Slocum 419 (12 page)

“Well, well, well,” Slocum said. “A woman after my own heart. And I see you're dressed to ride out yourself.”

“I want to ride with you, Mr. Slocum.” She opened her coat so that he could see her cartridge belt and her pistol.

“My, my, will wonders never cease,” he said. “Will you take my arm? I think we have a lot to talk about before the night is over.”

“Yes, I think we do,” she said.

“My hotel?”

“Perfect,” she said as she slipped her arm inside his.

They walked, arm in arm, to the hotel like a couple off to do some spooning in the moonlight.

They both wore smiles on their lips.

Slocum picked up his room key from Jules, who was still rattled over the deadly disturbance in the hotel.

“There won't be any more trouble here, will there?”

“I don't expect any,” Slocum said. He ushered Clara down the hall to his room, number 6, and opened the door to let her in. He locked it after he had entered.

“Have a seat, Clara,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable. Drink?”

He walked to a lamp on the table, struck a match, lifted the chimney, and touched the lighted match to the wick. The room took on a soft peach glow that reached to their table.

“No thanks, John,” she said. “I need my wits about me.”

“Seems to me you're never without them. How's Stacey?”

“I told her the whole story about her and Lacey's birth and who her father really is. I don't think it has all sunk in yet. But she's all right. Or seems to be.”

“Who is her father? Not Clemson?”

“No, not Faron. I might as well tell you the whole story, too, and tell where I've been all these years and where I am now.”

“I'm all ears,” he said. He took off his black hat, set it on the third chair.

Clara told him all about Wolf and his twin brother, Hans, what happened on her wedding night and the brutal hold Wolf had on her that had lasted for twenty years. She told her story in a rush and then sighed with relief that she had gotten it all out.

“But” she said, “I'm interested in what you told Abel Fogarty.”

“I told him that he had a short time to live if he stayed in town and filed forged documents on any mines where the owners were murdered by Wolf and his gang of cutthroats.”

“Good,” she said. “What did he say?”

“He turned as pale as a bowl of hominy grits and said he'd light out in the morning and close his office.”

“Do you think he will?” she asked.

“One of his balls is the size of a pea, and the other is a real itty-bitty one,” Slocum said with a curve of a smile on his lips.

Clara laughed.

“You're all right, John Slocum. Do you know that?”

“Nope. I don't judge myself much. I leave that to other people.”

She reached across the table with both hands. Slocum took them in his.

“You're packing iron,” he said. “Were you going after Wolf by yourself?”

“If I couldn't find you, I was,” she admitted. “I've been his prisoner all these years, and after Lacey died, I just knew I had to get away from him.”

“You were going to kill him?”

“Yes, unless I found you.”

“You wanted to find me?”

“Yes, I knew you were not afraid of a mean bastard like Wolf and I was going to side with you.”

Slocum chuckled. “Still, you're pretty brave. What if you hadn't run into me?”

“I—I'd have gone after Wolf and shot him dead. But I expected that I might die, too. Better that than living the way I have all these years.”

“You're still a young woman, Clara. And still very attractive. You have a lot of life ahead.”

“I hope so,” she said. “Are you going after Wolf, then?”

“I am. He's already gotten the message from two different men, so he'll be looking over his shoulder from now on.”

“What was your message?”

“Leave town or die,” Slocum said.

She squeezed his hands then withdrew hers.

She looked long and earnestly at Slocum. She felt a quivering inside her stomach. He looked so strong and handsome up close and it was slightly unnerving to her. She hoped her feelings for him didn't show. But he had told her that she was attractive. That could mean anything. He probably didn't find her beautiful, but he seemed to like what she was made of, if nothing else.

She undid her bun and let her hair fall free and flowing over her back. There was a sheen to it in the soft glow from the lamp.

“You have pretty hair, Clara,” he said as she brushed out the few minor tangles.

“Do you think I'm pretty?” she asked, and managed a wan smile.

“I think you're a very beautiful woman. Strong, honest, courageous, and with an inner strength that shows on your face. I like that in a woman. All those qualities, I mean.”

“You're very kind.”

“You've found yourself, Clara. You're not the same woman I saw in Fogarty's office. That was an actress playing a part. The real you is much more natural and beautiful.”

“You seem to know more about me than I do myself,” she said. “Maybe you know more about women than the average man.”

He laughed. “I don't know about that. But I read people by looking at their faces and their actions. You have good qualities that have been hidden for a long time. No woman should have to go through what you did. Wolf's a heartless bastard to do what he did to you. He's a man who likes to see people suffer.”

“Yes, he is. I hate him,” she said. “I've hated him for a long, long time.”

