Slocum and Hot Lead

by Jake Logan

  The more he thought, the less sure he was that any gold lay at the end of this trail.

  “Come this far, might as well go the rest of the way,” he told the horse. He patted the animal’s neck. A big brown eye glared at him. Slocum didn’t put much store in any animal’s thinking ability, but this one resented him. The way the horse glared whenever he tried to gentle it told him he ought to get rid of the horse, first chance, and find a new mount.

  “I’ll just hobble you here and go take a look,” Slocum said. As he worked to place the hobbles on the horse’s front legs, he looked up the slope to the mine and its tailings. Getting there might take the better part of a day. Slocum stuffed an extra box of ammo in his coat pocket, shook his canteen and was pleased to find that it was full, then started up the rocky hillside.

  After twenty minutes of slipping and sliding, he began to wonder how the miners had ever gotten to their claim, much less an artist lugging a load of stolen gold. As Slocum rested, he looked around for a trail up to the mine, even one overgrown with weeds or covered by rock slides. He wasn’t sure he found it, but began edging along the mountainside to get to a faint line against the rock.

  He found the trail and guessed that it hadn’t been used much in the past several years. Slocum had no idea when all the mines had played out, or if the miners had simply given up because they hadn’t found any pay dirt. He trooped up the trail, panting for breath within minutes. The altitude got to him, and he hadn’t taken time for a decent meal. He realized the gold fever had infected him and made it hard for him to think straight. He should never have run off leaving Claudia—or her body—in the other canyon. That was more of a crime to him than shooting any of the outlaws in the back from ambush.

  Taking a long swig of tepid water from his canteen, he looked up and gauged the distance to the mine. It might take another hour. He wished he had a burro, as the miner who had dug that hole must have had. Slinging the canteen again, he had begun to hike when he heard a rasping sound that froze him in his tracks.

  His hand flashed to his six-shooter. He drew, spun, and aimed, only to lower the hammer when he saw the source of the heavy breathing.

  “Never thought I’d come across you again,” he said to the bounty hunter. Wilmer lay sprawled below a towering rock above the trail. Through force of will, he had crawled far enough up to be able to see Slocum.

  “You gotta help me. Gotta. I’m gonna die if ’n you don’t.”

  “You’d’ve dragged me back to Las Vegas for the reward. You’re sure I’m not Neale, aren’t you?”

  “No-account bastard shot me. He laughed as he shot me. Ran outta ammo and had my hands in the air. He shot me fer no reason.”

  “He had plenty of reason,” Slocum said, edging up through the jumble of rocks to reach the bounty hunter. “He didn’t want you dogging his tracks like you’d done to me.”

  “You ain’t an outlaw, are you?”

  “My name’s Slocum, and I’d never heard of Neale until the Las Vegas marshal threw me in jail and you came after me outside Taos. I think the station agent in Las Vegas mistook me for the outlaw. He was mighty nearsighted and I do look more than a passing amount like Neale.”

  “Sorry ’bout the confusion. You gotta help me or I’ll die.”

  Slocum clambered to the top of the boulder and saw that Wilmer was in a bad way. He had been shot more than once in the belly. A pang of memory stabbed into Slocum’s soul. He had objected to the way William Quantrill had killed every male over the age of eight in Lawrence, Kansas. For his concern, he had been shot in the belly by Bloody Bill Anderson and left to die. But he had been too ornery for that. It had taken months of pain and determination to recover. Slocum wasn’t about to leave anybody to die who had been similarly shot.

  “There’s not a hell of a lot I can do for you,” Slocum said, tearing away the bounty hunter’s buckskin shirt. He probed the wounds and saw they were bad, but not as bad as all the blood suggested. Wilmer would still die unless he got to a doctor.

  “Git me to Taos. There’s a curandero there what kin fix me up.”

  “Better than a doctor could,” Slocum allowed. Some healing herbs made into a poultice might heal the wounds better than a doctor poking around with a wire probe and a blunt knife. From the entry and exit wounds, Wilmer had been as lucky as he could be. The slugs had gone clean through him. That left behind a powerful lot of damage inside, but Wilmer had been coping with that all right up till now.

