Slocum and the Rebel Canyon Raiders Read online

  He remembered leaving the horse, his gear, crouching low, skittering in between boulders, getting shot in the leg, the sun, reaching a place at the back near the top, seeing the vast hidden canyon stretching out far below, waiting, watching, the she-lion, the rattlesnake, so fat, so large, then the Apache attacking, going over the edge, landing on another ledge not far below, groping in the dark . . . snakes! All of it barreled into him with the force of a cannon blast.

  Slocum felt his chest tightening, heard his own breathing coming harder and harder, felt as if it was too difficult to draw in a breath. He tried to sit up again, tried to thrash out with his arms, but found he could barely move them. His neck tensed and he gritted his teeth, didn’t care about the throbbing pain in his head. He thrashed from side to side, howling unintelligible words—he couldn’t have survived all that he went through, so where was he? What had really happened?

  He eventually became aware of the two voices shouting at him, the weight of their hands holding him down, the woman putting something cool on his forehead.

  Then the man said, “I don’t care what you say, Julep, I’m a man and I know what a man needs sometimes, and that’s a slug of whiskey, by gum, and that’s what he’s going to get.”

  Slocum by then had exhausted himself and sagged back against whatever it was he was lying against. He felt the woman’s hand on his forehead, heard water dripping, then felt a cloth being put on his head again. “Deke is probably right. He’s gone to fetch you a drink. I hope you can keep it down. It’ll probably help with the pain. You must be feeling a world of hurt. I only hope I done the right thing in working to save you. For sure you would have died, but you’re lucky we all were down here.”

  “Where . . . where am I?”

  “Deke ought not to have said all he did. I shouldn’t blame him none, but I will. The big oaf should have kept his pie hole shut tight.”

  “Where am I?”

  “Why, sugar.” She smiled down at him, her head canted to one side. “You’re down here with us now. In what I call . . . Devil’s Canyon.”

  4

  “Oh, hell, Julep, don’t scare the man. There ain’t nothing that’s devilish since we all settled here.” Deke came back into view, the light now shining behind his head. “It’s Rebel Canyon, if it’s anything.”

  “How’s that?” said Slocum, fighting hard to keep from screaming, and to maintain some grip, however slight, on the bizarre situation he found himself in. What if he really was dead and gone and this was some strange other place?

  “Don’t pay attention to Deke. He’s just jealous, is all, because I’ve spent so much time tending to you when I should have been getting the gear ready—”

  “Hush now, girl.” Deke’s voice took on a darker tone and Julep stopped talking abruptly.

  She looked to Slocum as if she’d been caught doing something illegal. But at the moment, he didn’t much care, except that all this banter began to feel less like something otherworldly and decidedly more in line with everyday living. That, and he felt like a big old batch of homemade sin, all beat and battered and bruised and throbbing.

  “Now,” said Deke, leaning close. “You want a drink, boy? It’s sour mash, not my best, but it will put hair on the pads of your feet and drop a woodpecker at fifty yards.”

  Slocum tried to smile, managed something he hoped sounded like a yes. “Help me to sit up.”

  “Right on it.” Deke eased a big arm behind Slocum’s shoulders and suddenly Julep appeared, wringing her hands and making sure Deke didn’t undo the barely healed results of all her hard tending. Slocum vowed to thank her properly somehow, someday, if he lived. The way he felt at that moment, he didn’t dare hope for anything beyond the next ten minutes.

  Deke was right—Slocum’s nose could tell before the juice touched his lips that it was going to be a potent ride. But he figured if he could keep it down, he’d need it. And deserved it, after all he’d been through. The whiskey lit a bonfire in his mouth, found what must have been a cut and what felt like a busted tooth in the back. He’d worry about that later. Right now, that mash was working its magic. The familiar warmth spread, spilling liquid fire down his throat, gullet, and into his guts before trailing outward toward his fingertips.

  “Aahhh,” he said, closing his eyes and savoring the relaxing feeling.

