by Jake Logan
“You all right?” he asked, peering nearsightedly at them. “Miz Stanley? Is that you?”
“Patrick,” Abigail gasped out. “Do you have your penknife with you?”
“Shore do. Ever since you gave it to me, I never let it outta my sight.”
“Use it!” Slocum snapped, turning so the boy could see the bloodstained rawhide strips around his wrists.
“What happened to you? Who hogtied you?”
“Cut the cords,” Slocum said. The boy gulped, dug in his pocket and pulled out a small knife. He opened the blade and sawed through the tough leather until Slocum grunted with pain. The rawhide parted and circulation began again in his hands. He rubbed his wrists until he felt them tingle and sting. By then Patrick had freed Abigail.
“I better get on back to the fire line,” the boy said, looking anxious. He wasn’t sure why Abigail and Slocum had been trussed up, but he wasn’t going to ask.
“Thank you,” Abigail said.
“It was nuthin’,” the boy said modestly. “Gave me a chance to use that knife you give me.”
“That’s about the finest gift I’ve ever made,” Abigail told him, smiling. The boy rushed off, tucking his penknife back into his pocket.
“They’re not going to save your store,” Slocum said. The shed was a total loss and the fire had already jumped to the roof of the larger structure. Beams collapsed inward and set the store on a course of complete destruction.
“They’ll stop the fire before it spreads much more. See?” Abigail pointed to the way the bucket brigade had split in two and threw water on the buildings on either side of the general store.
“That wipes you out, doesn’t it?” asked Slocum.
“I’m afraid so.” Then Abigail stiffened and resolve caused her jaw to set. “I’m ruined, but there’s still the bond money to save. There’s nothing I can do now but keep Carleton and Westfall from stealing the townspeople’s money!”
She took off at a run. Slocum was slower to follow. He ached all over and knew he ought to get a doctor to smear some salve on the blisters and bums on his face and arms, but he shared Abigail’s determination. She felt betrayed by men she had admired and thought to be her friends. Slocum had a score to settle with Rafe Ferguson and his gang, including the mayor and banker.
“Slocum! Lend us a hand. We got ourselves a real fire going here!”
Slocum didn’t know who called out to him but he slowed and let. Abigail go ahead.
“Don’t know how this started but it looks like it was in Miss Abigail’s shed.” The man, already dark with soot, stopped and stared at Slocum. “You musta been right up close to the fire to get that scorched. You’d better let the doc fix you up.”
“How much of the town can you save?” Slocum asked.
“ ’Bout all of it. Might lose two or three more stores. The bookstore went up like a skyrocket. But the bakery and pharmacy are gettin’ a soaking now and aren’t in any danger.”
“What about the bank?” Slocum asked.
“Naw, it’s at the far end of town. No way this dinky little fire could reach it. Why, the one we had last year, took danged near all of main street. We—”
Slocum left the man reminiscing about prior fires and lit out after Abigail. He had to dodge through the part of the crowd not actively working to put out the fire. When he reached the boardwalk in front of the bank, he saw Abigail standing and staring at the plate glass window as if she were in a trance.
“Are you all right?” Slocum asked.
“I don’t know what to do,” Abigail said in a low voice. Her face was dirty with soot and she sported more than a few bums and cuts of her own, but Slocum thought she was about the prettiest thing he had ever seen. The distress she felt over Carleton and the municipal bonds was obvious.
“Did you ask if anyone had seen Carleton or Westfall?”
“No one has, though I only asked a few of the women. Westfall disappeared after the bond rally and no one’s seen him since, even in the saloon.” The words were hardly out of the woman’s mouth when an explosion knocked Slocum off his feet. He careened forward and crashed into Abigail, twisting hard as he took her in his arms to keep her from harm. His shoulders smashed into the bank’s window, shattering it into a million pieces.
Half in the bank and the rest still on the boardwalk, Slocum shook off the fog that threatened to engulf him.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Let me help you, Slocum.” Strong hands pulled him to his feet. “You all right, Miss Abigail?”
