Slocum 419 (16 page)

Miriam Hellinger opened the firebox on the iron cookstove and dropped two sticks of kindling into it. Her kitchen was filled with a pleasant steam, the delicious aroma of Arbuckle's coffee with its cinnamon stick wafting through the small house as it had for the two years she and Abner had been in Durango. She clapped the lid back on the firebox and moved the coffeepot off the hot lid to a space in between and the burbling lessened as the coffee cooled.

Abner sat at the table in the dining room, his suspenders loosened, his bare feet in a warm bowl of water. He had not done so much walking since he was a kid going to school every day, four and a half miles from his house in Illinois.

Miriam had found a box of old flyers he had inherited when he took the job of constable and brought it down for him to look through.

“I knowed I heard that name somewhere,” she called from the kitchen as she set out two heavy tin cups on a beer tray she had bought in New Mexico some years before.

“What name is that?” Abner asked as he set papers in a pile.

“John Slocum. But I didn't hear it. I saw it when you took this blamed job as constable and toted all them wanted dodgers home from your office.”

“You got a good memory, Miriam,” he said. “Seems like I recollect seein' his name somewhere, too.”

“I was rummaging up in the loft today while you was out gallivantin' around town and danged if I didn't see it in that wooden box. Should be on top, all yellered and stained, smellin' of mold and such. Bunch of spiders in that box, but I mashed all their eggs and they run off.”

She poured coffee into the two cups and carried the tray to the table where Abner sat.

“I found it,” he said. “Right on top. But I'm just lookin' at some of the others. Amazin' how many outlaws are on the run with prices on their heads.”

“And you never caught a one of 'em,” she said, a malicious grin on her chubby face. She sat down and lifted Abner's cup from the tray.

She had gained weight the past two years. She tried to hide the folds of fat on her body with flouncy dresses and an apron, but she couldn't deny that she had gotten fat. Only she didn't use that term. Ever. The word she used was “stout.”

“I'm a mite stout,” she would say when the other women in town chided her about the weight gain.

But Abner liked her that way. Or said he did.

“More of you to love,” he would say when she wallowed in bed at night with his hands roaming over her plump breasts and flabby belly. “I like a woman with some meat on her.”

He always made her laugh when he said that, and she always vowed she'd eat fewer potatoes and pork fat and stop buying candy at the store.

“Why don't you set that box down, Abner, and drink your coffee? You found what you was lookin' for. That John Slocum you keep talkin' about is wanted in Georgia for killin' a judge. There's a bounty on his head we could use. Five hunnert dollars.”

Abner put the pile of flyers back in the wooden box and set it on the floor. He wriggled his feet in the warm water with the Epsom salts soothing his tired feet.

He picked up his coffee cup in one hand, the wanted sheet in the other. He blew steam off his cup and sipped.

“Yep, that's the man,” he said. “Younger when this picture was drawed. And his hair was shorter, too. But it's definitely him.”

“We could use the reward money, Abner,” she said. She took a sip from her cup and it burned her tongue.

“This is an old dodger,” he said. “And he wasn't tried and convicted for no murder back in Calhoun County, Georgia. Just says he's wanted as a suspect in a judge's murder.”

“So what difference does that make?” she asked.

“Law says a man is innocent until proved guilty.”

“Oh, pshaw, Abner, the man is wanted by the law and you ought to collect that reward.”

He looked at Miriam as he set the flyer aside and picked up his cup. He sloshed his feet gently in the warm water and salts. Soothing.

“Georgia's a fur piece. I'd have to haul him back there to collect the reward.”

“Or turn him over to the U.S. marshal,” she said.

“And wait for the money. Maybe years.”

Abner shook his head and drank more coffee. He could taste the cinnamon, and the coffee was strong.

