by Jake Logan
“Get the hell out of here, Folkes. And see to her. Don’t you dare take her to the captain either!” Wilson waved his cane about. The color drained from the corporal’s face, and he took Amanda by the arm, leading her away. “And don’t let nothing happen to her, you understand?”
“I gotcha, Sarge. Nothin’ll happen.”
“What’s wrong?” Slocum squared off to face Wilson. “I saw a woman who needed help and the Army’s the only solution. You might see if the Rangers would do something to help her since her betrothed was a Ranger, but I doubt they’d much care.” The run-ins Slocum’d had with Texas Rangers hadn’t been pleasant, and he had not found their arrogance too appealing. For a nickel and change he would shoot the lot of them and not look back.
“Folkes made it sound as if you were bringin’ the crazy lady in to replace . . .” Wilson’s voice trailed off. “Oh, damn. You can’t know. You were gone. Mrs. Sampson snuck off. Must have been right after you and that good for nothing corporal left to hunt for her brother.”
“Beatrice is gone? Was she kidnapped?”
“Can’t say she was. From the way the captain’s all pissed, she must have snuck out on her own. Didn’t tell him squat. Just left.”
“Did she take a horse?”
“A horse and supplies. She didn’t bring much with her, so there wasn’t much of her own to leave with. But he’s sure she left him for you.”
Slocum almost laughed, then realized how it must look. He had no idea what Beatrice and Legrange had talked about. The officer had been shot up and his men had, for a time, thought Slocum had pulled the trigger. Legrange might not have been as inclined to believe the facts, especially if Beatrice said something to make him think otherwise.
But why would she? As far as Slocum could tell, the woman was hip-deep in clover. Her husband was dead, leaving her free to marry her lover. The captain had seemed amenable to that, and when Slocum had left them, so had Beatrice. She’d hovered over the wounded man’s bed like a guardian angel.
“Anything happen out of the ordinary?”
“Like what?” Wilson frowned, then said, “Wait, maybe there was something. The guard thought he saw someone sneaking onto the post and crossing the parade ground during the storm. He couldn’t leave his post. I’d’ve skinned him alive if he had, but he didn’t raise an alarm either.”
“Hard to make out an intruder in the rain,” Slocum said. “Especially if he’s wearing a gray shirt.”
“How do you know what he was wearing, if there even was anybody snuffling around?” demanded Wilson.
Slocum’s mind raced. He, the corporal, and two soldiers had left Fort Stockton to hunt for Joshua, but he had simply watched them ride out, then crept into the post to find his sister.
“She might have stopped Joshua from killing Legrange,” Slocum said. “That might have been the deal struck. Or he could have spirited her away.”
“You’re jumpin’ to some big conclusions. Why can’t she have just got tired of the captain and ridden off when she had a chance?”
“Where would she go? Unless I miss my guess, her house in Gregory was destroyed in the tornado. Her husband’s dead, and the man she’s been screwing is laid up with a bullet in him that was intended for me.” Slocum stopped and thought on this a moment. “Or maybe it wasn’t. The second bullet had my name on it. Her brother had a murderous bent toward any man with Beatrice. She wanted me to track him down since she believes he killed her husband.”
“It wasn’t a stagecoach robbery?”
Slocum had no answer for the sergeant. That looked more like the truth with every passing moment.
“If she went willingly with Joshua, it must be to keep him from killing Legrange. And if she was taken, there’s no telling what he might do.”
“Slocum, ’fore you came a-callin’, we never had this trouble with crazy people.” Wilson looked across the parade ground to the mess hall, where Folkes tried to quiet Amanda as she demanded to see her lover.
“You don’t want to get too set in your ways,” Slocum said, laughing. He sobered when saw Mrs. Wilson with the two girls come out with washtubs to do the laundry. Wilson followed his gaze.
“Best thing you done for us, Slocum. The utter best, but money’s gettin’ to be a problem.” Wilson heaved a sigh. “Doesn’t matter one bit. We’re takin’ to those girls like they were our own flesh and blood.”
