Slocum and the Grizzly Flats Killers (9781101619216) (17 page)

Slocum ducked down, put his shoulder into his horse's neck, and turned it. Only when he was facing away did he let the horse have its head. Bullets from more than one rifle chased after him.

18

As he rode in the darkness, Slocum worried over the terrain and where the canyons he had passed led. He counted on knowing the mountainous ways better than the outlaws because he had gotten lost here and had found his way out. At the time that hadn't seemed to be beneficial, but now it was.

He veered to the left, found a ravine, and rode in it, keeping a low profile. Then he slowed and finally stopped, listening for sounds of pursuit. He heard angry calls and recognized Marshal Willingham's strident voice immediately. Two of them were on his trail. Thoughts of ambushing one, then taking on the other, were born and died immediately. He didn't have the ammo for a prolonged fight. For all he knew, Willingham had his saddlebags filled with boxes of cartridges.

The two didn't work together well, giving him a second thought of dividing them and finishing them one by one. Then he heard Willingham's hoarse whisper.

“Keep shoutin' like you don't know where I am. We'll take him.”

“Cross fire?” came the second outlaw's raspy voice.

Willingham's reply was too low to be overheard, but he knew they'd laid a trap for him. If he had blundered into an attack, they would have shot him down.

Urging his horse across the canyon, he got to the far wall, followed it to a branching narrow corridor or rock. He had seen this before and had avoided it. Riding down it, his shoulders scraped the walls. The closeness caused his horse to rear and try to back out. He gentled the horse the best he could and kept it moving forward. The way was entirely cast in darkness. He trusted there wouldn't be any sudden drop-off. Even a few feet might prove fatal for him and the horse.

The horse let out a whinny of relief as it burst out from the rocky corridor into a valley. At the far end he saw the three spires of rock dark against the last light of day. He pulled his horse to the left and found the mouth of the canyon where Willingham and his partner still sought him. With a bit of luck, they might get lost and return to their camp too late.

Slocum grinned when he saw the flicker of a campfire not a half mile off. By the time he caught the scent of burning pine, he was within a hundred yards of the outlaws' camp. Mirabelle had thought there were four. He figured there were at least six. He had gunned down Eckerly and drowned the one behind the Damned Shame in a water barrel. A third had died at his hand back in the canyon. That left Willingham and likely his deputy—and at least one in the camp holding Mirabelle prisoner.

Finding a ravine that meandered past their camp, he dismounted, drew his six-shooter, then carefully reloaded. Only then did he advance. The smell of grub cooking made his mouth water and belly growl. It had been too long since he'd had anything worth eating.

If he had been thinking straight, he would have eaten breakfast before leaving Grizzly Flats, but Madeleine had jumbled up his head. If he had to choose missing out on the night with her or a full belly, he'd go hungry for a month of Sundays.

“You surely do cook up a tasty mess o' beans,” Beefsteak Malone said. “I ain't had this good in a spell.”

Slocum heard a soft, feminine voice reply. The words were lost in the crackle of the fire. He moved to the bank of the ravine and chanced a quick look over the rim. Mirabelle sat with her back to him. That explained why he couldn't hear her words. Malone sat on the far side of the fire, forking in the beans she'd fixed for him.

If he could have crept over the edge of the ravine, he would have gotten the drop on the outlaw straightaway. As it was, he had to work to get up. That would give Malone plenty of time to go for the six-shooter shoved into his belt. Worse than the bar owner getting his pistol free and firing, Mirabelle would be between the two of them. Caught in the cross fire, she wouldn't stand much of a chance.

Slocum tried to see if she was tied up. Her shoulders hunched forward, and she didn't move very much, as if her feet were bound together. A different approach to the camp was the only way to keep the woman out of the line of fire.

Working his way farther up the ravine, he came to a spot where it hardly reached his waist. He dropped forward and began a slow crawl back toward the camp. From this angle he saw Mirabelle's profile. She kept her head down, as if completely defeated. Had Malone or the others already had their way with her? That could explain her dejection.

Or it might be nothing more than resignation. They wouldn't keep her alive long when they figured out she didn't know where the stolen gold had been stashed.

