by Jake Logan
Erika’s body went berserk with desire. She ground her crotch down into his, tightened her strong inner muscles, and only then did she rise slowly. Once at the apex, she slammed back in with a wet sucking sound that caused them both to gasp in reaction. A few times moving up and down like this finally robbed her of her control. She began a movement so strong and quick that neither of them could hold back any longer.
Slocum felt the burning hot sensation deep in his balls. As the woman moved all around him, the heat rose. He fought to keep from spending himself. He wanted this to last forever. But her body was too insistent and her movements too fast for that. He jetted out his load into her as she let out her own loud animal howl of release.
They continued to grind together for another few seconds and then she sank down, her breasts pressing into Slocum’s chest. She twisted about and finally straightened her legs so she lay completely atop him. Her weight pressing along the entire length of his body caused vague stirrings again, but he was too tuckered out to have it amount to anything. For the moment.
“I think I’ll rescue you again,” he said.
“And I’ll have to save your worthless hide, too,” she shot back.
“Worthless? You didn’t think so a second ago.”
“That was then,” Erika said. “Now? Nothing but a limp worm.” She reached down between them and grabbed at his once tumescent organ and gave it a squeeze. “Oh my, there’s something going on again. I have misjudged you, John.”
She began stroking up and down but only tiny twinges rewarded her effort. He had been through too much to respond again this quickly.
“Later,” she whispered.
“Count on it,” Slocum said.
“Oh, I will.” Erika snuggled down, then said, “Do we have to go after Watson and the gold?”
“It’s not just the gold,” Slocum said. “Alicia Watson claimed to know where my friend is.”
“Rawlins,” she said in a tired voice. “I’m beginning to think you like him more than you do me.”
Slocum was loath to tell Erika more. Rawhide had been a friend as they rode the range, but it rankled how he had stolen the loot from the bank robbery. He wanted to have it out with the man if he had reached Wilson’s Creek. From everything Slocum had seen where the firefight had been in the canyon, Rawlins had gone with Mackenzie’s gang to the town. Answers to important questions lay there—or could be answered by Alicia.
“You can stay here while I go after the Watsons.”
“Not if it means you’re going to get back Mackenzie’s gold dust. I heard how much got sent to Overton. It can keep us both in luxury for quite a while.” She pushed herself up so she could look down at him. “That is, if you’re planning on sharing.”
“I owe you more than a roll in the hay,” he said. “Whatever I get back, half is yours.”
“Deal,” Erika said. “I’ve been used and abused by Mackenzie and a dozen men before him. You’re not like them, John Slocum. And if you are, I swear I’ll track you down to the ends of the earth and cut off, oh, I don’t know.” She squeezed down hard on his crotch. “But I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
“Still got a use for them.”
“If that usage includes me, we have a deal.”
He kissed her to seal the promise, then eased her off so he could get dressed. The dawn had changed to midmorning now, but he wasn’t in much of a hurry. The ghost town where he had directed Alicia and her mother lay only a short ride away.
“We just ride up and you ask your questions at the point of a six-gun?” Erika asked.
“Something like that,” he answered. He had put himself into danger enough by sneaking around. The direct approach worked best, and he intended to find what he needed from Alicia—and ask about the gold dust Linc Watson had carried off.
That bothered him. The man hadn’t been in the best of shape working in the mine. After dunking in the pond of noxious sludge, he had ended up almost blind and debilitated. Still, a man’s lust for gold produced powerful results.
After he and Erika emerged from the tangle of canyons, and had ridden a ways into the afternoon, Slocum drew rein and pointed to the tight knot of ramshackle buildings.
“There’s the ghost town.”
“Hard to call it a ghost town with that many people in it,” she said.
Slocum squinted in the bright sun and finally saw what she already had. Five horses were tethered near a trough. The gleam of light off the water in the trough showed someone had fetched water for the thirsty horses.
“They’re saddled. Those aren’t Sioux ponies,” he said.
“Mackenzie’s men?”
