Slocum and the Trick Shot Artist

by Jake Logan

  “Does she own a restaurant or saloon?”

  “Jocelyn’s is the name of a saloon. Biggest one in town. You go there and ask around and you’ll hear plenty of news from neighboring towns. As for me, I got my own work to do.”

  “Pa always says he knows well enough the rest of the world is rotten to the core so he don’t want to hear about it.”

  Rubbing his hand on the top of his son’s head in a way that seemed awfully similar to covering James’s mouth, Andrew snapped, “Enough of that, son. This man don’t need to hear what goes on at home.”

  “He’ll hear it if he’s renting Aunt Sally’s room.” Turning hopeful eyes toward Slocum, James asked, “You are renting her room, ain’t you?”

  “It’d probably be best if I didn’t stay at one of them hotels,” Slocum said. “It might be best if I camped somewhere outside of town where I’d be out of sight.”

  “My boy may talk a lot,” Andrew said, “but he says some smart things. He also knows when to keep his mouth shut, so he won’t go spreading any word about you being here. Right, son?”

  “Yes sir,” James immediately replied.

  Andrew nodded proudly. “If a lawman needs someplace to rest his head while doing his job, he’s more’n welcome in my home. As far as staying out of sight, nobody’s got to know you’re here. Folks around these parts know better than to poke their noses in my affairs.”

  “I’m sure they do. I’ll take the room.”

  “All right, then. Who should I tell my wife is coming?”

  Slocum extended his hand and introduced himself. He’d already put enough faith in Andrew, so he wasn’t going to insult him by giving him an assumed name.

  “Pleased to meet you, John. James, take him to his room.”

  “Yes sir.”

  James led him back to within twenty paces of the spot where Slocum had breached the tree line while entering town. The house was a large, two-floor structure with a porch wrapping all the way around. Inside, the furnishings were solid. No doubt, either Andrew or another family member had fashioned them personally. The walls were decorated with a few Bible verses stitched onto plain white cloth within simple wooden frames. Despite looking like it belonged on a piece of sprawling Texas land, the house was a warm, inviting place maintained by a stout woman who was only about an inch taller than her son. She greeted Slocum with a warm, friendly smile.

  “You’re here about the room?” she asked.

  “That’s right, ma’am.”

  “Well, don’t just stand there,” she said to James. “Show our guest upstairs!”

  “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to tend to some business in town,” Slocum said.

  She nodded and swatted James on the backside to get him moving up the stairs. “We’ll have everything ready for you when you get back. Supper’s at six sharp.”

  “I hope to make it, ma’am, but please don’t take offense if I’m unable.”

  She tried to wave off Slocum’s words, but her smile ran a little too deep and her eyes lingered on him for just a bit too long. He wouldn’t go so far as to say she would step out of line if given a chance, but Slocum believed her when she said she’d save a scrap or two for him from the dinner table.

  He tipped his hat and excused himself from the house. As soon as he was outside, it was straight back to business. He hadn’t ridden into Spencer Flats to make friends. There were killers about and he meant to make them answer for however many lives they’d taken. For one of those lives in particular, they would pay dearly. Just to be safe, Slocum removed the badge from his shirt and tucked it into a pocket. Folks tended to treat lawmen differently, and many weren’t as accommodating as Andrew.

  Although Jocelyn’s was about the size of a small house, it wasn’t much more than a large tent draped over a wooden frame. The bar was solid oak with a polished rail, which made it seem more than a little out of place surrounded by tables and chairs that could have been dropped from covered wagons after not having been tied down properly.

  At first, it seemed as if there was nobody tending the bar. Slocum approached it and was about to rap his knuckles upon the surface when a dark-skinned woman with thick black hair poked her head up from behind the bar just high enough to be seen. She had large brown eyes and skin that had the texture of molasses. She seemed to be somewhere in her forties, but could have looked younger if her hair hadn’t been tied back into a tight, severe bun.

