Slocum and the Snake-Pit Slavers

by Jake Logan

  Time for me to oblige him, thought Slocum. He dove forward, rolled onto his right shoulder through the light slanting into the middle of the room from the doorway, and came to a halt on the far side of the row of wooden chairs. The gun had to be under the table somewhere. He lifted a chair, eased it out of the way, and groped in the dark for the pistol. Splitting his thoughts between grabbing hold of a snake and grabbing hold of the pistol, Slocum finally felt the reassuring touch of cold steel beneath his grasping fingers.

  “Slocum! You gone crazy in there? We only wanted to talk.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean by that. Your method of talk involves buttoning up my eyes with a few punches and kicks. You and your boys best get one thing straight—I didn’t force those fools to attack me. They thought of that shiny plan all on their own.”

  “That don’t matter. I’m top dog of this outfit and you would do well to keep that in mind.”

  “Colonel Mulletson will find that of interest, I’m sure.”

  “That’s how it’s going to be, then, huh?”

  “I reckon so. You set it up, don’t forget that. I’m the new boy.”

  Slocum heard a sigh, then a hammer being eased off. Finally, Everett stepped into the doorway, skylined within it. With the light leaking in around him, the tall man looked larger than life.

  “Okay then.” The man made a point of shoving his pistol into his holster in full view of Slocum, who he still couldn’t see in the room. “Enough of this. Help me prop Clew up, see how bad you hurt him.”

  Slocum slid out from behind the table, stood with the pistol in his hand. “You’ll forgive me for not setting this down just yet. I haven’t exactly received a rosy welcome from you all.”

  Everett sighed again and strode into the room, his hands hovering chest level. “Now hold on, just take ’er easy. You knew half of what goes on here, you’d understand why we’re all fired up to make sure you’re who you say you are. You got to see things from our point of view.” He bent to Clew, slapped the man’s face roughly a couple of times. “Wake up, Clew! Wake up!”

  A thin wheeze drizzled out of the prone man’s broken mouth, then his eyes fluttered open. He pulled in a deep breath through his nose and pushed himself up. His head wobbled and Everett helped steady him. The injured man looked up and focused his crazy eyes on Slocum, standing above him smiling with the man’s own pistol in his hand.

  “Whaa . . . ? What are you . . . ? You!” But his words came out thick and wet, as if he were talking through wet flannel.

  “Yes, Clew, it’s still me. Now, Everett, what were you saying about your point of view? That is, before we were so rudely interrupted.”

  “No call to goad him, Slocum. You done kicked his teeth in, ain’t that enough?”

  Clew shrugged Everett’s helping hands away and struggled to his knees. Then his hands went to his mouth and he let out a gagging cry at what he found there, as if his hand had slipped into a pot of scalding water and the pain were only now beginning to pulse at full throb.

  “You thon of a bitch! You buth-ted my teeth!”

  Slocum eased off the hammer and flipped the pistol up in the air. He caught it by the barrel. “And you were just going to give me a stern talking to, is that it?” He pulled back with the gun. “How’d you like me to relocate that pretty nose, give you a matched set?”

  “Easy, Slocum! Dammit, man. You are either certified loco or you’re setting yourself up to seem like someone we shouldn’t offend.”

  “That’s up to you to decide. Now, all I came here for was a job, and all I got since I started on this trip was attacked by a girl and bushwhacked by thugs—who, it turns out, work here. Just why had they strayed so far from the ranch anyway? No, never mind, tell me later. And then, when I get here, you and your cronies treat me like—”

  “Like what, you athhole?” Clew shouted on his way wobbling to the table. “Like the man who gunned down our two friendth?”

  Slocum flopped open the pistol’s cylinder, thumbed out the shells, and let them drop to the floor. Then he tossed the pistol onto the table and said to Everett, “You fellas still want to talk, I’m partial to a cup of hot coffee while I palaver. I have a while before I’ll be summoned to supper up to the big house. I’ll be back presently. I’m going to go check on my horse, clean up. Keep Smiley here on a short leash or I won’t be responsible for his actions—or my reactions.”

