Slocum and the Hellfire Harem (9781101613382) (5 page)

8

Slocum heard the steady pounding sound before he saw where it came from. It rang at times, the unmistakable clang of metal striking metal, as if a blacksmith's shop were just around the bend. Another house? Well, it looked like decent land, so it shouldn't surprise him that it would be settled. After all, the old Bible-thumper had done just that, and judging from his place, Slocum thought he'd been there a good long while. A couple of decades, Orton at the store had told him, not that Slocum cared.

He only wanted to make tracks in hopes of gaining on Mueller. About the only good thing that came out of the episode with the old man and his boys had been learning that it was likely Mueller who'd passed them by. Slocum supposed it should make him feel good that he'd at least had decency enough to stop and help the poor bastards.

He'd left the sunburned father and sons behind him a day before. He hadn't minded clearing out of there once he'd realized the old man was as crazy as a blind rat. Slocum also figured it wouldn't take them long to figure out that he had a decent horse and they had nothing but the old mule. He figured he'd done enough; the rest was up to them. The fact that their women were gone troubled Slocum, but from what he could tell by the old man's attitude, it bothered Slocum more than it did them. They seemed angry, but with the women, not the bandits.

Slocum shook his head, ticked with himself for still thinking about it. “Too odd by half,” he muttered to himself. If the Appaloosa heard him, it didn't show it, but kept up his steady, determined pace.

Soon, he heard shouts from up ahead, random and unhurried, possibly the exuberant yelps of children playing. Kids? Way out here? But he didn't have time to follow up on that line of thought, for he heard the lever action on a rifle ratchet from the ledge to his left, and a low, hard voice shouted, “That's far enough, stranger!” It was a woman's voice.

By the time she'd reached the end of her declaration, Slocum had his Colt Navy drawn and had vaulted from his saddle on the right, keeping the horse between him and whoever it was who'd gotten the drop on him. He scanned the rocky knob, but saw nothing move. A handful of gravel bounced down the talus slope. His horse fidgeted and Slocum gripped his side of the saddle, pulled back on the reins, tried to steady the cantankerous beast. But it didn't work—the horse reared, whinnied, and bolted free from his hands. It continued down the road and disappeared at a gallop around the upcoming bend.

Slocum stood crouched in the lane for all of a half second, then dashed forward, crossing the lane and making for the base of the ledge. No shots followed him, so the shooter might have been bluffing, or she might also have her sights on him right now. He kept his back tight to the rock, and squinted upward. No face peered down at him, no shots pinged off the ledge.

He was about to shout, try to get a response to help him fix on a spot, when he had a better idea. He stepped slowly to his right and worked his way around the base. The small cliff stood sheer just above him for another dozen yards before tailing downward in a crumbled pile of rocky debris. It wasn't much, but it might be enough for him to climb up, maybe surprise whoever it was up there.

He kept on climbing, steady but not too slow. He had a potential killer to catch, after all. He still heard nothing from above, but he also noticed something else he didn't hear. The sound of ringing that had carried to him on the light breeze before. And the sound of the children shouting, too, had ceased. The Appaloosa had been seen, riderless, perhaps even caught. Slocum wasn't impressed with that beast at the moment. He had a sudden urge to shoot the thing in the temple and be done with it. But he knew he was thinking out of anger. The horse had only reacted in surprise, and so had he, for that matter.

He was almost to the top of the ledge knob, careful with each step to make sure he didn't dislodge any loose rock, when a woman appeared before him, backing toward him, not three feet away. Slocum paused, watched her for a moment. She wore a rough-spun shirt of natural color, dark trousers that looked too large about the waist, cinched up with rope, and her near-black hair had been pulled back and pinned atop her head, strands trailing from it as she stepped slowly backward. He couldn't help noticing she had a pretty and graceful neck.

“That's far enough, stranger,” he said in a low voice, poking the pistol barrel between her shoulder blades. “Don't turn around, don't do anything but stand still and keep quiet.”

