Slocum and the Sonoran Fugitive 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

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Teaser chapter

  Crossing the Line

  Somebody’s knuckles rapped at the door. Slocum made a face and thought, If that’s Will, I’m gonna kill him.

  But he pulled on his britches, tossed a sheet over Mandy, and went to the door. He opened it to find a familiar face, but it wasn’t Will’s.

  “Wyatt!” Slocum exclaimed. “You old dog! Glad to see you. I’d invite you in, but—”

  Wyatt didn’t wait for him to finish the sentence. He just barged into the room and said, “Slocum, old buddy, I’m glad to see you, too, but I need your help. Bronc Dugan broke out last night. He somehow thumped Morgan and let himself out, then walked down to the livery, stole a horse, and left. Went south, we think.”

  “Got to wake up my partner and grab some breakfast,” Slocum said, fingering his chin. “Half an hour all right?”

  “Yeah,” said Wyatt. He turned and put his hand on the knob, before he looked back. “Oh, by the way, Slocum, that horse Dugan stole?”

  “Yeah?”

  “He was yours.”

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  SLOCUM AND THE SONORAN FUGITIVE

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Jove edition / February 2010

  Copyright © 2010 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  1

  Slocum was off Apache and running for cover the second he heard the slug sing out. He dropped behind the first big boulder he came to, and slid to a stop just as the second slug sang off the rocks behind him.

  He brought up his rifle and placed a shot right where he’d seen the first one come from, before he twisted his head, checking to make certain that Apache had trotted on to take shelter behind the biggest rocks, to the west. He had. Slocum waited.

  After five minutes had passed, he was about to give up. Maybe he’d lucked out and hit the shooter with his first bullet. He hoped so. There was a long list of people who might have fired on him, but only one he figured to be in the immediate vicinity: Diego Vega. Vega had been on his trail since before he left California, although Slocum wasn’t certain why he was so damned dogged about it. Sure, Slocum had turned his brother, Juan Vega, over to the authorities back in Big Mesa, but he would have been well within his rights to shoot him first.

  The poster had said “Dead or Alive,” after all.

  Slocum figured Diego should have been grateful for that small favor.

  It seemed Diego thought otherwise, though, and just as Slocum was about to stand up, Diego fired again, this time hitting the rock to Slocum’s right with a sharp pop and a little spray of sparks and rock chips. Slocum, who had hit the ground the second he heard the shot being fired, caught the little pyrotechnic display out of the corner of his eye and thought, Ain’the ever gonna get that gun fixed? It had been firing high and to the right—well, that’d be Diego’s left—ever since Campo Verde, the site of Slocum’s last run-in with him.

  Diego fired again, once again hitting the same rock with the same aftereffects, but this time, Slocum immediately fired up toward the source of the bullets. He let go five shots in rapid succession, which he doubted would hit anything but rock or brush, and was surprised when one shot—he couldn’t be certain which—sent up a distant spray of blood.

  It wasn’t much, just enough to spatter the brush and cactus in the immediate area. But it was enough to convince Slocum that at least one of his slugs had hit the target.

  Hunched behind the rocks, he
waited a few minutes, but no more shots came his way. When he figured that Diego was either dead or incapable of firing, he slowly stood up and whistled softly to Apache, then swung up into the saddle.

  “I might be wrong, but I think we’d best check on our old pal,” he said as he urged the horse around the boulders and across the shallow ravine. Once he was on the other side and had climbed up to the place the shots had come from, he found what he was expecting: Diego lay dead, crumpled behind the scrub and rocks. One of Slocum’s slugs had hit him in the center of his forehead—the kill shot—and an earlier slug had taken him high in the shoulder. Probably the reason for the blood spatter.

  Slocum found Diego’s horse and slung Diego’s body across the saddle, securing it with the saddle’s latigos. He figured that if he’d dropped off Juan with the authorities, he might as well do the same with Diego. There was a reward, after all.

  Also, he knew they were only about an hour outside of Prescott. If a man couldn’t drop a body off at the territorial capital’s sheriff’s office—and get paid for it, quick—where else could he drop it?

