Slocum Giant 2013 : Slocum and the Silver City Harlot (9781101601860) (16 page)

Whitehill nodded, then headed for his desk to pull the six-shooter from the drawer. For a moment Marianne and Slocum were alone, face to face.

He said, “Don't worry.”

Barely daring to speak the words, she said, “Rescue my son.”

Then Slocum retrieved his sidearm and disappeared through the door into the street. Never had she felt more hopeless, more helpless. She had to depend on a man who had been locked up and someone else she didn't even know to save her Randolph.

Slocum hoped to hell he wasn't signing Randolph's death warrant. He looked around but failed to find the face he sought. Walking fast, he went to the stables and peered in. Marianne had left the pony in a stall. Patting his pockets, he found a few small coins in his vest pocket. No one in Silver City was going to sell him a saddle for the few coins he had.

Before the stableman could stop him to take the pitiful amount of money he had for stabling and feeding the horse, Slocum led the pony out and vaulted onto its back. The pony sagged under his weight. It had gotten used to the much lighter Marianne astride it, but the pony righted itself, got its legs under it, and let Slocum trot it from town, heading south along the road Frank had used as a rendezvous.

“Mr. Slocum! Hey, Slocum!”

He perked up when he saw a distant figure waving frantically. Putting his heels to the horse's flanks, he galloped away from the road toward the draw where Billy McCarty waved to him.

“Did you find him?” Slocum's question collided with the boy's frantic statement. He held up his hand to stop the verbal flood. “Did you find where Frank has Randolph?”

“I did, I did, Mr. Slocum. I done just like you tole me. I kept way back as Miz Lomax rode the trail, then hid so Frank'd never see me. He took a piece o' paper from her, then I waited 'til he rode past me. Followin' him was hard, damned hard, but I did it. Just like you told me. You're quite a trailsman, knowin' tricks like that.”

“You know them now, too,” Slocum said. “Is Randolph alive?”

“Yeah, he's all trussed up. I was gonna rescue him, but Frank never left. He played with that six-gun of his, spinnin' the cylinder 'round and threatenin' Randolph. I'd have kilt him if I could but you was right about how to track him, so I figgered you was right about me not takin' him.”

“We'll do it together,” Slocum said, his mind racing. “You've done good, real good.”

“This way.”

“Not so fast. Did you ride straight here?”

“Like a bee headin' to its hive.”

“We'll take a more roundabout trail back. If Frank spots your tracks, he might run smack into us. Or lay an ambush.”

“You're all the time thinkin',” Billy said. “That's good. I need to be more like you.” He fell silent as they rode for a few minutes, then said, “How many men have you killed?”

“Too many. Maybe one too many.” He couldn't help thinking his life would have been different if he hadn't plugged a crooked judge and his gunman. If he'd stayed in Georgia, he'd likely have married up with Marianne. They had certainly been moving in that direction when the war intervened. Once he'd come home, they had picked up where they'd left off, only sharing more adult pursuits.

If he hadn't killed the judge . . .

“What's it like?” Billy sounded way too eager for Slocum.

“It chews away at your soul, gives you nightmares. I killed enough soldiers during the war to last me a lifetime. Since then, more.”

“But you have killed a lot more? They all needed killin', didn't they?”

“I believe so. It doesn't let me sleep any better, even knowing that,” Slocum said.

Billy muttered to himself and finally said, “I'm not gonna kill no one what doesn't deserve it either.”

“We get to Frank's hideout, you let me do what's necessary. I'll drag that snake all the way back to Silver City behind his own horse so the sheriff can throw him in jail.”

“That's mighty fine,” Billy said. “Better than killin' him outright. Let him suffer.”

“Let him think about ending up in Yuma Penitentiary to pay for all he's done.”

“Or hang 'im. I never seen a hangin'. I'd like to see one.”

“What happened to your ma and pa?”

“Ma died of consumption not so long back. She's buried outside of town, not far from Mr. Olney's undertakin' parlor. I found her. She'd died in bed over the night, coughin' up a whole lot of blood. Didn't bother me much, seein' so much blood.”

Slocum looked hard at the boy, but Billy's head was turned away.

“Where was your pa?”

“Gone. He upped and lit out a year earlier, prospectin' or doin' somethin' like that. It'd been me and ma and—” Billy drew rein and put his finger to his lips, then pointed ahead.

