Hang Them Slowly

by William W. Johnstone

  That’s what had made the place such a prime hideout over the years. After a bank or train job, the Snake River Marauders, as Slash and Pecos’s old gang called themselves, often split up their booty and then separated themselves into small groups of twos, threes, and fours, scattering and holing up till their trail cooled. They’d meet up again later at some far-flung, prearranged place to plan their next job.

  Sometimes Slash, Pecos, and Pistol Pete, the old outlaw from the far northern Dakota country, would meet Jay in Mexico, and they’d spend their winnings in Durango, Loreto, or Mazatlán. Sometimes they’d sun themselves on the beaches of the Sea of Cortez, drinking pulque and tequila and feasting on spicy Mexican dishes like tortas ahogadas and chilorio.

  Sometimes they’d hole up here for weeks or months at a time, hunting in the San Juans and the Sawatch to the north, and fishing and swimming in the pure, cold mountain streams. It was the time between jobs spent either here or in Mexico that Slash had always preferred over the jobs themselves, but he could never deny his almost primal attraction to the danger and excitement, as well as the money, that had always lured him back to the outlaw trail.

  Now he set the cup of sugary coffee on the rail in front of Jay and kissed her tear-damp cheek. “Cup o’ mud for you, darlin’,” he said. “Put hair on your chest.”

  Staring toward the grave atop the knoll, Jay laughed at the old joke she and her old friend Slash had shared all the years they’d known each other—going on fifteen now—and offered her usual retort, “I don’t want hair on my chest, Slash. That doesn’t sound appealing to me at all!”

  Slash gave a wry snort and sipped his coffee. “How you doing?”

  “Look at me,” she said, still staring toward the grave. “It’s been how long, now? Going on five years? And I’m still pining for that man turned to dust under those mounded rocks over there.”

  “That’s all right. He was a good man. He deserves pining for.”

  “Yes, he does, at that.” Jay hardened her voice as well as her jaws as she turned to her old friend. “But it’s time for me to move on, dammit, Slash.”

  “You’re right on that score, too, Jay.” Again, Slash sipped the rich black coffee.

  “I’m still young . . . sort of,” she said with proud defiance. “I still have my looks. Or most of them, barring a few crows-feet around my eyes and a little roughness to my skin . . . as well as to my tongue,” she added drolly.

  Slash looked at her, which was one of his favorite things to do. She was a slight, petite woman but with all the right female curves in all the right female places. She wore each of her forty-plus years beautifully on a face richly tanned by the frontier sun. The lines and furrows had seasoned her, refining her beauty and accentuating her raw, earthy character. Her hazel eyes were alive with a wry, frank humor.

  She was the most sensuous and alluring woman Slash had ever laid eyes on, and he’d first laid eyes on her when she was well past thirty.

  “Hellkatoot,” he said. “You’re still a raving beauty, Jay. There’s not many women over forty who’ve kept their looks as well as you have. You’ll find a man. You just gotta start lookin’ for one, that’s all.”

  Jaycee Breckenridge drew a deep, slow, fateful breath. “I’m not gonna find one out here, am I? The only men who come around here anymore are you and that lummox lounging around inside like Diamond Jim.”

  Slash smiled.

  “And you two don’t deserve me,” Jay said with another laugh.

  “We sure don’t!” Slash chuckled and shook his head.

  Besides, he knew, they shared too much history. Good history and bad history. He’d once gotten his hopes up about Jay, a long time ago. But then she’d tumbled for the older, wiser “Pistol” Pete Johnson, five years Slash’s senior, old enough to have been Jay’s father.

  She’d preferred the astuteness and assuredness of the older man. She’d been taken by the burly Pete’s rough-sweet ways and his bawdy humor. Mere days after she’d met the man at the country saloon she’d been singing in, she never looked back. At least, not as far as Slash knew, and he thought he knew her as well or better than anyone on earth, now that Pete was gone.

  “I’m so sorry, Jay,” he said, looking off in frustration.

  She frowned at him, puzzled. “For Pecos? Don’t be silly. He only mentioned his old friend’s name.”

  “No, not for Pecos.” Slash turned to her. “For me.”

  Jay looked at him askance, with sharp admonishment. “Let’s not go down that trail again, Slash.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Pete’s death wasn’t your fault,” Jay said. “It was the fault of the man—that deputy U.S. marshal riding for Chief Marshal Bledsoe—who shot him from that ridge. Cowardly devil!” she added hatefully, tears glistening in her eyes once more.

  Slash shook his head. “I led us into that trap. I knew those mountains we were riding in. I knew ’em like the back of my hand! At least, I thought I did.”

  “It was a box canyon,” Jay said. “The box canyons are filled with lunatics.”

  “I took a wrong turn. I was hungover from the night before. I shouldn’t have been drinking the night before a job, but I did. I took a wrong turn and led Pete an’ Pecos an’ Arnie and Devlin into that box canyon and couldn’t find my way out again before that no-account lawdog that was shadowin’ us fired down at us from that ridge.

  “To put the cherry on it, that bullet wasn’t even meant for Pete. It was meant for me! That marshal wanted to cut the head off the snake, to take me out, the gang’s leader, but Pete rode in front of me when we were all looking for another way out of that canyon. He’s the one whose ticket got punched when it should’ve been mine.”

  Slash gritted his teeth and shook his head as he stared toward the grave, the old sorrow and self-recrimination having returned full-blast. “Dammit!”

  “Slash, now—”

  “No.” Slash shook his head defiantly. “I reckon I should’ve retired back then, nigh on five years ago. I got careless in my old age. Overly confident. If I’d called it quits, let one of the others take over—one of the younger men that was qualified to take over—Pete might still be alive today.” He turned to the woman, placed his hands on her arms. “I hope to God you can find it in your heart to forgive me one day, Jay.”

  She studied Slash thoughtfully. Slowly, a sad smile stretched her lips and she placed a gentle hand on his cheeks, staring deeply into his own sad eyes. “I’ll make a deal with you, Slash.”

  He cleared emotion from his throat. “Anything . . .”

  “I’ll forgive you if you forgive yourself.” Jay’s smile grew, and warmth filled her hazel-eyed gaze. “How ’bout that? Oh, and I’ll add one more thing. I promise not to break down like a damn weeping fool every time I hear his name. Maybe sometimes, but not every time,” she added, chuckling. “All right, Slash? Do we have a deal?”

  Slash gazed back at her, his heart lightening ever so gradually. He removed her hand from his cheek and kissed it. “All right.” He chuckled with genuine relief. “All right. We got ourselves a deal.”