“They seem to be taking to your wife, too.”
“Me, not so much. But that’ll change when they get to know me.” Wilson turned and bellowed a command across the parade ground. Two privates jumped to.
“Did the captain send out a patrol to hunt down Beatrice?” Slocum asked. Wilson shook his head and faced Slocum.
“He’s worried she went off on her own, because of something he said. I heard them arguing ’fore she left.”
Slocum considered this as a reason for Beatrice’s sudden departure, but he thought it more likely it had to do with her brother.
“You going after her?” Wilson read the answer on Slocum’s face. “Don’t know if I want you to fetch her back or not. Without a decent officer corps at the post, it doesn’t do to have Captain Legrange’s attention all divided. Without pay for the soldiers, he needs to keep alert for mutiny.” Wilson looked back where his wife and the two girls worked.
“I’m not sure I’ll be back,” Slocum said. “I wish you luck with your family.”
Slocum shook the surprised sergeant’s hand, then went to his paint. The horse seemed in better humor without the mail bags weighing it down. Or maybe the bags flopped and made the horse uncomfortable. Whatever it was, the paint had a spring to its gait that had been lacking before. Slocum hoped that the attitude would work its way up to him.
Leaving Fort Stockton made him a bit depressed. He liked the sergeant and wished him and his wife well with the two Yarrow girls, but without the payroll, there might be big trouble brewing among the troopers. Slocum had no doubt the sergeant would defend the Army first, even if it meant shooting a few of his own men. Legrange was distracted, wounded, probably tossed into a situation over his head. Without senior officers—or even junior ones to take up the lesser chores—Legrange had a world of trouble to deal with.
Past the low wall, Slocum looked around. The rain had stopped, but the scattered clouds blocked the sun more than they let through the warmth that would evaporate the puddles and make riding easier. Still, Slocum had to do some tracking. If Beatrice rode out with Joshua, the set of double tracks might be easy to find. One set of hoofprints going in, two out. And if she left on her own accord, whatever the reason, he needed to find a single trail.
He rode in a semicircle around the main entrance and found only one horse leaving on a path at an angle to the road. If Beatrice went to rendezvous with her brother, it had to be at a place they both knew—that Joshua would use as a hideout.
The only place Slocum knew that lay in this direction was the tumbledown house where he had found her before. Joshua had been somewhere else and might have gotten angry to find his sister missing when he returned. If nothing else, the abandoned farmhouse gave Slocum a place to start. Otherwise, he had nothing.
* * *
Slocum spotted greasy plumes of black smoke struggling into the air, striving to merge with the leaden clouds above. He rode a little faster—or as fast as the paint allowed. Pushing the horse too much would only work against him if he needed to gallop. The horse had the capacity for that, but only once in a day’s span. Not knowing what he would find made Slocum cautious enough to keep the horse’s strength in reserve.
What had caused the fire was something Slocum didn’t need to investigate, but he advanced slowly all the same. He remembered how Joshua had burned out the settlers. This was different. The family that had lived here had long since moved on, whether because of bad crops or sickness or
something else was anyone’s guess. The house still burned furiously.
He had to find out if Joshua had left his sister in the house.
When he had ridden to within twenty yards of the fire, his horse began dancing about, frightened of the flames. Slocum retreated, secured the horse’s reins, then skirted the fire, circling the now-gutted house and going closer. He took in a deep breath, fearing what scent might be caught on the rising smoke. Slocum gagged, but it came from the stench of something that had burned within the house—and it wasn’t human flesh. This didn’t reassure him that Beatrice had been away when the fire started—when Joshua started it—but Slocum took it as a good sign.
As the fire died, he began poking around. He found a broken bottle with a piece of burned rag stuffed into the neck. From the way the destruction spread out from this point, the bottle had been filled with kerosene, the rag lit and then thrown against the outer wall. It broke and the part of the rag in the neck had survived to give Slocum the answer to how the fire had started.
What thrill Joshua took from the fires was a mystery, but Slocum didn’t need to know why. All he wanted was to see that Beatrice was safe.
