Slocum 428 (12 page)

It struck the other side of his head, and he felt the same warm pain, and felt as if a hot, smelly rag were being pulled over his head. Then, as all that gray light above flickered like a guttering flame in a strong breeze, he felt himself moving, being dragged backward.

In his last moment of consciousness, Slocum looked up at the snowy, gray sky and saw a big, big hairy face staring down at him, the homeliest man he'd ever seen. Only this big, ugly man had huge green-yellow eyes.

Torrance Whitaker tugged on a newly shined pair of brogans and smoothed the lapels on his best suit coat. He paused a moment and gazed out the window once again. It had proven to be yet another corker of a day, the weather so foul that he could just now, in the early afternoon, barely see a couple of feet into the street.

He sighed, wondering why he hadn't heard from those two fools by now. He realized that they weren't exactly competent, but he'd expected them to at least come back. Guess I'll have to do the job myself . . . somehow, he thought. Whitaker slowly realized that that ignoramus son of his was not up to the task, and never would be. Why had it taken him so long to realize it? Could it be he actually had a soft spot where his own progeny was concerned?

Whitaker snorted. He doubted that very much. More than likely it was that he wanted to see the kid fail. Full-out, fall flat on his face one more time. Maybe for the last time—wouldn't that be enough? One last time, before the entire town, then he could show just how he was so much more effective than anyone else, even his own son.

“Hell, I don't know. I'm no deep thinker anyhow. Just a businessman. A self-made businessman,” said Whitaker, giggling a little bit. Maybe from the whiskey he'd taken to fortify himself for the upcoming conversation he had planned. Something about that girl of McGee's made him a little nervous. He didn't mind admitting it—if only to himself.

She was a strong-willed woman. He'd seen the signs of it. Got that from her father, from an early age, no doubt. And that reminded him of his now-dead wife, Jordan's mother. He counted his lucky stars every day that she'd up and died when she did—elsewise she'd be the one calling all the shots, ruling his days and nights and keeping him as her whipping boy.

He stumped on through the saloon, his saloon, as he liked to remind himself every time he set foot in the place or exited, for that matter. How many people did he know who owned saloons? Well, not counting the others in town. But that was a pretty low number compared with the number of folks who sought refreshment or enjoyment through those doors.

And then out he went into the cold, snowy afternoon. As he buttoned his wool coat's collar high against the bracing, biting wind, he thought that before too many more years passed, he might just up and sell his holdings hereabouts and take a big ol' carpetbag filled with money on southward toward warmer weather.

Or, he thought, I might be better off to retain all ownership of my holdings myself and hire someone, say someone just like Ermaline McGee—his future daughter-in-law—for instance.

That thought ferried him all the way down to the boardinghouse where she currently resided. And just as if she was expecting him, Ermaline herself opened that door and smiled. “Mr. Whitaker, or should I say . . . Daddy-to-be?”

She flashed him a wicked grin and beckoned him on into the sitting room. Before he could even say howdy or boo, she closed the door and started right in. “Now what's all this I hear from Jordan? He says you want a meeting with us? Something about how you wanted to talk with little old me?”

“Well now,” said Whitaker, shrugging out of his coat. “That's just about the size of it, yes, it is. Sure thing. Only let me get situated, will you?”

But she didn't. She lit right into him, in the most appealing tones, and even as he knew he was being manipulated, Whitaker couldn't help appreciating her keen edge. She was a human skinning knife, and if he didn't use care, that little she-devil might just peel him clean, hide, hair, meat, and bone.

“Now hold, hold I say, little girl.”

And she finally did. But it chafed her, he knew, and even that he appreciated. She would be the very one to help him carry off this plan. A little tension in the business—that was what he needed to buy up all the rest of the region and make it his kingdom, fit for himself to rule.

What does she want out of it, though? For surely a woman such as this, he thought, with such business savviness, knows what she seeks, and surely she wants something. A cut of the take? She might just assume she was getting that once she married his son. Well, she would be surprised if she thought that she would inherit it all, wouldn't she? How did all that work anyway?

As the meeting wore on, it became clear to Whitaker that his fears—or suspicions—about her were correct. She was a smart young thing, maybe too smart. But hadn't he thought the same? And she was bold, too, in her plans. He could tell she felt something for his son, so maybe she wasn't wholly rapacious. Though he suspected she was . . .

And she wanted her father taken care of. Who could blame her? But that was the point where the whole thing sort of fell apart. There was no way he was going to let her know that he'd tried—and in all likelihood failed, since he hadn't heard a thing from those two imbeciles he'd hired—to have her father removed from the running, as he liked to consider it.

