Slocum and the Hanging Horse Page 14

  14

  “Les, no, don’t!”

  Jeter’s attention strayed from killing Slocum for an instant. This was all the time it took Slocum to grab a rock and fling it clumsily at the outlaw. Jeter was torn between Ruth struggling toward him, coming up the hillside, and Slocum.

  “You slut!” Jeter swung his six-shooter around and fired at his wife. “You bedded him!”

  This was the last thing he got out before Slocum slugged him with another rock, driving him to the ground. Fists flying, Slocum took out his frustration and anger on the fallen man until Ruth grabbed him and pulled him away.

  “Please, John, don’t. You’ll kill him!”

  “Get out of here,” Slocum said harshly. “Why’d you come up here?”

  “I saw him coming for me, then he headed away. I had to find out why.”

  “You wanted to know where he hid the money he’s taken from all the robberies, wasn’t that it?”

  “No, no, I worried he was after you. That’s the truth, John.”

  “I want my watch back.”

  “What watch?” Ruth looked confused. Slocum had no time for her. He grabbed her upper arms and physically lifted her off the ground and set her behind him. Then his heart almost exploded. Jeter was nowhere to be seen.

  “You decoyed me away,” Slocum said accusingly.

  “No, John, I don’t want him. I want to be free of him. I kept him from killing you. Tell me that’s not what happened.”

  “You distracted him,” Slocum admitted. He moved to keep her behind him when he saw a glint of starlight off his Peacemaker. Jeter had dropped it as he made his escape. With a quick move, Slocum scooped up his six-gun and checked it. He took the time to reload. Facing Jeter again might require all six rounds.

  “John, you can’t go after him. He’s a killer.”

  “And I’m not?” The expression on his face froze the woman. She pushed away from him and stared. Her mouth opened, then closed. She took a deep breath to get her wits about her before trying to put her thoughts into words again.

  “I see that, John. But you’re not like him.”

  “You don’t know,” he said. “Get on back to the house.”

  “You’ll have to kill him, John. Otherwise, he’s going to kill me.”

  “Then we both have a reason for me to get after him.” Slocum angrily slammed his six-shooter back into his holster. How Jeter had disappeared like an Apache was a tribute to the outlaw’s skills. That kept Slocum from bulling after him and falling into a trap, but he stood a better chance of keeping out of an ambush himself if he pressed Jeter. Hard. Keep him on the move and the road agent wouldn’t have the chance to do anything but hightail it across the border into Mexico.

  “I’ll be waiting for you,” Ruth said in a choked voice. She turned and stumbled back down the hill.

  Slocum fought down the urge to take her in his arms. Better that she get the hell away so he could listen for Jeter. Slocum turned slowly, using his ears more than his eyes. The faint natural night sounds came to him, but he heard nothing to put him onto Jeter’s trail. He estimated where Jeter had left his horse and made his way there cautiously.

  He took a deep sniff of the cold air and caught the scent of fresh horse flop. Working his way through the rocks, he came to a level area where Jeter had left his horse. The steaming pile confirmed how recently the outlaw had been here. Dropping to hands and knees, Slocum looked closely at the rock and patches of dirt, found where Jeter had entered and the direction he had gone when he left. How he had gotten his horse away so quickly without making any noise was yet another tribute to his skills.

  Slocum might have been up against a more skilled man, but he couldn’t remember when. Getting to his feet, he got a sighting on the stars to establish a direction, then went to get his own mount. As he worked his way out from the rocks to a more level ridgeline, he looked down into the valley and thought he saw a dark figure resolutely moving toward the cabin with its curl of white smoke going heavenward. If he didn’t pursue Jeter, the outlaw would return.

  Keeping him away from Ruth became a bigger obligation. There was no doubt in Slocum’s mind that Jeter would kill her if he got a chance. And it wasn’t likely to be an easy death. Slocum was on the trail of a man who thought nothing of killing everyone in a bank and then burning it down.

  He sawed at the reins and got his horse headed in the direction he had determined by sighting in on the stars. It would be a long night catching up with Jeter.

