Slocum 419 (13 page)

A woman screamed.

Amy lay dead in a pool of blood, her eyes fixed on eternity, unseeing, glassy as smoked crystal marbles.

Somewhere, up on the mountain, a wolf howled long and mournful and men gasped at the sight of the beautiful woman lying there dead, a hole in her forehead.

And most of those who stood there knew just who had killed Amy.

Wolf.

There was no one in the lobby of the hotel when Slocum and Clara stopped to leave his key at the clerk's counter. A sign on the counter said the clerk was out for thirty minutes, with no explanation.

Slocum's saddlebags were slung over his left shoulder, along with a wooden canteen. Before he left the room, he had hidden his belly gun at his waist behind his belt buckle, and he carried his Winchester in his left hand. He felt weighted down on one side, and the only counterbalance was his hotel key.

There was a slot where room keys could be dropped so that they would not lie on the counter for anyone to take. Slocum dropped his key through the slot. He heard it strike other keys.

“This is one of the hotels where you should sleep with a gun close by your bed,” Slocum said.

“It's not the Ritz,” Clara said.

They walked outside and looked up at the stars, the satin black sky with the Milky Way a sprawl of sparkling jewels, the moon not yet risen.

Slocum sniffed. He reeked of Clara's musk and it was a satisfying aroma. She was some woman, he thought. Wasted for all those years. Deprived of affection and loving. It was a dirty shame.

“You keep your horse at the livery, Clara?” Slocum asked.

She nodded. “I try to see her almost every day. A bay mare I call Rose, only because the name seems to fit her. She's a dark bay with three white stockings.”

“Let's saddle up and ride over to Wolf's. See if he wants some company.”

“If he's there, he'll have a man or two watching for you,” she said.

“Are you a good shot with that two-dollar pistol?” Slocum asked.

“It cost more than two dollars, John. And yes, I'm a good shot. With either pistol or rifle.”

“Ever kill a man? Or a woman?” he asked.

Clara shook her head. “Not yet.”

“Big game?”

“I've shot deer and elk. I've got good eyes.”

“Who taught you to shoot?” he asked.

“Wolf,” she said with a wry smile on her lips. “But he doesn't know I have this pistol. And he never gave me a gun of my own.”

“Do you know why?”

“I'm sure he doesn't want me to use a gun on him,” she said. “I bought the pistol from a passing drummer we ran into when we were outrunning a posse in Kansas. Wolf was off shooting at rattlesnakes and prairie chickens, and I had saved money from my allowance. I paid the drummer five dollars and fifty cents for that pistol, and I practiced shooting it every time Wolf wasn't around. When I bought groceries for the gang, I bought cartridges for my Smith & Wesson.”

“Smart woman,” he said. Then he hitched his belt and straightened his holster. “Let's go saddle up and pay Wolf a visit,” he said.

Just then, they both heard a resounding explosion. A gunshot that rattled the windows of the hotel.

It came from the saloon.

Both Slocum and Clara turned at the sound of the shot and stared down the street where the saloon's windows sprayed a dull yellow light onto the dirt street.

Slocum saw a man on horseback and another horse, saddled, sidling back and forth at the end of the reins in the mounted man's hands.

Seconds later, a man dashed out of the shadows and hauled himself up into the saddle of the unmanned horse. They turned and trotted up the street toward them. The horses broke into a gallop and the two men passed by.

“That's Wolf,” Clara gasped.

“Who's with him?” Slocum asked.

“Looked like Hobart. Yes, it was Hobart, I'm sure.”

They both ran toward the saloon. They saw the people emerging from it and huddle up at one corner. They reached the edge of the crowd.

“Wait here,” Slocum said, and elbowed his way through the small mob. They were all looking downward.

Then Slocum broke through the bar patrons and saw what they were looking at on the ground. He recognized the distinctive dress first. Then he saw her face, which was starting to sag and change shape.

He saw Amy Sullivan lying dead, a bullet hole in her forehead. He pushed the people away and stooped over to look at her. There was brain matter in her hair at the back of her head. A dark pool was beneath her head. Her eyes were open and glazed. He saw that much, even in the hazy light from the saloon.

