Slocum's Great Race Read online

The robber ripped open the boatman’s shirt and clawed at his chest, as if he could dig out a hidden key.

  “I don’t see it, Clausen. Nowhere. He musta lost it.”

  “He would die before he gave it up.”

  The conversation became a shouting match between the two robbers and their increasingly insensate victim as they continued to pummel him and demanded to know where the key had gotten off to.

  Something alerted the thieves to Slocum’s presence. One tugged at the other’s sleeve and both turned to face him. They were shrouded by the deep shadows, and Slocum couldn’t see their faces, but with the rising sun directly at his back, his own face was hidden in shadow, too.

  “You go on now, mind yer own business!” said the man called Clausen.

  “Reckon I will,” Slocum said, lifting his six-shooter and aiming it at them. Both robbers lit out like their tails were on fire. Slocum cautiously approached the river man, and saw how he bled from a half dozen cuts. His face was a giant bruise already, but his breath came in ragged gasps. He might have a broken rib, but he wasn’t spitting up pink froth, so a lung wasn’t punctured.

  Seeing that the man was going to live and wasn’t too bad off from the beating, Slocum backed away, got to the street, and thrust his six-shooter into his holster. He had a bad curiosity, and it itched like poison ivy right about now. It took him close to an hour to find a newspaper and read the headlines.

  Colonel J. Patterson Turner’s Transcontinental Race was about all there was on the front page. Slocum scanned through the flowery words and found what he needed to know. A special train car had been reserved for race contestants and would depart from St. Louis at precisely nine A.M. on September 15, 1873.

  Those details mattered less to Slocum than the reported prize of fifty thousand dollars. This was a princely sum—in gold—to the contestant who figured out where the strongbox had been placed and had the proper key to open it. Slocum wasn’t interested in this, but from the amount of publicity the colonel got, he reckoned a lot of people were since this was the morning the racers were to start on their cross-country stampede.

  He traced the outline of the key on his watch chain. Who wouldn’t pay him five hundred dollars for the gold key and a chance to win fifty thousand?

  Slocum was betting there was at least one onlooker who yearned for the chance to join the race. He set off for the train depot, and reached it a few minutes after eight. The crowd that had gathered numbered in the hundreds, all pressing close, but being held back by a small army of uniformed guards sporting a Turner Haulage Company patch on their right shoulders. Slocum worked closer, and saw the sewn patches showed a locomotive, stagecoach, horse, and boat.

  Seeing his interest, the guard tapped the patch and said, “The colonel’s braggin’ on movin’ freight however’s fastest. You got the look of a freighter. You interested in a job?”

  “Can’t say that I am,” Slocum said. “How many drivers is the colonel hiring?”

  “Couple hundred, I heard,” the guard said. “I’m fixin’ on signin’ on when this circus is over. Pay’s supposed to be good.”

  People behind Slocum jostled him and pushed him forward.

  “Let us through. Let the racers through!”

  The guard thrust out a brawny arm and pushed Slocum to one side to clear a path for a strutting banty rooster of a man wearing a white Panama hat with a fancy hatband. His white suit had already picked up soot and dirt splotches, but no one would notice that. Their eyes would be drawn to the insignia and half dozen medals bouncing on the man’s left breast.

  Slocum didn’t have to be told that Colonel J. Patterson Turner had made his grand entrance. A ragtag bunch of men trailed him, some with hard looks to them and others wide-eyed with amazement at being the center of attention, if only for a moment. Any fame descending on them would be reflected off a brilliant Colonel Turner swaggering along to a stage erected near a train waiting on a siding, the steam engine huffing and puffing clouds of white smoke into the air.

  “Welcome to the greatest spectacle of this century!” the small, white-suited man shouted. His voice was a little shrill, and was almost drowned out by the idling steam engine. “One of the lucky fifty holding the gold keys will win the prize of a lifetime in commemoration of Turner Haulage Company’s inaugural shipment. We offer the fastest, most secure transport of cargo from . . .”

