It was cold as only a desert can chill the bones. Slocum rode along before sunrise, found the road south and was a mile toward the turnoff when the sun finally poked its fiery eye above the low hills. The chill he had felt quickly disappeared and was replaced by the promise of a blast furnace day. He pulled down the brim of his hat to keep the light from his eyes. Judge Tunstell’s horse under him was a sturdy gelding, making him think that the judge knew every detail of every horse he owned. Tunstell had been toying with him like a cat plays with a field mouse when talking about the dead horse.
Slocum tried to figure out the judge. The man was content being a big frog in a small puddle, and that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Tunstell was nothing if not a politician and had designs on something more. Or he should have. Slocum could not be sure what was behind Tunstell’s actions. He ran Dry Water as surely as if he had a gun to everyone’s head, but it was a benevolent dictatorship. The entire time he had been in town, Slocum had not heard a bad word spoken about the judge. The banker was another matter, but that was hardly unusual.
He didn’t put it beyond Roger Williams to lie about the money stolen from the bank. All the banker had to do was salt away what remained and call it missing, too. The depositors would be out their money and someone else would take the blame. But why had he claimed so much had been taken? Ten thousand dollars was a princely sum that had no reason being stuffed into a vault inside the First Bank of Dry Water.
The sun rose enough to cause sweat to bead on Slocum’s leathery face. He turned eastward to the hills where the sign pointed toward the Holey Mine. Whether the miner had a curious sense of humor or was mostly illiterate, Slocum didn’t know or much care. He had a letter to deliver before he could return to town. Some whiskey would settle the dust in his mouth, even if the pop skull Alton dished out wasn’t anywhere near as good as the judge’s whiskey.
The judge had said it was five miles to the turnoff but had said nothing about the distance to the mine. Slocum had gone more than five miles eastward when he spotted a watering hole. He only had to relax his grip on the reins for the horse to veer from the road and head straight for the pond. It always amazed him how watering holes appeared out of nowhere in the desert. He was close enough to rocky foothills for some water to run off and fill the pond, but he saw no obvious arroyos leading into the pond. That meant it was fed from underground springs.
“Whoa, wait a minute,” Slocum said, drawing back hard on the reins as his horse tried to gallop to the water. From horseback he looked around the pond for any sign of bones. Alkali water might look all right and smell fine to a horse, but once in an animal’s belly it killed in a short time. He saw no trace that the water might be bad.
Slocum dismounted and held his horse back as he knelt to sample the water.
“Sweet,” Slocum said, releasing his hold on the reins. The horse began gulping down gallons of water. Slocum took off his hat and filled it with water, dumping it over his head to cool himself off. Then he drank some more, filled his canteen and finally dragged his horse away. He didn’t want the horse bloating on him almost ten miles from town. That was a long walk back that neither of them would appreciate.
As he went to mount, he saw a hoofprint in the mud on the far side of the pond. He circled and looked at it. Fresh tracks. From the look of it, the rider had come out of the hills, then reversed course and returned. Standing in his stirrups, Slocum looked hard for the rider.
Seeing nothing, he put his heels to his horse’s flanks and got back on the road. He had hardly gone a mile when the flash of sunlight off bright metal caught his attention. He turned a mite in the saddle and saw a rider along a distant ridge, heading northward. Slocum reached back and got his field glasses from his saddlebags and focused on the rider. He caught his breath. While a shirt that carried such a blue-and-white-checked pattern was common, the last time he had seen it was on the bank robber who had escaped.
Slocum followed the solitary figure for a couple minutes, then the rider disappeared over the ridge, following a trail down the far side. Out of Slocum’s line of sight, the man could be headed anywhere. After putting his field glasses back, he considered whether to track the man. He shrugged it off. The rider might have been the robber, but that meant less to Slocum than delivering the judge’s letter. More than his need to fulfill his duty, Slocum might have been chasing a will-o’-the-wisp. The rider could be anybody. The shirt was store-bought, and half the men roaming these hills might have identical ones. That the man had been in a powerful hurry and had probably watered his horse at the same watering hole meant nothing.