  Slocum dozed, his chin dropping to his chest. He jerked awake and reached for his six-shooter when he heard something moving. He had been on the trail for three days, and was no closer to running Jeter to ground now than when he had started. Turning slowly, he faced the direction of the sound that had roused him. Slocum slumped. It was only a curious marmot. Slocum relaxed and tried to convince himself not to jump at shadows, but he knew if he dropped his guard for an instant, Jeter would kill him. They had played cat and mouse since the chase had started—and Slocum wasn’t sure which was the quarry and which was the prey.

  Not six hours ago, he had ridden into a ravine, only to have a large boulder tumble down almost crushing him. He had avoided death, but worried that Jeter had been responsible. Rocks fell in the mountains all the time, but why such a large once should come crashing down when he rode below it was a poser. He had expected Jeter to follow up with a rain of bullets, but they hadn’t come. Was Jeter playing with him, or had it been an accident of nature?

  Questioning such things was driving him crazy. He had to end this fast or he would be jumping at every noise and bolting at every shadow like a skittish colt.

  Slocum settled down and let his mind drift until he felt a calm wash over him. He wasn’t usually this jumpy, but Jeter brought together a lot of his worst nightmares. The man looked enough like Bloody Bill Anderson to bring back memories of getting shot in the gut and spending long, painful months recuperating. But it went beyond that. He worried about Ruth, and he wanted his watch back. Worst of all, Slocum feared he had met his match when it came to skill on the trail—and outright meanness.

  His mind drifted like the thin clouds masking the stars as he worked over the problem facing him. He’d had the right idea when he had gone into the rocks above Jeter’s house back in the valley. Let the outlaw come to him rather than trying to find him in territory the man knew intimately well. Slocum had found himself turned around more than once, and had only found Jeter’s trail because of a healthy dose of luck.

  If he would chase his own tail endlessly, he had to find another way of catching Jeter. Baiting the trap had worked once. Slocum turned over this notion in his head and decided it would work again. While more dangerous, it would work because Jeter would never see this coming. He was too confident and full of himself.

  Slocum stared into his guttering fire until only embers remained, then nodded off again, the plan forming. When he awoke in the morning, he was stiff from sitting up all night, but felt good for all of that. He knew what had to be done. After tending his horse and eating a cold breakfast, he mounted and rode slowly along his back trail, as if giving up the hunt. The back of his neck itched, and he was certain that every small sound was going to precede the whistle of a bullet digging its way into his spine.

  By midday, he found a small stream and camped there. Leaving his horse, he scouted the area thoroughly, finding only two spots where Jeter might try to ambush him from. Slocum worked to make one spot less attractive, and then concentrated on the other to be sure Jeter had a good view—almost—into the camp. As the sun sank, Slocum began to work more frantically to get a dummy made. He stuffed his spare shirt with dried grass and found a rock about the size of his head. Spreading his bedroll and positioning the dummy, he built the fire far enough away to cast only long shadows.

  He was ready for Jeter. If only the outlaw would come to finish the job he had started.

  Slocum slipped into the countryside, staying low and finally flopping behi
nd a mound of dirt where he could watch the location he hoped Jeter would be drawn to most. He dozed fitfully, uncomfortably, then came awake a little after midnight. Slocum wiped the sleep from his eyes, checked the stars above, and got his bearings.

  The shadow moving dropped down in exactly the spot where Slocum had anticipated. From the vague outline he made out Jeter kneeling, rifle raised and sighting in on the dummy covered with the blanket in Slocum’s campsite. Slocum slowly pulled out his six-shooter, aimed, then drew back the trigger and was momentarily blinded by the muzzle flash.

  “Gotcha,” he cried, scrambling to his feet and rushing forward. His bullet had lodged squarely in the middle of the shadowy body. As Slocum approached, he saw movement and fired twice more. Then he was on top of—what?

  Slocum kicked out and sent a hat flying. But the body where he had plowed three bullets was similar to the dummy he had made. The rifle was real. Slocum scooped it up and stared at it. He couldn’t identify it as Jeter’s, but whose would it be? He kicked out again and sent the innards of the dummy flying to reveal a small branch and a rope attached. Jeter had been at the other end of the rope, tugging away to keep the dummy erect.

