Slocum 428 (11 page)

“He might be in there—it was too dark and smoky to see.”

She nodded as he headed back in, coughing almost as soon as he set foot in the doorway.

She followed him, also offered up a cough. “Jigger! Jigger McGee, you old no-count chicken-legged man, where you at?”

Slocum smiled, despite the situation.

They searched every corner of the cabin while Slocum grabbed the dead man under the arms and dragged him outside. By the time he got him over to the drift where his unconscious partner resided, Slocum had a surprise waiting for him.

“Well, I'll be damned,” he said, staring at the snowy trough where the first kidnapper had been laid, trussed up and out cold. The man was not there. The rawhide wraps were there, but that was all. A meandering trail led away and downcountry through the snow. He'd have to wait. Jigger had to be found. Maybe they'd killed him along the way and left him to be covered over in the snow . . .

As he made his way back to the cabin, something told Slocum that wasn't the case. The old man had seemed too important to the two killers. He found Hella standing hipshot, her hands on her waist, looking steamed, hurling a look of annoyance at every corner of the room.

“He has to be here someplace . . . ” Then her eyes fixed on the back wall, on which were smeared the remains of the man's head. She smiled. “That's the spot.”

“Yeah,” said Slocum. “Nothing to be proud of, though. I killed a man.”

“No, I mean I bet that's where he's at—I completely forgot there's a root cellar back there behind a small door in the wall. It's dug right into the hillside.”

Slocum thumbed a match and coaxed a flame alive in the oil lamp on the plank table. He snatched up the lamp's bail and joined Hella at the bloody back wall.

“There,” she said, biting off the end of her chopper mitten, then scrabbling for a fingerhold along the narrow gap. “Used to be a handle, but it looks like someone broke it off.”

“We know who.” Slocum unsheathed his hip knife and managed to pry open the short door.

Hella held the lamp inside the small opening. “Jigger?” She crawled in on her knees. “Jigger! Slocum, he's here. He doesn't look so good, though. Here, take this.” She thrust the lamp at him, then slowly backed out.

Slocum heard a sliding sound and out emerged Hella's backside. She was slowly dragging something backward out of the hole. Out came Jigger, stretched on his back, still wearing his bulky clothes thankfully, but bound at the wrists and ankles with strong, tight rope. His face was unbound, but under his beard the old man's cheeks were sunken and gray and bore purple welts. Trails of dried blood braided his forehead.

“Is he breathing?”

She knelt close, bent her ear to Jigger's upturned mouth. Finally she nodded. “Barely. He's probably half-frozen.”

Slocum took that as a cue to coax a renewed fire out of the box stove. In seconds new flames had jumped to life.

“I don't think we can move him out of here, not with that storm coming.”

“Let's worry about that once we get him warmed up and we can see what we're dealing with,” said Slocum.

As if someone had just nudged him awake, the old man moaned and made a few quiet snorting noises, began to rock his head from side to side.

“John, he's coming around.” Hella cradled the old man's head in her lap. “He was always sweet on me, I think. But he's almost my father's age. They were good friends. I think Jigger always envied my father.”

“Why's that?” said Slocum, feeding the fire.

“Because Papa never had money problems, at least not the size of the ones Jigger's always battled. But that's only because Pap never cared to own much. Whatever he had, he passed on to me when he died—and that's not saying much. It amounted to traps, the cabin, a deed that might or might not tell what land he owned, and the usual things—pots and pans and such. Jigger's life had become complicated with the logging and having employees and lots more.”

“You . . .” The sound came from the old man. Although the word was soft and poorly formed, he was trying hard to speak.

They both took that as a promising sign, and within minutes Slocum had a fine blaze of heat worked up. The cabin's door was beyond easy repair, so staying put had become less of an option.

“As soon as he's up for it, we need to get back to the safety of your cabin. It's a whole lot closer to where we need to be than here. And then I can get out on the trail and find that other fella.”

“What? You don't mean the one we tied up?”

“Yep, he escaped.” Slocum held up a hand. “Don't ask me how, but he did. He won't get far, though. I expect I'll find him dead. I'll try to find him before that happens, though. Then he can give us some answers.”

Jigger sputtered again, then in a low, raspy whisper, finally said, “Good Lordy, will you both quit talking about me as if I ain't here? If we're gonna git going out of this hole in the snow, we'd better get at it while we can.”

Hella and Slocum looked at each other, smiling. Not only was it a relief that Jigger was alive, but it was a double relief because he appeared to be back to his own normal self.

