Slocum and the Thunderbird (4 page)

Only when she relaxed and leaned back, supporting herself on her elbows, did he examine her ankle as best he could in the dim moonlight. The high-topped shoe had protected her from serious injury. No bones seemed broken. He grunted as he slid down farther. His face pressed into her lap. Again he looked up to see if she objected. If anything, she had finally found something to enjoy.

“Sorry,” he said, not meaning it.

He burrowed down another few inches. He got his fingers under the arch in her shoe, then straightened his back and pulled. The foot didn't budge at first. He applied more pressure, keeping it steady rather than jerking. Leather finally scraped against rock again, but this time her foot moved in the right direction. She popped free and lay flat on her back. In a very unladylike move, she brought up her once-trapped leg and let the skirt fall away, exposing herself all the way to the thigh.

“I don't think I'm injured. Do you see any cuts?”

Slocum worked back to sit beside her. He watched as she turned her leg this way and that so he could examine her in the moonlight.

“You look to be in mighty fine shape, ma'am.”

“You're not from Wilson's Creek?”

“Don't know the place.”

“I'm Alicia Watson.”

“John Slocum,” he said, touching the brim of his hat. “If I might be so bold—”

“Why, you are certainly that, the way you touched my leg and continue to stare at my uncovered flesh,” she said coyly.

“Who are you running from?”

This dampened her good humor. Tears welled again in her eyes. She brushed at them and turned her face away.

“If I told you, it would mean nothing but trouble. Please, help me get away.”

“But not back along the trail you just followed?”

“No!” She jerked around. The panic on her lovely face convinced him she was not acting. No one feigned such fear.

“You might consider another road,” Slocum said. “Fact is, you might be jumping from the frying pan into the fire if you ride with us.”

“Us?”

Slocum whirled about, hand going to his six-shooter. The keeper loop prevented him from drawing. He was glad because he might have thrown down on Rawhide Rawlins and killed the man.

“Why'd you follow me?” Slocum demanded.

“We heard more noises. Spooked Dupree.” Rawlins moved closer. “Truth be told, swappin' Lee fer this pretty lady would be quite an improvement. Howdy, ma'am.” Rawlins took off his hat and held it in front of him.

“Your partner?” Alicia asked.

He ignored her.

“What noises?” Slocum asked.

“Like before. Or Dupree thought they was like . . . what he thought he saw. Heard.”

Slocum got to his feet and started back toward their camp. Alicia let out a tiny bleat. He looked over his shoulder and saw her holding out her hand to be helped to her feet.

“My ankle throbs like an old achy tooth,” she said. “I don't want to slow you down none.”

“I'll be pleased to help, ma'am,” Rawlins said. He pulled her to her feet and caught her as she stumbled.

Slocum wasn't inclined to believe she had twisted the ankle enough to warrant such hobbling, but Rawlins was willing to put his arm around her to help her along.

“You left Dupree alone?”

“Hell, Slocum, ain't nobody else out here, is there?” Rawhide turned and said, “Sorry about the language, ma'am. Tend to get a bit salty when there's nuthin' to do but cuss out your partners and an ole herd of cattle.”

Slocum raced along the trail, making better time now that the moonlight shone down on the ground in front of him and he wasn't worried about stumbling across the woman. What did worry him was Dupree and the loot. They had ridden together for six months, and he had no reason to think Dupree would double-cross him and Rawlins, but their world had been turned upside-down all in a single day. It might be enough to convince Dupree he was invincible and deserving of the money from the bank.

The fire had died to embers. Slocum approached with his six-gun ready for action.

“Dupree? Where are you?” No answer. “Lee?”

Slocum cocked his head to one side and heard distant sounds coming from the large canyon branching off to the right of their campsite. He tried to put a name to what he heard. He couldn't. The sounds were muffled and indistinct.

Rawhide and Alicia approached the camp from behind him. He reached down and grabbed the burlap sack filled with greenbacks from the bank. He expected to find it empty. To his surprise, it was plump with stolen money. Dupree hadn't made off with it. He quickly dropped it when Rawlins got closer.

“Where's Dupree?” Rawhide asked.