Sometime later, as he tugged on his wool overcoat and was ushered to the front door, he told himself that there was no way he was going to be bowled over by her. And yet as he roamed on homeward, he had to stop several times in the street to recount bits and pieces of their conversation. Had he really agreed to that? And the other point she raised? Oh dear oh dear, he thought. I best keep my wits about me around this little girl . . .

Later, when Torrance Whitaker finally laid his head down on his pillow and snuggled tight under the layers of quilts, he didn't once consider his lumpy son's feelings. Rather, he thought about all that she had proposed—and how very much of it matched perfectly, as if bookended, with his thinking, his plans and schemes and dreams for this odd, unlikely, but promising little mountain town that timber built.

“Oh,” he had told her. “There is no doubt that your father, Jigger McGee, was the founder of Timber Hills. No one else can lay claim to that title.”

Snuggled deep under the covers in his bed, he recalled her earnest young face nodding in full agreement with him, yes, yes, she'd all but said. Daddy Jigger's a good, good man.

“But,” Whitaker had been careful to say, “there comes a time in every town's life when it must grow, or wither and die on the vine.” He'd been sure to give her a long, slow nod then, to be sure she'd gotten the emphasis of what he'd just said. And yes, she was a smart girl, no doubt, and she had understood him. And with that last recalled thought in mind, Torrance Whitaker drifted off to sleep, a smile on his face.

Slocum awoke not with a start, but with a slow overall full-body numbness that seeped into him, with the measured pace of an oozing mudslide. What was happening to him? He worked hard to force his eyes open, and when he felt he'd finally succeeded, he still couldn't see anything. Then it occurred to him that maybe he was in the dark, pitch black. He worked to raise his arms, but they felt pinned somehow.

What had happened? He urged himself to think. Think harder—something had hit him. Where? When? At Hella's cabin, that was the last place he remembered being. He had been helping her to doctor Jigger and the other man, then . . . then . . . he went for more firewood! And something happened outside, something about hot pain, a . . . hideous face staring at him. Hairy . . .

The skoocoom? Couldn't be—he still didn't much believe the stories, even if he'd been confronted with plenty of tall tales about it, been told it existed from otherwise sane-seeming men and women, had heard animal noises he'd never quite heard before from creatures of the night.

He'd heard all manner of big beast—grizzlies, mountain lions, wolves, hell, even the ravings of hydrophobic men—and yet nothing had quite sounded like that strange howling, guttural cry, as if whatever had made it had been in pain and wanted to tell the world about it.

Despite all that, Slocum was hesitant to believe that the thing that had dry-gulched him outside the cabin had been anything but a man. And then another quick snippet of memory pierced his throbbing mind: There was a face, a horrible face with those raw green eyes. And that face with those vicious eyes had been covered in hair. How do you explain that, Mr. Know-It-All? he asked himself.

He ran that question in his mind, chewing on it like a bite of tough steak, and he came to the sudden judgment that though he didn't have an answer, there had to be one that didn't involve tales of a hair-covered giant man and his weird brood stomping through the forests hereabouts.

All these thoughts ran through his mind in the time it took to pull in a few long breaths, breaths that came hard because he was somehow bound so tightly. At least he thought he was bound. He couldn't lift his arms, legs, head. Hell, he wasn't even sure his eyes were open. And then something occurred to him—smells. It was as if someone had unstoppered his nose and ears.

The smells came first—raw, violent, nostril-twitching smells that raked his senses like a bull grizzly's breath after he'd fed on a long-dead, maggot-crawling deer corpse. But there was more to it, as well. More than animal. It smelled almost human in its origin. Somehow it was as if ten hardworking cowhands on a long, hot trail drive had decided to sit close to a woodstove in a small line shack, and then strip off their socks and drape them to sizzle and sputter and steam on the stove top.

And running through that, the pungent, gagging stink of someone with a severe gut ailment who had just devoured a potful of frijoles, then released all that stink in the only way men knew how.

And the smells were followed closely by sounds, low rumbling . . . snores? But they were more than that—they were choking, rasping snores as if emitted by giant men with massive bellows-like chests, a series of them, too many to count to find out how many men there might be, sawing wood in the dark. And then came the farting noises, long wet streams that strove to match the stink he already smelled.

