Read Slocum #395 : Slocum and the Trail to Yellowstone (9781101553640) for Free Online

stout horse, had dragged in lots of dead trees to be cut into firewood. She wasn’t going to run out with her huge stockpile of logs and stacked wood. But Slocum wasn’t ready to tackle a saw job. The effort would require two hands, and his left side was still sore.
    One day two men showed up. One was blond-headed and looked like a real lady-killer. His partner was dark-eyed and didn’t miss a thing. Both were in their thirties and dressed in suits.
    No names were shared. The blond one seemed very open and talked with a pretty smile. His partner said little.
    â€œWhat in hell happened to Jennifer Duncan?” the blond asked, showing a big smile.
    â€œTell them about what they did,” Wilma said with toss of her head at Slocum.
    â€œA couple of crazy men, Deushay and Roberson, shot me and then raped her. Then they smothered her with a pillow.”
    â€œThose lousy bastards,” the blond said and looked at his partner with a scowl.
    â€œAin’t they in that shack up on the mountain?” his partner asked.
    Blondie nodded with a grim look on his face. “I get them in my rifle sights, they won’t have to worry about anything ever again.”
    â€œMaybe we need to pay them a visit?” his partner asked him.
    Blondie agreed and they each shook Slocum’s hand. The blond one hugged Wilma and promised some action. They mounted their thoroughbred horses and galloped off.
    â€œYou know them two?” she asked after they rode away.
    â€œNot sure.”
    â€œThat’s the Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy, who’re in the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang.”
    â€œI guessed so.” He’d had the notion through their whole visit who they were.
    â€œThere were some breeds who were really bothering a woman and her daughters who ran a small hotel and café over by Yellowstone. That gal sent word to them two about the breeds bothering them and folks say that in a few weeks, those troublemakers disappeared from the earth.” Wilma laughed. “I expect them two to have the same experience.”
    â€œIf they ain’t too busy lining their pockets, they may get to it.”
    â€œAw, hell, them boys are just living off robbing the fucking railroads and banks. Who loves either of them institutions?”
    â€œNo one, I guess.” He still didn’t take any threat by the outlaws toward those two killers as very serious.
    Then she stretched her arms over her head. “I know I ain’t pretty or neat like some gals, but you get hard up, give me a nod.”
    â€œI will,” he said.
    She sent a coy smile at him. “You’d be surprised as hell at how good I am in bed.”
    â€œI don’t doubt it.”
    â€œI ain’t in no rush.”
    She left him and went inside. He’d noticed she’d done a few things about herself. She’d taken to brushing her graying hair and she even wore a better dress around the cabin and took daily sponge baths. All this time while he’d been trying to get back his strength, he had not really suspected her agenda. The cabin looked more orderly. Dishes were done after every meal. The blankets from the bed were aired out on the line several days a week. They didn’t smell so sour.
    The next few days, she sawed blocks off several logs and rolled them to Slocum’s chopping area for him to bust into firewood. Amazed by her strength, he kept to his firewood project. He resharpened her one-man crosscut saw, and she beamed when the teeth grabbed the first log she cut with it.
    â€œThat’s twice as easy as before,” she said, going back and forth with her long saw. “I’d swear that was a miracle.”
    He agreed and went back to making kindling. At the sound of horses, he looked up. He hissed to her and rested his hand on his .44. The saw stopped behind him. Three Indian bucks came out of the pines and approached.
    â€œKnow them?” he asked over his shoulder.
    â€œNo. Never