Slocum 428 Page 13

  But with her familiarity with the skoocooms and being a lone person living on her own out here, it might be that she was also interested in keeping the potential for danger at arm’s length.

  He put an ear to the door but heard nothing more than the wind at his back and maybe his own heart thudding in his chest. He couldn’t even detect light leaking out from under doors or shutters. He continued lifting the latch, and so far, smidgen by smidgen, it kept rising. Soon it rose no more, so he kept a light pressure on it, lest the door spring inward and startle whoever might be on the outside looking in.

  Wait, there was a sound, barely there, but something. There it was again . . . a sobbing sound? Slocum made sure with a glance that his Colt was still in his hand and the hammer thumbed back—it was so cold he couldn’t feel it—and keeping low, he nudged the door open.

  It was dark inside, save for the dim glow of a handful of coals in the hearth from their early-morning fire. Hella had banked it well, counting on nursing the remaining coals back to life once they returned with whatever cargo they had been able to bring back. In this case, they had thankfully found Jigger. But the sounds Slocum was hearing weren’t coming from any of them on the outside of the door.

  Once he nudged the door open and saw by the dimmest of light from the coals, his eyes adjusted while he edged ever deeper into the cabin on his knees, Colt held out straight and true, despite the cold. And soon he was able to make out a vague shape—long and prone—before the fire. It convulsed, jerking and almost thrashing. Just as quickly as it began, it stopped, followed by a long, moaning cry, like too much air being forced through a thin rip in a weak vessel.

  It was a man. Slocum got to his feet, and even before he made it to the man’s side, he knew who it was. It had to be the man they’d knocked unconscious. “Hella!” Slocum bellowed, but she was already heading in through the door. “Light a lamp, I’ll bring Jigger in, then we can get this fire blazing. This man’s nearly dead!”

  “He’s the last person I expected to see here. I thought he’d gone the other way.” Hella chattered like a blue jay while she bustled about the cabin, lighting lamps, building up the fire—she had it blazing in seconds. They laid both men out before the fireplace, kept Jigger wrapped tight in a fresh layer of bedding, and as soon as water warmed, Hella doctored his head wounds properly.

  The other man was in far worse shape. Once the lamps were glowing, the light revealed that some of his fingers, as well as the one foot that had somewhere, somehow become unbooted, had begun to blacken from the cold. His longhandles were torn and bloody, and furrowed jags cut into his thin, bony body beneath.

  They weren’t deep cuts but they were numerous, as if his attacker had done this with the intention of slowness and deliberation. His forearms, back, thighs—all looked as if he’d been raked by a she-cat. And his face, which they had both seen but a few hours before, bore the distinct signs of having been battered by repeated blows. His brow had bubbled in a long band of swelling, blood pooling behind. And his nose and one cheekbone looked to have been pounded flat, as if backhanded by some giant brute.

  As they tended him, Slocum and Hella both felt not a little guilty over the man’s rough treatment.

  “Skoocoom do this?” he said.

  “I’d guess so, yeah.” She nodded. “They’re pretty fair judges of good and bad. Got their own way of keeping things even, if you know what I mean.”

  Slocum slit the man’s longhandles and peeled them away from his raw leg. The man, half-conscious, sucked in a harsh breath through blackened lips. “Judge and jury of the woods, huh?” said Slocum.

  “You might not like it, and I might have a hard time with their methods sometimes, but you have to admit they’re a cut above a grizzly in certain respects.”

  “I suppose so,” he said, wringing out a bloodied rag in a crock of tepid, crimson water.

  “They’re fond of Jigger, I take it?”

  She looked at him. “As a matter of fact, they are. He’s been . . . shall we say . . . kind to them over the years. They don’t forget things like that. They also don’t take kindly to trash like this”—she jerked her chin at the very man she was in the midst of doctoring—“hurting someone they like.”

  “I expect they’d do the same for you, then?”

  She looked at him fully. “What makes you think I’m friendly with the skoocoom?”

