Slocum and the Diamond City Affair (9781101612118) Read Online Free Page B

and I seduced her, bent over at the waist in a cupboard closet in the kitchen. Very easily done, I might say. Later she told me she was concerned that her monthly event had not come—she said she was pregnant.
    â€œI decided to marry her. Her father offered me a nice dowry. I accepted it and we had a bloody honeymoon. I doubt she ever was pregnant at all, but we took off from there to Maryland and raced at Baltimore. And so on, I watched her more careful so she didn’t entertain any other men. I mean, she liked it rather well and it was very easy to, what do you say, to make her hot.”
    â€œDid she ever complain?”
    â€œOh, from time to time, she said, ‘I thought you were more aggressive when I married you.’ I guess that meant she needed to be bedded more often than I had time for.”
    â€œI see,” Slocum said, still wondering if she and the horse groom she went off with had any part in the horse theft.
    â€œWhere will we sleep?”
    â€œWhen Rosa gets back we can find us a place down on the river and roll out our bedrolls. I’m going to take a bath.”
    O’Riley looked dismayed at him. “Bathe in a small river?”
    â€œIt’s free and I’ll feel better when I get done.”
    They went out and sat on a small log bench to wait for Rosa’s return. At least O’Riley didn’t complain any more that evening. In an hour or so, she returned.
    â€œI talked to a woman,” Rosa said, “who thinks that Ike Clanton or his brother Billy met some man who brought the horses to Benson and he did business here with them. She said it seemed like it was set up in advance—like Ike knew the man would be bringing the horses.”
    â€œAfter that did she think Ike or one of their gang took those two horses to Mexico?”
    â€œWhat does that mean?” the sleepy O’Riley asked, pushing his unruly hair back from his face with his palm and sounding half asleep.
    â€œIt means some tough gang of border outlaws stole your horses.” Slocum hugged Rosa and kissed her. “You did great, darling.”
    â€œYeah, yeah,” O’Riley said. “I’m so damn tired I could sleep out in that damn street.”
    â€œMount up. We’re going to find a camp.”
    â€œHell, I’ll fall out of the saddle, I’m so sleepy.”
    â€œCome on,” Slocum insisted, about to lose his temper at the dummy again. They had more problems than being sleepy if Ike Clanton had those horses. The Clantons had a damn fortress across the border where the gang hung out. Slocum had dealt with Ike, and the old man as well, a couple of times before. They weren’t ordinary outlaws. They were established ones who used the border, and Old Man Clanton had all the government contracts to sell beef to the army and the Indian reservations—and most of that beef had been stolen in Mexico. The people below the border feared these outlaws as much as the widespread ranchers on the Arizona side did.
    Someone had named them the Cowboys—with a capital C. When the Clantons weren’t raiding ranches, they were robbing stages. Several of the Clanton gang, the old man included, had death warrants for several thousand dollars on their heads from the banking firms to be paid upon their deaths. They were the certain rulers of the border country.
    â€œWho is Ike Clanton?” O’Riley asked as they approached the swishing sound of the river in the night. The San Pedro was never a big nor a deep river, but it ran good from the big springs upstream. Below Benson, a colony of Mormon settlers had irrigated quite a bit of land around St. David using the river and some artesian wells.
    Slocum and his crew found a place to camp along the river, watered the horses and Rosa’s burro, and hobbled them. They all had some jerky and feasted on the hard, dry, smoky-tasting meat, then Slocum took Rosa and his bedroll fifty yards upstream. He kicked