Slocum and the Comely Corpse Read online

  That got him plenty of dirty looks from the females on the scene.

  “Viola and me are just as much injured parties as you all,” the woman prisoner said, gesturing to include the other female captive, a too-thin, consumptive-looking brunette who said little and coughed much.

  The speaker was a big blowsy blonde, singed around the edges. “They held us at gunpoint and wouldn’t let us leave the saloon. We could’ve gotten shot or burned to death! And then that crazy bastard Bletchley put us under the gun and used us for a shield when he tried to make his break dressed as a woman!”

  “All three of you gals that come out got your clothes on,” Engels said, rubbing his chin. “So where’d Bletchley get the extra dress?”

  “The girl who was wearing it didn’t come out. She’s in there,” the blonde said, indicating the charred ruins. “That was Flo. She didn’t strip fast enough when Bletchley told her to, so he shot her and took the dress off her dead body,” she said.

  One of the male prisoners in the string spoke up. “Don’t believe her, Marshal. She was in it up to her neck, of her own free will!”

  The blonde flew at him. “Lying son of a bitch!”

  His hands were tied, but hers weren’t. Her rush knocked him down. Since he was roped by the neck to the other three men, his fall pulled the nooses taut around their necks. They staggered, bent from the waist, heads down near the ground, to ease the choking pressure.

  The blonde straddled her man, punching his head with both fists. There wasn’t much he could do but roll around in the dust bawling, “Halp! Git her off of me!”

  Hix grabbed a handful of her yellow-straw hair and pulled her off him, saying, “Behave yourself, Myrtle Mullins.”

  She could no longer hit her man, but that didn’t stop her from kicking and stomping him.

  “Take that back, Jeeter, you liar! Black-hearted liar!” she screeched.

  “Halp, halp!”

  Hix hauled her away from her victim. She had to comply, or risk losing her scalp to the heavy hand pulling her hair by its roots. Despite her show of temper, she was careful not to raise a hand to Hix, but came along without resistance.

  She said, “He’s lying, Marshal. Jeeter wants to get me in trouble out of pure spite!”

  “Never mind about that,” Hix said judiciously. “You behave yourself, Myrtle.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  A couple of posse men hauled Jeeter to his feet, none too gently. There was a purple mouse under one eye, and his lips were swollen and split. He wanted to say something to Myrtle, but the rough handling he’d gotten from his captors convinced him that it would be a good idea to keep his mouth shut. He settled for glaring.

  Hix said, “Viola, Myrtle, you ride in the wagon.”

  Viola screeched, “W-with the dead?!”

  “With the driver.”

  “Oh,” Viola said.

  “And I sure ain’t dead, girlie,” the driver said.

  “You couldn’t prove it by me,” Pierce said, “the way you’ve been sitting there without lifting so much as a finger to help.”

  “I’m a teamster, Mr. Pierce. I hire out to drive the wagon and nothing more. And by the way, I didn’t see you doing much heavy lifting.”

  “Somebody’s got to supervise,” Pierce said.

  The driver bent his principles sufficiently to allow himself to reach down a hand to help Viola up on to the seat. She was thin and didn’t take up much space.

  The seat sagged on its springs when Myrtle parked her big butt on it.

  A posse man called jokingly to the driver, “Don’t let those gals get away from you, Mack!”

  “That’s your lookout. All I do is drive the wagon,” said Mack.

  Myrtle opened her mouth to say something cute, then caught a good whiff of the stinking dead and gagged. Viola coughed into a hankie. She was a lunger—tuber—cular—and once she started coughing, it was hard to stop. Her face grew whiter and the twin spots of color on her cheeks grew redder.

  If the smell bothered Mack, he didn’t show it. He pulled a pint bottle from his hip pocket, uncorked it between his teeth, and took a long pull of some varnish-colored rotgut whiskey. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Myrtle said, “How about a taste, Mack?”

  He took another gulp, then recorked the bottle. “Nobody ever gave me a free drink—or a free anything else—over to the Doghouse,” he said, pocketing the pint.

