by Jake Logan
“Hold your fire,” someone shouted from inside. “We ain’t no part of this deal.”
“Come on out,” Slocum said, shoving Mike at Denny. Slocum held his gun ready again while four scruffy teamsters with their hands in the air came outside, as did a storekeeper in a soiled apron. Behind him came a fat whore, who shook her head. “You guys scared the bejesus out of me.”
Slocum uncocked his six-gun. “You can put your hands down. Anyone hear where Bridges was going?”
“Didn’t hear him say nothing about it,” the storekeeper said. “Been here a couple of days, then got them two drunk as hooters last night and skipped out.”
“He ever feed his horses anything?”
The storekeeper shrugged.
“Get up fifty pounds of corn,” Slocum said to him, then turned to the women. “Those two”—he nodded toward Bridges’s men—“have got horses here. Find them. We’re not waiting long here.”
“They’re still saddled,” a whiskered teamster said with a head toss toward some pens. “I can get them.”
“Fine.”
Meagen gave Annie the lead rope to her packhorse. She rode over with the man to hold the gate for him as he went inside so as not to lose any other animal. He soon returned with two thin, still-saddled horses, and after he hooked the gate, he led them back to the cottage.
“You can damn sure see that they weren’t in no shape to go far on these hides,” the teamster said.
Slocum agreed. He had one noose nearly made and, satisfied, he cut the other end of the rope. “There’s a cottonwood tall enough there. Take him down there.” He motioned to Denny to do his bidding.
“Want us to load the other?” a teamster asked.
“He’s dead,” the storekeeper said, kneeled beside him.
“That’s a damn shame,” Meagen said, turning her lip up in fiery disgust.
The other outlaw was loaded on his horse and the noose secured. He began talking in gibberish, whining about how they ought to forgive him and how he’d never do anything like it again.
“You son of a bitch, you can tell ’em all about it in hell,” Meagen said, and she whipped the horse with a lariat on the butt. The prisoner jerked on the end of the noose and danced in midair, but soon slumped into death.
“What now?” Meagen asked, looking close to trembling.
“We go after Bridges.”
“Fine.”
“Annie, you and Denny can go on if you want to.”
“Not if you need us,” Annie said.
“No, we can handle it. There’s just Bridges and his partner left. They’re going to some outlaw den out in West Texas. Two can get around better than four. We’ll get them. Thanks to both of you for your help.”
“What about Barr and his bunch?” Denny asked.
“He ain’t in no shape, sleeping in a rig, letting a woman drive him. But I expect he’ll be here any minute.”
Denny shook his head as if uncertain. “Still, he’s got some hard cases with him.”
“I don’t think he’ll be a problem if you two swing wide of them leaving here.”
“We can do that,” Annie agreed.
She came over and thanked Slocum with a brief hug. “You two take care of yourselves.”
“Been doing that for years.”
He shook Denny’s hand, and they gave each other a clap on the shoulder for good luck. “Be certain you go wide now.”
“We’ll do it.”
With his packhorse, Slocum and Meagen rode out to the south, leaving Denny and Annie to head north on their way out of Fort Supply. They should avoid both of Barr’s bunches that way. He waved at them and then he spurred Buck to catch up with Meagen. The new sack of grain was on the top of the panniers. Good enough.
“Where in the hell did Bridges go now?” Barr demanded. He got off the buckboard with Goodall’s help. He stared at the Bridges gang member who swung in the wind on the noose hanging from the cottonwood tree. What had happened? How in the hell had Slocum beat them here? They must have ridden past Slocum out west of town.
Barr and his bunch drove back to the cottage to learn what they could.
A bearded bear of a man in buckskin came out and looked them over, then he spat to the side. “Bridges left last night and left two of his men behind. Then that big fellow and that boy came riding in here like hell was on fire. Gunned down this one’s stupid buddy, who came out and shot a hole in the porch roof. Two women joined them, and they strung up this one hanging there in that cottonwood tree.”
