Slocum and Little Britches

by Jake Logan

  “They call that love.”

  “That can be death in this business.”

  “I understand.” She stood on her toes and kissed him. “I’ll be with you all the way covering your back.”

  “No shooting unless you have to.”

  She agreed and they set out for the village. For them to slip up close to the powder house, they used the cover of willows along the creek. The moon would not come up till late, and they had to make their way slowly. He could see the mine and the tailing high above them in the starlight. His hope was that St. John was satisfied enough with his security to leave the shack unguarded. That would make things easier.

  When he could see the powder building, he also saw the sombrero of a guard. He held her back with his arm.

  “I’ll get him,” she said, and began to shed her boots and pants.

  Slocum frowned at her. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to lure him away from the front. We have no time to waste.”

  “Too dangerous.” He couldn’t allow her—

  She shook her head. “Watch me.”

  Slocum held the .44 in his fist. His breath was raging. That dumb woman . . . He watched her prance out in the starlight toward the one under the sombrero. The small cups of her ass shone below the tail of her shirt in the pearl light.

  “Who are you?” the guard asked in Spanish.

  “I am Silvia.” She crowded him. “Are you lonesome here?”

  “Ah, ah, yes.” He acted like he wished to escape.

  “Give me your hand.”

  “What for?” His voice trembled.

  “I want you to feel how tight I am.” She was nibbling on his neck and ear.

  “Why do you do this? Who are you?”

  “Are you afraid to finger me?”

  “Madre de Dios, no.”

  Slocum could see him look around to be sure they were alone, and then he reached down to feel her pussy. She spread her bare legs apart for his entry, guided his hand down there, and bent toward him. Then she released her hold and put her hand on his shoulder to pull him closer to her. “Be easy.”

  “Oh, my, you are wonderful—”

  She jerked his pistol out of his holster, shoved the muzzle into his nose, and whispered, “Get your damn finger out of me.” With her thumb, she cocked the hammer back. “One word and you’re dead.”

  “Please . . .”

  “I’ve got him,” Slocum said, and whipped off the guard’s sombrero, grasped him by the collar, and forced him around behind the shed.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said, and ran back in to the willows for her pants and boots.

  “Where is St. John?” Slocum jerked the guard up close to his mouth.

  “I don’t know—in the office. His casa—”

  “You’ve got one chance to live. Things are going to get tough around here. If you stay tied and gagged, I’ll get you when it is over and you will live. Otherwise, you better have a fine suit.”

  “What for, Señor?”

  “For your funeral.” Slocum finished tying the man’s hands behind his back. Then he gagged him with his own kerchief. “You staying here till it is over?”

  The man nodded. Slocum went around to the front to meet the breathless Little Britches. “It was too damned dangerous, but it worked good this time,” he said.

  She shuddered, putting up her galluses. “It didn’t feel good either.”

  He found a rock and pounded the large brass lock. It soon fell open, and he pulled out the chain securing the door. They went inside the small dark warehouse and closed the door again. With the light from a cupped match, he could read the labels on the wooden crates of blasting sticks. He could handle two of them. He blew out the match.

  “What else do we need?” she whispered, colliding with his back.

  “Caps and primer cords.”

  “Where will they be? This place smells bad.”

  “They use bat shit to make it.”

  He lit another match and discovered the cord. He handed her a roll and at last found the detonators. From the case, he gave her two hard paper boxes, then turned to go back.

  “Where is Delgado?” a voice said, cutting the night.

  They both held their breath. Slocum dried his gun hand on his pants and strained his ears to listen for more.

  “He must be off diddling some puta.”

  “Yeah, who would steal this stuff anyway?”

  “No one.” Hiccup. “I think we can find that puta Rosa at her casa.” Slocum could hear the drunken slur he’d missed earlier. “Then you can dick her from behind and she can blow on mine at the same time.”

  “Ah, you have a good—good idea, mi amigo.”

  “Is that all men think about?” she asked under her breath.

