Slocum's Close Call

by Jake Logan

  He rode up to the front of the ranch house, and he felt himself flooded with memories. They would have been good memories had it not all ended so abruptly and so horribly. Joiner, having heard his approach, came out on the porch. “John,” he said. “Get down and come on in. I’m sure glad to see you. I didn’t know if we’d ever see you again.”

  “You wouldn’t have,” Slocum said, “if it hadn’t been for this.” He pulled the extra saddlebags off the back of his horse and tossed them at Joiner’s feet. “It’s the money Harman was taking off with,” he said. “I don’t know how much is in there. I ain’t counted it.”

  “Did you take some out for yourself?” Joiner asked.

  “No,” Slocum said. “All I done was open the flap and look to see what was in there.”

  “Well, come here,” said Joiner. He reached into the bag and pulled out a stack of bills. Counting them quickly, he reached in for more. Slocum hadn’t moved. Joiner walked over to stand beside the big Appaloosa. He held the money up for Slocum to take.

  “I didn’t do this job for money,” Slocum said.

  “But I promised to pay you when it was done,” Joiner said. “Here. Take it.”

  Slocum took the bills and stuffed them into his shirt pocket.

  “Now come on inside,” Joiner said. “Sit for a spell and have a couple of drinks. Spend the night. Get a good night’s rest. Maybe things’ll look different in the morning.”

  “Sorry,” Slocum said. “Things won’t never look different around here to me again. I wish you all the luck in the world, Chuckie boy, and all the happiness too, you and Julia. But I just can’t go back in that house. So long, pardner.”

  Slocum rode northwest. He didn’t have a specific destination in mind. Perhaps the mountains. He wanted to be far away from south Texas. He rode along with many conflicting images swimming through his head. He saw Myrtle’s face, smiling up into his own. He saw her as she walked away away from him going into the kitchen, her hips and ass tight and swinging in her jeans. He saw her leaning over him, spoon-feeding him as the gunshot wound still throbbed in his shoulder. He recalled vividly the luxury of her bodily charms, the ecstasy of her many and varied caresses.

  He was lucky having known her, he told himself, however briefly. Losing her was perhaps the most painful thing that had ever happened to him. He knew that time was a healer. He knew that even this would heal. But he also knew that it would leave a terrible scar. He rode on, no longer even trying to push the painful memories out of his mind. They were too much a part of him. They would always be with him.