  Slocum swung about and froze.

  “You’re a dead man if you move,” Jeter said coldly. “I don’t rightly know why I shouldn’t cut you down where you stand fer all you’ve done to me and mine.”

  “Are you going to talk me to death, Jeter?”

  “Ought to. That’d be crueler than putting a bullet through you,” the outlaw said. “I just wanted you to know how much I admire the way you kept on my trail. Ain’t more ’n one or two men in all of Texas who could have tracked like you did.”

  Slocum had figured out where Jeter was hiding. He was crouched behind a lightning-struck stump of a cottonwood. Getting off a shot that would do any damage wasn’t possible. Slocum’s goose was cooked.

  “I reckon I ought to change that to ‘admired’ you since you’re a dead man fer what you did to my wife.”

  “Do you even know her name, Jeter?”

  “What?”

  Slocum knew he had struck at the heart of the outlaw’s vanity. Otherwise, he would have been dead by now. Playing for time gave him added seconds to find a way of getting out of the ambush that had turned sour on him.

  “You neglect her. You keep her like a slave. You ever own a slave, Jeter? Before you married one?”

  “You son of a bitch!”

  The first shot missed Slocum. He was ducking and moving when he spoke, knowing what Jeter’s response would be. He had goaded the outlaw into losing his composure—and his aim. The bullet went wide. Slocum spun around and began firing steadily in Jeter’s direction. He missed with every shot, but drove the outlaw back.

  Slocum had tried attacking before and had never made it work. He might have been crazy then, but now he was furious, at himself, and at Jeter for being better than he was at tracking and trapping. For all the work Slocum had put into laying his trap, Jeter had outdone him in only a few minutes.

  Getting to the log, Slocum launched himself blindly into the air. His fingers closed on cloth. He clawed his way up, being dragged along as Jeter tried to escape. This time Slocum weighed down his quarry and brought Jeter crashing to the ground. The outlaw’s lungs let out a whoosh as he hit a rock and lay limp.

  Slocum slugged him. Again. He started to hit him a third time and crush his skull, but hesitated. He knew he ought to kill Jeter now that he had the chance, but killing an unconscious man wasn’t his way.

  “Get on over,” Slocum grunted, rolling Jeter onto his back. He grabbed the outlaw’s six-shooter and thrust it into his own gun belt. Then he took a double handful of shirt and pulled Jeter up to a sitting position. With a grunt, Slocum hefted the road agent over his shoulder and staggered toward his camp in triumph.

  He had finally caught the son of a bitch!

  15

  He couldn’t get free of him. Les Jeter had tried yet another tactic to throw his tracker off, but didn’t have much hope. Ever since the man had laid the trap above the house, he had been like flypaper sticking to Jeter’s trail.

  “If I can’t get rid of you, then I’d better think on some way to kill you,” Jeter said. And that suited him well. The son of a bitch had been fooling with his woman. She was Jeter’s property and should have been off-limits to anyone else, especially some ugly galoot who was just passing through.

  “Or was he just passin’ through?” Jeter wondered aloud. There was more than a drifter’s feeling to the man. The drifter had fought Jeter well at the barn, and had followed when he had taken Ruth with him. Most men would have quit then and there, but not Jeter’s flypaper. He had followed and caught Jeter off guard, taking Ruth back to the cabin with him.

  That had infuriated Jeter, but he had been cautious approaching the cabin that night. The place had looked peaceable enough, so he had ridden to where he had hidden most of the loot he had accumulated over the past few months of holdups. Locking horns with the man in a clever ambush had almost been the last thing Jeter had done.

  He would have ended it all except for the way Ruth had butted in and saved the man.

  “Bitch,” Jeter snarled. “Bitch and her mangy cur sniffin’ all around.” He’d had the drop on the man, and then the world had turned upside down. He had barely escaped. And for the past couple days he had done everything he had ever learned, and even some tricks he had only thought up on the spur of the moment, to get free. Nothing had worked.

