Slocum and the Texas Twister

by Jake Logan

  “No sheriff. Not any longer. He upped and left after he saw what that twister had done to town. He rode around and didn’t find things any better elsewhere in Pecos County.”

  “I saw three people murdered,” Slocum said. “Two women and a man, and two little girls left without parents.”

  “A shame, a real shame,” Underwood said, nodding sagely. “That doesn’t keep you from deliverin’ the mail.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Slocum said, taking the reins in hand and starting away.

  “Hold on, Slocum. That’s the Butterfield Stage Company’s horseflesh. It was just loaned to you as an employee on company business.”

  “You gave the horse to me.”

  “As part of your pay for doin’ a job. You don’t do the job, you can’t keep the horse.”

  Slocum wrapped the reins around the hitching post.

  “I’ll think about it,” he repeated and walked away, Underwood sputtering behind him. If the stationmaster tried that hard to get him to deliver the mail, Slocum knew it meant that nobody else was available for the job.

  He went to a new saloon set up in a tent. The management hadn’t even bothered to scatter sawdust on the ground. The mud came up to the middle of Slocum’s boots as he slogged his way to the wood plank laid over two sawhorses.

  Behind the bar were a half-dozen whiskey bottles and a keg of beer.

  “Welcome,” the barkeep said. His boots caused a sucking sound with every step he took. The ground wasn’t in any better shape behind the rude bar than it was in front. “What kin I git you?”

  Slocum searched his pockets and came up with a dime. He dropped it on the bar, where it rolled about and finally came to rest after ringing hollowly.

  “Beer, till that runs out.”

  The barkeep laughed and put a mug with frothy beer in front of him.

  “That just does cover the cost, mister. Ain’t gettin’ supplies in ’cuz of the tornado damage. Been told it’ll be a week before anything comes in from San Angelo. That means cases of whiskey and new kegs of beer.”

  “Twister destroyed the old saloon?”

  “One of ’em was on the wrong side of the street. The other one, that was sittin’ pretty, well, the owner upped and left. Took all his stock with him. Don’t know what happened, but it’s a fact of life. Me, I was lucky. I’d got so drunk I was passed out in a ditch when the twister hit. Went right on over me, or so they tell me.”

  “You own this place?”

  “Just work here. Me, I’d have a classier joint. I’d have a mirror behind the bar.” The man laughed and slogged off to serve another customer.

  Slocum looked around the tent. Four chairs at a table constituted all the furniture. The walls flapped noisily in the wind, and the stench from smoke and dirty bodies was enough to put Slocum off his feed. Men didn’t come here to socialize as much as they did to knock back the suddenly expensive booze. Slocum considered finding someone with a wagon and offering to drive back supplies from San Angelo or Buena Vista. Whoever had goods to sell would become rich mighty fast.

  A single load of whiskey would give both the town and the fort a needed boost—and also deliver a huge profit to the man selling it.

  He sipped his beer until not even foam remained. Other than finding someone needing a teamster, all Slocum could think to keep body and soul together was to deliver mail for Underwood. The old paint was a sorry animal, going deaf and not a little bit on the balky side, but he had come to appreciate the horse’s heart. Even exhausted, it had kept putting one hoof in front of the other to keep moving.

  Stepping out into the main street, he looked around and immediately saw a white handkerchief fluttering to catch his attention. Slocum wasn’t sure he was up to dealing with Beatrice Sampson. It quickly became apparent he either turned and ran or spoke with her. She hurried across the street in his direction, coming at him like a Sioux warrior intent on counting coup.

  “I didn’t know you were back, John,” she said, stopping a few feet away and staring up at him. Her breasts rose and fell heavily from the exertion of running so far. He remembered how their other exertion had caused a different kind of excitement in her. She wasn’t a bad-looking woman, but he couldn’t help comparing her needs with those of the woman he had just buried.

  “Been out riding circuit, delivering mail. Or trying to.”

