Slocum 329

On another part of the ranch, Bob Marcus and Granger Foley were doing a little sightseeing of their own. Foley had been at it for hours. Marcus had just galloped up a few minutes ago, and his horse was lathered and blowing.

He busied himself doing much the same as Foley: They rode slowly, eyes tightly focused on the landscape, hopping down every once in a while to investigate a rock that seemed out of place or a cubbyhole in the sandstone outcrop.

After about an hour of this, it was starting to get dark, and Foley had finally had it. “Where the hell’d he put it?” he yelled.

Foley twisted up his face and wobbled it from side to side, mocking Marcus. “You never can tell, you never can tell,” he parroted before he grew serious again. “I still say it’s in the house somewhere. We should turn that place upside down!”

“He told me so. And before you say anything else, Jefferson was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a liar. And he had as much of a stake in this deal as we do.”

“You’re a fool, Marcus,” Foley said with a snort, and got back up on his horse. He glanced up at the sky. “Time for us to quit playin’ hide-and-seek. Gonna be full dark by the time we get back.”

“Not on your life. That nag of yours’d drop dead before we got a hundred yards. You’re hell on a horse, Marcus.”

At the sound of her uncle’s call, Miranda stood up from her dressing table, where she had been brushing her long, unruly curls, and went to the door. She stuck her head out and yelled, “What, Uncle Abel?”

With Uncle Abel, you could never be certain whether he wanted to upbraid you for something stupid, or whether he just wanted to pass the time of day. In either case, he didn’t like to be put off by something so silly as a girl wanting to fix her hair up.

When she reached the parlor, she found him standing in the center of the room, arms firmly crossed, tapping his foot. It looked like he was primed to holler, but she couldn’t be sure why.

Maybe he’d found out that she was sleeping with Slocum. But how? Who could have told him? They hadn’t done a thing here at the ranch—yet—and he hadn’t been to town in a coon’s age.

He turned toward her, and his face was deadly serious. A part of her relaxed. It wasn’t about Slocum, anyway. If it were, he would have been furious, not serious.

She stood her ground. “Because I wired him to come. I was upset about the horses, and I didn’t think your men were moving fast enough.”

His brow furrowed. “And just what business is that of yours, anyhow? Seems to me this is my ranch, not the Miranda Cassidy Spread.”

“I thought it was going to be mine someday, Uncle Abel,” she said firmly. “I just wanted there to be something for you to leave me, that’s all.”

Cassidy paused a moment, as if thinking. Then he said, “He’s trouble, that’s why.”

“Don’t you ‘oh, pish’ me, young lady! I want him gone by morning, you hear me?”

Miranda ground her teeth and felt her hands tighten into fists. Uncle Abel could make her upset, but he’d never made her so downright mad before!

“Uncle Abel, this place is as much mine as yours. My daddy owned half of it before he got killed. And I want Slocum to stick around. Frankly, I think your Marcus and Foley are a couple of scoundrels. For all I know, they’re killing our horses themselves!”

“I will not! And I won’t tell Slocum to go, and you won’t either.”

With that, she turned away from him and marched back to her room, ignoring his shouts of “Miranda! Miranda! Get back out here!”

Slocum jogged into the ranch’s yard just as the sun was casting the last rays of wildly colored light over the western horizon. He put up Cougar, giving him a good rubdown and a ration of oats, then headed to the house.

He smelled dinner before he opened the door. Fried chicken was his guess, and when he opened the door and got a gander at the table, he learned he was right.

Abel was just sitting down, and Miranda, her hair piled on top of her head in ringlets and wearing a pretty blue dress, was coming up the hall.

Belatedly, he swept off his hat. “Howdy, Miranda, Abel.” Abel had yet to acknowledge him, but then, there was that chicken . . .

He twisted his arm to show where his shirt was torn and bloody. “Just hit the fat. Whoever it was, he was hidin’ in the cottonwoods. Couldn’t make ’im out, let alone spot ’im to shoot back.”

Miranda led him to a chair and saw to his arm. As far as he was concerned, it could have waited. That fried chicken was fairly driving him crazy. Abel, who was totally ignoring both him and Miranda, was going to eat the entire hen before he got a chance at it!

He dived in directly. Three pieces of chicken, a mound of mashed potatoes, a few ladles of gravy, and half the remaining peas—that was just for starters. He’d worked up an appetite.

He caught Miranda out of the corner of his eye, just looking at him and grinning. He shot her back a slightly embarrassed smile, but he kept on shoveling in the food. And thankfully, Carmelita wandered in a few minutes later with new bowls and platters of everything.

He paused about halfway through the proceedings to ask, “Anything new from your boys, Abel?”

But Abel looked up at him from beneath beetling brows and just grunted. Odd.

By the time they’d finished dinner and the table was cleared, Abel still hadn’t spoken to him. Neither had he offered brandy or cigars. So Slocum made a show of stretching his arms and remarking on how tired he was, then ambled down the hall.

