by Jake Logan
“If I knew that, I’d sure know lots of things.”
“He may have been laying for us.”
“Could be. But I’m satisfied of one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s crazy or has gone that way.”
“What now?”
“Daylight, we start searching.”
“What do we do till then?”
Slocum turned at a scream in the night. They both nodded in the starlight at each other and began running in that direction. It was coming from a dark shack. She indicated that she would cover the rear and he nodded. Then the woman’s screams were choked off and Slocum found the dark doorway. He burst inside with his Colt in his right hand.
“Hands up,” he ordered.
“I’ll kill her. I got a knife.”
“He has! He has!” the woman gasped.
The larger figure edged around the dark room using the woman for a shield. Slocum stepped back. “You hurt her and you won’t live to see a rope.”
Black’s manic laughter made the skin crawl on the back of Slocum’s neck. The killer kept edging to the door’s faint outline, using the woman for a shield. There was nothing Slocum could do.
“Don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me,” the woman cried.
“I’ll hurt you all right,” the killer said as he backed out the door.
“You better give her up,” Slocum ordered with an authority that he hoped would make Black react.
“Fuck you—” A hard thump cut Black’s words off. The woman began to scream as she fell on the ground. Slocum could see Black was on his knees. That was when Rory delivered her second blow to his head with her gun butt.
“We’ll see who’ll fuck who around here.” She stood above his prone form, ready to hit him again.
Slocum moved to the naked hysterical woman. She was screaming and flailing her arms, but he finally caught them and shook her. “Easy, easy, it’s all over.”
She quickly hugged him, and he held her tight as her trembling body clung to him. She was sobbing. “He was crazy. He was crazy. Why me?”
“Here.” Rory handed him the shotgun. “I’ll take her inside and get her dressed.”
People began to surround Slocum and the downed killer moaning on the ground. Candle lamps began to appear. But the woman inside was again hysterical, and Slocum looked at the crowded doorway. What was wrong in there?
“Watch him,” he said, “I’ll go see what’s wrong.”
“He ain’t going anywhere. We’ll tie him up.” Four men moved in and began trussing up the killer belly-down on the ground. Slocum nodded in approval, handed a man the shotgun, and pressed through the crowd.
“Let me in here.” He elbowed his way inside the rough shack past several women.
“He killed my babies!” The naked woman was holding up a limp child of perhaps two in the room’s flickering light.
Slocum reached Rory’s side as she tried to put a blanket over the poor woman.
“How many are dead?”
“Two, I guess.” Rory drew in her breath and steadied her voice. “Now everyone clear out of here. I mean get the hell out right now!”
“What in the hell else is going to happen?” Slocum asked.
Rory shook her head in defeat. “I don’t know. I’m sick enough to puke.”
“Put a blanket over the door or close it,” he said to the remaining women in the room.
“We’s all family,” a gray-headed woman said.
“Let me in. I am a man of God,” a man outside said.
“Stay out for moment,” Slocum said to the man. “Thanks, ladies. At least get her dressed. I can handle the crowd.”
“We better wrap the babies up, too,” Rory instructed the women.
“We’ll do what we can,” the older woman said.
"That’s all I ask. Will you oversee things in here?” Slocum asked Rory.
She looked sick. “If I can stand it. This is bad. I don’t know how you stood those deaths up at the cabin.”
“You do what you have to do.”
Rory looked taken aback. “He—he cut those babies’ throats. Then he tried to rape her.”
Slocum nodded. “Do what you can. I need to control this crowd.”
Satisfied she would try, he pushed out the doorway and ran smack into the man he figured was the preacher. “Wait till they have her dressed. She’s been though enough hell. A few more minutes won’t hurt.”
“God bless you, sir.”
Slocum nodded and pushed his way into the angry mob. Around him he heard “Lynch him” over and over until it became a chant. There were only minutes for Slocum to act.
