by Jake Logan
“So,” Slocum said as he stepped forward. “You’ve got a name.”
“And you’ve got a gun,” the wild man said. “He’s got a gun! Both of ’em do! They wanna shoot me!”
“Shut the hell up,” Buck said. “We got our guns because these lawmen are gonna hang you anyway and probably don’t give a damn whether we shoot you or not.”
“You got that right,” Krueger bellowed from the next room.
Grinning, Slocum said, “You’re Mick Doubrey?”
The prisoner didn’t respond, but there was a faint glimmer of recognition in his eyes.
“You wanna tell me why you killed those men?” Slocum asked.
“I had to eat,” Doubrey replied.
“Good Lord,” Buck growled as his hand came to rest upon his holstered pistol.
Slocum’s eyes narrowed. “Did you make that weapon you were carrying?”
“Had to honor the beast or it would get me,” Doubrey said in a shaky voice. “Had to feed it. Keep it happy.”
After just a few words came from Doubrey’s mouth, Slocum knew it would be folly to try and make sense of them. He wasn’t quite ready to write off his visit to the sheriff’s office as a complete loss, however. “Were you trying to be the beast?” Seeing that the crazy man had drifted into his own world, Slocum pounded his hand against the bars to rattle him back to the present. “Is that it? You wanted to be another Beast of Fall Pass?”
“No,” Doubrey said with a hint of a smile beneath his unruly beard. “No, no no no no.”
“Then why dress like it? Why kill like it?”
“So I could kill like me. So I could be the man my momma raised.”
“He’s a bloodthirsty animal,” Buck said. “And he wanted to be able to spill as much blood as he wanted without having to answer for it. Ain’t that right, you piece of trash?”
Despite what Buck was saying or the contempt with which he said it, Doubrey looked at him as if he’d found a kindred spirit. “That’s right. You understand.”
“Sorry that I do understand.” Looking to Slocum, Buck added, “If he kills and makes it look like an animal did it, nobody will come after him. Men like me won’t hunt him down.”
“And if a group of hunters comes along,” Doubrey said while glaring at Slocum, “he won’t be ready for no man. I almost got you, bastard son of a bitch. Almost gutted you.”
“I’ve had enough of this,” Buck said. “We can’t believe anything that comes out of his mouth anyhow.” After saying that, Buck turned his back on the others and left the room.
Slocum didn’t have to watch to know that the bounty hunter hadn’t gone far.
“What about the skins?” Slocum asked.
“Oh, I skinned some of them folks all right,” Doubrey wheezed through a wicked smile. “Skinned ’em, chopped ’em, fucked ’em, licked ’em!”
Having sat at more than his share of poker tables, Slocum knew when someone was posturing. Coming from anyone else, Doubrey’s vulgar words would have seemed almost laughable. But from the mouth of a lunatic, the claims weren’t just disturbing. It was entirely possible they were true.
Refusing to react the way the other man wanted, Slocum said, “You were out there for how long?”
“Sixty lifetimes, asshole!”
“Answer my question or I’ll shoot you in a dozen different places that’ll hurt you so badly you’ll pray for death. I wager I can keep you alive for at least a day or two in that condition. Even if I’m half right, that should make for one hell of a show.”
Unlike the string of obscenities spewed by Doubrey, Slocum’s words were spoken as if they were gospel. They struck the prisoner with a sobering effect, wiping the filthy grin off his face entirely.
“My . . . my skins?” Doubrey asked.
Slocum removed the lethal edge from his voice as quickly as if he’d thrown a switch. “The skins you were wearing when we found you. Where did you get them?”
“I . . . killed one of them . . . one of them things.”
“What thing? Was it the beast we were looking for?”
Doubrey nodded. “There used to be two of ’em. One was old. He was injured. Got hisself stuck in a trap. I found him and . . . and shot him in the face. Even wounded and me havin’ a gun . . . that animal still damn near took my head off.”
“What is it?”
“I . . .” Shaking his head, Doubrey ran his hand along the bars of his cage. “I think it’s a devil. Or a demon. Maybe his angel wings were bitten off and his . . . his . . .”
Recognizing that Doubrey was slipping into his own world and not sure he could pull him back, Slocum leaned forward to stare at him as though he truly cared whether or not the savage lived or died. “How long were you out in those woods, Mick?”
Doubrey blinked and looked at Slocum earnestly. Perhaps hearing his more familiar name spoken in a civil tone was a welcome change. It was just as likely that whatever whispers he was hearing in his head had just chosen that moment to let up. Either way, he seemed to be focused on Slocum and relatively docile when he replied, “Years. I . . . don’t know how many. There were some winters and . . . and some summers so . . . so it had to be years.”
“And there were how many of those beasts out there with you?”
“Two. Then . . . then just the one.”
“And you managed to stay alive. Was the other one frightened of you?”
Doubrey laughed once, which sounded more like a breathy hiccup. The laughter that followed shook his chest and shoulders without amounting to much apart from a grating string of wheezing grunts. “I’d never believe a monster like that would be afraid of any damn thing, and I’m the one that was rollin’ around in the woods.”
“So how did you keep away from the other one? It was the skins, wasn’t it?”
