Slocum and the Schoolmarm Read online

  A DANGEROUS DELIVERY

  “You cain’t read? Ain’t no disgrace, so I’ll let ya know what the sign said. Git your cracker ass off my property!”

  Slocum halted and looked around. He saw no one, but homed in on the road to his left. Huge piles of drossy rock hid all but the shotgun barrel pointed right at him.

  “Don’t mean no harm. You Calvin Bennigan?”

  “You know I am. You got the look of trouble ’bout ya. Git! If you don’t, I’ll shoot! I’m warnin’ ya!”

  “Got a letter for you.” Slocum carefully pulled it out and held it over his head. He didn’t even hear the hammers cocking on the shotgun…

  DON’T MISS THESE

  ALL-ACTION WESTERN SERIES

  FROM THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  THE GUNSMITH by J. R. Roberts

  Clint Adams was a legend among lawmen, outlaws, and ladies. They called him…the Gunsmith.

  LONGARM by Tabor Evans

  The popular long-running series about Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long—his life, his loves, his fight for justice.

  SLOCUM by Jake Logan

  Today’s longest-running action Western. John Slocum rides a deadly trail of hot blood and cold steel.

  BUSHWHACKERS by B. J. Lanagan

  An action-packed series by the creators of Longarm! The rousing adventures of the most brutal gang of cutthroats ever assembled—Quantrill’s Raiders.

  DIAMONDBACK by Guy Brewer

  Dex Yancey is Diamondback, a Southern gentleman turned con man when his brother cheats him out of the family fortune. Ladies love him. Gamblers hate him. But nobody pulls one over on Dex…

  WILDGUN by Jack Hanson

  The blazing adventures of mountain man Will Barlow—from the creators of Longarm!

  TEXAS TRACKER by Tom Calhoun

  J. T. Law: the most relentless—and dangerous—manhunter in all Texas. Where sheriffs and posses fail, he’s the best man to bring in the most vicious outlaws—for a price.

  JAKE LOGAN

  SLOCUM AND THE SCHOOLMARM

  JOVE BOOKS, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  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 AND THE SCHOOLMARM

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2008 by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-1899-0

  JOVE®

  Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  JOVE is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “J” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Contents

  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

  1

  If the town of Dry Water had been any quieter, John Slocum would have thought everyone had died. In his day, he had seen more than a fair number of ghost towns. Dry Water was only slumbering in the afternoon heat, not dead, and whatever ghosts wandered these streets were crowded out on occasion by the living. As he rode down the main street, he looked from left to right and back, noting a man sleeping in the shade afforded by the town bakery. Slocum knew him. He was Jackson Kinney, the former owner of a saloon who had drunk up all his profits and found himself out on the street begging for a nickel to buy yet another glass of beer. Slocum had stood Old Jack for more than a beer to hear his wild stories and skewed outlook on life.

  A bit farther down the street the owner of the general store listlessly swept dirt from the floor inside his establishment. Slocum had never seen the man move faster than this slow-as-molasses pace, even when some kids had set fire to his outhouse in back of the store. The man kept to himself, never said more than he had to and left folks alone. Slocum appreciated that, especially when he had to buy supplies. Some store owners could talk a man’s ear off.

  As he rode past the town’s lone remaining saloon, he saw it, too, was enjoying a brief siesta from the crowd that had bellied up to the bar the night before and would be back again tonight to drown sorrow and kill pain with a few more—or more than a few—shots of whiskey. The proprietor of the Desert Oasis Drinking Emporium and Billiards Hall was a friendly galoot named Alton, and Slocum liked him almost as much as he did Jackson Kinney.

  It was quiet all right. Quiet as a cemetery after a burial, but nobody had died.

  Slocum liked it this way. Too much of his life recently had been filled with sudden gunfire and thundering stampedes. He had spent the last month on the trail, working to get a herd of balky steers from Texas to the railroad in Abilene, Kansas. Along the way, there had been a never-ending string of rustlers to deal with. What wasn’t stolen from the herd had been stricken with some bad disease that killed off damned near a quarter of the beeves. Slocum had been happy to see even a cow town like Abilene. After being paid for his hard work, he had hopped the train and come West. Far West—all the way to California for no reason other than because he had not seen the Pacific Ocean in a spell. Somehow, he had run out of money over at the depot in Pemberton and had somehow drifted to the town of Dry Water, perched right at the northwestern edge of the Mojave Desert, and had never made it all the way to the coast. Life was like that.

