Slocum and the Tonto Basin War Read online

  Lydia had wanted her horse back, and Slocum had rescued Star one more, last, time. In addition, he had most of the horses that had been stolen from the Tewksbury corral. They were his now, they and a hundred head of cattle. The contract riding in his pocket assured him of that.

  “Ought to take the horses, forget the cattle and clear out,” Slocum said to himself, but he wasn’t going to steal Lydia’s horse. He had promised to return Star, and he would. When he got back, he might as well collect his herd of cattle, too.

  But the eerie quiet from Graham’s house stopped Slocum from riding out immediately. He had been on enough raids to know how men acted afterward. A successful raid meant passing a whiskey bottle around and bragging on how brave and clever they all were, each trying to top the next in tall tales. And if the raid had failed, the whiskey was still passed around, but blame was dished out, too. Those who had died were the usual scapegoats.

  But in either case, the men returned to their camp. Slocum saw nothing stirring at the Graham ranch.

  Cursing himself as a fool, he rode straight into the yard in front of the house.

  “Graham!” he called. “Come on out. We got to talk.”

  He would settle things between Graham and Tewksbury once and for all.

  “Graham?”

  When he heard no answer—or even the scurrying of men running for cover—he dismounted and went up the steps to the porch. He opened the door and peered into the darkened parlor.

  “Graham?”

  Slocum took a whiff of the air and smelled gunpowder. He cocked his drawn Colt, stepped into Graham’s house and immediately swung the muzzle around to point at Tom Graham.

  There wasn’t any call to do this. Graham was sprawled in a chair, arms flopped out on either side. A bullet hole in the middle of his forehead gave mute testimony to how dead he was.

  10

  “Comes as a whale of a surprise to me, Slocum,” John Tewksbury said, shaking his head. “Don’t know who done it. Wish I had, but it wasn’t me. Not Caleb or any of my boys, either.” Tewksbury canted his head to one side and stared hard at Slocum. “You do believe me, don’t you?”

  “Who else hated Graham enough to shoot him in the face?” Slocum asked.

  “Hell, that could be damn near anyone else in the Basin. Graham never went out of his way to make friends.”

  “This makes your life here a lot easier, doesn’t it?”

  “Cain’t say it don’t,” Tewksbury said.

  “You aren’t accusing Papa of being a murderer, are you?” Lydia stared at him in disbelief. “Even if he did kill Tom, what difference does it make?”

  “Graham wasn’t wearing a gun,” Slocum said. “I didn’t even see one near him. Whoever killed him murdered an unarmed man.”

  “Happens,” Caleb said, as if it had taken this long for him to understand what was going on. “Could have been any of his men. Murphy’s a bad apple. You know that first-hand, Slocum.”

  Slocum ignored the young man and watched his father closely. He couldn’t decide if Tewksbury was responsible.

  “Where were you and the rest? Lydia and I got here right after Graham’s men stole the horses. You were supposed to wait until sundown before hitting the trail.”

  “I was going to wait, Slocum, I was. But gettin’ ready to go on in and shoot up Graham’s place wasn’t part of our deal. The instant that ole sun dipped b’low the horizon, I was goin’ to show him what for.”

  “It put your daughter’s life in danger.”

  “Wouldn’t have if Graham hadn’t been such a skunk. Stealin’ my horses like that! He was a thief and a killer!”

  “I got the horses back,” Slocum said. “I’ll cut out my cattle in the morning and be out of here. There’s nothing I can do here.”

  “Please, John, stay awhile longer,” pleaded Lydia. “It . . . it’s nice having you around here.”

  Slocum started to tell Lydia he wasn’t going to be her substitute for Tom Graham, but he held his tongue. Graham was dead, and there was no point in further inflaming Tewksbury. The man was crazy enough to burn down Graham’s house and kill any of his men he happened on, simply because they had worked for Graham.

  “Can’t say it’s been entirely pleasant here,” Slocum said. “I’ll leave you folks to your gloating.”

  “Damn right, Slocum,” cried Tewksbury. “Not every day the biggest thorn in your paw gets plucked out!”

