Slocum and the Diamond City Affair (9781101612118) (9 page)

The stone water tanks at the Holy Waters came into view like a miracle. Towering gnarled cottonwoods rustled in the hot midday winds. Slocum dismounted, warning the rest not to let their animals drink too much. “Only a small amount, then drag them away. We don't need any colicky horses.”

After he let his mount drink, he swung back into the saddle. “I'm going into Santa Maria after some supplies, and I'll be back in a few hours. Keep your guard up. There are lots of bandits around here.”

Jim nodded that he understood. In fact he was the only armed one in camp and Slocum hated to leave him, but he didn't want to expose his team and the mare to the curious eyes for very long in the desperate region where this settlement sat.

He found the village and mission quiet. He stopped at the large mercantile and went in to buy supplies. Two young clerks waited on him as he rattled off the things he'd need.

“What about two sound mules to pack this?”

The two boys looked at each other. The older one said he knew about two such animals for sale with packsaddles.

“How much?”

“Forty dollars for the two.”

“Go buy them.” He put the money on the counter. This was not the time to dicker a deal on them. “If they're good, I'll pay both of you a dollar apiece.”

They smiled and nodded, and the older boy said, “They are good mules. I will go get them.”

“Good. Load them. I will be back in a few hours for them.”

“
Sí
, señor.”

He bought a sackful of tamales from a vendor and rode back to camp. They scrambled to their feet, brushing off their butts and then hurrying over.

“Have some tamales,” he said, handing Rosa the cloth bag to dole them out. “I bought two pack mules and supplies that should get us to Nogales.”

“See any threat?” Jim asked, peeling the corn shuck off his food.

Slocum shook his head. “But our supplies and mules will be reported to every evil person in the area. I say we take the mules and ride far from here tonight.”

Rosa nodded. O'Riley shook his head in disgust, but in the end agreed it was best for them to go on.

Twilight had set in when they collected the saddled and packed mules. Jim and Rosa checked them over while Slocum went inside with O'Riley to settle his bill with the store. With the merchandise and mules paid for, the store owner thanked them and told them to come back.

When Slocum came out of the store, Jim told him that the packsaddles were secure. In the dimming light of day, they mounted up and rode on out.

When they reached a high point, Slocum looked back at the village being swallowed by dusk and wondered how many would-be bandits knew about their presence in the region. Like buzzards looking for carrion, such men would search for them. Simply moving on was not enough; they needed to push hard to deliver the mare.

They rode hard for a while, but finally had to stop for a few hours' sleep. Before dawn they all climbed back in the saddle, still half asleep. Slocum wanted to get to Nogales as soon as possible, and many miles of desert still separated them from the final delivery spot.

Heat and long days were taking their toll on the three men, one woman, and their animals, and they hadn't been riding as hard as Slocum had hoped to. They grained their horses and mules morning and night to ensure they had the energy they needed.

The next night, they rested at an abandoned hacienda and bathed in a warm, mossy tank to shed some of the grit and grime that chafed every crease in their bodies. The freshness of their cleaned skin rejuvenated them into riding harder the next two days.

At San Mateo, they stayed at a well-guarded hacienda. An old friend of Slocum's, José Demaria, showed them his hospitality and flirted with Rosa like a young man anxious to steal her. Slocum could see how flattering Rosa found his friend's attentions. After a short rest and clean clothes, she danced gracefully with the gray-haired
patrón
, sliding across the tile floor of the great room to strumming guitar music.

They joined Demaria for a fancy supper that evening and even O'Riley acted awake. A night's sleep in a good bed with no fears of attack lifted the stress they had borne out in the brittle desert.

“Let us toast my great friend Slocum for our longtime friendship.” Demaria was on his feet to toast him with a glass of wine.

Everyone rose and Rosa squeezed Slocum's arm. “Isn't he a wonderful man to do that for you?”