  “No, but it is interesting.”

  She gave him a playful punch. When it was over, he’d show her what he meant. They slipped outside, and he carried two crates of the sticks in his good arm. She rechained the door and hung the broken lock back so it looked undisturbed. Then they hurried for the meeting place.

  Vegas came to meet him, and Slocum gave him one of the boxes to tote as they churned sand going up the dry wash.

  “Lucia found seven of her loyal men,” Vegas said. “They act ready to help. They say they know how to arm the blasting sticks, too.”

  “Good,” Slocum said, short of breath. “We need to work fast. We left the powder house guard tied up back there.”

  Slocum found the loyal men seated on the ground, and they rose at his approach. Lucia came forward.

  “Antonio is the lead man,” she said.

  Slocum set the crate down, drew a deep breath, wiped his sweaty palm on the seat of his pants, and then shook his hand. “Antonio, we attack at once. Everyone needs to throw a loaded stick at the same time.”

  “Sí, this cord you brought, it burns at a meter a minute.”

  “We may need that much time. No, that’s too long. Thirty seconds.”

  “This long will do it.” Antonio showed the others the length they needed.

  Vegas had pried open the box lids. Lucia handed the sticks out, and Little Britches had the cap boxes open for the men. They needed no instruction. They used their large knives to unfold the end of the waxed sticks, and Antonio passed out caps with the right length of cord crimped on them. They inserted the caps carefully in the opened tubes and then closed the ends.

  Slocum used rawhide string to bind two more sticks around each of the loaded ones. “That should make them blow up big-time.”

  “Where do we use them?” Antonio asked.

  “I understand many of the outlaws are in the cantina. I don’t want the women hurt, so I will shoot into the air so they rush outside. Three of you be ready to toss the sticks in the midst of them. When any others come running to help them, toss a stick at them, savvy?”

  “Sí, señor, we have all wished for guns to kill these bastardos .” Antonio brandished a loaded stick. “This will be the power to drive them out of this village and the mine.”

  “You ladies stay back. I don’t know where St. John is at. Do any of you?”

  “Earlier this evening, his man Angel forcibly took to him the young daughter of Ruben Aquirria. Her name is Anita. She is just a child,” an older man said, and shook his head.

  “Nothing we could do either,” Antonio said.

  “So he must be at Lucia’s house with his new play-thing?” Slocum asked.

  “He’s there all right. Maybe I could go up there and shove one of these up his ass,” an old man said. “I would like to.”

  His words drew some laughs.

  Slocum turned to his man. “Vegas, you take the women and you three be certain that St. John does not escape.”

  “We can do that,” Lucia said with a grim set to her lips in the starlight.

  “Give me a stick of that,” Little Britches said to one of the men, and took a fused stick from him. Her teeth clenched when she said, “I’ll
use it on that no-account.”

  They laughed and told her to do it.

  “You better be ready to run when you light it,” Slocum said with a frown.

  The men armed with shoulder bags full of explosives divided up. Antonio stationed them along the route to take out any of the reserves that might rush out to help the ones at the cantina. Vegas and the women went to Lucia’s residence to take St. John.

  Slocum and Antonio, along with two others, kept to the side of the street single file. A drunken pistolero came down the street singing off-key about a wild caballo. Slocum made the others stay in the dark shadows.

  “Ah, hombre. You have a light?” Slocum stepped up to the man, who fumbled around in his pockets looking for matches until Slocum struck him over the head with his pistol. He went down like a poled steer. Then Slocum swept up the pistolero’s six-gun and waved the others on.

  When his men were set in place on the three sides of the cantina’s front, he used the cap-and-ball pistol to blast holes in the sky. It did exactly what he thought it would. The outlaws rushed out the batwing doors, and the sparkling tails of the tossed blasting sticks lighted the street. The blasts were ear-shattering. Slocum uncovered his ears and looked quickly at the stunned outlaws all over the ground in front of the cantina. He feared there might still be some fight left in them.

