Slocum 419 (8 page)

Clara shivered in the cold breeze that wafted under the awning. She looked at the glowing windows of the boardinghouse, the saloon, and the hotel, and wished she were inside any of them, where it was warm.

But she had to wait for her husband and whoever else Wolf had chosen to send Slocum to his grave. It seemed hours that she stood there.

And she kept wondering what her daughters were doing up in Slocum's room. Were they just talking and maybe teasing, or were they going to turn into wantons and let the tall man have his way with them?

The thoughts tormented her more than the waiting.

Lately, she had regretted letting Clem—she had always called him that since she'd known him—influence her daughters. She knew that he had not cared for them when they were babies or toddlers. He had never paid much attention to them until they had gotten old enough to work. And that was all he had expected of them. To Clem, they were useful only as laborers, as maids, servants, or of late, enticers of men.

She had been thinking of leaving Clemson, since they were not man and wife, and yet they were bound by something she could not explain. Criminality, perhaps. Some undefinable attraction that had to do with their mutual desire for personal gain, legal or otherwise.

Or maybe Clemson's hold on her had to do with Wolf's brother, Hans, her first and only husband. Clemson had been her salvation after Hans died. He had taken her in when she was ostracized by the whole community. He had shown her some kindness when others had displayed only their cruelty and hatred.

Yet Clem had changed since then, as much as she had. He was no longer the town outcast, the ne'er-do-well who cadged off others. He had become Wolf's brother, in a way, a substitute for Hans.

It was complicated, but she had been trying to unravel all of it ever since they had come to Durango and Clemson had turned her twin daughters into assassins and probably would yet turn them into whores.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of footsteps coming up the street toward her. She saw three men and recognized one of them as Clemson. Her heart pounded in her chest and pulsed in her temples.

“Pssst,” she hissed, “over here.”

Clara stepped out of the shadows and waved to the three men.

They veered in her direction.

“Clem, over here,” she called and waved again.

“I see you, Clara,” he said.

The two men followed Clemson to where Clara stood.

“Clara, this here's Rafe Overton and Jake Snowden,” Clemson said.

“What you got for us, lady?” Jake asked point-blank.

“He—he's in there,” she said, pointing to the hotel. “Slocum, and the girls followed him to his room. Clem, they've been in there for a half hour or so. You're late.”

“If he's in there, we ain't late,” Rafe said.

“Do what you have to do, but be careful. No telling what my girls are up to with that man.”

Jake laughed a harsh and lewd cackle. Rafe snorted.

“Damn you, Clem,” she said. “If anything happens to Lacey and Stacey, I'll chop your balls off with a butcher knife.”

The two men laughed.

They both were cut from the same bolt of cloth. Jake Snowden was perhaps an inch or two taller than Rafe, but both had beard stubble on their lean, wolfish faces. Both had wide-set pale blue eyes and wore their holsters low and tied tight to their legs with leather thongs. Rafe chewed tobacco and spat a stream of brown liquid that turned amber in the weak light of the hotel lamp. Jake had a burnt-out match in his crooked teeth. They both smelled of whiskey and tobacco smoke.

“Let's go,” Rafe said, and spat a wad of tobacco from his mouth.

The three men walked into the hotel lobby and up to the desk.

Jules got up and stood there.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said politely.

“What room's Slocum in?” demanded Rafe.

“Why he—ah, Mr. Slocum, he's in, let's see, I believe that's . . .” Jules hesitated.

“You better tell us the truth,” Jake warned.

Jules looked at the three men and decided his life was more important than keeping his promise to a hotel guest.

“Room 7,” he said.

“Give us the key,” Rafe demanded.

The elderly man hesitated again. “Uh, I'm not supposed to—”

Jake drew his pistol, thrust the barrel close to Jules's face, and cocked it.

“Give me the damned key or I'll splatter your brains all over that back wall,” Jake said.

Jules shook with fear. He turned to the wooden plaque on the side wall and removed a key from the spot designated number 7. He handed the key to Rafe, who snatched it from him.

“Just forget you ever saw us,” Rafe said.

“You just stay right where you are, pilgrim,” Jake said, “and pretend you're deaf, dumb, and blind.”

“Yes, sir,” Jules said, his face white as a flour sack, fear lighting his eyes with flickers of yellow light from the lamps. As if his fear were painting his eyes.

The three men did not try to soften the sounds of their boot heels on the carpeting as they stalked down the hall with murder in their hearts.

They looked at each numbered door until they reached Room 7. They halted and each drew his pistol, held their thumbs down on the hammers.

Rafe stepped up to the door and inserted the key. He turned it slowly and heard the lock disengage. He left the key in and twisted the knob.

The door opened and he waited. He turned to look at Jake, who nodded.

