Slocum Buried Alive

by Jake Logan

  “Why not? He thinks we’re goners. He killed Harry. I heard tell that the marshal was dead. As much as the man made my spine crawl, he had guts enough to speak up to his brother. That worthless bank president will play fetch until the day one of them dies.” Miranda took a deep breath, realized her blouse was unbuttoned, and then chastely fastened what buttons were left. “I want this to be Hawkins’s last day on earth. I don’t care what happens to his brother.”

  Slocum fetched his horse and swung up into the saddle. He drew his rifle and checked it.

  “Where’s my horse?” Miranda asked.

  “Find one and come with me or stay here.” Slocum turned his pony’s face and trotted off, heading for the cemetery.

  Miranda screamed at him, but he ignored her. She would only get in his way. He brought the horse to a gallop when he spotted the sign pointing to the boneyard. A few trees spotted the hills and most had new graves near them. Liam Neville’s slaughter had added a significant number of new residents to this city of the dead.

  Slocum pulled out his rifle when he saw a horse tethered to a tree limb. He hit the ground running and rushed up the slope, keenly aware of every sound, every movement, every smell around him. Death rose from the graves, mingled with freshly turned earth. He didn’t see the horse’s rider but did hear the sound of a shovel digging into the ground.

  When he topped the rise, he saw the outlaw leader working to throw dirt into a grave. Beside Julian grew a stack of glittering gold and silver jewelry.

  Slocum never gave Julian a chance to draw. He pulled the rifle stock into his shoulder and fired. But his usual patience and skill were pushed aside by his towering rage at the outlaw. He jerked the trigger, and the shot went high and to the left. Julian looked up, saw Slocum, and reacted instantly. He dropped the shovel and dived over the small mound of dirt beside the grave.

  “I never took you for a back-shooter, Slocum,” the outlaw called out. “Let’s do this right. Face to face. Whoever’s quickest on the draw wins.”

  “You’re nothing but a graverobber,” Slocum said, levering in another round and walking steadily toward Julian. Only when the outlaw poked his head over the top of the dirt mound and fired off a round in his direction did Slocum react.

  He dived to the right, landed on his belly, and waited.

  “I’ll split it with you, Slocum. We don’t have a quarrel, you and me.”

  “Why didn’t Hawkins steal all that jewelry before burying the corpses?” Slocum only wanted to draw out the outlaw so he could get a decent shot. The reasons why Hawkins neglected his main source of income were of no concern.

  “Hawkins gave me a map to the graves where he didn’t rob the corpses first. He was so rushed getting so many buried, he wasn’t alone with the bodies for long and that bitch of a wife wasn’t too good stripping off the jewelry. And then some of them damned families crowded in to see the dead. They wouldn’t take kindly to him removing their heirlooms. Things were kinda rushed, thanks to Neville.”

  “That’s why he needed you, to do the jobs he didn’t have time for.” Slocum squeezed down on the trigger, just short of firing a round. One of those jobs was burying him alive.

  “We don’t have to end it like this, Slocum. You’re one stone killer. I saw what you did to most of my gang, the ones that weren’t chased off. Me and you, we can be partners. We’re cut from the same cloth.”

  Slocum shifted his aim to the far end of the dirt mound as Julian popped up. This time he fired perfectly. Julian stood upright, dropped his six-shooter, gripped his chest, and stared at Slocum in surprise.

  “We coulda been hell on wheels, Slocum, you and me.” He fell forward, toppling into the open grave. The sound of him hitting the pinewood coffin lid echoed across the windswept cemetery. Then there was nothing.

  Slocum got to his feet and advanced slowly. He peered down into the grave. Julian sprawled facedown on the coffin. A red stain spread on his back. Slocum’s slug had gone clean through him. He took aim again to add one final round. Julian had died too fast and this shot was going to be nothing but pure cussedness on Slocum’s part.

  Then he froze.

  “She dies if you don’t throw down your rifle. Add your six-gun to the pile on the ground.”

  Slocum turned slowly. Leonard Hawkins had Miranda in a headlock using his left arm. In his right fist he held a small-caliber pistol. A thousand things ran through Slocum’s head. Such a tiny gun was close to worthless against him, but should Hawkins place it to the woman’s head, he could kill her in an instant.

  “You can shoot her, but I’ll gun you down.”

  “I was afraid you’d take that road,” Hawkins said. He shoved the gun into Miranda’s back and pushed her forward, using her body as a shield. “Are you willing to kill her to get to me?”

  “Yes.”

  Slocum lifted the rifle, intending to blast through Miranda since there wasn’t a good shot to Hawkins’s head. What he didn’t expect was Hawkins shoving her forward so that she stumbled. She threw out her arms for balance and one groping hand hit his rifle. The round discharged, the slug digging into the ground to one side of Hawkins.

  “Got you, Slocum,” Hawkins exulted. He raised his pistol to fire, but as Miranda had ruined Slocum’s shot, she kicked out and struck Hawkins in the knee to knock him off balance.

  The undertaker yelped and twisted to favor the injured leg. Slocum went for his six-shooter as Hawkins fired. Slocum winced as the slug ripped into his right arm. The wound didn’t amount to a hill of beans, but he couldn’t close his hand. He grabbed for his six-shooter with his left hand.

