by Jake Logan
“This isn’t Grimes’s track either! It’s a steer, a goddamn steer! I saw his prints clear enough where he crossed the creek, and he’s grazin’ about a hundred yards away on the other side.” He sat down with a squishy plop, having managed to get his boots and pants wet, and slumped over. “I’m really no good. No damn good at all.”
Slocum let those words hang in the air for a few minutes before he said, “Maybe not, Jack. Just ’cause you’re no ace at bounty huntin’ don’t mean there ain’t somethin’ out there you’re good at. Maybe somethin’ where you could be the best!”
Jack looked up. “You really think so?”
“Look. You’re a smart kid when you wanna be. So far, you’ve ruled out bounty huntin’. It ain’t exactly the most respectable trade anyhow.”
“But it’s good enough for you!”
“I ain’t the respectable type. For me, it don’t matter. But for you, there might be somethin’ a whole heap better to do with your time. Hell, you could end up being a U.S. senator or somethin’!”
Jack sat up straight. “A senator,” he said softly, and smiled. “Senator Jackson R. Tandy.” His smile broadened, then he said, “Maybe I could even be president!”
“You got to aim high, Jack.”
Jack breathed, “President Tandy ...”
“But you got to start low. You gotta figure out where to do it and what to do first. I ain’t no political advisor, but there’s folks in Phoenix who know about that stuff. Ask ’em. The worst that can happen is they tell you to get lost. So then you go to the next one. Like that.”
Jack nodded, his grin unshakably in place.
“Let’s mount up and get back to Lem’s, then,” Slocum said, rising. The rest of the coffee was poured on the fire, putting it out. “You gotta figure out what you’re gonna want to do with that mare’a yours.”
Jack stood up, too. “Right. You know, Slocum, I think I’m gonna take Lem up on the trade. This gelding’s a lot easier to sit at a trot than she is.”
Slocum glanced up at the sky, thinking, Thank You. I reckon there’s hope, after all.
Jack ran out of energy about halfway to McMurtry’s ranch, and Slocum took pity on him, suggesting that they rest the horses. Jack took him up on it right off, and they stopped in the precise middle of nowhere, surrounded by knee-high grass and an occasional cactus clump.
“Reckon you can stand this for a short spell?” he asked Rocky as he strapped on the hobbles. The horse snorted in reply and shook his head. “Okay, okay,” said Slocum. He slipped the stallion’s bridle off, then fed him a lemon drop. “Go eat in comfort.”
He had noted Rocky gazing off toward the foothills to the west several times, but paid it little mind. It was probably a mare in season, somewhere in the territory. Old Rocky had a good sniffer when it came to things like that.
Slocum shook his head and grinned.
Jack was already passed out in the grass, and he grinned at that, too. He figured he could afford to at this stage of the game.
He was about to sit down and smoke a quirlie when a shot rang out.
It hadn’t hit anything that he could see, but he dove deep into the grasses just in case. What kind of fool was out here hunting on cattle land? And what kind of idiot would fire when he could plainly see there were two hobbled horses out in the open?
Rocky, being accustomed to such goings-on, was already making his way slowly toward a fan of prickly pear about eight feet high. He moved slow, on account of the hobbles, but he was getting there. Slocum whistled. He couldn’t remember Jack’s horse’s name, if he’d ever known it. He called, “C’mon in, c’mon, boy!” But Rocky turned toward him instead.
“No!” he yelled, and motioned away from himself with his hand. “Cactus! Go to the cactus!”
The stallion looked at him quizzically, then resumed his previous direction. Slocum had gotten to his knees while trying to save the horses, and suddenly felt a sharp pain and a good bit of pressure—enough to knock him over backward—in his upper arm. It wasn’t until he hit the ground that the sound of the slug being fired came to his ears.
He was thinking that it was good it was the left one that had been hit when Jack suddenly appeared, crawling through the grass toward him, chanting, “Oh, damn, Slocum! Slocum, are you all right? Slocum, say somethin’!”
“What you want me t’say?” Slocum managed.
