by Jake Logan
“And dealer takes one.” Slocum dealt himself one card. “Your bet.” Casually, he looked up. Right into the face of Wall Stevens. “Well, I’ll be damned!” he said with a grin on his face. “Another American! What brings you to the Mexican quarter, brother?”
Stevens, a short, dark-haired man with slicked back hair and manicured nails, said, “The tortillas. And you ain’t my brother.”
Slocum waved his hands, showing that they were empty. “Sorry, sorry, no offense meant.” He held out a hand. “I’m Slocum, and this here’s my partner, Jack Tandy. Care to have a hand with us? The beer’s on me.”
Stevens wavered, and for a moment, Slocum thought he was going to lose him. But then he said, “Sure. Why the hell not?”
He pulled out a chair to Slocum’s left and sat down.
Slocum signaled the barkeep again. “Una mas, por favor!” He grinned at Stevens. “We’re just in the middle of a hand, here ...”
Jack said, “No, we’re not.” He put down his cards. “You’re dealin’ junk.”
“All right, smart ass, you deal.” Slocum handed him the cards. He turned toward Stevens. “And what should we be callin’ you, friend?”
With no hesitation, Stevens replied, “It’s Mel. Mel Stevens.” He tipped his head toward Jack, who was busy shuffling the cards. “You sure this is a friendly game?”
Slocum grinned. “Friendly as it gets, Mel. Hey, Jack, you gonna deal those before you get the numbers worn right off of ’em?”
“Ah, hold your horses,” Jack said, then began to deal. “Five-card stud. Jacks or better to open. Ante’s a quarter.”
If he had kept talking just a little longer, Slocum would’ve had time to pull his gun and buffalo Stevens. But no such luck. They had to play out the hand and let the deal go to Stevens.
When it did, Stevens was in midshuffle when Slocum slipped his left gun from its holster, flipped it in midair, and buffaloed him alongside the temple. He went down right away, of course, and Slocum holstered his gun before saying to Jack, “You get his feet.” With Jack on one end and Slocum on the other, they got Stevens’s inert form outside and, after asking the bartender, got him on the right horse. She was a pretty little sorrel—too pretty for the likes of Stevens to own, Slocum thought.
Once again, Jack was almost unbearable on their way up to the jail. He shut up, though, when the sheriff told them that Stevens’s bounty had gone up since the poster came out. It was now five thousand dollars, which Jack—who, according to his story, had practically taken Stevens all on his own—magnanimously split with Slocum.
Slocum was the last one out of the office, and overheard the sheriff mutter, “Cocky little shithead ...” as he closed the door.
Slocum had to smile.
Jack, already mounted, asked, “What it is?”
“Nothin’,” replied Slocum, still grinning. “Not a damn thing.” He mounted up, too, and they set off for the bank to deposit their vouchers.
“And then what did he say?” a laughing Katie asked. “Lord, I wish I’d been there!” She was getting such a kick out of Slocum’s retelling of the morning’s story that she’d had to excuse herself twice to go to the outhouse, lest she embarrass herself.
“That was it,” Slocum said, although he wasn’t enjoying her level of enthusiasm. “We just got on the horses and went to the bank. The end.” He sat back in his chair.
Katie wiped at her eyes. “Well, my goodness, if I’d known that your takin’ up bounty huntin’ was gonna be this much fun, I would’a insisted you take it up years ago!” She blew her nose. “What a hoot!”
Flatly, he said, “Glad somebody enjoyed it.”
She rose from the kitchen table, kissed him on the forehead, and said, “Sounds to me like somebody needs to cut loose from his partner.”
Slocum dug in his pocket for his fixings bag. “Yup. Just got to figure out how to do it kindly, like. And how to do it so he don’t try to go off and bounty hunt on his own.”
Katie lifted a brow in an unspoken question, and Slocum added, “Because he’s likely to get himself killed, that’s why!”
“That bad?”
Slocum lit his quirlie, then nodded. “That bad.”
She reached into the cupboard for an ashtray and slid it toward him.
