Slocum and Hot Lead Read online

  Fifteen minutes after finding the horse, Slocum stood beside it, patting its neck, holding its bridle firmly.

  “You’re not half the horse that the one shot out from under me was, but you’ll do,” Slocum said. The gray had been neglected from the look of the bones poking through its side and the constant nervous jerks of its head, but Slocum was good with horses and didn’t try to mount right away. He checked the hooves and got a pebble out from under one shoe, then stood and let the horse get used to his smell, his presence.

  When he finally climbed into the saddle, the gray accepted his weight without hesitation. Slocum turned its head and rode back to where his Appaloosa had been killed to pick up his gear.

  Barely had he reached the green valley and turned upslope when the horse reared, pawed at the air, and tried to run.

  “Whoa, whoa there,” Slocum said, wondering what had spooked the horse.

  Then he saw. Two men popped up from behind rocks and began blazing away with their six-shooters. The range was too much for accurate shooting, but so much flying lead had to hit something. One entered the gray’s chest and brought it to its knees. Slocum went down with it, unable to get free as he had before. With one leg pinned between deadweight and the ground, he tried to work free.

  The two gunmen started toward him, firing as they came. Slocum’s rifle had gone flying and lay out of his reach, but he had both his Colt Navy and the six-gun taken off the dead sniper. He pulled the outlaw’s gun from his belt and sat up the best he could, resting his hand on the side of the dead horse. Slocum began firing as accurately as he could, which was accurate enough to wing one of the advancing men. When the six-gun came up empty, Slocum tossed it aside and began using his more accurate Colt. He took off the second man’s hat, then flopped flat on his back when both of the owlhoots began firing fast. He heard more than one bullet hit the horse’s belly.

  Slocum let out a loud cry of pain and waited. He had four rounds left and intended to make them count.

  “We got ’im, Dusty.”

  “You sure? I can’t tell,” said a skeptical Dusty.

  “I’m sure. That’s Pack’s horse. I recognized it right off.”

  “Yeah, it’s Pack’s, but that wasn’t Pack astride ’er.”

  “So Pack’s dead. No loss. And that one’s dead too. Along with the horse.”

  “We should check the saddlebags,” Dusty said.

  “Why? Pack never had nuthin’ worth stealin’.” He laughed harshly. “He was always too busy tryin’ to rob us to make a dollar fer himself.”

  The two continued to argue while Slocum waited impatiently. He had a pair of rounds for each of them. There wasn’t likely any other way to prevent them from future ambushes, and Slocum was up to the chore. His finger remained light on the trigger, keeping away a tenseness that might cause him to miss, for what seemed an eternity.

  Finally tiring of the wait, he rose up a bit and looked around. The two road agents were gone. They had decided there wasn’t anything worth stealing out of Pack’s saddlebags. Or maybe they were worried Slocum was laying a trap of them and had run like the cowards they were.

  It didn’t matter to Slocum. He was still trapped under the horse. He checked once more to be sure they were gone, then laid aside his six-gun where he could grab it fast if he needed it, then began digging in the ground to free his leg. More than an hour later, Slocum got to his feet, limped about to get circulation back in his leg, and finally walked easily again.

  Unlike the two outlaws, he had no idea what he would find in Pack’s saddlebags. After a cursory search, he realized they had known their partner better than he expected. There was nothing in the saddlebags worth taking, much less stealing.

  He grabbed his rifle, worked the outlaw’s rifle free, and then set off for the slope where his Appaloosa would be gathering flies by now. Footsore and tired by the time he reached the dead horse, Slocum sank to the ground and tried to cool off. He needed to find a pond and soak his feet, but right now he wanted to free his saddlebags and get back onto the trail north.

  Slinging his saddlebags over his shoulder, juggling two rifles, and disgusted that he had to leave his saddle behind, Slocum set out again, keeping a sharp lookout for the men who had run off thinking he was dead.

  If he spotted them before they saw him, they’d be the ones pushing up daisies.

