Slocum and the Canyon Courtesans Read online

  Better Think Twice . . .

  Slocum squeezed off a shot.

  A black hole appeared in the center of Fisk’s forehead and he dropped the shotgun, falling forward and crashing into Scudder. This threw the sheriff off balance as he clawed for his pistol.

  Slocum scrambled to his feet, stepped toward Scudder.

  “You draw that hogleg, Scudder,” Slocum said, “and I’ll put a bullet where your grub goes.”

  Scudder froze, his right hand turned into a rigid claw inches from his pistol.

  “You bastard,” Scudder snarled. “I know who you are. You’re a wanted man, John Slocum . . .”

  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.

  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, Auckland 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 CANYON COURTESANS

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Jove edition / June 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: 978-1-101-58547-4

  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.

  The “J” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Contents

  Cover

  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

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  1

  The wind scoured his face, blistered his cracked lips, stung his earlobes like angry wasps. His black shirt and trousers were flocked with the powdery granules of red dust. His nostrils and lips were limned with the flotsam blown by the vicious West Texas wind, and the sky was filled with a rosy haze as if trying to smother all life with its monstrous choking cloud.

  Slocum bent over his horse’s neck as if to find shelter, but it was like riding into a tunnel of crimson fumes that strangled horse and rider. The brim of his hat fluttered like a banging shutter, the thong dug into his dust-corded neck as if trying to take flight and sail like a kite across Palo Duro Canyon, that desolate wasteland a hundred yards away from a trail that was all but obliterated by the slashing lash of the wind.

  It was then that Slocum heard a faint cry from somewhere in the bowels of the rugged canyon. Was it just a shriek of wind caroming off a stunted pine or whistling through a juniper standing on tiptoe in a pile of rocks? He did not know, but it was a disturbing sound and his instincts demanded that he investigate the source. Mingled with those instincts were a hunch and a curiosity that wiped out any sensible objections. He looked back at the four horses he was leading. He did not want to take them down into the forbidding canyon, so he looked for a place to ground-tie them while he investigated.

  He had ridden down from Amarillo the day before, and had since covered some thirty miles as he headed toward Charlie Goodnight’s ranch.

  He found a thick clump of sagebrush and dismounted, wrapping the rope around the base of the large bush, and tying a large loose knot to hold the rope in place, securing the four horses. He climbed back on his black horse, Ferro, and rode toward the rim of the canyon.

  Again he heard the soft scream, and he knew it was not a trick of the wind.

  It was a woman’s cry that he heard and it was laden with notes of helplessness and terror, a pathetic cry for help. He loosened the ’73 Winchester in its scabbard and lifted the butt of his Colt .45 from its holster and then eased it back into the leather, ready to draw at an instant’s notice.

  He clapped his stovepipe boots into Ferro’s flanks and began to descend into the canyon. The ground rose up
under the horse’s hooves, rugged and rocky, with sandy patches that gave way under the iron shoes so that they slid off trail a time or two until the horse regained its footing. Wary, Slocum’s green eyes narrowed and his head turned in a semicircle to take in every rock, cactus, clump of sage, yucca, and creosote bush. He looked for movement, for anything out of place.

  He reined up Ferro when he saw the wheel of a wagon suspended in midair. It was not spinning, but frozen there like some cockeyed remnant slanted at an acute angle that was far from normal. He nudged Ferro forward over a little rise and saw the wagon tilted over on its side, the canvas strangely taut and lifeless in the windless air of a deep arroyo.

  The ground was strewn with clothing as if a laundry basket had been emptied. He saw women’s bloomers, stockings, underpants, brassieres, lace skirts, and a green bustle, glistening like a large bug in the sunlight. The wagon tongue lay stretched out, its traces cut, and in the wagon seat, a man’s legs dangled over the side.

  As he rode down, he saw a couple of tattered silk purses, empty hatboxes, and three hats that appeared to have been ground into the dirt by horses. The wagon tongue pointed to a small water hole ringed with mud scarred with unshod pony hooves. The fresh tracks were already drying in the sun but were distinct enough to tell a small story to a man who was used to reading sign.

