by Logan, Jake
Unable to counter such simple logic, Gwen came to a stop. She’d lived in Rocas Rojas for so long that she could tell where she was by the texture of the boardwalk under her feet. It was a cold night and getting colder by the second, but that still wasn’t enough to make her turn around and head back to the saloon.
“Come on,” Carline said while wrapping a gentle yet insistent hand around Gwen’s elbow. “Let’s get back inside and wait for things to die down. If the sheriff hasn’t raced away from here again in an hour, we can go and see what happened.”
“We know what happened. A bunch of killers were chased out of West Texas and now they’re here. How can you feel so calm about that?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time some gunmen came here from Texas or Mexico. Remember those three fellas last spring? Or maybe you’d just remember the one with the beard and the big arms?”
“Don’t try to distract me, Caroline.”
Tugging on Gwen’s arm, the blonde was just starting to make progress in steering her toward the saloon when shouting erupted from the direction of the sheriff’s office. The little building was at the end of Third Street, which, owing to the lack of any lanterns being lit along the street, was encased in shadows thick enough to make it seem as if that section of town had been washed away in a puddle of thick black ink. Two horses staggered awkwardly from behind that building as their riders jerked on the reins to force the animals to step backward while turning to point their noses in another direction.
Gwen placed her hands over her mouth, afraid that the slightest sound might draw the wrong man’s attention toward her. Whoever was fighting those horses to turn around was also shouting obscenities at the top of their lungs before finally pulling triggers that illuminated their faces in a flash of exploding gunpowder.
Caroline’s grip tightened around Gwen’s arm as she said, “We have to get away from here!”
“No. I have to see.”
“What do you want to see?”
“I have to see if—”
One of the riders got his horse facing the saloon so he turned to look that way as well. The instant he did, he locked eyes with Gwen.
She could feel him staring at her as if his gaze were another, even stronger, grip around her limbs that was powerful enough to root her to the spot. The second rider had gotten his horse turned around, and both rode away from the sheriff’s office toward Gwen and Caroline.
“Bring them along with us,” the first man said. He was tall and wrapped up in what looked to be a long blue coat that was issued by the Federal Army. The gun in his hand may have come from the same place, but his partner didn’t look nearly as official. That one looked as if he’d been chewed up and spit out after drying in the hot sun for six weeks. He glared down at Gwen but, like most of the rough types who drifted through Rocas Rojas, was quickly distracted by Caroline. “What do you want them fer?”
Even as gunshots blasted through the air around the farthest corner, the man in the Army coat barely seemed to notice. “They’d make for fine hostages.”
“As well as some comfort when we get down to Old Mex,” the rougher of the two men said.
“Indeed.”
With that, the rough man climbed down from his saddle while the first one shifted around to fire a few shots at the sheriff’s office. The commotion in that direction was heating up even more, causing the rough man to move quicker than a flash as he lunged for Caroline.
The blonde shared a fleeting glance with Gwen, which was all either woman needed to decide what to do next. Both of them turned away from the gunmen and started running down the boardwalk. With every step, Gwen was certain she was about to get shot. After the bullet went through her, Caroline would either be chased down by the man on foot or scooped up by the one still on horseback. After that, she didn’t want to think what would happen.
“Down!”
That one word sounded like a chorus of angels to Gwen, who immediately recognized the voice that had spoken it. Without hesitation, she threw herself sideways so she could tackle Caroline while following through on the simple command. Before the two women had completed their fall, another volley of gunshots filled the air.
Unlike the shots that had come before, these were strung together in quick succession and taken without concern for conserving ammunition. Lead whipped through the air amid a series of shouts and eventually pained screams as some of the rounds found their mark. Caroline twisted around to get a look at what was happening and was just in time to see the rough man’s horse rearing up. She curled into a protective ball, waiting to feel powerful hooves trample her but knowing there wasn’t much of anything she could do to prevent it.
One more shot hissed overhead, cutting the horse’s panicked whinny short. Its hooves thumped down against the side of the boardwalk less than a foot away from Gwen’s leg. After that, things got quiet.
Men’s voices came from nearby, but the blood was rushing too quickly through Gwen’s head for her to make out any words.
Spurs jangled in the street and a scuffle ensued.
More steps knocked against the boardwalk and came to a stop beside Caroline. When she shifted to look in that direction, Gwen saw the face she’d been looking for the entire time.
“That was a bit closer than I’d hoped,” Slocum said as he leaned down to offer a hand to her. His rough face was covered in trail dust and some blood, but was even handsomer than she’d remembered.
Gwen took his hand and was pulled to her feet. He would have offered his other hand to Caroline, but that one was still clenched around a smoking Schofield revolver. The pistol was pointed in the general direction of the closest horse, which was shaking its head furiously and bucking in the middle of the street.
“You didn’t shoot that horse?” Caroline asked.
“Hell no, I didn’t,” Slocum replied as he hauled her up. “Just put a bullet close enough to whisper into its ear and point it away from you. Now those two,” he said while aiming at the nearby gunmen, “won’t get that courtesy.”
