by Jake Logan
Slocum stared at her in disbelief.
“By opening a door I had some privacy,” Sarah June said haughtily. “Besides, who was likely to see me?”
“There wasn’t any room with us,” Betty said. “Two in the bed and I was on the floor next to it. There wasn’t any more room there.”
“So you were on the floor? Who stepped over you to get to Tabitha?”
“I . . . I don’t know,” Betty said, crying harder now. “I should have seen them, but I didn’t. I was so tired!”
“We all were,” Slocum said. To Sarah June, he asked, “Did you hear or see anything out in the hall?”
“I heard footsteps. That was what woke me up. I went to check on them and there was an empty spot in the bed. Tabitha was gone. Somebody stole her away!”
“Looks like that,” Slocum said. He stared out the window in the front door. The snow was slacking off. It would be dawn in another thirty minutes. “Where’s the clerk?”
“Follow the snores,” Sarah June said coldly. “I doubt anything less than a mine explosion would wake him.”
Slocum got the old man awake. Rheumy eyes tried to focus on Slocum, then the man reached for false teeth he kept in a glass of water beside him. He fitted them in, rubbed his eyes some, then got around to asking, “You want a room, mister? We’re all full up.”
“One of your boarders is missing. A tall woman, dark hair with streaks of gray. Somebody spirited her out of her room.”
“Ain’t got a room, mister. Maybe tomorrow,” the old man said, louder now. Slocum realized that the clerk was deaf as a post, in addition to being half blind and needing store-bought teeth.
“Who might be looking for a woman around Braden?” Slocum almost shouted. This got the old man’s attention.
“Danged near ever’ last man in town. Ain’t more’n five women within twenty miles of the town, and there’s close to a hundred miners in these hills workin’ claims. What makes it worse, none of them wimmen’s whores. All wives.”
Slocum remembered the stableman’s swap for tending the oxen and the horse. He must be one of the lucky men with a wife.
“Who’d be most likely to kidnap a woman?”
“Cain’t remember all their names—and I mean all, mister. Ever’ last one of ’em’d do it, if they thought they could git by with it. And they might. Ain’t had a marshal in town ever. Sheriff’s been by once in the past two years. But we git by.”
“Go back to sleep, old-timer,” Slocum said. He returned to the three women, all clustered together now, feud forgotten.
“Did you find out anything, John?” asked Sarah June.
“I’ll need to go hunting,” he said tiredly. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“With Tabitha?”
“With her,” Slocum agreed, but at the moment the odds looked mighty slim on finding her. Going from one miner to the next looking to see if lace curtains had been put up in their line shacks hardly amounted to a reasonable way to find Tabitha. Whoever had taken her would keep her tied up for a week or two, until any chance of someone finding her was past. With the snow falling the way it was, the miner might not even have to tie her. The threat of freezing to death might be greater than her distaste for wherever she had ended up.
“Find her, John. Please.” Betty threw her arms around him. Slocum responded awkwardly, then found himself engulfed by Sarah June and Wilhelmina, too. This was a sight better, but he finally disentangled himself and left, wondering if he had made a promise he could never keep.
Slocum saddled his horse and set off just as people began stirring in town. He had to hurry. The way into town along the road showed only their faint wagon tracks from dusk the day before. Almost three inches of snow had fallen. Enough to leave tracks but not enough to hide a trail.
He hoped.
Circling Braden gave him one distinct set of tracks going out of town. Wagon tracks. These being the only ones he had found, he gave his horse its head to follow. He fell into the rhythm of riding easily and dozed off in the saddle for more than a few minutes at a time. When the snow began fluttering down again, he snapped awake. Slocum pulled up his bandanna to protect his face from the elements and looked around. The road the wagon followed turned and corkscrewed itself higher onto a mountainside. Dotted on the hill were tailings from a dozen mines. Slocum doubted any of them were still producing gold ore—if any of them ever had.
