Slocum #396 : Slocum and the Scavenger Trail (9781101554371) Read online

  Bait and Shoot

  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…

  DON’T MISS THESE

  ALL-ACTION WESTERN SERIES

  FROM THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

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  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.

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  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…

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  The blazing adventures of mountain man Will Barlow—from the creators of Longarm!

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  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.

  JAKE LOGAN

  SLOCUM

  ON THE

  SCAVENGER TRAIL

  JOVE BOOKS, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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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.

  All rights reserved.

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  EISBN: 9781101554371

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  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  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 t
he 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.

  The snow-capped peak disappeared as he turned his eyes down the main street of Almost There. Boomtowns came and went, sometimes in days, and this one wasn’t going to be different. The news of the gold strike had spread fast, pulling con men like the merchant still busily selling Harry Hawkins equipment he didn’t need. Slocum wanted to point out that Hawkins had to carry every pound of it up the mountain slope but held his tongue. The greenhorn would shed his worthless equipment pound by pound as the going got harder.

  “We ’bout ready, Mr. Slocum?”

  He turned and saw the other three in the party. Clement Baransky spoke for the others with some authority. Slocum had never asked but thought Baransky might have been a lawyer or politician of some sort before getting bitten by the gold bug. From the look of his hands, he wasn’t a farmer or any profession requiring hard work. In spite of this, Slocum thought Baransky of all the men paying him a hundred dollars apiece was most likely to find his pot of gold. He wasn’t the kind who ever quit, and he hinted at knowledge of rocks and gold the others lacked.

  The other two, Young and Niederman, never stopped yapping about what they were going to spend their money on when they struck it rich. Niederman looked to be a farrier from the size of his forearms and the power in his hands. Telltale burns on his face and fingers told of molten metal spatters. While he might have been hit by shrapnel during the war, he didn’t look old enough to have seen the horrors Slocum had.

  Young was just that, young. Hardly eighteen, he was likely the son who wasn’t going to inherit his papa’s farm and had to venture out to make his own fortune. The few stories Young had related around the campfire told of a big family, but he had never come right out and said where he fit in among the three sisters and two other brothers.

  “Still time to back out,” Slocum told Baransky. He watched the man’s thin lips curl slightly into a hint of a smile.

  “Always time to back out, but I want to go on.”

  “You’re wrong,” Slocum said. “There might not be any way to stop once we get going. It’s spring but the altitude makes for nasty snowstorms year ’round.”

  “I see the snow up there,” Baransky said, nodding. “I’ve got a heavy coat and decent wool socks.”

  Slocum laughed, then called to Hawkins to get his ass in gear. The man struggled with the box of dynamite, the pick, the shovel, and other equipment sold him by the clerk, who’d grinned from ear to ear at a job well done. Hawkins had hardly stepped into the mud when the merchant moved in on another prospector to sell more of his used equipment.

  “Give me a hand, will you? I can’t carry all this.” Hawkins almost dropped the crate of dynamite. Only Slocum’s quick reflexes saved it from landing in the mud.

  “You get the fuse with this? And blasting caps?” He looked into the crate and saw a few feet of waxy black miner’s fuse but nothing else save for the dynamite.

  “Blasting caps? What’s that?”

  Slocum shoved the bo
x back into Hawkins’s arms, causing the man to stumble and go to one knee in the mud.

  “You’ll find out when you try to set off a stick or two,” he said. Without another word, he slogged through the mud, heading for the edge of town, where they had camped. Behind him he heard Baransky explaining how dynamite needed the volatile blasting cap to detonate, that the fuse didn’t set off the dynamite directly but rather the cap, which then set off the dynamite. Hawkins grumbled about being rooked, then started in on how Slocum should have given him better advice.

  Baransky was soon walking alongside Slocum.

  “You tried to stop him from buying all that,” the tall, whipcord-thin man said. “I heard.”

  “You always so attentive?”

  “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” Baransky said hurriedly. “It’s just that I’m a greenhorn, at least when it comes to gold prospecting. I want to learn as much as I can, and you sound like a man with considerable experience.” His eyes dropped to the worn ebony handle of the Colt Navy thrust into Slocum’s cross-draw holster.

  “Good way not to make the same mistakes,” Slocum allowed.

  “They talk a good game and they look the part, I suppose, but none of them really knows what they’re doing, do they? None of us do.” This rueful admission caused Slocum to look at Baransky.

  “Then why the hell are you risking your life searching for a will‑o’-the-wisp? You’re an educated man.”

  “Nothing gets past you, does it?”

  “More ’n I can say for you. Those three know nothing about prospecting. If I had to bet on it, you’d be the one with my money on his name to strike it rich.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You take the time to think things through. You’re not impulsive like them. Might be greed is gnawing at your guts, too, but you hide it better. And I don’t see you quitting when your first bite off the mountain doesn’t glitter with a solid gold nugget.”

  “It’s a good thing I don’t play poker,” Baransky said. “You’d clean me out real quick.”

  “For a while I might come out ahead. Reckon you would learn fast to gamble just like you’re going to learn to prospect for gold.”