He cursed under his breath and made his way back through the pushing crowd of gawkers.

Clara's face was drawn when he took her by the arm and led her away from the saloon.

“Somebody dead?” she asked.

“Yes,” Slocum said. “The woman who was in charge of the girls in the saloon.”

“Amy?”

“Yes, Amy. You knew her?”

“I spoke to her a few times. She was nice. Is—is she dead, really?”

“Really. Shot in the forehead.”

Clara stifled a sob.

“Wolf,” she breathed, and then she was running with Slocum toward the livery stable. They had to cut between buildings for several blocks.

By the time they reached the livery stable, she was out of breath. And she was stunned that a pretty woman like Amy Sullivan had been shot dead. Even if Wolf had done it.

“Why would he shoot that woman?” Clara asked as they entered the lantern-lit stables with its musky smell and the sounds of horses moving and eating in their stalls.

Benito emerged from a stall and turned over a shovel to spill horse feces into a wheelbarrow. He looked toward them.

“Ah, you have come to see your horse, Mr. Slocum,” Benito said as Slocum strode into the cone of yellowish lantern light. “And you bring Miss Morgan with you.”

“Fetch our horses, Benito, and we're in a hurry,” he said.

“The tack room is still open and you can see to get your saddles, bridles, and blankets,” he said. “Your horses are right here. I will get them.”

As Slocum and Clara walked to the tack room, Slocum leaned toward her and whispered an answer to her question.

“Amy died because she helped me,” he said. “I'll tell you all about it later.”

Slocum tried to quell the grief he felt for Amy. To see such a vibrant, giving woman lying dead on a dirty street infused him with an overwhelming sadness. And now, with Clara's scent all over his body, he felt Amy's tragic death even more acutely. She died, he knew, with his own scent on her, and perhaps his seed still inside her. In the shadow of his grief was a boiling anger, a hatred so deep and so strong it threatened to cloud his judgment.

He wanted to kill Wolf now. Which went against his grain. For his warning to Wolf had been that if he left town, he would live.

But he would break that promise.

Wolf did not deserve to live another day. He had brutally murdered a fine young woman, a beautiful woman, and that was a sin none could forgive.

As he waited for Ferro to be brought to him, Slocum felt as if he were in some kind of limbo, a place between heaven and hell, a no-man's-land where all was desolate and barren, a wasteland on which only he stood, alone with his black thoughts and his growing hatred for a man he had never met, an evil that was like a cancer on the earth.

This, he knew, was a dangerous place to be. For in his anger, there was a blindness, too, a wall against reality. Wolf was a dangerous man, and to hunt him down and kill him would take all of his concentration, all of his will, and all of his clarity of mind and thinking.

His anger could dull his senses, slow his gun hand down, block his acute and accurate vision so that he could not beat Wolf, but would likely be defeated by him.

Clara tugged on his arm as if he had fallen asleep while standing up.

“Our horses, John,” she said. “Benny has our horses.”

He turned toward her as if he had just been jolted out of a deep slumber.

But he knew where he had been. He had been at Wolf's throat, ripping it out with his bare hands and cursing the man, damning him to an eternal hell where fires lapped at his flesh and consumed him for all eternity.

“Yeah,” he said. “I was just thinking.”

“About Wolf,” she said.

“Partly,” he replied, and saw Ferro bob his head and stamp the ground with his right hoof.

And there was Clara's bay mare, alongside his tall black horse, looking at her with wide brown eyes and nickering softly.

They saddled the horses as Benito watched.

“Did Wolf say where he was going?” Slocum asked Aguilar.

“No. He just asked for grain. I gave him two quarts.”

Slocum thought about that. A hatful for each horse, Wolf's and Hobart's. No more than a day's ride from town.

Slocum and Clara got grain from Benito and walked the horses outside the stables.

Slocum waved to Benito as he mounted Ferro, checked his rifle to see that it was securely seated in its scabbard.

“I've got jerky and hardtack in my saddlebags if you get hungry,” he said to Clara.

“Right now, I'm on fire inside,” she said. “I couldn't think about eating anything.”

