by Logan, Jake
But that had all been before the killer arrived. Once Tunk wandered on in, Slocum had intended to deal with him first, in the barn. But sleep—his and Judith’s—had blown holes in that plan. He low-walked across the road, cursing again the fact that he’d slept longer than he intended. He pointed at Judith, then motioned in the gray light toward the far end of the barn. “Wait there,” he whispered.
She nodded, but he doubted like hell she’d listen to him. Hadn’t yet. Not many strong-willed women did all that much listening, it seemed to him. And judging from how the old Bible-thumping Tinker treated his wife and girls, he was surprised it took her that long to work up the nerve to leave him. Though he bet she’d been gone, at least in her own head, for years. Just waiting for the right moment, as she’d said, to really leave.
He headed left, looking to skirt the end of the front fence, then cut in close to the low ranch house. An oil lamp, much like the previous night, glowed from the back of the house, nearby the kitchen.
He’d never counted on Mueller to show up. Never in a hundred years did he think the man would have actually turned around. He’d worked hard to make enemies of everyone he’d encountered. So why did the man come back? Slocum dashed to the side of the house, then bent low and listened at the plank wall.
He heard a woman sobbing, sounded like the old lady, then boot steps, and a man’s voice, Mueller’s, said, “What did I tell you? Shut your caterwauling, or I’ll do for you what I did for him. Big bastard should have known better. I’m the one with the gun and he’s the one with a permanent headache.”
So, thought Slocum, the last of the sons, no doubt dead. He couldn’t say that he was sorry. They hadn’t been the most pleasant fellows to be around. And one Tinker male would make his job easier.
He had to see in there, had to know what was going on. He reached up with a hand and felt for a windowsill. There it was, just over his head to the left. It was still dark enough, and he wasn’t backlit by rising sunlight since he was on the west end of the house. He rose slowly, until he was looking in through a corner of a wavy glass pane.
There was Mueller, still wearing that rank red shirt. Must be ripe by now, thought Slocum. The killer stood in the doorway to the room, talking low and running the tip of his rifle barrel along Ruth’s neck and shoulders. It was difficult for Slocum to see, but it looked as if Ruth’s face had been welted up. By the old man, his son, or Mueller? It hardly mattered now.
The old woman sat on the floor closer to the window; he only saw her head, rocking back and forth, but he saw the body of the older boy, Zeke, laid out on the floor, unmoving. Slocum assumed she was cradling her son’s head. She had a kerchief wrapped tight around her own mouth, no doubt because she’d cried out in her grief, and for it she had incited the killer’s promised wrath. Slocum toyed with the idea of poking his rifle through the glass and shooting Mueller, but there were too many things that could go wrong. What if he missed? He didn’t know where the rest of them were. The old man’s whereabouts didn’t bother him so much, but the children? The twins? In a house this small, there might well be other people behind Mueller. Or Mueller could accidentally jerk his trigger, shoot Ruth or another person in the room.
He dropped back down, slowly so his movement didn’t draw attention, then low-walked around the back corner of the house. If he could get inside, he could get the drop on Mueller, force him out. Then deal with the Tinker family mess later. But first things first . . .
Slocum stepped onto the back porch. He paused dead in front of the back door, faint lamplight leaking through gaps in the boards. He risked a quick glance to his left, then right. No one in sight. He looked again toward the direction of the barn. He hoped Judith hadn’t found any trouble. He was relieved when he saw Mueller in the house, knowing Judith would be out of harm’s way.
Slocum stepped quickly to the side of the door. It looked rigid, though it might give in under one quick kick. But that would alert Mueller and give him time to duck out of the way. He tried the wooden drop latch, found it to be locked, then he heard the killer’s voice again.
“Shut up that Bible mumbo-jumbo, old man. I tied you up, but damn, I can just as surely shoot you. I need some bargaining power, but I don’t need but one person to use as leverage against that damn Slocum. I know he’s around here somewheres. Which one of you is going to fess up as to his whereabouts?”