“Hate is a killer itself,” he said. “It never gets you anywhere. You'll do well to give up your hate.”

“How do I do that?” she asked.

“Find something or someone to love. That will take away the hate and give you back your senses.”

She sighed and became thoughtful for a few seconds. What Slocum said made sense to her for some strange reason. Hate was an ugly thing. It had twisted her up inside and clouded her reason. It had blinded her to other possibilities in her life. Now she felt as if Slocum had drenched her in a cool gust of fresh air. Her mind was clearing and she could look not only back at her life, but ahead, to a better one.

“I like that idea,” she said. “But Wolf is still there in my thoughts.”

“He's no longer in your life, though, is he?”

She shook her head. “No, that's true. I've broken with him, whether he's dead or alive.”

“That's part of your strength now, Clara.”

She unbuttoned her coat and removed it. Slocum looked at her. Her shirt was unbuttoned and he could see part of her chest, the tiny brown freckles between her breasts. He felt a tug at his loins, a stirring in his groin.

Clara was more than an attractive woman, he thought. She had a grace that made her beautiful, desirable even.

She reached up to button her blouse.

“No, don't,” he said.

“But the button's loose, John.”

“Don't hide your beauty, Clara,” he said with a smile.

She beamed back at him. “Why, John, I'm beginning to think you mean to seduce me.”

“If I'm allowed,” he said. “I'd like to seduce you.”

She blushed and her face took on a rosy hue. She smiled coyly at him.

“You are starting to make my heart flutter,” she said, her voice soft and low. “Flutter like crazy.”

“The night is young,” he said. “Like you. Young and sweet.”

He stood up. Clara stood up, too. They came together, and he embraced her.

She tilted her head up, and he bent his neck to kiss her.

She was warm and willing. The kiss told it all. She quivered in his embrace, and he knew that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

“Mmm,” she moaned, and the kiss between them was long and lingering, full of promise, sweet with the taste.

He guided her to the bed as she unbuckled her gun belt.

“Now?” she said.

“If you want me.”

“I want you, John. Oh, I want you so much.”

“I want you, too, Clara.”

He loosened his gun belt, rebuckled it, and hung it on the poster near his pillow. The two undressed as if they were burning up with the heat of their clothing.

She pulled the coverlet from the two pillows, and he gazed on her nakedness before he climbed into bed to lie beside her.

They embraced and clung to each other.

“Do you know how much I dreamed of this?” she asked.

“You've been cheated all these years,” he said.

“I feel like a virgin. What Wolf did to me was not love, not loving. It was brutal and savage and . . .”

He put two fingers against her lips.

“Hush,” he said. “That's all water over the dam. It's past. This is now, this moment, and we both have it.”

“Yes, yes, we do,” she said, and wrapped her arms around his neck. They kissed and then one of her hands squeezed the upper part of his leg. As if she were reassuring herself that he was real.

He stroked her breasts, gently rubbing his hand over their contours, as if he were a sculptor shaping a piece of soft clay.

She writhed with pleasure.

“Mm,” she murmured. “Feels good. So good.”

She bent her body to reach down and explore his groin. She grasped his tautening stalk and stroked it before her fingers closed around it. He grew harder with her touch.

“I—I've never done anything like this before,” she whispered. “I feel so brazen all of a sudden.”

“The woman you are is coming back out,” he said. “This was what you were meant to do, Clara.”

“Oh, that's so sweet of you to say that.”

She squeezed his cock and he felt its veins engorge with blood. Like a jackknife, his prick opened fully and she stroked the smooth crown with the tip of her finger.

“You're such a man,” she breathed.

He kissed both nipples, then slipped his hand between her legs. She pulled them wider apart and he stroked her pussy, parting the lips. He probed inside with a finger and felt her juices flow, warm and wet as sun-warmed dew.

“Ah,” she sighed, and he found her clitoris and stroked it until her entire body quivered and spasmed.

She cried out and squeezed his organ as if to pull him inside her.

He withdrew his finger from her warm wet cunt.

“Ready?” he asked.

“More than ready. Oh, John, thank you for this. I'm so grateful.”

“I am, too, Clara. I want to pleasure you. I can't make up for all those years, but I can give you back some of what you missed.”

“Oh, yes, you can, John. You can.”

He mounted her and slid into her as she guided him through the portals of her sex, past the thatch of brown wiry hair and into the soft pudding of her pussy.

He plumbed her depths, and she responded with upward thrusts of her hips until they were in perfect rhythm. She undulated her hips as he pushed into her and he matched her every move with moves of his own.

