Slocum 382

Slocum had little difficulty tracking Jesse and the others from his gang. They made no effort to conceal where they rode, making him think Jesse was in a big hurry. He certainly had no reason to think the Army was after him. Slocum wondered how long Berglund would take to get his share of gold. Jesse seemed oblivious to the sergeant’s intent to double-cross him whenever he got the payoff.

That made him wonder what Jesse’s real game was. The man had carefully thought through the plot to break off this section of New Mexico and claim it for his own. Everything he had done so far had worked, and the number of members in the Knights of the Golden Circle made it possible the scheme might succeed. Stringfellow had been able to exchange secret signs and handshakes. Others in Santa Fe likely were sympathetic, if not in outright alliance with the idea of secession—again.

What happened mattered less to Slocum than raking in some of the gold. That Jesse had it was proved by handing over so much to Stringfellow. If he had given this to Slocum, there’d have been nothing but dust to mark where he’d gone. Slocum had no reason to help the bluecoats keep the civil order anywhere in the territory. If Jesse succeeded in creating a new country, that would only make travel more difficult. Otherwise, it didn’t affect Slocum that much.

But the gold. If he could snatch a significant amount of it, a lot of problems would be solved. Jesse wouldn’t be able to bribe men like Stringfellow, Berglund would be out the gold and unable to recruit soldiers at Fort Union to join the revolt—and Slocum would be a damned sight richer than he was right now.

Even as he considered how much gold he could make off with, his thoughts wandered to Audrey Underwood. He had no idea where she fit it. The woman seemed like she had no idea what she wanted out of life when she talked of being a reporter and a bounty hunter in the same breath, but something of the treasure hunter lit up her lovely face when she talked about the James Gang’s hidden gold. Whatever happened, Slocum had to be cautious around her. She might have told the truth about showing the sheriff a wanted poster on one of Jesse’s gang, but it had sounded as if she talked about him.

He pulled his bandanna away as sweat caused his neck to itch. That dampness could turn to the scratchy scrape of a hangman’s noose if Audrey was lying about what wanted poster she had shown Sheriff Narvaiz.

When he spotted two men on the horizon about a mile ahead, Slocum urged his horse down into an arroyo. He pulled his field glasses from his saddlebags and made his way to the far side of the dry riverbed. Cautious about outlining himself against the horizon as the two riders had, he crept forward, found a rocky rise, and peered over it. A bit of fiddling got the two riders into focus. Both were in Jesse’s gang.

From the way they looked away from him, he guessed they watched something happening not far off. He panned back and forth hunting for some idea what might be going on and then stared hard at a dust cloud rising to the north. It moved slowly toward the spot where he estimated Jesse, Frank, and the handful of others that had ridden with him were gathered.

He jerked about when a cloud of dust rose from the south. Another wagon approached the meeting spot. Or was it? Frowning, he studied the way this dust moved and decided that more than one rider was causing it. He counted no fewer than four separated clouds. Whoever Jesse was meeting not only didn’t drive a wagon, but didn’t ride in formation either.

Slocum began hiking, watchful that the two sentries might turn and look at their back trail. Ten minutes later, he was within a couple hundred yards and the men had not turned. Their full attention remained on the meeting. More than this, both had their rifles ready and laying across the saddles in front of them.

Finding a ravine that angled in the direction of the wagon, Slocum kept low and worked his way along it until he found a break in the bank that allowed him to look out onto a flat area where the wagon was parked. Zeke sat in the driver’s box with Jesse and Frank flanking the wagon. The other two with them were some distance to the east. All of them stared at the approaching riders. From the way Zeke fidgeted, he wasn’t comfortable being there, in spite of having six of the meanest outlaws, the deadliest shots, and the most vicious guerrilla fighters to survive the war at his side.

Then Slocum saw the reason for the young outlaw’s uneasiness. The riders meeting Jesse were Comanche braves decked out in war paint.

The war chief raised a coup stick and shook it at Jesse, who responded by lifting his rifle and shaking it in the air. This went on for almost a minute, then at some unseen signal both rode forward and met halfway between their respective bodyguards.

Slocum couldn’t hear what was being said but the Indian wasn’t happy. Jesse raised his voice so Slocum overheard part of the argument.

The Comanche chief argued some more, then pointed his coup stick at Jesse. The feathers dangling from the shaft shook in the hot wind blowing across the plains. Then the Indian grunted and motioned to four of his warriors. They wheeled about and galloped off. Slocum watched them until they were lost in dust from their horses’ hooves.

