Slocum's Great Race Read online

  “You’re not what I thought when I first saw you,” she said.

  “What was that?”

  “You’re more pleasant than Calhoun and his henchmen, but you look as deadly.”

  “If folks leave me alone, I get along just fine.”

  “How alone?” It was her turn to be forward.

  “Not too alone,” he assured her.

  “Where is Harry?”

  “Leaving you alone with a car full of road agents is hardly a brotherly thing to do.”

  “I can take care of myself. Where is he?” She strained to look over Slocum’s shoulder. Molly half stood, and had started to call out when the door at the rear opened. When she saw it wasn’t her brother, she sank back down and glumly stared out the window again. The mood that had built between her and Slocum was gone.

  Slocum watched the man who had come from the rear of the train sashay over to Sid Calhoun and bend over to whisper in the owlhoot’s ear. Calhoun nodded and clapped the man on the shoulder. The rest of the Calhoun gang joined in congratulating the newcomer. Something about their hilarity put Slocum on edge.

  “What’s your brother look like?” Slocum asked.

  “That wasn’t him.”

  “What’s he wearing?”

  “Why? Are you going to look for him?” She turned back, and something of the mood that had been between them returned. “You’d do that for me?” When Molly saw that Slocum intended to, whether she described Harry or not, she quickly gave him what information she could. Without another word, Slocum slipped off the hard bench seat and went to the rear of the car.

  He peered through the filthy door window and saw no one in the space between cars. Slocum opened the door and shouldered his way over into the next car. A mail clerk looked up, eyes wide with fear.

  “Don’t go doin’ to me what they done to that other fella!”

  “What are you talking about?” Slocum looked around, thinking there might have been a mail robbery. The safe door was secured, but that didn’t mean this frightened little man hadn’t willingly opened it. “What’s in there?”

  “We ain’t got nuthin’ worth stealin’. I wouldn’t lie.”

  “Have you seen a man about so high?” Slocum held his hand about shoulder height. He was six foot even, and Molly had described her brother as being about six inches shorter. “He’s wearing a brown jacket with patches on the sleeves. The knees to his pants are shiny and so is the butt.” Slocum stopped the description there because the mail clerk had turned white as paste, and his hands shook uncontrollably as he mopped his forehead with a filthy rag.

  “I don’t want no part in this. I done what you said.”

  “You haven’t done a damned thing I’ve said yet,” Slocum snapped.

  “Not you, mister, yer partner. He said I had to obey him and all his cronies.”

  Slocum described the henchman of Sid Calhoun he had seen coming from this car. He didn’t need the clerk’s bobbing head to know this was who the man meant.

  Slocum held up a hand. “He’s not my partner. I’m looking for Harry Ibbotson. His sister’s worried about him.” Slocum hoped this information would calm the clerk’s nerves. It didn’t.

  “You won’t find him!” The clerk blurted out the words, then clamped both hands over his mouth. From the way sweat poured off his face and caused his clothing to plaster to his body, he was one drop away from drying up and blowing away. He backed away from Slocum and cast a quick glance toward the open side door.

  Slocum went to the door and looked out at the tracks racing by under the clattering steel wheels. He started to look back when he saw a bit of cloth caught on the door. Prying it loose, he held up the few threads and sucked in his breath. Brown. He had no idea if this matched the color and texture of the jacket Molly had said her brother was wearing, but Slocum knew he would never bet against that supposition.

  He turned in time to see the frightened clerk charging him like a bull. The man had his head down and ran full tilt straight at Slocum. A slight turn took Slocum out of his path. The clerk would have thrown himself off the train if Slocum hadn’t grabbed him by the collar and yanked so hard, the man’s shoes left the floor and he hung suspended for a moment. Slocum didn’t have the strength to support him, so he swung him back and dropped him just at the edge of the open side door.

  “What did you try a damn fool thing like that for?” Slocum asked.

  “You and those sons of bitches with you ain’t gonna kill me! Not like you did him!”

  “Harry Ibbotson?”

