by Jake Logan
“John, help me! I can’t swim!”
Slocum heard Claudia’s words in the far distance, as if she were riding a train and disappearing into a tunnel. He almost laughed. Swimming had nothing to do with staying alive in this flood. No one could swim in this. No one could survive it. Slocum’s head hit a rock and it dazed him—and he kept riding the tide downhill.
“Gotcha, gotcha, Slocum.”
He heard the words, but the grip on his shoulder failed. He was soaked through and through and the power of the water hurtling down to the bottom of the canyon was too great to resist. Slocum finally stopped fighting the water and tried to roll with it. Eventually, after an eternity, he flopped out flat on his belly, shaken and gasping for breath.
He pushed up to his hands and knees, still blinded by the driving rain. The torrent had passed, but the sky had opened up and kept pelting him with watery fists hard enough to drive him back flat on the ground. A cactus under his belly prompted him to roll to the side and get away from the pain it caused.
Slocum finally sat up, plucked out the nettles, and then struggled to his feet.
“Slocum, help. I cain’t move!”
Wilmer’s call caused him to pivot and home in on the sound of the bounty hunter’s voice. Through the rain he saw the man clinging to a splinter of rock. Sheer terror was etched on Wilmer’s face. This more than anything else got Slocum moving to his aid. When he got closer, Slocum saw the reason for the man’s fright. His feet dangled over a sheer drop. If his arms lost their death grip around the needle of rock, he would plunge down more than thirty feet.
“Git me up ’fore more rain washes down from above,” pleaded Wilmer.
Slocum sized up the situation, cautiously edged forward, and planted his feet against rocks that seemed secure. He used both hands to grab one of Wilmer’s wrists.
“Pull, damn your eyes, Slocum, pull! I cain’t hold on no longer!”
Even as the words slipped from his mouth, the bounty hunter’s strength disappeared. Slocum suddenly supported the man entirely, his grip on Wilmer’s wrist slipping instant to instant because of the rain. He dug in his heels, bent his legs, and heaved with all his might. Wilmer flew up in the air and landed on solid ground like a fish pulled out of a stream.
“Dang, Slocum, that was close. Too close.” Wilmer hazarded a look toward what would have been his fate, then shuddered and turned his head.
“Get away from the edge. I can’t fling you around like that again. I’m all tuckered out.” Slocum pulled his hat down farther on his forehead and blocked most of the rain aiming to blind him as he backed away from the cliff.
“Don’t see gully-washers like that too often, but enough,” Wilmer said, picking his way from the verge and finally dropping down with a huge boulder between him and the drop-off.
Slocum looked around in the driving rain for Claudia, but couldn’t see her. He called her name, but got nothing but distant echoes of the rain pounding into the rock as an answer. He’d started to make his way back up the steep slope when he felt Wilmer’s heavy hand on his leg.
“Where you goin’?”
“To find Claudia. If we were washed down the hill, what would have happened to her?” He and Wilmer were strong enough to fight the water—a little—and survive. Claudia was burdened by heavy skirts and had nowhere near the strength required to hang on against that torrent of water gushing downhill.
“You’re goin’ in the wrong direction to find her,” Wilmer said. He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder. “She’d have been washed over the cliff.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Go on, waste yer time and energy,” Wilmer said. “It’s hard enough to sit in the rain. Fightin’ it’s a damn fool thing to do, Slocum, and you know it. Set yerself down and wait it out. You’ll find her quicker after the rain’s petered out.”
“What about Goggins? He knows where the gold is hidden.”
“He don’t know squat. If he knew where Peterson hid the payroll, he’d’ve been out of here like he was plumb shot from a cannon—with the gold makin’ his damn pockets bulge.”
“He’s not staying because of the mining,” Slocum said, reluctantly agreeing. The abandoned mines on all the hillsides were mute testament to how little pay dirt had been removed from this area of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
“Why’d Peterson go and scratch Goggins’ name into the mine wall like he done?” Wilmer pulled up his legs and hid his face between his knees to protect himself from the incessant rain.
