Slocum and the Long Ride by Jake Logan Page A

a
pistolero
. You are well armed.”
    â€œI am the man who challenged you to either fight me or leave.”
    â€œOh, I see you want to fight with me.”
    â€œNo, you don’t want that.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œWhat would your mother think of you in those clothes all bloody in a cheap coffin?”
    â€œMy mother is a whore in Juárez. She wouldn’t care anything about seeing
you
dead.”
    Then the bartender put a snare around Bulldog’s neck and had him with his back pulled hard to the bar. “Go ahead, señor. I didn’t want him to try anything.”
    â€œAh, Ringo, it is your last chance to get on your horse and ride away—alive.”
    Bulldog made growling sounds in his throat, trying to get his fingers under the noose choking him. He was backed over the top of the bar by the rawhide tool.
    â€œBe calm,
mi amigo
. I will kill that bartender that has you now after I kill this gringo in men’s clothing.”
    Ringo went for his gun, in slow motion to Slocum, whose pistol blasted a large cloud of gun smoke even before Ringo’s pistol was fully cocked. The bullet went straight into his heart. In the next moment, Ringo’s eyes widened in disbelief. He staggered, then fell down dead on the dirt floor.
    But it was the sounds of Bulldog being strangled to death by the bartender that made Slocum sick to his stomach. Finally the bartender’s assistant reached over and cut the big man’s throat with a large-blade carving knife. No more gasping. Blood flew everywhere. The bartender let go of the noose, and Bulldog’s body slumped on the floor. His left leg kicked in his dying reactions.
    â€œGive me a glass of that beer,” Slocum said. “Who cleans up in here?”
    The bartender, with the beer, said, “All of us are so grateful to be rid of them.
Gracias, amigo.
Drink all the beer you wish.”
    â€œCome, my girlfriend. The smoke is too bad to stay in here. Where is your hammock at?”
    She came skipping across the room and took his arm. “I will show you.”
    â€œDon’t charge him either,” the bartender said after her.
    She shook her head. “I wasn’t going to anyway.”
    Out of the batwing doors into the blinding sun, she took his arm, and they stopped to get his pacing horse to lead along with them.
    â€œWhere will you go next?”
    â€œWe can talk about that later. How far is your place?”
    â€œJust a short ways. Why?”
    â€œIs it far enough that we are going to ride this horse?”
    â€œOh, no. See that jacal on this hill? That is my casa.”
    â€œHow did you get that nice of a place?”
    â€œA woman and her three children died in there after a mad dog bit them. They died a horrible death. There was nothing anyone could do for them. People said their maddening screams were even in the adobe walls. I have never heard them.”
    â€œGood. I hate screams too.”
    â€œYou never told me your home?”
    â€œWhere I sleep? Anywhere I lay down.”
    â€œLet’s put him in the corral out back and unsaddle him. There is some hay. I want to learn all about you.” She patted the arm she held. “You are a powerful man. Those men were killers who came by here often and scared the villagers. Me too.”
    â€œI am only going to stay one night.”
    â€œYou are on a mission, no?”
    â€œYou could call it that. How did you know I had one?”
    â€œI guessed it. At times it gets too hot to sleep on the ground. A hammock is nice if you don’t fall out.” She laughed. “Me and a customer did that one night in the middle of our business.” With a laugh out loud, she hid her face on his sleeve. “We were too wild, huh?”
    â€œToo wild is right.” At her corral he unsaddled Pancho and put him in the pen. Grateful to have the saddle off, he rolled in the dust and wiggled on his back to stop the itching or whatever.