Slocum agreed and the cheers went up as he rose to his feet. He and Demaria went back a long ways in some wars with Mexican
bandidos
that had stretched over several years.

“The death of those warlords made my region safe for all the people to live here.”

Slocum nodded and hoisted his glass. Then they sat down and ate their meal. Rosa bubbled to him about the spacious casa and their host.

Their bedroom had a high bed in the center of the room set on a platform with carpeted stairs. In the heavenly featherbed, Slocum squeezed and kissed Rosa. She threw back her head to kiss him. “You are a wonderment to bring us to this marvelous haven.”

Before they left the next day, Demaria warned Slocum there was information coming to him that Ike Clanton planned to stop Slocum's delivery near the border. Slocum acknowledged his words. “Ike is a cowardly braggart. He'll send some of his tough pistoleros to meet us.”

After so many days of hard-pressed traveling, his small band was still two days short of the delivery point. Slocum hoped they were sharp enough to cover their movements. Jim and Slocum scouted way ahead. Their plans were to enter the United States at the Peralta Springs Ranch, still a long way from Nogales.

Jim had gone in and warned the guards that they would be coming in hard.

Slocum waited until dark to cross the last open miles of desert to the ranch headquarters. The ranch employees were heavily armed against the Apaches, who regularly crisscrossed the line coming and going to the Sierra Madres. He wanted to be certain they knew he was not an Apache.

As Jim had warned the Peraltas, Slocum's group rode in without any delay, unsure of what they'd find.

The
segundo
for the Peraltas, Juan Calero, met them wearing a crossbelt of ammunition and armed with a Winchester rifle. He asked, “Have you seen those damn Cowboys?”

Slocum dismounted, shook his head, and then shook the man's hand. “We haven't seen any sign of them. Are they around here now?”

Calero nodded. “Come, we have beds for you and your men—and your woman too.”

“Do you expect the Cowboys to attack you?” Slocum asked once the others had been led off.

“I have the word that they have orders to get the mare back at any cost.”

Slocum shook his head. “She's only a good mare.”

With a serious frown, Calero nodded in the lamplight. “You have made that whole Clanton family mad.”

“I couldn't care less about those bastards. We need to deliver her,” Slocum said. “What I need now is a buckboard and your Gatling gun to mow them down with.”

“Oh, I could not loan you that gun.” Calero shook his head. “The
patrón
would be very upset.”

“Just an idea. It could whittle down Clanton's forces in short order.”

Calero agreed, then told one of his guardsmen to show him to his quarters. “They won't get you here, señor.”

“Thank you,” Slocum said. His suggestion to the man had not been accepted. Oh well, it was only a notion.

“You are safe here. We have that Gatling gun and it works well.”

Clanton's men damn sure would never charge a Gatling gun. Slocum went off to join Rosa in a small jacal. He thanked his guide and slipped through the curtain over the doorway and into the room. When she looked up, a small lamp on a stand illuminated Rosa's face where she sat on the bed.

“I'm sorry,” Slocum told her. “This business has been hell. We are a day or more from delivering the mare and having it over with.”

“But they say that Clanton and his gang will track you down and kill you.”

“Aw, they've got better things to do than that.” He shook his head to dismiss her concern.

She hugged him tight. “I don't want anything to happen to you.”

He patted her back and squeezed her. “They aren't getting me. You'll see.”

“When will we leave?”

“In the morning. I will talk to Calero before we leave.”

With her slender body pressed hard against him, he realized that she needed some attention. The past few hectic days had offered little opportunity for them to be private enough to have much of a sexual exchange. He bent over and kissed her, and her hot tongue sought his mouth. In their hurry to get to each other, they undressed with their mouths engaged. He undid the gun belt and tossed the rig on the bed. Then he toed off his boots, still kissing her mouth hard.

She untied her skirt, let it fall, and stepped clear of it. They separated and she took the blouse off over her head. His hands cupped her firm breasts and she smiled as he felt and tested them. Then he stepped out of his pants and shoved them down. His arms swept her up to carry her over to the bed.