“Just to let you know I won't let you starve, Clara.”

She laughed.

“Do you know where Wolf is going?” she asked. “Maybe up in the mountains where he can lie in wait and bushwhack us?”

“I don't think he's going to do that,” Slocum said.

“Where, then?”

“My guess is that he's headed for Pagosa Springs. So we ride east on the road and keep our eyes peeled in case he's waiting to jump anybody who's chasing him.”

“Good guess,” she said. “Wolf might want to hole up in a town. A small town like Pagosa Springs.”

“We won't hurry this,” Slocum said. “He and Hobart will run their horses until they're winded and then slow down. They'll watch their back trail. The more time we give him, the more sure of himself he'll get. He'll let his guard down some maybe, and won't be expecting me or a posse.”

“He's very good at outrunning posses,” she said.

“We'll see how good he is,” Slocum said.

They rode through the nearly empty spaces between houses and cabins and up the main street into the maw of a canyon that was as dark as pitch.

Every so often, Slocum halted his horse and held out an arm to stop Clara. Then he sat his horse and listened for any alien sound.

Clara grew more confident that Slocum knew what he was doing as she watched his behavior on the trail of Wolf and Hobart.

She felt safe with him, as she had never felt with Wolf or any of his men. And she was still glowing from the lovemaking that had renewed her vigor and rejuvenated her womanhood. Slocum had made her feel like a real person again, a dead flower that had suddenly sprung to life under the warming waters of love.

They rode up the dark canyon above and to the east of Durango. They heard the wolves howl from various locations, and when they stopped, they could hear deer and elk up in the timber, the hundreds of sounds from small animals foraging for food in the night. And they saw a silent owl float across the road, its wings spread wide and softly beating the dark air.

Somewhere, ahead of them, was the man they both hated.

The man they both wanted to kill.

Wolf Steiner.

A plague upon the earth, a monster, a murderer.

And both of them wanted him dead for different reasons.

Some forty minutes after Amy was shot and killed, Constable Abner Hellinger and his deputy, Elmer Craig, arrived at the saloon to view the body and question witnesses.

Someone had placed a blue bandanna over Amy's face—out of respect, or perhaps to hide the hideous sight from onlookers. Hellinger removed the bandanna and gazed at the corpse dressed in the colors of the Mexican flag. He shook his head.

“Pity,” he grunted. “Such a beautiful lady, taken from this life long before her time.”

“I didn't know her real well, but she was always nice,” Craig said.

“Well, Elmer, get some men and take her body over to Enrique's.”

Enrique Monsanto was the local undertaker and proprietor of Puerto de Cielo Funeral Parlor.

“Enrique's runnin' out of room over yonder,” Elmer said.

“Get two men from the saloon. I got to ask some questions. Shake a leg.”

Elmer left to go into the saloon. The constable replaced the bandanna over Amy's face and walked around the body as if looking for clues. There was nothing there to draw his attention. He walked into the saloon and leaned over the bar, twiching a finger at Joe to come and talk to him.

Joe walked to the end of the bar where Hellinger stood, wiping his hands with a bar towel. There was a steady hum of conversation in the large room as people spoke of the killing. The saloon girls were still dabbing at their faces as fresh tears flowed from their mascara-daubed eyes.

“Joe, what do you know about that gal gettin' shot?” Hellinger asked.

“All I know is that Wolf and Hobart come in here for drinks. Amy come over and chewed the fat with 'em for a minute or two. Next thing I see is Hobart walkin' out and then, maybe a minute later, Wolf, him, and Amy go outside together. Then I heard a shot, and next thing I know, Wolf and Hobart are ridin' up the street. When I got out there, Amy was ringed by a crowd and I saw that she was plumb dead. A sorry sight.”

“So you think what?”

“I think Wolf shot her dead, that's what.”

Joe set the towel in front of him on the bar. He had tears in his eyes.

“That all?” Hellinger asked.

“She was one fine woman, Abner. A damned shame. I hope Wolf rots in hell.”

“Any idea why he would shoot that woman? Kill her in cold blood like that?”

