Slocum and the Thunderbird Read Online Free Page B

of rock, and they now released their stored heat, making the silence even more oppressive.
    â€œWhat the hell was that?” Rawhide Rawlins said, breaking the stillness with the question Slocum had not put into words.
    â€œNever saw anything like it,” Slocum said.
    â€œIt . . . it was a thunderbird! One of them Indian spirits.”
    â€œStop talkin’ crazy, Dupree,” Rawlins said uneasily. He looked at Slocum for reassurance. “There ain’t no sich critter, right, Slocum?”
    â€œWe’re in a box canyon. If the Sioux decide to come back, we’ll be in worse shape than before.”
    He kicked at an empty ammo box. They were running low on cartridges, and in their current condition, after seeing the creature on the canyon rim, he doubted Dupree would put up much of a fight. Rawhide wasn’t as shaken, but any hesitation would spell their deaths.
    â€œYou ain’t gettin’ no argument from me on that, Slocum,” Dupree said. He ran to his horse. Slocum bent over and grabbed the man’s discarded rifle, then tossed it to him. “Thanks,” Dupree said sheepishly. Then he looked at the nighttime sky and got frightened all over again.
    Slocum and Rawlins followed at a distance until they reached the canyon mouth. Slocum called for Dupree to stop while he thought on where to run. Going back into the box canyon was out of the question. Retracing their path to this point might stick their necks into a noose if Marshal Hillstrom had gotten onto their trail. Even if the lawman hadn’t twigged to them leaving the main road, going in that direction would put them behind the Sioux war party.
    â€œThere,” Slocum said. “You have any idea where that canyon leads?” He pointed to a dark opening in the wall of Badlands mountains.
    â€œDon’t look like it’s a box, not like the other,” Rawlins said. “There’re a couple trails going in.”
    â€œGame trails?” Slocum trotted toward the canyon and tried to see what Rawlins had. He had to scratch his head. There might be a trail or two here, but that didn’t mean this wasn’t a dead end, too. Still, the tracks looked well traveled. Another town hidden away in the hills promised safety from the Indians, if not from Halliday’s marshal.
    There wasn’t anywhere else to flee.
    He started in, following one of the faint dirt tracks. Dupree called out.
    â€œWhat if it comes after us? The thunderbird?”
    â€œThere’s no such thing,” Slocum said. “That’s a story the Indians tell around campfires, just like the stories Rawhide spins.”
    â€œHe ain’t much of a storyteller,” Dupree said.
    â€œI’ll think on a story ’bout a cowboy without a lick of sense who got spooked and fired at some big bird and then claimed it was a thunderbird,” Rawlins said.
    â€œI saw it. I
saw
a thunderbird! What else could it have been? Rawhide? Slocum? Tell me what else it could have been.”
    â€œSaw something,” Slocum allowed. “Don’t know what it was since I didn’t get a good enough look at it.”
    â€œYou
heard
its huntin’ cry. It was after us.”
    â€œChased off the Sioux,” Rawlins said, nodding.
    The moon rose high enough to illuminate the trail they followed. Slocum wished it had remained low. Not only would it have hidden them from anyone behind, but it would have hidden his partners’ faces. Dupree was still scared. Rawlins put up a good front, but Slocum saw how the man edged a tad closer to thinking like Dupree with every mention of the bird and its scream.
    â€œMight have been a trick that fooled our eyes,” Slocum said. “The moon looks bigger when it rises. Mid-sky, it looks tiny but it’s still the same size.”
    â€œThat’s not so,” Dupree said. “You can tell the moon shrinks as it rises. Look at it!”
    Slocum had. When they were