by Jake Logan
Slocum angled toward the far side of the valley and wondered how long it would be until the other rider came after him. If the man was a deputy, he would come fast. How a lawman had gotten so far from Virginia City without passing through the canyon was something Slocum would worry on later. It might be that there were other passes through these mountains that Slocum knew nothing about—and the lawman did.
Cutting down into a ravine, Slocum doubled back using the bank to shield him from prying eyes. When he was sure he had gone far enough that he wouldn’t draw unwanted attention with a quick peek, he chanced a look to see what the mysterious rider was doing.
Slocum found himself caught in the jaws of a dilemma. The rider had disappeared. Had he come after Slocum or simply ridden on, minding his own business? Being jumpy at even distant travelers was unusual for Slocum, but he had to admit he had gotten himself into a real fix over in Virginia City. Someone had murdered Renfro, and it hadn’t been him. That didn’t matter to Mac, who by now might have set every peace officer in Nevada on his trail.
“And I had three damned aces,” Slocum grumbled. How he could have lost with that hand was a mystery, but he was sure Renfro had slipped in the spare card to make that full house. He might not have seen him do it, but Renfro had cheated.
That he had cheated Slocum only gave others in Virginia City motive. How many had he swindled with his quick deals and sly palming of cards?
Slocum snapped back to the here and now when he heard the weight of a horse grinding down on gravel in the ravine he had just traversed. He drew his six-shooter and waited. He was a patient man, but the rider never showed himself.
Looking around convinced Slocum the horseman had gone up the far bank and was coming in for a clean shot—or maybe just to get a better look. They were playing a deadly game of cat and mouse, neither knowing for sure who the other was.
Slocum could have headed straight back to Cheswick’s camp, but he didn’t want to lead the law there. Abigail had sprung him from jail. Unless he found out otherwise, he had to believe the law was after her also.
Walking his mare along the ravine finally brought him to a spot where water erosion had cut away the bank. Slocum urged his horse up it, in a flurry of flying stones and far too much noise. If he had guessed right, he and the rider were on opposite sides of the ravine. This gave him a bit of a head start. Slocum galloped toward the wooded area on the far side of the valley, heading directly for the spot where he had first noticed the other man.
By the time he reached the edge of the pines, his mare was lathered and breathing like a blacksmith’s bellows. He dropped off to rest her as he studied the ground for prints. It took the better part of a half hour, but he found the spot from which the other man had watched. The back trail led from the woods and then across the valley to the ravine. Slocum took no satisfaction in having reconstructed the man’s trail because he didn’t know where the man was at that instant.
He walked into the woods a ways until the hoofprints disappeared in the dark on the soft carpet of fallen pine needles. If he kept going in this direction, he could find where the rider had come from. He might also find a posse waiting with a freshly tied noose for him.
Indecision wasn’t something that usually tormented him. It did now. He had come on a scout to find a grizzly for Cheswick to kill, and had found someone who might be a damned sight more dangerous. Tangling with the stranger wasn’t going to help him much. If the man was a lawman, others would follow when he didn’t return. And if Slocum did anything to a man who was innocent of anything other than being on the same range, his conscience would gnaw away at him.
He returned to his rested horse and began laying a trail so plain a blind man could follow it in the dark. He rode down into the valley, cut across it, and at sunrise waited to see if he had a tracker behind him. When he didn’t see anyone, Slocum began doing all he could to make his trail disappear. Every trick he had ever learned or heard of being used by Apaches or Utes, he tried. By midday, he was tired, hungry, and sure that nobody this side of the Happy Hunting Grounds was going to follow him. They would follow and find his trail had disappeared like smoke in the wind.
It had been a lot of work, but Slocum thought it was worth it. He catnapped the rest of the day, did some quiet hunting, using only his knife to bag a rabbit, and then tentatively built a fire to cook it. More than once, he prowled about to see if anybody had spotted his fire—or his invisible trail.
