Slocum and the Bixby Battle Read online

  “We’re about a day’s ride from Grande Casa,” Jones said, taking a swallow from his canteen when they stopped to rest their horses.

  “What’s there?”

  “Not much. Ain’t the usual place most folks use to cross over into Mexico. Why we’re headed there. Less chance anyone will follow us.”

  His mind numbed by the blistering sun, Bixby agreed with a nod. He wanted to be somewhere in the shade and have some sweet-looking puta fanning him. Damn, this part of Texas was a hot and miserable stretch of hell.

  He mopped his face with a kerchief and dried his sweaty hatband. They couldn’t get there any too fast for him. He whirled to look for the source when a shadow passed over him. It proved to be only a buzzard flying low overhead—appraising the outfit for a meal, no doubt.

  At each stop, Jones took his time wiping each horse’s muzzle clear with a wet rag, giving them some water and then checking over the tie on each pack. His thoroughness and demeanor impressed Bixby. They soon were on their way in a jig trot, headed southwest under the blinding sun. Bixby looking back over his shoulder with a crawly feeling in his gut about McKlein and his anger over being left. There’d simply been no time to warn him.

  29

  Slocum stood in the moonlight and studied Amanda’s shadowy outline. Past sundown, the day’s heat had begun to evaporate and the wings of the evening wind swept a coolness over his face that refreshed him.

  “It must have been bad,” he said to try to pry something from her about what had happened. This once sparkling individual had drawn herself up in a cocoon of silence and arm-hugging loneliness. This was not the Amanda Debaca he had known.

  She nodded under the shawl. “The worst thing that could ever happen.”

  “Bixby did that to you?”

  “Yes,” she said so softly it was nearly lost in the night air.

  He took a place on the flat rock beside her. “Tell me. It may help you to share it.”

  “Oh, no . . .”

  He put his arm around her shoulders to comfort her, and she shuddered under it as if even his touch was repulsive.

  “Do you want me to hug you?”

  “Yes, but—I can’t stand it. What is wrong with me?”

  “You’ve had a tough time. Whatever he did to you is over, Amanda.”

  “No, it’s not over. I can still feel it. Still know what he did. Still ache.”

  “What did he do to you?”

  “Raped me.” She moved toward him as if seeking him to shelter her, her shoulder in his chest and her face on his shirt. Both of her fists at her mouth, she trembled and sobbed.

  “I’m sorry. But that is over, you can’t dwell on it. Life goes on. All these women, men and children, they depend on you.”

  “He even raped my ass . . .” She clung to him and her crying grew louder. The wetness began to soak through to his skin, and he held her shaking torso tight to protect her from the devils that tried to take her.

  They sat in each other’s arms for a long time. Coyotes yapped at the moon and the night insects sizzled. Words weren’t necessary. The symphony of the wind in the cedar boughs lulled them through the start of what he considered her long healing process. Slocum could think of only one thing—how he would make Bixby pay for his vicious act.

  “You need some sleep,” she said at last.

  “We’re going to take the ranch back in the morning,” he said in a whisper.

  In the starlight, he saw the first sparkle of her old self in her tear-twinkling eyes. Her lips pursed for him, and he kissed her softly.

  She patted him on the back in their tender hug. “God bless you, Slocum, for all you have done for me and the ranch people that I could never repay.”

  “No problem.”

  With a flip, she adjusted the shawl on her shoulders, and they started back for the cave. “One night I may find you in your blankets.”

  “Whenever you feel ready for that, I would be honored.”

  She drew in a deep breath and exhaled it. “Not tonight.”

  “Fine.”

  Morning activity of the women building cooking fires woke him. His eyes were dry and felt gritty when he pulled on his boots. His mouth was stale, and he knew only a tooth brushing with salt and soda would flush away the bad taste. The necessary ingredients and brush were all in his saddlebags beside him, save for the water he’d need to dip with his tin cup from some woman’s supply. Cup in hand, he sought a source to vigorously attack the problem, and he squatted close by a woman at work making tortillas.

