Slocum and the Forgetful Felon

by Jake Logan

  Ted handed the reins to Slocum as he said, “Oh, shut up,” to Heber. He mounted his horse. “Let’s go, Slocum. We’re burnin’ daylight.”

  Slocum smiled at him. Yeah, he was pretty damn amazing, all right. Slocum threw a leg over Ace, and the three of them headed back toward town.

  22

  The train ride down to Phoenix was uneventful, although Ted turned back into Teddy for the minutes it took him to buy licorice from the porter and wolf it down.

  Heber sat quietly. Slocum couldn’t tell whether he had seen the futility in it and had just given up, or whether he was sitting there, quietly plotting. Slocum kept his Colt in hand, though, just in case.

  Pete and two other fellows met them at the station when they got down to Phoenix. Turned out the fellows were deputy marshals, and they took Heber into custody right then and there. Slocum took off his badge and handed it to Pete. “Reckon you’ll want this back,” he said. “Thanks for the loan of it.”

  “Slocum, don’t. I’d like to hire you. I mean, on account of you, we got the real killer! Be proud to put you on the payroll.”

  But Slocum pressed the badge on him anyway. “Sorry, Pete. I can make a whole lot more money bounty huntin’ than I could fillin’ out forms in the office. ’Sides, you don’t pay nothin’ to your boys when they pick up a fugitive.”

  “Why, sure we do!” Pete argued. “We might not pay the full bounty, but then again, you get yourself a regular pay-check. All evens out in the end.”

  “For the last time, no,” Slocum said, placing a friendly hand on Pete’s shoulder. “I been doin’ what I do for a long time, don’t try to change me now!”

  Pete just shook his head. He muttered, “Lord knows I tried.”

  “You can have mine, too, Marshal,” said Ted as he handed over his badge.

  Pete quirked a brow. “Why? You thinkin’ ’bout goin’ into the bounty huntin’ trade, too?”

  Slocum shook his head. “Nope. He’s thinkin’ about marryin’ himself a wife and openin’ a hardware store,” he answered proudly.

  “Yessir, I am,” Teddy added with a grin.

  Pete thumbed back his hat. “I’ll be damned. I’ll just be damned!” He looked at Slocum a good long stare, and then he looked at the ground. “Slocum,” he said, at last looking up. “Can I see you in my office?”

  Slocum’s brow furrowed. He’d been planning on getting back to Katie’s first thing. So had Ted. They’d talked about it on the train ride south. He asked, “When?”

  “Right now’d be perfect.”

  Slocum turned to Ted. “You wanna get these horses settled in over to the stable. Grain ’em good. And tell Katie I’m on my way, just gotta take care’a some business, first. Okay?”

  Ted nodded, and began untying the train-weary horses from the rail. Slocum thought that Ace had taken it fine, but Ted’s mare seemed the worse for wear.

  Slocum heard him talking to the horses as he walked off, leading them. “That’s all right, girl. That was a train, and it didn’t hurt you a bit, did it? Saved you a lotta countryside, too. See how nice Ace is handlin’ it? That’s a good, brave Ace . . .”

  “Let’s go,” said Slocum. “Wanna get this over with soon’s possible, okay?”

  Ted passed on Slocum’s message as soon as he walked through Katie’s front door, and he was upstairs with Sally within a minute.

  Giggling, she said, “Teddy! Did you get your man?”

  “In a manner’a talkin’,” he replied, caught up in her laughter. “Were you true t’me while I was gone?”

  “Sure thing,” she said. “Cross my heart.”

  “Then will you answer me a question?”

  She nodded.

  “Sally, would you do me the great honor’a marryin’ me?”

  She looked shocked. And then she began to cry. “F-For real?”

  “Sure, for real! I been thinkin’ about it for days, even talked it over with Slocum. Thought I’d take my reward money and buy me a store, stock it for hardware. Would you mind bein’ a hardware man’s wife?”

  “Oh, Teddy!” she said before she threw herself into his arms. “I love you so much!”

  “Does that mean you will?”

  “Yes, yes!” she cried. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  He kissed her so hard and deep that he was almost lost inside her.

