He worked to open the small door set in the larger one designed to let in wagons. When he swung it open, Durant ducked through. Slocum followed. For a moment, he couldn't believe it was going to be this easy. But it was. Slocum slipped through and pulled it to behind him.
“You can get an extra week before they try to hang him again?” Slocum asked.
Durant didn't bother to reply. He climbed into his buggy and rattled away. Slocum sidled along the wall, then headed toward the trees where Murrieta waited. He hadn't gotten Atencio free, but the man hadn't been hanged either. They had an extra week to figure out how to get him out of the prison.
Somehow the prospect looked even bleaker now than it had before.
13
“What is wrong? Where is he?” Procipio Murrieta grabbed Slocum by the front of the uniform and shook.
Slocum batted the man's hands away and considered taking a swing at him. He wasn't in a good mood, and having Murrieta act like this did nothing to smooth his ruffled feathers.
“He got a stay of execution. One week,” Slocum said. He went on to explain all that had happened. The expression on Murrieta's face flowed like butter melting in the sun, going from elation to despair and finally matching Slocum's own.
“We cannot hope to be so lucky to get into the prison this way again,” Murrieta said. “He will be executed.” He heaved a deep sigh. “You did what you could. That is all anyone could ask.”
“That lawyer fellow,” Slocum said. “He didn't have to come to the prison yard for the hanging. That means he has some interest in Atencio. He and the warden don't get along either, so there might be something personal in this for him.”
“Durant is a strange duck,” Murrieta said. “Ambitious though he does not seem to know the law well. But you are right. He did not have to come this afternoon. What can he do?”
“Let's ask,” Slocum said. He began shucking off the poorly fitting uniform, glad to once more be in his own clothes. As the cross-draw holster settled on his hip, he felt more confident. “Where's his office?”
“In San Francisco.”
“He's not far ahead of us. We can overtake his buggy. Might be he wouldn't want anyone else around when I ask him to bribe a judge or buy off a guard or two.”
“You would still break Atencio out?”
“If it comes to that. I'd rather Durant find a legal way of getting him free. A botched hanging might not be enough, but this gives us more time to bring the banker around to our way of thinking.”
They rode hard and caught the lawyer as he was driving his buggy onto the ferry across the Golden Gate. Slocum tossed the reins of the horses to Murrieta and went to talk with Durant.
The lawyer looked up as Slocum approached, slid his hand under his coat, probably resting it on the butt of a pistol. He frowned when it became obvious Slocum was not going away.
“Whoever you are, I don't want to talk,” Durant said.
“It's about Atencio, the man in San Quentin you went to see hanged.”
Durant frowned even more and then said slowly, “I've seen you before. Where?”
“That's not important. We share a desire. Get your client out of prison.”
“You were the guard who escorted me out.”
“What do you need to free Atencio?” Slocum didn't want the lawyer thinking too much on why a guard was interested in freeing a prisoner.
“Money,” Durant said without hesitation. “If I get enough, all things are possible.” He snorted contemptuously. “Especially in this state. There's nothing that can't be bought.”
“Including the warden?”
“Harriman'd never listen to me. He'd take too much pleasure throwing me in his darkest, deepest cell. No, there are others. Judges. Prosecutors.”
“The banker who brought the charges?”
“Hez Galworthy might be bought off, but I'm not sure of that. What's your interest? You're not one of them.”
“Them?”
“Murrieta's little family. That village he runs. If Atencio gets out, what's in it for you?”
“Justice,” Slocum said. He had a strong dislike for seeing men railroaded for crimes they hadn't committed. From what he could tell, Murrieta and Maria were being honest when they said Atencio was innocent.
He didn't much trust bankers either.
“You have tried and failed at this,” Maria said. “Why can you now find them?”
Slocum pursed his lips. He had gone over a dozen harebrained schemes since getting the stay of execution for Atencio using his knife on the rope, but none had produced any solid sense that they would work.
