by Jake Logan
“You think they will send more men?”
“What do you think when they fire the first cannon off?”
“Lots more to come, huh?” Vegas stood up. “I’ll go get their horses and things.”
Slocum agreed, silently cussing his sore shoulder.
They ate breakfast at dawn. Then Slocum managed, with Little Britches helping, to get on Red. He sat for a long moment in the saddle and let the pain chills in his face evaporate. They had four saddle horses from the outlaws. Expensive remounts from the looks of them. No doubt from the general’s own stables—not bronc mustang stock. Perhaps why the outlaws were able to overtake them so quickly.
Vegas rode by Fine and jerked the gag out. “Now you can signal for the leones to come find you.”
“Don’t leave me. I’ll die.”
Slocum read the concerned look on the face of Little Britches and shook his head at her. “He’d’ve done worse things to us if he’d had the chance.”
She turned in the saddle. “I understand.”
Vegas had the horses in line and was starting out. She brought their packhorse along, and Slocum brought up the rear. At mid-afternoon, they came to a rushing creek that fed a village with small fields of irrigated produce and alfalfa along its course.
“This is Verde,” Vegas announced. “That is Madonna Perido’s casa.” He pointed to a white-plastered house, and their horses’ hooves pounded on the hollow-sounding wooden bridge over the sparkling stream. An older woman came out and smiled at them when she saw Vegas was with them.
“How is the señora?” Little Britches asked, dismounting.
“Oh, she is getting much stronger.”
“Good.”
“While you put the horses up, your friends can come inside,” she said to Vegas. “And who are you?”
“Silver Temple. They call me Little Britches.”
“Ah, Little Britches. She called for you. I see why you have such a name.” She turned to Slocum. “You must be Slocum? Lucia was worried that you might have been shot.”
“He was,” Little Britches said.
“She’s a mighty fine doctor, too.” Slocum indicated Little Britches.
“Come.” Madonna adjusted the shawl over her head and took Little Britches’s arm. “I have some food and some . . .” She turned back to Slocum. “Whiskey, too.”
“I could use some,” he said, trying to ignore his pain.
“We should rebandage that wound, too.”
He’d see about that. On the way to the house, he looked at her fields and crops. “You have a fine place here.”
She smiled, pleased by his words. “It is not a large hacienda, but the people and I love it here.”
“Yes,” he agreed, “much better than the desert climate.”
“What will you do about Lucia’s mine?” the older woman asked Slocum once they were under the high ceiling of the living room.
“Get it back for her.”
“You say that so easily.”
“You’re alive,” Lucia said from the upstairs balcony railing.
“I think I am.” He laughed, and then she stopped at the head of the stairs.
“Vegas?”
“He’s fine, too.”
Lucia looked much better and more her old self as she held her skirt high and ran down the steps.
Vegas arrived, and the three of them ate Madonna’s fine food and Slocum drank her whiskey. It numbed him enough that the pain in his shoulder let go. After lunch, Madonna and her two helpers redressed his shoulder and talked about the fine job Little Britches had done on his wound.
Whiskey-numb, he went off to sleep. The trip and all the strain had drained all his strength. He slept belly-down on the bed until dark.
“Did you want to eat?” Little Britches asked him, seated on the edge of the bed.
“I’m thinking on it.”
“Think hard, they’re ready to eat. Where did this woman get her money?” she whispered.
“I have no idea. It may be old money. Why?”
“Old money?”
“Inheritance. I don’t know her.”
“She must have plenty. This house is full of real artwork.”
“I saw a little of it.” He started to scrub his face, but the sharpness in his shoulder stopped him. “We need to stay here as long as we dare so my shoulder will heal.”
Her arm slipped over his back. “Get you well, right?”
“Right. Let’s go join them. Then I can bathe and shave.”
“Good.” She kissed him. “We can do all that.”
Over supper, Slocum learned a little about Madonna’s source of money. Vegas had been there before as a guard for the wife of his patrón when she came to see her. That was how Vegas knew about her and this place. He had chosen well. Full of her rich food and unable to lean back in his chair, Slocum listened to the bright table conversation “Can you imagine,” Little Britches said, seeing his discomfort. “He wants a bath?”
They all laughed, and Madonna arranged one for him with her kitchen help.
After his bath, Little Britches shaved him and when she finished, he felt half-alive as he looked from their apartment’s open French doors on the balcony at the starlit orchards and crops.
“How will you ever get Lucia’s mine back?” she asked.
“I figure that by this time the folks at the mine have St. John figured out. That he’s not going to give them anything.”
“And?”
He turned back. “That they can be enlisted in running him off.”
“But he has many hired guns.”
“I doubt that, and those kind change sides easily. He has some border ruffians and bandits.”
“What do we have? Two men and two women.”
She hugged him gently and nestled her face on his shirt. “Why couldn’t we have had a honeymoon here?” she asked.
He wrapped his good arm around her. “What do you want to do?”
She looked up at him like he’d lost his mind. “What did you think I want to do?”
A knock on the door, and he frowned. “Yes?”
