Slocum and the Slanderer, page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Teaser chapter
JAILBREAK!
Slocum was just untying the fourth horse—and trying to get the reins untangled—when the jail’s door burst open.
There stood Mitch, free as a bird and fully armed, and the first thing out of his mouth was, “Aw, shit!”
He threw himself to the ground and pulled his gun as he went.
Slocum dove too, dropping the horses’ reins, and shouted, “Git!” He got himself stepped on by a poorly placed hoof, but all he felt at the moment was the pressure of it, and the annoyance, not the pain.
Mitch’s slug missed him by a mile.
Blindly, Slocum fired back two times from beneath the lip of the sidewalk, then rolled and came up on his knees, searching for a target.
Mitch has disappeared, he thought at first, and then he saw him, far too close for comfort. Fumbling, he was trying to untie his mount from the rail amidst the panicked and milling horses.
Slocum tried to stand up, and found that he couldn’t. The pain was too great. So he crawled up on the sidewalk, dragging one leg, and rolled to the front wall of the sheriff’s office.
“Mitch!” he shouted. “Don’t be a fool!”
The only answer was a revolver’s barrel, sticking over the neck of a horse, and a singing slug that hit the door frame.
Slocum aimed low between the horses’ moving legs. And when, for a fraction of a second, he had a clear shot, he fired . . .
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SLOCUM AND THE SLANDERER
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Jove edition / January 2005
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1
Toadstool, Arizona Territory Slocum, was sitting in Hoskin’s Powder Keg Saloon, minding his own business and sipping a well-deserved beer, when suddenly, he heard a voice call out from the dusty street.
“Slocum!” cried the voice. “I know you’re in there, Slocum! I saw you ride into town on that big Appy, and now I’m callin’ you out!”
Every head in the place turned toward him as he groaned in disgust.
Another one.
Another kid, by the sound of his voice. One more boy-child, probably not even shaving yet, looking to make himself a big fat reputation by gunning down Slocum—or any other handy celebrated man—dead in the streets.
Sighing, he pushed back from the table as the voice came again.
“What you waitin’ for, Slocum? You a yellow-bellied chicken?” This time, the voice cracked in the middle of “chicken.”
To the stares of the other patrons—some of whom were egging him on, if only with their looks, and some of whom looked tempted to shoot him in the back just to stop the street fight—he went to the swinging batwing doors and casually looked out.
He’d been right.
There, at the far end of the wide main street, stood a tall, skinny, wavering boy, his gun tied low on his hip, his fingers twitching nervously.
“Aw, shit,” Slocum muttered in disgust.
Tossing his quirlie to the plank floor, he ground it out with his heel. He turned back toward the patrons and growled, “Don’t you people ever get tired of this horseshit?” before he pushed open the doors and stepped from the stale whiskey shade of the bar and out into the blinding sunshine and fresh but dusty air.
The boy appeared a little startled that Slocum had actually come outside, but he stood his ground.
Slocum stopped at the edge of the walk and leaned against a post.
“What you want, boy?” he called.
“What do you think?” came the crackling reply. “You, Mr. Slocum!”
“Why’s that?”
This seemed to stump the kid for a minute. Finally he simply said, “You shot my Uncle George, that’s why!”
Slocum, still leaning against the overhang post, cocked his head. “Your Uncle George? George who?”
The kid practically stamped his foot in frustration. “You damn well know what his name was! You killed him!”
“Kid, I’ve killed a batch of awful bad men. Can’t expect me to recall every single one of ’em. Give me a little help here.”
“He wasn’t bad!” the boy shouted. “He was a good man. His name was Reilly, George Reilly, and you shot him in the back, you lily-livered sonofabitch!”
Now, “George Reilly” didn’t ring any bells with Slocum, and he told the kid so. “And I also don’t go round shootin’ fellers in the back,” he added.
“Liar!” shouted the boy. “Step out or I’ll shoot you where you stand!”
