Longarm 382, page 8
All day long Brady Slocum trudged through the red clay mud, and just before sunset he finally saw a lazy plume of smoke rising from a Navajo hogan. His feet were killing him and he knew that they were covered with blisters. Slocum’s belly rumbled from hunger and he was bone weary after the nearly twenty-mile hike. But here he was at last.
Slocum sat down on a rock with his back to the lowering sun and studied Ira’s home with great interest. The first thing he was looking for was Ira’s pinto pony and the horse that the federal marshal would have ridden in order to get here. With a smile on his lips, Slocum saw both animals penned in a flimsy pole corral that also held sheep and goats.
“Good!” Slocum hissed. “I’ll wait until after they’re all asleep and then I’ll give them the wake-up call of their damned lives.”
It was a hard wait. Slocum was so hungry he could have eaten an entire burro, and he was chilled the moment the sun set in the west. But he was a patient man and the prize was worth the pain, so he chewed on a stick, checked his guns and waited as darkness deepened over the vast and empty landscape. And all the time he waited, he saw only a few people come and go from the hogan; all of them went into the brush to probably take their evening shit.
Once, just faintly, he saw the outline of a big man, and Slocum would have bet his bottom dollar that it was the federal marshal. He raised his rifle and took aim but reluctantly lowered the weapon knowing that in the poor light the odds of killing Custis Long were not in his favor.
And also there was the half-breed, Ira. Brady Slocum knew that Ira was a man to be reckoned with, both among the Navajo and the whites. Ira was known to be a crack shot and an outstanding tracker.
Yes, Brady Slocum told himself, I could probably kill the federal marshal, but then Ira would have the advantage on me, knowing the land and having the support of his family to go against me.
So Slocum dropped his rifle across his cold and rain-soaked pants, bowed his weary head and waited for the moon to rise and light up the night. He did not have a pocket watch but he felt pretty confident that he could judge when it became midnight.
“I’ll have to kill them early tomorrow morning,” he said finally reaching a decision that he did not like. “Wait until they come outside and then shoot them down like a pair of dogs.”
Slocum slept fitfully that night, and in the morning he awoke feeling sick from the night’s bitter cold and the severe hardship of the previous day’s long walk. Slocum placed the back of his hand against his forehead and discovered that he was running a temperature. His body shook with chills and he cursed at his physical failings. The very last thing in the world he needed today was to become ill and therefore unable to ambush the marshal and the half-breed.
Only when Slocum looked closely did he realize that two horses were missing from the corral, proving that the men he sought to kill had saddled earlier and left. Brady Slocum glanced up at the sun and knew at once that it was mid-morning and that, because of his fever and exhaustion, he had overslept.
A boy left the hogan and went to the corral. He opened the pole corral and drove out the sheep and goats. The boy had a dog with him, and together they pushed the bleating sheep and goats out of the pen and herded them off toward some distant pasture.
Slocum watched the kid and his dog disappear over a hill and decided that he had no choice but to hike down to the hogan and get help. To his dismay, he found it difficult to climb to his feet and start moving. Every muscle in his body protested with pain and his feet were a mass of blisters. But no one saw him approach, and when he opened the hogan’s door flap and looked inside, he saw Ira’s family.
“What are you doing here!” Betty cried, jumping to her feet.
“I’m out for a little stroll,” Slocum replied with sarcasm. “And I got hungry and tired. I want food and I want it now.”
“I give you nothing!” Betty hissed, trying to position herself in front of her children. “Get out of my house!”
Slocum levered a shell into the rifle and pointed it at the oldest girl in the hogan. “You’ll feed and take care of me until I’m ready to leave or I’ll kill every damn one of you, starting with your oldest daughter.”
Betty looked into his eyes and saw that this man would do exactly as he threatened. They were the eyes of a hungry coyote capable of ripping out the throats of sheep or goats without hesitation or regret.
“Sit down and I will feed you mutton stew,” she said.
“Glad to hear that you’re going to be smart about this,” Slocum told her.
“But if you hurt or kill any of my children, then I will kill you,” Betty warned.
“Well, at least we have an understanding about the killing part,” he told her.
“And if you kill me before I can kill you,” Betty added, “then my husband will hunt you down and kill you slow.”
Brady Slocum felt weak with hunger and exhaustion. “Enough talk,” he snarled, nearly falling onto a blanket placed near the family’s small cooking fire.
“How long will you stay?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed. “Your husband and that federal marshal musta lit out of here not long after daybreak this morning. They’re headed for Monument Valley, ain’t they?”
Betty said nothing.
“All right,” Slocum said wearily. “We’ll be like a big happy family until I decide I’m strong enough to leave. Until then all you have to do is to obey my commands. Do that and none of you get hurt or killed. But, if you try to get clever, then I’ll kill every last one of you.”
Betty went outside for firewood. When her children started to follow, Slocum said, “Whoa up there, kids! You’re all staying put. I like to look at your happy faces.”
The Navajo children just stared at him. Slocum knew that they were afraid, but to their credit they did not exhibit fear.
