Slocum #396 : Slocum and the Scavenger Trail (9781101554371) (10 page)

“If your brother’s saying you ought to go on back down the trail, he’s right. I can keep searching. You have your mules and supplies.”

“That’s mighty dangerous, Mr. Slocum. Stephen’s right about the men we saw being such hard cases. They might rob us as we passed them going down.”

He said nothing to that. The other prospectors were likely the least of the problems brother and sister would face returning to Almost There. Trueheart’s men still plied their thieving trade along this stretch of the trail. Men would be tuckered out after the first steep slope and present easy pickings. Anyone going down would draw attention—and guns.

“I’ll escort you back. This isn’t any place for two greenhorns.”

Melissa spun on him, her face turning up to glare at him as she had with her brother. To emphasize her point, she balled her fists and put them on her hips to give the very picture of determination.

“I am my father’s daughter. He would never give up on a dream. I will never give up hope until I find him. Alive, I pray, but if he is dead, I intend to give him a Christian burial. But one way or the other,
I will find him!
”

“You’d go on without a guide?”

“Some guide you are,” grumbled Stephen.

“I will. We will,” she said.

“I’ll see you to the goldfields on the other side of the pass, but if nobody’s seen your pa, you’ll give up and go back home. That’s my deal.”

“Very well,” she said somewhat contritely.

“And you won’t spend more ’n a week hunting for him,” Slocum said. From the way Melissa spoke, she would insist on interrogating every prospector within twenty miles. That way lay madness and disappointment.

“That hardly seems long enough.”

“It’ll seem like forever by the time we reach the pass,” Slocum said.

“Then we have a bargain.” Melissa thrust out her tiny hand. Slocum’s engulfed hers, but she had a firm handshake to seal their pact.

Slocum wondered if he would have agreed to such a wild-goose chase if he hadn’t felt guilty about losing not only her pa but the other three in the party. He didn’t know, and that bothered him.

“Now that you’ve fetched our mules, we can push on right away,” she said.

“Getting dark in less than an hour. Let’s get some food, rest up, and then hit the trail the first thing in the morning.”

“Morning comes so late on this side of the mountain,” she said.

“All the more reason to rest up so we can make better time.”

Stephen sputtered about something obscene, but Slocum ignored him. So did Melissa. Over Melissa’s objections, he fixed dinner from the supplies he had recovered from Gunnison, then cleaned up the tin plates in the nearby stream.

“I’ll put my bedroll over there,” Melissa said, studying the terrain carefully. “You can sleep near the mules, Stephen. We don’t want them stolen in the night.”

“Let Slocum sleep with the animals. He’s used to it.”

Before Slocum could respond, Melissa cut him off.

“He will be up on that prominence so he can watch the trail in both directions. Someone needs to remain alert and stand watch so we aren’t killed in our sleep.”

“By prospectors?” scoffed Stephen.

“Or by highwaymen or Indians. I heard there are Indians roaming about these mountains. Isn’t that right, Mr. Slocum?”

Something in the way she spoke made him agree. It had been a year or more since the Blackfoot had kicked up a ruckus. The Nez Perce were farther west the last he had heard and no threat. But she certainly spoke the truth about other prospectors stealing from them, and he had no doubt Mackley and others from Trueheart’s town would prowl the trail looking for easy pickings.

“All right,” Stephen said with ill grace.

Like a mother hen, Melissa bustled about, getting everyone to the proper spot, then spread her bedroll and lay down, pointedly drawing the blanket over her shoulders.

Slocum, atop the small rise, laced his fingers under his head and watched the stars pop out, sharp and hard and brilliant. A gentle breeze began blowing and thin, high clouds crossed the stars, turning the sky to gauze studded with rhinestones. As he was drifting off to sleep, he heard a faint movement from the direction of the camp. He reached over and drew his six-shooter, then rolled onto his back and waited.

He saw a dim figure moving toward him up the gentle slope. A deep whiff of the night breeze caused him to lower the hammer on his Colt and slip it back into the holster beside his head so she would never know.

But she did.

