by Jake Logan
“Do tell,” Slocum said coldly. He didn’t doubt that Holtz had ridden with the butchering madman from Ohio. But when Slocum and Holtz had been in the same unit six months before the Lawrence massacre, he had not shown the ruthlessness that Quantrill expected from his men. Slocum and Holtz had been assigned as scouts for one of Nathan Bedford Forest’s colonels. They had been run ragged by a Yankee cavalry officer name of Ben Grierson. Slocum had heard that Grierson was commanding the Tenth Cavalry or maybe just Fort Davis, and had swung clear of the fort as a result.
But he and Holtz had gone on more than one mission together, and the result had never been satisfactory. Holtz was more likely to turn tail and run than he was to do an adequate scouting job. Then he’d put the blame on someone else’s head for his failure. He had tried to do that once to Slocum and had not liked the result. In spite of this, Slocum and Holtz had gotten along all right. Not friends, not comrades in arms who would die for each other, but there had been a wary truce.
“Toombs and I got to be real pals during our time with Quantrill,” Rebel Jack said. “After the war, we came West and recruited some others from the CSA.”
“I saw them wearing their garrison caps. That’s a mighty foolish thing to do. Why not announce who you are with a brass band and a big parade?”
“You always spoke your mind, Slocum, even if it got you in trouble. I remember that now.”
“You never forgot it, Jack. That’s one thing about you that’s damn near perfect. You never forget.”
The outlaw grinned and lowered his shotgun, keeping the stock tucked under his arm and the muzzle pointed in Slocum’s direction. With such a weapon, all Holtz had to do was come close. The heavy buckshot spreading out would be certain to strike anything within twenty feet.
“I can’t hardly believe it, Slocum. You’re payin’ me a compliment.”
“You would have shot me the instant you laid eyes on me if you’d wanted me dead.”
“I might need some help springin’ my boys from wherever the Rangers lock ’em up. They’ve got rewards on their shaggy heads.”
“How many in your gang? Got to be a fair number.”
"The Rebel Jack Holtz Gang, that’s what they call us,” the outlaw said.
“I heard. The Rangers back in Sidewinder mentioned you.”
“Do tell. Famous. I’m damn famous!”
Slocum did not reply. He waited for more. Holtz didn’t disappoint him.
“When I heard the description of the man who had gunned down Toombs, I knew it was you. I thought you were dead. I really did. Everyone in Quantrill’s Raiders said so, including Bill Anderson. And who’s not going to take him at his word?”
“You reckoned it was me who drilled Toombs, so you came looking for me to reminisce about old times?”
“Something like that. Now that Toombs is lookin’ to get himself planted out in a potter’s field, I need someone to take his place.”
“Filling his boots wouldn’t be hard.”
“Harder’n you might think, Slocum. He was a special fellow. He knew artillery and explosives.”
Slocum looked harder at Holtz. The man was hinting at something, and Slocum wondered why he didn’t just spit it out. After all, he was the one holding the shotgun.
“Yup, Toombs was a first-rate artillerist,” said Holtz.
“He was a first-rate chucklehead.”
“Fer crossin’ you, I have to agree. I talked to the barkeep. He said you’re quick with that iron of yours, Slocum, real quick.” Holtz lifted his shotgun and tapped the barrel. “That’s why we’re havin’ this talk the way we are.”
“I thought you wanted to talk me to death. Not sure I wouldn’t rather you just pulled both triggers.”
Holtz laughed.
“I remember your wit now, Slocum. You have quite a sense of humor, don’t you?”
“Yeah, Toombs laughed himself to death.”
Holtz lost his smile and tightened his grip on the sawed-off shotgun. Then he spun, the scattergun going to cover two men thrashing their way through the cactus patch behind him.
Slocum went for his own gun and drew it, but hesitated. Escape was a better option than shooting it out since four men wearing the Rebel garrison caps were now struggling to reach Holtz. All of them had their six-shooters out waving in the air.
