Read Online Slocum Giant 2013 : Slocum and the Silver City Harlot (9781101601860) by Jake Logan - Free Book Online Page B

down the embankment and trying to escape. Whitehill had taken his six-shooter and rode at some distance so he could get the drop on him if necessary. The sheriff hadn’t formally arrested him, but Slocum had been in custody enough times to know how it felt.
    Riding out had been a trip of mutual caution. Whitehill didn’t quite trust him, and Slocum was wary of the lawman. Driving the wagon back to Silver City was a different can of worms. He might not be under arrest, but the way the sheriff treated him was no different.
    â€œWho is he?” Slocum asked after another mile. “Your expression when you saw him tells me you know him.”
    â€œAin’t sayin’ more ’til I find your partner. The one what sashayed away from Doc Fuller.”
    Slocum fell silent. Had Frank known they were going after the wagon and what they’d find? If the redhead had plugged the man bouncing around in the rear of the wagon, how’d the body end up in a block of ice and why would Frank chase it halfway to Tombstone? Better to let Slocum deliver the body while heading in the opposite direction. Frank could have been in Kansas by now rather than all shot up and hiding out in Silver City.
    The one thing Slocum knew was that Frank had the answers Sheriff Whitehill thought he had.
    They rattled and rumbled along and finally rolled into Silver City after midnight.
    â€œYou set right there. Don’t move a muscle ’less I say,” Whitehill warned. He cocked his rifle, dismounted, and let Slocum tie the reins around the brake before climbing down. “Head for the calaboose.”
    â€œI didn’t kill him.”
    â€œNever said you did, but you know more ’bout this than you’re sayin’. It’s time for you to let me hear the whole story.”
    â€œI told you all I know.”
    Whitehill laughed harshly, then poked Slocum with the rifle muzzle to get him moving along the darkened street. Gaiety in the saloons called to Slocum. He badly needed a drink to ease the pain of driving most of the day. More than this, he wanted to be surrounded by men not inclined to shatter his spine with a bullet if he moved in the wrong direction.
    He went into the jail. Whitehill dropped his Colt on the desk, then said, “That back cell looks to be a good fit, Slocum.”
    Slocum closed his eyes and shivered as the sheriff closed and locked the door. He had thought he’d avoid getting locked up. Bringing Frank to town had been a mistake. After fighting the road agents and the Indians, he should have kept riding in any direction that wasn’t Silver City.
    He sank to the straw pallet that passed for a mattress on the cot and drew up his legs. Stiff all over, he stretched and tried to work out the kinks from the long drive into town. A muscle spasm in his leg brought home the reality of his problem. The sheriff thought he’d murdered the man in the ice.
    â€œDon’t go anywhere, Slocum. I’ll see to . . . him. Ain’t a chore I much cotton to, but it’s got to be done.”
    Left alone in the cell, Slocum began hunting for a way out. His first impression had been right. The dirt floor was sunbaked. An inch down he hit a hard white layer. Caliche. It would take dynamite to dig through the hardened clay, and if he had a stick or two, blowing a hole in the adobe wall was a quicker way to freedom. The bars and the lock on the door were as secure as he had feared. Above he saw no way to scrape through the wire mesh between him and the roof. Disheartened, he sank back to the pallet.
    When feeding time came—breakfast, most likely—this would be his only chance to get away. But Whitehill was a cautious man and unlikely to make a mistake that would let Slocum get free. Time worked against him, and he couldn’t go anywhere or do anything.
    He looked up when Whitehill returned. The lawman put his rifle back in a wall rack and sank to the desk chair. It creaked