by Jake Logan
Her sobbing became uncontrollable.
“I saw. That’s how I knew you were still alive. I found a footprint in the blood.”
“I hate them, I hate them all!”
He wanted to ask if Julian had done anything to her other than forcing her to watch her pa’s humiliation and death, but he held back. If she wanted to tell him, she would. Getting out of sight immediately trumped finding what had happened to her.
“There’s got to be a place we can go to ground.”
“I found a place yonder, by the river. Tree roots grew out and made a little cave on the bank.”
He turned her in that direction and went along, letting her lead the way even as he supported her. By the time they reached the river, she had recovered some of her gumption.
“There’s my hidey-hole.”
Slocum said nothing. The roots formed a dubious cave. Anyone on the far side of the stream could see them, and once inside, there was no way to go except out into the water, which would hinder an escape.
“It’s not all that good, is it, John? It’s all I could find being chased by a pack of jackals.”
“Let’s take a rest,” he said. Slocum looked around, hunting for any sign that they had been spotted. In the dimness of the early evening, they might be safe. For a while.
After Polly worked her way into the muddy cave, Slocum followed, turned, and sat on a patch of moss to keep from sliding back out on the slick mud.
“I never expected you to find me,” she said. “Thank you.”
Slocum wasn’t going to tell her it had been sheer luck. He put his arm around her and held her close. Polly’s head rested on his shoulder. They said nothing as darkness became almost complete outside. He thought she had drifted off to sleep, but she finally said, “I thought we were hidden. I knew of an old ranch a couple miles off the road to Dexter. The owner had been a friend of Pa’s, but Hawkins forced him to sell. Mr. Hulbert and his family moved. I never heard where. They were the smart ones.”
“Your pa did right not to give in to a man like Hawkins.”
“It cost him his wife and son and me my brother and Mama. And”—her sobs shook her now—“my pa. All I’ve got left is a worthless ranch and a need for revenge. You won’t kill him, John. Don’t kill him. I’ve got to.”
“Staying alive long enough to figure how is the most important thing,” he said.
The darkness closed in around him, bringing back impressions of the coffin. Water dripped on his head. He was underground. He was buried again.
“J-John, you tensed up. Did you hear something?”
“No, nothing.”
He tried to relax but couldn’t. Being buried alive had ignited his imagination so any dark, tight place became that coffin. Polly had rescued him. He concentrated on her being near, but he couldn’t save her if he was buried. Could she save him if they were in the same grave?
“John! You’re hurting me.”
“Sorry,” he said, taking his arm from around her shoulder. He had gripped down so hard his arm had lost circulation. Needles danced along it while he shook it to get feeling back. “I’ve never faced anyone like Hawkins before.”
“Maybe we can kill him together?” Polly rested her head on his shoulder again and took his hand in hers. “How would we do that? Together?”
“How did you get away from Julian after they did that to your pa? He had a half-dozen men hunting for you.”
“They took me to a stone hut. I don’t know where it is. I just ran from it when I got free. The door was sturdy and locked on the outside, but I found a loose rock near the foundation. I knew what Julian intended to do to me, so I began digging as hard and fast as I could when I found it.
“The mortar came loose so I could pull out a stone about the size of my fist. I used that to chip away more mortar until the hole was big enough for me to stick my head out.”
“Why didn’t a guard see you? Or had Julian underestimated you and not left any?”
“Oh, there were guards. Three of them. But they had a friend to keep them company. A bottle of whiskey. For once I was glad the price in town is so low. The three of them couldn’t have cobbled together enough change to trade for a silver dollar.
“So I kept digging and they kept passing the bottle around. My hole was finally big enough to squeeze through if I twisted my shoulders this way and that.” She demonstrated. “Then I waited until they were snockered enough to pass out.”
“Then you ran.”
“I ran in the direction away from the front of the stone hut. It took me too long, though, because I hadn’t gone a dozen yards when the hue and cry went up. Julian had come to . . . to take his due.”
