Slocum and Hot Lead Page 5

  “What’s Neale done to make him such a desperado?” Slocum wondered aloud. There was no answer unless he had it out with the lawman, and that meant one of them wouldn’t ride away. Slocum didn’t see any reason for that to happen. All he wanted was to be left alone.

  Slocum then saw that Hanks was riding straight for Claudia Peterson. Slocum chewed his lower lip, wondering what she would do when the lawman began questioning her. It was lucky that Slocum had taken off to scout a camp for them. Otherwise, he would have been caught with her. But he found himself faced with a serious dilemma. He could ride out, heading north in the direction Hanks had come from, make it across the Rio Grande, and be lost in the depths of the mountains to the north, or he could wait. Going to confront the marshal as he spoke with Claudia would do no good, other than to put the woman’s life in jeopardy.

  Run or wait?

  Slocum waited. He grabbed his field glasses and followed the marshal’s rapid progress directly to where Claudia painted. Slocum wished he could soar like a hawk and peer down to see what was happening. He played out what the conversation might be like repeatedly, to no avail. There was nothing he could do to change the outcome. The marshal might come after him after being put on his trail by the woman.

  He might even believe her lies if she said she had no idea where Slocum was. That hardly seemed likely since Slocum doubted she was much at lying. The way she blushed would give her away.

  Slocum sat on the rock to limit his silhouette against the sky, braced his elbows on his lifted knees, and studied the terrain in the direction where Hanks would come from. For an hour he sat and waited until a dust cloud rose. He straightened, then stood, trying to make out the rider in the middle of the cloud. When it got close enough, Slocum saw Claudia Peterson snapping the reins on her team and coming toward him.

  He tried to peer through the dust to see if Hanks followed, but he couldn’t. Slocum waved, and Claudia veered from her course and came toward the rocks he had chosen for their camp.

  “There was a marshal!” she called by way of greeting. “He asked if I had seen a solitary rider and described you, John. I was so scared!”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I . . . I lied!” She made it sound like a major accomplishment to be proud of. “I told him I hadn’t seen anyone answering to your description. He must have believed me because he thanked me and kept riding south.”

  Slocum turned his field glasses in that direction. The dust had blown away giving a better view. He saw nothing to show that Marshal Hanks was within ten miles.

  “Why did you lie?” Slocum asked.

  “I . . . he was a disagreeable man, that’s why. And you had told me there might be people asking after you because of that confusion. He didn’t call you Slocum. He said Neale every time.”

  “Thanks,” Slocum said. He slid off the rock and landed on his feet, brushed off the dirt, and then began digging a firepit in the middle of a sandy spit. A few rocks provided a lining for it, and he began gathering firewood.

  “You aren’t going to ask anything more about him?” Claudia stared wide-eyed at him, her violet eyes innocent.

  “You said about all that I needed to hear,” Slocum replied. “It’s surprising that he left Las Vegas to hunt for this Neale so far afield. Did the marshal happen to mention what Neale is wanted for?”

  Claudia shook her head.

  “I’ll rustle up a rabbit, or we could fix something out of your supplies.”

  “That’ll be fine,” she said distantly. Claudia moved about as if in a daze. He heard her mutter to herself, “I lied to a lawman. I lied!”

  He rummaged through the supplies and found some bacon. He also saw the painting she had worked on back at the lip of the gorge.

  “Not bad work,” he said. “It looks like the outline of the rim.”

  “It’s only a sketch,” she said. “I can finish it later. Now, I want as many sketches as I can do. What are you doing?”

  Slocum had pushed aside the blank canvases and found a completed picture of mountains dotted with mines and a valley like the ones he had ridden through to reach Taos.

  “This is mighty fine. Almost like a photograph.”

  “Put it back. You aren’t to even look at that one!”

  “Sorry,” he said, wondering why she had gotten so frantic.

  “I overreacted. It . . . it’s just that I’m not used to anyone looking at my paintings.”

  “Isn’t the idea of a painting for other people to appreciate it?”