  “Again!” he ordered, and all it took was the time to light a fuse.

  Up the street, other blasts went off. No doubt to stop the reserves. He spoke to Antonio. “Handle this, I’m going to go help Vegas.”

  “We can handle it, Señor.” Antonio and his men rushed in and began to disarm the moaning and shaken pistoleros.

  Slocum had his own pistol in his hand as he rushed for the large house. He had heard nothing. When he reached the open gates of the yard, he saw the front door was open. He never hesitated, and rushed in to the opening illuminated by the light inside.

  Lucia was on her knees beside Vegas, who had his back to the wall. She held a bloody cloth to his head.

  “You all right?” Slocum asked, looking around.

  “They only grazed him,” Lucia said, about to cry.

  “Little Britches?”

  “They took her prisoner.”

  “You can handle this.” Slocum clapped her on the shoulder. “I better go find where they took her.”

  “Be careful,” Lucia said after him.

  He rushed through the house into the kitchen. On the floor, a sobbing teenage girl, naked as Eve, was sprawled in a pile. He dropped beside her on his knees and caught her by the shoulder as he recalled her name. “Anita. Was there a woman with short hair with them when they left?”

  “Yes.” She clutched her small budding breasts underneath her folded arms and turned her face away from him.

  “Was she their prisoner?”

  Numbly, she nodded.

  The knowledge that they’d taken Little Britches as a prisoner slapped him hard in the face. A wide-eyed, older woman rushed into the room, and at the sight of him started to leave.

  “Wait, get her a blanket,” he said to stop her. “She has no clothes.”

  “Sí.”

  “Take care of her.” There was no time to talk to this woman named Ruby, who was Lucia’s head cook. He hurried out the rear door. He holstered his six-gun, wishing Red was closer, and rushed into the night. There were three saddled horses at the hitching post. He checked the girth, tightened it, and then swung on the tallest one at the rack.

  The horse started to buck, but with no time for nonsense, Slocum held his head up and they went sideways into the night. Two ways St. John could go. One was over the Madres, then down over the eastern slope, or ride north into Apache country. The upper end of the Sierra Madres was controlled by the broncos that had tried to take Little Britches captive in the first place.

  St. John was not liable to take that route unless he had the whiskey-peddling gunrunner Freddie Fine with him. Vegas mentioned he’d seen Fine in the village. Chances were good that Fine, St. John, and his henchman Angel had ridden north with him. Fine had ties to the renegades that could get them through.

  Slocum rode through the night for the mountain road. He had no idea where they’d gone or where they’d taken her. Little Britches, I’m coming, he vowed silently.

  13

  Slocum faced dawn on foot, leading the sweaty, hard-breathing gelding and searching for sign. His eyes were too tired to do more than glance at the cracked shoe on one of the four sets of tracks he’d followed all night: St. John, Angel, Freddie Fine, and Little Britches. They were going north. But he had no supplies, no great rifle under his fender, and a worthless horse that was giving out. Maybe they were in the same shape as he was, but he was still several hours behind them by the signs and the scattered horse apples he’d found.

  He always hated defeat, but reality had settled in on him. He needed several things to meet the enemy on this vast field of battle. Not the least his Remington rifle, stouter horses, supplies, and a tracker. He saw no sign of the four riders across the tops of the mountains or in the open spaces of grass above the timber. Not having field glasses did not help his cause at all.

  He swung in the saddle and headed back to the mine. The situation he found himself in left a knot in his stomach. Little Britches didn’t deserve the treatment she’d experience in their hands. At midday, he reached the mine and dropped out of the saddle in Lucia’s yard. He clung to the horn until his legs were stiff enough to support him.

  “Slocum, did you find her?” Lucia rushed out to hug him.

  “No. How’s Vegas?” He kissed her forehead and turned her toward the house.

  “I have him in bed. A woman stitched his head and we gave him some laudanum. His head hurt him.”

