by Jake Logan
“Son of a bitch,” he cried. At the far turn, he saw the rider he had spotted back in the valley. Until now, the rider had only watched. Now he had killed an unarmed man. Slocum opened fire and drove the rider out of sight around the turn in the road.
Wanting to gallop, but fearing that a single stumble might doom him and his horse, Slocum rode as fast as he dared, reached the turn in the road, and started up another steep stretch. By the time he got to the spot where he had seen the rifle barrel, his horse was flagging. Slocum hated to let Pete’s killer get away, but had no choice but to slow and walk the mare. Before the top of the steep uphill stretch, Slocum dismounted and walked alongside his horse.
He rounded another bend and cautiously looked for the mysterious rider. Nothing. He mounted and had to proceed slowly. The altitude and the hard riding over the past couple days had drained the stamina from his horse. He eventually got to the level area around the Climax Mine and hunted for someone to call to.
The road down the back of the mountain was the only place a rider could have gone since there were no side roads to the summit. Slocum swung about and started down the road. The sniper had to have come this way.
Or had he?
Slocum drew rein and looked around the mine site. He was sure he had properly identified the rider as the same one he had encountered in the valley at the base of the mountain. That meant the man wasn’t a miner. If he was, he’d have been away from his work too long and would have been noticed. But he might be hiding.
Working his way past the leaning mess hall and toward sturdier sheds designed to hold dynamite, Slocum hunted for any trace of the rider. When he didn’t see anything, he turned and went back to the road leading to the valley where he had first spotted the rider.
He trotted past the mouth of the mine as men were coming out from a day’s work. Charlie waved at him and several others called his name, but Slocum had no time to waste. He kept his head down and rode as fast as his horse could take him. If he found a cutback on the road where he could look at a lower stretch, he might do to the sniper what had been done to Pete. Slocum wasn’t above putting a slug or two into a murderous owlhoot’s back.
He left the miners behind and rounded the first bend in the road. It was getting dark and he feared a misstep on his horse’s part would doom them both. He finally realized that twilight was rapidly draining the daylight, leaving only darkness behind. Forced to dismount and walk, he kept moving for more than an hour. The whole while, he seethed at such cold-blooded killing. Pete had been unarmed and unable to defend himself.
Slocum knew he dared not turn the murderer over to the law when he caught him. He was still wanted for Renfro’s killing back in Virginia City. Mac—or the marshal—wouldn’t much care what he had done lawfully if they could pin Renfro’s murder on him.
Finally forced to stop, Slocum sat on a rock and fumed while his horse rested. He might not be able to continue until morning. But once he got on the trail, he would not stop until Pete’s killer was a dead man. Taking the law into his own hands wasn’t something he thought much of, but he saw no other way of meting out justice.
He ate a cold dinner, wished he had watered his horse before leaving the Climax site, and finally leaned back against the rocky face of the cliff to his left and closed his eyes. Scenes of vengeance filled his dreams in which he satisfactorily ended the mystery rider’s life in a hail of gunfire and a welter of shouted curses.
Slocum was slow to come awake to the realization that the gunshots were not real but the curses were.
He got to his feet and saw three riders coming down the road from up on the mountain, holding sputtering torches high over their heads to light the trail.
He recognized Bold Max and Charlie. The third man was dressed as a miner.
“Here he is, boss. I see him,” Charlie cried out.
“You spotted him?” Slocum went to the edge of the road and looked over into utter darkness. He needed one of their torches if they had located Pete’s killer.
“Where?” Slocum shouted. “I don’t see him anywhere.” By then, the trio was upon him. When he saw their leveled six-shooters, he realized that he was their quarry. He slowly raised his hands so they wouldn’t fill him full of lead.
12
“We thought you was a friendly sorta fella,” Charlie said, his gun hand shaking. Slocum watched in the flickering torchlight as the miner fought with the temptation to squeeze the trigger. “Just goes to show how wrong you kin be, I reckon.”
