Slocum and the Long Ride (10 page)

Well off the road to the Willows, he rode up to a lone jacal with a garden off the dim wagon tracks, on the creek north of his planned meeting with his men. He went to the front door and spoke to a young
bruja
that he knew named Costa.

“Ah, it is you, hombre. What do you need?” asked the short Mexican woman, who came to the door wrapped in a blanket.

“A place to meet with some
amigos
that is out of the way.”

“I have a camp in the hills. I take men there who fear gossip to tell on their messing around with a
puta
. No one has ever found it.”

“Draw me a map. I need to rent it.”

She smiled seductively at him, then went for a blank yellow page and a pencil. With the wall for a desk, she drew a map while she told him of a crossing ahead. Ride west and go up the Baldy Road to a trail marked with a red rag. Then ride around the mountain to a place sheltered by foliage and with a good spring.

He noted while she was drawing how the blanket fell open and exposed her nakedness.

“How do you keep others away?” he asked.

“It has many signs that the devil resides in there.”

He laughed. “I bet that does keep them away. It may keep my men away.”

She wrinkled her nose at such a thing. Then she shrugged her shoulders and the blanket collapsed at her feet. Her arms went around his neck. “Now I want my rent.”

“Darling, I need to find my men.” He hugged and kissed her, with her tight boobs pressed hard against him. “Can you have a fiesta down there tonight?”

“How many?”

“Five of us.”

“I can't find that many great
putas
, but I will find some sweet ones, and bring a feast of food and wine. That be all right?”

“How much?”

“Thirty pesos.”

He dug out the money and paid her. She smiled at him with a threatening frown. “We can finish this tonight,” he said.

“You better remember too.”

“No problem.”

One more hot kiss and he went for his horse. Her words came to his ear as he mounted up: “Don't you forget. Tonight you are mine.”

He nodded, waved, and went to find his crew. They needed a great fiesta night before they struck out for the raid. It would make them more of a unit, knowing each other better after sharing a great evening together. Costa knew how to entertain them—they'd all be pleased.

•   •   •

He found Ken on the road an hour later and told him to get the Kid and how to find the hideout.

“Don't worry about all the things to spook you away. Just meet us there.”

“I'll get the Kid. We will head up there right now.”

“Good. I have two more to find and I will be along.” He looked around to be certain they were alone. “We're planning a real fiesta for tonight.”

“I won't tell him and he can be surprised.” Ken laughed. And then he spurred his horse away. A half hour later Gordon and Charlie Horse found Slocum.

“I have us a hideaway, follow me,” Slocum said after they shook hands.

They rode swiftly for the trail marked by a tree trunk wearing a dress, with the model of a woman cut into it, with boobs and a skeleton face. It was gruesome enough to turn back any superstitious person.

They chuckled about real skulls hanging down from trees, so close to a man's face riding by on a horse. Grave markers all along the way and black-cloaked dummies swaying in the gentle wind.

“It sure ain't a place most folks would come by.” Gordon's loud laughter echoed through the forest of pines.

They soon saw the horses of the other two men and the high-peaked thatched roof of the shelter. Obviously Costa had not yet made it, but it was mid-afternoon and she had lots to gather.

The Kid stood rolling a cigarette, with his butt to the hitch rail. “Spookiest place I ever been. When do the gawdamn witches arrive?”

“Safest place you have ever been,” Slocum said as he dismounted. “Anyone started the beans cooking?”

The Kid shook his head, licked the paper, rolled it up, then with a kitchen match lighted it, and went to puffing. “Hell, any old cantina would have been better than this godforsaken place.”

“Kid, build a fire,” Ken said, sober-faced. “If we're going to eat tonight, we better get to boiling beans.”

The rest didn't know better, and he had no more than got them started cooking than Costa and two beautiful girls rode in on burros with a loaded pack string behind them.

“Hi, hombres. This Rita she has the biggest tits, no?” Costa asked them.

Rita bowed, and then she threw her long hair back and shook her boobs. The men applauded.

“Next is dear Maria. She is hotter than firecracker, no?” Maria made her presentation to them—a shorter, slimmer girl but nonetheless sexy.

“I am Costa and also very hot, huh?” She wiggled her butt and bust at them.

They applauded.

Slocum pointed and named his men to the women.