  “Here’s some water,” Slocum said, passing over his canteen. He sliced up the bloody buckskin and made a crude bandage from it. The wounds wouldn’t bleed if pressure was kept on them. But moving Wilmer might open them. If he started bleeding, he was a goner.

  “Much obliged.”

  “You still have a horse?”

  “Gone,” Wilmer said. “Reckon Neale stole it. Wouldn’t put it past him to steal a man’s horse. He’s stole ’bout everything else.”

  “What’s got the law so riled? Neale’s a real owlhoot, but not the worst I ever heard. Why’s Marshal Hanks so hot to track him down?”

  Wilmer looked at Slocum, his lips quivering from weakness. He finally formed the words.

  “Same reason I want him.”

  “More than the hundred-dollar reward,” Slocum said. “You want the gold. Where’d Neale get it?”

  “He’s a cashiered Army captain. They caught ’im cheatin’ in the quartermaster’s accounts.”

  “Taking his own cut off the payroll?”

  “Don’t know. Prob’ly,” grunted Wilmer as Slocum cinched up the bandages. “He lit out’fore the court-martial. Figger he was the one what robbed the stagecoach of the Fort Union payroll. Him and some of his men that deserted along with ’im.”

  “So the Army wants him as bad as the law.”

  “Been cuttin’ quite a swath through the countryside since he deserted,” Wilmer said. “The Army didn’t identify him till last week or two.”

  “That’s why Marshal Hanks didn’t clap me in jail the first time he laid eyes on me,” Slocum said. “I must have been lucky since he got the news about Neale from the station agent, who must have been alerted by his home office. I was fool enough to ride back in on my way north.”

  Wilmer stared hard at Slocum. “Why’d you go back to Las Vegas?”

  “Let’s say a business opportunity I was looking into didn’t pan out.”

  “You was thinkin’ on holdin’ up the stage, weren’t you?”

  “I can let you rot on this rock. There’re plenty of buzzards circling overhead,” Slocum said.

  “You didn’t commit no crime I’m aware of,” Wilmer said pragmatically. “Even if you did, what reward would be out on a skinny feller like you wouldn’t be anywhere near what my life’s worth.”

  “You think you can make it all the way back?”

  “Can’t ask you to go to Las Vegas,” Wilmer said. “Besides, I think Taos is closer by a day’s travel.”

  “You know these hills better than I do. How do we get there in a hurry?”

  “You need your horse. Hell, I need your horse. Walkin’ ain’t gonna work for me, not after I get down this hill.”

  “Let’s get moving,” Slocum said, casting a look back up the hill to the mine. Was the gold there? He wouldn’t know until after he got Wilmer settled in Taos.

  “Come on,” Slocum said. He got his arm around the much shorter man’s shoulders and lifted. Slocum staggered under the added weight. Wilmer was heavier than he looked.

  Slocum round it easier following the trail down now that he was on it. From the direction, it would come out in the ravine a quarter mile or so farther north of where he’d left his horse. There wasn’t any way around this, not with Wilmer’s condition.

  When Slocum felt the bounty hunter begin to fade away, he asked, “How’d Neale come to lose the gold?”

  “Who says he lost it?”

  “He’s prowling these mountains like a caged cougar,” Slocum said. “That tells me he
’s looking for something.”

  “A woman, that’s how he lost it. Ain’t it always the way?”

  “Maggie Peterson?”

  “Don’t know her name, but she’s cute as a button, from accounts.”

  “I found a grave in the meadow. Think Neale killed her?”

  “Never heard that. Heard she stole the gold from him and that’s enough to make a man like him kill his own mother. She musta hid it somewhere around here.”

  They stumbled and staggered along until they reached the ravine.

  Wilmer said, “I gotta rest. Took a powerful lot outta me, gettin’ up there and comin’ back.”

  “How’d you get away from Neale?”

  “He gut-shot me and rolled me down into the arroyo. Took my horse. But I figgered he might come back to be sure I was dead, so I thought gettin’ over the hill’d hide me away from him.”

  Slocum looked back up the steep hill and remembered how hard it had been for him to make it. He touched his own wounds, but they hardly gave a twinge. He couldn’t imagine the determination it had taken on Wilmer’s part to get as far as he had.

