by Jake Logan
He stopped and stared at their striped canvas prison garb and knew that wouldn’t happen until they changed clothes. The wooded area thinned as they ran farther west.
“I need to get my bearings,” Slocum said.
“What for? We can go only this way. In any other we would have to swim,” said Murrieta.
“I cached some clothes and guns,” he said.
“What?” Murrieta stopped and stared at Slocum.
“Why would you do such a thing unless . . .”
“Unless he got into prison to break me out,” José Valenzuela said proudly. “Conchita did not find a fool for this dangerous jailbreak.”
“You were sent?” Murrieta shook his head in disbelief. “I have planned for months how to escape but never did I have anyone outside helping me.”
“You didn’t need it,” Slocum said, slapping him on the back. “You had me. I’ve got clothes for me and José.”
“Conchita raided my wardrobe, eh?” Valenzuela laughed heartily. “I must see how she chose to dress me.”
Slocum stared at Valenzuela but could not see the man’s face in the dark. Something about the way he spoke of his sister put Slocum on edge.
“They are after us,” Murrieta said, turning to look at their back trail.
“I hear nothing,” Valenzuela said. “Come, let us keep going, find those clothes Jarvis has told us of.” He reached out, made his hand into a gun, and pretended to fire. “I would also have a six-shooter in my hand once more. You have a six-shooter for me?”
Slocum ignored Valenzuela and went to stand beside Murrieta. The wind blowing through the trees masked much of the sound. What wasn’t robbed by the wind was swallowed by the sound of waves, but Slocum heard a single yelp from a dog.
“Bloodhounds,” he said.
“They found the hole sooner than I thought they would,” Murrieta said. “We should have taken more time and hidden the doorway better.”
Slocum knew they should have done a lot of things differently, but there hadn’t been time. He had drawn an ace when Doc stopped Mick from taking a swing at him. But the dark of the moon had dictated escape tonight or waiting for a month. They might have been successful escaping during a storm, but the drought had spread north. Thunderstorms were a rarity at this time of year.
“We didn’t have a choice,” Slocum said. He looked around for some way to cover their scent. He had hoped to find a stream or other river. He suspected the closest river that would have been useful hiding their escape lay miles to the north. The Petaluma River might as well have been in Kansas for all the good it did them.
“Can we make it to the shoreline?” he asked.
“It is too far, but that is the only way to throw off the dogs,” Murrieta said.
“They come closer!” José Valenzuela heard the baying dogs for the first time. “What are we to do?”
“Due south,” Slocum said, trying to get the lay of the land squared away in his head. They might be a mile away. If they hurried, there was a chance—slim—of staying out of the clutches of the guards so eagerly pursuing them.
“They are angling toward the Bay,” Murrieta said. “They will find us before we can get a boat or swim away.”
“There is no way to swim,” Valenzuela said sharply. “The water is too cold. And there are sharks!”
“I will lead them away,” Murrieta said. “You go to your dying father,” Murrieta said to Valenzuela.
“You can’t—” Slocum started.
“What can they do to me they have not done before?”
“I’ll get you out,” Slocum promised.
Valenzuela laughed harshly, and Procipio Murrieta grabbed Slocum’s hand and shook it. Then he hurried straight south.
“Come on,” Slocum said. “He’s buying us some time, but it won’t be much.”
He headed back westward. He had left clothing and weapons at the junction of the road leading to San Quentin and the road working its way north toward Oregon. He longed to get on a horse and see what the lovely Pacific Northwest had to offer after the dry California countryside—and its prison.
4
Slocum dug like a gopher, kicking up a cloud of dirt and leaves as he hunted for the package he had left at the crossroads. The darkness didn’t help, but he had been cagey enough to hide the clothing and six-shooters near a distinctive rock beside the road.
“Hurry, they are coming. I feel it in my bones.”
