Slocum and the Glitter Girls at Gravel Gulch (9781101619513) (4 page)

There was a long moment of silence as wisps of white smoke drifted upward in the still air. They hung like tattered cobwebs, white against the blackness of night.

Obie was the first to break the silence.

“Whew,” he exclaimed in a breathy whisper, “looks like we got ’em all. How many? Four?”

“Four,” Slocum said.

The two men walked toward the brave that Slocum had killed with his knife.

Obie turned him over, saw the blood turning to jelly on the Apache’s face.

He bent down to examine the wound above the Indian’s eyebrows.

“Where’d you learn to do somethin’ like that?” he asked.

“In a knife fight, you cut where you can,” Slocum said. “He wasn’t looking for it.”

“I never saw nothin’ like it. You blinded the bastard and then gutted him like a fish.”

Slocum walked away, and looked at the other three braves they had shot.

All were dead.

Obie followed him and examined the bodies.

Then, he looked closely at one of them and turned him over with the toe of his boot.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Obie said.

Slocum came up beside him and looked at the dead man.

“That’s no Apache,” Slocum whispered. “He’s dressed like one, but…”

“No, it ain’t,” Obie said. He bent down to look at the dead man’s face. “That’s a Mex, name of Fidel Sanchez. Half-breed I reckon.”

“He looks like a white man with a tan,” Slocum said.

“Mother’s Irish, his pa was a Mex.”

“You know him.”

“He worked for Orson Canby, far as I knew.”

“That’s the man who contracted for the horses I’m bringing to Deadfall,” Slocum said.

“Well, then, you got trouble,” Obie said.

“How so?” Slocum asked as the two men stood up straight.

“Canby owns a big part of the town. He’s a snake. I wouldn’t trust him far as I could throw that wagon yonder.”

“Looks to me like he might be a double-crosser,” Slocum said.

“You got that right. Double-cross is Canby’s middle name. You watch him real close. And if I was you, I’d watch my back, too.”

“A drygulcher?” Slocum said.

“You’ll be lucky if you ride out of Deadfall with the money he pays you. There’s a lot of graves in that town
where backshot men lie. All of ’em had dealings with Canby.”

Slocum’s jaw hardened.

He let out a breath through pursed lips that sounded like a raspy whistle.

What had he gotten himself into with this horse deal?

Obie looked at him and shook his head.

“Yes sir, John, you’re dealin’ with a man who’s tight-fisted as a parson and hires gunslingers to do his dirty work.”

“Thanks for warning me,” Slocum said as he holstered his pistol.

“Was I you, I’d turn right around with them horses and go back where you come from,” Obie said.

“No, I’ll see it through. There’s money owed and I’m a man of my word.”

“Well, Canby sure ain’t,” Obie said.

The two men walked back toward the wagon, where the two women were huddled together, peering out at them like a pair of frightened owls.

Obie walked over to them and began explaining that they were packing up and leaving. Slocum rolled up his bedroll, no longer sleepy, but wound up tight as a coiled spring.

The desert was now a place of death and the horses were spooked. He could still smell the acrid taint of the burned powder and the scent of blood on flesh and sand.

The wagon rumbled into Deadfall carrying two dead men and two mail-order brides, both of them still a trifle wet behind the ears.

“What did you want to bring that Mex with us for?” Obie asked as he pulled the team to a halt in front of the Deadfall Hotel.

“I want to see the look on Canby’s face when I lay the body out. Where can I find him?”

“Right here in the hotel, or next door at the Wild Horse Saloon, most likely.”

Obie set the brake.

Slocum looked beyond the clapboard buildings to the wide valley beyond. The size of the valley was a surprise and so was its green grass carpet, but then he saw the glint of creek waters on two sides, an oasis in the desert, he thought.

The creeks meandered through the valley and were widely separated. He could see men squatting beside both of them with dark gold pans. They dipped their pans into
the gravel and water, then agitated the pans with both hands. The pans tilted to let out the water in gradual sloshes, while the gravel and dirt remained in the pan.

“That’s a hard way to make a living,” Slocum said as he and Obie climbed down off the wagon and walked to the rear. “Where do those creeks come from?”

“Underground springs, I hear tell,” Obie said.

“I’ve never seen anything like it. Not in any desert.”

“It is mighty strange,” Obie said as he dropped the tailgate and shook the stockinged foot of one of the women.

