Slocum and the Hellfire Harem (9781101613382) (13 page)

“You keep that pretty bottle,” said Tunk.

Then he went back to the boy's father's corpse and resumed his work on the man's last gold tooth. But he kept an eye on the dead boy, lest he was playing possum.

A few minutes later, Tunk Mueller looked about the shabby little camp, at the two dead adults, the one child's grave, and the boy he had had to kick, dead but bleeding out his last into the rough grass of the flat. He mounted the dun and reined the horse back toward where he'd come from.

He felt sure if he was to stay on this trail much longer, he was going to end up like these sad fools. No sir, this was a sign, as sure as the sun burned a man's brains and the moon chilled them, this was a sign. He had to head on back and track down whoever it was who'd been dogging him, make sure they were good and dead. It was the only way he felt sure he could prevent himself from ending up like this sad kid and his family. Had to be. After all, he'd been given a sign, plain as day.

20

From the barn, Slocum peered through the window in the south wall. He tugged his hat low and scanned the dark; barely a moonlit scene was visible. It appeared nobody needed shooting, thankfully. And as he mused on what to do next, his normally razor-sharp reflexes let him down: He never heard the footsteps behind him.

He winced as a series of quick slaps lashed at his face. A voice close by trembled with whispered rage. “You kilt my baby. I won't let you do it again.”

It was the old lady, understandably still fretting about whoever it was he'd shot earlier. “I reckon you'd rather have lost Judith or one of the other girls to a bullet then?”

“That ain't fair and you know it. Here,” she said, “I brung you a cup of coffee. Getting cooler out here. Got to keep you alert.”

“Thank you.” He took the tin cup, hot to the touch, and blew and sipped. It was scalding—and good. “Have a seat,” he said, and sat down on the straw. She slumped down next to him, leaned her shotgun against the wall.

“So . . . how's Ruth's arm?”

“Oh, she'll be fine. Just grazed. The blood stopped before it started.”

He nodded, sipped.

She resumed talking, as if to herself, not seeming to care whether he heard her or not. It seemed to Slocum she just needed someone to listen to her, and who wasn't anyone in her family. “I had hoped that at least my youngest boy, Luke, might have come around, had not wanted to hurt his own mama.” She dragged a hand across her eyes, used the hanky in her cuff to clear her tears. “I did a disservice to my offspring. I've been a fool. Once upon a time, I believed in that man. Then for far too long after that, I believed I could still trust him, that the man I once loved was still in there somewhere. But God got in the way.”

She faced him. “He didn't used to be this way, Mr. Slocum. Used to be a good man. We was headed west years ago, Ruth was just a shaver, and her brother, Peter, was little more than that. We were headed to California to join up with my sister, Violet, and her husband and kids. They'd opened a mercantile, said there was plenty of opportunity for us out there. We only had but the two young'uns ourselves, so travel wasn't so much work as it is now. Also, we were young and full of ourselves, full of promise that thinking of the future holds.”

“What changed your plans? Lots of folks make it to California every year.”

“We broke down, just about like we are here.” She shook her head at the irony of it all. “Only then, a gang of religious nuts, Bible-thumpers all, they come onto us, wormed their way into our heads—mine, too, I will admit. But you got to understand, Mr. Slocum, we was poor, and they were offering us a helping hand. Well, we figured, if this kindliness come bundled in a bit of the old Bible, how bad could it be? We figured we'd stay long enough to fix up the wagon, then we'd move on.”

“But . . .” said Slocum, sipping the piping hot coffee. It was bitter, had a funny little bite to it, but it warmed him inside and for that he was thankful.

“Wasn't long before the whole Godly community was doing this and that for us, making us feel beholden to them more and more all the time. Before long, we were paying them for land, settin' up the farm.”

“Oh, I see,” said Slocum.

She nodded. “That ain't the half of it. They told us we were going to have the first house because we were the last ones to join up with them. I told Rufus that didn't make no sense no how, and that I wanted to get to California.”

“But . . .” said Slocum again. This woman was surely a talker once she warmed to her subject.

“But my husband, Rufus, he was always a bit of a soft touch, soft in the head when it come to such matters. Easily persuaded, if you know what I mean. He said it all made sense to him and that I shouldn't be so selfish. Said I was shaming him in front of the congregation.” She looked at him and Slocum could see the twinkle in her eyes of the woman she used to be. Young, vivacious, pretty, and ready for a full life in California, the land of promise to so many.