  “Ah, Slocum, they say by dark the ranch will be taken back,” the woman called Mary Rea said after she’d given him some water.

  He spat the saline mouthful aside. “Yes, if all goes as planned, it will be.”

  She made a distasteful face. “I hope so. This cave is like living in one big casa. No walls, no privacy. Oh, Rea, you screwed your husband last night.” A frown furrowed her smooth forehead when she looked over at him for an answer. “My word, did they watch me?”

  Slocum grinned. “I didn’t watch you.”

  “But you heard me, I bet.” She busied herself making a large flour tortilla between her palms.

  “Must have been a good one,” he said.

  “It was.” In the light from the fire she tried to hide her sly grin. “But it would have been much better in my own casa.”

  “Maybe we can move you back there in a day or so.”

  “I hope so, big hombre.”

  Graham joined him and they ate their breakfast of meat, salsa and beans wrapped in a fresh tortilla.

  “Will they try to use the cannon I heard about to defend the ranch?” the Ranger asked.

  “I think we eliminated anyone who knew a damn thing about it.”

  “Man, I can’t wait to confront that Bixby. Where did he get his nerve to use a cannon on civilians?”

  “A thing called the Civil War. I think he’s still fighting it. He considered Mexicans no better than Indians or slaves.”

  “Whew. He do any damage with it?”

  “Yeah, a few cedar trees. We took them out before they found their range.”

  “Guess we better get mounted and going. This guy on our side called Apache, carries that fifty-caliber Sharp’s, and two more are scouting the ranch now,” Graham said.

  “He’s a good man,” Slocum said, recalling his marksmanship.

  Joined by several men and armed women, they caught their horses, saddled them and in no time were headed single-file down the trail for the ranch.

  “It means a lot to these people to have their homes back. Even Señora Debaca acted excited, and that’s the first sign of life I saw in her since they threw her in the shed with me. Man, she must have gone through hell,” Graham said.

  Slocum looked ahead. “She must have.”

  “Fine lady. You know who killed her husband?”

  “One of Bixby or McKlein’s men. They were together behind all this landgrab business.”

  “We get this ranch back, we still have to take in the sheriff and his crew.”

  “I figure once we get them rounded up, they’ll all be glad to talk. Then we’ll learn who shot Debaca.”

  Graham agreed with a nod.

  An hour later, they called a halt at the spring where Apache had said he would meet them. Their horses watered, they waited. Soon Slocum heard a rider coming. It was one of the younger boys from the ranch.

  “Apache says come quick. They are shooting it out with Bixby’s men.”

  They mounted up and, like a hound on the track, took off spurring their horses through the cedars and live oak. When Amanda’s two-story house came in sight, Slocum pointed to the side and back, indicating he’d go that way.

  Graham nodded and took the other half for the front.

  It was obvious to Slocum that most of the shooting was coming from the front gate. He saw that the low barrier across the rear gate could be jumped easily by a horse. Colt in his hand, he shouted to his followers, “After
me!”

  The ranch horse cleared the gate and Slocum twisted in the saddle to snap a shot at one of the men on the scaffolding. Either Slocum’s or someone else’s shot took the gang member out.

  Hands went in the air. The crew with Slocum swarmed the place like ants. Soon the resistance was over. Bixby’s men were lined up before the wall.

  “Take Bixby’s ranch next?” Graham asked with a smug grin.

  “I guess if we don’t outrun our supply line.”

  “You’re right, we better leave a few in charge of prisoners,” Graham said.

  Slocum agreed. “And we better send word back to Amanda and the women in the cave that the Debaca place is secure.”

  “Good idea.”

  “There are some of our women who are spies at Bixby’s ranch,” Apache said. “I will ride fast and tell them that you are coming.”

  “Good idea,” Slocum said, recalling their efforts at distracting the guards during the successful rescue of Amanda and the Ranger.

