by Jake Logan
“It’s another couple days of hard travel beyond that to reach Fort Davis,” Slocum said. “If we’re going to ride together, we should get along or at least hold our tongues.”
“Who’re you to be givin’ me advice?” The first man thrust out his chin truculently. If Slocum hadn’t been so miserable from the heat and dust, he would have taken a poke at that tempting target.
“Nobody,” Slocum said, not wanting to rile the man further.
“Then pull down that bandanna so I kin see yer face.”
Slocum did as the man requested. His expression made the man reach for the six-gun holstered under his left arm. He froze when his seatmate grabbed his wrist. The storekeeper must have been stronger than he looked because the man not only stopped reaching for his gun, but winced as the fingers clamped down hard enough to make the knuckles show white.
“Peace,” the storekeeper said. “Let’s all be peaceful. Won’t kill us.” He spat out the window, then turned back. “And if we’re not real neighborly to one another, it can kill us.”
Slocum wiped his face again, but did not return the bandanna to protect his mouth and nose. The roiling clouds of brown dust were dying down as the coach rolled over a rockier stretch of road. The stage bounced harder now, but the air was more breathable, and not pulling up the bandanna made the man seated across from him subside with ill grace.
“Better,” the storekeeper said, releasing his grip and closing his eyes again. Slocum saw the dust had irritated the man’s eyes to the point where tears ran constantly down his cheeks, leaving muddy tracks behind.
Slocum leaned out and chanced a quick look ahead. The road was going into hillier territory, forcing the four-horse team to pull harder up the slopes. Already tired from hours of desperate, dry travel across the desert, the horses were in no condition to make good speed. Slocum didn’t care. He wasn’t out in the sun and rode in relative comfort. Eventually they would reach the small town of San Esteban, where he could get a mug of beer to wash the grit from his mouth. A beef tongue sandwich or two would go down mighty good too.
From San Esteban it was only a couple days’ travel north to the more prosperous town of Fort Davis, where Limpia Creek poured fresh, clean water out of the mountains and into the town cisterns. The cavalry post there kept the region safe and prosperous, or as prosperous as it could be with the perpetual lack of money from soldiers. With the Warm Springs Apaches off the reservation in New Mexico and Arizona, raiding deep into what had been Lipan Apache territory, the cavalry was always in the field on patrol.
That made his trip to El Paso all the more likely to be uneventful. Slocum cast a gimlet eye at the man sitting across from him. It would be uneventful if this yahoo would ever shut his pie hole.
“It’s the damn weather,” the man said. “Too hot. Not enough to drink. And the dust! How do you endure it?”
“There’s no choice, that’s how,” Slocum said. He pulled up his bandanna to see if the man would protest again. He didn’t. This suited Slocum just fine as he tried to catch a few winks in the lurching, creaking stagecoach.
Slocum jerked awake when the driver applied the whip to the team. The horses protested, and their resistance to pulling faster was answered with several more cracks of the whip. Slocum stuck his head out the window and looked up to see the driver on his feet in the driver’s box, putting his shoulder into cracking the twenty-foot black whip directly over the horses.
“What’s wrong?” Slocum shouted. The driver paid him no heed. The man reared back and sent the whip singing out to land hard enough on a lead horse’s rump to raise a welt.
Slocum knew a driver never intentionally harmed a horse, not out in the desert this time of year. If they ended up stranded because a horse died, they might end up buzzard bait themselves. Craning his head around, Slocum looked behind the stage. He saw nothing but the churning cloud of dust kicked up by the spinning wheels. Popping back into the compartment, he slipped the leather thong off the hammer of his six-shooter.
“Why are we rattling along like this? Is that fool driver tryin’ to kill us all?”
Slocum ignored the shabbily dressed man. There could be only one explanation for the driver’s sudden need for speed. Someone chased them. Considering Victorio and Nana were miles off and being hounded by the U.S. Army, that meant road agents were intent on robbing them.
“I said, what’s going on?”
“I heard you. Ain’t it obvious?” the storekeeper answered, as if he had been the one addressed. “If you got any valuables, you’d better hide ’em somewhere that the road agents won’t find ’em.”
