day’s ride brought two men into view. Both walked their horses, staring at the ground as if following a trail.

  Slocum turned slowly to see where the tracks led, then caught his breath. He let it out in a huge rush along with curses that turned the air blue. Leroq had been nothing but trouble for him, and the artist continued to rack up new ways to involve Slocum in matters he would rather avoid.

  The trackers were less than a hundred yards from where Leroq lounged, his back propped up by the gentle rise that hid him from direct view of the two cowboys. The artist stared up at the empty sky rather than worrying about men hunting for him. Slocum judged distances and knew he could never reach Leroq before the cowboys stumbled across their quarry. If he took a potshot at them to draw their attention, he stood a chance of getting shot off his horse. Explaining how he rode a captured Blackfoot pony wasn’t in the cards.

&n
bsp; He headed straight for Leroq, hoping the man noticed and hightailed it. If Slocum could get between the artist and his pursuers, he might talk them out of leaving his carcass out on the plains for hungry buzzards.

  Halfway there, Slocum saw that he was too late. The cowboys walked over the rise and spotted Leroq immediately. They slapped leather and got their six-shooters out, trained on the dandy in his faded purple jacket and torn silk pants. That they didn’t gun him down out of hand gave Slocum some small hope. He galloped toward them in time to hear one cowboy saying, “You tell us where it is or die right here, on this very spot.”

  “Good work, men,” Slocum shouted. He kept riding, taking advantage of the surprised cowboys. “You caught him fair and square. Can I ride with you as you take him back to town?”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “Another bounty hunter,” Slocum said. The lie came easier now that he spoke it.

  “But you’re—” Leroq began.

  “From Otter Creek, over in Utah. He stole some jewelry there.”

  “Kept up his crime spree, he did,” the other cowboy said. He looked at his partner. “We ain’t sharin’ the reward fer this owlhoot.”

  “Not asking for that,” Slocum said. “Just want to make sure he stays alive so I can send a telegram back to Marshal Smith.”

  “Telegram?” The two men laughed. “No telegraph in Sulfur Springs.”

  “Well, I’ll ride along anyway.”

  “Slocum, you—” Leroq clamped his mouth shut when he saw Slocum’s black look.

  “He have the diamond on him?” Slocum asked.

  “We was just startin’ to inquire.” The two cowboys stripped Leroq down to his underclothing. Slocum wasn’t surprised to see those were silk, too.

  What the two men didn’t find was the diamond.

  “Where’d you put it, you flea-bit dog?” One cowboy brought his six-gun up to buffalo Leroq.

  “Not the way to get him to tell you,” Slocum said. The cowboy jerked around, angry. He stared down the barrel of Slocum’s Colt.