Slocum in the Secret Service 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

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  WELCOME WAGON

  Slocum grabbed the shaking bartender’s wrist before he could pull away.

  “Mind tellin’ me why everybody in this town’s so nervous?” he asked. He and Amos had been keeping an eye peeled for any sign of the Carthage boys, and there wasn’t any. Unless they’d sent someone to warn the town they were about to invade—which was highly unlikely—this didn’t make sense.

  “E-everybody n-nervous?” stuttered the barkeep. “D-don’t know why you’d s-say that, m-mister.”

  Slocum let go of his wrist, and the man practically leapt to the far end of the bar, knocking over a tray of glasses. They clattered to the floor, and the other startled customers jumped, one clean out of his chair.

  “Slocum?” Amos said softly, and Slocum turned to see a new fellow entering the saloon. He was of medium height, dark-haired, and exceedingly nervous-looking—and he was wearing a deputy’s badge on his vest.

  “Finally,” Slocum said, and turned toward him. “What the hell’s going on around here, any—”

  Something hit him, slamming into the back of his head, and the whole world went black . . .

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  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  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 THE SECRET SERVICE

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with

  the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Jove edition / September 2004

  Copyright © 2004 by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  All rights reserved.

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  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

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  eISBN : 978-1-101-16622-2

  A JOVE BOOK®

  Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

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  1

  “How’d you get a name like Tipsy, anyhow?” Slocum asked, once he’d relit his cigar.

  The girl, brunette and petite, on whose bare belly the red glass ashtray balanced, giggled softly. She caught the ashtray with one hand when it threatened to bounce and slide off her belly.

  “I dunno, honey,” she drawled with a grin, her eyelashes batting to beat the band. “Guess my daddy had what you call one of them whimsical streaks.”

  “Well, Tipsy, he had one beautiful daughter, that’s for sure,” Slocum said. He curled his arm around her and took a fresh puff on the cigar. He figured that if he kept relighting this thing every time they stopped humping, then let it go out each time they dove back in again, it’d probably last him a week. Which was fine by him.

  She giggled again. It wasn’t one of those silly, girlish giggles. It was low and breathy and incredibly sexy. More of a purring rumble than a regular giggle, he thought.

  “You’d best cut that out, Tipsy,” he said, grinning. “You’ll get me goin’ again.”

  “Don’t you want to?” she asked, and stuck out her lower lip just a tad. That pout of hers made him crazy, too.

  So he looked up at the ceiling of her bright red bedroom, gave her shoulders a little hug, and said, “Sure, honey. Just like to get my bearings every once in a while, that’s all.”

  “It’s been a long time since you been through,” he heard her say. “Nigh on a whole year. I missed you, Slocum.”

  “Me, too, Tipsy.”

  “So what you been doin’?” she asked. “Where do you go from here?”

  “Well, been doin’ a job up in Colorado,” he said dreamily.

  Tipsy was plumb wearing him out, that’s what she was doing. He felt like a nap was in order, but he tried to stay awake and keep his eyelids from fluttering. It was only polite, after all.

  He continued, “Well, I rounded up some, er, ‘bor rowed’ cows for a man named Finster, did a little bounty work while I was at it, and right now I’m at loose ends.”

  He watched his smoke curl lazily upward. That was about how he felt right at the moment, like he could just float up and hover around the ceiling for a good, long while.

  “And you came through Armpit just to see me?” she asked hopefully.

  “Yup, Tipsy,” he said, and it was the truth, too. “Ain’t been thinkin’ about nothin’ but you, brown eyes, for the longest while.”

  Well, she’d been on his mind for the last couple of weeks, anyway, and he’d ridden down into Arizona and into the backwater town of Armpit—d
oubtless, christened by some joker—with no other purpose than to come calling on his dark-eyed Tipsy.

  Smiling, she hugged him tight and they lapsed into silence, which was exactly what Slocum didn’t need.

  His cigar went out, and he thought he mumbled something to Tipsy about a nap. That was the last thing he remembered, at least. And then, suddenly, it was dusk and somebody had dropped a piano downstairs—or near to it, anyhow—and he was sitting bolt upright, gun in hand.

  He scrambled into his britches, threw on a shirt and strapped on his gunbelt, all on the way to the door. Tipsy was nowhere in sight.

