Slocum 419 by Jake Logan

of the women scream. The scream was loud and ear-shattering.
    He saw the men crouch low and burst into the room.
    The scream was cut short when the first man to enter the room fired at the two women on the bed.
    Lacey gasped as Rafe’s bullet struck her in the chest, just beneath her crossed arms. She fell back onto Stacey, blood bubbling out of her mouth, her eyes wide and glassy with pain.
    Slocum fired a split second later. Half of Rafe’s face was lit by the spray of yellowish light from the lamp. The bullet ripped into that half of his face and shattered his cheekbone. He grunted and fell to one side as the other half of his head exploded in a shower of blood and shattered bones. He was stone dead by the time he struck the floor.
    Behind him, Jake swung his pistol to bear on Slocum, his face spattered with droplets of blood from his partner’s fatal wound.
    Slocum moved then. He slid along the wall and fired as Jake came out of his crouch and squeezed the trigger.
    Jake’s shot narrowly missed Slocum, smashing into the wall inches behind Slocum’s naked back.
    Slocum fired point-blank at Jake. He aimed at his chest and his Colt thundered and belched out flame, sparks, and a deadly lead bullet.
    Jake staggered as the ball split his breastbone and tore through part of his right lung, ripping the sacs to bloody threads. He squeezed the trigger of his pistol as he crumpled onto Faron Clemson’s pistol. Jets of blood spurted from the small black hole in his chest, and the fist-sized hole in his back sprayed blood and tissue onto Clemson, who took the brunt of Jake’s fall and was pushed backward into the door’s frame.
    Slocum strode toward Clemson. He cocked his pistol.
    Faron stared at Slocum, stunned by his nakedness and the pistol in his hand. He dropped his pistol to the floor and raised both hands in a gesture of surrender.
    â€œD-Don’t shoot me, Slocum,” Clemson pleaded.
    â€œI ought to blow your damned brains out.”
    â€œNo, I beg you. I must go to my daughters on the bed. One of them has been shot.”
    â€œWho in hell are you?” Slocum asked. He kicked Faron’s gun away with his bare foot and held the barrel of his pistol pressed against Clemson’s forehead.
    â€œI’m Faron Clemson. I’m their pa. Wolf made me come here.”
    â€œBlame somebody else, Clemson. But you knew your daughters were here with me, didn’t you?”
    â€œYes. Ah, it was Clara’s idea. Honest.”
    â€œYou don’t know the meaning of honest, you bastard,” Slocum said. He wanted to pull the trigger and blow the top of Clemson’s head off, but his trigger finger hardened and held still and frozen a hair’s breadth from the smooth trigger.
    They could both hear Stacey’s sobs as she held her dying sister in her arms.
    â€œLet me go to them, please,” Faron begged.
    â€œStep toward me,” Slocum said.
    Clemson took a step over Jake’s body, which was still quivering long after he had ceased to breathe.
    â€œJust walk real slow toward the bed,” Slocum ordered. When Faron passed him, Slocum rammed the barrel of his pistol into the small of Clemson’s back.
    â€œStacey,” Clemson uttered as he reached the edge of the bed. “Is Lacey . . .”
    â€œShe’s dead, Pa. Lacey’s dead.” She sobbed and bowed her head.
    â€œOh no,” Clemson cried.
    Slocum jabbed the barrel of his pistol hard into Clemson’s back.
    â€œYou’re going to be my messenger, Clemson,” Slocum said. He put a hand on the distraught man and spun him around to face him.
    â€œHuh? What?” Faron stammered.
    â€œI’m going to let you live. But only long enough to deliver a message to Wolf. Then if I ever see you again, I’ll kill you on sight. Got that?”
    â€œY-Yes. What—what message?”
    â€œYou tell Wolf that I’m coming for him and whichever men he has