  He heard a low moan coming from the other side of the overturned wagon. He steered Ferro toward the sound, his right hand gripping the butt of his pistol, which was halfway out of its holster.

  “Man, you got to help me,” croaked a voice from beneath the wagon.

  Slocum looked down and saw an outstretched hand, the arm sleeved in chambray soaked with blood.

  “You crawl out from under there and show me both hands,” Slocum said.

  “Jesus. I’m hurt real bad.”

  “Crawl out and I’ll take a look at you.”

  “Leastways you talk like a white man.”

  There was a scuffling sound and another hand appeared, clawing at the ground. The man pulled himself out in a slow crawl, and Slocum saw that he was young and hatless, with streaks of blood on the shoulders and back of his shirt. The man looked up beseechingly with his terror-filled eyes, eyes that bulged from their sockets and were plainly bloodshot. Slocum saw that the man was unarmed, wore no gun belt. He dismounted and spoke a low word to Ferro.

  He walked over and pulled the man out. The man winced with pain and Slocum saw that a round patch had been cut in the front of his skull, the hair yanked off, leaving a patch of white skull partially covered with the curly hair that grew around it.

  “Can you stand up?” Slocum asked.

  “N-N-No,” the man stammered. “I—I’m gutshot.”

  Slocum turned the man over and saw the purple-gray gleam of intestines. Blood oozed from the wound in his abdomen. Bluebottle flies swarmed around the putrid coils of smashed intestines.

  “What’s your name?” Slocum asked.

  “Why do you want to know?” The man grimaced in pain, but Slocum knew that he had been in shock. Probably hadn’t felt much pain when he got shot and scalped. But now his nerve ends were jumping like ants in a brushfire.

  “I’ll probably say a few words over you before I bury you,” Slocum said.

  “Huh?”

  “Your name, son.”

  “I—it’s Jeremy. Jeremy Slater. Am I gonna die?”

  “Sure as I’m standing here, Jeremy. You’ve lost about two quarts of blood and I’m all out of needle and thread.”

  “Jesus,” Slater said.

  “You might want to say a prayer right about now,” Slocum said. “What happened here anyway?”

  “Bunch of Injuns come swarmin’ down on us as we was makin’ for the water hole. I don’t know, ’Paches or Kiowas, a-screamin’ and shootin’. They kilt Ruddy Dover, right off. He was the driver. I was just along to help with the horses. Jesus, I’m getting dizzy.”

  “You’re leaking blood like a water spigot,” Slocum said.

  Slater’s eyes seemed to lose focus as they filled with tears.

  “Can’t you do somethin’?” Slater asked.

  Slocum shook his head. “You’re leaking blood like a sieve, Jeremy. There’s no way to cauterize a wound like that.”

  “Jesus,” Slater said again.

  “I heard a scream,” Slocum said. “A woman’s scream. Know who it was? Or where she was?”

  “I—I think that was Melissa. Melissa Warren. Them Injuns took the other gals, and the horses. Yippin’ and hollerin’ like all get-out.”

  “How did Melissa escape being captured?”

  Slater started to shake his head, but winced in pain. He looked up at the sky as if to avoid seeing what had happened to his abdomen.

  “Wh-When the wagon went over, the other gals all screamed and huddled up. Melissa, she—she fell out and crawled up into them rocks yonder before the Injuns come down and grabbed all the gals and jerked them outen the wagon.”

  Slocum looked up at the other side of the canyon. There were dark holes in the jumble of rocks and vegetation, small openings that could have been caves, hiding places for coyotes, pumas, or skunks. There was no sign of life at any of the holes or the surrounding terrain.

  He returned his gaze to Slater, whose jaw tightened so that he wore a pained grimace on his face.

  Slater looked up at the tall man wearing a black hat with a silver band, a black shirt, black trousers, and black boots. The .45 Colt on his hip was black, too, and the cartridges in his gun belt glistened golden in the sun.

