Slocum and Little Britches Read online

  “I am not here,” she said, wrapped in a blanket in the rocker. No lamp was on in the small room. She sat in the deep shadows.

  “Maybe I can talk to her shadow then?” he said, and came inside the doorway to squat on his boot heels.

  “Even her shadow is gone.”

  He could see her try to conceal more of herself under the blanket. “Consulela says that you will heal.”

  “She’s very kind.”

  “A good woman. What are your plans? I mean when you heal.”

  “I don’t know at this moment. I have little money. I can’t live here forever on Consuela and your friend’s charity.”

  “You have anyone you can go and live with?”

  “Perhaps my sister Sylvia and her husband Mike.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “Prescott.”

  “I can get you a stage ticket to there.” He paused before sipping his coffee and shifted his weigh to his other boot.

  She didn’t answer him.

  “I mean the stage runs to Prescott. After you heal?”

  “I’ll consider your offer. What about their bodies? Hyrum and Bacon, I mean. Will the buzzards eat them?”

  “Corbett thinks the army patrols will find them or already have found them.”

  “What will they do with them?”

  “Give them as good a burial as they can under the circumstances.”

  “Sounds very barbaric to me.” The rocker’s runners creaked as she tried to wrap herself tighter in the blanket. “Where will you go next?”

  “Wherever the wind sends me.”

  She half-laughed. “You hardly seem like a man who has no roots, no estate, no wife and family.”

  “I have none of those.”

  “There must be quite a story about that. War record?”

  “Captain, cavalry, Georgia. Discharged. Went home to what the federal government called Reconstruction, found ashes and graves, so I went west.”

  “My, that was condensed.”

  “Why can’t you go back home?”

  “My parents planned for me to marry well. I was sent to Mrs. Curry’s Finishing School in St. Louis. I returned home to Sedalia and lived the life of the debutante. But somehow, I was bored.”

  “Bored?”

  “Bored to death.” She blew out her breath. “I hated teas, I hated the fake people, I hated it all. My father said I was far too reckless for an unwed woman when I rode horses, and sold my hunter-jumper Velvet in the middle of the season. Then I met Hyrum Cannon. He was married, handsome, bored with his life, he said. His wife Renay was the fainting kind, if you know what I mean.”

  “You fainted twice on me yesterday.”

  “Sorry, I never do that. Anyway, you could call me the other woman. We eloped. He planned to divorce her and marry me. Hyrum has a substantial estate. It will no doubt go to Renay. So our dream to start a new life in Arizona has evaporated. My golden goose is gone and all I have are its soiled feathers all over me.”

  “Nice thing about the frontier. They aren’t near as fussy about your past. Why, I bet in Prescott you could find yourself a new life.”

  “Sylvia called it Preskit.”

  He nodded. “They call it that up there.”

  “I can’t really face her or any of my family right now. I do want Hyrum’s father to know he—he is dead.”

  “We can telegraph him,”

  “Will the army make a report?”

  “If they can identify him. Apaches usually take their clothes and anything valuable.”

  “Oh—” She shuddered, crouched in a tight ball. “I don’t regret what I’ve done. I mean eloping with him.” Then, as if repulsed by the notion, she shook her head, making the peak of the blanket wiggle over the top of it. “I have a small photo.”

  “That might work if we can find the patrol that buried him.”

  “I have little money to pay you, but I’d like you to go back and see if they buried him and then have the army say that he was the one they buried.”

  “You know how dangerous that is?”

  “You’re the only man I know could take me there. I owe him that—Hyrum, I mean.”

  He dropped to his butt and hugged his knees. “You could accept the fact that he’s dead and go on about your life. Be lots easier than what you’re asking.”

  “I don’t have a life—now. It ended when they murdered Hyrum. But I feel responsible for what happened to him. Without me, he might still be home consoling his fainting wife.”

  “So you want a death certificate?”

  “Exactly. Will the wind carry you there?” She giggled and shook her head inside the cocoon. “I can’t believe that notion. Here is a picture of him in this locket.”

