Slocum and the Trick Shot Artist

by Jake Logan

  “God, yes.”

  “How about this?” she asked while leaning back so she could reach around and tease the base of his cock with one hand.

  Slocum couldn’t find the words to tell her how good that felt. Judging by the sly grin on her face, she knew the effect she was having on him all too well.

  Olivia placed both hands on his chest again and rode him in earnest. She closed her eyes and rocked back and forth while her pussy glided up and down. Every so often, she would move nothing but her hips in a fast bobbing motion that nearly drove Slocum out of his mind. He reached up with both hands to cup her buttocks, savoring the feel of the taut curves against his palms. For a while, he was content to hold her bare ass in his hands as she fucked him. Then, he grabbed her tight enough to keep her in place while he pumped up into her.

  Tossing her head back, she held her breath and took every inch of him. As good as it felt, Slocum was starting to get restless. His body ached for more and he simply couldn’t get it while he was on his back. When he sat up, Olivia was quick to climb off him. She crawled on the floor, propping her backside in the air like a feline offering herself to her mate. Slocum lay her on her back, rose above her, and spread her legs wide. When he drove into her, they both moaned in satisfaction.

  Slocum knelt between her legs, gripping her thighs while pounding into her again and again.

  Olivia turned her head and slid her fingers through her hair, grunting softly every time he impaled her with his thick member.

  Now that he’d fallen into a rhythm, Slocum placed his hands upon her breasts and massaged them through the corset she wore. Above the waist, her clothes were rumpled but still in place. Below the waist, she was naked and wet. Bare legs wrapped around Slocum as he plowed into her with fierce, vigorous strokes.

  Before long, her pussy clenched tight and another orgasm worked its way beneath her skin. The feeling of her muscles tensing around him combined with the urgent, pleading groans Olivia made were enough to push Slocum to his limit. He pumped into her one more time before exploding inside her. He eased partly out and then drove into her harder, which caused Olivia to scrape at the floor like a wild animal.

  Even after their climaxes had subsided, they remained where they were. Both too spent to move.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  Without hesitation, Olivia pulled herself to her feet and tugged her skirts more or less back into place. “Just a second,” she said.

  Slocum climbed reluctantly to his feet. “Can’t you tell them to wait?”

  “Business is business.”

  As she walked over to the door and reached for the handle, Slocum groused, “At least let me get my damn pants up!”

  “Be quick about it,” she said. “But leave your gun where it is.”

  She opened the door and allowed a man to step inside. He looked distinguished even though his clothes were several steps down from the finery he usually wore.

  “Yes,” Ferril Abernathy said as he strode inside. “Leave your gun where it lies so this doesn’t get any messier than it needs to be.”

  19

  Slocum squatted on the floor, his hand hovering a few scant inches above his holstered Colt. “I know you’re fast, Abernathy. Do you think you’re fast enough to stop me before I can burn you down?”

  Abernathy stepped into the office and calmly shut the door behind him. “Feel free to test your luck in that regard. Many before you have tried.”

  Olivia walked around her desk but Slocum wasn’t about to take his eyes off Abernathy to see any more than that. “Selling your friends along with information now?” he snarled. “Guess you’ve changed a whole lot since our days back in Texas.”

  “Just hear him out, John,” she said. “Business is business.”

  “So that’s all this is to you?”

  “You boys want a cigar?”

  Abernathy seemed interested, but didn’t make a move since any twitch would have to be toward Slocum.

  “So,” Slocum said. “Are we gonna start shooting or do I get a chance to get dressed? That is . . . unless you like the view?”

  “Imagine how I feel,” Abernathy replied. “A place like this, and when I step into a room, you’re the one I find in a state of undress.”

  Slocum had to fight to keep from laughing at that as he stood and hiked up his pants. Normally, it was difficult to buckle a belt one-handed. Since the alternative was lowering his guard in front of a known killer, Slocum managed just fine. He finished and put his back to a wall. “Now I’m in a real bind,” he said. “I can’t decide which of you I want to shoot first.”

  “You don’t mean that, John,” Olivia pouted.

  “The hell I don’t! I knew you weren’t an upstanding citizen, but I didn’t figure you’d hand me over like this.”

  “Ease off, Mr. Slocum,” Abernathy said. “I’m not here to kill you. Surely the fact that you’re standing there uninjured is proof enough of that.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Ah,” the older man said with half a smile. “A civilized question spoken in a civilized manner.”

  “Don’t get used to it,” Slocum warned.

  “Fair enough. I came here on a business matter of my own. Part of it involved paying a visit to Miss Olivia here.”

  “Which,” Slocum growled as he shifted toward her desk, “is something Miss Olivia failed to mention.”

  “Ferril had a good reason to speak with you,” she said. “And you’ve got every reason to shoot him on sight. Seems pretty clear why I didn’t let you know about this meeting. Besides, just because I let you fuck me doesn’t mean I owe you an explanation for everything I do.”

  “There’s your civility,” Slocum scoffed. “Let’s hear what’s so damned important.”

  “I’ll tell you the same thing I told her,” Abernathy said. “I have no reason to kill you.”

