by Jake Logan
“You’ re getting old. I snuck up on you too easy. Never could have done that before, back in the day.”
“Saw you coming while you were still halfway down the hill. I had a woman to get to safety. She did, too.”
“Always a story, Slocum,” the Indian said. “You can’t admit I got you fair and square.”
“It’ll be a cold day in July when you do anything fair or square,” Slocum said, grinning. “You still scouting for the army? You heading up a decent-sized force coming after O’Malley and his gang?”
"O’Malley? That the name? Didn’t know.”
Both men turned when Etta rode back and drew to a halt a few yards away.
“John, are you all right?” She looked anxiously from Slocum to the scout and back, not certain what was happening.
“Etta Kehoe, meet Sammy Running Bear. We scouted together a year or two back.”
“Longer,” Running Bear said. “Closer to three. We were down in Ute country. Nasty fellows, those Ute warriors. We were nastier, though.”
“Sammy’s a Blackfoot. Coming back to the home-land? ” Slocum asked.
“I go where the pay is,” the Indian said. “We got the telegram and came a’running. True they killed everyone at Fort Walker?”
“Fort Walker and Sharpesville,” Etta said. “They’re thieves and murderers. Nothing’s safe from them!”
“Like all white men,” Running Bear said in a flat voice. His eyes twinkled when he looked at Slocum.
“Don’t ever play poker with him,” Slocum said. “He cheats.”
“How many men?” Running Bear asked. “My boss needs to know.”
“A hundred or so. Maybe not all in town, but split between there, mines up in the hills, and Fort Walker.”
“Damn, this is gonna be a war,” Running Bear said, shaking his head. “Haven’t seen an enemy with so many since we tangled with the Utes down in Colorado. You remember what a pain in the ass that was.”
“At least two buildings in town are fortified,” Slocum went on. He had no inclination to reminisce. “A saloon and a whorehouse.”
“Good choices. Wouldn’t mind being holed up in either. ”
“No whores and they’ve probably drunk all the whiskey,” Slocum said. Running Bear shrugged. “What they do have is plenty of guns and ammo from Fort Walker. The first thing they did after slaughtering all the soldiers was to raid the armory.”
“Artillery?”
“Whatever was on the Fort Walker parade ground. Not sure any of them know how to use a field piece, though some of them fired one cannon for the hell of it. I don’t think they brought one over to Sharpesville, though.” Slocum hesitated, then added, “You never can tell with this bunch. Sly, always coming up with new ideas and ways to kill you.”
“Sounds like you admire them.”
“I’ll kill any of them that moves,” Slocum spat out. He saw how Running Bear was goading him, but his anger refused to die. He had seen too much. “I haven’t seen any howitzers in Sharpesville.”
“That helps. Better get back to Colonel Worthington and report. You think the soft spot to attack is the town?”
“There’s no soft spot, but, yeah, Sharpesville is better. And with that much scouting information, the colonel’ll think you’ve actually done your job for a change.”
“Only ask those who know,” Running Bear said solemnly. “You and your little lady know anything more?”
"I’m not his ‘little lady,’ ” Etta said angrily.
Running Bear ignored her.
“No, I won’t,” the Indian scout went on, looking straight at Slocum. He flashed a grin, nodded in Etta’s direction, then turned and ran back downhill, his footfalls silent. He disappeared in the forest in seconds.
“He’s a disagreeable man,” Etta said, still miffed. “And what did he mean with that last statement?”
“I was going to send you along with him so you’d be safe with Colonel Worthington’s troops, but Running Bear wouldn’t escort you.” Slocum saw her ire rising even more. “He didn’t want to be slowed down.” This still did not appease her. “He has to report fast to get the troops into position to attack as quick as possible,” Slocum finally said. This did nothing to smooth Etta’s ruffled feathers, but at least she wasn’t getting madder.
“So we just sit here and watch as the soldiers attack?”
“Something like that,” Slocum said. “No reason for us to get on down into the town until afterward, and maybe not even then. There’s not going to be a single building left standing by the time this fight is over.”
“I hate to see everything down there destroyed,” Etta said. “It’s my home. Such as it is.”