  “Did you,” she said, lowering her voice and stepping closer, “see him?”

  “Your brother?” Slocum considered this. There had to be a reason the rider following him had turned so deadly. At least once he had been shot at, and an innocent woman had died. “Might be we crossed paths. Can’t rightly say since I’ve never gotten close enough to ask.”

  “He’d never talk to you. He’s crazy.”

  “How crazy?”

  Beatrice’s eyes widened at his question.

  “Murdering crazy. He has to be brought in. Or put in the ground before he does something terrible.”

  “Might be he’s done that, and the law around here doesn’t much care.” He spat a gob of dust that had formed on his lip where beer foam had accumulated. “What there is of the law.”

  “The sheriff is gone, I know,” she said. “That makes it all the more serious about Joshua.”

  “What does Captain Legrange have to say on the matter?”

  “He . . . he’s in command of Fort Stockton now. All the other officers are gone. Dead, likely, but certainly not reporting back.”

  Slocum considered this. Legrange would have his hands full if most of the soldiers were missing. For command to come down to him, several officers had to be missing. Maybe a half dozen. The tornado had done more than destroy houses and lives. It had severely affected the Army’s ability to patrol the area.

  “He’s worried about Indians, but there’s so much else to concern him,” she said.

  “Wants his payroll, more ’n likely,” Slocum said.

  “Never mind the captain and his problems, John. You have to do something about Joshua.”

  “What’s he wearing?”

  “His clothing?” The question took Beatrice by surprise. “I don’t know. Clothes. Nothing special. Jeans, a shirt.”

  “What color?”

  “I think he was wearing a gray shirt last time I saw him, but I don’t remember. So much was happening that—”

  “He’s the one that tried to gun me down,” Slocum said.

  “No! John, he’s dangerous. If he’d wanted you dead, he would have succeeded.”

  Slocum said nothing to her about the obvious lack of confidence in his abilities. Still, she had a point. Joshua had all the time in the world to lay his ambush and commit yet another murder. If Beatrice was right, her brother had shot down her husband during the stagecoach robbery. From the distance and accuracy shown, he was one hell of a marksman. Slocum had ridden open fields and along roads where a sniper could make an easy twenty-yard shot and never be seen yet he was still alive. Whatever drove Joshua to kill was indeed beyond Slocum’s ken.

  “Did you know a woman named Bonnie Framingham? Lived maybe fifteen miles outside of town with her husband, Justin.”

  Beatrice shook her head.

  “The name doesn’t sound familiar. We moved here a while back, but meeting people in town proved a chore. We were outsiders. Those who lived farther out, well, we never got a chance to meet any of them. Not that I remember, at least.”

  Slocum heard something less than the truth in her words but wasn’t inclined to find out what Beatrice lied about.

  “I’m not able to do any hunting for your brother, unless he’s in town.”

  “Why?”

  “I lost my horse.” He looked across the street. Underwood had already taken the paint and put it into the corral behind the depot.

  “
Did Joshua steal it?” Beatrice looked at him in wide-eyed surprise. “I can’t believe that.”

  “I don’t have a horse or gear,” Slocum said. “It’ll take me a spell to get a mount and a saddle.”

  “I . . . I can give you money. You can buy something. This is so important to me, John. I can’t tell you how important it is that you stop Joshua.”

  “You want him dead?”

  “I want him brought in so he can be helped. There’s a madhouse down around Austin, or so I hear. If he’s locked up there, he won’t hurt anyone else. And . . . and if you shoot him, that might be the best for all of us. Especially Joshua. He is a sad man.”

  Sad and crazy. Slocum wondered how much more she would tell him about her brother. From what little he had learned asking around town, the Sampsons were almost hermits, staying to themselves. They hadn’t even gone to barn dances or church socials, preferring their own company. Some folks were like that. He wondered about Beatrice’s husband. And her brother. And her.

