by Jake Logan
He was doing his best not to think about what he was going to do when they were found by the Apache, what they were going to do when the Apache decided not to listen to him. In such situations, Slocum knew he had to count on the worst happening, while hoping for the best. But in his experience, hope was a waste of time. He hadn’t counted on having to drag along a sidekick, much less a woman. And he definitely hadn’t counted on having his hands full with two dead Apache. But he’d give them high marks for their bravery, if not for their timing and lack of suitable weapons.
In the dark, he glanced toward their laid-out bodies, not seeing much. One was especially young. God, but he hated that he’d had to kill the lad. Slocum wondered if the boy had ever been kissed.
In the daylight, when they’d attacked, they looked thin, less robust than they ought to. This he blamed on them being kicked out of their fertile canyon. Those people had every right to be angry with the whites. And the more Slocum thought about it, the more he realized his plans were shot full of holes. He groaned and whispered, “Idiot,” to himself. Being caught with two dead Apache would not bode well for them. Not at all.
Despite his earlier thinking about essentially turning themselves over to the mercy of the Apache in hopes of explaining their dire situation before the Indians could kill them, the foolishness of this plan only now occurred to Slocum. He knew that Julep’s hesitation had been more right. She had been trusting her gut instincts, while he was merely thinking without thinking. What was wrong with him lately? And what was wrong with Julep that she would not press the issue more with him?
And that was when he heard soft, padding sounds, lots of them, as if they overlapped—that probably meant many people, Apache, he’d bet, cat-footing in skin-soled shoes. Slocum remained motionless, save for his thumb slowly pulling back on the Colt’s hammer. Whoever it might be was coming up fast and trying to be quiet. Slocum was pleased he had decided to sit on a low wedge of rock rather than on the ground. From this perch, with solid rock behind, he could launch himself forward a hell of a lot easier than he could if he were sitting on the ground.
He bent forward ever so slightly, checking, and felt the reassuring heft of the bone-handled skinning knife as it pressed against his gut from its spot wedged into his belt. Good, he had a feeling he’d soon need it. And the boot knife, he knew, was also tucked in where it should be. Too late to nudge Julep awake. He could barely see her in the dark, but hoped that meant she’d also be unseen by whoever was approaching.
As he sat there, ears straining to detect the sounds he’d detected, he heard them change, peel apart in at least two directions, maybe more. They were splitting up into smaller groups, surrounding them. Despite their precautions about not starting a campfire—on a plain such as this, a fire would be seen for quite a distance—he and Julep had been found. And probably by the Apache.
Slocum heard the faster approach in the dark, off to his right. To his left, the soft sounds changed, spaced apart, then he heard a grunt. Someone was climbing the boulders to his left, up behind the still-sleeping Julep, probably getting set to spring at them. The same measured steps came at him from in front. Slocum gauged that the one on his right would be on him first, then it was anyone’s guess if the one in the rocks to the left would be second, or the one in front. He’d worry about them when the time came.
And then he knew that time was upon him.
The uneven scuffing sounds suddenly stopped. Slocum bent low, pivoting at the last second away from where he’d been seated, and tucked into a roll onto his right shoulder. He caught a quick sight of a lunging shape and, too late to grab for the knife, touched his finger to the worn trigger of his Colt Navy. The death-dealing barrel barked its hard oath loud, stabbing the night with flame and sending the attacker into a mad, spinning dance, screaming and flailing as if he’d gobbled peyote all day long.
Slocum didn’t have time to inspect the flopped, thrashing man, because he knew there were at least two others coming in fast.
By then, Julep had screamed and crawled tighter to the base of the big rock she’d been sleeping beside. The horses lunged and thrashed in a frenzy, unable to do much more than whinny and slam into each other. Slocum kept rolling up off his shoulder, all signs of his ailments gone as his body slid, like an oiled machine, into old familiar poses—one arm up, skinning knife clenched tight, the other extended, a fresh round chambered and cocked. He rolled up onto one knee just as the next brute dove out of the darkness.