Using his knees, Slocum turned his mare, only to find his way out blocked, too. Three more of Holtz’s gang had rifles leveled at him. He shrugged and holstered his six-gun. Some hope remained that he could get out of this alive. Holtz could have cut him in half with a double load of buckshot at any time and hadn’t. He wanted something, and Slocum thought it might have to do with Rufus Toombs being dead.
“Settle down, boys,” Holtz called. “I got things under control.”
“He’s the one. He kilt Toombs, and he sicced them Rangers onto us.”
Hearing this, Slocum had to laugh. These were the men who had passed him on the road and had never known it.
“I’ll—” The one doing the complaining lifted his six-shooter and started to fire. Holtz moved like a striking rattler, batting the man’s gun hand upward using the barrel of his shotgun so the pistol discharged harmlessly into the air. Slocum never flinched, although he had just come within inches of being cut down.
“What’d you go and do that for, Jack?” The man rubbed his wrist and glared at his boss. “I wanted to kill him for what he done to us, me and Josh. He put them Texas Rangers onto us!”
“He’s got the Rangers after him, too,” Holtz said. “He only got out of their way. Why didn’t you?”
“They come up on us ’fore we even knowed they was there,” Josh explained. “It weren’t our fault, Jack. Honest.”
“Shut up,” Holtz said without rancor. “Men!” He shouted now to get the attention of all his gang. “Slocum here’s got the Rangers on his ass because he shot one down.”
“Twice,” Slocum said, but Holtz did not hear him. He was too busy striking a pose and acting like a politician on the stump.
“The Rangers want him somethin’ fierce. They want us, too. That means him and us, we got something in common.”
“How many of you hated Toombs?” Slocum asked. He was beginning to enjoy himself now. “Which of you wanted to put a slug into his empty skull?” He saw two of the men smile, just a little. The grins vanished when Holtz shot a dark look at them, then turned his disapproval on Slocum. Slocum did not care at all if Rebel Jack Holtz was pissed at him or not.
“Rufus wasn’t the most likable cuss,” Holtz said. “That’s not what we’re talkin’ ’bout now. Slocum killin’ Toombs isn’t what we’re talkin’ ’bout either.”
“Why can’t we just drill him, Jack? He killed one of our gang.”
“What would you say if I told you Slocum was one of our gang? An important member?” Holtz looked around. Most of the men were confused. A couple were angry. Slocum was just plain curious where Holtz was leading with this.
“Toombs was our explosives expert. Slocum here worked as an officer of artillery. He knows everything there is to know about cannon. Isn’t that so, Slocum?”
“I commanded a battery for a while,” Slocum admitted. He had learned the rudiments of the science behind aiming and firing, although he and his crew had never been too good. For the most part, in the skirmishes he had been in, accuracy had meant less than getting a large number of cannonballs lobbed onto the battlefield. The CSA had lost all three of the battles where Slocum had fired the cannon. Luckily, he had been transferred to a cavalry unit as a scout and had shone there.
“See, men? We got a replacement for Toombs who fought for the South. What more could we want?” Holtz sounded sure of himself.
“What’s going on?” Slocum asked. “Why do you want an artillerist?”
Holtz grinned crookedly.
“That’s part of our scheme to make a few dollars.”
“A few?” piped up Josh. “You said we’d all be rollin’ in the money. Gold and gre
enbacks and—”
“And don’t go shootin’ your mouth off,” Holtz said coldly.
“Why not? He’s either with us or he ain’t,” said another.
“Reckon they’re right, Slocum,” Rebel Jack Holtz said. “You with us or against us?”
Looking around and judging his chances at escape as less than zero, Slocum smiled and said, “How can I turn down such a fine offer of rolling in gold and greenbacks?”
“That’s the spirit. If more of our officers had felt that way, the Confederacy wouldn’ta lost.”
Slocum studied the rapt faces of Holtz’s gang, and saw that for them the war was not over and never would be. He had put the loss behind him, along with the repercussions like carpetbagger judges and Reconstruction. As far as Slocum was concerned, the road stretched ahead of him and not behind.
“Josh, you and Sam go do some scoutin’. I know Slocum’s better at it than you, but I want to tell him what we’re gonna be doing back in Bitter Springs. Keep away from the Texas Rangers.”
