Slocum Buried Alive Read online

  “With you here,” she said. He didn’t know exactly what she meant but everything crashed in on him now.

  His head no longer throbbed but exhaustion from the day—and Polly—consumed him like a hungry animal with its prey. He held her in his arms and felt her soft breath against his neck. The rain hid the world, and all he needed was right here, in his arms.

  He awoke in the morning with bright sunlight slanting through a broken window. Slocum flopped onto his back, laced his fingers under his head, and stared up at the ceiling, where water stains on the plaster betrayed spots leaking in the roof. He listened to the animals moving about outside in the fresh, clean dawn.

  And he heard nothing in the house except for creaking sounds as it settled on its foundations. Without poking around, he knew Polly and her brother were both gone. He sat up, buttoned his fly, and got to his feet. It was time he was on the trail, too.

  He had to find Miranda Madison, no matter how unimportant that had seemed only a few hours earlier.

  6

  Slocum took his sweet time moving around, being certain his feet worked fine and his head didn’t cause dizziness when he least expected it. He attributed his recovery from the aches and pains of the day before to his lovemaking with Polly Neville. That she and her brother had left before he awoke didn’t surprise him. Polly would find it uncomfortable if her brother started bad-mouthing him as being one of Hawkins’s thugs.

  He found his pinto, did what he could to clean off the saddle, and then made sure grass and water were adequate as a way of apologizing. He usually cared for his horses better than he had the night before. The rain and . . . events . . . had made him careless. Once in the saddle, he rode slowly, trying to find tracks along the road.

  The rain had erased all trace of Hawkins’s gang. He cut through the woods and found the abandoned house where he had intended to spend the night with Miranda Madison. The least he could do was tend Mac’s horse, hitch it up, and drive into Espero to let Hawkins know what had happened. Good sense told him to ride north as fast as he could go, but he had taken the undertaker’s money to escort Miranda safely to Espero, and he had failed. How he would break the news mattered. He might have to shoot his way out of town, though he wanted to avoid that.

  Most of all, he didn’t want to be sent back out to find Miranda. Finding her after the heavy rains would be a matter of luck rather than skill, unless Hawkins had overheard some town gossip.

  He rode up to the house, then slowed and finally halted entirely. Something had changed from the night before when he had left Miranda fixing supper inside the house and he had been slugged in the woods. Slocum studied the house for a full minute before it hit him what was wrong.

  “The buggy’s gone,” he said softly. He received a neigh from his horse, chiding him for not seeing this right away.

  A quick check in the barn showed Mac’s horse was missing, too. The rain had removed any spoor to read, but the lack of hoofprints and buggy wheel imprints in the ground told him someone had hitched up the horse and ridden off before or during the storm.

  Inside, the supper Miranda had fixed had become fodder for more bugs than he could count.

  “At least the rest of the food didn’t go to waste.” He hoisted the burlap bag with the remainder of their victuals. His belly growled.

  Slocum took the time to fix some bacon, biscuits, and peaches from an airtight. He washed it all down with coffee he had boiled over a new fire. While he might catch up with the buggy sooner, the half hour he took to eat mattered less than the satisfaction of a full belly. Finding the buggy would be a matter of luck more than skill.

  He packed what supplies were left, slung them over the rump of his horse, and set out to find Miranda. At the road he considered riding back toward Dexter Junction, buying himself a ticket on the next train out, and simply getting the hell away from Espero. He had a fifty-fifty chance of overtaking the buggy.

  Instead, he turned his horse’s face toward Espero and trotted along. The clean, clear air filled his lungs and revived him as much as the food. The rolling hills and thick vegetation proved peaceful and allowed him to settle down enough to think about breaking the news to Leonard Hawkins that his mail-order bride had been spirited off in the night. The worst Slocum could imagine was Hawkins demanding his money back. Slocum might have to work off the money he had spent for the buggy and supplies, but that would be it.