  “Yes, of course, but not this one.”

  Slocum took one last look at it before returning it to the pile.

  “Looks a lot like the country I traveled getting to Taos.”

  “You—”

  Slocum clamped his hand over her mouth. He heard a small sound, barely detectable, but distinctive. A horse nickered, and it wasn’t one of theirs.

  “There’s a bounty hunter on my trail too. I’m afraid he’s found me.” Claudia struggled to speak, but Slocum kept his hand over her mouth. “He won’t be as pleasant as the marshal. If the bounty hunter asks, you tell him the truth. I rode north, intending to cross the river. Do you understand? Just nod if you do.”

  Claudia bobbed her head.

  “Remember, it’s important you tell him the whole truth. Everything I just said.” Slocum heard more soft sounds as someone searched the far side of the rocks.

  “Are you sure, John?”

  “My life depends on it,” he said. “I’ve got to go. Now.”

  As he turned, she grabbed him and said urgently, “Wait. Wait a moment.”

  He swung around to find her in his arms. She planted a big kiss on his lips and then pushed away, blushing. Slocum reached out and touched her cheek. It was warm under his fingertips.

  “Good-bye,” he said softly. Then he jumped onto his horse and walked away slowly, being as quiet as possible. The faint sounds might have been his imagination, but he doubted it. As he put the rocks between him and Claudia, he heard a loud cry of triumph. He recognized Wilmer’s voice.

  Slocum sped up, trotting off, then letting his horse break into a gallop to put as much distance between him and the bounty hunter as possible. It was getting dark so Slocum took the opportunity to take a creosote bush and drag it behind to cover his tracks. He doubled back once and rode at an angle to the trail he wanted to lead the bounty hunter astray. Then he cut directly for the gorge.

  The canyon walls two miles north weren’t as steep, but still afforded no way to get down to the river. He kept riding, taking care to erase his path from time to time before he found the proper trail to the Rio Grande.

  Imagining Wilmer thundering along behind him, chortling as he found every feeble attempt to hide the trail, Slocum began work on a real diversion. He started across a rocky patch, left a single hoofprint on the far side, and then backed over another rocky stretch before heading due east. If Lady Luck so decreed, Wilmer would plunge downward to the river, hunting for Slocum where he had not gone. It might be days before the bounty hunter realized his mistake—or never.

  Slocum was as expert as any man when it came to tracking and misleading trackers.

  His only regret as he headed east into the mountains was leaving Claudia Peterson behind.

  5

  If he had properly decoyed Wilmer, it would take the bounty hunter more than a few days to get to the bottom of the deep gorge, hunt for more tracks, then return to the rim and search anew for Slocum’s actual trail. With a little weather and a lot of luck, Slocum’s trail would be obliterated and he would be safely on his way through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, staying well north of Las Vegas once he got back out on the eastern plains. Turning north and entering Colorado through Raton Pass was his best bet for getting away from both the law and bounty hunters running rampant in New Mexico.

  His only regret was leaving Claudia Peterson on her own. She had been determined to do her scenic painting alone, so his departure didn’t affect he
r plans that much, but this was dangerous wilderness compared to downtown Chicago, no matter what she said. And she was a mighty pretty filly. He wouldn’t have minded spending some time getting to know her.

  His hand drifted up and rubbed his dried lips as he remembered her kiss. It had been unexpected, probably for both of them. Claudia didn’t look like the sort to pass out her affections easily. Slocum smiled a little, wondering what was pushing her so hard. He had known an artist or two in his day, and he suspected most of them had been nibbling at loco weed, but Claudia didn’t seem driven like they were by passion. She was more controlled, reserved, even inhibited to the point of not talking about her artwork. That was entirely different from all the others Slocum had known. Once they were asked about their work, they never shut up.

  From what Slocum had seen of her sketch and the completed picture amid the blank canvases, she was a top-notch artist and ought to have been eager to find someone interested and appreciative. Slocum rubbed his lips again, then reached for his canteen. The cold metal rim and wetness dribbling into his mouth were nothing like Claudia’s kiss.