  “It could.” He pocketed the locket. “You get your strength back. I’ll see what I can do in the meantime.”

  “Slocum?”

  “Yes?”

  “You won’t ever regret doing this for me. I promise you.”

  He hoped not. “Heal up. Then we’ll see what we can do about your life.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. Not yet. We haven’t done it. It happened west of the playas?”

  “Yes. From the empty ranch house, Bacon pointed out the Chiricahuas and the lakes. There is an adobe house, some buildings, and some pens there. Hyrum—he thought or he said we could build a nice house there.”

  Slocum noticed in the brightening light that she was chewing on her lip. He nodded. “I may ride over there and look for it.”

  “Oh, I want to go, too.”

  He didn’t need her tagging along. “You get well and heal. We’ll see.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  He rose. “I am sure you will. Don’t rush it.”

  “I have a little money—”

  “I don’t need any.”

  “Must be nice.”

  “It is. I better see about some things.”

  “Slocum. Don’t go over there without me—please.”

  “Get well.”

  She was complaining after him, but he ignored it and headed for the stage depot. Maybe he’d ride back over there later and look for that place where the Apaches had killed the two men. He sure didn’t need a skinny tagalong to help him find it either.

  “How is she?” Consuela asked when he came back inside the kitchen.

  “Recovering nicely.” Then he laughed and held out his cup for Marie to refill it. “Yes, she’s recovering nicely.”

  “Did she tell you?”

  He blew on the steam. “Yes, she said she had eloped.”

  Consuela shook her head. “So what will you do?”

  “Help her.”

  “Bueno,” she said softly as if satisfied, and went back to her oven with a large wooden spatula to remove the golden loaves of bread. “Get him some butter, Marie. I bet he can eat a loaf by himself.” And both women laughed.

  “I think you may have murdered our help last night.” Consuela delivered two of the loaves to the table. “Donada’s never slept in this long before. Has she, Marie?”

  “No, Señora, never this long,” Marie answered in Spanish, and brought him the bowl of butter.

  Slocum thanked her and broke open one of the loaves, and the steam escaped with a powerful smell of sourdough. “You spoil the stage passengers.”

  “It is the only place they have real food between here and El Paso,” Consuela said, wiping her shiny forehead on her sleeve. “The stage drivers tell me that all the time.”

  Donada arrived and swept into the kitchen. She looked bleary-eyed, and at the sight of him, she frowned.

  “Good morning,” he said, and gave her a grin. She ignored him and spoke to her boss in Spanish quietly. He knew she had apologized for her tardiness.

  “Marie, our helper is here,” Consuela announced, and laughed at her words. When the last loaves were out, she handed a long knife to Donada. “You can slice them.”

  “Sorry I overslept,” Donada m
umbled after her.

  “We know that now.” Consuela laughed, going out into the main room.

  “Why did you not wake me?” Donada hissed at Slocum.

  “You looked so comfortable sleeping.”

  She waved off his words and went for coffee.

  Slocum ate two slices of hot bread and butter, then took his coffee cup outside to listen to the Gambrel’s quail and the Mexican mockingbird. Donada was in such a bad mood, she needed to cool off before he said much more to her. Seated on the front porch, he felt the fresh morning breeze sweep his face as he watched the sunrise come over the Chiricahuas. He knew how the Apache felt being moved out of the land they had so fiercely defended against first the Mexicans and later the Americans.

  Their spirits lived in this country, which ran from the grassland high desert to the pine-topped peaks where they’d spent the sweltering summers in coolness. They’d had the best of two worlds. They’d sent the Mexican settlers and ranchers packing in Sonora. Vast ranches sat empty below the border, abandoned by their owners after a century of warfare. But not on this side of the border. Anxious land-hungry gringos had moved in, crowding the Apaches onto smaller and smaller and more desolate reservations. The San Carlos Agency was so hot and dry that even the saguaro didn’t grow down there. But the Apaches and their plight were not Slocum’s problem—unless he ran into more of them like the day before.