The stage suddenly slewed to one side, killing all forward motion. For a heart-stopping instant, Slocum thought they were going to topple over onto their side. As it was, he was thrown hard against the door. The latch sprang open and spilled him to the sunbaked road.
“Don’t reach for that hogleg, mister, not if you want to keep on keepin’ on.”
Slocum wiped dirt from his eyes and peered up at the road agent sitting pretty in the saddle. He stared down the double barrels of a shotgun.
“No argument,” Slocum said, moving his hands far from his sides.
“Grab some sky. It’s a real purty blue. You’ll like it. You’ll like it even more when you get to brag about not gettin’ killed.”
“What does this mean?” the shabbily dressed man demanded.
“It means you’re addlepated,” the highwayman said coldly, “and that you’re gonna be dead if you don’t lose that pistol you’re fondlin’ like you would your dick.”
Slocum glanced back in time to see the man toss the six-shooter from his shoulder holster to the ground. The man jumped out, and then was shoved out of the way by the storekeeper as he climbed out of the stage.
“It’s too hot out here to spend the livelong day in the sun,” the storekeeper said. “Why don’t you get on with it so we can go get a beer? If you’re inclined to leave us the price of a brew, that is.”
“You won’t find any cold ones at San Esteban,” the masked robber said. “You. Up there in the driver’s box. Climb on down and bring the strongbox with you.”
“Ain’t got—” The driver ducked when the road agent fired one barrel in the air.
“It’s bolted in the rear,” the driver said. “In the boot, under the luggage.”
“Why don’t you start workin’ your way down to it then, while I relieve these gents of their possessions?”
The outlaw took off his hat and tossed it to the storekeeper. “You’re the only one with good sense. Put ever’thing in the hat. Rings, wallets, bankrolls, watches, ever’thing.”
The man grumbled, but emptied his pockets. Slocum knew he had hidden something in the compartment of the stage. He finished with the shabby man and came to Slocum.
“Go on,” the storekeeper told him. “You heard what he said.”
Slocum dropped his roll of greenbacks into the hat. He hated to part with almost a hundred dollars, but the second barrel of the shotgun was pointed in his direction. He could always find another cowboy who didn’t understand the odds at poker or who was too drunk to care if he lost his month’s wages.
“Keep on goin’,” the road agent said.
“What do you mean?” The storekeeper had his back to the outlaw and looked Slocum squarely in the eye as he spoke, but the outlaw’s meaning was clear.
“It was my brother’s. It’s all I have to remember him,” Slocum said.
“Get me that there watch,” the road agent said. “I don’t like sittin’ in the hot sun any more than you do.”
“I’m sorry, mister,” the storekeeper said, reaching for the watch in Slocum’s vest pocket.
Slocum moved faster than a striking snake, grabbed the storekeeper’s wrist, and swung him around.
As quick as he was, the outlaw was faster and had seen the resistance coming. The road agent leaned over and brought the long barrel of his shotgun down hard on the top of Slocum’s head. Slocum went t
o his knees, pain flaring as his vision blurred. The second blow, to the side of his head, caused him to topple facedown onto the ground, unconscious.
The next thing he was aware of was pain radiating from the top of his head and going all the way down his spine. Every breath he took drove a knife into his ribs, and something was wrong with his legs. Slocum jerked and heard a loud yip!
Rolling onto his back, he saw a coyote with part of his pants leg in its mouth. Slocum grabbed for his Peacemaker and fired point-blank at the coyote. The animal reared on its back legs and then fell to one side, the bullet having blown out the top of its skull. Slocum sat up, rubbed his leg, and saw that the coyote hadn’t actually bitten into his flesh. The tough denim pants leg had saved him from the first nip, and there hadn’t been a second.
Slocum looked up at the sky and wondered why it was late afternoon. Then bits and pieces fell together as he remembered what had happened. He rubbed the lump on his head and winced. His fingers came away bloody, although the thick Stetson he wore had saved him from more serious injuries.
