Slocum's Great Race

by Jake Logan

  “San Francisco is a mighty big city,” Slocum said. “What if the note in Salt Lake City tells us exactly where to go?”

  “The train,” Zoe said, slumping. “We need to go to Salt Lake City on the train.”

  Slocum stuck his six-shooter back into his holster by way of thanking the agent, and backed from the office. The crowd of avid soap buyers had dissipated, leaving the small salesman and three others to count and divvy the money.

  “You were right, John. I’m sorry I doubted you.”

  “Let’s hope you don’t have call to doubt me again.”

  “Salt Lake City,” she confirmed.

  They rode to the train station, where Slocum spent fifteen minutes dickering with a man for the best possible price for his horses. He was sorry to sell the mare, game leg or not, but they needed the money, and the rest of the trip to San Francisco would be on a train.

  “Yes, sir, you’re a lucky stiff,” the ticket agent said. “The train’ll roll in anytime now. Won’t be another one headin’ direct fer Salt Lake City for another week.”

  “How about one making another stop?”

  “Yesterday,” the ticket agent said. “It left yesterday for the Springs and then over the mountains from there. On the far side of the mountains, the narrow-gauge goes on up through the middle of the territory, stops at Grand Junction, and from there you could catch a train to Salt Lake City.”

  Slocum let Zoe describe Molly again since she took such pleasure in it. He stepped out onto the platform and froze.

  Sid Calhoun and Skunk Swain waited impatiently for the train to come to a halt so they could board.

  20

  “We’ve got a small problem,” Slocum said to Zoe once they had boarded the train.

  Zoe looked up, then frowned when she saw he was not making idle chatter. She gasped when he pointed to Calhoun and Swain shuffling their feet impatiently on the platform, waiting to board.

  “We’ve got to get off! Right now!” she cried. Slocum grabbed her arm and pulled her back down to the hard bench seat. She struggled, but he clung to her hard enough to bruise her arm. When she realized he was not going to turn her loose, she subsided.

  “What are we going to do if not leave the train? You can’t shoot it out with them. Not with both of them and hope to get away. They’re killers!”

  Slocum considered doing just that, but discarded the notion for reasons completely different from what Zoe had conjured up. He could take both men because they were back-shooters, not men who faced others down with a drawn six-shooter. Not only was he a better shot than either of them, but he had quicker reflexes, and knew he had the grit to do what was necessary without hesitation. What stopped him from swinging out of the train seat and gunning down the pair of owlhoots was the knowledge that the train would be halted and the Denver law would be summoned. Denver had a nasty police force, almost as corrupt and cruel as that in San Francisco. In that city, the remnants of the Australian gangs like the Sydney Ducks had pinned on badges and made their killings legal. Here in Denver, down-on-their-luck miners provided almost as deadly a brand of law enforcement.

  “Turn slightly and look at the rear door,” he told her. His hand rested on the ebony handle of his six-gun. “If they come into this car, let me know.” He took a deep breath to settle himself and prepared to spin around and blaze away. He and Zoe might escape through the front of the car and into the rail yard before anyone raised a hue and cry. Dealing with the railroad dicks was almost as difficult as dealing with the Denver police, but Slocum knew he had enough bullets to allow them to escape.

  He just didn’t want to leave behind a trail of bodies—and friends and relatives swearing eternal vengeance.

  The train lurched, lurched again, and began to gather speed. The steam whistle let out its ear-splitting shriek, and then the cars rattled along more smoothly, leaving the station.

  “They must be in the rear car,” Zoe said. “They didn’t come in.”

  Slocum relaxed a mite. His mind spun through all the different ways of dealing with Calhoun and Swain without simply walking up and murdering them. Nothing came to him right away, but it would. He leaned back, pulled his hat down over his eyes, and said, “I’m going to get some sleep. You keep a close watch for them and let me know if they come in.”

  “But, John, I—” Zoe saw that he was serious. Slocum’s last memory before he drifted to sleep was her cursing in a very unladylike way.

