by Jake Logan
“If the robbers were just passing through, might be they wouldn’t know about the watering hole.”
Hooker shook his head.
“Not the way I see it. They probably didn’t get as much money as they thought. A big enough take and they’d expect to have a posse after them. Leave fresh horses at a watering hole, they could outrun us.”
“That’s making them out to be a lot smarter than they looked,” Slocum said. “It was as if the idea hit them, and they did it. No planning.” Even as the words slipped from his mouth, he knew that wasn’t right. They had waited. They were following a plan, but was it theirs? A pair of inept robbers could be manipulated.
“Men, that way!” The marshal snapped his reins and got his small posse trotting down the hill in pursuit of the men heading away from the road. Slocum kept up. It didn’t matter if those were the robbers. He needed water, and so did his horse. If the stand of trees he spotted in the distance ringed a pond, he would be happy.
“They haven’t spotted us, Marshal,” the teller said.
Slocum studied the man closer. His long fingers were strong and nimble. He could see those hands holding a rope or dealing seconds from a deck of cards.
“No need to draw attention to ourselves by kicking up a dust cloud,” the barkeep said. “We can sneak up on them and catch them when they camp.”
Hooker worked on this, then said, “Good idea. No need to run them to ground. We can catch them since I’ll bet they camp at the pond.”
“How much?” Slick asked.
“How much what? Oh, that’s not a real bet. Just a figure of speech,” the marshal said.
Slocum saw that the gambler never left the man. Slick looked disappointed. Slocum wondered if he could get odds, then forgot about it when the marshal began forcing him away from the others in the posse to speak to him privately.
“You have the look of a man who can sneak up on them. You want to scout for us, Slocum?”
This surprised him. Hooker had gone from thinking he was a robber to giving him the chance to gather information that could make the arrest safer.
“I can do that. You trust me enough, Marshal?”
“Don’t have much choice. Do any of them boys look capable of scouting like that?”
Slocum laughed. The lawman had a point.
“I’ll circle wide. Give me an hour, then go straight in. I’ll meet you with anything I’ve found.”
Hooker nodded curtly, then rode back to the others. Slocum considered just keeping riding rather than spying on the robbers, but curiosity was enough of a goad to make him do as the marshal asked. He wasn’t even certain the men at the watering hole were the pair that had robbed the bank. Finding out was part of an adventure.
He rode a ways before changing directions and approached the pond from the south so the men camped near the water were caught between him and the marshal. Slocum dropped to the ground, tethered his gelding, and then quietly advanced on the pond. The trees formed a green wall that hid him so that he came within a few feet of the men, now lounging back, boots off and feet in the water to cool off.
Slocum recognized them right away. The marshal’s instincts had been right.
He slipped his six-gun from his holster but hesitated when one asked the other, “Think they got a posse after us?”
“Naw, we didn’t get much. But that son of a bitch who shot at us. Was that the marshal?”
“Don’t think so. We spotted the law earlier. Short drink of water, not like the sidewinder who opened up on us.”
“Good thing he wasn’t a better shot.”
They laughed at this, making Slocum mad. He stepped out, his pistol leveled.
“Grab some sky,” he ordered.
Startled, the robbers splashed about and looked around.
“It’s them!”
Slocum swung around just as a rain of bullets sailed through the air and fell into the water, cutting a piece out of his hat brim. Then the outlaws had their six-guns out and blazing.
The death all around reminded Slocum of the many battles he had fought during the war, nobody aiming but intent on flinging, willy-nilly, as much lead out as possible.
15
Slocum added his own bullets to the sizzling hail as he dived and landed hard on his belly. The impact caused his aim to be off, but he still winged one outlaw. The man grunted and grabbed for his thigh. He lifted his pistol to return Slocum’s fire and then began to shake like a leaf in a high wind. He turned pale and toppled over.
