Slocum Along Corpse River

by Jake Logan

  “The man who was gun captain. What happened to him?”

  “Dead. Now his assistant, Rafe, he spiked the cannon and got away. Don’t know if he’s rarin’ to go at Galligan again, but he might be.”

  “He looked to be a good artillerist, too,” Slocum said. “A second attack matching the first one will break Galligan’s hold on the pass.”

  Radley stroked his chin. “You oughta be talkin’ to the men over at the saloon, not me.”

  “I’ll leave that to you. I have to fetch the other howitzer.”

  “Won’t be easy,” Radley said, “but can’t see fit to leave poor Hank up there. Nor Flora, for all that.” Radley shot Slocum a gimlet stare. “She rubbed ’gainst you enough to make you think with your peter and not your head?”

  “Does it matter? Galligan’s got to be stopped if this town wants the railroad’s bounty to flow to them rather than an outlaw.”

  Slocum thought of Flora and how they had parted. She had gotten him free, and the last night on the side of the mountain had been good, if exhausting. But as much as he owed her, he felt that he owed Beatrice just as much. More. She had sacrificed herself to decoy away Galligan’s men. None of the attack against the western wall would have been possible without her bravery since no one in Thompson would have made the effort.

  “Motives can be slippery as eels,” Radley said, heaving to his feet. “You can find Rafe at the smithy’s, if you want him to go with you. Might be he can scare up a few of his men to wrestle that there cannon down the hill again.”

  With that, Radley left.

  Slocum polished off the rest of the gravy from his plate using the final crust of bread. He belched once more, leaned back, and thought about the job ahead of him. It was even more perilous an attack than before, since Galligan knew what he faced, and worse, knew what he had to lose if he didn’t crush the town’s spirit once and for all.

  He left the doctor’s office and headed toward the smithy’s forge. He smelled hot metal and heard the slam of a hammer into hot iron long before he saw the small building set some distance from any other building. Whether Rafe had good sense to know what a tinderbox Thompson was or had built here and the rest of the town moved away from him, Slocum didn’t know. From what he had seen of the man, Rafe had a good dose of common sense.

  As Slocum entered, he squinted. Fumes rose from the open forge. Rafe looked up from the iron rod he had heated red hot.

  “You still here, Slocum? Everyone said you hightailed it when the fighting got too hot.” He slammed his hammer into the metal, flattening the rod into a flange. Two quick swings and a powerful twist bent the metal at right angles before getting tossed into a quenching bath.

  Slocum waited for the loud hissing to die down before saying anything. He wanted to present his argument once, without interruption.

  “A second attack will break Galligan,” he said. “I got caught but escaped. The marshal’s still alive, or was when I got away, and so is Flora Cooley.” He couldn’t tell what Rafe thought about that. The smithy turned away to hide his face. When he turned back, he had the right angle brace in his tongs again.

  “You want me to help?”

  “There’s a second howitzer. We use it against the wall and Galligan loses most of his army.”

  “’Bout the way I see it, too.” Rafe swung his hammer one last time, then tossed it onto his workbench. “He’s gonna ruin my life if he keeps that wall up.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You ever know of a railroad that didn’t need ironwork being done? Patching? Repairs? I can charge what I want unless Galligan is milkin’ the ’road for all he can get pullin’ on that teat. Cost too high in one place, they cut back everywhere else.”

  Slocum had to smile at this. It had never occurred to him that anyone in Thompson would oppose Galligan over how many coins might jingle in his pocket.

  “Let’s go. Me and you can handle a single howitzer, if it’s got a carriage as good as the other.”

  “Does,” Slocum said. What he hadn’t reckoned on was not wanting to remove the cannon.

  Rafe scratched his chin as he stared at the howitzer. They had made good time up the hill to the mine, but Slocum had not counted on the smithy making such a pronouncement.

  Rafe ran his hand along the cannon barrel and then stepped back.

  “Ain’t doin’ us one bit of good. You put even a half charge in that howitzer and you’ll be the one with shrapnel in your guts.”

  “There’s a crack? I don’t see it.”

