by Jake Logan
“He’s lendin’ a hand as I poke around. You know anything about the circumstances surroundin’ the killing?”
“I heard that this one was stealin’ horses. Might be Graham caught him, and he gunned him down.”
“Your son around? I’d like to talk to Andy.”
“Why? He don’t know about this. He wasn’t even back from Texas yet when Graham was shot.”
“I thought he might have somethin’ to say. Him and Tom had words before he left for Texas, if I remember rightly.”
“You don’t. My son’s never had a quarrel with Graham.”
“Why don’t I ask him myself? Is Andy here?” Drury looked around, as if he might peer through solid walls.
“I told you he wasn’t here. Don’t know where he is or when he’ll be back. Might not be back.”
“That’d be a shame. Makes him look . . . guilty,” Drury said.
Slocum tensed when Blevins reached for the hogleg on his hip and the three men with him started for their six-shooters, too.
“You git off my property. And take that murderer with you.”
“I’d hoped for a little more cooperation,” Drury said. “I need to ask some questions over at the Circle T and then I might be back to see if Andy’s shown up.”
“Do that,” Blevins said. “Just ride on out of here now. If you don’t, I might decide Slocum’s lookin’ too guilty to let go.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Blevins,” Drury said, nodding in the rancher’s direction. He jerked his head, indicating Slocum ought to precede him from the yard. As he rode, Slocum felt an itch run from his belt all the way up his spine to his neck and then head back down as he waited for a bullet to kill him. Andy Cooper’s specialty was back-shooting, and Slocum was sure the man was hiding out around the ranch.
“That didn’t go as good as I’d hoped,” Drury said. “I need to talk to Andy, but with you along there’s not much chance of that. You and him have a quarrel?”
“He shot my partner in the back down in San Antonio,” Slocum said straight out. “I’ve never known him to face anyone when he gunned them down.”
“So you figure he’s responsible for killing that sheepherder of yours?”
“The Basque worked for Tewksbury or maybe he worked for the Daggs brothers up in Flagstaff. He wasn’t ‘my’ sheepherder.”
“You brought his killing up mighty fast, like it mattered to you.”
“You’re the lawman. Shouldn’t anyone’s murder matter to you?”
“I need to take care of one killing at a time. No reason to get all confused.”
“You know Andy Cooper is responsible, don’t you?”
“You’re talkin’ too much, Slocum. I don’t much like that. When we get to the Circle T, you keep your tater trap shut. Understand?”
Slocum nodded. They got back on the road that wound around and eventually passed the Graham spread. Slocum looked up the road to the house, wondering if Blevins had been telling the truth about Cooper not even being in the Tonto Basin when Graham was killed. Probably not. But if he had to pin the crime on anyone, it’d be Murphy. Slocum had no idea what the foreman’s reason for shooting his employer might be, but he had not been around the ranch house when Slocum came after the horses.
“If we cut across here, we can get to Tewksbury’s faster,” Drury said. He waited for Slocum to precede him and rode a few feet behind so he could cover Slocum.
They rode in silence for a spell, then Slocum tugged back on the reins and stood in the stirrups.
“What’s wrong, Slocum? Why’d you stop?”
Slocum knew the deputy had drawn his six-gun, but that might be needed.
“Something’s wrong. I can feel it. If—” Slocum never finished his sentence. A shot echoed across the meadow, followed quickly by the deputy’s horse neighing and then galloping past. The lawman clung to the pommel but wobbled as he rode. Slocum saw that he had dropped his six-shooter—and he also saw the bright red spot spreading on Drury’s back.
“Cooper!” Slocum roared as he wheeled his horse around. His Colt slid free of its holster as he hunted for a target. Wherever Cooper had fired from, he was gone now. “Cooper!”
Slocum’s rage knew no bounds, but he couldn’t go after Cooper or whoever had ambushed them. The deputy was making funny noises as he flopped about, struggling to stay in the saddle. Slocum jammed his pistol back with savage fury and galloped after the deputy.
