Slocum and the James Gang Read online

  “I ought to be there early, for the wedding rehearsal,” the woman said. She took off her hat and let long strands of auburn hair cascade down. She ran her fingers through it and got some of the caked mud free. “I’ll need a day to get all cleaned up, too.”

  “You didn’t see another rider?”

  “We been on the trail until we got lost a day back. Of course we’ve seen other riders.”

  “I mean today. In the past hour.” The deputy looked around and everything appeared to be as the woman said. Slocum held his breath. If any of the posse checked his horse, they’d see he’d only had time to rub down the side facing them. The far side was still lathered up.

  She saw how the deputy was looking at Slocum’s horse so she stood, turned, and pointed back down the trail. “I thought I saw a rider not fifteen minutes before you came up the trail. He was riding like his horse’s tail was on fire, making for the far side of that clearing. If he kept going the way he did, he’d be in Taos by now.”

  “Taos is in the other direction,” Slocum said.

  “No it ain’t,” the deputy said, glaring at Slocum. “What kind of trailsman are you? The lady’s right. Taos is that way.”

  “Well, thank you, Marshal. At last a man who knows how to find his way in this wilderness.”

  “Deputy sheriff, ma’am,” he said. But Slocum saw the man’s attention had been diverted from the horse to the stretch between the rocky gap and the far side of the clearing. “Git on along, you mangy cayuses,” the lawman said to his posse. “Turn ’round and head back down the trail.”

  “Ain’t no trail. That’s hardly more ’n a footpath.”

  Slocum caught his breath. The last man to come up frowned, as if trying to think of something important.

  “Been a rider on the trail recently,” he said.

  “Of course there has been. You, silly,” the woman said.

  “No, I mean somebody else. I seen signs of—”

  “Three other riders,” she finished for him. “You brought up the rear. The marshal and his other two deputies were ahead of you, so of course you saw tracks.”

  “No, I mean there was—”

  “It’s deputy sheriff, ma’am. Shut yer tater trap, Benny, and head back down. We got ourselves an outlaw to catch.”

  The woman started to speak, but Slocum caught her eye. She was going to ask what the outlaw had done. That was a natural question, but if she asked, the deputy would answer and prolong the time in camp. Eventually one of them would twig to Slocum’s recent arrival. The fourth man in the posse almost had. Slocum wasn’t sure what he had seen along the trail, but it should have been conclusive evidence everything wasn’t as it appeared in camp.

  “You folks have a good trip to Taos.”

  “If you’re heading in that direction, Marshal—I mean Sheriff,” she said easily, pretending to make the same mistake repeatedly. “You drop on by the wedding reception. It’s going to be a jim-dandy one. The Armijos are known for the parties they throw, and this is a special one, even bigger than Consuelo’s quinceaños festival.”

  The deputy let out a low whistle.

  “I heard of some of them parties lasting a week or more, almost ’til the girl’s sixteen!”

  With thoughts of free food and booze flowing like water, the four men retraced their way to the rocky gap, where they joined three others before riding hard across the clearing.

  Slocum waited until the dust had settled and the posse was out of sight.

  “I’m much obliged,” he said.

  “For what?” she asked.

  “Not that coffee. You could have poisoned them all to death, or was that the idea?”

  She stared at him, then burst out laughing.

  “You’re not what I expected at all.”

  “You make it sound as if you knew I’d be hightailing it through the crevice a couple minutes ahead of a posse.”

  She brushed back her hair and came to sit beside him. She pressed close, her breasts against his arm. Slocum wasn’t inclined to move away, not with her face only inches from his.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “What’s it matter?” She kissed him. Hard.

  3

  Slocum started to pull back and then found the kiss softening—and he didn’t mind it one bit. The woman pressed even closer and carried him back to the blanket, lying half atop him. Only then did she pull back and look down at him. Her brown eyes were flecked with gold highlights, and sparkled with . . . what? Slocum couldn’t tell.

