by Jake Logan
“They went past Jones Mill,” said Billy. “Headed for Kansas, I think.”
“Okay,” said Old Jan. “I’ll find them all right.”
“Don’t try to take them by yourself,” said Slocum. “Just keep them in sight and wait for us.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Old Jan said. “I’ll be watching for you.”
“The sheriff over in Jones Mill sent out the word on them,” said Billy. “At least, he told me he was going to do that.”
“I don’t care about that,” said Slocum. “I don’t want anyone else getting to them before I do.”
“Well then,” said Old Jan, “you better get yourself well. You better get yourself up and around right away. The way that fool Sluice operates, someone’s going to get pissed off at him and shoot him in the back pretty damn soon.”
“If that happens,” said Slocum, “I want you to know about it.”
“I will.”
“Right now,” said Slocum, “I want one of you boys to go buy a bottle of good whiskey and bring it over here. And watch out for that doc when you do. He’s kind of small-minded about things like that.”
8
Sluice and Jigs had worked the store for about a week and had piled up some money in the cash drawer. Sluice gave Jigs enough money to keep him satisfied, but Jigs was getting impatient for some action. He was not cut out to be a storekeeper. He was standing behind the counter when a tough-looking man wearing two guns and badly needing a shave came walking in and up to the counter.
“What do you want?” said Jigs.
“I’ve come to collect for Mr. Grimes,” the man said.
“Collect?” said Jigs. “Collect for what?”
“Grimes’s cut,” the man said.
“Cut of what?”
“Now listen, stupid,” the man said. “Grimes gets a percentage of everything that’s made in here. Maybe your boss forgot to tell you, so I’ll forgive your fucking attitude for now. Where’s your boss?”
“You mean Sl—uh, Mr. Callendar?”
“Sure I mean Callendar. Where the hell is he?”
“I believe he’s in the back room taking a nap,” said Jigs, “and he don’t like to be disturbed when he’s taking a nap.”
“Well, this is damned important, little shit,” said the man. “You go fetch him out here or I’ll do it my own self.”
“Don’t you touch nothing while I’m out of the room,” Jigs said. He walked through the door to the back room, and found Sluice sitting at the desk and doing some figuring in a ledger book.
“Hey, Sluice,” he said, “there’s some yokel out there saying he’s come to collect for Grimes.”
“Oh, yeah?” said Sluice. “I been expecting him. Tell him I’ll be right out.”
“Okay,” said Jigs, and he walked back into the main room. The collection man was sucking on a piece of candy he had taken out of the jar on the counter. “Hey,” Jigs said, “I told you to keep your hands off of things. You owe me a penny for that candy.”
“Fuck you,” said the man. “Where’s your boss?”
“He’s coming,” said Jigs.
The back door opened, and Sluice stepped out holding a shotgun leveled at the man.
“You want me?” Sluice said.
“Put down that goddamn scattergun,” the man said. “I’m here from Grimes for his dough.”
“I’d say you come in here to rob me,” said Sluice, and he pulled the trigger, blasting the man back against the wall. “Drag him out of here,” he said to Jigs.
Jigs took hold of one of the man’s legs and dragged him to the front door and out onto the sidewalk. Then he kicked the body out into the street. He walked back inside, stepping in the trail of blood he had left behind and leaving bloody boot prints where he walked thereafter.
“It’s started,” said Sluice.
Old Jan had made his way during the past week to Bascomb. He rode into the town and stopped at the saloon. Hitching his horse, he went inside. At the bar, Grimes asked him what he wanted. Old Jan ordered a shot of whiskey. Grimes gave it to him and took his money.
“You just passing through, mister?” he asked.
“That’s right,” said Old Jan.
“I’d advise you to hurry along your way then,” Grimes said. “This place is liable to turn into a bloody battlefield any time now.”
“Really?” said Old Jan.
“Any time,” said Grimes.
“Well, what’s happening?”
“Man over at the general store calls himself Callendar just killed one of my employees. We’re going after him soon as the rest of my men show up.”
