by Jake Logan
“What’s that?” All three men looked around. “You hear that?”
“Musta been the wind.”
“You’re murdering my family,” Slocum called out. “Stop killing us.”
He poked his head up enough to see the three drunks looking at one another, eyes wide. They stared at the pistols in their hands and then at the sheep they had shot. With a yelp, they put their spurs to their horses and rocketed away. Slocum kept from laughing too hard and then sobered. Tewksbury had a hard row to hoe grazing the sheep in the Tonto Basin. Most all of the ranchers weren’t inclined to think too highly of the animals.
Slocum knew he had been lucky that these three had been drinking so heavily in the middle of the day and hadn’t expected anyone else to be on the range. He slid down the slope and sat as he thought hard what to do. Getting rid of the three was easy compared with catching up with Lydia. He had no idea why she was heading to Matt Blevins’s ranch, but like the rest of her family, she didn’t often show too much good sense.
He wouldn’t put it past her to think she could talk Blevins out of his range war.
“You rested up?” Slocum asked his horse. The mare shook her head as if denying she was ready to ride ahead. He didn’t blame her. He was tired, too, but Lydia needed to have some sense pounded into her hard head. Slocum patted the mare’s neck and wished he had a lump of sugar for her, but he didn’t. His own belly growled so hard from lack of food he wished he had stayed at the Tewksbury ranch for one more meal. Then he remembered how Tewksbury was getting his allies ready for a major bloodbath in the Basin and knew he couldn’t be caught between the two feuding factions.
“Settle up with Cooper and then I’m out of here,” he said. “Even working for the Daggs brothers up in Flagstaff seems like a better life right now.”
He kept talking to the mare to reassure her as he walked her slowly from the ravine and looked around for the three drunk cowboys. They had disappeared like smoke in the wind. That made riding northward a little easier, but Slocum worried they might have gone to earth somewhere between here and the ranch. He had scared them for a spell, but they weren’t likely to remember too long, depending on how much more tarantula juice they swilled and how much Dutch courage it gave them.
Slocum got his bearings and changed direction, going to the far side of the pastureland, cutting through a small wooded area and out onto a hill near the Blevins ranch. He started to shout again when he saw Lydia riding along a trail. Ahead to her right were the three drunk cowboys. Slocum judged distances and knew the trio was too far for him to shoot, even if he had a rifle with a longer barrel than that on the Winchester. Shouting at her would draw unwanted attention to both him and the woman who rode along oblivious to her danger.
Slocum started down the hillside, intent on diverting the three. Then he saw a new danger threatening Lydia. He grabbed for his rifle and pulled it to his shoulder. His horse shifted nervously under him so that accurately aiming was increasingly difficult.
“Cooper,” he said with venom in the name. Slocum tried to settle the mare down but she refused.
Lydia didn’t see Cooper coming up from her rear, and then it was impossible. Cooper was between him and Lydia. If he missed the murderous outlaw, he might hit Lydia.
Then Slocum thought that might be a boon for her. Cooper put on a spurt of speed at the last moment and caught up with her. As she turned and finally saw him, Cooper reached out and grabbed her, his hand clamping down hard on her mouth to cut off any outcry.
They struggled for a moment, then Lydia subsided.
Together they rode for the Blevins ranch.
13
Slocum sheathed his rifle and fumed at his bad luck—and Lydia’s stupidity in coming so far into enemy country. He cut off the trail and swung wide, going away from the three drunk cowboys who sat in a row like crows on the fence and chattered on. He’d gotten some small pleasure out of scaring them the way he had, but the gloating went away fast when he realized they forced him to circle and gave Cooper time to take his prisoner to the ranch house.
As he rode, he wondered why Cooper had stopped Lydia from calling out. A man like him would enjoy a woman’s screams of fear. She had also given in so easily that Slocum wondered what Cooper had said to her.
