Slocum and the Grizzly Flats Killers (9781101619216)

by Logan, Jake

  Or it might be nothing more than resignation. They wouldn’t keep her alive long when they figured out she didn’t know where the stolen gold had been stashed.

  Snow wet on his belly, he crawled closer. Something betrayed him. The crunching of the ice under his body might have alerted Beefsteak, or the man could have seen movement. Slocum crept through low bushes already turned brown and sere in anticipation of real winter storms.

  Beefsteak dropped his plate and fork and grabbed for his six-shooter.

  “You’re a dead man if you haul that iron out,” Slocum said. He punctuated his prediction by drawing back the hammer of his Colt. The metallic click sounded like a drumbeat in the sudden silence.

  Everything froze. Beefsteak didn’t move a muscle. Mirabelle was motionless, not even turning in his direction to see her rescuer.

  “You got me, Slocum,” Beefsteak said, raising his hands. “You gun down Willingham and his deputies, too?”

  “One of ’em won’t share in the gold,” Slocum said. “Willingham and the other one with him are likely about back to Grizzly Flats by now.” He doubted the marshal would give up quickly or easily. If he found the trail Slocum had left entering the canyon, he could mistake it in the dark for hoofprints leading away. That would keep him and his deputy busy for hours.

  Willingham might not even find his way back to the camp and decide to stay on the trail all night long. However it worked out, the other two outlaws weren’t a factor.

  “Get to your feet,” Slocum said.

  As Malone obeyed, he also started to reach for his six-shooter, then stopped when he saw that Slocum’s aim never wavered.

  “You’re right good with that smoke wagon, Slocum. I never seen you use it before you killed Eckerly. Didn’t think you was mixed up in this.”

  “You just thought there’d be one less split for the gold,” Slocum said, advancing.

  “Something like that. Not sure when I figured you were in cahoots with her.” He glanced in Mirabelle’s direction. The woman had lifted her head, looking at Malone and not Slocum.

  “Were you the one that beat me up after the funeral?”

  “Not proud of all I’ve done, but can’t say I regret it none, especially now. But Willingham is the one who takes the real pleasure in hurtin’ folks.”

  “He killed Sennick and my Ike,” Mirabelle said, finally finding her voice. “The marshal. Beefsteak here said so.”

  “Doesn’t matter who did the killing or the raping or torturing. You’re all guilty as sin.” Slocum moved around to keep a good line of fire that avoided Mirabelle.

  “If you’d meant to gun me down, you’d’ve done it by now. You gonna turn me over to the law?” This made Malone laugh uproariously.

  Truth was, Slocum hadn’t decided what to do with the gang. Three were dead, but he didn’t gun men in cold blood, even if they deserved it. Malone, Willingham, and the deputy certainly did, but it was one thing to kill a man in a gunfight and another to back shoot or cut down an unarmed man.

  “Take his gun, Mirabelle,” Slocum said. “Be real careful when you do.”

  “What are you going to do, John?”

  “You want to kill him, you can go ahead and do it. You got the grievance with him and the other two.”

  “All right,” she said.

  Mirabelle stood and reached out, small hand curling around the butt of the heavy pistol thrust into the man’s belt. She tugged it out, almost dropped it, then hefted it in both hands.

  “Suppose we ought to tie him up and—”

  Slocum found himself staring down the gun barrel. Mirabelle had him dead to rights.

  “Drop your gun, John,” she said. “Drop it or I drop you.”

  “Don’t think she won’t do it neither,” Malone said, laughing heartily. “She’s a pretty damn good shot.”

  A thousand things ran through his head. None of the plans ended with him coming out alive. He dropped his six-gun.

  “That’s smart, Slocum, real smart,” Malone said. He didn’t move.

  “Step away from your gun,” Mirabelle said.

  “The two of you have thrown in together?” Slocum wasn’t sure why this came as a surprise. As much as Mirabelle talked about how she had loved her husband, she had changed the longer they hunted for the gold until she shot and killed Smith without any qualms. And the dynamite she had rolled into the mine hadn’t been a way of saving Slocum—it had been meant to seal him permanently in the shaft.