Slocum chewed over what the bounty hunter had said. It all made sense, and yet none of it did. Had Goggins been searching every single mine for the hidden gold? That sounded like about the stupidest thing Slocum could conceive of—unless Goggins had some clue to the hiding place and was trying to locate it. With the painting, or with Claudia, he might have the final piece of the puzzle.
“We’ve got to find Claudia,” Slocum said, getting to his feet. As slick as the rocks were, he made his way through the rain to the destroyed shack. All he found were flinders. The wall of water had struck the shack and split it into two roughly equal segments. He and Wilmer had been washed one way while Goggins and Claudia had gone off at an angle. Constantly wiping the rain from his face, Slocum stared into the gray gloom in the direction Claudia had been carried away. He hated to admit that the bounty hunter was probably right. Claudia would have been washed over the cliff.
He walked a few paces and stared at the ground. The heavy rain had washed away any trace of Claudia’s or Goggins’s tracks. The deep gully carved into the hillside was his only guide as he made his way lower, angling farther from the cliff as he went. Hope soared. Claudia might have avoided a plunge to her death.
The incline was steep, but not a sheer cliff, as Slocum went ever lower and eventually came out in the canyon below. He pulled down his hat brim to protect his eyes as he looked back. He caught glimpses of the terrain now that the rain was letting up a mite. Heaving a sigh, he began hunting for Claudia on the canyon floor. When he reached the spot at the base of the cliff where Wilmer had dangled, he looked up.
The rain was about over.
“Wilmer!” he shouted. “You still up there? I’m below, looking for Claudia and the prospector.”
He waited, but the bounty hunter didn’t poke his shaggy head over the edge of the cliff. Slocum shrugged it off. Wilmer had a fear of heights, he figured, especially this one after he had nearly plunged to his death off the precipice. He turned back to hunting for any trace of Claudia, but eventually gave up. The rain had permanently eroded the landscape and washed huge boulders lower on the mountainside. There wasn’t any track Claudia could have left that would have survived such a downpour.
Slocum squeezed as much of the water from his shirt as he could, and his boots squished as he walked. This didn’t stop him from prowling about as he hunted for Claudia. He called a few more times, but got no answer. The smaller animals were finally poking their heads out of their burrows to see how the rain had changed their homes. He considered taking a rock to the head of a rabbit and fixing a fire. Rabbit meat and warmth seemed like a good combination.
If he were lucky, the odor of roasting meat would bring Claudia and Goggins running. If Lady Luck turned on him, he could attract Neale and his gang.
Before he could do much in the way of hunting for dinner, he caught sight of a piece of cloth fluttering on a prickly pear spine. Slocum snatched it up from the tangle of nettles and looked at it closely. It had been torn from Claudia’s skirt. He spun in a full circle, then examined the ground. If she had passed this way after the rainstorm, her tracks would be obvious, even on the rocky stretches all around.
Slocum laughed with joy when he saw distinct footprints, just the right size to be Claudia’s, leading back in the direction of the meadow. That wasn’t a smart way to go with Neale and his gang patrolling there, but she might not know where she was. Try as he might, Slocum couldn’t find any spoor showing that Goggins was st
ill with her.
Trooping along the gravelly bank proved the easiest way of travel. Thick streams still flowed in the bottom of the usually dry arroyo as more runoff from the hundreds of square miles of solid rock poured through the canyon.
“Slocum? That you?”
Slocum’s hand went to his Colt Navy; then he checked the draw when he saw Wilmer making his way through the debris left by the storm.
“I thought you were going to stay on the mountain,” Slocum said.
“Changed my mind. A fella can do that, can’t he?”
Something about Wilmer’s attitude made Slocum edgy. The bounty hunter was defiant and wouldn’t look him in the eye.
“What’d you find?”
“Didn’t find nuthin’. How about you?”
Slocum held up the piece torn from Claudia’s skirt. Wilmer scowled as he turned it over and over in his hand, fingers rubbing intimately against it.
“Yep, that’s hers. She headin’ back to the meadowlands?”
