by Jake Logan
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Teaser chapter
DOWN AND DIRTY
“I’ve done what you asked,” Slocum said. “What now?”
“Why, I take you on back to Las Vegas and collect the reward.”
The bounty hunter moved forward, eyes fixed on Slocum. Slocum jerked his hand about as he held it above his head to keep Wilmer’s attention diverted. When Wilmer knelt to pick up his six-shooter, Slocum kicked hard. His toe caught in the leather strap and yanked the saddlebags out from under the six-shooter, sending it skittering toward the pit.
When Wilmer’s attention strayed, Slocum acted. A quick step forward and a hard kick sent the bounty hunter flailing to land at the edge of the pit. As Wilmer grabbed for his gun, Slocum kicked him again. Man and six-gun tumbled into the pit.
A loud splash echoed up.
“That settles the question of whether there’s water in the pit.”
“You cain’t leave me down here!” came the bounty hunter’s angry shout.
“Why not?” Slocum said to himself.
He never wanted to see the bounty hunter again, but he doubted he would be that lucky . . .
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SLOCUM AND HOT LEAD
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
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Jove edition / February 2007
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1
John Slocum stared at the empty beer mug on the bar, then looked up from the drying foam to the picture of the naked woman stretching ten feet along the back wall of the saloon. He had seen better artwork. And he had been richer than he was. He looked back at the empty beer mug and licked his chapped lips. He had been on the trail for more than three weeks, making his way up the Jornada del Muerto—the Journey of Death—from Mesilla to Las Vegas, New Mexico, and all he had to show for the trip was a half-dead horse and an empty poke.
“You want another, you pay in advance,” the barkeep said harshly. He had seen the look on Slocum’s face on other cowboys.
“I shouldn’t have gotten into the card game,” Slocum said. He knew better than to play faro, but the dealer down in Albuquerque had been pretty enough to make him throw caution to the winds. He had played at her table for more than an hour, winning a little, not losing much at all. He had grown bolder and, he hated to admit it, had wanted to impress her. He had bet far too much on a single hand. Even after almost a week, it was hard for him to shrug off the loss. She had probably cheated him but had been so clever at it, he still wasn’t certain.
“That’s what they all say. You got the nickel for another beer, gimme. If you don’t, clear out and make a space for paying customers.” The bartender was more truculent than most. Getting out of the hot New Mexico sun was a pastime for most folks in this sleepy town.
Slocum wanted another beer but didn’t have the money.
“Where’s a gent go to find a job in these parts?”
The barkeep shook his head. “Ain’t any in this saloon. We got more deadbeats talkin’ themselves up as bouncers than I can shake a stick at.”
The bartender looked at Slocum, at the worn ebony butt of the Colt Navy slung in its cross-draw holster. His eyes flickered up to meet Slocum’s cold green eyes, and then went back to the six-shooter.
“You got the look of knowing how to use that.”
“That’s not the kind of work I’m looking for. I can wrangle with the best, and I’m not afraid of a day’s hard work.”
“Reckon not,” the barkeep said a mite uneasily, still staring at the six-gun. �
��But there’s nothing to keep a man in Las Vegas these days, unless you got something to do with Fort Union. Haulin’ supplies there, banking, feedin’ or waterin’ the soldiers when they come into town. All the ranchin’s dried up along with the desert. Worst drought I ever saw, and it’s held on for two years already.”
“I came up from Mesilla,” Slocum said. “There’s hardly any water in the Rio Grande anywhere along the way.”
“Heard there’s plenty up around Taos, but then again they’re as hard up as we are here when it comes to decent jobs. Or so I’ve heard.” The barkeep cocked his head and finally said, “You might consider looking on up in Colorado.”
“That’s the best advice you can give me?” Slocum asked wryly.
“Nope. Best advice is to plunk down two bucks, and I’ll give you a half bottle of whiskey. Drink it, get roarin’ drunk, and the world’ll look a sight better then.”
Slocum patted his vest pocket looking for a coin—any coin. He came up empty.
