Slocum and the Texas Twister

by Jake Logan

  They rode in silence until Slocum saw a decent spot for an ambush. The flat countryside didn’t provide much cover but the road went down into a ravine, with dirt embankments on either side. Get a rider below and they could get the drop on him.

  “I’ll take the far side. You have a rifle?”

  Slocum shook his head. He had been lucky enough to get the horse from Underwood. He reached back and made sure the mail bags still rode over his saddlebags. The supplies Wilson had taken from Fort Stockton’s mess hall were half gone now, but Slocum didn’t bother getting rid of any extra weight. The paint walked along stolidly, but should he have to give chase, the horse wasn’t up for a long gallop, or even a shorter one. The old horse was steady, not frisky.

  With luck, there wouldn’t be any need for pursuit.

  “I’ll get as far down the hillside as I can,” Slocum said, drawing his Colt and brandishing it. “Your carbine’s the only long gun we have to do the job.”

  “And a carbine’s not much for long-range shooting. It’ll be better than a handgun, though.” Wilson touched the pistol holstered butt-forward at his right hip.

  They didn’t have much firepower. They had to depend on surprise.

  “We need to find where they took the children,” Slocum said. “Might be good we don’t have better weapons.”

  “It’s never better,” Wilson said sourly. “Always better to outgun your enemy, even if you don’t have to use it.” He put his heels to his horse and galloped down the incline and across the road. His horse struggled up the embankment, then the sergeant disappeared from sight.

  Slocum had to rely on the noncom’s expertise. From all he had seen and heard from Wilson, there wouldn’t be any trouble on the far side of the draw. He found a spot to tether his horse, then worked down the hillside to a point where his six-gun would be useful in stopping the Terwilligers as they rode past.

  He expected to have a wait. The two riders trotting through the draw so soon surprised him. Slocum drew his six-shooter and cocked it, taking a bead on the lead rider.

  “Stop! Reach for the sky!”

  He didn’t know where Wilson was, and it might be possible the sergeant hadn’t gotten into position yet, but Slocum saw no way he could wait. The two men looked around frantically. One went for his six-gun; the other obeyed.

  Slocum shot the man going for his pistol. The Terwilliger slumped forward, and Slocum made a mistake of trying to get a second round into the man. He missed, giving the other brother the chance to drag out his own hogleg. The air filled with white smoke as the three of them began firing. Slocum emptied his Colt, stopped to reload, and found himself scrambling for cover as lead tore through the air all around him. Worse, he couldn’t see which of the men was firing at him because the draw held the gunsmoke as surely as any chimney.

  When he heard the sergeant’s carbine bark, he knew the fight was theirs to lose. Hastily reloading, he kicked out and slid down the hill past the worst of the smoke and crashed into a rock near the bottom. Horses’ hooves kicked up a fuss. Slocum had no compunction about shooting at the Terwilligers’ mounts. One slug nicked a forelock, causing the horse to rear and throw its rider. Slocum took aim and squeezed off a shot, only to hear the hammer strike a dud. He quickly cocked the six-gun again but the fallen Terwilliger rolled away. His horse pawed the air and prevented Slocum from getting a good shot. He squeezed off another round. Another dud.

  Cursing, he wondered if he was doomed to die because all the cartridges he had loaded were duds. The ebony-handled pistol bucked reassuringly in his hand as he fired a third time, but the slug only added to the confusion, not the destruction.

  And then there was only silence.

  “Wilson, you hit either of them?”

  “Not sure. You?”

  “Winged one. Shot his horse, too.” Slocum dropped onto the road and went into a crouch, looking around to be sure he wasn’t on the receiving end of the death he had tried to mete out.

  Duck walking to the fallen outlaw, he cursed his bad luck. Before he had wanted to kill the man. Then he hoped to take a prisoner to find out where the girls were. Now he saw he had achieved his first goal. There was a bloody wound in the man’s shoulder—the first time he had found a target. Whether it was another of his shots or one Wilson had taken to end the outlaw’s life with a bullet that had gone clean through his head didn’t matter. He wasn’t interested in counting coup or putting notches on his six-gun handle.

