by Jake Logan
Slocum indulged in a theatrical yawn-and-stretch. “You’ll pardon me, but it has been a long day in the saddle. All those headaches and whatnot.”
The man nodded, smiled, and at the door of his library said, “Pervis will see you to the door.” And with that, the tall, thin old man in the black suit stepped out of the shadows and extended a gloved hand toward the foyer.
Slocum turned to his host to try one more time. “Huh, I’d half expected that pretty cook of yours to be moseying around, helping people with doors and hats and all.” He winked and failed to see any change in the man’s face.
“Oh, one more thing,” said Slocum, wedging a boot in the closing door. “I trust the girl, Tita, will be treated well? Seeing as how I brought her along, I feel a certain personal responsibility toward her. You understand.”
“Of course,” said the colonel. “And not to worry. She will bunk in with the other girl in our cook’s charge, a slovenly Indian who has nearly run out her welcome in my good graces. The poor thing cannot make a bed nor start a fire to save her life. I should have known better, but dear Miss Meecher insisted that I keep the girl on as a scullery maid.
“We tried her in the kitchen but she is hopeless. Put a knife in her hand and the dull-witted thing tries to stab to death whatever is put in front of her. Slicing a potato is an opportunity for a near-beheading. The poor thing’s quite deluded. But Miss Meecher insists she can remedy the foul creature, so we keep her on and pray she doesn’t scalp us in our sleep.”
“I see. Well, as I said, my concern is for the girl, Tita. I would take it very poorly should she come to harm.”
“Why, Mr. Slocum, are you threatening me?”
“Nothing of the sort, Colonel. I merely want to let you know my position on the matter.”
The little man’s frosty demeanor hardened over his face once again. “And that you have done, Mr. Slocum. Good night to you.”
“And likewise to you, Colonel.” Slocum touched his hat brim and nodded, but the man had already turned and the door was almost shut. He walked down the broad front steps of the house, puffing his cigar and in no hurry to head back to the bunkhouse. He hadn’t made any friends since arriving here, but that couldn’t be helped now. Could have been prevented had these fools not acted like jackasses toward him. But again, too late to worry about.
He’d gone but a half-dozen yards, angling toward the right where the barns lay. He figured he’d check on the Appaloosa. He didn’t think Harley would have gone back in that stall considering the going-over the Appy had given the boy, but with someone that dimwitted, it was difficult to predict just how he’d act.
From his right, Slocum heard a hissing sound. He paused. Then he heard it again, not a hissing, but a distinctive “Pssst!” of someone trying to draw attention to themselves. He stood stock-still, just in case whoever it was had been beckoning someone else. He didn’t want to attract attention to himself.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” whispered a woman’s voice. “I’m over here, John.”
He knew the voice—it was the woman most on his mind in recent days, Marybeth Meecher.
“Over here, by the small shed.”
He remained in shadow, approached the spot with caution. Just because he believed her innocent didn’t mean she wasn’t being forced to lure him into a trap. As soon as he drew close to the shed, he felt two arms warp around him. He tensed, then smelled a familiar lavender soap scent and knew Marybeth Meecher was back in his arms—at least for the length of a hug.
“Marybeth,” he whispered. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine.”
“This isn’t the safest of places to talk,” he said, looking into the dark around them.
“I know,” she whispered. “Follow me.” She took his hand and he was reminded once again of how he had missed her in the last three years, more than he cared to admit. And that they should now meet in such a bizarre fashion seemed almost funny. Almost.
“Where are we going?”
“Back to my room, just off the summer kitchen out back of the main house. We should be safe there. Now keep quiet.”
Yes, ma’am, he thought, smiling in the dark. She had a saucy way about her that always appealed to him. Not afraid to tell it like it was.
“Here’s the door, just here . . .”
He heard a clunking knob, slight squeaks from hinges as the door swung inward. She led him into the small space, where a light glowed low from an oil lamp. Curtains on the small room’s one window were drawn tight. From the dim glow he saw a single bed, a washstand, a small table that served as a desk, and a short, three-drawer bureau. As he took in the room, he completed the circle and his eyes landed on Marybeth, looking much the same as she had serving supper.
She embraced him again, pulling his face down to meet hers. This was the sort of greeting he had only imagined along the trail that he’d find from her one day. They kissed for a long moment, as much caught up in the thin but strong trail of memories they shared as the passion rising between them. He held her shoulders, pulled her tight to him, then wrapped his arms around her.
He felt her strength even as she surrendered to his embrace. Soon she pushed her hips forward, thrusting deeply against his own. They glided together and it felt to him as if the intervening three years hadn’t happened.
He hadn’t been aware that she had unhitched his gun belt until he felt its familiar weight begin to slip from his waist. It clunked at his feet and her hands continued up the buttons of his shirt. He did the same with those at the back of her dress and slipped the sleeves forward until they hung loose.
She parted his shirt, ran her hands cross his chest. He felt her hot breath stuttering along his cheek, then her tongue tickling his ear. Lord, but that woman knew how to make the most of him. He felt himself rising to the occasion—and so did she, evidently, because she pressed even closer to him.
