Slocum #304: Slocum and the Lady Reporter

“I reckon I kin put him on ice, Slocum,” Marshal Williams said, looking uneasy at the prospect of having Zeke O’Malley in his lockup. “There’s a lot changin’ in town.”

“I noticed,” Slocum said, a bitter taste in his mouth. He stared straight at the marshal, who wilted a mite under the sarcasm.

“You don’t know what it’s like, Slocum,” Williams said, almost pleading. “My old man was a federal marshal and my brothers, both of them, damn their eyes, are lawmen, too. I got to be one or I look like the black sheep in the family.”

“Act like a marshal in Nirvana,” Slocum said. “You know what O’Malley did to us. If you can’t prove it, then find someone who can testify against him. You can’t do this in a boomtown, you won’t be much good on a federal marshal’s circuit.”

“Keep O’Malley in jail, and I’ll find out who’s got the balls to stand up in court against him.” Slocum left the marshal’s office, furious at the man and even madder at himself. He should have plugged O’Malley when he had the chance and left the body for the coyotes. Or even dragged the body into the mine and used the dynamite to bring down half the mountain to give the man a fitting grave.

O’Malley had tried to bury Slocum and the marshal. He didn’t deserve any better. As Slocum fumed, he knew Zeke O’Malley deserved a lot worse.

A boisterous crowd at the Millionaire Miner Drinking Emporium boiled out into the street. The aftermath of the election hadn’t seen any less drinking or partying. If anything, the celebrations J. Henry Jones threw in every saloon were even wilder to thank those he had convinced to vote for him. Slocum wondered if some of the fine upstanding citizens of Nirvana would ever be sober again.

“You got a lotta nerve tryin’ to drink with decent folks,” a giant of a man said as he lifted a miner up onto his toes. The miner wobbled about, already woozy. “You ain’t never gonna drink in the mayor’s saloon again, are you?”

The huge man cocked his fist, drew aim and then let loose. The miner tumbled back, his face a bloody mess. He crashed into the dusty street and lay staring up at the sky, unconscious. Not satisfied, the man lumbered down the steps and gauged distances before unleashing a vicious kick to the fallen man’s ribs. As the victim rolled over, Slocum saw it was Thomas Calderon.

“That’s enough,” Slocum said in a voice just loud enough to be heard over the jeering crowd. Silence fell when the behemoth turned and faced him.

“What’s that? You tellin’ me what to do? You tellin’ Stony Wilson not to have a little fun?”

“If that’s your name, I’m doing the telling,” Slocum said, not backing down an inch. He didn’t have a dog in this fight but knew he was going to get involved anyway. Calderon might have insulted Wilson’s mule or his looks or simply been drinking in the wrong saloon. It didn’t matter. Slocum wasn’t going to allow an unconscious man to be kicked to death.

“Fer a little guy, you sure got a big mouth,” Stony Wilson said, lurching closer. Slocum’s nose twitched. Wilson was drunker than he looked, and that made him an even more dangerous adversary.

“Seems the only fight you want is with a man who’s already knocked out,” Slocum said, pushing Wilson to get him mad enough to make a mistake.

“We got law in this here town now. Mayor Jones says so. Soon as that mousy marshal we got now moves on to Carson City, I get to wear the badge in Nirvana.”

“Jones isn’t that stupid,” Slocum said. “Putting you in charge of keeping the peace? You can’t even hold your liquor. You’re drunker than a lord and making a fool of yourself.”

“Kill ’im, Stony. Get ’im!” called the Durango Kid, his arm still tightly bound to the side of his body. It was as Slocum figured. Wilson was part of the mayor’s gang—and Zeke O’Malley was mighty high up in command. O’Malley might not give all the orders, but he did a fair amount of leading, even if it was only to do what J. Henry Jones told him to do.

With a bull-throated roar, Wilson surged forward with greater agility than Slocum would have thought possible for such a big drunk. But he wasn’t caught entirely off guard. Moving like a striking rattler, Slocum sidestepped the rush and swung with all his might. His left fist buried itself wrist-deep in Wilson’s belly.

For a moment, Slocum thought he’d have to draw his six-shooter and buffalo the man. But Wilson gave out a tiny mewling noise, then sank to his knees clutching his stomach. Slocum stepped back, judged his distance and kicked as hard as he could. The toe of his boot connected with Wilson’s chin. The giant’s head snapped back, and he sprawled in the street next to a moaning Thomas Calderon.

Slocum gave the crowd a quick once-over and didn’t see any trouble brewing. They watched in stunned silence as Slocum bent and helped Calderon sit up. The miner’s eyelids flickered open. Slocum got a quick look into the man’s eyes.

“Come on. They gave you a Mickey Finn.” Slocum heaved Calderon to his feet. “You should know better than to drink in the saloon of the man who beat you in an election.”

“Doesn’t much matter if the deed’s in his name or not. Those are his men and you were somewhere without any friends to back you up.”

“No,” Slocum said. He heaved Calderon around and started away with him when the hairs on the back of his neck rose. Letting Calderon flop over a hitching post, Slocum turned slowly to face the crowd.

“We can’t let you whump up on our friend like that,” the man in the front of the crowd said.

“You don’t even like Wilson,” Slocum said. “You’re afraid of him. I can read it in your faces. Why stick up for him when you really enjoyed seeing someone take him down a notch?” Slocum moved away from the muttering Calderon and judged his chances. They didn’t look too good. Not all the men in the crowd had six-guns but enough did to ventilate him if shooting started.

