Slocum and Pearl of the Rio Grande Read online

  “Whiskey? Mescal?”

  The man nodded and set a bottle and glass on the scarred surface. “You are passing through?”

  “Yes, on the road.” He poured himself some in a glass and looked around the room.

  A few locals drank pulque in one corner and argued about something inaudibly. Slocum turned back, he would learn little in this sour stinking dive. Perhaps he would try to find a place for his party to stop near here. He downed the cheap whiskey in three tries. It cut the dust and he set the glass down. “Gracias.”

  The barkeep recorked the bottle, looked at the amount left, and said half a dollar. Slocum paid him, then went back out into the sunshine. It was still cold, but the sun did provide some heat. In the saddle, he rode on down through the community. He found a blacksmith working in his shop, which smelled of burning coal, and stopped to talk to him.

  The smithy was drawing out iron, heating rods and beating them flat on the anvil for straps. He looked up and spoke in Spanish. “Good afternoon. May I help you?”

  “I am looking for a place to rest tonight. I have a purebred bull in a carreta.”

  “There is a stable here.” He motioned to the adjoining shed.

  “Good. Is there a place for a señora to stay tonight?”

  “Your wife?”

  Slocum shook his head. “No, my patrón.”

  “There is a widow woman on the hill would board her.”

  “Thanks, I will see you this evening.”

  The man nodded and resumed his loud ringing pounding.

  Slocum found a woman in the street to make him some bean-and-meat burritos, and he carried them back for he knew Perla had no provisions. It was near noontime by the sun, and he short-loped Heck on his way to meet them.

  This bull hauling was going to be boring with Perla’s cold shoulder and the slow movement of the carreta—what had made him take the job anyway? He passed some more freighters in his journey. With long strings of oxen and double wagons, they were headed north with loads.

  He found her coming up the road and set Heck down in front of her. “I bought you some food and there is a stable in Arroyo Seco. And a widow would put you up there.”

  She nodded and took the burrito, which was wrapped in a newspaper, from him. “I guess we can stop there.”

  “I’ll tell Diego.”

  She unwrapped the burrito and nodded. “I will pay you for this.”

  He waved her off and started for Diego and the cart, which was trailing her by a hundred feet.

  “Wait,” she said. “My enemies are beyond Española. They are a band of men who push people around.”

  “Who are they?”

  “The Booster brothers.”

  He nodded. That name came from somewhere in his trail-driving days. Maybe he knew them.

  Her eyes narrowed. “You know them?”

  “Not really.”

  Her gaze moved away. “Do you know them?”

  “No, ma’am, but if they mess with you, they better have their life insurance paid in full.”

  She snickered. “They are mean men. They know I am alone now. I could not afford enough full-time pistoleros to ward them off. Then I began to worry as I came north, what if they tried to steal King Arthur?”

  “I’m here, there is no need to worry.”

  “Do you know anything about them?”

  “No. But let me feed Diego and then you can tell me everything. I am anxious to hear about them.”

  “Yes. Do that.”

  The urgent sound in her voice told him enough. There was something else here besides the story Diego had told him the night before. The driver of the carreta looked pleased at Slocum’s offering and thanked him for the food. King Arthur bellowed at them and shook his large white horns.

  He would get his food late in the afternoon.

  Slocum rode ahead, anxious to hear what Perla had to say. He checked around, saw nothing out of place, reset the six-gun on his hip, and reined in beside her.

  “Tell me about the gang that killed your husband.” With a nod of approval, she began her story between small bites of food.

  “They all wore masks. They came to the ranch in the night—three years ago. They shot my husband. There were six or seven of them. They robbed the safe of all our money. Took my jewelry. Killed men, women, and children—” Underneath the leather coat, her shoulders shook in revulsion, and she closed her eyes, swallowing hard.

  “I know they will come back—again. The law can’t find them or does not want to. They must know I have made some money from selling cattle. Last night I couldn’t tell you this—I didn’t know you. But when you were ready exactly at dawn as I asked, I knew then you were more than a guard.”

