Slocum and the Apache Campaign

by Jake Logan

  They reached Fort Bowie by mid-afternoon and red-faced First Sergeant Troy McCabe was stalking the scout camp. “Where in hell’ve you been and where did you get all this crap?”

  Slocum rode into the middle of the shouting. “Sarge, they’ve been on a special tour for the colonel.”

  “Colonel, my ass, Slocum. General Crook’s ready to hit the trail for Mexico and ain’t a scout in camp when I needed ’em.”

  “Let’s just say—General Diaz ain’t making another raid over the border.”

  Hands on his hips, the big man scowled up at Slocum. “You and these gawdamn scouts took that bandit and his bunch out?”

  “That ain’t for newspapers. But Diaz is in the fires of hell.”

  “His gang too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Shit fire, that’s different. You scouts get ready. The old man is itching to get going come first light.”

  “We be ready,” Chewy said and rode off for his wickiup, leading six laden horses.

  “Where’s Chako? Who else?” The noncom frowned and swiveled around as the others scattered in the junipers.

  “Bee Tree and Chako. They ain’t coming back.”

  “Aw, hell. You going up to see the old man?”

  “I better.”

  “Damn right you better.”

  His report to Woolard took over an hour. He finished with a request for his pay and release.

  “I can imagine you’re worn out. But I wish you’d reconsider staying on awhile longer. Crook may end this damn war once and for all,” Woolard said.

  “Good. Save some lives. I’d like to request my pay anyway.”

  “We can do that in the morning. Maybe you’ll reconsider. Getting that damn bandit Diaz down there where we could never have gone without an incident is a miracle.”

  “No, those scouts did it to even the score.”

  “I’m sorry about Chako. You counted on that boy.”

  Slocum nodded and shook the man’s hand. “I’ll be here in the morning for my pay, sir.”

  “I’ll authorize it. May God go with you man.”

  “He might not approve of those places.”

  They both laughed.

  After he left the headquarters, he found the washerwoman Big Madge as the sun dipped low on the Dragoons.

  She looked him over and laughed. “Hell, you’re crusted all over with two inches of dirt and ten pounds of horseshit.”

  “A bath, a shave and less talk.”

  “I got your other set of clean clothes.”

  “Good.”

  “Well, get you ass in here.” She swept back the tent flap. “Water’s hot.”

  He glanced as the orange ball of the sun descended. It had been over forty-eight hours since he’d slept. No wonder he was so numb. Clean, shaved, dressed in fresh clothes—he paid her and went to make camp by the springs. When he reached the spot where they always camped, he dismounted the big stout Morgan horse and picked at the still wet leathers of the cinch.

  “Give me hobbles,” the short Indian woman said in the darkness, holding out her hand.

  Slocum shook his head and stepped over to undo the flap on his saddlebags. He drew them out and handed them to her with a rue-filled headshake. He knew who she was as she bent down to put them on the big horse—Chewy’s wife.

  The saddle undone, he jerked it and the Navajo blankets from the Morgan’s back. She slipped the bridle off standing on her toes and then nodded to him. From her pocket she produced a slap of jerky and stuck it in his mouth before he could tell her to go.

  He was too damn tired to argue. Besides, the jerky tasted fresh and not so hard it threatened to break his teeth. Not bad jerky, he decided, with the saddle on its horn and her spreading out his bedroll. Last thing he could recall that night before he passed out was shoving his dick as hard as he could into her and his testicles crying out for help when he came inside her.

  Day was a purple promise when he caught the Morgan and led him to the spring. When he’d been watered, Slocum gave him a feedbag of corn and saddled him for the ride up to headquarters.

  At the hitch rack he smelled the cigar smoke. Under his black felt hat, Nantan Lupan rose off the canvas chair and came to the edge of the porch. “Woolard told me you were leaving. And not saying a word to me.”

  “Sorry, General. I figured we’d talked all we needed the last time.”

