Slocum's Silver Burden (5 page)

Slocum hunched over and tried not to stand out in the crowd. Being six feet tall put him half a head above most men. Seeing his battered Stetson bobbing along might draw unwanted attention from Jack or, more worrisome for Slocum, Tamara Crittenden. She was the wild card in a hand he played in a game without knowing the rules. She had obviously played a role in the silver robbery, but was she now acting as a spy for David Collingswood? Why did she cozy up to Jack, then secretly follow him? Slocum considered the possibility that Collingswood had an entire posse of men out hunting for the train robbers and still used his secretary for the same goal without letting anyone else know.

The questions made Slocum's curiosity bump itch something fierce. He had lost some money to the street thieves, but even if he had been flat broke, he would have pressed on to find the answers to questions bubbling up in his head. That Tamara was a lovely woman didn't hurt, but she had no problem stealing from her employer. That made her as dangerous as Jack and the rest of his gang.

The crowd pushed across the deck and onto the pier. Slocum let the people carry him along. He exited before the two he trailed, so he eased away from the crush and found a spot down the street where he could watch carefully for Jack and Tamara. He had to wait only a few seconds for Jack. The outlaw rushed away, head down and intent on some unknown destination. Slocum let out a sigh of relief. The man had been only a few yards behind on the boat. But Slocum held his position until Tamara stepped onto dry land. She had eyes only for Jack as he coursed down the street. She passed within a few yards, never noticing Slocum.

He started after her, then realized how much of a disadvantage he would be at if Jack went to a livery and mounted up. He considered stealing a horse, but that would cause such a ruckus, even Tamara, intent on her robber boyfriend, would notice. He edged down the side of the street opposite Tamara. If he kept her in sight, following Jack would take care of itself.

When the woman broke into a run, he knew what had happened. Jack had reclaimed his horse and was on his way out of town. Oakland was a busy town, the terminus of the ferry from San Francisco and depot to a half-dozen railroad lines.

Slocum fumbled in his coat pocket and pulled out one of the papers that he'd been given. He scanned the bottom sheet signed by David Collingswood and changed directions, going to the Central California Railroad Station. He found it amid a tangle of tracks from other lines, but the station house was well marked and prosperous-looking with a long line of passengers waiting to buy tickets for a train heading over the mountains and going eastward in the direction of Virginia City along the main line.

Slocum took the steps three at a time and pushed through the side door. The stationmaster glared at him for the disturbance.

“You get on out of here,” the man said. He barely topped five feet, was rotund, and had walrus mustaches that twitched to show his choler at Slocum's invasion of his sanctuary.

“I need a horse,” Slocum said.

“You been out in the sun too long, mister? This is a railroad station. We got iron horses. Puff, puff, choo, choo? You wait in line out on the platform and buy a ticket like everybody else.” The stationmaster thrust out a stubby finger to show Slocum where to go.

Slocum pulled out the page and held it up for the man to read. The stationmaster moved his eyeglasses down on his nose, reared back, and read.

“Son of a bitch,” he said. “I ain't seen one of those in a month of Sundays.”

“It's authorization for me to commandeer whatever I need. I want a horse and tack.”

“Suppose there must be one around back.”

“Show me.”

The stationmaster bristled at the sharp order, but Slocum had been a captain in the CSA and had learned command in more dire situations. The man glanced from the letter to Slocum's grim visage and decided that determination meant more than anything a vice president of the railroad might write. He grunted as he pushed himself to his feet, then went to a back door. He threw it open and shoved his stubby finger out.

“That one. Take that one, and be damned sure I am going to bill the home office for it.”

“Make it to Miss Tamara Crittenden's attention. She handles all of Mr. Collingswood's money problems.”

Slocum spent a few minutes getting to know the horse, letting it know it had a new rider. He adjusted the stirrups and then stepped up. The saddlebags were filled with odd tools. The horse's previous rider—owner?—had worked as a repairman. What little food had been stuffed into the saddlebags wouldn't last a day out on the trail.

