Slocum and the Glitter Girls at Gravel Gulch (9781101619513)

by Logan, Jake

  Harvey stood there as if struck dumb. He remembered Slocum in Abilene. Calm, cool, deliberate in the face of death.

  He hadn’t backed down then, and Harvey was sure Slocum was more than a match for Canby’s men.

  But he was badly outnumbered.

  There was no telling how many men Canby had under his command. Slocum was facing a tough and ruthless enemy. And there was not a man who worked for Canby who would hesitate to shoot Slocum in the back.

  Slocum might not even see the man who raised a gun against him.

  “Is Canby that important, John?” Harvey asked. “Shouldn’t you let the law take care of him? Why risk your own life?”

  “There seems to be no law here,” Slocum said. “Canby’s already shown his true colors by framing an innocent man and hanging him. And he was about to hang another innocent man, Wallace Hornaday.”

  “But you’re not the law, John,” Laurie said.

  “Where there is no law,” Slocum said, “it’s sometimes up to the law-abiding to take the law into their own hands.”

  “Nobody’s stood up to Canby here in Deadfall,” Harvey said. “Even I would hesitate to buck him.”

  “Not every law-abiding citizen can combat evil,” Slocum said.

  “But you appoint yourself as judge, jury, and executioner,” Laurie said, plainly upset.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” Slocum said.

  “What would you say, then?” Harvey asked.

  “When I see a town like Deadfall, with no law and a tyrant running things, it angers me,” Slocum said.

  “That’s still no excuse to start killing,” Laurie said.

  “Some people are rabbits,” Slocum said. “When there’s danger, they freeze or hide.”

  “And you, what are you, John?”

  “Maybe a wolf,” he said with a slow curl of his lips into a half smile.

  “Well, Canby’s a wolf, too, then,” Laurie said. “And you would descend to his level.”

  “There are good wolves and bad wolves,” Slocum said, the smile widening.

  “Oh, you men,” Laurie said. “You just do what you want to do and to hell with everyone else.”

  “I said I’d give Canby’s men a chance,” Slocum said. “And if it’s possible, I want to capture Canby alive and take him back to Dodge to face justice.”

  “All very noble and admirable,” Laurie said, still upset. “And you might get yourself killed.”

  “And if I don’t face off with these men,” Slocum said, “more innocent men might die here.”

  Laurie clamped her mouth shut to keep from protesting further.

  Harvey looked at Slocum with fresh eyes.

  “He makes a point, sis. I wish I could stand up to Canby for what he did to Harlan and what he was about to do to Wallace.”

  He looked apologetically at Slocum.

  Laurie drew in a deep breath and brushed her hair away from her face with the back of her hand.

  “I—I don’t know what to say,” she said.

  Slocum gave her a moment to compose herself.

  “Sometimes,” he said, “you can’t sweep a problem under the rug. As long as Deadfall tolerates such a man as Canby, he’ll take more and more from them. The best way to solve a problem is to face it head on. Win or lose.”

  “You might lose, John,” she said. “I would hate to see that.”

  “She’s right, John,” Harvey said. “You’re taking on a dangerous task to go up against any one of the men who work for Canby. And there’s several of them.”

  “We’ll just have to see how it all works out,” Slocum said.

  “You sound sure of yourself,” Harvey said.

  “But he doesn’t know how dangerous Canby is,” she said.

  “Time will tell,” Slocum said and turned to walk away.

  Laurie ran after him. She grabbed him by the sleeve and tugged at his arm.

  “Will you promise me one thing, John?” she said.

  “If I can,” he said.

  “Stay with me tonight.”

  “I’m going hunting tonight,” he said.

  “So long,” Harvey called. “Take care, John.”

  Laurie and Slocum turned and waved good-bye to Harvey.

  He waved back.

  “After you’re through hunting,” she said as they continued to walk along the creek, “just promise me you’ll come back to my cabin. I’ll leave the door unlocked.”

  “It would be a pleasure,” he said. She leaned close to him and he smelled the perfume in her hair.

  “If I come back,” he said.

  She squeezed his arm and her touch felt good to him.

