by Jake Logan
But the days before the war had been spent at Slocum’s Stand, planting, hunting, living to the fullest. And Slocum had been a better farmer than his brother, which said a mouthful.
What he had sowed since then was less likely to sprout and grow a decent crop. Without knowing it, he reached over and touched the ebony butt of his six-shooter.
“I don’t work for any man. Not one like your pa.”
“You would work with me, John. Think about what I’m offering.”
He put his heels to his horse’s flanks and got the dutiful animal trotting ahead.
“Not that road, the one to the right!” he shouted at Goslin. The man had come to a fork in the road and instinctively chosen the wrong one. Slocum wondered if he was not doing the same thing. Staying with Arlene was mighty attractive, but putting down roots, even in a place as lush and hospitable-looking as Silver City, wasn’t something he had considered.
Before.
“Well, John?”
“Let me think on it,” he said. “I want to see more of the territory.”
“What, the territory you’ve already seen isn’t enough?” An edge came to her voice. “You’ve certainly explored it enough in the past week.”
“Might be worth exploring more,” Slocum said, trying not to commit himself to anything with her. “It’s a mighty big step not being free to see what’s over the horizon.”
“Have you found anything over that horizon that compares with what I’m offering?”
Slocum yelled again as Goslin drove too close to the verge of the road. An acequia ran three feet deep with irrigation water. If the wagon tipped over into it, they might spend the rest of the day pulling it out.
After he had steered the wayward driver from the irrigation channel, Slocum rode along in silence. Arlene said nothing more, letting him think. Then they were driving down the main street of Silver City, and the old wanderlust returned. This was a decent-looking town, but it had too many people in it. Slocum had grown accustomed to his own company. People crowding in on all sides had a tendency to make him edgy.
“Where’s the land office?” bellowed Caleb Castle. He fought to climb over Herman Goslin and jump to the ground.
“Oh, my, I have to go help him,” Arlene said, sliding backward off the horse and landing in the middle of the street. She stopped and looked up at Slocum. Her brown eyes brimmed with tears. “Please think real hard about what I’m offering you, John.” She lifted her skirts and hurried to help her father.
Slocum watched her trim figure and knew what he would be passing up if he rode on. Settling down was something he thought about occasionally, and doing it with a pretty filly like Arlene wouldn’t be so bad. If she inherited a section of good farmland, life could be very good. Slocum walked his horse over and saw that Arlene supported her father without any need of his help.
“I have to get into the land office, Slocum. Your job’s done.”
“Then pay me,” Slocum said. He had no time for the man’s rudeness. “Five dollars a day and it’s been eighteen days.”
“I ought to take out the loss of my wagon, not to mention my son,” Caleb Castle said irritably.
Slocum said nothing about saving the man’s life or even how the wagon had come to be lost. He simply sat and waited.
“Go on, Papa,” Arlene said. “Pay him.” She looked up defiantly at him, challenging him to speak up. Slocum wasn’t sure what she figured he would say. That he didn’t want the money he had earned for a dangerous trip? Or that he wanted to ask her father for her hand in marriage? At the moment, Caleb Castle was so focused on getting to the land office, where the county tax collector’s office shared space, he would have agreed to anything. That might have been Arlene’s intent.
But Slocum only took the reluctantly given greenbacks. Caleb pushed past and grumbled all the way into the office. Arlene cast a final meaningful look back at Slocum before she went inside, too.
Tucking his money away in a vest pocket, Slocum looked around for a watering hole. He didn’t have to go far. Silver City had several saloons lining the street. He reckoned there would be several more off the main street. It was, when all was said and done, a mining town catering to thirsty miners.
Slocum rode slowly toward the nearest saloon. As he went past Herman Goslin sitting in his wagon, the man croaked out in his thin voice, “Slocum, what we supposed to do?”
