Slocum Buried Alive

by Jake Logan

  The injured outlaw fired two more rounds and came up empty. Then he came up dead. Slocum rushed within twenty yards and had an easy shot to the man’s chest. The outlaw threw up his hands and fell over the bloody beef carcass.

  Slocum turned his attention to the remaining outlaw. His anger boiled up. None of the three was Julian. Slocum rode past, wheeled about, and came back as the outlaw reloaded his six-gun. Three quick shots brought a yelp of pain to the outlaw’s lips. He looked up and saw nothing but the bore of Slocum’s rifle.

  “You got me, mister. I surrender.” The man dropped his pistol, and threw up his hands. He tried to stand but couldn’t from the wound in his hip. “I’m hit. You don’t need to finish me off. Just take me in so I can stand trial.”

  Slocum rode closer, keeping the front bead centered on the outlaw’s chest. He didn’t know if this man had helped trying to bury him alive. He didn’t know what other crimes he had committed. If he rode with Julian and did Hawkins’s bidding, his hands were red with more than a rustled cow’s blood.

  The man saw the expression on Slocum’s face and tried to back away. His wound sent him crashing to the ground.

  “You can’t kill me out of hand. Don’t do it. That’d make you a murderer!”

  “Where’s Julian?”

  The man’s sudden sly look made Slocum pull the trigger. The bullet took the man’s life even as Slocum bent low and hung on to his horse’s neck. The movement saved his life. He urged the pinto to a gallop away from the edge of the woods, where an ambusher had tried to back-shoot him. From the way the dead outlaw had reacted, the would-be killer was the man Slocum sought.

  Slocum rode as far as he thought safe from a shot coming from the woods. He brought his rifle up and studied the lay of the land, deciding where Julian would have been. A notch in the woods showed a trail followed by cattle to get to another pasture. That was where the outlaw leader would be since he had no call to rummage about in the undergrowth before Slocum showed up, guns blazing.

  “Julian!” Slocum waited to see if there was any response. “You buried me alive. You’re going to pay for that.”

  “You could have saved everyone trouble by staying buried,” the outlaw shouted back.

  Slocum adjusted his aim a few inches and caught sight of a red bandanna amid the green bushes. He squeezed the trigger. The familiar kick satisfied him. The shot felt good. But he had to be sure.

  “I’m coming for you, Julian. You can run, but I’ll track you to the ends of the earth.”

  Getting no response, Slocum began riding back toward the spot where the three outlaws had butchered the Box N cow. He relied on his sense of a good shot. It had felt right. But that didn’t mean he had killed Julian. At this range, such a shot would have been half skill and half miracle.

  The notch in the trees proved to be a large trail, as Slocum had thought. He turned his attention to the left side of the trail, hunting for any ambush Julian might deliver. A wounded rat fought hardest.

  Only Slocum’s sense was wrong. Julian stepped out from the right side of the trail, unharmed by the exchange of fire. He sighted in and fired at Slocum just as the horse reared. Slocum kicked free of the stirrups and let the horse throw him. Prepared for the impact, Slocum landed hard on his back, then jerked about and rolled away. Bullets whined off rocks and dug up tiny divots as he kept moving to take shelter in the woods.

  Slocum settled down behind a tree with a trunk big enough to shelter a couple men. He chanced a look around one side, then rolled and brought his rifle to bear shooting around the other. The rifle bucked and Julian cursed, but it wasn’t a hit. Slocum knew he had been wrong before, but this time he wasn’t. He had come close but had missed.

  Working his way to standing and bracing the rifle against the tree, he began to fire in brackets. To the left of where he thought Julian stood, to the right, and then between the two. After each trio of shots, he moved his targeting to flush out the outlaw.

  He lowered his rifle when the magazine came up empty. Slocum cursed under his breath since he had no idea what had become of Julian. The outlaw might have disappeared into thin air, carried away on the muggy breeze blowing across the pasture. Resting his rifle against the tree, Slocum drew his six-shooter, then considered how best to go after Julian. He picked up the rifle in his left hand and used it to poke through the brush as he made his way closer to the trail between pastures.

