Slocum and the Lady Detective

by Jake Logan

  “You see anybody moving around down below?” Slocum called over his shoulder.

  “I’m watching you,” Elena said. The strain in her voice told him how hard the going was for her horse.

  “If you like, we can dismount and walk our horses.”

  “You just want me on foot so you can get away.”

  Slocum snorted. The trail was hardly wider than his shoulders, sloped downward steeply, and had an inch-deep layer of mud in the good places. The only way to escape fast would be to step over the brink and fall fifty feet to where the road switched back lower on the valley side.

  Fifteen minutes passed and the sun was almost directly overhead. Slocum’s belly growled from lack of food, and his canteen was almost empty. To make matters worse, he saw the glint of sunlight off polished metal below.

  “Why are you stopping? Keep going. I want to reach the valley bottom before my horse collapses under me.”

  “There. See it?” Slocum pointed. He looked back and saw Elena wasn’t following the line of his arm and finger. He stabbed out more emphatically, and she finally looked. She caught her breath. “There’s at least three men down there, about where the trail feeds out into the valley. They’re waiting for us.”

  “Do you know them?”

  “I told you before, I just got into town. I’m not riding with any gang, much less those owlhoots.”

  “We can’t retreat. Why, there’s hardly room to turn our horses around. And that’d leave you behind me all the way to the summit.”

  “Might be a better view,” Slocum said. She shot him an angry look.

  “We keep going. They might not be your cronies. Or if they are, I expect you to lie and say I am with you and to take us to whoever’s the boss.”

  “If they’re smart enough to have avoided getting caught so far, that story’d never be believed. You’ve got my gun. A man with an empty holster’s likely to be a prisoner, not whatever you’d want them to think we are.”

  “Don’t get smart with me.” She chewed her lip. “I can return your six-shooter, but I’d take out the bullets.”

  “Keep it,” Slocum said. “I have the feeling we’re going to be shooting our way out of an ambush, and reloading takes time.”

  “Where’d they go? I’ve lost them.” The hint of panic told Slocum the lady detective wasn’t sure what to do next. She was wrong about the width of the road, but that probably came from her uneasiness riding astride a horse. He wondered what other trouble her lack of experience might be getting them into.

  “It’s not much of an ambush if your victim can see you.”

  “But you spotted them!”

  “They don’t know that. If the sun hadn’t been directly overhead, there wouldn’t have been any reflection off their gun barrels. Might be the sun’s past zenith now, and that’s why they vanished.”

  “Or they intend to shoot us as we ride out.”

  Slocum rubbed his leg back and forth across the sheath holding his Winchester. Elena hadn’t thought to take it or remove it and leave it back in the Leadville stables. The rifle might prove more useful than a hand gun when the fighting started. And Slocum had no doubt that it would.

  “Here,” she said, riding closer so her horse brushed up against the flank of Slocum’s mare. Left-handed, she awkwardly pulled his Colt from her purse and tossed it to him.

  He caught it in both hands to keep from dropping it into the mud. A twinge cut through his side, reminding him of his limitations.

  “Why’d you change your mind about me?”

  “I didn’t. There’s no other way I can see out of this trap.”

  “If I’m in the gang, all I have to do is call out to them and shoot you.” Slocum held his six-shooter so that it was aimed past Elena but only a small shift would bring it to bear.

  “Are you?”

  “I’m not in the gang. I don’t know who they are or anything about counterfeiting.”

  “In that case, here,” Elena said. She rested her gun on the saddle in front of her and fished around in her purse for the six cartridges she had removed from his Colt. Leaning forward, she handed them to him.

  Slocum caught her wrist and considered pulling her off the horse. Instead, he took the bullets and reloaded. Barely had he slipped the final round into its chamber when a bullet ricocheted off a rock above his head. A split second later, the report from the rifle reached him.

  “They decided not to wait,” he told her.

  “What’ll we do, John?”