Then Costa told them, “We are here to have a grand time, but you must wait until I have the food cooked before you get serious with one of us. Savvy?”

“Yes.”

“Good. So don't distract them too much from cooking and making tortillas. You can dance and do what you like to do after the meal is prepared and eaten.”

The men all agreed. They helped the women unload their donkeys, build bigger fires, and set things out. With his arms filled, the Kid came over and laughed. “I thought this was going to be a fart party for us tonight. You did good, Slocum. Real good.”

Costa was cooking a pile of steak strips, sweet peppers, and sliced onion on a grill over the fire. The aroma of her cooking was wonderful and drew the saliva in Slocum's mouth. He went by her where she was bent over and stirring them. Familiarly, he rubbed his hand over her butt. “You did great, girl. This will be a good party for them.”

“I do know how to do this.” She winked at him.

“You are the best. Have enough money for them too?”

“They can tip the girls, but they are paid.”

“I will pass the word.”

“That would be nice.”

“No problem.”

The men were drinking red wine and toasting each other. The good spirits put everyone in a party mood. The wine only fired them up more to have fun and also relaxed them from the serious mission they faced in the next days. Things were unfolding as places were set and men were told if they had plates to go get them—Costa was ready to feed them.

Chinese candles lighted the shelter and the girls were kissy faced with the men as they served from the platters piled high with food and the stack of flour tortillas the two girls had patted out and cooked on a metal sheet.

Everyone pitched in raising a cup of wine to toast the women for their hard work. It was great seeing the enthusiasm they showed filling the plates and passing them on.

Slocum's first bite of the rolled-up tortilla full of meat, peppers, and onions was so good he thought he'd savor it forever. He could not recall eating such good rich food in a long time. He'd almost stay with Costa on a full-time basis just to eat her food.

Then Maria began to play her guitar, and the other two got men up to dance. They finished and others danced with them, while the first went back to eat and drink more wine. Soon Rita went back to a hammock in the dark shadows to entertain the Kid. It was not long before they returned, him to eat and drink more and her to take Ken with her. The night went on, until Costa took Slocum back there.

“Now it is your turn, big hombre,” she whispered in his ear.

They climbed in the hammock for a brief encounter, and then she rose to dress.

“A job well done,” she whispered in his ear. Then she smothered him with hot kisses and drove her boobs into his bare chest. What a wild fantastic woman.

The music, soft and fast, kept the party going as they switched musicians. Slocum talked with Gordon about his plans for the raid.

“They have an armory just inside the casa. I want to blow it up. Just as soon as that happens, then you and Ken each need to throw a blasting-powder stick grenade, lighted, into his barracks. I hope the explosion at the casa takes care of Gomez and anyone in there. The Kid can watch for anyone escaping the casa. Post him on that rise east of it. You and Ken do the same at the barracks. No one has to live. It should be over in thirty minutes if all goes well.”

Gordon nodded. “If we can get there and no one sounds an alarm, it will work.”

“You had one of the women?”

“They are tempting as hell, but you know I love that woman at home. She and I don't have any kids, but it damn sure isn't because we ain't tried. She divorced her husband because he wanted more wives. She faced being shunned by her own people over her choice. I was shot up bad when I fell off my horse near her house. She took me in, nursed me back to health, and I told her I was Catholic but I wanted to marry her. She said she was Mormon, but she'd marry me by a justice of the peace only if I simply didn't want more than one wife.”

Slocum chuckled. “I knew you had a strong a marriage.”

Gordon shook his head as if in dismay. “I never had a woman sweeter to me. She never says no. We can be sweaty working hard together and I can meet her gaze and smile. She'll say ‘Now?' And she'll do any wild thing I want to do and laugh about it afterward. Is that a good woman?”

“I knew you were settled, but no man I know still has a honeymoon after ten years.”

“Seven glorious years going on eight.” Gordon nodded. “I thank heaven every day.”

Slocum could see his willowy woman standing with her huge man. They were at ease with each other. He'd had only a vague idea of how they met, but him being shot up and her caring for him was a good story, of two grown-ups thrown together and making a compact to please each other in a marriage.

