by Jake Logan
Suddenly, the drunk slapped his hand flat upon the top of the bar and walked toward Slocum. “Who the hell are you?” he asked. “Some sort of big man? Let’s see how big you are!”
The drunk’s hand was anything but quick as it flapped against his holster in a fumbling attempt to draw what looked to be an old .44. Before the gun could see the light of day, Slocum leaned forward and dropped his hand on top of the drunk’s to trap the pistol where it was. “Whatever you think I did to start this, you’ve got it wrong. Let it drop.”
“That’s right, Adam,” the barkeep said. “Let it drop.”
“I won’t let nothin’ drop!” the drunk bellowed. Even with his hand squashed between Slocum’s palm and the grip of his own pistol, he continued to try and pull it loose. Slocum responded by applying even more pressure until the drunk’s fingers crunched around the pistol’s grip. He then forced that hand up and twisted it against the joint.
“How about now?” he asked calmly.
The drunk stared at Slocum, but was obviously having a hard time keeping his chin up. Since he’d been getting a lot of practice in letting idiots save face, Slocum took one of the bottles he’d bought and poured enough whiskey into Adam’s glass to top it off. “There you go,” he said. “Better?”
“I s’pose.”
“If you feel like making some easy money, head on over to our game. Lining your pockets with some of them boys’ cash has been going a long ways in keeping a smile tacked onto my face.”
“You hear that, Adam?” Harry said enthusiastically. “You can play some cards if you like.”
Adam picked up his whiskey while Slocum delivered the rest to the card game. He sniffed it as though he suspected it had been poisoned and then drank it down.
2
It felt strange for Slocum to sit at a table in the Dusty Rose without having cards in his hands. Instead, he had a knife and fork so he could enjoy a meal of steak and potatoes that was given to him courtesy of the management. When he looked over to the bar, Harry waved as if he was greeting a long-lost relative. Too bad Slocum couldn’t be so happy about the food.
“You should really try the place down the street,” Triedle said as he sidled up to Slocum’s table and took a chair from another one. “Much better food and the serving girls are a hell of a lot nicer than that one over there.”
Although he seemed to know he was the topic of discussion, Harry must not have known the tone of Triedle’s comments because his smile was wider than ever as he returned the gambler’s wave.
“He’s giving out free meals to those of us playing the game,” Slocum said. “You might want to partake before he changes his mind.”
“One poorly cooked slab of beef before you move along, huh?” When Slocum looked at him with a raised eyebrow, Triedle added, “I figured you were headed out of town pretty soon.”
“If you can read me that well, I’m surprised you didn’t win more of my money.”
“No science to it. A man just tends to play recklessly when he’s ahead and intends on skipping out of town.”
“I ain’t skipping nowhere,” Slocum said. “I got a job to do. Did you think I was sinking roots here?”
“Not hardly! Headed out to New Orleans?”
Before Slocum got too surprised about a fancy bit of fortune telling, he recalled talking about that during the previous night’s game. “That’s right.”
“Is the pay for that job of yours enough to leave what you’ve got going here?”
Slocum chuckled while sawing into a particularly tough portion of his steak. “If you mean the game, I’d say it’s about the right time to go. Those boys are out of money, the locals are getting tired of losing, and those two gamblers in the fancy suits that sat down at the table last night are getting ready to run something that will either end up with us losing our shirts or having to get our hands bloody when we catch them cheating.”
Triedle nodded slowly. “You have a good eye, John. But the last few hands of a game like this is like wringing out a washcloth. Sometimes you’re surprised how much water keeps trickling out.”
“Yeah? Well, you can keep on wringing because I’m riding out of this town as soon as I’m done with this steak.” When his teeth crunched down on a large hunk of gristle, he added, “Or maybe a little sooner.”
“Would you be opposed to some company?”
“That depends. Do you mean you?”
“Actually, yes!”
“Then yes,” Slocum said with a curt nod. “I would be opposed.”