12
Slocum knew he had exhausted the horse when it began to falter as he galloped after the deputy. Hating it but seeing no alternative, he slowed and let the lawman disappear ahead behind a line of gently rising hills. If he hadn’t eased back, his mare would have died under him. He let his horse slow to a walk for a few hundred yards, then trotted and finally worked his way through the hillocks and down into a grassy stretch. Finding the deputy wasn’t hard. The man had fallen off his horse, which had run off once it was free of its rider.
Hitting the ground, Slocum ran to the fallen lawman and knelt. He raised Drury’s head. From the man’s condition, he was surprised when Drury’s eyelids flickered and he stared up at Slocum.
“Hurts real bad inside,” he said. “Can’t hardly breathe without it hurtin’ more. Help me.”
“I’ll get you to Tewksbury’s,” he said, “but your horse is gone. I’ll have to let you ride mine, but she’s all tuckered out. You ride, I’ll walk. Can you hang on?”
“Got to. Can’t let no back-shooter do me in. I’m Slick Drury, meanest, baddest lawman this side of the Rio Grande.” Drury tried to smile and ended up coughing. Slocum said nothing when he saw the pink froth on the deputy’s lips. The bullet had gone clean through one of his lungs. If he wasn’t taken care of fast, he wouldn’t last more than a few minutes.
“You a chewin’ man?” Slocum asked.
“Got some chaw in my vest pocket. Take some. I . . . I can’t.” Drury coughed up more blood.
Slocum searched the deputy and found the chewing tobacco. He stripped open the foil and threw away the tobacco, then he used his knife to cut away the man’s bloodied shirt. Not much blood leaked out, either where the bullet had entered or where it had exited his chest, but Slocum saw the ragged flesh rippling as the air went into the holes and came out the man’s mouth. Slocum tore the foil in half, pressed one piece against the hole in Drury’s back and repeated the process in the front before using strips of shirt to tie the foil into place.
“Doesn’t hurt as much. What’d you do?”
“Don’t talk.” Slocum heaved Drury to his feet. The man took a surprisingly strong step and then collapsed. Carrying him, Slocum got the deputy up into the saddle. Drury started to topple, but Slocum grabbed him and held him upright. Before starting the long walk back to the Circle T, Slocum made sure the foil was secured over the two bullet holes. He looked around to be sure Cooper wasn’t lying in wait, then took the mare’s reins and started for Tewksbury’s ranch house.
An hour later, Slocum spotted Caleb Tewksbury on the roof of the house. Like a prairie dog, he popped up and pointed, then slid down to the porch before yelling at the top of his lungs. Tewksbury and three of his cowboys had rushed out by the time Slocum reached the yard.
“What you got there, Slocum?” Tewksbury asked.
“He’s a deputy from over in Prescott. We went to palaver with Blevins but didn’t get too far. On the way back here someone back-shot him.”
“Blevins?”
“Could have been, but it was probably Cooper,” Slocum said. “That’s the way he likes it.”
“You didn’t see who done the dirty deed?”
“Get him inside where we can tend him,” Slocum said, letting Drury slip from the saddle. He caught the man’s dead weight and stumbled back. Nobody moved to help him. “What’s wrong with you? Help him!”
“Slocum, he’s beyond help in this world.”
Slocum lowered Drury to the ground and pressed his finger into the man’s throat, looking for the pulse. Nothing.
He put his finger under the deputy’s nose to test for hot air coming out. Nothing. He looked up at Tewksbury, anger mixing with his helplessness. The rancher had seen what he hadn’t—what he hadn’t wanted to admit. Slick Drury was deader than a doornail and might have been for most of the ride back to the ranch.
“There’s going to be hell explaining this,” Slocum said. “A deputy sheriff getting shot in the back means every last one of the sheriff’s men will be here in a flash.”
“Might be,” Tewksbury said thoughtfully. “Might not. The sheriff’s not what you’d call an ambitious galoot. Most likely, he’ll think on the matter fer a week or two after we let him know what’s happened.”
“You’re not going to tell the sheriff his deputy’s dead, are you?”
“What’s in it fer us if I do?”
“You need all the help you can get to fight Blevins and Cooper,” Slocum said. “The law’s not too inclined to take your side right now. If you try to hide the deputy’s murder, it’ll make it seem you had a hand in it.”
