Slocum and the High-Rails Heiress
Page 1
“Reckon You’re Done For, Mister.”
Slocum held his rifle poised across his chest. He would have one extra move to get the rifle to bear on the brute, whereas his opponent could finish him now with one simple squeeze of his finger. Slocum also knew that if he stood up, the other man across the road, holding the high ground, would pick him off square between the shoulder blades. So Slocum did the only thing he felt sure he could do: He pushed himself forward, tucking into a roll downslope, angling away from the furred giant.
He rolled hard on his left shoulder, grunted, and felt a twinge inside as he pivoted on the sharp edge of a rock hidden by snow cover. He heard the bang of the man’s pistol even as he jammed his left boot heel hard against the slope to stop his momentum. He didn’t bother to raise his rifle to his shoulder, as his roll brought him to within five yards of the man. He came up out of the roll with the rifle leveled and cranked two rapid rounds into the big man’s broad frame. Puffs of snow dust rose from the coat where the bullets pocked inward. The man turned, a snarl on his lips, a guttural growl pushing black spittle from his mouth.
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SLOCUM
AND THE
HIGH-RAILS HEIRESS
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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 HIGH-RAILS HEIRESS
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Jove edition / April 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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Slocum and the Meddler
1
John Slocum stood outside the Gimcrack Saloon in Pearlton, northern Arizona Territory, shivering, unshaven, and gaunt from lack of food. He cast his eyes at his Appaloosa and decided it looked no better than he felt. A fresh gust of wind nearly took off his hat and pulled a low moan from his mouth. It had been moaning of a different sort that had started this unfortunate chain of events.
Two weeks before he’d all but staggered into Pearlton, John Slocum blamed Katy Wilder’s moaning for the fact that he failed to hear those damn boots on the stairs until it was almost too late. Almost. Thankfully, despite the fact that everything about Katy Wilder was indeed…wilder…the woman did have a sense of propriety. Warped, maybe, but it was there.
She had kicked closed her bedroom door shortly before they made their way to the bed. Not long after he had stripped her of every last bit of clothing, and he himself was down to his hat and a smile, he heard the clump-clomp, clump-clomp of odd footsteps making their slow way up the stairs to the hallway outside the room.
He’d paused in his ministrations and she had growled—actually- growled—at him. Her green eyes seemed to spark and glint in the afternoon light slanting through the window, and it had almost been enough to make him forget about the footsteps he thought he’d heard in the hallway. Almost…
“Any idea who that might be?” said Slocum, tensed and reaching for his Colt Navy revolver, which he’d hung on the back of a bedside chair.
The sound echoed from the stairwell. Clump-clomp, clump-clomp.
“That’d be…Mason.”
“Mason? You mean your Uncle Mason?”
“I mean Mason…my hu
sband.”
Slocum’s eyebrows rose and he pushed himself up off her. “You said he was your uncle.” His whisper came out as a hiss.
She giggled and looked toward the door. “I also said I liked spending my evenings quilting.” Her drawl marked her as Southern as they come. But she was no belle—this one was all swamp gator. She was also randier than a roomful of preachers, and twice as wild.
“What’s he doing here?” Slocum cursed himself for not even hearing the man ride up. I must be slipping in my old age, he thought.
“He owns the place!”
“But you said—”
“He was supposed to be gone all winter! How in the hell do I know what he’s doing back so soon…”
Clump-clomp, clump-clomp. The sounds slowly drew closer.
“Something wrong with his leg?”
“Yeah, one of ’em’s wooden. Now git on out the window. I’ll keep him occupied long enough for you to hot-tail it back to the bunkhouse.”
Now it was Slocum’s turn to growl. He dropped to the floor on the side of the bed facing the window, away from the door. He had just enough time to pull on his boots, snatch up his longhandles, pants, and shirt, and sling his gun belt over his shoulder. He chucked the clothes out the window and hoped they didn’t fetch up on anything. When he raised one leg to climb through the window, she grabbed his manhood, gave it a quick tug, and whispered, “Y’all come back now, y’hear?” Then she winked.