The disappointed look on Triedle’s face was priceless. It was short-lived, however, since his attention was quickly diverted to a woman with long, light brown hair who approached the table with her hands clasped in front of her.
“Pardon me,” she said. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”
Triedle was quick to get to his feet and remove his hat. “Not at all, ma’am. How can I be of assistance?”
“Are you John?”
“No, that’d be my good friend with the steak.”
Slocum nodded and continued to saw off another hunk of beef. The steak smelled just good enough to keep going and he’d be damned if he would turn his nose up at a free meal.
“I’d like to thank you, then. My name’s Mia Weyland.” When that didn’t get a reaction from him, she added, “I’m Adam Weyland’s sister.”
Still nothing.
“I hear that he gave you some trouble earlier,” she said with confusion creeping into her pretty features.
“I believe she’s referring to the gentleman over at the bar,” Triedle explained.
Slocum looked over there while putting the pieces of the conversation together in his head. “Oh, you mean the drunk?”
Although she seemed uncomfortable with that description, she could hardly dispute it. “Yes. My brother has not been feeling well and has consequently been drinking rather heavily. I apologize if he caused you any trouble.”
“Don’t mention it,” Slocum said.
Mia had kind eyes, round cheeks, and hair that fell in large curls that brushed against her forehead and neck. Soft, creamy skin made her look very much like a doll that had been propped up and sent over to Slocum’s table. She separated her hands, shifted on her feet, and then laced her fingers together once again.
“John and I were just discussing traveling to New Orleans,” Triedle announced.
“Is that a fact?” Mia asked. “I have family in Louisiana.”
Suddenly, the prospect of leaving some of his free steak behind didn’t seem so bad when compared to the slowmoving agony of the conversation. He pushed his plate away, shoved back from the table, and stood up. “Now that you mention it, I should get going to Louisiana right about now.”
Both of the other two at the table seemed completely surprised by the fact that Slocum didn’t want to swap any more meaningless words with them. Triedle stood up as if he were connected to him by a harness. “I had some business I wanted to discuss with you,” he said.
“If that business has to do with coming to Louisiana, you’re more than welcome to do that.” Just when Triedle began to smile, Slocum added, “You can go wherever the hell you want to go, just not with me. I’ve got a schedule to uphold and you’d only slow me down.”
“You don’t know that!”
“Yeah, I think I do.”
Since Slocum was already on his way to the door, Triedle followed him out.
No matter how quickly the gambler moved, Mia was even quicker. She got to Slocum just as he made it outside. “I have something I’d like to discuss with you as well,” she said.
“Apology accepted on your brother’s behalf,” Slocum quickly said. “Don’t think any more of it. You seem like a nice lady and your brother seems like a loud drunk. I’m sure you’ve got plenty of other folks to apologize to, so I’ll let you get to it.”
Outside, the street was busier than normal. Horses were tied to several nearby posts, allowing their owners to spend time
inside the Dusty Rose as well as a number of other establishments in the vicinity. Slocum found his horse right away, since he’d brought it out of the stable earlier that morning in preparation for a hasty departure.
“Mister Slocum?” Mia called out behind him.
He walked to his horse and started tugging at the reins to get them loosened from where they’d been tied. His hands moved even quicker when the others strode to catch up to him. If he could only work fast enough, he might somehow get away without answering to either one of them.
“Get your hands off’ a me, you son of a bitch!”
Slocum had been so intent on the distractions behind him that the outburst in front of him had gone completely unnoticed until those words exploded through the air. They came from a small crowd gathered in the middle of the street a little ways down from the Dusty Rose Saloon. As Slocum looked that way, the part of him that wanted to move along was still screaming in the back of his mind for him to do just that. And like so many other times in his life, he ignored it.
“What the hell is that about?” he muttered, mostly to himself.
Mia was close enough to hear him and replied in a worried tone, “That’s probably what I wanted to talk to you about.”
