Slocum and the Meddler

by Jake Logan

Wilson grunted as he dropped his shotgun. The weapon tumbled down and discharged when it hit the rocky riverbed. The twin barrels going off caused Slocum’s horse to rear in fright. From the corner of his eye, he saw the marshal flailing on his own horse, then toppling off to land hard on the ground.

  Ralston shot again as Slocum struggled to regain control of his horse. When he did, the rancher had disappeared into the wood area. Slocum drew his six-shooter, put his head down, and kicked at his horse, galloping forward. He reached the spot where Ralston had opened fire in time to see the man stepping up into the saddle on a horse only a dozen yards off.

  Slocum fired. Ralston bent low and raced off. Slocum fired again, then lit out in pursuit. His horse was tired and slowly lost ground to Ralston’s rested steed. He got off another shot, cursed, and emptied his six-gun at the fleeing man.

  He kept riding, fumbling to reload. Attention on the cartridges going into his rechambered Colt Navy, he was taken by surprise when he looked up and saw a horse sprawled on the ground, feet kicking feebly. As he rode past, he saw that one of his bullets had struck the horse from behind and dug deep into the guts.

  “Ralston? Where are you?” Slocum drew rein and looked around. The sound of a rifle cocking warned him.

  He ducked low and fired across his body, more by instinct than skill. Slocum got his thumb on the hammer to cock the six-shooter again, but it wasn’t needed. Sitting up in the saddle, he stared at the rancher’s body on the ground. His lucky shot had drilled straight through Ralston’s left eye, killing him instantly.

  It was a lucky shot that saved his life—and unlucky for Angelina Holman. Ralston was the only one who knew where she was held captive, and he was very, very dead.

  10

  “Dead as a mackerel,” Marshal Wilson said, shoving the toe of his boot into Ralston’s unmoving side.

  “You going to search him?”

  Wilson looked at Slocum and scowled.

  “Now why’d I go and do a thing like that? I ain’t gonna rob him. I sure as hell ain’t gonna split the contents of his pockets with the likes of you, even if I was so inclined.”

  “Angelina Holman,” Slocum said, exasperated. “There might be some clue to where she is.”

  Wilson looked around, as if the woman might appear because Slocum named her. He pursed his lips, prodded Ralston again, and finally said, “He ain’t gonna tell us, is he? Not dead, not from the way you shot him dead.”

  “He did his share of shooting at us,” Slocum said, exasperation turning to anger. “I followed because you weren’t able to.”

  “Nope, wasn’t,” Wilson said. “But you didn’t have no call to kill him like this.”

  “It was self-defense.”

  “Says you, but then he ain’t around to gainsay that, is he?”

  For two cents Slocum would have emptied his Colt into the lawman. He dropped to his knees and began searching the dead rancher’s pockets for anything that might tell him where Angelina was. He tossed everything he found out onto the ground so he could examine it bit by bit. Nothing gave him the slightest clue as to where Ralston held her. Slocum rocked back on his heels, feeling a desolation he had seldom experienced.

  “He might have killed her,” he told the marshal. “He could have buried her about anywhere on his ranch.”

  “Might not bother. Just leave her out for the coyotes. They’re hungry varmints. Them and the buzzards. And bugs. Them bugs’ll strip a corpse of its flesh in a week, sometimes less.”

  Slocum wondered if the marshal had a death wish egging him on this way, but the man seemed oblivious to the effect of his words. They had come here to rescue Angelina. The marshal had lost sight of that somehow.

  “You taking him back to town, or are you leaving him for the coyotes and buzzards?”

  “Leave him? Are you loco, Slocum? He’s ’bout the biggest land owner in these parts. I got to take him back so’s there’s no trouble passing along his ranch to his next of kin.”

  “Who might that be?”

  Wilson scratched his head, then said, “Cain’t say. His wife upped and died a few years back. Had three sons and a daughter. All of them’s dead, too, I’ve heard. He might have a will. I’ll ask that shyster lawyer in town that took care o’ his legal matters.”

