11

Slocum leaned forward, hand on the saddle horn, as he studied the rolling hills to the east of Fort Gibson. The wagon train carrying the canned food Joshua had mentioned ought to be in sight soon, he figured. Until then, Slocum was content to sit and think on all he had heard. The young boy had been a constant source of good information, but Slocum needed more than Joshua could supply.

He wished he had gone after Grew the day before, but knew he would have been wandering around in the dark with no decent destination. Tracking the outlaw hadn’t been too likely, since he had left Fort Gibson an hour or more before Slocum had started hunting for him. But the outlaw’s recruiting of men to playact at being soldiers gave Slocum a bit more to chew on.

Honey Springs was being made over into a giant earthen stage. Harry Twokiller thought armies were being mustered there, and Slocum had enough evidence to believe that the suspicious Cherokee hunter was right to complain. The best Slocum could figure, Grew had hired an army that would pit itself against Tremaine’s artillery units, like a terrier thrown into a pit with rats. The reason for such a peculiar fight needed answering, if he was even right in supposing why Catherine Calderon had been kidnapped. Pressure was being applied to Tremaine to attack with his field pieces at Honey Springs, but who was he supposed to barrage? The howitzers Grew already had in the area?

Slocum swatted at buzzing insects and pushed the endless guessing aside when he saw a scout riding slowly down the road leading into Fort Gibson. The wagon train wouldn’t be far behind.

“Giddyap,” Slocum called, putting his spurs to the horse’s flanks. He wanted to ride along with the wagons for a spell, to see if there might not be something more than canned food being brought to town.

The scout reined back and reached for his rifle as Slocum approached.

“Hallo!” Slocum called. “I’m riding for Captain Tremaine, Fort Gibson.”

The scout didn’t relax much, but Slocum’s quick identification sat better than approaching without any greeting.

“You had any trouble along the way?” Slocum asked as he drew even with the roughly clad man. Three or four days of stubble had turned the scout’s chin into a prickly pear, and bloodshot eyes showed how much trail dust had been blown into that face.

“Broke axle third day out of Kansas City,” the scout said, “but that ain’t what you meant, is it?”

“Robbers,” Slocum said. “You have anybody showing more interest in your cargo than they should?”

The scout brayed like a mule.

“You got quite an imagination. All we’re freightin’ is food. What self-respectin’ outlaw wants to steal a can of tomatoes?”

“A hungry one,” Slocum said. Under his breath he added, “Or one with a hungry army to feed.”

“Jeremiah Blackhurst is our wagon master, and he ain’t never lost so much as a tin of peaches, much less anything more to the likin’ of a road agent.” The words were hardly out of the scout’s mouth when gunfire sounded from up the road. He turned, frowned and then whirled back to face Slocum, his hand resting on the butt of an old black powder Remington pistol. “You decoyin’ me from protectin’ the wagons?”

“Nope,” Slocum said. “It looks like I’m here to help your wagon master keep his unsullied record intact.”

The two men set off at a gallop, rounded a bend in the road and saw the last of the fight being put up by the freighters. Two lay dead alongside the road and another four were clustered behind a downed tree, two of them poking out rifles to fend off the outlaws circling them like flies around cow flop.

Slocum and the scout began firing, although the distance was still too great for accurate six-shooter shooting. Slocum wanted to scare off the robbers by making them think reinforcements from Fort Gibson were on the way.

“Column, advance!” Slocum shouted.

The ploy didn’t work. From the corner of his eye he saw two more road agents appear: they had been watching the road ahead to warn against any such support. Before Slocum could warn the scout, a bullet took the man from his saddle. The way he flopped about before hitting the ground didn’t look good, but Slocum had no time to see if the man was dead.

He galloped on, firing until his Colt came up empty. Slocum wanted to reach the drivers huddled together and lend support, but he saw them picked off in rapid succession, one by one, until he was riding toward four corpses.

The oxen pulling the wagons were restive from the gunfire, but they wouldn’t stampede as teams of horses would have. Slocum vaulted from the saddle and scrambled into the driver’s box of the lead wagon. Rifle slugs ripped away at the wood around him as he dug down to find any weapon the now-dead teamster might have left behind.

His fingers closed on a long-barreled shotgun. Slocum sat up on the floor of the driver’s box, flopped the shotgun over and rested the barrel on the edge of the wagon. At the first movement he saw, he fired. The recoil drove him back down and wedged him in. Struggling, Slocum broke open the shotgun and hunted for new shells.

“You don’t want to do that, John,” came a soft voice.

Slocum looked up into the bore of a small-caliber Smith & Wesson. The slender-fingered hand holding it did not waver.

“Hello, Zoe,” Slocum said.