  “You sure pulled my fat out of the fire,” he said. “Thanks for that.”

  “I saw you were in trouble.”

  “You always go siding with whoever the posse is chasing?”

  She laughed, and it was a delighted, delightful sound. She reached out and put a long-fingered hand on his cheek. Her touch was both soft and exciting.

  “Don’t do much riding, do you?” he asked, trying to figure her out.

  “What makes you say that?” She pulled back a little and looked hard at him.

  “The calluses on your hands.”

  “What calluses?” She looked at the hand that had so recently stroked over his stubbled cheek.

  “That’s the point,” Slocum said, enjoying the small flare of anger he saw. Her cheeks turned rosy and the way her mouth turned gave her fine face even more definition as muscles tightened and dimples formed.

  “You’re a lot smarter than I thought,” she finally said, settling back down next to him.

  “You don’t know me,” he said, “so how can I be smarter—or dumber—than you expected? I didn’t know I was going to ride this way until I ran into a touch of trouble back in Las Vegas.”

  “Where’d the rest of the gang go? Do you have a secret meeting place? A hideout nearby?”

  “I’m not a member of the James Gang,” Slocum said. “I didn’t know Jesse was even in town until I saw him knocking back shots of whiskey in that saloon.”

  “You weren’t meeting up with him?”

  “I pistol-whipped him.” This caused a reaction. Her eyes widened, but she said nothing. “I owed him. He could have spoken up for me and didn’t.” It was only his imagination but the two scars from the bullets Bloody Bill had put in him itched. “Don’t rightly know if he enjoyed the sight of me kicking on the floor and bleeding to death.”

  “That’s not his reputation. He’s something of a hero.”

  Slocum snorted.

  “Some hero. He steals from the rich because they have the money. What money he gives to anyone poorer than him is because he is buying their silence. Without a whale of a lot of closed mouths, the law would have caught him a long time back.”

  “I thought you were one of the gang. I was wrong.”

  “I don’t know if I’d gun him down, but if that happened, I wouldn’t lose much sleep over it. Some of the men riding with Jesse are worse than he is. Killing them wouldn’t be a chore at all, it’d be a public service.”

  “So you hope the deputy sheriff finds the gang?”

  Slocum didn’t answer right away. Things had happened too quick for him to consider what it all meant. Jesse and the others had likely ridden off without a care in the world because the entire posse had come after him. Jesse James wouldn’t care if Slocum got his neck stretched and he certainly wouldn’t spend a minute’s time thinking on whether to break him out of jail if the deputy had dragged him back to Las Vegas as a prisoner.

  “Doesn’t matter to me one way or the other,” Slocum said. That summed up what he thought fairly well. “All I want is to ride north.”

  “What’s up there for you?”

  “Nothing more than what’s waiting for me here,” Slocum said. The woman had snuggled even closer when he told her his interest in the James Gang wasn’t all that great one way or the other. He kissed her again.

  “Hmmm, nice,” she said, moving against him like a cat, making sinuous wiggling motions so she could wrap her legs around his thigh. She
began rocking up and down until Slocum thought she would purr.

  He reached down and popped open the top button. She made no move to stop him. He opened a couple more and revealed the creamy swell of her breasts. The blouse had been loose and hid her ample charms. When he got the rest of the buttons open, she shrugged her shoulders and shucked off the unwanted garment, leaving her naked to the waist.

  “My turn,” she said as she began working to pull off his gun belt and then the buttons on his fly. “Oh, my.”

  Slocum heaved a sigh of relief as she worked free the last button and let his hardness leap out. It had been getting mighty tight at the crotch. But the relief was quickly replaced with other sensations as she took him in her mouth and began kissing and licking his meaty shaft.

  Leaning back, Slocum stared up into the sky and watched clouds swirl and build, mimicking what he was experiencing down lower. He thought of her tongue working on him the way the wind built clouds up into thunder heads.

  And then he reached down and pulled her away.

