Slocum and the Thunderbird

by Jake Logan

  He stepped out onto the back stairs, only to have them yield under him. Slocum thrust out his arm as much to keep his balance as to force Alicia back into the hotel out of sight. Two lawmen looked over Rawlins’s and the dead deputy’s horses. And riding up were three more. A ray of sunshine caught the badge on the lead rider’s chest. They were caught inside the hotel as the posse assembled out back.

  5

  “We can shoot our way out!” Alicia cried.

  Slocum kept pushing her back along the askew corridor until they were out of earshot of the deputies. When the marshal joined them in examining the horses, a half dozen of the posse would be able to train their guns on the hotel. With the brick walls in sad shape and the wood doors mostly rotted, there wasn’t any way he and Alicia could fight.

  “We don’t shoot it out with the law, not after I just killed a deputy.”

  “He said he was hunting for bank robbers from over in Halliday.”

  Slocum didn’t answer. If killing a deputy intent on raping her wasn’t a good enough excuse for avoiding the rest of the posse, nothing would satisfy her. With Alicia’s bloodthirsty promise to kill anyone getting in her way, he wasn’t sure the law wouldn’t be as interested in taking her prisoner as it was in getting the bank money back.

  “I can explain he was trying to hurt me,” she said.

  Slocum stared at her. The deputy wanted to do more than hurt her. After he’d raped her, he would have killed her and left her body for the coyotes.

  “You go ahead and try that,” he said. “Tell them you killed the deputy.”

  “But it would have been in self-defense. And you were only protecting me.”

  Slocum returned to the stairs leading to the lobby. The staircase had collapsed. He looked around for some way out. Only blue sky showed where the roof should have been. Keeping the high ground might have made sense if he’d had the firepower to hold off the posse. And if Dupree and Rawlins had been with him, they might all have had a chance of potshotting the lawmen.

  “Hang on,” he said. He grabbed Alicia around the waist and stepped out where the stairs had been. They crashed to the lower floor. She struggled but he kept her from running off in panic.

  “Help me,” he whispered in her ear. “If you don’t, we’re both dead.”

  He kicked away a pile of bricks and found what he sought. A few floorboards had been broken down into a cellar. Yanking away another board, he wedged himself in, then twisted and fell about five feet. He bent low and got under the lobby flooring. Looking up at Alicia, he thought she might have been an angel.

  Sunlight caught her mussed brunette hair and turned it into a chocolate halo around her dirty face. Her torn blouse revealed just a touch of bare breast, but her ripped skirts showed her legs all the way to her thighs. It hadn’t been that long ago that Slocum had run his hands along those calves, found the foot jammed under the rock, and freed her back in the hills. In spite of his predicament, he found himself wondering what it would be like to run his hands along those legs again, up the thighs and—

  “Move over. They’re coming!”

  She kicked at him with the foot he had been fantasizing about, and he got out of the way so she could drop into the cellar alongside him. She scuttled away as he worked the plank he had pushed free back into place. Seconds after he got it lined up with the other floorboards, footsteps approached with drumlike precision on the planks. Jingling spurs and a few grunts warned him the posse had arrived—directly over his head.

  He started to move back but the board refused to stay in place. As boot steps came closer, their gait uneven, he pushed upward with all his strength until he supported a man’s weight. Whoever had come into the lobby stood on the loose plank, not knowing Slocum was all that kept him from tumbling into the cellar.

  “They got to be somewhere,” came the deep voice.

  “Marshal Hillstrom, lookee in here. Tunley’s dead. Shot dead!”

  Slocum gasped in relief as the weight disappeared off the plank. He would have sagged down and let the floorboard fall if Alicia hadn’t reached across, pressing into his back to hold the board. He didn’t mind the feel of her so close, but their situation was dire.

  “How long before they find us?” she whispered.

  “They’ll have blood in their eye now that they’ve found the dead deputy.”

  Alicia craned her neck and looked up to the lobby.

