by Logan, Jake
“Hey now!” Jack said. “In my defense, I just lost most of my hand!”
“Spare me. I’ve heard men that had been gut-shot whine less than you. But fine. I’ll give you that one. Then it turns out you’ve got killers coming after you. To be honest, that was never much of a surprise.”
“Yeah, I heard you and the chief talking about that.”
“I was the one who took the job you offered,” Slocum said. “I’ve worked for plenty of assholes and I’ll work for plenty more. You owe me money, so hand it over.”
Jack’s hands reflexively went for his belt, telling Slocum precisely where the cash was being stored at the moment. “Those men are still after me. They could still find me.”
“But you got what you were after with that wolf pack. I want the rest of what you owe me to pay for the portion of the job that’s been done.”
“And what about the rest of the job?” Jack asked.
“Take your pick,” Slocum said from behind the stump of a cigar clenched in his mouth. “You can either consider my payment a show of good faith for putting up with your moaning for this long, or you can consider it a quick way to keep me from putting a bullet through your head just to rid myself of you.”
Jack’s smile was wide, but shaky. “I heard you talking to the chief, remember? You said you wouldn’t wanna shoot me.”
“I believe he said something along those lines. Not me.”
“Well, he also said you’re not the sort of man to just hand someone like me over to die. Killing me is even worse, ain’t it?”
“Funny, but it seemed so when I was talking to the chief. Now I’m not so sure.”
Jack’s smile had been wavering at first, but now that he was being pushed a little further, he was unable to keep it in place. Letting it go along with the breath that had been in his lungs, he reached beneath his shirt and pulled out some cash. “Fine,” he said while handing it over. “Take it. I don’t know if that’s all of it, but there you go.”
Slocum took the money and arranged the bills so they could be folded and tucked into his pocket. After studying Jack’s face for all of two seconds, he said, “You didn’t think I was going to take it, did you?”
“Not really. The offer was more of a show of good faith,” Jack replied, putting the emphasis on show.
Slocum said, “Tell me about the key.”
Jack eyed the money for as long as he could before admitting to himself that he wasn’t getting it back. “It unlocks a strongbox that’s buried in . . .” His eyes flicked to Slocum’s before snapping away again. “It’s buried somewhere safe.”
“Good place for a strongbox. Other than a bank, that is. Why’s it buried?”
“It belonged to my uncle. He did some work for a bunch of men in Texas.”
“Let me guess,” Slocum said. “Your uncle knew some outlaws or crooked politicians or maybe even stole the money himself and squirreled it away to keep it out of reach from men like the ones that are after you now.”
“You know my uncle?”
“Nope. I’ve just been to this dance a few times before.” From what he’d seen of Jack Halsey, Slocum had a fairly good read on the man. Once again, he could thank his poker instincts as well as a strong dose of common sense for that.
When Jack spoke about his uncle, it was quickly and comfortably. “My uncle’s name ain’t important,” he said, “but I will tell you he didn’t do more than four honest days’ work in his entire life. He was a crook, but he never did kill no one!”
“I never accused him of anything.”
Jack nodded sternly and looked at his feet while nudging a rock with his toe. “He was the man other crooks came to when they needed to hide their money or sell stolen property. Far as anyone in the family could figure, he was taking only a sliver of a percentage from those outlaws because he never seemed to get rich.”
“That’s probably how he managed to stay alive and in business for more than a year,” Slocum pointed out.
“That’s what we thought. He was an affable sort, too. Could charm a nun right out of her habit if he was so inclined. As it turned out, he was actually shaving off a little more of that money for himself and hiding it away.”
“He stole from outlaws?”
“Yep,” Jack replied. “Don’t know when it started, but he took a little here and a little there. He only told me about it once, and I still don’t fully understand the details of how he got paid or how he explained it to the men whose money it was. Something about making them believe he was paying out fake bribes or telling someone else about taxes or some other sort of fee that had to be paid which he never paid.”