  Shouts and hollers roared up the stairs, and he ran barefoot and open-shirted through a wall of growing noise, down the steps to the first floor. Immediately he ducked to avoid a flying beer mug, miraculously still half-full of beer.

  It crashed into the wall directly behind him, showering him with beer and broken glass. He didn’t stay put long enough to get too wet, though, because somebody bumped into him, shoving him out of the way. With a thump, he landed on his ass on the third stair.

  Which was just in time to have his chest and shoulder trampled by two other customers, running down the stairs to join in the brawl.

  “All right, all right!” he grunted as he worked his way back up the stairs.

  Whoever’s fight this was, it wasn’t his. And it’d sure be a shame to get himself all bruised up and sore just when he had a nice couple of days planned with the voluptuous Tipsy Magee.

  From the relative safety of the landing—safe, other than the occasional whiskey bottle or shot glass, or once, a lady’s shoe, that flew in his direction—he looked over the rowdy, roiling scene below.

  His first guess had been right. Somebody had dropped a piano. Knocked it over, anyhow. At the moment, it was mostly hidden by the bodies scrambling over it. The piano player had retreated back behind the bar. A couple of times, Slocum caught a glimpse of his green-visored head peeking up over the bar top.

  Apparently everyone but him was down there having a good time. Men and gals slugged it out with no discretion and no apologies—and no compunctions whatsoever. Two fellows were stationed by the batwing doors, slinging unconscious brawlers out into the street. He looked for Tipsy, but didn’t see her, couldn’t even catch a glimpse of that pink dress she’d been wearing.

  Before he took it off of her, he reminded himself, and smirked.

  Congratulating himself on his uncommon but very wise decision to stay the hell out of this free-for-all, he fished in his pocket for his fixings pouch. He’d forgotten to bring his cigar, but if he went back to get it, he might miss something.

  A storekeeper-type was tossed up into the air, limbs flailing, as Slocum licked his quirlie. The man landed atop a beer-drenched saloon gal in a red dress, its sequins dripping and its feathers a-droop. She let out a holler and pushed him off just as Slocum tried to light his lucifer on the sole of his boot—and then remembered that he was barefoot.

  Belatedly, he flicked it on the green-painted wall and lit his smoke. And halfway through the quirlie, Slocum managed to catch one of those whiskey bottles that was flung in his direction, and it actually still had some contents!

  Two more cowboys went flying out the door, and three fresh ones came in and joined the brawl.

  “It’s a grand life, ain’t it?” he asked nobody in particular as he held the whiskey bottle to his lips and tilted it.

  “Enjoying the show, old chum?” asked a deep voice from behind him.

  Dropping his bottle, he whirled and reached for his gun, then stopped stock still, the leather only barely cleared. A great big grin spread over his face and he bellowed, “By God! Amos Marple!”

  Holstering his gun with a snap, he threw one arm around the tall, blond man, and slapped his back with the other.

  Marple, equally pleased, did the same. “It’s been eons, Slocum!” he said with a decidedly British accent, once they had gone up the hall and away from the overwhelming sounds of the brawl. “What in the hell are you doing out here in Armpit? I mean, it used to be a decent little mining town, but it’s gone down a good bit since I last saw it.”

  “You’re not joshin’,” said Slocum, and turned to look at a tossed shot glass, rolling down the hall toward them. “By Christ, it’s good to see you, Amos! I came because of a gal.”

  “That makes sense,” said Amos, a grin spitting his tanned and handsome face. He was almost too handsome for his own good, blast him! “They do retain some rather lovely young ladies in this establishment,” Amos went on over the shouts and thuds of the brawl behind them. “Well-trained, too. I dare say this brothel is the only thing keeping the town alive.”

  To their ears came the crash and splinter of glass, and a good deal of it traveled up the stairs. They must’ve busted one of the front windows, Slocum thought. Or maybe the mirror over the bar.

  “That and glass repair,” he said.

  Slocum watched as, at the end of the hall, a cowhand stepped onto the upstairs landing, hopped up on the rail, and whooping like a bird, jumped back down into the noisy melee, his arms spread wide.

  Slocum turned back to Amos Marple. With a shrug of his shoulders, he said, “It ain’t gonna last a whole lot longer at this rate. They’re gonna run outta population.”