  “These Boosters. They are not the same gang?”

  She shook her head quickly. “No, no, the killers all wore masks. We didn’t know them. The Boosters charge us for protection.”

  He nodded, though he had his doubts. “How far away is your ranch?”

  “Four or five days’ ride at this speed. I forgot how slow the carreta traveled.” She looked embarrassed.

  “No problem. We’ll be watchful, and first I want to get your new sire home safely. Then perhaps we can do something about the brothers.”

  “I didn’t ask you to come and get killed for me.”

  “I don’t aim to let that happen.” He touched his hat brim and pulled aside so she would eat. Their closeness on horse-back had obviously made her uneasy. “One thing at a time.”

  “Slocum, I can’t afford a large force of gunmen.”

  “Down in Texas, they would send a Ranger. One bunch of outlaws, one Ranger.”

  “Were you a Ranger?” She frowned at him.

  “No, ma’am. But I can act like I am.”

  She paused, as if digesting his words, then nodded slowly. “Yes, I believe you could.”

  Their stay overnight at Arroyo Seco went well, and early the next morning they were headed for Española. Slocum rode ahead to make arrangements for her to stay with a merchant and his wife there who she’d dealt with before. He found the town was little more than scattered adobe hovels with a few stores and cantinas—plus a church.

  Slocum met the rotund merchant, Mr. Goldfarb, in his store, and the man was pleased she had hired a man to help her make the trip.

  “Señora Peralta is such a wonderful lady and her husband was a fine man—oh, I was shocked when I learned of the raid and his murder,” said Goldfarb.

  “What did the law do about it?”

  “Not much besides print posters. Oh, the posse rode after them, but they lost their tracks.”

  “This gang is still robbing and stealing?”

  “Who knows? There are so many desperadoes in this territory.”

  “Do they operate out of the north?”

  The man turned up his palms. “I don’t know.”

  “Thanks. The señora and the carreta will be here in mid-afternoon.”

  “I will have my man help them.”

  “She would appreciate that.”

  “Oh, anything she needs.”

  Slocum thanked him and left the store. He noted a cowboy under a wide-brimmed felt hat sitting on a nail keg with his large knife, whittling. With each stroke, he was making long shavings, and he spoke in a Texas drawl. “That you, Slocum?”

  “Who’s asking?” He blinked at the man, who needed a shave.

  “Collie Bill Hankins.” He used the stick to shove the hat back on his shoulders, revealing the sun-dark face and snowy forehead of a man in his thirties. He smiled. “Thought it was you when I seen you ride in a spell ago.”

  “What’ve you been doing up here?”

  “Drifting. You working?” Collie Bill dropped back to his whittling.

  “Some. Are you?”

  Collie Bill shook his head. “I was going over to Cimarron and see if that Maxwell needed some help.”

  “Hang around. I’ll see if I can hook you up with my boss.” What had happened to
his old friend? He’d been trail boss of big outfits and ramrod for others. Being out of work in Española was not like him.

  “Who’s he?” Collie Bill asked.

  “Ain’t a he, it’s she.” Slocum looked in approval at a fine-matched team of red mules that went past in a jig trot pulling a new red wagon loaded with supplies.

  Collie Bill peered through slitted eyes at him. “You mean to tell me that you’re working for a woman?”

  Slocum rested his shoulder against the porch post and watched a young Hispanic woman cross the street. Fine-looking swing in her walk. He turned back to Collie Bill. “Yeah, she’s been into it with some bunch called the Booster brothers. And some band of outlaws even killed her husband.”

  “Cal Booster in this deal somehow?”

  “You know them?”

  “Damn right, I know him and his brother Rip. Had a shoot-out with him and two of his rannies up in Dodge one time.”

  “Shame you didn’t kill him then.” Slocum pushed off the post and turned back to his friend. “I need to go check on her right now. Where’s your pony?” Turning around in a half circle, he looked for a hitched horse. Collie Bill always rode a good one.