  “They’re all in the room. We can escape.”

  Slocum had another idea. He propped up the board to keep the marshal from seeing right away where his quarry had hidden. Sitting and looking around the dusty cellar, he pointed toward the rear of the building. Alicia obeyed immediately, crawling over the debris to a break in the foundation near the back door. Slocum pushed her out of the way and looked up. A slow smile came to him. Luck was finally with them.

  Pulling down the brick and concrete opened a crawl space large enough for him to squeeze through. Alicia reached up for him to help her out of the cellar, but he ignored her. He moved among the horses, gathering reins.

  “You could have given me a hand up,” she said, climbing out of the cellar and brushing off her skirt. All she did was smear the dirt more.

  “Mount up,” Slocum said. “Take the reins of the horses and don’t let even one of them go free.”

  Alicia wiped grit from her eyes, blinked, and then said, “We’ll be horse thieves.”

  Arguing the merit of horse thievery against being hanged for killing a deputy could wait. Slocum vaulted onto the nearest horse, brought it under control, and immediately rode for the stable where he had left his gelding. Alicia muttered but came after him. Barely had Slocum reached the livery and pulled his horse out when lead began flying.

  “Ride!”

  Slocum put his head down and snapped the reins to bring his horse to a gallop. He slowed when he heard Alicia cry out. He looked back to see her sitting on the ground. She had been pulled off her horse by the horses she led. The posse’s mounts had scattered, spooked by the gunfire, and ran in all directions.

  He slowed, turned, and snared the reins of Rawlins’s horse, which Alicia had ridden, and went back for her. The marshal and his men ran from the town, shooting as they came. If they had stopped to take aim, Slocum might have been filled with lead. Instead, their shots all went wild.

  “Come on,” Slocum said, reaching down. He caught her wrist and yanked her into the air. She landed hard behind him. “Get on your horse.” He pulled Rawlins’s mount up against his knee.

  Alicia moved with a greater show of horsemanship than he’d expected. She settled in the saddle.

  “It won’t take them long to round up their horses,” he said.

  “Holding on to a half-dozen reins was more difficult than I thought.”

  Blaming her accomplished nothing. They had to get away. Reluctantly Slocum turned back toward the mountains.

  “No, we need help. You can’t go back there!” Alicia cried.

  When she tried to veer away, Slocum headed her off and herded her into the maze of canyons they had left.

  “You’re crazy. They—”

  “The marshal is behind us.”

  “I need to tell him about—”

  Slocum made certain she didn’t ride back by snatching the reins from her and leading her horse. He had followed her thinking she was Rawhide Rawlins. He had to find out what happened in the canyon, to his partner and to the loot from the bank. Alicia had to know something since she’d been in camp with Rawhide when the gunfire had broken out, drawing Slocum away from burying Dupree.

  Alicia rode in stony silence until they reached the juncture of the three canyons. Ahead lay the abandoned camp. To the right, Dupree’s body likely had been picked clean by coyotes, buzzards, and insects. And the canyon stretching before him had to be where Rawhide and the loot were to be found.

&nb
sp; “We . . . we shouldn’t stay here. They’ll find us,” Alicia said with a quaver in her voice.

  “What happened here after Dupree screamed? I heard gunfire and came back to find the camp empty.”

  Slocum’s eyes moved to the spot where Dupree had laid his head on the bag of money. It came as no surprise that the money was still missing.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he? Dupree? It was the thunderbird that got him.”

  “He’s dead,” Slocum said, but he didn’t want to argue with the woman about the existence of mythological birds any more than he had with Dupree. If anything, Dupree had a stronger argument to make, but Slocum still thought he had tangled with a bear.

  Even if he couldn’t figure how a bear had entered that sandy pit and left without leaving distinct tracks.

  “Rawhide said he heard riders coming. From the direction of Wilson’s Creek. I couldn’t let them catch me again.”

  “Why are you running from that town?”

  “It’s run by a man name of Mackenzie. He’s plumb loco but he rules that town with an iron grip.”

