Slocum and the Forgetful Felon

by Jake Logan

  He recalled his first date and his first kiss, and the first time he’d ever made love. That was to Julia Madden, who lived down the road from his family. He recalled that she was awful pretty, and that he’d had a crush on her for the longest time. And that not two weeks after they made love beneath the California moon, she up and married Mingo Cortez, whose family owned the most land in the whole of their county.

  He didn’t remember much after that, just unconnected snatches here and there, but it was the most he’d recalled in quite some time.

  He’d have to tell Slocum, he thought, grinning.

  Now wouldn’t he get a hoot out of that!

  Evening settled over the Double A, and the hands played cards at the dinner table, or talked among themselves at the cots. Slocum sat surrounded by the five men who’d volunteered to try gentling their horses on the morrow. There were plenty of questions, all of which Slocum answered as best he could.

  “You gotta get ’em snubbed first,” he said, “and then you just do what I done. Keep talkin’ to ’em, all soft and croony-like.”

  “Why?” asked several of the men at once.

  “Settles ’em,” Slocum said. “Don’t ask me why, it just does.”

  “And then we do the halter first?” Shorty asked.

  Slocum nodded. “Once you figure they’ve bucked themselves out fightin’ the post. But keep talkin’. Always keep talkin’. Keep your voice low and even. And when that’s settled in, you can unrope ’em from the post.”

  The questions kept coming and coming, and Slocum kept answering as best he could until he held both arms up. “Now, listen here, fellas. Each horse is different, just like people are. They each got their own special things to be scared of or things to like, and you gotta get inside the horse’s head to figure him out. See?”

  Shorty seemed to, but the others looked puzzled.

  Slocum sighed. “Now, I ain’t done with that little bay mare yet. She’s gonna take some finishin’, some time under saddle outside the pen. And even then, she’s gonna need polishin’. But so far as the main things are concerned, after tomorrow, any of you could throw a leg over her and go round up strays.”

  He lit another ready-made. “Gentlin’ is the best way, ’cause it don’t break a horse’s spirit. Spirit is somethin’ you want in a horse, same’s you want in a woman. If you’re a real man, that is.”

  The sea of heads bobbed as one. Good.

  “Now some fellers’ll tell you to whip a horse till all the mean’s gone out of it. Balderdash! A horse ain’t naturally mean, it’s man what makes it that way. That’s cruelty comin’ back to bite you in the butt.” He took another puff and saw, to his dismay, that the ready-made was almost half burnt up.

  “Aw, Christ on a crutch!” he muttered before he heard Hawk’s voice. It surprised him, since Hawk had left the bunkhouse quite a while back. Slocum had figured him to have a separate sleeping place, being the foreman and all.

  Hawk stepped forward, grinning. “How late you fellers gonna keep poor Quincy up talkin’? The man’s tired, boys. Ease off for tonight, okay?”

  Grumbling, the group broke up and the members headed for their own cots. Slocum noticed that Shorty and a hand named Weaver sat on their cots, still hashing over the day’s events.

  Hawk let out a sigh, then sat down on the end of Slocum’s cot. “You made a mighty big mark on them boys today,” he said. “Hell, you made a mighty big mark on me!”

  Slocum, grinning, lit his last ready-made of the night.

  “Don’t mind tellin’ you that it put a pretty big dent in Heber, too.”

  Slocum cocked a brow. “How so?”

  “I mean, he was real impressed. Reckon he’ll wander down sometime tomorrow and have a look-see.” Slocum couldn’t quite read his expression, but he thought it was close to disdain.

  Slocum smiled. “Always glad to have the boss get a look-see.” He’d like to get a look-see at the boss, too.

  Hawk stood up. “Well, I’ll see you in the morning, Quincy. Mighty glad to have you workin’ here.” And he was out the door, just like that.

  Slocum stubbed out his smoke, lay all the way down, and pulled his hat down low, over his eyes. Hawk had given him a good excuse to sack in early, and he was going to take it. He hated to admit it, but that little bay mare had taken the starch right out of him.

  He closed his eyes, and despite all the men moving about and talking and laughing, he went to sleep almost at once.