Her breathing grew rapid and Slocum saw her head tremble, whether from fear or anger, he could not tell.

“Now, ease off and set that rifle down on the ground. Slow, slow, slow—and steady.”

She did and he nodded, kept an eye on her and reached into her sight line to grab the rifle butt and slide it toward him. She lashed out sideways with a mule kick that he was half expecting. He stepped away from it mostly. She still managed a solid hit just below his shoulder before he used her own momentum against her. He stood fast, hefting her booted foot with him, and halfway to standing, pushed her toward the boulder.

She slammed against it, rolled off, and stood facing him, her cheek red from where it hit the rock, her bottom lip split and bleeding. And in her eyes—sparks of rage. Her nostrils flexed, and as she breathed, her pretty white teeth were set together hard. This was a tiger of a woman, he thought, half smiling as he watched her. They circled, Slocum careful to kick the rifle with him as he moved, just out of her reach.

“You . . . you're just like all the rest!” she growled at him.

“Rest of what?” said Slocum, circling and shoving the rifle away from her. He had no intention of shooting her, not just because she was a woman, but because there was something about her that seemed confused, protective of something. She didn't seem like a desperado or hard case. He couldn't put a finger on it, but as far as he knew, they'd never met. He had no idea who or what she was, so he was puzzled about why she could hate him.

“Men!” She spat the word as if it tasted foul.

So that was it—she was a man hater. Pity, he thought. She was a fine specimen of a woman. “Look, ma'am, I don't know what you have against . . . my kind, but I can tell you, I don't believe we've ever met and I certainly have never done anything to offend you—or worse, make you hate me. Even drunk, I'd recognize you, trust me.”

Somehow, that seemed to almost stir the spark of a smile on her mouth. Still, she crouched, tensed on the balls of her feet, her hands raised before her, fingers curled statue-like as if ready to claw the air. But her eyes moved back and forth, back and forth across his face, taking him in with a long, constant glance, her ample chest heaving with deep breaths, her fury palpable.

He sensed she was about to make a move for him, some animal lunge. And then, not too far off, a child howled as if it had skinned its knee, and her aggressive pose softened as if someone had blown out the guttering flame on an oil lamp. Her gritted teeth, the warring emotions of excitement and anger that had formed her face into a hateful mask, subsided.

She straightened, and she turned her face toward the sound. “I have to go.” She turned back and faced Slocum.

“You should come down to the house. You look hungry.”

Slocum didn't move, kept the Colt Navy aimed at her chest.

In the distance, the child howled again. “I need to go,” she said, an eyebrow arched at him.

“You drew down on me, lady, remember? Whatever is happening can wait a minute. Who are you? And why did you want to rip out my throat just a few seconds ago?”

She pursed her lips, her hands on her waist. “I'll need my rifle.”

He sighed, realizing he wasn't going to get a thing out of her. Yet. “Nah, no way. Just get going, I'll follow.”

Her face hardened and she gritted her teeth again.

“You don't really think I'm going to give you a weapon after all that?” He motioned with his head. “Now get going.”

They made it down to the dirt road and had walked a few yards when she looked over her shoulder as she walked. “You like what you see?”

Slocum had to smile at her plain crazy ways. “Yeah,” he said. “Mighty pretty . . . country.”

She laughed, a throaty sound that Slocum found sexy.

He had no idea just what he was walking into, but he had to admit it had been an interesting few days. And this answered his question of earlier: What next? He was about to find out. He took his eyes off her backside long enough to see that they'd rounded that bend in the road. And he couldn't believe what he saw.

9

A teeming gaggle of children, all little girls from the looks of them, bubbled and squirmed, shouting and chasing one another in circles. Beyond them sat a small farmhouse, adobe in construction, and missing half of its roof, the porch a sagging thing at one end. Beyond that sat a corral and low, open-sided barn, the wood siding curled and puckered through years in the sun. And there stood the Appaloosa, hipshot, still saddled, and looking at ease, as if he were catching a few winks in the afternoon sun.