He spent the night jumping at every sound, and when he awoke an hour before dawn, he was ready to return to Cheswick’s camp and tell the man to move on. Coming in this direction would only get them all in trouble—or so it seemed to Slocum. Even if the rider hadn’t been part of a posse, word of a reward got around fast in mining country. An eagle-eyed man could turn a quick profit by mentioning to a deputy who he had seen on the trail.
Slocum continued to do what he could to hide his trail, and eventually found himself in the mouth of the canyon leading back to Cheswick’s camp. As he rode, an idea came to him how to collect some of that generous pay the Brit had offered without shouldering his way into trouble. There had to be other canyons and elevations where a bear might roam that weren’t reached coming this way. He’d tell Cheswick he hadn’t spotted any spoor and advise him to look elsewhere. If they traveled hard for three or four days, Slocum was sure they’d be far enough away from any possible posse to make a real bear hunt possible.
And safe.
All thoughts of safety evaporated when he heard the sound of gunfire from the direction of the camp. If Cheswick had been taking potshots at a target, there wouldn’t be such sporadic firing. He definitely heard echoes from a gunfight where several different kinds of arms were being discharged.
Slocum looked behind him to be sure he wasn’t caught between two halves of a posse, then rode into the camp. The servants were nowhere to be seen, but the horses were still in the corral. He counted fast. One missing. Wherever Quinton and the rest had gone, it hadn’t been on horseback.
“Abigail!” He listened hard for any sound the woman might make. Slocum hit the ground before his mare had come to a halt, and dashed into the gaudy tent where Cheswick slept. He poked around for a few seconds but found nothing. Going back out into the hot afternoon Nevada sun, he pulled down his hat to shield his eyes while he looked up at the canyon rim.
A cold knot formed in his belly when he saw silhouettes moving there. Those weren’t lawmen come after him. Those were Indians. Canyons like this were a trap for the unwary, but Slocum hadn’t heard about any recent uprisings. Then again, he had been more interested in poker and getting drunk while in Virginia City. The miners wouldn’t fret much about Indians on the warpath because they spent their miserable lives underground clawing away at obdurate rock for the tiniest flakes of gold.
He hastily searched the rest of the tents and found nothing. Slocum turned slowly to study the scouts moving along the canyon rim a hundred feet above him. They all were heading away. When more gunfire sounded, the fleeting figures disappeared entirely.
He looked back down the canyon. He had ridden in from the lush, broad valley and had not spotted anybody. That meant the shooting came from the direction from which he and Abigail had approached the camp the previous day.
Sliding his rifle from the saddle sheath, Slocum set out on foot. His horse was too tired and nervous to be dependable. If he had to fire, he wanted something more stable than a crow-hopping horse under him.
Less than a quarter mile from the camp, he caught sight of movement in the rocks to one side of the canyon. Moving cautiously, he advanced. His Winchester came up, and he almost fired when a body surged forward and launched toward him. Only quick reflexes kept him from firing a round into Abigail Cheswick’s trim body.
“John, oh, John!” She flung herself at him, arms circling his neck and almost strangling him. “It was terrible. H-he’s hurt.”
“Who is? Your brother?”
For a moment, she couldn�
�t answer. She gulped and then nodded, keeping her head pressed against his shoulder. Slocum looked past her into the rocks but saw nothing.
“Where is he?”
“Back there. Higher up. They shot his horse. Out from under him. Then they attacked our camp.”
“Indians?”
“They were red savages. William shot two of them and they rode away, but he was injured. They shot him with an arrow. I saw it st-sticking out of his b-back!”
“Stay here. I’ll go find him. He’s higher in these rocks?” Slocum waited until she nodded before he pushed her down and repeated, “Stay here. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“W-with William?”
Slocum made no promises. If the Paiutes had taken it into their heads to come back into western Nevada, there would be hell to pay. They had been pushed to the north, into Oregon, when Virginia City began drawing prospectors. The beginning of ranching and farming had further crowded them off their traditional land. It was nothing short of a miracle—or downright bad luck—if William Cheswick had run into a Paiute war party.