  “Don’t know his name, don’t want to know. The son of a bitch tossed him out of the train back miles and miles. Said he’d do the same to me if I said anythin’ ’bout it. The man’s a killer! You can read it in his eyes. They’re all crazylike and he laughed. He laughed when he threw that poor fool out the door.”

  Slocum knew it was pointless, but looked out anyway. All he saw were a lot of empty miles of Missouri. If Ibbotson had been tossed out only a few minutes before Calhoun’s henchman had reported to his boss, he was a good two miles back. Every minute the train rattled on meant Harry Ibbotson was that much farther from his sister.

  “What’s the next stop?”

  “Columbia. We gotta stop for water there, the way the engineer’s been stokin’ that boiler.”

  “Then on to Kansas City,” Slocum said, thinking out loud rather than asking. The search for the strongbox with the gold had to be forgotten if Molly ever wanted to see her brother again.

  He turned to the clerk, and asked pointedly, “Was he dead when he went out?”

  “The way he was kickin’ and shoutin’, he was anything but dead.”

  “That’s something,” Slocum said. He eyed the mail clerk coldly to keep him seated on the floor so he wouldn’t try anything that might really get him killed, then went forward to tell Molly what had to be done. Somehow, he doubted she would cotton much to quitting the hunt for the gold jackpot.

  3

  Slocum dropped down beside Molly Ibbotson as the train took a curve, forcing him to slide into her. He felt the warmth of her thigh and her startled movement as she responded. He slid back and half turned to better look at her.

  “Is this from your brother’s jacket?” He held up the scrap of cloth he had pulled from the mail car door. She took it and ran her fingers over it and then looked up, frightened.

  “What happened to him? How’d you get this?”

  “Might be that he had an accident and fell off the train a few miles back,” Slocum said. He looked forward to where Sid Calhoun and his men passed around a bottle of whiskey they had brought aboard. It would almost have been worth it to leave Molly Ibbotson and join the owlhoots if they’d offer him a pull on that bottle. Right now, Slocum’s mouth felt like the innards of a cotton bale.

  “Harry is an idiot at times, but he’d never do such a thing,” she said. “He’s quite careful.”

  “Might be he had some help falling off the train,” Slocum said. He put his hand on her arm as Molly shot to her feet. She stared hard at Calhoun. The intent was obvious. If she had a derringer hidden away in the clutch purse she held on to for dear life, Calhoun was in serious danger of getting ventilated. “The clerk won’t fess up to what happened exactly, so it’s hard to prove anything.”

  “Someone saw this and won’t speak? I’ll—”

  “You’ll do nothing,” Slocum said. “The clerk’s scared of his own shadow, and he’s got seven of Calhoun’s henchmen up front here, all working to convince him to keep his mouth shut. There’s nothing you could do to loosen his tongue.”

  “I—”

  “Absolutely nothing,” Slocum said, wondering what Molly was going to suggest. How far she’d go to help her brother, or to find her brother’s killer, was something he needed to know.

  “I’ll pay you, John,” she said urgently. Her voice lowered to a whisper and she bent closer so he could hardly hear her over the noise of steel wheels racing along steel rail under their f
eet. “I’ll give you five hundred dollars to find Harry.”

  “What if he’s dead?”

  She heaved a deep sigh, chewed on her lower lip as she thought about it, then said, “Even if that’s so, he deserves a Christian burial.”

  “Columbia’s the next stop,” Slocum said. “If I got a horse, I could ride back and find him in a few hours.”

  “But the next clue is supposed to be in Kansas City,” she said, obviously conflicted.

  “You go on, get the clue, and Harry and me’ll catch up with you.”

  “If he’s alive,” she said. Slocum had no answer for that. He started to ask if she wanted him to retrieve the body or bury it where it fell on the prairie, but there would be time for such details when they arrived at the Columbia rail yard.

  He settled back and watched Molly out of the corner of his eye, but mostly he kept an eagle eye on Sid Calhoun and his henchmen. They were a rowdy bunch, but Slocum had seen worse in his day. Before he knew it, the conductor came through to announce their arrival in Columbia.