  “Go on, honey chile, shoot him,” Beefsteak said.

  “No, he knows where the gold is. That’s why he came back out here. There’s no other reason.”

  In her head, she couldn’t understand he had come to save her from the gang that had murdered her husband and friends. And maybe she was right. Slocum had certainly come hunting the gold, but if he had been only after the treasure from the train robbery, he wouldn’t be staring down the barrel of a six-gun now.

  Slocum said nothing, realizing his life hung by a slender thread. If Mirabelle thought he didn’t know where the gold was, she would kill him out of hand.

  “When did you two throw in together?” he asked.

  “We came to a meeting of the minds,” Beefsteak said, reaching down and taking Slocum’s Colt off the ground. He began polishing off the mud. “As we was ridin’ out into the mountains, we figgered out we worked better together than apart.”

  “You going to double-cross Willingham?”

  From the smirk on Malone’s lips, Slocum knew the answer without the saloon owner answering.

  “I been lookin’ for a fine woman like Mirabelle for a mighty long time. Not a whole lot to choose from in Grizzly Flats,” the man said. “There’s them whores, of course, but what fun is it if you have to pay for what you get?”

  “You’ll pay, one way or the other,” Slocum said.

  Beefsteak laughed and shook his head.

  “Slocum, you ain’t gonna drive a wedge ’tween me and this fine lady.”

  “Where’s the gold, John?” The pistol never wavered in her hands. “I’ll count to five, then kill you if you haven’t told me.”

  “Doesn’t seem I have a whole lot of choice,” Slocum said. “But if I do tell you, you’re going to kill me anyway.”

  “Now, why’d you think that, Slocum? We’re honest thieves. We keep our word. You tell her and you kin ride on off.”

  “Without the gold,” Slocum said.

  “You’re not dumb, Slocum. Of course without the gold. But you ride off astride the saddle, not draped over it on your way to the cemetery.”

  Slocum knew his first thought was right. When he told these two his guess as to the gold’s hiding place, he was a goner.

  “One.”

  And if he didn’t tell them now, Mirabelle was going to shoot him.

  “Two.” She sighted down the barrel. The muzzle looked big enough to reach down with his hand. The blunt noses of the bullets showed on either side of the pistol frame.

  “Three.”

  Slocum’s mind locked up.

  “Four.” Mirabelle’s hand trembled now as her finger squeezed back on the trigger. Malone stood to one side, his hand on the butt of Slocum’s pistol. If she missed, he wouldn’t.

  “Five.”

  “Wait!” Slocum held up his hand, as if to brush away the bullet that was sure to come whistling toward him. “I can’t tell you. You’d never find it, but I can show you.”

  Malone chuckled and said, “You are a caution, Slocum. I wondered what you’d say to keep from gettin’ yer damn fool head blowed off.”

  “Tell me now,” Mirabelle said.

  “Now, honey, don’t go gettin’ an itchy trigger finger. There’ll be plenty of time for you to shoot him if he’s lyin’ or tries to double-cross us.” />
  “I go free if I show you?” Slocum had to play along. Malone wouldn’t buy his act but Mirabelle might. If he kept the two at loggerheads, he stood a better chance of getting away.

  “That’s what I tole you, Slocum. I’m not a man who goes back on my word. You worked for me for a couple weeks, so you know.”

  “You swear on the Damned Shame?”

  “What?” For a moment, Beefsteak Malone stared at him in disbelief. Then he said, “You think that’s the only thing I hold holy? Well, sir, you’re damned right! I swear on my saloon that ever’thing I promised will be kept.”

  Slocum almost asked for Mirabelle to make a similar promise, then knew Malone would never allow it. She was his ace in the hole. If—when—it came down to finding the stolen gold, the saloon owner would let Mirabelle do the dirty work. Not that Malone would lose any sleep over a broken promise to a dead man.

  “I’ll tie him up, darlin’, while you keep him covered.”

  Beefsteak took special glee in securing Slocum’s hands behind him, then shoved him down near the fire.