Slocum dodged from rock to rock as he moved higher. His caution was rewarded when a rifle bullet ricocheted off a boulder and sent chips flying into his face. If he had been less wary, he would have carried that lead in his chest. He dropped to his knees, sighted, and waited for movement. When it came, he fired and knew instantly that he had missed.
Not wanting to remain in one spot, he stayed low and circled toward the camp, then cut back sharply when he found a narrow crevice between two rocks. Squeezing through, he inched higher up the slope. Now and then, he looked along the rim for any sign that the Paiutes were gathering for another attack. They either were hiding better now, not outlining themselves against the bright blue sky, or had left.
Another shot rang out, indicating that they hadn’t left. Slocum got a bead on the spot where the rifle had rested. When the flash of sunlight off steel barrel came again, he fired. His enemy’s rifle went flying high into the air. The cry this produced startled Slocum.
“Blimey, I cannot believe any savage can shoot like that!”
“Cheswick?” Slocum kept his rifle trained on the spot, but now he began to seethe inside. “If that’s you, Cheswick, show yourself now.”
“I say, is that you, Slocum? However did you know to come help me deal with those barbarians?”
Slocum didn’t budge. He waited for the other man to make a move. When he didn’t, Slocum called out to him again.
“Are you injured?”
“Bloody right I am. An arrow in the back. They couldn’t fight me face-to-face.”
“I’m coming up. Don’t shoot.”
“How the hell can I? You shot the rifle from my hand.”
Slocum made his way through the rock field, and rounded a boulder to see Cheswick leaning heavily against it. The fletched end of an arrow protruded from his back. He made feeble efforts to reach around and pull it out, but could not manage it.
“Let it be for the moment. If it didn’t kill you outright, it’s not going to do any more damage.” Slocum had to be sure removing the arrow didn’t cause a geyser of blood. He had seen men walk around for a day with an arrow in them, only to die when it got yanked free. Cheswick needed careful attention to be sure he didn’t up and die.
“I’ve got my trophy after the dustup with those savages,” Cheswick said proudly.
“That’s quite a trophy, but I’ll have to break it off to pull it free.”
“Not the arrow, you dolt! Her!”
“What the hell?” Slocum thought he had seen it all, but William Cheswick had just trumped the stupidest thing Slocum had ever encountered. Trussed up nearby was a sullen squaw who glared at Slocum and then spat in Cheswick’s direction.
“I captured her. I bagged her with a snare, like I would any wild animal.”
“She’s not an animal. That’s a woman.”
“They capture servants all the time in the African bush. I caught myself a new servant in the Wild West.”
“You’re out of your head,” Slocum said. He wished he knew some Paiute to calm the squaw, but a quick look told him if he knew all the words in their entire language, nothing was going to get her to settle down. She strained so hard at her bonds that blood began to flow where the ropes cut into her flesh.
“I’ll cut her free and—”
“You’ll do no such thing. She’s my prize. When she’s properly trained, she will be the talk of all England. I know Sir Walter took heathens back with him while you were still a colony, and that created quite a stir, but those were braves.”
“Not all of them,” Slocum said. “Pocahontas went to London with her husband, John Rolfe. You thinking on marrying her?” Slocum looked at the furious woman, who was beginning to batter herself against the rocks.
“Marry her? That’s rich,” Cheswick said. “No, I think treating her as a servant will do quite well, thank you. Now, will you do something about this blasted arrow? It’s beginning to burn like fire.”
“You’re lucky it wasn’t a fire arrow,” Slocum said, wishing it had been. If Cheswick had been killed, they might all get away with their scalps. Never in a hundred years could he imagine the Paiutes leaving one of their women behind as the prisoner of a white man. Women counted for little, but having them captured by enemies was a mark of utter shame. The Indians would do whatever they could to rescue her, and if they couldn’t get her away, they would see that she was dead.
