by Jake Logan
“I wouldn’t tangle with him,” Wally said.
“I never saw so much black on a white man,” Roy said. “Maybe he’s an undertaker.”
“No, I think he’s probably a gravedigger,” Wally said.
“A gravedigger?”
“I mean he puts men in the ground, I think.”
“Golly. He don’t look like no gunfighter I ever saw. Too polite.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Roy. That man strikes me as somebody who eats gunfighters for lunch and cleans his teeth with their bones.”
Roy’s jaw dropped as he watched Slocum vanish from the front window.
He swallowed a gob of saliva and his Adam’s apple bobbed under the taut skin of his neck.
6
The sign on the building’s front read MINING CLAIMS & ASSAY SERVICES. Underneath was the name ABEL FOGARTY.
The glass door just said OFFICE and underneath it hung a sign that said OPEN.
Slocum walked into a small outer office with a divan, two chairs, a desk, and file cabinets. A slender, attractive woman sat at the desk, her brown hair tied primly back away from a smooth, unlined face. She was poring over printed forms, penning in pertinent data. As he approached her desk, she looked up at him over horn-rimmed glasses. He couldn’t tell her age—she could have been twenty-five or thirty-five—but he imagined she’d be even more attractive with her hair down and her glasses off..
“Good morning,” she said. She had a pleasant voice. She also had a slender nose and small prim lips that bore little trace of makeup.
“Morning,” Slocum said.
“Did you want to see Mr. Fogarty?” she asked. “He’s with a client but you’re next in line.”
“Not if you can help me,” Slocum said.
Just then a wooden door with ABEL FOGARTY engraved on it opened, and a small lean man stepped out, followed by an even smaller man with a beer barrel paunch.
“Come back in a week and I’ll have that claim ready to file,” the second man said.
The first man opened the front door and walked out onto the street.
The second man handed the lady a sheaf of notes written on yellow lined paper.
“Fill out the forms, Clara, and . . .” The man paused as he noticed Slocum. “I’m Abe Fogarty,” he said. “Did you want to see me? File a claim? Is Miss Morgan assisting you?”
“I’m just here to inquire about a mining claim,” Slocum said. “I don’t know if Miss Morgan can help me or if I need to see you, sir.”
“Do you wish to file a claim?” Fogarty asked. His pudgy face billowed up over deep-sunk hazel eyes, and his nose was bulbous and sprouted dark hairs out of both nostrils. He wore a gabardine suit that was frayed at the cuffs, and a gold watch chain dangled from a small pocket near the bottom of his faded blue vest.
“Not today,” Slocum said. “I’m looking for a claim that might have changed hands recently.”
“Oh? Perhaps you’d better come into my office, Mr. . . .”
“Slocum. John Slocum.”
“Come this way, Mr. Slocum.”
Slocum followed Abel Fogarty into his office.
“Have a seat,” Abe said, gesturing toward the center of the room then closing the door.
Slocum sat down in front of a cherry wood desk. The room smelled musty and was surrounded by shelving that contained law books, mining manuals, and large binders with handwritten names on the spines. One wall held a map of Durango and the surrounding lands, while another frame held a map of the entire Colorado territory.
“Mr. Slocum, you’re new here, I take it.”
“Just rode in this morning.”
“And you’re not here to prospect or file a claim.”
“No.”
“That presents a problem.”
“Oh?”
Abe swiveled his chair into a half spin as if he had a nervous rear end. It was an annoying habit that irritated Slocum.
“I handle claims, and in the back, I have a man who assays ore. Our clients demand confidentiality and I honor their wishes.”
“I just want to know the name of one man,” Slocum said. “I don’t want to look at his claim file or know the result of any assay you might have done.”
“May I ask who is this man you’re interested in?” Abe asked.
“Ed Jenkins,” Slocum said without hesitation.
Abe stopped swiveling his chair and stared hard at Slocum.
“Are you talking about the late Edward Jenkins?” Abe asked.
“Yes. He owned a mine or a claim.”
“Well, yes, he did. But he died intestate.”
“Will you tell me who now owns the Jenkins mine?”
Abe flashed an indulgent smile at Slocum. He made a steeple with both hands and peered over it with that same indulgent smile. He looked like some schoolmaster addressing a child.
“That would be confidential,” Fogarty said.
Slocum scooted his chair close to the desk. He leaned over it and lanced Fogarty with green eyes that flashed like gas jets.
“You have a judge here in town, Mr. Fogarty?”
“We do.”
“And a sheriff?”
“A constable. What’s your point?”
“If you don’t give me the name of the present owner of that Jenkins mine, I’ll get a search warrant and make a shambles of this office until I find what I’m looking for.”
Slocum’s jaw was steely as he glared at Fogarty.
“Are you threatening me, Mr. Slocum?” Abe’s face flushed and he looked as if he was about to become apoplectic.
“Yes. That’s a threat and a promise,” Slocum said.
“Well, now, I don’t see any harm in divulging the name of the man who’s the present owner of that mine. He presented me with transfer papers that were duly signed and witnessed by a notary public.”
“That’s all I want, Mr. Fogarty, the name of the man who now owns that mine.”