  “You turn tail and run like a dog, Julian?” He rustled the bushes off to his left with the rifle. His ruse worked.

  The hatched-faced outlaw had to step from behind a tree on the far side of the trail to get a shot at where he thought Slocum moved.

  Slocum lifted his Colt, dropped the rifle, and fanned off all six shots. Not all hit Julian. Enough did to make the outlaw groan and fall back. Slocum reloaded, picked up his rifle, and wished he had the ammo for it, too. It still proved useful pushing aside the thick brush so he could concentrate on the outlaw.

  Julian burst out of the brush. To Slocum’s surprise, the man was mounted. The outlaw rode bent low, firing as he went. Slocum fired at the outlaw as he raced back toward the smoking ruins of the Neville house. When he came up empty, he fished around for more ammo. He was out. He had more in his saddlebags, but Julian would be long gone by the time he found his horse and reloaded.

  With his fingers between his lips, he let out a long, loud whistle. His horse came trotting up, looking at him fearfully. Slocum took his time gentling the pinto. Then he took out the boxes of ammo and reloaded both his rifle and the six-shooter. He swung into the saddle and went after Julian. Wounded, the man wasn’t likely to hightail it anywhere but Espero.

  Slocum considered that luck had finally come his way. He had escaped without any new holes in his hide and knew where Julian rode. If luck really smiled on him, both Julian and Hawkins would be together, and he could dispatch both at the same time.

  “This time,” Slocum said softly, “you’re going to need two graves.” He headed back to Espero and the inevitable showdown.

  17

  Slocum rode straight for Hawkins’s funeral parlor. He smiled grimly as he rode closer. He had guessed Julian’s destination. The man’s lathered horse stood out back, near the camp where Slocum had gone through killing his henchmen like he was a farmer with a scythe cutting wheat. Julian had to be panicked now. That made him more dangerous. It also meant he wouldn’t be thinking straight.

  “Lead me to Hawkins, you son of a bitch,” Slocum said softly as he dismounted.

  He hefted his rifle and went into the mortuary. He heels clicked on the floor as he moved with increasing determination. When he came to the viewing room, he found pieces of a dozen coffins scattered about. These were the remnants of the three dozen coffins Hawkins had hammered together for the townspeople Neville had killed. He had enough planks left over for half a dozen more. Slocum kicked through the pile but found nothing to tell him where Julian and Hawkins were.

  In the dining room, he paused. Food remained on the table from the meal he had watched served on Miranda’s wedding night. The number of dead rats on the table in front of Hawkins’s plate showed only his food had been poisoned. Miranda’s plate had been licked clean.

  He swung around, his rifle rising to cover whoever sneaked up on him from behind.

  “John, don’t! Please, don’t!” Miranda looked gaunt, and her hands shook as she held them in front of her, palms outward, as if to push him away.

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t.”

  “I want Julian, too. He rode in all shot up. Where is he?”

  “I didn’t hear him ride up. He . . . he’s with Leonard, if he’s anywhere.”

  “And you don’t know where Hawkins is.”

  Slocum sighted directly between her heaving bosoms. He had no intention of shooting her. If this loosened her tongue so he found out w
hat he wanted, however, the fright was worth it.

  “I don’t. He is so strange. So very strange.” She pressed her hand to her breasts. “He gave me this.” A tug brought up a large brass key hung from a delicate gold chain.

  “What does it open?”

  “He didn’t tell me, but he laughed. It was terrible, that laugh was terrible! You don’t know what a monster he is, John. You can’t.”

  Slocum knew. He went to the woman, wary of her being used as bait in a trap. No sign of Hawkins or Julian in the room behind her emboldened him. With a quick grab, he caught the key and pulled it from around her neck. She let out a tiny gasp as the metal links cut into the back of her neck.

  “It opens a padlock,” he said. “A big one. What’s locked up around here? And why would he want you to have the key?”