  Life was also pretty good. Dry Water was a good ways from the railroad station, but that had not killed it the way such distance had so many other small towns. He had found himself thrown off the train, standing on the depot platform and wondering what he would do when a whipcord-thin man had come over to him and given him a job delivering papers. That was all. Slocum had not been asked to shoot anyone or even protect the pouches of legal documents he carried for Judge K. Thomas Tunstell. Just deliver them in a timely fashion. The judge had given him a horse and a dollar a day, and he often succeeded in cadging free meals along the route he rode. Being a legal courier was not what Slocum wanted to do for the rest of his life, but for the moment it allowed him to put a silver dollar or two away toward the day he drifted on. The ocean still beckoned.

  But resting up in the quiet town was more than enough for his nerves right now.

  The bullet caught the brim of his Stetson and sent it flying into the air. The next bullet cut his horse out from under him, spilling him to the dusty street. As quick as he was, Slocum was caught by surprise and could not get his feet free of his stirrups. The horse toppled over, trapping his leg between dead carcass and ground that had been sunbaked harder than rock.

  “Stay down, get down!” Slocum shouted as he fought to get his leg out from under the dead horse. He waved frantically as a drunken Jackson Kinney stumbled out into the street to see what the ruckus was.

  “I’ll hep ya, Slocum,” the man said. Old Jack waved his arms around like a broken windmill and left the safety of the alley.

  “Get down!”

  Slocum’s warning came too late to save the man. Kinney took one more step before a slug caught him in the throat. Slocum saw blood showering down behind Kinney. Then the man’s head flopped about as he fell. The shot had torn through his neck and nearly ripped his head off.

  Fighting now to get his Colt Navy drawn, Slocum found he could not reach it. He carried it in a cross-draw holster to make drawing easier when he was on horseback. Now it was pinned under his body by the weight of the horse.

  Slocum reared up, grabbed and pulled his Winchester from its scabbard. He crashed back down onto the street as he lever
ed a cartridge into the chamber. The bulk of the horse protected him from more gunfire, but it also prevented him from swinging his rifle around and taking care of the swine who had cut down Old Jack Kinney.

  More gunfire echoed through the otherwise silent town. Slocum could not see the gunmen but heard the pistols firing. He tried to sort out the different sounds to guess how many were involved in the gunfight. He stopped at three. Maybe four. More than he could do anything about while trapped under his horse. Using the stock of his rifle, he pried up some of the horse’s deadweight off his leg. Wiggling and squirming like a worm, he finally got free. When he tried to stand, his leg gave way under him.

  This saved Slocum catching some of the lead death that had already claimed Kinney’s life. The gunfire had died down. Now it started again, reminding him of more than one battle during the war.

  Slocum flopped on his belly and used the horse as a rest for his rifle. Peering down the barrel, he hunted for a target. He had been a sniper, and a good one, during the war. He usually hit what he aimed at, but first he had to have a target he recognized. People moved around the front of the bank next to the courthouse. Most were probably just coming to see what the fuss was about. Shooting any of them would be akin to murder.

  The sound of a horse galloping off should have signaled the end of the fight. It didn’t. Slocum caught a glimpse of a blue-and-white checkered shirt and then the flash of the town marshal’s badge as he moved toward the front of the bank. Marshal Delgado advanced on the bank, firing steadily. Slocum rolled out from behind his horse to get a better view of the fight. Dragging his leg behind him, he advanced in time to see the marshal empty his six-shooter into a masked man standing in the doorway of the bank. The robber fell to the ground, dead. But another bolted from behind and made a wild dash for the side of the bank.

  Slocum wobbled on his gimpy leg but was steady enough to squeeze off a shot. He staggered just a tad at the last instant, causing his round to go downward. But from the way the bank robber went ass over teakettle, it might as well have been a killing shot.

  “Freeze,” shouted Delgado. “Move and I’ll plug you. I swear I will!”

  The marshal advanced on the prone robber, six-gun in a shaking hand. Slocum knew the reason. It wasn’t that the marshal was a coward or that the sudden gunfight had unnerved him. He was bluffing. His six-shooter was empty.

  The robber tried to get to his feet, but Slocum put a slug into the ground at the man’s side.

  “You heard him. Don’t move!” Slocum shouted. He hobbled forward, brandishing his rifle so the outlaw could see it. If the robber had tried to move a muscle, Slocum would have shot him down.

  Delgado went to the bank robber’s side and kicked the gun from his hand. Slocum saw the sweat shining on the lawman’s broad forehead. Delgado’s hair was almost gone on top, but a fuzzy band around the sides almost covered his ears. He was in need of a haircut, but on what Dry Water paid him, doing more than buying a meal a day was out of the question.