Joe shook his head. “I can't imagine why anyone would want to kill Amy. But I saw her talkin' to that feller who wears black earlier in the evenin'.”

“Slocum?”

“That's the feller. Maybe that had something to do with why Wolf killed Amy.”

“Umm. Maybe. Thanks, Joe.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Elmer take two men with him out the front door and onto the street. Two hard-rock miners who could easily tote a woman of Amy's size over to Enrique's. He tapped the bar and left Joe standing there. Joe wiped his eyes with a corner of the bar towel. Every person in the saloon watched the constable walk through the batwing doors and then the talk rose up again and filled the room with spoken words, speculative opinions.

When he got outside, Hellinger saw the two men lift Amy's body. One held her by the feet, the other by the shoulders. The one they called Geezer had removed the bandanna and it was hanging loose from one of his back pockets. The other man, holding her shoulders, he knew as Chunk. He did not know their real names.

He spoke to Craig, who was about to lead the men the two blocks to the funeral home.

“When you finish up at Enrique's, Elmer, come on by the office. We got some work to do.”

“Sure, thing, boss,” Elmer said.

Hellinger lit the lamp on his desk. He had piles of papers, including a notarized deposition from Lou Darvin, attesting to the facts surrounding the murder of Jasper Nichols. And he had gotten a statement from Stacey Clemson earlier that evening about the murder of Jasper's brother, Wilbur. While she hadn't actually killed Wilbur, she was certainly an accomplice. He also had warrants for Wolf, Hobart, and others of his gang, most of whom were now dead. One man he could arrest immediately, and for whom he had a warrant, was Bert Loomis.

But he also had a search warrant for Abel Fogarty, which Judge George Carroway had signed. Fogarty was a suspect in the forgeries of mining claims, all of which were transferred to one Wolfgang Steiner.

Stacey had been very helpful, and he thought she might get off any serious charges by becoming a witness against Wolf, Fogarty, and the whole rotten bunch.

These cases were the most Hellinger had ever handled, and while he felt a sense of pride that he had done his job well, he was also weary from the amount of evidence he'd gathered and had to present to the prosecuting attorney who would appear before Judge Carroway.

When Elmer walked into his office, Hellinger had all the papers he needed stuffed in his coat pocket. There were also a half-dozen pairs of handcuffs in the middle of his desk.

“What are them for?” Elmer asked.

“Criminals,” Hellinger said. “Grab as many as you can and stuff 'em in your pockets and I'll tote the rest.”

“Golly,” Elmer said and scooped up four pairs of handcuffs. “We're goin' to need a wagon. Maybe a Black Mariah.”

Hellinger chuckled.

“Ever hear of a chain gang, Elmer? We just march 'em back to jail in single file, guns at their backs.”

“I guess that would work—if we can catch 'em.”

The two set out for Wolf's cabin. That would be Hellinger's first stop and the next one could wait until morning, if necessary.

Bert Loomis saw them coming.

He did not know who it was at first. But he saw two men cross the street and head straight for him. He slid his chair away from the window so that he could lean over and look out. He grabbed the butt of his pistol.

When the men got close, he recognized Constable Hellinger.

“What the hell . . .” he mumbled to himself.

Then there was a knock on the door. Loomis rose to open it. He felt a stabbing pain in his leg as he limped to the door and unlatched it.

“Loomis?” Hellinger said.

“Yeah. Wolf's not here.”

“I didn't come to see Wolf. I know he left town. I've got a warrant for your arrest.”

Hellinger pushed the door open. He and Elmer came in. Loomis stepped aside.

“What for?” Loomis asked.

Hellinger reached over and pulled Loomis's pistol from its holster. He handed the gun to Elmer.

“Attempted murder.”

“I didn't attempt no murder,” Loomis said, his anger visible on his suddenly florid face.

“Jasper Nichols,” Hellinger said. “I have a witness. Hold out your hands.”

Loomis stiffened. He did not stick out his hands, but backed away from the constable and his deputy.

“You got it wrong, Constable. I was just there. I never even drawed my gun.”

“You were close enough. You're going to jail, Loomis. Now stick out your hands or I'll clobber you with the butt of my pistol.”