  Some of the posse were left in charge of the prisoners and securing Amanda’s ranch. Donna led her horse over to Slocum. “This time we take Bixby’s place.”

  He smiled at her and nodded. “Yes, this time we take his place.” He swung into the saddle and they rode out in a long lope for Bixby’s.

  Midday, Apache met them on the road with four women on horseback.

  “Bixby ran off yesterday,” Apache said. “The place was deserted. These women say when the gunmen started to leave they ran away like rats out of a burning brush pile.”

  “Does McKlein know about that?” Graham asked.

  The woman beside the Indian shook her head. “We caught the man he send out there last night and he is a prisoner.”

  “Good. Sounds like we’re down to arresting McKlein and his deputies,” Graham said, twisting in the saddle to look at Slocum. “We ain’t overrun our supply line yet, have we?”

  “No, let’s send the women in town first as spies. They can get an idea what defenses he has set up. Let them go in like on a shopping trip. Hide your guns. Then we can meet the women at the edge of town after dark, talk over how to take them and not ride in and get our heads blown off.”

  “Good idea,” the Ranger agreed.

  Four women volunteered to do it. They planned to leave their horses and guns at the Ortega place on the north side, then proceed on foot at various intervals. Once there, they would learn all they could about McKlein and his men and be back at the Ortega place at dark.

  “Good plan,” Graham said, whittling with a large knife on some red cedar.

  “Should save us a lot of trouble.” Slocum was squatted beside him under the umbrella of the huge live oak.

  “What’re you going to do after this is over?” Graham asked.

  “Mosey on.”

  “I thought you and the señora had a thing—I mean, I didn’t know.”

  “Amanda and I are good friends. She asked me to help her is all.”

  “Fine lady.”

  “Very fine lady. You got any intentions, you take them.”

  “Well . . . I will then, thanks, Slocum. Guess you got a place of your own you need to get back to?”

  “Yeah, sort of.”

  “Hey, you’ve done a helluva job fighting this bunch—I can ever help you, just holler.”

  “I may have to do that someday.”

  Graham looked hard at his handiwork. “Well, be sure and do it.”

  “I’m going to take a siesta.” Slocum rose and stretched his tall frame. “You ever need me, call.”

  “Sure will.”

  Slocum took his bedroll down to lie on. As he unlaced the strings, Donna came over, switching her divided riding skirt with a quirt that hung on her right wrist.

  “They say that Bixby has gone to Mexico.”

  He nodded.

  “You going after him when this is over?”

  He nodded and began to undo the roll.

  “Can I go along?”

  “No family?”

  “I was Montez’s second wife.”

  “Sorry.”

  “He was a grand man, a good husband, but only days before he said for me not to shed any tears if something happened to him. Like he knew.”

  Slocum savored that notion. In the war, he’d learned how some men had that psychic knowledge to predict their death. Today I’m gonna die. And they did. A boy for Tennessee fought beside him for months. One day he said, “I’ll die beside a white barn.” He did, the next week, when an artillery round exploded on top of him.

  “You may ride along.”

  “Gracias.”

  30

  Sweat stung his eyeballs. He could hardly believe that the cluster of mud jacals across the river was their destination. Bixby waded through the deep sandbar, half-mad and done in by the heat. He fell down on his knees, then dove forward to bury his face-on-fire in the water.

  “Oh, God, I never thought we’d make it here,” he blubbered when he raised up his dripping face and looked around for Jones. “I’m so dizzy and hot, I think my balls may have cooked.”

  “Well, we made it. Can’t do nothing to us over there.”

  “Right. You’re a good man. I knew—hell, I knew months ago you were the best man I had.”

  “Thanks, Colonel. What are we going to do in Mexico?”

  “Find us some fancy Messikin whores and screw their asses off. How’s that sound?”

  “Good for starters. We buying us a place?”

  “Sure—why not?”

  “Good. How about a horse ranch?”