  Slocum made one last survey of the debris he had taken from Ralston’s pockets. A penknife, a few coins, a watch that ran twenty minutes slow—that was all. He hadn’t expected him to have a map showing where he had hidden Angelina, or maybe he did. Swapping Barnett for the map would have been smart, and Wilson would have agreed to that. By coming along, Slocum had made sure such a trade would never have occurred. He had wanted to know Angelina was alive before making any deal.

  But there wasn’t a map. There wasn’t a scrap of paper.

  On impulse, Slocum grabbed Ralston’s right hand and examined the fingers.

  “What you lookin’ for?”

  “Ink. No trace of ink.”

  “Why’d there be ink?”

  “From writing the notes, the one saying he had kidnapped Angelina and the one Herk brought from the courier.”

  “Maybe he washed his hands.”

  Slocum snorted at that. Ralston’s hands were as filthy as his own.

  “Might be he was a good writer, didn’t spill the ink.”

  “Might be,” Slocum said, not convinced. If he had to make a guess, someone else had written the notes for Ralston. But what that meant was beyond him, and it didn’t alter the sad fact that Angelina was still missing.

  “Help me git him o’er his horse. I’ll ride him on back to Abilene,” Wilson said. “You comin’ with me?”

  “I’ll look for the woman,” Slocum said.

  “With the earth so dry and sunbaked, findin’ a trail’s gonna be nigh on impossible.”

  “Got to try.”

  “You might look for buzzards circlin’ ’round up in the sky. That’s usually the only way to find somebody out on the prairie.”

  Slocum considered how easy it would be to return to Abilene with two bodies slung over their horses. He could always say Ralston and Wilson shot it out and killed each other. But he wasn’t a killer. Not like that. Wilson would have to do more than rile him with thoughtless words to merit a bullet in his gut followed by a painfully slow death.

  “I’ll find her,” he said with more confidence than he felt.

  “There’s always that spot in the cemetery next to her husband.” Wilson tugged on the reins of Ralston’s horse and got the animal moving. He swung into his saddle and painfully settled himself, then rode away without so much as a glance back at Slocum.

  He shot a black look at Wilson, then set to work. He might not be the best tracker in the West, but he was good. He returned to the spot where Ralston had first come out of the trees and backtracked to where the rancher had squatted down, smoking one cheroot after another. From the pile of ashes and stubs, he had been here a couple hours. Circling, then spiraling out, Slocum looked for tracks. He made sure he had the right ones left by Ralston, then carefully followed the crushed grass, broken twigs, scrapes, and patches of barely disturbed dust to get an idea of the direction Ralston had ridden coming to the oak grove.

  It wasn’t much, but it was all he had to go on. There wasn’t any reason for Ralston to hide his trail since he’d anticipated Wilson giving in and turning over Barnett. In spite of himself as he rode, Slocum looked into the pure blue Texas sky for circling buzzards. He knew what that would mean, but he saw nothing to dash his hopes that Angelina still lived.

  Somewhere.

  In the oppressive heat, probably without water, she wouldn’t live long. This added urgency to his search, but he was leery of riding too fast. He didn’t want to lose the faint traces of Ralston’s trail. The rancher had come straightaway from up along the dry creekbed, making Slocum think Angelina wasn’t too far off.

  By midafternoon he began to worry that he was wrong. A half-dozen miles lay behind him and where he had shot down R
alston, and he hadn’t come across anything to give him any hope of finding Angelina, alive or dead.

  The trail led to a stock pond. He had to push aside a dozen cattle to get his horse close enough to drink. He shoved his own head into the water and got some of the trail dust off his face and hands. Then he drank before pulling his gelding away. The sun was dropping low in the sky. Tracking after dark wasn’t possible. He had seen some men who could do it using a lantern, but he wasn’t that good, even if he had the lantern.

  He looked around the stock pond. The cattle were bunching together and lowing as if something was wrong. Slocum went toward them, but they didn’t move. Curious, he pushed through and stopped dead when the setting sun cast a shadow off a rusty hinge. Putting his shoulder down, he muscled the cattle away and kicked away some dust to expose a wood door mounted in a frame flush with the ground. Slocum’s heart raced. He had followed Ralston this far. This might be what he sought.

