Slocum #396 : Slocum and the Scavenger Trail (9781101554371) (4 page)

He lifted the shotgun, mind racing. His thumb stroked
over the hammers, then he moved fast. There wasn’t much time, and he doubted it would work, but he had to try something. He knelt beside the man he had buffaloed, grabbed the limp hand, and curled a finger around the trigger. Pulling hard, he raised the body far enough to position the shotgun so the muzzles rested under the man’s chin.

He pulled the trigger. The roar was muffled by the outlaw’s brains. The top of his head disappeared in a red mist, but Slocum had ducked back to avoid having much spatter him.

“That’s Weasel’s shotgun,” one called to his partners.

Slocum was startled. The voice came from nearby, closer than he’d expected. He started to dart in the other direction, then took the time to move the dead man’s boot so the toe tangled up in an exposed tree root. Only then did Slocum crouch and duck walk away from the approaching outlaw.

He barely found shelter behind a rotting log. Stretched out behind it, he hoped the outlaw now standing over the dead body wouldn’t notice. Slocum yanked off his hat and crushed it down, then tried to melt into the ground. The side of his face pressed into sticky pine needles, he saw through a hole in the log as the outlaw dropped to one knee and rolled the dead man over.

“The clumsy bastard,” the outlaw said, looking up. Two men stepped from shadows to join him. “He tripped and blowed his own damn head off.”

“Might be that kid we killed got him?”

“See?” The man who had found Weasel reached down and tried to pull the tangled foot free. Slocum heard bones break as the man jerked hard in his fury and frustration. “He always was clumsier than a drunken rooster peckin’ ’round for corn on an outhouse floor. Did him in.”

“We got to bury him?”

“Let him rot,” the man beside him said, standing.

“More for us. But you think the boss ought to be told what happened?”

“It’ll make the boss think we done up and kilt him,” said the third man. “I say, we tell the boss he got careless and a prospector got in a lucky shot.”

They argued for another minute, finally agreeing that Weasel had been cut down in the heat of battle. They walked away without so much as a backward look—after stripping the body of its weapons, a pocket watch, and a small wad of greenbacks.

Slocum was willing to give them their booty in exchange for getting the hell away alive. He lay behind the log, tense with every sense alert for a hint that they had discovered him. Sounds from the direction of where Niederman and Young had died told him they had the pair’s mules. The two dead prospectors were probably stripped of the scant belongings carried on their person, then distant sounds of animals walking away made Slocum hope he was well rid of the killers.

He still remained in hiding for another half hour before standing. Making his way through the woods, he found the bodies of the dead prospectors. His approach scared away a coyote. The snarling animal stood a few yards in front of him, considering how difficult it would be to claim its dinner from a living human.

Slocum didn’t want to take the time but felt the obligation. He had taken money from these two for a safe passage across the mountains. Lacking a shovel or any of the other tools that had been stolen, he made a rude grave of stones piled atop the two bodies. Scratching names on a rock using the tip of his knife seemed a poor grave marker, but it was more than the pair would have received if he hadn’t come along.

He dropped the marker stone onto the larger pile, then began walking.

It had been a hell of a day. He’d had three of his party murdered and robbed, and he didn’t have good feelings the same hadn’t happened to Clem Baransky.

* * *

The boomtown was even more crowded than when he had left with his four charges. Slocum didn’t draw any attention. Nobody remembered faces. Looking around at the hard cases, maybe some of them took money from eager prospectors and murdered them up on the road across the mountain. Nobody would care if the money got spent in Almost There on booze and hookers.

Slocum dropped into a chair at the back of a long, narrow tent with a crude plank over two sawhorses serving as a bar. A touch of the whiskey on his tongue made him gag. He sucked in a deep breath, then knocked back the shot and let it sear its way to his belly. It might have been the thought of losing all four in the party or it might have been a lack of decent food but the liquor churned and boiled and made him sick to his stomach.

He downed another shot.

This time the alcohol worked to numb him, in both body and mind.

If he drank enough, he might even forget the faces of the men he had signed on to guide.

