Free Slocum's Silver Burden by Jake Logan

After transferring the food to his own saddlebags, Slocum saw that what remained was worth keeping for himself, too. The hunks of silver had been hacked off an ingot. Without weighing it, Slocum guessed the silver was worth about fifty dollars. In that, Jack had been an honest thief. He had brought Tamara’s due, only she had gotten greedy.
    With the outlaw’s map in her possession, she stood to get a lot richer. Slocum wished Jack had lived long enough to point him in the right direction, but common sense sent him riding along the trail toward the railroad tracks. If he found where Jack and his gang had driven away with the shipment, finding Tamara wouldn’t be too hard. The silver had to be stashed somewhere nearby.
    At least Jack’s share had to be. The other three could have driven off in their wagons with their shares, but Jack had seen fit to take Tamara’s cut. That meant the map the woman had taken led to a treasure cache.
    As he rode, Slocum found himself with a new dilemma. Before, it had been finding the silver or taking Jack back to the railroad vice president without real proof of guilt. Now he might catch Tamara, but without the silver, it mattered nothing. He was certain she had supplied the robbers everything they needed to know to successfully rob the train, but the man who could have testified against her was buried under a few feet of California sod.
    Trying to figure out whether he should worry more about returning the silver or taking the woman back to her boss occupied him as he rode. The railroad tracks appeared quicker than he thought. Then he realized how he had been drifting as he wrestled with a problem that might never exist. The tracks went up into a pass a couple miles off. Slocum took out a map from the envelope Collingswood had given him and tried to make out where the robbery had occurred.
    He turned uphill and began riding, aware that he had little room on either side of the tracks to wait for any train coming through to pass. Now and then he dismounted and pressed his hand against the tracks to check for vibrations. When he was a half mile from the summit, he came to the decision to press on and get past the narrow gap. He wished he’d had the foresight to get a railroad schedule when he had commandeered the horse back at the depot. No Central California Railroad coming through since he had ridden onto the tracks worried him.
    He put his heels to the mare’s flanks to get the sturdy horse moving faster. Jack’s horse, tied to his saddle, balked. Slocum took a few minutes to tug on the other horse’s reins to get it moving into the steep-walled pass. The horse kept trying to rear.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with you?” He dismounted and went to calm the horse. As he stepped on the tracks, he felt the quivers. The horse had already detected the oncoming train.
    Slocum looked back down the slope he had scaled and didn’t see an approaching train. That meant it was struggling up the eastern slope, coming into the narrow pass. The grade was considerable on the far side. Slocum knew that from hearing of the robbery. Jack and his gang had used that steep slope slowing the locomotive to climb aboard.
    He had a quick decision to make. If he reached the far side of the pass, he had no way of knowing where he could get off the tracks to let the train pass. He looked back down the grade he had taken on the western side. He had a half mile to go to get to a widening where he could get free of the tracks.
    Go on and pray for a spot to ride off the rails? Or go back down the way he had come?
    Slocum was a gambling man, but his chances were better retreating. He swung into the saddle and turned the mare around. The rocky walls hadn’t bothered him before. Now it felt as if he had been thrust into a stone grave.
    A quarter mile of trotting got him out of the pass but still no space on either side of the tracks. Jack’s horse tried to race past. He glanced