by Jake Logan
And if he wasn’t bleeding already, Slocum planned to get him started.
There was still no sign of Will. Slocum began to hope that he’d heard the gun battle and had taken to the rocks.
The top of Dugan’s head suddenly poked up into view, and Slocum fired automatically. Once, then twice. The hat didn’t move, but he could see blood oozing from one of the holes in it. He hoped the bastard was dead, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.
He waited. The hat didn’t move, although the blood had stopped coursing from it. Dugan’s horse had slowly wandered down behind the rocks, stopping near the hat as if it were waiting for something, when Will came into sight. He was leading two horses. Only two?
Slocum sent another bullet straight up into the air, a warning shot. Will dismounted and led his horses over to the side of the canyon—Slocum’s side, since Slocum had owned the presence of mind to wave his rifle barrel, purposefully disclosing his position.
There were still no signs of life from across the canyon. Slocum took a tentative step out.
Still no signs of life.
He leaned his rifle up against the rocks, but drew his handgun. He wasn’t going across there without some backup, no matter how superstitious it sounded.
But when he arrived, he found he hadn’t needed to worry. Dugan was still alive, all right, but he was out cold. That bullet that had made him get blood all over his (probably stolen) hat had only grazed his head—but knocked him out six ways from Sunday.
Slocum hollered out to Will, letting him know everything was under control, then bound and gagged the unconscious Dugan. Better safe than sorry, he figured. Then he boosted Dugan’s limp form up over his saddle and roped him down, lest he slip off to one side or the other.
About the time he finished, Will came walking up, leading the horses. He had gathered up Apache on his way.
“He dead?” Will asked, nodding toward Dugan.
“Only wishes he was,” replied Slocum as he pushed past Will and led the horse out into the canyon proper. “He’s out cold.”
Will shook his head. “Shame.”
Slocum glanced over at the horses Will had brought down. “What happened to the third corpse?” There was a horse missing, too.
“I sort of shot his horse,” Will replied sheepishly.
“Body back up there?”
“Nope.” Will poked a thumb at the parcel hanging from his saddle horn. “In there.”
Slocum stood there a second, letting it sink in. “You didn’t. Did you?”
“I did it with my little axe, Papa Washington,” Will said with a straight face. “Well, more like my big ol’ Bowie knife. Then pickled it with all the booze they had on ’em. Quite a bit, actually, even with me drinkin’ it as I went. Gotta keep from throwin’ up, y’know.”
Slocum could well imagine, but didn’t say anything. The less Will talked about puking, the less the chance that Slocum would give in to the urge, too.
He swung his leg up over Apache. He’d already put Dugan’s rope around his horse’s neck, and now he dallied it to Apache’s saddle horn. “Let’s get goin’.”
Will mounted, too. “Where?”
“North.” Slocum didn’t give a damn about the destination so long as it was somewhere above the border. And he wanted to get there fast. Eventually, those bodies were going to start stinking to high heaven. Dugan wasn’t going to stay unconscious forever, either.
Will shrugged. “Onward, then,” he said, and started back up the canyon, leading the two body-toting mounts. “C’mon, boys,” he said to the horses. “Your daddies miss you.”
Slocum snorted.
“Well, they do,” said Will, raising his voice a bit.
Slocum smiled. “Yeah,” he admitted, “reckon they do. Can we move it up into a jog?”
“Anything you want, anything you want,” Will said, and urged Duster into a trot while he clucked to the horses behind him.
Slocum was actually happy, and he relaxed into a smile. They’d caught their quarry and were headed back home. Pretty soon, he and Will would be divvying up twenty grand. A man could buy a lot of women, champagne, and good cigars with ten grand.
He certainly could.
They camped that night just a few miles south of the border. Slocum would have liked to push on through the dark, but Will wasn’t having it.
“I’m tired,” he’d said after they’d been arguing more than twenty minutes, “and I ain’t ridin’ no farther.”
And then he’d climbed down off his horse and started gathering wood.
Slocum had given up. Maybe if he gave on this, Will’d give on something more important. He could only hope, couldn’t he?