  He didn’t know how far he would get with his mission that night, but he was going to try and confront as many of Canby’s men as he could.

  And he wanted to check on the two women, Bonnie and Renata. If his hunch was right, they were already in Canby’s clutches.

  That was one more item on Slocum’s list.

  15

  Orson Canby sat in a large chair in the center of his hotel suite.

  To Johnny Crowell, who was shaking in his boots, he looked like a bloated bullfrog on a lily pad.

  Hack and Boze flanked Steve Beck on the large plush couch made of Moroccan leather. Johnny had heard it all from Beck, as had Canby, and now he knew the whole story of the jailbreak.

  Beck was on the hot seat, Johnny knew. Canby’s criticism of the jailer was scathing.

  “You little twerp,” Canby said to Beck. “You are paid to guard prisoners. You let yourself be bushwhacked by this Slocum bastard. Can you give me one good reason why you shouldn’t be thrashed for your dereliction?”

  “Boss, that Slocum feller caught me by surprise. He was on me before I could do anything. He grabbed my scattergun and I thought he was goin’ to shoot me dead.”

  “Beck, you make me want to puke,” Canby said.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” Canby said in a loud tone of voice.

  Two men entered the living quarters.

  Both seemed out of breath.

  Roddie Nehring and Earl Cassaway clumped across the rug. Canby waved them to single chairs near the divan.

  “He ain’t left town,” Earl said.

  “Leastways, his horse is still in a stall at the livery,” Roddie said as both men sat down.

  “This is a fine kettle of fish,” Canby said as he looked at his four henchmen.

  “He just don’t seem to be nowhere,” Hack ventured.

  “Shut up, Hack,” Canby said.

  Orson rubbed four fingers and his thumb, bringing them together on his forehead as if he were summoning thought and, perhaps, wisdom.

  “Sorry,” Hack said, then clamped his mouth shut.

  “Well, he’s somewhere,” Canby said. “And you’re all out of ideas. And he’s got that bastard Hornaday with him. Hornaday’s due to be hanged, and by God, he’s going to hang. Slocum, too, if we can find him. Jailbreaking is a crime no matter where it happens. That right, Beck?”

  Beck appeared flustered.

  “If you say so, Orson,” Beck said.

  “Well, here’s what you’re going to do, boys, and you pass the word along to Rodrigo and Salazar. You cover both ends of Main Street this afternoon. One man at each corner. Got that?”

  The four gunmen nodded.

  “Hack, you get Rodrigo on one corner. I want you to find a dark corner in the Wild Horse and sit there until it closes. Don’t get drunk. Just sit there like you was a stump.”

  “Got it, Orson,” Hack said.

  “Bose, you put Salazar on a corner opposite Rodrigo and you prowl Main Street. Check Mrs. Hobbs’s boardinghouse every so often, and the hotel here. Slocum’s got to light somewhere.”

  Boze squirmed on the divan.

  “Orson. Maybe Slocum took Hornaday out of town on foot.”

  “His saddlebags and rifles ain’t in the livery,” Earl said. “His saddle and bridle are there.”

&n
bsp; “I’m damned tired of hearing where Slocum and Hornaday ain’t,” Orson said. “Find them.”

  “You want ’em alive, or do we shoot them?” Hack asked.

  “Shoot ’em if you have to, but if you can wrestle ’em down and hog-tie ’em, I’d like to see their necks stretched on the gallows,” Orson said.

  The four gunmen left the room, leaving only Steve Beck and Johnny Crowell still there.

  “Johnny,” Orson said, “go on back to your job at the livery.”

  “Sure, boss,” Johnny said and walked quickly out the door.

  “Steve, I got a little job for you,” Orson said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I want you to find Ruben Machado for me. You know where he lives?”

  “Sure do, Orson,” Beck said.

  “Tell him to hightail it over here quick as possible. You got that?”

  Beck rose from his seat and donned his hat.

  “I’ll get him here, Orson.”

  “Then you better buy another lock for that jail. With your own money.”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll do that, too.”

  “Get a good one this time,” Orson said.

  Beck left the hotel room and Orson rose from his chair and walked to the window. He paced back and forth, glancing at the face of a butte some distance away.

