Slocum and the High-graders, page 18
Singer let out a yelp and bolted. He got two paces before Slocum tackled him. As they wrestled, the shotgun blared and Herk screamed once before he died.
Knowing that his partner was suddenly buzzard bait took all the fight out of Singer. He sagged under Slocum’s grip.
“Get up,” Slocum said, grabbing Singer by the collar and pulling him to his feet. He swung him around to face Morgan Haining. Singer was shaking like a leaf.
“Mr. Haining, I didn’t have any part of it,” Singer stammered out.
“You are both a thief and a liar,” Haining said, glaring at the miner. “I ought to—” He lifted his shotgun. The barrel still smoked from the discharge that had killed Herk.
“He was the one who was screwin’ yer wife!” Singer blurted. “She was the one who thought up the scheme. She made us do it. I was greedy but he wanted her. And he got her!”
Haining’s face went white. He opened his mouth and then snapped it shut. He stepped forward and swung the stock of the shotgun around and connected with the point of Singer’s chin. The man collapsed without making a sound.
“He’s right,” Slocum said.
“What?”
“He’s right about what he said. About your wife and Herk.”
“You can’t say a thing like that!” Anger flared in the mine owner’s eyes, but his face lacked any hint of emotion. “You liar! Darleen would never consort with the likes of these men. Now you’re telling lies about her!”
Haining swung his shotgun around and poked its rough-edged muzzle into Slocum’s belly, causing Slocum to stumble back. Slocum saw the man’s finger drawing back on the second trigger. There was no way he could draw and fire before Haining cut him in half. And there was no way he could run.
Haining’s finger turned white as he applied pressure on the shotgun’s trigger.
19
“You’re a damned liar,” Morgan Haining said. His face was a mask of anger and his hands shook. Slocum looked from the finger tensing on the shotgun trigger to the man’s eyes. He saw more than anger there. He saw fear.
Fear that Slocum wasn’t lying.
“We can talk about this. Put down the shotgun.”
“Take it back.” Haining’s face was still a frozen mask, but his eyes turned into something that Slocum feared more. They were the eyes of a man who knew his world had come crashing down in ruin. They were the eyes of a man with nothing left to lose.
“She’s a whore,” Slocum said coldly. “Killing me won’t change that. She got what she wanted from Miles. She got what she wanted from Herk.”
“No, no, you’re wrong! She’s my wife!”
Slocum got ready to feint right and dive left, hoping that Haining wouldn’t be alert enough to follow. He saw that his chance of living was next to nothing. Haining intended to murder him, as if that might erase the truth.
“Papa! Put that down! You don’t want to kill him!” Evangeline Haining came from the smelter, pushing past the mill foreman and storming out to plant herself between Slocum and the shotgun.
“He’s lying. They’re all lying. I won’t tolerate that. He can’t call my darling Darleen a whore!”
“Put . . . it . . . down,” Evangeline said. Every word was plain, distinct, and carried the same crack of command that Slocum had heard in her mother’s voice when Darleen had talked to Herk and Singer.
Haining went to push her away, but she stepped forward and grabbed the sawed-off barrels and pulled them to her own belly.
“Shoot and be damned!” Evangeline raged. “You can’t kill him. I won’t let you.”
“She’s your mother.” Haining sounded a little less sure of himself now. Slocum touched his six-shooter and then let his hand fall away. The shooting was over. Haining was giving up.
“She’s my stepmother,” Evangeline said. “She’s never loved me. She’s never liked me. At best, she tolerated me because of you. Now we know why she did. The gold.”
“No, no.”
Haining collapsed, falling to his knees. Slocum watched as Evangeline hugged her pa close. Carefully circling the two, Slocum reached out and snared the shotgun, pulling it out of the mine owner’s hand. He tossed the shotgun into the rear of the wagon, and only then did he heave a sigh of relief. He stared at the pair, unmoving except for Haining’s body-wracking sobs. Slocum hadn’t realized Darleen was Evangeline’s stepmother. Things that hadn’t made complete sense before now fell into place.
His gaze locked with Evangeline’s, her blue eyes filled with tears. Silent communication passed between them. Slocum had one more thing to do. He climbed into the empty ore wagon and looked down at the mill foreman.
“Keep the Low Down gold for a while. Mr. Haining will let you know when it’s all right to send it back up to him.” The foreman looked at Herk’s body, cut almost in half, and nodded numbly. Slocum snapped the reins and began working the rig around to get back onto the road to the mine.
