by Jake Logan
“How much farther?”
“Less than a mile,” he said. “I can make out the road.”
“Is that what those lumps are?” Betty said sarcastically.
“I can see the shack,” he said. His voice was low. Betty let out a whoop of glee and sped up, but Slocum worried now. There was no smoke curling up out of the shack to show that the women had kept the fire going. If they had not posted a guard at night to watch the fire and to feed it, they might have all three slept—and frozen to death.
Ten minutes longer brought them to the shack.
“Wilhelmina!” shouted Betty. “Sarah June! Tabitha! We’re back. We made it back!”
She struggled to move the door aside and get into the shack, but Slocum knew what she would find inside.
“They’re gone! John, they aren’t here.”
“The wagon and team’s gone, too.” Slocum cursed under his breath. His horse was also missing.
“What happened to them? Those two mountain men?”
“Dead,” Slocum said.
“Maybe not them. There might be others,” Betty said. Slocum saw tears forming in the corners of her brown eyes, but the tears never spilled. It was too cold for that. She hastily brushed them away and left tracks of snow behind on her cheeks.
“There wouldn’t be any others. Kennard and Grubstake would have run them off. They thought of all this as their land like a wild animal finds its range and protects it to the death.” As he explained to Betty how mountain men thought, he walked around the exterior of the shack, trying to make some sense of the tracks he found.
“But were they kidnapped? They wouldn’t have just up and left us, would they?”
“You tell me,” Slocum said. “You know them better than I do.”
“I don’t know them hardly at all. I told you that. What happened to them?”
“They left us,” Slocum said harshly. “There aren’t any tracks other than theirs. From the way the snow is compressed, they left this morning after the snowfall. That means they can’t be more than a few hours ahead of us. Did any of them know how to handle a team?”
“I doubt it,” Betty said. “I don’t. There’s no reason they would know how to handle farm animals other than to milk cows or tend chickens. Plowing was men’s work.”
Slocum dropped the rucksack by the door of the shack. “Then get started on some women’s work. Fix us a hot meal. There’s still firewood inside you can use.”
“But kindling. I’d need—”
“Here,” Slocum said, pulling Kennard’s Bible out of his pocket. He had already used a portion of the pages to start their fire in the cave. “Put this to some use.”
Betty took it and shook her head. She laughed ruefully. “I was always told it would be my salvation. Reckon they were right.”
Slocum saw that her good humor was slowly returning. While she fixed food for them, including enough coffee to warm him all the way down to his toes, Slocum hiked to the top of a nearby hill. Shielding his eyes against the glare of the sun off the snow, he followed the tracks as far as he could. He thought there would be a good chance that the three women would have retraced their way to Baxter Pass, but they were pushing on. He nodded at this. It was smarter going on, even if they did not know the terrain, than to retreat.
He slipped and slid down the hill to the shack when the cooking aromas reached his nostrils. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and for a moment was transported back to Calhoun, Georgia, and his ma fixing their noon meal. The illusion vanished when Betty called.
“Come and get it or I’ll eat it all myself!”
He joined her. The inside of the shack felt positively tropical in comparison to the exterior. She had done a good job with their limited supplies. If anything, she might have gone a little overboard because it would take some time catching up with the wagon.
“How long?”
Slocum blinked. It was as if Betty had been reading his mind. Or was there anything else for him to be thinking about?
“A couple hours. I couldn’t see them, and there’s almost two miles of road visible. How much beyond that they’ve gone, I can’t say.”
“Why’d they leave us?”
“Reckon that’s a question to get answered when we catch up with them. Right now, it’s you and me.”
Slocum saw Betty look up sharply. Their eyes locked. Slocum knew they could spend another couple hours quite pleasurably if he only made a move in that direction. If their situation had not been so desperate, he might have decided to linger. But they needed food, and he was worried about the three inexperienced women driving along an icy road in the Rockies.
“We’re a team,” Betty said without much conviction. Slocum knew a moment had passed, and he had disappointed her. That seemed less important than getting back on the road.
