Slocum and the Long Ride (6 page)

“Where does he live?”

“On a large hacienda south of St. Barnabas. Do you want to go dance or stay here?”

“Good,” he said, watching her slither the dress up, first exposing her bird legs. Then the candlelight twinkled on his sight of her crotch and the patch of black pubic hair. Soon she showed him the deep navel in the brown skin of her stomach and then moved upward to expose her small, proud, pointed boobs, and then the dress was off over her head and short hair. Nice scenery to view.

“Girl, you are very sweet. I don't dislike you, but I have business down here to tend to, so maybe another time or place.”

“Are you leaving me?” she asked in shocked disbelief.

“Yes.”

•   •   •

He left the skinny one with some money that she first refused, but he made her take it. Then he rode off on the pacing horse. To go directly to the village near Gomez would be foolish. He needed to make a more casual ride, as if he was lost or wandering.

He left the main road, stopping to talk to a wood gatherer with a string of heavily laden burros, who told him about some hot springs across a small mountain range. He called the springs a good place to soak and get the pains out of his body. The trail was steep, but Slocum's horse was sure-footed and carried him over the pass. There he stopped to let the horse breathe, and the cooling wind swept his face.

The distant green cottonwoods told him the springs were down there. The discomfort of his tight back muscles could hardly wait for a few hours in the springs. He rode off the mountain to a spot under the towering, gnarled trunks of the cottonwoods. Several people were bathing in the obviously warm water—Indios who did not care if he saw them naked and who went on as if he was one of them passing through. Several pregnant women nodded to him. Some were close to the last stages.

To be by himself, he went on farther, to where a steaming spring fed the stream. He hobbled the horse and undressed, leaving his gun and holster close by. Wading into the hot water, he decided his body would not cook in it. He sat down up to his neck and let the fumes go up his dry nose and the hot water flow by him. The charge from the heat made him shut his eyes and savor the relief coming from being loosened up.

“Señor! Señor!” He rose some to see what was the matter.

It was a teenage girl on the road waving at him.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“My mother is trying to have a baby. We need help,” she shouted.

“You go back and hold her hand. I'll get dressed and come see what I can do.”

“Gracias, gracias.”

“Go.” He waved her to go back before he rose naked from the water.

When he was satisfied she'd gone, he waded out, dried, and put on his clothes and gun belt. He caught up to his horse and unhobbled him, then rode back to where the half-dressed women were all crowded around one lying on a blanket.

He dismounted and cleared his throat so they knew he was there, and that separated the concerned onlookers. When they let him through the crowd, he dropped on his knees beside the woman on the ground. The small woman's belly looked like a mountain on top of her.

“Is the baby coming?” he asked.

“Trying to.” She strained and made a pained grimace at her effort. A girl was trying to pat dry with a cloth the beads of sweat on her face.

He moved to be below her, where he could look at the delivery point between her legs. How was it coming? He knew the danger was the baby coming feet-first. But he'd never turned a baby around in a woman's womb either.

“Bring me some soap and water to wash my hands.”

“Sí.”

She moaned in pain and her raised legs rocked from side to side. He wished he could do more. A doctor had told him that giving such women painkillers would make them stop pushing hard enough. If he'd not heard that, he'd have given her some laudanum.

“Be easy. We will bring him out. Be brave. What is her name?”

“Lucille.”

Water arrived. He washed his hands and dried them on a clean towel. Then he moved in close and told Lucille that he had to feel for the baby. She nodded and looked paler than a few minutes before. His fingers probed her, and she moved as if his action made her uncomfortable. He felt nothing. Using one hand down on the blanket to balance himself, he slowly worked his folded other hand inside her. It must have pained her, but he had to know the baby's position even if he couldn't flip it over.

The women around him were moaning and clucking when he felt what he thought was the baby's head. Good. And then he drew his hand out, washed it in the pan they handed him, and dried it on the towel.

“Push, Lucille. He will come out. Strain harder.”

