Slocum and the Long Ride by Jake Logan Page A

in this sore spot if no one moved. Slocum might need to move Sandy to a better place. Tucson was no place to take her. Dead animals rotted on the street there. Wastewater puddled in the same place. Tombstone was a sin palace full of whores and their consorts—he didn’t have many options.
    She met him in the hotel lobby, and they returned to the same café. She mentioned that she felt it was the best place in town, though like the others it ran out of simple things.
    The waiter told them they had fresh beef but no potatoes, and he could offer them rice or brown beans instead. “I am so sorry, but getting produce here is extremely hard, and Tombstone has the money to outbid us.”
    Slocum agreed, and they ordered rice with gravy.
    â€œIt is so good to have you here.”
    â€œGood to be here and only hid out from the Apaches and not bandits.”
    â€œI would love to see Mexico.”
    â€œIt is a different land. The ordinary people down there are delightful. The outlaws have sharp teeth.”
    She nodded. “You have seen lots of that?”
    â€œToo much. I wish I had a Garden of Eden I could move you to where you’d be safer.”
    â€œWhy? I am managing here.”
    â€œThis town is overloaded. A simple disease takes hold here, and it will become a wildfire under the current conditions.”
    She nodded thoughtfully. “Where could I go?”
    â€œAnd be safe? I don’t know, or we’d be on our way there.”
    She agreed, and they finished their meal. In the bleeding sunset, they went back to her room at the hotel. Finally behind the closed door, they were clinched in each other’s arms and kissing, hungry for more and more.
    â€œI had to come back,” he whispered and kissed her harder.
    â€œWhy didn’t we meet in Kansas and run off to live in this place you suggested? I would never have had to bury him and cry a widow’s tears. To have traveled by stage to Bowie and us then to be thrown together in the midst of this Apache uprising, to have the sweet moments of the personal life we have shared . . . I thanked God for those events. I don’t care if we break the law of Moses. Here in your arms is heaven to me, heaven on earth. A song I never found even with him. We made love, but it was simple and very mechanical. You are a thunderstorm and I hear it approaching us.”
    They sat in a chair, dressed and holding each other. Only the reasoning blasting in his brain, saying over and over again,
You can’t keep her
.

5
    He rode the next day out to Dan Delight’s ranch and found him and his hands fortified like an army fort, with wagons overturned and barriers set up all around to deflect a direct horseback raid.
    Slocum frowned at all the reinforcements at the ranch.
    â€œThey ambushed an army patrol,” Dan said
    â€œBut have they even ridden by here?”
    â€œNo, but we’re ready. What did you learn in Mexico? Come in the house.”
    â€œI learned that with a handful of men we can take on his fortress and close them down.”
    â€œWe can’t do it right now and leave the ranch vulnerable.” He poured some whiskey into separate tin cups on the table.
    â€œI understand. If you could hire me six tough men, I’d go do it and end his reign over those people and his raids up here. He sent some men after me, and I owe him an eye for the eye they gouged out of a poor girl who was with me down there.”
    Dan frowned. “Who was she?”
    â€œA young woman who distracted a guard while I found all the arms Gomez has for the defense of the hacienda. We were later attacked and she lost her eye. She is in good care now, but she won’t ever get her vision back.”
    â€œYou can still get women to help you do anything.” Dan shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t leave here with them out there. I damn sure want him knocked out of business, but I can’t go right