Slocum and the Bixby Battle 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

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Teaser chapter

  A LESSON IN MANNERS

  Slocum drove in hard. His first three blows to the man’s cheekbones sent him reeling backward, though he threw some wild swings. He managed to land a glancing blow to Slocum’s shoulder, but took two hard hits under his eyes that staggered him.

  “You’re going to learn some manners this evening,” Slocum said, dodging a wild haymaker and nailing in two more quick fists to Bixby’s head.

  “About what?”

  “About who you call a bitch.”

  “Ha, her—”

  Slocum’s fist pounded his nose, and Bixby ducked back, slinging blood. “I’ll call that bitch a bitch—”

  “Not while I’m around.” Filled with a newfound fury, Slocum moved in, and in five punches had the big man sprawled on his back. He stood over him ready for any attempt by him to get up.

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  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 BIXBY BATTLE

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Jove edition / February 2005

  Copyright © 2005 by The Berkley Publishing Group.

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  eISBN : 978-1-101-16619-2

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  1

  His knuckles rubbing across his beard stubble sounded like a crosscut saw eating up wood. He considered the straight-backed woman sitting in the chair across the sun-lit table from him. Perhaps thirty-five years old, her handsome face the rich color of coffee with cream. Dark eyes enclosed by long black lashes that she used for her own purposes of sly flirting. The set of her brown irises carried a hint of the aloofness she even bore underneath the blue dress buttoned to her throat. Small breasts and a willowy figure made her look appealing enough to any man gazing at her under the ancient live oaks filtering the morning’s sunbeams.

  Wooden wheeled carretas powered with dull oxen crept noisily past them. Screaming children skipped and played in the street, not even noticing the two of them. Dead-eyed swampers appeared from the batwing saloon doors to dump their buckets of slop and gray mop water in the gutter. Overhead a chorus of busy birds chattered. Mid-morning in the San Antonio square, across from the famous Alamo church’s abandoned structure that served years before as the suicide place for the Lone Star’s martyrs.

  “Does the señora wish for some food?” Tony, the cafe owner, asked. A white apron around his ample waist, he bowed when he spoke to her.

  “Some eggs, frijoles and a few flour tortillas.”

  “And you, Slocum?”

  “You have any beef?” Slocum sat back in the chair and considered the man. A longtime friend, the restaurant owner was balding in the front and showing signs of his sedentary life with a belly behind the apron.

  “I could cut some. It is fresh.”

  “Fine. Roast me some and make the rest like she ordered.” He waved his friend off with a laugh. “You can fix it.” With a forefinger to rub an itch beside his mouth, he turned back to consider his attractive guest at the table.

  “So, señora, continue—”

  “Call me Amanda.”

  “Amanda—you say that you want to hire me?”

  “Yes, I have checked on your reputation since I arrived here. They tell me your gun is for hire.”

  He
smiled and shook his head, causing her to stop and frown with concern written on her olive face.

  “You aren’t for hire?” Her dark eyes looked troubled. “I heard them say—”

  He put his hand on the table and reached across to gently squeeze hers in reassurance. “I’m not a pistolero, but you tell me your problems and I’ll see if I can help you.”

  “My grandfather fought for Texas in the revolution. We are Mexican people, but we are first Texans. Since the war, people have drifted in here who think we are either Indians or foreigners. That we have no rights any longer to hold our land and cattle.”

  “The law?”

  “The law is their man, too.”

  “If you’re bucking the law, señora—I mean, Amanda, that’s a hard business. You really need lawyers, not gunfighters.”

  “No, I need men to stand up to them.” Her lids narrowed and the anger rose like a boiling pot behind her scathing look at him.

  “What’s happened so far?” He slipped down in the chair, listening and admiring her full bottom lip, which reminded him of a fresh brown rose petal. He wondered how it would taste.

  “They have stolen our cattle, horses and even killed two good men.”

  “The law has done nothing?” He cocked his head sideways as if this business made little sense to him.

  “Nothing.” She turned up her palms, showing her long, slender fingers to him.

  “Have you spoken to the Texas Rangers?”

  “I telegraphed for them.”

  “What did they say?”

  “They never answered me.”

  He tented his fingertips and touched the end of his nose. “What could I do, if I went down there?”

  “You could make them do the right thing.”

  “Me and what army?” He chuckled in his throat. This woman must think he was some grande hombre.

  “My men, the other ranchers—they need a leader. They are not sniveling cowards. They just need someone to tell them what to do next. The sheriff may even listen to you.”

  “Did your husband send you?” He looked hard at her for his answer.

  She shook her head and her sad eyes telegraphed that he had asked the wrong question. “They shot him in the back—three months ago.”

  “Here’s your meal, mi amigos!” Tony and a young girl arrived with two large platters heaped with food to set before them: a pile of fresh snowy tortillas freckled with little brown spots from the griddle; a bowl of fresh red salsa and one of green. The girl poured steaming coffee in their mugs and smiled.

  “You need anything else?” she asked.

  “No,” Slocum said. “But we may need help eating all this.” He exchanged glances with Amanda and she nodded in agreement.

  “You wondered why I am not wearing black?” she asked, busy with her food when they were alone again.

  “No.”

  “Good. I’m glad you understand. Because I do not intend to let Colonel Bixby and his men think that I am hiding behind widowhood.”

  “I see.”

  She lowered her voice and leaned toward him to speak in a whisper. “See those two men who just dismounted from their horses down the street?”

  Slocum nodded with a hot tortilla in his palm, ready to load with some chunks of blackened steak, scrambled eggs and frijoles. “Who are they?”

