by Jake Logan
His manhood leaped out, stiff and ready. Barely had it been exposed to the air than he gasped. She took him fully into her mouth. Her clever tongue worked up and down the sides, teased the delicate skin beneath the head, and then she pushed forward, taking him down her throat. It was everything Slocum could do to keep from blasting off. It felt as if a keg of Giant powder had been buried in his balls and her mouth was the fuse working down to ignite it.
He laced his hands through her thick, coppery hair and began moving her back and forth in a rhythm that made him even harder in her mouth.
“Umm,” she said, pulling back and licking her lips. “You taste wonderful, John.”
He pulled her back. She willingly took him into her mouth once more, this time using her teeth a little bit on the sides of his shaft. The flesh tingled and burned and made him even more excited. He closed his eyes and let the wondrous sensations wash through his loins. And when he was sure he couldn’t hold back another instant, he felt the saliva on his length turning cold.
She had pulled back and left him hot, hard and needy.
Beatrice fell back onto straw and looked up at him. She slowly raised her knees, then hiked her skirts to reveal her privates.
“I’m not wearing any undies,” she said.
Slocum blinked. He could see she spoke the truth now that his blurred vision cleared just a little. Dropping to his knees, he reached out, put his hands on the insides of her creamy white thighs, and pushed them farther apart. She reclined fully and heaved a deep sigh.
“I want you, John. Don’t deny me. Don’t!”
He pushed her skirts up around her waist so he could move closer. The purpled knob on the end of his shaft banged gently against her nether lips. She shuddered, then lifted her legs, gripping her knees to further expose herself. He slid forward a few inches, barely within her heated center. Both of them gasped at the feelings this caused.
Desire rampaged through him. He thought of the tornado and how it had spun mindlessly, powerful and possessing all in its path. He leaned forward and buried himself another couple inches within her tightness. Then he succumbed. His hips pistoned forward, and he buried himself balls deep within her.
For a long minute, they did not move. Slocum felt sweat beading on his forehead. His arms shook as he supported himself over her. But his hips remained stolid and unmoving. Surrounded by her hot sheath of female flesh, he wanted the desire he felt to last forever. But she twitched, just a little. Her strong inner muscles tensed around him, milking him. He couldn’t resist the ages-old urges any longer.
Slocum began stroking, faster, harder, trying to go deeper yet. He rocked her back with every powerful thrust and then the constant motion became ragged. He abandoned himself to pure lust. In the distance he heard her crying out as he felt her clamping down all around him with her orgasm. With a final lunge, he hid himself fully within and then began rotating his hips.
The white-hot tide rose within him and then exploded like a stick of dynamite. He groaned as his hips went berserk. Before he knew it, he was turning limp within her. He looked down into her flushed face. Her eyes were wide, and she could hardly speak.
“I . . . I’ve never felt anything like that before,” she said in a sex-husky whisper. “You’re like an animal. And you brought that out in me. Something primitive.” Her voice faded.
Slocum got up on his knees and tucked himself back into his jeans. It took him longer than usual to fasten the brass fly buttons, maybe because his hands still shook in reaction or perhaps because he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
She wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever had but there was something about her that excited him beyond all reason. If she had asked for a second round, he would have been able to do so in only minutes. It might have been the animal in her—in him—or it could have been something more. He wasn’t inclined to think hard on it. It was good enough just to enjoy her body and their coupling.
“Joshua,” she said softly. “He only wanted to protect me from an abusive husband. Look for him when you’re out delivering mail and keep him safe. I don’t want the law arresting him. They’d hang him for certain because I’m sure he killed Fred, thinking he was helping me.” She scooted back in the straw and pulled down her skirt to chastely hide her privates. “Be careful of him. And never turn your back on him.”
“I’m not going to kill him unless I have to.”
“I don’t want him dead, I want him where he can’t hurt anyone else.” She leaned back on her elbows and gave him that crooked smile. “When you do, I’ll be happy to pay you . . . whatever you want.”
There was no mistaking her meaning.
For a grieving widow, she sure did have a way of relieving her heartbreak that appealed to him.
Slocum left Beatrice in the barn, got on his paint, and started out of town to find the first ranch to deliver a package of letters.
5
Slocum had not even reached the edge of town when he heard the dog’s loud barking. He drew rein and listened hard. The sound was different than expected from a dog fighting off an enemy, and like wolves, dogs seldom barked when they attacked. They were too focused on killing.
He rode down a side street and let his paint pick its way through the rubble. This was the part of Gregory that had been devastated, though in places some buildings still stood as miracles flaunting a devil wind. The dog raced back and forth, then dropped and put its head on outstretched paws, large brown eyes staring at him. As he approached, the mangy animal jumped to its feet and began barking again.
Slocum swung his leg over his horse and dropped to the ground. The dog went wild in its glee that it had found a human to listen to it. Dropping to one knee, Slocum took the dog’s head in both hands and then scratched its ears. The dog tried to pull away, but Slocum wanted to keep it quiet for a moment. The noise the dog had heard so clearly was faint, hardly a scratching sound. It might have been caused by the wind, but the day was preternaturally still after the tornado’s full fury.
