But the perpetrator hadn’t been afraid of being discovered. He’d left Foley in his blankets, made coffee—the pot was still on the dead embers of the fire—then saddled up and ridden out, to the northwest. At a slow jog.

  A pretty cool customer, if you asked Robertson.

  In no time at all, Berto was back, leading Foley’s chestnut gelding.

  “That was quick,” Robertson said.

  Berto shrugged. “He was just out of sight, grazing on some of the good grama grass behind the hill over there. It was the first Mr. Judah brought up from Dragoon Springs.”

  “I remember,” said the sheriff with a nod. “Judah was awful set on improving this place.”

  “Not like . . .” Berto trailed off.

  “No, not like Abel,” the sheriff said.

  Together, the two men folded Foley’s corpse over his horse once it was saddled and tied it down.

  “I’m gonna track this other hombre,” Robertson said. “Probably the one that did the shooting. You can split off and take Foley back to the Bar C, if you want.”

  Berto shook his head. “I have a feeling who did this. And a few other things, too. And he is dead. I told you. Slocum killed him.”

  “Well, that remains to be seen,” Robertson said. “I’ll do the detecting, and you do the horse-leading.”

  They mounted up and, with Berto leading Foley’s horse, began to follow Marcus’s trail.

  “Four times!” Miranda said, languidly lying on her back and half off the bed, with her fingers brushing the nap of the rug. “That’s a record, Slocum, even for you!”

  He grinned around the cigar he’d just lit. “The day’s still young,” he quipped.

  She sat up and faced him. “But I’m not! You’re makin’ me older by the second, you brigand, you!”

  “And I’ll still love you when you’re a hundred and fifty, Miranda, my girl.”

  She chuckled. “You’d better!” Then she threw herself on his chest and began nibbling at his chin.

  “Whoa up there, gal,” Slocum said, laughing. “Four times is my limit. For one morning, anyhow. I’m thinkin’ we ought to go see if Carmelita’s rustled us up some grub, aren’t you?”

  She stuck her lower lip out in a pretty pout. “Who needs food when you’re here, Slocum? And when I’m rich, to boot!”

  He moved her aside and swung his legs over the side of the mattress. “That may be true—I mean, that you can eat all the cash you want now—but this boy needs his lunch!”

  He grabbed for his britches and pulled them on, then started a hunt for his shirt.

  “Well, in that case,” she said, giggling, “I suppose we should eat something.”

  “Besides,” he added, tossing her petticoat toward the bed, “the sheriff’s due pretty soon.”

  “Oh, phooey.”

  “It was here,” the sheriff said, dismounting.

  Berto saw the traces immediately. They were high atop a ridge. The grass and brush behind the boulders that dotted its edge had been beaten down by quick bootsteps in some places. In, others, by the full length of a man’s body. Marcus had left his horse below, then traveled up the ridge on foot to ambush Slocum.

  He saw, too, a large gush of blood, still damp enough to be drawing flies, just at the side of one of the boulders. He’d seen Marcus’s body, and immediately knew this was where Marcus had received the killing shot.

  As if reading Berto’s mind, Sheriff Robertson said, “Yeah, he fell here,” and pointed down the steep side of the ridge. He stared. “Went bucket over barrel, too.”

  He turned back to where Berto sat on his horse and held Foley’s. “Reckon Slocum told you the truth, all right. I can see his tracks down there, at the bottom and out a ways. He got himself ambushed, pure and simple.”

  Berto allowed himself a small sigh of relief. He liked to think he knew an honest man when he met one, and Slocum—despite all those dime books, of which Berto had read a few—seemed honest.

  He was glad the sheriff had seen what he’d seen, and said what he’d said.

  “Back to the ranch, now?” Berto asked. He glanced up at the sun. “If we hurry, we might be in time for one of Carmelita’s good meals.”

  The sheriff swung up on his buckskin. “Sounds like a heckuva good plan to me, Berto. Lead on.”

  Slocum and Miranda were just sitting down to a grand noontime spread—roast pork in plum sauce, candied yams, fried potatoes, peas, and applesauce—when Carmelita answered a knock at the door.