“Where did they go?” Barr asked.
“Two rode north and two rode south.”
“Who rode south?”
“The big guy and the gal in braids.”
“Who was the guy with the other gal?”
“Damned if I know. Tough kid though. He looked as tough as the big guy.”
“What the hell are we going to do now?” Goodall asked.
Barr leaned his throbbing forehead on the iron rail that went around the spring seat. Damn, he hurt. Two of Bridges’s bunch without any of his money had been shot and hung. Bridges and one other had left the night before and were still a day ahead.
And Bridges must still have some of the money. How much could he have spent in this godforsaken windy country? Damn, this was a pile of bullshit. His shoulders shuddered when he breathed deep.
“Find me a new team,” Barr finally managed.
“Here? Why, they’ll cost a fortune,” Goodall said.
“I don’t give a damn.
“You reckon that was that same fancy woman and boy that we talked to a couple of days ago?” Goodall asked.
“If it was, they rode north, I’d bet,” Barr said. “I don’t care where the hell they went. You take the best horse we have left and run down that damn Slocum. If he gets to Bridges first, he’ll get my money and have it all spent if we don’t stop him.”
“What about a fresh team for you?”
“I’ll have Kittles here go find me one. You need to be on Slocum’s ass right now. He’s got a two-hour head start.”
“I’m going,” Goodall said. “And I’ll get Slocum.”
“Get Bridges as well,” Barr shouted after him.
“Mr. Barr?” Maynard Kittles, the other cowboy who’d come with them from North Platte, called out. “Where are you getting this here team?”
Barr looked around. Where would he get a good team? He damn sure had little money left. Maybe away from this place he’d find a cheap team—somewhere.
Goodall was riding out. He could see their horses were worn out too. If their horses had been fresh, they’d have been here sooner too. They might have gotten Slocum as well.
“We can make it a ways farther,” Barr said to Kittles. “Erma can drive me. You just follow Slocum’s tracks. And don’t lose them.”
“Shucks, Mr. Barr, why, I could track a mouse over a rock. But these horses sure are give out.”
“I know, I know. We’ll find some.” He gave a head toss to Erma for them to get on their way. She came around, holding her hem up, to help him onto the seat.
Once he was loaded, she climbed up and took the lines. Barr could tell she was mad and upset at him. The horses were done in, but he doubted there was even a horse for sale here. At home on the ranch he had plenty of good fresh horses, but they were several hundred miles north of here. No good to him at the moment.
They followed the military road south. Barr grew dizzier by the hour, and the horses stumbled and snorted with their heads in the dust.
He was half-asleep on the spring seat when Kittles brought an Injun up to their stopped wagon.
“Mr. Barr, this here is Two Hawks. He says he has some fresh horses for sale.”
Barr blinked his eyes to focus on the old, gray-headed red man with an eagle feather in his braids. “What do you want for two good horses? Make it three horses.”
“Plenty gold.”
Pained, Barr looked at the wrinkle-faced old man. “I can give you my
check for the money.”
“No take paper. It can blow away.” Two Hawks shook his head.
“But it is perfectly safe.”
Two Hawks shook his head.
“How much do you want for them?” Barr asked.
“Mr. Barr,” Kittles said as if Barr couldn’t understand the blanket-ass Injun. “Two Hawks wants cash money fur them.”
“How much you got on you?” Barr asked.
“Me, Mr. Barr?” Wide-eyed, Kittles swallowed hard at the request.
“Yes, I need to borrow it.” He held out his hand for it.
“Why—” Kittles stood in the stirrups to dig in his pockets. In a short while, counting almost out loud, he owned up to having seven dollars and twenty-two cents.
“Tell him he can have all your money, my gold watch and our three good horses for three fine ones.”
“Shucks, Mr. Barr, what’s an ellit-erate Injun going to do with that gold watch?”
“I don’t care if he sticks it up his ass. Ask him.”
