Slocum and the Devil's Rope Read online

  “You’ve got two choices, Norton,” Slocum said. “Kill me while I’m all strung up or let me go.”

  “He’ll kill us, Pa!”

  “Shut up,” Norton said, not even looking at his son. “You’ve made a mess of this.”

  “I’m not letting him have Christine! I love her!”

  “I said to shut up.” Norton backhanded his son, sending him crashing into a stall. The horse neighed and kicked back. Norton came over and looked at Slocum for a few seconds before he said, “He rough you up much?”

  “Had worse done to me.”

  “Should I kill you?”

  “Can’t stop you if you try.”

  “What if I cut you down and tell you to get the hell out of here?”

  “You can do that, too.”

  “Would you leave?”

  Slocum considered his options. He didn’t want to die, but he wasn’t backing down either.

  “If I want to. Fact was, I was on my way out of town when he and Ashe waylaid me.”

  “That true, Junior?”

  “Pa, he—”

  “Was he leaving town?”

  “Don’t know. He was going to the marshal’s office.”

  “Why were you going to see Marshal Swearingen?”

  “Heard tell there was going to be a bank robbery and wanted him to know.”

  “Who? You? You were going to rob the bank?”

  “A man who has it in for me by the name of Wiley Pendergast. He tried to lure me into it, but I wouldn’t go along.”

  Norton snorted and shook his head.

  “Can’t see you as an honest man, Slocum.”

  Slocum said nothing.

  “When was this supposed to happen?”

  “Just before dawn.”

  “So,” said Norton, “if you’re telling the truth, the bank’s been robbed.”

  “While your son had me all trussed up so he could beat on me,” Slocum said.

  “Ashe!” Norton bellowed again and brought the cowboy running. “Keep Slocum tied up. We’re going into town. All of us. If he’s lied to me, I’ll see to cleaning up your mess, Junior.”

  “I’m not lying,” Slocum said.

  “Then I’ll tend to my own without your help, Slocum.” Norton glared at his son, then motioned for Ashe to bring Slocum along.

  18

  As they rode into town, Slocum heard the tumult before he saw the citizens running around, waving their fists and shrilly insisting that Marshal Swearingen do something. Slocum had heard such demands before, always from frightened, angry men with no idea what to do—but something had to be done quick. Especially if the man they demanded action from was a mayor or a marshal.

  “What’s going on, Pa?” Josh Norton stood in the stirrups as he looked down the main street.

  “How the hell should I know?” his pa said sourly. “I just got here, like you.”

  “Slocum?” The younger Norton turned to their prisoner. “What kind of trouble have you caused?”

  “You’ve got me all tied up,” Slocum said, holding his bound wrists up for the boy to see. “You slugged me a bit after midnight, and you haven’t let me out of your sight since.”

  “Still doesn’t mean this isn’t your doing.”

  “Was there any ruckus when you cold-cocked me?”

  “No,” said Norton, working this over. “That doesn’t mean—”

  “Shut up, Junior,” the elder Norton said sharply. “Slocum’s right. Whatever’s got ’em all stirred up like pouring boiling water down an anthill’s not his doing.”

  They rode forward. As the townspeople spied Slocum, they fell silent, then formed behind like a parade, making him uneasy. They whispered among themselves now. Ugly whispers. Uglier looks. He felt a lynch mob building around him like a lightning-filled thunderstorm, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.

  “You takin’ him to the marshal, Mr. Norton?” someone in the crowd called.

  “Reckon so.”

  “Give ’im over to us, and we’ll see he gets the justice he deserves!”

  Slocum began looking for some way to escape—but didn’t see it. The crowd all around him could easily pull him from his horse, no matter how he urged it to a gallop. Some of the men fingered six-shooters and others sent their womenfolk back to stores and houses. That never boded well.

  “Mr. Norton, you done caught the son of a bitch.”

  “Morning, Marshal. What’s going on?”

  “The bank was robbed and that owlhoot was one of the robbers.”

  “When was it robbed?”