  He wanted to find Angelina when he pulled the stick from the hasp and cast it aside. The door creaked open on the rusty hinges and released a musty smell welling up from below. Coughing, he stuck his head down just below ground level and called out.

  “Angelina? Are you here? Angelina?”

  The whimpering sound was the most rewarding he had ever heard. Slocum swung around, got his feet into the hole, then dropped. He hit the ground sooner than he had expected, falling less than three feet in the darkness. He knelt and used the faint light filtering in over his shoulder to reach out. In a dark pit like this he might have touched a rattler or scorpion.

  There was no mistaking Angelina’s sleek leg.

  “It’s me, John,” she said as she pulled away.

  She was alive!

  She continued to cry as he reached out, worked his way up her unseen leg, and finally got his hands around her waist so he could pull her toward him. At first she resisted, then she flowed into his arms. Awkwardly embracing, she cried until his shoulder was damp from her tears.

  “I thought I would die here. I thought you’d never find me.”

  “Let’s get out of this storm cellar.”

  He had seen such hidey-holes throughout Kansas but seldom in Texas. Ralston might have put it in as a place to take shelter from tornadoes or for some other reason. Whatever the original purpose, it had been turned into a cruel prison in the heat.

  “I tried to get out. I banged on the door, tried to get it open, tried to push it out of the ground and escape, but I couldn’t.” Her filthy hands had broken nails where she had clawed at the hard-packed dirt in an attempt to tunnel past the door.

  “It’s all right now. Ralston is dead.”

  “No! He can’t be!”

  “What’s wrong?” Slocum was startled by her vehement denial.

  “I wanted to kill him with my own hands. I wanted him to suffer. That’s all that kept me going!” She broke down crying again.

  Slocum guided her around until she was directly under the opening, then boosted her to her feet. She almost collapsed. He stood and then climbed from the hole so he could pull her out.

  She gasped and reached for him, using him to stand. Her weakness prevented her from walking without his help as she struggled to get to the stock pond.

  “No water. He didn’t give me any water.”

  “You can have all you want now,” Slocum said, kicking a few balky cows from their way to the pond. Angelina dropped to her knees and kept her head underwater so long Slocum feared she was drowning. But before he could ease her back, she broke free, tossed her wet, black hair like a whip, and then returned so her face was only inches above the water. Cupping her hands, she scooped as much water as fast as she could into her mouth. Slocum went from worrying that she’d drown herself to fearing that she’d bloat like a thirsty horse.

  Again she stopped just short of him stopping her.

  She sat back on her heels, face lit by the last rays of the sun, tilted her head back, and simply smiled.

  “I knew you would come,” she whispered. “How, I didn’t know, but you’d never let anything bad happen to me.”

  Slocum didn’t bother telling her how lucky he had been to find her. If the cattle hadn’t insisted on clumping around the door, he would have ridden on, never seeing where Ralston had locked her up.

  He went and sat beside her, arms holding her. She settled down with only an occasional shudder.

  “I’m not up to going back yet, John. I can’t face them all.”

  “No need. We have water here, and I have supplies for a couple days.” He went to kiss her, but she turned away. It wasn’t the right time, and Slocum didn’t press the issue.

  “I’ve never been more afraid. I was scared when I realized Michael had been murdered, but this? The light poked in around the wood frame, but not enough to let me see. And it was so hot. My tongue felt like it swelled to a dozen times what it should have.” She burrowed more into his arms. “Why do things like this happen?”

  “There are men willing to do anything to get their way,” he said. “Ralston won’t bother you ever again.”

  “I hope he suffered when you shot him.”

  “I’ll fix some supper. You up for that?”

  “All right.” She washed up some more, scrubbing to get the last traces of dirt from the storm cellar off her before agreeing to eat. Slocum had fixed the best he could, but Angelina picked at the food and finally told him she wanted to go to sleep.

  He let her use his blanket while he paced around the stock pond, keeping the cattle away from her. He watched the stars pop out and then disappear under high, thin clouds that looked like gauzy curtains being drawn across the sky. Finally returning to where Angelina slept fitfully, he lay down with his head on his saddle and drifted off to sleep, the cold air his only blanket.

