Slocum and Hot Lead Read online

  “Nuff of this here jawin’,” Wilmer said. The bounty hunter stood and Slocum had to blink in surprise. Wilmer hardly topped five feet tall. When Slocum stood, he towered a full foot above him.

  Wilmer let out a low whistle.

  “They didn’t say you was a giant. Don’t matter to me, though—”

  “You’re the meanest bounty hunter this side of the Rio Grande,” Slocum finished for him.

  “You got more of a sense of humor than I’d thought you would too.”

  “That’s because you have the wrong man.”

  “Nope, got the right one. I don’t read so good, but pictures, I never forget ’em. I seen you on that poster and it’s a damn good likeness.”

  “What am I wanted for?”

  Wilmer never got the chance to answer. He started to laugh and when he did, he moved to hold his ample belly with both hands. Slocum moved faster than a striking rattler, raising the derringer and pointing it squarely at the man’s face.

  “Drop it or I’ll drop you,” Slocum said in a tone that brooked no argument.

  “You mangy—”

  “Now!”

  Slocum’s finger was drawing back on the trigger in preparation for firing. Wilmer hastily let loose of his pistol. It rolled around the bulge of his belly and tumbled to the ground, hitting a rock and discharging. In reaction Slocum fired, but both the round from the bounty hunter’s six-shooter and Slocum’s derringer missed hitting anything vital.

  Slocum cursed, fired the second barrel, and dived for his Colt. By the time he got it out, Wilmer had hightailed it for the dense undergrowth a few yards away. Slocum heard the bounty hunter thrashing about wildly in the dark, and then nothing. He paused, suddenly wary. Wilmer was no fool. Slocum felt as if the jaws of a bear trap were getting ready to snap shut on his foot. Standing, waiting, he listened intently, but heard nothing at all. Wilmer had obviously spent most of his life in the wilderness. He might even have been one of the last mountain men and more at home in these mountains than he would ever be among civilized men.

  Slocum retrieved Wilmer’s fallen pistol and tucked it into his waistband, then slung his holster around his hips and secured his Colt Navy. Drawing the bounty hunter’s six-gun, he took a couple steps in the direction of the woods, then shook his head. He looked around and didn’t see another horse. Wilmer had walked up on him without so much as disturbing the chirping of the crickets. Trying to track down the man might be impossible, and he wasn’t sure what he would do if he caught up with him. Trying to convince Wilmer that he wasn’t this person named Neale was a fool’s errand. He wished the bounty hunter had been more talkative about who this Neale was and what he was wanted for. If wanted posters were widespread throughout New Mexico, it was time for Slocum to find cooler pastures, maybe in Colorado.

  He quickly rolled up his gear and stowed it on the back of his saddle, then mounted. Another slow survey of the area failed to betray Wilmer’s presence, though he could feel the man out there. Wilmer was too good a woodsman for Slocum to know where.

  Slocum considered getting on the road for Taos, but veered away, cutting across the mountain meadow and going into the rockier hills. He stood a better chance of covering his trail here than on the road. His Appaloosa strained as he worked his way ever higher into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. All around he saw abandoned mines, their tailings belched out down the steep slopes. He slowed as he came into wide valleys, aware that ventilation shafts into the mines would likely be grown over and not marked. A miner had other things than safety on his mind—the lure of gold or silver would blind him to anything but digging like a badger and rummaging through massive heaps of rock blasted from the belly of the mountain.

  Keeping a careful watch on the ground caused Slocum to stop and look closely at hoofprints cut into the grass. He sat, contemplated what he saw, and finally decided no fewer than six men had ridden this way within the last day. Nothing but abandoned mines told him this was either a posse to be avoided or a band of outlaws intent on avoiding a posse. Lawmen or road agents, it didn’t matter. Slocum intended to ride clear of them and the trouble either posed.

  He found it difficult to keep that promise to himself because two riders appeared from a stand of aspens not a hundred yards away. The sun was behind Slocum, forcing them to squint into the sun if they looked in his direction. He stood stock-still and waited to see if they spotted him. He heaved a sigh of relief when they kept riding, unaware of his presence. From their appearance, he guessed they weren’t lawmen. Whether they were road agents or peace-abiding men only traveling through was something he couldn’t tell, but his gut told him they were on the wrong side of the law.

