Slocum and the Ghost of Adam Weyland

by Jake Logan

  Straightening up to stand several inches taller than Adam, the barkeep held the ax handle so it was between both of their faces. “I don’t beat on helpless drunks. Bad for repeat business.”

  Moving with speed that seemed impossible for someone in his condition, Adam grabbed the ax handle and jerked it away from its owner. He didn’t even pause long enough to savor the astonishment on the barkeep’s face before driving that length of lumber into his jaw.

  “How about now?” Adam grunted. “Feel like stepping up to me now?”

  “Beat his ass!” the old man shouted. Since neither of his eyes pointed in the same direction, it was impossible to say whether he was talking to Adam or the barkeep.

  Mia had already stepped outside. She turned to look back into the saloon, but wasn’t quick enough to realize how bad the situation was before it got even worse.

  Adam took a cue from his sister when he snapped a knee straight up toward the barman’s groin. The other man twisted just in time to take the hit on his hip, but that didn’t help him any when it came to the ax handle, which dropped relentlessly down upon him.

  “Come on, you piece of milk toast!” Adam said while hitting the barkeep with an intensity that grew with every blow. “Whose fat is in the fire now, huh? You don’t even know, do you?”

  “Adam! Stop it!” Mia pleaded. Like before, she was intent on getting to him no matter what was happening in his vicinity. Although he wasn’t of a mind to harm her earlier, he wasn’t thinking clearly enough to stop his swing before the ax handle clipped her on its way toward the barkeep. She dropped to the floor, which did nothing to slow Adam down.

  The barkeep lowered his head, reached for the bar, and used it to pull himself up. As the insistent but weak blows continued bouncing off him, he calmly leaned across the warped wooden surface he’d spent so many hours wiping down and grabbed the sawed-off shotgun he kept for when things got really bad.

  “That’s right,” Adam said as he gripped the ax handle with both fists. “Now you find your balls!”

  “Adam, stop it!” Mia begged.

  He pushed his sister back down, without even taking a moment to notice the blood on her skin.

  When the barkeep wheeled around, he caught the ax handle after it bounced off his arm and pulled it to the side. Adam’s fists remained in place as if they’d been glued to the dented length of wood. Rather than try to pull it away from the barkeep, he glared up at him while saying, “Your place is a shit hole and you smell like you were born at the bottom of the pile.”

  “Your bill’s been paid,” he replied. “Leave before I force you out.”

  “Force me how?”

  Mia stepped up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We’re going. Right now!”

  The barkeep held the shotgun at hip level, aiming at a spot that could cut Adam in half with the twitch of a trigger finger. His eyes snapped to Mia’s hand, which was covered with a thin layer of blood that seeped into Adam’s shirt. “Are you hurt, ma’am?”

  She pulled her arm back and said, “It’s nothing. We’re leaving. Sorry about the inconvenience.”

  Adam looked at her hand and tracked the blood back to the minor cuts and scrapes that she’d collected while trying to pull him out of that saloon. “Go on, Mia,” he said. “I’ll be along shortly.”

  Nodding as if she was too tired to do much else, she turned and walked to the door.

  “Go on, then, asshole,” Adam said once he’d set his sights upon the barkeep once more. “Take care of your business while you still got the chance.”

  “Just get out of here,” he replied.

  “I’ll be back to burn this pigsty to the ground.”

  “Will you, now?”

  Taking a few more steps toward the bar, Adam nodded. “You best know I will. And if I have my way, you’ll be in this shit hole when I light the torch.”

  Oddly enough, the two other customers in the place seemed more upset by that than the barkeep. They went to their spots and slammed their drinks back as if they truly had only a matter of seconds before it all went up in smoke.

  The barkeep stood directly in front of Adam.

  Mia stayed at the front door, holding it open as she said, “Come with me. Now!”

  The closer the barkeep got, the more Adam seemed to sober up. The wildness in his eyes had died down, leaving a resolve that was more like rock at the base of a snowcapped mountain. “Go ahead and do it, you prick.”