If anybody was thrilled to be stopping, it was Dugan. He’d woken late that afternoon, and since his mouth was gagged, he’d been moaning for the last hour and a half. Slocum knew his head hurt without him jawing about it endlessly. He figured the Arizona Territory would take care of that little headache for him, and in short order.
If anybody had ever deserved it, it was Dugan. In Slocum’s opinion, that was. Will had offered to do it already, three times just this afternoon. Slocum supposed it didn’t really matter. The man was going to die anyway. But it was the principle of the thing, if such things as principles could be applied to a man who was wanted “Dead or Alive.” Slocum wasn’t sure, but he was leaning toward the opinion that they didn’t.
He dismounted Apache and tied him to a bush before he went back and began untying the ropes that bound Dugan to his saddle. He bet that Dugan’s belly was sorer than hell. He’d ridden a long way in that ungainly position. Undignified, too, Slocum thought with a smile as he unbound the last foot, growled, “C’mon back down, Dugan,” and pulled his prisoner to the ground by his belt.
Dugan landed clumsily and nearly fell. But Slocum caught him and settled him firmly on his feet. It wasn’t that he was being kindly. There were too many tricky things a man on the ground could do to you—knock your feet out from under you, head-butt you, and on and on—for him to take the chance.
Dugan was making sounds through his gag, sounds like he wanted Slocum to remove it, for instance. But Slocum didn’t, not yet. First, he dragged Dugan over to a clear space on the ground, where Will had already dumped his first load of branches and scrub. Slocum sat Dugan on the ground, checked his ankle rope and the ropes around his wrists, and only then did he remove the gag.
“About fuckin’ time!” Dugan shouted. And then he took a closer look at Slocum. “You ain’t no marshal! I know you, from a long time back.” His face worked as he tried to figure it out.
“I’ll save you the trouble,” Slocum said. “I’m John Slocum. You tried to recruit me for your gang once. And when I wasn’t interested, you tried to murder me. Almost made good on it, if’n that makes you feel any better.”
Dugan grunted. After a moment, he said, “So why you after me now?”
“Reward,” Slocum said simply. He turned his back and walked over to the horses. “You’re worth a good bit of money.” He came up with enough rope to hobble all the horses, and set to work on it.
Behind him, Dugan said, “Enough to come all the way down to Mexico. You’re one unforgivin’ bastard.”
“No. I just like working legal for a livin’.”
Will dropped another load of kindling and wood into the open space, announcing his presence. Slocum looked up and said, “Looks like enough to keep us goin’ for a while.”
Will was staring at Dugan, who glared at him and said, “And what’d I do to you? Steal your penny candy? Your girl? Your horse?”
Will didn’t answer him. He just started laying the fire.
“Well, will somebody untie my hands?” Dugan practically shouted. “I gotta piss.”
Slocum finished tying the last hobble and started stripping off Apache’s tack. “So do it. Your hands’re tied in front, y’know.” How stupid did Dugan think they were?
“Oh,” Dugan said. “So they are, so they are . . .
”
“Don’t help him, Will,” Slocum cautioned. He pulled off Apache’s saddle and slid it to the ground.
“Wasn’t gonna,” Will grumped. “Let the son of a bitch figure it out for himself.”
Well, Slocum had meant Don’t let him near your sidearm, ’cause he’ll shoot you—or your knife, lest he gut you like a fish, but he didn’t say anything more. He figured Will was smart enough to know that already.
When he finished with Apache, he carried the saddle over to the infant fire and laid out his bedroll opposite Dugan. Dugan hadn’t made it all the way up to his feet, his ankles being bound. But he’d made it to his knees and was still pissing. Which got Will started, too—his fourth leak break this afternoon—but at least he walked out of camp a ways before he let loose.
Slocum walked back and pulled the two outlaws’ bodies down, then pulled the saddles and bridles from their horses, as well, before he opened Apache’s water bag and gave all the horses, Dugan’s included, a good long drink. When he’d worked his way down the line to Will’s Duster, Will had already taken off his tack.
“Thanks for gettin’ him hobbled, Slocum,” he said.
