“I've been with several men in my life. You are the calmest one to be around. I've been with the I-don't-care kind, others who ignored me unless they wanted to rut, a few slave drivers who needed everything done for themâright now. But youâyou make a note that I'm here and don't demand much. That's relaxing to me.”
Slocum smiled and recrossed his boots out in front of him. “You don't talk all the time either. I like that.”
Then he heard something and hissed at her, “Get out of the firelight. Now!”
She rolled to the side and scrambled to get behind the log. His hands closed on the rifle stock and he levered in a cartridge.
“What is it?” she whispered from the dark.
“I'm not certain. But I heard something. Lay low.” He handed her his Colt. “Be ready for anything.”
His ears strained to hear over the crickets. Who was out there? Stars had begun to sparkle. No moon yet.
Who was out there?
5
On guard all night, Slocum woke Wilma before dawn.
“Sorry, I had to sleep some,” she whispered. “Have you seen them?”
“A little sleep won't hurt us.” He squatted down on his heels. “I suspect those three Injuns are out there. I brought the horses in closer.”
“What are they waiting on?” She got up on her knees and swung the blanket over her shoulders for warmth from the chill in the air.
“Nerve. They're getting it up to take us on or they'll ride off. They're really all concerned about their medicine. Superstitious as hell. An owl can call and they say, âBad time to attack them.'”
“I sure hope this is a bad time. I've been up here for several years and never had any of them give me a minute's trouble.”
“So have I. But hell only knows what goes on in their brains. Their way of life has been totally changed from what they were used to, when they were able to follow the buffalo and fight their enemies for land usage. Braves were hunters and warriors, not farmers like the government proposes.”
“There are no more buffalo to amount to anything. Or any other game like it was before.”
“That's it. They are disposed of and spit upon. Breeds even more 'cause they are the spawn of their own traitorous tribal women lying with the white man. They are neither white nor red and have less of a place in this closing world.”
“What the hell do we do about them?”
“I hope they ride on.”
“If they don't?”
He shook his head ruefully. “I won't bury them.”
With a nod, she asked, “Is there coffee?” She indicated the pot on the edge of the fire.
“Not much coffee left. It'll be daylight soon, and we'll see what they plan to do.”
“Whatever. I ever tell you that you're my favorite guy?” She gave him a big smile in the dim light.
“Don't brag on me. I'll disappoint you.”
She looked at the lightening sky and shook her head. “No, you won'tâ”
From the corner of his eye, he saw the flash of a paint horseâmoving away. “I see them. They're headed west.”
She rose, hugging the blanket to her. “Where are they going now?”
“I have no damn idea.” He removed his hat and scratched his scalp. Single file, the bucks disappeared between the lodgepole pines. “I guess their medicine was bad.”
“Sonsabitches,” she swore. “They simply went away?”
“I'm not complaining. Let's load up and go back to your place.”
“I agree. Damn them to hell anyway.”
One more incidentâhe was glad he didn't have to kill them. Not that he felt they were special or anything. They were simply lost people, like himself, looking for something. They all shared a lonesome world. At least he had a buxom woman who tried her damnedest to please him, while those three had nothing but their hands to jack off with. He kissed Wilma for being there, and she went around blinking her eyes like she was in shock over his actions.
The two of them saddled and loaded up. In ten minutes they were headed for her place. No sign of the three bucks, and Slocum hoped they were gone forever. But doubt about them, and the two men Slocum was hunting, rode on his mind as they headed southward
. Where in the hell were Jennifer's killers?
6
Clouds floated overhead all day, harbingers of some storm headed for the Bighorns. The thought of a severe disturbance made Slocum's belly crawl. When they reached her place, it was near dark. But slung over his lap they had a fat doe he'd shot an hour before. They'd need the meat, and Wilma also spoke about riding in to a settlement for coffee beans if he had some spare money.
He laughed and agreed he had enough money to buy coffee and a few other luxury items.
“Take me a day to get down there and another to get back,” she said. “I'd ride your good horse and be faster, but someone might notice him.”
“Hey, I'll be fine. Nothing's going to eat me.”
She made a soft smile. “You can't tell.”
“If it's not storming, why don't you go tomorrow?”
“Fine.”
They strung the deer up and began to skin it. Taking care, because he didn't like his venison tasting like hair, he used a sharp knife, then slipped his blade under the hide and made his cuts from the inside. She nodded in approval at his style. “That will sure make for less hair on the meat. Never saw it done that way. Who showed you that?”
“A Cheyenne woman.”
“You've had some good teachers,” she teased.
“Oh, yes, some good ones.”
The deer's body was finally free of hide and he gutted it, saving the heart, liver, and kidneys. When they were laid out, he took the carcass up to wash it below Wilma's spring.
“We can hang it under a wet canvas and keep it cool enough not to spoil,” she said, walking along beside him carrying the rifleâjust in case.
There was plenty of liver to fry, so they used her meat keeper to store the doe on a hook overhead. The log building, she told him, had repelled bears in the past, and he agreed it was well constructed. Door closed and latched, they went to the cabin.
After supper, they kissed and played on her bed. He was getting used to her thicker body and enjoying her more. At last they undressed like starving people at their first meal and tested the bed ropes under the mattress to find some relief from their cravings.
Sprawled on her back in the flickering light of the candle afterward, Wilma gave a sigh. “I waited twenty years for this to happen to me. I'd hitch up with some guy and think, âThis is going to be like heaven.' But until you came, I had always misjudged it.”
“What was wrong with 'em?”
She shrugged. “There were some who thought they were pigs and made it go quick. Others who mauled me like I was some sow. Some couldn't get it up and some couldn't get it down. I've been in the hands of losers too long.”
