Slocum 394 : Slocum and the Fool's Errand (9781101545980) (7 page)

“Nah, I was headed out anyways. The least I can do is take you back to your horse so you don't have to leave town the same way you came.”

“Yeah,” Jack chuckled. “Nobody wants that.”

Slocum offered a hand to the other man, who reflexively started to take it with the one that was bundled up like a baby. Gritting his teeth, he curled that arm around so Slocum could take hold of his elbow and steady him while Jack climbed onto the stallion's back. It was a long, arduous process but he eventually settled into the saddle behind Slocum. They caught the attention of more than a few locals as they rode out of town.

Jack had picked a spot for his camp nestled between a cluster of low boulders that would have provided a nice wall against the cold night winds as he slept. It also would have lit up like the Fourth of July once a fire was started in the ring of rocks that had been built there. Once they were within ten yards of the boulders, Slocum reined his horse to a stop so Jack could climb down. He would have gotten a little closer, but the other man had become too fidgety to tolerate for one more second.

Hunching over to study the ground as he walked, Jack held his arm against his belly and paced a small tract of land. “Damn wolves didn't kill my horse. Not right here anyway.”

Slocum looked down from where he sat and found the scuff marks on the rocky ground to mark the places where a shoed animal had walked. “Did you come from the west?”

“No.”

“Then that's where your horse went. At least,” Slocum said as he pointed to the tracks he'd found, “if that was your horse.”

It took a few seconds for Jack to see the tracks that Slocum had spotted from his higher position, but found them nonetheless. “That's her all right!” he said excitedly as he took off running to follow the tracks down a slope. Jack moved with an awkward gait, probably because his feet were still sore from his frantic trek into town.

The slope led down to a crack in some rocks about sixty yards away from the camp. When he got a little closer, Slocum could tell the rocks were embedded in the ground and the crack was wider that he'd thought at first sight. “Hold up,” he shouted. “Better steer clear of those rocks.”

“I think my horse was here! The tracks lead to these rocks and it looks like she was runnin' !”

“That looks like a cave!” Slocum said. “Don't wolves live in caves?” Jack skidded to a stop, which gave Slocum a chance to draw the Winchester rifle from the boot of his saddle and lever in a round. “Back away,” he said.

Jack was quick to comply and kept his eyes glued to the cave's entrance.

Slocum fired a shot into the shallow space. The bullet glanced off some rocks amid a shower of sparks and ricocheted within the darkness. Some dust trickled against the ground, but there wasn't another sound to be heard before he worked the rifle's lever again.

“I'm goin' in there,” Jack said.

“You want to lose more than just a few fingers? Go right ahead.”

“I won't lose nothin' because there ain't nothin' in there.”

“Then why do you want to look inside? That cave's not big enough for a horse.”

Jack took a few moments to try and sift through what Slocum thought was fairly simple logic. Even though he seemed to know what was being told to him, Jack waved him off and headed toward the cave anyway. “Something died in there,” he said. “I can smell it. If one of them wolves crawled in here to perish after the fight I put up, I wanna know.”

Slocum's instinct was to call the man back or drag him away from the cave. Since he had no connection to the lunatic other than having shared a doctor's office for a short stretch of time, he stayed put and readied the Winchester in case he got an easy shot at an angry wolf. If nothing else, there was always money to be made in selling pelts.

As if harkening back to his colorful entrance into Rocas Rojas, Jack hunched over and scrambled into the cave while hooting and hollering like a madman. His voice took an even higher pitch when he accidentally knocked his bundled right hand against a cave wall. He disappeared into the shadows, and before too long, his shouting subsided.

When Slocum thought he'd heard the heavy thump of a body hitting the ground, he shouted, “Jack? You all right?”

After a pause, a shaky reply came from the cave. “Yeah. I tripped. This cave goes back a little ways.”

Owing to the angle of the sun and the fact that the ground was a uniform color around those rocks, Slocum wasn't able to pick out many details regarding the terrain. There was something strange about the echo coming from the cave, however. At first, Slocum thought his ears might be playing tricks on him. When he rode around the boulders to get a different vantage point, he found that the sound he'd heard had indeed come from two different spots. He climbed down from the saddle and approached the back end of the rock formation. “The cave opens up back here,” he said.

“Yeah,” Jack shouted from within the cave. “I can see some light.”

The other side of the formation was a steep slope angling down from the rocks. The drop-off was only about six or seven feet, which was just enough to shade what was lying in the shallow pit. It was also enough to provide a barrier to keep the stench of dead meat from overwhelming him before. Now that he was looking straight down at the carcass, Slocum had to place a hand over his nose and mouth until he acclimated to the odors wafting up from there. “Think I found your horse,” he said.

“What?”

Taking his hand away from his mouth, Slocum shouted, “I said I think I—”

Suddenly, Jack's head emerged from the back entrance of the cave. Because that opening was so much smaller than the one in front, it looked more like the rocks were passing him through their digestive tract and excreting him onto the desert floor. “I hear ya,” he snarled. “No need to shout. Hey! That's my horse!”

“Looks like it may have slipped and broke its neck.”

“Stay put! I'm comin' down there to get a look for myself!” Then, the rocks sucked his head back in as Jack began the arduous process of backing up and turning around within such cramped quarters.

Knowing that it would take a while for Jack to settle down long enough to escape, Slocum scrambled down the steep incline leading to the bottom of what had become a shallow, open grave. By the time he got within arm's reach of the horse's remains, Slocum had gotten as used to the scent as he was ever going to get. At least his stomach wasn't churning when he examined a few bloody spots along its side and neck.

Frantic scraping sounds followed by labored grunting announced Jack's reentry into the outside world. Those gave way to irregular footsteps as he circled around the rocks to where Slocum was conducting his examination. “Get away from there!” Jack snapped. “That's my horse!”

