Slocum #395 : Slocum and the Trail to Yellowstone (9781101553640) (13 page)

“It's all right now, darling.” He hugged her and shook his head at Slocum. “I should have known them bastards would come back looking for her. Poor girl is out of her mind.”

“They're ruthless. They murdered her child and husband and set her cabin on fire. We buried them two a few days ago. Plus they murdered a rancher's wife up in the Bighorns. That's why we're after them.”

“They can't get far. We can track them,” Jeffers said.

“We better not leave your wife here alone. There's some Indians after them too. But if they double back on us—”

Wilma arrived and, dismounting, she hurried over. “Where is she?”

“They came back and got her. Mrs. Jeffers can tell you all about her.”

“Well, gawdamn! You mean we got here too late?” Wilma stomped her boot in the dust.

Slocum, who had dismounted, nodded. “They're headed up into the mountain, near as we can tell.”

“What are we going to do about it?” Wilma asked.

“If they know we're looking for them, it may spook them and they'd be even harder to track. I say give them a day. I don't know about the Indians looking for them.”

“Oh—” She chewed on her lower lip. “What about the woman? Their captive.”

Slocum hugged Wilma to his chest. “That damn narrow trail will take a good half day to climb to the top, maybe more. We could be ambushed if they discover we're coming up it.”

“He's right, lady,” Jeffers broke in. “It would be foolish not to let them think they're getting away. That trail is steep and in the open most of the way. You don't want to meet any ambushers on that path.”

About to cry, Wilma shook her head. “I just can't help it. That poor woman has to be in a living hell.”

“Besides, our horses are near done in. Look at them. They look like gutted greyhounds.” Slocum slumped his shoulders and shook his head.

“My name's Martha. The men can put up the horses. Come along with me,” she said to Wilma.

“I'm—” She sniffed. “I'm Wilma—thanks.”

“Good to meet you. I don't get much female company. My, your hair looks so pretty. How do you keep it looking so nice—traveling, I mean?”

“It ain't easy.” Wilma nodded at Slocum and went on to the house with Martha.

Slocum kept glancing up at the mountain towering above them as they unsaddled and unpacked the horses. Where had those two gone? No doubt upward over the top. If he hadn't had Wilma with him, he'd have ridden on, regardless of how tired his animals were, and when they couldn't go a foot farther, he'd set into walking them down. But he had to think about Wilma—and let their ponies rest. The grass looked strong in this valley.

This whole episode kept taking turns he never expected. His plan had started out simple—catch those two and make them pay for murdering Jennifer. Instead he'd worn his butt out riding, looking for tracks that disappeared and then finding them again along with more tragedy that those men had caused.
God, help me find them, please
.

A strong storm blew in and they stayed another day at Jeffers's place. The couple had moved to this location from Wisconsin. They had considerable garden produce to feed them through the winter. Root crops still growing, like potatoes and turnips, would be kept in their good cellar, and Jeffers had started work on a fuel supply of wood. A very precise man, he and his wife had no fears about severe weather and a long winter.

“We're a lot better prepared than last year,” Jeffers said. “I trapped all winter and that saved us the first year. I sold several hides last spring.” He smiled. “And that's why we can afford to have coffee.”

“This a better place than Wisconsin?”

“Oh, yes. The trapping outside of the park is untouched. We ate elk meat all winter.”

“How many times have you been up on top?” Slocum asked.

“Oh, several times. It's steep and narrow. You were smart to wait out the storm. One thing they don't have in Wisconsin is mountains.” He laughed and puffed on his pipe. “Yes, we like it up here. I'll dry several trout too this fall to eat next winter.”

The next day the sun was well up, the sky was clear, and the wind coming out of the north was cold. They pulled out for the way up into Yellowstone, a great plateau. No need for Slocum to ask Wilma if she wanted to stay with the Jeffers. She was bundled up and mounted early, and they left westward bound. He felt certain that they had some clear days ahead, since the heavy storms had gone on east.