  “Just a guess. Otherwise, why would they nearly kill this poor fool, then drag him all the way over here and dump him in your cabin, where they knew you’d find him?”

  “Doesn’t mean I’m friendly with them.”

  “Don’t mean it don’t, neither.”

  They both jerked their eyes toward Jigger. The old man’s eyes were wide open, as wide as his bloodied and bandaged head would allow anyway, and the makings of a smile played on his mouth.

  “Jigger! You’re back with us!”

  “You darn right I am. Didn’t think a couple of ol’ wood rats could keep me down, did you?”

  “Not hardly, no,” Hella said.

  “Knew I could count on you the moment I met you back on the trail that day, Slocum. You’re a good egg, you are.” By the time he’d finished speaking, Jigger’s color had drained once again from his face and his words slurred, his eyelids fluttered.

  “Jigger, stop talking and go to sleep,” she said. “I don’t need to bring two of you so-called wood rats back from the brink. Hard enough job ahead of us for one—and he wouldn’t make a patch on your pants. But a living thing’s a living thing.”

  If Jigger heard her, he didn’t let on. He was too busy drifting back into a deep slumber. Soon, a soft whistling sound escaped from his nose.

  “Good,” she said. “I’ve about had enough of his chattiness. Work to do.” She pushed by Slocum and retrieved another pan from the hearth. The water in it steamed and sloshed as she set it down. “Nearly through with him. I don’t have much in the way of medicines here. If time and whiskey can’t take care of it, then I figure I’m through anyway. Got a few Indian herbs that might help, though.” She rummaged in a cupboard and came up with a small leather pouch cinched tight. “You want to get this steaming in one of those cups?” She tossed the satchel to Slocum. “I’ll get more firewood.”

  He did as she asked and traded places with her once she brought an armload in. “I’d rather fetch wood, if you don’t’ mind,” he said, smiling. “I’m not as much of a hand at doctoring as you are, and I don’t want to hear what Jigger would have to say if he knew I gave him too much of a dose of Indian remedies.”

  He flipped up his sheepskin collar, tugged on his mittens, and headed outside, the wind and driving snow whistling and sluicing every which way. Hella or her father, whoever had built or added onto the cabin, had designed it well. He assumed that the somewhat protected entryway and overhanging porch roof usually did a fine job in cutting down on the most punishing effects of the storm winds from the high country far above.

  Today, though, the house’s design was barely adequate, as the wind couldn’t seem to make up its mind. Slocum rummaged in a stiff-peaked drift, found the spot where she’d pulled stove-length logs mere moments before—already the wind and snow had begun erasing traces of her efforts—and began loading up his arms.

  A loud grunting sound erupted just behind him, and he jerked to his left out of reflex. A sharp pain, then a burst of warmth flowered up the side of his head. He felt the logs fall from his hands, saw the side of the cabin spin upward somehow—but that was impossible, wasn’t it? Cabins didn’t float or fly, did they? Then he saw the gray blanket of stormy sky and swirling snow press down on him from above, felt himself hit the snow behind him. Have I fallen?

  More sounds, grunting and growling, but low and close to his ears, filled his brain. Then through the snow and wind he smelled something pungent, raw and rank, worse than a dozen Arizona outhouses baking in a July sun.
But raw and all animal, as if he’d just crawled up a grizzly’s backside and couldn’t find the way out. What was happening? Did a grizz catch him by surprise? And why couldn’t he seem to make his arms work? He tried with all his effort to lash out and managed to swing an arm outward. It hit something, he heard a grunt, then whatever was there must have hit him—maybe the same thing had hit him before?

  It struck the other side of his head, and he felt the same warm pain, and felt as if a hot, smelly rag were being pulled over his head. Then, as all that gray light above flickered like a guttering flame in a strong breeze, he felt himself moving, being dragged backward.

  In his last moment of consciousness, Slocum looked up at the snowy, gray sky and saw a big, big hairy face staring down at him, the homeliest man he’d ever seen. Only this big, ugly man had huge green-yellow eyes.

