by Jake Logan
“Where are you heading, John?”
“North. To El Paso.”
“That’s as good a direction as any for me to go then. I don’t have any family left in San Antonio.” She started to say something more, but Slocum couldn’t tell what it might be. “You’ve been so good to me. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“No need to thank me. I’ve got pretty much what I came into San Esteban with. That’s as much as I can expect.”
“There ought to be a reward. You said that Mr. Killian had offered one for . . . for Les.”
“If there’s a reward, you claim it. I don’t want it.”
There was an awkward silence between them. Then Ruth started to speak, but was stopped when Killian’s voice boomed out.
“Mrs. Jeter! There you are. You promised me all the details of your husband’s life.” Killian edged between them, then turned slightly to half-face Slocum. “And Mr. Slocum, I presume? Also a happy coincidence. I understand you are riding Jeter’s horse.”
“That’s right.”
“It was his horse,” Ruth cut in. “He was given to Mr. Slocum to replace the one Les killed. And I don’t want it. I don’t want to ever see that horse again. I dreaded watching Les ride up on it and—”
“Ruth,” Slocum said, quieting her.
“I’m sorry,” Ruth said, tears running down her cheeks. “It’s all so confused. I don’t know what to do.”
“Don’t bother with her, Slocum,” Killian said, pushing between them. “I’ll pay fair price for the horse. Fifty dollars.”
“That’s what you gave her for Jeter’s hat and gun,” Slocum said.
“One hundred.”
“Why do you want the stallion? Don’t you know that it’s a hanging horse? Jeter flopped off its back. That’s the horse the marshal used to hang Jeter.” Slocum took a step back when he saw the expression on Killian’s face. The man combined utter evil with total avarice in a way Slocum had never before seen.
“Two hundred dollars. That’s enough for you to buy a team of horses. And I’ll give you another fifty for the watch.”
Slocum might have taken Killian’s money for the horse. He appreciated the stallion’s heart and endurance. Without those traits Jeter would have been caught long since. With two hundred dollars Slocum could live well for the next year, but when Killian added that he wanted the watch too, Slocum dug in his heels.
“What do you want with my watch?”
“It was Jeter’s. I want to collect the items that were most precious to him.”
“He stole the watch from me. It was never his,” Slocum said. “And it’s not for sale. At any price.”
“A thousand dollars.”
Slocum stared at the man as if he were insane. There was a crazy light in Killian’s eyes, but it wasn’t the kind of kill-crazy that made Slocum reach for his six-shooter. It was something else, something more, something worse.
“It’s not for sale at any price.”
“You can’t pass up that much money. It’s only a watch!”
“Yeah, only a watch,” Slocum said. He remembered his brother’s delight when he had received the watch for his sixteenth birthday. He remembered how Robert had gone around letting everyone see what time it was, then making a big show of closing the gold case and thrusting it back into his watch pocket. That watch had been with him when he had ridden behind a foolish general, George Edward Pickett. Too many good men, Robert included, had died in Pickett’s Charge. Slocum wished it had been Pickett and not his brother who had been hit by a Yankee minié ball.
Sell the watch? Slocum would show it to the devil himself when he finally was called from this life, just to let him know what time it was.
“You can’t—” Killian bit off the rest of his protest when he saw that Slocum damned well would. He turned and spoke quietly to Ruth, who was still sniffling. She nodded and turned away. Killian followed her closely, his arm around her quaking shoulders.
Slocum started to call after Ruth, then decided not to. She had been distant since they left the farm. He couldn’t blame her. For a woman who had been hidden away as she had, coming to even a town as small as San Esteban was a shock. Having her husband hanged and colliding with a man like Killian added to her disorientation. From the way Ruth had acted, she wanted nothing more to do with Slocum, and that sat well with him.
Or at least he could lie to himself and make believe that it didn’t matter.
He headed for the hotel, intent on getting his gear and clearing out of San Esteban. There wasn’t anything to hold him here, and he wouldn’t have even stopped if the stage hadn’t been robbed.
