by Jake Logan
They both appreciated it beyond words.
Wyatt had a few others to say, though. He took a sip of his coffee. “Don’t imagine we’ll catch him till he hits Mexico City, at this rate.”
Slocum flipped his quirley’s butt end into the little fire. “Hope you’re wrong, Wyatt. I got places to go, people to see. Things to do.”
Actually, he didn’t. He was just making conversation. You had to, with Wyatt. Come to think of it, with Will, too. He added, “How come you left your marshal’s badge behind?”
“Couldn’t be this far south if I was still wearin’ it.” Wyatt took another sip of coffee. “Thought you knew that, Slocum.”
“Guess I did. Musta slipped my mind.”
Wyatt prodded the fire, which was dying down to nothing. He shook his head. “Slipped your mind. Yeah, sure. I think you’re just pokin’ around for somethin’ to say. Must be gettin’ to be pretty slim pickin’s.”
Slocum chuckled. “Can’t get nothin’ past you, Wyatt.”
“And let that be a lesson, buddy,” Wyatt said, tongue in cheek. “Don’t go tryin’ it again. And I’ll try not to be so boring.” He stood up, then kicked out what little remained of their fire. “Hope three cups was enough for you. We’re fresh out of heat.”
Slocum got to his feet, too. “It was a right good start,” he said. “Reckon I best go siphon some of it off before we get goin’ again.”
“Good idea,” said Wyatt, and they wandered outside, splitting in opposite directions.
The day had gone hot, but clammy. Slocum didn’t like it. Hot and dry was one thing, but this—his clothes sticking to his skin as if he’d just come out of the river, and the air feeling thick in his nostrils—didn’t agree with him, not one bit. Wyatt rode alongside him like it was the most normal thing in the world, like nothing in the world could bother him.
Well, it might not affect a big-deal former U.S. marshal, Slocum thought, but it sure as hell was getting to him.
He tried to focus on the problem at hand, which was turning out not to be such a problem, after all. Apache’s tracks were easy to follow through the mushy gravel and clay, and Slocum supposed that they’d set that way for a long time, once the air dried out. If it ever would. The gelding was balking on Dugan, he realized. Once or twice, Apache had even come to stop and tried to wheel around. They found signs in the broken sage where the horse had bucked. That Apache was some kind of horse, Slocum thought with a smile.
He had most likely recognized Dugan’s scent from a few days back, when they first brought him into Tombstone, and that had been the only reason Dugan had been able to get on him in the first place. If he’d been a stranger, with a strange scent, he wouldn’t have been able to get near the horse.
But he seemed familiar, so Apache had done his bidding. For a while. It was beginning to backfire on Dugan now. Apache wanted to get back to his herd, and his herd, it seemed, was Slocum.
Buck the bastard off, buddy, Slocum thought over and over. Buck him off and come runnin’ to me.
He even pictured it in his mind, as if by seeing it, he could make it happen. But as they rode away the miles, there was no sorrel Appaloosa in sight. Only the signs of his passing.
“Damn you, horse!” Dugan shouted for the third time. Clinging to the single rein he’d managed to grip on his way out of the saddle, he stood up and brushed at his muddy trousers, one-handed, while he muttered curses under his breath and said, “I swear to Jesus, next town I come to, you’re gonna make a short trip to the glue factory, you spotty-assed son of a bitch.” He knew what town that would be, too. Calisto was just a few miles to the southeast.
Dugan tried to mount up again, but the horse swung its body around to the side before he could get his foot into the stirrup.
“Damn it!” Dugan roared, and lashed the horse across the face with the free end of the rein.
This time, Apache reared, kicked out with his elevated front hooves, and struck Dugan in the chest.
Dugan felt all the air go out of him in a rush, and tumbled backward. He ended sprawled on the desert floor, empty-handed and trying to catch his breath while he watched Apache gallop away, heels flying, toward the north.
Dugan was too angry to curse. Once he caught his breath, he stood up and watched the animal disappear. His face, unappealing to begin with, had taken on a ferocity seldom seen. If he could have, he would have pulled his rifle and shot that damn cayuse. But he couldn’t, because his rifle was in the boot on the saddle.
