by Jake Logan
“No, let me up!”
He shook his head at her. “Whip him. He needs it.” Then he turned and left them, the john protesting behind him.
Thirty minutes later, he was back in bed and snuggled against Sue Ellen’s warm form. Half-awake, she reached back and found his pecker with her fist.
“Ah, you’re back,” she said dreamily, and rolled over to face him. “Just in time—”
23
The next morning, he learned from the waitress in the Cozy Café that the Weathers Mine was up in Sultan Canyon. She looked him over after disclosing the location. “And I hear it’s a tough place, mister.”
Slocum nodded before she turned to put in their order. “Thanks for the warning.”
“You going now?” Sue Ellen asked in a soft whisper.
“He can wait. You need that new dress and the hairdresser today.”
“But—”
He reached over and put a finger on her lips. “First things first.”
She gave him a what-the-hell look and shrugged.
“Yoakem is broke,” he said. “That is why the widow is working the line.”
“Where will he ever get more money?”
“Hold up a stage. Rob some guy like that john last night. He’s a man of many bad ways, besides work.”
Sue Ellen smiled. “He was the real reason you brought me here—to look for him.”
“Some, but since I am here, I’ll try to put him where he belongs for killing a friend of mine. But I also came here to help you find your husband. And now to help you find a new one.”
She blushed and dropped her gaze.
“You look very fresh when you’re embarrassed,” he said, and laughed softly at her discomfort.
Her eyes narrowed at the corners and she glared at him. “Why hasn’t some woman killed you?”
“Why would she?” He turned his palms up at her.
“First of all—” The waitress arrived with their breakfasts and Sue Ellen sat back. “We can finish this later.”
An hour later, three women working hard in the dress shop moved around Sue Ellen, measuring and showing her material.
“The dark blue material”—Slocum pointed it out when the woman held it over Sue Ellen’s shoulders—“that’s the one. We need it by five o’clock.”
“Oh, so soon.” The older woman in charge held her hand to her forehead in dread.
“The price will cover it,” he said to the one in charge. While the girl in her teens showed Sue Ellen the latest in corsets, he went out the open front door to look up and down the hill. He might wire Wakely later about Yoakem.
Sue Ellen came out, caught his arm, and pulled him into the doorway to whisper, “Two fancy dresses?”
He looked back inside and nodded to the older woman. “Four-thirty. We’ll be here.”
“I’ve never worn a corset in my life,” Sue Ellen said under her breath as they strode up the boardwalk. “I’ve heard that women faint in them if they aren’t used to them.”
“You won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
She gave his arm a shake. “You don’t know everything— well, maybe you do.”
The hairdresser took two hours, but Sue Ellen emerged with her golden brown hair in curls piled on her head. She walked a little stiffly beside him, and he smiled before he said, “You can loosen up now. It won’t wilt.”
They both laughed.
He wired Wakely about Yoakem’s possible location, and then they went for lunch. After sandwiches, they went to the Red Lady and he played cards. Her new hairdo drew lots of looks. Nothing exciting happened for him, and at mid-afternoon he left no richer or poorer than he came in.
The blue dress looked elegant on her, and she swirled dreamily around the room in the dress shop for him.
“Perfect,” he said, and paid the woman for both dresses. Plans were made to pick the second one up the next day at five.
Carrying the tail of her dress and huffing for breath, she hurried beside him. They went back to the Alhambra to rest for the evening of cards. In their room, she collapsed against the wall.
“Oh, this corset—”
“It is the price that one pays for beauty.” He squeezed her chin and kissed her on the mouth.
“Will you undress me until it is time to go?”
“Only at a price.”
“Oh—” She swooned in his arms. Hand to her forehead, she looked dreamily at him. “I guess I’ll have to pay it.”
He heard the bells ringing and went to the open window. “There’s been a mine accident.”
“Where?” She joined him.
“I’m not certain. But that’s the call for one, and everyone who can help is being called out.”
“Will you go?”