  “Company,” he said aloud over his shoulder at the approach of three wagons. Strange time of the day for wagons to arrive there.

  Consuela came out, drying her hands on a small flour-sack towel, to look them over. Each rig was pulled by two teams of mules. The teams were sweaty and shiny in the low sunlight. A couple of armed outriders approached the stage building.

  “They must have traveled all night,” she said.

  Slocum agreed. One way to beat the Apaches, who hated darkness. “You know them?”

  “Weldon Thomas’s bunch. Mine equipment.”

  “He come by often?”

  “No, he usually cuts down the Sulfur Springs Valley and goes to Tombstone. That’s him with the white mustache coming now.”

  “Why, hello, Consuela, my darling,” he said, reining up a stout black horse and giving Slocum a hawk-eyed once-over. Then, wringing an itch in his ear with a pointed finger, he swung down. “We ain’t met, have we, mister?”

  Slocum stood and nodded at the big man. “Slocum. I’m just passing through.”

  Thomas hitched up his pants and straightened his suspenders before he nodded back. “Hell, man, that’s all any of us are doing in this world. Passing through. Hoping to make another day.” Then, observing how his men had stopped the wagons in the center of things, he shouted, “Stupid, get them over to the side. There’s probably a stage coming.”

  “Good,” Consuela said, looking at the situation.

  “Hell, darling, I wouldn’t let them block your stage line business.” By this time, he was bear-hugging and trying to kiss her.

  Amused, Slocum glanced away. Consuela could handle him. Besides, she probably enjoyed the attention. The two went inside the big room with Thomas’s arm familiarly wrapped around her shoulder as he told her how many men he had in his outfit and asked if she could feed them.

  “I know,” Thomas went on. “I know I should have sent word ahead. But driving at night to get here is serious business and I couldn’t spare a man.”

  Thomas’s outriders came in next. Several wore buckskin shirts and pants. They dismounted, pulled down the crotch of their pants, and shoved their .50-caliber Spencers in their scabbards. Slocum knew two of them from his scouting days. Frank O’Day, a braggart from Tennessee whom he’d wearied of quickly, and Luther Vanlett, a Dutch-Cherokee.

  “Slocum? That you?” O’Day asked, blinking his eyes at his discovery.

  Slocum nodded at the man with the unkempt reddish blond beard.

  “Boys,” O’Day declared. “Here’s one of the greatest scouts I ever worked with. No lie. No lie. Slocum is more Injun than an Injun.”

  His words drew skeptical laughter from the others, who acted too tired to really care as they plodded through the doorway.

  “How’ve you been?” O’Day asked in his usual anxious manner.

  “Fine. Must be valuable stuff in them wagons to have all of you riding shotgun.”

  O’Day glanced back. Part of his mustache was in his mouth when he started to speak. “Mining stuff. They can afford it.”

  “Who the hell would steal it?” Slocum asked.

  “Damned if I’d know. They just want to be sure it gets there.”

  “I guess that’s so.”

  O’Day nodded toward the doorway. “I better get in there before they eat all the damned food. Good to see you.”

  “Sure.”

  Thomas came out with a cup of coffee in his hand and spoke to his teamsters dragging themselves across the yard. “Better get in and eat. She’s got real customers coming.”

  He turned his attention to Slocum. “Need work?”

  Slocum shook his head. “Not today.”

  “I can use a man with his wits about him.”

  Slocum shook his head and finished his own cup. He slung the grounds away and went back inside. The crew was busy eating and the two women were handing out platters of fried side meat, bowls of frijoles, and fresh bread.

  “Good thing you baked a lot,” Slocum said to Consuela as he passed through the kitchen.

  “Hmm,” she snorted in disgust at him. “That was a two-day supply and they will eat most of it. Don’t keep my helper up all night. I’ll need her in the morning to bake more.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” He stopped. She blocked the back door and looked at him with her large round eyes. “Maybe sometime you will need a real woman?”

