Slocum #304: Slocum and the Lady Reporter

Slocum settled his six-shooter at his hip as he stood outside the Gazette office. The commotion on the other side of town told him Calderon had likely collared Jones and was asking him how the election had been fixed—and probably not being too polite about it. Slocum knew crime in Nirvana would drop considerably now that O’Malley and his gang were no longer roaming the hills, doing J. Henry Jones’s bidding. But one item remained to be settled.

Slocum stood in the street but calling out the ratlike editor produced no sound of movement from inside the newspaper office. Beginning to feel like a target in the street, Slocum went to the office door, sucked in his breath and kicked it open. The door slammed against the wall and rebounded, but he was already through, his hand moving like lightning to draw his Colt.

Slocum poked about for some clue as to Riker’s whereabouts but found nothing. He started to leave when he noticed the stack of papers beside the door. It took a moment for him to realize these had just been printed; the ink was still wet.

The headline told of a terrible fire at the Bugle and how everyone, including the owner and her son, had been killed. He scanned the story and got angrier as he read.

“Son of a bitch!” cried Slocum. He flew from the office and headed for Elizabeth’s paper at a dead run. His first glance at the Gazette headlines had made him think they were left over from the fire that had killed Joe Arnot. Then Slocum realized Riker had named Elizabeth and Gerald as dying in a fire supposedly happening right about now.

Panting like a dog, Slocum barreled around the corner of a bookstore and caught sight of Riker behind the Bugle office sloshing something on the back wall. A sudden breeze carried the scent of coal oil to Slocum’s keen nose.

He lifted his six-shooter and almost fired at the smallish man, then stopped. He had to know if anything had happened to Elizabeth and Gerald. Slocum sprinted as Riker reached into his pocket and drew out a shining tin of lucifers.

“Light one and you’re a dead man,” Slocum shouted as he ran. At this speed he couldn’t hope to aim accurately, but the sight of him pounding furiously toward the Bugle office caused Riker to let out a shriek of fear.

“Drop it. Drop it or I’ll drop you!” Slocum called. He fired a round that dug itself into the kerosene-drenched wood he had nailed into place only days earlier.

From the furtive glance Riker made toward the print shop, Slocum knew where to find the woman. He kicked open the back door and looked inside to see Elizabeth struggling in a chair, her hands bound and a gag shoved into her mouth.

“Don’t move, you good-for-nothing snake,” Slocum said, whirling about to cover Riker. The muzzle of his Colt was unwavering now. Riker tried to explain, but Slocum wanted no part of the lies. He ducked inside and went to Elizabeth. She frantically jerked her head to one side. Slocum saw Gerald lying on the floor beside the printing press, his hands and feet securely bound. As he rolled him over, he saw the boy had been gagged, too.

He popped the gag from the boy’s mouth and listened as Gerald gasped noisily. He started to untie Gerald when he heard Elizabeth’s frantic mumbling again. Slocum looked up to see Riker sneering. In his hand he held a glass jar filled with kerosene that had a rag shoved into the wide mouth. Riker held a lighted match in his other hand.

Slocum acted without thinking. He fired once, twice, three times. Each slug found a deadly berth in the newspaperman’s body. Riker straightened to his full five-foot-five, stumbled back and fell heavily. The coal oil splashed over him.

Riker shrieked in pain, tried to stand, to run, and fell. The bullets had severely wounded him, but the fire clawing at his clothing and devouring his flesh killed him.

“But Riker,” Elizabeth started. Then she stopped and stared at his burning body from the vantage of the back door. Slocum didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what she was thinking. She turned, found a blanket and beat out the sparks threatening to spread to the Bugle. Not once did Elizabeth Benteen look at the burning man behind her newspaper office.

“I’ll take care of him. You look after Gerald,” Slocum said. He wrapped Riker’s corpse in the wool blanket Elizabeth had used to beat out the flames threatening her office, then dragged him out back of the shed where Elizabeth had once run her printing press. Slocum sank down, his nose wrinkled by the stomach-turning stench of burned human flesh. He stared at Riker, then knew whatever crimes the man had been guilty of were paid in full. Although he could never prove it, he wondered now if Arnot’s death hadn’t been caused by the same arsonous impulse on the part of his rival. Riker was mean enough to have done that deadly chore all by himself.