He shook his head. “Nothing I can do up there.” “Then—” She drew in a deep breath for air. “Get me out of this.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When she was undressed and in a robe, there was a knock. He answered it.
“Telegram for Tom White.”
He tipped the boy a dime, took the yellow sheet, and closed the door.
GOT MARRIED TO RORY TODAY STOP LEAVE FOR DEADWOOD IN THE MORNING STOP WAKELY
“What is it?” she asked, moving close to him.
“The sheriff is spending his honeymoon in the Black Hills.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” He hugged her. Those two would make a real pair. Poor Wakely would catch hell every day of his life.
That evening, his new courtesan entered the Boomtown on his left elbow and drew many stares. It was amazing the heads she turned, but he expected it. The look she radiated was one of royalty. No one would miss her, he felt certain. The same men of the night before gathered at the table. They were talking about the Number Eight’s cave-in from earlier.
“Three men died,” McEntosh said.
“Anyone we knew?”
“A Josh Michaels, Hansen Gregg, and Troy Someone were the names I got.”
At the mention of her husband’s name, Slocum turned to Sue Ellen. She shrugged and shook her head as if she didn’t know anything about it.
Slocum’s luck was more up and down this night. At eleven o’clock, they left the Boomtown.
“How did the corset war go?” he asked, looking around for a hansom cab.
“Better. You weren’t as severe as that girl lacing me up.”
He smiled at her. “You looked comfortable.”
“I felt on sale.”
“But you were comfortable with that.”
She squeezed his arm.
At the sight of the blanket-rumped Ap horse coming up the street, he stopped and turned her until he faced the doorway.
“What is it?”
“They’ve showed up.”
“Who?” she whispered.
“The law from Fort Scott.” His mind rushed over the things he had to do at once.
“But how?”
“Hard not to leave tracks.” He hustled her inside and motioned to McEntosh, the freighter. The big man rose and came over.
“What’s wrong?’
“I only have few moments’ time and must make a good decision. I have to leave here. You don’t have a wife?”
The man, in his late thirties, blinked hard at him. “What do you mean? No, my wife died two years ago. What is this?”
“Sue Ellen needs a man. She’s smart, nice-looking, can cook and ride.”
“And?”
“I’m turning her care over to you.”
“Care? What do I need to do?”
Slocum chuckled deep in his throat. “I think you can figure it out. Will you promise me you’ll see about her and never hurt her?”
McEntosh grinned. “Hell, I’ve never been assigned a woman before. Not one this nice.” He looked over at her and nodded. “I’d be damn proud to if she agrees.”
“Sue Ellen?” Slocum turned to her.
She nodded hes
itantly at the man. “I don’t know what to say.”
Slocum hugged her, and pecked her cheek. “He’s the best one,” he whispered in her ear.
“You be careful.”
Slocum agreed and left them, hearing McEntosh ask, “Where are your things?”
“The Alhambra.”
Slocum went through the saloon and out the back door into the alley. Those damn deputies’ arrival sure had put a kink in his plans. Among the yowling tomcats and crushed broken glass under his boot soles, he hurried for the stables in the darkness of the night. If he could only get Turk and ride away.
Twenty minutes later, he rode out of Deadwood leaving the tinny pianos, banjos, and fiddling music along with the roaring crowd behind. Sultan Canyon was a good three-hour ride to the south, and he knew from talking to an old man that the Weathers Mine was the first cabin and shacks on the left after he left the main road.
Past dawn, he found the sign for Sultan Canyon Road and headed up there. A small creek whispered to his right, and he drew up Turk in the cover of some pines short of the mine. A few horses were in the corral, saddles on the top rail. There was a blacksmith beating on some iron, and the scent of the coat-forge fire carried on the soft wind.
He dismounted and tied the gelding out of sight, then worked his way up to the back of the shacks on the side of the steep hill. Six-gun in hand, he moved catlike alongside the first one and listened. No sounds, and none in the one on his left. Must be shacks for sleeping. The peal of the blacksmith’s hammer beating iron on the anvil rang like a bell. Where was Yoakem?
