by Jake Logan
He mounted and kept out of sight of the three soldiers, now closing in on the remaining two outlaws. When he brought down Albert Kimbrell, he would have to return and search the outlaws. Nickson’s ring couldn’t be lost, not after all he had been through. But if it was, Slocum was determined to take as much satisfaction from running Kimbrell to ground as possible.
He knew the three soldiers were more than capable of capturing or killing the remaining two outlaws. This knowledge gave him added speed going after Kimbrell. His horse had been walking all day. There was no telling what condition Kimbrell’s was in. After five minutes of hard pursuit, Slocum saw that the outlaw was flagging. As he rode, Slocum touched the ebony handle of his Colt Navy. It was going to be used soon because he wanted to get close enough to see Kimbrell’s face when he shot him down.
Catherine Duggan might have been as crazy as Magee, but she had not deserved what Kimbrell and his henchmen did to her.
Slocum narrowed the gap between them slowly, inexorably. Kimbrell knew he had a pursuer and began firing wildly behind him. Slocum wove from side to side, forcing Kimbrell to fire left-handed at times and at other times to turn almost entirely around in the saddle. With so many six-shooters stuffed in holsters and his belt, it took almost a mile and a half of chase before the outlaw ran out of ammo.
Only when he was sure Kimbrell was in sore need for a loaded six-gun did Slocum close the gap between them. By now, Kimbrell’s horse had faltered. Every move he made to attempt to veer away failed, and Slocum finally rode not ten feet away. Reaching down, Slocum got his lariat. He had worked cattle for years and knew how sneaky a calf at branding could be. He spun the rope over his head, getting the loop wider and wider. When he tossed, yanked, and dragged Kimbrell off his horse, it was almost too easy.
The outlaw hit the ground hard and tried to roll. Slocum’s paint dug in its heels, kicking up a cloud of choking dust, then began backing when Slocum looped the rope around the saddle horn. He jumped to the ground, pistol out.
“Stop putting up such a fuss,” Slocum said. “I’ve got you.”
“Like hell you do!” Although his arms were pinned to his side, Kimbrell came up with a six-shooter in his hand. Slocum fired the instant before Kimbrell. The outlaw jerked and then fell onto his side, dead.
“At least you didn’t make me shoot again, like Magee did.” Slocum warily approached and kicked the six-gun from Kimbrell’s dead hand. Somewhere during the chase, Slocum had miscounted the guns and shots fired at him. Or maybe Kimbrell had a seventh gun hidden away. It no longer mattered. The man who had taken part in fierce, bloody pointless murder had gone to meet his Maker, compliments of John Slocum.
“Let’s see what you got on you.” Slocum loosened the rope and rolled Kimbrell onto his back. The outlaw had a wad of greenbacks large enough to choke a cow in one pocket and a pocketful of twenty-dollar gold pieces. “You won’t need these anymore,” Slocum said, transferring the money to his own pockets. It was little enough pay for all he had gone through.
He kept searching, then caught his breath when he felt the outline of the severed finger and ring in the outlaw’s vest pocket.
“Don’t reckon there’s any question whose ring this is,” Slocum said, holding ring and finger in the palm of his hand. He had found what he had sought for so long. Now he had to complete his promise to Jerome Nickson.
30
Slocum wiped sweat from his forehead. It had been a long ride down the Arkansas River. Finding Patrick Nickson had not been easy, but Slocum had not expected it to be. An unpaid debt in one town, a saloon keeper who remembered the name, a roustabout who had worked with Nickson, those were the clues Slocum followed almost to Fort Smith, Arkansas.
The younger Nickson had tried his hand at gambling in more than one place and had not been very good. His skills seemed to be working the barges that made their way up and down the Arkansas River all the way to the Mississippi. Other than this, Slocum did not get a good impression of the young man. He was a mean drunk and inclined to fight at the drop of a hat—any hat. He had even been run out of a town near Webber’s Falls for public fighting, something Slocum had seldom heard of happening. A marshal would toss a drunk into jail for the night or perhaps levy a fine. It took a powerful lot of public sentiment to be banished from a frontier town.
The town of Braden didn’t appear to be as fussy about its citizens. As Slocum rode down the main street, he saw two fights and what might have been a robbery at knife-point. Nobody but him took any notice. He found himself a quiet saloon and went inside. The trail had been long, hot, and uncharacteristically dusty. After weeks of rain, the Oklahoma skies had turned blue and cloudless, letting the merciless sun hammer at him as he rode. Even a small shower would have taken the edge off the heat.