If he drank more than enough, even the ugly hookers might not look so ugly and would help him forget.

“Sir?”

Slocum looked up but nobody was close to him. A moment’s panic seized him as he thought the dead men were speaking to him. Then the voice came again, softer and sweeter than anyone he knew.

“Please, sir, may I speak with you?”

Slocum craned his neck and almost fell from the rickety chair. A woman held up the edge of the tent, staring right at him. For a moment, he thought he recognized her. Then the feeling faded a mite.

“What do you want?”

“A moment of your time, that’s all. Please. Can you come outside? Out back of this … of this place?”

Slocum took another shot, thinking this desert mirage would go away, but it didn’t. She was as pretty as any woman he could remember. Her soft brown hair caught the sun and revealed auburn highlights. Eyes of melted chocolate stared at him from behind impossibly black eyelashes. A hint of rouge gave her cheeks a blush. Or did she use makeup? The rosy color might be natural. Her finely boned cheeks, bow-shaped lips, and strong chin gave Slocum a reason to duck under the tent flap she held for him.

He found himself facing not only the woman but a slender man, perhaps a year or two younger, who was the spitting image of Clem Baransky. Slocum paused as the woman dropped the tent flap and stared at him, as if appraising a prize heifer.

“You will do,” she said.

“Pleased to hear that,” Slocum said. “Now I’ll get back to my drinking.”

“One moment!” She reached out and touched his arm, then drew away as if she had touched a hot stove. “My brother and I require your services.”

“Gold prospecting is dangerous, too dangerous for the likes of you.”

“We have no desire for that,” she said. “I am Melissa Baransky and this is Stephen, my brother. We want to hire you to find our father.”

Slocum shouldn’t have been surprised since the son was the spitting image of his pa, and there were hints of the man reflected in the woman’s features.

“I’ve been doing some thinking on that,” he said. Letting Clem Baransky go off on his own was a foolish thing, but losing all four of the men he had been paid to guide to the goldfields was even worse. He knew three were dead but had no idea if Baransky had survived. Getting through Desolation Pass was hard but fighting off road agents intent on stealing equipment and animals added to the threats.

He owed Baransky more than he had delivered.

“I beg your pardon?” Melissa looked at his curiously.

“Why’d you pick me to hunt for him?”

Melissa and her brother exchanged glances again. Slocum noticed that Stephen put his hand in a pocket that already bulged. A small gun hidden there might be fired through the coat. Slocum ignored the motion. These were city slickers and uneasy being surrounded by rough characters. This made him wonder about the Baransky family since Clem had shown himself to possess toughness that wasn’t apparent in his children.

“We have asked around and no one else seems … likely.”

“You mean honest?”

Melissa’s lips thinned to a line. She nodded once.

“We know our pa came through only a few days ago, but no one in this town—it doesn’t appear to have a name—admits to seeing him.” Stephen Baransky looked peeved at this.

“A hundred men a week come through here, maybe more,” Slocum said. “And they call the town Almost There, because it’s the last town before the gold strike.” He could think of other reasons but doubted the Baranskys wanted to hear them.

“You guide them to the goldfields?” Melissa looked at him without guile.

“I just got to town myself,” Slocum said, still wondering if they knew he had been hired to guide their pa and were setting him up for an ambush. Even in a wide-open, no‑holds-barred boomtown like Almost There, killing in the streets was frowned upon. He hadn’t seen a marshal but that didn’t mean a vigilance committee couldn’t form at the drop of a hat—or the knotting of a noose.

“So you are not skilled enough to do this?”

“Miss, I need equipment. The trail’s mighty steep and would require a mule rather than a horse.”

“We can afford to outfit you. And … and guarantee payment when you return with our father.”

“What if I can’t?”

“Then you must bring us his body,” Melissa said, trying not to cry. She didn’t quite make it. A tear glistened at the corner of her eye, but she turned slightly to prevent Slocum from seeing it.

“What’s so all-fired important about dragging him away from his prospecting?”

“We—” she began.

“That’s none of your business,” Stephen said, anger touching his words. A wildness in his eyes banked as suddenly as it appeared. “Will you go after him? For fifty dollars?”

