Slocum and the Grizzly Flats Killers (9781101619216) (14 page)

Her voice turned shrill.

Slocum suspected he could wait her out. Eventually she would go off, but when she did, she was likely to take his horse with her, stranding him on foot.

He settled himself, then started to burst from the mouth of the mine when he saw the stick of dynamite rolling toward him. Every detail etched itself into his brain. The dull red wax dynamite stick. The black miner's fuse. The sizzling fuse.

The explosion.

15

A powerful shock wave lifted him and sent him skidding back to the top of the incline. Then he slid backward down the slope. The blast exhausted itself above him, saving his life. At the bottom, Slocum lay stunned in the absolute darkness, trying to gather his wits.

He finally sat up and groped about until he found a wall. Using it as a crutch, he stood and worked his way back up the slope. He had cursed this before. Now it served to guide him in the pitch black back to the spot where the dynamite had exploded and brought down the roof. Fumbling about, he cut his fingers on sharp edges of rock piled up and blocking his way out.

Slocum sucked in a breath, held it for a moment, then released it to take another. The air was still good. He wasn't going to suffocate anytime soon, but not having water would do him in eventually. That gave him hours, perhaps a day, to get out.

He began pulling away the rock, only to have more cascade down from the hole above the spot where the dynamite had detonated. Changing his tactics, he worked at the side of the fall, then stopped when he found Smith.

Slocum felt carefully and realized it wasn't exactly the miner he had found. It was Smith's foot, blown off his leg. He knew the man didn't much care since he'd already been dead from the bullet in his head.

Taking a rest, Slocum wondered if Mirabelle had aimed at the miner for what he said or at him. It hardly mattered since she had him trapped. She might well have intended to kill them both. As he sat in the dark, he blinked, then wiped the soot from his eyes. For a second, he thought he was seeing ghosts, then realized a ray of sunlight came into the mine and made dust particles dance.

He heaved to his feet and edged down the mine shaft to the spot where sunlight came through the roof. Slocum looked up and saw that a giant crack had formed a chimney. The clouds in the bright blue sky occasionally blocked the light, but Slocum stood there long enough to get a sense of the size of this chimney and what it would take to edge his way to the surface. He remembered that the tunnel wasn't far underground in some places. This chimney opened at the top of the downslope, so it might be the shortest distance to freedom.

Slocum took off his gun belt, fastened it to dangle under his feet as he climbed, then began working his way up. Back pressed against one side, he reached high and found places to grip. Inching upward, he was glad he had taken off his six-shooter because it got tighter the farther he went.

When his hands stuck out of the chimney and gripped the edge, he could barely move. Repositioning his feet, legs slightly bent, he heaved. And screamed. The pain in his ribs wracked him and the rock clutched at him, as if he had thrust his torso into a cold vise. But as his strength waned, Slocum found resolve. If he fell back, he would never get out. Fingers clawing at rock, toes digging in to propel him upward, he scraped free and got his head above the lip of the opening.

He was looking up the mountainside and couldn't see back toward Smith's camp, but he worried less about Mirabelle than he did his own weakness. Another surge of muscles brought him to chest level, free of the hole. A final kick allowed him to flop forward at the waist and take the pressure off his arms and legs. Pain still lanced into his chest, but he rested long enough to wiggle forward.

Then he had to be sure the six-gun trailing from his foot wasn't dropped into the mine. Carefully lifting his leg, moving forward inch by inch, he finally pulled both the Colt and the holster free. Slocum collapsed on the hillside and regained his strength before sitting up and searching for Mirabelle.

The woman was nowhere to be seen.

He strapped on his cross-draw holster, then slipped and slid down the hill to land a few yards away from the collapsed mine shaft. Part of Smith's body had been blown away. He knew where the left foot had ended up—almost his companion in a rocky, cold, dark grave.

Slocum went to the miner's cabin, then around back. To his surprise, Mirabelle had left his horse. She had ridden off on hers, but had lacked the instincts of a thief.

He allowed as to how she could work up from murder to horse stealing.

Slocum saw her tracks in the snow heading back to the canyon floor. Tracking her would be easy, but he wasn't sure he wanted to. He went into the cabin and fixed himself some food while he warmed his hands by the stove.