  “Two choices. Die or die fighting.”

  Three more bullets dug muddy graves for themselves in the trail as the unseen sniper worked to find the range.

  “I don’t like those choices,” Elena said.

  Slocum didn’t either, but he saw no way out of the ambush.

  5

  “We’ve got to get away!” Elena Warburton’s voice almost broke with fear. She fired several times, causing their horses to rear and kick out.

  “Stop that,” Slocum snapped. He pulled his rifle from the saddle boot and levered in a round. “We can’t see them, but they can see us. Don’t waste your ammunition.”

  “But, John—”

  Slocum lifted the rifle to his shoulder and used his knees to urge his mare down the trail. Alert for any movement below, he found several spots where the hidden sniper might be. At the first movement in a bush near a stunted cottonwood, he swung in that direction and smoothly pulled back the trigger. The recoil had barely died when he was doubled over in pain. He had twisted, hurting his side.

  The pain saved his life. Three slugs ripped through the air where his head had been only an instant before.

  “Missed,” he grated out. “Ride faster. Follow me.”

  “But they’ll kill us!”

  “Better to take a bullet in the chest than the back,” he said, biting back a cry of agony as he swiveled in the saddle. He fired a second time. This time his slug grazed the limb of the cottonwood and tore through vegetation. He heard a loud curse. He hadn’t killed the sniper but had spooked him.

  “Faster,” he heard from behind. Elena snapped the reins and her horse nudged into Slocum’s. The plan was to charge down the trail, giving only a moving target. Most men weren’t that good marksmen. Slocum had been a sniper during the war and had learned patience others had ignored. Sitting in the crook of a tree for long hours overnight had more than once allowed him to get a decent shot at a Federal officer at first light. The glint of dawn off an officer’s gold braid was all the target he had needed. With one shot he had swung the tide of battle in favor of butternut-clad soldiers more than once.

  His horse slogged through the mud and picked up the pace when the trail began to level off. This provided both a benefit and more danger. Getting off the trail allowed him to dodge in different directions, even as he galloped. At the same time, the snipers no longer needed to fire uphill, which was always a tricky shot over a hundred yards.

  “There,” he said, firing steadily as he rode toward a stand of scrub oak. Slocum heard a horse thundering behind him and hoped it was Elena’s. Taking the time to look wasn’t in the cards. He drew fire from two riflemen now.

  His horse burst through the vegetation circling the knot of trees and into a small clearing. Surrounded by trees on all sides, he grabbed the reins, slowed his horse, and then wheeled it around. Two frenzied beats of his heart. Three. Four. No Elena. Just as he prepared to leave the dubious shelter afforded by the trees to find her, she blundered into the clearing.

  Her clothing was torn, showing she had chosen a different, thornier trail through the woods. Tiny lacerations had turned her face into a bloody mask, and she struggled to control her similarly cut up horse. She straightened in the saddle as a scream ripped from her throat. Slocum aimed his rifle directly at her—and fired.

  Elena threw herself to the side and landed hard on the ground. Slocum wasted no time getting off another round at the man riding after her through the woods. His second shot hit the out
law directly in the chest and knocked him from his horse. The thud as the dead body hit the ground echoed and then vanished amid the frightened neighing of horses, Slocum’s included.

  He used his knees to control his mare so he could get off another shot. This raced deep into the ring of trees and missed its target, but the mere act of firing sent the second outlaw running away. Slocum held off another shot to conserve his ammo.

  He kicked free of the stirrups and hit the ground. His knees sagged as the shock rattled up his legs and into his side. When the red cloud of pain faded a mite, he went to where Elena lay unmoving.

  “Gotta get up. They’re still coming. Don’t know how many.” He looked from her still body into the woods and saw dark shapes moving about. Before he could get his rifle to his shoulder, he heard movement. Elena rolled over and aimed her six-gun directly for his head. Her grip had been firm the other times he had peered down the bore of her gun, but not now. Her hand shook so much she reached out and steadied the six-shooter with both hands. She still shook.