“Callendar, huh?” said Old Jan.
“That’s the name he gave me,” Grimes said.
“I reckon you’re right, then,” said Old Jan. “I best be on my way. Thanks for the drink and the advice.”
“You bet,” said Grimes.
Old Jan walked out the door, mounted up, and rode straight to the general store. He dismounted again, tied his horse again, and walked inside. He noticed the long stream of blood right away. He recognized Sluice from the murder trial. He did not think the two men knew him by sight. He hoped that he was right as he walked to the counter.
“You got some chawing tobacco?” he asked.
“Right there behind you, old-timer,” said Jigs. “You blind?”
Old Jan turned and found the tobacco. He picked out what he wanted, turned back to the counter, and paid for it.
“Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes I can’t see anything if it’s right under my own nose. Thanks now.”
He got no response, so he just turned and walked back out onto the sidewalk, back down to his horse waiting at the hitching rail. He untied it, mounted up, and turned it north, riding back out of town. Once outside of Bascomb, he relaxed. He had been right. They did not know him. He turned west the first opportunity he found and sought the high ground. The higher the better. He needed a perch from which he could watch the road in both directions.
Grimes and two more of his men stepped out into the street together. Each man wore two six-guns and carried a shotgun. They stood for a moment on the sidewalk and stared toward the general store.
“They still in there?” asked one of the gunmen.
“I’ve had the place watched the whole time, Carter,” said Grimes. “They’re both in there all right.”
“Should we wait for the others?” Carter asked.
“The three of us is plenty,” said the other man. “We’ll take them.”
Carter looked at Grimes. “No,” Grimes said. “We ain’t waiting. Let’s go get them right now.”
They checked their weapons and started walking. Three abreast, they headed for the hardware store. Grimes said, “Spread out now,” and they separated a bit. Inside the store, Sluice was looking out the window and saw them coming.
“Jigs,” he said, “there’s three of them coming. Get out the back door and circle around to the corner of the building there. I’ll stay here.”
“Gotcha, Sluice,” Jigs said, and he hurried out the back door.
Out in the street, Grimes and the other two stopped short of the building. They stood for a moment looking at it. Grimes could see the outline of the man he knew as Callendar through the front window. Callendar was holding a rifle. “Callendar,” Grimes shouted. “Callendar, can you hear me?”
“Sure, I hear you,” Sluice answered.
“Our contract is void, you son of a bitch,” Grimes yelled. “Come on out of there.”
“You come in,” Sluice called out. “Come on in. Someone’ll have to carry you back out, though.”
“Where’s your little chickenshit pard?” said Grimes.
At the corner of the building, Jigs cranked a shell into the chamber of his rifle. “Right here,” he hollered, “taking a bead on your chest.”
“You’re outnumbered,” Grimes said.
“Not by much and not for long,” said Sluice. He smashed the window with his rifl
e barrel, took a quick aim, and fired a shot at Grimes. It was too quick a shot, and it just tore a little flesh in Grimes’s left arm.
“Ow. Shit,” Grimes yelled, raising his own rifle to his shoulder and firing back through the window. Sluice ducked down low and the bullet flew harmlessly across the store, smashing a can of peaches on a shelf on the back wall.
At the corner of the building, Jigs took aim at Grimes, but a couple of horses at a hitch rail blocked Jigs’s shot. He jockeyed around for a better one. Carter ducked low and fired a round at Jigs from under a horse’s belly. The bullet nicked the side of the store building sending splinters flying into Jigs’s face. He dropped his rifle.
“Yikes,” he yelped. “Ow.” His hands both flew to his face. Another shot hit too close for comfort, and Jigs, still covering his face with both hands, moved farther back down the wall, disappearing from the sight of Grimes and his men.