“Son of a bitch,” Slocum said, getting to his feet. He took a few unsteady steps, then looked around. As far as he could see was empty, heat-shimmery desert. No trace of the stagecoach or its occupants remained. This made him even madder. It was bad enough that the outlaw had stolen the one thing in his life that meant anything. It was worse being left on foot in the middle of the deadly hot West Texas desert.
He held up his six-shooter and stared at it in wonder. The outlaw hadn’t bothered taking the pistol. Just the roll of greenbacks—and his brother Robert’s watch.
Slocum had a score to settle. Two scores. The outlaw would regret the day he stole that watch almost as much as the driver would rue leaving behind a passenger to die of thirst and exposure. Slocum rubbed his leg where the coyote had begun its meal. He had come really close to never waking up. The hungry canine could as easily have ripped out his throat first before going on to other spots for its afternoon meal.
Looking up, squinting at the sun and pulling his hat down enough to shield his eyes, Slocum got his bearings. The sand in the twin ruts that passed as a road had been disturbed in both directions, telling him that the driver had gone on to San Esteban rather than backtracking after the robbery. Putting one foot in front of the other, Slocum began slogging along in the stifling heat. He should have found a cut bank or deep arroyo that provided a modicum of shade and waited for the sun to sink, but his anger drove him to keep walking. Overtaking the stage wasn’t likely, but every minute he wasted put it and its driver another few yards farther away.
He walked for almost ten minutes, reached the crest of a steep hill, and then stopped dead in his tracks. Without realizing it, his hand went for the butt of his six-shooter. At the base of the hill stood the stagecoach. Slocum didn’t see either the team or the passengers, but did see the driver.
This was one bullet he could save for the road agent. The driver was sprawled across the roof of the stage, arms dangling down and obviously dead.
Slocum slipped and slid down the dusty road to the stage. He climbed up to be certain. The driver looked to have been dead for an hour or more from the condition of the body. Bits of his flesh had been pecked away by buzzards, leaving the white bones poking from torn shirt and ripped pants. Buzzards were quick to come, quick to eat, and even quicker to leave. Their meal had taken less than five minutes, forcing Slocum to guess at how long the driver had dangled over the side after his flesh had been stripped away.
Slocum jumped to the ground and opened the compartment door. He noticed a new hole the size of his fist in the door panel—a shotgun blast. Inside looked like a slaughterhouse with blood spattered in all directions. But the body belonging to the blood was gone.
Going around, Slocum saw that the bolted strongbox in the boot had been forced open. Whatever had been inside was long gone with the road agent. He heaved a sigh, went back to the door, and looked around the hard, dried ground for any tracks. A few drops of blood had caused the dirt to form what looked like obscene raindrops. Someone bleeding badly had staggered away from the stagecoach. Slocum found the storekeeper—or what was left of him—in an arroyo a few yards away.
He drew his six-gun and began hunting for the shabbily dressed gent. Slocum returned the pistol to his cross-draw holster when he found him on the far side of a creosote bush. It wasn’t obvious right off how he had died. It wasn’t from a shotgun blast like the storekeeper, but he was still deader than a doornail.
“Reckon I was luckier than I thought,” Slocum said aloud. Whatever had gone on after he had been slugged had proven deadly for the three men. The outlaw was more dangerous than Slocum had thought when he first laid eyes on him. That knowledge of such cold-blooded killing didn’t deter Slocum in wanting to get his watch back. It only meant he had to be just a tad more vicious and not too squeamish about pulling the trigger first.
The driver and the storekeeper had been unarmed, and that hadn’t stopped the road agent from murdering them.
Slocum cocked his head to one side when he heard a distant neigh. Turning slowly, he homed in on the sound. He wanted to whistle or shout, to call out to the horse roaming in the desert, but any sound might scare it. Walking as silently as any Indian, Slocum crossed the hard-baked desert, keeping low and finding which way the wind blew so he could get downwind from the horse. Only then did he work his way into the tepid breeze until he caught the horse’s scent.