“Hell,” she continued. “The only shameful thing about those thumpers was that they up and left in the night, took most everything of value we had. Left us with land that thankfully nobody has come along and said they own, a Bible that has caused my family more harm than good, and a husband who never did figure out how to take in the true meaning of the words in that book. I'm not even sure he knows how to read all that well, truth be told. Just kept making up meanings to suit his whims.”

“I know what you mean, ma'am. Some folks are born to lead, some to follow, some just can't seem to figure out which direction they should head in and end up dithering away their days.”

She nodded. “So all through the years, I kept up a correspondence with my sister in California. But whenever he could, Rufus would take the letters and burn them, make me watch. Wasn't but a letter a year, sometimes two, if we was lucky. But he claimed it was devil's work and that California was a sinkpit of sin and degradation. Those are his words, not mine.”

“So you'd still like to go there?”

“I would, yessir. And I got that last letter from my sister in San Francisco, invited me like she always done through the years to join her. Around that time, things got bad betwixt the boys and Rufus and me and the girls. I don't need to tell you what will happen betwixt boys and girls of a certain age. I'm to blame, bad things had happened among the older children, living alone like this out in the hills, no strangers in months and months at a time, nowhere to run off to, a father like as not to kill you, bullwhip you for talking askance at the dinner table . . . I just couldn't bear knowing that my two youngest might end up tainted in some way, too. Little Judith and young Luke. He's a good boy, Mr. Slocum, I wish you could meet him.”

“I believe I did,” said Slocum, sipping more coffee. “And you're right, he is still a good lad. Just needs to get off on his own in the world before—”

“Yes,” she said. “Before Rufus taints him like all the rest, mostly with his talk of God and the Bible, all good in their own place, but not in the way he preaches it.”

“What about your sister's husband? What sort of a man will he be to you?”

She laughed. “Not much of one—he died not long after we got sidetracked out in this hellish place. I can't call what we did settling, 'cause that never set right with me, all these years I knew I'd be moving on one day, with or without him. As the years went by, it became obvious that it would be without him. Now I'm glad of it. His religion is so twisted in his mind that it made him value men, his own sons, over anything else. Said he wanted only grandsons. Daughters and granddaughters, he said, were cattle, only good for making more men. No, I don't call them my sons no more. Can't think of them that way. They're lost to me. Just like him. They're adults who make up their own minds.”

“But under his influence,” said Slocum, “they'll never get a chance to make up their own minds.”

She was silent for a long minute, brooding, he knew, on a past largely wasted and on a life that could have been. And this reminded him why he was what he'd heard once called a “freebooter,” someone who roamed, living a life that, to the best of his ability, harmed few others and mostly was not a life full of regret. Though he figured that at the end of his days, a little regret might not be a bad thing. It meant that there were more things he wanted to do that he just hadn't gotten to yet.

“My sister runs a boardinghouse in San Francisco, says she's very successful, mostly rents rooms to traveling businessmen. Says she's got nice velvet drapes in the drawing room, lovely bedrooms, enough for all the girls.” The old woman looked at him, an odd smile on her mouth. “Says she rents rooms to men who don't expect to be around for long-term visits.”

Slocum wrinkled his brow. He caught himself just short of saying that it sounded to him like her sister was a madam, but she beat him to it.

She let out a low, whispered cackle. “I know exactly what she's up to, Mr. Slocum. And I'll be glad to take her up on the offer of expanding the business, keep it in the family.” She winked. “After all, we might as well get paid to do what they been doing all these years. And that way, I can make sure no one harms my girls.” She hefted her shotgun. “I reckon I can do that all right. I don't mind saying that I am a crack shot. And if it's something they don't wanna do, they don't have to. But at least they'll have a home. I can help set them up, maybe even get them educated. They could all be ladies of the world.”

“Well,” said Slocum. “The world will literally be right at your feet, with the docks. But beware of the Barbary Coast. It's a rough section you'd all do well to avoid.”

“You sound like you been there, Mr. Slocum.” She winked.

“Yes, ma'am, a time or two.” He winked back.