  23

  Torrance Whitaker tugged on a newly shined pair of brogans and smoothed the lapels on his best suit coat. He paused a moment and gazed out the window once again. It had proven to be yet another corker of a day, the weather so foul that he could just now, in the early afternoon, barely see a couple of feet into the street.

  He sighed, wondering why he hadn’t heard from those two fools by now. He realized that they weren’t exactly competent, but he’d expected them to at least come back. Guess I’ll have to do the job myself . . . somehow, he thought. Whitaker slowly realized that that ignoramus son of his was not up to the task, and never would be. Why had it taken him so long to realize it? Could it be he actually had a soft spot where his own progeny was concerned?

  Whitaker snorted. He doubted that very much. More than likely it was that he wanted to see the kid fail. Full-out, fall flat on his face one more time. Maybe for the last time—wouldn’t that be enough? One last time, before the entire town, then he could show just how he was so much more effective than anyone else, even his own son.

  “Hell, I don’t know. I’m no deep thinker anyhow. Just a businessman. A self-made businessman,” said Whitaker, giggling a little bit. Maybe from the whiskey he’d taken to fortify himself for the upcoming conversation he had planned. Something about that girl of McGee’s made him a little nervous. He didn’t mind admitting it—if only to himself.

  She was a strong-willed woman. He’d seen the signs of it. Got that from her father, from an early age, no doubt. And that reminded him of his now-dead wife, Jordan’s mother. He counted his lucky stars every day that she’d up and died when she did—elsewise she’d be the one calling all the shots, ruling his days and nights and keeping him as her whipping boy.

  He stumped on through the saloon, his saloon, as he liked to remind himself every time he set foot in the place or exited, for that matter. How many people did he know who owned saloons? Well, not counting the others in town. But that was a pretty low number compared with the number of folks who sought refreshment or enjoyment through those doors.

  And then out he went into the cold, snowy afternoon. As he buttoned his wool coat’s collar high against the bracing, biting wind, he thought that before too many more years passed, he might just up and sell his holdings hereabouts and take a big ol’ carpetbag filled with money on southward toward warmer weather.

  Or, he thought, I might be better off to retain all ownership of my holdings myself and hire someone, say someone just like Ermaline McGee—his future daughter-in-law—for instance.

  That thought ferried him all the way down to the boardinghouse where she currently resided. And just as if she was expecting him, Ermaline herself opened that door and smiled. “Mr. Whitaker, or should I say . . . Daddy-to-be?”

  She flashed him a wicked grin and beckoned him on into the sitting room. Before he could even say howdy or boo, she closed the door and started right in. “Now what’s all this I hear from Jordan? He says you want a meeting with us? Something about how you wanted to talk with little old me?”

  “Well now,” said Whitaker, shrugging out of his coat. “That’s just about the size of it, yes, it is. Sure thing. Only let me get situated, will you?”

  But she didn’t. She lit right into him, in the most appealing tones, and even as he knew he was being manipulated, Whitaker couldn’t help appreciating her keen edge. She was a human skinning knife, and if he didn’t use care, that little she-devil might just peel him clean, hide, hair, meat, and bone.

  “Now hold, hold I say, little girl.”

  And she finally did. But it chafed her, he knew, and even that he appreciated. She would be the very one to help him carry off this plan. A little tension in the business—that was what he needed to buy up all the rest of the region and make it his kingdom, fit for himself to rule.

  What does she want out of it, though? For surely a woman such as this, he thought, with such business savviness, knows what she seeks, and surely she wants something. A cut of the take? She might just assume she was getting that once she married his son. Well, she would be surprised if she thought that she would inherit it all, wouldn’t she? How did all that work anyway?

  As the meeting wore on, it became clear to Whitaker that his fears—or suspicions—about her were correct. She was a smart young thing, maybe too smart. But hadn’t he thought the same? And she was bold, too, in her plans. He could tell she felt something for his son, so maybe she wasn’t wholly rapacious. Though he suspected she was . . .