  Behind him, Slocum heard, “Ah, Sheriff Robertson! Come in, come in! You too, Berto! I am just serving lunch if you would care to—?”

  “Join us?” Miranda broke in, rising. Robertson’s face lit up like Christmas. It was obvious he’d had a taste of Carmelita’s cooking before. Miranda ran to help with the extra plates.

  Slocum stood up, too, and shook hands with both men. “Good timing, Robertson,” he said with a grin, and motioned to two empty chairs. “You, too, Berto. Have a seat!”

  When both men were seated and served and had gotten past the first heady bites of Carmelita’s cooking, Robertson said, “Well, we’ve got a little surprise for you, Slocum.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We found Foley’s body out there. Well, actually, Berto here, found it on his way into town, and bird-dogged me back to it on the way out here.”

  Slocum frowned. “What happened to him?”

  “Well, looked a whole lot like your pal Marcus did him in.”

  “I’ll be damned!” Slocum said. “Marcus killed Foley?”

  “And we found the place where you killed Marcus,” Robertson went on, and helped himself to another slice of pork. “Everything was just like you said.” He scooped extra plum sauce on it and continued, “So I wouldn’t worry none about an inquest or a trial. I’m satisfied, and if I am, the circuit judge is gonna be, too.”

  Slocum nodded his gratitude. He had to. His mouth was full of yams.

  “I imagine we can put off Abel till after dinner?” said the sheriff.

  “Please do,” Miranda said distastefully, and put her fork down and her hands in her lap.

  “Miss Miranda?” said Carmelita from the kitchen doorway, “You no like what I fix?”

  “Yes, I do. Sorry, Carmelita. Just thinking about Uncle Abel again . . .”

  Carmelita addressed all the men in the room when she shook her finger and said, “Shame on you! Shame on you for upsetting my Miss Miranda!”

  She went to Miranda’s chair, helped her up, then walked her down the hall, murmuring to her the whole time.

  “Sorry,” said Berto, automatically.

  “You didn’t have nothin’ to do with it,” Robertson said, cutting his meat. “It was my big mouth. Hope she don’t get the vapors . . .”

  Slocum figured there was little chance of that, but said nothing. In fact, he was waiting for Robertson to ask him his side of the story. Any story. There were so many to choose from!

  But he held his tongue. Or rather, he kept it tied up in Carmelita’s good lunch. The sheriff and Berto beat him to the finish, though. Robertson pushed back from the table and loosened his belt a couple of notches, and Berto belched loudly before excusing himself.

  “Just a warnin’, Sheriff,” Slocum said. “If you don’t want to get your ass kicked from here to kingdom come by a couple of women, you’ll take off your spurs.”

  Robertson suddenly looked guilty. “Thanks,” he said, reaching down to unbuckle the first one. “Forgot. Carmelita’s hell on wheels about that.”

  “Miranda, too.”

  “Reckon so, by this time. Hell, I ain’t been out here in years! Eight or nine of ’em, maybe. Abel didn’t like company.”

  “For good reason,” Slocum said.

  Robertson lifted his brows. “And that’d be?”

  Well, he was in for it now. Slocum worked his jaw muscles once or twice, then he said, “For one thing, it’s my opinion that he killed his own brother.”

  Surprisingly, he got no argument from Robertson. Instead, the sheriff simply sat there and nodded. “Wondered about that, myself. Wasn’t anything anybody could prove, though.”

  “A motive?” asked Slocum.

  “None I knew of.”

  “Tell me somethin’. Did Judah Cassidy die before or after lawyer Clark’s office burned down?”

  Robertson looked totally lost. “Gomer Clark? How’d you know anything about Gomer Clark?”

  “Miranda. Plus which, I read the original will. The copy got burned up in the fire, I guess.”

  “Yeah, it did. Most of the town’s legal papers went up that day.”

  “Well, I got a feelin’ that Abel Cassidy had a hand in it. Can’t prove a damned thing. But Judah left this ranch to Miranda, not Abel. Abel never did own one part of it. Just worked here as a hired hand.”

  The sheriff’s jaw dropped. Slocum took advantage of the lull in the conversation to go fetch himself a cigar. He brought back one for Robertson, too.

  After Robertson accepted the cigar, he said, “Can I see this will?”

