Slocum and the Town Killers

by Jake Logan

  Langmuir did not even offer them the chance to surrender. He aimed his pistol and fired. The man holding the woman’s legs apart let out a tiny sound and then collapsed forward onto her. Before the second man realized anything was wrong, Langmuir shot him in the head.

  “You horrible man, you—” The woman suddenly discovered that the outlaw atop her was deadweight. Really deadweight. She shoved him off and sat up, looking around wildly.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Langmuir said. “The shots will bring the other outlaws running.”

  “You—you’re the cavalry officer! The one I sent the note to back in Charity warning of the Cimarron Junction massacre.”

  “You did? The note wasn’t signed.” Langmuir looked at the woman suspiciously, but she had no reason to gull him. He watched as she got to her feet and stumbled a step or two before getting her balance. She tried to smooth her skirt, but it had been torn in too many places. The blond woman looked up at him.

  “I did. The perfume on the letter was mine. Rose.”

  “You sent it. Why didn’t you sign it? I thought it was one of the other women who had come to me. I found their story to be less than credible, but—”

  “We have to get out of here,” she said. “My name’s Catherine Duggan. Please, Captain, let me ride with you. If I can’t, then . . . then I’ll ride that way.” Catherine pointed westward. “That way they won’t catch both of us. Not easily.”

  “How’d they catch you?”

  “I was on my way to Charity. I think Sarah Beth Magee is heading there. At least, it makes sense that she would. Her and her ma.”

  “The ones I didn’t believe,” Langmuir said, feeling as if he had stepped off a cliff. Nothing he had done was right. He could have stolen a march on Magee if he had believed the two women when they told him their story. It had taken the note, apparently sent by Catherine Duggan, to get him into the field. Too late. Everything he did was too little and too late and—

  “Is that the direction you intended to ride?” she asked. “I can go in another. Just tell me.”

  “Here,” the captain said, reaching down for her. “We’ll find these two owlhoots’ horses. You can use one of them, unless yours is nearby.”

  “It ran off. Tracking it would take too long. Where are their horses?” Even as Catherine asked, a loud whinny came from a copse not a dozen yards away.

  Langmuir took Catherine’s hand and pulled her up behind him. He appreciated the feel of her arms circling his waist, but there was no time to enjoy her nearness. The rose scent of her perfume matched perfectly that from the warning letter. Putting his heels to his horse brought them to the stand of trees and the outlaws’ mounts. He made a quick decision and grabbed the reins of a mare.

  “Take this one. And it’ll be safer if you ride with me. I’m heading back to my squad.”

  “Squad? That’s all?” Catherine quickly vaulted onto the other horse and spent a few seconds coaxing it into allowing her to stay astride.

  “Magee has wiped out both my fort and most of my men. I was reconnoitering his position.”

  “He’s in Charity?”

  “Outside the town, waiting. Is it the two women he’s waiting for?”

  “I must have been right that they’d head there, thinking he had already razed the town and would never return.” She laughed harshly. “I’m getting to think just like them—and him.”

  “What’s your part in all this? You’re not one of them he’s looking for?”

  “Hardly,” said Catherine. “I need to talk to Sarah Beth but—”

  She clamped her mouth shut when loud cries rose from the spot where the two outlaws had tried to rape her.

  “They’ve found the bodies,” Langmuir said. “I was afraid the gunshots would bring them running. And they did.”

  Langmuir looked around and found an opening in the woods. He rode straight for it, Catherine keeping pace.

  “Where are we going? Do you know where your men are camped?”

  “This leads away from Magee’s men. I’ll have to get my bearings after we get far enough away from them to take a breather.”

  The words hardly left Langmuir’s lips when gunfire erupted all around. His horse stumbled, but did not go down. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Catherine Duggan had not been so lucky. A bullet had caught her horse just above the shoulder. The horse had run another few strides and then collapsed under her. She struggled to get out from under the weight of the horse pinning her leg to the ground.

  Cursing, Langmuir pulled hard on the reins and got his horse turned to go back to the trapped woman.