“Damn horse,” said Slocum under his breath, though he was relieved to see it hadn't abandoned him at what was shaping up to be another nest of strange strangers.

As they approached, the group of six or more children, ranging in age from toddlers to just under eight years or so—it was difficult for Slocum to guess with any certainty—swung their heads toward them as if by instinct. Half of them, it seemed to him, bolted toward the woman before him, shouting, “Mama! Mama!”

“Ruth! Ruth, that you?” came a voice from the little house. A stout woman seeming no taller than Slocum's rib cage shouted from the porch, drying her hands on a much-used apron. “Where have you been, girl?” Then she must have caught sight of Slocum, because she visored a hand above her eyes and her voice took on a sharp, growly edge. Had to be the wildcat woman's mother. “Who in the blue blazes is that? A . . .
man
?”

The children by then had swarmed Ruth and she looked at Slocum and said, loud enough for the old woman to hear her, “Oh, he's a man, all right.”

John Slocum had many times been the fond recipient of amorous intention, as if he were being sized up for a roll in the hay. And that's exactly the sort of look Ruth was giving him; not for a second apparently did she consider the fact that it seemed as if half the teeming mass of children about her legs were anything to him but a distinct shock and letdown. And yet that face of hers was a stunner, something bold and chiseled about it, her dark eyebrows and full lips, between which a long nose, slightly arched as if in pride, seemed to sniff at him of its own accord.

Slocum looked back across the yard. The old woman had retrieved a shotgun from somewhere. But that wasn't what shocked him. Flanking the scowling old thing stood three more women, two of them filled out so that even at this distance he saw they were nearly a matched set, more women than girls, and the third was a younger thing, barely into her teen years. Each of the three new arrivals was armed.

“Oh my, what have you stumbled upon, sir?” said Ruth, reading his mind and following up her comment with that same throaty laugh that, despite the strange situation, stabbed him deep in his groin.

He knew exactly what he'd stumbled upon. And it was what Old Man Tinker called “his womenfolk.” So here was his proof that the bandits who supposedly took them were nonexistent, and these women had fled the crazy man of their own free will. That made some sense, considering how he'd heard Tinker run down women, as if they were put on earth for breeding purposes. Slocum would be the first to admit that spending time with women could be a whole lot of fun, and had its own rewards. But he'd also known far too many that were the equal or better of many men ever to generalize about them or regard them as somehow inferior.

And this lot was anything but, especially bristling with all that firepower. Slocum had no intention of approaching the house without keeping Ruth before him. It wasn't but a short while before that she'd been trying to ambush him. And he still didn't know why.

“My rifle, if you don't mind.” She held out a strong, callused hand and beckoned with her fingers.

Downright demanding, thought Slocum. “As it happens,” he said, careful not to point the muzzle of his pistol or the rifle toward the kids or the house. “I do mind. And no, I don't trust you.”

The kids looked at him with a mixture of mistrust and confusion, but one little girl caught his own gaze and smiled, her red cheeks bunching high, before burying her face against Ruth's leg.

He had to smile. “Yours?”

“Not all of 'em.” She looked at the kids, who'd begun to wander off, wrestling and shrieking and pushing one another. “Enough, though.”

Where before she'd looked fiery and mischievous, now she just looked tired.

“What's say we try to talk your friends over there into putting down their weapons before I end up hurt. I have a long way to go and a short time to get there.”

She nodded as they walked toward the house, but before she could reply, he said, “Which reminds me, you haven't seen any other men out this way, have you?”

The question stopped her in her tracks. “What . . . makes you ask that?”

Interesting, he thought. Given that the road was not too heavily traveled, he was beginning to wonder if he had lost Mueller's trail. Do have to wonder if these women and kids just might be the ones the bandits supposedly absconded with back at the old man's place. If so, he thought, they look fine and dandy, and that's as far as I care to take the matter.

