Slocum's Close Call 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

  FOUR ANGRY MEN

  “What’s all that yelling?” Joiner said.

  “Our amigos across the river,” said Slocum. “Coffee?”

  Joiner looked across at the angry rurales. All four had at last gotten into their trousers and were strapping on their weapons.

  “They’re pissed off enough to shoot at us,” Joiner said.

  “They’ll have to find their bullets first.”

  “They’ll—”

  Joiner started to laugh. “You’ve done it again,” he said. “Yeah. I’ll have some coffee.”

  While they drank their coffee, the rurales discovered their weapons were unloaded. The English speaker among them shouted out alone, “Hey, you gringo bastards. You think you got away, huh? You think you played a good joke on us. Well, we’ll see about that. We’ll see each other again, amigos, and then we’ll see who has the last joke.”

  “You were right, Joiner,” Slocum said. “They’re pissed off.”

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  Will Barlow’s continuing search for his daughter, kidnapped

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either 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’S CLOSE CALL

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY Jove edition / April 2000

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2000 by Penguin Putnam 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 division of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

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

  eISBN : 978-1-101-17948-2

  A JOVE BOOK® Jove Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. JOVE and the “J” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  1

  Charlie Joiner poured himself another drink out of the bottle that stood in front of him on the bar. He’d already had one too many, but then, he didn’t have a nursemaid nearby either.

  “Señor,” said the fat bartender, “do you really mean to go back to Texas in the morning?”

  Joiner downed the drink and coughed. He wrinkled his face as if the drink had caused him pain. “Yeah,” he said. “Just like I told you, Pee-dro. I’m headed back home. Let them try to stop me. The bastards.” He poured another drink.

  “But Señor,” said Pedro, “if you drink too much, you won’t be able to get up in the morning, much less ride.”

  “I’ll tell you what, amigo,” said Joiner, “I mean to get drunk tonight, and I still mean to be up with the sun and on the trail back to Texas. I got business to take care of, and it’s long past due.”

  The front door of the cantina opened and a man stepped in. He stood there a moment while the door shut again behind him, and he hitched his gunbelt. He was a gringo with the look of a Texas cowboy. Pedro gave him a broad smile, anticipating some more business, but before he could speak, the smile faded and his eyes opened wide as the stranger pulled a .45 Colt out of his holster and leveled it at Joiner’s back. He thumbed back the hammer. “Hold it, hombre,” said a voice from the back corner of the room. “Lower that iron.”

  The stranger hesitated an instant, then swung his gun toward the voice in the comer. There was a flash and a roar from the dark corner. The Texan jerked and winced and involuntarily lowered his revolver. He fired a useless shot into the cantina floor, staggered, and fell onto his face. His right leg twitched once, and then he moved no more. Joiner turned from the bar, his face white. He looked at the body on the floor. Then he looked toward the corner.

  “Señor Joiner,” said Pedro, “that hombre there on the floor, he was going to shoot you in the backside.”

  Joiner stepped over to the body and rolled it over with the toe of his boot. “Harman,” he said. “Goddamn. He couldn’t wait.”

  The man in the corner stood up and holstered his own Colt. He walked toward the door. As he was about to pass by Joiner, Joiner stopped him. “I owe you a thanks, mister,” he said.

  “Don’t mention it,” said the shooter. “I don’t like backshooters.”

  “At least let me buy you a drink, pard,” Joiner said.

  “No, thanks. I think I’ll ride out of here before the law comes around.”

  “It was self-defense, Señor,” Pedro said. “I am a witness to it. His gun was out first, and he turned on you.”

  “Just the same,” said the other, “I like to steer clear of the law.”

  “Hey,” said Joiner, “what’s your name?”

  “Slocum.”

  “Well, Slocum,” Joiner said, “I’m Charlie Joiner. Where you headed? Texas?”

  “I reckon so,” Slocum said.

  “I’m headed back that way,” said Joiner. “Ride with me.”

  “I heard you say you’re leaving in the morning,” said Slocum. “I ain’t waiting.”

  “Then I’ll leave now,” said Joiner. “I’ll ride out with you. What do you say?”

  Slocum thought a moment. “How fast can you be ready to ride?” he asked.

  “Give me ten minutes,” Joiner said. “Hell, make it five.”

  “All right.”