  “No, no, get away. Save yourself. There’re too many of them!” Catherine waved at him, then twisted about to look back into the woods where half a dozen riders, all waving their six-shooters, galloped forth.

  Langmuir knew he had no chance against so many outlaws. He had only a couple rounds left in his pistol. And no more ammo at all in his saddlebags.

  “Get away. Come back for me when you can,” Catherine pleaded. “Don’t get killed or there’ll be no one to rescue me!”

  Langmuir knew she spoke the truth, but it tore at his very soul to turn tail and run, leaving her to those murderers and rapists.

  But that was what he did. It was all he could do. Tears ran down his cheeks as he galloped away into the night, Catherine’s cries finally fading when he topped a rise and went down the far side of the hill.

  19

  “Don’t make me waste a round killing you,” Slocum said to his prisoner. The man grumbled, but kept moving through the dark. Slocum wondered if he ought to have taken the time to find the man’s horse so they could make better time, then decided he had done the right thing.

  Sarah Beth and Louisa Magee had driven away with the marshal, of that he was sure. Not finding any sign of a struggle told him they had not been kidnapped or taken away at gunpoint. Slocum doubted he had been absent from camp long enough for any of Magee’s men to sneak in and capture them. If Magee had others in the area, they would have come to the rescue of the spy Slocum had taken prisoner.

  “I can’t see where I’m puttin’ my feet,” the man complained.

  “Slow down and I’ll shoot you,” Slocum said without rancor. He walked a few paces behind the man to give himself a better view of the ground and the twin ruts left by the wagon wheels. The direction confused him. They had been on their way to Charity so Vannover could die at peace with the world in his own bed, but the tracks angled away from the town.

  “Which way?” asked his prisoner.

  Slocum saw they had come to a road. In the dark, either direction could have been taken by the wagon. He knelt and studied where Louisa had driven the wagon onto the road. From the angle and depth of the ruts off the road, Slocum figured the wagon had gone southward.

  “Which way?” asked his prisoner.

  Slocum saw they had come to a road. In the dark, either direction could have been taken by the wagon. He knelt and studied where Louisa had driven the wagon onto the road. From the angle and depth of the ruts off the road, Slocum figured the wagon had gone southward.

  “What’s in that direction?” Slocum asked, pointing south. All he got was a shrug. If the scout had given him any kind of answer, Slocum would have worked to decide how truthful it was. The shrug took some of the worry out of following the women.

  He swung into the saddle and pulled his lariat free from the saddle. He spun a loop around his head a couple times and dropped it neatly around the outlaw’s shoulders. A quick tug cinched it tight.

  “What are you doin’? I ain’t no cow!”

  “You’ll be buzzard bait if you try to get away,” Slocum said. “Start walking. That way.” He tugged on the rope to get the outlaw stumbling in the right direction. His paint had been trained as a cow pony and knew how to keep the rope just taut enough. If his prisoner slowed, the horse did, too. If the prisoner tried to veer one way or the other, the horse corrected, pulling harder and harder on
the rope to keep the man on the road where Slocum wanted him. The only maneuver Slocum had to watch for, for which the horse could do little, was the man turning and running for him. This would loosen the rope enough to let the man get free and attack.

  But armed only with his bare hands, he was no match for Slocum’s six-gun.

  “How long we got to follow this damned road?”

  “Until we get to the end,” Slocum said. He snapped the rope and got the man walking faster. Within ten minutes, he was glad he had urged a quicker pace because they came to a long stretch of road across a grassy valley. A quarter mile ahead Slocum spotted the wagon. It was too dark to see the driver, but he thought he made out one person in the driver’s box and another in the wagon bed. That was as it should be.

  If there had been any other silhouetted passengers in the wagon, Slocum would have had a fight on his hands.

  “Those are the women you were spying on.”

  “The ones Magee wants,” the scout said. “I woulda been rich. He’d have paid through the nose for them.”