“Don’t know if Goggins is with her,” Slocum said, turning to look ahead. He stumbled and fell to his knees when Wilmer clubbed him with a piece of wood washed down from higher in the canyon. Slocum tried to pull out his six-shooter, but Wilmer hit him a second time, this blow landing on Slocum’s upper right arm. Needles of pain danced the entire length as his hand numbed and his fingers refused to grasp the ebony butt. A third blow crashed into the middle of Slocum’s back. He fell facedown on the wet ground.
“Sorry ’bout this, Slocum. Cain’t see any profit in stayin’ around much longer. Especially not now. Not when ...”
Slocum thought the bounty hunter’s words faded away, but he was dimly aware that he was losing consciousness. He held on grimly, refusing to black out. Whatever Wilmer was up to had to be stopped.
Through the roaring in his ears, Slocum heard Wilmer call out, “Over here. I got ’im here.”
The clop-clop of hooves approached. Slocum turned a little and wiped dirt from his eyes to see Marshal Hanks riding up, a shotgun resting in the crook of his arm. He could swing that around and cut Slocum in half before the Colt could be dragged from its holster.
“You did get him, didn’t you?” the marshal said in amazement. “I woulda spent the rest of my natural life trackin’ the bastard. He alive?”
“Yep, that he is, Marshal.”
Hanks sounded a tad bitter about it when he said, “Then you git the hunnerd dollars.”
“Now? Do I git it now, Marshal? I want to be on my way soon as I kin move my cracker ass outta these mountains.”
“Suppose it’d be all right,” Hanks said. “Here’s the money. Now where’s the varmint’s horse?”
“Ain’t got one, Marshal. I don’t neither, but I been walkin’ all my life and I aim to keep doin’ so.”
“Then git to puttin’ one foot in front of the other,” Hanks said. “I got some interrogatin’ to do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Questions, Wilmer, I got questions to ask of Mr. Neale.”
“Not Neale,” Slocum grated out. “I keep telling you that. I’m not Neale.”
“Shut up,” Wilmer said, a note of desperation in his voice. He didn’t want Slocum convincing the marshal he wasn’t the outlaw leader. That would destroy his chances of collecting the hundred-dollar reward. Worse, Slocum was sure the bounty hunter would plug him and collect the twenty-five dollars rather than lose everything. Better a dead imitator than a living one able to convince the marshal he had the wrong man.
“Here’s your bounty,” the lawman said. Slocum saw a brown blur as a small leather bag was tossed through the air. Wilmer caught it deftly, peered inside, then tucked it away.
“Much obliged, Marshal. Hope the hangin’ goes quick.”
“It’d better,” Slocum snarled. “You won’t be able to run far enough.” He grunted when Wilmer kicked him in the ribs.
“Hey, don’t go damagin’ the goods,” Hanks piped up. “Git on outta here, Wilmer, ’fore I take you in for obstructin’ justice.”
“Nice doin’ business with you, Marshal,” Wilmer said.
Slocum fought to get to his feet. When he did, he was looking down the twin bores of the marshal’s shotgun.
“Hand over that smoke wagon of yers, Neale.”
“I’m not Neale. My name’s Slocum. I—”
“Shut up. Mosey on over to those trees. Do it or I’ll hogtie and drag you.”
Slocum did as he was told. Hanks dismounted, stuffed Slocum’s Colt and holster into his saddlebags, and then followed.
“Set yerse’f down and put your hands behind you.”
The marshal was expert at tying up prisoners. Slocum’s hands were secured, and then the lawman worked on his feet. When he was finished, Slocum couldn’t hardly wiggle, much less put up a fuss when the questions began flying.
“You hid that payroll, Neale,” Hanks said. “Make it easy on yerse’f and tell me where it is.”
“Even if I were Neale, I wouldn’t tell you. You’d just steal it for yourself.”
Slocum barely turned to avoid the worst of the blow Hanks delivered to his jaw.
“Don’t go mouthin’ off,” the lawman ordered. “You’ll only make this worse ’fore it’s over.”
“You ever intend to take me back to Las Vegas?”
“You gotta stand trial. It’ll go easier if you confess and let me turn back the gold to the Army.” He hit Slocum again, knocking him to the ground. In this position, Slocum’s ear pressed into the ground.
