He took off his stovepipe boots with the bowie knife concealed in one of them. He was glad Lorelei couldn’t see it. He didn’t want to give her the wrong impression. But the knife, too, came in handy sometimes. Most fights with other men happened up close, and the kind of men he had to fight seldom, if ever, played fair. An ace in the hole, or two, could often mean the difference between life and death.

  He slid into bed beside her as she scooted over and lay on her back, an enigmatic smile on her lips.

  “Why?” he asked, his voice just above a whisper.

  “Why this? Inviting you to my bed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Del Rio is short on real men, John. A girl can knit or sew, make quilts, or peel potatoes. And she can throw plates at the wall, or cry herself to sleep every night. Many of our women do just that. And that’s all they do. I took one look at you and put down my needle and thread. I’d rather make love.”

  “A girl after my own heart.”

  He leaned over and kissed her. Her body shivered as if he had sent a shot of static electricity through her body.

  “Umm,” she said. “You know how to kiss, John. It’s been a long time since I felt like this, all warm inside, my stomach fluttering as if it were full of butterflies. Can you do more than that?”

  She looked at him, pooching out her lips for another kiss. He leaned over and she put her arms around him, drew him down to her so that his chest was crushing one of her breasts. The left one.

  Lorelei purred like a kitten.

  He mounted her then, as she spread her legs to receive him. He slid into her steamy sheath, feeling the warmth of her suffuse his flesh. She cooed with delight as he sank deep into the velvety folds of her sex. She arched her back and grabbed his hips with both hands, pulling at him as he rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm that gradually increased in intensity.

  “It’s good, John,” she breathed.

  “Yes, Lorelei. Very good.”

  “You’re the answer to a lonesome gal’s prayers.”

  She lunged at him with her hips, impaling him, her hands gripping his hips hard, holding him as she thrashed wildly, the bed creaking under their weight, groaning with their vigorous movements.

  “Never, never so good,” she sighed as she bucked beneath him, her fingernails digging into his flesh, her legs rising up and down with his every thrust.

  Slocum saw her skin flush from excitement, turning from an almost alabaster whiteness to a rosy burn as if she had lain in the sun too long. The color spread up from her breasts to her throat until it turned a raspberry hue. She rose and fell with him in an undulating rhythm as their passions mingled and grew in force.

  Her eyelashes fluttered, her lids opening and closing, as if she were drifting in and out of a state of sheer ecstasy. Her mouth opened and her lips quivered as she breathed little sighs of pleasure with each powerful thrust.

  His cock throbbed and swelled with engorged blood as his own excitement rose to match Lorelei’s. He immersed himself in her steamy depths until she convulsed with an electric shock. Her body quivered against his own until his veins sang with the floodtide of his rushing blood, his heart pumping fast like a man racing against the wind.

  With powerful thrusts, Slocum took Lorelei to the heights of ecstasy. She thrashed and moaned with pleasure, holding on to him like a woman afraid of falling from a high cliff. He plumbed her depths with his prick, sliding in and out until her rapture erupted in soft screams.

  “Umm, so good,” she panted. “I’m flying like a bird.”

  “You’re some woman, Lorelei,” Slocum said, marvel ing at her energy, the power in her loins.

  The muscles of her cunt closed tight around his cock as she clamped her legs against his hips. She shuddered with still another orgasm and put a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Slocum grabbed her by the waist and pulled her hips upward as he drove even deeper into her. This time she screamed softly as still another climax rippled through her body. Sweat sheened her skin and she wriggled beneath him, gazing up into his blue eyes, stroking his long black hair.

  “Go there with me, John,” she purred. “Go up to the top with me and fill me with your seed.”

  They had been at it for a good fifteen minutes and Slocum wanted to make sure that she was fully satisfied.

  “I can wait,” he said.

  “I don’t want you to wait any longer. I want you to be satisfied, as I am.”

  “It will be a quick ride,” he said.

  “The quicker the better.”