So that was it. The man knew who he was, not a big effort on Mueller’s part. He must have seen Slocum, and figured it out when he’d shot him in the leg. If not, then he’d certainly recognized the Appaloosa, and no doubt firmed up the guess when he found his traps and rifled his belongings. He had a couple items that bore his name tucked way down in the saddle bags.
And then Slocum thought of the folded-up wanted poster. Mueller would have found that, too, and would know that Slocum knew he was wanted for other crimes elsewhere. And that Mueller might not be his real name.
“I get him off my back, then you and me, girly, we’re going to have some fun.”
Slocum heard Ruth’s low voice say something, though he couldn’t make it out. But it must have angered Mueller, for he heard a hard sound, like a slap. She didn’t cry out. He would have been surprised if she had. Tough woman. He hoped she wasn’t so tough that she was going to keep on mouthing off to him. Another thing Judith shared with her.
“You like that, do you? Like it when a man gets rough with you?” He slapped her again. “Pretty or no, you’ll get to like a few other things I got in store for you.”
Mueller’s laugh was the last straw.
Slocum stepped back, let loose with a hard heel kick. The wooden latch splintered and the door flew inward. A board hung askew before him. Slocum shoved it out of his way and didn’t waste any time barreling into the house. Even as he did, Mueller spun on him.
Slocum pulled the trigger at the same time the killer did. He barely avoided the blast from Tunk’s rifle, then he heard a slam. Smoke filled the air and Slocum found himself staring at the closed door of the room Mueller had everyone locked up in.
He heard more cries of surprise from the children inside. What a lousy few days they’ve had. Hell, thought Slocum, what lousy lives. But then to top it all off with Tunk Mueller tying them up, shooting their uncle, smacking their grandparents and mother?
Slocum didn’t think his bullet hit Mueller, and he hoped no one else got it. From what he remembered in looking in the window, no one had been directly across from Tunk.
The house smelled of gun smoke and, behind it, stagnant night air, the tang of a cold wood fire, and stale cooking smells.
“Glad to see you could make the event of the year, Slocum. Now, I want you to hold your fire, because when I open this door, there’s going to be one pretty little lady in front of me, and we wouldn’t want you to shoot her, right?”
Slocum licked his lips. Think, think, he told himself. “Tunk, you leave her out of this. Come on out here and fight me like a man.”
He heard Tunk laughing. “Someone should have drowned you at birth, Slocum. You’re a real disappointment to me. I have no desire to fight you at all. I want you to put down your gun so this lady don’t get hurt. Nor these children. Now, when I open this door, you are going to come into this room, no guns in your hands, or I will shoot one person at a time. It might take a while, since this appears to be a nest of breeders, but I’ll get it done.”
That time, Slocum did hear Ruth gasp. The mother in her wasn’t nearly as tough as the angry woman who endured the slaps of men.
Seconds passed. The notion of giving up his guns forced Slocum to grind his teeth together hard. He weighed the risks of kicking in this door, too. With that red shirt as a guide, he could drill a shot or two from his Colt into Mueller before the foul piece of trash knew what happened.
And then a child sobbed and the decision was made for him.
“I’ll come in, Mueller, but don’t you dare hurt anyone!” He set down the rifle and pistol, handles facing the room, hoping that might make it easier to grab for them if the situation arose.
“I will dare to do anything I damn well please, and don’t you forget it.” As if to prove his point, he heard Ruth shout and a scuffle of some sort ensued. “Get down, woman! Or next time I will cave in your head!” Then he shouted, “Hands high, Slocum, and don’t do anything you shouldn’t or I will snuff out another of these here God-fearing people, so help me!”
Slocum thought the killer was starting to sound a little nervous. Good. He turned to the side, trying to keep himself as narrow a target as possible, and lifted the wooden latch. The door swung inward with a slow squeak and he saw the room and its inhabitants. The window through which he’d peeked showed more gray light.
The room was a bedroom, with several rope beds and straw-filled mattresses slashed and strewn, the prickly dried grasses poking from the slashed rents as if they were the guts of some mythical animal.
