by Jake Logan
“Okay, John Slocum. But I warn you—I do what I want, I take what I want, and I give what I want. I think I have made that plain.”
He nodded, touched his hat brim. “Yes, ma’am. I don’t know what we’re headed for, and I can’t promise you’ll be back this way, so I’d suggest gathering what you might regret not having with you, then we best get riding.”
She pulled in a long, deep breath, let it out, and turned back to the dark of the cabin. Slocum barely had time to mount up before she came back out, closed the door behind her, and tossed a gunny sack of supplies to him. He peeked in the floppy top, saw a slab of bacon, a sack of coffee, another of beans, a few knobs of hard tack, and what looked like a small amount of cornmeal. He nodded, cinched the top tight, and looped it over the saddle horn.
The girl mounted the chestnut mare, another sack with what he guessed were items of clothing tied bandolier style across her chest. Her grandfather’s shotgun she stuffed into the empty boot beside the saddle.
“That everything you’re taking along?”
“All I really need is in my head.” She tapped her temple in much the same fashion as her grandfather did the night before. On him the mannerism had carried with it a slight amusement; on her it bore a sober weight of import.
Slocum nodded once and clucked to the Appaloosa. He tapped his heels to the big horse’s belly and headed back to the road.
He looked back once, checked to see that she was trailing behind, and she caught his eye. Without a word, she urged her mount forward and rode abreast of him, saying nothing. They rode that way for some time, Slocum enjoying the sun on his face, and the open spaces affording him a chance to clear his mind and put some thought into just what it was he was riding into.
At the top of a long rise in the rough, wheel-gouged road, they let the horses blow and climbed down, stretching their backs and rubbing their backsides.
“From what I’ve been told, we should be there tomorrow at this time. But since we’re getting close, I don’t want to draw any more attention to us than we need to. What’s say we head over there, just to the west, pick our way through those hills. We’ll be higher up than this roadway and we can see what’s what from there.”
The girl regarded him a moment. “You sound as if you sense trouble heading our way.”
He shrugged. “When isn’t it? I’ve found that if you stay still long enough, trouble finds you eventually. Why risk it?”
The girl almost smiled, then seemed to remember who she was, nodded once, and mounted up. He followed suit and they headed up into the sparsely treed hills that grew thicker with vegetation the higher up they climbed. Less than an hour had passed before Slocum held a hand low, waist height, and motioned for her to stop.
“Riders ahead. Coming this way,” he said, not turning. “Dismount, lead ’em slow so we don’t kick up dust.” He looked to their left. “There, up behind that tumbledown. We’ll wait them out.”
When they were concealed, he slipped a brass telescope from his saddlebag and extended it.
The girl touched his sleeve. “The reflection—won’t they see it?”
“Shouldn’t, the sun’s behind us.”
He pinched one eye shut and rotated the device until the travelers came into focus. “Two men on lathered horses, riding at a steady clip. Not showing any sign they see us.”
He handed the telescope to the girl. She mimicked his eye squint and focusing motions. He watched her face, then saw by the stiffening in her neck that she’d spotted them, too.
“They have the look of the two from last night.”
“Yep,” he said, taking the telescope. “I reckon they’re from the same outfit. Probably out here on the same patrol, maybe headed this way expecting to meet up with the others.” He focused in on them again. “They don’t look like happy people, do they?”
“Sometimes you say strange things, John Slocum.”
He looked at her but she wasn’t smiling. He shook his head. What could a man say to that?
All went well until the riding men were nearly abreast of them on the roadside below. Slocum’s horse nickered and the chestnut followed suit. The riding men slowed and Slocum noted that they were savvy enough to pay attention to their mounts. And that meant that they’d probably start looking around them, cautious, as men engaged in questionable acts usually are.
The men reined up, looking from their mounts’ perked ears toward the hillside to the west. Slocum and the girl crouched low, each keeping a hand on their horse’s muzzle to quiet them. It was times like this that Slocum resented the social instincts of horses. More than once a friendly or curious whicker from the Appaloosa had landed him in hot water.
The two riders still hadn’t seen them, and though it was Slocum’s preference not to hide in the rocks but to stand and deliver, he also had the girl to think of. Despite not quite knowing what to do with her, it was quickly proving to have been a mistake to bring her along. Too late now, he told himself.
And then the men both seemed to swivel their heads right toward them. What had given them away? He’d thought they were pretty well hidden. Then he saw that he’d been watching them too intently to notice that the girl had risen up a bit and was in the process of shucking her shotgun from her saddle’s boot.
They must have seen her. He didn’t know what part of her they’d spied, but it didn’t matter. He reached out and slapped at the closest thing he could to get her attention—her backside. His eyes said it all. She dropped down low, cradling the shotgun and wincing with unspoken apology, but as she watched the men, she realized it was too late.
They were peeling apart, each picking a fast path up into the rocky, rolling slope not far below them, but sticking to cover. It was what he’d do—bookend them, but stay hidden, as they were doing. Slocum nodded as he kept low, shucked his rifle. He wanted to get a clear shot at them, but as of yet, they hadn’t proved themselves to be worthy of dying, though he knew that was just a formality. He could feel their hydrophobic-dog ways, knew they were hungry killers.