Her body bucked and thrashed as she climaxed, and she swallowed the scream that issued unbidden from her throat.

Again and again she climaxed, and each time her spasms were more violent than before.

“Now, now,” she purred as he increased the speed of his strokes. “I want your seed. All of it.”

“I hope you're not in heat,” he said half-jokingly.

“With you, I am,” she said, and clung to him. Her fingernails dug into his back, but did not break the skin.

He felt the surge of energy, the rush of sperm that coursed like a mad flood up the pipe of his cock, and then he spilled his milk deep into her womb. He floated high above her on a white cloud of mindlessness that was fleeting and could never be recaptured.

Clara floated up there with him.

A blissful peacefulness filled her mind. Contentment flooded her being, and she clung to him in a state of pure rapture.

“We may never leave to go after Wolf,” he said.

“I don't care. I no longer know who Wolf is. He's out of my life and forgotten.”

But he knew that Wolf was not gone, and as long as he was in town, he was dangerous to both of them.

He wanted to lie with her and take her again.

But while Clara might have forgotten Wolf, he had not.

He steeled himself for what he had to do. He had to get up and get dressed and leave Clara or take her with him.

Either Wolf had left town by now, or he was waiting for Slocum to show up.

“I have to go,” he said as he slid from the bed.

“I'm going with you,” she said.

Slocum didn't say anything as he began to dress. He didn't want to encourage or discourage her. But in the back of his mind, he knew that she had a stake in seeing Wolf gone from her life and from Durango.

Maybe, he thought, it was foreordained.

But one way or another, Wolf had to disappear. From both of their lives.

That was Fate, he knew, as surely as if all of it were written in the stars.

Bert Loomis stretched his one serviceable leg as he sat by the window in Wolf's cabin. It had stiffened up on him, and he felt as if his circulation had shut down and the good leg—his right leg—was dying alongside the injured one. His left leg acted up regularly, with a sharp knifelike pain in the wound. He wished he could just drown himself in whiskey and sleep.

But Hobart and Wolf were banging around, stuffing supplies in their saddlebags, along with bullets and rifle cartridges. So far, Wolf had not told him what he was going to do. All he had heard were scraps of conversation between Hobart and Wolf that he could not decipher, as if they were talking in another tongue or in some kind of gibberish code.

He was growing angrier by the minute.

Finally, the two men came into the front room, with saddlebags slung over their shoulders.

“We're leavin',” Wolf said to Loomis.

“Where you goin', boss?”

“For a ride.”

“This time of night?”

“You stay put, Bert. No tellin' who might show up.”

“What do I do if that Slocum feller comes around?”

“Shoot him,” Wolf said.

Hobart laughed.

“What are you laughin' at, Cornelius?” Loomis said with a whining underline to Hobart's given name.

“I told you not to call me that, Bert,” Hobart said. He hated his first name and almost never used it. And he hated to be called “Hobie.” Some who had called him that had broken jaws that he'd delivered free of charge.

“We might be back, Bert,” Wolf said. “All depends.”

“On what?” Loomis asked.

“If we run into Slocum, we'll drop him and then it's business as usual.”

“I hope you run into him,” Loomis said.

Hobart and Wolf left the cabin and walked the few blocks to the stables, past all the little Mexican stores, cantinas, and cafés. They passed the yard where the Mexicans stored their carts and wagons, a few doors from the livery stables, which was the largest in town, and the most accessible.

Palacio de Caballos stood in a large tract nestled against a towering mountain at the back, so its large corral only had to be fenced on three sides.

It was dark on the street, but there were lanterns burning inside the stable, which was one of the largest buildings in town, complete with a hay loft, a tack room, and a blacksmith's shop off to the side in another structure.

Benito Aguilar was on duty. He was not the owner, but he groomed and fed the horses, and acted as night watchman. The stables were owned by Eladio Salazar, a tough, trail-wise Mexican from Sonora who had been one of the earliest settlers in Durango. A white-haired, bearded man, he knew horses and cattle like he knew the back of his hand.

“Mr. Wolf,” Benito said when Hobart and Wolf walked down the stalls toward one that Aguilar was cleaning with a pitchfork and shovel. He had a wheelbarrow parked outside the stall and a lantern hanging on a twenty-penny nail to give him light. “You come to visit your horse?”

“I'm going to saddle up, Benny,” Wolf said. “Hobart wants his horse, too.”

“Yes, I will show you where they are and open the tack room for you to get your saddles.”

Benito left the stall and led them to the tack room. He took out a ring of keys and unlocked the padlock. He lit a lantern and hung it on a wire loop that was attached to the ceiling.

Wolf and Hobart set down their saddlebags a few feet apart outside the tack room.

