Free Slocum #396 : Slocum and the Scavenger Trail (9781101554371) by Jake Logan Page A

collapsing. He had barely sat in it when Wallace returned. A couple inches were already missing from the bottle.
    Wallace saw his interest in the bottle and hastily said, “Damned bartender’s always cheatin’ me. Says this is what passes for a full bottle.” He held it out to Slocum, who took it, pulled the cork, and tipped the bottle up enough to wet his lips. They stung like fire. He handed the bottle back.
    “Help yourself,” Slocum invited. “Now that Drew’s out of business, who should I see about selling spare mules and gear?”
    “Oh, that’s easy ’nuff,” Wallace said, sinking into the rickety chair beside Slocum. He took a quick drink, then another, and passed the bottle back. Slocum held up his hand, showing he wasn’t interested in the tarantula juice.
    This suited Wallace just fine. The liquor lubricated his tongue.
    “Trueheart runs the whole damn place. Not sure what he’s up to, but it’s changin’ as we sit here jawin’.”
    “Changing?”
    “Used to be the fellows went out and found equipment dropped along the trail over the pass.”
    “Dropped?”
    “Early on, prospectors didn’t have good sense and loaded theyselves down with ever’ contrivance you could imagine. Pickin’ up after ’em was profitable. Hell, I done some of it myself.”
    Slocum barely paid attention as the story unfolded. From scavenging, the men had turned into road agents and outright killers. Who was to know or care? But the flow of stolen goods had become too great to use so they had taken up selling it over and over in Almost There at the base of the mountain.
    “Trueheart think that up?”
    “Not much he don’t think on, mister. He’s a deep one. Another nip?”
    Slocum took another swig to keep Wallace happy and give him the feeling he had a drinking companion. Given the chance, Wallace would be as happy draining the entire bottle on his own.
    “What happens when the goldfields over Desolation Pass peter out?”
    Wallace looked at him with one eye closed, the better to focus. He lifted a grimy finger to his lips and whispered, “Shush.”
    “You said more was going on. What’s Trueheart up to?”
    “Somethin’ real big. Dunno what, but them folks all around him are abuzz with it. Been kinda strange, too, lately. A lot of supplies comin’ into town what could be sold never get traded. Don’t know what Trueheart is doin’ with ’em but he’s got enough food and equipment carried off to supply an army. Think they been buildin’ something, but nobody knows what. Nobody not in tight with Trueheart.”
    “How’s that?” Slocum pushed the bottle back when Wallace tried to give it to him again. The man didn’t thinkSlocum was unneighborly at all. Probably the contrary from the hefty drink he took, then belched.
    “Lot of equipment taken out on the trail’s not goin’ downhill no more. Even keepin’ mules ’stead of sellin’ ’em below.”
    Slocum saw he wasn’t getting any more information out of an increasingly besotted Wallace.
    “You did good looking after my mule,” Slocum said, standing. “Keep the rest of the bottle.”
    “You’re a prince ’mong men, mister. Anythin’ more I kin do, you look up ole Wallace and I’ll be there to help.”
    Slocum mounted his mule and rode away from the saloon, going deeper into the heart of the town. For a moment he thought he heard a strange noise again but his braying mule drowned out any chance he had of identifying it.
    He took the first cross street and saw a huge building that had to be Trueheart’s headquarters. From the armed men standing guard outside, he knew better than to barge in on the man responsible for building the whole damned town. He rode past, took a smaller street into the red light district, then made his way to a switchback trail leading upward into the low hills just above town. From a level spot along the trail, he got a good view of the claptrap buildings—and Trueheart’s headquarters.
    He stepped down from the