Slocum's Close Call

by Jake Logan

  His ultimate destination was vague in his mind, but he thought that he would get himself to Fort Worth and catch a train to—somewhere. Chicago? New York City? Maybe San Francisco. The weather would be nicer out west. Yeah, he thought. Somewhere in California. He would be far from south Texas. Safe from the clutches of Texas law. No one would know him. He could start all over and do so in style and comfort. The more he thought about it, the more San Francisco appealed to him.

  Some distance behind Harman, Axel and Harley rode hard. Harley, lashing wildly at his mount, was a little ahead of Axel. “Slow down, Harley,” Axel shouted. “Harley. Slow it down, goddammit.” Finally, Harley heard the message and responded to it. He eased up on the horse and slowed it to a walk. Axel rode up beside him. “You kill your damn horse,” he said, “you won’t never catch up with Harman.”

  “Aw, hell,” Harley said. “I know it. I’m just anxious to get the double-crossing son of a bitch in my sights.”

  “You ain’t alone there,” Axel said. “Harley?”

  “Yeah?”

  “When we catch up to him,” Axel said, “let’s don’t kill him right off. Let’s make him real sorry that he run out on us like he done. Let’s make him real sorry before we kill him.”

  “He’ll be wanting us to finish the job,” Harley promised. “Axel, I’m hungry.”

  “Ain’t nothing we can do about that now,” Axel said. “We didn’t pack nothing to eat. We’ll just have to wait till we’re done with Harman. Then we can head for . . .”

  Harley waited for Axel to finish his statement. “Head for what, Axel?” he finally said.

  “Hell,” Axel said. “I’m thinking. Ain’t nothing ahead of us for a good long while. We sure as hell can’t just ride back into Rat’s Nest. We might stop at a farm or a ranch or something and ask for something to eat. Hell, once we’ve done old Harman in, we could even pay a little for a meal.”

  “Yeah,” Harley said. “We could do that.”

  “Then, well, then I reckon we could double back a ways and head on over toward Flanders,” Axel said. “That ought to be safe enough. We can lay up there for a bit and figure out where we might want to go.”

  “Out of Texas,” Harley said. “That’s all I care about. Any old damn where long as it’s out of Texas.”

  “Hey,” Axel said, “looky there.”

  “What?” said Harley.

  “Right there,” Axel said. “Horseshit. Get down and poke a stick in it.”

  Harley dismounted, found a stick, and jabbed it into the pile. He looked up at Axel grinning. “We ain’t far behind him,” he said.

  The five gunhands had at last gathered around Pride behind the bat-wing doors. He felt a little better with their company. “I’ve done put the other two dynamite sticks upstairs by the front window,” he said. “One of you can go up there.

  When that bunch rides in here, they’ll most likely gang up right out there in the street. I’ll step out the door here and tell them to turn around and go right back where they come from. Course they won’t. That’s when I’ll set off a stick here, and I’ll toss it right out in the big middle of them too. Then whichever one of you is upstairs toss one right after that. We’ll probably kill off half of them just like that, and the rest will be fucked up. If we still need them, we’ll have another stick apiece. Shouldn’t be no problems.”

  He sounded calm and confident, but he was really trying to convince himself as much as he was the others. He stepped out onto the sidewalk again. The sun was at last lighting the morning sky. They’ll be along any time, he told himself. Any time now. He went back inside and looked at the gunhand nearest to him. “Has anyone seen Mr. Harman this morning?” he asked.

  Harman looked at the sun, barely peeking over the horizon, and he thought that the Joiner bunch was probably just headed into Rat’s Nest. It would take them a little while, not long, but a little while to deal with things there. Then they would discover that he was gone, and they would have to determine which way he had ridden out of town. By the time they actually got around to pursuit, if they bothered at all, he would be well on his way with a good head start. They’d never catch him. He felt pretty good for a man who was running away. He had just come to a clear running stream, and he rode over to it, letting the black horse drink. He swung down out of the saddle and knelt at the water’s edge to quench his own thirst.