Releasing the dog, he went to a pile of planks that had once been a building. He took his lead from the dog, who dug and tried to nose away the pile of boards. Slocum lent his aid, and the dog didn’t pull away. He kept at his work for ten minutes until he saw a bloody hand poking up through the debris under the pile of lumber. He dug faster when he noticed that blood oozed from the exposed wrist. Dead men don’t bleed.
He kicked away a heavy plank and was rewarded with bloodshot eyes staring up at him. The man’s lips were swollen from lack of water, and he could only feebly gesture. Slocum understood what he meant, though.
“No need to thank me,” Slocum said. “The one you ought to thank is right here.” The dog pressed past and began licking the man’s bloodied face. While the dog tended his master, Slocum returned to his paint, got the canteen, and brought it back.
He dribbled a few drops onto the man’s lips, his tongue, into his mouth.
“Not too much at first,” Slocum cautioned. “You need to get used to the idea of water again. You been buried under the rubble since the twister hit?”
The man shook his head. He reached for the canteen. Slocum watched carefully as the man sipped. If he had tried to gulp it all down, Slocum would have taken it away. Over the next fifteen minutes, the man regained his strength and finally sat up, propped by a pile of boards.
“After the tornado,” the man grated out. “I had piles of lumber. Thought I could use it in town but it toppled on me. Trapped me for better than a day.” He looked around, blinked, and then said, “Might be two days I was caught. Thanks, mister.”
“Give your dog a big bone and the debt’s repaid,” Slocum said. “Let me help you up. Where’s the doctor’s office?”
“That quack? Vet’s office is closer anyway. Trust him. Doc Preston’s likely passed out from too much booze.”
Slocum put his arm around the man to support him, and they walked slowly away from the center of town. An adobe house—hardly more than a hut—along the road leading west had a small shingle swinging in front. This was the veterinarian’s office.
“Anybody home?” Slocum called. The door opened. A man with a bushy beard but hardly taller than a young child opened the door. He pushed his eyeglasses up on his nose and peered at Slocum.
“Another one? Bring him in, but if he says a word, I throw him out.”
“His dog saved him,” Slocum said.
“Of course the dog did. The animals are the only ones with any sense in this town. Damn shame so many of them got caught in the tornado.” The short man hobbled about on legs hardly half the length they should have been.
At first Slocum thought the man might have lost his lower legs in an accident, maybe the war, but tiny feet encased in button shoes put that notion to the lie. The vet was just not as tall as most folks.
“Sit there, Jeb.” The vet pointed to a low table. He hobbled over to a cabinet built for his height and rummaged around inside, pulling out bandages and a bottle of carbolic acid. He sloshed some on his hands before beginning his examination.
Slocum stood back and let the veterinarian work. No medical doctor could have patched up Jeb better. In a few minutes his wounds were cleaned and bandaged.
“You’re gonna have to stay off that right paw—foot, that is,” the vet hastily corrected. “You drove a nail smack through it. Was it a rusty nail?”
“Clean,” Jeb said.
“You’re likely going to be fine.”
“I owe everything to you and this fellow.”
“And your dog,” the vet said sourly. “From what’s been said, you owe him a lot.”
“A bone. I promised him a big beef bone.”
“Don’t renege on that. You do, I find out, I’ll charge you double for patching you up. Now get out of here. I got real patients to tend.”
Jeb’s dog barked and darted about, dashed outside, and led the way. Slocum helped the man into the bright sunlight.
“You got a place to stay?” Slocum asked. “Resting up a spell would help you as much as all the fancy bandaging.”
“Not so fancy. Clyde—that’s the vet—he knows his job. Takes better care of horses and cows than he does the occasional man going to him.”
Slocum helped Jeb back to his tumbledown house.
“I can find bedding in this mess. Shouldn’t have stacked so much sawed lumber where the wind could get it. Smashed it into the side of the house, weakened it, and when I got to poking around, it all collapsed.” Jeb stood an ottoman upright then sat heavily on it. He thrust out his foot and rubbed his leg. “Be as right as rain in a day or two.”
“I’ve got to be going,” Slocum said, “but there’s something you might tell me about Gregory.”
“If that’s all the reward you want, I gotta consider myself lucky. Shoot.”
“You know the Sampsons? Fred and Beatrice?”
“Them people at the outskirts of town? Or what used to be the town? Know of ’em, know ’em to see on the street. Always polite but never spoke much with either of them. Specially not the man.”
“Why’s that?”
“Nasty expression all the time, like he’s always mad at something he can’t quite spell out.”
“What of Mrs. Sampson?”
“You got some interest in her? She’s a fine-looking woman, that head of red hair and all. Turns to gold in the setting sun.” Jeb coughed. “Not that I noticed such things, mind you. Fred Sampson would never take kindly to anyone looking at his woman.”
“He’s dead. Killed on his way back to town the day the twister struck.”
“Can’t say I got any feeling one way or the other. Might be Mrs. Sampson would be happy about it, but don’t know. Some married folks, they enjoy the arguing and the makin’ up, if you know what I mean.”