“Such as it was,” Slocum corrected. He thought about what she said and had to agree. There was no good reason to stay. Running Bear would report to the cavalry officer, and the attack would be launched when Colonel Worthington decided. If he didn’t have enough soldiers, he would be routed. Eventually, there would be a force large enough to handle the Schuylkill Butchers. That might be in a day or a month, but it would happen.
There was no reason for Slocum to stay for the final battle.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Etta looked at him in surprise. “Go where?”
Slocum had no idea. He had been drifting east. South was as good a direction. Or even back west, although he did not want to tangle with the Driggs brothers again. With Etta alongside him on the trail, Slocum was sure he could avoid the brothers. They would be on the lookout for a solitary cowboy, not one riding with a lovely woman.
“Does it matter, as long as it’s not here?”
“There’s so much to do,” she protested. “I want to see O’Malley kicking at the end of a hangman’s rope. And Norris! He has to be stopped, too. Rebuilding Sharpesville is a priority since there must be some folks who survived. They’d come back in a flash if there was a railroad running through town. It’d mean prosperity.”
Slocum didn’t bother pointing out that if Norris was sent to jail or killed, the Montana Northern Railroad would go belly-up and no line through Sharpesville would be completed. He let her ramble on, realizing she had roots in the dead town that were not easily transplanted.
“I could open a—” Etta stopped in midsentence.
Slocum glanced over his shoulder and then went for his six-shooter. He got off a couple shots before his target disappeared.
“Stay here,” he ordered.
"John, that was O’Malley! He was spying on us! He knows the soldiers are on the way!”
Slocum already ran hard for the edge of the grove where the leader of the gang had disappeared. When he reached denser forest, he slowed. Etta was right. It had been O’Malley spying on them. Why he was doing such scouting by himself was something Slocum cared not to reflect on. That O’Malley had been listening was good enough.
Movement ahead caused Slocum to lift his pistol and fire twice more. He missed. Plunging ahead, he burst out into a small clearing. With O’Malley were two of his bodyquards. Slocum acted instinctively. One shot to the left, one shot to the right, two men down.
His hammer fell on a spent chamber as he trained his Colt Navy on their leader.
“Yer outta ammo, little man,” O’Malley gloated. He kicked each of his guards. Neither stirred. “That’s mighty good news fer me. You kin shoot like one of them circus sharpshooters.”
“What are you doing up here, O’Malley?”
“We was on our way back from the coal mines when I heard voices. You got more soldiers thinkin’ on dyin’ in front of my guns?”
Slocum advanced. O’Malley wasn’t packing an iron, but he had a long-bladed butcher knife thrust into his belt. When Slocum got within a few yards, O’Malley drew the blade.
“Me and my men, we put in almost a year hackin’ up beeves in Chicago ’fore gettin’ tired of that. We’re miners, not butchers. But we developed a taste for usin’ knives on them we don’t much like.”
“You�
�re cold-blooded killers,” Slocum said, reaching down and drawing his knife from the top of his boot.
“That we are, and fer good reason. Those buggered jackasses what owned the mines thought they owned us. Nobody owns Sean O’Malley!”
The Irishman roared and attacked. Slocum stood his ground for only the barest instant. He swung to the side and let the bull’s rush go past as he stabbed out with his knife. He felt the tip connect with bone, and then the knife was wrenched from his grip and he was stumbling away.
Slocum looked down. O’Malley had raked his chest with the butcher knife and then dropped it. Slocum’s blade was still embedded in the outlaw’s wrist.
Not giving O’Malley the chance to pull the knife free from his arm and use it, Slocum duplicated O’Malley’s original attack. He cried out loudly and wrapped his arms around the man’s bulky body. The two stumbled a few steps and crashed to the ground, knocking the knife free from O’Malley’s arm. Slocum used fists and elbows and knees and finally got back to his feet. He faced O’Malley.
“Let’s settle this like men. Bare knuckles,” O’Malley said. He closed his fingers into bloody fists. The wound on his right arm dripped steadily, but Slocum doubted this was going to hinder the Irishman’s attack. And it didn’t.
