by Jake Logan
Slocum understood. The body was in bad shape. He looked around, found burlap bags, and spent the next half hour fashioning a shroud for Heywood. By then Sanders had fetched the wheelbarrow. They dropped the body in, and Slocum wheeled it out into the bright light of the Colorado afternoon.
“You can get it into the wagon,” Slocum said.
“You just want to cozy up to the widow woman,” Sanders said. “Don’t much blame you. She’s real purty.” He grabbed the wheelbarrow handles and got the grisly cargo rolling down to the wagon, where the oxen began to nervously move about. They had caught the scent of the body.
“We got him out, Sarah June,” Slocum said. The blonde stared at Sanders struggling to lift and load her dead husband into the back of the wagon. Slocum wondered what thoughts ran just behind those bright blue eyes. Her husband being carted off to the cemetery in the same wagon that had brought her and the other women from Salt Lake City? Or was it something more? Slocum could not tell.
“Thank you, John.”
“How long ago did he die?”
“Why, a day or two. It was hard for me to determine.”
“If he didn’t come to dinner, that’d be a sign something was wrong.”
“What are you saying?” She turned and looked at him sharply.
“He’s been dead for longer than that,” Slocum said.
Sarah June just shrugged and looked unconcerned.
“Then there’s the matter of how his feet were tied together.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d say his feet were bound before he fell into the pit. Might be the reason he fell into the pit.”
“Are you saying that he might have stepped into a lasso, which was yanked tight around his legs, and then he was pushed into the pit? What a vivid imagination you have, John.”
Sanders trooped up and took off his hat. “You have my sincere condolences, ma’am. It can’t be easy losing a husband.”
“I only knew him a short while,” Sarah June said. Slocum saw how she looked at Sanders like a hungry coyote stalking a rabbit. “You must have known him ever so much longer.”
“Long enough to feel a loss,” Sanders said. He jerked his head in the direction of the wagon, then put on his hat and walked briskly downhill to where the oxen were increasingly agitated at their cargo.
“I’ll see to the funeral. There’s only one funeral parlor in Aurum,” Slocum said. “Don’t think there’d be any problem getting Heywood buried tomorrow.”
“I’ll go into town later today,” Sarah June said. As Slocum turned to go, she grabbed his arm and stopped him. “How long has your friend known Heywood?”
“They were together in Salt Lake City before coming out here about six months back,” Slocum said. “I don’t know how long they were partners before.”
“You weren’t with them? With Heywood and Sanders?”
“I knew Sanders just before he wanted to leave to go prospecting. He’s got quite a silver tongue and talked me into loaning him money I didn’t exactly have.”
“What do you mean?”
“I talked a bit too big. I borrowed the money so I wouldn’t look like I had promised something to Sanders I could not deliver.” Slocum thought glumly about the trouble he had gotten himself into by borrowing the money from Jenks.
“So you just knew him casually?”
“I ended up with more than I reckoned for. The Lucky Lady is a fountain spewing out gold ore faster than we can smelt it.”
“You didn’t know Heywood or Yarrow?”
“Yarrow? I just heard that name a week back when Sanders mentioned him. I’ve never laid eyes on the man,” Slocum said. He felt as if a sheriff were accusing him of some crime.
“I didn’t think you would have. Go on, John. I’ll see you at the cemetery tomorrow.” Sarah June smiled but her eyes had a distant look now, as if she saw horizons he never could.
Slocum paid his respects and joined Sanders, glad he was riding while his partner had to drive the wagon. It was easier to stay upwind by trotting a few yards away from the wagon.
16
The turnout at the funeral was larger than Slocum expected, but then he saw that most of the men were angling to stand beside the new widow. Women were a scarce commodity in Aurum and letting one go to waste because her husband had met an untimely end was not possible for many of the men.
Betty stood with her arm linked with the land agent’s. Slocum saw that the man wore a block on one shoe. His right leg was a good inch shorter than his left, probably from some accident and a doctor that couldn’t properly patch him up. Wilhelmina and her husband stood apart, on the far side of the grave. The tall blonde looked upset. Her husband stared down into the grave as if he saw himself in the coffin rather than Heywood.