“Your horses are in the small corral,” Aguilar said. “I will get them for you.” He took two rope halters from the wall and left the two men to find their saddles and bridles.

“Smells like horseshit in here,” Hobart said.

“Just be glad it ain't sheep dip,” Wolf cracked back.

Hobart chuckled as he found his saddle with the rifle scabbard attached. He lugged it outside and lay it on its side. Then he found his bridle on a dowel set into the wall along with several others. Wolf lugged his saddle out, along with his bridle, and lay them next to Hobart's.

Benito returned in a few moments. He led two horses into the livery, both prancing and eager to see their masters. Both horses whickered when they saw their owners. Some of the horses inside the stalls neighed. There was the pungent aroma of hay and horse manure inside the livery, and flies buzzed here and there as they flew up from piles of fresh offal.

“I will saddle your horses,” Benito said to Wolf. “You have the blankets?”

“Couldn't find 'em,” Wolf said.

“I know where they are,” Benito said. He went into the tack room and came out with two saddle blankets, both with different patterns woven into the wool. He laid them on the right saddles as he picked up the two bridles.

Wolf and Hobart watched as Aguilar slipped off the halters from their horses and replaced them with their bridles. Wolf's horse was a dappled gray and Hobart's was a paint, both stocky and only fourteen or fifteen hands high, what the cowboys called cow ponies, with dubious bloodlines.

“Benny, give us a couple of hatfuls of grain in a feed sack, will you?”

“Coming right up,” Benito said.

He went into another room, which housed barrels of corn and oats and bins of alfalfa and other grasses. He emerged with a flour sack of corn and oats, which he handed to Hobart. Hobart stuffed the sack into one of his saddlebags.

Wolf and Hobart both checked their cinches, then laid on their saddlebags and cinched them to their saddles.

“You will come back, Mr. Wolf?” Benito asked.

“Maybe,” Wolf said. “Could be a very short ride, or a very long one.”

Benito laughed, not because he understood, but because he didn't. He just did not want to look stupid in front of these two men.

Wolf and Hobart slid their rifles into their separate scabbards, gave one last tug on the single cinches of their saddles, and led their horses from the stables.

“Good night, Mr. Wolf,” Benito called after them.

“Night,” Wolf said and seated his hat tighter on his head.

Outside, the two men mounted their horses.

“Where to, boss?” Hobart asked.

“Let's hitch up at the saloon. Have one for the road.”

“I'm all for that,” Hobart said.

They rode the few blocks to the saloon and dismounted, tied their reins to one of the hitch rails out front, and walked into the saloon.

They went straight to the bar as Wolf glanced at the patrons. The usual crowd was there—Mexicans who worked the mines or hauled equipment to the various claims; a few drifters, some down on their luck with sad faces; miners and prospectors; and an old lady or two with their fans and cheap rings, enlarged bosoms, and drab dresses looking for any man who would buy them a drink and maybe take them to bed after the saloon closed.

Joe came up to where the two men sat at the end of the bar.

“Back again. What'll it be, gents?” he asked.

“Whiskey,” Wolf said. “The good stuff, not that rotgut you serve those swine lining the bar.”

Joe laughed uncomfortably.

“You know, Wolf, that I only serve you our best brand of ninety-proof.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Wolf said. “Watered down sometimes.”

“Not by me,” Joe said.

“I'll have rye,” Hobart said. “Two fingers.”

“Rye it is,” Joe said, and drifted away to fetch glasses and bottles.

Wolf looked at the saloon girls who sat at the tables with their skimpy dresses and a lot of leg showing, encased in black mesh. But he was looking for someone else and he spotted her, finally, when she arose from one of the far tables at the very back of the large room.

Amy Sullivan had been talking to some friends, the man and the woman who owned the dry goods store in town. They were an older couple who liked hard cider before they toddled off to their home and bed.

She had seen Wolf and Hobart come in, with their heavy jackets on, and walk to the bar. Which was unusual. Wolf almost never sat at the bar. He always took a table where he could watch who came in and who went out. That was curious enough, but the men were dressed as if they were leaving town.

She wondered if Slocum's message had sunk into Wolf's brain enough to make him worry about living to see another sunrise in Durango.

She walked slowly across the room and came up to where the two men were sitting, their hands on the bar, their fingers intertwined.

“Amy,” Wolf said. “Hello again.”

“Wolf. Surprised you're here at the bar. Are you not going to stay long?”

She tried to hide her disgust of the man. She ignored Hobart completely.

“No, we won't be here long. Just in for a nightcap, you might say.”