Then he heard Julep yelp, and glanced quickly in her direction—there was another form atop her, or she on it, he had no way of knowing. What he’d give for a lantern. But then he had no more split seconds to spare. As he drove his knife arm forward, the oncoming attacker must have seen it, for he lunged to one side and Slocum’s blade barely found purchase. But a howl of pain arose beside him in the dark. It was a howl that devolved into what sounded like someone grunting, “Goddammit, I been gutted!” And this was not in the Apache tongue.
“Julep!” shouted Slocum. “You okay?” But then the one who’d attacked him jumped on his back and a wet fist slammed into his head, once, twice, as he sliced upward with the skinning knife, tried to land a killing jab. He raised the Colt, aimed it above and behind himself, and just as he settled his forefinger on the trigger, the revolver was snatched from his hand.
“Well, what have we got ourselves here?”
The person who did the snatching was the one who spoke. The man on Slocum’s back groaned, but managed to keep Slocum somewhat immobilized, though he still struggled. Then the man who took his gun tapped Slocum hard on the temple with the barrel and said, “Nah, nah, nah, that ain’t how this is going to play. You got me? You hold yourself still or I’ll tell Lemuel there to gut you like you done to him.”
“He got me bad, Shin. Done shot me, then sliced me! I need help.”
This came from the man sitting on Slocum’s back. Slocum did not utter a “thank you,” though he would have liked to have jammed an elbow—and then a knife—in the man’s face. But that was sort of difficult when the business end of his own Colt Navy revolver was jammed in his eye.
It sounded as if the man holding the gun was busy doing something, rummaging in a pocket maybe. And then he thumbed a match alight, close by Slocum’s face. The man had leaned down and stared at him from inches away. As the match flared, its quick orange glow illumined the sunken-cheeked, gaunt face of a tall, thin man with dark eyes, bushy brows that pinnacled in the middle, above each eye, so much so that the man looked like some sort of political drawing in a newspaper.
When he opened his mouth, Slocum saw craggy spots lined with stumpy black teeth where a full set had long before resided. They looked painful and made Slocum’s own well-tended choppers itch in sympathy.
Despite the man’s haggard appearance, Slocum didn’t think he was much more than thirty-five, maybe forty or so. He’d probably taken the hard road around the barn, met up with a grizzly or three, and somehow lived to tell the tale.
“Mort, you get off that one there and light up them lanterns.”
“Shinbone? Is that you?” said Julep.
She sounded as if she was unhurt, and for that Slocum was grateful. For everything else, he was just plain ticked off.
“Why, Julep dear, is that you, honey? I had no idea.” The tall man Julep had called “Shinbone” didn’t sound surprised in the least. “I do declare, you run into the funniest situations out here in this forsaken hell of a place.”
“Shinbone, thank God. You’ve mistaken us for someone else. We’re . . .”
“Yes, honey? You’re what?”
Slocum shrugged hard, as he suspected that the man atop him, the one he’d wounded, wasn’t paying attention. He was right, and his efforts were rewarded with a howl of pain from the bastard. Slocum rolled to one side, half expecting the Colt to deliver a killing flash in the dark camp. But the man called Shinbone
just laughed.
“Lem, get your mangy ass off him. If you’re going to bleed and whimper, then get yourself off to that rock over yonder and let Mort in there tie up this rascal. That is, if Mort will get on the stick and get them lanterns lit.”
“I’m gettin’ them, boss. It ain’t easy luggin’ all this here gear.”
“You should have thought of that before you ran our packhorse to death yesterday morning.” To Slocum, Shinbone said, “Not so fast there, rascal man.” He rapped Slocum on the bean again with the snout of the revolver. “You and me, we got things to chat about.”
“Shinbone,” said Julep, coming closer. “He’s okay, he’s with me.”
Just then, the other man, Mort, mooched and clanked into dim view, carrying a dirty canvas pack loaded with gear.
How did I not hear that contraption of a man approaching? thought Slocum. Unless they’ve been tucked away into these boulders close by the entire time we were here . . .
Mort set down his load with a clanking thud and a groan, then hurried to light a lantern. It bloomed with the touch of a match, and Slocum looked up from being nearly facedown in the dirt. For the first time, he took in the scene around him. He saw Shinbone, and yes, the man was tall and crazy looking. There was Julep, on her knees off to his left, looking confused. Her hands were raised to her mouth, and she looked at Shinbone with wide eyes, as if he were a demon she had just locked eyes with.