  Alert as he was, Slocum was still startled when he saw Claudia Peterson in her buckboard ahead of him.

  6

  Slocum dropped his load and stared. He wasn’t sure if Claudia looked more surprised at finding him here.

  “John!” she called, waving.

  He trooped ahead, climbing over some rocks and then dropping down in front of the wagon.

  “What are you doing here? Your painting finished over at the Rio Grande?”

  “It . . . it was getting crowded there. All the people asking after you, so I decided to come this way and . . . and paint,” she finished somewhat lamely. Slocum wondered what she had intended to say. Whatever it was, it would have been more honest. Claudia didn’t lie very well, and he ought to warn her against getting into poker games.

  “Did the marshal come back?”

  “He did,” she said. “And that terrible, smelly man in the fringed coat.”

  “Buckskin?”

  “Yes, that’s what it’s called. Wilmer was his name. He was fit to be tied he was so mad. You must have done something terrible to him.” Claudia looked innocent, but the way her eyes danced told him she was amused that he had somehow turned the tables on the bounty hunter.

  “I out-tracked him,” Slocum said.

  “If walking is the way you did it, you’ll continue doing so.” She licked her lips and thought hard before asking, “Would you like a ride?”

  “My horse got shot out from under me,” Slocum said.

  “What? Wilmer? Did he do it? Why, he’s worse than I ever thought, shooting a poor horse!”

  “Wasn’t Wilmer,” Slocum said. “Not sure who it was. Likely outlaws out to carve a niche for themselves.”

  “Here? There’s nothing to steal here.”

  Slocum looked at her closely. Her voice almost broke, and it wasn’t with fear. It was something else that he couldn’t identify.

  “I’ll fetch my saddle and the rest of my gear. Surely did not like the idea of leaving it out here, but there’s only so much I can carry.” Slocum dropped his saddlebags and rifles into the bed of Claudia’s buckboard. He saw her intent gaze fixed on the second rifle. “I took it off the outlaw who shot my horse,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  Slocum climbed into the box and took the reins from her. She resisted for a moment, then relinquished them to him. Slocum turned the buckboard around and returned to his dead Appaloosa. It took only a few minutes to worry the saddle free from the horse and get it and the bridle tossed into the rear of the wagon.

  “Much obliged to you giving me a ride,” he said. “My feet were mighty sore, and I hadn’t been walking but a few minutes.”

  “I’m glad for the company,” she said, and again Slocum heard an undercurrent that didn’t jibe with her words. She was glad to see him, but also wished she had never come across him. Claudia Peterson was turning into a mystery that Slocum increasingly wanted to solve.

  “Have you been here before?” he asked. “In this part of the mountains?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “The painting in the back of the wagon looks like this terrain,” he said.

  “How?” Her question came sharp and demanding.

  “The mines, the shape and color of the mountains, other details,” he answered. “It was a compliment. I think you did a good job of capturing what the territory looks like,” Slocum said.

  “Did you see anywhere that matched the picture?”

  “Not exactly,” Slocum said. “What’s the matter? Don’t you remember where you painted it?”

  “No,” she said, heaving a sigh of relief as if he had given
her an escape route. “I wandered around and got lost. I’m not too good at navigating, I fear. C-could you help me find the spot again?”

  Slocum considered Wilmer on his trail, and Marshal Hanks still poking around hunting for him. There were dozens of places he could have gone after leaving the Rio Grande gorge, and the chances of them coming this way were slim. Wilmer might be the best tracker in the world, but he couldn’t follow over rock, especially not after Slocum had worked diligently to erase his tracks.

  “I reckon I could take a while off from my traveling, since you’re so kind to let me ride along like this. There’s nowhere for me to get a new horse.”

  “There’s not, is there?” Claudia looked around, as if seeing the country for the first time. Her violet eyes darted about as she took in the details of the steep hills far off on either side of the valley. The area with the green valley looked less like her painting than the rocky canyon Slocum had taken getting here.