That was a problem to be taken care of later. He discarded the tools and scooped up a rifle leaning against a shed, perhaps left there by a railroad guard. Outfitted as well as he was likely to be, Slocum put his heels to the horse's flanks and got it trotting from the railroad station. He returned to the main street leading from the docks and rode along until he saw a livery stable. He called out to a stableboy struggling to move a bale of hay.

“You put up a horse for a man wearing a six-shooter?” He went on and described Jack the best he could.

“Yeah, he left his horse here yesterday. Said he wasn't gonna be back for a week, but he just now picked it up and rode off. Him and Mr. Wright got into a tussle over how much to pay.” The boy chuckled. “Mr. Wright got him to fork over half a week's boarding fee. From what I could tell, he paid in silver.” The boy scratched his head, then wiped away perspiration. “Not a nugget neither. This was like he had shaved off a slice or two from a solid bar. I've seen coins and I've seen scrapings from a silver vein, but this wasn't nothin' like that.”

“Which direction did he go? Did he say?”

“Was headin' o'er the hills, goin' to Sacramento, he said. Well, I overheard him say that. Don't tell Mr. Wright I was spyin'!”

“What about the woman who came right on his heels?”

A dreamy expression came to the boy's face. Tamara had been here. Words weren't needed to confirm that.

“Did she buy a horse?”

“Yeah, she did. Mr. Wright wanted to dicker.”

“So he could keep her here a bit longer,” Slocum guessed.

“He ain't nobody's fool. 'Course he wanted her to stick around a spell. She was quite a looker. But she paid him the first price he asked. That made him mad.”

Slocum had to laugh. Horse trading often went on all day long, both sides enjoying the ebb and flow of arguments and observations about the quality of the horseflesh being purchased and even the legitimacy of both buyer and seller's heritage. Tamara had been in a rush to get after Jack and had paid the asking price. Slocum guessed she wasn't used to such haggling either, at least not with money. Her price came higher, much higher, and had little to do with greenbacks.

Unless he was completely mistaken, she had worked her way into Collingswood's office to get the time and schedule for the silver shipment. Whether she knew a big shipment was due or had worked her way up the corporate ladder and simply waited for a decent opportunity hardly mattered. The more he thought on it, the more he thought she had told Jack and his gang about the shipment, and they had double-crossed her. Now she wanted her share—or all of it.

He found a single road leading due east through the hills and took it, keeping the horse trotting along. The mare had no trouble with him astride, making him believe the repairman might have been heavier. Getting rid of most of the tools in the saddlebags had lightened the load, too. He only wished there had been time to lay in provisions for what might turn into a long pursuit.

It only took an hour for him to spot the woman riding along a mile ahead on the mountainous road. He caught sight of her as she took a sharp bend some distance above him. The way she rode, she paid no attention to her back trail. Jack had to be ahead of her because Slocum saw no trace of the man trailing her. He began the climb up the side of the hill, losing track of Tamara, but unlike her, he kept a close watch on his back trail. The way Collingswood had hired other railroad detectives meant Slocum had company. He just didn't know who they might be—and they had no idea who he was. When such a haul was at stake, shooting first and asking questions later was the easier trail to ride.

Slocum thought hard as he trotted along the switchback road. The vice president had to be desperate to hire men recruited by Underwood, unless he trusted the two-fingered man more than he would a simple employee. Underwood might be a good judge of character but how many men were like Slocum, who would find such a trove and return it for a small reward?

He was a man of honor, and he had promised to find the silver for the railroad.

He came out on the crest of the hill and was treated to a fine view of the eastern slopes. The road went down steeply, almost straight as an arrow. Tamara rode with the same resolve the sheriff had shown before. Squinting, Slocum made out another solitary rider much farther along the road. It took little imagination to believe this was Jack. Since he rode alone, he would be easy prey. Even with a gang backing him up, Slocum thought it would be easy to get the drop on him.

Night crept up on him, but Slocum pressed on because both Tamara and Jack did also. He tried to keep from falling asleep in the saddle, but a bigger problem was his horse. As game as the mare was to keep going, it started to stumble, as much from exhaustion as the dark.

