by Jake Logan
He looked down on where she stood, paintbrush in hand, dabbing at a drawing. For some reason, she had the completed painting set up on a rock where she could look at it and then glance up into the distance where the spent mines dotted the hillsides like some ugly pox. Now and then she would move the completed painting, tip it, shift its position, and then return to her other sketch. Slocum didn’t pretend to understand how an artist worked, but this struck him as peculiar.
He shrugged it off. The nights were warm and passionate with her, and the days sometimes were also. Claudia had more locked up inside her than he’d expected. It made spending a few more days—or weeks—driving her around the Sangre de Cristo Mountains worthwhile. Sooner or later he would tire of her or she of him, and it would be time to get a horse and ride on alone. Until then, Slocum was like a bear with a limitless honeycomb.
“John!” Claudia threw down her paintbrush in disgust and stood, hands on flaring hips, with a sour expression on her lovely face. “This isn’t right. It’s just not right. I thought it was, but . . .”
He slid down the rock and landed hard. Brushing himself off, he dropped the rifle barrel into the crook of his left arm as he went to study her sketch. It contained the barest hint of what lay in front of her.
“It’s not right. Just not right,” she said. “We need to find another place. See?” She pointed to the completed painting. “There are three mine shafts up and to the right. Here are only two. Two, and I don’t know what that is.”
Slocum squinted into the sun where Claudia pointed.
“Looks like a premature explosion. Might be a miner detonated it prematurely, or hit rock too hard to blast with Giant powder, so he moved lower on the slope.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Claudia said. “I do know we have to find another spot like this, only with three mines in precisely those locations.” She tapped the painting again.
“What’s so important about finding the precise spot? One canyon looks like another to me.”
“No!” The flare of anger lit her face. Then she blushed and looked away, mumbling, “Sorry, John. I am so frustrated. Nothing is going right.”
He came up behind her and put his arms around her quaking body.
“Nothing?”
“Oh, not that, not you, not you and me. I meant this! The drawing is not going well at all. I have to find the precise spot . . . for inspiration.”
“I don’t inspire you?”
“You exhaust me,” Claudia said, turning and tipping her face to his. She kissed him lightly, then with more passion. “Want to exhaust me some more right now?”
He did.
“This might be the place,” Claudia said excitedly. She bounced up and down on the hard wooden seat next to Slocum, her face flushed and her eyes glowing. “There? See the mines? Three of them in the right positions! Oh, John, I’ve found it. I just know it.”
“You’re mighty excited just to be back where you’ve been before,” he said. Slocum didn’t understand Claudia or her reaction. To him, this canyon looked like the one they had just left. He shielded his eyes with his hand and studied the slopes on either side, counted mine shafts, and then realized he had been here before too. On his way from Las Vegas, he had come through this canyon on his roundabout path to Taos.
“This is the place where I can make a perfect picture. I feel it, John, I just feel it in my bones.”
“Nice bones too to feel,” Slocum said. Before, Claudia would have risen to his comment. Not now. She was too engrossed in pointing out various landmarks, hardly more than piles of rock and discarded rubble from deep in the mines.
“Drive in that direction,” she said in a tone Slocum had not heard before. She was ordering him around like a servant in a way that rankled. He almost balked, then did as she wanted. His curiosity was beginning to run wild. If he stayed quiet and let Claudia have her way, he would find what excited her so much.
He guided the buckboard down a rocky road, and stopped only when she grabbed his arm in a steely grip.
“Here. Stop here.” She jumped down and grabbed her easel and the finished painting. She looked around, then hiked up a low hill.
“You want a blank canvas or your paints?” Slocum called after her. It was as if Claudia didn’t hear him. He saw her struggling to get to the top of the knoll, where she put up her easel and began turning it this way and that to align the picture with the actual landscape.
