Slocum 246: Slocum and the Cattle King

Chisum nodded, and closed the ledger. His partners were there. They would be anxious to know about everything at the ditch company. He had already warned his chief engineer on the project, Bill Stanley, that they must be careful to conceal the many problems that had arisen since the men’s last visit. Everything Chisum undertook nowadays required such enormous sums of money. His own notes at the National Bank in Santa Fe were due in three months. Interest alone would be over three thousand dollars. The cattle-sale money from the Mescalero Apache agency should arrive by then. The U.S. government paid as slow as a turtle. They did give good prices, though, compared to the long, dry drives back to the railhead in Kansas, but selling to the government certainly was not cash on the barrelhead.

He glanced out the window at the two-seat surrey in the yard. His stable boy Rudy had come from the horse barn to take charge of the lathered team of fine horses for Judson Tweedy. Chisum could see the stone-faced Nelda getting down from the rig. Good, she’d come along, so there would be no need for a female companion for the overweight Tweedy, who now waddled around to help her down. Under the maroon hat trimmed with balls around the brim, Barbara Moore made her grand descent from the backseat of the rig. Then came Austin Moore in his light brown suit, raising his arms skyward to stretch. Chisum watched Juanita cross the yard to greet them, and the male guests’ faces lit up at her warm welcome. Thank God for Juanita. She was wonderful at tending to the formalities.

Chisum adjusted his necktie and pulled down his vest. He slipped on the black suit jacket despite the heat, and started down the hallway. These were formal people, and he dreaded the flavor of Barbara’s perfume as much as he did the raw visceral stench of Coyote.

Something foreboding swept through his mind, as if a thick cloud had passed overhead and for a moment darkened the spot where he stood. Definitely the day would come when he would need to eliminate that stinking banty rooster. He would have to ring Coyote’s neck when his usefulness was over. And before it could be said in public places that the smelly runt worked for John Chisum. Hopefully, by then he would have all the squatters uprooted and all the water gates open.

If only it would rain, then there would be water enough for everyone, but it hadn’t in nine months, and there was not a cloud in sight nor a sign to indicate rain would start soon. What did they say? “All signs fail in a drought.” They certainly did just that.

“John, darling, so good to see you.” Barbara hurried forward down the walk. She was a full-bodied woman of forty, her large breasts no doubt supported by ribbing and a girdle but still looking firm. The little balls were dancing on her hat brim as she swept the hat away and gave him a demure hug.

“Welcome to the ranch,” he said. His nose filled with her strong perfume. He nodded to the stone-faced Nelda, who only looked more put out than usual. No wonder her portly husband chose Mexican putas over his wife.

“Yes, ma’am,” Chisum said, and allowed her to pass. Barbara stood beside him. She was a full-figured woman compared to the skinny flat-chested Nelda. As if to draw his attention, she patted down her pinned-up hair.

“Yes. Ah, there you two are,” Tweedy said at last. Both men, with Juanita between them, came through the yard gate. Obviously they were intrigued with his attractive niece. Like most men in their late forties, the beauty of a twenty-some-year-old woman drew them like flies to honey.

“Go right ahead. You have the same bedrooms as usual,” Chisum said to her with his hands behind his back. Obviously Barbara was upset since Juanita was still talking with the two men.

“Whew, every trip gets longer coming down here,” the pudgy man said, removing his soft, white Stetson and mopping his forehead with a snow-white linen handkerchief.

“Rudy’s to bring the luggage right in,” Juanita said. “I better go check on the ladies, if you will excuse me?” She bowed and went inside with a rustle of her skirts.

Chisum never bothered replying. He knew how nice she looked without her clothing. Either of the two men would die for a peek at her naked from the way they ogled her with her clothing on.

At last they were in the dining room, their glasses filled with good whiskey. They toasted each other and made small talk about the weather, the death of an insignificant politician from the eastern portion of the New Mexico Territory, and the problem of increasing waves of immigrants.

“Water is short,” John said, motioning to the chairs around the table. The dining room drew the best air in the midafternoon heat. “This room is the coolest. In an hour, we can go out on the front porch.”

“Come on, men, I was here first and I have the riparian rights to it.” He couldn’t allow bad rumors to spread through Santa Fe that his empire was in danger. It was bad for business. Investors had ears, and with the cost of the land development going up by the month, he needed all of them he could find.

