Slocum and the Warm Reception

Welcome Wagon

“So let me guess,” Slocum said in a tired voice. “You want me to leave?”

“Oh, you'll be leaving all right. Feet first.”

Both men stood side by side. They spread out and began stalking forward with cruel intentions written across their ugly faces.

“What's the meaning of this?” Slocum asked. “You gonna tell me what this is about?”

“You're John Slocum?”

“That's right.”

“Then you should know damn well what this is about.”

“How about you enlighten me?” When neither of the men responded, Slocum squared his shoulders to them and placed his hand less than two inches above his holstered .44. “If you want to steam ahead without explaining yourselves, that's fine by me. I can ask my questions to whoever shows up at your funeral.”

That stopped both men dead in their tracks. They were well within the serviceable range of their shotguns, but didn't seem as keen to use them as they'd been only moments ago. The one who had been called Matt looked to the one wearing the bowler as he became increasingly uncomfortable in his own skin.

“I heard about him, Luke,” Matt said. “If this is John Slocum . . .”

“If this is John Slocum, then we're about to become rich. Both of us. Now shut up and do like we planned.”

“If you planned on dying,” Slocum warned, “you're both going about it the right way.”

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SLOCUM AND THE WARM RECEPTION

A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2013 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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PUBLISHING HISTORY

Jove mass-market edition / August 2013

Cover illustration by Sergio Giovine.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product
of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for
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The Smoke Creek Desert wasn't much more than a twenty-mile stretch of misery situated just over a day's ride north of Reno. John Slocum had left Reno with plenty of supplies, a full belly, and a fat pouch of gold and silver tucked deep into his saddlebag. Sure, most of that gold and silver was dust or chunks smaller than a child's fingernail, but it all added up just the same. Reno had been a good stop for Slocum in many respects. Even though he'd lost a bit at the card tables, the games were pleasant enough due to some fine company who always kept the whiskey flowing. The job that had brought him to Reno had led to a string of more work, all of which added up to the aforementioned pouch hidden at the bottom of his saddlebag.

Yes indeed, Slocum thought as he tapped his heels against the sides of his spirited gelding, coming to Reno had been the best choice he'd made in a while. His timing in leaving Reno, on the other hand, couldn't have been worse.

He was on a patch of trail with a whole lot of nothing on either side when he caught sight of two Indians on a high ridge to the west. Their silhouettes weren't very distinctive, but the way they sat atop their horses and kept pace with him without stirring so much as a bit of dust in their wake told him plenty. Slocum may not have noticed them at all if he hadn't gotten a peculiar feeling raking along the back of his neck like a set of ghostly fingertips. When he turned around, Slocum swatted at his neck in case an insect had landed there. Instead, that little itch was caused by whatever sense a man had that let him know when steely eyes had been watching him for a bit too long from the other side of a saloon or if a bobcat was skulking along the tree limb just above his head. Slocum didn't know what caused such a sense, but that itch had saved his life more times than he could count.

When he twisted around again, he could only find a single rider on the top of that ridge. A second later, that rider ducked low over his horse's neck and disappeared with a few quick snaps of his reins. “Damn,” Slocum grunted under his breath as his hand went reflexively for the .44-caliber Smith & Wesson at his hip. Instead of drawing the pistol, he reached for the boot on his saddle to pat the Sharps rifle kept there. For the time being, it was enough to know the guns were there. He thought back to when he'd made preparations for his ride and recalled that he had, indeed, loaded the rifle. Although he didn't see the elusive rider, every instinct in his body told him that they had been Indians. Perhaps Slocum knew as much due to years of dealing with all sorts of men. One thing he'd gathered after dealing with gunmen of all shapes, sizes, and colors was that it took someone intimately familiar with their terrain to sneak up on John Slocum, and nobody was more familiar with their home soil than an Indian.

Slocum wasn't fearful when he flicked his reins to urge the gelding into a faster trot. Whether his instincts were right or not, he was only passing through those parts on his way to the next town. This wasn't his first time crossing the Smoke Creek Desert. He'd spent a considerable amount of time in a town called Mescaline situated along its northern border and was crossing the dusty expanse now to trade his gold and silver to a fellow he knew there. He also knew there were a few settlements along the way, so Slocum set his sights to the north and hoped whoever was watching him would lose interest.

A few hours later, he spotted another silhouette.

