by Jake Logan
Riding beside her in a jog trot under the warming sun, he wanted to circle the range and come in from the east. There was a good spring over there where they could camp for the night. Then they could make Cox’s meadows the next day by noon.
The next day they were pushing their mountain ponies single file up through the live oak and juniper. The steep narrow trail was well worn, but at this point, when they rode by a spot where the brush was out of the way, they could look a hundred miles off into Mexico or that far north up the San Pedro basin.
“It’s pretty up here,” she said from her position in the lead.
Riding drag, he nodded. “Good isolated country.”
“We all alone up here?”
“Probably, unless some old prospector comes through.”
“Good.” She turned back and pushed the bay on up the steep pathway.
By the time the sun reached one o’clock, he had a canvas shade hung at the edge of the grassy meadow that ran off between the slopes timbered in pine.
“I love this place,” she said, returning with an armload of sticks.
“One of the islands in the sky. There’s several around, but this is the one I like the best.”
She dropped the wood on her pile and ran over to hug him. He bent down and kissed her. The contact broke all restraint and in minutes they were stripping off clothes and unable to take their eyes off each other’s action. Soon, white flesh began to sparkle in the sunlight, and he swept her up and carried her to the bedroll.
There would be lots of distraction in this camping business with her. Lots.
Later that evening, they were seated around the glow of the campfire and listening to the crickets, and a red wolf off in the distance, when he heard the sound of a horse’s hooves crunching gravel on the trail.
“Oh,” she said, and jumped up holding the blanket shut to hid her nakedness. “I better get dressed. That’s someone coming.”
“It damn sure is. Now who in the hell could that be?” He went to buttoning his shirt and tucking it in his waistband. The mules were honking at the intruders as Slocum buckled on his gun belt.
Who was out there? He glanced over at the firelight’s reflection off her short shapely legs being concealed by the buckskin skirt she was drawing over them. Tying it at the waist she looked more satisfied with her bare butt finally covered.
There was more than one rider. Slocum tossed some more branches on the fire for lighting purposes. The cool night air carried the sounds of their hard-breathing horses pulling the last grade. Stepping back, she came under his left arm.
“I wonder—”
“We’ll know in a few minutes.” He felt her shiver under his hand. “Not to worry. They may be lost.”
5
“Ah, you are Señor Slocum. I am so glad we found you. I am Fernando Morales. We met one time, Señor. I work for Señor Salazar at his hacienda in Sonora. May I dismount?” The great barb horse that he rode was spinning the roller in the spade bit with his tongue and he stomped in place. Three other riders remained behind him on equally excited animals.
“Sure. Good to see you again, Morales.” Slocum started to step forward to shake his hand. “He’s a good man,” he said to Willa. “What brings you to my camp, Morales?”
“A terrible thing has happened, Señor. The Apaches have kidnapped the patron’s lovely daughter Estria.”
He shook hands with the man in the tan waist jacket with fancy piping. Morales pushed his hat off on his shoulder and then he spoke to Willa, “I am sorry to bother you too, ma’am. But this lovely girl is so important to my patron and his wife, who is so wrought up over the matter.”
“I would be too,” she said.
“What can I do for you?” Slocum asked.
“My patron believes that you are the only man that can get her back from them. He would pay a large ransom or do anything just so she is alive and safe once again.”
“What Apache has her?”
“The one they called Whey?”
“He eats white men for breakfast. How could I do anything with him?”
Morales shook his head. “These are bad times, Señor, and there is not much anyone can do. But Señor Salazar will pay you a thousand dollars to try to get his lovely daughter back and give you all the support you need.”
Slocum shook his head in defeat. “It isn’t the money. It’s the fact this man is crazy. No one can deal with him.”
“He came to the white doctor in San Miguel to be treated for some gunshot wounds. Estria was taking her great-aunt there to see the doctor and got caught.”
“Whey must have lived through his wounds?” He turned and looked at Willa.
She nodded she’d heard them.
“Please. Just do what you can to get the girl back. We know of no one else who might succeed.”
Slocum folded his arms over his chest, then looked down at his dusty boot toes in the fire’s orange light. “I hate to take your man’s money on such a senseless mission.”
“The señor is not a poor man. He can afford what he is offering you and more.”
“But there is no way I can ride into Whey’s camp and negotiate the return of some girl. Geronimo, I might, but this man Whey is rabid.”
“If you would try for one month, I would bring you the money.”
“Let me think it over. That is a powerful amount of money. Let me think it over tonight.”
“Fine,” Morales said.
“Señor Morales, have you and your men eaten supper?” Willa asked.
“We eat some beef jerky, but we might fix us some pinole at your fire if that is all right?”
“Tell them to come and do that,” she said. “I have plenty of coffee and hot water too.”
“Gracias, señora. That is very kind of you.”
Slocum hugged her shoulder. “That’s good hospitality. I had not heard of that kind of generosity often in the folks I travel with.”
“You need to change company maybe?” She winked at him.
