by Jake Logan
“He can’t do that!”
“More’n him would get killed. Your brother and whatever hands he can talk into it would be in shallow graves before sunrise, too.”
“If Tom even thought to bury them,” Lydia said angrily.
“I’ll decoy them away.”
“Let me change horses now. You take mine. Leaving a trail with two horses is more likely to draw them than just yours.”
He saw how lathered her horse was and agreed. Lydia expertly moved the saddle to the rested horse and mounted. Slocum was getting antsy about how close Graham and his boys would be by now. Shooting it out with three men would be hard, and Graham might have rounded up a few more. Getting buffaloed in his own house and having his hostage snatched from under his nose was an affront to his honor he wasn’t likely to let go unavenged.
“Go on, ride like you mean it,” Slocum said, but Lydia brought her horse close to his, leaned over and gave him a quick, fleeting kiss on the lips.
“Thank you,” she whispered, then put her heels to her horse and raced away.
Slocum waited until she disappeared down a ravine before turning at an angle and heading for higher ground to lead Graham and his posse away. He had barely reached the ridge when he spotted Graham and four men behind. They didn’t see him because they were too intent on studying the tracks in the ground. Graham’s tracker had found the hoofprints and pointed uphill. As he did, he spotted Slocum.
Slocum waited long enough for all the men to see him, then trotted down the far side of the hill, cut sharply to go into a rocky area, cut off at another angle and then waited behind a grassy knoll, heart hammering as he heard them approaching. Graham argued with his tracker over where Slocum had gone.
“Lit out, makin’ a beeline for the west,” Graham said.
“He’s tryin’ to confuse us,” the tracker said. Slocum swore under his breath. The man must be part Indian the way he had picked up on the numerous cutbacks and changes in direction across the rocky stretch.
“He’s only confusin’ you,” Graham said. “After him. West!”
The tracker grumbled but obeyed. Slocum heaved a sigh of relief at not having to shoot it out with five armed and angry men. After a decent time, he turned south toward the Tewksbury spread and made as good time as he could. Now more than ever he had to take his due and leave the Tonto Basin. Too much hatred had built up for there to be anything but a bloodbath.
9
“Where’s your pa?” Slocum felt as if he had been punched in the gut. He had evaded Graham and his men, returned to the ranch and expected to see Tewksbury waiting for him. The man had obviously ignored the promise not to go after Graham until sundown. Slocum pulled his hat brim down and squinted into the sun. There was a good hour of daylight left, and Tewksbury had jumped the gun.
“I’m worried about him, John,” Lydia said. “He might be getting himself into a world of woe if—”
Slocum caught movement out of the corner of his eye, dug his toes into the ground for traction and dived forward. His arms circled the woman’s slender waist and his shoulder smashed into her belly. He heard the wind gusting from her lungs as he carried her backward out of the path of a bullet meant to kill her. They landed in a pile, Lydia kicking feebly and gasping for breath.
“Stay down,” he said needlessly. She wasn’t going to do anything until she sucked in enough air to fill her lungs again. He rolled, dragged out his six-gun and fired. Dust kicked up around him, and more than one bullet ricocheted off a buried rock. Slocum sat up and fanned the hammer on his pistol, getting off five more shots faster than the sniper shooting at him could chamber new rounds in his rifle.
Slocum doubted any of his bullets hit the man, but wood splintered near the man’s face and drove him back around the house. Slocum jammed his six-shooter into his holster, rolled back, grabbed Lydia by the wrist and pulled her to her feet. The woman stumbled and fell to her knees, still gasping.
“If you don’t run for the barn, you’re dead,” he whispered hotly in her ear. “Do you hear me?”
“Y-yes,” she got out. Slocum had to hand it to Lydia. She was a fighter. In spite of her lack of air, she kept moving. Slocum followed behind, providing a shield for her. He tried to get to his horse and the rifle there, but the sniper at the side of the house wasn’t going to let that happen.