“Whatever you want. This is the Promised Land, isn’t it?” Slocum left the man sputtering about the impudence of hired hands. Patting the wad of scrip in his pocket assured Slocum he was no longer a hired hand. He was his own man again.
He dismounted and secured the reins to a convenient post. His horse was able to drink from a watering trough while Slocum sought his own version. The cool, dim interior of the Kicking Mule Saloon was everything he could have hoped. It was late afternoon and only a half dozen patrons slouched inside, either lining the bar or sitting at tables in the rear. A billiards table showed hard use. Behind the bar stretched a poorly drawn picture of a nude woman, whether intended as art or advertisement Slocum neither knew nor cared. He had a powerful thirst to quench.
“What’ll it be?” asked the barkeep, a burly bald man with all his hair-growing ability directed toward his mustache. Slocum had seldom seen bigger, thicker handlebars on a man.
“Bottle.”
“Sounds like you have a thirst from being on the trail. Where you in from?”
“North,” Slocum said, taking the bottle. It cost him five dollars but looked to be worth it after he took the first swig.
“Lot of activity in that direction,” the barkeep said.
“Do tell.” Slocum wasn’t interested. He was still thinking on seeing how Mesilla looked, and it was to the east. “Indians?”
“Some off the reservation,” the barkeep said. “Nope, there’s a madman on the loose.”
“Don’t know about that,” Slocum said, already tiring of the conversation. He took the bottle and staked out a table at the corner of the room so he could do some serious drinking. After the first couple quick shots began to warm his belly and take away the aches and pains, he slowed his pace and began thinking. Arlene was part of it, but so was the lure of heading into the sunrise to see what the light of a new day illuminated. He had always been able to find work down in Texas, and San Antone was a booming town. Lots of ranches needing capable hands. Slocum might not be the best there was, but he had ridden the range enough to keep up with any man. More than once he had been trail boss on drives up into Kansas. Herding cattle was starting to sound attractive by the time the bottle was a quarter gone.
His thoughts were disturbed when the door crashed open. A man dressed in black planted himself just inside the saloon and looked around slowly, his sharp eyes studying everyone and then discarding them as a threat. By the time he worked back to Slocum, he had his hand resting on the oak handle of his six-shooter.
Slocum heaved a deep sigh. He wasn’t looking for a fight, but this gunman obviously was. Everything about his stance, his expression, the way he walked, told that he wanted a fight.
“You,” the gunman said in a gravelly voice. Slocum saw a jagged scar across the man’s throat. Somebody had either done a bad job of using a knife or maybe a hangman’s noose had slipped. The man planted himself in front of the table and glowered at Slocum. The gunman’s hard black eyes fixed unwaveringly.
Slocum said nothing. He shifted a little in his chair and took the leather keeper off the hammer of his six-gun as he did. Wearing his iron in a cross-draw holster allowed him to draw and fire easily, even on horseback or seated in a saloon.
“You just got to town.”
“I did,” Slocum said. “Do I know you or are you a stranger here, too?”
“I heard that woman with the sodbusters say you had seen the hermit.”
This surprised Slocum, as he thought he was past such things.
“What hermit might that be?”
“The one what haunts the Gi
la. He roams the canyon rims and spies on people down below. You see him?”
“Can’t say I saw a hermit,” Slocum said. He remembered what Arlene had said out on the trail. Word of a wild man in the Gila Wilderness had spread as far north as Fort Wingate. It obviously perturbed more than a handful of settlers intent on getting to Silver City. Slocum wondered if those rumors weren’t why Caleb Castle had hired him. Not so much for his scouting abilities but for protection? From a wild hermit?
“The woman—a cute little brown-haired one—said different.”
“Then you should ask her about this hermit,” Slocum said.
“You were the scout for her party. What do you know about him?”
“Nary a thing,” Slocum said. He took a sip, careful to drink using his left hand. The gunman still looked ready to throw down at any instant. Slocum wanted to keep his own gun hand free, should it come to that. And he had no idea what “that” was all about.
