Slocum and Pearl of the Rio Grande Read online

  They both looked up at the sound of the side door opening. “I got them.”

  They both rose as Juanita burst in with two coats. One was a red and white plaid woolen coat, the other a sheep-lined leather one.

  “Which one you want?” Collie Bill asked Slocum.

  “The leather one if I’m getting a choice and it’ll fit.” Slocum took it from her, and Collie Bill was already putting on the plaid coat.

  “This fits great,” Collie Bill said, smoothing out the sleeves. “Warm, too. How’s yours?”

  “Made for me.” Slocum buttoned up the deer-horn buttons and hunched his shoulders under the thick coat. He felt warm for the first time in days. Then he swung it off and hung it on a wall peg.

  “What do we owe you?” he asked, turning back to her.

  She shook her head. “When you made those bullies pay for their lunch yesterday, I owed you those coats. It never was the money. It was the fact they acted like I owed them their meals.”

  At the sound of the back door opening, she put her finger to her mouth and shook her head to dismiss any more conversation. Slocum and Collie Bill went back to eating their pancakes. Diego came into the dining area and joined them. She delivered more pancakes and a plate of thin-sliced fried pork.

  “Where do you two go next?” she asked.

  “Colorado for a look-see,” Slocum said between bites.

  “You two better eat lots. It’s a long ride to Colorado,” she said, amused.

  “Ah, someone will feel sorry for us along the way,” Slocum teased.

  She laughed and headed for the cook shed. “I bet they will. You two could eat on your looks about anywhere.”

  “Good news to me,” Collie Bill said. Even Diego laughed.

  They thanked her again, left, and saddled their horses. Diego had already saddled the gray stallion for Perla. Tied to the corral, it acted impatient to get home, pawing the dirt.

  Perla soon came from the low-roofed house, slapping her chaps with a quirt. Slocum watched her stride toward them in the yellow first light. Lots of woman under that leather clothing—he appreciated his own new garb. Juanita had washed most of the bloodstains out of the wool lining and stitched the hole in the back shut.

  “So you are off?” Perla asked.

  “Yeah, we were fired this morning,” Slocum said.

  Her eyes quickly narrowed. “I only hired you to—”

  “Tell me one thing, Señora. Did me standing up to Sims yesterday speed up our firing?”

  Her face grew very blank. “Think what you want. Diego, bring the bull home.”

  She unhitched the gray, vaulted in the stirrup, and swung her leather-clad leg over the saddle. With her boots in the stirrups, she jabbed him sharply with her spurs and left them.

  “I’d say you plumb pissed her off, ole buddy.”

  Slocum agreed and grinned at his pal. “I sure did, didn’t I?”

  “You did a real good job at that.”

  Why was she so opposed to him doing something about those “regulators”? Someone needed to stop them. If it wasn’t him, it would be someone else. Maybe he’d never understand Perla of the Rio Grande. No telling. She was one woman he’d not loosened up one bit. There weren’t many he couldn’t get close to, but Perla Peralta was sure one of them.

  They swung by the kitchen, thanked Juanita again, and then rode north.

  11

  Pagosa Springs’ businesses crowded the stinking, steaming springs. A smell of rotten eggs and fog from the hot thermals swept the street and filled Slocum’s nostrils. He and Collie Bill stopped at Grayson’s livery and boarded their horses. It was cloudy, and Slocum expected snow anytime. He reserved two bunks for them in the livery’s bunkroom—then they set out to find some food.

  Despite Juanita’s promise, they’d found their three-day ride uneventful and without much food service along the way. They headed across the street for the café. Slocum turned up his collar as he dodged through the buggy and horse traffic. The sun was dying behind the thick cloud bank.

  “I could eat a horse,” Collie said, leading the way inside.

  “Or a full-grown grizzly?” Slocum grinned. Their meals had been slight on the road. Moving along without any chance to hunt, they’d eaten lots of tough pepper jerky out of his saddlebags. The notion of real food appealed to Slocum and his pard as well. It was all they’d talked about coming into town in the late afternoon.

