Slocum #422 (4 page)

“Why, do come in, sir,” she said. “I'd thought the day couldn't get any better. I was wrong.” She stepped back to let him enter.

Beyond Slocum saw a small sitting room. A small bar with a ­half-­dozen bottles of whiskey and brandy stretched under a stained glass window now brilliant with a new day's light. The furnishings were as expensive as the madam bidding him to enter.

“I'm looking for a lady. Two ladies,” he quickly amended.

“I'm sure you can handle two. At the same time or separately? Oh, it doesn't matter. I hope you'll consider me to be one of them, and I just know any number of my other ladies will suit your . . . tastes.”

“Marlene Burlison,” he said. “Is she here?”

“Names aren't important.” The madam gave him a more critical examination now. He wasn't dressed for such an expensive whorehouse and showed none of the manners most appearing at the door would.

“They are to Morgan Burlison. Her father. You must have heard of him.”

“I don't want any trouble.”

“I'm sure you and your ladies dish out only pleasure. You have your profession and I have my job. Marlene Burlison. Where is she?”

“Fenton!” The woman spun, her skirts making soft, whispering, ­come-­hither sounds. “Fenton, where are they?”

A man half Slocum's size came from a back room. From the way he ­dressed—­and ­clanked—­he was a gambler and armed to the teeth. Slocum saw two ivory knife handles poking out from inner pockets, and bulges gave away the hiding places of a pair of ­small-­caliber pistols.

“In the back, but I don't think it's a good idea to disturb them. They only just settled in.”

Slocum pushed past the madam and came even with Fenton. When the gambler's eyes flickered down to his side, he betrayed himself. Slocum swung, his punch hitting the man on the cheek. The gambler dropped to a couch, holding his bruised face.

“Touch a knife or gun and it'll be the last thing you do.”

Fenton started to straighten his left arm. From the way his sleeve creased, he wore a ­spring-­loaded contraption that shoved a pistol into his hand. Slocum had his Colt out and coming down hard on the man's wrist as the derringer popped out. The pistol fell to the heavily carpeted floor without so much as a whisper.

“Fenton, let him be.”

“Yeah, Fenton, let me be.” Slocum turned the ­six-­shooter slightly so the man peered down the bore. The Colt was a smaller caliber than most men packed now, but it had to look like the mouth of a water barrel.

Seeing the gambler subside, Slocum went down a long hall, then turned. Rooms on either side told him the place was bigger than he thought. It might cover half the block. Quick looks into the rooms as he went showed little activity. Most held only the sleeping ladies of the night, their work done until sunset. But one door caught his eye. Silver filigree had been set into the wood, marking it as different from the cribs. He eased open the door.

Inside a woman sat in a chair with hands folded in her lap, looking uneasy, while another pressed her eye against a wall. The woman in the chair cried out. The other didn't budge but only hissed for her to be quiet. Slocum stepped in and saw the one girl peered through a spyhole.

“What's in the other room?” he asked.

“He's about ­to—” The woman realized her blond companion had not asked the question. She pulled away and stared at Slocum. “Who are you?”

“Are you Marlene Burlison? Your pa hired me to escort you to San Antonio.”

“I . . . no, she's Marlene. I'm Sarah Jane Mulligan.”

“Miss Mulligan,” Slocum said, touching the brim of his hat. The ­dark-­haired woman looked flushed and out of breath. Her ample breasts heaved up and down under a bodice that appeared chaste at first glance but which delicate lacework revealed a considerable amount of snowy white breasts. Her waist was small enough for Slocum to reach around with both hands and have his fingers touch. Her blue eyes shone brightly and contrasted with her midnight mane, making her seem wild and unchecked.

He went to the peephole. However the madam had done it, the view into the next room was panoramic. A man positioned behind a naked woman bent over the bed was about to enter her from the rear.

“Learning anything?” he asked as he backed away a step and pulled down a small wooden disk nailed to the wall, blocking the spyhole.

“Not really,” she said. She brushed back her dark hair and sucked in a deep breath to further enhance her bosoms. She put one hand on a cocked hip and gave him a ­come-­hither look that would have produced a hard-on if he hadn't been so focused on doing the job Morgan Burlison had given him.