  “Now there’s a man who knows how to enjoy a select mash.” Deke’s voice reflected the pride of someone whose hard labors have been appreciated.

  “Thanks, Deke,” said Slocum. “Good stuff, sir.”

  “Well, I . . . I appreciate that . . . sir.”

  “Okay, okay, you two. All this ‘sir’ business ain’t going to get biscuits made nor the stew pot boiling, now is it?” Julep’s voice receded and Slocum realized he could smell something cooking.

  “Chicken?” he said.

  “Yep,” said Deke. “By gum, but Julep can cook. We’re lucky that way. Few of the others are a hand at domestic chores.”

  “Others?” But if Deke heard him, he didn’t let on, just swigged from his bottle.

  “Where am I, Deke?”

  The big man looked down at Slocum again. “Oh, this here? This is mine and Julep’s cave.” He must have seen alarm on Slocum’s face, because he grinned. “It ain’t so bad as it sounds. We got it fixed up nice and pretty. Whole canyon sides are dotted with them.”

  “What is . . . you live down in the canyon?” Slocum was thinking of the incredible view he had seen of this canyon from above the day before. He assumed it had been the day before. Now he was curious. “How long have I been here?”

  “Too damn long, you ask me.” The voice was from a different man than Deke. Slocum heard a scuffing sound, then an older man appeared.

  “Henry, why can’t you be nice?” Julep pushed past the newcomer and fetched something from the shadows, then bustled back toward the mouth of the cave.

  “Nice ain’t never got nobody nowhere. Ain’t that right, Deke?” Henry looked at the big man still hunkered down beside Slocum.

  Slocum knew he’d live through this mess, though in what final shape he didn’t yet know, as he couldn’t get a clear picture of what state his body was in. He recognized that the old man was just a blowhard, probably well-meaning. Slocum thought he’d seen the makings of a smirk on his sunken, toothless mouth.

  “So other than too long, how long have I been here?”

  Deke cleared his throat and said, “Going on—”

  “Hush now, Deke.” Julep stood over them, her hands on her hips.

  “Why? Man’s got a right to know such things.”

  “It’s okay, Julep. I can take it.” Slocum tried a smile again and thought maybe he pulled it off, because she sighed, nodded, and threw her hands up. “I have too much to do to stand here jawin’ with you all anyway.”

  Henry appeared to be enjoying this exchange, as his shoulders hiccupped in soundless mirth.

  Deke leaned close again and said, “She’s just sore because you’re not her charge no more. We got a rule of sorts here, when a man goes lame, he’s to be tended to only as such time as he can shift for himself.”

  “And you think I can do that?” Slocum had to ask it, as he felt he could barely lift his own damn head off the blanket.

  “Well,” said Deke, scratching his bearded chin, “could be I was hasty in that judgment where you’re concerned. But I got to keep on top of such things, being mayor and all.”

  A moment of silence passed. They heard what sounded like the lid of a Dutch oven clank into place, then Slocum said, “So, Deke, you didn’t exactly answer my question.”

  “Oh, that! Well, you been here, um . . .” He drummed two fingertips against his bottom lip. “Pretty near two weeks.”

  “Two weeks?” Slocum nearly sat up at that startling revelation.

  “More like three,” said Henry, shaking his he
ad as if he were looking down at a low-life wastrel. “And not a lick of work out of ya.”

  Slocum let the news sink in, wondered about a hundred different things—the promise of a roundup job he’d been headed for in Nevada. His horse, the trusty Appaloosa, the Apache, the Apache woman, his gear, all of it. “I reckon I’m just lucky to be alive.”

  Deke nodded his head solemnly. “Yep, you’re lucky we done found you, all right.”

  “Lucky you had Julep to tend to you, is all.” Henry flicked open a pocket knife and carved a hunk of tobacco from a black knob of it, then stuffed the thumb-sized nub into his mouth. Slocum wondered how many teeth the old-timer still had.

  Deke offered him another swig, and he took it gratefully.