He touched his six-shooter to reassure himself, then started up the steep hill. He knew what he would find at the top: another mountain man or grizzled prospector with no respect for women. See a pretty one and snatch her. One reason so many miners fit in well out on the frontier in communities like Braden was their lack of social graces.
His horse struggled as the way became steeper. Slocum dismounted and walked, wondering how the miner had ever driven a wagon up this hill. When he heard the distant braying of mules, he got his answer. The sure-footed, powerful animals could climb up a sheer cliff, given the time and enough carrots and sugar cubes to keep them happy.
Some distance from the mules, Slocum tethered his horse. He walked the rest of the way, turning a bend in the road and seeing a mining shack with a wisp of smoke coming out a stovepipe. Behind the shack was a rude corral holding four mules. Slocum wondered if the miner had struck it rich. That many animals took some feeding—and they were almost worth their weight in gold in a place like Braden.
Slocum slid his pistol from its holster as he approached the door of the shack. He might knock or he could kick in the door. Either way had advantages. Instead, Slocum tugged at the latch. Open. Carefully sliding it up, he put his shoulder to the door and gently opened it. The heat blasting from the interior was enough to stagger him.
Then he swung in, six-shooter leveled.
It pointed at a man sitting at a table, forking in a plate of beans. The miner, hardly twenty from his looks and maybe still wet behind the ears, looked up in surprise.
“You’re welcome to share my grub, mister. You don’t have to shoot me to get it.”
He had a pleasant voice and sounded educated. Slocum looked around. A small shelf over the cot in the far corner held a dozen books.
Seeing Slocum’s interest, the man said, “I got a degree in geology from Harvard. That’s in Massachusetts. Back East.”
“I know where it is,” Slocum said. “What I want to know is where you’ve got Tabitha.”
“Tabitha? You—you’re not—?” The man stood, kicking his chair away.
“I am,” Slocum said, aiming his six-gun straight at the man’s chest.
“Mr. Smith, you don’t own her. You—”
“Hold your horses,” Slocum said. “My name’s not Smith. What gave you that idea?”
“You’re not Tabitha’s husband?”
“Far from it,” Slocum said.
“Then why are you waving that hogleg around? Put it down. Now!”
The sharp snap of command in the man’s voice might have affected another man, but Slocum had spent too long in the CSA, listening to damn fool officers issue commands that would get their men killed. His gun hand never wavered.
“Where is she?” Slocum asked. “The next time I put that question to you and you don’t answer, I’ll shoot.”
“Go on. You’ll never take her back!”
“Where is she?” Slocum cocked his six-gun and pointed it straight at the man’s head. The young miner turned white and closed his eyes but never flinched.
“You put that gun down this instant, Mr. Slocum!”
Slocum glanced over his shoulder and saw Tabitha holding a bundle of greens.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Put that gun down,” Tabitha repeated. “Of course I am fine. Why shouldn’t I be?”
“He kidnapped you, that’s why,”
Both of them gasped, then laughed. Tabitha pushed past where Slocum stood in the doorway and put the greens she had collected on the table before hugging the miner tightly.
“Edwin didn’t kidnap me. I went with him. Willingly. We’re going to get married as soon as the circuit judge makes his rounds in the spring.”
“You scared the other women something fierce,” Slocum said. “You could have told them you were leaving.”
“I left a note. On my pillow. I detailed how you should leave my chest at the stable and that Edwin and I would return for it later. This load was too heavy to possibly bring all my belongings.”
She pointed to the cot where a single valise stood open. From what Slocum could see inside, it was not Edwin’s.
“Reckon I made a mistake,” Slocum said. He watched Tabitha closely to be sure the miner wasn’t holding something over her. From the way she hugged him so tightly, it might have been the other way around. She had set her cap for Edwin and snared him.
“Could I have a word with you, Tabitha? In private?”
“There’s nothing I want to hide from Edwin.”
“It’s about your trip to Aurum.”
