by Jake Logan
“There is something of last night that I do not remember.”
“You were drunk. I dragged you to your wagon,” Slocum said.
“Ah, a noble companion in wine.”
Slocum vaulted into the saddle and pointed to the grazing horses. Leroq bounced from ebullient to surly in a flash. Waiting for the artist to hitch up the team wore on Slocum’s nerves but eventually Leroq grabbed the reins and got the horses pulling. His wagon creaked and groaned, then Leroq rattled off without paying any more attention to Slocum.
Following the wagon, Slocum watched their back trail. He had convinced the Blackfoot chief that Leroq was deranged. The Indians would stay away, but all it took was one hothead to think about their hunting ground being violated. A couple scalps dangling from his belt would go a ways toward elevating his prestige and giving him more sway in council.
Slocum urged Leroq to greater speed all the way back to the river.
* * *
Slocum let Leroq drive ahead while he guarded their back trail against the Blackfoot. The artist reached the river and was starting across on his own when Slocum caught up.
“You need help?” Slocum called. All he got back was a muffled reply.
He started into the river after Leroq, guiding his horse carefully at the ford. Leroq had followed the wagon ruts left by the expedition, but Slocum saw the man had struck out at an angle rather than going directly across.
“You’re too far downriver,” Slocum shouted. “Veer back to your right. You’re going to be swept away if you get into deeper water.”
He cursed as the wagon listed and sideslipped as the dark water pushed Leroq away from the shallows. Slocum kicked at his horse’s flanks and entered the cold, rushing stream. Night turned the water to frothy ink. Slocum plowed ahead as the wagon continued to slip into deeper water.
“Leroq, you idiot! Get the team pulling to the right!” Slocum came even with the driver’s box and saw Leroq slumped over. The reins were wrapped around his wrists and jerked hard at the artist, threatening to yank him into the water.
If Leroq was thrown into the raging river, he was a dead man.
Slocum jumped, grabbed the side of the wagon, and let his horse flounder ahead to the far bank without him. The horse had made the crossing enough times not to get spooked. But Slocum found himself pinned against the side of the wagon by the powerful current. Every surge in the river slammed him hard enough to jar his teeth. Clawing fiercely, Slocum pulled himself up and over the side into the driver’s box in time to grab Leroq. The river finally washed up far enough to catch at the man’s gaudy jacket.
The velvet turned leaden as it soaked in gallons of water. If Slocum hadn’t grabbed him when he had, Leroq would have been swept away.
“Get down there, you son of a bitch.” Slocum threw Leroq to the floor of the driver’s box. Water flowed over the unconscious man, promising to drown him unless Slocum did something fast.
Untangling the reins from Leroq’s wrists, Slocum began pulling hard to aim the horses to shallower water. The current threatened to spin the wagon around, but Slocum was expert and his firm hand on the reins settled the two horses. They strained so hard one line broke. Slocum had to compensate. Snapping the reins constantly convinced the horses they should keep fighting the current. And then they reached rocky shallows and burst out onto the muddy shoreline.
“Whoa!” Slocum had to brace his feet against the front of the box and use his entire body to pull back before the team stopped. Letting them run wild after escaping the deathly grip of the river could be as dangerous in the dark.
Slocum wrapped the reins around the brake and sat for a moment, shaking in reaction. His arms and shoulders quaked and his legs turned suddenly weak. He leaned forward, grabbed Leroq by the collar of his purple velvet jacket, and heaved the man upright.
Water bubbled from his nose and mouth, then he choked. Slocum dropped him to avoid the torrent if he puked out his guts. Leroq shook and finally collapsed to the floor.
“Get up,” Slocum said. When the artist didn’t respond, Slocum dragged him up to the seat beside him.
An ugly gash on the side of the man’s head showed what the problem had been out on the river. A surge had unbalanced him, and he had struck his temple against the side of the wagon. Knocked out, he hadn’t been able to guide the team. If Slocum hadn’t been close behind, both wagon and driver would have been lost with no one the wiser as to their fate.