“You lyin’?”
“What’s your interest in this hermit?”
“I’m asking the questions.”
“I can see that,” Slocum said. He turned his attention back to his shot glass but kept a keen watch on the gunman out of the corner of his eye.
“My name’s Deutsch.”
Slocum knocked back the rest of the liquor in his shot glass, eyed the three-quarters remaining in the bottle, and knew he wasn’t likely to enjoy much more of it. He pushed back a ways from the table but remained seated. His right hand rested easily on the table edge, but he could drag out his smoke wagon in the flash of an eye, should it come down to it. And it might. He had heard other gunmen make their portentous declarations by giving their names, as if this would strike fear into any man’s heart.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Slocum said. He knew he ought to offer a drink, but the gunman had not altered his stance. There was no need to be any more accommodating than the man so intent on calling him out.
“You don’t know nuthin’ ’bout the hermit?”
Slocum shook his head.
“Somebody’s lyin’.”
“It’s not me, mister.”
“Deutsch. The name’s Deutsch.”
“It’s not me, mister,” Slocum repeated. His cold green eyes bored into Deutsch’s coal-black ones. It was Deutsch who backed down.
“You haven’t heard the last of this.” With that, the gunman pointedly turned his back and stormed from the saloon.
“You’re wrong again,” Slocum said, staring at the now empty doorway. He had no intention of calling out Deutsch, but the lure of the trail was growing stronger by the minute. Silver City had looked like a peaceful little town, but it wasn’t little enough for a man like Slocum.
He poured another drink and considered how much of the pop skull he ought to save for the ride down to Mesilla.
4
Slocum had polished off half the bottle when he decided the crowd was getting too big in the saloon. He thrust the cork into the bottle and tucked it under his arm as he left. The cool mountain evening washed away all his cares— that and the liquor he had consumed over the past couple hours. He stepped out and took a good look at the nighttime sky. Stars stretched from horizon to horizon, almost as bright as day. He felt invigorated and ready to tangle with a pack of wildcats. But first he had to tend to his horse, get a night’s sleep—probably in the same stable— get supplies in the morning, and head on out.
Whether he would say good-bye to Arlene or simply leave at the break of dawn was something he had not decided.
“Sleep on it,” he said to himself. At the moment, the warm fog of booze made everything seem a little fuzzy. From past experience, he knew this was no time to make big decisions. Like whether to tell Arlene good-bye or simply leave without saying another word to her. But either way, he was leaving Silver City and hitting the trail again.
He stepped down into the street and froze when he heard rapid footsteps coming up behind him. Then he turned, drawing in the same motion, and levelled his six-shooter at Herman Goslin.
“Slocum, there you be. I been huntin’ for you. This is terrible. You gotta come. Right now.”
Slocum relaxed, let the hammer down slowly, and thrust his six-gun back into its holster.
“Right now all I have to do is get my horse fed and then feed myself.”
“No, no, this is real bad. Caleb says you gotta come now, or it’ll be too late.”
“Caleb,” Slocum said with some scorn. “He paid me. I don’t work for him anymore. Besides, he ought to be riding out to look at his land. He did get the tax lien paid off and claim his inheritance, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, he done all that. I think he did. That was right after we got to town. But this. It happened an hour back, and I been huntin’ for you.”
“Find someone else,” Slocum said, turning his back on Goslin. Then he froze again. This time a cold lump formed in the pit of his belly.
“She’s gone, Slocum. She’s been kidnapped!”
“Arlene?”
“Who else?”
“How do you know she’s been kidnapped? She might just be looking around town.”
“Caleb’ll tell you ever’thin’. She ain’t jist out takin’ in the sights. She was took!”
Slocum held back a flood of frustration. Dealing with Castle was like handling flypaper. There was no getting rid of it. He unfastened his horse’s reins and said, “Where is he?”