“He knows,” Tabitha said. Her dark eyes shone defiantly.
“Well, seems to me you took money under false pretenses. There’s some gent waiting for his mail-order bride in Aurum and he’s not going to get you.”
“How much?” Edwin asked.
“How much what?” For a moment Slocum was confused.
“The man in Aurum paid one hundred dollars for me,” Tabitha said.
“Did each of them pay the same?” Slocum did a quick sum in his head. Preen had made out like a bandit. Four hundred dollars. He had not paid one hundred for the oxen and wagon, hardly that for the supplies, and another fifty for Slocum’s services. That left Preen some hundred and fifty dollars for doing nothing more than writing an ad and sending a few letters.
“I’ll give you the money,” Edwin said. “You can pay off whoever it was that wanted my Tabitha, so he won’t be out any money.”
“Just a bride. He might get testy about that, whether he loses money or not.”
“I’ll make it a hundred and fifty,” Edwin said.
“This claim must be mighty good for you,” Slocum observed. Edwin said nothing, but the way Tabitha hugged the miner even tighter told the story. Edwin had struck it rich on one of the few mines in the region that actually gave up its gold.
“I told you I was a trained geologist. The instant I saw the outcropping I knew there was gold here. And there was.”
“Now there’s gold and me,” Tabitha said.
Slocum holstered his pistol and shook his head. “There’s no reason for me to complain. I’ll get the best deal I can for you and send anything left back.”
“Keep it for your troubles,” Edwin said. He looked at Tabitha, who mouthed “John Slocum.” “Keep it for your troubles, Mr. Slocum.”
“Can’t complain about not having to fight you for her,” Slocum said.
Edwin then hastily explained what had happened with Tabitha. “She came willingly. We met at the Braden mercantile, and I took her to dinner. I proposed and she said she would let me know. I never thought she would find me in the middle of the night.” The way Edwin blushed told Slocum how Tabitha had found him to seal their pact.
“I ought to get back to town,” Slocum said. “The other women will be worrying.”
“John,” Tabitha said, looking out into the darkness, “might be better for you to stay the night. It’s looking like a new storm is brewing.”
Slocum thought about the offer for a moment, then shook his head. “That’s mighty kind of you, but I have to get back.” The last thing he wanted was to intrude on their wedding night. Getting back to Braden would not be much of a problem as long as there wasn’t a full-fledged blizzard. He doubted that would happen this early in the season, especially after the goodly amount of snow that had already fallen. The clouds would be exhausted for some time to come.
“You know best, John,” Tabitha said.
Edwin handed him a small leather bag and said, “That ought to be about right. I could use my scales but—”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Slocum said, growing increasingly uncomfortable being here because of the way the two looked at each other. He tucked the bag of gold dust away before the pair could rip their clothes off and begin rutting like animals in front of him.
“A cup of coffee to warm you,” Tabitha offered.
This Slocum took. He drank so fast it scalded his mouth and tongue, and then he said his good-byes and left the cabin fast. Outside in the cold mountain air, he shivered as sweat began to freeze on him. It had been hot inside. He grinned crookedly, knowing it would get even hotter before the sun came up the next day.
He took a few minutes to go to the mouth of the mine. He peered in. The shoring was precise and the tracks into the mine were free of rust and had been laid with the same precision shown in shoring up the rock. He picked up a rock and examined it. Not seeing it well enough, he lit a lucifer and peered at it.
“I’ll be damned. He did hit a mother lode.” Slocum started to toss the rock back onto the heap, then tucked it into his pocket. It would be worth five dollars or more, if all the sparkle he saw was real gold. He had no doubt that it was.
Tabitha had landed herself a man destined to be rich. A young, educated man, to boot.
Slocum carefully made his way downhill to where he had left his horse. The twilight had faded and the stars were trying valiantly to pierce the clouds. The best he could tell, there was not going to be another big storm before he returned to town. The few fitful snowflakes falling didn’t seem to have enough heart to build to a real snowstorm.
