Dulcie used her other hand to take a few bills back and stuff them into her fist with the rest. “I know what I know. I can find out what Mr. Mason knows. If you want to know, this is what it’ll cost you.”

  “I suppose I could be convinced to go along with that,” Slocum replied. “If I had some proper incentive.”

  “You want incentive?” she asked. “I got plenty of that for you.” She reached for another stick of candy, but this one was between Slocum’s legs. Judging by how she wrapped her lips around it and started to suck, she liked the way it tasted very much indeed.

  7

  The following morning, Slocum awoke to the touch of Dulcie’s naked body next to his. She rode him hard and quickly before hopping off, getting dressed, picking up her pouch, and leaving. He went back to sleep for a few hours, woke again when the sunlight was burning a littler brighter through his window, and wondered if he’d dreamt what had happened at dawn. All traces of Dulcie were gone, but her scent still lingered in the room so he guessed she’d really been there. More than that, she’d left his money stacked neatly beneath his hat on the chair beside the bed. Since he hadn’t been expecting that cut after turning the tables on her arrangement with Mr. Bennett, he was content with the amount they’d agreed upon.

  Slocum pulled on some clothes, strapped on his gun belt, and headed downstairs for a breakfast of biscuits and gravy served beside a pile of roasted potatoes. The food wasn’t the best he’d ever tasted, but it filled his belly and was washed down with coffee that was stronger than the cast iron of the stove upon which it was brewed. Pushing away from the table with a full stomach, Slocum slapped his hat onto his head and walked toward the server to pay for his meal. Along the way, he heard footsteps rushing toward him that were so fast he nearly drew his Colt out of pure reflex.

  “John, I need to talk to you,” Dulcie said as she all but ran to him.

  The serving girl was surprised as well, but recognized Dulcie and tried to greet her with a simple hello. Dulcie not only ignored her, but grabbed Slocum’s arm to drag him away.

  “What’s the rush?” he asked.

  “I need a word. Now.”

  “Can’t it wait for a second?”

  “No. Right now and somewhere away from here!” Dulcie insisted.

  Slocum planted his feet and handed the server her money. When he finally allowed himself to be dragged toward the front door, he staggered forward and almost tripped over his own two feet. The way Dulcie was going, she might have pulled him out of there like a sack of oats whether he was on his feet or not.

  Once he was outside, Slocum twisted his hand around to grab her forearm and then dug his heels into the boardwalk to force them both to a halt. Despite Dulcie’s size, he might have had an easier time trying to stop a railroad engine.

  “This is far enough,” he said. “What’s the damn problem?”

  “I went to see Mr. Mason,” she said in a huff.

  “You couldn’t have told me that much inside?”

  “There were other men with him. They had guns and I think they meant to do him harm.”

  “Were the guns drawn?”

  “Yes!”

  “That’s usually not a good thing. Where are they?”

  “Up in his room,” Dulcie replied while looking up at the Jackrabbit’s third floor. “I knocked on the door. There was no answer. I could hear voices inside and it wasn’t locked, so I let myself in. There were two men in there with Mr. Mason. They had guns in their hands and they were talking to him.”

  Taking her by the shoulders and looking her in the eye, Slocum held her attention and kept his voice steady. “What were they talking about?”

  “I don’t know,” she sighed.

  “Was Mason hurt?”

  After thinking about that for a second, Dulcie became upset all over again. “His face was bloody. Oh no,” she said as she placed a hand over her mouth. “After our arrangement, I came to you first. Should I tell Conrad to send some of the—”

  “No,” Slocum cut in. I’ll take care of this. Which room is he in?”

  “Three-oh-five. It’s—”

  “On the third floor. I’ll be right—”

  She stepped in front of Slocum before he could storm back through the front door. “I was going to say it’s at the top of the steps on the side of the building. Right around there.”

  Slocum walked along the front of the building toward a narrow alley between the saloon and its neighbor. Sure enough, there was a narrow set of stairs leading up to doors on the second and third floors. Before he made it to the bottommost step, he felt a tap on his shoulder.

