Slocum and the Long Ride Read Free Page B

virgins you have there.” He threw the leader kisses, and they left whispering and giggling, closing the door after themselves. The Pitch Fork could be a place to have real fun.
    He had dried off from his bath when there was knock on his door. “Be right there.”
    â€œI’m sorry, were you still bathing?” she asked as if he might have been.
    â€œNo, but I still have to dress and shave.”
    â€œDon’t bother to dress. I am not some willy-nilly girl that has not seen a man out of his clothing. Besides I can shave you.”
    His pants on, he opened the door and let her in. As she crossed the room, he studied the long blue silk gown she wore. “I won’t argue about you doing that. You look quite lovely. Too nice to mess with a tramp.”
    â€œNo, you’re mistaken. This water is warm enough. She dipped some from his bathwater in a mug and made foam with a hog hairbrush. “You have a sharp razor?”
    â€œIn my saddlebags.”
    â€œGood. Sit in a chair over here.” She put the mug down and searched in his saddlebags for his razor. When she found it, she went to where he sat on a ladder-back chair next to the mug on the dresser. He noticed her feet gliding across the floor. Maybe they could dance? She certainly looked like she’d be very talented at that.
    She lathered his face and smiled. “I am over shaking, so I shouldn’t cut you.”
    â€œGood thing!”
    â€œOh, Slocum, it has been such a tough day, I know for you as well.” The blade slid through his beard stubble like a knife through soft butter. She frowned, impressed as she cleaned off the blade. “My comparisons to doing this for my late husband are all I have. He never owned a razor this sharp in his life. Whew. Was this instrument expensive?”
    â€œI don’t know. A woman in my past presented that to me.”
    â€œI bet you don’t even know her name.”
    â€œBet’s on.”
    â€œWho was it?”
    â€œBecky Oneida.”
    She quit shaving and laughed harder. “You made that up.”
    â€œNo, she lives in Benton County, Arkansas, and owns a watermill there. I saved her from three shy-pokes who’d stopped there aiming to rape and rob her.”
    â€œYou are serious?”
    â€œSerious as I can be. I stopped there at the mill for directions to a fellow I’d been in the war with. I climbed the stairs to the open back door, and the mill was grinding corn so it was loud, I figured someone was inside watching the milling operation.
    â€œThose three had her near stripped naked lying on her back on pile of gunnysacks. She wasn’t letting her state of undress stop her none—she was fighting them like a wildcat.
    â€œThe only guy with his pants up went for a gun in his waistband.”
    She finished shaving the other cheek. “Go ahead with the story.”
    â€œAnother who’d had his pants down, a pimply-faced kid, when he saw me, dove for his gun on the table. I’d warned them, and I shot him in the chest at point-blank range, in the midst of the billowing gun smoke. Then she used a sack knife she got hold of to stab the one on top trying to rape her.” In reality she’d cut off his manhood and then in her rage cut his screaming throat—but Sandy didn’t need to know about that part of the story
    Careful-like, Sandy shaved his upper lip.
    â€œThat was one hell of a day. We laid them out after she got herself together, then we sent for the law, and a deputy came down, listened to her story, shook both our hands, and said, ‘They deserved it. Case is closed. You can bury them.’”
    â€œThis was a real gift.” And she wiped the soap off of the blade. “Did you ever find your friend from the war?”
    â€œNo, he’d gone west. I never saw or heard of him again.”
    She finished shaving the rest of his face and rinsed the razor. With a wet towel she cleaned away all the