“You . . . up there in the rocks! We seen you!”
Slocum racked in a round, let the sound carry, and said, “Back out of here. Leave me be. I’m a broke-down prospector—I ain’t done a thing to you all!”
“Ha! Then you’re the prettiest prospector I ever did see, mister. I don’t know who you are, but I bet I know who she is. Come on down here, baby!”
Slocum heard the twin hammers peeling back before he turned. He knew what he’d see, and he wasn’t wrong.
There stood the girl, just behind him, a genuine smile on her face. “I said I take what I want, didn’t I?”
Slocum tried to ease himself around to face her, but she shook her head. “I don’t think so, John Slocum. That rifle stays pointed right where it is. You wait until the boys get up here.”
“They your boys?”
“Sometimes yes, sometimes no.”
“Let me guess, the boys from last night—yours, too?”
She shrugged.
“Were you broken up about them or about your grandfather?”
Her face chilled again and her eyes narrowed. “You shut up about Grandfather. That was never supposed to happen.”
“Then why all this?”
She eyed him but didn’t answer. Heavy, clumsy boot steps scraping gravel drew closer behind him.
“Welcome to the party, boys,” said Slocum. “I guess you were expecting us.”
After a few seconds, a shadow darkened just behind him. Slocum looked up to see a broad man blotting out a lot of blue sky. That would be the first one of the two he’d seen through the telescope.
The man stared down at him for a few seconds, then said, “Tita, this man . . . he do any hurtin’ to you at all?”
The girl snorted, stifling a laugh, and shook her head. “No, no, Gabe. I am still your pure-as-sn
ow angel.”
• • •
They heard the second man before they saw him. He came slowly up from the south, kicking rocks and cursing between hard-won breaths. By the time he staggered into view, Slocum saw why the man spent most of his time wheezing—he had the blue-veined face of a hardcore drinker, and though he could barely stand, he was about to light a fresh-rolled quirly from the remnants of the smoking tag end of the one between his blue lips.
“Have a nice walk?” Slocum knew he shouldn’t have said anything, but the man was a sore sight. You keep up with the wise answers, he told himself, and you’ll never get off this slope alive.
The man’s hand hovered over his holstered pistol. But the trigger was still laced down.
Gabe, the big boy, said, “Shut it, mister. We’d as soon have you alive, but it won’t make much never mind if you’re chewing dirt. Your call.”
Slocum shifted his glance to the girl, who seemed amused by the entire affair.
“Honey,” said Slocum to the girl. “You don’t really expect me to believe you’d take up with a grunter like this guy, do you? Especially not after last night.”
For two full seconds nothing happened. Then everything did. Slocum winked at the girl and rolled onto his left shoulder just as the big Gabe stomped forward, placing himself smack between Slocum and the girl.
As he rolled, Slocum slicked a Colt from its holster and peeled back the hammer. He was faster than both Gabe and the girl, who had stepped forward to get a shot around the big man.
Slocum’s first shot cored the brute’s shoulder and jerked him backward into the girl’s shotgun. She lurched away, yanking the triggers as she misstepped. Gabe took the full brunt low in the back.
Meanwhile the smoker had grabbed enough air to yell a garble of words that Slocum was sure weren’t very nice. As soon as he freed that knotted rawhide, he yanked on his pistol and Slocum’s Colt barked once, followed by the rifle. One of the shots drove just above the hat line on the man’s forehead, exposed when he’d pushed back his hat after his long walk up the hill.
His ears ringing and his right foot wedged under the flopped deadweight of Gabe, Slocum holstered his pistol and kept his rifle leveled on the girl. The shotgun was unloaded, but he wasn’t taking any chances. She was a lithe little thing; maybe she’d make a play for Gabe’s dropped piece. Slocum couldn’t see where it had ended up.
It had all happened so fast that he wasn’t sure if she understood just what occurred. And then she screamed.
This much emotion from the girl shocked Slocum, but not enough to slow him down from freeing his foot. By the time he was upright, she had stopped and looked at him with that same old anger, boiling and snapping in her eyes like far-horizon heat lightning on a still summer night.
He stepped wide around Gabe. Three triggers’ worth into him meant he was most likely dead, but he’d seen his share of dead men rise up and kill. A rifle length from the girl, Slocum reached with his pistol hand and grabbed the warm barrel ends of the shotgun, twisted it out of her grasp. She staggered backward one, two steps, then crossed her arms and stared at him. The shotgun and her shirt and skirt fronts were flecked with blood spatter, but other than that, she seemed much as she had the evening before.
“Killing isn’t easy,” he said. “Especially if it’s a friend. But you offered me no choice.”
She turned from him, made to mount up, but he shook his head. “No, no I don’t think so, little sister. You just stay right there, hands on the saddle just like that.”