When he let go of the bars, Doubrey staggered backward as if he was somehow falling toward the back wall of his cell. “It was . . . the stench. That’s how I found the one that was hurt. That’s how I found the old man in the traps.”
“Old man? You mean the beast. The male?”
Doubrey’s nod was barely there, but it could be seen. Much like the man who’d given it. “I’d walked all the way from a trading post in Canada. Thought I was gonna die. Knew it. Spoke to it. Then I smelled it.”
Trying to keep up with the wild man’s babbling was a strain on Slocum’s ears as well as his head. With some effort, he was able to recognize when Doubrey shifted from one track to another. He tried to nudge him back in the direction he wanted him to go by asking, “You could smell the beast?”
“Anyone with a nose on their damn face could smell it. I thought I was smellin’ the angel o’ death. Maybe . . . maybe I was.” With a blink, he suddenly looked like a regular person who’d simply fallen on bad days. “Them woods are close to warm houses and a town where I could slip in to get what I needed on occasion. There was warm spots to sleep and plenty o’ water in that stream.”
“You liked it there.”
“I did. So did them beasts. I skinned the one I shot. Damn near keeled over from the stench. You think they’re putrid on the outside? Heh. Try cuttin’ one open and peeling them like a potato.”
“I can imagine,” Slocum said through a forced smile. He didn’t like playing along with the madman, but it seemed to be gaining him some ground.
“I thought, maybe if I smelled like one of ’em, the other wouldn’t come after me like it came after them others.”
“What others?”
“The other folks that rode down Fall Pass,” Doubrey said. “I found some of ’em when I was passing through. Horses were killed and torn up just as bad as the men that had been in the saddles. Hell . . . even the saddles were torn up. A wagon was upended sometime after . . . or was it before? Anyhow, it was pulled apart along with the team and folks on their way to .
. . wherever they was goin’.”
“That’d be the Coulsen family,” Sheriff Krueger said from the doorway. “They were killed . . .”
Slocum motioned for the lawman to keep quiet. “So the skin kept you alive,” he said, prodding Doubrey to keep talking in the right direction.
“Yeah,” the killer replied. Soon the clarity in his eyes faded, and his beard shifted as his lips curled upward to bare an incomplete set of crooked brown teeth. “But it won’t keep you alive, nor anyone else who finds themselves lookin’ into that thing’s eyes. You and them others took my skins away and tossed ’em into the water. Thought it was real funny, didn’t you? Who’s laughin’ now, you son of a bitch?”
Perhaps sensing how close Slocum was to drawing his Remington, the sheriff stepped forward and grabbed his shoulder. “That’s enough of that,” Krueger said. “No more visitors.”
“Where did you find the old man?” Slocum asked as he struggled to keep from being dragged from the cramped room. “The male beast that was wounded. The one you shot in the head. Where did you find it?”
“It ain’t there no more, you dumb bastard!” Doubrey wailed. He would have said more, but a wheezing fit doubled him over.
“I’ll find it and bring its head back to show you. Just bet me that I won’t!”
Throwing himself at the bars, Doubrey said, “It’ll kill you. She’ll kill you!”
“The hell she will. I’ll find that spot and show you. Tell me where it is!”
“You’ll die,” the wild man shouted. “Just go two miles west of Fall Pass and half that north. Be my guest, you damn fool! You’ll die in them woods because you ain’t got my skins to protect you. Rot in hell, bastard cocksucking whore!”
Doubrey’s mind had completely derailed this time, and it would be a while before he could be much use to anyone. Slocum stopped struggling with the sheriff and allowed himself to be removed from the room, where he was then shoved toward the front door of the office.
“I knew I shouldn’t have let you two in there,” the lawman said. “Once he gets all riled up, he’s impossible for a good hour or two.”
“I appreciate your time, Sheriff.”
Doubrey was still shouting in the next room. His voice was strained so much that his words were barely recognizable above the grating wheezes he spewed.
Buck stood across the street, leaning against a post outside a butcher’s shop. When he reached into his pocket, he flipped open his jacket to show the gun he wore.
“You want to draw on me right here?” Slocum asked. “Go right ahead. I doubt anyone will do much of anything until after the smoke’s cleared.”
Moving his hands a bit slower, Buck reached into his pocket, pulled a dented cigarette case from where it had been stored, and opened it. “Care for one?” he asked.
Slocum waved him off and started walking down the street.
The bounty hunter fell into step beside him. “Did you accomplish anything back there, or did you just want to make life difficult for that sheriff and his deputies?”
“I learned plenty,” Slocum said. “As far as giving those lawmen something to listen to for a while . . . that was icing on the cake.”
“Figured as much. I thought things might go smoother once I was outside.”
“Did you? Was that your big plan?”
“Not really,” Buck said as he placed a cigarette between his lips and struck a match on another post as he passed it by. “But I was hoping that was the case after I left. Tracking you down hasn’t been easy, Slocum. Along the way, I’ve had to deal with a lot of men talking tough and spouting off. Guess it gets under my skin after a while.”
“Then you’re in the wrong line of work.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been wound up pretty tight since I put my father into the ground.”