Jesse and the Comanche sat silently, glowering at each other. Slocum swung his field glasses around to see if anyone at the meeting had twigged to being spied upon. All of Jesse’s men stared hard at the Indians, who watched only the outlaws. The men might have been chiseled out of marble for all the movement.

After ten minutes Slocum spied another cloud of dust down south. Then the Indians who had left returned with a packhorse struggling under its load.

Jesse hopped to the ground, ignored the Comanche chief’s angry outburst, and cut open the canvas over the burden. The chief rode over to the wagon and lifted a tarp with the end of his coup stick. Zeke shifted uneasily, his hand hovering over the butt of his six-gun. Slocum held his breath. If the youngster made a move to throw down on the chief, there’d be blood by the bucket soaking into the sand. Zeke relaxed when the chief let out a whoop and began riding around the wagon, waving his stick in the air.

The Comanche rode to the packhorse, reached down, and cut the rope, freeing the load that thudded to the ground. Slocum caught his breath. He knew where Jesse was getting some of his gold. He was selling rifles to the Indians.

Jesse motioned and his two henchmen came over and hefted the parcels, staggering with them to the wagon. There, they pulled two cases of rifles out and dropped them to the ground amid a puff of dust. Zeke swung around, pushed another case to them. Ammunition. Two cases of rifles and one of ammunition had changed hands in exchange for however much gold the Indians had paid.

The outlaws got the gold into the back of the wagon. Jesse waved to Zeke, and the young outlaw turned the wagon and headed back in the direction he had come. Jesse waited as the Comanches opened the cases and loaded the rifles, shooting off a few rounds.

Jesse and the chief spoke more amicably, then stepped back and went their separate ways. The rifles and ammunition had been secured to the packhorse, and Zeke was already out of sight with the wagon holding the gold.

Slocum wondered what a couple cases of rifles and the ammo went for. Whatever it was, he would be happy spending it. That it took two men to load into the wagon made Slocum consider ways of getting it away from wherever Zeke took it without using a wagon. He’d have to travel light and fast when he stole it from Jesse James.

“You want us to guard the gold, Jesse?” Frank James rode closer to his brother to talk without shouting. Slocum cursed under his breath when they whispered. Whatever Jesse said made Frank angry. It took several minutes before they parted as amiably as Jesse had from the Comanche war chief. Frank and the other four headed toward Santa Fe but Jesse angled to the northwest, possibly riding for Las Vegas.

Slocum was sure Zeke was driving due north. There weren’t any caves in this direction—that he knew of. It surprised him that Jesse trusted a newcomer like Zeke with so much gold. He must think he had the young man wrapped around his little finger with promises of power and authority. The way Zeke had talked about being a governor of an entire state told Slocum a great deal about the youngster. He needed to feel important more than he did rich.

Slocum was sure that Jesse had stressed how a clever man could levy taxes and become rich—but it all flowed from exercise of political power. With the proposed renegade cavalry troopers to back him up, a governor could get by with about anything, as the history of New Mexico under the Spanish had shown.

Slipping away down the ravine, Slocum backtracked to where he had left his horse. He heaved a sigh of relief. He hadn’t thought his scouting mission through properly. Frank and the other four men had passed close enough to see the horse tethered in the arroyo. That would have brought them down on his head like an avalanche.

He gripped the saddle horn and pulled himself up, taking one last look around to be sure the outlaws weren’t spying on him. A short, low laugh escaped his lips. If Frank James had been anywhere within gunshot, a bullet would have robbed Slocum of his life by now. Frank struck him as far more realistic than his brother when it came to practical matters. Jesse was a dreamer fantasizing about being the ruler of an entire country. Frank was grounded in robbing trains and staying alive.

Slocum rode due north after Zeke. The gold drew him as surely as a compass needle pointed north. Twenty minutes riding brought Slocum to a rockier area well away from the Sangre de Cristos. To his surprise the rocky ground yielded spots that might well hold small caves.

The road Zeke followed hardly took tracks. The ground was sunbaked and hard. When it turned to rock, Slocum had even less trail to follow and relied on the young outlaw not leaving the road. He urged his horse to greater speed, thinking he might change his plan and just steal the wagon, too. He could reach Raton Pass in a day and then consider how best to continue. The wagon team of two horses might be used as pack animals in the higher altitude where breathing became harder. Leave the wagon behind, put the gold on the team, get into Colorado, and disappear.