  Less than a half hour later, there was a knock at his door.

  “Come in,” he said, and turned to walk back to his chair.

  He stood behind the big chair as the door opened and Ruben Machado walked in, his stubble-flocked face shadowed by the brim of his dark hat.

  Orson sat down.

  “Come on in, Ruben,” he said.

  Ruben took off his hat and walked over to where Orson sat.

  “You ready, Ruben?” Orson said.

  “I am ready,” Ruben said, half bowing to emphasize his obedience to Canby.

  “Tomorrow, you and Paco haul that wagon out to Sunrise Mesa. You know where it is?”

  “I do,” Ruben said.

  “When you deliver the guns, you tell Chief Blue Wolf to wait for my order.”

  “Your order?” Ruben said.

  “He will know what I mean, Ruben. You just tell him that.”

  “What do we do after we deliver the guns to Blue Wolf?” Ruben asked.

  “You and Paco come back here, drive the wagon to the middle of Gravel Gulch, and leave it there. Then, you boys put up the draft horses, saddle up, and hightail it for Tucson.”

  “Yes,” Ruben said.

  “I will meet you there in a few days with more money. Got that?”

  “Yes, Paco and I will do what you say, Orson,” Ruben said.

  “On your way out, stop by Mr. Jennings’s office and tell him I want to see him right away.”

  “Tomorrow, we go,” Ruben said.

  “Perfect, Ruben. Vaya con Dios.”

  Ruben bowed, put his hat back on, and hurried from the room.

  Orson listened for his footsteps out in the hall. Matt Jennings was his accountant and had an office on the mezzanine of the hotel.

  Orson waited for him, a fresh cigar in his mouth. He reached for a match on a nearby end table and picked up the box.

  By the time he’d trimmed the end of the cigar and lit it, Jennings came through the door.

  Jennings never knocked when Orson sent for him. He carried a ledger in one hand and a pencil and tablet in the other.

  “Sit down, Matt,” Orson said. “At the table there.”

  “You’re in a bright mood, Orson,” Jennings said.

  “I got my reasons,” Orson said.

  Jennings sat down at the round table inset with various wood designs. He set down the ledger and opened the tablet. He positioned the pencil over the tablet and seemed prepared to write.

  “I see you brought the books, Matt,” Orson said.

  “Yes. In case you wanted to go over the figures.”

  Jennings did not smile. He was all business.

  “And how are we doing?” Orson asked.

  “Very well, Orson,” Jennings said. “And if you take over that mine once owned by Devlin and Hornaday, I expect you’ll do even better. The assay was quite favorable.”

  “I know,” Orson said. “Richest mine so far. But soon, we’ll have all the mines here in Deadfall.”

  Orson puffed on his cigar, and let the smoke leak out of the sides of his mouth.

  “Oh?” Jennings said. “How will that come to be, and why all the mines?”

  “By week’s end, you and I will be on our way to Tucson. A band of Apaches will raze this damned town to ashes and kill everyone in it.”

  “That seems rather drastic,” Jennings said. “Wholesale murder, in fact.”

  “Can’t be helped. I knew this day would come and now it’s here.”

  “What day is that, Orson?” Jennings asked.

  “The day my past catches up with me. A man came into town this morning with some horses I bought from him. He broke Hornaday out of jail this morning. That got me to thinking.”

  “Got you to thinking, Orson? About what?”

  “About Dodge City,” Orson said.

  Jennings’s face turned pale as it drained of blood.

  He seemed to choke to get the words out.

  “I—I thought that was behind us, Orson. For good.”

  “The man who sold me the horses,” Orson said. “His name is Slocum.”

  “John Slocum?” Jennings sputtered. Spittle flew onto his string tie and his pressed blue shirt. Jennings was clean-shaven with dark brown hair and blue-gray eyes, a thin neck, and thin arms and legs. He wore a pinstripe suit and wing-tip shoes. He wore no hat and Orson envied him his thick curly hair.

  “The same, Matt,” Orson said.

