Slocum and the Schoolmarm Read online

  “She’ll give you the ride of your life. Time’s a’wastin’. Move it!”

  Slocum looked into the courthouse and knew delivering the judge’s papers would have to wait. Grumbling, he returned to where his horse lay drawing flies in the middle of the street. People milled around now, whispering among themselves. Slocum was too pissed off to bother talking to any of them. He got his saddle free from the horse and slung it over his shoulder. The weight staggered him a little, but having the extra load got the kinks out of his bruised and battered leg.

  Marshal Delgado waited impatiently in front of the jail. Slocum eyed Conchita with some distrust, but he slung his saddle on her without any protest. He mounted and felt the horse’s steady gait.

  “But can she do more than walk?” Slocum asked. He was talking to Delgado’s back. The marshal had already put the spurs to his own horse and was galloping away in a cloud of dust. “Here goes nothing,” Slocum said. When he kicked at Conchita’s flanks, the horse took off like a rocket.

  Conchita was surprisingly even in gait, and Slocum found himself falling into the peculiar rhythm of riding a new horse. She wasn’t fast enough to overtake Delgado, but she didn’t have to. The lawman had stopped at the branch of the road. One angled off toward the upper edges of the Mojave and the other went almost due west.

  “Which way?” the marshal demanded. “He rode one of these trails. Which one?”

  Slocum dropped to the ground and spent ten minutes searching the ground for hoofprints. He scratched his head and only then did he realize he had not picked up his Stetson from where it lay in the Dry Water street. The marshal might want the outlaw for robbing the bank, but Slocum was getting a more personal distaste for the varmint. Horse and hat. He’d have to pay for both of them before they stretched his neck.

  Then there was the matter of Old Jack being gunned down.

  “Best I can tell on such dry ground—that way.” Slocum pointed in the direction of the burning hot desert. In less than a mile the road wound through a rocky patch. The low hills there overlooked a section of hellish land, but Slocum doubted the robber had actually gone into the desert. He probably had a camp near a spring right at the edge of the alkali inferno.

  “That might be. Are you sure?”

  “Can’t say I’d bet the farm on it,” Slocum admitted. “If I spotted a dust cloud on the horizon, I’d feel a mite more comfortable.”

  “Nobody’s comfortable in this heat,” Delgado said, swiping at his broad face with his bandanna. He glanced over his shoulder down the other branch. “I’m a fair tracker. I see what you do, maybe a tad less, but that was a good choice.”

  “We’re going back to town?” Slocum tried to keep from sounding too hopeful. He didn’t cotton much to being deputized like this. More often than not, he had been on the wrong side of the law and this felt wrong. Other than losing his horse—and having a hole put in his hat—he had no quarrel with the outlaw.

  Then he remembered how Jackson Kinney had been cut down. Slocum mulled over the man’s death a moment and decided the marshal was the best man to handle that murder. He and Kinney had been friends, if the sponger really had any friends in Dry Water. Still, Slocum had taken a liking to him in the weeks he had known him.

  “I might need a posse if he headed into that hellhole,” the marshal said, staring into the foothills around the edge of the desert. “Hard to find water, even harder to get out alive.”

  Slocum mounted and trotted alongside the marshal, who turned back toward town. The lawman muttered to himself and made no effort to carry on a conversation with Slocum. That was fine since Slocum was not in a mood for small talk. He still had to deliver the packet of legal papers to the judge, and his entire day had been ruined having his horse shot out from under him. As he rode, he found himself thinking more about the swaybacked nag moving gently beneath him. Conchita had proved herself to be a sturdy, steady mount.

  “Leave the horse around back,” Delgado said as they drew rein in front of the jailhouse. The words were hardly out of his mouth when a shot rang out. Slocum and Delgado exchanged puzzled looks. The marshal swung in the saddle and tried to find the source of the gunfire. The few people stirring in Dry Water were gathered in front of the bank.

  “Might be another robbery,” Slocum suggested.

  “They’re not actin’ like it,” Delgado said as he shielded his eyes from the setting sun. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this one little bit.” The marshal dropped heavily to the ground and drew his six-gun before going into the jailhouse. Slocum knew the town didn’t have a regular deputy to back Delgado up. He heaved a sigh and dismounted. The marshal hadn’t told him he was no longer deputized.