“What about her brother?”
Jeb’s eyebrows arched. He pursed his still swollen lips, winced at the motion, then shook his head.
“Didn’t know she had a brother, but then like I said, they weren’t the most sociable people around. They only been in town a month or two.”
Slocum considered how Beatrice had struck up an acquaintance with the cavalry captain. Or maybe he was seeing more there than existed. If Fred Sampson beat up on his wife, Beatrice might have sought help from the officer.
“Not much in the way of law in Gregory, is there?”
“Nope, not much. You ought to know that coming and going the way you do. You’re the stagecoach driver, right?”
Slocum had to admit to being the one.
“I never much took longer in town than I had to. Passed right on through the few months I’ve been driving for Butterfield.”
“Gregory’s a doomed town,” Jeb said. “Too out of the way for a rail to come through and a lot of roads go to Fort Stockton but not here. Used to be a thriving place, but Fort Stockton gets supplies from all over now, and the railroad’s likely to come up from San Antonio, not over to Gregory. Town’s doomed, no matter what. And the twister ain’t helpin’ keep it alive, if you follow my meaning.”
“Never even seen anyone with the Sampsons who might be a relative?”
“Can’t say I have. You might ask in town. Doc Preston spends more time in the saloon than he does at his office. He’d know. I’d say you could find him at the Gully Washer but it got all blowed down.”
“Wrong side of the street,” Slocum agreed. “Only saloon left’s on the other side.” Gregory had gone from being a two-saloon town to a one-saloon town.
“Wrath of God’s more like it, but then the church got turned into toothpicks, too.”
“I’ve got a job to do,” Slocum said. “You be all right?”
“Me and the dog’ll do just fine, thank you. You ever need a stack of planks for a house or to build a store, they’re yours. Might have been under that pile of wood the rest of my life if you hadn’t dug me out.”
Slocum pointed to the dog so the man would remember the real hero, smiled, then left, finding his paint patiently waiting. Rescuing Jeb had taken the better part of two hours, but information had been gathered that perplexed him more than a little. Whatever had gone on out at the Sampson place was a mystery to most of the townspeople. If he wanted answers—other than those Beatrice would give him—he needed to pry them from Captain Legrange. Why he cared, other than to drive away some of the boredom of not having a real job, was something of a poser.
It might have been the energetic sex with Beatrice Sampson, but Slocum doubted that was the entire answer. Mysteries always drew him like a magnet pulls iron filings, and she was a big mystery. And as much as he hated to admit it, he felt some responsibility for Fred Sampson’s death out on the road. He had been in charge of the stagecoach, and a passenger had died. There wasn’t a powerful lot he could have done to prevent it, but that was another part of the mystery Beatrice dropped into his lap.
Brother Joshua was a danger rattling around the prairie, shooting up men that needed it. Slocum wondered where Joshua would draw the line since most everyone in West Texas likely deserved his brand of rough justice.
He rode less than ten minutes, heading southward, before a man sitting beside the road ahead of him waved. Slocum made sure his six-shooter rode easy in its holster, then approached warily since the man wore his bandanna up over his nose, masking his face. From what he could tell, the man wasn’t packing iron. There wasn’t anywhere nearby to hide a rifle.
“Mister, you help us out? We’re in trouble aplenty.”
Slocum rode closer and looked around. He didn’t see anyone else, but a pair of ruts cut off from the road, went down an incline, then wound about a low hill. An entire company of highwaymen could be hidin
g not a quarter mile away.
As Slocum brought his paint to a stop, the man stepped forward, pushed his hat back on his forehead, but didn’t remove the mask.
“You’re that stage driver fella, ain’t you?”
“I am.”
“Name of, uh, don’t tell me, let me think. Slocum! I heard Mr. Underwood talkin’ ’bout you. I’m Moses Jeffrey, the telegrapher.”
“What brings you out here so far from town?” Slocum asked. He didn’t inquire about the bandanna. If the telegraph operator got around to explaining, he would. Slocum remembered seeing him with the stationmaster a couple weeks earlier. The men had argued over something of no real importance, but it had riled both of them considerably.
“All my lines are down. Tornado. Got a couple linemen out workin’ to get ’em back up, but there’s no tellin’ how long they’ll be gone.”
“So you’re like me, a man without a job.” Slocum considered asking if Jeffery would be interested in the chore of delivering mail since that wasn’t so far from his usual occupation. That would free him of his obligation to Underwood and the stagecoach company, but riding on to find a new town didn’t appeal to him as much as it might have hours earlier—before he had taken on Beatrice’s errand of stopping her crazy brother from shooting up the whole of West Texas.
“Got one that turns my stomach.” Jeffrey put his hand to his mouth, found the cloth, and hastily yanked it down. “Sorry, don’t know how that looked to you. I had it to keep from gettin’ too sick.”
“What’s your problem? This is my day for listening to a passel of them.”
“I’d be sure to put in a good word with Mr. Underwood if you could help Old George and me. I drove off the road tryin’ to avoid a nasty stretch and got mired where it was even worse. Damned rain turned the entire prairie into a swamp and the load’s way too much for the wagon.”