  Stretched out on his cot, the covers drawn up tight and his head cradled on his thin pillow, Teddy dreamt. He dreamt of Sally, and a hardware store, and Sally bringing him his lunch, and the hardware store with his name on it, and then “& SON.” and then “& SONS.” And going home to Sally each night, Sally with her ample charms, Sally with her golden smile, Sally who cooked like a bat outta hell.

  He was happy. And in his sleep, he smiled.

  19

  The next day, at around three in the afternoon, Heber showed up down at the breaking pens.

  Slocum didn’t see him at first. He had his mare saddled and tied to the fence, having just completed a three-hour ride on the range and put some more manners on her. The other five boys were working their horses in circles, either inside or outside the pen. Everything was going smoothly, or so it seemed.

  Slocum leaned back against a corral post and lit a ready-made. He took a draw on it, and that was when he saw Heber, talking to Hawk. Heber didn’t look any too pleased.

  Oh well, Slocum thought. Another day, another damn fight to break up.

  He threw down his cigarette prematurely, and started walking toward Heber and Hawk.

  “Afternoon, fellers!” he called, his voice sounding chipper.

  They turned toward him. Hawk looked relieved. Heber looked . . . Slocum couldn’t tell for certain, but it wasn’t too good.

  Just as Slocum reached them, Heber said, “I understand you’re responsible for this?” He made “this” sound like Slocum had spread horse shit all over his parlor carpet, then asked to be paid for his labor.

  But Slocum acted like nothing was wrong, like he didn’t want to put his fist right through Heber’s narrow, smug face just on general principle, and said, “Yessir, I reckon so. Boys’re doin’ a good job, ain’t they?”

  Heber didn’t answer. Instead, he looked at Hawk and said, “I want this foolishness stopped immediately. Do you understand?”

  “Yessir, but—”

  “Right now!” Heber fairly shouted. “We’ll break the new horses the same way we always have. None’a this ‘gentling’ foolishness.”

  Slocum stepped forward and stared down into Heber’s face. “My name’s Quincy,” he said with assurance, “and if you’ll let us keep on, with all the other men assigned, we can finish that whole corral off by Saturday.” He signaled to one of the men to bring up his bay mare. “Started working with this filly yesterday. Wild as a kite. You can see how she is now.”

  He took the mare’s reins and pulled her closer, let her get a whiff of Heber as well as Hawk. She obviously liked Hawk a whole lot better than Heber, who said, “Hawk, climb up. I want to see her in action.” He looked more like he wanted to see Hawk bucked off and break a leg.

  Hawk shot a look at Slocum, but put his boot in the stirrup anyway, and swung up. The mare didn’t move a foot, but craned her head around to make certain it wasn’t Slocum who’d just mounted her. Slocum stroked her neck and said, “Good girl, good girl, somebody new to ride you for a while, all right?”

  To Hawk, he just said, “I’m startin’ her on the neck rein. She’s doin’ pretty good, but she still slips up every once in a while. Ride patient. Easy on the bit.”

  Hawk, bless him, knew just what to do. He hadn’t been studying Slocum’s every move all day yesterday and today for nothing.

  He trotted the mare out to an open place, and began to ride her in large circles. Then he began to figure-eight her at a lope, making flying lead changes. He stopped her, then backed her up a
bout twenty feet, then spun her in a reining circle a few times. All the other men had stopped to watch, and when he finished, they all cheered. Hawk doffed his hat and bowed in the saddle.

  He rode back to Slocum and Heber, then dismounted, saying, “By God, Quincy!” He stroked the mare’s neck. “I ain’t been on a horse this nice since I was a kid, back home in Virginny!”

  Heber turned toward Slocum. “How do I know this horse ain’t a ringer?”

  Ain’t a ringer? thought Slocum. Seems when Heber thinks he’s lost an argument, he loses control of proper English diction, too.

  Slocum opened his mouth, but Hawk beat him to it.

  “You was right there when we brung these broncs in off the range, Heber. You said yourself that you didn’t never see a rougher sting.”

  Heber stared a hole in the ground before he said, “Oh, all right! By Saturday, then!” He turned on his heel and stomped off toward the house.

  Slocum blew out air between pursed lips. “Now, there’s a man you don’t mind seein’ the back of!”