  “Your nose is big enough. Keep going. Faster.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Then I’ll have to drag you.” Slocum came up alongside and trotted a yard or two ahead, keeping the tension on the rope. The outlaw saw that Slocum meant what he said, and began to run along doggedly. His spurs jangled with every step and his breath gasped in and out like a tuberculosis victim’s. Slocum wanted only to reach the Magee women and see if Vannover was still alive. What condition the outlaw was in when they overtook the wagon didn’t matter a whole lot to Slocum.

  Louisa must have seen him behind, because she tried to whip her horse to great speed. The horse was as exhausted as the people riding in the wagon. Slocum came up within hailing distance in less than five minutes.

  “Hold up, Louisa, it’s me, Slocum.”

  “Who’s that with you?”

  “The spy. I caught him. Stop the wagon!”

  “There’s no danger?”

  “Stop the damned wagon.”

  She reluctantly pulled back on the reins. The horse let out a grateful whinny and stopped dead in its tracks. Slocum came alongside the wagon and looked hard at her.

  “Did you see something?” he asked.

  “I didn’t want to get caught. You can handle yourself so well. We . . . we can’t.”

  “You’ve done a mighty fine job up until now,” Slocum said. He glanced into the rear of the wagon where Sarah Beth knelt beside the marshal. The man looked pale, but otherwise seemed to be doing as well as could be expected. Vannover rolled from side to side, moaning, but he sounded more like a man having a nightmare than someone awake and in pain.

  “He’s sleeping,” Sarah Beth said.

  “Pull the wagon over there, off the road,” Slocum said. There was a depression a couple dozen yards away that would let them get out of sight. Sooner or later, an observant rider along the road would spot them, but maybe not in the dark. By daybreak, he intended to be rolling again, headed for Charity.

  “How come you didn’t take the road to Charity?” he asked after Louisa had tied the reins around the wagon brake and climbed down.

  “I got a feeling,” she said. She looked over at her daughter, then chewed on her lower lip in anguish. “It’s not easy to put into words.”

  “You think Magee is waiting for you there?” Slocum asked.

  “He could be. The man’s able to read minds. He must know we’re going there.”

  “So you think you can read his mind? He sent out scouts to look for you. This one found you. That means Magee doesn’t know where you are and is still looking.”

  “He’s like a spider in the middle of a web. A strand trembles, and he reacts.” Louisa shuddered and put her arms around herself as if she were freezing to death.

  “We’ve got to go somewhere,” Slocum said, then looked hard at his prisoner. The man had his head tilted to one side to hear better. Slocum didn’t say another word and went to the man, looping more of the rope around his arms and then cinching it down hard. He tied a few quick knots and shoved the man to the ground.

  “What are you doin’? You can’t do this. What if the team spooks?” The outlaw struggled to get free as Slocum lashed him to the rear wagon wheel.

  “Reckon you’d spend a while going round and round until an arm or head came off,” Slocum said. He looked into the wagon bed and saw that Sarah Beth still tended to the marshal. “You watch this varmint,” he told her. “I’m going to gather something for dinner. Don’t think it would be too smart to shoot anything, not with your pa’s scouts all around.”

  “Will he stay quiet or should you gag him?” Sarah Beth asked, looking over the edge of the wagon at the captive.

  “He’ll stay quiet, won’t you?” Slocum nudged the man with the toe of his boot. “If you let out so much as a peep, I might just slit your throat.”

  Sarah Beth gasped and then sat back, staring at Slocum as if she didn’t believe him. Then she saw that he meant it, and hastily turned back to putting a damp compress on the marshal’s forehead.

  Slocum backed away and went to see what he could find in the nearby grove that might do them for dinner. A few roots would boil down with greens. It wouldn’t be as good as a rabbit or deer, but it also did not require him to shoot and maybe draw unwanted attention.

  He was poking about at the base of a tree when he heard soft movement in the grass behind him. His hand went to the butt of his six-gun, and then he relaxed.

  “Not too smart sneaking up on me like that, Louisa.”

