Slocum and the Hellfire Harem (9781101613382)

by Logan, Jake

  She nodded. “Mama’s right smart.”

  “I don’t want them to know how many of us there are, so we’ll keep hidden. I’ll use you as bait, then see if we can lure them out that way.”

  “You’ll use me as . . . bait? I look like a worm to you, Mr. Slocum?”

  He heard her, but was already on the move, taking stock of their meager possessions. They had his sheath knife, boot knife, three pistols, and a rifle, plus his Appaloosa.

  “We’ll have to leave the horse here,” he said. “For now. We’re going on a scouting mission. We can’t risk the other horses sensing him, making a fuss.” Normally, he wouldn’t leave the horse anywhere else, but he did have to move in on the little fortified compound and quick. He retied the horse, then motioned for her to follow him. “Double-check to make sure those are loaded and ready, just in case,” he said, indicating her pistols.

  “In case of what?”

  “In case someone sees us.” He looked at her. “No offense, Judith, but I don’t trust any of them as far as I can throw them.”

  She laughed, “You and me both.”

  * * *

  It took them most of an hour, but by the time they came to the farm, Slocum noted that he still had a few hours before dark. They’d traveled on the lane until they drew close, then broke right and climbed the rocky knob directly across from the farm.

  “Up here,” Judith whispered. “It’s a good spot for spying on ’em. I come up here sometimes to get away from them all.” They lay on their bellies behind a bristling row of scrub brush.

  “Where’s the outhouse?” he whispered, eyeing the house. All this would be so much easier if he could just shoot the men. It would solve a lot of problems. It might not be quite the right thing to do, but then again, was what they were subjecting the women to right?

  “Straight out back from the kitchen. Two-seater.”

  “How far?”

  She paused. “Far enough. You gotta go?”

  “No.” He stifled a laugh. “Is there a time, more than others, when your father does his business?”

  “Yeah, Pap’s regular as a wound watch. Mornings, just after breakfast, before daylight.”

  “He eats early.”

  “Yep, all the men do.” She grew silent a moment, thinking, no doubt, about her dead brothers. Then, in a whisper, she said. “Women aren’t allowed to eat with the men, can only eat when the men have gone outside. And if Pap comes back in and finds them, he gets riled and commences to throw dishes, upends the table. Claims women shouldn’t be seen to be eating, claims it’s a sight no one should see.”

  Slocum leaned out a little beyond the bushes rimming their perch and looked toward the barn. He had to admit, for a crazy person, the old man kept a neat place. Everything looked tidy; even the wagon Slocum had mended was parked next to a two-seat buggy and a hay rake and a plow. He kept looking around the buildings, looking for a way in, something that might help spring the women without forcing a gunfight. But he saw nothing.

  “I’m going to head down to the barn while I still have daylight, see if I can uncover the old man’s stash of weapons, anything else I might find of use.”

  “How are you going to carry them?”

  “I’m not. I’ll hide them on him, take what I need. Now where in the barn is it?”

  Judith didn’t respond.

  “Judith, where is his hiding place?”

  “I don’t know. It was Mama and Ruth who found it. I was busy . . . tying up the men.” She looked down at her lap. “Me and the twins. Then Mama and Ruth come back and helped us. Then we had to leave.”

  “Okay then. I’ll go down and scout around, then come back here. If I get cornered, you stay put. I don’t want to have to rescue you, too. I’ll need you once I settle on a final plan. Some of it depends on what I find in the barn.”

  He rose, crouching low, then looked back at her. “I’m serious, Judith. You keep my rifle handy and stay put. Promise me?”

  She nodded. “But what if Papa or Zeke should head to the barn? I could make a noise, hoot like an owl.”

  “Good point.” He paused. “But it’s too risky. If you were to whistle, something like that, you’d be found out. Best leave it to me. I’ve had practice at this sort of thing.” He smiled at her and patted her shoulder.

  She placed a hand up quickly atop his, brushed her cheek against his hand. “Please be careful.”