Duty first. Then if Slocum happened to spot the man again, he could satisfy his curiosity. As much as he hated to admit it, the fifty dollars the banker had offered for catching the robbers was mighty appealing to Slocum.
A slow smile came to his lips. If he happened on the robber’s camp and came across the ten thousand dollars Williams claimed had been stolen, fifty dollars would seem paltry. Slocum was not above stealing from a crook and keeping the money. That much, even in greenbacks, would take him a powerful long way from Dry Water. To the Pacific and up the coast to Oregon. He would still have more than enough left to buy himself a string of Appaloosas and do a little breeding somewhere around the Dalles.
When he found where the rider had crossed the road on his way into the foothills, Slocum almost followed. The lure of all that money was just about more than he could overcome. But the sun beat down on his body, causing him to sweat like a pig. And the sweatiest spot was under the letter he was supposed to deliver for Judge Tunstell. Before it became totally sweat-soaked and unreadable, he had to find the recipient and hand it over.
Slocum ignored the hoofprints leading into the hills and kept on riding. Within three miles he found a trail to the Holey Mine. From the condition of the trail, it seemed there was not much ore left as damned little in way of supplies had been taken up. Weeds grew in the twin ruts and even a cactus had begun slipping its thorn-covered pads into the roadway. Nobody traveled this way much.
Still, the evidence of mining activity grew as Slocum turned up the steep hill. On either side he saw tailings puking forth like black bile from the hillside. The fact that these mines were deserted told Slocum there wasn’t much gold to be found around here. That still hadn’t stopped Calvin Bennigan from putting up a gate across the road with a NO TRESPASSING sign on it. The only problem with the gate was that there was no fence on either side. Slocum rode around.
He pulled the soggy letter from his pocket and matched the name to a sign on a weathered post. Satisfied he was on the right trail, he kept riding.
“You cain’t read? Ain’t no disgrace, so I’ll let ya know what the sign said. Git your cracker ass off my property!”
Slocum halted and looked around. He saw no one, but homed in on the road to his left. Huge piles of drossy rock hid all but the shotgun barrel pointed right at him.
“Don’t mean no harm. You Calvin Bennigan?”
“You know I am. You got the look of trouble ’bout ya. Git! If you don’t, I’ll shoot! I’m warnin’ ya!”
“Got a letter for you.” Slocum carefully pulled it out and held it over his head. He didn’t even hear the hammers cocking on the shotgun. Bennigan must have already cocked the weapon. Sensing what was going to happen, Slocum flung himself off the horse and hit the ground hard as heavy lead shot tore past. He landed hard and pushed himself up to his hands and knees. The shotgun had spun off a ways and pointed toward the sky.
It took him a second to realize what was going on. The miner had not been behind the shotgun. He had rigged it up with string around the trigger so he could pull it and discharge the weapon from elsewhere. The shotgun had only been held in place by heavy rocks on either side of the barrel and probably a large one immediately behind the stock to take up the recoil when it was fired. It was a trap and a clever one. Slocum had been too preoccupied with the shotgun barrel to take note that the voice had come from the other side of the trail.
“Don’t shoot,” Slocum said. In his position on all fours, there was no way he could go for his own six-shooter. He craned his neck around and saw a miner holding a heavy Remington in both hands. The man’s hands shook hard and he squinted at Slocum, one eye screwed tightly shut. From the facial tic under the closed eye, Slocum guessed Bennigan was not merely aiming. His eye might be permanently shut from the spasms.
“I outfoxed ya, din’t I?”
“That you did,” Slocum said. “If you’ll take the letter, I’ll be on my way.”
“Don’t want no letter. Don’t want nuthin’ ’cept for you to skedaddle.”
“It’s my job to give you the letter. Why don’t I just leave it here on the ground for you, get on my horse and ride on back to Dry Water?”