“Because I am tracking a man,” he said, choosing to keep the sunburned gang out of conversation for the time being. “I believe he's wearing a red shirt, or was at one time. He's done some bad things, shouldn't be trusted.” He nodded toward the gaggle of kids. “Especially not where kids and women are concerned.” And once again, it was as if he'd flipped a switch.

She turned on him, her teeth set, that glint in her eyes, but nothing playful about it now. She poked a finger at him, all but ignoring the pistol in his hand and the rifle within swinging distance. “You got a lot of gall to say that to me, mister. I'll have you know we all can take care of ourselves just fine without the help of any menfolk.”

“Yeah, well, you haven't run into Tunk Mueller.”

Ruth turned her back on him and said, “Or maybe he ain't run into us.”

Slocum could only nod. It appeared he'd stumbled into a nest of she-vipers and he didn't want to be the next thing they stung. But by God, if they weren't the prettiest nest of vipers he'd ever seen. In addition to Ruth, there were the two girls who looked enough alike that he was sure they were twins, from their dark, wavy hair to their hard-staring, big-lashed eyes to their proud chests and round hips. They also appeared to be sporting smears of axle grease on their hands and cheeks. And in their hands they each held a Winchester rifle.

The youngest was a fine-looking girl on her way to being a handsome woman—apparently one who could shoot, for she wore a double-gun rig in holsters on her hips. Just now her hands rested lightly on the butts, and on her perky little face sat narrowed eyes and a scowl, all directed his way. In the middle of them stood the short, stout woman who he could tell had been a great beauty herself before time and years of hard work tending a family had worn her down. He also guessed she was the matriarch of this deadly, pretty brood.

“Mama, this here is . . .” Ruth looked at Slocum. “I don't recall your name.”

“That's because I never offered it. Nor you yours.” He tucked the rifle under his arm and doffed his hat. “Ma'am. I'm John Slocum. Just passing through when this young lady got the drop on me. I'm afraid my horse bolted.” He settled his hat back on his head. “Now if you'll excuse me, I'll just take my horse from out back there and be on my way. I was explaining to Ruth here that I am tracking a man and don't want to lose any more time.”

He sidestepped toward the corner of the house, wanting nothing more than to get on the Appaloosa and ride on out of there. Quick as lightning, the twins cranked their rifles, the girl drew her side arms and cocked them, and the old woman ratcheted back the hammers on her double-barrel shotgun. “Course she did.”

Slocum sighed, leaned the rifle against the house, and slowly slid his Colt into his holster. “Pardon me, ma'am?”

“I said course she got the drop on you. You're a man.” The last word was pronounced much as Ruth had said it back on the ledge.

“There's no denying it,” he said, careful to keep his hands raised. “Is that why you're so hostile toward me? A stranger? I have no truck with you. All I need is to move on and I aim to do that right now.” He'd had enough of this fresh batch of fools. He turned to head down the side of the little house when a shot spanged the dirt inches in front of his left boot. He stopped. One of the twins, looking a bit pleased with herself, glared at him, a smirk breaking out at the edges of her perfect lips.

The old woman cackled. “You lucky that was Mary. 'Cause Angel don't miss.”

Slocum glanced over at her and the old lady was bent double, yucking it up as if she'd told a real thigh slapper. And she seemed not to pay any heed to the cocked shotgun she waved near her offspring.

He stood less than two strides from the chipped corner of the little adobe house. All he had to do was dive, tuck into a roll, and he'd make it out of their way long enough to draw his Colt Navy. But what if he didn't? What if each one of these she-devils was equal to Mary's shot? Or better, as the old lady had hinted at?

“We're traveling women,” said Ruth, still standing halfway between him and the others on the porch. When the rifle had been fired, the children had all clustered together at the far side of the house.

Slocum nodded. “Uh-huh, okay. So, where are you all traveling to?”