Slocum looked up from his digging and saw Valenzuela silhouetted against the starlit sky. The man looked nothing like his sister, but Slocum wasn’t going to pry. There might have been different mothers. Childbirth was a dangerous undertaking, although the Valenzuelas seemed to live well and could probably afford a decent midwife. Still, life was uncertain, and he had no idea about how rich the family really was. All he knew was that he had helped Conchita when her carriage had broken down, and one thing led to another.
That had been almost three weeks ago. The pressure of time and getting José back to see their father before the old man died weighed heavily on him. If he hadn’t gotten into the fight with Mick on that first day, they might have escaped earlier. As he returned to unearthing the oilcloth-wrapped package, Slocum realized that he was belittling himself for no reason. The escape had occurred because of a half-dozen small things. Doc had sacrificed his chance to escape so that the other three could make it to freedom. Murrieta had similarly given Slocum and Valenzuela the gift of escape by diverting the guards chasing them.
He wondered about the son of California’s most famous outlaw. It hardly seemed possible Procipio Murrieta was guilty of anything, but Slocum had known some cold-blooded killers in his day who were sweet as brown sugar until someone crossed them. The little contact he’d had with Murrieta hinted that this wasn’t the way the man was, but he had been sent to San Quentin for a reason.
Slocum snorted, wiped dirt from his eyes, and went back to digging. Hell, he had been inside the prison, and he hadn’t committed any crime. A slow smile came to his lips. He had done his share of thieving and robbing and even killing when necessary, but nothing that would have qualified him for such a grim penitentiary. The smile faded when he realized he might have been hanged if the law caught up with him and twigged to the fact he was a judge killer.
After the war, he had returned to Slocum’s Stand in Calhoun, Georgia, wanting nothing more than to recuperate from his wounds and begin farming again. His ma and pa were long dead, and his brother Robert had died at Pickett’s Charge. He had lost himself in work until a carpetbagger judge had trumped up a phony tax lien and had ridden out with a gunman to seize the property.
He had gotten the property—a grave down by the springhouse. His gun slick had been buried a few feet lower on the hill, and John Slocum had ridden out, followed by a warrant for his arrest. Killing a judge, even a Reconstruction thief of a judge, was a federal crime.
But Slocum doubted any lawman in the San Francisco area had seen that wanted poster. All anyone inside San Quentin knew was that he was Jasper Jarvis.
His fingers closed on the buried package. He tugged, got the parcel out, and quickly opened it. His clothes and Colt Navy were safely inside. He shucked off his canvas uniform, wanting to get rid of the striped outfit as quick as he could.
“There, she chose well,” Valenzuela said, reaching over Slocum’s shoulder to hold up a fancy embroidered shirt. It was gaudy and would attract attention. Slocum started to say something, then stopped. Perhaps this was for the best. Let José mouth off and make a spectacle of himself. That might be the last person a marshal would look at.
He quickly pulled on his jeans and stood brushing off dirt that speckled his shirt and Stetson. Only when he was sure he was clean enough to pass casual muster did he strap on the cross-draw holster and settle his six-gun in it.
Valenzuela looked at him, his eyes went wide, then narrowed.
“You wear that like a man accustomed to using it,” he said, pointing at Slocum’s ebon
y-handled pistol.
“There wasn’t any way I could leave horses. We’ve still got a posse on our trail.”
“A posse?” Valenzuela laughed. “You sound like an outlaw. Inside, I thought you to be . . .”
“What?” Slocum turned and squared off.
Valenzuela shrugged and said, a smile curling his lips, “Un pata cojo. I was wrong. I must commend Conchita on her choice in men when we see her. She has told you where to meet?”
“I have no idea where to find her other than in your house where your pa’s dying,” Slocum said. The pitch black hid Valenzuela’s reaction, but Slocum thought the man recoiled at this. “You know how we can get horses?”
“We are across the Bay from San Francisco,” Valenzuela said. “We must cross the Golden Gate. Or we could go north, circle until we get to Oakland, and take that ferry. They did not place San Quentin where it was convenient for any who dared escape.”