There was scuffling in the middle of the crowd, followed by the distinct crack of knuckles against flesh. When he heard a woman scream and a bunch of men begin to shout, Slocum rushed toward the commotion. By the time he’d shoved through enough of the crowd to get a look at the middle of it, Slocum was in the perfect spot to catch an elbow to the chin as a big fellow cocked an arm back to take a swing at someone else. The blow landed solidly on his mouth, staggering Slocum and almost knocking him down. Thankfully, an overly curious old man was positioned to break his fall.
“Damn, it,” grunted the big fellow who’d cracked Slocum. “See what you made me do? Someone hold that drunk up so he can get what’s comin’ to him!”
After clearing the fog from his head, Slocum was able to see Adam Weyland standing proudly in the middle of the ruckus. His face was already bloody and his clothes were rumpled to the point where they seemed to have been almost twisted completely around in the wrong direction on his lanky frame. “I know what’s comin’ to me!” he said in a voice that reeked of whiskey and every other kind of liquor sold in the county. “Just like I knew what was comin’ to your wife last night. And your sister!”
The man who’d accidentally elbowed Slocum rushed at Adam like a bull. If the drunkard had had any wits about him, he could have cleared a path so the charge would have landed on one of the three men behind him. Instead, Adam caught the brunt of a straight punch to the face that snapped his head back and sent a spray of blood through the air. The crowd gasped and Adam stumbled backward. Amazingly enough, he remained upright instead of dropping to the ground, where he seemed to belong.
When he looked back to the man who’d punched him, Adam was smiling. “That all you got?” he asked through blood-smeared teeth. “No wonder your wife was so anxious to drop her britches for me.”
The second punch was harder than the first and had no trouble whatsoever in sending Adam to the ground. He landed solidly with his legs splayed and his head drooping forward. Adam mumbled something after spitting out a wad of crimson juice. Although Slocum couldn’t hear what was said, the man who’d dropped Adam like a bad habit heard it just fine.
“Stand back,” the angry fellow said. As soon as the other men moved away from Adam, the fellow drove his boot into the drunk’s chin with so much force that Slocum wouldn’t have been surprised to see Adam’s head sail through the air. Instead, the drunk continued to laugh as he toppled over sideways and absorbed the first of many kicks to his ribs.
As the beating became more intense, the crowd closed in around the spectacle like a bunch of piranhas that had discovered a chunk of raw meat floating in their lake. Slocum pushed his way through until he could reach out and grab the angry fellow’s shoulder and pull him back.
“Let go of me,” the angry fellow said as he wheeled around to look directly at Slocum’s battered face. “Who the hell are you?”
“What happened here?”
Obviously not concerned enough by his first question to follow it up, the fellow replied, “He slapped my wife on the ass and called her a whore.”
Slocum looked at Adam and only got a hacking laugh in return.
“Then he soiled the name of my sister.”
“Yeah,” Slocum sighed. “I heard that part.”
“Why the hell would you want to step in on this asshole’s behalf?”
Rather than admit to thinking the same question himself, Slocum asked, “Did he do anything other than that?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then he doesn’t deserve to die just for talking. As for the slap, I’d say he got what was coming to him and then some.”
The crowd parted once more, allowing Mia to make her way to her brother’s side. For the first time since the beating had started, Adam looked like he wasn’t happy with the direction his life had taken. “Aw, no!” he groused. “Mia, just get away from me.”
Despite his struggles, she took hold of his arm and pulled him up. Adam fought her every step of the way, kicking and flailing even as he was set onto his own two feet. “You’re coming with me,” she said. “Before you get yourself hurt.”
“He’s already hurt,” the angry fellow said. “And it’s about to get a whole lot worse.”
That was all the other men in the crowd needed to hear. They closed in around Adam and pulled Mia away so the fellow who balled up a fist could slam it into Adam’s face. Once more, Adam accepted the blow as if he’d ordered it off a menu.
