Slocum and the Thunderbird (9 page)

To his surprise, the cold air invigorated her rather than stealing away more of her energy.

“That way,” she said, indicating the direction of the mines. “They've been there for a week.” Loretta wiped at a tear, another sign that shock was wearing off. “That's more than enough time for them both to be dead.”

“Let's find out,” Slocum said. “If they are, their killers will pay for it.”

She laughed until a touch of hysteria entered her voice.

“How do you make a thunderbird pay? You can't. That's why Mackenzie is so powerful. He controls the thunderbird.”

“How?”

Loretta shrugged, then returned to her slump-shouldered stance. Slocum kept her moving at a quick pace. He had seen men during the war look like this. Defeated. Shocked from seeing too much death on the battlefield. Emotionally destroyed as their friends and brothers died around them, leaving them alive to carry on somehow. The only way to snap her out of it was to focus her attention on something positive.

“After we get your folks free, do you know how to get away from Wilson's Creek?”

She looked up. Again a flash of determination came to her eyes.

“I know how we came in. Blundered in, actually. We got separated from the others in the wagon train. Pa thought he could take a shortcut and catch up. Drove along a road 'til we saw wooden towers.”

“Guard towers,” Slocum said, remembering how Mackenzie's men had been stationed to protect the road.

“They greeted us like long-lost relatives. Then they stole our wagon and belongings, clapped Pa into chains, and dragged Ma off.”

“How did Alicia get away?”

Loretta shook her head.

“Don't know. She was always the clever one. Mackenzie said it didn't matter that she got away, that the thunderbird would eat her. They took me to the . . . to the . . .” Her voice broke, and she began to cry.

Slocum worried that the sound would draw attention, but the night was empty. Even Mackenzie's own men feared the thunderbird, and if Loretta cried enough, it might steel her resolve to get even. He wanted to see something take hold other than resignation to the fate Mackenzie had decreed for her.

He kept her walking. Hesitantly reaching out, he put his arm around her shoulders. She shied away, and he didn't pursue her, knowing why she didn't want him—or any man—touching her.

“There's the building where I saw men sleeping,” Slocum said.

“Must be another shift. Heard that Mackenzie works them twelve hours on and then twelve off.”

Slocum had looked over the sleeping men and hadn't seen Rawlins. He still thought his partner had used the bank loot to buy his way into this outlaw sanctuary. Mackenzie charged for such refuge, and Slocum had no idea how long Rawhide would be safe before being driven out. He caught his breath when he realized Mackenzie wouldn't set anyone free who couldn't pay for further protection.

The clanking of chains as a new slave moved toward the mines foretold some poor soul's fate.

“Oh, my God, no!” Loretta cried.

Slocum grabbed her to prevent the woman from rushing out to the shackled prisoner shuffling along toward the gold mine.

She struggled but didn't have the strength to escape. And then Slocum saw why she had reacted.

The solitary chained prisoner was Alicia Watson.

“Alicia!”

Slocum clamped his hand over the girl's mouth and spun her around. They were a few yards from the bunkhouse. Any ruckus might rouse the men. Slocum hadn't seen chains holding the sleeping men, but their outcry would bring guards. He knew at least three patrolled the area around the mine. If they saw him again, this time with a whore from town, he wouldn't be able to talk his way out of getting ventilated unless he offered Loretta to them. That would set her off and betray him.

“Please, I have to help her.” Loretta struggled as he picked her up and swung her about. “She'll die in the mine!”

“I know. Settle down, and I'll rescue her. You don't have to do anything but wait for us to come back.”

He bodily carried her to a tool shed. Kicking open the door to reveal picks and other mining equipment, Slocum added Loretta to the pile. She fell over a wheelbarrow and tried to keep her balance. She ended up sitting in it, staring at him with wide, frightened eyes.

“Everyone who goes into the mine dies. Please let me go.”

“You stay here. Don't make a fuss or the guards will come for you.” He bit his lip, then knew what it would take to keep her quiet. As much as he hated saying it, he told her, “The thunderbird will hear you and carry you off.”

He felt lousy seeing how this fantasy cowed her. Stepping back, he closed the door and considered barring it on the outside. Slocum knew he might get killed attempting the rescue, so he left the door unlocked. Loretta could get away if he didn't make it back. He hoped his luck held long enough that she stayed inside while he actually got to the mine or that tools weren't needed and the shed door opened by the guards.

Moving fast, he returned to the spot where they had seen Alicia being dragged along. Ore cart tracks curved around a bend and into the mine. Using piles of tailings pulled from the mine to hide his advance, he got within a few yards of the mineshaft without revealing himself to any patrolling guards.

Sounds of digging came from deep within the mine. The notion that Mackenzie forced women to work with a pick and shovel caused a hardness in Slocum that he had felt before, which always ended with someone dying. Alicia was a pretty woman, but she hadn't been as cruelly used as her sister. Until now.