  “You’d really like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Adam didn’t say anything in response to the barkeep’s question. He merely set his jaw and balled his fists in preparation for whatever was on its way.

  The shotgun came up and was snapped around so the stock pounded against the side of Adam’s head. It was a swift, brutally efficient move that came naturally to most saloon workers and lawmen. Adam’s head snapped to one side and he dropped to the floor.

  “He’ll be all right, ma’am,” the barkeep said to Mia. “When he wakes up, he’ll just have a nasty headache, is all.”

  “I know,” she sighed while trudging back into the place. “Could you help me get him out of here?”

  “Just so long as he doesn’t come back.”

  10

  An hour after the sun rose the next morning, Slocum was up and ready to go. He was feeling the effects of a long night of playing cards, but had had enough distractions throughout the evening to keep his spirits up. When he knocked on the door to Mia’s hotel room, the smell of coffee and frying bacon drifted up from the main floor.

  “Where’s your brother?” he asked after she pulled the door open. “The breakfast they’re serving downstairs is calling my name.”

  “We’ll be down before too long.”

  “What’s the matter? Didn’t you get enough rest last night?”

  “No,” she said with a cross tone. “I didn’t. I tried to find you, but you weren’t at your game. I went to your room and you weren’t there. I asked around and all anyone could tell me was to look for someone named Natasha.”

  “Yeah, well, I suppose I did make the rounds last night,” he said with a sheepish grin. “What did you need me for?”

  Mia stepped aside and swept her hand toward the bed behind her. Adam lay there with an arm and leg dangling off the side, wearing yesterday’s clothes and a thick layer of bandages that had been wrapped around his head.

  “What happened to him?” Slocum asked.

  “He got drunk and started some trouble.”

  “Must have been in another saloon, because it sure wasn’t in the place I was at.” Slocum reached out to brush his hand along a bruised portion of her face. “What happened to you? Did he . . .”

  Slocum didn’t want to finish that question, but he didn’t have to. The look of shame and sadness on her face told him more than enough.

  “It was an accident,” she told him. “He was starting a fight and I got too close when it was under way.”

  He nodded and glared at the man lying on the bed.

  “Honestly, John. It was an accident.”

  “I heard you the first time. Do you want to get some breakfast?”

  “What about you?” she asked.

  “Why don’t I save you the trouble of cleaning him up and loading him onto his horse? You go on ahead and have something to eat. If I’m not down there before you’re finished, get something for me to eat once we’re on the trail. We’ve still got a long ride ahead of us.”

  “It sounds like you had a good time last night, John. If you wanted to stay, we could take another day or two. Maybe Adam and I could move on by ourselves. You’re a saint for bringing us this far.”

  “If it was just Adam, I’d leave him wherever he dropped the night before.” Slocum brushed her hair back to check and see if there were any more wounds that she’d tried to cover up. As far as he could tell, there were only a few scrapes that very well could have happened just the way she’d described. Mia wasn’t a lying sort, but she wouldn’t h
ave been the first to try and cover up for the missteps of a loved one.

  Once it was obvious that he was searching for more blood instead of just looking at her, Mia pushed his hand away and averted her eyes.

  “Since it’s the both of you traveling together,” he continued, “I’ll see to it that you get where you’re going. Of course, since it looks like he may very well sleep for a while on his own, this’d be a good time for you to move on without him. I could take you to your family or even see you back to Bickell.”

  “I don’t want to go back there,” she said. “Not right away. I’ll only have to deal with those men who were waiting for him before. He’s my brother, after all. That means I need to see this through to the end.”

  “He’s also a grown man. If any grown man would pick a fight and wake up with a bandaged head, he’d have to deal with it on his own. Trust me, I’ve been in that spot plenty of times.”

  Her smile was an even pleasanter sight than the rising sun. Her rounded cheeks flushed and her soft eyes crinkled at the edges as she quickly tried to cover the fact that she’d been ready to giggle at him. “I just bet you have.”