“I kin kill ya where you are.”
“Why waste more ammo? You got me,” Slocum said. The trouble was, that summed it up too well. If he moved a muscle for his six-gun, Bennigan could fire a couple times before he could drag out the Colt, roll, aim and fire. The miner might not be a good shot but at this range he didn’t have to be.
“I set that trap fer cusses like you,” Bennigan said. “Don’t want no claim jumpers sneakin’ up on me.”
“You must have seen me coming from a ways off,” Slocum said. He shifted his weight off his right hand. Grabbing for the pistol in his cross-draw holster would be dangerous, but the crazy old coot was as likely to shoot him in the back as talk. Better to go down trying to save himself as let Bennigan shoot him in the back with a black-powder pistol that had seen its best day ten years earlier.
“Keep a sharp eye out, the one eye that’s good,” Bennigan said. The miner moved around to keep directly behind Slocum. He might be a recluse and suspicious of anybody coming onto his property, but he was no fool. Staying alive required him to have some native cunning.
“I—”
“You don’t got to do nuthin’ but leave. You rear on up onto your knees and keep them hands of yers where I kin see ’em. If they ain’t grabbin’ a piece of sky, you’re a dead man.”
Slocum did as he was told. The sharp rock cut into his knees, but he was more intent on the shadow on the ground. That told him where Bennigan stood. The shaky shadow showed the miner had not lowered his guard—or his gun.
“What now?”
“You git on that horse the best you kin, usin’ only yer right hand. Keep the left up high. Git on the horse and never come back here again.”
“What’s your beef with Judge Tunstell?”
“Ain’t got one, ’cept he’s a damned crook!”
Slocum heard anger coming into Bennigan’s voice and knew it was time to retreat. Getting himself back-shot for the judge served no purpose.
“I’m getting to my feet now,” Slocum said, keeping his hands high. He got his horse and clumsily mounted.
“Both hands in the air ’til yer off my property. I’ll drill you, I will, if you don’t do as I say!”
Slocum had no trouble using his knees to turn his horse and get it walking off Bennigan’s claim. He skirted the gate across the road and retraced his path a good hundred yards before lowering his hands. Glancing back, he saw the miner crouched behind a strategically placed mound of mined rock. When he had ridden in, Slocum wondered at the small hills dotting the area on either side of the road. Now he knew they were not carelessly placed. Bennigan could dart from one to the next to hold off any invasion of his property. He had done what he could to fortify the claim.
“What the hell’s got that wild hair up your ass?” Slocum muttered. He dragged out the envelope and saw his sweat had caused the glue to come unstuck. He pulled out the sweat-damp sheet and held it up so he could read it. It took only a couple lines for him to realize this was the judge’s order to Calvin Bennigan to vacate the property for nonpayment of taxes. Slocum bristled at this. He had returned from the war, his parents and brother dead, to Slocum’s Stand in Calhoun, Georgia, intending only to farm and recuperate from serious wounds. A carpetbagger judge had taken a fancy to land that had been ceded to the Slocum family by George II. It would have made a perfect stud farm, but the judge had gone about getting it in the wrong way.
Nonpayment of taxes, the Reconstruction judge had said through his lying teeth. The judge and a hired gunman had ridden out to seize the property from Slocum. Two fresh graves near the springhouse had been their legacy. And a trail of wanted posters for killing a federal judge had been Slocum’s.
He folded the sheet and tucked it back into the envelope. He frowned as something else gnawed at the corners of his memory. Miner. Calvin. Calvin Bennigan. The mayor and the banker had been arguing about a miner. Slocum could not be certain but he thought he had heard “Cal” in the midst of their argument immediately after the bank had been robbed. It had struck him as odd that this would be what the two men were fighting about when the bank robbers hadn’t been caught.