“Enough said. We are getting a new governor. Some damn Civil War general, Lew Wallace.” Moore went to the window and stood in the curtain’s flow from the breeze. “I am concerned about that more than anything else. With Alan Dunn in office, we ran New Mexico as we saw fit. This old sword-rattler who’s coming might change all of that for us.”

“Hell, no. I don’t like it, though. It could even affect you. Washington will listen to these squatters. They think that they all vote. A dozen of them scream, and they send the soldiers out.”

“Yes, and let the damned Mescaleros steal horses out of my pastures here, and five years later the government finally pays me half what they were worth.” Chisum shook his head in disbelief.

“The government does not understand that people like you make the money that this country runs on. Those dirt-groveling bastards with their snotty-nosed kids won’t make a damn dime for this country’s commerce.”

“On schedule. The dam will be completed in nine months, and then the water will flow into the project ditches,” Chisum said. They didn’t need to know about the dam seepage problems. In a normal year, the dam losses would never be noticed. They were speaking of the Grande Land and Water Development Corporation of which Chisum was the president. Both Moore and Tweedy were heavy investors in the corporation.

“What can you grow out there without water?” Chisum asked the man. “A wheat crop every few years maybe? No, if they want to farm and make a profit, they’ll have to have irrigated land. We have the only water this side of Hell.”

Chisum nodded and refilled their glasses. For the next forty-eight hours he had to be careful with anything he said around them. Thank God he’d paid that little banty rooster Coyote earlier. The man wouldn’t come around while these two were visiting.

Long past midnight, the ticking of the great clock in the living room was the only sound in the house. Chisum, his bare feet moving on the polished hallway floor, made his way to her bedroom. He could hear Tweedy’s loud snores down the hallway as he softly turned the knob, the creak of the hinges barely audible as he eased inside her room.

Starlight flooded in the open windows, throwing a snowy pattern on the floor. He crossed the room. She raised up on her elbows without a word and threw back the sheet. He shed his pajama bottom.

“I thought you would come,” she whispered in his ear as he hugged her. All she had on was a thin cotton gown, and with her ripe body pressed to him, his heart began to race. His hand sought her firm breast and his tongue found her ear. In an instant, they scrambled to pull up her shift and expose her body to the dim starlight in the room.

His erection began to surge as her smooth hands ran over his chest, teasing the curly hair and exploring his skin. He dropped to the side of her and rubbed her hard stomach muscles until his exploring fingers teased the wiry pubic hair. She raised up her legs and parted them in anticipation. When his probing finger found her wet ring, she gave a small stifled breath and then threw her head back on the pillow.

He rose on his knees. The ropes under the mattress protested as he moved. In the dim light, he looked down, relieved to see the shiny swollen head of his swaggering shaft. He moved to mount her. How many years had she been his mistress? Six years, since she’d come to the ranch as a virgin.

She took his dick in her hands and allowed him only a few inches of entrance at a time. It was a game they played. Finally he filled her, and she arched her back to receive him. Few women enjoyed sex any more than Juanita. He’d taught her how.

At last free to probe her, he sought her depth with each bob of his aching butt. Her walls contracted around his shaft and he went faster. She moaned in pleasure, and he looked back over his shoulder. Could anyone else hear her? The hell with it. He gave her more, harder and faster. A hard-bucking horse could not have reached their frantic stride. Then he felt the hot flow of his semen rising from deep in his scrotum, and he gave her his final drive and finished.

From the doorway, he looked back at her form, already curled under the sheet. If the others weren’t in the house, he would be in there with her, holding her warm body in his arms, instead of going back to his own bed. Damn. He eased out into the hallway, quietly closing her door. He began to realize that everything had worked. He had had his normal sex with her again. Maybe he was healing. One thing for certain. He didn’t want that damn tube shoved up his pecker again.

At his own bedroom doorway, he paused to listen: clock ticking downstairs, Tweedy snoring down the hall, and a woman was too. He couldn’t be sure who, but the snoring was too shallow to be a man’s. Did the prima donna Barbara snore? My, my, he wondered as he crossed the room to his bed. What would she be like to have in bed? Then he recalled her awful perfume, and shook his head to dismiss the notion. He would settle for his own lovely Juanita.