Slocum and the High-Country Manhunt Read online

  As much as he wanted to keep out of other people’s affairs, and had done his best to remain quiet and unhindered in Bismarck, this girl would bear watching and might well be in trouble before her stay was over. He decided to follow her, even though he knew he’d be courting danger should he poke his nose in where it didn’t concern him. Mostly because he himself was a wanted man, wanted wrongfully for a murder back in his home state of Georgia—not that his innocence had ever mattered.

  As he headed to the door, he flipped up his coat’s sheepskin collar. He hoped like hell the warning feeling he was getting about those two characters was wrong, though so far it hadn’t ever let him down. Always a first time, he thought as he stepped outside and into a frigid blast of raw winter air. But a short, clipped scream from below on the boardwalk told him he’d not been wrong. The girl was in trouble.

  2

  The darkness of early evening, coupled with the heavy snows and gusting winds, made visibility difficult on the street. But not bad enough that he couldn’t see the shapes of three people tussling, two of them larger than the third, and trying to drag the third down past the saloon to the waiting shadows of the alley.

  Slocum pivoted on one hand, vaulting over the railing, landing him but a few feet from the scuffling throng. The girl wasn’t screaming anymore, so she must have had her mouth covered. He hoped they hadn’t knifed her into silence. One more stride and he managed to grab a handful of each of the men’s coats. The smaller, Blondie, managed to twist out of his grasp. His coat had been thicker, a woolen mackinaw, more difficult to maintain a grasp on. The taller of the two, Rat Face, lost his grip on the girl and spun on this unseen attacker. Slocum landed one hard punch to the side of his head. The beanpole went down like a breeze-blown house of cards and lay still. He emitted nothing but an involuntary grunt as he hit the frozen ground, his head bouncing in a teeth-chattering rhythm.

  Slocum turned his attention to the next lowlife, who hadn’t made much progress in getting the girl to the alley. He still had her mouth covered with a grimy hand, but Slocum saw her legs lashing out, the white of her petticoats flouncing as she kicked and thrashed. She appeared to be more wildcat than he’d suspected she’d be.

  The man growled and grunted, not making any real words, but all the while trying to rip her purse from her arms. She had it hugged tightly to her belly with both arms.

  Slocum finally managed to discern who was who and he grabbed for the man’s coat collar again and snagged a handful of wool. This time he stayed with it, and dragged on the man. But Blondie still wasn’t letting go of the girl.

  With a quick, short jab to the head, Slocum dizzied the lad enough that he lessened his grip on the girl’s face. She took full advantage of the newfound freedom, not to scream as he’d expected, but to keep on lashing and thrashing. She must have bit down on the man’s hand because he hissed as if he’d been stung.

  Slocum set himself up for another punch, this time to the man’s now exposed midsection. Just before he landed it, the kid yowled a blue streak and lurched forward into Slocum’s fist. It caught the kid square in the chest and he spun sideways, and kept spinning as if he were a schoolkid trying to dizzy himself up.

  Soon enough he righted himself and took off lurching down the street. Slocum wanted to go after him, but the girl had fallen backward when Blondie spun away from her.

  Slocum dropped to a knee and extended his hands to help her. “Miss, you okay? Did they hurt—”

  But that was all he was able to say because he felt a hot stab of pain in his left side, just below the ribs. Had he been shot? He didn’t think that rat-faced man had enough gumption to shoot, not if he’d had the chance to vamoose.

  No, he hadn’t heard any sounds, and as he slumped backward to sit on his haunches, he saw no one on the boardwalk above. In fact, not a soul in the saloon had heard a thing, so quiet had the scuffle been.

  “Hey, ma’am, are you okay?”

  Slocum held his side and advanced toward her on his knees. But she, also on her knees, retreated from him, straight into a drift, although she didn’t seem to care. She scrambled to her feet, kept backing from him.

  “Ma’am, did they hurt you?”

  “Stand back!” she said in a voice low and controlled. Though she was barely visible in front of the saloon, Slocum saw that she held her arm out in front of her, waving it back and forth as though it were a snake defending itself. “I’m not afraid to give you another one.”