  He had a good drink, but he realized that he was hungry. He wondered how soon he would feel safe enough to stop for a meal. There would be ranch houses and farmhouses along the way. He figured he ought to pass a few of them by, get a little further away before he slowed himself down that much. He wished he had thought to pack in some trail food, but he had been in a hurry to get out of town.

  He straightened himself up and stretched. It was going to be a warm day. He pulled off his long-tailed coat, folded it, and threw it across the back of the saddle. He gathered up the reins, took hold of the saddlehorn, and put his foot in the stirrup. Just then he saw two riders top the rise in the road behind him.

  “Say,” said one of the gunhands in the Hi De Ho, “where the hell’s Axel and Harley?”

  Pride looked surprised. He looked around and counted the other five men, pointing a finger at each one in turn. “Yeah,” he said, “there’s s’posed to be seven of you, ain’t there? Where is them other two?”

  “And where’s Harman?” the gunman said. “There’s something about this I don’t like.”

  “Go see if you can find them,” Pride said. “You two. Go on.”

  One gunman went to the stairs and started up at a run. The other went to Harman’s office and knocked on the door. He waited a few seconds, then knocked again. “Mr. Harman,” he said. “You in there?” He tried the door and found it locked. Then he knocked again, louder than before, and he yelled out, “Hey, Harman.”

  He hurried back to Pride. “There’s something funny here,” he said. “The door ain’t locked. I can turn the knob, but I can’t open it. That means that it’s latched on the other side. But I can’t get no answer from in there. He’s got to be there. He had to be to latch the door.”

  “But he won’t answer?” Pride said, and he recalled his own failure to get an answer from Harman’s office the night before. “Come on,” he said, and the two of them went back to the office door. “Break the son of a bitch down,” he said.

  The gunnie bashed his shoulder against the door, once, twice. He felt it give a little. Then he reared back, lifted his foot, and kicked it hard. The door flew open, its latch hanging from loose screws. Pride rushed into the office. No one was there. “The window’s wide open,” he said.

  “That ain’t all that’s wide open,” the gunhand said. Pride turned to look at the man, and saw that he was staring at the safe. Its door was standing open.

  “I guess now we know why that asshole had you take over,” the gunman said. “He’s took all the money and run out on us. He left us here to hold off Joiner and them while he gets away. He left us to get killed for him.”

  “No,” said Pride. “He wouldn’t have done that. He’s around here somewhere. He’s got to be. Come on. We’ll find him.”

  “Ah, shut up,” said the gunman. He walked back out to join the others at the bat-wing doors, just as the gunman came back down from checking the rooms upstairs.

  “Nobody up there but whores,” the man said.

  “Harman’s cut out on us,” the gunman who had checked the office said. “He’s took the money and run off. Left us here to face Joiner and them alone. And get killed.”

  “What about Axel and Harley, Stick?” one asked.

  “I don’t know,” the man called Stick said. “All I seen was the office, locked from the inside, the safe empty, and the back window standing wide open.”

  “Wait a minute,” said another. “Didn’t Axel and Harley go around back last night with them rifles and shotguns?”

  “I believe you’re right,” Stick said.

  “What if they seen
that open window,” the other man said, “and they looked in and seen that safe?”

  “Chickenshits are as bad as Harman,” Stick said. “They went after him for themselves. Didn’t let us in on it.”

  “What are we going to do?” one of them said.

  “I don’t know about the rest of you,” said Stick, “but I’m getting out of here before that bunch from Joiner’s comes in.”

  Pride stepped out on the sidewalk. Over his shoulder he said, “It’s too late for that, boys. Here they come.”