  Then Henry spoke. “It was a godawful yelping we heard up there that night.” The man looked toward the mouth of the cave, then loosed a stream of thick, brown liquid into the shadows beside him. It showered on what looked to Slocum like a flat rock, and spattered outward. Judging from his wide smile and filled nostrils, this display of spitting prowess seemed to give the man great satisfaction. “I expect it was you.” He nodded at Slocum.

  “I expect so,” said Slocum.

  “Well, it prevented me from getting any more sleep that night.”

  “My deepest sympathies.”

  Henry looked down at Slocum, uncertainty twitching one eyelid. “Just see it don’t happen again then.”

  “You have my word, I will do everything in my power to not get attacked by lions, rattlesnakes, and Apache all in one night.”

  The reaction his comment brought couldn’t have been more surprising. Big Deke jumped to his feet, sloshing his precious whiskey. “Apaches? You say you tangled with Apaches?”

  I did a whole lot more than that with various Apache, thought Slocum. But to the man he merely said, “Yeah, they’re why I’m here. We had a . . . misunderstanding, of sorts.” He looked at Deke. “Why? Have you had trouble with them, too?”

  It was old Henry’s turn to react—he snorted a petulant laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” said Slocum.

  “Trouble, young man, is a mild way of putting it. We been battling those bastards since—”

  “Henry!” Deke pulled a deep breath, his massive chest swelling. “That’s about enough for now. I expect our guest could use some sleep.”

  The old man scowled more than he had before, his sunken mouth pulled inward as if he were about to swallow his own head. Touched a nerve, I guess, thought Slocum.

  The two men headed toward the cave’s mouth. Food smells wafted in and Slocum’s gut growled. He breathed deep and closed his eyes, savoring the small bit of pleasure. Then he heard Deke’s voice.

  “What’s your name anyway?”

  Slocum opened his eyes. His instinct told him to offer up a fake name. He was a fugitive, after all. But what more could possibly happen to him? It was obvious these people, whatever else they seemed, were certainly not the law. Hell, even if they were, he was so busted up and beaten down that it wouldn’t much matter if they were. “I’m Slocum. John Slocum.”

  Deke looked at him a moment. He nodded, as if agreeing to some voice in his head, and said, “Well, good to meet you, Slocum. I expect we’ll be talking more as you heal up. We got need of another man, as it happens. Lots of plans and little time to do ’em in.”

  The men shuffled on out of the cave and Slocum sank back into the blankets and let his eyes close once again. What in the hell was going on? He’d rarely been in such an odd situation in all his days.

  He supposed he should be grateful that he was still alive, after all he’d gone through. And yet he had a strange sense of foreboding that something . . . not quite right was lurking on the horizon. Or more to the point, on the rim of the canyon.

  With that thought in his mind, with the warm feeling of sour mash heating his gut, and with the sweet, succulent smells of a chicken-and-biscuit dinner drifting into his nose, Slocum sank into a deep, steady sleep.

  5

  The next couple of days following his coming around were curious ones to Slocum. Try as he might, he couldn’t get any further information out of Julep about who the canyon dwellers were. She just smiled and checked his bandages. All he managed to do was engage her in mild chatter about the weather.

  It wasn’t until he tried to get up and do for himself—particularly when he felt the need to relieve himself—that he discovered a way to sort of hold her hostage, and get her to talk with him in a way that was more honest. She had been so doting that when he tried to do for himself what he’d spent his entire life doing, he suddenly realized he was unable to move his snakebit arm, barely rise up on a wobbly knee. As the days slowly progressed, he could walk from one end of the cozy but rapidly confining cave to the other, yet she seemed more worried about him than ever. He began to get the distinct feeling she was lonely.

  He had been awake in the canyon camp the better part of a week, which made it nearly a month since he’d tumbled down there. If Deke, Julep, and their mysterious clan hadn’t been down there, he wondered what would have become of him.

