Slocum and the Lone Star Feud Page 7

  Calves bawled for their mothers and cows lowed for their babies. After a quick check of their movement from a distance, Slocum and Sam huddled on horseback behind the thick boughs of the pungent evergreens. His worst concerns were being played out; they were taking more of her cattle. Slocum mopped his sweaty face on his kerchief, and then drew on the reins to hold the bay in check.

  “You were right,” she said with a grim set to her face.

  “Why, they must be taking fifty head out there.”

  “There’s plenty of cattle in that bunch they’re moving. I’ve seen about five riders.” He glanced over at her, and she agreed with a bob of her head. He continued. “I think we can pick them off one at a time if we’re careful. That dust near the cattle is thick as fog.”

  “It’s sure hot and dusty out here.”

  “That will help us.”

  “How?”

  “Those rustlers are tired. I can see they don’t have much steam left and they’ve start getting lax in this heat. Sleepy in the saddle. We can slip up, rope them off their horses, and bind and gag them before they even know what happened.”

  “I’m ready.”

  “Good. There’s a kid on the drag. We’ll take him first.” He led the way, pushing the bay in carefully and making Sam stay back. Satisfied no one was close, he drew up his kerchief over his lower face like the others, then rode in beside the rider.

  “That you, Slade?” the youth asked, turning, and at his discovery, his dirt-streaked face went stark white.

  “Stay still and don’t try anything. Rein that horse with mine,” Slocum said, sticking the muzzle of his Colt in the boy’s ribs.

  His eyes widened in his dust-floured face. “Who are—”

  “Shut up, if you want to live.”

  “I will—I will—who are you?”

  Back in the cedars, he had the boy dismount, and then tied his hands behind his back as Sam kept a lookout. Slocum gagged him with his own kerchief, and then stuck his first prisoner back under the pitchy limbs of the spreading trees. He hitched his horse to the bough.

  “We’ll be back for you,” he told the wide-eyed youth as he went out to remount. “We’ve still got your hanging left.”

  “You ever seen him before?” he asked Sam as they set out to capture the next one.

  “No.” She glanced back and then, shaking her head, settled in the saddle. “I don’t know him. Wonder where he’s from.”

  “We’ll have time to ask him all that later. Let’s try to catch the others. I hope it’s that easy.”

  “So do I. Can we take all the rest of them?”

  “I doubt it. But we’ll get another one anyway before the sunlight gives out.”

  Slocum caught the second outlaw unawares as the rustler rode along half asleep chousing the stubborn stragglers. The man never heard Slocum’s rope. He pitched the noose overhanded, and it settled on the rider’s chest and jerked him out of the saddle. Sam rode in and pointed her pistol at the man before he could recover and shout.

  “What’s your name?” Slocum asked, jerking him by his arm to his feet.

  “Hank Darby.” The man’s face was filled with pain. Obviously, the fall from his horse had hurt him.

  “I know him. You use to work for Buck Martin,” Sam said.

  “Did Martin put you up to this rustling?” Slocum asked, tying the man’s hands behind his back. “Sam, quick, catch his horse before he slips off and gives the others a signal something is wrong.”

  “I don’t know who the hell you are, mister, but you ain’t getting away with this,” Darby said.

  “You work for Martin or Taylor?” Slocum asked, shoving the man toward a tall tree with a wide skirt of boughs as Sam brought back his horse.

  The man never replied. Slocum considered pounding the answers out of him, but then reconsidered—there would be time for more questioning later. In a few minutes, leaving Darby on his belly, bound and gagged out of sight under the cedar, Slocum and Sam rode off.

  Slocum reined up at the sound of loud voices. He held out his arm to hold her up and they listened. Someone was shouting about something.

  “Where’s that damn kid and Darby?” a man hollered above the lowing and bawling of the cattle.

  “We’ve been discovered?” Sam hissed at Slocum with a concerned frown.

