by Jake Logan
“It’s a pistol, Adam,” Slocum said while closing the other man’s fingers around the Colt’s grip. “I would have thought you’d know that by now. Since you seem to have forgotten where yours is during all of these sorrowful and lonely times, perhaps you’d like to use mine?”
“What?”
“Just trying to do you a favor. You know what they say. If you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself. Tell you what. If you screw this up like you’ve done with everything else so far, I’ll be sure and finish it. Is that what’s got you shaking so hard right now? You worried you might just blast off the bottom of your jaw or tear off your face? I promise I won’t let you suffer. Anything like that happens and I’ll send you right to the Promised Land in the space of a few heartbeats.”
Sweat broke out upon Adam’s brow and trickled down his cheek. It dripped off the tip of his nose and pattered against the floor when he started shaking his head vehemently. “I don’t want this. I want to . . .”
“You want to what?” Slocum growled. “Die with your boots on?”
The motion of Adam’s head changed directions from a shake to a nod. “Better that than waste away slowly like . . . like . . .”
“Like the rest of us?”
Adam blinked, and when he looked at Slocum again, it was as if he’d finally woken up.
“Not all of us may have your cough or aches or whatever the hell you’ve got,” Slocum said. “To tell you the truth, apart from you being drunk and looking a little green behind the gills sometimes, I wouldn’t have even guessed you were that sick.”
“That’s why I’m drunk most of the time,” Adam said. “Feels better that way.”
“If that’s what makes you feel better, then drink your whiskey. It ain’t like you’re the only one pouring firewater down their throats whenever they get the chance. Answer one question, though. What do you think it means to die with your boots on?”
Scowling as though he’d just been asked to explain why the dirt was brown, Adam said, “It means dying standing up, out in the world, kicking up dust and raring to go until someone puts you down.”
“Sounds pretty good to me. How about you start living that way?”
Adam’s eyes drifted away from Slocum, but they seemed to be focused upon something that wasn’t even in the room. He shook his head slowly and was almost no longer able to remain on his own two feet. “Here,” he said while handing the Colt back. “Take it.”
“You sure? If you still want to die, I could do it real quick and still be done in time for breakfast.”
“Best take it before I use it to shut your smart mouth up for good,” Adam said with a tired scowl.
Slocum took the Colt, holstered it, and then headed for the door. “I hope I got through that hard skull of yours.”
“You did.”
“Good. Just don’t mistake that as anything too friendly. As long as we’re on the same trail, I don’t want to have to deal with this kind of idiotic bullshit anymore, you hear?”
“Yes,” Adam sighed.
“Now collect all of your things, bring them downstairs, and get the horses loaded. We’ve got a long few days ahead of us.”
11
As they rode past Dallas, Slocum could feel anxious eyes pointed in his direction. Even Mia cleared her throat as they rode past the fork in the road that would take them back into civilization.
“Nope,” was all Slocum said as he flicked his reins and led them onward.
Since nobody was about to argue or strike out on their own, the entire group kept going.
Slocum found it amusing how he’d become the leader of the expedition. It wasn’t as if New Orleans was hard to find. Mia and Adam simply wanted to get into Louisiana, where they had family waiting for them, so they should have been able to find their way on their own. As for Triedle’s motives, those had been made clear from the start. Since they’d ridden away from Darnell with more money in their pockets than when they’d arrived, those motives had become set in stone.
By the time Dallas was behind them, Slocum’s mind was another day’s ride ahead. He thought about different paths he might take, different towns he might visit, and different tribes they might encounter along the way. The Indians weren’t much of a problem so long as they were approached properly. Some of them, however, were as savage as the land they claimed as their own.
“You know, Dallas is a great town,” Triedle called out from his spot at the back of the line.
“So I’ve heard,” Slocum replied.
“Plenty of saloons.”
“Yep.”
“Some real good gambling halls. There was a fire that burned down a section of the gaming district, and the places that were put up afterward are even better than the first.”
“I suppose that’s what they call progress.”
“Yeah!” Triedle said. “How about we see it for ourselves?”
Slocum waited to hear Adam chime in with his plea to visit a saloon. When it didn’t come, he turned around to see if Mia’s brother had fallen from his saddle without anyone noticing. But Adam was right where he should have been. In response to Slocum’s backward glance, he merely shrugged and coughed into the bandanna that was wrapped around his fist.
“We keep going,” Slocum said as he shifted to face forward again. “We’re not on a tour of card tables.”
“Speak for yourself,” Triedle grumbled.
“You wanna ride ahead?”
Even though he couldn’t see him, Slocum could picture the look of glee that was on Triedle’s face when he shouted back, “Hell yes I do!”
“Then ride on ahead and scout to make sure the trail’s clear. It’s been a long time since I’ve ridden this way and we should make sure I’m not taking us to a washed-out bridge or something else that’ll only cost us daylight.”
“Aw, to hell with you.”
“You think I’m kidding?” Slocum asked sternly.
Like any dutiful soldier, Triedle snapped his reins and rode ahead while muttering very uncomplimentary things under his breath.
