Slocum and the Trail to Tascosa Page 8

  He saw a boot. The boot was attached to the leg of someone lying still, facedown on the floor. The sight made him reach for his six-gun. Then he heard someone’s choked-up whimpering coming from somewhere farther inside the room.

  “I’m a friend,” he said, anxious to know if the unseen person might be armed and dangerous.

  “Go away....” More sobs.

  “I can’t. You must need help.” Slow-like, he eased the door fully open, letting more light inside. The person, who he suspected was a woman crying, had to be beyond the tousled bed and low enough down that he couldn’t see her. He stepped over the still man on the floor. The victim was shot in the back. His blood had already turned dark on his shirt where the powder-burned bullet holes were. Two—no, three bullets.

  With fear-filled eyes, the woman on the floor clutched a flannel blanket to hide her nakedness. He swept a quilt off the bed and put it over her shoulders. “I’ll go outside while you dress. Call me when you’ve got your clothes on.”

  She sobbed.

  He gazed at the dead man and then stepped over him. Outside he looked over her ranch. Not a prosperous place, but a homestead chiseled out of the rolling grassland. Two people working hard by themselves in the vastness of the frontier. One was dead; the other one had no doubt been ruthlessly raped by cruel men without any respect for anyone.

  He heard a sniff behind his back. He turned and saw her wet eyes. “Who did this to you?”

  “Four . . . men.”

  “You hear their names?”

  “B-Bridges—” She moved toward him, all choked up.

  He nodded that he understood and hugged her. Rocking her gently, he put her age as in the early twenties and much the junior to the dead man on the floor. A willowy figure in his arms, she was five-foot-six or seven inches tall. Her light brown hair, collar length, was mussed and needed brushing.

  “Why did they come here?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. What do they call you?”

  “Meagen—Meagen Holt.”

  “My name is Slocum.”

  “Poor Carl—they killed him.”

  “I can see that.” He looked over her head, staring at the neatly cut blocks of sod used to build the house.

  She went back to sobbing on him.

  “How long ago were they here?”

  “They left after dawn. I don’t know when—”

  “You know we’ll have to bury him?”

  “Yes....”

  “Do you have a shovel?”

  “There’s one in the barn.”

  “I’ll go find it. You make us some coffee and food. It will take me a couple of hours to dig his grave.”

  Numb-like, she nodded. “I’ll do that. Oh, thanks—”

  With a nod to her, he went to unsaddle Buck and his packhorse. With the beasts hobbled and grazing, he headed for the barn. What niggled at him the most was the realization that he had been so close to those killers. Perhaps less than six hours separated them. But for the moment, he’d need to take the time to help Meagen Holt put away her husband. The gang must be headed toward Dodge City. His biggest hope was that the former railhead would stall them long enough for him to catch up with them.

  He found the long-handled shovel near the door of the barn. The tool looked to be in good condition. Inside the small barn sat a nearly new Oliver mowing machine, and the barn was full of rich-smelling hay. A rusty red-colored team of draft mares stood in the corral and nickered at him. Obviously Carl had been a hardworking, neat farmer. Armed with the shovel on his shoulder, he went back to the house.

  From the doorway, he saw that Meagen had removed her husband’s boots and laid him on his back. Slocum bent over and closed the man’s eyelids, a thing she probably could not handle.

  “You need to show me a place to dig.”

  “I-I’ve been thinking. On the rise. He liked to go up there and survey his land.”

  He tossed his head to the north and she agreed. Then softly he said, “I’ll go do it.”

  “When the food is ready I’ll call you.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “Slocum—my sister and her husband live near Dodge. Maybe I should go there.”

  He nodded. “We’ll have time to figure that out.”

  The thick sod was the hardest part to cut and lay aside. The ground crumbled as he drove the blade in to the hilt with the arch of his boot and the hole began to take shape. He was near knee-deep when she came up with a cup of coffee for him.

  “No cream. Our cow died.” She handed it to him. “He was going to buy a new one.”

  “Thanks. I don’t need cream.”

