Slocum in Shot Creek Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  THE ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN

  A few minutes before one o’clock, Bartlet and his hands started gathering in the street. In another minute, Oates and his boys showed up. They stood facing each other, the dividing line being Slocum’s office. Slocum stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of his office and stood watching.

  “You men have been itching to have a war with each other for some time, from what I’ve heard,” Slocum said. “Am I right?”

  He looked at Oates, who did not answer him. He looked at Bartlet. “Am I right?” Still he got no answer.

  “Well, then, get to killing. Here’s your chance. We’ll find out who the last man standing will be. We’ll declare a winner. So pull your guns and start shooting now.”

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  SLOCUM IN SHOT CREEK

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Jove edition / October 2007

  Copyright © 2007 by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  All rights reserved.

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  eISBN : 978-0-515-14359-1

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  1

  Slocum was damn near broke. He had spent almost all of his cash on booze the night before. He did not even have enough left in his pockets to buy a room for the night, so he had ridden out of town to find a place beside the creek. He had unsaddled his Appaloosa and let it loose, and he had fallen down on the ground and gone to sleep, or passed out, without any other preparation. He knew nothing else until late the next morning. He woke up not knowing what time it was—he knew it was late, though. His head hurt, and he was hungry. He rubbed his eyes and stood up uneasily. He staggered a bit. Then he dug into his pockets for his cash. All he had was pocket change, coins. He counted them and found that he did not have enough for breakfast. He dropped the change back into his jeans pocket and walked down to the edge of the creek.

  Stripping off his clothes, he walked into the water for a bath. He knew that he had a sour smell about him from the night before. When he stepped into the water, though, he shivered. It was cold. He forced himself on, getting out to the center and finding the water up to his waist. Taking a deep breath, he bent his knees and got himself in up to his shoulders. He bathed in record time and walked back out of the creek. The sun would dry him off in short order.

  He found a clean shirt in his roll. Cleaned up as best as he could get, he headed back for town. Maybe his pocket change would buy him a cup of coffee, a bowl of gravy, and a piece of bread or a biscuit or two. It was a short ride to town, and he stopped at an eatery. He found a table inside and saw a list of dishes and prices on the wall. When the gal came to his table, he ordered biscuits and gravy and a cup of coffee. He had guessed right. It was just all he could afford. She gave him several refills on the coffee, though.

  Nursing his last cup of coffee, he heard gunshots outside in the street. He remembered from the night before that this town—what was it called? Oh yeah—this town of Shot Creek was a pretty rowdy place. Slocum thought it should be called Shit Creek. He figured the faster he got out of it the better. The gal waiting tables came back and offered him another refill. He started to refuse it, but then he looked at her for the first time.

  She was something to feast a man’s eyes on. He was astonished at himself for not noticing her before. He figured her to be about five feet six inches tall and as shapely as she could be. She was wearing jeans and a shirt that showed off her shape to perfection. Her hair was red and long, but she had it tied back to keep it out of her way while she was working. She had big blue eyes and pouty lips. When she refilled his cup, she gave him a smile that warmed his hard heart. He wasn’t nearly as anxious to get out of town as he had been before. He was thinking about what he could say to her to strike up a
conversation. He was the only customer left in the place.

  Just then, though, two men came in. Both were middle-aged, and both were wearing business suits. He glanced up at them just in time to see one give a nod in his direction, and the other one shake his head. Slocum picked up his coffee and took a sip, trying to ignore the two men, but they came walking directly toward him. He noticed that neither man was wearing a gun, at least not where it showed. The men stopped right at the edge of his table, standing directly across from him. He looked up at them.

  “You men want something?” he asked.

  “My name’s Will Church,” said the taller of the two men. He took his bowler hat off to reveal a balding head. He sported a handlebar mustache under his nose as if to make up for the lack of hair on top. “This is Mike Fall.”

  Fall nodded.

  “Is your name Slocum?” Church asked.

  “It might be,” said Slocum. “What’s your interest?”

