Slocum 428 (9 page)

“Well, if it ain't John Slocum, the dandiest limbin' logger this trapper woman ever has clapped eyes on.”

From his dark spot behind his guttering fire, Slocum breathed a low sigh and eased back on the hammer. “Hella. What brings you out on a night like this?”

As he waited for her to approach, he thought, How much do I really know about her anyway? For all he knew, she could be the one who'd made off with Jigger, could be the one who'd drilled Ned and tried to kill him, too.

She must have sensed his hesitation, because in a low, less playful voice, she said, “I saw the men you're tracking. I saw what they did, saw your tumble, too. I'm surprised you're still able to function. I was too far off to be of use. Until now.”

“Who says I can function?” he said, not quite ready to reveal all his cards to this stranger—even if she was a handsome one.

“Your friend, Ned, the old logger. They kill him?”

“Yeah. At least he didn't suffer any. It was a quick, clean shot.”

“I remember him well. Kind man, from what I could tell.”

Slocum could hear a tinge of sadness tighten her voice.

“Yeah, nice fella,” he said.

“He was McGee's right-hand man, wasn't he?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, John Slocum. Just to prove I am what I say, I'm coming in, both hands up, rifle uncocked, gripped high on the barrel where I won't be able to make any fast moves. Got me?”

Slocum thought for a half beat, then said, “No, don't give up your piece—those backshooting bastards might be watching.”

He heard her sigh. “John Slocum, as I said, I saw them. And they're long gone. If they were still watching, you wouldn't be listening to me talking right now because I wouldn't be talking right now. At least not to you. I'm not dumb enough to walk into a firefight uninvited.”

Slocum smirked—she had a point. “Who would you be talking with, then?”

“Oh, I expect I'd be sitting alone in my cabin, thinking up some way to amuse myself.”

“Must get lonely,” he said as she came up to the fire and knelt on the other side, her hands extended out over the flames.

“Yep,” she said.

In the low, flickering light, she looked even prettier than he remembered. Either that or the weather was already playing tricks on him. He leaned forward. “You said you saw the men I'm tracking. How many were there?”

“I expect you know the answer to that, but I'll indulge you. There were three. Two goons who work for Whitaker, near as I can figure, and they had Jigger between them. From a distance it looked as if he took a nasty knock to the bean, which would explain why he was so quiet. From what I know about Jigger, if he was being hoo-raahed or corralled by anyone, he'd be livelier than a scalded cat and twice as loud.”

Slocum nodded, appreciating the information, but wanting more. “You know which direction they headed, so point it out to me. I might be able to gain on them tonight before the snow piles up much more.”

She snorted. “You have to be kidding, Mr. John Slocum. This storm? You'd be lucky to make it over that next rise without dying of frostbite. Or getting addled and turned around five times.”

“I have to do something. They killed Ned, they have Jigger, for what reason I'm still unsure of, and they tried to kill me.”

“I know all that. But take it easy. I happen to know where they're going. I also happen to know that once they get there, they won't be going anywhere for a couple of days.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Because they're headed to a line shack trappers use—sometimes I use it when I'm feeling too lazy to head back to my place.”

“How do you know they're going there?”

“Because I was there a couple of days ago, checking on things. I knew a storm was coming in soon and I always make a point of checking on it before the big snows barrel in. I noticed it had been stocked up with all sorts of things I wouldn't have put there, and I'm pretty much the only trapper left up here nowadays anyway. So when I saw those men with Jigger today making a beeline in that direction, I figured I knew where they'd end up. I never expected to see them, let alone to see them shooting at someone fogging their backtrail. And that turned out to be you and poor Ned.”

Slocum was about to respond when she spoke again. “I was too far away to help. Or I would have, I hope you know.” She looked up at him, her eyes shining with tears that he was sure she wouldn't let flow. “I would have dropped them in their tracks.”

“I know it, Hella. And thanks.”

She straightened. “Now that you know it would be a fool's errand to head out after them in this storm, and in the dark, let's get out of here.”

Despite the situation, Slocum laughed and stood, wincing as he felt the first pull of what he knew would be many knots and aches. “Just where do you propose we ‘get' to?”

“My cabin. It's a whole lot closer than the one they're headed for, and a whole lot warmer than this damn rock you're huddled under.”

“I'll need to bring Ned.”

“We certainly can,” she said. “But we'd only have to bring him back this way once the storm passes, which might be tomorrow, might be in two days.”

“I don't want any critters after him.”

“Not much worry of that. Only critters foolish enough to be out here in this storm are humans. We'll bundle him up, leave him laid out here in the lee of this rock. I'd only have to do the same at my place.”

“Fair enough,” said Slocum, not having to think too much about it. They readied Ned's body, knowing that when they returned to bring him to town, he'd be stiff as a log himself. Then Slocum made one good pair of snowshoes out of the three shoes left, shrugged into his pack basket, hefted the other, and they headed out. Hella led the way, a rope tied to her waist trailing back a few yards to Slocum's belt, where he'd tied his end.