“I can find them,” he said. “The Valenzuelas are still in the area. That means they don't think the law is on to them, and they might have other robberies in the works.”
“So?” Maria shrugged her shapely shoulders.
“So we need money for the lawyer. Durant hinted that he could bribe somebody into letting Atencio go. The judge, the banker, who knows? I suspect he has an inside track to the judge. Galworthy isn't likely to go back on his testimony with Atencio so close to being hanged. That would make him look bad.”
“You have a plan to find them again?”
The woman's barely concealed scorn stung him. Then he calmed down. She was right, and anything he did was likely to fail as it had before. Conchita had the sheriff's ear and could turn out a posse to chase him down whenever it suited her. If he got too closeâor found their lootâshe would have Bernard on his trail in two shakes of a lamb's tail.
“Wait and see,” he said with more confidence than he felt. But he did have a way to find her. She was likely to be the one going into Miramar for supplies or to speak with Sheriff Bernard. José was an escaped prisoner, and their father wasn't likely to poke about town, even if he wasn't on his deathbed.
“Wait and see,” Maria said, standing in front of him and lifting her peasant blouse to give him a flash of bare, nut brown breasts. And then she turned and hurried from the house. Slocum heaved a sigh. He knew what his reward would be. All it took was a bit of luck to claim it.
He went, saddled his horse, and rode down the road toward Miramar, then cut across country before he got within sight. The seacoast town brought a fair amount of traffic along the road through the coast hills that he wanted to avoid. If no one spotted him, nobody could tell the sheriff or a posse out combing the countryside.
When he found a spot on a rocky butte looking down at the road running through the center of town, he dismounted, got some jerky, and sat gnawing on it as he watched for Conchita. He knew it might be a long wait. If it stretched longer than a few days, Atencio would swing. Durant needed time to put the money to use, and Slocum had to believe a day or two might pass before he could even find where the Valenzuelas had stashed their ill-gotten gains.
Lounging back, propped on one elbow, he stared out over the endless sea, feeling a kinship with its restlessness. Always moving, never the same when he looked back, the ocean might have been his calling if he hadn't grown up around horses on a farm. He preferred a sturdy horse under him and the vast plains or mountains stretching to the sky over the barren, always moving gunmetal gray ocean.
His mind drifted as he daydreamed about what life might be like with Maria. She was a fiery woman. But then he had wondered the same with Conchita, and she had used him to get her brother free from prison, then made sure the law would come down hard on him if he so much as showed his face. Conchita was a schemer, a planner, the competent crook. Not at all like Maria, sheâ
Slocum sat up, grabbed for a small spyglass he had brought along, and peered through it. He wanted to cry out in joy but held his delight in check. Conchita was riding from Miramar, heading east through the hills. Whether he had missed her going into town or she had been there before he had taken up watch didn't matter. She was leaving. The only place she was likely heading had to be her hideout.
He stepped up into the saddle, retraced his path to the butte, and found the road twenty minutes later. Conchita couldn't be more than a mile ahead of him, but she wouldn't remain on the road very long, he suspected. Riding faster, he came within a few hundred yards of her as he veered off the road and rode to a stand of trees.
Slocum recognized this as the spot where José and his father had run after the stagecoach robberyâand where Conchita had almost sicced the sheriff and his posse on him.
With more assurance now, he rode into the woods and felt the cool darkness wrap around him like a damp blanket. Through the spindly tree trunks he saw flashes of the woman ahead of him. When she cut suddenly to the right, he took a route parallel and began edging closer. By the time Conchita rode out into a draw that led to a peaceful meadow, he was close enough to attract her attention.
Jerking about when she heard his horse's hoofbeats, she reached for a six-shooter slung in a belt around her saddle horn. Slocum galloped forward, and as she raised the pistol to fire, he kicked free of the stirrups and sailed through the air. His arms circled her lithe body. Then his shoulder hit her side, and she was lifted from the saddle. Both of them tumbled to the ground, Slocum on top.
