by Jake Logan
And he’d found out just what that look meant. She was a wild thing, and had a body to back up that unspoken claim.
Slocum nearly walked into Deke’s broad back when the big man slowed his pace. He cursed himself for not paying more attention to where they were going, instead of just following blindly, dumbly, like a kid. His ailments must have taken more out of him than he realized. He was usually more aware, sharper than this.
He looked around, curious to know why Deke had slowed his pace, and saw they were threading their way through a thicket of bushes just before a greensward. But they weren’t going to cross the meadow. They were staying well within the tree line, and Deke was eyeing the sun-dappled meadow grass. Slocum instinctively lowered himself into a crouch, his finely honed senses of a fighting man telling him something dangerous was likely crouched not far away in the grass. And that something might well be eyeing them with as much caution—and the decided advantage of sight.
Slocum saw a flash of buckskin, heard a high-pitched snicker, and dropped down even lower in a crouch. By then, Deke had stopped walking forward and glanced sideways at Slocum. Instead of alarm on his face, as Slocum had expected, he saw a smirk.
This man is crazier than I thought. Suddenly not ten feet from Slocum, just to his right, up popped a tall, thin person clad in buckskins. The skins, a patchwork haphazardly lashed together with rawhide scraps, did nothing to hide the fact that this figure belonged to a woman who, though tall, bore curves in all the right places. The rest of her, unfortunately, was a savage-looking affair.
She stared at them, slowly waving the large, flashing blade of a skinning knife back and forth before her face, like the tail of a slowly aroused pit viper.
It didn’t take long before this act grew old. Slocum had been in plenty of situations where such hollow displays of posturing had led to the perpetrator backing down, backing away as if he’d accomplished something impressive by merely waving his weapon menacingly or sneering as if he were about to bite off the head of anyone who dared step closer.
“Am I supposed to be impressed?” he said. He couldn’t help himself.
Suddenly the raw-looking woman growled and did just what he’d have guessed she’d do—she eyeballed him with what he was sure was supposed to be menace and bone-chilling hate while stepping slowly backward. The only part of the display that was impressive was when she melted back into the trees. Though she was close, he lost sight of her sooner than he’d expected to. So she did know a thing or two about disappearing into her surroundings. He’d keep that in mind. Now if her siblings or cousins or whatever they were shared her talent, he could well be surrounded right now and not know it.
“Just what was that, Deke?”
“That’s my cousin, Rufus,” said Deke.
“Rufus? But . . .”
“I know what you’re thinking, but don’t let on, you hear?” whispered Deke. “She’s mighty sensitive about that. Thinks she’s a man. Been acting like one her whole life, but she’s a dang good shot, and in the end, what with the troubles we all been through, we figure that’s about all that matters. So we leave her be. Family don’t pay her no never mind, and she’s private and all, so it don’t much matter what she wants to be. Hell, she could take up being a chicken and we’d all just go along with it, I reckon. Long as her shootin’ stays as good as it is anyways.”
“And I bet you could use the eggs, too.” Slocum thought his joke would be appreciated by Deke, but if the man understood what he’d said, he didn’t let on.
Deke looked at Slocum with a set jaw and squinted eyes. “It’s the blamed strangers who make it tough for the odd ones. Folks like that usually end up causing a fuss, riling everybody, then skedaddling in the night. That’s the way it always happened back at Durfee’s Holler. I reckon the canyon ain’t no different.”
“No need to worry about me. Unless it’s that I might die of curiosity before we get there.”
“Okay, okay, Slocum. But these cousins of mine are what you might call a little jumpy.”
“Deke, nothing much would surprise me anymore. If you hadn’t noticed, you are talking to a man who should be dead right about now. Remember?”
The big man laughed. “Come on. They won’t tolerate being kept waiting.” And with that, he led the way forward through yet another dense thicket. Shortly, the thick scrub parted before them to reveal a small grassy sward similar to the one they’d seen a few minutes earlier. Slocum guessed it was another pasture for beasts.
