Slocum's Silver Burden (8 page)

Underwood gave him a one-fingered salute and turned back down the wharf, not looking back to see what Slocum did.

Slocum considered all the things he might do, then went to the stairs and climbed them slowly. He made sure he didn't announce his coming, but before he knocked, he heard Tamara call from inside, “The door's open, John. Come in.”

He pushed it open with his toe, expecting to be greeted with a shotgun blast. If she wanted to make him suffer, she'd put a few rounds from her .22 into him. He had no idea what he expected he was walking into. Seeing her seated at a table with a few papers spread in front of her wasn't it.

“You're letting the breeze in. I'm a bit chilly.”

“That's not the way you look to me,” he said, stepping in and kicking the door shut with the side of his boot.

A quick look around showed nothing for him to be wary of, unless it was the woman seated at the table. She had changed from her trail clothes into a simple dress with a neckline that plunged down far enough to expose the tops of her breasts. Her waist was small and cinched in with a broad leather belt. The table hid her lower half until she stood and came around it. She padded barefoot to him.

Tamara looked up at him, her body pressed close to him. He kept his hands hanging at his sides, as much as he wanted to circle her waist and draw her even closer. A coral snake was lovely, but woe to anyone trying to touch it.

“I'm glad Underwood found you so fast.” She reached up and lightly touched a cut on his cheek. “I thought you'd find a fight since you didn't punch out Mr. Collingswood. You have the mad worked out of your system?”

“I have the horse and saddle I got over at the Oakland depot. That's enough pay for my time, that and what few dollars I have left. Since I was flat broke busted when I came to San Francisco, I'm ahead of the game.”

“Money, horse, tack,” she said, nodding. This caused some of her raven-dark hair to come loose and fall across her left eye. She made no move to push it back. Slocum did it for her.

“You aren't mad at me for turning you over to Collingswood?”

“Mad? Not really. It surprised me, I have to admit.” She pressed a bit closer. He felt her hot breath against his throat and the beating of her heart through her breast and thin dress. “It is almost impossible to find a man with such integrity.”

“I worked for the railroad. I gave my word.”

“That's what makes you so different. Too many men see a promise made as a sometime thing.”

“I don't work for the railroad any longer.”

“No duty owed to either Mr. Collingswood or the Central California Railroad,” she said. “You aren't beholden to them anymore?”

Slocum put his hands around her slender waist. He felt the heat from her body. It matched his own.

“Not a bit. What about you? You still have your job.”

“I never promised to find the silver or make sure it ended up in the bank vault owned by the railroad.”

“Do tell,” he said. He pulled her closer until they both gasped for breath.

“I want someone who can give me his word, and I'll know he can keep it.”

“Unlike Jackson.”

“We can work together.”

“Can I trust your word?”

“We can spit in our palms and shake on it,” she said.

“That's not good enough. I know you're a crook.”

“What more can I do to show you I can keep my word if we agree to be partners? What can seal the contract?”

Slocum caught his breath as her hand wormed its way between their tightly pressed bodies and began inching down from his chest to his belly, and then even lower until she gripped the growing bulge at his crotch.

For his part, Slocum moved his hands around her waist, then down until he cupped her buttocks. They were firm and not what he had expected, although he had seen how easily she rode. When she began grinding herself against him, he felt growing discomfort.

“I understand,” she said. “Some things need to be free.” She unfastened his gun belt and dropped it to the floor. She moved down so she knelt in front of him.

Her quick fingers unfastened his fly, the buttons popping like gunfire as each slid free. She reached into the darkness and fumbled a bit, finally pulling him from his cloth prison. For a moment, Slocum realized what she had meant about a chill in the air. Then he gasped. The wind blowing across his heated organ disappeared as she took him fully into her mouth. He felt the bulbous end of his manhood slide along her tender inner cheek, then dive deeper down her throat. When she swallowed, he almost lost control like a young buck with his first woman.

Slocum laced his fingers through her lustrous hair and pulled her away gently. As he slid from between her lips, she treated him to a rough tonguing and teeth that gently dug into his tender flesh. When only the purpled knob remained between her lips, he paused to garner his strength. She almost robbed him of control again when she squeezed the hairy sac dangling beneath his shaft and began sucking with a vengeance.

Stroking, licking, sucking, she moved back and forth along his length until he turned weak in the knees. He stroked over her hair, wondering if he dared seal the deal then and there. But that wouldn't be fair to Tamara—and he wanted more.

Insistent, he pulled her away from his groin so she could look up. The wicked smile on her lips would have been enough goad for him, but she whispered in a husky voice, “I'm wet. Take me, John. Take me now.”