  “Move closer. It ain’t gonna bite you.” Rafe held his miner’s candle next to the brass barrel. He ran his broken fingernail along the smooth surface. Slocum saw it suddenly stop. The smith applied a little pressure and a good quarter inch disappeared into the metal.

  “That’s no magic trick, neither,” Rafe said.

  Slocum knelt and peered at the barrel, finally seeing what Rafe had right away. He couldn’t tell how deep the crack ran into the metal and said so.

  “You thinkin’ I can patch it up?” Rafe shook his head. “Chances are good the crack doesn’t go all the way through the barrel, but it doesn’t have to. Weaken the metal, and when pressure from the gunpowder explosion pushes outward, there’s no tellin’ how the crack will spread.”

  “Might be good for one shot,” Slocum said.

  “Might be.”

  “But you wouldn’t stand behind it?”

  “Not even if you had a ten-yard-long lanyard on it. When a barrel blows up, it’s elbows and assholes everywhere.”

  Slocum wondered if the mere sight of the howitzer set up in front of the gate would spook the guards. They would be caught between fear of another barrage and Galligan behind them. He finally, reluctantly, decided that Galligan’s drawn six-shooters would hold them in place more than the mere sight of a howitzer would run them off.

  “Could we use it to blow up the gate?”

  “Could,” Rafe said, “but you might as well use just the gunpowder. Where the blast would go’s more predictable.”

  Slocum leaned against the mine wall and felt the distant rumble of the underground river. He pictured the rushing river, the huge amount of water that had to pass through the mountain channel to feed the lake and produce such a swift current in what he’d dubbed Corpse River.

  “Can we get the cannon onto its carriage?”

  “More trouble than it’s worth,” Rafe said.

  “I don’t want to take it outside. I want to drag it deeper into the mine.”

  Rafe shrugged, wrapped his arms around it, and heaved.

  “Don’t weigh more ’n a hundred and fifty pounds,” he said, grunting with the effort.

  Slocum led the way to a spot where the rocky wall seeped water. He pointed to a spot at the base. Rafe dropped the howitzer.

  “If that goes off there, you’ll reduce the whole damn mine to rubble.”

  “Let’s load it up. And bring all the powder.”

  Slocum started by laying a long trail of gunpowder from several yards away. When he reached the cannon, Rafe had finished loading it.

  “I put in an extra charge, since you seem to want it to blow up. The shell will go smack into the wall.” Rafe pressed his hand against the damp wall. “You thinkin’ on bringin’ a new source of water to town?”

  “More like depriving Galligan of one.” Slocum poured the rest of the powder in a huge mound in front of the muzzle, piled heavy rocks on top, and then backed off to check his handiwork. He had no idea what would happen, but he was sure as hell going to find out.

  “Run for it,” he advised Rafe. The smithy hesitated, then all Slocum heard were the heavy footfalls as the man raced from the mine.

  Slocum went to the end of the line of gunpowder, flicked a lucifer, and recoiled a bit from its sulphurous flare. Then he dropped the match onto the end of the gunpowder. For a second he didn’t think it would work, then the powder began to sizzle and pop. A small line of sparks crept away, following the gunpowder
trail like an obedient ant.

  “Confusion to my enemy!” Slocum cried.

  Wasting no time, he followed Rafe from the mine shaft and burst out into the fresh clean air the instant the ground rumbled under his feet. A huge gust of wind from behind lifted him and sent him tumbling down the hill, a rain of rock debris and mud cascading over him.

  As he lay facedown on the ground, he felt an even more powerful trembling.

  “What the hell have you unleashed?” Rafe called.

  Slocum didn’t have any idea, but if it crashed down on Galligan, it had to be good.

  18

  Slocum expected to see a river flowing down the toll road through the ruptured gate on the wall. Instead all he saw was . . . nothing.

  “Might be a trap,” Rafe said. “Lure us closer, then spring up and take potshots at us at point-blank range.”

  “You think them varmints are that smart?” Doc Radley put a spy glass to his eye as he studied the wall for any sign of guards. He finally lowered it, shaking his head. “They’re not that good. One of ’em would have popped up like a prairie dog to see what was going on. No movement a’tall.”

