Slocum and the Warm Reception (11 page)

A few hours later, after Slocum and Anna had had one more tussle in bed and some time to recover from it, he sat at the little round table in her dining room while she put together something to eat in the kitchen. “So,” she said from the other room, “you're pretty easy to distract. I suppose those other things you wanted to talk about weren't so important.”

“I wish that was the case,” he replied. “Some other matters are just more important.”

She emerged from the kitchen carrying a cup of water and a plate with a few slices of bread and some hunks of cheese on it. Even in the dim light of the single candle in the dining room, her smile was easy to see. “Important shouldn't be confused with urgent,” she said. “Although one seems very much like the other when certain moods strike.”

Slocum waited for her to come back with her own cup of water so he could look her in the eyes and say, “I know what I mean and
important
was the word I was after.”

Sitting down across from him, Anna sipped her water and then patted his hand. “You don't have to stay here with me, John.”

“Where else would I want to go?”

“Where there's a fight waiting. That's the sort of man you are.”

Recoiling a bit, he said, “I'm not quite sure if I should be offended by that or not.”

Rather than try to reclaim the hand that Slocum had reeled in, Anna picked up her cup and took a drink. Shrugging, she said, “It's nothing to be ashamed of. And I don't see why you'd be surprised to hear me say it.”

“Guess I didn't know you thought of me like that.”

“Like what? A fighter? That's what you are. The last time you were in Mescaline, you met Jeremiah Hartley and couldn't resist fighting him.”

“It's not like I couldn't resist . . .”

“Really?” she asked through an amused grin. “You could have just ridden away. Lord knows plenty of other folks did.”

“Would you have preferred I did?”

“Of course not. We needed a fighter. I happen to like fighters. I like to think of myself as one, just so long as it's the right sort of fight. Don't get your nose all bent out of shape just because of the words I'm using. I never called you a wild dog or bloodthirsty killer.”

Slocum weighed what she said and quickly realized Anna was right. He truly was just getting his feathers ruffled because of how he'd taken one word and twisted it into something offensive. “All right,” he sighed, deciding to let one matter drop so he could move on to another. “There is a fight out there waiting and normally I don't mind wading into a good scrap for the right reasons. That being said, there's plenty of good reasons for me to stay with you.”

“Like?”

“Like . . . I rented a room directly below a hornet's nest and I don't particularly care to have my door kicked in while I'm asleep.”

She tore off a piece of bread and stuck it into her mouth. “So you'd rather I get
my
door kicked in? I take back what I said about you being chivalrous.”

“You never said I was chivalrous.”

Pausing with her cup raised partway to her lips, she shrugged and said, “I may have been thinking it at one point or another, but that's passed.”

Slocum tore off some bread as well. Although it wasn't warm and was starting to get a bit crusty, it still tasted good and went down nice and easy with a sip of water. “I'd never do anything to put you in danger. We both know that. Tonight was fine because I bought us a little time. Once I'm introduced to this Mr. Dawson fellow, I suppose I'll probably go back to the Three Star.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because it's never a bad idea to keep your enemies within arm's reach. Besides, I'm not even certain he is an enemy after all. He could just have some loudmouthed assholes on his payroll.”

“No,” Anna snapped. “What I meant was why would you want to be introduced to Mr. Dawson? I can tell you right now that would only spell out a heap of trouble for you.”

“From what I've heard, Mr. Dawson has put out some sort of bounty for me,” Slocum said as he ripped into the bread as if he were stripping flesh from bone. “I don't particularly care for that. Even so, there's a chance it could just be one big misunderstanding.”

“It isn't.”

After chewing his bread and taking a drink, Slocum asked, “Are you going to tell me who this Dawson fella is or do I have to start guessing?”

“Isn't it clear enough already? He's the one that stepped into the space left by Jeremiah Hartley.”

“Is he Jeremiah's kin?” Slocum asked.