From the hallway, a gruff, older man’s voice said, “Oh, sweet thing, I have a surprise for you…”
She has one for you, too, thought Slocum as he struggled to get away from her.
The bedroom door swung inward. He saw a large, bulky man in a dusty suit and wearing an immense, ten-gallon fawn hat fill the doorway. “What in the hell…” said the man just before he cleared leather.
Slocum pulled himself from the clutching hand of the shouting young lady. He was out the window, his bare ass skidding down the rough cedar shakes of the porch roof when he heard Mason’s gun bark and spray its death-dealing seed once, twice, then he heard Katy’s shrieks and laughs mingle with the sound. Slocum hoped that in all the hubbub, somehow she’d be able to soothe the one-legged brute long enough for him to get to his horse and ride hell-for-leather on out of there.
He skidded down the roof and found his pants and longhandles on the ground at his feet. When he looked up, however, he saw his shirt had fetched up and offered little more than a farewell wave from the edge of the roof. Too high up and far too late to retrieve, he told himself as he lit a shuck for the barn.
He heard a man’s bawling voice shouting out the window at him. Something about nailing part of him, a very near and dear part, to a fence post. He knew the man couldn’t touch him, but still, the possibility of what he’d said made the trim cowboy shudder as he sprinted.
That had been two weeks before. He’d ridden out of there with just about what he’d ridden in with—minus one shirt—and despite the fun he’d had with the ranch owner’s young wife, that didn’t make up for the loss of the pay he’d had coming to him. Though it could be said that, in certain ways, he’d been amply rewarded. He’d trusted her for it, came out on the short end of that stick, and now there was no going back. Despite that, what a woman, he mused as he stood outside the closed doors of the Gimcrack. She’d been as lusty and lovely a woman as he’d come across in a long time. Hair smelled like strawberries…
“Hey, fella. You going in?”
Slocum’s eyes snapped open and he realized he’d been half-asleep. Must be more worn down than I realized, he thought.
“Hey.”
A hand touched his coat sleeve. He shrugged it off, turned to face the man.
“Are you John Slocum?”
Though lately he’d been coasting on the fumes of instinct, Slocum’s years of life on the trail, sometimes being chased, sometimes doing the chasing, had honed his senses until they were usually razor sharp and wire taut.
He regarded the man as he took a step backward, working to remain alert and vigilant. Nearly his own height, the stranger was less broad of shoulder, but looked fit enough. On his head sat a snow-flecked black derby-style hat. His wide face sported a thick but trim mustache. Stiff suit collars poked into the soft pink flesh of his neck from beneath a heavy woolen coat.
“Who are you?” Slocum eyed the man.
The man half smiled. “I am someone who has been searching for you for a couple of weeks now.”
“That’s not really what I asked you.” Slocum thought to spin out the conversation, keep the man’s eyes engaged while he undid the buttons on his own sheepskin coat. Made it easier should he need to draw his Colt.
“No need for that, Mr. Slocum, I assure you.” The man nodded toward Slocum’s hand as he unbuttoned his coat. “It’s far too cold to stand out here confabulating about nothing in particular. Let me buy you a warm drink, a meal, and I can explain myself. My treat.”
Slocum kept his eyes narrowed, but he felt his resolve wavering. The stranger did seem innocent enough. Honest, too. And he made sense. It was only getting colder out here. The man opened the saloon door and Slocum followed him on in.
They sat down at a table by a window—the only one available—and loosened their coats enough to allow the pent-up steamy warmth of the room to seep in. The stranger raised a large hand and beckoned the bartender. Slocum kept an eye on him all the while.
The bartender set down squat glasses, and poured two shots of what looked to Slocum like decent stuff. Though in truth, he’d have drunk skunk squeezings if they’d warmed him.
“Leave the bottle, please.” The stranger smiled at the chunky little bartender.
