Slocum and the Lone Star Feud 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

  Chapter 27

  A BAD DREAM ...

  “Who in the hell’s shooting?” Slocum shouted as he awoke and rolled out of the bunk. His knees hit the wooden floor hard enough to let him know it was no softer than a rock. On his knees, he reached up for his .44 in the holster on the chair. The whine of a bullet sliced the wooden facing of the open door. He scowled at the close shot. Damn bunkhouse was hotter than an oven. Still on his knees, he mopped his face on his kerchief and wondered which way to move to get out of the way of the incoming rounds.

  He half rose to his feet. Another barrage of bullets came from the barn, and he could hear someone riding around out there. Hell, no time for being safe. In his long-handle underwear, he rushed to the side of the open door...

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  SLOCUM AND THE LONE STAR FEUD

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY Jove edition / August 1998

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1998 by Jove Publications, Inc.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc., 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://www.penguinputnam.com

  eISBN : 978-1-101-17935-2

  A JOVE BOOK® Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc., 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016. JOVE and the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Jove Publications, Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  1

  A hot wind swept up a puff of dust each time her slanted boot heels struck the ground as she crossed the open space between them. Two long-haired stock dogs accompanied her. The pair eyed him suspiciously as he watched her ample breasts strain against the faded material of a man’s cotton shirt. Her exposed deep cleavage showed a suntanned brown to where the second button was open. The richness of the color matched her bronze face. She was dressed in a man’s canvas pants and had a small Colt on her hip. As he dropped from his saddle, he figured that this six-foot-tall woman, who was mopping her perspiring face on her sleeve, had to be Sam Cottrel.

  “Howdy. Hot as hell today, ain’t it?” she offered, replacing the high-crown gray Stetson over her short-cut honey-blond hair. Her deep green eyes observed him critically as she stopped a few feet away.

  “Sweltering hot. Good afternoon. Are you Sam Cottrel?” he asked, jerking loose his cinch strap to allow his tired pony to breathe.

  “That’s my name, stranger.”

  “Slocum’s mine.”

  She nodded her head as if carefully considering his name. Then she stuck out a hand sun-browned like a man’s, and they shook. Her fingers were slender in his grasp, but her calloused palm was like the palm of a working ranch hand.

  “Luther said you’d be coming.” The tone of her voice warned him that something was amiss.

  “Luther all right?” he asked, looking around the ranch for his old friend.

  “No, I’m sorry, but you’re a little late. He’s been dead a month.” She turned away. He saw her eyes narrow and her full lips purse together as she tried to rein in her emotions.

  “You’ve missed the funeral,” she managed.

  “How did it happen?” he asked. Luther dead—it was hard to believe. He felt as if he’d been kicked in the groin. He’d ridden a long way to see his old compadre.

  “They—backshot him like the rest.” Her words were clipped and strained.

  “I didn’t get his letter until two weeks ago. I move around a lot,” he tried to explain.

  She nodded, looking off to the line of hills in the south.

  “He said you’d eventually come and help if you were still alive.”

  “Any idea who killed him?”

  “Plenty of ideas. I just don’t have a plug nickel’s worth of proof.”

  “Who do you think did it?”

  “Dayton Taylor for one. Taylor and his cousins, the Martins, have tried to own this end of Texas for years. Anyone’s got in their way has ended with their boot toes turned up.” She sniffed, and then blew her nose into a kerchief from her hind pocket. “I guess I’m a damn fool to stay here and wait for my bullet. They’ve killed my daddy, my uncle Duncan, and your friend Luther, and all they have left to do is kill me.”

  “You tell me what you want to do,” he said. “Pack up your freight and haul out of here or stand your ground.”

  “Stand here and fight!” Slowly she turned back to blink her glistening eyes at him. Like a newfound sunrise, a small grin spread across her face.

  “Then we’ll stand and fight,” he told her.

  “Luther said you were salty. Mister, I own thirty sections of land here, ten more down the way that belonged to my late uncle, and by damn they’re going to have to plant me in this ground before I ever shuck and run.”

  “Where can I put my horse?” he asked, looking around.

  “The corral’s over there. Water and hay in the bunker. I’ll bet you haven’t ate in a while.”

  “Been a spell.”

  “Put up that pony and then you come to the house. I’m starved myself. I’ll rustle us up something to eat.”

  “Sounds fine, and then we can figure out how you’re going to stay here.”

  “Mister, if God ever sent an angel, I have a notion he came in your boots.”

  “Don’t get your hopes too high, ma’am,” he cautioned her.

  “Sam’s my name. Save that ‘ma’am’ business for some fancy town girl. But I can tell you this much. You’re damn sure a fresh breath of air after the crap I’ve been smelling around here.”