  “Oh, honey, it sounds real excitin’, but I don’t know how you stand it!” Katie said as she lounged, nude and exhausted, on the bed. Slocum had got back at around five, now it was eleven o’clock, and they hadn’t been downstairs since!

  “Fact is, if I’d been you, I would’a turned tail and hustled my bustle home the first time I seen him!” she continued.

  Slocum said, “Good thing I’m not you!” and laughed. “Wouldn’t know how to ride in a bustle!”

  “You kill me, Slocum.” She waved a hand over to the chair where he was sitting, smoking. Once he’d got back to Phoenix and finished up with Pete’s office, he’d gone and bought that tobacconist clean out of those good ready-mades, plus a couple of good cigars. One for him and one for Ted, who as yet hadn’t come up for air either. In the meantime, he was smoking the ready-mades.

  “You’d look plain silly in a bustle. Besides which, there ain’t a more skilled rider in the Arizona Territory than you.” Languidly, she rolled to the side and toyed with one of the fancy little embroidered pillows she kept there.

  Slocum thought she’d made a mistake to leave out California, Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico, but he didn’t say anything. He guessed that maybe she hadn’t been to any of those places.

  Even if she had, he’d forgive her. He’d forgive a multitude of sins for anybody with an ass like that, or those two high, silky orbs of breasts. She had a narrow waist and a long neck and no double chin, no sir, with long attractive legs and arms like a ballerina, and a face that . . . a face that could launch a thousand ships, he decided, like the Greek woman that caused that Trojan War way back in the olden times. Helen, they called her. Helen of Troy.

  Proud of himself that he’d remembered, he lit another ready-made, using one of Katie’s newfangled cigarette lighters. This one was big and silver, and shaped like a lady’s tit, and when you pushed a button on the bottom, the nipple opened up, and there was the fire.

  It was kind of a poetic thing, when you thought about it. And Slocum had.

  He’d been thinking and thinking and thinking, but he was still not marriage material, period. In fact, he loved Katie too much to marry her, to put her through the struggle he knew he’d have with her and himself. Mostly himself. He just wasn’t ready to settle down. He supposed he was a little like a big kid, always wanting to find out what—or who—was in the next pond over, and the urge to go check it out was completely irresistible. And that was just the way it was for now. Well, seeing as how it had always been that way, he reckoned it would stay that way to the end.

  Young Ted was a lucky cuss, all right. He could actually do what Slocum could only dream about. Maybe Ted was the better man, after all.

  “You told Teddy yet? About what the marshal said?” Katie asked, her pretty head tipped to the side.

  “Nope. Ain’t seen him,” Slocum replied. “Gotta see him to tell him.” He lit another ready-made.

  “Reckon he’ll be pleased?”

  Slocum sat forward so suddenly he nearly dropped hot ashes on his leg. “Pleased? You joshin’ me? That boy, he’s gonna be over the moon!”

  “So, aren’t you happy for him?”

  “What?”

  “I said, so why aren’t you happy for him?”

  Slocum shook his head. “I’m plumb tickled for him, Katie. Who wouldn’t be?”

  She turned back over and sat up, her breasts swaying temptingly with the movement. “You. Don’t know why, but you aren’t. You come in here all happy, all right, but there’s somethin’ underneath like a festerin’ boil. What is it that’s got you so riled up?”

  He couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t say that
it was her or Teddy or anything else, really. “I don’t know, dammit.”

  “Well, don’t go snappin’ at me!”

  He sighed. “Sorry, Kate. Didn’t mean to. It’s just . . . everythin’. Can’t explain it. Sorry, I didn’t think it showed.”

  Katie’s tone was suddenly soft and silky again. “Poor baby,” she crooned, and waved a hand toward him, beckoning him to her bed once more.

  But for once, Slocum was in no mood. He just sat there, smoking and brooding, and finally, Katie said, “I’ll go down and get more whiskey, all right, honey?”

  Slocum nodded, and that was that.

  Katie took her leave quietly, her gauzy robe gathered around her and the whiskey decanter thinly swishing in her hand.

  While Katie was downstairs, Slocum stubbed out his ready-made and just as quickly lit another. If he’d get himself calmed down, he thought, he’d kill himself. Everything in moderation, his pa used to tell him. Well, everything except women, he’d add when Slocum’s mama was out of ear-shot.