Slocum stared at her in wonder. Everything else had disappeared for her in a flash of recognition. But what had she recognized? Slocum turned from Claudia to the side of the mountain where three open mines gaped. From the look of the entire area, it had played out a long time back. There might be coal here, but the original miners had come for gold and silver and had found precious little. Down south in the Sandia Mountains, the coal mines fed a steady stream of the black rock to the railroad in Lamy. There was almost as much money in coal as there would have been in silver, but not in these mountains.
He jumped down and began unloading enough supplies for a two-day stay. From the way Claudia had worked before, sketching and moving on the same day, he thought two days would be all she required to finish her painting. He scratched his head and wondered about that. She had never let him get a good gander at the painting, but it looked to be complete. She dabbed paint around the very edges of it, but never changed anything important. He shrugged it off. He wasn’t an artist, and knew nothing about what she wanted to depict.
Making a small fire afforded him fresh coffee. He had finished a second cup by the time she came down from her perch atop the knoll, still flushed and anxious.
“Oh, John, this is the place. I’ve found it.”
“Again.”
“What? Oh, yes, I’ve found it again. You brought me straight to it.”
“Seems like we’ve spent the better part of a week meandering through these mountains. That’s hardly coming straight to it,” he said.
“I could have spent a lifetime if you hadn’t already seen this particular canyon and located it for me. You really rode through here when you left Las Vegas?”
“Ran across a couple riders near this spot,” Slocum said. “Might have been the outlaws who shot my horse. This is dangerous territory.”
“It’s magical territory,” she said rapturously.
“Have some dinner,” he said. “I fixed the coffee and can rustle up grub in a few minutes.”
“I want to explore the area,” she said. “Now. Before it gets too dark.”
“The mountains and mines will be here in the morning, same as they’ve been here for years.”
“The light will be different. That’s important to artists. Light.”
Slocum got to his feet.
“I’ll go along, just to keep you safe.”
“Don’t be silly. Fix dinner. I won’t be more than a few minutes. Half hour at the most.”
“Don’t get lost. You’d be surprised how easy it is getting lost out here.”
“I’ve firsthand experience with that,” she said. Seeing his skeptical expression, she added, “In forests. Back in Illinois. It is quite easy to wander off and lose direction in a forest. I learned how to make my way.”
“Doesn’t help much out here,” Slocum said. “The miners stripped the trees off the slopes within months for supports and roofing in the mines. There’s nothing but bare rock left.”
“That makes it all the easier,” she said.
“Makes what easier?”
“Why, finding the right place to do another painting,” she said. Again Slocum wanted to warn her against playing poker. Her face had LIE! written all over it.
“Don’t be too long,” he said.
“I won’t. I want to get back and eat. I’m famished. And then we can . . . celebrate.”
“That big a day for you?” Slocum asked.
“It will be if we celebrate enough,” she said coyly. Blowing him a kiss, Claudia hurried away, going downslope towa
rd an arroyo running through the canyon.
Slocum fixed the grub and nibbled at it uneasily, not sure why he was not anticipating her return. A lovely woman, excited about finding what she had sought, willing to share a blanket with him—why didn’t he feel better? Slocum poked at the food he had fried up in the skillet, then set it down. The sky was turning dark fast. When the sun set in the mountains, night fell with a speed unknown out on the plains—or in forests.
“Claudia!” he called. “Come and get it. Dinner!” Slocum listened hard, but heard nothing. He reached down and touched the butt of his six-shooter. Twilight was a dangerous time to be wandering around. He hadn’t seen any trace of cougar, but this was when they hunted. Nothing else was dangerous enough to matter, unless a wolf pack roved the canyon. Slocum hadn’t seen traces of the wild animals earlier today or when he had ridden this canyon before, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t part of their range.
He called again, and didn’t get a reply. Putting the skillet aside, he got to his feet and followed the game trail Claudia had taken. It turned steep fast, and then veered away from the arroyo where he thought she had been going. Nothing showed she had left the trail.