  “One’s dead. You got the other one?” Slocum called to the sergeant. He heard rocks cascading downhill, and in a few seconds Wilson stood beside him, clutching his short-barreled carbine.

  “Don’t know where he got off to,” Wilson said. He knelt, plucked the pistol from the dead man’s hand, and jammed it into his broad leather belt. “You might find his horse and see if he’s got a rifle you can take. He’s not gonna use it anymore.”

  “I want the other brother,” Slocum said. He prowled the narrow draw and found the tracks coming in. Then he saw a single set of hoofprints leading back. They hadn’t killed the other outlaw but had spooked him into running.

  “Here’s his horse. You shot him in the leg. Don’t think there’s anything we can do for him, ’cept one thing,” Wilson said, leading the hobbling horse by the reins.

  Slocum spun, aimed, and squeezed off a round. Another dud. He triggered another round. This one took both Wilson and the horse by surprise. The horse reared, then collapsed, the bullet lodged in its brain.

  “I thought I heard a couple duds in the fight. You need better ammo.”

  “Might have gotten wet,” Slocum said. “I’ve got what I’ve got.”

  “Here’s Terwilliger’s rifle. I think that one’s Eddie Joe. That likely means Leonard is left. Leonard and his pa. Pa Terwilliger’s been laid up with gout for years. Makes him meaner than a stepped-on rattler, but he doesn’t stray far from their ranch house.”

  “Back that way?” Slocum shielded his eyes and tried to spot the rider. He didn’t even see a dust cloud.

  “If we ride like we mean it, we can get there about the same time Leonard does.”

  Slocum looked at the dead horse. It would have been a sturdier ride than his paint, but he had to make do with the old horse, just as he had to depend on the punk ammunition. Either might fail him at a vital instant, but he had no choice but to press on. He gripped Terwilliger’s rifle, then began making his way up the hillside, slipping in the loose dirt and rocks but eventually reaching the spot where his paint waited nervously. It hadn’t taken kindly to all the gunfire.

  He gentled the horse, fished around in the supply pack, and found a couple sugar cubes to give it, then waited for Wilson to join him. The soldier made it from across the road and uphill faster than Slocum would have thought.

  “We head back along the ridge, cut down to the road and across country. Leonard’s likely to follow the road back to his place. Ain’t got the sense God gave a goose, that one, but it doesn’t make him any less dangerous. If anything,” said Wilson, “it might make him more inclined to kill first since he’s sure everyone’s laughing at him.”

  “I won’t laugh at him,” Slocum promised.

  The paint protested him mounting, but then valiantly pressed on, keeping the quick pace set by Sergeant Wilson. They crossed the road and trotted over the prairie toward a ramshackle house just as the sun was setting.

  “Not sure it’s to our advantage trying to take them in the dark,” Wilson said. “Leonard’s not too bright, but his pa is. There might be all kinds of traps set to stop anyone from sneaking up on the house.”

  Slocum dismounted, knocked out the rounds in his pistol, then reloaded, checking each round the best he could in the golden rays of the dying sun. He might have a misfire or two, but he had done what he could to make sure each round was good. Only then did he pull the rifle out
and examine it.

  “Rusty.”

  “Goes with what I knew of Eddie Joe. Lazy son of a bitch. You be careful that rifle doesn’t blow up in your face, Slocum.”

  “I’ll scout the place.”

  “Hell, that’s a waste of time. We both go in together. Why find they’re home, then come back for me?”

  Slocum had never intended to return to report to the sergeant. If he found Pa and Leonard Terwilliger, he would cut them both down after he found what had happened to the girls. If it took a while to convince the two outlaws to tell him, he didn’t want the voice of law and order telling him he couldn’t use tricks he had learned from the Apaches to get that information.

  “We need them alive,” Wilson said softly. He checked his carbine, then the pistol thrust into his belt. He made no effort to check the loads in his service pistol.