“Besides,” said Jigger, “I got to get back to town. Bad things are brewing and I don't want the Tamarack Camp, nor any of my people, to suffer because of it. If Whitaker wants a fight with me, then so be it. But me and me alone. Now let's get going.”

Before Hella and Slocum could stop him, Jigger tried to scramble to his feet. He made it halfway upright, but slumped back against the wall, holding his head. “Ahh, spinnin' . . . ”

“They hit him a good one,” said Hella. “John, let's hurry up and build a travois with what's left of that door, then we can take turns getting him back to my cabin. The storm's still brewing, but I don't think the worst of it's stirred up yet. From those clouds, I'd say we have an hour or two yet.”

“Just enough time.” Slocum had already anticipated the need for a travois and had dragged the tattered door off the remaining strap hinge. “We get to your cabin, I'll leave you to tend Jigger. He's worse off than he lets on. I'll go try to find our escapee, then head to the Tamarack and roust Frenchy and the boys.”

“Boy, if you want any amount of respect from me, you'll have to be doing what I want you to do, not what you think would be best.” Whitaker pulled on his cigar, then pulsed a blue cloud into his son's face.

The big soft-faced boy just stood there, eyeing his father with a mixture of curiosity and sadness.

“Judging by your expression, I'd guess you don't have a clue what I'm talking about. That right, Jordan?”

The boy stood staring at his father for a moment longer, then said, “That's not strictly true, Papa. I know just what it is you want and what you want me to do about it, but I don't necessarily agree with what it is you want.”

“What on earth do you mean by that, boy?” Whitaker struggled to push himself forward in his cantankerous desk chair. “You think you know better than I do how to run my business?”

“No, sir, Papa. But I do know that if you treat people nicely, they are more apt to do the same to you.”

“What am I running, a Bible study class? I guess to hell not!” Whitaker stuffed the cigar into his lips, clawed his hands to the edge of his desk, and yanked himself forward, sputtering and growling hard enough that he bit clean through the cigar. The glowing end fell into his lap and instigated a whole new round of rage.

His son thought that Papa Whitaker sounded and looked a whole lot like a fat, angry chicken.

“Papa, all I'm saying is that I'm beginning to see a whole lot of people in this town who aren't too happy with how things are beginning to turn for them.”

“That's not my fault!” said the little fat man.

Jordan backed toward the door. “I think it is, Daddy. It's happened before. Remember Wickenburg? Remember Dalton? Excelsior?”

“Shut up, Jordan. Just shut your fat face. What do you know about it anyway? You were just a boy. You and your mama, always hanging on my coattails, begging for pennies while I did what I had to do to build up a grubstake, get us set up somewhere, then move on to someplace bigger, more promising. That's the only way in life to get anywhere. You know it and I know it.”

“No, Papa. No, I don't. Me and Ermaline, now that we're fixing to get married, we figured to talk with you about all this, maybe see if we can't all sit together around the family dining table and . . .” The big boy ran the toe of his brogan along a yellowed crescent pattern on the worn carpet in front of him.

Now, thought Whitaker, this is an interesting turn of events. On the one hand, my dimwit son is telling me how to run my own business, my own self-built empire. On the other hand, he's doing what I've always wanted him to do, to show an interest in something besides whatever it is he's spent his dull life interested in. Hmm. It occurred to Whitaker that he didn't really know much about the boy, other than the fact that they'd had little in common much of the boy's twenty-odd years. Didn't even know rightly how old the boy was. All he knew for certain was that when his wife died, the care and feeding of the oaf had been tossed in his lap. So he'd sent the boy off to school back East, and he had to admit the idea came to him by way of news that Jigger McGee had done the same with his daughter.

Who would have thought that the two of them, one a firebrand like her father, and the other a dullard not at all like his father, would end up back here in the little logging town of Timber Hills, and actually hit it off?

That day had been a blessing in disguise, as far as Whitaker was concerned. It had provided him with the vague but promising buddings of a plan to get hold of Jigger's properties, his influence, his everything. That was one thing he was pleased about, and he had the boy to thank for that, he guessed.

He'd take being saddled with the boy forever at his side—or at least within striking distance—if he could at least have Ermaline as a daughter-in-law. Provided he also got everything the girl's father possessed.

“Now, son,” purred a calmer Whitaker, staring at the big red-faced boy before him. “Come on back over here. Have a seat in that chair in front of the desk, and let's do something we've never done before.”

Whitaker almost choked on the thing he was about to say, but he plowed on ahead. “Let's discuss this matter like two . . . businessmen. Over a cigar and a sip of whiskey, shall we?”