  “I don’t know. He’s so generous and so frightening at the same time. He’s given me boxes of jewelry.”

  “And a handmade coffin for a wedding gift,” Slocum finished for her.

  “That, too.” She closed her eyes and wove about unsteadily. Slocum made no move to support her. Miranda reached out and used the wall to keep from collapsing. “He’s taken it all from the people he’s buried. Even this.”

  She held up her wedding ring. The sparkle off the huge stone blinded Slocum for a moment. He blinked, wary of a trap. Miranda simply stared at it as if it were a crystal ball and she read her fortune in it—and that fortune was bleak.

  “He made me ring the bell, but on the morning of the funerals, he had me stop and come rob the bodies. There were so many he couldn’t do it by himself. I took necklaces and watches and rings.”

  Miranda dropped to her knees, put her face in her hands, and sobbed openly.

  “What more is there?”

  She looked up with teary eyes and shook her head. “What do you mean, John? That’s monstrous, robbing dead people!”

  “But nothing you haven’t done,” he said harshly. “You would have enjoyed running your fingers over the gold and silver. What has really upset you about him?”

  “Nothing went right. Nothing after I found he wasn’t in Dexter Junction. At least, he didn’t lie about being rich.”

  “That was why you wanted to marry him. And why your partner was going to kill him. You’d inherit it all as his wife.”

  “Harry put more than enough strychnine on his food to kill him that night, but he must have known. He never touched a bite.”

  Slocum had seen the pantomime Hawkins had put on for her benefit. He didn’t tell her he had seen her partner or any part of the meal. It was better to see what she willingly told him.

  “If he’d eaten it, he would have died and there wouldn’t have been a repeat of our awful wedding night. We made love, if you can call it that, in a large casket. In a burial vault! The walls were painted with grotesque figures doing the vilest things. And he wanted to do each and every one of them with me! Why couldn’t he have eaten the poison?”

  Slocum had little sympathy for her. She wiped at her tears and tried to stand. Her legs almost gave way, then she made it to a chair and sat heavily. As Miranda composed herself, Slocum looked at the key. Hawkins wasn’t giving her the key to any treasure. He wasn’t that kind of man. This would open a world of pain for her, but what lock did it fit?

  “He’s treated me like a slave since our wedding night. A sex slave! He has the most depraved appetites.”

  “You would have killed him for his money. How many times have you and your partner Harry done this?”

  Miranda sat up straighter and stared right at him, head high, as she said, “Leonard would have been the fourth. He was also the wealthiest. Most of the men lied about their money.”

  “Fancy that,” he said, not trying to keep the sarcasm from his voice.

  Slocum walked around the room, looking at cabinets. What locks were on them were small, so small the key wouldn’t even fit. He left the room and wandered through the funeral home, looking at every cabinet and drawer that had been locked. This key fit none of them. He returned to where Miranda still sat. Her hands were clasped in her lap and she looked like a contrite schoolgirl now caught cheating.

  In that instant, he almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

  She was a thief and a murderer, even if her partner had done the actual killing. If Hawkins had been on the up-and-up, she and Harry would have killed him with poison, then moved on when the estate had been settled.

  Slocum bounced the key up and down in his palm.

  “Hawkins knew you tried to kill him, didn’t he?”

  “He never said anything, but he must have. He made some comment about strangers in town and how Espero had a way of making them disappear.”

  “When was the last time you talked to your partner?”

  “Last night. Harry wanted to try again, but things became so chaotic after that rancher blew up half the townspeople, he didn’t get a good chance.”

  “Hawkins knew from the start,” Slocum said. “The food on the table shows that.”

  “The rats ate it and died. I . . . I haven’t been able to clean them up. I just couldn’t bear it.”

  “Is he your husband?”

  “I don’t know. He said the man with the Bible was a parson.”

  “Not Hawkins, Harry. Were you married to him?”

  “Of course not,” she said indignantly. “That wouldn’t have been right, me being married and then getting married to all those men.”

