Slocum and the Texas Twister Read online

  A Storm Brewing . . .

  Slocum hiked the rifle to his shoulder and hunted for the shooter.

  Someone had gone to a great deal of effort to block the stagecoach on the road, but then, after a single warning shot, hid and did not try to advance to rob the payroll.

  Slocum was sure road agents were after the payroll. He had a few mail bags, too, tucked alongside the strongbox, but the Fort Stockton payroll had to be the plum waiting to be plucked.

  He scanned the area where the shot had come from but saw no movement. Although it was early afternoon, it might as well have been sundown. The heavy clouds cut off most of the sunlight and turned the landscape into ever-shifting gray shadows that caused him to jerk this way and that as he hunted for an outlaw to shoot.

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  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  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 TEXAS TWISTER

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Jove edition / October 2012

  Copyright © 2012 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Cover illustration by Sergio Giovine.

  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: 978-1-101-61194-4

  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.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  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

  “Stop! You gotta stop or we’re gonna be killed!”

  John Slocum didn’t bother looking back down into the stagecoach compartment. The man had been raising holy hell ever since they had left Buena Vista on the Pecos River and headed for the town of Gregory, a couple miles outside of Fort Stockton. West Texas was never easy to travel in. Today was worse than the day before, and it looked to be getting nastier by the minute.

  Slocum looked up at the clouds coming lower as if to crush him. They showed him leaden bottoms and were beginning to swirl in ominous patterns. He had seen a tornado or two in his day, and if anyone would bet him, he’d lay heavy money on these clouds spawning a twister. Soon. The coloration was turning a corroded copper green mixed with the darkness. That didn’t always mean a dangerous tornado, but meant the road to Gregory was going to be an uneasy one.

  “Got to keep moving,” he yelled in reply. More than the worrisome weather, he hated riding alone in the driver’s box. His shotgun messenger, Curly Will Beatty, had taken ill and had been in so much pain he couldn’t make the trip. Curly Will was so thin he disappeared if he turned sideways. His scraggly beard never changed from month to month, remaining a tangle of black wire infested with bugs Slocum couldn’t put a name to. But Curly Will had eyes so sharp he could make out a rider on the horizon five minutes before Slocum spotted him. More than once in the past three months the shotgun guard had saved them from being robbed.

  “The damned wheel’s fallin’ off! We’re gonna die out here if you don’t do somethin!”

  Slocum tried to ignore the passenger’s strident complaint. He had driven this route often enough to learn every bump and pothole in the road. While it might be a stretch boasting he could drive it blindfolded, it wouldn’t be far wrong. The last fifteen miles into Gregory were easy in that they were rolling hills and prairie going into desert. The road was sunbaked and in good shape, but not if the rains came pelting down on it.

  A wobbly wheel in mud would likely delay them longer than taking care of it now.

  But Slocum wanted to get to Gregory fast this trip, complaining passenger be damned. Not having Curly Will with him wore heavily on him since there was a huge payroll for the soldiers at Fort Stockton tucked away in the boot. The iron box carried the strongest padlock Slocum had ever seen, and the whole shebang had been bolted to a large brass plate that weighed as much as he did. Nobody was going to waltz off with it and not know
they had done some real work.

  That worried Slocum even more. Road agents were more likely to kill the driver and passengers and take their time blowing off the lock rather than simply making off with the strongbox. He had a cynical bent and figured this was exactly what the bosses at Butterfield Stage Company intended. Better to lose a driver and a few passengers than that damned Army payroll.

  “The wheel! The wheel’s comin’ off!”

  Slocum slowed, bent far to his left, and took a gander at the rear wheel. He cursed under his breath. Loudmouthed passengers irritated him. He got even madder when they were right. If he drove another mile, he’d lose that wheel. Pulling hard on the reins, he slowed the team and finally brought them to a halt. Fastening the reins around the brake, Slocum vaulted out and landed hard beside the coach.

  “You finally got some sense jolted into your pea brain?”

  “I’m looking at it,” Slocum said. For two cents he’d knock the man’s store-bought teeth down his throat.