Everything he had was on that mangy brute! Everything except what he had in his pockets and in his holsters, that was. Which wasn’t much. He had his sidearm and the extra ammunition in his gunbelt. He had his pocketknife, a few matches, and his wallet. But that was about it.
Grumbling under his breath, he set out on foot for Calisto, hoping Slocum’s damn horse would break a leg. Or two. Or maybe all four.
Something caught Slocum’s eye. It was up ahead, on ground that, over the course of the afternoon, had started to undulate and now placed them on the wide floor of a shallow gorge. The uprisings hadn’t become mountains yet. They had barely become hills. But Slocum could tell that they would gradually grow higher and higher as he and Wyatt traveled deeper south.
“Look!” he told Wyatt, and pointed at the moving speck in the far distance.
Wyatt reined in his bay and pulled out binoculars. He scanned the horizon. “I’ll be damned,” he said.
“What?” Slocum demanded.
Wyatt tucked his binoculars away. “It’s your Appy.”
They both lit out at a gallop.
When at last they caught up to the horse, he was proceeding at a walk, but halted when they rode closer. It was Apache, all right. He didn’t look hurt, but he looked wild-eyed and disoriented. The men stopped a few feet off from him. Slocum got down out of the saddle and stepped forward.
“Easy, boy,” Slocum said soothingly, his hand out toward the horse’s nose. “Easy, Apache.”
The horse snorted and tossed his head.
“It’s all right. It’s me, boy.”
Apache pricked his ears, then laid them flat again.
Slocum could see now that the horse had been lashed across the face and carried a long welt diagonally between his eyes. Damn that Dugan!
Slocum held his ground. “C’mon, buddy, it’s just me. Nobody here’s gonna lash you across that pretty face. You’re safe, boy, you’re safe now . . .”
Eventually, the horse warmed up and stepped forward to nuzzle Slocum’s hand. Despite Wyatt’s irritation, Slocum took the time to slowly walk the big gelding in a circle and make sure he wasn’t limping, then offered him water.
Apache acted like he hadn’t seen a drop for two days.
“I’ll bet the bastard didn’t feed you, either,” Slocum muttered. He found the gelding’s nosebag, slipped the bridle from his head and the bit from his mouth, and fitted on his halter. At last, he strapped on the nosebag, and the horse began grinding oats.
“Now are you done?” Wyatt carped.
Slocum looped Apache’s bridle over his saddle horn, then clipped one end of a lead rope to his halter, and the other to Red’s saddle horn. He climbed back up on Red. “Now I am,” he said. You couldn’t have wiped the grin off his face with a sponge and a squeegee.
“Don’t s’pose we can barrel on ahead?” Wyatt asked sarcastically, watching Apache’s jaws work.
“Nope,” Slocum answered with a grin, and nudged Red into a walk.
Wyatt followed. “Why did I bother to ask?”
Slocum frowned quizzically. “You say somethin’?”
“Not a word,” said Wyatt, shaking his head. “Not a goddamn word.”
Late that afternoon, they found the place where Apache had bolted, and the same place where the trail carried on in boot prints instead of those of horseshoes.
Slocum was on the ground, staring at the boot prints. “He’s goin’ to Calisto,” he said, raising his head. He pointed off farther south, on an
angle.
Wyatt looked puzzled. “Calisto?”
“Keep forgettin’ that you’re a U.S. marshal,” Slocum said and grinned. Wyatt hadn’t had call to go into Mexico of late. If ever. Slocum stood up again. “Calisto’s over yonder a few miles. Little bit of a town, mostly farmers. Used to be a hideout for Mexican banditos till a few years back.”
Wyatt said, “Used to? Why do I have a feeling you had something to do with that?”
Slocum pulled off Red’s empty feedbag, then remounted. “Oh, the townsfolk had a lot more to do with it than I did. They finally got riled up enough to do somethin’ about it. Their problem, I mean.”
“Yeah, sure,” Wyatt said, and started his bay moving again, this time at a trot.
“Wish you’d quit pretendin’ to believe me,” said Slocum, goosing Red a little to the east. “You’re gonna destroy my faith in the genuineness of your veracity.”