“My, you are a cool one, aren’t you, John? Most men would have dropped their china clippers at seeing me holding a gun on them.”

Slocum wiggled about, trying to get his feet under him.

“Don’t,” Zoe Hawthorne warned. “It would be such a waste to drill you, but I would. And to answer the question that must be burning in your mind right now, yes, I have killed a man before. Several, actually. But killing you would be a real tragedy.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’d never know if that night we spent together was a fluke or if you can do even better.” Zoe laughed, then gestured with her six-shooter for him to get out of the driver’s box.

Slocum clumsily stood. Even if he hadn’t heard the ring of truth in the fiery, red-haired woman’s words about gunning down a man, any escape was out of the question now. Grew, Rafe and a dozen other road agents had gathered around. All had their six-guns leveled at him.

“Let me kill him,” Rafe said. “I’m owed. He done shot me before, on the train and—”

“Shut up,” Zoe said. Her voice was still soft, but also carried infinite threat that caused Rafe to almost swallow his tongue. “We’ve got the wagons, haven’t we, Grew?”

“All of ’em. The drivers are all dead and—”

“And the General will want to speak with Mr. Slocum. So let’s not dawdle.”

“But Zoe, Rafe’s right. We ought to kill him. He’s been so much trouble. Don’t matter if he knows how to fire a cannon. He—”

“Shut up, Grew. We’re taking him to the General. Or do you want to explain why Mr. Slocum’s not breathing to him?”

Threats coupled with the General’s name silenced Grew and the others. They divvied up the wagons, all six of them, and left Zoe with Slocum.

“You are a surprising man, John,” she said. She smiled, and it was like a cat grinning at a mouse. “Why don’t you drive this rig. You can drive a freight wagon, can’t you?”

“I’ve done it in my day.”

“I’m sure you’ve done lots of things in your day. If you do as you’re told right now, why, there might be even more days ahead—or maybe at least one more amazing night.” Zoe scrambled over the tarp-covered freight and lightly dropped onto the hardwood bench. The muzzle of her S&W never wavered. “Follow Grew. I know that is a horrible order to give, but do it. Things will improve, I assure you.”

“When we talk to the General?”

Zoe’s laughter burned his ears. Slocum grabbed up the reins and got the oxen pulling as they left the road, cut across country and headed south toward Honey Springs.

They rode in silence for a spell, then Slocum asked, “What’s going on?”

“Oh, John, you will learn everything when we get to camp.” Then Zoe leered at him, saying, “And if there’s anything you don’t learn, I’ll be happy to teach you.”

“Why?” he asked.

“What are you asking now?” she said, frowning. The six-shooter never moved from dead center on his chest.

“When you arrived at the Calderon party, you glanced my way as if I didn’t matter. Why did you come back a few minutes later as if I were the only man in the world?”

“You’re smart, John. Figure it out yourself.”

Slocum had already hit upon the answer.

“I was Tremaine’s best man. I was a conduit to him.”

“Something like that. Why did he choose you when he had the officer corps at Fort Gibson to choose from? He picked two artillery officers as ushers, but you weren’t in the Army. Not artillery with him, not cavalry, certainly not infantry. But there is a military bearing about you. And Grew said you fessed up to knowing about artillery.”

“Maybe I lied to save my life.”

“No, John, you’d never do that. Lie to save Catherine, perhaps. You are the Southern gentleman. You might not be a Federal, but you saw action as an officer.”

The wagon rattled and bounced along until the sun began slipping low in the west. On the prairie the day died quick, but its light remained long enough for Slocum to see a stately figure astride a gray horse on a hill watching their approach.

“The General?” he asked.

“Who else?” Zoe’s breath came a little faster as she looked at the uniformed rider, and for a moment Slocum considered grabbing for the six-gun in her steady hand. But the distraction of seeing the imposing rider passed quickly. She motioned with her six-shooter to park the wagon at the edge of a meadow. Dotted among the trees, Slocum saw campfires. If the usual military ratio of men to cooking pits prevailed, Slocum calculated more than a hundred men were hidden in the woods.

Slocum wrapped the reins around the brake and jumped to the ground when Zoe motioned. She walked behind him. He felt the constant presence of her six-shooter aimed at his spine as they stopped in front of the mounted officer.

As Slocum had guessed, this was Eustace Norquist. He glanced over his shoulder at Zoe, but she was staring up in rapt awe at the man.

“The General,” she said reverently.

“Thank you,” Norquist said pompously. “You have brought another recruit for the grand army we are forming, I see.”

“The war’s over,” Slocum said.

“No, sir, it is not! That fool Pickett might have dashed all hope of a Southern victory, but we can redo his mistake!”