She laughed and stood slowly, joints popping in protest, and used the shotgun as a prop. “Time to get back in there.” Then she patted his shoulder and left the barn. He heard her footsteps receding, and despite how he felt, he wished she would keep quieter, sure that she was not heeding his earlier advice of staying low and staying put, keeping watchful. As if she no longer cared what happened to her. As if she'd given up.

21

Minutes after the old woman left him, already weak from a long day filled with leg pain, hardship, and hard exercise, Slocum slipped like a sack of wet sand to the straw. Try as he might to fight it, the day wore on him and he fell into a deep doze.

Hours later, how many he had no idea, Slocum awoke slowly, groggy and fuzzy headed, as if he'd been on a three-day drunk. It was still dark. He tried to sit up, but found he was hog-tied, his knees drawn up to his chest, his hands lashed around his shins, all tied tight, and his leg throbbed like cannon fire.

Beside him sat Judith.

“What in the hell is going on here? Who tied me up?”

“Shhh!” she hissed. “You wanna get us kilt?”

“Frankly, I don't really care what happens to you or yours. You've all cost me time and flesh. And I'm sick of it. Untie me now!”

Judith lay low, leaned out of the door frame, in the same position he'd been in hours before. “They're doing it!” she gasped.

“Doing what?” he said, louder than he intended.

“Quiet, Mr. Slocum, you want them to find us?”

“Yes. I have no desire to be trussed up. Now what are they doing?” He noticed a flickering light through the gaps in the barn boards to his right and scooted sideways. He peered through the gappy boards and saw a flaming torch making its way down the rock face across the road.

“They're going to torch the house, dammit. Judith, cut me loose!”

“No, you'll shoot whoever's bringing the torch.”

“Yeah, unless we can find some other way to stop them before they get close enough to throw it.”

She looked at him. “But that's what Mama doesn't want. She doesn't like your plan of shooting them. She has her own plan.”

“Oh, great. What has she come up with?” He struggled with the wraps, but he was bound fast, and his hands throbbed as the ropes cut into them from his struggling.

“You'll see.” Judith leaned back out the door frame, watching.

“Untie me, dammit. This is foolish.”

“No, Mama says you're too good, you'll try to do the right thing and that will end up killing more family or them killing you, and none of us want that.” She looked at him briefly in the dark, then leaned back out around the door frame.

Slocum turned back to the gaps in the boards. “You be careful, don't lean out too far. I don't trust them.”

The old man began shouting as the torchbearer stepped onto the road. “You devils! You demon spawn! You have earned this! Every second of it! As your bodies begin to roast, you will scream and God Himself will not help you! You are beyond redemption! I have tried my best to save your doomed souls, but you have made your beds, you demons! You shall perish in the flames of hell! And Luke will deliver the death blow! He will prove himself a man and the heavens shall sing his name into the Book of Life!”

“What in the hell is he going on about?” Slocum shifted tighter to the wall, pressing his eye closer to the boards, forgetting for a moment the hard bindings of the ropes. He couldn't see the old man, who was still hidden well away in the safety of the dark and under cover of rocks and trees and night.

And then down came the boy, Luke, his skinny arm raised above his head, the flaming torch held high, lighting his face. His eyes squinted against the heat and glare. He stopped at the edge of the road, and with his other hand resting on the butt of his side arm, he stood still, looking at the little ruined house.

His mother came out into the rubble-filled dooryard, a lantern held aloft, mimicking her young son's posture. “That you, Luke? Sweet boy, you come to see your mama. Finally come back to me?”

Slocum heard the old woman's voice catch in her throat. The boy, Slocum saw even at that distance, stood still, trembling.

From behind him, the old man roared, “Boy! Don't you listen! She is a devil woman! Devil woman! She will kill you and pull you down into the cauldron of hell, where your soul will suffer eternal torments, boy! Get walking, walk on and throw that fire! Do as God bids you!”

The boy still stood, quaking and staring forward. He glanced back once over his shoulder, wincing every time his father lashed him with another layer of Biblically tinged insult. Then he looked again at his mother. Finally he reached forward with his gun hand, empty of any gun, and his thin, trembling fingers groped outward as if beckoning his own mother to him. He took one, two tottering steps forward.

“No, boy! I forbid this sacrilege!” The old man's voice rose to a fevered pitch, his shouts strained and cracked into screams. “Dare you disobey the Lord's will? You are a weak-willed womanly boy!”