Slocum shoved Lydia forward when they got close enough to the barn, so she staggered inside and fell heavily into a pile of straw.
“Stay down,” he ordered.
“C-can’t do much,” she got out. “R-rifle back th-there.” She pointed toward the rear of the barn. Slocum had already started in that direction. He threw open an equipment box and saw a small-caliber varmint rifle, good for rats and rabbits but not much else. It was still better than the empty Colt Navy in his holster, so he grabbed the rifle and a box of shells which he shoved into his coat pocket.
“It’s only a single-shot rifle,” Slocum called to her, “so I won’t be able to stop them all if they rush us.”
“Is there another one? I’m still a bit shaky after you knocked me down, but I can shoot.”
“This is the only rifle,” Slocum said. He considered his chances of getting to his horse again and knew he didn’t stand two hoots in hell of making it. A second rifle barrel poked around the side of the house.
“I see three of them,” Lydia said. “All of them are behind the house. They must have just ridden in.”
“You recognize them?”
“They must be Graham’s men.” Lydia sounded dubious about this, but that wasn’t what Slocum had meant.
“You see Graham?”
“No!”
Again her response puzzled him. She seemed outraged that he would think Graham might come to kill her—as exasperated as she was with her father for going after Graham. Slocum slid a small shell into the rifle and slammed shut the bolt. The distance made his marksmanship a joke. The bullet from such a small-caliber rifle had too short a range to matter much. Then he got his chance. One man poked his head around the house, waited, then ducked back. Slocum knew the gunmen argued over whether Slocum was out of ammo, and this brief act of foolish defiance had proven it to at least two of the men.
Slocum fell to the ground and aimed carefully, waiting for the right instant to fire. Two gunmen came running around the corner, firing their rifles as they came. Running and shooting sent their lead flying about wildly. Slocum’s trigger finger drew back slowly and the tiny pop! surprised him. The rifle had a lighter pull than he’d expected.
One of the riflemen stumbled and fell, screaming as he clawed at his leg.
“I been shot. He blowed my damn leg off!”
Slocum methodically opened the rifle, ejected the spent casing and put in a new shell. He fired as the man rose up and pointed at his leg. This slug put a hole in the man’s hat—he didn’t even notice it. Slocum got a third shot off before the man’s partner skidded to a halt, reversed course and grabbed his friend to drag him to cover. Slocum shot at the good Samaritan but missed. His next round was a dud.
“The ammunition’s been in that box for a year,” Lydia said, coming up beside him. She peered around the barn door at their attackers. “Can you hold them off?”
“For a while,” Slocum said. He wondered how long it would take the men—three?—to figure out they faced only one rifle, and a small-bore one, to boot?
“What should we do?”
“Any chance of getting out back to the corral? If you can get your horse, you can get away. I’ll hold them off while you make a break.”
“You do that a lot, don’t you, John?”
He looked at her and had to grin.
“Reckon so. You get going. It’s not going to take them long to decide a Mexican standoff’s not what they want.”
“After you shot one of them, you think they’ll still make a frontal attack?”
“I would.”
“But you’re brave. Those men aren’t.”
Slocum knew she was trying to compliment him, but it had the opposite effect. Staying to take potshots at well-armed men when all he had was a varmint rifle was more stupid than brave, but he saw no other way to be sure Lydia got away. He hadn’t ridden into the middle of Graham’s stronghold to rescue Lydia, only to have her snatched away under his nose.
He squeezed off a shot that took out a window in the house. The bullet wasn’t wasted, though, since the cascade of glass chased a sniper away from what might have been a dangerous position for Slocum.
“Hurry, John. Don’t stay too long,” Lydia said. She paused; then he heard her running to the rear of the barn and going to the corral. He fired again and the slug went wide. He tried to figure windage or how the sights were off, but finally decided that the ammunition was bad. He’d be lucky if the rifle didn’t blow up in his face.
He fumbled out another shell and felt that there were only a few cartridges left from the box. Slocum took a quick shot and got to his feet, preparing to follow Lydia. He turned and ran smack into the woman. Lydia stood behind him, eyes wide and filled with tears.
