by Logan, Jake
“Here’s another one!”
She didn’t recognize that voice or the others joining in. Then any hope of identification disappeared in a flurry of gunshots. Long tongues of orange flame lanced though the dark. She clutched her crude war axe and made her way toward the fight.
“Dammit,” a man cried. “He winged me!”
“Keep your damn fool head down. We’ll take care of him. He can’t have much ammo.”
“They didn’t have a hundred rounds to start,” piped up another.
Mirabelle saw the eye-dazzling streaks of gunfire and how they converged even farther to her right. She made out Ike’s silhouette. He stood exposed, his six-shooter held at the end of a stiff arm. Swinging back and forth, he sought a decent target. He fired twice, and then the outlaws in the camp homed in on him. She cried out as he jerked about. Ike dropped his gun. When it hit the ground, it discharged.
But he didn’t care. Isaac Comstock sank to his knees, clutching his chest.
Three dark forms moved closer. All three men fired at the same time, ending Comstock’s life. He flopped onto the ground and didn’t move. That didn’t stop them from emptying their six-guns into him.
“We ought to have left one of them alive.”
“We couldn’t get nuthin’ out of the one we questioned. I mean, we asked him all nice and polite and he wouldn’t tell us nuthin’ but lies.”
“He surely did spin a different tale from the one he told in town,” said another hidden man. His laugh was cold and evil.
“What’s that?”
The third man silenced the other two.
Mirabelle thought they had heard her outcry or the pounding of her heart as it tried to jump from her chest. She took a better grip on the hand axe, ready to kill them all for what they had done.
To her relief, they moved away, fanning out and fading into the dark.
She started to go to her husband. There might be a spark of life left in him she could nurture and build back into the life he had once enjoyed. Before she could get to the camp, more gunfire rang out. She dropped her hand axe and clapped bloody hands over her ears in a vain attempt to block out the sound. She failed.
“Got him. Only nicked him in the leg.”
“That’ll keep him from runnin’ like the other tried.”
She recognized Terrence’s voice immediately as he cursed his captors. They dragged him back into camp and dropped him to the ground by the guttering campfire.
“Let’s get some heat. Put a few pieces of wood on the fire.”
One man obeyed, and the flames shot skyward. The sudden light blinded her for a moment or she might have gotten a better look at the attackers. Then all she could see was Terrence being held so his hand was near the fire.
“Why not tell us where the gold is?”
“Go to hell,” Terrence grated out. Then he screamed when they forced his hand into the fire. The sizzle and pop sickened Mirabelle. Then she had to put her hand over her mouth and nose as the stench of burned human flesh drifted down on the night wind to her.
“Try the other hand. They’re gonna call you Stumpy, if they call you anything at all,” warned an outlaw, the one she thought was the leader.
Terrence screamed again as they burned his other hand.
“What we’re askin’ ain’t worth the pain. You can always find more gold—if you’re alive to do the huntin’. Where’s the gold hid?”
“I don’t know. We ain’t found it!”
“Now, that’s not what your late and prob’ly unlamented friend had to say. He was boastin’ how you folks had found your weight in gold. We reckoned by now you were loadin’ it into that broke-down wagon of yours.”
“Not find it. No gold,” Terrence sobbed out.
“This was a right nice campsite you had. Homey. But we might be persuaded into givin’ you a share of the gold if you tell us where it is.”
Mirabelle knew the lie instantly. So did Terrence. He cursed them until they set fire to his coat—while he was still wearing it. The man ran about slapping at the flames, but the fire had found a home in the greasy cloth. He burned like a pitch torch.
“Shoot me, please, oh, God, the pain!”
“Be glad to put you out of your misery if you’ll tell us where the gold is.” Again that uncaring laughter.
Terrence died before he could think up a lie.
“Shit. We done kilt all of ’em and there’s no sign of the gold anywhere.”
“We got ’em all?” asked one.