  “Don’t take too long gettin’ it fixed,” piped up another passenger. The third remained quiet.

  “I got my eye on the clouds,” Slocum assured the man. He was as annoying as Loudmouth, but in a different way. He had a know-it-all attitude that galled as much as the strident complaints about the stagecoach’s condition.

  “Well that you should. Mark my words, we got a twister coming,” the man said pompously.

  Slocum almost wished the sky would clear, just to shut the man up and put him in his place. That wasn’t likely to happen. As he went to examine the loose wheel, a drop of rain splatted against his hat brim and dripped off as he bent to examine the wheel. Hand against the rim, he pushed hard enough to rattle the wheel and show the problem. The hub nut had shaken loose over the rough road a few miles back.

  He walked to the rear of the stagecoach and raised the canvas flap over the boot. The bright brass plate with the strongbox bolted on to it mocked him. Its weight might have caused the wheel to come loose since all the passengers’ luggage had been tied down on the top of the stage. He poked around and found a small ax, then stalked off the road with it clutched in his hand until his knuckles turned white.

  “Where the hell you goin’? This ain’t no time to take a leak!”

  Slocum called back, “Climb on out of the stage. We’re all going to have to work to get the wheel snugged up again.”

  The trio grumbled. Loudmouth climbed out, followed by Know-it-all. The third passenger joined them, whispering. Slocum didn’t have to overhear to know he was badmouthing not only the stagecoach company but the driver and about everything else. Loudmouth, Know-it-all, Complainer. Or maybe an instigator without the nerve to be open about it.

  Slocum took out his frustration on the largest limb on a cottonwood tree that he could reach, chips flying with every swing. He imagined those chips to be the body parts of the three passengers in turn. He finally cut down a limb as thick as his arm, then chopped off its smaller branches and dragged it back to the road.

  “Get a couple big rocks and put them under the axle.”

  “It’s your job to fix the stage, not ours.” The Know-it-all was medium height, wore a bowler turned brown from dust and a coat that had seen better days. The man, in spite of his shabby clothing, held himself like he was superior in all ways.

  “Then I’ll jump on one of the horses from the team, ride on into Gregory, get help, and come back for you. Can’t say how long that might take.” Slocum glanced significantly at the sky. The storm clouds were moving faster, lower, and the greenish tinge was more pronounced.

  “You can’t leave us out here! Not in this weather!”

  As if to emphasize the problem, a large raindrop hit the top of the man’s bowler and bounced a few inches, sending spray onto the other two passengers. They flinched and angrily began arguing. At least Slocum didn’t have any reason to listen. He dragged the sturdy tree limb behind the stage, dropped to his knees, and began moving large rocks to block the right rear wheel. Then he turned his attention to putting a pile of rocks directly under the axle to use as a base for the lever.

  Shoving the limb into place, Slocum adjusted the rocks. He stood, applied a little weight to the end of the lever, and saw that the stage would lift far enough for him to work on the wheel nut. The leather straps acting as springs creaked as he leaned down a bit more, then released the lever.

  “You gents done jawing? A couple of you can lift the stage while I work to get the nut tightened. Or do you want to sit out here in the rain?”

  A few more gravid drops splatted against the stage to add energy to the men coming to his aid. He pointed. Loudmouth and Complainer put their backs to the lever while Know-it-all joined Slocum.

  “You hold the wheel in place while I whack at the tightening nut,” Slocum said.

  “Be sure to use the hammer on the back of the ax head. Otherwise, you’ll damage it further.”

  Slocum glared at the man, then bellowed to the other two passengers to lift. The stage came off the ground and let the loose wheel flop back and forth. Know-it-all knew enough to hold it in place as Slocum hammered at the nut to tighten it. He saw that the nut actually went back into place. He had feared the axle was damaged or the nut itself cracked so that it would break. After a few strong whacks, Know-it-all shook the wheel. Solid. It didn’t wobble one little bit. Slocum saw how this bothered Complainer, who looked around from the rear of the stage.