Conchita lay pinned under him, gasping for air. He reached out and snared the six-shooter in her limp fingers. This revitalized her, and she began kicking and clawing in earnest. He moved his knees to her shoulders and held her in a schoolboy pin so he could look down into her lovely face. There was no way around it. Conchita was about the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen, but that lovely face now contorted into ugly rage.
“I'll kill you!” she cried. “You cannot have me this way.”
“I don't want you,” he said. The words were like cold water in her face.
She looked at him, stunned.
“You do not want me? But . . .”
“I want my money for springing José from prison,” he said. “You owe me. Money. And my pay just doubled.”
“I will notâ”
“I don't want you,” Slocum said coldly. “I want my money. Pay me what's due, and I'll get out of your hair.”
“We have no money.”
“You've got plenty after robbing both the stage and the bank in Miramar.”
Her eyes went wide with surprise. Conchita shook her head as if this would be denial enough. When she saw he wasn't going to believe her, she tried fighting him again. His weight proved too much for her to budge.
“You are hurting me,” she said.
“Might be I'll do more than that if you try cheating me. You not only tried to steal what's my due, you put the sheriff on my trail and lied about me robbing the bank.”
“The stage, too,” she said, a wicked smile curling her lips. The beauty fled, replaced by pure evil.
“Clever. Now pay me.”
“You will leave us alone?”
“I won't even be a memory, 'cept for how much I took.”
“One hundred dollars.”
“One thousand dollars.”
“We do not have so much. We robbed the bank and stagecoach but took only a few dollars.”
He couldn't forget the image of José gunning down the passengers on the stage or how their father had shot the driver until he was deader than a doornail.
“Let's go count it.”
She glared sullenly at him, then nodded once. Slocum rolled to the side and let her get to her feet. She rubbed her shoulders where his knees had pinned her so securely.
“You bruised me. You are a vicious man, John Slocum.”
He didn't answer. She read his expression and turned away to flounce toward her horse. Slocum caught up the reins on his and mounted to ride beside her. Conchita stared ahead, never even glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. The meadow wasn't too large, but a small stream ran through the center and vanished into the woods a hundred yards downhill.
“There,” she said. “We are over there.”
As Slocum turned to look in the direction she pointed, Conchita swung hard. Her tiny fist caught him on the cheek. The unexpected blow caused him to recoil and fight to keep in the saddle. By the time he had pulled himself back securely into the saddle, she had galloped straight ahead and disappeared into the woods. He started after her, then slowed and looked at the soft dirt on the ground and how the tufts of grass had been cut up from other horses passing by.
Conchita tried to lead him away from her real hideout. From the tracks, more than one horse had gone to a spot opposite where she had pointed. He trotted along this small trail. The riders hadn't tried to conceal their hoofprints, telling him the Valenzuelas felt secure against being tracked to this area.
He slid into a lightly wooded section and wended his way around, hunting for tracks in the leaves and pine needle carpet. Finding the trail proved as easy as falling off a log. Slocum came to another clearing. A small cooking fire smoldered in the middle of the sward; a pot of coffee brewed and sent its aroma to his nostrils. He inhaled deeply. A cup wouldn't be amiss while he waited for them to come to him.
And they would. He had found them. Their cache had to be in the area, perhaps even in their camp.
Slocum dismounted and went to the fire. A pair of tin cups had been turned upside down on rocks next to the coffeepot, dangling from a tripod of green limbs over the fire. He poured himself some coffee and prowled around. Three bedrolls. No sign of their ill-gotten gains from the stage or bank.
And no trace of José or his father.
Slocum sipped at the coffee, ignoring how bitter it tasted on his tongue. It might have been the coffee or the memory of how Conchita had convinced him so easily that her pa was dying and this would be José's only chance to see him before he died.