Slocum #396 : Slocum and the Scavenger Trail (9781101554371) (7 page)

Slocum was hesitant about continuing along the double-rutted road when it came to a long, narrow meadow. Anyone camped around the perimeter of the trees would spot him immediately. But this worked both ways. Slocum’s hand flashed to his holstered six-gun when he saw a man with three mules resting in the shade not a quarter mile ahead and just off the road in the trees.

Slocum stepped back, found a game trail in the woods leading in the proper direction, and set off, stride long. As he walked, determination mounted. He had the chance to even the score and find out what was going on along the trail over Desolation Mountain.

Not that he didn’t have a good idea. The gang working the trail robbed prospectors of their equipment, as they had the others in the party he had been hired to guide. If he had spent more time in town, he would have figured out that a guide’s job also included being a bodyguard, but he had jumped at the chance to make easy money.

The thought of that money caused him to touch his empty vest pocket where the greenbacks had been stashed. His brother’s watch, his poke, his supplies and mule—it had all been stolen. By now the mule was likely down in the merchant’s corral, ready to be sold yet another time.

He slowed as he heard a stream running through the woods. Gunnison had camped not far from the water.
This might have been luck on his part finding the spot in the road closest to the stream, but Slocum doubted it. More likely, Gunnison had robbed and pilfered before and had staked out this spot as his own to rest up.

Slocum heard the thief singing “Sweet Betsy from Pike” in a gravelly, off-key rendition. The discordant singing masked Slocum’s footsteps as he approached through the woods, the stream at his back. Gunnison lay on his back, face to the sky, as he caterwauled.

Slocum was taken by surprise when the man looked down quickly, spotted him, and lifted a rifle hidden alongside his body.

“Been expecting you ever since I seen you on my trail.” Gunnison lifted the rifle, Slocum square in his sights, and pulled the trigger.

The instant Gunnison stirred, Slocum dug his toes into the dirt and launched himself. Even with his quick reflexes, he almost died from the slug that ripped past him. He hit the ground hard, rolled, and got off a quick shot at the treacherous guide. Gunnison, for all his bulk, moved as fast as Slocum and came to a full sitting position.

Slocum kept rolling and firing. His aim was off, and Gunnison wasn’t the least bit scared of being hit. Slocum’s only luck came in the direction he had dived. He forced Gunnison to twist about and fire awkwardly across his body, never quite able to get a clean shot.

The last twist brought Slocum to his belly, elbows on the ground for support. He squeezed off a round aimed straight for the guide’s face. The hammer fell on a dud. The metallic click brought a snort of triumph from the guide.

Gunnison came to his knees, rifle butt snugged to his shoulder.

“Don’t know who you are, other ’n dead,” Gunnison said. He fired at the same time that Slocum cocked and fired again.

Slocum winced as hot pain dragged along his left arm. He cocked his Colt for another shot but saw it wasn’t necessary. His marksmanship proved superior to Gunnison’s. The guide slumped, his rifle coming off his shoulder. Then he toppled to the side.

Getting to his feet gave Slocum passing agony from his wound, but he ignored it as he went to the body curled up in death. He kicked away the rifle, then prodded Gunnison with his boot. Slocum felt no triumph at surviving the gunfight. He had underestimated his opponent, and it had almost cost him his life. As he reloaded, he considered how stupid he had been since arriving at the base of Desolation Mountain.

Almost There might well be the way he had been thinking.

That was going to stop. He kicked Gunnison again just to be sure, then searched the man. He found almost a hundred dollars in greenbacks folded up and crammed into a coat pocket. These replenished his poke. He was still down a couple hundred dollars after being robbed, but again the tide was moving in his direction. He finished his search, almost hoping to find his brother’s watch but knowing it wasn’t likely.

Gunnison didn’t have any watch on him but did carry a curious medallion. It had been a silver dollar but a bullet had drilled a hole through the center. Slocum held it up and peered through it, wondering at the reason the guide had carried it. The silver dollar got tucked away in his vest pocket, but Slocum continued to finger it through the cloth. Something about it and the man who had carried it didn’t match. Shrugging it off, Slocum went about collecting the stolen gear and grabbed the reins of the mules.