  “I might find you a suitable horse,” she said, as if coming to a hard decision. “I can’t give it to you, but you are free to use it if you are tracking down my brother.”

  She took his arm and steered him along the street. The sounds of hammers falling on nails and the scent of sawdust from newly sawed planks filled his ears and nose. Beatrice rambled on, and he ignored her as he turned over everything she had said, wondering why he was involved at all. Being the driver on that ill-fated stage had something to do with it, but he owed her nothing if her brother had killed her husband. There might not be any lawmen left in town, but she was cozy enough with Captain Legrange to persuade him to send out a patrol. One or two men rather than a squad might be all it took to bring Joshua to justice.

  “There’s a livery. I know the owner and can make a deal. What do you need?”

  “I never said I’d go hunting for your brother.”

  “But, John, you must! I . . . I feel he is nearing the point where he will be uncontrollable. He’ll start killing at random.”

  “Might be doing that now,” he said.

  “You have to stop him. If not for me, then for all the innocents he might slaughter.”

  They went into the livery stable, but no one was around. Slocum looked over the horses and any would do. Any of them was better than the old paint, but he had no idea if any of these had the heart of that other horse.

  “Here,” she said, pressing a wad of greenbacks into his hand. “Buy what you need.”

  “The owner’s not here.”

  “John!” She shrieked and pointed. “There. At the window. It was Joshua!”

  He dropped the wad of scrip as his hand flashed to his six-shooter, but he didn’t draw. He had seen nothing, not even a shadow moving across the sunlit pane.

  “I’m not imagining it. I saw him. You have to stop him, John. Now, please, for me, please!”

  “Stay here,” he said, crossing the stable in three quick strides so he could peer out the window. He didn’t see anyone outside.

  With a grunt, he pulled up the window and climbed through, careful where he put his feet. Boot prints came to the window and then left. Someone had been here, but had it been Joshua? The livery stable had to bring customers in all day long, and for all he knew, the tracks belonged to the missing owner.

  He drew his pistol and held it at his side as he followed the clear trail leading from the stable. The tracks turned and went into an alley. From here whoever had made the prints had gone to the main street. Slocum ran to the middle of the street and looked in both directions, hunting a man wearing a gray shirt with a tear along the left shoulder. All he saw was industry as the citizens of Gregory worked to repair the storm damage to their town.

  Slocum slid his six-gun back into his holster and returned to the livery stable.

  “Couldn’t find anyone,” he said as he stepped inside. “Beatrice? Where are you?”

  He drew his six-shooter again and worked his way slowly down the stalls, searching for the woman.

  She was nowhere to be found.

  12

  It took Slocum a couple seconds to realize something else was missing. The three horses that had been in stalls were gone, too. He backed from the stable and looked at the ground. Outside the door the mud had been churned up, but he couldn’t tell if it was recent or had been done an hour earlier. From the sudden disappearance of both Beatrice and the horses, the cut-up ground was recent.

  He paced around, trying to find a clearer trail, and thought he saw faint tracks leading directly north out of town. Stewing, he prowled the area like a caged bear, then knew he had to follow the trail. Beatrice might be in real danger—and her brother was the likely reason she had left so fast.

  And the three horses had been stolen. Slocum couldn’t discount that. If Joshua had ridden in on one, that meant he and Beatrice could swap off as they rode and cover fifty or more miles in a day without running the horses into the ground. As they rode, the others rested. As the horses they were on tired, they switched to the spares. It was an effective way of putting a hell of a lot of miles behind you in a day.

  Slocum went back into the stables and pushed around straw on the floor until he found the greenbacks Beatrice had forced into his hand, but without any horses, he might as well wave around a corn stalk. All the money in the world wouldn’t buy what didn’t exist.

  Realizing he had only one way to go after Beatrice and her brother, he reluctantly marched through the middle of town to the depot where Underwood sat on the front porch, pawing through a stack of papers and cursing. The stationmaster looked up as Slocum approached.