  “You a gunslinger?” Slater asked. “You look mean as hell.”

  “An outlaw, you mean,” Slocum said.

  “Well, yeah, I guess so.”

  “I carry a gun for protection,” Slocum said.

  “You—You look like you could use it, all right.”

  Slocum said nothing. Slater was bleeding to death and he probably would not last much longer. His breathing had become shallower, and his face was paling beneath the sweat. He noticed a slight tremor in the dying man’s hands. His fingers were beginning to twitch and his hands shook. He had seen men die before. A lot of times the pain went away just before they breathed their last breath, and they seemed to settle into a kind of final peace. Slater appeared to be slipping out of pain and into some deeper state that was more like a numbness throughout his body, a final breakdown of nerves that signaled death just a few breaths away.

  Just then, Slocum heard a low moan from somewhere up on the hillside, then a soft sob and a pathetic and pitiful cry for help.

  He looked up, but could not tell where the sounds had come from because the cave entrances were black as pitch and there was no movement in any of them.

  “Sounds like Melissa,” Slater gruffed, his voice as scratchy as if it had been rubbed with sandpaper. Blood bubbled up in his throat and he choked, spat a spray of thin red fluid from his mouth. His body shuddered and his eyes rolled back in their sockets, showing the whites. Blood gurgled in his throat as he tried to clear it, and when he opened his mouth to speak or to cry out some last utterance, there was an ominous rattle that seemed to come from deep in his sunken chest.

  Ferro pawed the ground with his right hoof and whickered softly.

  Slater’s body quivered and he closed his eyes.

  His last breath was a weary sigh as his eyes opened one last time and stared lifeless into eternity.

  2

  Slocum heard a disturbance at the same time as he looked up and saw a young woman begin to emerge from one of the caves.

  He drew his pistol and yelled: “Stay there.”

  The woman ducked back into the cave. Slocum turned and cocked his pistol. He began to run up the hill he had recently climbed down.

  The horses he had tied up screamed in terror, their
high-pitched whinnies sending a rippling chill up his spine. As he topped the ridge, he saw three painted warriors, driving the horses away from where they had been tethered. One of the men turned and fired a rifle at Slocum. His face was smeared with streaks of white, red, and yellow war paint.

  The bullet from the Spencer carbine sizzled over Slocum’s head. He ducked and heard the bullet whine off a rock on the opposite slope of the canyon. The horses and the Indians disappeared over a rise as Slocum eased the hammer down on his pistol. The Indians were too far way and traveling far too fast for him to catch up to them. Besides, he figured there were others waiting in some wash or gully to ambush anyone who followed the horse thieves.

  He looked down at the ground and saw the tracks left behind. Three unshod horses and four wearing iron shoes. They would be easy to track, he thought, since the ground was dry and the sand loose. He sensed that there had been no rain in that part of Texas for quite a spell.

  Slocum holstered his pistol and walked back down to where Ferro stood hipshot. He walked on a slant down into the canyon to lessen the pull of gravity on his large frame. The horse whickered softly and Slocum looked up at the cave as he drew up alongside his horse.

  “You can come out now, missy,” he called.

  He saw a hand emerge from the hole, then another, and a few minutes later, the young woman crawled on her knees onto a small ledge. She stared down at him, and he could see that she was trembling.

  She looked all around, blinking her eyes as if adjusting them to the strong sunlight.

  “Can you get down by yourself?” he asked.

  “Are you Mr. Bascomb?” she asked. There was a look of bewilderment in her eyes.

  “No,” he said, “I’m John Slocum.”

  “Did Mr. Bascomb send you?”

  “No, ma’am. I don’t know Bascomb. I was just passing by and heard you scream.”

  “Is Jerry—is he . . .”

  “He’s dead, ma’am.”

  “Oh no,” she exclaimed.

  “Yes’m, I’m afraid so.”

  The woman stood up. Slocum watched as she swayed for a minute, then regained her composure and began to pick her way down the slope.