  Slocum tried to make sense out of that twisted sense of propriety and couldn’t. Miranda wouldn’t commit adultery, but murder and robbery were all right. He bounced the key again, then said, “I know what this opens. There’s a crypt with weird figures carved on it out in the woods.”

  “The marriage crypt,” she said, shuddering at the memory.

  “That’s plain on the outside. I found another one that’s hidden away and has a hefty lock on the door. I was going to break in, but Julian’s men came along and I had to hightail it.” He made no effort to explain what had happened to Liam Neville—or Polly.

  “Leonard hinted there were many scattered throughout the woods. I have no idea what he used them for. He assured me the . . . the marriage crypt was unsullied before our night there.”

  Slocum knew of one other, where Neville had been crucified. Hawkins had unlimited money and time to build his sepulchers. Only a thorough search of the forest would reveal them all. Slocum heaved a sigh. Not only wasn’t that worth it, but he wanted nothing more than to send the locations of all those crypts to the grave with Hawkins.

  He took her hand and led the woman from the funeral parlor. She shied away from the carnage in Julian’s camp. Slocum ignored the stench and flies as he single-mindedly plowed on to find the buried crypt with the padlocked door. Miranda let out a tiny gasp as they passed the first crypt. Slocum got his bearings and cut through the woods, finding an occasional game trail that made the going easier. He had a good sense of direction but wished he had a compass. The dense foliage often cut off his view of the sun and made staying on a direct course difficult. But when they reached the grassy spot where he had seen Julian and the others in his gang as they prepared to hunt down Polly, he homed in on the marble steps.

  “It’s overgrown with weeds,” Miranda said. “Are you sure this is where—oh.”

  Miranda put her hand to her mouth when she saw that Slocum had slipped the key into the padlock and turned. It clicked open and hung by the hasp. He pulled off the lock and tossed it aside. The door opened on well-oiled hinges. The curious odor inside made his nose wrinkle, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

  “What’s in there?”

  “Something Hawkins gave you the key for,” Slocum said.

  He fished around for his tin of lucifers and took one out. He had only a few left. Holding the match high as it flared, he saw the layout was similar to
the other crypts. On a low table beside the door stood a kerosene lamp. He worked to get the wick lighted, then held the lamp high to see the entire room.

  “Those odd figures,” Miranda said. “Those are hieroglyphics. Leonard told me the ancient Egyptians used them as a kind of writing.”

  “If this is a treasure map and he wanted you to decipher it, you’d better get started.” Slocum couldn’t make head nor tail of the strange figures but at least they weren’t doing unspeakable things to each other. He turned his attention to a stone bier in the middle of the large room. “This looks like a mummy.”

  “He told me about those, too. The Egyptians preserved their dead in some peculiar fashion so they would last forever.” Miranda moved closer, then gasped, “Harry!”

  Slocum lowered the lamp and pulled back gauzy bandages on the mummy’s face. He had never gotten a good look at Miranda’s partner, but he wasn’t going to argue with her. The man hadn’t been dead too long but had a gaunt, drawn look.

  “The containers beside the bier are canopic jars containing the brains and other internal organs.”

  Slocum whirled, only to find himself at a disadvantage because he held the lamp in his gun hand.

  “You’ll be dead before you can drop the lamp,” Julian said. He held a shotgun. “If it was up to me, you’d be dead right now.”

  “You certainly inflicted great injury on my right-hand man,” Leonard Hawkins said, taking great pleasure from springing his trap so successfully. He held a small-caliber pistol on Miranda. “My dear, your lover will be preserved for all eternity. Egyptian mummies are thousands of years old. When I seal this door, he will be consigned to the far future.”

  “Don’t, Slocum. I don’t care what he says. I’ll shoot you down if you go for that hogleg.” Julian leaned back to brace the butt of the shotgun stock against the door frame. The wounds in his left arm had to be painful. Slocum saw a couple oozed blood, but this wouldn’t prevent Julian from discharging the shotgun if the need arose.