Fat chance, thought Slocum, but he stepped down into the street anyway.
However, he just kept on walking. Right toward the boy.
“Listen here, kid,” he said as he strolled with seeming nonchalance up the street, “I’m tellin’ you, I never heard of this George Reilly of yours. Never killed him, never shot him in the back. Never even had the pleasure of his acquaintance.”
“Stop!” the boy called out, his voice quaking. “S-stop right there!”
The kid was plenty scared and jittery, all right. Slocum could hear it in his voice, see it in his face, but just kept on walking. It was either a good way to stop a shooting, or a good way to get one started. He’d see which one it turned out to be.
“Kid,” Slocum said with a shake of his head as he drew closer by the second, “somebody’s fed you a bucket of hogwash. You wouldn’t
“I . . . I . . .”
Slocum took the last three steps in double time and grabbed the boy’s gun before the boy could draw it from the holster. The poor kid looked absolutely shocked. He also looked ready to die, as it he were expecting it.
Instead, Slocum sighed and emptied the boy’s gun of ammunition, then handed it back to him. The kid just stood there, dumbly looking at it.
“You got a name, boy?” Slocum asked in a softer tone.
“Abel,” the boy said, still staring at his empty gun, not believing. “Abel Reilly.”
“How old are you?”
“S-seventeen.”
“Old enough, I reckon,” Slocum said. Any kid who could be disarmed as easily as this one was no killer. Not cold-blooded anyhow. “Holster that gun, then c’mon with me up to the saloon, Abel Reilly. Tell me all your problems.”
Abel finally looked up from the empty pistol.
He was a nice-enough-looking kid, fair and blue-eyed and pleasant-featured. Slocum figured that once he got a few more years on him, he’d have to fight the ladies off with a stick.
Wide-eyed, Abel said, “You’re not gonna kill me? You want to t-talk to me?”
“If somebody’s goin’ round spreadin’ lies about me, I sure as hell want to know about it,” Slocum said, and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “C’mon, kid. I’ll buy you a beer.”
The kid acted like he wanted to believe Slocum, but he couldn’t completely bring himself to do it. And Slocum, aware of Abel’s indecision, just kept talking slowly, calmly.
And, he hoped, convincingly.
He kept a hand near his gun too. No telling if the kid had a knife or a hideout gun someplace, no telling when he might get mad enough to really do something. Boys this age had tried to gun him down before, although they usually weren’t so polite as to call him out into the street to do it.
Usually, the little sonsofbitches just waited until his back was turned.
Slocum doubted that would be the case, but then, a man couldn’t be too careful.
Thinking over what Abel had just told him, he leaned back in his chair. “What’d this feller look like?” he asked. “Was he a stranger? Somebody you knew? The one who told you about your uncle gettin’ shot up in Flag, I mean.”
“No, not a stranger,” the boy responded, and nearly spat when he said it. “Not hardly. Furling. Max Furling. Our foreman.”
“Don’t sound like you’re awful fond of this Max feller,” Slocum said carefully.
“You wouldn’t be terribly fond of him either if he told you in one breath that your uncle had been murdered, and in the second breath told you to take leave of your ranch because it was all his now—every cow, calf, horse, and hand on the place.”
Slocum scowled. “You wanna run that past me again, Abel?”
“They went up to Flagstaff on business,” Abel said again, although more slowly this time. “Max Furling and Uncle George.”
“And this Furling was your uncle’s foreman for how long?” Slocum asked.
“ ’Bout two years,” Abel said with a curt not. “Uncle George trusted him, really trusted him. I trusted him. . . .”
Slocum waited a moment for the boy to gather himself. He looked like he was on the verge of bursting into tears. Slocum was reminded again how hard it was to be on the cutting edge of being grown up, all your juices working full-time, and still be part kid.
He felt for Abel. It was a hard time of life for any man-child, harder when you had to deal with losing a man you looked up to as a father.
