Slocum's Silver Burden

by Jake Logan

  “And you’ve done it so well, John.” She ran her hand down his chest. Her fingers danced lightly and slipped under his vest to press into his gently beating heart. “Are you sure we can’t, umm, sample some of the silver before they take it back to San Francisco?”

  “No. That’d be stealing, just like that son of a bitch and his partners did. The silver belongs to the railroad.”

  “You’re right, of course.” She stepped away and cast a quick look at Montague, who took in every word they said. “Is that the train coming now?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Go up to the summit and look. I’ll guard our prisoner.”

  Slocum nodded, whispered, “Be careful,” and then rushed off without a backward look.

  He went a dozen paces and stopped, pretending to wait for a train highballing from Oakland.

  Tamara’s steps crunched on cinders as she went back to Montague. She made no effort to keep her voice low.

  “He doesn’t know that it’ll take a week before the train arrives to recover the silver. Can you get away with it all before then?”

  “What silver?” Montague said suspiciously.

  “I’m tired of him. He wants to return all the silver to the railroad. They don’t need it. The Central California Railroad is filthy rich—like I want to be. You and me, we can team up.”

  Montague surged, but Tamara had her .22-caliber pistol out and trained on him.

  “Neither of us gets rich if you don’t throw in with me,” she said. “You will be hanged or spend a very long time in prison. San Quentin always has another cell waiting for a train robber.”

  “You’d double-cross him?”

  “We found the silver, but there’s so much of it. You have the wagon you bought back in Newburg?”

  “I hid it and rode the team. With two horses, we can get a lot of the silver from the hiding place.”

  “I just have my horse. You’ve got both from the team?”

  “I’m riding one. The other can be used as a pack animal.”

  “How far do you think we can get in a week? I don’t know these things.”

  “Far enough that they’ll never catch us,” Montague said. “You’ve got the gun. Kill him, and we’ll get the silver.”

  “I can trust you?”

  “You were the one who told Jackson about the shipment, weren’t you? So you’re already on the wrong side of the law.”

  Tamara laughed.

  “I wondered how long it would take for you to figure that out. He doesn’t know.” She jerked her thumb in Slocum’s direction.

  “Shoot him, and we can get on the way. To the silver.”

  Tamara turned and started walking toward Slocum. He watched her and tried not to smile as she lifted her Colt New Line and pointed it in his direction. From where Montague stood, it had to look as if she had him dead in her sights. When she fired, Slocum threw himself backward and flopped onto his back. She had fired a couple feet to his left.

  She came over and looked down at him, grinning.

  “I like it when you’re on your back.”

  “I like it when you’re straddling me,” he said. “Fire again, to convince him.” Slocum peered around the woman to where Montague watched. “He’s still suspicious.”

  “He’ll be more than that if he doesn’t lead us to the silver.” Tamara pointed the pistol at a dirt clump and fired. A tiny puff of smoke and dust rose.

  Slocum fought to keep from sneezing. He kicked once and lay still.

  “There,” Tamara said loudly. “That takes care of him.”

  “Where are your horses?” Montague asked.

  “Mine is down the line a ways. I don’t know where his went. I rode around separate from him.”

  Montague shifted his weight from foot to foot, as if undecided what to do next. Then he said, “In a draw, not too far off. I left them there when I climbed the hill to take a potshot at you.”

  “I forgive you, now that we are partners. Come along. I’ll get my horse.”

  Tamara herded him along to where her horse pawed the ground. It took a few seconds to gentle the horse after it had gotten all het up from the gunfire. She mounted, looked down at Montague, and said, “Let’s get your horses and retrieve the silver.”

  “There is time if the railroad isn’t sending anyone to take it away for a week.”

  “You know Collingswood. He might have a fire lit under him and will send out men sooner than that.”

  “I don’t know him. That was Jackson’s part.”

  “And mine,” Tamara reminded him.