“I'll try not to drop you on my holster.”

She laughed and hugged his head. “That wouldn't even hurt me.”

“It might,” he said, easing her down, then taking the gun belt off the bed. He buckled and hung it on the rung of the ladder-back chair. He came back and put his knee on the bed as she held out her arms.

When Slocum was settled between her raised legs, she lifted herself up enough to capture his erection in her fist and pull him inside her vagina. Saliva flowed in his mouth, forcing him to swallow as he pushed his dick inside of her. The way was slick and tight. Obviously she was worked up enough to really make things smoke between them.

She raised her butt to accept all she could and he went to pounding her ass. His brain swirled, and his breath came harder, and his hips complained the deeper and faster they went. Then she stiffened, straining under him, and he knew she had come. Bleary-eyed, she closed her lashes again as he filled her with his seminal fluid. She slid off into never-never land.

He remained inside her, braced on his arms, and waited for her to awake.

At last she sighed. “I am in heaven.”

“Not exactly. But you are sweet.”

“Will we ever get the mare to Nogales?”

He fondled her left breast and winked in the dark at her. “That's what we hired on to do. Somehow we will do that.”

She pushed her small butt at him, moving his still-half-stiff dick deeper inside her. “You going to do something about him?” She meant his hard-on.

“Darling, I can't wait.”

She rose up and kissed him on the lips. “Good.”

He shoved his stem deeper into her vagina and felt his dick respond after the fourth probe. His heart rate began to speed up. The shaft turned to iron and his mouth flooded with saliva. As he headed toward more pleasure, his strokes grew stronger and she returned his actions. Her heels began to beat the backs of his legs. Her juices lubricated their way, and both of them were breathing like racehorses. The swollen head of his dick and the first few inches of his length expanded hard and tight, ready to explode. Farther back the friction on his stick made him itch with a desire for more action.

A crushing pain shot through his gonads and the connecting cords strained to rocket the fiery volcanic semen out through the swollen head of his cock and deep inside her body.

“Oh, I felt that.” She gasped and closed her eyes, collapsing underneath him.

“You were made for this,” he whispered in her ear, pumping her easy-like and savoring her tightness and the soft clenching inside still coming from her muscular walls.

“Thank God I got to know you, hombre.” Her arms squeezed him tight and he fired off a lesser blast in final response.

“Will we leave early tomorrow?” she asked after he climbed off and left her lying on her back beside him.

“Yes. I may hire a few of Calero's men to get us through the Mule Mountains. He can loan us a few tough men to get us that far. Then we can make a run for it.”

She clapped his chest. “A good plan.”

He nodded.

Would it be enough?

11

Peralta's hacienda man agreed with Slocum. He'd loan him four of his best men.

“What if we took the Gatling gun?”

“My
patrón
might kill me if they raid us and we don't have that gun here.” Calero's face under the lamplight looked concerned. Then he laughed. “You take it. Hope those bastards do try to jump you. You will uncover that damn gun with a canvas and mow them down. Yes, I will select the men to ride with you past the Mule Mountains.”

“What will we owe you?”

“Nothing, but you may pay my men for helping you. And, Slocum—”

“Yes?”

“Don't you let anyone steal my big gun.”

“I understand.” He went to tell Jim and O'Riley what he'd set up.

Some of the ranch women were feeding his crew breakfast. A handsome woman in her forties brought him some coffee and a plate of food piled high.

“Is my crazy husband coming?” she asked with a small smile at the corner of her soft mouth.

Slocum nodded, then in a low voice drew his team in close. “We will have four pistoleros that will ride guard with us across the Mule Mountains.”

“I can hire six good men in Tombstone to guard us the rest of the way.” Jim said. “Let me go and hire them.”

“Be damn careful. We will need you on that next leg of the trip.”

“I can get through and I'll meet you at the western base of the mountains.”