  “You missed,” she said.

  “Didn’t. Got him. He was less than twenty feet behind you and would have shot you in the back.”

  New fire past him sent Slocum diving forward to land prone on the ground where he could get off three more shots. He tried for a fourth, but the magazine had gone empty on him.

  “Got to get a box of cartridges from my saddlebags,” he said.

  “You shot at me.”

  “I hit him.” Slocum stabbed at the air with his empty rifle at the body sprawled a few yards away.

  Before Elena could say a word, he laid his rifle down, got his feet under him, and ran forward in a crouch. He crashed into the ground when a bullet tore through the brim of his hat, but he grabbed and got the fallen man’s rifle. Prying it loose from hands clutched in the rictus of death proved harder than he’d anticipated. He jerked hard, half rolled the man over, and put his finger over the lifeless one curled on the trigger to get off a shot that hit a man coming through the woods on foot.

  “Son of a bitch. Hit me in the leg! Help me, dammit. Help me!”

  The wounded man hobbled back out of sight, giving Slocum time enough to wrench the rifle free. He took several more wild shots into the woods to keep their attackers on the run, then he sagged down. The fight had taken all the starch out of him. Side throbbing and too weak to sit up, Slocum forced himself to roll over and face Elena. It didn’t surprise him that she had the drop on him.

  “Either shoot me or put that away,” he said. He was tired of her not trusting him. Eventually her finger would slip and put him put of his misery. Either that or she had to believe he knew nothing of the gang of counterfeiters.

  “You’re in cahoots with them,” she said. Her confidence had fled and her eyes were wide with fear. “There’s no other explanation.”

  “No reason for them to want to kill me, too?” Slocum pulled off his hat and thrust his middle finger through the .45 caliber hole in the brim. “Another couple inches to the right and a hunk of lead would have blown my brains all over the forest.”

  “You knew they were here, and you led me into a trap.”

  “Settle down and think,” he said. Using the rifle as a support, he levered himself to a sitting position. Then he used the rifle as a cane to get to his feet. A quick glance into the woods failed to reveal any sniper willing to take a potshot at him.

  “You know where their camp is?”

  “It’s not too far off or they wouldn’t have been so determined to kill us—to kill both of us.” He hobbled around and let a bout of dizziness pass. Walking renewed his strength.

  “It was on the map?”

  “All I saw on a map mostly turned to pulp was a dotted line leading to this valley. Whatever’s here is anyone’s guess.”

  “I—” Elena turned and stamped her foot. Her horse bolted and trotted off across the clearing.

  “I’ll fetch it,” Slocum said. He whistled and his mare obediently trotted over. The gunfight had spooked her but not as much as it had Elena’s horse.

  “You’ll stay right here. I don’t trust you!” She pointed her six-shooter at him again, but the wildness was fading in her eyes and Slocum doubted she would shoot him in cold blood.

  “Be right back,” he said, gingerly mounting. He looked down at her. “Don’t go anywhere.” He laughed as she sputtered angrily, then galloped across the glade to retrieve her horse. Halfway across, he saw a man duck back into the woods to his left. Slocum veered from where Elena’s horse had come to a halt for a patch of juicy grass and galloped toward the man on foot.

  Elena screamed in fury at him, but Slocum saw the man rise from the woods, draw his six-gun, and start to fire. Realizing Slocum presented too difficult a target, the man darted back into the woods. As Slocum reached the edge of the clearing, he heard hoofbeats going away. He maneuvered through the trees and came out on the far side to see the rider, head down and riding hellbent for leather, to the south. He rode deeper into the valley, about where Slocum had imagined an X might have been on the water-soaked map.

  Elena’s shouts fading behind him, he tore off after the horseman. He had no idea how many of the gang he faced, but after the skirmish, he knew there was at least one fewer to throw lead in his direction. If he cut this one out from the herd, he would probably reduce the number by half. From the start of the ambush, he doubted more than four snipers had fired on him and Elena.