  And she wanted her father taken care of. Who could blame her? But that was the point where the whole thing sort of fell apart. There was no way he was going to let her know that he’d tried—and in all likelihood failed, since he hadn’t heard a thing from those two imbeciles he’d hired—to have her father removed from the running, as he liked to consider it.

  Sometime later, as he tugged on his wool overcoat and was ushered to the front door, he told himself that there was no way he was going to be bowled over by her. And yet as he roamed on homeward, he had to stop several times in the street to recount bits and pieces of their conversation. Had he really agreed to that? And the other point she raised? Oh dear oh dear, he thought. I best keep my wits about me around this little girl . . .

  Later, when Torrance Whitaker finally laid his head down on his pillow and snuggled tight under the layers of quilts, he didn’t once consider his lumpy son’s feelings. Rather, he thought about all that she had proposed—and how very much of it matched perfectly, as if bookended, with his thinking, his plans and schemes and dreams for this odd, unlikely, but promising little mountain town that timber built.

  “Oh,” he had told her. “There is no doubt that your father, Jigger McGee, was the founder of Timber Hills. No one else can lay claim to that title.”

  Snuggled deep under the covers in his bed, he recalled her earnest young face nodding in full agreement with him, yes, yes, she’d all but said. Daddy Jigger’s a good, good man.

  “But,” Whitaker had been careful to say, “there comes a time in every town’s life when it must grow, or wither and die on the vine.” He’d been sure to give her a long, slow nod then, to be sure she’d gotten the emphasis of what he’d just said. And yes, she was a smart girl, no doubt, and she had understood him. And with that last recalled thought in mind, Torrance Whitaker drifted off to sleep, a smile on his face.

  24

  Slocum awoke not with a start, but with a slow overall full-body numbness that seeped into him, with the measured pace of an oozing mudslide. What was happening to him? He worked hard to force his eyes open, and when he felt he’d finally succeeded, he still couldn’t see anything. Then it occurred to him that maybe he was in the dark, pitch black. He worked to raise his arms, but they felt pinned somehow.

  What had happened? He urged himself to think. Think harder—something had hit him. Where? When? At Hella’s cabin, that was the last place he remembered being. He had been helping her to doctor Jigger and the other man, then . . . then . . . he went for more firewood! And something happened outside, something about hot pain, a . . .
hideous face staring at him. Hairy . . .

  The skoocoom? Couldn’t be—he still didn’t much believe the stories, even if he’d been confronted with plenty of tall tales about it, been told it existed from otherwise sane-seeming men and women, had heard animal noises he’d never quite heard before from creatures of the night.

  He’d heard all manner of big beast—grizzlies, mountain lions, wolves, hell, even the ravings of hydrophobic men—and yet nothing had quite sounded like that strange howling, guttural cry, as if whatever had made it had been in pain and wanted to tell the world about it.

  Despite all that, Slocum was hesitant to believe that the thing that had dry-gulched him outside the cabin had been anything but a man. And then another quick snippet of memory pierced his throbbing mind: There was a face, a horrible face with those raw green eyes. And that face with those vicious eyes had been covered in hair. How do you explain that, Mr. Know-It-All? he asked himself.

  He ran that question in his mind, chewing on it like a bite of tough steak, and he came to the sudden judgment that though he didn’t have an answer, there had to be one that didn’t involve tales of a hair-covered giant man and his weird brood stomping through the forests hereabouts.

  All these thoughts ran through his mind in the time it took to pull in a few long breaths, breaths that came hard because he was somehow bound so tightly. At least he thought he was bound. He couldn’t lift his arms, legs, head. Hell, he wasn’t even sure his eyes were open. And then something occurred to him—smells. It was as if someone had unstoppered his nose and ears.

  The smells came first—raw, violent, nostril-twitching smells that raked his senses like a bull grizzly’s breath after he’d fed on a long-dead, maggot-crawling deer corpse. But there was more to it, as well. More than animal. It smelled almost human in its origin. Somehow it was as if ten hardworking cowhands on a long, hot trail drive had decided to sit close to a woodstove in a small line shack, and then strip off their socks and drape them to sizzle and sputter and steam on the stove top.