Rafe pushed the door open and bent over in a crouch. He thumbed the hammer of his pistol back to full cock and slunk forward into the room, his eyes shifting in their sockets as he gazed right and left.

Behind him came Jake and Clemson. They cocked their pistols.

They all gazed toward the dimly lit bed with its pale coverlet and two naked women drawn up like small statues, their arms crossed over their bare breasts.

One of the women screamed in terror.

Slocum heard one of the women scream. The scream was loud and ear-shattering.

He saw the men crouch low and burst into the room.

The scream was cut short when the first man to enter the room fired at the two women on the bed.

Lacey gasped as Rafe's bullet struck her in the chest, just beneath her crossed arms. She fell back onto Stacey, blood bubbling out of her mouth, her eyes wide and glassy with pain.

Slocum fired a split second later. Half of Rafe's face was lit by the spray of yellowish light from the lamp. The bullet ripped into that half of his face and shattered his cheekbone. He grunted and fell to one side as the other half of his head exploded in a shower of blood and shattered bones. He was stone dead by the time he struck the floor.

Behind him, Jake swung his pistol to bear on Slocum, his face spattered with droplets of blood from his partner's fatal wound.

Slocum moved then. He slid along the wall and fired as Jake came out of his crouch and squeezed the trigger.

Jake's shot narrowly missed Slocum, smashing into the wall inches behind Slocum's naked back.

Slocum fired point-blank at Jake. He aimed at his chest and his Colt thundered and belched out flame, sparks, and a deadly lead bullet.

Jake staggered as the ball split his breastbone and tore through part of his right lung, ripping the sacs to bloody threads. He squeezed the trigger of his pistol as he crumpled onto Faron Clemson's pistol. Jets of blood spurted from the small black hole in his chest, and the fist-sized hole in his back sprayed blood and tissue onto Clemson, who took the brunt of Jake's fall and was pushed backward into the door's frame.

Slocum strode toward Clemson. He cocked his pistol.

Faron stared at Slocum, stunned by his nakedness and the pistol in his hand. He dropped his pistol to the floor and raised both hands in a gesture of surrender.

“D-Don't shoot me, Slocum,” Clemson pleaded.

“I ought to blow your damned brains out.”

“No, I beg you. I must go to my daughters on the bed. One of them has been shot.”

“Who in hell are you?” Slocum asked. He kicked Faron's gun away with his bare foot and held the barrel of his pistol pressed against Clemson's forehead.

“I'm Faron Clemson. I'm their pa. Wolf made me come here.”

“Blame somebody else, Clemson. But you knew your daughters were here with me, didn't you?”

“Yes. Ah, it was Clara's idea. Honest.”

“You don't know the meaning of honest, you bastard,” Slocum said. He wanted to pull the trigger and blow the top of Clemson's head off, but his trigger finger hardened and held still and frozen a hair's breadth from the smooth trigger.

They could both hear Stacey's sobs as she held her dying sister in her arms.

“Let me go to them, please,” Faron begged.

“Step toward me,” Slocum said.

Clemson took a step over Jake's body, which was still quivering long after he had ceased to breathe.

“Just walk real slow toward the bed,” Slocum ordered. When Faron passed him, Slocum rammed the barrel of his pistol into the small of Clemson's back.

“Stacey,” Clemson uttered as he reached the edge of the bed. “Is Lacey . . .”

“She's dead, Pa. Lacey's dead.” She sobbed and bowed her head.

“Oh no,” Clemson cried.

Slocum jabbed the barrel of his pistol hard into Clemson's back.

“You're going to be my messenger, Clemson,” Slocum said. He put a hand on the distraught man and spun him around to face him.

“Huh? What?” Faron stammered.

“I'm going to let you live. But only long enough to deliver a message to Wolf. Then if I ever see you again, I'll kill you on sight. Got that?”

“Y-Yes. What—what message?”

“You tell Wolf that I'm coming for him and whichever men he has left. Tell him I'm coming to kill him as soon as I get dressed. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Mr. Slocum. I—I'll tell him. He—he won't like it none.”

“How many men does he have left, do you know?”

“Well, there's Hobart and Loomis. Loomis is crippled up where you shot him in the leg.”

“Is that all, then? One able-bodied man and the one with the jake leg?”

“Yes.”

“And while you're at it, you'd better tell Clara and her boss that they're on my list, too.”

“Your list?”

“My list of messes to clean up. You're all crooked as snakes and I've got blood in my eye. Now get the hell out and start delivering those messages while you're still able to draw a breath.”

“I'm gone,” Clemson said.

“And don't pick up anything on your way out,” Slocum called after him as Clemson raced across the room.

When he was gone, Slocum turned to Stacey.

She was bereft with grief. Her eyes were rimmed in red from weeping. She held Lacey in her lap. Lacey was not breathing.