It took a few minutes for him to settle the nervous animals. Too much shooting had spooked them. He swung onto the back of the sturdiest of the trio and started back toward the main road, where he had left Melissa and her brother,
only to stop and think. He frowned as too many unanswered questions bedeviled him. His curiosity had gotten him into trouble before, but now he had more than his promise to Melissa to keep. Her pa’s body had never been found. While it might be in a ravine where he could never find it, Slocum had the gut feeling from all he had seen in the meadow before he was ambushed that Clem Baransky was still alive.

Why? What made him worth saving when the road agents were inclined to shoot down any prospector they came across to steal their equipment? And Gunnison had followed a trail known to him that turned into a road as well traveled as the one up to Desolation Pass.

Turning around, Slocum looked over his shoulder in the direction Gunnison had been traveling. A gut feeling about the road and the murderous guide told him that something lay around the mountain, just out of sight. If Baransky hadn’t been killed outright, had he been taken as a prisoner along this road? Slocum closed his eyes and imagined the scene. Baransky, hands tied as he rode surrounded by three road agents, vanishing into the woods at the far end of the clearing.

Where did the road lead?

Slocum winched as he turned back to face the path that would return him to the main road. His wound throbbed constantly and sent a stab of pain all the way down his left arm as he moved. Getting into another fight would be risky.

What lay beyond the woods? Would he find Clem Baransky there?

For a moment, he considered his duty to Melissa and her brother. He had recovered their stolen mules and equipment, but he owed their pa more. If Clem Baransky had been taken prisoner, did the owlhoots holding guns on the man expect a ransom? That hardly seemed likely from the way Stephen had been reluctant to spend even a dime more than necessary. Melissa seemed to be the family member intent on finding their father while Stephen was only along for the ride.

Slocum reversed his course and rode in the direction Gunnison had taken. Before he left the meadow, he tethered two mules with their supplies out of sight in the woods. Only then did he press on, riding the surefooted mule that had been Gunnison’s. The road curled through the woods, then bent around the rocky bulk of the mountain. For more than two hours he rode, every foot along the road taking him into new countryside. This area proved less steep than the western slope of the mountain and the road was even more worn with hooves. More than one trail came up from lower elevations, making it seem as if this was the crossroads.

Even as he discovered more, Slocum worried about whether he had done the right thing leaving Melissa and Stephen the way he had. He ought to have ridden back with their mules, then sent them … where?

If they returned to town, they were sitting ducks. More men than the merchant were involved in the thefts. Seeing supposed victims return would send shock waves throughout the outlaw organization. Certainly questions would be asked of the two—questions for which they had no good answers.

All it would take would be for one of them, probably Stephen if Slocum read the man right, to mention that Slocum was still on the mountainside hunting for Clem Baransky. That would be like pouring boiling water down an anthill. Every outlaw working as a scavenger along the trail would be out for Slocum’s scalp.

Better to let brother and sister stew a bit, because Slocum felt he was getting close to an answer about their pa’s fate. Blocking the road ahead rose a palisade. The gate was ajar, but Slocum saw men moving on the other side. Too late to retreat and make a stealthier approach, he rode on boldly. If he couldn’t talk his way past, he could start slinging lead. He was in enough pain from his wounds not to care who got killed.

“Whoa, mister, you stop that there mule of yours,” a man said, coming through the gate. He walked easy and carried
a rifle in the crook of his left arm. There didn’t seem to be any hint he recognized Slocum or had orders to shoot on sight.

Slocum did as he was told, aware of several rifle barrels poking through loopholes in the palisade. He’d better do some fancy talking because shooting would only win him an early grave.

“Where you headin’, mister?”

“Through there. To the other side of your fence.”

The man laughed so hard that the tips of his well-waxed handlebar mustache unfurled, leaving fuzzy ends.

“Of course you want to get on through. They all do. You got the toll?”

“How much?”

For some reason, that caused the guard to swing his rifle around and aim it in Slocum’s general direction.

