Slocum and the Long Ride (3 page)

They thanked Margareta as well and went back to Sandy's room. Without lights on they kissed, standing past the locked doorway. She swiftly unbuttoned his shirt between them as their mouths sought each other. Then her hands massaged his hairy chest and the muscular cords of his belly.

Button by button he started to undo the back of her dress. She finally stopped him. “I can take it off now over my head. Lift it up. I'll help you.”

“Good. I'd've been all night undoing them back there.”

They laughed when the dress came off and she gently laid it aside. Then, in the moonlight straining in the room's windows, she shed the slip. He saw her pear-shaped beasts and the slight rise of her belly that dove off between her legs into the patch of pubic hair. Busy kissing her standing up, with his finger he gently began feeling her clit. She moved her feet apart so he could edge the finger inside her vagina. Then she clutched him.

“Too fast?” he asked

“No, just right.”

He swept her up and laid her on the bed. Then he undressed and joined her side by side on the sheet. Her hand on his side, she eased it downward and soon clutched his growing manhood. For a second at the squeeze of her fingers, her eyes flew open over her discovery.

With her breasts pressed to him, she sighed, “All I have ever had was my own experience as a wife. But yours is so much larger than his ever was. Oh, this will be wonderful.” She shook her head fiercely then pressed her hips against him.

He rolled her over onto her back, and testing her with his two fingers, he decided she was lubricated enough. Next he climbed over between her legs and with his hand slowly inserted his great sword, which he followed with a few short strokes. Her legs wrapped and locked around his calves, he began pumping her with his stone-hard dick.

Her mouth open, she moaned, and her heat began to rise as his piston felt the muscles inside her and grew harder and larger. Catching her breath in gulps, she returned her action to his shaft. And they went further and further, until she half fainted.

Groggy sounding, she said. “I'm on fire. I'm so hot I'm on fire.” Her breath came in gasps. He reached under her, gripped both cheeks of her butt, and then strained hard. His cum split wide open the head of his dick with its force. She sucked in her breath and seemed to faint away.

He never moved off of her. Braced above her on his hands and arms, he bent down and kissed her. Her opened eyes looked groggy, but pleased as well.

“Do it again?” she asked dreamily.

“Sure.”

She hugged him tight. “Wonderful. I can see that you are heavenly good at this game.”

He smiled at her. “Darling, you are wonderful too.”

“Good. I've blamed and blamed my ineptness for him going to that other woman.”

He kissed her on the mouth. “Not your fault. Darling, you are made for this too.”

She hugged him and pressed her hard nipples into him. Their mouths soon began to feed off each other. His erection stiffened, and he went back to stroking her with the rigid stem, feeling her clit scratching the top of him going in and out. The nose of his tool was swollen skintight again, and the muscles inside her squeezed him, sending currents of pleasure to his brain. His breath grew harder and harder to catch. His hips ached, and the entire muscle structure that drove him in and out of her felt so bound up it might burst. Then he felt relief coming up the tubes. The action cramped the muscles in his ass, like two hot needles stuck in his butt. The explosion flew out the head of his dick and filled her cavity with cum.

She cried out and fainted in a heap. He smothered her with kisses, and, recovering, she hugged him real tight. “This was so, so good.”

He got up to find a towel to take up any fluids leaking from her.

She put the towel under her and drew him back down. “A little messy, but I can't tell you how l fretted over my body and my use of it being less than good enough for a real man.”

He swept back the hair from her face and kissed her hard again. They lay on the bed and savored each other's nakedness. He tasted her nipples and toyed with them. She hugged his face to her when he got too serious.

“Here we are in the middle of nowhere,” she said, “surrounded by bloodthirsty Apaches and having a honeymoon in another man's bed.”

“Tonight it is your bed.”

“I am so enthralled with you and your body. Also what it does to me. I want it to continue—”

“Let's simply enjoy the time we have together. I can't make any promises to you that it will last forever. But right now we have each other. Let's sip it like good wine and hope it lasts for the time we can be together.”

“I will. But I could do it again and again—with you.”