He went to his room and sat on the bed, waiting for Miranda. She turned up a minute later with two brandies, one for each of them, and one of Abel’s specially blended cigars for Slocum.

He took both gratefully. The cigars weren’t the best, but they were a welcome change from the quirlies he usually smoked, especially when enjoyed with a good glass of brandy.

“What the hell’s the matter with your uncle Abel tonight?” he grumbled, after he’d bit the end off his cigar and lit it.

Miranda had yet to settle anywhere and was pacing the room. Shaking her head, she said, “I don’t know. I can’t figure it out. I mean, why he’d be so . . .”

“So . . . adamant! So cranky! And so . . . mean!” She took a deep breath. “Slocum, he wants you out of here in the worst way.”

Artlessly, Miranda dropped down into a chair. “Yes. If you can believe that!”

Actually, it didn’t make any sense at all. Not unless Abel was up to something with Marcus. Or Foley. Or both.

But what? He couldn’t picture Abel Cassidy doing any sort of business with those two. But then, he’d hired them on, hadn’t he?

Now, Vance Jefferson had been a good friend to Abel Cassidy. They went back a long, long way. But Abel had taken the news that Jefferson had been murdered by Marcus and Foley in much the same way he’d take the news that the sun was shining today.

Slocum shook his head. “Miranda, honey, there’s somethin’ goin’ on here, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out what!”

He said nothing more, but he had decided he needed to take a new look at his old friend Abel.

Marcus and Foley rode into the ranch about a half hour after Slocum and put their horses away. Foley made an attempt to brush his horse, but Marcus just tied his gelding and walked off.

“You’re hell on a horse, Marcus,” Foley muttered once more, under his breath, and brushed down Marcus’s horse after he’d finished with his own.

Somebody had hauled out a jug of white lightning, and the boys were taking full advantage of it. It was the first and only liquor they’d seen on the ranch since they started working there. Usually, he and Marcus had to ride into town to get a belt.

He went to the cookstove, grabbed himself an enameled plate, filled it with beans, salt pork, and bread, poured himself a cup of coffee, and went to his bunk to eat in peace. The men were getting rowdy now, telling tall tales and acting some of them out.

He hoped to hell that Marcus didn’t get to talking. Marcus might be a fool about some things, but he should know when to keep his mouth shut.

Foley had been a callow youth of twenty-three when he, Marcus, Abel Cassidy, Vance Jefferson, and Bill Buckley had held up the Butterfield out of Flagstaff and made off with the Double Aces payroll. It was quite a bit of money, and there was no time to split it up. Buckley’s horse was the only one strong enough to carry his rider and the payroll for any distance, too.

They had all ridden in different directions, but unbeknownst to any of them, Buckley had made straight for the Cassidy spread. Abel and his brother had the property, even back then. And Buckley had buried the payroll somewhere on that land.

It was a smart move, except that Buckley hadn’t counted on being drawn on and killed by an upstart gunslinger the very next week—right after he’d run into Jefferson and told him what he’d done.

The bad news was that he hadn’t told Jefferson exactly where he’d hidden the money.

Foley figured that payroll had to be about $50,000. The Double Aces mine had been an awful big operation in its day. Fifty thousand, just sitting out there someplace, probably with a rattler nesting right on top of it—

The horse killing—now, that had been Marcus’s idea. Foley didn’t hold with it just on general principle, but by the time he heard about it, it was too late.

Marcus called it a “diversion.” And he sure took advantage of it, saying, “Well, hell, ol’ Abel didn’t have the sense to raise cattle. You wouldn’t’ve minded me shooting a little beef, now, would you?”

After all, you didn’t quarrel with Marcus, not if you knew what was good for you.

What really bothered him, though, was that Marcus went down after he’d made the kill and well . . . had his way with the dead animals. Then he practically chopped steaks out of the carcasses and carried the meat out into the brush, where he left it for the coyotes.

Foley figured that Marcus was going to stop killing horses now that Slocum was around.

At least, he hoped so. Marcus didn’t talk much, but it seemed like he knew Slocum pretty damn well. Foley had only just heard about him a long time back, and he’d always wished they’d meet so he could ask for his autograph.

And now Slocum was here, investigating this whole tangled up mess. It was nigh on enough to make Foley turn tail and run.

But then he’d have Marcus to deal with, and Marcus was a man who’d track you through hell and back just for the simple joy of shooting out your eyes, then ramming his rod up your dead ass.

Foley scraped up the last of his beans and ate them, then downed the last of his coffee. It was strong enough to stand a fork in, but he liked it that way.

Marcus always complained about the vittles on the Bar C, but they were a sight better than what Marcus cooked when they were on the trail, if you asked Foley. Course, if you asked Marcus, he’d say that Foley was the worst campfire cook in the world. And he did, at every opportunity.

Foley took his empty plate and mug back to the stove and dropped them in the pan of water at its side.