Slocum moved the gang leader to a spot just under Leonard Hawkins on his “to be shot like a mad dog” list. He owed Julian, but the things he had intended doing to Polly sealed his fate.
“I tried to run in a straight line to put as much distance between me and them as I could, but I got turned around and started veering off to my right. I think that was where I went since I splashed through the river. That was all turned around from what I thought, but I found this place and holed up here. You know the rest.”
“You left to get out of the woods?”
“I left to find Julian. I was going to claw out his eyes and bash in his head.”
Her voice had risen to a shrill pitch, but the constant rush of water masked any nosie they might make. Slocum waited for her to calm down, then said, “I’m thirsty. Join me at the river?”
“It’s a long way to go, John. Why, it’s almost five feet.”
They slid from the tree root cave. Polly flopped belly down and scooped water into her mouth, Slocum knelt and lifted a palm dripping with water to his lips. What warned him he never knew, but he felt a presence behind him. He whirled about and flung the few drops of water in his right hand into Sikes’s face. The man bellowed in surprise, momentarily showing his gold tooth.
Slocum fell into the river but got out his six-shooter. Using the shiny tooth as a target, he fired. The back of Sikes’s head exploded as Slocum’s aim was perfect.
“Oh, no, they’ve found us!”
Slocum shifted his aim and got off another shot at Sikes’s partner—Garcia, Julian had called him. This round went high but put a hole through the brim of the man’s hat. The nearness of the shot caused Garcia to miss Slocum. This split second gave Slocum enough time to cock his Colt and fire a third time.
He caught Garcia in the chest but didn’t drop him. Garcia starting firing wildly, bullets splashing into the water all around. He grunted once when Slocum got off another shot at the man. This one took the outlaw in the neck. His six-gun fell from his hand, and he grabbed his throat. Blood squirted from between his fingers. He took a step forward, slipped on the mud, and toppled into the river. Slocum followed his body into the darkness, but he knew the man was dead.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said.
No answer.
“Polly? Julian’s not far off. The three of them went looking for you together.”
He pulled himself out of the river and went to the bank, where the woman lay unmoving. He rolled her over. One of Garcia’s wild bullets had caught her in the head, just above the ear. Other than a tiny spot of blood, she didn’t have any obvious wound. But that bullet hole had done for her. She had died instantly.
Slocum stood and hunted for Julian. He would pay his debt for all he had done to the Neville family. Then Slocum would collect the rest of the debt from Leonard Hawkins.
16
Slocum went a little loco. He stumbled through the dark woods shouting Julian’s name. If the gang leader showed, he would have a half-dozen men with him, but Slocum never considered that. The fight at the river had pushed him beyond his limits. Seeing Polly dead after all she had been through caused him to forget about an
y rational plan to fight Julian. He went into full guerrilla mode, the way he had been when riding with Quantrill during the war.
They had festooned themselves with eight six-shooters, then ridden at top speed screaming as loudly as they could. Firing one six-gun until it emptied, they would switch to the next and the next. A couple dozen guerrillas had the firepower of an entire Yankee company. The first time Slocum had ridden into battle like that, he had tried to measure each shot, make every one dead on target. He had come to realize he was trailing the others in his unit with this tactic. They lost themselves in the mindless fury of battle.
When he had done the same, the killing didn’t come easier but he pushed away all concerns of whom he shot and why. Somehow, riding with Quantrill and the rest of his four hundred guerrillas in that spirit made him invincible. More than once he had charged into battle and been wounded, several times in one battle, and had never noticed until afterward. He had passed being an ordinary mortal and had become something more. He had become a killing machine with no feelings and no fear.
That fighting was years ago and amid a band of hardened killers, each outdoing the next when it came to bloodthirstiness. Slocum had repudiated such murder and those who had been his comrades in arms turned against him. That had been the last time Slocum had been a part of something greater—and the last time he had not been completely alone in the world. He depended on no one but himself now, and there hadn’t been any call to murder entire towns filled with enemies.