  “Sorry, John. I didn’t want to startle you. It was worse trying to come up without making a sound, wasn’t it?” She came around and settled down, back to the tree, so she could look at him. “You think I’m crazy running from Clayton like this, but I’m not.”

  “I see what he’s doing to catch you. I know which of you is crazy. You want to be left alone and he’s killing people by the hundreds, then burning down the towns where they lived.”

  “It’s not all his fault,” she said. “He’s thrown in with some desperate men.”

  “Like Albert Kimbrell?” Slocum saw the woman shiver again.

  “He’s one of the bloodthirsty murderers Clayton hired,” she admitted. “Kimbrell enjoys killing. All Clayton wants is for Sarah Beth and me to return home. I’d rather die before that. I’d kill my own daughter before I’d let that happen!”

  “It was hard living with Magee?”

  “Impossible. He treated Sarah Beth and me like slaves. He told us who we could see, where we could go—which was seldom anywhere—and even what to think. When he started beating me, I knew I had to leave. And Sarah Beth had to come with me or he would begin treating her as he did me.” Louisa tried to keep from crying. She suddenly turned and grabbed Slocum, hugging him close.

  He held her until the quaking stopped. She laid her head against his shoulder. When she said something he did not understand, he asked her to repeat it. Louisa pulled away, her face only inches from his.

  “You’re so strong, John. I need your strength now.”

  He kissed her. It wasn’t right. She was a married woman, even if she was married to a man capable of any crime. Her lips quivered as they pressed into his; then passion built and they clung to one another hard.

  Her hands gripped hard at his back, fingers curling about to scratch at him. Slocum didn’t mind. If anything, it made him more inclined to keep kissing her—and to do more.

  The thought made him break off the kiss.

  “This isn’t right. We—”

  “It’s right, John. I want it. I need what you offer me. Don’t lie and say you don’t want me, too.”

  He kissed her again, and this decided the matter. Her fingers moved over his back and came around between them. She greedily kept kissing as she unbuckled his gun belt. It fell away, but her fingers kept working to get his jeans unbuttoned. One by one, the buttons popped free. And then her fingers circled the thick, hard, sha
ft that protruded up from his groin. He gasped as she squeezed down on him.

  “It’s been so long, John,” she said softly. “I want you to do it. Please.”

  “There’s no need to beg me,” he said. His own fingers had been working down the front of her blouse, unfastening the buttons one by one until he was able to push it back off her shoulders. Her frilly slip showed how aroused she was by the twin points pressing hard and hot into the fabric. Slocum caught one cloth-sheathed nipple and squeezed down on it. He was rewarded with a corresponding squeeze around his manhood. He used both hands on her breasts, massaging and pressing, crushing and pulling, until the woman cried out.

  “Now, John, please. I want you so!”

  “No need to rush things,” he said, but she was urgently tugging at him, pulling him toward her. He wanted to take his time. She wanted the opposite.

  He slipped his hands down her chest, across her belly, and lifted her skirt. He felt the heat of her flesh beneath. His hands worked around until he cupped the half-moons of her behind and began kneading them like lumps of dough. No bread dough ever produced such a response.

  “Oh, yes, John, yes,” she said, swarming up and straddling his waist. Slocum was pressed back against the tree as Louisa faced him. She hungrily kissed him as she positioned herself over his groin. Slocum groaned as she lowered her hips and his steely length sank into her heated core.

  For a moment, he thought he was going to lose control like a young buck with his first woman. Louisa knew all the tricks that aroused him most. She tensed and relaxed her strong inner muscles. He felt her heat soaking into him and the thick juices leaking from her down around his shaft and tickling his balls.

  Then she began rising and falling, slowly at first and then faster and faster, until he closed his eyes and simply reveled in the sensations rippling through him.

  She kissed him again, then worked down his neck and tried to kiss his chest. In this position, she was unable to keep her hips flying up and down. As the heat from the carnal friction died, she straightened.

  This allowed Slocum to reach out and cup her breasts, giving them more of the tweaking and twisting he had given before.