“And the supplies?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Melissa said. “We can place your money in the bank, in escrow.”

“No need. I trust you.” Slocum smiled grimly. “Don’t think there is a bank in town. None of the merchants reckon to stay here long enough.”

“But you said a hundred men a week pass through,” said Stephen. “I don’t understand. Why isn’t there a bank?”

“Folks don’t trust bankers and rely on their own six-shooters to protect their poke. And a boomtown like this might be a ghost town in a month. A week.”

“All the gold will be found so everyone moves on?” Melissa asked.

He wondered if she had any idea how rare it was for any prospector to find enough gold to make the dangerous hunt worthwhile. She acted as if it were a foregone conclusion that every man who reached the goldfields struck it rich.

She shared that notion with her pa and every other man trying to get across the mountains to the Promised Land.

“The real gold’s made selling the equipment.”

“We know our father departed a few days ago. We were close to reaching him but our wagon broke down and we only recently arrived here.” Melissa seemed anxious to explain why they were unable to find their father in time to stop him. Slocum had only passing interest in what was
so all-fired important that both brother and sister had to make the effort.

“I don’t know how long it’ll take,” Slocum said. “Might be a few days to find him and that many to return. That’s assuming he wants to come back with me.”

“Oh, yes, I understand that,” Melissa said. “It might be construed that you were attempting, on the behalf of others, to keep him from his goldmine. I have taken care of that.” She fished around in a clutch purse and withdrew a small envelope. “This will convince him to return here.” She held it out, then pulled it back when Slocum reached for it. “Can you read?”

“Does it matter?”

“The letter is personal. Family business,” Stephen said brusquely. “We don’t want the information bandied about.”

“Who am I going to tell that’d be interested?”

Melissa extended the letter. Slocum tucked it into his coat pocket without even glancing at what was written on the front. He supposed it was her pa’s name.

“We’ll get you outfitted, if the contract is acceptable to you.”

“It’s a deal.”

“You won’t use this opportunity to go hunting for gold on your own, will you?”

“Don’t outfit me if you’re worried.”

“That’s no kind of attitude, sir,” Melissa said, outraged.

“You either trust me or you don’t.” He watched emotions play over the woman’s lovely face and knew it hardly mattered what she decided. The Baransky family could get him the supplies needed, or not. He was going after her father because he owed it to the man. Abandoning him on the mountainside was nothing short of dereliction of duty.

“Very well,” Melissa said. “We will outfit you.”

“Melly, please, let’s discuss this.”

“No, Stephen, we need to move quickly. This gentleman is going to aid us.”

“There’s one outfitter in town,” Slocum said, remembering how the merchant had duped Hawkins. That wasn’t going to happen again. “Let me do the dickering.”

“We’ll see about that,” Stephen said coldly.

Brother and sister started toward the merchant’s tent, letting Slocum bring up the rear. It was a pointed insult showing that they considered him little more than a servant who could trail behind his betters, but Slocum didn’t mind since he got a chance to watch Melissa walk from behind.

“You, sir, a word. We would make a few purchases,” Stephen called out. The merchant wiped dirty hands on his equally filthy apron and graced the Baranskys with a broad smile that died when he saw Slocum.

“I need a mule and gear,” Slocum said.

“What’s happened to—” The merchant bit off his question since it didn’t matter. Let Slocum buy everything. Who he sold to was less important than the amount he got for his goods.

“I need a sturdy mule,” Slocum said, then detailed the rest of the supplies. A week on the trail would be all he required. Either he found Clem Baransky by then or he didn’t and would return to tell his children the man was dead.

“Got a few good ones out back. Let’s go take a look at ’em, eh?” The merchant jerked his thumb over his shoulder. Slocum noticed the Baranskys let him lead the way down the muddy alley to the corral out back.

“That’s all you have?” Stephen asked.

“Don’t need a lot, son, when you got the best. And that’s what these are. The best.”

Slocum went to the corral and stared at the nearest mule.

“This one’s the best you’re likely to find,” Slocum said.

It was the same mule Clement Baransky had left town riding.