by Jake Logan
Back in camp Claudia was too excited to eat, but their lovemaking carried a frantic release that reflected more her overwhelming thrill at finding a small stick of wood at the bottom of the pit than being with Slocum.
“Is there any other way to get in?” she asked as she peered over the lip of the shaft where she had fallen in the night before. “I don’t want to have you lower me down there if there is.”
“I tried to find the mouth of the mine where this stope was excavated, but couldn’t,” Slocum said. “Most of the mines weren’t well built, and the roofs collapsed. Getting into any of the ones remaining open is mighty dangerous.”
“Then you’ll have to lower me.”
“Is it necessary?” Slocum wondered at her eagerness to end up where she had been screaming bloody murder to get out the day before. “What do you expect to find down there?”
“I’d let you go,” Claudia went on, not hearing him, “but I could never pull you back up. And you said that smelly bounty-hunter fellow might return. You should keep watch up here. Getting caught at the bottom of the pit isn’t a good idea.”
“No, it isn’t,” Slocum said dryly. He uncoiled the rope and handed Claudia the looped end. She slipped it around her waist without an instant of hesitation, then moved to the pit, looked down, and shuddered before saying, “Lower me now, John. I’ll be back before you know it.”
“I’ll drop the torch when you get to the bottom.”
He lowered her, then lit the torch, let it sputter and got rid of most of the smoky ignition, then dropped it. He saw Claudia clumsily catch it. Then the light was muted as she fell to her knees and began examining the rock fall that had sealed off the stope from the main drift. The black haze rising from the shaft like smoke from a chimney worried Slocum. Wilmer ought to have run his horse to ground by now and would backtrack pronto. This was a beacon to a man with nothing but reward—and vengeance—on his mind.
A loud cry echoed up the shaft. Slocum poked his head over the edge and saw Claudia holding up another stick, clucking in delight. She waved the torch about and called, “Haul me up. I’ve got it!”
Slocum told her to drop the torch, then began pulling. In minutes Claudia was once more in the fresh clean air and away from the sooty torch. Her face was smudged with black, and her usually clean clothing had become filthy. She paid no heed to any of that, which had occupied her so previously. She held up a whole paintbrush in triumph and waved it around so that it caught the sunlight. As far as Slocum could tell, the bristles were chewed off by rats and the wood handle was battered.
“Why is that so important?”
“It . . . it is, John. I haven’t been entirely honest with you up till now.”
Slocum stared at her. She had been lying and he hadn’t realized it? When she blushed at the drop of a hat and always looked guilty when she was telling even the smallest fib?
“I didn’t draw that painting—the finished one. My father did. He came out here months and months ago and—” A catch came to her voice and tears welled in her violet eyes. “He was killed. I don’t know what happened. Not exactly, but the painting arrived in Chicago and I wanted to find the place where he did it. This was his last work and I feel such a connection—I want to feel even more.”
“This was the last place he was alive?”
“I think that’s true,” Claudia said, wiping at her tears. “This is one of his brushes. I don’t know how it ended up down there with the other one, but it did. I recognize it as his favorite brush.”
“Favorite?”
“Oh, yes, John!” She looked so bright and cheerful now that the tears might have been years in the past. “All artists have one or two special brushes. This was my papa’s.”
“How can you tell?”
“Let’s get back to camp. I want to work on my own again, now that I have this for inspiration. It . . . it’ll make everything so much easier for me.”
“You know where he’s buried?”
“Not around here, I suspect. But this was probably the last place he worked. That’s why he sent me the painting.”
Slocum kicked himself for not twigging instantly to the problem with Claudia’s story. If her father had died here, it wasn’t too likely he would have been able to send her the finished painting. He had to have reached some town with an express office. But that didn’t explain why he had left his brushes behind.
“You think he dropped the brushes down the pit on purpose?”
“Why’d he—oh!” Claudia turned and gave him a big kiss.
