Slocum and the Long Ride by Jake Logan Page B

now.”
    â€œEven a powerful Mexican can figure out why I looked at his fort, and it will be tighter and harder to get inside.”
    â€œSlocum, all I have is this ranch. That bastard Gomez not only stole my cattle, but he has hurt many people in Mexico flexing his power. He and his men killed a man whom I considered my adopted brother, Alfredo Morales, and sold his wife into slavery as a whore. She was killed before I could have her rescued. He has raped innocent children and then he also sold many more in the white slave trade.”
    â€œHe needs to be removed.”
    â€œOh yes, he does,” Dan said. “Tell me, they say the Apaches stole the gold at that mine they struck?”
    â€œThey got a good lesson on what gold could buy for them—guns, ammunition, food and other goods, horses—hell, they know the whole system now. They rob a stage, they get the money and gold in the strongboxes.”
    â€œI’ll be damned. All these years I thought they were ignorant.”
    â€œThey aren’t. Give me three tough men and I’ll find the others and get this Gomez. If you want him wiped off the map, we need to do it now.”
    â€œThat would leave us awfully short of guns to defend this ranch. They finished off an army patrol up by the Whetstones.”
    â€œThat army patrol were probably foreigners and they rode into a trap. They have not gone against anything barricaded like this place.”
    â€œHell, I’ll get you two. Where will you get the rest?”
    â€œI’ll have to hire them—somewhere.”
    Dan brought him two men, Ken Highland, a Texan who Slocum decided probably was on the run from the law. Tall, thick-set, with blue eyes. Judging by the way he wore a gun, he’d make a good hand. He spit tobacco aside and in a rusty voice said, “We going down there for a party?”
    â€œDamn right, and when we get the place flattened, we will celebrate Mexican style.”
    â€œGood enough. I heard enough about you. I’ll foller you.”
    â€œThanks.”
    Jewels Cline was a bucktoothed kid. Skinny as a rail and maybe eighteen. His too-long blond hair was like straw sticking out from under his hatband. He had only fuzz on his cheeks and a lazy right eye.
    â€œYou see all right?” Slocum asked.
    He smiled. “I can see. You want to see me shoot for you?”
    â€œSure,” Slocum said. “One of you guys set up some bottles down there against that hill. That suit you?”
    â€œFuck yes.”
    The Kid swaggered around until the bottles were set up. Then he nodded with a smug set to his lips, drew his pistol, and rapid-fired five rounds—four struck brown glass; the other one was close, spitting dust beside the empty bottle.
    â€œGood enough,” Slocum said. The boy could sure hit what he aimed at.
    Slocum made certain each man had two pistols and a working rifle with ammo. He told them he would meet them in three days near the Willows. But they were not to go into the saloon/whorehouse on the Mexican border, deep in a canyon with some water seeps so that willows flourished.
    Dan was supplying Slocum with three packhorses and the food they’d need for two weeks. He told Dan’s two men that he would find them at the Willows and take them to a safe haven. No one else needed to know anything about their business there.
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    Slocum left them that night and rode back to Patagonia. When Sandy descended out the hotel front door, he met her and they went to breakfast. The squatters and their wagons were still parked all over in the crowded streets.
    â€œHow has it gone so far?”
    â€œI have half an army, but I need to hire two or three more specialists I know.”
    â€œSpecialists?” She held the coffee cup at her mouth waiting for his answer.
    â€œI need someone who can shoot a bow and arrow.”
    â€œWhere is he?”
    â€œNo doubt sobering up in a