Ruth started to speak, but the old lady cut her off. “My daughter has a big mouth sometimes. Where we all are headed is none of your business.”

“Why are you here, then? Planning on staying for long?”

The old lady sighed. “Again, stranger, I just don't see where that's any of your business.”

“You got me there, ma'am. I'm just the curious type.”

“Our wagon's busted.”

“Ruth! You shut that blamed mouth, daughter!” The old lady shook a hard fist at the woman near Slocum.

Could be an in, he thought. A way to calm these women down enough for him to make his departure. “I have fixed wagons a time or two in the past. I'd be happy to take a look at it. No promises.”

“We don't need no charity from strangers, and we darn sure don't need no help from a man. You hear me, Mr. Slocum?”

From the corner of his eye he saw Ruth fidgeting. Then she bolted toward him. He slicked out his Colt from his holster, expecting her to try some harebrained ambush. But she stood close to him, facing him, her hands loosely around his waist. She was protecting him from one of her trigger-happy siblings or from her mother.

Ruth glanced up at him briefly, then shouted over her shoulder. “We do need help, Mama. We been working on that axle for a day now and we need to get heading on!” To him, she said, “Walk with me toward the corner of the house.”

They moved together. “Kind of like we're dancing,” she said, her soft breath in his face, her breasts pushed against him more forcefully than was necessary, not that he minded. Before he could stop her, she snaked a hand over and grabbed her rifle from where he had leaned it.

He tensed, brought the Colt up, ready to drop her if she tried to position the rifle to shoot him. Instead she smiled at him and held the rifle out, away from them, but definitely gripped tight. She wasn't about to lose it to him a second time.

“Get on back there,” she said, a smile flicking on her mouth.

“This is all well and good, Ruth, but how do I trust you or them? You're all bristling with weapons.” He looked over her shoulder at the corner of the house they'd just slipped around, and the posse of kids were staring at them. “And children.”

Ruth narrowed her eyes at them, but smiled. “You young'uns, get over here and help me show Mr. Slocum that wagon.”

The other women clumped on through the ruin of the house and appeared out back, in much the same configuration as before. He didn't holster his Colt and neither did they ease off on the hammers of their respective weapons.

“Looks like we'll have to take you up on your kind offer . . .
sir
.”

“No need to call me that . . .
ma'am
. John or Slocum or both or neither is fine with me.” Still he stood watching them.

“Oh, land's sake, Mama, put down them guns. Mary, Angel, you, too, and Judith? Holster them pistols before you shoot off your feet.”

When they'd all eased off their respective weapons, Slocum looked around the rear of the place. There was a grassed paddock behind the house, and inside the paddock, four horses grazed, two riding horses and two bulkier workhorses, for pulling and, he suspected, farm chores. No wonder Tinker was so irate. They took not only themselves from his life, but also some of the tools he needed to make a go of farming.

It took Slocum a few moments to figure out just what had happened to the wagon. It was a damaged hub that had ended up breaking a number of spokes as the wheel wobbled its way off. They were lucky enough to break down near this place, and to be able to snub their two workhorses tight to the wagon and get it wheeled around back. But their spare wheel, another thing Slocum was relieved to see they had on hand, was not impressive. It was roughly the same diameter as the others, but the hub needed work.

It wasn't a cracked axle, for which he was grateful, because they weren't very well equipped with tools. But he'd still need to do a whole lot of carving and shaping to the hub. This shot all to hell his plans for catching up with Tunk Mueller. But he knew he'd never forgive himself if he left these women fending for themselves. Though he had to admit that they seem to be more than capable of taking matters into their own hands.

A half hour later, after wrestling with the thing, he had axle grease smeared on his hands and he knew that any second he was going to slip and the foul gunk would get all over his shirt, vest, and denims.

“Ruth?” he said as he peeled off his shirt. “I don't want to sound like I'm prying for information here, but—”