“I know the way in the dark,” she shouted into his ear.

“Good thing!” he replied.

Once they stepped away from the boulder, the storm drove at them like a fist, blinding and incessant in its attack.

True to her word, within an hour's hard march, Hella led them straight to her cabin. Slocum had kept up with her, and the trek felt good, kept his already sore limbs from seizing up, as they surely would have in the cold by that boulder. He thought of Ned, a good man laid low for what reason, Slocum had little idea. It involved some fool named Whitaker, of that much he was certain, and Jigger was the target of sorts.

Short of a justified revenge killing, Slocum could see little reason for those men shooting Ned in the head and trying to kill Slocum, as well. He'd find them tomorrow, and force the explanation out of them, one snapping bone at a time, if he had to. It hadn't been his fight, but now that they had shot a friend and tried to do the same to him, by God, they'd made it his fight. And John Slocum wouldn't take that from anyone.

A high-pitched growling scream rose from the darkness off to their immediate right. And close, too damn close. Slocum's neck hairs shot straight out like quills. He knew exactly what it was—the skoocoom—and he hated it, mostly because here he was, a grown man, and it had become all too real, too close, and too personal for him not to believe in.

It was something, after all. Something in the dark made those noises and owned those damnable glowing eyes and left those mammoth footprints and tore the piss out of that storage shed. Something, and it might as well have the name of skoocoom.

“Is that what I think it is?” he said, leaning close to her.

“Skoocoom, yep,” she said, not even breaking stride. “Leave 'em be and they'll leave us be.”

Another, deeper growl, sudden in its attack and snapping intensity, burst from the dark just to the other side of the trail. Slocum could swear it was close enough for him to touch. And that meant the thing was close enough to touch him. But from what he'd seen, these brutes wouldn't just touch something. Their idea of touching meant tearing it apart. He had no doubts it could rip the limbs from his body, kick him, and stomp him to death. Hell, maybe even try to eat him.

He cranked the hammer back on his Colt. The sound brought Hella to a sudden stop. She wheeled around, so close he felt her breath on his face.

“What are you doing?” she hissed.

“They start something, I intend to finish it. Or die trying.”

“They're not going to do anything. As long as you're with me anyway.”

“How does that work? You friendly with them?”

She turned around, began marching again. Off to either side of them, Slocum heard heavy breaths, thought he could detect swinging movements in the dark, heard random grunts and the snapping of branches.

“In a manner of speaking, I guess we're on friendly terms, yeah. Just calm down about it and it'll all be fine. Okay? Otherwise, we die here and now and never get the chance to save Jigger.”

Slocum sighed, kept on walking. “Okay, okay,” he said, but didn't ease off the hammer on the Colt. He kept the revolver in his hand, and nothing would convince him to holster it.

“John Slocum!”

The voice came from ahead and he realized she had stopped. How much time had passed? He knew the skoocoom sounds had stopped sometime back, as if the things had become bored with them. He almost bumped into her. He straddled the backs of her snowshoes with his and stepped in close behind her. “Are we at your place?”

He could barely see a yard in front of them, so thickly was the snow now falling.

“Yep. Home sweet home,” she said, bending down before him and unstrapping her snowshoes.

He backed up and did the same. The only way he could tell where the cabin sat was by the sound of her snowshoes clunking against the logs.

“Up here,” she said. “Hang them on the hooks so they don't get buried under a drift.”

He felt his way along the wall, felt her snowshoes hanging, then a free hook—a length of branch forming a holder protruding from a log. He groped along the wall and found she was waiting for him a couple of feet away. “Come on in,” she said in a shout.

As soon as she opened the door, Slocum felt immediate relief. Where moments before there had been pitch blackness stitched with the pelting whiteness of snow, now there was the low glow of a warming fire cradled in a beautifully built stone hearth. The tang of wood smoke was dappled with something at once comforting and calming—cinnamon and clove perhaps? It reminded him of long-ago winter evenings at the family hearth, good winter nights when even in the South, where he was raised, the temperatures would dip down and they would all crowd close, talking of the day's work, thankful to be close and warm on frigid dark nights.

“Make yourself at home, Mr. John Slocum.”

“You don't have to call me that, you know.”

“Isn't that your name?” she said, smiling and shrugging out of her coat.

“Yeah,” he said, sinking down to his knees before the fire and prodding it back into life with an old wooden cane, the curved handle worn smooth as a ram's horn, the end a charred nub from fire poking. He laid a length of wood on and blew on the coals. It crackled and he turned to see Hella approaching with a Dutch oven. She set it on an iron arm that swung out over the flames.

“That should help take the edge off the cold. It'll take a while to warm up, I'm afraid. Same with the coffee.”

“That's fine. I appreciate your hospitality. I have nowhere else to go. Not until tomorrow anyway.”

“Or until the storm lets up.”

“Yep,” he said, standing and wincing from the thrashing he'd taken in the long downslope tumble. “As long as it lets up tomorrow.”

“You are a stubborn one, aren't you? Threatening nature to bend to your will. That's mighty bold, Mr. Slocum.”

