Slocum 297: Holding Down the Ranch

“Where you been?” Teddy LeGrande asked, carefully straightening his fringe. “You disappeared.”

“Around,” replied Cassidy. He had left Slocum a good half-hour ago, and had just wandered back up to the saloon. “What business is it of yours, anyhow? I mean, now that you’ve decided to come down off your damn perch and speak to me.”

The remark had no effect on LeGrande. Cassidy hadn’t expected it to.

“There was fellas in here before,” Teddy LeGrande said, as if that explained everything. Actually, it did. The McMahon Palace was now vacant of any customers other than themselves. They stood shoulder to shoulder at the rail, making eye contact only in the mirrored bar-back. He said, “You still didn’t tell me where you was.”

“If it’s any of your nevermind, which it ain’t,” Cassidy said, “I been askin’ around town nice and easy-like. Seems Slocum ain’t been in town. Or so says the general populace.”

Teddy LeGrande looked confused, and Cassidy added, “That’s what the people tell me, leastwise.”

“Oh,” said LeGrande, and took another sip of his beer. “So, how you wanna do this thing? Just ride out there and shoot him, or what?”

Cassidy’s mouth muscles clenched up for a moment. He really ought to just say, Sure thing, Teddy, and let LeGrande ride out there bold as brass. And let Slocum shoot him square in the butt. But he’d made a promise to Slocum.

LeGrande smiled. “Hey, you’re callin’ me by my name. I knew you wasn’t really mad about that bounty deal. Fellers like you an’ me got to stick together, right?”

Cassidy didn’t answer. He took a drink, then stared at his beer. This was going to be harder than he’d thought. If it had been anybody else other than Slocum who had asked him to hold off . . .

“Well, you got any other suggestions, Drug?” LeGrande went on. “You don’t mind if I call you Drug, do you?”

“Sure,” said Cassidy, meaning, yes, I sure do mind it, you rigged-out, fancified asshole.

“Good, Drug,” LeGrande said, impervious. “Things’ll be easier if we’re friends. You know? So what you figure? We wait for Slocum to come into town, then?”

Cassidy could bear the conversation no longer. He said, “Let me get back to you on that, Teddy. Want to think on it for a spell.”

LeGrande seemed relieved. Whether it was that he wouldn’t have to do anything complicated—for instance figuring out a plot of his own—or that he was just happy to have help, having learned a little more about Slocum, was beside the point.

“That’s good, Drug, real good,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I been a tad-mite worried about this deal.”

When Cassidy said nothing, LeGrande went on, “I mean, what with hearin’ so many stories ’bout this Slocum character.” He glanced to both sides, then lowered his voice. “You think he’s really as fast as they say?”

LeGrande was looking anxious, now, and for a moment, Cassidy wondered if he should just scare him off. By the looks of things, it would be fairly easy to do.

But Cassidy had promised Slocum. Plus, he figured, if LeGrande tucked his tail and headed home, McMahon might not trust him to take care of things on his own. McMahon might just bring in somebody else.

Even a fancy-assed, pretty-boy louse like Teddy LeGrande was a sight better than an undrawn card. Like his daddy had said, you’d best stick with the devil you know and the cards you’re dealt.

Although he wasn’t too sure about his daddy’s wisdom on the card thing.

He knew LeGrande could be tough when he was in a spot. Experience had taught Cassidy to read what was behind those eyes of LeGrande’s. But being tough when push came to shove still didn’t cancel out that streak of cowardice he’d just uncovered.

Before, he’d figured LeGrande for just a plain idiot. Now he figured him for a chicken, too. And he was beginning to wonder just how LeGrande had come by that reputation of his.

Cassidy said, “Yeah, Teddy, I think he probably is pretty damn fast with a gun.”

“But he ain’t come into town yet,” LeGrande said, more to himself than to Cassidy. He stared directly at his own reflection in the bar mirror, not noticing that Cassidy was staring at him, too.

And suddenly Cassidy saw something else flickering there, something that had lurked beneath the facade of being either frightened or foolish or just plain stupid: It was something cruel and primitive.

And his first thought was that he and Slocum could very well be in a world of trouble.

Slocum finished putting Concho up in the barn before he announced himself at the house. He wanted a word with Pete and Dave and the boys, anyhow. That finished, he stepped up on the porch, stomped the dust off his boots, then opened the door.

“Anybody home?” he called when he found the parlor and kitchen empty. Even Tia Juanita had disappeared—a disappointment, because he’d had his mouth all set for a mess of her good cooking.

He called out again when nobody answered his first shout, but the house remained silent.

“What the hell?” he muttered beneath his breath. Pete hadn’t mentioned the women were gone. Nobody had mentioned it.