He swung into the saddle and started back down the steep road when he drew rein and stopped to listen. Hard. Something was not right. Slocum almost shrugged it off as nerves when the gunshot rang out.
A second report echoed downhill from the direction of Edwin and Tabitha’s love nest. When a third shot sounded, Slocum turned his pony’s face and started back up the hill for the cabin, dreading what he would find.
10
Slocum had no idea what he was riding into. The darkness cloaked the mine site, but the foot-long tongues of orange flame lashing outward showed at least two men were firing—into the shack. When no return fire came, Slocum knew that Edwin and Tabitha had to be in serious trouble.
He whipped out his six-shooter and took careful aim as he skidded to a halt. His sights centered just above the spot where he had seen the muzzle flash. How far off the gunman was, Slocum could not tell. He squeezed the trigger, and his trusty six-shooter bucked in his hand. He heard a yelp of pain and saw a new muzzle flash, this time directed into the ground. He had done more than wing the man. He might have hit him smack in the chest.
“Claude, you hit? Did they git you?”
Slocum homed in on the call, knowing it could be a trick to get him to expose himself. He jumped from horseback and let his pony trot out of the way. He could always run the horse down later—if he came out of the gunfight able to ride. Slocum listened and heard the crunch of boots against the newly fallen snow. It was in the approximate direction of the second muzzle flash. Slocum fired three times, one left, one right, and one round in between. He heard a startled cry. He doubted the gunman was as seriously injured as his partner, Claude, but anything that slowed them down was worthwhile.
Hunkering down beside the shack, Slocum reloaded his spent chambers. He scanned the night for movement. Nothing. He edged around to the other side of the shack and waited. His patience outlasted that of one of the owlhoots coming to the shack. For the briefest instant, the man silhouetted himself against the night sky. Slocum fired three rounds. He was certain one had struck the man in the leg, but there had not been a loud response, as there had been before.
Rather than advance to see what damage he had caused, Slocum rapped on the shack door and whispered, “It’s me, Slocum. Are you all right in there?”
“John?”
“It’s me, Tabitha. Let me in.”
“He’s wounded, John. They shot him.�
��
“Who are they?” Slocum duckwalked into the shack. From the light arrowing through holes in the wall, the men outside had simply opened fire, hoping to kill anyone inside.
Slocum blinked when he saw Tabitha. She was naked to the waist. It didn’t take much imagination to guess what she and Edwin had been doing when the bullets started flying. Slocum was glad that he had skedaddled when he had. The woman had gotten naked and was undoubtedly under her husband-to-be when the first bullet came through the wall.
“Here. You know about these things. How is he?”
Edwin was naked below the waist, but Slocum hardly noticed. The huge red spot expanding on the man’s back told the story. Edwin had reared up just as lead tore through his shack wall, catching him in the back.
“Not good,” Slocum said. “Help me roll him onto his side.”
“His side?”
“Put pressure over the wound to keep the hole closed up. I think they got him through the lung. If air gets in, his lung will collapse, and he’ll be a goner.” Slocum didn’t add that he suspected the miner was already a goner, even with all the aid they could give him. “He a chewer?”
“Tobacco? I should say not!”
“Too bad. I need the tinfoil. Is there anything like that? If there is, press it down hard over the wounds—both entry and exit—then tie it into place with a bandage.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ve got some hunting to do,” Slocum said.
Tabitha grabbed his arm. “You have to tell me. Is Edwin going to live?”
“The bullet went through him. That’s good. Having to dig around inside with a knife usually kills more men than it saves. But I don’t know if he’s a fighter.” Slocum saw the concern on the half-naked woman’s face. “His love for you might turn the tide,” Slocum said with conviction. Then he pulled free and opened the door, only to flop on his belly as a new hail of bullets ripped through where a standing man would have been.
“Who are these sons of bitches?” Slocum called to Tabitha.
“I don’t know. I just got here, too.”