“Wait,” Slocum said. He looked squarely at Josh and asked, “How’d you get away from the Rangers? You bushwhack them?”
“Naw, we got lucky,” he said. His partner Sam jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow. “Why’d you do that?”
“We outrun ’em,” Sam said.
“You mean you hid and they passed by you. There’s no disgrace in that. There’s an entire company of Texas Rangers down in Sidewinder. You go killing them and they’ll tear the Guadalupe Mountains apart rock by rock hunting for you.”
“Like they are for you?” Josh turned to Holtz and said, “You said he was runnin’ from them Rangers fer shootin’ one. Why won’t he be a lightnin’ rod for them?”
“They got other things to do, that’s why. Slocum here will keep out of sight. I’ll see to that since he’s so important. The Rangers will be after Indians and who knows what all and forget about Slocum.”
“I only shot the Ranger,” Slocum said, “and didn’t kill him. He’s madder’n a wet hen but is still in the saddle. Like Rebel Jack says, if things heat up with the Apaches, the Rangers will have more to worry about than a single Ranger’s wounded pride.”
“Don’t know,” Josh said thoughtfully. “Seems that’s more important to a Ranger than his life. You made him look foolish. That’s the kind of thing that will eat away at a man’s gut for years.”
Slocum said nothing. That had been true of Rufus Toombs. For all he knew, it was also true of Ranger Jeffers. This reinforced his need to leave Texas and the Guadalupe Mountains far behind him and find more friendly territory. The only trouble Slocum saw on the horizon was Holtz wanting to recruit him to join his gang of misfits.
“You hie on out and make sure the way’s safe,” Holtz said. “All of you. I’ll escort Slocum to the camp myself.”
“Is that a good idea, Jack?” asked a bulky man whose shirt lacked two buttons right at his bulging belly. “What you say about him bein’ on the run and all is fine, but kin we trust him?”
“He was a captain in the CSA and rode with Quantrill. What more do you need to know? He’s a good man.” Holtz came over and looked up at Slocum. “Isn’t that right, Slocum?”
“Good,” Slocum agreed, vowing to clear out as soon as Holtz turned his back.
“That way,” Holtz ordered, motioning with his sawed-off shotgun. Slocum slowly rode in the direction indicated, letting his mare avoid the clumps of prickly pear and ocotillo that had caused others in Holtz’s gang such misery earlier. Behind him came Rebel Jack, humming to himself. Slocum halted when he saw a horse in an arroyo. Holtz hurriedly mounted and motioned for Slocum to follow him up the sandy, dry riverbed.
Keeping a sharp eye out for landmarks, Slocum knew he could backtrack after they reached Holtz’s camp. The outlaw weaved about, thinking this confused his trail. For a greenhorn maybe it would, but a six-year-old Apache could have followed it blindfolded. For the Texas Rangers, it would prove no more difficult. Holtz had never ridden too high in Slocum’s estimation, and the hour-long ride to the outlaw’s camp did nothing to change the view.
“Here we are. Spent a week scouting this out myself.”
Slocum rode around the area, noting how close to the edge of a mesa Holtz had camped. All in all, though, it was well selected. He saw no fewer than three ways the Rangers might attack and five that the outlaws could run.
“Do you worry about smoke from cooking fires?”
“Leave it to you to think of something like that, Slocum. Naw, the smoke is whipped about by the updraft from the side of the mesa. If we use nothing but dried wood, we’re invisible.”
“I was asking because I’m hungry,” Slocum said. He dismounted and went to the edge of the mesa. Squinting, he thought he could make out the sheer butte on the east side of Bitter Springs. He was certain he could make out the mesa on the west side. Of the town, though, he could see nothing. It was hidden between the two upthrusts of land, and heat shimmering off the land turned any building into nothing more than a blur.
“Picked this spot special so we could watch the goings-on in Bitter Springs,” Holtz said. He handed Slocum a pair of binoculars. Slocum handed them back.
“Seen the town. What’s so interesting there? Other than the bank.”
Holtz jumped as if Slocum had stuck him with a pin.
“How’d you know?”
