Slocum 329

Slocum, fresh from the trail and relaxing in Monkey Springs’s Prairie Hen Saloon, sat quickly forward in his chair, dropping the legs to the floor with a loud bang. “What the hell did you say?” he asked the surprised bartender.

“I s-said there’s a gent out in the street,” the barkeep mumbled apologetically. “Said he’s callin’ you out. Are you really him, mister? Are you really the Slocum? The one they write about?”

Slocum’s face twisted with annoyance. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Who’s out there? You know?”

The bartender shrugged and pulled a battered dime novel from his back pocket.

“Can I have your autograph, Mr. Slocum?” he asked, offering it. It was Slocum and the Badlands Bullies, and the horse he was riding on the cover was a pinto. He’d never ridden a pinto in his life.

“No,” said Slocum, scraping back his chair as he stood. Why did these lunatics follow him around?

Back in Tucson, there’d been a wet-behind-the-ears kid wanting to fan his reputation, too. Slocum had lost him by running out the back door, and the kid hadn’t tracked him down again.

But this saloon didn’t have a back door. He supposed he’d have to kill somebody again, and for no reason.

He supposed he’d have to talk directly to the fellow calling him out, though. And stalling would only make the son of a bitch more obstinate.

Slocum crossed the room—the few men behind him in the bar eager for a show but keeping their distance—and pushed through the batwing doors. He looked both ways, up and down the newly deserted street, which had been thick with carts and horses and people when he first rode down it.

He spotted his challenger, about a block away to the west. Standing smack in front of the afternoon sun.

He stepped down off the walk and into the street. There wasn’t another human being on it besides himself and the man who’d challenged him. There was no other living thing, other than a cur bitch lying on the sidewalk, which some unseen woman was desperately trying to coax into a doorway.

“Sassy, come!” she whispered in a desperate tenor. “Sassy, come here right now!”

The man, a silhouette against the sun, started slowly walking toward Slocum. He couldn’t make the man out yet, not in any detail, although he appeared to be of a size with Slocum, which took him out of the callow and heedless youth category.

Slocum squinted while the man peeled off his right glove. Damn, he hated this shit!

The figure neared, then stopped. And stood there, silently. There was no sound at all, except for the whistle of the low wind and that poor woman, still trying to get Sassy to come inside and out of danger.

Slocum grumbled to himself. Why the hell didn’t the varmint draw? Or do something? Was this fool out to kill him with boredom?

“You gonna stand there all day, Slocum, or you gonna ask an old buddy to have a drink?”

The figure lifted a hand and slapped his thigh. “ ’Bout damn time, Slocum!” he said, between jagged peals of laughter. “I thought for a minute I was actually gonna have to shoot you!”

Slocum grinned. “That’ll be the day, Crone. C’mon,” he said, waving a hand. “I’ll buy you a beer.”

Crone cackled again. “Don’t mind if I do, Slocum, don’t mind at all!”

While Sassy finally got up, shook herself off, and went inside the door across the way, Slocum waited until the figure reached him and stepped out of the sun’s glare to assume not only the voice, but the visage of David Erasmus Crone—cowpuncher, range rider, pretty fair tracker, former Pinkerton man, and now, retired counter man.

At least, Slocum figured he had quit ringing the money up at that Taos gunsmith’s shop. New Mexico was a long way from Monkey Springs in the Arizona Territory.

Crone made himself at home at Slocum’s table, and Slocum called for a couple of fresh beers.

“Real funny, Crone,” he said, picking up his beer. “Callin’ me out like that. Don’t you know you almost got yourself killed, putting yourself between me and the sun?”

Crone, a good-sized man with short, grizzled, dark brown hair and a thick mustache to match, replied, “Can’t say that I wasn’t tryin’ to, Slocum.” He twirled his beer mug with an idle finger. “Then again, didn’t figure you to actually draw until you was drawn on.”

Slocum sat back and took a thoughtful sip. “Got a point,” he said. “But damn, Crone! What you doin’ out in this neck of the woods, anyhow? You give up watchin’ the cashbox at Morton’s Gunsmith Shop?”

Crone nodded a quick yes. “Borin’, Slocum. Terrible borin’. Worse’n watchin’ cactus grow. And then, two weeks ago, I got me a reprieve.”

Crone leaned over the table on his elbows and grinned. “You remember Vance Jefferson?”

Slocum certainly did. Who could forget Jefferson’s lone charge on the Downy boys, over at Foxtail Canyon, or the way he’d handled that deal with Ferris Heron, over on the Colorado River?

A few other celebrated events had been attributed to Vance Jefferson, too, but Slocum had been around for both the Downy boys and Ferris’s last stand, so he only counted those two as real. He knew how tongues wagged, and the ways of reporters and dime novelists, eager for a good tall story.

Crone’s head nodded. “Well, I heared he’s dead. Heared he got hisself kilt. And over a dance-hall girl! Ain’t that somethin’?”

Slocum furrowed his brow. He couldn’t figure out why Crone seemed so damned happy about it. Jefferson had saved Crone’s gizzard once or twice, after all.

But then Crone added, “Bob Marcus done it. I’m goin’ up there to find him and settle the score.”

“Seems to me that it’d take more’n Bob Marcus to take down Jefferson, Crone,” Slocum said quietly. “Not that I mean to doubt your word.”

“Oh, understood, Slocum!” Crone said, and polished off his beer. He called to the barkeep for another, then added, “Slocum, they say that Granger Foley was with him. Do you know Foley?”

“Mostly by reputation,” Slocum said. “Heard he killed Tom Villard over cards.”

Crone nodded. “He sure did. He shot him over my way, in New Mexico Territory. Marcus, I mean; Marcus shot Jefferson. He’s a mean piece’a business, and he’s hooked up with Foley now. The Lord knows why.”

He stood up, met the bartender halfway to the table, and brought back his full mug.

“And you’re gonna go and avenge Vance Jefferson, all by your lonesome?” Slocum asked. He hadn’t even put a dent in his beer yet. He picked it up and took a gulp, if only in the interest of keeping things closer to even.

“Yes, I am, by God!” announced Crone. “Ol’ Jefferson, he picked me up from a dry wady at a full gallop back in ’77, saved my bacon from the bunch of them scum-suckers that Juan Alba calls his gang. A man don’t forget somethin’ like that, no sir!”

Crone must have dome something pretty rank to piss off Juan Alba’s boys, Slocum thought, but said nothing. He sucked on his beer.

Crone brought his beer mug down hard, sloshing foam over his hand. “Dad gum it! You’re supposed to come with me! Ain’t that the way this works?”

Slocum studied on this for a moment, then said, with a straight face, “The way what works, Crone? Don’t believe I follow you.”

A look of disgust crossed Crone’s face, followed by one of abject disappointment. “I’m supposed to tell you what happened to ol’ Vance—and who done it—and you’re supposed to whatchacall . . . jump on the vengeance band-wagon with me!”

Slocum nodded. “Got you, Crone. But y’see, I’m expected in Apache Wells. And that’s where I’m goin’.”

Crone’s face lit up. “Well, that’s fine, just fine! Marcus and Foley was last seen riding that away!”