Slocum #304: Slocum and the Lady Reporter

The moon poked a crescent above the western mountains, giving Slocum more light to trail the Durango Kid. The Kid made little effort to conceal his tracks as he rode steadily out of Nirvana and never looked back. This suited Slocum just fine. He was fed up with O’Malley, the Durango Kid and all the rest, including J. Henry Jones, and wanted to see them all either dead and buried or swinging from a tree limb for all they had done.

But the trail suddenly disappeared at a crossroad, forcing Slocum to dismount and flop onto his belly to study the ground. He might wait until morning for better light, but he was getting the feeling deep in his gut that the Durango Kid was riding to join the rest of the gang. Whatever he had said to Marshal Williams—or the lawman to him—had lit a fire under him.

From the anger the Kid showed, Slocum reckoned the marshal had told him of the men locked up in the jail and how hard it would be to justify letting them loose. Even a weak lawman like Williams had limits where pushing did no more good.

If Slocum was in the Kid’s boots, he would alert O’Malley and the surviving members of the gang to go bust out their partners. With a little luck, Slocum could discover their camp before their rescue plans came together, return to town and tell Calderon. The miner and his followers could plan a gratifying ambush for Zeke O’Malley as he rode into Nirvana.

“There,” he muttered seeing a ridge of dirt kicked up on the shoulder of the road. Slocum scooted over and ran his finger around the impression. Fresh. He quickly mounted and took the left fork in the road, trotting to close the distance between him and the Kid. The time it had taken to find the hoofprint might have let his quarry put an extra mile between them.

Slocum stayed alert for any sign of a lookout. The longer he rode along this narrowing trail, the closer he knew he came to the outlaw camp. His nose caught the scent of tobacco before he saw the dimly glowing coal high on a rock to the side of the road. An incautious sentry smoked a cigarette to stay awake. Rather than dismount, Slocum rode slowly toward the boulder and let his horse pick its way around.

All the while, the lookout above never saw nor heard the intruder moving below him. With another hundred yards behind him, Slocum relaxed a mite. The sentry couldn’t see this section of the trail, but that didn’t mean there weren’t others nearby. Occasionally stopping to sniff, to listen and to study the deep, dark shadows convinced Slocum he was getting closer. A hint of wood smoke clung to the night air and a lack of native animal noises warned of a camp very close.

Dismounting, Slocum worked closer on foot to a point in the rocks above the outlaw camp. The Durango Kid stood face-to-face with Zeke O’Malley, chin thrust out belligerently.

The argument woke the others in the camp. Slocum did a quick count and knew he had no chance of getting the drop on eight outlaws.

“We don’t take orders from Jones,” O’Malley said. At this Slocum perked up. Were the outlaws going out on their own?

“We take orders from him, but that’s not where our money comes from,” the Kid said, shoving O’Malley. “You take care of the problem or there’ll be hell to pay.”

O’Malley shoved the Kid back. The wounded road agent clumsily went for his six-shooter left-handed, but O’Malley batted the gun aside.

The argument between the two went on, but Slocum was more interested in getting away. He had found the road agents’ camp and knew they were getting ready to ride into town. But he found his retreat cut off by the sentry who had been posted along the trail. The man walked up, rifle at the ready. He hesitated, then dropped to a knee to study a shrub where Slocum had allowed haste to overcome his usual caution. Two small twigs had been broken. The man ran his fingers over the break, checking to see that the sap had not yet hardened.

“I might have found something, boss,” the sentry said, standing. “We might have an intruder around the camp.”

Reluctantly the sentry left the spot, but Slocum didn’t relax. He had come too close to being discovered for that. Pressed into a rock he waited for O’Malley and the others to ride out. Slocum didn’t immediately pursue them. He would be discovered along that narrow trail before they reached the broader main road into Nirvana. Instead, he decided to settle an old score.

The Durango Kid sat by the sputtering fire, kicking angrily at the embers, trying to bring them back from the dead. He sat with his back to Slocum. Slocum lifted his six-shooter and pointed it at the Kids’s head, then lowered his aim a mite. No matter what else he might be, a backshooter wasn’t it. He was better than either O’Malley or the Kid.

“You only need to raise that left hand. High!” Slocum snapped. He cocked his six-gun to emphasize the command.

“I don’t have a lot of time to waste on you,” Slocum said. “I’ve got to get back to Nirvana and warn them of the attempted jailbreak.”

“You been a real thorn in my side,” the Kid said. “I’ve robbed more ’n a dozen banks and never got shot. Not even a scratch. Until you blasted my shoulder to hell.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t send the rest of you along with it,” Slocum said. “We’re going back to town.”

“You’re taking me in?” For a moment the Durango Kid stood stock-still. Then he laughed. “You don’t even have the guts to shoot me!”

Slocum fired without conscious thought. His slug caught the Kid high in the chest and caused him to stagger back a pace. Then another bullet cut through the air. This one ripped past Slocum’s ear.

Slocum started to shoot again, but the Durango Kid toppled backward and flopped into the fire. Sparks flew as he momentarily stirred it up with his body. Gleaming in his left hand was a derringer that had been hidden in his arm sling. The Kid might not have been dexterous with a full-sized weapon in his left hand but the small two-barreled gun had come out as if he had been born with it in his fist.

A sudden flare erupted when the outlaw’s vest caught fire, then his shirt. Slocum knew the man was dead because the body never so much as flinched as the flames spread along the arms of the shirt and finally ignited his arm sling.

Slocum shoved his six-gun back into his cross-draw holster and grabbed the outlaw by the feet. Grunting, he tugged and dragged the burning corpse out of the camp-fire. Slocum coughed at the stench of scorched flesh. He looked around the camp and found a discarded blanket. It took a few minutes to wrap the Durango Kid in the blanket and put out the fire still nibbling away at him.

Disgusted at how close he had come to letting himself be shot by a hideout gun, Slocum sat on a rock and stared at the Kid’s body. No loss. He heaved himself to his feet and went to dig a shallow grave. He didn’t bother unwrapping the seared body, leaving the blanket as a crude, winding sheet. Using his foot, Slocum rolled the Durango Kid into the grave and covered him with rocks.

Dusting off his hands, Slocum turned from the grave and quickly went through the gear left behind by the outlaws. He found nothing to implicate Jones nor did he discover any loot that the gang might have stolen. The new mayor of Nirvana was using them to jump claims and intimidate miners and nothing more.

Slocum hardly considered O’Malley and his cohorts worthy of the name of outlaw. Strong-arm men and nothing more.

He wended his way through the dark and found his gelding waiting impatiently for him. Slocum swung into the saddle and gave the horse its head until he reached the main road leading to Nirvana, then he spurred to a gallop. The moon was lower in the sky but cast a decent light now that the wispy clouds around it had vanished. Not daylight bright but enough to assure that the horse wouldn’t step in a prairie dog hole and break a leg.

Slocum worried he had wasted too much time dealing with the Durango Kid. As he reached the edge of town, he knew he had. An explosion almost blew him off his horse. Slocum recovered his balance, struggled to keep the horse from rearing and running wildly into the night, then saw the source of the blast.