He kept coaching her and realized that the black spot he was seeing was the baby's hair.

“Come on, push harder.” He kept encouraging her until the skull appeared and Slocum tried to help her, and soon cradled the baby's head. Shoulders came next, and he helped one out, then the other, in the leaf-filtered daylight. And then the baby came faster, until he held him by his heels and slapped his butt to start him breathing.

The baby's first cries made Slocum drop on his knees, and the women around him cheered.

“Lucille, he's a boy.” He set him down on a clean blanket, cut the cord, and tied it off before he handed her the small brown boy. On his feet, he washed his hands again and stood back to dry them.

“
Gracias, señor.
” The woman was older than the others and taller than most Latin women, with a swollen willowy figure. Slocum decided that she might be pregnant herself.

“May I ask what brings you here?” she said with a smile.

“A wood cutter said these springs healed him. I wanted to help my back. I have been bucked off too many times.”

“Then since you have no cook, you should come to my camp for supper.”

“No problem with that. Is your husband here?”

“No.” She shook her head. “He is dead. My name is Lupe.”

“Slocum is mine. I am sorry I asked.”

“No, he was killed by bandits. A short while ago.”

“And that is his baby?” He nodded toward her belly.

“Yes, that is his baby. It will be how I will remember him.”

Slocum agreed. “Where is your camp?”

She made a wave. “Beyond where they say you were bathing.”

“I can find it. I'm going back to soak some more in the water. No more births today?”

She smiled and shook her head. “You did well. You can deliver mine in four months.”

“I won't be close, I fear.”

“
Gracias
for your work today. Wait—the mother wants to thank you.”

He knelt beside her and the baby boy suckling on her breast. “What did you call him?”

“What is your name?”

“John.”

“He will be Juan then. Come here, I want to kiss you for helping him get here.”

He dropped on his knees and she kissed him and whispered, “God be with you, hombre.”

With a nod he left her.

Slocum went back to his spot and hobbled the horse again. Unsaddled and undressed, he waded out in the stream and sat down at last once more in the heated water.

He saw Lupe's head held high coming above the willows. Somehow he had expected her to make an appearance at his soaking. No matter—she was an attractive woman and he was by himself.

“Do you accept company?” she asked

“Oh, yes. Why are all these women here?”

“Oh, they come for a saint's holiday.”

“That's enough,” he said, not really interested in the details and giving her a head toss to come on.

She was a neat-looking woman without her clothes. Pear-shaped breasts that looked a little swollen to him. The slight bulge of her belly was noticeable as she entered the water, but it was a sweet enough picture to make him grateful for her company.

“I have no modesty with you today. I saw how you go to that woman's aid, and I would have trust in you to deliver mine.”

“Get a midwife or a medical doctor. I am a poor excuse for one.”

She was on her knees close to him in the healing water.

“Tell me about these bandits who killed your husband.”

“My husband was panning in the mountains for gold. He had found some earlier, his partner told me. His compadre had come back home to check on things for both of us women. But when he went back he found Miguel had been murdered and robbed.”

“Who was it?”

“They say it was Raul Gomez and his gang. I don't know him.” Both of them were neck-deep in the swirling heated water. She shook her head as if she was disappointed. “I wish Gomez was dead.”

“I agree. Did they say where this bandit lives?”

“Yes, south of St. Barnabas, on a big hacienda.”

“How much gold do you think he had on him?”

“Oh, a few ounces maybe. But he was a very good prospector. I have a nice casa in my village we bought with gold he found up there. I think we would have had a good life together if they had not killed him.”

“I can understand that. This man Gomez is a big bandit.”

She shook her head. “He is a miserable bastard who preys on men like my Miguel. Gomez is a bully and someone needs to kill him.”

He wiped his sweaty face with his hand and nodded. “Yes, someone needs to do that. I am ready to get out, and not to run you away.”

She smiled openly. “Where would I run to?”

