Slocum and the James Gang

by Jake Logan

  “Fire!” The cry went up and alarm bells sounded. As he had hoped, the four guards outside ran to help put out the fire. Slocum stepped into the stockade, six-shooter drawn. The two soldiers inside had been playing a game of gin rummy and had their hands on the table, not on their weapons.

  “Keys,” he snapped. “Where’s the key ring?”

  One soldier’s eyes darted to the left. Slocum didn’t let the muzzle of his pistol waver an inch as he stepped over and began fumbling about until he found the keys hanging on a peg.

  “On your feet and into the cell block.” One soldier started for his rifle but Slocum cocked his Colt Navy and the man turned into a pale, shaking statute. He read death in Slocum’s eyes if he made any further move.

  The two of them sidled backward.

  “Jesse,” Slocum called. “Where do they have you penned up?”

  “Slocum? That you, Slocum?”

  Slocum tossed the keys to the outlaw. When Jesse had freed himself and the others, Slocum herded the guards into an empty cell and kicked shut the door.

  “Lock ’em up.”

  “Kill them, Slocum. I want to—”

  Slocum slammed him hard against the bars.

  “We don’t have time. Nobody’ll hear them over the ruckus I caused.”

  “I heard fire bells and smelled smoke. What’d you do, set fire to the whole damn fort?”

  “I figured a pig roast was better than a neck stretching,” Slocum said, herding Jesse James and the other outlaws from the room. “I’ve got horses out back. The only way we’re going to get out is to ride like the wind for the gate. No shooting until we get close, then open up with everything we’ve got.”

  “We’ve done that before, haven’t we, Slocum?”

  Not answering, Slocum went out fast and circled the stockade. As he started to mount, sudden sharp pain blasted through his head. He sank to the ground.

  “Reckon that makes us even for the time you buffaloed me.”

  Through blurred eyes and a red haze of pain, Slocum saw Jesse and the others mount and light out for the main gate at a dead gallop.

  19

  Head about to split apart, Slocum pulled himself up and onto his horse, but he was too woozy to ride. He heard distant gunfire and knew the James Gang was busting out of the fort. If Jesse made it, this would be yet another story to tell around the campfire. Such tales made the outlaw out to be something more than human, hardly a wisp of fog slipping through the fingers of lawmen everywhere. As Slocum regained his senses, he vowed to put an end to the desperado’s life if he ever got the chance. He hadn’t liked him when he rode with Quantrill and he liked him even less now that he had tried to leave him as a sop for Simon Berglund.

  The sergeant would need a scapegoat, and Jesse had provided him one in John Slocum. A good hanging would go a ways toward reinforcing discipline and letting his troopers know he was truly in command. He might even hang the two soldiers locked up inside the stockade as a lesson for the others, though Slocum figured, through a head now only aching, that Berglund would be smarter to leave them locked up for thirty days for dereliction of duty. That would go a way farther as an object lesson than giving them a necktie party or even five lashes.

  Slocum moved his bandanna around when it began to chafe—or he thought it did. He knew he was letting the scarf mimic a noose.

  He shook his head, regretted it, and then focused his eyes on his saddle horn. When he had that right, he lifted his gaze and saw that the mess hall fire was almost extinguished. That meant he had little time to hightail it since there wasn’t any more gunfire from the direction of the main gate. Either Jesse had escaped—again—or he lay dead on the ground. Either way, that gate was sealed to Slocum.

  But he hadn’t intended to leave Fort Union by the main gate. There had to be a postern somewhere around the wall. The details sent out to fetch firewood or water wouldn’t always go through the main gate. Supplies might also be moved through a smaller gate. From what Slocum had seen of the fort’s layout, the best place for such a small gate lay off on the far wall away from the stockade, out near the ice house at the far side of the corrals. He wanted to gallop off and find the gate, but he kept his horse moving at a deliberate pace. That had worked before when he had walked all the horses right past the noses of the soldiers.

  “Halt, who goes there!” came the question as Slocum rode to a dark spot on the back wall. A sentry stepped out and was momentarily limned by the dying light from the distant fire.

  “Got a mission from Sergeant Berglund,” Slocum said. “A message that’s got to reach the colonel right away.”

