Slocum and the Larcenous Lady Read online

  Slocum knew when he was beat. He also knew what his threshold was for holding back what was building into a roar of laughter. He said, “All right. You win, old-timer. I’ll go on out and have a look-see. Just wait till I get my horse saddled.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t bother to saddle up. Take my cousin Willie’s nag. He’s all ready to go. Just inside the door, there.”

  Slocum would have asked why, for the love of God, the livery owner hadn’t just ridden out there on Cousin Willie’s horse himself! But in the end, he simply grabbed Cousin Willie’s horse and swung up.

  Funny thing, though.

  He hadn’t ridden a quarter of the way to the far-off horse and his ground-sitting rider when the rider jumped up, mounted the horse, and took off in the opposite direction.

  And at a dead gallop, at that.

  Slocum reined Cousin Willie’s horse to a halt and just sat there for a second or two, watching the stranger’s dusty trail dissipate in the light breeze.

  Shaking his head slowly and chuckling to himself, he reined Cousin Willie’s horse around and started back to the livery at a slow jog.

  8

  David Chandler sat in his rocker out front of the hotel, watching the little drama down the street. Just what the hell were those two idiots up to? Not that it mattered much. Jess, the livery owner, could be entertained by watching cactus grow, and the one with him—or rather, the one now riding back—was a stranger to him.

  Nothing ever happened in Poleaxe. Nothing except Lily, he thought, smiling.

  And then he wondered who the stranger was. Might be that Slocum, the one the clerk had mentioned to Lil. Beneath his breath, Chandler chuckled. These fellows who saw Lil sing onstage once, then convinced themselves they knew her!

  Must be a pretty empty life. But then, he reminded himself, for most cowhands and saddle tramps, it was a pretty empty life, and a lonely one.

  Chandler furrowed his brow. A fellow like that might turn out to be troublesome. A fellow like that might just have convinced himself that he and Lil had truly met, maybe even that she was in love with him. Was waiting for him, in fact.

  But then he snorted and rocked back. “Idiot,” he muttered. He had been out of the action for far too long. He was turning shadows into monsters.

  Still, something about this fellow’s name . . .

  Down at the end of the street, the stranger dismounted and handed the horse over to Jess. Chandler watched, rocking, and then quite suddenly, stopped stock-still. Slocum?

  No, it couldn’t be that fellow from the dime books. Could it? He’d never admit it out loud, but he’d read a few. Most of them were fictionalized. At least, the couple in which he, as Felix Hamilton, was mentioned were entirely fictional, that was for sure. He’d assumed the Slocum books were made up, too.

  But this man seemed to fit the description.

  Except, he thought with a tiny sigh of relief, that this particular man named Slocum wasn’t riding a flashy horse. What did he always ride in the dimers? A paint? No, an Appaloosa, that was it.

  Well, that was a plain old bay he’d just gotten down from. It could have been any one of a couple dozen, right here in town.

  A chuckle made its way through Chandler’s lips once more. He was shadow boxing again, and he’d caught himself at it.

  The Slocum walking up the street was nothing more than a conveniently named saddle tramp who’d seen Lil sing somewhere or other. He’d caused no trouble so far and likely wouldn’t.

  Dipping his fingers into a vest pocket, he pulled out his watch. Almost eleven.

  He glanced upward, as if he could see through the porch roof and right into Lil’s room. Damn! That was probably one pruned-up woman by now! Hell, he’d take her anyway, he thought as he slipped his pocket watch back in place.

  He’d take her, and take her, and take her . . .

  He fell into thought again—mostly about the wonder that was Lily. In fact, he lost track of time until, suddenly, someone jerked him right out of his chair and onto the sidewalk.

  And he couldn’t say whether he heard the gun report in the split second before, during, or after.

  He scrambled for cover, right on the heels of the fellow who had jerked him aside. It wasn’t until he dived down, off the sidewalk and around the corner of the building, that he got a look at his savior’s face.

  “You all right?” the man he’d supposed was Slocum asked him, although Slocum’s eyes weren’t on him. He was squinting out into the distance, his gun drawn.