“No problem.” Slocum offered more water to Duster, who took it greedily. “What’s for supper?”
“You’ll take what you can get,” Will replied with a trace of a smile. He lifted his tack and headed for the infant fire.
Chuckling, Slocum shook his head.
8
Dugan slept well that night, but not so Slocum and Will. They took shifts standing guard—two hours on, two hours off. When Slocum woke him the next morning, Will was pretty damn cantankerous.
“Don’t know why you just didn’t shoot him all the way dead,” Will grumped. “I coulda got a whole night’s sleep, insteada up, down, up, down . . .”
“Cup a’ coffee make you feel any better?” Slocum held out a mug filled with fresh brew. He’d just poured it.
Will took his cup and had a sip. “Good,” he said, nodding despite a partial scowl still left on his face. “You make breakfast, too?”
Slocum nodded. “Bacon and eggs. If you’re up to it.”
“Where’d you find a chicken out here?” Will asked, surprised.
“Didn’t,” Slocum replied. He got Will a couple of eggs, over easy, and a few slices of bacon, then handed him the plate. “Found ’em in Dugan’s saddlebags. Seems they stole more’n the horses.”
Around a mouthful of bacon, Will said, “So mebbe he ain’t all bad.” He smiled a little.
“Don’t go gettin’ all hearts and flowers on me, Will,” Slocum said. He filled another plate, found a fork, then rose and walked around the fire. He kicked the bottom of Dugan’s boot. “Wake up, if you wanna have any breakfast.”
Dugan opened his eyes, then sat up and reached for the plate Slocum held out.
Although Slocum was ready for any trick he might pull, Dugan simply took the plate and asked, “That coffee I smell?”
Slocum fetched him a cup of coffee while Will wandered off to take a leak. He’d best have that taken care of, and soon, Slocum thought. He’d been up several times during the night, too, while Slocum was on watch.
When Will came back and got settled with his plate once more, Slocum finally scraped his breakfast out of the skillet and onto a plate and dug in. He was a pretty decent campfire cook, if he said so himself. When they were all finished, Will cleaned the plates and Dugan lolled, his back against a rock, while Slocum began saddling the horses.
“You feed ’em already?” Will asked.
“And watered.” Slocum nodded toward the bodies on the ground. “Those two are startin’ to smell already. We can’t take ’em back up to Monkey Springs. Gotta take ’em to some place bigger.”
“Some place with a bigger bank, you mean.” Will grinned.
Slocum returned the expression. “Yeah, that too.” He snugged Apache’s girth. “Some place with a halfway sober sheriff is more important. You know that nobody’s gonna just hand over twenty grand in cash. They’re gonna give us vouchers, period.”
Will looked up. “Tombstone.”
It was a good idea. It was only a day farther than Monkey Springs, and Slocum knew the sheriff. Make that the marshal. Tombstone was a county seat.
“Good thinking,” Slocum said aloud. “I know the Earp boys. They’ll cut us a fair deal. Now, Behan’s a pain in the butt, but we won’t be havin’ to deal with him.”
Will asked, “Who’s Behan?”
“Town sheriff.” Slocum had moved on to the stolen horses by this time. He slung the first dead body up across a saddle and proceeded to rope it into place.
“You really oughta take me up to Monkey Springs, boys,” piped up Dugan. “After all, they’ll be needin’ their horses, won’t they?”
“Shut up, Dugan,” both Will and Slocum said at the same time.
By noon, they had crossed over into the U.S. and were navigating their way through the Santa Rita Mountains. This was easier than it sounded, because Slocum knew the Santa Ritas like the back of his hand.
They had traveled through one pass—with Dugan tied, as yesterday, across his saddle—and were climbing up to take the second, when Will had to whoa up and wander off to take another leak. It was getting ridiculous, if you asked Slocum. Good thing that Will had settled down in Prescott, where they had lots of outhouses. Slocum would be glad to send him on his way back home—something he’d be able to do once they turned in Dugan and the bodies and picked up their vouchers.