  “Here,” Dulcie said as she handed him a key. “You’ll need this.”

  “I want you to wait right down here for me. Don’t come up the stairs. If you see anyone but me come back through that door, I want you to hurry inside and find the first one of Conrad’s gunmen to stand by you. Understand?”

  She nodded.

  “If you hear shooting, tell Conrad where to send his men,” Slocum continued. “And if I’m not back in five minutes, tell him what happened.”

  “Should I tell him everything?”

  “If I’m not back by that time, it won’t make a bit of difference to me what you tell him.” With that, Slocum started climbing the stairs. He wanted to take them two at a time, but that would only sound like a herd of buffalo charging up the side of the building. As long as he didn’t hear anything from his side of the wall, he figured there was still a chance to get the drop on whoever was giving Mr. Mason a hard time.

  At the top of the stairs, Slocum fit the key into the lock and turned. He drew his Colt and held it at hip level as he eased the door open and stepped inside. He was at the end of a hallway, looking at several doors leading to rooms that could have been for guests or the working girls. Slocum was only there for Room 305, which was directly in front of him to the right. He picked it out not only by the numbers on the door, but by the fact that it was the only one with a guard posted in front of it. The guard was the same redhead that had knocked Warren around the day before.

  Yancy stood leaning against the door with his arms folded and his back to Slocum so he could watch the hallway and the main stairs at the opposite end of the hall. Since he hadn’t so much as glanced over his shoulder, Slocum had to figure the redhead hadn’t heard the side door open. Rather than risk a creaky hinge or squeaking board, Slocum left the door open and walked as quietly as he could toward Room 305.

  He kept on the balls of his feet and his feet close to the wall in the hopes that he could close the short distance without alerting the gunman. He almost made it before one of his steps sent a creak through the floor that echoed within Slocum’s ears like a clap of rolling thunder, and he froze reflexively about half a step away from Yancy. The redhead snapped to attention and turned around. Before he could get a look at who’d snuck up behind him, Yancy was overpowered. Slocum covered the last bit of distance in a lunge to snake one arm around and beneath Yancy’s chin while crossing the other across the back of his neck. When his hands met beneath Yancy’s left ear, Slocum laced his fingers together and squeezed.

  The redhead reached over his shoulder but was unable to do more than knock the hat off Slocum’s head.

  When Yancy started to kick, Slocum lifted the shorter man off the ground. Once his own weight was added to the pressure already being clamped around his windpipe, Yancy faded. Slocum shuffled away from the door, waited until Yancy stopped moving, and then eased him to the floor. The gunman was out cold. When Slocum looked up, he spotted one of the house’s working girls peeking out through the cracked-open door of Room 302. He placed a finger to his lips, which was enough to send the girl back to her room. Apparently, they didn’t get paid enough to step in on the affairs of armed men.

  Since he didn’t know how long Yancy would be out, Slocum took the gun from his holster and left him in the hall. He held the stolen pistol in his left hand as he pushed open the door to Room 305. Mr. Mason was inside, sitting on a chair. Judging by all the blood that had streamed down his face to soak into his shirt, he would have had a hard time getting up on his own. The man standing over him was the fellow who’d been on horseback watching the front of Warren’s barn when Slocum had had the run-in with Darrel Teach’s gang. Both of his fists were balled and he was just about to drive one of them into Mason’s face when he was interrupted.

  “How is it that I keep running into you fellas?” Slocum asked. When the man with the bloody fists twitched toward the gun at his side, Slocum pointed Yancy’s pistol at him. “It’s Carl, isn’t it?”

  He nodded once.

  “Do yourself a favor, Carl. Don’t even think about drawing that gun.”

  Carl’s hands didn’t move, but his eyes narrowed slightly.

  “I can tell you’re thinking about it,” Slocum warned as he thumbed back the hammer of the gun in his left hand.

