Slocum and the Canyon Courtesans Page 4

  She sighed and his eyes flickered open. He stared at her with a startled gaze of those green eyes.

  6

  Slocum reached out and grasped Melissa’s buttocks. She responded with quick undulations of her body and he held her tight against him as he thrust upward with his swollen cock. He burrowed deep within her and felt the quivering response as he plumbed the depths of her cunt with driving force.

  “Oh, John,” Melissa cooed, “it’s so good. It—it’s beyond belief.”

  “You surprised me,” he said, and she bore down on him with her hips and he rose to meet her, to plumb the very depths of her womb. He pulled on her buttocks as they rose and fell. She squirmed in his embrace.

  He felt a twinge of pain in his wounded leg, but it passed and he did not detect any bleeding. The wound was forgotten in the heat and passion of the moment.

  “Let’s get out of these duds,” he growled as he fought with the cloth of her dress and blouse.

  “Yes, yes,” she said, and slid from him.

  He removed his other boot, his trousers and shirt, while she slipped her dress from her body.

  They coupled again when both were naked.

  “Much better,” he said. “Your skin is soft.”

  “I love it,” she said, nearly breathless, as she lay on her back and spread her legs wide.

  Slocum dipped down and slid into her. She cried out as his cock grazed her clit. Her body jumped with a sudden spasm as if an electric shock had passed through her.

  She screamed softly as his cock reached its zenith and pistoned back and forth while buried deep in the folds of her sex.

  A soft wind sniffed at the windows and door of the adobe, riffled through the fallen rafters, and then began to whistle as it surged through the broken-down structure.

  Slocum and Melissa rose and fell to an ancient rhythm. She peppered his face with kisses, then engaged his mouth with hers. Her tongue slid between his lips and there was fire in her loins, lava in the soft pudding of her pussy. The kiss seemed to recharge her energy and she lifted her hips to meet his downward thrusts. They climbed the heights together in a gust of passion as the wind keened soft songs in the crumbling bricks of the adobe.

  They sailed to the summit of their passion, and their bodies quivered with the sudden blast of twin orgasms. Melissa cried out in ecstasy as an electric thrill surged through her supple body. Slocum gasped with pleasure as he squirted his milky seed into her grasping cunt.

  They floated down from the pinnacle of pleasure, sated, warm, spent.

  He rolled off her pliant body and lay beside her. He reached for his shirt and fumbled for a cheroot. He pulled out a box of matches and struck one, lit the end of his smoke.

  “Umm,” she moaned. “Smells good.”

  “Want one?” he asked.

  “No. I’m satisfied just lying next to you. John, you gave me so much pleasure. I—I’m truly grateful.”

  “The pleasure, Melissa, was mostly mine. You’re a lovely woman and there is no end to your womanly gifts.”

  The wind increased to gale velocity and howled through the rafters. Pieces of wood became airborne and the two lovers had to duck as they were donning their clothes.

  “We’d better head for the canyon until this blow is over,” Slocum said.

  “All right. I’ll get my bag.”

  “No, just leave everything here. I’ll lead Ferro and we’ll walk into the wind.”

  “Are we coming back here?” she asked as she brushed her hair into some semblance of uniformity.

  “I want to water my horse and fill the canteens. This wind is going to play hob with those tracks.”

  The two walked out of the disheveled adobe and Slocum untied Ferro. He left the saddle, saddlebags, and bedroll behind as they walked to the canyon. They braced themselves against the roaring West Texas wind and leaned into it.

  Melissa said something, but her words were lost to Slocum. The wind snatched them away as soon as they left her mouth.

  They descended into the blackness of Palo Duro Canyon and immediately were able to stand upright for the first time since they had left their woebegone shelter.

  “Ahhh,” Melissa breathed as her fingers combed through her tangled hair.

  “Let’s find a spot to sit down,” he said. “Maybe we can catch a little shut-eye before morning.”

  “Is this wind ever going to let up?” she asked.

  They could hear it roar above them like a wild river.

  “It should lessen by morning,” he said.

  “You don’t sound very sure about that.”

  “I’m not. I’ve seen it blow like this for days with little letup.”

  They found a spot next to the canyon wall. Slocum lay his rifle down next to Melissa and tied Ferro to a sturdy bush a few yards away.

  “I’ll feed you in the morning, boy,” he said to the horse.

  Slocum sat down and moved the rifle to his other side, so he could nudge up against Melissa for warmth. It was chilly, but at least they were out of the wind.

  “Can you sleep?” he asked.

  “If you put your arm around me and hold me real tight,” she said.

  He put his arm around her. She nestled her head in the hollow beneath his shoulder and closed her eyes. Slocum set his hat down and leaned back against the cold wall of the canyon. He had slept in worse places, he thought. He closed his eyes and listened to the keening of the wind as it flowed overhead. Only an occasional gust dipped down into the canyon, ruffling a few plants and dislodging a rock or two with the subsequent rattle of sliding sand.