Which left him wondering—just what the hell would he do with ten thousand dollars? He could only spend so much on women, cards, and wine before it got old. What would he do then? In truth, he’d never considered that they might actually get the whole of the Dugan gang and actually get paid for them. Things like that had a way of not working out for him. But they would make Tombstone by dark, and then it would become a reality.
He had half a mind to just cut Dugan’s ropes, let him run, and turn in the other three for half the money. But the thought, like most bad ideas, only came and went.
“Thanks,” Will said. He had returned and was climbing back on his mount.
Dugan growled something or other through his gag and slid a nasty look toward Slocum, who chose to ignore it.
He said, “No thanks needed. I believe we’ll make Tombstone by dark.”
They moved out, Slocum leading Dugan’s horse, Will leading the other two uphill, through the rocky gorge that would let them pass between the jagged peaks of two mountains, then lead them down toward the rolling flatland of Tombstone.
“Brought you a present, fellas,” Slocum said as he dragged Dugan through the door of the law office, then plopped him down in a chair.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” said one of the lawmen, not the tallest but the youngest in the room. “If it ain’t John Slocum come to call! Virgil, c’mon out here and see what the wind blew in!”
Virgil stepped out of the back room about the same time that Will followed Slocum through the front door. Virgil was tall and lean and fair, like his younger brother, and he wore the U.S. marshal’s badge. He stuck out his hand and took Slocum’s eagerly. “Well, I’ll be codswalloped! Good to see you, Slocum.” He nodded toward the bench against the wall. “Who’s your hogtied friend?”
Slocum said, “Bronc Dugan, who I understand you’re lookin’ for. Got three of his buddies—well, two whole and a part of another—outside, too.”
“Dugan!” Virgil hissed, his eyes narrowing as he glared at the figure. “No shit! Where in the hell’d you catch up to him?”
“Down ’round the border country,” Will injected, then introduced himself. “Will Hutchins, that’s me. Used to be in your line of work.”
“Till his bladder caught up with him,” Slocum said softly, but nobody was paying attention. He was fine with that because he was really hoping to see Wyatt. There were a whole passel of Earps—five brothers, or was it six?—who had all come west together. They’d been up in Kans
as for a while, but recently most of them had moved farther west and south, to the promising little mining town of Tombstone, Arizona Territory, formerly known as Goose Flats.
Tombstone might have started as nothing, but ever since Ed Sheifflin had found silver, it was a hell’s-a-poppin’ town. Slocum wondered, for the first time, if Tombstone might actually be able to pay cash for the owlhoots he’d just brought in.
Virgil and Will were still carrying on, but he broke in. “Virgil, I don’t suppose Wyatt’s in town, is he?”
Virgil shook his head. “Nope. Me and Morgan’s in charge of the store for the time bein’.” He nodded toward his brother. “Wyatt, he had to run up to Tucson for a few days. Gonna meet up with Warren whilst he’s there.”
Slocum had never heard of Warren, but it was safe to guess that he was another brother.
“Be back come Friday, though,” Morgan added.
“Can we get Dugan inside a cell?” Will asked.
Virgil had the keys dangling in his hand. “Sure thing, sure thing,” he said. “Morgan, you wanna take care’a them dead boys outside?”
Morgan Earp said, “You got it,” and walked to the door. Opening it, he stretched his arm out to point at the parcel hanging from one of the saddle horns. To Will, he asked, “That thing all you brought of number three?”
“Yup.”
“Believe I’ll put ’em down to the stable, Virge,” Morgan said, and went on outside.
“Those are stolen horses. The ones they’re on, I mean, and the bay that transported Dugan. They grabbed ’em in Monkey Springs,” Slocum said.
“There were four all together,” Will added. Slocum figured he had to pee again, because he was hopping from foot to foot. “One of ’em caught a bullet durin’ the battle. I’ll pay for it, if’n it’s a big loss to the owner.”
Virgil started to nod his agreement, but Slocum said, “Don’t worry about it, Will. I’ll take care of it. I can drop over to Monkey Springs in a couple days, take ’em back myself, and pay for the dead one.” He paused. “Hell, you got a horse trader in town?”