He moved in and kissed her. In no time they were back to being ready. She rose and soon straddled his erection in the starlit room. Easing herself down, she began the rise-and-drop on his stiff rod that made the bed ropes sing.

Heavens, he enjoyed her ways, and she took away the gravity of his existence, of being, as she said,
a drifter
.

•   •   •

In the morning , they went to breakfast with Margareta. A cheerful woman, she talked about things like the green-headed parrot she was teaching to talk. His name was Pablo. Slocum knew about the large flocks from Mexico that sought pinecones in the fall and flew clear to the Mogollon Rim some years to find them. They were also as common as pine trees in the desert high mountain islands like the Chiricahuas and Mount Graham. Many Apaches kept the parrots as pets.

“He learns words fast,” Margareta said to them.

“Maybe when things return to normal, I can have one in my classroom. The children love animals, and a talking bird might be a good subject to discuss with them.”

“Oh, he is such a baby.”

“Where is Oran this morning?” Slocum asked.

“Oh, he and four guards rode to the border. He had some business down there.”

“Do the men expect an attack from the Apaches?” he asked her. Her boss had told them he expected an attack that morning. Something must have changed his mind.

“No, the Apaches don't want to die fighting these cowboys who work for Señor Oglethorpe. They are different people than the Chiricahuas and the Jimenez from Mexico. Those savages were the ones that kept the big ranchers off their ranches for years up here in Sonora,” Margareta said.

Slocum nodded, and thanked Margareta for breakfast. She said lunch would be at noon, and if they needed anything, to call on her. The two of them went back to their rooms.

•   •   •

At lunch Oran's foreman came into the main house and ate with them. “I have three men out scouting for signs of the Apaches this morning. I feel certain a company of buffalo soldiers will swing by here today or tomorrow. If you wish to leave, you can go to the fort with them.”

“It is whatever Mrs. Brown desires to do,” Slocum said.

She realized he expected an answer from her. “I doubt they will start school as long as this renegade problem is at hand. Do you wish to go see the man who asked for your help?”

“We can go see him if the Apaches have moved north.”

“I should know where they are at by late afternoon,” the foreman said.

“We can go after sundown and they won't bother us,” Slocum suggested, and Sandy nodded that would be fine.

“I'll have those ponies you rode in shod, so you two will have a better outfit.”

“I can do that,” Slocum said.

“No, you're his guest. I have plenty of men standing around today.”

“Thank you,” Slocum said. “I'll return the favor someday.”

“No worries about that. I know you'd have fought beside us if they had charged us.”

“Very good. Margareta, we won't be here for supper tonight. I'll borrow a packhorse and a few items for us to travel with. After sundown we'll be on our way.”

“I'll have that ready too,” the tall Texan drawled. He nodded to Sandy, then Margareta when he excused himself.

When the two of them came out of the house, Slocum said to Sandy, “We should reach the Applegate Mine by tomorrow morning. We'll rest there tomorrow and then ride to the ranch headquarters the next night.”

“Sounds good to me, since you said the Indians don't fight at night.” She hugged him and bounced her hip off him. “You have me so charmed, I am not sure who I am. Or
where
I am even.”

“Good.” He kissed her temple and opened the door. “We better nap.”

“Before or after the next chapter?”

•   •   •

That evening after the sunset and the first coyote howl, and after they had thanked Margareta, Oran still wasn't back yet. They quietly rode out the ranch gate and headed southwest, leading a packhorse behind. The outline of the towering Huachuca Mountains stood against the southern sky. They pushed westward until they hit the military trace. The stars were brilliant and the way easy, so by what Slocum considered to be near four
A.M.,
they approached the Applegate Mine in the hills.

“Is that smell from a fire?” Sandy asked.

“I don't know.”

From the top of the next rise, the smoke and smell were obvious. The entire setup had been burned to the ground, making squares of the foundation framing amid the glowing red ashes, the fire still licking the air above them.

“Were they attacked?” Sandy whispered.