Slocum listened hard for the sound of pursuit but heard only the sounds of night and the distant lapping of waves.
“To the Bay,” he said. “We can find a boat that’ll take us across.” He didn’t want to leave a trail. Stealing horses suited him, but not now. The owner would complain to the law, and it wouldn’t take much imagination on the part of any of the San Quentin guards to know the thieves were their escaped prisoners.
“They might not know who has escaped,” Valenzuela said.
It was Slocum’s turn to smile. They thought Jasper Jarvis had broken out. Then he realized that he could tell them he was John Slocum until he was blue in the face, and it wouldn’t matter. They cared less about the man than the crime he committed. As John Slocum, he wasn’t supposed to be in prison, but they saw only a ledger entry. Slocum imagined Sergeant Wilkinson running his stubby, ink-stained finger down a column of names and matching the phony name he found with the very real face of the man he had checked into the prison.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.” Slocum started walking just off the road. The shoulder was smooth enough so he wouldn’t stumble on many rocks in the dark, but being away from the middle of the road gave him the chance to dive for cover if he heard the search party coming. As he walked, he kept an inventory of places to hide, spots where he might hole up and shoot it out. No matter what, he wasn’t going back into that prison.
After an hour hiking, they came to the shoreline. In the distance he saw San Francisco. Gaslights burned brightly on either side of a dead black area—the Barbary Coast. That blight on the city held the toughest gangs, the most dangerous outlaws, the worst of the worst. If necessary, Slocum could disappear into that city within a city, but he preferred to travel through the town to the south part of the city itself where Conchita waited with her dying father.
If the old man hadn’t already kicked the bucket. From all the lovely woman had said, he was close to opening death’s door when Slocum agreed to get José out of San Quentin. It had been ten long days, and a great deal could happen in that span when you were nearly dead. Slocum wished he had seen the old man to get a better idea of his condition, but Conchita had insisted her pa remain in a dark room and not be disturbed. All Slocum had heard were asthmatic wheezing and occasional moans.
Slocum scratched bug bites he had received while in the solitary confinement cell, then reached out and grabbed Valenzuela by the arm. To his credit, the man did not cry out but instead looked to where Slocum pointed.
Two men sat on rocks, bent over as they concentrated on some hidden chore. Nearby they had secured a rowboat that would serve nicely to cross the Golden Gate to the city.
“We should kill them,” Valenzuela whispered. “They will notify the prison if we do not.”
Slocum wasn’t averse to killing when his life depended on it, but these two fishermen didn’t deserve such a fate just because they owned a boat he wanted to use.
“Let me talk to them,” Slocum said. “Come quick if you hear gunfire.”
“But—”
Slocum gave Valenzuela no chance to argue. He strode forward confidently, sure he could deal with a pair of men who dragged fish out of the Bay. A few yards away, he stopped. The men were heavily armed. He saw shotguns resting against the rocks where they worked to repair a rope. Both had knives in their hands, and he was sure they had pistols jammed into their belts. They were armed to the teeth.
“Law’s on its way,” Slocum called. Both men grabbed for their shotguns.
“Who’re you?” demanded one of the men. Whatever they were, fishermen didn’t describe their occupation.
“A gent only a few minutes ahead of a big posse. They’re after . . . smugglers,” Slocum said, taking a guess at what the men were up to. From the way they poked their shotguns in his direction, he knew he had hit the nail on the head. What they might be smuggling was beyond him, but it hardly mattered if he could get them to do what he wanted.
“Who tipped ’em off?” The second smuggler was more composed. Slocum took him to be the leader.
Addressing him, Slocum said, “Doesn’t much matter. We’ve got to get across the water, back to the city.”
“We?” The leader laughed harshly. “How are you dealin’ yourself into this game?”
“Four men rowing will get us across the Bay faster than just two.”
“Four?” The leader understood what Slocum meant, whirled, and found himself staring down the barrel of Valenzuela’s six-gun.