  He looked into the mountains to find a pass that would get him out and onto the plains north of Las Vegas. Thinking of her wasn’t going to do his peace of mind any good. Mostly he regretted things that had never happened rather than ones that had—and his life had been filled with intense violence—but turning around and rejoining her on her artistic cavalcade wouldn’t do either of them any good.

  Wilmer was too single-minded in his attempts to capture Neale, and judging from the way Marshal Hanks had left his own jurisdiction, he might be as eager to put a notch on his six-shooter handle as Wilmer.

  “What did Neale do and why are they so anxious to catch him?” Slocum wondered aloud. It did no good pondering this mysterious crime. He had enough of his own under his belt to worry about.

  He reached the foothills and slipped easily back onto higher ground, finding the pass he had taken earlier to reach Taos. This time he was heading back in the direction of Las Vegas, but he remembered branching canyons that went to the northeast that he was sure would deliver him to the exact spot he wanted. And if they didn’t, he was still going northerly and away from both the bounty hunter and the marshal.

  As he rode, he reflected on how much this country looked like the picture Claudia had drawn. She must have come through these canyons with their played-out mines and steep sides before he had found her in Taos arguing with the general store owner. But Slocum frowned as this thought flitted across his mind. Had she done only one painting? And where had she come from that she was out of supplies? She might have come from Las Vegas and more or less followed the trail Slocum had, though it had been a rough one. There were myriad ways through these mountains, and she must have taken a different path since he hadn’t seen any fresh ruts left by a buckboard.

  He rode deeper into the hills and looked around more, head swiveling from one side to the other in constant surveillance of his surroundings. The painting Claudia had done looked similar to these hills, but not exactly. He hadn’t gotten that good a look at her work, being distracted by other things including the artist herself, but the placement of the mines was all wrong. Too many on one side of the canyon and too few on the other to match her painting. Slocum shrugged it off. There was no reason she couldn’t have taken artistic license to improve the composition by adding or subtracting mines and other features. Art wasn’t the same as a photograph.

  Slocum rested a spell at the base of a steep incline, then started his Appaloosa up it. The horse had a hard time making progress in the loose gravel, but eventually reached the summit to give Slocum a good look ahead. The green valley curved away, lush and inviting. A stream ran down the middle and wooded spots all around promised game. He was tired of rabbit and might bag a deer. Venison would go down mighty good after the gamy, tough rabbit meat he had been living on because it was easy to get.

  His horse neighed and tossed its head, anxious to get into the meadowlands and graze on the graze. Slocum wasn’t inclined to hold the Appaloosa back.

  The shot echoing through the valley sounded far off, distant, of no importance to Slocum. Then his horse took a stumbling step. The second attempt to move a leg caused the Appaloosa to sag and begin to fall. Slocum kicked free of the stirrups and got his leg from under the falling horse before it pinned him to the ground. He rolled on the rocky ground and then reversed course and fetched up hard against his horse. It wasn’t breathing. A few seconds of examination revealed the bullet hole just above its front legs. The slug had gone straight through the valiant horse’s heart, killing it instantly.

  Slocum peered up from the horse’s carcass as he tried to find the sniper. The echo from the rifle had died down, leaving only an eerie silence that told Slocum more than anything else, the sniper was still out there, and the rampant wildlife in the valley was quiet until the danger vanished.

  Fumbling, Slocum worked to get his rifle from its sheath. The horse had fallen on that side, pinning the rifle between dead flesh and rock. As Slocum worked, a dust cloud puffed up inches from his face. The rifle report came a fraction of a second later. He jerked hard and got his Winchester free. Dropping behind the bulwark provided by the horse’s body, Slocum settled himself and got his wits back about him. Everything had happened so fast, he wasn’t sure what was going on. The second shot convinced him the man lying in ambush had wanted to kill him and not his horse.

  An accidental round would never have been followed by a second.