Slocum nodded under the starlight, perplexed by the glowing remains of the mine operation buildings. His fist filled with his Colt revolver, and he told her to stay back with the packhorse. He hurried the gray to the base and saw several bodies facedown in the open.

“Anyone here?” he asked out loud. The smoke from the blaze was burning his nose and eyes as he wheeled his mare around. No answer. He hated to leave anyone there wounded, but he also was responsible for Sandy's safety. They'd better head for Patagonia. The village on Sonoita Creek was the closest settlement to the mine.

“What do you think happened?” she asked when he joined her.

“Apaches I guess. I've got no answer. Must have happened late yesterday. There is a small town close by. We better head there.”

She nodded, and they rode off the mountain and went on west when they reached the wagon road. Slocum was on a tense alert leading the way. Dawn would soon be up and would free any Apaches of the gravity they felt about attacking in the dark. He scanned the junipers and brush on the hillsides and encouraged Sandy to push her horse faster. They dropped down into the draw that led to the village, and he decided then they might make it unscathed.

But at once two braves on horses charged them, coming out of hiding from a nearby dry wash. The air filled with war cries. Slocum saw them coming, and Sandy screamed. The Colt rocked in his hand with a resulting thunder and a veil of gun smoke in his eyes. The shot took the one on the right off his horse. The second one's rifle must have jammed or misfired, and he'd dropped it.

Then the Apache drew a long knife from his belt and ran his mount hell-bent into Slocum's mare.

The collision threw the mare and Slocum into the sand. Somewhere in the impact, he lost his Colt. The mare's frantic effort to get herself up gave Slocum enough time to look for it. But there was no pistol in sight.

The Apache veered from his course to get at Slocum. With enraged, violent screams, he charged across the last short space to drive his knife into his enemy's heart. The day had come. Slocum had nothing but his bare hands, and he prepared for the last fight of his life.

The sharpened edge of the knife glinted off the high sun. Sharp enough to cut notepaper. The murderous brown eyes above him were intent on killing this white male.

An ear-shattering rifle shot rang out, and to Slocum's shock the shots kept coming. The knife-wielding Apache withered to the ground, struck several times by the smoking Winchester, the butt of which Sandy held against her hip. Even though it was empty, she kept levering the gun open and shut, and then the click of the firing pin was audible too.

He took the rifle by the barrel and removed it from her hands. She collapsed against his chest. The weapon slipped from his grip, and he hugged her, for she looked close to fainting.

“Oh my God, Slocum, I thought he would kill you.”

“He would have, but you stopped him. You saved my life, girl.”

“I had to do something. I'd shot a .22 like that gun. I had to run down the mare and get it out of your scabbard and struggle to get back with it. Oh, I am shaking all over. I never saw anyone that intent on anything like he was intent on killing you.”

“He might have. You did the only thing that you could do. Stopped him. Are you all right?”

“I never killed anything before. Not even a chicken. My mother did that. But I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw is beginning to ache. I think I am fine now.”

“I'll catch the horses,” he said, sweeping up his Colt and holstering it. He'd also need to clean it. There would be lots of sand in its works.

She glanced back. “Should we bury them?”

“No. Let's ride on.” He brushed the sand off the rifle. It would be okay, but when he caught the horses he'd have to reload it. Then clean it too later, because the bullets were corrosive.

The rifle jammed back in its scabbard, he spoke softly to the goosey mare. She stopped.

He gave the reins to her and then walked through the deep sand to catch Sandy's bay. Close calls—he'd had lots of them in his life, but that one—at the time even he thought he might make it to the big pasture afterward.

With her boosted in the saddle, he clapped her leg. “Let's get to Patagonia, girl.”

She nodded. “I'm ready, Slocum, but I'm still shaking inside.”

“Me too.”

They rode off.

•   •   •

The many scattered wagons along the roads and streets told him that lots of refuges were already there. Slocum reined up under the mesquite trees in front of the one-sided business district crowded with wagons full of people's belongings. Obviously many ranch people had come in to seek safety. Children ran about. Strange dogs bristled at other newcomers.