  “That’ll keep you from freezin’ in the dark. Me, I got my own personal bed warmer.”

  “Tie his feet, too,” Mirabelle said. “He’s a slippery one.”

  “You are the smart one here,” Beefsteak said, doing as Mirabelle ordered. Only when he had finished did she allow him to take his six-shooter back.

  Slocum watched as the pair curled up together under a single blanket, then tried not to pay a whole lot of attention to the undulations under the blanket or the sounds they made.

  All he could think of as the fire and the passion died was how he was going to save his own neck come sunup. Slocum couldn’t see a path that didn’t lead to a grave for him.

  19

  “You think he’s dead?” Mirabelle’s soft voice carried just enough for Slocum to hear. He came awake, strained against the ropes around his wrists and legs, and turned toward the embers in the fire pit. Malone hadn’t done much of a job keeping the fire burning, and Slocum was nigh on frozen.

  “What’s that, honey chile?”

  “That fool Willingham,” Mirabelle said. “Him and his deputy dead?”

  “Cain’t rightly say.” Malone half turned and gave her a kiss. They had kept each other warm throughout the night.

  Slocum decided he was as well off being half-frozen as sharing a blanket with Mirabelle. Better to find a snake and curl up with it. She was quite the murderer now, not caring if she shot men in the back or blew them up in a mine, and there she was sharing a blanket with the man who might have killed her husband and the rest of the party. Slocum never knew Lucas Sennick or Terrence or Isaac Comstock, but their greed wasn’t as murderous as Beefsteak Malone’s.

  They had taken advantage of information and struck out to find stolen gold. The railroad company had already soaked up the loss and hadn’t gone belly up as a result. Why shouldn’t whoever found the stolen money keep it? In Slocum’s eyes, what Comstock and the others had tried was no different from Smith and Bertram eking out a pitiful existence in their gold mine. They knew the risks, they took them, and if they profited a little, that was all right. If they hit the mother lode, that was even better.

  “Stop it,” Mirabelle said, pushing him away. “It’s danged near sunrise. We got to find the gold.”

  “Especially if Willingham ain’t dead?”

  “You want to share with that good-for-nothing marshal? I don’t.”

  “He was the one what killed your hubby,” Malone said.

  Slocum couldn’t tell if the man was lying or just toying with her. If he riled her enough, he might have one fewer partner once the gold was found.

  And that presented Slocum with a dilemma. If he told them what he suspected, they’d kill him. He had to lead them on a wild-goose chase until he could get free. It mattered less to him now if he found the gold than it did getting away from Grizzly Flats alive. These hills already had been the scene of a terrible massacre. Adding his body to the list wasn’t anything he cared to ponder.

  It would be a hard row to hoe. He’d have to keep them confident he knew where the gold was, yet never—quite—find it. Considering how antsy Mirabelle was, he doubted he had longer than noon before she tired of him leading them around and just killed him. Malone might be a tad more tolerant, but Slocum wasn’t going to bet on it. Not when it was his life on the line.

  Twisting, he tried to get the ropes off his wrists enough to slide his hands through the loops. Beefsteak must have been a cowboy used to hog-tying calves. The rope had remained secure and the knot refused to budge, no matter how Slocum had tried to free himself all night long.

  “We have time for some coffee?”

  Slocum looked up. Malone towered over him, then bent and stirred the ashes. A few dried leaves caused a spark to fly, then he added a few twigs. In less than a minute the fire was roaring hot.

  “Suppose so, but don’t take long. And don’t give him any,” Mirabelle said.

  “Why would I? It’d just be a waste.” Malone laughed.

  “So you’re going to shoot me out of hand?” Slocum looked up.

  “Only if you don’t locate the gold pronto.” Malone looked around, scanning the canyon mouths for any sign of the marshal and the deputy.

  “What if I said the way lies down that canyon?” Slocum lifted his chin Navajo style to point where Beefsteak had been searching for Willingham.