From behind a bushy, thorny mesquite he stared at the horse. It had been one of the team and had somehow broken free. Why it hadn’t started running and kept up the pace until its heart exploded, Slocum didn’t know, but he was grateful. Riding meant the difference between life and death.
Especially since he intended to go after the road agent rather than continue along the road to San Esteban. He had a score to settle, and nothing and no one in the small Texas town was likely to be much help.
He slipped around the mesquite and stripped off a handful of seed pods. The sound alerted the horse.
“Here,” Slocum said softly, holding out the bean pods. “Have something to eat. It’s all right. Come on over. Come on, come on.”
The horse warily approached, its nose working hard to sniff at the beans. Finally hunger overcame fear, and it began eating from Slocum’s hand. He reached out and slipped his fingers through the bridle remaining on the horse’s neck. When the horse was done and tossed its head, trying to pull free, Slocum leaped onto the horse’s back. The animal had pulled a stagecoach, not been ridden as a saddle horse. Slocum had to use all his skill to keep his seat as the horse reared and bucked, but to the Butterfield Stagecoach Company’s credit, the horse had never been mistreated and was used to strange men around it. Slocum eventually gentled the horse and got it walking back toward the stage.
The horse tried to shy away, probably scenting the spilled blood, but Slocum kept it moving until he came to the front of the stage where he could study the tongue and what remained of the traces. From the look of the harness, the road agent had cut the team free with a sharp knife.
“Why’d he want to steal a team of stage horses?” Slocum wondered aloud. He patted his new mount on the neck. “Not that you wouldn’t be a fine saddle horse. But why would he steal the others in your team?”
Slocum searched in an area around the front of the stagecoach and found a muddled trail where the outlaw and the team had run. He started to follow, then wheeled the horse around and returned to the stage. His gear had been stashed in the boot. It took a few minutes to locate his saddle and other belongings where they had been discarded in the outlaw’s haste to get down to the strongbox. Careful of his skittish horse, he dismounted and secured the bit of bridle to the stage’s wheel before throwing his saddle on and securing his bedroll and saddlebags. Clearly uneasy with this added weight, the horse tried to bolt more than once. Slocum kept a firm hand on the bridle, and eventually mounted.
It took a few tentative attempts to buck fo
r the horse to get such foolishness out of its system. Then Slocum warily returned to the trail left by the other horses—and the outlaw. Less than a quarter mile later Slocum realized what the road agent had done.
“You’re one clever whore’s son, I’ll grant you that much,” Slocum said. He tried to find the proper trail, and couldn’t make out which was the outlaw and which were the other three horses.
The road agent had ridden in the midst of the other horses to cover his own trail. One by one he had let the horses go. The one Slocum rode had probably been the first, but hadn’t acted as the outlaw had hoped by running until it died of exhaustion. Slocum couldn’t tell about the other horses. They might have been more frightened and were still running out in the desert, leaving a false trail.
“Where’d you go?” Slocum looked around and couldn’t come to a good decision. Ahead lay the Davis Mountains, but farther south was a clear trail leading across the Rio Grande into Mexico. If Slocum had been responsible for the robbery, that was where he would have gone to get away from American lawmen and especially the Texas Rangers. But one trail went that way, another toward the distant mountains, and two others almost due north.
Slumping, Slocum knew how hard it would be to find the outlaw without a canteen filled with water and several weeks of provisions. He straightened, took a good look at the lay of the land, and then headed north until he crossed the road leading to San Esteban. Giving in to the inevitable, he rode into the sleepy little town to report the robbery and murders to whoever passed himself off as a lawman here. If nothing else, the Butterfield agent would want to know his stage and driver wouldn’t be making the next leg north toward El Paso.
3
It was always the same. The driver thought he could outrun a man on a good, strong stallion. Les Jeter sneered as he watched the stagecoach driver stand and begin using his long whip to goad on his team. Jeter was no fool and had picked this spot along the road into San Esteban for a reason—the best reason in the world. The Butterfield driver’s team was about ready to drop in harness from the long pull across the hot West Texas desert. This stretch of road was barren, yet far enough from town that there wasn’t a chance in hell that a lawman would wander out.