He got up on his knees, and hoisted his half-stiff dick up into his right hand. “Ready for more, princess?”
“God, yes.”
Â
The next morning she was ready to ride for the nearest store with ten dollars from his cache.
“I'm going to shock the shit out of that old man,” she said. “You tell me how a stranded woman like me could ever have earned ten dollars.”
“Let him think you boarded some outlaws who passed on through coming from a robbery. He don't need to know more.”
Seated on her horse, she slit her eyes against the bright sun. With a smile, she nodded. “That's all he needs to know. Rest up while I'm gone. I'll be needing you badly by the time I get back.”
He laughed and waved her off. With the leather string holding her hat on in the gusty south wind, she rode east and down the slope. Wilma was all right.
With her gone, Slocum sawed off wood blocks all morning and busted them up in the afternoon. The sharp one-man saw dug deep in the dead pinewood. Later, the double-bitted axe swung high over his head and sliced the wood into clean-looking pie-shaped pieces. It was good work for his tender shoulder and should build him back up. Stacking all the firewood under the roof of the firewood shelter, he had soon had enough of the labor and walked up on the hill above her place to look around.
She'd soon have enough wood, but it was always possible it could be a bad winter and the snow could stay on long. A person had to be sure the wood would last; cutting and busting wood in a blizzard was no fun.
From the high spot where he stopped, he could see the tall, threatening thunderheads coming fast in his direction. The big storms he dreaded were rolling in like a super freight train over the mountains. Could be hail in them, being that high, and maybe even snow. He'd seen snow in mid-August in this land. Never lasted long, but it could even cover the ground.
He unhobbled Red and put him in the corral for the night as a precaution, then went to fry himself some venison for supper along with some new potatoes from Wilma's garden. They had had some onions the night before to go with the liver. When she got back, he thought perhaps they should go on a raid over to Jennifer's watered garden. That food would only go to waste anyway.
The meat was sizzling, and the onions browning with the potatoes smelled sweet. A boom of loud thunder pealed across the sky like a cannon shot, and he ducked as if to avoid being hit by it. Then the hail began to fall on the roof like hard beans rattling in ajar.
Someone started pounding on the door and yelling to be let in.
Slocum went and lifted the latch. There were two wet punchers in Texas batwing chaps holding their hands over their hats to keep from losing them to the bouncing thumbnail-sized hail.
Once inside, they drew off their battered hats and nodded at Slocum like water-soaked rats.
“Pull up a chair. I've got some hot water to make tea. Ain't a drop of coffee in the cabin.” He put the bar of tea on the table along with his jackknife, then went for cups of hot water.
“My name's Densel Smith and this is Hobby Ward.”
“Slocum's mine. Nice to meet ya. But what brings you boys clear up here? Kinda outa the way, ain't it?”
“A mite,” Smith agreed. “We're going back to Texas. Wanted to see some new country.”
“Lucky you two found Wilma's cabin here. There aren't many up in these parts. Wilma will be back tomorrow.”
Smith raised his eyebrows. “You ain't her man?”
“I'm passing through too.”
“What's a woman who lives up here without a man look like?” Ward asked.
“Respectable.”
“Guess that's good enough. We stayed up north a ways with a Mormon woman for a few days, and she mentioned Jennifer as the woman who lived down here.”
“Her place is five miles or so south of here.”
Ward shook his head. “Wow, we'd've been mashed by that damn hail before we got to her place.”
“She's not home.”
“Where did she go?”
“Two men killed her about a month ago.” He went on to explain about her death and about the pair of killers.
“You say you went to their place and they weren't home?”
“That's right. But I'll get them.”
“What in the hell do they look like?” Smith asked.
“They wear rags. They're bums and worthless. One's got a wolf hide he uses for a cape. They ain't had a bath in two springs and got tobacco all over their beards.”
“Yuck. They sound like they'd make me puke,” Ward said.
“They ain't worth a spent cartridge,” Slocum said over the roar of the storm outside. “I've got some fresh venison hanging in the shed. I can slice some more off and cook it if you two want some more. We can share this meanwhile.”
“We didn't come to leech off you folks.”
“Ain't no leeching. A man comes to my door, I'll feed him. So would Wilma. Good woman.”
“What in hell's she doing up here? She got cattle or something?”
“No, she just ended up here is all I know. She'll be back tomorrow night. Went to get some supplies like coffee and things we ran out of.”
“Boy, this would be a tough place to have to winter in,” Ward said with a shake of his head.
His partner agreed. “I'd go crazy up here.”
“Better rattle your hocks for Texas, then. In six weeks there'll be a chance of snow in these parts.”
“Hell, that rain outside is bad enough to spook me. They have tornadoes in these mountains?”
Slocum dished out the food onto three plates. “I reckon they have them all over the West and South.”
“Listen to that hail and wind out there. Makes my hair stand on end.” Smith threw his hands up when the thunder crashed down. “Whew, it's bad out tonight.”
“Just be grateful you aren't out driving cattle in it.”
“I am,” Ward said. “Mighty nice of you, feeding us and all.”
They ate in silence, but the storm's fury never let up. The persistence of the weather made Slocum's belly curdle some as it kept up the onslaught outside. Did Wilma have some shelter wherever she was in this storm? No telling. But she was a survivor, and he hoped she'd found some.
In a while the letup came. The two men went out, unsaddled their horses, and brought their gear inside. Then they put their horses up with Red. Slocum stood under the porch during the process. The rain had slowed down and the thunder moved off in the distance.
“That was one helluva of a rain,” Smith said as all three of them went back inside.
“Still lots of hail on the ground.”