Slocum and the Glitter Girls at Gravel Gulch (9781101619513) (2 page)

“Gals, meet your rescuer. I didn’t get your name, stranger.”

“It’s Slocum, John Slocum.”

“This here’s Bonnie Loomis, the one wearin’ the pink
bonnet, and the other’n is Renata Simpson, under the blue bonnet.”

The girls giggled. Slocum thought they couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty. He touched a finger to his hat and nodded at them.

“Gals, we got to pick up Tom Nixon, then this gentleman’s goin’ to hitch up some horses to the back of the wagon and ride shotgun the rest of the way.”

The two girls giggled and batted their eyes at Slocum.

He turned his horse and rode back to where Tom’s body lay. The wagon rumbled up and Obie set the brake. He stepped down and Slocum slid from his saddle.

“Move up front, girls,” Obie said as he dropped the tailgate.

He picked up Tom’s body by the boots while Slocum lifted him from the shoulders. They slid the body onto the wagon bed. The girls were breathing hard and cringed when the dead man’s head slid between them. But they did not cry out or say anything. They both jumped when Obie slammed the tailgate shut and slid the bolts to lock it in place.

“I’ll wait here while you fetch your horses, Mr. Slocum,” Obie said.

“Call me John. I won’t be long.”

“You can call me Obie, feller.”

Slocum rode off to where he had left the horses. He returned in less than ten minutes. He and Obie hitched the lead rope to a wagon post, and he slid a rope around Ferro’s muzzle and tied it to a post on the opposite side. He slipped his rifle from its scabbard and walked to the front of the wagon and climbed up in the seat while Obie hauled himself up into the driver’s seat.

Obie clicked his teeth and rattled the reins across the backs of the four horses and turned the wagon.

Slocum looked all around on both sides of the road but saw no Apaches.

The two girls poked their heads out between Slocum and Obie.

“You going to Deadfall, too, mister?” Bonnie asked.

“I am,” he said.

“We’ve never been there,” Renata said. “What’s it like?”

“I’ve never been there either,” Slocum said.

“Ain’t much of a town,” Obie said. “But they struck gold in Gravel Gulch, so them boys are puttin’ up shacks all over the canyon. Who you bringin’ the horses to, John?”

“Man named Orson Canby bought them,” Slocum said. “Know him?”

“Sure. He’s a hard-rock miner who’s haulin’ timber from the mountains and buildin’ roads all over the valley.”

“I’m going to get hitched to a Mr. Wallace Hornaday,” Bonnie said.

“And my groom is to be Mr. Harlan Devlin,” Renata said. Then both women sighed.

Slocum looked at Obie’s face. It had gone pasty, as if the blood had drained from it like egg from a broken shell. But he did not say anything. Slocum sensed that he didn’t want to comment in front of the women.

“Where did you two come from?” Slocum asked.

“Fort Delaware,” Bonnie said. “We took the stage to Saint Johns and that’s where Obie came to meet us. This is all very exciting to us.”

“We got to Fort Delaware from Denver,” Renata said, “but the men we were to marry got transferred, so we advertised in the
Bride Bulletin
and both got letters from men in Deadfall. I think they’re both rich.”

“We hope so. All we saw in Denver were derelicts and gamblers. And Fort Delaware was like being in a prison behind the high walls of the stockade.”

“They’s been a few women what have come to Deadfall,” Obie said. “Don’t know if any of ’em got married, though. Some was workin’ at the Wild Horse Saloon or took on washerwoman jobs. But that was a while ago. Town’s growed since then.”

“Why is it called Deadfall?” Slocum asked.

“The prospector who rode into that great big old valley a-huntin’ deer or antelope come across a gulch where somebody had camped. There were all kinds of traps and several deadfalls, a little cabin. Man inside the cabin was a skeleton by then, starved to death or kilt by a b’ar, but he had a sack of gold and the feller who found him also found a map and stakes along the creek. There was the skeletons of animals under some of the deadfalls, so he started callin’ the place Deadfall. He hired help out of Flagstaff and then somebody kilt him and took over his claim. But by that time, news of the strike had got out and the valley began to fill up with miners and all sorts of people who make their money off of prospectors.”

“A boomtown,” Slocum said as the wagon rumbled along the dirt road toward low mountains and timber.

“Kind of,” Obie said.

“I just love gold things,” Renata said. “Bracelets and earrings, gold wedding rings.”