Slocum spotted the curl of smoke rising above the trees before he caught the scent of burning pine. The wall of trees cut off direct view of what had to be a cabin.

“He has his horse 'round back. You go in the front, gun blazin', and I'll steal his horse,” Billy said. He looked guiltily at Slocum and added, “For Randolph. He'll need to ride somethin'.”

“Stay here,” Slocum said, for the first time wondering where Billy had found the horse he rode. The boy was a tad too bloodthirsty for his liking. Slocum would have no problem filling Frank with all six rounds from his Colt Navy, but he didn't intend killing the red-haired man unless he had to.

Slocum approached the side of the cabin. Billy had been right about the horse tethered behind the cabin. Frank was inside—or around somewhere. Rushing in would likely get someone killed, and Slocum didn't want that to be him or Randolph. He crouched and waited to see if Frank was inside the cabin. After five minutes, he heard a twig snap behind him.

“I told you to stay where you were, Billy,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

The sound of metal sliding across leather caused him to react instinctively. Slocum drove forward as hard as he could, his toes digging down into the soft dirt. A slug ripped through the air just above him. He hit the ground, rolled onto his back, and dragged his six-shooter out. All he saw was a branch swaying back and forth where someone had retreated.

He found himself tossed on the horns of a dilemma. The question of Frank's location had been decided. He'd crashed around out in the woods and had just failed to back-shoot an inattentive prowler. Slocum didn't much care if Frank knew who had been spying on the cabin. Dead was dead, no matter if the shooter knew the identity of his target.

New worry popped up as Slocum realized Billy might be in danger. He owed the boy for finding Frank, and abandoning him now would be as serious as neglecting Randolph. But Marianne's son might be all trussed up inside the cabin. Slocum found himself torn between entering the cabin to find Randolph, being certain of Billy's safety, and tracking down the man who had just ambushed him. He was sure it had been Frank—or mostly sure. Not getting a look at the shooter caused him to worry that Frank had a partner.

Slocum swung around and studied the front of the cabin for any sign of someone coming out to join the fight. Getting caught between Frank on one side and a possible partner on the other gave a quick path to that cemetery just down the road from Rafe Olney's undertaker's parlor. More likely, his dead body would be left for the scavengers, and nobody would ever think about him again.

When he heard brush rustling to his left, he took a quick look right and behind, then drew a bead on the spot where a man had to come through the thorny undergrowth. His finger tensed, then slid off the trigger when he spotted Billy.

“Get down. Someone's out here and took a potshot at me.”

“I tried to get a look 'cuz I wanted to help.” Billy drew a knife and flourished it.

“Get down,” Slocum shouted. He caught movement out of the corner of his eye and got off two quick shots.

One of his slugs tore away at the cabin door. The other sailed into the crack between door and jamb, ruining the rifleman's aim. The Winchester pointing from the cabin bucked, but the slug went high. If Slocum hadn't fired first, Billy McCarty would have been carrying an extra bit of weight in his chest.

“Thanks, Mr. Slocum. You saved me for sure.” Billy was flushed but not from fear.

Slocum had seen men in battle. Most were scared shitless. Others were stoic. A few, a very few, yearned for combat. They lived for bullets singing past them—and sending death back to those they faced. Billy showed no fear, only excitement. He made stabbing motions with his knife, as if he could reach across the dozen yards between him and the gunman in the cabin.

“Watch my back. There's two of them. You ever see Frank with a partner?”

“Not in town. Only partner he ever threw in with was Texas Jack.”

“He's got another one now. Good thing he got buck fever and shot too soon or he'd have drilled me in the back,” Slocum said, eyes fixed on the cabin.

“Ain't no windows. Just the one door,” Billy said. “I scouted it real good when I saw this was where Frank came.”

Slocum nodded once, motioned for Billy to move around and take cover on the far side of the cabin. That way, if it was Frank inside, he would have to open the door almost all the way and expose himself to get another shot at Billy. While Billy was moving around, Slocum crept closer. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Every sound behind him sent an electric thrill into him. His best way of flushing Frank from the cabin was to get onto the roof.

Billy waved, giving away his position. Slocum shook his head. The boy had a lot to learn, if he lived long enough. With his six-shooter leveled and ready if the door opened again, Slocum edged closer until he pressed against the side of the cabin.