  Slocum limped up and kept to one side so he could shoot, if necessary. It wasn’t. The robber was woozy from his fall. Slocum saw that his slug had ripped off the man’s boot heel, tripping him up and sending him to the ground. The unexpected collision with the rock-hard ground had taken all the fight out of him.

  “Let’s see who’s behind that mask,” the marshal said, yanking the bandanna from the man’s face. He studied the robber a minute and shook his head. “I don’t recognize him. How about you, Slocum?”

  “Never laid eyes on him, Marshal.” Slocum warily came around to get a better look at the man’s face. There was a better than decent chance that Slocum might know the bank robber. In his day he had ridden on the other side of the law as much as he had put in an honest day’s work. For all the gangs of road agents he had ridden with, this gent was a stranger.

  “Come on, you. On your feet.” Delgado grabbed the outlaw’s fallen pistol, checked to be sure it still had a couple rounds in it, then shoved his own empty six-shooter into his holster.

  “You need any help, Marshal?” The timorous call came from inside the bank.

  “Nothing you can do, Mr. Williams.”

  “Who’s going to get this…this dead man out of my bank lobby?” The banker stared at the other robber that Delgado had stopped. That one had three bullet holes in his chest and wasn’t moving.

  “Reckon you can get the doc to pick up the body. Or the undertaker. Digger O’Dell’s most likely the best choice.”

  “I’m not paying for this…this thief’s funeral!” Williams was outraged at the notion. “He tried to rob me and would have, no thanks to you!”

  “What do you mean?” Slocum leaned heavily against the wall of the bank building and let the cool brick soak up some of the hurt from his left leg. “If the marshal hadn’t been Johnny-on-the-spot, those owlhoots would have gotten away scot-free.”

  “What were masked men doing riding the streets without being challenged?”

  “That’s crazy,” Slocum said. “They probably pulled up their masks just before going into the bank. And if not, who’s to say they hadn’t been on the trail and wanted to keep the dust from their noses?”

  “Somebody’s got to get this body out of here,” Williams insisted. The portly banker spun in a full circle, as if looking for someone to browbeat into removing the body. He saw that Slocum wasn’t inclined and that Marshal Delgado was already shoving his prisoner down the street toward the jailhouse. “Somebody is responsible!”

  “Looks like you are,” Slocum said. “Unless you want your customers to step over the body. In this heat, it’ll start getting mighty ripe in a few minutes.”

  Hobbling but feeling the circulation returning to his leg, Slocum headed for the courthouse. Behind him Williams continued his tirade about the city “doing something.”

  As he reached the steps leading up to the elegant lobby of the courthouse Judge Tunstell had built just for himself, Slocum heard the marshal shouting at him.

  “Slocum, wait a minute. Slocum!”

  “What is it, Marshal?” Slocum leaned against a whitewashed pillar for support. His leg was feeling better, but he didn’t want to put his full weight on it until it felt a mite closer to normal. He cradled his rifle in the crook of his left arm as he waited for the lawman to walk across the street.

  “You see him, Slocum?”

  “Who do you mean?”

  “The robber that rode off,” Delgado said.

  “Heard him. I was pinned under my horse. The lead must have been flying there for a minute or two.”

  “We got to get after him. I’m not lettin’ any low-down pendejo come into my town and rob the bank.”

  “A noble sentiment, Marshal,” Slocum said. “You’d better stop jawing and get to riding. He must have gone east, since I was on the west end of town and nobody rode past me.”

  “You’re hereby deputized,” Delgado said unexpectedly. “Now come on or I’ll toss you in the cell next to the robber.”

  “As much as I’d like to, Marshal—”

  “That leg’s fine. You walked this far on it. Besides, you’ll be ridin’, not walkin’ on it.”

  “Not the leg,” Slocum said. “I don’t have a horse. Mine was killed.” He stared at the dark lump of unmoving horseflesh in the middle of the street. It was the marshal’s job to dispose of dead animals, but Delgado had hardly had a moment for such work after the bank had been held up.

  “Then you’ll have all the more reason to catch the robber before he gets much farther.”

  “I can’t track him on foot. Besides, it was the judge’s horse. He was only loaning it to me for my job.”

  “I’ve got a spare. Get your gear on Conchita and let’s ride.”

  “Conchita? You’ve got to be kidding,” Slocum said. The horse was swaybacked and cross-eyed, although he had never looked at it closely enough to tell for sure. Mostly, he had only shaken his head in dismay that anyone paid to feed such a broke-down horse.