by Jake Logan
Lucky for them the horse thieves didn’t get their clothing, guns, boots and one sack of groceries spilled in their haste to run off. All he saw reaching the top of the bluff was two riders leading off their mounts in a high lope going north like their pants were afire. Damn them anyway.
Seated beside him in the wagon bed, Wink reached over and clamped his larger, calloused hand in hers and smiled at him. “Guess this was another test, huh?”
“Those damn horse thieves are going to think it’s a test if I ever catch them.”
“How did they ever track us there?”
“That damn livery man back there must have sent them. He offered me a horse and ninety bucks for the dun. Wanted him bad.”
“And I was just getting used to that snorty roan.”
“Hurricane can get us some more.”
She raised up and looked over the country. “We getting close?”
“We’ll be there by sundown.”
“Good. My backside’s sore.” She squirmed and made a face. “Guess that gets tough too.”
“Ain’t no goose-down seat.” He laughed and hugged her shoulder. “But it shows you what can happen even when you aren’t chasing killers.”
“I sure never slept on the ground before without a blanket.”
“All kinds of inconvenience that the loss of one’s horses causes. Gives you an idea how neat it is to be on the run.”
“I can’t say I’d love that—”
“Lawmen coming,” Yellow Deer said, over her shoulder, above the pound of her horses’ hooves, the jingle of harness and the squeak of the wheels and wagon.
Slocum rose on his knees and hung on to the back of the spring seat to better judge the two men with rifles across their laps, riding toward them on the ruts cut through the dry grass. Both men wore brown business suits and narrow-brim cowboy hats, and jig-trotted good horses toward them.
“What do they want?” Wink asked, looking unsure of this business at hand.
“Look for whiskey,” Yellow Deer said and slapped her right horse for lagging.
“Well, we don’t have any of that,” Wink said, sounding relieved.
“What do you think’s in them crates?” He gave a head toss to the wooden boxes on the other side of the wagon bed from where they sat.
“Oh, no.”
“Don’t say a word.”
“Fine.” She swallowed hard, looking wary. “I sure won’t.”
“Ho! Ho!” Yellow Deer drew back the leather reins and halted the coughing horses.
“Well, Yellow Deer, you doing stage line business now?” the marshal with the snowy mustache asked with a smile as he dismounted and came over to her.
“Stole their horses,” she grunted.
“You got any illegal whiskey today?”
Then she nodded with a look of disgust and reached in her quilted bag on the floor. From it she handed him a pint of opened whiskey and dug out twenty dollars to give to him.
“Caught you again,” the lawman said, looking at the bottle and money in his hand. “You know you can’t bring whiskey into the Nation.”
She nodded woodenly, looking straight ahead.
His partner, holding the other officer’s horse, bobbed his head in agreement from the saddle. “We get you every time.”
“I didn’t catch your name,” the marshal on the ground said to Slocum. “I’m Hap Gaines and that’s Will Martin, deputy U.S. marshal for Judge Parker’s Court in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
“Tom White and my missus, Wanda. Stole our horses back in Kansas and we’re hitching a ride to go buy some more. Got to get back to Texas.”
“Mrs. White.” He removed his hat for her. “I am truly sorry about the loss of your horses. This world is full of crooks anymore.”
“Yes, it must be,” she said and thanked him, taking her seat again on the wagon floor beside Slocum.
“Have a good day, ma’am. And, Yellow Deer, stop trying to bring whiskey into the Nation. We’re watching for you.”
“You watch ’em too gawdamn good,” she said, sounding mad. She clucked to her horses then drove them around Martin to get under way again.
The marshal waved his hat at Wink, and Slocum smiled when he knew the man could no longer see him.
“What about the rest of this whiskey?” she whispered, frowning at the cases at their feet.
“She paid her fine, gave him the evidence, a half-drunk pint of whiskey, and they get to keep it as well as the on-the-spot fine money. Arresting her and taking her to Fort Smith would mean several days’ travel and only a dollar for her arrest. They aren’t liable to search too hard then, are they?”