“I'm ready to turn in,” Slocum said. “We will split up to gather again down there tomorrow evening and then strike in the early morning. This man has a bad reputation both here and in raids across the border. He is a bully and a cruel one, I understand. The Federales have not touched him. Dan has many friends on both sides of the border that have been hurt by him, plus he stole some of his cattle. He wanted him put down, but the Apaches are still on the warpath, so he couldn't come with them threatening his ranch.”

“I see. I didn't know what you planned exactly, but I knew I must ride with you. Twice before we solved some bad deal like this Gomez. I would have rode with you anywhere.”

“I appreciate that and I count on your steady ways to continue.”

“Sure. Good night.”

“Yes.” He shook Gordon's hand.

•   •   •

There were many questions about tomorrow when he left his partners to finish the wine. He planned to leave the packhorses. In the next twenty-four hours they must move fast to join up outside the Gomez property, then swoop in on them at night and before daybreak blow them away.

He gave each man a different route to get there and exactly where they would meet in late afternoon. They all agreed. The meeting spot he'd chosen was well removed, so they should not be in the sight of anyone.

They split up and headed south one at time. Slocum was last to leave. Passing all the signs of the devil going out, he hoped he had the other side with him. They damn sure had raised hell back there.

Slocum crossed a small range of desert mountains on a trail that had been shown to him by a Yaqui Indian on a trip he made to leave Mexico unseen, after a collision with some crooked authorities. He later returned and had them all ousted and sent to prison.

His partners were taking different routes to meet at Lanya Montoya's ranch, which was near Gomez's hacienda. She would say, “You are meeting who here? . . . Oh, yes, I know him. Is he coming? . . . Good. Make yourself at home here.”

The fiery redhead would give him hell when he got there.

The way he went was longer, but few could have known the way he used, out of necessity. He watered his horse at some public wells in small towns. They had all been made up as fortresses, to hold out the Apache raiders that once roamed all northern Mexico. Slocum drew some attention, but he just smiled and rode on.

He arrived at Lanya's ranch, and she burst out of her jacal to demand who he thought he was sending all these horny men to see her.

“You ain't on your back now.” He laughed hard at her complaining, then kissed and hugged her. “How many are here?”

“A damn army of them. Did you say I'd do them all?”

“Whatever they said.” He put his arm over her shoulder and herded her toward the men.

“Did you all meet this lovely lady Lanya?”

“Yes, sir,” Ken said

“Good. If she has enough food, she will feed us.”

“If I am going to feed you, then I need some goats killed for supper.”

Ken rose. “Point them out. They will be skinned and dressed in ten minutes.”

She smiled. “You from Texas?”

“Yes, ma'am. And I have butchered a thousand goats growing up.”

“Excuse me.” She disengaged from Slocum and went to show him her choices and the ropes to hang them from, and then told the Kid to get some buckets of water from her well. He and Gordon went to get them. Charlie helped Ken, grabbing the goats by one hind leg and dragging the bleating ones to slaughter.

Lanya ran to get them her knives. Slocum held a bleating goat by the leg while Charlie went for the last one.

Ken stunned the first one with a hammer, knocking him unconscious. Charlie handed his to Slocum to hold and then helped him hang it by putting the goat's back legs in the loops. Ken cut that goats' throats to bleed them out. Then with a very sharp pocketknife he began to take the hides off, making his cuts from underneath.

The Kid blinked at his method. “Why you doing that?”

“So I don't get cut hair all over him. My dad said to do that, and we'd get a kick in the butt if we laid an unwashed hand on the meat too. You don't want that flavor on the meat.”

“You do that on a deer too?” the Kid asked.

“Hell yeah.”

“I bet that works.”

Ken agreed. “It damn sure does.”

“I'll watch and do it that way from now on.”

The Kid and Charlie doused the goats down with buckets of water while the others washed up.

“You need them cut up?” Ken asked Lanya.

“I could use some help. You guys are damn good. Bring them to the kitchen meanwhile. I can fry the livers with onions and serve them for your snacks.”

“We're coming,” Slocum said with one carcass on his shoulder.

The goats were finally cooked, and served along with red wine, tortillas, and beans; they ate well. Then they slept a few hours and saddled up under the stars. Everyone rechecked his weapons and the bombs made to blow things up at Gomez's place. Each “bomb” consisted three sticks of blasting powder tied securely together, with a long fuse that could be shortened if necessary.