  “That’s because you’re such a cheap bastard,” Myrtle said. It came out weaker than she’d intended, since she was trying to breathe as little as possible to keep from smelling the corpses.

  “Cheap? You’re riding for free, ain’t you,” Mack said.

  The posse got ready to move out. Deputy Wessel took hold of the leading end of the rope to which the file of prisoners were strung. Marshal Hix rode alongside him, pausing. “I’ll take that, Dick.”

  “It’s no trouble, Marshal.”

  “I’ll take it,” Hix repeated, holding out a gloved hand. Wessel, shrugging, handed him the rope. Hix threw a few hitches of the line around his saddlehorn, snubbing it into place.

  “It’s good to let the folks hereabouts see that their marshal is doing the job they elected him to do,” Hix said.

  He heeled his horse in the flanks, nudging it forward. The horse advanced at a walk, going west. The rope was pulled tight, forcing the prisoners to start forward or be strangled.

  Mack got the team in action. The heavily laden wagon lurched forward, creaking. The mingled smells of death, blood, and fire tended to make the horses skittish, both those of the team and the mounted men. The posse men were strung out along the road in a loose irregular grouping.

  A couple of the worst-burned corpses were left behind, to be picked up later. When one of them had been picked up earlier to be loaded into the wagon, its arm had come off. Nobody wanted to mess with them after that. They were covered with blankets and left for future retrieval. But at least the main road had been cleared of corpses.

  The string of prisoners had to hustle, trotting along to keep from being choked by the rope halters around their necks.

  The sun was going down, made colorful by the smoke streaking the sky. On the street, the locals, silent and stony-faced, watched the posse ride out. The last few riders in line could feel their backs tingling under those icy stares, and glanced back to keep tabs on the watchers. Nobody was doing anything threatening, or had even moved, but their flat-eyed hostility was not reassuring.

  That, and the fact that the wind was blowing from the west, wafting the corpse-wagon smells in their faces, caused the riders to move up, passing the wagon.

  Hix reined in, halting in front of the House of Seven Sisters. Behind him, the procession ground to a stop, wagon and riders all bunched together, milling.

  Standing on the front porch were Maud, Pauline, Vangie, and two more whores, Berga and Sue. Berga was a blonde, and Sue had brown hair. In the light of day, the women looked a trifle shopworn, peaked, but that might have been from the strain of recent events.

  Maud was in the center of the group, standing a few paces out in front of the others. Her back was straight, her arms were folded across her chest.

  Hix said, “I’ll take that dead ’un of yours into town now, Miz Maud.”

  “Thanks, I’ll take care of it myself, Marshal.”

  “Plenty of room in the wagon.”

  “Dolly had enough men in her short life. She can take her last ride without them,” Maud said. “I’ve sent Nedda into town to fetch a wagon from the livery stable. I’ll bring in Dolly.”

  “Okay.”

  Maud stood at the edge of the porch, hands on hips. “What I want to know is when you’re going to bring in her killer.”

  “Soon, soon,” Hix said vaguely.

  “When?”

  “It’s just a matter of time.”

  “Have you got any men out looking for him?”

  “Well, as you can see, Miz Maud, we’ve been
kind of busy,” Hix said with heavy sarcasm.

  “It wasn’t any of the Doghouse bunch killed my girl,” she said.

  “Pete killed my deputy.”

  “That was an accident, Marshal.”

  “Was it? Pete and Tweed have had run-ins before.

  There wasn’t no love lost between ’em.”

  “Pete’s a drunk. He’s had run-ins with just about everybody in town.”

  “Sure, but he killed Tweed.”

  “He was trying to stop Dolly’s killer from getting away.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he saw Tweed and decided it was a good time to settle scores. Either way, he left Tweed’s brains blown all over Main Street, and let your killer get away.

  “If it was murder, he’ll hang. If it was an accident, well, any fool that’s that blind drunk’s got no business pulling a gun, and it might as well be murder. A judge and jury can sort that out,” Hix said.

  “He’s a troublemaker, him and all that Doghouse crowd. They shot at the law, and that’s the end of ’em,” he added.

  “In the meantime, the girl’s killer is getting away.”