“Shut up,” Bold Max said. He motioned with his six-gun for Slocum to mount. They had stripped him already of his Colt Navy and knife from the top of his boot.
“What’s going on?” Slocum demanded. “I’m after the man who shot Pete. He shot a mule, we got back to the road, and then he shot Pete in the head.”
“We heard the shots, and we went back and found the body. It had to be you. There wasn’t nobody else on the road,” Charlie said. “You was tryin’ to escape, that’s what you was doin’.”
“I was after Pete’s killer,” Slocum said, trying to keep the anger from his tone. “He rode toward the mine and down this side of the mountain. If I’d killed Pete, why would I come this way? I’d have gone straight down the road to Virginia City and out of the territory.”
“Reckon we’ll find out why you wanted to come past us.”
“To thumb his nose at us,” suggested the third man.
Slocum had seen death in men’s eyes before. This miner stared at him as if he were ready to kill on the spot. It probably had nothing to do with thinking he had killed Pete. The miner wanted to see someone die, and Slocum was on the wrong end of the gun.
“Back to camp,” said Bold Max.
“There was someone on the trail ahead of me, going to the valley. He’s the one who shot Pete.”
“Ain’t seen nobody but you go through the mine yard. Don’t know what you had against Pete, but he was a good man. Snuck me whiskey now and then, too. For a Brit, he was a regular fella.” Charlie’s hand shook harder as he restrained himself from shooting Slocum.
The only one who remained in charge of his emotions was Bold Max Carson, and Slocum had the feeling that the animosity bubbling up from the mine foreman was enough to kill.
They rode back into the camp, which was lit with the sputtering pitch torches, giving an unreal look to everyone assembled. Slocum looked around for either Abigail or her brother, but they were nowhere to be seen. Rough hands dragged Slocum from the saddle, and he was buffeted about as grimy hands swung to hit him.
“Don’t,” Bold Max said gruffly. “He’s our prisoner. We hold him for the marshal. Charlie, get on down to Virginia City and fetch that no-account.”
“The marshal?”
“Hell, any of them lawmen’ll do. The marshal, the sheriff, any of ’em. I want this varmint to stand trial right away. I don’t want him in my camp one second longer ’n needed.”
The miners punched at Slocum, but did him no real harm. He knew better than to argue with a mob. If he said something to anger them more, they were likely to string him up or just throw him over a cliff to his death. Little by little, he was shoved toward a shed. One miner opened the door, and two others grabbed Slocum by the arms and bodily threw him inside. He crashed into the rear of the shed, and found himself locked inside before he could recover.
Pressing his hands against the walls convinced him a different carpenter had built this building. If it had been constructed like the mess hall, he would have been free in a few seconds. He sat on an empty dynamite crate, and realized that Pete was bringing more explosives that would have been stored here. A quick check of the boxes failed to turn up any dynamite. Glum, Slocum sat on a crate and tried to think things through.
Even if he had found a stick or two, using it would have killed him. Being trapped inside a closed structure like this would have caused the blast to crush him to bloody jelly smeared on the walls. He tried scuffing the floor, but it was too hard to dig in eve
n if he had a shovel. Windowless, the shed was as sturdy as a wooden structure got—and he had seen the heavy padlock on the door when they had shoved him inside. The lock kept out miners as surely as it now held him prisoner inside.
After trying the walls and floor, Slocum stood on a crate and pushed hard against the roof, hoping it might not have been fastened down as firmly as the rest of the shed panels. All he succeeded in doing was sending waves of pain throughout his body. He had been battered and beaten too much to be successful in escaping this way, even if the roof had only been laid onto the top of the walls.
He sank into a corner, legs drawn up as he considered what to do. If Bold Max had his way, a necktie party might be avoided. That still meant Slocum ended up in Virginia City where a murder accusation already awaited him. The Mountain of Gold barkeep wouldn’t put much store in such a thing as a fair trial, not that a trial mattered much. Slocum couldn’t prove he was innocent and any jury would be full of Mac’s friends.