“So she’s paid the taxes on this load, you’re saying?”
“Sure has. They do that every time?” he asked Yellow Deer.
“Every time unless big man is up here. I usually get word and don’t go up there for whiskey until him goes back to Fort Smith. Him mean sumbitch put Crazy George in jail for doing it. Got him one year in Detroit prison for bringing in firewater. Only give Belle Star nine months and she stole a gawddamn horse.”
“Good idea you avoid the big man.” He turned back to Wink. “It’s called live and let live.”
“I’m learning, lots,” Wink said and stretched her arms over her head. “Glad that is over.”
Rocked back and forth by the wagon’s roll, he agreed. But it would be even better to be at Hurricane’s—the day was dragging on. He checked the blazing sun time, still five hours away from there by his calculations. At least they weren’t walking the last ten miles.
Several tall cottonwoods shaded the corrals, sod-roofed shed and low-walled cabin with smoke coming out the chimney. All the operation sat painted a burning orange color in the canted light of sundown. Dogs barking and a few loose, weaned pigs made a trail to cover in a long lope. One of Hurricane’s studs whistled and kicked at his pen as if impatient for a mare to breed. A couple of Jersey milk cows bawled for their calves separated from them.
“Ho! Ho!” Yellow Deer shouted, reining her arms back till her elbows hit the seat back and the team stopped.
Slocum unfolded and rose in the wagon box. “Thanks, Deer.”
He helped Wink up and steadied her on her feet—shaky from sitting for so long. He slipped off the tailgate, and then she sat on the back edge to get off, and when she jumped he caught her in his arms.
“We’re here?” she asked as he set her down.
He looked around. “I hope so.”
“See you ’gain,” Yellow Deer said, not looking, and sending her horses on with a wave.
Wink laughed. “She didn’t wait around long.”
Slocum nodded.
“Well, who in the hell she drop off here?” a dark-complected, short man with a thin salt-and-pepper mustache asked, looking around when he came outside putting up his galluses, then spying them.
“That you, Slocum?” The man looked worried as he rushed over. “Where’s your horses?”
“They stole them up in Kansas three days ago.”
“Well, gawdamn, I’d come got you.”
“Your telegraph is down.”
“I guess so, and who is she?” He drew his bare head back and studied her with his arms folded.
“Mrs. Trent; they call her Wink. Colonel Bowdry and his men shot her husband and son in a robbery of their store up there.”
“Oh, golly, I am sorry,” Hurricane said and took her hands in his. “Then someone stole your horses?”
“It’s been a very educational time.” She made a smile for the man who looked so concerned about her.
“I am so glad you came.” His attention centered on her.
“I am too,” she said, sounding grateful.
“Things will be better here, right, Slocum?”
“That’s why we came here. It had to get better.” The three laughed, and Hurricane led them to the front door and opened it slow-like.
In the dim lamplight in the room, Slocum saw past him into the room as a dusky-s
kinned, naked girl on the bed threw off the covers and bounded away. Hurricane closed the door and wrinkled his nose. “She must have thought it was bedtime. She’ll be dressed in a minute.”
When they came inside the cabin, the Indian girl was wiggling down the dress and her large brown eyes raised up and looked hard at them.
“My friends,” Hurricane said to her. “That is Mrs.—”
“Wink,” she corrected him, and stuck out her hand to the shapely teenager with high cheekbones and coal black hair.
“Her name is Blue Bird. I call her Blue.”
“Nice to meet you, Blue,” Wink said and shook her hand.
“He’s Slocum.”
Blue nodded to him.
“Heat them some food,” Hurricane said and turned back to Slocum. “Who stole your horses?”
“Don’t know, we were swimming,” Slocum said, taking a wooden chair he offered them.
“Hmm,” Hurricane snuffed out his nose.