Slocum chuckled. “Making up excuses to be fed to the men who were expecting their money to explain why there was a little less than what they’d been expecting. Not too bad if you can convince dangerous men that those fees are legitimate.”
“Well, if anyone could do that, it was my uncle. Nobody in the family asked about who gave him the money and he never seemed to have much of it anyway, so he was just another black sheep and we all went about our business. Then my uncle died.”
“How did he die?”
“What’s that matter?” Jack snapped.
“For a man in your uncle’s line of work, there’s a wide spectrum of ways he could meet his end. If it wasn’t as simple as breaking his neck when falling off his horse, that could mean someone found out what he’d been doing with that money over all those years. And considering our predicament of late, the men who discovered your uncle’s scam could very well be the ones that are out there looking to put you in their sights.”
“I suppose you got a point there.”
Obviously, Jack missed his uncle. Without dwelling on the morbid details, Slocum said, “So . . . the key?”
“Before my uncle died, he sent a letter telling me that if anything happened to him, I should go to a bank in Dallas and pick up another letter he left with a teller there. He died soon after, I went to Dallas, and there was the letter along with some money and that key. The second letter said there was a strongbox and that it was buried . . . well . . . it told me where it was buried and that I should take the money to divvy it out to the rest of the family. He said we shouldn’t make it common knowledge that we have it. Knowin’ my uncle the way me and my whole family does, we guessed where it came from. Since we ain’t exactly rich ourselves, it was not the time to start asking questions.
“I rode out to get to the strongbox when one of Oklahoma Bill’s gang found me and started chasing me across the whole damn state. Lucky for me, you and that sheriff found Oklahoma Bill. I continued along my way, made camp, and was attacked by those goddamn wolves. You know the rest of the story.”
“Sure I do. There’s only one piece I’m still missing.”
Jack sighed and kicked the rock he’d been nudging hard enough to send it sailing into the woods. “You want to know why I lied to you about the ring and all?”
“That’s the piece.”
“Because I could tell you weren’t the sort of man who’d be all fired up to help someone like me claim a bunch of money stolen by a disreputable uncle. There was all that talk about you ridin’ on that posse and the doctor trying to get you to sign on as a deputy. Still, I’m a fairly good judge of character, and it seemed like you weren’t ready to settle in Rocas Rojas. I needed someone to help me get that key. I inherited some of my uncle’s fast-talking skills, so I thought I could get you to take the job. Now that you know the truth, I’m guessing you’re ready to ride off and leave me at the mercy of these savages?”
Slocum dropped his cigar on the ground and crushed it beneath his boot. He then turned to Jack and said, “Maybe you’re not as good at judging character as you think.”
“So you wanna shoot me here and now?” Jack asked with a wince.
“All right. You’re a downright terrible judge of character. I may want to shoot you, but I’m not going to. At least not right this instant. As far as your uncle’s
money goes, I’d say he pulled off one hell of a trick to steal from thieves for as long as he did. One thing you should learn from him, though, is that deeds like that never fail to come back to bite you on the ass.”
“There was something to that effect in his letter.”
“Sounds to me like the men your uncle stole from were involved in fairly big jobs.”
“How do you know that?”
“Small jobs give robbers small amounts of money. It’s the kind of thing that they could just divvy up afterward or stick under a mattress for a while. Larger amounts need to be socked away with a little more efficiency. Either that or he worked with gangs that didn’t trust each other enough to split up the take themselves. Either way, I’d say your uncle was sitting on money taken from banks and payrolls and such.”
According to the puzzled expression on Jack’s face, that was all news to him. Since he’d just been thinking aloud, Slocum didn’t bother explaining any further. “I only bring it up because a lot of that money was probably already written off by whoever lost it. Your uncle’s sliver that he took wasn’t much of the pie and even less of it was put into that strongbox, so I don’t have any qualms with taking a piece for myself.”