  “Turned up lame. I was hoping you had some horseflesh I could borrow to get me over to Cimarron.”

  Slocum shook his head and dug out some silver cartwheels. “Go rent a pony. We’ll go out and meet her and I’ll introduce you.”

  Collie Bill hardly looked convinced. “I never put much stock in working for a woman.”

  “You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re dead broke?”

  “Yes. But I still ain’t warm-blooded enough for the notion to start working for no woman.”

  Slocum gave him a shove. “Go rent the horse. I’ll introduce you. It won’t be bad.”

  “Damn you, Slocum, catch a man down and you want to use him.” Collie Bill grinned.

  “Any way I can. Go get a horse.”

  They started up the street on foot, Slocum leading Heck. Dodging rigs and freight wagons, he and Collie Bill headed for the sign marked LIVERY.

  They reached the livery and Collie Bill went inside. Slocum wrapped his reins on the hitch rack and waited outside. The day had warmed up some, and he stood with his butt on the hitch rail, watching traffic go by.

  A woman came running from around the building. “Help me! Help me!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “This man is beating my sister.”

  “Where?’

  “At my casa.”

  “Is it her husband?”

  “No.”

  They hurried around the building through the narrow space and crossed a street, the woman holding up her dress to hurry. “Only a little way. Oh, please save her.”

  On the move, Slocum felt for his gun out of habit. They crossed a yard of barking dogs, his sharp hiss making them back far enough away to let him and the woman pass. They rounded the corner of an adobe house, and from across the street he could hear a woman’s wails coming from a small jacal.

  He drew his gun and crossed the street, waving the woman back with the .44. The sounds of the victum’s wailing and a man’s cussing inside carried to Slocum as he passed a good sorrel horse standing hipshot under the small mesquite tree. He reached the open doorway with the six-gun in his fist, and spotted the man’s broad back as he towered over the bloody-faced woman on the floor. It was Harvey Ryan.

  He was ranting at her, and started kicking her. Slocum busted him over the crown of his hat with his pistol, and the big man’s knees buckled. Looking horrified, the bloody-faced woman scurried away from him like a crayfish as he went down face-first.

  Not taking a chance, Slocum jerked Ryan’s gun out of its holster and stuck it in his own waistband. The other woman was already inside and on her knees, hugging the sobbing victim in her arms.

  “Gracias, señor. Gracias. He would have killed her.”

  Slocum nodded and jerked the groggy Ryan by the collar to his knees. “You ain’t getting the point of things. I warned you once. I’m short on patience.”

  Out of bleary eyes, Ryan looked up at Slocum. “This ain’t none of your damn business.”

  “I’m making it mine. Now load your ass up on your horse and go back where you came from. You bother her again and I’ll send you to hell for kicking your last woman.”

  “Who in the devil are you anyway?”

  “The sumbitch that’s going to kill you. Now get out of here.”

  Unsteady, Ryan got to his feet, holding his head. He reached for his six-gun and frowned. “Where’s my gun?”

  “You ain’t getting it back. Get the hell out of here.”

  Ryan went peddling backward for the door. “You ain’t heard the last of this—”

  “If you don’t make tracks, you will hear your last words on this earth. Now get out.”

  With some strain, Ryan mounted the sorrel and reined him up. “There will be another day for me and you.”

  “Buy a casket for yourself before you come. I ain’t wasting a blanket on burying you.” Slocum holstered his own .44 and turned back to the jacal.

  The woman who had summoned him stood in the doorway.

  He looked around to watch Ryan disappear on his horse and, satisfied, turned back to her.

  “She’s going to be all right. Thanks, Señor,” the woman said. “I am sure he would have killed Maria here if you hadn’t come.”

  “What goes on with ’em?”

  “He was her lover. Then he began to tell her what she must do and not do.” The woman shook her head and moved the coarse long hair back from her face with her fingers. “Finally, he said she should move into his casa. She knew then she would only be his slave, so she ran away, which made him mad.”

  “I see. I can’t stay here. So tell Maria to be careful.”

