Slocum and the High-Country Manhunt

by Jake Logan

  Slocum was about to repeat the question he’d asked Mose about Delbert Calkins, but decided to hold his tongue. The fewer the people who knew his business, the better. That was a maxim he’d stuck close to for a long time and it hadn’t really failed him yet, so why rock that particular boat? Mose, though he knew him only as long as he’d been in town, was as honest and as tight-lipped as the day was long—or in the case of midwinter days, short. But eminently trustworthy.

  Slocum headed over to the back of the store where clothing was kept. His own sheepskin-lined winter coat was still in good condition, but he sorely needed wool socks, a couple of new pairs of woolen longhandles, a wool head scarf, a knitted cap, and lined hide mittens, if they had them. He’d prefer to make them, but he didn’t have the luxury of time holed up in front of a roaring blaze in a mountain cabin all winter, much as that idea appealed to him.

  Within minutes he was pleased to have found the necessary items, plus two new shirts and two wool blankets, and piled them on the counter. He rested a hand on the topmost blanket. “I wonder if I could get this order delivered to Moses’s livery?”

  The old shopkeep, a large man with spectacles perched on the end of a bulbous veined nose, looked at the stack and, after a quick mental tally, realized the order was more than large enough to warrant sending an errand boy to the livery with a handcart. “Surely. I can have it down there within the hour. Anything else you want, just pile it up on the counter, then I’ll tally it up.”

  “I appreciate that. I think I’m just about all set. Oh, except for three bottles of bonded whiskey and fifty cents’ worth of the hard candy that tastes like fruit, those colored ones in the end jar.”

  “Got it.”

  “Great. That should do it.”

  The merchant made a list of all the goods piled on the counter, with their prices, his lips moving softly the entire time in silent calculation.

  “I don’t suppose you happen to have any snowshoes, do you?”

  The old man paused, marked his place on the list with a thumb—here was a man used to being interrupted, thought Slocum—and glanced toward the rafters, poking his pencil skyward. “Got them, but they’re not new by any shake. Let you have ’em for . . . two dollars.”

  Slocum looked up at the pair of beavertail shoes hanging just out of reach. “May I take a look at them?”

  “Surely.” The merchant lifted them down with a long, hooked pole and deposited them in Slocum’s arms. Snowshoes were another item he would have liked to have made for himself. He’d done so once years before and had been pleased both with the work and with the results. But this pair seemed quite serviceable; the rawhide lacing was not brittle but looked as though it could use some bear grease conditioning. And the wood was in fine shape, not cracked on the steam-bent curves. The leather boot harnesses were dried, but looked as if he could revive them—nothing he couldn’t fix during a night or two around a campfire.

  The old merchant poked them with the tip of his pencil. “I’ll send along a small jar of grease to bring the leather and rawhide back to prime. How’s that sound?”

  Slocum nodded. “Sounds good to me. I’ll take them, thanks.”

  While he waited for the man to tally up the final account, he nibbled a cracker and warmed his hands by the stove in the middle of the room. From behind him, the merchant said, “Do me a favor and toss in another piece of wood. My old bones don’t like the cold. Seems to me you’re taking to the trail. Better you than me. I go anywhere, it’s going to be south. But that ain’t likely. At any rate you’re better equipped for the cold than that goober who passed through here a couple of days back.”

  “Oh?” said Slocum. He closed the stove and turned back to the counter.

  “Yep, a dandy sort, said he was headed northwest. Wouldn’t take no advice about what to buy. Ended up with things only a fool would bring on the trail. And no pack animal, to boot. I expect if you are headed in the same direction, you’ll find his greenhorn carcass stiff as a tree root and half as pretty.”

  “Do you recall what he looked like?”

  “Sure do—here’s your tally, by the way.” He slid the list to Slocum and tapped a circled figure at the bottom.

  Slocum winced inside, but figured for the pile of goods it was fair. Lucky thing Ginny Garfield wasn’t concerned about money.

