Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Teaser chapter

  DEATH COMES CALLING

  Rounding the corner, Slocum saw the deadly scene unwinding in front of him. The man who had pretended to be drunk earlier stopped Stevenson, but Andy kept him at arm’s length. Slocum’s hand flashed to his hip. He cleared leather fast and brought his Colt Navy up in a practiced movement. His thumb cocked the six-shooter, and his index finger tightened in the same movement. He hardly felt the recoil as the six-gun discharged—and robbed the man behind Stevenson of his life.

  Stevenson swung around, startled. He saw the man behind him drop a drawn pistol and then slump to the ground, dead.

  Slocum drew a bead on the other man and started to fire. But there was no call for that. The man hightailed it, feet pounding loudly against the ground as he ran.

  “Slocum, what’s going on?” Andrew Stevenson looked from the dead man to Slocum and then back. “He’s dead.”

  “You’d be the dead one if I hadn’t come along.” Slocum knelt and picked up the fallen gun. He handed it to Stevenson, who took it in curiously steady hands. The young man still hadn’t realized how close death had come to visiting him.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  SLOCUM AND THE TWO GOLD BULLETS

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Jove edition / February 2006

  Copyright © 2006 by The Berkley Publishing Group.

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  1

  The bright Colorado sun said summer but the cold wind blowing in John Slocum’s face whispered winter. He looked around at the vegetation and saw he was getting into the mountains blocking him from easy passage into Utah to the west. Pine and juniper, even aspen and bushes always found at the higher elevations surrounded him. He had ridden along lost in his own thoughts and had hardly noticed the change until now.

  He pulled up his collar against the sharp wind blowing down the mountain slope, tugged his hat a little farther down onto his forehead and kept riding. This was a well-travelled road from the look of the double ruts, and whatever town lay ahead would be a good spot to hole up for the night. When his belly growled, he knew he had to take on more supplies, especially if the weather turned suddenly. Slocum sniffed hard at the air but didn’t scent or taste snow. Not yet. Soon.

  Eventually Slocum reached a spot in the road where the mountains in front of him blocked a modicum of the wind and left only the bright autumn sun on his face. He felt downright good by the time he rode into the small town of Victory. The town might be small but it looked mighty fine to him, especially when he saw narrow-gauge railroad tracks angling away to the north into towering mountains. A train station meant supplies reached Victory on a regular basis, brought down prices and kept the thin wad of greenbacks riding in Slocum’s shirt pocket from disappearing entirely.

  “Howdy,” called a man sitting on a porch in front of a dry goods store, whittling carefully at a length of green pinewood.

  Slocum touched the brim of his Stetson and returned a smile. Victory was a right friendly place. Too bad he couldn’t stay a spell and sample all its hospitality, but Slocum had caught a disease and it sorely affected him. He had spent almost a month in Denver and now had itchy-foot. Too much of the large city had worn down his temper and set him on the trail again, going somewhere. Mostly, he didn’t care where he travelled as long as it was farther down the road.

  Still, Victory looked to be a nice little town.

  Slocum swung from the saddle, stretched trail-weary muscles, then went into the general store. As he walked around the crowded interior, his quick green eyes took in prices and varieties. He’d been right. Having a train depot kept prices down to the merely outrageous from impossible-to-pay. He scooped canned goods from the neatly stacked shelves, along with a sack of flour, coffee, beans other items that would go good when he got to the other side of the purpled mountains rising to Victory’s west.

  “You gettin’ ready to go out? Got any special place you’re headin’?” the proprietor asked, tallying Slocum’s purchase.

  “Passing through,” Slocum said. He was surprised when the man laughed.

  “That’s what they all say.”

  “Who do you mean?” Slocum used a burlap bag to collect his canned and dry victuals, then passed across more than half of his poke. Greenbacks wouldn’t do him any good out on the trail, but he still hated to spend so much. It had been a long time since he’d seen a payday and the gamblers in Denver knew the odds as good as he did—and handled cards just a mite better.

  “The prospectors, that’s who,” the proprietor said.

