Slocum and the Pack of Lies by Jake Logan

Author:Jake Logan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2014-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

11

Slocum slipped into his clothes, all nice and warm from drying by the fire. His boots were still wet, but he had endured worse. The whole time he dressed, he cursed Melissa and her pigheaded determination to find Randolph. As he strapped on his gun belt, a small smile came to his lips, then faded. He shouldn’t have joshed her about selling her to the Cree. She was an Easterner and couldn’t know he was joking. As much trouble as she made for him now, he ought to have gone ahead and made the deal. Let the Cree chief deal with her.

He crawled from the tent and stood, stretching. Dawn turned the rim of the eastern mountains a gold that quickly changed as the sun rose. The Cree bustled about camp, doing chores and preparing for another day of hunting food before the heavy snows came.

The chief came over and waited until Slocum acknowledged him.

“She left. Did you send her away?”

Slocum shook his head. Explaining Melissa’s motives was beyond the chief’s command of English. Hell, it was beyond Slocum’s.

“She hunts for . . . another,” he said lamely. Explaining her need to find her boss without lying eluded Slocum. “It is a revenge she must deliver to an enemy who has wronged her and her clan.”

This made sense to the Cree. It almost made sense to Slocum, although the trouble Randolph found himself in was of his own doing. Why Melissa felt so strongly about pulling his chestnuts from the fire came down to how she must have made a promise to the writer. A man’s word—or a woman’s—had to be kept, though Slocum had never seen that kind of relationship between her and Randolph.

“You will go after her?”

“I must,” Slocum said. Continuing the lie, he added, “She’s my squaw and her fight is mine.”

“So it is.”

Slocum hesitated to ask, but he had to. Without knowing what direction Melissa had fled in the night, he had no way of ever tracking her down. She had some idea where Stringfellow had camped and thought Randolph was being held there, but Slocum was turned around after crossing the river in the night. Melissa’s sense of direction in the wilderness could never match his own. Luck might take her back in the right direction, but the odds were against that. Even seasoned explorers died in these mountains relying on luck rather than knowledge.

The Cree chief waited for Slocum to speak his piece.

“I cannot find her by myself. Will the Cree hunters help me find her?”

“And kill the one she seeks?”

“His name is Stringfellow and he leads an outlaw gang. They are killers, dangerous desperados. Do you know of him from your scouting in these here parts?”

The chief pondered for a while, then said, “Lost Horse might know. He hunts in the direction where you were found.”

“Is Lost Horse the brave who was shot?”

The chief nodded once.

“He cannot be well enough to ride. If he told me what he knows, I can seek out Stringfellow on my own.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.