Slocum and the Hellfire Harem (9781101613382) (9 page)

14

From the location of the flashes peppering the hillside across from the little house, it looked to Slocum as if there were four or five guns raining lead down on the place. He hustled the two women and their mounts into the barn and found that someone had already put the two workhorses in as well. The structure would keep them relatively safe, unless it caught fire. And would also prevent whoever it was attacking from stealing or running off the horses.

He slid his rifle from its boot, and stuffed extra shells into his pockets. “We have to get to the house, see if your family's okay. You two go first, don't waste time. I'll cover you, then you do the same as I head to the wagon, halfway between the barn and house. Ready? I'll say ‘Go!' and you make tracks, got me?”

The sisters nodded to him and crouched low, holding hands.

“Go! Go! Go!” Slocum ripped off one shot after another into the trees and rocks across the trail, then managed two more rounds as he hightailed it, stiff-legged and hobble-running, toward the house. Within seconds, he joined the rest in the little thick-walled adobe house. It would withstand a lot of bullets. He only hoped the attackers didn't have anything that they might toss at them through the sagged, hole-filled roof.

Slocum was relieved to note everyone seemed to be unhurt and clustered in the rearmost—and safest—corner of the house. Shots from their attackers echoed at random. Occasional shouts, unintelligible, reached his ears. They were the voices of men, but beyond that, he didn't know what was being shouted.

The littlest ones were visibly frightened, whimpering and huddled under blankets, but there was little that Slocum could do, at least during daylight. Even then, he wondered how useful he'd be to them now that his mobility was limited.

“Ma'am,” he said to the old lady, who wasn't budging from her position just behind the shutter at the front window. “What's going on here?”

Without looking at him, she snorted, said, “What does it look like? We're being shot at.”

He joined her at the window, peeked carefully outside, the fading afternoon light revealing even less than mere moments before. “How long's it been going on?” Before she could answer him, a shot spanged off the edge of the window inches from his face. “Damn!”

The old woman laughed.

“So who is it, do you know?”

She looked at him, but said nothing.

“Your husband and sons?”

That pulled her from her post by the window, and riveted every other eye in the place on him, too. “How'd you know?” Her voice was low, cold, and measured.

“How do you think? Before I arrived here yesterday, I came right by their place, found them lashed to fence posts out front, naked and nearly dead, sunburned beyond belief. I'd never seen anybody looking so bad off from the sun. It would have been funny, but a few more hours and they'd have surely been dead.” He watched their faces, and saw horror and worry there.

“Nearly dead, you say?” The old woman looked at the rifle in her hands, then spoke in a low voice, almost to herself. “Thought for sure they would have slipped them ropes in short order.” She looked up at him, a weird mixture of relief and anger on her face. “Only trying to buy us some time . . .”

“That would explain why they didn't follow along until now,” said one of the twins. “We were just trying to give ourselves extra time to skedaddle, is all . . .”

The mother looked at him. “We never expected to break down so close to home.”

“In that wagon?” said Slocum. “You'd be lucky to make it another day or two without something else giving out.”

He peered out another window hole. “He wasn't too happy when I left them. Talking all sorts of religious stuff, God this and God that and devil this and devil that and seasoning his speechifying with big words I've never heard a preacher use.”

The old lady snorted. “That's 'cause he ain't a preacher. He ain't much of anything—bad father, lousy husband, even worse farmer. 'Bout all he's good for is making babies.” She glanced at the huddled children and her daughters as she resumed her post by the window. “Wonder how he got them guns.”

“You know well as I do, Mama, that he had them hidden away in that hidey-hole in the barn,” said Ruth.

The old lady nodded. “Wish I had known how many he had down there. We tried to break through them strap hinges, but it was sealed up tight and we had to get while the getting was upon us.”

Another volley rang out and the little house received another good peppering. “Dang them! Don't they know we got kids in here?” The old lady shouted out the window, “Hey! I know it's you, you old God-lovin' savage!”