  “How much?” Slocum asked.

  “What?”

  “How much gold did Neale steal?”

  “Payroll’s usually more ’n a thousand dollars.”

  “That’s damned near five pounds of gold,” Slocum said.

  “Gold coins,” Wilmer agreed. “Easy to spend, nobody’d question you ’bout it if you gave ’em a twenty-dollar gold piece. Quite a reward fer gettin’ shot in the gut.”

  “Or getting a gut-shot man to a doctor,” Slocum said, smiling. “You stay here now and don’t go running off. I’ll fetch my horse.”

  “Jist ’cuz you’re so purty, I’ll wait around fer you,” Wilmer said, grimacing as he sank to the ground. “Don’t be too long or I might not have a choice.”

  Slocum retrieved his horse and got them on the trail to Taos just before sundown.

  Wilmer had been unconscious for the last day. Slocum had stopped frequently to dribble water into the man’s mouth, and had been reassured that the bounty hunter was still alive by the weak response. But Slocum faced another problem as he walked slowly toward the trading town. The town marshal wasn’t likely to be too inclined toward him, but the real worry came from Marshal Hanks. The Las Vegas lawman had the smell of gold in his nose, and wasn’t likely to give up on it, any more than a bloodhound quit following a scent.

  He heaved a sigh and kept walking. Wilmer was going to die if Slocum didn’t find him help soon.

  “No doctor,” Wilmer gasped out. “Don’t cotton to ’em. Gimme a curandero.”

  “I ought to get you a bruja,” Slocum said.

  “Better ’n any doctor. Always usin’ them sharp knives of theirs when they don’t have to.”

  Wilmer passed out again.

  Slocum wondered if he might come to life when they passed an adobe with a painted sign proclaiming it to be the surgery of the town doctor. Considering the man’s antipathy toward doctors, Slocum was inclined to pass on by, but a young man stepped out into the bright noonday sun and rolled down his sleeves.

  “You!” he called. “You there, the one with the man slung over the saddle. He’s hurt. Where are you going?”

  “He wants a curandero,” Slocum said, not adding that Wilmer would cheerfully slit the throat of a doctor before letting one cut on him.

  “He’s lost a powerful lot of blood,” the young doctor said, going to Wilmer and lifting his head using a handful of hair. “What happened?”

  “Two shots to the belly. Close up. Both slugs went clean through him.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Three days,” Slocum said. “Been taking it slow getting here because he’s so weak.”

  “You should have sent someone to fetch me.”

  “There’s just me and him,” Slocum said. “Didn’t think it was a good idea to leave him out in the mountains alone.”

  The doctor cast a sharp look at Slocum, then nodded once.

  “Get him inside. I’ll see what has to be done.”

  “Might be a curandero can help?”

  “He has the look of a mountain man about him.” The doctor wrinkled his nose at the smell rising off Wilmer. “I’ve dealt with his kind before. What about you?”

  “Do you mean, am I going to fight you over this? You think you’d stand much chance if I did?”

  “No, but I’d try.”

  “If you’re that determined to get a patient, you’ll be that determined to save him,” Slocum said, sliding Wilmer off the saddle and getting him over one shoulder. He staggered a little under the bounty hunter’s weight as he went into the surgery. The place smelled of carbolic acid and made Slocum’s nose wrinkle. But it was a smell he knew well from the war. It was better than the rotting-meat odor that permeated some doctors’ offices.

  “Over there,” ordered the doctor, pouring carbolic acid over his hands and then putting on a bleached white coat. He waited impatiently as Slocum positioned Wilmer on a table and stepped away. The doctor crowded past and began using a sharp knife on the bounty hunter’s clothing to cut it away from his wounds. All the while he muttered to himself.

  “What do you want me to do?” Slocum asked.

  “You got any gunshots that need tending?”

  Slocum touched his side and then shook his head.

  “Then go on down the street and get Señora Vargas. Tell her to bring two of her special poultices. She’ll know what I want.”

  “You on good terms with her?”

