by Jake Logan
She relaxed slightly, at least to the extent of looking as if she might not immediately fly at his face with her fingernails. Unless she saw an opening.
He picked up a lamp, holding it at the base. Gesturing toward the door with the sawed-off, he said, “After you.”
She gave him a sidelong glance, calculating. “Where we going?”
“Out. Go now. Don’t get too far ahead. I’d hate to have this big gun go off in a small space like this. It’d scare me half to death.”
She went through the door into the hall, Slocum following. Above, the oval of light from the lamp glided across the ceiling.
“Dolores’s room,” Slocum said.
Maud glanced back over her shoulder at him, frowning. “What’re you, a ghoul?”
“Inside,” he said, indicating a closed door across the hall.
Maud went to it, stalling as she stood in front of the door. A cold draft leaked out from under the door and through the hairline-slitted gap where the door met the frame.
“Go on,” Slocum said.
Maud bit her lower lip, palming the doorknob. The door opened inward on a dark room. A blast of cold air came rushing out, raising a shiver from Maud. She hugged her arms, rubbing them for warmth.
“Afraid of ghosts?” he said.
“No!”
A nudge from behind sent her across the threshold, into the room. He followed on her heels, forcing her to advance. Lamp glow burst into the space, shouldering aside the cold dark.
The view was bleak. The body was gone, of course, and so were the bloody bedclothes that had served as an impromptu shroud. The bare mattress had been flipped, turned over so its stained side was down. A blanket had been nailed over the hole where the window had been. It did a poor job of keeping out the cold. The room must have been fifteen degrees colder than the rest of the house. Maud could see her breath, a ghostly streamer of vapor. She shivered, teeth chattering.
The floor below the window was sprinkled with glittering frosted crystals, which were fragments of broken glass. They flashed and glinted in the lamplight.
Slocum turned up the wick, brightening the flame. The light filling the room was bright without warmth, clinical. On the floor near the door were dried bloodstains, probably from Cal’s hand when it was nailed with the throwing knife.
The blanket over the window couldn’t keep out the cold just as it couldn’t keep out Slocum. Earlier, after dark, he’d bellied up to the back of the house, shimmied up the post to the porch roof, and clambered through the window frame into the dead girl’s room. The house had been deserted, its occupants outside, preparing for the wagon ride. He’d crept downstairs and watched them depart, all but Maud and the two guns left behind on patrol by Wessel....
Now, Maud said, “It is true that a murderer returns to the scene of the crime. I always thought that was something that only happened in books.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m no murderer,” Slocum said. “If you want to see something interesting, take a look at the mirror on top of that bureau there.”
From where they stood facing the bed, the bureau stood with its back against the wall on the right-hand side. The mirror was swivel-mounted between two upright posts. It was tilted at a forty-five-degree angle toward the bed. On the bureau top before it sat a now-dark lamp.
Maud, bored and anxious, said, “I see it. So what?” Slocum crossed to the bureau, turning so he half faced her. She avoided glancing at the door.
“You’d never make it, Maud.”
She shrugged. “I hear you, big man.”
He set aside the dark lamp, putting the lit globe in its place. Light reflected from the mirror behind it, streaming on the bed.
“The killer did that,” Slocum said. “He—or she—needed light to make sure the scene was rigged just so.”
“You sure know a lot about it.”
“I noticed the mirror and lamp in the morning, but I didn’t put it together until later. That lets me off the hook.”
Maud’s laughter was a caw. “How do you figure?” she jeered.
“A man who rigged the mirror for more light wouldn’t have stayed all night to get caught with the body in the morning.”
“That proves nothing. Drunks do funny things. They can be fussy as old maids sometimes, right until they pass out. And you sure were drunk last night.”
“I wasn’t drunk.”
“You had a skinful,” she said. “And then there’s crazy people. What they do doesn’t have to make sense. They’re crazy.”
“So, I’m either a drunk or crazy, eh?”
“Mister, you said it, not me.”
