by Jake Logan
Barnett might have gloated or he might have bragged on how Holman had died. He had denied it, knowing Ralston would try to get him free no matter what he said. And Slocum doubted Ralston had killed Holman either. From what he had heard, and Angelina even admitted it, their spread was too small for Ralston to worry over. Eventually he would have gobbled up the Circle H. All it would take was another long drought.
Even if Ralston had wanted to speed up matters, killing Holman and leaving his body where it could be found was stupid, and whatever else Slocum thought of Ralston, stupid wasn’t in the mix. Even if he had flown off the handle and killed Holman in a sudden violent rage, he would have cooled down soon enough to take the body and dump it out on the prairie, where it wasn’t likely to ever be found.
The storm cellar he had used as a prison for Angelina would have made a fine grave. And there had to be other places on his ranch that would successfully hide the result of a momentary murderous impulse. Mostly, though, Slocum knew men as rich and powerful as Ralston could thumb their nose at the law. He could have always told Marshal Wilson that he had killed in self-defense. Until Ralston had shoved the lawman in public and humiliated him, Wilson had gone out of his way to defend the rancher.
With Angelina going on about Barnett’s guilt and her speculation on his eternal damnation, he turned his horse toward the jail. He wanted to talk to Wilson and find what had happened to hasten the execution.
“Why don’t you get yourself a room, get cleaned up, and rest a spell?” Slocum suggested as they passed the hotel. “I’ll be back and we can get something to eat.”
“Very well.” Angelina had turned icy toward him since he failed to share her enthusiasm for Barnett’s necktie party. She dropped, then hesitated, looking up at him. “How will I pay for it?”
“Take this,” Slocum said, fumbling in his pocket and handing her a silver cartwheel. “I’ll pay the rest when I get back.”
She silently took the silver dollar and went into the hotel. Slocum watched her. Even as filthy as she was, as disheveled from her ordeal and the ride back to Abilene, she was a fine-looking woman. His attention was pulled away when he caught something moving fast just at the corner of his vision. He saw a man hidden in shadow running down an alley next to the hotel. Slocum called out, but the man turned the corner and disappeared without breaking stride. Slocum shook his head at being so jumpy, then rode slowly to the jail to find Wilson.
The marshal was outside talking to a small crowd, waxing eloquent—or as eloquent as he could get—over the execution.
“Be sure you git that there quote right,” Wilson said, peering over the top of a notebook held in the hands of an earnest young man whom Slocum took as a reporter.
The young man scribbled and finally read back what he had written. Wilson beamed.
“That’s it. You got me jist right on the matter.”
Slocum dismounted and waited for the interview to end. The reporter rushed away after assuring the marshal it would be in the morning edition.
“Why’d you let him swing?” Slocum asked without preamble.
“Good to see you again, too, Slocum. You find her?”
“I did. Ralston had her locked up in a storm cellar.”
“At his ranch house?” Wilson’s eyes went wid. “You poked around the Ralston house and found her there?”
“She was at a stock pond. I reckon Ralston used the storm cellar there for storage as well as shelter from tornadoes, but there wasn’t anything but Angelina in it when I got there.”
“Least Ralston didn’t kill her.”
Slocum studied the marshal, wondering if he was making a roundabout accusation about the way he had cut down Ralston. He couldn’t tell. The rancher’s death had changed Wilson, given him confidence and made him seem more arrogant.
“Why’d you let them string up Barnett? He didn’t kill Holman.”
“It was his knife.”
“The knife was found in his gear, but he denied that it was his.”
“What’s a killer likely to do? Brag on the murder?”
Slocum had his own opinion on that. Barnett likely would have, if he had killed Holman. He wasn’t so self-possessed that he’d take credit for another man’s kill. Slocum corrected himself. Barnett hadn’t been.
“Did he get a trial?”