Reluctantly, Loomis put his arms out.

Hellinger took a pair of cuffs from his pocket and handed them to Craig.

Elmer put the handcuffs around Loomis's wrists and shut them tight. So tight that Loomis winced when they clicked shut.

“Out,” Hillinger said, and shoved Loomis into the doorway.

“This is all wrong,” Loomis said. “I ain't guilty of nothin'.”

“Shut up, Loomis,” Hellinger said and closed the door.

“What about Wolf? And Hobart? You goin' to arrest them, too?”

“That's none of your business. Now shut up once and for all, or I'll sure as hell give you a bloody lip.”

“Shit,” Loomis said.

Hellinger whacked him on the back and Loomis said no more.

The constable and his deputy marched their prisoner to the jail. There were only two cells. Both were empty. They put Loomis in one of them and locked the iron door with the heavy bars. He limped to a cot and sat down, holding his leg near the wound.

Craig held a lantern high to give them light.

“Can I talk now?” Loomis asked.

“If you got anything to say. You're not innocent, so don't give me no more of that guff.”

“I know a lot, Constable. About Wolf and his schemes. It was him what ordered us to kill that kid at the freight office. You make it light on me and I'll talk plenty about what's been goin' on.”

“I'm right sure you'd do that, Loomis,” Hellinger said. “Birds like you always sing when they're put in a cage. I ain't makin' no promise, but if you can give the prosecutin' attorney a rundown on your gang, he might go easy on you.”

“And I need a sawbones,” Loomis said. “That feller Slocum put a bullet through my leg.”

“Not tonight,” Hellinger said. “Maybe in the mornin'. You sleep tight, boy.”

“Don't I get nothin'? No water, no grub?”

“Nothin'. There's a chamber pot under your bunk and a wad of paper.”

Loomis mumbled a string of curses.

Hellinger and Craig walked back into the office, plunging the jail cell into darkness. They heard the creak of the old cot as Loomis lay down.

Craig closed the door.

“Well, that's that,” he said. “We goin' to arrest anybody else tonight?”

“No. In the morning, we'll go over to the claims office and pay Mr. Fogarty a visit. You get some sleep.”

“Enrique was pretty durned mad when we brought Amy in. Said he was plumb full and would have to hire another carpenter.”

“He'll get over it. City will pay him something for his troubles and he'll get a coroner's fee.”

“A lot of killin' lately,” Craig said.

He set the lantern down on a table near the desk, where a lamp still flickered.

“I'm counting on a couple more,” Hellinger said.

“Huh? Who?”

“Unless I miss my guess, I'd say Slocum is hot on Wolf's trail right now. I expect he won't come back empty-handed. He'll be leading two horses with dead bodies on them. Then Enrique will have plenty to holler about.”

“Jesus,” Craig said.

He left the office, shaking his head.

Hellinger sat at his desk and rubbed his chin, the short hairs of a stubble growing from his flesh.

Slocum, he thought. He did not know for sure if Slocum had chased after Wolf, but he would find out in the morning. There was something about that man that bothered him. Why was he at the center of all the recent murders and shootings? He had no stake in Durango. He had ridden in here only to deliver some horses, and yet he'd stayed to clean up the town. He was like some knight of old, and Hellinger would bet money that Slocum knew Amy Sullivan and somehow Wolf had put it all together and killed her because of Slocum. Otherwise, her murder didn't make sense.

Yes, he would bet that Slocum knew more about Amy's murder than anybody else did, including himself.

Where did a man like Slocum come from anyway? he wondered.

Maybe out of nowhere.

And back into nowhere once he had finished what Fate had called upon him to do.

Hellinger put out the lantern flame and blew out the lamp on his desk. He made his way to the door in darkness and let himself out. He locked the door and walked to his home a pair of blocks away, weary, but somehow elated.

Maybe, he thought, he should deputize Slocum and put him on permanent.

But in his heart he knew that a man like Slocum never put down roots. He was a drifter, and maybe, if he looked hard and long enough, a drifter with a price on his head.

It was, somehow, a comforting thought.

Slocum might be a wanted man who was now on the right side of the law.