  Slocum left, stepping into the cool night air. The stars stretched from one side of the sky to the other, a thick band almost overhead, giving enough light to read by. It was hard to believe such peace arched over the turmoil through the Tonto Basin. Slocum doubted Graham’s murder would end it. In spite of what Tewksbury said, Graham had friends who would avenge his death. And there were relatives. Tewksbury had made a point of mentioning that when Slocum first rode onto the Circle T.

  “John?”

  “You take care of Star?” Slocum asked. He didn’t want to have anything more to do with Lydia, but there was an undeniable attraction. She was about the prettiest woman he had come across in years, but then a coral snake was mighty pretty, too.

  “I don’t want to talk about the horse, John. Are you sure that Tom was murdered?”

  “He didn’t shoot himself in the forehead like that, then hide the six-shooter.”

  “It could have been Murphy, like Caleb said. Or any of his men. He treated them badly.”

  “But he didn’t treat you bad?”

  “Please, he was a strong man. A rich, powerful man and he had a certain animal attraction I was too weak to resist.”

  Slocum started walking and Lydia fell into step beside him.

  “You wouldn’t understand, John,” she said. “I got mighty lonely, and he was good to me.”

  “To the point of stealing your horse.”

  “I think that might have been Tom’s way of trying to convince me to leave Papa and go live with him.”

  “He was married. What were you going to do, live in the barn so he could sneak out from his home and wife?”

  “John,” she said in exasperation. “You really don’t understand.”

  “Reckon that’s right. I don’t understand and don’t much want to.”

  “It’s all over now.”

  The words weren’t out of her mouth when the air filled with lead. For an instant, Slocum wasn’t sure what was going on; then he realized they were the targets. He dived flat on the ground, fumbling to get his six-shooter drawn. He never got a chance to shoot.

  A rider galloped up to the front of the house, not seeing either Slocum or Lydia in the yard.

  “Tewksbury, you mangy son of a bitch! You kilt him. I’ll see you in hell for what you did!”

  A few more rounds from the rider’s six-shooter took out what windows remained in the house; then the rider took off at a gallop.

  Slocum sat up and aimed his pistol at the dark form now rapidly vanishing.

  “Who was that?” Slocum asked.

  “Trouble,” Lydia said, “Big trouble. That was ‘Old Man’ Matt Blevins. He and Tom were thicker than thieves.”

  “Sounds like he had more friends than you or your pa let on.”

  Slocum took no satisfaction in being right about the reaction to Graham’s murder. He got up and dusted himself off. Lydia remained on the ground, hand extended for him to help her up. He considered for a moment, then manners dictated that he pull her to her feet.

  “You git a shot at him, Slocum?” Tewksbury and Caleb came out, clutching their shotguns.

  “All I did was see what direction he rode,” Slocum said, “so I can ride in the other.”

  “Never pegged you fer a coward,” Tewksbury said. “Reckon I don’t much blame you, though. His kid’s a stone killer.”

  “So?”

  “So Andy’s likely to be back, if Matt’s kickin’ up a fuss like this.”

  “Back from where?”

  “You might have heard of him,” Lydia said, looking flushed
. Slocum wondered at her excitement.

  “Andy Blevins? Nope.”

  “Not Blevins. Andy Cooper, from Texas. He was down San Antonio way and got into trouble with the law, so he changed his name for all the good that did him.”

  “He shot a man in the back,” Slocum said, going cold all over. His hand rested on the ebony handle of his six-shooter.

  “See? He’s famous. You do know of him,” Tewksbury said.

  “No,” Slocum said slowly. “I don’t know of him. I know him. And we have a score to settle.”

  “No question about it,” Slocum said, dismounting. He swung the mare’s reins around the ring in the post. “That’s Cooper.”

  “What’s your beef with him, Slocum?” Tewksbury asked. “I never seen a man turn so cold as you did when you found out Andy Cooper was here in the Basin.”

  “That man he shot in the back?”

  “Down in San Antone? What of him?”

  “He was my partner. We’d ridden together for close to six months when he got into a poker game with Cooper. My friend won and Cooper held him up, then shot him in the back. I tried to track him down but ran into a Texas Ranger that didn’t take kindly to anyone cutting in on his reward. By the time I got away from the Ranger, Cooper was gone.”