Two Hawks rode up close and Barr dangled the expensive timepiece for him to see it. In disgust, Barr remembered that the watch had cost a hundred fifty dollars.
The Injun took it, put it to his ear to listen and then nodded. “Me go get horses. We make big trade.”
“Good. How long will you be?” Barr made “gimme” motions with his fingers for the Injun to give the watch back.
Two Hawks acted satisfied and gave it back to him.
“Mr. Two Hawks, how long ’fore you get back with them new horses that he is buying? Mr. Barr is asking.”
“Me catch ’em and come back with ’em.”
“Thank you, Mr. Two Hawks. We’ll be a-waiting right here—sir.” Kittles turned back. “Mr. Barr he says—”
Scowling, Barr watched the Injun ride off. “I heard that sumbitch fine. No hurrying a damn blanket-ass Injun.”
No use even trying.
16
At the crossroads, Slocum shook his head, circling around on horseback and looking in the dust for the direction that Bridges and his man had ridden off.
Then with a nod and a head toss at Meagen, they took the left fork. The windswept grass rolled in waves over the hills.
“Where do you call home?” she asked, riding in close and pulling the string tight that held her straw hat on her head.
“Wherever I throw down my bedroll.”
Blinking her blue eyes at his reply, she shook her head in disbelief. “I can’t imagine you don’t have any more roots than that.”
“It’s a long story. Someday when we get time I’ll tell you all about it.”
“I’d love to hear it.”
He shrugged. “It ain’t all that great.”
“Where is this Tug-whatever?”
“Tascosa.”
“I hope they’ve got a deep bed there.”
“Why’s that?”
“’Cause I’d love to get you in one for a couple of days, and then we could do it with each other until we couldn’t walk.”
He chuckled. “Sounds like my kind of a deal.”
Her shoulders hunched to escape some of the stiffness in her back, she grinned. “Now, wouldn’t that be fun.”
“More fun than chasing Bridges, I’d say.”
“Me too. How far from here do you think this place is that we’re going to?”
“Three days’ ride, maybe four.”
She reached over and clapped his leg. “We may have to stop someplace before then—for a break, I mean.” Then she wrinkled her nose and winked wickedly at him. “Well?”
“We will have to do that,” he promised her.
“I guess Denny and Annie are getting it on somewhere.”
He looked over at her. She’d noticed that about them too.
“And doing this and that. You saw them. They were anxious to get away from us to go after each other, weren’t they?”
He laughed. “I really think they were. Denny is a good young man. He’ll be a lot taller in life with her than he’s ever been before.”
“Where did he come from?”
He checked Buck, and she stopped too. “It’s a long story he told me.”
“Now you’ve got two of them to tell me.”
He looked over the rolling hills carpeted in belly deep bluestem land that stretched from north to south in front of them. “We find some water and fuel, we’ll stop early.”
“Good. But we can always simply eat some jerky and then toss in the bedroll.” She studied the high clouds moving up from the south. “It may turn real cool tonight. Feels like the sun’s running out of power to me.”
Slocum agreed. “Must be getting close to fall all right.” They crossed the next rise, and he reined up to look over a small outpost nestled alongside a tree-lined stream. This was west of the places that he knew well in the territory. The land was drier here than the part where the Chisholm Trail sliced across the territory.
“You figure they’re down there—at that place in Texas you named?” She looked over at him.
“They aren’t far ahead of us. They could be. I’m thinking we can make camp somewhere and wait till morning, check out the place then.”
She nodded as if she was turning his idea over in her mind. “I’m ready to get off this horse. Mind you, I’m not complaining. Just ready to stretch my legs and detach my backside from this saddle.”
“Not a bad idea.” He booted his pony downhill.
They found a place where some boys had likely treated themselves to the water—for swimming, no doubt, for they’d worn the grass off the opening between the bigger trees hugging the bank. A fire ring marked the spot, and they’d probably caught some small bream and bullheads in the river to cook supper ...
