Slocum and the Bandit Cucaracha Read online

  “You never saw her riding with them?”

  “No, but I did not bother with them. As I said, they watered their horses and then went on. I will call Estevan. He may be able to tell us.”

  “The food is ready, señor,” a woman announced from the side door.

  “Fine. Vinny, send word for Estevan to come up here.”

  “Sí, patrón.”

  The kitchen help saw them seated, then began delivering dishes. There was too much food for anyone to eat it all. But Slocum tried a little of everything.

  “Estevan.” Strycker wiped his mouth on a napkin and rose as the man entered the room. “Tell my amigo Slocum if you saw McCarty’s wife with La Cucaracha.”

  “We heard they had kidnapped her, but no one who works here saw her go by with them.”

  Slocum wiped his hands on his napkin, then reached over to shake the man’s callused, rough hand. “Did you think that was strange?”

  “Sí, Señor Slocum. Very strange. This hombre who leads them is never with them. I have never seen him. If he kidnapped her, why wasn’t she riding with his men anyway?”

  “I have no idea. You see, she and McCarty are my very good friends. They shot him up in that raid. He lost his arm from one bullet and was shot two more times.”

  “I hope he is better.”

  “Yes, so do I. But I really need to find his wife.”

  Estevan turned his palms up. “If I could help you, I would. But these crazy people live deep in the mountains somewhere.” He shrugged. “God be with you, hombre.”

  In the morning they rode into the foothills clustered with juniper and pancake cactus and more streams with water that came from the mountains. A village called Cuervo was Slocum’s destination, and they arrived there in midafternoon. It was a sleepy little place in the deeper canyons with cottonwoods and some irrigated crops. Not a prosperous mining community, where gold or silver was mined, but a small agricultural settlement on one of the mountain entrance roads.

  His men made camp outside of the scattered jacals. Since there was plenty of time left in the day, Slocum and Angela rode into town. He spoke to the padre at the mission church, a young man named Paul, who told him he knew little about this one they called La Cucaracha. Paul said that he’d buried two of the Cockroach’s men who’d died on the trail when they came back from the raid on McCarty’s hacienda, but he said he felt the names given to him were not true ones. He had not heard about the woman’s kidnapping.

  Slocum thanked him and handed him some coins for the poor box. Next Slocum started for a cantina and left Angela with the horses at the rack.

  “I won’t be long,” Slocum said.

  She nodded in agreement.

  His eyes adjusted slowly to the dim light inside the smoky interior. Several men were playing cards at a table, and they eyed him suspiciously. The bartender came over with a bottle half full of brown liquid and a glass in his other hand.

  “Drink?”

  Slocum looked around and saw the card players had given up looking at him. He turned back and put a silver cartwheel on the scarred board top. The bartender glanced down at it, then met his gaze.

  “La Cucaracha?” Slocum said under his breath.

  The man shook his head.

  Slocum noticed that the bartender seemed nervous and was looking often at the card players, as if he didn’t want them to see him taking money. He put a ten peso gold coin on top of the silver coin.

  The man shook his head. Then out loud he said, “I have no whiskey, señor. Only mescal.”

  Slocum nodded, started to pick up the coins and whispered, “If you hide the dragon he may come and eat you anyhow.”

  The bartender looked pale even in the low light and swallowed hard.

  Slocum, with the coins back in his pocket, went outside and joined Angela.

  “Learn anything?”

  He shook his head and then swung into the saddle. “Fear has a grip around here on the little people.”

  “Powerful force,” she agreed.

  They rode back to camp and joined the others. Angela headed for the fire pit while Slocum paused to speak with the men. “You have any relatives here?” he asked them as Obregón took both of their horses.

  “No, señor. We will put the animals up. We have waited for the señora’s good food. Jesús and I are good food burners.” They all laughed.

  “I may know someone here,” Cherrycow said.

  “Will you need some money to find him?” Slocum asked him.