“They would have gotten our clothing and guns, but he brought them down to the water,” Wink said. “I’m learning.”
“Good teacher.” Hurricane nodded in approval.
“We need to buy two good saddles and horses and need a place to stay for a couple of weeks.”
“Sure. We can find them and you two can stay here.”
Slocum nodded and then looked hard at his old friend. “I told her she needed to get tough to go after the colonel.”
Hurricane agreed with a slow nod and gave her a serious look across the table. “Need to be plenty gawdamn tough you go after him.”
“I can do it.”
Hurricane nodded as if considering her words.
Blue interrupted them, handing out tortoise bowls and spoons, then went back for her cast iron pot. A rag pot holder around the loop handle, she ladled the bean soup out into each bowl with a nod. Slocum sampled the soup and nodded. “It’s sure good. We’ve had tomatoes and peaches for two days.”
Everyone laughed.
After the meal, Hurricane showed them to a small board-sided shed with a bed and loaned them two old blankets. Slocum lighted a candle that Blue had given him. The two were alone at last. She sat on the edge of the bed and tested its stiffness with her butt. The flickering light cast huge shadows of them on the walls.
Slocum, weary from the long ride, was seated on a wooden crate as he took off his boots. “Sorry about all this happening—the horse stealing and all.”
“No—don’t be. It’s taught me a real important lesson. I need to think about everything. Not simply the moment.”
“Good.”
She stood up and began to undress, then stopped undoing the buttons on her shirt to look at him. “You started something back there in Kansas you never finished.”
“Oh, yah.” A smile swept over his face at the consideration, and he nodded as the blouse gaped open, exposing the brown rosettes of her nipples. “Where was I?”
She undid the money belt and pulled it out to drop on the floor, then stepped over and put her arms around his neck when he rose. “Something like this—”
His mouth closed on hers, and this time she was ready. Her wet lips parted, and she clung to him as his hand sought her right breast. His fingers gentle squeeze drew a gasp from her in response to his molding the tight-skinned boobs. She moved her hip against his leg. The shirt slid off her shoulders as his lips and tongue sought her hot mouth. She fought between them to undo his gunbelt and then ripped open his pants. In her rush, she shoved the galluses off his shoulders and then gasped holding his half-turgid dick in both hands.
“Oh, my God.” She closed her eyes, squeezing it tight.
He undid her pants and pushed them off her hips. She fought the legs off, kicking them free, and dropped to the bed, letting go of him as she situated herself in the middle of the mattress on her back. Arms lifted for him, she looked pale-faced in the flickering light.
He needed no more encouragement than that. His hips ached to plunge deep inside her. At last, on his knees, he crossed the spongy bed and guided his throbbing rod for her target. The swollen head slipped in the slick gates and butted against the tight ring. He felt her hands grip his upper arms that were braced on the bed on each side of her as he pumped against the resistance. Then the nose of his prick began to press open the way, and she raised her hips to ease his entry with a sharp cry. His huge erection began to fill the void as he drove deeper and deeper with each effort.
In pleasure’s deepest involvement, moaning and tossing her head, with her curls spilling in her face, she gasped for more air. He moved in and out as the walls tightened in her heightened response. Her erect clit tore at the top of his dick, driving both of them wilder and wilder. Sweat greased their bellies, and they ground the coarse hair between them on their pubic bones. It was harder and deeper with each plunge, until she cried out and braced for the end—and he came from deep and exploded out of the bottom of his testicles. His final effort was a charge that flooded her.
When he rose off of her, he blew out the light and then settled in beside her. He moved the hair aside from her face with his fingertips, raised himself up on one arm and kissed her. “You all right?”
“No. My God, I was married eleven years and never had anything like that happen before.” She put the back of her hand to her forehead. “I’m so dizzy, I feel I’ll roll out of bed.”
“Going to be sick?”