  Slocum walked outside, stepped away from the direct line of fire out the door, just in case Everett decided to have a change of heart. Though the man seemed the type to reason out his thinking, the next few seconds would tell. Slocum snatched up his gun belt and strapped it on, facing the empty doorway. But nobody followed him out, and more important, no bullets did. He grabbed his hat on the way by and banged the dust off it.

  Then Slocum strode to the barn that looked most likely to house horses. He kept a hand on the butt of a Colt, and under his low-tugged hat brim, he surveyed the buildings. It didn’t appear as if there were all that many folks about. Where would they all be on such an afternoon? At the gold mine Tita and her grandfather swore existed?

  First things first, Slocum, he told himself. Let’s get the saddlebags, fresh duds, and a spiffing, then talk with the gents back at the bunkhouse. Then hit the big house for a feed and get some more questions answered.

  As he reached for the leather strap handle of what he took to be the tack room door, a horse’s whinny sounded out, though muffled, as if it were stifled somehow.

  He couldn’t tell you why, but it triggered deep-seated reflexes that made Slocum pull and thumb back the hammer on his Colt. There—a scuffling inside, sounds of a nervous horse stomping, nickering, and again, sounds of struggle.

  He didn’t need to hear more than those two seconds’ worth of sounds. Slocum whipped open the door and leveled off, standing askance and peering into the darkened gloom of the stable. Great, he thought, another dim building. He pulled in a deep draught of air through his nose and stepped, light-footed, over the threshold. Far in the back of the barn, he heard more struggling, a horse nervously whickering. The Appaloosa, for certain. No other horse he’d heard lately sounded so throaty when agitated. What was going on?

  Stick to the shadows, he told himself, and skirt the main room. The sounds intensified from what appeared to be a stall in a back corner. The closer Slocum drew, the more the sounds ticked him off. Was that damn Harley kid hurting his horse?

  Whoever it was, and he bet money that it was the annoying, cud-chewing Harley, he didn’t think the kid had heard him yet. Slocum cat-footed around the edge of the open center of the stable until he got to the half-dark stall where the sounds were coming from. It was definitely the Appaloosa—he’d know those angry churning sounds anywhere. But they still sounded muffled somehow.

  Again he leveled off, stood just outside the door frame, pistol aimed, and saw Harley looking intently into the feed trough. Poking up just above it, he spied the edge of his saddlebags. The boy was rummaging through his things.

  “See you didn’t bother to wait for me, Harley.”

  The young man spun, guilt and surprise on his pudgy face. His hands were still both in the trough.

  “Raise them up high, boy. Slow or I’ll make damn sure you won’t have anything to raise ever again.”

  When the boy had done so, Slocum cut his eyes past Harley to the shadows, and saw his horse had been snubbed tight to a ring in the wall, rough rope passed around his muzzle three or four wraps’ worth. The horse was breathing hard and weals from fresh lashings had been raised on his neck and shoulder. Slocum’s saddle lay in a heap in the corner of the stall.

  “Well now, looks to me like you’ve been giving my horse a royal welcome, eh?”

  “It ain’t like that. We just needed to know you ain’t someone who . . .”

  “Someone who what, Harley?” Slocum flashed the boy a kindly
uncle-like smile.

  “Nothin’.”

  Slocum advanced on him, and the boy stumbled backward into the horse, which lashed out with a hobbled rear foot. Its stunted blow did little more than graze the boy’s chunky leg.

  “Are you saying that you didn’t lash my horse there? That you didn’t tie his mouth like that?”

  “I . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about. He come in here just the way he was given to me.”

  “First of all, he was not given to you. But that’s neither here nor there. Now, about my gear.”

  “I—I was just trying to fit it all back in there. I took it off the horse and set it in there, but it all spilled out. I was just tryin—”

  “Yes, so you said. I’ll tell you what, you strip down to your longhandles and toss your gear in a pile there on the floor.”

  “What? I ain’t—”

  Slocum cocked back the Colt all the way. “You will and Mr. Colt here says so.”

