Slocum #395 : Slocum and the Trail to Yellowstone (9781101553640) (2 page)

“Oh,” she cried. “I'll miss you, hombre. There are men in this world, but few with your strength and passion. Dear God, what will I do without you?”

“Hire a couple of hands to do the ranch work and find you a new man to share this bed.”

“Where?”

“Marla, you weren't looking for a man when you found me.”

She swept the hair back from her face and settled on the pillow. “I was about over the loss of my husband, Rail. You caught me during a rare lapse in the effectiveness of my shield against men moving in on me.”

“Any good man could break down your barriers.” He laughed, pulling on his pants. “We better have breakfast and I'll ride on.”

“If I don't feed you, will you stay longer?”

“No, I need to move on. Mark Townsend will send the toughest men he can hire looking for me when he gets the word that his worthless son is dead.”

She shook her head, angrily putting on her dress. “Everyone knows that boy of his wasn't worth a damn.”

“Blood's thicker than water. Worthless or not, the old man'll want revenge, and he can afford to hire it.”

She raised her chin, busy buttoning up the front of her dress. Working to squeeze her boobs under the material, she shook her head in disgust at her disobeying body. “I know you like them, but at times they get in my way.”

They both laughed.

Slocum started the fire in her iron stove, feeding the small strips of wood he'd chopped earlier for her. He'd damn sure miss her cooking, the seasoning and care that went into every meal. Marla was a dream of a person to have shared his life with during the past six months while he helped her work her cattle, cut out and ship the culls, and make the ranch's operation top-notch for her. To have to leave her after all this time and all their efforts tugged on his mind. But there was no other way; he must ride on.

Coffee making was soon completed. He took a steaming cup and went to the front door to look at the mountains for any sign of someone coming for him. Too soon for any pursuit to get out here. With his mouth pursed, he blew on the drink's surface to cool it. “Marla, have you ever been to Cheyenne?”

“Not in years.”

“There's a guy named Gary Crane who runs a saddle harness repair shop on Dray Street. Gary Crane, Dray Street, Cheyenne. Gary might know where I am if you ever need me real badly. I mean real badly. Send him a note or go down there. However, it might be slow, me getting word and then getting back here, but I'd come.”

“Send a note to Gary Crane on Dray Street, Cheyenne, or have him forward my letter. Tell him to get hold of John Howard?”

He agreed with a head bob.

Tablespoon in her hand, she looked up at the underside of the cedar shingles on the roof for help. “I hope I can remember all that—if I really need you. All right, I have some huckleberry syrup for these flapjacks.” She was soon on her hands and knees behind the curtain on the lower wooden crate cabinets securing the quart of fruit preserves. Out of breath, she rose up holding the blue treasure. “There. The butter is on the table. Don't tell a soul you know about my syrup. I save it for special days like Christmas, and this damn sure is special, to have you leaving me.”

His first bite of the pancake and her sweet syrup made him nod. “I see why. That is heavenly. I haven't had any of that since I was a boy in the South. The berries grew on mountainsides, with chiggers, ticks, and copperheads living in the low bushes.”

“Rattlesnakes in them up here. It ain't easy to pick enough to make that much syrup.”

He blew her a kiss and went on eating. When he finished, she stood up to hug him. “I have some elk jerky in a poke. Also some cornmeal with brown sugar that the Mexican folks boil in their coffee cups for nourishment. Just be careful is all I ask.”

With her hugging his waist, they went outside and then she recalled his food sack and went back in for it. When she returned, he secured it in his saddlebags and then kissed her.

Hard for him to release her, but there was no choice. He had to ride off, hide his trail, and get farther away from his enemies. He scratched the too-long hair behind his ear. Marla had planned to cut it when he got back from town. A haircut would have to wait until later. For now, he climbed onto his horse and, with one last salute to Marla, rode away from possible pursuit.