Slocum watched them take some of the hot water and pour it in their cups and stir it with a stick. A gruel of ground corn and brown sugar was what such men lived on traveling.
“We will move down the valley when we are through,” Morales said. “We don’t want to disturb your camp. At dawn, you can tell me your wishes.”
Slocum nodded in agreement. But he couldn’t think of a reason to go on another endless search. Hell, he’d quit Nan Tan Lupan for the same reason and he owed Crook more than he did Salazar. The men thanked her politely when they finished and rode off.
Slocum and Willa sat by the dying fire, alone at last.
“Can I go with you?”
“Where?”
“To try and find her.”
Slocum shook his head. “I’m not going looking for a needle in a haystack that I can never find.”
She hugged his hand in her lap. “Yes, you are.”
“How do you know that?”
“’Cause of how God made you.”
“What’s he got to do with me?”
“I am not certain. But there are rumors that you are one of those men who took on armies to save individuals.”
He laughed. “Wrong guy.”
“No.” She rose on her knees and cupped his face in her hands. “You are the one who brought a young boy home who had been kidnapped by Indians up by Preskitt.”
“Those were Yavapai.”
“There are several other stories. If I had been her grieving father with that much money, I would have come and asked you to get my daughter back.” She bent over and kissed him hard on the mouth.
He hugged her to his chest. “All I wanted to do was stay up here and make love to you until our supplies ran out.”
“We can do that too. I’ll go along.”
“Oh, yeah, then I can fetch you back from them.”
She straightened his face with both her hands to look him in the eye. “I am going along. Now let’s go to bed and we can finish
this conversation later.”
He swept her up in his arms and headed for their bedroll.
“I can walk,” she said.
“I know, but I like to carry you. Makes me feel macho.”
“Hell, if it does that carry me.” She laughed and then quickly kissed him.
Alone in their end of the valley, there wasn’t much sleep time. They sampled each other’s bodies and after each encounter, fell asleep and woke in a new fury for more.
He discovered her nipples would get hard as pebbles when he teased them. She found her hand could awaken his shaft with little effort. She told him, snuggled in his arms, that her power to do that amazed her. And with their bodies connected, they both became carried away in a frantic way to reach new heights of pleasure.
In the predawn, he sat dressed and cross-legged as she hurried about making a meal for the men. Not a word had been said since the night before about his decision.
Bent over frying strips of salt pork, she looked up and nodded at him. They were coming. The clink of their spur rowels and their boot soles on the rocks told him they would soon be there.
Somewhere, a dove cooed and the smell of her cooking smoky pork was in his nose.
They all tipped their hats to her and she carried the coffeepot around to fill their cups. Morales came last and sat beside Slocum. He held out his tin cup for her to fill it.
“Gracias, Señora.”
“Most folks call me Willa. Those that don’t call me that call me Little Sister. I like Willa better.”
“Ah, sí. You will be Willa from now on.”
“Good.”
Her fried pork and pancakes finally filled the hollow bellies around her fire. She swept the hair back from her face. One of the men called Raul asked her what she called them.
“Pan-cakes.”
“Ah, sí. Pam-cakes.”
“That’s close enough.” She laughed and began gathering her things to scrape and wash. But they wouldn’t let her and made her sit down.
Morales and Slocum walked off to be by themselves.
“That is a good woman you have,” Morales said.
“Willa is a fine lady. Apaches killed one of her men last week. She wanted to be away from everything and I brought her here.”
“I am so sorry I interrupted you and her.”
“No problem.”
“Will you accept my patron’s generous offer?”
Slocum looked at the ground. “I can’t promise him nothing. I will go look for her. Did Whey head for the Madres after he left this doctor?”
Morales looked like a man terribly relieved at his answer. “Yes, yes, he rode in that direction. We were afraid if we got too close, he might kill her.”
“You did the right thing. He might have. He has a very short fuse.”
“How will you handle it?”
“I’ll go up there and stay in one of those villages where the Apaches come to trade and try to set up a swap. When I need the ransom, I’ll need it in a hurry.”
“Estevan can go with you, help you, and then deliver the message to the patron.”
“He can’t go with me dressed like he’s dressed today. I want him in sandals, white clothing, and a pony, not riding a great horse.”
“Oh, I see. He would draw too much suspicion up there dressed like he is today.”
“Right. They would think we were with the federales or something. He can be our guide.”
“Ah, sí. I would never have thought about that. It might work.”
“We’re going to try hard. But I can’t promise you a thing.”
“Oh, I understand. So does the patron. But he needed to try something, anything, everything. “
When the hacienda men rode off at last after packing the mules and doing everything they could do for Willa, she turned to Slocum. “What did you tell him?”
“That we would go up there, live in a village where the Apaches come to trade, and try to barter with them. Estevan, the youngest, is going to be our guide up there. But I wanted him dressed for the role as a peon, not like a pistolero for a hacienda.”
“Oh, I can see that.”
“Good.”
“What is her name again?”
“Estria Salazar.”
She hugged his arm. “This will be a real adventure. I’m so excited.”
