Slocum's Reward

by Jake Logan

  Homer said, “Can’t put it in a box or anything, but sometime betwixt nine o’clock last night and six this morning. Nine’s when our last rider comes in from checkin’ the border, and six is when we all get up.”

  Jack nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t go gettin’ any ideas,” Slocum growled, low and in Jack’s direction.

  But Homer was watching. “You fellers got an idea who might’a took him?”

  Slocum was hoping that Jack would be too embarrassed to say he’d lost a prisoner who could be suspect in the theft, but he was wrong.

  Jack said, “I got an idea, a good idea. Feller called Rupert Grimes. He was afoot the last we heard of him, right, Slocum?”

  Slocum slouched back. This guy was trying to kill himself as fast as he could, and Slocum wasn’t going to be a part of it. He said, “That’s true. But Jack lost him once already, and I ain’t gonna go through that again.”

  “Slocum!” said both Jack and Lem in unison. Jack looked shocked—and ashamed—and Lem simply appeared surprised.

  “Just what the heck are you two boys? U.S. marshals?” Homer asked.

  “Hardly,” said Slocum. “I’m a bounty hunter, and we’re not exactly sure what Jack is yet.”

  Lem nodded. “True, Slocum, true. You best stay outta this, boy.”

  But Jack said, “I will not! And you two stop gangin’ up on me!” He stood straight up. “I’m goin’ after him, and I’m goin’ right now!”

  “Sit the hell down,” barked Slocum, and Jack unconsciously obeyed, although with a scowl on his face. “First off, it’s dark out. How you gonna track him at night when you can’t track him in the blarin’ sunlight?”

  Jack had no answer, except for the dirty look he shot Slocum’s way.

  Slocum ignored it and carried on. “Second, he’s ridin’ a faster, more powerful horse than you got. And third, now he’s got horse thievin’ to add to that poster. It’s gonna make him worth more money, but it’s also gonna make him more dangerous to catch. He won’t have a second thought about pluggin’ you in the back.”

  Jack sat there, scowling, head down. Then he suddenly looked up and said, “Homer, I’m startin’ out after Rupert Grimes first thing in the mornin’. And don’t try to talk me out of it, Slocum. I’m gonna prove myself to you and ever’body else!”

  “Even if it kills you?” Lem asked.

  Slocum just rolled a quirlie and lit it. If this kid was anything, it was headstrong. He’d tried to change his mind, tried every way he knew how, but Jack’s mind was set. There was no turning back now.

  “Really?” asked Homer, half disbelieving. “You’ll really go after him?”

  Jack gave a curt nod. “First thing in the morning.”

  “Hot damn! Mr. McMurtry’s gonna be real pleased!”

  Slocum blew out a cloud of smoke and, under his breath, muttered, “For a little while anyway.”

  Slocum actively avoided Jack—and Jack’s questions—for the rest of the evening, and when he rose, blinking, at dawn, Jack wasn’t there. He hadn’t taken his mare either. He’d taken the gelding he’d borrowed from Lem.

  Slocum was in a quandary. He couldn’t decide whether to go after Jack and at least retrieve Lem’s gelding, or whether he should simply write Jack off. The horse would probably come home on its own, once Grimes or somebody else shot Jack off him.

  And then, too, Grimes would be wanted for both horse theft and murder in addition to his other crimes, which would really push the reward up ...

  No. Not Jack.

  Slocum mentally slapped himself, then climbed down the hayloft ladder to the ground level of the barn. He didn’t know why he cared so much about some green kid. But he’d been a green kid once himself. But he’d got the green scrubbed off him pretty damned fast, compared to Jack.

  “I think he’s just dead set on ending up, well, dead,” he said to Lem on the front porch, while they waited for the hands to finish so they could grab some breakfast.

  “Seems to me you’re right,” Lem admitted. “I once knew a feller like that, back in El Paso, in Texas. He wanted to live by the gun. Ended up dyin’ by it.” He shrugged. “What goes around comes around, I reckon.”

  Although he wasn’t one to ask for other people’s opinions, Slocum thought highly of Lem, and therefore said, “You figure I should go after ’im?”