  He thought of the two dead Kiowa and the spring with its rusted pump. It would be hell tracking those kidnapped women, his horses, the Kiowa, and the man called Scud. He didn’t know of any nearby towns, but then it had been a long time since he had been in that desolate part of Texas. In those days, he knew, towns sprang up and then were abandoned, became ghost towns. Some of them were no more than rubble, what with the strong winds, the flash floods, and the twisters that often desecrated the landscape.

  But he was determined to rescue the three captive women and retrieve his horses.

  They’ve got to be going somewhere, he reasoned, somewhere near this long canyon.

  He slept and dreamed of Kiowa and horses and the shadowy man called Scud.

  7

  Slocum awoke before dawn while the canyon still basked in darkness. The wind had died down, slid away during the night like a vanquished banshee. There was a chill in the air. Ferro whickered softly as Slocum stood up and walked away to relieve himself. He could smell Melissa’s musk on his body and the smell was good and comforting. She lay in a heap at the foot of the wall, sound asleep.

  He lit a cheroot and waited for the dawn he knew would come. He looked up at the wall behind Melissa and saw the first tinge of pink, a thin line along the rocky rim that slowly crawled downward.

  He jostled Melissa to awaken her. Her eyes came open and there was a look of bewilderment in them that soon vanished when she saw him standing there, looking down at her.

  “Morning,” he said. “The rosy fingers of dawn are touching the land above this canyon.”

  He helped her to her feet. She brushed herself off, and patted her hair.

  “Oh, I’ll never get my hair straight,” she said.

  “Just hope you don’t have sand fleas in it,” he smiled.

  She scrubbed her hair with both hands and glared at him.

  He walked over to Ferro and untied him.

  “Let’s get up to the sunlight,” he said. “It’ll warm up soon and you can comb your hair out while we tend to business.”

  “Tend to business?”

  “Yes. I aim to rescue those three gals and get my horses back from those redskins.”


  “I dreamed,” she said. “I dreamed I was in Saint Louis at a fine hotel and there was a large bed and a window that looked out over the Mississippi. I went out and down to the lobby, which was resplendent with gold and red brocade and crystal chandeliers. I wandered around for a long time. I couldn’t find my room, and I walked up and down elegant staircases and saw people dressed in finery, and I never could find my floor or my room. Then you woke me up.”

  Slocum laughed.

  “I’ve had dreams like that, only I wasn’t in a fine hotel, but a weather-beaten old whorehouse, and the women were ugly and fat, and my room looked out over a hog pen with an old man pouring slop into their troughs.”

  Melissa laughed and they climbed up out of the canyon. Slocum carried his rifle in his left hand and led Ferro with the other.

  The land was painted a rosy pink, with splotches of orange and bright red on the Indian paintbrushes. Yellow butterflies danced in the sun like tiny sailing ships, and a quail piped its plaintive call. The rocks seemed to glow a bright brown, and a gentle breeze jostled the sage and the Spanish bayonets.

  Slocum saddled up Ferro and tied his rolled-up bedroll behind the cantle after he draped the saddlebags over the horse’s rump. Melissa changed clothes, exchanging her long dress for a pair of homely duck trousers and a pale blue chambray shirt. She carried her carpetbag outside and handed it to Slocum. He looked at her and flashed a wry smile.

  “You know, in some towns, they hang women for wearing men’s trousers.”

  “They’re my brother’s. He gave them to me in case I had to paint or do farm chores where I was going. I thought they would be more comfortable.”

  “Well, you can’t hide who you are,” Slocum said. “I know there’s a woman in those trousers.”

  Melissa blushed as Slocum took her bag and tied it snug against the bedroll. He picked up the canteens, sheathed his rifle after inserting a fresh cartridge in the magazine, and helped her climb up onto her perch atop the carpetbag.

  They rode past the dead Kiowa as Melissa clung to him, and on to the water pump, where the other Indian lay dead, his blood dried to a dark rust.

  Slocum filled the two wooden canteens, let Ferro drink after he fed him a hatful of corn and oats he had in his saddlebags. He loosened the cinches then tightened them up again when Ferro had drunk his fill.

  “Now where?” Melissa asked as Slocum settled back in the saddle.

  “That cut on my leg sealed up during the night, so I don’t need much leaves or mold on it. I’m going to see if I can pick up any tracks after that hellish blow last night.”

  They rode along the canyon, which began to widen gradually the farther south they went. He saw no tracks for a long time, but he figured the band of Kiowa and their captive horses and women had stayed in the canyon overnight. There were no landmarks and no signs of habitation anywhere in range of his sight. Later, they came to a game trail leading down into the canyon and that’s when he spotted fairly fresh tracks emerging from the canyon and heading south.

  Even Melissa saw that the ground had changed.

  “Are those the tracks you’re looking for?” she asked.

  “Yep. They came out of that canyon about two hours ago. Must have bedded down for the night, out of the wind.”

  Melissa sighed.

  “Well, it’s flat out here. You can see for miles.”

  “Yes, you can see pretty far, but there could be Kiowa waiting in some gully or shallow arroyo. We’ll see.”

  An hour later, Melissa, dozing against Slocum’s back, listened to her stomach growl.

  “I’m hungry,” she said.

  “I’ve got some hardtack and jerky in my saddlebag,” he said. “I could gnaw on some dried beef myself.”