  “I will be right with you,” she said in an accent that was three parts British and one part . . . something else.

  Slocum waited patiently after she disappeared once more beneath the bar. Soon, the beer taps sticking up like polished metal stems began to tremble. Along with the clanging of metal on metal, her voice rolled up from below. Even when she swore six ways to Sunday, her voice still managed to sound cultured. Leaning forward, Slocum asked, “Need a hand?”

  “Do you know anything about unclogging one of these pipes?”

  “Not as such, but I imagine I could figure something out.”

  “I can figure something out as well,” she said without bothering to look up from where she struggled to work. “You just stay put and tell Haresh what you want.”

  The man who approached Slocum moved so silently that he could very well have appeared from thin air. His skin was slightly lighter in color than hers, but was still dark as if bronzed from years in the sun. He stood a full head taller than Slocum and was built more solidly than most of the homes in town. Scowling down at him through a thin, charcoal-colored beard, he stood like a redwood and waited for Slocum’s order.

  Without missing a beat, Slocum knuckled one of the taps and said, “I’ll have a beer.”

  Haresh’s face cracked like a parched desert floor into a narrow grin.

  “There’s a special hell for smart alecks,” the woman said from beneath the bar.

  “Then how about a whiskey?” Slocum asked.

  Moving like a tiger, Haresh circled around the bar, found a bottle, and poured a drink. When he set the glass down in front of Slocum, he did so with a smooth, barely noticeable flourish of one hand.

  “You’re not from around here, are you?” Slocum asked as he picked up his drink.

  After one more curse delivered in her richly textured accent, the woman grunted and finally got something beneath the bar to move the way she wanted it to move. Instead of metallic screeching, the pipes made a smoother sound that went all the way up through the wood of the bar. She stood up, tried the tap, and beamed when the beer started to flow. “Now that is ingenuity brought all the way from Nepal!”

  “Inflicted upon American craftsmanship,” Haresh growled.

  “I’d argue if it wasn’t true,” Slocum said while lifting his glass.

  The woman wiped her hands upon a towel that was looped over the thin belt encircling her waist just above her dark brown skirts. “I apologize, sir. That is no way to talk about such a fine country.”

  “I’ll drink to that also,” Slocum said, “as soon as I have some beer.”

  She picked up a mug, shook out some water that had collected in the bottom, and then filled it with beer. Although there were some bits of sediment swirling inside, Slocum had definitely seen much worse. He took the glass, raised it, and proclaimed, “To fine countries far and wide.”

  “Cheers!” both the woman and Haresh said in unison.

  The beer went down easy and left a pleasant, grainy aftertaste. Slocum took another long sip and then held the glass at arm’s length so he could inspect it. “That’s not what I was expecting,” he said.

  The woman raised her eyebrows. “Is that a good or bad thing?”

  After another sip followed by a careful series of lip smacking, Slocum told her, “I think . . . good. Yes. A good thing.”

  “Then, since you so good-
naturedly drank the glass intended only to clean out my pipes, you should enjoy your next one even more.”

  Haresh chuckled and took the mostly empty glass Slocum had set down. When he dumped it out into a basin behind the bar, the big man did so as if he didn’t want to get any of the beer on his hands. The next glass was filled with beer that had the color of tanned leather and had considerably less sediment inside. Slocum sampled it tentatively.

  “Well?” she asked. “Am I right?”

  “I hate to admit it, but you’re right,” Slocum told her. “Much better.”

  “What’s so hard to admit? That perfection can be poured into a glass?”

  “I just don’t appreciate being tricked into drinking something you meant to throw out.”

  Waving an impatient hand toward Haresh, she said, “That one’s fussy as well. He won’t drink from these spigots until I’m midway through a keg, and even then, it’s only if the temperature is just right in here. You should see him on a hot day. Insufferable.”

  “I just know what I like,” Haresh grunted.