  “I never had someone like you to scrape me off the floor, though. Did you ever think that maybe he needs to stay on the floor sometimes? You might be surprised how a man can change when he sees things from down there for a while.”

  The humor that had briefly shown on her face quickly disappeared. “He’s been down there plenty,” she said. “I can’t bear to leave him there anymore.” She placed a hand on his chest and tried to keep him from entering the room, but Slocum planted his feet once he was inside and wouldn’t be shooed away.

  “I’ll get him cleaned up,” he said. “You get some breakfast. At least that way he won’t have the indignity of having his sister changing his britches.”

  “Nothing I haven’t had to do plenty of times already, but it’s not something I look forward to.” She drew a breath and then let it out with a curt nod. “All right. I’ll get breakfast and arrange for the horses.”

  “Ed’s already collecting the horses. Just have something to eat. I’ll bring your brother and things down as soon as I’m able.”

  “Thank you, John. I really appreciate it.”

  When she reached up to place her hand on his cheek, it seemed to come as a surprise to her. Mia’s smile returned and she patted him affectionately. He nodded, stepped aside so she could leave the room, and then closed the door behind her. Only after he’d heard her steps echo far enough down the hall did he turn around to face the bed.

  “That you, Mia?” Adam groaned.

  Slocum double-checked to make sure the door was locked.

  Adam pulled in half a breath, hacked it up, and rubbed his face. When his hands brushed against the bloodied spots on his temple and jaw, he hissed and covered his eyes with his arm. “Bring me some water, would ya?”

  There was a water basin on a table between the door and the bed, so Slocum walked over there and picked it up.

  “I feel like hell,” Adam said. “How long was I sleepin’?”

  Slocum didn’t answer, which didn’t seem to bother Adam in the slightest. He just kept on talking with his eyes covered and his leg hanging off the side of the bed.

  “No need to spout off about what happened in that saloon, I already know what you’re gonna say.”

  “Do you?”

  The sound of Slocum’s voice instead of his sister’s was enough of a surprise to get him to sit up straight. At least, his body tried to straighten before fatigue, his injuries, and last night’s whiskey stopped him short. “Oh,” he said while lowering his head back onto the pillow. “It’s you.”

  “Get up.”

  “Why don’t you get out?”

  “You heard what I said,” Slocum growled. “Don’t make me say it again.”

  “This is my room, damn it. And I say to—”

  Adam must have still been a little drunk, because Slocum figured any man with a working set of eyes would have known that the water basin in his hands wasn’t meant for a sponge bath. Even so, he dumped its contents onto Adam’s head with no small amount of satisfaction.

  “What the hell?” Adam sputtered as he thrashed on the bed and fought to wipe the water from his face.

  “You’ll get up,” Slocum demanded, “and you’ll collect you and your sister’s things so we can have a proper breakfast and be out of here.”

  “Who are you now? My pappy?”

  “I ain’t your pappy, your brother, or even your friend. The only reason I don’t drown you in one of the puddles I just made is on account of your sister.”

  “Oh, you like her, do you? Well, you can have her.”

  Slocum smashed the water basin against the headboard inches above Adam’s scalp. Pieces were still raining down when Slocum grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hauled him out of the bed. “Get to your feet, you prissy little cur.”

  “Who’re you callin’ a—”

  Too impatient to wait for Adam to get his words out, Slocum pulled him close and snarled directly into his face. “I’m talking to you and I meant every damn word! We’ve listened to you cry and moan for days so now it’s your turn.”

  Adam tried to squirm away, but Slocum’s grip was much too solid for him to break.

  “I heard you had a little misadventure last night while Ed and I were playing cards.”

  “Playing cards or fuckin’ some whore?”

  Slocum shook Adam so hard that some of his teeth may have rattled loose. He hadn’t meant to be so rough, but Adam hung from his fists like a wet rag doll rather than put up any sort of fight. “You don’t have the right to judge anyone, you hear?”

