Slocum and the Tomboy

by Jake Logan

  “You know,” she said, looking over at him, “you and me could go anywhere in the world and live like kings with this much money.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “Don’t even consider it.”

  “Oh, I was just daydreaming anyway.” She gave him a push and went to strapping the top back up. “Now we got it, what do we do next?”

  “Put one on each extra horse and ride like hell for Ogallala. If they ever figure out that we have it, they’ll burn their tails to try to catch us.”

  “How much time’ve we got?” she asked, looking over at him on his knees beside her.

  “Time enough to drink that coffee.”

  “I’ll roll up the bedroll, you start saddling—”

  He reached over, took her in his arms, and kissed her. “That notion of going somewhere and living like kings wasn’t bad.” His gaze met hers. “Except I’ve seen bank runs. They ain’t nice.”

  She laughed and hugged him. “Hell, we might get tired of making wild love anyway.”

  They both laughed, and he hurried to catch the hobbled horses. Saddling went swiftly. She brought him a cup of steaming coffee. “This ain’t wonderful, but it’ll do till we get to Sonny’s.”

  “Whew, that will be good,” he said, eyeing the ridge to the west for any sign of trouble. How long did they have?

  The next two hours, they pushed the horses hard. He occasionally stopped on a high point to let the horses breathe, and he scoped the backcountry for any sign of pursuit. He wondered about Taylor’s reaction to the dead man and the fact that they’d obviously been in his headquarters.

  If it unedged him enough to go check on his money, Taylor and his men would be coming after the two of them.

  “Well?” she asked, checking her hard-breathing horse and the two others on leads.

  “We best ride like hell. I ain’t seen anything. Just figure that they’re coming.”

  She gave him a grim nod and they galloped on.

  It was long past sundown when they came into town and approached the jail. A man with a rifle challenged them from the porch.

  “It’s me. Rory,” she said, sounding impatient.

  “Sorry, Rory, we can’t take no chances. What’re you two doing?”

  “Can’t talk about it. You got an extra cell?”

  “Sure. We got them bank robbers in two and the crazy man Black in another.”

  “Tell a couple of them loafers inside to get out here.”

  “What’s happening?” a big man who filled the lighted doorway asked.

  “Hush your damn mouth,” she said. “I don’t want the whole town to know our business. Go get Harry Brown from the bank and tell him to get his ass down here right now.”

  “You’re serious, ain’tcha?” the big man asked her.

  “Dead serious. Now go shake a leg and get him. He’s waiting for our news.”

  “Leave it on the horses if he’s coming,” Slocum said under his breath, stopping her from unstrapping the first case.

  “I just figured a jail cell would be a good place to stick it.”

  “It would be unless we can stow it in the bank vault.”

  She agreed, and put her forehead on his chest. “We’re almost there, aren’t we?”

  “Close, girl. Real close.”

  “You get Yoakem?” the rifleman asked.

  “No, he’s still on the loose,” Slocum said. “Wakely back yet?”

  “No. He went to the other headquarters, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yoakem wasn’t up where you two went?”

  “He was there all right, but it was only her and me and they had several men.”

  “I can see that. You going back with a posse?”

  “That’s up to Wakely.”

  Out of breath, Brown arrived. “You have news?”

  Rory put her arm over the shorter man and led him to the first horse. “Darling, there’s your money. Well, half of it anyway.”

  “Half? The rest?”

  “Over here on this horse.” She guided him over there.

  Brown put his fist to his chest. “Oh, thank God. Thank God.”

  “I say we take it over and put it inside the bank,” Slocum said, anxious to get things done. “It’s making me nervous standing out here talking about it.”

  “Oh, yes. Oh, yes.”

  They mounted up and took the leads. The rifleman went along with Brown and the two men half-ran to keep up.

  Brown unlocked the front door of the bank and lit a lamp. Slocum said that was enough, and the little man got down on his knees, working on the combination to the large safe. Slocum and the rifleman went out, and each brought in one of the heavy suitcases while Rory stood guard in the shadows.

