“Yeah,” said Slocum.

  “Sorry,” Miranda said. “Forgot you knew them both from the olden times. But I remember my mother saying that Uncle Abel was a real pisser and sowed a lot of wild oats in his younger days. Even had a couple dimers written about him, before he settled down.”

  Slocum winced at the mention of the cursed novels, and wondered if Cassidy had grown to hate them half as much as he did. He also wondered if he should tell Miranda just how far back he went with them.

  It wasn’t exactly the time or place, he decided, and he asked, “What about the other two?”

  “Marcus and Foley?” Miranda went on with a nod. “They’re connected, too, somehow. They just showed up one day, demanding a job, and Uncle Abel gave it to them. Not a week after they started, the bunkhouse caught fire. Lucky that Vance came in right when it happened. Some fool left a pile of oily rags next to the stove. Vance put it out before there was any real damage. I heard him tell Uncle Abel that if those two didn’t start it, they knew somethin’ about it.”

  Slocum and Miranda crossed the stream that flowed down from the Indian ruins.

  During the dry season, it was a mere trickle—or nothing at all—but there were times when a thunderstorm swelled it to a raging river, capable of sweeping away horses, wagons, and riders.

  A flash of metal caught Slocum’s eye. “Hold up a minute, Miranda. I see something.” He slid from his saddle and bent to examine his find.

  “What is it?”

  “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch if somebody didn’t drop a twenty-dollar gold piece right here.” Slocum walked behind Cougar and held the double eagle up to Miranda. “Here. This belongs to you.”

  “Me? You’re the one who found it.”

  “Yeah, but it was on Cassidy property.”

  “Don’t be silly. No telling how long it’s been there, who it belonged to, or where it washed down from.” She flipped the coin into the air.

  Slocum caught and pocketed the double eagle, then picked up Cougar’s reins and led him to the other side of the wash. The sound of hooves scrambling on loose rocks brought him to attention.

  Miranda must have heard it, too. She sat frozen in her saddle.

  Slocum crouched beside the bank, put his finger to his lips, and scanned the washout. Slowly he peered over the edge. Then he laughed and stood, shaking his head. “Just a few antelope.”

  Miranda’s shoulders relaxed and she dug into her horse’s flanks with her heels. Clicking her tongue, she urged him to climb the bank.

  “Guess we’re both a little jumpy, sweetie. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to cool off,” she called over her shoulder.

  By the time Slocum caught up, she had doffed her shirt and loosed her hair. With that added bit of scenery, he definitely needed to cool off, too.

  Tipping his hat back, he said, “Don’t you know what seein’ you like this does to a man, Miranda? If you weren’t so damned pretty and so damned good at teasing, I’d have half a mind to teach you a few manners.”

  She stared at him from flashing blue eyes. “And if you try it, Mr. Slocum, you’ll walk away with half a mind for sure. Besides, if I was one of those hoity-toity girls, you’d be doin’ your best to get me to be just like I am already. And for another thing, if you had your druthers, I know for a fact that you’d have me riding around naked as the day I was born, like that Lady Godiva woman, every chance you got.”

  After last night, how could she get him so randy? Miranda was right. A Miss Hoity-Toity would not suit him now. Not with Miranda Cassidy in his sights.

  For longer than anyone could remember, the ruins had lain abandoned, their broken walls and crude windows slowly eroding in the wind and blowing sand.

  Potsherds and piles of chert mixed with pieces of red rock littered the area. Discarded flint scrapers and the occasional quartz arrowhead poked out of the hardpan. Near an old fire pit, Slocum saw the half-carved bowl of a stone pipe.

  Word had it the grounds were sacred, but it seemed the Anasazi held sacred everything they had ever touched. Or at least every blamed tribe that had come after them figured they did.

  Miranda dismounted and pulled her saddlebags from her horse. She rummaged around until she found a rag and a bar of soap.

  “I don’t know about you, honey, but I’m not going another step till I have a bath—and not one of those horse trough affairs like you had yesterday.”

  Millennia of running water had gouged a hollow at the base of the rocks. Higher up, a small waterfall cascaded into it.