  “Flypaper. Goddamn flypaper,” Jeter grumbled. But he was not a man to let adversity get him down. He needed a few hours lead on the man dogging him so diligently so he could lay his trap. Jeter wasn’t sure what that would be yet, but he would find something that would work since the man’s luck had to run out. And only luck had let him be such a pain in the ass this far.

  Jeter worked his way up the side of a hill, not content with the lay of the land but knowing this was the best he was likely to find in this stretch of the Davis Mountains. He was glad he had spent so much time scouting. Such careful preparation was playing off in spades now. A little bait down below would slow his tracker; then he could gun him down when he dismounted to study the spoor.

  “Ain’t elegant, but it’ll do,” Jeter decided. He scuffed up the ground, kicked over a few rocks, and then let his stallion dance away onto a rocky patch where his trail wouldn’t be immediately obvious. From here he wended his way higher until he reached a spot where his horse would be hidden and he had a decent downhill shot. Those were always tricky, but Jeter knew he was up to it, especially this time. The son of a bitch had been screwing his wife. His only regret was not letting him suffer a mite before he died.

  Jeter pulled out his rifle and lay in wait. A slow smile curled his lips when he saw the shadowy outline of a rider coming down the trail.

  “Closer, get a little closer so I won’t miss.” But Jeter fell silent when his flypaper drew rein, then reversed course and disappeared into the inky night.

  “What’s he tryin’ to do? Gull me into thinkin’ he ain’t interested in me anymore?” Jeter spat. He looked above his hiding spot to be sure nobody could circle and get above him to shoot him in the back the way he had intended to do to the man on his trail. He had been too careful, and his flypaper was giving up.

  “Time to go huntin’ on my own. He’s not gettin’ away with anything.” Jeter grinned at the notion of killing the man on his trail, then returning to the cabin and spending the night with Ruth. It had been a while since he hadn’t been thinking of the next job or looking over his shoulder, watching as the clumsy attempts to arrest him had played out. Yes, it would be real good what he would do to Ruth for the entire livelong night.

  He settled his rifle back in its sheath, then mounted. Turning his stallion back downhill proved difficult in the dark, but the horse was surefooted and did not disappoint him. What did bother him was how he lost the trail of his personal flypaper when he got to the last spot where he h
ad seen the man. Jeter got down and studied the trail before coming to the conclusion he had to be more careful than usual. He had a sense of danger, and it screamed at him right about now.

  “He wants me to rush after him,” Jeter decided, patting his stallion’s neck to keep the horse quiet. “I’ll wait him out. He’s plottin’ something bad fer me. It’s not gonna work.”

  He slept the sleep of the righteous, and was up early and in the saddle. It didn’t take long to find the ineptly concealed tracks, as if the man who had followed him so closely had forgotten all his skill when it came to hiding his own trail. It took until midnight the next night to see what devilment had been thought up to catch him. Again Jeter had to admit there was a combination of cleverness along with outright bad planning.

  “So you want me to think you’re still in camp, eh? Where are you?” Jeter prowled about, discovered how unsuitable another section of the terrain was for sneaking up on the campsite, and knew immediately he was being maneuvered into a trap. “You’re about the best I ever came up against, I’ll give you that. It’s gonna be that much more of a pleasure killin’ you.” Jeter turned dour thinking of the man with Ruth and her enjoying it. He might have to kill her too after his night with her, after he dispatched this annoyance.

  That would make him real sad, Ruth dying because of what she had done, but life was full of sorrow.

  He rummaged about in his saddlebags and found an old shirt. It took Jeter a few minutes to stuff it with leaves and twigs and another few to find a branch for stiffness and to look like a rifle, and a fist-sized rock. Using a short section of rope, he rigged the shirt, his hat atop it, so it would pop up when he pulled the rope. The branch caught against the rock and held shirt and hat in place. But he had to use his own rifle since there wasn’t any way the crooked branch would fool anybody. That didn’t matter much. He would be close enough to use his six-shooter. He went a few paces uphill, found an old stump, and settled down behind it to wait.