“He’s trying to spook you,” shouted the Durango Kid. “He shot me up, now he whipped Wilson.”

“You admitting to dry-gulching me?” Slocum called. “I thought you hurt your arm falling from a horse. It was probably a horse who was mighty good with a Colt Navy.”

Slocum drew and cocked his six-shooter in a liquid motion. He pointed the muzzle directly at the man in front of the crowd.

“I brought in Zeke O’Malley for trying to kill me. If he spills his guts, the Kid back there’s going to be in the calaboose, too. How many of you want to join them? Or maybe you want to go straight to the cemetery.”

“He can’t shoot us all,” the Kid shouted from the safety of the saloon boardwalk at the rear of the crowd. “Rush him!”

“Yeah, I’m thinkin’ I need a good donnybrook to get even,” Calderon said. He stepped over to Slocum’s side, his gait unsteady but his words crystal and cold. He lifted his hands and made a show of curling the fingers into fists the size of quart jars.

“Don’t let him make a decision that’ll get you mighty dead,” Slocum said.

“No,” Calderon piped up. “Listen to him. I want to take on all of you and I’m mad enough—and clearheaded enough now—to do it.”

“You ain’t pushin’ us around, Calderon. You lost the election. We run this here town.”

“You mean Jones does, and he’s busy right now stealing more claims from honest miners.” Calderon’s accusations sent a new ripple of anger through the crowd. Slocum squared his stance, ready to start shooting. He could get one or two of them, but the crowd was too close for him to do more than that.

The situation was getting nasty mighty fast when Marshal Williams came bustling out of the jailhouse, yelling and waving his arms.

“You gents get on back into the saloon. There ain’t no need for you to get into trouble.”

“There’s no trouble, Marshal,” spoke up the Durango Kid, a sneer on his face. “You just mosey on back into the jail so we can finish what we started.”

“Is he drunk again? Why don’t a couple of you boys help him on back home?” suggested Williams.

Slocum stood his ground, wondering if the marshal was defusing the situation intentionally or if it just happened to work that way. Two men broke off from the crowd, their attention directed more toward getting the mountain of a man out of the street and to his blanket, wherever that might be.

“You can’t stop this, Marshal,” declared the Kid. He pushed his way through the crowd and stood staring up at Williams, his chin jutting out angrily. “You’re a hired hand. You work for the mayor, and we’re speaking for him right now.”

“You’re takin’ on a heap of trouble, Kid,” Williams said uneasily. “You let the mayor tell me to my face what he wants.”

“The mayor’s not in Nirvana right now. He’s out riding the circuit, checking out his bank’s property.”

“You shut your pie hole,” demanded Williams. To the Durango Kid he said, “Get on back inside. The mayor’s not here, and it don’t matter none that he’s gone. I’m the law here and you do what I say.”

“I got him locked up in the back cell,” the marshal said. The instant the words slipped past his careless lips, Slocum saw how much trouble had been caused. The crowd that had been making its way slowly back into the Millionaire Miner Drinking Emporium stopped and came back.

“What’s that? You got Zeke O’Malley locked up? Why’d you go and do a damn fool thing like that, Marshal?” demanded the Kid.

“Because he’s a backshootin’ son of a bitch and deserves to swing,” Calderon said. “O’Malley’s burned out more miners and probably killed more than a few so’s Jones could buy their claims for next to nothing.”

“You’re a liar. You can’t prove anything,” the Durango Kid shouted. Before Slocum could restrain him, Thomas Calderon stepped forward and swung a roundhouse punch, which landed on the Kid’s bandaged shoulder.

“Get ’em. Kill ’em all!” he shrieked when he fell to his knees on the saloon steps.

Slocum’s finger tightened on the trigger, but he held off firing because of a banshee’s howl from the side of the crowd that started loud and expanded from there. A dozen miners who had been drinking down the street in the Lost Nugget came rushing to Calderon’s assistance.

Slocum stepped back with Williams and watched the scuffle turn into a free-for-all. Miners fought with Jones’s supporters until a dust cloud was kicked up, obscuring the participants and both sides of the street.

“Don’t, Marshal,” Slocum warned when Williams looked to be worried enough about the fight to try stopping it. “There’s no way you can keep them from fighting. Too much pent-up anger on both sides.”

“But Jones won. His men should be glad.” The marshal was genuinely perplexed.

“Your new mayor has quite a reputation among the miners. Calderon and the others think he is a crook out to steal their hard-won silver.”

Slocum started to squeeze off a round into the outlaw, but Williams knocked his gun hand up. The Colt discharged and the bullet sang off into the cold night air. Slocum spun on the marshal.

Williams wilted under the glare but held his ground. “It’s not your call, Slocum. I say let O’Malley go free. This here melee will spread and get everyone in town involved.”

“Letting a killer go is a piss-poor way to bring order to town,” Slocum said.

“It’s not your town, Slocum. It’s not mine, either. It belongs to J. Henry Jones. And he’d want Zeke O’Malley out of jail.”

Slocum saw the Durango Kid and O’Malley slipping out the front door of the hoosegow. His finger tensed on the six-shooter’s trigger, then he shoved the gun into its holster.

The marshal was a weak man whose sense of duty melted away mighty fast in the heat of adversity.

Williams might let O’Malley and the Durango Kid go free, but he wouldn’t. The next time he looked down the barrel at either of them, he would know what to do.