“Is he your other partner?” Alicia walked without need of a strong shoulder to lean on now.

They all fell silent when a heart-stopping cry of utter fear and pain cut through the night. The stark agony echoed from the canyon walls, then faded away slowly until only silence reigned.

Slocum looked at Rawlins and Alicia. Their faces reflected the horror he felt deep in his gut. They had just heard a man die.

“Oh, no,” Alicia Watson said in a choked voice. Her hand went to her mouth as she turned away.

“Think that was Dupree doin' all the screamin'?” Rawlins asked.

“Stay here. I'll find out,” Slocum said.

He saw no reason to answer Rawlins, not in front of the woman, because he thought his partner was right. No man made a sound like that and lived. And he would bet his share of the money from the robbery that it had been Lee Dupree doing the screaming.

He left camp, dropped to one knee, and scanned the ground for a trail. Why Dupree had left camp at all was a poser, but the tracks showed he had—and had been alone. Slocum considered the possibility that Marshal Hillstrom had snuck up and captured the man, but the death cry was beyond his ken to explain. From all he had heard about the Halliday lawman, he wasn't the kind to drag a prisoner out and then gut him with a hunting knife, just for the hell of it.

Dupree had definitely left camp on his own. Slocum studied either side of the boot prints to see if someone with a rifle might have stood off and forced Dupree to walk along. The ground was devoid of tracks other than from small critters and possibly a bear. Those tracks were old, though.

Dupree might have gone after the bear and tangled with ten-inch-long claws. From the length of his stride, Dupree had hurried along when he left camp. Why the rush? Slocum had to find out. He advanced slowly, keeping the tracks in view until he reached a rocky stretch where he lost the trail.

Kneeling, he looked over the rocks and saw a dark crevice between towering, wind-carved knobby spires that had to be Dupree's destination. Nowhere else afforded a likely trail. Slocum walked slowly to the crevice, turned sideways, and pushed through to find himself at the edge of a large sandy pit. In spite of himself, he caught his breath at the sight of the body.

Dupree had been ripped to bloody shreds.

Slocum tried to find the cause but couldn't. The only tracks in the sand were Dupree's. He edged closer, heart hammering. He tried to catch any sound but even the wind had died down. When he reached Dupree, he rolled the man over. His chest and face were untouched. Deep claw marks on his back showed he had been attacked as he looked away.

He hadn't even tried to run from the look of the tracks. Something had swooped down, raked savagely across his back, and caused the man to cry out in pain and death, then had vanished. Or flown away. Slocum found small traces of claw marks showing where a bird had hopped about in the sandy pit but the size made him wonder if he was mistaken. The claw marks digging into the ground were large enough for a bear.

But there weren't any tracks into the area.

“Something mighty strong and big got you, old partner,” Slocum said. He backed away. Burying Dupree would take some effort since he didn't have a shovel. Even if the sand proved as soft down lower as it was on the surface, he couldn't dig fast.

Once he reached the rocky border of the tiny arena, he circled. He found scratches on one rock that would have been behind Dupree as he was attacked. Alongside the grooves dark drops of blood were already dried. Slocum tried to reconstruct the attack. All he could think was a big bird had crouched on this rock, waiting for its prey. A flap of wings, a snap of the beak, and claws flashing. Dupree had died without even seeing his attacker.

Whatever had killed the man had long since left. Slocum settled his pistol in his holster and hunted for a stick to begin digging the grave. He had barely started when gunfire echoed up the canyon.

“Son of a bitch,” he cursed, dropping the digging tool and drawing his six-shooter.

More shots followed. He identified at least three different guns. One might have been from Rawlins's rifle, but he couldn't be sure. He ran back along the trail, stumbling in places because the moon had finally dipped behind the mountain peaks. By the time Slocum reached the campsite, the sounds of a gunfight had died down.

The first thing he saw was that their horses were gone. He cursed some more when a quick search failed to turn up the money from the bank robbery. As he rummaged about, he found spent brass from two different rifles. At least Rawlins had put up some fight.