  Slocum bent low and began moving toward the dark house. Before he had gone a dozen paces, a light flickered in a window, then steadied. Someone had lighted a coal oil lamp. On the heels of the light came angry shouts. Slocum froze and listened hard.

  “Dead? Yer brother’s dead?”

  “Pa, all four of ’em are. Same fella. We tried to get him at the farmhouse. Kilt a woman there and her man was already dead, but this fella . . .” Leonard Terwilliger’s voice trailed off.

  “You are the stupidest son of a bitch I ever did see. I knowed I shoulda put you in a burlap bag and drowned you along with that litter of kittens the day you was birthed.”

  “Pa, he might be comin’. Eddie Joe didn’t kill him ’fore he got his head blowed clean off.”

  “And you made a beeline back, bringin’ him in like the plague. You ain’t got sense enough to—”

  Pa Terwilliger bit off his denunciation of his only surviving son when Wilson let out a screech of pure pain.

  “Slocum,” the sergeant gasped out, “stepped on a bear trap. Told you they’d planned to hold off an army. Get ’em, but be careful.”

  “Your leg?”

  “Might be broke. I’ll do what I can from here.”

  Slocum was torn between returning through the dark to pry open the iron jaws of a trap to free the soldier and pushing on. Any hope of surprise had disappeared with a single incautious footstep.

  The light was snuffed out and the metallic click of a rifle being cocked sounded in the still evening air. Slocum felt all prickly, sure the men were sighting in on him. He dropped to his knees, then fell flat on his belly with the rifle snugged into his shoulder.

  He fired at the first sign of movement. A crash sounded, quickly followed by Pa Terwilliger’s angry words.

  “You cain’t up and git yerself kilt, Leonard. I won’t let you die on me!”

  Slocum had a good sense of when he hit a target and when he missed. His single shot had felt solid. He cursed under his breath since he wanted the men alive. Killing Leonard had a benefit, though, and he expected it to come about in a hurry. If Pa Terwilliger was laid up with gout as Wilson claimed, he was likely to use the girls as a shield to get away.

  Sounds like a man with a wooden leg came from the front of the house. For an instant Slocum saw a darker shadow crossing a lighter one. Instinct took over. He fired again.

  “Damnation, Slocum, you’re too good a shot,” Wilson said, crawling up beside him. He dragged his leg behind through the dust.

  “I didn’t think they’d die that easy.”

  “Let’s go see if they’re playin’ possum or you did nail the sons of bitches.” Wilson grunted as he used his left hand to pull his leg up and get it under him. The carbine served as a crutch as he got to his feet. “Don’t think any bones are broke, but it hurts like hellfire.”

  Slocum scrambled to his feet and advanced, as wary of the ground as he was the chance one of the Terwilligers was still alive and would take a shot at him. He found three more hidden traps, pointed them out to Wilson as he trailed behind, then reached the front porch.

  A man so fat he drooped off the sides of the wide wooden plank porch lay still. Slocum poked him a couple times and got no response. He shoved the rifle muzzle hard into the man’s belly. The flab didn’t even twitch.

  “This one’s dead. Must be the old man.”

  “Is,” Wilson confirmed. “You be careful going into the house. I heard tell they booby-trapped it like they did their yard.”

  Slocum kicked in the door and was glad he didn’t immediately follow. A heavy beam with railroad spikes pounded through it fell straight down and would have skewered him. He stepped over it, pressed his back against a rickety wall, and slowly worked around to the still dark form on the floor. Slocum had been a sniper during the war and had never made a shot as accurate at this one. His round had gone into Leonard’s left eye and killed him instantly.

  “The one time I wanted to miss . . .”

  “Dead, too?” Wilson used his rifle to poke at the deadfall that had missed Slocum.

  “Too damned dead for my liking.”

  “You know what that means?”

  “We start searching for the girls,” Slocum said.

  They didn’t find them.

  9

  “Your aim’s too good, Slocum,” Sergeant Wilson said. “It would have been a damn sight easier if one of them had been left alive to tell us where they hid the two girls.”