“Think so. Two women, four men.” The outlaw speaking paused. “Wish there was another woman. I didn’t get my chance with either of them others.”
“Go jerk off. It’s better than anything I got out of mine.”
Mirabelle felt woozy and sank down to hands and knees. She ought to run but couldn’t find the strength. The men rummaged through camp for another twenty minutes hunting for a map or gold or anything that might show that the gold had even been found.
She pressed her fingers against the two gold coins Ike had found. If he had carried those when they searched him, there wouldn’t be any chance in hell of her getting away. As it was, not finding any hint of the treasure, the three men eventually disappeared into the woods near the camp. She heard hoofbeats as they left.
It was another hour before she summoned the courage to go into the camp.
Sennick had been tortured as efficiently and effectively as if an Apache had worked him over. David Garrison had been slashed to bloody ribbons before he died. Terrence was a still smoldering lump of once human flesh. Cara and Irene lay on their backs. Their clothing had been ripped away. She didn’t need to check to know they had been raped before having their throats slashed.
And then there was her husband.
Mirabelle dropped beside Ike and cried until no more tears would flow. Replacing the grief was something Mirabelle didn’t like, hardly recognized.
She wanted revenge and nothing would stop her from exacting it from the men who had gunned down her husband and committed such atrocities on the other five.
2
“That’s one thing I like about you, Slocum. You don’t drink when you’re working.” Jim “Beefsteak” Malone laughed his full-belly laugh and returned to industriously using a rag that might have cleaned off his boots before being applied to the shot glasses stacked in front of him. The rest of the back bar was in a similar slovenly condition, but it hardly mattered to the saloon’s customers.
Slocum said nothing. The owner of the Damned Shame Drinking Emporium and Gambling Parlor never shut his piehole. That made him a good barkeep, but it irritated Slocum, who preferred his own company. Still, Beefsteak Malone had given him a job when he needed it most. There hadn’t been a poker game in all of Sacramento that had gone his way. Some of the tinhorn gamblers were cheating, but Slocum hadn’t been able to turn the cards against them. And the honest games had proven even worse for his poke. How anyone could lose with four queens was a poser, but he had. It had been a low straight diamond flush, but it had been drawn against him all right and proper.
Changing his luck by riding east, intending to find someplace in Nevada to hole up for the winter, hadn’t worked for him either. His horse had started coughing up its guts, and he had finally been forced to shoot it not three miles outside Grizzly Flats. Having the town so close had been his only good luck, though the walk in carrying his gear had been a chore on the rocky road.
Malone had taken one look at the worn ebony handle on the Colt Navy slung in a cross-draw holster and had offered him a job as bouncer in his saloon. Having only a dollar and a dime in his pocket, Slocum had accepted. So far the chore hadn’t been too onerous. The clientele in the Damned Shame proved mostly peaceful, even when they got a snootful of Beefsteak’s poisonous trade whiskey. He had broken up a cou
ple fights, but the participants had been halfhearted, as if they wanted him to shove them apart, then escort them into the street, where they circled each other for a few minutes, then ended up staggering off to find another watering hole. From what Slocum could tell, saloons were Grizzly Flats’ only real bright speck of prosperity. There were a dozen, and all seemed to turn a profit.
“I had one bouncer,” Malone went on, “who claimed to never touch the stuff. Only when I found out that he was drunk all the time did I realize he meant water. Sober, the man was one mean son of a buck. Drunk, you couldn’t tell. ’Cept for the smell.”
“What’s their story?” Slocum leaned back on the rough-hewn bar, both elbows supporting him as he stared across the room at the only pool table with green felt left on it. The other two had been so badly cut and scarred, any potential pool player would be better off using a barrel stave on rocks out in the muddy main street.
“Prospectors,” Malone said scornfully. “Used to be a whale of a lot of gold around here, but that was nigh on twenty years back. Some folks never give up, though.”