  She rode behind as he circled the hill. Two horses had been hobbled in a ravine. Montague released both, and hopped bareback onto one.

  “This is the easier one to ride without a saddle.” He rode closer to Tamara. When the other horse reared and distracted Tamara, Montague leaned over and shoved her from her horse. Tamara hit the ground hard, shaken.

  “So long,” Montague called. He snared the dangling reins on her horse and hopped from bareback into the saddle. He settled down. “I hate bareback. Now I have tack—and three horses!”

  Tamara sat up and drew her pistol.

  “You can’t do this to me!” She fired, missing him when the outlaw ducked. She fired repeatedly until she came up empty. With the two she had shot at Slocum, the remaining five all sang off wildly to urge Montague on his way.

  Slocum rode up on his mare when Montague was out of sight. He laughed at how indignant Tamara looked.

  “He stole my horse!”

  “We wanted him to escape,” Slocum pointed out. “With you along, he’d never go to the silver. Why needlessly split his loot with an interloper? Now he thinks he has two packhorses.”

  “He stole my horse!”

  Slocum reached down and waited for Tamara to take his hand. She did so, and he pulled her up behind him. The mare sagged under the additional weight but plodded on. Now that Slocum had a fresh trail, one marked by three horses, he had no trouble tracking Montague.

  “How much of a lead should we give him?” Tamara asked. She rested her cheek against Slocum’s shoulder and clung around his waist.

  “You don’t sound in too much of a hurry to catch him,” Slocum said. For his own part, he liked the feel of her arms circling him and the way she pressed into him from behind.

  “How far do you think he got with his share after the robbery? Jack carried his almost ten miles.”

  “We don’t know what Jackson did with his,” he reminded her. “That map of his was worthless.”

  “It meant something.”

  “Only to Jackson.” Slocum settled down and let the mare choose the gait. If they closed too soon with Montague, they’d spook him. The outlaw had no reason to think anyone was on his trail. Slocum ought to have been dead and Tamara left on foot. “If I was him, I’d ride fast a mile or two, then slow down, maybe check my back trail, then make a beeline for the silver.”

  “Do you think Harry and Riley are anywhere near?”

  Slocum had no answer to that. He had been thinking more about Montague and the silver than the two specials. They had lit out after the other two train robbers. There was no telling where they had gone. He thought little of their skills, but even a blind squirrel found an acorn now and then. If the robbers got careless, the specials could have boxed them in or followed them to the silver.

  “John, the bend in the canyon. Be careful.”

  He saw what had alerted her. Tamara hadn’t been as content to ride along heedless of her surroundings as he’d thought. He had laid out how he would have sought the silver if he were Montague, and this was a perfect spot to lie in wait for anyone on his back trail. Slocum drew rein and studied the area. The sun was sinking fast now, but the long shadows cast betrayed Montague. The man stood just beyond the bend in the canyon.


  Slocum got his bearings. The mountainous terrain had been hell for the railroad. Steep-walled canyons made travel even by horse difficult. Wrestling the stolen silver this far would have shown more determination than he expected from the robbers, though the sheer number of silver bars would feed their greed and push them to extraordinary lengths.

  “He’s running, John. Look!”

  Slocum saw the shadow lengthen and then turn thin as Montague rode away fast. The sound of hoofbeats reached him a few seconds later.

  “What are we going to do?” Tamara asked. “He knows we’re on him like flies on shit.”

  Slocum looked over his shoulder and wondered about her. Most times she presented herself as a high-class lady. A thief, true, and one capable of shooting down a man without too many qualms, but she spoke well and comported herself with just a touch of haughtiness to show she was better than everyone around her. Then she said something like she just had.

  “We can’t let him ride off. We’d never find him if he decided to hide out.” Slocum was still galled by how Montague had abandoned the wagon and eluded his best tracking.