  He touched the butt of his six-shooter. He wouldn’t accept any punishment, not from Leonard Hawkins, not from men riding for him who buried men alive for the pure cussedness of the act. The worst he would take off Hawkins was nonpayment of the rest of the promised money. Even then, Slocum considered asking for reimbursement for the buggy.

  The woods opened into a level plain of high grass and occasional trees, giving him a clear view almost a mile along the road. He drew rein, fished for his field glasses in his saddlebags, and carefully adjusted them on a tiny dot on the road ahead.

  “I’ll be damned,” he muttered.

  Slocum replaced the field glasses and put his heels to his horse. He kept the gait under a gallop, not wanting to wear out the animal. By the time he reached the spot where he had seen the buggy, the driver had disappeared along another forested section of road. Advancing slower now, he overtook the buggy at the outskirts of Espero.

  From behind he couldn’t see the driver, but the destination was obvious. The driver went to Espero.

  “Stop!” Slocum’s voice carried. To his surprise, the driver obeyed right away.

  He rode up beside the buggy. Holding down his anger, Slocum tipped his hat to Miranda Madison.

  “Pleased to see you’re not dead,” he said. “Where did you go last night?”

  “I can ask the same!” The woman gripped the reins so hard her hands shook. “You left me back there!”

  “Somebody slugged me. When I came to, you were gone. The buggy was there, but you were gone.”

  “I was not,” Miranda said, but her denial carried no conviction. “Where would I have gone?”

  “I went hunting for you and ran into a gang that buries its victims alive.”

  “What?”

  “I thought that might have happened to you. I went back to the house but the buggy was gone.”

  “Of course it was. You abandoned me, so I pressed on by myself.”

  Slocum tried to figure out when she had left to reach town by now. The only thing he could come up with was her leaving in the middle of the downpour. That made no sense, but it had to be so. The horse couldn’t pull the buggy fast enough for her to have started after the storm died down.

  “You didn’t see anyone prowling around the house after I left?”

  “You went out for firewood and never came back. That’s all I know. And to answer your question, sir, I saw no one.”

  Slocum started to tell her she was a good liar, but a liar nonetheless.

  “Are you on your way to Hawkins’s funeral parlor?”

  “I don’t know where it is, but someone in town must be able to direct me.”

  Slocum trotted off, not caring if she followed. He turned down a street crossing Main and glanced over his shoulder. Miranda guided the buggy after him. Slocum dismounted in front of Hawkins’s business, not sure what he would say when he faced the undertaker.

  “This is his place of business?” Miranda looked skeptical. “You did say Mr. Hawkins was a mortician.”

  Slocum held out his hand to help her from the buggy. She ignored him and got out on her own. She tilted her nose up, brushed mud from her dress, and stalked off to meet her betrothed.

  As Slocum followed, he looked back along the street. A mounted man quickly wheeled about and galloped off. He wore a yellow slicker mostly torn away on the right side. Slocum caught a glimpse of the man’s iron slung low on his hip. A gunman.

  “Are you joining me, Mr. Sl
ocum?” Miranda tried to sound impatient. Her voice almost cracked with strain. Meeting Leonard Hawkins was something she was loath to do alone.

  Slocum didn’t blame her because he knew what was ahead. But she could only be apprehensive about meeting her groom-to-be because it was the first time she would lay eyes on him.

  “Just taking in the sights,” he said. He gave her a once-over. “You want to check into a hotel and freshen up?”

  “I am anxious.” Her eyes darted to the single case in the buggy. She couldn’t have stuffed a great deal of additional clothing in such a small valise. What she wore might be her finest clothing since she had expected to meet Hawkins at Dexter Junction and hadn’t changed since leaving the train.

  He held the door, and she brushed past. Miranda was a lovely woman, prettier than Polly Neville, but where Polly was open about her feelings—in all things, as Slocum could attest—this woman held everything in. She never quite told the truth and always hid feelings, trying to be the proper lady. How that would play out when she was married to the man in town dealing exclusively with dead bodies wasn’t anything Slocum wanted to see.