Slocum recalled those early days. Good times, joined by other boys his own age in Georgia, they’d swum naked until the sun about set on them, then they’d cooked fresh fish and dried by a big fire. They told lies about all the girls they’d fucked since the last time they were up there and how theirs had begged for mercy from their big dicks.
Hell, anyone looking around could see that none of them had more than six inches of manhood all shriveled up from the cold water. No one ever challenged a friend’s bragging about it though—but they all knew they told concocted stories to make others think that in real life they were stallions. Actually, at that time in their lives they’d only ever watched, through a knothole in the barn, someone else getting himself a piece.
It wasn’t long after that they found out that pussy was a better deal than jerking off in a circle. But the four or five neighborhood boys had a few summers of innocent wonderment, a gut-wrenching fear of getting caught at it, and they bravely talked about sex and what it would be like to really do it to a woman, black or white. They camped up there. Had a skillet, cornmeal and lard, and sometimes they burned the fish and made hush puppies so hard they could have been used as minié balls.
Slocum remembered when Tommy Jack Steele brought a girl up there the first time. She was their age or maybe a little older. After sundown, she’d be sitting on the ground in back of them, hugging her knees and rocking on her butt like she wanted something to happen.
Tommy Jack called her Shonie, and the others kept sneaking looks at her and raising their eyebrows in the fire’s light when they turned back. No one moved, like they were all waiting for Tommy Jack to tell them what they could do.
Tommy Jack got up with his chest all puffed out and walked back and forth around the fire. The cicadas were really loud in the trees that summer.
Heddrow Smith couldn’t stand it a minute longer. He point-blank asked what Tommy Jack Steele had brought her there for.
A snicker, then some nervous laughter went through the three others.
“Gawdamn you, Heddrow.” Tommy Jack swore at him. “You reckon she’s here to spout off her ABC’s?”
Caught in a tight place, Heddrow shrugged and then wilted. “I didn’t know. No one ever told me anything.”
<
br /> Then he looked around for some relief. But Slocum knew Tommy Jack wasn’t letting up any on the boy. “Get out here, Shonie. This boy ain’t never touched no real pussy. Come on, girl.”
She shrugged and rose to obey him.
“Now, you get on your knees, girl,” Tommy Jack set her up facing them. “He ain’t going to hurt you none.”
She looked uncomfortable and folded her arms over her small breasts.
“Get out here, Heddrow.”
“Why me?”
“Get out here and you get on your knees right beside her.”
“Why me? I-I ain’t done nothing.”
“This is what I’m trying to get you to do.” Tommy Jack sounded impatient as hell. “Now, here. You put your right hand under her skirt and reach under it. Then tell me what her pussy feels like. Sit still girl. He ain’t a-going to hurt you none.
“You feeling it yet?”
Heddrow shook his head, looking awkward as he reached deeper.
Then under his breath, Tommy Jack told her to spread her legs apart more. “What you feeling for, Heddrow?”
Numb-like he nodded. “I found it.”
“Good, good. Tell us what real pussy feels like.”
“There’s a crack and some stiff hair.”
“Use your middle finger and push it in her. Can you do that?”
“It’s tight—”
“Be still, girl,” Tommy Jack said and squeezed her shoulder. “He ain’t hurting you none.”
They all half-laughed at his words, but things were too tight to let go and really laugh. Each one’s ears hurt from all the bugs buzzing over them in the tree residences. Heddrow looked like he didn’t know what was up her crotch, groping her under the short, ragged dress.
“Now, get your suspenders down and give her your dick,” Tommy Jack said, taking his hand away from her.
Heddrow looked to the rest of the boys for some relief, but they all stared, hard faced, each fearing that Tommy Jack might make him be the next puppet. Then Heddrow raised up and dropped his suspenders, undid his fly and shoved down his pants so he was sitting on them.
“Jack him off, girl.”
She made an angry face and then shuffled over to her victim. She took Heddrow’s dick in her hand, and with her fierce pumping, in less than two minutes she had the white foam flying out the head of his hard-on.