  He carefully slipped his fingers free. “Yes, ma’am.” He smiled again and made his way down the far side of the hill. That kid, he thought, she’s falling for me and that’s a dangerous game. But he pushed that worry from his mind as he made his way from boulder to boulder, aware that he could be seen from the house for part of his journey from the lane to the barn. But there was no way around it.

  He needed the daylight to snoop around in the barn, and from what the women said, there was something of value in the barn that the old man kept hidden, something that they guessed was probably a store of weapons and ammunition. Though for what reason he would have such things, Slocum was unsure. At the moment, he didn’t really care. He just needed to find it and get the men out of there, then figure out some way of getting the women and kids away and free.

  He made it across the road and dropped into the tall hay in the corner of the field separating him from the barn. The waist-high grasses were a golden swaying mass under the heat of the midsummer sun. He moved slowly but steadily, lest anyone see the grass moving, grow curious, and come to investigate.

  He made it to the edge of the field near the front doors of the barn, and was about to crawl onward so that he would be even with the backside of the barn. From his brief visit days before, he recalled seeing a smaller door there. He could pry it open if it was locked from the inside. Slocum resumed belly-crawling when the front door of the barn opened and out stepped Zeke. He closed and bolted the door behind himself, then headed to the house.

  Slocum took a good look at him. His skin tone had improved slightly since they’d first met, though he noticed the man was still wearing loose-fitting clothes and walked with his arms slightly raised and his legs apart. Slocum couldn’t help smiling—there was a man who was chafing from sunburn.

  He wouldn’t have locked anyone in there, reasoned Slocum, so the barn must be empty. He waited until the man made it to the house, then continued wriggling through the grass, pulling himself along on his elbows, his wounded leg now throbbing each time he set his knee to move forward.

  Finally, he made it even with the back of the barn and, rising to his feet, ran hunched over, crossing the twenty or so feet until he made it behind the weathered structure. He leaned there, paused, controlling his breathing, listening for shouts or the rush of boots crossing the hard-packed yard, but heard none. Good. Keeping his back to the weathered boards, he edged along the back of the building until he came to the small door he remembered had been there. He drew his Colt and raised his other hand above his head and tried the edge of the door—and it swung open. No sound came from inside, no gunshots, no cocking of guns, nothing. He peered around the door frame, peeked into the darkened interior, then keeping low, he dashed through and softly closed the door behind him.

  Once inside, Slocum stepped to the side, away from the door, and let his eyes adjust to the darker light of the barn. If I was the old Bible-thumping madman, where would I hide a stash of weapons or anything, for that matter? The stable floor was typical of its ilk, packed dirt, save for the very center directly before the great double doors. It was planked with long-worn boards, corduroy fashion so that heavily laden wagons might not sink into the floor. Though here, with such hard, dry ground, this would seem to be an unnecessary precaution.

  Slocum walked over to the boards, careful to stay to the side lest the sound of his boots on the boards give him away to anyone who might be outside. He bent low
and ran a hand over the worn planks, hoping to detect any that might have been disturbed recently. But the hay chaff on them, and dirt to the side, all seemed untouched. That was curious.

  He rose and eyed the boards from another angle. But knowing he really didn’t have time to kill in such speculation, he turned his attention to the stalls lining the side of the barn. Then he heard footsteps approaching the front door.

  Without a second glance, Slocum worked his way up the straight wooden ladder as fast as he could to the hay loft, just as whoever had entered the barn shut the door behind them. Slocum paused but a few feet from the top of the ladder, crouched low. Whoever had come in had also paused.

  Slocum wondered if they had seen him, then got his answer.

  “Who’s there?” came a woman’s voice, just louder than a whisper. “I saw hay falling. I know somebody’s up there.” Boots sounded on the board, moved closer to the bottom of the ladder. “Judith, honey, is that you?”

  Slocum recognized it as the voice of one of the twins. She was probably safe to confide in, but he didn’t know for certain just where her loyalties lay now that they’d elected to come back to the farm. He decided to wait, hoping she’d climb up. If she headed toward the door again, he’d have to stop her, or risk having her spill the beans about an intruder in some misguided attempt to appease her father.