“Mister, if this is where you want to ride, you know the answer to that.”

Slocum considered the greenbacks in his pocket. That might be enough to bribe his way past. He doubted simply riding back the way he came was safe. Any of the riflemen could put a bullet in his spine—and likely would.

“Got this,” Slocum said, pulling out the silver dollar with the hole shot through it. He flipped it so it spun about in the air and reached for his six-shooter at the same time.

The guard deftly caught the coin, barely looked at it before tossing it back.

“Why didn’t you say so? No need to get us all het up.” The guard stepped out of his way, and the rifles disappeared from the loopholes.

Slocum wasn’t sure what had happened, but the plugged silver dollar was a ticket past the guards. He tucked the coin safely into his pocket and rode through, looking neither left nor right. He rounded a bend in the road a hundred yards from the fence before he let out his breath in an explosive gasp. Lady luck finally rode on his shoulder. He had thought
the silver dollar might be melted down to a nugget and swapped for real coins—smaller ones. Never had he considered it to be the key that opened a gateway to…

…an entire city.

He halted the mule and stared. Nestled in a saddle of a pass that led back deeper into the hills lay a town equal in size to the one at the base on the other side of Desolation Mountain. There didn’t seem to be as much commercial activity but the buildings were numerous, and he saw several large saloons along the main street. Side streets meandered off to one-story houses. From the horses and mules tethered, there might be a population of several hundred living here.

Before he urged his mule on, he cocked his head to one side. A faint sound teased him, then disappeared. He couldn’t put a name to it, but it was familiar. Slocum waited another few seconds, but it never sounded again.

He rode down the center of the broad street, taking in every detail. Like the other town, this one had no name he could discern, but it was as much a boomtown with the buildings thrown up higgledy-piggledy. Most buildings canted to one side or the other and the saloon to his right might have been built by a drunk carpenter. Nowhere did he see a perfect square. The doorway appeared to have been stepped on by a giant and squeezed to one side but was wide enough for three men to enter side by side. Nails had been used liberally to hold it all together, though some cracks between planks were large enough for Slocum to slide his hand through.

One strong wind would topple many of the buildings, but from the men coming and going. he saw no real concern. Most were dressed as cowboys and all wore their iron high up on their hip. A few carried their six-shooters lower, tied down onto their thigh like a gunfighter. From the cold stares he got from them, he doubted many had ridden herd or plowed a field.

As he rode, Slocum was aware of men glancing at him,
but that was the full extent of their scrutiny. They paid him no attention other than he was riding down the street. Strangers weren’t to be feared—he guessed most everyone in this town rated that appellation.

This was the kind of place where kidnappers brought men to hold for ransom. But how was he going to find Baransky and the men who had grabbed him out on the trail?

“You got more ’n that mangy mule yer ridin’?” The call came from a gent rocked back in a chair, precariously leaning against the saloon wall. “You got more, I kin make you a good deal.”

Slocum tugged on the reins and walked his mule to where he could study the man.

“Might have a few mules and some gear. Who else is buying?”

“Why, mister, you don’t need nobody else. Ole Buddy Drew—that’s me—gives top dollar.”

That told Slocum more of what he needed to know. The town thrived on buying stolen animals and supplies. That it competed and obviously thrived along with Almost There told of the huge numbers of men and supplies struggling to the distant goldfields. He hesitated, a faint sound alerting him.

“What’s wrong, mister? You got a bug in yer ear?”

“Hear something.”

“All you need to hear’s my offer cuz it’ll be the best you can git in this godforsaken town. You got them other mules to show me? I don’t buy no pig in a poke.”

“Buy me a drink and let’s dicker,” Slocum said. He dismounted, wondering how safe the mule would be if he left it in the street. Barely had his feet touched the muddy ground when a grizzled man in a threadbare old Confederate uniform limped up. His left leg was nigh on useless from the way he dragged himself along.

“Watch it fer a dime,” he said.

“Git yer lazy ass outta here, Wallace. You don’t want to annoy this fellow. He’s got stuff to sell.”