“I didn’t think there was no need,” Wilson said. “A waste of taxpayer money gettin’ a judge into town, hirin’ a jury, and rilin’ ever’one up. I jist cut to what was gonna happen anyway.”
“Didn’t take long to build the gallows,” Slocum said.
“Got a good deal from two carpenters.”
“I’m sure you saved the town a lot of money.”
Wilson looked hard at Slocum and asked, “Are you ridiculin’ me, Slocum?”
“Wouldn’t think of it, Marshal. Wouldn’t think of it.” With that Slocum scooped up his horse’s reins and walked away. Barnett had been railroaded for the crime, and Slocum had the feeling there was something more to the hanging. Wilson had grown a pair since returning and didn’t have any trouble going ahead with the hanging on his own.
Slocum knew he could dig into the matter and find the real reason Barnett was hanged so quickly, but getting out of Abilene appealed more to him by the minute. He’d see what he could do to help Angelina sell her ranch, then he would ride on. He had tried to go west before. North appealed more to him now, maybe Kansas or Nebraska.
Anywhere but Texas.
He stabled his horse and returned to the hotel, to find a long line of men stretching from the lobby. Angry arguments raged inside. Slocum started to push past a man in the doorway, only to be shoved back.
“You wait your turn!”
“Turn?” Slocum didn’t like the way the man had jostled him. “What’s going on?”
“Town’s got a brand-new whore, and she’s mighty fine. Only charges a dime to touch her titties. Two bits gets you into bed with her.”
Slocum started to push past the man again, and again he was shoved away.
“I said you gotta wait yer turn. Sloppy seconds ain’t good enough for you?”
“Seconds?” The man in line behind laughed. “Can’t count high enough. Heard she wants to have every man in town ’fore sundown.”
“She’d better hurry,” piped up another.
“With you, that’s not a concern,” yet another man called. This set off a minor scuffle.
“Let me inside,” Slocum said to the man blocking his way.
“You wait your turn.”
“I’m not in line for any whore.”
The man laughed harshly. Then he poked Slocum in the chest with his fingertips.
“Says you. We saw you payin’ her ’fore you rode away. You mighta paid her already but you have to wait.”
“Angelina?” The name slipped from his lips unbidden.
“That’s her name.”
The leer on the man’s lips was too much for Slocum. He didn’t even wind up for the punch he drove into the mouth. He felt teeth yield and lips crush, then sticky blood ooze out. The man staggered away, holding his mouth and trying to cry out. His tongue might have gotten bit from the noises. Slocum didn’t much care. He shoved the man hard to get him out of the way and went into the lobby, where the clerk argued with the men at the foot of the stairs.
“You can’t—”
“I can,” Slocum said. His bloody fist and grim expression got him past the clerk and onto the stairs. His tread was so heavy, boards sagged under his weight. He reached the landing and looked back. The crowd was getting nastier, and the clerk wasn’t likely to hold them back much longer.
Without any idea which room Angelina had checked into, he knocked sharply on each door in turn until he got a frightened “go away” that sounded like her. He rattled the doorknob. Locked.
“It’s Slocum. Let me in.”
“John?”
The key turned and a single bloodshot blue eye peered out. She had been crying some more. H
e pushed in, not giving her a chance to open the door farther.
“What the hell’s going on?”
“I… I don’t know. I checked in and then a cowboy came to the door. I thought it was you. He held up a wad of greenbacks and said lewd things. I got him out, but there were a couple more behind him. Then there were dozens!”
“They’re lined up out in the street, all thinking you’re a whore and open for business.”
“I never—”
“No, you didn’t,” he said. She came into his arms. He held her until she stopped quaking. “Somebody passed the word and caused this mess.”
He remembered seeing the man running down the alley and wondered if that wasn’t the cause of the rumor. The man had seen Slocum give Angelina a dollar for the room and overheard his promise to be back with more, if she needed it.
That was thin, but it was all he could think of.
“What are we going to do, John? I… can’t stay here now.”
