Slocum 428 Page 6

  For a while at least, he thought. Until dark comes, then this place will probably echo with the shrieks of whatever it is that lurks out here.

  And that was when he heard the far-off, but drawing closer, sound of . . . someone singing? And not from the direction of the crew. Who could it be? Another logger working at limbing even farther up the valley than him? He held his hand over his eyes and squinted upslope, using spotting skills he’d employed many times in locating bighorn sheep and mountain goats, deer and wolves far away on hillsides and in terrain similarly riddled with rocks, trees, and blow-downs.

  There was a shape, definitely human, moving slowly in his direction. Whoever it was looked to be making a beeline for him, and would reach him in minutes. He had cooled sufficiently that he pulled on his wool button-down shirt back over his tight longhandles. Wouldn’t do to catch a lung disorder out in the wilds like this. One cough could lead to a fast trip to Boot Hill.

  He lifted down his gun belt hanging where he’d draped it—within reach—close by on a branch nub. He strapped it on and checked his Colt Navy, loosened the leather thong from the hammer, and made sure his long skinning knife was still sheathed. Then he hefted the axe and rested it atop his shoulder and waited.

  He didn’t have long to wait—whoever it was making his way though the snow wore snowshoes and made good use of them, too, kicking up a fine spray of snow dust, like vanishing feathers, behind him. He was an average-height man, thin, but well clothed for the high country from which he’d descended. On his back Slocum saw what looked to be an ash pack basket. A trapper? This high up? Maybe in the valleys there were plenty of beaver ponds, martens in the forests, maybe weasels, fishers, fox, coyote, wolves, lynx, and bobcat.

  He saw a few critter tails bouncing from where they hung from the top of the basket. The man carried a rifle, a Henry from the looks of it, and wore a black-and-red-checked wool coat lined with sheepskin, the thick, full hood worn high, forming a point above his head. Green wool mittens adorned his hands, and black wool trousers flared just above high leather lace-up boots.

  Still yards away, the man, his breath pluming out visibly, halted and threw up a hand, but said nothing. Slocum returned the universal signal of greeting.

  The trapper resumed his march, slow and steady, through snow that Slocum would have quickly foundered in up to his chest.

  When he was but five yards away, the man halted again and pushed the hood back off his head to reveal a round-faced, apple-cheeked woman. She smiled at him, large blue eyes reflecting the sunlight that itself was reflected off the glittering snow all around them. Thick, honeyed hair, the color of fall leaves with sun punching through as they whispered in a breeze, had spilled loose and framed her face, freed from the hood.

  “Ho there!”

  “Well, ho there, yourself, ma’am,” said Slocum, nodding in greeting but still not willing to remove his hand from the butt of his Colt, no matter how lovely the high-country nymph before him might appear.

  “What are you doing up here in my woods?” She looked Slocum up and down with an appraising stare, as if thinking about purchasing him for use at a future time. Her slight smirk told him everything he needed to know—she might well be toying with him, though she also probably believed that these woods were her domain, deed or no deed.

  Slocum returned the smirk. “Ordinarily, on meeting for the first time, strangers exchange greetings. For instance, I am John. John Slocum. Pleased to meet you—I think. And you are . . . ?” He leaned forward, canting his head as if in expectation of an answer.

  Her sudden, wide smile brightened her already welcoming face and told Slocum he had little to fear from her and that she was indeed pulling his leg.

  “Serves me right, John Slocum. I’m afraid I’ve been out here with the critters and such for too long on my own.”

  “How long has it been?”

  “Well, let’s put it this way—I see a whole lot of me, but they don’t see me. And judging from the ones I’ve seen, I don’t care for that situation to change anytime soon.”

  “Then why talk to me?”

  She appraised him again, looking him up and down, stood hipshot, one mittened hand resting on her cocked hip, one holding the rifle balanced on her opposite thigh. “You . . . I ain’t seen before. And you’re . . . different somehow.”