  “Good. You should come to the house. The bread will be done soon.”

  “That’s not hard to do,” he said, scrambling out. Recovering his coffee, he realized they were on a high point and he could imagine her husband coming up here to survey his fiefdom. The mowed acreage looked like it had been given a haircut. They’d done lots of work establishing this place.

  Close to sundown, Carl Holt’s corpse was wrapped in a blanket, packed up the hill on a sled pulled by one of the Belgian mares and laid to rest in his grave. Slocum said some words of grace and delivered him to his maker.

  Then he filled the grave back in, and they went to the house when the stars came out. The plans were that the next morning, he’d take her to her sister’s using the team and wagon, and then he’d get on searching for the killers.

  Barr woke in the worst mood. Light-headed, he tried to separate things out in his mind. In the kitchen, he collapsed on a ladder-back chair. Mozelle served him coffee.

  “Is she all right?” his housekeeper asked.

  “She’s asleep. How should I know?” He shrugged away any concern for Erma. In his case he had bigger fish to fry.

  Mozelle shook her head in disgust and went back to turning the flapjacks that she was stacking up for the ranch hands. “You can go ring the bell for me.”

  He could smell ham cooking. The smoky flavor in his nose, he went out on the porch and rang the bell. Where was Doss at anyway? He should be coming back with Barr’s money. Disgusted, Barr went back inside again to feed his face.

  After taking only a few bites, he realized that there was no way he could eat his full breakfast—the pounding headache had returned. He took some laudanum, went into the great room and fell into a stuffed chair until he dozed off.

  The men went by him silently enough that he never heard them leave the house. He awoke in a few hours and shouted at the women. “Where did they go?”

  Mozelle came to the kitchen door and looked sternly at him. “They went to work, of course.”

  “I never—”

  “You were sound asleep.”

  “You should have woke me.”

  “Ha,” she said. “And get bit by you.”

  “I have to go find Doss.”

  She looked him up and down in disgust. “And fall off your horse out there?”

  “Pack some supplies and bedroll in a buckboard. Erma can drive me.”

  “She could never pick you up if you fall down.”

  “Never mind. Just get it ready.”

  He put off leaving until that afternoon, hoping his head would clear up some more. They finally left for town. Halfway there he became sick to his stomach and made her stop so he could barf up everything inside him. Holding on to the iron seat bar he hung over the side, gagging with the dry heaves. The pungent sourness burned his nostrils and eyes until they ran with water.

  Using a small towel Erma handed him, he wiped his mouth and blotted his eyes. Then he ordered her to take him on to town and a hotel room—he was too sick to continue his business. When they got to town, he was barely able to climb the stairs to the room, and he quickly passed out across the bed.

  When he awoke, it was dark outside and he found Erma asleep on the floor in a bedroll. He stumbled out of the room and went to look for someone he could hire to take with him. After searching in two saloons, he found two une
mployed Texans that Doss had told him about, Max Goodall and Maynard Kittles.

  He hired the pair to meet him at the livery the following morning to go after the robbers. Then with too much liquor in his empty gut, he staggered back to the hotel room. Once inside he took off his pants and crawled in the bedroll with Erma. But he was too drunk to get up an erection and finally passed out trying.

  “Get up. Get up,” Erma was urging him. “You told me last night you have to meet the men.”

  “Yeah.” He sat up on the floor, wondering if he had screwed her the night before. He couldn’t recall. After she straightened up his clothing and brushed his hair, they left the hotel. On Main Street, they found a café and had some breakfast. He ate sugared oatmeal, hoping it might stay down. One thing he knew, if he couldn’t eat he’d eventually become too weak to even ride on the buckboard seat.

  At the stables, Goodall told Barr that he’d heard Doss and his men had been through Wilbur’s place, the trading post south of North Platte, a few days before looking for the outlaws. He’d talked to some drifting cowboy he knew who’d come in the night before from down there.

  “You sure of that?” Barr asked.

  “Pretty reliable word on it.”