  “That fella had oiled, wavy gold hair and a waxed mustache to match. I bet he’s one of them types to spend time before a looking glass of a morning.” The merchant shook his head. “And the clothes he wore, too fancy by half. But he was nothing if not confident. Then again, he came in here on one of those days when it was above freezing, so he was bound to think the best, as we all tend to do on such days. I tried to talk him out of leaving, told him the train would be along, but he laughed, said it wasn’t going where he needed to be.”

  “Did he say where that was?” Slocum hoped for an answer as he handed over his cash.

  The old man took the money, counted it, and shook his head. “Nope, never did say. Just that it was northwestward. Oh, and he did say something about mountains, but that’d be about all he did say. So after that, your guess is as good as mine.” He looked at Slocum over his spectacle rims, as if awaiting an explanation for the questioning Slocum had given him.

  But Slocum knew he’d heard all that the man had to offer. He thanked him and headed back to the hotel for a last chat with Ginny.

  Mountains? he thought as he walked. What could a city man like Delbert Calkins want that far to the west? Unless he didn’t start out as a city man at all. Maybe there’s more to the fellow than any of the Garfields—or anyone else but Calkins himself—knows. Or else the man might have known he was being tailed and decided to plant a few false clues as to his intended direction.

  That would make following him more difficult. If he had to bet, Slocum thought Calkins was going to head southward before long. Maybe he already had. The very thought of it made his gut tighten—the sooner he got on the trail, the better he’d feel.

  “Only one way to find out,” said Slocum, mounting the steps of the Hoyt House for what he suspected was the last time. He intended to walk on by the front desk and head up the stairs, but a sharp “Ahem” paused him. He turned to see the fat man from the night before. This time he wasn’t smiling.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  Slocum smiled. “Yep, you can go back to what you were doing. I’m heading upstairs to see Miss Garfield, then I’m gone.”

  “Really, sir. This is a house of fine accommodation, I don’t think it’s seemly for someone such as”—he looked Slocum up and down, then back to his face—“such as yourself to be traipsing in and out as if you were a guest.”

  “Well now,” said Slocum, scratching his stubbled chin. “It’s true I have been in and out a bit, but I am a guest of a guest and I happen to know she’s what you might consider a top guest, am I right?”

  Already the fat man’s face was popping a sweat and uncertainty peppered his brow.

  Slocum didn’t wait for a response. “That’s what I thought. Now, shall I tell the good lady that someone such as”—he looked the fat man up and down slowly—“such as yourself wishes to see her about a . . . problem?”

  “No sir, that won’t be necessary. A case of mistaken identity, as it turns out.” He offered a flaccid smile and went back to pretending he was busy with a ledger book.

  Slocum sighed and headed on upstairs.

  5

  As he promised, he was back at Mose’s place before an hour had passed. The old man had indeed sold him a solid-looking packhorse that Slocum insisted on paying half again more for than what the old man was asking.

  Then the goods from the mercantile arrived, and after Slocum tipped the delivery boy, he and Mose laid everything out on the floor of the barn, repacked it all, arranging it on the pack saddle that Mose threw in with the sale of the horse. W
orking with Mose was a pleasure and Slocum knew he would miss the man’s company.

  He also knew Mose was particularly fond of a certain type of brandy and little black cigars that one bar along a side street sold. So after he’d left Ginny Garfield at the hotel, Slocum had taken a detour and bought Mose a couple of bottles of brandy and a tin full of the little cigars.

  And then it seemed all of a sudden he was packed, the horses loaded, and the gear secured well. His good-byes had been said to Mose and Ginny Garfield. Despite the logic of the case and his urge to be in the wild and free of town life once more, Slocum felt a knot of nervousness in his gut for leaving on such a chase in winter, and after a man he’d not seen, nor been personally slighted by.