  Slocum kept his eyes on hers while he lowered the axe and sank the blade with a satisfying thunk into the massive butt end of the tree he’d been limbing. “A lesser man might not know how to take that . . . ”

  “But you are no lesser man, am I right?”

  “You are right on that score.”

  “And you’re not lacking in confidence either, am I right?”

  “Right again, ma’am. But I still don’t know your name.”

  “Why are you in such an all-fired need to know my name?”

  Slocum shrugged. “You seem like someone a lonely logger might want to get to know.”

  Her smile dropped like a deadfall limb. “I ain’t that kind of woman.”

  “I’m not sure what sort you think I’m referring to, but I can tell you I meant it as a compliment.”

  Again, she eyed him up and down, let her eyes travel then settle on his face. “I suppose you are sincere. Or at least as much as you think you can be.” She chewed her lip, then looked at him as if she’d just come to a decision. She stuck out her hand and stepped forward. “I’m Hella Bridger. Though I think the loggers hereabouts call me something else.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Hella.” They shook hands, and Slocum nodded again to her. “Do I dare ask what the folks hereabouts refer to you as?”

  She sighed, then smirked again. “Crazy Trapper Lady.”

  “And are they correct?”

  “In part, I guess. I am a trapper, and I am a lady, in some sense. At least I used to be. And I think crazy is in the eye of the beholder, don’t you?”

  “Not sure what you mean by that.”

  “For instance,” she said, “I don’t necessarily think I’m crazy, but I can understand how other folks, seeing how I live, might think my train’s gone around the bend. You know?”

  “I think I’ve been there a few times myself. How do you live? I mean, you’re a trapper, I see that.”

  “Yep, got myself a regular old slice of heaven up here, hundreds, maybe thousands of square miles to roam, to trap, keep my lines moving so I don’t overtrap any one area, then I move on, let the critters recover from me taking their loved ones away to the happy critter ground in the sky.”

  “Why, that’s right philosophical of you, ma’am.”

  She gave him that appraising look again. “Seems like I was right about you, John Slocum.”

  “How’s that?” he said, easing his hand off his revolver’s handle as she shouldered her rifle by its leather sling.

  “Not many loggers would use a word like ‘philosophical’ in regular conversation. Or any conversation, for that matter.”

  “Well, I won’t apologize for reading a book now and again.”

  “Good,” she said. “Not enough people in the world who read.”

  He nodded. “So you know Jigger, then? Or at least his crew—if only by sight.”

  “I know Jigger McGee. He’s a good man, about the only logger worth a spit. He runs his own crews, not like Torrance Whitaker, who hires out everything. The other thing that separates McGee from Whitaker is that Jigger seems to be the only logger to do what I try to do with the critters I trap. He’s good to the trees, you know? Doesn’t overdo it in any one spot. Now that, I have to admire.”

  “That’s good to know. I’m only on my second day with the outfit. First, if you consider I got a late start yesterday.”

  There was a lull in the chat, and Slocum pulled in a deep draught of air. “Well, I best get back to it. But it’s been a real pleasure to talk with you, Mis
s Bridger. I hope we can pass the time as pleasantly some other day. I expect, at my current rate, that I’ll be here for the duration.”

  “Fair enough,” she said.

  They shook hands again, and as she turned to go, Slocum said, “One more thing. I can’t believe I’m asking this, but here goes—do you know anything about a creature called the ‘skoocoom’?”

  “Why?” There was that smirk again. “Do you think you saw it?” But there was something else behind that smirk.

  “Yes, in fact. Well, I saw something, fleetingly. I also saw greenish glowing eyes, high up, maybe a couple of feet taller than me. And the sounds we heard were something else.”

  “And?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “Yes, but what happened at the camp?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because something is always happening at the Tamarack Logging Camp. It’s Jigger’s lot in life. At least while he’s working to pay off his debt.”

  So that’s it, eh? thought Slocum. Jigger’s in debt. “Might help explain why he was in such a hurry to get to town yesterday, but not what happened last night.”