  “At least, not here in a closed room where nobody can witness it,” Slocum said,

  “Exactly. I have been associating myself with a few individuals who I thought were trustworthy. That trust has been violated and so I find myself needing to take action of a different sort.”

  Looking once more toward Olivia, Slocum said, “I think I know just how you feel.”

  “Stop acting like a child and hear him out,” she snapped.

  The main reason he’d continued beating that dead horse was to get a reaction from a woman whose face could be set in stone when the occasion called for it. Now that his pulse had slowed a bit and his temper had cooled, Slocum realized the situation wasn’t as bad as it had seemed. Even so, he didn’t know quite what to make of it just yet. “You mean those two riflemen you’ve got shooting over your shoulder aren’t behaving?”

  Abernathy was taken aback by someone exposing that fact so plainly. The stunned surprise that flicked across his face helped improve Slocum’s mood a bit. “That’s right,” Slocum added. “I know how you’ve been stacking the deck in your favor.”

  Apparently, Abernathy was the only one surprised to hear that. “What do you mean?” Olivia asked.

  While anyone might be nervous about airing their dirty laundry in front of others, airing it in front of someone in Olivia’s line of work had more far-reaching consequences. “Forget it,” Abernathy snapped. “He’s just trying to divert us from the business at hand.”

  “And what might that be?” Slocum asked.

  “Naturally I’ve associated myself with similar-minded men,” Abernathy continued in something fairly close to his former tone. “I thought we were all on the same page, but it seems I was wrong. You were familiar with Rob Bensonn?”

  “You know damn well I was.”

  “Then you should also know I did him one hell of a favor before he was killed and that’s not the only way I’ve helped hi
m. Upon his release from jail, he confided in me that I may be in a batch of trouble where another of my associates was concerned.”

  Slocum felt anger rise in him like a tide. “His release from jail? Don’t you mean when he was broken out?”

  “I do.”

  “Broken out,” Slocum continued, “after a good man was shot dead in the street like a dog.”

  “That wasn’t my doing,” Abernathy said sternly.

  “Right. Is that why you hired those riflemen to take shots for you? Not only do you get to look like a god with a gun in your hand, but you also get to pass the blame along for anyone getting hurt when the bullets start to fly. I was there when that saloon was shot to pieces,” Slocum reminded him. “I know for a fact you did some shooting of your own.”

  “I’ll never deny what I’ve done. And I surely can’t deny firing my pistol. I’ve taken lives and will answer for it when my time comes.”

  “But let me guess,” Slocum interrupted. “You only hurt the men that truly deserved it?”

  “Most definitely,” Abernathy said with a grin. “Although, I will admit, the notion of who deserves what is very subjective.” His face became serious in a heartbeat. “In all my years on the wrong side of the law, I’ve never been one to flagrantly kill men who were simply doing their chosen profession. Killing lawmen only serves to make things more difficult. You’d be amazed how little attention is paid to a sheriff who is simply wounded in a gun battle. Those rumors are never the ones to spread. Killing lawmen in mass quantities not only draws attention, but it lights a fire under the rest of the peace officers, duly appointed or otherwise.”

  “And yet you seem to be leaving quite the pile of bodies behind you lately.”

  “Indeed I do. That brings me back to what I was saying about an associate of mine who has become more trouble than he’s worth. His name is Justin Griggio.”

  “Never heard of him,” Slocum said.

  “I’m not surprised. He is one of the purest forms of predator. He doesn’t care about who he kills, just so long as he can continue killing. Most of the men he’s buried aren’t the sort to be remembered by much of anyone. He is also a crack shot with a rifle. I found him when he approached me years ago at one of my final shows with the circus to try and make a name for himself as a trick shot artist. I thought it might be civil of me to provide a replacement performer so as not to put my show in a lurch. It didn’t take much for him to display a cruel, wicked temper, and I thought it best not to expose my circus friends to such a man.”

  “How noble.”

  While there was no mistaking the sarcasm in Slocum’s words, Abernathy didn’t respond to it. Since Slocum’s hand hadn’t drifted any closer to his Colt, he resumed talking. “I’ve noticed you following me through the last few towns,” he said. “You’ve proven your worth in a fight and so I decided to come to you with a proposition.”

  Slocum laughed. “Following you? Tracking is more like it. I was just about to cinch in around your neck like a noose. And so you decide to face me as if it was your idea. That strikes me more like a man who quits his job because he knows he’s about to get fired.”

  “Call it what you will, Mr. Slocum. The fact remains that we are here at this moment discussing a plan that can benefit us both.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “I hand over the man who truly killed those lawmen and in return—”

  Slocum cut him short by saying, “I’m looking at the son of a bitch who killed those lawmen right now.”

  “If you’d been there when I approached the sheriff in Tarnish Mills, you would have seen that I tried to reason with him.”

  “I’ll bet you did. And you kept reasoning with him until he stepped out of line, told you to go to hell, or went for his gun while trying to do the job he gets paid to do.”

  Olivia had been fairly quiet until now, when she stood up and reached out for Slocum as if that would be enough to pacify him. “John, hear him out.”