  She closed the door after them and locked it with a sigh. “I’m sure glad to be here with it.”

  “I’ll have to count it later,” Brown said, busy stacking the money inside in piles. “This is a miracle.”

  “Does Taylor have a key to that door?” Slocum nodded toward the front door.

  Behind the spectacles that reflected lamplight, Brown looked pained. “Yes, why?”

  “’Cause he surely knows the combination to the safe, too, doesn’t he?”

  “Why—yes.” Brown swallowed hard.

  “Then he’ll be back to make another withdrawal.”

  “Holy shit!” Rory frowned. “That’s about as safe as putting it out in a horse trough.”

  “Can you change the safe combination?” Slocum asked Brown.

  “I could—I mean, I used to know how.”

  "We’ll put the money in. You go to work on that,” Slocum said.

  “Sure, sure. Why, I’d never thought of that.” Brown shook his head and took off his coat.

  Side by side with Rory, Slocum and the rifleman placed the stacks of bills in the safe.

  “What made you think of that?” she asked Slocum.

  “Hell, I was thinking standing there that this was how he took it out. We might trap him, too. If he thinks his combination still works.”

  With her hands full of currency, she stopped. “I still think you have fortune-teller skills.”

  Brown worked on the mechanism. “He won’t open this after I get done.”

  “Don’t let any word out, savvy?” Slocum said to the rifleman.

  “I savvy fine. Damned if I’d’ve ever thought of that either. Him coming back here, unlocking the door, and then the safe. Tell me, how did you get the money back if he had so many gunhands up there?”

  Rory laughed and indicated Slocum. “A meadowlark told him that Taylor hid it from his criminal buddies.”

  “I hope you kept that bird,” said the rifleman. They all laughed, even Brown, who snickered through his nose.

  When the combination was changed, they left the bank, and Brown was locking the front door when Wakely arrived on a lathered horse.

  “They said at the jail—” Wakely began, leaping off his horse.

  “Of course we got the money, silly,” she said. “It’s all inside. What there is of it.”

  “How much?” He tried to see past her.

  “Hell, we don’t know. We just stuffed it in the safe and are going to go find some food.”

  “Wow. Yoakem? Taylor?” Wakely asked over his shoulder.

  “They were still up there. We’d’ve had to have had a posse to take them,” Slocum said.

  “I wondered about that when you two set out. But you did good getting the money back.”

  She caught Wakely by the arm. “How about finding some food now? I’m starved. I ain’t had nothing to eat all day but one cup of coffee and some of Slocum’s year-old jerky.” She hooked her elbow in his and started down the boardwalk pulling him along.

  Wakely looked back for help from Slocum, who trailed the two of them with the rifleman, whose name was Brenton, and Brown. “I knew you two had been up there,” the deputy said. “Some naked cowboy came staggering in to the ranch while we were there. Said Slocum’d
shot some gunhand named Yantzie and how he still couldn’t believe it. I mean, we laughed at him for ten minutes.”

  “Hell,” Brenton said. “Killed a gunhand, got the bank’s money, come back unscathed, and sent a naked cowboy packing. He don’t need a posse, he’s got Rory.”

  “And she’s damn good help, too,” Slocum said, and they laughed again and pushed inside Sonny’s place like a parade.

  Seated at the center table, the five of them sipping hot coffee and waiting on their order, Slocum felt the muscles in his stiff back begin to relax. He pushed his hat up with his thumb. “Now we need an armed guard inside the bank. Taylor doesn’t know that the combination on the safe’s been changed. Chances are good that he’ll come back and try to withdraw the money again.”

  “I’ll have to hire three more guards?” Wakely asked, looking overwhelmed by the notion.

  “Since I’m the banker now,” Brown said, talking for the first time that evening with authority, “I will pay their wages, so you don’t need to ask the county for more funds.”

  “Good.” Wakely sat back in his chair in a relieved-looking slump. “I’d rather gut chickens than have to do that.”