  “Fine,” Chandler answered. This was certainly a turn of events! “And thank you, stranger.”

  Slowly, Slocum holstered his gun, gave a shake to his head, then finally turned toward Chandler. “Welcome,” he said, then pointed to Chandler’s temple. “You’re bleedin’ a mite. And the name’s Slocum.”

  Chandler touched his head. He was bleeding. He pulled the white handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his temple.

  Slocum stood up and held down his hand. “I reckon he’s gone.” As he helped Chandler up he added, “Don’t know what good I thought I’d manage with a handgun. Feller was out a good ways.”

  Chandler gained his feet and continued to dab at his head with the handkerchief as he followed Slocum back up onto the porch. People were poking their heads out of doors and windows like so many snails, timidly emerging from their shells.

  From across the street, Bart Cummings hollered, “You all right, Mr. Chandler?”

  “Fine,” Chandler called back.

  Sheriff Kiefer was trotting down the street, straight for him, waving. “You hurt?” he called. “What the Sam Hill happened?”

  Chandler shook his head, both to indicate that he was fine, and that he had no idea. Who the hell would shoot at him? At least, who from Poleaxe? He’d made a point of staying on his best behavior from the second he’d come into town.

  Slocum, he noticed, was fiddling with the wall, right where he’d been sitting. The man, better than six feet of him stood up just as the sheriff arrived. Slocum said, “If that slug didn’t crease your skull, must’a been a splinter. You know anybody who’s—”

  “Slocum,” Sheriff Kiefer said. Chandler noticed that he didn’t say it as a question. It was more as if he was labeling Slocum, in the same manner that he’d point to the ground and say, “Dirt.”

  Slocum turned to face the sheriff. “Seems you’ve got a sniper in your flock, Sheriff.”

  He’d said it calmly, although something about the way the man had said his name irritated the hell out of him.

  The sheriff’s brow furrowed. “Sniper?”

  Slocum pointed out past the livery and the end of town. “Fella was out there earlier. I started out to him on account of your stableman thought he might be hurt.”

  “And?” the sheriff urged, although none too eagerly. Slocum could tell that he’d rather lock up the first handy stranger—well, the first handy stranger named Slocum, anyhow—and let it go at that.

  “And he rode off, over the ridge. Shot came from out there. He must have snuck back, fired from that low ridge.”

  The sheriff shook his head slowly, as if in disbelief. “Do you know how far away that ridge is, Slocum?”

  “ ’Bout two hundred and fifty yards, I reckon. And you know my name well enough to use it every five seconds, but I ain’t had the pleasure of your acquaintance.” Slocum had tried to keep his cool, but his words came out with a grain of irritation anyway.

  The sheriff frowned at him. “Sheriff Kiefer’s good enough.”

  “Gentlemen, gentlemen!” Chandler took each of them by a shoulder. “What’s all this hostility? Miles, this gentleman saved my life by yanking me out of my rocker in the nick of time. I very much doubt that he could have been on this porch and clear out there at the same time! If, indeed, that’s what you’re accusing him of.”

  Slocum couldn’t decide whether to hate Chandler or like him. Or feel sorry for him, because of
Lil. At the moment, he carried all three sentiments.

  “If you say so, Mr. Chandler,” the sheriff growled, but he was looking at Slocum. “Slocum, I got my eye on you. Remember that.”

  Slocum didn’t reply, and the sheriff turned on his heel, headed back up the street toward his office.

  “Don’t seem too eager to get after the culprit, does he?” Slocum said.

  “Must figure whoever it was is long gone by this time,” Chandler said.

  Neither man looked at the other. They were both watching the sheriff’s retreating back.

  Upstairs on the second-floor porch, Lil listened. Fresh from her bath, she was wrapped in a negligee, had a towel wrapped around her head and another absently clutched to her throat. She had come running when she heard the ruckus, for there was no one more basically nosy than Lily Kirkland.

  It was a trait that served her well in her line of work.