Midmorning, they hit the trailhead and started up the grade. There were official signs warning people they were entering the Yellowstone National Park: No commercial hunting or trapping allowed. Federal authority will prosecute any violators.

The trail went up like a staircase. The way soon narrowed to a single path that clung to the mountainside and looked over lots of land far below them.

“Times like this I could use some eagle wings,” Wilma said from behind him.

Slocum agreed. So far, so good, but he knew her fear of heights from Bighorn Canyon. This way soared higher than that. Traces of snow from the storm yesterday soon showed, and he wished he'd waited another day for it to melt. One misstep by a horse could mean death at the bottom of the cliff. His stomach curdled and he felt light-headed; sometimes high elevations got to him. This day he needed no such thing to happen. The drums in his ears felt pin sharp.

Three hours later they pulled out on top, and he rode a short way across the lightly snow-crusted meadow, then dropped out of the saddle, holding the horn to get his bearings and legs under him.

“Stay on the horse,” he shouted at Wilma. “I'll help you down as soon as I get my own legs working.”

She pushed her horse up close to him. “Damn, that's a big lake, ain't it?”

He couldn't think of the name of the wide expanse of clear blue water nearby, but she was right. It was a large lake that stretched away from them. After a minute or two, he went over and helped her down. Then they staggered over to a large downed tree and cleared off the crust of thin snow so they could sit upon it.

“Thank God,” she said. “That was the worst haul up here yet.”

“We're here and we're fine.” He clapped the top of her leg beside him. “Us and those horses need some rest.”

“Oh, yes, we do. I'm just so glad we had some rest before we tried coming up here.”

“I knew it would be rough.”

“Where did they go from here?”

“I'd say the steam pots and the geyser fields.”

“How far is that away from here?”

“A two- or three-day ride from here.”

She nodded. “Damn, Slocum, I wish we'd met years ago. I'd never come up here with anyone else. I can see from here though why the government made it a federal park.”

“You ain't seen nothing yet, sister. Right over there I can see a lean-to shelter someone built that we can use tonight to sleep under. Don't look like rain, but it will get cold as hell tonight. That lean-to reflecting a campfire's heat would be nice.”

“I'm with you.” She hugged his arm. “Isn't your butt getting cold sitting on this snowy log?”

“I was treating my piles.”

She gave him a shove and laughed. “Let's make camp and build a fire.”

“You bet.” Stiff from the ride up, he walked out some of the stiffness gathering firewood.

The horses were unsaddled, unpacked, hobbled, and turned loose to graze. The sun's midday power began to melt the light coating of snow as they gathered fuel. Bald eagles screamed at Slocum and Wilma, invaders to their land. A brilliant day in the nation's first park. He liked it.

In the lean-to, reroofed with new boughs of pine, they sat together with the radiant heat of their fire warming them.

“Could we stay up here forever?” she asked, busy brushing her hair.

He reached over and twisted her face toward him so he could kiss her. She quit brushing and threw her arms around his neck. The passion between them sparked more needs, and like honeymooners, they were soon in a race to see who could get naked first and under the covers. At last in each other's arms with him on top, their bare skin had cooled enough to make her shiver and snuggle. Breath caught up, they sought each other like starving wolves under the covers.

His erection quickly swelled tight. Her hand directed him inside, and she threw her head back, savoring his entry with a sharp cry. This was a fiery match, with her hunching into his driving thrusts and both of them absorbed in the total process, seeking that pleasure that would send them soaring with eagles above the lake. Her sheath tightened on his invading penis. The way grew more difficult for him to plunge in and out. The tight skin on the head of his dick felt like it was being rubbed raw with each stroke.

Then, lying on top of her boobs, he reached under her, clutched the cheeks of her hard-muscled ass, and drove to the deepest part of her to signal his impending cannon fire. The long explosion caused both of them to catch their breath and savor the moment of truth that drained them.