“Caleb’s still at the land office. Didn’t know anywhere else to go, so he sorta camped out there.”
“It figures. He wouldn’t want anyone trying to outbid him on his brother’s property.”
“Yeah, somethin’ like that.”
Slocum’s long stride was barely enough to keep up with the shorter man’s frantic legs pumping out every bit of energy he had as they made their way back to the land office. Sure enough, the wagons were parked around back, and sittingin a chair on the boardwalk in front of the office was Caleb Castle. He looked as if a ramrod had been jammed up his ass, but Slocum thought part of it might be the way Arlene had bandaged him up with wood staves to keep him from twisting and pulling his broken ribs apart.
“Slocum, ’bout time you got here.”
“Go to hell, Castle,” Slocum said. He turned and started away.
“They took her. Didn’t Herman say that? They kidnapped Arlene. I know that you and her, you been rutting. Nothing gets by me, Slocum. And I don’t care. You can have her all you want, but you have to get her back first.”
“What’s her being gone mean to you, Castle? All you ever did was chew on her like a dog with a bone.”
“It’s my way, Slocum. I can’t help it.”
“What happened?” In spite of himself, Slocum had to ask. He thought Castle might be trying to work some sort of a scam on him to get his money back. He had the look of a penny-pinching miser about him, but there was more than a touch of worry creasing his leathery face.
“I don’t know, not exactly. From what folks tell me, a tall gent dressed all in black was last seen talking to her. Then they were gone. Nobody’s seen her since.”
“Maybe she found someone to ride off with,” Slocum said, but something Caleb Castle said worried at him. “What did the man look like? Other than he was dressed in black?”
“He looked to be a gunfighter,” Herman Goslin piped up. “Thass what ever’one says. And he had the coldest eyes of anyone ever.”
“Has he demanded any money?” Slocum thought the land deal had to be mixed up in this somehow. It made sense to kidnap Arlene and then ask for the land deed as ransom. Deutsch could turn around and swap the deed for a few bucks from the mayor, who would claim he was only doing his civic duty trying to trap the kidnapper. But Deutsch would be free, the mayor would have his land . . . and Arlene? If everyone was lucky, she would be found alive somewhere.
“Nope, nobody’s asked for nothing,” Caleb said. “That’s what’s worrying me. I got money left, too, after paying the taxes.
I’d be willing to part with some of it to get her back.”
“Would you pony up the land, too?” Slocum saw he had hit a sticking point with Caleb. “Never mind. Which direction did they ride out of town?”
“Best anyone remembers, it was west, toward the Mogollons.”
“I doubt they could get too far in an hour,” Slocum said. He checked the positions of the stars and got his bearings.
“You’ll find her?”
“I’ll try,” Slocum said, swinging into the saddle. His horse protested a little but came to a trot by the time they reached the outskirts of Silver City. He continued along the road, glad for the bright starlight now. It was impossible to figure which of the tracks in the rocky, dusty road belonged to Deutsch and Arlene, but he kept a sharp eye out for anyone leaving the road. Less than a mile from town, he saw the tracks of two horses veering away toward a stand of junipers. The tracks were fresh, and it didn’t appear that many folks travelled this road, or at least had not that afternoon.
Reasonably sure he was on the right trail, Slocum struck out across a lush pasture. Occasionally, he had to drop to the ground and study the crushed grass closely to find their tracks, but he knew he was making better progress than they had. Arlene probably complained the whole way, slowing Deutsch down. But if it had been an hour—or likely more—since she was taken from town, the gunman might well have had his way with her, then put a bullet in her head.
Somehow, though, that didn’t seem likely. Why did Deutsch single out Arlene? There were undoubtedly enough whores to go around in a mining town. Their price might have been steep, but Deutsch didn’t look like the kind who had missed many meals. He probably had a few coins jingling in his pocket. That Arlene Castle was a lovely woman was beyond argument, but to kidnap her struck Slocum as foolhardy.