  But he knew deep down that the reason he agreed to take on the job was in part because the girl was so persuasive, and in part because he knew what it was like to lose a family member. He also knew he just had to get out of the town and back on the trail and on his own. Even if it meant doing so in the middle of the winter. He relished the peculiar demands that winter would put on him on the trail, just to stay alive, let alone find the devil he’d soon be chasing.

  “Talk about a cold trail,” he said as he passed the last building on the western edge of town. Before him stretched a long, undulating plain for as far as he could see, dotted with a gradually lessening number of buildings. But he was right, it felt damn good to be back on the move, even with the slicing wind that kicked up almost as soon as he left town behind.

  He was pleased with his purchases and had taken a few moments to don new woolen underclothes, fresh socks, mittens, and a neck scarf. The horses both seemed pleased, too, to have a purpose and stepped lively along. There would be ample sign of the man’s direction, Slocum hoped, with no notion that anyone might follow him. He hoped that meant the man would be unobservant and perhaps even careless in covering his trail. He also hoped the man stopped off in a town to do some gambling. It might be far too much to hope for that the man would decide to stay on for a week in this made-up town in Slocum’s mind. But all that hoping sure would make Slocum’s life so much easier.

  “If wishes were horses,” he said to the Appaloosa, turning his head briefly to check on the packhorse, “then beggars would ride.”

  6

  “Why don’t you act like you’re supposed to, horse?”

  Delbert Calkins hammered his heels hard into the horse’s ribs, but the big brute didn’t have the gumption to speed up. He didn’t understand it. The damned animal started the trip just fine, but had been getting slower and more ornery every day they got farther from Bismarck.

  No, this horse didn’t make sense. He’d fed it snow, so he knew it was getting water, and the man he’d won the horse from back in Bismarck had said it wouldn’t need much more than a couple of handfuls of oats a day to keep it going, at least until he reached the next town.

  But it had been, as near as he could remember, five days and he hadn’t seen a single other horse or rider, and certainly no houses. And a town? Forget it. At this rate, they’d both freeze or starve to death—or both. Still, Delbert felt sure that he had made the right choice in spreading the news around town that he was headed northwest. Anybody that damn Ginny Garfield might set on his trail would think twice about heading north in the winter. He figured he’d leave town headed in that direction, give it a few days, make it look good, then cut south, ramble along until it got warmer, then cut east again.

  He hadn’t really spent much time on horseback before, not more than a few minutes here and there. But he figured that being a Chicago boy, and surviving in the hard city, he should have little trouble out here, where the worst thing that could happen was that you’d run into a stray Indian. And since he was a good shot with his revolver and with his derringer, savages were the least of his worries.

  At least that was how he’d been thinking when he left Bismarck. He tried to make it look like he’d be outfitted for cold weather, but that nosy old man at the mercantile kept pestering him about more gear and buying a packhorse and filling it with goods.

  Delbert smirked and shook his head. Sure the man would say that—he was in the business of selling all those very things he wanted Delbert to buy!

  “Did he think I was born yesterday?” He shook his head and jammed his heels into the horse’s gut again. The beast picked up its pace for a half-dozen steps, then settled back into its hangdog walk.

  He hated to admit it, but he was beginning to worry for his life. He also didn’t dare veer from the trail he’d been following. If he did, and he turned south instead, he might not come across any civilization. But, he rationalized, if he stuck with this road, at least to the next settlement—no matter how small—he was sure to get warm, buy more supplies, maybe trade in this horse for something not so skinny and slow. Then he’d head south, by God. And leave all this cold and snow behind. He’d also kill for a cup of coffee. Oh, how he missed hot coffee and warm food.

  Two hours later, as if in answer to his murmured prayers, Delbert saw something on the horizon that could well have been a log. Still, it was something to head toward, something that looked different than the long, flat white plain. And the closer he and the horse walked, the more he began to see that it was maybe a house. Or at least some long, low structure. And then he saw a thin wisp of smoke rising up from what must have been a chimney. Warmth!

