3
On horseback they rode side by side and pushed hard from before dawn for the McCarty Hacienda. Their refreshed horses made good time. By late afternoon, Slocum noticed the tired edge that Angela tried to mask from him. Then as the sun fell into a bloody death beyond the Madre foothills, they reached the edge of McCarty’s orchards.
“Have you ever been here before?” he asked her as they short loped through the orchards.
She shook her head.
“It is an impressive place. McCarty is an engineer and has set up an irrigation system for all these fruit trees, crops and grapes. It is very interesting.”
“Is he a gringo?”
“An Irish prince, I believe, who was educated in Europe, roamed the seas and ended up here. You will like him.”
She made a that-would-be-fine face and winked. “I will like being with you.”
“Fine. I hope my friend is healing.”
“I feel he will be, but after all he has suffered, he will still have a long way to go.”
“If you believe he is healing, I feel better already.”
“Halt, señor,” a guard ordered, backed by two rifle-bearing men who stepped into the road beside him. “What is your business here?”
“My name is Slocum. Your patrón sent for me. This woman, Angela, is with me.”
The man doffed his sombrero. “Señora and señor, welcome to the hacienda. My patrón anxiously awaits your arrival. Diego, get your horse and show our special guests to the casa.”
“We can find our way,” Slocum said.
“No, señor, we are all so upset about the kidnapping of Señora McCarty and the raid made upon us, in the twilight someone might mistake you for a bandit.”
“I don’t want to be killed,” Slocum said and nodded for Diego, who was mounted on his horse, to go ahead.
At the house, the horse handlers came quickly and took their horses’ reins. Diego, hat in hand, introduced the two of them to the straight-backed woman at the door.
“Señor Slocum, this is Leona,” Diego said.
Slocum removed his hat and shook her hand. “Leona and I know each other. This is Angela.”
“Ah, at last you come,” the tall, proper woman said. “The patrón is sleeping. If you two wish to eat first, we will let him sleep awhile longer.”
“That will be fine.” Angela agreed.
Leona took Slocum’s hat and Angela’s shawl. “Come with me.”
“We can eat in the kitchen,” he said, shooing the woman on. “We aren’t that fancy.”
“The señora better never find out.” Leona looked to the high ceiling for help from her saint.
Slocum laughed. “Señor McCarty’s wife, Martina, is very proper,” he said to Angela.
“And I wish she were here,” Leona said. “We have not heard what ransom he even wants for her.”
“The note will come.” After this hombre La Cucaracha had all the pussy he wanted from her, he’d get serious about money. Slocum stepped into the kitchen, and everyone on the staff grew stiff backed and very somber.
“You all know Señor Slocum, and this is his lady—”
“Her name is Angela.”
They all said hello, welcomed them, then went back to work, or at least made it look like they were working.
“They are very hungry. What do we have to feed them?” Leona inquired of the crew.
“Roast beef,” one girl said.
“We can make fry bread,” another volunteered.
“We have some enchiladas that are still warm.”
“That’s plenty. Sounds great to us.” Slocum glanced aside, and Angela agreed.
“Sit at the table.” Leona gestured to the table, and Slocum thanked her.
The meal went well. Angela gushed over their wine and exchanged some words about the meal with him. When they finished eating, their hostess led them through the great hall and to the door of a bedroom, rapping on the door. Mitch called for them to come in.
In the room’s soft candlelight, Leona helped Mitch sit up in the bed, bracing him with many pillows. He was anxious for her to get through with her fussing but smiled at Slocum. The glaring thing for Slocum was that McCarty’s left arm had been amputated at the shoulder and his chest was wrapped in bandages.
“Hell of a fine mess I’m in, ain’t it?” Mitch said, looking disgusted. Clean shaven and with his red hair cropped shorter than Slocum had ever seen it, he looked pale under his red freckles.
“I understand they really swept in here on you?”
McCarty closed his green eyes and shook his head. “Like locusts. Most of us were working young horses at about eight o’clock in the morning, and they came in here like Apaches. Caught us off guard. I had no idea. Women rushed arms to the men. Three of them were murdered saving the hacienda. Several women were raped before my men took the hacienda back, and those bastards swept my lovely Martina away with them.”
“Leona told us there was no word of ransom so far?” Slocum made the statement a question.
“So far they’ve cut my bloody arm off me and dug two bullets out of my back, but no word on Martina. I’d give my very life for her safe return.”
Slocum took a ladder-back chair and pulled it up close to sit on. “Who can tell me all that I must know about this bandit?”
“The Cockroach, they call him. He must stay up in the Madres. Not many know much about him that I can find out. I have pistoleros all over listening and looking for him, and I get no word back.”
“Juarta said he sent you four men.”
“Yes, yes. Good men. I gave them money and sent them to go look for her as well.”
“You think he’s in the Madres?”
McCarty winced in pain from some small movement, then quickly said, “Aye, lad, I think the likes of them are up there.”
“Is there an Apache among your workers or someone who speaks their language fluently?”