  The Apache, who had stayed quiet most of the trip but had been helpful to the others, smiled. “No, but I will go look for him.”

  Angela busied herself making a fire with the wood they had scrounged for her and getting food ready for her hungry crew. She sang a folk song about a wild horse that all the mountain people sang. Slocum felt grateful not to be in the saddle, and sat on the ground, hugging his knees. He was thinking about Angela’s body and what he planned to do with it later.

  Someone rode up and all hands went for their gun butts. The man nodded in the sundown’s bright glare. “I am an amigo, señor.”

  “Fine. Get down,” Slocum said. He noticed Jesús slip off to make sure this stranger had no one else coming behind him. In a few minutes, Jesús rejoined them.

  “You are looking for the McCarty woman?” the stranger asked, removing his sombrero and bowing his head at Angela.

  “What is your name? Do you know where she is?” Slocum asked.

  The man looked around to be certain they were alone. “My name is Monte. I know her location, but I can only take one man up there.”

  “Monte, tell me where she is at.”

  “No, you would not pay me for the information.”

  “How much do you want?”

  “Five hundred pesos.”

  Slocum shook his head. “That is too much for telling me something that may be a lie.”

  “I swear on my mother’s grave I tell you the truth.”

  “Many men swear on their mother’s grave. I don’t know you and I don’t trust you either.”

  “If I take you to her, will you pay me?”

  “If she isn’t there or if it’s a trap, I’ll kill you first.” This hombre reminded Slocum of a cornered rat in a grain bin.

  The man swallowed hard. “I savvy.”

  Slocum saw Angela cut him a cold look, then she turned back to her cooking. He could tell that she didn’t trust this Monte and was upset that Slocum would even bargain with him. It’d be better to trust her judgment, but still, if Monte could get him into the camp—maybe he could buffalo his way out with Martina. He needed a lead on her location, and this might be the only one they would get.

  He went for a cup of coffee and left Monte sitting by himself. When Slocum squatted down beside her fire, Angela snapped at him, “Who is that little rat?”

  “Calls himself Monte. Says he knows where Martina McCarty is at.”

  Using a rag as a hot holder, he poured some coffee into his cup. When the pot was back in place, she checked on her beans with a wooden spoon. “I don’t trust him.”

  “I know that.”

  “He is either not telling you the truth or not all of it.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  Her brown eyes pleaded with him. “Even careful can get you killed.”

  Slocum went back to the man and sat down. “Where do you live?”

  “I have no home.”

  “How do you know where Señora McCarty is at?”

  “I knew who the señora was, and when I learned where they held her, I knew that her husband would pay me for the information.”

  “Why stop to see me?”

  The man smiled in the growing twilight. “Aren’t you the man he hired to get her back?”

  Slocum looked at the man and then he shook his head. Nothing in Mexico was a damn secret. Not a week on the road and the word had already reached the mountains ahead of his arrival that McCarty had sent Slocum to rescue his wife. At lea
st, this bandit had been forewarned. He shook his head. “How far away is she?”

  “Three days.”

  “I can cross these mountains in that amount of time.”

  “We have to go by the back ways.”

  Slocum wondered how much of what Monte said was true and how much was fabrication to extort money from him. Angela’s opinion of this man should be a warning to him.

  Jesús and Obregón soon finished with their horse chores and returned. Neither of those two acted very warmly toward Monte or were happy about his remaining in their camp. Angela soon made them tortillas to fill with her frijoles and fed her crew.

  “Where is Cherrycow?” she asked, delivering Slocum some burritos.

  “He is in the village looking for a friend.”

  She nodded that she had heard him. Slocum noted that she’d fed the man Monte and then sat by herself to eat. This must be a serious thing with her. Didn’t she realize that sometimes he had to take chances to reach the means to an end? Maybe if he explained the situation better to her, she would understand.