  “We’re getting into the mountains,” Slocum said needlessly. They were forced into the backs of their seats by the steepness of the grade. Night had fallen, cloaking everything outside.

  “My eyes are crossed from watching that door. I’ve done it ever since Denver, all the way out of Colorado Springs and into the mountains. I’m as nervous as a mouse in a cat factory.”

  Slocum looked at her a moment, then smiled. He pushed his hat all the way back on his head, made sure the six-gun rode easy, and then stood.

  “Don’t be scared, no matter what happens.”

  “John,” she said, grabbing for his arm, “be careful.”

  He nodded and made his way back along the sloping car to the back door leading to the small metal platform. He slipped out and stepped across to the rear car, and peered through the filthy glass window in the door. Soot from the engine had completely shrouded the window, but he scraped away enough to peer in. The hissing, flickering gas lamps in the rear car cast shadows randomly, but he caught sight of Calhoun and Swain. The two men sat in aisle seats across from one another. He hadn’t seen any other members of the gang enter, and knew Curly was probably still running like a scalded dog.

  Slocum backed away, stepped across to the forward car, and then dropped to his belly to examine the linkage holding the cars together. A safety pin kept the coupling from opening. He yanked it free, but the coupling held. He got grease all over his hands as he worked diligently on the coupling, and was finally rewarded with a loud snapping sound. Slocum jerked back to keep his hand from being severed as the rear passenger car, with the caboose attached behind it, slipped backward into the night.

  He watched as the cars gathered speed and ran back down the narrow-gauge track until the train huffed and puffed around a curve on the side of the mountain and the disconnected cars disappeared.

  Going back into the car, he noticed that the train had sped up. It figured. Removing the weight of two cars had to give more speed to the remaining section of the train. He took time to wipe his hands off on a filthy rag he found near the hole in the floor that served as an outhouse, then worked forward to drop back by Zoe.

  “Well, what happened? I didn’t hear any gunshots.”

  “There weren’t any,” he said, pulling his hat back down. “I’m going to get some more sleep.” He pushed the brim back and looked into her eyes when he added, “You can sleep, too. No need to watch the rear door. Calhoun and his crony won’t be bothering us.”

  “What—?”

  But he was already drifting off to sleep again. He had run too long on too little sleep and needed to catch up.

  The train ground to a halt at the Salt Lake City depot two days after Slocum had sent Calhoun and the rest rattling backward down the east face of the Front Range.

  “I’m anxious, John. I want to see a newspaper.”

  “For your article?”

  “Of course, silly,” Zoe said. “Mr. Zelnicoff must have syndicated my articles by now. I’m sure it will be on the front page of every paper.”

  “The Deseret Bee is the only paper I know of in town,” Slocum said. It had been a few years since he had come through here, and he hadn’t much liked his brief stay. There had been a bit of unpleasantness with the marshal and two of his deputies, and Slocum had chosen to hightail it out of town rather than argue the point. He still thought he was right, but they had the law on their side.

  “Then that’s the one I’ll buy.” Zoe pressed past him in her rush to leave the train. He followed, and found her fumbling for c
hange to buy a newspaper from a sunny-haired, freckle-faced boy clutching a stack of papers.

  “Is your article there?”

  “I don’t see it,” she said. She stayed hopeful until she worked her way through the entire paper. Slocum took the front page from her, and saw more news about bank failures back East, along with two railroads declaring bankruptcy. He tried to remember the name of the railroad Colonel Turner was a director of, but couldn’t. He wondered if it was one of the railroads mentioned in the paper.

  “I am disappointed,” Zoe said. Then she brightened. “Perhaps the stories ran in earlier editions. This is a daily newspaper. I can go to their morgue and look through the back issues.”

  “You do that,” Slocum said, “while I go to the Turner Haulage Company and ask about the next instructions.” He got the response he expected. She was conflicted. As much as she wanted to see her article in print, she wanted to keep covering the race. Letting him go ahead wasn’t safe for her, not when he had already shown he was willing to leave her without so much as a fare-thee-well.