He and Craig had arrested two more of Wolf's men after putting Loomis in jail. Billy Joe Vernon and Gabe Tolliver. Caught them red-handed at Wilbur Nichols's cabin, prying open the dead man's strongbox and filling up a sack with Wilbur's possessions. Common thieves, but part of Wolf's claim-jumping gang. He and Craig had walked in with guns drawn and put the handcuffs on them after pulling their pistols from their holsters. One of them, Billy Joe, had a knot on his head from when Craig thunked him with the butt of his pistol. Abner had added resisting arrest to the charges of robbery and accomplice to murder.

Now he had three men stewing in his small jail and his feet were swollen from walking on gravel and rocks.

And from all accounts, Slocum was chasing after Wolf Steiner and the rest of his bunch. A man like that was worth more than five hundred dollars, he thought.

“Well, Miriam, the wheels of justice move slow,” he said as he leaned back in his chair, sniffing the scent of the Arbuckle's.

“What's that mean, Abner?” she asked. Her small mouth was even smaller with the round plumpness of her oval face. Her nose smaller, too. Her hazel eyes sparkled in the lamplight with yellows and greens and a spot or two of russet.

“It means that Slocum has done this town a service.”

“A service? What service?”

“He uncovered a murderous gang of claim jumpers, for one thing. He shot the men who killed poor Jasper Nichols, a boy who never hurt a flea. He's got Wolf Steiner on the run, along with maybe a couple more of them cutthroat backshooters.”

“That's justice?” Miriam asked as she raised her cup once again to her tiny little lips.

“Frontier justice, maybe.”

“I don't know what that is, Abner. Frontier justice. Pshaw.”

“It means when the law is slack, a man who gives a damn can be the law hisself.”

“Well, I never heard of such a thing,” she said with a huff of breath.

“Slocum didn't have to do what he did. He brought some horses here for Lou Darvin. His business was finished. But he saw a man get blowed out of his mine and he took it on hisself to see that Wilbur and Jasper Nichols got some justice. And he probably saved Lou's life to boot.”

“That makes him a lawman?”

“No, I'm not sayin' that. But it puts him on the side of the law, and that's worth something. I'm just one man here and I got a deputy who don't have the brains of a pissant, and we're supposed to keep the peace in a town that's just one hair away from lawlessness. When you got gold in the ground, you got greed. And greed makes some men cross over the line and take up the criminal life.”

“Maybe you ought to have a little greed for yourself, Abner,” she said as her coffee cooled and she could drink it without blowing on it.

“Greed is an ugly thing, Miriam. I want no part of it. You shouldn't either.”

“I just want what I have comin' to me,” she said with a trace of defiance in her voice. “That's all.”

“Where do you draw the line?” Abner asked.

Miriam gave him a blank look.

He looked at her and thought about Slocum. The man might have a price on his head, but he was no common criminal. Maybe he killed a judge in Georgia, and maybe he didn't. It wasn't the constable's job to be judge, jury, and executioner. Hellinger had Durango to take care of, and that was enough for him.

“What're you going to do, Abner?” she asked as he set his cup down and stood up.

“I've got one more man to shackle,” he said. “A crook who deserves time in jail. I'm going to serve him with a search warrant in the morning and haul him off to the hoosegow.”

“Who?” she asked.

“Abel Fogarty. He's as crooked as a snake and we don't need his kind in this town.”

“Is Elmer goin' with you?”

“Yep. First thing in the morning.”

“What about Slocum? What are you going to do about him and the reward?”

“Ah, Slocum. I'm going to do nothin'. If he comes back with Wolf and the rest of his gang, I'll shake his hand and maybe pat him on the back.”

“And then, just let him go?”

“Yep. Just let him go, Miriam. That's the right thing to do.”

“Abner, you're a fool. A damned ignorant fool.”

“I'm going to get some shut-eye, Miriam. You can use that flyer there on the table to light your breakfast fire in the morning. I'm goin' to bed.”

He sopped across the floor with bare wet feet and walked to their bedroom. He was tired and there was so much to do early in the morning.

“Good night, Abner,” Miriam called as he left the hallway.

“Good night, Miriam.”

He hoped he would see Slocum again. There was something about the man that he admired. No matter what his past was, Slocum was a man to ride the river with and didn't deserve to rot away in some Georgia prison.