  It was rare that he had troubles and didn’t even know what they were. Usually he had his finger right on them. Well, usually, the trouble was some jackass shooting at him from up on a ridge or behind a barn or galloping south in one big hurry.

  “Life stinks,” he muttered, then lit another cigarette anyway. He wished it was stuffed with hemp instead of tobacco. That’s how far he’d sunk, wanting to smoke himself full of hemp or opium.

  And why should he feel this way? Was it because Pete had tried to hire him on—again—or that Pete was going to take over watching Ted, if Ted wanted to stay in Phoenix? Was it that he’d miss the kid that much, or was it that he’d miss Katie that much?

  Or was it that he had no idea who to go after next? Times were changing. It was almost a whole new century, and the inventions of man were coming so fast and furious he could hardly keep up with them. Telephones, even in the tiniest towns. Kids, riding those big clumsy bicycles in the streets. City baseball teams, trains going right through mountains, and those big, stand-up gizmos like they had over at the saloon, that would play music for a nickel. The Indian tribes were all civilized, even the wildest of them, and robbing stages was a crime on its way out the door, what with there being fewer and fewer runs scheduled. People took the trains nowadays.

  Maybe that was it. Too much was changing, and too fast. Maybe he was just plain too old to adapt to it. Maybe he was . . .

  No! he told himself. He wasn’t too old for anything.

  Maybe he ought to make a plan, a plan for his future. He’d never done that before, and the idea of it intrigued him. Hell, Ted had made one. Why couldn’t he?

  He decided that he could still bounty-hunt. He was still good on a horse, and wasn’t so banged up that he couldn’t draw his gun in a quarter second flat. Course that might not seem so fast to some fellers, but he had his name. And his name seemed to scare most fellows into just giving in lately.

  So, he decided that he could keep bounty hunting for at least a few years more. And then, if the good Lord was willing and the creek didn’t rise, he’d come back to Phoenix and settle down. Even marry Katie, if she was still available.

  Yes, that would do.

  And suddenly, he felt about thirty pounds lighter. He actually felt . . . good!

  Stark naked, he stood up and opened the door.

  “Katie!!” he bellowed. “Katie, get that rosy butt of yours up here now!”

  23

  At a little after noon, Slocum, having been out for a morning stroll around the city, was just finishing his lunch when Ted and Sally made an appearance. They looked sleepy but jubilant, and Slocum guessed that her answer had been a resounding Yes!

  He was right, because the first thing that Ted said, once they were in side-by-side chairs at the table, was, “Slocum, girls, we got an announcement to make!”

  A hush fell over the table, Katie included. She had confided in Slocum last night that she’d be a ringtailed polecat if Teddy didn’t propose. When asked why, she said she just had a feeling. Women’s intuition and all.

  “Me and Sally,” Ted continued with an air of, well, triumph, “we’re gettin’ hitched. This afternoon!”

  The girls, Katie included, sent up a cheer, and then they were all on their feet, huggin’ Sally, hugging Teddy, and breaking out the champagne. Katie came over to his end of the table and gave Slocum a big hug.

  “I told you,” she said. “Oh, I’m so happy for ’em!”

  “Me, too, Katie,” Slocum allowed, smiling. “An’ I think they got pretty good prospects for the future, too.”

  He said no more on the subject until everyone was handed a champagne glass, and Katie made a toast, then Slocum. It was decent champagne, but not as good as the bottle Slocum had brought last night. He hoped it was still safe and sound up in the cupboard.

  After everyone had broken up, and it was just Katie and him and Sally and Teddy left in the kitchen, he said, “All right, folks. Settle down,” and waved everybody into their seats before he sat down, too. “Got some important news for Ted. You, too, Sally.”

  Katie tipped her head.

  “Want you to listen in, Kate,” he added, stopping her before she had a chance to stand.

  Ted was leaning forward on his forearms. “What is it, Slocum?”

  “I made a walkin’ tour of the town this mornin’, Ted, and I got good news for you. There’s a whole new row of shops goin’ in over on Adams—nice brick ones, with the stores downstairs an’ livin’ quarters upstairs, and with—get this—real plumbin’. Toilets for the downstairs and the upstairs, and upstairs a real shower bath and a tub.”

