Slocum #396 : Slocum and the Scavenger Trail (9781101554371)
Read Slocum #396 : Slocum and the Scavenger Trail (9781101554371) Online
Authors: Jake Logan
As Slocum crossed the rocky patch, he heard a moan. His hand flashed to his Colt Navy, but he did not draw. Flopped on his back a dozen yards away stirred a man. He tried to push himself up on his elbows and failed, collapsing back to the ground.
Slocum hurried over.
“You all right? What happened? You get robbed?” The man was short and squat. Not Clem Baransky. But if he had been dry-gulched recently, he might have seen where Baransky went—or where he had been taken.
“Help me. Head. Hurts. Hit me.”
Slocum whipped out his pistol and got a shot off at the man on the ground. He recognized him as one of the road agents who had killed Young and Niederman. His bullet went wide, then all hell came crashing down around him…
ALL-ACTION WESTERN SERIES
FROM THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
THE GUNSMITH by J. R. Roberts
Clint Adams was a legend among lawmen, outlaws, and ladies. They called him … the Gunsmith.
LONGARM by Tabor Evans
The popular long-running series about Deputy U.S. Marshal Custis Long—his life, his loves, his fight for justice.
SLOCUM by Jake Logan
Today’s longest-running action Western. John Slocum rides a deadly trail of hot blood and cold steel.
BUSHWHACKERS by B. J. Lanagan
An action-packed series by the creators of Longarm! The rousing adventures of the most brutal gang of cutthroats ever assembled—Quantrill’s Raiders.
DIAMONDBACK by Guy Brewer
Dex Yancey is Diamondback, a Southern gentleman turned con man when his brother cheats him out of the family fortune. Ladies love him. Gamblers hate him. But nobody pulls one over on Dex…
WILDGUN by Jack Hanson
The blazing adventures of mountain man Will Barlow—from the creators of Longarm!
TEXAS TRACKER by Tom Calhoun
J.T. Law: the most relentless—and dangerous—manhunter in all Texas. Where sheriffs and posses fail, he’s the best man to bring in the most vicious outlaws—for a price.
SLOCUM
ON THE
SCAVENGER TRAIL
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
SLOCUM ON THE SCAVENGER TRAIL
A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Jove edition / February 2012
Copyright © 2012 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Cover illustration by Sergio Giovine.
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EISBN: 9781101554371
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1
“Price don’t matter. Outta my way and lemme buy it!”
John Slocum looked at the wild-eyed prospector and then at his poke brimming with silver coins. There might even be a gold eagle or two in Harry Hawkins’s leather pouch that would set as well in Slocum’s pocket as that of the merchant.
Slocum interposed himself between the clerk and the prospector, but the merchant wasn’t having any of it.
“Out of his way, mister. Let him see how fine my merchandise is. Why, a man could get rich with a pick and shovel this good. You don’t want to keep him from getting
rich
, do you?”
Slocum saw the greed on the prospector’s face and knew the pitch had worked. Hawkins fumbled out the exorbitant price, ready to pay for a used pick and shovel with a bent blade.
“Somebody’s carved their initials in the handle of the pick,” Slocum pointed out.
“Don’t matter.”
“Does,” Slocum insisted. “That’s bad luck using another man’s tools. Swing that pick once and the handle might break.”
“What’s your interest in telling this fine gentleman such lies?” The clerk puffed out his chest and strained the tie on his apron as his potbelly bulged. That might work for alley cats and prairie hens intent on intimidating their foes, but Slocum wasn’t having any part of such posturing.
“He’s hired me to see him to the gold claims—and outfitted proper-like,” Slocum replied, then he said to Harry, “Why don’t you ask how he happened to have this used equipment with the initials
RK
scratched in the handle?”
The clerk moved his bulk around a bit more to position himself between Slocum and his client at the question.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Hawkins. His bloodshot eyes went wide as he raked at his beard with dirty fingers. He stepped a few inches closer to see what the clerk offered. For two cents, Slocum would have walked away, but he knew Hawkins had more money than good sense. For what he had offered Slocum to guide him over the pass, a man could live well for a month. And Slocum intended to do just that—if Hawkins didn’t squander his entire poke because the merchant found the right sockdolager that appealed to both greed and the golden dream of all prospectors.