After searching another half hour, he found no sign of her or Joshua in the charred ruins. From here he widened his search and found hoofprints of two horses leading away. He might have saved himself the effort of scouring the ruins for Beatrice’s body, but he knew he would have anyway. Joshua might have simply taken Beatrice’s riderless horse.
He mounted and started along the trail. The clouds lifted and rain didn’t threaten for the first time in what seemed forever to him. The stars slowly popping out into a black velvet sky made him feel the urge to simply find the North Star and ride for it. Instead, he kept riding south. He wasn’t sure what he owed Beatrice, but letting her remain the captive of a crazy brother wasn’t it.
He considered camping when twilight deepened into full night. Following the tracks required a torch, and he didn’t want to announce his arrival so blatantly. And then he saw a new fire ahead. The rolling prairie dropped into a shallow depression. The house had been recently set afire because the roof collapsed as he watched. The furnace that was the farmhouse turned almost white-hot, and then the wood serving as fuel was consumed. The sudden brilliance faded as swiftly as nothing remained to feed the blaze.
Joshua wasn’t far ahead.
Slocum kept the paint moving, in spite it beginning to falter from lack of rest. He crossed the half mile of prairie to the house, sat watching it turn to smoldering embers, and then heard the voices over the crackling and snapping.
“You shouldn’t have done that, Bea. It wasn’t right to leave me the way you did.”
Slocum couldn’t hear the answer but knew from the tone that Beatrice replied. He homed in on the argument and rode toward the still-standing barn. The paint whinnied in relief when he stepped down to scout on foot.
The side of the barn facing the house had peeled and blistered from the heat, but the sparks that had soared into the sky had missed the bales of hay and roof. He slipped his six-shooter from its holster and edged closer until he could hear the voices coming from inside the barn.
“You killed Fred too soon. He would have come through with the money.”
“He was a crook. He wasn’t any good for you.”
Slocum stepped closer and saw Joshua grab Beatrice by the shoulders so he could face her squarely. Slocum wasn’t above shooting the man in the back if necessary to keep Beatrice from being harmed. He sighted in on Joshua’s head, then drew back, staying in the outer darkness. By the single lantern inside, he saw Joshua kiss her.
And Beatrice kissed him.
Hard. Passionately. Her hands moved over Joshua’s back and down, cupping his ass and pulling him even closer.
“I’d never leave you. We have such a good thing together, Joshua.”
Slocum sucked in his breath. He was beginning to understand. These two were lovers and Beatrice had married Fred Sampson to extort money from him. No one in Gregory knew much about the family because they had just moved to town. Slocum reckoned Beatrice and Joshua were drifters, hunting for men to fleece. For all he knew, they were married.
“And I give you what you can never get from any of the other men,” Joshua said, beginning to unbutton Beatrice’s blouse. “I set the fires for you to watch.”
Slocum tensed at that. Beatrice liked watching the fires, and Joshua accommodated her. He lifted the six-gun and took aim, then lowered it. Joshua had peeled back the woman’s blouse, leaving her naked to the waist. He began kissing the exposed breasts, then worked lower. Beatrice closed her eyes and reveled in the feel of his lips moving over her tits, down across her slightly domed belly, and then even lower.
Slocum stepped back into deeper shadows when Joshua lifted the woman’s skirts and began exploring.
“Do you want me?” the man asked. “More than any of the others?”
“Yes, yes!”
“You should never have took up with Slocum. He was trouble.”
“You shouldn’t have tried to kill him. The cavalry captain either,” Beatrice said, her fingers roving through the tangle of Joshua’s hair. She pulled him to her crotch when he had hiked her skirts far enough.
“I hated Slocum. The captain couldn’t get us anything, not after the payroll was tore off the stagecoach.”
“You shouldn’t have killed Fred like that. He would have got us the gold. He’d do anything I asked of him.”
Joshua snorted, licked a bit at exposed female flesh, and then reared back to look up at Beatrice.