“He just transferred the claim last week, in fact,” Abe said.
“His name,” Slocum said. He leaned tight against the back of his chair.
Fogarty collapsed his steepled hands and got up from his chair. He opened the door and spoke to Miss Morgan.
“Bring me the file I gave you this morning, please.”
“Yes, sir, right away,” Clara said.
Fogarty returned to his chair behind his desk. He pulled out the center drawer and picked up a slip of paper. He looked it over.
Clara came in with a thin binder and handed it to her boss.
“Is that the one, Mr. Fogarty?” she asked. “It seems in order.”
Abe looked at the name on the spine.
“Yes, this is the one. Thank you, Clara.”
She left the office without a word.
Fogarty opened the legal binder and looked again at the scrap of paper.
“I’ve checked the Jenkins signature against the deed transfer,” Fogarty said, “and it seems authentic to me. I’m in the process of transferring title to the man he evidently sold his mine to.”
“I’m still waiting for the name of the man who now owns the Jenkins mine,” Slocum said.
Abe looked down at the folder. “The man’s name is Wolfgang Steiner,” Abe said.
“Just one man owns the mine now?”
“Yes, that’s what I show here. One man. He presented a bill of sale and a document, duly notarized, that Mr. Jenkins signed, transferring ownership to Mr. Steiner.”
Abe closed the binder. “Is that all, Mr. Slocum?”
Slocum thought for a moment.
“How many claims does Mr. Steiner own?” he asked.
“Just this one, as far as I know.”
“Anyone come in with him when he brought you the papers?” Slocum asked.
Abe swiveled to the left, then to the right, before he answered.
“Just what is your interest in this matter, Mr. Slocum?” he asked.
“Jenkins was murdered. I wonder how many more mines were once owned by murdered men here in Durango.”
Abe’s face flushed a rosy tint once again.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you there, Mr. Slocum. Maybe you’d better talk to Constable Hellinger. He’s what passes for a sheriff here in Durango.”
“But you know there’s something fishy about this deed transfer, don’t you, Mr. Fogarty. How much did Steiner pay you to overlook that forged signature?”
“Why, that’s an outrageous accusation,” Abe sputtered, spitting out a spate of saliva.
“Is it? Your files are confidential. That Jenkins signature could be a forgery. Yet you declared it genuine.”
“I examined the signatures. They were exactly alike.”
“That’s what you say, but Jenkins was murdered and someone else took over his claim. Doesn’t that make you suspicious?”
“Why, I—I resent such implications. I want you to leave my office, Mr. Slocum. Now.”
Slocum stood up. “I’ll go, but I’m going to look into other murders of miners and might just come back with the constable and a search warrant.”
“Out!” Fogarty yelled at the top of his lungs.
“I’ll be seeing you, Fogarty. Maybe sooner than you think.”
Slocum arose from his chair and entered the outer office. He could hear pounding in the room behind Fogarty’s office and what sounded like rocks shattering under the blows of a hammer.
Miss Morgan shrank away from him when he appeared in her cubicle. Her face was blanched and her eyes wide.
“Good morning to you, ma’am,” Slocum said in a pleasant tone of voice.
Clara’s hand went to her throat and she avoided eye contact as he passed close to her desk. He stepped outside and heard Fogarty yelling at Miss Morgan to come into his office.
Something was not right there, Slocum thought. He might have struck a nerve when he accused the man of taking money under the table to overlook a forged signature. Fogarty was a little too secretive to be an honest man.
If there were other murders of miners and titles had changed hands, then Fogarty might be a coconspirator with Wolfgang Steiner and his gang.
Slocum vowed to get to the bottom of the murders and find out just how much Fogarty knew. He wondered now if anyone would take title to Wilbur Nichols’s mine.
One thing was certain, he thought as he walked up the street toward the constable’s office. If Abel Fogarty was worried, he just might tell Steiner that someone was breathing down their necks.
It would not be difficult to find out.
If Fogarty did warn Steiner, the man would come looking for him.
Such a man might kill to keep a secret.
If so, the wolf could come out of its lair and hunt for him. Such a move would speak volumes about whether or not Fogarty was a criminal.
Slocum had a hunch that Fogarty’s hands were as dirty as Steiner’s were.
Time would tell.
7
Abner Hellinger stood atop a small stepladder in his office. He held a hammer in one hand and a nail in the other. He held the nail point to the wall and pounded the head into the wood as Slocum opened his office door and walked in. A small bell attached to the door tinkled above his head.
Hellinger turned around and smashed his thumb with the hammerhead.
“Ow!” he yelled, shaking his hand. His face grimaced in pain.
“That will turn black by sundown,” Slocum said.
The constable looked around at Slocum.
“What?”
“That thumbnail,” Slocum said. “You hit it pretty hard. It’ll turn black and might fall off in a week or two.”
“Damn hammer,” Abner growled. He turned back to the nail and raised the arm that held the hammer. He hit the nail squarely on the head and drove it farther into the wooden wall. He touched the nail.
“Good a damn ’nough,” he said, and climbed down from the stepladder.