  Alicia’s eyes went wide with fear when a loud screech echoed down the canyon in front of them—the one leading to Wilson’s Creek, where Slocum thought Rawhide had gone.

  “Ignore it,” Slocum said. “Why’d Rawhide ride off the way he did?”

  “They were Mackenzie’s men coming after me. I saddled up and jumped on the nearest horse. Rawhide said he’d keep them from ever catching me. I . . . I rode off just as they circled him. They got the drop on him, but he started shooting. That’s all I know.”

  “You didn’t see him gunned down?”

  “I was riding away too fast for that. He might have got away, but there were at least three of Mackenzie’s gunmen.” Alicia flinched when the screech echoed down the canyon again, the hideous sound bouncing from one canyon wall to another. She wrapped her arms around herself and shook as if she’d come down with the ague. “That’s the thunderbird. He claims he’s got it all caged and lets it loose to kill his enemies.”

  “Mackenzie? But you said he’s loco.”

  “Dupree was all ripped up, wasn’t he? I can tell by the way you talk about him. Nobody human did that. It’s Mackenzie’s thunderbird.”

  In spite of himself Slocum asked, “Where’d he get this thunderbird?”

  “Don’t know. Might be from all the Sioux he’s killed. Mackenzie hates Indians. Heard one of his men say it was because the Sioux killed his entire family.”

  “That what drove him crazy?”

  Alicia shook her head. “No, it’s something else. But he’s not loco enough to just let the thunderbird go free. He controls it. He turns it against the Indians if they get too close to town.”

  “You ever see this thunderbird?” Slocum began to get irritated as the screeching grew louder. That might frighten off the Indians or even Alicia Watson, but it only made him more inclined to find who made the noise and silence them for good.

  “I’ve seen what it does. I can’t imagine how horrible it must be. Some say that if you stare at the thunderbird, you’re a goner. It’s born in a thundercloud and rides on storm winds and can even shoot lightning bolts out of its eyes.”

  “Otherwise, it just claws up men like a bear. There are bears in the Badlands, aren’t there?”

  “Of course there are,” Alicia said, her lips thinning to a razor slash. “But why don’t you believe me when I tell you there’s a thunderbird?”

  Slocum had never put much stock in the supernatural. He had found most things died if you put a bullet through their heart.

  “Let’s see,” he said, tapping his heels on his horse’s flanks.

  “No, you can’t. You’ll be killed!”

  He looked at her drawn expression. Real fear made her recoil and lean so that she almost fell from her horse.

  “What were you running from in Wilson’s Creek? What did Mackenzie try to do to you?”

  “You can guess. I refuse to—never mind. I’m not going back there. And,” she said, a catch in her voice, “I don’t want to see you killed either.”

  This surprised him.

  “Why not?”

  “You saved me back in that ghost town when you didn’t have to. I don’t care if you thought you were coming after your partner. You risked your neck to save mine.”

  “That’s not what was at risk,” he said. This got a weak smile from her. “It’s not going to hurt to rest here, water the horses, then decide what to do.”

  She dismounted and led the horse toward the small stream. He watched as she went. That was one good-looking woman. He stepped down and let his gelding drink next to the one that had belonged to Dupree. Finding out as much as he could about Wilson’s Creek meant the difference between life and death for him. Maybe Rawlins was still alive. If so, Slocum needed to know as much as possible about what his partner might have gotten mixed up in.

  That was only a faint hope of finding Rawhide alive, and he knew it. More likely, riding to Wilson’s Creek, he would come across Rawlins’s body. That meant Mackenzie’s henchmen had the money from the bank robbery. Getting it back would take as much information as Alicia could tell him.

  Before he could ask her about the town, a new caterwaul made her wince. Alicia turned away and ignored him when he asked about Mackenzie.

  He shrugged it off, then stood and walked a few paces off to see what moved around deeper in the canyon. The inhuman cries died down. Slocum waited to see if riders came rushing down on the heels of the shrieks.