Just inside the doors Killian’s assistant stood, eyes wide. She looked as if she wanted to speak to him, but didn’t know what to say. From the way she had interrogated him before about Jeter and what he knew of the outlaw, this came as a surprise to Slocum.
“Miss Gerardo,” he said, touching the brim of his hat. She seemed to melt with relief that he had spoken to her. Two quick, small steps brought the petite blonde to his side. She reached out and laid her hand on his arm. For all her hesitation, the way she gripped him was firm and bold.
“I need to speak to you, Mr. Slocum.” She glanced over at the clerk. The man sat on a stool, artfully carving away at a small piece of wood. From what Slocum could tell, the man was whittling a dog out of the pine.
“Don’t see why not,” Slocum answered.
“May I call you John? This so . . . so private. Can we talk in your room, John?”
“I was about to leave town,” he said.
“Then my room.”
This took him aback. Such an invitation was far bolder than he expected. He dismissed the notion that it was anything more than business. He remembered how Amy had interviewed him before. It had been all business with no hint of personal involvement.
“What do you want?”
“Always straight to the point. That’s what I like about you, John. One of the things.” Amy batted her eyelashes a little and looked away. He swore he saw color rising in her cheeks. From his foot difference in height he was also able to look down on the creamy, sloping upper skin on her breasts. The way her flesh appeared from this angle, she must have compressed a powerful lot of titflesh into that dress.
Slocum paid his bill, turned, and couldn’t find Amy. Then he looked up the stairs—and up her skirt. She was on the top step, bending over to pick up something she had dropped. He got a clear view of her bare legs, her curvy behind, and . . . more. She wasn’t wearing any underwear.
She straightened and her skirt dropped to a more chaste level. Amy smiled at him and beckoned, then put her finger to her lips cautioning him to be quiet. Slocum was intrigued, and took the steps to the second floor quickly. Amy was already standing in the open doorway of a room toward the rear of the hotel. As he approached, she ducked into the room.
Slocum went to the door with no intention of entering. He found himself frozen in place and staring hard. Amy had already kicked free of her skirt and was naked from the waist down.
“Do come in and close the door. I need help getting out of this corset.”
“You surely didn’t need help getting out of the rest of your clothes,” Slocum said. He couldn’t take his eyes off the furry golden nest between her thighs. She was short, compact, and looked more muscular than he expected. There was certainly nothing to hide any of her leg muscles or those in her thighs and belly. As he stared, she turned and presented her bare rump toward him.
“You don’t have to take off my corset if you don’t want to, John.”
“Why are you doing this?” Slocum knew he ought to light out and run. Any time a woman came on this strong with no reason, it was a harbinger of bad things to come.
He still felt himself responding powerfully, his manhood pressing painfully against his buttoned fly. Prudence said he ought to leave. Lust told him to stay.
Slocum reached out and put his hands on the woman’s hips. Her skin was hot
and yielding, and suddenly his flesh became even less yielding. She backed up and began rubbing her naked ass against his crotch. Slocum reached around her and stroked over smooth skin. Her corseted torso intrigued him. His hands drifted upward to cup her hidden breasts. He felt the way her heart hammered with desire, even through the layers of cloth. Squeezing down on those tempting mounds of flesh brought a tiny sob of joy to Amy’s lips.
“Go on, John, please. I’m ready for you. I was ready the first time I laid eyes on you.”
“Not what I want to lay,” Slocum muttered. He reluctantly moved his hands off those quivering mounds to drop his gun belt and unfasten his fly. He found it was harder to do than he expected because of the way Amy kept backing into him, the sleek curves of her butt pressing into the circle of his groin. When he finally popped out, long and hot and hard, she reached between her legs and grabbed his balls.
He almost lost control then and there.
Her fingers stroked and dandled and then moved to the thickness jutting outward. She tugged and pulled and then took a half step back toward him.
