Slocum #304: Slocum and the Lady Reporter

“They’ve got reinforcements coming fast,” Slocum yelled to the miners. They milled about, not sure what to do. Then it was almost too late to do anything. The outlaws, O’Malley leading them, surged through the clump of miners, shooting as they came. Slocum saw two miners clutch their chests and drop to the ground. Scotty yelped like a scalded dog as a bullet took off his hat and then the rest let out a roar of anger that echoed from one end of the valley to the other.

Slocum had thought the men would run for cover when confronted with such a gun-toting, fast-shooting bunch. But they didn’t. They stood their ground and began to return fire. Their shots were feeble at first, then gathered accuracy and number until outlaw after outlaw tumbled from his saddle.

“We got ’em on the run, boys. Don’t stop now!” called Scotty. He whooped and hollered and waved his rifle around but didn’t fire. Slocum reckoned he was out of ammo but still foolishly wanted to take part in the brouhaha.

Slocum leveled his six-shooter at Zeke O’Malley and squeezed off a shot. The claim-jumper’s horse reared as Slocum fired; the slug missed O’Malley’s ear by an inch but it got his attention. He spotted Slocum up on the slope above the mouth of the mine and began firing wildly. Slocum endured the rain of lead as cool as could be. He fired with methodical precision but could not hit his target. When his six-gun came up empty, Slocum kicked out his heels and slid down the last few yards to a spot to the north of the mine entrance.

He quickly discovered a problem other than Zeke O’Malley. Stony Wilson towered above him, a sneer on the huge man’s lips.

“You. I oughta knowed it’d be you.” With that, Wilson charged. Slocum’s six-shooter was empty. Running was out of the question, so he set his feet, gauged distances and unleashed a roundhouse punch that landed on Wilson’s chest.

The shock went all the way up Slocum’s arm to his shoulder and rocked him back. But the punch had connected and if Slocum’s arm was numb, Wilson was stunned. The mountain of gristle and mean tried to suck in air and couldn’t. Slocum regained his balance and swung again, this time using his left fist. He struck Wilson’s iron-hard belly and numbed his arm to the shoulder.

The two punches left Wilson in no condition to fight. He simply sat down, eyes glazed as he gasped painfully for air. Slocum tried to lift his hands to keep fighting but they wouldn’t obey. He saw O’Malley still shooting, but the gang with him was dwindling fast. The ones who hadn’t been shot off their horses were backing off and getting ready to turn tail and run for cover.

“Don’t let him escape. O’Malley’s their leader!” Slocum shouted. His words were swallowed in the commotion. Even if someone had heard him, he doubted anything could have been done to capture O’Malley. The man had led a charmed life as he rushed into this fight. In spite of lead flying all around, he hadn’t been scratched.

Slocum tried to fumble out his six-shooter but his hands still wouldn’t respond. He shook both arms out and felt tingles of sensation needling back into them. His right hand returned to service first but by then O’Malley had gone, leaving nothing but a cloud of dust behind. Three others who had ridden to the Valhalla with him joined him in the headlong retreat.

Cursing his bad luck, Slocum rubbed his hands together and finally got them moving without any numbness lingering. The first thing he did was load his pistol, then he went to see who the miners had captured.

He recognized a few of the outlaws from town. All had been J. Henry Jones’s guards at the political rally in the Millionaire Miner Drinking Emporium Slocum made certain Scotty rounded them up, including the ones too wounded to stand.

He whipped out his six-shooter, spun and went into a gunfighter’s crouch. The Colt’s muzzle pointed directly at Stony Wilson’s midsection.

“Give me a reason,” Slocum said. Wilson towered above him, holding an iron bar over one shoulder, as if he meant to swing it.

For a moment they both stood frozen. Then Wilson roared and brought the iron rod whipping around. Slocum fired but jerked to one side to keep from having the side of his head stove in by the metal bar. He hit the ground hard, rolled and came to his knees, his thumb bringing the hammer back for another shot.

“Damn,” Wilson said in a curiously small voice, “you shot me.” The giant dropped the iron bar and pressed his hand against his chest. Blood oozed out around his fingers. “I’m gonna kill you for this, Slocum.”

“You had your chance,” Slocum said. He fired again. This time his slug went through Wilson’s heart. He dropped like a rock to the ground.

Slocum shoved his six-gun back into the holster, then touched his cheek. His fingers came away damp with blood. The very tip of the metal rod had grazed him and he hadn’t noticed it until now.

“I meant I was sorry I didn’t stop him with the first shot. I don’t like wasting lead on owlhoots like him.” Slocum glared at Wilson’s hunched body on the ground and refrained from going over and kicking him for good measure. The only thing he would have liked better than seeing Wilson’s corpse would have been O’Malley’s alongside on the ground.

“We got four of them varmints still alive. Kilt another two. Well, make that three,” Scotty said, seeing that Slocum had dispatched Wilson. “Surely am glad that one’s gone. He was meaner ’n a rabid dog. Couldn’t imagine what Nirvana would be like, havin’ him as marshal.”

“Wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t run out of ammunition,” Scotty said, holding up his battered rifle. “I was fixin’ to use this as a club but didn’t have to, thanks to you.”

“ ’Course they are,” Scotty said, looking at him curiously. “We got to find a tree to string ’em up and then—”

“They didn’t do nuthin’ wrong in town. It was out here that they tried stealin’ my claim. Mine and Hawk’s,” Scotty said.

“They must stand trial. That’s the law,” Elizabeth said, moving closer to Slocum. He saw how torn she was by the notion of a necktie party for the capture outlaws. It repelled her but the way he had gunned down Wilson had, also. He spoke up to resolve some of her qualms.