  Using a clean cloth to polish the curved pipes of the taps, the barkeep asked, “Does it make you feel better knowing that both of those drinks are on the house?”

  “Yes,” Slocum said with a smile. “Much.” He drained almost half of his glass in one sip, tasting hints of exotic flavors that were difficult to nail down. Since he wasn’t aiming to figure out her recipes, he simply enjoyed letting the drink flow through his system.

  Perhaps responding to the blissful look on his face, the bartender said, “No more are free, you know. I have a business to run.”

  “I’m here on business as well,” Slocum said. “Have there been any strangers in town recently?”

  “Besides you?” Haresh asked.

  “Yes. Strangers with big mouths.”

  “You mean . . . besides you?”

  Slocum turned to lean sideways against the bar so he could face the big man directly. Haresh’s thick hair was darker than wet coal and covered his scalp like a helmet. The whiskers on his face, too long to be stubble and too short to be a beard, looked instead like something that had been sketched onto his chin and cheeks with a black pencil. His teeth were brilliant white and he flashed them at Slocum like a predator grinning at its prey.

  “Do we have a problem I didn’t know about?” Slocum asked.

  “That’s just his paltry attempt at humor,” the bartender said.

  “Yes,” Haresh added. “If there was a problem between you and I, you would know it.”

  Slocum decided to take them at their word, but allowed his warning glare to linger on Haresh for a few more seconds before shifting his gaze back to the bartender. “Anyway, I’m looking for information about any strangers that have come to town recently.”

  “How recent?” she asked.

  “Anytime in the last couple of days. Maybe even yesterday or earlier today. I was told that you might know about any new arrivals.”

  “I would. Perhaps you should have a word with those two men right over there.” With that, she pointed to the table in the farthest corner of the saloon. In a structure that was mostly canvas wrapped around a wooden frame, it was the most secure place to be, barricaded with wooden posts on one side, a tall support post on another, and a few tables scattered in the space that remained. The men hadn’t been there before, so Slocum assumed they’d snuck in when he’d been sampling the beer. One of the men looked to be about the right size and weight of Rob Bensonn, but both were wrapped in so many layers of clothing that it was difficult to see much more than that. They even wore large dusty hats on their heads and had bandannas tied around their necks in a rumpled mass obscuring them even further.

  “When did they arrive?” Slocum asked, suddenly becoming aware of just how much voices carried within the glorified tent.

  “Don’t know,” she told him. “But they look like strangers to me.”

  Haresh smirked.

  “Any others?” Slocum asked.

  She lowered her voice as well. Leaning forward, she said, “There were a few men that came through yesterday. I didn’t get much of a look at them because I only heard about it from the woman who runs the boardinghouse. We both steer business each other’s way and she told me that two men came fresh off the trail.”

  “Does she know where they came from?”

  “No. Apparently, they’re the quiet types. To be honest, most strangers are quiet around here.”

  Haresh spoke in a low rumble that barely got his lips moving. “If men ride through who look like they use their guns to kill something other than supper, odds are they’re either outlaws or vigilantes. Both kinds are trouble.”

  That made plenty of sense to Slocum, and as he listened, he weighed the benefits of showing his badge. Considering the fact that many vigilantes only wanted to be deputized as a way to make their killings legal, he opted to keep things the way they were. “Any chance you might back me up?” he asked Haresh.

  The bigger man furrowed his brow and looked at Slocum as if he were doing so from a hundred feet in the air. “A man who is looking for backup is usually also looking for trouble.”

  “Not looking for it,” Slocum corrected. “But there may be some. Since this is your place, I thought you might like to take part in keeping things civil.”

  “Everything will be civil enough if they sit there, and you,” Haresh said while dropping a hand that felt like a lead weight onto Slocum’s shoulder, “stay right here.”

  When Slocum looked to her for support, the bartender said, “I’m afraid I will have to agree with him.”

  “I don’t believe I caught your name.”

  “Didn’t you read the sign above the door? I’m Jocelyn.”