“Me, too,” Bonnie said. “My groom said he had lots of gold.”

“Oh, there’s gold there, all right,” Obie said. “And along with it, plenty of sin and skullduggery, like any boom-town.”

Slocum rocked in the seat, his rifle across his lap. He pulled a cheroot from his pocket, slid a matchbox out of another pocket, and bit off the end of the cigar. Then he lit the cheroot.

He didn’t know what awaited the girls in Deadfall, but he’d seen a lot of mail-order brides wind up in brothels or
gambling houses, lured to Western towns with the promise of marriage and then finding that all that glittered was not gold.

He began to form a picture of Deadfall in his mind, and thought he knew why Obie had blanched when he heard the names of the men who had sent for the women.

The women were young and pretty, and one of them, Renata, was stroking his arm with a single finger.

He felt as if he were being petted, like a dog or a cat.

Deadfall was still more than a half day away by his reckoning, and he knew they would not make it to the valley by nightfall.

Meanwhile, there were two young women in season and likely they had waited some time for male companion-ship.

Anything, or almost anything, could happen in that desolate, sun-baked country where the towering buttes shone like painted castles in the afternoon sun.

The falling sun glistened on the buttes and on the dark sides of them, the shadows stretching eastward in long carpets. There was a sudden chill to the breeze, and as the wagon approached the fringe of the low tree-flocked hills, they heard something crack beneath the wagon. The wagon tilted crazily before Obie reined the team to a halt.

“What was that?” Slocum asked.

Obie set the brake.

“Sounded like we broke a spoke.”

“Or maybe two,” Slocum said.

Both men climbed down from the seat and walked around the wagon. One wheel was canted away from the wagon, tilted at a crazy angle.

“Spokes broke all right,” Obie said. “Lucky I got some spares in the toolbox.”

“Take long to fix them?” Slocum asked.

“Have to jack up the wagon, take off the wheel, slip out them three broke spokes, and fit three new ones.” Obie looked up at the western sky, the shadows welling up in
the hills. The breeze cooled the sweat on his face and dried it to a filmy transparent paste. He wiped his face with his sodden bandanna.

“We’ll have to camp right here, I reckon,” Obie said. “Be full dark before I’m finished.”

“I’ll help all I can,” Slocum said.

“Just keep your eyes peeled for any more ’Paches.”

“It’s some quiet out here now,” Slocum said as he surveyed the empty landscape. “Maybe too damned quiet.”

“Just keep that rifle of your’n handy,” Obie said.

The two women peered out of the wagon, their faces just above the tailgate.

“I felt a lurch,” Renata said. “What happened?”

“Busted wheel,” Obie said. “You gals can crawl out of there and stretch your legs. Don’t go far.”

“How long do we have to stay here?” Bonnie asked as Renata lifted one leg over the tailgate and prepared to let herself out of the wagon and onto the ground.

“We’ll spend the night here,” Obie said. “You gals can sleep in the wagon if you don’t mind the smell of Tom. I’ll spread my blankets underneath the wagon.”

Slocum looked at the horses. “I’ll lay my bedroll where I can keep an eye on the horses and the wagon,” he said.

“You gals can start lookin’ for some stones to put in a circle to make a fire ring, and see if you can’t rustle up something to burn so’s we can have light and maybe cook up some coffee.”

Renata alighted and straightened her skirt. She held out a hand to Bonnie and helped her out of the wagon.

The two women looked at the broken wheel and then at Slocum.

“My, you’re tall,” Bonnie said.

“Yes’m,” answered Slocum.

Renata giggled and grasped Bonnie’s hand. She led her away in their hunt for stones to make a fire ring. Slocum
heard their titters and whispers as he watched Obie open the long toolbox on the side of the wagon. He propped up the lid with a stick that was inside and rummaged around until he pulled out a hammer, pliers, and three spokes that had been shaped and smoothed by a lathe.

Slocum hobbled all the horses and lay his bedroll on the bare ground next to a large boulder that offered some protection. Then he walked over to Obie, who was repairing the broken wheel.

“I wouldn’t light a fire tonight, Obie,” he told the wagon driver.

“No? Can’t make no coffee without fire.”

“You’ll draw Apaches like moths to that fire, Obie.”

Obie looked up from the rim and spokes.

“By Jiminy, I think you’re right. Never thought about ’Paches. Thought we’d left them in the dust.”