  Slocum followed the marshal into the office, hand resting on his own six-shooter. The lawman was already working to unlock the door to the small cell block in the rear. As he opened the door, Slocum got a quick view of four cells—and what was in one of them.

  “He’s dead,” Marshal Delgado said as he unlocked the cell door. “Somebody shot the son of a bitch through the window!”

  2

  Slocum backed from the cell block and went to the door leading to the street. He looked around for a rider leaving town in a hurry. Not even the crowd in front of the bank was moving all that much. Stride long and gun drawn, Slocum rounded the jailhouse and went to the rear where the open windows afforded ventilation—and the chance for someone to kill the prisoner. Dropping to his knees, Slocum caught the setting sun so that it cast long shadows at a low angle across the ground.

  “What do you see?”

  Slocum looked up. In his concentration he had not heard the marshal come around.

  “Squat,” Slocum said. “I don’t have squat. There’s a bunch of dirt kicked around but nothing that means squat.”

  “So he rode up, poked his gun through the bars and killed the prisoner?”

  “Looks like,” Slocum said. “Where was the robber shot?”

  “In the chest.”

  “So he was facing the window. Could be he knew who shot him. Might have been the third robber. He could have circled around and come back to town.”

  “Why kill his partner? Nobody was here. He could have broken him out. There wasn’t any cause to shoot him.”

  “No reason we know,” Slocum said. He walked around a bit but saw nothing that would help identify the killer. “Might be they had a falling-out. Might be the bank robber on the outside wanted all the money.”

  “So why kill his partner? Let him rot. He was going to swing for killing Old Jack Kinney. If he had made off with much money, he could have kept riding and never looked back.”

  “How much did they take?”

  Delgado’s eyebrows shot up.

  “I never got around to asking the banker, not that Roger Williams would give me a straight answer about anything. I swear, that man’s tongue ties itself in knots at the mere thought of a simple answer.”

  “How about a truthful one?”

  Delgado looked hard at Slocum but did not reply. He swung around and headed for the bank. Slocum had no cause to follow, but he did. As he stepped out in the street, he saw the banker arguing with the mayor, Claude Grierson. Slocum was too far away to tell what was being said, but neither man looked the least bit pleased. Grierson gestured wildly, poking his finger down the street, then trying to drill a hole through the banker’s chest. For his part, Williams did not back off. He truculently thrust his face until it was only inches from the mayor’s. Even at this distance, Slocum could see how livid the banker was. His face was a fiery red, and his hands shook as he balled them into tight fists. Slocum wondered if he would end up in court, testifying how the town banker punched the mayor.

  The mayor shoved Williams back against the wall. All Slocum heard Grierson say was, “That goddamn miner.”

  Before Williams could respond, Delgado’s approach quelled whatever argument raged between the two men. Grierson muttered something only the banker could hear, swung around and stalked off. Slocum picked up the pace and got closer in time to hear Williams answering the marshal’s questions.

  “…haven’t counted it all yet, Marshal. But it’s a princely sum. Might be as much as ten thousand dollars they made off with. I want it back! I…I’ll give a fifty-dollar reward for bringing the crooks to justice.”

  “Now that’s real generous of you, Mr. Williams,” the marshal said. Slocum heard the contempt in the lawman’s voice. He had to wonder what idiot would offer fifty dollars to recover ten thousand.

  “I’ll double it if the robbers are put on trial, too. No, no, make that double if they are convicted. No reason to pass out money if they’re on trial and squirm off the hook. I know these people in Dry Water. They’d like to see a bandit stick it to me. They’re too dumb to realize it was their money the robbers took.”

  “I’ll let folks know,” Delgado said.

  “How come you had so much money on hand?” Slocum asked.

  Williams’s mouth moved like a fish washed up on the bank. Then the bank president got his wits about him.

  “This is a transfer point for a lot of money, Slocum. Sometimes I hold more than usual. This was one of those times.”

  “So the robbers were either lucky or knew you had a pile of greenbacks in your vault,” Slocum said. “Which might it be? Lucky or smart?”