  “Just like me,” he muttered. A quick thought came to him that one of them might even be the mysterious Neale that both the marshal and bounty hunter wanted so desperately. If he captured this Neale, he might get out from under the cloud of suspicion that was choking him. The thought passed as good sense prevailed. Better to get away from Neale and Las Vegas and Wilmer entirely than to get mixed up in some situation he knew nothing about. It was hard enough fighting his own battles without becoming involved in someone else’s.

  Slocum walked his horse slowly to the edge of the meadow to keep from attracting attention, then rode more quickly until he found a canyon branching away, more or less in the direction of Taos. An hour later he was feeling good about eluding the riders behind him. The valley he traveled now was dotted with dozens of shafts, and the slopes rising gradually on either side were festooned with holes that had been blasted and dug and abandoned, some fairly recently from the look of the tailings. Slocum angled toward one of the mines, thinking to find a line shack where he could grab a few more hours of sleep and maybe find an airtight or two of food left behind. Peaches or tomatoes would go down mighty fine right now and save him the trouble of bagging a rabbit. In spite of the feeling of solitude, he knew there were at least a half-dozen men roaming these hills.

  And Wilmer.

  How intent the bounty hunter was on tracking him, Slocum could not say. He hoped chasing the man off the way he had had dampened his enthusiasm for a hundred-dollar bounty—but not to the extent he would shoot Slocum in the back and settle for a quarter of that.

  Slocum picked a mine that couldn’t have been abandoned more than a few weeks and rode to it, avoiding several open pits. What these had been used for was a puzzlement since it appeared that the shafts were blasted directly into the mountainside. But then miners tended to be as crazy as bedbugs and took it into their heads to do odd things in their search for gold.

  He dismounted and went to a shack, opened the door, and looked around inside. The shack had been left almost in the same condition as when some hard-rock miner had lived here. The bed was nothing more than dried grass stuffed into a canvas bag. A rickety table and an even less secure chair were pushed against the far side of the dirt-floored room. A shelf held a solitary can without a label. Slocum’s belly growled so loudly that he didn’t care what was inside. It would be his midday meal.

  Going back to his horse for his canteen and gear turned him suddenly uneasy. He looked around but saw no one. Walking to the edge of one of the pits, he peered downward and couldn’t tell how deep it was. Before he could pick up a pebble and drop it to see if there was water in the bottom, he heard a small sound, hardly more than a tiny whisper, and knew he was in big trouble.

  “Got the drop on you again, Neale,” Wilmer said. “You led me a merry chase, but you ain’t so good at hidin’ your trail. I’m ’bout the best damn tracker west of the Mississippi.”

  Slocum dropped some of his gear and turned slowly, his hands away from his sides. Wilmer held an old black-powder musket on him.

  “You still got my smoke wagon? Why don’t you go on and toss it back to me.”

  “This?” Slocum nodded at the six-shooter thrust into his waistband.

  “Yep, that’s it. Not many men coulda got that away from me. I’ll give you that much. Might be I kin
ask fer a few extra dollars with you bein’ such a slippery gent.”

  Slocum began edging away from the lip of the pit.

  “Now don’t go anywhere on me,” Wilmer said sharply. “If you want to throw down on me, give ’er a try. You won’t git halfway to yer six-shooter.”

  “You’ve got me,” Slocum said. “But I’m not Neale.”

  “Now you quit sayin’ that. Of course you are. I didn’t fall off the turnip wagon this morning. You pull my gun out of your belt real slowlike, but don’t go throwin’ it onto the ground like before. That’s a precise killin’ weapon, it is.”

  Slocum laid his saddlebags down and put Wilmer’s pistol on top of them near the edge of the pit. As he straightened, he slid his foot into a strap on the saddlebags and then put his hands up high in the air. Wilmer’s gaze followed the hands and ignored the feet.

  “I’ve done what you asked,” Slocum said. “What now?”

  “Why, I take you on back to Las Vegas and collect the reward. But I got to hogtie you, you bein’ so slippery and all.”