That's what Abner would call justice, not the label society put on a man. Slocum was a free man and he deserved to stay that way.

One thing was for sure, Abner vowed.

Slocum would never spend a minute in the Durango jail.

The night wore on, weary mile by weary mile. And although the moon was up, and the road easier, Wolf, Hobart, and Jessup were displaying signs of extreme fatigue. And so were the two horses, one of them packing double.

“I'm plumb tuckered out, Wolf,” Hobart said sometime toward morning. “Horse is about played out, too.”

“We got three and a half more days of hard riding ahead of us, Hobart. Quit your damned bellyachin'.”

Wolf had his own weariness to deal with and resented Hobart's complaint. To him, that was a sign of weakness.

And he was still looking over his shoulder. More often, now that they were in the open, than before. His and Hobart's horses were sturdy enough, but the hard ride through the gorge had sapped their strength. So, too, had the climb out of the deep canyon onto higher ground.

Where was Slocum? he wondered.

So far, he had seen no sign that anyone was pursuing them. But they were long days from Pagosa Springs, and the horses did show signs that they needed rest. His own muscles were still kinked up from the cold, and while it was a sight warmer up on the plain, it was still cold as all get-out.

Besides looking over his back trail, Wolf had his eye to the north as well. That darkness in the gorge wasn't all night; there were ugly black clouds looming beyond the glow of the moon. They were not close, but they had the wind at their backs and he dreaded that they might bring a hell of a rainstorm in the morning. Rain and thunder and lightning. That would hinder them even more, slow them down. They might even have to seek shelter or crawl under their horses' bellies to stay reasonably dry.

He was full of unvoiced curses. But he was not going to give Hobart or Jessup the satisfaction of knowing that he was as tired as they were.

“We shoulda gone into the timber and rested up before heading for the Springs,” Hobart said.

“That climb up the mountain would have set us back a good two more days,” Wolf said.

“Yeah, but we could've built us a lean-to and stayed out of the wind.”

“Go on back if you want,” Wolf said. “Maybe you want a sugar tit to suck on, too.”

“Aw, Wolf. I was just ruminatin'.”

“Well, ruminate all you want. We're going on, come hell or high water, and if you don't like it, you can turn back and maybe dangle at the end of a rope.”

“Shit, Wolf. Ain't you got no heart? My horse is packin' double and about to cave in. And I'm so tired, my eyes are jumpin' with bugs what ain't there.”

“Close them, then. The horse knows the way.”

“Yeah, but my horse is about to lose what legs he's got left.”

“What do you want to do? Stop and let Slocum catch up with us? You want a shoot-out with that trigger-happy bastard? We got to go on, Hobart. Ain't no gettin' around it.”

“Yeah, I know. I was just makin' a comment. Not that it did any good.”

“Gripin' don't pay the toll,” Wolf said. “And grumblin' don't pay the rent.”

Hobart clamped his mouth shut.

But Jessup spoke up. Not to Wolf, but to Hobart.

“Hobart?”

“Yeah?”

Their voices were deliberately low so that Wolf wouldn't hear them.

“I'm tired, too. Can't hardly hold on no more,” Jessup said.

“Hell, all you got to do is sit. I got to wrassle this horse so's he don't fall asleep on his feet.”

“I know. I just wish we could stop, maybe rest some and stretch our legs. I got no feelin' in mine.”

“Well, Wolf says we go on. So we go on. Maybe he'll stop by and by. Less'n he's made of iron.”

“I wish my horse hadn't gone lame,” Jessup said.

“Well, he did, and now you got no horse, Tom. Move your legs up and down. Maybe that'll start the blood to flowin' and you'll get some feelin' back.”

Jessup tried that, first with one leg, then the other. He almost fell off. But he held tight to the back of Hobart's gun belt. His legs were beyond numbness. They felt like they had turned to rock. He tried it again and realized that his butt was without feeling as well. It had gone as numb as his legs.