He emerged some distance from the Blevins house and studied the area around it, hoping to catch sight of Lydia and Cooper. The pair had disappeared, but the roundabout path he had taken to get to this point had given them plenty of time to be about anywhere on the ranch. The barn? He saw no trace of Star in the corral outside, but Cooper might have put the horse into the barn to keep any casual visitor from asking about it and its rider. Worse than the barn, Cooper might have taken her to his pa’s house. It was larger than the Tewksbury residence and three times the size of Graham’s house. Even if Slocum got inside without being seen, prowling about such a large building would be dangerous.
As dangerous to Lydia as it was to him.
Slocum went cold when he saw a half dozen riders come from the east. They dismounted and went into the house. Less than ten minutes later, four more showed up. All had the hard look of gunmen ready for a fight. Tewksbury had recruited other ranchers from around the Tonto Basin to his cause, but Blevins had gone outside the region and brought in killers.
There was a fight brewing, and it would be brutal. In spite of the hired guns already inside the Blevins house, Slocum started down the slope toward it. He had to get Lydia free before so many men arrived that it would take an army to pry her loose—if it could be done at all without killing her. Slocum never forgot that Cooper preferred to shoot men in the back. Murdering a woman would be even easier and more pleasurable for him.
He had gone only a part of the way down the gentle slope when the three drunks rode into the yard. They were still jumpy from the ghost of the sheep they had killed talking to them and had their hands on the butts of their six-shooters. Worse than this, they were more alert than the other gunmen had been, looking around nervously as if the sheep spirit had followed them and would turn them into a barbecue if they relaxed vigilance for even an instant.
Slocum veered off at an angle, not slowing or increasing his speed, to keep from drawing unwanted attention. One of the drunks spotted him and shouted something. Slocum kept his head down, to prevent his face from being seen, and waved, as if he belonged here and was too busy to ride over and be friendly.
His attitude kept the three from getting any more suspicious than they were. They put their heads together, one pointed again at Slocum, then the trio dismounted and went inside the house. Slocum heaved a deep sigh and kept riding, hitting the trail where Cooper had captured Lydia and riding back along it. He fought down a rising anger at Cooper but knew there wasn’t anything he could do about him and his back-shooting, kidnapping ways alone. He had thought he could fight Blevins and the rest of his rustlers by himself, but he had to admit Tewksbury was right. The more ranchers who banded together for this battle, the better.
“You ain’t mistaken, Slocum? Ya know this fer a certain thing sure?” Tewksbury showed all the emotions Slocum had expected. Anger faded to concern for his daughter and then was replaced by an even bigger hatred. As the hatred burned itself out, concern came again and started the cycle anew.
“I saw it with my own eyes,” Slocum said. “I tried to reach her when I spotted her, but Cooper got to her first. Why was she riding to the Blevins spread?”
Slocum looked around the tight circle of men intently listening to his story. Not a one of them showed any comprehension as to Lydia’s reasons.
“She’s a headstrong gal,” Tewksbury said. “Might be she was thinkin’ she could act as go-between and work things out. That’s as stupid as anything Caleb here’s ever done.”
Slocum saw Caleb bristle at this but said nothing.
“Cooper hasn’t sent a demand? Or Blevins?” Slocum wondered how long it would be until an unrealistic demand arrived. “Getting rid of the sheep in exchange for your daughter’s
life would be counting coup for them.”
“He’d want me dead ’fore he wanted the sheep out of the Basin,” Tewksbury said. “I’m goin’ over and call him out. Hell, I’ll take on both Blevins and his no-account son. I don’t care! I want Lydia back!”
“I’ll stand with you, Pa,” Caleb said.
Tewksbury stared at his son for a moment, then nodded and slapped him on the back. “Good man. We’re family. We Tewksburys got to stick together, no matter what they do to us.”
“Two of you won’t be enough.” Slocum told of the gunmen he had seen going into the Tewksbury ranch house. “These were only the ones I spotted in a few minutes.
Blevins might have fifty men scattered around his spread by now.”
“They don’t sound like folks from ’round here. Could be Cooper is callin’ in his back-shootin’ buddies from Texas and elsewhere,” Tewksbury said, chewing on his lower lip as he thought hard on what Slocum revealed. “That means we got to go in, the lot of us, with guns blazin’. That’s goin’ to come to a sorry end if Lydia’s caught in the middle.”