  He increased his tempo, gradually, so that she could build to still another climax. He slid in and out of her with a practiced slowness, letting her feel every inch of him. She rocked with him, then, exulting in the hard sure strokes that penetrated the folds of her cunt, making every nerve end tingle as if charged with electricity. Faster and faster, Slocum plumbed her and then her eyes glazed over and her mouth went slack. He could feel her rising up beneath him, hanging on to him, anticipating the climax that was to come in a few seconds.

  Then, with blinding speed, he took her over the top and rose up with her, racing to the summit of the highest peak. She screamed in his ear and his balls exploded, spewing his milk into her cup. She moaned with pleasure and her loins quivered in the final throes of a resounding climax. Slocum collapsed atop her glistening body and buried his face in her damp hair.

  “Oh, John,” she sighed. “Oh, John.”

  She hugged him fiercely for a long moment as he went limp inside her. They lay there, floating gently back to earth like two downy feathers. The room filled with silence, punctuated only by their breathing.

  She moved and spewed him out and he lay by her side on his back.

  “Thank you, John,” she breathed, her hand resting on his belly. “I haven’t felt so much like a woman as I do at this moment. You’ve restored something in me that I thought I had lost.”

  “You don’t lose what you have, Lorelei.”

  She laughed.

  “And you say the right things, too.”

  “So do you,” he said.

  “I’ve been trying to figure out your accent. It’s faint, but it’s not Texan. And it’s not Missouri either.”

  “It’s Calhoun County, Georgia,” he said. “What’s left of it.”

  “Your voice is very deep and soft and yes, now I can hear Georgia in it. And you’re a gentleman, too. A gentle man.”

  “Why thank you, Miss Lorelei,” he said, exaggerating his southern accent straight out of Georgia. “And I like your Texas twang, too.”

  They both laughed.

  “Would you like some of that brandy now?” she asked.

  “I’d rather have whiskey,” he said.

  “Then, you shall have it,” she said, gliding from the bed and onto her feet. She walked to a wooden cabinet and opened the doors, revealing bottles that glistened in the light from the lamp. She bent down and he heard the tinkling of glass. She pulled out a bottle of Old Taylor.

  “Is this all right, John?”

  “Of course.”

  He slid from the bed and stood up, his muscles rippling under the sheen of sweat that covered his body.

  Lorelei poured Slocum a generous glass of whiskey. As he drank, she looked at him, her gaze roving over him with a look of admiration on her face.

  “How’s the taste?” she asked, pouring herself a snifter of brandy.

  “Smooth,” he said.

  “Just like you, John.”

  He laughed.

  They clinked glasses and took sips from their drinks. “Let’s sit down on the divan,” Lorelei said. “We’ll be more comfortable there.”

  “Suits me,” Slocum said.

  As they were walking toward the divan, they both heard a commotion next door.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  Slocum heard a rattling sound, then a dull thud.

  “It sounds like it’s coming from your room, John.”

  A moment later, Slocum heard another loud crash, then a splintering of wood. And it did sound as if it were coming from his room, right next door.

  Lorelei, frightened, her face suddenly pale, with worry lines etching her forehead, moved close to Slocum, as if for protection.

  Slocum froze as they both heard the loud explosion from a gunshot. Then two more shots boomed out and he distinctly heard the spatter of buckshot striking wood.

  Lorelei screamed as more shots rang out.

  And then they both heard pounding footsteps out in the hall, as if two or more people were running away, down the corridor.

  Then, it was silent and Slocum realized that Lorelei was clutching his arm as if hanging desperately onto a life raft in the middle of a storm-tossed ocean.

  5

  Slocum sprang into action, dressing quickly, strapping on his gun belt as the tang of gunpowder assailed his nostrils. Lorelei hurriedly donned a dress she snatched from the wardrobe, but Slocum was already out the door and into the hall, his pistol drawn. He moved in a crouch to the door of his room, ready to shoot if threatened.

  The door to Slocum’s room had been kicked in so that it hung askew on bent hinges, agape, leaning inside the room. Wisps of white smoke still hung in the air and the smell of gunpowder stung Slocum’s nostrils. Cautiously, he stepped inside, gun drawn, still in a fighting crouch.