  By the time they finished supper, it was dark save for the stars. The moon would be late rising. The man Monte asked for permission to stay with them. Slocum agreed and shouldered his own bedroll. Angela nodded that she was coming, and when they’d gone a hundred yards away in the junipers, he cleared out the rocks and sticks with the sides of his boots.

  She sat on the roll and shook her head. “I hope he does not cut your throat while we sleep.”

  He untied the roll and she rose for him to spread it. “Oh, I don’t think he is a killer. He’s one of those men who lives on the edge.”

  Even in the starlight he saw her scowl at his words. “He can’t be trusted.”

  “I need to find Martina. Days go by fast.”

  “I don’t want you dead. Who will find her when they kill you?”

  “You, Obregón, Jesús and Cherrycow.”

  “Not me—”

  He cut her off, catching her by the waist, then drew her close and kissed her. For a brief moment she fought him, but soon allowed him to kiss her and finally submitted to his attention.

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” she whispered as he unbuttoned her dress to get to her bare flesh.

  Then with a finger, he moved the hair aside from her ear and whispered, “I simply want you and your body.”

  She gave him a scowl, then began to help him undress. With his boots toed off, he dropped his gun belt to the bedroll, and she undid his pants, letting them drop to his knees. They soon were naked and secure under the covers.

  His hand ran over her mound of stiff pubic hair while his hungry mouth fed on her breasts. She shook her head at him and finally got her warning out. “That man will either expose you to them or get you killed.”

  Then they were lost in their own physical pleasure and she spread open her love chest by widening and raising her legs for his entry. He soon was in place and she closed her eyes to enjoy his pounding. Damn, her womanhood felt like a vise clutching his throbbing dick. He savored the muscles in her body working with his for the most pleasure and they fell into a whirlpool that carried them away. This might be the last time for a while that they were able to share each other’s bodies, and he intended to get as much of her as he could to remember her ways.

  Before sunup the next day, Slocum met with Obregón, Jesús and Angela, and they made their plans. Cherrycow had not yet returned, so Monte was still their only lead on Martina’s whereabouts. Slocum told the others wait for Cherrycow to come back, and then to go to a village, one he considered fairly safe, while he went with Monte to find Martina. The village, St. Francis, was a small community deep in the Madres. Several people would shelter and look out for them there. He gave Angela a list of the names of people to trust and some money for their needs. Then with only some supplies in his saddlebags, he kissed her good-bye

  “I’ll see you in a week or two in St. Francis.”

  She shook her head. “I know what he plans to do to you. I won’t cry over your death. That man will kill you somehow, somewhere. I will not go to St. Francis. I will take my chances with that rancher Don Juarta. He needs me more than you do.”

  “I’m sorry you feel this way.”

  Damn, he hated to lose her. Perhaps he was being too headstrong about going with this man, but he felt that it was urgent to find Martina as quickly as possible.

  “Here, take some money for the way to Juarta. You may need it.”

  She shook her head.

  He reached down, forced her hand open, put thirty dollars in her palm, then closed her hand. “I’ll have two of the men take you down there.”

  “I don’t need anything from you.” She shoved her clenched fists down at her side. “And I certainly don’t need the men to show me the way to Juarta’s.”

  With a nod, he stepped back. “I’m sorry, Angela. You were very generous with me. May God take care of you.”

  He stepped into the stirrup and hoped for another word with her. But when he swung his leg over the rump of his mountain horse, Baldy, he realized she had already left, and was gone from his life. But he waved to her back and rode off after Monte, who sat a thin bay mount. Slocum’s belly churned over her bitter rebellion. Maybe he should have seen it coming. Booting Baldy in the sides, he made him trot to catch up with his man.

  “Three days, huh?” Slocum asked him.

  Monte managed to nod. Slocum dismissed him and rode on.

