Slocum and the Diamond City Affair (9781101612118) (13 page)

“I have never stopped long in this part of Sonora.” He lowered his voice. “I'm looking for Valdez. The three fingers one.”

Glancing down, he saw her shoulders shudder, then she looked up. “I know of him. I hate him too.”

She led him through the food line, filling his tin plate so full, he wondered if he could eat half of what all she had piled on it. Then she pointed to a table for him to go sit at and said she would get them drinks.

Shaking his head in amusement at her motherliness, he obeyed her. One of the workers took his plate to find him a place to eat and about staggered under its weight as a joke, then set him up with his back to the wall. Another put a cloth napkin in his lap and warned him, “Do you know this woman who you carry around on your shoulders? She has a bad reputation—uh-oh, here she comes.”

They all laughed at their joke.

Teresa put down the goblets. “All of you, leave this poor man alone. He needs his rest. He carried me all over the square.”

“Oh.” One of the older women put both of her hands on his shoulders and said, “This poor man's shoulders are so sore from carrying your fat body all over town that he may never walk again.”

“Get out of here! All of you, so he will eat.” She pushed and herded them away. “He is my guest.”

One woman looked back. “For such a short woman, why do you need such a tall hombre?”

More laughter, but they were backing away from the spot where she put him, but not far enough away that the talking could not finish.

“Is none of your business. Now, go!”

“Oh, yes it is.”

“Go.”

When she rejoined him, he had to wipe the tears away, he'd laughed so hard watching her clear the space.

“Are you laughing at all my dumb friends?”

He shook his head, swung her around until she was standing beside him, and kissed her hard on the mouth. She turned away so her friends did not see her blink her eyes in reaction to his kiss.

Her arm around his neck, she whispered in his ear, “Hombre, you sure know how to—how do you say?—wake up my senses. Man, no one ever kissed me and curled my toes before.”

“Good deal,” he said, looking over the mountain of assorted cooked meats and things she'd selected for him to eat.

With her delicate fingers, she picked up a browned piece of meat and moved to put it in his mouth. “Here is something real good.”

The mint flavor and rich meat taste caused his saliva glands to flood his mouth with moisture.

“That is mint and berry-flavored lamb.”

“Best I've ever had. Can you tell me how to make that?”

“I can show you.” This time she leaned in and kissed him on his still-greasy lips. With a cloth napkin, she cleaned his mouth of the shiny melted fat and then handed him the goblet. “Drink some wine. We make this here. I can see that we won't get much done tonight.”

Amused, he shook his head at her words. “That would be a shame.”

“I mean it.” Then she got up, sat on the edge of the table beside his food, and began feeding him with her fingers.

One woman with a tray went by laughing. “Hombre, she is also a
bruja
. She will cast a spell on you.”

“No, I won't.” Teresa looked exasperated at her words.

He wrinkled his nose at her. “Go along, they are only having fun with you.”

“I did not want anything to ruin our night together.”

“I won't let anyone do that to you. I mean no one, but they are having fun with you.”

Her dark brown eyes searched his own. “All right. No one will get my goat, huh?”

In a sweep, he hugged her. “Good idea.”

The music played and they shuffled their feet in the dust, Slocum holding her tight to his waist until they stood as one. She must have decided that no one was paying them any attention and drew him back between the store and warehouse in the narrow space and then out the back way.

“I have a hammock where they won't ever find us. Is that all right?”

“You're the hostess. I will simply follow you.”

Hugging his hip, she took him with her. “I wish I had known you ten years ago. When I was girl, not a widow.”

“Nothing wrong with widows.”

“Oh, to have had a great man like you take my virginity. That would have been a wonderful occasion.”

“We can pretend it is your first night.”

“Would you do that for me?”

“Damn right I will,” he said and swept her up in his arms.

She began to cry. He stopped and under the stars looked at her wet face. “You all right?”

“I will try not to cry.”