He used his full skills to see that one horse from the camp had gone farther into the canyon where he had found Alicia Watson. A half-dozen riders had come from that direction, then retreated. His best guess was that riders from Wilson's Creek had come after Alicia, had found her, fought with Rawhide, then taken the girl back to town off to the west.

“So what happened to you, Rawhide?”

Slocum saw that another horse had retraced their route, heading eastward. That would take the rider into the arms of the posse—or maybe not. These had to be Rawhide Rawlins's tracks as he rode off to get away from the men who had taken Alicia. A few shots, a hasty mount, and then Rawlins had ridden away.

With the loot.

A neigh followed by the sound of a hoof scraping across rock drew Slocum's attention. He homed in, made his way through the thorny vegetation, and found his horse nervously awaiting him. Slocum closed the distance slowly, knowing better than to spook the already anxious horse. He caught up the bridle and patted the horse's neck before leading it back to camp.

He swung his saddle over the horse's back, then cinched the leather straps. The horse was tuckered out from riding all day, but it had gotten a couple hours of rest. Slocum had been unable to get any sleep, and now he had to catch up with Rawlins if he wanted his share of the money.

Leaving Alicia Watson to her fate in Wilson's Creek bothered him for only a short while. Whatever she ran from, she could run from again. Lee Dupree had lost that chance. Rawhide Rawlins was heading back into the posse's guns and might be in worse shape if the Sioux caught him. As much as anything, Slocum wanted to ask if Rawlins had taken the money and ridden away because he thought all his partners were dead.

Slocum was a good judge of character and doubted Rawhide had double-crossed him. He still wanted his share of the money. And he wanted to verify his judgment when it came to Rawlins.

After a quick glance over his shoulder in the direction Alicia and her captors had taken, Slocum put his heels to his horse's flanks and headed back toward Halliday.

Slocum awoke with a start when his horse stumbled. He shook himself and slowly realized he had been asleep in the saddle for some time. The sun was poking a red edge over the distant horizon. The mountains behind him took on a red-and-orange glow as he sat straighter and fought to get his bearings.

Somehow, asleep as he had been, he had managed to follow Rawlins's trail. Plainly visible on the hard ground was a single set of hoofprints going straight for a deserted town not a mile away. Slocum squinted a mite as he scouted for Rawlins. The condition of the buildings told him the town had been deserted a year or more. The harsh winter and hot summer had taken their toll. From the nearness to the hills behind him, this town had likely supplied gold prospectors what they needed to search for the elusive metal. If any mines had been started nearby, they must have petered out and the townspeople had moved on to greener pastures.

Slocum remembered Alicia saying Wilson's Creek was deeper in the rugged territory. The proprietors and barkeeps and whores from this town could have drifted on to Wilson's Creek.

He had no idea what this town was nor did he know diddly-shit about Wilson's Creek. It didn't matter to him since all he wanted was his share of the loot—now half. If Rawhide wanted, they could ride north toward Canada and split later to avoid the posse, but with what he had been through, Slocum wasn't inclined to want a partner riding at his side much of the way.

A shudder passed through him as he remembered how Dupree had been ripped apart. That had been bad, but the lack of tracks around him was downright scary. Involuntarily, Slocum looked up into the clear blue Dakota sky. Not even a buzzard circled above this early.

As he rode closer to the ghost town, he heard a horse protesting. Then he realized the sounds came from at least two horses. That turned him cautious. Rawhide might have fallen into a trap laid by Marshal Hillstrom. For all he knew, it was the only town in this part of the countryside where a man on the run might seek shelter.

When he heard a muffled cry, he cut away from a direct approach and circled, intending to get a better idea of what he was getting himself into. He had ridden in from the west. Following the contours of the land, partly hiding himself from observation if anyone lay in wait along the main street, he came at the town from the north. Finding a dilapidated livery stable, he put his horse in. Some dried oats remained in an old nosebag, almost falling apart. Slocum knocked this out into a trough and let the horse eat. The gelding would have to go without water until Slocum found out what trouble Rawhide had gotten himself into.

Fitful wind blew through the walls of an abandoned general store, where he slipped in to hide as he took a better look down the main street. The wind carried fine dust with it, making his eyes water. His were the first footprints in the dust on the floor in a long time. That made him more confident that a few townspeople had not stuck around. Anyone else in town, like him and Rawhide, would be passing through and not likely to know the best spots for an ambush.

