Slocum #422 Read online

  He found his ­coat-­raft and launched himself once more, heading for the Pullman car. He feared the depth of the river might cause undertow but a rocky outjut produced a shallow pool. He whipped around, got caught in the pool, and slammed into the shoreline. The protection afforded by the rocks kept the current from pulling him back into the river.

  Aching and banged up, he dragged himself farther up the shore. He wanted to rush over to examine the Pullman car, but all his strength had been sucked out of his body by the harsh current and cold water. It rankled but he forced himself to rest. Only then did he call out to draw the attention of any survivor.

  No answer to his shout.

  Slocum walked over the slippery rocks and got to the car. It lay with the roof against the canyon wall, its undercarriage out into the river. At what had once been the front of the car, he tried to open the door. Stuck. Then a faint cry from inside spurred him on. He put one boot against the wall and grabbed with both hands, heaving hard. The door flew out of the frame.

  “Mr. Slocum,” came the weak cry. “Help me.”

  He made his way into the ­pitch-­black interior. The lamps had all burned out. The impact had ruptured the tanks holding the gas. If it hadn’t been for the sudden immersion in the river, there might have been a fire.

  “I’m coming,” he said, working past an overturned couch. Then he stopped. His foot went down into something yielding.

  He swung to one side and used his feet to push away the couch. Even in the darkness he knew a dead body from a living one. The conductor had died. It hardly mattered if it came from the fall or drowning or something else. Jefferson was very dead.

  “Where are you?”

  “Here, John. I can’t move my legs. Help me!”

  He threw aside furniture and other debris to reach the woman. She lay in a heap, her blond hair masking her face. Her clothing had been ripped in a dozen places. Both legs were pinned by a section of the Pullman car wall that had been smashed inward.

  “This will take a couple minutes. Can you feel your legs?” He reached down and ran his hand along her leg all the way to her inner thigh.

  “Sir, please!”

  He laughed. “You felt that?”

  “I did, sir!”

  “Then your legs aren’t paralyzed. I’ve seen that happen during the war. One of my men was sitting under a tree when a Yankee cannonball crashed through the trunk. A tree fell over and a heavy limb fell on his legs.”

  As he talked to keep her occupied, he found a grip on the wood.

  “What happened to him?”

  “He never walked again.”

  “No!”

  Slocum grunted and exerted all his strength to lift the wood away. Marlene rolled onto her side and got out from under it an instant before he slipped and let the wood crash back down. He sat back and looked at her.

  “You have a terrible way of telling stories, Mr. Slocum.”

  “You’re going to be just fine. I see how you’re kicking up your heels.”

  “Really!” Marlene sat up and straightened her legs, then brought her knees up and moved them about. “I am free. Thank you. But that story was terrible, of the man who became paralyzed.”

  “He wasn’t paralyzed,” Slocum said, standing. He offered her his hand, then pulled her to her feet. She stood without any difficulty. “He died.”

  “Then why did you ­say—”

  “Didn’t want to worry you none.”

  He teetered when the entire car began to slide back toward the river.

  “We must get free immediately,” Marlene said. “Do you need help?”

  The question startled him. She held out her hand to steady him because he had lost his balance and sat down heavily when the car’s weight shifted.

  “I’m fine,” he said. As he followed her, he started noticing how her clothes hung in revealing tatters. “Are there any clothes in this car you can wear?”

  “Why, yes, I suppose all of them would fit. Oh!” She realized why he had asked. Her left breast was exposed as was her left leg all the way from ankle to hip. “I didn’t realize I was indecent.”

  Slocum wondered at this. Here was a woman who took her maid to a whorehouse to spy on a man and woman in the next room, yet dishevelment after falling down into the Colorado River embarrassed her.

  “There’s a wardrobe. Is it Sarah Jane’s?” He heaved open a door to a wardrobe tipped on its side. “Better hurry.” The car slipped a bit more as the current caught part of it and sought to suck it into the flow.

  “I always liked this dress, but it isn’t suitable for what we must do to get out. Here, yes, this will do.” She grabbed several items and clung to them as he herded her out of the car.

  The screeching of wood dragged across rock drowned out conversation for a few seconds. Then the Pullman car spun out into the river, where the rapid current tore it in half as if it were nothing but tissue paper.

  “Such power in that river,” Marlene said as they watched from the bank. “Thank you for saving me. I could have been killed.”

  “We all could have been killed.” He looked up at the sheer wall of black, slippery stone. Returning to the rim would take some doing.

  “What of the others? Jefferson is gone. I saw him die and could do nothing to help him.”

  “The mail clerk’s a goner, too.”

  “What of . . . of Sarah Jane? She is all right?” Real concern gave a poignant ring to her words that again surprised Slocum. She truly cared for her maid and wanted to know her fate.

  “She’s on the way to Yuma. Mad Tom is highballing it to let them know to send out a repair crew. If the crew we met on the western side is on the ball, the bridge can be repaired in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  “How are we going to get to the top?” Marlene looked up at the unscalable wall. “I’m sure you have a plan. You’re very capable.”

  “There is a set of rungs hammered onto the bridge support. We can use that to climb almost to the top.”