“Stacey,” Slocum said, “I'm real sorry.”

“Oh you, you are what got my sister killed.”

“Blame me all you want, but I didn't shoot her, nor did I want her dead.”

“No, but—”

“Just answer one question I have, Stacey, while I get dressed.”

“What question?”

“Which one of you pushed the handle of that plunger down at that mine?”

“Who do you think it was?” Stacey said, surprised by his question.

“I think it was Lacey. She was a lot bolder than you. Is that who blasted the dynamite?”

“Oh, what difference does it make now? Yes, Lacey pushed the plunger. I was holding the horses so we could get away afterwards.”

“Then there is some sort of justice afoot here, isn't there?”

“You bastard. I hope I never see you again. You killed my sister, sure as if you had pulled the trigger.”

Slocum put down his pistol at the end of the bed and began to dress. Stacey glared at him the whole time.

“I'll see that someone comes here and tends to your sister, Stacey,” Slocum said as he put on his hat. “You might want to put your clothes back on before the undertaker gets here.”

“Go to hell, Slocum,” she spat.

Slocum walked to the bureau and picked up the bottle of Old Mill. He walked across the hall and let himself into his room. He locked the door behind him.

He poured himself a drink after he lit one of the lamps.

He waited for the knock that he knew was to come.

He was sorry that Lacey had been killed. He felt sorry for Stacey. But the real culprits were their parents, Clemson and Clara.

And besides those two, there was Wolf and his cronies.

He hoped like hell they would get the message.

If not, he'd have to face them in a death match with high stakes.

Winner take all.

Wolf Steiner paced the floor in his dimly lit cabin's front room. Clara sat there on the divan with Abel Fogarty, who was as nervous as a cat in a room full of marbles and rocking chairs. He had his briefcase next to him and a lap full of legal papers that he shuffled through, comparing signatures.

Clara Morgan sat stiff as a board, watching Wolf's angry stride up and down the room. She listened intently to every word, but her mind was back at the hotel. She had deserted her post as soon as Clem and the other two men had entered the lobby.

“Where in hell are those knuckleheads?” Wolf roared. “They've had plenty of time to take care of Slocum.”

“I don't know,” Clara said.

“Wolf, this signature doesn't quite match Jasper Nichols's. You'll have to do it again or these papers won't go through.”

Wolf stopped pacing and wheeled to face Fogarty.

“Damn it. I practiced that signature a dozen times or more.”

“Well, it's too far off the mark,” Fogarty said.

“Then let Clara do it.”

“There's a difference in a woman's signature and a man's,” Fogarty said.

Wolf walked over to the two of them. But his eyes were fixed on Abel's like twin jets of burning oil.

“Clara's more of a man than you are, Abel. Let her try it. Nichols's signature is too scrawly for me to imitate.”

“That's true,” Fogarty said. “It is a difficult signature to imitate.”

He turned to Clara.

“Want to try it?” he asked.

Clara snatched one of the documents from Abel's lap and studied the bogus signature. “It's not very flowery, but it does go all over the place. I can try, I guess.”

“Do it,” Wolf commanded. “Shit.”

Clara glared up at him. “Calm down, Wolf, you're going to blow out a blood vessel in your brain.”

“Damn those men. Damn Clemson. They should be back by now. I want to know that Slocum's out of the way.”

Loomis sat in the chair by the window, where Hobart had been for most of the day. Hobart was back in the kitchen, frying strips of beef in an ocean of melted lard sputtering in a fry pan. He seemed impervious to the squabbles of those in the front room.

“Somebody's comin',” Loomis said. “Just a shadder so far, but he's in one hell of a hurry.”

Loomis drew his pistol and held his thumb on the hammer.

“Who in hell is it?” roared Wolf.

“I think it's Clem.” He paused for a moment. “Yep, it's Clemson all right.”

“Where are the two men I sent with him?” Wolf asked.

“Don't see 'em,” Loomis said. “Just Clem, like his pants was on fire.”

“Well, let the bastard in,” Wolf said.

Loomis limped to the door and lifted the latch. He opened the door as a breathless Clemson jogged up to it.

“Where are the other boys?” Wolf demanded.

He leaned over and gripped both knees with his hands. He panted for breath.

“Dead, Wolf. Slocum shot 'em both,” Clemson panted.

“You dumb bastard. Well, get in here and tell me all about it.” Wolf glared at Clemson, who staggered over toward the couch. His face was livid, his features drawn.

“Well, spit it out, Clem,” Wolf ordered.

“We didn't have no chance, Wolf. Slocum, he was waitin' for us. Buck naked, he was, and he popped off his pistol the minute we come into his room. Rafe, he got off a shot, but he kilt Lacey. Then, Slocum shot him. Jake, he got it, too, and dropped like a stone.”

“What about you? How come Slocum didn't shoot you?”