  “Victory doesn’t look like a boomtown,” Slocum said. He slung the sack over his shoulder.

  “You jist wait, but then I reckon you know all about it.” The proprietor gave Slocum a broad wink, as if sharing a secret. Slocum stepped back into the cool afternoon, looking around for a decent place to stay for the night. There was a slightly canted three-story hotel built of red brick, but it had the promise of being expensive since it was close to the train depot. He shrugged the sack into a more comfortable position, grabbed the reins of his horse and walked to the livery stables. It took ten minutes and a bit of dickering but Slocum got a stall for his gelding and some straw for himself to sleep on that night. The livery stable owner was an old geezer, more drunk than sober and taciturn to the point of rudeness. Slocum didn’t much care since he wasn’t going to be around long enoug
h to make friends. He stashed his gear, then set off to explore Victory.

  It took him only a few minutes to gravitate toward the Sweetwater Saloon and Gambling Emporium. The sun dipped low over the mountains he intended to put at his back come the next sunset, and the gathering twilight lent a tad of real chill to the air. Stepping into the smoky, hot saloon was almost a pleasure.

  A bored woman worked the box as she dealt faro to one side of the doorway. To the other side stretched three green felt-topped tables. Only one had a poker game in progress. Slocum eyed the gamblers and tried to figure if this was even close to being an honest game.

  “What’s yer pleasure, mister?” asked the barkeep.

  “Beer,” Slocum said, fishing out a dime and dropping it on the bar. He got a mug of surprisingly cold beer and a nickel change. Reaching over to the jar at the end of the bar, he plucked out a pickle and began eating it, wishing he had been here earlier for the free lunch advertised in a small sign stuck in a crack in the wall above the pickle jar.

  Slocum leaned back, elbows on the bar and watched the gamblers play a few hands. He had less than four dollars left, but he might augment this pitiful hoard of his into something worth bragging on.

  “You ready to go out?” asked the barkeep.

  “I’ll be riding on in the morning,” Slocum said.

  “Thought maybe you were here to prospect. You’ve got the look of a man used to roamin’ the high country.”

  “Gold?” Slocum asked. “Is that what’s got everyone so edgy?”

  “Hush up,” the barkeep said. “Ain’t nobody supposed to know about the gold.”

  Slocum snorted and took another sip of the beer, nursing it. He hadn’t been in Victory an hour and already everyone he’d spoken to had broadly hinted at a gold strike. Hinted? He laughed outright this time. The barkeep had done everything but spell it out. Slocum had seen too many towns ruined by the sudden influx of miners, then the equally sudden rush out when gold was discovered elsewhere.

  “You know those gents?” Slocum asked, pointing to the gamblers at the table.

  “Nope, ain’t seen ’em here before. ’Cept for old Kinney. He’s a local. They came in on the noon train from Denver. I keep track of such things since I’m the town’s mayor.” The barkeep puffed out his chest and looked pleased as punch at such a role, especially in light of Victory’s newfound prominence as a boomtown.

  Slocum pegged the tattered-looking gambler on the far side of the table as Kinney. He had a glassy-eyed stare speaking of too much whiskey that the others took advantage of repeatedly. The three others might be in cahoots or they might be honest gamblers, as far as that went. Slocum had no trouble with cheating gamblers as long as they worked alone. If he had to watch a team at work, the stakes were never worth the risk of being shot in the back because he looked at the wrong player.

  One gambler left and sat in on a new game. A man dressed in the rough denims of a prospector filled the empty chair. Soon enough one of the remaining two well-dressed gamblers left. Slocum took his place.

  “You need some fresh money in the pot?” he asked. He stared directly at the gambler with the headlight diamond in his tie. The man didn’t quite rattle when he moved, but he came close. Slocum saw two knives, a pair of derringers and the obvious six-shooter slung in a shoulder rig. What he didn’t see was any kind of mechanism to facilitate cheating. Slocum had seen elaborate devices that snared a high card and then returned it to the gambler’s hand later, when it mattered more. But if any cheating went on in this game, it came from card manipulation.