  “I ain’t seen you around here before.”

  “I’m a scout just hired on. This is real important, so let me out.”

  “I need orders from Sergeant Berglund to—”

  This was as far as Slocum let the private get before kicking out and catching him smack under the chin with the toe of his boot. The soldier’s head snapped back, and he stumbled and fell hard against the wall. He might have busted his skull on the adobe bricks, but it didn’t matter to Slocum. He rode closer, lifted the locking bar, and dropped it. Seconds later he had pushed the gate open far enough to squeeze through.

  His eyes didn’t focus quite right yet, but he got a sighting on the Big Dipper when clouds pulled free in the northern sky. The cold night air and the sense that he might have an entire company of cavalry on his trail kept him moving. His head cleared as he rode and just before dawn he trotted into Las Vegas. The town was silent and not what he expected from Frank James being in charge. Slocum rode to the marshal’s office and saw a light burning inside. The office door stood ajar and he caught sight of Sheriff Narvaiz.

  Slocum dismounted and went to the door. As softly as he walked, the sheriff looked up.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “You rounded up the outlaws?” Slocum asked. “The town’s mighty quiet.”

  “We got some problems after Marshal Hooker was gunned down. Most of the fuss was raised by cavalry from over at the fort. I need to see what’s going on. Got a half-dozen soldiers locked up, if you want to call them outlaws.” Narvaiz frowned as he stared hard at Slocum, trying to remember where he had seen him. Slocum didn’t want that thought finding an answer.

  Slocum suspected Frank James and the rest had retreated from town when they learned that Jesse had been taken prisoner—or maybe Jesse had returned and realized his harebrained scheme was falling apart and the gang ought to get back to Missouri.

  “I thought you’d want to know that there’s some problem at the fort. Mutiny, but the commanding officer’s on his way back from patrol. You might alert Colonel Loebe and let him take care of his problem. Just don’t let him ride into the fort thinking he’s still in command.”

  “Me and the colonel don’t step on each other’s toes,” Narvaiz said, rubbing his chin. “That’d be the end of his career if word got out he had a mutiny.” He looked over his shoulder in the direction of the cells where he had some of Berglund’s men locked up. “Explains most all that’s gone on in the past day or two here in town.”

  “Glad peace has been restored,” Slocum said, stepping back. He started for his six-shooter when Narvaiz called after him but he didn’t draw. A soldier had started caterwauling and took the sheriff’s attention away. Slocum hastily mounted and rode from town, going north, following the pole star.

  As he rode, he thought on the map he had seen spread out on Berglund’s desk. He got his bearings and cut across country, making his way higher into the hills. The one cave where Jesse had left all the ciphers wasn’t likely anywhere the outlaw had stashed the gold again, but a second marked spot wasn’t more than a mile farther along the ridge line. After an hour of picking his way through the rocky terrain and feeling warmed by the minute because of the spring sun on his back, Slocum heard sounds ahead on the game trail he followed.

  “Damn it, Frank, how could that little shit have found the gold?”

 
“Don’t ask me. I wasn’t the one who trusted him.”

  “I didn’t trust him,” Jesse James shouted. “I was using him. He just beat me to the gun. Never thought he’d like my ideas so much he’d steal them.”

  “He stole more ’n your ideas, Jesse,” Frank James said. “He stole our gold. What are we going to do?”

  “Better tell the Knights that provided most of the gold,” Jesse said, his voice crackling with anger. “I swear, I’ll lead a damned army back and kill him myself.”

  “The way the sheriff moved into Las Vegas and rounded up the soldiers tells me Berglund isn’t going to be around that long. Narvaiz ain’t nobody’s fool and won’t make mistakes now that he’s seen what can go wrong.”

  Slocum rode closer, drew his six-shooter, and saw a small clearing ahead where Frank and Jesse stood almost nose to nose. None of the others from the gang were around, though Slocum took a quick look higher in the rocks to make sure Jesse hadn’t posted lookouts. The best he could tell, the James brothers were the only other ones ahead.

  “We’re gonna look plumb stupid, Jesse, if any of this gets out.”