Slocum stopped and wheeled around to face him. “I told you once and I’ll only say it one more time. I didn’t kill Max Oberman. The fact that you’re taking the word of a known killer over mine is a damn insult.”
“Wasn’t just one man who pointed a finger at you. There were a few.”
“Like who?”
“A few men on that posse,” Buck replied. “As well as a few of the men who rode with Deke Saunders.”
“When we were attacked, it was at the worst possible moment while trying to clean up the rest of that gang,” Slocum said. “We were bottlenecked, flanked, and outgunned at the one spot in our ride when we were most vulnerable. The only way for that to happen was if someone told those shooters where we’d be and when to expect us. That could have been any one of those men you spoke to. I didn’t have anything to gain from what happened.”
“And why would they all lie to me?”
“Why else? Because they didn’t want to hang!” Slocum shook his head and walked off. “This is why I left town. There’s no talking to you. You been through enough already, and I don’t want to kill you, but I will if you keep pushing this with me. Do what you’ve got to do. From now on, I forget about the past and deal with you the way I would with any other son of a bitch who takes a shot at me.”
“What if it was your father who was gunned down?” Buck asked. “How far would you go to make certain the man who pulled the trigger got what was coming to him?”
“Pretty damn far, but only if I was certain I was after the right man.”
After just a few more steps, Buck caught up to Slocum and said, “That’s what I’m doing.”
“I said my piece,” Slocum grunted. “You’ll hear it or you won’t.”
After a few seconds, Buck asked, “What did you get from that prisoner?”
“A good idea of where to find this beast and what to expect when we do.”
“I still think finding that tracker, Abner Woodley, is a good place to start.”
“So do I.”
“I can help,” Buck said. “I may not know this area or much about this beast, but I can track a man through damn near any kind of terrain. You give me a few things to go on and I can make short work of it.”
Slocum stopped and studied the other man. “What if I could tell you where to pick up Abner’s trail as well as which direction he was probably headed?”
“If I can’t find him by the end of the day, I should be able to get awfully close.”
“He may be hurt. Or dead.”
“That makes my job even easier,” Buck replied with a smirk.
Shaking his head in aggravation, Slocum continued to walk toward the stable where his horse was being kept. “This is why I don’t care for bounty hunters. They’re as ghoulish as they are cold-blooded.”
“Is that why? I figured it might be due to the fact that you’re wanted for more than a few hanging offenses yourself.”
“There’s that, too.”
22
Slocum felt like he could make the ride out to Fall Pass in his sleep, so he took it at a full gallop. The only thing that he allowed himself to worry about along the way was whether or not Buck would try to put a bullet in his back. He didn’t concern himself with the beast just yet. After everything he’d heard and seen, Slocum knew that if he was attacked by that thing, he wouldn’t see it coming and probably wouldn’t feel much when it hit.
They reached the spot where Slocum and the Beasley brothers had started their original hunt. He dismounted and quickly found the place where the bodies of Edgar Fuller and Dave Anderson had been discovered. Pointing to where some of the bushes alongside the trail had been stamped down, Slocum said, “Here’s where Abner’s trail should start. Have at it.”
Buck climbed down from his saddle and slid his hat farther back upon his head to clear his field of vision. “You keep watch while I have a look.”
“Gladly.”
So far, Slocum hadn’t parted with much as far as what he’d learned from what Doubrey told him. If Wo
mack had offered Buck an amount of money that the bounty hunter wouldn’t want to split, Slocum wasn’t about to give him enough to complete the job on his own. Of course, there would come a time where Slocum would have to tell Buck something in order to move things along at an acceptable pace.
“Slocum! Come over here and bring the gear.”
Having already unloaded the things they would need, Slocum hefted a saddlebag over one shoulder and carried his rifle into the woods. The horses were already tethered and seemed to be almost as familiar with Fall Pass as he was.
“What did you find?” Slocum asked.
“Whole lot of tracks. Some of them fresher than others. Looks like at least three men came through here not too long ago.”
“That would have been me and the other two who brought in Doubrey.”
“Then that means this set of tracks,” Buck said while focusing his gaze on the ground a bit farther away from where he’d started, “most likely belongs to the man we’re after. Makes sense since they were covered up pretty well.”
Slocum approached the bounty hunter, but made sure not to trample on the ground that was under Buck’s scrutiny. “They were covered?”
“Yep. They were made at the same time as these here, which fall under the fresher ones. I’m guessing the man we’re after set down a false trail and those two you brought along fell for it hook, line, and sinker.”
“How can you be sure about all of that?” Slocum asked.
“Because it’s the sort of thing I would do.”
“I guess I don’t see why Abner would cover his tracks if he was hunting a wild animal.”
Buck wiped a bit of sweat from his brow. “The man in that jail cell wasn’t an animal. He might have followed Abner’s tracks if he knew he was hunting him. Also, was there any sort of reward being offered for the capture of this beast?”
“You know damn well there is.”
“Sounds like two good reasons for Abner to cover his tracks. Either protecting himself from a wild man or keeping someone from taking his prize away. Those tracks lead away from here, but they’re mighty hard to follow. It could save a whole lot of time if you knew where he might be headed.”