“Wake up. Come on.” Slocum shook Leroq but got no response.
He had seen men with head injuries during the war. Worse, he had seen men kicked in the head by a horse. Most of them had never been right again. Despair faded as anger drove him. Leroq had the ruby, and Slocum had promised to return it.
Five hundred dollars. He wasn’t going to miss out on such a huge reward. In gold. Not because of a dandy artist banging his head.
Slocum climbed down, caught his horse, and then hobbled the mare with the two from the team so they could graze on grass or go to the river for water if they chose. Then he built a fire, pulled Leroq from the wagon, and laid him out beside it. The man hadn’t died, but he wasn’t aware of the world around him either.
The fire would dry him out and keep him from catching a chill. Knowing that Leroq wasn’t likely to revive anytime soon, Slocum set to searching the wagon for the ruby. An hour later he had poked into every nook and cranny, stopping just short of pulling out the nails and dismantling the entire wagon.
The ruby was nowhere to be found.
Slocum searched Leroq, who moaned and feebly tried to stop him. But the artist never opened his eyes. And still Slocum didn’t find the ruby.
The head wound had swollen up to the size of a goose egg. Slocum probed it with his fingers, not caring if he was gentle enough. Leroq winced and tried to shy away but never came to. That told Slocum the man had to sleep off the injury. Jostling him in the back of his wagon to rejoin the expedition wasn’t a good idea—Leroq might give up the ghost along the way.
Slocum fixed himself a decent meal using Leroq’s larder. He had to admit the man’s coffee was better than just about any he had drunk in a coon’s age. Then he realized the man could afford the finest since he was a jewel thief.
As he lounged back, Slocum turned that over in his head. Leroq might have kept the ruby, but the rest of Mrs. Innick’s jewelry had gone to the thief actually breaking into the house. Gold chains and other semiprecious gems, including a strand of pearls, had to be worth as much as the single ruby, yet Leroq had apparently cared nothing for those. All he had wanted was the ruby.
It made no sense. Slocum finished the coffee, had another helping of biscuits and bacon, sopping up the last of the grease from the frying pan, then lay back. His entire body ached, and he wanted nothing more than to simply be astride his horse and riding to a destination he had chosen. Or riding with no particular destination at all. But the promise he had made chained him as surely as steel shackles.
Slocum awoke as the first light filtered through the trees to caress his face. He sneezed, sat up, and looked around. Nothing had changed from the night before. Leroq still moaned occasionally but had not regained his senses.
Nursing the artist wasn’t something that appealed to him. He examined the man’s head wound again and decided the swelling had shrunk. He put a cloth soaked in the cold river water on the bump. A tiny smile came to Leroq’s lips. This decided Slocum. He worked to make a bed in the rear of the man’s wagon, wrestled him onto the pallet, and then hitched up Leroq’s horses. With his own horse trailing behind, Slocum began the drive toward the distant mud fields. Turning Leroq over to the expert attention of Dr. Hayden appealed to him more as he drove.
The way was bumpy, in spite of Slocum trying to avoid most of the rocks on the trail he had blazed. When his nostrils flared with the stench of sulfur, he knew the mud flats weren’t far away. He foun
d the way increasingly difficult because the earlier passage of the expedition wagons had cut up the soft ground. Water leaked constantly, turning the entire area into rim-deep mud.
In places, Slocum had to fight to keep the team pulling to prevent becoming boggled down. But his skill prevailed and the wagon finally rolled into the rocky area adjoining the broad expanse of seething mud holes where Hayden had camped for the night—the prior night.
Slocum had made good time, but it would be dark in a couple hours. To drive into the mud flats would be folly. If he missed just one marker laid by Preston and Abel, he would wander into unexplored regions. As if emphasizing the recklessness of advancing when darkness would rob him of the trail, a geyser only yards in front of him spewed steam and mud twenty feet in the air.
He went to the rear of the wagon and dropped the gate. Leroq moaned and thrashed about. That was a good sign. The more he moved, the likelier he was to come out of his coma. Slocum reached over and pinched the man’s earlobe. If anything brought the artist around, that would do it.