  He heard her boots on the ladder and stayed put, waiting in the shadows. “I’m coming up, whoever you are.” Her voice drew closer, then her head and shoulders appeared above the top of the ladder. “Mr. Slocum!”

  “Shhh!” he said, tapping an extended finger to his lips. “Come up here, I need your help.” She smiled and hurried up the ladder and into the loft.

  “What are you doing here, Mr. Slocum? Is Judith with you? We’re worried sick about her.”

  “Judith is fine, but I need your help.” He squinted at her. “Can I trust you?”

  She walked toward him on her knees, and with her face inches from his, she nodded. “I’ll prove it to you.” And before he could answer, she hiked up her dress and straddled him, her hands on his chest.

  “Mary or Angel, I don’t know which you are, but I don’t have time—”

  She closed her mouth over his, then pulled back enough to murmur, “I am Mary, and there’s always time for this.”

  And despite his earlier sense of urgency, Slocum found himself sinking back into the soft hay with this luscious woman atop him. He tasted her sweet breath and wanted more, the heady scent of her clouded his senses, filling his nose and lungs. She unbuttoned the front of her dress and peeled it apart to reveal her curvy, naked body before him. With each passing second, he found himself filled with the increasing urgency of lust. Soon, he, too, was partially unclothed. He flipped her over so that he knelt over her. He worked his way up the taut, heaving plane of her belly, trailing the tip of his tongue along smooth flesh grown hot to the touch.

  Mary’s hands, on either side of Slocum’s head, guided him upward as much as her low, impatient moans. He paused at her perfect, full breasts, the nipples, firm as raspberries not yet ripe, glowed scarlet in the near-dark of the loft.

  By the time his lips reached her jutting, trembling chin, her mouth sought his, frantic and frenzied. Their teeth tapped together. Slocum tasted something bitter on his bottom lip, and didn’t care. This woman could draw his blood all day long and he felt sure he could take it. Keeping up with her was another problem, though. With one strong farm girl’s hand she kneaded his backside, drawing him in tight between her wide-spread legs, with the other she groped between their straining bodies slicked with a sheen of sweat, for the length of his firm member.

  She proved more than ready for him, and before he realized it, Slocum had slipped into her. She gripped his bottom lip gently with her own and a soft, humming sound, as if from a swarm of approaching bees, rose from her throat, her nostrils working to keep up with her hot breath pushing in and out, keeping time with his increasing thrusts.

  In a deft move Slocum didn’t sense coming, Mary grasped his shoulders, shifted her weight hard and fast to her left, and rising up onto one knee, rolled Slocum once more onto his back. She glanced down once at him, grunted, and smiled as she pushed his shoulders flat to the soft hay, her cotton dress, unbuttoned up the front, parted wide and slipped down her slender upper arms. She arched her back, pushing her full breasts outward. They bounced and wagged with each energetic slide downward she made, their bodies where they connected slapping together. Slocum grasped them, firmly massaging her breasts against her taut frame.

  Then she rose up, nearly lifting him with her, before slamming downward again. Her eyes remained closed, but the lashes fluttered as if she were in a deep sleep, dreaming of something. Pleasurable or frightening? wondered Slocum.

  Her braid had worked loose and thick hair the color of dark, polished leather hung to either side of her face. Sweat-soaked strands lay plastered to her cheeks, across her chin, and her mouth pulled wide in an almost-smile, her full red lips seeming to tremble in anticipation. Her hands gripped and rubbed and kneaded his ribs. He was nearly there, despite himself. There was something about this girl that made him—

  “You ’bout done up there, Mary?”

  Slocum’s breath stopped fast in his throat. In a single move, he rose to his elbows and stared at the girl, her face inches from his. And she was smiling, it looked to him, at his reaction. So she wasn’t surprised by the familiar-sounding voice below them in the barn.

  “It’s only Angel,” said the girl, giggling loud enough for their unexpected visitor to hear.

  “And who else?” hissed Slocum, his eyes wide, his breath not yet come back to him.

  She giggled again. “Surely you remember my twin sister.” Mary watched him a moment, suddenly unsure of his reaction.