“The going will be easier now. We can follow the wagon tracks.”
“The snow’ll be crushed down,” she agreed. Betty pulled the blanket tighter around herself and finished eating in silence.
Slocum packed what he could, warmed his hands one last time at the fire, then kicked snow on it to extinguish the flames. Rucksack in place, he started tramping along in the right-hand rut. Betty silently began walking in the left. Slocum found himself wanting to talk and yet needing to think about what he had gotten himself into. Taking the money from Preen for delivering the four mail-order brides had been necessary to pay off his debt to Jenks, but the chore was turning into something more than he expected. He cast a quick sideways glance at the brunette, who stoically marched along, trailing the blanket now so that it dragged in the wet snow.
Betty was pretty and she was certainly expert when it came to lovemaking, but Slocum had trouble with the notion that she was not only running from one husband back in Salt Lake City but going to another in a mining camp in Colorado. Either way, she ought to have been off-limits to him. Still, he considered what had happened between them in the cave as his due. He had rescued her from the mountain men, and that was not covered in the fifty dollars Preen had paid him.
“John!” Betty pointed.
Slocum nodded. He had seen the wooden sign pointing downhill. A narrow route branched from the bigger road, spiraling downward to a small community.
“Must be a mining town. That where you want to go? Braden?”
“No, no, we’re supposed to go to Aurum,” Betty said.
“Aurum? Do tell.” Slocum had not bothered to ask, thinking he would find out when they got to the far side of Douglas Pass.
“What’s so strange about that? Do you know something about Aurum that we don’t?”
“No need to get your dander up,” Slocum said, wondering at Betty’s attitude. “Just a coincidence. A friend of mine’s in Aurum.”
“So you were going there?”
“That’s about the only way I’m likely to collect from my friend. He owes me a few dollars.” Even as he spoke, Slocum pressed his hand into his vest pocket where he usually carried his money. His fingers, numb as they were, traced out the shapes of two coins. One was a silver dollar. The other was a one-bit piece. Not much to keep him going after he parted company with the women and no longer had their supplies to rely on to keep his belly full.
“Small world,” Betty said. “What about that town there?”
“Hasn’t been anybody going to it since the snowfall,” Slocum said. “And the wagon tracks go on, so we go on.”
Betty nodded, as if this revealed some arcane truth, although she was reluctant. He did not blame her. The lure of a town was a hot meal, a warm bath, and maybe a solid roof overhead at night. However, this was not likely to be a prosperous town, caught as it was between the two passes, and might even have become a ghost town, as so many boomtowns did overnight.
They hiked on for another mile, but Slocum began to think he had made a mistake not seeing if Braden was able to offer some shelter. It had been crystal clear all day, but the afternoon brought new storm clouds at the highest el
evations. It took very little for those clouds to slide down the slopes and deliver more snow. Being caught out on the road was not something Slocum hankered to do.
“There,” he called to Betty. He heaved a sigh of relief. “I see them.”
“Where? Where? I don’t—oh, yes, there they are!” Betty jumped up and down with glee and clapped her hands.
Slocum saw the wagon through pine trees. The road switched back and went lower on the far side. He considered hiking along the road, and then decided to take the shortcut directly through the woods.
“Come on,” Slocum said. “We can cut off a good twenty minutes of walking.”
“All right. That makes sense since we can see them.
Shouldn’t you shoot your gun or something so they’d see us and stop?”
Slocum touched the butt of his six-shooter and remembered that he had not cleaned it when he had the chance back at the shack. The lure of hot food and a warming fire had driven it from his mind. Coupled with the worry about the three women pressing on without them, he had good excuses for not cleaning his Colt. That still did not make the fact any easier to swallow now that he needed it.
“Don’t want to scare them,” Slocum said. He plunged into the forest and found the going easier. Snow still clung to the branches above. In less than ten minutes they emerged on the far side behind the women in the wagon.