“You can cry afterward. Not now.” He shook his head.

With a hard swallow, she nodded, looking up at him, and whispered, “Afterward—huh? Then I can cry?”

“Yes, I guess you can. Why then?” he asked, shifting her in his arms.

“'Cause then I will know my virginity is really gone forever.” Under his arm, she waved for him to go to the right.

“You planned all day for this to happen to us tonight?” He could hardly believe she'd done all that on purpose.

“Is that bad?” she asked.

“Gads, no, girl. I'm excited as hell. How did you know I was coming?”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “I am a real
bruja
.”

“Oh.”

“Does it shock you that I am a witch?”

“No.” He shook his head. She wasn't the first one he'd known who had those powers and she wouldn't be the last. Good witches fit in like good weather—wonderful. Bad ones were like stormy weather in Texas; they could be a killer tornado. Teresa was not an evil person. He trusted his personal insight when he was around supernatural people. She never gave him a moment of bad feelings, nor did he ever question her purposes toward him.

“Good, then my plans will work.”

She led him down a narrow path into a dry wash, the shadowy light from the ceiling of stars overhead her only guide. At last they reached a hammock with a large mat on the ground, so they did not have to sit on the dirt to undress. Slocum recognized the back of her jacal—they were in Teresa's backyard. After he removed his gun belt, he rebuckled it and laid the harness on the ground. She stepped in close and began to unbutton his clothing.

With the kerchief from around his neck untied, his vest removed, and his shirt unbuttoned, her fingers ran familiarly through the fine hair on his chest. Then she pulled off his shirt. With his pants untied at the waist, she made him sit on his butt to remove his tall rawhide boots, then she pulled off his leather britches.

“Your outfit is new?” she asked and frowned in the night.

He nodded as she removed her blouse. She was taller than him when he dropped to his knees as she did a quick dance in a circle with her blouse high over her head.

Her pear-shaped breasts looked so inviting, shaking in his face, that he caught her and kissed them. Quickly she crushed his face to them.

“Wonderful,
mi amigo
.”

“They taste like honey.”

“You know that trick? Let some honey dry on your nipples, so when he tastes them, he thinks she secretes honey like milk for her child.”

He laughed. He'd been tricked and treated to that sweetness before by that method, but it was a nice gesture for her to do it. He watched her wiggle out of the skirt and soon when she stood upright, he saw starlight dance on her flat stomach and her dark navel.

After he laid a kiss to her belly below her tits, she gathered his face up, bent over, and kissed him sweetly on the mouth. “Let's get in the hammock. A bed would have been better, but this was all I had to use.”

“Those things get to be a problem.”

“What is that?” she asked, climbing in the suspended bed.

“Those things we don't have and need.”

She met him in the center and their mouths sought each other. Their lovemaking was much easier lying down than standing, and their rapid heartbeats and hard breathing soon had them struggling to get enough air.

Her small hand closed on his emerging erection and she quickly had a look-see down at its size and then shook her head. “Wow, you are powerfully big.”

“We can go slow.”

“Good,” she said between erratic breathing.

His hands slipped over her body, testing, teasing, and playing with her like a boy with a new toy. The middle finger on his right hand slid through her coarse pubic hair, danced over her clit, and at last went inside her. Her juices were already flowing. She raised her butt up and spread her legs apart for his attention.

The word “paradise” kept filling his skull like a huge sign hand painted on the side of a rough board store. She pulled him over on top of her and he began his slow, easy exploration of her vagina with his throbbing hard-on.

From her contented face, her dark eyes shut underneath him, he could read the pleasure she was receiving from his efforts. Easy, easy—this was supposed to be her initial voyage into womanhood. He closed his eyes as she delivered herself to him.

Who cared about looking for Valdez? He'd found a real woman and was going to enjoy every moment of this breathtaking experience. His mouth flooded with his saliva, he swallowed hard past a knot and they went back to kissing. He was all the way inside her and the throbbing head of his dick rested against the end of the line.