The rougher of the gunmen sat with his back against a hitching post, clutching his upper right arm with blood seeping through his fingers. The man in the Army coat was bleeding as well, but still in his saddle. A small wound in his leg glistened in the moonlight, but he ignored it while sitting up straight with his hands held high.
“It’s all over for you,” Slocum announced. “Climb down from that horse, Bill.”
“I already tossed my gun,” the man in the Army coat said. “But it seems fitting you’d take down an unarmed man.”
The sheriff rounded the corner, holding a gun in each hand. “You killed three men in West Texas,” he said while covering the outlaws. “Whatever happens to you or the assholes who rode with you from then on was plenty justified.”
“What about the rest of my boys down the street?” Bill asked.
Without glancing around the corner to the spot where all the commotion had been, the sheriff replied, “Two are dead. The other one surrendered.”
“Is he wounded?”
“Nope,” the lawman said with half a smirk. “Gave up real quick once you and this other one bolted.”
“Oh, fer Christ’s sake,” the man in the Army coat grunted. He started climbing down from his saddle, and when the sheriff stepped forward to offer some help, he refused it with a few wild swats.
2
Gwen and Caroline both hugged Slocum and were so excited they even started hopping up and down. He protested gently at first, but had to eventually force them away while wearing a pained wince.
“What’s the matter?” Gwen asked. “Are you hurt? Oh my lord,” she said once she saw the way he favored his left arm. “You are hurt!”
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Just a flesh wound.”
“What happened?”
“What do you think happened? One of those assholes shot me!”
“Next time I’ll fire the shot myself,” the man in the Army coat said as he was shoved
toward the sheriff’s office. “Then you won’t be around to grouse about it!”
Caroline scowled at him as well as the other two that were being led away. One was in shackles and had been collected from around the corner where the gunmen had made their initial stand. He was taken into the office, but the rough gunman who’d taken a run at the ladies was being led down the street by Oscar and Stan. “Where’s he going?” she asked.
“I’ve been told a doctor lives down that way,” Slocum said. “He’s going to be stitched up and then tossed into a cage with the rest of ’em.”
Gwen reached out to rub his arm, but settled for gently touching his chest. “That’s where you should go, John.”
“A cage?”
She smacked his chest as she replied, “No! The doctor. How bad is your arm?”
“Not bad, but the ride in didn’t do it any favors.”
“Is that blood?”
He looked down as if to dismiss the wound, but spotted the crimson stain soaking through the sleeve of his jacket. “Or maybe I should go to have a word with him.”
“Good,” Caroline said, “because I don’t think those two will get him more than a few more paces before he gets away.”
Slocum watched the pair of unofficial deputies try to herd the wounded man toward a narrow set of stairs leading up to the second floor of a skinny building. Even though the gunman’s hands were tied behind his back by a rope that was held like a leash by Oscar and his gun belt was draped over Stan’s shoulder, the outlaw was still giving his captors a fair amount of grief.
“I suppose you’re right,” Slocum said. “You ladies didn’t get hurt yourselves, did you?”
“No, John,” Gwen told him. “Get taken care of and then come tell me about what happened. You know where to find me.”
“I sure do.”
With that, the women walked back to the saloon while Slocum hurried to catch up to the would-be deputies. Stan barely seemed to notice when the gun belt was taken from him until after Slocum was easing it over his own shoulder. The skinny store owner wheeled around and sputtered, “Oh, it’s you, Mr. Slocum. You should announce yourself before sneaking up on an armed man like that.”
“You’re armed?”
Stan’s hand dropped to his hip where a rusted .38 hung in a holster that was obviously meant for a much bigger weapon. “Hardly seems warranted to point a gun at a wounded man.”
“That wounded man would kill you in a second with his bare hands the moment he wriggled out of that rope.”
When Stan saw the gunman’s wrists were actually finding some room, he jumped back. “I suppose it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“That’s the spirit. Why don’t you two go see the sheriff? I’m sure he could use some help wrangling these men’s horses or getting the others settled in jail.”
That was all the prompting either of the other two needed to get them to hand over the rope and rush across the street. Slocum let the leash dangle and instead gripped the section of rope that had been wrapped around the gunman’s wrists. Tightening his grip until the rope dug into the other man’s flesh, he shoved the outlaw into the wall directly beside the foot of the stairs. “Sorry about that, Ed. Guess my balance is off after all that riding.”
“Then how about you take a load off, Slocum? I can find my own way.”
“Wouldn’t think of it. Up you go.”
Slocum shoved the outlaw hard enough to make sure it was a genuine struggle for him to get to the second floor without breaking his neck. By the time they got to the door at the top of the stairs, the outlaw was winded and fighting even harder to free himself.
“I’ll see to it that you die for killing my friends,” Ed snarled.
“You mean the friends that killed all those innocent folks who were riding in stagecoaches to visit family and such when they were robbed? Or the friends that killed those people in them banks?” When Ed tried to respond to that, Slocum shoved him hard enough to knock the outlaw’s head against the door. “Sorry. What was that?”
Ed was stupid enough to try speaking again, so Slocum knocked his head against the door one more time.