“Someone’s coming,” Slocum said, hearing the pounding of horses through the ground. “You might want to get ready. It’s likely to be Neale or some of his gang.”
Hanks took to high ground, dropping bell-down on a high rock. Slocum struggled against the ropes, but couldn’t loosen those on his hands. The ropes binding his feet were a tad looser, but it would require a considerable amount of work to free himself. He doubted Hanks would give him the chance.
“Son of a bitch!” the marshal exclaimed.
Slocum propped himself up and saw what had brought the curse to the marshal’s lips. Neale rode with two of his henchmen.
Slocum kept silent as the outlaws rode past not fifty feet away. He craned his neck around to get a look at Hanks, but the marshal was nowhere to be seen.
When Neale had disappeared, Hanks walked around the rock, looking shaken.
“Do you believe me now? My name’s Slocum. That’s the gent you want for the payroll robbery. That’s Neale.”
“You’re the spittin’ image of him, but—”
“But nothing!” raged Slocum. “He’s getting away. He’s the outlaw. He robbed the Army of its gold.”
Hanks took a step toward him, looking confused. Then determination settled him down.
“You stay put,” the marshal said. “I’ll nab him and compare the two of you. I done paid fer you and I don’t wanna make a mistake ’bout which of you is Neale.”
“Let me go. You can’t—” Slocum was talking to empty air. Hanks had swung into the saddle and was foolishly trailing the three outlaws. In less than a minute he was gone from sight. In two minutes, Slocum heard galloping horses. In three, heavy gunfire. And in four, nothing. Nothing but the silence of the canyon after a heavy rain.
17
Slocum struggled to get free of the ropes holding his wrists behind his back, and couldn’t. He rocked over until his hands were under him and began kicking. When a spur caught between two rocks, he began pulling slowly and got one foot out of its boot. It took him a few minutes to get his other foot free and the boots out of the ropes; then he began edging around to get his feet back in.
The sound of approaching riders made him reconsider. He left his boots where they were, struggled to get to his feet with his hands still bound, and stumbled barefoot to get to higher ground and find a hiding place. Slocum fell heavily, landing on one shoulder, when he heard Neale bark out, “There might be deputies. Give the whole area a good going-over, men.�
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“Ah, Neale, that marshal was too dumb to believe. He ain’t got deputies with him. He was alone.”
“Do it. I want to be sure.”
The men with Neale grumbled but came prowling. Slocum wiggled like a worm to get entirely behind a rock before the outlaws spotted him. He succeeded, but the sharp-eyed road agents found his boots.
“Hey, Neale, come lookit this,” one called to his boss.
“Got a pair of boots. Looks to have been tied together with rope.”
Slocum sat up and fought even harder to get his hands free. Hanks might have been a fool when it came to chasing outlaws, but he was too good at tying knots. Getting to his feet, Slocum kept low and began working his way through the rocks in an attempt to get to higher ground so he wouldn’t have the outlaws looking down on him. The rocky ground cut at his feet, but Slocum ignored the pain. It was better than what would happen if Neale spotted him.
“Think he might have hightailed it?” one outlaw asked his leader.
“Find out. Get on up there and hunt him down. Somebody’s got to belong to those boots,” Neale said. “I’ll keep lookout down here in case you flush him.”
Slocum cursed under his breath. Neale was too cagey. Moving heavily, Slocum wiggled into a fall of rocks and scared off a snake. He hardly noticed if it was a rattler or something less dangerous. Even a rattlesnake bite was better than Neale putting a bullet in his belly and leaving him to die.
“Be careful, Joe,” one outlaw said to his partner. “We don’t know if the gent’s armed.”
“How can he be? His feet was tied. Think the marshal did it? Might be one of the gang.”
“Be good for joshin’ around the campfire, if it is. Who you think it might be? That whore’s son Dodge?”
“You know what he calls himself? Ice. Ice Dodge, he wants folks to call him, since he claims he’s got ice water in his veins.”
“He’s afraid of Injuns, he’s afraid of dogs, hell, he’s afraid of his own shadow. Ice?” The outlaw laughed boisterously.