“They have horses, and they can see fire miles in the dark. A fire would be like a red light on a whorehouse.”

Obie cackled a scratchy laugh.

“You’re right, o’ course. No fire. Just hardtack and maybe a swaller of water.”

“I’m going to turn in,” Slocum said. “It’s been a long day.”

“Gals will sleep in the wagon. I’ll take old Tom out and lay him out nearby, and I’ll sleep underneath the wagon.”

Slocum walked off and lay atop his blankets after stripping off his gun belt. His rifle lay next to him and he used his saddlebags for a pillow. He saw the two women peek out of the wagon after Obie removed the dead body. He could not see the expressions on their faces, but he heard them tittering long after he closed his eyes.

Slocum fell asleep to the soft whispers of the women and their muffled giggles from inside the covered wagon.

He dreamed of broken guns and cartridges molded out of clay. He dreamed, too, of hawkeyed men at saloon tables
all looking at him as he tried to run. His feet were mired in quicksand, and then he was transported to a grassy glade where he lay in tall red grass next to a stream that made no sound. Next, he saw worms the size of Mexican gourds crawl over his chest and down to his crotch. They wiggled and touched his shirt with flexing fingers.

Around midnight, in the midst of Slocum’s dreams, he awakened to hot breath on his face and hands clutching at his clothing. One hand roamed down to his crotch, and when he opened his eyes, he saw one of the women lying beside him, clad in only a thin chemise.

“Bonnie?” he whispered.

“Yes,” she hissed. “I want you, Mr. Slocum. I couldn’t help myself.”

She squeezed his genitals and he felt his prick harden and unfold like a knife blade. She rubbed him and grasped his stalk until it was pressing against the crotch of his trousers.

She leaned over and kissed Slocum on the lips, pressing against him as she continued to grope him.

“Oh, I want you so much,” she whispered into his ear.

Slocum cocked his head to pick up the sound of Obie’s snoring coming from beneath the wagon. At least, he thought, someone was asleep.

“It’s going to be difficult unless I can shuck these duds,” he said.

Bonnie giggled, but the sound didn’t carry far. She sat up, then bent down to unbutton Slocum’s trousers. She felt down his leg with one hand until she touched one of his stovepipe boots.

“You sleep with your boots on,” she said.

“Out in the open, I sure do,” he said. “Move aside and I’ll tug ’em off.”

She plopped over and pulled her chemise over her head. Slocum, like a man rowing a boat, leaned down and
loosened his boots, then shucked them off. Bonnie unbuttoned his shirt as he stared at her naked body in the moonlight.

Her pert breasts jutted from her chest as he slipped out of his shirt. She was frantic as she sidled onto his blanket and settled her buttocks between his legs.

His cock swelled and stood straight up. She raised her bottom, then slid onto it, her bent legs spread wide. He felt his prick slide through the folds of her pussy and plunge into the wet warmth of her cunt.

Bonnie let out a long sigh as she impaled herself on his member, then wriggled her bottom around in a little circle.

“Oh my,” she cooed, “that feels so good, John. Heaven.”

She raised and lowered herself so that his cock stroked her clitoris. She spasmed as an orgasmic convulsion shuddered through her loins.

Surprised that she had come so fast, Slocum reached out and grasped her hips. He drew her down to him and kissed her as he thrust his own hips upward, driving deep into her vulva.

Bonnie shuddered again and grasped his shoulders with both hands, her fingernails digging into his flesh.

“Yes, yes,” she breathed and pumped up and down on his oil-slick cock.

“Easy, or I’ll spill all I’ve got real quick,” he warned.

She slowed down and rose and fell on his stalk while rocking back and forth gently atop his loins.

Bonnie released her grip on his shoulders and just let her hands brace her as they flattened atop his blanket.

He looked up and saw that her eyes were closed. He felt the pleasure of his embedded cock as it continued to swell and throb like some growing snake inside the moist hot cavern of her pussy.

She pumped up and down and squirmed as she sought to have his engorged cock touch every fiber of her pussy.

They both stopped for a moment as they heard a rustle of cloth and the scrape of a body on wood.

Bonnie looked up, toward the wagon, and saw a white shape emerge from the back of the wagon.

“Uh-oh,” she said.

“What?” Slocum asked.

“Renata,” Bonnie said. “She’s awake and I think she’s coming this way.”