He set the hammer down on the top step of the ladder and squeezed the hammered thumb in his right fist. He looked up at Slocum. Abner stood a little over five feet in height and wore a badge on his unbuttoned gabardine vest. He adjusted his faded blue suspenders and straightened his thin cotton shirt, which was wrinkled around his waist. His head streamed with strands of black hair over his balding crown. He blinked brown eyes.
“They make ’em tall where you hail from,” he said to Slocum.
Slocum did not tell him he was born and raised in Georgia, but he knew that the constable was fishing for that information. He wasn’t as dumb as he looked.
“I just got into town this morning. Delivered some horses to Lou Darvin.”
“Oh, yes, the freightmaster. Sit down, sit down. Tell me what brings you to my office. Lou short you on the pay for the horses?”
Slocum sat down. So did Abner, in a chair that gave him some height he didn’t possess standing up. His desk was strewn with papers. A stack of wanted posters lay on one side and there was a pen lying next to an inkwell. A box two trays high was on the other side of the desk. One tray said IN, and the other one said PENDING.
“No, I got paid what we agreed on,” Slocum said.
“Reporting a crime? Somebody rob you?”
“No, not that either.”
“Then why would you grace the office of Durango’s constable?”
“Those new flyers on your desk?” Slocum asked.
“Matter of fact, I got ’em last week. Haven’t had a chance to go through them yet. I get a stack like that about once every month. Useless. A waste of paper. Most wanted men don’t come into Durango, which is way off the beaten path. You lookin’ for anyone in particular?”
The man was not a dunce, Slocum thought. By any means.
“I wondered if you had a dodger on a man named Wolfgang Steiner,” he said.
“Name don’t ring no bell.”
“Maybe you could look through those latest flyers. He would be recent if he’s wanted.”
“How recent?”
“Maybe here a month or so. His friends call him Wolf.”
“You mean those louts at the saloon,” Abner said.
“That’s what I heard,” Slocum said.
“At the saloon?”
“Nope. Haven’t been there yet. I might drop in sometime after sundown.”
“What’s this man to you? Hey, wait a minute. You’re the one who told me about Wilbur Nichols this morning.”
Slocum looked at Abner’s eyes. They were rheumy and cloudy. The man appeared to be nearly blind.
“Yes.”
Abner removed a case from his pocket and opened it. He removed a pair of smoked eyeglasses and put them on.
“Didn’t recognize you right off. We drug poor Wilbur’s body back to town. He’s lyin’ on the undertaker’s table right now. Pitiful sight.”
“He’s partly why I’m back here to see you,” Slocum said.
“Know the man?”
“No. Never saw him before.”
“Oh, yes, you said some gal pushed down the plunger that blew poor old Wilbur clean out of his mine.”
“You don’t believe me,” Slocum said.
“Oh, you probably saw who did it, but more likely it was a young boy, not a woman.”
“I know the difference between a boy and a woman, Mr. Hellinger.”
“That’s Constable Hellinger, Mr. . . .”
“The name’s Slocum. John Slocum.”
Abner’s brows knitted. His eyes blinked behind the smoked eyeglasses. As if he were trying to connect the name to his memory.
“I’ll look through this stack
of recent wanted flyers and see what we have.” Abner picked up the pile of flyers and looked at each one. Slocum saw that he was squinting, even with the eyeglasses. He handed the first sheet to Slocum, and continued this as he went through the pile.
“This one,” Slocum said. He held up a flyer and showed it to Hellinger.
“Hmmph,” Abner grunted.
Accompanying a drawing of a man’s face was a description of him and his crime.
WANTED
FOR ROBBERY & MURDER:
LOBO STEIN: ALIAS LOBO SCHNEIDER
In 1866, the man known as Lobo, along with several cohorts, robbed a stagecoach in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He shot and killed the driver, stole the strongbox containing paper money, coins, and jewelry.
$200 REWARD
Beneath the reward offer were instructions to contact the U.S. Marshals Service in Albuquerque and/or the sheriff in Santa Fe.
“That might be an older drawing,” Slocum said. “He probably looks a lot different now.”
“Yes. I imagine.”
“Have you seen this man?” Slocum asked.
“Not likely. Too many men coming and going here in Durango. Why? Is this someone you know, or used to know?”
“I don’t know him, but I think this might be a man who has a gang that preys on miners here in Durango.”
“What gives you that idea?” Abner asked.
“The name ‘Lobo.’ It’s the Spanish word for ‘wolf.’ A man named Wolfgang Steiner took over Ed Jenkins’s mine after he was murdered. Filed on his deed and had it transferred to him.”
“So what’s your point?”
“I think this Steiner is the leader of a gang and might be responsible for the murders of other miners. I have a hunch, a strong hunch, that Jenkins’s signature on a Quitclaim Deed might be a forgery.”
“That’s a serious charge,” Abner said.
“Steiner is called Wolf by his cronies. All hard cases. All, perhaps, outlaws. Here in Durango.”
“I’m just one man here, Slocum. That would all take a heap of investigating.”
“All I need from you is to obtain a search warrant that will allow you and me to ransack Abel Fogarty’s files to see how many claims have been transferred from dead men to Wolf and his gang.”