Now he wished he had Quantrill and even Bloody Bill Anderson at his side. A quick foray, guns blazing, and Hawkins and Julian and the rest would be left in bloody tatters on the ground. But Quantrill had been ambushed in Kentucky and had died of his wounds in a Federal prison. Unlike the Ohio guerrilla, Slocum had learned from getting shot in the gut by his own side and lived to ride west.
Slocum slowed his furious assault through the woods and finally came to a halt. He caught his breath, then listened hard for sounds of others prowling about in the woods. To his left came small sounds, then a flurry of activity as small animals ran for cover. Someone had spooked them. With deliberate steps, he moved through the trees and saw the two men responsible for rousting the animals. They stood close together, talking in a low voice.
Slocum steadied his hand against the trunk of a maple tree and squeezed off a shot. The first man simply collapsed. For an instant his partner couldn’t figure out what had happened. Then the same deadly accuracy was turned against him. Slocum dropped the second man, but not with a clean shot.
Moaning, kicking feebly, the outlaw tried to get to cover. With long, deliberate steps Slocum went to him.
“You’re one of Julian’s men,” he said.
“Yeah, ’course. Somebody bushwhacked me. Get down or they’ll get you like they got me and Larson.”
“I should tell Julian what happened,” Slocum said. “Where is he?”
“Back at the gravedigger’s place.” The man sat up and clutched his leg. “I’m bleedin’ somethin’ fierce. Give me a hand.”
“Why?”
“Julian’s payin’ you, too, right?”
Slocum fired from the hip, but his aim was deadly. The bullet dug through the man’s head and knocked him back onto the forest floor, as dead as his partner.
“Wrong,” was all he said as he stripped the men of their six-shooters and jammed them into his belt.
He had become numb to killing after a while riding with Quantrill, but the feelings came back the longer he was away from the war. Now the moral outrage drained from him once more. When men like these needed killing, he discovered that a buried part of him was up to the task.
A trail through the woods led toward a stone hut. He started to let it be, then went around to the side and saw where Polly had pried stones loose from the mortar and squeezed through. The guard had been right. Anyone, even a small woman, snaking through a hole that size was a wonderment.
Memories of Polly again burning in his head, he took the trail and exited the woods, coming out at a different spot from where Hawkins and Miranda had entered the night before on the way to their wedding bed. Julian’s camp was ahead. Two small cooking fires burned. He reloaded his Colt and returned it to his holster, then took the two six-guns from his belt. With one in each hand, he walked steadily into the camp. A man looked up.
Slocum fired twice with the pistol in his left hand. Another poked his head from under a blanket. A slug from each left and right pistols dispatched him. By now the others in the camp were coming awake, aware they were under attack. Slocum kept walking and firing, then tossed the emptied six-guns aside. He picked up two others dropped by men he had shot.
He turned, reversed his path through the camp, and took out three more. His steady pace and utter determination kept Julian’s henchmen from shooting him before he killed them. It had been the same during the war riding with the guerrillas. The overwhelming firepower turned the tide. One last click on an empty chamber let him toss that captured weapon away.
A man who had been shot through the legs tried to crawl away. Slocum drew his Colt and walked to him. He shoved his foot down hard in the middle of the man’s back. The scream cut through the still night.
“My legs. You’re killin’ me.”
“Not yet,” Slocum said. “Julian wasn’t in camp.”
“He’s gone. Him and a couple others done left. They was ridin’ out to a ranch for Hawkins.”
“Which ranch?”
“I don’t know.” He screamed louder when Slocum put more weight on his back. The man’s legs kicked more powerfully now as pain filled his body and brain. “The Box N. I don’t know where that is. That’s what they called it.”
“Why was Julian sent there?”