  Finally, Carl stepped back, held his hands out, and raised them to shoulder level.

  “That’s better. What the hell’s going on here, Mason?”

  “Our business,” Carl replied, “which ain’t none of yours.”

  “When I want you to talk, I’ll let you know,” Slocum snapped. “Until then keep your goddamn mouth shut.”

  Carl glanced toward the door. Since Yancy wasn’t bursting through it, he knew he was on his own. With that in mind, he kept his damn mouth shut.

  “They represent a man who wants something from me,” Mason said in a trembling voice. He tried to get up from his chair, but the beating he’d taken made him too unsteady to do so. Instead, he slumped forward and gingerly placed a hand upon his swollen lower lip.

  “What are they after?”

  “Don’t you say it,” Carl warned.

  Slocum turned on him with every intention of shutting Carl up the quickest way possible. The other man surprised him by growing a backbone and jumping first. Carl leaned to one side, grabbed the top of the second chair in the room, and threw it at Slocum. The bulky piece of furniture clattered against the floor, but made it far enough across the room to hit Slocum in the shin.

  With the rush of blood flowing through him, Slocum ignored the pain and kicked the chair away. Although that cleared his path, it also gave Carl enough time to lower his shoulder and charge forward. The instant Slocum stumbled backward, Carl followed up with a few chopping jabs to his ribs. The first few bounced off tensed muscle, but Slocum sure as hell felt the ones after that. He raised his right arm high above Carl’s back and dropped his elbow down like a hammer upon an anvil. The blow landed solidly and sent Carl to one knee.

  “What are you after?” Slocum growled.

  Carl’s response was a short uppercut driven beneath Slocum’s belt. If he hadn’t shifted his weight a bit at the last second, Slocum would have been in a whole new world of hurt. Even though Carl’s fist landed on his hip, it still sent a mighty pain through his lower body. Before the other man could adjust his aim for a second try, Slocum placed his hands upon Carl’s shoulders and held him in place so he could pound his knee squarely on the gunman’s chin hard enough to send Carl straight back and onto the floor.

  “What were you after?”

  Since Carl was barely able to lift his head, Slocum shifted his attention to Mason. “What was he after? Tell me!”

  “Why are you so interested?”

  “Because the man outside tried to kill me just for walking down the hall.” Deciding time was of the essence, Slocum added, “And it’s not every day that you find the Terrors of White Pine standing around unless they’re up to something.”

  The look that drifted across Mason’s face was more than enough to let Slocum know he’d hit a nerve. “I run a land acquisition company based out of New Mexico. We send our couriers through here and I needed to make certain the next few shipments would go without a hitch.”

  “Shipments of what?”

  Mason glared at Slocum for a moment. Suddenly, his expression shifted to one of panic and his eyes darted toward the floor. Slocum was quick to follow the older man’s line of sight since he could hear the sounds of scraping movement behind him. Carl was pulling himself up as well as dragging his pistol from its holster. Before he could clear leather, Slocum swung his left hand around to try and drop Carl with a clubbing blow using the side of Yancy’s gun.

  Despite being hurt and dazed, Carl ducked beneath the swing and started pulling himself to his feet. His gun came out of its holster, bringing the fight to a whole new level. Slocum didn’t know if Darrel or any of the other gang members were nearby. For that matter, Yancy could be coming to his senses at any moment, which meant every second counted.

  Slocum’s first move was to kick the gun from Carl’s hand. It hit the floor, but didn’t skid more than an inch or so before coming to rest. Carl was now standing and reaching for a scabbard hanging from his belt. Taking one step forward, Slocum pounded his right fist into his stomach. The punch made an impact, but Carl was too worked up to feel much. Slocum grabbed the front of his shirt, swung him away from the fallen pistol, and slammed him against a wardrobe.

  “Where are the others?” he asked.

  Carl spat in Slocum’s face and pulled the knife from its scabbard.