He reached down, inched her skirts upward, and felt her bare backside quiver beneath his grasping hands. He trailed his hands around to the front of her and felt the heat of her before allowing the backs of his fingers to tease and feather her. She was having none of his slow buildup, however, and thrust one of his hands between her legs as if trying to stopper a torrent. She gasped and worked him deeper, then as if remembering an earlier thought, she popped the buttoned fly of his denims apart and pushed them roughly down his hips.
Freed, his member continued its rise and was soon helped by her hot hand squeezing it and sliding along its length as if testing it for purchase. With no warning, she leapt up, encircling his waist with her legs while he laved her bare breasts with his tongue, nibbled the pebbled nipples with the tips of his teeth.
She reached down, on the outside of one leg, and grasped his member from underneath. It twitched and pulsed in her hot hands, a living, throbbing thing that she soon fitted to her entrance. Once again, without warning, she drove hard and fast at him, then on him, ramming his thickness into her as far as they were able. She paused like that, her eyes fluttered, her head lolled back, and she sighed.
The whisper of a memory scratched at Slocum’s mind, and seconds before she began her next round of attentions, he knew what she was going to do—she bucked against him then, as if she were riding a green pony. It was all he could do to keep up with her and soon he felt as if he was about to lose control of the situation. So he grabbed her backside firmly and pulled her to him. She gasped at the fullness of the interruption, her face inches from his, and he strode to the bed, set her on the edge, and drove hard into her over and over.
It seemed like forever, and at the same time, no time at all had passed, and sounded to him as though she had given up on breathing. She let herself be driven into like a train throttled out and heading down a steep slope.
“Oh God, John, I can’t believe . . . how good this feels.” Her head lolled to the side as he slowed his pac
e, teasing her, sliding in and out, just long enough that he thought she might regain a little of her growly edge. And it worked.
Quick as a cat, she reached down and grasped him there, urged him with her hand to move faster, faster, until they were once again back at full operating speed. Both of them grunted and gasped until, like a far-off lightning strike marking the full power of a summer storm, they tightened together, seized in the moment as their efforts dissipated.
Marybeth let out a long, wheezing breath and stared up at him. Sweat had plastered her dark hair to her forehead. She smiled up at Slocum as he lay beside her, careful to keep their connection, even for a little while longer.
They looked at each other for a few silent minutes, then her smile faded and she turned enough to separate them, let her dress cover herself again.
He did the same with his denims, and again they were silent for a few moments. Then she turned and looked at him again.
“You never married,” he said.
“No, not me. Too busy building up the business. And then the rail line went south to Dalburg and killed any chance I had of making a decent living. Now we survive by growing what we can, hunting, and tending to what few traveling strangers there are. It’s a hard life, but I don’t mind. Sometimes a stranger comes along who’s worth getting to know.”
He knew she was referring to him and his past lengthy visit. Of all his time spent on trails all over the West, it remained one of his favorite interludes.
“What’s happened lately, Marybeth? What brought you here?”
She wiggled a little closer to him, put her head on his arm. Finally she spoke. “A couple of years ago, people all over the region began to disappear. My Indian friends began to tell us that their daughters and sons, young folks, old people, all were there one day, gone the next, drifting away, some of them taken in the night. They tracked them here, to this ranch. And that’s where the trail grew cold. I didn’t know what to think.”
“But you had to do something.”
“Exactly. I couldn’t sit by and hear these horrible stories of people turning up missing. I showed up here pretending I was looking for work. As luck would have it, Colonel Mulletson needed a cook.”
Slocum nodded. “You happen to know what happened to his previous cook?”
“No, but I can only guess she . . . vanished.”
“So do you have any idea what’s going on here?”
“A little, mostly from bits and pieces I’ve been able to pick up. But he keeps me on a pretty tight leash. Treats me well, too, though, I will say. I think he fancies me.”
“Mm-hm, I happen to know he does.”
She propped herself up on an elbow, smiled at him. “How do you know? Did he say something?”
“Marybeth Meecher, you aren’t smitten with that nasty old colonel, are you?”
As soon as he said it, he knew he was dead wrong. Her face fell and she grew serious, concerned. “No, but he is up to something. I just haven’t been able to find out all that much. As I said, he keeps a tight lid on things here—and a tight leash on me. I don’t like it, but I can’t get away. I’ve been here for a few months and I haven’t learned a useful thing, and now it’s like I’m a prisoner. I’m not allowed to leave. He always makes up some excuse that prevents me. At the very least I wish I knew how things were at my place.”
“You mean with Miguel and Tita? But I thought she would have told you by now.”
She sat up. “What? John, is she here?”
“You mean you haven’t seen her?”
“No. John, what is going on?”
“I stopped by your place, and she came here with me.”
“What? Why would you bring her here, of all places? And how could you get her out of Miguel’s sight?”
“He’s gone, Marybeth.”
“What do you mean, ‘gone’?”
