Free Slocum 419 by Jake Logan Page B

house. He stopped and put his ear to the wall.
    He heard talking, but could not make out the words. He moved closer to the front and pressed his ear against the wall near the front window.
    Then he could hear every word.
    He heard the wounded man speak to another and call him “Wolf.”
    Wolf called the wounded man “Bert” and “Loomis.”
    Another man spoke from the middle of the house.
    Slocum heard the man called Wolf tell the man to go and fetch the sawbones.
    The man he spoke to was named Jimmy John.
    Moments later, that man went out through the front door. Slocum listened to his footsteps until they faded from earshot.
    Slocum waited, but there was little talk. He heard a table being moved and the stamp of boots by the man at the front window. Then there were groans from someone, probably Loomis, and from the conversation, Slocum knew they had helped him get atop a table.
    Some twenty minutes or so later, Slocum heard footsteps scrape on the street. They stopped at the front door.
    â€œJust go inside, Doc. We got a wounded man in there.”
    â€œWhat about you? Aren’t you going in?”
    â€œNaw, Wolf wants me to buy him a coupla quarts of whiskey. It looks to be a long night. You go on in, Doc.”
    Slocum heard a jiggling noise.
    â€œIt’s locked,” the doctor said.
    More footsteps as the man with the doctor walked to the window and tapped on it.
    â€œOpen up, Hobart. The doc’s here.”
    More footsteps as Hobart went to the door.
    â€œYou better go get that whiskey, Jimmy John,” Hobart said. “We’re dry as camel shit in here.”
    â€œI’m a-goin’,” Jimmy John said, and Slocum heard his footsteps as he trotted down the street and crossed it.
    The doctor went inside.
    Slocum listened to the snatches of conversation as the doctor cleaned Loomis’s wound, bandaged him up, and then left.
    He shrank back against the building, hugged a shadow when he saw a man cross the street at an angle and head for Wolf’s cabin.
    Later, he heard Wolf call the man “Clemson.” He pressed hard against the wall and listened to the entire conversation about the plan to have him seduced by Clemson’s two daughters. And he heard the story about Clara and Wolf’s brother. Slocum was surprised that the prim and proper “Miss Morgan” had a notorious past.
    He had heard enough, so he went back across the street the way he had come and took up his station in the gathering shadows where he could watch the cabin.
    The sun was easing down over the high peaks, and soon Slocum was immersed in shadow. He still saw Hobart at the window after Clemson left and then he saw a man come to the window, stand there, and look toward him.
    He knew, without ever having seen the man before, that Wolf Steiner was staring straight at him. He could barely make him out, but made note of his features, his clothing, and his build.
    Finally, Wolf turned around and disappeared from the window.
    When he saw the man who had brought the doctor return with a sack that clanked, Slocum eased back along the shadowed side of the building.
    He had seen enough.
    He walked back to Main Street and headed toward his hotel.
    There were things he knew he had to do before he was approached by the twin girls. It should be an interesting evening, he thought, as he drew a cheroot from his shirt pocket and bit off one end of it.
    Somebody, he thought, was going to be mighty surprised.
    And it wasn’t going to be him.

12
    Slocum stopped by a small store that advertised LIQUOR & SUNDRIES on its front window in blaring red paint. Inside, he bought a quart of Old Mill, a 90-proof Kentucky bourbon. He walked the dark street to the hotel, which was the only building that boasted an outside lamp. Yellow light sprayed from its front windows.
    Across the street, under the awning of a darkened theater, The Western Globe, Clara and her daughters huddled in a pool of