Read Online Slocum 421 by Jake Logan - Free Book Online

the money on me somewhere.”
    The old man made an effort to get up, and on the second try he made it to his feet. Slocum got the money out of one of the pockets in his money belt and snapped it back shut. Damn, Stowe had really packed it full of money. No telling how much he had. He hoped Murty had the gold money, but that might take months. Stowe paid her for cooking each trip, so she should get by. She’d spent little on herself with him—he’d done most of that for her. He shook his head, satisfied that she’d be fine without him.
    â€œHere it is.”
    â€œWhy, Oslo, this is a wonderful piece of leather,” he said, admiring it. The tanning job was so good he could hardly believe it had once been an animal’s coat. Snow-white, it might not be the best color for him now that the marshals wanted him too, but he’d have it made into a garment he could wear.
    He paid the man and put the elk skin in his pannier.
    â€œI don’t guess you’re a drinking man,” Oslo said when he came back.
    â€œWhiskey, but I don’t have any in my bags right now.”
    â€œI’ll wait. I know an old German down the way here makes some good stuff. Just been so long since I had anything to drink my tongue’s about swollen.”
    â€œWhere will you summer?”
    â€œOh, up in the mountains where I can eat trout, hang a small deer, and eat it before it rots. Might jerk an elk if I find a squaw to help do it.”
    â€œSounds neat.”
    â€œIt beats living in a town or plowing crops.”
    Slocum agreed. But he had more than mental reasons for living out here. He was on the move to avoid the law.
    That night he slept well, and the old man was gone when he awoke near dawn. Strange men wandered the West. Most were friendly and no threat, but crazed killers wandered there as well, men no one knew who murdered helpless individuals for sport and were gone again. The danger always existed in remote places.
    The snowmelt had the Republican swollen when Slocum reached it, and he and his animals took the ferry that an old black man cranked across for twenty cents. The wind was from the north, and it sought him riding northwest through the grassy rolling hills.
    Â * * * 
    He reached the Bar N J in mid-afternoon. Dressed in men’s jeans and a plaid wool shirt showing her fine breasts’ shape under it, Jenny Nelson came out smiling in the doorway. “Where have you been hiding, old man?”
    â€œOh, places. Looks like spring can’t come soon enough around here.”
    â€œIt sure can’t, can it? Get in here and drink some fresh coffee I just made.”
    â€œWell my animals can wait a little longer.” He caught her in his arms and kissed her. She was a tall woman in her mid-thirties; strong as an ox but very feminine, and they’d had a longtime relationship.
    â€œHow has it been going?” she asked him, and her arm on his shoulder, they went inside her log house. The smell of something sweet baking found his nose when she set him in a chair.
    Her coffee was Arbuckles’ and real smooth. “All right, I guess. How are things going with you?”
    â€œGood. I have a nice set of steers we’ve wintered. They will be great next summer to market and will keep us in the business. Lots of work to hay them, but my boys are good hands. They’ve grown a lot since you were here, and they’ve gotten good at breaking horses. We’ve sold some. I just fear that homesteaders will shut me out of steer raising in the future. Oh, and I have been promised delivery late this summer, from a reliable man, of two hundred more light steers to winter.”
    â€œIt sounds like you and those boys are getting along great.”
    â€œWe are. Vance is now sixteen and Tom is fourteen. Yes, we sure are, and they will be excited to see that you are here when they get back. They’ll want you to help and tell them how they are doing on