  When he’d finished, Slocum located a length of unused rope, presumably the piece that the boy had used to whip the Appaloosa. Slocum strapped Harley’s arms tight behind him, and when Harley started to protest and yell, he tapped the boy hard on the temple with the barrel of the pistol. That shut him up for a few seconds. Slocum lashed the lad’s socked feet together for good measure.

  “Boy, anyone ever tell you about bathing? Maybe darning your socks? You are a pitiful rig.” He snatched up the boy’s bandanna from the stack of clothes and tied it tight around the boy’s mouth. “Keep your head still or I’ll really rap you on the bean, you hear me?”

  Once he’d bound the kid, Slocum said, “Now comes the fun part.” First, he gathered up his spilled possessions from the bottom of the trough, stuffed them in the saddlebags, and set them and his saddle, rifle, and boot outside the stall. Then he cut the ropes from the Appaloosa’s muzzle and calmed the horse. Every few seconds he glanced at Harley and raised his eyebrows. The kid had begun whimpering around the bandanna gagging his mouth, and snot and tobacco juice spooled from the sides of his mouth.

  “Now,” said Slocum, once he’d massaged the horse and rubbed him down with a handful of hay. “My horse looks to have been ill treated in this, your establishment. I don’t like to see that happen to any animal, most of all to my own horse. And I am damn sure that the horse is none too pleased with the strapping he received.” Slocum slipped free the last rope tethering the Appaloosa to the ring in the wall. Then he cut the rope binding the kid’s feet, and headed for the stall door.

  The kid bellowed his fear and rage into the tightly wrapped bandanna, his face purpling, his nose running, and the veins on his neck and forehead bulging. As soon as Slocum slammed shut the stall door and jammed a handy length of planking into the wooden lift latch to keep it shut from the outside, the kid ran to the door, kicking and ramming into the high wooden enclosure.

  Slocum hefted his gear, touched his hat brim to the staring, screaming boy, and headed for the front of the barn. Behind him, he heard the Appaloosa’s throaty whinnies, felt the thud of his hooves as he gave the youth what for.

  Slocum didn’t think the kid would be killed, just roughed up a bit. He hadn’t tied the kid’s wrists too tight behind him, but it would take him a few frantic minutes before he’d free himself. Meanwhile, the Appaloosa was sure to chase him around the stall, take his pound of flesh for Harley’s unwarranted mistreatment.

  Slocum hefted his saddle up onto a rack. As he strolled back to the bunkhouse with his rifle and saddlebags, Slocum couldn’t help whistling. The day hadn’t worked out at all as he’d thought it might—much worse, in fact—but somehow he was in a good mood. He’d take it for now. Something told him it might be the last time he’d feel this way for a while.

  9

  Much to his surprise, when Slocum reentered the bunkhouse, he was greeted by the heavenly scent of fresh coffee and two seated cowboys.

  “Everett, Clew.” He nodded to them and noted that only one of them seemed relaxed and enjoying his coffee. Clew looked better than he had, but still seemed as if he wanted to launch himself across the table and kill Slocum. As a precaution, Slocum kept the thong free of his Colt’s hammer. It wouldn’t do to be ambushed again. He found a clean tin cup and poured himself some of the thick, aromatic liquid. But he stayed standing by the stove, his back to a wall, his eyes focused on the two seated men.

  “So,” he said, sipping the hot coffee. “Seems to me there’s more and less to this outfit than meets the eye. I just bumped into Harley at the stable. He’s fine by the way. He’ll be along shortly. Tied up with work, dealing with an unruly horse.”

  Slocum bent his head forward and spoke in a lowered tone, “He was saying how the whole cattle operation here has seen better days, claims there’s something bigger and better than cattle—his words, not mine. You’d never hear me utter such blasphemy. After all, we are on one of the West’s biggest and most famous ranches, am I right, boys?”

  “Thut up, Thlocum. You’ll get yours, you wait and thee.”