“You’re alive!” Jack practically shouted. “Alive, alive!”
“Shut up!” Slocum snapped as he pulled himself into a sit. “And keep your damn head down.”
Jack crouched down a little more.
Slocum said, “It came from out there.” He pointed toward the foothills. “ ’ Bout a half mile off, I reckon.”
When Jack just stared at him, he added, “From the time between the bullet and the sound. Slugs travel faster.”
Before Jack had time to tell him that he wasn’t making any sense, he had begun to crawl toward Rocky, and the shelter he had found behind the cactus.
Rupert Grimes, crouched down in the foothills, scowled, and searched the grassy expanse once more. Both men had gone down in the grass, and now the only thing he could see to shoot was the gelding Jack had been riding, and an occasional glimpse of Slocum’s stallion’s rump.
This had been a bad idea.
He should have just let them go on their way, just stayed the hell out of it. They’d been going away from him, hadn’t they? He thought they were going east, but he could be wrong about that. He’d always been bad at directions. For all he knew, he could be up in Utah by now, or maybe Colorado.
Did they have trains in Denver? Of course they did! He could get back to Baltimore from there. If only he could find it ...
He’d changed his heading more times than he could count. He started out trying for California. He knew he’d have to cross the Colorado River to get there, but he sure hadn’t found any river. Not yet anyway. He’d found a couple of little streams, but nothing which, in his wildest imagination, he would’ve called a river. For the umpteenth time, he wondered if he’d gone far enough.
But Sandy’s hands always spoke of it like it was just over the hill, just next door! Two of the boys had ridden to San Diego on an errand for Sandy, and it had taken less than a week. And San Diego was a long way to the south, too, according to them and the old map he’d glanced at.
And just then, something popped up out of the grass. A man! Grimes was a good and careful shot, and he squeezed off one round. The fellow dropped like a stone.
There. He’d done it. He’d never killed anybody before and he was sorry to mess up his record, but on the other hand, who was going to find out? The horses would probably wander back to Lem’s, eventually, and who could find anything at all in that long grass? No, he felt secure. And once he sent McMurtry’s damned stallion back, nobody would care. Certainly nobody in Baltimore.
Nobody out here either.
He figured he’d taken Slocum out with the second slug, and Jack out with the third. The first one probably hadn’t hit anything but cactus. Well, it was rough getting used to a new rifle. He liked McMurtry’s Henry, though. It had a good feel to it, and it shot straight. Two important things, when you were considering a firearm.
He stood up and dusted off his knees. Still no movement in the grass out there. Having left McMurtry’s stallion tied to a stump back behind some rocks, he set off to retrieve him.
He had just pivoted on his heel when something hit him in the back and knocked him right down on his face. Then came the sound of the bullet.
“What?” he muttered, at just about the time he realized he couldn’t move his legs.
Slocum saw him go down, but watched through the rifle’s sights a little longer, trying to catch any hint of movement.
There wasn’t any.
At last, he lowered the rifle. “Jack!” he called. “Jack? You there?”
Silence was all that greeted his calls. He slid the rifle back into the saddle’s boot, secured it, a
nd then dropped to his knees. He’d lost a lot of blood.
Doing the crawl on one arm and two knees, he started back through the long grass. It didn’t take him long to find Jack—sprawled in the grass, and unconscious.
At first, Slocum thought he was dead. It wasn’t until he held his Colt’s muzzle beneath Jack’s nose that he could tell he was breathing. But he’d been gut shot, and that in itself was sure enough a death sentence. It was just a matter of time.
Grimes was in pain, at least from the chest up. He still couldn’t move his legs, let alone feel them. Pissed at himself for getting shot, he was also pissed at whoever had done it.
All he wanted was to go home to Baltimore and forget everything about the so-called charms and excitement of the West. He hated the West, hated its hardships, hated its wide-open spaces, its snakes and spiders and broncos and steers and women, which were either tramps or icebergs. And he liked his steak on a plate, cooked medium rare, thank you, and he didn’t wish to see it any other way for the rest of his life.
