Slocum #388

Much, much later, after a splendid supper fixed by Donna’s crew that evening, they discussed the issue of Salazar and Martina McCarty.

“No,” Slocum said. “I don’t think he’s done that. It sounded to me like he was having a big, hot affair with her. If he was, he wouldn’t want to be separated from her. Though maybe he was just bragging or trying to make me upset.” He shook his head to try to clear his thoughts.

“Oh, Señora Stallings sent you her regards, Slocum,” Donna said, standing over Don Carlos. “And you need to get some sleep,” she said to Don Carlos.

“Ah.” Don Carlos stood. “Not even my wife yet, and already she is bossing me around.” But he didn’t argue any more, and she asked everyone to excuse them.

When the room was down to Slocum, his three men and Angela, they went over everything that had happened here in Sierra Vista—piece by piece. How Salazar had killed or had others kill Nada to get Slocum to try to take the casa, and then had captured him and Obregón and Jesús.

“And he expected that prison to hold us,” Obregón said, leaning back in his chair, puffing on a great cigar courtesy of Don Carlos’s generosity.

“Yes, Jesús, they know us too well. But there are men in this village who will work cheaply enough and who we can count on to get us that information. I’ll give you some money, and the three of you find and hire some of them.”

Obregón quickly agreed about the money. “With as little work as there is to be found up here, you could buy their life for that much.”

Slocum gave them ten silver dollars. “Be extremely careful. I don’t need you hombres back in that fortress’s hoosegow, or in the village one.”

“Hiring those men is a good idea. I was afraid you were going to try to follow Salazar yourself,” she said under her breath. “That could be the death of you.”

“Well, thanks, fortune-teller. I really want Martina away from all of this. There’s something fishy about this whole deal. Salazar must have her drugged up or something. She’s not a whore by any means—”

He opened the door and showed Angela in. “And I missed being in bed with you.” He pulled the door shut, then swung her around to kiss her. She stood on her toes, and their mouths fed on each other as he hugged her supple body and hard tits tight against him.

He toed off his boots. She shed her skirt, and he smiled at the sight of her shapely brown hips. It was good to have her back. He was pleased that the damn rancher couldn’t hold in his cum—of course, if a man wasn’t used to pussy like Angela’s, he could very easily get too excited.

She shoved down his pants and stuck his root between her legs, then backed toward the bed. Tugging him along, she spread her legs into a V in the air, and he crammed his erection inside her—damn, she was a wonderful machine. Her contractions threatened to pull the cap off his dick; it was no wonder that little bastard couldn’t hold on—Slocum barely could himself. Then from his aching balls he fired a round into her cavern that made her smile.

Intertwined, they went to sleep. He woke before dawn and eased away from her, making sure she had a light bedcover against the night’s mountain coolness.

In the kitchen, he found the bride-to-be, Donna, overseeing things. He hugged her neck and then went for some fresh coffee. “Are you happy that Don Carlos finally asked you to marry him?”

She wrinkled her nose, suppressing a grin. “But I can’t occasionally sleep with some horny guy like you who drops in with a grande dick either, can I?”

Someone with a horse entered the courtyard. Slocum could hear the animal’s hooves striking the stones. Gun in hand, he rushed out onto the balcony to see who it was. The rider took a wild shot at him, but his horse’s jumping around spoiled his aim. The bullet smacked into the plaster. Slocum, gun ready, took aim at the rider’s back. His accurate shot made the pistolero pitch forward out of the saddle, and Slocum rushed down the stairs to try to catch the wildly sidestepping horse. He didn’t want the animal rushing home and telling everyone something happened to this shooter.

The horse captured, he looked up in the Chinese lantern light. All his men were out on the second floor balcony, armed, including Don Carlos.

With the upset horse hitched at the rack, Slocum, gun in hand, walked over to check on the facedown hombre. When he rolled him over, the man pointed the six-gun in his hand at Slocum, who instantly kicked it away. The wounded man fell back, swearing at him.