“That was impressive,” Mia said once Triedle had ridden too far away to hear her. “Is this a dangerous trail?”
“No. I just didn’t think he’d go.”
Her laugh grew louder as Mia spurred her horse just enough to catch up to Slocum’s. Once she’d drawn even with him, she rode quietly for a spell. Slocum looked over at her and couldn’t help but admire the way the sunlight kissed the swooping curls of her hair and brought a red hue to her cheeks and neck. He noticed a subtle upward tilt to her nose, which made her face look like it was always in the process of smiling.
After looking quickly over her shoulder, she leaned toward Slocum and whispered, “What did you say to Adam back at the hotel?”
“Not much.”
“Did you hit him?”
Slocum twitched as if that question had reached out to flick him on the nose. “Did I what?”
“Well, it had to have been something drastic,” she said while taking a gander back at her brother, who was slouching forward and half asleep in his saddle. “Nothing I’ve ever been able to do has made a dent. So I guess I thought—”
“You thought I’d be the one to dent him,” Slocum said. “It’s always nice to see how other folks look at you.”
“I don’t think badly of you, John. It’s just that he’s different now. Quieter.”
“I know. Makes for a nice ride. Now that we’re rid of Ed for a little while, we should enjoy it.”
She was quieter, too, having lowered her voice so it didn’t carry so easily back to the topic of conversation. “I’m serious. What happened after I left that hotel room? Adam hasn’t been the same since he told me to go to hell when I woke him up.”
“Just let him be,” Slocum said, even though he couldn’t believe those words had come out of his mouth. “The last thing he needs is you coddling him.”
“Someone has to.”
“No. They don’t. He’s
a grown man, not a sick puppy.”
She smiled at him in a way that made the whole day seem warmer. “John Slocum, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you give a damn about my brother.”
“Good thing you know better.”
But she wasn’t about to swallow that. Mia continued smiling, unaffected by the edge in his voice.
“You seem awfully happy,” Slocum said.
“Things are just turning out better than I’d hoped.”
“Well, try to keep your spirits high. It seems our peace and quiet is about finished.”
Following his line of sight, Mia quickly spotted the dust being kicked up by Triedle’s horse. At first, she thought it was him scouting ahead. Then she realized he was on his way back.
“Damn,” Slocum sighed. “Figured he’d at least stay away for a while longer.”
“Be nice. He’s your friend.”
“Since when?”
Even if Triedle had heard this exchange, he wouldn’t have been affected by it. He was too busy waving his arm and snapping his reins to be bothered with any words that passed between Slocum and Mia. Once he got close enough to be heard over the thunder of his horse’s hooves, he started speaking in a rush that was so quick it might as well have been a gust of wind coming from his mouth.
“Slow down!” Slocum said. “What’s got you so riled up?”
Triedle took a breath, acknowledged the two of them with a nod, and then said, “There’s a group of horses over that ridge.”
“Anything more than that or were you expecting everyone else in Texas to clear a path for us?”
“They’re waiting for us.”
Mia gasped and Slocum tried to calm her with a hand placed upon her elbow. “How do you know they’re waiting for us?” he asked.
“Because that’s what they told me to tell you.”
Slocum stared daggers at the gambler, trying to think of a way to convey how fed up he was with this conversation and how close he was to ending it with a few quick shots from his Colt. That look accomplished the task because Triedle forced himself to start over while moving his horse around to fall into step on Slocum’s left.
“It’s Cale and two others. Wasn’t he the fella that was waiting for Mia and Adam outside her house?”
“Yes,” Mia said.
Sitting bolt upright in his saddle, Adam drew up close to the other three horses and asked, “Did you say Cale Terrigan is waiting for us?”
“Am I still messing up my words?” Triedle snapped. “Yes, that’s what I said and they’re just over that ridge. I saw them as soon as I crested it and they signaled me to come over and have a word with them.”
“You were barely gone long enough for any of this to happen,” Slocum said.
Before Triedle could respond to that, three men on horseback slowly rode over the ridge directly ahead of them. They stopped once they were at the top of the gently sloping rise, as if that little bit of high ground gave them every tactical advantage in the world.
“Howdy,” Cale said with a wave. “We didn’t think we were gonna catch up to you. That is, until you did us the favor of stopping off in Darnell. Appreciate the chance to have this chat with you.”
“I see you found a man to replace the one you lost,” Slocum said. “Hopefully you told him what happened to that other one.”
“I sure did. Don’t worry about that. In fact, since both of these men knew Paul, they were more than willing to help me come after you.”
“Paul?”
“My brother,” Cale said. “The one that you killed.”
Adam rode forward until he was ahead of Slocum, but not quite up to where Triedle had come to a stop. “If you’re after payback, then look to me for it. I’m the reason all of this business with you was dredged up in the first place.”
“Don’t need to remind me of that,” Cale replied. “But it ain’t just about you anymore. It’s about all of you. The way I see it, any one of you could have ended things better. Instead, you had to shortchange me and light a fire under the whole situation.”
“You were the ones waiting for us back at that house,” Slocum said. “Or did you forget?”