  “And I’m John Slocum.”

  “John Slocum?” Haresh growled. “I have heard that name before.” He looked to Jocelyn and said, “This one is trouble.”

  “Did you hear about what happened in Tarnish Mills?” Slocum asked. “It’s a town not too far from—”

  “I know where it is,” Jocelyn cut in. “And if you’re talking about Sheriff Cass being killed, I heard about that, too. Not too long ago, in fact, from a silverware merchant making his rounds through this territory. Do those two men over there have anything to do with what happened to Sheriff Cass?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Slocum replied. “Won’t know until I go over there and have a word with them.”

  “You will recognize them when you see their faces?” Haresh asked.

  “At least one of them.”

  “Then just get them to turn around.”

  “And if they recognize me,” Slocum replied, “which at least one of them will, they could very well start shooting. You want that?”

  Both Jocelyn and Haresh looked at the rest of the saloon. There were only a few other customers scattered around the place, but there was plenty of movement outside. Shadows drifted back and forth along three of the four walls. Since those walls were made of canvas, any stray bullets could very easily find a home in any one of the folks passing by.

  “I don’t want trouble,” Jocelyn hissed.

  “If those men aren’t who I think they are, there won’t be any trouble,” Slocum told her.

  “And if they are?”

  “Then there was bound to be trouble sooner or later. I’ve always preferred to get it out of the way before it brews into something worse.”

  Surprisingly enough, Haresh said, “I agree.” With that, he reached across the bar to feel under it until he found a shotgun. At first, the weapon looked like any number of shotguns kept behind any number of bars in saloons around the world. But when Slocum took a closer look, he realized the weapon was twice as big as he’d thought and looked normal only because it was being held in a pair of massive hands.<
br />
  “Good Lord!” Slocum wheezed. “You hunt bear with that thing?”

  Gripping a gun that would have looked like a cannon in anyone else’s hands, Haresh said, “Yes.”

  “All right, then. This should be easy.” Knowing better than to give the bigger man orders, Slocum thanked his stars Haresh was on his side and moseyed toward the table that had caught his eye.

  So far, the men sitting there had yet to do much of anything but talk quietly among themselves. Although there wasn’t anything particularly suspicious about that, Slocum didn’t like the way they kept their eyes glued to the front half of the room, where a large flap next to the door was held open as a window. Slocum’s hand drifted toward the Colt holstered at his hip, but only to rest upon its grip. When he approached the table, he meant to get as close as he could before they noticed without startling them badly enough for them to draw on him out of pure instinct. It was a narrow line to walk, but this wasn’t Slocum’s first attempt at it.

  When he was over halfway to the table, Slocum allowed his boots to knock against the floor a little louder. The boards were merely laid upon the ground beneath the tent, but he made enough noise to get one of the men to glance back at him. He was an older gentleman with gray hair and a face lined by his years on this earth. Actually, Slocum decided to hold off on thinking of him as a gentleman until he got a look at the man’s companion.

  Apparently, the next man to step into Jocelyn’s didn’t share those reservations.

  “Gentlemen!” he announced as he strode inside and positioned himself with his back to the wooden posts separating the window from the door. “And . . . lady. I would kindly ask that you remain where you are so that I may have a word with these two skunks.” Fixing his eyes onto the men seated at the table in front of Slocum, he added, “The pair of you will save yourselves some pain if you step outside without a fuss.”

  8

  The new arrival had silver hair that was cut short enough to look like bristles on a fancy brush. He was modest in height, but not in dress. His pearl gray suit was freshly pressed and was accented nicely by the silver watch chain crossing his midsection. A double-rig holster strapped around his waist and made from tooled leather was worn down to a consistency that would move with him like any other part of his body. Slocum couldn’t see the guns kept in that holster because of the suit jacket covering them, but he had caught a glimpse of highly polished steel or maybe even silver. The man’s eyes were pointed directly at the two sitting at the table in front of Slocum.