  “Almost?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” he said. He laughed ruefully. “Even if we didn’t do much of a job crossing it the first time.”

  “Your outlook on the world is very strange, Mr. Slocum. Now please turn your back so I can change.”

  He let her strip off her damaged clothes and work into the duds she had taken from the car. While she dressed, he hiked back toward the bridge supports. The construction crew had cleared a path, making it easier to reach the spot where the rung ladder climbed up the support.

  “I see where the trestle crumpled,” Marlene said. She pressed close to him. Although she had changed into decent clothing, she was as soaked through as he was from the constant spray. A little shiver hinted at how cold she was but she never complained. “Is that the way to the top of the world?”

  “Back to the world,” Slocum said. He looked at her. Starlight caught water droplets in her hair and turned them into diamonds amid the golden strands. Although she was drenched and shivered like a drowning rat, he found himself liking the way she looked. It was natural and wild.

  Slocum shook himself. This wasn’t the time, and she was the boss’s daughter.

  “Should I go first or will you?”

  “If I followed, I’d be forced to look up your skirt the whole way,” he said.

  Marlene recoiled, then grinned a little. “Is that such a burden for you, Mr. Slocum?”

  “If it doesn’t offend you, your going first makes sense. My heavier weight might pull loose a rung. You’d never be able to keep me from toppling into the river.”

  “But my lighter weight might not dislodge a loose rung? Yes, that makes sense. And if I fell, you could rescue me. Very well. I’ll go first.”

  Slocum marveled that she believed he could catch her if she fell, yet he detected no
hint of sarcasm in her words. She began climbing. When he followed, he discovered that the darkness prevented him from seeing anything that would offend her modesty.

  “It is a very long way to the top, isn’t it?” she called back after fifteen minutes of climbing.

  “Rest if you have to. We can find a cross beam and sit on that.”

  “I was not complaining, just opining that it is taking so long. Why, the sky is brightening. Dawn cannot be far away.”

  Slocum tried to piece together how long he had taken from the time he jumped off the Yuma Bullet to now. It all flowed together like the river below. Jefferson and the mail clerk were dead and lost in watery graves, but he had saved Marlene Burlison. Or had he really? Her legs had been pinned but her spunk and determination told him she wouldn’t have simply given up and died. Somehow she would have saved herself. That presence of mind appealed to him.

  “I see the top! I do!”

  She scrambled up the rungs faster now, giving Slocum a better look at her legs. The faint dawn helped. And once she had reached the tracks, she was bathed in the warmth of a new desert day.

  Slocum pulled himself up after her, then froze.

  “They haven’t come to rescue us, have they?” Marlene said in a low voice.

  Slocum looked at the Apache braves decked out in their war paint. The Indians turned their horses toward him and began trotting over, waving rifles in the air.

  “No, they haven’t.”

  8

  Slocum stepped forward and put himself between the Indians and Marlene. The riders came hard, kicking up a dust cloud that obscured the railroad tracks. With a ­lightning-­fast calculation, Slocum realized the Apaches might not have seen Marlene. He stepped back, grabbed her around the waist, and picked her up, kicking.

  “What are you doing, Mr. Slocum? Put me down.”

  He did. He dropped her between the cross ties to a rocky slope beneath. Marlene yelped and lost her footing. For a frightening instant he thought she would tumble on down the side of the canyon and fall back into the river. An agile twist brought her around to slide on her belly. She found purchase with her toes and then seized a ragged hunk of metal sticking down from the tracks.

  “Don’t say a word. Don’t move,” he ordered as he slid his Colt from its holster. The water trickling from the barrel told him there wasn’t a chance in hell the pistol would fire. The repeated dips in the river had ruined the cartridges and possibly gummed up the firing mechanism. He slid it back into his holster and looked for other ways to fight.

  “Don’t leave me here. I can help you,” protested the woman. She scrambled up so there was no chance of falling over the cliff face into the river.

  Slocum picked up a discarded sledgehammer handle. It had broken and been cast away. He swung it a couple times. Its heft was gone with the steel head but the sharp point where the wood had splintered promised a spear thrust if he got close enough to use it that way.

  The dust cleared and four warriors drew rein twenty feet away. They whooped and hollered as they waved their rifles in the air. Slocum stood his ground, sledgehammer handle ready to swing. He couldn’t help looking down under the tracks to where Marlene huddled. A touch of admiration came. She hid but wasn’t frightened. Then the admiration faded when he realized she had no idea what they faced. A woman living in the lap of luxury had never confronted Indians who would kill her and lift her ­scalp—­or worse, take her prisoner. A pretty woman could be used for weeks before they killed her. Since this was a war party, however, Slocum doubted Marlene would be given even a week.

  They would use her, then kill her right away. That might be merciful. It was better she avoid it entirely, even if he had to die defending her. Given enough time, Mad Tom would report the bridge collapse and the S&P would send back a repair crew. The workers on the western side might have telegraphed the problem in both ­directions—­east and ­west—­already. If so, help might only be minutes away.

  Slocum had to make a decision right now.