  Joiner pulled a coin out of his pocket and slapped it on the bar. He picked up the cork on the bar and poked it back in the neck of his bottle. Then he looked back toward the table where Slocum had been sitting, strode back to it, corked the bottle that was there, and picked it up. Then, a bottle in each hand, he walked back to where Slocum waited and held up both bottles. He grinned. “Okay?” he said.

  “Let’s go,” said Slocum. “Adios, Pedro.”


  “Adios, amigos,” said Pedro. “Gracias.”

  Slocum and Joiner walked outside. The night air was cool. “It ain’t the best time to start a trip,” Joiner said.

  “No one’s making you ride with me,” said Slocum.

  “Oh, I ain’t complaining,” said Joiner. “Just making conversation.”

  “Where’s your horse?” Slocum asked.

  “In a little corral just down the street there,” said Joiner.

  “Well,” said Slocum, “let’s go get him.” Slocum walked over to the hitching rail and loosened the reins to the big Appaloosa that was tied there. Then he walked along beside Joiner, leading the horse. Joiner was weaving a bit, but Slocum figured he’d make it all right. He asked himself why he had agreed to let this man ride along with him. Beyond the man’s name, Slocum knew nothing about him, except that he was a Texan and someone had wanted to kill him. Hell, he told himself, it was probably a good idea to have company at least to the border. After that, well, he’d see.

  They reached the corral and Slocum took the bottles away from Joiner so that Joiner could saddle his horse. Then he dropped one bottle into his own saddlebag and handed the other back to Joiner, who uncorked it and took a slug before mounting up. Slocum swung up into his own saddle, and the two men rode north together out of the village. If they rode all night, they’d reach the Rio Grande by daylight.

  “That man you killed back there, Slocum,” said Joiner, taking a slug out of his bottle, “he worked for a man in Texas who don’t want me to come back.”

  “I don’t need to know about it,” Slocum said.

  “Well,” said Joiner, “I just thought you might want to know why you killed a man.”

  “I know why,” Slocum said.

  “Why?”

  “I done told you back yonder,” said Slocum. “I don’t like backshooters.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “That’s it,” Slocum said.

  “You’re willing to let it go at that and not know what the hell it was all about?”

  “I don’t give a damn if he was a U.S. marshal after you for baby-killing,” Slocum said. “He shouldn’t have been fixing to shoot you in the back.”

  Joiner took a long drink of whiskey as they bounced along the trail. He pulled the bottle away from his lips with a loud smack. “You’re some piece of work,” he said.

  “I mind my own business,” said Slocum. “Mostly.”

  They rode along a little farther in silence, the only sounds their horses’ hooves on the dirt trail and the occasional smacks and gurgles from Joiner’s drinking. “You get drunk and fall out of that saddle,” Slocum said, “and I’ll just leave you lay.”

  “Hell,” said Joiner, “I’m all right.”

  “Shut up,” said Slocum.

  “What?”

  “Be quiet a minute and listen.” Slocum stopped his horse. Joiner stopped his then too. They sat still.

  “Someone’s coming up behind us,” said Joiner.

  “Yeah,” Slocum said. “Three or four, I’d say.”

  “What do we do?”

  “Get off your horse,” said Slocum.

  Both men dismounted, and Slocum placed the two horses just beside the road on the right side. Then he had Joiner follow him to the other side of the road and they got down flat on the ground, guns drawn and ready. They waited like that until the riders drew near. In the moonlight, Slocum could make out the rurales’ uniforms. There were four of them, and they pulled up beside the two riderless horses. Speaking in Spanish, they dismounted and checked the horses. Two of the men walked off to the right side of the road a little further, looking for the men who had left their horses there. The other two stood beside the horses, looking around in the dark.

  “Now,” Slocum whispered, and he and Joiner jumped up and ran up behind the two rurales who stood with the horses. Before the rurales knew what had happened, they were staring down the barrels of two Colts. Slocum and Joiner disarmed them. “You comprende English?” Slocum whispered.

  “Sí,” the rurale said, his eyes crossed because of the proximity of the barrel of Slocum’s Colt to the tip of his nose.

  “Call your compadres back over here,” Slocum said.

  The man did so, and when the other two returned, they found themselves covered by two men standing behind their own two men for shields. “Drop your guns,” Slocum said. The other two looked curiously at one another.

  “They don’t talk English, Señor,” the man Slocum was using as a shield said.

  “Then you tell them what I said,” Slocum told him, and the man did. The other two rurales dropped their guns. “Now the four of you walk to the other side of the road,” Slocum told them. They did. “Take off your boots and your pants.”