Slocum picked his way along with increasing caution, both because the darkness prevented him from seeing where he walked and because of an eerie feeling that something was terribly wrong. He saw no reason for Claudia to simply vanish. Slocum drew his six-shooter and placed each foot carefully to avoid dislodging stones and making even the slightest noise. As he made his way along the game trail, he strained to hear what might be ahead.
A strange moaning sound came to him. At first he thought it was the breeze gusting through a crack in the rocks around him; then he realized there wasn’t a breath of wind blowing. He refrained from calling out to see if this was Claudia making the sound.
His cautious walking saved him from falling headlong into a dark chasm in the middle of the path. The game trail simply ended on one side of the hole and kept going on the other. Slocum guessed that miners had cored out the rock under the trail, weakening it to the point where it finally fell into the shaft. The entire area must be a honeycomb of tunnels and shafts, with only the few poking out of the mountainsides visible.
Slocum dropped to his knees and cocked his head to one side. He heard the moaning again, and this time he knew it was human.
“Claudia!”
“John? That you?”
“What happened? Did you stumble into the pit?”
“I didn’t see it. Oh, I hurt!”
“Did you break any bones?”
More moans and then. “I don’t think so. It hurts to stand, but that’s because I bruised . . . myself.”
Slocum held down a laugh. He guessed what portion of her anatomy Claudia had bruised and that she was too discreet to name it. His imagination showed her rubbing her rump and moaning some more.
“Get me out. I don’t think there’s any other way out of here,” she said, her voice stronger.
“I’ll have to get a rope and pull you out. There’s no way I can climb down in the dark without being stranded with you.”
“Hurry, John. It’s cold and damp down here.”
“Is there water seeping in?” Slocum knew miners often drowned by blasting and digging through rock and releasing underground rivers. If a stream had been released, Claudia could drown in a few minutes.
“No, it’s just damp. And cold. I’m shivering, John. Get me out of here!”
“I’ll fetch the rope and then get something warm into you.”
“Is that a promise?”
Slocum laughed as he backtracked to their camp to get his rope. All he needed to do was drop the loop down, have Claudia slip her arms through it, and then pull her up. From the way her voice echoed, she wasn’t farther down than fifteen feet. Still, she was lucky she hadn’t hurt herself seriously taking a spill down a distance like that.
As he reached the camp, Slocum’s hand flashed to his six-gun. He froze. Upslope he heard a horse neighing and its rider mumbling constantly. Slocum left the game trail and worked his way up through the rocks until he reached another trail higher on the mountainside.
A quick sniff warned Slocum whom he was spying on.
“Wilmer,” he said, making the name into a curse. The bounty hunter was either lucky, or about the best tracker Slocum had ever come across. At the moment, Slocum was willing to bet on lucky since Wilmer had missed the camp and its dying cook fire, passing it on his way to the south.
Slocum scrambled the rest of the way to the trail and stood behind the bounty hunter. He drew his pistol and aimed, then lowered it. He wasn’t a backshooter. He had no quarrel with Wilmer other than wanting the man to believe he wasn’t Neale.
Grumbling noisily, Wilmer dismounted and turned from his horse to take a leak. A wild plan came to Slocum. He acted before he could talk himself out of such foolhardiness. He thrust his six-shooter back into its holster, then walked fast to where Wilmer urinated.
Slocum shoved the man hard, sending him flailing into a patch of prickly pear cactus. Before the bounty hunter’s horse could rear, Slocum vaulted into the saddle and put his heels to the frightened horse’s flanks. He galloped off in the dark, not even considering how easy it would be for the horse to break a leg—or worse. It might fall into an open mining shaft like the one Claudia had tumbled down. Horse and rider falling fifteen feet meant death for both. But Slocum wanted to get rid of Wilmer without killing him, if he could, and this presented a good chance of working.
After Wilmer’s outraged shouts died down because of distance and the horse began to tire, Slocum eased back, and finally brought the horse to a stop. He looked around in the dark and finally saw a cholla. Sliding from the saddle, he held the reins tightly to keep the horse from bolting.