“How?” Slocum asked in spite of himself. He saw the light in Norquist’s eyes, a fervor he had seen before, and dreaded. Some men blazed with infectious enthusiasm. All that came from Eustace Norquist was lunacy.

“Pickett forgot to protect his flanks. He misused artillery. All his fire went over the ridge, not along it where the Federals would have been hurt most. We will change that. We will prevail. The South will rise again!”

“It wasn’t just Pickett’s fault,” Slocum said. “Lee ordered the attack against Longstreet’s advice. None of the field commanders saw a ghost of a chance of taking Cemetery Ridge.”

“Lee was a genius! It was Pickett’s fault he had to do several obliques! He should have fought harder! I’ll prove it. I’ll show the world. I’ll win the war!”

“At Honey Springs?” asked Slocum.

“This was called the ‘Gettysburg of the West,’ ” said Zoe. “What place would be more fitting to defeat the Yankees as they ought to have been whupped at Cemetery Ridge and launch the new Confederacy?”

“War’s over,” Slocum said. “There’s no way to go back.”

“There is!” shrieked Eustace Norquist. He whipped out his cavalry saber and waved it about. The blade glinted from the many campfires, giving it a bloody appearance.

Slocum recoiled when Zoe cut loose with a Rebel yell. A few seconds later, it was taken up by the rest of the camp. A hundred voices joined in and sent a chill up Slocum’s spine.

“What do you think, John? If there had been spirit like this, no Yankee would ever have reached the Angle. No Yankee would have set there on Little Round Top and cut down our finest. We shall destroy the Federals the way they should have been at Gettysburg, and we’ll do it here, where it counts. This will be the heart of the New South!”

Slocum stared at Zoe and saw the same light of fanaticism in her emerald eyes that he saw in Eustace Norquist’s.

“If history can be rewritten, your general looks to be the man to do it,” Slocum said.

“Yes, John, yes! I knew you were a true Southerner.” Zoe gripped his arm and looked around, then tugged to get him moving.

Slocum glanced and saw Norquist still waving his sword around, off in his own world.

“My tent’s this way.”

Slocum saw how she kept the six-gun aimed in his direction, and he wasn’t going to argue. She misinterpreted his intentions, and that meant he might he might keep on living for a few minutes longer. The longer he stayed alive, the better his chance of getting away to tell Tremaine and warn everyone at Fort Gibson what was happening here at Honey Springs.

“I knew I was right about you all the time.” She spun and kissed him full on the lips. In spite of his predicament, Slocum found himself responding to her. She was quite an armful of woman.

But closing in from all directions were men dressed as Confederate soldiers. Slocum pushed her away and looked at them.

“Oh, don’t let them bother you, John. They’re just guards to protect me.”

Slocum cast a quick glance over his shoulder. Eustace Norquist was continuing his ranting, letting his horse rear and paw at the air, attacking enemies only he could see.

“The General won’t care,” Zoe said in a husky whisper. “He never does.”

“Care about what?”

“You. Me. Together.” She drew him into a large tent and dropped the flaps. Slocum saw the shadows of the guards who had flocked to Zoe, taking up positions around the tent. There was no way to escape, and if he crossed the ardent redhead, he would be a goner before he could blink an eye.

She carelessly tossed her S&W aside and pressed closer, her emerald eyes staring up into his, her desire out of control. Zoe was a woman ruled by her passions, and right now it was obvious what she wanted.

Slocum found that he wasn’t too loath to give it to her, either.

Their mouths met, lips dragging across lips, seeking, kissing, licking and teasing. Slocum found Zoe’s pendulous earlobe a tasty nugget. He nibbled a bit before moving on. His tongue lightly skipped around the sultry woman’s ear, causing her to press even harder against him.

He felt her firm, high breasts crush into his chest. Sweat began trickling down his face as the heat mounted inside the tent—and it wasn’t all from the stifling Oklahoma night.

Zoe licked the salty sweat from his face as she kissed. Her fingers began working feverishly on his shirt, his pants, to get his gun belt free. When she had reached the spot she wanted most, she dug down like a badger into soft dirt. Slocum grunted when her fingers wrapped around his hardening manhood.

“A prize!” she cried in glee. “Look what I’ve found.”

“What are you going to do with it?” he asked. His own fingers struggled to unfasten the clever hooks, ribbons and buttons on her clothing. When he succeeded in getting her naked to the waist, her snowy breasts revealed to the night, she answered his question wordlessly, in the finest manner possible.

Zoe dropped to her knees in front of him and took him fully into her mouth. The sudden warmth and moisture around him threatened to cause Slocum to pop like a cork from a champagne bottle. He struggled to get himself under control and enjoy the feel of her tender, trembling lips and tongue coursing up and down his turgid length.