  “Hell, law and order isn’t cheap. Never was and never will be,” Slocum said. “Don’t ask ’em, tell them.”

  “Listen to him. You know, Wakely,” Rory said, “the sooner you stop asking questions and start taking charge, the sooner folks will stand back and let you through.”

  “I’ll start today.”

  Food arrived as they laughed over his answer.

  Saddle-blanket-size sizzling steaks overlapped the plates set before them, with brown beans in a bowl on the side. Soon, a stack of steaming biscuits and yellow churned butter in bowls, with wild honey in a separate bowl, decorated the table. The waitress refilled their coffee cups.

  Sonny stood over them in his apron. “Anyone need another steak, I can have it cooked in a jiffy.”

  Slocum thanked him and set in to fill his mouth with the first bite. He closed his eyes while chewing on the browned steak. It tasted wonderful to him.

  “Do I need to take a posse up there and arrest that bunch?” Wakely waved a fork at him between bites.

  “I’d say if we can trap Taylor and Yoakem here and then simply let that bunch of Texas hands wander off—it would save the county lots of money. Brown can file a lien on everything Taylor owns, and you can go up there and take charge with a judge’s writ.”

  “I sure like the save-money business. What if they don’t take the bait?”

  Slocum swallowed his last bite. “Then we go to Plan B.”

  “What’s that?” Wakely asked.

  Slocum raised his gaze to meet the deputy sheriff’s. “I’m still working on that one.”

  They all laughed.

  Later at her place, Rory heated water in a large copper boiler on her range. The day’s heat had hung on, and the closed apartment was hot despite them opening all the windows when they arrived there. Slocum lounged on the bed and read a dog-eared Police Gazette about a rape and murder in Illinois. He wondered about the deranged Black in the jail. Black came from Illinois.

  But the criminal being sought for the crime was a shorter man, five-six, named Alfred Craven, who had worked in that area’s hat factory. Obviously, Craven had become infected with Mad Hatter’s disease, the article went on to say, which drove him to this heinous crime.

  She sat down on the edge of the bed dressed in a blowsy nightgown. “Sure is hot as hell in here.”

  He sat up and put the magazine aside. He put out his arms and she sprawled into them. “Hot enough to not even consider messing around?” he asked.

  On one elbow, with the rest of her body sprawled half over him, she swept the damp hair back from her face. “It ain’t really that damn hot.”

  He gathered up the gown with both hands, and she lifted up enough until the wad of the garment was around her waist. He raised up onto his hands and knees, undid his fly, and shoved his pants below his hips. With the rising erection in one fist, he moved up between her raised knees.

  “Ready or not down there,” she said with a big grin of expectation as she stared down at it, “here he comes.”

  “Right now.” He shoved it in her moist gates with his anxious hips, and she sighed when it passed through her tight ring. Her arms flew around him and she began to hunch her butt at his every thrust.

  “Oh, Gawd, I hate to think about you leaving me.”

  “Then don’t.”

  She closed her eyes and smiled. They were absorbed in a zealous effort that consumed them in an intoxicating, passionate fire. Soon, they were both gasping for air, their bellies greased with sweat, and his back kept arching as he reinserted himself down inside her. Her ring began contracting with his plunging in and out. The effort to reinsert grew harder and harder as his dick swelled to skintight proportions.

  Then, she clutched him at last and he drove it to her depth and exploded.

  It was the water boiling on the range that he heard when he woke up. The room was growing dark. He could hardly clear his head.

  She looked equally bleary-eyed, and swept her matted hair back when she scooted over and sat beside him. “You suppose we need a bath?”

  He nodded. Then he ran his palm over his beard stubble. “And a shave.”

  20

  By sunup, there had been no sign of the outlaws from the night before. Slocum was busy using a currycomb and brush on Turk. Rory had the packhorse ready, tied in the livery alley, and Roan was getting her attention.

  “You think they split up and ran?”