  “Seen a menu?” a plain-looking waitress asked.

  “What’s on it, darling?” Collie Bill asked, looking up at her.

  “Elk, beef, or ham.” She cocked her hip to the side with her right hand poised on it. In her thirties, she had a hard red face and a long nose. The rest of her body sagged.

  “Good elk?”

  “They shot it yesterday above town.”

  “Cut me a thick steak off him.” Collie Bill nodded to Slocum.

  “I’ll have the same thing.”

  “Potatoes, too?” Collie Bill asked.

  “It comes with all the trimmings, bread, gravy, you name it, even dessert. Coffee?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Slocum didn’t recognize anyone in the place and that made him grateful. She brought their coffee and promised them their steak was cooking. Then she went and flirted with a man in a ready-made brown suit. He acted like she was in heat and he was her answer. Slocum noted he left her a quarter tip after a private whisper in her ear when he stood up that she nodded her head in agreement to. Women must be in short supply in Pagosa.

  The elk was good, the mashed potatoes were creamy, the gravy thick enough, and they had sourdough biscuits and real butter. They topped that off with apple pie and more hot coffee. Meal, tip, and all cost a dollar for the two of them, but it was worth it.

  Collie Bill decided to go check out a bar or two, and Slocum said he was going to look at the river. Enough light shone from the main street business district to illuminate his way down to the shore of the swift stream. Clouds of fog rose off the hot springs that mixed with the cold air and river water. Kind of like Coulter’s Hell when he broke off from the Lewis and Clark’s main bunch and discovered Yellowstone. Slocum had read about that as a boy.

  Later, Slocum had seen what Yellowstone was like, and could imagine being the first white man to find all that game with those mud pots and geysers. Wind swept the steam off the hot springs and across his face in a veil.

  “Come on in. The water’s great,” a woman said, and he blinked at the sight of her white bare shoulders with her wet hair plastered down. She was bobbing neck-deep in the stream. She turned like a river otter and in the dim light, he saw her bare breast for a moment as she rolled out and swam a short distance. Then she came back.

  “You can’t get far out. It gets cold fast.” Now she was up to her chin in the water. Obviously, she was standing on the bottom of the eddy.

  “You swim all the time down here?”

  “Whenever I get to Pagosa I do.”

  “Where do you live the rest of the time?” He squatted down on the edge and tossed pebbles into the water.

  She wrinkled her nose. “Down in New Mexico. We’ve got a ranch down there.”

  “Any hot springs on it?”

  “There’s one. Shed your clothes. Ain’t nobody else fool enough to come down here. But I’ve got to warn you, you’ll freeze your butt off getting out.”

  “So?”

  He looked around. There was no one in sight and she didn’t look half bad. And she was out there tempting him—that’s what he called a naked woman at night swimming in a river, inviting a total stranger to get in the water with her. So he shed his boots, coat, shirt, and pants. He was beginning to wonder if this was some trick or if he was crazy undressing in freezing weather. Too late now.

  When he looked up, she was gone. Damn, she’d tricked him. He dove in, swam a ways, quickly discovered the cold side of the hole, and came back into the eddy fed by the thermal water. It was warm and it did feel good. Suddenly, s
he popped out of the water in his face, threw her arms around his neck, and stuck her hot tongue in his mouth.

  Her hand was checking him out. He squeezed her hard against his body and felt her rock-hard breasts in his chest. For moment, he thought they’d both freeze, but she slipped down in the water and then led him to a deeper place.

  “You ain’t half bad.” She slicked her short hair back from her face with both hands, then laughed at him. Mischief danced in her dark eyes. “I’ve coaxed a few drunk cowboys in a few times, and then I’ve scampered away and left them to freeze.”

  He reached out and pulled her to him. She pressed herself against him and hugged him tight. She straddled his leg and rubbed her pubic patch on it until his erection began to poke her.

  “Ever done it underwater before?” she asked.

  “Sure, but never in a snowstorm.” Big flakes had begun to fall, and soon her head was covered in a crown of white. She moved over, raised her left leg, and reached down to insert his hard dick in her gates while he steadied her, holding her firm waist.