“Th-they took Star.”
He swung around her and glanced out the rear door. His heart sank. Graham’s men had stolen all the horses in the corral, including Lydia’s precious Star. His mind raced.
“Get up into the loft,” he told her. “Stay low. Hide until—”
“Star!” Lydia grabbed his arm and jerked hard enough to swing him around. “They took him. How could Graham do such a terrible thing?”
“They’ll do more than that if you don’t do as I say,” Slocum told her. “Get up there. Now!” The snap in his voice caused her to jump. She stared at him with wide eyes and tried to talk. Words refused to come out. He pushed her toward the ladder leading to the loft, then whirled about and fired his rifle as one of Graham’s men burst through the open door. The tiny pop! didn’t sound like much, but the man stopped in his tracks, looked down stupidly at his chest and then fell like a huge redwood sawed through the base.
“Damn,” Slocum said, seeing that he had shot the man straight through the heart. It had been more luck than skill. But he wasted no time rushing to the man’s side and grabbing his rifle. With a more powerful weapon, he started a measured, accurate fire that winged two of the men trying to rush the front of the barn.
They got the hint and shouted at each other to retreat. Slocum came up empty and threw the rifle aside. He rolled over the man he had shot through the heart and drew his six-shooter. Two more shots was all it took before he heard the thunder of hooves from behind the Tewksbury house. Graham’s henchmen had finally called it quits.
“What do you see from up there?”
“I . . . Five men, all riding like somebody set fire to their tails. I don’t see Star. None of them’s riding Star!”
“All the horses were stolen earlier,” Slocum said. “We happened onto the last of the horse thieves, and they thought they could kill us.”
“Tom’d never do that,” Lydia said in a voice almost too low for Slocum to hear. Almost.
Slocum climbed the ladder to the hayloft and went to stand beside Lydia. She hung out the hayloft door as she tried to spot her horse.
“You sound mighty friendly with Graham,” he said. “What’s going on between you?”
“Between us? Nothing,” she said too quickly for it to be the truth.
“You and him lovers?”
“What if we are? Does that change anything between us?”
“I risked my life to save you. Your pa doesn’t know, does he?”
“No,” she said. “But I swear, John, it’s all over between me and Tom Graham now. How could he do such a thing!”
“He might have actually kidnapped you because he was angry at your pa for rustling a hundred head of cattle.”
“Pa did that?”
“He sent Caleb and a few cowboys out to do it. Caleb bragged on it to me.”
“He can be such a fool,” Lydia said sadly, shaking her head. The sunlight caught her auburn hair and turned it to a red-gold that brought a catch to Slocum’s throat. Lydia Tewksbury was nothing if not lovely, but she was as twisted as a gnarly old oak—just like the rest of her family.
“I don’t know where your father and brother got off to, but I suspect they decided to use my sneaking around to rescue you as a diversion for more devilment.”
“Why, I might have been killed!”
Slocum said nothing. The same idea had occurred to him. Tewksbury hated Graham so much he was willing to sacrifice his own daughter to get even with the other rancher.
“John,” Lydia said, turning to him. “You’ve got to get him back.”
For a moment Slocum wasn’t sure who she meant. Then it hit him that she wasn’t talking about either her father or brother. And she certainly didn’t mean Tom Graham. She thought more of her horse than she did any human.
Any human, including John Slocum.
“I’m clearing out,” he told her. “I should have done this the minute I laid eyes on you.”
“That wasn’t all that got laid, was it, John?” she said. She moved closer and ran her fingers up and through his hair, bringing his face down to hers for a big, wet kiss. “I can reward you, John. I can give you everything a man could ever want.”
“Like you did Graham?”
She jerked away as if he had burned her with a branding iron.
“That was a cruel thing to say. I’m done with him! He was only using me and I cared for him.”
“You pa mentioned Graham was married,” Slocum said. “You knew that, didn’t you?”