  “We’ll get him, Miz Maud.”

  “Better get him before Chase does, or there won’t be anything left of him.”

  “We’ll get him,” Hix repeated.

  Wessel, who’d been following the byplay, leaned forward in the saddle, toward Maud. “From what I’ve seen, Chase seems to have got the worst of it,” he said.

  “Haw! His face was sure busted up bad,” the marshal agreed. “He was mad fit to bust.”

  “He won’t catch the killer,” Wessel said.

  “Hell, no! Manhunting’s a job for professionals,” Hix said.

  Maud said, “When are you professionals going to get on the killer’s trail?”

  “Soon’s we get this riff-raff safely jugged in the calaboose,” Hix said. He touched the tip of his hat. “And a very good day to you, Miz Maud.”

  He rode off so suddenly that the string of prisoners were all but jerked off their feet by the sudden start. They had to hustle to keep up.

  That set the rest of the group into motion, wagon and riders starting west toward town. They kicked up a lot of dust.

  A couple of riders lingered, waiting behind. One of them said, “How ’bout it, Miz Maud?”

  “What?” she said, unfriendly.

  The posse man nodded toward the whores. “You know,” he said.

  She smiled. “First the killing, then the loving, huh?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  The smile turned into a sneer. “We’re closed.”

  “Aw, come on, Maud—”

  “We’re closed!” The sneer ripened. “Not that you ranch hands could pay the freight, not on those Pierce wages.”

  “We can pay,” the rider said.

  “Get Dolly’s killer. Get him, and you can have your good time for free, on the house,” she said.

  “You mean that, Miz Maud?”

  “The offer’s good. Get him.”

  6

  Shadows were long when Nedda Barnes returned from town driving the wagon. The husky dish-faced maid handled the rig like a teamster. She swung the wagon around in the road, so it was facing west when it rolled to a halt in front of Maud’s house.

  The sun was down but the sky was still light. Since the sun had set the temperature had dropped about ten degrees. The winds blew colder, and the temperature continued to fall.

  Most of the locals were still out on the street, huddled in small groups, talking in low voices. A couple of bottles were passed around, and soon both men and women were smoking and drinking. They weren’t so hushed anymore, and voices began to be raised.

  Groups of the curious started drifting over from town, some riding, most walking. They were about evenly divided between males and females. Ordinarily, “respectable” females kept to their side of the deadline, not setting foot in Whoretown. But the killings and fire gave them an excuse to see what life looked like on the other side of the tracks.

  Bender was a small town stuck in the middle of nowhere. There were few attractions or distractions, and one day was pretty much like the next. Today’s events were as rare as a visiting circus. One of Miz Maud’s high-priced whores murdered in her bed, the killer’s escape, a deputy’s death triggering the Doghouse massacre and fire—heady stuff.

  Townsfolk mingled with Whoretown residents, the tale of the gun battle being told and retold in ever more fantastic versions. There was a carnival atmosphere.

  A gang of ragtag kids poked around the edges of the burned building. They were chased away a couple of times, but kept coming back.

  The freight wagon returned to pick up the burned bodies, offering the crowd fresh thrills. Mack the driver had fortified himself with more whiskey, and could barely sit up straight.

  With him were those jailhouse hangers-on, Nucky and his partner, Lex. They’d made themselves scarce during the shooting, and had volunteered for this grisly task to get themselves back into the law’s good graces.

  It was getting dark. Lights began to show in the buildings, shining through windows to cast yellow squares and oblongs on the nighted road,

  Lit lanterns were hung up outside, on pillars and door-posts. When the first red lights began to appear, the “decent” womenfolk took it as their cue to depart. If their men were in the vicinity, the ladies made damned sure that they departed with them.

  The men who remained drifted toward the local whores, and vice versa.

  Nucky and Lex loaded the few blanket-wrapped bodies into the wagon. The handlers wore bandannas over their mouths and noses, to kill the smell of burning. It only partially worked. Their eyes teared, not from grief or pity, but from the fumes.

  Mack ignored them, resolutely unhelpful. He drank. It didn’t kill the smell, but being drunk made it easier to take.