“I’d hate to have you on a jury deciding my fate,” he said thoughtfully.
“I’d like to put the noose around your neck myself.”
“Careful you don’t hang yourself in the process.” She shrugged. “Seen enough?”
“Let’s go.”
Below, there was a pounding on the front door. Slocum mouthed the word “Who?”
She shook her head.
More pounding, louder.
Maud breathed, “What’ll I do?”
“See who it is,” Slocum said.
12
“We’re closed,” Maud said.
She stood pressed up against the inside of the locked front door. It was dim in the hall, the only light coming from a lamp beyond the archway, at the head of the parlor. Indirect light, mustard-colored. Dark mustard.
On the other side of the door, outside, were Lonnie and Sutton. Lonnie’s boot heels clattered like hooves on the porch. He was noisy. He kept thumping against the door. He was drunk. Sutton stood on the stairs, holding the rail, one foot on the top step. He kept shushing Lonnie and calling him to come away.
Lonnie was having none of it. He hammered the door with his fist. Maud said through the door, “No gentlemen callers tonight! Go away!”
“We ain’t no gentlemen!” Lonnie bellowed.
“We’re closed, by order of the marshal!”
“We’re working for him! Open up in the name of the law!”
“Pssst! Lonnie, hush up,” Sutton said.
“No!”
Maud said, “Go away!”
“Hell, no!”
“Dammit, Lonnie, they’ll hear your bawling clear into town,” Sutton said.
“What the hell you mean bawling, Sutton.” Lonnie’s voice turned meaner, becoming more focused. “Damn you anyways!”
“Easy, Lonnie ...”
“Don’t crowd me, you son of a bitch.”
“Take it easy.”
“Don’t crowd me.”
“I’m not crowding you, partner.”
“I ain’t funning.”
“I know you’re not.”
“My bottle’s empty.” After a pause, there was a gunshot, simultaneous with the sound of breaking glass as a bullet whizzed right past Maud’s head.
Maud started, stifling a gasp. Outside, Lonnie crowed, “Haw! I could pick a bottle right out of the air! Some shooting, whew!”
Maud was aware of a dark rushing mass silently closing in on her—Slocum. He brushed her aside, a casual-seeming gesture with his forearm that sent her hurtling off balance sideways.
He pulled open the door, sending it crashing backward on its hinges. The doorway framed Lonnie, standing a few paces away on the porch. He was turned facing the street, a smoking pistol in his hand. He was unsteady on his feet, swaying. Beyond and to the right of him, standing on the stairs, was Sutton.
Lonnie had time to glance over his shoulder at the open door, but no time to do anything more than that, because that was when Slocum cut loose with a single-barreled blast from the sawed-off shotgun and Lonnie ran out of time.
The blast chopped Lonnie in the middle, throwing him down, dead. The red-and-yellow muzzle flare underlit Slocum, making him look fiendish.
Sutton was paralyzed. As the shotgun bore swung toward him, he opened his mouth to scream.
The blast roared. S
utton was still clutching the railing for the stairs. He death-spasmed, tearing the rail loose from where it was fastened at the top of the stairs. He lay in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.
Slocum ducked back inside, behind the cover of the door frame. Wind sucked out long serpents of gunsmoke from the twin bores, sailing them into the night.
Slocum broke the shotgun, shucking out the spent cartridges. They hit the floor, rolling in little half circles. He fed in two fresh rounds and closed the piece.
He peeked outside. The scene was unchanged. Distant echoes of the blasts rolled outward, fading in the night’s unseen horizons.
13
Maud still lay sprawled on the floor, where she’d fallen when he swept her aside to deal with the intruders.
He went to her, causing her to cry out when she saw him bearing down on her. He was huge, a big bat-shaped form looming out of the shadows, grim-faced. But he was light-footed, his footfalls no more than whispers ... the breaths of whispers.
He caught her by the arm and lifted her to her feet in one motion. He swung her around, propelling her across the hall, her feet barely touching the floor.