  “Jesus Christ,” Jennings said. “He was a friend of Faron Longley’s, I recall, and people in Dodge warned us that Slocum would be on your tail.”

  “Slocum will be dead by sunrise,” Orson said.

  “You sure, Orson?”

  Jennings fidgeted with his string tie, flipping one strand over the other. He was visibly nervous, and his fingers all trembled.

  “There’s no way out for him,” Orson said. “I’ve got men all over town looking for him. And if he slips out of this trap, in a few days he’ll be burned to a crisp by the Apaches.”

  “You think of everything, Orson,” Jennings said.

  “We’ll have to change our names again, but we’ll be back in Deadfall to reap the rewards. Mining claims, miners working for us. The whole shebang.”

  Jennings let out a low whistle.

  “You think of just about everything, Orson,” Jennings said. “I’m glad we’re on the same side.”

  “You’ve been faithful to me ever since I plugged Longley, Matt,” Orson said. “I believe in rewarding my closest friends.”

  “When do we leave town?” Jennings asked.

  “About four days from now, five at the most. Everything’s set.”

  “What’s the signal for Blue Wolf?” Jennings asked. He knew about the Apaches and how Orson had bribed them with guns and whiskey since coming to Deadfall.

  “There’ll be an empty wagon right smack in the middle of the valley,” Orson said. “I’ll set it on fire and the smoke will bring the Apaches down on Deadfall within an hour or two.”

  “Christ,” Jennings said.

  “Too bad we won’t be here to watch it, Matt.”

  Jennings swiped a hand across his sweaty forehead.

  “I don’t want to see it,” he said.

  “It’ll be pure hell for everybody here,” Orson said.

  He pulled smoke from his cigar and smiled through a blue haze as he let it out.

  Jennings sat there, half-dazed at the magnitude of Orson’s plan.

  He had known Collins was a ruthless man back in Dodge City, but had never dreamed the man could be as heartless and savage as the Apaches.

  He vowed then and there never to cross Orson.

  Orson
wouldn’t even blink if he meant to murder him, Jennings knew.

  “I’ll have everything ready to go when you tell me,” Jennings said. “Cash, gold, the books.”

  “Be ready in three days, Matt,” Orson said.

  “I hope you get Slocum,” Jennings said. “He’s a most dangerous man.”

  “I know,” Orson said. “But at bottom he’s no different than any other man. He’ll bleed just as much.”

  The smoke rose in the air and hung suspended until it began to drift into nothingness.

  Just like the silence as both men thought about the horror that was soon to happen in Deadfall.

  16

  Marlene Vanders watched the two girls walk by her table at the Wild Horse Saloon. Bonnie and Renata were dressed in new outfits sewn by Maria and Teresa, who sat with her.

  “You’ve got to sway your hips more, Renata,” Marlene said.

  “Huh?” Renata stopped in her tracks and looked at Marlene.

  “You’re too stiff, honey,” Marlene said.

  “I don’t see why I have to walk a certain way,” Renata said.

  Bonnie whispered something to her.

  Renata turned to look at Marlene.

  “I’ve had men attracted to me without my having to display my bare legs,” Renata said to Marlene.

  “Tonight this room will be filled with men who are smoking, playing cards, drinking. They want to look at pretty women and that’s why you have to show your feminine side, dearie.”

  Bonnie smiled and walked around. She swayed her hips.

  “Like that,” Marlene said.

  Maria and Teresa tittered.

  Just then, Carrie Hobbs came in through the batwing doors. She walked over to the table where Marlene and her two girls were sitting.

  “Did you hear the news?” she asked, not bothering to lower her voice.

  Carrie was a matronly forty-five or so, with her graying hair tied up in a bun, her seersucker dress covered by a polka-dotted apron. She wore low-heeled shoes. Her face resembled a wrinkled pudding, while her eyes were porcine and sunken, close-set beside a large hooked nose.

  “What news?”

  “Men just searched my boardinghouse looking for that prisoner, Hornaday. They said he broke out of jail this mornin’.”

  “No, I hadn’t heard.”

  Renata and Bonnie sidled over to the table.

  “Did you say Hornaday?” Bonnie asked Mrs. Hobbs.