  “Rangers kin be like that,” Tewksbury said, stroking his chin. “So you still leavin’ or you stayin’ awhile longer?”

  “I want Cooper,” Slocum said.

  “Well, you kin stay here, but you got to pay to feed yer horses and all them cattle you claimed as yers.”

  Slocum wondered if he wouldn’t be serving humanity by putting a bullet into Tewksbury and then going after Cooper.

  “I’ll pay you in cattle,” he said.

  “Nope, cain’t do that. We got the sheep comin’ in. Truth is, that there Basque shepherd’s already here. The Daggs boys tole me he’s set up northwest of here on some un-grazed pastureland.”

  “Land adjoining Graham’s?”

  “A goodly hunk of my land’s that way,” Tewksbury said with some contempt. “Might be I kin annex a bit more of Graham’s pasture when you kill Cooper. Blevins ain’t gonna care none, either, since I’m gonna take care of him myself.”

  “Pa, Pa!” Caleb Tewksbury came riding up, looking flustered.

  Seeing him, Slocum heaved a deep sigh. There was never anything but bad news on the Circle T.

  “What is it, boy?”

  “Pa, Blevins and his men are killin’ the sheep. They’re stampedin’ ’em and killin’ ’em and—”

  “Calm down,” Tewksbury said. “You tell me what happened. Don’t stammer none, Caleb, don’t you dare. Time’s important.”

  “Yes, sir, time’s awastin’,” Caleb said, sliding from the saddle and almost falling. “Been ridin’ too hard. But Old Man Blevins and Andy Cooper started shootin’ up the herd.”

  “Flock,” Slocum corrected mechanically. “Cooper was there?”

  “Bold as brass,” Caleb said.

  “I’ll ride with you,” Slocum said, grabbing his mare’s reins. He saw a chance to end this right away. Cooper was a coward, more intent on shooting another in the back than on facing someone who might plug him. Slocum didn’t much care which way Cooper was facing when he shot him, but he hoped it was face to face. He wanted to see Cooper crawl before he emptied his six-shooter into his belly.

  Slocum rode with Caleb on one side and Tewksbury on the other. Both men chattered away endlessly, getting on Slocum’s nerves. They arrived at the pastureland eventually and let Slocum get a good view of what it meant for sheep to be let loose on cattle grazing land. It looked as if there had been a snowstorm, with a thousand or more of the woollies bent low and pulling up the grass as they grazed.

  “Where’s Cooper?” Slocum asked Caleb. The young man pointed to the eastern side of the pasture.

  “Blevins is with him, too,” Caleb said.

  Slocum didn’t care. If Matt Blevins tried to stop him from getting to Cooper, he would die. It was going to end here. Now.

  “Slocum, slow down. Let us keep up with you!” Tewksbury and his son trotted along behind, but Slocum wasn’t going to slow down. He had reached the edge of the flock when he heard gunfire. Unlike cattle, the sheep showed little upset at the shots fired. Slocum tried to identify the types of weapons discharged. One sounded like a six-shooter and another a rifle. But the third gun carried a curious sound to it unlike anything he had ever heard. He urged the mare to even more speed as he reached down and drew his rifle.

  The gunfire stopped abruptly. Slocum came to the lip of a dish-shaped hollow in the grassland. A small pond at the bottom afforded some water for a herd—or flock. A few sheep lay beside the pond, leaking blood into the water.

  A steady string of what had to be curses echoed across the hollow. Slocum didn’t understand a single word and knew this had to be the Basque sheepherder. The invective was met by more gunfire, both rifle and pistol.

  Slocum got a better idea of where the gunfight was getting more deadly by the minute and turned his horse in that direction. He saw a man in a sheepskin hat occasionally pop up from behind a rock and fire a rifle that ended in a bell-shaped muzzle. Slocum knew from a single discharge that this was the weapon whose report he could not identify. Turning in the saddle, he followed the line of fire to a tumble of rocks where two men fired steadily.

  Slocum began firing at the men behind the rocks and shouted to the sheepherder to let him ride up.