So far, he’d not seen any horses, milk cows, or even chickens. Though he thought one morning he swore he heard a rooster crowing far to the south, the direction the canyon stretched. He couldn’t wait to explore its full length soon. Then find his way out of there, warn the Apache of the undefeatable weapons Deke was ready to launch against them. And what they did with the information was up to them, he figured.
His only other option was to blow up the munitions right where they sat. Not a bad idea—destroy them before they got transported out of the canyon. He’d have to give that one some thought.
His biggest problem with that lay in the fact that he had no weapons other than a boot knife. He was also still moving as slow as an old man gripped with ague and rheumatics, as the old-timers called it, and the cave full of weaponry and ammunition was guarded by two dimwitted brothers. Okay, so he could probably handle those boys at first. However, if they really were solid shots, he wasn’t so sure he was going to be able to sneak in there and out again without detection.
Time will tell, Slocum said to himself. Keep taking in information, maybe learn something about this batch of crazies I fell into . . . And then they were surrounded.
Just what he hadn’t expected to happen did happen—a tall, thin man in buckskins, more leather patch than solid garment, emerged from the foliage almost as though the trees themselves were receding into the background. Off to Slocum’s left another materialized out of the woods. He was nearly identical to the first, save for the expression on his face and the length of the patchy beard. They each carried what looked like a Kentucky long rifle. And there was something else odd about them—something about their faces, their eyes, their way of staring at him. Then he knew—they were nearly dead ringers, albeit male versions, of the woman Deke had called Rufus. How many more were there?
One of them squinched up one eye, worked his bunched jaw up and down as if he were considering a difficulty, then sluiced a long, tailing stream of chaw juice. Half of the viperlike stream slapped against his crusty buckskins and glistened in his beard. He dragged the back of one hand across his mouth and snuffed in a quick gasp of air through his nose, as if he were snoring. “You . . .” He pointed at Slocum.
The other one, who also had been busy spitting, said, “Who you?”
Deke held up his hands as though he were keeping them apart. “Now men, just keep your peace a minute, will you? I’m fixing to tell you all about this here fella.” And Deke proceeded to explain who Slocum was and how he came to be there.
“Where are the rest? Back yet?” said Deke, by way of finishing the conversation.
The first one to speak snorted again, spit, then said, “Nah, not yet. I reckon they’re—”
“Still on one of your jobs,” the other one said, finishing the thought. “Be back directly.”
“Aw hell, that’s too bad.”
“Why you here, Deke?”
“Bad news, I’m afraid, boys. Ol’ Henry’s up and died on us.” Deke’s face grew tight and he looked at his boots.
“What?” said the first as he pulled his sleeve from his beard.
“How?” said the other.
Deke didn’t look up, and Slocum wondered if he was going to tell them the truth. Deke skittered his glance toward Slocum then said, “Apaches.”
It was as if he’d thrown a stick of dynamite into a crowded street. Both men began yammering at on
ce, then yelling for Rufus. She emerged from the woods, dead ahead of them, no weapons in her hands. She seemed to be the only one besides Slocum who wasn’t yelling at the top of their lungs.
But she was making sounds, weird growling, angry sounds. And she rarely took her eyes off Slocum. But instead of the attention he was used to receiving from women, this one shot daggers of hate at him from her eyes. The spite in those near-black orbs was intense.
He broke off his gaze from hers and rushed forward to help Deke, who had his hands full with the two tall, thin, buckskin-clad men, who both appeared to want to tuck right into him. They crowded him with their bony chests, arms down by their sides, rifles held back. This aggressive posturing was almost comical. It looked as if two skinny roosters were intent on bothering a massive barnyard dog.
Curiously enough, Deke did little more than take it. Was he afraid of them? That notion seemed impossible.
As soon as Slocum grabbed the arm of one—the second of the two to have spoken earlier—he spun on Slocum and began his crazy pushy chicken dance with him. Slocum pushed right back. And it felt good, despite the fact that the skinny woodchuck directed his tirade at him. Slocum really wanted to punch the man in the face.