He laced his fingers in her hair and guided her back and forth in a rhythm that excited him, yet allowed him to keep his composure. Letting his hands move to the sides of her head, he teased her earlobes again and then bent so he could reach down and grab a double handful of the succulent white flesh bobbing so enticingly on her chest.

As she worked on his manhood, he squeezed her nipples between thumb and forefinger. The hard, tight buttons throbbed with every beat of her frenzied heart. He cupped her breasts fully, one in each hand, and began kneading as one would mounds of dough. This garnered a gasp of desire from Zoe that took her mouth away from his groin.

“More, John, more. Give me more!” she demanded. “You’re so tasty, but I am feeling empty inside.”

“In here?” he asked, dropping to his knees. His hand slid the length of her body, across her heaving belly and down lower to the inner dew-moistened red bush between her creamy thighs. His finger entered her and began whirling about like a tornado.

Zoe let out a tiny moan and seemed to melt like ice in the fierce Oklahoma sun. She stretched out on the grassy ground, her legs drifting wider in wanton invitation. He didn’t have to be asked twice. Slocum swung about and positioned himself properly.

The quivering woman reached up and caught his steely manhood and pulled it toward her.

“In,” she said, her tone commanding, demanding.

“Like this?” Slocum bent forward. His hips slammed down and drove his fleshy spike into her yearning interior. For a moment, when he was hidden balls deep, neither said anything; speech was robbed. Then Zoe went wild. She kicked her legs out straight, lifted her firm, round buttocks off the ground and tried to force herself down even farther on his impaling rigidity.

Slocum groaned as her soft inner muscles clutched ardently at him, holding him within. He felt ripples of ecstasy go from one end of her to the other through her inner tissues. Then Zoe hunched up and grabbed at his upper arms, pulling herself up and into his lap. Her legs curled around behind him on the ground until he could reposition himself so she was sitting atop him, their legs going in opposite directions.

Then she kissed him hard, grabbed one of his hands and pulled it to her breast and let her hips go berserk. Zoe rose and fell until the heat along Slocum’s long manhood would have melted steel. She added a twist or two as she lifted and dropped, corkscrewing herself down onto him.

He gave as good as he got. He fondled her breasts, first one and then the other. Bending over, he managed to lightly tease one nipple with his tongue, though he couldn’t suck it in and give it the tongue lashing he wanted to. She was moving too fast for that.

Her movements became erratic and her body trembled like a leaf in a high wind. Her inner passage clamped firmly on Slocum, until he thought he knew what a cow being milked felt like. Zoe was sucking his very essence from deep within him.

She threw her head back and let out a long, loud cry of pure animal lust. Slocum was unable to hold back the rising tide of his own desire and spewed forth in release. For an eternity they clung together, joined as one, sharing and giving, taking and relishing the ultimate in human pleasure.

Then Zoe sank down, got her knees under her and bore him back to the ground. She kissed him and then said in mock horror, “Oh, it’s melting. You shouldn’t leave it out too long.” The red-haired woman reached down between them and stroked Slocum’s shrinking organ.

He felt tremors but it was too soon, even given such enthusiastic encouragement.

A sudden draft of humid night air gusted through the tent. Slocum tried to see who had entered, but Zoe’s hair spilled down over his face.

“What are you—oh. Didn’t know.”

Slocum couldn’t see the man through the tangle of Zoe’s hair, but he recognized the voice.

Grew.

“Of course you don’t know,” Zoe said acidly. “The only whores you can afford aren’t likely to teach you a thing about lovemaking.”

“Zoe, you don’t have to be like this,” Grew said.

“Get out. I’ve got business to tend to. Pleasant business.”

“But I need to—”

“Out!” she shouted. Grew left, and Slocum felt the sudden loss of air as the tent flap dropped back into place.

“Does he always barge in like that?” Slocum asked.

“Don’t worry about Grew. He’s such a child in so many ways. Not a man like you, John.”

“You and him—,” Slocum started. Zoe rocked back and sat up, her breasts bouncing delightfully. She brushed her hair from her eyes and stared at him. Then she laughed. This caused her boobs to move in even more captivating ways.

“Grew’s my brother! Pettigrew Norquist.”

“But your name’s not Norquist,” Slocum said.

“I was married to the finest military mind of the South, Colonel Caleb Hawthorne, but he died in a tragic accident. Kicked to death by a mule.”

“Zoe Norquist?” Slocum felt the blood rush from his head as everything pieced together in ways he had not anticipated.

“That’s right, John. The General’s my father. Mine and Grew’s. Now let’s stop talking about family trees and get back to your family jewels.” He fingers stroked lightly over him, inveigling him back to hardness.

But the entire while they made love again, Slocum couldn’t stop thinking of Zoe, her brother and her insane father, and what a hornet’s nest he had fallen into.