  As Miranda talked, she slipped out of her pants and stepped into the pool. A gasp, like her pleasure noises from last night, escaped her lips.

  “You coming, darlin’?” she purred and dipped under the water, rising again and grinning like she’d just found the sugar bowl full.

  Slocum didn’t need a second invitation. Quickly, he unbuckled his guns, stripped off his sweaty clothes, and joined Miranda in the pool. Sunlight sparkled like fresh-struck silver over the surface of the water.

  Miranda ducked again and bobbed up a couple feet away from him. Holding up the rag and bar of soap, she taunted, “Ready for that bath, hombre?”

  That was another thing he liked about Miranda. She was playful and creative, and right now she reminded him of Marta, the sloe-eyed beauty with nipples the size of dollars, from Santa Tourista. The so-called town was a watering hole for bandits and other unsavory trash, smack on the Mexican border, where the events of Slocum’s visit had been immortalized in another dime saga—another series of brushes with death that fools mistook for adventure.

  Slocum’s hearty laughter echoed from the rocks. “Sí, señorita. This hombre’s more than ready.”

  While he watched, Miranda first lathered her red tresses and then the washrag. Starting at the roots of her hair, she washed her face and neck and then tantalizingly cupped a breast.

  She ran her tongue back and forth across her top lip as she circled the cloth round and round, first over one perfect orb, then the other.

  Damn.

  Her nipples stood up like two pink pebbles. Miranda stepped into the shallows and rested a slender foot on a rock. She soaped the rag again and washed her leg, then switched to the other.

  Slocum stole up behind her and pinned her arms. Taking the washrag, he said, “Why don’t you let me do that?”

  She turned to face him, her body slippery from the water and suds. “Tell you what. I’ll wash yours, if you wash mine . . . My back, of course. Fair, señor?”

  Not at all fair. And holding on to her was about as likely as clinging to a greased pig at the county fair. If he’d thought he had a snowball’s chance in hell, he would have taken her right where they stood.

  She turned away and pulled her hair to the side. “Gracias, gringo,” she murmured as Slocum applied the cloth to her shoulders.

  By the time he finished, she was thoroughly clean, and he was thoroughly hard and pressed tight against her backside. Slocum spun her around and lifted her, plastering a kiss on her mouth.

  “¡Madre de Dios!” she said, breaking away. “Put me down, you beast!”

  He momentarily tightened his arms around her, but then let her body slide down his chest. Miranda took him by the hand. Sashaying her hips seductively, she led him to a large, flat rock next to the stream. “I lied.”

  Slocum cocked his brow. “Lied?”

  “You look surprised. But I know you’ll be more than a mite glad.” Miranda lay on her side and patted the rock. “And I will give you that bath . . . after I’m done with you.”

  Slocum stretched out beside her and drew her leg over his hips. “What in the Sam Hill has you so fired up?”

  Her eyes half-lidded, Miranda nibbled his shoulder and pulled herself against him. She ground her heel into the small of his back. “I thought Slocum liked a bit of the salsa.”

  Her nails traced a scar on his side, souvenir from an Arkansas toothpick belonging to some egg-sucking dog in Wyoming a few years back.

  He drove deep, the way she liked it—the way he liked it, too—and he pumped into her like a steam engine piston. She came fast and hard, and then came again before he found his release.

  He lay on his back, the hot sun boring through his eyelids. A long, uninterrupted nap would be nice. He felt Miranda stand as he drifted off to sleep.

  A sopping cold rag hit him square in the chest. “Wake up, Slocum. No time for daydreaming.”

  Miranda scrubbed the trail dust from every inch of his lean body. Lastly, she washed his balls and cock, and then the dark thatch of curls between his legs.

  Slocum willed himself to stay calm. They had some riding to do before day’s end.

  As the sun sank behind the distant ridge of hills to the west, Miranda and Slocum crested a mound overlooking the house and outbuildings of the Bar C.

  6

  Uncle Abel must have seen them coming, for he was out in the yard to meet them when they rode in. His hat was pushed back, exposing his balding head, his skinny arms were spread wide, and a grin split his face.

  “Slocum!” he cried. “So you’re the surprise that Miranda’s been tauntin’ me with!”