Slocum heaved to his feet and checked to see that Elizabeth had everything under control. She looked up from her desk, her blue eyes unfocused and distant.

“Take this down, Gerald,” she said, then began dictating a story about the attempted arson. Slocum let her work and went to see how the marshal had fared back at the jail.

He got halfway down the main street, slowed and then rested his hand on the handle of his six-gun, unsure what to expect. Tom Calderon walked along with a score of vigilantes following him. As Calderon slowed, someone bumped into him. This brought immediate response from several miners.

J. Henry Jones had a noose around his neck and was being led by Calderon like a goat on a leash. The other miners pummeled him until Calderon barked once and forced them back.

“We got ourselves the man behind the claim-jumpers and the high-graders,” said Calderon. “Thanks to you, after O’Malley sang like a canary we looked real hard and found plenty of evidence in Jones’s office.”

Thomas Calderon hesitated a second, then grinned. “Reckon so, Slocum. That means we can’t string up this vermin like we did the others. I want him to stand trial.”

“Sensible,” Slocum said. “Get him to confess how he stole those claims and maybe the original owners can get back into the business of mining.” This sent a ripple through the crowd. Calderon looked as if he wanted to thank Slocum for further cementing his control over the crowd of miners.

Slocum shrugged. It explained a great deal if Riker and Jones had been partners. They might have been crooked on their own, but men like them tended to pool their black talents. Jones certainly could use Riker’s Gazette to puff up the marshal and his career in exchange for him moving on to a deputy marshal’s post in Carson City. That would leave Nirvana wide open.

“Get that miserable excuse for a human bein’ to jail,” Marshal Williams said, hurrying up from the direction of his calaboose. He carried a scattergun and tried to look fierce. The bruise on his chin made him look used up and discarded instead.

“I gave my word,” Slocum said. “He shouted out his confession and enough in the mob heard so they could collar Jones. Your mayor’d still be a free man, otherwise.”

“O’Malley is a stone killer. He jumped claims and ruined lives. He tried to bushwhack you! He trapped us both in the Argosy! I thought you was leadin’ him on to get him to confess.”

“He did that,” Slocum said, eyeing the marshal’s purple-and-blue-bruised chin. He hadn’t realized he had struck Williams so hard. That might be part of the lawman’s outrage.

Williams stalked off to be sure Jones was properly locked up. Slocum had to laugh. The marshal had gone from being Jones’s toady to upholding the law not only because it was his job but because it was the right thing to do. He might just earn that federal badge one day without political strings getting pulled.

Slocum found his horse, swung into the saddle and rode from Nirvana without so much as a glance back. He headed for the road leading over the Sierras into California since he reckoned this would be the direction O’Malley would take.

He studied the road as his gelding gratefully left Nirvana. The traffic in and out of the town was too heavy now to identify a single rider’s hoofprints with any certainty. That didn’t bother Slocum. He thought he had come to know Zeke O’Malley well enough to think he would return to his old haunts before trying to get away. There had to be loot from the high-grading hidden somewhere, probably at the Argosy Mine. Slocum didn’t believe for an instant that O’Malley would turn everything over to Jones for safekeeping. O’Malley was the kind who would hold back, not only out of suspicion and greed but because it gave him an illicit thrill to steal from his employer.

At the turnoff going up into the valley where the Valhalla, the Argosy and so many other mines lay, Slocum took a brief rest. He let his gelding drink from a small mountain stream and crop at grass while he made certain his Colt Navy was loaded and his Winchester had a full magazine. O’Malley wasn’t likely to entertain the notion of returning to Nirvana without putting up a fight.

By mid afternoon, Slocum struggled up the steep road going into the valley, then paused and looked out over it. The miners who weren’t in town crying for the marshal and their new mayor to let them string up J. Henry Jones were here toiling at their lode, mining. The easy placer mining days were long past, if such backbreaking wet, cold work could be considered easy. Slocum considered the matter for a spell and decided it was as hard work running sluices in mountain streams hunting for color in the gravel but nowhere as dangerous as blowing holes in the ground, shoring them up and plunging into the belly of the planet to scrape away flecks of silver and gold.