Being one of the few in town who could read, the barkeep from a saloon down on the main street said a few words from the Bible. Nobody paid much attention. They were too busy ogling Sarah June. The widow stood silently, dressed in black but looking as lovely as a summer sunflower. She might have worn widow’s weeds, but there was nothing sad about her expression. Slocum saw that she kept an eye on Wilhelmina during the entire service.
“Any of you galoots want to say anything more?” the barkeep asked.
“Reckon I do,” said Wilhelmina’s man. “Me and Heywood, well, we weren’t always on the best of terms, but we came from Salt Lake City together to make our fortunes. We did mighty good. We both have good-hearted, decent women. Or Heywood did. Now he’s got nuthin’. He’s just worm food.”
Slocum saw Sarah June’s reaction when the man spoke. Her jaw tightened, and she looked as if she would jump over the grave and rip out the man’s throat. But she stood and stared, her blue eyes glacially cold.
“He’s got nuthin’, and I got me one fine woman. Just like Heywood had,” the man rushed on.
Slocum nudged Sanders and asked, “The one with Wilhelmina—what’s his name?”
“Yarrow,” Sanders said. Somehow, this did not surprise Slocum.
“He’s another of your partners?”
“Don’t fret, Slocum,” Sanders said. “I bought him out, too. You’re half owner of the Lucky Lady.”
“Any more partners around here?”
“Not around here. Got another back in Salt Lake City, but don’t reckon I’ll ever see Carson again.”
Heywood, Yarrow, and one other. Slocum considered so many partners to be a few too many, unless you were robbing banks. He touched the quarter of the silver dollar he had taken off the dead man shot just after he and the four women had left Salt Lake City. The Silver Dollar Gang.
“Rest in peace, Heywood,” Yarrow said. “Or burn in hell. Whatever it is, we’ll all be seein’ you soon enough.”
“Thanks for those inspiring words, brother,” the bartender said sarcastically. “Now get the dirt thrown in on top of him ’fore the buzzards swoop down on him. And the first drink’s on me!”
A wild whoop of glee went up as the miners quickly left, but not before stopping to take Sarah June’s hand in their own grimy paws and assure her they would be more than willing to do what they could to help her through her time of sorrow.
Slocum hung back while Sanders went on into town with the crowd. He wanted a word with Sarah June, but the woman had gone to Wilhelmina and the two women were arguing. Slocum caught only a word now and then, and none of it made a great deal of sense. Whatever Sarah June said caused Wilhelmina to shake her head furiously, point, and say loud enough for him to hear, “There is no way! You are not right!”
Wilhelmina pushed Sarah June away and rushed to her husband. Or husband-to-be. Slocum was not sure how to characterize the man who had won her in the spirited auction. Yarrow and Wilhelmina made a wide detour around Sarah June, got into a buggy, and rattled off. This gave Slocum the opportunity to speak to Sarah June.
“Sorry about the funeral,” Slocum said. “If I’d known that was all there would be, I would have said some words myself.”<
br />
“But you didn’t know him, John. You said so.”
“Funerals aren’t for the dead,” Slocum said. “They’re for the living. You’re right that I didn’t know Heywood. Never met him. But I could have done better to comfort you.”
“I’m sure you could,” Sarah June said, her voice softening and her eyes welling with tears for the first time.
“You didn’t find much sympathy with Wilhelmina. You two have a falling-out?”
“Something like that,” Sarah June said, her mood shifting mercurially again. She was again cold and distant.
“Could I see you back to the mine or are you going to stay in town?”
“There’s no need, John. I can take care of myself. Really.”
“Are you sure you want to be alone at a time like this?”
“What exactly are you offering?”
“Someone to listen if you want to talk. Nothing more.” Slocum knew the entanglements a man could get himself into taking up with a new widow. Truth was, Sarah June hardly qualified to be quite an entanglement. She and Heywood had been together for only a handful of days. Slocum and Sarah June had ridden side by side on the way from Utah for a far longer time. His thoughts about her had been anything but noble, and if he was any judge, hers were even more licentious.