“Not that I minded that, but what’s got you all hot and bothered?”
“I missed a clue,” she said. Claudia quickly rushed on. “My papa was always one to put things into his paintings to make them his very own. I mean more than the style or the color selection or the brush stroke. He put little things in.”
Back in camp she went to the painting, carefully pulled it from its box, and pointed to the bottom of the painting.
“There it is. How could I have missed it?”
Slocum saw what appeared to be shadows, but they crossed in an impossible way. If Claudia’s father had painted what he had seen, the sun would have cast the shadows in the same direction, not in an X. He checked the distances and locations of the three mines on the distant slope and decided she was right. The spot indicated on the painting was about where the shaft dropped down fifteen feet from the game trail.
“Why’d he want you to know where he had tossed old paintbrushes?”
“Keepsakes,” she said without hesitation. Claudia took the painting back, grabbed her easel and the sketch she had been working on, and said, “I’ll be working. Oh, I feel the muse touching my shoulder, guiding my hand.”
“Muse?”
“Inspiration, John, I am so inspired. I can hardly contain myself.” She kissed him again before he could ask any more questions, and hurried up the slope to begin her work again. Slocum got a hollow feeling in his belly. More was going on than Claudia was telling him. None of her story about her pa made any sense, except the part about someone else rather than her doing the painting. Her sketches were decent, but showed none of the skill in the landscape.
Slocum oiled his Colt Navy and Winchester and made sure both were fully loaded. If he tangled with Wilmer again, he knew that lead would fly. When he finished, Slocum hiked up the hill to see how Claudia was doing. To his surprise, she was nowhere to be seen.
“Claudia!”
“Over here, John. Don’t look. I had to answer a call to nature.”
Slocum wasn’t inclined to look at her because he saw how she had left the second paintbrush resting against the painting. A small arrow had been drawn on the handle at an angle. And on the painting itself was a slender cigar-shaped marking. On impulse, he picked up the brush and pressed it into the spot. The arrow on the brush’s handle pointed back down the valley in the direction they had come to get this far.
“John,” Claudia said, coming up behind him. “I wish you hadn’t seen that.”
“It’s a treasure map,” he said in disgust. If he’d been given a dollar for every map promising immense wealth, he would have been rich—from the dollars, not the hidden treasures. Hunting down such buried fortunes racked up a huge body count and damned little gold.
“In a manner of speaking, I suppose it is,” she said. “I owe you so much. I wouldn’t have gotten from the pit without you and that’s where I found the brush and—”
“How’d your pa come by the treasure?”
“I . . . I don’t know. The note with the painting said there was a fabulous amount of gold hidden and that the painting was the way to find it.”
“We’ve got to get out of here soon,” Slocum said. “The bounty hunter will be back before you know it.”
“But the gold is around here. That’s what the map says,” Claudia pleaded. “We need to go back up the canyon, in the direction where we came. If we go back toward that valley, with the lake where you and I . . .
”
Slocum knew she was making a blatant appeal to him. It fell on deaf ears, but he couldn’t abandon her, nor could he steal one of her horses to get away from Wilmer. Like it or not, he was stuck with following this rainbow to its bitter end.
“How do you know where it’s supposed to be?”
“I . . . I don’t know for sure, but there’s got to be a clue in the painting. We found the shaft where the paintbrush was hidden.”
“Discarded,” Slocum corrected.
“Once I put it on the painting in the proper spot, we know the direction to go.”
“Is the length of the arrow some indicator of how far to go?”
“What do you mean?” Her eyes were as wide as could be with wonder.
“Is there anything on the map—the painting,” he corrected himself, “that shows proportions? Maybe the arrow being an inch long means we ought to go a mile in that direction. Or a hundred feet.”
“A proportion, yes,” Claudia said. “That makes sense. I can measure it against the size of the mine openings. Or something close by. The brush itself!”