  “I hear plenty,” Adam grunted.

  “Good, because I want you to hear this and think real closely before you answer. You wanna die?”

  “Huh?”

  “Do you want to die?”

  Adam blinked once and smirked. “Ain’t you heard? I’m already dead.”

  “Dead men don’t cause this much trouble for their families,” Slocum said. “And ghosts don’t stink nearly as much as you do right now. So that means you must like playing dead. If that’s all you want, then find a soft bed somewhere, roll over like a good dog, and play dead. You’ve put your sister through enough hell.”

  “My whole life ain’t nothin’ but hell, mister.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that. You’re real sick. Nobody knows what’s wrong. You hurt. You ache. Poor little baby. You still haven’t answered my question, Adam. Do you want to die?” When he got nothing but a hateful glare from the wobbly man, Slocum said, “I’ve known a few men who were wracked with illness. Some of them tried to live out their lives the best they could and some wanted to wring as much out of this world as possible before their short time in it ran out. Those men usually wind up being some crazy bastards, but they’re worth knowing.”

  Slocum allowed Adam to get the first hint of a grin on his face before adding, “You’re not one of those men. You’re a pathetic little toad who’s too yellow to either grab the bull by the horns or do himself in properly.” He let go of Adam with a shove that bounced him once more against the headboard.

  Slapping at the bed and the wooden headboard in angry frustration, Adam flopped off the other side and then stomped around it to stand before Slocum. “You don’t even know me! How dare you act like you know what I’ve been through!”

  “I may not know where you’ve been, but I’ve seen enough to know where you are. There’s plenty men out in the world who are worse off than you and they don’t spend every day of their miserable lives trying to get someone to put a bullet through their skulls.”

  “What would you have me do? Raise some cows? Start up a dry goods store?”

  “I don’t give a damn what you do, but if you had a scrap of honor, you wouldn’t torture a good woman like your sister the way you do.”

  “Did she tell you about our mother? She wasted away inside a locked room bec
ause of this sickness that’s got me. Our father did his best to carry on the way he always did and he wasted away just the same. I ain’t about to spend my few remaining years like that!”

  “So you do want to die,” Slocum said.

  “It’s not my choice, but it’s what I got comin’ my way.”

  “That’s comin’ for all of us sooner or later.”

  “Sure,” Adam said, “but not everyone gets to look the reaper in the face every goddamn second of every goddamn day.”

  “You certain about that?”

  A quick response came to Adam’s lips, but didn’t make it past them. The cold look in Slocum’s eyes was more than enough to make him think twice about the next words he spoke. Finally, he turned his back to him and started collecting his clothes from a pile beside the bed. “I’ve seen what sickness can do to people and I don’t want that.”

  “You’d rather go down in a whole mess of loud words, blood, and gunfire, huh?”

  “Maybe,” Adam replied while slipping into the same clothes he’d worn the day before. “Anything wrong with that?”

  “Only when some of that gunfire spills the wrong people’s blood. Your sister looks like she was the one in the fight. How do you come to terms with that?”

  Shrugging, Adam buttoned his shirt and said, “I told her to leave me alone. She should’ve done that.”

  “You don’t care if she got hurt because of you?”

  “Sure I do, but she didn’t get shot.”

  Slocum nodded as he picked up one of the saddlebags lying against the table where the washbasin had been. When he turned around, he tossed the bag so it hit Adam squarely in the chest. The impact wasn’t enough to knock him down, but it put Adam off his balance while Slocum rushed up to him and said, “This is your lucky day, friend, because I’m sick of hearing your tough talk and sad stories. You want to die in a blaze of gunfire?” he asked while drawing the Colt Navy from its holster. “Here’s your chance.”

  Although Adam put on a shaky grin, he couldn’t maintain it when Slocum grabbed his wrist so he could slap the Colt’s handle against his palm. “What’s this?”