Slocum and the Big Horn Trail Read online

  “That be him?” Tar Boy asked, rocking in the saddle with his hand on the horn.

  Red Dog cut his eyes around to glare at the black man. “No, he’s the damn law.” He dug the badge out of his pocket and flashed it at him. “You two find that peckerwood stole the money?”

  Tar Boy shook his head and dropped heavy from the saddle. “We done lost his tracks way down in Wyoming.”

  “You two go get drunk or something?”

  “Naw, we done been in the saddle all this time. His track, dey’s went up like smoke.”

  Snake spit off to the side and, looking sour-faced over the whole business they’d been on, the breed nodded to emphasize the black man’s words. Then he pinched his own nose, leaned over, and blew a stream of snot out of his nostrils. “Sumbitch gone.”

  “Aw, I should of sent some kids to track him. We’ve got to get rid of this body and that horse and get the hell out of here.”

  “Where we going?” Tar Boy asked with a frown.

  “Wyoming for now. Help her load that stuff on some packhorses.”

  “Yes, sirree. I go get some. Mighty fine saddle on that red hoss,” he said, getting on his own.

  “Riding a dead man’s horse and saddle can get you hung.”

  Tar Boy stopped with his dun half turned away. “Still a mighty fine saddle.”

  “Go get them ponies. We need to get our asses out of here.”

  The black man agreed and set out for the ponies. Snake coughed up a hocker and spit it on the ground. Then, without a word, he rode off after Tar Boy.

  Them two were getting worse. He ought to leave the three of them there for the posse that came looking for this dead man. ’Course Red Dog couldn’t read and the badge’s words meant nothing to him—so he didn’t worry about the lawman’s importance. Besides, in another hour they’d be shuck of this place. He laughed to himself. That damn farmer’s throat had been easy to cut—those two snotty-nosed kids the same. Said they’d feed him outside that shack when he asked them for food. They didn’t want no dirty breed in their house—no, sir. But he always wondered what had happened to the pretty woman in the tintype they had on the table. She must’ve died or never came out there with them.

  “Come help me,” he shouted at the squaw. Them pigs would eat the corpse in half a day. They were real hungry. He’d heard them squealing all morning long for something to eat. Your dinner’s right here.

  She acted upset, taking the man’s feet, but she did her part. Carrying the torso, he forced her to go backward downhill to the pen. The pigs were really cutting up seeing them coming. A few even reared up on the split rail making a terrible racket. Dog and the squaw stopped parallel to the fence and on the count of three, they heaved the body over to the pigs. They wasted little time fighting over it and set in to seriously gnawing on the corpse.

  Good. In a short while no one would know the man’s identity. That horse, though, would be a dead giveaway. Red Dog would take it out of the country with them.

  She carried the cross-buck packsaddles outside and piled them in the sunshine. Then she brought out the pads. He could see the other two driving the horses up there. Take five head to carry all their junk, food, and bedding. He wished they’d hurry. This place had begun to make the back of his neck itch. He regretted that damn Tom White getting away too. They’d probably never find him, and for sure Dog’s money would be spent if they did find him after all this time anyway.

  In an hour, they were loaded and gone. Dog led them off the ridge toward the Little Big Horn River and Wyoming. Mia rode the dead man’s sorrel horse and acted like she was some kinda princess. Princess, his ass—she needed some more beatings so she knew damn good and well she was just some ole squaw for him to screw. He had lots to catch up on too. He looked back and watched Tar Boy, with a rifle in his arm, bringing up the rear of the packhorses.

  Long past dark, they stopped and camped by a small spring-fed stream. They were in Crow country, but he’d kill a Crow as easy as he killed that dumb lawman. How did that badge toter know he was hiding out there? When Mia had the dishes washed, he caught her by the scruff of the neck, bent her over a pannier full of stuff, and threw her dress up over her back so her butt shone in the firelight. He dropped his pants while standing behind her, and took his hard shaft in his fist and guided it between her legs.

  “Better put it in or I’ll jab it to you,” he said to her.

