by Jake Logan
“I am Raule Tomas. Welcome to my place, Señor.”
“Slocum’s mine. Glad to meet you.” He dismounted and shook the man’s calloused hand.
“You may put your horse in the corral, there is hay for him. I will go and show Diego where to put the toro and his oxen.”
“Thank you,” Slocum said, and began to pull loose the latigos to his cinches.
“Well, I learned one thing.” Collie Bill was looking around to be sure they were alone when he joined Slocum.
“What is that?”
“Boosters are charging people with cattle for their protection. Probably her, too. But they still steal from everyone. There is some mining going on up in Colorado and they are herding the stolen cows up there. The market is good and with no expenses but the drive, they’re making lots of money.”
“What about brand inspectors? Colorado surely has them.” Slocum lifted the saddle and blankets off Heck’s back. He tossed the saddle over the corral top rail and then strung the pads out to dry.
“They’re venting the brands like they’d bought them and putting a road brand on them.”
“That’s one way. But still, isn’t anyone complaining?”
“No, they’ve burned out or killed anyone who reported them. Didn’t take much of that to shut folks up.”
“I suppose the complainers are buried, huh?”
“They disappear.” Collie Bill nodded. “What’re your plans?”
“I’m not certain. Get the bull delivered and then we can look at the señora’s situation.” He led Heck through the gate and slipped off the bridle. Did her husband object to the Boosters’ tactics?
“I mean, we may be getting ourselves into a hornet’s nest,” said Collie Bill.
“I understand, but she didn’t hire me to solve all her problems—for now, only to get the bull to her place safe.”
“I think this may be a larger deal than we thought.”
“You wanting out?”
“Ha. Me riding a borrowed horse and broker than a peon? Ain’t no way I want out.”
“Good, we’ll figure this out sooner or later. Now that we know they’re rustling to supplement their living on the high side.”
Collie Bill nodded. “Maybe one of us ought to ride up to Colorado and look that over?”
“Wouldn’t be a bad idea after we get the señora home.”
“Couple of days?”
Slocum agreed. “We should be at her casa. But if they’re shutting up the folks that report them, they’ve got spies around here. There ain’t no telegraph wire strung around here.”
“Wonder who that would be.” Collie Bill took off his hat and scratched his head. “So we’ve got to watch out for them and their spies.”
“Exactly.” Slocum saw Tomas at the house, waving at them. That must mean food was ready. It wouldn’t be easy finding the spies working for the Boosters. But someone knew who they were and those someones were out there. He needed to use them to his advantage. But how?
8
The morning came fast. Slocum’s eyes were dry with grit as he rode in the frosty cold, wrapped in a blanket. It damn sure wouldn’t be this cold in San Antonio. Besides, if he’d been there, he’d probably have shared his warm bed the night before with some sweet-smelling lover. He looked off at the sawtooth peaks in the east, purple with the approaching dawn. Damn.
“We can stay at the Flores Ranch tonight,” Perla said, riding her gray between him and Collie Bill. “Then we will be at my place the next day.”
“Good, King Arthur must be tired of the long ride.” Slocum shared a grin past her at Collie Bill before he looked back at her with a serious expression on his face. “How many cattle are they stealing from you?”
She hunched her shoulders under her heavy coat. “I don’t know. I only have some boys left as ranch hands.”
“It’s a shame to raise cattle for rustlers.”
“They need me this way. They need the ranchers to provide them with cattle. They steal some, but they don’t raid your ranch.”
“Your husband fought them?”
She swallowed and nodded. “I told him he was foolish. A hundred times. I wish he had listened.”
“So now they help themselves to your cattle and no one complains.”
“Something like that. You don’t understand.”
“Why did you hire us?”
She checked her prancing gray. “They are not the only bad ones on this road.”
Slocum shared a nod with Collie Bill, who showed by his grim face that he understood her concern. “It’s a bad road,” Slocum said.
“Yes, there is no one for miles, and outlaws rob the stages and the poor people who travel it all the time.”
“We’ll stick close today. We’d like to—Collie Bill and I’d like to stop this rustling.”
She gave him a sharp look. “And end up dead?”
“Señora, we like living too well to have that happen.” Collie Bill laughed and smiled at her.
“So did my husband.”
“Ma’am,” Slocum said. “We’d like to work for you and settle this business.”
“They would come down on the ranch again.” He dark eyes darted in search of an answer from either of them. “I can’t risk that happening. Not again.”
“I can’t say they won’t. But they need to be stopped.”
“At what price? Hurting my people again?”
“I can’t tell you that,” Slocum said.
Warily, she shook her head. “I will pay you to get my bull home safely. I can’t risk going against them.”
“That’s your final word?”
She nodded and drew back into her shell. Slocum felt he and Collie Bill could have been riding by themselves. No doubt she was dead set against them doing anything to help her. He wasn’t halfway convinced, though, that he could simply ride out of there leaving Peralta’s widow at the mercy of those outlaws.
At noontime, they stopped by a small spring-fed creek to eat some tamales she had brought from her cousin’s. The golden canopy of the cottonwood leaves and being down in the canyon out of the wind gave them some warmth. Slocum and Collie Bill were squatting at a distance from her eating their food.