Suddenly, the door was pulled open by a man wearing a long nightshirt and a tattered quilt wrapped around him like a shawl. He had a beak-like nose, sunken features, and a scalp that was bald apart from a thin band of hair running from the back of one ear and around to the back of the other. Although he was annoyed at first, his expression shifted quickly when he saw what had been used to rattle his door on its hinges.
“Sorry to wake you, Doc,” Slocum said. “But I’ve got a customer for you.”
Collecting himself, the man wrapped in the blanket said, “I presume this is in relation to all the noise from a few minutes ago?”
“You’d presume correctly. He’s been shot.”
The doctor’s eyes were drawn immediately to Ed’s shirt, which was a disheveled mess. After pulling it open to get a look at the outlaw’s wound, he said, “Better bring him in.”
Slocum shoved Ed into the modest dwelling, kicked the door shut behind him, and then pushed him until the outlaw was tripped up by a cot set up against one wall. Ed dropped down amid a string of obscenities that didn’t let up until Slocum was through tying the other end of the rope to the cot’s frame. Ed tested the rope with a few tugs, which only cinched the knot around his wrists even tighter.
“Is that necessary?” the doctor asked while pointing at the rope.
“You heard the shooting, right?” Slocum asked. “You think he’s got it all out of his system?”
When the doctor saw the feral glint in the outlaw’s eye, his concern for the gunman’s comfort was no longer such a pressing matter. “I see some blood on your jacket as well. Are you hurt?”
“It’s just a nick.”
“Let me have a look.”
Slocum peeled off his jacket and rolled up his sleeve to show the doctor a blood-soaked bandanna tied around his arm. Beneath the bandanna was a patch of rough skin held together by a jagged line of thick black thread. “Did the stitches myself,” Slocum said.
“Seeing that you would have only been able to use one hand, I suppose that explains why it looks like you were pieced together like a bad pair of shoes.”
“And since we rousted you from your bed at such a late hour, I suppose that explains why you’re being such a snippy little prick.”
The doctor sighed and shrugged out of his quilt in favor of a proper robe. “Will there be any more wounds for me to tend this evening? If need be, I can find my way to Sheriff Reyes’s office.”
“No need for that. Just us two and one with a scratch at the sheriff’s office. How about you tend to me first?”
“This man looks like he has a more serious injury,” the doctor said as he looked over at Ed. The outlaw smiled back at Slocum as if he’d just won a prize.
Slocum pulled up a chair and made himself comfortable. “Sounds fair enough. I’ll just sit here and make sure he doesn’t step out of line. And just so I know in case he does decide to be difficult, where might I find the undertaker?”
That question, spoken without the first hint of humor or leverage, drained all of the color from Ed’s face as well as a good portion of what was in the doctor’s. Not knowing how else to respond, the doctor said, “That’d . . . umm . . . that’d be just down the street.”
“Much obliged, Doc. You may commence.”
After that, Ed was no longer in the mood to struggle or even speak as the doctor set about the task of cleaning and tending to the outlaw’s wound. It was a messy gash in his arm that was still blackened from the passage of the bullet.
“So,” the doctor said after he’d fallen into a rhythm of well-practiced motions, “may I ask what caused this trouble?”
“You hear of a man named Oklahoma Bill Dressel?” Slocum asked.
“The stagecoach robber from Texas?”
“That’s the one. He and his boys robbed a few little banks in some towns that n
obody’s ever heard of. Might have gotten away with it, too, if they just would’ve slunk away quietly like the snakes they are. Instead,” Slocum added while banging his foot against Ed’s cot, “they decided to try and ransom a hostage taken from one of the stagecoaches. Some pretty girl with a rich daddy who put up a reward for her capture.”
“So you were after the reward?”
“Not as such. Your sheriff got some information about where the gang might be hiding. He didn’t have a lot to pay for a posse, but I signed on for a percentage of the reward that’ll be coming for the gang’s capture. Funny thing is that nobody seems to know about the price on Ed’s scalp.”
Even though the doctor’s hand hadn’t wavered as he expertly tended to the wound, the outlaw flinched.
“Seems ol’ Ed raped a few other girls back East,” Slocum said. “He’s got a taste for the ones with yellow hair and prosperous families. Well, prosperous enough to scrape together a reward for his worthless hide. After spending this bit of time with him, I think I may just hand him over for free.” Before the outlaw could put on any kind of smug expression, Slocum added, “Just as long as I get to be there when all six of that poor girl’s brothers ride all the way out from Boston just to beat you to a pulp.”
“Rapist, huh?”
“That’s right, Doc.”
“Well then,” the doctor said as he applied a bandage with just a bit too much enthusiasm, “perhaps I can tend to you now after all. You’ve probably got things to do and this one won’t be very busy for a while.”
“Much obliged.”
As much as Slocum wanted to head straight to the Dusty Hill Saloon, there was still some business to tend to. The first task was to tie Ed’s wrists in a more secure knot as well as bind his ankles so he couldn’t do much more than grunt through the bandanna that had been stuffed into his mouth. After that, he made certain the remaining outlaws had been tossed into the jail at the back of the sheriff’s office. The two men in the cell still had some steam in their engines, but that didn’t last long after Slocum arrived.