“I don't drink nor smoke, Papa. You ought to know that.”

“Confound it, boy! Set your ass down in that chair and at least make some sort of effort to have a man-to-man discussion with me!” Whitaker felt his face redden, worked to relax his bunched jaw muscles. If this kept up, he'd not have to worry about building up his empire—the boy would do him in, make his heart explode right here and now in this office.

The boy surprised him by sitting down, albeit warily, as if Whitaker might lunge at him any second.

“Good, good. Now, what I want you to do, son, sometime soon, is bring your intended to our humble home for a nice meal. Then we'll all set down around the family table, as you say, and we'll have us a big ol' business meeting.”

He watched his big son amble on out the door, pulling on his wool overcoat and cinching his wool scarf up around his head as if he were about to disappear into it altogether. He paused at the door. “Thanks, Papa. See you later.”

“Bye, son.” Whitaker kept the smile pasted on until the oaf had left his office and the door closed behind him. Then he scowled, let his chewed cigar droop, and rubbed his cold hands together, trying to figure out where the best place to meet up with his future daughter-in-law might be. He had a business proposition for the young thing, and it didn't involve the boy.

It took the weary little troupe longer than Slocum had expected to reach Hella's cabin. For the first mile or so she kept offering to help drag the travois, and it finally dawned on him that she was as tough or tougher than most men he'd ever met, had to be to live the life she did, and he'd need all the strength he could muster when he lit out after that fool drunk they'd beaned and left for later.

“Okay, then,” Slocum said finally as he slowed his dragging efforts, glad for the break, however brief. “Never let it be said John Slocum didn't give a trapper woman a fair shake.”

“Oh, you did that and plenty last night,” she said, smiling, “but you're as stubborn as any man I've ever met. Maybe more so.”

“There are things a man can't change about himself,” he said, shrugging out of the makeshift harness they'd fabricated from ropes scavenged from an old, sagging bed in the cabin.

“Ha! You mean there are things a man won't change about himself.”

He shook his head. “You believe what you need to and I'll do the same. The thing I believe most in is getting us all back to your cabin safe and sound.”

“Can't argue with that.”

He arched an eyebrow her way.

“Don't say a thing, John Slocum.” She bent to the task, and with Slocum's help got the travois sliding. As he clomped along beside her, he made sure Jigger was still okay, bundled up and breathing, and then he worked as best he could with his frozen hands and leather chopper mittens to rig up another harness so they might both haul the travois. Soon he was pulling alongside her.

“There now, John Slocum, isn't this better than being bullheaded?” She was nearly shouting now as they trudged uphill into the raking teeth of the storm. They had nearly made it over what he hoped was the last rise before the long ravine that led to her cabin.

He had also hoped that the storm of the night before would mark the end of the pattern, but she had been right when she told him that last night's blow felt to her like a lead-up to a bigger storm. This one drove at them like a constant, battering fist.

Somewhere on the trek back to her cabin, the wind seemed to double in strength with each minute that passed. Soon they could barely see, though it was midday. Slocum was about to comment on it as a way to make sure she was feeling well and not succumbing to the harsh conditions when a guttural howl pierced the freezing, blowing cold.

Almost immediately another sounded, from just across the trail, on the opposite side. They seemed to Slocum to draw closer, or maybe it was the wind playing tricks on him. No, there they were again, definitely closer this time. On both sides of them.

Slocum held an arm out to Hella, drawing her to a stop. She glanced at him, then back through the blowing snow toward the tight trees on both sides of them. She wasn't smiling this time, but neither did she seem concerned.

“They won't harm us. Don't worry.”

But Slocum wasn't so easily convinced. Even Hella groaned at the increasingly savage noises. It sounded to Slocum as if someone was tearing something apart and reveling in the very act. “Come on,” said Hella and they resumed their labors, lugging the travois. Jigger settled down and seemed to fall asleep again, his head lolling and wobbling with each step they took.

Back at the wrecked cabin, Jigger had been their first priority, so they'd bundled him up and strapped him down, but as the storms whipped up in intensity, Slocum knew they'd made the right decision in leaving that battered place. Before they left, he'd done his best to put out the fire in the stove and barricade the door. He figured someone would want to return to cart off the body, see if there were any other clues as to why the two men had done what they'd done.