“Partners?”
“What else? An old married couple couldn’t argue that hard and not kill each other.” Beefsteak drifted to the other end of the bar to tend a customer.
Slocum glanced at the saloon owner and decided the Damned Shame must be misnamed. Malone wore a headlight diamond just above his canvas apron, spent a tad too much time chowing down, and wore clothes more fitting for a bank president than a barkeep. He wore his hair slicked back and held down with a dollop of grease, making his head look like a round pumpkin. Slocum laughed ruefully. Even that description wasn’t too far off. He had a sickly orange pallor that bespoke the long hours behind the bar and too little time out in the fresh air and bright sunlight.
“I’ll rip yer guts out and strangle you with ’em!”
Slocum’s attention snapped back to the two prospectors at the pool table. One waved around a crooked pool cue while the other gripped a seven ball as if he intended to cram it down his partner’s throat. Slocum glanced over at Malone, who pointedly ignored the ruckus. Heaving a sigh, Slocum shoved away from the bar and walked slowly to the pool table.
“You gents playing or you intend to let somebody else in here?”
“You? You want to play some billiards?”
“Can’t say that it’s me wanting to play. We got a house full of boys interested, though.”
The two forgot their argument and united against Slocum. He kept from laughing as they stepped shoulder to shoulder to confront their new common enemy. Both were close to knee-walking drunk and presented no real danger, except to each other.
“We . . . we got a game to play.”
“Then I say, I’ll put up a dollar to the winner.” Slocum fished a greenback from his pocket and laid it on the corner of the table near a pocket.
“Winner take all!”
Slocum wasn’t even sure which of the men spoke, but both argued a mite over who would break, then started a game that didn’t have much in the way of rules. He didn’t care. They were playing peaceably enough and not causing any more trouble. He went back to the bar.
“Sure you don’t want a snort, Slocum?” Beefsteak held up a bottle of Billy Taylor’s Finest. “That was real purty the way you gentled those broncos.”
“More buck and spin than bite. Keep your liquor and give me a dollar.”
“Nope, that was yer doin’. Not part of the job description.”
“Keeping the peace within these four walls is what you wanted me for.”
Slocum couldn’t complain too much. Despite his modest wages, he’d been able to buy a new horse and still had a few dollars in his pocket. Malone let him feed off whatever was left after the lunch trade disappeared. Unlike his name, the saloon owner didn’t think much of real beef, preferring to serve his customers pickled eggs and occasional bits of fried chicken. Slocum thought the chickens were those that had stopped furnishing the rest of the luncheon menu, but he didn’t ask. A piece of fried chicken now and again went down good, and he wasn’t above drinking a beer with it.
But not when he worked. He wanted to keep a clear head.
He gritted his teeth when the doors slammed back and a bantam rooster of a man with a five-pointed star badge pinned on his vest stormed in. Marshal Willingham’s attitude was twice the size of his body and a dozen times his brain capacity. That didn’t stop him from throwing his weight around, ordering people to do his bidding. Slocum didn’t see too many in Grizzly Flats jumping to obey, but he did see the seething rage etched like stone on the marshal’s florid face.
He doubted the lawman was ever happy about anything. But then, Slocum wasn’t sure he had anything to be happy about.
“Gimme a drink, Beefsteak,” the lawman called out as he walked to the far end of the bar with a slightly bowlegged gait.
The saloon owner poured a drink and slid it over, then bent close and whispered to the marshal. The lawman got even angrier, his face turning bright red like a stewed tomato. Slocum reached over and slid the leather thong off his six-shooter’s hammer. Men that mad threw down without thought and let lead fly all around. As crowded as the Damned Shame was, even if Willingham was a bad shot, people might die.
Truth was, Slocum wasn’t averse to putting the marshal out of everyone’s misery. Most folks in Grizzly Flats were friendly enough. The only one giving him grief wore that shiny star on his chest. Before he got his job as bouncer, Willingham had tried to run him out of town as an undesirable.