  Her hand obeyed, and the head of his dick slipped in her pussy. When he hunched his dick hard into her, she grunted.

  “I’m going to give you what for, girl. You been showing off all day on that damn red horse, You ain’t nothing—” He grasped her hips and shoved his rod deeper into her. “I’ll teach your show-off ass what you are.”

  He began to pump her harder and harder. With his hand squeezing her neck, he bent her farther over the pannier, and went faster trying to get his rocks off. “You little bitch.”

  His dick hurt. He needed to come, but it was like he had a piss hard-on and nothing could get out. He strained and strained but nothing happened.

  Finally, he pulled the throbbing tool out of her and with a handful of her hair in his fist, he held her up to his face. “You put a hex on me?”

  “No,” she managed, inches from his angry face.

  “Then suck on it and hard.” He forced her on her knees and stuck it in her small mouth.

  She worked furiously on it with her lips and tongue until he felt the charge coming up from his balls. Then he clutched a fistful of her hair, held her against his belly so she’d get it all. He came big-time and laughed aloud at her. She was about to gag when he pulled his dick out of her lips. With his thumb and forefinger, he grasped her nose between them, squeezed it shut tight, and forced her to swallow all of it.

  Then he laughed. “That’ll suit you right, you bitch. Go get my whiskey.” He shoved her off her knees onto the ground with his boot.

  “Where’s that damn fella now that stopped me from whipping you? Huh?” he said after her.

  “I don’t know.” She cowered defensively on the ground.

  Using his finger for a pistol, he waved it at her. “If I ever learn you fucked him, I’ll scalp you down there.” He pointed at her crotch. “Hear me?”

  “Me no. Me no.”

  “You’ll think ‘me no.’”

  Dog glanced over at Tar Boy sucking on his cob pipe and sitting on his haunches across the dying fire. “Did she screw that bastard?”

  “Naw, she be you woman. She don’t mess around wid nobody.” Tar Boy shook his head.

  Hanging back to be beyond Dog’s range, she held out the crock jug toward him. “Whiskey.”

  He snatched the crock and jerked out the cork. Then, looking mean-eyed at her, he took a swig and laughed. “Here, you drink some.”

  She shook her head.

  “I said take a drink.”

  She reached out and had to use both hands to tip it up to her mouth. When she swallowed, she coughed and tears flew out of her eyes. Some liquor ran down her chin, and she wiped at it with the back of her hand. Then she blinked her wet eyes and under his demanding gaze took another big swig.

  He took the jug back and bragged to Tar Boy, “I’m getting her warmed up, huh?”

  “They always tell me liquor’s quicker.” The black man took out his pipe and laughed.

  “Here, squaw, take another swig.” Red Dog moved loose-jointed toward her, swinging the jug at her.

  This time she took it without any refusal and turned it up. A smile crept into the corners of his mouth. When he took it back, he put his arm on her shoulder and led her to his bedroll.

  “Get undressed,” he said, and she began to obey. Untying the skirt and dropping it, she pulled the buckskin blouse off over her head. He took another drink, then handed the jug to her to hold while he undressed. She giggled and raised it to her mouth.

  When she finished, he put the jug down and they crawled under the blanket. He pushed her legs apart and moved betwee
n them. Limber as she was, she’d spread her legs wide enough apart. This way, he’d get his root plumb up inside of her. Braced above her, he punched it in and began to pump it to her.

  Her fingernails dug in his forearms and the electricity ran up his spine. He really went to humping it to her, and she raised her butt off the blankets to accept all of him. With her short legs wrapped around his middle, she was on fire with her butt off the pallet. She was rubbing her belly against his and the walls inside her had begun to contract, so he was really plunging hard with each drive to make his way back in her.

  Soon, her claws were raking his back and he was mad with rage. Harder—faster, deeper—then he exploded and they fell in a pile.

  He fell asleep still connected to her.

  It was the middle of the night when Tar Boy shook him. “We’s got company.”

  “How many?” he hissed, getting on his knees in the darkness.

  “I figure it’s a posse. They’s up dere. Talking about it.”