  “I ain’t seen them in a while,” another shouted back, and then something inaudible was said. Slocum strained to hear more by turning his head to listen for their words.

  “Cliff—get over here!”

  “You know a Cliff?” Slocum asked her.

  “Man used to work for me with the same name,” she said, and tried to see, but from where they were in the thicket it was impossible.

  There was a drum of hooves, and Slocum drew his Colt to be ready. The horse drew closer. At the very minute the rider was upon them, Slocum jumped the bay into his path and, spooked by his sudden appearance, the rider’s horse shied sideways. The rustler grasped for the horn, barely able to hold his seat. Slocum rode in and delivered a blow to the man’s head with his gun butt. It silenced the outlaw’s start of a shout, and he spilled on the ground.

  Two others rustlers charged off to the other side of the bushy cedars that concealed them. Obviously they had seen Slocum and Sam, and he saw the pair pawing for leather. Sam opened fire with her revolver at them, and they lost no time whipping their horses away without firing a shot in return.

  “Did you know either of them?” Slocum asked, dragging the moaning rustler by the collar to where she sat on her horse.

  “No, but that’s Cliff Brown. He use to work for me. Rustling pay more?” she demanded.

  “I never rustled nothing.” Brown rubbed his head.

  “Explain that to a judge,” Slocum said. Then he turned to talk to her. “They’ve rode off to warn their boss, no doubt. We better gather up our prisoners and get out of here.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Brown asked, looking in disbelief at Slocum.

  “The man who’s going to show you a better way to get out of this world.”

  “Yeah, they’ll be back and you’re going to regret you ever messed with us,” Brown said.

  “I already regret lots of things,” Slocum said, and shoved him on.

  “Who hired you?” Sam demanded, shucking empties from her Colt and reloading it as she rode beside them leading their horses.

  “I ain’t telling you two nothing.”

  “You seen any anthills?” Slocum asked her as he herded Brown along.

  “No, why?”

  “A couple hours on an anthill and he’d tell us lots of things.”

  “Good idea,” she agreed.

  “You don’t scare me none with that anthill shit,” Brown growled.

  “Good. I’d hate for a man to have to sit naked on an anthill and be afraid,” Slocum said, checking around for any sign of the return of the others.

  “Where do we take them?” she asked.

  “Ain’t going to do any good to take them to the sheriff. He’s in cahoots with them. We could hang them,” he said, studying the reaction of his prisoner.

  “When Dever—” The rustler cut off his words. “When the boss comes back, you two better have your graves dug.”

  Slocum jerked him around and with a fistful of the man’s vest in his grasp, elevated him on his toes. Slocum’s breath rushed out as he closed his eyelids to slits and glared at the man only inches away. He’d heard enough of this waddy’s crap—he intended to put some bite in his bark.

  “I’ve had enough of this bullshit, mister. You better start spitting out who the hell you work for, or I’m beating the shit out of you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah!” Slocum drove his left fist hard enough into the man’s solar plexus to drive the wind from him. The outlaw made a desperate gasp for air, at the same time bobbing his head in surrender; his resistance was gone.

  “Who’s the boss of this outfit?”

  “Wayne Devereau.”
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  “He the one rode off?”

  “That was Slade and him.”

  “Slade who?”

  “Doug Slade.”

  “Where were you taking these cattle?”

  “A place that Devereau’s got across the Red River.”

  “Who’s your contact down here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’ve seen him?” Slocum raised him up by a handful of shirt to reinforce his question.

  “Not up close. I never seen him up close.”

  “Did he come to your boss’s place up there?”

  “Yeah. A couple of months ago.”

  “What did he ride?”

  “I was working some horses at the time. I never saw him close, I told you. Some of the others saw him. I swear, mister, that’s all I know.”

  Slocum looked at Sam, and she shook her head. This information was all news to her. She dismounted and brought Slocum a rope to tie up Brown with. When he finished and roughly seated the rustler on the ground, he went to where she stood on lookout.

  “No sign of them?” he asked.