“Sure thing.” The bartender waddled back to the bar.
“Rough run of it lately?”
Slocum sipped the first taste, wet his lips with it, then tipped back the glass and felt the amber liquid sluice a fiery trail down his throat. “Something like that.” He poured another and sipped at it. Warming up, Slocum decided that he might as well make some effort at pleasantry. The man had bought him a drink, after all. He cleared his throat. “Before you showed, I had given half a thought to visiting the sheriff’s office, just to see if there’s a dodger on me in this town for something petty.” His grim chuckle sounded hollow to him. “Figured it was one way to get a meal, keep warm.” He sipped. “Warmer than I had been on the trail anyway.” He didn’t bother telling him that he’d even had to spend the emergency double-eagle he kept in his boot.
The man nodded, and continued to look at him.
“You going to tell me how you know my name, why you say you’ve been trying to find me?”
“It is true—I’ve been searching for you for several weeks now.”
“Well, you found me.”
“Mm-hmm. And to tell you the truth, Mr. Slocum, I’m both pleased and not a little disappointed in what I’ve found.”
Slocum set down the glass, pushed back his chair, and said, “Well, chum, I won’t drink with any man who insults me.”
The big stranger began to laugh, and made calming motions with his hands. “Sit down, please, Mr. Slocum. That is precisely what I expected, what I hoped I’d hear from you. Excellent.”
Slocum remained standing. “You still haven’t told me how you know me or what in the hell you wanted from me once you found me.”
“All right, all right. You deserve answers. I understand.” The man reached into his coat.
Slocum’s hand dropped reflexively to the polished ebony grip of his Colt. “Easy, mister. Otherwise, very shortly you’ll be experiencing a whole lot more disappointment.”
The man paused, his eyes wide. “A letter, Mr. Slocum, that’s all I’m after. Here in my pocket.”
“Draw it out slow, then. Two fingers.”
The conversational din of the room had grown quiet, and Slocum knew that all eyes were on the two men. The big man pulled out a long, cream-colored envelope, two bands of red silk ribbon encircling
it. It was stamped in the middle of the front, sealed with red wax. He set it on top of Slocum’s glass and leaned back in his chair, his hands resting on the tabletop.
Slocum looked from the man’s face to the letter. He let his coat fall back over his holster and sat down. The other patrons of the bar lost interest now that gunplay had been overruled. They turned back to their own business, despite knowing that theirs was bound to be far less interesting than what was transpiring between the two strangers at the far table.
“That is for you, Mr. Slocum. I have been trying for two weeks to give it to you. You are a difficult man to track down.”
Slocum thought back on the past two weeks since he’d left Mason’s ranch, no money, riding the range cold and broke on a tired horse. And then the damned cold snap had struck the region. “You should have worked harder at it.”
The red seal was stamped with a scrolled version of the letter S. Slocum slipped off the silk ribbons and popped the seal with a thumbnail. He regarded the man once more, then opened the envelope and unfolded the letter within.
He scanned it in silence:
Dear Mister John Slocum,
Your reputation as a competent, discreet, and trustworthy man who is good with a gun and has a fair sense of justice has been known to me for quite some time. I would like to hire you to accompany the transport of a valuable—and wholly legal, I might add—cargo via the Central Sierra and Pacific Railroad from Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, over the Sierra Nevada, to Sacramento, California. At that point, your services will no longer be required. The precious cargo will depart the train and proceed to a secure location.
For the safe arrival at the train station in California of said precious cargo, you will receive $5,000, one-fifth of which I have instructed the messenger of this letter, Mister Clarence Mulford, of my employ, to advance to you to help defray any advance expenses you may have. Should you accept this commission, you will be expected at the train depot in Salt Lake City by Monday morning, 8 a.m., on the Fourth day of February. The duration of the trip, barring unforeseen circumstances, should last no longer than two weeks, and hopefully closer to one, though one never knows, given the vicissitudes of wintertime high-elevation train travel.