She turned, then rose to get over him, jammed a hard breast in his chest, and laid her forehead on him. “Somehow I knew there was more to this than what I’d experienced. But—oh—I never expected that to happen. It was like I was falling off a mountain and then whoosh I was unconscious.”
She squirmed in a stretch on top of him. Her right hand rubbed the corded muscles of his lower stomach as if exploring for something, combed the nest of hair, and then she hefted his half-full erection as if weighing it.
She laughed aloud at her discovery. “He’s not half-dead yet. God rest his soul, poor Walter had ever in his life been that big he’d’ve busted his buttons.”
His mind fast coming on to trying it again with her, he cupped her face and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Then for his sake, we better do it again, huh?”
“Really? I may never walk again.”
He wrinkled his nose in the dim light of the shack. “I’ll carry you then.”
“You’ve got a deal.”
4
“Porter may have some horses for sale,” Hurricane said over breakfast the next morning.
“They stolen?” Slocum asked, taking two more of Blue’s baking soda biscuits and splitting them on his plate. He spooned some of her thick flour/sausage gravy over them and set in to devour it. “Good food, Blue.” And turned back to Hurricane.
“Naw, he’s honest.”
“We don’t need stolen horses. Some law pick up on it and we’d have a hard time explaining. Ain’t got time for that.”
Her face wringing wet with perspiration, Wink hung her head inside the doorway, out of breath, and looked at him for orders. “I ran around the place ten times.”
“Good,” Slocum said and wiped his mouth on his kerchief. “Better wash up and eat. Target practice is next.”
Still breathing hard, she nodded woodenly. “I’ll wash up out here first.” Then she went back to deep breathing outside on the porch.
“You got an old .45?” Slocum asked his host.
“Why so big?” Hurricane asked in a low voice.
“Build her muscles. I’ll pay for the cartridges. You can hit a bull in the ass with a .45—you can shoot his eye out with a .32 later.”
“I wasn’t worried about the ammo. You’re going to kill her.”
“Better I take the fight out of her than Bowdry.” With his fork, Slocum cut another bite off the gravy-smothered biscuit.
“He’d kill her.”
“That’s what I mean.”
“You want some coffee?” Hurricane asked, when Wink sat down hard on the c
hair he proffered.
“Oh,” Wink said absently, still trying to recover her composure. “Sure.”
“I’m going to set up some targets for you while Hurricane and I go look at some horses today,” Slocum told her.
Numb-like, she nodded to Blue, who poured her some coffee. “Okay—what else?”
“Get through, you take the gun apart. Clean it in boiling water, dry it, then lightly oil every part of it.”
“I never took a gun apart before.” Blue brought her some fired eggs, side meat and biscuits. “Thanks. Can I hurt it?”
“If it’s not loaded, no.”
“Good,” she sighed. “I won’t clean it loaded, trust me.”
“You can quit firing when you get five out of six bullets in a quarter-sized newspaper sheet.”
“What distance?”
Slocum laid down his fork and chewed on his mouthful. “Thirty feet to start.”
Hurricane came back and put an older model Colt, modified for cartridges, on the table with two boxes of shells beside it. She tried to heft it and was forced to use both hands. “Damn, this is a heavy gun.”
“It might be the only gun available for you to use between your life and death,” Slocum said, finishing his biscuit-and-gravy dessert.
She nodded and began to eat.
Hurricane was cutting up old newspaper pages into fourths. “We got lots of targets.”
Wink nodded, “I may need them all.”
Half an hour later, holding the Colt in both hands, she aimed at the target. The muzzle exploded and the black powder smoke swept back in her face, causing her to cough. She dropped her gun hand down and turned her head aside.
“Did I hit it?”
“No, you can’t shut your eyes and shoot.”
“All right—this ain’t going to be easy, you knew that?”
“I knew you said you could do it.”
A grim set to her jaw and tight-pressed lips, she took aim despite her wet eyes. “And I will.” Next three shots, one even hit the paper.