  Slocum didn’t understand the man’s challenge, so he answered in Spanish, hoping this would be understood. All it did was make the man turn his blunderbuss on Slocum.

  “I’m trying to help you, dammit!” Slocum hit the ground and let his mare run off. He staggered a few steps and fell facedown. He began squeezing off one round after another to keep Blevins and Cooper under cover.

  As he fired, a thought came to Slocum that made him more furious than ever. Caleb Tewksbury had abandoned the Basque to race to the ranch house when he should have stayed and fought. It was as much as he expected from any of the Tewksbury clan. They never seemed to do anything, but were always the victims.

  Slocum got a clear view of the gunman using the six-shooter.

  “Cooper!” Slocum reared up and snapped a quick shot at the man but was in too big a hurry. His shot went wild, but his shout caused the murderous gunman to stand and peer across the meadow.

  “Who’s that?” Cooper shouted. “Who are you?”

  “You shot Hez Clayton in the back,” Slocum answered. “You remember him?”

  “Who are you?”

  Slocum ignored the six-shooter slugs whining around, all fired by the man he took to be Matt Blevins. He stood and walked forward, rifle in his left hand and his right itching to go for his Colt.

  “Let’s settle this right now, Cooper.”

  “Slocum!”

  The gunman lifted his pistol and started firing as wildly as Slocum had with his rifle. A cold calm settled on Slocum as his hand circled the butt of his six-shooter, drew and fired. His aim was good, but the distance was extreme. Cooper grunted, staggered back a step and reached for his belly. Slocum’s bullet had struck the large belt buckle, and distance had robbed it of any carrying power. Slocum fired again, but Cooper was already taking cover.

  “Come on, Cooper, die like a man. But that’s asking too much of a snake like you, isn’t it? You’ve never shot anyone facing you, have you? You shoot them in the back, like you did Clayton!”

  Slocum started walking toward the rocks, the bullets whistling through the air, getting closer and closer. He ignored them and focused only on plugging Andy Cooper.

  “Get away. Ride, dammit, let’s get outta here!” Cooper cried. Slocum kept walking and firing. By the time he reached the rocks, all he found was spent brass and tracks leading away. He shoved his six-gun into its holster and scrambled to the top of the rocks, hoping for one last brief glimpse of the two men. This time he wouldn’t rush his shot from the rifle.

&nb
sp; To Slocum’s disgust, they were gone. He slid down and walked back toward the Basque sheepherder, his hands up in the air.

  “Don’t shoot that old gun at me,” he called.

  When he reached the spot where the Basque had been, he found only crushed grass and a small keg of black powder the man had used to load his blunderbuss. Slocum had seen similar weapons before and decided the shepherd had no idea what kind of gun to carry. The blunderbuss was more like a carbine in size but with an even shorter range. Its shot pattern was smaller than that from a real shotgun.

  He heard an impressive string of curses coming from the direction of the pond and went to see if the Basque was injured. The man had dropped his old weapon and was on his knees beside a dead sheep. He held it in his arms as if it was a recently deceased member of his family.

  Hot dark eyes fixed on Slocum as a torrential outpouring of incomprehensible guttural words left the man’s lips. Then he switched to broken English Slocum could hardly understand.

  “Sheep they kill. Awful men! Kill my sheep!”

  “They wanted to kill you,” Slocum pointed out.

  “Ten—more!” The Basque got to his feet and started pointing to each dead sheep. “More, more! They kill for no reason.”

  “They have good reason,” Slocum said. “They’re cattle-men and you’re a sheepherder. Worse, they have a grudge against your boss.” Slocum looked up as Tewksbury and Caleb finally rode up. He wondered if they had hung back long enough to be certain the fight was finished.

  “Damn, they’re killin’ my sheep,” Tewksbury exclaimed.

  “They’re not yours. You’re only letting them graze here. They belong to the Daggs brothers.”

  “If I got ’em on my land, they’re mine!” Tewksbury said. “That was Old Man Blevins, wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t know him, but the son of a bitch with him was certainly Andy Cooper.”

  “His back-shooter of a son,” Caleb said. Both Slocum and Tewksbury ignored him.