Leroq’s eyelids fluttered but did not open. Slocum turned and looked around where Hayden and the others had camped. He wondered where Jackson had parked his darkroom wagon. What had Marlene done? Did she fix food or had she spent her hours inside the rolling photo studio mixing chemicals for later use?
Slocum considered searching the wagon and Leroq again for the ruby, then knew he had found nothing to show the artist ever had the stolen gem. He had even kneaded the paint tubes thinking Leroq might have hidden it there. Most of the paint tubes were already half used. A few glass jars filled with grainy dust of different colors hid nothing inside. Whatever Leroq had done with the ruby, it wasn’t here.
The nagging idea that Leroq wasn’t responsible kept haunting him. Had the thief seen Leroq and latched on to someone with such an outrageous description to convince Slocum that he was innocent of the theft? That didn’t make much sense. Why had the thief held on to the gold and other items but hidden the ruby? Or had he pried it loose and somehow lost it? Better to confess that so Slocum would go off on a wild-goose chase.
Listening to how people spoke had given Slocum the edge more than once in a poker game. The thief’s confession had the ring of truth to it. So did his claim that Leroq had taken the ruby.
Slocum built a cook fire and fixed more food from Leroq’s stores. He was going to get fat and sassy, at least until Leroq came to his senses. Slocum poured some water into the man’s mouth. Getting him to chew didn’t happen, so Slocum boiled some oatmeal and fed that to the artist.
After eating, he wandered along the edge of the geyser field, then finally turned in. He unrolled his blanket beneath the wagon and fell asleep with the scent of sulfur in his nose and mouth.
Somewhere after midnight, he thought the entire Union Army had opened fire with an artillery battery. The ground shook and the wagon bounced up off all four wheels. Then came the barrage that forced him to roll onto his belly and curl up to protect himself until the bombardment passed.
Only it didn’t die down. It grew in intensity, and Slocum feared for his life.
10
The wagon twisted in ways no wood was meant to bend, and Slocum was tossed up and down repeatedly. He kept curled up in a tight ball as hissing projectiles landed all around. Under the wagon presented some danger if the wagon broke apart, but being out in the open was certain death. He chanced a quick look and saw sizzling shrapnel land in the mud all around. Only the wagon protected him from those missiles.
“Leroq,” he muttered. The artist was exposed in the wagon bed. Slocum forced himself to roll out from under the wagon.
Keeping his head down, he scrambled into the bed and grabbed Leroq by the ankles. He pulled hard, sliding the artist along. A piece of burning rock smashed into the spot Leroq had just vacated. It sputtered fitfully like an ember, then went out after charring part of the wood. Slocum had his arms full of the man. He dropped to his knees and heaved Leroq under the wagon. The protection it offered was suspect but better than none at all.
Slocum looked up into the sky and saw that it was filled with fiery shooting stars. He drew back when so many of them crashed into the ground nearby. Daring to grab one, he pulled the hot cinder over to where he could look at it more closely. The particle proved to be a small stone, its exterior melted by extreme heat.
Peering into the night, Slocum traced back the blazing trails left by the eruption to a large fumarole. Burning rock and steam spewed forth to fill the night. When the rock soared high enough, it arched over and came back to earth. What Slocum had thought was deliberate bombardment turned out to be a geyser kicking aloft more than just mud and boiling water.
The rocks stopped falling, leaving only a sizzling rain. All the while Leroq thrashed about.
On impulse Slocum pulled the man close and shouted in his ear, “Where’s the ruby?”
He didn’t expect much, but to his surprise got a faint reply. Pressing close, he made out the words, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust . . .”
Leroq hadn’t responded to his question but to the hellish world all around them.
Slocum sank back and tried to enjoy the spectacle unfolding before him. However, he had endured too many nights of relentless artillery fire during the war to appreciate this. He fell into a troubled sleep, only to awaken, hand going to his six-shooter. It took him a few seconds to realize the silence had brought him around. Dawn broke and the mud flats stretched serenely.