  “None. They just vanished out there somewhere.”

  “That don’t mean they won’t be back,” he said softly as the sun finished sinking in the west and the blue softness of twilight settled on the land. Those rustlers would be back. When and how many worried him worse than anything else.

  12

  “Who are those galoots?” Ray asked, meeting them with a rifle in the crook of his right arm and a lamp in the other hand. With a frown on his face in the yellow light, he viewed the three captives as he held the lamp up to better see their faces.

  “Rustlers,” Slocum said, and dismounted wearily. The ride back to the ranch had taken longer than he had hoped for. It had to be past midnight. He was anxious to leave the prisoners and get on with his plans.

  “You seen anything of Taylor’s bunch or the law?” he asked.

  “Nobody came by.”

  Lopez joined them with another lamp, and he too held it up to examine the faces of the sullen lot as Slocum removed them from their horses. With their hands tied behind their backs, he lined them up. Sam had gone to the house, and Teo busied himself unsaddling Sam’s horse.

  “You are going to stay for the night?” Lopez asked him.

  “No, you better saddle me a fresh one. I can’t believe they didn’t come out here looking for me.”

  “No one came. Do you still expect them?” Lopez asked.

  “I don’t know what to expect.” Slocum was anxious to start his campaign against Taylor. He might have to take some time to settle with this Devereau too. The problem of what to do with the prisoners would have to wait a day or two. Maybe he’d take them to Fort Worth and see what the law there would do about them. He needed Captain Spencer up here—but that meant he had to get off a telegram, one thing that Taylor and his bunch weren’t about to allow him to do from Black City. He might remedy that by taking over the telegraph key, but Taylor and his bunch would be waiting for such a move.

  “I’m ready,” Sam said from behind his back.

  He shook his head in disbelief. He thought she had turned in for the night. How did she know he planned to leave? He’d not mentioned it to her.

  “Teo is saddling me a fresh horse too,” she said.

  “You got an extra bedsheet?” he asked her.

  “Not with me, but I have one. Why?”

  “Good, bring it along. Nothing like a sheet to scare the pants off someone.”

  “Who are we scaring?”

  “Buck Martin.”

  “Why him?”

  “He’s the closest one.”

  “What are—”

  He cut off her question as he spun her around by her shoulders to face toward the house.

  “Okay I’m going,” she said. “A sheet and some supplies too?”

  “Yes. Lopez, you and the boys must post a guard over these rustlers. Lock them up in the tackroom. They think they’re tough. I promised that one with the mustache a good sitting on an anthill. He said he wasn’t afraid.”

  “Maybe we should find him one to sit on, huh?”

  “I think so, and while he’s there ask him everything he knows. We’ll be back after daylight.”

  “Be careful, amigo. Do you think those others will come here looking for you while you are gone?”

  “I think they might. Keep your guard up and be ready to give them lots of lead if they come asking for it.”

  “We will be ready.”

  “Gracias,” Slocum said, and clapped the man on the shoulder. He could see Sam returning in the starlight.

  “She’s coming. I better get ready to ride,” He swung up on his horse as she took her reins from Teo.

  “What are you going to do with this sheet?” she asked under her breath.

  “You’ll see.” At the moment, he had no idea, and he might not even use it. Still, it was a good idea to have it along in case he needed it. He sent his fresh horse off into the night, anxious to get on with his plans to disrupt Buck Martin.

  The gray light of dawn barely peeked over the horizon. Slocum’s eyes burned from lack of sleep, and he could hardly make out the ranch house’s features in the deep shadows of the live oaks. But from their vantage point on the ridge, he could see the ghostly outline of the dummy on the back of the horse hitched to Martin’s front gate. In a fetal position on the grass beside Slocum, Sam dozed with her hands under her cheek. They’d spent a long night in preparation for this moment. He refocused the brass spy-glass and settled on his elbows belly-down. Then a scream shattered the air.