  “Where’s Snake?” He tried to see around in the pale light.

  “Who knows where that breed sleeps?”

  “Where’s she?” he asked in a loud whisper.

  “Done already gone to get us hosses. We’s better grab what we can and ride.”

  “You’re right,” Red Dog said, putting on his boots with trembling hands. “Go. Go on, I’m coming.”

  “Sure.”

  Then he heard that war cry on the hill above them. He knew it was Snake. That breed was driving horses too.

  “Hey, they’re stealing our horses,” someone on the ridge shouted, and shots popped in the night.

  Dog took no time to see or hear anything else. He was running over the rough ground and through the box elder for the horses with one goal—to get the hell out of there. More shots and cussing behind his back, but he knew that that damn breed had given them a good head start.

  He took the lead rope from the squaw and leaped on his horse. When he had his horse under control, she’d bellied up on the sorrel and was waving for him to go on. He did.

  Sumbitches would get all his food and stuff, saddles, packsaddles, and horses. Hell, he’d steal some more. He forced the horse to go faster.

  3

  Slocum’s left side was still sore. After Easter’s breakfast of flapjacks and chokecherry juice, she saddled his horse for him so he could ride up and check out the high country for any sign of Red Dog and his bunch. There was a bite in the north wind and a gray-goose sky when he hugged her with his good arm and kissed her hard on the mouth.

  She put the back of her hand to her mouth and her eyes sparkled at the discovery. “That a kiss?”

  “Yeah,” he said, and made two attempts to swing into the saddle. Pain ran up his backside when he did make it into the seat, and he straightened his back with a nod. “That’s for saddling my horse.”

  A devilish wink, and she smiled at him, giggling. “I saddle him every day.”

  “You’ve got a deal, girl.” He put spurs to the tail-switching Paint, and left in a short lope for the ridge to the east.

  He wore a jumper, but it hardly stopped the north wind’s chill. He’d need something thicker if he stayed in the mountains. Paint picked his way up the slope in cat hops, and a pair of elk on the rim looked hard at him before trotting away. No time for hunting. Slocum needed to know if those renegades had been tracking him.

  At last on the rim, he used the field glasses to scope the open high country. He dismounted wth a catch of pain that made his lips close tight. At last, the pain let up and he let the gelding graze on the short grass. With a jack pine to lean his back against, he detected some smoke. Probably a small campfire at a good distance to the east. One puff was all he saw—enough to make him curious if it was Dog and his bunch or not.

  Satisfied that that was the only sign, he remounted and rode in that direction, keeping under the hogbacks where he would be out of easy sight. He left Paint hitched in a grove of lodgepoles, and slipped to the crest so he could peer down into the next canyon, which he could see was the source of the smoke.

  A silver stream ran through the narrow bottoms. His glasses set, he sat on his butt and scoped the cooking fire and the two Indians sitting at it. Then a third one showed up. They were only Sioux boys, he could tell by their dress and looks. They weren’t Red Dog’s bunch. But they were sure a long ways from their South Dakota reservation—must be on their quest. He hoped they wouldn’t want his scalp.

  Relieved they weren’t the renegades tracking him, but still on his guard, he went back for Paint. With the glasses stowed in the saddlebags, he held his breath, remounted, and rode back toward the cabin without another single discovery besides a black sow bear and her cub cutting across open country in a high lope headed north. After she looked back at him, they both left in double time. He laughed at her and the clumsy young’un trying to keep up. A good horse in open country couldn’t catch them, but they didn’t look all that fast or graceful. Be time soon for her to den up for the winter. He reined Paint for home, huddled under his jumper with daydreams of the warm San Antonio sun and some snappy Spanish ladies clacking heels on a flagstone patio.

  In camp, he found Easter busy pouring the rendered bear grease into skin containers to save for later use. She looked up and waved the loose hair from her face. “I found some pemmican.”

  “Good, we may need it.”

  She agreed, and put her hands on her hips. “It is cold enough to keep meat, but this bear meat stinks. We need a moose.”

