Slocum and the Killers Read online

  GOLD IN THEM THAR BAGS

  Homer shoved himself backward, staying on his belly, and Carlos followed his example. When they were back down the slope a ways, they stood up in a crouch and ran for their horses. They mounted up quickly. Holmes saw them, and snapped off a shot from his Henry rifle. He missed, but Bobtail saw him shoot and twisted his head to see what the sheriff had shot at. He saw Homer and Carlos riding away and aimed his rifle.

  “You sons of bitches,” he shouted. He fired, his bullet catching Carlos in the small of the back. Carlos flung his arms up and fell backward over the horse’s rump, turning a flip and landing hard on his face and stomach.

  Billy Pierce stood up and fired at Bobtail, catching him between the shoulder blades. Bobtail fell forward at first, then rocked back and sprawled out on the ground. Homer was racing away as fast as he could go.

  Slocum and the rest mounted up and rode toward the bodies. Holmes caught up with the dead man’s horse and checked the saddlebags.

  “They’re full of the stolen gold,” he yelled. “Grab that other one over there.”

  Slocum lit out after Homer.

  Looking over his shoulder, Homer saw that he was being chased. He had figured that Bobtail would keep them busy long enough for him and Carlos to get safely away, but the fool had turned and fired at his own buddies. Goddamn him to hell. Homer lashed at his horse, but it was weighted down with gold…

  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 KILLERS

  Jove Book,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 KILLERS

  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: 978-1-1012-1525-8

  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.

  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

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  1

  Slocum hired on with Trent Brady to help drive a herd of three hundred horses from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. It promised to be a long and hard drive, but Slocum was tired of shooting wars. He knew Brady well and liked him, and he had done this kind of work before, plenty of times. He could stand it, and he could stand the drive. A week out from Cheyenne, he was convinced that he had made the right decision. He was enjoying the work. The days were long, but they were filled with plenty to keep him busy, with enough work to keep his mind off the kind of work he had been most recently involved in.

  There were six hands altogether. Besides Trent Brady and Slocum, there was Billy Pierce, young and cocky, but a pretty good cowboy; Charlie Gourd, a half-breed Cherokee know-it-all; Old Jan, bearded and intellectual, but he knew horses; and Nebraska Ned, who had likely escaped a hang-man’s noose more than once. He was a good enough worker, though. The six of them handled the three hundred horses just fine.

  The worst time of all for Slocum was when he tried to sleep at night, when he sat down around the campfire for a meal and a cup of coffee, any time when he was not working. Then he could think, or rather, he could not keep from thinking. Then he recalled all the killings. Most of all, he thought about his last job.

  Slocum had hired out on what he later discovered to be the wrong side of a range war. The man he had gone to work for, Laramie Johnson, was a no-good land-grabbing son of a bitch, but it had taken a while for Slocum to figure that out. Along with Reb Gillian, the hired gunslinger, he had already killed six of the opposition. Six good men trying to make an honest living for their families on small ranches. Johnson had told Slocum they were all part of a large band of rustlers, and Slocum had believed him. Like a damn fool. When Slocum figured out the truth, he had switched sides as fast as a locomotive switching tracks. He had killed Johnson and his main ringleaders, and the little men had won the war. Only Gillian had survived. They had won, but they had lost six good men, and Slocum was tormented.

  Thoughts and memories of what he had done plagued Slocum unless he managed to keep himself busy. They surfaced in his mind to drive him crazy. They made him wish he had been a
storekeeper or a banker or a farmer or even a barkeep. Sometimes, they made him wish he had died at birth. They intruded in his dreams. Nothing could drive the thoughts away but work. The busier the better. The more and harder the better. Slocum loved horses, and the work was good for him. He liked Trent Brady, and he was grateful to him for the job.

  Slocum had worked all night and all day, and when night fell again, Brady had insisted that he get some sleep. Slocum and three others had bedded down while Brady and Nebraska Ned had ridden out to watch the herd. The bad dreams returned almost at once to Slocum’s head, causing him to toss and turn in his sleep. Now and then he muttered or groaned. Old Jan sat up and stared at Slocum. In another moment, Gourd sat up.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Gourd asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Jan. “Bad conscience, I’d guess.”