Slocum made sure his six-shooter rode easy in his holster, then did the only thing he could. He squared his shoulders and moved to the ore cart tracks. As much as he wanted to run, he forced himself to walk at a steady pace to the mouth of the shaft. Miners' candles on a rock shelf at eye level gave him the way to explore deeper into the mine without worrying that he would fall down a hole. Sometimes blue dirt ran straight down and the miners tore at the floor hunting for lower ore veins.

He lit a candle and held it at arm's length as he went forward toward the sound of iron tearing at rock. The farther he got, the louder the noise became. He heard workers grunting, cursing, talking with others around them. A Y branch in the mine forced Slocum to decide which direction to go. Sounds echoed from each shaft. Flickering candlelight showed glints off an iron pick a few yards down the left tunnel.

“You,” Slocum said, going to the miner with shackles on his ankles. The haggard man looked up. For a brief instant Slocum read the urge to use the pick on him, but it passed and the miner returned to his beaten look. “You see any new workers?”

“Not here,” the man said.

Slocum cursed. He had chosen the wrong branch.

“Any women working in the mine?”

“Women? Not diggin'. Whole passel of 'em work at the amalgam plant out by the river.”

The life of anyone working with mercury to form a gold amalgam would be pure hell, maybe worse than pulling ore from the rocky walls of this mine. But Slocum had come too far to go running off without being certain Alicia wasn't condemned to laboring underground.

“How many miners are there farther along?” Slocum pointed into the darkness. Scraping sounds told him ore was being loaded into carts to move out. “Any chance a woman might be hitched up to the ore cart to pull it out?”

“Like a donkey?” The miner laughed harshly. Again Slocum saw the man gauging his chances of getting away with a quick swing of the pick. “Naw, only men too banged up to use a pick or shovel get to pull the cart. They get to see daylight.”

“It's night,” Slocum said.

The miner scowled and went back to pecking away at a vein showing quartz in the dancing light from his candle.

Slocum backed off, then turned and hurried back to the fork. Less than twenty yards down the other shaft, he came to a man swinging his pick with some strength.

“You,” Slocum called. “Was a woman brought in here?”

“For us? I'm married.” The man turned back to his work. “Go to hell.”

“As a miner,” Slocum said. “Name of Alicia.”

This caused the man to whirl about. He held the pickaxe with the intent of using it as a weapon.

“You think that's funny? You like tormenting me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“My daughter's name is Alicia.”

“And your other's named Loretta?”

Slocum moved fast, sidestepping as the man lunged at him with the pickaxe. He tried to drive the point into Slocum's chest but missed by a wide margin when his shackles caused him to lose his balance. Slocum let him fall past to land facedown, then stepped on the pick handle to keep it flat on the ground.

“I'll rip out your heart, you bastard!”

The man threw his arms around Slocum's knees and drove him hard against the wall. Rather than drawing his six-gun and slugging the man, Slocum shoved away from the wall and drove the man back down to the ground. His knees crushed down in the middle of the struggling man's back.

“Calm down,” Slocum said. “I'm trying to help.”

“I'll kill you. I'll kill you all!”

Slocum grabbed a handful of shirt and pulled the man to his feet, then shoved hard and put distance between them. The fight built in the man rather than dying down.

“I promised Alicia I'd do what I could to rescue her family,” Slocum said. “Loretta's hiding just outside the mine, but we saw Mackenzie's henchmen with Alicia in chains.”

“You're one of them. This is some new way of tormenting me.”

“You're Alicia's pa?”

“Linc Watson.”

“Well, Mr. Watson, I'll see to you, too, after I get Alicia away.”

“Loretta's free?”

“I got her out of the whorehouse where Mackenzie had her prisoner.”

Under the dirt on his face, Linc Watson turned pale.

“He was whoring her?”

“No more. You certain Alicia wasn't brought into the mine? That means he's got her working at separating gold dust from the ore using mercury.”

“She's a clever girl,” Watson said. “She'll get away again.”

“I ran into her east of here trying to get to a cavalry post to bring soldiers.”

Watson shook his head. “They won't come. The soldiers are too afraid of—”

“The damned thunderbird,” Slocum said in disgust. “What the hell is it?”

“I don't know. Mackenzie claims to control it, but there's no way he could order around an Indian spirit.”

Slocum considered how hard it would be to use the pick to chop through the man's leg irons. He bent down to examine the links and locks. They had been crudely fashioned and the lock might be more easily broken than the hinge pin opposite it. Using the clumsy pickaxe would damage Watson more than his shackles.

“You're not lying? This isn't some trick? You have Loretta outside?”

“No trick. She's outside. Hunting for Alicia, too.”

“My son's dead. He inhaled mercury fumes and died, but my wife's still there.”

Slocum looked up at the man.

“Please, if you can't get me free, save the rest of my family. The women.” Tears ran down Watson's cheeks and left tracks in the dirt. “I don't know how Loretta's going to deal with being used like that. Alicia, she's stronger. Always has been, but her sister . . .” Watson shook his head.

“That pickaxe is too dull to ever break the chains,” Slocum said. “Let me go find a sledgehammer. If you put the pick edge against the chains and I hit it with a hammer . . .”

