Slocum and the Three Fugitives Read Free Page A

killed him. They succeeded where we failed.”
    â€œGet out of here. Tom was a good man.”
    Slocum folded the deed to the Black Hole Saloon and stepped outside into the crisp air and bright high country sunshine. Zamora blamed him for Harris’s death, as crazy as that might be. He had no doubt Harris would have died out on the road and had his money stolen, to boot, without any help. By bringing him back to Taos, Slocum had saved that bankroll for his family. For his sister, the doctor had said.
    He wandered the winding dirt streets, past markets and through the plaza. He sat and watched the bustle of commerce in the town while he collected his thoughts. When he tired of this, he found a street angling off to the northwest and eventually came on a string of cantinas, one next to another. The Black Hole sat at the end of the street, also a single-story adobe but larger than the rest. Slocum stood in the doorway and inhaled.
    Cigar smoke caused his nostrils to dilate. The thick smoke was cut with stale beer and the stench of unwashed patrons. He went into the dimly lit saloon and let his eyes adjust.
    He decided this was his kind of place. The woman behind the polished bar was about the prettiest thing he had seen in a month of Sundays. She wore her long brunette hair held back with a turquoise ring. An Indian necklace hung around her neck and fell down between her lush breasts, hidden by a canvas apron drawn up to protect a peasant blouse from myriad spills of beer and whiskey.
    Her chocolate eyes fixed on him. She smiled as she came over.
    â€œYou knock off some of that trail dust while I fix you up with a drink. Whiskey? Beer?”
    â€œBeer,” Slocum said, watching with some appreciation as the woman bent over to draw the beer from a keg behind the bar. He dropped a dime on the bar and quickly got a nickel in change. “I’m looking for Tom Harris’s sister.”
    â€œAre you now,” the woman asked, her eyes narrowing. “Why might that be?”
    â€œMy name’s John Slocum.”
    â€œAnnabelle,” she said. “So why are you looking for her, John Slocum?”
    Slocum took a deep drink and let the beer wash away some of the dust in his throat. He put the mug down on the bar carefully before answering.
    â€œThat’s personal.”
    â€œShe doesn’t know you.”
    â€œYou’re Harris’s sister?”
    â€œYou’re quick to pick up on that,” she said. “Tom’s not here right now. I’m running the place for him until he gets back.”
    â€œFrom Denver,” Slocum said. He wished he had ordered a shot of whiskey. Or a bottle. It would take more than a beer to make it palatable telling her the unpleasant news.
    â€œHow do you know that?”
    â€œYour brother’s at Dr. Zamora’s. He was ambushed outside town.”
    â€œTom? He’s hurt? Oh,
madre de Dios!
” She stripped off the canvas apron and draped it over the bar.
    â€œNo, he’s not hurt,” Slocum said. “He’s dead.”
    She put both hands on the bar to steady herself, then looked at him with a fierceness he hadn’t expected.
    â€œI’ll cut your heart out with a butter knife if this is a joke.” She shoved back, vaulted the bar, and ran out the door, leaving Slocum staring after her.
    He started to follow. Zamora could explain as well as he could, but he felt that he hadn’t told her of Harris’s death properly. Death came suddenly all around him, and sugarcoating the news never occurred to him. He should have eased her into the realization. He turned to go when two men at the far end of the bar called to him.
    â€œYou done run her off, mister. You shouldn’t have done that.”
    â€œNo, reckon not,” Slocum said.
    â€œWe need a couple more beers. You gonna fetch ’em for us or do we have to help ourselves?”
    Slocum almost told the cowboy what he could do with the beer, then