Slocum and the Sawtooth Sirens Read online

  “I did,” Slocum said.

  All of the men stared at him as if he had risen out of the ground in a burst of fire and brimstone.

  Slocum turned his back on them and started to scan the ground in front of Paul’s shelter. He walked along a dim swath in the grass that was the trail left behind by the killer. He saw faint boot prints, as well, but could not determine any size or distinguishing features on the soles.

  He was, however, already laying the groundwork in his mind about who the killer might be. From the boot prints, he knew that the man was a patient stalker. He had been in no great hurry to approach his sleeping victim.

  Instead, it appeared that the man had stepped out slow and let both feet settle, side by side, before taking another.

  The man was a hunter. He knew how to stalk his prey. He did not drag his feet, but picked up each one before taking another. Careful and calm, Slocum thought. Very careful. Very calm. And calculating. He knew where he was going and what he was going to do.

  Jessie’s killer had known who his victim was to be. And he had waited until just the right moment to begin his careful stalk and then proceeded directly to Jessie Nolan. He had sliced Jessie’s neck with one sure and powerful stroke.

  Then the man had trod back along the same path he took to arrive at his destination. Footprint upon footprint. Each step tended to blur the other, so that it was difficult to see any markings on the sole of either boot.

  Rod stood guard with Paul, neither man daring to move until Slocum returned. The other men waited some distance from the murder scene as others joined them and learned that they would have to wait for a full report on whatever bad thing had happened. They could see Paul and Rod and someone lying still under the lean-to, but none knew who it was that was either injured or dead. Their mutterings remained low-keyed and unintelligible to both Rod and Paul.

  Slocum followed the killer’s spoor as far as he could as the sun rose behind him, burning off the dew, forcing the shadows to retreat and change positions.

  The tracks showed Slocum that the killer made good use of the tall pines for cover as he headed for Paul’s shelter. He stopped often at every tree and even out in the few open spaces he traversed.

  Then the tracks led to a rocky stretch and Slocum noticed that there were no overturned stones. He went beyond it onto softer ground, but saw no more tracks. There was just no way for him to tell where the killer had come from, but he found a place where he had waited and watched before making his move.

  The small knoll caught Slocum’s eye, and when he went there, he saw a faint set of tracks just outside the thick copse of trees.

  Curious, Slocum pushed past a spruce and a small gnarled juniper, walking up the crown of the small hill. There, he found fresh tracks aplenty, and the ground moiled and scarred up by boot heels and sole scrapes.

  He walked to the other side of the knoll and down the slope to the flat. There, he saw a clear boot print in soft loamy soil. There was another nearby, as if the stalker had paused a moment or two before entering the place he had chosen for a lookout.

  Mud.

  Slocum saw clear and clean boot prints embedded in a small patch of mud. This had probably been a shady spot that harbored snow until very recently. The snow melt had left behind that muddy, irregular circle, and there were the killer’s boot prints, with every detail of the soles impressed into the wet soil as if they had been cast in wax.

  These, Slocum knew, were the kind of boots worn by most of the prospectors and miners. Work boots. But each boot left a distinctive print. There was wear on the left heel, and scars in the soles from sharp rocks and jagged shale.

  Slocum examined the tracks very closely as the light from the rising sun increased.

  When he was finished, he had made mental notes of every distinct mark in the prints. He memorized them so that if he ever saw the soles that had made those marks, he would recognize them and know who had killed Jessie Nolan.

  He walked slowly back to Paul’s lean-to.

  “Well, what did you find, Slocum?” Rod asked when the man in black drew near.

  “Some things I keep to myself,” Slocum said.

  “We want to know who killed Jessie,” Rod said.

  “So do I. The man left tracks, but they’re hard to read.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Rod was on the edge of belligerence.

  “It means I don’t know where the killer came from or where he went after he murdered Jessie.”

  “That’s it?”

  “For now,” Slocum said.

  He started to walk away.

  “Where you goin’?” Rod asked.

  “To tell Madge her father is dead.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Somebody has to do it. I was with her all night. It should be me.”

  “You what?” Rod demanded.

  Slocum ignored him and walked down the slope back to where Madge was asleep. He did not relish being the bearer of bad news, but he knew that she deserved to know that her father was never coming back to her. Jessie was gone.

  Gone forever.

  10

  Madge was still sound asleep when Slocum returned to the Nolan shelter. He sat down, lifted the blanket. She was as naked as the proverbial jaybird.

  He shook her gently when he touched one shoulder.

  “Madge. Wake up.”

  She muttered a guttural sound with no discernible meaning.

  Slocum shook her again.

  Her eyes opened. Her lashes fluttered as she batted them. He could see small granules clinging to the rims of her eyes. She rubbed the grit away and looked at Slocum.

  Fingers of sunlight streamed into the lean-to like the blades of golden spears.

  “John, it’s too early,” she said, her voice scratchy with the night husk that clogged her throat.

  “There’s a lot to do. For both of us.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m going into Sawtooth, and you have matters to tend to.”

  Madge sat up. Her hair was tousled and she ran her fingers through the twisted strands.