This one sat tall and proud upon his horse's back, studying Slocum from on high as if he were watching an ant scurry from one mound of dirt to another. Not only did Slocum trust his instincts from before, but he added one more word to his assessment. Instead of Indian, it was now Indian brave. That was a very important distinction, and when a man saw a brave for the first time, there was no mistaking another one for as long as he lived. Of course, the trickiest part was to live for more than a minute or two after seeing what a brave was capable of doing.

Of one thing, Slocum was certain: Braves often hunted in packs. As he rode faster down the trail, he cast his eyes back and forth along the horizon. Every so often, he took a quick glance over one shoulder and then the other. Even when he pulled back on the reins and situated himself as if he was easy in the saddle, Slocum was still wary. The easygoing mannerism was to let anyone else know that he wasn't afraid. Like any other predator, men tended to become bolder when their prey showed weakness. Soon, he saw there was more than one predator watching him.

The first figure he picked out was easy enough to see, since it was still sitting bolt-straight and perched upon the highest ground in the vicinity. Slocum looked around for more, and while the other two weren't as easy to spot, he found them creeping up on him from both sides of the trail like a set of pincers tightening around unsuspecting meat.

“You men can stop right where you are!” Slocum announced. “I know you're there and I'll shoot if you get any closer.”

Both men approaching the trail did so like overgrown snakes. They crawled on their bellies within the scrub bushes, their legs stretched out behind them and wrapped in skins, which allowed them to blend in with the desert floor. The exposed skin of their bare backs was raw after being scratched and scraped by dry branches and exposed rocks. Even though he'd spotted them, Slocum was unable to tell where the would-be ambushers were looking. He assumed they glanced upward for a signal from their leader.

“These are not your lands, white man,” the brave on horseback said from his lofty perch.

“Never claimed they were,” Slocum replied. “I'm just passing through.”

“So say all the other white men before they bring wagons of guns and fill our nights with fire.”

“You've been watching me long enough to know that I've done nothing but ride since I left Reno. I got no wagon,” Slocum said as he sat up straight and raised both hands high above his head. “I'm no soldier.”

“You have guns,” the brave said. “All white men carry guns.”

Slocum slowly lowered his hands and turned his horse around to face the ridge where the brave was watching. He could feel tension ripple through the air like the forerunner of a thunderstorm as the snakes in the bushes on either side of the trial coiled in preparation to strike. “You gonna tell me you're not armed?” Slocum asked.

The brave had no response to that.

“Tell you what,” Slocum said. “I'm headed north and don't intend on stopping unless I need to sleep or get a drink. This trail is worn well enough to mean I ain't the first man to travel it. Folks have been coming through here for a long time. Even I came through these parts some time ago and not one feather in any of the tribes was ruffled.”

Like a cold, rasping wind blowing in from the top of an ice-capped mountain, the brave said, “That was before.”

“Before what?”

“Before I claimed this road for my own. I warned your lawmen not to come here any longer and it seems they still need proof that I am not to be taken lightly.”

“Who the hell are you?” Slocum asked.

That got a reaction from the brave. In fact, Slocum's question, spoken in such a flippant manner, caused the brave to glower down at him and shout, “I am the wrath of my people! I am the voice of these lands! Since an example needs to be made, I will use your blood to make it!”

That was all Slocum needed to hear. Plenty of men went on about their causes or whatever may have riled them up enough to take action, but it always boiled down to one thing: Was that man a killer? Slocum wasn't able to see the brave's eyes, which would have helped in that regard. He was a good judge of when a man was blowing smoke or not and this one was too angry to be making any sort of bluff. From that point on, he didn't care what example the brave wanted to set or what injustices had been done to him. All he wanted was to put the raving Indian behind him, and if that could be done without bloodshed, all the better.

In one quick string of motions, Slocum brought his horse around to its original course and snapped his reins. The gelding responded perfectly and launched into motion amid the clatter of hooves against sun-baked ground. The Indians on either side of the trail let out war cries as they leapt up from the scrub with knives in hand. One of them nicked Slocum's boot but didn't dig in deep enough to draw any blood. Another must have caught the horse because the gelding lurched to one side and whinnied in surprise.

Anger more than anything else caused Slocum to draw his .44 and twist around to the side opposite of where his boot had been nicked. Another Indian was there, plain as day, in Slocum's line of sight. His hair was cut close to the scalp on both sides of his head, leaving only a narrow strip plastered to his head like a filthy mane. The Indian's eyes glinted beneath several layers of mud caked onto his face to form a mask. When he saw the gun in Slocum's hand, the Indian showed no fear or hesitation before opening his mouth wide to howl crazily up at him.