“I can shoot them both,” Valenzuela said.
“Four of us rowing’ll make better time,” Slocum said. He walked forward and saw six small caskets secured with iron straps in the bottom of boat. “We might have to leave the contraband.”
“No!”
“Then you definitely need a couple extra sets of hands on the oars.” Slocum let the two smugglers whisper back and forth a few seconds, then pressed his advantage. “We can leave you here with those casks and just take your boat.”
“No! We . . . we can all get across. The tide is out. It’s dangerous anytime, but in the dead of night it’s goin’ to be damned near suicidal.”
“Then let’s get to killing ourselves,” Slocum said. He motioned to Valenzuela to join them. For the first time, he was glad Valenzuela was with him, watching his back, making the right play and doing it without a lot of lead flying. The sound of gunfire might draw the prison guards. By now they must have reached the shoreline some distance along the coast closer to San Quentin.
“You ain’t gonna rob us?”
“We’re honest crooks. All we want to do is stay ahead of the law,” Slocum said with enough sincerity that the two men both nodded at the same time. They climbed into the boat and took their places on the bench seat while the one Slocum pegged as the boss pushed them off. He got them into the choppy water, then dropped the frayed end of the bowline to the bottom.
That explained what they were doing. Without the line, it wasn’t possible to tie up the boat at a dock. On this rocky beach, they had simply pulled the boat far enough onto land and didn’t have to secure it otherwise.
“We take turns. You two start,” the head smuggler said.
“I have a better idea,” Slocum countered. “My friend and you row, then we switch off. That way somebody’s always watching to be sure nothing goes wrong.”
The smuggler thought about it a moment, then agreed. Slocum sat in the stern while the other smuggler took the prow. His boss and Valenzuela took the oars and began rowing.
The Bay proved even choppier than Slocum had anticipated, and by the time they reached the far side, avoiding the curious eyes of soldiers at Fort Point, he was sick to his stomach from the bouncing motion. He thought Valenzuela would make some snide comment about how shaky he was when he climbed onto a low dock at North Beach, but Valenzuela was as wobbly-legged as he was.
“Good luck,” Slocum said to the smugglers.
“We had that already, if we really avoided the law,” the boss said. He reached for his shotgun but didn’t pick it up. “Did we?” he calle
d.
“Did we get away from the law?” Slocum asked. “We sure as hell did.”
The smuggler relaxed. Slocum had told him what he wanted to know.
“We should have killed them both,” Valenzuela complained when they were out of the smugglers’ earshot. “They will ask about a reward. The guards will lie, we will be back behind bars before the sun comes up.”
“I don’t think so,” Slocum said. “I don’t know what they were carrying in those barrels, but they’re not going to the law. Not about us. They want to keep as much distance as we do from anyone wearing a badge.”
Valenzuela grumbled, but Slocum ignored him. He was too busy looking for a means to speed them along their way to the Valenzuelas’ house south of town. He slowed and then stopped when he saw a man shoved out of a carriage hitting the cobblestones hard. He stirred drunkenly on the pavement but didn’t show any other signs of life. The man who had struck him shifted over to the middle of the hard seat in the buggy and started to snap the reins, but one had fallen down in front.
Slocum moved quickly, got beside the horse, and soothed it, then snared the errant rein and held it out to the thief.
“Here you are. You should be more careful, dropping it like that.”
The man was shabbily dressed and looked like a drowned wharf rat. He reached for the rein in Slocum’s hand like a striking snake. Slocum was quicker. He caught the thief’s wrist and yanked so hard the small man became airborne and fell heavily to the pavement beside his victim.
“I’ll cut you!” the thief cried, coming to his feet with a foot-long blade in his hand. The gaslight glinted off the wicked tip as he advanced.
Slocum gauged distances, then swung the rein still in his hand like a whip. The leather strap lashed the thief in the face. As he recoiled from the pain caused by the welt on his cheek, Slocum snapped the rein back, caught the wrist with the knife, and yanked hard.