Slocum 329

At last, Tom Robertson looked up from the stack of papers he’d been going over for the last hour.

“You were right, Slocum,” he said. “Abel was tryin’ to pull off some mighty funny business, and he just about got away with it, too. Sorry, Miss Miranda. Sorry about . . . everything.”

He lowered his eyes then, and Miranda muttered, “It’s all right, Tom. It wasn’t your fault, none of it. And now it looks like we’ve got some treasure hunting to do, once everyone’s . . . up to it.”

He nodded, then looked over at Slocum. “You gonna stick around and help?”

“Thought I would,” Slocum replied. “Course those boys’ve been lookin’ a real long time, and they didn’t come up with anything. I’m wonderin’ if Vance Jefferson didn’t find it and take off with it. It doesn’t sound like somethin’ Vance’d do, but then, neither does robbin’ a stage.”

Robertson nodded. “I agree. I liked him. Seemed on the up-and-up when I knew him.”

“Oh, I reckon there is,” Robertson said, setting the papers aside. “Have to check. Send a few telegrams, maybe write some letters, that sorta thing. I don’t even know if the Double Aces is still producin’, or if the owner, what’s his name—”

“Milton Carmichael.” Slocum broke in. “Grand old feller.”

“Right,” said the sheriff with a nod that said he didn’t have the slightest idea what Slocum was talking about. “Don’t know if Mr. Carmichael is even alive, or if he has any heirs. That robbery was a long time back, and I hear that Carmichael was old even then.”

“Isn’t there a statue of limits or something?” Miranda piped up.

“A statute of limitations,” Slocum said, his mouth twitching into a grin.

“Yes’m,” Robertson said with a straight face. “But to be fair, I’d sure like to see if anybody wants to lay claim to it. I mean, you don’t have to make the offer, Miranda, God knows. But what with you havin’ the ranch and that baga cash your papa left you, don’t seem to me like you’re in dire need.”

She looked mighty disappointed, but Slocum saw the sheriff’s point. And Milton Carmichael’s, if he was still alive. He’d been close to eighty when Slocum worked for him, and that was a few years before the robbery.

There might be kin, though, and they might really need some cash.

Berto and Dilly were just carrying out Abel’s sheeted corpse on an old door, and Robertson glanced at it.

He said, “No need to haul him into town. Go ahead and plant him, boys. I’m satisfied that the case is closed.”

“Don’t put that . . . Don’t put him anywhere near my daddy or mama,” Miranda said.

Berto nodded his understanding. “The other side of the hill,” he said, and Carmelita stepped quickly to open the door for them.

Slocum overheard Carmelita whisper, “Will you bury them tonight?”

“Mark it,” said Carmelita, “so I can spit on his grave. Mark it with the sign of the devil. Mark them all that way, all three of them.”

Berto nodded, and the men—and their burden—moved through the door. Carmelita closed it behind them, then leaned against it and made the sign of the cross, her eyes closed as if everything was finally settled and she could only just now take the time to pray.

“The sign of the devil, Carmelita?” Slocum asked, interrupting her.

“The upside-down crucifix, señor,” she said as she straightened. There was a grand sort of conviction in her voice. “So that Our Lord and Savior will close the gates of Salvation to them.”

Then she walked away, into the kitchen. “Enchiladas again tonight,” she called back, over her shoulder, in a voice that showed no enthusiasm whatsoever. Except perhaps to take out some more of her frustration on Abel’s corpse.

“Whatever,” answered Miranda, who didn’t seem to notice. “Whatever you can throw together.”

“Sky’s clear,” said Robertson, hopefully. “Likely, it’ll stay that way till after sunset.”

“Yes, Tom, you’re invited to stay,” Miranda said. “But won’t your missus worry?”

“No, I told Deputy Riley to wait an hour, then to go and tell her I was ridin’ out this way.” He smiled ruefully. “Knowin’ her, she would have come along, too, just for a taste of Carmelita’s cookin’.”

“Next time,” Miranda said most graciously, Slocum thought, for someone who’d just been asked if her privacy could be invaded. “When things are more . . . normal. I haven’t seen Priscilla in ages, and I’d be glad for her company.”

“Thanks!” said the oblivious sheriff. “I’ll pass along the invite!”

“I thought he’d never leave,” said Miranda as she pulled off Slocum’s second boot.

“You smart-ass,” she said, shaking a finger. Her breasts jiggled along with it. She was nude. “It put a kink on yours, too! And most of your evening! Why’d you have to offer him brandy and a cigar?”

“Because he’s a nice fella. Because I like him. And at least we know everything’s legal now,” Slocum said, and belched loudly.

Miranda shook her head. “Men. They shouldn’t be allowed to live in the house.”

“Hand me my boots, then, and I’ll head out to the barn. There’s an empty stall next to Cougar’s that looked mighty cozy,” he said teasingly.

Miranda laughed and climbed atop him on the bed, straddling him. She took both his hands and placed them on her breasts. While he gently kneaded and fondled them, she purred, “And just when did you get to be so sensitive to my every whim, Slocum?”

He gave one nipple a tweak and she hissed in air. “No fair!”