Slocum spun around on his knees and looked down the shaft to see lanterns bobbing along.

“No, no,” Watson sobbed. He stumbled back, away from Slocum.

“What's goin' on there?”

Slocum reached for his six-shooter, then froze. A short, sturdy man with unnaturally powerful shoulders and arms stepped into the rocky chamber. Flanking him were gunmen with shotguns leveled. If he so much as twitched, Slocum knew he would be splattered all over the mine walls.

“I was checking this one's chains. I thought a link looked like he'd been worrying at it.” He rocked back and came to his feet. If he was going to die, he'd do it on his own terms and standing tall.

“So?” The short man strutted forward. He puffed out his chest and flexed his biceps, as if this would give him the height he lacked.

Slocum got a better look at the man and knew why Watson's courage had evaporated so fast. The man's shoulders strained the fancy shirt he wore. Arms as thick as Slocum's thighs bulged and made him appear deformed. If he had been another foot taller, he would have been in proportion. But what told Slocum who he faced were the feathers adorning the man's shirt. Feathers, maybe eagle or crow, had been dyed impossibly vivid colors. Reds and blues and a yellow with purple highlights swayed every time the man moved.

The man pointed. His huge hands were gnarled and looked as if a cougar had chewed on them, leaving behind raw meat. A slender waist and legs so tiny they might have belonged to a youngster completed the picture. Almost.

Slocum looked into the dark eyes and saw a bottomless pit of loco.

“So, Mr. Mackenzie,” Slocum said, guessing the man's identity, “the chains are nice and secure. No way is he going to get free.”

Mackenzie made a cackling sound and bobbed up and down the way a chicken would before pecking at grains of corn. The gunman on his right came forward, slugged Watson in the gut with the butt of his shotgun, and then looked at the chains.

“Look good to me, Mr. Mackenzie.”

“Good to know a guard's on the ball. Can't turn your back on these sons of bitches in the mines, not for an instant.” Mackenzie spun about and bent forward, presenting his cracker ass and making cawing sounds. He spun about and clawed at the air with his gnarled hands. “You come with us. We're going back to the nest.”

Watson turned his face away. More tears streamed down his cheeks. Slocum couldn't tell if the man avoided a direct glance so he wouldn't give away his possible benefactor or thought Slocum had been lying. If it hadn't been for the attentiveness of Mackenzie's bodyguards, Slocum would have shown the prisoner some leaden truth. As it was, he followed Mackenzie out, the man bobbing and dancing to music only he heard. All the way out into the night, Slocum felt the presence of the shotguns pointed at his spine.

Mackenzie couldn't know every man in his employ. Or was he cagier than that? If he knew Slocum was an interloper, why not have the guards just gun him down?

When they reached the open air, Mackenzie threw back his head and turned his face to the sky. A screech like a hoot owl erupted from his lips. As quickly as it started, he cut it off.

“That's to appease the thunderbird,” Mackenzie said in a tone so normal as to be frightening. “Don't want to get on its bad side. It's a powerful spirit, the thunderbird.”

“Surely is, sir,” both guards said in unison.

Slocum felt obligated to chime in, so he said, “Never cross an Indian spirit bird.”

Mackenzie looked hard at him. A bent finger stabbed him in the chest.

“You're right.” With that, he dashed off, laughing crazily.

“Come on. We gotta keep up. Don't want the boss kept waitin'.” The man behind Slocum nudged him with the shotgun.

“What about the men in the mine?” Slocum said. “I was supposed to guard them.”

“Don't worry. The thunderbird will eat 'em all up if they try to escape.”

“Yeah,” said the second guard. “Bein' outside at night's a death sentence 'cuz that's when the thunderbird hunts. Good thing we're with the boss. Only he can control it.”

“Or call it down from the sky,” finished the first guard.

Both men laughed and started running. Slocum paused, considering his chances and realizing they weren't good. He lit out after them, looking around, hoping to catch sight of Loretta. Though they ran past the shed where he had left her, he didn't see the woman. And nowhere did he catch sight of Alicia. As her pa had said, she must have been taken to the amalgam plant fifty yards away, near the rapidly running namesake for the town.

Either the two gunmen were slower than him or they slowed to let him catch up. Slocum found himself flanked by them as they returned to town.

Panting harshly, one gasped out, “Ain't seen you here before. You jist git to town?”

“Just did,” Slocum said. “How long you been here?”

“Since the boss recruited me over in Halliday. I got cross with the law and was gonna hang fer murderin' some lily liver what wouldn't apologize fer callin' me a half-breed. I ain't no breed. My folks was both from Italy.”

“Busted you out of Hillstrom's jail?” Slocum asked.

“You been there, too?” The man's sudden interest told Slocum he had said the wrong thing.

“The marshal came for me. Warrants from three counties. I got out of town ahead of a posse.”

“Warrants fer what?”

“I killed three men who asked too many questions,” Slocum said as coldly as he could. He didn't want friends. The two with him would gun him down on a whim—or at Mackenzie's order. He didn't want to hesitate an instant if he had to kill them to protect himself.