Slocum had left the wagon at the foot of the hill where the Low Down office stood, but he watched the Haining house like a hawk. He had seen movement inside the parlor—in the same parlor window where he had spied on Darleen Haining and overheard her involvement in the high-grading at the mine. He hitched up his gun belt and wondered if he could shoot down a woman.
Slocum knew he could, but he wanted to hear just a bit more from Darleen Haining before it came down to gunplay.
He went to the house, paused at the steps, and looked around. The day was about perfect. Summer in the Colorado high country tended to be windy, but not today. Warm sun, only a touch of wind to blow away the sweat. It wasn’t the kind of day when men ought to die.
Slocum went to the front door and rapped twice. It took Darleen Haining a few seconds to open it.
Her eyes went wide as she tried to speak, but no words came out.
“Herk is dead. So is Miles. Him, I shot myself. A bullet in the face ended his trail.” Slocum spoke harshly to get the maximum effect.
“Y-you killed them?”
“Aren’t you going to invite me inside?” Slocum pushed past her and stood in the cool, dim entryway. He looked around. Sunlight slanted warmly through the window and splashed across the rug on the parlor floor. A hint of furniture polish hung in the air, making this a homey, comfortable, peaceful scene. Slocum knew that appearances were all too often wrong.
He heard the door close and looked over his shoulder. The woman hesitated, her hand on the knob. Then she opened a drawer in a table beside the door. Slocum spun around, ready to throw down on her. His hand curled around the butt of his Colt Navy, then he relaxed.
“A key,” she said, holding it up. “I want to ensure our privacy.” She locked the door, then put the key back in the drawer. “Why don’t you sit down, Mr. Slocum?”
He sat with his back to the window to keep the light from his eyes. He watched as she flittered around, moving this way and that, putting away cleaning rags and the bottle of polish he noticed when he first entered. She was obviously flustered at his unexpected appearance at her front door and wanted a few seconds to compose herself.
“I know about everything,” Slocum said. “You were the one who came up with the scheme to high-grade your own husband’s mine. Reckon you thought up the idea to have him pay for smelting the ore stolen from under his nose, too.”
“You’ve been a busy boy,” she said, standing in the doorway between entry and parlor. “Is Lucas really dead?”
“Dead as a doornail. So’s Herk, and Singer is living up to his name. I hope he keeps singing when the marshal finally claps the irons on him.”
“He was such a fool,” she said. Slocum didn’t know which of the men she referred to. And it didn’t matter. “But you are obviously very clever. If you had come along sooner, I might have recruited you.”
“Where’s the gold you got out of the mine? Somewhere on the other side of the mountain is my guess. But did Singer know where you hid it?”
“No, of course not. Neither did Miles. Only Herk and I—” She cut off her confession. “If they’re dead, or on their way to jail, that would mean a fifty-fifty split would be quite a haul. I can’t get the gold out of the hiding spot by myself, although it always seemed that I did more than Herk ever did when it came to carrying and hiding.”
“You offering me half? How much are you talking about?”
“More than a hundred thousand dollars.”
“Half of that . . .” Slocum mused.
“No, John—it is John, isn’t it? That’d be your half.”
Slocum was startled at the sum.
“That’s mighty tempting.”
“Especially for a man who came begging for a job without even a horse. And there can be other rewards if you help me.”
“You offering yourself?”
“I’m much better than Evangeline. Don’t you think I know how you and that silly girl have been—”
“Never mind her,” Slocum said sharply. “I need you to answer one question.”
“For you, John, anything.” Darleen moved about, her skirts rustling softly. She thrust her leg forward and hiked her skirt to give a hint of ankle. She saw his interest and said, “There’s ever so much more. And it’d all be yours.”
“And the gold,” he said.
Darleen laughed. “Of course, the gold and my most intimate favors.”
“The question,” Slocum said, getting his mind back on the topic. “Why?”
“Why? Why what?”
“Why’d you go to all the trouble of recruiting men like Singer and Miles and seducing Herk? All you’d have to do is ask your husband for money. He’d’ve given it to you.”
“Morgan? Morgan Haining give his own wife anything?” She snorted loudly and began pacing to and fro, skirts swishing as she moved. Slocum saw that her expression had changed from fake intimacy to seething hatred. For the first time Slocum felt he was seeing the real woman.
“He’s a rich man. He doesn’t seem like a penny-pincher.”
“Oh, no, Morgan’s no miser. That’s the problem. He’s too generous with the gold. He gives it all away. Do I have a maid to clean and cook? No. He gives every last ounce to men who don’t deserve it!”