  “You shut up, Slocum. You know damn well you robbed it just as it opened,” the marshal said.

  “Around nine?” Slocum asked.

  “Nine,” confirmed someone in the crowd. “And we got witnesses to you killin’ all them.”

  Slocum’s mind raced. Pendergast hadn’t blown down the wall to rifle the vault. Instead, he had bulled his way in after Roebuck opened for the day. From the sound of “killin’ all them,” Pendergast hadn’t minded spraying lead about liberally. That matched what Slocum thought of him.

  “How do you know it was Slocum?” Norton asked.

  “One of them robbers kept shouting his name. Every time he shouted ‘Slocum,’ somebody died.”

  The crowd roared in agreement and eager hands pulled Slocum from the saddle. He hit the ground, only to be dragged along, his toes leaving twin furrows in the dirt.

  “There’s a beam high enough in front of the saloon,” somebody cried. “Get a rope!”

  The crowd’s mood was turning more bloodthirsty by the minute. Slocum struggled but could not hope to escape. His mind raced on ways to avoid getting his neck stretched.

  Nothing came to him as a chair was placed under the exposed beam and a rope was tossed over it to swing ominously to and fro.

  “Wait, hold your horses!” The barkeep came boiling out from the saloon, waving his shotgun around. “You cain’t hang him here. Not in front of my saloon!”

  “Git on back. He done kilt three men and robbed the bank.”

  The barkeep stepped back. For a moment Slocum dared hope the man would intervene, but he seemed to be tossed on the horns of a dilemma. One way let Slocum hang. The other put him in the sights of an angry mob of his neighbors.

  “Nobody’s hangin’ him.” The marshal punctuated his order with a shot fired into the air. “That’s not the way the law works. First we try him, then we hang him!”

  “We kin save a passel of time by hangin’ him now.”

  Slocum was shoved onto the chair and the rope brought to his head.

  A second shot rang out. The time the voice wasn’t that of Marshal Swearingen but Josh Norton.

  “You boys back off,” the rancher said, moving to put himself between Slocum and the lynch mob. “I want some more information ’fore I let you execute him.”

  “What’s to tell? He done stole your money, Josh.”

  “Somebody did, but why do you think it was Slocum’s doing?”

  “I heard the leader shout his name. He barely said the name, and Slocum’d shoot another of my tellers.” The bank president forced his way through the crowd.

  “How’d you keep from getting killed?” Josh Norton asked.

  “Danged lucky. I hid under my desk whilst they were shootin’ my employees! There wasn’t any other way to get away alive from that murderous swine.”

  “You saw Slocum?”

  “The one leadin’ ’em called his name. But they all wore masks.”

  “Look at what Slocum’s wearing,” Norton said. “That match up with the owlhoot doing the killing?”

  “Well, no. And the man shootin’ my tellers was taller, a lot taller.�
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  Slocum knew who that was. Herman. Pendergast had told his right-hand man to kill if he shouted the name “Slocum” to give the impression he had been along. This was the way Pendergast intended to pay him back for not showing up to set the dynamite—or maybe this was what Pendergast had intended all along. The man had trailed him for so long that Slocum found it hard to believe he’d give up a grudge easily.

  “What horse was Slocum riding? That one?” Norton pointed to the horse back by the marshal’s office.

  “Naw, it was a gray. But he could have switched horses. And changed clothes. How come you brought him in, Josh, if not for the robbery?” Roebuck moved even closer, squinting at Slocum and sniffing. “He doesn’t smell the same either. The one called Slocum smelled of peppermint. You don’t wash that off easily. But he could, I reckon.”

  “He hasn’t changed clothes or scrubbed himself clean, not since midnight last night.” Norton looked at his son, then at Slocum, before turning back to the crowd. “He was my guest and either me or my son was with him the whole time. Out at my ranch, not here in town.”

  “Where were you at nine?” Roebuck asked.

  “We were riding into town. Ashe and Junior were alongside the whole way. Slocum’d have to be in two places at once, ’less you got the time wrong.”

