Slocum and the Big Timber Belles
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
SLOCUM AND THE COW CAMP KILLERS
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Wounded Prey
“We looked back and saw people being stabbed and scalped,” Lydia said. “Women and men were bleeding. Children screaming. Didn’t you hear it, Mr. Slocum?”
“I was tracking a wounded elk,” he told them. “You’re lucky I found you. This is wilderness.”
“Can you take us back there, see if anybody’s still alive?” Jasmine asked.
Slocum thought about it for a long moment. If what the women had told him was true, a wagon train had been attacked by Indians and white men. People had died. They hadn’t used guns, which meant whoever committed that atrocity knew they had the upper hand. They knew they were attacking helpless people, people who wouldn’t resist. Why? To rob them, probably. And, if his hunch was right, to leave no witnesses.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
SLOCUM AND THE BIG TIMBER BELLES
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Jove edition / July 2011
Copyright © 2011 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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1
John Slocum ground his teeth down to keep from cussing the kid. He wanted to drive a fist into his face and mash that idiotic smile to a pulp. The kid had the brains of a field mouse as far as Slocum was concerned. He hadn’t wanted to bring him along on the elk hunt, but the owner of the hotel had insisted.
“Donnie’s a good kid. I want you to teach him how to hunt,” Ray Mallory had said. “He’s big enough now.”
“Has he ever hunted before?” Slocum asked.
“Rabbits and squirrels.”
“Hunting elk is a pretty big step up,” Slocum had said. “Didn’t he ever bring down a mulie or an antelope?”
“Nope. Nobody hereabouts would ever take him hunting, so he never learned.”
“Why wouldn’t they take him?” Slocum had all kinds of warning bells ringing in his mind, and some of them gonged as loud as a brass bell.
“Well, Donnie’s a little slow. His ma died when he was still in short britches and I been busy with the hotel.”
“Do you hunt yourself, Mr. Mallory?” Slocum asked the hotel owner.
Mallory shook his head.
“I never shot a gun in my life.”
“That’s just dandy, Mr. Mallory.”
“I’ll pay you extry, of course.”
“How much extra?”
“Why, I don’t know. A sawbuck maybe.”
“Make it a double sawbuck and I’ll take little Donnie with me up into the high country, teach him how to call an elk in close and drop it with a single shot.”
Mallory had beamed under his full beard flanked by ornate muttonchops.
“Done,” Mallory had said, and Slocum had taken the kid and two pack mules out of Big Timber and into the Absarokas, where the elk had returned that Montana spring.
Now, the kid had wounded a big cow elk, gut-shot it, and Slocum had to track it through rough country, down a steep slope, over rocks and deadfalls, patches of snow that still lingered like scraps of icy antimacassars.
“I’m real sorry, Mr. Slocum,” Donnie said. He gripped the single-shot .30 caliber Remington as if it were a stick of wood. The kid was still shaking. He had been shaking with buck fever when Slocum told him to take the shot.
“You stay here with the horses and the pack mules, Donnie,” Slocum said. “Don’t move until I get back.”
“Where you goin’?” Donnie asked.
“You wounded that cow elk. I have to track her and put her down.”
“I’m plumb scared to be up here all by myself.”
“Well, I’m not taking you and the pack mules down that slope until I’ve taken care of that wounded cow. You just have to stay here.”
“Don’t be gone too long,” Donnie said, his voice quavering. His hands still trembled as if he had a case of the ague.
“And don’t you put another bullet in that rifle,” Slocum said.
He looked at the kid one last time, debating whether or not he should hit him with his fist or lay him over his knee and spank him.
“Don’t shoot anything,” Slocum said. “Even if a bear comes at you growling and snarling.”
“A bear?”
“They’re out of hibernation by now, and some of the females may have cubs. If one sees you, she may come after you and tear you apart limb by limb.”
“Christ,” Donnie said.
“Don’t take the name of the Lord in vain, kid, or I might tear you apart.”
“Yes, sir,” Donnie said, his voice pitched to a high tremolo.
“Best you walk back up where we left our horses and the pack animals. Just stay there until I get back. You can stay out of the sun in that little cave in the bluff.”
“Yes, sir,” Donnie said.
“Make sure there’s no bear in the cave before you crawl in.”
The boy choked up with emotion. Slocum suppressed a smile as he turned away.
Slocum gained some satisfaction by scaring the kid half to death before he started walking to the place where the cow elk had been shot. It stood fifty yards downslope, where a blue spruce was sheltering a circle of unmelted snow.
There was a clear blood trail. The cow had turned after it had been shot and run straight downhill. Slocum saw bits of lung matter mixed in with the blood. It was worse than he had thought. The elk hadn’t been gut-shot. The kid had hit the cow in the chest or neck. There were more scraps of the white rubbery substance.
“He either hit it in the windpipe or the lung,” Slocum said to himself as he grabbed a limb and let himself slide over a steep piece of ground. There was no telling how badly the cow had been hit, but there were streaks of blood along the ground torn up by the elk’s hooves.
The elk changed course a hundred yards farther on, angling left along a small ridge. Flecks of blood marked its passing, and there were more than a few overturned rocks and small stones. The tracks were easy to follow, but Slocum was surprised at the distance the cow had covered after being hit by a .30 caliber lead slug.
The tracks led around a large boulder sunk into the mountainside. Then the elk had turned again and headed straight down through treacherous brush and mounds of rocks. It was rough going and Slocum was glad he had on hunting boots and not his riding boots. More than once he had to grab a sapling to keep from falling or tumbling headlong into an overgrown ravine.
He finally reached the bottom of the steep slope and saw the tracks and blood spots leading off toward a creek. There was no more windpipe or lung material and no streaks of blood. Just drops of blood that were still wet.