“Miss Burlison,” he said to the woman in the chair, “the train leaves very soon.” Pulling his eyes from her maid was hard, especially with the way Sarah Jane licked her lips so wantonly. In spite of what she said, she had learned a great deal watching the sexual goings-on in the other room.

“It won't leave without us, me,” the blonde said. She looked up boldly at Slocum, then dropped eyes as green as his own to her folded hands. The monetary burst of defiance faded fast. She was a complete opposite to her maid.

She wasn't anything like Slocum had expected. When he figured out Marlene Burlison was a young woman and not a child needing a nanny, he expected her to look like her pa. The blond woman had a finely boned face and healthy complexion showing she spent some time away from indoor pursuits such as watching coupling. Her hair was mussed but was clean and shone like gold in the dim light from the oil lamp on a nearby table. Those fearful eyes darted back at him and then more fearlessly met his gaze. She wasn't going to back down now. Watching her change from mouse to lion warned Slocum he had his hands full with her mercurial moods.

“Let's go.” Slocum took her by the elbow and got the blonde to her feet. She was taller than he'd expected, perhaps five foot five, and trim, but with a full figure that would have made her a favorite in the cathouse.

Her dress was expensive but without ornamentation, as fitting for a woman out for a night of being a Peeping Tom. She had a dark cloak draped over the back of her chair. Slocum took it and, with a flourish, spun it around so it settled about her shoulders. She never took her eyes off him. A smile slowly grew that lit her face.

“Thank you,” she said. She turned but Slocum kept his arm about her. She tensed and pushed back to look at her maid. “We must go, you know.”

“I want to stay. It was just getting interesting.”

“Sarah Jane,” she said sternly. “We must go. Now.”

“How do we know he's who he says? That your father sent him for us?”

“Stay and watch or come along,” Slocum said. “Nothing was said about seeing Miss Burlison's maid on the train.” He herded the woman ahead of him. Behind them, the maid sputtered.

“You can't leave me. I . . . I have my job, too. To look after Marlene!”

“Some job you were doing,” he said. “Why'd you allow her to come here?”

He kept the two women moving down the hall to the sitting room, where the madam dabbed gently at Fenton's bruised cheek.

“You struck him?” Marlene asked.

“Yes, Miss Burlison, I did.”

“He's harmless,” Sarah Jane said.

Slocum wasn't in the mood to argue. Any man who carried as many different types of weapons as Fenton was anything but harmless. He was a man accustomed to using the knives and pistols when his luck ran ­out—­or he was caught cheating.

“Do come back,” the madam said as the women left. “Without your bodyguard next time.”

“It has been wonderful, Lady Jessica.” Sarah Jane bowed slightly to the madam, stopped, and then said, “You should pay her, Marlene. It's only fair.”

“What, oh, yes, of course.” The blonde fumbled and found a pocket in the cloak Slocum hadn't noticed when he had helped her on with it. She passed over a sizable wad of greenbacks, then added a few more, saying, “For Fenton's trouble.”

Slocum kept Marlene moving until they got outside. The waiting driver jumped down and extended his hand to help her into the carriage.

“Mr. Burlison is certainly hiring ­better-­looking employees,” Sarah Jane said, coming up behind Slocum. She gripped down hard on his buttocks.

Slocum hardly noticed.

“Get in. The driver will take you back to the train. I have some business to attend to.”

“Will you be long?” Sarah Jane giggled. “Of course you are.”

Slocum shot the driver a hard look. The man swallowed nervously, then snapped the reins to get the horse pulling back to the depot.

He waited for them to turn a corner and disappear before he drew his ­six-­shooter and started across the street to where Big Joe had a man pinned against the wall, interrogating him. Halfway across, the bounty hunter sensed something wrong, shoved aside the man, and whirled around to face Slocum. He went for the scattergun he had slung from a leather strap over his shoulder.

Slocum took two quick steps forward and swung his ­six-­shooter in a wide arc that ended on the side of the bounty hunter's head. The dull crunch told of bones breaking, but Big Joe didn't go down. The blow staggered him, but he kept fumbling for the shotgun. Slocum took another step forward and whirled the pistol around backhanded and landed the barrel on the other side of Big Joe's head.

