Slocum 306: Slocum and the Rebel Yell

“Not interested,” he said. Slocum wanted to catch some shut-eye, since he had been traveling so long and so far that he’d hardly had time to eat, much less sleep. The clackety-clack of the steel railcar wheels against the tracks provided a soothing background sound, and even the muggy warmth blasting in through the open windows was fine with him, because the Oklahoma Territory dust was at a minimum and life was good. He had money in his pocket and was headed for a pleasant week or two at Fort Gibson to be with a friend. Slocum was hard-pressed to remember the last time he had felt this agreeable. But not so agreeable that he would waste even a penny on a newspaper sold by this gamin.

“Look, mister, there’s no shame in not bein’ able to read. Shucks, a whole lot of folks are illiterate—that means you can’t read.” The boy spoke loud enough to attract the attention of everyone in the car.

Slocum knew a hustle when he saw it, and the kid did it well. Slocum gave him the once-over. Maybe ten or twelve years old, intense blue eyes and a shock of wild hair the color of Nebraska corn, the boy was a picture of an entrepreneur. He wore green eyeshades like a big-time newspaper editor might and had a long coal black smear down the side of his nose. A quick check showed Slocum how it had gotten there. The boy’s fingers were smudged with printer’s ink, and he had reflexively rubbed his nose, probably to wipe away sweat, as he vended his papers from car to car.

“What’s so important in this paper that I have to spend an entire penny to read?” Slocum asked. His sleep was disturbed, and he wasn’t likely to drift off again too easily.

“Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe nuthin’ there, but it might have been them robbers. Train robbers. They been workin’ this route for the past six weeks. You can read all about it here.” The boy held up the page. “You need to know how much danger you’re in, mister. It’s only fair, since the greedy railroad plutocrats won’t fess up.” The boy looked smug at how easily he delivered his practiced speech.

“You ain’t—aren’t—from around here, that’s why,” the urchin said, purposefully correcting his own grammar. “The owner of the line’s not goin’ to tell passengers of the trouble, but you ask the cavalry commanders around here and they’ll set you straight.”

“Mighty hard to ask them while I’m still on the train,” Slocum pointed out. Then he saw he had fallen into the boy’s trap. A grin spread on the dirty face as a rock-steady, inky hand held out the paper.

Slocum took the sheet and waved the boy on. He didn’t expect change, rewarding such initiative was return enough. The hot, humid wind whipping through the open train window caused the flimsy page to snap about, but Slocum found the spot where the gusting air held the paper open and allowed him to read. He scanned the broadside, mostly a well-written tirade against the railroad owner for permitting such unbridled outlawry to continue unabated for weeks and weeks.

Slocum guessed the boy had been aboard a train when it had been robbed, since one first-person story was an account of how the robbers stole from even the youngest of passengers. The boy’s profits had probably evaporated in one quick robbery.

Other small items detailed how to make riding the train more comfortable. Slocum didn’t bother reading more than one or two lines in each of those articles. He had long since come to the conclusion that nothing made riding in a train comfortable, not compared to being astride a good, strong horse. The iron horses might be faster, but they were more expensive and filled the air with ear-splitting noise. If he were foolish enough to stick his head out the window, he’d get a snootful of soot and red-hot cinders from the locomotive’s smokestack. That was no fit way to travel, even across the dismal Oklahoma Territory.

He folded the paper and stared at the gently rolling hill country. Might be he was wrong about how dull the land was. This wasn’t too bad a place, he decided. He had certainly seen worse. Slocum laughed without humor. He had been run out of worse. The past few months had been spent dodging men intent on filling his carcass with lead shot, and all because of a frisky filly’s willingness to ride off with a tall stranger from Georgia. Turned out her pa, her brothers and her husband had decided Slocum had kidnapped her.

She and Slocum had parted company fast when he discovered she was married, but that hadn’t been good enough for her husband or brothers. Lily was probably back in Fargo with her father, and Slocum had left one brother in a shallow grave in Nebraska. Her other brother and her husband might still be hunting him down, though he doubted it. He had no cause to kill them over a misdeed by a wanton, vindictive woman, but he would if they kept after him.

He was perfectly content to let bygones be bygones. Slocum had enjoyed his time with Lily and knew her husband wasn’t man enough for her, which had been part of the problem. But that was their problem, not his. Things had turned for the good when Slocum had passed through Kansas City and learned of his old friend Andrew Tremaine’s impending marriage. He had sent a congratulatory wire to Fort Gibson, where Captain Tremaine was stationed, and had received an immediate reply inviting him to be best man at the wedding.