“You tie the lot of them up, then talk to Calderon about it,” Slocum said. “I think he wants them alive to use against J. Henry Jones. Which one of these owlhoots do you think doesn’t work for the new mayor?”

“I see yer point, Slocum,” Scotty said. “Let Calderon show them fools in town what voted for Jones how wrong they were. Might be, we get another election real soon.”

This idea pleased the other miners, more because a new election meant more free whiskey than removing Jones from office. But Slocum didn’t care what they considered good reasons. He had a bone to pick with O’Malley and if riling J. Henry Jones up accomplished that end, it was fine with Slocum.

“All this. Being kidnapped wasn’t so bad. The miners weren’t going to do anything to me, but this! Men died here, John. Y-you shot Wilson.”

“More will die if the likes of Wilson and O’Malley try jumping claims again.” Slocum looked at the dark mouth of the Valhalla Mine and wondered if it was really worth it. Hawk claimed hunks of gold were waiting to be pulled out of the walls. He and Scotty might get rich off the mine, but they would be among the very few. Most of the miners worked backbreakingly long hours and barely scratched out enough color to stay alive.

“I want to see the prisoners into town to be sure Marshal Williams locks them up. If Scotty doesn’t prefer charges, I will.”

“By the time we reach Nirvana, I’ll have thought up plenty,” Slocum said, shocking her again. He didn’t bother reminding her that he had saved the outlaws from getting their necks stretched. The way politics was played in most frontier towns, the mayor would get his henchmen out of jail and back to doing his dirty work before sundown, but Slocum wanted to let Elizabeth and everyone else in Nirvana see where the line was being drawn.

“You mean the horses?” asked Elizabeth, confused. “Oh, you want to drag the prisoners behind their horses. I see.” She took out a stub of a pencil and scribbled on a scrap of paper she used to record her notes.

Slocum shook his head, not understanding women. A minute ago Elizabeth had been shocked at the idea he could gun down Stony Wilson and now dragging tied prisoners didn’t bother her at all. Slocum knew that Scotty was only talking to give their prisoners a hint of what to expect if they gave any trouble at all returning to Nirvana.

“Makes the jail kinda bulge at the seams,” Marshal Williams said dubiously. “Might let one or two out to ease the crowding.”

“A good idea, marshal,” said Scotty, grinning from ear to ear, showing his blackened teeth like some demented jack-o’-lantern. “You pick which ones you want us to string up. Let the others watch from their jail window.”

“That wasn’t what I had in mind,” Williams said uneasily. “I . . . I can keep them for a spell, I reckon. Until a trial.”

“A week or two, maybe,” Williams said, eyes widening when he realized he would have his cells occupied longer than he had expected.

“It’d be a shame to have to track down these boys again,” Slocum said. “More will end up like Stony Wilson.”

“I want to talk to you about that, Slocum,” Williams said. “It seems mighty convenient that he got himself shot and that you did it.”

“The no-account hornswaggling son of a bitch tried to jump my claim. Me and Hawk’s! He got what he deserved,” Scotty exclaimed. He started hopping around like a dollop of butter dropped on a hot griddle. “No, no, he didn’t get what he deserved. He should have been tortured by Apaches and then drilled through the pump. I’m only sorry it weren’t me doin’ the shootin’. Slocum here ought to get a medal!”

The marshal saw what he was up against and shook his head. But the look he gave Slocum told his real feelings. He didn’t appreciate being put in the position of jailing the mayor’s “assistants.”

Even worse was having the man who had been chosen to replace him as marshal end up dead after an attempted claim-jumping.

“You might want to keep a sharp eye out for the rest of the O’Malley gang,” Slocum said. “He got away with three or maybe four others. I wasn’t doing much counting when he turned tail and ran.”

“Then maybe I should see if the Bugle has an extra edition ready to be sold. Arnot vowed to stay up all night if that’s what it took to let the people of Nirvana know what’s going on out in the diggings.”

“Slocum,” the marshal started, then settled down. “I don’t want to see your ugly face around here again. And don’t worry. I’ll see that these varmints all stand trial. Nobody likes claim-jumpin’ in a mining town. Nobody.”

Slocum left Marshal Williams stewing in his office and stepped into the street. All the saloons in town were filled to capacity with miners in from their claims to spend what little gold dust and silver shavings they had eked out from the earth. He sucked in a deep breath and tasted the products of civilization, such as it was on the frontier.

Too much garbage, too many dead animals around Nirvana. The stench mixed with stale beer and other, less palatable items. Slocum longed to be out in the hills hunting rather than standing around a boomtown hunting for a man responsible for trying to kill him.

He turned toward the Bugle office and saw Arnot, Elizabeth and Gerald hard at work inside. He started in when he heard the door to the jailhouse slam. Slocum faded into a shadow and watched as the marshal stalked from his office toward the Millionaire Miner. Curious, Slocum trailed him, then stopped ten yards away near a pharmacy when he saw who emerged from the smoky interior to talk to Williams.

The Durango Kid angrily derided the marshal, but Williams was having none of it. Much of what passed between the men was muffled by the loud piano music and boisterous off-key singing from inside the saloon but Slocum got the gist.

Even so, he was taken by surprise when the Kid suddenly pushed past the marshal and awkwardly climbed into the saddle of a horse in front of the saloon. Without so much as a backward look, the Kid lit out at a dead gallop.

Slocum had caught enough of their exchange to know where the Durango Kid was headed. He hurried back to the stable, saddled his gelding and started tracking the Kid into the Nevada hills. With any luck at all, he’d put both the Durango Kid and Zeke O’Malley where he had already sent Stony Wilson.