“I’m fine. Thank you,” she said. “What was the explosion?”
Slocum wiped his eyes clear and saw the Prairie Delight Saloon engulfed in flames. His benefactor was one of the Gorman brothers—he couldn’t remember which—who owned the saloon.
“Reckon a spark caught on my grain alcohol out back. No way of saving the old Prairie Delight now,” Gorman said with resignation. “We’ll be danged lucky if the whole town’s not in ashes by morning.” Gorman stepped back and looked into the bank, as if considering what was in the vault and how it might be removed for his own benefit. The expression changed to one of regret.
“You wiped out?” asked Slocum.
“Surely am. I can always help my brother Gus at the Corinthian Palace. It’s far enough away so the fire won’t reach it. Just damned bad luck that took my saloon. Excuse my French, Miss Abigail.”
“I’m thinking the same thoughts, Paul,” she told him. “My store is a total loss.”
“We’re wiped out together. Damned shame,” Paul said, looking once more into the bank lobby.
Slocum decided it would be worthwhile having a witness for what he intended doing. He brushed the glass from his shirt, stepped into the bank and went to the rear, where the vault was partially hidden from the street.
The heavy steel door stood wide open.
Gorman pressed in behind Slocum. “Somebody cleaned out the bank!”
“Carleton,” Slocum said, “and your mayor.”
“What? How do you know it was them? Maybe Mr. Carleton saw the fire and took everything out so it would be safe.”
“The vault would protect money better than anything else. I’ve seen banks reduced to rubble and the vault was intact, along with everything inside.” Slocum walked up and, from the flickering light of the burning saloon across the street, saw that every penny had been taken.
“We got a passel of trouble, that’s for sure. The fire purty near wipes out No Consequence and now the bank’s been robbed.”
“Go tell everyone,” Slocum said. “I’ll get on the robbers’ trail.”
“Mr. Carleton?” asked Paul Gorman, still skeptical. “You reckon you can find him?”
Slocum shrugged. Few men matched him when it came to tracking, but Carleton and Westfall might have several hours’ head start. Rafe Ferguson and his gang would be easier to trail since they had stayed in town to set the fire and the tracks would be fresher.
At least, Slocum hoped so. With so many men hurrying about No Consequence, moving what they could to save it from the fire, bringing up water and trying to keep the entire town from burning to the ground, finding even Ferguson’s tracks might be impossible. But Slocum had to try.
“I don’t know what to do, John,” Abigail said, tears rolling down her cheeks and leaving sooty tracks. “I feel so responsible for everything. The fire, the way Westfall and Carleton stole everyone’s money—everything!”
He took her in his arms and held her while she sobbed. In a way, Slocum felt responsible, too. He’d had the gut feeling from the start that Ferguson was working a swindle, but he hadn’t done enough to find out what it was or to stop it. Everything the crook touched became tainted. Slocum reached over to Carleton’s desk and picked up the large bundle of bogus bonds sold at the afternoon rally but never delivered. It was as if Carleton—and Ferguson—had left them to taunt him. He started to crush them, then changed his mind and tucked the thick wad of worthless paper inside hi
s shirt. But there was something missing, some part of Ferguson’s scheme that Slocum still hadn’t figured out.
That bothered him as much as their having nearly been barbecued behind Abigail’s store.
“There’s something else,” Slocum said. “I just don’t see what it is.”
“What are you talking about, John?”
“Rafe Ferguson isn’t a highwayman. He doesn’t rob banks at gunpoint. He’s too much a coward for that. He relies on swindling people. If he could make the same amount of money cheating that he could playing it square, he’d cheat every time. That’s just the way he is.”
“I don’t understand,” Abigail said.
“Rob the bank and set fire to the town to cover his tracks? That’s not the way he works.”
“Maybe Carleton and Westfall double-crossed him?”
“It would be the other way around. Ferguson has a couple men out on the prairie that Beal and Quenton didn’t know about. Your two phony railroad directors will end up—” Slocum frowned. The scheme had fallen apart on Ferguson, and Slocum thought he knew how and why.