He snatched the shotgun from the hands of the man holding it and blasted one barrel in the air. “Listen to me. I’m not having any lynching here tonight. I’m taking him to jail and the judge can hang him. You folks need law in Nebraska. Lynching ain’t law.”
“Where’s the sheriff?” someone shouted.
“He’s coming back with three robbers that escaped your sorry jail. You need a real jail, not a lynching.”
“You his deputy?”
“Tonight I’m the law.”
“One man can’t keep us from lynching the sumbitch.”
“Hold up, boys. Slocum’s got more support than that,” Sonny shouted, and jumped off a wagon bed armed with a rifle. “These men with me are taking Black to the jail.”
The lynch mob wilted. Slocum drew a deep breath. The cramps in his stomach began to loosen. He nodded to Sonny as the crowd parted for him and the others.
“I sent word to Wakely,” Sonny said under his breath.
“Good,” Slocum said.
Sonny’s men lifted up the raging Black by his arms and dragged him kicking and screaming to the wagon. One of the workers had enough of Black’s ranting and busted him over the head with his six-gun. After all that, the only sounds were the snorts of the team and the jingle of their harness as they waited.
In minutes, Sonny and his bunch climbed on the wagon and took Black to town and the jail. Slocum sent everyone else home. Drained and feeling tired to the core, he went back and knocked on the door frame, which was now blocked by a blanket.
“Yes?” Rory cracked the covering aside and let him in. “They’ve given her some laudanum so she’d settle down. It’s working.”
“Good. Sonny brought out some men and saved me.” He exchanged nods with the three anxious-looking women. “They’ve taken him to jail.”
“I heard all that,” Rory said.
“We wrapped her babies,” the gray-headed woman said, indicating the two bundles. “She’s penniless. Her man was killed in a wagon wreck six months ago.”
“Take them to the funeral parlor. The town can afford a funeral for them,” Slocum said.
“Amen, brother. Praise the Lord that you are here,” the preacher said, rising from the bedside where he had been obviously trying to comfort the woman. “It says in the Bible that we should care for the sick and afflicted. You, sir, are certainly doing your part.”
“Thank you,” Slocum said. “We’re leaving, since you all have this in hand.”
“We can do that,” the woman in charge said.
“My name is Hanigan, sir,”
“Nice to meet you,” Slocum said, and shook the minister’s hand. “We need to gather our tired horses and put them up. Excuse us.”
“Oh, yes, sir, and if either of you ever need counseling or comforting or the way and the path to heaven, you know where you can find me.”
“Yes, thanks again,” Slocum said as he ushered Rory out the door.
“I reckon we could use lots of what he’s peddling,” she said when they were out of earshot. She swung on his arm and laughed as they strode toward their horses under the starlight.
“Couple of wagonloads anyway,” Slocum agreed with a chuckle. “I have seen that bird somewhere before. I’m just not certain where.”
“Land sakes, you’ve seen a million people before, have
n’t you?”
“Probably.” He tightened his girth and swung in the saddle. “I’m ready to see a bed.”
“You and me both.”
They trotted back to town and the livery. The hostler that they woke up promised to unsaddle and care for their horses. Slocum gave him a quarter and they hurried though the empty dark streets for her place.
They went up a set of outside stairs and when she opened the door, he swept her up and carried her inside. Her laughter rang out.
“Never done that before,” she said as he swung her down. “My wedding night I’d had to carry him in like that, he was so damn drunk.”
He reached over, cupped the back of her head to pull her toward him, and kissed her. Her arms encircled his neck and she pressed her belly to his.
“Holy cow, we ain’t getting no sleep tonight. I just discovered.”
Fondling her right breast covered by her shirt, he chuckled. “Hell, you can sleep any old time.”
“Damn right I can.”
17
“Slocum! Slocum!” Someone outside was calling for him. He sat up and looked over at Rory’s bare derriere on the bed beside him, shining like two polished peach halves in the sunlight streaming in the open window.
