Slocum and the Grizzly Flats Killers (9781101619216) by Jake Logan Page A

you about the gold?”
    â€œSomebody in Sacramento told Terrence. He hung out with lowlifes. I don’t rightly know what Ike saw in him, but they was good friends.”
    â€œIke knew him before he met you?” When there wasn’t an answer, he turned to see Mirabelle fighting to keep from crying. He was at the end of getting answers about the source of the clues regarding the gold.
    He usually scoffed at treasure maps, lost mines, and hidden gold because the men selling such information were swindlers out to make a quick dollar from the gullible. There were different ways of selling the worthless. Soapy Smith in Denver made a fortune selling bars of soap. A few confederates in the audience where he made his spiel unwrapped the soap he sold and found ten-dollar bills. Another would find a fifty. By the time Smith had sold crates of the cheap soap, he had gathered his partners and taken back the money he had used to “salt” the bars. Very few paying exorbitant prices for the bars found anything but lye soap.
    Slocum had always thought they got what they deserved. Most of the men probably had never used a bar of soap in years. That was a harmless swindle. Selling maps to hidden mines in remote mountains put the trusting buyers in danger from Indians, starvation, and even bad weather. He had no idea what would have happened to Mirabelle’s party if they had been caught in one of the early snows. From what she said, they had sent one of the party into Grizzly Flats to buy what supplies they could afford and ended up with damned little.
    He left her sitting on a rock to one side of the camp and began a spiral search, slowly going farther from the center until he found where the killers had left their horses before attacking. The ground proved too muddy for him to find the number of horses, but the limbs of scrub oaks showed signs of bridles being secured. He counted twice, being sure he was right. Returning to camp, he caught Mirabelle dabbing at her eyes.
    She looked up, her brown eyes wide and bloodshot.
    â€œWhat did you find?”
    â€œThe men in camp didn’t have a chance. There were five, maybe six who came in.”
    â€œI didn’t see any but the three.”
    â€œDon’t know where the other three were. My guess is they were up in the rocks to shoot down into camp, if the need arose. Terrence and the others were caught in a trap and didn’t have a chance to escape. There wasn’t a blamed thing they could have done.”
    Slocum wasn’t sure he believed that. Terrence or whoever fancied himself to be in charge should have posted a sentry. That was common sense, no matter what the reason they were out here. He doubted Sennick would have agreed, and the other man in camp, Garrison, probably had his hands full doing two men’s work. Terrence wouldn’t have lowered himself to watch for intruders.
    He shrugged off the lack of caution. No one out hunting for gold thought they were in danger. They hadn’t found anything yet.
    â€œWhy’d they attack when they did?” he wondered aloud.
    â€œWhat’s that?” Mirabelle came over, her shoes making crunching sounds in the thin blanket of snow.
    â€œThe killers didn’t come from Sacramento. Whoever told Terrence about the stolen gold wasn’t going to follow, then attack before you found anything.”
    â€œBut Ike thought he had!”
    â€œHe hadn’t told anyone in camp. The owlhoots were here before you came back with the coins.”
    â€œI never thought of that. Maybe they didn’t know we was hunting for gold. Maybe they was just outlaws.”
    Slocum knew that wasn’t true. She had heard the killers demanding to know where the gold was.
    â€œTell me about Sennick.” He continued rummaging through the debris left by the scavengers as Mirabelle related random observations about her onetime partner. Nothing hit him until she spoke of sending Sennick into