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

town.
    â€œHe wouldn’t do chores around the camp. Said that was women’s work, but he wouldn’t do any of the chores the men would either. Ike was always angry about him. That’s why we sent him to town to get our supplies.”
    â€œAnd he got drunk,” Slocum said, standing on a rock to get a better look around the camp. “Who do you think he’d tell about you hunting for the gold?”
    â€œWe swore him to secrecy,” Mirabelle said, but her voice told the truth. She believed he had shot off his mouth and caused the killers to come hunting for the gold.
    â€œHe probably was so drunk, whoever he told thought you’d found the gold. Or maybe he was boasting. A lie about easy gold is as likely to be believed. Grizzly Flats isn’t prosperous.”
    â€œThe lure of gold would be too much,” she said. “It surely was for us. Until Ike found them coins, I hardly believed there was anything out here.”
    Slocum jumped down and braced himself for what he had to say to her.
    â€œIt’s not right leaving them out where the coyotes can finish dining on them,” he said. “If you were hunting for gold, somebody must have a shovel.”
    â€œWe all did.” She walked as if her feet were stuck in water buckets, rummaged through a pile of material, and brought Slocum a shovel. “This was Ike’s. Ours.”
    â€œThe ground isn’t frozen yet, and as muddy as it is, digging won’t be too hard,” he said. “Why don’t you take what you need from the stores?” He wanted to keep her mind off the mass grave he intended to dig. Individual graves would take too long.
    â€œAll right, John, I’ll do that.” She took two steps and, still facing away from him, said, “Could you bury Ike separate from the others? He was my husband.”
    He silently began digging a large pit and moved the bodies of the two women and three men into it. From the way Mirabelle hovered over the corpse at the edge of camp, he knew that had to be Ike. His back and side ached horribly by the time he’d finished the chore. Digging was easy enough, but every shovelful was heavier than he’d expected since he lifted mud rather than just earth.
    He carefully searched each body before filling in the dirt. The outlaws had been thorough, robbing everyone. Watches, rings, any money—all gone. Slocum tamped the final shovel worth of mud over the mass grave, then went to where Mirabelle sat on a rock, staring at her husband’s corpse.
    Slocum moved to cut off her view as he rolled the body over. Varmints had eaten away the man’s face. He worked quickly to dig the grave but soon ran into rock. Rather than waste time finding another spot, he continued, moved Isaac Comstock into the two-foot-deep grave, and filled it back in. He did take the time to pile rocks on the grave. It wouldn’t deter a hungry coyote but might slow the better-fed ones.
    â€œYou want to say words over his grave?”
    Mirabelle stood beside him. She had tied two sticks together into a cross.
    â€œHe wasn’t like that. When we got married, he didn’t even want a minister. He found a judge to marry us.” Mirabelle sniffed a little. “Ike paid him with a pint of whiskey. This will have to do.” She shoved the cross into the soft dirt, then used rocks to prop it upright.
    The first winter storm that blew down the canyon would steal away the marker. It might even open the grave, but Slocum doubted Mirabelle was going to make a pilgrimage back here once they left.
    â€œThe best thing to do is go back to Grizzly Flats and find who Sennick was spilling his drunken guts to,” he said.
    â€œI have a few things. My clothes, the ones that weren’t too ripped up. Some other things. No call to take anything belonging to Ike. The killers done stole ever’thing off his body.”
    Slocum touched the coins in his pocket. If Ike hadn’t