He scooted his ass off the bed and put on his shirt. Then, on his knees at the sill, he stuck his head out. It was Wakely, standing in the street below, holding his hat in one hand.
“Yeah?”
“Come on down. We’ve got another problem.”
What the hell could that be? He shook his dull head. “Meet you at Sonny’s in twenty minutes.”
“Fine, but hurry. It’s serious.”
She was sitting up on the bed, sleepy-eyed and cupping both of her breasts in her hands. After a quick examination, she laughed. “They’re still attached.”
“Any doubt about it?”
“Well—” She drew her knees up and hugged them. “All of me’s been well used.”
“You regretting that?”
“No. I said ‘well’ used.”
He laughed and they shared a tender glance with each other. “We only have a few minutes before this problem he’s got needs attention.”
She held out her arms to him. “Land sakes, yes.”
He put his knees on the mattress as she dissolved onto her back. “Lordy, I’m getting hung on doing this.”
They met Wakely seated at the center table at Sonny’s. His hat was on the back of his head, and and his frown carried a message to Slocum that something big was wrong. He smiled at Rory and nodded as they took chairs. Looking around to be sure that no one could hear him, Slocum asked, “What’s happened now?”
“The banker,” Wakely began in a whisper. “Taylor must have left town yesterday with two suitcases full of money.”
“Not his own money?”
“Right. The teller Harry Brown waited up all night—” Wakely quit talking while the waitress took their orders and filled the coffee mugs. Then she sashayed off to the kitchen.
“He waited up for me to get back and was so upset he was shaking over the whole business. He’s afraid folks learn about it, they’ll make a run on the bank.”
“They will. Any idea where Taylor went?”
“No, I checked down at the depot. He never left by train. Anyhow, he didn’t buy a ticket and his buggy and horse are gone.”
“He has some ranches?”
“Two. Why?”
“You take one, I’ll take the other after we talk to those prisoners.”
“Prisoners? They won’t be here for a couple of days. Until her wagons get here.”
“What’re you thinking?” Rory asked, frowning.
Slocum wiped the sweat off his upper lip with the side of his finger. “I’m beginning to think that Taylor was in with Yoakem on the robbery. I’m not too sure that he didn’t rig that jailbreak, too.”
“But rob his own bank? Why?” Rory exchanged a questioning look with both of them.
Slocum leaned back and cupped his neck in his interlocked hands. “’Cause it was short money. Money that he’s used to build his empire.”
“Will those other outlaws know about it?”
“Probably not. I don’t reckon they’d tell us if they did, short of pulling their fingernails out with a pliers.”
“Oh.” Rory shivered at the notion and shook her head. “I ain’t being no part of that.”
Slocum winked at her and clapped his hand on her arm. “Better yet, we’ll go to one ranch. Wakely can take two men and go to the other.”
Wakely agreed. “Good idea. I just can’t see him hiring that bunch.”
“Desperate men do desperate things.”
“I heard all about what happened last night. Thanks to both of you.” Wakely shook his head like he wanted to forget it. “Black’s a raving lunatic down at the jail. I have him in restraints.”
“What about the others?” Slocum asked
“I’ll put them in irons when they get down here and have three shifts watching them close. You figure they’ll try to escape again?”
“Oh, if they get the chance they will.”
Wakely looked at the coffee mug in his hand. “I ain’t sure I’m running for sheriff.”
“Aw, sure you will We need you,” Rory said, and gave him a playful shove.
“We’ll see. We’ll see.”
“You have any fresh horses?” Slocum asked her before he started on the heaping plate of fried eggs, ham, potatoes, and biscuits the waitress set before him.
“Two good ones. Guess we’ll need them.”
“We will. You have any sleep last night?” he asked Wakely.
“Some. I’ll be fine.”
An hour later at the livery, Rory had a tough dun horse ready for Slocum and a stout bay gelding for herself. She laughed when he looked him over. “He ain’t Turk, but he’s got lots of bottom.”