“In,” she said urgently. “I want you inside me where I can feel you moving. I want your heat to burn me up!”
Slocum bent slightly at the waist and wiggled until he felt the tip of his meaty stalk nudge between her nether lips. Then he straightened, hips moving forward in a smooth motion that caused him to sink balls-deep into her seething interior. He gasped at the tightness. She was a small girl in many ways. The moistness all around him turned liquid as her passions grew.
He began stroking in and out, finding a rhythm that suited them both. Slocum quickly discovered that he couldn’t move fast enough or drive forward hard enough to suit Amy. Clinging to her waist, he lifted her up on her toes. She let out a yelp of surprise and twisted about. Her hands left the dresser she had been braced against. With another powerful movement, he turned her half around, all the while remaining deeply hidden within her clutching interior.
Amy found she’d lost her support, and bent all the way over to put her hands on the floor. This bent her double and tightened her sex even more around Slocum. This time when he began to stroke, the friction burned all around him and then began working its way down his length. His balls churned and came to a boil. Then lightning blasted into his loins.
Hands on her hips, he pulled her back into his groin with powerful movements. Doubled over as she was, Amy got more than she had bargained for. She tried to tell him to stop. He heard the words beginning. They were smothered by her gasp and then her loud cry of total release.
He kept thrusting even after the convulsive pressure all around him slackened. It took a few minutes, but the tightness returned and Amy was once more gasping and crying out. When Slocum could no longer restrain himself, he jammed himself forward and was taken fully. He felt as if he were trapped in a collapsing mine shaft. He was crushed and heated and then he exploded.
Only when he began to turn limp did he move away from her. Amy remained bent over for a moment, as if expecting more. Then she sank down to her knees, her perky rear end still up in the air.
She turned and looked up at him.
“I never felt that way before. With any man, John.”
“Not even Killian?”
Her expression changed instantly. He had touched on a sore spot.
“We are business associates, nothing more.”
The way she said it told him that Amy wished it were more.
“Why?”
“Why are we only associates? That’s the way we want it.”
“Why did you come on to me like this?” Slocum buttoned up his fly and grabbed his gun belt. He sat on the bed. She made no move to cover up her nakedness as she swung around to sit crossed-legged on the floor. In this position she was even more lewdly splayed than before. And she obviously knew the effect she had on him sitting this way.
“I’m not saying it wasn’t nice, just that it was unexpected,” Slocum said, watching her more closely now for any hint about her behavior. He had an idea why she had given herself to him so readily, but hoped he was wrong.
“He . . . he wants me to get the watch from you.”
Slocum stood and was at the door when she called out, “Wait, John. I couldn’t do it. I could have stolen it. I could have, but I won’t. I wouldn’t do that to you!”
“Because I’m such a good screw?”
“Yes, no, oh, I can’t get it all straight. It’s not right. If you don’t want to sell the watch to Ambrose, there’s no reason for me to steal it for him. There. I’ve said it.”
“Would you have tried to steal the horse too?”
“I’m sure Ambrose has some plan to get the horse. He is so completely wrapped up in getting every artifact Jeter ever owned or touched that he’ll do anything.”
“Artifact?”
“Jeter’s possessions. His gear. His gun. His hat. The watch. And the horse. Ambrose really wants the horse since it was the one Jeter was astride when he was hanged.”
Slocum felt nothing but contempt for Ambrose Killian. He wasn’t sure what he felt for Amy.
“You better come up with a good story to explain why you didn’t get the watch. I don’t think Killian will be all that pleased with you.”
“Oh, he won’t do anything to me.” There was a bitterness that Slocum guessed had to do with the woman’s frustrated need to please her employer with word and deed—especially in bed.
“Thanks,” Slocum said. “This was a nice going-away present.” He hesitated, then said, “I’m on my way to Fort Griffin. Don’t reckon I’ll be seeing you again.”