In the parlor, across the back of a chair, lay the cloak which she had worn earlier, when she went outside to the wagon. He draped it over an arm, the one which was steering her. Her arm was numb where he gripped it.
He held her under the archway, pausing to blow out the lamp on the drum table. Firelight glittered in his eyes, and his taut face was golden, with inky shadows. There was a whump! as the flame was snuffed out.
Maud was rushed to the open doorway and through it, onto the porch. The cold night air threw into contrast the reek of gun smoke that hung heavy in the hall. There was something nasty about it, almost fecal ... or perhaps that stench came from the bodies.
It wasn’t until she was outside that she dug in her heels, stiffening. Horrified, she said, “Why’d you kill them? I could’ve gotten rid of them without bloodshed!”
“Once that noisy bastard fired his gun, there was nothing else to do. Somebody’s sure to come to investigate, so what’s a few more gunshots?”
“You could’ve taken them alive!”
“I’ve already got a hostage,” he said, tugging at her wrist. He crossed the porch, pulling her after. Lonnie lay hanging half on the porch and half on the stairs. He lay head-down, face-up. Moonlight shone on his face. His eyes were open. Wide open, bulging.
Blood glistened on porch and stairs. Maud tried as best she could to avoid stepping in it, without success.
Lonnie’s middle was a wreck, but except for some splattered gore, his face was surprisingly undamaged, intact. Not so with Sutton. The blast had caught him high, in the head and shoulders. Most of his face was in shadow, but even the part she glimpsed was more than enough for Maud. She didn’t look that way again.
Sutton’s gun was still in the holster. It was clean, un-fouled. Slocum stuck it in the top of his pants, at the hip, butt-out.
He walked Maud up the path and through the gate into the street. Farther east along the north side of the road, tied to a hitching post, were the dead men’s horses. They were the only life in view, apart from Slocum and Maud. The street was empty, and in the windows of the houses, not so much as the corner of a curtain could be seen being lifted. Nobody stuck their heads outside to see what the latest gunplay was all about.
West, across the cut, in town, there were lights, motion.
“They’ll be coming soon, but we won’t be here,” Slocum said, dragging Maud toward the horses.
The animals were spooked, edgy. Their eyes rolled and they sidled away as the humans approached. One reared up, breaking its tether. It whirled, running away. It plunged east, galloping along the road.
Slocum swore. The other horse shied away, its taut reins stretched to the breaking point. Slocum had to let go of Maud to get a hand free. She fell.
Slocum grabbed hold of the horse’s head harness. He pulled its head down, so it couldn’t rear. He unhitched the reins, swinging up into the saddle.
Once he got the horse under him, there was no way it was getting away from him. With a skittish horse, reins, and a sawed-off shotgun, he had his hands full. He made ready to butt-stroke the animal between the ears to gentle it, but once it felt the touch of a sure rider in the saddle, it stopped fighting him.
Maud had stood up with a huff and started brushing off her skirts. “You know, I’m likin’ this so-called deal we got goin’ here less and less. I may be a whore, but you could treat me like a human being, for God’s sake.”
Slocum apologized and took special care to gently take Maud’s hand to bring her up into the saddle in front of him. Despite her stiff posture, Slocum couldn’t help but like the way her body fit tightly against his. This hellcat had been nothing but trouble, yet he couldn’t help but admire her spunk.
As Slocum put his arm around her to steady her, Maud wriggled away from him.
“Just get this damn animal movin’, so we can get this whole thing finished!”
“Yes, ma’am,” Slocum replied, and spurred the horse into motion.
14
Slocum rode east out of Whoretown, with Maud seated sidesaddle in front of him, holding on with both hands to the saddlehorn. She had to hold on tight to keep from falling off. That was good. It kept her out of mischief.
Somewhere behind the houses an unseen dog barked. Like the rest of the local residents, it kept out of sight.