Wakely was getting some fresh horses from a nearby ranch, and he wasn’t going to leave until the mounts arrived. He came to the livery to see them off since they were going to the ranch farthest away.
“You two be careful. He may have some gunslingers up there. He’s hired a few tough Texans.”
Slocum was putting his bedroll on his mount, and nodded, drawing the last tie-down tight. “We’ll keep our heads down.”
“If there is any way to get that bank money back—need I say more?” Wakely looked upset.
“It’s pretty important, I realize. But who knows—one of us may find him. Rory says we probably can make it up there in a day’s hard push. I get any leads, I’ll send word back.”
“Good. What if he’s left? I mean gone on, say, to Deadwood.”
“I’ll stay on his tracks till we run him down or lose him.”
“What about you, Rory?” Wakely asked, sounding concerned.
“Whitey can handle the freight business. I’m in this till we find him, too.”
“Yeah—well, I figure that you two are liable to have a trail to follow.”
“We’ll follow it,” Slocum said, then swung in the saddle and checked the dun. “You may have your hands full, too. But with Sonny to look after the town law and the jail, it should be all right.”
Wakely nodded with a grim set to his mouth, and they rode out.
On the outskirts of town, she looked back. “I’d almost swear that boy was worried about us.”
“Maybe you.”
She shook her head and wiggled her nose as if to dismiss his suggestion. “He’s like Nichols. I wouldn’t make a politican any better a wife than an army officer. Besides, he knows I ain’t pure white snow.”
“I don’t think it bothers him.”
“Aw, go on. Men like to think they were the only one ever plowed a woman they marry.”
“I really think he wants you.”
“You panning me off to him?”
"No, but I warned you, when I have to leave—I must leave.”
She looked hard off across the rolling grassland. “I�
�ll steel myself for that day, too.”
“Good. Let’s lope.”
A few abandoned fallen-in homesteads dotted the countryside they rode through. Their former inhabitants had either been forced off by ranchers like Taylor or starved out. There were some homesteads with crude windmills, sod buildings with bare board roofs, and a pole corral or two. Grass had already healed the plowed land.
Slocum and Rory were coming down on the Beaver Creek crossing when two riders appeared on the far ridge. A row of rustling cottonwoods lined the small stream, and the afternoon sunlight danced on the silver water. A few cagey longhorn cows and mottled-faced calves fled the creek and headed off in a long trot to avoid both sets of riders.
Their high-crowned hats told Slocum even at the distance that the other riders were Texans. Probably rebs like himself. The pair stopped short of the shallow stream on the far side and sat their horses, waiting for Slocum and Rory. When he drew closer, he told her to stay put.
“No way. I’m riding apart from you, but them two yahoos don’t bother me.”
“They should,” he said under his breath. “They’re killers and they ain’t letting us across the creek.”
“You worry about yourself.”
“All right. Catch their horses so they don’t get away and run home.”
She frowned at him as they spread out.
“You heard me.”
She nodded.
No time for him to explain. Whatever happened, he didn’t want the Texans’ horses running home and signaling those at the ranch what had occurred. Out of habit, he shifted the Colt on his hip. Both men looked tough sitting their horses. They both needed a shave and probably a bath.
“Far enough,” the one on Slocum’s right said, and nodded like a man who knew the consequences of his words.
Slocum checked the dun. “This the way to the Taylor ranch?”
The one on the right shook his head. A man in his late forties, shirt collar a little tattered, wool vest threadbare, hard gray eyes, and a big nose. “We ain’t taking any visitors.”
“Big man’s expecting me. Tom White’s my name. This’s my wife.”
The second rider was thinner built, blond, red-faced, and acted uncomfortable in the saddle like someone with a case of crabs. His gaze kept shifting back and forth from Slocum to Rory. He’d be the slower of the two if this came to cut or shoot.