  The gate had been crudely repaired. A battering ram would knock it off its hinges, no howitzer required. What would be on the far side? Slocum envisioned Whitey, Gadsden, and a couple dozen of Galligan’s cutthroats in hiding, waiting to open fire.

  “I’ll scout. You hang back until I give you the signal.” Slocum dismounted and studied the terrain between the bend in the road where they had placed the howitzer before at the gate. The bed was in good shape, befitting a toll road. That might be another reason that Bannock was so eager to make a deal with Galligan. Half the work of leveling and widening had been done for railroad tracks. The train could be through the pass in weeks instead of months, and since summer was running down fast, the tracks could be on the far side of the pass and ready to cross the Wyoming plains before heavy snows fell. For all Slocum knew, Bannock might have crews already working westward from Cheyenne to meet tracks coming over the Grand Tetons.

  That made it doubly to the railroad official’s benefit to have a cooperative Galligan. What good would it be having tracks laid all the way to the mountains but nothing coming through the pass to connect with?

  Slocum advanced cautiously, a new rifle clutched in his hand. He passed the spot where the armored wagon had tipped over and tumbled down the embankment into a ravine. Gus Cooley had been lucky once. Lady Luck had stopped smiling on him back in Thompson, thanks to Silas and his bank-robbing gang. But Hank Menniger was still on the other side of the wall.

  Slocum wanted to find him alive. And Flora and Beatrice, too.

  He reached the wall and peered up past the smooth stones, which reminded him of the ones he had been forced to load into Galligan’s wagon. There wasn’t any sign that the stones he had quarried had been used to repair the wall. A couple huge holes showed where the howitzer bombardment had taken its toll. Pressing close, he moved to the gate. Holes the size of his head had been blasted through the gate.

  He put his eye to one hole and looked to the far side of the wall, hunting for any sign of movement. A rabbit ran across the road. Wind fitfully stirred vegetation that hadn’t been cleaned off the roadway. But nowhere did he see any sign of guards.

  Slocum used his rifle butt as a lever to pry open the gate far enough so he could slip through. Still wary, he moved from side to side hunting for Galligan’s men. Only when he was sure they weren’t standing guard on the wall but out of sight did he squeeze back through and wave on the posse to join him. It was considerably smaller than the men who had fought the first time, but with no resistance, Slocum hoped a dozen men would be enough.

  Kill Galligan, destroy his empire. Those who followed him would fade away since there wouldn’t be anything more to fight for.

  “Come on. Nobody in sight,” Slocum called. Radley and Rafe exchanged words, then passed the order along to the posse.

  The riders rode as if they expected a dozen snipers to pop up. Slocum didn’t blame them. He had the same feeling in his gut. Galligan had protected his domain too well for him to leave the wall unprotected. Yet his continued examination failed to turn up any sign of a trap.

  The posse opened the gate farther and rode through. Slocum vaulted up into the saddle.

  “Keep a sharp eye out for traps,” he warned. Along this road he had run into guards waiting to take a potshot at anyone getting past the wall. But this time they rode to the edge of Top of the World before seeing anyone.

  “What’s happening?” asked Doc Radley. “Seen boomtowns empty like this, but Galligan wouldn’t have let them go. No way would he give leave to even one man hightailin’ it, not after Silas went after Lou’s bank the way he did.”

  “Looks like a ghost town,” Rafe said. “But I hear a roarin’ noise. Where’s it comin’ from?”

  Slocum looked at the uneasy posse. Lou Underwood had stayed in Thompson, to guard his bank, he said. With the mayor had gone the braver of the original attackers, leaving only those who were hunting for a few dollars promised by Radley. Slocum hadn’t asked how much that was.

  “There’re some men, headin’ south. And that’s where the noise is comin’ from, ’less I miss my guess.” Rafe pointed to the motley band of riders leaving town, heading toward the lake.

  Slocum motioned for the posse to all go to the saloon. He went in and looked around. The barkeep was packing glasses in a box of excelsior. The man looked up, startled. He blinked, then recognized Slocum and went for a weapon hidden under the bar.

  “If that’s not an empty hand you bring back out, you’re a dead man.” Slocum had his pistol out and aimed straight at the bartender.

