by Jake Logan
“Quit fishing for compliments. You know you’re pretty.”
“A girl likes to hear it from her beau.”
For an instant Slocum thought Sara Beth was going to kiss him in public, but she turned and headed for a road leading away from town. On the top of a low hill stood a large house that must belong to the banker. Slocum let Sara Beth go, as he had before, circled, and came up on the house from the rear. Bray was at the bank so he didn’t have any worry about being seen—or so he thought until he heard gravel crunch behind him.
He half turned but something hard and heavy crashed into the side of his head, knocking him to the ground. Stunned, he lay there. Through pain-misted eyes he saw a boot kicking straight for his belly. He curled up in a tight ball and brought his arms around in time to rob the blow of much of its power.
It still scooted him along the ground and made his forearms hurt like fire. Before his attacker could wind up for another kick, Slocum forced himself outward, got his hands and knees under him, then pushed to his feet. He swung around and caught a hard fist to the belly that almost knocked the wind from him. Doubling over, he grabbed and caught a second fist coming to add to the damage of the first. He clung to the arm with all his strength, then spun enough to drive his shoulder into his attacker’s chest, knocking him back.
Slocum let go and stumbled back. He grabbed for his six-shooter and drew.
He had Randall Bray dead in his sights.
“Don’t go for it. You’ll be dead before you clear leather,” Slocum warned.
Bray ignored him and grabbed for the pistol at his hip.
10
Slocum was still off-balance when he fired. The recoil threw him sideways and this kept Randall Bray’s bullet from cutting through his chest. Slocum dropped to one knee, ready to get off a second shot, but Bray had already tried to fire. His gun jammed.
“You’re a dead man if you don’t drop it. You’ll never get off another shot before I kill you.” Slocum made a point of cocking his Colt Navy and pointing it directly at Bray’s face. For the young gunman it had to look as if he stared into the mouth of hell itself.
“You’re gonna die. I’m gonna fix you and that evil bitch good.” Bray threw his pistol at Slocum, who dodged it easily. By the time Slocum recovered, Bray was running off across the field directly behind the house, heading for a wooded area some distance off. Slocum could have sent a few rounds winging after him to keep him going but decided not to waste the ammunition.
He shoved his six-shooter back into his holster and picked up Bray’s gun. The hammer was caught halfway back, making it impossible to fire. Slocum saw that little care had been expended on the pistol. His own Colt was like a watch, a fine precision instrument that required constant care. Seldom a day went by that Slocum didn’t take it apart, oil parts that needed oiling, and clean parts that had accumulated a film of trail dust. When he had to rely on getting off an accurate first shot, a few minutes spent on daily maintenance were a small price to pay.
It had saved his life today.
He looked toward the house and saw Sara Beth coming out. She took Philomena Bray’s hands in her own, then bent over and touched cheeks with the woman before hurrying off. Slocum made sure that Randall Bray was nowhere to be seen, then worked his way around to meet up with Sara Beth on the road leading back to Clabber Crossing.
“Was she upset?” Slocum asked.
“About what?”
“The gunshots.”
“Oh, she said her son does target practice all the time. She wasn’t the least worried about that, but she did show a considerable upset when I asked about where she and Martin got married.”
“It wasn’t back East,” Slocum said.
“Well, it was, but not too far east. They met and after a whirlwind romance married in Kansas City. She said she has no idea how the notion she comes from Boston society got started.”
“Did she know Emily there?”
“She wouldn’t say but I got the feeling that they might have met earlier than Emily’s coming to Clabber Crossing. Perhaps they were acquaintances rather than friends?”
“Maybe,” Slocum said. “Did you find anything about her money troubles?”
“That’s why I left. She became very distant, as if she wanted to be somewhere else—anywhere else. Philomena certainly did not wish to discuss with me what she had with Emily, yet I offered some assistance.”
“What did you offer her?” Slocum asked, surprised.