Anna allowed her head to droop forward. Although subtle, the motion was as somber as a beautiful flower wilting from lack of water. “He's not related to Jeremiah Hartley,” she told him. “At least, he's never made that known. All I can tell you for certain is that, in some ways, he's worse than Hartley ever was.”

“How so?”

“Hartley may have been a mad dog, but at least a person knows what to expect with a mad dog. Until it can be put down, you stay out of its way. Blood was spilled and this town was turned into a battlefield, but that was when things boiled over. With Dawson, things haven't even gotten to a boil yet.”

“Why don't you start from the beginning,” Slocum said. “Who is this man?”

She pulled in a deep breath to steel herself. Maintaining her hold upon her cup, Anna kept both hands wrapped around it while swirling the remaining water around as she spoke. “After you left, Jeremiah Hartley was gone and Mescaline was able to pick itself up and dust itself off. Things became quiet. We elected a new sheriff since the last one . . . well . . . you know what Hartley did to the last one.”

Slocum thought back to the bloody mess that had once been a sheriff, which had been dumped onto Main Street. As near as he could tell, Mescaline's lawman had been drawn and quartered by Hartley and three of his boys. Parts of the sheriff were scattered about town and the head was hung from a post as an example of what anyone else could expect if they crossed him or his gang. It wasn't long after that when Slocum took the offensive and wiped out Jeremiah Hartley's gang over the course of a few days.

“Yeah,” he said as those haunting memories flashed through his mind. “I remember.”

“Abel Dawson rode into town a few months later,” she continued. “He got in good with the new sheriff. Even took a job as a deputy so he could get to know folks around here and they could get to know him. Funny thing is, he's a friendly enough sort. Easy to like. Always wanted to help. Then one day, he announces he wants to throw his hat into the ring for mayor.”

Slocum sifted through some more thoughts before admitting, “I didn't know Mescaline had a mayor.”

“We don't. Not really. There's Old Man Garrett, who sits on a few committees to plan town business, but we never had need of an official mayor. We tended to our matters well enough, but that didn't seem good enough for Dawson. He pled his case to every council we have, telling us how Mescaline is growing and every town worth its salt needs to be run properly, and to do that, a town needs a proper mayor.”

“So he was elected?”

She shook her head solemnly. “He tried to put together an election. He even tried to convince Old Man Garrett to put one together. But the men sitting on those committees were set in their ways and couldn't be convinced that anything different needed to be done. Mescaline is still small and we were all nervous about one man being at the head of everything. Jeremiah Hartley never declared himself the mayor, but folks around here still remembered how it was when he was around and we liked having our town back to run as we saw fit.”

“Makes sense,” Slocum said.

“We thought so. We even took a vote to see if we should change the way we do things around here.”

“A vote to see if you wanted to hold an election? That's kind of funny.”

The smile that started to appear on her face was short-lived. “Dawson acted surprised when he was told we were going to entertain his notion about a mayor one final time. He came to the town hall meeting, all dressed in his Sunday best, as if he'd already won the chair at the head of the table. When Old Man Garrett called the meeting to order, there was something strange about him. He seemed . . . frightened. And I've never known the old man to be frightened by anything. When the motion wasn't passed . . . Garrett looked positively terrified.”

“What did Dawson do?”

“Nothing. He stood up, turned his back on the whole room, and walked away. A few days later Old Man Garrett's grandson, Randy Garrett, went missing. He went for a ride and didn't come back. Folks started to worry and a search party was formed. They went out to look for him.” She paused to take a few silent moments and Slocum didn't try to spur her on. He just sat there and waited patiently until she said, “Nobody found a trace of him for days. Then one of the men came back with bad news. They found Randy dead in the middle of the desert. His head was cracked open by a rock. His back was broke. Both legs busted.”

“Jesus.”

“Best guess was that he'd been thrown from his horse and took a nasty fall, but the old man wouldn't have any of it. Randy was the apple of his eye. The poor soul was only sixteen years old. A fine young man who was always sweet to everyone he saw. Everyone in town cried at that young man's funeral. Even Abel Dawson.”