This knocked him to the ground, his eyes rolling up in his head. Although more unconscious than aware, he clung to the shotgun. His finger spastically jerked and both barrels discharged. Slocum danced away, as if he could outrun the buckshot loaded into that deadly weapon. He winced as one ball ripped away part of his boot top and took flesh just above it away in a bloody spray.

For all his minor injury hurt, he saw the bounty hunter was in a worse way. Big Joe had fired his shotgun into his own meaty thigh. Blood oozed through the filthy buckskin pants and turned into a gory mud.

“You might have killed yourself,” Slocum said, kneeling down. “If you blasted an artery, you're a goner.”

The man's eyes flickered open. He lurched upward, trying to bite Slocum.

“You got the wrong man,” Slocum said. “Take that to your grave. You shouldn't have come for me because I had nothing to do with the killings or the robbery.”

He rocked back and stood. Aware of a crowd gathering, he slid his Colt Navy back into his holster.

“What happened?” asked a man who had turned white at the sight of so much blood and shredded flesh.

“His shotgun went off accidentally,” Slocum said. He let the crowd press closer to Big Joe and push him away.

He hobbled a mite as he made his way from the circle of people, loudly speculating as to the bounty hunter's fate. When he turned the corner where the carriage with Marlene and her maid had disappeared, he tried to walk faster. The sound of a train whistle echoed through the streets. It might have been the Yuma Bullet readying for its express trip to San Antonio or it could have been another train, a freight train, or another passenger train.

If he missed the Yuma Bullet, he was out the three hundred dollars Morgan Burlison had promised him for babysitting his daughter on a milk run. His boot squishing from the puddling blood, he reached the depot. The train had connected the Pullman, freight, and mail cars but no smoke puffed out of the locomotive's stack. Two men in filthy overalls stood beside the engine's front wheel, pointing and shouting at each other. The engineer sat on the step leading up to the cab. Behind him the fireman gripped a railing and swung out to watch the fight.

Slocum hobbled over.

“What's the problem?” he asked Mad Tom. The origin of the man's moniker was apparent. The engineer turned so his face pointed off at an angle but one eye fixed on Slocum. Not only was he walleyed but the other eye had a milky film over it. Just looking at him gave Slocum the collywobbles.

“Now that there's a bone of contention,” Mad Tom said. His raspy voice added to his creepy aspect. He spat a black gobbet that hit the ground, sizzled, and vanished amid the cinders. “One of them thinks we burnt a bearing. The other's certain sure the whole danged drive wheel's got to be replaced. Me, I'm leanin' toward it bein' neither of them.”

“Yeah, me and Tom think there's an oil reservoir leak.”

“Replace an ­itty-­bitty cylinder and we'd be good as gold.” Mad Tom spat again.

“How long before we get rolling?”

“Well now, seein' as how you're the gent Mr. Burlison hired on to look after his lovely daughter, you got a right to know that.” Mad Tom wiped his lips on an oily rag. “The answer's real easy. I don't know.”

“Miss Burlison back in her car?”

“'Spect she is. Her and her cute li'l handmaid drove up all prissy and spittin' fire not twenty minutes back.”

Pain lancing all the way up into his groin now, Slocum limped to the second Pullman but didn't mount the metal steps. He swung about and sat heavily. Wincing, he tried to work off his boot but the pain in his leg made him stop. He looked up over his shoulder when he heard a small gasp.

“Whatever happened to you?” Marlene Burlison stared at the bloody pant leg, her green eyes as big as saucers.

“Cut myself up a mite,” Slocum said. He had no reason to explain what had happened since that required him to tell how a bounty hunter had come sniffing along his back trail.

“I'll get some water and bandages.” She vanished into the Pullman car.

Slocum went back to working off the boot. He poured a goodly amount of blood out onto the cinders, where it was sucked up instantly. Pulling back the cloth plastered to his leg exposed the shallow wound. As he'd thought, the shot had caused more blood than damage.

“Move over,” Marlene said, stepping past him as she exited the car. Her skirts swirled and momentarily suffocated him.