Her short height made kissing her difficult but, as someone once told him, where there is will in fucking, there is a way to do it all. The notion amused him as he savored her lithe body and fiery energy—quite an eager
virginal
effort from her.

She opened her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and then closed them again, throwing her arms aside, as he really began to use her ass. The feeling that he had invaded someplace special filled his mind, and the fact that he intended to enjoy every inch of her sent him off to the stars. The real world faded to miles away.

There were lots of great women in his world to make love to, but this one was a fully wrapped package of blasting powder sticks with a sparkling, long-burning fuse. He didn't want their act to ever end, but on the other hand he longed for the great relief that blew out the end of his skin-tight erection and burned all the way up the tube.

The blast went off like an unexpected thunder boom from a quick-moving rain that slipped up on him unnoticed. She strained hard under him. The line of her jaw locked down tight, then she collapsed like a kite with no wind to hold it up.

Her hair was swept back from her face, and beads of shiny perspiration soon washed her cheeks as she shook her head in disbelief. “If every trip I had taken was that good, I'd be an addict to having you with me night and day.”

He kissed her, moving down some in the hammock to be closer to her face. “And you are a widow woman living alone with your fine son in this small village. Why?”

“I guess I fear the unknown beyond this place. Here I am safe. There I would only be a
puta
living on the street with no place, no money, and sharing my body for two centavos with filthy drunks, no?”

“You paint such a bad picture. You are a real
bruja
. Use your powers—”

Gunshots out in the village square cut off his words. He bounded out of the hammock, grabbed his pants, and pulled them on in haste. Two more shots, and a woman screamed out there. He slung the holster over his shoulder and carried his six-gun in his fist.

“Oh, be careful. Don't let them kill you,” she said, dressing as fast as he had.

Together they ran for the square. He could hear the frightened woman's shrill screams and children crying. At the edge of a building facing the square, he could see a man on a horse holding a kicking young girl over his lap, framed in the light of a Chinese lantern.

He aimed for the man's face, fired, and the bullet struck him in the nose. He went over backward off the horse. The girl fell with him but wasted no time scrambling to her bare feet and running for some sanctuary. Some older women caught her in their arms.

Two men wearing sombreros came out of the cantina, armed with pistols. “What is going on?” one shouted in Spanish.

Then, before anyone could answer, they swung their guns toward Slocum. He wasted no time and shot both of them. The pair crumpled to their knees after firing their pistols in the dirt.

“Where are the others?” he shouted in Spanish.

“By the store,” a woman screeched and pointed that way. The warning cost her her own life. Someone gunned her down, but the killer caught the next hot lead fired from Slocum's gun muzzle. The shot caught the shooter and spun him around like top, and he teetered on his crossed boots before falling. A furious woman rushed out of the shadowy porch, swept up his gun, and shot him three times in the crotch at close range. His shrill voice cut the night. “No, no, someone stop her—”

But the hammer fell on a dud or an empty cylinder and she flung the weapon away. And went for him with a knife. “You won't rape anyone else's daughter. You
bastardo
—”

Other women physically pulled her back. Then three men on horseback tore through the crowd and Slocum was caught off guard, busy reloading. They went past him like screaming eagles, cross lashing their horses with long reins, and were gone into the night.

Teresa was busy checking on the victims. The shaken girl Slocum saved from the sure kidnapping was still trembling, and tears flooded her cheeks. Teresa hugged her to her chest and patted her back.

“She hurt?” Slocum asked, looking around.

“Only her pride. That was Valdez who rode out of here, right by you.”

“I never got a good look at him. How many girls were raped?”

Teresa sadly shook her head. “We may never know. Some would only tell a priest what happened to them.”

The padre was there, comforting and praying with several families in small groups.

A quiet man came and stood beside Slocum as he hugged Teresa. Aware of his presence, Slocum let go of her and spoke to him. “What can I do for you?”