  “What? Another what? Ma’am, I was just trying to help you get away from those thieves.” What had she said . . . give him another one? “Ma’am, what did you do?”

  She must have believed him, at least a little bit, because she stopped waving her arm, but still held it poised, as if ready to strike.

  “What did you do?” He pulled away his fingers and saw, in the scant light shed from the saloon windows, that his fingertips glistened. “You stabbed me.” He looked at her. “You stabbed me!”

  “I . . . I thought you were one of them. Oh! Look out!” She pointed toward him. He turned in time to see the lanky form of Rat Face hobble down the street. Slocum’s instinct told him to take off after the varmint, but the stitch in his side, from whatever it was she did to him, hurt like hell.

  He took one, two strides, then gripped his side. “Damn, girl. I can’t believe you stabbed me.” He straightened up as she approached him, stiffening and turning his good side toward her. “You better think twice before you cut me again. Woman or no, I’ll lay you out cold.”

  “Oh, stop your silliness.” She held up her hand and he flinched, then looked closer. Something glinted, something long and thin. “It was only my hat pin.” Then he noticed that her fancy hat was indeed lopsided and a handful of loose curls had escaped and framed one side of her face. Despite the hot little pain in his side, he had to admit the look was a good one on her.

  “You ever been stabbed by a hat pin, ma’am?”

  “Well . . . no.”

  “When you do, then you can tell me to stop my silliness. Until then, I’ll bleed and I’ll complain about it, thank you very much.” He straightened and kept his right hand on the tiny wound. Hat pin or no, it hurt like hell. He hoped it hadn’t punctured anything vital inside. He expected he’d have to go to the doc now, see what he might tell him, signs to look for just in case something inside was leaking.

  “Now, for the last time, did they hurt you, ma’am?”

  She shook her head, but was silent.

  “And they didn’t take anything?”

  “No, I believe I have it all, my purse, my jewels.”

  “Good, then I suggest we report it to the marshal. This sort of thing can’t stand—”

  “No! No, thank you. I don’t want the law involved. No harm done . . . well, except to you. But no, no law, please.”

  Despite being curious about her absolute determination that this go unreported to the law, Slocum had to admit he felt relief. As a longtime wanted man himself, he hadn’t liked the idea of going voluntarily into a lawdog’s office to report a crime, have his name taken down. He doubted the man would have a dodger on him, given the distance from Georgia to North Dakota, and the years that had passed, but in a town of this size, you never could tell who knew what.

  As soon as she said it, she looked down toward her feet. He saw that the shock of the scuffle must have been wearing off because her shoulders rose up and down slightly. Crying. Great, he thought. Not only did I not get the lowlifes, but I’m stuck with a crying young woman who stabbed me.

  He reached out a hand, touched her sleeve. “Hey, it’s okay. They’re gone.”

  To his surprise, she didn’t pull away or flinch, just stood and sobbed quietly, as if she’d found out that her dog had died. “Let’s get you inside, ma’am. It’s too cold out here for that shawl you’re wearing.” He held out an arm and she took it. He turned back toward the bu
ildings behind them. “I assume you’re staying in the Hoyt House?”

  She nodded, sniffed, touched her face with a hanky.

  “Well, let’s get you in there before you catch pneumonia.” He guided her to the steps and tried to ignore the stinging in his side where the hat pin had punctured him. They made it to the warm lobby, where the girl detached herself from him and hustled over to the clerk’s desk, behind which a portly man in a vest too small for him looked up from a newspaper.

  His eyes immediately brightened and his smile was wider than Slocum thought possible on a human.

  “Why, Miss Garfield!” As the clerk spoke, his hands, like two shaved pink rats, hurriedly folded the newspaper and stuffed it under the counter. His eyes never left her face. “I do hope you enjoyed yourself at our gaming tables.”

  Slocum figured she was going to retrieve her key and head on up to the confines of her room to sleep away the bad experiences she’d had in town. Somehow he didn’t figure her for one to be so rude as to not even offer a smile and a nod to him, not that he was looking for thanks. But she did stab him, after all. He turned to head on out, had his hand on the cut-glass knob, when her voice said, “Hold on there, don’t go just yet . . .”