  “You work for the judge,” Williams said. “It’s not proper for me to say another word to you. When the marshal catches the robbers, you might have to help the judge, and it wouldn’t be right to look like they were being railroaded.”

  “No, reckon not,” Slocum allowed. He read more than this in the banker’s now glib response to the question. Williams really managed to avoid answering at all.

  “I’ve got work to do, Sl
ocum,” Delgado said. “Run on about your business. Thanks for your help.”

  “It’s nothing, Marshal.” And as far as Slocum was concerned, that was all it amounted to. He had tracked, ridden and drawn his gun, but all he had to show for it was a dead horse. And a hole in the brim of his hat. Remembering the Stetson, Slocum went back to where his horse lay on its side, drawing flies and the more aggressive of the town’s hungry dogs. He found his hat in the dust, brushed off what he could and then settled it back on his head. The sun had set, but it would rise again in the morning and Slocum would need the hat brim to shield his eyes as he got the hell out of Dry Water. What peacefulness there was had disappeared with the first gunshot.

  He had no idea how long it would be until the marshal found someone to blame for the murder in his very own jail, but it would happen. It had to or the lawman would find himself replaced. Being marshal of Dry Water probably paid less than twenty dollars in scrip a month, but Delgado had a place to sleep and the work was easy. Or it had been until today.

  Slocum brushed dust off the leather pouch he carried the judge’s papers in, then tramped down the street for the courthouse. It might be too late for the judge to be in his office, but Slocum wanted to deliver the papers so he could go find that vast expanse of Pacific Ocean with its endless beaches and not a single steer in view.

  Inside the courthouse he heard small sounds echoing from the direction of the judge’s office. Slocum rapped twice on the closed door. From inside came the sound of papers being shoved into drawers and those drawers closing, then, “Come on in.”

  “Evening, Judge,” Slocum greeted. “Got the papers.”

  “My God, man, after all that’s happened today, you still brought me my paltry papers? Sit down, Mr. Slocum. Take a load off those feet.”

  Slocum dropped the pouch with the legal documents on the judge’s desk and then sat carefully in the leather chair. It was so comfortable Slocum felt that he might just drift off to sleep. With Judge Tunstell that would be a mistake. Not only was the man razor-sharp, he might well pick Slocum’s pocket.

  Slocum had seen how Judge K. Thomas Tunstell ran the town with an iron fist. His orders all went through the mayor and marshal, but they were his and his alone. The man perched like a hungry captor on the edge of his chair, keen eyes fixed on Slocum. Tunstell cleared his throat. Slocum was fascinated watching the man’s Adam’s apple bounce up and down in his scrawny neck. Skeletal fingers formed a tent under the man’s close-shaven chin as his brows furrowed in careful thought.

  “Would you like a drink? How silly of me. Of course you would. Tell me all about your chase, Mr. Slocum. Was there any hope of finding the man who escaped?”

  “Not much,” Slocum said. He took the crystal glass with three fingers of whiskey he knew was better than anything Alton over at the Desert Oasis was ever likely to pour and stared into the swirling surface. Then he sipped at it.

  “Ah, you appreciate fine Tennessee sipping whiskey,” Tunstell said. “You are more than you appear, Mr. Slocum.”

  “No, sir, I’m not. I’m exactly what you see.”

  “Perhaps my vision is a bit sharper than others.”

  “Your horse is still out in the middle of the street. One of the bank robbers shot it out from under me just before Jackson Kinney got gunned down.”

  “I know all about that. Tell me about the pursuit and…the aftermath.” Tunstell peered hard at Slocum, as if he could nail him to the chair with his gaze. Slocum knew such tactics worked well in court. The one trial he had watched Tunstell preside over, the judge had used just such a look to keep a lid on both attorneys and their wild-ass notions of what constituted the law. In K. Thomas Tunstell’s court, his word was the law.

  “Lost the trail where the road branches. The robber might have ridden into the malpais—”

  “The badlands?”

  “The badlands,” Slocum continued, “and then again, he might have gone on toward Pemberton or cut across to Barstow. By now he could be all the way to Sacramento.”