  Feathers from the pillows on his bed still floated in the air or clung to the drapes and lay scattered on the floor like tufts of cotton. The bed was riddled with buckshot and so were the walls. The glass panes in the windows were shattered and shards of glass lay below the sills. From his observation, Slocum guessed that whoever had broken into his room had blasted every part of it with a double-barreled shotgun. Luckily, his bedroll, rifle and shotgun, all lay under the bed on the far side, away from the door, so that they were untouched by shotgun pellets. He reached down and picked one up just as Lorelei came into the room. A loud gasp escaped her lips.

  “Double ought buck,” Slocum said.

  “They—they meant to kill you,” she said.

  “If I had been anywhere in this room, I would have been shot up, that’s for sure.”

  Lorelei gasped again. She glanced around the room with eyes wide open in a look of amazement.

  “It’s just awful,” she said. “Who could have done such a thing?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  They both heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and then the sound of someone running down the hall toward Slocum’s room. They heard footsteps coming from the floor above them as well.

  Two men entered the room with guns drawn. Slocum cocked his pistol.

  “Just hold it right there,” Slocum said.

  “I’m the sheriff,” one of the men said. He pointed to a star on his chest.

  “And, I’m his deputy,” the other man said, opening his vest to reveal a similar star pinned to his shirt.

  “Maybe if we all holster our guns,” Slocum said, “we can talk. First of all, tell me your names and I’ll tell you mine.”

  The two men hesitated, then slid their pistols back in their holsters. Slocum eased the hammer back down on his Colt and slipped his pistol back in its sheath.

  “I know who you are, Slocum,” the sheriff said. “I’m Blandings, Curtis Blandings, sheriff of Del Rio.”

  Slocum turned his head to look at the deputy.

  “Uh, I’m Larry Jones, Mr. Blandings’s deputy.”

  More footsteps pounded down the hall. Lorelei’s father stood framed in the doorway, a look of concern on his face.

  “Come on in, Mr. Hardesty,” Blandings said. “Maybe we can get to the bottom of this. What happened, Slocum?”

  “Take a look, Sheriff. Someone broke into my room and opened up with shotguns and pistols.”

  Blandings and Jones scanned the room. Jones’s mouth opened and his jaw dropped. Blandings’s eyes narrowed to twin slits.

  “Golly,” Jones said.

  “Missed you, eh, Slocum? All that flying lead,” Blandings said. “How did that happen?”

  “He wasn’t here,” Lorelei said. Slocum looked at her in surprise.

  Blandings’s eyebrows arched in surprise. Then, a rosy flush spread across his face.

  Lorelei smiled knowingly. “He was next door,” she said. “With me. In my room.”

  “Yes’m,” Blandings said. He looked to his deputy. “Larry, get a whiff of Slocum’s pistol. You don’t mind, Slocum?”

  Slocum pulled his pistol from its holster, held it as Jones walked over and sniffed the barrel.

  “It ain’t been shot,” Jones said. He stepped away. Slocum reholstered the Colt.

  “Maybe you can tell me how you know my name, Sheriff,” Slocum said.

  “I heard you got a big mouth, Slocum. We arrested a man for murder tonight and you want to piss in the pickle barrel.”

  “That man you arrested didn’t kill anybody, Blandings. You’ve got the wrong man.”

  “That’s up to the judge. We got witnesses say he killed Granby. In cold blood.”

  “A woman shot Granby. Then she tossed the pistol to that man you arrested.”

  “So you say. Want some advice, Slocum?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “If you want to stay alive, and out of trouble, you’ll get on your horse and ride out of Del Rio at first light.”

  “And let an innocent man hang?” Slocum said.

  The sheriff shrugged.

  “It’s your call. It might boil down to your life or his.”