  “Maybe . . .” Crook took a drag off his cigar and blew out the smoke. “How tough is this Caliche?”

  “I doubt he comes out of those mountains alive.”

  Crook stood on edge at the porch and looked at Apache Peak, gilded in gold by the sun. “Damn, I wish you hadn’t said that. Means he’s going to be tough to dig out.”

  Slocum nodded and started up the steep steps. “Wish I could help you.”

  “No, you don’t. You’ve had a bellyful of bad water, wormy rations and hard ground for a bed. I get tired of owing you for things like Diaz that the army can’t seem to handle. But I’d feel ten times better if you went to Mexico with my forces.”

  “I ain’t over losing Chako.”

  Crook looked back at the peak. “I understand. Just keep your head down.”

  “I will,” Slocum said and went inside.

  The officer of the day paid him a hundred and ten pesos for his pay and sixty dollars more for expenses. Slocum saluted him and picked up his money.

  “Who gets Chako’s pay? He have any kin?”

  “Oh, yes.” Slocum grinned. “Give it to Chewy’s wife. She’s his closest kin.”

  “Good.”

  “Not to Chewy.”

  “No, to his wife.”

  With a wave, Slocum was out the door and on the porch. General Crook was gone; only the strong smell of his cigar still lingered in the cool air. Soldiers, mule trains—the parade ground was packed with braying, cursing and the dust of many men and their animals preparing for a campaign against the broncos in the Madres.

  He felt a knot behind his tongue over not going along when he turned the Morgan eastward. Be a helluva campaign—might be the last one too.

  20

  He arrived in Bowie at midday and went in Jenks’s store. He came from the back. “You get the word?”

  Slocum shook his head. “What word?”

  “Someone kidnapped Mary yesterday.”

  “Someone?”

  “Yes.” Jenks swallowed hard. “He rode in and grabbed her as she was leaving the schoolhouse and rode off with her over his lap. A couple of her students saw him do it.”

  “They know who he was?”

  Jenks shook his head. “Brown horse and not much else they could tell me. I sent word to the fort last night.”

  “You have any law here?”

  “Just the part-time marshal. He don’t have a horse. And the sheriff is in Tucson.”

  “Hasn’t anyone done anything?”

  “I sent word to the colonel last night.”

  “Well, he never got it. I just came from there. Which way did the kidnapper go?”

  “West, the boys said.”

  “I’ll go out there and look for tracks. Damn, I wish there was someone else we could get word to about this.”

  “Want me to go with you? Several wanted to go after him, but they don’t have horses either.”

  “No. I can’t find her, no one can. Damn—damn. How late yesterday?”

  “Four o’clock.”

  “He’s got a good head start. Give me some cornmeal/brown sugar mix, jerky, twenty pounds of horse corn and some hard candy.”

  When he started to dig out the money, Jenks waved it away. “It’s our fault. We should have watched her closer. But we never expected—”

  “Wasn’t an Indian that took her?”

  “No, he was white, those boys were certain.”

  Slocum gathered up the poke and the small sack of corn for the horse. “Send word to the sheriff to be on the lookout anyway.”

  “How can we help?” Jenks asked, sounding
defeated.

  Slocum looked hard at him for an answer, then at last said, “Pray.”

  “We will, and for you too.”

  “I’ll sure need it,” Slocum said and left the store.

  At the adobe schoolhouse, two young boys joined him as he tried to decipher the tracks in the dust.

  “You going after Miss Harbor’s kidnapper?”

  “Yes. You boys see him?”

  “Ah, sí, señor,” the Mexican boy said. “He was a malo hombre and hurt her and she bit him. Oh, she was el gato bronco, but he was stronger.”

  “He have a beard?”

  The boys looked at each other and then shrugged. “But he wore a suit, a dusty brown one and a floppy hat,” the other boy said.