“Got him!” came the shout from across the watering hole. Slocum stayed on his belly. To stand meant he would present a target for the trigger-happy posse. Wiggling forward, he got to the outlaw he had shot and saw why the man had died so strangely. The bullet had ripped through the upper leg and torn open the femoral artery. The blood hadn’t spurted out but had been soaked up by the man’s jeans and then drained down into his boot. Red fluid dribbled out over the top of the boot, showing how much blood the man had lost in a short time.
Slocum grabbed for the bank robber’s six-gun. His Colt was empty. Rather than take time to reload, he would use the spare gun. His fingers slipped on the handle. Blood had spattered everywhere. Slocum rubbed his hand in the dirt, then picked up the bloody gun, rolled onto his side, and got off three more shots at the other outlaw, who was disappearing in the trees.
“You’re lettin’ him escape, Slocum,” bellowed Marshal Hooker. The short man came running, his legs pumping like pistons on a locomotive. He held his six-shooter out straight-armed as he hunted for a decent target.
“Got one,” Slocum said, tossing aside the outlaw’s empty pistol. “We can run down the other.”
“You let the sidewinder escape!”
“I had both of them dead to rights when somebody opened fire and spooked them. They thought they were going to die, so why not shoot it out?”
“That’s a lame excuse,” Hooker said, muttering to himself. Slocum knew the lawman was hunting for any reason to blame someone who was not a resident of Hedison for the escape. He had to live with them; he didn’t have to put up with Slocum.
The teller, the barkeep, and the others crowded close, staring at the outlaw Slocum had shot down. They were silent. Likely they had seen dead men before, but in a quiet town like Hedison, there might not have been a violent death. That was for cattle towns like Abilene and Hell’s Half Acre in Fort Worth, not a farming community where most men didn’t even carry a sidearm.
“Where’s the money from the robbery?” Hooker rummaged through the dead outlaw’s gear, spilling out the contents of the saddlebags. He kicked at everything he had scattered about. “Not here. The money’s not here.”
“Reckon the escaping robber’s got it, then,” said Slick. He had recovered from the shock of the gunfight and looked around. “Can’t imagine they would stash it around here, not with folks comin’ and goin’ all the time.”
Slocum considered what the teller had said. It seemed incredible to him that the robbers had acted on their own. Two men that stupid would have been caught years ago, unless they had started on their life of crime in Hedison. That was certainly possible. They might consider robbing the bank a dress rehearsal for some bigger theft. From a safe, quick holdup in Hedison, they might decide to go to a stagecoach robbery or even try the bank in Abilene, where they stood to get away with a pile of money, not a paltry eighty dollars.
“You want to let them take care of things here so we can get after the other robber?”
Hooker stared at Slocum as if he had never considered such a thing.
“Might find him faster, just the pair of us,” the marshal said, looking thoughtful. He gave the orders to the others to bury the dead man and wait for them. From the looks of relief, this agreed with them, though the barkeep had a question.
“We still get the reward?” He looked at the others. “We risked our lives. We deserve the reward.”
“That’ll be up to Turnbull—and if we can ride down the other
outlaw,” Hooker said.
“I think Mr. Turnbull will see fit to give the reward,” Slick said. “I’ll put in a good word for you boys.”
Slocum snorted and turned away, working to reload his six-gun. Hooker quickly caught up.
“You thinking on claiming the entire reward for yourself?”
“I didn’t even want to come along,” Slocum said. “I’m here, I’ll finish the job.”
“So you’d be all right letting them split the reward?”
Slocum looked at the marshal and wondered what the fuss was over twenty dollars. The two robbers hadn’t even made off with a big pile of money.
“It doesn’t happen to us, not in Hedison,” Hooker said, answering the unspoken question. “The good people talk about this kind of crime being so bad everywhere else, but not here.”
“You up for election?”
“Real soon,” Hooker said. “I like the job, I like the people. I worked as a deputy down in Houston for damned near a year and got shot at ’bout every day. That doesn’t happen here. We don’t even get many drunk cowboys because we’re surrounded by farms, not ranches.”