  Slocum squinted at her in the near-dark barn, and sighed. “Tell Angel she’ll catch cold standing down there.”

  “Angel . . . oh, there you are.”

  Slocum looked toward the ladder in time to see the twin of the girl straddling him rise into view. Other than Mary’s wild hair filled with chaff—and her lack of clothing—Angel and Mary appeared identical, indeed. As Angel crawled toward him on her hands and knees, a familiar grin on her face, Slocum wondered just how identical they were.

  A short while later, though they had worked him mercilessly, Slocum felt oddly rejuvenated.

  “That was nice, Mr. Slocum,” Angel said. “Don’t you think so, Mary?”

  The other girl nodded. “Nothin’ finer. Now, just what were you doing in the barn, Mr. Slocum?”

  “What I came looking for and what I found are two different things. I wonder if you two ladies might be able to tell me where your pap keeps his secret stash, the one that’s all locked up?”

  “Oh, that,” said Mary, finishing up her buttoning. “I’m not sure.”

  “Me either,” said Angel. “But I expect Ruth and Mama know. We was busy out front that day we left, trussin’ up Pap and the others to the fence.”

  Slocum nodded, recalling that Judith had said the same thing to him. “Okay, I better get going. I’m working on a plan to get you all out of here. But I’m going to need some help.”

  “Okay,” they both said at the same time.

  “Before dawn, I’ll need you two, and Ruth, your mother, and the kids all to get in one room and keep low.”

  “That’ll be easy. Papa locks up all us women together at night anyway,” said Mary.

  For once, the old man’s foul ways might work in Slocum’s favor. He nodded and began down the ladder, then stopped and looked over at them as they helped each other pick hay chaff from their hair. “It’s been a most instructive time, ladies. And I thank you. Until later.” He touched his hat brim and smiled at them.

  They giggled as he disappeared down the ladder. Slocum didn’t q
uite know what to think of what had just happened, but he knew he’d better put it out of his mind and come up with a solid plan, and fast.

  26

  Despite his vow to himself that he would stay awake and alert, keep an eye on the tracks, the heat of the day, the slow plodding pace of the horse, and the lack of sleep he’d had over the past long week wore on Tunk Mueller. Soon his eyelids lost the struggle and closed, the rhythmic motion of the tired, underfed horse mimicking what Mueller had always imagined a ride in a boat might be like. Though he had vowed he’d never climb into such a thing. Hell, he was no fish. He even avoided crossing rivers that required the horse to swim, which in turn would necessitate his getting dunked. How could those cowboys on trail drives shuck off and carry their goods on their heads as if they were ducks, grabbing hold of a saddle horn or stirrup and following their horses?

  No, sir, and thank you, ma’am. Water was a thing he avoided at all costs. He even preferred the liquids he took in to be of a medicinal nature, if at all possible. He sure hoped the farmhouse with those sunburnt farmers decorating the fence out front would have sufficient libation inside. Else he might have to shoot the dead men out of spite. And they would deserve it, too.

  His horse’s nickering startled Mueller into wakefulness. He sat up from his slumped position and opened his eyes wide, careful to look around, see if he’d been watched. But he saw no one. Then he heard a horse again, off to his right. But it wasn’t his horse.

  He slipped from the saddle, sliding his rifle from the boot, and bent his head below the beast’s withers. He waited a long minute, watching his horse’s ears and the direction it looked. He heard no other sound as he eased around the front of his hose, kept the reins in one hand, his rifle in the other. He didn’t dare cock it, but knew he should. He’d drop to the dirt and cock it as he rolled, that’s what he’d do should someone take aim from the trees where the horse sound came.

  A rustling from behind the low trees paused Mueller. He poked the barrel of his rifle into the leafed branches and parted them, leaning to one side. It revealed a clearing, and in the midst of it, there stood a horse staring at him with ears perked forward. Mueller peered closer, saw that the horse was unsaddled, but tied and rope hobbled. He saw no one about the spot, so he whispered, “Hey! Hey over there!” No one responded.