  “What? You don’t like it?”

  “I’m greedy,” he said. “I want more.”

  “More?” She drew back from him and got to her knees. The warm sunlight turned her naked, snowy breasts into glowing, vibrant mounds he wanted to sample. But she pushed him back, got to her feet, and began stripping off her jeans. Slocum found himself appreciating the sight of her shedding the tight pants the way a snake molted. Her wiggles and shakes caused her breasts to bob about in a motion that made Slocum even harder simply from watching.

  When she stepped out of the jeans to stand buck naked, he found himself struggling to keep from showing exactly how much he was aroused by the sight.

  She stepped across his body, giving him a view far better than watching clouds. The furry thatch between her legs was dotted with tiny dewdrops betraying her arousal. Slowly, she settled down so her knees pressed in on either side of his body, and her legs parted delightfully above his groin. Slocum gasped as she fully lowered down over him, taking him into her heated core. When she reached around and began stroking his balls, Slocum fought to keep from behaving like a young buck with his first woman.

  “You surely do know how to get down to the essentials,” he said.

  “I’m inspired,” she said, twisting her hips slightly so he stirred about inside her. She closed her eyes and a look of desire came to her face. Slocum reached up and took her tits, toying with the hard nubs capping each. The nipples pulsed and throbbed with every frenzied beat of her heart.

  He pressed down, crushing them almost flat. As if this wasn’t enough for her, she leaned forward so he pressed into them with even more power. Then she began bending forward to lift herself off his shaft. Slocum abandoned his posts and stroked along her body, holding her waist and then reaching behind to grab two delightful handfuls of ass flesh.

  “Oh, yes,” she said as he pulled her back down around him.

  They worked together, his hands guiding her and her inner muscles massaging and gripping at him like a hand in a velvet glove. Heat mounted inside him and turned into a fire that threatened to burn him up. He began stroking and pulling the doughy half-moons apart and then pressing them together as she moved up and down with increasing speed. Friction mounted and Slocum felt his control slipping away. He held back as long as he could and the woman cried out. Her body shook uncontrollably and then her hips went wild.

  She rose and dropped with increasing speed, with increasing need, until Slocum exploded. This set her off again so that she trembled like a leaf in a high wind. Then she bent forward, thrust her legs backward on either side of Slocum’s, and lay fully atop him. She put her sweaty cheek against his chest.

  “Your heart’s still racing,” she said, positioning her ear just above the hammering organ.

  “Can’t imagine why,” Slocum said. He stroked down the sleek back and along her womanly curves.

  “Audrey Underwood,” she said.

  “John Slocum.”

  He had to laugh. It had taken them all this time to get around to names.

  “What’s funny?”

  “We could have been in a powerful lot of trouble if the deputy had asked me what your name was,” he said.

  “And asked me what yours was,” Audrey said. She laughed now, too. Slocum liked the musical sound of her voice and merriment almost as much as he had the soft moans of her passion.

  “We could have lied,” Slocum said.

  “You do that often, John?”

  “Only when I want to or have to.”

  “You’re lying now. I’m a good judge of men. You aren’t a liar. You’d sooner cut out your own tongue than go against your word.”

  “That why you stripped down and made love with me?”

  “I said I was a good judge of when men are telling the truth. I’m not such a good judge of men when it comes to a roll in the hay.” The tinge of bitterness to her words told him of a string of broken hearts.

  “You could always get to know a man before bedding him.”

  “Would you have preferred that?”

  “No.”

  “See? I pegged you right. You tell the truth. And you say you’re not one of Jesse James’s gang?”

  “Never was, see no reason ever to ride that trail with him.”

  “You really pistol-whipped him?”

  “More like buffaloed. I only hit him once or twice. That was all it took to knock him out.”

  “Men have died for less,” Audrey said. She looked at him strangely, then said, “You’re not lying about this either. I’m amazed.”