  Slocum stopped listening, and started looking around the crowd for someone likely to offer him a few dollars for his key. He stopped looking and stared when he set eyes on a tall, willowy dark-haired woman dressed in rugged traveling clothes at the edge of the crowd. The guards had gravitated to her, and Slocum couldn’t blame them. He had seen a passel of pretty fillies in his day, but not one this lovely. Her pale oval face was punctuated by a pert nose, bow-shaped ruby lips, and blue eyes rivaling the sky itself. She clutched a large carpetbag and hung on Colonel Turner’s every word, as if anything he said mattered one whit.

  Slocum moved closer, just to be sure he wasn’t overestimating her beauty. When he got close enough to see every curve of her body and every facial plane, he knew he wasn’t. Just looking at her caused a catch in his throat.

  “The fifty contestants will ride this train and be given clues to the next stop along the various routes pioneered by Turner Haulage Company,” the colonel went on.

  “Are they paying anything to go West?” Slocum asked a guard. It took the man a second to understand that someone had spoken to him. When he did answer, he never took his eyes off the captivating woman’s beauty.

  “Naw, all the transportation’s paid for.”

  Slocum considered this. He had a key and could ride along, pretending to hunt for the clues to the next message left, and not pay a dime to reach Denver. The only problem with that was that his gear was still back at his hotel, and it was only a few minutes before the train pulled out with the contestants aboard. He looked around for someone to buy his key before it was too late. The lure of a free trip was canceled out by the loss of his gear. More than this, he preferred to set his own pace and choose his own trail rather than being part of a herd.

  He tried to study the crowd for a likely buyer, but kept getting distracted by the woman. She breathed more heavily now, displaying even more of her allure as her breasts rose and fell under the thick blouse and jacket she wore.

  “Will those with keys board the Turner Haulage Company train and partake of their golden destiny!”

  Dozens of men pushed through the circle of guards, each showing a key to be permitted through. Slocum had started to bellow out a call for a buyer for his key when he saw the woman hold out a key of her own and be ushered toward the train car.

  Slocum wasn’t sure he thought about it as he took out his key and followed.

  Not only was the colonel offering a free ride West, traveling with the pretty woman was an added bonus that offset the loss of his gear.

  Flashing his key, Slocum followed her up the narrow metal steps into the train car.

  2

  “Very good, suh,” the conductor said, staring at the key dangling from Slocum’s watch chain. “Go right on in and good luck to you.”

  Slocum nodded and slipped into the car, looking over the heads of most of the men already inside to catch a glimpse of the woman. She seemed to have vanished into thin air. Slocum began pushing his way toward the rear of the car, only to be jostled and then shoved back hard. He caught himself on a seat back to keep from falling.

  “Watch where you’re goin’,” a burly man growled. Slocum knew he wasn’t any fresh flower, not after spending much of the past week along the docks and in smoke-filled, stinking-of-puke saloons and not bathing, but this gent reeked of onions and dried blood.

  “You a buffalo skinner?” Slocum asked.

  “What’s it to you?” The man squared off, his impressive shoulders blocking the aisle. He stood only a little over five feet, but what he lacked in height, he made up for in bulk. The buckskins he wore hadn’t been
properly cured, and had probably not been taken off in months. At his belt he carried two knives, either of which was a dangerous enough weapon. That he had a pair riding one at each hip told Slocum not to get too close or he’d find his guts spilling onto the train floorboards.

  “You’re sorely in need of manners,” said Slocum. “You got the look of a man who spends too much time murdering buffalo and not enough time bathing.”

  The man roared like a mountain lion, and tried to wrap his arms around Slocum’s chest. He never got the chance. Rather than stepping away, which would have been deadly, the aisle being clogged with others crowding into the train, Slocum stepped forward and brought his knee up as hard as he could. The buffalo skinner gasped and turned red in the face. As he reached for his damaged privates, Slocum punched him in the throat and knocked his head back. Before the buffalo skinner could collapse, Slocum stepped up and again kneed him in the groin.