Slocum didn’t care much for weddings, but he owed Tremaine big and had agreed. Besides, he had a sneaking desire to see the kind of woman who would marry the captain. When he and Tremaine had ridden together, they had cut quite a swath through western Nebraska and Wyoming, raising hell as they went. Tremaine had drunk whiskey like he had a hollow left leg and beer as if his other leg was similarly empty. He had been a gambler and a womanizer and had saved Slocum’s life more than once as they drifted south into Colorado. They had ridden different trails when Tremaine decided to join the Army. During the war, he had reached the rank of lieutenant colonel, even if it had been as a Rebel. Unlike Slocum, he didn’t carry a grudge against the bluecoats and had missed out on the worst aspects of Reconstruction and the Freedmen’s Bureau.

“Doesn’t seem right, you payin’ for somebody else’s paper,’specially if you don’t know them,” he said. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll give you a tour of my office.”

Slocum wasn’t going back to sleep anytime soon, so he heaved himself to his feet. The boy looked up at him, then at the worn Colt Navy in its cross-draw holster at Slocum’s left hip.

“Not so you’d know it,” Slocum said. “There’s no reward on my head in these parts, if that’s your concern.” Slocum believed that to be true. Oklahoma Territory was almost a law unto itself, but there were wanted posters with his likeness in dozens of marshals’ offices, most going back to a single incident immediately after the war.

Slocum had been gut-shot for protesting Quantrill’s brutal Lawrence, Kansas, raid and had spent months recuperating. By the time he had made his way back to Slocum’s Stand in Calhoun, Georgia, the war was over, his parents were dead and he was alone—but not for long. A carpetbagger judge had taken a fancy to the farm and claimed no taxes had been paid on the land for more than a year. The crooked judge and his hired gunman had ridden out to seize the land with their bogus warrant. Slocum rode off soon after they’d arrived, leaving behind two graves.

Killing a federal judge, even a carpetbagger, had dogged his heels ever since. But he hardly considered it a crime, nor did many of the people he met along the trail. A small smile came to his lips. Andrew Tremaine knew and ignored the charges, and he had become a captain in the U.S. Army cavalry.

“You sure you’re not somebody famous?” the boy asked. “I can do a great headline for the next . . .” His words trailed off when he saw the expression on Slocum’s face. “Come on,” he said suddenly. “I’ll show you my printing press.”

The boy trotted off toward the rear of the train. Slocum made his way through the next passenger car and into a mail car. A mail clerk dozed in the corner, propped up by a half dozen mailbags. The boy went on past into the next car, the one just in front of the caboose. Crates were stacked all the way to the roof and the only light inside came sneaking in between the slats in the walls.

“You sleep where you work?” Slocum asked. The boy looked panicked for a moment, as if he had made a mistake and Slocum was a railroad detective. “Good idea. Never drift too far from what keeps you alive,” Slocum said. The boy relaxed.

“Sort of inherited it. Sort of,” the boy said. “Well, I found it. Nobody was there to pick it up at Fort Gibson, so I started using it. Left it right here, since I live on the train.”

The belligerent attitude told him more than Slocum needed to know. The boy was a runaway or had lost his family and was getting by the best he could. From what Slocum could see, he was doing a good job of it.

“I’m doing all right, mister. I wasn’t askin’ for a job or anything. Just wanted to—” The boy flew forward and crashed into Slocum, knocking them both to the floor. The screech of metal grinding against metal came a few seconds before the stench of burned steel.

The boy nodded once and obeyed. Slocum slipped the leather thong off the hammer of his Colt Navy, then retraced his steps through the mail car into the second passenger car—and found himself staring down the twin barrels of a shotgun.

“Siddown,” came the cold command. The outlaw gestured with his double-barreled shotgun to an empty seat. Slocum had had many men level guns at him, and obeyed without question this time. The eyes peering over the filthy bandanna pulled up onto the man’s nose as a mask were lacking in emotion. There was no sign of indecision or any hint that the owlhoot wouldn’t kill Slocum in a heartbeat if he didn’t obey.

The train robber spun around so he was behind Slocum and pressed his back against the wall of the passenger car. Slocum listened hard as the man’s breath gusted in and out heavily. He was waiting for something, but Slocum couldn’t tell for what. Then it became clear.