  What were Slocum and David doing down there, anyway? Was it possible that they might be—God forbid—bonding? Every time she thought she understood men, the species came up with something new to flummox her.

  She, too, watched the sheriff walk up the street and enter the jail, and then she heard David speak again.

  “Buy you a drink?” he asked. “Least I can do for a man who saved my life.”

  And just as she thought, Don’t do it, Slocum, he spoke.

  “Sure,” Slocum said. “Be obliged.”

  With a stomp of her foot, Lil turned on her heel and marched back to her room.

  Behind green velvet drapes, Chandler had a private table reserved. After all, it was his saloon. At least, that’s what Slocum figured, although it was a different place than Chandler had perched himself when Lil was onstage. That had been right up front, while this one was in a corner on a little wood-railed platform a step higher than the rest of the floor.

  The barkeep brought them a couple of glasses and a bottle of what Slocum recognized as excellent bourbon. As the bartender poured, Chandler reached into his pocket. He held out what looked like a mahogany cigar case, delicately inlaid with silver.

  “Smoke?” he asked.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Slocum said as he reached for one. All this largesse was appreciated, but Slocum wasn’t going to judge the man on whiskey and cigars. He was Lil’s unwitting target, after all, which would tend to create a little sympathy with anyone. Then again, he was, in a way, Slocum’s rival.

  Plus which, he had killed old Red Eye. Couldn’t forget that.

  It wasn’t that Slocum had any claims on Tiger Lil, but still . . .

  But there was something else about the man—aside from the aforementioned list of sins—that just scraped Slocum the wrong way. He couldn’t put a label on it, didn’t know what it was. Just something.

  The bartender walked away, his job finished, and Chandler picked up his shot glass. Slocum followed suit.

  “To Slocum, the man who saved my life,” Chandler said.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Slocum replied before he upturned his shot glass. It was the good stuff, all right. “Smooth,” he said. “Obliged.”

  Chandler picked up the bottle and poured them each another shot. He toyed with his glass for a moment, then asked, “You’re him, aren’t you? The Slocum in the dime books, I mean.”

  Slocum didn’t reply.

  “Sheriff Kiefer is usually an easy sort to get along with,” Chandler continued. “He seemed to know you right off. And as I recall, you said you’d never met him.”

  “True on all accounts,” Slocum admitted. “Although those dime books are full of shit, and I have kind of a hard time believin’ that Kiefer’s an easygoin’ sort. But I’ll take your word for it.” He took a sip of his whiskey. It was too good to gulp a second time.

  Chandler laughed.

  Back up at the jail, Miles Kiefer was busily going through his filing cabinets, searching for something—anything—that would give him legal cause for running Slocum out of town.

  Or locking him up.

  He hadn’t been pleased about Slocum being in town in the first place, and he especially wasn’t happy about what he saw as a budding friendship between Slocum and Chandler. If those two got together, who the hell knew what sort of goings-on might transpire?

  He liked his town quiet. He was willing to let Chandler go about his business, so long as he kept his nose clean. But this new situation made him as itchy as hell.

  He supposed he could have ordered Slocum out of the city limits, just on his say-so. Local sheriffs pulled similar stunts all the time. After all, they were pretty much the only law in their towns, unless the U.S. Marshal’s Office got involved.

  But Kiefer wouldn’t put it past Slocum to have some crooked contacts with high-ranking badges—the sort that could boot a local sheriff out of his job and get him blackballed all over the West. It wasn’t a very pleasant thought.

  He didn’t have too high an opinion of Slocum. Not much better than his opinion of Chandler.

  He wished that he could just bag them up in the middle of the night and drown them like a couple of kittens. But that was out of the question.

  First of all, it would be against his personal moral code, not to mention the law. And second, they were too big.

  He snorted under his breath, and opened another file drawer. Maybe he’d find something in this one. . . .

  9

  Charlie Townsend didn’t stop his galloping horse until he was almost a fourth of the way home and was absolutely certain there was no one on his tail. He reined his lathered mount up a low, rocky rise and into a clump of trees and sat for a long time, watching and waiting.