He reached under her arms and lifted her easily into the air. Her legs scissored apart and circled his waist so she locked her heels behind his back. Billows of skirt separated him from his target. He walked forward two paces and set her on the edge of the table. Tamara leaned back, supporting herself on her elbows. Her eyes sparkled, and her face was flushed. He saw her arousal spreading from her cheeks to her throat and gracing the upper slopes of her breasts. Her breath came in sharper pants now.

Working his hands under her, he pulled away her skirt and found she wore nothing beneath. His fingers slipped along the liquid gash between her legs. A shudder passed through her as she sank back flat on the table. Her knees rose on either side of him.

“Don't stop, don't stop. I need it. I need
you!
”

He dipped a finger into her heated well, then smeared the thick womanly oils all about before moving closer. The tip of his shaft slipped along her nether lips. A few strokes caused her to shut her eyes and clench down hard at the sides of the table. When he felt as if he was going to explode like a stick of dynamite, he pulled her closer. For an instant, the bones in his legs melted. He sank balls deep in her moist, hot center.

Surrounded by the female sheath, he found himself unable to move. He let the heat seep into his dick. Then he began moving his hips, not in and out but in a circular motion that stirred him around inside her. She gasped and began moaning. Words failed to form. Her ass lifted off the table, and she crammed herself down harder against him. He sank in a fraction of an inch more, but this was enough to ignite his passions.

He withdrew slowly, relishing every inch of the retreat. Then he slammed hard into her, lifting her from the table again. She kicked out so her legs were straight on either side of him. This gave a new and deliciously wicked sensation that boiled about in his loins. She locked her heels behind him again to keep him from pulling out.

With a slow motion, he stirred about again, his manhood a spoon in her mixing bowl. Tamara began moving in the opposite direction, adding to their arousal. When her heels slipped behind him, he withdrew and began thrusting. The movement was slow at first, then built speed like a locomotive going up a steep grade. When he hit the top of the grade, he raced in and out of her.

In the distance he heard her cry out as waves of desire broke over her. His ears were filled with the hammering of his own heart. He gripped her hips and pulled her more firmly into him with every pistoning stoke until his steel turned to a skyrocket. And then, all too soon, he melted within her. Sweat poured down his face and into his eyes. He tossed his head to one side and got rid of some of the perspiration.

She lay spread on the table before him, complete pleasure glowing in every line on her face.

“Admit it, that's so much better than a handshake,” she said.

“The deal's only half-approved,” he said.

“Are you man enough to complete the contract?” she asked.

“I promise.”

He bent low and kissed her. It took a spell but their partnership was mutually signed, sealed, and delightfully delivered before nightfall.

“How did you meet Jackson?”

Slocum lounged back on Tamara's narrow bed, watching her closely.

She made no effort to hide her nakedness as she dressed. It was as if she performed for an audience. In a way, she did. It was an audience of one, and he was appreciative. A daringly exposed thigh vanished as she pulled up her skirt and worked to fasten it at her trim waist. She pirouetted carefully so he got a full view of her nakedness above the waist. Tamara stopped when her back was to him and climbed slowly into her blouse. A shrug or two settled the garment but also gave her breasts a delightful jiggle that made Slocum hard again—almost. They had expended the full measure of their passion with the first lovemaking. Then they had retired to her bed and explored each other until both were ready again.

But even as it exhausted Slocum sexually, it had rekindled his curiosity about her and Jackson.

She finished the last button and turned. For a moment the western sun slanted through the window and gave her dark hair golden highlights. Another small turn let the rays catch the pearl buttons on her blouse. It looked as if a string of golden nuggets pointed downward where Slocum had just visited.

“I don't remember.”

“Was he someone Underwood brought in for a job?”

“Oh, no, Underwood didn't start doing that until after the robbery. I knew him from . . . earlier.”

“You worked in a saloon?”

This brought a peal of laughter ringing forth. She sat on the edge of the bed, her warm hand against his bare chest. With a small gesture, she curled her fingers downward so the nails cut into his flesh.

“Do you think I could ever be a barroom floozy? A cheap whore?”

From the grip she had on him, a wrong answer would result in painful scratches.

“You play the game on so many different levels, it's hard to say. You're not only clever, you're beautiful.” He kept her from scratching him as he sat up and gave her a kiss.

“And I thought I was the only one who used sex to get what I want,” she said, shaking her head. “You are quite the Lothario, John Slocum.”

“I don't know who that is, but if you're interested in him, point him out.”

She laughed delightedly.

“One of the many things I like about you is that I can never tell when you are joking.” Before he could pull her back down for another kiss, she disengaged and slipped away to sit at the table. She hiked up a foot and braced it on the edge of the table, exposing herself all the way to the crotch. “I need help with my shoes. They are so hard to button.”

He swung around and reached for his pants.

“Oh, no, don't dress. Come here and put on my shoes.”