  Slocum slid off Cougar and walked forward, his smile almost as big as Abel Cassidy’s. The men embraced briefly, than gleefully pounded each other’s backs and shoulders until Miranda thought they’d kill each other. Or at least loosen a tooth or two.

  She took Cougar’s reins and led him and Sundancer over to the barn, where she handed them off to a stable hand, giving quiet instructions that Slocum’s horse was to have the very best of care. She knew how Slocum was about his horses.

  When she returned, Uncle Abel and Slocum were still standing and pounding and saying things like “By God!” and “Good to see you!” and “I’ll be double-dogged!”

  She shook her head.

  Men.

  Marching up to them, she grabbed hold of each of their back-slapping arms and said, “Why don’t we go on up to the house before one of you fools knocks loose the other’s lung?”

  Both men laughed. It was good to see Uncle Abel in a happy mood for a change. It seemed he hadn’t smiled in a coon’s age. And she always liked to see Slocum happy. Grinning, she led on.

  She landed them on the wide porch and called to Carmelita for a pitcher of lemonade, a flask of bourbon, and three glasses. They’d need something a little stronger than plain lemonade to hash this thing out.

  And then she sat down with them, propped her elbows on the table, and listened.

  “Can’t talk you out of those damned spotted horses, can I, Slocum?” Abel was saying, shaking his head.

  Slocum grinned. “Not till you find me one as mountain-goat nimble on a rocky slope or as puss-cat easy-goin’, Abel.”

  He’d had this conversation with Abel more times than he could count. Every meeting between the two of them started with it, and every parting ended on the same note. Truth was, Slocum wouldn’t have taken another breed of horse if it was given to him, tied up in a bow, and strung with twenty-dollar gold pieces.

  But he never said as much, not to Abel.

  He had known Abel for—what was it now?—must be over twenty years. They’d met up when Slocum first came west, back in the sixties, after the war, when Abel was part of the Jorge Mondragon gang. Slocum had joined up, and they’d done some damage to the Territory, all right. They called themselves Mondragon’s Dragons. Thought it was kind of funny at the time.

  They met Vance Jefferson then, too. Vance was a slick hand with a gun—nearly as good as Slocum himself, which was saying quite a bit.

  Later, after Mondragon got himself hanged down in Sonora, the three men had ridden together for a while. But pretty soon Jefferson dropped off to head for California, and Cassidy settled down to raise horses with his brother, Miranda’s father.

  Slocum had gone his own way.

  And had been going that way ever since.

  They met up again, two at a time, on rare occasions: mostly Slocum and Jefferson, for whom California hadn’t turned out to be the Golden State after all. And on one of those meetings, they’d run into Bob Marcus and Granger Foley. Well, Marcus, really. They always seemed to miss Foley by just minutes.

  After all, the Arizona Territory was a sparsely populated chunk of land, even nowadays. Back then, it had been practically desolate. It figured that everybody, especially traveling men, would know just about everybody else in the whole territory.

  Slocum had taken a distinct dislike to Foley right off the bat—mostly because he never showed up—and he wasn’t awful crazy about Marcus, either. The two men were thick as thieves even back then, and showed little enthusiasm for stopping the range war they had been hired to stop.

  They showed a great deal more excitement come payday.

  Foley was a hired gun who held up stages in his spare time, and he wasn’t shy talking about it. Marcus was more closemouthed, but Slocum figured his background to be about the same as Foley’s. He was too fast with a gun to be an amateur.

  Now, by this time, there had been enough water under the proverbial bridge that Slocum wasn’t the same man he’d been when he first came west. He wasn’t bitter anymore—not about the war, not about his papa’s and brother’s murders or the theft of the family farm.

  Well, all right, he was still bitter about his father and brother.

  But it wasn’t anything he couldn’t live with. He’d stopped robbing and killing—except when he was certain he was on the side of right, as in that range war he was trying to break up back then—and was doing his best to live straight.

  And so he might have been a little harder on Marcus and Foley than usual.

  Still, the pair of them had left a bad taste in his mouth. Just the mention of their names still did.