“Thanks,” he said, shaking out his lucifer.
She leaned back against the counter and folded her arms. “Well, we need to find out what he can do—and do well—and hope to God it’s somethin’ he likes.”
Through a haze of exhaled smoke, he replied, “He likes ranch work, but I sure wouldn’t lay money on him in Apache territory. Best find him somethin’ he can do in town. He’s got almost six grand in the bank.”
“Seems to me he could buy himself a business of some kind with that much cash.” Katie poured herself a cup of coffee. “He could buy a house and a buggy and a herd of cattle, too! Nobody ever told me he was rich. How’d he like to invest in a nice little whorehouse?”
Slocum burst out laughing. “Avaricious little wench, aren’t you?”
“Never claimed not to be. Want coffee?”
“Wouldn’t mind. Anybody gonna eat that last piece of apple pie?”
“Thought you’d never ask,” she said, and pushed the pie tin and a fork toward him, along with his coffee. “Wanna finish off the whipped cream for me, too?”
He smiled wide. “How’d you know?”
Later that evening, after Slocum and Katie had gone to bed—and after they’d both come twice—she was curled beneath one of his strong arms when she suddenly smacked herself on the forehead and said, “Oh, I am a dolt!”
Slocum sat up straight, taking Katie along with him, and asked, “What? What? Why are you a dolt?” He thought she’d suddenly taken leave of her senses.
“Rance Cooney, that’s why! He was in here the other night, sayin’ as how he was gonna have to leave Phoenix and go back East!”
Slocum turned her to face him. “Katie, what on earth are you talkin’ about?”
“Rance Cooney owns the hardware, over on Fifth,” she explained, like she was talking to an idiot. “It’s for sale!” When Slocum stared at her dumbly, she jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. “For Jack! He know anything about the hardware business?”
Slocum said, “I dunno, but it’s worth findin’ out, ain’t it?”
Katie laughed. “It sure is! I don’t know what he’s askin’, but I know he does landslide business over there.”
“Good girl, Katie,” he said with a grin. “Smart girl, too!”
She lay back down and grinned. “I have my moments.”
“You sure do.” His grin widened. “Y’know, I’ve been known to have some pretty good ideas, myself. On occasion.” He turned and lowered himself over her.
“You have?” she whispered playfully.
He moved gently from side to side, his chest just touching her upturned nipples. “Every once in a while.”
“Give me an example, please?”
“Happy to,” he said, bringing first one knee, then the other, between hers, and nudging them apart. “But I’d rather show you.”
He eased into her warmth, and she let out a long sigh as he did.
“I’m beginning to get the picture, Mr. Slocum. Please, elucidate?”
He did, with gusto.
11
In the morning, while he waited for Jack to rub the sleep out of his eyes, Slocum sat at the kitchen table and spread out the posters before him. As luck would have it, they’d already taken in the highest-paying men on the list. All that was left were the penny-ante players, all paying in the hundreds, not the thousands.
His eye lit on one poster. He was pretty sure he’d seen the face before, in one of the saloons two days past. He hadn’t paid any mind, since he was hunting for bigger quarry, and ignored it. But today, he remembered. He also remembered that the man in question had turned his back as soon as Slocum pulled out the poster and asked if the bartender recognized the picture.
A piece of cake, he thought, just as Jack stumbled in and slumped down in a chair. Slocum said, “Good morning?”
Jack raised his head and said, through a fringe of uncombed hair, “Yeah. I s’pose. They got any coffee hottened up?”
Slocum allowed that they did, indeed, and got up to fetch a cup and the pot. If he could talk Jack into this, his troubles would be over, and Jack would be the proud new owner of a hardware store. Or whatever took his fancy.
After Jack inhaled his first cup and poured his second, Slocum said, “I think I found us another one.”
Jack’s brows shot up. “Where? Here?”
“It was the day before yesterday. I think I saw him while we were askin’ questions up at the Purple Garter Saloon.”
“Well, why didn’t you say somethin’? We could’a got two for one!”
