Slocum and the Trick Shot Artist Read online

  The expression on Tess’s face shifted from panicked to fearful in short order. When she felt Rob’s hand slide between her thighs, rage took over. Her entire body stiffened and she pounded her fists against him. “Get off of me before you embarrass yourself! What do you think you’re gonna do with that limp pecker anyway?”

  He stopped what he was doing and propped himself up.

  Rob shifted his weight, causing his penis to swing some more. Thanks to all the whiskey he’d poured down his throat, it wasn’t much more than a wet noodle. He reached down to feel for himself. “You think that’s funny?” he grunted.

  She continued to struggle beneath him, but said nothing.

  Taking his hand away from his privates, Rob made a clumsy grab for the hunting knife hanging at his side. His fingers closed around the handle and he pulled it free to raise it high. “What about this? You think this is funny, too?”

  Tess looked up at him, too petrified to move.

  Basking in his victory, Rob drove his blade down through the flimsy material of her blouse until the hilt pounded against her side.

  She screamed, but couldn’t twist away since the knife had pinned her to the mattress.

  Those heavy steps from the hallway stopped at the door to her room and a voice roared, “Get off of her!”

  Rob turned around to find John Slocum standing there like a demon from a bad dream. Dust was plastered to his face by sweat, which also made his shirt cling to him like a poorly crafted skin. For a moment, both men simply glared at each other. One was drunk from whiskey and the other was so enraged that he’d been reduced to something less than human.

  Once that moment passed, Rob launched up from the bed and hit the floor while tugging his pants up over his hips.

  Slocum stormed into the room, crossing it in less than three steps. He didn’t take the time to check on Tess. Instead, Slocum lunged forward to grab Rob by the back of his collar and belt before the drunken son of a bitch could slip away.

  “You know who I am?” Rob grunted as he was lifted off his feet and shoved toward the back of the room.

  “I sure do,” Slocum replied through gritted teeth. “You’re the man that’s about to see if he can fly.”

  With that, Slocum tossed Rob through the window amid the crack of splintering wood and the shattering of glass.

  • • •

  Downstairs, the barkeep winced at the sound of all the damage that was surely being done to those rooms. He glanced every so often at the shotgun that had yet to be moved from its spot and shook his head violently when the two remaining customers looked over at him with expectations written across their faces.

  Upon hearing the shattering glass and thump of someone hitting the narrow balcony running along the upper floor, he breathed a little easier. The commotion was leaving the saloon. At least someone had the good sense to know when the hell to jump out a window.

  2

  “Are you all right, Tess?” Slocum asked as he hurried over to the bed, where she lay on her back. “Can you hear me?”

  Her eyes had been closed, but now they opened amid the frantic flutter of eyelashes. “Yes, I’m—”

  “Don’t try to talk,” Slocum cut in. He placed a hand upon her midsection to hold her in place. “And don’t try to move. It doesn’t look like you’ve lost a lot of blood just yet. That is, unless it’s soaked into the mattress.” He’d seen plenty of grievous wounds in his days. Sometimes it was better for an injured person to stay put so the pressure from their body against the ground or floor could hold them together. In order to get a firmer grasp on how badly Tess had been stabbed, he peeled back the sheets that had bunched up beneath her.

  The knife was wedged in deep. As he pulled away the bedding, he eased her up a bit to get a look at how bad the wound truly was. What he saw beneath her didn’t set right at all. “There’s no blood,” he said.

  “There’s a bit,” she replied. “I can feel it.”

  Slocum took hold of the knife handle protruding from her side. His intention had been to keep the blade in place so it didn’t wiggle within a sensitive wound or saw the cut open farther with the wrong sort of motion. To his surprise, the knife moved freely with the slightest touch.

  “Ow,” she hissed. “That stings.”

  “Just stings?” Slocum mused. “Hold still. And I mean still.”

  “I am holding still. Where’s that bastard who did this to me?”