Slocum stepped up into the saddle and started on the outlaw’s trail, letting Hooker catch up with him. The fleeing robber hadn’t had time or the skill to hide his direction of escape. Slocum followed it at a trot.
“We got to grab him quick,” said Hooker, galloping up. “If it gets dark, we’ll lose him.”
“He’s running like a scalded dog,” Slocum said. “He will run his horse into the ground in another couple miles. We’ll have him then.”
“I didn’t see the other owlhoot’s horse. He mighta took it, so he can switch off.”
“There wasn’t time. It surprised me he had the sense to take the money with him.”
The marshal chattered on, making Slocum wonder if he was nervous about actually finding the bank robber. Within a mile his prediction came true. Hooker spotted the dead horse before Slocum, but that was all right. Slocum’s quick eyes had discovered a different trail—boot prints going up a sandy hill and vanishing over the crest.
“There’s his horse,” Hooker said, but Slocum was already riding up the hill, wary of reaching the top. He didn’t want to present a silhouette for a perfect ambush.
The boot prints went down the far side, but Slocum spotted the outlaw struggling along, hobbling a mite as if he had hurt his leg.
He let his horse pick its way down to the far side, then trotted after the outlaw.
“Your partner’s dead,” Slocum called out. “You don’t want to end up the same way. All you did was stick up a bank. That’s not worth dying for.”
“You—you’d let me go if I gave back the money?” The outlaw held up the bank’s money bag. “I don’t want it.”
“Drop your gun,” Slocum said, not bothering to go for his own six-shooter. “The marshal’s right behind me. He’s a trifle nervy after the gunfight back at the watering hole.”
“He’d kill me?”
“Don’t give him a reason.” Slocum felt no jubilation when the man dropped the money and threw his six-gun down on top of the money bag. The robber was a rabbit, not a wolf.
“You got him, Slocum? You got him?”
“Down here, Marshal. He’s given up.” Slocum pointed toward the sky. The robber’s hands shot upward.
“Didn’t hear any shooting,” Hooker said, drawing rein beside Slocum. “He showed some sense and gave up?”
“Pretty much.”
“Here’s the money. It’s all there. Ain’t spent none of it.” The outlaw nudged the bag with his boot.
“Haven’t had a chance, you numskull. We got after you too quick.”
“You let me go? You have the money and my partner’s dead. Putting me in jail don’t gain you nothing.”
Slocum saw the argument had some sway over Hooker. A trial would remind the citizens of Hedison that their Eden had a snake in it. But Hooker also had to get reelected.
“Start walking,” the marshal said. “We’re goin’ back to town.”
“But—”
“Do it,” Slocum said coldly. To Hooker, he said, “You see that the money’s there. I’ll keep him moving ’til you can catch up.” He saw the marshal doing rapid calculation and knew what was foremost on his mind. “You can march him into camp at the watering hole.”
This got a quick nod of approval. Slocum read the marshal’s hesitation correctly. Hooker wanted to show his fellow citizens he was on top of crushing crime in their town. Letting Slocum take the credit for the capture wouldn’t do, but that had just been taken care of.
The outlaw retraced his path, Slocum keeping a respectable distance. When they were on the far side of the hill, Slocum called out, “Put your hands down. They’ll fall off your arms before we get back to town otherwise.”
“Thanks. You’re not such a bad fellow.”
“You got that wrong. I’ll shoot you where you stand if I have to. I might do it because I just want to. Why’d you do a damn fool stupid thing like rob the bank? I saw you and your partner waiting. What made you decide to go ahead with the stickup?”
“Me and Mel wasn’t gonna get rich, but there was so much money waitin’ fer us there, we couldn’t pass it up.”
“In Hedison?”
The robber looked confused.