When Anna spoke that man's name, it was as if she were uttering a profanity so foul that she feared retribution just for allowing it to pass her lips. Hers was a face that wasn't made to reflect such an emotion, but there it was. Even in the flickering shadows cast by the candle closest to her, Slocum could see it plain as day. “Sounds like a terrible accident,” he said, feeling guilty for prodding her to return to such a grisly subject.

“It wasn't an accident,” she whispered. “Poor Randy was busted up so badly, even the undertaker couldn't hardly stand to look at him. Old Man Garrett wasn't convinced neither. Not even for a second. He started talking to some of the committee members, telling them how he was threatened by Dawson to make sure he was given the mayor's office. When he refused to cooperate, his life was threatened again. When the old man said he was going to expose Dawson for the snake he truly was, the old man's family was threatened.”

Even if Slocum already knew where the conversation was headed, he still felt a knot tighten in his gut when those words were spoken. Anyone who'd threaten someone's family was the worst kind of devil. No matter how many times he'd seen it happen, the calluses on Slocum's soul weren't nearly thick enough to keep him from feeling the hot sting of rage when he saw it again. He hoped he would never stop feeling it. If a man became that numb, he was dangerously close to not having a soul at all.

As Slocum tightened his grip around his water cup, Anna said, “Some men went out to have a look at the spot where Randy was found. Trackers. There was even a bounty hunter that was passing through at the time and the old man paid him to have a look as well. They all said there wasn't a chance that Randy was hurt so badly in a fall. They said . . . they said they would have found more blood.” She winced as she thought back to such a gruesome time, but forced herself to soldier on. “They said there weren't even enough sharp rocks or slopes to give him the kind of wounds he had.”

“He could have been trampled by his horse,” Slocum offered.

“He wasn't. His horse was found less than a quarter mile from where Randy was killed. There wasn't a hint of blood to be found on his shoes, hooves, or coat. Once Randy was found, the old man devoted every waking moment to figuring out what had happened. He told several folks how he was threatened and apparently he wasn't the only one. Some others were also threatened to convince them to get another mayoral election started.”

“Are you sure about what was said behind closed doors?” Slocum asked. “Rumors can do more damage than a gun if they get far enough out of hand.”

“I was at those committee meetings,” she told him. “When you and Jeremiah Hartley were fighting over this town, I saw more than I would have liked and I'd be damned if I was going to stand aside and let anything like that happen again. When I heard the first word that Abel Dawson might be trying to force himself where he wasn't wanted, I sat in on every committee meeting and made sure to be present whenever there were more than two men in town hall. I heard plenty, John. Believe that.”

“I believe it. Go on.”

“Once Old Man Garrett heard what the trackers and bounty hunter had to say, he just about lost his mind. He called Dawson out right in front of the house where Dawson was staying at the time. Not only Dawson, but two other men came out to answer him.”

“Who were the other two?” Slocum asked.

“I never saw them before, but they were armed. Garrett made his accusations and Dawson listened. I wasn't there when this happened, but word has it that Dawson was smiling while Garrett had tears streaming down his face as he talked about his grandson. Dawson said the old man was delusional and walked back into his house. That night . . . that night Garrett's wife and son were killed. Both had their throats slit. The town was appalled, and Dawson . . . he had the nerve to say that a mother and son had gotten into a fight and killed each other in the scuffle.”

“What did Garrett have to say to that?”

“Nothing. Not a word.”

When he'd been in Mescaline before, Slocum had met Old Man Garrett on more than a few occasions. The moniker may have sounded disrespectful, but it was more commonly used than his rightful name. Garrett was a kindhearted man who quickly befriended just about anyone he met. The old man had plenty of sand and was one of the first to help Slocum win the fight against Jeremiah Hartley. It was damn near inconceivable that the old man would have stood by and said nothing at a time like the one Anna was describing.