“’Cause he wasn’t the man we were lookin’ for. I just now remembered his face.” He pointed to the poster. The man in question was probably forty years old, had gray hair and a mustache, and was named Silas Recker. He was wanted for a number of petty crimes—quite a number, in fact—and was worth four hundred dollars. “He ain’t worth much, but four hundred’s better than nothin’.”
“When do we go get him?” Jack was already halfway out of the chair.
Slocum shot out a hand and pushed him back down. “First, you get some grub into you. And second, you’re doin’ this one on your own.”
“I am?” Curiosity replaced Jack’s surprise. “Why come?”
“I just figger you could use the practice. And I don’t think he’s much likely to draw on you. But if he does, don’t kill him. He ain’t worth a blamed cent if you do.”
Jack nodded. “Okay. I guess. But wouldn’t you rather be there? You know, to see?”
What he meant was to back me up, but Slocum wasn’t falling for it. Jack needed a little taste of what he was really doing. Or pretending to do.
Slocum said, “I’ll be outside, waitin’ for you to come out, and I’ll help you get him down to the sheriff’s office. All right? But if you can take him alone, the money’s all yours. Then again, he might not be there. Might be someplace else.”
“Where?”
“You’re the bounty hunter. You’re supposed to find that out.” Slocum took another sip of his own coffee.
Jack looked downright dejected for a minute or so, then stiffened his backbone. “All right. I’m game.”
Slocum leaned back in his chair. “There’s part of a coffee cake under the dishtowel on the sideboard’s counter.”
It was around noon when the two men got to the Purple Garter—just about the same time they’d been there yesterday, Slocum reckoned. Jack got a little shakier with every block they walked, but each time Slocum asked if he was sure he wanted to do this, he got a nod in reply. Well, let the chips fall where they may, then.
Outside, Slocum pulled up a bench. Saying, “See you later. And remember, no shootin’,” he began to roll a quirlie. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jack pause at the batwing doors, take himself a deep breath, then go inside.
Slocum leaned back. Actually, he didn’t expect Recker to be in there. He’d probably switched saloons or left town yesterday. Slocum figured it was going to be long day, but it’d be worth it if Jack saw how much legwork and question asking—usually of people who didn’t wish to answer any—bounty hunting actually entailed.
Not that Slocum was any authority. But he’d been around, seen and done things that Jack Tandy hadn’t even dreamt of.
To Slocum’s way of thinking, this was breaking in the kid gently.
He had planned to take a hike up to the tobacconist’s after he finished his quirlie, while Jack made his fruitless search of the Purple Garter. He liked a good cigar, and he wanted to have one today if all he was going to do was follow Jack around.
But he had no more than touched his quirlie with a flaming sulphur tip when all hell broke loose inside.
Suddenly the soft clink of glasses and the occasional hum of conversation or bubble of laughter were replaced by the sounds of chairs crashing, tables being knocked over, men being punched—and gunfire!
“Oh, you little idiot!” Slocum snarled as he jumped to his feet and ran inside.
The battle finished as suddenly as it had started, and what greeted Slocum inside, amid some battered furniture, was a passel of men standing around—some with bloody noses, some with bruised lips or jaws or blackened eyes—at the edges of the saloon. In the center of it all stood Jack—unarmed—and Recker, flat on his ass on the floor.
Behind him, Slocum heard the cock of a shotgun and twisted toward it in time to see the barkeep leveling a double-barreled shotgun and hear him shout, “I said, knock it off, you bunch’a shitheads! Look at the mess you peckerwoods done made, and just when I got it put together from the last time!”
Recker made a grab for his gun, but the barkeep fired a round over his head, and Recker dropped the pistol as if it had just come out of the oven.
“The idiot’s always got somebody to help him out,” Slocum mumbled beneath his breath, and moved forward.
“All right,” he announced to the crowd. “Everybody mind the barkeep and get back outta the way. Silas Recker, consider yourself under arrest. I’m takin’ you in for numerous counts of petty larceny and robbery and such. On your feet now. Jack, you get his pistol.”