  “Doesn’t have to,” the outlaw said thoughtfully. “We told everybody we were leaving Missouri for a spell to let the law simmer down. It’s been a month or so. If we go back, folks’ll think those federal marshals aren’t hunting for us anymore. Why tell them anything different?”

  “The rest of the gang’s not going to say anything since they’re family. But the gold . . .”

  Jesse and Frank mounted and rode east arguing about how they would spin the lie about their time in New Mexico and what they’d tell the Knights of the Golden Circle about how they’d lost so much gold. Slocum waited ten minutes until he knew they were gone to meet up with the survivors in the gang and hit the trail for Missouri.

  Then he rode into the clearing and looked around. A smile came to his lips. A cave nestled up against the side of a steep hill drew him like a magnet does iron. He dismounted, went inside, and found the spot where a heavy box had been stored. From the depth in the soft earth, there might have been fifty pounds or so.

  Gold. Fifty pounds of gold. That could mean as much as fifteen thousand dollars of the precious metal.

  Slocum stepped out into the spring sun, then began a thorough examination of the ground. Frank and Jesse obviously had only arrived, found the gold missing, and thought Berglund had taken it since Frank would have informed Jesse that Dennison was dead. Slocum led his horse along a path that meandered back around the hill toward the higher Sangre de Cristos and a watering hole. He tethered his mare a ways from the pool, then found himself a rock overlooking the water where he could sun himself. He drifted to sleep but came alert an hour later when he heard splashing.

  He sat up and got a gander at a naked Audrey Underwood bathing in the pool. There was no reason for him to rush so he sat and enjoyed the view. Her long, slim legs were a wonder to behold, and as she turned, her bare breasts shone like alabaster in the hot New Mexico sun. She ran her hands over her sleek skin, scraping off dirt and enjoying the sensuous feel of being naked in a pool of water.

  Slocum had to admit the water looked mighty inviting, with or without a naked Audrey Underwood in it.

  When he had enjoyed the sights as much as possible, he slipped down the rock and walked to the pool. She spotted him coming and let out a squeal, then turned and faced him, standing waist deep in the water. She wrapped her arms around herself to hide her nakedness, then smiled and lowered her arms to her side so he got a full view of her loveliness.

  “You’re a mighty pretty sight.”

  “Been watching for very long? Oh, I know you, John. How long? How long have you been watching me do this?” She ran her hands over her wet breasts, caught the nipples, and tweaked them until the nubs were hard with desire as well as cold. “Or this?” Her slender hands stroked down over her belly, went lower, and vanished underwater. She closed her eyes and sighed. He felt himself responding. Something more than her finger ought to be exploring the delights hidden by the water.

  He didn’t protest when she stopped fingering herself and splashed closer, reaching up to begin unbuttoning his fly. His manhood jumped out, standing at attention from her careful ministrations.

  “I’ve missed you, too, John. And this.”

  He began shucking off his shirt and kicked free of his boots as she pressed her mouth to him.

  “That feels mighty good.”

  “I can make everything feel better,” she said, flopping onto her back and splashing about in wanton invitation. Her fine legs, the auburn thatch between them, her breasts creating the ripples going from one side of the pool to the other—Slocum took it all in with a single glimpse, then moved into the water to join her. There was a time for watching and a time for doing.

  “Let’s see what we can do for each other,” he said, stripping off the last of his clothes and swimming to the middle of the pool. Her naked flesh rubbed against his and he moved closer, drifting into the vee of her parted legs. She gasped as he entered her.

  “Oh, so nice, John. I never thought I’d feel you in me again.”

  “You should have known you would,” he said, kissing lightly at her damp bare flesh. “I saw you take the map from Charlie Dennison after you shot him. It led you to the gold.”

  “You knew all the time!”

  “I knew I’d catch up with you after I took care of a small problem.” He rotated his hips to stir his meaty length about inside her until they both gasped.

  “No small problems here,” she said, wiggling back and forth and pressing herself closer to his groin.

  “How much? How much gold? I think it’s around fifty pounds. You had to be pretty strong to lift that crate.”

  “I needed to keep my strength up for you, John. And for this.” She kissed him hard and they began splashing about in the pool with greater purpose.

  Slocum couldn’t imagine a better way to get ready to spend a passel of gold.