Slocum's Silver Burden by Jake Logan Page B

that crossed the road, and he followed it for a quarter mile. His approach scared away smaller animals. A cougar snarled and stared at him. The last light of day caught the cat’s eyes and turned them bright silver. Slocum touched his six-shooter but knew the odds of killing the cougar were slim if it attacked. A gust of breath escaped his lungs when the cat slunk off, still snarling.
    He let his horse drink while he kept careful watch. Farther upstream darted furtive creatures. Slocum made sure his horse’s reins were secured to a limb before picking up a rock and quietly stalking a fat rabbit. A quick strike and he ate well that night.
    Not knowing where Tamara had gone in her hunt for the train robber made him wary of keeping more than a low fire going that night. However, the breeze coming off the higher slopes was cold enough to make him throw caution to the wind. He built a large enough fire to keep him and the mare warm through the night.
    With his blanket pulled around his shoulders, he slipped away into deep sleep, dreaming of silver . . . and Tamara Crittenden.
    He came awake with a start, cursing himself because the sun had been up for an hour. The horse had eaten its fill of grass growing along the stream bank. Slocum’s belly grumbled, but the need to catch up with the woman drove him past such minor discomfort. He saddled the mare, stepped up, and trotted down the road, wondering how far back he had fallen. With every crossing road he stood to choose the wrong direction and end up searching aimlessly.
    Then he heard a steam whistle in the distance, drew rein, and slowly turned to locate the tracks. The train had to run less than a mile off to his right. The robbery had taken place miles farther east. If the gang hid the silver, it would be closer to the spot where they had stopped the locomotive. Jack had lit out of San Francisco, leaving Tamara behind. To Slocum that meant the robber wanted to grab the loot and hightail it away.
    But why had he bothered going to San Francisco at all if he intended to double-cross her?
    Too many questions and not a one of them had to be answered. Slocum intended to retrieve the stolen silver, capture or kill the robbers, then head back to San Francisco to collect his reward. He patted the mare’s neck and headed up into another ridge of hills. These might be considered mountains. Underwood had said the Celestials working on the Central California Railroad had dangled from baskets as they chipped away the sides of the hills to create a railroad bed where none had been possible beforehand. From the sheer peaks and the steep slope that made his horse slow and eventually forced him to get off and walk a spell, he believed that. Cutting a road was one thing. A railroad required solid ground and no slope steeper than three or four percent—every hundred feet of run had less than four of rise. The locomotives were powerful, but not big enough to drag a long line of freight cars up anything steeper.
    He reached the middle of the pass after noon, took a rest, then saw smoke rising from a cook fire not a hundred yards away. Hidden by the trees, whoever stoked the fire and boiled coffee presented Slocum with a dilemma. If this was another traveler, coming from the east, he could beg for a cup of that coffee and likely get it. However, he knew it was just as likely to be Tamara as a stranger.
    Slocum tethered his horse, then followed his nose through the woods to a spot where he could push some thick underbrush away to see who rested in the clearing. He caught his breath. Jack poked at the fire, not a care in the world. The man had draped his six-shooter over a stump, along with his freshly washed shirt drying in the bright sunlight. This was the best chance Slocum would ever have of capturing him. Jack could never reach his six-gun in time to get off a shot if Slocum simply walked up on him.
    But Jack had a gang still roaming around the hills. They had to know