  “Lower the stage,” Slocum said, stepping back to watch as weight returned to the wheel. It needed more work than he could give out here in this desolate landscape but they weren’t more than a few hours outside Gregory. The stage company could get a wheelwright to do a decent—permanent—job.

  “It won’t last long,” Know-it-all said. “I’ve seen such repairs fail within a mile.”

  “Get in. We’ll drive until it falls off,” Slocum said. “Less you don’t have sense enough to get out of the rain.”

  No more drops fell but a touch of wind was whipping across the prairie to give warning of real storms to follow.

  “Don’t say I didn’t tell you,” the man said, giving the wheel one last shake. It didn’t budge.

  Slocum ignored him and the other two as he climbed up into the driver’s box. Worrying about tornadoes and road agents suited him better than dealing with the passengers and their foibles. He pulled the reins from the brake, made sure it was released, then snapped the reins to get the team pulling. He heard a yelp of surprise. One of them hadn’t clambered into the compartment fast enough. Slocum didn’t give a good goddamn.

  He took a quick look back to be certain the wheel no longer wobbled. It hit a pothole and didn’t show any sign of coming off. He settled back onto the hard bench seat and squinted as he looked ahead along the road. Clouds moved with disturbing speed at such a low height he thought he could reach up and touch them. The greenish tinge was stronger now and the circular movement along with it. Tendrils of gray cloud dipped down in the distance, wisps hardly thicker than fog—but a warning. This was how a tornado looked before it touched down.

  A sudden gust of wind grabbed at his hat, forcing Slocum to pull the brim down lower on his forehead. But he looked up quickly when something didn’t feel right to him. Again he cursed not having Curly Will beside him. The scarecrow of a man would have spotted the rocks in the road instantly.

  Slocum shoved his feet down into the footrest and pulled hard enough on the reins to put strain across his shoulders. The team had just gotten to speed and slowing them so soon was a chore. He finally brought the team to a slow walk, giving him a better chance to study the rocks in the road.

  No way were they stretched across like a low wall from any natural cause. The only reason to block the road this way was that outlaws lurked. Slocum stopped the stagecoach and reached for his rifle just as Loudmouth shouted his displeasure at
stopping again.

  He poked his head out a window on the right side of the stage to berate Slocum just as the first bullet tore splinters from the door. Yelling incoherently, Loudmouth ducked back. Slocum hiked the rifle to his shoulder and hunted for the shooter.

  Someone had gone to a great deal of effort to block the stagecoach on the road, but then hid and did not try to advance to rob the payroll after a single warning shot.

  Slocum was sure road agents were after the payroll. He had a few mail bags, too, tucked alongside the strongbox, but the Fort Stockton payroll had to be the plum waiting for plucking.

  He scanned the area where the shot had come from but saw no movement. Although it was early afternoon, it might as well have been sundown. The heavy clouds cut off most of the sunlight and turned the landscape into ever-shifting gray shadows that caused him to jerk this way and that as he hunted for an outlaw to shoot.

  “We gotta get out of here!” Whoever had made the order sound shrill and bordering on hysterical didn’t understand the situation.

  Slocum had no time to point out that the barricade in the road kept them from driving on, and the deep gullies on either side of the road prevented him from avoiding the rock wall without overturning the stage. He crawled on top of the stage and flopped on his belly, curling around the pile of luggage and using it for cover. Nowhere did he see so much as a hint of the gunman.

  “You need help, driver?”

  Slocum recognized Loudmouth.

  “Stay inside. Can’t find the robber.” Slocum made another visual sweep of the horizon, not for the first time wishing Curly Will were there. Not only was the guard sharp of eye, he was also as accurate as anyone Slocum had ever seen at a hundred yards. Slocum was no tyro himself. He had spent a part of the war as a sniper for the CSA, sitting in a tree crotch all day, not moving, never betraying his presence as he waited for the Yankees to form their attack lines. The bright flash of sun off golden braid meant an officer harangued his troops. A single shot often robbed the enemy of its commander. Slocum couldn’t claim he had won any battles because of his expert sharpshooting, but more often than not those fights had gone the way of the Rebs.