  “Nichols and Taker.”

  “Good to know. They follow you up here?”

  “Yes. Why else would they be here? They work for Bixby.”

  Slocum felt certain he could recognize them again. One was short and husky with jet black hair to his collarless shirt; the other was lanky and wore a low-waisted gunbelt to fit his long arms. Number two was also blond-headed and sported a big mustache. Both men had on the common gear of Texas ranch hands—canvas jeans, collarless shirt, vest and high-crowned hat. They’d hooked their bull-hide chaps on their saddle horns after dismounting. Between bites, Slocum watched them go through the batwing doors, acting disinterested in anything else.

  Amanda and Slocum worked on their overflowing platters in silence, and the girl came by and refilled their coffee cups. When he had eaten all he could hold, Slocum wiped his mouth on a cloth napkin and then threw it down.

  “Enough,” he moaned.

  “I should quit,” she said, amused. Then her face sobered and she looked at him hard. “I can see dust devils dancing in your head.”

  He smiled and picked his teeth with a toothpick. “If you can see them you’re luckier than I am.”

  “You never mentioned how much you charged?”

  “How much can you afford?”

  “Oh—” She looked to the canopy of leaves overhead for help. “Not a whole lot.”

  “There will be expenses.”

  “What’re they?”

  “Twenty dollars, right now.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes,” he said, looking down the street toward the saloon entrance where the two men had gone inside.

  She drew her purse up in her lap and loosened the drawstrings. She placed two ten-dollar gold pieces on the table. “That enough?”

  He nodded, still looking at the hipshot horses tied to the rack, their tails switching flies.

  “May I inquire?”

  “Those two down there in the cantina won’t be back in your country to bother you again.”

  She made a worried, questioning face at him. “How is that?”

  “ ’Cause someone’s going to convince them that the hill country’s bad for their health.”

  “And?”

  He lifted his coffee cup and studied her through the steam vapors, then blew them away before trying to sip it. “That’ll be cheap riddance.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, wiping her mouth carefully on the napkin. “You can hire men here to do that for twenty dollars?”

  “Yes. There’s men in San Antonio would beat up their own grandmother for a fee.”

  “Will those two know—”

  He shook his head to dismiss her concern. “All they’ll know is to get the hell out of this part of Texas and stay away from up there, too.”

  “You’re very resourceful.”

  “Have to be to stay alive.”

  “But can I afford you?”

  “I think you can.” His eyes met hers, and she never glanced aside until they nodded at each other.

  “Excuse me,” Slocum said and rose. “Don’t leave. I need to know more about your operation.”

  “Certainly, Slocum.”

  He made his way back to the kitchen and found Tony busy slicing beef off a hindquarter on the butcher block. The big man blinked as if shocked to see him. “Ah, the señora has left already?”

  “No, not yet. You know some tough guys that will beat up two hombres and convince them that the hill country is not healthy for them anymore and they must clear out of the country?”

  “No problem. Who are they?”

  “Two drovers right now down in the Paloma Cantina. One’s name is Taker, other’s Nichols.”

  “You want them convinced to ride off?” Tony bent over and with his sharp knife laid open another strip of red meat.

  “That’s right, and not ever return to the hill country. Here’s twenty pesos.”

  “Whew! For that much, I can get their ears notched, too.”

  Slocum smiled and nodded that he heard the offer. “Takes that to convince them, do it.”

  Tony searched around to be certain they were alone. “Where is her husband?”

  “Dead.”

  He gave a broad smile of discovery. “Oh, so you are her new segundo?”

  “Something like that. Besides, it’s time I better shake some of the dust of this place.”

  Tony nodded that he understood. “Tonight’s soon enough to convince them?” He indicated the money on the butcher block with the tip of his long knife.

  “Soon enough. Gracias.”

  “Hey, give her some for me.” The man’s evil wink was enough, but he hunched his h
ips toward the butcher block to further demonstrate his meaning. “Ay, carumba, hombre, that would be muy bueno.”

  2

  Alfred Bixby, Colonel, CSA, Georgia Third, put his boots on the desktop and leaned back in the swivel chair. A big man, he looked out the open window at the activity in the yard. How long since they silenced the last cannon? Ten years. Only thing he hated was the fact he’d waited so damn long to leave Georgia and come west. All the good places and water in this country was already taken up by the damn Messikins. Hell, his ole pappy got rid of the goddamn Cherokee in Georgia, no reason he couldn’t get these brown bastards run out of there and back to Mexico where they belonged.

  America was made for the white people, and not for them Roman papal followers either. Protestants made this country. Let them brown bastards go back to Mexico, count their beads and worship idols in their churches. He had his way, he’d ship them all out except those he needed for help. Couldn’t get any good black help out here. Be the ruin of this nation—turning all them black savages free. Why, them lazy dogs wouldn’t work unless pressed anyway.

  “Señor Bixby, would you like some coffee?” The girl in her late teens stood in the doorway holding the silver pot in her hand.

  He glanced over and nodded. It was that new girl, Edora. Cute little thing—he wondered if his nephew Cave had screwed her yet. The boy was part billy goat when it came to women. He could hump more pussy than any old tomcat could in one night—he took after his uncle in that way.

  “Come over here,” Bixby said, waving at the girl to come closer to him when she started to pour his coffee.

  “I must be careful. It is very hot.”

  “Get over here!”

  Hesitant at first, she made a step or two closer, until his arm shot out and he drew her hard up against the chair. “How you do like working here?”

  “Oh, fine, señor.”

  “Put that pot on the desk.”