  Abel had about finished the Great Quarter-mile Running Horse vs. Appaloosa debate all on his own, and Slocum decided it was time to broach the subject of the business at hand.

  “Abel,” he said, “you remember Vance Jefferson?”

  Cassidy’s face screwed up momentarily, and then he said, “Well, sure! Ol’ Mondragon’s gang!”

  “He’s dead, Uncle Abel,” said Miranda, and refilled her glass with lemonade.

  “Well, of course he is! Got hanged in New Mexico, didn’t he, Slocum?” Cassidy exclaimed, and glared at Miranda as if she were an idiot.

  “No, no, Abel,” Slocum said. “Vance Jefferson’s dead. Dave Crone told me that Bob Marcus and Granger Foley were responsible.”

  “Dead, you say?” Cassidy railed. “What on earth? Why, he worked on this place for a while, worked right here! And who the hell is Dave Crone?”

  Slocum’s brow furrowed. “He’s the man I rode up here with. The man that was murdered on your land just this mornin’.”

  Cassidy drew himself up, and Slocum quickly explained the whole deal. When he was done, Cassidy was slumped in his chair and shaking his head. “Damn,” he kept repeating. “Damn! The undertaker was here with a body, but I just thought he was some saddle tramp that got himself killed fallin’ down a cliff! Now, if he’d been ridin’ one of my quarter-mile horses . . .”

  “You’ve got to fire Marcus and Foley, Uncle Abel,” said Miranda. “Now.”

  He looked up. “Can’t do that, girl.”

  “But why?”

  “Because of these blasted horse killers!” he snapped.

  “At least I can trust Marcus and Foley to patrol for them. It takes a killer to catch a killer, y’know, and I heard of Marcus and Foley before they ever rode in here!” he added, belatedly.

  “Point taken, Abel,” interjected Slocum. “But still, I’d keep a real close eye on those boys. I figure they shot Crone. Don’t know who else’d do it.”

  Except maybe me, he thought, just to shut him up . . .

  And then he said, “Listen, Abel. I’ll take care of these horse killers for you. You don’t need Marcus and Foley.”

  “Be pleased if you’d help, Slocum,” Abel said, “but she’s more’n a one-man job. Hell, they’re cuttin’ ’em up into steak and leavin’ ’em all over the ranch.” Suddenly, he threw both hands into the air. “Some people are just plain lunatic crazy!”

  Miranda leapt to her feet, and Slocum quickly poured Abel’s glass half-full of bourbon. Arms around his neck, Miranda calmed her agitated uncle down, and Slocum offered his drink.

  “Sorry,” Abel said after a moment had passed and the bourbon had had a chance to take hold. “It just makes me so goddamned mad!”

  “I know, dear,” Miranda said soothingly, stroking his arm. “Makes you feel helpless, too, doesn’t it?”

  Abel sniffed.

  Slocum said, “Well, that’s about to end, ol’ buddy. And I’m stickin’ around until it does.”

  Miranda settled Slocum into the guest room, a dark blue- papered affair set all around with dark, heavily carved, ornate furniture.

  “Why here?” he asked. They had passed a number of empty rooms on their way down the hall. “I feel like I’m a guest at the undertaker’s place.”

  “Because it’s the farthest from Uncle Abel’s,” she said, and smiled at him. And then winked. “When you’re settled, come on out. Carmelita ought to have lunch on the table pretty soon.”

  Then she slipped out the door.

  More’s the pity.

  It didn’t take Slocum long to unpack. He simply slung his saddlebags on the bed and shoved his pack roll into the chifforobe.

  He removed his hat, quickly ran a comb through his dark and unruly hair, wiped his dusty boots on the skirt of the bedspread—also dark blue—and then pulled the double eagle from his pocket.

  Right odd, that anybody would lose one of these and not miss it. It was almost the size of a silver cartwheel and weighty to boot, and a man would know it was gone.

  And furthermore, what call would a man have to take it out of his pocket in the middle of nowhere?

  Shaking his head, he stuck the coin back where he’d found it and left the room.

  Carmelita was, indeed, setting the table when he came out. The smell of enchiladas, which he had noticed on his way through the house before, now filled the air as she set the platter on the table.