“Hate to do this to you, but I want you to run for a good, long time,” Slocum said. He plucked a cane of cholla with nasty, long spines. Lifting the saddle blanket, Slocum laid the cholla down on bare horseflesh, then cinched down the saddle to hold it in place under the blanket. The horse let out a squeal that sounded human and raced off.
Slocum got off the trail and worked his way higher, then started back toward his camp. Almost a half hour of walking brought him even with Wilmer on the trail below. The bounty hunter cursed constantly and walked with a curious bowlegged, rolling gait Slocum considered more appropriate for a sailor just off his ship. He almost laughed when he figured out what had happened when Wilmer had fallen. Slocum was glad he didn’t have the viciously long prickly pear spines in that portion of his anatomy.
He kept on until he returned to the buckboard and checked their supplies. Slocum was glad to see that Wilmer had bypassed the camp entirely. Grabbing his rope from his saddle stashed in the rear of the wagon, he set out on the trail to get Claudia out of the pit. Wilmer might be back in a day or two or he might return sooner, but whichever it was, Slocum needed to let Claudia know her time here was going to be limited—or that it was time for him to move on alone. Wilmer was not going to give up, especially after what happened to him this night.
8
“Grab the rope and loop it around you,” Slocum called down to Claudia. “I’ll pull you out.”
“Wait a few minutes, John.”
“What? Are you hurt? You said you were all right.”
“I was getting mad at you for taking so long. It’s been hours,” she shouted up at him. “Then I found something.”
“What?” Slocum turned wary. She had the sound of a miner who had come across a fleck of fool’s gold. Excitement and hope and visions of fortune mingled to make her sure the world was going to change for her.
“I . . . I’ll tell you later. Let me work a few more—got it!”
“Can I pull you up now?” Slocum’s patience was fading fast. He doubted Wilmer was going to return tonight, or for a day or two maybe, but the bounty hunter had a single-minded determination that might not be snuffed until a bullet ripped through his heart. Slo
cum wanted to avoid that and get into Colorado, away from him and Marshal Hanks and everyone else who thought he was named Neale.
“Yes, I have the rope around my waist. Pull up.”
Slocum took a turn around a rock spire, then began pulling, using his legs to add to the power of the lift. Claudia was a small thing and easily picked up, but pulling her out of the pit required a lot more strength because of the ragged edges to the pit. Tugging, grunting, Slocum finally saw the top of her head appear at the edge of the pit. He yanked hard until she surged upward and flopped facedown on the game trail.
“Whew, you are quite a haul,” Slocum said. She looked up at him in disgust, then her expression changed. She reached down to her waistband and pulled out what looked like a short stick.
“See? I found it! Or one like it!”
“What is it?” Slocum reached for the stick in her hand, but she jerked it away.
“It’s mine,” she said, obviously wishing she hadn’t shown him her treasure.
“I’ve got something to tell you.”
“I have to go back down,” she said, not listening to him. “There’s more. I know it. I don’t know how it ended up there, but I’m so lucky!”
“Not so lucky,” Slocum said, helping her to her feet and dusting her off. He quickly related all that had happened on his way back to the camp, how he had lured Wilmer away and what was likely to happen.
“Oh, pish,” she said. “Why would he want to come back? He never saw you. It could have been anyone who did that to him.”
“Then he’ll want to plug ‘anyone’ before getting back on my trail. He is like the wind. He doesn’t stop and keeps coming, sneaking in through any crevice he finds to chill your bones. I want to hightail it north and leave him as far behind as I can. Otherwise, we’re going to shoot it out.”
“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. It wouldn’t come to that,” Claudia said confidently. “I can go back down at first light. I know where to look, but I might need a torch. You can make me a torch, can’t you, so I can look around better down there?” She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the shaft, making it apparent to Slocum that she hadn’t understood his concern over Wilmer’s return.