In Buffalo, Wyoming, two days later, he swapped horses at a livery and rode east like he was going to Deadwood and the Black Hills. But he soon circled back south and headed into the Bighorns. He hoped his pony's tracks were lost to anyone who was after him. If they knew his bay horse, he knew the red chestnut he rode now would not fit the description; besides, the livery man was pretty closemouthed. Later that day, he had climbed well into the Bighorns and felt that that would lose most any trackers, save some real Indian ones. He avoided people on his way and made no stops at any small crossroads stores.

He had enough supplies from Marla to do him for several days. The second night in the Bighorns, he camped in the high country off any trail, back in the timber. He expected no one to come around, but the sound of horses on the move in the night awoke him. He quickly put on his boots under the stars and went to his own mount. He didn't need the animal to start nickering to the others. Keeping him quiet might prove hard since the sorrel had not seen any others in two days.

But he kept his hand on the horse's nostrils and whispered to distract him. The half dozen riders with high crown hats silhouetted against the night sky filed north in a line with four packhorses behind in a hard trot. Moving at night, they were more than likely an outlaw gang heading out to rob a mail train or make a big heist of some bank with lots of money in its vaults.

From Browns Park down in western Colorado to the north end of the Bighorns along this trail, lots of outlaws hid out. Most of them were Mormon boys in their late teens who were shunned into exile by elders who didn't want them taking the eligible wives from the supply the pluralists drew from. These young exiles had a hard time finding any work in this tough country and turned to joining the outlaw gangs. The first place the law went to look for them after a big robbery was in the whorehouse district of places like Denver. Since they weren't going to be future customers anyway, the houses bled them of all their money with rollicking sex, high-priced liquor, and fine, expensive meals. When all of their dough was gone, they were turned over to the law with busted heads and shrunken balls. They would stumble out the front door of some grand Victorian three-story mansion into the arms of the local lawmen, who promptly called in the U.S. marshals, and then the local police collected the hefty rewards on their arrests.

Simply business in the West. Horny young men flush with their ill-gotten riches went to the whorehouses, had a helluva a good time, and when that loot was gone—they robbed again. Usually they were led by clever men who had escaped the claws of legal authorities for long periods of time. Such men stayed in hiding or snuck off to places where they were unknown, like Chicago, for a taste of all the flesh and parties their money could buy. The underlings, meanwhile, were incarcerated in state pens like the one near Laramie, the Deer Park freezer in Montana, and Colorado's finest steel bars and cement. Wyoming Territorial might have been the easiest to escape. Lots of men went out through an unlocked door there with the paid-for assistance of an insider and were whisked away by relatives on waiting fresh horses. Few of them were ever returned, and no record of their recapture showed on the prison books.

The band of thieves had passed by him in the starlit night. Satisfied at last that they'd gone on north, Slocum returned to his cold blankets and slept till dawn. He felt satisfied that the gang was not coming back that night anyway.

Next day, he took the road south. They called it the Owl Hoot Trail or the Outlaw Underground Railroad that went through Wyoming, Utah, and Arizona. Wanted men used it to slip off into Mexico. That afternoon he stopped at the first small outfit he came to. A woman in a brown dress was using a shovel to divert irrigation water into the rows of her well-kept garden.

“Hello, stranger,” she said, busy with her garden-watering operation and the shovel. “Can I help you?”

“Could you sell me a meal?” He dropped out of the saddle, knowing these were pay-as-you-go-operations. No doubt she was a sister-wife in the LDS Church. Her blond hair was straight and shoulder length, and her pale face needed a little powder and some lip rouge. That all cost money, and her husband likely wouldn't bring her any such frivolous items. Since the man probably only saw her every three to four months, she didn't need it. Slocum could see the muscles in her slender forearms. They were hard muscles; he'd bet there would be no fat on her body underneath the wash-worn brown dress either.

“My name is Jennifer Duncan.”

“Nice to meet you. I'm Slocum. I can change the water when it gets to the end of the row if you want to go prepare the food.”