  “Well, you’re a lot less likely to get yourself killed, that’s for sure. Maybe you’ll get lucky and find him wanderin’ around out there, not knowin’ where he is or which way’s up.”

  “That’s what I’m hopin’,” said the big man. He had just about decided that he’d better go after Jack, dammit, and take his chances. But he wasn’t going into California, no sir! There was far too much paper out on him over there, and far too many people who’d recognize him.

  The screen door opened. To the background sound of scraping chairs, Martha stood in the doorway, a smile on her face and a dish towel over one arm. “You boys want to grab some breakfast, now’s your chance.”

  Slocum stood and held out her mashed potato bowl. “Sorry, ma’am. Forgot I had it. That dinner you fixed for us was sure good!”

  19

  Slocum set out toward McMurtry’s ranch, after getting directions from Lem. Breakfast had been good, but it wasn’t setting well with him. That damned Jack! When he found him, he was going to wring his bloody little neck! No, he wasn’t. A visit to the back house was what he needed, a good old-fashioned whipping.

  He mulled over just what, exactly, was the best punishment for Jack, until he realized that whatever discipline Jack deserved, he was going to get—either at the hands of Rupert Grimes, or from the Universe, by way of being terminally embarrassed by ending up lost.

  Again.

  He found McMurtry’s place with no problem, and noted from the sign out by the gate that it was the Double M. He rode on up to the house, and a man stepped out to greet him. Well, “greet,” he supposed, was being generous. The middle-aged man—older than he, but some younger than Lem—was holding a shotgun with both barrels cocked, and it was pointed straight at him.

  “McMurtry?” he asked.

  “That’s the name. What you want it for?”

  He braced his hands on the saddle horn. “My name’s Slocum. I understand that you had a horse stole last night.”

  McMurtry’s neck turned red under the grizzle of his beard. “So what?”

  “So, I aim to try and get him back for you. My partner, Jack, rode over earlier this mornin’. Wondered, could you tell me which way he took off?”

  “Oh,” said McMurtry, and lowered the barrel of his shotgun, at the same time gently thumbing down both hammers. “He was here, all right. Couple’a my boys rode with him. They took off thataway.” He pointed toward the southwest.

  Slocum sniffed. “Headed for California, I imagine. Wantin’ to avoid the Bradshaws.”

  “That’s what I figured.”

  Slocum touched the brim of his hat. “Reckon I’ll be off, then. Thanks.”

  McMurtry nodded curtly. “Best’a luck to you.”

  “Gonna need it,” Slocum muttered as he turned Rocky around and headed back out the gate. Grimes was doing just what he’d figured he would, and Slocum was ready for him. Of course, he didn’t know how trail-savvy Grimes was. He could be as green as Jack, for all Slocum knew.

  That’d be just great. The blind leading the blind.

  He soon found the trail and pushed Rocky into a lope. Well, he didn’t exactly need to push him. Rocky was raring to go, and all it took to change his gait was easing up a bit on the reins. Slocum spotted Jack and the two Double M hands about a half hour later. They were up ahead, resting their horses.

  As Slocum came loping, then jogging in, Jack stood up, a shit-eating grin on his face. Here it comes, Slocum thought.

  And he didn’t miss the mark. “Glad to see you, glad to see you!” Jack said at his most jovial. He looked like the cat who’d just swallowed the canary. Slocum wanted to p
unch him square in the beak, but held himself back. He also refrained from dismounting.

  He noticed the Double M hands both readying their horses, and asked, “Where they goin’?”

  “Back to the ranch, I guess. We lost the trail. But now that you’re here—”

  Slocum held up his hand. “Whoa. Just hold on. What makes you think I’m gonna help?”

  “Because you’re Slocum! Because you always do!” Jack whined, to the point that one of the hands turned around and looked at them curiously.

  Slocum sighed in resignation. “All right. Get your damned horse.”

  “Great! And thanks!” He sprinted over to the horses and began readying his gelding.

  Both of the Double M men rode off, tipping their hats to Slocum as they passed him.