Which was looking pretty damned short, if you asked him. Whoever had shot him had better come to collect him, and pretty soon, he thought. He could still move his arms, and he’d reached around to feel his back. His shirt was sopping with blood. But then, the doctors out here weren’t much good. Why did he think they’d be able to fix him, even if he lived to see one?
And what made him think that whoever had shot him wouldn’t just ride up here and finish the job once they arrived?
He was in a bad spot, like his Pop used to say. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever having been in a worse one.
After giving the matter due consideration—and allowing time for his hopelessness to build from a swell to a tidal wave—he reached down and retrieved his—well, somebody back at the Double M’s—handgun.
He cocked it, then pressed its cold barrel to his temple. He whispered, “Mama, Pop, I’m comin’ your way. I hope.”
He pulled the trigger.
21
Slocum had left Jack in the weeds and was halfway to the shooter’s vantage point when he heard the shot. It was a handgun this time, not the rifle he’d been using. For a second, he wondered what had made the guy change weapons, and then he knew. He urged Rocky ahead, leaving the grass behind and traveling over tough volcanic rock, upward and upward, until he came upon the site.
Grimes lay in a pool of blood that had mostly welled from his back, by the looks of it. In his hand was a Colt revolver, which accounted for the hole blown clear through his head.
On the ground, Slocum stood over him and muttered, “Shit,” his head shaking slowly.
Leaving Rocky behind, he went to find McMurtry’s stallion, and discovered him just around some boulders, tied to an old stump and looking pretty damned spooky. “It’s all right, fella,” he cooed as he walked slowly up to the stud, while extending a palm holding one of Rocky’s lemon drops. “It’s all right, boy.”
A few moments later, he had Grimes’s body, still dripping blood, tied securely over the stallion’s back, and had switched the stallion’s bridle for a halter, although he’d moved the bridle’s curb chain to the halter and tied the lead rope to one end of it. It made him feel like he had a little more control anyway.
Now came the test. He led the stud a few feet toward Rocky, then mounted up. He studied both horses’ posture, their ears, and their eyes. So far, no trouble.
McMurtry’s bay was still a little jumpy, but Slocum would allow him that. He’d probably never hauled a dead man before. And Rocky? He was his old affable self, and currently crunching the lemon drop Slocum had given him just before he mounted.
“All right, fellers,” Slocum said. “Let’s go down and get Jack.”
They started down the slope, skidding a little on the loose gravel as they went. In the far distance, Slocum could see Jack’s gelding still placidly grazing. Damn that horse anyway! You’d think the horse would at least show ... And then he stopped himself.
Why would the gelding show anything at all where Jack was concerned? Where anyone was concerned, for that matter?
He got a grip on himself. He was wasting time thinking about Jack’s horse when he should have been thinking about Jack, lying down there in the grass. Or thinking about his burden and the stud horse next to him. It was a dangerous thing, two studs traveling side by side, but not as dangerous as it could have been—Jack could have traded Lem back for his mare. Slocum figured he could handle Rocky under those circumstances, but McMurtry’s stud? He couldn’t be counted on for anything, except to be jumpy.
And Jack. He figured to take him back to Lem’s. It was a good bit closer than Phoenix, and he wanted to get him into a bed and comfortable—well, as comfortable as a gutshot man could be anyhow—as soon as possible.
What if Jack couldn’t ride? Slocum decided to build him a travois. There was likely enough wood around and he thought that between his coil and Jack’s, he’d have enough rope to lash something together. If Jack’s horse would pull it.
Well, dammit, if Jack’s horse wouldn’t, he knew Rocky would.
He slowed the horses down from their jog when he spotted Jack in the grass. He was still where Slocum had left him, but he’d rolled to one side. That was a good thing. He hoped the man was still breathing.
When he got closer, he hopped down and went to Jack.
“Jack? Jack, can you hear me?” he said.
Jack’s eyelids fluttered a little, and he croaked, “Slocum? What happened?”