“There’s no other choice,” Caleb said stoutly. “You said so yourself. We got to fight to get Lydia back. You want me to take a message to Blevins sayin’ if anything happens to her, we’ll bury the lot of ’em?”
“Threats won’t work,” Slocum said. “You’re past that.”
“All or nuthin’, Slocum? That what you’re sayin’?” Tewksbury fixed a gimlet eye on him.
“Every last rancher you can muster ought to go. A bluff won’t win this pot.”
“You got a scheme brewin’ in that skull of yers?”
“I’ll try to sneak in the back way when you and the rest of the ranchers draw Blevins’s attention,” Slocum said. “I have to find where Lydia is being kept, but that shouldn’t be too hard.” Slocum didn’t want to say anything more, but Tewksbury forced him.
“How do you propose to do that, Slocum?”
“When you ride up, Cooper will join his pa and the rest of the gunmen. Wherever he comes from, that’ll be where Lydia’s being kept.” Slocum hadn’t wanted to be so blunt because it told Tewksbury that his daughter had already been violated by Andy Cooper.
“I’ll kill him,” Tewksbury said in an emotionless voice.
“Not if I get him in my sights first,” Slocum said, “but rescuing Lydia is more important.”
Tewksbury nodded once brusquely, then bellowed to his men to send the word to other ranchers about what would be required of them.
“And tell ’em to bring as many of their men as they kin,” Tewksbury added. “If this is gonna be a fight, I want to be on the winnin’ side.”
Slocum had to agree.
More than forty men rode behind them as Slocum and Tewksbury turned from the road toward Blevins’s house. It had taken a full day for the small army to assemble, but Slocum thought it was necessary. When he saw rifle barrels poking out from every window in the house and every knothole in the barn walls, he wondered if even forty was going to be enough.
“Hang back,” Tewksbury ordered. “I’ll ride ahead and palaver.” He looked at Slocum and canted his head to one side. Slocum knew what they had planned, but sneaking around back didn’t look as easy as he had hoped. There wasn’t a chance to come up with a new plan, so Slocum fell back and let others surround him.
When enough of the angry, armed men had passed him, he handed his reins to Caleb and dropped to the ground, keeping low and trusting to his skills and Tewksbury’s misdirection that none of Blevins’s men saw him.
He skirted the broad yard to the east and flopped to his belly, wiggling closer to the house. He counted no fewer than three rifle barrels thrust from windows. Slocum stayed flat and watched, then smiled. The barrels didn’t move an iota, telling him no gunman pulled the stocks to his shoulder or had a finger on the trigger. Blevins was only trying to puff himself up and make it appear he had more armed men on his side than he did.
Slocum got closer and then put his back to the wall of the house. A quick glance through the window startled both Slocum and the man inside the room. The rifle hadn’t budged while Slocum approached, because the man sat back, feet up on the windowsill while he knocked back a shot or two from a whiskey bottle.
Grabbing fast, Slocum wrapped his fingers around the barrel and yanked to get it away from the inattentive sniper.
Slocum almost made it. The man yelped, dived and fired the rifle. The bullet went into the ground, but Slocum released the barrel as it heated from the bullet’s passage. He went for his six-gun, but his fingers were clumsy from the burn. A second round had been fired past his head by the time Slocum shoved the muzzle of his Colt Navy through the window and fired point-blank into the sniper’s belly.
Whatever discussion that might have been going on in front of the house ended in gunfire. Slocum fired at another man inside the house and missed. A hail of bullets forced him to duck out of the window and realize how dangerous his position was. He had meant to sneak into the house and prowl around until he found Lydia. Now that the men inside knew he was here, he had nowhere to hide, and if he ran, he would get shot in the back.
Slocum briefly thought the gunmen inside might fetch Cooper since back-shooting was the coward’s speciality.
Then all he thought about was staying alive. Heavy footfalls inside warned him of someone coming. Slocum waited, then grabbed the rifle still poking out of the window and jerked down hard. When the stock met resistance, he popped up again and fired twice more. The gunman had been stunned by the stock catching him under the chin. Slocum’s bullets ended his life.
