town.
âHe wouldnât do chores around the camp. Said that was womenâs work, but he wouldnât do any of the chores the men would either. Ike was always angry about him. Thatâs why we sent him to town to get our supplies.â
âAnd he got drunk,â Slocum said, standing on a rock to get a better look around the camp. âWho do you think heâd tell about you hunting for the gold?â
âWe swore him to secrecy,â 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.
âHe probably was so drunk, whoever he told thought youâd found the gold. Or maybe he was boasting. A lie about easy gold is as likely to be believed. Grizzly Flats isnât prosperous.â
âThe lure of gold would be too much,â she said. âIt surely was for us. Until Ike found them coins, I hardly believed there was anything out here.â
Slocum jumped down and braced himself for what he had to say to her.
âItâs not right leaving them out where the coyotes can finish dining on them,â he said. âIf you were hunting for gold, somebody must have a shovel.â
âWe all did.â She walked as if her feet were stuck in water buckets, rummaged through a pile of material, and brought Slocum a shovel. âThis was Ikeâs. Ours.â
âThe ground isnât frozen yet, and as muddy as it is, digging wonât be too hard,â he said. âWhy donât you take what you need from the stores?â He wanted to keep her mind off the mass grave he intended to dig. Individual graves would take too long.
âAll right, John, Iâll do that.â She took two steps and, still facing away from him, said, âCould you bury Ike separate from the others? He was my husband.â
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 heâd finished the chore. Digging was easy enough, but every shovelful was heavier than heâd 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 moneyâall 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 husbandâs corpse.
Slocum moved to cut off her view as he rolled the body over. Varmints had eaten away the manâs 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 wouldnât deter a hungry coyote but might slow the better-fed ones.
âYou want to say words over his grave?â
Mirabelle stood beside him. She had tied two sticks together into a cross.
âHe wasnât like that. When we got married, he didnât even want a minister. He found a judge to marry us.â Mirabelle sniffed a little. âIke paid him with a pint of whiskey. This will have to do.â 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.
âThe best thing to do is go back to Grizzly Flats and find who Sennick was spilling his drunken guts to,â he said.
âI have a few things. My clothes, the ones that werenât too ripped up. Some other things. No call to take anything belonging to Ike. The killers done stole everâthing off his body.â
Slocum touched the coins in his pocket. If Ike hadnât
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