Cale shot back with, “I was waiting to collect on a debt I was owed.”
“Which we negotiated until you decided to grab for more!”
“Only half settled. Not even that. And that’s just the money portion. There’s a blood debt now and I intend on collecting every bit of it.”
The three men fanned out. All of them had their guns drawn, but weren’t making a show of it. Still, something didn’t seem right.
“There’s two more,” Triedle whispered. “I spotted ’em on the way back here.”
Slocum nodded, accepting that as precisely the sort of thing that had been making him uneasy. “You’ll have the rest of your money when we get back to Bickell,” he said to Cale.
The gunman shook his head. “That ain’t good enough. You already ran this far. You think I’m stupid enough to believe you’ll just turn around and come back to pay me?”
“Our home is back there,” Mia said. “We sure aren’t dragging everything we own on the backs of these horses.”
A wicked smile oozed onto Cale’s face as he said, “You’re right about that. I might even go so far as to say that you won’t be carrying much of anything on them horses. Why don’t you hand ’em over as part of your payment?”
“And we’re supposed to believe that you’ll just take some horses as a way to make up for what happened to your brother?” Slocum asked. “We’re not stupid either, you know.”
“Maybe not, but there ain’t a lot you can do about it. Hand ’em over.”
“John, those other two could be anywhere,” Triedle warned.
“You’re sure there were only two?”
“No. I came back as fast as I could to tell you what was happening. You think I should have lagged behind to count heads?”
“Might have been helpful,” Slocum snapped.
Cale allowed the back and forth between them to continue for a few seconds, still grinning as if it was part of the day’s entertainment. Before long, he said, “I’ll take your horse for now, Adam. Seems fair considering you’re the one who owes me the money.”
“No,” Slocum said while extending an arm toward Adam. Although his arm wasn’t long enough to reach him, the gesture alone stopped Adam in his tracks. Slocum kept his eyes on the men in front of him as he said, “You tried this before and were barely able to get out alive. You got all the money we can spare for now and will get the rest later. That was the deal.”
“I didn’t agree to no deal.”
“The hell you didn’t!” Mia snapped.
Despite the surprise of hearing that tone in her voice, Slocum didn’t take his eyes off Cale and his men. “You’d best think twice about what you’re doing here,” he said. “And if you get any bright ideas, think again about how things turned out last time. It’s a shame anyone had to die, but things could have been a whole lot worse. Turn back and go about your business. You’ll get your payment when we come back to Bickell.”
The gunman nodded solemnly and took a deep breath. He made a big show of rubbing his chin and drumming his fingers, but wasn’t fooling anyone. Still, they all waited to see what he would come up with next. Finally, Cale said, “You’re right. I think I will be on my way.”
Cale pulled his reins to steer his horse all the way around to face the opposite direction. The men beside him did the same and all three of them moved away. After taking a few steps, he held up his arm and tossed a casual wave in Slocum’s direction.
Slocum wasn’t about to count his blessings for resolving the situation, but before he could assess the situation, a horse’s snuffing breath drifted from the left of the trail. Slocum turned to look and found a rifleman sitting there, mostly hidden behind a cluster of trees. He was already sighting along the top of his weapon, so Slocum shouted, “Scatter!”
A shot cracked through the air
, hissing through the space where Slocum and the others had been. It was impossible to tell who the rifleman was aiming for, but he didn’t hit anyone. That didn’t deter him from levering another round and taking aim. In the time that took, Slocum had drawn his Colt and fired two quick shots at the trees. The rifleman sent his next round hastily across the trail, whipping close enough to Mia to make her scream.
Despite the situation, Slocum grew calmer once he’d gotten his horse under control. It was a good animal and wasn’t the kind to get skittish at loud noises or gunfire. The other horses were doing well enough to keep his line of fire clear for the few seconds he needed to steady his aim. He squeezed his trigger once and then again just to be sure, but knew the second bullet wasn’t necessary.
He was right for the most part. The rifleman grunted and reeled back in his saddle, but shots kept coming from Triedle and Adam, who’d skinned their pistols and returned fire. According to the gambler’s attempt at scouting, there was still at least one other gunman unaccounted for. Thinking back to Cale’s previous tactics, Slocum turned around to look at the opposite side of the trail to see if anyone meant to flank him from there. Sure enough, another rifleman was there but hadn’t had a chance to get in a good position and Slocum wasn’t about to give him a chance to do so. He fired toward that rider, causing him to duck down low and keep moving before he was picked off.
A few shots came from Cale’s direction, which was where Triedle and Adam now concentrated their fire. Suddenly, the first rifleman sent a round at Slocum that was too low to hit him. The bullet slapped into his horse’s side and was followed by another. The animal shuddered beneath him, staggering to one side, and tried to whinny but couldn’t push the sound up from the back of its throat. Knowing the horse was about to fall, Slocum jumped from the saddle before he was trapped under its weight. He was just quick enough to avoid getting crushed as the horse dropped to one front knee and then keeled over. As if to wipe away any question about his intent, the rifleman levered in another round and sent it straight into the wounded horse’s neck.