She would die, and so would Cheswick and Abigail and anyone else foolish enough to be around when the Indians attacked again.
“I need to get you back to camp before I pull the arrow out,” Slocum said. If Cheswick agreed, they could leave the squaw behind to be rescued. This might be enough for Cheswick’s party to leave the canyon without getting filled full of arrows and Indian bullets.
“Here and now. Take it out. I’m man enough for it.”
“We need hot water and bandages.”
“Abigail!” Cheswick snapped. “Tear off pieces of your petticoat for bandages for your dear brother’s wound.”
Slocum glanced over his shoulder, and saw a pale Abigail staring at her brother and the arrow jutting from his back.
“Listen to John. He knows about these things.”
“Bosh. Do it.” Cheswick turned ugly, a sneer on his aristocratic lips. “You might not have the stomach for it, but Slocum does.”
Slocum was fed up with the man. He walked to Cheswick, placed his right hand against the man’s back, and held him down so he could break the arrow off. Making no effort to be gentle, he spun him around, caught the arrow just behind the arrowhead, and drew it out fast. Cheswick sagged, then regained his balance. He had turned as pale as Abigail.
“That’s the best you can do, I suppose,” Cheswick said. He stumbled over, grabbed the squaw by the front of her deerskin jerkin, and pulled her to her feet. He shoved her ahead of him but kept one hand on her shoulder, as much to support himself as to keep her from running away.
Slocum watched them make their way down the hill. He caught Abigail’s arm and held her back.
“Please, John. He’s injured. I have to tend him.”
“They’ll kill us all because of that squaw,” he said harshly.
“Her? But she doesn’t look like anything, nothing at all.”
“He kidnapped her. He has to let her go.”
“Oh, William will when he tires of her.”
A new chill ran up and down Slocum’s spine. He worried what Abigail meant by that—and thought he knew. It was bad enough having a posse on his trail. Adding a Paiute war party would guarantee he never left Nevada alive. Not him, not anyone in the Cheswick party.
6
“You’ve got to talk to your brother,” Slocum said. He tried to convince Abigail how dangerous it was keeping the Paiute woman in camp even overnight. If anything, if she wasn’t freed to return to her own people immediately, nighttime would become incredibly deadly. Slocum had heard
too many tales of how the Paiutes could sneak up on a sentry who was both alert and warned and still kill him silently.
“Oh, William is such a bullheaded man,” Abigail said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. “What difference can it possibly make to the Indians? A woman more or less doesn’t matter, does it? They treat them like slaves. William wants this one for a servant. She’ll be treated ever so much better.”
“She’ll slit his damned throat the first chance she gets.”
“Come now, John. You don’t think he will allow her to have a knife, do you?”
“She’ll rip his throat out with her fingernails. If her hands are tied, she’ll chew his throat out and drink his blood.”
“How melodramatic you are this evening.” She looked at him with her bright eyes and smiled. “You’re trying to frighten me, aren’t you? That’s not necessary. You and I, well, we have an understanding, don’t we? Ever since we escaped from the posse.” She shivered although it wasn’t cold. Slocum reckoned the nearness of death excited her.
“I’m trying to tell you what will happen if the squaw stays in camp much longer.”
“But William is only now beginning to instruct her.”
“If that means beating her, we might all be dead, no matter if she’s released right away.”
“He never strikes his servants. He has other ways of disciplining them.”
“Starving her or tying her up aren’t any better. She will starve herself to death if she has to.”
“If she has to? That is ever so arch, John.”
Slocum saw he wasn’t getting anywhere with her. He had seen how her brother treated his English servants. Abigail might be right about him not hitting any of them, but Cheswick in his arrogance had a way of demanding to be obeyed that wouldn’t set well with any Paiute.
He left her in the tent, and crossed the barren patch of earth between Abigail’s tent and the huge red, white, and blue one. The evening breeze had died down and the flapping sounds earlier were now gone, so he could hear what went on inside. Slocum reached for his six-shooter, wondering if this would solve anything.
