He kissed her hair, her closed eyes, her upturned lips. As her fingers explored his broad back, he ran his down her back, cupped her fleshy buttocks and pulled her strongly to him. He grunted as he felt himself crushed.

  “Oh, John, I want you so. Please,” she pleaded. Her slender leg lifted and curled around his waist. With a tiny hop, she brought up her other leg and locked her ankles behind his back. Slocum didn’t like the feel of her boots against his bare flesh, but he couldn’t deny that the feel of her crotch grinding down passionately against his lust-hardened shaft overrode any discomfort.

  He cupped her buttocks for support and bounced her up and down enough to bring a gasp of delight to her lips. Burying his face in her hair, he kissed and then found the delicate curve of her neck. His lips turned more fervent as he worked around. Laurel leaned back then so he could lavish those kisses on her breasts.

  His tongue lightly flicked over the turgid tips of her firm breasts, then slipped down into the canyon between. Her body trembled constantly now, one racking shudder followed by another. Slocum found himself unable to support both of them and sank down to the ground. He turned her so he could place her on her back. When Laurel was safely down, she unlocked her ankles and put her feet flat on the ground, spreading her legs and lifting her hips wantonly for him.

  “Now, John, now. I want it hard. I want you now!”

  He obeyed his own impulses. He moved between her legs, the rubbery head of his manhood bouncing off the woman’s nether lips. He pulled back and aimed more accurately a second time. He sank balls-deep into her molten core. Surrounded by clinging female flesh, Slocum paused to relish the sensations seeping into his own flesh and lancing down into his groin. When she tensed her inner muscles and squeezed down hard all around him, he almost lost control.

  Pulling back slowly aroused both of them. When only the head of his shaft remained within her, Slocum lifted himself up on his arms and stared at the lovely woman. Her eyes were closed, and a look of stark bliss etched itself into every line of her face. She bit her lower lip and tossed her head from side to side.

  He slid back into her, but this time did not linger. He withdrew, reentered her fleshy paradise, then began gradually to build speed. She lifted up to meet him now and twisted herself around, striving to meet his every thrust. Their privates ground together in a heady mix of passion and need. Slocum rocked back and used his hands on the woman’s tempting breasts, pressing them flat, letting them pop back into position, then teasing the nub atop each until they both became rigid with the blood hammering from her heart.

  “John, do it, John, more, more,” she gasped out. She reached up and grabbed his upper arms, pulling him down. Her need was great, and she didn’t require any more stimulation. She began rotating her hips once he was fully within her heated interior.

  He felt his control slipping away as sensation built within his loins. He burned. He ached. He needed release. He kept moving faster and faster, the friction burning at his lust-lubricated flesh. When Laurel gasped out and an earthquake shook her entire body, Slocum knew he could not hang on any longer. He rammed hard, and felt himself sinking into a delicious morass that tightened all around him, milking him, making sure he was going to get off.

  He spilled his white-hot seed into her, the sudden spurt one of complete tension release. He continued pumping back and forth until there was nothing more he could do. Limp as a worm, he slipped from her and stretched out in the warm morning sun.

  Laurel put her head on his shoulder, her fingers running over his chest again.

  “I keep forgetting how good it is with a real man,” Laurel said. She snuggled a little closer. After a few minutes, Slocum felt her hot tears on his skin.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, but he knew.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he? My father?”

  “I found the bodies of men who had ridden with him, but there wasn’t any sign of him. He had plenty of time to hide that locket. That means something.”

  “That he knew he was going to die and didn’t want it stolen.”

  Slocum had nothing to say to this. Without more tracking, more sign, more information, he had no idea if that was what had caused Atkins to hide the locket. It was just as likely that he had hidden it, intending to return for it when he had eluded those who were killing his troopers.

  Laurel dozed off soon, and Slocum followed her into a dreamless sleep. He awoke after noon with her still clinging to him. Gently disentangling and sitting up, he looked at her nakedness. A stirring began again down low, but Slocum knew this wasn’t the time or place. Not any longer.