  “Let’s go to the freight office,” she said firmly. “I can always find my work in print later.”

  “Maybe in San Francisco,” he said, gauging her response. Again, he saw the conflicting emotions. Covering the story won out over the vanity of seeing old work in print.

  They made their way through the crowded, bustling streets to the newly opened Turner Haulage Company office. Slocum knew it hadn’t been open too long, because the paint was still drying on the sign on the plate-glass window. He peered inside, expecting to see the room deserted. To his mild surprise, two men sat at desks, working on stacks of paper.

  “This is it,” he said, holding the door for Zoe. She brushed past, giving Slocum a hint of why he hadn’t simply kept riding when the opportunity had presented itself.

  “We are racers,” she said before he could speak. “We want the next set of instructions.”

  “How’s that?” The old man at the nearer desk looked up and cupped his hand to his ear.

  “The Colonel J. Patterson Turner Transcontinental Race,” Zoe said loudly.

  “No need to shout. I kin hear.” He turned to his younger companion and said, “You got that stack of envelopes they sent up from the home office?”

  “Surely do,” the man said, fumbling in a pigeonhole on his rolltop desk. The envelopes went all over his messy desk, causing the clerk to frown and begin sorting through them.

  “We can do that,” Zoe said, looking over her shoulder at Slocum.

  “No trouble,” the man said, plucking one envelope from the stack and handing it to her.

  “Where’s mine?” Slocum asked. “I’m in this race, too.”

  “You got a key?” The clerk looked at him suspiciously. He shrugged and handed over another envelope when Slocum showed one of the gold keys he had accumulated. A tiny drop of blood clung to the serrated edge, but the clerk didn’t notice.

  “Well, John, what’s yours say?”

  Slocum looked back at the map behind the two clerks and worked his way through the trails drawn across the Wasatch Mountains.

  “Looks like we might have been wrong that the trail led to San Francisco. There’s a freight office in northern California, near Eureka.”

  “I noticed that, too,” she said. “My letter says to ride for Reno.”

  Slocum nodded. His did, too. Reno had a rail line through it, but getting there would be easier on horseback. They could cut miles off a difficult trip since they’d have to pick up the Virginia and Truckee Railroad at Virginia City otherwise, and that was out of their way.

  “We might have to wait to see if others get different instructions,” Slocum said, thinking how easy it would be to steal the letters from the old clerk and his assistant.

  “We should push on immediately,” she said. “I want to be at the finish line when the race is completed, to get the story.”

  “Not for the gold?”

  Slocum saw the twitch at the corner of her lips as she thought about the lie. It surprised him when she said, “I want the gold. I know I’ve said this is all about becoming a newspaper reporter, but Mr. Zelnicoff didn’t say anything about me joining in the race.”

  “That’d make you part of the story,” he said as they left the office.

  “Then I’ll pioneer a new form of journalism where the reporter is integral to the story,” Zoe said firmly. “I have to send another installment. We passed a telegraph office down the street. Where should we meet after I send it back to St. Louis?”

  “The livery stable. We’ll need horses and tack.” He pointed to one farther along the street, probably the one supplying horses to the Turner Haulage Company for its wagons.

  “Very well,” she said. Zoe looked around, saw no one looking in her direction, and gave Slocum a quick kiss on the lips. She blushed just a bit, then hurried away, muttering to herself. Slocum heard some of it, and knew she was composing her article as she rushed away.

  He ran his sleeve over his lips and wondered what he was getting himself into. His stride long and his resolve firm, he went not to the stable, but to the office of the Deseret Bee. A half dozen men toiled to print the current edition of the paper. The shop smelled of fresh ink and stale sweat.

  “Howdy,” said a man with cuff protectors on his sleeves. “What can I do for you?”

  “Back issues. Where can I look through the past week or two?”

  “Over yonder. That’ll be a nickel to read ’em.”

  Slocum found a coin and spun it around and around on the counter. The man snared it between ink-stained fingers and made it vanish as if by magic.