He suspected he'd find the answer to that question in the little town of Timber Hills, and probably at the desk of one Torrance Whitaker. He'd ask Hella about it as soon as they got to the cabin, but right now, the storm took all he had to offer breathwise and more just to keep on trudging forward. He noticed that Hella was lagging a little behind, and he compensated with his own tugging, hopefully without her noticing. She was a proud woman—that was for certain.

As if his thoughts had nudged her, Slocum felt the travois give a little lurch. He glanced at her, seeing mostly blinding white pelting snow now, but knowing she was there.

“Almost there!” she shouted at him, and he wondered how the hell she knew where they were. One stinging snow pellet looked like another to him. But sure enough, up ahead he saw a low, dark mass before them. The cabin?

They reached the same low-hung entryway they'd crowded into the night before and made certain that Jigger was pulled up tight to the cabin. Then Slocum bent down to unfasten his snowshoes, but Hella grabbed his shoulder, bent low to his ear. “Something's wrong.”

“What?” he said, bending close to Jigger.

“No,” she said, holding her face close to his ear and whispering. Even though she was close, he still had trouble hearing her over the snapping wind. “Someone's been here—might still be.”

He didn't bother asking her how she knew—it was the same instinct that told her where she was, even in the midst of a whiteout. He merely nodded, stripped off the mitten on his gun hand, then motioned for her to stay with Jigger and keep away from the door. He bent, crabwalking low to the door, tried the latch gingerly, his numb fingers unable to function without him seeing them, willing his mind to force the hand to push upward lightly on the thick-carved spindle.

He was familiar with such mechanisms, and knew this relied on a length of rawhide on the inside. But he also knew it could just as easily be deadbolted with the sliding wood and steel bar he'd seen earlier. Might be that whoever was in there had locked it. In which case he'd have to ask her if there was some other way in. She had windows but had kept them tightly shuttered, he assumed, to keep out the stormy weather.

But with her familiarity with the skoocooms and being a lone person living on her own out here, it might be that she was also interested in keeping the potential for danger at arm's length.

He put an ear to the door but heard nothing more than the wind at his back and maybe his own heart thudding in his chest. He couldn't even detect light leaking out from under doors or shutters. He continued lifting the latch, and so far, smidgen by smidgen, it kept rising. Soon it rose no more, so he kept a light pressure on it, lest the door spring inward and startle whoever might be on the outside looking in.

Wait, there was a sound, barely there, but something. There it was again . . . a sobbing sound? Slocum made sure with a glance that his Colt was still in his hand and the hammer thumbed back—it was so cold he couldn't feel it—and keeping low, he nudged the door open.

It was dark inside, save for the dim glow of a handful of coals in the hearth from their early-morning fire. Hella had banked it well, counting on nursing the remaining coals back to life once they returned with whatever cargo they had been able to bring back. In this case, they had thankfully found Jigger. But the sounds Slocum was hearing weren't coming from any of them on the outside of the door.

Once he nudged the door open and saw by the dimmest of light from the coals, his eyes adjusted while he edged ever deeper into the cabin on his knees, Colt held out straight and true, despite the cold. And soon he was able to make out a vague shape—long and prone—before the fire. It convulsed, jerking and almost thrashing. Just as quickly as it began, it stopped, followed by a long, moaning cry, like too much air being forced through a thin rip in a weak vessel.

It was a man. Slocum got to his feet, and even before he made it to the man's side, he knew who it was. It had to be the man they'd knocked unconscious. “Hella!” Slocum bellowed, but she was already heading in through the door. “Light a lamp, I'll bring Jigger in, then we can get this fire blazing. This man's nearly dead!”

“He's the last person I expected to see here. I thought he'd gone the other way.” Hella chattered like a blue jay while she bustled about the cabin, lighting lamps, building up the fire—she had it blazing in seconds. They laid both men out before the fireplace, kept Jigger wrapped tight in a fresh layer of bedding, and as soon as water warmed, Hella doctored his head wounds properly.

The other man was in far worse shape. Once the lamps were glowing, the light revealed that some of his fingers, as well as the one foot that had somewhere, somehow become unbooted, had begun to blacken from the cold. His longhandles were torn and bloody, and furrowed jags cut into his thin, bony body beneath.

They weren't deep cuts but they were numerous, as if his attacker had done this with the intention of slowness and deliberation. His forearms, back, thighs—all looked as if he'd been raked by a she-cat. And his face, which they had both seen but a few hours before, bore the distinct signs of having been battered by repeated blows. His brow had bubbled in a long band of swelling, blood pooling behind. And his nose and one cheekbone looked to have been pounded flat, as if backhanded by some giant brute.