“Hello!” Betty called. “Wait up! We’re here!”
Slocum saw Sarah June turn in the driver’s box. She jammed on the brake and tugged hard on the reins to slow the oxen. The wagon had not been rolling along too fast, and she got it halted within a few yards. Slocum knew he had arrived at exactly the right time. Going downhill the way Sarah June had been would have caused the wagon to roll right on over the oxen. This was the first big downslope since leaving the shack and required special skills from the driver.
“Betty!” Both Wilhelmina and Tabitha piled out of the wagon and ran to embrace Betty. Sarah June paid them no attention. Her eyes were fixed on Slocum like a hungry mountain lion that hasn’t eaten in a week.
“Good thing we caught up. Why’d you take off like that?” Slocum asked Sarah June.
“The storms worried us,” the blonde said. “If we stayed, we were afraid we might get stranded.”
“But it was all right to strand us?”
“You caught up. We knew you could, John,” Sarah June said. “What kept you?”
“That’s a long story,” Slocum said. He looked up at the sky and began to worry even more. There was only an hour of daylight left, and the storm might engulf them if they pressed on.
“We need to find a level spot to camp,” Sarah June said. Then she followed the line of Slocum’s gaze. “Will it be a bad one?”
“Could be,” Slocum said. “We’d be better off back at the mining town.”
“Town? What town?”
“There was a signpost. Braden.” From Sarah June’s blank expression, he saw that she had missed the turnoff completely.
“Do you think we should go back?”
“I do,” Slocum said, the wind whipping against his face. “Everybody in. We’re heading for Braden.”
“What? Where’s that?” asked Tabitha.
“Tell ’em,” Slocum said to Betty. He maneuvered the oxen around, a few feet at a time, until they were reluctantly pulling the fully loaded wagon back up the slope in the direction of the turnoff.
Slocum heard Betty detailing their adventure, then felt Sarah June go rigid beside him on the driver’s bench when Betty went into far too much detail about the night she and Slocum had spent in the cave. If Betty wanted to count coup, she was doing a fine job. It certainly soured Sarah June mighty fast.
“There it is,” Slocum said. “See the sign? Braden.” He wanted to cut off Betty’s chatter. “We’ll have a hotel to sleep in tonight.”
“Won’t need too many rooms, I suppose,” Sarah June said acidly. “One for Wilhelmina, Tabitha, and me, and another for you and Betty.”
“It’s not like that,” Slocum said, wondering why he bothered to explain to Sarah June or the others. Keeping peace among the women was not part of his job. More than this, he had enjoyed the time with Betty and would be tempted to do it again, should the opportunity arise.
“What should I care?”
“Nothing,” Slocum said to Sarah June. She sat with her shoulders squared, staring ahead as if she could penetrate the gathering twilight with her fierce gaze.
Slocum guided the wagon down the increasingly steep hill, thinking he would have to lock the front wheels at any instant. When the slope was nearing that point, the road leveled out and Braden was fully visible in a hollow at the base of the hill. Slocum had almost hoped the town would be abandoned, but enough of the buildings had smoke curling from chimneys to tell him at least a hundred people lived and worked there.
“Where’s the hotel?” asked Tabitha, with ill grace.
“We might have to stay in the livery stables,” Slocum said, but as the words escaped his lips he saw the run-down hotel. He doubted Braden got much through traffic other than prospectors hunting for gold and the miners on their way to stake out and work claims. Anyone living in Braden would have their own house. Or shack, from the look of the place. He had seen prosperous towns and towns down on their luck. Braden was somewhat less well-off rather than down on its luck.
The women had spotted the hotel and were already vaulting over the side to land in the slush.
“Looks like it’ll get mighty cold tonight,” Slocum said, wiping a few snowflakes off his nose.
“Got that way earlier,” Sarah June said. Then she jumped to the ground and hurried to join the other women. Slocum noted how three of them clustered together and crowded Betty out as they made their way into the lobby. Slocum touched the silver dollar in his pocket and decided it was not worth it to him to stay in that fleabag of a hotel.