“So how old are you?” he asked, pointing to the oldest girl.
She didn’t answer and he wondered if she even knew English or if she just detested him too much to speak.
“I am ten,” the oldest boy finally offered. “And I do not like you and neither does my mother and father.”
“Well!” Slocum said. “Ain’t that a crying damn shame! Sure makes me feel terrible. Do you know what I’m going to do?”
The boy shook his head.
“Well,” Slocum said, “as soon as I’m feeling a little better, I’m going to climb on one of your ugly damned ponies and ride north after the federal marshal and your father. And then do you know what I’m going to do?”
Again, the boy shook his head.
“Well, when I catch up with them . . . and sooner or later I will catch up with them . . . I’m going to kill them both.”
The boy blinked and his eyes filled with tears. Then he turned his gaze toward the door and the rectangle of clear blue sky.
All that day Betty and her children watched the former Holbrook lawman lie in their hogan. Sometimes he would nod off in sleep, but only for a few seconds, and when they would rise up to all run away, Slocum’s head would snap up and he’d curse them.
Finally, as darkness was falling, Betty stoked up the cooking fire and gave the white man another big bowl of mutton stew, only this time she added a few herbs that she knew would make him very tired . . . even more tired than he was now. And then he would fall into a deep and dreamless sleep. The herbs belonged to Ira for medicine, and she knew little about them except that they were powerful.
“Stew tastes a little different than it did earlier,” Slocum commented. “Whatever you added, it tastes even better. Give me another bowl.”
“All that is left in the pot is what I have for my children,” Betty told him.
“Fill my damned bowl and the hell with your brats!” Betty gave him the last of the stew. She watched him devour it all as her children sat hungry and afraid. She smiled at them often and hugged them close as darkness fell.
“Damned good stew,” Brady Slocum said, yawning repeatedly. “Don’t suppose you have any whiskey in this hellhole?”
Betty shook her head.
“Not even any coffee?”
“No. Nothing to drink but water.”
“It ain’t water that I need, woman!”
She said nothing, and soon his chin was dropping onto his chest. Once, he muttered, “Kill ’em both, by gawd,” and then he yawned one last time and fell asleep.
Betty stood up and motioned for her children to all go outside. When they looked at her with questioning eyes, she made a quick motion with one finger across her throat so that they understood that their mother was going to do next. They hurried outside, and when the flap was closed and only Betty and Slocum were inside, she found the knife that Ira used to bleed out sheep before they were butchered.
A lamb is innocent; this man is evil.
And then with one quick, hard and sure motion, Betty cut the former marshal of Holbrook’s throat from ear to ear.
Chapter 11
Longarm gazed in admiration at the incredible sandstone spires, arches and pinnacles that thrust hundreds of feet into the sky. One looked like the bow of a sailing ship, another like a huge bear surging up from Mother Earth. This was Monument Valley, so named because of its amazing red rock formations which towered high up against a cloudless sky. The land itself was harsh, arid and mostly rolling, crisscrossed with many dry arroyos and broken cliff faces. The bunch grasses in Monument Valley were short and tough; the sagebrush hunkered low to the ground because of the hard winds that regularly blew across this starkly beautiful country.
“I haven’t seen a hogan or sign of anyone out here for days,” Longarm told his friend.
“Too dry for raising cattle and horses. Sheep and goats can make it if the rains come.”
“Why would Fergus Horn want to establish a trading post way up in this country if there are so few people?”
“More people farther up north along big San Juan and other rivers,” Ira explained. “The whites who come down to this country want to stay hidden. Many people cross these valleys and make trade.”
“In wool and hides?” Longarm asked.
“Yes, but also in guns and slaves captured from Mexico and other tribes. Many stolen horses are brought to this country.”
“What about the rumor that Horn has found gold?” Ira shrugged. “May be true. I’ve never found gold or silver.”
“You ever prospect for any?”
Ira shook his head, and his face had a look of open contempt when he said, “Men are not meant to dig in ground like prairie dog or badger. Earth is not here for The People to dig holes in looking for white man’s treasure.”
“But you know what gold or silver is worth and what it can buy.”
“I know. I see men kill other men for gold and silver.”
“Do you know exactly where we can find Fergus Horn’s trading post?”
Ira pointed to the northeast. “Two more days’ ride. But it is a bad place.”
“You can always turn around once it’s in sight,” Longarm told the half-breed. “You have a big family and they need your help and protection.”
“Maybe I go back then, maybe I stay,” Ira told him. “Two more days’ ride and I will decide.”
Two days later they had ridden through Monument Valley and they came upon a wide and deep canyon through which a meandering stream flowed. There was grass on the riverbanks and they saw many horses, sheep and cattle grazing up and down the broad and winding canyon.
“Over there,” Ira said, pointing to a low rock structure sitting on a hump of red earth overlooking the north side of the red canyon. “That is Horn’s trading post.”
Longarm dismounted and tightened his cinch. He was a little sore from the long miles of riding but his wounds were healing and he felt strong. As he worked at tightening the cinch he studied the trading post, which was about a mile to the east.