  “Fine—find it and I’ll buy it.”

  Jones smiled, and Bixby nodded that he’d heard him. “Let’s go find them putas.”

  Bixby staggered back to his horse through the sand, stuck his foot in the stirrup and with a grunt swung on. Damn, he was tired, sore and brain dead. Buy a horse ranch—yeah, that would work. Whatever so he could rest. His ass must have big callouses on it already from the long ride.

  Jones found them rooms in the village’s small hotel. The precious trunks were unloaded and placed in Bixby’s room. Everything safely stowed, the horses were sent to the livery for the night.

  Bixby gave Jones a hundred in gold to find the best women. He took a nap on top of the bed that was hollowed out. No matter. He shut his eyes and never woke until there was a knock on the door.

  “Who is it?” He staggered across the floor to let them in.

  “Here they are.” Jones grinned big as he strode in behind the two women.

  Bixby shook his head. The first puta through the door was short, but she had proud-looking breasts and a wonderful ass on her. He nodded and gave a head toss for Jones to go on, that she was all right.

  “I’ll have food sent up later?”

  “Much later,” Bixby said and shut the door. “What’s your name?” he asked her.

  “Loe Linda.”

  “Ah, I got something for you right here,” Bixby said and tore his pants open. Soon his hand was full of his half-erected cock.

  “Ah, señor, esta muy grande.”

  “You’re going to think muy grande.” He waded over with his pants around his ankles as she got down on her knees. He let out a sharp breath when her tongue touched it, and he stood on his toes, electrified by the pleasure. That Jones was a wonder. A real wonder.

  Hours later, groggy from all the unbridled sex, champagne and rich food, Bixby sprawled on his back on the bed. Mexico was going to be all right. Sun was setting and the blood red rays shone in the window’s frame. He looked over at the small, tight ass that stuck up from the sleepy brown body lying facedown next to him. Whew, what a woman that Loe Linda was. Man, she could take a lot and knew how to do it all. His head was spinning. That sumbitch McKlein better have figured out his days were numbered up there and hit the trail for Mexico.

  Funny thing, he never did know of McKlein screwing a woman. The stick-and-wattle ceiling above fascinated him as he studied it in the growing twilight. One t
ime he offered McKlein that Messikin girl—Conchita—he said no. Anyone else would have gave their gonads to get to screw her. Bastard never lived with any woman. Had no wife. No, McKlein wasn’t—he just wasn’t in the mood at the time. One thing Bixby knew for certain—that lawman had better have packed his bags by this time.

  He reached over and tussled Loe Linda’s thick reddish mop of hair. She awoke and raised up on her arms. Her tube-like breasts with the huge pink nipples intrigued him. He reached over and began to fondle one.

  “Come on, you’ve got to wake him up.” He waved his limp shaft at her with the other hand.

  She looked at him through her half-opened eyes. “Oh. Jesus.”

  31

  Slocum stood listening to the night sounds. Somewhere an owl hooted. He was seated on his butt, with his back to the tree. Donna squatted beside him. They were far enough away from the others that they could carry on a small conversation with each other.

  “You ever hear about the reported treasure that Bixby had?” Donna asked.

  Slocum shook his head. “Where did it come from?”

  “A few months ago, a girl named Conchita ran off with a boy from the ranch. His name was Paulo—Theresa Miguel’s son. Oh, he was a handsome boy and the girls they liked him plenty, no?”

  She shifted her weight to the other leg. “This Conchita was sleeping with Bixby. She had a wild reputation, but we didn’t know why she slept with that one. One night when he was passed out she took a sack of gold coins from this big trunk she said was full of them and met Paulo. They rode away.”

  “Where did Bixby get a trunk full of gold coins?” Slocum asked.

  “Conchita said he told her he stole it from the Yankees during the war.”

  “If he got anything of value out of the war he was slicker than the rest of us.” Slocum shook his head in mild disbelief. “That must be where all this money came from to hire all these gunmen.”