  A large knot of gawkers crowded around the back of the wagon, craning for a look.

  Up rode Deputy Wessel and two sidemen. The sidemen were on Pierce’s payroll, but they didn’t punch cattle. They looked like ranch hands, except for their well-tended guns. They were gunhands. Hix had deputized them for the duration of the current crisis.

  The three sat their horses, Wessel in the middle, flanked by the newly minted deputies.

  Wessel spoke to the crowd. “Everybody get back to where you belong. Whoretown’s closed tonight.”

  There was a lot of groaning and griping, but before it could unify into a single voice, Wessel cut it off.

  “Shut up,” he said. The crowd knew he meant business and obeyed. His sidemen were eager for trouble to start so they could stop it, hard.

  The crowd began to break apart, whores and barflies making for the cribs and dives, townsmen on the road to Bender.

  At the House of Seven Sisters, the front door opened and Dolores was carried out. The body was wrapped in a blanket, swaddled from head to toe, like a mummy. There was an opening in the wrappings at the top of the girl’s head, letting snaky ribbons of long black hair hang free.

  Maud stood on the porch, holding the door open. She wore a high-necked, long-sleeved black dress, buttoned up to the throat. A black cloak was thrown over her shoulders. On her hands were fingerless black lace gloves. Peeking out from below the hem of her long skirt was a pair of soft black leather lace-up ankle boots, with pointed toes and three-inch heels.

  The body was carried by Nedda, Vangie, Berga, and Sue. Nedda and Vangie held the upper body, Berga and Sue the lower. Nedda probably could have handled the body all by herself, tucking it under one brawny arm. As it was, she was doing most of the heavy lifting, while the other three did as much hanging on as carrying. Pauline followed, empty-handed, blank-faced.

  Maud went down the stairs, across the front path to the gate in the white picket fence. She opened it, stepping into the dirt road, behind the back of the buckboard.

  The others came out, with the body. They placed it on the wagon bed, then went back inside, all but Nedda and Maud.
Nedda closed the gate, while Maud motioned to Wessel, who was nearby.

  Wessel’s sidemen stayed in place, bored, watching the exodus of townsfolk, who might have been a cattle herd for all the interest they provoked in the gunmen.

  Wessel angled his horse across the road to Maud. He glanced at the body in the wagon, his face expressionless. Maud said, “Catch that fellow yet?”

  “Now, Miz Maud, you know better than that. If he was caught, I’d have told you.”

  “I’m just reminding you, Deputy. A dead whore is easy to forget.”

  “You know me better than that.”

  She nodded. “You’re not the worst lawman I ever met.” After a pause, she added, “That distinction goes to your boss.”

  “Well, for your information, Marshal Hix is out with a posse right now, searching for the killer,” Wessel said. “It won’t be easy. Slocum’s no ordinary fugitive.”

  Maud looked startled, and even Nedda reacted at the mention of the name.

  “Slocum?” Maud said. “Did you say Slocum?”

  “That’s right,” Wessel said, a little smug.

  “The gunfighter? That Slocum?”

  “That’s the one. What’s the matter, Maud? You look a little shook. Didn’t you know who he was?”

  “He never said his name.”

  “He was over to the jailhouse yesterday, trying to pick up a lead on Trav Bannock’s pals. He killed Bannock for the bounty. Bannock was wanted dead or alive, so there wasn’t any kick about it. It was all legal and above-board ... legal, anyhow.

  “Slocum said he was tracking the rest of the gang, to collect the price on their heads. That was yesterday. Now, he’s a wanted man himself, for killing one of your gals. Life sure is funny,” Wessel said.

  “I knew it!” Maud said, more to herself than to him. Her hands were fists at her sides. “I knew he had to be somebody, the way he handled Chase and Cal, and got away. But ... Slocum!”

  “He’s supposed to be a devil with a gun,” Wessel said. “Good thing he didn’t have one.”

  “He did pretty well without one,” Maud said dryly. “What’s the reward on him?”

  Wessel shrugged. “Bounty hasn’t been set yet.” “Whatever it is, I’ll double it.”