  “Don’t see why not. Think there are a few other papers you might want to have a gander at while you’re at it, too.”

  “Fair enough,” Robertson said, and bit the end off his cigar. “This is turnin’ out to be a very interestin’ day.”

  19

  At last, Tom Robertson looked up from the stack of papers he’d been going over for the last hour.

  “You were right, Slocum,” he said. “Abel was tryin’ to pull off some mighty funny business, and he just about got away with it, too. Sorry, Miss Miranda. Sorry about . . . everything.”

  He lowered his eyes then, and Miranda muttered, “It’s all right, Tom. It wasn’t your fault, none of it. And now it looks like we’ve got some treasure hunting to do, once everyone’s . . . up to it.”

  He nodded, then looked over at Slocum. “You gonna stick around and help?”

  “Thought I would,” Slocum replied. “Course those boys’ve been lookin’ a real long time, and they didn’t come up with anything. I’m wonderin’ if Vance Jefferson didn’t find it and take off with it. It doesn’t sound like somethin’ Vance’d do, but then, neither does robbin’ a stage.”

  Robertson nodded. “I agree. I liked him. Seemed on the up-and-up when I knew him.”

  “There any reward for that gold, Sheriff?” Slocum asked.

  “Oh, I reckon there is,” Robertson said, setting the papers aside. “Have to check. Send a few telegrams, maybe write some letters, that sorta thing. I don’t even know if the Double Aces is still producin’, or if the owner, what’s his name—”

  “Milton Carmichael.” Slocum broke in. “Grand old feller.”

  “Right,” said the sheriff with a nod that said he didn’t have the slightest idea what Slocum was talking about. “Don’t know if Mr. Carmichael is even alive, or if he has any heirs. That robbery was a long time back, and I hear that Carmichael was old even then.”

  “Twelve years ago,” said Slocum.

  “Isn’t there a statue of limits or something?” Miranda piped up.

  “A statute of limitations,” Slocum said, his mouth twitching into a grin.

  “Yes’m,” Robertson said with a straight face. “But to be fair, I’d sure like to see if anybody wants to lay claim to it. I mean, you don’t have to make the offer, Miranda, God knows. But what with you havin’ the ranch and that baga cash your papa left you, don’t seem to me like you’re in dire need.”

  “True,” said Miranda.

  She looked mighty disappointed, but Slocum saw the sheriff’s point. And Milton Carmichael’s, if he was still alive. He’d been close to eighty when Slocum worked for him, and that was a few years before the robbery.

  There might be kin, though, and they might really need some cash.

  Berto and Dilly were just carrying out Abel’s sheeted corpse on an old door, and Robertson glanced at it.

  He said, “No need to haul him into town. Go ahead and plant him, boys. I’m satisfied that the case is closed.”

  “Don’t put that . . . Don’t put him anywhere near my daddy or mama,” Miranda said.

  Berto nodded his understanding. “The other side of the hill,” he said, and Carmelita stepped quickly to open the door for them.

  Slocum overheard Carmelita whisper, “Will you bury them tonight?”

  “Yeah,” replied Berto.

  “Mark it,” said Carmelita, “so I can spit on his grave. Mark it with the sign of the devil. Mark them all that way, all three of them.”

  Berto nodded, and the men—and their burden—moved through the door. Carmelita closed it behind them, then leaned against it and made the sign of the cross, her eyes closed as if everything was finally settled and she could only just now take the time to pray.

  “The sign of the devil, Carmelita?” Slocum asked, interrupting her.

  “The upside-down crucifix, señor,” she said as she straightened. There was a grand sort of conviction in her voice. “So that Our Lord and Savior will close the gates of Salvation to them.”

  Then she walked away, into the kitchen. “Enchiladas again tonight,” she called back, over her shoulder, in a voice that showed no enthusiasm whatsoever. Except perhaps to take out some more of her frustration on Abel’s corpse.

  “Whatever,” answered Miranda, who didn’t seem to notice. “Whatever you can throw together.”

  “Sky’s clear,” said Robertson, hopefully. “Likely, it’ll stay that way till after sunset.”

  “Yes, Tom, you’re invited to stay,” Miranda said. “But won’t your missus worry?”