Finally, Deke got the crazies calmed down enough so that they weren’t pushing, and their yammering had dwindled to argument levels.
“I told you,” said one, “we got to get on up there right now.”
Deke nodded in agreement, but said, “And I told you when them boys get back, we’ll organize and ride on out, with wagons loaded and hell a-blazing. But them idiots still ain’t back, so we got no choice but to wait.”
“We don’t need them!” shouted one of the brothers. “We got us, and you still got a few boys down to your fancy end of the canyon, ain’t you?” The man gave Slocum a glance. “I don’t suppose you know how to use a gun.”
As he said it, he rubbed a grimy hand along the stock of his rifle. As filthy as he and his brother were, their weapons gleamed, spotless, ding-free, and well oiled.
“I’ve been handy with one a time or two, yeah.” Slocum suppressed a smirk and turned to Deke.
Deke pulled himself up to his full height and bellowed at them. “Slocum here ain’t going to fire up his gun, ain’t going to do nothing without my say-so and whenever I say so, you got that?”
The effect was impressive. They backed down like scalded pups and looked at their feet. “Aw, Deke, they kilt Henry! We got all them guns and . . . and . . .” the skinny man blustered, his head shaking in bewilderment. “Well, dang it, Deke, Henry’s dead!”
The other one picked up. “How many more of us all they got to kill afore you cut loose with them guns?”
“Yeah, yeah, dang it!”
The entire time the two men ranted, working themselves up into a new lather, their sister, Rufus, stood off to the side, not once taking her eyes from Slocum, but pantomiming their rising rage with arm thrusts and leg kicks, and emitting howls that sounded more like animal utterances than those from a young woman.
What a family, thought Slocum. How do they ever get anything done? How on earth did this man and all these crazies ever manage to steal all that military plunder?
Once more, it looked as if Deke were gathering a lungful of air to bellow his big bear voice at the men. But something else happened before he could shut them up once again.
The two buckskin-clad men backed away from him. One of them shouted, “We’ll do it ourselves, then.” And before Slocum could reach out and grab the nearest of them, the men ran northward, toward the direction from which he and Deke had just come, toward the cave filled with weapons watched over by Deke’s slow-witted sons.
The men were fast, faster than Slocum had seen anyone move in a long, long time. Except for that time he’d had to pile on out of that second-story ranch house bedroom window because the man of the house had returned from a trip unexpectedly. And Slocum had been in a state of near-complete undress, save for his hat and boots, and in bed with the woman of the house.
Not one of his finest moments, as he recalled. He’d lost wages, a good shirt hung up on that cottonwood tree close by the porch, and he hadn’t even got to finish what he’d started. Still, the memory almost made him smile as he followed Deke back toward the cave.
“Rafe! Ralph! Come back here!” the big man shouted, obviously distressed. Slocum imagined that his thoughts were with his boys, hoping like hell the two buckskinners weren’t capable of what Slocum guessed they really were—killing the boys if it meant getting to those weapons.
“Would they harm your sons?”
“Naw, I don’t believe it. But I can’t let them get at them guns. Not yet. We got to organize this mess. That’s how we will beat the Bluebellies, in the end . . .”
For a brief moment, as they loped through the brush nearly side by side, Slocum caught Deke’s eyes, wide and set in a tense face.
So that’s it, thought Slocum. His real aim in all this is to take on the entire United States Army. And the Apache are just a convenient bit of warming up, a practice attack, so to speak. No wonder he’s protective of the weapons he has. He’ll need a whole lot more if he’s going to take on the army. And speaking of, where’s he going to get an army to fight an army? He hadn’t seen but a few dozen fight-worthy folks in all the valley.
Slocum figured he’d better make light of it, as if Deke’s slip of the tongue didn’t matter to him. “Anybody behind us?” shouted Slocum.
“No! They’re the last ones before the end.”
Slocum could tell Deke had been about to say more, but even in that heated moment he kept his mouth shut and ran.