“You figure she’d blow up like that?” Collie asked under his breath.
“I wasn’t sure how she’d react when the time came. She’d never committed herself aloud to that plan. All she’d asked for was us to get that bull home. The rest I made up in my mind, I guess.” Slocum shook his head and took another bite of his tamale.
“I reckon they taught her a hard lesson the night they killed her husband and tore up the ranch.”
“And raped her, too.”
“I can see her not wanting that again.”
“But they done it once. What’s to keep them from doing it again?” Slocum asked.
“I’ll be damned if I know.”
“Hold tight, we’ve got some riders coming,” said Slocum. He rose and studied the three men approaching on tough-looking mustangs.
Collie Bill rose, too.
The men were dressed in the garb of ranch hands, unshaven, looking hard first at Señora Peralta, then at Slocum and Collie Bill. It was their contemptuous faces that put Slocum on edge. These three—from the youngest, a boy with fuzzy blond whiskers, to the older ones, including the leader with the eye patch and his white and black stubble—were all bullies, all backed by the guns that they wore on their hips.
“What’s your name?” One-Eye asked the señora.
She began, “My name is—”
“You don’t have to tell these rannies anything,” Slocum said, interrupting and stepping into the center of the ring. He waved her back. “You boys are a little short on manners, ain’t ya?”
“Huh, who the hell are you?” One-Eye asked as he dismounted.
“Not that it is important, but my name is Slocum. Now, you boys pack up and get out of here.”
The leader started for his gun, then reconsidered
. The kid and the other man were already backing away.
“It ain’t a good day to die, mister,” Slocum said. “’Cause we ain’t burying you. We’ll let the buzzards do that.” Slocum advanced on the man, and he began to retreat, too.
“You can only push a man so far—”
“What do they call you?”
“Davis.”
“Well, Davis, get on your horse and get the hell out of here. Next time, take your hat off when you speak to a lady.”
One-Eye took the reins from the kid, who was still mounted with a look of longing to be out of there written on his face. Red-faced and angry, One-Eye pointed his finger at Slocum. “I ever catch you or your gunfighting buddy there alone, I’ll blow your asses off.”
“What about today, Davis? Try it.”
Davis shook his head slightly, never taking his single eye off Slocum’s gun hand until he was mounted. “You ain’t seen the last of me.”
“Better forget it,” Slocum said, and watched them ride off.
“Señora?” Collie Bill called out to her as the three galloped away. “Were they members of the gang that raided the ranch?”
She looked pale under the flat-crown hat as she shook her head. “I don’t think so. All of those men wore flour-sack masks—” She shook her head in defeat.
Satisfied those three were gone, Slocum went over and took her by the arm. He motioned for her to sit on a dead log lying on the ground. “I’m sorry to upset you, but those men were bullies, and any show of weakness and they’d’ve done what they wanted.”
She nodded that she understood as she chewed on her lower lip. “I hope I am not the cause of your death or his.”
“That’s not your worry. We’re big boys and we can figure out the rest.” He turned to Collie Bill. “You seen them before?”
“No, but five’ll get you ten they’ve been in on the stage robberies up here.”
“Been many of them?” Slocum asked.
“Most every time the coach comes down. Parties unknown shot a Wells Fargo man in the back a week ago.”
“It’s a shame, this is nice country,” Slocum said, looking at the pine-and-juniper land around them. Good grass and several live water creeks coming out of the mountains in the west and rushing toward the Rio Grande should have made it fine ranching country. Still might be that if the Booster brothers and a few more sorry outfits like them were run out of that part of New Mexico.
“You feeling ready to ride?” he asked her.
“Yes.” Her composure returned, and she took the reins from Collie Bill and thanked him. She set out with a wave to Diego, and they all mounted up.
“You almost broke through her shield,” Collie Bill said in the saddle, reining his roan up. Then, with a big grin, he booted his horse out.
Slocum shook his head and swung back to check on Diego. “Everything all right?”
“Sí, señor. Hee-yah, get up,” he said to his team, and the axle began to creak.
For a long moment, Slocum sat Heck and looked back down the road to make sure those three were gone and didn’t try to sneak back for a potshot. Cowards like that were famous for doing such things. Another day and a half and they should be at the señora’s ranch according to her. Then she could decide what she wanted done about the Boosters.
Satisfied that the three riders were gone for the moment, Slocum reined Heck around and rode to catch up with Collie Bill and escape the ear-piercing creak of the axle.
“Where were you headed next?” Collie Bill asked when Slocum joined him.
“I was planning to use the Spanish Trail and go west.”
“If I could, I’d’ve been in San Antonio, warming my butt in the sun.”
Slocum nodded. He had the same idea as he was swept by the cold breeze that even the full sun couldn’t warm. “Why can’t you?”
Collie Bill smiled. “I was down in Euvalde and found me a sweet—” He lowered his voice. “Señorita by the name of Rita. Aw, hell, Slocum, she was, you know, you know what I mean, a shapely little coffee-skin border girl. Well, her and me’d been on a three-day party. We were polka-ing at this fandango and a big man wearing a star butted in and told me that she was his girl. And asked where in the hell we’d been.