He poked his head out the door and saw the clerk had either been overwhelmed or had given up trying to hold back the horny cowboys.
The thud of boots on the stairs warned him of the folly of opening the door again.
“Out the window.”
“But I can’t do that!”
He caught her around the waist, lifted her legs, and spun her so her feet went through the open window. Angelina scrambled, trying to find purchase on the sloping eaves at the side of the hotel. Slocum held her for a moment, then let her go as the door burst inward. Spinning, he whipped out his six-shooter and fired three times, the bullets going to the side to break a mirror, above to shatter the transom, and finally into the door itself to send a cascade of splinters into the hall beyond. The lead cowboy yelped, ducked, fell on the shattered mirror, and added to the confusion with loud cries of pain. The man behind tried to run and crashed into two others in the hall. The pandemonium was all Slocum could have asked for.
Holstering his six-gun, he stepped through the window, then jumped, hitting the ground near Angelina. He grabbed her hand and pulled the dazed woman behind him like a child’s toy. Ducking down the alley where he had seen the fleeing man earlier, he followed the same route and came out in the main street between two saloons. Two Cyprians stood on the boardwalk, passing a cigarette back and forth. They hardly took notice of Slocum and Angelina, but from inside that saloon came angry cries.
What wasn’t being delivered at the hotel was in demand here. The two women finished their smoke and went back into the saloon to boisterous customers whose appetites had been churned by Angelina’s denied beauty.
“I want to go home, John. I want to go home.”
“Your ranch?”
She nodded, her hair in wild, dark disarray. He pushed some of it from her eyes, then tugged to get her moving to the stables. Once there, Slocum looked around for the stableman but didn’t see him. Considering the man’s predilection for drink, he was likely at a nearby saloon. Or he might have heard about the new talent in town and had lined up with the other men at the hotel.
“Take that one,” Slocum said, pointing to a small mare. “Use this saddle and blanket.” He heaved the equipment from a box. The stableman had done some work. The saddle was freshly cleaned and soaped.
“We can’t steal a horse.”
“I’m paying for it,” Slocum said, fishing in his pocket. All he had was eighteen dollars in folding money. He shoved it onto a nail in the stall where Angelina struggled to get the mare saddled. It was hardly enough, but Slocum thought Abilene owed Angelina something for all she had been through. The stableman would only pour the money down his gullet. To Slocum’s way of thinking, everyone was coming out ahead on the deal.
Angelina had a horse, and the livery owner had something to show for it. He could take the eighteen dollars to a bar and drink it up, complaining about how thieves had stolen the best horse he had.
Slocum smiled wryly. The stable owner might even cadge a few free drinks if he spun a good enough tale of thievery and woe.
He led his horse from the stables, Angelina close behind. Once outside, they stepped up and turned away from the crowd still yelling and causing a ruckus at the hotel. As they rode from Abilene, Slocum saw a familiar figure sitting on a rain barrel, swinging his good leg back and forth.
Herk waved to them. Slocum didn’t bother waving back.
“Who was that?”
“Nobody important,” Slocum said. “Head off the road. That way, across the prairie.”
“If we follow the road…”
“They’ll think that’s what we did. This way we get to your ranch sooner and let them follow the bends in the road.”
“Who’re you talking about?”
Slocum didn’t rightly know. He doubted any of the frustrated men would pursue them. Instead, they’d take their business to other soiled doves or drink away the money they had been so eager to press onto Angelina. Whatever happened, the woman was well rid of them and Abilene.
After a few minutes of galloping, he slowed the pace and saw that she was openly crying. Tears left muddy tracks on her cheeks. She didn’t even bother wiping them away. Sobs wracked her body as she was bounced around on the horse. The mare’s gait was off and would make for a tired rider by the end of the day.
“What did I do to deserve this?” Angelina caught her breath and held back her tears now. “I never did anything so bad that would mean Michael’s death or being kidnapped or… or that!” She half turned and looked back in the direction of Abilene. Slocum knew what she meant by “that.”