“Hawkins wanted anything burned that showed somebody else owned the place. He was jumpin’ the claim. Please, mister. I can’t take this!”
Slocum let up on the pressure and stepped away. The cold killing spell had passed.
“If I see you here again, you’re a dead man.”
“I can’t ride like this! My legs are all shot up.”
Slocum cocked his Colt.
“Ride or die.”
“Please, mister, I’ll clear outta Espero. I promise you’ll never see me again. Don’t shoot me!”
Slocum bent and grabbed the man’s collar to drag him along to the outlaws’ remuda. From the way the man’s legs flopped around, he wasn’t playing possum. Slocum heaved and dumped him belly down over the back of a stallion, then unhitched the horse and gave it a swat on the rump. The man cried out but somehow held on as the horse raced away into the night.
A quick final circuit of the outlaw camp showed no one left alive. Slocum looked over at the funeral parlor. The building was dark, but Hawkins might be somewhere inside. Reloading as he walked, Slocum reached the side door through which so many coffins had been moved only that morning. Liam Neville had the right idea, but his execution had proven faulty, killing too many townspeople. Polly might never have lived down the shame of that mass killing, but she should never have been forced to find where Leonard Hawkins had buried her parents alive.
Slocum kicked in the door and looked around. Then he went inside. The building was as quiet as a grave—a grave with a corpse in it. Moving fast, he went room to room hunting for the undertaker. Hawkins was nowhere to be seen. That didn’t surprise Slocum but it did disappoint him. He wanted this ended now.
Going out once more, the only place he could think to find Hawkins was in his bedroom crypt. But again Slocum failed to find the man.
The first hint of dawn showed on the horizon by the time Slocum returned to the outlaw camp. All he had to go on was the now-departed outlaw’s claim that Julian had gone out to the Neville ranch. Slocum let the horses run free, then found his own and stepped up. The ride to the Box N was spent thinking over how he would approach Julia
n, how he would take his justice on the man for all his crimes. Burying Slocum alive had become only one of many crimes for which he had to pay.
A mile from the ranch house, Slocum scented acrid smoke before he spotted the thin curl rising ahead. Hawkins had sent Julian here to remove any trace of legal occupation. The undertaker had gone from extortion to gain property to outright theft. And why not? The marshal was dead, even if Hawkins’s youngest brother ever had had the gumption to enforce the law. Now Hawkins had simplified things and outright stole what he wanted.
Slocum drew his rifle from the saddle sheath and made certain the magazine carried its full fourteen rounds of .44-40 cartridges. He wished he had brought some of the six-shooters from the dead outlaws. Quantrill’s method of overwhelming firepower would stand him in good stead now. With his Colt settled in his holster, he laid the rifle across his saddle and started toward the smoke.
As he rode closer, he saw only the smoldering ruins of the Neville house but no one responsible for setting the fire. The barn had long since been reduced to embers. He stared at the ruins, then came alert at the sound of a gunshot followed by loud whoops of glee. Slocum urged his horse forward, past the destroyed house and barn, to a grassy meadow badly in need of cattle to keep it cropped.
At the far side of the pasture Slocum saw three men on the ground. Their horses stood, nervously pawing the ground. As he rode closer, Slocum saw that the men had killed a cow and were butchering it for prime steaks. He lifted his rifle and fired, not at the men but at the three horses. His slug whistled between two of them but all he wanted was to create a stir, not kill a horse.
The shot caused one to rear and lash out with its front hooves at another. This caused the horses to bolt and run, leaving the three outlaws on foot.
Slocum rode closer. This time his rifle came to his shoulder for an accurate shot. He squeezed off a round and brought down a man standing with a bloody knife in his hand from the butchering. The other two slapped leather and threw lead in his direction. Slocum kept riding at a steady pace, then let out a cry and brought his horse to a gallop. His accuracy went away, but levering one round after another through the Winchester let him wing another of the men. He sagged to the ground, gripping his leg.