  “Good, we’ll go there first. You hear anything about a guy named Slocum?”

  Goodall shook his head. “But I know a man here in town who knows a lot. I’ll go find him and ask.”

  While Goodall and Kittles went to look for the man, Barr and Erma waited in the hotel room. Hours later Goodall and Kittles came back empty-handed, and the impatient Barr decided to leave without talking to the informer.

  Since Barr was in no condition to ride for long on the seat, Erma made him a pallet in the back of the buckboard and she drove easy. The two cowboys jogged ahead to see what they could learn. It was sundown when Barr and Erma arrived at the trading post. Goodall reported to him that all three groups had passed through there. “Bridges and his men first and a couple days later a guy the barkeep called Slocum and some boy who was riding with him. Then Doss and two men came after that.”

  “Who was the boy with Slocum?” Barr asked with his butt up against the wheel for support, unable to imagine who it could be. Still not clearheaded, he fought to regain his senses. The headache was back, and that didn’t help.

  “Don’t know. Your man Doss and two others came a day later. Sounds like they’re all heading for Dodge.”

  “We better get there too.” Barr shook his sore head. That damn Bridges would pay for his discomfort—damn him anyway.

  12

  The lights of the onetime queen of the cow towns sparkled in the night before them on the prairie when Slocum reined up Meagen Holt’s team of mares. He carried lots of memories about the former railhead on the Arkansas River. But with Kansas shut off by the tick fever quarantine, a legend died, and the town had been taken over by sodbusters.

  God-fearing folks replaced all the heyday gamblers, con men, cattle buyers, drovers, wanted outlaws and the damndest supply of shady ladies the West had ever known.

  “We can camp down by the river in the bottoms,” Slocum said.

  Meagen agreed with a nod. “I haven’t been here in two years. Carl brought me down here with him to get the new mowing machine.”

  “I saw it in the barn.”

  “Oh, it’s a good one.”

  He agreed. “It’s been that long or longer since I’ve been here.”

  “Do you think the gang’ll still be here?”

  “I’m not certain. The town’s a lot tamer than it used to be. It may not suit them.”

  She agreed. “Must have been pretty wild in those days?”

  “In those days it was wild.” He laughed and slapped the mares with the lines to make them keep jogging, towing the wagon, with Slocum’s horses tied to the back. It wouldn’t be long till they got to the town.

  With Meagen set up in the camp, Slocum chewed on some jerky, figuring by the half-moon’s travel across the sky that it was close to midnight. Not a time for farmers to be up, but people like Bridges had no alarm clock. He tucked Meagen in her bedroll and then rode Buck into Dodge. Close to town, he wound up his gun belt and stored it in his saddlebags. He knew from past visits about the strict gun rules in Dodge.

  Under the coal oil lamp, he found a familiar face in the town marshal’s office. With his long legs and dusty boots planted on the desktop, Deputy Marshal Ernie Copland blinked at him.

  “Why, Slocum. What in God’s green earth brings you back here?” He dropped his boots to the floor and stuck out his hand. “You’re a real sight to see.”

  “Business. Four men arrived in town maybe a day or two ago. Texas drovers, one’s a big, tall guy named Bridges. You seen them?”

  Copland nodded. “They were here.”

  “They’re gone?” Slocum felt a sharp pain of disappointment.

  “I can’t say for sure, but I ain’t seen them in a day. Dodge ain’t much of a place to entertain yourself anymore like it was before.”

  “I understand. Who’d know where they went?”

  “Like always, a bartender. They’re the best source I can think of.” Copland reached for his hat. “Let’s go talk to a few.”

  “I thought they closed all the Kansas saloons.”

  “It’ll happen soon enough. We’ve been simply ignoring the order. Since we lost the cattle shipments, folks have hurt bad around here.”

  Slocum agreed and they headed down Front Street. In the third empty saloon that they tried, they talked to a bartender that Copland called Ed.

  “Yeah, they were in here two nights ago. I wondered about the four of them. Where in hell did they get all that money they spent?”

