Slocum 420 (18 page)

In that moment, Slocum was sure he was going to die. Somewhere within his racing thoughts was the hope that it wouldn't hurt too badly when he was eaten alive. His finger squeezed the Remington's trigger, sending round after round into the beast without slowing it down. When the trap at the other end of a chain flipped over behind the beast's leg, its jaws snapped shut to grab hold of the ground. It was the first time the beast didn't seem like deadly poetry in motion. Even though it was only tripped up for one step, Slocum was granted enough time to send his final bullet straight through the animal's head.

It took one last step, one heavy paw thumping against the ground as if trying to punish the dirt below its dying body, and shuddered. Expelling one long breath, the Beast of Fall Pass dropped onto its chest before crumpling into a heap.

Slocum remained still for several seconds, watching the animal over the smoking barrel of his gun. Not wanting to be caught defenseless if the hulking cat found a second wind, he replaced the spent bullets within the Remington's cylinder.

“I . . . think it's dead,” Buck groaned.

“Doesn't hurt to be sure.” Taking careful aim, Slocum burned two more holes through the beast's skull. “There!” he said. “That wasn't so bad after all.”

“Easy for you . . . to say. You ain't the one . . . who stepped in a goddamn bear trap.”

Slocum holstered the Remington and moved around to the trap that was chewing into Buck's leg. He grabbed its iron jaws in both hands and started to pull them apart. “Might be better to leave this be,” he said while straining against the cruel mechanism.

“Take it off or your head will get blown off next!”

“You could lose a whole lot of blood.”

“And if we leave it where it is, it'll saw off my damn foot and I'll still lose that blood. Keep working!”

Slocum tried to separate the jaws as cleanly as possible by lifting them straight from the wounds they'd created instead of pulling and sawing the iron teeth within Buck's flesh. “You saved my life,” Slocum said.

“Yeah. I know.”

“Quite a change of heart.”

“I . . . didn't truly believe what those deputies and gunmen said about who killed my father,” Buck admitted.

“Then why track me down?”

“Because I had to be sure.” Although Buck's voice was somewhat weaker, he was clinging to consciousness with more tenacity than the trap clinging to his leg. “There . . . were some men who set my father . . . up to be killed.”

“Crooked deputies? Deke's boys?”

“I found the ones I was sure about. They're dead. Now . . . I'm sure about you. That's all that matters.” When the iron teeth were finally lifted completely out, Buck's entire body went limp as if the pain had been the last string keeping him up.

“That better?” Slocum asked.

“Still hurts, but yeah. Much better.”

“I'm going to wrap that leg and help you up so we can get to the horses. I'd bring them here, but the woods are too thick.”

“I know,” Buck said. “I walked through them, too, but I won't be able to walk back now.”

“I can help so you won't have to put weight on that wounded leg.”

Buck nodded. He was pale, but still hanging on and willing to do what he could to climb to his feet as Slocum lifted him off the ground. “I found all the men I was certain had a hand in my father's death,” Buck explained as he struggled to stand. “You were the last one. I wanted to talk to you before . . . question you face-to-face so I could see your eyes when you defended yourself, but you'd already gone.”

“I'd already answered those questions. Several times, in fact,” Slocum said.

“I wasn't ready to listen then. Now . . . I can see you're not a man who would gun down a U.S. marshal.”

“Depends on the marshal,” Slocum said. “As for your father . . . no. I would've killed the bastards that gunned him down if they weren't already on their way to the gallows when I left.”

“I owe you . . . an apology.” Now that he was upright, Buck tried to support his weight on his other leg and grimaced in pain. “Damn it all to hell! I was afraid of that.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Twisted my goddamn ankle when the other got caught in the goddamn trap! Hurts like a bastard.”

Slocum leaned into the bounty hunter a bit more and grabbed Buck's arm tighter so he could lift some more of the man's weight off his feet.

“Sorry for all of this, John.”

“You don't owe me an apology for any of it,” Slocum replied. “I would have come out here whether you showed up or not, and I doubt anyone else would have had the speed or the sand to get me out of the way when that monster pounced. I'm much obliged.”

“We're even,” Buck said in a voice that was quickly fading.

Slocum grunted with the effort of setting Buck down. He tied his and Buck's bandannas together, wrapped them around Buck's leg, and cinched them tight. Then, he pulled the bounty hunter up again to bear as much of his weight as possible on his back.

“What are you doing?” Buck asked.

“What I said I'd do. Getting you to the horses. You can't walk, so I'm carrying you.”

“Just . . . you don't . . .”

“Shut up already,” Slocum growled as he began tromping through the woods dragging the bounty hunter along with him. “We've got a lot of ground to cover. Once we get back to town . . . then we're even.”

Slocum fell into a steady pace, which was interrupted by him knocking his foot against a log and nearly falling over. After steadying himself and moving on, he said, “On second thought . . . when we get back to town . . . we're each having a bottle of whiskey and you're buying them.
Then
we'll be even.”

Watch for

SLOCUM AND THE KANSAS SLAUGHTER

421
st
novel in the exciting SLOCUM series from Jove

Coming in March!