“That fuse takes four minutes to burn down. You can figure the rest,” Slocum told Ken and Gordon, who would handle the barracks. He and Charlie would deliver the armory explosion. He kissed Lanya good-bye, paid her forty dollars, which made her smile, and they rode eastward for the hacienda.

They arrived at four
A.M.
Charlie was beside Slocum as they made their way carefully to the house. The other three rode wide of it. The main guard was at the gate—the position once held by the horny one Roma had screwed for him while he inspected the house. Would they have more than one guard now that they knew they'd been breached for some reason?

On his belly, Slocum could only see one guard pacing around the gate in the darkness. When the guard walked north, Charlie knelt down on one knee and drew back his bow with the long arrow in place. When the guard turned back, the arrow took swift flight and struck him squarely in the chest. He managed only a grunt and fell facedown on the ground, unable to warn anyone.

The two ran past the guard's quivering boots as he went through the last trauma before death. Slocum slid the gate open slowly with hardly a sound. Across the courtyard they ran to the front door, and to Slocum's relief, it opened. Then they were in the chamber with the armory on the right. He opened the door, and from a high window starlight shone in on all the guns, rockets, and other equipment for war.

He lighted a match and so did Charlie. Fuses lit and sparkling, they tossed their bombs high on the stacks. Then they hurried out, and were a hundred yards away when the gigantic explosion blew the high tile roof off that portion of the house and more ammo went off too. Two minutes later,
bam, bam
, two more explosions followed.

“Good,” Slocum said to Charlie. “That's the barracks.”

The raging fire consuming the casa shed light for a quarter mile around the place. Slocum drew up beside the Kid on the ridge.

“See anyone escape?”

“Hell no, and they won't, or I'll kill them. You see that roof explode? Whew! That was bigger than Fourth of July fireworks.”

“Keep watching,” Slocum told him, then rode on to find Gordon and Ken.

The barracks were in a raging fire as well. Dying men trapped inside were screaming, but none emerged from the orange glow of raging fire. Soon only the roar and crackle of the fire could be heard.

Gordon rode over with Slocum. “What if he wasn't inside there?”

“We must wait and see. We should know today.”

“Where will we find food today?”

“There is a small village nearby, where Roma is, the woman who lost her eye helping me. I can check on her while we are there.”

“How much longer should we watch for them escaping?”

“Another hour. I sure hope we've got him. He won't do much plundering and raiding anyhow if he did survive.”

Gordon shook his head.

•   •   •

They left the still-burning hacienda and rode to the village. A few street vendors made the men food and then they split up. Slocum had gone to the doctor's house, and there he found a happy Roma, with a patch over her absent eye, rocking on the porch.

“Word is that bastard is gone,” she said, standing up and walking down using the handrail. “I am still dizzy. They say it will improve. Will you hold me?”

“Sure. I am glad you are recovering.” He held her to his chest.

“Señor Wade wants me to move into his casa. Should I go?”

“Only you can answer that. You know I am not a post that will be here for you.”

“I know, but I enjoyed my freedom. If I go there, I will have to fit his mold.”

“He has luxury you can't find in this land.”

“I know, but I don't value that as much as I do having my freedom to choose who I want and what I want to do. Like when I met you—I could have been stuck there, living there. I had fun riding with you until the end, and you could not have stopped that.”

“But today unfortunately you are weaker and more vulnerable.”

“I know. Did you end that bastard?”

“I think so. At least he has no guns and ammo.”

“Where will you go?”

He gave her a head toss north.

“God be with you, big man. Walk me up the steps. I feel a little dizzy.”

He swept her up in his arms and carried her back up. “You want back inside or in the rocker?”

“Rocker.”

He put her down on her feet and she sat down.

“Thanks. They treat me nice here. He looks out for me. I will be fine even one-eyed.”

He left her and rejoined his men. “Any word if he was away from the hacienda?”

They all shook their heads.

“How much time should we give it?” Ken asked.

“We can go through the ashes looking for bodies when things cool down.”

“We need to go back there now?” Ken asked

“Yes. Scavengers will be there, with the buzzards.”

“Should we buy some food to cook?” he asked.

“I guess. Our packhorses are a ways away. Get some firewood peddlers and some of these street vendors to go up there. You see they get food to take along. I will pay them well for the move. I must go see a man, and then I will join you at the hacienda.”