And then he got to thinking that maybe Teddy LeGrande had headed out while he was in that alley, talking with Cassidy, and that LeGrande had snuck in and taken them someplace. Probably killed them.

He was halfway out the front door, ready to punch Pete’s lights out, when both Becky and Tia Juanita rounded the corner of the porch. They were chattering happily, and their arms were full of flowers.

Slocum was so tense that “Dammit, Becky!” was the first thing that came out of his mouth.

Both women stopped, and Becky blinked. “I was going to say welcome back,” she said. “But if you’re going to be that nasty for no apparent reason, you can just go back to town.”

“Sorry,” he said, and relaxed. “I thought somethin’ had happened to you.”

“Well, it hasn’t,” Becky said curtly, stepping forward. Tia Juanita followed her. “We were just picking the last of the flowers before the cold snap, that’s all,” she continued. “Tia Juanita says there’s one coming tonight.”

Becky held one forward—he didn’t know what kind, not being much for flowers—and passed it beneath Slocum’s nose. “Smells pretty, doesn’t it?”

Tia Juanita took Becky’s flowers. Her arms brimming, she walked past them both, into the house. Slocum waited until the door had closed behind her to pull Becky into his arms.

In the west, the sun was slowly nearing the horizon. Pink and soft purple traces were already starting to streak the sky.

“I don’t know about that cold snap,” he said. “Seems pretty warm around here to me.”

Playfully, she pushed at his chest. “Tia Juanita’s got the last word about the weather on this ranch. Besides, you know how the high desert can be. Hot in the daytime—”

“Freezing at night,” he finished for her. “Except in our bed.”

They kissed long and sweet, and when they were finally finished, Becky whispered, “I hate to break the mood, honey, but did you find anything out today? You nearly frightened me to death, riding off by yourself like that.”

He shook his head. “Women. You don’t have to nursemaid me every minute, you know. There are some things—”

“That you have to do on your own,” she finished. “I know. Tia Juanita gave me six kinds of hell for trying to send Pete along.”

“Figures,” Slocum said with a grin. “Pete told me how you got after him.”

He opened the front door for her, and they went inside. Good, spicy smells were starting to emerge from the kitchen, and he said, “Don’t you ever cook anymore, Becky?”

Becky snorted and softly smacked his arm. “Not for you, Slocum. Not since that thing you did with my gravy.”

Smiling, Slocum shrugged. “I thought it looked kinda nice, what with all them forks and spoons standin’ up in it.”

“Oh, very funny,” she said with a snort. She sat down on the sofa, and taking his hand, drew him down next to her. “So tell me all about it. What happened in town?”

Suddenly, Tia Juanita appeared beside them, and pulled up a rocking chair.

“Yes, Slocum,” she said, folding a dish towel in her lap. “What happened? Did you learn anything?”

Some time later, Pete smelled Tia Juanita’s cooking when he rode past the main house, and his mouth started to water. It smelled awful good, like peppers and tomatoes and onions and beef.

He wondered if she had made up a pan of those good enchiladas, and if she was going to serve frijoles alongside them.

Now, Pete was a refried beans man. He could eat them by the bowlful, topped with lots of that good shredded goat cheese from down home, down at the old Bar S, and plenty of green chili sauce and guacamole. When they had any, that was.

But he wasn’t going to see any beans or green chili sauce tonight. Old Fats Harker, the bunkhouse cook, had supplied him—as well as Dave and two other boys—with a cold dinner of biscuits and ham, which they had wrapped in brown paper and tucked into their saddlebags.

They’d see no hot supper tonight, or for the next few days, if he was any judge.

Dave had gone north, Toots had gone south, Baker set out toward the southeast, and now Pete was going east, toward town. Slocum had instructed them to keep watch through the night and alert him if they saw anything funny.

He’d told them to especially watch for a man in a white-fringed jacket.

Pete didn’t know who the man in the fringe was, but he wasn’t going to question Slocum. He’d found out three years ago that it just didn’t pay.

He rode until he found himself a roost where he could see the road from town pretty well, as well as the surrounding territory. After he settled his horse—and patted his pocket for the fifth time to reassure himself that he hadn’t forgotten his pipe—he sat down crosslegged.

Cursing the lack of a fire for coffee-making on what promised to be a bitch of a cold night, he opened up his dinner parcel.

There was a full moon tonight, he thought, chewing as he watched it emerge from the darkening sky, round and large and white. He’d be able to see anything moving on the road for a good ways.

Pete unstoppered his canteen and took a long gulp of water. That Old Harker sure made one holy duster of a dry sandwich. No mustard, no nothing.