  He reached for her skirt and blouse and tossed them to her. The blanket slid from her bare breasts and she looked at Slocum with wide eyes.

  “Is there such a rush?” she asked. “Last night was wonderful. But it seems like a dream to me. I’m still in a tizzy.”

  “Maybe some coffee would wake you up,” he said.

  She shook her head and lifted up her skirt and blouse with one hand. She kneaded the cloth like dough, mashing it with her fingers as if to iron out all the rumples and creases.

  “I don’t want to wake up,” she said. “I just want to lie down and think about you and me, what we did.”

  “Plenty of time for that, Madge. There’s something I have to tell you and I hate like hell to be the bearer of bad news.”

  She looked at his face. Where there should have been joy, she thought, there was a somber cast to his features. The look on his visage made her shiver in the chill of the mountain morning.

  “You look sad,” she said.

  “Can’t help it, Madge. Get dressed, will you? Men are stirring. Some may come looking for you.”

  “Why? Why would men come looking for me, and what is the bad news you say you bear?”

  “Your pa,” he said.

  She looked around as if expecting her father to appear all of a sudden.

  “My pa?”

  “Someone got to him during the night, Madge. I just came from his friend’s lean-to. Your pa was murdered. He’s dead.”

  Madge’s face whitened as blood drained from beneath her skin. Her mouth opened in surprise and her eyes widened in shock.

  “Pa? Dead? How? Why?”

  “I don’t have any good answers for you. I don’t want to describe what I saw this mor
ning. But he is dead, and you may want to see him just to satisfy some of your questions. Do you know of any enemies he had among the prospectors and miners?”

  “No, not Pa. He . . . he was well liked. Oh, John. Tell me it’s not true. He can’t be dead.”

  “Put on your clothes and your boots,” he said. “I’ll walk you up to his friend’s shelter and show you.”

  He got to his feet and stood outside the lean-to while Madge dressed. She pulled on her slip and panties, stepped into her shirt, and threw on her blouse. She put a light sweater over her blouse and tugged on her well-worn boots. She moved slowly, like a sleepwalker, as if to deny all that Slocum had said, as if she were on a mission just to keep busy so that she wouldn’t have to think about the possibility that her father was dead. Slocum knew that she was in shock, that her pa’s death had not reached that region of her brain where she could fully understand that she would never see him alive again. He took her arm and they walked up the slope toward where her pa’s corpse was lying under a canopy of spruce boughs.

  Men crowded around the lean-to as Slocum and Madge approached.

  They all fell silent when they saw Jessie’s daughter. They parted so that she could walk through them to see the body. Their faces were gaunt and drawn beneath their beards. Some of them removed their hats and held them reverently against their bellies.

  Madge crumpled as they reached the lean-to, and Slocum had to support her. Her legs gave way as if they were made of rubber.

  She began to sob.

  Paul Welch walked up and put an arm around her shoulder.

  “I’m so sorry, Madge,” he said. “I—I . . .” His voice trailed off as he choked up with tears and emotion.

  Madge shook him off and walked closer. She shivered when she saw the gash in her father’s throat.

  Slocum saw her shoulders sag as she hunched over and sobs wracked her body.

  This was a time, he thought, when all who were there felt helpless. There was just nothing anyone could do to assuage her grief or give her comfort. Her father was dead, murdered in a most vicious way, and his only daughter was now an orphan in what should have been the blossoming season of her life.

  Rod came up and grabbed Slocum’s elbow.

  “Talk to you?” he whispered so that Madge could not hear him.

  Slocum nodded.

  The two men walked several yards away and huddled together, their faces inches apart.

  “Slocum, you ready to go into Sawtooth and have a look for us? Here’s a down payment.”

  Rod slipped two folded hundred-dollar bills into Slocum’s palm.

  “I reckon now is as good a time as any,” Slocum said.

  “You can’t wear them black clothes,” Rod pointed out. “And you can’t ride your black horse. You’ll be a marked man if you do.”

  “Yeah, that other shooter who got away saw me good and true.”

  “I rounded up some regular clothes that will fit you, and Jessie’s two horses ain’t never been in Sawtooth. He traded for ’em when he bought the rifles for us. I got a hat that might fit you, too. You’ll look like any of the rest of us, ’ceptin for your size, and I can’t do nothin’ about that.”

  “I’ll stoop over, Rod,” Slocum said. “Make myself less tall.”

  “I’m glad you can joke about it. You got a dangerous job to do. Hiram Bledsoe is one mean sonofabitch and the men who work for him are even meaner.”

  “I’ll just be another prospector as far as they’re concerned,” Slocum said.

  “You be careful, and if you have anything to report, you can go to the last mine along the creek and somebody from up here will be waitin’ for you.”

  “How will I know whether that man is friend or foe?” Slocum asked.

  “He’ll whistle like a prairie dog. When you see him, you say, ‘Nice night.’ If he answers you, he’ll say, ‘In Cheyenne it’s raining.’ Can you remember that?”

  “Yep,” Slocum said. “Where do I change clothes and switch horses?”