  “How far is the town?” Slocum asked.

  He half turned and then sharp pain lanced through his head. He staggered back. Then came another blow that drove him flat onto his back, unconscious. When he woke up, he thought dynamite had been planted between his ears, then detonated. Forcing his eyes to focus, he looked around.

  A new howl from the canyon mouth was his only companion. Alicia and Rawlins’s horse were gone.

  6

  Slocum dunked his head in the stream and came up, shaking like a wet dog. The pain eased and let him think more clearly. Riding toward the bird caws deeper in the canyon might not be the smartest move he ever considered, but Rawlins had gone that way with the bank money. All he wanted was to get his share, then leave the Dakotas as fast as his horse could take him.

  He studied the ground and saw that Alicia had ridden into the canyon where Dupree had been killed. He considered her motives, then decided she was telling him the truth—or the truth as she saw it. The screeches in the one canyon had forced her to choose a different route. Retracing her tracks to the ghost town would take her into the arms of the law. She might be a good enough liar to deny knowing anything about the dead deputy, but Slocum had seen the fire in her eyes when she spoke of the man who had tried to rape her in the old hotel. Alicia would give herself away and likely in ways she never thought of.

  If the marshal saw her with the pistol, he’d probably recognize it as the dead deputy’s. Alicia’s wrists would be clamped into irons and she’d languish in the Halliday jail.

  Knowing it was foolish, but lying enough to himself that he needed what she knew of Wilson’s Creek to find Rawlins, he mounted and rode after her. From the sun in the sky, he had been knocked out for close to a half hour, giving her a big head start. Rather than pushing his horse to overtake her, he rode steadily, keeping a sharp lookout for the bear that had killed Dupree—and Mackenzie’s henchmen. That part of Alicia’s story rang true.

  Slocum had seen enough towns run by a fast gun. Fear controlled most of the population, and a small army of gunmen always shot first and thought later. That kept the ordinary citizens cowed. In this part of the Badlands, Wilson’s Creek must have developed as a mining town. It might have been where the populace from the one to the east had moved when new gold strikes had been made. Men always sought the quick riches, the easy we
alth.

  He passed the sandy pit where Dupree’s body had been, drew rein, and halted to study the matter a bit more. His earlier suspicion had proven true. Dupree’s corpse had been well gnawed, and ants worked on it now that the larger carrion eaters had eaten their fill. Slocum hunted for any bear scat, and slowly a question came to him that he hadn’t considered before.

  If a bear had killed Dupree, why hadn’t it bothered to eat him? The lack of tracks other than a few deep claw marks in the sand was curious, but the bear had not had much of a fight, not attacking Dupree from the back. Slocum remembered that Dupree’s six-shooter had been in his holster, so he hadn’t angered the bear with a stray shot.

  Slocum had seen bullets bounce off a bear’s skull. That could make any creature furious if it didn’t kill it outright. But the bear had struck from behind.

  Had it even been a bear? There was no way a black bear or grizzly killed a man without leaving more trace in the sand. In spite of himself, Slocum mentally pictured a huge bird swooping down as Dupree looked away. Talons flashing, the thunderbird would have killed before the man even knew he was dead.

  Slocum snorted. There wasn’t any such thing. What was real existed all around him, where he could see it, feel it, and shoot it.

  He snapped about, eyes going to the canyon wall on his right. Being lost in his speculation about a thunderbird had turned him careless. A bit of luck allowed him to see Alicia’s tracks cutting to a narrow trail that led up to the rim. She was trying to escape the maze of canyons.

  Turning his horse to the narrow trail, he studied the signs for a full minute to make out a muddled set of hoofprints. Alicia’s horse went up, but another set of boot prints was almost as recent. He rode a few yards up the path to the point where the boot prints stopped suddenly. It was as if the man had walked this far and evaporated. While it seemed incredible, whoever had left that set of tracks had jumped from the trail to the top of a huge boulder.