And the wind picked up again. The dark clouds to the north looked more ominous. Closer.

Wolf pumped up and down in the saddle, restoring feeling to his legs and feet. His horse started to stumble and he jerked the reins hard, sliding the bit into the tender part of his mouth. The horse tossed his head and whinnied in protest.

He stretched his arms, one by one, and flexed his fingers.

There was no way to keep the wind from filtering in through the eyeholes in his shirt where it was buttoned, or the seam in front. His neck was chilled, and the shirt was rubbing against it, irritating the skin.

Wolf knew he was pushing it. Perhaps Hobart was right. They should have taken to the timber, where they could have built a shelter out of spruce boughs, held the wind at bay, and gotten some rest. But to turn back now would be sheer suicide.

He knew damned well that Slocum was on his trail. He was somewhere behind them. Maybe he shouldn't have killed that gal, Amy. But he had wanted revenge for her getting Jimmy John sliced up like mincemeat. The treacherous bitch. Her and Slocum. Two of a kind, and a thorn, a big sharp thorn, in his side.

In a way, he hoped that he and Slocum would come face-to-face. He would like nothing better than to blow that bastard's brains out. The thought was both delicious and comforting as he rode on, his horse stumbling every so often, every bone in his body aching.

Get it over and done with.

After all, Slocum was the only thing stopping him from doing what he wanted to do in Durango. With enough mining claims, he could take Clara and Stacey way out West where nobody knew them, maybe buy a little ranch and raise some cattle.

He seldom thought about Clara, but she sprang into his mind. She was his only connection to his past, to his twin brother. And she was a constant reminder of how treacherous women were. She picked the wrong man to marry, and he had made her pay for it, the bitch.

His thoughts were all over the place now, and he wondered if those spots dancing before his eyes were a sign that he needed sleep, or that he was no longer in control of his senses. He still looked back over his shoulder, but the land swam and there could have been an army on his back trail for all he knew.

They crossed a small creek and let the horses drink.

“Maybe we ought to bide here awhile,” Hobart said. “Give the horses a handful of grain.”

“We ain't stoppin',” Wolf said. “Now get that idea out of your sorry head, Hobart.”

The horses drank and they rode on, much slower than before.

“I'm hungry,” Tom Jessup whined. He spoke so low that Wolf did not hear him, but Hobart did.

“Dig into my saddlebag, the left one,” Hobart said. “There's some beef jerky wrapped in butcher paper and maybe an old biscuit or two.”

“Thanks, Hobart,” Tom said, and he opened the flap on Hobart's saddlebag, felt around with chilled, ungainly fingers until something rattled inside the bag.

He pulled out the butcher paper rolled up around strips of jerky that felt stiff but moldy in the soft spots.

He pulled one out and chewed on it. It tasted like dried horseshit, but he didn't say anything to Hobart.

One piece was enough for Tom. He rerolled the paper and put the packet back in Hobart's saddlebag. His stomach churned and he thought he might not be able to keep the food down.

He looked over at Wolf. The man was a monster, he thought.

Wolf sat straight in his saddle, rising up on his stirrups every so often and looking over his shoulder.

Jessup wondered now why he had ever gotten hooked up with a man like Wolf Steiner. He knew the answer. Money. A chance for more money than he had ever seen in his life.

Wolf tried to spur his horse to pick up more speed, but the animal balked and did not break into a faster gait. He cursed under his breath and he knew he would gain no ground this day on Slocum.

When he stood up in his stirrups again and gazed back down the long plain, he thought he saw a dark shape on the very tip of the horizon. He rubbed one of his eyes and looked again.

The plain was empty.

But for a long time after that, he could not shake the feeling that he had seen a man on horseback. A darker blob than the night darkness.

Could he really see that far in the dark?

He shook his head and decided that it was not possible. His eyes were playing tricks on him.

But deep down, he knew Slocum was on his trail. He was coming.

And in his present state of mind and physical condition, Wolf wondered if he could ward off such a powerful and deadly adversary.

Only time would tell.