“Should go make my own luck,” he said.
The barkeep grunted, grabbed the empty mug, and gave it a quick swipe with his rag before putting it back on the stack behind the bar. If Slocum wasn’t drinking, he wasn’t talking anymore.
Slocum left the saloon and looked up and down the main street. Las Vegas was a decent-sized town, but heat had driven everyone indoors for a siesta. He started around the side of the saloon where he had tethered his Appaloosa, but stopped when he saw a stagecoach rattling into town and coming to a halt at the depot across the street. Slocum dropped into a chair, rocked back, then pulled his hat brim down enough to keep it from being obvious he was watching the passengers and driver intently. If he had no prospects for a legitimate job, that left drifting over to the illegal. The sight of the stagecoach suggested there might be a few dollars waiting to be picked from an incautious driver.
Slocum grinned. There wasn’t even a shotgun messenger on the stage.
He watched the driver open the door for the three passengers, all dusty and sweaty from their ride from up north. Might be they had come from Denver. They had certainly come from somewhere in Colorado. Two men spotted the saloon and made a beeline across the street, using their sleeves to wipe dust from their lips in preparation for a beer.
“Hope this place has jobs,” said the first man, pushing through the doors and going in.
Trailing, his traveling companion said, “I hear you. Been huntin’ myself for more ’n a month. Nuthin’ in Denver, nuthin’ in Raton. Hell, even the freighters aren’t hirin’.” His words were swallowed by the barkeep’s booming voice asking what his two new customers wanted.
Slocum looked back at the stagecoach with renewed interest. There wasn’t much point drifting northward, as the barkeep had suggested, if these two were coming south hunting for work. Slocum didn’t much understand it, but something had happened back East and the country’s entire economy was in the shithouse. The Panic of ’73 was continuing all the way into the summer of ’74, as he could attest. Railroads failed, and the Grant Administration hadn’t done much to put its own house in order. Slocum usually ignored such things, even when the newspapers’ bannered headlines foretold doom and disaster, but this time he was affected by the bad times.
With no work and no prospect of work, the unguarded stagecoach looked increasingly tempting. A moment of “Stand and deliver” and he’d be a few dollars ahead. Didn’t much matter to him right now if all he got were greenbacks. He had done worse things than being a road agent in his day.
Slocum heaved himself to his feet and walked over to talk with the third passenger, a rail-thin man dressed in a black coat. From the severe cut of the man’s clothing and the wild look in his jet black eyes, Slocum thought he might be a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher. In this weather, all the man needed to provide was the brimstone. Hellfire was available just by stepping into the sun.
“Afternoon,” Slocum said. “You just came in on the stagecoach.”
“I did,” the man answered. “Are you with the company?”
“The stage company? Nope, I was wondering about the cargo. It looked like they were riding mighty low, meaning they have quite a cargo although there’s only the three of you passengers.”
“Payroll,” came a cold voice behind Slocum. “The stage carries the Fort Union payroll from time to time. But not today.”
Slocum glanced in the window of the depot and saw the reflection of a man wearing a star. He turned and faced the marshal.
“I’m looking for a job as guard,” Slocum said. “If they carry that much money, they might need—”
“They don’t need nuthin’,” the lawman said. He worked a bit on the tip of a waxed mustache, but as fast as he twirled it, the hot sun melted the wax and made his efforts come to naught. This didn’t deter the man, who only toyed with his mustache as a nervous gesture.
Slocum saw the way the marshal’s right hand stayed close to his six-shooter, fingertips tapping nervously against the leather holster. That was a bad habit that would get the man killed in a real fight, but Slocum wasn’t going to call him out. There was no reason to leave bodies behind when all he wanted was a few dollars to put into his pocket.