  Grudgingly, he nodded in acknowledgment and, under his breath, muttered, “You boys’re gettin’ off easy . . .”

  Slocum found the trail, and then let Jack follow it. When Jack veered off the trail about fifteen minutes later, clearly—to Slocum’s eye anyway—the trail of a lone steer passing through the grass, he didn’t say anything. Nor did he say a word when Jack cut off that track to follow some mule deer that had wandered through. Slocum was sorry that they weren’t going to bring back McMurtry’s stallion, but at least Jack wasn’t going to get himself killed. And Slocum would be back in Phoenix all that much sooner, sampling Katie’s cooking along with her other copious charms.

  All in all, he thought, the day was going pretty well.

  But then Jack suddenly stopped. Slocum rode up next to him and halted, too. He said, “What’s the trouble?”

  Jack said, “Well, look! I had a good trail to follow, and it’s all of a sudden turned into rock!”

  Slocum looked ahead. The land before them was, indeed, flat rock for as far as the eye could see, the remains of some ancient volcanic flow. Slocum was familiar with this type of terrain. You could track on it if you were tracking something shod, but it took a very practiced eye and even closer scrutiny.

  He didn’t tell this to Jack, though. First, you sure couldn’t track unshod mule deer over it, and second, what was Jack gonna do with some mule deer anyway?

  So he scratched the back of his neck. “Looks like you lost ’im. Sorry.” He was getting to be a pretty fine liar of late, he thought, and shook his head.

  Jack sat there a moment while his gelding swished flies, then said, “Y’know, back there when the trail split, I thought for sure that this was Grimes. But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he just kept goin’ on. Somethin’ did anyhow.”

  Slocum knew he’d lose this one, no matter what, so he said, “All right. Let’s backtrack.” Once again, he let Jack lead the way.

  At least Jack was better at dogging his own trail than he’d proven the day they lost Grimes. They were back where the trail veered off in a couple of hours, and he started down the other trail, after the lone steer, when Slocum said, “Hold up. Time we rested the horses.”

  “Oh,” Jack said rather sheepishly, and added, “Right here? Or you wanna go over by the trees?”

  “Trees,” Slocum said. At least they’d have someplace to tie the horses instead of hobbling them.

  They rode to the stand of cottonwoods, settled the horses, and broke out the hardtack and jerky. Slocum found a little stream nearby, and so they had fresh water to brew a pot of coffee.

  “You’re gonna make coffee?” Jack asked, his eyebrows arched, when Slocum came, carrying the pot from the stream. “Won’t we lose a lotta time that way?”

  Slocum just shrugged and began to dig out the Arbuckle’s. “Rest. Take a snooze iff’n you want. I won’t let you sleep too long.”

  Puzzled, Jack took himself a hunk of jerky, and sat down, his back against a rock. “I swear, Slocum. I don’t understan’ you at all sometimes.”

  Slocum kept his eyes on the coffeepot, which he was placing on a rock at the edge of the fire. He said, “Good. That’s part’a my plan. Jus’ be glad you get me some’a the time, Jack.”

  He glanced up just in time to see Jack aim a puzzled expression skyward, then rip into his jerky. Slocum sat back. The coffee wouldn’t be ready for at least fifteen or twenty minutes, and he wanted to close his eyes for a second or two. Baby-sitting was hard work.

  They set off after the break, following the steer track. Jack still hadn’t realized the difference between shod horse hooves and two-toed cattle prints, and Slocum realized he was just following the bent grass, never looking beneath it.

  But that was Jack’s way, wasn’t it? He never scratched the surface of anything, unless he was told to. He was a better follower than he was a leader—that was for sure. Of course, there was nothing wrong with that. Slocum figured not everybody could be a leader, or the world would be total chaos.

  But Jack’s trouble was that, although he didn’t think like a leader or act like one most of the time, in his mind, he thought he was one.

  He was grossly misguided.

  But Slocum—who never thought of himself either way, but only as a lone wolf sort of a fellow—intended to work on that situation. He was working on it now. He followed the steer tracks—and Jack—on through the long grass, and he was counting on Jack wasting as much time as possible.

  So far, Jack was succeeding at that part, at least.