“I thought it might be interesting to watch her reaction if I suggested a loan of a few dollars. Well, a few hundred. Not that I have it, but she can’t know that since the restaurant is always busy. Which reminds me, I need to get back to the kitchen and finish the fixings for this evening’s meal. You’d be surprised how many cowboys come in off the trail famished.”
“For food, too,” Slocum said. “Mostly, I suspect they just want to ogle you.”
“Like you do?”
“I hope not,” Slocum said. “Some ogling is best left private.”
“You are so much fun, John.” Sara Beth stood on tiptoe and gave him a quick kiss before rushing back to the restaurant. Slocum followed discreetly and watched her duck into the small building. Before he had crossed to the far end of town, smoke billowed from the chimney pipe in her kitchen.
He pushed thoughts of the lovely blonde from his head as he made his way back to Severigne’s house. Getting Martin Bray to hire him had been easy enough, but little he had found out had any bearing on the man’s problem. Or did it?
Something about Emily’s death and her friendship with Philomena bothered him. The banker’s wife couldn’t be stealing since she needed more money and possibly had asked Emily Dawson for it. Yet she wouldn’t take a dime from Sara Beth when a loan was offered. That made him wonder if Philomena and Emily had known each other better than they had let on before they had arrived in Clabber Crossing. Philomena had been here for a couple years, Emily for a few months.
“Kansas City,” he mused. “That might have been where their paths crossed, but why didn’t Henry Dawson make mention of that?”
The only reason Slocum could come up with was that Emily and Philomena wanted their Kansas City friendship kept a secret. But why?
He took the back steps into Severigne’s kitchen two at a time. Somehow he wasn’t surprised to see her waiting for him, but he was startled when he saw that she had been crying.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“They have been taken away. Kidnapped!”
“Who?”
“Danielle and Catherine. I let them sleep late this morning, almost to ten, then went to their room. Both were gone! Missing!”
“How do you know they were kidnapped?”
“Alice saw them last night with two men. Very late, but she thought nothing of it.”
“Did you get a ransom note?”
“No, none. I am so distraught. Such a thing has never happened to me before. Not here. Before, the girls were taken and killed after being foully used by Parisian cutthroats. But out here in the West I did not expect such crude behavior. Drunkenness, yes. Even some slapping around, but not this. They are such good girls!”
“I want to talk to Alice.”
“She is in the parlor. I will go with you and—”
“No.” Slocum was curt enough that Severigne rocked back.
“They are my responsibility. They are my girls!”
“Did you let the marshal know?”
“Dunbar? No!”
“I can guess the reason. You don’t think he could track them down. So let me work however I have to.”
Severigne only nodded. Her lips quivered, and she might not trust herself to speak further without crying. The madam’s emotions were real, and she was upset over the missing women, but Slocum wondered exactly how “kidnapped” they were.
Alice looked up when he came into the parlor, then hastily turned so she stared out the window toward an open field.
“Who were they
?”
“I’da thought Severigne would have told you. Catherine and Danielle. They—”
“She told me that. Who were the men they left with?”
“They must have been kidnapped. They—”
“They went willingly. Their rooms ...” He let the sentence trail off.
“I told them to leave their belongings, but they couldn’t do that. They had to take their clothes with them.” Alice turned back and stared at Slocum. “Don’t fetch them back. They found themselves men who want to marry them.”
“Just like that? The men come in for a tumble and the two whores believe they want to marry them?”
“It could happen.”
Slocum snorted in contempt at such an idea. The two women might have ridden off willingly, but he doubted the men wanted to marry them. More likely they would rape them and leave a pair of bodies for the buzzards out on the prairie. For all of Severigne’s protests that this couldn’t happen out here where a man’s word was his bond, Slocum had known more than one man with no morals at all. Cowboys might be polite enough, but some were just plain mean and some were worse—they enjoyed raping and killing.
“You know what spread the cowboys worked?” Alice shook her head. “You have any idea where they’d head?”