  “I expected them to try something here last night. Now I’m wondering—since they’ve tried nothing. They needed the element of surprise and knew the longer they waited, the surer the town would be ready.”

  “They may show up in broad daylight.”

  He agreed, and went to put up the currycomb and brush so he could stand his watch. “Meet’cha for supper at Sonny’s.”

  She looked him over from head to foot. “Be damn careful, do you hear me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” And he left her with a wink.

  Day one passed—slowly. Slocum felt deep inside that Taylor wasn’t going to leave that money behind. On the run, he’d need it to support his lifestyle. With a straw sombrero over his face, Slocum loafed all day on the saddle maker’s porch bench across from the bank. The old hat smelled of sweat, horse, dust, and a faint perfume. He’d borrowed it and a serape, so the outlaws wouldn’t recognize him if they rode in. The bank’s back door was heavily barred, so the robbers had to use the front one.

  If anyone even tried the back door, Brown was to hang a sign in the front window on the green drapes that rode a brass rail and covered the bottom half of the window. NOTARY INSIDE. The plan looked good enough to Slocum. All they needed was for the rat to take the cheese.

  Inside the saddlery, Slocum spoke to Bob while viewing the front window of the bank out of Bob’s front window.

  “Nothing so far, huh?” the saddle maker asked.

  “No. I’d give them one more day and they’ll have to come in here.”

  “What about tonight?”

  “Wakely gets that shift.”

  “Never figured Taylor for a crook. ’Course, you didn’t know, but he’s my partner in this shop. Only way I could get any credit was making him my partner.”

  Slocum frowned at the man. “You ever figure that was strange?”

  “I needed a shop. I was dead broke when I got here. I needed leather. I needed a heavy-duty sewing machine, supplies. I sure wasn’t what bankers call a good loan. So I took his deal right off.”

  “How much does he get?”

  “Half.”

  “How many more of those deals did he make around town?”

  “Agatha over at the millinery. Rupert, the blacksmith. ’Course who’d loan an ex-slave money? I bet he got more than half from him. There’s more—I just don’t know for sure.”

  “So—”
Slocum considered the matter. He’d better go and confront Brown about it. “Thanks. When Rory comes in the back door here, tell her I’m talking to Brown at the bank. I won’t be long and I’ll meet her at Sonny’s for supper.”

  Slocum shed his disguise and went outside. On the edge of the porch, he checked the traffic of wagons, drays, and buggies before he crossed the busy street. He needed to see Brown before he met Rory for their evening meal. When he rapped on the front door of the bank, a man armed with a shotgun lifted the shade, recognized him, and unlocked the door.

  “I need to see Brown.”

  “Sure. No sign of them?” the man asked, sounding concerned.

  Slocum shook his head, and saw Brown had his hat on ready to leave. Slocum turned back to the guard. “Better tell your replacement to stay awake tonight. The time draws nearer.”

  “I will, sir.”

  “You want to see me?” Brown asked.

  Slocum nodded and motioned to his office. Brown showed him the way in and closed the door.

  “Where are the books on Taylor’s partnerships?”

  The man blinked behind his reading glasses. “What partnerships?”

  “You don’t know about the deals Taylor’s cut?”

  “No, with who?”

  “Agatha for one.”

  Brown pulled down the tail of his coat and puffed out his chest. “I knew they had an—an affair going on.”

  “No, I think that was a side benefit. In exchange for giving a loan from the bank, Taylor had cut himself in on half of the profits taken in by several businesspeople.”

  “Oh, my heavens. The bank board knows nothing of this, I am certain.”

  “Have you looked through his ledgers and books?”

  “Not very much. I have counted that money, made entries until I am blind.”

  “Let’s look in the desk.” Slocum indicated the large walnut one Taylor sat behind.

  In a matter of minutes, under the hissing lamp that Brown lit, they were looking at accounts and Brown was shocked at what they had discovered.

  “It shows here that Rupert Smith, the blacksmith, has paid him over a hundred dollars a month in the past year. How could he afford to do that?”