  “I concur,” Amos said, and put his hand on the latch of number nine. “Care to come in until the fisticuffs die down and they sweep the place out? I have some very fine brandy. And I’d like to talk.”

  Reminding himself that Tipsy had pretty much disappeared for the duration, Slocum nodded in the affirmative and followed Amos through the door.

  He practically walked straight into Tipsy, who was just slipping back into that pink dress—the one that, the last time he’d seen it, had been in a heap on his floor.

  He scowled and said, “What you doin’ in here?”

  Tipsy gulped and stammered, “I . . . uh . . . that is, I . . .”

  Amos burst out in laughter. In fact, he laughed so hard the he fell into a chair.

  “Don’t tell me,” he finally gasped, “that this is the young lady you came all this way to see? Tipsy, you are popular!”

  Slocum glared at Amos, and then at Tipsy again. She shrugged. “Sorry, baby. It’s . . . it’s my job, after all.”

  And then, flushed with embarrassment, she turned and hurried from the room, half-dressed, and banged the door behind her.

  “You know, Slocum, I had to cool my heels for a good hour, waiting for her after I rode in. I can see now whose fault that was!” Amos began to convulse with laughter once more.

  And this time, Slocum got caught up in it in spite of himself. He dropped into the chair opposite Amos’s and slid his big bare feet up on the low table that stood between them.

  Chuckling, he said, “Aw, hell. Tipsy’s a soiled dove, after all, and a mighty pretty one. But you know, it never stuck me that she had any admirers other than me. Let alone you!” And then he laughed some more.

  Amos got up for a second and brought the cigar box from his nightstand, and an unopened bottle of brandy in its bucket of melting ice. Slocum took a cigar while Amos poured the drinks.

  “Havanas,” Amos said, still chuckling.

  “I know,” Slocum said. He bit off the end of his smoke and spat it, long-distance, into a corner of the room. “There’s a box in my room, too. Christ, Amos! Same town, same girl . . . what’s next, you suppose? If you tell me next that you rode in here on an leopard-colored Appaloosa horse . . .”

  Slocum flicked a lucifer into flame and lit his cigar. “Well hell, I might just have to haul off and slug you.”

  This also delighted Amos no end, for he broke out into a new roar of laughter, nearly spilling the brandy.

  But he didn’t. He managed to hand Slocum the glass he poured out for him, then take his seat again.

  “My dear Slocum,” he said, picking up his own glass, “I still favor a solid-colored horse, if you don’t mind. None of your loud Paloose horses for me!”
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  Over the rim of his glass, Slocum said, “All right. Let’s keep it that way.” He threw Amos a grin. “So what’d you want to see me about? Anything in particular, or it is just gonna be old home week? Not that I mind old home week, long as you keep the brandy flowin’—”

  “And the cigars and the women coming,” Amos broke in, finishing Slocum’s sentence for him.

  Actually, that was the single thing about Amos that kind of irritated Slocum. He always felt like Amos was crawling around inside his head.

  He just nodded and said, “Right.”

  Amos drained his glass, then poured out another. He offered the bottle to Slocum, who said, “Not yet.” If Amos had to have a couple of drinks to tell him something, it must be a real doozy. And he was beginning to suspect that Amos hadn’t been all that surprised to see him.

  He sat forward, smoke lazily curling up from his cigar, as he waited.

  Abruptly solemn, Amos took another drink of his brandy, staring at his glass as he muttered, “This should have been whiskey.”

  Slocum waited.

  Then Amos looked up.

  He said, “You’ll forgive me for pretending to be surprised to see you, Slocum. You see, I knew you were coming.”

  Slocum’s eyes narrowed. “You did? How?”

  Amos ignored the question and asked one of his own. “You remember the Carthage brothers?”

  The cigar, still smouldering, dropped from Slocum’s fingers, and he said one word.

  “Shit.”

  2

  The Carthage brothers were, indeed, well-known to Slocum.

  He and Amos Marple had rounded them up and put them in prison years ago, but not before Amos and Slocum nearly lost their lives. A couple of times.

  Rance was the eldest, then Rafe, then Rufus, the baby brother. They all had red hair, but that was where the familial resemblance ended. Their father, who was obviously the redhead in the mix, must have had a roving eye, because all three had different mothers.