“We did it. Or rather, I did,” Slocum decided. “I rushed things, and when you confronted them, they had to change their plan.”
“What were they going to do?”
“They didn’t plan to set fire to No Consequence. Ferguson did that to get rid of us and to cover the robbery. He probably hoped the bank would burn down and everyone would think the money was destroyed. But the way the scheme was supposed to work would have had everyone thinking nothing was wrong.”
“I don’t—” Abigail shook her head.
“The two phony railroad directors were supposed to show up in town. No matter what Westfall and Carleton told me, they were going to hand over the bond money to Beal and Quenton. The two would leave, meet up with Ferguson and then wait for Carleton and Westfall so they could divvy it up. Ferguson had some cockamamie story invented about how the directors had been killed on the road back to Omaha and the money stolen. Westfall and Carleton would be in the clear and the crooks could go their separate ways with their share, no one in No Consequence the wiser.”
“I suppose it could have worked that way. But why would Carleton and Westfall stay in town if they had sucked all the money out of it?”
“Maybe they’d move on, but there wouldn’t be wanted posters following them all over the West. And there wouldn’t be angry farmers intent on tracking them down and stringing them up. Let a vigilance committee go after imaginary road agents responsible for killing the fake directors. They’d never find the culprits.”
“Or if they caught someone, they’d string up the wrong men,” Abigail said.
“Ferguson is never seen and never suspected of any wrongdoing.”
“That might be why he intended to get rid of Beal and Quenton. Ferguson’s partners, the ones you saw in North Platte, might do the dirty work and leave the directors’ bodies for everyone to find. That would certainly make everything seem real.”
“And we rushed them. They were afraid of you when you caught them red-handed discussing their plans,” Slocum said, still chafing over how Abigail had barged in on the men. “They couldn’t know if anyone else knew, so they decided to kill us and burn down the town to cover not only our murders but the bank robbery.”
It all fit. But Slocum still felt he had missed something. Ferguson was a devious son of a bitch and a vindictive one. He and his two cronies might have been willing to kill Beal and Quenton to make the robbery look real, but also killing Westfall and Carleton would have alerted the town. The mayor and banker would have insisted on their cut of the loot before ever returning to No Consequence. Ferguson must have plotted something else to take care of those two.
Slocum shrugged it off. What Ferguson intended was less important than catching him before he vanished into the sea of grass that was Nebraska.
“I need to get on his trail right away,” Slocum said. “If I don’t catch him quick, there’s almost no chance at all of finding him and the money.”
“Hurry, John. I’ll try to do what I can here, but the town’s in such poor shape now. Many of the buildings are in ruins. All because of me.” Abigail started sobbing again.
“You couldn’t know your mayor and trusted banker would turn into crooks. They might never have done anything wrong if Rafe Ferguson hadn’t come along with his tempting scheme.”
“Might be,” Abigail said. “Go on. Do what you can, John.”
She kissed him and then spun and left the bank lobby, her boots crushing the broken glass. Slocum followed, wondering where his roan had gotten off to. He didn’t put it past Ferguson to have stolen the horse, but he was pleasantly surprised to see the stallion grazing at the far end of town, near the only saloon still standing.
Somehow the horse had gotten away from Ferguson and his cronies and had come here. Slocum opened the saddlebags and found his spare Colt Navy. It took a few minutes to load it and get it back on his hip, where it hung with reassuring pressure. He swung into the saddle and guided the horse in a wide circle around town, heading for a spot well away from the now charred shed.
The horse smelled the smoke and shied but made no effort to run toward Paul Gorman’s still blazing Prairie Delight Saloon. Other buildings had either burned to the ground and were nothing but smoldering embers, or had been saved. The great fire was almost out.
Slocum tried to figure where Ferguson might have left and began a slow arc that would cross that part of the prairie. He hunted for hoofprints, for bent grass, for any sign that three riders—or perhaps five, if Carleton and Westfall were with Ferguson and the fake railroad directors—had passed by. The wan light of the quarter moon helped his search, but after three hours Slocum had to admit defeat.