  Who wore a suit? A brown one. Oh, well, he probably wouldn’t know who he was anyway. One thing, they had a struggle and he took her off. He gave each boy a piece of hard candy, swung up and set in to follow the few tracks he had. The worst time in his life not to have an Apache tracker—Chako or Chewy would already be in a long lope in their moccasins on his trail. All he could do was glance down as he rode and hope he had the right set.

  A mile west in some tall mesquites, he found a horse pile where the kidnapper had kept a second horse waiting, hitched to a tree. There he must have transferred her to the second one. Back in the saddle, Slocum followed the trail—Dos Cabasos lay ahead. A mining community. Chances might be he went through there. He short-loped the Morgan. He needed to take a chance and not step-by-step follow the pair, to cut down on the distance between him and them.

  He didn’t want to think about her spending all night with this thug. Powerful horse under him, he could cut down the time—if he hadn’t wrongly guessed the outlaw’s direction of travel.

  When he drew close to the small business district of a few stores and a post office, he stopped to ask a bearded miner.

  “A man pass through here yesterday with an attractive women?”

  “Hell, mister, I ain’t seen an attractive woman since I left Cripple Creek nine months ago.” The man giggled at his own words.

  Slocum thanked him and went on to the shabby-looking building marked BAR. He dismounted and hitched the Morgan at the rack. There was no door. Four men turned around at the bar and showed their whiskered faces to him. All were dressed like miners and wore lots of dust. They looked him over inspectively.

  “I’m looking for man with an attractive woman. He would have rode through here yesterday about sundown.”

  “Naw, it was near dark. He didn’t stay long. Bought some grub across the street. Drew a gun on some guy asked why she was gagged and tied in the saddle.” The miner shook his head. “Lucky he’s still alive. We all wondered about her. But none of us had horses to go after ’em.”

  “Which way they head?”

  “Down the valley. South.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Mister, you the law?”

  Slocum paused in the doorway. “I guess.”

  “Sure hope you find her. He’s a tough one. Watch out.”

  “You ever see him before?”

  “Yeah,” another said, scratching his chin whiskers. “I seen him at the stage stop at Benson.”

  “You hear his name?”

  “Spade, I think.”

  “How about Jed Slade?”

  “Yeah, that’s who he was. Jed Slade.”

  Slocum shook his head and thanked the man. Slade had her and he was headed south. Several Mormons down the valley had farms. They wouldn’t tell him much—unless he found an angry polygamous wife by herself. She might. He pushed on, the sun hanging low over the Dragoons; he’d need to make as much ground as he could before sundown.

  So Slade came back and got her. Must have heard about her or found her by chance—no telling. The fact he had her made it that much more urgent Slocum find them.

  He stopped at a windmill and a tank to water the Morgan. The skeleton of a house was going up, with the fresh-cut framework standing. No one was about, so he watered and grained the gelding and then spread out his bedroll. Some jerky for his meal, he turned in and slept a few hours. When the moon came up, he awoke, rolled up his pallet, tossed his saddle on the Morgan and started down the valley.

  Sunup he was riding by a place and saw a woman coming from a pen with a milk bucket. He turned the Morgan up the lane and nodded to her as he approached. She set down her pail and swept the loose strands of curled brown hair from her face.

  “Ma’am. Did a man and woman ride by here yesterday?”

  She blinked and used her hand for a shield from the sun. “I don’t know.”

  “They were riding horses and he had her hands tied.”

  “Why?”

  “He kidnapped her.”

  She dropped her gaze and shook her head.

  “Thanks.” He started to rein the Morgan around.

  “She your woman?”

  “No, she’s a schoolmarm up at Bowie.”

  “They rode through here yesterday about noon.”

  “You didn’t see them?” Slocum frowned at her.

  “My husband did—”

  “He tell you?”

  “Yeah, when he came by to get my butter and eggs, he mentioned he saw a couple on his way out. He noticed her hands were tied to the saddle horn.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. You had breakfast?”