  “Then we go there, only if it ain’t right, you don’t get to come back here to camp. Not for dinner, not for a cup of this fine coffee Mira’s fixed, not for nuthin’.”

  Slocum fell silent. He had less than ten minutes to silently strain at the ropes before Malone picked him up, threw him over his shoulder, and set off to track back in the snow to where Slocum had left his horse. The animal snorted in disgust at such mistreatment but otherwise looked none the worse for spending the night without a barn or fire. The saddle and blanket had probably kept the horse alive, trapping its body heat.

  “Up you go,” Malone said, slinging Slocum aloft. He grunted as he fell belly down over the saddle. A hiss of steel slicing through rope freed his legs. The saloon owner righted Slocum in the saddle, then looked at him. “You play fair or I set you up there backwards. No man’s gonna get far tryin’ to escape settin’ backwards on a horse.”

  “I won’t try.”

  “Damned if I don’t believe you, Slocum.” Beefsteak led the horse with Slocum astride back to the campfire, where Mirabelle had already saddled their horses and waited impatiently.

  “Where to?” she demanded.

  “Looking for three rock spires. You remember how Smith drew them in the dust before you killed him?”

  Slocum saw Beefsteak Malone straighten as he heard this. Mirabelle hadn’t shared her bloodthirstier moments with him. The more Slocum could do to spin contention between them, the longer he was going to be alive.

  “He was plumb loco from livin’ alone,” she said.

  “I found them. Across this meadow, then head north.”

  “Let’s ride!” Beefsteak let out a whoop and trotted off, leaving Mirabelle to lead Slocum’s horse.

  “He’ll gun you down like he did Ike and the others,” Slocum said.

  “No, he won’t. The big fool’s in love with me.”

  Slocum couldn’t tell if Mirabelle believed that or wanted to believe it.

  “We’re goin’ over to Frisco. I know some fine places where Ike couldn’t never take me ’cuz we didn’t have money. Beefsteak’s gonna take me to the Union Club. We’re gonna get all gussied up in fine store-bought clothes and arrive in a carriage pulled by two white horses and then we’re gonna hobnob with them rich folk, ’cuz we’re gonna be rich.”

  Malone rode far ahead, champing at the bit as much as Mirabelle, but the woman kept on
with her highfalutin dreams of what she and Malone would do once they got rich. Slocum couldn’t tell why she went on like this because he heard just a hint of something more in her voice.

  Greed.

  An hour’s ride took them to a canyon that looked familiar, even with a fresh dusting of snow on the rocks. Slocum led them down this canyon and then up a branching one, then rocked back to stop his horse. Smack dab ahead were the three rocky spires.

  “That the rocks you said the miner told you about?” Malone asked. He frowned a little. “Why’d he tell you and not come fer the gold himself? He’d been out here plenty long enough to hunt.”

  “He had old-fashioned ways,” Slocum said. “He wanted to earn what he made.”

  Malone laughed and said, “Now we’re different, aren’t we, Slocum? Me and you? We don’t mind a bit o’ stealin’.”

  “Quit yakking,” Mirabelle snapped. “There’s the three stone towers. Don’t much look like Smith scratched in the dirt, but you say that’s what we’re huntin’, then that’s where we are. Where’s the cave?”

  Slocum rode toward the cave where he had found the ten coins earlier. His time was running out fast. He needed to come up with a way of staying alive—but he couldn’t think of anything.

  As he let his horse pick its way through the icy rocks, he used his numbed fingers to pull his coat around. Working his fingers up under it, he felt the pocket where he had put the gold coins he’d found before. Worrying at a seam, he got a small hole started. By the time they reached the cave, he had torn the seam open enough to get out a half dozen of the twenty-dollar gold pieces.

  “Come on down and show us.” Beefsteak reached up, grabbed the front of Slocum’s coat, and heaved.

  Slocum flew through the air and landed so hard it jarred his teeth. Dazed, he was in no condition to fight as Malone pulled him to his feet and shoved him into the cave. Using the grogginess as a cover, Slocum crashed into one wall, rebounded, and fell toward the other, spinning as he fell so he landed on his side.