“Call me John. And yes, I'm bold. But only when it comes to tracking down mankillers and kidnappers.”

“Well, we're well situated to head on out after them. That line cabin they're holed up in is to the east by two ravines. But if you're going to be of any use in a fight, you had better shuck out of those sodden clothes and dry them by the fire. You have any dry clothes in that pack basket?”

“Nah, my longhandles will be dry, I expect.”

“Fine, hand me those wet things, I'll get them drying.”

Slocum looked around for a place to perch so he could tug off his boots, but there was only one chair, and it was already stacked with other gear.

“Sit on the bed there and I'll help you with your boots.”

“Oh, no need for that, Hella. I can . . .” But as he bent to pull off the boots, he felt as if he were a century old, and stiff as a stick.

She leaned over him, pushing him back to a sitting position, and that was when he noticed that she'd pared down her own clothing to baggy wool trousers and a button-down wool shirt, green-and-black-checked, which was unbuttoned low enough that the V of the shirt parted to reveal the soft, smooth curves of what looked to Slocum to be perfect breasts. He let his weary eyes linger there, taking in the pretty sight just a smidge too long. He cut his gaze up to hers, and she smiled down at him, shaking her head as if she'd just caught him sneaking pennies from a church basket.

She backed away as he sank to his elbows, still watching her. She turned around, straddled his right leg, her backside facing him. Grasping his boot, she tugged and tugged and finally it came sliding off. Without looking at him, she did the same with the left. Then tugged the bottoms of his pant legs. This was his cue to unbuckle his belt and unbutton his denims, which he did. She tugged and slid them off, one leg at a time, did the same with his socks, then carried all his gear to the fire. He peeled off his own shirt and lay back on his elbows on the bed, sleepily watching her arrange his clothes before the fire.

When she came back, she once again turned her back to him, straddled both his legs this time, and began slowly, gently, but with a firmness that only comes from strong hands, massaging his tired legs. She worked her way up his legs, backward, from his calves to his knees, then thighs, still with her backside facing him.

It was only then that he noticed that somewhere she'd lost the shapeless wool trousers. As she bent to her task of massaging his legs, her wool shirt rode up enough to reveal her bare backside, smooth cheeks with a touch of red from the cold. He longed to reach out and touch her there.

She worked his legs, fervently and with a whole-body effort, inching ever closer to his waist. As she dipped down again, leaning low, he was treated to a clear view from between her rosy cheeks straight through a lovely thatch of golden hair, and to her jostling breasts hanging and swinging with each renewed effort of massage she gave him.

By this time, his longhandles, a faded pink instead of the bright red as when new, had begun to rise in the middle, pushing the fabric upward. The only thing he knew to do was unbutton them from the top down to where the buttons ended, just before her still-bobbing backside. Once freed, his member sprang upright, unencumbered.

Hella must have sensed this because she began to back ever higher up his legs. Soon he was bumped tight to her back. She lifted the shirt, which had somehow become unbuttoned in the process, and let it slide down her shoulders, and halfway down her back. Then she rose up and in one smooth movement lowered herself onto him, plunging herself downward slowly, a long breath, like quiet steam, escaping through her mouth.

The shirt slid down farther and she slipped one arm out, then the other, and tossed the shirt aside. Still straddling him, but on her knees on the bed, and facing the room and the fireplace at the far end, she rose up and down with slow, sure ease. They both shuddered at the full and immense pleasure this simple act offered.

She leaned back slightly and Slocum reached around under her arms and covered her breasts with his hands, gently massaging them with his callused palms. She groaned and reached down, playing with him at the same time. Their momentum increased with their increasing warmth, and though she was still facing away from him, she bucked and rode him as though he were trying to throw her. Soon her back arched and tensed, the skin glowing with a thin sheen of sweat.

Slocum saw the defined hard muscles of her back, her shoulders, her arms and neck, whenever her long gold hair swayed side to side. Finally she stopped altogether, every one of those muscles tight with anticipation of the hot relief that was due to them any second.

And they didn't have long to wait. The feisty trapper's back worked up and down, side to side, making it a lovely thing to watch, nearly as nice as the vigor with which she grasped him without touching him with her hands. It seemed to him that she wasn't done, and sure enough, she began riding him again. But first, she raised a leg and spun clear around on him, so that she faced him.

She bent low and ran her hands all over his hairy chest, gently massaging him, just as he did to her backside. And they rode on like that for quite a while.

Just at the point when they were both breathing hard and ready for a break, she raised her face up off his chest and said, “Stew's ready.” She slid off him slowly, as if hating to do so, slipped on the wool shirt, still unbuttoned, and padded over to the fireplace.

Slocum lay there for a few moments more, then she said, “You better get up, because while I will do a whole lot of things in life, one of them ain't serving a man food in bed.”

She winked and he smiled and he buttoned up his longhandles and made his way to the fireplace, where they had hot stew, and hotter coffee. Then when they'd finished there, they crawled back into bed, this time under the covers, and rode like hell for a good while longer.