“I told him to stick the moon in his ass so he could spit out stars. He grabbed for his gun, and that was a bad mistake for both of us. I shot him and he fell down like a poled steer. Women were screaming bloody murder. I jumped out an open window. Time to scratch gravel. I’d shot a lawman, right or wrong. Found the first horse I came to and rode away.”
“They have a poster out for you?”
“I never looked to see it.”
Slocum nodded. “Bet you could go back to San Antonio and they’d never know you.”
“There’s a widow gal up in the hill country. She’s from Norway. I ever figure out how, I’d slip back down there and see if she was still single.”
“Maybe that’s what you need to do.”
Collie Bill used his finger to scratch under his shirt collar. “But I sure don’t want a necktie party instead of a wedding.”
They both laughed.
Later in the afternoon, they rode with Señora Peralta.
“We can stay tonight at the Flores Ranch. Manuel was a friend of my husband,” she said.
“He have a big ranch?” Collie Bill asked.
“No, he has a stage station and some irrigated land to grow hay and corn on. His wife Juanita is my good amigo. They work very hard, and I only get to see her once in a while.”
Slocum nodded. They’d passed two parked freight outfits that were headed north and had already stopped for the day to graze their stock. Feeding the carreta oxen grain at night spared Slocum and his party from having to stop that much. But after six to seven hours on the move each day, the freighters had to stop to let their oxen graze the rest of the day. This meant that most of the forage near the road was eaten down and the oxen had to be driven off to find feed. This was why the trains had a scout to ride ahead and look for the grass and water to make the next day’s stop.
Slocum was grateful he wasn’t scouting for one of those outfits. In no time at all their snail’s pace would bore him to death.
Riding along with Señora Peralta was nice enough for him. Was anyone else going to harass them? One Hereford bull hardly seemed worth the fuss. Slocum shook away the notion and looked over the tall mountains that hemmed them in. Be nice up there if it was summertime.
9
Flores Ranch and Stage Station was in an open valley surrounded by pines on the hills. When Slocum and the others topped the last rise, he could see the layout along the creek. The brown corn stubble and green alfalfa fields were fenced off by post and rail and bordered by bunchgrass and purple sagebrush. Obviously, Flores was a neat farmer.
The land around his farmed acreage proved boggy, with some small creeks and marsh grass webbing the valley. In places, the main road was paved with pine logs to cross the softer spots.
A gray-haired Hispanic man came out of the building and hugged Señora Peralta.
Then the clean-shaven man in working clothes shook hands with Slocum and Collie Bill. “Come inside and eat. The stage is due in a half hour and they will eat our leftovers.”
Slocum guessed him to be in his forties. He was an open sort of a fellow who looked and acted genuinely concerned about the señora. Flores’s wife Juanita was half his age, a short brown-skinned woman who smiled at her guests’ arrival and then hurried off for the food. She had a figure that would catch any man’s eye.
Two small children played on the floor in the dining room. Slocum excused himself and Collie Bill. They went outside and used the stinking outhouse in back. As they stood shoulder to shoulder draining their bladders in the holes under the low roof, Collie Bill said, “Nice outfit. He’s got some stage income and a good farm. I ought to have found me a deal like this.”
“You ain’t too old to start,” Slocum said, buttoning his pants.
/> “Hell, I’ve tried it a few times. Twice in Texas—and I met a gal had this homestead in Kansas. Whew, she was a big ole gal, but she had a body made like any man wanted. Her old man had got kicked in the head by a mule and died.” Collie Bill shook his head in wonderment. “Old buddy, she could’ve screwed a pump handle to death.”
“What happened?”
“I woke up one morning before daylight, got up, and had me this urge to run. Her corn was laid by and there was new ground to break for the coming year. I just saddled my old hoss and left. Got drunk in Baxter Springs just trying to forget that fine body I’d run off and left. Hell, I must of got into too many fights, ended in jail, lost my horse, saddle, and gear, and thirty days later, I hitched a ride back to Texas in a chuck wagon with that Bernelly outfit.” Collie Bill dropped his head. “Dumb, dumb, dumb. That was the sorriest thing I ever did, and every time since then when I get me a hard-on alone in bed, I’m reminded of her.”
“There’s women like that in this world.” Slocum washed his hands in the basin set out for them on the back porch. The wind had a nip. He needed a heavier coat.
“Either the stage is early or there’s people coming.” Collie Bull stuck his head around the corner. When he turned back, he hitched the gun on his hip and gave Slocum a serious look. “I think the Booster gang has arrived.”
Slocum hung the stiff towel on a nail. “How many?”
“Four.”
“What makes you think it’s them?”
“Red bandannas for hatbands. Silvia mentioned it. They all wear ’em. I guess so they don’t shoot each other.”
Slocum nodded, drew his Colt, and checked the five rounds in the chambers, then shut the gate and reholstered it. It might be a good day for such things. “I guess it’s a good day to meet them.”
“Yeah. My paw always said don’t put off today what you need to do.”
Slocum grinned. “Good advice. Looks like today is the day.”