  “No, I told Deputy Riley to wait an hour, then to go and tell her I was ridin’ out this way.” He smiled ruefully. “Knowin’ her, she would have come along, too, just for a taste of Carmelita’s cookin’.”

  “Next time,” Miranda said most graciously, Slocum thought, for someone who’d just been asked if her privacy could be invaded. “When things are more . . . normal. I haven’t seen Priscilla in ages, and I’d be glad for her company.”

  “Thanks!” said the oblivious sheriff. “I’ll pass along the invite!”

  “I thought he’d never leave,” said Miranda as she pulled off Slocum’s second boot.

  “Put a kink in your afternoon?” Slocum asked, grinning.

  “You smart-ass,” she said, shaking a finger. Her breasts jiggled along with it. She was nude. “It put a kink on yours, too! And most of your evening! Why’d you have to offer him brandy and a cigar?”

  “Because he’s a nice fella. Because I like him. And at least we know everything’s legal now,” Slocum said, and belched loudly.

  Miranda shook her head. “Men. They shouldn’t be allowed to live in the house.”

  “Hand me my boots, then, and I’ll head out to the barn. There’s an empty stall next to Cougar’s that looked mighty cozy,” he said teasingly.

  Miranda laughed and climbed atop him on the bed, straddling him. She took both his hands and placed them on her breasts. While he gently kneaded and fondled them, she purred, “And just when did you get to be so sensitive to my every whim, Slocum?”

  He gave one nipple a tweak and she hissed in air. “No fair!”

  He cocked a brow. “No fair?”

  “You don’t have your britches off yet, darlin’,” she whispered.

  He laughed, and while he did, she pulled his britches off with a whoosh, like a magic trick. They made love slowly and leisurely until far into the night, and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  When morning dawned, Slocum and Miranda enjoyed a good breakfast—without Carmelita, who Slocum guessed was probably out spitting up a storm in the graveyard—then saddled their horses.

  “Do we have to go on this fool’s errand today?” Miranda had whined over her eggs. “I thought maybe we could have one day just to stay in bed!”

  Slocum grinned at her.

  “It’s only a fool’s errand if it doesn’t pay off, honey,” he’d said cryptically, and then let it go at that.

  She hadn’t had any ammunition to come back at him with.

  And he really thought he knew where to look for that gold. At least, he was pretty sure that he did. He figured Miranda’s daddy had a good idea where it was, too, and maybe had sampled just a tad of that gold before his brother killed him.

  A lot of people had died for that payroll money, and Slocum wasn’t going to rest until he figured it out and saw it come to an end, whatever that end might turn out to be.

  On the ride out, they passed a crew of Miranda’s men, whom Slocum had instructed to go throw some dirt—and rocks—over what was left of the horse carcasses. He hoped it would keep the coyotes at bay, anyhow.

  All the men seemed to look to him to give the orders now. He figured they were relieved. Abel hadn’t seemed to care one way or the other about anything except profit and playing faro, but the men were glad to do some good work for a change.

  Their buckboard contained not only picks and shovels, but what looked to Slocum like kerosene. They were going to make a finish to it, then. He approved.

  Besides, the men had a small herd of horses coming in from the range in a few days, horses they were supposed to top off for the cavalry. This filled in the downtime.

  “Where are we headed, Detective Slocum?” Miranda asked, with a chuckle in her voice.

  “Out to our little waterfall and pool,” he replied, smiling.

  “Aha!” she cried, with an impish grin. “Well, it’s sort of like our second bedroom . . .”

  “Not so fast, Lady Godiva,” he said. “Don’t go haulin’ out the soap or rippin’ those clothes off quite yet. We’re gonna do us a little prospectin’.”

  “Oh,” Miranda said, dejected. “With picks and sledgehammers and dynamite? Why do I have the feeling I’m not going to have any fun?”

  “No picks, no sledgehammers, and especially no dynamite, I promise,” he said. “And you’ll have yourself some fun, all right, Miranda my girl. At least, I’m hopin’ you will!”

  “I will?”

  “Yes, you will,” he promised. “Now gig that fancy quarter-mile runnin’ horse of yours into a canter, and let’s get there!”