The elk had gone into the creek and waded across. Slocum found a place where there were rocks he could use for stepping-stones. He crossed the creek, but at the edge of the farther bank, his boot slipped off the rock and he stepped into icy cold water. He flopped up on the shore and walked back to where the elk tracks emerged from the creek.
He followed these for a hundred yards or so, and realized that the cold creek water must have closed the wound in the elk’s chest. Cauterized it with ice-cold water. He found other tracks and studied them for several moments. The wounded elk had joined a small herd and they had all moved off through the timber. He could no longer distinguish the wounded elk’s tracks from the others.
He stopped and leaned against a tall, thick pine tree. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a cheroot. He put it in his mouth, but didn’t light it. He knew he would never find the elk now. The tracks led straight up into thick timber and rocky outcroppings. It would take more time than he had to spare. The kid was back up there with their horses and the pack mules, probably pissing his pants by now.
Slocum waited a few moments until his breathing returned to normal, then started back toward the creek.
That was when he heard an odd sound. He stopped and turned his head. There it was again. It was a soft groaning sound. He cupped a hand to his ear. It was more like moaning or whimpering. Human, not animal.
He stepped slowly and carefully toward the sound. It was downstream from where he had crossed the creek. As he walked, he saw a logging road on the other side of the creek. The road ended in a wide, circular turnaround.
The sounds grew louder as he approached a small bluff. Large outcroppings of boulders loomed in the brush like the remnants of ancient buildings or monuments. He put a thumb on the hammer of his Winchester and continued on.
He rounded one of the boulders and saw that there was a cave at the base of the limestone bluff.
He heard the unmistakable sound of a woman crying. Then there was another sound, a whimpering, sobbing sound that also seemed to be female.
Slocum slid forward until he was right next to the cave.
“Who’s in there?” he called.
The sobbing and the crying ceased.
“I got a gun,” a man’s voice said. “I’ll shoot if you come in.”
“Hold on,” Slocum said, lowering his voice. “I’m just a hunter passing by. Anybody hurt in there?”
“You ain’t no Injun?” the man said.
“No. I pass for a white man in most circles.”
He heard a rustling in the cave. A man’s head poked out and looked at him. Then it disappeared.
“We ain’t hurt, but we’re mighty scared,” the man said.
“Come on out,” Slocum said. “It’s safe.”
A small wizened man wearing a dark suit that was covered with dust, a string tie, and a grimy white shirt stepped from the cave. He was followed by two of the prettiest women he had ever seen. Their eyes were wide, and much of the color had drained from their faces.
“Who are you?” one of the women said to him.
“I’m John Slocum, ma’am,” he said, and doffed his hat.
“No,” the woman said, “you’re a god. You’re our savior.”
Slocum smiled.
“If you say so,” he said, holding out a hand to help her emerge from the cave.
The creek gurgled as it surged past, and sunlight danced on the waters. Little flecks of gold sparkled in its depths, and a blue jay flitted in the aspens and pines, as curious as Slocum about the strange assemblage at the mouth of the cave.
2
Slocum helped the younger woman exit from the cave. When they stood close to each other, the women looked almost like sisters. But he could see that one was quite a bit older than the other. Both were very beautiful.
The man dusted himself off. He slapped and rubbed his hands over his suit. Then he looked up at Slocum and cocked his hatless head.
“Mister, I’m sure glad you come along. I thought we were all going to die in that filthy little cave.”
“Who are you?” Slocum asked. “And what were you doing in that cave?”
“I’m Leroy Fenster of Saint Louis, although we came here by way of San Francisco. These are my dear clients, mother and daughter, Jasmine Lorraine and her daughter, Lydia. The Lorraine Sisters. Ever heard of ’em?”
Slocum shook his head.
“Nope,” he said. “Can’t say as I have.” He took the cheroot from his mouth and slipped it back in his pocket.
“They’re singers,” Fenster said. “Known all over the West. Or soon will be.”
“You haven’t answered my question, Mr. Fens
ter,” Slocum said. “What in hell were you three doing hiding out in a cave way up here in the timber?”
“Ah,” Fenster said, “it’s a long story. We were—”
“We were traveling by stagecoach with a wagon train,” Jasmine interrupted, pushing Fenster aside. She was taller than he was and, for Slocum’s money, had a lot more charm and gumption than the odd-looking little man. “We’re supposed to be in Big Timber, Montana, by tomorrow. A bunch of outlaws and Indians attacked us this morning. I think the wagon master made a wrong turn or else he was in cahoots with those—those savages.”
“That’s right,” Lydia said. She stepped close to her mother and looked up at Slocum. Both women had blue eyes and strawberry hair that reached almost to their waists. Their tresses were shiny and the sun turned them golden. They had small waists and wore traveling skirts and boots, and matching blouses with the initial L embroidered above the left pockets. They wore soft red lipstick and their fair cheeks had been brushed with a delicate rouge. Slocum could smell their perfume, the scent of lilacs, he thought.
“If Mama hadn’t grabbed my hand and gotten me and Mr. Fenster out of the coach, we’d all be dead by now. It was horrible. The Indians shot arrows, and the white men used knives to kill our traveling companions.”
“What?” Slocum said. “You were on a stage and it got robbed?”
“They swooped down on us,” Jasmine said. “Out of nowhere. There were two wagons. We were in the coach, right behind the lead wagon. In the confusion, I got my daughter and Mr. Fenster out one of the doors and we ran and ran up this road, jumped across the creek, and hid in this cave.”
“We looked back and saw people being stabbed and scalped,” Lydia said. “Women and men were bleeding. Children screaming. Didn’t you hear it, Mr. Slocum?”
He explained to them where he had been and pointed to the opposite slope.