Free Slocum and the Warm Reception by Jake Logan

statement. If possible, he might even be able to add to that statement by riding off with the lawman hollering like a crazy man at his back.
    Thinking about watching that brought a wicked grin to Slocum’s face. Of course, if he did everything that he’d thought about while grinning that way, he would have found a permanent home behind a set of bars a long time ago.
    The final part of him was tempted to steer his horse back to the stable, put it up for another night, and see what he could do to help the sheriff clean up whatever mess Ellis Jaynes may have left behind. There was something to be said for the Good Lord having a reason for putting a man in a certain place at a certain time. Plenty of men had stepped up to help him in times of need, and it was only proper that he should return the favor whenever he could.
    â€œSlocum!” the sheriff shouted from somewhere behind him. “Get back here!”
    Slocum sighed and weighed his options one last time. He was just beginning to favor helping the sheriff when Marshal hollered, “You’d best be moving that horse to more suitable accommodations so you can plant your ass back into that room you rented! Otherwise there’ll be hell to pay, damn it!”
    â€œSome men never learn,” Slocum grumbled as he snapped his reins and tossed a wave over his shoulder. “It always pays to be neighborly instead of a strutting, squawking asshole.”
    Slocum left Davis Junction and didn’t look back.

7
    Throughout the better portion of that day, Slocum had been waiting to hear a horse or two gallop to catch up to him so the town’s sheriff could give him what for. If anything, he figured Marshal would be bent far enough out of shape that he would simply have to remind him about jurisdiction and authority and any of the other long words spouted by men like him. But the only thing Slocum heard was the rumble of iron horses riding the tracks spanning one end of the country to the other.
    After a while, he wondered if he might catch sight of a thief masquerading as an Indian brave sitting on a high ridge somewhere. But he didn’t see that either. All that filled Slocum’s line of sight that day was flat terrain, sun-baked rocks, trails of smoke from steam engines, and the occasional clump of parched scrub bushes. Before long, even the trains were too far away to see or hear. Critters scattered as his horse rumbled by, seeking shelter in little caves or dens scratched out of the uncompromising ground.
    As far as deserts went, Smoke Creek wasn’t a large one. He could have circled around it while only adding a few days to his ride, but that involved passing through some terrain that was just a little more difficult to traverse. As long as he knew there was an end in sight, riding through a desert was actually not so bad. In fact, forging through a cauldron of heat and arid harshness did something to cleanse a man’s soul. If Slocum had to ride more than one long day, he would have grudgingly picked one of those harder routes instead of the one that led straight to Mescaline. As it was, he’d committed himself to his course and was too stubborn to veer from it now.
    The first time he’d come this way, he didn’t have so many choices. He’d been riding scout for a small wagon train full of prospectors with their eyes set firmly on the mines scattered throughout Nevada. They’d lost a few horses, which made for a bad situation, and when one of the men decided to steal the savings of everyone else in the wagons so he could strike out for a new life, the situation turned bad. When Slocum had arrived in Mescaline back then, crawling in from the desert nursing a few wounds, things got even worse.
    He’d been introduced to Jeremiah Hartley when the outlaw had tried to kill him just to prove that he made every decision in Mescaline, including who got to come in and who got to leave. Mescaline had been a little town far