Without cowing to the other man's feverish demand, Slocum asked, “You said this animal was at your camp when you were attacked by wolves?”

“Yeah.”

“Was that before or after it was shot?”

The anger that had been on Jack's face dropped away like a layer of dust blown off the rocks behind him. “Shot? What do you mean shot?”

“I mean the thing that happens when you point a gun at something and pull the trigger.”

“Looks like she fell into that hole after getting chased by them damn wolves.”

“This horse was shot and may have had enough left in her to run for a bit. What concerns me more is that you seem to have left something out of your story.”

The anger returned to Jack's face as he approached Slocum. When he got close enough, another scent reached Slocum's nose that was almost as unpleasant as the dead horse.

“I don't owe you anything, Slocum,” Jack said. “I asked for a favor and you were kind enough to help me out. That don't mean you're entitled to anything more than my gratitude.”

“Maybe not, but I've been around long enough to know when to trust my instincts, and there's been something wrong with you from the moment you first staggered into town.”

“Then leave me out here! I'll just take my . . .” When he looked down at his horse, Jack stared at the carcass and then turned accusing eyes back to the man that had brought him there. “Were you sifting through my bags?”

Slocum scowled at Jack and then turned to look into the pit. He'd barely noticed the saddlebags since he'd been too distracted by the gunshot wounds. “Why would I go through your bags?”

“Someone's been through them. They're all crooked and open!”

“Well, the damn horse is just laying there!” Slocum said. “Anyone could've gone through those bags. Hell, those wolves could've poked their noses through them for all I know!”

Jack's right hand moved toward his holster, but stopped short. Until that moment, Slocum had all but forgotten about the pieced-together firearm he'd taken away from him at the doctor's office. The gun must have been returned to Jack along with his other belongings when he'd left Bower's care.

“Them bags are mine,” Jack said as he crossed his left hand over his belly toward the holster. “Along with everything that's in 'em.”

Slocum stepped back. “You're right. Those are your possessions. But you're not right about me poking through them. All I did was take a look at the horse because those gunshot wounds don't match up to what you said before. You don't owe me any explanations. Guess this whole thing just seems peculiar.”

When Jack smiled, it wasn't a pretty sight. Yellowed teeth were bared, as well as several gaps where teeth had once been. Even without the irregularly spaced holes, the grimace still would have been unsettling. “I'm the one that lost some fingers to a damn wolf and you want to talk about peculiar?”

“What's that on your hand?” Slocum asked.

Jack shifted his attention to his left hand, which was smeared with a thick, dark substance running up past his wrist. “Must've stuck it in something when I was crawlin' through that cave.”

“Looks like dung. Smells like it, too.”

“Well, there were wolves in there! They ain't the cleanest animals, you know!”

“What did you do? Try to smear it on the walls? It's all over you!”

“Aw, leave me be,” Jack said while making his way to the bottom of the pit. Hunkering down over the dead animal to stick his hand into the saddlebag, he took out a dented canteen and some jerked beef, which he smelled before pitching it toward the dead horse's rump. Curling his bundled hand against his chest, Jack dug all the way down to the bottom of the bag as if he were sticking his arm straight down the horse's throat. “It ain't here.”

“What isn't there?”

“Oh, wait. It should be in the other bag. Wanna give me a hand with this?”

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” Slocum replied as he crossed his arms and made it perfectly clear he had no intention of getting any closer to that carcass.

“Look, even with both hands I couldn't roll this thing over. Can you help me or not?”

“What's so important?”

“It's something that someone was after when they went through my bags. Without it, all I got is half a hand and the clothes on my back.”

Many times, Slocum wished he didn't have a conscience. As far as he could tell, the damn things only got a man into trouble.

“So,” Jack said, “you gonna help me or did you come all this way to laugh at a cripple while he tries to scrape up whatever's left of his earthly possessions?”

“You're not a cripple.”

Jack muttered a few other things before placing a foot on the horse's ribs to give him some leverage as he grabbed hold of the saddlebag and started to pull. His first attempt didn't do much of anything, so he looped his right arm beneath the leather bag for a more secure grip as he leaned back and pulled with every bit of strength his body could muster. The bag didn't even budge before Jack lost his grip along with his balance and fell straight back to bounce off the edge of the pit. When he flopped over and propped himself up, the hand smeared with dung slid on the rocks and his chest bounced off the desert floor.

“All right,” Slocum said as he walked over to where Jack had fallen and grabbed his elbow. “On your feet.”

“Bless you,” Jack sighed.

“I don't know about blessings, but I sure won't be earning anything of the sort if I stood by to watch any more of this.”

“Whatever compels you . . . I'll take it.” Once he was on his feet, Jack dusted himself off and looked down at the horse. “Any ideas of how we could get to those bags?”

“Actually, yes.”

Slocum's first idea was to rig some sort of lever using a piece of wood or a fallen log. Since neither of those things or even a viable substitute could be seen, he decided on another route. He tied one end of a length of rope to his saddle horn and the other end to the horn of the saddle still buckled to the dead horse. With a bit of encouragement and some elbow grease applied at the right time, Slocum and Jack were able to pull the saddlebags free.

“I hope your valuables weren't breakable,” Slocum said while untying the rope from each saddle. “Because that bag's flat as a pancake.”

“All I'm worried about is one thing,” Jack said while anxiously sticking his hand into the scuffed bag. He grinned when he added, “Better make that a couple hundred things.” The prize in his hand was wrapped in what looked to be an old scarf. Part of the dirty cloth fell away to reveal a bundle of cash large enough to back his claim.

“Good thing those wolves weren't too greedy,” Slocum said.