Snow wet on his belly, he crawled closer. Something betrayed him. The crunching of the ice under his body might have alerted Beefsteak, or the man could have seen movement. Slocum crept through low bushes already turned brown and sere in anticipation of real winter storms.

Beefsteak dropped his plate and fork and grabbed for his six-shooter.

“You're a dead man if you haul that iron out,” Slocum said. He punctuated his prediction by drawing back the hammer of his Colt. The metallic click sounded like a drumbeat in the sudden silence.

Everything froze. Beefsteak didn't move a muscle. Mirabelle was motionless, not even turning in his direction to see her rescuer.

“You got me, Slocum,” Beefsteak said, raising his hands. “You gun down Willingham and his deputies, too?”

“One of 'em won't share in the gold,” Slocum said. “Willingham and the other one with him are likely about back to Grizzly Flats by now.” He doubted the marshal would give up quickly or easily. If he found the trail Slocum had left entering the canyon, he could mistake it in the dark for hoofprints leading away. That would keep him and his deputy busy for hours.

Willingham might not even find his way back to the camp and decide to stay on the trail all night long. However it worked out, the other two outlaws weren't a factor.

“Get to your feet,” Slocum said.

As Malone obeyed, he also started to reach for his six-shooter, then stopped when he saw that Slocum's aim never wavered.

“You're right good with that smoke wagon, Slocum. I never seen you use it before you killed Eckerly. Didn't think you was mixed up in this.”

“You just thought there'd be one less split for the gold,” Slocum said, advancing.

“Something like that. Not sure when I figured you were in cahoots with her.” He glanced in Mirabelle's direction. The woman had lifted her head, looking at Malone and not Slocum.

“Were you the one that beat me up after the funeral?”

“Not proud of all I've done, but can't say I regret it none, especially now. But Willingham is the one who takes the real pleasure in hurtin' folks.”

“He killed Sennick and my Ike,” Mirabelle said, finally finding her voice. “The marshal. Beefsteak here said so.”

“Doesn't matter who did the killing or the raping or torturing. You're all guilty as sin.” Slocum moved around to keep a good line of fire that avoided Mirabelle.

“If you'd meant to gun me down, you'd've done it by now. You gonna turn me over to the law?” This made Malone laugh uproariously.

Truth was, Slocum hadn't decided what to do with the gang. Three were dead, but he didn't gun men in cold blood, even if they deserved it. Malone, Willingham, and the deputy certainly did, but it was one thing to kill a man in a gunfight and another to back shoot or cut down an unarmed man.

“Take his gun, Mirabelle,” Slocum said. “Be real careful when you do.”

“What are you going to do, John?”

“You want to kill him, you can go ahead and do it. You got the grievance with him and the other two.”

“All right,” she said.

Mirabelle stood and reached out, small hand curling around the butt of the heavy pistol thrust into the man's belt. She tugged it out, almost dropped it, then hefted it in both hands.

“Suppose we ought to tie him up and—”

Slocum found himself staring down the gun barrel. Mirabelle had him dead to rights.

“Drop your gun, John,” she said. “Drop it or I drop you.”

“Don't think she won't do it neither,” Malone said, laughing heartily. “She's a pretty damn good shot.”

A thousand things ran through his head. None of the plans ended with him coming out alive. He dropped his six-gun.

“That's smart, Slocum, real smart,” Malone said. He didn't move.

“Step away from your gun,” Mirabelle said.

“The two of you have thrown in together?” Slocum wasn't sure why this came as a surprise. As much as Mirabelle talked about how she had loved her husband, she had changed the longer they hunted for the gold until she shot and killed Smith without any qualms. And the dynamite she had rolled into the mine hadn't been a way of saving Slocum—it had been meant to seal him permanently in the shaft.

“Go on, honey chile, shoot him,” Beefsteak said.

“No, he knows where the gold is. That's why he came back out here. There's no other reason.”

In her head, she couldn't understand he had come to save her from the gang that had murdered her husband and friends. And maybe she was right. Slocum had certainly come hunting the gold, but if he had been only after the treasure from the train robbery, he wouldn't be staring down the barrel of a six-gun now.