  He urged the tired mare to a fast walk. To trot or even gallop was out of the question with two riders. Slocum considered asking Tamara to drop off—or even knocking her off—to go after Montague. The idea disappeared when they reached the bend in the canyon. A loud screech of utter terror echoed back to them.

  “What made that sound?” Tamara spoke in a low voice that quavered with emotion. “I’ve never heard anything like it.”

  “A horse,” Slocum said. He urged the mare to more speed. The canyon opened onto another steep drop-off.

  Two horses neighed and backed from the verge. One was Tamara’s horse, still saddled but without the rider.

  “Where’s Montague?”

  “Get your horse. And the other one,” Slocum said.

  He dismounted, secured the reins with a rock, and went to the top of the cliff. The story cut into the dirt and rock told him what he would find. For whatever reason, Montague had either been pulled off Tamara’s horse or had tried to jump over to ride one of his bareback.

  Slocum peered over the edge. Darkness hid most of the jagged rock on the wall, but a single ray of sunlight sneaked through to spotlight a dead horse and mangled rider eighty feet below.

  As Tamara came over, he said, “I found Montague.”

  He tried to keep her from looking but failed. She let out a gasp and turned to bury her face in his shoulder. He held her. She wasn’t crying, but from the way she shook, he knew what went through her mind. That could have been them below.

  Instead she said, “Now we’ll never find the silver.”

  14

  “Do you think he has a map to the silver?” Tamara pushed back and looked up at Slocum. “Jack had one.”

  “For all the good that did us. From what you said about Jackson, he needed it to find where he hid it, getting everything turned around the way he did. Montague didn’t have any reason to make a map, for himself or anyone else.”

  “The other two robbers might have needed to know where he hid all their shares.”

  Slocum shook his head. None of that made sense after seeing Montague.

  “The three weren’t partners, not like that. Montague was on his own. Drury and Baldy might be pulling on the same yoke, but Jackson, like Montague, was on his own.”

  “I suppose you’re right. Where does that leave us?” Tamara tried to look back over the brink but the sun had sunk lower, plunging the entire ravine below into deep shadow. “He might have made a map.”

  “I’m not going down there to find out,” Slocum said. “But that doesn’t mean Montague didn’t steal your horse and ride toward the spot where he did hide his share from the robbery.”

  “It’s around here?” Tamara looked into the gathering darkness. “Where?”

  “Not in the ravine with Montague,” Slocum said. “He had no way of hiding the silver there. It’d make no sense to just dump it over the side where anyone could see it.”

  “It would have shone like the sun itself,” Tamara agreed. “So it’s up here?”

  “There are caves in the mountains. The canyon approaching this point had crevices where he could stuff a lot of silver bars.” Slocum slowly turned, keeping his arm around Tamara’s waist to move her from the edge of the precipice. “Farther along this trail,” Slocum said, his voice going low.

  “Let’s look! Come on, John. We can find it. You’ve got to be right.”

  Tamara pulled free and hurried to her horse. She mounted and set off, not waiting for him. He knew finding where Montague had hidden his silver in the dark was nigh on impossible. He retrieved his mare but only walked it, tugging occasionally on the reins to keep the horse from munching at patches of succulent grass. In less than ten minutes he found Tamara, sitting on her horse and sobbing.

  “I don’t know what to do, John. It’s got to be here somewhere. You said so yourself. But where? Where?”

  He got her off the horse and said softly, “We’ll find it in the morning. We don’t have a ghost of a chance in the dark.”

  Doubts rose they would have any better chance after sunup. But that was all they could do unless giving up was in the cards. For Slocum, it wasn’t. One look at how distraught Tamara was over not finding the silver told him they were not riding back to San Francisco anytime soon.

  * * *

  “It’s been hours, John. We’re no closer to finding the silver than we were this morning.”