The longer he rode, the more perplexed Slocum became. It was as if Zeke had simply vanished off the face of the earth.

The hilly terrain hid the road in many places, but when Slocum topped a rise and failed to see the wagon either ahead of him along the road or pulled off anywhere behind, he started to get mad. He wasn’t going to be denied the gold!

Slocum pulled his field glasses out and slowly scanned the entire terrain in a full circle. He finally saw what had to be Zeke’s trail ahead where he had pulled off the road and headed directly west into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The wagon was nowhere to be seen, but the side road provided the only chance for a heavily laden wagon to elude his direct view.

As he lowered the binoculars, a cold knot formed in his belly. Something was wrong. He brought the lenses back to his eyes and saw a horse. Riderless. But the blanket was distinctively patterned with the U.S. Army insignia. As he watched, a soldier came up and mounted. Two more soldiers came into view and then he saw a rider with gold stripes on his arm. Less than a mile behind Zeke rode a squad of cavalry.

No matter who they were, it was bad news for Slocum. If they were some of the soldiers Jesse claimed to have bought off so they would support him when he attacked larger towns, they would guard the gold. And if they were either honest horse soldiers or those riding under Simon Berglund, they’d want to seize the gold. Berglund would keep it, but any other soldier might return to Fort Union with it.

He stashed the field glasses in his saddlebags, then rode across country using the hilly countryside to hide his path as he tried to cut off the soldiers and find Zeke and the gold-laden wagon first. He doubted he could convince the young outlaw to split the gold with him and head in different directions, each with his own share. That would confuse any pursuit since Slocum doubted Jesse wanted to divide his forces yet.

And if Zeke didn’t want to steal the gold for his own, Slocum could deal with that, too. He hated the idea of shooting it out with Zeke, but he would. The outlaw had been blinded by the lure of power.

Slocum kept his mare moving fast and sure through the hill country, across the road between Las Vegas and Santa Fe, and then toward the mountains. He spotted Zeke struggling to get the wagon up an incline. Just crossing the main road but on the outlaw’s trail came the squad of cavalry troopers.

He made a quick decision. Slocum turned away from the wagon and the gold and galloped straight north, kicking up as much fuss as he could. With such a sudden and explosive run, he had to be sighted by the soldiers. And he was. He heard the sergeant’s bellowed command and the squad came after him. It was a desperate ploy that kept them from looking in Zeke’s wagon and finding the gold.

Slocum considered riding parallel to the road, cutting back and trying to reach Las Vegas. When the soldiers chased him, effectively cutting off that path for him, he turned into the mountains. His mare began to tire, allowing the soldiers to gain on him.

“Stop! Halt!” The sergeant bellowed more, probably curses, but Slocum couldn’t hear too clearly since he had found a path between two low hills that cut off all but indistinct echoes.

He looked around constantly as he rode and knew he could never outrace the soldiers. When he saw a Y fork, he galloped up the right branch, then carefully backtracked and took the other route going deeper into the mountains. Slocum jumped from horseback when he heard the sergeant shouting orders, hunkered down, and let his horse rest while he waited and worried about the soldier’s skill in tracking. The sergeant stopped at the Y fork, then went to the right.

Only then did Slocum get back into the saddle and ride, hoping he hadn’t picked a box canyon. He hadn’t. The shallow canyon widened and then fanned out into more level land as he headed back southward. With luck the sergeant would keep his squad riding away long enough for Slocum to entirely disappear. Only he didn’t want to disappear, he wanted to find Zeke and take the Comanche gold for his own.

An hour later, he had circled back to the spot where he had last seen Zeke fighting to get his team pulling hard enough to reach a high point in the road. Slocum saw only one place where the wagon could have rolled and headed straight for it. A smile came to his lips when he saw the wagon pulled behind a boulder. The smile died when he realized the team was missing. Riding closer, he saw that the gold in the wagon was also gone.

“Zeke?” he called. “You in the cave, Zeke?” When he heard nothing, he advanced cautiously. Slocum expected to see the gold stacked inside, possibly hidden by a pile of rocks. What he found made him mad all over again.

Zeke and the gold were nowhere to be seen, but scratched in chalk on the wall were new symbols. Wherever Zeke had gotten off to with the gold was encrypted in the symbols and numbers.