“Like you do?”
“Yes, dammit, like me!” Darleen Haining raged. “At least I got some small pleasure out of stringing along Singer and Herk and even Miles.” Her anger reached epic proportions. “If a man so much as stubs his toe in the mine, Morgan puts him on a lifetime pension. He’s got a dozen or more malingerers in that hotel he bought, the place he lets them have room and board for free. And if that’s not enough, he pays for their medicine, he pays for their booze, for all I know he pays for their whores!”
“That’s why the Low Down is always scraping by,” Slocum said, more to himself than Darleen.
“That’s right, that’s damned right! He thinks nothing of giving away his wealth to men who don’t deserve it, but he won’t keep a single ounce to support his family. He’s never here. He’s always thinking up new ways of giving away my share of the gold!”
“This is a nice house and you’re not starving,” Slocum said.
“I want a mansion in Denver. I want servants. Look around. Who does the cleaning? I do. That miserable daughter of his won’t lift a finger. No, she’s too good. She helps him give away his gold. Gold that by right is mine!”
“So you, Herk, and Singer stole it.”
“How can you steal what’s rightfully yours? It’s mine and Morgan was keeping it from me. Why do you think I married him? He owned a mine. How was I to know he gave all the gold from that mine to spendthrifts and wastrels?”
She swung about. Her face was livid but her eyes were cold.
“Kill him, John. Kill him for me so I can inherit it all. Then it’ll be just you and me. We can split what I’ve already taken and the rest will be ours all legal. You’ll be a millionaire. And you’ll have me!”
“Legal?” said Slocum, shaking his head. “It’d be theft. I’d kill him—then you’d turn me in so you could have it all.”
“I knew you were smart. I didn’t think you were so smart,” she said. Another rustle of her skirt and she lifted a derringer she had hidden in the folds.
“The table beside the door,” Slocum said. “Where the key is. You replaced the key and took out the gun.”
“So smart and yet so stupid. You think with your balls, just like Miles and Herk and all the rest. No wonder Evangeline couldn’t wait to rut with you, you animal!”
“All the rest,” Slocum said. His six-shooter could be drawn while he was seated. A cross-draw holster afforded easy accessibility in the saddle or while he was standing on the ground, but he made no move. Darleen had the derringer pointed straight at him, and the look of determination showed she was going to fire.
“Good-bye, Slocum,” she said.
“You’ve got that wrong, Darleen. It’s you who’s going.” Morgan Haining stepped up behind his wife and grabbed her wrist. The derringer discharged into the ceiling.
“You! You!” Darleen looked wildly from her husband to Slocum and back. Then she realized Evangeline was also present and had entered through the back door with her father, listening to every word she had said.
“I hate you all!” Darleen shoved Haining away hard enough to stagger him. Slocum jumped to his feet and whipped out his six-gun, but the report that echoed in the house wasn’t from his Colt Navy. The second barrel of the derringer had discharged.
Morgan Haining had grabbed for her again, and the gun had been pressed against her breast when the second chamber discharged. Whether Darleen had fired or Haining had somehow grabbed the weapon, Slocum couldn’t tell. From the way Darleen Haining lay slumped on the floor, a bright red spot expanding to stain her blouse just over her heart, he knew it didn’t matter.
“Bitch,” Evangeline said. She stepped forward as if she intended to kick her dead stepmother, but she stopped a few feet away and stared. Then she threw her arms around her father and held him again, as she had back at the mill.
All Slocum heard was the pair of them softly crying. He slid his six-shooter back into its holster and slipped past them. The key was where Darleen had left it in the drawer beside the door. Slocum unlocked the front door and stepped out into the bright, cheerful Colorado afternoon.
He could take Lucas Miles’s horse and no one would care. But he needed a horse he could ride. One of the horses from the ore cart—the one he had saddle-broken— would do. This horse would be missed, but he doubted Haining would set the sheriff on his trail.
From inside the house he heard father and daughter talking in guarded tones. He didn’t want to know what they said to one another.
It was time for him to leave Cripple Creek. Slocum hurried to the stables and put six miles behind him before sundown, glad to leave behind Evangeline, the Low Down Mine, and even the mountain of gold Darleen Haining had stolen.
Watch for
SLOCUM AND THE GILA RIVER HERMIT
342nd novel in the exciting SLOCUM series
from Jove
Coming in August!
Jake Logan, Slocum and the High-graders