  “No, I don’t. Lots of others in town saw the getaway.”

  “It was a little after nine.” The agreement spread through the crowd.

  “But why’d they want to call out his name during the robbery, if he weren’t one of the gang?”

  “I think I kin answer that,” the barkeep said. He pushed to stand beside Norton. “Last night, right around twilight, a hard-looking gent bought Slocum a drink. One of his partners answers the description of the man what done the killing.”

  “Who was it, Slocum? Who bought you a drink?”

  “His name’s Pendergast.” Slocum’s mind raced. “He’s had it in for me ever since I did him dirt back in California. He’s followed me for the last year. Longer.”

  “Mighty convenient,” a man in front muttered.

  “He wears a hat with a snake hatband and a rattler’s tail fastened to it. If he shakes his head, it sounds like a rattlesnake fixing to strike.”

  “The leader,” Roebuck said loudly. “He wore such a hatband.”

  “I seen that hatband, too,” the barkeep said. “Made me uneasy the way this Pendergast fellow kept tossin’ his head from side to side to make it rattle.”

  “Just knowing a bank robber don’t make him one,” Marshal Swearingen said, moving closer to where Slocum stood precariously on the chair. The rope kept blowing into his face. “Let him down.”

  To Slocum’s surprise, Mordecai Magnuson came up along the boardwalk and spoke. “You vouch for him, Josh?”

  “I do.”

  “I know you don’t have any more liking for him than I do, but if you say he couldn’t have done the robbery, Josh, that’s good enough for me. Let him down. Cut those ropes off his hands.” Magnuson pointed and men jumped to obey.

  Slocum stepped down and rubbed his wrists after the ropes had been removed. He knew Magnuson’s reason for speaking up—because Norton had. His future in-law wasn’t to be crossed in the matter.

  The two men stepped back and talked while the crowd stirred about uneasily. Slocum overheard them mention Josh Junior and Christine’s nuptials, their mutual loss from the bank robbery—and Slocum. He didn’t like that neither man had anything too good to say about him, but he respected them for sticking up for him when it would have been simple to turn their backs and let the lynch mob have its way.

  They beckoned to the marshal, and he joined them in earnest conversation. Swearingen nodded as if his head were mounted on a spring, then he went back to face the crowd.

  “There’s a hundred-dollar reward for the capture of the varmints what robbed the bank.”

  “Two hundred,” Magnuson called. “A hundred from each of us, me and Josh Norton.”

  The ripple of interest went through the crowd. Slocum heaved a sigh of relief since lust for money had replaced bloodlust. His neck still itched from the nearness of the noose.

  “What’s the leader’s name, Slocum?” The marshal cut the ropes on his hands. “What did you say it was? The one with the rattlesnake skin hatband?”

  “Wiley Pendergast. He’s got a couple men with him named Abe and Herman.”

  “Ain’t much help, but might be when we catch up with them. I’m formin’ up a posse to go after ’em. Who’s with me?”

  A dozen men in the crowd cheered and began forcing their way to the front. Slocum stepped to one side to figure out what he ought to do.

  “I got my men on their trail already,” Magnuson said.

  “Garvin’s leading them?” Slocum asked. Magnuson only glared at him, but this was answer enough. The young cowboy was going up against a hardened outlaw and his gang. That didn’t strike Slocum as likely to turn out very well, but Garvin had wanted to shoot first and ask questions later for a spell.

  He had to shoot first in a half-dozen instances—Pendergast and all his gang—if he wanted to stay alive.

  “You want me to ride along?” Slocum asked. The words slipped from his mouth before he had a chance to think.

  “I want you the hell away from me and mine,” Magnuson said.

  “Yeah, just forget what’s happened and move on,” Norton said, more uneasily. It didn’t set well with him how his son had tried to scare off Slocum; he wasn’t going to bring out the dirty laundry for everyone to see.