  No amount of pleading or dragging could induce the horse to move faster, so it took them another thirty minutes to reach the long, low building. It sat before him, half-covered in snow and reeking of decay and smells the likes of which Delbert had never experienced, even in Chicago.

  He led the horse slowly across the hard-frozen river, their footsteps not sliding but crunching in the stiff, granulated surface. As they emerged up the far bank, he saw the dark bulky shape of a person tending a couple of sorry-looking horses in a small corral to the right of the building. He led the horse in that direction, and when it came within sight of the others, it perked its ears forward and sniffed, then sped up, pushing past him. He let go of the reins.

  It wasn’t until the beast had nosed into the paltry bit of yellowed hay in the rack that the person noticed he was not alone. And it wasn’t until the person yelped that Delbert realized the bulky shape was not a he, but a woman. She stared at the strange horse for a moment, then spun around, saw Delbert, and backed up, wide-eyed, shaking her head.

  Delbert noticed several things about her all at once. She was built like a barrel, she was probably not yet thirty, she had dark hair and skin the color of tobacco, and she had been beaten about the face quite recently. Her lips were both split, one eyelid was puffed and slitted, within which her eye roved and struggled to see.

  “Hello there,” said Delbert, walking forward and extending a hand. “I am Delbert. I wonder if I might purchase some feed for my horse . . .” It was then that he really noticed the sorry state her horses were in. The two of them stood still, barely fluttering open their eyelids. They shook, either from the cold wind or malnourishment, he wasn’t sure. But judging from their thin state, he was surprised they were still alive. Beyond them, he saw the bone-jutted hides of what looked like another one or two horses, dead and partially covered in drifted snow.

  “You leave here now,” said the girl.

  Delbert was surprised at how low and strong her voice was.

  “You take me with you.”

  “What? No, no, I plan on going in there for a bit of a warm-up. That is, if you don’t mind me inviting myself into your home. I am tired and can pay you for whatever food you may have on hand.” As he said it, he looked around, noting there wasn’t much in the way of anything. Except what looked like a pile of picked-over bones beside the door.

  “They”—she jerked her chin at the sod-covered hut—“will kill you if you go in there. Take me with you.” She reached into the filthy folds of the layers of cloth she wore.


  Delbert immediately drew back, unbuttoned his own coat, and rested a hand on the butt of his pistol.

  She didn’t notice, and instead pulled out not a weapon but a small pouch. “I pay you to take me from here.”

  The sight of the little leather sack made Delbert Calkins pause. He ran his tongue tip over his bottom lip and smoothed his long mustaches, ending with a slight twirling of the tips. The sack looked like it had weight to it—maybe this Indian woman had some bit of gold? Dusky jewels unknown to white men? He had to know. Delbert reached for the sack.

  The woman pulled it away, smiling. It was not a pretty smile. Most of her teeth were missing, and those that remained were shadowed and pitted. “You take me with you?”

  Her words snapped Delbert from his gem-induced reverie. “Yes, yes, of course. But tell me . . . ma’am.” He smiled a little off-kilter and raised one eyebrow, the look the ladies all seemed to like. “Just how do you expect to go with me? My horse, admittedly in much better shape than those—no offense—is not up to hauling me and”—he looked her up and down—“you around on his old swayed back.”

  Her face fell. She looked behind her to the leaning racks of bone once known as horses. They barely moved an eyelid; breath lightly rose from their nostrils. She looked down at her feet, crushed.

  “Tell you what,” said Delbert. “I don’t have enough money to go buy you a horse, but if you are willing to lend me your purse there, I will ride off and buy one for you.”

  She smiled again, her battered eyes bright. “Yes?”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “Where you do this?”

  “You tell me. Which way should I head to find a suitable horse for you? Then I will purchase said beast, bring it back here, and take you away from this pit of treachery.”