“I can get you out of the Madres and save your ass if you help me. Otherwise I’ll send word to them that you squawked on them.”

“If I find her, you will live. If I don’t, then you can expect”—Slocum made a grim face at the man—“to have your throat cut.”

“As soon as we can saddle some horses. Find us some dry food.” Angela nodded and went back into the house, and Slocum turned to his henchmen. “Obregón, saddle some horses and put whatever explosives we have left on a packhorse.”

Slocum turned to the other pistolero. “Jesús, I’m leaving you to guard this man. He tries to escape, kill him. And hold him until I return with Martina. If I don’t come back or if I come back without her, you will end this hombre’s life.”

“Good, I may need his skills.” He saw Donna coming with Angela. They carried several cloth sacks bulging with food. He hurried over and took one sack from each of them, then headed for the stables. Obregón had a packhorse ready for them, and he began stowing the supplies in the pannier. The two women worked on the other side, placing the items in that holder.

Then everything was quickly under a canvas cover and the diamond hitch was thrown on it and drawn tight. Angela ran back inside for a few personal things. Obregón led the saddle and pack animals out into the rising sunlight of the courtyard. In minutes, the three were riding out of the gate before they drew any more attention. Jesús promised to send the Apache after them.

With the way Salazar seemed to know everything, Slocum was sure that someone would report their departure to the bandit leaders, but they had to beat all the rest to the ranchero on the Río Verde. His only hope was that they beat the bandits to this remote ranch and recovered Martina first. He knew that even if she had been there, it was possible they had moved her again, unless—and this was the thing he had to hope for—they were so confident they had her well hidden that they didn’t hustle her away again.

Spurring the bald-faced horse, he lead the way down alleys and backstreets, avoiding panicked loose goats and scratching chickens sent to flight at the last minute. Their iron shoes clacked on the hard rocks and street surfaces until they were at last in the pines and headed west beyond the waking town. Slocum’s chest filled with anxiety. He neck-reined the good horse around obstacles of woodcutters and their burro strings on the narrow road heading back toward the village.

His resolve to find his friend’s hostage wife was steeled in his thinking and goals. Anyone or anything in his way he planned to mow down. It had been long enough. Enough time had been wasted—Nada had paid with her life. Slocum was worked up enough to finish this rescue and bring his enemies to some kind of justice fast.

By nightfall, the three had gone over the high pass above the tree line and started off down the western slope. Under the stars, he had slowed their speed to a careful crawl, and when they reached a spring in the timber, he shut them down. They strung a picket rope, left the animals saddled and fed them some grain in nose bags while their riders gnawed on some jerky and slept a few hours, wrapped in individual blankets that barely kept away the nighttime coolness at the high altitude.

Stiff and sore, Slocum woke as the distant dawn began to lighten the sky. He shook his two posse members from their sleep, and they rolled up their blankets like numb puppets and resumed the chase.

Strange that Salazar had moved Martina to the western slopes. Who would have suspected such a switch? He would have thought Salazar would have taken her to Mexico City. Maybe all this time he had underestimated Salazar and needed to reconsider his assessment and start thinking of him as more than a simple, spoiled rich man’s son. If he was the Cockroach, how had he convinced all these men to ride for him and be loyal while he lulled around in the background?

Descending the mountains in the lead, Slocum wondered more and more about the man. What didn’t Slocum know about him? Lots, if Martina had fallen in love with him. Nada had only been looking for information, and that had gotten her killed. She had been his bait. The worst part was, she’d been doing it for Slocum’s sake; at the dance, he’d asked her to learn what she could from Mendez. But there were no answers to all his questions—how did the man hold these bandits in such a strong fashion? Be damn interesting to know.

All day long they rode through the twisting canyons on little-used trails that coursed the ponderosa pines. In late afternoon, the way brought them to the Río Verde, a cool, clear trout stream that wandered off the mountains in places, creating some high falls in the upper reaches and rushing across long meadows in others. By the early evening, they were close enough to the ranch headquarters by Slocum’s reckoning. He drew up not only to rest the animals but to scout the set of buildings down the valley. He regretted that Cherrycow had not caught up with them by this time. Instead he sent Obregón to scout the ranch coming in from the west.