“He doesn’t love her. They . . . they never sleep together anymore. He wants to divorce her, but that’s mighty hard to do out here, a hundred miles from the nearest judge.”
Slocum had heard worse, but Lydia hadn’t seemed the sort of woman to fall for a story like that.
“I’ll stay until your pa gets back,” he said. “The way Graham’s men lit out of here, though, I don’t think there’s going to be any more trouble.”
“I want Star back, John. Please. You got him once before. Do it again.” She read the answer in his expression. She clung to him. “Please, I love that horse more than anything in the whole world.” She looked up, her brown eyes brimming with tears. “Even more than I love you,” she said.
“That might be the first honest thing you’ve said,” Slocum declared.
“I’ll make it worth your while. Those horses they stole. You can have all of them and the cattle Pa promised for breaking the mustangs.”
“They’re not yours to give away.”
“Papa owes me,” she said, a hint of steel coming into her words. “He’ll give them to you.”
“Ten horses plus a hundred head of cattle,” Slocum said.
Lydia thought it over a moment and then nodded, her hair flying about her face in wild disarray. In spite of himself, Slocum saw her and wanted her. Maybe the moment of vulnerability and honesty convinced him to do such a foolish thing—or it might have been greed. He wanted to get the hell out of the Tonto Basin with his hide intact, but it would be doubly good if he got away with enough in the way of wealth on the hoof to make everything he had gone through worthwhile.
“Go now, John, catch up with them and get Star back for me. I’ll be all right here.”
“We’ll write up a contract,” he said. “Put everything in writing we just agreed on.”
“I understand,” she said. They dropped down the ladder and went to the house, where Lydia found ink and a sheet of clean paper. It took her a few minutes to put everything down, and even longer for Slocum to go over it, crossing out parts and changing others.
“Sign it,” he said.
“This makes it legal,” she said, attaching her signature with a flourish. She thrust out her hand. “Shake on it. My word’s my bond, too.”
He shook and she pulled him close and gave him another kiss.
“Better than just a handshake,” she said. “Br
ing back Star and even more will be yours.”
Slocum didn’t give her an answer, because it would have been too sarcastic. He rummaged through a cabinet near the door and found a box of shells for his rifle. He tucked them into his coat pocket and left without so much as a backward look at the woman. He was fed up with the Tewksburys and their ways.
He swung into the saddle, then fumbled around in his saddlebags for the fixings to reload his Colt. Not taking the time to do it while he sat still, he let the horse begin walking as he worked. This proved clumsier, but Slocum wanted to get this chore over and done with as quick as possible.
He retraced the path to the Graham ranch and reached there two hours after sundown. From the same spot in the woods where he had spied on Graham before, he took in the activity around the house. For a place where stolen horses had been put into the corral behind the barn, the entire area seemed curiously quiet.
Slocum rode straight for the corral and looked over the horses and the brands on their hips. All had been stolen from Tewksbury. And Star had been placed in his own corral some distance away. He took care of Lydia’s horse first, dropping a lariat around the horse’s neck and leading it from the smaller corral. The horse nickered and pressed its head against him.
“We’re getting to be real buddies, aren’t we?” Slocum patted the horse’s neck and gentled it. Stealing a horse was about the lowest thing a man could do, and Graham had done it. Slocum wasn’t sure of the provocation, but it was still horse stealing. If Graham had a gripe, he should come out and say so. If it meant gunplay, so be it. From everything he had seen, Tewksbury wasn’t the kind to turn and run if Graham demanded a showdown.
Slocum led Star back to the other corral, then began lacing their bridles together so he could lead the remuda out without worrying about strays giving him away.
He mounted and got the string of horses moving, but Slocum grew increasingly uneasy as he rode from the Graham ranch. He had expected at least one challenge, but even the sleepy guards Graham had posted before were missing. A quick look toward the bunkhouse showed it was dark and empty. Slocum rode back to the woods and fastened the lead rope to a tree before intently studying the ranch house again.