He peered through the broken windowpane. The wind picked up and carried sound away from him, if he had located the source properly. Twenty yards down the street, a two-story hotel tried to collapse in on itself. The exterior had been built of brick, reflecting the scarcity of lumber out here. What wood had been found ended up shoring mines or being burned to stay warm during the long winters. Leaving his safety in the store, he edged down to the hotel.

The front door creaked open as he shoved against it with his shoulder. He almost tumbled in when it gave way suddenly. Catching himself, he dropped to one knee and swung his six-gun around to cover the hotel's lobby. Another shriek came from a hotel room. Slocum ground his teeth together in frustration.

That was a woman crying out. He might have followed Alicia rather than Rawhide Rawlins and the loot from the robbery. A quick retreat might be smarter than barging in without knowing what he faced. The thought of finding an entire posse scattered throughout the hotel made him wary.

He got to his feet and dashed between the hotel and a saloon next door. Behind the tumbledown buildings, he found two horses tethered and eyeing each other suspiciously. One was Rawhide's horse. He had never seen the other before.

New cries from inside the hotel drew him back. He passed the strange horse, avoiding a nasty kick from the rear hooves, then went to the hotel's back entrance. Someone had torn the door from its hinges recently. The wood where the metal hinge had been hadn't weathered yet.

“No, stop, don't!”

He edged down the narrow hallway, passing a room all torn up from a recent fight. Slocum moved quicker now. The outer door stood open where he had broken in earlier. At the side of the lobby an overturned settee without one leg showed the hotel owner had no interest in taking all the furniture when he had left. He might have just walked away when the town had died.

“You got real purty intimate parts, girlie.”

Slocum spun around in the lobby, then saw narrow stairs going up to what had been the second floor. Three quick steps up brought him to a room lacking an outer wall. The door had been removed, giving him a clear view of everything happening in the room. A cowboy held both of Alicia's wrists in one dirty hand while his other had moved up under her skirts to probe between her thighs. His body pinned her down on the slanting floor.

She fought but he was too strong.

“You don't have to git all wet fer me. I don't care long as you spread them legs wide enough.”

“No, no!”

“If you don't, I'll have to rough you up a bit and then do it anyway. I'm kinda hopin' you won't give it up easy like. It's fun whalin' away on whores like you.”

Slocum moved into the room. He misjudged the way the floor sloped outward due to the lower story collapsing. He grunted as he fought to keep his balance. The cowboy heard the ruckus, released Alicia, and went for his six-gun. His hand hardly touched the butt when Slocum swung with all his might. The barrel of his Colt Navy collided with the man's temple, sending him staggering. Slocum knew right away it hadn't been a solid hit. He hadn't felt bone break.

The cowboy rolled over to hands and knees and shook his head to clear it.

“You bought yerself a passel o' trouble. I'm a deputy.”

The man foolishly tried to drag out his six-shooter. Slocum cocked and fired before the deputy got his hand halfway to his holster. He jerked and fell onto his face. He twitched about like a fish tossed up on a riverbank.

Slocum looked at a horrified Alicia Watson. The woman's blouse had been torn and her skirt was partly ripped off where the man had groped her.

“Look out!”

Slocum fired a second time. This round hit the deputy in the side of the head, just above the spot where Slocum had laid his pistol barrel.

“No question about him being dead this time,” Slocum said.

“You killed him,” Alicia said in a small voice.

“That shouldn't bother you none,” Slocum said, “not after what he was fixing to do.”

“
I
wanted to kill him,” she said, anger in her voice. “I need the practice if I'm going to kill—”

“Hush!”

Slocum clamped his hand over her mouth and shoved her back so he could see past her out the broken wall. She struggled but he had the advantage of strength and leverage as he pushed her across the cot. She sat heavily. The canvas tore and she ended up with her knees up by her ears and fighting to get free.

“You're as bad as—”

“Shut up! Close your mouth and open your ears.”

“I—” Alicia glared at him as she flopped onto her side and pulled herself free of the rotted cot.