He’d have to wait until dawn to continue, but by then the swindlers would have a twelve-hour head start on him.
Slocum stood in the stirrups and looked out over the grasslands. All he saw was restlessly moving vegetation, like the surface of an ocean. Where Ferguson and the others had gone might remain a mystery forever. With great reluctance, Slocum turned back toward town to find Abigail and let her know of his failure.
15
Slocum rode back into No Consequence, his eyes blurred and watering from the heavy, smoky pall hanging over the town. Here and there he saw bright orange embers persistently glowing, but a half dozen laughing youngsters ran around pissing on the coals to put them out. From the gloomy looks on the faces of their parents, the kids were the only ones having any fun.
Slocum had seen towns completely devastated by quick-spreading fires. The majority of the buildings in No Consequence remained standing, because of the dearth of wood on the prairie. Brick walls tottered and roofs had collapsed where the fire had burned through the wood beams used there, but mostly the town had escaped the firestorm that could have killed them all.
Seeing Gorman pawing through the ruins of the Prairie Delight, Slocum jumped down and stepped over the hot spots on the dirt floor to where the man examined shot glasses and beer steins.
“Finding anything worth salvaging?” Slocum asked.
“Only the glassware. All the booze burned up quick. The walls collapsed and destroyed most of the bar and other equipment, what the fire didn’t already chew up and spit out.”
“What’ll you do now?” asked Slocum.
“My brother’s bailed me out a couple times before when I went bust. I can work for him a year or two, then set out on my own, but with my bad luck ...” Paul Gorman shook his head. “Might be I ought to find some other profession.”
“Don’t go into doctoring, if your luck’s as bad as you say.”
Gorman stared at Slocum for a second, then burst out laughing. “That’s a good one, Slocum. You ought to work behind a bar. You’ve got a quick way with jokes. Folks coming in to drink want that sometimes.”
“Other times they just want to get drunk and shoot up the place,” Slocum said.
“And how,” G
orman agreed. He dumped the last of his intact glasses into a crate and hefted it. “You lookin’ for Miss Abigail?”
“You know where she is? With her store all burned up, I didn’t know if she had a place to stay.”
“She found a hunk of canvas and some stakes, along with a blanket or two that didn’t get too charred in her store. Said she was gonna pitch a tent out on the prairie west of town. I reckon she wouldn’t mind it none if you went lookin’ for her.” Gorman grunted as he lugged the heavy crate out into the street. He set it down for a moment, spit on his hands, then picked it up with an easy motion, balanced it on his shoulder and headed for his brother’s saloon at the far end of town.
Slocum knocked a burning coal from his boot and went back into the street. He walked slowly past the bank. No one had taken notice of the robbery yet. Their concern over the rest of the town’s damage was still too great, but they would notice when they went to get the money needed to rebuild. Slocum wondered if Ferguson had torched the town to cover the robbery or had done it to afford himself enough time to get away.
Or maybe he had done it out of spite.
There were still too many questions about Ferguson’s plot Slocum did not understand.
He continued to the end of town and walked in the direction Gorman had said Abigail had taken. The stench of burned wood faded behind him, only faint traces clinging to his clothing. By the time Slocum spotted the tent pitched on the top of a low hill about a half mile outside town he could barely put one foot in front of the other. He and Abigail had been through too much that night.
He trudged up the hill and paused a few yards away from the tent.
“Abigail?” he called.
“John? John!” The blonde came out of the tent on hands and knees, then got to her feet and rushed to him. She threw her arms around him and hugged him tight. “I worried something had happened to you.”
“What could happen after being tied up and damned near burned alive?”
Abigail laughed and cried at the same time. She buried her face in his chest and only slowly pushed back and looked up into his eyes. Her intense blue eyes fixed on his green ones. He bent and kissed her, gently at first and then with increasing passion. She returned the ardor and added some of her own until they were both greedily devouring each other’s mouth.