The shed housing the smithy was open-sided, and beyond it was the corral with the few horses. In front of that sat the main log building, and above Slocum, the mine’s gray tailings streaked the mountainside. The odor of turpentine filled the air from the pines. He dried his gun hand and moved cautiously for the main building. On a bough overhead, a blue jay scolded him for being such a fool to come to such a place— alone.
No telling how many men were at this place. He slipped in the back screen door and heard voices. He thought one of the men talking had Yoakem’s Texas drawl. The kitchen smelled like onions and meat cooking in the oven.
A rawboned, red-faced woman came in and about screamed at the sight of him, but he used the gun barrel to his lips to silence her. Stonelike, she nodded.
“I want Yoakem,” he said under his breath.
“You the law?”
He nodded. No need to explain any more.
She pursed her lips and then blew her large red nose in a rag from her apron. “Don’t shoot no one. I’ll ask him to come help me.”
“No tricks.”
“There won’t be none. I don’t want no one shot.”
Slocum agreed and watched her go to the doorway.
“Yoakem, I need some help.”
“Why me?”
‘Well, you ain’t got your leg broke like my old man.”
“Coming.”
She stepped back, acting obedient and wringing her hands. Yoakem, still complaining, soon filled the doorway.
“Don’t move,” Slocum said, and stepped over to check him for a weapon.
“Gawdamn her black ass! She sent yah.”
Not finding any weapons on him, he shoved the outlaw into the living room. A bearded man in a cushioned chair started to get up. His right leg was splinted and propped up. The sight of Slocum’s pistol took the fight out of him.
“I don’t want any trouble,” Slocum said. “I’m taking him in. The Ogallala sheriff’s on his way up here to get him.”
“If my damn leg wasn’t busted—”
“Don’t do nothing,” the woman said, coming to his side. “I don’t want no one kilt here.”
“Is the blacksmith armed?” Slocum asked her.
“Naw. You want his horse?” the man in the chair asked.
Slocum nodded.
“Damnit, Sarie, why don’t you put a fucking noose around my neck?” Yoakem shouted at her.
“Sit down,” Slocum said to him. The woman had probably saved his life. She went for the horse.
“And what the hell business is it of yours anyway? You ain’t law.”
“That’s right. I just made it my business after you shot Arthur Duncan for no good reason in Cottonwood Falls.”
Yoakem grumbled all the way back to town. Finally, Slocum threatened to gag him.
Late that night, they rode up the alley behind McEntosh’s warehouse. Slocum helped Yoakem off the horse since his hands were tied, and drove him inside the open back doors. A hostler approached in the dimly lighted barn and asked their business there.
“Go get a marshal,” Slocum said to him. “This man is a wanted outlaw.”
“Yes, sir,” the hostler said, sounding impressed. “Who-who is he?”
“Just go get the law.”
“Right now.” The man in overalls took off in a run.
“I hope to hell I never see your ass again,” Yoakem said.
“I’m sure that’s mutual,” Slocum said. Real mutual.
The Denver Times carried the stories a month later. Famous gang leader Charlie Yoakem had been sentenced to thirty years in the Nebraska State Prison. Sioux Indian renegade leader Pony Boy had been shot to death by an angry homesteader while stealing the man’s horse. Slocum sat back on the boardinghouse porch swing and nodded. Time he was leaving the mile-high city.
The handsome widow Nettie Flowers came out on the porch with a tray of tea and cookies. Slyly, she looked around before she spoke. “Shall we have it here or”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“in my bedroom?”
“Wherever,” he said, folding up the Times.
“Open the door, then. We’ll go inside.”
He looked off at the snowcapped Rockies. Maybe he’d leave the next day.
Watch for SLOCUM AND THE FRISBY FLATS
352nd novel in the exciting SLOCUM series from Jove
Coming in June!
