Slocum and the High-Rails Heiress Read online

  Slocum pressed two cigars and a hundred-dollar note into his hand. “I can’t thank you sufficiently any other way.”

  “That’s too much and…well, it just ain’t right, and you know it.” Quick as a wink, he tucked the two cigars into his breast pocket, but held out the cash. “Can’t take it, and that’s a fact.”

  “You’ll have to. I don’t have any smaller denominations.” Which was a lie, as he’d had a bartender break another hundred-dollar note the night before. “Besides,” he said, leading the horse to the open door, “you might need to get yourself to a doc. Those big boys gave you a working over. And on my behalf. It’s the least I can do.”

  The black man straightened his back, the bill still held out, and said, “You wanna do something to help ol’ Pete, you whup them two pumpkin-headed boys. Give ’em what for! Ol’ Pete would take that as a kindness, he surely would.”

  “I can promise you, Pete, that I’ll do my best to take a round or two out of them.” Or put a round or two into them, he thought. He mounted up and touched his hat brim. “Take care, Pete. I’ll be seeing you.”

  The old man watched him ride down the main street a short distance, then, as one, the man and horse turned right and disappeared behind the buildings. Soon, they were again visible, farther away, kicking up snow on the north road out of town. Occasionally, the man would lean low, as if studying the ground, then urge the horse forward. Soon, they were lost to sight.

  Pete looked down at the hundred-dollar bill in his hand and shook his bruised face. “Good man,” he said. “But a crazy one. Best of luck to you, fella.” He waved once toward the north hills, then shuffled back into the warm barn and closed the door.

  3

  It was well past midday, and though Slocum knew the two big men could be anywhere, ready to pick him off with each step northward, Slocum was beginning to ruminate on the possibility of avoiding trouble on the trail from Pearlton to Salt Lake. All morning, he’d experienced nothing more unpleasant than a few stubborn early miles from the Appaloosa. But the horse’s cold shoulder had gradually warmed long hours before, and they had both settled into their accustomed rhythm of the road, clopping slowly, with Slocum maintaining a keen eye and ear for anything out of the ordinary.

  The steel-cold day warmed to no more than a tolerable temperature, and visibility was limited beyond gun-metal gray clouds that hung low, close, and threatening. They forced a stillness on the landscape that felt unnerving and, after a time, downright annoying to the traveling man.

  The whistle and punch of a heavy-caliber rifle shot cut the air in the space where Slocum’s head had just been one clock-tick before. Even as he heard it, every honed muscle in his body tensed and he pitched himself from the far side of the saddle. He slid down a rock-studded embankment, tugging his horse’s reins with him, hoping against hope that whoever was shooting wouldn’t send a round into his horse’s flank. It had sounded to him like a buffalo gun, probably a Sharps.

  A second shot plumed crusted snow in front of him and he jerked his head down, chin touching the cold, snowy earth. He stayed hunkered low, scanning the snowy land before him, and wondered what might have happened if he hadn’t leaned down in the saddle to study a track in the snow. The grim thought pissed him off.

  And then he saw what he had hoped to see—the last of a belch of smoke drifting from a spot high up the bare rock face to the right of the road. And something more, a flash of color just behind it that stood out against stark gray rock and patches of snow caught in clefts. That color had been odd, sort of reddish, and then it made sense. And it provided an answer to the question of who’d shot at him—had to be one of the two strong-arms who had savaged the old hostler.

  As far as Slocum could tell, that left him with two immediate questions that needed answering—where was the other one, and why were they after him? For the money that everyone in town had seen being handed to him by Mr. Mulford? Unlikely, as Slocum had seen them loitering in front of the other hotel. Unlikely, but still possible.

  He shucked his Winchester from the saddle boot as he urged the Appaloosa farther down the bank below him. Hair the color of pumpkin soup, the old man had said. Both of them. So where was the other man? If I were dry-gulching someone from that perch, thought Slocum, I would have made sure to cover both sides of the road. Unless one of them rode on ahead just in case the other failed to stop him? Sounded possible, though perhaps far-fetched, as he assumed that brothers, if that’s what they were, would stick together. But he didn’t have time for further speculation, as a third shot, this time from below, whanged off a rock to his left. Too damn close for comfort.