“Oh,” Jack said, obviously disappointed in the fact that all of that talk ended up with his money still being taken. “I guess that’s something.”
“It means you had no reason to lie to me. More importantly, it means I’ll hold up my end of our arrangement.”
Now that did brighten his features. “You won’t leave me with these savages?”
“No. But you might want to do yourself a real big favor while you’re here.”
“What’s that, John?”
“Stop calling them savages.”
17
Dan, Young, and Karl worked their way along the Potrillos at a steady, deliberate pace. They weren’t about to let Jack slip through their fingers again. The three gunmen took turns at the front, where they could look for anything that might let them know they were still on the right trail. Once Slocum and Jack had met up with the larger group of horses, tracking them became even easier.
It didn’t take long for Dan to figure out the other group was made up of Indians. Compared to the shoes worn by other men’s horses or even the way in which those horses were ridden, an Indian stood out well enough. Judging by how easily many of those tracks blended with the environment or strayed from well-worn trails, Dan guessed the Indians were Apache. He’d done enough work hunting them for the Army or anyone else willing to pay for scalps to track the sons of bitches.
The trail went cold on higher terrain, but Dan picked it up again and followed it to a spot where there had been one hell of a fight. The three outlaws stopped there long enough to give their horses a rest, which allowed Karl to pick up the tracks leading away from all those bloodstained rocks, broken arrows, and bullet casings.
After that, the trail dwindled down to almost nothing. After a bit of searching, Dan motioned for the others to halt.
“I think I found something headed that way,” Karl said while waving to the east.
“You think or you know?” Dan asked.
“What difference does it make?”
“Because Halsey and Slocum are with a bunch of Apache. I’m sure of that now. They took some losses back at that spot where the fight was. Maybe even wound up with a few dead. That means they’re not anxious to get hit again and are probably watching for anyone trying to come along to finish them off. When Apache get wounded in a fight, it makes ’em worse than an animal that’s backed into a corner.”
“You don’t know they was Apache,” Karl scoffed.
“How many Apache have you hunted? How many have you killed?”
The squat man shut his mouth and pursed his lips, which made his head look even more disproportionately larger than a normal person’s.
“That’s what I thought,” Dan snarled. “Unless you got somethin’ useful to say, I don’t wanna hear another fucking word outta you. Understand?”
Following his orders to the letter, Karl merely nodded.
“What have you found?” Dan asked the other member of his group.
Young slid his hat back and gazed up at a darkening sky. “Not a lot and we’ll be able to find even less once the sun goes down. Think I may have seen some chips on those rocks that could mean a horse or two rode up into the mountains a ways. Can’t see much more from here.”
Dan looked up in that direction and nodded. “Apache tend to go for higher ground when they can.”
“Makes sense for just about anyone,” Karl said. When Dan looked over at him, the big fellow flinched like a scalded pup.
“Yes it does,” Dan replied, granting that Karl’s statement was worthy enough to go unpunished. “They’ve been cautious for several miles, so they could have sent some scouts up there to get a look at the terrain behind them. Or maybe they were looking for something else.”
“Like what?” Young asked.
Shifting in his saddle and closing his eyes to sort through his thoughts as the cooling air of an approaching desert night washed across his face, Dan said, “Like maybe they weren’t scouts as such, but guards.”
“What difference does that make?”
Before Dan could step in to put the bigger fellow back into his place, Young told him, “Scouts are looking for someone or watching a bunch of riders on the move. Guards are protecting something or someone that’s staying put.”
“Or a whole lot of someones,” Dan added.
“Like a camp?” Karl asked.
This time when Dan looked at the squat fellow, he seemed even less inclined to take a swing at him. “That’s right. Just like a camp. Those Apache had to come from somewhere, right? These mountains are the perfect spot for a bunch of Indians to set up shop and squat for a while. I recall a few tribes making their home in these parts at one time or another over the years.”
“You think you know where the camp is?” Young asked.