“A man came a few minutes ago to tell me about a small army that the general has in the foothills—maybe a day’s hard ride from here,” Vegas said from outside.
Slocum went to the door. “Did he see them?”
“No, a man who rode in an hour ago saw them and told the bartender in the cantina.”
“You paid him?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Can you lead us out of here tonight?”
“It will be a hard ride in the dark.”
“We don’t need to tangle with him now. Madonna does not need us here either.”
“I understand. How soon?”
“Twenty minutes or so.”
Vegas nodded. “I should tell the señora?”
“Yes.” Slocum watched Vegas hurry out the doorway. What next? Not only St. John to mess with, but the damn general as well.
Little Britches wrinkled her nose. “There goes the fun.” He laughed. She had a right to complain. Old pistoleros to shoot. Wounds to doctor. Ride horses into the ground and no passionate tosses in the bed. Maybe it would be better later. For his part, he hoped so anyway. Damn, his shoulder hurt again.
12
Dawn caught them high in the Sierra Madres lined out in a string, riding on a narrow ledge where only eagles perched. The ring of steel horseshoes on granite was lost in the gaping space under them. Above the tree line, the gray rock looked freshly piled there, the new fractures forced upward. An altitude headache hurt his skull, and aside from seeing Mexico in the dusty haze rolled out at their feet, he would be grateful to be lower down.
Vegas apparently knew the way. The paths he took were well worn, and obviously men and animals used them, so they must lead somewhere. The four riders rested at mid-morning in a small treeless park. They ate some food Madonna sent along.
“We can be in a good place by nightfall,” Vegas said.
“I’ll be ready,” Lucia said, seated on the ground in a divided riding skirt and a blouse that Madonna had loaned her. “I am about dizzy from being so high.”
“Better to be here, I guess, than facing those men,” Little Britches said, squatted close by her.
“Oh, dear, I am not ungrateful, just tired.”
“I think you have done well for all you’ve been through,” Little Britches said.
“Vegas told me about the outlaw. I’m sorry you had to fight my battles.”
“I don’t mind. That’s over. Besides, you’ve had enough bad deals. You need your mine and home back.”
“Well—”
“Mount up,” Vegas said. “We can talk later.”
Slocum nodded, and felt the cool wind sweep his smooth face as he rose. A nice place at a lower altitude would be fine with him. He used his right arm to grasp the horn and remounted Red. Stiff, sore, and always tired summed up his condition.
Vegas’s valley was well watered by a large spring and had plenty of horse graze. The women cooked supper.
“In two days we can be at her mine,” Vegas said, squatted beside Slocum at a short distance from the fire.
“Maybe some of her people will help us run them off.”
“Maybe St. John will be warned we’re coming, too.”
“He could be. No way for us to know up here.”
“Perhaps when we get close, I can go in and find out.”
“Be risky.”
“Amigo, my life has been that.”
Slocum nodded. He understood. But St. John might be the biggest danger Vegas’d ever gone up against. Someone needed to stop St. John. He wished he had a better plan. Between the pain and his headache, he felt as dull as a rock.
The next two days were uneventful. They rode over more summits and then wound down toward Lucia’s mining operation. They camped at a good distance from the mine, and Vegas rode on to see what he could learn.
Slocum spent the rest of the day in camp cleaning and oiling firearms. In the late afternoon rain threatened, and with the two women’s help he hung a couple of canvas cloths from tree to tree for shelter. The women moved the bedrolls, panniers, and saddles in under them.
“I wish I could go down there and help Vegas,” Lucia said as the storm swept across the mountain toward them, growling and grunting like an angry bear.
“Not much we can do until we know what kind of a force St. John has down there.”
Lucia reached over her head to stretch, accentuating her large breasts under the blouse. “I just feel so helpless.”
“Time is on our side,” Slocum said. “We’ll figure it out.”
Soon, pea-sized hail pecked at the new roof, and Little Britches smiled. “Glad we did that,” she said, nodding at the canvas cloths.
“It’ll probably rain a shower or two every afternoon up here,” said Slocum. “It was strange we didn’t have some coming over the divide.”
The sun soon popped out and the thunder moved off. Everything glistened like diamonds. Lucia went to take a siesta. Slocum put up all the firearms he’d worked over, and went to take a siesta of his own until Vegas returned.
He’d barely closed his eyes when Little Britches woke him. “There is a horse coming. I hope it is Vegas.”
Lying facedown, Slocum grunted in agreement and rose. His back was a little better. He was surviving. Maybe Vegas had some answers. The man dropped out of the saddle and looked around.
“Lucia’s asleep,” Little Britches told him with a grin, and he nodded.
“What did you learn?” Slocum asked.
“That Freddie Fine is there. I saw him, but he never saw me.”
“I forgot all about the chance of him being there. What else?”
“St. John has several pistoleros. They drink a lot and gamble all day and night. Some are bandits. I recognized them. Others I don’t know.”
“How many are there?”
“Maybe a dozen or more. They have the miners and the people all scared to death.”
“Ah, they are not sharing the wealth?” Slocum chuckled at the notion.
Vegas shook his head. “His men take any women they want in the village to bed.”