Taking a nail from an empty crate, he began scratching away at the door where the hinges were fixed in the sturdy frame. His progress was slow, but he was not going to give up. After an hour, he heard sounds outside and tensed. He held the blunt nail like a tiny knife. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but if Charlie or the others had taken it into their heads to ignore their foreman and bring what they thought was justice to this part of Nevada, he would fight. A quick slash might give him the chance to grab a six-shooter.
The key grated noisily in the padlock. Slocum pictured the hasp falling open. The hinges screeched as the door opened. Slocum had tensed to explode outward when he saw Abigail Cheswick silhouetted in the doorway.
“Hurry, John. There’s no time. We’ve got to get away.”
“This is the second time you’ve got me out of a cell,” he said.
“There’s no time. The guard fell asleep. I had to act fast, but I don’t know when he’s going to wake up.”
“Where’s your brother?”
“Don’t worry about him. He’s already gone.”
“He left you?” Slocum started to complain more, but Abigail pressed her finger against his lips to quiet him.
“I’ll explain after we get away.”
“The man who killed Pete rode back toward the valley. If we—”
“Not that way. To Virginia City. It’s our only chance. Trust me, John, or they’ll catch us.”
She grabbed his hand and pulled him along to where his mare and her stallion were already saddled. Abigail mounted easily and waited for him.
“I need my six-shooter,” he said.
“In your saddlebags. You can get it and your knife later, after we’ve put some miles between us and this mine.”
Slocum gripped the pommel, got his foot in the stirrup, and heaved. He needed a few shots of whiskey to kill the pain more than he needed his six-gun right now. He settled down and followed Abigail from the mining camp. He looked at the road leading toward the valley, but Abigail had already hit the trail retracing Pete’s route from Virginia City. Something bothered him about this area. He looked around, thinking Bold Max might have put a sentry on the road, but he saw nothing and heard less. At this altitude, even the usual wildlife fell silent. His study of the landscape turned upward to a spot higher on the slope. He made a few quick estimates, rode to the side of the road, and looked down. He caught his breath. Someone up on the slope above him could have gotten a clean shot at Pete on the winding road below.
But what a shot it would have been. And it would have been downhill to boot. Both the distance and the way the bullet’s trajectory had to be corrected made this about the most difficult shot Slocum had ever even heard about. More than that, it had to have been made twice. The first killed the mule. The second took Pete in the head. At his finest during the war, Slocum doubted he could have made such a killing shot with such assurance. After all, two shots had brought two deaths. This sniper hit what he aimed at.
Slocum snapped his reins and let his mare set her own pace in the darkness. Traveling this road was becoming second nature to the horse now, but the sharp turns with the steep downward stretches required close attention. For an hour, Slocum and Abigail rode in silence.
Then the road widened from where he had already ridden, making for easier travel.
“I need to rest,” Slocum said. If he had been in better condition, he could have ridden until his horse died under him, but he had taken too many beatings in the past few days to go on. More than that, he wanted to slow the inexorable trip down into Virginia City. If he could avoid going to the boomtown altogether, that would suit him just fine.
“Three aces,” he repeated to himself. That summed up his luck for the past week and maybe longer.
“What’s that, John?”
“I need to rest,” he said louder. “There’s a small canyon to the left with a stream coming out of it. We can water the horses, and I can rest.”
“But the miners will be after us when they find you’re gone.”
“I have to rest,” he said.
“Are you injured?”
“I can’t go on much longer. Only a short time.” Slocum wanted to argue Abigail out of going to Virginia City, if he could. If he couldn’t, finding the first road leading away from town would be the smartest thing for him to do.
“Very well, but it’s chancy,” she said.
“Me falling out of the saddle’s a risk I can’t take either,” he said. Slocum hated like hell having to drop to the ground because he barely suppressed a groan as his legs threatened to buckle under him. Somewhere, probably in the climb up from the canyon in his rescue of Pete, he had smashed his thigh into a rock. A couple days in bed would put him back in the pink, but with everybody hunting for him to drop a noose around his neck, taking time like that wasn’t going to happen.