  “Can we sit down and talk?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Church and Fall sat down.

  “Mr. Slocum,” said Church.

  “Forget the mister.”

  “Just Slocum?” said Church.

  “That’s right.”

  “All right, Slocum, Mr., uh, Fall here said that he recognized you.”

  “I get around,” said Slocum. “Where have you seen me?”

  “I was over at Tombstone,” said Fall, “when you, uh, when you killed Three-toed George. I never saw anything like it.”

  “George had it coming,” said Slocum.

  “I don’t doubt it,” Fall agreed.

  “Three-toed George isn’t the only one,” said Church. “There have been plenty of others.”

  “Other what?”

  “Other men you’ve killed.”

  “What is this?” Slocum asked. “Just who the hell are you men? I mean, besides Church and Fall.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Slocum,” said Church. “I’m the mayor of Shot Creek, and Mr. Fall here is on the town council.”

  “So you dropped by here to say that a notorious gunman ain’t welcome in Shit Creek. Is that it? Well, put your minds at ease, gentlemen. I’m leaving right now.”

  “No, wait a minute, Slocum,” Church said. “You got us all wrong. We don’t want you to leave town.”

  “No?”

  “No,” said Fall. “Far from it.”

  “Slocum,” said Church, “you haven’t been in town long, but you’ve been here long enough to see how it is.”

  “Fistfights, gunfights,” said Fall.

  “Sometimes three killings in a day. That’s a bad day, but there’s an average of three a week for sure.”

  “No one gets arrested,” said Fall.

  “We have no lawman,” said Church. “This has got to be the worst town in the whole country.”

  “If it’s all that bad,” said Slocum, “how come I ain’t heard about it?”

  “It’s off the beaten path. Not many ride through here. We have no railroad, and we have irregular stage service. No newspaper. Some mail shows up and some goes out when the stage comes to town and leaves again.”

  “What keeps the town alive?”

  “There’s two big ranches near town,” said Church. “A few smaller ones. A lot of cowboys.”

  “All right,” said Slocum, “but what the hell has all this got to do with me?”

  “We need a town marshal,” Church said.

  “Yeah,” said Slocum, “I’d say you do.”

  “We’re offering you the job,” said Fall.

  “I’m no lawman.”

  “We don’t need a lawman,” said Fall. “We need a gunfighter.”

  “I already told you, I’m on my way out of town.”

  “On your way to what?” said Church.

  “The next town, I guess.”

  “We’ll pay you a hundred and fifty dollars a month,” said Fall. “Rent you a room in the hotel across the street. Pay for your meals and your drinks.”

  “And your ammunition,” added Church.

  “You can hire a deputy of your own choice, and we’ll pay his salary,” Church added.

  Slocum picked up his coffee cup and drained it. The proposition sounded good. It sounded to Slocum like he’d be rich. But he had his pride. A town marshal. A lawman. It damn near made him puke to think about it. He had never stooped so low.

  “Well,” said Church, “what do you say?”

  “I don’t think I could stomach the job,” Slocum said.

  “Not enough pay?” said Church.

  “It ain’t that.”

  The gal stepped out of the kitchen just then. “More coffee?” she asked.

  “No, thanks,” said Slocum. “I’m just leaving.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be spying on you, but I heard some of what you were saying. Slocum, I wish you’d reconsider. I wish you’d take the job.”

  She walked closer as she was speaking, and her big blue eyes were pleading with him. Why the hell did she have to do that? God, she was irresistible. Slocum wanted her in the worst way. He did not want to be a goddamned fucking town marshal. He did not want to stay in Shit Creek. All of his best instincts told him to get out, to run as fast as possible as far away as possible from this town.

  “Slocum,” said Church, “will you at least think about it? Sleep on it and give us your answer in the morning? We’ll pay for a room for you at the hotel and buy your meals till then.”

  “And I hope we’ll continue to do so after that,” said Fall.

  “You want to start by buying this meal?” said Slocum.

  “Of course,” said Church.