“Slocum, you head off that-a-way, and try to keep Rufus from rousting my other men over to where Henry died! They’re tense and angry and liable to break. Wouldn’t take much! I have to get to the cave and see to it that my boys hold strong!”
Slocum nodded and headed where Deke indicated, looking for all the world as if he were in lockstep with the man. And nothing could be further from the truth, he thought. As soon as Deke crashed off through the undergrowth and out of sight, Slocum slowed, then stopped, catching his breath. He’d wait a few seconds, make sure he heard no one heading back toward him, then he’d head for the southern end of the canyon.
It was time to pursue his freedom, sooner than he imagined he would, but another opportunity like this might not come along, at least not before Deke mustered his troops and readied for the attack on the Apache. Unless the crazy buckskin brothers got their way and overpowered Deke and his boys. The thought gave Slocum slight pause. Deke might be a bit on the crazy side himself, but he and Julep had treated him well enough. It was what Deke had planned for him, though, that once again set Slocum’s feet to heading with all resoluteness toward the southern end of the canyon.
And that was when he smelled it—the foul, damp reek of piggish human sweat. And not his own—he’d never in all his days smelled that off. No, this was the aroma of someone long used to going without a washing, and someone whose diet probably consisted of rancid meat and runny dung. He didn’t dare move any more than he had to, despite the fact that the stench had begun to water his eyes. He slithered his hand downward to his boot, felt the reassuring haft of the boot knife. It was all he had, but he’d often made do with a whole lot less.
Whoever had crept nearby didn’t seem to know he was there, a foot or two from them in the bushes. He hoped like hell it wasn’t one of those feral kids, but if it came down to it, he’d do his darnedest to fend off the stinking creeper. Whoever it was shifted weight, stepped on a stick, snapping it and eliciting a grunt. Slocum shifted only his eyes, squinted through the dense pack of spindly branches, and saw a snatch of buckskin. Could be Rufus, Rafe, or Ralph. It didn’t much matter to him. Then the stranger spoke, in a singsong whisper, but meant for hearing.
“Come out, come out, you dang rascal. I got me a long
-ass toothpick and I intend to gut you, you flyin’ snake man.”
Yep, meant for him. Still couldn’t be sure which of the three it was, but he knew they all carried big Arkansas toothpicks swinging from their waists. And side arms, and long guns, and teeth and claws. What he had to do was outwit this stinking hick. And a thought occurred to him. He knew just what he needed to do, or at least the only thing he figured he could do. He’d find out in mere seconds if this was a good idea or not. If not, he wouldn’t have too long to wait.
He slowly lowered himself even closer to the ground, the pain in his wounded leg lancing up his side, forcing him to grit his teeth. If he bit together any tighter, he’d powder them. He waited another second, knife gripped tight, then he hissed, “Pssst!”
The reaction was so fingersnap quick, it was as if a rattler were spooked from behind or a snoozing wolverine were prodded with a stick. The brush exploded in a growling brown blur, stink flowing with it as the rogue rebel launched at Slocum. He dropped to his shoulder, rolled with it as the attacker landed on top of him. Raw meat stink clouded Slocum’s nostrils, filled his mouth, nose, and lungs. He grunted in part from the sudden weight atop him, in part from the pain in his wounded leg, his snakebit arm, his whole-body bruising, and his still-throbbing skull.
Slocum felt the attacker, but he still couldn’t tell if it was Rufus or her brothers, all bone and muscle, stretched sinew, lean and snarling. It was as if he were fighting the she-lion all over again, so powerful was this writhing demon. He caught sight of slashing, brown-tinged teeth, a couple of them decayed blackened stubs, almost pointed as if fangs. The face lunged at him and he could tell now by the lack of whiskers on the begrimed cheeks that it was Rufus.
She raised a long, thin blade high above her head, and slashed it downward at his face. Slocum grabbed the bony wrist with his snakebit hand, but it was a losing battle. His arm was still weak. The great strength that he had spent his adult life working on and building up was just not there yet, was not built back up to the level he needed it to be.