“John, don’t go. Let me—”
Slocum closed the door behind him and hurried down the back stairs. The sooner he left Amy and Killian and the memory of Jeter—and Ruth Jeter—behind him, the happier he would be.
26
Ambrose Killian felt completely alive seated across from Ruth Jeter in the restaurant. Feeding her was only part of his scheme to learn more about her. While the woman lacked classical beauty, there was something more about her that fascinated him. She had belonged to Lester Jeter.
“I would like to talk at length about your former husband,” Killian said. “I have a large home some distance from here. There are guest rooms. Any number of those would be more than satisfactory for you, after living in a one-room hovel for so long.”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Killian. I just want to get on with my life and forget about Les. As much as I can.”
“Forget? Never! You must remember! I must know every detail. You can fill in gaps in my understanding of him. Your unlamented late husband was a veritable fount of contradictions. I want to examine them and eventually reveal them to the world. Everyone will want to know what turned him into the foremost road agent in West Texas. Perhaps nowhere else in Texas has ever seen his like.”
“No, thank you,” Ruth said more firmly.
“Oh, come now,” he wheedled. “Fine food. I have the best-stocked wine cellar this side of the Mississippi. I can assign you a personal servant. You’ll live like royalty, and all in exchange for a few hours a day reminiscing. If anything, talking about your husband will help drive away the bad and leave only the good.”
“The offer is very kind, but I don’t want to even think about Les right now. He was hung by the law, Mr. Killian. That’s nothing I can brag about.”
“I don’t want bragging, I want truth. I want to know the warts along with the finer points. There must have been something that drew you to him, for you to marry him!”
“I was very young,” Ruth said, turning more distant. “My family was gone—cholera—and there was nowhere else to turn.”
“See? I didn’t know that. How did he woo you? What other blandishments did he use?”
Ruth folded her arms across her chest and leaned away. Killian rattled on, oblivious to her lack of interest in his offer.
Killian turned when he heard the door of the restaurant creaking open to admit a gust of
hot desert air. He held back an exclamation of disgust. His assistant should know better than to intrude in the middle of what was turning into an exceptionally fruitful interview.
“Ambrose, Ambrose,” Amy Gerardo blurted out when she saw him. She made no effort to even acknowledge Ruth Jeter’s presence. “I couldn’t get the watch, but I found out something that will—”
“Miss Gerardo, please. Can’t you see I am otherwise engaged? We can talk later.” Killian wished she had not mentioned the watch. The horse could be had by subterfuge, but if Slocum left with the watch, getting it would be difficult.
“He’s leaving, Ambrose. He’s leaving now.”
“Mr. Slocum?” Ruth perked up.
“He’s going to Fort Griffin.”
“Not any time soon,” Killian said. “He will discover that his horse—the one Jeter was hanged astride—will throw a shoe very soon. The stableman was most cooperative loosening the shoe and pulling out a nail.”
“You can’t do that,” protested Ruth. “The horse could come up lame, stranding John in the middle of—”
“Where did you say he was headed?” Killian demanded of Amy. He eyed her closely.
“Fort Griffin. He said he—”
“Mrs. Jeter already told me he intended to ride north to El Paso.”
“He told me El Paso,” Ruth said, confused. “I might have misheard him. There’s been so much going on.”
“He lied to you,” Killian said to his assistant.
“But I let him—” Amy clapped a hand over her mouth. Ruth’s eyes went wide with shock and understanding. “I had to get the watch for you, Ambrose. There wasn’t any other way.”
“You failed. And you failed a second time allowing him to lie to you. You are fired, Miss Gerardo. Your services are no longer required.”
“Ambrose! What’re you saying? You can’t do this. I love you! You love me!”
“Miss Gerardo, this is unseemly! Please leave. Immediately.”
Killian pushed his chair away from the table.
“You don’t have to throw me out,” Amy said, backing away. “But you would, wouldn’t you? You’d throw me out in the street, discard me like a piece of used notepaper. That’s all I am to you. Something to be gotten rid of at your whim.”