  Slocum went to a counter, perched on the edge of a stool, and began scanning the past few weeks of papers. There were plenty of stories about the Panic of ’73, as the reporters called it, bringing down banks and wiping out fortunes, but nowhere did he even find mention of Colonel Turner’s race.

  “You looking for something in particular?” the counter man called.

  “The Turner Haulage Company,” Slocum said, spinning about on the chair. “What can you tell me about their business?”

  “Business?” The man snorted. “No business to speak of lately ’cuz there’s not much freight coming through from anywhere east of us. I had one of the boys ask if they wanted to run an advertisement to drum up some business, but they said they had to get approval from the home office. Never heard back on that,” the man said, pursing his lips and making a notation on a scrap of paper using a stub of a pencil.

  “You heard of a big race?”

  “Well, now, I can answer that in the affirmative. It’s not right to be gambling, I know, but seven of the largest horsemen in the area have races every Saturday night out along the shore of the Salt Lake.”

  “Big stakes? As much as fifty thousand dollars?”

  The newspaperman laughed and shook his head.

  “That’s too rich for anybody’s blood within hailing distance of the Great Salt Lake.”

  “That’s what I needed to know,” Slocum said. He rushed back to the livery stable, knowing Zoe would be finished soon, even if she sent a long article to her newspaper.

  As he came up to the stable, he slowed and then tried to remember where he had seen the man standing out front before. It finally occurred to him.

  “Morrisey,” he said. The man jerked around, eyes wide with surprise. Slocum saw how the man’s right hand snaked toward the waistband of his fancy britches, then stopped. Since there wasn’t a six-gun or a knife there, he had to have a derringer hidden away.

  “You’re Slocum, aren’t you?”

  “You were in Jubilee Junction.”

  “You got that right. You remembered my name, too. Morrisey. Ned Morrisey.” The way he spoke the name made it sound as if he was trying to convince himself this really was his name. Slocum didn’t much care what summer name he used. A man could have a variety of reasons for not boldly proclaiming his proper name. But he had left Ned Morrisey
being beaten in the street by Calhoun and his men.

  “Looks as if we’re still rivals,” Slocum said, studying Morrisey carefully. He began to doubt his memory since this gent and the one in Jubilee Junction looked to be one and the same.

  “What do you mean? Oh, the race. I am not partaking of that. Not exactly.”

  Slocum saw the envelope sticking out of the man’s pocket, and knew he had picked it up from the Turner Haulage Company. Why lie? And he had worn a splint, and claimed to be injured too badly to continue the race—before he died. Slocum knew a confidence man when he saw one, and Ned Morrisey fit the bill.

  If Ned Morrisey was even his name.

  “You looking to get a horse?” Morrisey asked.

  “I am,” Slocum said, seeing no reason to deny the obvious.

  “Why don’t we ride on together, you and I? Just for a while. For safety.”

  “How’s that?”

  Morrisey looked around when Zoe called out. She paid no attention to the small man as she came to Slocum and took his arm.

  “All sent,” she said proudly. “Do you have the horses?”

  “You remember Ned Morrisey? From Jubilee Junction,” he said.

  Zoe’s eyes widened and her mouth opened. Only a choked sound came forth.

  “Mr. Morrisey wants to ride with us,” Slocum said, gripping her arm until she winced. She stared at him and he read her lips mouthing, “But they were killing him!”

  Zoe recovered and said in a voice passably calm, “Why, yes, I do remember him. I did not expect to see you on the trail, sir. You must have a fascinating story to tell.”

  “Why don’t you get it while I barter for horses?” Slocum told her. He almost laughed at the differing reactions. Zoe pounced like a cat on a mouse, and Morrisey looked trapped. Whatever the man hid wasn’t likely to be pried from him if Zoe asked questions only about the race. Slocum hoped she wouldn’t come right out and ask how a dead man walked the streets of Salt Lake City right away, at least until he returned. He wanted to hear that story, too.