Belly down next to a stream with his hat off and his face submerged in the cold water, Slocum cooled the skin on his cheeks that the reflective sun had baked all day. The liquid restored some of the moisture the sun had wrenched out of his tight skin. Rising up from the ground, he shook his face to get the water clear, then he listened. Someone was coming off the mountain above them. The click of iron shoes on the faraway rocks was distinct.

He nodded, then went over and unsheathed his .44-40 from its scabbard. Then he squatted down beside her. “I sure hope that’s the Apache.”

After the men exchanged handshakes, Angela fed them some jerky. Obregón came back to camp with little information about who was down there at the ranch. He looked grateful to see his cohort. They all sat around in the cool afternoon waiting for the sun to set. Cherrycow said the man that Slocum had shot at Don Carlos’s casa might die. But it was no great loss to them.

Night fell, and they waited until all the lights were out before they slipped off the hill, headed for the ranch. He sent the Apache ahead because he was the quietest. They met Cherrycow behind the corral and squatted down so as not to be noticed.

“There are three men here. They must not expect any trouble. They are drunk, and I can’t tell if Señora McCarty is in the main casa.”

“You two take out the guards. Angela and I will check out the main house. If she’s here, we may need another horse for her to ride.”

“Good. Let’s go then,” Slocum said. With Angela behind him, he eased his way to the larger adobe structure that shone in the starlight. On the porch, he tried the front door, but it must have been barred inside. He slipped around the side and pried open a hinged window. Listening in the night, other than the crickets, he could hear nothing. He made a motion for Angela to stay outside. Once he was inside the empty room, his gritty soles on the tile floor made enough noise that he feared waking up the Mexican army. He moved down the hallway to a bedroom in the back of the house.

Starlight shone on a bed, and a woman slept on her side in the shaft of light coming in through the window. He recognized Martina—no one else appeared to be in the house.

“I can’t go with you. They will kill my son, Reginald.” She began to cry. “That is why I cannot leave here.” Her voice caught on a sob. “You don’t understand, he has my son.”

“They can’t kill him. They don’t have him.” He grasped her by the arm. “Now get dressed or I’ll take you out of here in that nightgown.”

“I’ll get her dressed. Go get the horses,” Angela said, who had slipped inside while Slocum was arguing with Martina. “I think the others have taken care of the guards.”

When Slocum opened the front door and went outside, he could still hear Martina’s protests in the back bedroom. What possessed her so? Her son had been at the ranch the whole time. What did she mean—kill him? How did Salazar get such control over people? Whole armies of outlaws did his thievery. Like the reason for the attack on the McCarty Hacienda, there were so many questions unanswered.

With a grim set to his mouth, Slocum nodded. “We may have to tie the señora up. She thinks that they have her son and will kill him if she leaves with us.”

“Do that.” Slocum bridled a gentle horse he found in the corral and then saddled him. He led the mount to the yard gate and hitched it there. Wondering how Angela was getting along, he dreaded the notion that he might have to rope and tie Martina.

He found Angela pushing Martina, “dressed” for the most part, out of the house. Her eyes red from crying, she still tried to balk as Angela moved her none too gently to where Slocum had hitched the horse.

Her pleading face tightened. “You don’t understand. They have Reg, and you are signing his death warrant by taking me away from here.” She dropped to her knees in protest, crying.

No way. He hoisted her up roughly and then put her on the horse, tying her wrists to the saddle horn. Ignoring her loud protests, he put a lead on her mount and handed the rope to Angela. “You lead her.”

“First to Don Carlos’s house, then on to the McCarty Hacienda.” He swung on board the bald-faced horse and waved for them to follow him. Looking at Martina’s wet face made his stomach roil as though snakes were inside. I am bringing her home—but not the way you might think, amigo.