Slocum hated to admit it, but Erika’s guess fit all the questions.
“I’ll sneak on into town when the sun sets and—”
“That’s a lawman,” she said unexpectedly. “See the badge?”
Slocum shielded his eyes a bit more and saw the man who had drawn her attention. His stomach knotted. He recognized the man’s uneven gait.
“That’s Marshal Hillstrom from the next town over. Halliday.”
“You don’t sound like you’re on speaking terms with him.”
“There was a little disturbance in Halliday.”
“With you and Rawhide Rawlins?”
“And another cowboy name of Lee Dupree.”
“So this lawman’s as likely to fill you full of holes as Mackenzie?”
“Don’t know if he’d shoot first and think about arresting me later, but I’m not taking the chance.” Slocum rubbed his stubbled chin as he thought. “You head back toward the mountains and find a place to camp. I’ll join you when I can.”
“Why don’t I backtrack the way we just rode? That’ll avoid Wilson’s Creek and take me toward Overton. Catching the train there looks to be a good idea if this part of the Dakotas is overrun with lawmen wanting your hide, not to mention Mackenzie and his gang.”
She hastily leaned over and gave him a kiss, looked at him strangely, then wheeled about and headed along their back trail. Slocum glanced over his shoulder and saw she had done the same. He watched as she dropped down into a ravine and disappeared from sight. Considering what lay ahead of him, this might be the last time he ever saw her.
He dismounted and walked his horse closer to the deserted town, biding his time until sunset. Instead of thinking about all he had to find out and overcome, Slocum’s thoughts turned more to Erika. Even if he failed to find any of the gold dust or loot from the Halliday bank, sharing a trail—and a bedroll—with her wouldn’t be a bad thing. Nothing about her had warned him she sought only money.
When the sun dipped low behind the mountains, turning them into blazing ochre and subdued browns, he went straight for the old general store where the horses were tethered. They nickered as he approached, giving him a chance to see what response that caused. A deputy came from inside, a rifle in the crook of his arm. He gentled the horses but paid no attention to what might have upset them.
Slocum worked his way to the rear of the store. Wall planks had rotted out, making it dangerous for him to move. He had to be certain no one inside happened to be looking in his direction as he passed from one solid area in the wall to another.
Alicia’s voice caused him to squat down and peer through a knothole. He recoiled when he heard the marshal’s voice, too. They were talking in low tones, and from what he could tell, they said things that would upset Alicia’s ma and maybe send her pa out hunting for a shotgun. He saw hardly more than dark outlines moving, shadows cast on the far wall by a kerosene lamp set on the floor near the door. This was a back room for the general store, but it had been stripped bare, leaving only broken shelves and litter on the floor.
“There’s a house on the edge of Halliday where you can be real comfortable,” Hillstrom said.
“How far is it from your house
?”
“Next door, my little darling. We can see each other all night long and nobody’s close enough to know or care.”
“My parents would object.”
“There’s a nice place for them on the other side of town. With your ma the way she is, Linc’s not going to head back East like he’s been wanting to do.”
“Let them go, Hill,” Alicia said in a voice laden with longing and not a small bit of lust. “I’m old enough to be on my own—with you.”
Slocum edged around and saw them kissing. He had to find out if Alicia had lied to him about seeing Rawhide back in Mackenzie’s hideout. If this went much farther, he might have to wait all night long. Then luck came to his side of the table again.
Alicia hastily pushed the marshal away and whispered, “My pa! That’s him thrashing about. He’s awake.”
“After all he’s been through, it’ll take a couple weeks to get his strength back.” The marshal kissed her again. Alicia was willing, but the sounds from the main room in the store caused them to break off again.
“You see to him. I’ll wait here. For you,” Alicia said coyly. She unbuttoned her blouse halfway down to reveal those perfect breasts Slocum remembered from the time they’d spent back in the cave.
“I’ll make it fast.”
“No need to hurry. I don’t like it when a man hurries,” she said.