On the floor, before the window, sat the old woman, trussed with rope, the kerchief tied around her mouth, her son’s head in her lap. She could not hold him with her arms, tied to her sides as they were, but she cradled his bloodied head, her own nightgown a sopping, blood-matted thing. She appeared to be oblivious to the foul situation around her as she rocked slowly back and forth over her dead son.
Along the other side of the room, children lay huddled in a corner, the older ones crouched around the younger, protecting them, looking outward with wild animal eyes. They will never be the same after this, thought Slocum. Even what they had was better than this.
Far from them, in the other corner, crouched the old man, also trussed with rope. Nevertheless in his lap lay his Bible, or what was left of the leather-bound tome. It had been savaged, ripped apart, pages scattered about the room. His gray beard was streaked with blood from a gash on the side of his bald head. Slocum thought he saw the gleam of bone as the blood flowed.
The old man blinked, and his head trembled side to side as if he were an old palsy victim. A bad enough head knock was something people often didn’t recover from, and judging from the dazed expression on the old man’s face, the distant look in his glassy eyes, and the wobble of his head, he was well out of it. Still, he seemed to be moving his lips. Praying, maybe. Hope it helps, thought Slocum.
Where were the twins? He had a strange feeling that Mueller knew, maybe had already dealt with them. He’d have to worry about them later.
In the middle of the room, Ruth stood, looking frightened and angry at the same time, tied tightly but sloppily with rope crisscrossing her body, her nightgown cinched tight to her body, her breasts painfully lashed with ropes. The top of her nightgown had been torn, so that one bare shoulder was revealed. Her face bore purple and yellow bruises, but Slocum assumed her father had done that to her. They were too old-looking to have come from Mueller.
Then she met Slocum’s eyes with a hard gaze that cut to the knot of children then back to him, and told him all he suspected: Do whatever you have to, she seemed to be saying, but don’t let him harm the children.
Mueller had a pistol rammed against the side of Ruth’s head. His arm was tight around her neck, a scaly elbow poking through a hole in the red shirt. He peeked around her face, and as if to emphasize his position of superiority in the situation, he jerked his arm tight, causing her to gag. He smiled while he did it, jamming the barrel tip of his pistol harder against her temple.
“All right, Mueller.” Slocum stepped into the room, hands high. “Beating up a house full of old people and women and children doesn’t exactly make you a tough hombre in my book. You want me, you got me. Leave these people alone and let’s settle this thing outdoors, just the two of us. You want me dead and I want you dead. Let’s end it now.”
“Not another step, Slocum!” Even as he said it, Tunk stepped backward one step closer to the window. The killer’s nostrils flexed with his hard breathing. Slocum saw loose strands of Ruth’s hair caught in the man’s mouth, others moved with his breath. Mueller’s eyes were tinged with a whole lot more crazy than Old Man Tinker’s had been.
Slocum looked into Ruth’s eyes, then glanced hard at the window, back to her, then to the window. She blinked slowly once. It was now or never. Slocum had to get the pistol away from Ruth’s head as he moved forward, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do. Ruth had to do it all, and as Slocum ducked and drove forward, reaching to push away the pistol, Ruth jerked her head forward and drove backward with her entire body.
At the same time, Slocum moved in close, slashed downward, and knocked Tunk’s gun hand down and away. The killer didn’t drop his gun, but it didn’t matter. Once Ruth set him moving toward the window, the old woman flopped flat on her back and Tunk stepped right on her, lost his footing, and Ruth kept pushing, even as Slocum snatched at her, grabbing the ropes and a handful of nightgown. It tore but he held on and Tunk Mueller kept going, folding up and collapsing through the window.
Slocum pushed Ruth down onto a ravaged straw mattress and tore out of the room, snatching up his Colt and rifle on the run. He hit the door casing hard and used the little back porch to propel himself toward the corner of the house, keeping low. As he ran straight out and angled past the corner of the house, cocking his guns, he had expected to see a stunned Tunk Mueller lying on his back on the ground.