  Great, thought Slocum. I’m pinned from both sides. His horse stepped with nervous energy behind him, but not enough to pull free from his quick tethering job. He thought he saw, through the bare branches, where the shot had come from.

  “I’ll get you yet, you weasel.”

  The unexpected words echoed across the roadway toward him. In response, Slocum cranked off two quick shots at the spot the first shot had come from. That would show him who got who.

  Behind him, his horse nickered, and even as he turned, Slocum realized too late he’d played into their hands. The not-so-quiet sound of a boot crunching snow spun him. Less than twenty feet downslope stood one of the hulking brutes. He wore a matted buffalo coat, snow dusting it from where the man had scrambled upslope. The coat was bald in some spots, as if the garment had the mange, and topping the man’s head was a thick puff of coarse red hair.

  His round face swarmed with a new growth of trail beard, the cheeks pulsing with earnest chewing. A sneer pulled the top lip upward toward small pale blue eyes, cold and unblinking. In his hand, he held out a cocked, long-barreled pistol, the deadly end facing Slocum. Breath plumed from the big man’s mouth. He spat a sloppy stream of black liquid before him, sending most of it trailing down the front of his foul coat. “Reckon you’re done for, mister.”

  Slocum held his rifle poised across his chest. He would have one extra move to get the rifle to bear on the brute, whereas his opponent could finish him now with one simple squeeze of his finger. Slocum also knew that if he stood up, the other man across the road, holding the high ground, would pick him off square between the shoulder blades. So Slocum did the only thing he felt sure he could do: He pushed himself forward, tucking into a roll downslope, angling away from the furred giant.

  He rolled hard on his left shoulder, grunted, and felt a twinge inside as he pivoted on the sharp edge of a rock hidden by snow cover. He heard the bang of the man’s pistol even as he jammed his left boot heel hard against the slope to stop his momentum. He didn’t bother to raise his rifle to his shoulder, as his roll brought him to within five yards of the man. He came up out of the roll with the rifle leveled and cranked two rapid rounds into the big man’s broad frame. Puffs of snow dust rose from the coat where the bullets pocked inward. The man turned, a snarl on his lips, a guttural growl pushing black spittle from his mouth.

  Slocum levered another shell and snapped the rifle to his shoulder. He squeezed the trigger and a bright red welt, like a fresh cigar burn, appeared between the big man’s eyes. Blood pulsed from it, and still the man stood glaring at Slocum, pistol poised. His eyebrows drew together as if he wasn’t sure what had just happened, nor how to work the pistol.

  Slocum didn’t give the man time to figure it out. As the Appaloosa bucked and whinnied and finally pulled free of the stunty juniper he was tied to, Slocum kept moving, circling the man, taking care to keep as many trees upslope of himself as possible, to help evade the other gunman’s bullets. He rose up again, just behind a thicker tree trunk, and sent another round into the closer man, who began to show further signs of Slocum’s assault.

  The big brute stood, poised but wavering more with each passing second, his breath puffing out in shorter, clipped gasps, still facing uphill where he’d first braced Slocum. He was thankful that the man, for all his stealth—though he had sneaked up on him a little
too close for his comfort—was now all but finished. The giant wobbled, sank to one knee, and his arm holding the pistol ratcheted down a couple of ticks so that it now pointed at the ground before him.

  “Dead and don’t know it yet,” said Slocum, a grim set to his mouth. “Quick is not the word I’d use to describe this one.” Might have been a dry-gulcher, but it was still a man he’d had to kill, and that never felt like a good thing, just another thing that needed doing. Him or me. “Yep, reckon you’re done for, mister.”

  He prodded the big man’s shaggy shoulder and watched as the brute pitched forward, facedown in the snow, blood seeping outward, soaking the white earth beneath him.

  The sharp ring of horseshoes on rock shifted his gaze back to the high ground above. Sure enough, he caught sight of someone dressed similarly to the man he’d just killed. The brother, partner, or whatever else he might be seemed too big for the paint he rode, dwarfing it as the beast picked its way, urged on by the big man’s flailing heels. Slocum saw the business end of the man’s long gun cradled in his arms.