  “Did you follow me here?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t know how,” she said, and this carried a ring of sincerity that convinced Slocum her sudden appearance was entirely a matter of luck. He just wasn’t sure who it was lucky for.

  “The canyon I took getting here looked something like your picture, but there were differences,” he said. “Did you paint all the played-out mines?”

  “Yes,” she said a trifle uncertainly.

  “Then we ought to press on and see if a branching trail takes us out of the valley and into rockier terrain you might recognize.”

  “This is pretty land, isn’t it?” she said, looking around like a prairie dog popping up to hunt for danger.

  “Good grazing for the horses. And I need to soak my feet. There must be a pond somewhere. The stream running through the middle of the valley is nowhere near as inviting as a pond or lake would be.”

  “It’s been forever since I took a bath,” she said, brushing back her reddish-brown mop of hair from her face. Slocum saw grimy trails on her cheeks, as if she had been crying and then wiped away the tears.

  The horses surged suddenly, forcing Slocum to pull back on the reins. He grinned and said, “They smell water, and I don’t think it’s the stream. Up ahead’s a likely spot for a pond.”

  They drove around the gentle swell in the valley and looked down on a fair-sized lake fed by the mountain runoff. Slocum expertly guided the team down the slope until they came up on the shore of a lake so large he could hardly see the far side.

  “At last,” Claudia said, heaving a deep sigh that caught Slocum’s eye. The way her blouse rose and fell so delightfully set him to thinking of other things—like the kiss she had given him back at the Rio Grande.

  “Can you take care of the horses, John?”

  “I’ll stake them out and let them graze,” he said. “They’ve earned it. Then I’ll scout the area, just to be on the safe side.”

  “Oh, the outlaws. I had forgotten about them.” Claudia looked worried, then glanced toward the lake. “Should I . . . ?”

  “Go on. I’ll stand guard,” he said.

  “You’re a dear,” she said, giving him another kiss. This time it was only a peck on the cheek, and then she hopped to the ground, looking for a spot to undress. Slocum unhitched the team and found a decent spot for them that would keep both horses busy cropping grass for hours. Then he grabbed a rifle and went hunting.

  For men.

  A half hour later he had found no trace of the owlhoots who had ambushed him and left him for dead. The wildlife around the lake was active, telling him that things were as normal as could be. He listened to the swallowtails and the distant hunting cry of a half-dozen Harris’s hawks as he returned to the buckboard. He dropped his rifle in the back and jumped up to take one last look around.

  An army could have been advancing and he would have missed it. All Slocum could see was Claudia frolicking joyously in the lake. The sunlight caught her bare white skin and turned it to pure alabaster. But no hard rock had ever been so warmly inviting to the touch. He felt himself responding to the sight of her bare breasts bobbing to the surface of the lake as she floated on her back, legs scissoring slowly in the water to reveal even more delights. Claudia began reaching up over her head and backstroking toward the shallows. With a sudden flip that revealed the delicious curve of her buttocks and the sleek lines of her body and legs, she reversed direction and swam languidly away from the shoreline.

  Slocum tried to avert his eyes. It wasn’t right to spy on the lovely woman, yet he couldn’t force himself to turn away. She was too lovely. Water glistened on her flesh, and the occasional glimpse of the coppery fleece nestled between her legs made Slocum even harder.

  She swam so innocently, a child of nature, pure and unsullied. When she saw him staring, Slocum started to jump down from the wagon.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to stare.”

  “Well, I hope you’re sorry, John. I don’t want you to stare.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I want you in the water with me. Naked. Naked and hard.”

  “What?” She always surprised him, and this took him by storm.

  “Are you deaf or just a eunuch? Get in here! Now!” Her speech had always been hesitant, as if she fought to find the right words. Not now. Slocum stripped off his gun belt and tossed it into the rear of the wagon. As he walked to the edge of the lake, he worked on the buttons holding his shirt and jeans, then sat heavily to pull off his boots and finish shucking off his clothing.