He often wondered why a storm cloud followed some people and rained on them constantly. Angelina had been favored with good looks and a quick mind, but every other portion of her life was lower than a snake’s belly.
“What’s the next town over?” Slocum asked.
“What? The one where… where I tried to shoot you?” She wiped her nose on her sleeve and sniffed. “That’s Hedison. Why?”
“Might be a good place to go, after you’ve had a chance to get what you need from your house. It’s close enough for you find a banker willing to buy your ranch but far enough away from Abilene so nobody from there will trouble you.”
“A banker? Oh, I see. Let the bank handle the sale. Why not?” She sniffed again and looked at him. He had seen forlorn women before but seldom this distraught. “I’m not thinking right, John. Don’t leave… until… until things are more settled. Please.”
Slocum realized what he was getting himself in for when he said, “Yes.”
She swallowed hard but stopped crying. They rode in silence, Slocum letting her take the lead since he knew only the general direction of her ranch. It was well past sundown when they found the weed-overgrown road, and Angelina turned down it.
She drew rein just inside a low fence intended to keep the chickens from getting out. From the lack of poultry and abundance of feathers, she and her husband had been gone long enough for coyotes and foxes to dine on the chickens.
“Not much, is it?”
“It’s plenty since it’s yours,” he answered.
She heaved a deep sigh and urged her mare forward, stopping at the side of the house. Slocum considered simply leaving her and riding on, but he had promised to see her through the next few days after she settled in Hedison.
“I’ll see to the horses,” he said, catching the mare’s reins and riding toward the barn.
The door leading in needed repair but not as much as many of the places he had seen on the prairie. It was difficult for only a man and a woman to keep up a spread without hands or a large family to pitch in with the chores. He put the horses in clean stalls and did what he could, finding very little in the way of hay or grain to feed them. He went to the pump out back and made certain the horses had plenty of water after the long ride from town.
Only then did he go to the house, not sure what to do. He could sleep in the barn. That would suit him just fine, but Angelina had seemed to need comforting. What more
he could do was a mite hazy. He went up the steps into the kitchen, where she worked on fixing a meal for them.
“Set yourself down. It won’t be much but it’s got to be better than the moldy jerky and hard bread you’ve been eating.”
Slocum gingerly sat in a chair, as if any sound might disturb the picture of domestic tranquility. Angelina knew her way around the kitchen and whipped up a decent plate of food. Slocum ate with real appetite but noticed she only sat across from him and watched with hollow, empty eyes.
“We can leave first thing in the morning,” he said.
“All right. There’s not much I want to pack. Some clothing. A few pieces of jewelry my mama gave me.”
“You don’t have any family? At all?”
“I’m like you now, John. A drifter,” she said. She smiled but no humor came to her eyes. “All my people are gone.”
With that she got to her feet and went into the small bedroom, where Slocum saw her throwing things into a traveling case. She hesitated when she held a picture frame, as if deciding what to do with it. She added it to the contents. Eventually she ran out of space and stopped, returning to take his empty plate.
“You had a good appetite.”
“Good food.”
“I’m packed. All I need.” She stood a little straighter. “All I want to take. The rest can be sold with the spread.”
She dropped the plate into a bucket and turned toward him; their eyes locked. Angelina reached up and began unbuttoning her blouse, her intent obvious.
A rock smashed the window behind her, causing her to cry out in fright and jerk to one side in time to avoid being hit with a flaming torch. In seconds the kitchen was engulfed in fire.
12
Angelina stood frozen as flames rushed up all around her. Slocum kicked over the table, grabbed the legs, and heaved, throwing the table past the woman and out the window. For a moment, the yawning hole was blocked and the fire flickered. He followed the table and grabbed her, spinning her around and bodily flinging her into the bedroom. Then Slocum slapped out the tiny fires that tried to gain a foothold in his clothing.