  Slocum set down his cup and moved closer to the table. “I’m sorry, were you trying to speak, Clew? I didn’t quite understand what you were saying. Sounded sort of thick and unclear.”

  “That’s enough, Slocum.” Everett set his cup down and placed both hands palm down on the tabletop. “You got any questions for us, I wish you’d up and ask ’em. I’m a direct sort of man.”

  “Fine.” He eyed Everett, who seemed to be daring him to ask the obvious—was the ranch a front for a gold mine? And more important, were they using slave labor to get the ore out of the ground? But something told Slocum not to ask those questions just yet. If he did, then the girl could be in trouble and as well as Marybeth Meecher. Not to mention the lives of however many people the man had abducted and forced into slavery. If he blew his chances now, he might never get the opportunity to find out about them all. And right now, he was their only hope—a thin one, to be sure, but at least it was there.

  “I guess what I want to know is,” he said, sipping his coffee again. “Because I’m a cowman. Have been for a long, long time, always will be, I expect.” He smiled at the two seated men. “Where in the hell are all the cattle? And why is everyone around here so dang hostile toward me? All I want to do is wrangle beeves on the land of this legendary ranch. Been waiting a long time to see this place, and now I see what my old far-ranging friend Rufus meant when he said that it was a land of golden opportunity, rich with potential.”

  He let his last couple of phrases sink in, watched the faces of the two men over the rim of his cup. If they’d absorbed his mild double meanings, they didn’t let on.

  Finally Everett spoke up: “Oh, we got cattle. As I said earlier, they been moved to higher ground, some other pastures and fields and whatnot. We was just about to bring some to these here fields you seen when you rode up. I expect we’ll tend to that tomorrow.”

  Fields? Whatnot? He had figured that Everett, if not a full-bore cattleman, at least was someone who’d been around beeves enough to know the lingo. But he’d talked as if he spent his life running a trapline or playing poker. Either option was probably closer to the truth than him being a wrangler.

  Slocum thought he’d give it one more try, and launched into a flurry of questions: “Anyone here know how big a herd you’re running? Where’s it located? How big is the range? What pastures are they in now?” But question after question passed, unknown and unrecognized, on their ignorant faces. He received no satisfactory responses, and that made him more certain than ever.

  Finally, Everett drained his coffee cup, and said, “Slocum, a piece of free advice: Just go with the flow of things around here. Don’t spoil a good thing for everyone. It will all be revealed in due course.”

  Slocum didn’t really know what to say. They weren’t inclined to tell him anything. A brief silence hung in the air of the dim little room where not long b
efore he’d been sure he was going to be gutted or at least worked over pretty hard.

  “Well, boys, as edifying as this has been, and believe me it’s been most eye-opening—and I don’t just mean the coffee—I expect it’s about time for me to hit the wash basin and spiff up myself for a feed up to the big house. Are you all invited?”

  Clew shifted his bloodshot eyes from staring at the tabletop to Slocum’s face. “No, no,” came his muddy voice, the sarcasm still evident even through his garbled speech and puffy lips. “You go on ahead and enjoy yourthelf. We’ll be here when you get back. Don’t worry.”

  “But don’t stay out too late,” said Everett, settling his chair back down on four legs from leaning back against the wall. “We got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

  Both men looked at each other and smiled.

  Slocum shook his head in amazement at the pair of them, but decided to let sleeping dogs lie. “Okay then. I’ll clean up and head out. I’ll bring you back some spuds and gravy.”

  • • •

  They were silent as they watched him leave. “I hate him,” said Clew when Slocum had left the room. “Tho bad I want to kill him with my bare handth.”

  “And I bet the colonel will let you do just that before this thing is over, but right now we need all the fresh workers we can get to fill that quota. I have a feeling something’s going to change soon. The colonel’s been acting odd. Always does when something’s about to happen. Something to do with money.” Everett looked around at the room, the doorway behind him, then leaned in close to Clew and lowered his voice. “And if we don’t keep everything rolling, you know we’ll take the blame.”

  Clew nodded, wincing at the throbbing pain leaching upward throughout his face. “I ain’t about to let that happen.”