  The youngest of the braves lowered his rifle and raked his moccasins along his pony’s flanks. The war chief let the youth attack to gain experience and honor in combat. Slocum denied him both.

  As the Apache galloped down, Slocum stepped sideways so the Indian had to reach across his body with his rifle, ruining his ability to fire accurately. Rather than using his wooden handle on the rider, Slocum swung it hard and connected with the horse’s left front leg. The horse stumbled from the blow and sent the Apache flying.

  Immediately pressing the fight, Slocum used the ­sharp-­tipped handle to stab the fallen rider. The broken splinter sank into the man’s right shoulder. Slocum leaned hard on it as the Apache writhed about. The agonized shriek brought the other three warriors galloping down on him. Twisting the handle, Slocum inflicted enough pain that the fallen Indian passed out.

  Scooping up the man’s rifle, Slocum got off three fast shots. All missed but they forced his attackers to veer away. He could have taken more accurate aim and shot one of the retreating Indians from horseback. Instead he went after the downed brave’s horse.

  The animal tried to rear, but Slocum had to get away from this spot. He pulled down the horse’s head, then vaulted onto the pony’s back. Giving the horse its head caused him to race away after the other three. As he thundered above her, Slocum waved for Marlene to stay low. She yelled something, but he raced past too fast to understand.

  When he got onto solid ground, he veered away from the others, using the dust cloud to mask his real direction. As he pounded along, he worried that the Apaches had spotted Marlene, too. If he led them away and they didn’t know she had been on the bridge, she had a good chance for survival. The S&P would have crews out right away to repair the bridge since it was their only route across the Colorado. The Union Pacific up north remained a transcontinental route, but other than this, the S&P had the only other one. Slocum had heard of others being built, but they all ran through New Mexico Territory and had to cross the Colorado River at some point.

  The railroad crews would be especially alert because a vice president’s daughter was part and parcel of the wreck. If she kept her head down, Marlene would be fine.

  If Slocum successfully decoyed the Apaches away.

  Bent down low, he chanced a look behind. Through the dust cloud came two riders. It meant death for him unless he got lucky, but Marlene was safe. He had done his job the best he could.

  Slocum angled off, thinking to curve back toward the railroad tracks. What the Apaches sought other than his scalp was a poser since this stretch of desert was as barren as an old sow’s womb. They must have escaped the reservation in the eastern part of Arizona and sought refuge here. Or they might have been chased to southwestern Arizona Territory by cavalry and looked to get across the border for the safety Mexico offered. Whatever the reason for the war party, the Apaches were intent on stopping Slocum.

  That meant they feared he would reveal their position. Hope popped up a bit higher. Fort Barrett over on the Gila River was the closest military post. If these were Warm Springs Apaches off the reservation east of the fort, troopers might be close on their heels. All Slocum had to do was dodge about until the Indians began to worry about the soldiers finding them.

  He crossed the railroad tracks and rode due north, but his pony began to flag. He slowed, alternated gaits, did what he could to keep moving without killing it under him. From the way his mouth filled with gummy cotton from lack of water, he knew the horse similarly suffered. The only sure source of water he knew in this desert roared along under the S&P bridge, but if he cut back in that direction, he risked Marlene being discovered.

  Heading for low hills to the northwest, he had to slow almost to a walk. Even then the pony stumbled as it moved along. Slocum watched it closely for sign of ears pricking up or nostrils flaring at the scent of water. When nothing reached the horse, he knew he wa
s in for tough times.

  ­Canyons—­hardly more than ­gullies—­began to cut through the dry land. Slocum dropped to the ground, considered his chances, and then applied the flat of his hand to the horse’s rump. It snorted, reared, and trotted away. Such a trick wouldn’t slow the Apaches much, but getting the horse back as booty might satisfy them and they’d stop hunting for him.

  The sun hammering down from directly above might wink out entirely, too. He knew false hope from reality. Choosing a ravine at random, he ran down it until his legs ached. The soft sand and hard pebbles robbed him of stamina and bruised his feet at the same time.

  When a cutbank presented a hint of shade, he dived low and crawled out of the sun. Pressing his back against the crumbling sand wall, he took out his Colt Navy and examined it. The swim in the Colorado hadn’t done it any good. Fearing the war party would come across him at any instant, he stripped the pistol and used the tail of the fancy shirt he had gotten from Burlison to wipe dry the metal parts. Without oil, he had to rely on metal grating against metal not to hang up from friction.

  Each cartridge was carefully dried off and then slipped back into the cylinder. Whether any of the rounds would fire depended a great deal on how long they had been submerged. Slocum had dropped an entire box of cartridges into a river once, and after drying them off, all had fired. But the immersion had been only minutes. He tried to estimate the time he’d spent being slammed about in the Colorado and decided he couldn’t. It all came to him as a soggy blur.

  The sound of a horse coming from the east alerted him to danger. Slocum knew he could never get to the top of the bank and escape that way. He moved slowly, trying to stay in the shadows, retracing his path. The sound of the horse grew louder behind him. He slid his ­six-­shooter from its holster and took careful aim at the bend in the ravine where an Apache rider had to appear.