  “You shut your goddamn mouth,” Slocum barked. “You never were an angel, but I didn’t think you’d stab me in the back.”

  “I didn’t stab anyone in the back,” she replied. “The deal was for Ferril to have this talk with you, and if he tried to hurt you or me, he wouldn’t leave this room alive.”

  Slocum wasn’t about to back off. “How kind of you,” he sneered. “If I’d known you were on a first-name basis with this murderer, I wouldn’t have bothered approaching you at all.”

  “I knew him back when I was about to leave Texas. Ferril helped me pull up stakes and—”

  “I don’t give a shit what he did,” Slocum said as he shifted his full attention back to Abernathy. “What I do know is that giving the order to kill someone is just as bad as pulling the trigger. In fact, it’s worse because he’s too cowardly to do the deed himself.”

  To this point, Abernathy had been cool and composed. Although the shift in his features was barely visible, the subtle change left him looking less like a man and more like something that had been forged from iron. He stepped forward, not seeming to care that Slocum came up to meet him or that Olivia had rushed from around her desk in an attempt to get between the two men.

  “I won’t have this,” she said.

  “Well, it’s what you’ve got, lady,” Slocum told her. “Step aside and reap what you sow.”

  “If you’d wanted me dead so badly, you could have drawn that Colt and put it to work,” Abernathy said. “The fact that you haven’t tells me you’re more than a simple gunman.”

  Slocum’s reply was spoken in a voice that was sharp enough to cut through stone. “I can kill you anytime I want.”

  “And I, you.”

  “Nobody’s killing anyone,” Olivia said. Since that didn’t get much of a response, she added, “If a single shot is fired in here, my men will storm this room and neither one of you will walk out.”

  Still ignoring her, Abernathy said, “I didn’t order anyone to kill those lawmen, Slocum. That’s why I decided to step forward and have this talk with you right now when I could have just as easily lured you somewhere suitable for either myself or my partner to pick you off.”

  “All right, then,” Slocum said. “What do you want from me that’s so damned important?”

  Abernathy took a deep breath and let it out. “I want you to clear my good name.”

  “Even if half of the stories about you are to be believed,” Slocum said, “your name isn’t all that good.”

  “I know what is attached to my name, sir. I’m the one who made it what it is. I am a legend with these guns,” Abernathy stated as he patted the .44s at his side. “I am a man to be feared. I am a thief. No . . . make that a spectacular thief. I am the one who put on displays of skill that will be in the minds of the legions of people who came to see me in my circus days. And yes. I am a killer. But I am not a man who put a man in his grave without good reason. And I am no coward.”

  No matter how badly Slocum wanted to refute that statement, he had to give the other man some credit for making his appearance and keeping his composure for this long. “I suppose I can give you that last part.” Finishing buckling his pants, he admitted, “This isn’t the first time I’ve been caught off my guard. Most of the time, a man in your position would either knock me out or disarm me before speaking their piece. That either makes you overconfident or stupid. But I guess neither one of them is a coward.”

  Abernathy nodded solemnly.

  “Whatever you’ve done,” Slocum continued, “you’ve made your bed and you’ll lie in it. What do you want me to do when it comes to clearing your name?”

  “You can spread the word. I’ve heard of you, John Slocum. You’ve earned some measure of respect among lawmen. I want you to set the records straight where these dead lawmen are concerned. Tell whoever you can, whenev
er the opportunity presents itself, that Ferril Abernathy made a stupid mistake but he didn’t gun down those lawmen in cold blood. And yes, Olivia,” he added reluctantly as if the gravity of his words was just now sinking in, “that means you spreading the truth through your various channels as well. In exchange for that simple courtesy, I will hand over the man responsible for the deaths of those lawmen, the vigilantes that were killed here, and several others. You can do with him as you please. Since you tracked me down this far, I assume justice is what you were after. Possibly also a reward for bringing down the killer of that sheriff from Tarnish Mills. When you get Justin Griggio, you’ll have those things.”

  “And then what?” Slocum asked.

  “Then we part ways. Our business will be concluded. If you want to take the matter any further, you can have your chance for that as well by challenging me whenever you see fit. If you’d prefer, we can wrap things up here and then part ways. What do you say, Mr. Slocum? Interested in this deal?”

  “Why should I believe we’ll just part ways?”

  “You’ve got your gun right now,” Abernathy said. “You’ll have it every step of the way. If you ever want to change the deal or put me to the test, you’ll have your chance. All I ask right now is that you help me take down the one man who truly deserves your wrath.”

  Slocum studied him for a second before saying, “All right, then. But first, I want to go to that shop in Chinatown so you can show me what the hell you were after there. I don’t want to just hear it from you,” he added before Abernathy could protest. “I want you to show me. After that, do whatever you can to make sure that partner of yours comes along with me back to Tarnish Mills. If that means talking sense into him, distracting him so I can get a clear shot, or even lying to him to make him drop his guard, then so be it.”

  “But—”

  “No buts,” Slocum cut in. “You want me to put some faith in you, then you can do the same right now with me. If nothing else, it’ll be a gesture to let me know you’re worthy of any good words I might spread about you from this point on.”