“That you are planning on robbing the bank? I took a gander at it myself. That safe is as secure as any I’ve ever seen. It’s sitting on a brick floor. Was Toombs going to blow the safe? I’d want to check closer, but it might take a full box of dynamite to blow off that door.”
“That much would destroy whatever’s inside the safe,” Holtz said.
“Not if it’s gold.” Slocum remembered the soldiers moving their boxes from the supply wagon into the bank.
“Fort Suddereth stores its payroll there,” Holtz said. “You only been in town a day or two—”
“Less,” Slocum corrected.
“And you got this all figured out? I knew I was doing the right thing to recruit you.”
“You thinking on riding in with that army of yours and forcing the bank president to open his safe for you?” Slocum had thought about that himself, and then had seen the look in Morton Thompson’s eyes. The man valued money above all else, and would die a hundred times before opening the safe. Even if he had a family, he would let his wife and children perish before handing over one cent entrusted to the bank.
“Is that what you’d do?”
“Hell, no. And you weren’t thinking to do it either.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because you went on and on about Toombs. What sold me to your gang was artillery experience. You planning on stealing a mountain howitzer from Fort Suddereth and using it on the safe?”
“What would you say to a plan like that?”
“Using a cannon is smart,” Slocum said, “but you’d have to drag the cannon and caisson from the fort more than ten miles away. There’s no way even a shoddily run fort is going to let you do that. From what I saw, Fort Suddereth is run by the book.”
“You said it,” Holtz exclaimed. “I tried to ride in and look around, and couldn’t even get inside that dinky wall of theirs. I talked to the sutler, but he wouldn’t give me the time of day. All I could do was find a rise and use my binoculars to study the fort.”
“If you’re not going to steal a cannon from the cavalry post, what do you have in mind?”
“A Rebel cannon,” Holtz said in a husky, almost reverential whisper. “When Sibley invaded New Mexico, he had an artillery battery, and left one cannon here on his way up to lay siege to Fort Craig.”
“He went from Mesilla,” Slocum said.
“He split his force. The main body of his troops went up the Rio Grande from Mesilla. Another part brought a cannon with them and were going to come up from behind at Fort Craig.”
“Why didn’t they make it?”
“The troope
rs deserted,” Holtz said, ice in his voice.
“The damn cowards deserted, but not before their commander buried the cannon so the Yanks couldn’t get it.”
“He spiked it?”
“Buried it. The cannon’s in perfect condition.”
“Let’s see it,” Slocum said, warming to Holtz’s scheme. Then he saw the outlaw’s face. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“We don’t have the cannon, not exactly.”
“What exactly do you have?” Slocum asked. He was not sure he wanted to hear the answer. And when Holtz gave it to him, he knew he had been right.
8
Slocum stared at Rebel Jack Holtz, then laughed harshly.
“That’s so dumb you must have got it from Toombs.”
“No, no,” Holtz said. “It was all written down in Hop-kins Sibley’s reports. I saw them. He was a good general. He won every last fight against the bluebellies in New Mexico.”
“He won them all until that son of a bitch Carrington came swooping down from Colorado and destroyed his supply wagons. Sibley left with his tail between his legs.”
“Slocum, it is all in his reports. He sent a couple dozen men with the expedition that came through Bitter Springs. They had to abandon their cannon. Rather than let it fall into Yankee hands, they buried it.”
“And left a map?” Slocum shook his head. If he had a dollar for every time he had heard about fabulous treasure or lost mines all being put down on a mysterious map, he would have more gold than anything supposedly buried.
“The major in charge of the expedition did. He left a map.”
“Let me see it.” Slocum stared in amazement as Holtz seemed to shrink and get confused. He looked like a little boy who had been caught doing something naughty. “You don’t even have the map?”
“It’s in Bitter Springs. Somewhere.”
“Somewhere,” Slocum said sarcastically, wondering how long a ride it would be across the dry lake bed to El Paso. Making it in three days was out of the question with constant cavalry patrols. If he got lucky, he could reach the border town in less than a week. After all, he had money. He didn’t need to get involved in this harebrained scheme of Rebel Jack Holtz’s.