  One morning, the urge to get up and explore gripped Slocum like nothing had in days. He was grateful for the feeling, for it meant that he was on the mend. He knew from past experience that when he got itchy feet, there would be no stopping him. And to make matters doubly good, he didn’t hear the near-constant sound of Julep doing something somewhere close. Most often she was just outside, tending the fire and cooking up meals that had done as much, Slocum knew, to restore his slowly gaining vigor as anything else had. Hell, all of her ministrations were just grand and perfectly revitalizing.

  But now, he held his breath before he groaned his way onto his knees, his snakebit arm less than helpful, still throbbing, blackened, but with touches of green and purple, and even a bit of yellowing rising out of the blackness. The poison was leaving his system.

  He paused, making sure that she wasn’t out there, and when he was satisfied that she didn’t seem to be around, he grunted and slowly got to his feet. Cold bullets of sweat stippled his forehead, and a sudden wave of pain lanced with near-nausea rolled over him. He closed his eyes tight and gripped the smooth rock wall with one hand. He forced himself to think of anything but the pain. The wall, the cave, that was it. How long must this place have been occupied? Surely the white newcomers who’d saved his skin hadn’t carved these living spaces and occupied the place. Must have been some forgotten vale of refuge for a long-ago tribe.

  He’d heard from an old-timer rock hound years before—what was that man’s name? Wilkes? Wilkinson? Didn’t much matter now, the old man was surely dead—that the West was filled to brimming with all manner of ruins and relics and secret places where ancient peoples once dwelled.

  They were people older than the tribes Slocum had come to know, older, he suspected, than most anyone who’d ever set foot in North America. Where had all those ancient people gone to? Slocum had asked the old man, but the duffer had just shrugged his shoulders and gurgled back another long pull of ’shine.

  “That’s a question for the ages, Slocum,” he’d said, before shuffling off westward, ever westward, his burro following along, plenty of slack in the lead line.

  Slocum recalled coming across the old man passed out drunk in a heap at the edge of a clearing, one side of his face, neck, and arm badly sunburned, his burro standing patiently by, flicking a long ear occasionally at the sun or an errant shit fly. The beast stood waiting for the old man to rouse himself so they might be on their way to wherever it was those two traveling partners were headed. He knew then that they never really got anywhere in particular, just kept on roving.

  And before he knew it, Slocum felt fine again—as fine as he had felt in recent days anyway. He opened his eyes, saw the familiar darkened gloom of the cave, knew that the spell of washing pain had passed, and then, using the wall as supp
ort, he made his way toward the mouth of the cave. It was the first time he’d been out there, and he did so under his own steam. And that made him feel pretty good.

  He surveyed the scene, saw much more of the camp than he could see from lying on his back at the rear of the cave. It was much bigger than he imagined. The fire ring was a more elaborate affair that someone had taken the time to grout together. And built next to it, an adobe-style baking oven—the reason Julep’s bread and biscuits were so darned tasty.

  There was also a fine collection of utensils, pots, and pans, and beside that stood a neat stack of firewood flanked by smaller lengths and diameters of kindling. Arranged around the fire were logs for sitting, and a few chairs they must have hauled with them from their Southern homes. All in all, the spot was as tidy as anyone could make it.

  Slocum wondered how many folks lived in the canyon. Julep and Deke had been tight-lipped about it. He figured they had their reasons, not the least of which would be because they were doing something outside the law, something that Deke had alluded to a few times and Julep had not said no about when Slocum cautiously questioned her. Then again, she didn’t say much of anything about their lives. In fact, she didn’t say much at all, just looked at him with that bewitching glance and made him wonder if he was truly in Devil’s Canyon, as she’d said . . . She-Devil’s Canyon maybe.

  Across from the fire, he saw another cave entrance. He closed his eyes once again and breathed deeply. The scent of the junipers and mesquite were intoxicating, and the fresh air and sunlight on his face made him feel better than he had in a hell of a long time.

  “What are you doing out here, John Slocum?”

  He snapped his eyes open and found Julep watching him, her arms loaded with firewood. So that was who kept the piles topped up. What in the hell did Deke do all day anyway? You’d think that a man would put in a little effort to keep his wife supplied with firewood, at least. Maybe he spent all his time hunting.