He considered for a moment, then went to her. Dropping to his knees, he stroked up her leg, paused at her inner thigh, then moved higher. She gasped as his finger entered her. When she closed her eyes and pleasure began to take over her features, he backed away.

Her foot fell heavily to the floor as his unexpected departure unbalanced her.

“You're a big girl. Put on your own shoes.”

A moment's anger flashed on her face, then she smiled ruefully. “As long as you promise to undress me again later.”

He pulled on his longjohns, climbed into his jeans, and worked to get shirt, vest, and coat on. When he strapped on his gun belt, he felt dressed—or as dressed as Tamara. She remained barefoot and so did he.

“How did you meet Jackson?”

She sighed in resignation and began working her feet into her tight shoes.

“At the bank over on Market. I had to post a payroll for the office workers and saw him loitering about. Mr. Collingswood had hired me a few weeks earlier, and the temptation of stealing so much silver from a Virginia City shipment had burned itself into my imagination. I could get the information but had no way of acting on it.”

“Jackson was casing the bank?”

“I thought so. He never said as I approached him, but he had the look of a real desperado.”

“You convinced him to forget the bank and rob the train?”

“It took very little persuasion. I told him of the huge amounts of silver shipped from Virginia City but had no idea how much would be in the shipment he and his gang stole.”

“He's not going to tell us about the silver. Who are the other three in the gang?”

“I don't know. He had already recruited them for the bank robbery and only went in himself to be sure when there'd be the most money in the vault. I never saw them, much less met them.”

Slocum pulled on his boots, turning over each detail in his head. He settled his feet securely, then leaned back in the chair, watching as Tamara buttoned her shoes. She bent over, exposing the tops of her breasts. Forcing himself to think about the stolen silver rather than her took some willpower.

This sparked caution in him. She could kill a man as easily as he could, only her weapon was softer.

“It's safe to say he didn't frequent the Union Club.”

“Mr. Collingswood does, but you're right, Jack would have been more at home along the Barbary Coast.”

“That's where I'll start looking for the others in his gang,” Slocum said, standing. Tamara shot to her feet and started to leave. He took her arm and swung her about. “I'll go alone. If you showed your face in the Barbary dives, there'd be more trouble than information gathered.”

“Take Underwood, then. You need someone to watch your back.”

Slocum trusted Underwood as far as he could throw him, but he refrained from telling her. He had the feeling she and the two-fingered man were closer to being partners than he was with her.

“Can you use that pistol you carry?”

“Of course I can. I can shoot the eye out of a rat at ten paces.”

“Where we're going, there'll be a lot of rats, none of them four-legged.”

She smiled wickedly, as if the idea of killing someone pleased her. She fetched her Colt New Line, checked the cylinder to be sure it carried all seven rounds. She held up the octagonal-barreled weapon so it pointed at the ceiling and struck a pose, her other hand balled and resting on a cocked hip.

“I'm ready.”

“Put the gun away where nobody can see it, but you can get to it.” He waited for her to slip it into a pocket in her skirt. “You might keep your hand on it, but don't put a finger on the trigger until you have it aimed at someone you want to kill.”

“I won't shoot myself, John. You worry so.” She gave him a light kiss on the cheek.

He wondered if she had ever shot anyone with the pistol. Or had she killed someone? She was a vision of loveliness, but it was the same deadly beauty he found in diamondback rattlesnakes: sinuous and harmless unless provoked.

The sun sank into the Pacific Ocean just beyond the Golden Gate. Slocum stopped and watched as either side of the portal into San Francisco Bay turned from natural to metallic. Chiu Jin Shan—the Old Gold Mountain, the Chinese called it. The sun vanished completely, and a chill wind picked up off the harbor, bringing with it the smell of floating garbage and rotten fish.

Slocum told himself the hunt for Jackson's partners could turn from golden to deadly as quickly as the sun disappeared. The laborers along the Embarcadero finished the last of their chores and drifted away to the bars. He tried to imagine where a man like Jackson would wet his whistle. Not with the sailors. Jackson was a landlubber, and unless he saw a reason to frequent the seamen's dives, he would keep away from the waterfront.

“Where do the men drink who aren't sailors or stevedores?”

“Underwood would know. Don't you trust him?”

“I have no reason to. If he gets involved in this, he has to choose between two masters.” Slocum considered this, then amended, “Between Collingswood as his master and you as his mistress.”

“Why, John, I'd never be
his
mistress.”

Slocum knew Tamara could get Underwood to jump around like a flea on a hot griddle, because she so easily did that with everyone else in her life. David Collingswood would believe her to be loyal despite strong evidence to the contrary, even if Slocum hadn't provided much more than his observations as proof of her part in the robbery. Jackson had gone along with her when he likely preferred robbing a bank to a train. And Slocum knew he had to be careful not to fall under her spell. To do so might mean his life.