“That’s what we was told. A shitload of money was stuffed into the vault. It was empty as a whore’s promise. We took what we could and then ran. Whatever we got woulda been all right, but it weren’t no thousand dollars like he said.”
“Who told you that?”
“The teller.”
Slocum blinked.
“The teller told you all that money was yours for the taking?”
“Not in so many words. He was boastin’ on it, and we’re just flesh and blood men. Temptation got too big.”
“What’d the teller look like?”
“He was in the bank.”
Slocum described Slick.
“Naw, that’s the other fellow there. This one was at the saloon and drunker ’n a lord. Shootin’ his mouth off about how much money ran through his hands ever’ day.”
“So it was only the one teller who convinced you to rob the bank?”
“Can’t say he convinced us. Didn’t take much thinkin’ on our part to come up with the idea on our own. We woulda never tried it if it hadn’t seemed like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”
Slocum kept the man walking, Marshal Hooker saying nothing after he caught up. They returned to the watering hole. Slocum watched closely as Slick saw the robber hadn’t been gunned down. There was a look of triumph on the teller’s face that didn’t go with getting drunk and setting the robbery into motion by telling a pair of drifters how much was stashed inside.
“Put him on his partner’s horse,” Hooker ordered. “We’re headin’ straight back to town. I ain’t sleeping on the cold, hard ground because of him.”
The others in the posse chattered like magpies, congratulating themselves on a successful foray. The marshal was happy enough and handed over the stolen money to Slick. Again Slocum watched closely. Slick seemed genuinely happy to recover the money and showed no concern over what the robber might say.
Somewhere around midnight they rode into Hedison. The marshal took his prisoner straight to jail, and Slick said he wanted to hand the stolen money to Turnbull right away.
“Drinks are on me, men,” the barkeep said. He galloped to the saloon and hit the ground running. Inside his saloon were a half-dozen men nursing beers. Behind the bar a pallid woman drifted like a ghost. She brightened when she saw the barkeep, then the smile faded and she returned to her drab existence when he showed more interest in boasting about his role in capturing the desperado than in her.
Slocum leaned against the bar and accepted a watered-down whiskey as his reward.
“We done good, didn’t we, Slocum?”
Slocum hoisted his glass and made a toast.
“
To justice.” He downed it in a gulp.
This set off a loud cheer, or as loud as the few gathered in the bar could make. Slocum saw the other teller at the far end of the bar with a half-drunk beer. He went to the man.
“You ought to be happy. We recovered the money and caught the robbers,” he said.
The teller looked uneasy.
“Reckon so. Terrible thing, robbin’ a bank here. In Hedison, I mean. We’re a peaceable community and things like this don’t happen.”
“How come you’re not swilling the whiskey?”
“How’s that? This is all I can afford. The whiskey was for the posse.”
“But you got roaring drunk the other night. Can’t imagine you did it on that weak horse piss.”
“You’re right about it being weak,” he said with a smile. “But the other night was different, special.” He smiled crookedly. “I was helpin’ out with some tomfoolery.”
“How’s that?” Slocum motioned the barkeep over and ordered two whiskeys. Seeing the teller eyeing the second shot glass filled with amber liquid, Slocum pushed it toward him. “Join in the celebration.”
“Much obliged.”
“What was this joke you were playing?”
“Couple guys I never seen were here. A guy wanted to josh them some. Said he knew them and wanted to make them jealous. They came from some jerkwater town, and he wanted to make ’em envious of Hedison.”
“You ever see the guys before?”
“Never did. Haven’t since. Reckon they won’t show their faces here after I bragged on how much money we had in the bank. We don’t, but I was kinda drunk and it seemed funny then.”
“Who was it playing the joke on the two?”
The teller scowled as he thought hard, then said, “Can’t rightly remember. My brain was kinda foggy by then.”
Slocum started to question the man further but the barkeep started in telling about the gunfight at the watering hole. His role expanded to be the central one. Slocum wasn’t going to call him a liar. Let him enjoy his moment in the sun.