“This is a tight fit,” Abigail said, riding ahead of him off the road. Her shoulders brushed the rocky sides of the crevice, but her horse kicked up water that hid any trail she might leave. Slocum followed quickly, fighting to keep his mare from rearing. Tight places bothered him, too, but there had to be a widening somewhere ahead. If not, Slocum had to figure how to back the horse out of this rocky chute.
“John!”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. This is incredible. I never knew such a place could exist in these barren mountains.”
The crevice widened to a long, narrow canyon with enough grass growing on the floor to feed their horses for a week. A waterfall crashed into a pool at the far end of the tiny canyon.
“Just what I need,” he said. He didn’t have to urge his mare forward. She went directly for the edge of the pool and began drinking noisily. Slocum slipped down, supporting himself the best he could. Before he left the horse, he pawed through the saddlebags and found his six-gun and knife where Abigail had put them. He started to strap on the gun belt, then laughed ruefully.
He wanted to do nothing but sink beneath the surface of the cold mountain pool. Doing that with a six-shooter strapped around his middle was ridiculous. The gun and knife went back into the saddlebags before he took the saddle and other gear off his grateful horse.
“Are you sure this is safe?” Abigail asked as she looked around. “We’re trapped here.”
“Boxed in,” Slocum agreed as he began stripping off his shredded clothing. He had spares in his saddlebags, but hated to use them because they were almost as tattered as what he wore. A small pile of clothing grew. He kicked off his boots and pulled off his jeans before wading into the icy water.
“That looks painful,” Abigail said.
“Not the water, my bruises,” he said. Slocum simply relaxed his knees and sat on the slick bottom of the pool. The water lapped around his neck while the cold sucked away his aches and pains. It wasn’t as good as a bottle of whiskey, but he had to make do with what he had.
“It won’t be long before they come after us,” Abigail said, looking back down the narrow chasm leading to the roa
d.
“Maybe they’ll ride on past. It’s still dark out,” Slocum said, floating on his back and feeling the aches and pains slowly disappear. “Tracking at night’s hard to do. If they use the torches, we’ll see them coming as soon as they enter the crevice. Might be their horses wouldn’t like the tight fit and the smoky pitch torches.”
He arched his back, and saw Abigail on the bank of the pool watching him. After a few seconds, she began unbuttoning her blouse. Every move was deliberately intended to entice him. If he had wanted, Slocum could not have pulled his eyes off the slowly revealed luscious body that came into view. She shrugged one shoulder and dropped her blouse, revealing a perfect left breast. A studied move of her right shoulder dropped the blouse down around her elbows and bared her to the waist. The sight of those fine teats caused stirrings in Slocum he had doubted were possible in his beat-up condition.
She was quite an eyeful—and she knew it.
Abigail stroked down over her hips, then worked at the fasteners on her skirt. She lithely stepped out and turned slowly. She bent over to give him a view of her perfectly shaped rump as it pressed tightly into her bloomers. Remaining bent over and facing away from him, she worked the underwear down over her hips, down her thighs, and finally past her sculpted calves.
She stayed bent over as she did a little crow hop to get free of her bloomers. Only then did she turn and begin working on her high-topped shoes. If Slocum could have grabbed a button hook, he would have ripped them open one after another. Abigail took her time, finally drawing the right shoe off to reveal her dainty foot.
He started to speak, but she pursed her ruby lips and put a finger against them, cautioning him to silence. Only when he paddled toward the center of the pool, never taking his eyes off her, did she begin work on her left shoe. By the time she was naked, Slocum was ready.
“Oh!” Abigail stuck her foot into the pool and drew back reflexively. “I didn’t know it was that cold.”
“Come in,” Slocum urged, “and I’ll slip something hot into you.” He arched his back and shoved his hips up out of the water just enough to show Abigail what he meant.