  Slocum put a loop around Diego’s pinto’s neck, let out about a dozen feet of slack, then secured the other end to his saddle horn. He stepped up on Apache. “Let’s go,” he muttered, and Apache moved out. The pinto bearing Diego’s body trailed along behind him.

  By the time Slocum had delivered Diego’s body, filled out the paperwork at the sheriff’s office, and gotten his voucher, it was dark and the bank was closed. He’d have to cash in his voucher in the morning.

  Untroubled by the prospect of having a night to kill in Prescott, he rode out to Whiskey Row, stabled Apache, and found himself a room at the Select Hotel. After he freshened up, he set out to find himself a drink or two, as well as a woman to share the libation. And a little something else he had in mind.

  He walked down to the Blue Burro, a bar he’d frequented on a stopover here before, and took a seat at a corner table in the back. The saloon was just as noisy and smoke-filled as he remembered, the whiskey just as weak, and the girls just as pretty. Once you got a couple of shots in you, anyhow.

  He had just tossed back his third—and ordered a beer—when a little blond thing sashayed over and sank herself into his lap. She couldn’t have been older than fourteen, and he helped her right back up again.

  “Sorry, miss,” he said, tipping his hat, “but I believe you got me confused with somebody else.” Like, for instance, somebody who’s into diddling kiddies, he thought, disgusted. He’d heard stories of men like that, and personally, he thought they ought to be put away. Or strung up. He didn’t much care which one, either.

  The girl shrugged her shoulders and started to turn away, but he said, “Wait.”

  She turned back toward him, a glimmer of hope in her big blue eyes. She smiled a little.

  Slocum pulled out his wallet and pulled two hundred dollars out of it, then handed it to the girl. It wasn’t much to him, right now, but it’d mean the world to her. She accepted it, openmouthed, then stood there, staring at him.

  Finally, she began, “Whatever you’re wantin’ me to do that costs this much, mister, I don’t think I . . .”

  Slocum shook his head. “I want you to go get yourself somethin’ to eat. You’re looking like you’re starved half to death. And then I want you to gather up your belongin’s and arrange to take the first stage out of town. And once you come to a nice place to live, I want you to find a real job. Not whorin’. All right?”

  She blinked rapidly. And just stood there.

  Finally, Slocum sat forward. “Go on, git,” he said, motioning with his hand.

  A wide smile of gratitude overtook her countenance. “Thank you. Thank you ever so much, mister,” she said before she turned and fairly scampered out the door.

  Slocum grinned and shook his head before he picked up his beer and took a long drag on it. Seeing the look on her face: that had felt good. He hoped for the best for her. It sure couldn’t get much worse than what she’d been living with.

  “Now, what’d you do to make her spring-foot it out of here so cheery?” asked a new voice, female and decidedly more mature. He looked toward it and saw the speaker approaching his table. She was a deep brunette with green eyes and fair skin—probably as Irish as he was—and he guessed her age as about twenty-four: that was a little more like it, if you asked him.

  He smiled at her and pulled out the chair next to his. “Have yourself a seat, honey.”

  She slid into it like a cat sliding into a pillow sling, propped her chin in her hands and her elbows on the table, and said, “Hi. My name’s Tansy. Don’t believe I seen you around here before, handsome.”

  The battle-scarred Slocum gave a good-natured little snort before he said, “Name’s Slocum, and I been in this place once before, ’bout six or seven months back. Ain’t surprised you don’t remember me.”

  Her eyes were smiling, but they narrowed a bit, and Slocum knew she was ready to get down to business. She began, “What’re you in the mood for, Slocum? Do you like it slow and lazy? Hot and fiery and frenzied-like? Do you—”

  “As I live and breathe! Is that you, Slocum?” boomed a voice from across the room, and Slocum knew the speaker before he saw his face.

  Slocum looked toward the source of the voice and grinning wide, said, “Will Hutchins! What brings you to Prescott?”

  Will winnowed his way through the crowd and appeared at Slocum’s table. “Hey, Tansy,” he said, without looking her way. Then he pulled out a chair, slapped Slocum on his shoulder, and said, “I live here now! Over on Fourth. Can you believe it? I’m a property owner and an upstanding citizen!”