Slocum caught his sleeve and pulled him down to whisper in his ear. “I will have the Gatling gun too.”

Jim broke out laughing and shaking his head. He finished his plate, thanked the lady in charge, and went for his horse.

Slocum met Jim outside, and they both agreed they had a real chance to get through. The food had been as good as the news about Calero's help to get them over the mountains.

Taking the route along the border side of the mountains would have been easier, but that path would run right into Clanton's lap. Slocum had no intention of doing that despite the steep pass and canyon country they would have to cross instead.

Fernando was Calero's man in charge. A burly man for a Mexican, with a bushy black mustache, he was the picture of a fighting man. Contra was the gunner of his men, a small man, but fierce. Raphael was a short, thickset pistolero, and Juarez was part Indian and more thinly built. Those tough veterans were as good as having a company of soldiers, especially since they were armed with the big weapon.

In a half hour, they left the hacienda, and the horses pulling the buckboard were stout enough to be a stagecoach team. Raphael drove them; Contra rode in back. The other two pistoleros rode good ranch horses. Rosa led the two mules and the mare. O'Riley came along at the back, and he looked perkier than Slocum had ever seen him.

Fernando rode alongside Slocum as they crossed the greasewood flats. “That big gun will mow them down if they try to charge us.”

“It can,” Slocum agreed.

A smile crossed the man's dark face. “And they don't know what we have hidden under the canvas?”

“I doubt it. But they will learn in a damn hurry if they try us.”

O'Riley nodded like he understood. “Revealing that will be a big surprise for some border bandits on the prowl, won't it?”

“Exactly,” Slocum said.

“How did you figure that out?” O'Riley frowned at him.

“I fought in the Civil War. When you don't have anything else, firepower wins.”

O'Riley shook his head. “I was too young, but my brother was killed fighting in it.”

“Where?”

“Pennsylvania.”

Slocum shook his head. “Bad place to die.”

“I can't think of any place to die as good.”

“Profound, the most profound thing you've said this whole time, since I met you in Diamond City.”

“What will you do after we get the mare delivered?”

“Move on.” Slocum blinked his eyes at the withering heat waves beginning to curtain the mountains ahead of them.

“What will you do with her?” O'Riley asked, nodding at Rosa.

“Whatever she wants to do.”

“Take her along with you?”

“My life is not made for a wife. Is that what you wanted to know?”

O'Riley nodded. “Thanks, just asking.”

“I recall you told me she was too expensive.”

O'Riley made an uncertain head shake. “Maybe I've changed my mind. I would treat her nice. Maybe better than I did the last one.”

“I'm certain it would take your best behavior to ever convince her. She'll not be easily persuaded.”

“I kinda know that,” O'Riley agreed.

Slocum nodded, then he dropped back to check on her. “You and this train making it?”

“Sure.” A grin flashed on her face as if she felt proud he even asked.

When he looked over her wards, the mare and pack mules, he gave her a confident nod of approval. “We have some tough hours ahead, but we'll be fine with these pistoleros and that big gun.”

“What will you do after we deliver the mare?”

“I'd like to find those three that raped your cousin. I'd put an ice pick through their ears to their brains.”

“Will you ever find them?” She stood in the stirrups to stretch her legs.

“Someday, maybe.”

“Where will you go after that? You are not one to stay long anywhere, are you?”

He agreed. “Old enemies trail me.”

She nodded, then stretched her arms over her head. “I will be very sad if we must part.”

He shook his head to dismiss her concerns. “We will have good memories.”

She agreed, flexing some more to work out the stiffness in her muscles.

The lead mule used her movements for a chance to spook a little. In an instant she caught his lead. “Stay here, you crazy bastard. Apaches will eat you otherwise.”

Slocum laughed, then booted his horse out to check on Fernando. The Clantons probably would not try anything until they were in the mountains. He planned to ask the big man's opinion about the possibility of the Clantons charging their party. He short loped Spook to catch the big man.

Ike, where the hell are you at?