•   •   •

The men agreed and set out to get it done. Slocum rode up the hill to Martin Wade's casa to have a talk with him. The very idea that Gomez might not have been in the house ate at him. There needed to be a positive sign he was no longer alive.

Wade met him at the gate when the guard had let him in and a groom had taken his horse. “Well, I hear the country has been relieved of a problem.”

“I hope so. No one is certain he was in the fire.”

“Come in. You had lunch?”

“No. I didn't take time. I knew you had contacts. Keep me informed if you learn anything. I will be out there at the hacienda to check if we can find any remains.”

“I will have some lunch readied for you. Did you see my good friend today?”

“Yes, she is still very weak. Dizzy she said.”

“Oh, she is stronger than she was. But not well yet, I agree. I hope she makes up her mind to come here when she is stronger.”

Slocum dropped in a chair he showed him. “She has to make up her mind, and it isn't straight thinking yet.”

Wade agreed.

His housekeeper brought Slocum some sopapillas and coffee. “The food is being fixed,” she said.

He thanked her and turned back to Wade. “We couldn't be exposed checking on Gomez's location before we made the raid, and we had no information.”

“Where could he be?”

“If he got word we were coming, he might have not taken a chance, since our spy operation had been discovered. I simply don't know, but it bothers the hell out of me. Time will tell, I guess.”

His food arrived, served on a tray the woman set before him.

“Can I get you fresh soapapillas?” she asked him.

“No, I'm fine. Thank you.”

She brought more out regardless of his protesting.

Wade laughed. “She's hard of hearing,” he said and then he snickered. “And fussy.”

After his meal, Slocum rode back to the hacienda and joined his men.

“The Kid's gone back for the packhorses,” Ken said. “The ashes are still too hot to search the house. I don't know—it all collapsed in so much, so what's left of him might be just that—ashes.”

“That's fine.”

“I talked to some peons who worked around here for him, and they think he was in the casa last night,” Gordon said.

“Good. We'll find out.”

“What else can we do?”

“Nothing but wait and see.”

“Several widows of the men killed in the blast are here crying. They don't know if he was in bed in there or not.”

Slocum agreed with the big man. Wait and see if maybe someone would come forward and tell them either way. Late evening the Kid came back with the packhorses. Everyone went to help him unload the animals.

“You learn anything?” Slocum asked.

“Maybe, I don't know. I bought supper from an old
bruja
in a village near the hideout. She said Gomez had a woman in San Pedro he slept with often.”

“You get her name?”

The Kid shook his head. “No, she wouldn't tell me.”

“What was that?” Gordon asked, and Ken also joined them

“The Kid says an old woman told him Gomez had a woman in San Pedro he slept with often.”

“Was he with her last night?” Ken asked.

Slocum shook his head. “She wouldn't say. Only that he slept there often.”

The Kid agreed, taking off his own saddle. “I couldn't even buy her name.”

“A couple of us need to ride down there. If he's using a
puta
down there or a woman who lives there, a few pesos should buy that information off of
someone
.” Slocum was convinced that would settle the deal. Who should go?

“Ken, you and the Kid go see what you can find out. Some bartender or storekeeper will tell you all about his affair for a few pesos. We are only needing to know if he was here or there.”

The Kid swung his saddle back on his horse. “That old
bruja
won't tell us, but I bet someone will, like you say. Money makes 'em talk.”

“Be careful. If he's still alive he may have a henchman with him, and he could be like a sidewinder, aroused enough to strike, and hard.”

Ken agreed. “We'll see, and we'll watch our backs.”

“Meanwhile we'll check around here. We need him removed from his place of power.” Slocum gave them money to bribe with and to eat on. They soon rode out, and he shook his head. Why was it so damn hard to find out if the outlaw had perished in the fire or was still alive?

If he was alive, Gomez was not going to show his face until he had enough force to fight them. And the Federales might get interested in the destruction of the hacienda and come see who did it. They needed to be ready to ride off if they were threatened in either case. His handful of men with stealth had wiped out Gomez's base of power, but they were too small for a full-scale, out-and-out war.

“You need some sleep,” Gordon said to Slocum. “Charlie is surveying things around the area, looking out for any force or group that might be sent here.”