She snuggled against him and shook her head. “Mind if I say thanks?”

He smiled down at her and shook his head. “It's been my pleasure.”

“Where will we go tomorrow?”

“We need to move toward the geyser basin. If Deushay and Roberson want heated treatment, that's where they'll head.”

“Is that the only place to find it?” she asked.

“No, there're all kinds of places where heated water escapes hell up here, but the basin has the most. And it's a good ways across these mountains.”

“Several days?”

He nodded, wondering about their captive, Gina. That poor woman must be desperate by this time with no hope of ever being rescued.

They went by the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and he showed her the high falls heading up to its source. He also took her to see the other turbulent falls above that one. Across the shallow river flowing out of Yellowstone Lake, they met an army captain, John Hightower, who was set up in log quarters. The officer came out on the porch and met them very formally.

“We are chasing two killers who have a woman hostage,” Slocum explained.

“Private,” Hightower said to his aid, “send for Sergeant Malloy.” He turned back to Slocum.

“If they're in the park, no doubt some of my men have seen them. Come into my office. Missus—”

“I'm Wilma, and this is Slocum. Nice to meet you, sir.”

“My pleasure, indeed, and you too, sir.”

Slocum thanked him, looking along the vast lakeshore for any sign of the men they sought. It didn't surprise him that the pair of killers had avoided the outpost, especially with a hostage woman. Somehow they must be more familiar with the park's layout than Slocum had expected—no problem; it was vast land. A year or two after the Lewis and Clark Expedition, John Colter had slipped into this boiling steam pot land, and from his descriptions, people started calling it Colter's Hell. Many thought the simple trapper had gone crazy, talking about quarter-mile-high-spewing geysers that went off regularly like clockwork. But Colter had gone back up there with the first fur trappers, and after a narrow escape from some angry Blackfeet, went back down the Missouri and farmed for the rest of his life. By then people had heard the truth—there was a hell up there.

Slocum and Wilma took supper with Captain Hightower. Slocum could tell she was impressed with the style of the meal and even the crystal glasses the champagne was served in. Later under the covers in the guest cabin provided to them, Wilma stretched out naked beside Slocum.

“My, you have such good friends,” she teased, overcome by the luxury.

“Now, don't get carried away. We still have a mission, or I do.”

“Darling, I am just enjoying a moment in the finer ways of life. My first experience with boys was me belly down over a barrel. It became rougher from there on.”

“You did have it rough, then.”

“Lord, I told you I was a tomboy growing up and not much of a lady. But things, and bodies, change. I started getting boobs, and then boys stopped looking at me like I was some fence post. Me, I didn't notice until more and more of them hugged me every chance they got. Then Harold Carnes kissed me one moonlit night when just the two of us were skinny dipping, and I wondered, what the hell was that for?”

Slocum chuckled and hugged her “Well?”

“Me? I also noticed his usual soft-looking pecker was upright like a barber pole and poking me in the belly.”

“What happened next?”

“Oh, he made an attempt to put it in me. The two of us standing up. That didn't work and we both fell down laughing. He was a smooth talker and said if I'd get belly down on a wooden barrel, he'd show me how folks did it.”

“And so you laid on one?”

“Of course, I was dumb and about trembling. There was an old barrel back of the barn, and we snuck up there. Didn't have any clothes on. I got on the barrel and he came from behind. He first wanted to use my ass, but I knew that would never work. And finally he found about two inches of his erection he could poke in me.

“That first experience must have really inflated his ego. Two nights later he was back for more. He wasn't much better at his business. He was neither flattering nor did he show any compassion for me—so I told him we would not do it again.”

“What did he do then?”

“Tried to bribe me. Tried to make me believe he loved me.” She shook her head, casually rubbing the muscles in Slocum's corded stomach. “No end of what he tried. So I thought that was over. But he brought two of his buddies, and they caught me out of the house. He said if I screamed, he'd tell my mother I'd been screwing him all the time. Boy, I was really being blackmailed.