  “We better kill some deer until my ribs heal some more. A moose is too big for me to move in the shape I’m in.”

  “Good.” She stepped in, elbowed him aside, and took over when he fumbled one-handed with the latigos. “Go inside, there is hot coffee.”

  “I saw three young bucks today who are on a quest, I figure.”

  “Sioux?”

  “Yes, they looked like it from the distance.”

  “They were probably the ones shot those arrows I found in that grizzly. That was why the big one was so mad. They’d wounded him.” She shook her head in disgust.

  “So now you have to be grateful to the Sioux.” He chuckled at his joke.

  “Never,” she said, looking mad about it, and carried off the armload of saddle to the cabin.

  His side improved over the next few days and he sawed some firewood, concerned about the small supply on hand. In the cabin, hidden in the back of the box cupboard, he found a letter addressed to Robespierre Le Blanc, General Delivery, Cross Creek, Wyoming Territory. It was two years old by the date and was from his wife, written in very flowery handwriting. The farm was doing well and she expected to sell thirty fat pigs that fall for seventy dollars apiece if the market held. She would expect to see him the following spring or summer when he came in with his furs.

  Slocum wondered if that was the mystery man who’d kidnapped Easter. If so, Le Blanc must not have gone home after he sold the furs. No telling. Maybe later Slocum would go into Cross Creek and see if they knew anything about him.

  “He didn’t have any money?” he asked her when he finished reading it.

  “I didn’t look. His things are over there,” she said with a toss of her head. Slocum took the cup of coffee she offered him and patted a spot on the bed for her to sit.

  He blew on the steam and looked at her. “I’m getting much better.”

  Her eyebrows raised and she jumped up, about spilling his coffee.

  “Good.” Her fingers tore at the strings holding her skirt. Wild-eyed, she looked hard at him for his response.

  He rose and nodded in approval as he toed off his boots. In his stocking feet, he crossed the hand-hewed flooring and barred the door with the large wooden plank.

  “No interruptions,” he said, and walked back.

  She was standing naked, huddled, with her arms folded over her teardrop breasts in the dim glow let in by the glass bottles lined in frames that made the two windows. A shadowy light spread over
her tawny body, and the sight of her sensuous beauty took his breath away as he hurried to undress. In seconds, the room’s cool air swept his bare skin. He reached out and clutched her against his chest, his lips seeking hers.

  At first, her mouth was unmoved under his; then her brown eyes flew open and she threw her arms around his neck. His tongue sought hers, and quickly their mouths became welded to each other. In a quick sweep, he picked her up and carried her to the bed. Lost in the intoxication of making love, kissing, tasting, nibbling, they soon snuggled in the arms of desire under the quilts, building a warmth that drove the room’s chill from their skin. Her slight awkwardness at the start soon dissolved into a fiery passion and she forced herself toward him—against him, with her obvious need rising like a boiler thermometer under full steam.

  She spread her legs apart and he slipped between them. He nosed the head of his erection in the moist gates. And her heavy breathing was the only sound in the cabin as he regained his own. Restraining the force in his butt that desired to be inside her, he began to gently probe her. When he reached her ring of fire, the resistance was powerful, and he braced himself over her to put more effort with each stroke. Then he gave a harder push, and it parted with a small cry from her as she clutched him. At last, he was working in her confines, savoring every moment of the first ride. Under him, she grinned in pleasure, tossed her head on the mattress, and clung to his arms. She raised her butt up to receive all of him, and soon their public bones were rubbing together.

  Then he knew from the rising force that he was about to come, and in a wild surge to give her as much as he could, he pounded her faster and harder. In a wild flurry, he came and they both collapsed.

  They spent the rest of the day cuddled in each other’s arms and making love. It became a soft honeymoon between two lovers on a rope bed that was the only thing to protest the breaks from their reverie.

  It was close to dark when she scrambled from under the covers, quickly dressed, and began to fix them some food to eat. The look of regret written on her face over having to leave their nest was not wasted on him. He rose, dressed, went over to where she worked to make biscuit dough in a metal pan, and gave her a deep kiss.