“It will be a dangerous one. Keep that pistol of yours close by.”
“What made you change your mind?”
Slocum shook his head. “Who knows, Willa? Who knows?”
“I think God knows. Where do we camp next?”
“Tonight at some rancheria between here and there.”
“Let’s ride, big man.”
Let’s ride sounded good, but he still carried a lot of dread about the future riding out of their camp.
6
“Are those soldiers?” she asked in a guarded voice.
“No, they’re mercenaries,” he said as they sat their horses concealed in a grove of mesquite trees and watched the company of men towing a light cannon with a six-horse hitch, crossing the open desert beyond them and headed north.
“How can you tell?”
“That color of tan material is not Mexican army issue.”
“What’re they doing with a cannon out here?”
“Crowd control. Heavens, I don’t know. But I’d bet that Generale Garcia is involved with it.”
“I’ve heard of him.”
“Last word I heard was that he was trading guns for gold with the Apaches.”
“But he’s—”
“Right. He’s supposed to be supplying troops to the central government and that ain’t shooting square. But in Mexico you go where your bread is buttered.”
“Has he made any such trades?”
“No, I think we’d heard of them crossing the border. Crook has a good eye out for all arms shipments from anywhere in Arizona or New Mexico entering Mexico. But I ain’t saying they couldn’t cross at Juarez where the General has less control and come in the Madres by pack train from the east.”
“Where are we going tonight?”
“The Valencias’ hacienda. You’ll like Lou and his wife Reba. We can rest there a day and Estevan will catch up with us.”
“How far are we from the mountains?”
“Oh, two days, maybe more after today.”
“There is lots of nothing out here. How does that young man and his children where we stayed last night under that ramada ever exist out here?”
“He wants to be a rancher and has a registered brand as well as some cows. He catches mustangs and breaks them to sell for his food money.”
“But his wife, the poor thing, died in childbirth and she must have been young.”
“Maybe he’ll find him a new wife.”
“How could he feed any more kids?”
“I never ask those people how they do that.”
“But he sure did not turn you down giving him that sack of frijoles.”
Slocum smiled. “On my salary this month I can help him.”
“We haven’t made it to the last day of this month yet either.” She laughed. “My husband, God rest his soul, was such a worrier. He made one out of me. What do you worry about?”
“Oh, what those wild men are doing to Estria for their cruel entertainment and how we can ever get her from their clutches.”
“That’s something to fret over, huh?”
“Yes.”
She booted her pony in beside him. “And you said that you weren’t the man that rescued such captives.”
“I have failed before too.”
“So what. You have more success than anyone.” She rode in closer and playfully swatted him on the arm.
“This one may crash and burn too.”
“Let’s lope a ways. It’s not too hot today.”
“Fine.”
With him hurrying the mules, they cut a dusty trail eastward. By late afternoon, they were in the Valencias’ citrus orchards and vi
neyards headed for the main headquarters.
She rose and twisted in the saddle to look over the greenery. “There are no rivers or lakes around here. How do they farm out here like this?”
“Artesian wells.”
“I know all about them. They come out of the ground under pressure when drilled. Isn’t that something?”
“It’s made him and his family very rich.”
“I can imagine.”
“They make some great wines. You’ll get to taste some of it tonight.”
“I can’t wait.”
Lou Valencia came from the house dressed in a silk shirt and coat with a fancy scarf around his neck. “Ah, mi amigo Slocum and his lady—” For her he made a deep bow. “So good to have you here, mis amigos.”
Slocum tossed the roan’s reins to one of the stable boys who had come on the run to take their horses and mules. Then he helped her off her bay.
“We are glad to be here. This is Señora Willa Malloy. My good friend Lou Valencia.”
“Ah, what brings you to my ranchero?”
“Looking for a young woman kidnapped by the Apaches.”
“Oh, how serious. It is her daughter?” Valencia indicated Willa.
“No, Willa is a widow. This girl belongs to the Salazar family.”
His face paled. “Oh, not Estria?”
“Yes. The crazy one, Whey, took her.”
“That is so bad. It will make my wife cry to hear about that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No. No. I am so glad to see you and you too, my lady. Company always livens up the hacienda. So few people find us out here.” He spoke to Willa, “Let Juanita see you inside, I must show Slocum my new stallions.”
“I’ll be fine.” Then Willa spoke in Spanish to the woman sent to assist her. They both were soon laughing going to the house.
“She must be some woman?” Valencia said after her.
“She lost her husband two years ago. A week back, Apaches made a raid on her wagon train and killed one of her lead teamsters. She is on a forget-it-all with me.”
“I see. You will love this great horse I bought six months ago. He came from North Africa. He is a breath of the desert wind.”
Soon the main stable man led the high-headed, dish-faced stallion out in the bright sunlight. The stallion chortled deep in his throat, as if dreaming that perhaps there was a mare in heat outside there for him to service. His pale coat was cast in a red finish on a white base. Mane waving in the wind, he looked very expensive.