  Hawk laughed with such vigor that he spooked the bay, and Slocum quickly stepped in to quiet her. “You’re a man who knows his horses,” Slocum said.

  “Naw, nothin’ like you,” Hawk answered. “What I said to Heber was the God’s honest truth.” He stroked the mare’s neck again. “I think maybe we’ll call you Wren. Any objections, Quincy?”

  Slocum smiled. “Wren. I think I like it.”

  “Wren it is, then!”

  Meanwhile, Teddy had been busy gathering information between selling shovels, paint, and fencing. From Mrs. Halliday, he’d learned that everyone in town—except maybe the Hendricks family—had been very upset about Mr. McAlister’s passing, but weren’t so crazy about Heber taking over.

  “He married Dora, you know. She was Mr. McAlister’s only child.” She dabbed at her eyes, adding, “Dora passed away not two days after her daddy. Doc said it was grief, just plain grief what did her in.”

  Teddy had expressed sympathy, then asked, “If you folks all liked Dora and her daddy so much, what is there about this Heber you don’t like?”

  “I’ll never in my life understand why Dora married him in the first place. He’s nasty and highfalutin, that’s it. Just plain nasty and highfalutin! What do we owe for the reels of wire?”

  Slocum had told him the best place to find gossip from women was the hairdresser’s or the seamstress’s shop. Wait till Slocum heard what you could learn clerking in a hardware store!

  He’d also gathered, from Ernie Biggs and Mr. Wheeler, that they didn’t care for Heber either, and couldn’t figure why Mr. McAlister had hired him the first place. Unless Heber had something on him, that was. Both men suggested that, Ernie Biggs especially.

  Ernie had almost broken a jar filled with No. 4 nails that sat on the counter, he was so vehement.

  Teddy thought he’d done a good job of being discreet, and when anybody asked why he wanted to know, he just told them that his brother, John, had signed on to the ranch roster to break horses for them.

  That seemed to satisfy those who questioned.

  Mrs. Halliday had said, “Well, if I was your brother, I’d up and quit as soon as possible. That Heber’s a devil!”

  After each person who’d given him a clue—well, maybe they weren’t clues exactly, he wasn’t sure—left the shop, he pulled out a little pad of paper and a pencil stub that Slocum had left for him, and wrote down the information, and the person’s name.

  He was a good little sniffin’ hound, Slocum would have said.

  Before nightfall, all the men who’d been gentling horses were up on them, riding in gentle circles and cooing non-stop to their mounts. Slocum had worked Wren a bit more. He hadn’t gotten around to teaching the ground tie yet, but he figured he’d put that on her tomorrow. She’d worked enough for one day, and was as tired as he was.

  He put Wren into a stall—a first for her, he imagined—then grained and watered her and threw a flake of hay into her manger.

  “Don’t fight it, girl, or there’ll be hell to pay for both of us,” he said, giving her a last stroke.

  He walked back up to where the men were working horses. He was proud of every single one of them. They’d followed instructions to the dot. And he could tell they were proud of themselves, too. Oh, there was going to be plenty of bragging in the bunkhouse tonight!

  And as for the hangers-back—the men who hadn’t volunteered—they were down there, too, every man jack of them. And the consensus of opinion was that if their buddies could do it without so much as getting kicked or bitten once, so could they.

  Slocum found this pretty entertaining. These were men who would willingly climb on a bronc with no schooling, no gentling, and try to stay in the saddle while that bronc bucked, turned, and hopped like nobody’s business. But they’d been afraid of a little ground work first.

  Well, he thought, change comes hard sometimes.

  He found himself standing beside Hawk. He said, “You got a good crew, Hawk. I’d be plenty proud of ’em if I was you.”

  Hawk nodded. “I am. Did I tell you that every single one’a them come up and asked me could they give this deal a try tomorrow?”

  “You didn’t, but I’m right glad to hear it. And if’n you want’a know, if we get all these boys to put as much heart into it as the first five, we’ll have all those broncs lady-broke by Friday.”

  Hawk’s brows shot up. “No kiddin’?”

  “That’s the way I see ’er.”

