Slocum 430 Slocum's Silver Burden by Jake Logan

Author:Jake Logan [Logan, Jake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-10-05T22:00:00+00:00

10

Slocum didn’t drop his Colt but lifted his hands, holding them out level with his shoulders. The man in front of him came into full view from behind the outhouse. He never glanced at the deputy he had shot from behind. He clutched his rifle so hard his hands shook.

“I wanna kill him, Harry. Don’t you go blowin’ off his head. I wanna do it.”

“Shut up, Riley,” said the man behind Slocum. “You done enough damage for one day. Did you shoot the deputy?”

“I don’t know what . . .” His voice trailed off as he looked around and saw the dead lawman. “Sweet Jesus, it musta been this varmint.”

“That’s a rifle hole in the back of his skull,” Slocum said.

“You shut up.” The man behind him poked his back with the rifle.

Slocum shifted slightly to his left and then spun to his right as fast as he could, swinging his pistol around in a broad arc that ended at the man’s temple. His target went down to his knees, stunned. Keeping up his spinning motion, Slocum knocked the rifle from the man’s hands and then brought his six-shooter up, centered on the deputy killer’s heart.

“Don’t shoot, mister. Don’t! You kilt Harry!”

“He’s not dead,” Slocum said. “You will be if you don’t drop the rifle.”

“You mean it when you said you was a lawman?” He carefully placed the rifle on the ground, as if laying an offering on some pagan shrine.

“I was deputized by the Central California Railroad to go after train robbers. That gives me the power to arrest you.” This was the last thing Slocum wanted to do. Drury was skedaddling away with the location of the stolen silver locked in his head. Every minute he ran put him that much farther from Slocum getting to be a rich man.

“Fancy that,” Riley said. “Me and Harry are, too. We got papers from Mr. Collingswood up in that fancy office on top of a big San Francisco building. You want to see?” He started to reach into his coat pocket. Slocum cocked his pistol, ready to shoot.

“W-wait,” came Harry’s weak voice. “You buffaloed me good and proper, but you don’t have to kill Riley. He’s not always right in the head.”

“You really work for the Central California Railroad?” Slocum asked.

“Yup, the both of us.” Harry pressed his hand against the cut on his scalp oozing blood. “Who recruited you?”

Slocum knew his chances of finding Drury were sinking fast. Enlisting the help of these two blundering fools might make it worse tracking the outlaw, but Slocum knew he had no way of getting rid of them short of gunning both down. Trying to explain to the town marshal how the deputy came to get a bullet in the back of his head would give Drury an even greater head start.

“Underwood,” Slocum said. He held up his right hand and showed only index finger and thumb.

“He’s the one,” Harry agreed. He got to his feet, wiped the blood from his head wound on his coat, and thrust out his hand.

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