“I’ll be fine. Why don’t you go on into town and have that free drink? You look as if you could use it to get the dust out of your throat.” She grabbed his arm as he turned to go. “Thank you, John. You’ve been right kind to a stranger like me.”
“You make it sound final, like we won’t see each other again.”
Sarah June smiled, but there was neither sadness nor pleasure. It was more the expression on a hungry wolf.
“The future is always uncertain.” She stood on tiptoe and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, then left without another word. Slocum watched her get into her buggy and drive away. He shook his head. For a town that thrived on gold mining and nothing else, life was certainly complicated.
Too complicated for his liking. As he walked into town from the cemetery, Slocum considered asking Lemuel to buy him out. In fact, he had already decided that was what he wanted. Lemuel Sanders would come out ahead, owning outright a profitable gold mine. Slocum would have money galore to spend as he made his way from one town to the next, hunting for what he could never find—contentment. Happiness was too elusive to ever find, but he had settled on contentment as a decent goal.
In his way, he had found it. On the trail. Under the stars. Going where the wind blew him. Being no man’s servant. Having no servants of his own. Slocum got contentment out of being free.
He headed for the saloon with the crowd spilling out the front doors. That had to be the one giving free drinks. As he approached, the miners parted for him, recognizing that he had helped Sanders recover Heywood’s body. Or maybe he still stank of the corpse. Slocum found Sanders at the far end of the bar, knocking back one drink after another.
“You’re taking Heywood’s death mighty hard,” Slocum said. “Or is this just a chance to cadge free whiskey?”
“Got a bad feeling, Slocum,” his partner said. “She killed him. I’m sure of it.”
Slocum said nothing. He suspected Sarah June knew more about how her husband had died than she was letting on. Her lack of grief was one thing. She hardly knew Heywood, after all, even if she had been pledged to him. But the way she had stared into the grave at the funeral and the way she acted otherwise told Slocum she was delighted that Heywood had died. Might have been a poor start to the marriage and she was not inclined to speak poorly of the dead, but he doubted that. Something more was going on.
“Tell me about Yarrow,” Slocum said suddenly.
Sanders looked up, fury blossoming on his face.
“Go to hell. Him and me and Heywood, we came to Aurum to get rich. I did. Yarrow’s not bad off. Heywood was the least of us.”
“What happened in Salt Lake City?”
“Nothing.” Sanders knocked back another shot. When he put the shot glass on the bar, he wobbled a mite. Slocum knew how much liquor his partner could drink before reaching this stage. Another couple drinks and Sanders would be drunker than a lord and meaner than a stepped-on rattler.
“What’ll you give me for my share of the Lucky Lady?”
For a moment, Sanders was shocked into sobriety. Then he grabbed the bottle and didn’t even bother with the glass. He took a draught out of it long enough to get falling-down drunk.
“You talkin’ nonsense again? You want to get rich. Alongside me. That’s a good claim, Slocum, and you know it.”
“I’m getting itchy feet,” Slocum said. “This town’s too big.”
“There’s not a hunnerd pip-people in it.” Sanders was starting to slur his words. “Can’t go. Need you to watch my back.”
“What happened in Salt Lake City?” Slocum saw the anger blaze up again, but this time when it died, fear replaced it.
“Hey, you two. Lemme through. Sanders, Slocum, got somethin’ to tell you!”
Slocum saw Betty’s land agent hobbling toward them. He looked agitated. Slocum took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The longer he stayed in Aurum, the more complicated things got. Whatever Franklin Fremont wanted to tell them, it was not going to be pleasant.
“My missus wants a word with you two.”
Slocum looked at Sanders and knew he was in no condition.
“What’s she want? I’ll talk to her.”
Fremont saw the wisdom in what Slocum said and immediately turned and began pushing through the throng of miners again until they reached the boardwalk outside the saloon. Betty stood there, fidgeting. Her face lit up when she saw Slocum.