  “No.”

  “I can make some if you’ve got time.”

  “I reckon I have time for that.”

  She smiled as if pleased. “Good. I can sure use some company.”

  “Your husband was here yesterday,” he chided her.

  “I told you why he was here—get my eggs and butter. He wasn’t here twenty minutes.”

  “Cash crop?”

  When she turned back in the doorway, her blue eyes narrowed. “And he’s got him a new wife about sixteen.”

  “How many of you are there?” He paused to wash his hands.

  “Four now.”

  “He tell you who that man on the road was?”

  “Nope, ’cept it was strange she was tied. I figured she was some runaway wife and the guy went and got her back.”

  He dried his hands on the cotton-sack towel hanging there. “You considered doing it?”

  “Where would I go?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “No, it ain’t. I ain’t got a rig to drive out of here. No money. Not even a horse worth killing to ride. Where would I go? Work in some brothel in Tombstone?”

  “Sorry,” he said, seeing she was close to tears.

  Not looking at him, she sniffed and busied herself on the range. “It’s hell when you can’t carry a baby full-term. See, all mine have died.”

  He nodded. “I see.”

  “No, you don’t. Makes me fourth on the list. Now he has that new sister, she’ll keep him busy.”

  “Anything I can do?”

  She glanced back at him and then shook her head as if she’d changed her mind. “I just needed someone to complain to.”

  Eggs began to sizzle, and the aroma of her bacon spread to his nose. “Complain away. I can listen. Your cooking smells lovely.”

  “You aren’t Mormon, are you?”

  “Not even a jack one. Why?”

  “Good,” she said. “I met Hiram—Oh, I was so dumb. A real man, not a boy, finally was paying me attention. He had a neat buggy and buggy horse and took me for picnics. Oh, he had me spellbound.”

  She put the plate of eggs and bacon before him then used a potholder to draw out a half a pan of biscuits. “My mother warned me. Said older men were fine, but sometimes a young one would hang on longer. I wished I’d listened.”

  “You come from a polygamous family?”

  “No. My mother and father were in love. I realize that now. Hiram Duncan ain’t never been in love in his life, unless it was with himself.”

  “Good food,” he said and nodded to the biscuit in his hand.

 
She smiled for the first time and her eyes sparkled. “You mean that?”

  “Hey, I don’t say many things I don’t mean.”

  “You love this girl?”

  “No, she’s a victim. I found her in the desert six weeks ago after this man had tried to attack her. She escaped that time.”

  “Maybe she will this time.”

  “Maybe she will. I hope so. She came out here to teach, not to be abducted by someone as worthless as Jed Slade.”

  She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Hiram never said that’s who it was.”

  “He knows Slade?”

  “Of course. He’s done business with him before.”

  His breakfast finished, he leaned back in the wooden chair and nodded. Slade had done lots of business in the Mormon community. His financiers for the gun deal were over at Saint David, the other settlement of saints on the San Pedro.

  She straightened her back, so her breasts pushed at the dress material, and rubbed her hands on her legs under the table. The uncomfortable look on her face and the fact she chewed on her lower lip made him wonder for a moment what she wanted.

  Then she began to unbutton her dress. “I don’t have the body of a sixteen-year-old. But—Oh, dear God,” she whispered and flung her arms around him.

  A while later he swung his bare legs off the bed, rose and began to dress. “I have to find her.”

  “I . . . I understand,” she said and swept up a wash-worn robe to wrap tight around her. Holding it hard to her body, she laughed. “Otherwise I’d tie your hands and make you stay here.’

  “I may pass this way again.”

  “Funny, isn’t it—I mean, we made love and I don’t even know your name.”

  “Slocum.”

  “Alma, Alma Duncan.”

  “Alma Duncan, you beat any sixteen-year-old I’ve ever known.”

  She rushed over and hugged him. “Horseman, don’t you ever ride by and not stop.”

  “I promise I won’t.”