  Slocum raised his Winchester to his shoulder, sighted on the retreating shaggy brown form, and gauging for distance, raised the rifle. Just then, the man and horse broke from view behind a slab of upthrust ledge.

  “Dammit,” snarled Slocum, lowering the rifle.

  He bent to the dead man and, with a bit of effort, flipped him over onto his back. The corpse slid downslope a foot or two, snow pushing the man’s blue wool shirt. It rode up to expose a raft of pink flab. But the man was far from all fat. This was one big, rugged boy who had been damned quiet on his feet. It bothered Slocum mightily that he had turned around in just enough time to see that he was about to be shot in the back by the big man.

  Slocum felt like a criminal as he rummaged through a dead man’s pockets, but he had to know if there might be some clue as to the big bastards’ motives for wanting him dead. He wasn’t exactly sure what that might be, but he found nothing but what he expected to find—a handful of crumbled biscuit in the man’s outer coat pocket. Must have been a snack that powdered when he fell on it. He also came up with a few soggy, cheap cigars, a half-dozen lucifers, a lint-covered knob of plug tobacco, and three empty brass shell casings. Slocum gave thought to taking the man’s sheath knife, gun belt, and pistol, but he didn’t need them and he didn’t want to be weighted down by unnecessary gear, especially a long-barreled pistol.

  With a quick glance back at the dead man, whose jowled face and new third eye now stared at the close gray sky, Slocum clutched his rifle and strode cross-slope toward the Appaloosa, which had run off in the din of the close melee. It now stood nosing stunty brown grasses through a thin layer of snow on a sunned patch of slope.

  As he mounted up, he considered skidding on down to the bottom, then continuing northward along the ravine, which roughly paralleled the road. At least with that route, he’d be relatively assured that he might avoid another sneak attack. But that other scoundrel would know he’d done in his partner, so he’d probably be coming for him.

  That way didn’t sit well, though. It felt like the coward’s road to Slocum. He wasn’t about to let the other odd character push and pull him just so he could get close enough to kill him. Slocum became more agitated for dithering. He had a train to catch, and he’d be damned if he was going to miss it by simpering along a safer route.

  Slocum spurred the Appaloosa and they scrambled back upslope to the road. Once they’d gained the rutted track, he heeled the horse, and hugging the sides of the road, and crouching low, he raced on. It had been less than twenty minutes since the long-range shooter with the Sharps had sniped at him, then ridden off, so the man wouldn’t be that far ahead. But Slocum’s unfamiliarity with the region slowed his pace a pinch, as he had been through that valley only once before, years ago.

  Without checking his pocket watch, he guessed the afternoon still had a couple of hours of daylight left, and he didn’t want to waste them. It would be cold as a well digger’s ass again tonight, and if at all possible, he wanted to finish this thing so he wouldn’t have to stand watch all damn night, wondering if every snapped branch and scuffed stone betrayed a lurking killer. Since putting distance between himself and the man was no acceptable solution, Slocum’s preference was to confront the other man, and preferably in daylight.

  Far ahead, he spied two stone spires jutting into the gray sky. As he rounded the next curve in the road, they came into view, the road narrowing between gray sentinels. And directly between the stone towers, as if sledged downward from above and lodged there, stood an identical replica of the man he’d just killed a few miles back.

  Slocum wasn’t a man to startle easily. He’d seen much and done even more in his days since coming back from the War to find his family killed and his homeplace all but stolen. But seeing the twin of the big dead man standing there in the road before him seized the breath in his throat for a moment.

  The man held his buffalo rifle cradled in his arms, not trained on Slocum. Slocum slowed his horse, and without shifting his gaze from the burly sentinel, he turned the beast side-to, and in one clean motion, slipped from the saddle and slid his Winchester from its sheath. Over the Appaloosa’s mane, he saw that the mighty man hadn’t even moved.