Unless the marshal had recognized him from a wanted poster. John Slocum’s journey through the West hadn’t been pure as the wind-driven snow. Worse than the occasional robbery he had committed, a federal warrant for judge-killing had dogged him all the years since the war. He had returned to Slocum’s Stand in Calhoun, Georgia, to farm. His parents were dead and his brother Robert had died during Pickett’s Charge. Slocum had not counted on a carpetbagger judge taking a fancy to the farm, or the lien for nonpayment of taxes. It had all been fraudulent, but what wasn’t in dispute was the judge’s grave on the hill by the springhouse. Slocum had ridden out and never looked back, but the wanted posters had kept circulating until he wondered how any lawman didn’t know his face as well as his own.
“They don’t need a stranger lookin’ after their cargo,” the marshal said with an edge to his voice. His finger-tapping sped up and he squared off, as if Slocum would throw down on him.
“Mind if I ask for myself?”
“The soldiers from the fort look after the payroll shipments,” the marshal said. “I look after everything else. Everything else.”
Slocum stared at the man for a moment and saw he wasn’t going to back down.
“You need a deputy?”
The question took the marshal by surprise. His eyes widened, and he started to say something, but the words jumbled up.
“Reckon not,” Slocum went on, taking some small satisfaction in momentarily confusing the lawman. It was reckless to make enemies, especially of those who wore badges on their vests, but Slocum wasn’t in a mood to bandy words.
“I’d take it as a personal favor if I never saw you around town again,” the marshal said, getting his wits back. Slocum wondered if this meant he would rush off to his office and the stacks of yellowed, brittle wanted posters and start leafing through them. Probably not. It was too hot for such dusty work.
“I’ll be moving on when it gets a mite cooler to travel.”
The lawman nodded once, hitched up his gun belt, and stopped tapping his fingers against his holster.
“See that you do.”
Slocum looked to the doorway leading into the adobe depot where a frail man stood. The stagecoach agent coughed and spat, then said, “Don’t go gettin’ him too riled, son. He’s got a mean streak.” The man hesitated, then added, “And we don’t need no guards. Nothing worth two hoots and a holler ever comes in, ’cept the fort payroll.”
“And it’s guarded by soldiers,” Slocum finished. The man nodded, coughed consumptively, and spat again. There was as much blood as sputum in the gob hitting the edge of the boardwalk. He took a few steps and got closer to Slocum, then peered up myopically. The old man gasped and turned pale under his weathered hide.
“I . . . I got business to tend to,” he said, backin
g away. Slocum wondered at the agent’s reaction, but not too much.
Slocum walked back into the hot sun, giving the Concord coach a once-over as he passed. The weight in the rear boot causing it to sag there might have come from a canvas sack of gold coins, or it might have been something else. Whichever it was, Slocum decided it might be interesting to find out.
He looked around as he went back to the shady side of the saloon and paused before he mounted. The marshal and two deputies watched him like hawks from across the street. The marshal turned to one deputy and spoke rapidly. Slocum didn’t have to have ears like a rabbit to know what was being said. As long as he was within the marshal’s jurisdiction, he would have a human shadow following him around. That posed something of a problem if he wanted to stop the stage and find out what its cargo was firsthand.
He mounted and rode south, the deputy following. Slocum wondered what was happening when the station agent shuffled over to the marshal and began yammering at him, arms waving around like a windmill in a stiff breeze. The marshal and agent were rapidly left behind as Slocum trotted out of town and away from all the intrigues boiling around him. In spite of the heat, he kept a brisk pace as he hunted a spot he remembered in the road on his way into Las Vegas. Tall rocks rose on either side of the road, blocking a clear view farther along. A sudden turn just past those rocks would force a stage to slow, giving an enterprising highwayman the opportunity to hold up the coach.
Slocum rode steadily until he was a couple miles outside town. The deputy finally gave up, thinking his quarry was on the trail for good, heading back to Santa Fe. Finding a shady spot in the midst of robust junipers and a few spindly piñons gave him the chance to water his horse in a small pool and to look around. What he saw didn’t suit him or his plans. Everywhere he saw evidence of soldiers camping for extended periods of time. Their bivouac showed large numbers of the bluecoats came here often, maybe to guard their monthly payroll shipment. He knew little of Fort Union other than it was a quartermaster’s delight, supplying most of the other forts in the region.