  “I was right,” Claudia cried in triumph. “You do want me!”

  “I certainly do,” Slocum said, wading into the cold water. He felt himself beginning to shrink as he began swimming.

  “You’re going to have to work for it,” she said. “Catch me!” As agile as a river otter, Claudia flipped over in the water and began swimming powerfully.

  She was a strong swimmer. Slocum was faster and had more incentive. He caught her ten yards out from the shore. His fingers curled around her slippery ankle and stopped her powerful scissors kick. She tried to escape, but he dived underwater and came up behind her, pulling her firmly into his body.

  His manhood had been flagging because of the cold water. The warmth afforded when he thrust himself between her firm half-moons sent a jolt of such carnal intensity through him and made him think he’d never be limp again. His hands circled her body and came to rest on her firm breasts. He caught the already hard red nips atop each mound of flesh and began toying with them. Claudia sighed and leaned back in the water, pressing her body into his.

  They fit together perfectly. He continued to massage one breast as if it were a lump of pliant dough with one hand, and let the other slip slowly across her belly—and lower. The woman gasped when his finger burrowed between her nether lips and invaded her.

  “Oh, oh, John, yes,” she sobbed out. They floated on the water, locked together like this for several minutes. Slocum explored her body, and she wiggled and twitched delightfully against him, but neither could tolerate the situation forever. They both wanted more.

  Slocum’s body slipped lower in the water, and then rose beneath her as she spread her legs in a wide vee. He sputtered when she caught his steely shaft and guided it directly into the heated interior where his finger had romped earlier. Slocum was surrounded by warm, moist female flesh that squeezed down on his entire length so delightfully that he could have died happy then and there. He tried to move his hand over her sleek body again, but found that she clutched him too tightly and refused to let go.

  With the waves gently tossing them about, Slocum found himself moving in and out of her most intimate recess in a maddeningly slow fashion. He began arching his back and relaxing, accentuating the moves. He slid farther out and plunged deeper with every wave now. When Claudia started moving counter to his stroking, power was added to their watery coupling.

  Faster and faster they strove together, until Claudia slammed herself down into the curve of his groin and let
out a long, loud cry of release. This forced Slocum deeper underwater, and it took him a few seconds of sputtering to get back up. They had drifted apart, but Claudia was already repositioning herself.

  “That was so . . . intense,” she breathed heavily. “Now it’s your turn.”

  “Don’t shortchange yourself,” Slocum said as her legs locked around his waist. She fitted herself around his hard shaft and began bucking up and down. Clinging together, face-to-face this time, kissing passionately, hips levering back and forth until both of them felt the ultimate in human release.

  This time they drifted apart, floating on their backs, exhausted from their amorous coupling.

  Slocum paddled over and looked at Claudia closely. He would never have thought so much passion could be locked up in her seemingly hesitant body.

  “That’s about the best way of taking a bath I’ve ever heard of,” he told her.

  “It’d better be something you’ve heard of and not done before,” she said primly. “At least not often. You were awfully good at it. Have you had practice?”

  “Inspiration,” Slocum said, swimming closer. He kissed her clumsily as they floated in the lake. “I had incredible inspiration.”

  He grunted when he felt her fingers working down his belly and grabbing hold of his flaccid organ.

  “You want more inspiration?” she asked.

  “Not in the water. It’s cold.”

  “It’s warm in the sun, stretched out on the grass,” she said.

  He raced her for the shore. Claudia beat him there and was already on her back, knees bent and open in wanton greeting, when he got there.

  7

  Slocum sat patiently on a boulder looking back along the trail they had taken getting into another canyon—one that looked identical to another they had traveled the day before. He kept his rifle close at hand, just in case he needed it, although they hadn’t seen any other riders. The last human life Slocum had seen, other than the delightful Claudia Peterson, had been the pair of road agents who had shot Pack’s horse out from under him. This lack of humanity suited him just fine and left him more time alone with Claudia.