Right now he preferred to find the silver and ride off with it because of the way Collingswood had treated him. The railroad owed him for not trusting him when he had given his word. And the railroad vice president had come right out and called him a liar without examining the evidence.

Such an insult had to be met with the proper punishment. Slocum heard desperation in Collingswood's every word and knew the higher-ups in the Central California Railroad would fire their vice president in a heartbeat if the silver wasn't recovered. Or did they even know? Collingswood had gone out of his way to keep the theft quiet. Sending out an army of specials was risky, giving more credence to Slocum's guess that quick recovery would be more than appreciated—it had to be necessary to keep Collingswood's head from getting chopped off.

Depending on the president of the railroad and his directors, that might be an actual description. Collingswood might not be fired but instead be left floating facedown in the Bay.

“What are you thinking, John?”

“There are saloons down around Mission Dolores. That's where a man riding into town from the south would spot a watering hole. Drovers and other cowboys coming to town would ride in there.”

“I am sure Jack wasn't a sailor, but he never said anything about being a wrangler either.” She caught on to what Slocum was saying. “He doesn't have to be a cowboy. He could be a stagecoach robber or anything else on the other side of the law, but he would ride in and find cowboys more to his liking.”

“If Jackson had ever been to San Francisco before, he'd know how dangerous it was for anyone to drink along the Barbary Coast.”

“Good thinking, John, but this town is filled with gin mills. How do you find the right one? And how do you ask after the rest of his gang?”

“It's about time we had some luck.”

Slocum knew they'd need more than some. They'd need a passel. He got it after downing almost a full bottle of whiskey one shot at a time.

*   *   *

His vision blurred from too much cheap whiskey. Even tossing more than one shot onto the floor of each drinking emporium where he lingered took away only a small portion of his inebriation. Tamara chided him constantly, but Slocum knew if he didn't knock back a shot or two when he was being watched by everyone in each saloon, he would find out nothing. Until he came to Lead Bottom's Saloon, all he had to show for his diligence was a head that threatened to explode and a belly that churned like the storm-tossed Pacific.

But his patience finally paid off. He stared at three men playing poker. Two were in cahoots cleaning out the third. The sucker had no idea how he was being hoodwinked because the two worked together so expertly. The pair let him win a few small pots and took the bigger ones by signaling each other and, twice that Slocum saw, trading cards. What caught his eye was the way the sucker bet.

He used small silver bars instead of cartwheels or greenbacks. He had begun with a half dozen and had only two left. Slocum wanted to get a better look. To do that meant he had to be in the game.

“Mind if I sit in?” He dropped his paltry few dollars onto the poker table, then sat down without waiting for an invitation, glad to take the load off his aching legs. He wobbled just a bit, and not all of it was show to let the two working in tandem know he was an easy mark, too. Even so, they started to object. They needed to win only two more of the silver bars to finish cleaning out the man next to Slocum.

“We got a private game, mister,” said one of the cheats.

“Aw, let 'im set in. We can use fresh blood. I need a player I can whomp up on 'fore you gents take me for every last cent I have.”

“Thanks,” Slocum said. He eyed the silver bars. The other two weren't likely to put up the ones they had already won since they had piles of scrip and smaller coins.

He played carefully for a couple hands, worrying that the man with the silver bars would lose. The two let him and Slocum win a few pots. Seeing how they cheated gave Slocum a good idea how to win. When he was dealt two pair, jacks and queens, any reasonable man would draw one. Instead, he threw away the jacks and dross card. From the way the man dealing acted, Slocum knew he had done the right thing. He cleared his throat and stared hard at the man.

“Deal. Fair and square. Off the top.” Slocum forced the man's hand down so he had to give him the first three cards.

Slocum glanced at his hand. Three aces, two queens, full house. Even better, they had set up the gent with the silver, giving him a full house, too. The fourth ace likely rested in the one's hand who should have received the triplet of aces.

“I can't let the best hand o' the night go to waste,” the man said. “Here. I'm puttin' in both bars.”

Slocum saw the anger building on the other men's faces and knew who had the best hand. He pushed in all his money, including the small winnings from earlier pots.

“Got to call you.”

Both the men folded, leaving Slocum in the pot with the suspected train robber.

“You have to beat tens full of kings.” The man beamed proudly as he laid down the cards.

“I've a better spread,” Slocum said. He shifted to get his gun hand over near the ebony butt of his Colt in case anyone disputed the cards.

To his surprise, no one did. The two gamblers grumbled about their own bad luck, and the man who had lost both silver bars laughed, scratched himself, and declared, “Damn my bad luck. As if it wasn't bad enough losing to them, I got to lose to you, too. That cleans me out.”