Slocum 297: Holding Down the Ranch

Slocum was about fifteen minutes away from the road that went north, up toward the S Bar J, when he spied a flash of something from the corner of his eye.

Quickly, he turned his head and squinted, then yanked his rifle from its boot. In one smooth move, he leapt off Concho, smacked the horse in the hind quarters, then went facedown in the weeds.

The startled Concho took off running, but it wasn’t quick enough. The horse hadn’t gone fifteen yards before he screamed. And, as he stumbled to his knees, Slocum heard the report of a rifle.

Slocum gritted his teeth and swore silently as he scuttled and crawled toward the nearest shelter, a clump of prickly pear. It was useless for stopping bullets, but at least it was some cover. And as he flopped out behind the cactus, searching for a place to shoot from, he heard Concho groaning.

It nearly killed him to hear a horse in agony, especially when it was his horse, his Concho. But he could do nothing about it now. Concho was down in the brush about forty feet off. All he could see of the horse was part of the stirrup leather, rising and falling as the horse labored for breath.

And there were more important matters at hand. That goddamn horse killer, for instance.

It had to be Crowfoot. It couldn’t be anybody else. And he had most likely aimed at the horse on purpose, to make sure Slocum stayed put.

Cursing, Slocum found a small space between two prickly pear pads big enough to shoot—and see—through. There was no sign of that bastard Crowfoot. No sign, even, of his horse.

Slocum wondered if Crowfoot had trained the horse to lie down. He’d heard of a few bounty hunters and shootists that trained their mounts to do that.

Off to the side, Slocum’s horse groaned again, a deep, rattling sound, and Slocum was suddenly aware that poor old Concho was going to die before he had a chance to put him out of his misery.

Cold, hard rage coursed through his system, and for a moment, he stopped thinking. He just aimed at a clump of vegetation large enough to hide a man—or a horse—and fired three times, quickly.

But the returned shots spattered into the cactus mere inches from his head, and sent prickly thorns into his cheek and forehead.

Ignoring the pain, Slocum fired twice at the next largest clump, the one from which the shots had come: a grouped trio of barrel cactus.

No movement, though. At least, none that he could see. And no shots were returned.

Slocum didn’t move. He aimed directly at the left-most barrel cactus, and fired three more shots, low to the ground, and going toward the right.

Shattered cactus sailed into the air. He saw a flash of fabric as it fell to the side, and a puff of dust as Crowfoot hit the ground.

Crowfoot was down, but Slocum couldn’t be certain he was dead. He could very well be playing possum, waiting for Slocum to come check on him. It had happened to Pete, and it could happen to him.

But first things first. On his belly, he began to work his way over to Concho, who was still giving out strangled, rattling groans.

When at last he reached Concho, the gelding’s beautiful leopard hide was covered in blood. He’d been shot through a lung, as far as Slocum could tell, and was helplessly drowning in his own blood. There was no saving him.

Choking, Slocum drew his Colt. He stroked the horse’s neck and scratched him on his forehead, where he liked it. And then he pressed the barrel of his gun into the hollow just above the horse’s eye.

“Sorry, Concho, ol’ son,” he whispered. “You were one damn fine horse.”

No sooner had he put the horse out of his misery than the horse’s body jolted again. Slocum saw the entry wound, mere inches from where his gun hand had been, before he heard the report.

He grabbed his canteen off the saddle, as well as an extra box of ammo from the saddlebag. Then, on his belly, he began to crawl back toward the cactus, careful to disturb the brush as little as humanly possible.

When he reached it, he stretched out on the ground, on his back, and reloaded his rifle. The magazine wasn’t empty, but he was taking no chances. He wanted every possible advantage.

Jeb Crowfoot, bleeding copiously from his thigh, was busy tying off the wound with a fresh handkerchief. He swore softly under his breath. This was supposed to be an easy job. It was why he’d broken his rule about never going to the same place twice.

He should have listened to himself, because here he was, stuck full of cactus thorns, filthy dirty, and he was pretty certain that Slocum’s lucky shot had nicked the artery in his leg. It was surely bleeding enough. It had ruined his britches. He’d have to throw them away.

That made him madder than the pain of the injury. That, and being dirty.