He holstered his Colt, found a handhold on the side of the cabin, and scaled the wall. Flopping belly down on the sloping roof, Slocum inched toward the chimney, where the smoke billowed up. For there to be so much smoke, Frank must have been fixing a meal.

Slocum stood and used the stone chimney as a shield as he took a quick look around the treed area nearest the cabin, hunting for the gunman who had tried to back-shoot him. He whipped out his pistol and steadied it against the rock chimney when he saw a flash of brown about the color of a miner's canvas pants. He squeezed off a round for effect, watched as the bushes began rustling to the left of where his slug had gone. Moving in a smooth arc, he fired to the right. Slocum was savvy enough to recognize a feint.

He heard a loud yelp. He fired twice more but had no sense he had hit the lurking gunman. The cry before had been from surprise, not pain. Slocum had come close, but he had missed. Not by much, but he had missed. As he watched, the brush stopped moving. Straining, he heard heavy footfalls going away.

Frank's partner—or maybe Frank—had decided to cut and run.

Slocum took time to reload, then turned his attention to the chimney and the clouds of wood smoke reaching for the sky. He skinned out of his coat, wadded it up, and stuffed it down a foot to cut off the smoke. Satisfied he had plugged the chimney, Slocum slipped and slid back to a spot at the front of the roof where he could get a decent shot at Frank.

The way he figured it would occur was simple. When Frank started choking on the smoke in a cabin with no windows, he had to come out the front. As he did, Slocum would get the drop on him. Frank was nobody's fool, so he would come out with Randolph as a shield. That made the shot a bit trickier for Slocum, but not impossible. He intended to remove Frank entirely for all he had done to Randolph—and to Marianne.

Choking smoke began seeping from around the door, but Frank didn't come rushing out. Slocum tensed as he heard movement inside the cabin. Somebody coughed. Frank? Then came a second hacking sound joining the first. One of them had to be Randolph Lomax.

Slocum's grip grew sweaty on the ebony handle of his six-gun. The smoke oozed greasy wisps through the roof, out the sides of the cabin.

“Come on out, Frank. Come out and I won't kill you!” Slocum began to worry Frank had passed out from the smoke. His mind raced as he considered what he had to do if this proved the case.

Letting Randolph choke to death wasn't in the cards.

He looked out to see if Billy stood his ground. The damn fool kid waved to let him know all was well.

The smoke coming through cracks in the roof around Slocum reached the level where he couldn't breathe. Inside the cabin had to be impossible.

Slocum waved back to Billy, then dangled his legs over the edge of the roof, turned, gripped the edge of the roof, and dropped. He sank to a crouch, dragging out his pistol. Duck-walking over to the door, he tugged it open a few inches and received a gale of smoke that forced him to look away for a moment. His eyes watered and blurred. In spite of himself, he coughed so hard that he bent double. If Frank had rushed out at that instant, he would have found himself an easy target in the debilitated Slocum.

“Come out, Frank! You can't get away.”

Scrapping sounds from inside warned him Frank readied himself for an escape. But when nothing happened, Slocum threw open the door. The billows coming out forced him to look away involuntarily. So much rushed outward that Slocum wondered if Frank had stoked the fire in the fireplace rather than trying to put it out.

Why would he do that if he didn't intend using it to cover an escape attempt?

When the smoke continued to gust out, Slocum knew what had to be done. He pulled up his bandanna so it covered his nose and mouth, wishing he had a bucket of water to soak the cloth first. Squinting hard, he peered around the door jamb. A dark figure slumped in a chair by the fireplace. Slocum tried to locate a second man and couldn't.

He sucked in a deep breath, whipped around the corner, and flopped onto the dirt floor, pistol aimed. The fresh air following him in created an island of better visibility for a split second.

“Randolph!” Marianne's son had been tied to the chair. Slocum couldn't see any movement, even of the boy's chest rising and falling. More than one man had died in a fire, not from the flames but from suffocation.

Slocum wiggled over, grabbed the chair leg with his left hand, and pulled it toward him. Randolph stirred, then choked and began retching.

“Where's Frank?” Slocum tried to get the boy to respond. When Randolph did nothing more than cough in the fresher air, Slocum yanked harder on the chair and scooted it toward the door and fresh air.