  She looked at him, eyebrows arched, ready for enlightenment. He obliged. “Something I’ve never heard or seen evidence of before ripped apart the camp’s storehouse, howling and making quite a ruckus. They did things I doubt a man—or a team of them—could have done.”

  “You said ‘they.’ You think there was more than one?”

  “I do. I didn’t get a clear look, but the calls and howls definitely overlapped enough that it was easy to tell there was more than one.”

  “You might want to check the bunkhouse before you start blaming the poor skoocoom for everything bad that happens at the Tamarack.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Gotta go now, John Slocum!” She saluted him with a mittened hand and swung around in the trail, strode back the way she had come, rifle still slung over her shoulder, long, purposeful strides leading her away from him.

  He forgot his concerns over skoocooms and the riled-up, irritated, and thoroughly confusing situation at the Tamarack Logging Camp while he watched Hella Bridger’s promising feminine form, swathed as it was in bulky trapper’s garb, retreat way back up the mountainside, cutting long strides in the deep snow without rest, traversing the switchbacks and gaining high ground.

  As he watched her move gracefully up the slope, he wondered what she meant by that last remark—the one she’d not bothered to explain. It sounded to him as if she knew something about some of the men in the bunkhouse, maybe that they were up to something no good. That would verify what he suspected. That while the skoocoom might or might not exist, there sure as hell were bad elements in the bunkhouse, men who might be working to sabotage Jigger’s operation from within. But why was everyone so closemouthed about it all?

  As if she knew he’d still be watching her, just before she disappeared from sight by elevation, she turned and waved—a big, wide-armed wave. He smiled and waved back. What a mysterious woman, he thought. She spoke alternately like a mountain woman and like someone well educated.

  Hefting the axe, Slocum turned back to the next tree that needed limbing. And why shouldn’t he find a curious creature like that up here in Oregon’s Cascades? It was not like this trip hadn’t yielded any number of odd characters and situations, and perhaps even creatures, so far. He hoped he’d run into her again. She was one curiosity he’d like to see more of.

  9

  In his office at the rear of the Bluebird Saloon, Dance Hall, and Eatery, the nexus of what he liked to think of as his expanding business empire, Torrance Whitaker leaned back in his desk chair, his ample girth testing the durability of the thick spring mechanism allowing it to rock. Problem was, when he kicked all the way back, his legs dangled, and unless he was close enough to the desk’s edge to grasp it with a pudgy hand, Torrance found the chair too unpredictable, not at all trustworthy, and the damnable thing would upend him, ass over teakettle. The last time, he’d gotten wedged somehow between the wall, the chair, and the desk. He’d had to yelp for his boy, Jordan, the young fool who worked for him—and also happened to be his long-lost son—to come and free him from the embarrassing spot.

  But he did so like to lean back, waggle in the chair a bit, suck on a cigar, and plan his next moves. And that was exactly what he found himself doing on that evening, minutes after he’d left the throng in the street, wondering if he’d won the volley of threats and insults he’d exchanged with that cursed Jigger McGee, or if the foul little lumberman had gotten the upper hand.

  Whitaker finally shrugged, nudged the chair into a weak rocking motion, and plumed blue smoke toward the hazy ceiling. In the end, he would win, as he always did. Because brains and money would win the day, not anger and brute force. And those last two were the things Jigger possessed. At least that was what Whitaker chose to believe. At least for the night—he didn’t have the strength to begin second-guessing himself.

  No matter. He had no intention of allowing McGee to sell his logs to anyone for a profit. Oh, the wood was desirable all right, but Whitaker wanted it all for himself. And preferably without paying for it. If he could just prevent Jigger McGee from keeping up with his lease payments on that tree-studded mountain valley.

  “Papa?”

  Curse that little man anyway. If he thought Torrance Whitaker was going to let a little thing like one man’s livelihood stand in the way of his putting a lock on the entire region’s rich resources—wood, water, and minerals—he’d better do some hard thinking.