“Danielle said they were going west, into the mountains. One of ’em is supposed to have a cabin there.”
“You don’t say a word of any of this to Severigne,” Slocum said. “She’s upset enough thinking two of her girls were kidnapped. No telling what she’d do if she heard they’d gone on their own to get away from her.”
“It wasn’t like that, John,” protested Alice. “All of us, we all want to find a guy to marry. Most of the men who come to see us are drunks or worse. These two had money and treated Catherine and Danielle real good.”
“Not a word to Severigne,” he said sternly. Alice nodded. From her reaction he wondered if she felt a touch of envy—or was it sadness that the men hadn’t picked her?
Slocum went to the kitchen, where Severigne sat, composing herself. If he hadn’t known she had been crying, he would never have guessed, except for the redness in her eyes.
“I can track them down. They don’t have more than a half-day’s start and traveling with your two girls will slow them down.”
“What do they want? I will pay. For the sake of Danielle and Catherine, I will pay anything.” Severigne settled down and amended, “Almost anything.”
“I’ll need supplies and another horse to make the best time.”
Severigne waved her hand, giving him anything he wanted. Slocum left without another word, fetched his horse, and then chose another to use as a pack animal. He wouldn’t take much in the way of supplies but intended to switch from one horse to the next. He could travel fifty miles in a day that way—more, if necessary. Supplies were needed so he wouldn’t have to stop and forage. Living in the saddle wasn’t anything he looked forward to, but he had a feeling in his gut that the men who had sweet-talked Catherine and Danielle weren’t likely to be as sweet when they got to the cabin in the mountains or wherever they were taking the women.
Slocum rode into town, got his supplies from Aronson at the general store, and started on the trail westward. He hadn’t ridden a mile when he got the feeling of being watched. Craning around in the saddle, he watched his back trail for a few minutes before he spotted a cloud of dust in the road, moving toward him.
Thoughts of Randall Bray fixing his pistol came to mind, but Slocum was less afraid of the hothead than he was of losing time on the trail. He reckoned the men would stay on this road because of the women. Not only could they make better time, but the ladies weren’t as likely to protest heading out across country. Slocum understood folks from towns. To them, traveling along a road meant they were heading somewhere. Lighting out where there wasn’t a road made them uneasy, sure they were getting themselves lost.
The dust cloud came closer. Whoever kicked it up was in a powerful hurry. Slocum reached down and slid the leather thong off the hammer of his Colt. That loop kept the pistol from bouncing out as he rode. Now he might have to pull it fast.
“John, John! Thanks for finally waiting for me! You surely do ride fast.”
Slocum pushed the keeper back over the six-gun’s hammer and slumped a little in the saddle. He had expected trouble and what he got was even worse. He couldn’t shoot his way out of this.
Sara Beth tugged hard on her horse’s reins and brought it to a halt a few yards away.
“How dare you try to leave town and not even say good-bye to me!”
“I wasn’t leaving. I’ve got a chore to do.”
“Some chore, with a horse all weighed down with supplies so you don’t have to stop until you’re far away from me!”
“I’ll be back as soon as I track them down.”
“Them?”
Slocum found himself explaining to Sara Beth rather than just turning his back on her and riding along on the trail.
“So you’re not running out on me?”
“Severigne thinks her two girls have been kidnapped, but there’s more to it since no ransom notes were left. Unless I miss my guess, Danielle and Catherine have got themselves in a heap of trouble.”
“You think the two cowboys will kill them?”
“If the women are lucky.”
Sara Beth turned pale, then said, “Then let’s get after them. Right now! The longer you sit there jawing, the more likely that is to happen.”
“Head on back to town. You’ll only slow me down.”
“Oh, think I can’t keep up? I want to help. When you find them, they’ll need someone to settle them right down, and I’m the one to do that.”
“There’s likely to be at least two dead before I finish,” Slocum said grimly. He didn’t cotton to woman-stealing, and that’s the way he read this spoor. Bringing the men back for trial would be useless.