“You don’t have your britches off yet, darlin’,” she whispered.

He laughed, and while he did, she pulled his britches off with a whoosh, like a magic trick. They made love slowly and leisurely until far into the night, and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

When morning dawned, Slocum and Miranda enjoyed a good breakfast—without Carmelita, who Slocum guessed was probably out spitting up a storm in the graveyard—then saddled their horses.

“Do we have to go on this fool’s errand today?” Miranda had whined over her eggs. “I thought maybe we could have one day just to stay in bed!”

“It’s only a fool’s errand if it doesn’t pay off, honey,” he’d said cryptically, and then let it go at that.

And he really thought he knew where to look for that gold. At least, he was pretty sure that he did. He figured Miranda’s daddy had a good idea where it was, too, and maybe had sampled just a tad of that gold before his brother killed him.

A lot of people had died for that payroll money, and Slocum wasn’t going to rest until he figured it out and saw it come to an end, whatever that end might turn out to be.

On the ride out, they passed a crew of Miranda’s men, whom Slocum had instructed to go throw some dirt—and rocks—over what was left of the horse carcasses. He hoped it would keep the coyotes at bay, anyhow.

All the men seemed to look to him to give the orders now. He figured they were relieved. Abel hadn’t seemed to care one way or the other about anything except profit and playing faro, but the men were glad to do some good work for a change.

Their buckboard contained not only picks and shovels, but what looked to Slocum like kerosene. They were going to make a finish to it, then. He approved.

Besides, the men had a small herd of horses coming in from the range in a few days, horses they were supposed to top off for the cavalry. This filled in the downtime.

“Where are we headed, Detective Slocum?” Miranda asked, with a chuckle in her voice.

“Out to our little waterfall and pool,” he replied, smiling.

“Aha!” she cried, with an impish grin. “Well, it’s sort of like our second bedroom . . .”

“Not so fast, Lady Godiva,” he said. “Don’t go haulin’ out the soap or rippin’ those clothes off quite yet. We’re gonna do us a little prospectin’.”

“Oh,” Miranda said, dejected. “With picks and sledgehammers and dynamite? Why do I have the feeling I’m not going to have any fun?”

“No picks, no sledgehammers, and especially no dynamite, I promise,” he said. “And you’ll have yourself some fun, all right, Miranda my girl. At least, I’m hopin’ you will!”

“Yes, you will,” he promised. “Now gig that fancy quarter-mile runnin’ horse of yours into a canter, and let’s get there!”

Once again, they climbed the cliff to the pipestone quarry, Miranda sidling along the rock face behind Slocum. There was no way he’d trust those little mocassin footholds to get him up the slope, so they took their original path, the old one that Miranda had been climbing since she was a kid.

This time, however, Slocum carried his saddlebags over his shoulder. Inside, he had candles, lucifers, a couple of small rock hammers, and the chunks of pipestone Miranda had found in the safe.

He was putting a lot of faith into his instincts, which had always served him well in the past. He hoped they wouldn’t desert him now.

At last, he squeezed himself into the crescent opening of the little cave, then helped Miranda in behind him.

“Is this—” she began, but he cut her off with a wave of his hand.

“Just hush and hold your horses a second,” he said, as he sat down and opened his saddlebags.

He lit the first candle and handed it to her. “Find someplace to perch that,” he said, while he lit another. In a few moments, the cave was bright with the light of a dozen candles, all Slocum had managed to scrounge from the house.

It was, indeed. The flickering candlelight brought out the red and white striations in the rocks, made the uneven, crudely mined walls seem pretty, and plainly showed where the fingers of pipestone began and ended, and where the surrounding rock took over.

Next, Slocum pulled the pipestone pieces from his saddlebags. He handed half to Miranda.

“I’m a wizard at jigsaws, if that’s the kind of puzzle you mean,” she replied, looking at him quizzically.

“Exactly the kind,” he said. “I want you to see if you can figure out just where those came from.”

“Maybe,” he said, and went to work trying to match up the other half.

He had established that the Double Aces mine had in fact played out and closed down more the seven years ago, and that Milton Carmichael, landowner and mining magnate, had died soon thereafter.

“Hope you didn’t leave no heirs, Milton,” he muttered to himself as he wrote a few more telegrams. “Apache Wells could use a big influx of cash.”

After he finished writing a second wire to Milton Carmichael’s lawyers and one to a friend in the U.S. marshal’s office up in Prescott, he strolled down to the telegrapher’s office and handed them to the clerk.

“Somethin’ big happenin’, Tom?” asked Harry, Apache Wells’s telegrapher.

Tom Robertson kept a stoic face. “Could be, Harry, could be. How’s that boy of yours?”

“Bill!” Harry exclaimed, his attention diverted from the contents of the telegrams in his hands. “Oh, he’s fine. Gonna play first base for the town team this year. Got an arm on him, that boy has. Takes after his pop,” he added, proudly.

And when Harry had finished his rat-a-tat-tatting, Robertson held out his hand again. “Originals?”

Harry handed them back. “Must be pretty big doin’s, all right! I’ll send a runner when the replies come in, okay?”