  He realized they had been following the canyon and had curved back toward the railroad tracks. That spoke to how rugged the region was and how difficult it was not to get lost in the winding, intersecting canyons. The twin steel ribbons clung tenaciously to the side of a mountain with only occasional widening for meadows or narrow canyons leading deep into the range. As frustrating as it was when he saw they had come full circle and returned to the tracks, it also heartened him. None of the robbers had planned ahead and knew less about the terrain than he did. When they had to hide the bulk of their ill-gotten gains, they took the first place that they found because they hadn’t brought freight wagons—Tamara hadn’t realized the size of the shipment and neither had the gang. Jackson had been the smartest of the robbers, from what Slocum could tell, and his success in hiding came more from his disability than cleverness.

  “Montague rode where he did because he’d stashed his cut along that trail,” Slocum said. “We ought to go back along it and—”

  He clamped his mouth shut when gunshots rang out.

  “What’s happening, John?” Tamara reached for her small pistol, then hesitated when she saw a half-dozen men riding along the tracks, coming over the summit. The lead rider wore a badge pinned to his chest.

  “We haven’t done anything. Don’t rile the posse,” he cautioned.

  He touched the papers in his coat pocket detailing how he worked for the Central California Railroad. Unless Collingswood had put out the word that he had fired him, Slocum knew this would carry some weight.

  “Who’re you?” The deputy halted his posse and eyed Slocum and Tamara.

  Slocum allowed a tiny smile to come to his lips. The lawman wasted no time on Slocum but gave Tamara an appraising look. She shifted in the saddle and graced the man with a hint of ankle to keep him diverted.

  “Why, Marshal, we’re Mr. Collingswood’s assistants. He’s vice president of this railroad, you know.”

  “We know. He’s the one what put out a big reward for the capture of the robbers. You prove you’re who you say?”

  “How many of the train robbers were ladies?” Tamara gave a light laugh meant to disarm any suspicion. “You don’t believe I’m one of those thugs, do you, Marshal?”

  “I’m only a deputy, and no, ma’am, I don’t. What about your companion?”

  “I’ve got a
warrant signed by Mr. Collingswood,” Slocum said. “You want to see it?”

  The deputy did. Slocum slowly pulled the now tattered sheet of paper from his coat pocket, aware than two of the posse had hands on their six-shooters and the rest watched him with the same attention they’d give a coiled diamondback. He rode closer and let the lawman read it. The man’s lips moved as he worked down the page, but when Slocum saw him mouthing “David Collingswood,” he knew the document still carried some weight.

  “Looks all right to me,” the deputy said, handing back the sheet to Slocum. “You scouting around for the outlaws, too?”

  “Tell me, Marshal—excuse me, Deputy—have you encountered any other specials sent by Mr. Collingswood?” Tamara batted her eyes at the man.

  Slocum appreciated how he might as well not even exist. It gave him anonymity if the deputy was the kind to leaf through wanted posters. Slocum’s face appeared on enough for him to be recognizable. But more than this, it gave him a chance to let his mare edge closer to the others in the posse so he could hear what they were whispering among themselves.

  They fell silent as Slocum came near. He asked, “You see any trace of the robbers?”

  “None,” said one man, small, intense, and with the look of a bounty hunter. He carried two pistols slung in cross-draw holsters, a bandolier crammed with ammunition, and a large-caliber Sharps rifle tucked into his saddle scabbard. The usual member of a posse recruited from a saloon wouldn’t be this heavily armed.

  “I spotted a couple fellows not too long back.” Slocum described Riley and Harry. “From the way they skulked around, well, it was mighty suspicious.”

  “Ain’t seen them,” the small man said.

  “You ought to get on back to Frisco,” the deputy called to Slocum, breaking off what had turned into an intimate discussion with Tamara. “It can get mighty dangerous if we corner those owlhoots.” He turned back to Tamara and said, “We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “Why, no, Deputy, we wouldn’t.” She graced him with a winning smile. “Why, you might see fit to take me to the Union Club if you earn that reward. I’d like that.”