He crawled from beneath the wagon and examined it. The wood was scarred but intact. The horses had been frightened out of their wits but now sampled a patch of grass that had been over grazed by the other teams when Hayden had camped there. Slocum sucked in a deep breath and choked. Sulfur hung heavy in the air, but only a few pools of bubbling mud betrayed the source.
“Come on,” he said, heaving Leroq to his feet and dumping him back into the wagon. “No breakfast. We need to get across this hell plain as fast as we can.”
He made what repairs he could on the harness, hitched up the team, and started after the expedition. A few ruts remained from their passage, but the eruption the night before had erased much of the trail. The rock cairns Preston and Abel had so carefully built were scattered back into individual rocks again, making the way difficult.
More than once Slocum stood and studied the land ahead, trying to remember what he had seen before when he had scouted for Hayden. The terrain had shifted with the muddy, blazing geyser eruption, but the mountains ahead gave him a solid landmark. More than once during the day, he had to wait for a geyser to finish spewing steam and mud, but none coughed up the deadly mixture of molten rock and boiling water that had filled the night.
Slocum almost collapsed from strain by the time they rolled onto rockier countryside. But here he located the expedition’s trail easily. Hayden had crossed the mud flats, camped, and then pushed on. Slocum read the spoor and knew the others couldn’t be more than a day ahead. Hayden had no reason to push hard. He undoubtedly took breaks during the travel to survey and draw his topographical maps. Knowing this kept Slocum moving.
Pushing the exhausted team into the foothills proved worthwhile. As dusk crept up from behind, he crossed the pass to lush plains that stretched as far as the eye could see. Slocum immediately located the expedition not five miles ahead by the smoke from the campfires. His estimate of the distance proved accurate, and he rolled into the camp ninety minutes later.
“Where’s Dr. Hayden?” he called to the first man he saw.
“Out with Preston and Abel doing some surveying to the north, along the mountain line,” the man answered.
“Leroq conked himself on the head crossing the river and hasn’t come to in two days. Is there another doctor in the party?”
“Don’t reckon there is,” came the answer, “but I was a corpsman during the war. Lemme look at the fellow.”
Slocum gratefully turned the artist over to someone better able to deal with his injuries. As much as he wanted to be there when Leroq recovered to question him about the stolen ruby, he wanted nothing more than to get a decent meal and to see Marlene.
“Where’s the photographer’s wagon? I don’t see it.”
“Him and his assistant lit out same time as Hayden and the others, only they went south. Jackson said something about Indians.”
“What did he say?”
“Didn’t hear it myself,” the man said, “but he was of the opinion we had some aboriginal company. Doc Hayden was already gone. Fenwicke was left in charge, and he said he don’t fear no Indians. He said Hayden ordered us to stay put, and that’s what we’re gonna do.”
“Blackfoot?”
“You mean the Injuns? Can’t say.” The man rummaged through Leroq’s food. “He been eatin’ this or have you been chowin’ down?”
“Me,” Slocum admitted. “All he’s kept down is water and boiled oatmeal.”
“Better ’n nuthin’, I reckon.”
“Where’s Fenwicke to be found?”
“Up ahead, easternmost wagon.” The man turned to doing what he could for Leroq, leaving Slocum to ride to the edge of camp in search of Hayden’s assistant.
He found the man hunched over a drafting table supported by two large rocks. He didn’t even look up as Slocum dismounted. Firelight cast a dancing orange shadow over the map Fenwicke toiled on. Slocum had the feeling the man could work in complete darkness from the way he concentrated, his nose only inches over the map.
“When’s Hayden due back?”
Fenwicke looked up. He pushed his pince-nez higher on his nose and blinked hard.
“No way to tell.”
“I fetched Leroq back. He’s been banged up some. Fellow on the other side of camp’s taking care of him.”
“Leroq? Oh, the fancy-ass artist. Good, good. Now I need to get back to work.” Fenwicke ran his finger down a column of numbers on a sheet of paper tacked to the map and started to translate them into actual contours.