  He kept his hand on the knob, but looked her way. “Me?”

  “Yes, you. I . . .” She held up a single finger in the air, telling him to wait, and turned back to the smiling desk clerk. “My dear old friend”—she nodded quickly toward Slocum—“and I would like to have supper in my rooms.”

  “But ma’am, I believe the kitchens are closed—”

  “As I was saying . . .” She unclasped her purse. “We will require a complete meal, delivered to my rooms.” She eyed Slocum, as if sizing him up for something, then said, “Two steak dinners, I think, yes, that will work, and dessert—cook’s choice. And champagne, wine, and port.” She looked at Slocum again. “And a bottle of your best bourbon. And an assortment of cigars, I think. Yes, cigars. Also, we will require medical supplies—bandages, medicinal alcohol, that sort of thing.”

  The clerk, red-faced, had snatched up a pencil and begun scratching down the list halfway through her recital.

  She waited for him to finish, watching what he wrote, then nodded.

  “Will that be all, Miss Garfield?”

  “For now. Thank you. And if you could send up the champagne, the bourbon, and the medical supplies right away, it would be appreciated.” Her smile had the same effect on the clerk as it did on Slocum—and neither man could help it. Even in a lopsided hat, she could melt ice at the North Pole.

  She walked back to Slocum, who hadn’t moved from the doorway, and held out her arm as he had to her not long before in the snowy street. “Shall we?” she said, smiling that smile and nodding toward the grand staircase.

  He nodded. “Apparently we shall,” he replied, and they walked up the stairs.

  Neither of them spoke as they ascended the stairs, and after the first flight, Slocum felt the stitch in his side ease a bit. He reckoned—hoped—that her hat pin hadn’t done as much damage as he’d initially suspected. He wanted to pull his hand out from inside his coat to see how bloody the thing had gotten, but he figured he’d wait until they got to her room. Or rooms, as she’d said. How big were her “rooms” anyway?

  As he had guessed, those rooms were on the top floor of the Hoyt House Hotel. In fact, up in that rarified place, it appeared that they took up half of the upstairs. Slocum found himself both relieved that they had made it to the top floor and momentarily stunned at the enormity of what appeared to be just her sitting room.

  “Please, come in.”

  He did, slipping off his hat and running a hand through his hair. He breathed a sigh of relief at having, just that afternoon, bathed, shaved, and pulled on fresh duds. The downside was that her hat pin trick had probably ruined his best shirt.

  She closed the door behind him, then crossed the room, pulling off her fancy hat—which he didn’t fail to note was secured by two more pins of surprising length. He gulped once.

  “Ma’am—”

  “Ginny. Please call me Ginny.” She disappeared into an adjoining room and came back out, without her hat and holding an earring. “Please do forgive me, sir.” She advanced on him, her hand held out.

  He resisted the urge to back up, unsure if she was about to jab him again. She only wanted to shake hands.

  “You saved me from some grim fate and I am afraid I don’t even know your name.”

  The look of genuine concern on her face made him smile. “Slocum. John Slocum. Glad to be of service.” He nodded, but she held on to his hand, looked at it.

  “Oh my stars, I . . . I did that to you, didn’t I?”

  He looked down at his hand, too, and saw that it was stained with partially dried blood. Some had gotten on her hand.

  She pulled open his coat and gasped. “I knew we’d need to doctor you, but I . . .”

  Before she could finish giving voice to her thought, she brought a hand to her forehead and crumpled into him, her knees buckling.

  Slocum tossed his hat aside and just managed to catch her. “Ma’am? Miss Garfield?” He held her draped in one arm, and lightly slapped her cheeks with the other. “Ma’am?”

  No response. “Out cold,” he said and scooped her up. He walked to the door she’d gone into before and saw a massive poster bed with a canopy of some gauzy blue fabric. The rest of the room’s furnishings were ornate, with gold-painted accents, and little cupids seemed to adorn every corner and angle.

  “Good Lord,” he said as he laid her on the bed and stretched her legs out, smoothed her hair and dress.