Slocum exchanged a nod with Angela. He wanted someone adept at talking to the Apaches. They knew what went on up there.
“Cherrycow,” Leona said to McCarty as she fixed the sheet over his lap.
“Oh, yes, there is a man who lived with them for several years, as good as was an Apache. Leona, send for him. Also, have someone bring us back some Irish whiskey and some glasses. I’m tired of this raw mescal.” Leona nodded to a girl by the door, who slipped out to perform the errands. Then, as if he had not noticed her before, McCarty waved Angela into the light beside the bed. “I am a man of such poor manners, and he wasn’t going to introduce you to me.”
“Her name is Angela,” Slocum said.
Angela smiled at McCarty. “And you were so busy with the business of your wife. I do not feel slighted.”
“Bah on business. I am so tired of this bed I could burn it. Aye, but I am concerned for my lovely wife and her treatment at the hands of those worthless heathens.”
“Rest,” Leona said, holding his hand and then slowly releasing it. “You have much longer to go to be able to take any trail.”
“But I am so tired of this bed—”
She shook her head. “Your anger won’t rush your recovery.”
He agreed with a solemn nod and looked back at Slocum. “What are your plans for this Apache?”
“If he knows the language, we can talk to them,” Slocum said. “They will know where this man hides in the mother mountains. A rock is not turned up there that the Apaches do not know about.”
“I never thought about them.”
“They may help us find the Cockroach, for a price.”
“How much would that be?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll let you know.”
“I have money. But I would have to get large sums from faraway banks.”
“Wait till you hear from the bandits or from me.”
Mitch narrowed his eyes. “I need her back.”
“I understand, but you know how vast a country it is to search for her in.”
“Yes, I’ve been over lots of it. How many pistoleros will you need to take with you?”
“Besides the Apache man, perhaps two more tough hombres. I don’t want a super large party. Too many men and you can’t move fast enough when you need to.”
“What else?”
“I can arrange all the rest with your people. You should rest,” Slocum said, concerned they were wearing him out.
“Damn, I’m sorry to interrupt your life—but I have to have my son’s mother back.”
“Angela and I had nothing else to do.” Slocum laughed and shared a smile with her as the good whiskey arrived.
Later in their own room, Slocum and Angela undressed and talked about his friend and the tough situation he was in.
“What do you think?” Slocum asked her.
She shook her head. “He is a survivor, like I suspected. But he will be many weeks recovering, and he is like you. You’d be a poor patient.”
Slocum hugged her neck and then bent over to kiss her. “I would be a good patient.”
“Not with your arm missing. His loss makes him worry much about what he will do when things are like normal at his ranch. He worries they’ve stolen his virility.”
She shed her dress over her head and stood as naked as Eve when she turned back to face him.
“He wasn’t shot down that low.”
“A man’s mind has more to do with that than his missing arm or any other body part.”
Looking at her ripe body took away Slocum’s breath, so he hugged her to his own. “Like me. I have problems.”
Pressing her exposed mound against his growing erection, she laughed aloud. “Sure you do, silly man.”
They scrambled into bed, tickling each other and giggling like two children, Slocum finding spots she absolutely couldn’t stand him touching without her laughing. Finally, with their fingers locked, he pressed her down on the bed and moved on top. Then using his hips, he swung his pendulum around and hunched the nose of his great stick into her gates.
She threw her head back, spread her thighs wider apart and moaned. “God, that feels so wonderful.”
They untangled their hands and he reached under her, clutched the hard cheeks of her butt and drove his spear to the bottom of her depths.
“Yes! Oh, that feels awesome. ...”
For him too.
Before sunup, one of Leona’s helpers knocked on the door. Slocum woke with his face buried in a goose down pillow. In a dry voice, he managed, “We’re coming.”
“Sí.” And the helper was gone from outside the door.
“Who’s we?” Angela asked, moving away from his threatening hands. “Damnit, I can sleep in, can’t I?”
Off the bed, he still came back after her. “No. No, we need to head for the Madres tomorrow morning, and we have much to plan for and get ready.”
At last, with Angela up and Slocum pressing her against the door, he made a trap by planting his hands on the wall on either side of her shoulders and then kissed her. She savored his mouth hard. He soon reached between her legs and teased her clit with his middle finger.
“Oh, no.” She moaned and moved her hips toward his rising appendage.
“Oh, yes.”
When they finally walked across the great hall from the wings, Leona was standing in the kitchen doorway, arms folded.
“Francisco is here, and so is the Apache,” she said. “You are late.”
“Sorry, we must have fallen asleep again,” he said and ushered Angela ahead. “You start eating. I’ll speak to my guests.”
A kitchen girl served him a mug of steaming coffee, and he went to talk to the tall man by the door.
“You must be Francisco.” Slocum shook the man’s hand. Tall for a Hispanic, Mitch’s segundo looked at him eye to eye. They stood at the back door of the kitchen and then stepped outside to talk in private.