  Harman drew the rifle out of its scabbard, cranked a shell into the chamber, and steadied it across the saddle. He sighted in on one of the riders and waited as they rode closer. Then he recognized them. Axel and Harley. Somehow they had discovered his plan and come after him, after the money. He had pulled a real dirty double cross on them, and he knew that he couldn’t talk his way out of it. They would have no mercy on him. None at all. He squeezed the trigger. Harley jerked and slumped in the saddle.

  “What the hell?” said Axel.

  “I been shot,” said Harley. “I’m hit bad.”

  Axel jumped off his horse and ran for cover at the side of the road. “Where the hell is he?” he said.

  Harley tried to sit up straight in his saddle. He looked down the road and off to one side, and he saw Harman there beside the stream, the rifle still aimed at him. “Down there,” he said. “By the crick. Help me, Axel.”

  There was another loud crack, and a bullet smashed into Harley’s forehead, splattering blood and brains out the back of his head. His body jerked and flopped back to come to rest on the horse’s ass. The horse neighed and reared, and the lifeless body slid off to one side and landed in the road with a sickening thud. Axel wished that he had grabbed his own rifle before vaulting from the saddle. At least he was hidden from Harman. But Harman knew he was up there, and Harman had a rifle.

  However, Harman couldn’t see Axel where he crouched beside the road, and Axel had spotted Harman once Harley had told him where to look. He could see him, but the distance was too great for a shot from his six-gun. It was a standoff. He figured that Harman wouldn’t run for it, not with a man just up on the rise who was after him. But then, Axel couldn’t go for his rifle without exposing himself to Harman’s deadly fire.

  “Psst!” he said. “Come here, horse.”

  The horse was unconcerned. Axel thought about throwing a rock at it, but he knew that would only run it off. He looked down toward the stream below. If he only had a rifle. He’d have a clear shot at Harman, standing there in the open like that. He tried to study out a route of cover that might lead him closer to Harman, but he couldn’t find one that he had any real confidence in. Maybe, he thought, after a while Harman would get back on his horse and ride off. Then Axel could get on his and keep following. He’d have his rifle then. He decided to sit tight, be patient, and wait it out.

  With Slocum, Joiner, and Cobb in the lead, the riders from Joiner’s ranch moved down the main street of Rat’s Nest. When they arrived at the Hi De Ho, the three leaders stopped their horses and turned them to face the bat-wing doors. The remaining riders spread themselves along the street on both sides of the leaders. Eddie Cobb dismounted. “Harman,” he called out. “Harman. You in there?”

  Pride stepped to the door. “Harman ain’t here,” he said. “He run off last night.”

  Thurman’s eyes opened wide. “Andy?” he yelled. “Is that you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Pride said. “I reckon it is.”

  “What are you doing in there?” Thurman asked.

  “I was just checking things out for you,” Pride said. “There’s only five men left in here. The rest has all run off. Maybe I can talk these here into giving themselves up.”

  “What the hell are you trying to pull?” Stick said inside the saloon.

  “Well,” Pride said, “it would be for the best. You can’t fight all of them.”

  “We give ourselves up,” said Stick, “and we’ll hang for rustling. I’d sooner get myself shot. But you ain’t getting out of this either.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” Pride said. “I ain’t done nothing for Harman. Never had the chance.”

  “You joined up with us last night,” Stick said. “Bossed us around too. Now you’re trying to act like it never happened. Well, go on then. Go on out there and join them then, you little shit-ass. I’ll blow a hole in your back before you get halfway across the street.”

  “We, uh, we could all go out the back window of Harman’s office,” Pride said. He realized that he had most likely made the worst mistake of his life the night before, and he wondered if he would ever be able to spend all that money Harman had given him.

  Looking out the window, Stick could see riders at each end of the long line fanning out even farther. They were moving around the building. “Forget that,” he said. “They’ll be watching the back. We’re trapped in here.”

  “Well,” said Pride, “let’s give ourselves up.”

  “I ain’t going to hang,” Stick said.

  “Let me talk to them,” Pride begged. “Maybe you won’t hang. I got some money. We’ll get you a good lawyer.”