  “My God! It’s Troy!” A woman’s voice sliced the early morning quiet.

  “Don’t go out there!”

  “But it’s my boy! I’d know that hat anywhere!”

  “He’s dead, woman! Your boy ain’t out there! That’s a decoy! Some damn trick someone’s pulled on you! That ain’t your boy! Don’t go out there, I tell you!”

  “Did they find it?” Sam asked sleepily, and rolled over on her stomach.

  “They found it. Listen.” Slocum put the telescope back to his eye.

  “Let go of me!” the woman shrieked.

  “Gawdammit, you can’t go out there! It’s a trap! A plan to kill both of us!”

  “No! No! I need to go to him!” the woman squalled.

  “No, that ain’t Troy! Gawdammit, woman, listen to me!”

  “The hat that you fixed up did it,” Slocum said as he watched Martin and his wife wrestling on the porch. Even at the distance he could see the fear in Martin’s eyes as he tried to contain his wife and at the same time look for the shooter he expected to cut them down at any moment. Good enough for the son of a bitch.

  “It looked just like the one Troy always wore,” Sam said in a voice husky with sleep.

  A blast of a double-barrel shattered the morning quiet. The horse at the gate broke loose in a wild bucking fit, obviously stung by some of the lead that cut apart the straw-filled dummy strapped in the saddle. Like a wild bronco, the horse bucked and kicked as he tore away across the Texas grassland.

  “I told you so! It wasn’t Troy!” Martin shouted.

  “There’s a note here!” the woman said, discovering the message pinned to the porch post.

  “Read it. I ain’t got my glasses,” Martin said as he stood in the yard with the empty shotgun cradled in his arms and watched uneasily.

  Slocum knew what it said;Buck Martin This is your last chance to get out of this range war alive. Last night, while you slept we could have easily cut you or your wife’s throat. Pack up your things today and leave this county at once. The Avenger

  “You think that dummy and letter will make him tuck tail and run?” Sam asked, tasting a dry stem of grass and kicking her feet idly as she considered the ranch house in the valley.

  “We’ll have to see.”

  “I sure hope he leaves. This business tonight sure ruined a good sheet for me.”

  “He’ll
leave or take notice, the way I figure it. Let’s ease out of here. We need to get some rest and then get on with our next step.”

  “What in the world is that?”

  “I figure his brother Ira is next on our list.”

  “I don’t have any more sheets,” she said as they hurried down to their horses in the draw.

  “Damn, that’s right. We may need to steal some more.”

  “Steal sheets? Whatever for?”

  “If we buy them, then they will know who is doing it.”

  “Hmm, I never thought of that.”

  Slocum caught the reins to his horse as he watched her mount up. Only time would tell if his plan to upset the enemy would work—they still had lots to do. He tightened his own cinch and then bailed aboard. Ira Martin would be next.

  13

  “You said that Ira stays in town with this woman?” Slocum asked without turning back toward the open doorway.

  “Yeah, her name is Irene Bircher. Heavens, he has three kids by her,” Sam snapped at him from inside.

  “What kind of place has she got?” He cradled the warm coffee cup in his hands as he stood on the porch of her uncle’s place. The red fire of sundown spread a blanket across the brown crisp grass. It had been too hot all day for them to sleep, and it sure needed to rain and then rain for another month. How much longer would it be until precipitation came? The damn drought sure was scorching the land anyway. He tried to recall the cool breezes that swept off the Bighorns in Wyoming this time of year. Be nice to shiver for a change. The oppressive heat drained his strength and fogged his brain as well.

  “Oh, she has a small farm on the edge of town. Why?” Sam asked, coming outside to join him. The ringlets of her hair, wet from her perspiration, were plastered to her face; she looked still half asleep.

  “Tonight, we need to disturb Ira’s dreams enough to draw him outside,” Slocum said. “She got a chicken house?”

  “Yeah, a big one. Irene sells eggs.”

  “Good. A fox is going to get in her henhouse tonight.”