  “Humph,” said Gourd. “Men like him ain’t got a conscience.”

  Out on watch, Brady and Ned had separated, riding to opposite sides of the herd. Everything was quiet.

  Over a hill not far away, three men sat around a small campfire drinking coffee.

  “What’s keeping Ham?” said one.

  “Be patient, Hardy,” said another. “He’ll be back when he’s found out something.”

  “Well, hell, I’m getting tired of just setting here on my ass. Hell, Sluice, I want to get this thing over with and behind us, so’s we can get back to town and have a drink.”

  “Shut up, Hardy,” said the third man. “Sluice knows what he’s doing.”

  “Hardy,” said Sluice, “I want that goddamned Brady. No one gets away with what he done to me. No one.”

  “Well, hell, Sluice,” said Hardy, “all he done was to testify at your trial that he seen you kill that man. He told the truth was all.”

  “And they sentenced me to hang, didn’t they?”

  “Yeah, but we broke you out of jail.”

  “And now we’re all fucking fugitives from justice, ain’t we? It wouldn’t have hurt that son of a bitch a goddamned bit to just’ve kept his damn mouth shut. Wouldn’t have hurt him none at all. Well, now he’s going to pay.”

  They heard the sound of an approaching horse, and all three men jumped to their feet and hauled out their six-shooters, moving a distance away from the fire. The rider came closer.

  “It’s Ham,” said Hardy.

  They holstered their weapons. Ham dismounted and walked to the fire, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Just over the hill,” he said, “Brady’s by hisself. Well, there’s another rider out with him, but he’s on the other side of the herd.”

  “Just two of them out there?” Sluice said.

  “That’s all.”

  “Come on,” Sluice said. “Let’s get going.”

  “Can’t I finish my coffee?” Ham asked.

  Sluice kicked the cup from Ham’s hand. “I said now,” he yelled.

  “Ow. You hurt my fingers.”

  “Shut up and get mounted.”

  Ham picked up his cup from the ground and stood up. He looked longingly into the cup and saw about a slurp left there. He turned it down and dropped the cup. He walked back to his horse and mounted up again.

  “You’d think a man could at least drink a cup of coffee,” he muttered. “Get his fingers kicked. Shit.”

  When all four men were mounted, Sluice said, “Lead the way, Ham.”

  Trent Brady rode slowly and sang softly. He had a couple of hours left on his watch, but he was content with the chore. Like Slocum, he loved horses, and he enjoyed this quiet time with them. He was in no hurry to be relieved. He had a fine bunch of animals, and he was looking forward to a hell of a good payday at the end of the drive.

  High up on a nearby hill, Sluice and his boys sat looking down on the horse herd and the two riders. Sluice pulled out his revolver and checked it one last time. He was nervous. He was anxious.

  “Hey, Sluice,” said Hardy, “if we was to ride about halfway down this hill, I could pick off both of them bastards with my Henry rifle.”

  “I know you could,” Sluice answered, “but I don’t want you to do that. I want to look that fart Brady right in the face. I want him to know how come he’s going to die. I want him to know who it is fixing to kill him.”

  “What about the other one?” Hardy asked.

  “I don’t give a shit about him,” Sluice said. “Go ahead and take your position, but don’t do nothing till I’ve got Brady.”

  “I got you, Sluice.”

  “All right, the rest of you, let’s get going.”

  They all started riding down the hill. About halfway down the hill, Hardy pulled up beside a boulder and dismounted, pulling his Henry rifle out of the saddle boot.

  “Hardy,” Sluice snapped, “remember what I said.”

  “Don’t worry, Sluice,” Hardy answered. “I’ll wait for you.”

  Sluice led the others on down the hill. They moved slowly so as not to cause an alarm, not to spook the horse herd. Trent Brady was clear over on the other side. When Sluice and his boys had reached the bottom of the hill undetected, they moved cautiously to the rear of the herd and around to the other side. The sky was clear. There was no wind. As the gang moved closer, each man with his revolver in his hand, they could hear Brady singing softly.

  They moved closer. The sound of horses’ hooves, of course, was not alarming, but when Brady heard the creaking of saddle leather, he spun his own mount around and found himself facing three men with drawn six-guns, all pointed directly at him. His hand automatically went for his own sidearm, but Ham fired a shot that broke his right arm. He dropped the gun.