  “No need to lie. I’ve known Jesse since he was a whippersnapper.” Slocum wondered if that were true. He’d known Jesse since he was sixteen and even then he was a killer with a bent toward doing things illegally even if walking the straight and narrow path was easier. Some men were naturally inclined to be crooks and killers. Jesse James was one of those.

  Audrey fell silent, then stood and began dressing. Slocum enjoyed this sight almost as much as when she had taken off the blouse and jeans. Getting into the tight pants was the part he liked best. Then he knew he had to be moving on. He had no idea why Audrey had spoken up for him the way she had or what brought her to the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, but whatever it was didn’t involve him. He buttoned himself up and settled his gun belt around his waist until it felt right.

  “You a shootist?” she asked.

  “Don’t think of myself that way. I’ve wrangled cattle and done a bit of gambling.”

  “And killing?”

  “That, too, but usually when the owlhoot deserved it. Sometimes not, maybe, but I always had a good reason at the time.”

  “Jesse’d say the same thing.”

  “Reckon you’re right. Much obliged for the way you spoke up for me in front of the deputy and his men.” Slocum hesitated and looked at Audrey Underwood.

  “Yes, John? What is it?”

  “You need to learn to make better coffee. Drinking that swill is a sure road to a cemetery.”

  She looked surprised, then laughed. As she shook her head, her hair floated around her dirty face, giving her an auburn halo shot with strands of gold to match her eyes.

  “I need your help.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I’m after Jesse James.”

  “You a bounty hunter?” The notion struck him as ridiculous, but Audrey didn’t deny it. “Bounty hunters can’t hesitate to kill their quarry. You up for that?”

  “I could shoot Jesse James,” she said. “But bringing him back isn’t exactly what I’m after.”

  “What are you after, then?”

  “Jesse stole a passel of money back in Kansas, and it was never found. He might have brought it out here with him.”

  “More likely he spent it on whores and whiskey,” Slocum said.

  “He didn’t. He brought it with him. A lot of gold. Maybe as much as ten thousand dollars.”

  “So you’re lookin
g to find where he hid the gold and collect a reward?” Slocum’s ideas turned to something else. Any reward would be a fraction of the value. Better to find the gold and ride off with it. Stealing from a road agent wasn’t exactly stealing, after all. And who threw their brand on a sack of gold coins? They could belong to anyone who claimed it.

  “Something like that. My employer put me on to this and then wouldn’t back me coming here. I intend to prove him wrong and write the best danged article any reporter ever submitted to the Kansas City Star Gazette.”

  “You’d do better to forget the treasure hunt and just write a story about his victims.”

  “He’s out here to spend that money, to use it for something even more vile than whores and whiskey.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I . . . I don’t know. But I’m going to find out. and you’ll help, won’t you, John? We can be partners. I’ll even give you a byline, but your name’d be second, of course, since this is my story.”

  “I don’t cotton much to having my name bandied about in a newspaper.”

  “You could be famous. We could be famous if this story is as big as I think. There wasn’t any call for Jesse to leave Kansas. The federal marshal there lost his trail in a rainstorm and gave up hunting for him. All Jesse had to do was to fade into the countryside, let his family and friends hide him for a spell, then find a new train to rob.”

  “How’d this posse get on his trail? They mistook me for one of his gang.”

  “Jesse has been laying low but Frank sees New Mexico as an apple to be plucked as they ride past the tree. The two of them have been feuding. Not much, mind you, but there have been arguments and I caught wind of it. That’s how I found them.”

  “Found them?” Slocum snorted. If Jesse James wanted to disappear, Audrey Underwood wouldn’t have a ghost of a chance finding him. Jesse was strutting around in public for a reason—and that was simple enough. The law out here in New Mexico Territory wasn’t hunting him for a string of train and bank robberies. Until brother Frank had stirred them up, that is.

  “Scoff if you will, but I tracked them here. Somewhere in these hills lies the secret reason Jesse came to New Mexico and I intend to find what it is.”