“Take cover,” Grimes said. He ran toward the store and pressed himself against the front wall. Carter ran toward Jigs and did the same. He was leaning against the wall just around the corner from where Jigs was hiding. The third man ducked behind a watering trough that stood near the sidewalk in front of the store. He put his rifle down and pulled out a six-gun. He looked at the broken window, waiting and hoping that “Callendar” would show himself again. Soon, Sluice popped up again in the window looking for a target. He saw no one and ducked down again just as the man behind the trough fired a shot. It went right over Sluice’s head and opened a hole in the pickle barrel, allowing a stream of pickle juice to spurt out onto the floor.
Jigs had finally stopped whimpering over his splintered face, picked up his rifle, and peeked around the corner of the building. He spotted the man behind the trough, took quick aim, and fired, dropping the man, but in doing so, he exposed himself to Carter, who fired a shot that took off the end of Jigs’s nose. Jigs yelped again.
“Ow. Yow. Oh, Goddamn.” He jumped back again. Carter was about to ease himself around the corner for a finishing shot, but just then, Sluice stepped out the front door and shot him in the back. Carter sprawled on his face dead. Behind Sluice, Grimes raised his rifle, but Sluice turned and fired another quick shot, just missing Grimes, and ran back into the store. Grimes was alone. He hesitated a moment, then turned and ran down the street. He made it safely back to the saloon and ran inside. Going back behind the bar, he poured himself a drink and downed it. He stood there breathing heavily. He had lost two of his best men. He should have waited for the others.
Sluice had seen Grimes go into the saloon from his place at the window. He knew that the other two had been killed. It was reasonably safe outside by then, so he stepped out and walked down to the corner of the building. Looking around the corner, he saw Jigs squatted down against the wall holding his face.
“Jigs,” he said. “How bad you hit?”
“By doze,” Jigs burbled. “Dey shot by doze.”
“Here,” said Sluice, “let me see.”
He caught Jigs by the shirtfront and pulled him to his feet. Then he pulled Jigs’s hands away from his face.
“Ooow,” moaned Jigs.
“Goddamn,” said Sluice. “You’re a fucking mess.” Jigs whined and whimpered. “Come on,” said Sluice, taking him by an arm. “Let’s get inside.”
“By whole head hurds,” said Jigs. “Id’s esbloding.”
“Come on.” Sluice took him inside. He found a chair and made Jigs sit down. Then he looked around. The pickle barrel was still spurting juice. He grabbed a small pan from off a nearby shelf and held it in the stream until the pan was nearly full. Then he walked back over to where Jigs was sitting and crying, and tossed the juice into Jigs’s face. Jigs screamed. He shrieked. Sluice tossed a towel in his face. Jigs held the towel in both his hands and daubed at his face gingerly.
“All right. All right,” said Sluice. “Stop that howling and crying. I’ve had enough of it.”
“You ain’t neber had your doze shod off,” said Jigs.
In the saloon, Grimes poured himself another drink. He was pissed off. He had a deal with Callendar, and he had been double-crossed in a big way. He had sent his man to collect his due share, and that bastard Callendar had murdered him. Why had he done that? The only explanation Grimes could think of was that Callendar was deliberately trying to start a war with him. Callendar had been badly outnumbered originally. He had been one man against seven. Then his pal had showed up. It had been two to seven. Now they had killed three of Grimes’s men, so it had come down to four against those two. The odds were improving for Callendar all the time. Grimes downed his drink and poured another. When his three other boys showed up, he would have to come up with a different plan. They would not just go over to the store again. That had been disastrous. Maybe he should get some more men in on this.
He picked up his third drink and sipped at it. A couple of cowhands came in and ordered beers. Grimes served them and took their money. He wished that his other three men would show up. Maybe they could help him figure out how to approach this situation, how to get that goddamned Callendar and his pal. He was curious about Callendar. Now that the man had started giving him so much trouble, he wondered where the son of a bitch had come from and who he was. He should have wondered that earlier, but it was too late to worry about that now. He had received quite a bunch of correspondence intended for the sheriff of Bascomb. Since Bascomb had no sheriff, and since Grimes owned it all, he got that mail and the wires and so on. He decided to look through it.