Slocum let her fiddle and fuss over the dimensions while he worried over how near Wilmer might be by now. The bounty hunter was too determined to give up, and there had been plenty of time for him to get back. Slocum considered shooting him and taking his horse, but horse thieving was worse than murder. He had to do something to keep out of jail—or worse. Having a rope around his neck and an open trapdoor under his feet wasn’t to his liking any more than tangling with Wilmer.
“I’ve got it, John. Two miles back that way. Oh, yes, come on, let’s go.”
“You go. I’ll catch up with you.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll wait for the bounty hunter,” he said. “There’s no reason to let him know why you’re out here,” he said, giving the one argument that would work best with the woman. Claudia nodded knowingly in agreement. “Get going right now,” he told her. “And don’t worry about hiding your tracks. In this rocky country, it wouldn’t work too well. Just don’t hide too good when you find the right spot or I might not be able to find you again.”
“All right,” she said, then looked up sharply. “Oh, you. You’re kidding me. There’s no way you could miss me.”
“Go,” he said. He let her kiss him, but Claudia’s mind was already on digging up the treasure her father had left behind. Slocum grabbed his rifle from the back of the buckboard and hiked up the hill where she had put her easel. From here he could watch as she drove northward, as well as see the trail where Wilmer had to ride.
Claudia had barely gotten out of sight when Slocum saw the relentless bounty hunter riding along. The man looked to be in pain. This gave Slocum a small bit of pleasure because he knew why every bounce and jostle caused such discomfort to the bounty hunter, but even the cactus spines in his privates didn’t deter Wilmer.
Slocum looked for a better spot to get the drop on the bounty hunter, and found it quickly. He scooted down the hill and walked quickly toward the pit where Claudia had found the brush. Just above it on the hillside provided good cover, and Wilmer would ride along the game trail. If he fell into the shaft, so much the better for Slocum, but counting on that happening was a fool’s game.
He levered a round into the rifle’s chamber and waited for less than ten minutes for the bounty hunter to ride into view.
“Stop right there,” Slocum called when it was apparent Wilmer wasn’t going to tumble headlong into the pit.
“Neale!”
“I’m not Neale,” Slocum said wearily. “I want you to give up following me. I’m not the outlaw you want.”
“Are too. I got a good memory fer pitchurs, and that’s as ugly a face as I can remember seein’!”
Slocum stood, swung easily, aimed, and fired. Wilmer jumped in the saddle, then checked himself for holes. Slocum had not shot him in cold blood. The bounty hunter turned to see what Slocum already had.
“Outlaws!” Slocum cried. He recognized the lead rider as the one named Dusty. He fired steadily and brought Dusty out of the saddle with a decent shot so the rider fell heavily to the ground. He didn’t move once he flopped down onto the dirt. Three other road agents crowded close behind and began flinging lead all over.
“Land o’ Goshen,” cried Wilmer. He swung around, ignoring the bullets whining past him as he looked from Slocum to the outlaws and back. “Yer right. Yer not Neale. That’s Neale!”
Slocum blinked when he saw the man who had ridden directly behind Dusty. He thought he was looking in a mirror. He started to shoot Neale, but Wilmer was already firing wildly. As tenacious as the mountain man was as a tracker, he was a piss-poor marksman and scattered the outlaws rather than hitting any of them.
Wilmer got his horse turned around and charged straight into the guns trained on him. Wilmer had to lead a charmed life because not a single bullet found him.
“I’ll git you, you varmint,” he shouted as he rode straight for Neale.
Slocum stopped firing, and slid down the slope in time to catch the reins of Dusty’s horse as it tried to bolt and run away from the gunfire. He swung into the saddle and stayed low as he left the bounty hunter and the outlaws far behind to shoot it out. No matter what happened, Slocum figured he was safe.
The outlaws didn’t know who he was and probably didn’t care. And Wilmer was content with actually spotting Neale and going after him.