  “They cleaned out a rancher’s safe in Nebraska,” Slocum said.

  “Sounds about right. They spoke once about Fort Supply. Of course, it’s across the line down in the Indian Territory.”

  “They mention any reason why they wanted to go there?” Slocum asked.

  Ed shook his head. “There ain’t much going on down there either.”

  Slocum thanked him, and he and Copland walked back to the jail.

  “What else can I do for you?” Copland asked. “I ain’t never forgot you backing me that night in the Wild Horse.”

  “Hey, that wasn’t nothing.” Slocum shrugged his shoulders. “I better get back to my camp.”

  “You get time, come by and see me. I’d like to hear what all you’ve been up to.”

  Slocum shrugged again. “I’d love to, but I need to try and catch those four.”

  “I savvy that. Come by anytime.”

  Slocum agreed, left the office and rode back to camp. He’d need to leave Denny a note at Beaver’s Mercantile in the morning. It was getting on, must be near two o’clock or later. He dropped heavy from the saddle and went to stripping out his latigos. Then he felt someone hugging him from behind, and he twisted around.

  “I’m glad you’re back. I was scared being out here alone.” Meagen held him in a tight embrace, wearing a thin night sleeping dress.

  “Anyone bother you?”

  “No, no. I was just afraid, being in a strange place alone, I guess.”

  “Let me unsaddle him, and I’ll be right with you.”

  “Sure.” She released him.

  Slocum got the saddle off and hitched Buck so he could eat some of the hay they’d brought for the horses. He turned and Meagen hugged him from the front.

  He bent over and kissed her. Her arms locked around his neck, and he swept her up in his arms.

  “I’m sorry, Slocum,” she said and buried her face in his neck. “I needed someone real bad tonight. Someone to hold and love me—I’m crazy maybe. I just needed you real bad. I ain’t imposing, am I?”

  “I’m flattered,” he said, setting her down on the bedroll.

  “Wonderful,” she said and began unbuttoning her dress down the front.

  He went to toeing off his boots. In a few minutes they were both naked and under
the covers against the cool night wind. She was thin, but her boobs were topped with large, rock-hard nipples, and her belly was tight with muscles that she must have earned pitching hay beside her man. Their hungry mouths sought each other, and soon they were lost in the arms of passion.

  His middle finger, sliding over her belly, soon found her rising clit. She raised her butt up to his teasing, and she began breathing faster and faster. Then she gasped. “Take me—please....”

  He moved on top of her, bracing himself, and she guided the nose of his dick in her gates with her small hand. When he began to enter her with his throbbing hard erection, she threw her head back and groaned as he passed through her tight ring.

  “That hurt you?” He frowned down at her, wondering what her problem could be.

  “No ... it’s wonderful.”

  Good. He proceeded to wear a new one in her. She soon clung to him. With her fingernails digging into his back, they rode their bobsled ride to new heights and then soared down the course time and again. She tossed and twisted her head as if she was in ecstasy’s arms and was flying with wings.

  Then her internal muscles began to tighten. They soon gripped his aching, skintight erection so his brain spun, and then needles in his testicles warned him they soon would crash. He reached beneath her and grasped the half-moons of her tight butt and buried himself inside of her up to her pelvic bone—then he came hard and she cried out, “Yes!”

  They sprawled in each other’s arms, exhausted and halfway doped by the adrenaline rush. Then her hand grasped his rod and she managed, “He’s still alive.”

  “Barely,” Slocum mumbled in her ear and rolled her toward him. In seconds he found her on top of his belly and inserting his half-hard dick inside her slick pussy. His callused hand molded the halves of her small heinie as she bounced up and down on him, waking up his sleeping dick to full power. They finished off that session with him on top, and again his aching balls filled her with another fountain of cum.

  They slept with her draped halfway over the top of him until the sun was well up. Then she woke him and scrambled to get up and dress, acting worried that someone would see her naked. Seated on his butt, he chuckled about her concern, pulling on his pants, and she shoved him over with a frown.