  “I threw him out the window.” Keeping one hand on the knife, Slocum placed his other upon her side. That’s when he let out the breath that had been stuck in the back of his throat. “You’re a lucky woman,” he said while easing the blade up, “and that asshole was very drunk. Those are the only explanations for this.”

  As soon as the knife was raised up high enough for her to see it, Tess’s first reaction was to twist around and feel the wound on her side. Slocum didn’t stop her. She winced when her fingers touched the portion of her blouse that was wet with a small, spreading bloodstain. “I told you I was bleeding!” she cried.

  “This knife was just snagged in your shirt,” Slocum told her. “It must’ve nicked you on the way in. You know where to find a doctor?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then find one. All you’ll probably need is some stitches. I’d better go downstairs and scrape that asshole off the street before the law comes around asking questions.”

  “Better check the balcony first,” she said while easing her blouse up to get a look at the shallow cuts along her ribs.

  Slocum’s face twisted into an angry mask. “God damn it! I didn’t know there was a balcony!” He rushed over to the window, grabbed hold of the sill, and didn’t so much as flinch when a small shard of broken glass sliced into his hand. “Shit,” he snarled after catching sight of Rob hobbling down below to round the corner of the building. Not only had Slocum given him an unintentionally soft landing, but he’d also given Rob enough time to collect his senses and lower himself to the street.

  As he hoisted himself through the window, Slocum grunted, “Drunk and lucky? We’ll see about that.” The balcony was just wide enough for someone to walk along the outside of the building. There was a railing that came up to about knee height before giving way to the sloping curve of a wooden awning. That railing had been busted directly outside Tess’s window, and a trail of damaged or missing shingles marked the path that Rob had taken on his way down. Slocum stepped over the broken railing, squatted down, and slid along the awning to the edge. Once there, he grabbed on and swung his body over. When he let go of the awning, the drop to the street was less than two feet. He started running for the corner the instant his boots touched the dirt.

  His horse was tethered to a rail at the front of the saloon. Upon rounding the corner, Slocum had to jump back to avoid being trampled by that same horse. Rob was in the saddle, whipping the horse’s flank and pounding his heels against its sides.

  “That’s my horse!” Slocum shouted more out of surprise than in any genuine expectation of a response.

  Like any loudmouthed idiot, Rob responded, “Not anymore!”

  Slocum drew the Colt hanging at his side and sighted along its barrel. The pale stallion was a good horse, which was the only thing that kept him from firing. A wild shot could wound a fine animal, and there wasn’t enough time to aim properly before Rob galloped away.

  Cursing under his breath, Slocum looked around the corner for another horse. There hadn’t been any others tied to the rail when he’d left his there and there weren’t any now. And so, left without another alternative, he started running.

  Rob turned right at the next corner, which would take him farther into town. While Slocum may not have been intimately familiar with Tarnish Mills, a dry goods store he’d just visited earlier was along that same path. He ran for it and had almost built up enough ste
am to charge straight through the door if it had been locked. Instead, it swung inward amid the tinkle of a bell set just above its frame.

  “Hello again, Mr. Slocum,” said the cheerful shop owner. He was a man in his late forties with a round face and eyes that were narrowed to a permanent squint. Stepping back to clear a path for the rampaging customer, he asked, “What’s the hurry?”

  Slocum came to a stop and looked around. “How do I get upstairs?”

  “Ain’t nothing up there but supplies for myself. I was about to get those things you purchased wrapped up and sent over to you. If you need them sooner, I could—”

  “How do I get upstairs?” Slocum growled.

  Perhaps it was a combination of his dramatic entrance and the gun in his hand, but the shop owner pointed toward a door at the back marked PRIVATE. “Right through there.”

  Slocum ran down the store’s single aisle and almost knocked the next door off its hinges in his haste to get through it.

  “Nothing’s for sale up there!” the shopkeeper reminded him, but Slocum wasn’t listening.