Fists flying, O’Malley came for Slocum. A blow rocked Slocum’s head back, and his counterpunch was a feeble tap. He recovered and spat blood. O’Malley had split his lip with his rock-hard fist.
"You canna fight, not with me,” O’Malley said. "You’re a puny weakling.”
Slocum advanced, letting his opponent think he had goaded him into a foolish attack. When he saw O’Malley winding up for a haymaker that would have knocked his head off, he ducked. The blow went past Slocum and left O’Malley’s gut open. Slocum pummeled his midriff as hard and fast as he could.
The outlaw grunted, took the punishment, and tried to get closer. Slocum danced away.
“Come and fight, damn yer eyes!”
Slocum saw how O’Malley had slowed. One of Slocum’s body punches might have broken a rib. Slocum risked a few blows to his head to get in close and hammer away at O’Malley’s right side. When he connected, he knew he had busted a rib in his opponent from the way his fist sank into what ought to be rib cage. O’Malley sagged. He tried to recover, but Slocum was relentless.
Thinking he had O’Malley softened up, Slocum went in for the kill—and almost got killed. Whether O’Malley had been faking or whether he’d summoned a last bit of energy, he swung hard enough to lift Slocum off the ground and throw him onto his back, dazed. Slocum saw O’Malley pick up Slocum’s own knife and raise it. Blood hammered hard and loud in Slocum’s ears. He had only an instant left to live.
Like an eagle diving from the sky, O’Malley drove the knife downward. Slocum jerked to the side, and the blade sank into the soft dirt. He rolled back and slammed his elbow into O’Malley’s head, but the man did not stir. Slocum lifted his arm for a second blow and saw blood on his elbow.
O’Malley had been shot in the back of the head.
Getting to his feet, his knees still shaky and the world doubled all around, Slocum turned to see Etta Kehoe coming toward him. When his eyes focused, he saw she had a rifle in her hand.
“He was going to kill you,” she said in a small voice. “I shot him.”
“Are accounts square now?” Slocum asked. He took the rifle from her shaking hands.
"Yes,” she said, fire coming to her. She spat on O’Malley’s body and then kicked at him. “Now I want to do the same to Norris!”
Slocum pried his knife out of O’Malley’s death grip and cleaned it before returning it to his boot sheath. He put his arm around Etta’s quaking shoulders and guided her from the meadow.
“He’ll talk your ears off,” Sammy Running Bear said, staring at his commanding officer.
“She doesn’t seem to mind,” Slocum said. Etta Kehoe pressed close to Colonel Worthington. He had no idea what they discussed, but it probably had something to do with the assault that had taken several days against the Schuylkill Butchers in Sharpesville. The colonel had sent for reinforcements to pry them out of Fort Walker, but with O’Malley dead, the fight might not have been as fierce as the officer bragged on.
“You going to take your woman back?” Running Bear stared hard at Slocum.
“Not my squaw,” Slocum said. “Is the colonel married?”
“No.”
“Might be his then,” Slocum said. He had no intention of remaining here to rebuild the town, but from the hints he had from Running Bear and some of the soldiers, Worthington was considering moving his command to Fort Walker—and it was not simply to fill the void left by Major Zinsser’s death. Slocum saw how the colonel looked at Etta and how she looked at him.
“You are getting old. You give up too easy.”
“What makes you think I have a dog in this fight?”
Running Bear considered this, then said, “You should. She’d make you a fine squaw.”
Slocum laughed. He had a rested, fed horse, a pocketful of greenbacks taken from dead outlaws, and horizons in all directions. He shook hands with Running Bear, then mounted. There was no need to say good-bye to Etta. She wouldn’t care, and if she did, she would get over her loss in a while.
Slocum was as sure of that as he was that he could put fifteen miles behind him by the time the sun set.
Watch for
SLOCUM AND LITTLE BRITCHES
355th novel in the exciting SLOCUM series
from Jove
Coming in September!
DON’T MISS A YEAR OF Slocum Giant
Jake Logan
Slocum Giant 2004: Slocum in the Secret Service
Slocum Giant 2005: Slocum and the Larcenous Lady
Slocum Giant 2006: Slocum and the Hanging Horse
Slocum Giant 2007: Slocum and the Celestial Bones
penguin.com