In response, she received another fresh round. From the other side of the front door, Ruth let out a sharp cry and spun into the back of the room, knocking into the wooden table. She clutched her shoulder.

Her mother and one of the twins went to her and soon had her seated with the children. “Hush now, hush now, it was only a grazing,” said the old woman to quiet the crying children. “She'll be right as rain in no time.”

Slocum looked back toward Ruth, met her gaze. She seemed clear-eyed. Pained, sure, but she didn't seem like one for fainting. They exchanged nods. He turned back to the window, wondering about the mess he'd stumbled into. “What kind of people would shoot their own family?”

“The kind that don't care about them. The kind who only wants breeding stock. That's what he called us. Breeding stock!” The old woman sneered as she bandaged Ruth's wound, and directed a look of pure, smoldering hate toward the window. Slocum felt sure the rascals hunkered down somewhere in those woods felt her anger.

“Is that what this is all about? You ran away because you weren't appreciated, is that it?”

“Isn't that enough?” said Ruth. “You make it sound as if we should have stayed and put up with it.”

“No, I'm surprised you didn't leave sooner.”

As full dark settled down about them outside, Slocum warned them against lighting the oil lamp. “They obviously don't care about you or the children, and have proven they'll shoot to harm, or worse, so I'd keep the light to a minimum, at least until I can figure out where they're holed up. Or if they're creeping up on us.”

“You think they'd do that?”

“Yep. I would if I had my prey pinned down in a little house. I'd do my best to make sure no one could leave.”

From outside, a sharp voice rang out. “Hey, in the house!”

“It's him,” said the old woman to the people in the room. Then she shouted out the window, “What do you want, you beast?”

“You come back home now. You've made your point, but you all are just women! The Good Lord saw fit to give you to us, but His teachings tell us that second-class citizens ain't allowed to express themselves such as you have done here. Now come back home and one month's worth of lashes and fasting will be the only punishment, you have my word on that! But I warn you, any more of this foolishness and the Good Lord will guide my hands to exceed the reach of the lash! You have received but a taste of His mighty vengeance!”

“This is foolish. I'm going out there to stop this old thumper once and for all.”

“This ain't your fight, Mr. Slocum. You leave him be, you leave them to us.”

“Like hell I will. He's got me pinned down here, too. But he's shooting at you. Hell, he already shot one of you.” He gestured at Ruth. “He's turned his own sons against his own wife and daughters and grandchildren.”

Slocum wasn't actually quite sure what the family arrangement was, but the members didn't seem to be all that afflicted with inbreeding. Maybe some of them were from outside. He didn't really care at that moment; he only wanted to put an end to it, by putting a bullet in the old man's head if need be.

Despite his brief bit of late-night fun with Ruth, this family, both sides, had caused him more harm than good. And all he wanted now was to get the heck out of there. But like it or not, he was smack-dab in the middle of their family feud.

“You all keep your heads down. I have something to do. I'll be back.” He ignored the volley of voices that begged him to stay, not to go out in the dark. But he knew the cover of night could be a blade that cut both ways. He slipped out the back door, and stopped short when he heard the old matriarch behind him.

“Whatever you do, don't you kill my babies, Mr. Slocum. They might be devils, but they're still my sons.”

“I understand, ma'am, but I can't promise they won't die if they draw on me.”

He took advantage of the near dark and stiff-legged his way into the night. He kept low, made straight out back behind the place, then angled right and hobbled around the corral, then the barn. He was rewarded with the flare of a match a few hundred feet away. Someone else was taking advantage of the cover of darkness, and coming closer, from the sounds of it—and they were none too quiet, sounding as if it were a blind bear.

Judging from the size of the older boys, they were quite capable of resembling bears. Slocum cat-footed around the end of the barn and paused at the edge of the road. There were the footsteps again. Stopping, then starting, someone was also waiting to hear the footfalls of an opponent. Slocum wouldn't give him the courtesy, though. He waited him out. When he heard the other person's boots on gravel, he tensed. His opponent was on the little roadway then, creeping toward him, and sounding as if he might walk over the top of Slocum.