But the only thing he saw was a mess of glass and wood. He advanced and kept his gaze locked on the front corner of the house. He glanced down quickly once and saw the unmistakable spatter of blood. Mueller was bleeding, and from the look of the trail of it, he’d taken a lot of glass to the back.
Slocum, back tight to the house, advanced to the front corner. He peeked around once and was rewarded with a bullet nicking the wood a foot above his head.
Mueller was not too cut up to shoot. Slocum looked at the ground again. But the man was definitely cut up. He bent low and risked another peek, saw Mueller stumbling for the barn. “Oh no you don’t, you son of a bitch,” Slocum swore as he ran, then pulled up.
“Mueller! I got you dead to rights! Drop that pistol and turn around now!”
Tunk was halfway to the barn. He stopped, raised his arms, his pistol still held in one bleeding hand. Slocum advanced slowly, holstered his Colt, and kept the rifle trained on the red shirt, now sodden with blood and jagged hunks of glass poking from it. The back of the man’s head was matted with blood.
“I said, drop that gun and turn around! Now!”
Mueller’s head leaned to one side. Slocum recognized that cocky pose and wanted to just shoot the man and be done with it. But he’d made a habit of not shooting people in the back, and he wasn’t about to let a murderer like Mueller break that trend.
Tunk started to turn, still holding the pistol. Slocum knew that meant the killer was going to force the play. “Fine by me,” muttered Slocum, angling sideways. And then he saw movement from the barn, beyond Mueller. Judith stepped out, hands by her sides.
“You bastard!” she shouted.
Slocum barked, “Judith, no! Get out of there!”
Mueller faced her. “Who in the hell are you?” He cocked the pistol, and before Slocum could get off a shot, he heard two shots almost on top of each other. As the smoke cleared, he saw Mueller still standing, but weaving, his back considerably more bloody and ragged than it had been seconds before. Beyond him, Judith stood, her six-guns in her hands, curls of smoke rising from the barrels. “For the twins,” she said, and holstered her guns.
Mueller looked down at his gut, said, “You little bitch . . .” As he raised his pistol again, Slocum cored his head with a rifle shot. Tunk Mueller pitched forward, facedown in the dirt.
For a moment, no one moved. Then Slocum walked toward Judith. “What the hell were you thinking? He could have killed you.”
&nbs
p; She did not smile. “I don’t think so, Mr. Slocum. I told you I knew how to use them.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I guess you do at that.” He looked past her at the barn. He hated to ask, but he had to know. “The twins?”
Her face sagged into grief and she shook her head. “I gave him one for each of them. What he did to them . . . it ain’t right. I should have been there, could have helped them.”
He held her shoulders. “No, Judith. If you had been here, he would have . . .”
She leaned into him and wept, and all he could do was hold her and let her cry.
30
“Think you’ll be back this way anytime soon?” Ruth stood by the Appaloosa, stroking its neck, not looking at Slocum. He touched her chin and she looked up at him, trying to smile.
“There will be at least one bounty on him, maybe two.” He nodded toward the canvas-and-rope-wrapped body draped and tied over the mule. “I’ll leave him and your mule in Slaterville and make sure that the reward money gets to you. It will be enough to get you to California and begin a life there besides.”
“You could bring it yourself.” Ruth’s eyes widened.
“I could . . . but I have someplace to go, some friends I want to visit. A ranching couple and their foreman. I wasn’t able to say good-bye properly before I left, and I feel badly about that.”
She lowered her head, nodded. “Thank you for leaving that fine horse for Judith.” She looked toward the front gate, where Judith stood, staring southward, her back to them. “She will have need of a good horse. Something to carry her to places none of us may ever see.”
“Judith will get there. This is only an interruption. You all are strong women. You’ll get to where you want to be. I can tell.” He raised Ruth’s face again and kissed her lightly. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? I can bury Mueller here and stay on awhile, help you get righted around.”