“Good, we can go to my camp.” He stood up and started wading for the shore. She rose and the water droplets ran off her pear-shaped breasts. She gathered her clothes and walked to where he unfurled his bedroll, and they both sat down cross-legged. She put her clothes beside her, and he handed her a towel to dry herself with. In the afternoon heat the evaporation quickly cooled them after their hot water bath.

“Do you have a wife?” she asked, leaning back on her elbows.

“No wife. No house. You are at my place.”

She openly laughed and shook her head, and that let her shoulder-length hair fall back from her face. “Did any woman ever threaten to chain you up?”

“Hell, they'd turn me loose. Anyone tell you how many men this Gomez has?”

“They said he had an army. But I don't know. Why don't you have a wife?”

“I have enough problems taking care of myself.”

“No, you have other secrets.”

He agreed with her and went forward on his knees to kiss her. He made no attempt to hold her, but simply kissed her full bottom lip that looked so sweet. He thought she might have smeared some honey on her lips, and he moved into more contact with her sensuous body. Their movement toward each other proved to be like two perfectly machined gears coming perfectly in contact, and they rolled on.

Riding the waves of her body, Slocum built to a high crescendo, and when he finally came, they faded into a somber state of possessing each other.

He tasted her boobs. “You're an angel,” he whispered in her ear.

“No, I can tell you make poor judgments. Angels do not fornicate.”

“How do you know they don't?”

“The padre who once had sex with me as a teenager told me so.”

They both laughed.

“Really?” he asked. “Did he really have sex with you?”

She wrinkled her nose to dismiss the matter. “Even in robes some men can be men.”

“Tell me how I will find out all about this bastard Gomez?”

“I know a
puta
who lives over there who I grew up with. Go to her. I will give you a letter to her and she can tell you all about them.”

“What will you do without your man to bring home gold?”

“Are you interested in a job and a wife?”

“I can't handle it.”

“You did well this afternoon with me. You are a good seducer of women.”

“Ah, but I must solve other things.”

“Solve them and come back to my village and we will play house.”

“I can think of few other women I'd rather do that with. I am concerned about your welfare.”

“I am not as good as he was, but I can wash gold out of those iron filings.”

“I salute you, lovely lady.”

“Maybe we should do it another time.”

He heard something. It was horses coming. “Get your clothes on and get out of sight. That may be trouble.” He pulled on his pants and then put on his shirt. She was gone from sight when the riders halted close to his camp. They were tough-looking men.

“What're you doing here, gringo?” one of them demanded.

“I am no gringo, hombre, I am one of you.”

Slocum wished that he had his gun in his hand. There were two of them. One was a big man and wore a knit stocking cap despite the heat. The shorter one dismounted holding a large, old Walker Colt cap-and-ball pistol in his hand and wearing a sombrero with a chin string tied down. He ordered, “Put your hands up, gringo. We want your gold.”

“I have no gold, stupid. You have held up a poor man.”

“We know this woman who was with you, and we know you have her gold.”

“I have no gold. You're in the wrong place.”

If only his own gun had been in his hand, he could have handled them. It was in the holster at the head of the bedroll on the ground.

“What are you doing here then?” the bigger one said, and his horse tried to twist around. The rider jerked on his bridle and the horse reared precariously high. Then in a flash Lupe appeared and whistled sharply. She tossed him the Spencer rifle. He cocked the hammer back, then fired at the shorter man on foot. The gun smoke from the .56/.52-caliber rimfire cartridge was blinding, and no wind stirred to remove it. The crazy horse had thrown the big man off.

Slocum set the rifle down and swept up his own handgun. He rushed over to see about the wounded short man on the ground.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

The short man held his right arm; he was obviously wounded in it, judging from the blood on his sleeve. Slocum picked up the Colt. He held the old revolver, which must have weighed nine pounds, in his left hand as he backed up to order the big man to get over there. He disarmed him of some old Civil War six-shooter. They sure had ancient armory on them.