Then she was kneeling in front of him, dabbing at the dried blood and gently examining the crease. He stared at her. For a rich man's daughter, she showed no revulsion at the wound or tending it.

“There's no need for you to take care of it,” Slocum said.

“It's not serious at all. I've seen worse. I did worse to myself when I fell out of a tree when I was eight. I caught my chin on a limb and it tore a ­six-­inch gash. I thought I was going to die. It wasn't in the least painful, but I bled like a stuck pig.”

Slocum reached over, put his finger under her chin, and lifted. A faint white scar running from her shoulder across her neck and up under her chin showed she wasn't fibbing.

“No pain at all? A cut that bad on a little girl's neck should have hurt like the devil.”

“My pa always treated me as if I were his son. ‘No tears, girl,' he always said. Ma stitched it up.” She looked a bit sheepish, then turned her face up to Slocum. “He held my hand while Ma did the sewing and he was right. It hurt but I didn't cry.”

“That was brave of you,” Slocum said. “I reckon your pa worked his way up in the railroad?”

He thought he had poked her with a pin. She recoiled, then settled back down to complete the cleansing before expertly bandaging his leg.

“Pa has always been a hard worker. There. Your boot's a mess but your leg's going to be fine.”

“I've been hurt worse than this,” Slocum said.

“I suspect you have.” Marlene looked away as if she were embarrassed at what she was thinking.

Slocum had to wonder what that might be to bring roses to her cheeks and a quickening to her breathing. He found her enticing, but he knew better than to fool around with the boss's daughter. Even if she wanted to fool around with a drifter and a man with a bloody wound in his leg.

“I'll go clean up.”

“There's a bathtub in this car. ­You—” Marlene bit off her words when Sarah Jane came running up, waving her arms to get the girl's attention. “Whatever does she want now?” Marlene spoke so low that she meant the words only for herself, but Slocum overheard.

“We're going to find out, I reckon.”

Marlene jumped and stared at him in panic. Then she settled down and only nodded.

“I've just got a 'gram from . . . from your father, Marlene. He's returning and wants us to wait until he arrives.”

“That's not much of a problem,” Slocum said. “The Yuma Bullet's got mechanical problems. It'll take a spell to figure out what's wrong, then fix it.”

“My, aren't we the knowing one, Mr. Slocum? Or can I call you John?”

“John's my name,” he said. Sarah Jane's blue eyes danced with merriment, as if she had duped him into admitting something wicked. For all that, Slocum would pit her thoughts with those of Marlene. Both women had more than getting to San Antonio on their minds.

The peepshow at the whorehouse showed that. Sarah Jane had been actively enjoying the sight of the amorous activity in the next room. He looked again at Marlene. She squared her shoulders and stood. She handed the basin with the bloody water to Sarah Jane.

“Take care of this, will you? Mr. Slocum injured himself and I tended his wound.”

“Did you now? Aren't you all the nurse?” Sarah Jane bent over and peered at the neatly tied bandage. “You used my petticoat!”

“It was convenient,” Marlene said.

“Get on with your business, John,” Sarah Jane said. “Marlene and I have to prepare for Mr. Burlison. He'll be back in about an hour.”

“Why's that? He was in an ­all-­fired hurry to get to San Francisco on business. It was like somebody had lit a torch under him.”

“You wanted to say ‘set his ass on fire,' didn't you, John?” Sarah Jane spoke with obvious malice, wanting him to apologize.

“I say what I mean.” He saw the flicker of a smile on Marlene's lips that disappeared as quickly as it was born. “You ladies had better get ready. I'll do the same.”

He held out his hand to help Marlene up the steps into their Pullman car. For some reason, Slocum didn't extend the same courtesy to Sarah Jane even though she pressed close. She made a point of tossing out the water, brushing against him, then looking at Marlene to see if the girl objected. Marlene waited quietly at the door into the car. Her impassive face showed no trace of whatever emotion her maid tried to spark.