  Collie Bill was coming up the street on a Roman-nosed bay, leading Heck and looking for Slocum. “What did you get into?” Bill asked.

  “Some guy was beating up his girlfriend and I sent him packing. Long story.”

  With a tip of his hat for the lady, Collie Bill handed Slocum his reins. “Well, lucky for her you were around.”

  Slocum mounted and sat up in the saddle. “Maybe.” Maybe he’d only prolonged Maria’s problems. “Let’s ride and go meet the boss.” He booted Heck off in a hurry.

  5

  Slocum and Collie Bill found his boss coming down the road on the dancing gray a hundred feet or more ahead of the creaking carreta. Slocum glanced over, and noticed the flash of surprise on Collie Bill’s face at the sight of Señora Peralta.

  “The storekeeper is anxious for you to spend the night at his casa,” Slocum said to her, sweeping off his hat.

  She nodded and looked at his companion.

  “This is Collie Bill Hankins. He’s a good man. He’ll ride along just in case.”

  She agreed to that and checked the stallion. “I will ride on to Española,” she said. “We will leave at daybreak?”

  “Fine. We can see the carreta safely into town. Oh, do you have an extra horse around here?”

  “I am sure I can borrow one from Señor Goldfarb.”

  “Do that. We’ll return it. Collie Bill’s horse went lame.”

  “Of course. How unfriendly I must seem. Nice to meet you, Señor.”

  “Don’t worry none about that, ma’am. I can see you have lots on your mind,” Collie Bill said, and smiled.

  “I do,” she agreed, and galloped off on the hard-packed caliche road to Española.

  In the early afternoon, they arrived at Goldfarb’s walled compound along the ditch that watered the small fields and gardens during the valley’s growing season. An older man named Felix showed them to the stables and the stout roan horse that his patrón was lending them. Collie Bill thanked the man, and said he needed to go get his things. He left on his new horse leading the rented one, to go back to town.

  Slocum smiled. Obviously, h
is friend didn’t want anyone changing their mind about the loan of the horse after riding the livery’s dull bay for half of a day. It was a typical stable horse, mere transportation. The bull and oxen were put up and Diego went to take a siesta. Slocum found a spot to sit on a bench under a shower of golden cottonwood leaves. He was whittling idly on a stick when a young woman came past him in a swirl of skirts. In her arms she carried a small sack of sugar.

  “You must be the pistolero she hired?” Her dark eyes inspected him as she paused before him and slightly swung her hips as if still walking.

  He smiled at her. She was not a child. She was short and shapely enough. When he met her look, she glanced away toward the gate archway.

  “Yes, sirree, and you must be the sugar lady,” he said.

  Her dark eyes turned back to him and took on a look of mischief. “You want some sugar?”

  “You have some?”

  She dried her palm on her dress, looking away from him. “I might have some.”

  “Where would you keep it?”

  She lowered her voice. “Oh, go behind the stables to the small jacal. I will be there in a while. I must deliver this sugar, then I am off work.”

  “Good. We shall meet again.”

  She raised her gaze to the sky and tried to suppress her grin of excitement. “I hope so.” Then she hurried off.

  He whittled for a while, and then he tossed the piece of stringy cottonwood away. On his feet, he stretched his arms over his head as if tired and went for the stable. Parting the dusting and scratching reddish hens out in front, he went in the big open doors of the barn, which reeked of sweet alfalfa. The floor was made of worn wood, and he went by the stabled teams and fine horses and to the back walk-through door. There he paused and studied the hayracks and iron dump rake parked outside. High in a pine tree, a Mexican mockingbird scolded him in a wren’s tongue. Seeing nothing out of place, he headed for the shed the woman had spoken about. The door latch was on a string, with a peg tied on the end to keep it from being lost.

  He lifted the latch and the door let sunlight fall on the floor. Cobwebs clung to the wall studs and were draped around the small four-pane window that cast its light on the cot. The narrow bed was covered with a large woven cotton blanket striped in black and white. He undid his gun belt and hung it on the lone chair so it would be handy.