And that was when Slocum gagged and fought for air and tried with all his ability to raise his arms to his mouth, to his nose, out of reflex, for fear of vomiting on himself and choking to death. His own throaty, wet-snot sounds, of a sudden, halted some of the other sounds, some of the snoring. And they were soon replaced with grunts, then the grunts were replaced with angry, sneering sounds, no words, just angry, dark, growling sounds.

Oh Lord, thought Slocum, what in the holy hell is that?

“Near as I can figure, them two was hired by Whitaker to do me in.” Jigger grunted as he scooched higher up to a sitting position. “I tried to listen but they conked me on the bean good and hard before I could get much deciphering in. Ain't that just the way, though.”

“What's he got against you, Jigger?” Hella said, tucking in the covers around him.

“Oh, stop mother-henning me, girl. We got to go after Slocum!”

She scowled at him. “I know all about that, and I'm about to light out—but not you, you're too weak. Besides, someone has to keep an eye on the prisoner.”

“You mean that half-dead rascal with the black feet and busted-up face?” Jigger cracked a smile. “He ain't going nowhere.”

“That's right, he's not,” she said. “Because you're going to be here to make sure he stays put. Now answer my question, McGee—what's Whitaker got against you?”

Jigger's face grew hot, but he finally relented—she had helped to save his life, after all. “Now listen, Miss Bossy, just because your daddy and me was friends don't give you the right to be all—”

“Bossy?” she said, smiling.

“You know, you ain't changed much since you was a kid.”

“Same goes for you, I'd imagine. Now, are you going to answer my question? I'm asking because, like it or not, I'm involved now. And as you're my oldest friend, I think I deserve to know what I'm up against.”

“Oh, all right then.” Jigger rasped a callused old hand over his beard. “That bastard isn't satisfied with owning half the town. He wants it all—and he wants the rest of my land, too. Plus, he wants the bank—he's made himself top dog of that outfit, too, you know.”

“No, I didn't know that. Good thing I don't have any money,” she said. “Even if I did, I don't think I'd put it in a bank. Why would anyone do such a thing anyway?”

If Jigger had heard her, he didn't let on. He was on a roll and wasn't about to let someone else's comments interrupt his own. “And!” He raised a bony finger as if he were testing the wind. “He's got my daughter!”

That halted her as she tugged on her well-worn wool-and-fur mackinaw. “What do you mean?”

“I mean Ermaline is all set to become his . . . daughter-in-law. Can you imagine?”

The very words he spoke seemed to drain the blood from Jigger's face. It looked to Hella as if he had aged ten years right before her eyes.

“She wants to marry Jordan?” Hella couldn't quite bring herself to say it with a straight face.

“Go ahead and laugh,” said Jigger. “I about did—then I got to thinking about it and wondered how on earth anyone who come from my loins could willingly hook themselves up with such a family. So I confronted her.”

“You didn't,” said Hella.

“Did so.”

“And what did she say?”

“Said she was in love with that big fool boy. Can you imagine? I doubt it very much. In fact, I think she's been hypnotized or some such by that fat bastard Whitaker. But what can you do?”

Hella hoisted her pack basket on her back, hefted her rifle, and headed for the door. “Love is a powerful thing, Jigger. Like as not, she was blindsided by the fact that she fell in love with him, too. Especially knowing as I do how much such a union would drive you around the bend.”

“You ain't half wrong, girly. But I ain't there yet. If I have anything to say about it, they won't never be wed. Hell, I had my way, I'd make sure Jordan was run out of town on a pole, tar and feathers his only company. Same goes double for his foul father.”

Hella shook her head as she opened the cabin door. “Keep an eye on that one there, Jigger. I'll be back as soon as I can. I have a feeling I know what happened to Mr. Slocum, but I won't know for sure for a while yet. That shotgun's at hand and loaded, and there's plenty of stew and coffee on the hearth. You sure you can get over there okay?”

“Girly, you keep on mother-henning me and I will fly out of this bed and chase you down in the snow. Now go on and find Slocum!”

She did, and the last thing she heard as she slammed the door was Jigger's cackle, halfway between a laugh and a cough. He still wasn't right, although he'd never been what you could call a normal person. But then again, thought Hella, who in the heck was she to claim to know what was normal or not? She was a single woman living out in the mountains, alone, and trapping and skinning animals for a living.

She chuckled as she swung down the easy-to-follow trail left by Slocum's abductors. She was not afraid of them in the least, just curious to know why they felt the need to abscond with him.