  Only time would tell how this would work. He regretted most losing Angela and felt that he needed two sets of eyes to watch the “rat.” But in his book, Martina McCarty was short on time to be rescued from those bastards. By this time, she had no doubt grown tired of all the pricks jammed into her since the attack on their hacienda. How had the Cockroach concealed her kidnapping so well? And did Monte know a damn thing about her location? If that rat planned to get any money for his spying, he better have knowledge of where they held her or, Slocum resolved, he’d feed him to the circling buzzards in the updraft overhead.

  The buckskin clothing Slocum wore felt comfortable enough. It and the sombrero made him look more like the people who lived in the mountains. They passed woodcutters and pack trains moving rich ore from remote mines to the smelters on through the border. Monte ignored them. At least Slocum made note that none of them acted as though they recognized him. The climb into the pine country in the afternoon brought cooler temperatures. Monte told him they needed to travel north and Slocum agreed—it was his neck he risked.

  They took a well-used trail headed in that direction. Slocum had never been on this path before, but many such ways existed crossing the range. Late in the day, his guide told him there was a safe place ahead for them to spend the night and get some food.

  “Fine,” Slocum said, looking around when he took a left at the Y in the trail.

  “The village is down this way.” Monte reined up his horse when Slocum didn’t immediately follow him.

  “All right.” Slocum booted the bald-faced gelding after him. Something didn’t add up. The man said they had to circle around to get to where Martina was being held. He understood that tactic, but until Monte told him more about this route, he wondered if it was all a hoax.

  The village was made of mostly log cabins and some adobe ones. Maybe a dozen or so served as dwellings. Children busy at play stopped, grew silent and stared at the two strangers. Monte tried to make his pokey horse go faster, but it was no use. He rode up to a jacal, and a woman came out. Her arms folded, she looked critically at Slocum’s guide.

  “Nada, how are you?” Monte asked, dismounting. “Me and my amigo want to buy supper.”

  She held out her palm for payment. Slocum about laughed at the haughty look she gave Monte, as obviously she expected payment in advance. For sure, she didn’t trust the peckerwood either.

  “Pay her,” he said to Slocum.

  “How much?”

  “Two pesos—”

  “No
.” She stomped her sandal. “Three.”

  Monte shrugged. “I owed her more than I thought.”

  “Nada, is that all he owes you?” Slocum rode in close, smiled, dismounted and handed her the money.

  The woman in her early twenties turned her attention to Slocum and made a pleasant face at him. She was short, as were most natives, and a little soggy around the waist, but she was prettier than most women in these remote villages. She obviously didn’t trust Monte, and this new hombre she had before her had enough monetary attributes for her to show her graceful side.

  She hooked her arm in his and invited him to come into her jacal. On the way, she dropped the coins in between her proud breasts. At the doorway, she turned to Monte. “You can put the horses up. I will show this fine hombre to my casa.”

  “Sí.” Slocum doubted that Monte enjoyed being made the horse groom. Who cared? This woman, Nada, showed him the pallet for him to sit on. When he was seated, she swept up a bottle of wine, took a swig and wiped the back of her hand over her mouth, then on her knees she pushed the bottle toward him. “Here, have some. You must be desperate.”

  He took the bottle from her. “Why do you say that?”

  “That bastard Monte is worthless at anything.” Her dark eyes glared at the door.

  “What did he do to you?”

  “Promised me—” She shook her head as if it was too much to explain. “I will fix you some food now.” With a mad look at the closed door, she absently took the bottle and raised it for a swig again. Then she handed the bottle back to him and moved to begin building a fire in her small cooker.

  “Is this your village?”

  She looked up and then nodded. “I should have gone to Juárez a long time ago. There is no money here. Bandits often come by here, rape us and rob us, and the government won’t do anything. They steal our young girls to sell into the slave trade.”

  He nodded. These simple people, farmers, woodcutters and a few miners, lived up here away from the law and its shield. It was a raw country overrun by outlaws with no respect for the people. They understood only force and the muzzle of a loaded gun.