  “Just follow me. And I’ll show you a way out of here that will take you back to the main road into Sawtooth. I don’t want anyone to see you in your miner’s clothes or on the horse you’ll be riding. Whoever killed Jessie is probably spying on both of us right now.”

  “Any idea who might be the spy in your camp?”

  Rod shook his head.

  “I been rackin’ my brain, but come up empty. Not one danged clue.”

  “Whoever he is, he’s a coward,” Slocum said. “Probably a backshooter.”

  “You figure?”

  “Yeah. He snuck up on Jessie and cut his throat. Quick and quiet. Snuck off in the dark and is lickin’ his chops right now.”

  “I hope we find out who killed Jessie and dangle his ass from the end of a rope.”

  “I’ll try to find out,” Slocum said.

  “How?”

  “Oh, there are ways. Murder will out, they say. And I believe that.”

  “Just make sure you don’t show him your back when you’re in Sawtooth.”

  “Maybe that would draw him out.”

  Rod shook his head.

  The two men parted company and walked back to where Paul and the others were standing around with sheepish looks on their faces. Some had put their hats back on and were returning to their shelters.

  Slocum touched Madge’s arms with both hands as she turned to face him.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said, a bitter tone to her voice.

  Slocum pulled his hands away from her as if they had been on a hot stove.

  “Madge, if there’s anything. . . .” he started to say.

  She glared at him with a ferocity that surprised him.

  “Get away from me,” she said. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  He opened his mouth in surprise, but decided not to argue with her. She was mad and he wondered if she blamed him for her father’s death in some crazy, mixed-up way.

  He backed away from her as she stormed off. She walked down the slope back toward her shelter and nobody tried to stop her.

  Slocum turned to Rod. “I’m ready when you are,” he said.

  “Follow me,” Rod said and walked up toward the massive boulders. Slocum looked back at one point. Nobody was watching them. He heard the men talk about shovels and digging a grave for Nolan. Then their voices faded and Rod walked around the boulders. Slocum had to quicken his step to catch up to him.

  They walked a long way, past the rope corral, where Ferro neighed at him, and on up a hill and beyond where there was another rope corral and the horses that had drawn the wagon with the load of rifles were standing. Nearby, there was an old Santa Fe saddle, and a satchel, some mining tools stacked next to a wooden canteen.

  Slocum saw a small pick and shovel, a gold pan, and a hammer, along with a cloth sack that was lumpy with nails.

  “You shuck your clothes and try those on,” Rod said. “Pick one of the horses and I’ll saddle him for you.”

  Slocum removed his boots and clothing. He put on a pair of duck trousers and adjusted the suspenders, put on miner’s boots, and strapped on a gun belt that was frayed and scarred from use. It was brown, not black.

  “You can take your own pistol and cartridges, but not your Winchester,” Rod said. “We’ll keep your gear safe for you.”

  Slocum picked up his belly gun and tucked it behind his belt buckle.

  Rod smiled. “You’ll do all right,” he said.

  “I’ll ride that sorrel gelding,” Slocum said. “The smaller horse.”

  Rod put a bridle on the horse and slung a blanket on its back, then slid a saddle over the wool blanket.

  Slocum put on a battered felt hat that was stained with dirt and grime. It fit perfectly. The chambray shirt was slightly loose, but he could draw his pistol with ease. H
e walked around in his changed clothes and watched as Rod stuffed his saddlebags full of prospecting tools and draped the two canteens on either side of the horse from the saddle horn.

  “Am I missing anything, John?” Rod asked.

  “Nope. I can find my way around once I see how the town lies.”

  “You can stay at the Sawtooth Hotel and there’s a saloon right next to it. Everything in town is named Sawtooth mostly.”

  Slocum chuckled. “Didn’t take much imagination, did it?” he said as he looked off toward the Sawtooth Range.

  “Nope.”

  “Now, you show me that road out of here and I’ll be on my way,” Slocum said.

  He followed Rod to the edge of the flat and saw a dim old logging road.

  “You follow that old road,” Rod said. “It’ll curve off to the right and join up with the main road. There’s brush aplenty blockin’ the Sawtooth road, but it’s there.”

  “I’ll find it,” Slocum said.

  He mounted the horse and tugged on the reins to hold the animal in place.

  “You take good care of Madge, will you?” Slocum said to Rod.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Better not mention my name until she cools off.”

  “I won’t,” Rod said.

  Slocum waved good-bye and slapped his heels against the horse’s flanks. He looked all around before he took to the road, but saw no one. He was looking for a flash from binocular glasses, but saw nothing. Soon, he was in heavy timber and riding along through the morning shafts of sunlight.

  What lay ahead, he did not know.

  But he was determined to find out why one man’s greed drove him to murder innocent, hard-working miners and steal all their hard-found gold.

  He hoped he could pull it off and not arouse suspicion until he had completed his task and his quest.

  Jays squawked in the trees and he heard the shrill piping of a chipmunk as he rode through stands of tall pines, spruce, and junipers on a road that was marked with deer, elk, and wolf tracks, pine needles, and dead cones ravished by squirrels.

  He thought of Madge and winced that she had laid into him for no apparent reason.

  There was no understanding some women, he thought.