“That way? They took this road west?” Sara Beth didn’t wait for his answer. She kicked at her horse’s flanks and shot off like a rocket. Slocum considered hog-tieing her and leaving her behind but that would be too dangerous.
Would it be as dangerous for her if she rode with him? He didn’t know but figured he could ride her into the ground.
He was wrong.
All night long they rode, Sara Beth never flagging. Her horse didn’t carry as much weight as Slocum’s, and even when he switched back and forth, he wasn’t able to tucker out Sara Beth’s horse. He felt a little wobbly in the saddle from lack of sleep, but when dawn crept over the horizon at their backs, Sara Beth didn’t look any more tired than when she’d overtaken him outside town.
“There,” Slocum said, drawing rein. He rubbed his tired eyes and got the sleep out of them, then hopped to the ground and studied the grass and cut-up dirt beside the road. “They lit out across country here.” He made out tracks from four horses. While this might be another party, how many foursomes heading west right now were there? He hadn’t sighted a single rider in either direction along the road. Wyoming was mighty big and mighty barren.
“The tracks lead up into the hills,” Sara Beth said. “Even I can see that. But how did you spot them in the first place, John?”
He didn’t bother answering. There were better trackers out there, but there were a whole lot worse. The cowboys didn’t even try to hide their hoofprints as they made for the high country.
“You think there’s a cabin up ahead?”
“I don’t see any smoke.”
“Might not want to take the time to build a fire. They’ve been on the trail all night, and if I know cowboys, they’re mighty horny right about now.”
A scream cut through the still morning. Slocum turned, and when a second cry echoed down from the heights, he got a better sense of where the women had to be.
“Stay here,” Slocum said. He tossed the reins of the second horse to Sara Beth, then put his heels to his horse, bounding up the hill. He didn’t worry much about sneaking
up on the cowboys. If anything, the more noise he made, the more likely they were to be distracted from what they intended doing with the women.
Slocum pounded ahead and burst through a wall of trees into a clearing. Two horses grazed fitfully at clumps of grass near where a cowboy was ripping off the clothes of a struggling woman. At this range Slocum couldn’t identify the woman but knew she had to be one of those he sought.
He galloped forward, yelling at the top of his lungs. He caught flashes of everything happening. The woman was naked to the waist, her bodice ripped and hanging in shreds. Part of her skirt had been torn also, but she clung to it to prevent the cowboy from stripping her completely naked.
In one hand the man held a bottle of whiskey—an almost empty bottle. If he was responsible for draining that much, it was a surprise he could even stand, much less think about raping the woman.
“You git on away,” the cowboy shouted. He tried to point the bottle at Slocum, then realized his error. Dropping the bottle, he pulled out his six-shooter and got off a couple rounds. Slocum kept on, intent on riding the man down. A few kicks from his horse’s front hooves would solve the problem quickly.
But Slocum had too far to go and the cowboy wasn’t drunk enough to be entirely stupid. He grabbed the woman and whirled her around. One arm held her firmly about the waist as he held his six-shooter dangerously close to her.
“You want her? You ain’t gonna get her. Not ’til after I’m done.”
Slocum slowed his headlong assault and pulled up a few yards away.
“You don’t have any call to shoot her. Let Danielle go.” He was finally close enough to recognize the woman, in spite of her face being scrunched up in fear. Dirt made her even harder to identify, but she didn’t contradict him using her name.
“She’s mine. I stole her fair ’n’ square.”
“Why’d you go and kidnap a whore? For two bits you could have had her and everyone would have been happy,” Slocum said.
“Ain’t my way to pay fer what I kin git fer free.”
“Might be we can work something out,” Slocum said. Danielle looked at him, her eyes wide in fear.
“He’s crazy drunk. Don’t say a thing like that! You don’t know what he’s been sayin’ he intends to do to me!”