“I’ll be sure he and your ma are both sound asleep.”
The marshal ducked out of the room, giving Slocum his chance—his only chance. He ran his fingers around the board and yanked hard. The creaking and snapping as nails tore out of the rotting wood came louder than he had hoped. Tossing aside the board, he squeezed through into the back room.
Alicia reacted to his sudden appearance. She pressed against the far wall, then started for the door to get help from the marshal.
“Don’t move,” Slocum said in a low voice that carried a steely edge.
“John?”
He moved closer. The dim light cast by the guttering lamp testified to how badly its wick needed trimming. He picked up the lamp and held it out so he saw her better. That worked for her to see him, too.
“I thought you were dead. Pa said you were in the wagon going to some town, but you’d died.”
“If the marshal comes back, I’ll have to shoot him.”
“Hill? No, you can’t do that. I—”
“I heard,” Slocum said. “Tell me what I want to know and you won’t see me again.” He silently added that he hoped he would never see the marshal again either.
“About your friend?”
“Rawhide Rawlins. Were you lying so I’d get your family out of Wilson’s Creek?”
“No, I wasn’t. I saw a man like you described right after I got caught. They moved me around, but I saw him and half a dozen others being loaded into a wagon.”
“Going south?”
“No, north. I don’t know why. You . . . you rescued me a bit after that.”
“Rawhide was all chained up?”
Alicia’s head bobbed up and down. She cast a quick look toward the door. On the other side Marshal Hillstrom talked quietly to Linc Watson about his wife.
“What’s the marshal think of your pa showing up with so much gold?”
“What?” Alicia took a step toward him. “I don’t know what you mean. Papa said you were dead. He was bounced out of a wagon. He walked for hours until he found a horse all saddled up. There was blood on it and a Sioux arrow stuck in the leather.”
Concealing so much gold dust made sense if Watson didn’t want to turn it over to the marshal as being stolen. Explaining how he had come by a hundred pounds would be difficult. That set Slocum thinking in different directions. Watson’s legs barely supported him, and he was damned near blind. Lugging so much gold would be difficult for a fit man. He might have hidden it, though.
“What did your pa say when the marshal and his posse found you here?”
“He was relieved. All he wants to do is go back East with Ma.”
Truth rang in Alicia’s words, but that didn’t mean her pa hadn’t hidden the gold somewhere, intending to recover it later. Marshal Hillstrom showing up changed everything, if Watson had the gold.
“Please believe me, John.” She looked distraught, shifting her eyes from him to the door, as she expected the marshal to return any instant. “That’s all I know about your friend.”
Slocum put the lamp down on the floor and stepped back. He squeezed through the broken board as Hillstrom returned.
“Your pa’s in worse shape than I thought, Alicia,” the marshal said. “He can hardly lift his arms. If he hadn’t tied himself to the saddle the way he did, his body’d be along the trail out in the hills.”
Slocum slipped away and went to find the horses. The posse had left them unguarded, but it wasn’t the horse Slocum wanted. It was the gear. He found a saddle with an arrow still stuck in the pommel, ran his hand all over it. He examined the skirt and cantle closely, put his nose almost against the leather. Only when he felt sure no gold dust had leaked out—or anything heavy had been strapped to the back of the saddle—did he go back to his own horse.
Linc Watson might be lying to his daughter and to the Halliday marshal, but Slocum didn’t think so. He hadn’t ridden with the heavy sack of gold dust. There wasn’t any trace to be found.
He reloaded his six-shooter with the few rounds he had left. He had to avoid a protracted gunfight because he would surely die with only four rounds riding in the cylinder—all the ammo he had.
As Slocum rode straight into the canyons leading to Wilson’s Creek, he mulled over everything he had been told and had seen with his own eyes. If Watson hadn’t carried the gold back from the road to Overton, it was still out there somewhere.
And Rawhide Rawlins was working on Mackenzie’s water diversion to the north of Wilson’s Creek.