As if time had slowed down, in the warm amber glow of torch and lamplight mingling in the cool night air, Slocum saw a bullet pelt the earth just to the side of the boy. Screams and shouts of warning and panic arose from the little house. But the boy and mother continued walking toward each other, slowly, arms outstretched, some sort of shared joy writ large on their faces. Another bullet pocked closer, rooster-tailing dirt that spattered the boy, but still he kept walking, closing the gap between himself and his mama. Then he stiffened, both arms thrown to the heavens as if he had just found God and had to express himself in some meaningful way.

Then time became real again, and the boy lurched forward, a dark mass spreading as only blood can on the boy's dirty white shirtfront. He'd been shot square in the back. And the torch slipped from his hand and fell, harmless, to the dirt road. The boy dropped forward to his side, his head bounced against the hard-packed surface and his mother bent to him, scooped up his head into her lap, and cradled him. Slocum saw the boy, with one last effort, raise his arm and touch a limp hand to his mother's wrinkled face, then it dropped and Slocum knew the boy was dead.

Slocum was sure the old man's screams could be heard for miles. Soon, the old bearded bastard himself came stumbling down out of the rocks and staggered into the road, followed by his last remaining son, a hulking brute looking cowed and defeated.

“What . . . look what you made me do. Look, devils. I meant only to get him moving, get him to carry out the Lord's work. He was on a mission. But not this, not now . . . Oh, my boy, what have I done? What have I done?” He dropped to his knees on the other side of the boy, put his bald forehead to the boy's unmoving legs, and clutched at the thin, lifeless form as if it were a life raft on a roiling sea.

Soon the run-down house emptied and women and girls poured from it, clustering around the sad scene, weeping and holding one another.

Judith inhaled as if she would never again breathe normally, her thin body trembling with shock, grief, and anger. Slocum tried to crawl to her but she scrabbled to her feet and ran into the night, out behind the barn. He shouted once, but was sure she had not heard him above the din made by her weeping family. But she did not go to them. Soon, he heard hoofbeats rushing northwest into the night.

“Oh, Judith,” said Slocum to the dark, empty space of the barn. “This isn't right. None of this should have happened.”

He struggled to loosen his bindings, trying to gain himself enough slack to reach the knife in his boot. Soon, he heard fast footsteps running across the gravel yard, thick, thuggish steps, and his gut curdled at what that meant—the men, just the two of them, the old man and the older son, would soon find him. He was sure of it with each growl and grunt he heard. He wanted to at least meet them face to face, head on in a fight. They were cowardly backshooters, and he didn't doubt they wouldn't hesitate to kill him as he lay tied up, defenseless, helpless.

He thrashed and tipped over on his side on the musty old straw, the thin smells of rat shit and old, dried dung mingling with the thick dust in the air. He was trussed tight, his knees drawn up to his chest, hands lashed about the wrists and then wrapped around his legs. The sewn gash on his leg felt wet and throbbed tighter than Dick's hatband.

He almost bellowed to the women, the children, anyone, to look out, not to trust the men, but knew it was too late. The best thing he could do, he figured, was try to sit upright and push himself with his heels back into the dark corner behind him. If the men came poking about in here, with any luck they'd overlook him.

“Where's Judith?” The voice was that of the last young man just outside. Then Slocum heard a slap and a sharp gasp. Another slap. “Where is she? I asked you a question, Angel!”

He was hitting his sister? The very thought made Slocum sick. He'd never been able to understand nor stomach a man who hit a woman. That was the foulest of the foul, the lowest, and only rarely did a woman ever deserve such nasty treatment. There were viperous women in the world, to be sure, but they were the sort to claw out a man's eyes for his poke, then stab him when he was down. These women were not of that ilk. They were just caught between freedom and a Bible-thumper. One they wanted, the other they wanted to get away from.

But the thumper had spread his twisted madness to his boys, made them hate and regard the women as he did—as mere cattle for breeding purposes. And they were their own flesh and blood. Now look what it got them all. What a mad family. And yet, as he scooted backward into the corner, frantically working to grab hold of the hilt of his boot knife with his straining fingertips, he knew he couldn't let them down. He had to get free so that he might get them free.

Damn the old woman! If she hadn't tied him up, he'd be able to turn the tables on those bastards.