“Well, enjoy yourself,” she said and started to walk away.

Wolf swiveled around on his stool and grabbed her arm.

“Oh, don't rush off,” he said to her. “I got something to show you.”

“Let loose of my arm,” she said, a cold hard tone to her voice.

Wolf let her go. He smiled at her and she couldn't help thinking how much his name fitted him. His smile was like that of a savage wolf, fangs and all.

“Sorry,” he said. “Just didn't want you to leave just yet.”

Joe brought their glasses and two bottles. He poured the rye and the whiskey, and Wolf dug into his pocket and laid some bills on the bar top.

“Thanks, Wolf,” Joe said. “You've got change coming.”

“Keep it, Joe,” Wolf said, “and take the bottles back where you got 'em.”

“Just one drink for both of you?” Joe said.

“Just one,” Wolf said.

Joe picked up the bottles and walked down the bar to put them back on the shelf against the wall.

Amy stood there, a scowl on her face. “What's on your mind, Wolf?” she asked.

“I brought you something, Miss Amy,” he said. “I got it outside because I didn't want a lot of people in here gawking at it.”

“I don't want any gifts from you,” she said, trying to put some politeness into her voice.

“The gift is not from me,” Wolf said.

“Not from you? Who's it from?” Amy was genuinely puzzled.

“It's supposed to be a surprise, so I can't rightly tell you. You have to see it for yourself.”

“I can't imagine. What's the gift?”

“Can't tell you that either, Miss Any,” Wolf said. “But I got it and I promised this person to deliver it to you before I leave town.”

“Oh, you're leaving Durango?” Amy studied his face to see if he really meant what he had said. She saw no deception there.

“Yep. Soon as I down this here drink,” Wolf said.

He turned from her and upended the glass of whiskey into his mouth. Hobart drank his rye down in a single gulp. He was as puzzled as Amy was because Wolf had not said anything to him and he didn't know what kind of surprise he had for Amy.

Wolf swiped his sleeve across his mouth and slid from the stool.

“Hobart, you go on out and wait for me and Miss Amy. We'll be along right after you.”

Amy backed a step away from Wolf as Hobart slid off his stool and marched to the door like an obedient soldier.

“I—I don't know, Wolf,” she said as the batwings swung until they stopped in the wake of Hobart's exit. “I'm not expecting anything from anyone and certainly not a surprise, like you say it is.”

“Well, you'll be surprised, Miss Amy.”

“Is it from someone I know?”

“Oh, yes, you know her.”

“It's a she, then.”

“That much I can tell you,” he said, and that warm, disarming smile returned to his face.

“Well, I just don't know what to say,” she said.

“No need to say anything. Come on with me. It won't take but a minute and then I can be on my way.”

“Where you going?” she asked.

“Pagosa Springs,” he said quickly, without hesitation.

“Oh.”

He got off his stool and held out his arm for her to take it. She ignored the offering. So Wolf walked toward the door, a slow step at a time.

Curious, Amy walked with him.

She saw the horses at the hitch rail. Hobart sat on his paint and he held the reins of the dappled gray in his hand for Wolf.

“Where's the surprise?” she asked.

“Over here, at the corner of the saloon,” he said. He pointed to a dark place beyond one of the front windows.

“I don't see anything,” she said.

“Just walk on over there and you'll see it,” he said.

Reluctantly, Amy walked past the window to the corner of the building. She stared at the ground and started to peer around the corner when she heard footsteps behind her.

She turned, suddenly afraid, and saw Wolf advancing toward her, almost on tiptoe. Quietly.

He jerked his pistol from its holster.

“Here's your surprise, you bitch,” he said. “This is for Jimmy John and a preview of what's going to happen to that bastard, Slocum.”

Amy opened her mouth to scream, but she heard the click of the hammer as Wolf cocked it, and she froze.

Wolf squeezed the trigger as he pointed the barrel straight at the middle of her forehead a half foot away from her.

The explosion split the silence of the night.

A round hole appeared in Amy's forehead and she crumpled like a sad thrown-away doll to the ground.

Wolf holstered his pistol and dashed to his horse.

He climbed into the saddle and grabbed his reins from Hobart.

“Let's light shuck, Hobart,” Wolf said and turned his horse away from the hitch rail.

“Holy Christ,” Hobart said. “I didn't expect you to shoot down no woman, boss,” Hobart said as they trotted away from the saloon.

“She's the one who told Slocum that Jimmy John was out back. Got him killed. I hate a slut like that.”

“I guess you purely do,” Hobart said.

They put their horses into a gallop and disappeared up the street as patrons in the saloon rushed out through the batwing doors to see what had happened outside.