  He snorted as he thought about the woman. She was pretty and determined, but she needed some sense knocked into her thick skull. However she had gotten the idea that he was part of the gang, it wasn’t going to be easy to change it. Evidence piled high that he was as likely to have been gunned down as she was, probably because the counterfeiters thought he was a Pinkerton Detective Agency operative, too, since he rode with her. The crooks weren’t dimwits and had to know the Pinkertons were after them. Elena hadn’t made much of an effort in Leadville to keep from being noticed. If one of the Eakins hadn’t mentioned her to their boss, someone else in the gang would have. Elena stood out and hardly made an attempt to do her detective work in secret.

  Slocum slowly closed the gap between him and the fleeing outlaw. More than once the man looked back and used his reins to whip his horse to greater speed, but to no avail. His horse tired rapidly.

  “Give up,” Slocum shouted. “I’m not the law, but you tried to bushwhack me.”

  “Go to hell,” drifted back on the wind.

  Slocum hefted the captured rifle, but it was empty. So was his Winchester. He drew his Colt, but the range was too great for a pistol, even if both he and his target hadn’t been bobbing up and down on racing horses.

  He contented himself with drawing closer, but the other rider had different ideas and suddenly veered toward the center of the valley where a river meandered. They hit a grassy meadow, but the outlaw veered again, going away from the river when Slocum came within a hundred yards of him.

  Slocum wondered what the man had been thinking. Cross the river and get away? It would have taken him as long to cross as it would Slocum. That gained nothing except further tiring his horse. Slocum had shown his was more rested and able to overtake him.

  Drawing rein, Slocum looked at the far bank and knew the reason for the outlaw’s path. A campfire’s dying embers sent feeble wisps of smoke into the air. Logs had been piled up to make a knee-high fort, as if someone had thought to defend the camp. From what? The Utes were off on reservations far from their beloved Shining Mountains. No road came down this valley, and the few signs of mining convinced Slocum they had petered out a long time back.

  He came to a quick decision and let the rider head in the other direction. Approaching the river, Slocum judged the current and depth, then walked his horse slowly along the bank until he saw where other horses had churned up the mud recently—as recently as the morning. He turned and looked back toward the trail coming down into the valley from the railroad tracks above. A man with good eyes or
a spyglass could spot travelers in jig time and be waiting to ambush them before they got halfway down.

  Which was exactly what Slocum thought had happened. He and Elena had been spotted, and the outlaws had ridden to gun them down. At this distance, it wouldn’t have been possible for the men to know who came after them—that someone did was good enough.

  Slocum snorted as he realized he had gone along with Elena’s notion that they were after her gang of counterfeiters. Colorado wasn’t the most law-abiding state in the Union. They might have stirred up a nest of rustlers or train robbers or any of a dozen other breeds of outlaw.

  There was one way to find out. He urged his horse forward into the river at the spot where others had crossed recently. The horse balked as the cold water from high mountain runoff swirled around her legs. Then it was Slocum’s turn to shiver as the water worked its way up his legs. Horse and rider worked their way toward the middle of the river, where Slocum was relieved to find that it was hardly midthigh on him. In a few minutes, the horse scrambled to the other side. The outlaws had found a good ford, because Slocum doubted the fast-running river was this shallow anywhere else nearby.

  He dismounted and took the time to pour the water from his boots. The hot afternoon sun rapidly dried his clothes but the boots would take a while longer. He worried more about his horse and spent a few minutes wiping her down. The horse still shivered but the spring sunlight took care of any chill before he started walking for the small fort made from logs.

  Slocum drew his six-shooter as he got close enough to smell the wood smoke. He scouted the area and saw no one near the camp. He still approached cautiously because he couldn’t see behind the logs piled three high just beyond the fire.