  But no one came. Not even after he had cooled down his horse, waited a whole hour, and eaten the beef sandwich he’d packed, just in case.

  They must not have spotted him, that was all he could figure. He’d fired and run, simple as that. Hadn’t even waited to see if his shot hit home or not. Charlie had been a crack sniper during the war—he’d even been an instructor—but he was getting on, now.

  Still, even at his advanced age, he was pretty sure he’d hit what he was aiming at.

  He supposed the smart thing to do would be to ride on back to the ranch and wait for somebody to bring them the sad news. No more Mr. High-and-Mighty David Chandler, no more Mrs. Future Tiger Lil Slut-Whore Chandler . . .

  Maybe he could talk some of the boys into going in with him and buying the ranch. He hadn’t thought about that possibility before.

  In fact, he hadn’t really thought about the after-math at all, he realized belatedly. He’d only thought about Chandler bringing that woman out to the ranch.

  He checked his horse’s cinch, was satisfied, and swung up. He’d figure something out, he thought. Too late now to do anything else.

  He hadn’t wasted much time at all on worrying about that fellow that rode at him, from down at the livery back in town.

  He didn’t waste any more on it now.

  He set off for the ranch at a lazy lope and tried to figure out how to best handle getting hold of the ranch again—or at least, part of it—and on how he should react when the sheriff came to bring the sorry news of Chandler’s death.

  Chandler and Slocum were getting pretty sozzled. Chandler had drunkenly called for another bottle of his fancy hooch, and Slocum was happy to help him drink it.

  Slocum, however, wasn’t as well-oiled as Chandler thought he was, or as Chandler was himself. He seemed to have completely forgotten his near miss with death and was regaling Slocum with stories from his past.

  Slocum knew there was something wrong with them. Of course, a drunken man is apt to forget details, or overemphasize them, or confuse them with those from other stories or events. But even to Slocum’s partially muzzy mind, Chandler was just plain making things up—or leaving out pertinent details.

  Besides, he thought as he sipped at his bourbon, Red Eye O’Neill hadn’t been anywhere near the Dakotas in ’73. He’d been down in the border country, fighting Ind
ians with Slocum.

  “Yeah, you should’a known ol’ Red Eye,” Chandler said wistfully. His speech was getting sloppier by the moment. Slocum expected him to fall headfirst onto the table at any moment.

  “Guess so,” Slocum replied. He hadn’t admitted knowing anybody, not even his pappy. Not to this man. There was something really wrong about him.

  Just exactly what was it? That was up for grabs, although Slocum had a hunch that maybe he’d been wanted at one time or another. It was the way he talked about the dime books, but it was more the stuff he left out of his stories, the substitutions he made in their characters.

  He actually began to worry more about Lil than her mark.

  Now, that was something new.

  He tried to steer the conversation—which was turning into an oratory about another of Chandler’s adventures up along the Pecos, a place that, by the way he described it, Slocum automatically knew Chandler had never been—back to the point.

  “ ‘Scuse me, Chandler,” he said, interrupting the man’s sentence, but just who the hell do you think was shootin’ at you?”

  Chandler just shrugged and poured himself another shot.

  “I mean, it musta been somebody you know. And it musta been a sniper. I mean, a professional. A man don’t fire from that far out and miss a feller by inches if he wasn’t tryin’ to kill him.”

  Chandler shrugged. “Mayhap he was aimin’ at something else.” And then, one brow hiked, he stared at Slocum. “You, maybe?”

  Slocum thought he’d said that just a little too hopefully, but he twirled his shot glass, making damp circles on the polished wood, and said, “Hell, if that feller was tryin’ to kill me, I’d’a made a helluva lot better target when I was down to the livery.” He took another sip to drain the glass, and thoughtfully added, “Better yet when I was ridin’ out there to see who it was.”

  Chandler appeared disappointed. “Oh, yeah . . . forgot.”

  Suddenly, the bartender appeared beside their table. Chandler looked up with a start. “Christ, man, don’t creep up like that!”