He took the time to peel back his shirt and examine his wounds. He was healing outside, but internally, he hurt like hell. It might be a month or longer before he felt whole again, but right now the pain wasn't anything he hadn't experienced before, nothing a pint of whiskey wouldn't dull.

“Whiskey,” he said slowly, as if savoring the liquid in his mouth rather than the cottony dryness of reality. He had been too occupied to remember what Smith had said about Beefsteak Malone.

The barkeep was one of the gang. Avenging the deaths of Mirabelle's husband and friends took on less a priority in his mind than did getting even with the men who had tortured him. He thought he would have recognized Beefsteak, but the men had been masked. One could easily have been the marshal, with his bowed legs and brusque manner.

The way to find out was to learn a little more, then toss out a lot of lead. Thinking of evening the score with Malone and the others caused Slocum to instinctively reach over to touch the ebony butt of his six-shooter.

As filled with warm food as possible and feeling better from the brief rest, he got up, went to his horse, and started down the trail for Grizzly Flats.

*   *  *

The town didn't look any different, but Slocum felt a coldness now that he never had before. Men here would torture, rape, and kill to recover stolen gold. That made everyone he saw on the street a little more distant, a little more dangerous. He knew a couple of the men and had to use that knowledge to find the entire gang.

He considered leaving his horse in the livery, then decided that would announce his return as loud as riding down the main street firing off his six-gun. Almost of its own volition, the horse turned toward Madam Madeleine's cathouse. Before he had dismounted, the rear door opened and the red-haired madam stood with her hip cocked and one hand there to emphasize her curves.

“Didn't expect to see you back looking like you were pulled through a knothole backwards,” she said. “Thinking on spending some time? I've got just the girl for you.”

“Only you'll do,” he said, dismounting. Slocum tried to sound light, but her response seemed sincere.

“For you, anytime.”

“I need to use your barn for a spell,” he said, slapping the loose end of the reins across his palm.

“So that's how it is. That'll cost you,” she said.

“What doesn't?” He fished in his coat pocket and found one of the gold coins retrieved from the cave floor what seemed an eternity ago. “This'll do?”

“Honey, for this, you can stable your horse and ride me for a week.”

“Quit tempting me.”

To his surprise, the lightness had left his words. He looked at her, their green eyes meeting for a few seconds longer than comfortable for either of them.

“You have to be in a passel of trouble, Mr. Slocum. It figures I'd go for a man like you. All I find is trouble.”

“This can work itself out pretty quick,” Slocum said.

“A liar, like all the others.” Madeleine looked disgusted and pointed to the barn. “Do what you have to there, but if you get shot up, don't come crawling to me. I don't want to get blood on my fine sitting room rug.”

“I'll bleed out here,” Slocum said, some of the joking returning. She didn't take it that way. Madam Madeleine slammed the door, leaving him to wonder at the woman.

He doubted she acted this way toward all her customers, but the twenty-dollar gold piece should have made her mood a bit straightforward. Pondering this, he led his horse to the barn and tended it with a good currying and some grain in a nosebag while he considered how best to approach Beefsteak and the marshal.

Somehow, thoughts of Madeleine kept intruding, making his plans jumble up. He finally left the barn, walking slowly through the twilight. Grizzly Flats was closing down for the day, and the saloons were brimming with customers. Licking his lips made him yearn for just a taste of whiskey, but going into any saloon would get back to Beefsteak Malone in a flash.

He kept to the shadows and worked his way toward the jailhouse without being seen by anyone. The door stood open a fraction and cigarette smoke billowed out. Some of the smoke reached Slocum. His nostrils flared. A bit of whiskey would go down warm and smooth. A smoke now would be good, too.

His desires took backstage to more immediate needs when two men rode slowly toward the jail, looked around before dismounting, then finally lashed their mounts to the iron ring set in the jailhouse wall and went inside. A final backward look around told Slocum these two men weren't going to see Willingham on any legitimate business.