“Hell, he had me cold, Wolf. Stacey was screamin' her head off and Lacey was bleedin' to death. I dropped my gun and put my hands up.”

“You lily-livered swine,” Wolf growled. “You got the balls of a pissant.”

“Shit, he had me cold, I tell you, Wolf.”

“So then what?” Wolf asked.

“He gave me a message to give to you, then chased me out of the room.”

“What's the message?”

“Slocum said he was comin' after you and he was goin' to kill you.”

Wolf snorted.

Fogarty's face blanched as blood fled from his capillaries. He gasped as he choked on sucked-in air.

“He didn't foller you, did he?” Wolf asked. He looked over at Loomis, who had closed the door and was sitting down again. But he wasn't looking out the window. He looked at Wolf and Clemson, wide-eyed as a startled raccoon.

“I reckon not. He was buck naked, I told you. I lit a shuck and didn't look back. But he sure didn't foller me.”

Hobart walked into the front room, chewing on the last of his sandwich.

Clara began to sob.

Wolf looked at her with a flash of contempt in his eyes.

“Is—is Lacey dead?” she asked Clemson.

He nodded.

Clara broke down, then buried her face in her hands and wept copious tears. Fogarty patted her on the back with gentleness.

Wolf turned away from Clemson. He shot a look at Hobart, who stood there gape-mouthed, swallowing the last chunk of meat in his mouth.

“What are you goin' to do, boss?” Hobart asked.

“I'm going to kill that bastard. None of you seems able to plug the sonofabitch and put his lamp out.”

“How? Where?” Hobart asked.

“Wherever I see him. He comes here, he's a dead man. Right now, I'm thinkin' of goin' to the saloon and havin' a drink. Sooner or later, he'll walk in. You game?”

Hobart nodded. Slowly. Without enthusiasm.

Wolf turned to Fogarty.

“You get them papers signed right, Abel, and put 'em through. Clara, stop your damned cryin' and get to copyin' that signature.”

Clara straightened up and wiped the tears from her face with trembling fingers.

“Clem,” Wolf said, “you're comin' with us. Where's your gun?”

“It—it's back in that room. Slocum wouldn't let me take it.”

“You dumb sonofabitch. Well, I got another in that case yonder. Pick one out that matches your cartridges.”

“Do I have to go with you, Wolf?” Clemson asked.

“You damned sure do. If Slocum walks in, you point him out to me.”

“Hell, you can't miss him, Wolf,” Clemson said. “He's real tall, wears a black hat, black shirt, black trousers, and black boots. He's real noticeable, I swear.”

“You're comin', so shut your trap and get yourself a pistol out of that cabinet yonder.”

“What about me?” Loomis asked.

“You stay here, just in case, Bert. You see Slocum, you shoot him.”

Loomis nodded. He looked sad.

Clara stood up. She looked at Wolf.

“I've seen Slocum,” she said. “If I were you, Wolf, I'd saddle up my horse and ride as far away as I could.”

“Well, you ain't me, Clara.”

“He's already killed off most of your men. What do you want? A big poster with a warning written on it in red blood?”

“I ain't tuckin' tail and runnin' from some no-good drifter with an itchy trigger finger.”

“Might be wise to lie low for a while,” Fogarty ventured. “I don't feel real safe myself.”

Wolf turned to face Abel.

“You run out on me, Fogarty, and I'll track you down myself. Hear?”

Fogarty nodded. “I hear you, Wolf. But I'm not real comfortable with this whole situation.”

“Just do your job, Abel. Slocum won't dog us no more once I get him in my sights.”

Clemson swallowed hard as he walked to the gun cabinet. He opened the doors and picked out a converted Remington .44 such as he had left in the hotel. He opened the gate and spun the cylinder. It was loaded with six cartridges. He slid the gun into his holster and closed the cabinet doors.

Hobart brushed bread crumbs from his shirt and trousers.

“All right,” Wolf said. “Let's hit the saloon. I'm buyin'.”

He looked at Hobart and Clemson. Neither were men he would pick to back him up in a gunfight, but he had no choice. Loomis was crippled and these were the only two men who might be able to make sure Slocum went down when the shooting started.

He looked at Clara.

“I'm real sorry about Lacey,” he said. “She was a good kid.”

“Thank you, Wolf.”

“I'm sorry, too, Clara,” Clemson said. “I'll make it up to you.”

“How?” she asked. “You can't bring her back from the dead, Clem.”

Clemson hung his head in shame.

“Let's go,” Wolf said and started for the door.

He was building a picture of Slocum in his mind. Tall, dressed in black, and a dead shot. Well, he had come across such men before. They were dangerous, but they didn't have eyes in the backs of their heads. They could be shot in the back as easily as a man could shoot a stray dog.

And he had done both.