  “I can say the same about your shooting.”

  The men stared at one another, then squared their shoulders. Wherever the Terwilliger boys had put their kidnap victims, it wasn’t inside the house.

  “My leg’s all cut up. You’ll have to take the barn and the outbuildings. I’ll poke around here looking for the girls where I can,” Wilson said. “Might be the Terwilligers didn’t want to let them get too far out of sight but hid ’em real good.” He stomped on the floorboards and broke through. He hobbled around, pulled over a three-legged stool, and sat on it, fingers prying back the boards. “Nope, no sign of a root cellar.”

  “There must be a storm cellar somewhere,” Slocum said. He left the sergeant to his task of ransacking the house. No matter what they found, it wasn’t going to be anywhere near as important as the two Yarrow girls.

  Slocum made a quick circuit of the ill-kept yard and went to the barn. The horses would be useful and weren’t going to do the Terwilligers any good, but he wasn’t interested in horseflesh as much as he was in listening for small voices crying for help. Try as he might, he couldn’t hear what he wanted to most of all.

  A careful search of the barn revealed nothing. There wasn’t the smallest trace that anyone but the family had been here. Prowling farther afield, he found an old shed stuffed full of useless, broken tools and furniture that had outlived any usefulness years back. When he found the storm cellar, his heart beat a little faster. There was a sturdy plank that had been run through the iron handles on the double doors—perfect for keeping somebody imprisoned.

  He kicked away the plank and threw open both doors. The darkness below was impenetrable. He called, “Audrey? Claudia? You in there? It’s me, Slocum.”

  No answer, not even a whimper. He fumbled in his pocket and found the tin of lucifers, dragged out one, and scraped it along the bit of sandpaper he had stuck to the back of the waterproof container. The match flared and put out a thick sulfur smell. He held the light at arm’s length, then carefully went down the ladder into the storm cellar. Once his foot touched the dirt floor, he slowly turned from side to side, casting the flickering light all about. The Terwilligers had put up some preserves. Mason jars of a yellowish liquid lined the walls. Slocum took one down, broke off the top, and took a deep whiff. He recoiled.

  “White lightning,” he muttered. The Terwilligers could weather any twister if they drank enough of the potent ’shine. He made certain to hold the match far away from the volatile liquid he had spilled over his hand.
/>
  With the light fading as the match burned down, he made another quick turn and made sure he saw all the corners of the small cellar. There wasn’t any evidence anyone had been here in weeks. Reluctantly climbing back up the ladder, he emerged into the sultry night and looked at the sky. The stars were so bright he could see easily, but the one thing he couldn’t see was what the outlaws had done with the two little girls.

  He made his way back to the house. Wilson had cut away his pant leg and worked to clean the wound.

  “Damned trap had rusty teeth,” he said. “Found a bottle of moonshine and poured it on the cut. Burned like hell but I think I made sure nothing’s going to kill me.”

  “Not unless you drink that liquid shit,” Slocum said. “If you need more, I found a cellar full of it.”

  Wilson looked hard at him in the darkness.

  “But no Yarrow girls?”

  “I want to look around when the sun comes up. I suppose I ought to drag the bodies out, but damned if I am going to bury them.”

  “Put ’em in the storm cellar and close the door,” the soldier suggested.

  “Ought to put them down there and set fire to their ’shine.”

  “Don’t see a problem with that.” Wilson got to his feet and stretched his injured leg. “I’ll be good as new ’fore you know it.” He looked again at Slocum and finally said, “I don’t know where else to look.”

  “We should have dogged their trail. I should have.” Slocum frowned, then said, “They had a dog.”

  “The Terwilligers? I doubt it. They were worse than Apaches about dogs. Hated them.”

  “The Yarrows had a dog. Windmill. If the Terwilligers took the girl, the dog wouldn’t just run off.”

  “They’d have shot it on the spot,” Wilson said, “since they hated dogs so much.”

  “Windmill would have protected the girls.” Slocum perched on the edge of a table that barely supported his weight. “We need to look around the Yarrow farm harder.”