Especially when you lost your only home along with him.
“When does Furling claim I gunned down your uncle?” Slocum asked gently.
“Tuesday last,” came the reply. Abel hadn’t touched his beer yet, and Slocum gestured toward it. Abel finally took a drink, made a face, and set the mug back down.
“Maybe you’re a whiskey man,” Slocum muttered, gently teasing. He thought the mood needed a little lightening up.
But Abel was oblivious. He went on. “Furling came riding back a couple days ago. He said you shot Uncle George in the back and rode out of town without a backward glance. He said you even whistled while you did it.”
Slocum looked at him curiously, and Abel explained. “While you rode out of town. Not while you did the shooting.”
Slocum nodded. “Glad to hear I’m not all that callous.”
“He also said that Uncle George had left everything to him,” the boy continued. “He had a paper.”
“Signature match?”
Abel shrugged. “Uncle George, he couldn’t write. It was just an X. But it looked like Uncle George’s X. And I didn’t have any reason to think that Max Furling would try to cheat me. He was sort of nice about it. Gave me twenty-four hours to clear out my stuff, and let me take my pony.”
Abel looked down at his hands for a moment, then added, “Hell, I didn’t even get mad at him till later, after I rode off the ranch and had a chance to think about it. Guess I was kind of in shock there at the beginning. I mean, who wouldn’t be?”
“Sounds like a real swell feller, all right,” Slocum said sarcastically.
“Far as that goes,” Able said, suddenly sitting up straight and eye him, “I don’t have no proof you didn’t shoot Uncle George. Am I just supposed to take your word for it?”
Slocum slouched in his chair and twirled his beer mug thoughtfully. “No, I don’t suppose you are. But if you want, you can send a wire to the New Mexico territorial governor. Seems to me I was sittin’ in his office on Tuesday last.”
Abel screwed up his face.
“A little matter of bringing some folks to justice, and then the powers that be not wantin’ to pay me for it. I set it straight, and the governor himself paid me the bounties.” Slocum took a drink of his beer. “Sometimes, you just got to go to the top if you want to get anything done.”
“Oh,” Abel said, and had the sense to look a little embarrassed. “Sorry.” His expression changed to one of rather trembling defiance. “But I’m gonna wire him anyhow.”
“Be my guest.” Slocum nodded toward the boy’s barely touched beer mug. “You want to trade that beer in on a sarsaparilla?”
Abel frowned. “Hell, no!” he said, a little too intently, and picked up the glass again. He took a big gulp, then another, draining the mug halfway, then set it down again.
This time, the expression on his face was a little less disdainful.
“You’ll get used to it,” Slocum said.
Abel set his mouth in a straight line. “I’ve drunk beer plenty of times before.”
“Sure you have,” Slocum said. “First things first. What’s this Furling look like?”
Abel shrugged. “Just a fella. Average, I guess.”
“That’s a big help,” Slocum said with a snort. “Tall, short, skinny, fat, blond, dark . . . what?”
Abel made a little face, but replied, “I reckon he’s a little shorter than you. Not fat, not skinny, just in the middle. Dark hair, but more brown than black. Got a mustache. That help?”
Actually, it didn’t help whatsoever. Slocum shook his head, then changed the subject. “Where you stayin’, Abel?” he asked.
“Over to the Rooty Toot.”
It was Slocum’s turn to screw up his face. “The Rooty Toot?”
“Whorehouse across the tracks,” Abel said. “Miss Melinda—she was a good friend to my Uncle George—said I could stay there till I figured out what I was gonna do. They been real good to me.”
And then Abel blushed, from his toes right up to his eyebrows.
Slocum held back a chuckle. It looked like those ladies had been taking good care of Abel in more ways that one, all right.
And he guessed he’d been right about Abel beating off the ladies with a stick. It had just started a little earlier than he’d expected, that was all.