  It had taken that much punishment to bring the burly man to his knees. Slocum used both hands on the man’s greasy collar to pull him along. The other men behind stepped out of the way and let Slocum wrestle his weakly mewling victim to the door. The conductor looked from the buffalo skinner to Slocum and smiled, his white teeth shining against his black skin.

  “You surely do go for the big ’uns, don’t you?”

  “Big and smelly,” Slocum said. He heaved, got the skinner to his feet and then turned to let him fall away. The man smashed his face against the bottom step and slithered on down to the platform.

  “Thank you, suh, for doin’ your housecleanin’ on the side of the train ’way from the reporters. They is a chatterin’ bunch.”

  “You work for the colonel?”

  “The railroad, suh, but the colonel is a major stock-holder. He wouldn’t like it none to have his railroad or his contest besmirched.”

  “You have any interest in finding the strongbox?”

  “Why’s that, suh?”

  “I can get his key and let you have it.”

  The conductor laughed until he had to hold his sides. He wiped away tears and then composed himself.

  “I got no call to do sich a thing. I got me a wife and four chilluns. They wouldn’t like it none if I went traipsin’ off.”

  “And?” Slocum pressed.

  “And I reckon y’all will end up like that one, or worse. The root of evil and all that.”

  “And all that,” Slocum said, grabbing a metal handrail to keep his balance as the train lurched forward. The steam whistle screeched and the train pulled out.

  “Leastways, there’s one less to fight you foah the gold.” The conductor shook his head as he watched the buffalo skinner’s unconscious form disappear as the train built speed and left the depot behind. He adjusted his cap, touched the brim, and went forward without another word.

  Slocum dusted himself off and went back into the passenger car. The general hubbub became utter silence as he felt all eyes on him. The clacking wheels and the creaking of the car as it took the gradual turns in the rail yard were all he heard, until someone at the rear of the car said loudly enough to be heard, “Served the bastard right. Besides, he stunk. Better off without him aboard.”

  Someone answered that the speaker shouldn’t talk about lack of sanitation, and then the conversation level rose to drown out the train noises. As Slocum made his way along the aisle, he looked for the woman, but didn’t see her. He frowned. He had acted impulsively because of her. At the very least, he wanted to find out her name. Along with the memory of her beauty, that would keep him warm many a night along the lonesome trail across the prairie.

  As he made his way down the aisle, he looked not only for the woman, but for anyone else who might cause him trouble. The majority of the men stared at him almost guiltily—or maybe it was with a touch of fear. A few were bolder and more dangerous from the look of the way they slung their iron at their hips. Slocum sorted the men into three groups. One would get through using their wits. The other group would fling lead everywhere. The third group hardly mattered since they weren’t likely to last long, either being outwitted or shot and left for dead on the trail.

  “You surely did take care of that troublesome fellow,” said a man wearing a bowler with a dark maroon grosgrain ribbon around the crown. His clothing had been expensive at one time—a long time ago. Slocum figured he was down on his luck and looking to get back on top by winning the prize.

  “Wasn’t that much trouble,” Slocum said, finally seeing the woman huddled at the back of the car, slumped down in the seat and trying to vanish. Slocum kept walking, not wanting to get involved with the man in the bowler when his goal was in sight.

  He stopped and looked down at her. She shrank a bit more, and looked out the window as the countryside slipped by faster and faster. The engineer had put full steam to the boilers, and drove the train along at thirty miles an hour.

  “He’s in a hurry to get us somewhere,” Slocum said. “Do you know where we’re headed?”

  She looked up, her bright blue eyes fixed on him for the first time. A tiny smile crept to the corners of her lips, then faded quickly.

  “You don’t know?” she asked. “You’ve got a key, don’t you?”

  Slocum pulled the gold key out and let it spin slowly. She shrugged and turned away. He considered leaving her alone, then simply sat beside her. This startled her. She sat straighter and looked outraged at how forward he was.

  “This seat is taken, sir.”

  “Is now.”

  “I am saving it for my brother.”

  “He wasn’t the buffalo skinner I threw off the train, was he?”