“The way you came in here, a man riding out there would never see it. I mean, all those tall thin buttes hide the entrance.”

“Wake up, girls,” Obie said. “We’re at your destination. This is Deadfall.”

He turned to Slocum.

“Man who found it wasn’t lookin’ for gold,” he said. “He was huntin’ and follered the tracks of some strange beasts. Army had cut ’em loose and they was wanderin’ out here like big old ghosts.”

“What were they?” Slocum asked.

“Camels.”

“Camels?”

The women stirred inside the wagon. Slocum could see their white gowns, bare arms, fluttering hands.

“Yep, camels. Mean, ornery animals, just a-brayin’ like Missouri mules. The man roped one and it bit a chunk out of his arm and kicked him square in the balls. But there were other critters here, too, and he cut deadfalls and trapped bear and antelope, I reckon, and found gold in one of them creeks one day.”

“What happened to the man?”

“Oh, he stayed on while the town was buildin’ up. Had him a claim and all. Then, one day, he warn’t here no more.
That happened right after Canby come here and started gobblin’ up claims and settin’ up ways to steal money from the prospectors. Old Clem Newcomb had maybe the richest claim and then he warn’t here no more.”

“You think Canby killed him?”

“I ain’t sayin’. Nobody is, but there’s a unmarked grave somewhere out in the desert, and folks think Clem is six feet under.”

Two men emerged from the hotel as the women, dressed now and pulling their carpetbags from the wagon, fluffed their hair and looked around. The men were wearing clean simple clothes, checkered shirts and denims, work boots. They were young and thin, with pale faces, no tan on their hands. They looked like indoor men to Slocum, barflies or card dealers.

Slocum and Obie pulled the body of the Mexican from the wagon. The dead man was stiff as an iron rail. Slocum tugged on one boot, Obie the other. When the corpse was halfway out, Obie walked to the tailgate, and as Slocum pulled on both legs, Obie grabbed the slain shotgun rider by the shoulders and then they laid him out flat on his back in the dirt of the road. Finally, they pulled the body of Sanchez out of the wagon in the same manner and laid his corpse beside Tom Nixon’s.

“Damn, Obie,” one of the two men remarked, “you deliverin’ dead bodies now?’

Obie looked up at Earl Cassaway and squinted.

“Earl, ain’t you got no respect for the dead?” Obie said.

“Hey, ain’t that Sanchez there?” the other man said.

“That’s Sanchez under that ’Pache paint all right,” Obie said. “And my shotgunner, Tom Nixon, if it’s any of your business, Roddie.”

Roddie Nehring pinched his nose as the stench of the two dead men reached his nostrils.

“I bet you got a good story to go with them corpses,” Earl said.

“Go get Canby,” Obie said. “I’ll tell it to him.”

“That’s Mr. Canby to you, Obie,” Earl said, “and he ain’t up yet most likely.”

“Then you boys can just sniff these dead men till he comes down,” Obie said.

The two men shifted their glances to the horses.

“Them your horses, mister?” Roddie said to Slocum.

“For the time being,” Slocum said.

“You aimin’ to sell ’em?” Earl said.

“They’re already sold,” Slocum said. His tone was amiable, but the two men scowled under the withering glance of the tall man in black. They both eyed his pistol with bland vacant eyes, and Slocum knew he was being checked out by two gunfighters with less experience than he.

Morning shadows inched along the street of clapboard and adobe buildings. Men began to gather in front of the hotel. Several looked down at the two dead bodies and shrank away as if tasting poisonous air.

Bonnie and Renata stood there with blanched faces and puzzled expressions in their eyes. They searched the faces of the men as if hoping for recognition until one man drifted down the street and wended his way through the gathering assemblage of gawkers.

“Miss Bonnie,” he said, “I’m Billy Joe Foster.”

“Why, hello there, Billy Joe,” Bonnie cooed, liquid honey dripping from her words. “I’m mighty pleased to meet you.”

Renata stepped up to Billy Joe impatiently.

“Where’s my man, Mr. Devlin?” she asked, her face darkened by the hand she brought to her forehead to shade her eyes from the sun. “Harlan Devlin.”

The two gunfighters chuckled and looked at each other for a brief moment.

“Devlin?” one of them said. “Why, he’s hangin’ around over yonder.”