He hadn’t seen anything since he’d fired that last, lone shot. Maybe he’d gotten lucky and taken Slocum out. The idiot had probably gone to shoot his horse, finish it off. Crowfoot knew he’d only shot it through the lungs. Enough to drop it, and enough to worry Slocum, if he was truly the horse-loving man he’d been cracked up to be.

Crowfoot had heard one story about Slocum strapping some fool across a big boulder, crucifix-style, and painting “Horse Killer” in the man’s own blood.

He stuck a stick between his leg and the handkerchief and gave it a twist. It struck him that he’d best get on with things, or he’d bleed to death before he got his goddamn money.

He decided to take a chance. He’d seen no movement, so he had every reason to believe that Slocum was still over there, where the horse had gone down. He let go of the stick and brought his rifle to his shoulder.

Slocum did a quick flip onto his belly when the shots started. They were coming from the brush to the right of what was left of the barrel cactus, but Crowfoot wasn’t aiming at him. The shots were all headed toward Concho’s corpse.

Without thinking, Slocum flattened out, steadied his rifle, and began squeezing off shots, aimed just behind Crowfoot’s rising gun smoke.

He saw the brush shake with the impacts, saw twigs flying, saw whole branches sailing upward. He just kept firing, firing like he was a machine, not a man, and in no time half the brush was blown away.

And then he saw Crowfoot, or at least, part of him. Crowfoot wasn’t firing anymore. Even from this distance, Slocum could see that Crowfoot’s pants leg was covered in blood, and Slocum knew then that the wound had been from his earlier volley.

Slowly, he rose and began to walk toward the body. Or at least, he hoped it was a body, and not Crowfoot playing possum.

He doubted it, though. The closer he got, the better he could see just how much blood the killer had lost. If he was alive, it was doubtful that he was conscious.

At last he got close enough that he pulled out his handgun. He wouldn’t need a rifle at this distance.

He walked up to the body slowly and carefully. Crowfoot was on his back, as jumbled as a discarded rag doll.

Slocum holstered his gun. Crowfoot had been shot not only in the leg, but in the shoulder, arm, and head as well.

He whistled softly, and heard a nicker, but still couldn’t see anything. He walked toward the nicker and whistled again.

Slocum practically tripped over him, and what he saw made him sick. This horse hadn’t been trained to lie down. He’d been tied, front and back, by short ropes quickly lashed around his pasterns. Then he’d been simply shoved to the ground, and his hobbled front and rear legs tied together.

“Sonofabitch,” Slocum muttered angrily as he worked at the ropes. “You’re lucky to be shed of that bastard, horse.”

At last, he freed the last rope and the horse gained his feet, then had a good shake. Slocum picked the sticks and twigs from his hide the best he could, and only belatedly did he realize that the horse was an Appaloosa, having just five spots of white, each about the size of a baby’s fist, scattered over his sorrel rump.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Slocum said, and the horse nuzzled him in return, as if in gratitude.

He relieved Crowfoot’s body of his rifle and sidearms, then mounted the new horse. He’d come back later with a spare horse—and maybe Dave, too—to get his tack and build a pyre over Concho. They could do whatever they liked with Crowfoot’s lousy corpse.

From atop his new Appaloosa, he spat down on the body. Then, absently picking cactus spines from his cheeks, he reined the horse around and started back toward the S Bar J.

Becky was on the porch when he rode up, and she ran out to meet him, crying, “Slocum! Slocum, are you hurt?”

He’d been thinking so hard about what was going to happen next, now that he’d killed McMahon’s ace in the hole, that only then did he realize that he was spattered with blood. Probably Concho’s.

Cassidy, just riding in from the southwest, kicked his pony into a canter and rode up to Slocum. “What the hell happened to you, son? You must’a found all the trouble, ’cause I sure ain’t seen anything but cows and coyotes. And a jackrabbit or three.”

“And what in the name of Christmas happened to your horse?” was the next thing out of Cassidy’s mouth.

“Crowfoot happened to him,” Slocum explained, his face hard, his eyes cold. “He shot Concho, and then I shot him.”

“Come up to the house,” Becky said quietly. “Let me pull those thorns out.”

“I’ll see to your mount,” Cassidy said, relieving him of the sorrel Appy’s reins. “What you callin’ him?”

Slocum shrugged. “For now? Just Horse, I reckon. Dave back yet?”