  “Don’t shoot, Slocum. Don’t. I’m just—”

  Slocum fired. The barkeep staggered back and dropped the sawed-off shotgun he had tried to bring to bear. After crashing into the back bar and breaking a considerable amount of glassware, he slid to the floor.

  “Bring him out here,” Slocum said, the six-shooter remaining in his hand. He waited for Rafe and another posse member to drag the barkeep out and drop him into a chair. The man’s white apron was decorated with a spreading red blossom smack in the middle of his chest.

  “You shot me,” he said weakly. He looked up at Slocum with accusing eyes.

  “Where is everybody? Why were you packing up your glasses? Going somewhere?”

  “Lake,” the barkeep gasped out. “Galligan’s got everyone stacking sandbags along the shore to keep the town from bein’ flooded. Huge hole opened up on the mountainside where water’s pourin’ out. Don’t know why. Just did.”

  “Flooded?” Doc Radley looked at Slocum. “Why’s there a flood now?”

  “Nobody knows. Lake’s risin’ fast, too fast to drain out. Water gushin’ outta . . .”

  Slocum laughed harshly. Detonating the howitzer in the mine shaft had done what he had hoped, only not the way he thought. Diverting the underground river had added to the flowing waterfall, caused it to flood into the lake and threaten to wash Top of the World off the map.

  “Is Galligan out there with the men working to save the town?” Slocum watched the barkeep closely. The man had turned white and his hand shook when he pressed it to his chest. He was dying fast. The flash of anger on the bartender’s face gave Slocum what he thought might be the answer.

  “Galligan’s still in town,” Doc Radley said, reading the expression the same way Slocum had. “He sent out the yahoos to save his town but he’s not workin’. He’s still here. You know where, Slocum?”

  “The hotel. He uses that as his headquarters.”

  “What’ll we do?” asked Rafe.

  “Nuthin’ to do ’bout this one,” Radley said, pressing his fingertips into the man’s throat. “He’s deader ’n a doornail.”

  “Galligan’s holding Deputy Cooley’s wife prisoner. We got to rescue her. And he’s likely to have the marshal, too. And others.”

  Radley looked shar
ply at Slocum, then nodded. He read more into what was said—and what wasn’t—than most men. Slocum was glad he didn’t have to play poker with the doctor. It was bad enough having Radley discern his motives as easily as he did.

  “Are most of Galligan’s men trying to keep the lake from overflowing?” Rafe asked. “This might be a sight easier ’n I thought.”

  “Time’s against us,” Slocum said. “Eventually they’ll realize they can’t plug the leak, and come back so they can leave town.”

  “We done better ’n I thought with that old howitzer. Never seen a barrel explode and cause such a commotion.”

  Slocum drew his six-shooter and checked to be sure he had six rounds in the cylinder.

  “Rafe, you take some of them and circle from the left. Doc, take more and go right. Converge on the hotel.”

  “You intendin’ to go it alone, Slocum?” Radley scowled. “That’s not a good idea.”

  “Stop wasting time,” Slocum said. He didn’t let the doctor argue any more. If the posse closed in on both sides of the hotel, that would flush Galligan out. The emperor of Top of the World would have to come straight out into Slocum’s gun sights.

  He went directly to the hotel, walking slowly to give the others time to form the pincer attack. He wasn’t surprised to see Whitey blocking the way. The old man had squared off and stood in the hotel door.

  “You’re damned near impossible to kill, Slocum. I sorta expected you when we couldn’t find your carcass at the bottom of the mountain.”

  “How’d you know to go around and wait for us at the top?” Slocum asked.

  Whitey laughed and it was ugly.

  “You have a bad case of trustin’ the wrong people,” Whitey said. “You gonna talk me to death or you gonna draw?”

  “I don’t have a quarrel with you. I’m here for—”

  “For Flora Cooley?” Whitey laughed again. “You are one dumb son of a bitch.”

  Slocum was already drawing as Whitey spoke, because he knew the old gunman wanted to distract him. Even with the small start, Slocum was almost too slow. Whitey might have been old but he was quick. But not as fast as John Slocum.