Slocum stayed low and galloped away, looking forward to finding Claudia Peterson again. He doubted her pa had left behind any gold, and Slocum knew a better way to hunt for treasure with her.
9
Claudia Peterson had traveled more than a couple miles. Slocum overtook her back in the meadow where she had come across him earlier when he had been on foot. He slowed his headlong retreat and looked down at the woman. She barely acknowledged him since she was so busy setting up her easel with its painting and the brush.
“Wilmer and some outlaws are shooting it out,” Slocum said.
“Then they won’t bother us,” Claudia said, not even looking up. She turned the brush around until it fit in the proper place, then dragged her finger over the wood, tracing the arrow and checking with the painting. Her shoulders slumped as she looked up. “I don’t know what to do now. The painting was of the mines back in the canyon, but the clues lead here.”
Slocum considered simply getting his gear and leaving her to the hunt. He doubted she would find so much as a corroded penny out here, but in spite of having a horse now and being able to travel without her, he knew she was in deep trouble if the outlaws found her.
He dismounted and went to the easel. A bit of estimation showed she was right about distance and direction.
Claudia was also right about the lack of direction now that they had left the spot where the painting had been made.
“What’s that?” Slocum pointed to a small stand of trees at the bottom of the painting.
“Trees. So?”
“So the entire canyon had been cut clean as a freshly shaved preacher to use as the support beams in the mines. There might have been trees in the canyon at one time, but not now.”
“You’re right! This has to mean that the treasure is in a grove of trees. But where? There’re nothing but trees!”
She spun in a complete circle, causing her skirts to billow out and show a bit of ankle. Slocum took a deep breath and settled his emotions. He had to use his head, not other parts of his anatomy.
“Your pa had something in mind. You’re the one who can figure it out.” Slocum licked his lips and considered riding on again. Then he imagined he heard distant gunfire and smelled pungent gunsmoke, and knew he couldn’t leave Claudia behind. The horse he had taken from the dead outlaw gave him too many options, and they got in the way of what he knew was right. He couldn’t ride away from Claudia until he was certain she was safe.
“You’re right. I came this far. I can’t give up. Not when . . . when he wanted me to have the gold.”<
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“Why didn’t he just come out and say where the gold was hidden?”
“Papa was always very secretive. He and . . . the rest of my family. We never shared much,” Claudia said contritely. Then she smiled. “But I won’t mind sharing with you, John. Anything.”
“You’re offering me some of your hidden gold?”
“For all you’ve done so far, you deserve it. I would have been a moldering corpse at the bottom of that shaft without you.”
“I’ve got to tell you this and hope you understand,” he said. He took a deep breath. “Those outlaws Wilmer is tackling will probably kill him. There are too many for even a lucky, tough galoot like Wilmer to get the better of.”
“So?”
“The outlaws are probably after the gold too. If it is worth you coming all the way from Chicago, it’s worth their time to kill a few people—including you—to get it.”
“They can’t do that! It’s mine! Papa wanted it for me. He owed me.”
Slocum didn’t bother asking why Claudia thought that. She did and that was good enough to keep her hunting, no matter how many road agents came sweeping through this peaceful valley.
“I don’t know if the outlaws have a hideout around here. Probably do. It might be that they know nothing about the gold. Was it stolen?” A dozen possibilities ran through Slocum’s mind. The gold mines dotting the region might not all have come up barren of ore. A shipment from even one decent mine would provide a small fortune to whoever stole it. Or there might have been a stagecoach robbery, or the cavalry could have lost a payroll. That explained the campground Slocum had found and the large number of soldiers that had bivouacked there. Claudia’s pa had stolen a shipment and, true to military thinking, they had locked the barn door after the horse was gone. No other horse could escape, and no new payroll shipment could be hijacked without facing a couple dozen soldiers, but the robbery had gone unpunished and the gold had never been recovered. There were other possibilities where the gold might have come from, and none of them entailed honest hard work on Mr. Peterson’s part.