Pulling the rifle out, Slocum reversed it and tried to fire into the house. This was dangerous because he had no idea where Lydia might be held, but there was no other chance for him to survive. He was forced down before he could squeeze off even a single shot. When the men inside the house started shooting through the wall, Slocum knew he had no choice but to retreat. Fast.
Running a zigzag pattern, he stayed clear of the wild shots following him to the drainage ditch he had crawled up to get this close to the house. Slocum dived and flopped hard into the ditch, then started crawling when tiny puffs of dust kicked up all around, as Blevins’s men tried to ventilate him.
When he got back to the road, Slocum found a wild, disorganized fight going on. The men with Tewksbury had taken shelter willy-nilly and their horses had run off, effectively pinning them where they lay.
Slocum saw Caleb some distance down the road and ran to him. The man stood with the reins of several horses clutched in his shaking hands. He was pale and his eyes were fixed on the road ahead.
“Snap out of it,” Slocum said harshly. “Tether these horses, and go round up as many others as you can.”
“I . . . I ought to be up there with Pa. He’s bein’ shot at.”
“Get the horses. That’s more important and will save more lives,” Slocum said, searching through his saddlebags until he found his spare loaded cylinder. He knocked out the one with the six spent chambers and locked in the new cylinder. Then he found a box of shells and crammed them into his pocket. He wished he had brought more ammunition.
“I think he’d want me—”
“Do as I say. There’s no way they can endure fire like that much longer,” Slocum said. “We’re going to ride out of here or be carried off to a cemetery. I’d rather ride, and you’re the only one who can save us,” Slocum said, changing his tack. The sense of the argument got through to Caleb.
“They’re takin’ a terrible shellacking,” he said.
“The horses.” Slocum had started to join Tewksbury and the others when Caleb shouted out to him.
“Did you find my sister?”
Slocum looked back over his shoulder. His dour expression told Caleb more than he wanted to know. Caleb sagged as he went about the chore Slocum had set for him.
Lead tearing through the air all around, Slocum made his way up to a ditch beside the road, where Tewksbury and two others
hunkered down.
“You git her, Slocum?”
“Shooting started before I could get a good look,” Slocum said. “We can’t stay here much longer. They’ve got more men than I saw before. Some are in the barn and others are in the house.”
“We got a passel of ’em out in that field, too, shootin’ at us from the flank.”
“How many did you lose?”
Tewksbury spat.
“Four dead, that I know of. Another ten winged. If we don’t hightail it mighty soon, all of us’ll be dead.”
“Caleb is rounding up the horses,” Slocum said.
“Is that where the coward got off to?”
“He’s going to save your bacon,” Slocum said. “Try to run back down the road and you’ll be giving Cooper his favorite target.”
“You were in the army, weren’t you? What do you think we oughta do?”
“Keep firing. How’s your ammunition holding up?”
“Most of us had a box or two tucked into our pockets, but we been burnin’ through it mighty fast just to keep ’em pinned down.”
Slocum caught movement out of the corner of his eye, flopped to his belly, aimed and fired. A man creeping onto the roof of the house jumped, lost his footing and slid off the roof to fall heavily to the ground. Slocum got off a second shot at him but missed. The gunman scrambled to the rear of the house for cover.
“They get up on the roof, they’ll be shootin’ down on us. Good thing we came in ’fore them bastards out in the field got to the trees on either side of the road,” Tewksbury said.
Slocum had thought the same thing. Tewksbury had arrived before Blevins had a chance to deploy his men properly. Otherwise, Tewksbury and the ranchers would have ridden into a crossfire that would have left every single one of them dead.
“The only good news is that the men in the barn don’t have much of a shot at us,” Slocum said. “Keep the house between us and them.” Even as he spoke, the men in the field began moving in on their left side. Whoever was in charge must have had military training to organize and command the men so expertly. Slocum knew there were only minutes left before they were all dead unless they began to retreat now.