He got the oxen pulling toward the livery and gratefully got out of the hard bench seat. He rubbed his hindquarters, sore from both the pounding along the road and the long trek overtaking the wagon.
“You need some space inside, mister?” the stableman called out. “Lookin’ like another storm’s a-brewin’.”
“I wouldn’t bet against that,” Slocum said. “Don’t have much in the way of money to pay, though.”
“Might be we kin swap fer some stuff,” the stableman said, poking through the wagon. “My wife’s always gnawin’ at me like I was some kinda bone to git her fancy duds.”
Slocum started to tell the man he would have to deal with the four women, then he shrugged it off.
“Any two items,” Slocum said, “in exchange for stall space for my horse and fodder for all the animals.”
“That’s mighty generous. You got a deal. And you kin poke around in the straw until you find a comfy spot to curl up in, too.”
Slocum ate a meal out of the supplies he had taken off the mountain men, then did what he could to tend the animals. Before he drifted off to sleep, he made certain his six-shooter was clean and ready for action. Then he spread his blanket in a stall so he could stare out the window above him. A white curve of snow had already accumulated and more continued to fall. The snow blanketed both the ground and noise around, letting Slocum drift off to a much-needed sleep.
Until he was shaken so hard he came fully awake, his hand on his Colt Navy.
“Sarah June,” he said, staring at the distraught woman. “What’s wrong? What time is it?”
“It’s almost dawn,” Sarah June said. “And it’s Tabitha.”
“Tabitha?”
“She’s missing. Kidnapped, John. Somebody snuck into our room and grabbed her not five minutes ago!”
9
A million thoughts flashed through Slocum’s head, but all of them were confusing.
“Tabitha? Not Betty?”
“What? Her? No,” Sarah June said with distaste. She backed away from Slocum as if mention of the other woman reminded her ho
w much she hated him at the moment. Yet she had come to him.
“You woke me out of a sound sleep. Explain what’s going on.”
“Come to the hotel. The others can tell you. Well, Wilhelmina can. She and Tabitha were sharing a room.”
Slocum got his boots on and then strapped his cross-draw holster around his waist. He was glad he had cleaned his pistol now. There was a good chance he would have to use it. Remembering the fights with Grubstake and Kennard made him silently vow to shoot first and then use a knife in any fight.
He pulled his coat around him when he stepped from the cozy stables into the falling snow. It was almost warm until the snowflakes landing on his face and hands melted and turned to ice. Slocum pulled his hat down against the storm and trudged along after Sarah June. She had come out into the dawn without so much as a coat. Her dress was getting wet from the snow, molding to her body in a delightful fashion that Slocum knew he had better not comment on. Otherwise, he might be on the receiving end of a barbed comment or worse. Sarah June might take a swing at him. She had the look of a real brawler when she got riled.
In the shabby hotel lobby were already gathered Betty and Wilhelmina. They sat side by side on a settee. Whatever bad blood had existed between them because of Betty sleeping with him was all gone. They held one another and tried not to cry.
“Oh, John, she’s gone. They took her!” Betty cried openly now. Tears ran down her cheeks and turned her brown eyes bloodshot.
“Who? Did you see who kidnapped her?”
“N-no. We were asleep.”
“Wait, wait,” Slocum said. He tried to get it all straight in his head and knew he was doing a piss-poor job of it. “Start from when you checked in to the hotel. Don’t leave out anything.”
“We came in,” Wilhelmina said. “The clerk is an old man. He hardly noticed we were women.” She spoke with certainty. Slocum doubted any man could have failed to miss Wilhelmina’s willowy body and decidedly feminine form unless he was dead, but he said nothing. “We went to our rooms.”
“Yes,” cut in Sarah June. “Tabitha, Wilhelmina, and Betty were all in one. There wasn’t another room fit for a human. I found a cot and pitched it at the far end of the hall.”