  “I think not, Mr. Slocum. But then, neither do you. That was an exaggeration simply to show that the robber would not have been foolish enough to return to kill his partner. What do you think of that?”

  “Don’t know what to make of it,” Slocum said. “If I’d got clean away with as much money as the banker claims, I wouldn’t stop running until I reached Oregon.”

  “How much did Mr. Williams claim was taken? I have not heard.”

  “He was throwing around a number so big it made my head ache,” Slocum said. “Ten thousand.”

  “So much?” Tunstell’s eyebrows arched and wiggled like furry caterpillars on a hot griddle. Slocum wondered at the consternation the judge showed.

  “That’s about what Marshal Delgado said. Seems a great pile of money to be keeping at a bank in Dry Water.”

  “Indeed,” Tunstell said. He sipped at his whiskey, then said, “I’ve got another job for you.”

  “Think it’s time for me to move on.”

  “You need to work off the price of the horse I loaned you. That was a mighty fine mare.”

  “Gelding,” Slocum said. “The horse you gave me was a gelding.”

  “Was it? I have so many, it’s hard to keep track of them all.” Tunstell sipped a bit more on his whiskey, watching Slocum closely.

  “That is a mighty fine stallion. The big black one,” Slocum said. He knew it was Tunstell’s pride and joy. The judge rode around on that horse like he was king of the world. As far as the citizens of Dry Water went, that was not far from the truth. Slocum wondered how the judge might try to stop him if he really took it into his head to leave.

  “I’ll pay you twice what I was,” the judge said. “And forget about you having to repay me for the dead horse.”

  “But I’d have to buy a new horse,” Slocum said. “Delivering legal documents for you on foot would get to be a real chore.”

  “I wouldn’t want to think you were shirking your duty, Mr. Slocum,” Tunstell said. “I will loan you another horse. No, not mine,” he added, more sharply. The judge opened his desk drawer and took out an envelope. He made a big deal of opening it and studying the contents. Tunstell took out a steel-nibbed pen, dipped it in the inkwell at his right hand, then signed the last page with a flourish. He blotted his signature, tucked the pages back into the envelope and handed it to Slocum. “Deliver this.”

  Slocum saw a man’s name neatly printed on the envelope.

  “Don’t know him. Where do I find him?”

  “Go south of town about five miles until you see a sign directing you to the Holey Mine.”

  “Just hand the papers over?”

  “Nothing more. I need it done quickly.”

  “Mighty late. Should I ride all night?”

  “First thing in the morning be on the road, Mr. Slocum. I expect an answer back by sundown tomorrow.”

  Slocum stared at the envelope he held, then damned himself as he tucked it away in his coat pocket. He should be on his way. He could buy Conchita from the marshal for what few dollars he had saved working for the judge. Somehow, although Slocum was never one to shy away from trouble, he did not want to lock horns with Judge Tunstell right now. The man’s manner brooked no challenge. Moreover, it had been a hell of a day and Slocum wanted nothing more than to grab a good meal and then curl up in his bed and sleep till the sun was over the mountains to the east.

  He finished his whiskey and left without another word. He thought Tunstell made a satisfied noise but did not bother turning to see. It was enough that he had given in to the man’s demands. For a while.

  3

  It was cold as only a desert can chill the bones. Slocum rode along before sunrise, found the road south and was a mile toward the turnoff when the sun finally poked its fiery eye above the low hills. The chill he had felt quickly disappeared and was replaced by the promise of a blast furnace day. He pulled down the brim of his hat to keep the light from his eyes. Judge Tunstell’s horse under him was a sturdy gelding, making him think that the judge knew every detail of every horse he owned. Tunstell had been toying with him like a cat plays with a field mouse when talking about the dead horse.

  Slocum tried to figure out the judge. The man was content being a big frog in a small puddle, and that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Tunstell was nothing if not a politician and had designs on something more. Or he should have. Slocum could not be sure what was behind Tunstell’s actions. He ran Dry Water as surely as if he had a gun to everyone’s head, but it was a benevolent dictatorship. The entire time he had been in town, Slocum had not heard a bad word spoken about the judge. The banker was another matter, but that was hardly unusual.