  “What the hell is coming?” Slocum said to the horse. He set the Winchester’s barrel over the saddle, aimed roughly at the man, while he led the horse to the side of the road. He couldn’t keep the beast out of all danger, but he could get it out of the line of fire when the big brute began shooting. If he lived through this strange fight, he didn’t want to be stranded out here because he didn’t take whatever precautions he could while he still had the time before lead flew.

  And Slocum was under no illusions that there would not very shortly be a gunfight. That much was clear to him. And soon, one or both of them might well die or sustain harsh wounds out here in the midst of a wintery land as unforgiving as it was barren.

  “You kill him?” The voice was oddly clear and higher than what Slocum expected to come from such a big man.

  By now, Slocum, too, was standing in the middle of the road, his own rifle held in both hands, ready to snap up and squeeze. Slocum nodded. “You’re damn right I did. He ought not to have come up on me like that.”

  The big man nodded. “He could be a trick at times.” The voice cracked. The man cleared his throat, then said, “You sure he’s dead?”

  Slocum nodded, sensed that the man was crying, and felt sure that the man he’d killed had been this one’s brother, maybe his twin, from the looks of them. Of all the luck, he thought. I get stuck with two massive twins who are bent on killing me. And I don’t even know why. He decided that since the big man was crying and so all fired up to be talkative, he’d chance it and ask him a few questions. “Why are you after me?”

  The man continued as though he hadn’t heard him. “That’s the way it has to be, then. We best get to it.”

  Slocum tensed, sensing his words would have little effect, but knowing he had to say them anyway. “Hold up there, fella. No reason we have to shoot each other down like hydrophoby dogs. Tell me what you’re after. Might be we can figure this thing out.”

  Slocum saw the man lift his great shaggy red head, the ginger-whiskered chin rising as if he’d just heard Slocum’s words. The bunched cheeks wobbled furiously, then he sluiced a long, ropy stream of chew juice, laying it out on the snow beside him like a gout of black blood. The big brown coat shifted as the man adjusted his feet to a shooting stance, raised his Sharps, and squinted.

  Slocum sighed inwardly and turned to his side, minimizing himself as a target. But something told him the man wasn’t ready to open the ball. That same inner sense that, despite holding the paltriest of hands, had pulled him through more than one poker game now told him to stay his trigger finger for a moment longer.

  “Could be…she was wrong,” said the big redheaded stranger. Then he pushed out his cud of chewed tobacco. It tumbled down his coat fr
ont, followed by a great cloud of breath that rose up into the chill afternoon sky.

  Slocum saw his grip grow tighter on the buffalo gun, and he knew that ball was just about to bust wide open. He snapped off a shot toward the man’s head, then dove for cover. The big man’s gun boomed down the road, filling the little rocky valley with a long, churning rumble.

  Chunks of blasted rock pinged by Slocum’s head, grit stung his face, and he felt the familiar warm tickle of a blood runnel down his cheek. He decided that he’d live…and the great shaggy man had to die. He’d tried to get answers from him, but it all came to nothing. And now the man was bent on revenge, it seemed.

  Slocum tried to crawl sideways along the roadside, keeping low. The big boy still stood his ground in the middle of the road, looking more like a freakish, gatekeeping buffalo than a man. He reloaded his rifle as if he were on a leisurely summer hunt, though his breath rose in a cloud and snow dusted his coat, caked his boots.

  Slocum took advantage of the man’s odd behavior, rose to his knees, sighted the Winchester, and squeezed off another shot before ducking. Immediately, the brute’s head flinched as if he’d been slapped, and his trigger finger contracted.

  As the echoing sound played itself out, Slocum peered over the rock not half as big as it should have been. But he needn’t have worried—his shot had found its mark. He prided himself on his solid shooting, but was still surprised to see the big man flopped flat on his back in the road as if he’d just decided to stretch out for a nap.

  Slocum approached with caution, and the first thing he noted was that the two men were indeed twin brothers. Then he saw a hole resembling a middle eye puckering the broad forehead, much like the one Slocum had given his twin. His eye caught something else, too, up higher, by the man’s left temple, and partially disguised by the matted red hair. Another hole.

  So my first shot found its mark, thought Slocum. And that’s why the big man had acted so odd, taking his time reloading and all. Amazing.