The other man pointed to a gallows tree down the street. A man’s body hung from a rope and was slowly turning in the slight breeze that blew through the valley.

“He stole a horse and got caught last night,” the first man said. “He was tried and convicted and hanged real early this mornin’.”

Renata gasped, then burst into tears.

Bonnie put an arm around Renata’s shoulder and drew her close, patted her on the back of the head.

“There, there,” she said. “It’s not the end of the world.”

“Yes it is,” sobbed Renata.

Bonnie looked over at Billy Joe. “I’m lookin’ for my man, too,” she said. “Mr. Hornaday. Any idea where he might be?”

“Yep,” one of the men said. “He’s in the hoosegow. He’ll hang in the mornin’. He helped Devlin steal that horse.”

Bonnie’s face went pasty with shock. She didn’t cry. She just blinked her eyes and appeared to shrink inside her frock.

“What’ll we do?” she asked. “We have no money, no place to stay.”

The question was asked of no one, but the men in front of the hotel looked at Obie and he looked off in the distance.

Finally, Obie spoke up.

“There’s other women here,” he said. “Single gals. Orson Canby can put you up and give you jobs. You’ll eat and have a roof over your heads.”

“Who’s Orson Canby?” Renata asked.

“Why, he practically owns the whole town. This is his hotel and he has a saloon and boardinghouse, a gambling hall, among other establishments.”

“He’s the man who’s buying these horses from me,” Slocum said.

As if on cue, the hotel door opened and a man stepped out. The two men stepped aside.

“What’s going on here?” the man asked. Then he saw Slocum and the four horses.

“You Slocum?” he said.

“I am.”

“I’m Orson Canby. If those horses are up to snuff, I’ll pay you what I owe.”

Then Canby’s gaze shifted to the two men laid out on the ground.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Tom Nixon was kilt by Apaches,” Obie replied. “And the other man was with ’em.” Obie fixed Canby with a steady gaze. “I believe the Mexican worked for you, Mr. Canby.”

“I never saw that man in my life,” Canby said.

Slocum knew that Canby was lying. He felt a tick of warning deep inside his brain.

Canby was a large, florid-faced man and wore a suit that was tailor-made, a string tie, and polished boots. He had a large ring on his right index finger, a ruby surrounded by tiny diamonds.

Then Canby saw the two women, and his eyes flashed with light as they widened.

“Are those the gals you brought, Obie?”

“Yes sir,” Obie said. “They was set to marry the feller on the gallows and the one you’re fixin’ to hang.”

“Um, too bad,” Canby said.

“They ain’t got no money and no place to stay,” Obie said.

Canby waited a long time before he spoke again. Slocum watched him and felt sorry for the two women. Canby, he figured, was not a kindhearted man. In fact, he was probably ruthless.

All he wanted now was to get paid for the horses and
have a stiff drink of Kentucky bourbon. But he wondered if he could just walk away and leave the two women in the hands of such a man. Whatever he decided, he knew that the longer he stayed in Deadfall, the more dangerous his life would be.

Orson walked over to the two women and spoke to them. He looked them over as if they were cattle in an auction barn.

“You gals want to work?” he asked.

Renata and Bonnie nodded.

“Go on down to the boardinghouse and ask for Mrs. Hobbs. Tell her I sent you. She’ll get you rooms and assign you to your duties. She cooks a fair meal, so you’ll do all right in her care.”

Slocum noticed that Canby adopted a different tone of voice with the women. He sounded almost avuncular and kindly.

The women carried their carpetbags down the street to Mrs. Hobbs’s boardinghouse.

Canby walked over to the horses, where Slocum was standing with the lead rope in his hands.

“These are trotters,” Slocum said. “From Missouri.”

“That’s what I ordered. They look sound.”

Canby opened one horse’s mouth and examined his
teeth. He felt the chest. He walked around looking at the gelding’s legs. He lifted a hind hoof and saw that the horse was recently shod.

“What do I owe you, Slocum?” Canby asked.

“Three hundred.”

“I thought two.”

“You thought wrong,” Slocum said. “It’s three. You paid me three and there’s three hundred more that’s due.”

Canby snorted.

He reached into the right front pocket of his trousers and pulled out a money clip made of silver and turquoise. He slipped off the clip and counted out three hundred-dollar bills. He handed them to Slocum.

“Would you mind taking them to my stables a block or so down the street?”