He crossed the open space and got to the cell window set high in the wall. Straining, he barely made out the voices. Willingham did most of the talking, with only occasional replies from the men. That told Slocum who was in charge at the moment, though he had to believe Beefsteak Malone was their actual leader. The times he had talked with the marshal came closer to argument than conversation. Willingham didn't like it that someone else was calling the shots.

That might be a wedge to jam between the men, though Slocum wasn't sure how he could use it.

The only words he could make out clearly were Willingham's.

“. . . don't screw this up. She's got to know where to find it.”

A bit of mumbling from the others, then Willingham concluded, saying, “You git on outta here. Carson seen her, then the fool lost her. She knows more 'n we suspect.”

Feet shuffled and the door slammed. Slocum looked around the corner of the jail and saw the pair walking their horses down the street, heading for the Damned Shame. Neither of them entered the drinking emporium, though. One went around the side of the building and the other sat heavily in a chair in front, rocked back, and pulled down his hat, as if sleeping.

They knew Mirabelle was coming and had set a trap for her.

Slocum decided it would serve his purposes if he caught the woman before Malone's gang.

Going around the block and finding the alley behind the saloon, Slocum saw how the outlaw had positioned himself. It was almost as if he wanted to be seen, but Slocum doubted that. The man had only contempt for his quarry and figured she would never bother looking around before trying to enter the back way.

If Mirabelle tried, the man would come up from behind the rain barrel and grab her.

Slocum walked on cat's feet until he was only a yard from the crouching man. Something gave him away, possibly the way his boots made small sucking sounds as they moved in the half-frozen mud.

Rather than turn to face him, the man surprised Slocum by driving himself backward from his crouch. His face was up to the sky, but his shoulder found Slocum's knees and sent him staggering away. The outlaw hit the ground, rolled, and came to his feet before Slocum could recover.

“What the hell's your problem?” Slocum growled. “I wanted to go into the saloon and you knocked me over.”

“You snuck up on me.”

“Didn't see you,” Slocum said, getting to his feet.

He didn't give the man the chance to ask why anyone entered the Damned Shame through the rear. Rearing back, he unleashed a haymaker that connected with the man's belly. The shock was enough to knock the man back but not hard enough to put him out of the fight. In a flash they were swinging at each other, each giving as good as he got.

One hard punch to Slocum's breadbasket almost ended the fight. Pain lanced into his chest and made him gasp. He fell forward and grappled with the man, pushing him to the rain barrel. For a brief instant, the man was off balance. This gave Slocum the chance he needed to reach down, grab a kicking leg, and heave upward.

The outlaw went headfirst into the rain barrel. Slocum heard a crunch as the man's head broke a thin layer of ice, then came gurgling. There couldn't have been more than a foot of water in the barrel, but it was enough to drown in. Slocum grabbed both kicking legs and made sure the man didn't get his nose above the surface of the icy water. A final convulsive kick and then a motionless body assured Slocum the man was dead.

Panting harshly, he stepped away. Then he realized he could have found out from the man important details of the gang. Looking at the bright side of it, though, Slocum was still alive and damning himself for killing his enemy, while one of the gang was permanently removed.

Slocum turned over the barrel and pulled the man out, then went through his pockets. A few silver coins, a watch that didn't run, and what might have been a map were all he found. Carefully unfolding the soggy paper, he tried to decipher what had been on it. The pencil lines were all smeared and the paper itself fell apart as he handled it.

He wadded it up and dropped it on the man's chest. He still had another source of information out front.

Getting to him would be a little harder, but not much.

Stride long, he rounded the corner of the saloon in time to hear the chair where the other outlaw had waited fall to the boardwalk.

A commotion from inside the Damned Shame warned him that he was in for a whale of a fight. Slocum went to the swinging doors and peered over the top to see the guard from outside the saloon hanging on to Mirabelle's hand, keeping the gun she held pointed at the ceiling.

It discharged a couple more times before the man finally knocked it from her grip.

She turned and attacked like a wildcat.

Slocum knew better than to go to her aid. Beefsteak held his shotgun and would cut down anyone interfering. Better to let them take Mirabelle out back, where they thought the other man waited.

He rushed around the saloon to the alley, hand resting on his six-shooter. The instant both the outlaw and Malone stepped out, he would have them both in his sights. Slocum waited—and waited.