“How can we take it over?”
“I am not certain. They have many men and there are only the two of us.”
Slocum knew that, but there had to be a way. “We need some blasting sticks, caps, and cord. That would even us up.”
“But how do we get them?” Vegas looked blank-faced.
Slocum winked at the serious-looking Little Britches, who was listening closely. “We have to steal them.”
“You have a plan?” she asked.
“Go in there when it’s dark and find where they store their explosives. Then we load some sticks and start throwing them.”
Sleepy-eyed and pushing the hair back from her face, Lucia joined them. “I know where it is at. The explosives.”
A small smile came over Vegas’s dark lips as she slipped under his arm. “There is the answer, mis amigos.”
“Good. After dark, we raid the powder box,” Slocum said.
“Vegas, did you have any food?” Lucia asked. “Come, I will feed you. Have they wrecked my house?”
The two went off hugging and kissing each other. Slocum smiled—they made a good pair.
“And what do we do next?” Little Britches asked.
“Take a blanket and go somewhere private,” he said softly, even though the other two were over at the small campfire and beyond their hearing.
With a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, she smiled at the notion. “You know, I was thinking the same thing.”
“Good.”
“I’ll get one,” she offered.
In minutes, they were out of the wind in the shade of some pines. She spread their blanket and he toed off his boots. She began unbuttoning the blouse, and soon pulled it off over her head. Then she wiggled the pants down, exposing her white slender legs. In a long step, she was hugging him and breathing on his chest.
“I have waited. I have been patient.”
“You’ve been wonderful.”
“Your shoulder—”
He shook his head at her and listened to the scream of an eagle floating overhead.
“What is it?” She used her hand to shade her eyes and follow the course of its flight.
“A large kind of eagle from the jungles of Central America.”
“It’s pretty. Black and white. Why is it here?”
“Cooler weather, I guess. It will go home when it gets cold.”
“I won’t worry about it then.” She squeezed him hard and dropped to her knees before him. She lifted his semi-hard erection and kissed it. After a moment of hesitation, she began to purse her lips around it.
At the touch of her tongue, he felt lightning hit his brain. Her efforts made him want to fly. He pulled her away and kissed her wet mouth. “I want you.”
She pulled him down by his right hand. He knelt, and she scooted down on the blanket. Her legs were wide apart, and he moved between them and smiled at her. She inserted him in her wet gates and he began to probe her. Pleasure spread through his brain like a sweeping grass fire. He closed his eyes and to savor the tight ring, he plunged through.
Her mouth opened, and she moaned and slung her head in pleasure’s throes. The hunger they shared for each other grew hotter and wilder. Her small butt was raised off the blanket to meet him. Soon, she wrapped her legs around him and her bare heels beat a tattoo on his back. Both of them were huffing the thin cool air for enough oxygen. She gushed on, “Yes, yes. More. Oh, my God—”
Then he felt the ignition in his testicles. Pelvic bone to pelvic bone, he exploded inside her. Her fingernails dug into his back as she cried out in passion.
For a long while, they simply lay there—half asleep and basking in the closeness of their naked bodies.
“We better get some food,” she announced, and sat up, pulling her hair back from her fac
e. Leaning on one hand for support and seated beside him, she looked back. “Unless?”
“Unless what?”
“Damn it, do I have to spell it?”
“How do you spell it?”
She reached over and clutched his half-mast shaft in her fist. “This is how I spell it.”
He caught her chin and pulled her down to kiss her. “You win the spelling bee.”
With a moan, she fell over on top of him and he lifted her up to suckle on her small rock-hard breast. His tongue rasped the button of a nipple, and she shoved it at him for more. His hand slid between her legs, and she spread them apart for him, with a smile at her discovery of his middle finger beginning to tease her hardening clit.
“Oh, don’t stop . . .”
After the evening meal of frijoles, the four of them huddled for their final meeting before the raid, in the dying light of the day. Even though Slocum had passed it several times in the past, Lucia drew a map in the dirt to point out where the explosives were stored for him. It was to be his and Little Britches’s job to secure the blasting sticks and needed items.
“How many men can you enlist?” Slocum asked Lucia.
“If the loyal ones are still there, I can get several.”
“Good. We will need to arm the blasting sticks, but they’ll be better than guns at taking the outlaws out.”
Lucia nodded. “I won’t have a mine anyway if we can’t run them off.”
“Eliminate them,” Slocum said.
Hard-eyed, Vegas agreed with a sharp nod.
“Vegas, you keep her safe during all this. Little Britches and I will try to secure the blasting sticks.”
Lucia rose and, like honeymooners who couldn’t keep apart, she stood on her toes and kissed Vegas hard. She turned back in his embrace. “How can I ever thank you for bringing him to me?”
“Later,” said Slocum. “Now I need you both sharp. Make love later. I’ll meet you two in the draw if we can get the explosives. Watch out. There will be people in there that will run to St. John to get on his good side.”
She and Vegas nodded in agreement and they started off.
“Can we kiss, too?” asked Little Britches.
He swept her up on his arms. “I may have spoken harshly to them, but they hardly realize there is a world around them.”