  He dressed, then went hunting. He doubted Davies and his men were good enough trailsmen to follow—he had ridden with Davies and Lem and knew they couldn’t find their own asses with both hands—but caution dictated that he not shoot their dinner. Slocum patiently waited by a game trail and finally clubbed a rabbit with a large rock. The smell of cooking meat caused Laurel to stir and finally come awake.

  She sat up, stretched and gave Slocum a new look at her lovely naked body. Seeing his interest, she coyly hid her breasts.

  “Naughty boy, looking at me like that.”

  “I did more than look this morning,” he said. “And so did you.”

  Laurel laughed and dressed, then dropped beside him on the ground near the fire. They ate the rabbit in silence, but both of them knew what lay ahead: a long trail without much hope for a happy ending.

  Seven days later Slocum admitted defeat.

  “There’s no good trail to follow, not after all this time,” he told her. Laurel sat astride her horse. His words caused her shoulders to slump.

  “What do we do now, John?”

  He looked back along their trail, up the side of the mountain where he had found the locket. It hadn’t taken him long to reach the pass, littered with bodies from Atkins’s patrol. He had shown Laurel where he had found her locket, then they had gone down the slope hunting for her father. If the man was still alive, he had long since left this part of the territory. Slocum didn’t find even a small sign that he was on the right trail.

  “We need to get to Salt Lake City, let the Army know what’s going on at Fort Crumpland and let the chips fall where they may. There’s nothing more we can do.”

  “Do you think Captain Wilson would send out a patrol to look for my father? More men would . . .” Her voice trailed off when she realized what she was saying. Slocum was a good tracker, one of the best. A dozen men or a hundred would have no better luck finding her father.

  “There’s a railroad coming down from the north that goes into Salt Lake City,” Slocum said. “I thought I heard a train whistle early this morning. In that direction.” He pointed straight ahead. If he was right, they could get on the train and ride into Salt Lake City in style. After all they had been through, Slocum was willing to let someone else bring Holman, Tartaglia, Davies and the rest to justice—and not be in the saddle twelve hours a day.

  “I hate to give up, John,” she said. “The longer we’re out here, the more I feel that he might still be alive. It doesn’t make any sense, but that’s what I feel.”

  “We’ll ask at Fort Douglas and see what they can do,” he said, knowing the answer. The Army might regret the loss of a squad with a veteran sergeant in command, but they wouldn’t expend much in the way of valuable resources hunting for him. Not after close to three months, and not when they have Fort Crumpland to close down.

  They rode for several hours and found the railroad tracks. Slocum pointed north, and they rode slowly until they reached a small signal. He jumped down and threw the lever, changing the green light to red.

  “This’ll tell the engineer to stop so he can pick up passengers. It’ll take him a while to apply the brakes, so let’s head back in the direction we just came.

  “How long do you think it’ll be?” Laurel asked.

  “Unless I miss my guess, that’s the train highballing along right now.” In the distance rose a white plume of steam from the engine. They stopped a hundred yards from the signal. Unless the engineer was feeling ornery, he would stop for two passengers.

  And he did.

  The conductor swung out from the front passenger car and glared at them.

  “You want them horses to come along, too? That’ll be an extra five dollars, and you got to load ’em into the freight car jist behind the mail car.”

  Slocum fumbled in his pocket and drew out what money he had. Winning a few dollars in poker games with the soldiers helped, but he was almost tapped out when he had paid the conductor for his, Laurel’s and their horses’ tickets.

  Ten minutes later, horses secured in the freight car, Slocum and Laurel settled down. The two passenger cars were almost empty, and they had their choice of seats.

  “This has been an exciting hunt, John,” she said, leaning close to him and laying her head against his shoulder. “Exciting but tiring. I feel as if I could sleep for a week.”