The pack mule man named Mort was as Slocum thought, a short, dumpy little character with a bubble of white belly poking through his busted-button flannel shirt.
As if in response to Slocum’s thoughts of a few seconds before, Shinbone spoke. “Been eyeballin’ you two pretty near since you crawled on up outta that canyon—ahead of you, of course. Surprised the hell out of us, I tell you what.”
He spit and grinned. “Mort, you don’t tie up these two in lickety-split fashion, well, you and me, we’re going to have a good, old-fashioned set-to, right here and now. You catch me?”
“Yeah, yeah, all right, Shin. You got it. Just lemme free up some of this here hempen rope.” The fat man fidgeted and finally freed a coil of scratchy-looking rope from the side of his laden pack.
Shinbone sighed, adjusted the Colt when Slocum shifted his elbows. “Easy, mister. I got me a craving to kill and you could well be the cure.”
“Shinbone! I told you he’s with me!” Julep glared at him and began rising to her feet.
“You don’t set right back the way you was, sweet Julep, and I will kill this knob-headed sumbitch right here and now!” Shinbone’s voice rose to a shout.
Slocum felt the tip of the Navy’s barrel dig into his face. He gritted his teeth and said, “Julep. Stay put. We’ll get this figured out soon enough.”
“Now, see?” Shinbone jammed the barrel into Slocum’s temple even deeper.
Slocum clenched his teeth until he was sure they would collapse in a cloud of fine powder.
Shinbone spit and continued, “I don’t recall giving you permission to open your foul mouth, But if I did, by all means”—he jammed the barrel harder and Slocum went with it so his neck wouldn’t snap—“feel free to keep jawing if I am in the wrong.” He waited a few seconds, then said, “No? Good, I suspect you are a wiser critter than I give you credit for. But the night is young and there is still time for you to prove me wrong. Which I suspect will soon happen.”
Julep let out a low sob. Shinbone fixed her with a glare and a sneering smile. She clamped a hand over her mouth, her eyes watery with welling tears.
“Don’t tell me you got something to say, too, dearest Julep?”
Trembling, she shook her head as Mort gently pulled her hand from her mouth and bound her wrists behind her back.
“Good. Now stop interrupting my story, y’all. Where was I? Oh yeah, see, me and the boys, we was fixing to mosey on down into the canyon, tell ol’ Deke what we found for him on our last little foray, when what do we see a-squirmin’ around near the entrance to the canyon?”
Mort finished tying Julep’s wrists and commenced to do the same to Slocum.
Shinbone prattled on. “I don’t have to tell you, Julep darlin’, that seeing anything near them rocks what mark the entrance is a shock and a half, ain’t it?” He grinned at her, and received a tearful glare in return.
His smile dropped as fast as a hot kettle from an ungloved hand. “I said, ‘Ain’t it?’” A long, grimy hand lashed out, caught Julep across the left cheek. Her head snapped to the side, and she uttered a low moan of pain.
“Next time, you answer me, you hear?”
Slocum could see her fighting back tears.
“That’s enough, you filthy animal,” growled Slocum, struggling to stand. “You itchy for a fight? I’ll oblige you. Drag your sorry ass over here.”
It worked. Shinbone spit another long stream of chaw juice to the side. It spattered on a rock.
“I reckon you think you’re a tough nut, huh, friend?” said Shinbone.
“I have plenty of friends, and you aren’t one of them,” said Slocum, continuing to work his fingertips down into his boot top. He’d nearly been there when Shinbone had smacked Julep, now he had the fool’s attention, but he wasn’t quite ready for him. He needed another minute to slip the knife free and slice through the poorly tied ropes wrapped around his wrists.
But Shinbone surprised him. He lashed out with one of those long legs, and the toe of his boot caught Slocum under the chin.
“John!” shouted Julep.
A blast of hot sparks flowered before his eyes, seeming to light up the night. He struggled to remain upright, but found he’d already sagged to the ground, once again his face pressed hard to the dirt.