  Slocum touched his hat to indicate he’d heard her words, and then he led the bay horse off to the pens. Luther Clayton was dead. The fact settled in on him, and he felt as if a heavy load had been dumped on his shoulders as he stripped off the rig. He tossed it on the rail and then spread out his saddle blankets to dry. He and Luther had had some good times together. They’d tied on some good ones too. He tried to r
ecall the name of the little Mexican girl in New River that they’d gotten in a fistfight over. Luther had closed Slocum’s right eye, and Slocum had put a purple bruise on his friend’s cheek. Afterwards, they’d found out that while they were fighting each other, she’d shagged off with some tinhorn gambler. That was life.

  In ’72, they’d driven a big set of steers to Abilene for Hap Arnold. The next year, they’d taken a herd of cattle to Arizona for Mac McCarthy. The two of them had fought Indians, rustlers, stampedes, and storms and gone through all kinds of hell together. Slocum drew a deep breath as he recalled the letter in his vest pocket that had been forwarded many times before it reached him.

  If you can, son, come lend me a hand as soon as you can get here. The buzzards around here are sure giving me fits and I could use your gun hand and hard fists. The boss Elliot Cottrel was backshot and I’m trying to help his daughter Sam hold onto this ranch. For a gal, she’s got lots of sand in her craw. Cottrel raised her like the boy he never had, but she ain’t half bad to look at either. The C T X is located north of Black City, Texas, on the San Tia River. It ain’t much more than a trickle in this dry spell we’re having, so take a bath before you come, because we can’t spare the water. Luther

  Slocum looked off to the west at the line of hills. Luther hadn’t lied about the drought on this land. The entire trip down across the Indian Nation had been hot and dry. He’d forded the Red River at the old Doane’s Store crossing and the water was hardly knee deep on his pony. The grass was sun-cured brown, and in many places had burned off to a blackened crisp where a carelessly tossed match or smoke had ignited the countryside.

  With his bay in the pen and drinking his fill at the windmill tank, Slocum headed for the main structure. The low-walled rock and log house set under the grove of live oaks had been built to defend the occupants from Comanches. There were small high windows with hardwood shutters, and everything was cleared back around the house so no bloodthirsty buck could sneak up close without being observed from either a window or a porthole in the walls. He spoke to the dogs, then paused to pat them as they timidly beat their tails in the floury dust. No doubt they knew cattle and gathering, but he felt sorry for them in their long coats in the oppressive heat. They tracked along with him back to the house.

  On the porch, he found the water in the enamel pan and the soap and towel she’d set out for him, and he paused to wash his hands and face. Enjoying the coolness of the wet cloth on his sun-scorched face, he wiped away some of the day’s grit and dust.

  Didn’t she have any ranch hands left? No sign of any. He wrung out his ears with the corner of the sack towel and his index finger. Maybe they’d all left her. He knew that some men found working for a woman hard to take, even a good-looking woman. He removed his hat and ducked to enter the front door, and seeing her busy at the stove, hung the hat on a peg.

  “I’ve got some coffee made,” she said, turning to face him. “If you’d rather have whiskey—”

  “Coffee will be fine,” he said, crossing the room. Handhewed timbers down the center of the great room supported open trusses. On the right were the stove and kitchen table with a dry sink. To his left sat a great poster feather bed, and some clothing hung on the wall. Several wooden chairs circled the fireplace, which had cold white ashes still mounded around the iron dogs.

  She filled a cup for him and then indicated he should have a seat at the table. Things were beginning to sizzle in her skillet as he took a chair. The aroma of cooking meat filled the air. His gut reminded him how little he had eaten since he’d left Fort Laramie.

  “I guess all your hands quit you?” he asked, considering the steaming coffee in the enamel cup.

  “Those that didn’t leave on their own were convinced to do so. They stayed until Luther ...”

  “I savvy. Have you had a roundup this year?”

  “No.” She turned and looked at him with a frown. “I’ve simply tried to hold on.”

  “We need to have one then.” He considered the worn, scarred tabletop. “We need to make that first on our agenda.”

  “First? Luther couldn’t get anyone to help us.”

  “Like in town?”

  “Yes. He offered double wages, but they’d either get scared and not show up, or get pistol-whipped and then they sure wouldn’t come out here.”

  “I’ll take a ride down to San Antonio. Take me a couple of days and I’ll find some men that aren’t afraid.”

  “I sure hope you know that they’ve already killed three good men in my life, and no telling how many ranch hands of mine and the others they’ve beaten up and sent packing. Some I even owed wages to, and they never came back to the ranch for their pay, they were scared so bad.” She stood by the stove and chewed her full lower lip as if considering his idea less than workable.