  The funeral parlor’s interior was dim, and a hint of perfume made Slocum’s nose wrinkle. Miranda sneezed. The coffins on either side of the vestibule formed a gauntlet leading to the curtained back room. Slocum pointed ahead. Miranda swallowed hard, settled her shoulders, and walked gallantly forward, head high. Slocum trailed, but he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Hawkins in the curtained room with the bier.

  The man stood on the dais polishing a fancy wood casket. He stroked back and forth with his soft rag, leaving a trail of shining wood behind as he worked.

  “I will be with you in a moment.”

  He sounded breathless from his task. Slocum didn’t see any sweat beading the portly man’s forehead. That made him wonder at the excitement Hawkins seemed to take from working on the coffin.

  “Are you Mr. Hawkins? I am Miranda Madison.”

  “Yes, yes, a moment,” Hawkins said, rubbing a small section of the polished wood with his elbow to get off the last trace of polish. He stood and faced her, smiling. “Your entrance to Espero was relayed to me immediately. I knew it had to be you, my dear.”

  “Not a whole lot of other women coming to town,” Slocum said. “No one else accompanied by me either.”

  Hawkins cast a quick look at the casket, then gingerly slid his fingers under the lid and lifted. Pale blue satin lined the box. Hawkins ran his fingers over the interior and looked as if he got a sexual thrill out of it.

  “Would you like to lie in it, Miss Madison?”

  “I beg your pardon!” She recoiled and stepped back, bumping into Slocum.

  “As one of my wedding presents, I will construct the finest casket anyone has ever seen. I’ll form the interior to your voluptuous figure. As to your clothing when you are in repose—”

  “I am not dead, sir!”

  “No, of course not, but one day you shall be. We all will. Preparing for that melancholy moment is what keeps me alive, in business.”

  Slocum saw how Miranda started to turn and leave. Any normal woman would have, hearing how her betrothed already considered her dead and laid to rest in a coffin. She checked her movement, rubbed her palms against her skirts, and stepped forward.

  “You do fine work, sir.”

  “Please, call me Leonard.”

  “Your craftsmanship is superb, Leonard.”

  “I know.” He rubbed over the liner again, then reached out and touched her cheek.

  From where Slocum stood, he saw the rippling in the hair at the back of her neck as she forced herself to keep from recoiling. Miranda had her reasons for wanting to marry Hawkins. What they might be when a woman as articulate and beautiful could have any man eluded Slocum.

  “You are so skilled and successful,” she said, stepping onto the dais. She reached for Hawkins’s arm, then veered away to run her fingers over the satin. “Such elegance.”

  “Yes, yes, my dear. We are going to be so happy together.”

  “Can I get my pay?” Slocum called. Miranda jumped. Hawkins glared at him. “I can be on my way as soon as you give me the four hundred you owe.”

  “Four hundred? Yes, that was what I said.” Hawkins frowned. “However, you allowed Mr. McIntyre to be gunned down. Where is his body?”

  “I buried it.”

  If Slocum had rammed a hot branding iron up Hawkins’s fat ass, he couldn’t have gotten a bigger reaction. Fury turned his face red, and he clenched his hands into shaking fists.

  “You buried him yourself? You had the gall to bury him?”

  “Along the road to Dexter Junction,” Slocum said, egging the man on and not knowing why.

  His smartest course of action was to keep quiet, get paid, and leave Espero as fast as his horse could gallop. Instead, he couldn’t stop goading the undertaker.

  “I was going to say words over the grave, but I didn’t know what Mac would have wanted.” Slocum saw this jibe had less effect than telling Hawkins he had buried him. “I couldn’t find his horse to take the blanket, so I just put him in the dirt not far from where he was cut down. You want me to tell the marshal about it so he can track down the killer?”

  Hawkins sputtered. Burying his henchman without so much as a blanket had lit his fuse again.