“Not as such, but I say we pick up the trail that comes down from that ridge and take it as far as we can until it gets too dark to see. First light comes, we keep going until we either catch up with that prick who’s got our money or get a look at where they’re holed up.”
The warning he’d been given to keep his mouth shut didn’t last long because Karl licked his chops excitedly when he said, “These mountains also make a good spot to bury a strongbox. There’s any number of spots where old man Halsey could have stuck it. Under some rocks, in a hole, in a cave . . .”
“You mean a cave like the one we found outside of Rocas Rojas?” Young asked.
“Hey!” the squat man with the big head wailed. “I wasn’t the one who kept riding before searching that spot as best we could!”
“The money wasn’t there,” Dan said. “If it was, Jack would have already parted ways with Slocum. Leastways, he wouldn’t have taken a ride through Apache country afterward. No, Halsey’s in them mountains. I’d stake my life on that.”
“You got anything more than a notion to back that up?”
“When me and Bill hit that Western Union stagecoach two years back, we brought the money to Diamondback Halsey in a little shack less than a day’s ride from here.”
“What?” Young bellowed. “Why the hell didn’t we just go to that damn shack to start with?”
“Because me and Bill tried going back there last spring and couldn’t even find the damn place. Besides that, the old man was a wily old cuss and never met us in the same spot twice in a row. Never met anyone in the same spot twice. That’s how come nobody ever found the bastard and took him for all he was worth during the sixteen years he was in business.” Dan shook his head and smiled as if mulling over a batch of fond memories. “He was a crafty one.”
“Still got caught,” Karl pointed out.
“It took five or six years of him working with every gang south of the Mason-Dixon Line before anyone even got suspicious that he was doing anything mor
e than watching over saddlebags or sacks full of stolen gold until the men who stole it could stop running or got out of jail long enough to claim it. Even when they got suspicious, nobody could prove a damn thing until the very end.”
“You don’t sound too upset by all of that,” Young said.
Dan shrugged and allowed his face to revert back into its normal, gruff demeanor. “Thieves stealing from thieves ain’t exactly new. I wouldn’t expect any less. And just because we’re one step closer to getting our hands on that cash don’t mean we’re about to ride into greener pastures. Word spreads about Diamondback Halsey’s stash and there’ll be blood in the water. Lots of men will lay claim to that money and most of ’em have every right. That’s why we got to get to it, and now’s not the time to slip up.”
“You think this’ll get messy?” Karl asked.
Young nodded once. “It’ll get bloody as hell.”
Dan pointed his horse toward the ridge that had been singled out and snapped his reins. “Wouldn’t expect any less.”
18
There was even more to the feast than Slocum could have hoped. After spending the better part of two days being sustained by trail rations of dried oats and jerked meat washed down by gritty coffee, the food prepared by the Apache women was above and beyond his wildest expectations. After a while, he stopped asking what the food was and just handed his appetite over to his instincts. If it smelled good, he tried some. If he liked it, he ate some more. There were things that were familiar and a few that were new to him. There was even a strange kind of sausage that Slocum had never seen in a meal prepared by any Indian tribe. It was good, though, so he ate it.
As the night wore on, the fire was stoked to cast longer shadows of the Apache dancing around it. Their singing lasted for hours. When one set of throats became tired, another set took its place. By the end of the night, every member of the tribe had taken their turn dancing. Every time Nitika was drawn into the circle, Slocum was there to watch.
She had a warm, often hesitant smile. Nitika was bashful whenever the festivities singled her out, but there was no reason for her to be hesitant. Her long tunic clung to her in just the right way for Slocum to get an idea of the curves beneath it. Her hair swayed around a perfectly rounded face, and more often than not, her dark, amber-colored eyes drifted toward him. Even when the sky had become inky black and the stars shone like polished gems, the dancing continued. Resisting the many hands that tried to keep her in the circle of dancers, she pulled away and walked over to Slocum.