  “Maybe I will—one day.” He gave her a promising wink and a smile as the price for his exit. She let him pass.

  He saddled his horse and checked the Remington in his scabbard. He’d clean it when he got back. Two shots wouldn’t foul it too bad, but it needed cleaning. Must be slipping. He usually did that every time after he fired it. He must have been too tired from his trip out of Mexico and saving Silver’s skinny butt. He’d do better, he promised himself. Thinking about Consuela’s offer of sex made him smile slightly. He better get going.

  He rode out as a stage arrived in a cloud of dust. The Mexican boys who worked for Corbett had the two fresh teams ready to switch. His old friend must have had a bad hangover not to show up for all the action.

  Slocum short-loped the strawberry roan, a tough bulldog mountain horse he called Red, for the Texas Canyon. Red stood solid around guns going off and could be ground-tied, and Slocum could guide him with his knees. He was one of those broad-chested horses that could cat-hop up a mountain. In addition, he could run for miles. Tough as rawhide, he was as easy to ride as any horse that Slocum had ever owned, one of those horses that never missed a chance to graze, which made him an easy keeper in the desert.

  At mid-morning, Slocum was overlooking the Sulfur Springs Valley. He kept the Dragoons to his right, thinking the place that Silver had talked about was located in this area. A sound made Slocum turn his ear to listen—was it a big flock of ravens? He pushed Red to a rise, and could see the dust and hear the shots. Someone was having a hot firefight with some Apaches.

  Getting his bearings with the playas and the Chiricahuas, he decided the fight was happening at that ranch she’d spoken about. He could see the outline of the adobe buildings and gray pole corrals when the wind swept some of the blue gun smoke and dust away. It must be the buffalo soldiers from Fort Huachuca.

  They looked like they could use some help. He drew his Colt and checked the cylinders. Five shots. He holstered it and reached in his saddlebags for the smaller .30-caliber revolver. It was loaded, too. Satisfied, he stuck it in his waistband. He caught up his reins. Time to go, old pony. If those blacks don’t shoot us for being one of them bronco Apaches, we may get in there to help
them.

  He raced Red across the flats, and by keeping to the dry wash, he hoped to slip past the brown shooters and then make a fast burst for the ranch buildings. His plan was working well. Red was churning up the dry sand, when a buck armed with a Winchester repeater ran out and knelt to take aim. It was in that instant the Apache took to get into position that Slocum sighted on him in the rocking gait of the roan and rapid-fired three shots. The Apache was hit in the shoulder, his long gun went off into the air, and he sprawled over on his side.

  Slocum kicked Red to go faster past the downed buck and out the head of the draw, knowing that in seconds the mounted braves would be hot on his tail. The soldiers shooting at him were his next problem. “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”

  Several black faces appeared to look hard at him. Seconds went by—no shots rang out, and he rushed into their headquarters satisfied that the shocked buffalo soldiers would be glad to see him.

  “You boys getting in some target practice this morning?” Slocum asked the three who ran over to meet him. He dismounted and gave the reins to the first soldier who got to him.

  The big sergeant joined them, nodded, and showed his white teeth. “They sure been shooting at us since dawn. We been here all night, and were fixing to head back to our assignment.”

  “Time we sent them packing.” Slocum drew his rifle out and reached in the saddlebag for a cartridge. He pulled out the shooting stick and handed it to the noncom. With the rifle bent over his leg, he cocked the hammer back and opened the rolling block to insert the ammo. When the block was closed, he released the trigger, then recocked. He set the fore stock in the stick and looked through the scope at the hillside covered in century plants.

  A buck wearing a red loincloth and rifle stood with his arms crossed up there. Slocum could see the anger and defiance written on his face.

  “You’s got one in mind?” the sergeant asked, looking at the hillside through glasses.

  “One in the red. See him?”

  “Yes, sir. I’s sure do.”

  When Slocum’s eye was steady on the crosshairs, he squeezed off the trigger.