She agreed and handed him the shovel. “When you see the water's going to make it to the end, change it. I don't have lots of water to waste.”

“I can do that, Jennifer.”

She swept her hair back behind her ears. “Slocum, huh?”

“That's my handle.”

“I'll remember it. Not many folks drop in here.”

“I take it that's right. I ain't seen a soul in days.”

“Mister, if they're looking for you, they won't ever find you up here.”

“Whatever,” he said, as if that was unimportant.

She shuffled to the house in her clodhopper shoes that peeked out from under her hem, which she held up out of the dirt as she walked. Those shoes looked so stiff he knew they had to be pinching her feet. He went to changing furrows. No need to mess up and waste her water.

She was gone for quite a while, then he saw her go up the hill to the source of water and put in a headgate to shut off the flow.

“Are you about through?” she called out to him.

He could see she'd timed it right; the final furrow was nearly completely soaked. “This should water the last row.”

“Good, I've got something ready for us to eat. Bring your horse. We can put him up and then eat.”

“Sounds good.”

He led Red over to the corral and unsaddled him. There was hay in the manger and water in a stone trough. Jennifer came over without a word and waited for Slocum with her arms folded.

“You have a horse?” he asked her.

“She's out on the range. I only use her for plowing or hauling in the hay I cut for winter.”

“You put all that hay up by hand?” he asked, amazed at the amount he saw stacked around.

She smiled. “Oh, some boys stayed over who were passing through and helped me put some of it up. There isn't much else to do up here.”

Wetting his lower cracked lip, he nodded. “No children of your own?”

“No. I never carried a full-term child.” She shrugged, walking beside him. “So I am in charge of my husband's Wyoming ranch. My sisters can raise the kids and do those things over in Utah.”

“How many wives does your husband have?”

“I have four sisters.”

He knew that meant her husband had five wives, including her. This dim trail over the Bighorns must have several travelers going both ways. Folks with faces that fit wanted posters.

He found Jennifer's small house plain, with a lean-to bedroom on the side with bunks. She obviously slept in the living room on the bed covered with a colorful patch quilt, and she did her cooking in the fireplace. There was a table with six chairs for busier times. He could smell the wood smoke that hung in the air from her preparing the meal.

“It is always good to share a meal with a person passing through—better than eating by yourself,” she said and showed Slocum where to wash up. He hung his hat on a wall peg and thanked her.

“You almost caught me wearing overalls,” she said as he lathered his hands and then washed his face.

“That would not be a big crime,” he said, busy drying his hands and face on her flour-sack towel.

“Oh, that would be very unladylike of me.”

“Lots of farmwives wear britches—women who have to work in the crops and fields or ride horses.” He was thinking about Marla; when she worked cattle she wore overalls and thought nothing of it.

Jennifer raised her chin and then shook her head. “Not for a woman in public places.”

“Your home becomes a public place when someone arrives here?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what's for supper?” A big smile on his face, Slocum decided there was no use arguing with her about proper dress; he'd never win.

“Roasted ear corn from the garden, green beans, and the last of my salt pork. Oh, and sourdough rolls from the Dutch oven.”

“I smelled them. Excellent.”

“Glad you're pleased. Let us say grace to the Lord.”

“Sure,” he said, bowing his head.

“Most heavenly father,” she began, thanking him for many things including her guest, whom she referred to as “company”—and finished with, “Amen.”

She raised her head and asked, “Are you married, Slocum?”

“No, ma'am.”

“Do you have a home?” She passed him the green beans. “Sorry, I ran out of butter last week.”

“No problem. No, I don't have a place to live except wherever I am.”

“You don't speak like an uneducated man.” She rose and went over to the pail to dip a cup of water out, and then apologized. “I forgot, you probably miss your coffee.”

“No problem.” He knew the LDS did not partake of coffee. “Yes, I attended school.”