  “Pardon,” Slocum said. “When’s the next train west?”

  “Other ’n this ’un?” The conductor looked at him sharply. “No more ’n a day. This is a well-traveled road.” He paused, then asked, “You and the lady gettin’ off?”

  “I am,” Slocum said. The conductor smiled sadly as if wishing Slocum well, and moved on to alert the rest of Turner’s treasure hunters about the brief stay to take on water.

  As the train ground to a halt, Slocum got to his feet. Molly pressed close behind.

  “You getting out to stretch your legs?” Slocum asked.

  “I’m coming with you. Harry is my brother, and I need to know what happened to him.”

  “It might not be too pretty. A man falling from a train can get cut up something fierce.”

  “I need to know,” she said firmly.

  “The conductor can get your luggage,” Slocum said.

  “It’s all here,” she said, pointing. Slocum wrestled a bag down from an overhead rack and she took it. “The other is Harry’s,” she added. “We ought to get it, too.”

  Slocum grunted when he pulled down a larger bag. Her brother traveled with more gear than Molly. Lugging it to the rear door, Slocum shouldered it open, went on the narrow metal platform, and jumped down. He helped Molly, and in minutes they were standing on the depot platform watching the train with the rest of the gold seekers pulling out.

  “I should have tried to sell my key,” Slocum said.

  “Your key?” The way she spoke made Slocum come alert like a hunting dog on scent. “I had not thought of that, John. Not at all. Come now. Let’s find horses and go after Harry.”

  He watched her bustle off, wondering what had struck a sour chord with him. Shaking his head, he followed her to a nearby livery stable and, after fifteen minutes of haggling, bought a pair of horses and tack for a hundred dollars each.

  “That is coming out of your five hundred dollars,” she said. “I never knew horses and saddles could be so expensive.”

  “If it’s coming out of my money, then I’ll sell yours back and you can stay in town. I won’t be more ’n a day or two fetching your brother, one way or the other.”

  “Please, John, I spoke in haste. This is all so upsetting to me.”

  He helped her into the saddle, and was pleased to see that she knew how to ride. Vaulting into his own saddle, he headed back along the cinder-strewn tracks.

  “How far before we find the spot?” she asked after they had ridden in silence for almost ten minutes.

  “When we get there, we’ll be there,” he said. For some reason, he felt cantankerous and reluctant to tell Molly that he guessed they had no more than twelve or fifteen miles to go.

  They rode in uneasy silence, Slocum keeping a sharp watch ahead for familiar landmarks. He wasn’t sure where Harry had been thrown off the train, but he knew that the few features on the grasslands he had seen when he did look out the open mail car door could not be more than a mile or two away.

  The sun hammered down on him, forcing several stops to rest. Slocum began to get uneasy because of the shimmering heat and the way it radiated upward into the sky. At this time of year, tornadoes were likely to form, and even if they didn’t, thunderheads formed with startling quickness.

  “Is that what’s worrying you, John?” Molly pointed ahead at the leaden clouds building. The heat boiled upward, forcing turbulence and creating storms.

  He nodded once.

  “Did I offend you? Is that it? I said something that insulted you. I’m sorry if I did so.”

  “I should never have let you come along. We need to make better time.”

  “Slowing you down was never my intent. I want to find my brother as much as you—more.”

  “He’s worth five hundred dollars to me,” Slocum said, not sure why he’d put such a harsh edge to his voice.

  “He’s worth far more to me,” Molly said, looking straight ahead. She stiffened in the saddle and rode along rigidly, every step of the horse jolting her hard all the way up her spine. She bore the torment without glancing in his direction to see if he had softened his opinion.

  Slocum hadn’t. He picked up the pace and worried more about the storm brewing. The day’s heat had turned to a stifling, humid blanket that caused him to sweat profusely. Repeated swipes with his bandanna did nothing to stop the flood from his forehead and into his eyes. Pushing his hat back a mite, he stood in the stirrups and let out a tiny cry of annoyance.