He felt someone else kicking him in the back and laughing. Must have been that worthless one he’d grazed, then sliced in the side. He’d forgotten about him.
“Lay off of that, Lemuel! He’s mine.” Shinbone barked the order and bent low, his long, bony face inches from Slocum’s, who tried to force himself up out of the dirt. But the tall man shook his head, saying, “Uh-uh-uh, you stay right there,” and pushed down on Slocum’s upturned shoulder.
He spoke in a low, gravelly voice that slid from between his lips like a snake gliding over a hot rock. “Gonna have us some fun . . . John.” Then he laughed, long and loud, still staring at Slocum. His breath gouted in Slocum’s face, stinking and sour of coffee, whiskey, old greasy food, and the rot from his stumplike teeth. Tobacco juice marked the lines and creases on either side of the man’s mouth, and a thin stream of it glistened on his chin.
“Any more fun like that,” said Slocum, struggling to stop the foul vision of the man’s face before him from spinning more than it was, “and I’ll have to decline your kind offer.”
Shinbone’s brow wrinkled up for a moment, and he leaned back, one hand rubbing his chin as if he were considering some deep thought. “I don’t rightly know what such fancy words mean, but I can tell you”—he held up a long finger in the air, surprise writ large on his face—“that I have about had enough of every single thing about you.”
He stood and slid Slocum’s pistol from his belt, hefting it as if weighing it with his hand. “Nice piece. And it will serve its purpose well. You see, as I was saying, there ain’t a reason in the world why I shouldn’t up and shoot you in the head like any right-thinking man would do to a hydrophoby dog.”
“No!” shouted Julep. “No, no, don’t, Shin. He didn’t mean nothing by that. He was just defending me, that’s all. Harmless. He’s harmless.”
“Now,” said the tall man, not looking at her, “that there is what I’m talking about. You see how you got my lady love, my dove, all a-flustered? Why, before you come along, I reckon we was closer than a couple of weevils in a boll. Now, though, what do I find on my return from fighting the enemy through forest and fen?” He warmed to his topic and Slocum to
ok the opportunity to use his head and his right arm, which was under him, and his shoulder, to push upward once again, and try to at least gain a sitting position.
But Lemuel had other plans and landed another kick squarely on Slocum’s back. Right beside his spine. He groaned, lost his breath. The kick hurt like the devil was sizzling his hide with a hot brand.
“Dang it all, Lemuel, what did I just get finished saying? Don’t you have enough to worry about without pissing me off? Here, if holding your own guts in ain’t trouble enough for you, maybe this will keep you occupied.” In one swift movement, he raised the Colt Navy, thumbed that hammer back, and squeezed that trigger.
Slocum heard the man behind him slam hard into the rocks. Just in his line of sight, he saw one leg quiver, spasm, then come to rest.
“Oh, you bastard! You killed Lem! Oh, Shin, how could you kill your own kin?” Julep had gained her feet by then and rushed at the tall man in a wild rage. She had her head down and slammed into his chest, but he was ready for her and her blow barely rocked him on his heels. He held her by the shoulder and, laughing, reached down and kissed her on the mouth. She spit at him and whipped her head side to side, struggling to get out of his grasp. He obliged her by pushing her roughly.
Her legs couldn’t keep up with her momentum and Julep tripped, sprawled backward, and Slocum saw her head hit the ground, bounce, then she was still. “Julep!” He struggled once again to rise and this time managed to get to his knees. “You bastard. If she’s hurt . . .”
“You’ll what? You ain’t got a trick up your sleeve, mister. Now just set right there and keep your trap shut while I finish my story. As I was saying before all these assholes interrupted me, I seen you early on, and seen how you made quick work of them Apaches yonder.” He nodded toward the two corpses.
“And I said to myself, Shinbone, you got to watch that one. He’s a sidewinder if there ever was one. And then I up and find you been slipping something to my woman. So I tell the boys, why don’t you two come with me, we’ll see what’s what, how all this is playing out with Julep and this stranger. We’ll get to the canyon in due course, but right now, I need to see what I’m thinking I’m seeing.” He looked down at Slocum. “You understand me, boy?”