  “What?” She actually laughed. The merriment danced in her eyes for a moment and then quickly died. “How absurd to think that horrid man was my brother Harry.”

  “I’m John Slocum.”

  She responded out of reflex. “Molly Ibbotson.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance.” Slocum spoke to the back of her head. She had turned and was staring out at the Missouri land slipping past.

  “I reckon this line goes to Kansas City,” Slocum said. “Is that where we’re supposed to find out where to head next?”

  She turned back to face him. “You know these things. You have the key.”

  “But none of the details. I came by the key only a couple hours ago.”

  “Oh.” She shied away from him.

  “I won it in a poker game. I didn’t kill anyone for it, though some of these gents look like that’s how they came by theirs.”

  “I’m afraid you may be right, Mr. Slocum.”

  “Tell me what everyone else already knows.”

  “You wouldn’t be here unless you knew about the strongbox and the gold inside,” she said. Slocum didn’t contradict her. “The Turner Haulage Company is a new business, and the colonel thought this was a good way to get a great deal of publicity. I had heard there were reporters along, though I have seen no one who looks as if he can sign his name other than with an X.” A hand covered her lips; then she smiled wanly. “I didn’t mean you, sir. I was referring to others.”

  Slocum followed her gaze. He knew who she was most upset over, and with good reason. The man was an obvious gunman and had a half dozen men with him, all likely to have wanted posters following them across the West.

  “Who is he?”

  “I heard one of his sycophants call him Sid Calhoun. Do you know him?”

  Slocum shook his head. There were too many desperadoes for anyone, even a federal deputy marshal, to keep track of. For that he was grateful since he had run from a wanted poster on his head for years. Slocum had never thought what he did was a crime, but the law didn’t agree. When he had returned to Slocum’s Stand in Georgia after the war, his parents were dead and his brother, Robert, had died during Pickett’s Charge. Without consciously knowing he did so, he touched the watch in his vest pocket. The timepiece was his only legacy from a brother he had revered.

  But he hadn’t returned to farm l
and that had been in the Slocum family for almost a century. He had wanted to recuperate after getting gut-shot on orders of William Quantrill for protesting the Lawrence, Kansas, raid that ended with children as young as eight being shot down like dogs. As he healed, a carpetbagger judge had taken a fancy to the farm, and had trumped up unpaid tax liens as an excuse to seize it for himself. He and a gunman had ridden out to take possession. Slocum had given them more than they expected.

  He had buried the two bodies near the springhouse, and then had ridden out, with charges of judge killing dogging his heels ever since.

  Having a price on his head meant nothing, but Slocum had seen men like Sid Calhoun before. They were cold-blooded killers who thought nothing of leaving lead-filled bodies in their wake. These were the men Slocum expected to go after a fifty-thousand-dollar prize.

  “Why are you on this wild-goose chase?” Slocum asked the woman.

  “It’s not a wild-goose chase! I—we—intend to win. That much gold will put us on easy street the rest of our lives.”

  “You’re educated,” Slocum said, taking her measure. “You could earn a good wage as a schoolmarm. What about your brother?”

  “Harry?” She laughed ruefully, and that told Slocum everything he needed to know. The sister had assumed the role of a parent and had tried to do right by a ne’er-do-well brother. He might be a gambler or a drunk or enjoy the ladies too much, but whatever his vice, Molly thought a pile of gold coins would solve his problem. And hers.

  “Where is your brother?”

  She glanced over her shoulder toward the back of the train car. Slocum remembered a half dozen cars attached to the rear. The caboose didn’t matter, but there were a few freight cars and a mail car.

  “He’s seeing to things,” she said.

  “How do we find the next place?”

  “I shouldn’t tell you, should I? If we are competitors, you might take advantage of me.”

  “Only if you want,” Slocum said boldly. His green eyes locked with her blue ones, and silent communication passed between them. He felt her responding, relaxing in his presence. Wherever her brother was, he could stay there for the rest of the trip as far as Slocum was concerned.