  “Blandings, I don’t know what your sense of justice is, but to me it means a hell of a lot. The Mexicans have a saying: ‘No hay justicia en el mundo.’ ‘There is no justice in the world.’ And, they’re right. As long as men turn their backs on justice, there just won’t be any.”

  “You got mighty high ideals, Slocum. And that may be commendable in some circumstances. But we have justice in Del Rio, same as any place else. And we got us a judge who dispenses it without never blinking an eye.”

  “Hanging an innocent man is not justice,” Slocum persisted.

  He felt a tug on his arm and turned to see Lorelei standing next to him. Silently, she was asking him to back away, leave the argument. In this case, he thought she might be right. He would get nowhere with this sheriff, or his deputy. They were as blind as bats, and like some lawmen he had seen, they took the easy path. None of them liked open cases. When they had a good suspect and enough evidence to convict, they closed their eyes to any other possibilities. It seemed to Slocum that the judge in Del Rio was going to hang the man they had in custody, whether he was guilty or not.

  “Slocum,” Blandings said. “My advice still stands. Ride out in the morning and forget how close you came to getting killed tonight. You’ll sleep a whole lot better once you get back to wherever it is that you live.”

  “I’ll think about it, Blandings,” Slocum said, fishing in his coat pocket for a cheroot. “Meanwhile, I want a refund on my room.”

  “I’ll see to it,” Blandings said. “Bill? Can you put Slocum up in your room?” He turned to Hardesty.

  “I’m sure we can work it out, Curtis.”

  “All right. You all clear out. I want to give this place a combing, see if we can find evidence of who wanted to put Slocum’s lamp out.”

  Slocum walked to the other side of the bed and retrieved his bedroll with the double-barreled Greener wrapped inside, along with his ’74 Winchester and its scabbard.

  The sheriff looked at the articles in Slocum’s hands with suspicion.

  “You won’t smell any burnt powder on my rifle, either, Blandings,” Slocum said.

  The sheriff threw up a hand in surrender.

  “Go,” Blandings said.

  Lorelei took Slocum’s arm and joined her father. The three of them left the room and walked back to Lorelei’s quarters.

  Inside Lorelei’s room, Hardesty sat on the divan, next to his daughter. Slocum set his gear down and sat on a chair next to a small table. He took off his hat when Hardesty removed his.

  “Well, John,” Hardesty said, “are you going to take Curtis Blandings’s advice and leave town in the morning?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “I think it would be best.”

  “Why?”

  Hardesty took in a breath and sank back on the divan. Lorelei stared at her father, a surprised look on her face.

  “Look what you’ve stirred up. Somebody tried to kill you. They might try again.”

  “I’ve considered that,” Slocum said.

  “And?”

  “First, let me ask you a question that’s been nagging me, Bill.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “The woman who shot that rancher, Granby. It was a deliberate act. Did it have any connection to the sale of that land to Granby?”

  “How would I know?”

  Slocum leaned forward in his chair, staring directly into Hardesty’s eyes.

  “What happens to the land sale now? You’d know that, wouldn’t you?”

  Hardesty squirmed.

  “I, uh, I suppose Mrs. Granby will have to borrow the money if she still wants the land.”

  “Mr. Granby was pretty anxious to get that land, wasn’t he?”

  “John, what are you driving at?” Lorelei asked.

  “Your father knows, I think.”

  Lorelei reared up in shock, her back straight, her eyes flashing.

  Hardesty patted the back of his daughter’s hand to soothe her, calm her down.

  “It’s all right, Lorelei. It’s not a secret exactly. John, that’s a pretty valuable chunk of land, lying along the river as it does. I admit I wanted to buy it and was hoping that the deal with Granby would fall through. But, I didn’t have anything to do with Norville Granby’s death. Rankins has turned me down for a loan before. There’s no reason to believe he’s changed his mind about lending money for that land.”

  “What’s Norville’s wife’s name?” Slocum asked.

  “Cordelia,” Lorelei said, still miffed that Slocum was grilling her father.

  “Will Rankins go ahead and grant her the loan?” Slocum asked.

  Hardesty shook his head.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Why?”