As Sarah Jane scampered up the steps, Marlene went inside. The door slammed, leaving Slocum to wonder why Marlene had ever hired the girl. What drove Sarah Jane was obvious. If Slocum snapped his fingers, he could have her under the blanket in an instant. As sexy as she was, he knew he would have a good time and give her one, as well. But her behavior would only lead to trouble. Morgan Burlison wasn't the sort to put up with debauchery in his employees. The idea that Sarah Jane gave a bad example for his daughter would send Burlison into a rage Slocum wanted to avoid.

He hobbled away to find a water barrel near the depot. It took the better part of a half hour to scrub off the blood from his boot. When he pulled it on, it felt tight and required him to walk around to soften the wet leather and mold the boot to his foot once more. If he got shot in another month or so, the blood would drain out a hole in the sole. Right now the hole came close to poking all the way through, but enough leather remained to keep him from blistering. After Burlison paid him for escorting his daughter to San Antonio, there'd be plenty of money for a new pair of boots. Slocum had heard of a cobbler there who'd make a custom pair for what this pair had cost off the shelf of a general store up in Sacramento.

Testing his leg, he climbed the steps to the depot and pressed his face against the bars at the ticket agent's booth once more. This time McIlheny hunched over the telegraph key, sending the dots and dashes along the wire to satisfy what must have been a dozen customers.

“You got word on Burlison's arrival?” Slocum called.

McIlheny kept at his work as he said, “An hour. Maybe less. His train broke down ten miles out of town and is limping back to the yard for repair.”

“He fit to be tied over the delay?”

“I got the 'gram. Damn near melted the wires it was so hot.” McIlheny looked up. “You better mind your p's and q's. When he gets all het up, he and his daughter argue 'bout nothing.” The clerk sniffed. “Hell, they argue about everything. Anybody caught in the cross fire gets their head blown off.”

“Thanks for the warning.” Slocum took out his pocket watch and compared it to the station's Regulator clock ticking balefully. The times matched close enough.

He walked to the edge of the depot platform and looked down the few feet to the ground. Testing his leg now gave him more confidence later. He jumped. The impact sent a shock up into his hip but otherwise supported him fine. Slocum walked fast to the crew working on the Yuma Bullet. Two men were beneath the wheels, one banging away with a small sledgehammer, while another man stood nearby, holding an oilcan and looking bored.

The fireman had gone, but Mad Tom sat on a step cleaning his filthy fingernails with a knife. He never looked up as Slocum stopped in front of him.

“No idea,” Tom said.

Slocum had to laugh. The question was an obvious one, and Mad Tom didn't have to read minds to know.

“Anything I can do?”

“You know anything 'bout engines?” Mad Tom glanced at Slocum before returning to his futile work.

“I see how things fit together pretty well. I worked a spell along the Mississippi as a dock hand and saw something of how steam capstans worked.”

“Be better if they'd let you fool 'round with the steam engines below deck. I got my start there, then saw how the riverboats was a dyin' breed so I went to KC and lied my way onto an engine as fireman so I could work up to my exalted position of train driver.” He finished his cleaning, wiped the point on his overalls, then yelled, “Hersch, you got help comin'. ­First-­rate mechanic what'll show you how stupid you've been.” Mad Tom pointed with the knife blade for Slocum to get to work.

The man with the oilcan used the spigot to indicate a spot just behind the front wheels.

“You know shit 'bout a Prairie?”

“It's a 2-6-2,” Slocum said. “Two lead wheels don't do anything but keep the front on the tracks. The next six do the work. Two rear wheels under the cab support a goodly portion of the weight from the firebox.”

“You know more 'n I do, then,” the oiler said. “I know the damn thing can't run if it falls off the tracks. Seen one try once. It blowed itself up when it hit the ground.” He bent and yelled under the engine, “Hersch, we got ourselves an expert.”

Slocum wondered at how easy it was to become an expert just because he had ridden enough trains in his day and gotten drunk with enough engineers to hear about wheels. He pulled off his holster and hung it from a knob protruding from the boiler. Wiggling on his back, he felt the cut of cinders against his shirt. He tore shreds out of it, but the money he'd get from Burlison would pay for a new shirt as well as decent boots. The scent of hot oil and burned steel made his nostrils flare. A quick swipe across his eyes cleared them of tears forming against the fumes.