  “He’s not a complainer. I need some things.”

  “Anything. What can I do for you?”

  “I need some supplies, my horse, a packhorse.”

  “The horses are here. I can get the supplies and a pack rig put together. What else do you need?”

  “An Indian tracker. There was one worked here before.”

  “There was a Yaqui that worked here. I will check on him for you. He was a good tracker.” She hooked her arm in his. “You need food, a bath, and maybe recreation?”

  “Food, bath, and sleep mainly.”

  “Oh, I know you too well. I will send Kalia up to help you. She is muy buena.” Her elbow nudged him. “Stop worrying, you will find Little Britches. You found me.”

  “I hate coming back empty-handed. Those bastards will hurt her.”

  “I know about that.” She shook her head, and once they were inside the vestibule, she shouted for someone.

  “I need food and wine for this man.”

  Smiling faces from all over appeared in doorways and on the second-story balcony to see who he was.

  “This is the man who saved us from the bandidos. His name is Slocum. Get him anything he needs or wants. Where is Kalia?”

  “Here, Señora.” She came floating down the stairs. She was ample-breasted, and her willowy figure flowed rather than walked. She tossed the wavy dark hair back from her face and looked hard at him.

  “Señor?”

  “Slocum,” he said, and removed his hat. “Lucia says you are very competent.”

  A wicked wink, and she nodded with a pouty set to her brown lips. “I will see you do not lack for anything.”

  “Good.” He put on his hat and hooked arms with her.

  “Food and wine is first.” She took him away from Lucia and pointed him toward the kitchen. “You don’t need to eat in the great hall, do you?”

  “No, the kitchen is fine.”

  “Ah, a hungry man. I know all about them.”

  “I’ll tell Vegas when he wakes up that you are safe,” Lucia said. “He is very worried about you.”

  Slocum stopped and swung Kalia around. “Gracias, Lucia. Tell him he’s in charge.”

  “Ha, he has headache so bad he can hardly
see.”

  “He’ll see good enough in the morning.”

  “And you will be gone?”

  “Get me that tracker so I can be.”

  Lucia made a shooing motion with her hands. “Kalia, take that bossy gringo out of here and feed him.”

  “Sí, señora.” And she did. Her words drew a titter of laughter from the unseen house workers.

  Seated on a high stool, Slocum feasted on freshly cooked lamb ribs and chops. Browned over a mesquite fire, they made his mouth water. Fresh flour tortillas with pulled beef, goat cheese, and frijoles followed. He ate like a king while Kalia refilled the red wine in his cup and shoved her firm breast into his upper arm.

  He wiped his greasy mouth on a towel she handed him and grinned over at her. “Part one complete.”

  “They have more meat,” Kalia said.

  “I’m ready for a bath.” He reached over his head to stretch.

  Kalia clapped her hands. “Hot water in his room.”

  The maids scurried about the kitchen. Soon, the room was filled with steam as buckets of hot water were secured and carried off down the hall. Kalia guided him after the water bearers. Others scooted by them sideways with a bucket in each hand to get past.

  A large familiar copper tub sat on the orange tile floor in the midst of a room he had not seen before. Water was poured in under her direction, and tempered with some cooler water. Satisfied, she herded all of them out.

  At the door, she turned back, smiled, and then took the red blouse off over her head. The long bare breasts shook and she gave her hair a toss back while undoing the strings that held the waist of her skirt.

  He toed off his boots as she threaded all her long dark hair on her right shoulder and slithered across the tile to him. She undid his gun belt and relatched the buckle to hang it on the top post of the ladder-back chair. With a grin, he noted her fine-looking hard ass. Undoing his shirt, he handed it to her, and then his pants.

  She took them from him and held them while she admired his privates. She had a pensive smirk on her face. “I see why she liked you so well.”

  “Really?”

  “We are like sisters, Lucia and I. Are you mad that she has forsaken you for Vegas?”

  “No, she will need him when I’m long gone.”