  Laughter bubbled up Hawk’s throat. “That’ll sure piss off ol’ Heber! He’s all ‘conquer or destroy,’ don’t believe in this gentling nonsense. Well, you met ’im. You ever run into a nastier piece of business?”

  “Can’t say as I have,” Slocum lied. “How’d he get along with the old boss? Mr. McAlister, right?”

  “Yeah, McAlister. That was sure a shame, him gettin’ killed like that.”

  Slocum asked him how it happened, and Hawk spent the next hour telling him. Sort of.

  “You seem a little creaky on the details,” Slocum said when they were on their way to the bunkhouse. “You keep tellin’ me what Heber said. Weren’t there nobody else there to see it?”

  Hawk opened the bunkhouse door, and Slocum followed him in. By the scent of it, it was beef stew again.

  Hawk said, “I’ll tell you the truth, Quincy. I don’t believe a word’a what I just told you. Not really. Now, there was bad blood between McAlister and the whole of the Hendricks clan. They bought a piece of land up in the hills a ways, and found out they controlled the water rights. Didn’t make no difference, so far as the Hendrickses was concerned. What were they gonna do, dam the whole river? But McAlister had a bug up his butt about it. Finally got the property out from under ’em. But old man Hendricks never forgave him, and Mr. McAlister swore he’d shoot any Hendricks he found on his land.” Hawk paused while they sat down at the table.

  “Guess maybe that Hendricks that crossed his land figured to fire first,” Hawk continued. “I dunno. I lived here most’a my born days, and I never had no problems with the Hendrickses. I got to be good friends with their son, Jonas. I just can’t believe that he done it. Jonas wouldn’t hurt a rattler, lest it was in the process of strikin’ him.” He shook his head. “There was a deputy killed, too. You hear about that?”

  Slocum shook his head.

  “Well, he was leadin’ the posse that went after Jonas Hendricks. Dale Henderson. Good man. They opened fire on Jonas, and Deputy Dale took a slug to the head. Died straight off. But I got a question for you, Quincy. How does a feller with only a handgun, shootin’ from three hundred yards away, leave powder burns behind?”

  Slocum wrinkled his brow. “Impossible,” he said. “He’d have to be shot from up close for powder burns. And hell, a handgun wouldn’t be worth shit from three hundred yards!”

  Hawk just solemnly nodded. “What I said. To myself anyhow, lest I be the next. And then there’s Dora.”

  �
�Dora?”

  “McAlister’s daughter. She kicked two days after the thing with Hendricks. Heber said she died from grievin’ over her pa, but I don’t think so. Not Dora. She was a strong woman, real strong in both mind ’n body. Right handsome, too.”

  Softly Slocum asked, “What are you sayin’ exactly?”

  Nothing. And then, from Slocum’s other side, came Shorty’s hushed voice. “It was Heber, Quincy. That’s what we’re all thinkin’. Heber done all three of ’em in, sure as shootin’.”

  “Shut up, Shorty!” Hawk hissed.

  “It was Heber,” Shorty said again, and dove into his stew.

  “Sometimes I get to wonderin’ why I brung you out here in the first place, Shorty,” Hawk said.

  “To keep that skinny ass’a yours honest,” came Shorty’s curt reply. Then he smiled. “Good stew.”

  20

  The following day, and the day after that, and the day after that, they broke horses. Things were splendid, so far as Slocum was concerned. The men, most of them, were good hands with horses and fell right into the rhythm of the thing without hardly any coaching at all. Most of the horses were finished, and they all had been trained to ground tie and have their hooves handled, which Slocum figured the blacksmith would appreciate. Best of all, he’d saved a few more horses from the hard-handed practice known as “bronc busting,” and hopefully at least some of these boys would pass it on.

  Hawk was beside himself with glee. “You know what, Quincy? I figure you saved us almost a month’s work, sharin’ that gentlin’ business. I always got that to throw in Heber’s face if’n he gets all uppity with me.”

  Slocum smiled and hooked an elbow over the top rail of the fence. “That you can. I believe I done myself outta a job, though. I only signed on for breakin’ horses, and looks to me like your boys can take care of it from here on out.” But he was thinking, More like you told me what I needed to know, and now I’m gonna report in to Pete down in Phoenix.