  The bounty hunter moved forward, eyes fixed on Slocum. Slocum jerked his hand about as he held it above his head to keep Wilmer’s attention diverted. When Wilmer knelt to pick up his six-shooter, Slocum kicked hard. His toe caught in the leather strap and yanked the saddlebags out from under the six-shooter, sending it skittering toward the pit.

  Wilmer yelped and instinctively grabbed for his six-gun. When his attention strayed, Slocum acted. A quick step forward and a hard kick sent the bounty hunter flailing to land at the edge of the pit. As Wilmer grabbed for his gun, Slocum kicked him again. Man and six-gun tumbled into the pit.

  A loud splash echoed up.

  “That settles the question of whether there’s water in the pit.”

  Slocum picked up his saddlebags and backed from the pit before Wilmer started shooting at anything recklessly poking over the rim of the pit—like Slocum’s head.

  “You cain’t leave me down here!” came the bounty hunter’s angry shout.

  “Why not?” Slocum said to himself. He returned to the shack, grabbed the can of unknown contents, tucked it into his saddlebags, and then rode away intent on putting as much distance between him and Wilmer as possible. He never wanted to see the bounty hunter again, but he doubted he would be that lucky.

  3

  It was so peaceful that it made Slocum ache. He had spent the past four days covering his trail, looking over his shoulder, doubling back and riding in wide arcs, all to throw Wilmer off his tracks. Whether the bounty hunter had ever escaped the rocky shaft where Slocum had dumped him hardly mattered, but if he had, Slocum was certain he would be coming fast with blood in his eye.

  But Taos stretched quiet and peaceful, the kind of town where nothing violent ever happened. Slocum rode slowly to the plaza, knowing this was an illusion. The first American territorial governor had been brutally killed here during an Indian uprising. This was a terminus for the Bent brothers’ vast trading empire and hard battles had been fought here in years past. He could almost smell the blood that had been spilled. Almost. The entire town was taking a siesta right now and it was deceptively peaceful.

  Slocum dismounted and went into a cantina just off the plaza. The cool, dim interior of the adobe building wrapped itself around him as the scent of spilled beer rose to make Slocum’s nostrils flare. He searched his pockets, wondering if money had mysteriously appeared since he had left Las Vegas. It hadn’t. That didn’t stop Slocum from going to the bar and leaning his elbows on it. His reflection in the highly polished mirror hanging behind the bar told him he needed more than a drink. He appeared gaunt. The single can of tomatoes taken from the miner’s shack hadn’t lasted very long, and taking time to hunt would have given Wilmer the chance of overtaking him—a gunshot would have given Slocum’s location away to the wary, clever bounty hunter.

  “Here,” the barkeep said, sliding a tin cup down the bar. Water sloshed onto the stained wood as Slocum reached out to stop the cup. “Unless you’re different, that’s all you’re getting.”

  “Different?”

  “You got money to pay for a drink?” The barkeep eyed Slocum, then laughed ruefully. “Hell, no, I’ve seen that look too many times lately. And the boss’d have my scalp if I started giving away free drinks.”

  Slocum downed the water. It was cool and tasted as sweet as any he’d ever drunk. He wiped his lips.

  “Much obliged. Don’t reckon there’s—”

  “Any jobs here? None, at least none I’ve heard about,” the barkeep said. He perched on the corner of the bar, his legs swinging idly back and forth like scissors. “Not even guards at the bank.” The barkeep gave Slocum the once-over, but his eyes kept dancing back to the pistol at his hip.

  “Where’s the marshal’s office?”

  “He’s not hiring deputies either.”

  “You’re mighty accommodating,” Slocum said.

  “Come back when you got money. There’s a real fine bottle of pop-skull from Kentucky you might like.”

  Slocum stepped out into the hot afternoon sun and looked around the plaza. A few citizens moved about now on errands of unknown motivation. Why try to do business when you could be sleeping through the hottest part of the day? Slocum made his way around the plaza hunting for the marshal’s office. His heart beat a little faster as he went inside. He wanted to avoid the law whenever he could, but this side trip was necessary if he didn’t want to spend his stay in Taos looking over his shoulder for more than a bounty hunter.