  “Please, Leonard, pay Mr. Slocum so we can be alone. So we can become better . . . acquainted.” Miranda brushed her dark hair away from her eyes. They were twin beacons of anger directed at Slocum for riling up her betrothed. She laid her hand on the undertaker’s arm. He shook her off.

  “Very well. It is for the best that Mr. Slocum be gone.”

  “You want to retrieve the body so you can bury it in the town’s potter’s field?” Slocum kept nettling the man because he had taken a real dislike to him. “I can show Junior where to dig.”

  “Take your blood money,” Hawkins said. He pulled out a roll of greenbacks large enough to choke a cow. He peeled off the bills, then tossed them in Slocum’s direction.

  The money fluttered in the air and slowly fell to the carpeted floor. Slocum stood stock-still, waiting for the bills to land before he bent over and picked them up one by one. He made a big show of counting then before he tucked them into his coat pocket, as if he didn’t trust Hawkins to give him the proper amount. Then he looked up.

  “You owe me for the buggy I bought for her.”

  “Get out!” Hawkins turned red in the face.

  Slocum thought the man would attack him. He would have welcomed that to give himself a safety valve for blowing off steam after getting shot at nurse-maiding Miranda back to Espero. Something about the set to his shoulders warned Hawkins to back off. The man fished out three twenty-dollar bills. Before he could drop them, Slocum snatched the money from his hand.

  “Thanks. We’re square.” Slocum touched the brim of his hat in Miranda’s direction.

  Her face had frozen into an emotionless mask.

  Slocum started to make a parting comment, then common sense finally took over. He stuffed the money for the buggy purchase into his pocket with the rest of the money and pushed through the heavy velvet drapes. All sound from the inner viewing room was muffled, but he knew Miranda was telling Hawkins how glad she was to have come. What the undertaker said back to her wasn’t sweet nothings. Slocum smiled wryly, thinking how the man detailed for her how he wanted to make a custom casket as a wedding present.

  He wasn’t sure she deserved such a husband, but she had made her own bed. It was time for her to lie in it.

  He stepped out into the humid afternoon and sucked in a deep breath. Freedom. He was free of his enforced employment, and it was time to ride on. Slocum swung up into the saddle and turned back toward Espero’s main street. The lure of a shot of whiskey to celebrate proved easy enough to overcome as he thought of pu
tting as much distance between him and the undertaker as possible.

  Hawkins hadn’t relinquished the money easily. Had this been a show for his new bride? Miranda had certainly licked her lips when she saw the roll of bills the undertaker had pulled from his pocket. Not many men went around with such a poke. Nothing in the way Hawkins had handled the money hinted that this was an unusual amount to carry.

  “I hope you both get what you want,” Slocum said softly as he rode west. “Whatever that is.”

  With the setting sun in his face, he decided to camp for the night a couple miles outside town. Adding more miles to his back trail appealed to him, but he had been through too much in the past few days and wanted a rest.

  As he pitched camp and prepared a fire, he poked at the coals and thought of the night spent with Polly. That had been the best thing that had happened to him since first riding into Espero, and that included the five hundred dollars Hawkins had paid. The fragrant smoke from a dried post oak limb he fed into the fire made his belly rumble in memory of food cooked over such fires before. He worked to prepare a decent meal. When daylight broke the next morning, he intended to be on the trail. Something made him uneasy about Espero and the way Hawkins acted.

  The man might be a lunatic, but he was a rich and powerful one. All that made for a dangerous mix Slocum was inclined to avoid.

  After finishing his supper, cleaning the tin plate, and dashing the last of the coffee into the fire to drench the embers, he lay back, head on his saddle and staring up at the stars. The prior night’s storm had fled, leaving a perfect sky. He pulled up the blanket around his shoulders and rolled over.

  As he drifted to sleep, movement pulled him back to the world around him. He gripped his six-shooter, rolled over, cocked, and fired. The man behind him let out a yelp of pain and staggered back.

  Then a loud whish!

  Slocum tried to avoid the club that smashed into his head. He failed. His six-gun fell from numbed fingers. Then the club crashed down again on his head and everything went away.