  When that last command was translated, all four rurales began talking at once in Spanish. Slocum didn’t understand it, but he could tell it was indignant protestation. He fired a round from his Colt into the ground in front of the rurales, and they stopped talking at once, sat down, and pulled off their boots. Then they stood again to shed their trousers. Slocum told the one who could understand him to put the boots and trousers on their horses.

  “Joiner,” he said, “gather up their guns. I’ll take the horses, and we’ll lead them off a ways.”

  “Señor,” said the English speaker, “you don’t mean to leave us here like this.”

  “Amigo,” said Slocum, “you all can start walking behind us anytime you feel like it. We’ll leave your horses and britches and boots and guns all on this side of the Rio Grande. By the time you get to them, though, we’ll be long gone on the other side.”

  “Please, Señor—”

  “Let’s go,” Slocum said.

  They rode at a trot toward the river, and Joiner suddenly burst into laughter. When he finally quieted down some, Slocum said, “What’s so damn funny?”

  “What’s funny?” Joiner said. “Why, what you done to them rurales, of course. What did you think?”

  “You wouldn’t think it was funny if I’d done it to you,” Slocum said.

  “Well, I—”

  “I didn’t do it to be funny,” Slocum said. “Done it to slow them down.”

  A little later, Slocum slowed their pace. “They’ll never catch us now,” he said. “No need to wear out our horses.”

  Joiner pulled the bottle out of his saddlebag again, uncorked it, and took a slug of whiskey as they rode along. In another mile, he threw the empty bottle to the side of the road. Two miles on farther down the road, he fell off his horse. Slocum stopped and looked down. Joiner didn’t move. “Damn,” said Slocum. He thought about the threat he had made to Joiner earlier, and then he thought about the four rurales who would almost certainly be very angry by this time. They would also most likely arrive at this spot before Joiner came out of his stupor.

  Slocum dismounted, dragged Joiner up, and shoved him across his saddle. Then, still holding the reins of the four rurales’ horses, he took also the reins of Joiner’s horse to lead. He rode along at an easy pace the rest of the way to the Rio Grande. There he turned loose the four captive horses, leaving guns, boots, and trousers as well. Riding well into the river, he pulled Joiner’s horse up beside him, reached over, and shoved Joiner off into the cold water. Joiner hit with a splash, roared, went under, then came back up spluttering and spitting. When he at last recovered from the shock, he stood up. The water was just below his waist.

  “Where the hell am I?” he said.

  “In the Rio Grande,” Slocum said, “Mount up and let’s get across and make a camp.”

  “Goddamn,” Joiner said. “What the hell happened?”

  “You passed out,” Slocum said. “Come on. We’ll build a fire to dry you out.”

  Joiner swished his way through the water to the side of his horse and climbed into the saddle with a groan. “Oh, my head,” he said.

  “If you can’t handle it,” Slocum said, “you shouldn’t drink so much.”

>   “I can handle it, all right,” Joiner said.

  “That why you fell in the river?”

  They rode out on the other side, and Slocum selected a spot for a camp within easy view of the river. He gathered up some sticks and built a fire, then unsaddled the horses. Joiner stripped and laid out his wet clothes near the fire. Laying out his blanket roll, he found a clean pair of long underwear to put on. Then he stretched out on his blanket to sleep. Slocum spread his own blanket and took his bottle out of his saddlebags. He pulled off his boots, then took off his gunbelt, placing it within easy reach, and leaned back against his saddle. He took a long drink of whiskey. It was good.

  Slocum was boiling some coffee over the fire in the morning when he saw the four rurales arrive across the river. At first they were too busy catching their horses and finding their trousers to notice anything else. Then one of them saw the campfire and recognized Slocum. With one leg in his trousers, the rurale shouted angrily. “Bastardos!” He hopped around, trying to get his other leg in. “Bastardos gringos.”

  The other three looked then and saw Slocum in his camp. “Goddamn Americanos,” shouted one.

  Joiner raised his head. “What the hell?” he said.

  “How you doing this morning?” Slocum asked.

  “What’s all that yelling?” Joiner said.

  “Our amigos across the river,” said Slocum. “Coffee?”

  Joiner looked across at the angry rurales. All four had at last gotten into their trousers and were strapping on their weapons. “What did you stop here for?” Joiner asked.

  “They can’t come over here after us,” said Slocum.

  “They’re pissed off enough to shoot at us,” Joiner said.

  “They’ll have to find their bullets first,” said Slocum.

  “They’ll—”