Slocum let out an enormous breath, then said, “It’s okay, Jack. You’re shot, but you’re gonna be fine. Can you sit up?”
With Slocum’s help, Jack struggled up into a sit, holding his belly and moaning. Slocum didn’t like the sound of it, but said, “I’m gonna try to get you up on your horse, Jack. You think you can help me?”
Jack didn’t answer, just nodded in the affirmative.
“Okay, then. You wait here while I fetch your horse, all right?”
Jack nodded again.
Slocum ran for the horse, slipped off his hobbles, and jumped on, riding him back, only to leap off again when he neared his goal.
But Jack was down again. Damn!
Once he got a tourniquet tied around his own upper arm—it wouldn’t do Jack any good if he passed out from blood loss—it took Slocum a good half hour to get Jack on his feet and up on his horse, and even then he roped him into his saddle. He was still woozy with the pain, and Slocum found himself thinking that he wished he had some laudanum on him.
Slowly, at a walk, he began leading a slouched-in-the saddle Jack and a very dead Grimes back up toward Lem and Martha’s ranch.
“Jesus Christ, what happened to him?” was the first thing out of Lem’s mouth when he saw Jack. He’d been out front when Slocum came riding up.
“Gut shot,” Slocum said. He was already down and untying Jack from the saddle. Jack thanked him by falling into his arms, unconscious. “Help me get him inside, Lem.”
The two of them carried Jack inside and down the back hall to what Slocum assumed was a spare room. Martha followed them, all aflutter. She said, “Lem, hadn’t you ought’a ride for Doc Witherspoon?” once they had him on the bed. “I can take it from here,” she added, elbowing Slocum out of the way.
Slocum knew when he wasn’t wanted, and retreated back to the front room, followed by Lem. As he strapped on his gun belt, Lem said, “Who’s the other feller? The one out there.”
“Rupert Grimes.”
Lem nodded. “Bet this is a real interestin’ story, but I’ll get it later.” He walked out the front door, Slocum on his heels, and grabbed Jack’s borrowed gelding off the rail. “I’ll be back with Doc Witherspoon in about an hour, if he ain’t in the middle of an emergency or some-such.”
And then he galloped off, disappearing into the tree line.
Slocum gathered up the reins and lead rope of the other two horses and set out for the barn. He had to do something. He might as well get them settled in for
the night. As it was, it was almost dark. He hoped ol’ Lem knew that trail like the back of his hand.
He also hoped that McMurtry’d had the presence of mind to report his stallion missing. To somebody. Slocum wasn’t quite sure how far he’d have to ride to get that done, but if there was a doctor within a half-hour’s ride, like Lem had said, then it made sense that there was a town, too.
Towns came and went so fast in the territory, it was hard to keep track of them.
In the barn, he stabled McMurtry’s stud as far away as possible from Rocky, tying them in their box stalls for good measure. He tied a fresh tourniquet on his arm and tightened it as best he could. Then he curried and brushed both horses and gave them feed, hay, and water.
Satisfied that they were seen to—and that Lem would be back any minute now—he adjourned to the front porch and rolled and lit himself a quirlie. The hands began piling in, looking for a supper that Martha hadn’t had time to make, what with tending the wounded Jack. But it appeared that they made do. Slocum heard Martha’s voice for a moment, although he couldn’t make out the words, and then some commotion in the kitchen.
Later, the hands filed out, all looking well fed. A few stopped to talk to Slocum and express their sympathy about Jack’s injury.
He thanked each one, and then warned them about the dead man in the barn. He’d left Grimes’s body in one of the stalls.
In turn, they thanked him, then headed off toward either the barn, to settle in their horses if they hadn’t yet (or get a look at the corpse), or to the bunkhouse, to turn in or play cards.
Slocum knew what he’d be doing if he was one of them, but right now he was too focused on the path Lem had followed when he left to think about it. He was already a halfhour past due.
It wasn’t until Slocum had smoked three quirlies and was nervously rolling a fourth that he saw Lem coming down the trail, along with another mounted man. The doctor, he presumed.