“John, thank goodness,” she said. “I was afraid you wouldn’t do it.”
“What are you talking about? He never said why you wanted to see me.”
Betty shot Fremont a dark look, then took Slocum by the arm and steered him away from the saloon door to where they could talk more privately.
“It’s Wilhelmina. She’s missing.”
“Missing? It hasn’t been an hour since the funeral. How missing could she be in that time?”
“I . . . I went after her. I found their buggy, but they were both gone.”
“Her and Yarrow?”
“Please, John, put my mind at ease. Go find her. For me. For old times.”
“There aren’t any ‘old times,’ ” Slocum said. “Why do you think she’s come to harm?”
“A feeling,” Betty said. There was more, but the woman couldn’t bring herself to say it. Slocum saw her start a couple times, then lapse into silence.
“I’ll do it, but this is the end. No more.”
“You’ve looked after all four of us like we were your . . . family.”
Slocum knew Betty had started to say “wives.”
He snorted in disgust and went to get his horse. Slocum wondered if he ought to sign over his rights in the Lucky Lady to Fremont and then just keep riding. Let Betty deal with Sanders—or Sanders deal with the feisty brunette. As he rode out of town, heading toward Yarrow’s claim, he wondered why he felt any obligation at all to the women. Preen had paid him in Salt Lake City to deliver the four. Only three got to Aurum, but Tabitha had willingly stayed back in Braden. His job was done. He wasn’t the women’s keeper.
He wasn’t their husband, either.
Before he had gone two miles, Slocum drew rein and stared at the evidence in the road. Most of the snow had melted, leaving behind mud that didn’t take tracks well. From what little he could see, the buggy had slewed off the road and tumbled down an embankment. Slocum dismounted and went to the verge of the road. The marks on the mountainside were plain. He caught sight of a buggy wheel poking up from where it had caught on some brush.
Before he risked life and limb going down to see if anyone had survived, he scouted the area.
“Now isn’t that something?” he muttered to himself. Two sets of prints left the e
dge of the drop-off. One set went back to the road, and he lost the other within a few feet because of the rocky terrain. He looked up when he heard the clatter of chains and the creak of leather. An old rig pulled by the most dilapidated-looking horse he had ever seen came down the road.
Slocum stepped out and waved. He could use some help. Then he saw the driver’s face. Yarrow.
“Howdy,” Yarrow called. “You’re Slocum, ain’t you? Lemuel’s new partner.”
“What happened here?” Slocum pointed to the spot where the buggy had gone over the side.
“Me and the missus was comin’ back from the funeral when a wheel started wobbling and then threw us out. The buggy, along with a perfectly good horse, went over the brink.”
“Threw the two of you out?”
“My missus wasn’t up to hikin’, so I went on up to the claim and got this nag so I could drive her back.”
“Where is Wilhelmina?”
Yarrow looked around. The panic on his face told the story.
“Wili! Wilhelmina! Where are you hidin’? Come on out. It’s jist me and that Slocum fella!”
“You left her alone?”
“Why not? Most of the real roughnecks would be at the bar gettin’ theyselves drunk. Nobody’d be on this road, and Wilhelmina was feelin’ mighty low.”
“Did you tell her to stay put?”
“She’s not dumb. She’d know to do that.”
“Let’s hunt for her. I don’t see any trace of her after she walked to that stretch of rock.” Slocum pointed to where the smaller footprints had gone. He looked up into the rocks where the stawberry blonde woman might have taken cover. There was no good reason for her to hide, but she had left the road and was nowhere to be seen.
“Wili! Where are you? Dammit, come on out!” Yarrow stormed into the maze of boulders while Slocum held back. If Yarrow flushed her, Slocum wanted to see if she ran to find a new hiding place or if she simply came out. As Yarrow had pointed out, Wilhelmina was not a stupid woman. She had gone into the rocks for a reason, and the best one Slocum could figure was to hide.
From what? Who? Yarrow? Someone else?