Then she knew—they were worried about her, protective of her. That had to be it. But Slocum? He seemed perfectly harmless, had helped her. Oh dear, she thought, maybe one of them is jealous? Wouldn't that be something? The oddness of the entire situation made her feel warm inside, as well as a little strange. And the more she dwelt on the odd topic, the more uncomfortable she became—and the more worried she grew. What if Slocum was in danger? She really hadn't thought that would be the case, but . . . what if?

Even though she knew that John Slocum was as self-reliant as any man she'd ever met, and quite capable of more than she knew, the thought that he might be in danger forced her into a faster lope along the trail she suspected was the right one, sudden fear beginning to gnaw her from the inside out.

•   •   •

Slocum knew his eyes were open now, as that strange yellow-green glow from those big, angry eyes pierced the stinking, pitch-black gloom. His head throbbed and hummed like a sack of angry bees. Whatever had clobbered him on the noggin had really done a trick on him—he hoped his ears would stop ringing, even though he could certainly hear all the damnable noises of his captors.

But his own ills, aches, and pains were the least of his concerns right now. He had to make darn sure whatever this thing was didn't kill him. But how to do that when he couldn't move his limbs? And as he struggled, he watched the bright eyes blink closed, heard the muffled shufflings of what had to be huge feet drawing closer.

Hell, everything about this . . . thing . . . seemed huge. And when the eyes opened again, the thing was directly above him, those eyes staring down at him, the stink of its breath descending, drawing closer, the sound of its breathing—a chuffing, rasping grunt—along with it.

I have never been more helpless, Slocum thought. Never. And yet he struggled with every ounce of his fiber and being to raise an arm, kick a leg, clench a fist—anything. But nothing worked. He tried to shout, and that, too, failed him. At least I can breathe, he told himself, until whatever this thing was, and it sure seemed bent on destroying him, did whatever it intended to do.

Then something whooshed through the air and struck him hard in the right side. He felt himself pitch to the opposite side, but snap right back. Something kept him pinned, but it also had moved—whatever it was that pinned his right arm and leg had moved! He worked harder to move those limbs and damned if he didn't feel something giving way, even just a little bit. Yes, now he was certain of it.

But he wasn't able to move fast enough to dodge the next blow. As with the first one, the punch was accompanied by a grunting bark, short and clipped, as if issued to emphasize the blow. It rocked him to the left once again, but this time Slocum was prepared for it—as well as he could be anyway. He did his best to rock with it, jerking hard on his left arm, and something else gave way. His arm popped free of the weight that had been placed on it, and he arched the arm with all the strength he could muster. It ranged upward, sloppily, almost lazily, but then it hit something.

Though it was buzzing with pins and needles, his hand felt that whatever it hit was hard and hairy. He tried to scrabble for a handhold in it, but his arm flopped back down again. He gritted his teeth and brought it back up. This time it hurt like hell but at least he could feel it, and that, he knew, was a good thing. He lowered it, then a sudden thought occurred to him—he might still be armed, might still have his weapons. Now that one hand was free, he'd perhaps be able to search for them.

Even though he couldn't see in the dark, that didn't mean that whatever creature this was couldn't—he was convinced it could. But he could still feel with that free hand. And he crabbed it down to his waist, along the right side, as fast as he was able.

And though the pins and needles were still making themselves painfully felt, there was something of substance beneath his roving fingertips now. Whatever he'd hit—and that had hit him—didn't react, oddly enough. At least not yet. He suspected he'd get clouted again any second. So he took advantage of the opportunity to find a weapon, a rock, anything.

He was rewarded with the telltale feeling of the hilt of his big skinning knife beneath his throbbing fingertips. He picked with frantic fingers at the rawhide thong securing it in place. Too late!

Slam
came another blow. Slocum kept his hand gripped tightly to the handle of the still-sheathed knife, but stiffened and worked hard to roll with the blow. He felt his leg jerk free of whatever it was that had pinned him. He was beginning to suspect it was a log, maybe a rock or two, though he wasn't entirely convinced. And he didn't really much care. He just wanted to be armed and ready to gut whatever this damn thing was that insisted on causing him such misery.

Come on! He urged his fingertips to unlace the thong, and was finally rewarded with a loosening of the tie-downs. A little more, little more . . . and the grunting sound came again, just before the next clout. This time, however, the blow came from the left side. Good, thought Slocum. Now I can get my other arm out of prison.

The more clouts he received, even as he worked to free the knife and use it to whatever end he might be forced to, Slocum became convinced that his captor was playing with him. Not unlike a grizzly before a kill—or after. But this thing had to know he was alive. He'd just hit it, after all. And done his best to thrash and try to free himself.