Wyatt cocked a brow. “Ain’t they the same thing?” he asked.
“Well, if you’re gonna tear apart every cotton-pickin’ thing I say . . .”
Wyatt held up one hand. “You ain’t gonna change the subject by startin’ an argument, Slocum!”
“Now, Wyatt, there you go again, puttin’ all kinds of ulterior motives on me,” Slocum said innocently. “All I was tryin’ to say was—”
“Y’know,” Wyatt broke in, “after we take care of this little problem, you oughta spend a few days in Tombstone. Have a few meals with us. Play poker with Doc and me. Go see some shows. You know, do the town up right.”
“Wyatt, you’re right,” Slocum agreed, glad for the change in subject. “I surely ought to.”
13
They rode into Calisto right at sunset. Wyatt followed Slocum, since Slocum seemed to know where he was going. Slocum had been silent for the last two hours, and Wyatt had followed his lead there, too. After all, Calisto was familiar territory for Slocum.
It wasn’t much of a town. Barely a village, in fact. The town was built around a deep community well, with a market and a livery and a few shops ringing it, and only a few casitas studded the roads going in and out of town. The street around the well was dotted with chickens pecking the dirt and a few goats wandering about.
Slocum rode right up to a cantina and dismounted. Wyatt followed suit.
They waked through the batwing doors, and before they could say anything, a cry of “Slocum!” went up.
Suddenly, they were mobbed. Or at least as mobbed as they could be by seven patrons and a barmaid. The barmaid seemed to know Slocum verywell. She curled up alongside him, saying, “Slocum, how fine it is to see you again.” Somehow, by her tone, Wyatt suspected that it was a good deal more than “fine,” and that she already had plans to show Slocum just how much more later.
“Good to see you again, Maria,” Slocum said, slipping an arm about her shoulders. He greeted several in the small crowd by name. “Juan!” he said. “Tonio, Pepe!”
“Cerveza!” cried the one named Juan. “Cerveza for everyone!”
Wyatt wasn’t about to turn down a free beer, so he went along with the crowd and sat down. Tonio was next to him, and he said, “Tonio? My name’s Wyatt.” He stuck out his hand. “Another Anglo come walkin’ into town a little while ago?”
Apparently, Tonio didn’t speak English, because his face twisted into an expression of puzzlement, and he said, “Qué?”
Wyatt said, “Slocum?” as the beers came and slid damply onto the table.
Slocum asked the same question of Juan, who nodded and translated for the rest of the crowd. It seemed Juan hadn’t seen anybody, but two of the men and Maria jabbered away in Spanish.
“Gracias,” said Slocum, after Juan had put it back into English. It seemed that Dugan had been here, all right, and he was still here, camped out over at the hotel.
“He was very tired,” Maria said in English. “I bet he is asleeping already.”
Smiling, Wyatt nodded and said, “Thanks.” He’d bet that Dugan wasn’t sleeping. He was probably across the street, aiming his pistol at the front doors of the cantina right this second. He turned to Juan. “You better tell everybody not to use the front doors for a spell. He’s probably out there right now, watching.”
Juan nodded and set into translating. Slocum looked at Wyatt over his beer and said, “Smart. Same thing I was thinkin’, as a matter of fact.”
Wyatt grinned. “Ain’t it always?”
“So, you wanna take care of this thing right now?”
“Might’s well. We could have a couple more rounds, then dinner, and hope he gets more tired out—”
“But in the meantime he could change his mind and come for us instead.”
Wyatt nodded. “You got it.” He stood up. “Ready?”
Slocum rose, too. He was already eyeing the back door.
Wyatt pointed as they walked, as one man, toward it. “You go that way. I’m goin’ to the right.”
Slocum gave a quick nod and opened the door.
Both men stepped away from the opening, and once Slocum had determined that Dugan wasn’t directly outside, they stepped through it and into the alley.
“Be careful,” Wyatt whispered as they parted ways.
“You watch your ass, too.”
Slocum crept down the alley, leaving Wyatt to go the other way. He came to the corner of the back of the building, paused, his back against the wall, and peeked around.
Nothing.