His blanket fluttered up and then was pulled back down as Melissa snuggled close to him.

“You were going to shoot me,” she accused.

“Not after I caught a whiff of your perfume.”

“I’m not wearing any.”

He rolled over and took her in his arms. She fit nicely, softness against his hard body crushing in all the right spots. Inhaling deeply, he caught the scent of a woman.

“You don’t need perfume. You smell just fine this way.”

“I want to thank you for going along, John,” she said softly, her face buried in his chest.

But it was not her face or lips working to kiss against his flesh that aroused him. Her nimble fingers worked on the buttons holding his fly closed. He gasped when she succeeded in finding what lay behind the thick denim.

“You’re hard already,” she said.

“You do that to me. Never seen a woman so pretty.”

“Liar. I bet you’ve seen plenty of women prettier than me. All of them. Without a stitch of clothing on.” She began squeezing rhythmically, encouraging him to become even harder in the circle of her fingers. When he was steely enough for her, she began stroking up and down slowly.

“This is what I want, John. Only not between my fingers. In me. I want to feel you moving inside me. With this.”

He gulped as she squeezed down hard around his manhood.

“Keep doing that and I might not last long enough.”

She giggled and said, “Why do I doubt that? You’re not a young buck. You’ve had women. Plenty of them, unless I miss my guess.”

“And you still want me to do this to you?”

He reached down and lifted her skirt. His hands raked along her outer thighs, then moved to the tender inner flesh. She parted willingly for him. His middle finger penetrated her. It was her turn to gasp with delight.

“Not just your finger. This.
This!
”

She jerked hard on his shaft, pulling it toward the spot filled with his finger. Moistness turned to a veritable flood as he continued to stroke in and out, occasionally finding
the tiny spire just outside her nether lips so he could press his thumb down on it. She thrashed about as he continued to feel her up.

“So good, John, so good. But I want more.”

“What?” he teased. “What more do you want?”

“Your cock!”

Her tugs became too insistent for him to resist. Rolling over, he came to his knees between her parted thighs and looked down at her. Melissa’s eyes were half closed and her lips slightly parted. She slowly looked up and then down to his crotch. He felt her insistent pull, drawing him forward to the spot he desired most to fill.

He caught himself on his hands as his hips slid forward. The tip of his stalk touched dewy, trembling lips then parted them to dash far into her. She gasped and lifted her rump off the ground to grind her hips into his.

Slocum remained fully buried in her moist, tight interior until he had to move. Slowly withdrawing until only the purple cap at the end of his manhood remained within her, he gathered his strength and stroked forward. This time he moved smoothly and sank balls deep. Again completely surrounded by gripping female flesh, he paused, reveling in the heat and tightness.

“Faster, do it faster,” she moaned. Her fingers gripped his upper arms, fingernails cutting into his flesh.

He began moving with more determination, obeying not only her request for more speed but also his own need. Friction mounted along his entire length, burning at him, tearing away at his control.

Faster. Faster yet. He was on fire. Her knees lifted to either side of his body, giving him an even tighter target to fill with his pulsating manhood. But he could not continue as long as he wanted. Deep inside blossomed a white fire that spread rapidly, burning his loins and then exploding out the tip hidden far inside her.

She clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her outcry.
She thrashed about, his erection the axle about which she spun. And then she sagged down. Slocum bent down and kissed her. Melissa’s eyes opened, and she stared at him.

“As good as I thought,” she said in a husky whisper.

“It gets better,” he told her.

“Prove it.”

After a while, he did.

“I need to go, John.” Melissa pushed away from him, sat up, and then wiggled delightfully as she worked her skirt down from around her waist, where it had stayed almost all night long. She turned, bent, and kissed him, then reached over and tucked him back into his jeans. “You should button up before you fix breakfast.”

With that she was up and hurrying into the darkness. Slocum tried to see what time it was by the position of the stars but clouds had moved in, promising a storm later in the day. He didn’t like the notion of being caught on the trail, even if they were on the easy section, in a downpour.