  The store’s second floor was nothing more than a large attic with meticulously formed rows of crates and stacks of papers. There was just enough space for Slocum to hurry all the way to the back and a single window. After sliding it open, Slocum took a quick look outside. “Of course,” he snarled while pulling himself out, “this one doesn’t have a balcony.”

  There would be time to curse his impetuousness later. Sometimes that quality paid off and other times it dropped him into even hotter water than where he’d begun. Fortunately, the window was large enough for Slocum to ease through and lean outside so he could grab on to the lip of the roof that stuck out a few inches from the side of the store. With his heels perched on the windowsill, Slocum turned and faced the neighboring building, which was only a few feet away. There was a balcony on that building that was larger than the one on the saloon. Without giving himself enough time to calculate his odds of making the jump between buildings, Slocum pushed off.

  He sailed for a second in empty air before clipping one boot against the top of the railing of the neighbor’s balcony. His other boot landed on level wood as the railing snapped. It wasn’t a clean landing, but allowed him to move on without breaking any bones. Slocum hurried along the side of the building, ignoring the movement behind the windows he passed and the voices calling out to him along the way. When he reached the end of that building, he set his sights on the next one. It was a single-story structure that looked sturdy enough, so Slocum placed a boot on the railing and made another jump.

  Slocum sailed across, but fell short of a landing. His chest pounded against the side of the building and his arms flailed to find something to cling to. As he slid down, his fingers wrapped around a row of bricks that were set slightly higher than the ones in front of them. Probably intended to support a sign or some other future addition to the structure, Slocum used the narrow ledge to pull himself up and onto the roof. From then on, it was just a simple matter of running and jumping from one building to another.

  The rest along the street either had balconies that Slocum could use or enough empty space upon their roofs to accommodate him. Slocum ran along the elevated pathway and jumped to the next building in line. When he heard the sound of a horse charging over packed dirt, he veered toward the other side of the rooftop he was currently using until he came to its edge.

  On the street below, there was a gaggle of people and wagons clustered to watch Rob charge away. The fleeing outlaw had nearly caused two wagons to collide with each other and knocked someone down in his haste to keep moving. Slocum had made up some of the time he’d wasted back at the saloon and wasn’t about to let any more slip away trying to deconstruct the scene below. All he knew was that he’d caught sight of his horse once again and had the means to cut Rob off before he got any farther.

  Slocum used the awning of the building to climb back down to street level. Before anyone could ask what the hell he’d been doing up there in the first place, he raced across the street and cut down a narrow alley that wound a ways before opening to another street. Slocum hadn’t been in town long enough to know all the shortcuts, but his sense of direction told him he was cutting a straighter line to the next intersection while Rob was forced to ride down the wider pathways.

  His surroundings were a mush of sights and sounds on either side as Slocum raced to the end of the alley. He emerged from the narrow corridor seconds after Rob charged by. The outlaw made it about ten yards before Slocum’s Colt barked once more to send a round hissing past his right ear. Rob hunkered down and snapped his reins.

  Knowing he was lucky to have caught up this time, Slocum planted his feet and took proper aim. He didn’t concern himself with the fact that he probably wouldn’t get another chance without having to track Rob down the hard way. All he thought about was drawing a breath, steadying his hand, placing the sights where he wanted them, and slowly tightening his finger around the trigger.

  The Colt bucked against his palm. In that instant, Slocum knew he wouldn’t need to fire again. Rob was still thundering toward the corner as Slocum lowered his Colt to reload while walking down the street.

  The pale stallion slowed a bit as it approached the corner. When it made the turn, its rider wobbled in the saddle. Rob did his best to hang on, but slipped from the stallion’s back and fell to the street. One foot remained partially wedged in a stirrup, and when the stallion felt tugging from that side, it slowed even more before coming to a stop.