  Sally began to fan her neck, she was so shaken up with the surprise. She giggled, “Real inside plumbin’! I read about it, but I never thought I’d live to see it!”

  Slocum held up his hand. “There’s more.”

  “More?” Sally and Teddy said as one.

  Then Teddy added, “What, Slocum? Tell us!”

  “Stopped by the marshal’s office, too. We don’t get paid nothin’ for Jonas Hendricks. Fact, Pete already turned him loose. But for ol’ Heber, we got three thousand dollars, on account of the third murder we uncovered. Your half’a both Heber and Wash comes to about five thousand, two hundred and fifty.”

  Teddy’s mouth was hanging open, and Sally, bug-eyed, gasped and covered her mouth.

  Slocum reached into a pocket and pulled out a bank envelope. “There’s a weddin’ present in there from me, too.”

  Sally had the presence of mind to take the envelope, open it, and begin counting the money. When she was finished, she couldn’t speak.

  “What, Baby?” Ted asked. “What is it? Are you all right?”

  “Thi-thi-this is t-t-ten thousand dollars, Teddy!” she finally managed before she just threw her arms around him and wept.

  Beside Slocum, Katie whispered, “Ten thousand?”

  Slocum shrugged. “Thought I’d make it an even number,” he said.

  Katie laughed and shook her head. “You kill me, Slocum, I mean, sometimes you just honest-to-God kill me!”

  Slocum stayed on a few more days, figuring out where to go next, and helping Teddy get his shop picked out and paid for. It was a nice one, right on a corner so his signs could be read from two directions. And Sally loved the upstairs. There was an area for a kitchen and a parlor, and two private bedrooms, one large and one a bit smaller. And of course, the bathroom was a big hit with everybody.

  You didn’t even have to pump the water, Katie noticed when it came time for her to walk through the building. There were taps that you just turned off and on!

  The downstairs had plenty of room for a hardware—and a gunsmith’s shop, Teddy said. The boy was figuring to take on two trades, it seemed, which was pretty much, if you asked Slocum. But he kept his mouth shut. Teddy was his own man now.

  There was enough room up front for a counter and racks to store things like nails and screws and nuts and bolts, and to hang tools, like ham
mers and saws. Behind that was a place Teddy had already christened the “paint room,” plus another area for wire samples and such. Out back, in the property’s shed, was where he’d store the reels of wire and chicken fence and such, he told Slocum.

  The rent on the place was only a hundred dollars a month, but Teddy had gone all out and bought the place outright. “First property I ever owned,” he proudly confided to Slocum.

  And then there was the wedding. Both Katie and Slocum stood up for them, and even though it was held in the judge’s office, they had flowers and music, and it was real nice. Especially for the women. Both Sally and Katie cried through the whole thing. Slocum hoped the tears they shed were out of happiness.

  They were. When the vows were over and it was time for Ted to kiss his bride, he did so passionately, with gusto and vigor. Katie later confided to Slocum that she’d never seen anything so beautiful as those two kids.

  Slocum wasn’t nearly so sappy as Katie, but he was proud enough to bust his buttons. He was as proud of Ted as if he were his own son, and just seeing him there, like a fully grown man taking grown-up vows and signing grown-up papers, brought tears to his eyes, too. He didn’t exactly cry, but he did a lot of blinking.

  And then there was the furniture shopping, which Slocum gladly refused. Furnishing a house and picking out linens and such just wasn’t his idea of a good time. Besides, he thought they were rushing it. After all, the shop wouldn’t be finished until next week, and they still had to order supplies. Hell, Slocum didn’t even know where you got supplies for a hardware!

  But Teddy did. He had already sent away for wholesale catalogs, and had already talked to a blacksmith, who agreed to fabricate some of the things he’d need.

  It looked to Slocum like Teddy was pretty much set.

  The one thing that bothered him, though, was that Teddy would still remember what he’d done, and have to pay for it. Marshal Pete was sure on his tail. Practically every corner he turned had a U.S. deputy marshal hanging around on the other side.