Slocum 428 Read Free

flakes were still piling up. The objects of his shouted attentions were his two horses, high-stepping well-shod Belgian-cross brutes, bearing the bulging musculature of draft animals.
    He rode behind them, perched on a split-log rail, his lap and legs covered with a patchy fur robe, more skin than hair, and he gripped the thick strap-leather lines wrapped around his fur gauntlets. “That’s it, boys! Take ’er like she was meant to be took! This trail’s a hard bitch and we’ll give her no quarter!” He loosed a long, wheezing laugh.
    â€œTitus! Balzac! You listening to me? Those stumble bums up to camp won’t know what hit ’em when we mosey on back, slick as deer guts on a pump handle, loaded with supplies and liquored up. That’d be me, not you—you understand? I can’t have my boys boozin’ on the job!” His long, cackling laugh spun upward on an errant shaft of breeze as a slip of yarn might in a windstorm.
    It was the laugh that jerked Slocum’s intent gaze from his wavering fledgling fire to glance up toward the north, the direction he would soon be headed—right after he’d availed himself of a pot of coffee and a warming breakfast. As far as his calendar was concerned—the one he kept in his head, and that was rarely off by more than a day—he was a couple of days ahead of the date he’d intended to report in to the logging camp, still a good ten or twelve miles north. He had only a crude map drawn by the foreman’s nephew, the barman at the TipTop Saloon, in Timber Hills. He’d assured Slocum, as had a handful of others, some of them loggers themselves, that there had been a boom in lumber to points south along the Cali coast, so much so that the various logging operations up north were hiring.
    And hearing that had been almost as nice as hearing a dove’s soft cries of amorous intent. Almost. For no matter how little money Slocum found himself in possession of, no matter how much time had elapsed between paying jobs, his thoughts were never too far from time spent, or time that would be spent, with a woman.
    But this cold morning, the caterwauling, even above the somewhat dissipated morning wind, reminded him of the godawful howls he’d heard the night before. “Not again . . .”
    Apparently the Appaloosa thought the same thing, for he nickered and dumped a steaming pile of trail apples.
    â€œYou and me both,” said Slocum, fixing his eyes on the trail to the north and the increasing sounds drawing nearer. But this didn’t sound quite like the gut-churning caterwaul of the night before. He heard chains, the telltale clopping of hoofbeats, muffled somehow by snow, no doubt. Though he could see nothing yet, he knew it was coming, whatever it was—likely a team. He stood, poured himself a steaming cup of coffee, and walked the couple dozen yards back to the trail, kicking through the nearly knee-deep snow.
    With a gloved hand, he pulled back the flap of his thick coat, and thumbed the rawhide thong keeper free of the Colt’s hammer and let his hand hang loose. No sense not being ready. He was barely aware that he’d done so—as a wanted man, he learned long ago to leave nothing to chance. This heightened sense of caution had cost him friendships, jobs, potential trysts with fine women, but since he was still alive while a number of other men—and a few sage women, over the years—were six feet under, it led him to trust his instincts. He must be doing something right.
    Presently he saw movement through the thick pines, heard the rustling and jangling of chains and the occasional rope of laughter from whoever was crazy enough to be out this early on a stormy morning, driving a team southward.
    Yep, now he saw it was a team of massive pulling brutes, thick necks bulging and straining under bulky fitted harnesses, the two horses chestnut in color and topped with a steaming layer