He wondered if she'd taken his rifle as well. Oddly she'd left him with his pistol. Just wanted to slow me down? he thought. Was that her game? Was she feeling so torn about the fact that her sons and daughters were getting killed and hurt? If the old man kept shooting, that's what would happen to them all, the children included. Maybe she was giving up. Giving in to the old Bible-thumper?

Shouts from the house alerted him to what was happening. He redoubled his effort, the throbbing of his leg wound be damned. He had to get loose, had to rescue Ruth, the twins, and Judith. There was no way he was going to let those God-fearing fools hurt those women. He had to get to them, get them free of those men somehow. Set them on their way to California. But first, Slocum, he told himself, you have to get that knife out of your boot.

He felt the hilt with his middle fingers' tips, but he was trussed so tight that there was little room for budging. He gritted his teeth, strained, felt the hemp tighten, heard it squeak and strain . . . and finally it budged a fraction more than it had. And now he wanted more and more. And by God, he told himself, he'd get that damn knife or he'd lose his hands trying.

Soon, he heard more noises, the deep cries of frightened children, interrupted by slaps that brought on harsher cries. Ruth's voice spoke sternly, but in a warm way to them, shushing them. He heard chains rattle, heard hard, stinging slaps against horses' rumps, and knew they were hooking up the wagon. The old woman's voice rose in pitch and was met with a smack and an oath from the old man: “Shut your mouth, woman! The Lord will not tolerate your wicked ways any longer! Your evil has resulted in killing on this night!”

Slocum gritted his teeth and resumed grasping for the blade. He hoped they didn't notice the Appaloosa. As if they'd read his mind, he heard one of the men speak.

“Where's that hired gun you got hid? Where's he at?”

Then Slocum heard a smacking sound and Ruth said, “He isn't here! He was just a drifter, a low-down, dust-sucking scum who didn't want any part of this mess. He rode on as soon as the shooting got too intense.”

He didn't know whether to laugh or be offended. He'd been called a pile of things in his years in and out of the saddle, but never a “dust-sucking scum.” He supposed she had a right to be angry with him, but he figured she also knew he was trussed up in the barn.

They seemed to buy her story, because the man grunted and sounded as if he'd resumed working on the wagon. Slocum took advantage of the time to keep working on retrieving the knife. He was sweating and straining from his efforts, but his panting was covered up by the squeaks of the wagon wheels, the shouts of the men, the growling replies of Ruth and the twins, the occasional clipped cries of the children, and the distinct lack of sound from the mother and, more notably, Judith. And that gave Slocum pause. Had they caught Judith? Hurt her? Knocked her out perhaps? Or worse? And the old lady? He imagined she had just given up, convinced herself that she was doing the right thing in surrendering herself and her daughters to the foul whims of the beast men.

Soon, he heard the squeak and clomp of horses pulling a wagon. He heard the sounds of many feet receding, of random sobs, some children, some women. He imagined the deranged men, grim-faced, watching over their “herd” as they escorted them back to their farm for a life of drudgery.

It took him hours more to free a hand, then it was quick work to slice through the ropes that had caused his hands to purple and swell. As gray dawn light filtered in through the gaps in the barn boards and dawn slowly emerged, he risked leaning in the doorway of the barn to get a brief look at his leg wound. It throbbed like hell, but from what he could see, it wasn't infected—it didn't sport that swollen, angry red look that infected flesh wore. Despite his lack of care for it, the wound didn't appear any worse than it had the day before, and for that he was thankful.

It wouldn't take long for a wound like that to go so bad that he'd lose his leg. Still, he thought, a drizzle of whiskey on the sutured wound wouldn't hurt it. Now he only had to find his saddlebags, and soon. They turned up in the opposite corner of the barn he'd bedded down in. His saddle, blanket, and bridle and bit were by the saddlebags. And beside them, his rifle.

Now if only he could find the Appaloosa as easily. Slocum draped the bridle over his shoulder and hobbled on out to the paddock off the end of the barn. But there was no horse in sight. He hobbled farther, whistled, but still no horse. So, the sunburned posse took the horse with them. But, he reasoned, Ruth's story about him would have been chewed to pieces when they did find the Appaloosa. Wouldn't they have come looking for him, and then surely would have found him trussed up in the barn? It's what he would have assumed, but then he wasn't them, a thug led by a half-assed preacher man—even if he was the remaining son's father.