  Slocum came awake with a start when the odor reached him. His hand had gone halfway to his six-shooter before he realized Angelina was up before him and fixing coffee.

  She took a sip from his one tin cup, then held it out. “Here, have some,” she said.

  He took it and tried not to make a face. Her coffee was worse than his, and time and again he had used some of his brew to clean off tar. He drank, then handed it back to her for more. They finished breakfast in silence, then packed and got ready to return to Abilene.

  “You want to go to town or your ranch?” he asked.

  She hesitated, then said, “Town. I don’t know what I want to do but being at the ranch isn’t it. I might look for someone to buy the spread. Keeping it’s not as important to me anymore, not after all this.” She made a vague gesture with her hand, taking in the prairie and the storm cellar and the cattle. He knew what she meant.

  “There’s likely to be someone around willing to give the Circle H the attention it deserves.”

  “Our cattle never had Texas fever, no matter what they said. I heard the rumors, but they were wrong. We had some downers, but it wasn’t the fever.”

  As they rode, Slocum in the saddle and Angelina behind him, arms circling his waist, they talked of inconsequential things. There wasn’t time or call to do more.

  It took them two days to return to Abilene. Slocum didn’t want to exhaust his horse, and more important, he wanted to give Angelina the chance to get used to the idea of being surrounded by people again. She would have to tell the marshal all that had happened, and her ordeal would spread like wildfire through the cattle town, making her an overnight celebrity. Those who had worked for Ralston and those who were beholden to him—Slocum wondered about Wilson—would call her a liar and worse, but there would be those who believed. That would be good enough to help her through the tough times until she could sell her ranch.

  “There it is,” Slocum said in the late afternoon of the second day on the trail. “In all its glory.”

  “Abilene,” she said, making it sound like a curse word. “Let’s get it over with.”

  “Straight to Marshal Wilson?”

  She pressed her cheek agains
t his back. He wasn’t sure if she was crying again. A snap of the reins got the horse moving slowly toward the main street, but Slocum came to a complete halt at the edge of town.

  “What’s wrong, John?”

  “Don’t know for sure, but it looks like some kind of celebration.”

  “It’s weeks until the Fourth of July.”

  He didn’t have the feeling in his gut that what was gripping Abilene was that kind of celebration. There was a more frantic feel to this, one of desperation.

  One like he had seen too often at public hangings.

  “Maybe you should go on out to your ranch after all,” he said.

  “No, let’s go. To the marshal. I want to get this over, telling him what happened. Otherwise, I might lose my nerve.”

  The crowd became more boisterous the closer to the middle of town they rode. From horseback he saw the gallows and the hanged man slowly swinging in the arid wind.

  He started to veer away so Angelina wouldn’t see, but she had.

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know,” he said but that was a lie. He knew. Barnett had been strung up. He had been executed for killing Michael Holman—and Slocum didn’t believe he was the murderer.

  11

  “Why are they celebrating?” Angelina asked in a choked voice. “They just hung a man. You know who it is. Tell me.” She strained to look around Slocum from her vantage behind him.

  “It’s Barnett.” Turning to look over his shoulder, he watched her reaction. Shock was replaced with disbelief and then a glow of vengeance came to her eyes, turning them into bright beacons.

  “He killed Michael. He deserved it.”

  “Are you going to join the cheering?” Slocum looked out over the crowd. Barnett had been swung only a few minutes earlier from the crowd’s reaction. They were building up to a real celebration.

  “Why not?” Angelina turned angry now. “He was a killer!”

  “Don’t dispute that,” Slocum said. Barnett had likely killed more than his share of men in his day, but Slocum wasn’t in any mood to argue with her, especially since he had nothing to prove that someone other than Barnett had killed her husband. For all he knew as a fact, Ralston had ordered his foreman to stab his rival—and Barnett had. But the way Barnett had reacted in the jail when shown the knife used to kill Holman bothered Slocum. It wasn’t the look of a man responsible for the death.