He went back to his office and pulled a stack of papers out of a desk drawer. The first several were unimportant. Then he came to the wire from the sheriff of Jones Mill, Wyoming. It described a killer named Sluice who was known to be traveling the road south and would likely come through the town. Sluice might be traveling with a companion called Jigs. The description of Sluice fit Callendar to a T. So Callendar was actually Sluice, Grimes thought. Callendar was Sluice. Goddamn it.
9
Slocum was up and walking around. He got up early in the morning and dressed. Billy Pierce came by for him, and they went out to breakfast together. They sat for a good long time and drank lots of coffee. Slocum was back in Doc’s office after that until lunchtime, and then the two went out again for a meal. They back to the office again for the afternoon, and then out again for the evening meal. It should have been a pleasant enough recuperation, but Slocum was bored, he was disgusted, he was longing to get back on the road and get after Sluice and Jigs. He figured that Billy was feeling about the same, even though Billy was just waiting around for Slocum. Slocum hated to admit it, but he was tired out after each of his meals. He needed rest.
One morning after breakfast, he told Billy that he wanted to get his horse and take a ride. Billy noticed that Slocum was wearing his Colt that morning. He did not ask any questions, though. Instead, he walked to the stable with Slocum and they saddled their horses. They rode a ways out of town and stopped alongside a creek that was running there. Slocum found some small rocks and set them up in a row. When Billy figured out what Slocum was up to, he helped him. Soon, they had a long row of rocks. They walked back a distance, and Slocum pulled his Colt as fast as he could and fired. It was not very fast, and he missed his target. He cursed under his breath and tried again. He hit the rock, but he was slow.
Billy had been inactive for a time, too, so he tried his hand. He was better than Slocum, and Slocum knew that he should not be. The wound and the inactivity had sure slowed him down. He hated it. He cursed himself yet again for having let himself get ambushed that way. Suckered like a goddamned kid. A greenhorn. He kept shooting, and mostly he hit his targets, but mostly remained slow, and he was hurting his side and his chest. At last, he told Billy that he was ready to go back to town. It was lunchtime by the time they got back. When he made it back to Doc’s office, Nurse McGee was almost furious with him.
“Where have you been?” she demanded.
“Aw, I had breakfast with Billy, and we d
ecided to go out for a little ride,” he said. “That’s all. Well, we had lunch when we got back.”
“You should let us know when you’re going to be out that long,” Jill said.
“Sorry,” said Slocum.
“Let me see your gun,” she said.
“What?”
“You heard me,” she said. “Let me see it.”
“You going to shoot me?” Slocum asked.
She did not respond. She just looked at him with disgust and held out her hand. Slocum pulled out the Colt, turned it around to hand it to her butt-first, and she took it. She held it up to her nose and sniffed it. She handed it back to him, and he holstered it.
“You’ve been out shooting,” she said.
“Just target practice,” he said.
“Well, I think you should get back in bed,” she said. “Right now.”
“I think you’re right,” Slocum said. “I’m tired.”
“I should think so.”
Slocum went into the other room and took off his hat and his gun belt. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled off his boots. He picked up his feet and put them on the bed, stretching himself out with a groan. Jill scowled at him. Just then, Billy Pierce stepped into the room.
“I put the horses up,” he said.
“Thanks, Billy,” Slocum said.
Jill turned angrily on Billy. “Did you take him out shooting this morning?” she demanded.
“Well, I—”
“I went out shooting,” said Slocum. “Billy just rode along with me. That’s all.”
She turned angrily and stalked away, going about her work, or just doing her best to look busy. Doc Harman came in then. He said howdy to Billy and then opened Slocum’s shirt to change the bandage and check the wound. Jill came back to the bedside to stand by in case she was needed.
“It’s looking good,” said Doc. “You’ll be up and around in just a few days.”
“He was up and around already today,” Jill said, still huffy. “He was out shooting all morning.”