“I’ve been workin’ on this in my own way,” Tewksbury said.
“What have you done?”
“Been out talkin’ to other ranchers here in the Basin. Got a fair number of ’em agreein’ with me ’bout Blevins. Graham was better liked, though I don’t see why. But Blevins has ruffled feathers fer years.”
“You told them about Cooper being back?”
“Most don’t remember Blevins’s boy when he was here before,” Tewksbury said. “Those that do ain’t happy Andy’s home, no, sirree. He was the kind of little bastard that’d shoot yer favorite dog just to watch it die.”
“How’d you get anyone to join up with you after you brought in the sheep to graze?”
“Kinda forgot to tell ’em ’bout that,” Tewksbury admitted. “Jist kept hammerin’ away that Blevins was gonna do what he done to Graham and steal ever’one’s land.”
“You think Blevins killed Graham?”
“Him or Andy. Prob’ly Andy, since Old Man don’t git his hands dirty if he kin avoid it.”
Slocum tried to make sense of it. He doubted Tewksbury had murdered Graham, but that didn’t mean Caleb or one of the others in a circle about him right now hadn’t pulled the trigger. Or Murphy. He knew the foreman was a sniveling son of a bitch. Slocum sagged. Tewksbury might even be right that Blevins or Cooper had pulled the trigger. The only thing against Andy Cooper being responsible for the murder was that Graham had been shot in the face. Even unarmed, Graham would have intimidated a coward like Cooper.
“You got a cemetery around here where we can bury him?” Slocum stood and backed away from the deputy. He hadn’t much liked Drury but wanted to do right by him.
“We kin plant him out where you buried the Basque. They might enjoy each other’s company.”
Slocum wondered what he was going to do. Graham’s death was one thing, but a deputy being shot in the back wasn’t going to set well with anyone over in the territorial capital.
“I can read you like a book, Slocum,” said Tewksbury. “You’re thinkin’ on moseyin’ on, ain’t ya?”
“The thought crossed my mind.” Slocum considered the horses he had been promised and the cattle and decided it was better to get away with his hide intact than to make a few dollars selling the animals.
“He won’t let ya.”
“Blevins?”
“Cooper. I see it in yer eyes. I bet it’s in his, too. There’s no way two of you’ll be alive much longer. One of you’s got to take out the other. That’s the way it is,” Tewksbury said.
For all the man’s crooked ways, he saw right into a man’s soul. Slocum had to laugh ruefully. Maybe that was what made Tewksbury as successful a crook as he was, if anything he had done so far in the Tonto Basin could be called successful. The laugh died when Slocum realized how Tewksbury had hit him smack dab in the one spot he couldn’t justify away. If for nothing else, he owed his dead partner a touch of justice.
Six-gun justice.
“There’s no point pussyfooting around any longer,” Slocum said, coming to a decision. “You get the deputy buried, and I’ll take care of Cooper.”
“You want to do it all by yer lonesome? Me and the rest of the boys kin back your play. By tomorrow noon I’ll have a couple dozen others here. Like I said, I been askin’ ’round and got quite a posse lined up to take care of them sidewinders over at Blevins’s place.”
“I don’t need an army. All I need is hanging on my hip.” He touched the ebony handle of his six-gun as much to reassure himself as to show Tewksbury what he intended.
“You’re a damn fool if you don’t wait fer the rest to git here,” Tewksbury said. “Cooper’s sneaky. He done proved that a couple times with bullets to men’s backs.” He tapped the deputy’s body with the toe of his boot. “We’ll need all the firepower we can muster, but the rest of the ranchers won’t be here till tomorrow morning.”
“I need to rest up a mite,” Slocum said, “get some supplies and more ammo. Have the stableboy tend my horse, too.”
“Good,” Tewksbury said. “You might want to talk with Lydia. She’s been askin’ ’bout you ever since you went out to watch over the flock fer me.”
“She in the house?”
“Ain’t seen her lately, but I reckon so. Now, you get some grub and rest up. We got a big fight on our hands,” Tewksbury said. He waved to his men and they went to the barn for a big powwow. Slocum wondered what plans Tewksbury had in mind but wasn’t willing to sit through the man’s long-winded recitation to find out. He wiped his hands on his jeans and went to the front door. He started to knock, then decided there was no point. Lydia was the only one inside, and she was the one he wanted to have a few words with.
