Slocum 394 : Slocum and the Fool's Errand (9781101545980) by Jake Logan Page B

Slocum had spotted from his higher position, but found them nonetheless. “That’s her all right!” he said excitedly as he took off running to follow the tracks down a slope. Jack moved with an awkward gait, probably because his feet were still sore from his frantic trek into town.
    The slope led down to a crack in some rocks about sixty yards away from the camp. When he got a little closer, Slocum could tell the rocks were embedded in the ground and the crack was wider that he’d thought at first sight. “Hold up,” he shouted. “Better steer clear of those rocks.”
    â€œI think my horse was here! The tracks lead to these rocks and it looks like she was runnin’ !”
    â€œThat looks like a cave!” Slocum said. “Don’t wolves live in caves?” Jack skidded to a stop, which gave Slocum a chance to draw the Winchester rifle from the boot of his saddle and lever in a round. “Back away,” he said.
    Jack was quick to comply and kept his eyes glued to the cave’s entrance.
    Slocum fired a shot into the shallow space. The bullet glanced off some rocks amid a shower of sparks and ricocheted within the darkness. Some dust trickled against the ground, but there wasn’t another sound to be heard before he worked the rifle’s lever again.
    â€œI’m goin’ in there,” Jack said.
    â€œYou want to lose more than just a few fingers? Go right ahead.”
    â€œI won’t lose nothin’ because there ain’t nothin’ in there.”
    â€œThen why do you want to look inside? That cave’s not big enough for a horse.”
    Jack took a few moments to try and sift through what Slocum thought was fairly simple logic. Even though he seemed to know what was being told to him, Jack waved him off and headed toward the cave anyway. “Something died in there,” he said. “I can smell it. If one of them wolves crawled in here to perish after the fight I put up, I wanna know.”
    Slocum’s instinct was to call the man back or drag him away from the cave. Since he had no connection to the lunatic other than having shared a doctor’s office for a short stretch of time, he stayed put and readied the Winchester in case he got an easy shot at an angry wolf. If nothing else, there was always money to be made in selling pelts.
    As if harkening back to his colorful entrance into Rocas Rojas, Jack hunched over and scrambled into the cave while hooting and hollering like a madman. His voice took an even higher pitch when he accidentally knocked his bundled right hand against a cave wall. He disappeared into the shadows, and before too long, his shouting subsided.
    When Slocum thought he’d heard the heavy thump of a body hitting the ground, he shouted, “Jack? You all right?”
    After a pause, a shaky reply came from the cave. “Yeah. I tripped. This cave goes back a little ways.”
    Owing to the angle of the sun and the fact that the ground was a uniform color around those rocks, Slocum wasn’t able to pick out many details regarding the terrain. There was something strange about the echo coming from the cave, however. At first, Slocum thought his ears might be playing tricks on him. When he rode around the boulders to get a different vantage point, he found that the sound he’d heard had indeed come from two different spots. He climbed down from the saddle and approached the back end of the rock formation. “The cave opens up back here,” he said.
    â€œYeah,” Jack shouted from within the cave. “I can see some light.”
    The other side of the formation was a steep slope angling down from the rocks. The drop-off was only about six or seven feet, which was just enough to shade what was lying in the shallow pit. It was also enough to provide a barrier to keep the stench of dead meat from overwhelming him before. Now that he was looking straight down at the carcass, Slocum had to