“I have the one who lived with the Apaches here. We call him Cherrycow.”
“I will speak to him. You must have lots to do.”
“That is no concern. Recovering the señora is the most important thing. Mitch said that you would probably like some mountain horses to ride up there?”
“Definitely.”
“We will shoe a dozen for you today.”
Slocum mentally counted four—no, five—riders and four packhorses. “Nine will be enough.”
“There will be nine shod horses. He said you needed two pistoleros.”
“Two is all, plus the Apache. Too many and you can’t move fast enough when it is necessary.”
“I agree. The toughest men I have are Obregón and Jesús. They will be ready to ride in the morning.”
“Fine. What about supplies?”
“Leona is in charge of that. This is Cherrycow.” Francisco waved a short man dressed as a peon over from a seat in the garden. “Cherrycow, this is Señor Slocum.”
“Good to meet you, señor.”
“Francisco, I imagine you are anxious to get things going. Cherrycow, come inside and eat with us.”
“I can wait here till you are done, señor.”
“My name is Slocum—no patrón, no señor. Come and meet Angela.” He wasn’t taking no for an answer and herded the shorter hombre inside the warm kitchen and out of the cool morning air outside the cookery.
Angela took Cherrycow’s sombrero and ushered him to a seat. “Nice to meet you.”
“Gracias, señora.”
“Angela,” she told him and offered him a selection from a large tray of food.
“Ah, so much to choose from. I don’t know what to eat.”
“Here,” she said and began to fill his plate with fire-grilled meat, ripe fruit ready to eat, and pastries.
“That is plenty,” he protested, trying to get her to stop.
She rose and put some food on Slocum’s plate. “There, now you can talk between bites.”
“You know the Apaches well?” Slocum asked the man.
“I was kidnapped as a young man and lived among them for years in the Madres. I even met Cochise when he was an old man. But one day, my wife and young son were picking berries with some others, and the Mexican army came and shot them. I was very sad, so I came back to my own people.”
“The Apaches will know where we can find this Cockroach. If we can find them.”
“Sí, they will know. I know. I know how sad it is to lose a wife. I will try to find out from them where this bandit is hiding.”
“Good. We’ll ride in the morning for the Madres to find her.”
“Will I need a gun?”
“You better have one. But don’t worry, I’ll have a gun and ammo for you in the morning.”
“Gracias for the food. I will be here then, Slocum,” the man said and quickly exited the kitchen, obviously too upset over something to stay there another minute.
Angela winked at him. “Too important a place for him to be in here.”
Slocum agreed.
Leona rejoined them and looked after the departing Apache. “Cherrycow is a very loyal man.”
“I imagine he is,” Slocum said. “I’ve been thinking. Angela and I need to look less like gringos. Can you find us some mountain clothing?”
“Buckskin, huh? Big, well-used sombrero for you?”
“Fine.”
“How big are you?” she asked Angela and had her stand. Then, as if satisfied with knowing her size, she told her gracias and to sit down. “I’ll have the clothes laid out in your room tonight.”
“Thanks,” Slocum said and turned to Angela. “I’m going down to look over the horses Francisco selected. Not that I don’t trust him—”
“Go,” Angela said, shooing him away. “I better pack my few things today too.”
He nodded and kissed her, then was on his way to the blacksmith shop. Gustoph, the man in charge, showed him the packsaddles and all the horse gear. The gear looked to be in good repair—Slocum also ordered some extra rope and girths for the journey. Gustoph agreed that he might need them.
The short-coupled bulldog horses, as they were called, were lined up in the alleyway being shod two at a time. The air was full of coal smoke from the forge used to heat and form the iron shoes. Mountain horses were small by most men’s calculation, seldom over twelve or thirteen hands, but they were sure-footed and thick muscled. Real leaders, they could climb slopes larger horses would crumble off of. Slocum had great respect for them in the mountains.
“I gave you Baldy,” Gustoph said. “He’s bald-faced, but he is the toughest horse on the ranch.”
“I’ll take good care of him.”
“I hope you can find the patrón’s wife. She is a lovely woman. We all miss her.”
“We’ll try, mi amigo.”
He made it back for lunch with Angela and met her in the great hall. “Leona wants you to try on the clothing she laid out for you in our room.”
After their meal he went back to the bedroom and found the fringed buckskin pants. They fit. Next he tried on the pullover shirt, and it fit as well.
Angela nodded in approval. “I think they belong to Mitch.”
He took off the shirt and agreed. “I figure you’re right.” Then he removed the britches. “I’ll save them for the ride.”
She came across the room and hugged him. “Now we can take a siesta.”
“Siesta, my ass.” And he quickly kissed her. “You can stay here tomorrow if you like.”
She poked him in his rock-hard stomach. “You aren’t leaving me.”
“Oh, all right.”
She used both hands and shoved him backward in the bed and landed on top of him. “You are not getting away that easily.”
His flesh warmed everywhere her fingertips stroked his chest.
Oh, hell, who needed a siesta anyway? Slocum thought.