  “There are no shade trees.”

  “We can sit under Ferro here and he’ll give us shade.”

  That’s what they did some fifteen minutes later as the sun stood well above the eastern horizon, its fiery disk glowing like the bowels of a blast furnace. They nibbled on their simple food and swallowed water from one of the canteens. The water was warm, but not yet hot, and there was a slight breeze crawling along the ground. They sweated, but the flicks of Ferro’s tail were like a servant’s fan and served to cool them some.

  Ferro’s hide was streaked with sweat and there were bloody streaks where the flies had nipped him. They rode on and then Slocum saw what he had dreaded seeing. The tracks were all moiled in a rough circle, and as he rode farther on, he saw four sets of horse tracks that were made by iron shoes, flanked by two sets of tracks from unshod ponies. The other tracks continued on to the south, but his horses were heading east.

  He reined up Ferro for a moment and pulled a cheroot from his shirt pocket. He struck a wooden match and lighted the cigar, returned the matchbox to his pocket, and drew smoke into his lungs.

  “Resting?” Melissa said.

  “Thinking,” Slocum replied.

  “About what?”

  “My horses have split from Scud’s bunch.”

  She looked down at the ground, but could make no sense of what she saw, just a maze of tracks.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked, and he detected a note of fear in her voice.

  Slocum lifted his left foot out of the stirrup and cocked his leg around the pommel so that he was facing sideways.

  “I have to make a decision,” he said.

  “You mean . . .” She hesitated.

  “Go ahead and say it,” he said.

  “You’re wondering whether to follow Scud or go after your horses.”

  He smiled and blew a ragged smoke ring into the air. It wobbled like the ghost of a doughnut, then shredded in the breeze.

  “The businessman in me says to go after the horses,” he said.

  “But . . .”

  “But the missionary in me says I should follow Scud and rescue those three gals.”

  Melissa didn’t laugh. Instead, she frowned.

  “Which is the stronger?” she asked. “The missionary or the businessman?”

  Slocum took a long minute to answer as he worked a ball of smoke around in his mouth then let it seep slowly through his lips.

  “It’s an easy choice,” he said as he swung his leg back down and slipped his boot into the stirrup.

  “Easy?”

  “Yes. Horses are a dime a dozen. Kidnapped women are as rare as diamonds in a slaughterhouse.”

  “So, you’ll go after Scud and free my friends,” she said.

  “Yep. I’m just wondering where those two Kiowa are taking my horses. Is there a camp out there where they will join up with their own kind, or a ranch I can’t see where they’ll sell the horses for food, money, or whiskey?”

  She peered off to the east, shading her eyes with a flattened hand.

  “I can’t see anything out there.”

  “Texas is a big place,” he said.

  “Where do you think that Scud is taking the women he kidnapped?”

  “Must be a town somewhere along this canyon is all I can figure. I haven’t been down this way in a long while, and then it was only once and I didn’t go very far.”

  “What were you doing here before?” she asked.

  “I rode with a Texas Ranger after a couple of escaped prisoners who murdered a woman in Amarillo, raped her daughter, and cut her son’s throat with a knife. There was a big reward out for those two sonsofbitches and I was deputized.”

  “And did you find them?”

  “Yes, we found them, asked them to surrender.”

  “Did they?”

  “No, they threw down on us, rode into the canyon. We blew them both out of their saddles and left their carcasses to rot. It was hellish hot and we didn’t give a damn about carrying them back to
Amarillo.”

  “So, you didn’t get the reward,” she said.

  “Oh, we got it, all right. We took their gun belts, rifles, and shirts back with us and the judge saw the bullet holes and the dried blood on their shirts and awarded us each two hundred and fifty dollars.”

  “So, you’re a bounty hunter,” she said.

  “Sometimes.”

  They rode on into the late afternoon, following the tracks.

  The tracks descended down a narrow defile back into the canyon. Slocum guided Ferro down into the wide fissure, then followed tracks back up another defile onto the western side of the canyon. The tracks headed south and west.

  Just before the sun fell behind the horizon, they came to a wide road. The road was marred by wagon tracks and horses’ hooves and what appeared to be a few cattle tracks.

  “Funny to find a road out here,” Melissa said.

  “I think I’ve seen that road before. Not here, but back where the canyon begins to the north. I wondered where such a road would lead.”

  “And now you know.”

  “Not quite, but there’s something up ahead.”

  He pointed and Melissa leaned to the side to look around him.

  Some two hundred yards away, the road split into two branches. In the crook of the two roads there was a pole with a board nailed to it.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “It’s a road sign, looks like,” he said.

  They rode up to it. The board was cut at both ends to points.

  Someone had painted the sign in bright red. One, pointing east, read: PALO DURO CANYON. The other legend, pointing west, read: POLVO.

  “Polvo?” Melissa said. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s probably a town or a settlement, I figure.”

  “Polvo,” she said. “Funny name for a town.”

  “It means ‘dust’ in Spanish,” Slocum said.

  “Huh?”

  “Dust,” he said. “Probably a right-fitting name for a town way out here. Anyway, that’s where the tracks lead and that’s where we’re going to go.”