  The rocking of the train soon put her to sleep, but Slocum remained awake, considering what to do when they reached Salt Lake City. He still had a burning hatred for Davies and his partners, and wondered if he had figured out Holman’s part properly. The colonel was an interloper and a man who could not stand the disgrace heaped upon him by the Army. He refused to accept his court-martial and had killed to get a new command.

  But was he involved with the robberies that Slocum sought to avenge? Had he ordered Davies to kill Joshua Atkins or had that been a plan born in Tartaglia’s evil brain? It all depended on what Atkins had learned. Did Laurel’s father know that Holman was an illegitimate commander or had he stumbled onto Davies’s thieving?

  By the time Slocum had decided it didn’t matter, he felt a sudden change in the train’s speed. The screeching of brakes sounded so shrill that Slocum clapped his hands over his ears. Laurel awoke in time to be thrown forward.

  Slocum grabbed for her and ended up in a pile atop the woman.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, struggling beneath him.

  “Stay down,” Slocum said. He peered up over the edge of the window and thought he was back in the stagecoach going to Salt Lake City. He looked down the double barrels of a sawed-off shotgun held in the hands of an outlaw.

  This time he recognized the man holding the weapon.

  “Davies!”

  The window above his head exploded as the renegade sergeant pulled the triggers and sent two barrels of buckshot toward Slocum’s head.

  17

  “John!” Laurel screamed. “Stay down. They’ll blow your head off!”

  Slocum pushed her back to the floor as she struggled to get up. He drew his six-shooter and fired three times, as fast as he could draw the hammer back and squeeze off a new shot. He missed Davies all three times and cursed a blue streak for his lack of decent marksmanship.

  “They’re comin’ in to rob us all!” cried a woman of ample girth at the rear of the passenger car. “They’re gonna kill us all!”

  Slocum considered using a bullet to shut her up. Her shrieking distracted him when he needed to concentrate most. New bullets ripped through the wood side of the car. Slocum winced as a splinter cut his leg. He took a quick peek over the edge of the shattered window and got off another shot.

  “Did you hit him, John? I heard somebody cry out in pain.”

  “I hit Butler. Just winged the son of a bitch. I should have killed him back at Fort Crumpland when I had the chance.” Slocum fired twice more and his six-shooter came up empty. He swung around, put his back to the wooden side of the car and worked to reload.

  “What can I do?” Laurel asked. “I feel so helpless.”

  Slocum glanced toward the rear of the car and wondered if he ought to tell Laurel to shut up the hysterical woman. The overweight lady dashed about aimlessly, her hands fluttering futilely, her voice making all kinds of annoying sounds. But if Laurel went to knock the woman down, it would put her at risk.

  “Come with me,” Slocum said. “They’re robbing the train. They couldn’t have known we were on board.” He tugged on Laurel’s wrist and pulled her to her feet. Three quick shots at a robber riding past the window took the man from the saddle.

  “There are so many of them. Are you sure it’s Davies?”

  “I saw the son of a bitch,” Slocum said. “And that was his partner, Lem Butler, I wounded.”

  “Who are the others?” asked Laurel. “There must be a half dozen men out there.”

  “Davies might be recruiting from the post. I heard more than one of the soldiers complaining about how dull it was, being assigned to nothing but garrison duty. This might be the big robbery Tartaglia had in mind and why Davies didn’t want to hightail it after Captain Wilson came to the fort.” Slocum ducked low and pulled Laurel along behind him to keep her moving. She had shown a tendency to stand up straight and lollygag. From the way the shooting was dying down, whatever resistance Davies and the rest of his gang had met at first was now almost gone.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To get our horses.”

  “We’re going to chase Davies and the other robbers?”

  “We’re going to get the hell out of here. If he finds us, we’re dead. He missed his chance to kill me back at the post. I don’t want to take the chance he’s become flush with mercy toward me.” Slocum shot twice more, then dropped down at the rear of the car to reload again. He was almost out of ammunition and wished he was already back to the freight car where his horse and gear were. He could use the carbine there to good effect right now.