He sighed and decided it could do no good to withhold the sad news from her. “Two of the colonel’s men attacked in the night and killed him. I shot them both, but I was too late to save him.”
She was silent a moment, then he saw a single tear course down her cheek. A few minutes more and she spoke to him in a clear voice. “Why bring Tita here, then?”
“Because I’d promised Miguel that I’d find you. I also felt that I needed to take care of her and I was too far along to turn back toward Minton and bring her to safety. Now I’m beginning to wonder if I did the right thing. You’re sure you haven’t seen her?”
“No.”
“Marybeth, I have to ask—is she . . .”
“What, John?”
“Is it possible that she’d somehow be in cahoots with these folks?”
“I don’t think so.” Then some form of recognition passed over her face.
“Marybeth?”
“I was just thinking that in the past few months before I left, she’d been gone a lot. She’s a woman now, as I bet you noticed.”
He was glad it was mostly dark in the room, lest she see his unbidden blush.
“It’s all right. I know she’s a pretty young thing. But I had thought she was off visiting a beau. At least that’s what she’d led us to believe. Now I don’t know what to think. It’s possible, I guess, though if he’d known, it would have broken her grandfather’s heart. Poor Miguel . . .”
“You can’t blame yourself for his death, Marybeth. In fact, it’s a safe bet that had you been there, the colonel’s men might have killed you, too, or taken you as a prisoner.”
“Is that so different than the life I’m now leading?”
Slocum stared at her, marveling at this feisty woman who, given the adversities and turns her life had taken of late, was still brimming with a strange and alluring vitality. “You know, Marybeth Meecher, despite all this, and maybe a little because of it—it’s good to see you again.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. Seeing you in the dining room tonight was a very pleasant surprise. Very pleasant, indeed. And now here you are again.”
“Here I am,” he said. “And as I recall, you were a pretty good cook. Tonight’s meal didn’t do anything to change my mind.”
“How was dessert?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you when I’ve had it.” He leaned in and kissed her lips.
10
Slocum stepped lightly through the door, then down the steps off the back room of the summer kitchen. He waited outside in the dark until he saw Marybeth’s already dim oil lamp wink out. Good, he thought. At least one of us will get some sleep tonight. As he walked, he pondered about what sort of welcome he could expect back at the bunkhouse.
The only thing he really wanted was a flat spot to stretch out with his hat tipped over his eyes and his Colt laid across his belly. Between the surprise attacks he felt sure he’d be treated to in the night by Clew and Harley, maybe he’d get a few winks in.
Out of instinct, he stuck to the shadows as he crossed the yard toward the bunkhouse, an easy task on a night such as this when the three-quarter moon lit the yard and cast long shadows angling like fingers. Muffled voices and dull thumping sounds came to him from the dark to his right. He cat-footed in that direction and came to a lean-to off a barn. He felt along its wall until his fingertips touched a window frame.
He drew closer to the window, darkened with cloth from within, and bent low almost beneath it. He heard a familiar voice, in a low raspy whisper, saying, “. . . they tell me you refuse to work, refuse to eat, refuse to drink. What good is a man if he shuns kindnesses bestowed on him? Kindnesses that out of the bottom of my heart you have been given, such as employment, food, and shelter? This I will not stand. The others look up to you and I will not have this. I will break you, damn your hide.” The voice was angry.
Slocum took another step, felt a door handle, and saw a crack of light widen as he nudged it. He paused and listened.
“I’m a free man.”
“What’s that you say?” said the whisperer.
“I said . . . I am . . . a free man. Won my freedom in the war.”
“Yes, yes, we’ve all heard such fooferaw. But I am here to tell you that any more mention of such hogwash on these premises will not be tolerated.”
“But—”
Slocum heard a harsh slapping sound, as if someone had been strapped with a length of harness leather, followed by a groan forced through clenched teeth.
Slocum slammed open the door and peeled his Colt’s hammer back to the deadly position. “That’s about enough, Colonel.” He stepped into the dim ring of light to see, in the far dark corner, Colonel Mulletson bent over a man tied in a chair.
The colonel turned his jowly face to stare at the intruder.
The prisoner, a large black man, struggled against his bonds even as his head lolled from repeated blows. What looked to be blood on the man’s temple glistened in the lamp’s pale light. The bound man looked up at Slocum through the one eye that wasn’t swollen shut. There was anger sparking in that eye.
For a brief moment the only things that moved in the room were the big man’s chest rising and falling, as if he’d just run a mile, and the leather strap that swung from the colonel’s pink fist.
Mulletson straightened. “Well, Mr. Slocum, I do believe you have genuinely surprised this ol’ boy. Well, both of us actually.” The colonel stretched his back. “You see, I was just telling my employee here that insubordination will not be tolerated. As a matter of fact, I believe I told you the same thing earlier. Now, this might just be a good time for you to, shall we say, prove your loyalty to me by laying a whuppin’ of respect and gratitude upside the head of this foul darkie. You hear me?”
As he spoke, the colonel’s tone grew angrier, his face reddened, and he began to jab the air as if Slocum were standing right in front of him, close enough to poke in the chest.