As they tended him, Slocum and Hella both felt not a little guilty over the man's rough treatment.

“Skoocoom do this?” he said.

“I'd guess so, yeah.” She nodded. “They're pretty fair judges of good and bad. Got their own way of keeping things even, if you know what I mean.”

Slocum slit the man's longhandles and peeled them away from his raw leg. The man, half-conscious, sucked in a harsh breath through blackened lips. “Judge and jury of the woods, huh?” said Slocum.

“You might not like it, and I might have a hard time with their methods sometimes, but you have to admit they're a cut above a grizzly in certain respects.”

“I suppose so,” he said, wringing out a bloodied rag in a crock of tepid, crimson water.

“They're fond of Jigger, I take it?”

She looked at him. “As a matter of fact, they are. He's been . . . shall we say . . . kind to them over the years. They don't forget things like that. They also don't take kindly to trash like this”—she jerked her chin at the very man she was in the midst of doctoring—“hurting someone they like.”

“I expect they'd do the same for you, then?”

She looked at him fully. “What makes you think I'm friendly with the skoocoom?”

“Just a guess. Otherwise, why would they nearly kill this poor fool, then drag him all the way over here and dump him in your cabin, where they knew you'd find him?”

“Doesn't mean I'm friendly with them.”

“Don't mean it don't, neither.”

They both jerked their eyes toward Jigger. The old man's eyes were wide open, as wide as his bloodied and bandaged head would allow anyway, and the makings of a smile played on his mouth.

“Jigger! You're back with us!”

“You darn right I am. Didn't think a couple of ol' wood rats could keep me down, did you?”

“Not hardly, no,” Hella said.

“Knew I could count on you the moment I met you back on the trail that day, Slocum. You're a good egg, you are.” By the time he'd finished speaking, Jigger's color had drained once again from his face and his words slurred, his eyelids fluttered.

“Jigger, stop talking and go to sleep,” she said. “I don't need to bring two of you so-called wood rats back from the brink. Hard enough job ahead of us for one—and he wouldn't make a patch on your pants. But a living thing's a living thing.”

If Jigger heard her, he didn't let on. He was too busy drifting back into a deep slumber. Soon, a soft whistling sound escaped from his nose.

“Good,” she said. “I've about had enough of his chattiness. Work to do.” She pushed by Slocum and retrieved another pan from the hearth. The water in it steamed and sloshed as she set it down. “Nearly through with him. I don't have much in the way of medicines here. If time and whiskey can't take care of it, then I figure I'm through anyway. Got a few Indian herbs that might help, though.” She rummaged in a cupboard and came up with a small leather pouch cinched tight. “You want to get this steaming in one of those cups?” She tossed the satchel to Slocum. “I'll get more firewood.”

He did as she asked and traded places with her once she brought an armload in. “I'd rather fetch wood, if you don't' mind,” he said, smiling. “I'm not as much of a hand at doctoring as you are, and I don't want to hear what Jigger would have to say if he knew I gave him too much of a dose of Indian remedies.”

He flipped up his sheepskin collar, tugged on his mittens, and headed outside, the wind and driving snow whistling and sluicing every which way. Hella or her father, whoever had built or added onto the cabin, had designed it well. He assumed that the somewhat protected entryway and overhanging porch roof usually did a fine job in cutting down on the most punishing effects of the storm winds from the high country far above.

Today, though, the house's design was barely adequate, as the wind couldn't seem to make up its mind. Slocum rummaged in a stiff-peaked drift, found the spot where she'd pulled stove-length logs mere moments before—already the wind and snow had begun erasing traces of her efforts—and began loading up his arms.

A loud grunting sound erupted just behind him, and he jerked to his left out of reflex. A sharp pain, then a burst of warmth flowered up the side of his head. He felt the logs fall from his hands, saw the side of the cabin spin upward somehow—but that was impossible, wasn't it? Cabins didn't float or fly, did they? Then he saw the gray blanket of stormy sky and swirling snow press down on him from above, felt himself hit the snow behind him. Have I fallen?

More sounds, grunting and growling, but low and close to his ears, filled his brain. Then through the snow and wind he smelled something pungent, raw and rank, worse than a dozen Arizona outhouses baking in a July sun. But raw and all animal, as if he'd just crawled up a grizzly's backside and couldn't find the way out. What was happening? Did a grizz catch him by surprise? And why couldn't he seem to make his arms work? He tried with all his effort to lash out and managed to swing an arm outward. It hit something, he heard a grunt, then whatever was there must have hit him—maybe the same thing had hit him before?