  “Hey, Papa?”

  “Huh?” Whitaker spun around—or attempted to. The chair squawked and bobbed, but stayed tipped back. Whitaker could barely see over his left shoulder toward the cracked door. “What? Who is it? Jordan, that you?”

  “Yeah, Papa. I was wonderin’—”

  “Yeah, yeah—your wondering doesn’t concern me at present. What does, however, is the fact that those two morons you suggested to send to work for Jigger up at the Tamarack apparently haven’t yet succeeded in putting an end to that little fool’s operations.”

  “Hey now, Papa, they’re my friends.”

  “And that is precisely why nothing useful has happened. And for that, I blame your mother, God rest her. She had fine points, to be sure, but she unfortunately saddled your brain with a lot to be desired.” All the while Whitaker spoke, he pumped his legs as if he were urging a horse to gallop faster. It didn’t seem to help. In fact, the chair wagged and bucked and spun him ever closer toward the back wall.

  “You want help, Papa?” Jordan moved into the room, but his boss held up an arm.

  “No! I certainly don’t need your assistance to sit in my chair. That is a task I can do alone, thank you very much. What I do need is someone or something more effective up at the Tamarack! Since I’m stuck with you, get the hell out of here and figure out a plan to infiltrate that foul camp and bring it to its knees. I want to make McGee scream in agony. I want him to beg me to take his business from him.”

  “But Papa, Jigger McGee isn’t a bad man. He’s a hardworking man with a whole lot of people depending on him for their week’s wages. He’s a businessman, just like you.” The big, thick-featured young man stared at his father with a mix of pity and blank numbness.

  Whitaker’s cigar drooped in his mouth, and he returned the stare. “What in the name of all that is holy did I saddle myself with, taking you on after your mother, God rest her, up and died while I was incarcerated?”

  “But I’m your boy, your own son, Papa.”

  “More’s the pity. And now you’ve gone and gotten not only softheaded on me about that dolt Jigger, but you’ve fallen for his scrappy little daughter. A more ornery creature you’ll not find.”

  “Papa, don’t say that about Ermaline. She’s my sweetheart and you yourself gave us your blessing,
isn’t that right?”

  Torrance chewed the cigar and nodded slowly, a smile working its way back onto his face. Yes, I did, he thought. And while I merely guessed before how I might work this foolish dalliance to my advantage, now I know exactly how I’m going to do that.

  “Now I would like you to do me a favor, Jordan.”

  The boy leaned toward his father. “Yes, Papa? Anything.”

  “I’d like for you to leave me alone for a while. I have important thinking to do. But so do you.”

  “Oh, okay, Papa. Call me if you need me.” With that the big boy left, clunking the door too hard once again, as Whitaker always told him not to.

  What I need, thought Torrance Whitaker to himself, is someone who will remove this headache from me so I can concentrate my copious mental abilities on larger, more pressing concerns—such as preparing for the imminent arrival of the mining consortium’s representatives. As soon as I can convince them I have something to offer them, that is . . .

  If he could impress them, convince them that they were about to invest in a property worth, well, worth its weight—and then some—in gold, perhaps they would cement the deal with a cash deposit, a payment that would put Whitaker right where he wanted to be, had longed to be for so much of his life. Rubbing elbows with the richest of the rich.

  He envied the Silver Barons, the Copper Kings, the Gold Gods. And he had vowed years ago to become one of them, by hook or by crook. Unfortunately it had been a long, rocky road from there to here. Many years had passed and many more business dealings, but none of them, for one reason or another, had gotten him as close to fulfilling his dream as this one.

  When he’d arrived in the timber-rich valley, only two years before, there was something about it—a raw, vast wild place that had the look of being pregnant with promise. He knew there was something extra special about it, something that set his inner bells pealing with a fervor he’d not felt since his first youthful days as a gold claims speculator. That was his fancy way of justifying his all-but-outright theft of nearly played-out claims from equally played-out prospectors.