Free Slocum's Silver Burden by Jake Logan Page B

survived a fall like that. He fumbled out the report and read through it again. No mention was made of recovering the body for burial. All he saw were detailed reports on repairing the track and how the next two trains from Virginia City had been delayed.
    He doubted either of them carried as much silver as the shipment already spirited away. That much silver represented weeks of mining output.
    Riding downhill, he finally came to a more level section of tracks. He grinned crookedly when he saw a small firepit with embers still smoldering alongside the tracks. While this might have been left by others Collingswood had sent out, he doubted it. All he saw were the tracks of a solitary horse. When he dismounted and examined the soft earth more closely, he knew he had found Tamara’s trail. The small footprint belonged to a woman, not some big galoot out hunting for train robbers.
    Spiraling out from the campfire convinced him that Tamara had stopped for a quick meal and to rest her horse, then had ridden westward along the tracks. He picked up the pace, sure that she hadn’t veered away. The tracks were still through mountainous terrain, and opportunities for going north or south were nonexistent because of the deep canyon and the rocky walls on either side. But a few miles west, Slocum saw that he had to do some clever tracking. A road crossed the tracks and went down each of the branching canyons.
    Tamara hadn’t done anything to hide her tracks. Slocum took the road north. The sunbaked dirt hid any hoofprints but he had a good feeling this was the way she had gone—it was the way she read off Jack’s map. An hour along the road, he heard the burbling of a creek and knew he had to water his horse. He gave the mare its head and walked alongside. As the horse drank noisily, he splashed water on his face to get off dirt and cinders. Removing the stench of burned steel from his clothing had to wait until later when he could give both shirt and pants a good scrubbing.
    As he started to pull the horse away, he heard a muffled curse. His hand went to his six-shooter, then he relaxed. Staking the horse by a patch of grass, he made his way through the woods. Only a few yards off the road he found Tamara. The woman had the map pinned to the ground with four rocks and looked from it up to distant peaks and then back at the map.
    He watched her for a spell, drinking in her sleek figure and the way she bent over now and again to study the map. She finally moved the map around and turned in a different direction. When she stood facing away from him, her hands on her hips and still cursing up a blue streak, he crept up behind her.
    â€œLose something, Miss Crittenden?”
    He laughed when she jumped a foot. She half turned and caught sight of him. With a surprisingly quick move, she thrust her hand into a coat pocket. Slocum was faster. He caught her wrist and held it motionless.
    â€œBetter not come out with a gun,” he warned.
    She relaxed, and he let her take her hand away. He stepped close and thrust his hand into her pocket. Pressed close, he felt her heart hammering as her breast crushed into his chest. Slocum might have fumbled around a bit more than necessary as he searched for her gun and then pulled it free. The movement of her hip through the fabric excited him, as did the nearness of his face to hers.
    Tamara glared at him, put her hand on his chest, and pushed him away.
    â€œWhy did you frighten me like that?”
    â€œI didn’t want to end up with a bullet from this in my gut.” He held up the small pistol, a Colt New Line loaded with seven .22-caliber bullets. Up close it could be deadly.
    â€œI’d never do that,” she said. “I’d aim between your eyes.”
    He laughed again. Honesty appealed to him. He tucked away her gun in his coat pocket and looked down at the map.
    â€œI saw you steal that from Jack.”
    â€œJackson? You’re in it with him?”