  “Well, I ain’t finished eating,” Slocum said. He waved a hand at the gal, and she came the rest of the way over to the table. Slocum ordered four eggs, ham, potatoes, more biscuits and gravy. Church told the gal to send the bill to his office. Then he told Slocum where to find him, and he and Fall took their leave.

  Slocum ate like it was his last meal, and a part of him thought that it might be—at least, it might be his last meal in Shit Creek. At last he washed it all down with a final cup of coffee. He was the only customer in the place, and the gal came out to join him with her own cup of coffee.

  “May I?” she asked him.

  “Please do,” Slocum said.

  She sat directly across the table from him. She smiled, but he could see through the smile. Underneath it, she was deadly serious. He knew what she wanted; she had already given herself away. She wanted him to stay and take the distasteful job. He wondered if she knew what he wanted. Sure she did, he told himself. A beautiful gal like that. He wasn’t the first to lust after her. She had been fighting them off for a few years now. Or not.

  “You already know my name,” he said.

  “Oh, excuse me,” she said. “I’m Terri Sue.”

  “That’s a pretty name,” said Slocum, “for a pretty gal.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “But I know what you’re up to.”

  “You do?”

  “I do.”

  “What do you think I’m up to?”

  “You came over here to try to convince me to take that job.”

  “I—”

  “It ain’t going to be easy, you know. Basically, I have a deep-rooted dislike for all kinds of lawmen. It turns my stomach to think of being one myself.”

  “Why is that, Slocum?” said Terri Sue.

  “Most of them I’ve met have been bullies and cowards and crooks out to line their own pockets and feel good by pushing folks around.”

  “Don’t you think it would improve things if you were to become a lawman not like the others?”

  “It would be one out of hundreds. It wouldn’t be much of an improvement.”

  “But it would be an improvement, however small.”

  “I never set out to improve the world,” he said.

  “So what mark will you leave on the world, Slocum?”
/>   “I like to leave things unmarked. Leave them like I found them.”

  “That’s admirable, if things are good when you find them, but if things are bad, it would be more admirable to leave them changed. Don’t you think so?”

  “I don’t know, Terri Sue,” said Slocum. “You’re getting too philosophical for me now.”

  “It’s not philosophical, Slocum,” she said. “It’s just plain thinking. That’s all.”

  “I went to war when I was just a boy. After the war, I went home to find my family dead and my home gone. I started wandering, and I’ve never stopped. I never settled down again.”

  “You don’t have to think of it as settling down. Living in a hotel is not settling down. Just think of it as stopping for a while. You’ve had jobs, haven’t you?”

  “Oh, sure. Punching cows. Driving a freight wagon. I’ve even clerked in a store, believe it or not.”

  “I believe it. This is no different. It’s just a job. Like any other. It can be permanent, or it can be temporary. You can quit and walk away from it at any time.”

  Slocum looked into her big blue eyes. In his lustful mind, the clothes dropped off her body. He picked up his cup and took a slug of hot coffee to try to drive his thoughts away from lusting after her. He put down the cup and stared at it.

  “You sure do have a convincing way of talking to a man,” he said.

  2

  Slocum made his way over to the hotel, where he found that the mayor, true to his word, had reserved him a room. He stashed his stuff in the room and went back downstairs, where he found that he could order himself a bath and send his clothes to a laundry. He did all that, got bold, and ordered a bottle of good whiskey. In short order, he was sitting in a tub of hot water in his room, smoking a cigar, and sipping whiskey from a glass. The idea of being a lawman was growing a little less distasteful to him. A little later, clean, shaved, and dressed in fresh, clean clothes, he walked out onto the street to take a better look at the town.

  It was a town much like any other. One street. At the far east end of the street was a livery stable. Across the street from the hotel was the eating place where he had met the lovely Terri Sue. He could see the saloon, which he had become so well acquainted with the night before, and a hardware store, a millinery, a gun shop, a feed store, another saloon, and a general store. He thought about stepping out on the sidewalk like this with a badge on his chest. He shuddered at the thought.