  Slocum could handle cheating like that.

  The ebb and flow of the game caught Slocum up, and he remembered draining his beer, getting another from a hurdy-gurdy girl and slowly raking in more and more money until he faced the well-dressed gambler across from him. If ever there was a time for a man to cheat, it was now.

  Slocum watched like a hawk as the gambler shuffled the cards, then dealt. Peering at his cards, Slocum tried to keep from showing his surprise. He had a full house, deuces over queens. But because of the small, fleeting smirk on the gambler’s lips, Slocum turned wary. Betting went slowly.

  “How many cards?” asked the gambler, fingering the deck. He started to strip off a few for himself. This told Slocum everything he needed to know. The gambler didn’t expect him to draw.

  “I’ll take two,” Slocum said, tossing the queens onto the table. The shock on the gambler’s face was almost as good as winning the pot. Almost.

  “Y-you want t-two?”

  “Two,” Slocum said. “You got a problem with that?”

  “T-two,” the gambler stuttered, dealing the cards to Slocum. His once sure hands now trembled. Slocum shifted a little in his chair so he could free up the Colt Navy he carried in a cross-draw holster should the need arise.

  Slocum hardly glanced at the cards he’d been dealt. Two clubs. He guessed what the rest of the gambler’s hand looked like.

  “I’ll call,” Slocum said suddenly. He wanted to be sure.

  The gambler turned over three clubs, a heart and a spade. The two clubs Slocum had asked for had ruined the straight flush. He would have bet heavily with a full house, then lost to a flush. With his three deuces, he still won easily.

  “Don’t,” Slocum cautioned as the gambler reached under his coat. The gambler slowly withdrew a handkerchief and mopped his forehead.

  “You got me fair and square, mister,” the gambler said.

  “Nothing fair or square about your dealing.”

  “I don’t want trouble,” the gambler said, a slight quaver coming into his voice.

  “Congratulations, son,” came a hearty voice. Slocum glanced to one side and saw a corpulent man dressed in finery better suited to an opening night at the Denver Opera House.

  “We got business,” Slocum said, watching the gambler closely.

  “No, no we ain’t,” the gambler said, scuttling from the table. “You got business with Mr. Aiken, I’ll let you alone.”

  “Well, well, seems folks are polite and thoughtful in Victory,” the man said, sinking into the chair vacated by the gambler. The wood creaked under the man’s bulk.

  “The polite ones introduce themselves,” Slocum said.

  “What? Oh, sorry, so sorry. The name’s Aiken. Basil Aiken.”

  “I’ve heard of you.” Slocum thrust his hand out across the table and introduced himself. Aiken’s reaction interested Slocum. The man actually drew back as if being recognized was a bad thing.

  “How’s that, Mr. Slocum?”

  “The barkeep mentioned you when I came in. Said you were a fine, upstanding fellow.”

  Aiken laughed heartily, his huge belly shaking. “I need to hire him to do publicity for me, then.”

  Slocum said nothing more after his small fishing expedition. The mayor-bartender had said nothing at all about Aiken, but the thrill of fear that had passed across Aiken’s face warned Slocum of something less than legal about the man. Aiken would not have come over the way he had unless he wanted something. What this might be was beyond Slocum’s ability to guess.

  “You settled in real good. Took a few dollars in a poker game. You’re quite the gambler, sir.”

  “I play the odds,” Slocum said carefully.

  “You do more than that, unless I miss my guess. You have the look of a man of daring and intelligence about him. You’re trailwise, too, I reckon.”

  “You might say that.” Slocum shifted slightly to keep his hand free to go for the ebony-handled six-shooter at his left hip. Something about this hail-fellow-well-met greeting didn’t sit well with him. Aiken didn’t have the look of a man who did his own dirty work, and he certainly would not try to steal the money Slocum had won, not in a public place like the Sweetwater Saloon, now filled to overflowing with men all shouting out their orders for whiskey and beer. But Aiken wanted something.

  “I need a decent scout. You’ve worked as a scout, haven’t you? Perhaps for the Army?”