  “Ah,” he groaned. “What the hell—”

  “Trent Brady, you dog-shit son of a bitch,” said Sluice, “you remember me?”

  “Sluice Godfrey,” said Brady. “Yeah. I know you.”

  “Good,” Sluice said. “I mean to kill you for what you done to me.”

  Brady thought about Slocum and the others sleeping not far away. He thought about Nebraska Ned across the way on the opposite side of the herd. He knew that none of them could get to him in time. He felt the numbness in his right arm, and he could feel the blood flowing freely down to his hand and dripping off and falling to the ground. He knew that it was over. His time had come.

  “You did it all to yourself, you cheap, cowardly killer,” he said.

  “Goddamn you to hell,” said Sluice, and he fired a bullet that hit Brady in the chest.

  Across the way and up the hill, Hardy heard the shots. So did Ned down at the bottom of the hill. Ned looked around. He turned his horse to ride around the herd. Hardy put his rifle to his shoulder, took careful aim, and fired. Ned toppled from the saddle. Hardy mounted his horse and started down the hill to make sure of his shot and to join the others. The horse herd was stamping and milling about.

  Trent Brady was still sitting in the saddle, sagging, bleeding badly.

  “Finish him, Sluice,” said Ham.

  “Shut up,” Sluice said. “I’m enjoying this.”

  Jigs, the fourth outlaw, said, “Sluice, his hands’ll be coming.”

  “All right,” said Sluice, “all right,” and he fired another shot into Brady’s chest. Brady slipped slowly from the saddle and fell hard to the ground. He did not move.

  Back at the camp, Slocum and the others came to their feet fast at the sounds of the shots. They pulled on their boots, strapped on their gun belts, and hurried to saddle their horses. Slocum was thinking the whole time, “We’ll be too late.” Nevertheless, he mounted his big Appaloosa as fast as he could and headed for the herd. He was followed quickly by the others.

  Sluice and his two boys headed back the way they had come. They fired their guns all the way, causing the horse herd to stampede. On the far side of the herd, Hardy had been riding toward the fallen Ned to make sure he was dead. He had come close to where Ned had fallen when the herd began to run. He looked ahead and saw Sluice and the others riding hard toward him. He turned and rode tow
ard them. As Sluice and the others raced up the hill, they continued firing, driving the horse herd on its way.

  Halfway up the hill, Ham’s horse slipped on the steep ground and took a hard tumble, landing hard on its side and on Ham’s leg. Ham heard and felt the leg snap. He screamed in pain. The other three continued racing ahead.

  “Sluice,” Ham screamed. “I’m down. Goddamn it. I’m down.”

  “Ham’s down,” said Hardy.

  “Fuck him,” said Sluice. “Keep riding.”

  “Come back,” screamed Ham, watching the three horses and riders growing smaller in his vision. “I’m hurt here. Come back. You shit fucks. You sons of bitches. You goat assholes. Help me here. Oh, hell. Oh, damn it.”

  Slocum was first on the scene. He saw the end of the horse herd as it was disappearing up ahead. He rode on, and then he saw Trent Brady lying on the ground. Brady’s horse was nowhere in sight. Likely, it had run with the herd. It would probably become a wild horse burdened by a saddle on its back. Slocum raced over to where Brady lay and jumped from the saddle, running to Brady’s side and kneeling. He picked up Brady’s head and cradled it in his arms.

  “Trent,” he said. “Trent.”

  “Sloo—” said Brady. “Sloo—” His head dropped, and he said no more.

  “Damn,” said Slocum. “Damn it.”

  The other riders came up behind Slocum.

  Billy Pierce dismounted. “Is he—”

  “Dead,” said Slocum.

  “Let’s look for Ned,” Charlie Gourd said.

  Billy, Charlie, and Old Jan began riding around and looking. Before long, Old Jan yelled, “Over here, boys.”

  They rode to where Old Jan was waiting beside the body of Nebraska Ned. When they hauled up on their reins, Old Jan shook his head. “He’s gone, too,” he said. They picked up the body and rode back to where Slocum still sat holding Trent Brady. They all dismounted.