  Positioning his left arm to block Carl’s attack, Slocum was able to prevent the blade from sinking between his ribs. Slocum then jammed the barrel of Yancy’s gun against Carl’s torso. “Try that again and it’ll be the last thing you do.”

  Most men would lose some of their steam when someone got the drop on them like that. For the ones who got a fire in their eyes when finding themselves on the losing end of a fight, feeling a gun barrel up close would normally take it away. None of those tricks worked on Carl. Whether he was crazy, vicious, or just overly confident, he didn’t seem worried in the slightest. Acting as if Slocum’s gun were a toy, he disregarded it completely and flipped the knife around to hold it so he could stab in a downward motion.

  If he didn’t do something quick, Slocum knew he’d be crippled by the blade carving into his leg. Before that happened, he pulled his trigger.

  The gun went off once in a muffled thump, lifting Carl off his feet.

  The other man’s eyes widened. He drew a partial breath and leaned forward as he brought his knife up for another swing. The second shot was louder because it blew a tunnel all the way through Carl’s torso to send a red mist through the air behind him.

  For a moment, Slocum thought Carl was still going to stab him. The expression on his face was confused, as though Carl didn’t know why he’d dropped the knife he’d been holding. When it clattered to the floor, Carl’s body was quick to follow.

  Slocum held the smoking pistol in his hand and wasted no time before going to the door and checking the hall. Yancy was still lying against the wall with his legs splayed in front of him and the working girl was once again peeking out from her room. With no time to worry about either of them, Slocum shut the door and looked over to Mr. Mason.

  “You’re getting out of here.”

  “Gladly. Let me get my things.”

  “Forget that. Just come on.”

  “No!” Mason screeched. Considering how insistent he was, his firstborn could have been wrapped up in the valise next to his bed. When he got it, Mason wrapped both arms around it and hurried toward the door.

  Slocum stopped him before the older man charged into the hallway. “You think anyone’s going to be waiting for you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How long ago did those two show up?”

  “I don’t know,” Mason replied. “Not long. Maybe a few minutes.”

  Opening the door and taking a look outside, Slocum saw that nothing had changed since the last time he’d checked. “All right. Come with me and stay close.” When he left Room 305, Slocum felt Mason on his heels every step of the way. Even though it was a short walk to the door that led to the outside stairs, the trip seemed to take all day. He pulled the door open, motioned for Mason to go through, and then followed him so he could lock the door in his wake. By the time he turned around again, the older man was scrambling down to ground level.

  Folks walked along the street, but only one of them stopped to glance down the alley. It was Dulcie and she was more than a little surprised to see that Slocum had a guest along with him. “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  Still clutching his valise, Mason huffed, “No, everything most certainly is not all right. Those men tried to—”

  “Everything’s fine,” Slocum cut in. “As far as you know, everything’s just fine and you didn’t see either one of us leave this place. Got it?”

  Dulcie nodded. “Do you need anything?”

  “Do you think you can get to my room and collect my things without anyone knowing about it?”

  She actually laughed at that. “Trust me. I know how to get to any of these rooms without anyone knowing about it.”

  Slocum said, “Good. Bring my things out to the Jackrabbit’s livery. Hand them to Harry. He’s the boy that should be watching my horses. I’ll be along to collect them shortly.”

  She seemed agreeable to that arrangement, but Slocum could tell there was something else she wanted to say. The nervous glances she aimed at Mr. Mason gave him a real good idea as to why she wasn’t saying it. Patting the fidgety businessman on the shoulder, Slocum told him, “Head across the street to that tailor’s shop. Get inside and look at some suits. You’ll fit in there and you’ll be able to see if there’s trouble outside. I’ll catch up to you as soon as I scout ahead a bit.”

  “How long will you take?” Mason asked pensively.

  “Not long. Just go ahead before any of those gunmen come looking for you.”

  That was more than enough to light a fire under Mason and he scurried across the street clutching his valise.

  “Something you wanted to say, Dulcie?” he asked.

  “Yes. What about our arrangement?”

  “We’re all squared away with that, remember?”