Slocum gave in to the inevitable. Either he stopped for the night to rest the mare or he walked when the horse died under him. He found a narrow game trail that crossed the road, and he followed it for a quarter mile. His approach scared away smaller animals. A cougar snarled and stared at him. The last light of day caught the cat's eyes and turned them bright silver. Slocum touched his six-shooter but knew the odds of killing the cougar were slim if it attacked. A gust of breath escaped his lungs when the cat slunk off, still snarling.

He let his horse drink while he kept careful watch. Farther upstream darted furtive creatures. Slocum made sure his horse's reins were secured to a limb before picking up a rock and quietly stalking a fat rabbit. A quick strike and he ate well that night.

Not knowing where Tamara had gone in her hunt for the train robber made him wary of keeping more than a low fire going that night. However, the breeze coming off the higher slopes was cold enough to make him throw caution to the wind. He built a large enough fire to keep him and the mare warm through the night.

With his blanket pulled around his shoulders, he slipped away into deep sleep, dreaming of silver . . . and Tamara Crittenden.

He came awake with a start, cursing himself because the sun had been up for an hour. The horse had eaten its fill of grass growing along the stream bank. Slocum's belly grumbled, but the need to catch up with the woman drove him past such minor discomfort. He saddled the mare, stepped up, and trotted down the road, wondering how far back he had fallen. With every crossing road he stood to choose the wrong direction and end up searching aimlessly.

Then he heard a steam whistle in the distance, drew rein, and slowly turned to locate the tracks. The train had to run less than a mile off to his right. The robbery had taken place miles farther east. If the gang hid the silver, it would be closer to the spot where they had stopped the locomotive. Jack had lit out of San Francisco, leaving Tamara behind. To Slocum that meant the robber wanted to grab the loot and hightail it away.

But why had he bothered going to San Francisco at all if he intended to double-cross her?

Too many questions and not a one of them had to be answered. Slocum intended to retrieve the stolen silver, capture or kill the robbers, then head back to San Francisco to collect his reward. He patted the mare's neck and headed up into another ridge of hills. These might be considered mountains. Underwood had said the Celestials working on the Central California Railroad had dangled from baskets as they chipped away the sides of the hills to create a railroad bed where none had been possible beforehand. From the sheer peaks and the steep slope that made his horse slow and eventually forced him to get off and walk a spell, he believed that. Cutting a road was one thing. A railroad required solid ground and no slope steeper than three or four percent—every hundred feet of run had less than four of rise. The locomotives were powerful, but not big enough to drag a long line of freight cars up anything steeper.

He reached the middle of the pass after noon, took a rest, then saw smoke rising from a cook fire not a hundred yards away. Hidden by the trees, whoever stoked the fire and boiled coffee presented Slocum with a dilemma. If this was another traveler, coming from the east, he could beg for a cup of that coffee and likely get it. However, he knew it was just as likely to be Tamara as a stranger.

Slocum tethered his horse, then followed his nose through the woods to a spot where he could push some thick underbrush away to see who rested in the clearing. He caught his breath. Jack poked at the fire, not a care in the world. The man had draped his six-shooter over a stump, along with his freshly washed shirt drying in the bright sunlight. This was the best chance Slocum would ever have of capturing him. Jack could never reach his six-gun in time to get off a shot if Slocum simply walked up on him.

But Jack had a gang still roaming around the hills. They had to know the railroad wouldn't let them remain free and that a posse hunted them. Slocum wondered how many men Collingswood had hired. From the sound of it, Slocum was in danger of rubbing elbows with a goodly number of hired gunmen.

Something else held him back. Unless Tamara had taken a wrong turn, he should have come on her before finding Jack. As resolute as she had been, Tamara had to be nearby. Losing Jack on the road would have been the last thing possible for her.

Slocum settled down, keeping a sharp eye out. Jack stretched, then went for his six-shooter but didn't put it on. Instead, he fumbled about and pulled a sheet of paper from a hidden pouch in the broad leather gun belt. Jack held it up and let the sun shine through the paper. Being too far away to see what was on the paper made Slocum edgy. After a few minutes, Jack replaced the sheet and stretched out on his blanket in the warm afternoon sun.