  “You can’t make me pay you!” Underwood half stood and papers went flying. “Damnation, it’s too dark inside and I don’t have any kerosene for the lamp and out here the wind catches my papers. I got to file reports or—” Underwood grabbed handfuls of paper and clutched them to his chest. “What is it, Slocum? What do you want?”

  “I’ll deliver the mail.”

  Underwood stared at him openmouthed for a moment, then said, “This some kind of trick? You fixin’ on stealin’ that horse?”

  “I can buy the paint.” He held out the greenbacks.

  Underwood didn’t even look at them. He shook his head and began stuffing the papers into his vest as a way to keep the wind from scattering them.

  “Not enough. If you ain’t seen, horseflesh is at a premium in Gregory after the tornado. But you said you’d deliver the mail? You tellin’ the truth?”

  Slocum nodded.

  “Let me hear you say it. You promise to deliver the mail?”

  “I promise. Now let me have the horse and gear. Including the rifle.”

  “The rifle,” Underwood said, as if the notion was foreign to him. “There wasn’t a rifle when I sent you out, was there?”

  “Do you want me to deliver the damned mail or not?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. Nobody in town’s got a spare minute. Every last soul has work to do rebuildin’. You’re the only one that don’t fit into the community.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Slocum said. He ignored Underwood’s demand for an explanation why he’d changed his mind.

  He rounded the depot and saw the paint in the corral, contentedly munching some hay. The horse shuddered when it spotted him. Its rest had amounted to only an hour.

  Slocum saddled and secured the two canvas mail sacks over the saddlebags, then stepped up. The paint sagged slightly under his weight but otherwise bore up well.

  “You get that mail delivered pronto, you hear, Slocum?”

  Slocum touched the brim of his hat as he rode past the stationmaster and into the street. He ought to forget about Beatrice and whatever she had gotten mixed up in with her crazy brother. The mail begged to be delivered. Then Slocum remembered the package to Justin Framingh
am and how that had ended so poorly.

  Somebody had killed Bonnie Framingham. Joshua was as likely a candidate for that dishonorable murder as anyone. Slocum turned toward the stables, where the livery owner had returned to find his horses stolen. He waved his arms around and yelled for the marshal, but he finally quieted when he remembered the town didn’t have any lawmen.

  “You, the driver fellow. You work for Mr. Underwood?”

  “I do,” Slocum said.

  “My horses. They’ve been took right out from under my nose. Three fine horses. I’m offerin’ a ten dollar a head reward for whoever returns them. And I ain’t fussy about what happens to the horse thieves what took them!”

  “North? Did they head north?”

  “How the hell should I know? Go find ’em!” The stable owner began muttering to himself, cursing loud enough now and then for Slocum to overhear.

  He turned his paint north and started in the direction he thought Joshua had gone—maybe with Beatrice as his prisoner.

  As he rode, Slocum turned over and over the details he knew and tried to understand the bigger motives that Beatrice had kept hidden from him. He had no doubt that she told him only a small part of what drove her brother. Slocum had no idea if Joshua had killed Beatrice’s husband or Bonnie Framingham, but it was likely.

  Still, something chewed away at him about Bonnie Framingham’s death. Slocum had been so close. He might have been the target. Because Beatrice had sent him after her brother? That didn’t seem all that likely since Slocum had seen the distant rider paralleling his trail, tracking him, staying just beyond recognition. That horseman knew whom he followed, but did he also know he had missed and killed the distraught woman?

  The only way Slocum could get answers was to capture Joshua and ask. He wasn’t likely to get the answers easily, but that didn’t worry him much. He had learned things from the Apaches that could make a rock cry and a tree beg for mercy. Joshua would tell him what he wanted to know, crazy as a bedbug or not.

  The tired paint couldn’t go fast but plodded along, more like a plow horse than a saddle-broke horse. Slocum chafed at the slowness of the pace, and when the sky began to darken, he looked around for a decent place to spend the night.