  “If you don’t brand this year’s calves, then they can claim them as mavericks next year. I’m sure it’s part of their plan.”

  “You’re probably right, but it’s sure late for a roundup, screwworms and all.”

  “I’d rather fight screwworms than lose cattle.”

  “Can you find a crew down there at San Antone?” She tossed her head toward the south.

  “I imagine that I can. Dry weather like this and ranches lay off lots of help, especially their Mexican hands.”

  “Sounds muy bien to me.” She turned back to her stove.

  He sipped the coffee and considered her shapely derriere under the canvas pants as she worked on the cooking. A big woman, tall as he was, and maybe even a little wider in the hips. In deep concentration, he recalled his friend’s words in the letter. Her daddy raised her like the boy he never had.

  “Can you tell me how they got Luther?” he finally asked.

  “Backshot him. He’d left early that morning, and he must have found this cow bogged to her belly in a tank and was working to get her out. His lariat was still around her neck when I found him facedown. He was dead from three bullets in the back.”

  “The law investigate it?”

  “Lester Knotts? He’s a fine kettle of fish to look into anything. Why, he ain’t got the guts of a garter snake or the brains either. Oh, he came out and made a fuss, but he didn’t find a track or anything. I found the shell casings myself. They’re .44/40’s. I figure they used a rifle from where they were up on the hill overlooking the bog.”

  “You keep the shells?”

  “Sure, but why? They’re just ordinary hulls.” She turned to frown at him.

  “Maybe, but some ejectors leave special marks on the butt ends. You see any tracks up there?”

  “No. It was the day after the funeral I found them. Any sign could have belonged to anyone by then. Knotts and some townsmen with him had rode all over looking for something. I don’t even know why I went back and looked. Sun shined on them when I rode up that day.” She placed the three shells on the tabletop before him.

  He examined them. When he turned them up to the shaft of light from the high window in the wall, each one bore a similar scratch on the butt end. Satisfied, he set them down. She dropped in the chair across from him and picked them up to look them over. She gave him a nod when she found the marks.

  “All we need to do now is to find the killer who is the owner of a .44/40 that does this to casings?” she asked with a wry twist to the comer of her mouth.

  “How many .44/40’s are there in the county?” he asked.

  “Couple hundred, I guess.”

  “And how many make a similar mark?”

  “Damned if I’d know,” she said, disappointed enough to drop her chin.

  “Save them. They might be the only piece of evidence we have to work with.”

  “Luther said you were smart. I see what he meant. Slocum, you could get yourself killed doing this.” She closed her left eye to look at him hard with the right one. “You can ride out now and no one will even know that you were here.” She fastened her gaze on him for his answer.

  “And miss all the f
un?”

  “Yeah, miss all the fun.” Her warm smile proved a bright moment in the stuffy dark room.

  He reached over and squeezed her arm. “I’m here for the whole damn war, Sam.”

  “Thank God,” she whispered, and closed her thick lashes tight.

  2

  Slocum felt the itching under his collar and the hair rising on the back of his neck. Call it intuition or whatever, but he made sure he didn’t adjust the Colt on his right hip; there were two or more men on horseback in the cedars behind him. He let the bay horse drink at the round stone trough, and tried to act casual to better get his bearings on the riders.

  “Howdy,” the big man said. He had a Winchester across his lap, and was pushing a wide-chested sorrel from around the boughs and out into the open. His skin was fair, his blond hair was cropped short, and he wore a high-crown hat with a wide drooping brim

  “Good day,” Slocum said, watching the second man with a gray beard sidle his zebra dun out around the other side of the bushy evergreen. He wore a suit coat, a bowler, and even a tie, and had no gun in his hands. Acting as an observer for the other man, he reined up at a distance from Slocum.

  “You passing through, mister?” the big man asked straight out. His steel-blue eyes were as cold as a Montana snow drift in January.

  “Watering my horse, figured there’s enough here for that.” Slocum tossed his head toward the tank. “Your water?”

  “Belongs to my cousin Ira Martin there.” He indicated the man in the suit.

  “My old pony won’t drink much and I’ll be on my way,” Slocum said. “I guess work’s scare around here with the drought and all?”

  “Scarce enough. Best advice I can give you is to keep on riding when you get that pony watered.”

  “How far from here is San Antonio?”

  “Two-fifty, maybe more. You headed there?” the big man asked, stabbing his Winchester in the scabbard. Obviously figuring Slocum to be no more than a stranger on the move, the big man acted as if he had no further need for the weapon.