  The two ranchers went off, shoulder to shoulder and deep in conversation. The marshal gathered his posse and ordered them to assemble at the jailhouse so they could plan for the pursuit. To Slocum’s way of thinking, the marshal was a day late and a dollar short. The posse ought to have been on the outlaws’ trail hours earlier.

  Mostly, he wasn’t offering advice. He was just happy to be alive after the run-in with the mob.

  “Buy you a drink, Slocum. You can use it.” The barkeep looked at his fellow citizens and shook his head.

  Slocum went into the saloon and let the barkeep set him up with a drink. He savored it rather than knocking it back. Every drop was more precious now than ever before. The brush with getting his neck stretched did that to him.

  “I ought to be buying you the drink,” Slocum said. “You pulled my fat from the fire.”

  “I hate mobs,” the barkeep said with surprising loathing in his voice. Slocum wondered if he had been the guest of honor at a necktie party. “The more there are, the dumber they get. Still, it was good you and Norton were together and that he spoke up when he did.”

  “Never thought getting the shit kicked out of me would be a good thing.”

  “Junior?” The barkeep nodded as he read Slocum’s expression. “He don’t have a lick of sense. Heard about how Magnuson is marryin’ off his daughter to him. That boy’s never gonna have a moment’s peace. She’ll wear the pants in that family. When she bothers to wear anything at all.”

  Slocum bristled, then finished his drink. He had no reason to defend Christine’s reputation. For all he knew, it was well deserved, but that didn’t affect the way he thought of her. Most of the women he had found traveling the West had gotten what they wanted, usually through sex. It hadn’t seemed Christine was that way, not with him, though he didn’t mind the lovemaking with her one bit, but the townspeople saw her differently. He might have avoided some real heartbreak since they obviously knew her better than he did.

  “She never would have, Slocum.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Married you. Don’t get your dander up, but the way you get all doe-eyed when you think of her tells me ’bout everything I need to know. She’s had her cap set for young Norton for a while. Might be her and her pa ha
ve since the Norton spread’s twice the size of the Bar M. The pair of them wouldn’t care if you were the hardest-working cowboy this side of the Mississippi. How much the coin jingled in your pocket would always matter more.”

  “Might be I should count myself lucky.”

  “You were. Have another, then that’s it. I gotta make a profit here some way.” The bartender poured out the drink. Again Slocum sipped at it, letting it burn his lips and then wash around in his mouth before plunging down his gullet to warm his belly.

  “You see Pendergast after he left me last night?”

  “You dodged one bullet with Miss Christine. Don’t go puttin’ yourself in front of a damned firin’ squad.”

  “Pendergast,” he insisted. “You see him or his men again?”

  “Nope. From the way he throwed his weight around, I’d have known.”

  Slocum considered the robbery from all directions. Pendergast had intended to frame him for the robbery if he hadn’t taken part. If he had agreed to blow open the wall, there might have been an unfortunate accident with a stick of dynamite that would’ve left him dead at the scene. Either way was fine with Pendergast.

  “Stayin’ in town don’t look like much of a future for you,” the barkeep said. “I could use a bouncer, but not you. Leave. Ride out. Choose your direction, but get out of here. That’s better for you than a third free drink.”

  “Don’t expect me to go looking to collect that reward,” Slocum said.

  “You wouldn’t have much chance at it.”

  “The posse?”

  The bartender snorted contemptuously and said, “Roebuck sent telegrams all over offerin’ a reward. By now every bounty hunter in a hundred miles is huntin’ down Pendergast and his boys.”

  Slocum considered this. Competition didn’t bother him none. He’d find Pendergast and his men, but it wouldn’t be to collect the reward. The best Slocum could do after getting even with the outlaw leader was to take the spoils from the bank robbery. That seemed little enough recompense for all he had been through. His fingers traced out the bruises left by Magnuson’s boot and then the tender spots above his kidneys where Josh Junior had used him as a punching bag. He had been set up as a scapegoat and used by about everybody. Magnuson and Norton had alibied him, but telling the truth wasn’t something that deserved to be rewarded. A man told the truth, no matter what.