  The doctor smiled wanly, then said, “I thought I knew it all till I saw how she used those herbs and nettles and other less mentionable things to help people. Whatever she puts into her wound poultice is better than anything I can do. This man’s lost a considerable amount of blood, and the poultice will help stop more bleeding. Now git!”

  Slocum got. He stepped back into the hot afternoon sun and stretched his muscles. On the lookout for the Taos marshal or Leroy Hanks, Slocum found Señora Vargas and told her what was needed.

  “So, Dr. Lennox needs me again?”

  “Looks like,” Slocum said. His nose wrinkled when he caught the scent rising from the pot on the stove. Unlike carbolic acid, this was stomach-turning. It didn’t surprise him when she ladled out a full tin pot of the gunk, put a lid on it, and handed it to Slocum.

  “Take this to the doctor. He knows how to use it. I have shown him.”

  “Much obliged. What do I owe you?”

  The woman waved him off, saying, “I need nothing but the doctor’s admission I know more than he does.”

  Slocum made his way back to the doctor’s office, and got inside in time to see Lennox cleaning the last of the blood off Wilmer’s hide.

  “Just in time. Smear some of that paste on either side, and I’ll bandage him up.”

  Slocum slathered the milky-white glue where the doctor pointed. Wilmer stirred and made a sound like a coyote pup. He stirred as the doctor tightened the bandages, and then looked up accusingly at Slocum.

  “I tole you what I’d do, Slocum. I warn’t foolin’.”

  “The curandera just left,” the doctor said. “She told me to bandage you up for her. Since Señora Vargas doesn’t have room for you, you’ll have to stay here. Maybe a day, but no longer. I need the table for my poker game.”

  Slocum appreciated the way Lennox spoke firmly, giving Wilmer the information he wanted to hear, yet telling the bounty hunter what was going to happen—no argument allowed.

  “Git on out of here, Doc,” the bounty hunter said.

  “Might as well. You’re not going to die, so I can get myself a drink. Otherwise, I’d be wasting my time and could go fetch the undertaker. He’s a regular son of a bitch when it comes to indigents.”

  Slocum sidled away as the doctor grabbed his coat to leave them alone for a spell. He fumbled around in his vest and came out with the twenty-dollar gold piece and handed it to Lennox.

  �
�This’ll buy me more than a bottle of whiskey,” the doctor said. “I’ll let the cantina give me enough change to pay Señora Vargas and whatever I decide it’s worth putting up with a cantankerous galoot like him. You ought to get back ten-twelve dollars.”

  “Much obliged,” Slocum said.

  The doctor flipped the tiny coin in the air, catching it deftly.

  “No, I’m much obliged. I thought I’d be stuck with trying to sell his buckskin shirt as rags to get my fee.” Lennox left, whistling tunelessly.

  Slocum glanced at the discarded buckskin and shook his head. There were hardly bloody tatters left. The doctor was quite a joker.

  “Slocum,” rasped out Wilmer. “We gotta talk, you ’n me.”

  “What do you need? Water?”

  “A partner. I ain’t never said this to no one before, but I think me and you ought to team up. There’s a powerful lot of them outlaws in Neale’s gang fer one man to tackle.”

  “But the pair of us would be up to the chore?”

  “More ’n up to it. Them varmints will turn tail and run jist hearin’ we’re after ’em.”

  Slocum chuckled at this arrogance. Then he considered how hard it would be getting back into the middle of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to find the gold. Neale was a cold-blooded killer. Wilmer was testament to that, as was Maggie Peterson in her lonely grave. For all he knew, Neale had also caught Claudia by now and killed her.

  He might get back and find the gold hidden in the mine—or it might not be there at all. Slocum considered whether it was better to split the take, if it even existed, and have Wilmer guarding his back, or to go back into the mountains alone.

  “Partners,” Slocum said, thrusting out his hand. Wilmer took it in a surprisingly strong grip.

  “Partners.”

  Slocum wondered what the hell he had just gotten himself into.

  13

  “Cain’t git over how friendly that there doctor was,” Wilmer said. “He fixed me up real good, though he did know to go to the curandera when it came to real medicine.” Wilmer scratched his ribs and twisted from side to side, testing the limits of motion. “Feel better, but not up to snuff. Not all the way.”