Slocum wondered if anyone in Grizzly Flats could be counted as desirable. Without much to keep the people in business, the honest ones would have moved on. Those left either sold whiskey, peddled human flesh, or worked to swindle their fellow citizens.
But he had seen worse places. If he worked through the winter, he would have more than enough to ride on to Middle Park in Colorado and find himself a job as a wrangler there for the summer.
Malone leaned away as the marshal glared at him. With a quick toss, Willingham knocked back the whiskey, spun, and stalked out. The barkeep made his way down the bar, making sure each of the customers had paid up and offering more liquor to those running dry. Not a one turned him down. By the time he reached Slocum, he had emptied another half bottle.
“Good night,” Malone said.
“What’d he want? He looked mighty pissed.”
“The marshal?” Malone made a dismissive gesture. “He’s always fired up about something.”
Slocum waited for the garrulous man to keep talking, but he didn’t. That sparked Slocum’s curiosity. He knew that saloon owners and the law in most towns had a cozy relationship. The marshal looked the other way if anything illegal went on, but Slocum hadn’t seen anything like that in the Damned Shame. Beefsteak didn’t even allow women into his establishment. This usually caused the law to demand a city license or some other fee—all meaning a bribe to turn a blind eye to the hookers. It was a cost of doing business, but Malone avoided that. From what Slocum could tell, Beefsteak had some sort of an agreement with a cathouse down the street. Any liquored-up customers wanting female companionship were escorted down there, but Slocum had never been told to do so.
That suited him just fine. He wasn’t a pimp, and such an arrangement invited robbing the customers. For all the time he’d been in Grizzly Flats, he hadn’t wandered down to that part of town to the south, where cathouses lined the streets.
“Hey, Slocum, want to play a hand or two of poker?”
He looked over his shoulder. Two regulars sat at a table with beer stains more prominent than the wood grain, a deck of cards between them. He had been in Grizzly Flats long enough to become a known commodity to the patrons, if not the cyprians.
He looked at Beefsteak, who shrugged.
“Do as you like. Your money. If you want to lose y
our money to those yahoos, that’s your business. Just keep an eye out for trouble.”
Slocum had a couple dollars left and had watched these two over the past week. They were what passed for top card players in Grizzly Flats. And he knew he was better.
He went to the table, hooked a toe around a chair rung, and pulled it out so he could sit.
“Penny ante? That’s all I have.”
“We’ll take your money, no matter how little you have,” said one, pushing back his hat to show a weathered forehead. Above the hat band was nothing but pallid white skin. The man rode in the sun and weather and never took off the hat.
The other began shuffling, then passed the deck to Slocum to cut.
They began playing. Slocum let them win a few nickels to get a sense of how they played. He had pegged them right. They worked as a team, probably splitting their winnings. While they didn’t cheat outright, one would fold rather than bluff if it looked as if his partner had a better hand. Slocum took this in stride and slowly began adding to the pile of coins in front of him. He had started with almost two dollars and won three off the men when the saloon doors slammed hard and a tough customer shoved his way in.
The man shook all over, getting water off his duster. He looked around, then fixed his gaze on Malone.
Slocum said, “Excuse me, gents. I’ve got to get to work.” He scooped up the coins and dropped them into his coat pocket. As he stood, he was glad he had removed the keeper off his Colt’s hammer earlier. It saved him from having to make such an overt move now.
“You get your ass out of here,” Beefsteak called to the man. The owner cast a quick look over his shoulder at Slocum, who could not decipher the expression. It was a mixture of anger and fear.
Something more there bothered Slocum, as if Beefsteak Malone and the man were not exactly at odds with each other.
“I want it. I know you got it.”
“Like hell. Get out. We’ll talk about this later.”
“Now, Beefsteak, we talk about this now.” The man rested his hand on the butt of his six-gun.