He walked over to her, retrieved a length of hemp rope from his saddlebag. “I normally use this bit of rope to tie the legs of game before I hoist them up into trees for butchering. But I figure you’ll naturally want to make a break for it, try to outfox me, maybe even shoot me.” He leaned close to her ear and, in a low voice, said, “Despite what we meant to each other just last night.”
Her response came out in a low, throaty growl. How much anger could one person hold? He shook his head and gave the rope another hard tug before securing it around her wrists in front of her.
Once he satisfied himself that she was of little threat, bound and unable to mount up on the chestnut without his assistance, Slocum busied himself with rummaging through the dead men’s pockets. He took shells off the men, since they would fit his rifle, but left the rest. Least he could do, he figured. It was grim work, as death always is, and he was relieved that she hadn’t chosen that moment to become chatty. Killing sometimes did that to a person. There’d be plenty of time to press her for information while they were on the trail.
He wasn’t quite sure he knew what he was going to do with her or if he should even continue on to the ranch. Maybe he should head back to Minton, turn her over to his old acquaintance, Marshal Owens. Tell the marshal what he knew about the supposed slave operation, then head back up to the Triple T and try to find Marybeth. Dammit, but he’d been looking forward to a decent-paying ranch job without complications.
“Problems, John Slocum?”
“Yeah, you could say that. And you appear to be the biggest of them all.”
She smiled and shook her head. “You know you are making a big mistake.”
“Oh?” He let the wheezing man’s corpse drop beside his fat friend, Gabe, then straightened and rubbed his back. “How’s that?”
“Yes, you see, I was playing those men like a violin. They were supposed to get me information, lead me to the bastard at the heart of the slavery, the man behind it all.”
“And that would be?”
“Colonel Mulletson, of course.”
“So, you have been there at least once before, right? Don’t suppose you’d care to tell me about the place? What I might expect when I get there?”
He stood beside her, held his fingers laced together for her to step into. She swung her leg up and surprised him by not trying to kick him in the chin as she settled into the saddle. She wore the split skirt preferred by most women serious about riding.
“What about them? And their horses?”
“We’ll leave the bodies here, no time for buryin’. And we’ll check the horses on our way downslope, see what their saddlebags have to offer.”
But it turned out that the men’s bags held nothing of value and what foodstuffs were there—flour, coffee—were scant and not worth their time. Slocum fashioned a lead line for each of the men’s horses and trailed them behind their own mounts.
“What will you tell them at the ranch?”
“About what?” said Slocum.
She sighed. Good, he thought. Means she’s growing as tired of this ruse as I am.
“You will show up with the horses of two dead men, with me tied up like a . . . a pig! And no bodies of the dead men. What will you tell them?”
“I’m sure something will come to me. Right now, we need to make tracks.” He had a feeling if he held his peace, then the girl would get antsy and tell him what she should have told him the day before.
She held out longer than he would have guessed, but then again, nothing about this girl shocked him anymore. It was nearly two hours later that her voice, cracking from lack of water, breached the silence of travel across long, dry passages.
“Slocum, I need to get down for a minute and I need water.”
“Maybe later. Right now we have too much ground to cover.”
Another few minutes passed, then she said, “Look, I am not who you think I am. I am . . . more like the girl you saw before, last night, all right?”
He turned in the saddle and regarded her. “That doesn’t help one bit. You are who you are? What am I supposed to do with that?”
“I am telling you, if we just ride into the ranch like we are now . . .”
“What will happen?”
“I don’t really know.”
They both fell silent again for a minute, each watching
far-off clouds scud low across the horizon.
“I only went there because my grandfather was so worried about Miss Meecher. She meant everything to him, and when she didn’t come back, he was very upset.”
“I can understand. Miss Meecher had that effect on other folks.”
“You, too?”
He didn’t answer, but urged his horse forward.
“You’re a tough man, aren’t you, John Slocum?”
Again, he said nothing for a while. “What did you find out at the ranch?”
“That Miss Meecher is there. Or at least she was.”
He stopped and turned again. “How long ago was that?”
“More than a month ago.”
“Did you tell your grandfather?”
She shook her head. “Not until last night. I didn’t want to. I was afraid he might be angry with me.”
“Beat you?”
Her eyes widened. “No! Never. He was a good man. More like my father than any father I ever had. My mama, she ran away a long time ago.” Tears glistened in her eyes, but she kept on. “Miss Meecher said to tell him she was okay and that she was just helping a friend, that she would be home soon and not to worry about her.”
“What did she really say?”
“She told me to go, to get help, get the law. I told her I would. It was around back by the kitchens, she was cooking there. But . . .”
“Tita, what happened then? I have to know.”
“We were heard by a man.”
“One of the men from last night or today?”
“Yes, the one from today. Big Gabe, he called himself. He said if I did go to the law as I had promised Miss Meecher I would do, he would kill her first, then he would go to our house and kill Grandfather. Somehow he knew we were there. Grandfather had tried to keep me hidden, dressed me like a boy for a long time, but Miss Meecher finally told him to let me be a young woman. I was so glad when she said that. But look at what trouble being a woman brings. It is no fun, you know. No good at all.”