“Glad you inquired. This here pick belonged to the luckiest varmint what ever set foot on the Desolation Mountain trail. He used this pick—this very one—to strike it so rich he don’t have call to swing it himself anymore. He’s got a hundred men working in that mine for him.”
“RK?”
“Richard, uh, King,” the merchant said. “Everyone’s heard of him. Ask around town who’s the richest son of a bitch to ever stake a claim, and they’ll all say Richard King.”
“So the town assayer would know him?” Slocum asked. “And the land office would have a record of where his claim got staked?” He moved around and got a shoulder back in front of the prospector. “Might be useful knowing where this huge strike was so you can start prospecting around there.”
“Oh, King’s got it all sewed up. You have to go farther into the hills, beyond Desolation Pass now. That’s where all of them are going.” The clerk swept his arm around, snaked it behind the prospector’s back, and turned him to see the muddy streets filled with teams of mules and men getting themselves ready for the arduous climb up the side of the damnedest, most dangerous mountain in all of Idaho.
“We gotta hurry, Slocum. We gotta. All them fellas are gonna get to the gold first.”
“Twenty dollars for a pick is twice what you ought to pay.” Even at this, Slocum knew the merchant was criminally overcharging, but the equipment and all the other necessary supplies had to be freighted into the town of Almost There over treacherous roads hardly wider than a wagon. That added cost to everything.
“I ain’t no crook,” the merchant said, all puffed up and looking hurt. “I’ll throw in a chisel for nothing. You need a chisel to work the real hard rock.” He grabbed a short piece of iron and thrust it into Hawkins’s trembling hands.
“That’s just a piece of railroad track you’ve sharpened,” Slocum said.
“Means you got a piece of damn good iron. Them rails hold the country together and bring prosperity to us all. That makes this here chisel patriotic—and lucky for whoever uses it.”
“I don’t want them other men gettin’ the jump on me, Slocum,” Hawkins said. “Here. And the shovel and chisel, too.” He thrust out the money as if it would burn a hole in his hands.
Slocum knew this might be the most money Hawkins would ever see again since the bulk of the prospectors rushing up the mountain pell-mell weren’t successful. From what he heard about getting over Desolation Pass, Hawkins might not live long enough to be a failure at prospecting.
“I can fix you up with dynamite, if you’ve a mind.” The clerk made the prospector’s money disappear faster than
honey off a brown bear’s nose. “Mighty hard rock up in the mountains and blasting gets you to the mother lode fast.”
“You know anything about blasting?” Slocum asked. He saw the blank look Hawkins gave and knew the answer. “You can blow yourself up mighty easy if you don’t have the experience.”
“I can give him all he needs to know in a few words, mister,” the clerk said. “Why, I see men come and go all the time and know a real smart, lucky one when I see him. Your friend’s gonna be so rich he can buy the whole damn town ’fore you know it. We won’t call it Almost There. It’ll have to be renamed Mighty Rich.” The clerk pulled Hawkins closer and said confidentially, “You’re gonna be so rich you can buy and sell Robert King a dozen times over.”
“You said his name was Richard,” Slocum needlessly pointed out.
“Robert’s his younger brother. Even more successful than Richard.”
Slocum stopped arguing and let Hawkins spend his money. The equipment was used and wouldn’t stand up to real work, but Slocum had seen Hawkins’s type before. The lure of sudden wealth blinded him to the hard work it took to actually get rich mining. Even if a prospector hit gold, most sold the claim for a song and dance because the hunt was more important than the blue dirt. Those that actually proved their claims put in eighteen hours a day of backbreaking work and seldom did better than a merchant in town.
Slocum snorted. If he was any judge, the only one getting rich off this gold rush was the clerk convincing Hawkins he could use the dynamite safely to uncover an entire mountain of solid gold.
Slocum stepped out into the muddy street and sank up to his ankles. Turning, he looked up at Desolation Mountain and shook his head. The imposing peak was steep, sheer, a widow maker made from solid rock. The clouds swirling around the top might have been an angel’s halo but their
lead gray underbelly promised something closer to hell for anybody caught on the slopes. A moment of doubt fluttered through his mind when he considered the chore ahead of him. He wasn’t afraid of the mountain. He might not have gone through the high pass before, but he had survived considerable danger and woe in his life. Desolation Mountain would be a challenge but one he could win.