“He had his chance and didn’t take it. He was getting cold feet. And I didn’t like what he did with you.”
“You watched?”
“Every time,” Joshua said in a husky voice before applying his mouth to the woman’s privates.
Slocum watched the expression on Beatrice’s face. The notion Joshua had watched her making love to Fred Sampson ought to have infuriated her. If anything, it excited her. She lifted one slender leg and hooked it over Joshua’s shoulder to allow him even more intimate access to her privates.
“I want more ’n your mouth,” she said. “My legs are getting weak. I can’t stand. Oh!”
With a swift move, Joshua stood with both of the woman’s legs over his shoulders. Bent double, her crotch was lewdly exposed and pressed into his. Somehow he got his fly open. Beatrice let out a cry of pure wanton desire as he penetrated her.
Slocum stepped farther back into the night. Joshua might enjoy watching other men with Beatrice, but he didn’t. Worse, Slocum had seen the woman’s expression when Joshua had told her how he had witnessed every intimate moment with her husband—with Fred Sampson.
He heard the sounds of their rising passion and turned to ice inside. Joshua had tried to murder him. His guess was that the shot that had killed Bonnie Framingham wasn’t intended for the woman but for him. Joshua had simply missed his target. Similarly, he hadn’t made a killing shot with Legrange and had clean missed a shot that would have killed Slocum back at Fort Stockton.
He stood convicted by his own words of killing Fred Sampson.
Slocum could take him back to Fort Stockton for trial. Captain Legrange would gladly preside and then stretch Joshua’s neck, but the complication presented by Beatrice might keep justice from being done. Would she intervene for her lover with the officer? Slocum thought Legrange would do about anything to get a woman as handsome as Beatrice back into his bed, especially after taking a bullet, having her nurse him and then disappear. It would be a miracle to him, and he would give her anything she wanted to return.
Clemency for Joshua wasn’t something Slocum ever considered.
He heard their noisy lovemaking coming to a climax. For a few minutes there was nothing, then Joshua said, “Gotta go take a leak. Don’t go anywhere.”
“Never, my love, never.”
Joshua came from the barn, scratching his balls and looking around. He went to the outhouse and opened the door when he realized he wasn’t alone.
“That ain’t my sweet Bea behind me, is it?”
“You got a six-shooter. Use it.”
“Slocum?” Joshua turned slowly. He had strapped on his gun belt but hadn’t bothered buttoning his fly. “You’re like a wad of sap, stickin’ to my boot. Can’t get rid of you.”
“Here’s your chance. Draw. Kill me and you and your wife can go off together.”
Joshua blinked in confusion, then leered.
“My wife? Hell, Bea ain’t my wife.”
“Your lover. It doesn’t make no never mind to me what she is.”
“She’s my sister, like we told ever’one in town. She’s my sister and my lover.”
Joshua went for his six-gun. Whether he thought his words would shock Slocum into not reacting or he simply stated the truth didn’t matter. Slocum was faster. His aim was deadly. Joshua grunted, stepped back into the outhouse, and collapsed on the wooden seat. Slocum went to him, saw he was dead, then kicked the door shut with his boot.
“Josh? What’s going on? I heard a shot. You all right?”
Slocum saw a still-naked Beatrice in the barn door, the light from within turning her into a beguiling, sexy figure. A demon. Someone so evil it made Slocum shiver with anger.
“I’m all right,” Slocum called out. His voice was choked and came out in a hardly more than a husky whisper.
“I’m waiting for you. Don’t be long.” Beatrice giggled like a schoolgirl. “You can be long. Just don’t keep me waiting!”
She went back into the barn to wait for her brother.
Slocum rode his paint away, heading for town. He had unfinished business there.
19
Slocum sat astride the paint, staring at the front door of the stagecoach office. Underwood rumbled about inside, shouting at someone and occasionally throwing around paper. The shower of white caught on the wind and blew into the street. After a large gust of paper, a young boy rushed out, dropped to his knees in the road, and frantically grabbed for the paper.