  “Whew, that feels wonderful.” She put her face on his chest as if embarrassed, and hugged him. His hips began to move his throbbing rod in and out of her firm pussy. He could feel her clit growing hard as a nail, and she was arching her back for him. Their breath came like runaway racehorses, and her fingernails were clawing his back. Harder, faster, damn, he wished he had her in bed where he could really pound her ass. His head was swirling like the water around them and the snowflakes in the darkness that reflected some light. Then he came.

  The surge from the bottom of his sac drew all his strength up and poured it into her. She collapsed in his arms and floated dreamily.

  “What do they call you?” Slocum asked. It was snowing harder, and he worked them out into deeper water.

  “May. May Booster. What’s yours?”

  “Tom White,” he said, wondering where her brothers were at.

  “Can I see you again?”

  “Depends. Where will you be at?”

  With both hands, she swept her wet hair back and upset the crown of snowflakes. “I can meet you at the cabin. Don’t come to the ranch. My brothers hate anyone I like. The cabin is on Crow Creek. You take the trail west from Latimer’s stage station. That’s Crow Creek and the hot springs are five miles west. No one comes up there in the winter. Ah, sometimes an old Injun, but he won’t bother us. Next full moon. Can you find it?”

  “I’ll try. Your cabin’s there?”

  “Yeah, we use it for a cow camp in the summer. Got a BB branded on the door.”

  “What about your brothers?”

  “I’ve stayed up there for weeks before, they never came to check on me. They don’t care about me going up there. Think that I’m getting away from their bitching.”

  “Next full moon?”

  “Yeah.” She swung on his neck. “Hell, I’ll be peeing in my pants by then for you, Tom White. You buy cattle?”

  “Sometimes, when there’s money in it.”

  She looked him hard in the eye. “You must think I’m some kinda cheap whore.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “No, but you’re thinking it. Jump in a river in a snowstorm and stick your pecker in a naked woman. She sounds like one to me.”

  He kissed her hard and felt her firm breast in his right hand. “A man don’t kiss whores.”

  “Shit-fire, you’re neat, Tom White. I hope to God you make it to Crow Creek.” Then she captured him around the neck and put her face close to his. “I really mean it. I sure hope you can make it.”

  Her mouth was hungry and he enjoyed it. They had a sister.

  “You married—” Then she waved her hand in front of his face. “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”

  He leaned over and whispered in her cold ear, “No.”

  “What do you do? I mean for a living.”

  “Little as I can get by with.”

  “And I met you in a damn snowstorm, naked as a buck in a hot river.” She shook her head in disbelief and pulled him toward the shore. “This is crazy.”

  Crazy would never explain it. He managed to get dressed between the blasts of snow and wind. He began shaking from the cold—May was already gone in the night and swirling flakes. Wrapped in his leather coat, he hurried to the livery a block away. There he hugged the potbellied coal stove in the bunkroom to drive the deep cold out of his body and dry his clothes before he climbed into the upper bed.

  Collie Bill was already snoring in the lower one. A half hour later, Slocum still wasn’t warm through and through. He shivered every few minutes and clenched his fist under the covers thinking about his arctic swim. May Booster was in her early twenties. Five feet six or more. Her body was hard as a rock. Belly muscled like a man’s. She must do lots of physical ranch work—as wiry as she was. Hay stacking, shucking fodder, setting posts. He could recall her calloused hands going over his privates and brushing his face. Her breasts were firm and capped with hard nipples in the cold. The short-cut hair made it easy for her to care for it.

  She was no house pet—next full moon on Crow Creek . . . He finally fell asleep.

  “You fall in the river last night?” Collie Bill looked him in the eye from inches away standing beside the bed. There was a lamp on. The others in the stuffy room were coughing and grumbling as they woke up and began getting dressed.

  “Come on, we’re having breakfast with an old buddy,” Collie Bill said.

  “Who?”

  “Carver Bledstone. You remember him?”

  “Abilene or Newton, huh?” Slocum tried to recall the big man.

  “He’s still as powerful as ever.”