It was dark now. The sun had gone down while they were in the cantina, and around the corner the street seemed vacant. Seemed. That was the operable word. Slowly, Slocum stepped out, his gun drawn, and started forward toward the street.
They shouldn’t have tied the horses out front, he realized as he crept forward. Dugan was enough of a rotten egg to shoot their horses if he didn’t get them right off the bat. But it was too late now.
As he went slowly up to the street, Slocum could see that someone had lit the torches along the boardwalk, and there was just enough light for him to see that there was no one discernible on the street or in front of the squat adobe buildings. Which meant that Dugan was likely tucked away in a doorway, or in the mouth of an alley or a gap between buildings.
Or that Maria had been right. He could be asleep in his hotel bed.
But Slocum doubted it.
He came to the mouth of the alley, but paused before he stepped out onto the boardwalk. First, he took a good long look across the way. Nothing that he could see. He stepped out into the open, close to the building, and began creeping along the perimeter. A quick glance over his shoulder told him that Wyatt was in about the same place, slinking along in the opposite direction. Good.
When it came to bringing in a wanted man, you couldn’t find better than Wyatt. He knew all the tricks of the trade—both his own and his quarry’s—and he was quick and decisive. Much as Slocum himself was, although Slocum would never admit to the same.
He crossed the street at the far end of town at a dog-trot, then flattened himself at the front of the first building on the opposite side—a millinery and fabric shop, if he remembered right. Down across the well and the circle of buildings that surrounded it, he watched while Wyatt crossed the road, then disappeared into the shadows across the way.
A baby was crying somewhere, and Slocum froze until he located the sound’s source. It wasn’t coming from the hotel. It came from the little apartment over the dry goods store—the home of Mario and Constancia Martinez, Slocum thought. They’d had a baby, then. Well, good for them.
Not good for him, though. If Dugan had gone to bed, Slocum hoped he was a sound sleeper.
But he told himself again that Dugan wouldn’t have gone to sleep, no matter how tired and sleep-deprived he was. More likely that he would have stolen another horse and hightailed it out of town.
Slocum began to move again, checking every hiding place, every nook and cranny, as he went, and beginning to think, more and more, that Dugan was gone. He was just coming up on the
hotel when Wyatt yelled, “Over here!”
Slocum broke into a run and was at Wyatt’s side in a few seconds. He yelled, “What?” as he skidded to a halt, and Wyatt began to laugh at him. Slocum scowled and asked, “What!” again.
Wyatt stopped laughing long enough to tell him that Dugan was gone. “Checked at the livery,” Wyatt said. “Feller there speaks English, and he said that Dugan walked in this afternoon and actually bought a horse, then rode it on out of town.”
“Bought it? Are we talkin’ about the same Dugan?”
Wyatt nodded and fingered his mustache. “ ’ Fraid so. So, you wanna head on out, or are you too pooped to pop?”
“I’d a lot druther sleep for the next week, but don’t I reckon you’re about to let me.”
Wyatt smiled. “Reckon I am. I’m beat about to nothin’, and the horses could use a decent rest, too. I vote we stay over and cut out early in the mornin’. All right by you?”
Slocum was delighted, but he just nodded his head in agreement. Now that he knew Dugan was gone, all the wire had gone out of his muscles, and suddenly all he wanted was to find a bed and climb into it. It didn’t matter to him that Dugan was likely only a few miles ahead. The bastard was going to have to rest sometime, and Slocum was more than willing to shoot him while he slept.
Wyatt said, “I’ll put the horses up, if you want. You can go get us a couple’a rooms.” He hiked a thumb toward the hotel.
“Fine by me,” said Slocum and turned back toward the hotel. “Oh,” he said, turning back to face Wyatt. “Tell the folks at the cantina that they can come out now.”
Smiling, Wyatt tipped his hat, then started back for the horses.
Slocum walked the other way, and was soon in the hotel’s lobby.
He walked to the counter, toward a frightened-looking clerk, and opened his mouth.
But he had no time to say a word, because at about the same moment that he saw a gun barrel poking up over the counter, Dugan—Dugan!—rose up behind it, and with a short, barking laugh, said, “Good-bye, Slocum.”