The moon was halfway to the zenith and shone big and bright. Slocum rode toward it, casting a long shadow behind him. Ahead, in the distance, was the runaway horse, a blur of motion on the prairie. Maybe the pursuers would be fooled into chasing it. Slocum hoped so.
North, about a hundred yards away on his left, across open fields, lay a belt of woods. Slocum drew abreast of the woods’ end, passing it. Further east along the road there was a dip, a hollow. The curve of the slope stood between him and the houses, providing cover.
He swung the horse around to the left, plunging himself north. He hoped the ridgeline would cover his move, if anybody left behind was watching.
The horse was moving along at a nice clip, but not all out. Tearing along at full-tilt while carrying two riders would blow the horse out fast. Slocum wanted to conserve its reserves of strength as long as possible. He might have to draw on them to the fullest before this night was done.
There was the regular chuff-chuffing of the horse’s rhythmic breathing, the muffled thud of hoofbeats against the turf, the rustle of tall weeds whipping against the animal’s shanks, the creaking of saddle leather. An occasional stifled gasp escaped Maud when she was rocked by a rough bump.
The leading edge of the woods neared, a dark thin line of trees. Slocum glanced back, the ridgeline hiding all but the tops of the roofs of a few two-story houses.
He passed the trees on his left. The ridgeline suddenly played out, going from a mound, to a furrow, to a flat. Slocum was in a field, in the open in the moonlight, but the line of trees screened him from Whoretown.
In the open it was quiet, wind sighing through the trees, wailing across the distant plains. To the east lay miles of New Mexico prairie, and beyond that more of the same.
Slocum figured that if they put in enough distance between themselves and Bender, he and Maud could stop and rest. They shouldn’t be too far now from where he had hitched the deacon’s horse. Once they got to that point, things would get a little easier. As much as he liked having a warm body pressed up against his, the horse was starting to slow down from the weight. If they each had their own horse, the trip would go a lot faster, and they could go over to the tree line and set up camp. That way he could keep a keen eye out through the trees, and see if anybody came riding out after them from the direction of Whoretown.
Just as Slocum was thinking he had everything planned out nicely, he heard the faint mumbling of distant hoofbeats. Maud heard it too.
“What is that?” she whispered.
“I reckon y
ou know as well as I do what it is. The real question is who.”
He pulled his horse over to the trees, and then reined in, listening closely. The riders were definitely getting closer, and they were coming from the direction of town.
Quickly sizing up the situation, Slocum guided the horse slowly and quietly into the trees, until he figured they were well out of view from either side of the copse.
“Now try and keep your mouth shut for once,” he said once he was satisfied with their cover.
“Why should I? Whoever’s out there’s gotta treat me better than you been,” Maud said, a little too loud for Slocum’s liking.
Just as he was about to hush her up again, he saw some movement out of the corner of his eye. On the plain leading from Whoretown he saw what appeared to be a posse. In the moonlight he could just make out Wessel and Hix. Obviously the bodies at Maud’s place had been discovered.
“Hix!” Maud exclaimed to herself. But before she could call out to the marshal, Slocum cupped his hand to her mouth.
He brought his head down close to her ear and whispered: “I wouldn’t do that if I was you. They just found two dead men at your house, Maud, and you were nowhere to be found. Nobody saw me come back into town, so the authorities are probably thinkin’ that I got as far away as possible. That makes you their number-one murder suspect.”
Maud wriggled a bit, but remained quiet.
“’Sides that, who knows how honest your lawmen are? They could have their own stake in that sapphire, and are now thinking you might have known more than you were saying.”
Maud started mumbling something at that. “Be careful or they’ll hear you,” he cautioned, but removed his hand from her mouth.
Maud’s first rush of fear was replaced by rising anger. Realizing how effectively she’d been boxed into a corner, she got so mad that she couldn’t speak.
“That’s the beauty of it, Maud. Now your fate is cast in with mine. You’ve got a stake in keeping me alive, if only because the people trying to kill me are going to be trying to kill you now too.”