“Beer,” he said. He had the money to pay for whiskey or even brandy, but a cool beer to quench his thirst seemed like the medicine he needed most.
“You lookin’ fer work?” asked the barkeep.
“Passing through.”
“Where to?”
Slocum sipped at the beer. It was better than it had any right to be.
“Looking for a friend.”
This caused the bartender to tense a mite. Men looking for other men usually meant to kill them. Unless there was a reward attached to the information, people could lose their tongues mighty fast. Slocum explained before the barkeep walked off.
“Got an inheritance for a friend’s son. He was killed out west.”
“Them town killers? Heard ’bout that. Hell, the newspapers’re still full of stories, and it’s been weeks since the last of ’em was kilt.”
“Three weeks,” Slocum said. “It’s been three weeks. I was there at Fort Supply.”
“Yup, that’s where they kilt the last of them varmints. They really ride into a town and kill everyone?”
“Like the Jayhawkers,” Slocum said. He added, “And Quantrill’s Raiders.”
“Damned soldiers took their time stoppin’ ’em, from what I read.”
“You know Patrick Nickson? He’s the one I’m looking for.”
“Nickson? Hell, yeah, ever’one knows that son of a bitch. You mean to kill him?”
“Nope, like I said, I’ve got a package for him from his pa. That’s all.”
“Too damn bad. He works as a roustabout down on the docks. Chances are you kin find him there ’bout now. A boat’s just come up from the Mississippi.”
“Thanks,” Slocum said, then drained the rest of his beer. Patrick Nickson not being liked by very many people had finally paid off. He was remembered, when a more likable sort probably would not have been.
Slocum rode down to the docks. As the barkeep had said, a flat-bottomed barge was moored to the docks. Men, both black and white, stripped to the waist, worked to unload the cargo. Slocum left his horse at the foot of the dock and walked out, only to be stopped by a florid man with a gut hanging out over the top of his belt.
“Where you goin’?”
“To talk to Patrick Nickson. You the boss?”
“Nobody talks to any of my men without my say-so.”
“Then say so since my business with him won’t take five minutes.”
“You fixin’ to kill him? You wait till the end of his shift. It’s damn hard to find workmen.”
“I’m not going to kill him. I’m not even going to hit him.”
“Too bad,” the foreman said with some distaste. “You don’t keep him from his work longer ’n five minutes, hear?”
Slocum nodded. He was aware of the man watching him like a hawk as he went to the end of the dock where the bales slowly became a mountain.
“Nickson!” he called. One man jerked around, fists balled and ready to fight. “You Patrick Nickson?”
“Yeah, what of it? I don’t know you.”
“I was a friend of your father’s,” Slocum explained.
“Do tell. I’m not payin’ his debts neither.”
“No debts, but he is dead
. He was killed at Cherokee Springs. You hear of the Magee gang and what they did?”
“Ever’one’s talkin’ about it. My pa got himself killed there?”
“He didn’t have much to give you, but he did ask me to give you this.”
Patrick Nickson’s face softened.
“I never expected to get nuthin’ from him. He’s really dead?”
“Here,” Slocum said, handing Jerome Nickson’s son a small wooden box he had picked up to carry the ring.
“Not much, is it?”
“It meant a lot to him,” Slocum said, “and he wanted you to have it.”
Nickson eagerly opened the box and stared at the West Point ring. He took it out and held it up to the light to get a better look.
“This is it? He wanted me to have his damned ring?” Nickson turned and heaved the ring as hard as he could into the roiling Arkansas River. Slocum couldn’t even see where it splashed into the turbulent water. “He always was a cheap son of a bitch.” Nickson thrust out his chin belligerently and said, “What you want? A reward?”
Slocum’s hand twitched. He could draw and fire before Patrick Nickson could blink.
“No, there’s nothing I want.” Slocum stepped away, turned, and left. Nickson’s foreman bellowed at the young man to get back to work.
Slocum mounted his horse and rode west from Braden until he came to a fork in the road. The right-hand road went back up through the center of Oklahoma, and eventually would lead to Fort Supply and Louisa Magee. By now she would be settled in quarters and Sarah Beth would be married to Isaiah Langmuir. Was Louisa lonely for the man who had killed her husband? Could be. Her send-off had been pretty fine. The left fork angled away down toward Texas, where Slocum had been headed when he rode into Cherokee Springs and made the promise to a dying Jerome Nickson.
Slocum pushed his hat back and studied each road, considering what lay at the end of each. He pulled his hat back down low on his forehead and picked a road, wondering if he would regret the decision. He doubted it as he rode on.