  As Slocum approached the corner, he could hear Rob’s cursing above the rest of the commotion from the encroaching locals. He fit the last round into the cylinder, closed the Colt, and pointed it down at Rob. “Well now,” he mused. “You’ve had one hell of a day.”

  “Do you . . . know who I am?” Rob snarled while pawing for the gun strapped into his holster.

  Slocum had already answered that question and wasn’t about to do so again. He’d wasted enough breath on this asshole, so he put an end to it with a swift kick to Rob’s chin. The outlaw’s entire body convulsed before going limp and hanging from one stirrup.

  One of the braver locals stepped up to stand at Slocum’s side. “Want me to fetch the sheriff?” he asked.

  Pulling Rob’s foot from the stirrup, Slocum took the stallion’s reins and led it down the street. “Get whoever you want to clean up this mess. I want a drink.”

  3

  By the time Slocum got back to the Split Log, a portly fellow with his shirtsleeves rolled up just past his elbows was walking down the stairs. Because of the small black leather bag the other man was carrying, Slocum asked, “Are you the doctor?”

  “Yes sir, I am,” the portly man replied. “Did you get hurt in this mess as well?”

  “No. I wanted to make sure you tended to the woman upstairs.”

  “You mean the pretty blonde with the . . . cut?”

  Knowing what parts of Tess’s anatomy were truly on the doctor’s mind, Slocum said, “That’s her. Are you going for supplies?”

  “No need for any of that. I’m already finished. Dressed the wound after cleaning it up. That’s about all that needs to be done.”

  “No stitches?”

  “I’ll take another look in the morning. Right now, I think she should be fine as long as she doesn’t strain herself. Now, unless you have a wound that needs my attention, I’ll be on my way.” If the doctor was wearing a hat, he would have tipped it. He had the same cordial, formal air about him as many business types or bankers.

  Slocum rushed upstairs and didn’t meet anyone else before getting to the second floor.

  “You find the man who busted my balcony?” the barkeep shouted from the first floor.

  Looking over the railing to the lower level, Slocum replied, “He won’t be leaving town anytime soon.”

 
“Mind telling me what happened?”

  Just then, Tess opened her door. She still wore the same ripped white blouse, but it was rumpled after her struggle and from the doctor’s examination. Many of the buttons were unfastened, giving him a generous view of creamy white cleavage. Large nipples brushed against the material as her breasts swayed freely beneath it. When she placed one hand upon the doorframe and leaned forward, her blouse opened a bit more. Large, sloping hips were cocked at an inviting angle, and the smile on her face grew the moment she saw who was outside her room.

  “You want to know what happened?” Slocum shouted down to the bartender. “Find the sheriff.” Then he turned toward the open door and walked inside.

  Tess held her arms up and out to accept him as he approached her. Both hands locked behind Slocum’s neck and her lips pressed against his mouth. It was all he could do to get the door shut before he was completely overwhelmed.

  “So,” he gasped when he got a chance to take a breath, “I guess you’re feeling better?”

  “That drunk wasn’t even able to use what the Good Lord gave him. He sure as hell didn’t know how to swing a knife.”

  “You should count your blessings. Plenty of drunkards have gutted people with blades a lot smaller than that one. Let me take a look for myself.”

  Tess started to protest, but quieted down as Slocum slid his hands along the sides of her body. He started at her hips, moved them up gently over her ribs, and drifted even farther until he cupped her generous bosom. She closed her eyes and smiled as he massaged her warm curves. “Ever since I hired you to escort me through this territory, I knew you’d be good with your hands.”

  “Is that why you waited almost a week before letting me near you?”

  “Waiting for a good meal makes it taste even better when you eat it,” she purred.

  “We’ve been eating pretty well since we got to town,” Slocum said. His thumbs teased her nipples briefly before he moved his hands back down again to unbutton her blouse. She squirmed as if to try and hasten the process of the buttons moving through their holes and sighed as the blouse opened fully to be peeled away.