Slocum said nothing, realizing his life hung by a slender thread. If Mirabelle thought he didn't know where the gold was, she would kill him out of hand.

“When did you two throw in together?” he asked.

“We came to a meeting of the minds,” Beefsteak said, reaching down and taking Slocum's Colt off the ground. He began polishing off the mud. “As we was ridin' out into the mountains, we figgered out we worked better together than apart.”

“You going to double-cross Willingham?”

From the smirk on Malone's lips, Slocum knew the answer without the saloon owner answering.

“I been lookin' for a fine woman like Mirabelle for a mighty long time. Not a whole lot to choose from in Grizzly Flats,” the man said. “There's them whores, of course, but what fun is it if you have to pay for what you get?”

“You'll pay, one way or the other,” Slocum said.

Beefsteak laughed and shook his head.

“Slocum, you ain't gonna drive a wedge 'tween me and this fine lady.”

“Where's the gold, John?” The pistol never wavered in her hands. “I'll count to five, then kill you if you haven't told me.”

“Doesn't seem I have a whole lot of choice,” Slocum said. “But if I do tell you, you're going to kill me anyway.”

“Now, why'd you think that, Slocum? We're honest thieves. We keep our word. You tell her and you kin ride on off.”

“Without the gold,” Slocum said.

“You're not dumb, Slocum. Of course without the gold. But you ride off astride the saddle, not draped over it on your way to the cemetery.”

Slocum knew his first thought was right. When he told these two his guess as to the gold's hiding place, he was a goner.

“One.”

And if he didn't tell them now, Mirabelle was going to shoot him.

“Two.” She sighted down the barrel. The muzzle looked big enough to reach down with his hand. The blunt noses of the bullets showed on either side of the pistol frame.

“Three.”

Slocum's mind locked up.

“Four.” Mirabelle's hand trembled now as her finger squeezed back on the trigger. Malone stood to one side, his hand on the butt of Slocum's pistol. If she missed, he wouldn't.

“Five.”

“Wait!” Slocum held up his hand, as if to brush away the bullet that was sure to come whistling toward him. “I can't tell you. You'd never find it, but I can show you.”

Malone chuckled and said, “You are a caution, Slocum. I wondered what you'd say to keep from gettin' yer damn fool head blowed off.”

“Tell me now,” Mirabelle said.

“Now, honey, don't go gettin' an itchy trigger finger. There'll be plenty of time for you to shoot him if he's lyin' or tries to double-cross us.”

“I go free if I show you?” Slocum had to play along. Malone wouldn't buy his act but Mirabelle might. If he kept the two at loggerheads, he stood a better chance of getting away.

“That's what I tole you, Slocum. I'm not a man who goes back on my word. You worked for me for a couple weeks, so you know.”

“You swear on the Damned Shame?”

“What?” For a moment, Beefsteak Malone stared at him in disbelief. Then he said, “You think that's the only thing I hold holy? Well, sir, you're damned right! I swear on my saloon that ever'thing I promised will be kept.”

Slocum almost asked for Mirabelle to make a similar promise, then knew Malone would never allow it. She was his ace in the hole. If—when—it came down to finding the stolen gold, the saloon owner would let Mirabelle do the dirty work. Not that Malone would lose any sleep over a broken promise to a dead man.

“I'll tie him up, darlin', while you keep him covered.”

Beefsteak took special glee in securing Slocum's hands behind him, then shoved him down near the fire.

“That'll keep you from freezin' in the dark. Me, I got my own personal bed warmer.”

“Tie his feet, too,” Mirabelle said. “He's a slippery one.”

“You are the smart one here,” Beefsteak said, doing as Mirabelle ordered. Only when he had finished did she allow him to take his six-shooter back.

Slocum watched as the pair curled up together under a single blanket, then tried not to pay a whole lot of attention to the undulations under the blanket or the sounds they made.

All he could think of as the fire and the passion died was how he was going to save his own neck come sunup. Slocum couldn't see a path that didn't lead to a grave for him.