Three more outlaws burst into the car from the front end, carrying heavily laden burlap bags. They had already stripped the passengers in the front car of their valuables and were working their way back, taking wallets, rings and watches.

“The watch, too. That looks like a nice one.” The outlaw reached over and tugged on the chain, dragging the watch out of Slocum’s vest pocket. Slocum reacted rather than thought. This was the only legacy from his brother Robert, killed during Pickett’s Charge. Arguing with the robber would never work, so Slocum dropped the wad of greenbacks.

The outlaw’s eyes followed the fluttering bills and gave Slocum the opening he needed. He batted away the hand grasping for the watch. Slocum’s left hand lifted from under the sack and sent the contents flying.

Amid the confusion, Slocum got to his feet and swung hard. His fist connected with the side of the confused outlaw’s head, knocking him into the other two. With a smooth turn, Slocum drew his six-shooter, cocked and fired point blank into the outlaw holding the shotgun.

The slug ripped a hole in the robber’s chest but didn’t kill him. The outlaw fired both barrels as he fell. The heavy buckshot ripped at Slocum’s head, one pellet knocking off his hat. The rest opened a big hole in the roof of the railcar.

“Down!” Slocum shouted. “Everybody down!” He fired again at the wounded outlaw but missed. The man was scrambling around like a flea on a hot, greased griddle. This was Slocum’s last chance to get a clean shot off. The other three outlaws were going for their smoke wagons, firing wildly and blowing away splinters of wood and glass from the passenger car’s walls.

“Whoa!” he called to the frightened clerk. The man held a rifle in shaking hands. “The robbers are up front.” Emphasizing his point, another shotgun load blew apart the upper half of the door leading forward.

Slocum popped up, looked through the hole in the door and ducked back when the outlaw cut loose with the second shell. As the robber struggled to break open his shotgun, Slocum attacked. He burst back through the doorway and grabbed for the man’s throat, pulling away the bandanna. For a frightened moment, the outlaw stared at Slocum, then violently jerked away to keep from being identified.

The other three filled the air with gunsmoke and leaden death, forcing Slocum back into the mail car. He emptied his six-gun at them, then crouched beside the safe with the mail clerk.

Slocum grabbed the man’s rifle and checked to make sure it was loaded. He was mildly surprised to find that it carried a full magazine. Someone else had probably loaded it for the clerk.

Luck had ridden with him before when he had gone through the door into the passenger car, and Slocum knew better than to go to the well too many times. He kicked open the large sliding door and jumped to the ground outside the train. Inside he heard the outlaws finishing their robbery. That showed they were experts at their jobs. First-time robbers would have fled the instant anyone fought back.

“What?” The outlaw turned, thinking one of his partners had called to him. The instant the muzzle of his six-shooter left the engineer’s chest, Slocum fired. The rifle barked strangely. The round didn’t misfire—not exactly. Slocum guessed something had gone wrong with the powder in the cartridge. Though there was enough force to shove the bullet down the barrel and into the outlaw’s arm, it carried too little force to kill him. The man dropped his pistol and grabbed his arm, but by the time Slocum levered another round into the chamber, the outlaw had jumped off the far side of the cab.

“Get moving,” Slocum yelled to the engineer. “Get us out of here. I don’t know how many outlaws there are, but it’s more than I can cut down with this.” He held up the rifle and shook it, as if this might rattle some power into it.

He was forced back when the three from inside the passenger car returned fire. Bullets sang off the heavy steel cab, but a second fusillade missed. The engineer let off the brakes and crashed through the fallen trees used as a barricade to stop the train by the robbers. Wood splintered and went sailing on either side of the locomotive and then was long gone.

“Thanks, mister,” the engineer said. “Them varmints was likely to kill the lot of us.” He rubbed a small round spot on his filthy overalls where the outlaw had shoved the muzzle of his six-gun.

Slocum made his way back along the coal tender, dropped to the platform outside the passenger car and then went inside. Passengers cried out in fear, thinking he was a robber returning to kill them all.

He made his way into the second car that had been shot up. Dozens of holes in the roof let in bright Oklahoma sun to illuminate columns in the heavy pall of lingering gunsmoke. It would blow out soon enough, but a few passengers were coughing from the smoke.

“It is,” Slocum said, realizing that the boy had picked up the money from the floor where it had been dropped as a diversion. The boy drew back as Slocum reached for it.