Slocum and the Three Fugitives by Jake Logan

hours on the trail. Another was that he needed his wits sharp and now the beer dulled them.
    Putting down roots in Taos was not something he had considered, but he was increasingly amenable to the notion. The people in the pueblo were decent, and Annabelle was enough to make any man forget about riding to the horizon just to see what lay beyond. It wasn’t always necessary to ride past the sunset if he shared it with a willing woman as lovely as Annabelle Harris.
    â€œThis is a different life for me. I grew up working a farm. The war changed the way I lived.”
    â€œYou shouldn’t feel guilty that you survived and others around you didn’t,” she said.
    â€œI don’t feel guilty. I barely survived.”
    Unconsciously, his hand pressed into his belly, where Bloody Bill Anderson had gut-shot him after William Quantrill had taken offense. Slocum had said powerful things to Quantrill about how he had ordered his guerrillas to kill every male in Lawrence, Kansas, over the age of eight. Slocum was sure some under that young age had been gunned down just to feed the rebel leader’s anger at losing his sister in a federal prison.
    It had taken Slocum months to recover. He felt no guilt about the struggle that he’d won and that so many others had lost. A small smile curled his lips. He had heard Quantrill had been killed and his skull sent back to Ohio, where it had been lost. He had kept his head; Quantrill hadn’t.
    No guilt about that at all.
    â€œWe are making money,” she said, turning back to the ledger, “but we need to restock. Our whiskey supply is distressingly low.”
    â€œThat’s why Tom was heading up to Denver, to get new shipments.”
    She nodded somberly.
    â€œWhat happened to the whiskey peddlers? A town like Taos ought to have them fighting their way through Raton Pass to supply you.”
    â€œI don’t know. As I said, Tom always handled that part of the business. I was more a numbers wrangler. This and tending bar.” She thumped the ledger.
    â€œYou hear anything about Pierre?” he asked suddenly. “He thought he was entitled to the money. Nobody walks away from a pie when he expects to get at least one piece.”
    â€œI haven’t heard anything more of him. I think he left town,” she said.
    Slocum doubted that. The former barkeep had been too furious to ride off and not look back. He decided he needed to track the man down and settle the score before considering other saloon business. He downed his water and started to stand when a half-dozen men came in. Slocum sank back into the chair and reached across for the gun butt hanging on his left side.
    â€œYou’re a dead man if you throw down, Slocum.” The owlhoot gestured to the men flanking him. Both leveled shotguns. “I’m Lucas Deutsch and this is my little brother, Timothy.”
    â€œLittle brother” meant the same as calling a fat man “Skinny.” Timothy Deutsch’s hat brushed the ceiling. His shoulders were the span of a bull’s horns. He opened and closed hands the size of quart jars, as if fantasizing about wrapping them around someone’s neck and squeezing out the life.
    Slocum’s sharp eyes picked out the liquor stains on Lucas Deutsch’s vest, a silent testimony to his sloppiness in breaking bottles in the Black Hole’s back room a week ago. Which of the other men had been with Deutsch hardly mattered. It hadn’t been his “little” brother. Slocum would have identified a hulking giant like him in a flash.
    He scowled, pursued his lips, then asked, “I’ve seen you boys before, haven’t I? On the road to Denver?” From the way Timothy Deutsch surged forward, he knew he had hit a nerve.
    Slocum gauged his distance and the attack perfectly. He shoved out his foot, caught Deutsch’s boot toe, causing him to stumble. Moving fast, Slocum slammed his fist into the back of