  Slocum chanced a quick peek around the horse. A patch of woods a hundred yards away had to provide the concealment for the sniper. Nothing closer would hide a rifle, much less the man bringing it to his shoulder to murder Slocum.

  The lack of cover between the horse and the woods worked against Slocum. He couldn’t edge closer so his first shot would be the last needed. If anything, the sniper had him in a nasty position. As long as he remained hidden behind his dead horse, he was safe. Retreating up the hill, going ahead into the valley, or staging a frontal assault on the woods would all result in one thing—his death. The sharp-shooter had proven his skill with such a long shot being off by only inches. Slocum could make such a shot in return, but he had no visible target.

  Since it was out of the question for him to reach safety in three directions, Slocum rolled onto his back, supported his head against his saddle, and looked to the left of the trail he had been following into the valley. The horse provided some protection if he crawled, but the rocky ground would make that retreat a pure hell.

  Slocum started, the sharp stones cutting at his belly and chest, nicking his knees and doing some small damage to his hands as he scuttled along. Three more shots followed him, but they went high. When he made it over a bulge in the hill, he was safe from any more gunfire, but he didn’t rest. He sprinted for the summit of the hill and got over it, moving fast to circle around and approach the sniper from his flank.

  He slowed as he came upon a few spindly trees, then drifted from behind one trunk to the next until he found a spot about where the sniper must have shot from. Two bright spent brass cartridges on the ground caught Slocum’s attention. Stretching his imagination, he saw a man stretched prone, waiting, aiming, firing. But that was his imagination. Slocum looked around carefully and didn’t see anyone who might have ambushed him. He knelt and then walked in a crouch to where the ambusher had been, found crushed pine needles leading in the direction of the valley.

  Slocum raced in that direction, throwing caution to the winds. The sniper wouldn’t be expecting him right away. The quicker he fought back, the more likely he was to take the backshooting son of a bitch by surprise.

  He burst out of the forest into a clearing in time to see a rider fifty yards away riding off.

  Slocum lifted his rifle, controlled his breathing, let out a gusty sigh, squeezed, and fired. He knew as his finger came back that it was a true shot. Slocum looked up over the barrel and saw the distant owlhoot thr
ow his hands into the air and tumble from horseback. Slocum cursed when the horse reared and then bolted into the distant woods.

  He slogged across the clearing and got to the man’s side. Slocum took grim satisfaction in his shot. He had shattered the man’s spine. Marksmanship aside, he wished he had left the ambusher alive so he could find out why he had been the man’s target. Slocum rolled the man over and stared at him, trying to remember if he had ever seen him before. He was a complete stranger.

  Rummaging through his pockets turned out four wadded-up greenbacks and a twenty-dollar gold piece. Slocum grunted as he moved them to his own pocket. He was suddenly rich because this corpse had tried to murder him. He continued digging, but found nothing, not even a compass or a map to show how the man had arrived at this particular valley hidden away in the eastern stretch of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

  Slocum stood and listened hard for the runaway horse’s hoofbeats. He heard nothing. Once more all was still, the normal, natural sounds muted. He reached down, plucked the dead man’s six-shooter from his holster, and tucked it into his belt. Something told Slocum this gent hadn’t ridden alone.

  He set off after the frightened horse, needing it if he wasn’t going to spend the next week walking. Tracking the horse for a few hundred yards was easy. The frightened animal had left heavy prints in the soft ground throughout the forested area, but when Slocum reached the other side of the woods, it turned rockier. He wiped sweat from his forehead and got to work, hunting for scratches on the rocks and bent or broken twigs on the low-growing bushes.

  His hard work paid off less than an hour later when he spotted the horse nervously cropping at a patch of grass poking up through cracks in a rocky pasture. He looked around, saw no one, and then began approaching the skittish horse a few feet at a time. Slocum took a few breaks in his advance to give the horse time to get used to thinking of him as something other than a threat. Now and again the horse raised its head, looked as if it might race off, only to return to its grazing.