  “They’re all riding to the back of the train, John.”

  “There’s got to be something mighty valuable in the mail car.” Slocum considered how likely it was that Davies wouldn’t send his gang to rob every passenger on the train. The odds didn’t look good that staying where they were would be safer than grabbing the bull by the horns and going after Davies. No matter how much gold or how many stacks of greenbacks they took from the mail car, Davies wouldn’t pass up the chance to steal a few extra dollars.

  “Should we go that way?”

  Slocum gripped his six-gun a little tighter, then realized Laurel was right. As much as he wanted to stop Davies and his gang, this wasn’t the time to do it.

  “We’ll get to the freight car and see if we can’t get away,” Slocum told her. “Stay low.”

  He opened the door onto a small platform, then looked to the roof of the passenger car. The outlaws wouldn’t look for anyone up on the roof of the cars. Slocum swung up onto the iron-rung ladder and quickly reached the top. He turned, flopped on his belly and reached down to grip Laurel’s wrist and pull her the rest of the way an instant before the door on the other passenger car swung open. Slocum got a quick look at Lem. The man had tucked his left hand inside his shirt to keep it from banging about nervelessly. From the bloodstain in his shirt, Butler had taken Slocum’s bullet where it did the most damage to the muscle. Whatever pain he must feel did not slow him down as he pushed into the car under Slocum and Laurel.

  “He’s robbing the passengers,” Laurel whispered.

  “I wish him luck with the fat woman,” Slocum said. Most robbers refused to lower themselves to stealing from women, but he doubted the Davies gang had any such compunction. He got to his feet, helped Laurel to hers and then jumped to the rear car. The blonde followed more hesitantly but landed safely.

  They hurried down the middle of the roof to the next car. Slocum motioned her to keep low. He heard loud voices below his feet. He recognized Davies’s voice ordering the clerk to open the safe. Slocum cringed when the sharp report of a six-shooter came. The clerk had refused, and Davies had gunned him down in cold blood.

  “Can’t we just stay here and wait for them to leave?” Laurel understood what had happened below them, too.

  The answer to that came fast. Lem Butler had crawled up the ladder and loosed a slug in their direction. Slocum guessed the woman inside the car had told the robber two passengers had hightailed it. Butler had gone hunting and had found them in lickety-split time.

  “Run for it,” Slocum said, pushing Laurel toward the freight car next to the mail car. He fired until his pistol came up empty. The bullets ricocheted off the roof of the passenger car but not a one came near Butler. Slocum had to admit his first shot that wounded Butler had been lucky. Now the luck ran in the outlaw’s favor.

  Slocum slammed his six-shooter into his holster and ran hard after Laurel, not caring now that his tread must sound like thunder in the car below. He jumped to the freight car, where Laurel looked fearfully over the edge. It was a long way to the ground.

  “Not there. Here,” he said, wrenching open a trapdoor on the roof leading into the car. Slocum twisted, dropped and landed hard on the floor, frightening the horses even more. Slocum didn’t wait to see if Laurel followed. He worked to free the horses from their tethers. By the time he had both horses pulled around and facing the closed door, Laurel had made it down. She hobbled on a twisted ankle but didn’t hesitate to put her back into opening the heavy sliding door.

  “Get into the saddle and ride as hard as you can,” Slocum said, grabbing his Winchester from the saddle sheath.

  “Where should I go?”

  “Anywhere,” Slocum said, swinging up. He waited for Laurel to urge her horse to jump out. It hit the ground, stumbled a few paces, then fell into a steady gait that turned into a gallop when the outlaws began shooting at her.

  Slocum had waited long enough to draw the bandits from the mail car. His horse wasn’t hesitant about jumping. It hit the ground at a dead gallop, forcing Slocum to swing around in the saddle to get off several shots at Davies and two of his gang. He missed but forced them to scatter.

  By the time Davies had regained control of his men, Slocum was long gone.

  It took a few minutes before he overtook Laurel. She looked pale and strained.