  “What’s wrong, John?”

  “This is close to where he went out of the train. I recognize that stone cairn yonder from when I looked out the side door. It must have been left by a survey crew.”

  “I don’t see him. Where is he?” Molly turned frantic, looking every which way and not finding her brother.

  Slocum rode along the tracks for a couple more miles until he found a scuffed spot in the cinders and rocks forming the rail bed. His keen eyes picked out another piece of Ibbotson’s brown jacket. Dropping to the ground, he picked it up and ran his fingers over it a few times, remembering the feel of the other patch he had found. They were the same material.

  “This is where he hit the ground.” Slocum walked a few yards away, looking for footprints in the hard ground. He was more than twenty feet from the track when he found crushed, dried grass marking Ibbotson’s trail. “Harry went this way.” He pointed out across the prairie.

  “Why wouldn’t he just follow the tracks to Columbia? He should have known I’d look for him, and the first place would be along the tracks. He . . . he’s not injured, is he? A blow to the head might have disoriented him.”

  Slocum paced alongside the tracks, then looked up at the lovely woman. Even after the grueling ride in the hot sun, she was a picture of beauty.

  “He’s not stumbling along. These aren’t the steps of a man who’s been injured. He lit out with a purpose. That way.”

  As he pointed across the prairie, a distant clap of thunder reached him. He turned in time to see a lightning bolt lance from one cloud to the next, turning the roiling darkness momentarily brighter than the sun.

  “Storm’s coming on us fast. We can’t slow down until we find Harry,” he warned. Slocum stepped up into the saddle and began riding, hoping that he wasn’t going to have to follow a meandering course on the prairie. As long as Ibbotson walked in a straight line, they had a chance of finding him. If, as happened in the desert, he began angling, he would slowly circle to the right and Slocum might never find the trail.

  “It’s not dangerous out here in the rain, is it?”

  Slocum looked at her, wondering what sort of hothouse flower Molly Ibbotson was. He silently pointed to the deep ravines cut in the grassland by flash floods. It didn’t rain in this part of Missouri. It rained. The sky opened up and dropped several inches of rain an hour. Getting caught in such a downpour could be deadly.

  He threw caution to the winds when a heavy raindrop spattered
against the crown of his dusty black Stetson. Putting heels to his horse, he galloped forward. In country like this, he might see a mile or two. If he found a rise he could see three on a clear day. That ought to be good enough to locate Ibbotson if he had kept walking and wasn’t doing something stupid like taking refuge under a tree to get out of the storm.

  New legs of lightning walked among the clouds overhead. When a wind kicked up and the rain began to come down with more fury, Slocum drew rein.

  “Where is he? I don’t see him. Where is he?” she asked.

  “The rain’s turning the dirt to mud and erasing any footprints. The crushed grass is springing back, making it impossible to follow that way. Even if Harry left a trail by dropping pieces of his coat, I couldn’t track him now.”

  Slocum wiped more moisture from his face. This time it came from rain and not sweat. Somehow, it wasn’t cooling him off at all. He had been in steam baths that were more inviting than this Missouri prairie.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked. “We can’t leave him out here!”

  Slocum looked at the woman and shook his head sadly. That was exactly what they had to do. Harry Ibbotson might be a greenhorn and in danger of losing his life in the building storm, but Slocum saw no reason to throw his life away blundering through the cascading sheets of rain. Not for $500, not for Molly Ibbotson.

  Harry had to fend for himself, for better or for worse.

  4

  Zoe Murchison gripped the splintery edge of the window, and bent forward until she pressed her nose against the glass and spoke through the small window just below. The ticket agent peered at her with some skepticism.

  “Lady, I ain’t got a ticket for you. Look. There’s nothing here.” The man rocked back and swept his arms around like the blades of a windmill pumping water. He moved so fast, his glasses slid down his sweaty nose, forcing him to push them back up using his middle finger.

  “There must be. There simply must be a ticket for me. Miss Zoe Murchison. Is there someone else who might have placed the ticket in another file, one you know nothing of?”