  “Who spends his evenings on Whiskey Row,” Slocum said, then laughed out loud. The last time he’d seen Will, they were both gunning it out with a bunch of Mexican banditos—or Federales, he never knew which—down across the border, in Mexico.

  “Damn right,” said Will, before he craned his head back toward the bar and hollered, “Whiskey, Sam!” He shook his head, thick with blond hair, sneezed into a blue bandana he’d been carrying, and wiped his nose before he turned back to Slocum. “Goddamn it! How you been, Slocum?”

  Slocum nodded, grinning. “All right, Will. Just fine, as a matter of fact. Came to town to collect a bounty on Diego Vega. Turned his brother, Juan, in to the sheriff over in California, and Diego’d been followin’ me like a pup gone rabid ever since.”

  “Probably like a crazy pup gone rabid,” Will said as a new girl slid his whiskey in front of him. Will’s eyes were on the drink, but Slocum saw the girl shoot a sidelong glance at Tansy, who gave a quick shake of her head. This, apparently, was her territory and she wasn’t about to share with anybody.

  “Those Vega boys always was one looney pair of owlhoots,” Will went on, after he’d had the first gulp of his whiskey. “I shoulda said the good stuff,” he muttered, then tipped his head toward Tansy. “Sorry. Am I breakin’ in on somethin’?”

  Slocum chuckled. Same old Will—always too little, too late. But he said, “Nope. We were just conversin’, weren’t we, Tansy?”

  Tansy took the hint and stood up. “Yeah. That’s right. You want me, you know where to find me, Slocum.”

  As she moved off into the crowd, Will said, “Got some news the other day, Slocum. Somethin’ you might be interested in.”

  Slocum took a swallow of beer, then arched a brow. “What’s that?”

  Will put his elbows on the table and leaned toward him. “The Dugan gang—all four of ’em—escaped custody three days back, down south of here. They was bein’ transported down to the Territorial Prison. Killed the driver and the marshal and took off with the horses. Ranch hand out lookin’ for strays found the bodies and what was left of the prison wagon.”

  Slocum’s eyes narrowed. “Where, exactly?”

  “They started from Phoenix goin’ toward Yuma, and they’d been travelin’ two days. That’s all I know.” Will tossed back the last of his whiskey before he ad
ded, “Been thinkin’ ’bout goin’ after ’em. Just been searchin’ around for the right company.” He stared into Slocum’s eyes.

  Slocum paused a moment, then asked, “What’s the bounty, Will?” He knew Will wouldn’t take to the trails again unless it was worth it. He’d always said that once he quit, that was it, period. But obviously, something had turned that period into a comma.

  Lowering his voice again, Will said, “Twenty grand for all four. Ten for just Dugan, ten for the other three.”

  “Dead or alive, I take it.”

  A smile tickled at the corners of Will’s mouth. “Yeah.”

  Slocum drained the last of his beer. He could always use half of twenty grand, but he was tired, and so was Apache. They could both use a good night’s sleep. “We leave in the morning?”

  Will grinned. “Fine by me.”

  2

  The next morning, Slocum and his pal Will Hutchins set out from Prescott at about eight. Will had shown up around seven, but Slocum insisted on having breakfast at the café first. It was a good idea. He was sick of his own cooking, and he knew from sad experience that Will was a total washout in the culinary department. He had a steak with pan fries, four eggs over easy with a half pound of bacon, three cups of coffee, and a slab of apple pie with cheddar.

  “You fattenin’ up for the winter?” Will, picking at his own toast and eggs, asked him.

  “Wrong time a’ year,” Slocum answered, around a mouthful of steak.

  And that was the sum total of their breakfast conversation. In silence, they retrieved Slocum’s horse, Apache, and Slocum let Will lead the way on his blue roan, Duster. Duster was new, at least to Slocum. Will’s last mount—anyway, the one he’d ridden when Slocum knew him—had been a palomino gelding called Pyrite, Pye for short. He made the mistake of asking Will about him.