  He looked at her a moment, admiring her boldness and beauty, all in one fancy-wrapped package. He shook his head and left the room. All he really wanted to do was leave her be, let her sleep off her little fainting spell. He bent to retrieve his hat from the floor. As he punched a dent out of the crown, someone knocked on the door. “Room service, Miss Garfield.”

  “Oh hell,” said Slocum. So much for vamoosing without any fuss. He sighed and opened the door.

  The fat little red-faced desk clerk stood before him, holding a silver tray on which stood a bottle of champagne in a silver ice bucket. A towel was draped over it, and beside it stood a bottle of bourbon, a couple of glasses specific to their purpose, and an assortment of tinctures, bandages, and pins, plus scissors and other sundries.

  “Where would you like this, sir?”

  “Oh, ahh, how about over there, on that fancy little table.”

  “Very good, sir.” After he’d set down the tray, the fat clerk headed back to the door, then stood still. His puffy pink hands sought to grip each other, not quite touching before his ample paunch, just under the jutting bottom wings of the too-tight vest.

  Slocum said, “Thanks. I guess that’ll do for now.”

  The clerk still stood there, smiling that damn smile at him. Then his eyebrows rose, his head inclined slightly.

  “Oh, right . . .” Slocum dug in his denims pocket, pulled out what was in there—three spent matches, a bedraggled quirley stub, a dusting of hay chaff, and three coins, none of them together totaling a half-dollar. He pinched the dimes out of the rest, held them out, and placed them in the now-frowning fat man’s palm. Slocum smiled and nodded, and the clerk offered a weak smile in return, blew the chaff from his palm, and with a head held high, exited the room.

  Slocum stared at the closed door a moment, wondering how it was he’d just paid a man to do a job he’d already been paid to do. “What is the world coming to?” he mused aloud.

  From the bedroom he heard a slight groan, then Ginny appeared in the doorway.

  “Just in time,” said Slocum. “First round arrived.” He waved at the tray and offered what he hoped was a sympathetic smile.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, looking confused enough that Slocum th
ought she might take to fainting again.

  “You okay, ma’am?”

  “I am fine.” She smiled. “Fit as a fiddle, in fact. What say we tend to that wound of yours.”

  Slocum suddenly wasn’t interested in pretending he wanted to be there anymore. He felt bone tired, and the urge to leave appealed to him more than ever. Maybe he’d just head on out, get a stiff drink, then hit the hay.

  “Again, I am so very sorry. John, was it?”

  “Yep. John Slocum.” They stood still for a moment, looking at each other. Slocum turned his hat in his hands. “Well, I better be going. Things to do, places to be. Good luck to you, ma’am. And if I may . . . I was you, I’d stay away from the games table. At least until you get in a bit more practice.” He smiled and headed to the door.

  “Mr. Slocum, please. I would like to make this up to you. I feel mortified about the unpleasantness with the hat pin . . . That it turned out the way it had.”

  “Well, that’s water under the bridge. I’ll go now.”

  She rushed to the door, arms spread wide, and said, “No! No, you can’t go yet. We . . .” She cast her gaze around the room, saw the silver tray again, and said, “We simply must toast to our successful ouster of those ruffians.”

  “Yeah,” he said, “but you should get some rest. You had a pretty big shock.”

  “Nonsense. Well, yes, but it could have been so much worse. Please, Mr. Slocum, please stay awhile at least. I . . . I’m a stranger here and I’d enjoy the company.”

  She offered him that charming smile again and it had the effect it had before. Maybe more so now, since he was even more tired. As if to settle the thought once and for all, he said, “Your face. It’s still red. From where that man gripped you, I think.”

  Her hand went to her cheek. “Oh, pardon me a moment,” she said. “Please pour the drinks. I’ll be right back.” She went into the bedroom.

  Slocum did as he was bidden, mostly because the bourbon looked too good standing there to ignore, and also because if he ever needed a drink, it was now. Once he poured, he considered for the flicker of an instant whether he should be gentlemanly and wait for her. Nah, I’ve done my duty tonight.