Slocum swung in the saddle and scanned the terrain high above where Bennigan undoubtedly hid, waiting for Slocum to get the hell off his land. Maybe that rider had been the remaining robber. It certainly wasn’t Calvin Bennigan, but maybe Bennigan was hiding the thief. That would explain why Grierson and Williams were talking about the miner so soon after the bank robbery. Did they suspect Bennigan of being in cahoots with the robbers? It was a stretch for Slocum to think Bennigan might be the mastermind behind the robbery, but if so much money had been stolen, as Williams claimed, maybe it was so.
But that almost meant that Williams and Grierson had to know before the robbery that Bennigan was involved. Their argument had come too soon after the robbery for any other explanation. Slocum wondered if Marshal Delgado had a stack of wanted posters with Calvin Bennigan’s picture on them.
He rode back along the road, pausing where the rider’s hoofprints had gone into the foothills. He shrugged it off. It had been a hell of a day. He had been shot at by an angry miner and sent on his way. That was enough to get him back to Dry Water to report to the judge as quick as a flash.
Slocum was half asleep in the saddle when he reached the outskirts of Dry Water. He shook himself awake and looked down the street at the fine courthouse and at the calaboose, and then made a quick decision. He dropped heavily to the ground and went into the marshal’s office. Delgado worked furiously oiling his rifle. Parts were scattered across the desk and he looked up, his dark eyes hot and angry.
“What do you want, Slocum?”
“Pleased to see you, too, Marshal,” Slocum said.
“You were out of town all day. I was not,” Delgado said. “The mayor has offered to fire me because of the bank robbery and—” Delgado jerked his thumb in the direction of the cells. Slocum knew the dead prisoner weighed heavily on Delgado. “What do you want?”
“Could just be passing the time of day,” Slocum said, “or it could be you might tell me something about Calvin Bennigan.”
“The miner outside of town?” Delgado shrugged. “Nothing to say about him. He is a hermit. Most miners are. When he comes to town, he does not get drunker than anyone else.” He thought for a moment and shook his head. “I have never thrown him into one of my cells.” A dark cloud formed on the marshal’s face. “A good thing for him. He might have ended up dead, too.”
“No wanted posters on him?”
“What is it you are saying?”
Slocum idly leafed through the stack of posters on the edge of Delgado’s desk. He saw nothing that implicated Bennigan in a prior robbery.
“Just a thought. I’ve got to get to the judge’s office before he goes home for the night.”
“Tunstell never goes home,” groused the marshal. He made shooing motions to get Slocum out of his office. Slocum left, stood in the cool evening and felt the sweat on his forehead evaporating. He took out the letter Bennigan had refused and stared at it again. Then he set off for the courthouse.
As before, the place was deserted save for the single light coming from the judge’s office. Slocum wondered if the marshal was right about Tunstell never leaving.
“Slocum, that you? I saw you ride into town. Where have you been?”
“Right here, Judge,” Slocum said. He dropped the sweat-stained letter onto the desk. Tunstell stared at it for a moment, then looked up into Slocum’s green eyes.
“You did not deliver it.”
“Couldn’t. Almost got my head blown off by a shotgun blast, then shot in the back by that son of a bitch. I showed it to him, but he wouldn’t take it.”
“He knew what was in the letter,” Judge Tunstell said in a flat voice. “That doesn’t leave me any choice.” He rummaged in his desk drawer and pulled out a thick sheaf of papers. He riffled through them, found the last page and signed with a flourish before handing them to Slocum.
“What am I supposed to do with these?”
“Those are eviction papers, duly signed and approved by the court.”
“That’s you.”
“That’s right, Mr. Slocum. Me. Give them to the marshal. It’s his job to serve process. I want Cal Bennigan off that claim by the end of the week.”
Slocum heard the implied “come hell or high water.” What it was about Bennigan’s mine that stirred up so much trouble in Dry Water was going to be settled soon. Slocum was sure it would be at the point of a gun. Given how obstinate the miner had seemed, there was likely to be bloodshed.
He was glad he didn’t have to be a part of it.