Jack let out a huge breath of air and scrambled toward Silas’s gun. Silas looked pissed, and he likely had plenty of right. It was likely that his day wasn’t going according to plan either.
“You’re takin’ in ol’ Silas?” asked a man across the room. “Why, he never hurt a fly!”
“Mebbe not, but he stole a few,” Slocum replied. “Your prisoner, Jack. Best get him on down to the sheriff’s office.”
“Yessir!” Jack answered, just a little too happily, and wiggled the nose of Silas Recker’s own pistol in the older man’s face. “Hands behind your head, fingers locked.” When Silas grudgingly complied, Jack said, “Good. Now, let’s get on down to the jail, Silas.”
At least he’d remembered the thing about the hands locked behind the man’s head, Slocum thought. Maybe there was some hope for him after all.
A long and tiresome explanation of exactly what had happened down at the Purple Garter followed at the sheriff’s office, and Slocum was relieved he hadn’t asked any questions on the way there. About forty minutes of this was all he could stand.
Jack kept trying to make himself out a hero, but the sheriff questioned everything he said. The prisoner disagreed with his story at every turn, too, and then Wall Stevens kicked in with his two cents’ worth, and then Tom Mitchell had to start yammering, too.
If it had taken Jack only a quarter of the time to “capture” Silas Recker than he was taking to tell the story, then they’d still be up at the saloon, Slocum thought.
Through the noise of all of them ringing in his ears, Slocum suddenly stood straight up and yelled, “Quiet!”
Amazingly, the jail was suddenly silent.
“Sheriff,” he went on, “you got your man locked up in the cell over there. Just give Jack here the voucher and let’s be done with it. All right?”
The sheriff agreed, and Slocum sent Jack on up to the bank with his voucher. Shit. The kid was as cocky as ever. Slocum would have liked to get his hands on that bartender. He figured that if he couldn’t get it away from him, at least he could bump him so that his final shot was a little lower.
Just a wound, Lord, he prayed. Just a simple flesh wound is all I ask . . .
He settled back in the armchair in Katie’s room and lit the cigar he’d picked up on the way home. He was alone, Katie having gone out before he showed up, to run some errands.
The cigar didn’t taste right, and he blamed this on Jack, too. He’d been blaming Jack for everything from the weather to the parlor drapes all the way from the sheriff’s office. What was with that kid anyway?
No, stop that shit, he thought. H
e ain’t no goddamn kid. You were younger than him when the war was over and done. He’s just green as hell, that’s all.
And green could be a dangerous thing.
Slocum figured that he’d best get shed of Jack as soon as possible. But yet, he didn’t want to crush any real bravery that might pound in that chest of his. He thought there was some there—Jack just hadn’t called it up yet.
He rolled his ash off in the little crystal ashtray that Katie kept on her table, and settled back again. What the hell to do now? Jack would likely come back from the bank all cocky and full of himself, and raring to go after their next quarry.
Well, they’d have to head north to find the next one. At least he was good company on the trail, Slocum thought. But that didn’t make up for much, when you came right down to it.
A man who could do the job was what he needed, and Jack constantly proved he wasn’t that man.
Then again, why did he need anybody? Slocum had ridden alone for most of the years since the war. If this was going to be his new line of work—and a well-paying line it was—why was he so ready to take on a partner at this late date? He thought back, back to Tucson, and tried to remember how he’d gotten tangled up with this pup in the first place.
“Damn it, I’m too softhearted!” he said aloud, announcing a trait that he’d never been accused of owning. Well, except when it came to horses.
But he’d been softhearted and softheaded, too. He’d been impressed that Jack had the balls to try and take him in for that old Tucson misunderstanding, for one thing. And when he realized that good money could be made by rounding up badasses—most of whom were no badder than he was—Jack just happened to be around.
And there it was. Well, what was done could be undone, if not quite so easily. He rolled the ash off his cigar again, and glanced out the window.
Someone once said, Think of the devil and he shall appear. And there was Jack, just coming up the walk. Grinning like a shit-eating dog, of course.