He leaned back, then took her advice, and buttoned up. She didn’t want her brother knowing how she had spent the night. Slocum had to agree. Stephen was a nervy fellow and prone to jumping to conclusions. That his sister was with the hired help all night long would set him off and produce either anger or, worse from Slocum’s view, surliness. Once they got on the trail, the three of them needed to pull together or they would end up like the first party of prospectors had.

Slocum checked his six-shooter, then pulled out his watch
and peered at the face. The faint illumination showed him it was hardly 4 a.m. He settled back, thinking about how pleasurable—and unexpected—it had been with Melissa during the night. It was possible that everything was looking up for him.

He might even find what happened to her pa. That would benefit them all.

Tossing and turning, he found it impossible to get back to sleep, so he rose, secured his bedroll, and wandered down the incline to make a fire pit. As he worked, he took a deep breath and caught the odor of burning wood on the breeze. When he’d finished gathering wood and had everything ready for a cooking fire, he went exploring.

Less than a hundred yards back along the trail he caught the aromatic scent of freshly brewed coffee. Alert now, he advanced more slowly and finally saw the glow of a fire a few yards off the trail. From what he could tell in the faint glow from the coals, three men huddled about drinking coffee. No words reached him, but the sight of mules secured to a line convinced him they were prospectors on their way over the pass to find fortune in the goldfields.

He retraced his steps, reached the camp, and started his own fire. Stephen was first to come from his post near the mules, grumbling and yawning.

“Coffee? Just boiled some,” Slocum said, holding up the coffeepot.

“Yeah,” was all he got as a mumbled answer. Stephen found his cup and let Slocum slosh some of the liquid in it. He made a face when he tasted it, then said, “This tastes awful.”

“You can make it next time,” Slocum said. He took a drink of the bitter coffee and fought to keep from making the same comment. Supplies bought down below were overpriced and only barely drinkable.

“Needs a shot of whiskey in it to cut the taste,” Stephen said.

“Of course you brought some, didn’t you, dear brother?”

Melissa seated herself next to Stephen across the fire from Slocum. She avoided his eyes, but he saw a tiny smile curling the corners of her bow-shaped lips.

Slocum began fixing some oatmeal, and as he stirred it, he asked, “Would you be willing to throw in with another party going over the pass?”

“Another? Who?” This caught Melissa’s attention.

“Three prospectors are on the trail a quarter mile behind us. If we team up, there’d be safety in numbers.”

“You make it sound as if we’re sheep and there are wolves out there,” Stephen scoffed.

“Not far off,” Slocum allowed. “I don’t know them or if they’d be willing, but I think they would.” He stared straight at Melissa. This time she caught his eye and blushed. What red-blooded prospector wouldn’t want to share the trail with a woman this lovely?

“It would make the night safer,” she said slowly.

He read more into her words than Stephen. With others standing guard, they wouldn’t be able to spend the night as they had, but splitting sentry duty made reaching Desolation Pass more likely.

“I want to speak with them. To see how they act. I won’t allow ruffians around you, Melly.”

“Oh, grow up, Stephen. I can take care of myself. I’ve heard bad language.”

“Because you insisted on going to work with Pa.”

“What kind of work did he do?” Slocum asked.

Brother and sister looked at him as if he had grown a second head.

“He’s a mining engineer, of course. Why else would he come out here to find gold?” She frowned. “What did you think his occupation to be?”

“Never came up,” Slocum said. “I reckoned he was like the others, a man looking for quick wealth.” His guess of lawyer had been entirely wrong.

“Oh, no, Papa is a methodical, realistic man. He had seen enough mining to yearn for gold, of course, but if he failed as a prospector, he could hire himself out at a tidy sum to design and oversee a working goldmine.”

“What sort of mining did he do?”

“Although he was most familiar with coal mining, he was quite well read in geology. I daresay he could run an assay office, with the proper equipment and chemicals.”

Slocum stood and turned to the trail as the three prospectors in the trailing party made their way. They stopped, put their heads together, and argued. From the snippets Slocum overheard, they were discussing what he already had with Melissa and Stephen. He walked over to them, keeping his hands well away from his six-shooter.

“Morning, gents,” Slocum called.