Slocum went in and called, “Lydia? Where are you?” Not finding her, he quickly searched the house. Her bedroom was small, neat and somehow at odds with the way he thought of her—wild and wanton. Everything in the room was precisely placed, not a speck of dust showed anywhere, the armoire was polished and the linens clean.
He went back onto the porch and looked around. Slocum frowned when he started toward the barn and got a look at the corral behind it. Star wasn’t in the corral. His stride lengthened, and he jumped up onto the lower rail in the corral fence. His quick eyes worked over each and every horse in the pen, and Star was not there or in the other, smaller corral some distance away.
He went into the barn, where Tewksbury had his men sitting on hay bales and was lecturing them. Tewksbury stopped and looked at Slocum when he came barging in.
“What’s wrong, Slocum?”
“You said Lydia was in the house. Her horse isn’t in the corral. Where’d she go?”
“Danged if I know. Last I saw her she was in the house. Caleb, you know where your sister’s off to?”
Caleb shrugged and looked down at the barn floor as if finding some revelation there. The rest of the men shook their heads and looked puzzled.
“Caleb,” Slocum said sharply. “Where’s Lydia?”
“Well, she was talkin’ ’bout goin’ out to see you. Least I think that was what she said. I wasn’t payin’ a whole lot of attention. Pa had me up on the roof as lookout.”
“She left? She left without tellin’ me?” Tewksbury roared and launched a punch that knocked Caleb ass over teakettle. “You idiot! You blithering fool! Blevins wants the whole damned lot of us dead! What’d he do if he got Lydia?”
“Kill her?” Caleb’s voice came out as a squeak.
“Of course he would, you fool!”
Slocum left Tewksbury to berating his son and slipped out of the barn. He mounted and rode to the small corral where Lydia had kept Star. The dirt around the corral was cut up from too many horses passing by. He began a wider arc and thought he found tracks leading to the north. It didn’t much matter if this was Lydia’s track or not. He had toyed with Tewksbury’s notion of letting him and his men back him up when he rode to Blevins’s ranch, but after seeing how Tewksbury
and his son acted, Slocum thought he was better off riding alone.
The hoofprints became clearer as he got away from the barn and the house. He rode faster, hoping to overtake the rider and identify who rode ahead. When he reached a hillock looking down into the vast pastureland where the sheep contentedly grazed, he saw Lydia ahead. Those had been her tracks.
“Lydia!” No response. He shouted a second time and this time got her attention. She turned and looked around. He thought she saw him, but she didn’t acknowledge him before she rode on. Slocum swore under his breath. She was heading straight for Blevins’s spread.
He pushed his tired horse as hard as he could and narrowed the distance between them, but his mare had been ridden too hard all day long and began to falter. Slocum started to call to Lydia again and then bit back her name. Three riders angled into the rangeland, laughing and joshing one another. A bottle passed between them. Slocum led his horse to a ravine and then tethered the horse. It would be a while before the overheated horse regained enough energy to carry him after Lydia. Until then, Slocum wanted to stay both hidden and alive.
“Where’d he get off to?” one rider asked loudly.
“What’s the dif’rence? He kin take care of hisse’f.”
“Let’s go shoot some of them sheep. I wanna see if I kin stampede ’em.”
“You can’t. They’re too dumb to run.”
Slocum’s hand flew to his six-gun when a shot rang out. A loud bleat was followed by the sound of a heavy body falling to the ground. Slocum scrambled up the side of the ravine and peered over the rim. The three drunk riders had their six-shooters out and were taking aim at a few sheep that had wandered over.
“Wanna see if I kin shoot one with my eyes closed.” The cowboy began firing. Slocum ducked as a bullet whined past his head. The man would have spotted him if he’d had his eyes open.
“Got another one,” a cowboy said, laughing at his drunken marksmanship.
“You shot my ma,” Slocum called out in a high-pitched voice. “Stop killing my family or I’ll get you.”