He rode steadily to the Argosy Mine and refrained from grinning too much when he saw a thin curl of smoke rising from the shack outside the mouth of the mine. O’Malley had started the fire to cook a meal before he moved on. He took the leather thong off the hammer of his six-shooter and rode on, watching intently for Zeke O’Malley.

O’Malley dug furiously like a dog burying a bone at one side of the shack and never spotted Slocum. Rather than approach, Slocum pulled his rifle from it saddle scabbard and laid it across his lap, watching as the outlaw threw clouds of dirt into the air in his quest to uncover his booty.

O’Malley grunted as he dragged out a strongbox and placed it beside the deep hole. He wiped his hands on his canvas trousers, then opened the box.

O’Malley jerked upright, coming to his feet and going for his six-gun. Slocum fired, catching the man in the shoulder and spinning him about. But the outlaw wasn’t going to surrender this easily. He drew his six-shooter and fired wildly.

O’Malley flung himself down in the dirt and fired at Slocum. The shots went wide, but Slocum had to dismount. He let his gelding trot off to safety while he stood his ground, the rifle to his shoulder, waiting for the proper instant to fire.

“You bastard!” shouted O’Malley. The outlaw rose enough to give Slocum his shot. The rifle barked and O’Malley fell forward, half in the hole he had dug to retrieve his stolen money.

Slocum advanced slowly, kicked away O’Malley’s six-shooter but saw that his second round had found its target. Zeke O’Malley had paid for his crimes. Kneeling, Slocum flipped open the strongbox lid and looked at the contents. He let out a low whistle of surprise. He had expected O’Malley to squirrel away a bit he didn’t turn over to Jones, but this was a small fortune.

Stacks of greenbacks might be close to worthless since they were scrip-issued on Jones’s bank, but the silver and gold dust and even nuggets the size of a thumbnail filled the box. Slocum slammed the lid and hefted it. He paused a moment as he considered what his future would be like with this much gold and silver. Then he went to O’Malley’s horse, led it over and slung the strongbox behind the saddle, throwing a diamond hitch on it to keep it in place. Lifting the outlaw’s body and sliding it over the saddle proved a mite harder since O’Malley kept slipping off the far side. Slocum eventually had the corpse in place and led the horse away from the mine.

Slocum retrieved his gelding and rode back in the direction of Nirvana. From a mile off he heard the loud music and gunshots and saw fireworks arching into the sky. Thomas Calderon was celebrating in a big way his sudden election as mayor of the boomtown.

Or the miners were. As Slocum rode past the Bugle office he saw Elizabeth Benteen and Gerald working furiously to get out an extra. The Bugle was the only paper in town now, but Slocum wondered at Elizabeth’s impartiality since she was likely to be in bed with Calderon before the night was over. The new mayor stood real close to her as he watched every page coming off the printing press. Elizabeth didn’t seem to mind his hands resting on her hips, either.

Slocum kept riding until he came to the marshal’s office. Williams wasn’t inside, but that was all right with Slocum. He had no reason to speak to the lawman again. Williams had let him go once, knowing judge-killing charges followed Slocum’s footsteps across the West. Slocum left O’Malley’s horse, with the outlaw’s body draped over the saddle, outside the jail. Williams would know who had brought the backshooting son of a bitch to justice.

But Slocum kept eyeing the strongbox and did a quick calculation. The numbers finally fell into place for him. He opened the steel lid and took out a medium-sized bag filled with gold dust. This about compensated him for the time he had spent running down O’Malley and his gang and all that he had gone through bringing Riker and Jones to their separate justices. He put the bulging leather sack into his own saddlebags, then mounted.

“Slocum, wait!” came the call from the edge of the boisterous crowd in front of the Millionaire Miner Drinking Emporium. Marshal Williams was hurrying toward him, waving his hat to catch his attention. “Slocum! Hang on! I just got a telegram! I’m the new federal deputy marshal out of Carson City.”

Slocum turned his horse and trotted from town without acknowledging the marshal or his good news. He turned due south when he got past the outskirts of Nirvana, heading directly away from Carson City. That struck him as the most prudent trail to ride.