  The deputy slept with his feet up on the desk. Slocum walked on cat’s feet to keep from waking him as he went to a wall festooned with wanted posters. Working through the tattered array failed to reveal any warrant out for a man named Neale. Slocum scanned the wanted posters a second time looking for his own likeness, under any name.

  “Wha—?”

  Slocum whirled, hand moving to the butt of his six-shooter as the deputy’s feet fell from the desktop.

  “What you doin’, mister?”

  “I was looking for the marshal. Is he in?”

  “Naw, he’s out ridin’ circuit. Servin’ process and makin’ a few extra dollars,” the deputy said. “Lucky son of a bitch gets extra money. All he pays me is twenty dollars a month.”

  The deputy rubbed his eyes and peered more closely at Slocum.

  “I know you, mister?”

  “Can’t say we’ve met,” Slocum said cautiously. There might be a special pile of wanted posters carrying either his likeness or that of the mysterious Neale.

  The deputy shook himself and leaned back, studying Slocum more closely.

  “Reckon not.”

  “Are these all the posters you have?” Slocum tapped the wall behind him with his knuckles.

  “Yep, all of ’em. We get new ones from time to time. The marshal over in Las Vegas sends ’em along, when he thinks about it. Hasn’t sent any in a while. Too hot to ride maybe. Or too lazy. Marshal Hanks ain’t what you’d call diligent.”

  “Is that the Las Vegas marshal?”

  “Marshal Hanks? Yeah, that’s him. Leroy Hanks. Marshal here’s named Rodriguez. Not a bad fellow, but he spends more time workin’ for the judge than he does tendin’ business here in town. Leaves that to me.”

  “That’s got to mean he thinks a lot of your ability,” Slocum said to placate the deputy.

  “Never thought of it that way. Always figured he was lettin’ me haul away the dead animals out of the streets and handle the drunks so he wouldn’t have to do it.”

  “Taos seems to be mighty calm,” Slocum said. “A tribute to the law here, I’d say.”

  “Never thought about it that way. Yeah, you’re right!” With that, the deputy hiked his boots back to the desktop and tipped his hat back down over his eyes. In seconds a steady snoring told exactly how calm it was in town.

  Slocum cast one last look at the wall covered with old wanted posters, and heaved a sigh of relief. He might have a bounty hunter and M
arshal Hanks after him for no reason, but their mistake hadn’t reached Taos yet. The heat wrapped him like cotton wool, but he felt good for the first time since riding into Las Vegas. He liked Taos and might stay a while, if he could find a job. Things were as hard here as over in Las Vegas, at least when it came to gainful employment.

  Heading for the public watering trough in the plaza to dunk his head and cool off, he stopped when he heard an argument getting more heated by the second. Normally he wouldn’t have interfered, but the woman standing just inside the doorway of the general store presented a mighty fine side to him. She had a wasp waist and was curvy in all the right places otherwise. When she turned, Slocum caught her profile. A fine, straight, patrician nose, thin lips, and firm chin were momentarily obscured by a strand of mahogany-colored hair that escaped from under her broad-brimmed hat. With a nervous gesture she brushed the hair away as she kept up a rapid and increasingly loud argument. She stamped her foot and turned back so her face was hidden. A soft swish of her cambric dress or the crinkle of her starched white blouse could not drown out a deeper masculine reply.

  “That’s not right. You can’t mean it,” she said. Her voice echoed shrilly, but Slocum thought it was from her agitation. He shielded his eyes from the sun and saw she had stepped into the general store.

  A torrent of Spanish seemed to confuse the woman. Slocum licked his dried lips, then decided a dousing in the water trough could wait a few minutes.

  “Ma’am,” he said, entering the store, touching the brim of his hat. “Is something wrong?”

  “This, this . . . gentleman is trying to rob me! He wants me to pay five times what these supplies are worth. When I complained, he began yammering away in Spanish.”

  “And you don’t understand Spanish,” Slocum guessed. He saw by the frown on her lovely face that she did not. What she did understand, though, was the outdoors. She was no hothouse flower, pale and fluttery. She had a deep tan that contrasted just enough with her reddish-brown hair to look healthy and just a tad exotic because of her violet eyes.