  Not too far away, Rupert Grimes rested himself and his horse. He had tied the stallion to a bush, watered him, and then watered himself. He was good and thirsty. Although he was accustomed to being in the saddle all day, he wasn’t used to being chased, and he was certain that either McMurtry’s men or Slocum—or both—were after him. And that, in itself, could bring on a powerful thirst.

  He knew he wasn’t much of a trail hand. If Lem had hired him to drive his cattle back to Kansas City, he’d be halfway to Canada instead. He was bad at tracking, too, and only a fair hand with a gun. With a rifle, he was much better—at least you could look down the sights—but how many shoot-outs were there out here where both men were shooting rifles at each other?

  Those were the main reasons he’d taken to mail-order schemes in the first place. You didn’t have to go anywhere or do anything other than speak and write English, and have enough legal knowledge to draw up a paper that looked legal to the unpracticed eye, but wasn’t.

  He’d worked in a law office back home in Baltimore, so he knew a little about drawing up legal papers. At least, he’d copied a few in his time and was familiar with legal language and terms. Also, a little Latin. That came in handy, too. How he’d ended up in Arizona, herding cattle and riding a horse for a living, was a long and convoluted story. But he had six steers stashed in a little box canyon not too far from here—he thought—and he was going to try to get them. At least he’d have a little traveling money.

  Hidden in a secret compartment in his saddlebags—which Lem and Slocum had so nicely made certain were strapped to the back of his saddle—he had enough money to buy himself a modest property, a horse, a carriage, and furniture, and live for about a year before he had to seek employment. The cattle money would give him transportation money and a little extra.

  Maybe a crystal chandelier.

  He grinned, although there was no one there to grin back at him. Life was good, if those fellows would just quit chasing him. He’d send McMurtry’s horse back once he got to a town, and then everything would be all right.

  He hoped.

  Western criminals, except for the hardcore kind, rarely made an impact on the back-East populace. He was fairly sure that nobody would pay any mind to a petty pencil pusher who was last reported around Russian Chimes in the Arizona Territory. Plus, he had decided to grow a beard and mustache. He thought it might make him look worldlier, too, besides being a good disguise.

  He stood up, stretched, and went to his horse. Well, McMurtry’s horse.

  He snugged up the girth again, and the blasted thing tried to kick him. He wouldn’t have taken the stallion if it hadn’t been the only animal in the corral. Frankly, the d
amned thing was so vile tempered that it was more trouble than it was worth.

  And then he remembered that Slocum rode a stallion, too. That one had seemed nice mannered. Maybe it was a difference between the kinds of horses—the quarter horse he was riding, and the Appaloosa that Slocum was on—that made their temperaments so opposed to one another. Or maybe Slocum was just a better horseman that he was.

  He didn’t know. And frankly, he didn’t much care.

  All he knew for certain was that when he got back to Baltimore, he was going to buy a nice, settled gelding to pull his carriage.

  20

  Slocum caught himself a few winks, had a cup of coffee, then woke up Jack, who came awake, although somewhat groggily. “Coffee?” Slocum asked, but Jack shook his head no.

  “Water,” he said. “Instead.” He shoved a thumb to the west. “Stream down thataway?”

  Slocum nodded, and Jack stood up, a little creakily, and made for the water.

  “Don’t fall in and drown,” Slocum muttered once he was out of sight, even though he knew the creek was only eight or ten inches deep. It would be just like Jack to kill himself that way.

  But he shook his head. No, things were going great. They had lost Grimes for good, and he was going to get Jack returned to Phoenix with no more aspirations of bounty hunting, and with a good bit of money in the bank.

  Maybe, if he didn’t want to own anything, business-wise, he could get hired on as a ranch hand. Maybe even Lem would want to hire him!

  No, Lem was a longtime friend. Slocum wouldn’t do that to him.

  But there had to be something that Jack could do, and do well, that would make him happy. At least, happy enough to forget about bounty hunting.

  Jack, looking refreshed, came back over the hill and, once he got to Slocum, said, “You’ll never guess.”

  Slocum just looked at him. Then, “What?”