Just enough new-rising moonlight peeked above the trees and skylined the brute. Slocum recognized the man as one of the bigger older boys. He had no way of knowing how far off the other four were, but he couldn't risk letting this one through. He counted one, two more steps, then leapt to action. He drove the stock of the rifle at the big, shaggy head and was rewarded with the satisfying
thunk!
as wood met bone. The big man buckled in the moonlight, folding like a pocketknife before him. As he dropped, a groan wheezed from between his lips.

Great, thought Slocum. Now all I have to figure out is how to get him back to the barn and tie him up. Not one of my better-thought-out plans, but at least I prevented him from making his way to the house to torment the kids and the women.

But would he have tormented them? Maybe he was only trying to get away from his demented father, too. Maybe he was using the only thing he had at his disposal to do so—the darkness of nighttime. Or maybe the father's brainwashing was so complete that he was intent on doing them all harm, on stopping them any way he knew how.

Slocum tried to drag the brute off the road by the shirt collar, but between the man's size and his dead weight, Slocum's own injured leg, and trying to balance his rifle, he wasn't up to the challenge. He managed to get the big brute to the edge of the road. He also managed to unbuckle the man's gun belt. He slung the leather over his shoulder, making sure the pistol was secured with a hammer thong in its holster.

He figured he'd head back to the house, get someone's help, maybe Judith, then truss up the man and drag him to the barn before heading out to do the same to the others. It was just luck that this one fell in his lap, but maybe the men weren't all that bright and would keep making the same mistakes. He could only hope so.

He repeated his short journey to the house, where the women were still trading random shots with the unseen attackers. “They'll ease up once full dark lands on us. There's no way they can keep shooting with any accuracy in the dark. But that means no lamplight from inside here.”

“Why, Mr. Slocum, you sound as though you've done this sort of thing before.”

“Matter of fact, I have.” But there was no time for his comment to sink in, because a fresh barrage of bullets chewed their way into the already pocked exterior of the little house. But something about it was different.

There were less of them from the front, which meant that some had moved or were in the process of skirting them, surrounding the place. None would be safe, then, for the inside of the house was half exposed to the weather. It sat there, open at the back, the dry wind slicing through, making slow progress in chewing away all the work some long-ago farmer and his family had put into the little place.

Bu he figured he still had enough time to truss up that big brute he'd coldcocked earlier, then drag him to the barn. “I'm going back out there. I have to deal with something.” He didn't dare mention to them that he had clubbed one of their own. They'd either attack Slocum or find the man he'd hit and tear him to pieces. He felt sure that, given half a chance, they could be as crazy as their father. If Slocum felt himself doubting that fact, he only had to think back on what they did to the old man and the boys.

He slipped out and paused, low, behind the wagon. No shots rang out. Maybe they hadn't really begun surrounding them yet. He took the chance and headed low and as fast as he was able. No shouts. He'd made it to the far end of the barn when he heard a sound behind him. He spun fast, jacking a fresh round into play in the rifle.

Judith stared at him, her eyes wide. “Don't shoot me, Mr. Slocum,” she whispered.

“Dammit, Judith, what are you doing? I almost . . .” He shook his head, then said, “Come on. I thought we talked about you following people. Bad habit, you know.”

By the time he made it back with Judith in tow to where he had dropped the man like a big sack of wet sand, the man was gone. “I know I left him here,” he said in a low whisper.

“Who?”

He looked at her. “I hit one of them.” He saw the worried look on her face. “Nah, I mean I knocked him out, not shot him. Not yet.”

“Well, he ain't here now, Mr. Slocum.”

“Gee, thanks. Not sure what I'd have done without you along.”

“No need to get huffy with me. I'm here, ain't I?”