20
He had followed this trail often enough that he knew where to ride to keep out of sight, where the high spots were that Mackenzie might perform his deadly leaps wearing his thunderbird wings and, most important, the places the gang hid to trap anyone foolish enough to ride into Wilson’s Creek. But this time Slocum kept an eye out for something more.
The spot where he, Alicia, and Rawhide had camped passed soon enough, but if she was right that Rawhide had been captured, he would have bought his way out using the bank money. While the gang might have stolen it, Slocum doubted they would try to double-cross their boss. Mackenzie held them all in slavery as surely as if they had chains on their legs by threatening them with the thunderbird’s vengeance. If Rawhide hadn’t bought his way into Wilson’s Creek, he had hidden the loot somewhere along the trail.
Eliminating the spots too difficult to reach if he were being attacked, Rawhide had only a handful of suitable places open to him. As Slocum rode the trail, he saw rocks piled atop one another in a curious fashion. No amount of weathering or a random avalanche created such a hill. He dismounted and kicked at the rocks. They tumbled over, revealing a burlap bag. A quick tug unearthed it.
“I’ll be damned,” he said softly. A quick glance in the sack assured him the money was all there.
Rawhide Rawlins had hidden the money rather than let it fall into the hands of outlaws. He had paid for that devotion with his freedom and maybe his life. Once he had entered Wilson’s Creek and heard the rules, Rawhide could have offered up the money as his “rent” but he hadn’t. The burlap bag Slocum held was mute testimony to that.
Slocum swung the bag over the rear of his saddle, mounted, and rode for the guard towers. He watched for a looming presence along either canyon rim, but Mackenzie never put in an appearance. As night fell, the towers turned darkly menacing on either side of the road. The other guard posts had already been abandoned, telling Slocum that Mackenzie still ruled the town with an iron talon.
> As much as he wanted to put a bullet through the fake thunderbird’s heart, Slocum skirted the town. His horse shied repeatedly at the burned smells drifting on the night breeze. Mingled with the burned wood came the scent of roasted flesh. Rather than burying the two fires’ victims in a mass grave, Mackenzie burned their bodies. It had to be done for sanitary reasons, but Slocum felt his belly twisting into knots as he rode a little faster to put it behind him.
Before, he had headed for the mines. Now, he pointed his horse’s face to the north, where the water project sought to bring fresh water to town.
When he left Wilson’s Creek far enough behind to appreciate the clean, cold air, he felt better about rescuing Rawhide. A quick glance behind at the bag of money told him he had to set the man free. Glad that his initial belief was correct—that Rawhide would never cross him, not after all the time they’d spent working together and on the cattle drive, watching each other’s backs and developing a real friendship—he concocted what ought to be a simple rescue plan.
Slocum had few enough friends. Knowing that Rawhide had not betrayed him or taken the money for his own gave him a certain amount of satisfaction.
He heard the sound of water gurgling before he saw the streambed. This creek flowed sluggishly, hardly wider than he could step across. He followed the ripples in the water farther north toward the foothills until he saw what Mackenzie had planned. A dam held back the flow.
It took a few minutes to get the lay of the camp. A dozen men slept at the base of the dam while two tents pitched farther away glowed with lamplight. The tents held the guards. Their slaves slept under the stars.
Slocum made sure the guards were intent on their card game in one tent and snoring loudly in the other before going to the dam. The water penned up behind the carefully positioned rocks and earthen filling would be released when the workers dug a deeper diversion channel to town.
Only after he had located the equipment being used for the construction and taken a hammer and chisel did he go to where the prisoners slept. They had threadbare blankets pulled up around their shoulders. Some, skeleton thin, shivered although the night wasn’t that cold yet. Slocum saw that they suffered from a variety of diseases. Mackenzie might send the men with ague and other ailments here rather than have them infect his gold miners. The fresh air might heal the sick men, though Slocum suspected Mackenzie feared an epidemic spreading in the confines of his gold mine and wiping out all his most productive workers.