  “What’s he doing up here?”

  “Like the rest, looking to get rich.”

  “What’s his plan?” Legs over the edge, Slocum bent over to pull on a boot. Damn, he felt hungover and depleted. She’d sure wrung all the strength out of him.

  “You find a poker game up the street?” Collie Bill asked.

  Was he asking did he poke her? “Yeah, it was all right. I broke even.”

  Amused, Slocum strained to pull on the other boot. Hints of the taste of May Booster’s tongue were still in his mouth, along with the barefoot tracks of some army.

  Carver roared like a grizzly at the sight of the two of them entering the café. The big red-bearded man rushed over to greet them. He gave Slocum a bear hug and a clap on the back. “Great to see you, amigo. My old compadre here, Bill, he told me that you were here.”

  “Question. Why is the great Bledstone here?”

  “Have a seat. Have a seat. Hell, I figured there’s still some country left up here to run a cow. Damn honyockers got the plains about covered and all plowed under. Have a seat, you two. Gal, bring them each a big breakfast,” he said to the waitress. “They’re cowboys and are liable to founder and die on your good cooking.”

  She poured coffee in mugs and agreed. Then she left with a swirl of her skirt. A little too much of an ample-bodied woman to catch Slocum’s eye, but Collie Bill followed her retreat with interest.

  “Tell me what you’ve found.” Slocum straddled the chair and took a seat.

  Bledstone lowered his voice. “Why, this country’s got so many rustlers working it, you’d have to sleep with your damn cows.”

  “My opinion. They take cattle in a shakedown operation. Folks are too scared to even try to stop them. My ex-employer even refused my help to run them off for her.”

  “Her?”

  “Señora Peralta.”

  “Oh, I met her once. Man, she’s cold as a Montana blizzard.” Bledstone looked around to be certain they were alone. “Tell me. Has she got as tight a pussy as I think it is?”

  Slocum shook his head. “I ain’t been closer than six feet of her.”

  Bledstone shook his head. “Hell, I got that close. Boy, she’s the snow goddess, ain’t she?”

  “I figure so.”

  “Well, I don’t feel so bad if the king
hoss never got any closer than that to her.”

  “He didn’t,” Collie Bill testified. “Hell, we’d both liked to have tasted some of her tequila.”

  Slocum thought about her small shapely butt encased in those leather pants. It might be something to cup it in his hands and pound on her for a long time. He better stop wishing and go to eating. The waitress had delivered the platter of ham, eggs, and fried potatoes, a heaping plate of steaming biscuits, a dish of butter and one of blood-red chokecherry jam.

  Bledstone excused himself to go talk to a man seated on a stool at the long bar.

  Collie Bill winked at Slocum before he dove in to eat. “Wonder what old Bledstone has on his mind.”

  “We better inhale it so we can escape him.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m back. Boys, boys.” He lowered his voice. “I figured you, me, and Slocum here could run a bunch of them varmints out of the country. I have a—man that will pay good money to get rid of them.”

  “Who’s that?” Collie Bill asked, cutting his look around to be certain his words would not be overheard.

  “Dan Thorpe.”

  Collie Bill whistled.

  Slocum gave Bledstone a sharp nod. “He wants ’em dead. I’ve been on their team before. The only good stage robber is a dead one in their book.”

  “Dead or alive with evidence.”

  “What will he pay?” Slocum asked.

  “He’s hard up right now. Five hundred a head.”

  “Give me some names,” Slocum said, between the salty sweet bite of ham and the hot biscuit.

  “Kid Langtry, Ship Nelson, and—”

  “One-Eye Davis?”

  “How did you know him, Slocum?”

  “We met them coming up here.”

  “They tough?”

  Slocum shook his head. “But they’re dangerous as a stick of blasting powder.”

  “How do we get them?”

  “They’re a couple of days’ ride south hunkered down in this snow.”

  “That’s fifteen hundred dollars for them three alone.”

  “Sounds easy,” Collie Bill said, and went back to eating. When the waitress brought the coffeepot by for refills, they hushed, and once she was gone they began again.