Grabbing the angry fellow’s arm, Slocum said, “That’s enough!”
“Are you sticking your neck out for this piece of shit?”
“No more than I would for anyone else. This has gone far enough. Why don’t we put a stop to this before the law gets here to cart us all to jail?”
“No need to worry about that.”
“How can you be so sure?”
The angry fellow responded to that by pulling aside the flap of his vest to reveal a tin star pinned to the shirt he wore beneath it. While Slocum struggled for what he should say next, Mia pried her brother away from the hands of the men who kept him upright.
“So just because he said some bad things, he’s going to be beaten to death in the street like an animal?” she asked.
Every second that passed without him striking Adam caused the angry lawman to lose some of the fire in his eyes. Finally, he looked more like someone who’d woken up to find himself in a strange bed without any recollection of how he’d landed there. “You’re right, ma’am,” he said.
Mia spun around to examine her brother and fuss with his rumpled clothes. “Of course I’m right,” she said.
The whole crowd seemed to let go of a deep breath. Slocum wasn’t sure what he meant to do when he’d waded into that mess, but was sure he wouldn’t have resolved anything that quickly. Leave it to a pretty lady to cut straight through to the heart of trouble and set it straight.
Apparently, Mia was just as surprised with how well things seemed to be going. “Well then,” she said, “we’ll just be on our way. I apologize on my brother’s behalf.”
The lawman nodded, waited for her to take a few steps away, and then snapped a sharp punch directly into Adam’s eye. The drunk staggered back a few steps, leaving Mia speechless and the lawman rubbing his reddened knuckles. “That’s for what you said about my sister,” he said. “Now get the hell outta my sight before I fix it so you can’t open your mouth again.”
Slocum moved past the lawman. He couldn’t believe Adam was still on his feet by the time he got to him. Judging by the welts, cuts, and bruises on his face, it seemed to be a small miracle that he was even conscious at all. Despite the vacant grin on his face, Adam was feeling no pain. The stench of liquor at such a close range was bad enough to make Slocum feel as
if he’d just helped himself to a quick shot of whiskey.
“All right, everyone,” the lawman bellowed. “Move along. Can’t you see there are wagons that want to get by? Step aside and let ’em pass.”
Deprived of their show, the crowd lost interest in Adam Weyland, his sister, Slocum, and even the lawman who’d done his best to knock Adam into oblivion. Slocum couldn’t tell if the other men who’d swarmed in on the lawman’s behalf were deputies or just locals eager to get closer to the spectacle because they’d wandered off as well. Even so, Slocum wasn’t going to count his blessings until he, Adam, and Mia all made it to the boardwalk.
“Now what in blazes was that about?” Mia snarled, beating Slocum to the punch.
Adam shook his head and tried to push her aside so he could stagger away, but didn’t make it far before Slocum snagged him by the elbow and pulled him back. “She saved your useless life,” he said to the drunkard. “The least you can do is answer her.”
But Adam didn’t have time for either of them. He swatted at Slocum and Mia as if they were gnats pestering him on a hot summer day.
“What did you do now?” Mia asked. When her brother muttered something and spun away from her, she dashed around to get in front of him. “Talk to me! What’s wrong with you? Are you trying to get yourself killed? Isn’t it bad enough that you wound up in jail the last time you pulled this kind of nonsense?”
“Leave me alone!”
“I can’t leave you alone. You’re my brother.”
“Just get away from me, bitch!”
Slocum strode up to Adam, turned him around, and thumped a solid punch into his gut. The impact doubled Adam over and dropped him to his knees. Before he could fall, a small crowd of bloodthirsty locals took notice and began to circle the three of them.
“Go on,” Slocum said as he took off his hat and swatted at one of the closest onlookers. “Mind yer own business, you bunch of vultures!”
Since all there was to look at was a drunk, a woman who now wiped at the tears forming in her eyes, and an angry man waving a hat, the crowd dispersed.