  Miranda kept Hawkins from firing a second time, kicking backward like a mule. She caught him in the belly and sent him staggering. Slocum awkwardly got out his six-shooter but found himself dealing with the woman as she crawled forward to get away from her attacker. He tried to sidestep but fell into the grave, landing atop Julian. Hawkins got off another round. Miranda joined Slocum in the grave.

  “Oh, no,” she said. She turned pale at having piled on top of a dead man in a grave.

  “Can you shoot?”

  “What? I have fired a gun before.”

  Slocum swung his left hand around and handed her his Colt. He winced as he pressed into the wound. He pulled off his bandanna and tied it around his biceps. Blood still oozed out, but he wasn’t going to bleed to death.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Pop up, if you see Hawkins, shoot at him. If you don’t, wait until I get out of the grave. Then you run like hell back to your horse, climb up, and start riding.”

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere that’s not Espero,” Slocum said.

  Miranda poked her head up, rested the six-gun on the edge of the grave, but didn’t shoot.

  “I don’t see him. He went back over the rise.”

  “Get ready,” Slocum said. He reached down and found Julian’s pistol, then nodded.

  Miranda went over the lip of the grave and hurried off. Slocum covered her but saw no trace of Hawkins. He thought he understood the man well enough to know all the bravado would have drained from him. His henchman was dead, his hostage escaped, and all he had to defend himself was a small pistol.

  Slocum gripped Julian’s gun with both hands. Some feeling came back into his gun hand but he wasn’t sure he could trust it in a serious fight.

  Slocum circled the hill and came up on the far side. He hoped Hawkins would go after the woman. Using Miranda as bait rankled, but not killing Hawkins would be worse than losing her. He had given her the chance to fight back. His Colt Navy would not fail her. Hefting Julian’s pistol, he worried this ill-kept weapon would misfire or otherwise go bust.

  Being this close to Hawkins, Slocum would use the gun to bludgeon him to death if it came to that.

  He prowled about but Hawkins had fled. When he heard a horse g
alloping away, he knew Miranda was safe. Slocum turned around and finally stopped to stare at the crest of the next hill over in the cemetery. He had been there before. It was where Liam and Marie Neville had been buried alive. Trooping up the hill, he listened in the stillness and finally heard harsh breathing coming from an open grave.

  Slocum walked past, then spun and fired double-handed as Hawkins rose from the grave. His bullet tore through the undertaker’s gun hand. He yelped as the small pistol went flying. Eyes wide with fear, Hawkins looked up at him.

  “Don’t kill me, Slocum. Please, don’t. I can give you money. More than you can spend in a lifetime. Please.”

  “Get out of the grave.”

  “Thank you, thank you.” Hawkins scrambled up, bleeding hands high so Slocum wouldn’t mistake his intent to surrender.

  “Come on,” Slocum said, motioning with Julian’s pistol.

  • • •

  He rode back to the funeral parlor but Miranda had disappeared. Slocum decided she was going to do all right on her own since she had taken his advice about hightailing it. Riding back through Espero didn’t appeal to him. He wanted nothing more than to be alone now. He turned his horse around and rode back down the road past the cemetery. He had just passed the iron arch over the entry to the graveyard when he heard hooves pounding hard behind him.

  He drew rein and waited for Miranda to catch up.

  “John, I’m glad I caught you before you rode off.” She held the reins of another horse laden with burlap bags. “I had to go to the bank and get things Hawkins had stashed there. His brother objected, but not much.” She handed him back his ebony-handled six-shooter.

  He slid it into his empty holster. It felt good being armed again.

  “I thought, me and you, we could ride together,” Miranda said. “Harry’s dead, and I know you won’t do what we did and, well, you can steer me right.”

  Slocum laughed harshly at that.

  “That’s the first time anyone accused me of being a good influence.” He looked at the heavily laden horse. “That what I think it is?”

  “Hawkins owed it to me.”

  “That’s everything he stole off the corpses?”

  “Not everything. I would have needed a wagon for all of it, but it’s what I could stash.”

  He considered her and what she carried. That much gold and silver was worth a fortune. More money than he would ever make in a lifetime.

  “Either leave it and ride with me, or keep it and go your own way. I won’t have any part of gold stolen off dead people.”

  “But, John, we’re rich. You and me. Rich!”

  He said nothing. It was her choice. Slocum snapped the reins and his horse walked off. He heard a loud crash as the burlap bags hit the ground. Miranda rode alongside him, her spare horse relieved of its load. She smiled, shook her head, and then said, “What happened to Hawkins?”

  “You’re going to have to put him behind you, too,” Slocum said.

  He looked to the top of the hill where a newly closed grave stood—the grave alongside where Liam Neville had been buried alive. Although no breeze blew, the bell attached to a cord running into the coffin tinkled furiously.

  “What’s that?” Miranda asked. “It sounded like a gunshot, only muffled, far away.”

  “Nothing to worry about,” Slocum said. He had left Julian’s gun in the coffin with Hawkins. The undertaker had made his choice.

  Slocum and Miranda picked up the pace and rode south out of Espero, heading for nowhere in particular as long as it was far, far away.

  Watch for

  SLOCUM AND THE REDHEADED DEVIL

  425th novel in the exciting SLOCUM series from Jove

  Coming in July!