  “Talk then,” Stick said.

  Pride moved cautiously back to the bat-wing doors. “Hey, out there,” he said.

  “We hear you,” said Joiner.

  “If we was to give up,” Pride said, “would we all get us a fair trial?”

  “I’ll get you a fair trial,” said Cobb.

  “If we don’t hang you first,” McCulley said.

  16

  “There’s our answer,” Stick said.

  “Well, I,” Pride stammered, “I say we use the dynamite.”

  He didn’t want to fight. He had only just barely joined with this bunch. He didn’t want to die with them so soon and for so little. There was money in his pocket. Money he would never be able to spend. He could give himself up. He wouldn’t hang. He had not rustled cattle. He had not killed anyone. But if he went out the door to turn himself over to Eddie Cobb, Stick would shoot him in the back. He had said so.

  “I’ll take the upstairs,” Pride said. “I can drop one right down in the middle of them from there.”

  “Go on,” Stick said.

  Pride ran all the way. Just as he was about to go into the room where he had placed two sticks of dynamite, four women came running out of another room and flocked around him. “What’s happening out there?” one asked.

  “Is there going to be a gunfight?” said another.

  “Ladies,” said Pride, “just stay back out of the way. You’ll be all right.”

  “But all those men out there,” said one. “What are they doing? What do they want?”

  “All they want is just the five men downstairs,” Pride said. “They ain’t going to hurt you.”

  “What about you?” one asked.

  “I ain’t with that bunch down there,” he said. “I’m fixing to give myself up out this window here.”

  “You going out by the balcony?” one of the girls asked.

  “That’s my meaning,” said Pride.

  “Take us out that way too,” said one.

  “Look,” Pride said, “I ain’t got time.”

  “Come on,” she said, and the four women pushed their way past Pride into the room. They were at the front window before he was. “Hey. Hey, down there,” the loudest of the women called out. “Let us come down.”

  Slocum studied the situation. There was a balcony across the front of the building. The women could get out on the balcony, go to the far end, the end to his left, climb over the rail, and shinny down the post there at the comer. He told Joiner, “We best let the women out. We don’t want them getting hurt.”

  “Sure,” Joiner said.

  “Have a couple of Thurman’s boys go over there and help them down,” Slocum said.

  In another minute the first of the girls was climbing over the balcony. Slocum kept his eye on the bat-wing doors. The girls would be o
ut of the line of fire unless one of the men inside were to step out onto the boardwalk. Slocum meant to see that didn’t happen. Squealing, the first girl came down the pole into the arms of two cowboys. The second one, her skirt hiked up, was climbing over the rail. Andy Pride crawled out the window and walked to the edge of the balcony, his hands held high.

  “Can I come down that way too?” he asked. “I want to give myself up. If I come out that door downstairs, they’ll shoot me in the back.”

  “Come on ahead,” Cobb said, “but after the girls are all down.”

  The third woman shinnied down to sit astraddle of a cowboy’s shoulders. “Damn, Dottie,” the cowboy said. “I never figured to have my head between your legs this morning.” The fourth woman was swinging a leg over the rail, and the other cowboy was standing just below, getting his eyes full and getting ready to receive her down there.

  Behind the bat-wings, one of the gunhands said to Stick, “What the hell’s going on out there?”

  “The whores is climbing over the balcony,” Stick said. “And that little shit Pride is fixing to. He’s give himself up.”

  “They’ll be coming for us then,” said the other man.

  “Strike a match,” Stick said, and he turned and picked up one of the sticks of dynamite. The man struck the match and held it out. Stick touched the fuse to the flame. It fizzled. It was lit. A sudden frightful thrill ran through the body of Stick as he stared at the spark-spurting twine. Then he stepped out through the bat-wings, raised his arm over his shoulder, and gave a mighty fling. The dynamite stick flew through the air. McCulley saw it and raised his rifle.