“There are a lot of horses grazing along the riverbed. I see a herder or sentry up on the cliff and I wonder if that means that there are a lot of men staying at the trading post.”
“Horn has maybe five or ten men who ride with him when he goes to steal horses and women. Once, I saw them from a long ways off and stayed out of their sight.”
“Where were they headed?”
“To the San Juan River and up into Colorado. Maybe for more horses or women. Maybe to hunt for gold and silver.”
Longarm finished tightening his cinch and then he dropped his stirrup and mounted his horse. “Fergus Horn will probably recognize me the minute we meet,” he told his companion. “And when that happens he’ll immediately want to know what I’m doing at his trading post and if I’m still working as a United States marshal. If I tell him the truth, he’ll either try to kill me . . . or order me to leave at once.”
“Maybe he is not there now,” Ira said.
“Ira, can you go there and find out?”
The half-breed gave the matter some serious thought. “I will ride down into the canyon and come upon the herder. If he is Navajo, we will talk and he will tell me if Horn is here or not.”
“That sounds like a good idea, but I’m worried about the sentry up on that cliff.”
“You get closer to him and watch. If he raises his rifle to shoot me, shoot him first.”
Before Longarm could form a reply, Ira was kicking his pinto pony down a steep dirt path toward the canyon’s floor. Longarm watched him until he reached the bottom and then he put his own horse into a trot so that he could position himself up and behind the sentry.
Longarm dismounted behind some huge boulders and tied his horse to a piece of brush. He yanked his Winchester out of the saddle boot and hurried forward to where he could have a fair shot at the sentry, who was now standing up and watching Ira approach the herder.
Ira and the herder came together and Longarm could see that the herder was an Indian. The pair talked for quite some time while the sentry paced back and forth with agitation. Finally, Ira reined his pony around and waved at the sentry, then rode toward the trading post.
Because of the distance, Longarm could not hear what was said between Ira and the sentry, but after a few minutes the half-breed rode past the man and then on up to the rock-sided trading post. Ira dismounted and went inside, leaving Longarm to wonder what was going on.
Fifteen minutes later, Ira stepped out of the trading post and looked toward Longarm before making a gesture to indicate he should come on ahead.
“I wonder if that means that Fergus Horn is gone?” Longarm mused aloud. “Guess there’s only one way I’m gonna find out.”
He remounted his horse and rode around from behind the boulders. The sentry saw him and waved. Longarm waved back and trotted over to the trading post. He tied his horse beside the pinto at a long hitching rail and stepped up to Ira to whisper, “Is Horn here now?”
“No. He is gone with most of his men, but the herder does not know where he went or when he is to return.”
“How many men are inside right now?”
“Four women and four men,” Ira said. “The men are wearing guns and drinking whiskey. They said bad things to me when I went inside, but I closed my thoughts to them. I have been called those names many times.”
“Ira, you should get on that pinto pony and head back to your family now,” Longarm told the man. “I have a strong feeling that men are going to die here very soon.”
“Maybe you.”
“Maybe me,” Longarm admitted. “But against four drunken gunmen, I like my chances.”
“I will stand by this door and listen. If you need help, I will come inside with my rifle and help you kill those gunmen.”
“If the shooting starts, just make sure that you don’t kill me by mistake.”
For some strange reason, Ira thought that was funny and he laughed right out loud.
Longarm checked his six-gun and thought momentarily about taking the big, double-barreled shotgun inside, but he rejected the idea. His thinking was that he hoped to pass himself off as just another loner traveling through hard country looking for a drink, maybe a game of cards and a bit of friendly conversation.
Exiting from bright sunlight and going into a dimly lit interior room filled with gunmen was always a dicey proposition, and Longarm took a deep breath to compose himself before he stepped inside.
His appearance caused conversation to die and Longarm said, “Good afternoon, gents. Any whiskey in this place to be bought?”
“Yeah, there’s plenty of damned whiskey. But we’re real particular who drinks among us.”
“That speaks highly of your character,” Longarm said, eyes straining in the dim light. “I’ve come a long way and I’m plenty hungry and thirsty.”
“That half-breed that slunk in and out of here riding along with you?” one of the men drinking at the rough-cut bar asked.
“As a matter of fact, I only met him a few miles back and he just sort of tagged along with me.”
“You in the habit of keeping company with his kind?” another gun man demanded, setting his drink on the bar top and glaring hard at Longarm.
“I found his company acceptable. He doesn’t talk much but he’s part Navajo and I figured he might be useful.”
“He ain’t welcome in here.”
Longarm forced a smile. “Ira isn’t in here now. How about a drink of whiskey to wash the dust out of my throat? I’ll even buy you boys a round or two.”
The gunmen liked that idea well enough to relax. “Rosa! Get this stranger a bottle and pour us another round.”
A chair back in the corner scraped against the sandstone floor and a heavyset woman missing most of her teeth, who might have been Indian or perhaps Mexican, appeared. “Are you also hungry, senor?”
